Sports in Thailand are a bit different that sports in the United States. The big popular sports in Thailand are either not that popular in the United States, or they aren’t even played there. One sport that isn’t played in the U.S. is dtagraw (ตะกร้อ).
When Kyle and Veronica came to visit last year, I showed them around the school on the weekend and pointed out the dtagraw court. Kyle was particularly interested in how the sport is played and really wanted to try it out himself. Luckily, at school, the kids were having a pick-up game after school and Kyle had a chance to jump in. He had a lot of fun and the kids loved seeing him try.
High level dtagraw is amazing to watch. Imagine volleyball and soccer had a love child and you have dtagraw. There is a court (smaller than a volleyball court) with a net (lower than a volleyball net). Each team has three players on the court and they volley a rattan ball back and forth over the net using any part of their body, except their hands, but most commonly their feet. The game dates back at least to the 15th century and is popular throughout the region. An official match consists of five sets and each set is played until 15 with a win by a margin of 2.
Internationally, the sport is referred to as sepak dtagraw and is governed by the International Sepak Takraw Federation (ISTAF), which hosts a couple of annual tournaments. Both Thailand’s men’s and women’s team won at the recent International Super Series Finals.
Here’s a video of the third set of the Men’s Finals, against Malaysia:
There’s also a league in Thailand, and it appears that most provinces have their own team and there are regular inter-province matches.