Ball kicking is a game played by kicking a ball.

According to Samgukyusa (History of the Three Kingdoms), there was a game called chukguk played by kicking a round ball in the period of the Three Kingdoms. The game continued to be played in the periods of Koryo Kingdom and the feudal Joson dynasty.

There were two kinds of balls used in ball kicking in the middle ages. The first one was made by cutting tough grasses, forming a round mass and tying it with bush clover or arrowroot vines, and the second one was made with the viscera of animals like the stomach and leather.

The game was played in several ways.

It was usually played by two teams on the flat lawn or paddy or dry field where the harvest was over. It was a game for one team to take the ball away from the other team and then play by itself.

They also played in a way of kicking the ball out of the line. The game was played by drawing lines on both ends of the playground and kicking off from the centre of the pitch. When it began, the players of the two teams tackled opponent players to take the ball and kick it over the lines of their own teams.

There was another way of kicking the ball with two persons or two teams standing face to face. Here the first team kicked the ball and the second one had to volley it to the first. The ball was kicked high so that the opponent could kick it before it touched the ground. If it failed to return the ball, it lost a point.

Ball kicking was also played with certain facilities and regulations. It was played in two ways according to how the goalposts were set up.

The first one was to stand goals on both ends of the playground, dribble the ball to the other’s side and kick the ball into the goalposts. It was mostly played in the same way as football is now.

The second one was to set up a goal in the middle of the playground, divide the two teams on both sides of it and pass the ball to the other side.

At that time two goalposts were set up in the middle of the pitch and net was spread under a third of the posts in order not to allow the ball to pass through it.

In the game points were scored when the ball was passed over the net tied to the posts. If it touched the net and rebounded, the team who kicked it could do it over again. But if the ball was passed over outside the two posts, no point was given to it and the opponent side kicked the ball over again.

The winner was decided by which team scored more points.

It was a good game for improving the dribbling technique and building up the physical strength of people.

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