Sunday, May 26, 2013

Lead to Gold Discoid #6

The Quicksilver Discoid

Play Therapy

Non-directive play therapy, as we have said before, may be described as an opportunity that is offered to the child to experience growth under the most favorable conditions. Since play is his natural medium for self-expression, the child is given the opportunity to play out his accumulated feelings of tension, frustration, insecurity, aggression, fear, bewilderment, confusion.

By playing out these feelings he brings them to the surface, gets them out in the open, faces them, learns to control them, or abandon them. When he has achieved emotional relaxation, he begins to realize the power within himself to be an individual in his own right, to think for himself, to make his own decisions, to become psychologically more mature, and, by so doing, to realize selfhood.

The play-therapy room is good growing ground. In the security of this room where the child is the most important person, where he is in command of the situation and of himself, where no one tells him what to do, no one criticizes what he does, no one nags, or suggests, or goads him on, or pries into his private world, he suddenly feels that here he can unfold his wings; he can look squarely at himself, for he is accepted completely; he can test out his ideas; he can express himself fully; for this is his world, and he no longer has to compete with such other forces as adult authority or rival contemporaries or situations where he is a human pawn in a game between bickering parents, or where he is the butt of someone else's frustrations and aggressions. He is an individual in his own right. He is treated with dignity and respect. He can say anything he feels like saying - and he is accepted completely. He can play with the toys in any way that he likes to - and he is accepted completely. He can hate and he can love and he can be as indifferent as the Great Stone Face - and he is still accepted completely. He can be as fast as a whirlwind or as slow as molasses in January - and he is neither restrained nor hurried.

It is a unique experience for a child suddenly to find adult suggestions, mandates, rebukes, restraints, criticisms, disapprovals, support, intrusions gone. They are all (16) replaced by complete acceptance and permissiveness to be himself.

No wonder the child, during his first play contact, often expresses bewilderment. What is this all about? He is suspicious. He is curious. All his life there has been someone to help him live his life. There may even have been someone who was determined to live his life for him. Suddenly this interference is gone and he is no longer living in the shadow of someone who looms larger than he on his horizon. He is out in the sun and the only shadows are the ones which he himself wishes to cast.

It is a challenge. And something deep within the child responds to this clearly felt challenge to be - to exercise this power of life within himself, to give it direction, to become more purposeful and decisive and individual.

He tries it out - gingerly at first- then, as he feels the permissiveness and security in the situation, he sets forth more boldly to explore the possibilities of this arrangement. He is no longer blocked by exterior forces and so the drive within him for growth has no barriers to go around. The psychological resistance that he has formerly met is gone.

The presence of an accepting, understanding, friendly therapist in the playroom gives him a sense of security. The limitations, few as they are, add to this feeling of security and reality. The participation of the therapist during the therapy contact also reinforces the child's feeling of security. The therapist is sensitive  to what the child is feeling and expressing through his play and verbalization. She reflects these expressed, emotionalized attitudes back to him in such a way as to help him understand himself a little better. She respects the child and his ability to stand on his own two feet and to become a more mature and independent individual if he is given an opportunity to do so. In addition to helping the child gain a better understanding of himself by the reflection of his emotionalized attitudes, the therapist also conveys to him the feeling that she is understanding him and accepting him at all times regardless of what he says or does. Thus, the therapist gives him the courage to go deeper and deeper into his innermost world and bring out into the open his real self (17).

