The Glade 4.0

Maybe they should start testing ALL professional athlete's testosterone levels. What if a particular athlete happens to be better than everyone else because his testosterone level is naturally 3x that of the average male? What then?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

In this circumstance, absolutely.

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

If a man's testosterone level is naturally three times that of the average male, you'll know it the moment he opens his mouth and sounds like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0I6mhZ5wMw. You don't have to test a damn thing. If a woman has higher testosterone than other women because she has testicles, is she a woman? If a man has triple the testosterone of other men, it could just mean he has an enormous penis. Nothing about that makes him something other than a man. Also, that may not necessarily create an advantage against other male track runners. Consider that the average male can't beat the female runners.

I don't think the issue here is that she has a natural advantage over women. We allow athletes to compete who clearly have a natural advantage over their competition - this is where record-breaking occurs. The issue is that her particular natural advantage is something that we already hold separate competitions to accommodate. Half the world has this woman's natural advantage over her competitors, and while most of us can't beat the women she's racing against, the ones who can do it by such a wide margin that it just isn't a fair competition.

Look at this list of middle distance events and compare the world records.

This is just like how we don't let 200lb men compete against 140lb men in a boxing match. It's lopsided enough that it's just not fair. The bigger guy just uses his size advantage and bullies his opponent all over the ring. It's no fun for either fighter, and it's not interesting for the audience. (Unless, of course, the little guy comes out like a bolt of lightning and wins, but that's interesting and exciting precisely because, by all rights, the big guy should win). At the same time, we don't tell 200lb men that they can't fight. We tell them that they have to fight other big men.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I love participating in a combat sport that has no weight or sex distinctions.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

That's probably a result of the number of people active in the sport. There would be some class breakdown if more people competed in the various fencing competitions. Although instead of weight for wrestling and boxing, height might be the separator.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Oh, I don't know. I've fenced in a battle involving over 500 people at one time. That's pretty big for a team competition. I've also fought in tournaments with well over 100 entrants.

Then again, that's probably dwarfed by track and field qualifiers, etc.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Weight divisions are usually a result of a competitive combat sport being developed. Take Boxing vs. Vale Tudo or MMA; Boxing has 17 different divisions sanctioned by the four major sanctioned bodies. MMA weight classes were established mainly through the Nevada Athletic Comission (only 13) and modeled after Pride FC, Shooto and Pancrase. The intervals in MMA are also much wider than Boxing, particularly at the lowend where 4 and 3 lbs seperate the divisions under 126 whereas MMA just has a 125 and under division (Boxing has has seven divisions at 126 and below) and 125 is barely developed in MMA.

I think if fencing was developed into a commercially viable sport, you would likely see restrictions in terms of weight. Mostly, weight is tied to height (granted, not all competitors have close to the same ratio in terms of weight to height), and height is critical any almost all striking combat sports.

IAAF events don't typically have lots of heats at the national/international levels of competition. Just to make it there, you have to compete in so many regional events. The actual IAAF national/international events are kept relatively short.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Which is that?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Modern, or Olympic fencing does not separate on weight, because it has almost no bearing on the combat itself. It does separate on sex, which still confuses me. If they wanted to separate it based on anything, height could be a factor, given the linear nature of modern fencing.

But I don't do modern fencing. I think it's a silly way to try and recreate a sword fight. If you look into the actual fencing treatises of the Renaissance, you'll find that height and weight differences have very little bearing on the science itself. It takes almost no force to kill someone with a rapier, court sword, or small sword (1600, 1700ish and 1800ish respectively), so strength is less important that skill and speed.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

And reach, which involves height and therefore can be partially be seperated through weight divisions. Moreover hand dexterity and speed tie in directly with weight.

Big guys like Ali and Tyson who had blinding speed were the exception. If you look at heavy weights through super middleweight or even middleweight boxers(2+-160), there's a huge speed disparity between them and the super welterweight through featherweight guys (154-126) in boxing. The top heavyweights in the world, the Klitschko brothers are not that quick. They are quick for being as big as they are, but they don't have Mayweather or Joan Guzman type speed. This is a great deal of the reason boxing has so many weight divisions, even though strength probably plays a much greater factor than in fencing. The speed of smaller guys would oftentimes give them an advantage. If a boxing ring was bigger than 24'x24', small boxers would have the edge over stronger boxers except in cases of great disparity of strength and size and toughness.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Swordplay. Specifically 16th century rapier combat, cut and thrust, longsword, and sword and buckler.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

In fencing that does not exist in on a strip, that will only get you so far. I'm 6'5", have a crazy reach and use a 40" blade. Short guys and gals still kill me. Technique > all.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

But fencing is only played in an organized competitive fashion on a strip. Therefore, reach is a significant factor in organized competitive fencing.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That's not entirely true. I play in an organized competitive fashion in the round all the time. No, it isn't televised, and it's not big crowd drawer, but it's just as competitive as any other form. There's a lot of competitive western martial arts meets as well. It's not likely to become a big commercial entity, but it's still highly competitive.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

But it's not organized and overseen by a gaming commission or other regulatory body, Monte.

