I'm with ya, Mystery. Who wants to talk underwater basket weaving?
I do!
For the uninitiated, Underwater Basketweaving is very popular in Germania and Canadia. It involves two individuals who are tied to an achor using only a five foot rope, and are chucked into a shallow body of warm body of water with nothing more than enough hay straw to weave an 14"x20" basket that is roughly 9-11" deep depending on water temperature and oxygen levels. The participants are given long drinking straws to maintain breathing, and begin weaving, holding the materials in their armpits while they get to work.
Once they are finished, or decide to quit, the fully made basket (Or a bunch of straw) floats to the surface, where their family and friends wait on the shore line. Once they see the basket, they throw a knife in alowing the weaver to cut themselves free.
It was like this as tradition up until the 1890s, where Theador Renolds, the famed flour smith lost his sister to his mother in an underwater basket weaving competition when his mother cut his sister's drinking straw with the knife after finishing her basket. This type of foul play made Theador create what we now know as modern day Underwater Basketweaving.
As technologies evolved, so too did the Underwater Basketweaving sport (Though it wasn't recognized as a sport until the olympics of 1930, where the medal was taken by the Britanese after using their inherant skill of making rice-biscuits in the same fassion). New technologies such as the garden-hose were used to give the contestants a better grasp of oxygen, and safty-scissors which helped reduce the accidental injury rate of tossing in metal sheers over a person's head underwater. Ofcourse, being in murky ponds and lakes, we found Pink (Also known through out the region as Aggressive Salmon) Safty Scissors worked the best after many years of testing.
Now I know this sounds like a dangerous past-time, but you had to understand the reason it took off is because of the Basket Riots of 1822 in Germania, where several families were left basketless. Too many families, not enough baskets resulted in the brutal and unrelenting sport of Underwater Basketweaving, and eventually some of them immigrated to Canadia, where the tradition continued, except they would have to include the hunting and skinning of a beaver to line the basket rim with the creatures hide.
Though still growing in popularity, Underwater Basketweaving is a grand sport with a long and detailed history. Now that you are informed, please share with the rest of the forum on your experiences with Underwater Basketweaving!
Have a good day,
- MD
