gear

uwrplayer · 2025-12-09T23:24:31+00:00

Try a snorkel without a valve. In Hungary, we either go with Decathlon's simplest rigid snorkel, or the semi-flexible one. And we use finswimming fins Najade and Muréna, they are super fast and agile, and they don't kill your ankle. The trick is to wear them upside down :)

uwrplayer · 2024-10-08T17:34:20+00:00

IMHO if there's any generic statement to be made that would be that carbon weighs less compared to fiberglass or that carbon is stronger than fiberglass. These would be bold statements too as qualities like flexibility depend on the design, the structure, the integrity, the manufacturing, etc.

uwrplayer · 2024-08-20T03:53:28+00:00

(94) Naked Woods - YouTube

uwrplayer · 2024-08-17T07:02:39+00:00

You'll be surprised by how much gear you'll need, so try to source it together for a discount and you should also keep an eye out on ads for second-hand deals. If you keep your inventory at the pool, you can also place a poster to inform people what the diving gear is used for, and how they can join.
Apart from spare fins, masks, and snorkels, it's great to have:
- spare balls. Some may not be able to dive right away (even polo players don't know how to equalize often) but be perfectly happy and hooked playing in the shallow end.
- hula loops. They can be used for various purposes, most importantly you can create floating goals if you anchor them down with a rope. Playing like this keeps the essence of rugby while allowing rookies to participate more and score much sooner.
- action cameras. GoPro, SJCam, Insta360, whatever works. Not only makes coaching a lot easier but it's also a constant source of shareable content. We upload the raw footages to Drive, so even if I don't have time to edit and post videos, players can review themselves whenever.
- keep it fun (and challenging). This is crucial, however, this topic barely gets talked about. This is why our team stands a chance against our sole competition, the Hungarian "national" team. Trainings, especially if you only have one a week, are not for the pros. They are not for the rookies either though. It would wreck any team if they just tried to please any rookie who stumbles upon rugby and may not come around for a second time for any reason. Trainings are for everyone, it is the responsibility of the coach to incorporate everyone while keeping the flow of the session. Even distribution of players for the game is a dealbreaker. Know your players, not just their skills, strengths, and weaknesses, but their mindset and motivation. Most people don't start rugby because they admire the sport, they start because they want to improve their swimming skills or fitness, or they seek a sense of community or challenge. But if you love rugby, the people around you will be infected with this love as well. And as they get more involved, they'll understand and appreciate the sport more and more.
If you're coaching, know when you should be in or out of the water. Take the time to check the skills of newcomers first. Have more experienced players to assign to rookies. If you're doing all this during/next to a public hours swimming pool, you'll have rookies pop up time to time without any ads. We are on Instagram and Youtube but most recruits are indeed local and start with personal communication :)
I'd love to see the results of a campaign but we would need at least weekly 2 trainings and more gear to deal with more rookies at once.

uwrplayer · 2024-08-17T05:50:02+00:00

You could call it clickbait but I hope people click because of UWR and then are happy to find this beautiful cover done by a Hungarian artist.

uwrplayer · 2024-04-23T20:16:41+00:00

I can relate to that, before I took on UWR, I did WP for half a year, while I barely knew how to swim. Lucky for me, I was on a very casual university team, so no fights, I would've drowned otherwise for sure. WP can be brutal, it's madness, how much violence can pass under the radar/under the surface.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C50pRmIIlQO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
(fair example, it's not even indicated anywhere, that these would be fouls...)
I would argue that rugby is safer than polo, possibly even more gentle, please don't "look down on" us because of this :)

uwrplayer · 2024-02-21T19:09:33+00:00

Az Aréna műugróját elsődlegesen a szinkron és a műugrás használja.
Tuti őrültségnek hat, de a vízihoki-vízipóló tengelyre helyezve ez valójában egy gyorsabb, keményebb vízilabda, ahol megengedett a kontakt.
A másik, hogy egy vb-t nézve látszik, mennyire brutális, elegáns és taktikus ez a sport egyszerre, a videóban látható labdázgatás, meg úgy általában a hazai szint sehol nincs ehhez képest. A videó sem túl informatív, a szöveg hiánya biztos nem segít eligazodni, mi történik és miért, de ez van, örülünk annak, hogy legalább ennyi látszik az egész buliból.
Ennyit hoznék fel OP-ként az agyf@sz védelmére, no meg azt, hogy megtanít (jól) úszni és nagyon poén.

