Sports

Just a quick thread on sports.

• Why do you like sports in general? Or why not?
• Which do you play? Why?
• Which do you watch?
• Which do you do not like to watch at all? Why not?
• Favourite sportsmen / women?

I like sports because they give me an opportunity to get excess energy out of my body in a healthy way. I love coming home drained from a long run or a hard workout and then get my energy back up with a healthy meal. It's also just a means of relaxation for me. That's perhaps a bit paradoxically, as you have to make a certain physical and mental effort to play / practice a sport. What I mean is, when I'm practicing a sport, I just clear my head and focus solely on the exercise I'm doing. As a result, I forget about certain issues in my life and schoolwork and what not.

I only practice one sport actively and that's boxing. I consciously don't say 'play' because as Mike Tyson said: "you don't play boxing". Of course, there's a lot more to it than getting on the gloves and stepping into the ring. I go running about 4 or 5 times a week, mostly runs of 3-6 miles depending on the time I have. If I really can't find the time I'll just do some rope-jumping at home. I also have 2 workout sessions a week in the gym where I lift some weights, work the heavy bag or speed bag. Next to that, I have about 1 sparring session a week with a few steady sparring partners of mine. We don't go the full 100 % because we have school and work to worry about. It's more about getting our 3 rounds of sparring in and learning from each other than it is about hurting the other man. Occassionaly I spar with some young buck who thinks he's going to whoop me whenever one of the experienced trainers asks me to.

I like boxing so much because it's a sport where you use your entire body AND mind. I love the mechanics behind the science of boxing and the fact that I can just unload excess energy.

I like watching boxing (obviously), football (not the fake rugby), tennis, cycling, MMA and snooker.

I don't like watching any racing, whether it's F1, rally or nascar (the worst) because it's very repetitive. I also don't like swimming or athletics simply because I find it really boring to watch. Even though I know there's a lot more to it, I just see someone run or swim really fast and think: I can do that too.

Favourite active sportsmen are Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Roy Jones, Juan Manuel Marquez (boxing), Tom Boonen, Phillipe Gilbert, Vincenzo Nibali (cycling), Roger Federer (tennis), Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo (MMA) and Iniesta (football).

Favourite active sportswomen are Kim Clijsters, Maria Sharapova (tennis) and Marta (football).

- I love practising sports because it gets the fatness outta my body. I'm joking, what I mean is, after a while, if I don't do some sort of sport, or at least, exercise for a while, I begin to feel my mind and body getting tired and lazy. It indeed provides energy, as you said. And not only physical energy (I mean, after one rests), but, more importantly, mental energy. I often see how exercising clears my mind out and takes off all the anxiety/stress I could've had on.

- I like to do some runs once in a while, two or three times a week, and I also like to play Futsal and FOOTBALL (Soccer, not American Football). I like to gather some friends around and head ourselves to some futsal/football field and play until we can no longer stand. Its like the best thing one can do at the end of a day. Futsal is a more fast paced kind of football (soccer), so you get to train many things, but specially, your reflexes as well as your speed, and your sense of team and teamwork.

- I mostly watch Football games. But I also enjoy seeing any kind of athletics, and tennis.

- I also hate watching F1. I don't get the point of it since it always seems that the winners are the ones who have the best cars. But again, I never really watch it, so I can' know.

- I can't really remember any favorite sportsmen/sportswomen. I'll probably say there are some good football players I enjoy watching play, but I wouldn't name them as favorites.

I like sports because I appreciate excellence and like the nature of competition. I think professional sports and other things like it are how civilized people let off steam, and the more primitive desires most of us have to win or dominate. And as cliche as it is by now, I think there's a lot of truth in the idea that winning and losing and striving prepares you for life in all sorts of ways. I think a good game well played is a very satisfying thing.

As for which sports I like to play: I really like fielding in baseball. Hitting is more fun, but fielding is what I'm better at, and I find it more satisfying when done well. I can't skate much, so hockey's out (though I feel like I'd like it a lot if I could skate well), and I just don't have the stamina for basketball or soccer. Football's fun to play in smaller doses. But yeah, when it comes to playing it's baseball first.

When it comes to watching, it's football. But I have trouble watching any sporting event that isn't of at least moderate significance.

No love for sports on the MoFo?

"MOFO HATE SPORT!"

