If you’ve been following Move@bility for a while (or you’ve gone over the articles of this site with a fine tooth comb ), you’ve probably realized one of the greatest passions of mine, basketball! At a time when I thought I only had to be happy with watching it on tv or from the bleachers of an arena, I discovered the existence of baskin, a variant of basketball that, since its name, brings the rules and the spirit of this sport and inclusion together. In fact, the baskin teams are made up by able-bodied and disabled people (with different tyoes and levels of disability) playing together regardless their gender and age, each one according to his own capabilities, to pursue the typical goal of basketball: score a basket more than their opponent.

THE ORIGIN OF BASKIN

Baskin was invented in 2003 in Cremona by the engineer Antonio Bodini and the gymnastics teacher Fausto Capellini in a school context, aiming to give all the students the chance to express at their own best and contribute to the success of the team. Putting together in the same team people different for age, condition and sex allows to create a real inclusion, going beyond the pietism typical of a certain way to deal with disability. Since then, this sport has spread at a national level, attracting a growing number of people of all ages.

THE RULES OF THE GAME

The rules of baskin are the same as the traditional basketball, plus some variants that help ensuring everyone the a chance to play it.  For instance:

• There are 4 baskets, the two usual ones plus two smaller baskets on both sides of the field
• The players on the field for each team aren’t 5, but 6 and each of them has the chance to play in a role that’s compatible with his own physical capabilities and his familiarity with the game and, simultaneously, to man-mark and being man-marked by an opponent in the same role (and, hence, condition)
• The players who need it can have a  tutor assigned, that is another member of the team who can help them during the game

A baskin field – Di Giamaico – Opera propria, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72156422

But baskin isn’t good only for athletes with a disability. In fact, all the members of the team learn to integrate in a mixed group and to organize themselves consequently, promoting everyone’s abilities and looking at their respective diversities as enriching elements, not as weak points.