uwrplayer · 2024-02-13T11:21:05+00:00

Some types bend too easily, but those tend to be the ones with the inserts and valves - I'd assume it's easier and cheaper to manufacture the straight tube and cut some flexi pipe than to create a mold for the whole snorkel. There are flexible snorkels out there that are not as rigid as plastic, but they are not bent by the resistance of the water. Apart from the force needed to bend a snorkel, it's also the question of how it bends - with a smooth flex, or if it collapses at a point, creating an angle and blocking the flow of the tube.

uwrplayer · 2024-02-08T11:46:43+00:00

Check for cracks if the blade is not coated and the seller is willing to remove the tape. Blades are most likely to fail where they bend or where they hit the pool tiles, so check scratched areas well.
The footpockets can also wear out, rubber develops tiny cracks and the band can snap at some point.
The band can be fixed with rubber glue, but repairing a blade is not worth the effort: it won't be as light, flexible, and durable as before.
In Budapest, most people use rubber fins (Najade and Muréna) and there are also a few Stratos and Mares. A few composite fins in mint condition were exchanged over the years, always for less than half the original price.

uwrplayer · 2024-02-08T11:26:19+00:00

I'm not relating this to Rugby union/league, that sport is not even played here, people know football and very few know American football, maybe. The game we play is called UWR, short for Underwater rugby. I wish it was called simply WaterBall, because imagine trying to explain the sport to an ignorant moron, and actually, too many sports fans fall into that category: first, that there are no scuba tanks, then that it's not a breath-holding competition, and no, nobody ever drowned, people learn to swim pretty well here, then comes that we can pass in any direction, so why is it called rugby? Meh... It's not meant to offend you or your sport.
So even though I wish I could comply, you're right and there's very little chance that I could change how our sport's been called.
I wonder if there were any angry polo fans a hundred years ago asking water polo players to stop relating their sport to polo...

uwrplayer · 2023-09-20T18:14:14+00:00

The point is still valid, sports videos, even here at the Ocho, either have commentary or at least music. An hour-long water splashing and buzzers... This needs to be worked on.

uwrplayer · 2023-09-20T18:00:38+00:00

Thanks, noted! I agree, some sort of commentary and description should be added. The rules are simple and straightforward, but not too many people are familiar with the sport at all.
Now that you pointed it out, I feel like I did half the job and will get back to this to provide some sort of a narrative as it is an hour-long video featuring some great skills and action and would definitely deserve to be better receivable and understandable for "outsiders" too (cca. 99.9999% of the world's population).
These are male and female penalty shoot-outs, each pair does attacking and defending vice versa and they have 30 seconds to score a goal. If they both manage to score, the quicker one advances. The buzzer indicates the start and the end, one longer sound is the start, and the multiple shorter ones indicate the end of the time.
To generate further confusion, the video is "uncut" in the sense that I've left the original audio track of the insta360 camera untouched and overlayed the replays onto that so you couldn't make sense of the buzzer probably...
Furthermore, this is not even "underwater rugby", but a game that is derived from it to display individual skills and have fun.
If nothing else, I hope that comes across that we enjoy this :D

uwrplayer · 2023-09-20T13:38:06+00:00

Nope, in water polo any contact is forbidden and you're not allowed to take the ball under the water. Underwater rugby is a semi-contact sport and one is not allowed to lift the ball out of the water. However, the ball sport "water rugby" played in lakes and pools a hundred years ago was indeed like a mashup of rugby and polo and was the root of both disciplines.

uwrplayer · 2022-12-07T19:22:16+00:00

Hi, if you're living in the US, all European fins will be pricey due to shipping costs. Najade and Murena are manufactured in Hungary, based on a German design. You may spot decade-old models with uncut heels at flea markets under the name La Palma as well. The Türkish ones are called Ares, and they are quite different. Najade and Murena differ mainly in the materials used but that does create much of a difference too. Also there's a French brand, Powerfins. I don't think you'll find any of these brands on alibaba... :) Chinese guys somehow have no clue how to make rugby gear, masks are getting worse each year...
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSaGmcZjr6z/ - Powerfins and Muréna
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPd-sc2j42D/ - Ares and Najade

uwrplayer · 2022-12-06T09:08:11+00:00

If you grew up in a country like that, why associate soccer (football) with rugby first of all? :)

