I don’t get football. I actually don’t get baseball either.

That’s the best baseball analogy I’ve ever heard in my life.

It was deserved.

That said, I don’t enjoy baseball very much, especially Major League. I think if I better understood the nuances of “small ball” as they call it, and more MLB teams played that way, I could enjoy it, but otherwise it just feels like watching football where people only ever call Hail Marys.

Also, generalized player skillsets bore me too much.

Wheeee

Soccer (Or Football), for me. I love it, my team got second in state. :D

I don’t know any more names of really famous swimmers than the average Joe.

And I don’t know the names of any famous soccer players. :P

Being in C1 this year and getting our asses handed constantly makes me feel bad for all the teams we destroyed. D:

I also used to play backyard football but all the neighbor kids moved away. :P

It’s the exact same thing every game.

I’m not really sure this is the right thread for you.

Go Bears

More like NO BEARS

Still pissed the Steelers dropped a game to them already… goddamn Madden curse.

Football/soccer is pretty much the only “popular” sport I’ll watch. Gymnastics and figure skating (love figure skating) I also watch, but that’s more…un-mainstream.

I dunno, gymnastics seems more popular than soccer for spectating, in Amurrica at least. Everyone only cares about watching gymnastics during Olympic season, but they really never care about watching soccer. I remember when the media was making a to-do out of that Beckham guy signing with some MLS team and how soccer would suddenly become a contender as a spectator sport… don’t think it panned out quite that well.

I like to do things like fencing and archery. I’m not particularly good at them, but it’s probably good for writing research. And stabbing people is always fun.

>I like to do things like fencing and archery. I’m not particularly good at them, but it’s probably good for writing research.

From what I’ve read, they’re actually completely different from real combat.

goddamn Madden curse.

Completely off-topic, but there’s a guy in my English class named John Madden. Just throwing that out there since I have nothing to add to this conversation.

Clap him on the shoulder and tell him you’re proud he’s such a blatant nerd?

Apparently they’ve got pistol-grip swords now, and he wants one so he can pretend he’s from Final Fantasy 8.

I was the same. It wears off after a while.

Clap him on the shoulder and tell him you’re proud he’s such a blatant nerd?

I was more shocked to find out that somebody other than me liked Final Fantasy 8.

Who is Tom Brady?
I am too lazy to google him.

He isn’t affiliated with the BradyGames strategy guide making company, is he? Their Ruby/Sapphire guide sucked.

@ Moldorm: You don’t know who Tom Brady is? Wow, I don’t even know what a quarterback does and I know who Tom Brady is.

(Then again, I’m from NE, and sansafro pointed out that he is a media darling)

It varies by position, but generally yes, they are. That said, Tom Brady isn’t a pansy because of a lack of physical strength, but because he’s a little bitch about getting hit in a game built mostly around hitting people. Moreover, he actually referred to himself and the QB position as being “defenseless” and said that the defensive players shouldn’t be allowed near him, even though their job is to tackle him when he’s got the ball.

I’d recommend he try playing punter instead if he’s so scared of contact, but that’d be insulting to most punters.

I used to play football before I just got sick of “LET’S HAVE 45 MINUTES OF CARDIOVASCULAR EXERCISES EVERY PRACTICE AND TONS OF PUNISHMENT RUNNING EVEN THOUGH OUR TEAM HASN’T SCORED A TOUCHDOWN IN FOUR GAMES”. Probably a good decision; I used to be a lineman (with the proper attributes – strong and good at blocking but slow) but I don’t have the size to pull it off any more.

Baseball’s also pretty fun to play, don’t like watching it though.

My sister watches MMA because she does muay thai but I get bored of it easily.

Eh, I think MMA sounds really cool in theory, but in practice it seems like too much like bloodsport for me to tolerate.

@Northmark: Punishment running is ridiculous for anything besides actual punishment, i.e. skipping practice, getting in trouble, things of that nature. Punishment running for poor game performance sounds like a tremendous waste of time, since the time and energy would be better spent doing drills or running plays or something. That just sounds like poor coaching.