'Soccer' is my one true love when it comes to sportification. I struggle to play as often as I'd like (every other tuesday at the mo, booo), but it has all the elements you talk about Brod - you've gotta use your wits (and instincts) as well as keep yourself in some type of shape. It also has this whole semi-instinctual world of teamwork there, which definitely speaks to that 'throwback' aspect your talking about Yods (and in a way is a lesson in modern living too - it's tricky to play a contact sport with people regularly and keep it all competitive yet friendly ).



I have turned to Kinect's Your Shape recently to keep myself trim between the proper helter skelter of sports, and I'm guessing for the gym-adverse like myself it's a good halfway house. Not as good as real tuition I'm guessing, but I've got an overview of yoga, general cardio and 'toning' exercises, (and some very basic 'kickboxing' stuff) which I can now replicate without the magic-box (altho it's more fun with the music and guidance)

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

There's no shame in doing stuff like the Your Shape program (or game, whatever). Anything that gets you moving is a good thing (unless it's a tsunami heading for the beach where you're sunbathing).

Funny story about that too. About a month or two ago, some kid - I'd guess 17 or 18 - wanders into my gym with 2 friends of his. Kid had stretch earrings (or whatever that ***** is called), cap almost placed vertically on his head, typical skater clothes and a big mouth. Said he wanted to box. Coach asks if he has any kind of experience: "Kid laughs and says: HELL YEAH I BOX ON MY WII. So, after the kids paid, one of the coaches said "sure". They strapped him on a pair of gloves and a mouthpiece and told him to shadowbox a bit, see how his foot placement was. Kid does it and obviously, he is worthless. Coach then tells him to work the heavy bag. Kid is already getting slightly annoyed because he can't beat on someone, but does it reluctantly.

After getting told he isn't worth two sh!ts, kid gets kind of angry and tells me coach he'll prove his mettle in the ring. Coach goes: "no, we don't spar with first-timers. first, you've gotta get your foot placement down." Kid goes: "are you scared, old man?" Now, coaches around my gym meet a kid like this once of twice every week and generally tell him to look elsewhere if he won't obey their rules. Kid then continues insisting coach is a scared, old man.

Coach then says: "alright, I'll let you spar one of the boys here." Coach then calls me, I quit my rope-jumping and strap on my gloves, cup, mouthpiece and headgear. Kid is very eager to engage and rushes forward like he's Joe Frazier, leaning forward and literally winding back with his right hand to throw and keeping his left hand by his waist. So, we're one round in and so far all I've done is jab-n-grab and coach tells him to angle his shoulders towards me a little and relax his punches a bit. Kid ignores everything that is said and tries to come at me even harder. I started uppercutting him on the way in and then he doesn't come at me anymore and I start jabbing his face so he'll cover up on top and leave his waist open so I can crack left and right hooks to his ribs and gut.

Haven't seen the kid ever since he left right after having sparred me. Wii boxing is kinda cool though.

Not sure exactly "why" I like sports. For most of us fans, it is bred into us quite early as kids, by playing ourselves and also imprinting with the stars of the day on TV or, if you're lucky enough, live in person. These days the only professional sport I really follow at all is Major League Baseball, but when I was a kid and teenager I was hugely into the NFL and professional tennis, plus an occasional fan of the NBA and NHL.

As a boy I played organized baseball up until I was sixteen or so. Wasn't especially good at it, but loved the game just the same, and that love overrode whatever individual frustrations I mostly had with it. Though the first couple times I connected with balls and hit home runs over the fence was enough of a high to fuel me through the ineptness of the rest of the season. I've played in organized softball leagues a few different times in my twenties and thirties, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Haven't done it in a long time, and Oregon's weather makes for a short window for doing so, but I may take it up again at some point.

As I say, Baseball is the only professional sport I follow at all these days. I watch enough ESPN and such to pick up a lot of what is going on in the major sports, at least by osmosis, and my father and brother have season tickets to the Baltimore Ravens, so I hear plenty about that from them (whether I really care or not). We had season tickets to the Baltimore Orioles for a few years in the mid 1990s, and have attended many games before that and after. I've been to Bullets NBA and Capitols NHL games in Washington, D.C. back when I was a kid, and a handful of Redskins games after they moved out of RFK (though by then I was already pretty much done with the NFL). I even managed to attend the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay, when the Ravens beat the Giants, but only because my Dad couldn't use his ticket so I went with my brother. In addition to the hundreds of games I've seen at Camden Yards and Memorial Stadium before it, I've also seen MLB games at Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, SAFECO Field in Seattle, Dodger Stadium and The Big A in Anaheim.

