Extreme Sports:

I played JV Soccer in high school... not very extreme

I play football from grade 7 through my junior year in college. I enjoyed it. I have no interest in a sport unless I am playing it. I don't know exactly what is meant by an extreme sport, but I gather it is the adrenaline junkie type stuff.. and I probably wouldn't do it. the ones I can think of involved heights.. and I don't like those.

Whatever. I've never really gotten the whole sports thing. I used to dance and I enjoy hiking, but the whole risking your life thing holds zero appeal for me.

I've abandoned any sport activity some years ago, but I've done some very risky in the past. Specially whatever that involves wheels. I've had serious accidents, but never enough to go to the hospital, fortunately. I remember that, what I've liked the most from these activities were these moments when you are just to have an accident but you control it in the last instant (the first instant of the accident, when it happens, it's also very exciting!).

I don't need this much excitement in my life, thanks though.

Other. It's fine for those who do it, but it is not something that I am interested in. For those who do it, more power to ya.

I consider thrill-junkies and casual thrill-seekers in roughly the same class as junkies/casual users of other potentially dangerous, potentially addictive drugs. Not my cup of tea (pun intended), I'd rather not have to pay for the damage you do to yourself, but otherwise, have fun.

What exactly do you consider a extreme sport? Is there a canonical list?
**Atzilut: Second-circuit? Third-circuit? Huh? Can you enlighten the clueless?

I ski and I hang glide. I love both dearly. Both are just INCREDIBLY FUN! There's certainly an adrenaline rush component to zooming as fast as you can down a mountain, but there's also a lot more to it. The feeling of being in tune with your body, the sense of accomplishment as you learn to perform at higher and higher levels, the gorgeous scenery, getting to spend time outside in the winter... and that's just skiing! Hang gliding has been one of the more satisfying things I have ever done. The utter serenity and joy of floating hundreds of feet above the ground, the feel of a smooth turn, the weird juxtaposition of total relaxation and intense excitement.... I have been injured hang gliding (my shoulder still has some twinges left over from a bad landing last August), but it was a stupid mistake that I won't make again, and the risk is worth it for me.

I never participated in organized sports except at camp; just wasn't my thing, and I was also the brainy kid who always got picked last anyway. I think in part because of not being athletic earlier, I am very psyched that I'm a good skiier, and I've only been doing it two years. So I guess there's a little of the "proving myself" thing in there too. But it's definitely about testing myself against myself, I've never had the feeling I was trying to prove myself to others, or impress people. [caveat - well, there was that NASTAR ski race in Colorado, but that was just once... :)]

Life without risk (physical, emotional, spiritual) isn't, IMHO, really living. Each of us just has to pick the risks that we're comfortable with, and judge them against the amount of joy/satisfaction/fullfillment they give us.

I do some mountain biking and skiing. I do it because it's fun and good exercise. I'm pretty careful though, so I checked "I participate", but it's kind of weak. Mountain Dew rocks. I was in little league when I was young and it sucked (that is, I sucked). I liked watching the X-games on TV - more so than almost any other spectator sports on TV (though, I still wont go out of my way to watch them).**Daver, read Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson for an excellent description of Timothy Leary's circuits of consciousness.

I can read a 400 page book in an afternoon ... is that extreme? I can drink Diet Pepsi(tm) at the same time ...

I joined a soccer team, very briefly, but then I got a scholarship to go to a science center on weekends, and it conflicted, and that was no contest. I think that people who participate in extreme sports should also be disallowed from collecting medical benefits to pay for the consequences of their actions. ***seth--no, actually; the insurance provider can just jack up the rates for everyone else, so it's no skin off their nose; I think that extreme sportsters, like smokers and others of unhealthy lifestyle (of which I am one) should not be allowed to make the other premium-payers pay for the consequences of their actions.

My survey. I tried to do a canonical list at the start, and gave up because there are so many "extreme" activities out there and most of them have a normal level as well. You can rollerblade on Memorial Drive on the weekends or you can do railing stunts on the bridge over Storrow Drive. You can ski Killington or you can do 70 degree chutes off a glacier. So the definition I was looking for is "Sports in which your chances of death are significantly higher than average."

