Can you imagine that there are people whose main hobby is ironing? Ironing at any time and at any place? – Well, quite a number of people all over the world think that. For them extreme ironing is a sport and outdoor activity that combines the danger and excitement of an ‘ex-treme’ sport with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.
It all started in 1997 in Leicester, Great Britain when Phillip Shaw returned home after a long day in the knitwear factory and was absolutely not keen on starting the big pile of ironing that was waiting for him. Since he liked rock-climbing he took the ironing board, the iron and the laundry and toured to the mountains to iron the laundry there. This idea also pleased his mate Paul Nicks and so they soon toured again to the mountains to practice extreme ironing. Dur-ing the next few months more and more people joined these two pioneers of extreme ironing, who had meanwhile changed their names to Steam (Phillip Shaw) and Spray (Paul Nicks). In the course of time there developed quite a number of different disciplines like Waterstyle (ironing on the ground of the sea), Urbanstyle (on cars or streets), Rockystyle (at the top of mountains) and Foreststyle (at the top of trees).
In 1998 extreme ironing surfaced from an underground or almost mystical organisation and proclaimed itself as the ruling body of the now semi-official sport, known as the Extreme Ironing Bureau (EIB).
In mid June 1999 Steam embarked on a worldwide recruitment campaign. Armed with a train-ing iron, Steam toured America, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Southern Africa. This led to the next stage of EIB’s development: Extreme Ironing International. When he came to Ger-many in 2000, also here people joined the new extreme sport and organized themselves in the GEIS (German Extreme Ironing Section), which was founded in Munich. In 2002 they organ-ized the highly successful first World Championship of extreme ironing in the village of Val-ley near Munich.
So you see, extreme ironing is a sport that has spread quite quickly all over the world. – What do you need to start off? Well, for the beginning you need just a board, an iron and some laundry. Your first tries should take place in the safety of your back yard. For advanced iro-nists full safety equipment such as harnesses, ropes and helmets is a necessity.


by Barbara Schunicht

last change: 10.03.2004 08:12