I have been told that golf, racing and (recently) MMA are not sports.  Have you ever had a similar argument with a friend over what actually makes an activity a sport?  It gets frustrating because for the most part it comes down to perspective.  I have done some looking into this and have come up with an answer.

The answer is that both people are correct.  By modern definition, a sport is an “athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess” (www.dictionary.com).  Most people can argue that golfers are not required to be world-class athletes.  However, there is great skill and physical prowess required to hit a golf ball properly.

From many naysayers’ point of view, a sport is an activity requiring you to work up a sweat or one engaging in physical contact.  If this is the case, tennis, racing and (arguably) baseball are not sports because there is little to no physical contact.  Although, all of these activities require the practitioner to be in shape to play well and all require skill.

This argument requires me to bring out my inner geek and go back to the word in which ’sport’ originated from, disport.  This word means “to divert or amuse oneself” (www.dictionary.com).  By this definition just about anything can be considered a sport and could even make a case for hunting, fishing, darts, billiards, etc.

The simple breakdown of definitions adds confusion and leaves much to opinion.  This is why there is much to debate about in the eyes of sports fans and fanatics alike.  A simple fix would be to sub-catagorize each.  You have full contact sports like football, hockey, MMA, etc.  However, this will lead into debates over what a true full-contact sport is.  Truthfully, we have to agree to disagree or engage in all of the routine trash talk that true fans enjoy.

I want to close by addressing the person who said MMA isn’t a sport.  MMA meets every criteria for a sport.  In fact, I would love to have many other athletes take an elbow to the head and continue on as if it didn’t happen.

There is a sporting competition unlike any other. It features some of the best-conditioned athletes in the world. Participants come from all over the world to compete in this event, held twice a year in Japan. It is among the most thrilling spectacles of strength, speed, and endurance ever displayed.

You’ve probably never even heard of it, much less seen it.

Ninja Warrior is the name given to the challenging obstacle course located in Mt. Midoryama, Japan. The constantly evolving course is divided into four increasingly demanding stages. The first stage is a timed trial requiring speed and strength. Contestants must navigate the course by jumping, climbing, and running through the obstacles without falling into the ubiquitous waters of Mt. Midoryama.

One hundred contestants begin the tournament each year. Typically, less than ten will survive the perilous first stage. One of the defining characteristics that separate Ninja Warrior from other sports is the overwhelming odds against anyone winning the game. In the ten years that Ninja Warrior has been challenging athletes to compete for Total Victory, only two men have ever successfully completed all four stages.

The second stage is also a timed race against the clock, but speed is really secondary to strength as the athletes must climb and lift their way to victory. One of the few constants as the course has evolved over the years is the Lifting Walls at the end of stage two. After defeating all other obstacles on the course, contestants must lift and pass under three walls of 66, 80, and 110 pounds to reach the finish line.

A typical contest might see two to four contestants reach the third stage. Speed is no longer a consideration, as this level is untimed and is all about strength and endurance. More often than not, the third stage eliminates all contenders and the mountain stands victorious for another six months. Sometimes one (or rarely, two) contestant will reach the final stage, which is a timed ascent up a seventy-five foot rope to the top of a tower. Almost always, the fatigue of the first three stages combined with the severity of the final stage leaves the contestant defeated and gasping for air short of the summit.

Next week – more on this incredible sport, plus a look at the only athletic competition that’s even better than Ninja Warrior!

#3 Denver Broncos – The Broncos team that takes the field this fall will faintly resemble the team that went 8-8 and missed the playoffs last year. They had a furiously busy offseason, easily the biggest movers this year. Denver severed ties with their dramatically unhappy QB and signed Kyle Orton and Chris Simms to compete for the chance to replace him. They picked up the highly underrated running back Corell Buckhalter and added the proven leadership of Brian Dawkins on defense. The Broncos also grabbed RB Knowshon Moreno and DE/LB Robert Ayers with their two first round draft picks this year. Veterans LaMont Jordan and Jabar Gaffney joined the team from New England. There’s even more, but those are the moves most likely to have an impact in 2009. If they can pull it all together, this could be a team to be reckoned with this year.