Personally, I surf, which since I live in New England doesn't really qualify as extreme, except that I mostly do it in winter or in hurricane season since that's the only time we get waves. I've never been badly hurt, although on one occasion I badly overstepped my limits and spent a long hour wondering if I was going to drown as a result. I don't do it so much for the rush, but rather to prove to myself I can do it. I've always been a non-athletic kid with too much imagination and sitting on top of the ocean on a chunk of fiberglass scares me quite a bit. It wasn't until recently I realized that while I was never an "athlete" as a kid due to bad coordination, I was always in shape and stronger than most of the kids I knew. I just couldn't play their games. Swimming, running track, I always did well but they didn't have the social acceptance or recognition that overcame the stigma of being picked last for everything else. So now I stick to individual sports and do them for personal bests, and it feels pretty good.

I wouldn't call competitive cycling 'extreme' but it's not the safest sport in the world either -- at the time I was involved the mortality rate approached 1 percent per year -- and when I did it I did hurt myself pretty regularly. Now I autocross, but that's not extreme either.

***Steve: Don't you think that should be up to the insurance provider?

***Steve: You can't make anyone pay more for their insurance, and neither can insurance providers. All they can do is offer, and you can tell them to go to hell if you don't like their rates. Do you think they're charging me more because you cost them money, or because they can get away with it without losing my business? The trend these days is to forbid insurance companies from considering certain factors in their price calculation. Sad, no? It's just one more tax people forget about.

I have no _f*cking_ idea what 'extreme sports' are. Moreover, I have no interest in sports (competitive ones anyway) and have decades of animosity built up for the whole Tribe of Sports starting from gym class in 4th grade and getting more hateful and vitriolic from there. Don't even get me started on so-called 'professional atheletes' or 'athletic scholarships.' I get my exercise at home, and from morris dance and swimming. I'm a textbook case of third-circuit compensation for a negative second-circuit imprint. Competitive/Professional sports are right up there (or down there) with throwing dung at competing alpha males in my opinion.

Daver: read Prometheus Rising by R.A.W.

Extreme sports are mid-life crisises that happen young. They are also the inevitable result of the desenseitising of society, you can't get it where you used to find it because it doesn't do it for you any more so you go to farther extremes and farther untill you have to leap out of a plane a thousand times to get the same thrill you used to get from jupming off a swing set.

I'm a non-sports person.

While I have never participated, I would like to try something "tame" like hang gliding or sky diving. To tie a rubber band around my ankles and jump off a cliff??? Naaaaaa.

hmmmm...is snowboarding still extreme? thats the closest i come to extreme. i used to skateboard when i was a kid, but not terribly extremely. i played several organized sports at one time or another, most i liked, a couple i didn't

I wish I had the guts to do one but, you know, it's one of those things I will never be able to say I did.

Gee, I didn't check that I had, but I've rockclimbed and skied quite a bit (a lot, for skiing)... I don't see them as involving an unusually high chance of death or injury. Now, *driving* to work every day...

I fly hang gliders (which most would consider "extreme") More accurately, I study/practice risk management, occasionally flying a hang glider in the process. I have also done some rock climbing (don't think of it as "extreme", though)

Hey, where's the option for "not on your life"?

sexist survey = bad survey

We love watching "extreme" rock climbing, rollerblading and mountain biking, although none really seem extreme! They're just tough. Sure, I'd love to be able to half pipe on a rollerblade. I'm not good enough. Someday I could be, if I focused on only that, but it's not what I want to do with my life. I admire people who get that good, though.

FIR: I actually think it's the opposite. People have been rock climbing for years. These sports aren't extreme, people are just more afraid now about any sort of pain than they were in the past. People take cell phones on rock climbs!!! Where before the mentality was "I will be well trained and be responsible for my group members," now the mentality is "someone come rescue me if I get scared!"

Lelle: I think it was the "impress the babes", although I mountain bike to get the biker babes myself ;) Maybe it should have read "to impress the babes/studs".

***elijahblue: sexist in what way?
Lisa: oh, right. So not really sexist, just 'in-favour-of-people-who'd-like-to-impress-studs'. ;)

I have no interest in extreme sports.

I am a barefoot water-skier and I feel that people who call us Maniacs are idiots mostly if they have never tried one. TRY ONE THEY ROCK SOX!!!!!!