Chinlone

thumb| Chinlone players in Loikaw ([[Myanmar).]] Chinlone (, ), also known as caneball, is the traditional, national sport of Myanmar (Burma). It is non-competitive, with typically six people playing together as one team. The ball used is normally made from hand-woven rattan, which sounds like a basket when hit. Similar to the game of hacky-sack, chinlone is played by individuals passing the ball among each other within a circle without using their hands. However, in chinlone, the players are walking while passing the ball, with one player in the center of the circle. The point of the game is to keep the ball from hitting the ground while passing it back and forth as creatively as possible. The sport of chinlone is played by men, women, and children, often together, interchangeably. Although very fast, chinlone is meant to be entertaining and fluid, as if it were more of a performance or dance.

==History== thumb|One of the first photographs of men playing chinlone, taken around 1899 Chinlone has played a prominent role in Myanmar for about 1,500 years. Its style is performance-based because it was first created as a demonstrative means of activity for entertaining Burmese royalty. Chinlone is heavily influenced by traditional Burmese martial arts and dance, another reason as to why so much importance is placed upon technique. As it is such an old game, many variations have been made to it, including hundreds of moves for maneuvering the ball. In addition to the original form of chinlone, there is a single performance style called tapandaing. While chinlone had been widely considered by Europeans to be more of a game than an actual sport, international interest in chinlone grew rapidly. By 1911, chinlone teams were performing in parts of Europe and Asia. As spectators of chinlone, Europeans derisively deemed it to be merely an entertaining game of indigenous people, too passive and not violent or masculine enough to be considered a sport.