Sport stacking

Sport stacking

A 1-10-1 being upstacked as part of the cycle stack
Highest governing body WSSA
Nicknames Cup stacking, speed stacking
First played 1981, Oceanside, California, U.S.[1]
Registered players 618,394 (number of worldwide participants in the Guinness World Record set in 2015)[2]
Characteristics
Contact No
Team members Individual, doubles, teams of 4 or 5
Mixed gender Yes, but usually in separate divisions
Type Indoor
Equipment Cups, mat, timer
Presence
Country or region Worldwide
Olympic No

Sport stacking (also known as cup stacking or speed stacking) is an individual and team sport that involves stacking plastic cups in specific sequences in as little time as possible. The cups are specially designed to make for faster times. (See "Equipment"). The governing body setting the rule is the WSSA (World Sport Stacking Association).[3] Participants of sport stacking stack cups in pre-determined sequences, by aligning the inside left lateral adjunct of each cup with that of the next. Sequences are usually pyramids of 3, 6, or 10 cups. Players compete against the clock or another player.

History

While working for the Boys & Girls Club of Oceanside, California in 1981, Wayne Godinet came up with the idea for sport stacking. When the children he was working with were tired of playing traditional sports, he took paper cups and asked them to stack the cups as fast as they can. The sport was well received, so Godinet decided to acquire plastic cups to be used by his club. He quickly discovered that his new plastic cups would stick together, so Godinet modified the cups by adding a hole to the bottom of the cups. He formed his own company, Karango Cupstack Co., which manufactured and distributed these modified cups in a variety of colors. By the end of the decade, Godinet estimated he had sold approximately 25,000 sets of cups. During the 1980s, Godinet hosted the annual National Cupstacking Championship in Oceanside. One of the national champions was Matt Adame, a member of Godinet's club, the "Professional Cupstack Drill Team". In November 1990, Adame and his teammates were featured on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.[1][4][5]

After the sport received national attention on The Tonight Show, Bob Fox, a physical education teacher from Colorado, introduced stacking to his students. Fox's enthusiasm led to the creation of the annual Colorado state tournament in 1997. In 1998, Fox, together with Larry Goers, created a line of proprietary sport stacking products including the patented timing system known as the StackMat.[6] Fox started traveling across the country in 2000 to promote Speed Stacks full-time.[7][8] In 2001 Fox founded the World Cup Stacking Association (WCSA) to formalize the sport's rules and sanction competitions worldwide.[9] As the sport began to spread to neighboring states, the WCSA hosted the first Rocky Mountain Cup Stacking Championships, where Fox's daughter, Emily Fox, broke her own world record by completing the cycle in 7.43 seconds.[10] The next year, the first WCSA World Championship took place at the Denver Coliseum and has since been held annually. The WCSA formally titled the sport "sport stacking" and changed their name to the World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA) in 2005. The WSSA cited the public recognition that stacking is considered a sport as the reason for the name change.[11][12]

Equipment

Official sport stacking cups are specially designed to prevent sticking and to allow the competitor to go faster. The cups are reinforced with several ribs on the inside which separate the cups when they are nestled. The exterior's slightly textured to allow better grip. The insides are very smooth & slide past each other easily. The tops of the cups have 1-4 holes to allow ventilation so the cups don't stick. One special line of cups has cups without tops to further decrease air resistance.

One can purchase the specially designed "stacking mats", also called "stack mats", which are mats connected to a sensitive timer. They're used for official tournament timing, as well as casual play timing or practice timing.

Special weighted training cups, called "Super Stacks," are also available. These heavier cups are made of metal & are most commonly used directly before competing. The added weight's supposed to make the regular cups feel lighter.[13]

Rules

There are three sequences stacked in official sport stacking events, that are defined by the rule book handed out by the WSSA:[14]

Common for all sequences are these major rules:[14]

There are three main categories of competing that WSSA-sanctioned tournaments offer:

Benefits

Proponents of the sport say participants learn cooperation, ambidexterity & hand–eye coordination. Scientific research has confirmed these claims:

Competition

Most sport stacking competitions are geared toward children, with for ages 18 & under. There are also divisions for "Special Stackers" (disabled competitors).

The WSSA has set the following protocol for the setting of world records:[24]

  1. Must use WSSA-approved sport stacking cups.
  2. Must use a StackMat and tournament display.
  3. Must be video taped for review and verification purposes.
  4. Must use 3 judges (one designated Head Judge) to judge each try. After each try the 3 judges confer. The head judge will then designate with a color-coded card the outcome of that try. (Green-clean run, yellow-try in question (immediate video review) & red–scratch.)
  5. A finals judge may not be a family member or the sport stacking instructor of the stacker.

