My friends and I are lovers of unusual missions and adventures and any idea like “I wonder if we can do this?” is always met with a response of “challenge accepted!” So when I spotted an ingenious invention on the Decathlon website (now one of my most visited websites apparently!) we had to get it and have a go. The sporting creation in question is a portable basketball hoop simply called The Hoop by Kipsta.
Basically, it’s a mobile basketball hoop and backboard that can be attached to anything you can attach two straps around. It’s a really affordable and smart way of making basketball more accessible to us all. Rather than having to buy a huge and often fairly expensive pole and hoop or drill permanent holes into the side of your home, you can now use the two straps on this hoop to firmly secure it to your chosen object or place. What’s better still is that this takes seconds, can be adjusted to whatever height you want and can be taken down and moved very easily.
When the Einstein-like character who invented The Hoop did so, they probably imagined it being used to attach the hoop to street lamps, telegraph poles and trees. It obviously does all these things brilliantly and you can quickly start a game in your local park, garden or street. Anything that you could wrap your arms around, can have the two straps looped round and tightened securely to put up this hoop.
As I said at the start though, when I looked at the product I saw all these great and more common uses for the hoop but also thought of my own idea. A new sport, which although in its infancy I have now Christened ‘SeaBall’. With this idea in our minds, we headed to a little secret spot I know, it just requires a short climb down a cliff but you are rewarded with a terrifically private and exciting bit of coast. We quickly noticed that the two straps that you use to attach The Hoop can be also used like the straps of a backpack for handsfree carrying of the hoop. Another handle is located at the top of The Hoop which makes carrying easy.
Once at the bottom of the cliff, we donned wetsuit and started coasteering around in search of the perfect hanging place for our target. Trees, street lamps and telegraph poles are everywhere and work incredibly well with this hoop, however ‘pole like’ rocky outcrops were in shorter supply than I had imagined. Fortunately, after some swimming and climbing we found a couple of good locations, the first being inside a sea cave.
Shooting from the water was definitely a challenge and proved great fun. Inside the cave you could also try trick shots by attempting to bounce the ball off the cave walls. Considering this was nothing like what The Hoop had originally designed for it worked amazingly, it even floated! It really proved to me how great it was because it was fantastic in a much more extreme condition than it was designed for.
Being a bit shady and therefore a tad nippy we decided to move from the sea cave to the more sun drenched rocks just off the shore. Climbing up rocks with the light weight hoop was a piece of cake. To secure it to a much wider structure than it is intended, I attached both of the tie down straps together and used this one long strap to hold it in place. I was really amazed at how well it kept the hoop on the rocks and showed just how much more secure The Hoop is when attaching it to something more sensible like a tree or lamp post.
Once we had practised and experimented with our shooting, we got the hang of it and started to show off some skills. The occasional big wave or swell did make the whole thing a tiny bit more challenging but also added to the excitement and fun. It would be really cool to try playing a game in the sea with two of these hoops and getting a proper game going on. I’m not sure what you’d do about dribbling though?
We had a total blast with The Hoop and once we had got the hang of shooting in the sea we started to move onto more impressive stunts like attempting to slam dunk whilst jumping off rocks and passing the ball before shooting. What I like most about The Hoop is not only is it great for solving the common problem of how to place a basketball hoop but it also creates loads of opportunity to play basketball in unusual and interesting places. No longer are you restricted to playing on a court but you can no play anywhere you can take the low cost and easy to use hoop.
