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Ironing need not be that mindless and boring activity that you do every weekend. It can also be full of adventure. It can get your adrenaline flowing and get you all excited over the prospect. If you are interested to take this chore to the next level, you should be prepared for extreme ironing!
Please don’t think this is funny or a scam. Ironing can be turned into an extreme sport and people have done it all over the world. Frankly, I didn’t know this sport (if you can call it that) exists until I was searching for what to do while ironing. I was expecting the usual – watching TV and listening to music. The usual stuff that people normally do when they bring out their ironing board. But guess what? There are people who thought ironing can be combined with a sport to become extreme ironing! It does seem like it is telling you that you can be active and yet, you don’t have to push aside your household chore.
How Extreme Ironing Started
According to Wikipedia, extreme ironing started in 1980 in England by Tony Hiam. He was inspired by his brother-in-law who ironed his clothes even during camping trips. So, he started to iron in strange locations such as mountain look-outs and airport lounges to illustrate it was futile to iron unnecessarily.
Later on, in 1997, a man by the name of Phil Shaw did ironing and rock climbing together. He needed to do the chore after work one day but wished he could be out rock climbing instead. So, the solution was to combine the 2 activities and it became a new extreme sport.
Apart from climbing mountains, extreme ironing has also been done underwater, across a gorge, on a motorway and while running a half marathon. There have been competitions held and records broken for this unusual sport. It has also inspired other forms of strange extreme activity like extreme cello playing.
What Do You Think?
Are these people mad? Or is it just another way to cope with a dreaded household chore? I know I wouldn’t do it no matter how much I hate ironing. Carrying an ironing board and iron to go up a mountain just doesn’t seem like a fun thing to do for me even if I have the best ironing board and best Rowenta iron to show to the whole world. But then again, different strokes for different folks. We will do what makes us happy.
Even if extreme ironing doesn’t have a wide following, it does offer boring people like us something to smile or gasp over. After all, it is an interesting idea that will make people sit up and take notice. If you see someone ironing their clothes on top of the mountain, it will surely be newsworthy. It will also prove that this chore is one that many people hate doing that it needs to be transformed into an extreme activity to make it more bearable.
Anyway, what do you think of extreme ironing? Would you try it someday? 🙂
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