What you see in the video below is far more than just isolated trick shots. Rather, it's a compilation of some absolutely stupefying feats done with a roundish item that is much smaller than any ball, and done over seemingly impossible obstacles. It's called "Totting" and, quite frankly, it looks absolutely fantastic.
If you couldn't tell from the video itself, "Totting" is the self-appointed name for throwing and catching marshmallows in one's mouth, as designated by a group of teenagers from Glen Rock (N.J.) High who started the fad nearly two months ago and have advanced into more and more difficult tricks as they move along.
The sport even comes with one of the more authentic and wholesome origin stories you'll ever find. The teens -- Anthony D'Onofrio, Ryan Pulford, Jake Pellegrino and Joey Cinquegrana -- are all 16-year-old students at Glen Rock and came up with the idea over lunch one day, when Pellegrino bought tater tots and the quartet began tossing them up and catching them in their mouths. It was fun (hey, catching food items in one's mouth almost always is, right? Just ask a seal), and within a couple of days, the teens were doing fairly advanced tricks with tater tots.
Those tater tots are where the name Totting comes from, though they also presented a series of problems. First, tater tots aren't as portable to trek around and attempt tricks on the run, Napolean Dynamite tactics notwithstanding. Secondly, tater tots also required oven work or a nearby cafeteria, and neither condition was always available to the teens.
Then one of the crew got an idea: If they switched to large marshmallows, the marshmallows would be portable, and the tricks would be even more impressive, as the larger marshmallows would be harder to accurately line up and catch.
Physics itself backs up that sentiment. These aren't footballs or even baseballs or the like, they're marshmallows, which are significantly smaller and have less mass, making their trajectory even tougher to judge. That means all these tricks are much harder with Jet Puffed and the like than they would be with larger, more commonly used balls.
The move to marshmallows allowed the Glen Rock crew to travel wherever they wanted, and set the groundwork for some pretty fantastic mouth-catching feats. Connections from over the top of a Philadelphia-area SEPTA commuter train? Check. Tossing a "mallow" over a 20-foot outcropping of rock? Sure. A shot from a moving car? No problem. A hockey stick shot into the stands? Sounds fun.
In fact, that's probably the coolest part about the Glen Rock quartet's entire concept: It's just cool. These kids aren't hurting anyone. They're not blowing a ton of money doing something stupid -- in the two months they've been Totting, the teens have allegedly blown through just 50 bags of marshmallows, at a cost of roughly $100 -- and they've developed a pretty remarkable talent in the process, no matter how ridiculously esoteric it may be.
Most importantly, the teens look like they're having a great time, and that they get a whole lot out of throwing and catching marshmallows in their mouths. And they're pretty fun to watch doing it, too.
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