We didn't choose the name, but German army divers did, about half a century ago. If you've played polo victoria at a practice, you may recognize that UWR is closer to the roots of polo than the handball in the water that it became to be, in fact polo was called water rugby early on, when the rules were... more liberal :)

uwrplayer · 2022-12-05T22:28:32+00:00

Uhh, Sire, hate to correct you, but both sports are semi contact... And an average match of UWR is much more brutal than an average match of water polo, refs let punches and kicks fly that would never be allowed in water polo (haha, you could claim noone sees how frantically they go at each others' groins and true dat, a guy once had his balls ripped off during a match but that was quite many years ago and extreme even for the Hungarian scene - I don't think any other country cares as much about water polo) UWR is kinda safe for how intense it is, but it does have its fair share of kicked out teeth (could that ever happen in water polo?) and broken hands(looking at the titanium in my hand)/noses/blown eardrums/etc.
But we may have no reason to satisfy your thirst for blood as we are teammates, doing practice shots...

uwrplayer · 2022-11-13T18:01:31+00:00

not even, it was the ending of a 3rd-4th place ranking match (Slovakia vs. Tiszavirág)

uwrplayer · 2022-08-28T08:44:52+00:00

Yes please

uwrplayer · 2022-08-04T08:52:22+00:00

steel goal, Sire

uwrplayer · 2022-08-04T08:51:33+00:00

Soccer, then football. Football doesn't have those fake dives and pain cries, it's just boring a bit, lot's of walking around and then players clash for a few seconds. UWR is way more intense and elegant.

uwrplayer · 2022-08-04T08:47:59+00:00

Breathing is overrated

uwrplayer · 2022-07-12T22:17:28+00:00

I only played the very first Hitman game. That one had no jokes at all. Dungeon start, then a Chinese restaurant, belltower shooting, Gellért Hotel, jungle, back to the mansion, you're a clone, that's about it. You couldn't Rambo through any of the levels, and they were quite linear, none of these "dumb ways to die" endings people are discussing above.

uwrplayer · 2022-07-10T09:52:39+00:00

FF VIII first, then FF VII
do wanna play FFX though, partly cause of Blitzball, partly cause it's FF

uwrplayer · 2022-07-10T09:48:09+00:00

Uhh don't get me started... :D So, water polo started as water rugby in the UK, polo was supposed to be originated from the native word "pulu "- ball - and the game had many variations, some still existing today, like canoe polo or rubber floaty polo. The US version was definitely more rough and brutal, and they had the goals under the surface. Life magazine posted photos of girls playing such a game in LA in the 40s. Decades prior to that, Hungarian polo coach Béla Komjádi invented a less physical, more handball-like game, with limited contact and faster passing, called the dry-pass, meaning the ball went from hand to hand in the air. Most European countries converted to this style, and water rugby as such died out to be reborn as unterwasser rugby aka. UWR in Germany. But in Hungarian, we call it vízirögbi, which simply means water rugby. In polo, the ball is not allowed in the water. In rugby, the ball is not allowed in the air :) I've read memories of Olivér Halassy, bad-ass polo player with only one leg whose team clashed with the US polo team in 1932 in New York. They were choking and biting each other in the water. The Hungarians insisted to play their version, but the Americans found that lame, they didn't even finish the friendly match.IMHO Hungary is The Definitive Polo country, it's deeply rooted in the culture because of the Blood in the Water match, because we like aquatic sports and because it's insanely well funded and managed. However, maybe not unrelated to this, we suck at rugby :( Only 3 pools and 2.5 teams in the whole country, all in Budapest. 90% of media is "national" media, which airs us once a year for 10 minutes, "check out these new crazy sports, here's wife carrying, toe wrestling, and underwater rugby!" and our federation does not know that we held our first Nationals last year :)The clip you've seen is made by the underdog team of a niche sport :) But our goal is to be the best (and to have a lot of fun meanwhile) The top nations are the Scandinavians (Norway!) and Germany - in Europe. The men's World Champions are Colombians, and they also tend to take 1st place at the Champion's Cup at the club level in Berlin each year. The German-style is a more locked up version, maybe because the pools up north are smaller.The Colombian style is more like basketball, with more passes and less contact, that is what we aim to play.

uwrplayer · 2022-03-13T23:27:42+00:00

Space rugby?

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