1. Greetings. I couldn't find anything addressing this issue on your foosball.com Ask The Experts section, so I'm asking here: We have a player who has begun shaking his offensive three man rod whenever the opposing defense has the ball. It's not a side-to-side motion but a very fast forward-backward motion using something like a wrist twitch. Most of the time, this does not cause the table to shake, but some people consider it a distraction or at least excessive motion away from the ball. He considers it part of his defense, figuring he's got a better chance at a foos this way. Is this technique legal?
Thanks very much.
Scott P.
Cornerstone University

1. Ok, this is a good one. First, you can move any and/or all of the defense rods all you want which are between the ball and the goal, or ahead of the ball. Naturally there are rules on resetting the ball and jarring the table, feel free to read the official rules on these. Assuming the defense is not causing the ball to move or the table to shake, then the player is allowed to do quite a bit of motion. Now it is possible to be distracting, but it would have to be nearly spinning and a whirlwind of motion. You, for the most part simply won't see a distraction called on the defense for what they do with their rods as long as it is ahead of the ball. NOTE: You can not move your defense behind the ball. So if the ball is on the 3-bar, the defense could not shake their 5-bar because that is behind the ball.

Reset: If the defense moves around so much it causes the ball to move, that would be a reset.

Jar: Anyone who moves around so much the table shakes or they shake the ball away from the other team.

Distraction: Motion or sounds away from the ball which would distract the other team.