Sipa (literally, "kick") is the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

' traditional native sport which predates the Spanish rule. The game is related to

Sepak Takraw Sepak takraw, or Sepaktakraw, also called kick volleyball, is a team sport played with a ball made of rattan or synthetic plastic between two teams of two to four players on a court resembling a badminton court. It is similar to volleyball and ...

. Similar games include

Footbag net Footbag net is a sport in which players kick a footbag over a five-foot-high net. Players may use only the feet. Any contact knee or above is a foul. The game is played individually and as doubles. Footbag net combines elements of tennis, badmint ...

Footvolley Footvolley ( pt, Futevôlei in Brazil, ''Futevólei'' in Portugal) is a sport which combines aspects of beach volleyball and association football. Footvolley was created by Octavio de Moraes in 1965 in Brazil. Footvolley combines field rules tha ...

Bossaball is a team sport that originated in Brazil and was conceptualised by Belgian Filip Eyckmans in 2005. Bossaball is a ball game between two teams, combining elements of volleyball, football, and gymnastics with music into a sport. It is play ...

and

Jianzi Jianzi (), tī jianzi (踢毽子), tī jian (踢毽) or jianqiú (毽球), is a traditional Chinese national sport in which players aim to keep a heavily weighted shuttlecock in the air by using their bodies, apart from the hands, unlike in sim ...

. The game is both played by two teams, indoors or outdoors, on a court that is about the size of a tennis court. The teams consist of one, two or four players in each side. The aim of the game is to kick a soft ball made out of

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan, is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the closed- canopy old-growth tropical fores ...

fragments, back and forth over a

net Net or net may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence * Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2 * Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...

in the middle of the court. The sport requires

speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (ma ...

, agility and ball control. A point is awarded every time a player kicks the ball, the more the player kicks the ball, the more the points accumulate. Rules attached to the game are very minimal and even children can play, but the ratan ball version is preferred more for formal games.

Washer version

One version of Sipa uses a lead washer covered with cloth, which gets kicked. This version is played by both girls and boys, but girls tend to use the outside of their foot to manipulate the washer, while boys more often use the inside of the foot. Points are scored based on the number of kicks without the ball touching the ground. If the ball touches the ground one point is awarded to the opposing team.

Rattan ball version

This version uses a larger rattan woven ball with the same foot action. Sipa balls, which look like

Hacky Sack A footbag is a small, round bag usually filled with plastic pellets or sand, which is kicked into the air as part of a competitive game or as a display of dexterity. "Hacky Sack" is the name of a brand of footbag popular in the 1970s (currently o ...

balls, can be purchased online. Originally, the rattan Sipa ball was 10 centimeters in diameter and made of woven rattan strips with symmetrical holes. The most defining feature of the game of Sipa is that the ball should only be touched with the legs anywhere from below the knee to the tip of the toes. The rattan ball can touch the ground.

Simplified play (one on one, two on two, three on three, or four on four)

A set of rules determines penalty points (such as the ball bouncing twice on the ground). The two teams play against each other until a set number of penalty points is reached by one of the teams. There is also a court version in which a rectangle is marked in grids. Grids denote zones, and dictate where players stand, and how points are allotted based on where the ball lands in the court. This game requires much coordination.

References

Sources

*
(2007) Escudero urges revival of national games. Retrieved 04/22/2007, from Inquirer Headlines
Tagalog words and phrases Philippine games Team sports Ball games Traditional football {{ball-sports-stub