-Virginia M. Axline, from Play Therapy


Thursday, May 23, 2013

ISOTOPE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ytgK1jne7U
Watch CEO Dow Harris as he hits a bullseye in ISOTOPE, a new game by DISCOBO.
Isotope is a solitaire horseshoe/bullseye variant. Basically, you set up a wooden stake with a color stripe or bright marker on it in throwing distance and throw discs at it. It's a good diversionary game when you are brainstorming and trying to focus. Isotope is also an effective, simple exercise for younger disc athletes to practice with in their free time. Almost all disc games involve being able to aim and hit a target with a disc. Isotope isolates that skill

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Heraldry

Most historians agree that heraldry as it is known today was initiated some time during the twelfth century. Strictly speaking, however, its origins probably predate recorded history. As we shall soon see, one of the primary purposes of heraldic devices was to serve as a means of recognition during military combat. As such, then, its (2) use is as old as mankind. Families, tribes, and nations have been gathering under identifying symbols since recorded time. Historians are quick to point out that no one knows where, when, or by whom the first flag or totem was held aloft: a metal standard from what is now Iran, believed to be the oldest flag still in existence, is judged to be about five thousand years old. When the ancient Greeks went into battle, they carried round shields emblazoned with representations of animals as well as other symbols. Similarly, the Roman legions carried standards bearing pictures of animals and birds, but it was not until the year 104 B.C. that the eagle replaced all the others and became the universal emblem of Rome. Before very long, those standards displayed, in addition to the noble bird, honorary wreaths, the names of various dignitaries, and ultimately, portraits of the Roman emperors.

By the time heraldry made its appearance, the nobility were already using seals on various documents and correspondence. Owing to the rampant illiteracy of the Middle Ages, it seemed expedient to use pictures and symbols on those seals, which became a sort of household trademark and seemed also to be a natural source of heraldic designs for those same households. Some heraldists are careful to point out that these early uses of marks, symbols, and pictures are the predecessors, rather than the direct ancestors, of heraldry, while other heraldic authorities, in their zeal and enthusiasm, see heraldry everywhere(3).

- Marvin Grosswirth, The Heraldry Book, 1981

Monday, May 20, 2013

Lead to Gold Discoid #5

The In-Eye Discoid

TRAILBLAZER



Trailblazer is another disc golf variant from DISCOBO.

The game is played between 2 or more people, each using a set of personal discs, a compass, and a bundle of ten marking stakes.

The object of Trailblazer is to mark a trail through a forest and back and to be the first one to lay down ten marking stakes.

1) Players find a good piece of territory through which they can blaze a trail. 
2) Players flip a disc or have a throwoff to a proximate target, to see who goes first.
3) The first player calls the direction of the initial trail by throwing his disc wherever he wants to as far as he can throw it.
4) The second player, then using his compass or a good eye, throws his disc in the same direction as the first player, attempting to outdistance his opponent. Any subsequent players also follow suit.
5) Then each player paces out his disc to determine who has the furthest throw on the directional line that player 1 initiated.
6) The player with the furthest throw from the point of origin gets to put his marking stake into the ground at the point where his disc landed. He then gets to call the direction for the next round.
7) Play continues in this manner until one player has succeeded in putting down all ten of his marking stakes.
8) At that point, the players turn to return along the trail they have blazed with marking stakes.
9) Each stake that was originally laid down now becomes a target for the players' disc throws.
10) The player who has laid down his ten marking stakes must now defend his title as "Trailblazer."
11) Players now vie to knock the "Trailblazer" out by getting their throws closest to the next marking stake. If any player gets closer to the marking stake than the player who first marked it, then he gets to replace the opponent's stake with his own. 
12) If the "Trailblazer" still has no marking stakes by the time play returns to the initial marking stake, then he remains the "Trailblazer" and is the champion.
13) If another player manages to rid himself of his ten marking stakes forcing the "Trailblazer" to retrieve one or some of his, then the new player becomes the "Trailblazer." If he remains such back to the initial marking stake, then he wins the game.



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Finite and Infinite Games 3

Just as it is essential for a finite game to have a definitive ending, it must also have a precise beginning. Therefore, we can speak of finite games as having temporal boundaries - to which, of course, all players must agree. But players must agree to the establishment of spatial and numerical boundaries as well. That is, the game must be played within a marked area, and with specified players.