#2 Pittsburg Steelers – You’ve got to give the champions their due. The Steelers were dominant last season and won their second Super Bowl in 4 years. For the most part, they have retained their core with Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, Willie Parker and Troy Polamalu among many others. Only two things are working against the Steelers’ chances of repeating: a) the champs always have to play all season with a target on their heads, and b) the Steelers’ path to the Super Bowl goes through the New England Patriots.

#1 New England Patriots – Two big factors point to the Patriots going from a solid 11-5 team last year to a leading candidate for the Super Bowl this year. First, Tom Brady, the NFL’s favorite wunderkind, is healthy again. You cannot understate the importance of a pro-bowl, Superbowl-MVP quarterback returning to his team. Second, Bill Belichick is still an evil genius. Seriously, he may not be the kind of guy you’d like to have over for dinner, but if he weren’t scheming how to win the Super Bowl, Belichick would probably be plotting to take over the world and turn you into some kind of zombified slave worker-drone. Just be glad that he chose coaching as a profession.

The defensive lineman for the Patriots, Vince Wilfork, showed up at the Patriots team charity golf tournament, which is a little strange seeing as he has not had his contract renewed as of this date.

When Wilfork was a rookie he signed a six year contract deal with the Patriots, and he is currently in the final stretch now.

As Wikipedia puts it, “Wilfork is considered to be one of the best nose tackles in the NFL, and was named both to the Pro Bowl and the All-Pro team in 2007″. If this is true the Patriots better hurry up and draw up a deal for the guy, it would be a shame to lose Wilfork this season, especially now that Brady has returned.

According to news sources, Wilfork has not attended any other team activities recently and would not comment directly on the state of his current contract.

Wilfork did mention to WEEI however that he is not looking for the “best contract there is” he is simply looking to be “comfortable”.

If this is true, the Patriots almost positively can draw up something “comfortable” to entice Wilfork into staying. But the signs of recent activities show there may be talk of letting him go. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, Wilfork continues to participate as a Patriot, just not at the public events.

It is barely June. Training camp has yet to begin. But that can’t stop me from putting together my predictions for the Top 3 Super Bowl Contenders from the NFC. Interestingly, all three teams hail from the NFC East, which should certainly earn its reputation as the Black and Blue division again this year.

#3 Dallas Cowboys - America’s Team has not materialized yet this decade. After decades of dominance in the NFC East, the Cowboys have faltered in the recent past. Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones has long taken the view that talent trumps character with disastrous effects to team chemistry. Now free of the likes of Pacman Jones and Terell Owens, Cowboys’ management seems to have reversed course. How QB Tony Romo will fare in his first season without T.O. as a target remains to be seen, but if the team can jell as a unit they do have the potential to compete for the Lombardi trophy.

#2 New York Giants – New York looked like the team to beat in the NFC last year, until Plaxico Burress’ off-field problems took away Eli Manning’s #1 target. New York’s once powerful offense melted away to an ineffectual mess late in the season. In the offseason, the Giants lost Derrick Ward but locked up running back Brandon Jacobs and several of their defensive stars. Maybe even more importantly, Osi Umenyiora is coming back from injury. In addition to keeping their returning stars happy, the Giants had a strong draft that included rookie wide receivers Hakeen Nicks and Burress-clone Ramses Barden.

#1 Philadelphia Eagles – It has been largely forgotten that the Eagles came within one defensive meltdown of the Super Bowl last season. Only Larry Fitzgerald’s larger than life performance against the Eagles stopped a team that seemed to be peaking at the right time. In the offseason, the Eagles upgraded their offensive line, shored up their aging secondary, and supplemented their skills positions with rookies Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy, and Cornelius Ingram. While the loss of Brian Dawkins was a huge loss in leadership, replacing his 35-year old legs on the field will be an upgrade.