During the Baseball season I watch a game or parts of games just about every single day on television. I'm a Yankee fan, so obviously they're my priority, but if they are off that day or their game is over I will flip around and watch just about any teams I can find (I tend to prefer the American League in general, but love it all). I also watch the MLB highlight shows daily. Can't get enough.



I don't know exactly why Baseball imprinted so strongly with me, or why it persists to this day. Baseball is a game of history unlike the other three major American team sports. Not that hockey fans can't tell you about Bobby Orr and Gordie Howe or that football fans don't know the name of Slingin' Sammy Baugh or that Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell aren't revered by basketball fans, because they are. But professional Baseball has the longest history, by far, and (for me) the richest, and in general I think you'll find more Baseball fans who can quote stats and records from the 1930s and '50s and '70s and whenever than the fans of the other sports can, even though their record books are much thinner and don't go back as far. The steroid era has tainted that history a bit, but I think like most fans I can supply my own asterisks where I suspect they belong and still appreciate when say Derek Jeter marches toward 3,000 hits and passes names like Al Simmons, Rogers Hornsby and Frank Robinson with Clemente and Boggs and Kaline and Carew on deck once he gets to that milestone. To me that is fun and cool and keeps the history of the game alive and current in a way I don't get when a rushing or scoring record is set in the other sports.

As for favorite sports people, Reggie Jackson was my first, and of the players I've seen during my lifetime Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson, Cal Ripken, and Mariano Rivera in baseball (to name but a few), Art Monk and Darrell Green in football, Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova in tennis, and I can't say I followed the other sports well enough or long enough to even say I had "favorites", though what's not to like about icons such as Wayne Gretsky and Michael Jordan? Even a casual fan can appreciate their singular and transcendent excellence and position in their sport.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Heh, boy sounds like a prize numpty truth be told . But yeah, there's no point confusing these things with the genuine sweatbox of particpating / learning in a gym. The kinect does seem to have taken a step beyond the Wii in terms of being 'all body' tho, so it gives you foot / leg position / all body rhythm / pose etc (with feedback to correct if you're off in key areas etc). And like you say they're now aiming to be a training tool rather than a game in those formats, so have least got some pros in on the design end. There's no way I'd confuse the rudimentary kick boxing classes it dishes up for me being ring-ready tho . (Slightly happier to step into the gym and start learning for real tho perhaps).

I know what you mean. There are those rare few that are so good that they transcend their sport and get real mainstream recognition from casual sport fans around the world. Nowadays, I'm talking about your Michael Phelps, your Roger Federer, your Lebron James, your Lionel Messi, your Tiger Woods (even before all 'that' happened, he was an icon), your Usain Bolt and - perhaps soon - your Manny Pacquiao. It doesn't matter if you're a fan of them or not, if you're really familiar with them or not, if you like the sport or not, you look at these guys during your sports highlights on the news and are simply in awe by their accomplishments.

These men are no longer viewed as excellent in their particular field, but as timeless icons that have forever stamped their mark on the sport they practiced. To any man who can do that, I tip my head.

I love sports because they generally keep me in really good shape and give me something to do that I can have fun with others. I use to play field hockey and lacrosse when I was in school, but now I mainly stick with Jogging and running an occasional 5K race.

Mostly I just feel a lack of connection between myself and the personalities involved. It's also a rather obscene cash cow, which I am "aesthetically" averted to. Sport itself (when subtracted from all of the commercial baggage that inevitably comes with its presentation) is a remarkable institution in terms of constantly reevaluating, as Yoda said, what we mean by humanity par excellence.

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"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

I hated sports growing up. I was never really exposed to them other than P.E. classes and knowing my dad watched all of the sports on TV. He liked race car driving and the Dallas Cowboys. I never picked up liking sports from him. Sports was well talked about by the men in my family, but I always, ya know, outside of that. I did try to like some things. I enjoyed playing basketball and soccer in school, though I wasn't much of an active player. The only sports team I was on in school was a 5th grade kickball team and I drove that team to being the absolute last in ranking from best to worst team (I'm not kidding). I'm almost proud. I remember our final game we almost had a shot at winning but I screwed up, got cussed at, ran away crying. Games I hated playing most of all were football and especially VOLLEYBALL. Hated volleyball days more than anything. I actually did pretty well at gymnastics, though, go figure.

These days, sports doesn't play much of a role in my life. I did watch the Superbowl this year. I have no idea who the athletes are, although I remember the cute guy from the Green Bay Packers, though I forget the name now. Sometimes I find myself stopping the TV to watch those guys fight in those cages - you know what I'm talking about? Occasionally, I'm seen in a gym playing racquetball and running for my life from the rubber ball. And then of course there's Wii Sports, sometimes.

