A group of restless diving enthusiasts from the city of Hawthorne implemented a new underwater game taking concepts and rules from various disciplines.
It is a game of five against five, similar to water polo, but instead of a ball, it is practiced with a torpedo.
Some places have a history that is not appreciated with the naked eye, and that is the case of the pools used for the Underwater Torpedo League. What appears to be just another pool hides a fascinating activity.
"At that moment that you overcome that fear, you jump into the pool, and practice, and become better," said Pedro Galindo, who practices the sport.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
The game is a sport that requires a lot of oxygen capacity. It also invites you to drown your fear of the unknown.
Competitors dive into a pool to flood it with skills and thus enjoy the "sport of the future", as some of those who practice it call it.
Each game consists of three matches and each one is played with a scoring round with a maximum of five points. The team gets five points first, wins the match and whoever wins two of the three matches wins the game.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
“One is playing like a dolphin under the water. Actually, how a person moves you and you move with them… it's a really cool feeling. I love it," said Juliana Galofre, one of the practitioners of this sport.
"If someone needs to breathe, when someone has you in their grasp, you just tap them and they help you up. No one is trying to keep you down," added Cristian Luvián, another athlete of the sport.
For this group of athletes, the best trophy is not kept in a glass case, they say, it is not even cup-shaped, their most epic victory is the simple act of diving in and having fun never to feel neck-deep in water.
"It feels like I'm with my college buddies and everyone is there trying to get the torpedo into the goal," said Carlos Meza.
If you want to know more about this extreme sport, click here.