Tchoukball Rules: Offense

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Bethesda, Maryland

Playing Tchoukball, Part II: Finer Points of Offense

Breakdown fouls
Certain fouls you can commit on offense will result in a breakdown: a turnover to the other team.

One person takes more than three steps with the ball
One person holds the ball for more than three seconds
The team collectively passes the ball more than three times before shooting
The two teams collectively shoot the ball at the same frame more than three times in a row. In this case, the team taking the fourth shot is assessed the foul. All fouls and points reset the “counter” to zero for the purposes of this rule.

These rules are known together as the “rule of threes.”
Other breakdown fouls include:

Dropping, dribbling, or juggling the ball
Touching the ball with any part of the body below the knee
Stepping out of bounds or into a forbidden zone while holding the ball
Touching a teammate’s shot after the rebound but before it falls, or otherwise interfering with the defense’s efforts to grab a rebound.

Point fouls
Certain fouls in the act of shooting result in a point for the defending team. These are shots that:

miss the frame entirely and land out of bounds
hit the ground inside the forbidden zone
rebound onto the player who took the shot

Frame ball
Shots that bounce off the metal frame instead of the net are unpredictable and hard to catch. The situation is analogous to a “let” in tennis. If the defense manages to catch one of these frame balls, they may choose to continue play. Otherwise, if the ball lands fair, it’s a breakdown foul; if it lands out of bounds or in the zone, it’s a point foul.

Strategy: Placing the shot
The frame’s upward angle presents a challenge for shooters. Overhand shots from beyond the arc tend to come out at chest-to-waist level and are relatively easy to catch:

A hard underhand shot with lots of topspin will come out at a high angle, possibly over the heads of defenders who have crowded the line. The defense had better have another group of players (known as the second zone) standing back from the line to catch shots like these:

Shots from an extreme side angle are tricky to make but are also hard to catch:

Technique: The flying shot
On offense, you’re allowed to leap over the forbidden zone as long as you release the ball before you touch down. This makes the flying shot possible—one of the most satisfying moves in the game: As you can see, jumping gets you closer to the frame, and also higher above it, especially on an approach from the side. From this angle you can make shots that come out low with a lot of speed and are hard for a defender to catch. The experienced shooter eventually learns to place the ball at will over a large area of the court without even looking at the net. Instead, he or she will be scanning the positioned defenders, looking for an unguarded spot on the floor.

Of course, if you have a teammate in position, you can always convert that flying shot into a flying pass, forcing the defense to scramble to counter the new scoring threat: