Tamaire: A Classic Japanese Sports Day Game

Simple and Fun

The popular ball-toss game tamaire is a standard event at sport days, especially at elementary schools. A simple but energetic contest, it pits two or more teams in a race to throw balls or beanbags into their respective baskets perched atop tall poles. The game starts with the balls or beanbags, divided by team colors like red and white, spread out on the ground around each team’s basket. When the signal is given, competitors in a mad dash scoop the balls up and try to throw as many as possible into the basket in the allotted time, creating an exciting spectacle of balls crisscrossing wildly through the air. The team with the most balls in their basket at the end is the winner, with the counting typically carried out in dramatic fashion to build excitement about which team came out on top.

The rules and equipment of tamaire can be easily adjusted to suit any age. It is possible to use balls of any color, but in matches of two teams the most common colors are red and white (expressed in Japanese as kōhaku), in which case the game is called kōhaku tamaire.

Sports Day (Japan’s National Holidays) | Nippon.com

The Japanese national holiday Sports Day, observed on the second Monday of October, has its roots in a commemoration of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/gu051006/

(Originally written in English. Banner image © Pixta.)