Spatial boundaries are evident in every finite conflict, from the simplest board and court games to world wars. The opponents in World War II agreed not to bomb Heidelberg and Paris and declared Switzerland outside the boundaries of conflict. When unnecessary and excessive damage is inflicted by one of the sides in warfare, a question arises as to the legitimacy of the victory that side may claim, even whether it has been a war at all and not simply gratuitous unwarranted violence. When Sherman burned his way from Atlanta to the sea, he so ignored the sense of spatial limitation that for many persons the war was not legitimately won by the Union Army, and has in fact never been concluded.

Numerical boundaries take many forms but are always applied in finite games. Persons are selected for finite play. It is the case that we cannot play if we must play, but it is also the case that we cannot play alone. Thus, in every case, we must find an opponent, and in most cases teammates, who are willing to join in play with us. Not everyone who wishes to do so may play for, or against, the New York Yankees. Neither may they be electricians or agronomists by individual choice, without the approval of their potential colleagues and competitors.

Because finite players cannot select themselves for play, there is never a time when they cannot be removed from the game, or when the other contestants cannot refuse to play with them. The license never belongs to the licensed, nor the commission to the officer.

What is preserved by the constancy of numerical boundaries, of course, is the possibility that all (5) contestants can agree on an eventual winner. Whenever persons may walk on or off the field of play as they wish, there is such a confusion of participants that none can emerge as a clear victor. Who, for example, won the French Revolution?

James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Finite and Infinite Games 2

If a finite game is to be won by someone it must come to a definitive end. It will come to an end when someone has won. We know that someone has won the game when all the players have agreed who among them is the winner. No other condition than the agreement of the players is absolutely required in determining who has won the game.

It may appear that the approval of the spectators, or the referees, is also required in the determination of the winner. However, it is simply the case that if the players do not agree on a winner, the game has not come to a decisive conclusion - and the players have not satisfied the original purpose of playing. Even if they are carried from the field and forcibly blocked from further play, they will not consider the game ended.

Suppose the players all agree, but the spectators and the referees do not. Unless the players can be persuaded that their agreement was mistaken, they will not resume the play - indeed, they cannot resume the play. We cannot imagine players returning to the field and truly playing if they are convinced the game is over.

There is no finite game unless the players freely choose to play it. No one can play who is forced to play.

It is an invariable principle of all play, finite and infinite, that whoever plays, plays freely. Whoever must play, cannot play.

-James P. Carse

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Olympism 5

Robert Garrett - Discus Gold Medalist 1896

...Thus for decades it appeared that international sporting contacts and competition were only possible among the geographically disparate but culturally homogeneous Anglo-Saxons, who were relatively uninhibited by ideology.

The English had successfully implanted their sports in the colonies. Considering the slowness of communication in the early nineteenth century, the similarities in English sport on the one hand and American, Canadian, and Australian sport on the other are astonishing. Yet practice and competition all over the Anglo-Saxon world remained, with the exceptions of horse racing and distance racing and possibly cricket, remarkably localized for decades. Then, beginning in the 1850s, the codification of rules (misnamed by some sports historians as the "inventions" of various games), the standardization of events, and better transport made inter-regional competitions possible. Public enthusiasm, particularly, made standardization desirable. The first professional, traveling baseball teams were established in the 1860s. By this time intercollegiate football games were common in the eastern United States and rugby matches were being played in the area around London. The first "international" football (soccer) match took place in Edinburgh on March 27, 1871, between teams representing England and Scotland.

The first intercollegiate track meet was held on Christ Church Ground, Oxford, on March 5, 1864, between teams from Oxford and Cambridge. The events included a 440 yard run, a mile run, hurdles of 120 and 200 yards, a steeplechase, the high jump, and the long jump. American colleges began to have track meets soon afterward. In 1875 Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Williams, Amherst, and Union had a very large meet which led shortly afterward to the formation of the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America. From approximately this time we can date the determined quest on the part of Americans and Englishmen for sports records, which were made possible partly by the availability of reliable, cheap stopwatches(44).

