My first stab at something approaching journalism is up over at Smile Politely. It is a story about this weekend's capoeira conference here in Champaign-Urbana. Read the story if you don't know what capoeria is.
Our kids have been training for a few years now and have earned their first cord, and were part of the batizado ceremony. You can see them at the end of the video I posted about it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Capoeiristas Invade CU
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6 comments:
I suspect this sentence refers to me: To the befuddlement of good red-blooded Americans, there are no points to be scored or competitions to be won.
This red-blooded American just doesn't get capoiera. It's like hackey-sack: Maybe a fun activity. Maybe requires athtletic prowess. But it's not a sport, and it shouldn't be advertised as such (as it was to me.)
If it were presented as a cooperative dance-like activity, I wouldn't be so hard on it. But as a "sport," it falls way short.
Does the definition of sport require that it be competitive? Is martial arts a sport? If gymanastics were not scored would it be a sport? Is dancing a sport when it is competitive, and not when it isn't? It is all fuzzy to me.
I'm not sure I'd describe it as a sport either, but I don't know why. I don't think all sport needs to be scored. I also don't remember emphasizing to you that it was a sport.
Capoeira is somewhere between sport and dance. You definitely need to train to do it, and it requires a lot more physicality and body control than a lot of other "sports" (like bowling or golf or shooting rifles).
Good questions. In the World of Tim, competition is an absolute requirement for sports. Sports have to have winners and losers. That's what motivates athletes toward a goal.
But not everything that's competitive is a sport. There are competitions for pie eating, for example. Not a sport.
Martial arts is a sport when there are competitions. Otherwise, it's just a clever way to beat the crap out of someone. (There are winners and losers in that, too, but it's not a sport.)
Gymnastics is only a sport when it's scored. Otherwise, it's a method of seduction practiced by tiny, fit women.
Dancing is never a sport.
These definitions are absolutely clear to me. :)
I don't think the fact that you have to train for something, or that it takes physicality, makes it a sport. Chefs train. Firemen train. Pole-dancers train. But not for a sport.
Thanks for that. I haven't laughed out lot so many times on a comment in awhile. Cry maybe, or whimper, but not laugh. You should post a spiffed up version on your blog.
Golf is most definitely NOT a sport. It's a game. The greatest game ever invented.
I'm taking issue with the; "Shooting Rifles" comment Dan. How much more "red blooded American" can you get? Not the red blooded as in Dick Cheney's SPORTSman partner's face he shot while competing against planted fowl, placed for the mere pleasure of shooting something.
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