Pool Games
Pool games help beginning swimmers learn breath control
and build confidence while they learn to swim. Pool basket-ball and
volleyball are the oldest games brought to a pool, and follow the same
rules as their land counterpart. There are many games such as Marco
Polo and sharks and minnows that don’t involve anything but a
few playful swimmers.
Playing pool games is great exercise. Doing laps at a pool can get really
boring to a lot of people, most people swim for recreation instead of
for exercise. Many water games encourage swift and efficient swimming,
sometimes in bursts of motion to avoid being caught or tagged. Many
games have certain handicaps for players who are “it” or
tagged preventing them from swimming normally, or requiring them to
tread water, which is great exercise indeed.
Water polo is the most widely played pool game, besides Marco polo,
having professional athletes and Olympic events. Water polo teams have
seven players in the water at a time, one of them being the goalie.
Two teams play by swimming and passing around a water polo ball, trying
to get the ball into the opposing teams net, much like soccer. Four
periods last for 8 minutes each, but when fouls are committed, which
is incredibly common, the game clock is stopped making each period last
closer to 12 minutes. The clock is also stopped when the ball is out
of play. At the end of four periods, the team with the most points wins.