...Further developments which encouraged international sporting contests were the rise of a sporting press, full-time international sporting correspondents, and the worldwide wire services. Sports journals and sports journalists had appeared early in England and later in America. Sports newspapers and, even more, sports sections in general newspapers and magazines became circulation-building enterprises in France, Belgium, and Italy, beginning about 1890. It is likely that the especially rapid development of spectator sport in the 1890s may have been further stimulated by a symbiotic relationship between news-seeking journalists and a sports-hungry reading public.

As background material, it should be noted that Anglo-Saxon sport, particularly in the 1880s, became steadily more earnest and performance-oriented. By this I  mean that both the participants and their public became more obsessed with victory in (45) local competitions and with the setting of records in regional and international competition. The results of games and contests were seen as symbolic indications of the status of the larger social unity represented by the athletes, but perhaps this is indicative only of major ideological trends or even of mass opinion in an increasingly accomplishment-oriented society. Then, too, games like cricket, intercollegiate American football, and professional baseball acquired formulas, rituals, theatrical settings, and mythic pasts that made a game with its attendant spectators reminiscent of cult celebrations in ancient and in not so ancient times.

The performance orientation in turn led to the production of better equipment. The rapid evolution of the racing bicycle has been noted. There were also lighter tennis rackets and track shoes, shorter running trousers, and more clinging bathing suits. Training became more intense, and this dedication to sporting methodology led to a vast increase in the publication of more or less scientific literature on the subject. New gymnasiums, stadiums, and amphitheatres were built to accommodate the paying sports consumers. Money from sports events made fortunes for many promoters, some gamblers, and a few athletes.

Along with the success of vulgar spectator sport and the aura of lucre surrounding it, professional sport was dreaded as corrosive to what had been, for only a slightly longer period, a preserve of the leisured rich. The rich rejected money as a reward for sporting supremacy. A campaign to preserve an area of "clean" competition apart from and above the working-class professionals dates from the mid-nineteenth century in England, and it began among the rowers. Later, the success of professional sport intensified the campaign to isolate it. In the Nation (New York) in 1893 a writer viewed with alarm the "athletic craze" in American universities. The promoters in the colleges were "debauching" youth by "being easy with these young professionals on examinations" and by allowing (46) professional athletes to haunt the college buildings as sham students. But the same moralist noted that Yale's gate receipts for intercollegiate football games more than covered the expenses for Yale's entire athletic program.

At this stage I would like to summarize some of the points that have been made so far. I have discussed the uses and spread of the word "Olympia," the survival of literary records of the ancient Olympic festival, and the excavations following the rediscovery of the ancient site. I have shown that there have been many projects, both proposed and realized, to institute modern "Olympic Games." In the later nineteenth century the isolated Athenians participated in a series of sporting meets that were inspired by the myth that modern Greeks are the sole legitimate heirs of the classical Hellenes. England was the only European nation where the medieval peasant recreations and the aristocratic tournaments never perished, and, in fact, served as the foundations of modern sport. In England there were "Olympic" sports festivals as early as the seventeenth century. Later English "Olympics" recalled the sentimental and the racial traditions of ancient Greeks.

An ideologically inspired and somewhat different tradition in physical education and recreation was established in Germany in the late eighteenth century. Later the "turners" had their own sports festivals. Classical sport came to be considered a special province of German scholars because of their innovative work in sports historiography and, later, because of the excavations of German archaeologists at the ancient site of Olympia. In German society the classicists were separated from the turners, who, in turn, deliberately isolated themselves from Anglo-Saxon sport, which was becoming increasingly popular and widely known. The spread of sport was one aspect of the social and cultural internationalism of the late nineteenth century (47).

