The primary aim of Hacky Sack is to have fun.
The two secondary aims are to keep the Hacky off the ground for as long as possible and to get a Hack.
The players stand in a circle (not too tight) facing in. The player holding the Hacky throws it gently toward one of the other players, this is called a serve. This player must then try to prevent the Hacky from touching the ground using any part of the body other than the hands or arms. The player may touch the Hacky as many times as they want before passing it on to another player. All the players work together to keep the Hacky off the ground. There is no required order in which players receive the Hacky.
A Hack is achieved when every player has touched the Hacky before it has touched the ground. A serve of any type is not counted toward getting a Hack; the serving player must touch the Hacky again to achieve the Hack. The more players in the circle the harder it is to achieve a Hack.
Once a Hack has been achieved players should continue keeping the Hacky off the ground and go for a double Hack. To do this all players must touch the Hacky again after the end of the previous Hack and before it touches the ground. It is usually accepted that the last player of one Hack counts as the first player of the next unless there are only two players. Players may then go for a triple Hack, and so on.
Many Hacky Sack players are not satisfied with a normal Hack because it is possible for the second last player to just kick the Hacky at the last player so it bounces off them in order to achieve the Hack. In this case the last player does not have to do anything to contribute to the Hack. The problem is solved by going for a "Controlled Hack" in which the last person must be deemed to have control over the Hacky before the Hack is achieved. In order to demonstrate control over the Hacky it is sometimes acceptable that the last player must just have more than one touch of it. This can be called an "n plus one" Hack as it requires one extra touch after a normal Hack. More often there is a slighter higher standard required to demonstrate control, which is that the Hacky must be successfully passed on to another player from the last player. This type of Hack is also called an "n plus one" Hack as one extra player must touch the Hacky after the normal Hack.
A branding consists of one player throwing the Hacky as hard as they can at another player. A branding is received as punishment for committing a brandable offence. The following may or may not be deemed as brandable offences:
As you can imagine a combination of some of the above rules has the potential to make the game quite interesting. For example a player may accidentally give a branding where none is deserved, and his first reaction would be to apologise for this, thereby doubling his own punishment. Or a new player may not know a rule such as "no self-service," and will have to work out this rule the hard way having no-one to tell him it because explaining the rules is a brandable offence.
Field Hacky Sack is very similar to normal Hacky Sack, with the difference being that the players stand quite far away from each other and are required to kick the Hacky high and long in order to pass it to the next player. This is a good game if players need to vent some stress or tension. Field Hacky Sack requires a large amount of space and cannot be played indoors unless you have something similar to a large aircraft hanger.
AFL stands for Australian Football League. A sport that involves a strange shape ball being kicked between two very tall poles. AFL Hacky Sack bears almost no resemblance to AFL at all except in one detail: A Hack is not achieved unless, after each person has touched the Hacky and before it touches the ground, it is kicked through, over or at a designated target.
For example, on the Library Lawn of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia stands a large "vandal-proof" clock which is no longer working having been broken by vandals. As you can see from the photograph to the right this clock looks pretty much like a giant ring and is commonly known among the students of UNSW as The Stargate. It is widely believed that, if the hands were to be arranged correctly The Stargate would open a doorway to another dimension (or possibly to the bell-less bell tower of the three-sided quadrangle.) Anyway, The Stargate is a perfect target for AFL Hacky Sack.
Last updated: 24/02/03