Week One - Task #04. - “Dodging the Competition”

[Mia Fountain]

After playing through a few practice matches the captain has decided that the team needs to work on their dodging and their feints before the match. The captain has decided that best way to work on those skills is with an obstacle course. You have been asked to create an obstacle course to help the players practise their rolls and feints. What obstacles would you set up? Would you have the team practice catching the Quaffle/Snitch while going through the course? Would you have the bludgers flying around during the obstacle course after everyone has had a practice run or two?

Task:
Write about a training course you would design for your quidditch team to practise their feints and rolls in 100 words or more.

Alternatively, research one or more of the quidditch feints or rolls and write about them in 100 words or more.

Complete this task by Thursday November 30th at 11:59pm HOL time to earn 10 beans and sapphires. You can earn 10 bonus beans and sapphires if you submit all of the Week One tasks.

[Janne Halla]

The Porskoff Ploy is a Quidditch maneuver, named after Russian Petrova Porskoff. It's quite a popular feint used by the Chasers to trick their opponents into making a mistake.

In this tactic, a Chaser ascends rapidly with the Quaffle, luring the opposing team's Chasers upwards, hopefully all three of them. Simultaneously, that Chaser with the Quaffle throws it downward to a teammate below the distracted opponents. The move requires precise timing.

It was used by Troy in the 1994 Quidditch World Cup against Ivanova. Additionally, this feint is also used during the Thimblerig Shuffle play, where a Chaser mimics the Porskoff Ploy to divert the opposing team's attention, enabling another Chaser to score unimpeded.

[Adeline Morior]

One of my personal favorites is the Sloth Grip Roll, where a team quidditch player rolls around subside down on their broom, hanging with hands and feet on the broom, in order to avoid an upcoming bludger. Since you need a really good grip and fast movement, I would design a course where the players need to practice dodging and gripping upside from poles until they are strong enough to do it on a moving broom in the air. They can be thrown with quaffles like a weird dodgeball until ready for bludgers. The same poles can be used to practice other maneuvers and balancing techniques such as the starfish and stick, Twirl etc.

[Evie Figg]

The Wronski Feint is used by Seekers, as it is a tactic which involves pretending to see the Golden Snitch, with the hope that the opposing team's seeker would follow suit. The Wronksi Feint is where a seeker dives down towards the ground, seemingly to "catch" the snitch, however diving up and avoiding the ground at the last minute. If the other teams seeker is to follow, they would then end up in a crash, as the golden snitch would not be there. This move was used by Viktor Krum in the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, effectively deceiving Ireland's seeker, Aiden Lynch.

[Prof. Sirius Fudge]

A training course I would give to the Quidditch team is the Mellow Willow. Yes, this is inspired from the Whomping Willow at the other side of the castle. Yes, it looks like it physically wise, but as the name suggests, it is a lot friendlier than the Whomping Willow. The practicing equipment is actually made of soft material. It is the speed and force of movement that adds to the punch of the hits. Just to be sure, we will have the nurse on standby. The Mellow Willow has three levels of speed and force of movements of its trunk and branches. The practice supervisor can choose what level the practice would be. In addition, the knot that would stop the willow from moving is controllable by a remote held by the supervising officer.

The practice mechanism is participated by all players. Chasers would aim to circle the Mellow Willow at least ten times in a distance of 3 meters from the tree while passing the quaffle among each other (the tree would react upon the distance of 3 meters). Beaters would fly at opposite spots 3 meters from the tree and would try to defend the chasers from attacking branches by aiming the bludgers to the tree branches. The seeker would aim to locate the knot and try to press or access the knot using their wand. The tree would stop moving after the seeker pressed the knot or if the supervisor stopped the practice session. A 10-minute time per session would be enough.

[Viviana Kingston]

The starfish and the stick is a quidditch tactic that is employed by keepers. The keeper would hold the broom horizontally, one hand gripping the broom and one foot hooked around the handle while stretching their body and free limbs out, blocking all three goal posts that they were defending. This tactic was deployed in an effort to block the quaffle. The starfish tactic should never be attempted without the their broomstick. The quidditch manoeuvre is used by the keeper to protect as much area as they possibly can. A starfish has 5 arms. The position of the keeper while doing this move resembles a starfish if you count their head as the fifth arm.

[Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis]

In the off-season, I was able to enlist the help of our Herbology professor to plant a grove of walnut trees in a clearing by the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Now that all the trees are fully grown, the randomness of the branches form a natural obstacle course that is perfect for practicing rolls.

The walnuts are enchanted to be slightly larger than normal, so that they are nearly the size of the standard Golden Snitch. By using the Severing Charm, the walnuts fall from the branches. The team can practice dodging the falling walnuts. They can also wait for the walnut to drop a bit and attempt to catch them or work on their feinting skills!

[Dibyarup James Potter]

In this essay, I will be talking about the Wronski Feint and the Sloth Grip Roll.

For the Wronski Feint, a Seeker would pretend to spot the Snitch quite close to the ground, and then race to catch it, hoping that the opponent Seeker would also follow, and then at the last second before reaching the ground, the Seeker doing the feint would pull out of the dive, usually causing the opponent Seeker to crash. This move was frequently used by Victor Krum.

The Sloth Grip Roll involved a Quidditch player hanging upside down from the broom, holding it tightly with their hands and feet to avoid an incoming Bludger. This roll would be most useful during aggressive matches if the Beater failed due to some reason.

[Katherine Laurier]

A famous tactic used by Chasers in Quidditch matches is the Wollongong Shimmy, where chasers of one team would fly in a zig-zag motion at a high speed to distract and confuse the Chasers of the opposing team. It was invented by the Wollongong Warriors, rivals of the Thundelarra Thunderers. This trick can be used so that the opposing Chasers would not be able to predict what you're trying to do or where you're trying to go, in order to make it more difficult for them to dodge your Quaffle or aim at you and hit you successfully with the Quaffle.

[Maeve Madden]

I would set up an obstacle course using soft padded structures, not unlike punching bags. They would be set up so that the players must roll and dodge them, but if they accidentally hit them, they wouldn’t be too severely injured. Once each player successfully completed the course, the course would change to become more difficult. The players would run through the course over and over again, with each course becoming more difficult. I would incorporate the Bludgers once I was confident in the players’ ability to complete the most difficult course without hitting a padded structure. As an added incentive, once all the players have gone through the most difficult course successfully, I would split the team into 2 sub-teams and they would each have a turn going through the course again as a relay race; the losing team would have to buy the winners butter beers.

[Scarlet Robloutain]

In the heart of our Quidditch training ground, I'd craft an obstacle course to hone our dodging and feinting skills. First, a series of low-hanging hoops would demand swift rolls, forcing players to master evasion close to the ground. The course would wind through narrow sections, encouraging strategic feints to outwit opponents. Quaffles and Snitches suspended strategically would prompt mid-air catches, integrating offensive manoeuvres.
For the advanced round, bludgers would whirl into play, mimicking match scenarios. This dynamic training course aims not only to refine individual agility but also to synchronise the team's movements, ensuring a seamless dance of dodges and feints on the Quidditch pitch.