-The First Modern Olympics, Richard D. Mandell

BELTWAY

Beltway is a disc tennis variant played on a standard tennis court between two players who each use a personal disc.
1) The basic object of the game is to catch the disc thrown by the opponent or to throw the disc within the back half of the court in such a way that the opponent cannot catch it.
2) The first person to miss or drop a disc that lands within the boundary of the back half of the court, loses the point.
3) The serve initiates the round and the server utilizes his disc for the play.
4) The serve must fall in the opposite top quadrant just like in tennis. This is the only shot that can target the upper quadrants. All other disc throws must be focused on the back half of the court.
5) The server is determined initially by the flip of a disc. Subsequent serving shifts occur at multiples of every five rounds.
6) The first player to 25 wins.
7) Different strategies might see a player try to elude the other with his disc throw or crowd the opponent with a direct high velocity throw, or merely return the disc in a friendly way within the boundaries.
8) Bolder players will try to "peg" the opponent with the disc in such a way that he cannot catch the disc. The danger, of course, is that the opponent will not choose to attempt to catch the disc. If he successfully dodges the disc and it flies out of bounds then he wins the point. However, if he is "pegged" and doesn't catch the disc, then the player who threw the disc, wins the point.
9) Players are able to utilize the "beltway" (side lane(s)) as a free runway pad up to the net. Technically, beyond the initial serve shot which is the only shot in the game that can focus on the upper quadrants of the court, accessing the beltway is the only way to get closer positioning to the net.
10) Players may approach the net to prematurely intercept a throw but they may not throw a disc from the upper quadrants. Throws can only be made from the beltway or the back half of the court.

TOGGLE

Toggle is a disc golf variant played between two people and with three discs (2 personal discs and 1 Toggle disc).
1) Players set out for a stroll through a nice park or forest area.
2) Players select optimal target for current round.
3) Players flip a disc to determine who shall lead
4) Player 1 turns his disc and throws towards target (tree, rock, sign, post etc)
5) Player 2 takes his turn.
6) The disc which is closest to target gets to utilize the Toggle disc, giving him a distinct advantage for that round. The Toggle disc does not count as a stroke. It's a freebie shot towards the target.
7) If player that falls behind manages to get back into a position where his disc is closer to target than opponent's last throw, then he gets to utilize the Toggle disc to get closer to target.
8) Player who hits the target first AND in the fewest shots, wins a point for that round.
9) If one player hits the target first but the other player still has fewer strokes (except in the case of a connected target on the first throw which automatically wins the round) then the round is a draw and no one receives a point.
10) Players continue for a preset number of rounds or points or until they get tired of the game.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Olympism 4

Although eager to enrich and to depoliticize German physical education and popular recreation, the few German defenders of sport played very small roles in the growth of international cooperation and exchange which affected all aspects of European intellectual, social, and political life in the last half of the nineteenth century. The beginning of this internationalism might be dated from the opening in May, 1851, of the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Secure, confident Great Britain invited all the nations and their colonies to display the best of their arts and industries in London that year. This, the first world's fair, demonstrated that competition between peoples could be peaceful and progressive. Subsequent international exhibitions soon surpassed the London exhibition of 1851 in numbers of visitors, numbers of exhibitors, and variety of things desplayed. Beginning with the "Universal, International Exposition of 1867" in Paris, the ever larger and more frquent world's fairs became convenient meeting places for the world's traders, artists, and scholars. Exhibitions of industrial products or works of art were awarded gold, silver, or bronze medals and lavishly printed certificates of merit testifying to their superiority in international competition(42).

-The First Modern Olympics, Richard D. Mandell

BLITZ

Designed for Discobo and the world by Shapard Sweeney...


