Kiiking

Competitive Swinging

Any human activity will eventually be made into a competition, and so it is with the common childhood activity of swinging. Remember when you were a kid on the playground and dreamed of swinging so high that you swung completely over the top in a circle? That's what kiiking is. In the nation of Estonia, where "kiik" means swing, tall swings have always been a fun activity for adults and children alike, but the extreme sport of kiiking takes it to the extreme. Ion order to swing entirely over the bar, and new kind of swing was developed with a swivel at the top.

It became clear that the taller the swing got, the more difficult it would be to complete a circuit over the spindle, which meant that there could be competitive accomplishments, and thus, a new sport was born. “We, who are kiikers so to say, like to say that “kiiking” starts when your legs are higher than your head, before that it is just swinging,” says Laansalu.   

There is no international competition so far, but Estonia has a league, the Estonian Kiiking Union (Eesti Kiikingi Liit). Even though the sport is in its infancy, it's just a few YouTube videos away from being the next big thing. Read about the sport of kicking and its history -and see a video- at Atlas Obscura.