The Dharma of the Game, continued some more...

Previous posts can be found here

The Naughty Smurfs (our volleyball team) has had a very rough time this season. After winning our first game, we have lost every game since. This Wednesday, we are playing what will likely be out last game of the season - it's the playoffs, and if we lose, we're eliminated. This season has been very interesting to observe. Some of my teammates have a lot of experience playing team sports and some do not. Some of us have come to grips with losing, and some have not.

In previous installments of this series of posts, I've talked quite a bit about playing to win. In order for the test to be valid, all players must give their all and respect their opponents chances of winning, etc. Most of us, however, have been in the situation where the mismatch is so great that we know the outcome long before the game ends. Such has been the case with the Smurfs this season. In many of our games, after just a few points had been played (sometimes just after watching the other team warm up!) it was obvious that we were going to be on the short side of the score at the end.
I know that some members of the team are deeply frustrated by this, but I welcome it. Of course it would be nice to win, but I have learned that losing is the more instructive sports experience. It is only when you lose that you are truly motivated to train more, and to learn new techniques and new strategies. If you look at it logically, there is no reason to seek to improve if you are winning all the time. Most of us are inherently lazy, and winning a game tells us that our skills are good enough. A loss tells us, in no uncertain terms, that our skills are lacking. In many cases, it tells us exactly what we need to work on as well.

I'm not saying that one should be satisfied with losing all the time - certainly, play as hard and as smart as you can and beat the other guy! - but losing should be embraced, as it is the more transformative element of sport. As I mentioned in the first installment of this series, the true purpose of sport is the spiritual betterment of the competitors. What better way to grow as a person than to face your own shortcomings, and develop strategies for overcoming them? When we examine ourselves privately, we may ignore weaknesses, be overly gentle in our assessments, and generally cut ourselves a lot of slack - but when we enter into competition with set rules and objectives, our failings are clearly shown. The final score, the fallen king, the feeling of your shoulders pinned to the mat for three seconds - THAT is irrefutable proof that you need to improve, and clear directions on where to begin. The opponent has become your teacher, and for that we should be thankful.

Obviously, there are other means to achieving spiritual growth, but competition gives you a chance to enlist every opponent you face, human or otherwise, as a teacher. It's certainly cheaper than taking long retreats at a monastery... In fact, I don't even like the term "opponent." I think that it is best to look at the other players as "partners." Although you keep score, you are really both working toward the same goal, and you take turns being teacher and pupil. The old metaphor is "two stones that rub together slowly polish each other." Together you are polishing the skills of each of you - without such friction, no growth takes place.

The Dharma of the Game, continued

The beginning of this can be found here.

Since posting the first section of this, there have been several conversations at Flock Hall about it that have made it clear to me that some clarification is needed. Because competition is such an intensely emotional topic for some people, the conversations mostly concerned sportsmanship - which is only tangentially related to the subject at hand in that first post. The meat of that section speaks to making the game a proper (i.e. valid) test. It addresses adherence to the rules and putting forth your very best effort in order to get as close as possible to a result that is not skewed.

Sportsmanship, as we usually use the term, is more about behavior that is not regulated by the rules of the game (although lately, there has been an increasing need to address behavior that takes place in and around the game but is not actually part of the game proper, as well as during training - I'll address that in a future post). It mostly involves controlling one's emotions, be they positive or negative - no undue celebrating when you score, no tantrums when you fail, no "talking smack," etc. It is the behavior that makes you a pleasant opponent, win or lose, but it is not, strictly speaking, part of the game. It is culturally dictated, and thus varies from group to group.

An excellent example can be found in Kendo and Iiado. In both of these Japanese sword arts, you are supposed to treat your sword (boken, shinai, iiato, etc.) as though it were a person. While there are no formal rules about this and you will not be penalized in a tournament setting for violating these dictates, you are not to drop it on the floor, or step over it, or toss it in your trunk. Contrast this with the way Western fencers treat their equipment. It is fine to step over a sword that's been dropped or left on the ground, and they are afforded no special care when loading the car, except that which will keep them relatively straight and unbroken.

An example from our own not-so-wide world of sports is the treatment of badminton shuttles. None of the Asian players in our club have ever said anything about it, but I have discovered by reading on the 'net that kicking a shuttle - for example, kicking it under the net to your opponent so they can serve - is considered quite rude in many badminton communitites, but I see American players do it all the time. My point here is that what is anathema to one player is fine for others, and sportsmanship is like that across the board. During most games here in America we expect politeness, a handshake after the game, appropriate congratulations and encouragement, but that is certainly not the case in all settings. There seems to be no constant of behavior.