The competition's divided into 12 different age divisions, ranging from 6 & under to seniors (60 & up). State, national & world records are recorded on the WSSA website.

World Records

|  William Orrell (USA) |- | 3-6-3 | 1.793 |  William Orrell (USA) |- | Cycle |5.00 |  William Orrell (USA) |- |}

Female

Event Time Stacker
3-3-3 1.562  Si Eun Kim (KOR)
3-6-3 1.946  Si Eun Kim (KOR)
Cycle 5.564  Chu-Chung Yang (TWN)

Combined

Event Time Stackers
Doubles 5.953  William Orrell (USA)
 William Polly (USA)
3-6-3 Relay 12.212 Fantastic Four
 Zhewei Wu (USA)
 William Polly (USA)
 Chandler Miller (USA)
 William Orrell (USA)

Popular culture

The 2010 film, Stacker, was directed, produced, and released by Danger Films & features some of the most prominent stackers in the country, including: The Purugganan family, the Myers family, Lawrence Maceren, Drew Wilfahrt, Tyler Cole, Emma Slabach, The Haig family, & several others.

See also

Sources

  1. 1 2 Filippe, Lynn (1990-12-20). "In Their Cups and Proud of It". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-07-02.
  2. "2015 WSSA STACK UP!". World Sport Stacking Association. 2015-11-12. Retrieved 2015-11-25.
  3. World Sport Stacking Association (The WSSA)
  4. Manna, Marcia (2009-07-04). "Cup-stackers to try their hands at event". The San Diego Union-Tribune (Oceanside). Retrieved 2015-07-02.
  5. Ellis, Jeff (2008-11-12). "Cup stacking, street credibility". The Daily Barometer. Archived from the original on 2011-08-10. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
  6. US Patent 6940783, "Mat for timing competitions", published 2005-09-06, assigned to Speed Stacks, Inc.
  7. "History of Sport Stacking". Speed Stacks - The Official Cup of the World Sport Stacking Association (Sport Stacking). Retrieved 2015-07-03.
  8. Sefton, Dru (2004-11-29). "Cup stacking benefits add up". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 2015-07-03.
  9. Cathy, Proctor (2009-09-09). "Speed stacking a sport? Revenue keeps growing". Denver Business Journal. Retrieved 2015-07-03.
  10. Wlazelek, Ann (2006-04-02). "Hoping their cups don't falleth over". The Morning Call. Retrieved 2015-07-05.
  11. "About the WSSA". World Sport Stacking Association (The WSSA). Retrieved 2015-07-03.
  12. "The 2006 WSSA World Sport Stacking Championships Draw the Fastest Competitors from around the World; Over 1,000 Competitors Set to Compete in the Ultimate Sport Stacking Championship" (Press release). 2006-04-03. Retrieved 2015-07-05.
  13. Speed Stacks
  14. 1 2 Official rule Book of the World Sport Stacking Association, Version 5.0 as released in 2009, http://www.worldsportstackingassociation.org/tournament_guide/tg09/WSSA%20Rule%20Book%20v%205.0.pdf
  15. http://www.speedstacks.com/about/lingo.php
  16. http://www.thewssa.com/competitive_stacks/
  17. Edermann, Brian; Mayer, John; Murray, Steven; Sagendorf, Kenneth (2004). "Influence of Cup Stacking on Hand-Eye Coordination and Reaction Time of Second-Grade Students" (PDF). Perceptual and Motor Skills (Ammons Scientific) 98 (2): 409–14. Retrieved 2015-07-04.
  18. Texas Tech University :: Health, Exercise and Sport Sciences, HESS - Melanie Hart
  19. Brain Activation Patterns During Participation in Cup Stacking (Motor Behavior)
  20. Hart, Melanie; DeChant, Ann; Smith, Lori (2005). "Influence of Participation in a Cup-Stacking Unit on Timing Tasks" (PDF). Perceptual and Motor Skills (Ammons Scientific) 101 (1): 869–76. doi:10.2466/PMS.101.7.869-876. Retrieved 2015-07-04.
  21. http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/hendrick/aahperdposter%20-%20S07.pdf
  22. Uhrich TA, Swalm RL: A pilot study of a possible effect from a motor task on reading performance.. Percept bum hole MotbubSkills. 2007 Jun;104(3 Pt 1):1035-41.
  23. Granados C, Wulf G.: Enhancing motor learning through dyad practice: contributions of observation and dialogue. Res Q Exerc Sport. 2007 Jun;78(3):197-203.
  24. http://worldsportstackingassociation.org/rules/video_verification.htm

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