Come back in two weeks for my Top 3 AFC Super Bowl Contenders.

A month or so back, I wrote a post here about the triumphant return of Major League Baseball and the wonky statistics that we see in the first few weeks of the season. Now that the 2009 season is one-quarter of the way through, I thought it might be fun to check in on the statistics that I quoted here on April 21st.

At the time I, along with the fans in 30 other cities, was reveling in the fact that the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees were duking it out for last place in the AL East. Since then, they’ve moved up considerably, battling for a more respectable 2nd and 3rd now. Though I don’t think the fans of either team will be very pleased with second or third after 162 games.

Back on April 21st, there were five pitchers with a perfect 0.0 earned run average. That standard is, of course, long gone. There is still one pitcher with a sub-1 E.R.A., though. Kansas City’s Zack “Who?” Greinke has a shockingly low 0.82 E.R.A. at this point, a quarter of the way through the season.

Back then there were three players batting over .500 and seventeen batting .400 or better, numbers that would make Ted Williams not only spin in his grave, but come back as some sort of baseball-zombie to reclaim his mantle as batting king. Mr. Williams can rest in peace, however, because now there is just one player, Indian’s Catcher Victor “No Clever Nickname” Martinez in the category, and he is batting exactly .400.

Back in the day, Tampa Bay Rays’ third baseman Evan “Not the Chick from Desperate Housewives” Longoria was averaging .714 home runs per game. That has dropped to .27 dingers per game, not even in the top five in the league. Right now, the best the league has to offer is a paltry .385 round trippers per contest from Philadelphia’s Raul “It’s pronounced EE-banez, not EYE-banez” Ibanez, which projects out to a ho-hum 62 for the season.

We’ll come back again at the ½ and ¾ marks to see how these stats bear up along the way to our season-ending review. Stay tuned.

“Ha ha, made you flinch.”  I used to hate when people would pretend to hit me and then say that.  What I didn’t realize is that they were teaching me a valuable lesson in life.  Not to react, rather to respond.

In my book, You Can’t Beat Me, I cover this concept.  I am going to relate this concept to fighting.  When we fight or compete, our adrenaline starts pumping, and we often act out of instinct as opposed to our intellect.  This can be very bad for us when we decide to flinch and get ourselves into a worse position.  If someone faked a punch to my face and I reacted by throwing up my hands, they could have a field day on body shots.  This concept is the exact reason we throw fakes and jabs.

The way around the reaction action is to respond.  When there is a response to a situation, the action is thought out and calculated as opposed to a flinch.  Sounds great, huh?  That is until you get in the ring and get hit for the first time, then all thought processes go flying out the window.  Now you are reacting to the punch and opening yourself up to the attack.  Then you will react to that and the cycle will continue on forever.

Responding to a situation is something that can come from strict training.  You have to workout in a way to where you actually “flinch” with the smart move.  This is why we have to practice the same move over and over again in our training sessions.  All of those hours of drilling submissions and submission escapes actually are a good thing.

We are preconditioning our minds to respond to a situation instead of panicking and delivering a flinch.  Flinching loses fights.  Responding sets you up to overtake your opponent.

I was blessed with an instructor who made me drill the basics of fighting over and over and over.  I had to learn good footwork and proper technique until I could do it in my sleep.  I hated the repetition, but now I finally understand the value.

We are going through a tough time in our history.  The economy, a world-wide swine flu scare, wars on numerous fronts…you name it.  All of these things increase our stress levels big time.  However, before we turn to the bottle, martials arts may be able to help.

Martial art students learn self-control and discipline, and they get to hit stuff really hard.  All of  these things are great sources for reducing stress.  Self-control is attained by learning to focus.  When we focus on a move or an item we learn to target our minds and energy.  Being able to zone our mental lasers onto a certain thing enables us to tune out the stressors in our lives.  This concept is similar to husbands tuning out wives when being asked to do something.

