Throwing a brick for fun

The Dungog High School PE teacher is Stroud Brick Throwing competition's reigning Brick International title holder - a position he has won three years in a row.

Kurt plans on defending his title at this year's event, which will be held on Saturday, July 8.

The Stroud Brick and Rolling Pin Throwing competition is an annual event originally held between four townships of Stroud in the world - Stroud in Gloucestershire, England; in Oklahoma, US.; in Ontario, Canada, and Stroud NSW.

Kurt, also a part-time strongman, won the competition the first year he went along to the event.

"It just popped up on my Facebook feed that there's a brick throwing competition at Stroud and I'm like, I've got to do that. I went out there the first year and won it and it was a great day out there," Mr Livens said.

After first entering the competition in 2017, Mr Livens went on to win that year as well as in 2018 and 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the event cancelled in 2020 and 2021 and it was cancelled again last year due to wet weather, so this will be his first appearance since 2019.

Mr Livens' training for strongman competitions and Highland Games competitions has helped his winning streak, teaching him technical things like how best to grip an object before throwing it.

Highland Games consist of a number of strongman contests including the caber toss, hammer throws and shot put.

"I don't actually train with a brick but Highland Games has similar events, similar styles," he said.

"It's helped me understand the implement, how to hold it and then just being able to think more about how you're going to transfer the power from your larger muscles through to your hands where the brick is."

Despite this Mr Livens didn't disclose his secret brick throwing technique.

This year Mr Livens expects a bit more pressure from his workplace.

Being a PE teacher at Dungog High School, Mr Livens has heard a lot from his students about how they think he'll go at the Stroud Brick Throwing competition.

Some of the students have even challenged him and will compete against him on the day.

"I have a lot of pressures on me this year, being a teacher at Dungog High a lot of my students come from Stroud," he said.

"This year I'm going to have a whole lot of students saying 'come on sir, you said you're good at this'... It just means I'm going to bring it. I'm not going to stuff up."

The event will be held at Stroud Showground.

Registrations for all tossers will open at 10.30am and the official opening will be held at 11am.

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