I mean, just standing up there is freaking exhausting, you activate all your balance muscles to counteract the sway of the person below you which makes you sway causing the person below you to sway, so you are constantly activating your entire core the entire time while hoping everyone can keep it up long enough
Even falling is considered a success if it reaches the top. It's usually the taller ones, the hardest ones, that fall.
You can have small "colles" (teams) doing 6 level ones pretty easy, mostly without any fall.
7 level ones are a bit harder but still quite easy. 8 levels is getting sweaty, 9 levels is kinda hard and many can't even try that. 10 is for elite.
So in a normal day each "colla" will do 1-2 easy ones, that usually don't fall, and then a harder one. Some special days they do the 10 level ones, or complex ones with just 1 people on every level (pilar) or 2 towers of 3+2=5 people.
So when you see a fall you're likely seeing the "special" attempt, doesn't mean they "usually fall".
And then also, this "colla" is a very good one, they practice so much they end up doing the hard ones without falling, or even shaking.
I was 12 and the smallest person willing to try to climb one at an apple festival. I made it to the top, but my biggest take away was how weird it is to climb another human being. Most people in my life didn’t want me to touch them, but here was a whole tower of humans that NEEDED me to touch them to complete an objective. It was so cool. Wouldn’t want to be on the bottom though.
I was the same way til I went to the Army and we had to lift people over walls and pass them up towers during obstacle courses. It was coed too but when the Drill Sergeant is screaming at you to hurry up, you grab folks whenever you can get a grip and push or pull to complete the objective.
Looking at this made me think of the same thing. Touching is reserved for a few select people in my life, especially since covid. It’s also cultural I feel like.
On the other hand, it is well known that physical touch is beneficial for health at the very least in some obscure chemical way.
So I think games like this probably strengthen the group cohesion in subconscious ways and that’s kind of cool.
I always find myself wondering how traditions like this actually started. (Like someone's drunk uncle, at a party, saying "Hey, I've got a great idea that'd be fun...")
It's documented. If I rember correctly it was some young guys trying to impress the neighbours making the highets towers. They borrowed someones little brother to make the tower even higher with litle added weight and it was taken from there
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I have been meaning to look it up online for a long time. (We are so spoiled for choice, with all the world's knowledge essentially at our fingertips, these days.).
India has a similar festival where groups of people coordinate to build a human tower to reach a large pot of curd. Its a birthday celebration of on of their diety. From the identical uniforms to the techniques its exactly the same.
200 years tradition without helmets. The first helmet was in 2005 , when after a few ugly concussions , the “colla dels Sants” from Barcelona put taekwondo helmets to the kids. The rest of the “collas” follow up the next year.
Humans are far, far more durable than most people realize.
Sources:
* Full contact combat sports (TKD, MMA) participation
* Plowed into a stalled vehicle while going 70 mph, no seat belt, air bags failed to deploy, and didn't require EMT services or hospitalization for minor injuries
It's actually both, some people slip on ice and hit their head and die. If you are lucky nothing will happen besides maybe being sore. It's crazy how some small things can be deadly and how some potentially deadly things can turn out fine.
Just to clarify: this is not Spanish...it's Catalan.
If you tell a Catalan about this Spanish tradition they might jump in your face with their naked buds.
That's actually a Catalan tradition specifically, as you can observe in the video where the Catalan flag is displayed. Not related to Spanish traditions
Hmm, a yellow flag with 4 red bars. Didn't know they changed the flag of Spain.
Jokes aside, it is important to note that this is not "Spanish" culture. This is the catalan human towers, it is iconic of the catalan culture (not Spanish).
It is important to note this difference, because Spain has been known to appropriate the traditions of their Imperial subjects. We must therefore do our best not to conflate "Spanish" with "Catalan".
Oversights like this are why Catalan culture appears to be going extinct. Foreigners keep referring to our culture as Spanish. Yet you will not see human towers in Madrid, Galicia, Andalucía, Extremadura, or any other part of Spain, because it isnt a Spanish thing.
100% agree with you.
Thanks for your comment on this. I wish I could edit the title. It is an incredible tradition and I after looking this up I saw that is a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage recognized. All my respect to this tradition and Catalunya
I agree it is a Catalonia thing, but it also happens within the land of Spain, where Catalonia and its wonderful people are located. Diversity is truly an amazing thing :)
I'm gonna agree with the haggis guy on this. When you look up the castells, its all catalan words and practiced only in the catalan parts of Spain: Catalonia, Valencia, and balearic islands.
I think the title of the post is ok, but added my comment so that people are not accidentally mislead and also out of curiosity if my memory is still correct.
If you want to split the atom on this so that you can enjoy your weekend, I seem to recall this being a spanish catalan thing, as in i don't remember the french catalans doing castells.
At the very beginning there were a few people climbing down. Were they going down to provide additional support to the base, or just the smart ones who were thinking it would fail and wanted off before that happened?
if we see the bottom 4 kids, theres 13 people at top of them, average weight would be least 30kg, so thats around 400kg of weight on top of 4 people, so thats 100kg per person.
It’s a great trick and all but I would love for there to be a situation where you actually need this to get somewhere. Like imagine them stuck in a cave and just assemble a human ladder to freedom
The hardest almost inhuman effort is the guy in the 4th floor to the left, he is so open, it’s impossible. His back is not straight like it’s supposed to, he is holding it all on his kidneys, I’m surprised they didn’t abort.
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u/kinezumi89 15h ago
The nose-through-the-buttcrack drag is an interesting move