Info
Sztekiel is a very simple, hitting and throwing game.
In its basic version, a player uses a flat or a rounded bat to hit a small, wooden, sharpened at both ends, stick up in the air and then he/she knocks it again forwards into the field as far as possible.
There were many regional variations of this game. In more complex versions, the game consisted of several rounds in which the points were awarded for hitting a stick further into the field than the opponent. These points were calculated in different ways. The winner was the player who scored more points in the entire game or the one who just hit the stick the furthest.
History
Sztekiel belongs to a large, international family of games. It was played in Poland especially in the villages by poor youth in western Poland. It was developed into many variations. After the First World War it started to disappear. After the Second World War mass sport was popularized in Poland and most of simple, folk games as sztekiel were no longer popular.Sztekiel as a the Post-war "game of freedom".
It may seem that sztekiel is “just a game”. However, after the Second World War, this sport was much more important, especially in many villages in Greater Poland. It was then that people raised their heads after the terrible years of war turmoil, and the game of sztekiel turned out to be one of their liberating “tools”.
The former sztekiel player and a deserved initiator and organizer of the competitions in sztekiel, the creator of the game equipment and the editor of studies devoted to it, Henryk Walendowski, told us: “For us it was a sport of freedom. In a city full of a post-war rubble, we would go to the field and play sztekiel. It was an opportunity for us to meet and have a genuine sense of freedom after the war".
Physical abilities developed
motor skills: coordination and body balance, throwing and hitting accuracy, reaction speed; cognitive: developing tactical thinking;