Two teams of six to ten occupy opposite sides of a playing field. There are two discs in play for each team, making a total of four discs in play at all times.
Both teams are attempting to cross one of their players across the goal line of the opposing side with their team’s “point disc” in hand.
 Each team has one “point disc” in play which is passed back and forth between team members as they advance down the field. When a player is passed the point disc, they may run with it or pass, or both.
Each side also has a “tag disc” (different color than “point disc”) in play. This is also passed back and forth between members of each respective team. The “tag disc” may be thrown at the person on the opposing team who is currently in possession of that team’s “point disc.”
 If the thrown “tag disc” connects with the person on the opposing team while that person is still in possession of his team’s “point disc,” the team that has been tagged must return their “point disc” to behind their own goal line and start their advance again.
Also, if a team intercepts the opposing team’s “point disc,” the team that suffers the interception must return their point disc to behind their goal line and start their advance again.
Unlike with the “point disc,” players may not run once they catch the “tag disc,” they may only pass it to one of their teammates or attempt to “tag” the person on the opposing side currently in possession of that team’s “point disc” (either by throwing it at that person or, if close enough, by directly tagging that player with the “tag disc” in their hand).
While a team may intercept or slap down the opposing team’s “point disc” or “tag disc,” the may not retain possession of it and must immediately drop it or hand it to the nearest member of the opposing team.
While a team must return their “point disc” to behind their own goal line and start their advance down the field over again if it is intercepted or if the teammate in possession of it is put into contact with the opposing team’s “tag disc,” the “tag disc remains in play on the field throughout.
The teams play until a predetermined number of points have been scored by the winning team.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Olympism 3

Until modern times the Greeks were unique in that exceptional prowess in sport could furnish the raw material for heroes accepted by the society at large(13).

"There lying deep in the darkness is life of our lives. It was sacred territory in a world ruled by other gods who were able to bring about peace due to the Olympic truce. But it remains holy territory for us as well. Those impulses for enchantment, that love of the fatherland, the consecration to art and the full application of energy to pursuit of joy - all these things should be offered to the clean rays of our enlightened world(38)."
- Ernst Curtius

At least partly due to the identification of the Germans with Olympia, the volume and detail of scholarship on classical sport has until very recently been almost overwhelmingly the work of German academics. But even apart from Olympia and German scholarship in classical sport, German artists and intellectuals have often been tempted to view themselves and their vigorous culture as possible reincarnations of the Hellenic titans and their culture. The discoveries at Olympia merely gave the German attachment to the Greeks another sentimental dimension.

It will be necessary to touch upon several aspects of nineteenth-century sport later on, but now I would like to describe briefly some distinctive developments in German physical education. Unlike the development of sport in the Anglo-Saxon world, which grew more or less naturally and without the prodding or attention of intellectuals, German sport has always been promoted by particular persons or institutions for special (usually nationalistic and/or political purposes. It should be pointed out here also that "sport" in tghis context is not sport as we think of it today. In fact, sport really ought to be considered an Anglo-Saxon invention only adopted by continentals late in the nineteenth century. Until then few Germans knew what "sport" was except from what they picked up in polemics. The Germans knew only "turning(39)."

...Under [Friedrich Ludwig] Jahn's leadership turning became a movement (Turnbewegung) for inspiring young men  and for making them fit. The movement and the turners played major roles in the organized resentment against Napoleon's occupation of Germany and then in the revolutionary pressure to bring about German national unity. In these decades of imposed political stability in central Europe, the turners' movement was one of the few expressions of community and patriotic solidarity avalable to the restless Germans. Jhan's movement grew in appeal and became established in the minds of its bourgeois ideologues, its lower bourgeois ideologues, its lower bourgeois participants, and its aristocratic enemies as an institution and a complex of attitudes that were paramilitary and conducive to democratic agitation.

As Germany consolidated her position with rapid economic advances in the last decades of the nineteenth  century, the turners were no longer seen as potentially disrupting. Scientific, artifical, disciplined exercise had been integrated into the various German systems of universal education. The clubs of the turners became focuses for local social life, while the ever larger national turners' meetings became occasions for mass demonstrations of loyalty to the united and prosperous Second Reich (40).