Certain arts have been passed down over thousands of years.  Each move needs to be practiced many times in order to perfect it.  It takes a great deal of discipline to practice the same move over and over again.  Good masters drive the reason for perfection into our hearts and minds.  When we get to the levels of teaching others, but with poor technique, we are not honoring our art.

Discipline affords us the opportunity to control our feelings and emotions to a certain degree.  When we possess the self-discipline to force our minds not to focus on the things that do not matter or the things we have no control over, we are combining self-control and discipline.

The last benefit of martial arts that relieves our stress levels is hitting things really hard.  Banging on a target, board or even a body can make you feel a lot better.  I would spend hours hitting my heavy bag or headache bag when things started to get to me.  It really helps.  By focusing all of that energy into a strike and releasing the tension in our bodies, it allows us to forget all of our worries.

Practicing martial arts is the stress pill that we all need to take.  After one class your life will be depleted of much stress.

In a sad commentary on just how much I’ve missed NFL Football, I spent a good portion of my weekend watching the NFL draft. Draft weekend is the time when the NFL teams choose the best eligible college players to join the ranks of professional football. The ongoing explosion of salaries has changed the shape of the draft significantly from what it once was.

A high draft pick used to be consolation and hope for the worst teams in the league. As in, “Our team is terrible and we finished last in our division, but at least we’ll get a high draft pick and get a player who can help us be better in the future.” Now, as young players are coming into the league with an inflated sense of entitlement and salaries are set based on draft order, teams are viewing their high draft picks differently. “Our team is terrible and we finished last in our division, and on top of that now we’ve got to figure out how to pay our top draft pick without alienating our current players who will want to renegotiate their contracts based on his salary.”

Rumors abounded prior to the draft that the top five teams were willing to trade down to take a lower pick in order to avoid the headaches associated with a signing one of the top picks. Only the Browns, at the number five slot, actually found a trading partner to execute the move. In fact, the Browns not-picking may have been the most interesting story of the weekend (not a ringing endorsement for the entertainment value of the draft, I know). The Browns sent their 5th pick to the Jets and landed the 17th pick. They then traded again to the Buccaneers and moved down to the 19th spot. Then they traded that to the Eagles, finally making an actual pick with the 21st overall selection.

The Jets took QB Mark Sanchez with what would have been the Browns pick. The Browns finally took a center named Alex Mack with their first pick. How that will work out for the Browns won’t be clear for several years to come.

Baseball is back! It seems like it was years ago that the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Devil-less Tampa Bay Rays to win the World Series. It was a long, hard winter without the sound of pine hitting leather, but the 2009 Major League Baseball season has begun anew.

I especially enjoy the first few weeks of the season because everyone – every team, every player - starts fresh. With no season-long history behind them, team and individual statistics are fun to watch. At the time of this writing, the two last place teams in the American League East are… wait for it… the Yankees and the Red Sox! The two teams who each spend roughly the equivalent of the Gross Domestic Product of a medium-sized country on player salaries every year are in a dog fight for dead last.

For those living in the vicinity of Boston or New York City, the glass is half full. Yes, your team is in the dumper, but so is your most hated rival. And besides, the season has just begun. “Just you wait until October,” you tell yourself.

For the rest of the country, this is cause for joyous celebration. Blame it on envy if you like, but we all hate your team. Sorry, hate might be a strong word. But everyone, everywhere else dislikes your teams above all others (except maybe that one, most despised division rival).

Besides the joy of seeing the Yanks and Sox in the division basement, it is also fun to look at individual statistics at this point in the year. At this moment, a week into the season, there are five pitchers with a 0.0 earned run average. There are three players batting over .500 and seventeen batting .400 or better. Tampa Bay Rays’ third baseman Evan “Not the Chick from Desperate Housewives” Longoria is averaging .714 home runs per game. That projects out to a record-shattering 116 homers for the season.

Not that any of the above stats will stand for long. Baseball players are notoriously streaky, and the season is very long. With so few games played so far, one good (or bad) game can snap those stats back to realistic numbers.

Still, it’s fun to watch.