Oh yeah, and I quit Boy Scouts as a kid because all they ever did was play football.

I never enjoyed sports as a kid. Whenever we played Football (soccer) I would always give away penalties, because I would always try and protect my face by sticking my hands up whenever the ball would come flying towards me.

I hated cricket because I was frightened of the hard wooden ball flying toward my crotch

I hated Rugby because I was frightened of being flattened by people twice my size.

I hated basketball because I was a short kid with manboobs, and there was nothing worse than having to play as skins vs shirts.

The first sport I ever loved was tennis, which unfortunately I can't play any more because of (unrelated) pain in my right wrist, which apparently doesn't exist according to the doctors I've seen. But I do follow it all year round, with my favourite players being Roger Federer (my first memory of him was losing to Tim Henman in Wimbledon 2001) and home grown Andy Murray (who WILL win a Major one day, who WILL win a Major one day...)

I also love to watch the younger players and keep an eye on their progress. There's nothing more exciting than keeping a casual eye on the results of a 16 year old junior, wondering whether or not they could be making an assault on the #1 spot in 5-6 years time.

I'm not a fan of team sports to be honest. I hate playing them because I hate being relied upon for something that is relatively unimportant (in my eyes), but causes untold rage in some people, whereas individual sports are more personal.

I also can't stand the scores. If I watch a 90 minute football match which ends 1-0, I could be surrounded by thousands of people who go home thinking about how amazing that goal was, whereas I'll be sitting there thinking "I could be watching a 4 hour Wimbledon final where 1 amazing score would only get you to 15-0 in the first game, I could get dozens more moments like these!"

One of my favourite pass times these days is jogging, which is a big surprise for me as it was probably my least favourite PE lesson in school. I suppose what changed my mind was when I realised I could to run 3 miles at my own pace, AND being allowed to walk for a few minutes to warm up before I start.

Again I prefer to do it by myself. In the middle of winter when it feels like -10 degrees but still somehow bucketing down with rain, I'll be there, on a country road wearing a woolly hat, gloves, water proof jacket, jogging trousers and a scarf, pretending I'm one man against the world in a Rocky training montage.

One of the things it taught me was mental endurance. When I've been running for 25-30 minutes and I'm about to pass out, it's amazing how I can be waddling along thinking "Keep going one more minute," and when I reach that minute, I say it again, and again, and again, and before I know it I'm home and stumbling through the door, with a huge wave of satisfaction flowing over me. Even better, knowing that the distance I can run with relative ease these days, is the same distance that I struggled so badly with when I was in school.

Amazing feeling.

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"When I was younger, I always wanted to be somebody. Now that I'm older, I realise I should've been more specific."

Why do you guys like watching other people have fun? The other Ash was telling me she likes watching people get drunk. Maybe it's an Ash thing. I would rather participate than watch things.

Running was something I used to be very good at (go figure, again). I think it's in my blood - my cousin is a runner who was extremely close to getting into the Olympics for track. I dunno if I could run that fast anymore since I'm older and I eat McDonalds, but I used to always win races and things. I hated running a mile in gym class, but I remember sometimes coming in 3rd finished or around those early numbers out of the whole class (big class) doing it. Yes, I had the Forrest Gump spirit in me.

Talking about it makes me wanna go running again.

This looks awesome.

AFL! Love it, stopped playing 2 years ago because i was working long hours and always missed training. Would love to get back into it soon just the atmosphere walking out on the field, butterflys in your stomach, people cheering in the crowd. But when that first bounce goes your just in pure focus of what you have to do, adrenaline pumping through your veins. I like the freedom of AFL, theres no set plays really, anything can happen.
1 and a half years ago a mate at work introduced me to Football(soccer), mainly the Barclays Premier League, i always use to watch the world cup but never got interested in anything other than that. Now i watch nearly every Arsenal match i can but it's on in the wee mornings here, and seeing a lot more La Liga matches aswell. Fabregas! wooo. lol.

And of course cricket, mainly in the summer when the aussie tours are on, go down the beach with a few mates barbecue,stumps/bat/ball,beer - aaaaaa love it.

I'll pretty much watch anything tennis, boxing(always see the danny green fights-home pride), volleyball (use to play indoor beach volleyball a while ago lots of fun go in with teams of 4 through a season), Martial Arts/MMA (A Mate started judo last year, i went to a few tournaments of his, great day out) etc. But as people have said in this thread aswell i agree with motorsports they do get very repetitive i can't stand them really.