...Some cosmopolitan Germans, of course, were well informed about the rather different progress of physical education and, especially, of popular recreation in England. These developments, which, like turning, had their origins in the eighteenth century, had become part of English life and consciousness without the help or notice of ideologues or officials. The English leisured classes hade games like hockey and their two kinds of football, rowing, boxing, horse racing, and all sorts of footraces and field events. In fact many observers of the British sporting scene in the eighteenth and nineteenth centureis were struck by the fact that, as in aaancient Greece, noblemen might participate in agonistic competition with commoners, and that there existed in England, as in ancient Greece, the athletic hero. It was also well known that a taste for Anglo-Saxon sporting events had become well established in America, Canada, and Australia. German critics of the artificiality and rigidity of German physical education proposed that their countrymen at least examine these appealing exercises, competitions, and games which were called "sport(41)."

-The First Modern Olympics, Richard D. Mandell

Olympism 2

The victorious athlete was, therefore a harbinger of good fortune. Significantly, the classical Greeks abandoned the practice, apparent in Homer's epics, of awarding second, third, and subsequent prizes. Many poleis, and especially those in south Italy and Sicily, made strenuous efforts to obtain athletic victors. They recruited athletes and trainers, investigated the scientific principles of high performance, built luxurious training facilities, bribed judges, sacrificed lavishly, and prayed. There was an uninterrupted tendency from the sixth century onward for training to become more intense and for aristocratic amateurs to abandon participation in the major meets to single-minded, paid specialists - in short, professionals.

As the generations passed there was also a tendency for religious festivals with athletic meets incorporated in them to proliferate wherever Greek culture had penetrated. The various festivals were dedicated to many gods. The victors' crowns were of laurel, pine, wild celery, or other herbs. Some festivals, in addition to the conventional athletic events, had accompanying competitions in poetry, music, or other arts. The hosts, sacerdotal and civil, assumed that a festival brought prestige to local temples and pleased the Panhellenic and local gods. A class of itinerant, professional athletes and trainers became increasingly sought after ( as well as painfully arrogant). The stadiums, gymnasiums, and palaestras (wrestling schools) of Greece became ever more numerous, larger, and more the focal points of public life. The presentation of individual athletic events, as well as the festivals themselves, became more theatrical and lavish. For centuries the Greeks were the most sports-minded people the world has ever known (9).

-The First Modern Olympics, Richard D. Mandell

Monday, May 6, 2013

Regarding Olympism...


The Classical Greeks usually assumed that Hercules founded their most prestigious religious and sporting festival. Other traditions held that athletic competitions at Olympia in the eastern Peloponnesus were first held as part of the observances at the funeral of a local hero, Pelops. In any case, archaeological investigations at Olympia in the nineteenth century exposed altars and votive offerings from Mycenean times. Though the first recorded Olympic victory was that of Coroebus, a sprinter from Elis, in 776 B.C., athletic contests at Olympia were probably adjuncts of much older festivals in honor of Zeus. By the time Greek hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth century, the sacred grove at Olympia was the most  holy site of Panhellenic significance.

The content of the athletic festival varied over its thousand-year history, but not much. The prestige of the Olympic Games was so great and their integration into Greek religious life was so taken for granted as to discourage tampering with their order and ritual(1)...

As the heralds arrived at each city-state or colony, they proclaimed a sacred truce. Thereafter competitors or spectators traveling to or from Olympia were under the official protection of Zeus. Considering the Greeks' combativeness, this truce was observed with remarkably few exceptions(2)...

Even before the end of the victory ceremonies for the jockeys, many in the crowd were leaving for the grassy slopes of the stadium to observe the finalists in the pentathlon. In classical times the five events were the discus throw, the long jump, the javelin throw, the sprint, and wrestling(5)...

Discuses were made of stone or were metal castings, and they were of various weights, though they would be standardized at an important meet. The discus thrower's technique was much like the rising spin familiar to modern athletes and fans(11)...

-from The First Modern Olympics, by Richard D. Mandell

Finite and Infinite Games -1

1 - There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.

-James P. Carse

Lead To Gold Discoid #4


The AKASHIC EGG DISCOID