The sport I liked wasn't cool enough

[irishhighlander]

Finally, I have found people of a like mind of myself, I HATE SPORTS. And as a Canadian, not liking hockey is tantamount to treason.
The only sport which I did was competitive target shooting, but bringing that up after all those school shootings was not a good converstation starter.
The only other "sport" I did was Karate, which I did for learning the self defense, but I can't see how I can get better at something with having a Japanese Sensei who seems to believe the world must revolve around Karate or we will implode.
My Japanese step kids were all involved in sports.
The oldest was in baseball (kiss every weekend goodbye for the whole damm time he was in, even his brother and sister got pissed as we could never do anything like say go camping as there was a practice or game)
The second oldest was in basketball (at least we didn't have to drive him anywhere)
The youngest is in Kendo, likewise, she can take herself to practice.

My youngest son and daughter are in dancing lessons. I'd rather spend money on them learning something with culture, rather than something which turns them into jocks.

[i_like_1981]

Welcome to the forum, irishhighlander. I understand that hockey is pretty big over in Canada. As a Brit, I have constantly got to live with the overbearing media presence of football, or "soccer" as it is called over in North America. I'm sure you heard about the World Cup this year - yeah, they had to go and make a worldwide matter out of this child's game, didn't they? The motivation with all sports and their popularity is money. People love to watch football, or hockey over in Canada, because the economy pumps so much money into them that they're really hard to miss. If you're not in with the crowd who loves your "national game", being considered uncool is very much a sad truth that's unavoidable. People have railed at me in the past for not submitting to the might of King Football and becoming another follower like them, and I don't regret it at all. Why should I? Some sports fans seem to think that one or a few people not liking their game actually poses a threat to it in some way, and constantly insist on tearing down these people's feelings to try and coerce them into liking it. Well, if I wanted to try and get somebody to like something, I'd tell them about it and maybe let them experience it first-hand, and let them make their own decisions. Ramming something in somebody's face and threatening them to like it is only going to make them hate it! I wonder how many people all across the world actually detest the popular sports but just pretend to like them in a hope of appeasing the masses? If that's the case, they ought to come here. Disliking popular sports has no bearing on your personal qualities whatsoever. But try telling that to some of these arrogant sports maniacs - they won't understand at all!

Welcome to the forum. Perhaps we shall speak again sometime.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Well said (as usual), i_like_1981.

Without further ado, let me also extend a hearfelt welcome to you, irishhighlander. I'll have a lot more to say when I have time. I'm short on time at the moment. Please post often. We need more members who post more than just once or just a few times.

Yes, I've noticed that some sports are not appreciated as much as others. After all (with apologies to George Orwell), some sports are more equal than others.

(You know, when I started posting in this forum, I thought Smilies were stupid. Now I use those little critters all the time. )

[Skul]

Welcome to the forum, irishhighlander!

Me and 1981 are pretty much in the same boat as you, as we don't like our national sport (in our case, football; aka, footbore, aka foolsball, aka failball). What vile, traitorous scumbags we are!

(You know, when I started posting in this forum, I thought Smilies were stupid. Now I use those little critters all the time. )

I find smilies a good way to show how you're feeling or if you're joking or whatever.

I remember one time years ago on another forum, one guy refused to use smilies, saying that if you want a message to get across, you should articulate it better (or something to that effect. I can't remember the exact words). Sorry, but some things only work when written a certain way. Since body language and tone can't be seen or heard through text, a smilie is the next best thing.

But, uh... this is getting a bit OT. I'll let you talk about smilies here, as long as it doesn't dominate the thread (or the original poster doesn't mind it being transformed into a smilie discussion thread ).

[Earl]

A smilie discussion board? What an excellent idea!

Just kidding.

[Silence]

Welcome to the forum. As a sports hater myself, I can definitely a lot of your pain. As a high school student, I'm definitely not enjoying the massive emphasis on athletics, which in my opinion, dodges away from what matters most, academics.

The equivalent of hockey here by popularity in where I live in, is football. Yes, football. Possibly the sport I hate the most as of now. I seriously don't get it's appeal, in it's most basic form, all I see is guys running around and a bunch of tackling. Plus, it also gets quite insane here when the super bowl hits. There are many cars around, and I'm bombarded with constant shouting. Also, my father is a sports enthusiast, he watches some games occasionally. So that's what I deal with currently.

My hate from sport stems from the fact that it is driven down our throats everyday. Sure, we're not forced to watch it. But it's always there, always plastered in advertisements, appears in television commericials, it's everywhere. There's only so much we can do to block it out. Also, the stigma that's attached to people who don't like sports also frustrates me. We're treated like we're not from this earth.

Hopefully you become a regular here.

(A note on smilies: I very rarely use them at all actually. However, they do seem appealing. So I may use them once in a while... Like now... Heeheehee...)

[Earl]

Also, the stigma that's attached to people who don't like sports also frustrates me. We're treated like we're not from this earth.

Try not to let it get you down, Silence. I know that's easy for me to say. When I was a teenager, my dad used to tell me, "Don't let the bastards get you down." I used to get annoyed at him when he would say that because I thought he had no idea what I was going through; but as I found out years later, he was bullied, too, when he was a kid. But he later became one of the country's leading architects.

Perhaps you didn't do a Google search on Raoul Wallenberg. At the risk of boring longtime members, I'll take the liberty of repeating a few details of his life. I think you'll be inspired and encouraged. We all need heroes.

Wallenberg was a highly educated Swedish man who was running an import-export business with a Hungarian Jew when the German Nazis started carrying out the Holocaust. (You could say that he was a nerd!) Wallenberg's business partner informed him of reports on the desperate condition of the Jews in Hungary. Wallenberg urged Swedish government officials to send him to Budapest to conduct rescue operations under diplomatic cover. These rescue operations were funded in part by the government of the United States. Surviving several assassination attempts, Wallenberg put his life on the line to save the lives of more than 10,000 Jews from the German Nazis and the Hungarian fascists. One of the Jewish men whose lives he saved would immigrate to the United States when the war was over and would eventually be elected to the U.S. Congress. Wallenberg courageously labored under horrendous stress.

As if this heroism weren't enough, Wallenberg and his chauffeur (a Jewish coal miner whose life Wallenberg had saved) were abducted by agents of Stalin's brutal secret police when the Red Army had driven the Germans out of Hungary. They were taken to a notorious prison in Moscow, where they probably were tortured. In the mid-1970s, the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn (who had once been a gulag inmate himself) would claim that several years later Wallenberg was brought before the Soviet Foreign Minister, who offered him life as a free man in the Soviet Union in exchange for publicly denouncing the West. But even though the government of his own country had all but forgotten him, Wallenberg rejected the offer and returned to the gulag where he apparently passed away before 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Today Wallenberg is honored around the world for his great courage and humanitarianism. Here's the clicker: As I said in an earlier post, this extremely courageous man (according to his half-sister) "detested competitive team sports." I doubt that there is any professional football player who is even half as courageous as was this nonathletic man. I'd love to see someone even dare to call Wallenberg a wimp! There's a "real man" for you. According to one of his biographers, the happiest time of Wallenberg's life was when he was saving the lives of those who were helpless.

[The Imperialist]

Welcome (rather late for me to post...)

Regarding the sensei who is nie-obsessive about karate, well, what do you expect? His life revolves around the code of karate, therefore, it is not within his views to view any other things than thigns he is teaching.

Besides, martial arts are more useful than some other sports. (Well, most.)
And if martial arts are taught properly, special emphasis on HONOUR, than martial arts is peerless in its standing.