Favourite sports men would be Chris Judd, Ben Cousins, Adam Gilchrist, Cesc Fabregas. Sportswomen would be Layne Beachley, Ana Ivanovic, Samantha Stosur.

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You're tearing me apart, Lisa!

We're thick as thieves

I've never given it much thought really, I just like watching experts at work I guess. I suppose watching my favourite player or team on a regular basis makes it feel like I'm somehow involved. The wins feel awesome, but the losses feel bad.

I like to go out quite regularly. 3 evenings a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This week I've not been out at all though Monday I had a headache so I stayed in and went to sleep early, Wednesday I did but I got a really bad cramp after about half a mile, so I ended up walking the rest of the way, and Friday I just didn't bother and decided to save myself for Monday. My first Fun Run, every finisher gets a medal
It's a slightly enthusiastically titled Mayors 5km Fun Run, which I've mapped on Google Earth at only 0.97 miles... we might have to do 3 laps of the course or something, but I've not seen any mention of that

Back to the tennis for a second, one thing I've noticed about being a fan is that, despite it being one of the most popular sports in the world with millions of fans (some of the matches at Wimbledon can get up to 10 million+ viewers in the UK alone), I often feel like I'm a member of some sort of Secret Handshake club. Outside of the internet I know 1 other person who's as enthusiastic about the sport as I am, to the extent that it's always a shock to hear the names Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal mentioned in public.

Good news is this years Wimbledon final is apparently being screened in cinemas throughout the UK, which I'm tempted to go along to just so I can be in a room surrounded by tennis fans for the first time. It's also in 3D, which could be interesting (or annoying, especially if we get another 3 and a half / 4 hour epic).

I was a big kid, tall and not especially skinny. Therefore, I got picked for most sports whether I was any good at them or not.

I was stuck in the rugby team in my mid teens (because I'd added a certain amount of strength to my tall-and-not-especially-skinniness) and actually found myself quite good at it. A number of broken bones (including, if that's possible, two noses) later I found myself leaving school and in the happy position of never having to handle an oddly shaped ball again... *ahem*

Hated the game.

I did love, however, cricket. This might seem quite weird for an Irishman but there's a healthy following for that most English of games over here and I played club cricket for as long as I was fit, including a match against Pakistan U19s when I was at Uni.

I'd have loved to have been good at football (that's Super Soccer Beckham Ball in the Colonies) but, alas, was nothing more than a midfield clogger. It's still one of my two sporting loves, from the spectating side, though.

The other is motor racing.

I spent far too much money unsuccessfully trundling first Metros and then Clios round tracks in my 20s, much to the chagrin of my wife. I think that motorsport is the ultimate refuge of the bad loser - If you come last you can blame the car and not your own lack of ability.

My sporting heroes are many and varied, here are a few:

George Best (footie) and Alex Higgins (snooker) - Flawed characters in their chosen sports but the best in the world on their day. Maybe it's an Ulster trait, I dunno.

James Hunt and Nigel Mansell in motor racing - The first was a man who most guys wished they were while the second had a large mustache but a pair of bollocks as big as medicine balls. Mansell was also almost terminally unlucky when it came to chasing the ultimate prize in his sport, the F1 World Championship. When he finally won the title he fell out with his team during contract negotiations and couldn't defend it, moving to The States instead and winning there.



Hunt's badge reads - Sex, the breakfast of champions

What's not to love?

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

On the school sports thing, I was never into nigh any of the sports really, but I'm glad they put us through it in many ways. It kept us pretty rosy-cheeked, and set the ground work for actually enjoying it on my own terms later (as you say with your jogging Ash).

It's only in later years I started watching footy and getting an appreciation as to why it might be fun / tactical. (We used to play with a tennis ball in breaks, but I had no idea what I was doing. In all other sports I just ran down the left wing and then got tackled. Except rugby, were I ran off the field when possible, being totally blind, and shall we say 'svelte' . In cricket I just used to sit down when fielding until I got sent off )

It's actually pretty cool It's the only bit of kinect-futurism that feels like it's truly novel (yet ironically kinda practical). It's not quite as flash / streamlined as the still suggests, but it's made me do workout stuff I'd never have considered before, as it's pretty accessible for the most part. (You've still got to forgive it a fair few foibles tho, which have occasionally nearly seen my cat decapitated by petulantly cast dumbbells )

Menu Interface & some basic 'kick boxing'



Proper 'personal training' shtick

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Some yoga training (with basic limb correction graphics)

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