Having said that, I will put forth what I think is the constant in attitude about sportsmanship - treating each opponent as a full and worthy adversary. By this, I mean taking their chances of winning seriously, and doing your best to prevent that. You can be polite, cogratulatory, and even encouraging to your opponents, and still play your absolute hardest. In fact, you must play your very best at all times if you are to afford them the respect they deserve... which brings us to the original topic of today's post - different levels of competitors.

Despite the need to play your very best at all times, there are ways that elite players and those who are less skilled can still play a game that is rewarding for both. One way to make that possible is to handicap the more advanced player. In chess, this is called "knight's odds" - the more powerful player gives up one or sometimes even both knights at the beginning of the game. It's common in drag racing, too. A top fuel dragster might race against a modified stock car, with the modder getting the green light a second or two earlier than the dragster.

This kind of adjustment is possible in our games as well. For example, in the SCA we used to even things up a bit by fighting newcomers with a smaller shield, or putting the weapon in the offhand. In Taekwondo we would limit the more advanced fighter to a single technique - for example, the only way for the blackbelt to score is with a side kick, while the less experienced fighter can throw any technique they wish. In handball, I will sometimes serve with my offhand, or only allow myself to hit offhand kill shots.

This type of handicapping serves both competitors. The less skilled competitor learns more by playing against a better opponent, while the more experienced player enjoys a greater degree of difficulty than he would experience if he faced the less skilled player normally. He is also forced to use specific skills that he might need to work on. In badminton, for example, I try to work on control when playing a less experienced opponent. I try to win points on drop shots (as opposed to my more common kill shot, the smash). I know that the more advanced players try to work on certain types of shots when they play me - one guy likes to work on his edge game against me, so all of his kill shots are aimed at the back and side lines.

The point of this sort of self-limiting is to give the less experienced player a chance of winning, but also to help keep the game a valid test for both players. The more experienced player still has to play to the best of his ability - he is simply playing within a more strict set of rules than his opponent. In most games, it can be done without much fanfare, which protects the feelings of the less experienced player. It allows players of varied levels to play together, and it does so without belittling either.

Next installment: personal betterment.

The Dharma of the Game

This is the first in a series of posts on the ethics of competition that I've been working on...

Hi. My name is Linus, and I'm competitive.
[Hi, Linus...]

It's sort of a running joke in the local Flock. I'm the guy who will shove you out of the way and then throw himself into the wall head-first to hit the handball. I will gladly smash a shuttlecock directly at your head to win the point. I frequently want to keep going when everyone else is done. If there is another opponent available, I will continue long past the point of general fatigue - I'm famous for writing checks that my body can't cash.

Some have suggested that perhaps I do this because I don't know how to play "just for fun" or that I'm trying to compensate for failings in other parts of my life. Others say that it must be my ego that drives me to play so hard, or perhaps it's just that I'm trying to impress the ladies with my prowess. These sentiments usually come from those who can't beat me, but snarkiness aside, I maintain that competitveness serves a higher purpose.

I contend that the ultimate point of competition is the spiritual betterment of the competitors.

There are a multitude of other reasons to play sports - fitness, excitement, entertainment, camaraderie, etc. All of these reasons are valid, and most people begin playing sports for one or more of them, but the diligent pursuit of any sport eventually begins to reveal its greater qualities. When the golfer, for example, comes to the end of a lifelong pursuit of the game, he has learned much more than how to strike the ball. Ideally, he has learned to deal with others, in good times and bad. He has learned to take responsibility for his actions, how to handle pressure, and how to accept the seemingly cruel dictates of random events. In short, he has evolved - and golf was the catalyst for that evolution.

Sport is the one place where there exists an opportunity, however fleeting, for all to actually achieve some kind of equality. With due diligence, the rules of a game can remove politics, race, and class, and the outcome of such a contest is as purely based on the skill of the competitors as it can be. In that situation, sport becomes a pure test of that limited set of skills that the game is designed to measure. For example, a foot race is a simple check to determine which of the competitors can cover a given distance on foot in the shortest time. At the finish line, the person who crosses it first is the fastest, at that distance, on that day. If the rules of the contest have been diligently created and applied, then that racer can feel justifiably proud of his accomplishment, and the race remains pure.

