don’t be a jerk

Fencing
I fenced for about a week during a sports camp when I was in junior high. Real simple foil lessons. It was fun. A little highbrow, but fun. Ever since then I’ve always wanted to catch it on the Olympics but wasn’t able to until this year’s games. I thought it would be a legitimate sword fighting art.
 
I was so disappointed. Fencing is the dumbest sport ever. It’s a grown up game of tag with glorified wire hangers. Basically, two fencers lung at each other and whoever hits the other one first gets the point. In 90% of the exchanges I see, both fencers hit each other simultaneously, and it is up to the referee to make a judgment call and decide which fencer gets the point. In fact, most of the time, the fencer showing the most aggressiveness is given the point.
 
This leads to a lot of posturing. After every exchange, fencers will pump their fists and scream in victory, maybe because they really got the first strike, but also maybe cause they just want to psych out the judge. Some of these fencers have very weird victory screams, and after hearing them about eight or nine times, I start wanting to switch to another station and watch, oh say, race walking (see below).
 
There are very few parries, blocks, or anything the Dread Pirate Roberts would have flashed with panache. Extended exchanges are almost non-existent. There are just a bunch of simultaneous lunges, followed by fist-pumping and screaming. All that god damn screaming.
 
I have two suggestions on how to make this a legitimate sport:
 
1.) Allow every hit to count as a point. If both fencers hit each other simultaneously, then score them both. Maybe this will encourage fencers to defend a little.
 
or
 
2.) Take away the wire hangers and make them fight with real swords. This will be infinitely more entertaining than the crap they do now, and after a few tournaments, all the fencers will be dead anyway, and maybe they’ll consider making kendo an olympic sport instead.

 
Tae-Kwon-Do
Tae-Kwon-Do is Korean. I am Korean. I would like to be proud of TKD, but I’m not. I practiced it a little bit as a kid, but now that I watch it as an adult, I think it’s just a big game of slap-footsies. I watched a match this morning and the announcers kept emphasizing how lethal these guys were and how hard they were hitting each other, and how much it hurt - whatever. Not with the friggin full body armor they wear into the matches. Boxers don’t wear that shit. Kickboxers don’t wear that shit. Why does the most popular martial art to come out of my homeland require wrapping your torso in styrofoam? And why don’t they punch? For crying out loud, most of us have arms. Let us use them.
 
Now I wouldn’t talk so much shit if I didn’t see every fight between TKD and Muay Thai, or TKD and Karate, or TKD and Judo end with the TKD guy on the floor in a quivering mess.
 
If you’re ever attacked by a TKD practitioner, I’ll give you a series of suggestions based on an experience I once had when I was attacked by some chump who claimed to be a black belt.
 
1.) TKD guys like kicking. More than likely he will probably kick. Wait for his kick.
 
2.) block his kick
 
3.) grab him throw him onto the ground.
 
4.) At that point you can either laugh at him, or break his leg. If you break his leg, he can’t kick you anymore, and you know how much those guys like kicking.
 
TKD is an embarrassment to me as a Korean. If you want a real Korean Martial art, check out Hap Ki Do.
 
Sailing
Why is this in the Olympics? You might as well make racecar driving an event. I think pedal-boat racing would be more relevant.
 
Equestrian
I’m sorry, is this the animal Olympics? I didn’t think so. I think this sport would be infinitely more interesting if the horse wore the silly pants and rode on the human.
 
Race Walking
Remember that girl in high school that edited the yearbook and the school paper and you were pretty sure she was lesbian? If she were a sport, she’d be race walking.