Ice blocking offers chills, cheap thrills

MAIYA HOLIDAY Eli Karon experiences the
ice-cold excitement of sliding down the hills by Janss steps on an
ice block ““ needless to say, this looks like fun.

I’m standing in the checkout line at Ralph’s with
five bucks, three blocks of ice and a towel. The guy in front of me
turns around, grins and says: “Ice blocking”¦ nice.
It’s been a while.”

There’s nothing like old timers.

In a sport where the daring, the sharing and often the baring
are most successful, experience is almost as invaluable as the will
of Mother Nature.

Welcome to the wonderful world of ice blocking, where it’s
not the size of your blocks or the length of your ride that
matters.

Ice blocking is more than a sport. It’s way of life.
Participants buy blocks of ice at their local grocery store; find a
fairly steep hill (preferably while trespassing onto a golf
course), and go cascading down the slopes while sitting on their
block of ice. With the help of some evening dew or recent rain
showers, the ice block picks up a good deal of speed sliding along
the wet grass.

Ice blocking is a sport for Orange County natives and those who
don’t have the luxury of sledding in real snow. The
technique is rather unimportant. As long as you can get a good
start and the hill is big enough, you should be picking grass and
dirt out of your teeth in no time. 

So I did.

The place: Janss Hill, just to the left of the steps (as you
face the stairs from the bottom). The more experienced ice blocker
can go to the right side of the stairs and run the gauntlet of
trees, but I don’t want to be responsible for anybody’s
botched nose job, so don’t blame me. The time: midnight on a
Wednesday, during the first rainfall in weeks.

The hill on campus is not the optimal place to conduct an
ice-blocking extravaganza, but it works. Sitting at the top of the
hill, with a towel covering the block of ice, is the first
challenge. A block measures approximately 6 inches by 6 inches
by 12 inches. In case you need a frame of reference for these
proportions, Calista Flockhart possesses the only butt that fully
fits on a regulation ice block.

The towel is essential, unless you want to end up like a
constipated Eskimo. Perhaps the hardest part is getting started,
but after a few trial runs, one becomes accustomed to the loss of
control that is ice blocking. For a one-tenth of a point deduction,
you can use your feet to steer and regulate speed.

I had gathered up quite a group of fellow ice blockers, people
from all walks of life. In order to protect identities, I
won’t disclose their names; rather, I’ll describe some
of the outfits seen on the ice blocking course that fateful night.
There was a senior sociology student wearing red Mickey Mouse
pajamas. And there was a freshman pre-med student who was the first
UCLA ice blocker to ever descend Janss hill on an ice block wearing
nothing but boxers.

The most valuable ice blockers of the night go to Neda Sargordan
and Natasha Rastegari, two third-year political science students
who stumbled upon the merry band of ice blockers on their way back
from a long night in Powell. Little did they know that their night
had only just begun.

Not surprisingly, Sargordan and Rastegari are both Orange County
natives. What is surprising is that neither had ever been ice
blocking. This could only mean one of two things: either they
didn’t really grow up in Orange County, or they had better
things to do. Yeah, right.

In any case, the two surprise guests were easily cajoled into
hopping aboard a block of ice and taking the rides that would
forever change their lives. The girls were unexpectedly successful
in their first few runs, making it to the bottom of the hill with
no glitches by their second run.

“You two were awesome,” I tell them. “Would
you be interested in trying out for the UCLA ice-blocking
team?”Â 

Call me cruel, but you should have seen the looks on their faces
when I enticed them with uniforms, Adidas sponsorships and those
cool athletes-only backpacks you see all over campus. I swear they
were glowing. 

“Are you serious?!?! I’ve always wanted to be on a
sports team!” Sargordan shrieked. 

“I would be like the Jason Kapono of ice blocking,”
Rastegari chimed in. “I would be like the DeShaun Foster of
ice blocking.”Â 

According to Sargordan and Rastegari, they would wear numbers 2
and 7, respectively. They’d also wear their Adidas gear all
over campus, and were sure to let me know that they would only
compete if the team promised to be coed. 

“How long has this sport been around?” they
inquired.

“Oh, this is ancient,” responded one patron of the
hill. “It’s been around since the Romans.”

Of course, the Romans didn’t have Janss steps or golf
courses, but the girls believed it just the same. 

Other highlights of the evening included ice blocking American
Gladiator style, with towels used as whips, and the victims sent
sprawling while the winner slid to fame and fortune in the dead of
the night. Group-ice blocking was another popular activity.
Five people to three blocks of ice or three people to one block of
ice. 

Ice blocking in the form of the latest Winter Olympic sport:
skeleton style. Basically, this is just ice blocking head first,
but with one block of ice under your torso and another under your
legs. The beauty of ice blocking lies in its simplicity. A
couple of bucks, a towel and a steep hill or golf course; alcohol
is optional, but rumor has it that adult beverages greatly enhance
the experience. 

Ninety percent of this column is non-fiction. Believe it or not,
this sport hasn’t been around since the Romans. And I
haven’t contacted Adidas yet, but you never know. 

If you are interested in joining UCLA’s ice blocking team,
e-mail Karon at [email protected]. You can pick any number
except for 2 and 7.