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Shedding some light on Olympic 'shadow sports'

By Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 4, 2008 at 3:39 p.m.

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Dear Fitness Diary:

The Rocky asked me to take lessons in three lesser-known Olympic sports and write about the experience. They gave me my choice of sports. I immediately dismissed synchronized swimming. Really, who wants to see me in a bathing cap? And trampoline gymnastics involves a certain flexibility I'd need muscle relaxants to even think about attempting.

I went with fencing, archery and table tennis. All have long competitive histories. And none puts me in danger of breaking a leg.

Did I get a good workout? Absolutely. And I'm ready to help the rebellion should we ever have a resurgence of feudalism.

I go to the Denver Fencing Center, in southeast Denver, expecting to leave an hour later with the skills of d'Artagnan, Capt. Jack Sparrow and Zorro rolled into one. If the king or a pope need protecting, I'm the man to call.

******

FENCING

* History: One of the oldest sports on the planet; you can find Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting sword fights.

* Year it became an Olympic event: 1896, the first modern Olympiad.

* Calories burned: 382 per hour for a 140-pound person (Calorie-counter.com)

Head coach and owner Nathan Anderson is just finishing up the day's summer camp, with youths ages 8 to 15 tethered to a scoring line, lunging at each other with foils and epees and an almost-giddy sense of abandon. I have shoes older than most of these kids, yet they move with a fluidity I can only imagine.

As the students finish up and remove their jackets and masks and put away their weapons, Anderson explains some of the basics to me.

Three weapons are used in the faux combat: the foil (the modern version of a rapier), with its thin blade and lighter grip; the epee (the modern version of a dueling sword); and the saber, the heaviest weapon. It's the modern version of a cavalry sword, intended to be used on horseback.

Anderson outfits me in standard fencing garb: a white tunic, a piece of cloth that goes under one arm (I never do figure out what that's about), a glove and a stainless-steel mesh mask.

He then leads me in some basic exercises, teaching me how to block a sword coming toward me, how to lunge toward my opponent in short steps and how to thrust my saber forward and smack him on his chest or head.

That last one is harder than it looks. Call me old-fashioned, but Mama told me it's not polite to hit people on the head - unless they're trying to repossess the car.

Within minutes, I'm perspiring like a fat girl at a clambake. Sweat rolls down my face, complicating the already-tricky situation of trying to see through the mask. It's dark and mildly cumbersome. I keep wanting to scream, "I'm your father, Luke!" No wonder Darth Vader was so cranky.

Competitive fencers spar on a rectangular strip roughly 6 to 61/2 feet long. Attached to their weapon are cords that electronically register when they've touched an opponent's jacket. Most bouts last six minutes or until one fencer has scored five touches.

Through the corner of my mask, I notice that several of the students have lingered to watch me stumble through my lesson. Their expressions suggest they've just seen a camel try to tap-dance. I know that expression. I've used it on certain white people at hip-hop clubs.

"Fencing really works the muscles pretty evenly, so you don't have a lot of injuries," Anderson explains. "It's got maybe one-twentieth the injuries of soccer. It's really good overall for the body. You don't have a lot of knee and joint issues, because you're building up muscles in the legs."

The appeal for kids, he says, is a bit more modern.

"We've turned it into a modern sport where you can burn 400 calories an hour. You're doing something active that isn't like jogging in place. You're doing something visually stimulating, so all these kids think this is like a live-action video game."

When the lesson is over, I'm exhausted. It's not so much the heat as the humidity inside the mask. Anderson tells me fencing was primarily used in duels for much of its history.

I've learned a lot, but not everything. Obviously I'll have to come back for Lesson 2: How to fight with a saber while navigating a stairway backward.

Hey, it worked for Errol Flynn.

******

ARCHERY

* History: Archery has been around since the late Paleolithic period.

* Year became Olympic event: 1900

* Calories burned: 223 per hour for a 140-pound person (Calorie-counter.com)

Summoning my childhood of playing cowboys and Indians, I arrive at Bear Creek Archery, in Englewood, with the William Tell Overture playing in my head.

My instructor is Dave Russell, a Level 4 national coach, who explains that hand-eye coordination is only part of the equation. There's the matter of your stance, how you hold the bow and, of course, the size of the target you're shooting at.