Football season is starting, and even though this board is full of dorks, I’m bringing this thread out of retirement like Brett Favre(although there won’t be an extended period of “will it or won’t it” as ESPN stews about it).

At the very least, Willow needs a place to post excuses for Peyton Manning every week.

Football season is starting

I was slightly amused about this for no reason.

Soccer’s my sport, I take any sport at school and I’m a regular for 100m sprint, back-up runner for 200m sprint, and I often pick defense over attack in any sports I play. When they do have attack and defense positions.

Tom Brady: I don’t like him much.

I kinda feel a little sad that there’s no one from Australia that’s not here on this thread; I like talking about the Aussie football teams. Sorta.

@ No One: Sorry, you’re outta luck. I hate Aussie football.

lol, I feel better already.

Strike the desire to simulate actual combat. In a real fight, you’d probably want to harm your opponent. And not wanting to be “restricted by stupid rules” also probably came off a bit too strong. Let me better explain my position.

I have a few wooden swords at home, and I’ve used them fairly often to spar with others (that have combat experience, I mean. I don’t challenge random neighbours and friends). My weapons and the average shinai, as shown by Google, seem similar. In fairness, the shinai does appear to be more edged and could realistically cause more damage.

When we fight, there’s little to no rules. We might occasionally hurt the other player, but very, very rarely (and even when we do, it’s never serious) because we never aim to cause damage. We swing with some force and speed, but we have enough self-control to lighten a blow as we hit someone. We also avoid targeting the head, the wrist, etc., but even if we accidentally hit someone the damage isn’t heavy. I suppose you could say that it only takes one poorly aimed strike to cause permanent damage, but I honestly don’t see it happening. I don’t feel as though I’m being blind here, either. It’s just the feel I get based off past experience.

We have some basic training from Temple instructors (keep in mind I’m Sikh), but the majority of our ability comes from experience. The conditions for victory also seem reasonable: the opponent is too exhausted and surrenders, you scored a certain number of hits, you knocked away the opponent’s weapon and so forth.

Essentially, we’re able to have proper, full-out fights. I’m fearing that with Kendo, this won’t be the case. Perhaps the shinai are more lethal than the wooden swords I have, and if so I suppose it’s fair. However, sword-based combat has always seemed like a type of game to me. Simulating combat is fun, because when you have sufficient skill and strength it really comes down to mind-games. That’s what I mean by wanting to fight in actual combat. I don’t want to simulate a real sword fight; that would probably only last a few blows. I want to able to fight with all of my resourcefulness and endurance and see if I can, on average, out-skill my opponent. Up until now, I’ve rarely faced opponents with disciplined training. I want to see how I measure up to them. But if sparring only lasts a few blows, as I’ve been lead to believe, there’s too much luck involved for me to really see if who’s better.

So I guess I described my situation poorly before. I don’t want actual, actual combat, I just want combat that pushes you to a good limit. Hell, I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well enough even now.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

Ah. In that case, even if Kendo were more realistic, it’s unlikely they’d let you ‘into the ring’ in your first month. There’ll probably be at least a year or two of technique, form and stance training before they let you go into random sparring. And judging by your reasons for wanting to study it, you’re bound to be disappointed.

I don’t really follow any sports, but I have to compliment you on calling them the Favres. It amused me.

At least they’re not Brendan Fevola.

Hey, HEY! It’s much more noble than wailing-on-each-other-with-sticks! It’s a beautiful type of… eh, who am I kidding? That’s the essence of it. But the forms really do remind me of art.

Not even the Eskrima guys will let you get into a random sparring situation without a good few months of dedicated technique and form training.

That’s not unreasonable. I’m generally very patient with training and theory before application, and if I had to wait years I actually wouldn’t care. The difference is Kendo classes are being held at school and would fit into my schedule, while Eskrima classes would not. Convenience is an issue, since my priority is education.

or go down to the local pub and start picking fights.

I’d probably want to work out more before I started pulling anything like that. Picking fights is against my style, though. I like fighting when the other person wants to fight as much as I do and when they want to fight for the fun and competition. So I guess that wouldn’t work out as well.

