For a guy who's as competitive as I am, there's nothing like worthy rivals, or "koutekishu" in Japanese. There are bitter rivals, sworn enemies, and frenemies, but worthy rivals is a bit different: I respect worthy rivals a lot for being there and want to beat them in an endeavor not because I dislike them, it is because I know they are at the top of their game and will give it their all, and beating them requires me being better. I appreciate worthy rivals because the game wouldn't be fun, the endeavor not worth it if not for them; it's like the bad guy in a movie, they play the role of setting up the hero, and when you do beat them, it feels like an accomplishment in life, a mountain that one can climb, a notch in one's belt, and there are no hard feelings between the competitors, both know that it was the fruit of a hard-fought, well-deserved match.
This weekend in Las Vegas, I engaged in what in my opinion was one of the highest level of dodgeball in the country, maybe in the world, in the Weho Dodgeball-hosted "Sin City Shootout," basically part of an LGBT Olympics event held in Las Vegas every January. Although I myself am not LGBT, I appreciate the event and the ability to meet a lot of LGBT people and participate in the event. But honestly, what I love most is the competition. 40 teams of dodgeball teams (mostly from LA) but from around the world. I know there's other dodgeball organizations out there and if there was more money in the sport there'd be much better athletes playing and whatnot, but for one weekend I can pretend (with some merit) that it's the best dodgeball tournament in the world.
Last year, the champion was 5CardStuds, a team who beat my team to win the championship. I had to wait all year to come back to that tournament, thinking about what could have been, how close my team was, and how to beat 5CardStuds. To my great delight, 5CardStuds came back to defend their title with essentially the same team coming back, sparking my drive to come back and beat them this year. As a sports fan since childbirth, there's nothing like a good revenge tale, a sports narrative that never gets old, a team rising from the ashes to conquer the foe that beat them previously. This weekend, I was able to live out that fantasy by having our team topple the defending champion 5CardStuds in the semifinals in a 2-1 Best of Three match that saw various swings. Sin City Dodgeball goes fast (each match is set up to go just 8 minutes and it's only 8-on-8, so the action went quick enough to make one's head spin. I live a pretty boring life, more so in a competitive wise, as my main competitive endeavors are things like my law school fantasy baseball league, a ESPN pick'em league, and chess back in high school when I felt I could be somebody. In my mid-20's I was lucky enough to fuel those competitive juices with the game of dodgeball, and it gives me a purpose that I've rarely been able to use before. For one weekend, I could live my fantasy of being a sports star, a part of a team that was playing for something meaningful, where there were crowds watching all our games (there was actually a nice 100-200 person crowd of the dodgeball community watching our playoff games which was really pretty fun) and chasing that opportunity to be the best in the world. On this weekend our team fell short again (got 2nd for the 2nd straight year! GAH!) but I still feel like a winner due to the experience I went through.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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