The first surprise is that the bows that competitive archers use are nothing like the wood- and-string variety we covet as children. They're fiberglass wonders whose disparate parts - sights, handle grips, limbs (the actual curving part of the bow) - can run upward of $2,500. At the top rung of competition, athletes have two complete setups and arrows that cost $50 each.

The arrow is also a composite: the bullet-shaped point that goes into the target; the plastic nock at the rear that fits into the bow string; the vanes or feathers, which keep the arrow going straight; and the shaft, which can be made of aluminum, carbon or wood.

Once you have the proper equipment, the only thing left is talent. I wonder whether I should confess to Russell that I have the arm strength of an 8- year-old. Working on a computer doesn't exactly require muscle mass.

Russell establishes my dominant hand (left) to hold the bow, and then he positions me two- thirds of the way down an archery range, maybe 15 feet from a target. He shows me how to stand with my feet at 3 and 9 o'clock, how to turn my body toward the target, how to grip the bow in front of me, lock my elbow and insert the nock of the arrow into the string by touch.

He then has me aim at the target and let the arrow fly. I'm convinced I've hit the bull's-eye and start to do a victory dance. In reality, my arrow has landed just below the ceiling. Even though we're indoors, I blame it on wind shear.

Russell encourages me to repeatedly aim and shoot, and not once does he take a Zen tack and say: "Be the arrow, Mike. Be the arrow."

It gets to the point where I can hit the target consistently. I come within a few inches of the bull's-eye once, but that was probably a muscle spasm.

Then Russell asks one of his proteges, 16-year-old David Ruybal, of Centennial, to demonstrate. Ruybal has been shooting since he was 12 and hopes for a residency at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

In less than three minutes, he shoots four arrows into a space the size of a postage stamp. My last four arrows have landed in different ZIP codes.

Because archery uses arm and back muscles, it requires a fair degree of athleticism. Russell suggests that his young archers do cross-country running to build up their endurance.

At lesson's end, I'm not quite ready to shoot an apple off anyone's head, but I'm pretty sure I could hit a water heater on the hood of a car.

******

PINGPONG

* History: Invented in the 1880s by the British

* Year it became an Olympic event: 1988

* Calories burned: 245 per hour for a novice 140-pound person, 400 to 600 per hour for an advanced player (Calorie-counter.com)

Sometimes the sports that seem the simplest prove the most difficult.

I grew up with a pingpong table in the basement, so I arrive for my table-tennis lesson at Pied Piper's House of Pong, in Lakewood, convinced that I'm already a master of the sport.

Then they stand me across the table from a Robo Pong automatic serving machine and turn it on. The orange balls fly toward me at light speed, and before I know it I'm swinging my arms like a man beset by a swarm of bees.

Older Americans equate pingpong with the Chinese and the role the game played in helping thaw U.S.-China relations in the early '70s. Currently, several Asian countries and the Swedes dominate international table tennis.

Here's the thing: A pingpong ball is only 40 millimeters in diameter and weighs 2.7 grams, yet some top players can return serves in excess of 100 mph.

The Pied Piper himself, Thomas Madigan, shows me how to stand at one end of a table in an almost-crouching position. The paddle is positioned downward, and the rules dictate that you must serve by bouncing a ball off your side of the table to the opponent.

The competitive games go to 11 points, and speed of serve is less important than other weapons in your arsenal: how well you move your feet, how low you can keep the ball to the net, how much spin you can put on a ball.

My natural inclination is to swat the ball upward, as if I'm killing pigeons. Madigan and club coach Mike Mui repeatedly adjust my grip and admonish me to tuck my hips in. My mind processes their words; my body refuses to cooperate.

What's the key to being a good table-tennis player?

"It's really about physics and who can execute the correct strokes to accomplish the task," says Madigan. "The forehand drive is the fastest stroke, and there have been some figures quoted up to 160 mph."

"The game is 50 percent mental and 50 percent physical," adds Mui. "It's like playing chess: You're thinking two or three moves ahead."

That explains why I keep getting checkmated by an automated serving machine: When I think three moves ahead, it always entails me getting into my car.

Pingpong is a fun sport, but done right, it can be difficult. There's a technical finesse that demands both concentration and skill, especially when you're playing against someone without a heart. Like, say, Robo Pong.

Comments

  • August 5, 2008

    9:06 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    stella writes:

    Fun article. I enjoyed reading it!

  • August 5, 2008

    12:49 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    my3pugs writes:

    I may just have to go and sign up for the fencing class. Been meaning to for a while.