Suppose however, that you add in other variables that lie outside the rules. One of the runners has a performance-enhancing drug in his bloodstream, another has special shoes with rocket assist, and a third tripped another runner when they were out of sight on one of the back corners of the course. Obviously, if one of these three runners is the winner of the race, it could be considered to invalidate the outcome. As we stated above, the purpose of the race was to see who was the fastest - not who had the cleverest doctor, or who had the best shoes, or who was most devious. Because these three runners have introduced other variables into the test, the test is now broken, and the results are not valid. The winner, the other competitors, and the spectators, if there are any, are all cheated out of the pure result they were promised by the agreed upon test.

Even if the winner is not one of those who introduced other variables, he is still cheated by their behavior. His victory is now invalidated, because how are we to know that the illegal behavior of the others has not altered the outcome of the race, and artificially placed him on the winners pedestal? A strict adherence to the rules and a dedicated effort to win are required of all contestants if the test is to remain sound. Even if one of the other racers simply doesn't do his absolute best to win, he has skewed the outcome of the race. Remembering the original purpose of the race - to find the fastest runner over a given course on a given day - it becomes clear that in order for the test to be valid, everyone in it has to be putting forth their best effort.

Next installment: different levels of competitors.

Flock Project

Apparently, the Flock is not nearly active enough in the "human-stop-action-video-game-simulation" genre... We need to get busy on this. In addition to Space Invaders, there are also human versions of Pong and Pole Position. The obvious response to this is a human-stop-action-simulation of Frogger... get busy planning that, Flynn.

Wii Jerk

Artist's Comments:
I have a Wii, and it is good.
I recently picked up a copy of Mario Party 8. There is a game wherein
you move the controller in a violent masturbatory manner in order to
build up pressure in each characters' can of coke. When time is up, or
the characters are satisfied, I'm not sure which, the cans explode
and the persons whose... fizz... goes the farthest is declared the
winner. The funny almost wrote itself. After running the idea past
the Pontiff, I threw this little number together. Enjoy.

Reverend's Comments:
I had pretty much given up on game systems until Flynn let me try the Wii. It's fun, and funny to watch, as even dedicated non-gamers like G-Fresh and the British Ambassador become spastic flailers when you hand them the nunchucks.

Speaking of the British Ambassador, today is her Birthday! As long as they keep sending us diplomats like her, the Black Vatican will stay on good terms with Great Britain (and it doesn't hurt that Blair is out, either...). Send her Birthday wishes, and check out Flynn's Blog for a wallpaper that gives a glimpse of the sexy she brings to the Black Vatican every day (and I get to live with her!).

Since we're on the topic of my living arrangements, this would also be a good time for you all to go check out the Flock Hall 2.0 blog (would you look at that seamless segue - it's like I'm a trained writer or something...). Today's entree is Squid, served in bite-sized chunks...

While I am flogging other blogs, I might as well help out Doktor Smith too (another flawless transition - damn I'm good.). Currently, the good Doktor needs advice on glasses - go there and vote for your favorites to help him look smooth - and anybody who votes for those thick emo frames is going to get one of my size 12s broken off in their ass.

Halo Achievements

Artist's Comments:
On the 16th, the eagerly-anticipated Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta was released over Xbox Live to select gamers who have purchased the right to download the pre-release. I, like most of the gaming community, was looking forward to the chance to test the game over Live. Unfortunately I wasn't among the the lucky few...

Those who were able to play the Beta have given it a wonderful review. It seems there are a few issues with some of the new weapons, but even those seem to be entertaining. A few lucky gamers even found an interesting easter-egg left in the game by it's developers over at Bungie: Cheneymania! (In case you've been living under a rock - the Vice President shoots people. Usually in the face.)

It seems that for the first few hours of the beta, it was possible to shoot an opposing player in the face 10 times with a shotgun and be given a special award. Shortly after the easter-egg was found, it was removed by the Development team - it seems that there were a few people in Washington (well, one in particular) that were offended.

Reverend's Comments:
Why stop at just making fun of Cheney's itchy trigger finger? There are so many folks in politics who are worthy. Perhaps the player who creates the worst possible plan of attack and refuses to listen to his advisors can unlock a Wolfowitz award... or a player who orders team mates to get rid other players, then denies he had any knowledge of it should unlock an Alberto Gonzales award.

What, exactly, does one have to do to get a Santorum award? We're not sure, but any award named after the homophobe from Pennsylvania is almost certainly worthy of excommunication...