"What was the first animal mentioned in the Bible?" roars Israeli Yoseph Lev, who's leading a judo practice session called "Animal Olympics". The answer comes when the 44 judo athletes at Sportslink drop to the mats and wriggle their snake-like way across the floor.
A few minutes later, they're hopping like frogs, crawling like spiders, waddling like ducks and scampering like dogs. It's all part of the masterclass exercises and demonstrations of this first day of judo. "It looks easy and a bit daft, but if you were doing it for an hour, you'd know all about it. It's about practising different muscles," explains volunteer Paul Mitchell, himself an old judo hand.
There's a high mischief element among the athletes today. Paired off to practise a particular exercise, quite a few of them giggle as they struggle to both topple their opponent - and to slyly pull their judo belt undone.
There's a lot of tying and retying of the yellow, orange, green, blue and brown belts, and subsequent furtive hitching up of the white trousers of the judogi uniform. More than one pair of trousers part company from their owners. Everyone looks as if they are having a brilliant time.
This is the first year that judo has appeared at Special Olympics. It's a demonstration sport; i.e.it's not yet part of the official programme. There will be a competition and awards will be given at the end, but not the official Special Olympics medals.
It's being showcased in Ireland and international Special Olympics personnel will come along to see if the sport is at a stage where it will be incorporated into these games next time round. Everyone here hopes it'll make the cut.
Today all the athletes and coaches are doing lots of games and exercises together, to get them used to the venue and to practise. Most of the delegations are taking turns to lead sessions and demonstrations throughout the day.
Judo is one of the oldest sports in the world, which originated with medieval Japanese samurai warriors. Given its cultural roots, it was apt that judo first became an Olympic sport at the Tokyo games in 1964.
There are nine countries participating in judo in Ireland; Andorra, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Britain, Greece, Israel and the Netherlands. The Netherlands have 12 athletes and two teams, the biggest number of athletes of the current participating countries.
"We started training three years ago," says black-belt coach Nico Pasten. Standing next to him is Dutch athlete Klass Koers, who has a green belt. "Green for Ireland," Pasten points out and Koers cracks up. It's that sort of morning; any excuse for a laugh or a bit of belt-pulling.