When Ker Cha obtained the decision in regards to the World Cup, it had been greater than two years since he had touched a takraw ball. Now he had lower than two months to lose the 20 kilos he had placed on throughout the coronavirus pandemic and get again into taking part in form. Plus, he realized he would have solely two days to coach along with his teammates earlier than they took off for the 2022 Worldwide Sepak Takraw Federation World Cup in South Korea.
So he obtained kicking.
The exhilarating sport of sepak takraw is actually volleyball, besides that gamers can’t use their arms and primarily kick the ball over the online. Cha is understood for his uncommon model of service, one which makes him among the finest American gamers within the sport. The sport’s identify comes from the Malay phrase for kick (sepak) and the Thai phrase for the woven ball, which is roughly the scale of a giant grapefruit. Takraw’s historical past traces to the Nineteen Forties in Penang, and it’s an enormously common sport in Malaysia, Thailand and swaths of Southeast Asia.
Cha, 32, is one in every of three gamers on the U.S. staff who descended from the Hmong individuals, an Indigenous inhabitants of Southeast Asia. His dad and mom fled Laos for Thailand simply earlier than he was born, and so they relocated to America when he was simply two months previous. Different gamers are descendants of the Karen and Karenni individuals in Malaysia and Myanmar. Cha stated that competing internationally is a manner for them to honor their cultural heritage and promote a sport that they hope might achieve a foothold in the US.
“We hope that successful in these tournaments helps us to develop the game,” Cha stated. “We wish to assist it unfold at each stage, from being supplied at public faculties to being performed on the Olympics.”
In the US, sepak takraw is usually known as “kick volleyball” — a tough translation however an apt description. Gamers line up on reverse sides of a 44-by-20-foot court docket with a 5-foot-high internet between them. Historically, there are three gamers a aspect: a setter, a spiker and a server. It’s precisely like volleyball in that the purpose is to win factors by smashing the ball onto the bottom of your opponent’s territory. It’s precisely the alternative of volleyball in that you need to use each a part of your physique besides your arms.
Cha employs what’s generally known as a “horse-kick” serve. A teammate tosses him the ball from the nook of the online, and in a balletic flourish, Cha turns his again to the online, lifts his foot above his head into an virtually vertical cut up and kicks the ball backwards over his physique. Usually, a staff receiving a serve is as a result of they can arrange their offense for a spike, however Cha’s serves are sometimes unreturnable.
“There aren’t many individuals who serve the ball the best way I do,” Cha stated.
On the World Cup in 2022, Cha helped information Staff USA to gold-medal wins in 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 competitors within the second division. It was the primary time an American staff had gained double golds on the occasion. (It was additionally the primary takraw World Cup since 2011.) They defended these gold medals on the King’s Cup in Thailand this summer time, which is taken into account the annual marquee occasion for the game.
Cha stated that a lot of the credit score for the American staff’s latest resurgence goes to Jeremy Mirken, an unlikely advocate of the game who can also be the nationwide staff coach. Mirken first began taking part in takraw whereas dwelling in Northern California within the early 2000s as a option to cross-train for the same kicking sport known as footbag internet.
On the time, there was a recurring sport within the parking zone of a condominium advanced populated primarily by individuals of Southeast Asian descent. On Fridays, they might clear the vehicles off the blacktop and chalk a takraw court docket on it. Mirken marveled on the manner the gamers would commit their our bodies to spikes and blocks that seemed like bicycle kicks, their backs smacking onto the pavement dozens of occasions a set. He was additionally struck by the best way individuals from so many nations got here collectively as a group below the umbrella of this single sport.
“They have been very affected person with me, a random white man, who confirmed up and sort of sucked for some time,” stated Mirken, who’s now a school-based speech-language pathologist in Texas. “However the hearth was lit. I didn’t simply wish to play, however I wished to grow to be nice. I wished to compete on the highest stage.”
Mirken performed for the U.S. staff as a setter between 2010 and 2012, successful a number of medals. He then pivoted to a brand new place: coach.
“I select who begins and who comes off the bench,” he stated. Joking, he added: “Luckily, we don’t actually should cope with that on Staff USA since we barely have sufficient gamers to have a bench.”
As a board member of Sepak Takraw of USA, a nonprofit group whose purpose is to assist the nationwide staff, Mirken scours the nation searching for promising gamers and raises funds for staff journey. The overall value to compete in Korea was round $11,000, and the fee for Thailand was round $24,000. And there’s no purse for groups that medal. Gamers pay their very own manner.
For July’s King’s Cup, Mirken managed to assemble the primary U.S. ladies’s staff in practically three many years. Kristal Luna, an assistant soccer coach at Sonoma State, first realized about takraw lower than a 12 months in the past. She tailored her expertise from soccer and Teqball, one other kicking sport that may be a mixture of soccer, takraw and desk tennis. She would practice within the morning earlier than her gamers arrived for his or her first apply, and they’d usually speak to her in regards to the upcoming event whereas attempting to juggle the takraw ball.
The ladies’s staff didn’t make it out of the group stage in Thailand, however Luna nonetheless liked the expertise. “Folks have been like, ‘We’re not prepared,’” she stated. “After all we’re not prepared! However you must begin someplace.”
In the meantime, the lads discovered themselves in gold-medal rematches in opposition to Iran in each the 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 competitions. And as soon as once more, Cha’s serve proved to be decisive, with the American staff bringing residence gold medals in every class. Their latest success implies that at subsequent 12 months’s King’s Cup, they’re more likely to be slotted within the high division, competing in opposition to nations with who obtain authorities financing and choose their rosters from hundreds of potential gamers. Cha, who has been coaching or taking part in every single day since he obtained that cellphone name for the World Cup virtually a 12 months in the past, stated he might be prepared.
Mirken hopes that every one this successful will make it simpler for him to seek out extra gamers and more cash to assist not solely the expansion of the staff, but in addition the expansion of the sport.
“I’m all the time pleased after we win medals, however that’s not the purpose,” he stated. “My purpose is for extra People to see this sport and to resolve for themselves if it’s cool sufficient to catch on. I do know it may very well be enormous right here.”