Again, though, if you want the real deal, try to find that guy who knows a guy

Damn that guy. He continues to elude me…

I wasn’t being serious about the pub-fighting thing.

lol, I wasn’t either. Unwarranted violence is strictly prohibited by Sikhism, and even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t have the stomach for it.

Then obviously you need to find a guy who knows that guy who knows a guy. If you can’t find him, then you need to find a guy who knows a guy who knows the guy who knows a guy. If you can’t find him, then you’re out of luck.

Oh dear…

Better start searching, I guess. I think he only appears at midnight.

It strikes me, Random, that the Sikhs have a long history of their own unique brand of martial arts (gatka?)

Indeed they do. I’ve been practising Gatka for close to 5 years now, but I’ve stuck with the basic sword. In fact, the wooden sword I use now is the most basic weapon in Gatka. A lot of the other weapons are legitimately dangerous and are meant for actual combat and self-defense. I do not and have never used those weapons, and I probably won’t going forward. They’re simply too dangerous, and even when people use them the combat is extremely controlled. “Battles” are fairly planned, such that your opponent must always know where you will strike so that they can block.

So yeah, I’m already familiar with Gatka.

Not to mention that Sikh weapons are far cooler than the Japanese swords. Talwar, kukri, bagh nakh, kataar, kirpan (which you would have), and the urumi flexible sword, among others.

I’m not familiar with Japanese swords, so yeah. If you take it easy with the Talwar, it can be used. I’ve never seen the Bagh Nakh be used by anyone in the Temple, but the Katar is very common. Battles are more staged with the Katar, such that you follow a sequence of attacks. The Kirpan is not to be used as an offensive weapon, and we don’t practice with it. The flexible sword has the coolness factor, but I leave that to the more experienced guys.

Gatka has been heavily modified by most teachers, though, so that it can be enjoyed as a sport instead of a martial art. I prefer it this way; since it’s non-lethal, you can have a match with someone and not worry about being heavily injured or injuring the other player. But I still want to test myself against those from other disciplines.

Did you guys see the touchdown where the player dropped the ball to start celebrating…before he crossed the goal line? I’m surprised nobody challenged or protested it.

Did you guys see the touchdown where the player dropped the ball to start celebrating…before he crossed the goal line? I’m surprised nobody challenged or protested it.

It’s happened twice in two days. The other teams(WVU and UM IIRC) just weren’t paying attention, because they could’ve challenged and got either overturned. That said, it would’ve just resulted in a first and goal on the 1 or so for the scoring teams.

Your feet have nothing to do with it, except when catching a pass where the ball is caught outside the field of play(like the back of the end zone). The ball must break the plane of the end zone while the player has control of it. That’s why you’ll occasionally see players score by diving and scraping the ball against the little orange pylons in the end zone’s front corner.

I’ve actually seen an NFL catch which wasn’t a TD where the receiver(Santonio Holmes, for the record) had both feet in the end zone but the ball never crossed, so he was considered down at the 1.

Yeah, they got screwed, and Matt Stafford got hurt. The Lions have no luck.

It’s been a pretty good NFL day for me so far. Steelers won after Mendenhall pulled a 50 yard TD run in overtime of the Field Goal Bowl, and the Titans offense looked really sharp against Oakland.

The Texans rolled the holy hell out of the Colts, though. Some RB named Foster rushed for over 200 yards on them… that just shouldn’t happen in the NFL, especially not against the defending AFC champ. If the Colts play that kind of rush defense against the Titans, Chris Johnson is going to absolutely obliterate the single-game record.

Also the US basketball team won FIBA. I’ve got a mancrush on Kevin Durant.

As a Texans fan, today was pretty awesome. Especially since they’d lost ~10 games straight against the Colts

As a Colts fan who unfortunately missed the game:

>:(

I’m not too worried, though.. the year we won the Super Bowl, we had a 3-4 start IIRC before we had a win streak and ended the season 12-4 and a Super Bowl trophy.

Ah, shuddup, Texas.

My brother is also pissed that the cowboys lost.

I don’t really care, but sorry they did whatever they did that is so infuriating.

Take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Ram your fists; that won’t cause possible brain damage.

We’ll see, Willow.

College football games are all pretty terrible so far today.

The Oregon Ducks?