2009年03月
2009年03月30日
sasuke underdog
This may sound silly, but I saw the Sasuke competition on
TBS tonight and really enjoyed it. For you that don't know
it, Sasuke is an athletic competition that incorporates
head-to-head tests of strength, speed, and agility in a variety of
event formats. They always invite famous Japanese and overseas
athletes to compete, and recently they have been upping the
number of entertainment industry "talents", especially comedians,
as well as troupe members from the "Muscle" musical show in
Tokyo. This time they also had a group of "normal people" that
won their way onto the show by winning local and regional
competitions: a university athlete, a shoe salesman, a former
sprinter who quit his office job to concentrate on Sasuke and train
while teaching aerobics at a sports gym, etc.
I took a quick look online and found that Sasuke has a solid maniac
following in the blogosphere. TBS also exports the concept overseas
and markets it under the name "Ninja Warrior." Good for TBS - but
with all that, you would think they could do something with that online
themselves? I gave up trying to find some good professional links to
show what the show is about - the best TBS has is a screen shot of
their program guide here.
Anyway, on the March 30th show they had this ridiculously hard 1st
stage obstacle course set up. Participants had to jump or swing from
island to island; run up and scale the wall of a giant half-pipe; spring
off a trampoline into a small crevice, catching themselves by sheer
arm and leg strength pushing horizontally on the walls, etc. At one
point 70 people had tried to get through it and only one had made it
on time to qualify for the second round. By the end, only a handful
made it through to the 2nd stage: and the great thing was that there
was not a famous person among them. Not one Olympic athlete or
Samurai Japan handball player. Not one comedian or talent. Just a
Taiwanese pro rock climber (!?) and the local UNDERDOGS.
(If you don't know that term, it simply means "a team or contestant
not expected to win." But Americans of my age know it as the name
of the lovable cartoon dog pictured above - he always gets himself
into a bad situation, but beats the bad guy and gets the girl in the end!)
Everybody else ended up falling in the water and looking stupid.
So I spent the last hour or so of the show riveted to my set, rooting for
one of these UNDERDOGS to pass through the even harder 2nd stage
course (basically a climbing strength and endurance challenge - up and
down a stair-like structure, down an inverted plane hanging off of what
looked like light bulbs, sliding across jungle gym bars supporting your
weight on metal rings, shimmying along the underside of a board tacked
onto the supporting structure above... You could just feel the pain in these
guys' forearms and fingers as the lactic acid flowed on and on...
In the end, the Taiwanese pro rock climber, the university gymnast, and the
sprinter-turned-aerobics-instructor were all in the water. Who went on to
the Final Stage? Only the shoe salesman. Classic.
If the show were produced in Hollywood, there would have been a different
final stage ending. But Shoe Salesman then had to go straight up (maybe 50
meters total on this ridiculous scaffolding tower) via a metal ladder and a
simple hanging rope. He got all the way to the top (impressive indeed) but
timed out about 2 seconds too slow. The best part was his reaction after -
big smile, no regrets, rightfully proud of himself. And looking to come back
to try again, to see if he could get up the rope in time. Sometimes seeing
simple things like that really give me energy for my business - small and
not well known, we are a classic UNDERDOG. But sometimes the
Olympians get over confident, the "talents" are more concerned about how
their hair looks, and even the pro rock climbers slip and fall. So the
little guy who focuses on the work at hand, preps right, and executes
effectively can come out on top - at least for one stage. Good to see!
