Who's In? - the_art_of_sport

New Olympic Event in the Making

noreply@blogspirit.com (Sandy) — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 13:05:00 -0400

Is it sport? It is sporty. More complex than synchronized diving, more spirited than figure skating, more daring than snowboarding (at least for those with a fear of conveyor belts). The four guys in the band OK Go go wild on six treadmills.

I have to say I’ve never actually used a treadmill, preferring to run in the real world even in heat and snow and cities, but this makes them look fun!

Million Dollar Baby

noreply@blogspirit.com (Sandy) — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 21:15:00 -0400

I am pathetically behind in movie watching (see post on Murderball), but finally did get around to watching this Oscar winner on DVD.

I don’t love Clint Eastwood; to me he seems the same in whatever role he’s in. Stoic toothache sufferer squinting in the bright sun. No different here really, just that he is an older version with whatever subtlety those physical changes bring to it. The characters and setting were fairly clichéd (irascible old cut man, wise and kind but broke-down old boxer, shabby gym, tough gym rats), but that said, it was a well constructed, cleverly layered story and satisfyingly redemptive. Old fashioned to admit liking that, but there it is.

I had an inkling there was something more than boxing to it; something more than women’s boxing, even, but I didn’t know what exactly. I won’t give it away in the unlikely chance any reader hasn’t already seen it or been told the premise. (Ignorance is useful in moviegoing sometimes.) But the thrill of the main character’s development as an athlete, the victory for her of hard work, her unlikely but resounding success at this small act—all accurately reflect what we do or love sports for. An unimportant thing that lets us create important moments. That part of the movie hits the mark at least.

Murderball

noreply@blogspirit.com (Sandy) — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:50:00 -0400

Think you’re tough? Think you’re a jock? Like sports movies? You gotta see Murderball.

I’m hardly qualified to review a movie, having seen only two others so far this year, but I won’t let that stop me. Except, it’s hard to know where to begin. . . to do justice to the athletes in this movie. Part of the deal is that they’re quadriplegics, which isn’t a condition that has a lot of bright side to it. You’d think. But the U.S. quad rugby team, a bunch of guys with some impairment or other in every limb and gnarly postapocalyptic-looking wheelchairs, don’t focus on that much. On the contrary, they are so focused on their athletic goal, you even forget about their condition sometimes too.

The team tries to continue its long winning streak through the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. There’s the plot, with conflict: A former team member has gone to coach the arch-rival Canadian team.

So there’s drama as well as the usual documentary features of interviews, old photos, related footage, and. . . Telestrator illustrations. The latter show how quad rugby (“murderball”) is played or how spinal cord injuries work.

I had a coach once who said that he thought all successful athletes, all great performers were motivated by anger. I took issue with that at the time. I didn’t feel angry and I’d had some success. But maybe he was onto something. Certainly there’s anger in murderball, the game, as the name implies. And it feels right. It may look a lot like the usual macho hollering anger you often see among football players, for example, and at which you might think, Forgodsake, lighten up, it’s a game. But it comes across differently, subtly, in Murderball, and you’d be happy if they’d yell some more.

Unexpectedly, there’s happiness in this movie, and even hilarity. The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr called it “a triumph of the competitive spirit” in his review, which is a good description. But if you just read that soundbite, it might put you off by its very nobility. These guys are funny, profane, comradely practical jokers. There are some outright belly laughs. It’s true, they’re matched by throat-clenching pathos, but as affecting as the story about how one guy came to be paralyzed is the look on him after he fumbles the potentially winning play of the game.

I read a book about animal training called Adam’s Task by Vickie Hearne. Her training of horses and dogs was much like athletic training, and as I was training single-mindedly at the time for the U.S. rowing team, I thoroughly related. All these years later the only thing I really remember from the book , but which I think of often, is a remark she made that the horses like the training, the work: It distracts them from the knowledge of their mortality, she said. Whether you want to credit horses with that level of self-awareness is up to you, but I think she captured a deep true reason any of us train, or pursue silly goals like rowing boats fast or putting balls into holes. Quad rugby players have already tasted a slice of mortality in their physical losses—almost all of them coming near death through the disease or accident that left them damaged. Their work, training, competition may distract them from the mortality to come as well as that which has left its mark on them.