Re: Checking on things...

On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Herman Miller wrote:

> On Sat, 16 Sep 2000 16:51:11 -0700, Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:
>
> >If the Olympics were to be held in the homeland of any conculture or
> >conlang-speaking nation, what would the native sports be (and of course
> >the origin of the names of each sport), and which existing sports would
> >be your best bets for gold medals?  What are your sports heroes' names?
>
> Well, I happen to be watching the Russian female gymnasts as I'm writing
> this, and I was just thinking before I read your message that this looks
> JUST like the sort of thing the Mizarians would excel at. There's no doubt
> that gymnastics and other sports involving precise coordination would be
> popular among Mizarians, although the Elves would put up quite a strong
> challenge in that area. Zireen, due to their small size, certainly aren't
> going to be doing any weight lifting! I suppose they'd be good at events
> that require quick reactions, like table tennis.
<laugh>  I haven't even worked out sports.  The Qenaren are somewhat
active in martial arts (they have a long mercenary/military tradition).
I imagine the monks would have something yoga-like, and there are
stick-games (probably will be patterned after arnis) as well as a
knife-game called jenachen.  I can't think of many Olympic sports they'd
be good at, though; fencing doesn't fit their weapons-style.

They do have people who are well-known in jenachen, and also tirachen (a
chess analogue whose rules really badly need ironing out, since I'm not a
chess player but borrowed elements from Burmese and Japanese
chess--interim rules are at
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/blackwall/tirachen.html).  Other sports?
Not really.  They remember generals and tacticians and soldier-poets as
national heroes.

YHL