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Born from farm and sea work, herri kirolak is legally recognised Basque sport. I-PLAY wants it in classrooms and youth centres, starting with lokotxak.
Chopping logs, lifting stones, pulling on a rope or racing to gather corncobs. Herri kirolak was born from work on the Basque farmstead and at sea, and today it is one of the most widely recognised sporting heritages in Europe. At I-PLAY, we want that recognition to reach the classroom, the club and the youth centre too.
From the farmstead to the town square
The herri kirolak disciplines have a very specific origin: the physical tasks of rural and seafaring life in the Basque Country. What for generations was work — chopping firewood, moving stones, carrying loads, rowing — became a challenge, then a wager between neighbours and, finally, a sport.
Today we are talking about disciplines such as aizkolaritza (log chopping with an axe), harrijasotzea (stone lifting), sokatira (tug of war) and estropadak (trainera rowing regattas). They all share one trait: they are learnt by watching, trying and sharing, almost always passed from one generation to the next.
And they are still very much alive. The festivals of practically every Basque town include some kind of exhibition or competition, and the Basque public broadcaster, EiTB, shows them live.
A sport recognised by law
Unlike many traditional European games, herri kirolak does not exist in an institutional vacuum. Basque Government Decree 137/2016 officially recognises 18 disciplines as sport, and there is a dedicated federation structure: the Euskadiko Herri Kirol Federakundea, with territorial federations in Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba. Navarra has its own Navarre Herri Kirolak Federation.
That recognition is a huge strength. But our State of the Art report (D2.1, March 2026) also pointed out its limits:
There is no compulsory herri kirolak module in schools. Spain's national curriculum regulations (LOMLOE, Royal Decree 157/2022) mention traditional movement culture in physical education, but do not specify content or hours.
Transmission is still oral and community-based. There is no structured online learning resource for teaching these disciplines.
It does not appear on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage lists. Neither herri kirolak nor Basque pelota is inscribed, according to the 2025 review.
Herri kirolak has a federation, competitions and social prestige. What it lacks is a stable way into the education system.
Lokotxak: the herri kirolak that fits in any playground
For the I-PLAY games library, we chose a discipline that anyone can try without specialist equipment: lokotxak, corncob gathering.
Twenty-five corncobs are laid out in a straight line, 1.25 metres apart, with a basket at one end. The player runs to the nearest corncob, drops it in the basket and goes back for the next one, until all have been collected. It has its roots in the maize harvest on Basque farmsteads, and its physical intensity is moderate: active and demanding, but accessible.
Lokotxak has a further teaching advantage: it is easy to adapt. Distances can be shortened, the race can be replaced by team relays, objects of different weights can be used, or the event can become a cooperative game in which the whole group races against the clock together. These are exactly the adaptations set out in our game sheet.
Alongside lokotxak, ABARKA has documented three other popular games from our region — the snail race, the frog game (la rana) and the fishing game — which complete Spain's contribution to the project's 12 game sheets.
Why it matters for inclusion
Herri kirolak is often associated with strength and men's competition. That is precisely why it interests us: if we can adapt its events so that girls and boys, people with disabilities and newcomers who have never seen an exhibition can all take part, we will be showing that heritage is not exclusive by definition.
It is also a form of welcome. For a migrant, learning lokotxak or trying sokatira at the village festival means learning something about the place where they live — and doing so through play, not by listening to an explanation.
What comes next
The D2.1 report points to a long-term opportunity: the materials and policy recommendations produced by I-PLAY could support future efforts to secure for herri kirolak the international recognition it still lacks. In the meantime, the work is more immediate: making sure educators know how to teach it and that playgrounds fill up with corncobs once again.
Take a look at the lokotxak game sheet and the other games in the library at i-play.abarka.org, and tell us how you have adapted it for your group.