I'm sorry, the SCA is to organized sports what Thursday night poker with the guys is to the gambling industry.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

If the competition in "swordplay" were to begin to approach the levels of competition being discussed here, it would be broken out into divisions.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

First, that isn't the only venue in which I fight. There is a much wider WMA community in the US and all over the world. that being said, I regularly face rated olympic fancers and compete just fine against them. So, YMMV. Combative competition is combative competition. In the dojo, in the olympics, or in the back yard, it is what it is.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I disagree. Athleticism and heart count for just as much as technique.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

As somewhat of an offshoot, this is a point of contention on the idiots boards about boxing vs. MMA. Because Boxing has a stronger company than every MMA organization, there is a greater draw for competitors. The fight purses are much larger, attracting more athletes. Therefore, there is more buzz about the sport and more hype for things like amateur boxing (such as Olympic and amateur development programs via local boxing gyms) to help it grow. This leads to greater, more developed competitors, fighting better fights, with bigger draws and therefore bigger purses etc.

Say fencing became commercially successful. Do you think the quality of both the competition and competitors would improve as a result?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I *love* fighters with Athleticism and heart and no technique. It's fantastic. They wind up a very enthusiastic corpse.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

No, although understand that's from a subjective point of view. I think that when you throw money into the mix, the competition would diminish the art, and as a result, the artists.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Wow, that's equal to what I said.

By the same token, I love pudgy, fat, out of shape and slow, art-aspect obssessed fighters. They are out of gas 60 seconds into the contest and their beautiful graceful technique becomes sloppier than a hookers smash-hole.

See how silly that sounds?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

You have to understand that when you are talking about armed combat, a lot of things change. If you rush me, you'll be stabbed in the face. Hard. If you try to grab my weapon and get past it to stick me, your hand will be disengaged and (you guessed it) I will stab you in the face. Hard. if you take an action in tempo while you are in my measure, I will likely evade around your weapon and __________________.

If we were talking about wrestling, grappling, etc, you would very much have a point. Out of shape people should not apply. You get owned. Out of shape fencers will get owned by in shape fencers with proper technique. However, youth and enthusiasm, in swordplay, only hastens your demise unless it is coupled with proper technique.

Let me give you an example from my own experience. There is a fighter locally that trains the local military guys in hand to hand combat. He's young, can run umpteen million miles in full gear, he's easily half again as fast as me, easily as strong as me, and he has stamina I could not compete with even in my best shape.

And he rarely, if ever, lays a blade on me. He relies on his natural athleticism and what he *thinks* will work, and it gets him stabbed in the face. He could, however, be *great*, if he was willing to listen to the guy that's stabbing him.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Yes but we're not talking about great disparity of skill versus althetecism. You dimissed it forthright with your previous statement. There are competitors who, either because they were naturally gifted or trained it, simply have raw speed, grace and strength that cannot be conquered by technique. Obviously, strength disparity can be overcome by being armed; for example, you with your rapier would hardly be a match for an old woman who was armed with a 9mm semi-automatic given that you weren't engaging her in extradonarily favorable conditions for you.

Ironic, this ties it back into the OP; do we want to watch, participate and put effort into organizing competitive sports to watch the greatest competition or greatest competitors? If the guy you are instructing were to learn 20 years of discipline in an instant (magically), he would probably be untouchable as you say. Even more so, because a great deal of the people you fence with undoubtly rely solely on their ability and not their body in tandem with their ability. If armed combat lends itself a natural disregard for strength, it's reasonable to expect that the participants would neglect their bodies more in favor of time spent honing their technique.

So do we wish to see greater competitors pushed to the envelope of what humans can achieve? Or do sports exist to see the greatest battles under the most "fair" circumstances? There are those who compete at the pinnacle on their natural gifts alone, those who do so because they sought perfection of form and art, but rarely do you see the binding of the two. Even then, they can fall, as we saw Federer lose recently at the US Open.

As for anecdote; my BJJ coach insits that weight lifting isn't that important, nor that conditioning the body by focusing on specific aspects of athleticism (the primary three I do are strength/power, flexibility/agility and endurance with dexterity/hand speed being developed naturally during all 3) is necessary outside of sparring. Sparring heavier opponents is not a method for building strength, sparring multiple partners in a row doesn't do the same thing as running up hills and biking with lots of resistance. Nearly everyone I train with outweighs me, including my instructor, but I am able to roll with them by virtue that I put in the work not only on the mat, but also in the gym, the bike, the road, hiking trails etc.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Doesn't matter how many athletics competitions you win...you still had to live life as a biological hermaphrodite. That's gotta suck.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
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