Exerseeing: The Next Ultimate Frisbee (Monstermoon #4)

by Matt

Exerseeing in Porto, Portugal 

Anyone who watches ESPN 3 at 2am knows that the sport of ultimate frisbee has come out of nowhere to replace the Scottish games and competitive eating as a featured sport on late late sports television.

Why the dazzling rise in ultimate frisbee's popularity? Because it combines the heroic diving catches and burst athleticism of football with fluid action more like soccer. Throw in the rugby tradition of drinking out of a piece of your sporting equipment (rugby: your boot, ultimate: a frisbee) and it's clear that ultimate is headed for prime time.

Inspired by ultimate frisbee, Carson and I have melded two activities into one to create the next great sport: Exerseeing. 

The idea struck us while looking at old buildings in Dubrovnik. While old buildings can be important vehicles for learning about history, they typically just sit there and look impressive, yet impassive. They don't insult each other, hook up, or brawl, making them less appealing to the youth (aka thirty-somethings) of today. They also start to blend together in the old-stone-building section of the brain. Sightseeing could stand to be more interesting.

At the same time, on vacation--especially vacations where time is spent gawking at old buildings--it is difficult to get exercise. 

In response to these challenges, we developed the sport of Exerseeing through a process we are calling athletotouristic syncretism. Exerseeing makes it possible to exercise while viewing old buildings and improves memories of each building  viewed by associating it with a specific physical activity. 

Exerseeing is like the decathlon in that players compete in multiple events. It's also like Calvin Ball in that events are made up and require only whatever you have on hand and your imagination.

A few examples of events from the global inaugural exerseeeing competition:

Running ancient stone stairs, with hand weights:

Buildering on weird communist sarcophagi

*extra view points were awarded here, points deducted because there was no actual climbing, just gaping

Upright crunches with a view:

*Points awarded for number of crunches, and for the quality of the view

Stonewall Yoga

*Think yoga isn't a competitive sport?  Check this. Weird.

Gaper Diving:

*similar to leisure diving (don't miss awesome link) Gaper Diving is inspired by Ultimate. Competitors dive or "layout" while gaping at major sites and beautiful scenery. 

A Note on Officiating

*regarding the officiating of an Exerseeing competition: Ultimate Frisbee seeks to contain the Big Refereeing industry by having players call their own fouls, then resolve the inevitable disputes with long discussions and incredulous gestures.

Ultimate players making their sport unwatchable

Similarly, Exerseeing also eschews official referees. Only if there is a dispute that can't be resolved by 5 minutes of kvetching amongst players, can a referee be sought. In this case, players must find the closest German or Swiss tourist, explain the infraction, and ask for him/her to make a call, in German, or Switzerdeutch. Instant replay from the German's hiking pole mounted Go-Pro is admissible.

Monstermoon Dispatch #3: Ostrich Video and Election Edition

by Matt

Hopefully these seconds-long videos give a window into our ~20 mile days pilgriming through the Spanish countryside on the Camino de Santiago.

If you aren't interested in rural Spain, but are sad about recent election results, this will remind you that ostriches are ridiculous birds, which will distract you, which is good. 

After 6 or 7 hours of walking on the Camino in a day, we usually start up an audiobook. Last week's book was The Omnivore's Dilemma. In a ridiculous moment in our 9th hour of walking last Friday, we were listening to the book and just as Michael Pollen agonizes over the morality of meat eating, we rounded a corner and walked right through a herd of animals likely to become someone's dinner. Mooooo. This won't be interesting without the audio. 

Should you seek to escape the more partisan atmosphere and big money serving/climate change denying nonsense of the new congress, you could do this for a living in rural Spain:

Finally, crosswalk signals in Galicia, Spain are pretty funny. Instead of showing a flashing red hand when it's time time speed your slow self up and get across the street, the green human walking figuring starts running/forward moonwalking to let you know you are dragging *ss. 

Sorry for the wrong orientation of this video. If anyone knows of an easy/small video editing program that works on an Ipad (or a Mac) let us know!

For us, short videos from home (like this only-in-SF video of a woman whining about her Uber as police try to create order during the Giants victory celebration) (link) help us feel connected, so please share all the youtube meme's you are willing to share!

Thanks for watching.

Minor political aside to peg this post to its politico click-bait title:

As we sit in a Portuguese cafe, reviewing election results, it's a little sad to reflect on how influential money has become in politics. It now seems necessary for ordinary people (like us) to donate to political causes that favor almost everyone, just to balance out spending by a few rich people.  European reporting on the money in our political system highlights how ridiculous a lack of strong political donation controls makes US democracy look. Hopefully this is something that can change in future elections. For now, an ostrich video, and a few glasses of port in Porto, Portugal should cheer us right up.