Buzkashi
Buzkashi is a traditional Central Asian sport in which horse-mounted players attempt to place a goat or calf carcass in a goal. It is played primarily in Afghanistan. Similar games are known as kokpar, kupkari, and ulak tartysh in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
The game is the subject of a novel by French novelist Joseph Kessel titled Les Cavaliers (aka Horsemen), which then became the basis of the film The Horsemen (1971). The film was directed by John Frankenheimer with Omar Sharif in the lead role, and U.S. actor and accomplished horseman Jack Palance as his father, a legendary retired chapandaz. This film shows Afghanistan and its people the way they were before the wars that wracked the country, particularly their love for the sport of buzkashi.
In the film Rambo III (1988), directed by Peter MacDonald, John Rambo (played by Sylvester Stallone) was shown in a sequence playing and scoring in a buzkashi with his mujahideen friends when suddenly they were attacked by Soviet forces.
Chess
While there are no scientific evidence to prove that chess makes one crazy, it is clear that the complications of the game as well as the 64 alternating colored squares can take a toll on someone’s psyche. If you are not careful enough, you could find yourself internalizing variations and having dialogues out loud.
Some have even described the game as mental torture. Stress over competitive rankings or performance may even interfere with healthy sleep. Researchers have analyzed the heart rate variability in chess players who were engaged in solving difficult chess problems.
All things taken to the extreme are dangerous, including chess. A number of well known chessplayers comitted suicide (Oll, Vitolins), others ended up in mental institutions (Steinitz, Rubinstein). A number of chess-related novels have insanity as a leading theme (Zweig's "Royal Game", Nabokov's "Defence"😉. Yikes!
Slap Boxing
Slap boxing is an agreement between the parties," said Sumter County Sheriff's Sgt. Tripp Mays. "What they do is they're slapping each other with an open hand instead of swinging with closed fists." It's not a new phenomenon.
The rules of the competition are simple – two men stand face to face and take turns slapping one another. With bare hands and no head protection – the competitors take turns to slap one another – hard – around the face. Each man has five attempts at slapping his opponent down.
Elevator Game
Just writing about this game gave us nightmares. It involves riding an empty elevator in a specific sequence of floors and it is said it will open up to an alternate universe where forces will try to trap you and keep you from going back to your world. Yeah, it’s probably a crock of bull but still….