Mar 10, 2019 By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 6 min read

They say during situations of extreme chaos, it takes the human brain seven seconds to process and accept what’s going on before it tells the rest of the body to kick into gear — whether it’s fight or flight, spit or split, dish or dash, weeble or wobble — sorry, I was running out of words.

Anyway, two stories that I recently read from the world of “sports” has caused my brain to do just that.

First, I’ll begin with the lesser of the two head scratchers, which involves a French fencing federation officially recognizing lightsaber dueling from the “Star Wars” movie franchise as a competitive sport; therefore, making playing with lightsabers an actual sport and a Jedi an actual athlete.

Now I’ll give your brain seven seconds. . . . . . .

Of course, they don’t use real lightsabers that can cut someone in half like a hot knife through butter because that would be highly dangerous, highly expensive because the technology hasn’t been invented yet and highly unlikely because the lightsaber is a fictional weapon.

What they use instead are LED-lit, polycarbonate replicas that make the same sounds a lightsaber does in the movies, including a sensor that makes the same sound as it does in the movies when two lightsabers strike each other.

So, basically, they’re toys. They’re using toys based on a science fiction movie for what’s now an actual sport.

That’s like making a sport out of Light Cycle racing from the movie “Tron,” but they’re really not physically going into a computer program to race around on cycles that can kill people. The races would instead be played on a virtual platform with handheld devices controlling the action. Some may call that a video game, but the organizers wouldn’t. They don’t want to sound like they’re a bunch of totally stupid idiots.

Little did I know as a kid, after watching “The Empire Strikes Back” and swinging a broomstick around the house and making the “zhwooom-zhwoom-zhwoom” sounds with my mouth and pretending the dog was a Tauntaun that needed to be sliced open to keep Luke Skywalker from frostbite, I was participating in a future sport.

Even if I accept that lightsabering is a sport, I do have many, many questions, and when I say many, many questions, I mean three.

First, do you have to dress up as a Jedi or Sith or can you participate in street clothes? I want to join, but I don’t want to look like a dirty hippy in a bathrobe or a leather-bound dominatrix when I’m competing with other French weirdos.

Second, can we cast spells and/or throw things during a competition? Yes, I know Jedi don’t technically cast spells, but they have the power to move objects with the Force, so during a lightsaber duel, do I move my fingers and say, “I just threw a garbage can at your head, Jean-Luke! Yield!” or do I just throw a garbage can at my opponent?

Third, can I use my parents’ old broomstick? I haven’t used it since a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but I do recall I was pretty handy with it, and the dog liked being the sacrificial Tauntaun over and over again.

Now that your brain has made it through that, it’s time to reveal the second headline that actually made me foam at the mouth, but, to be honest, I was eating Alka Setlzer tablets at the time–I love those things!

Anyway, it seems that Gier Helgemo, the world’s number-one bridge player, has been banned from competing for a year and had his titles and medals stripped away for doping.

Yep. Here’s another seven seconds for your brain . . . . . . .

At first, I thought “bridge player” meant that he competed in something like a deck-hockey competition on an actual bridge because they couldn’t very well mean the card game that my grandmother had played.

Yet, for some odd reason, the World Bridge Federation is recognized by the International Olympic Committee and must follow World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

Why would anyone need to take performance-enhancing drugs for bridge and what would they need to take?

I assumed he was taking NoDoz caffeine pills with a Red Bull chaser because I looked up the rules for bridge, and I fell asleep, but my assumption was wrong. He was caught using synthetic testosterone and a female fertility drug at a competition.

I’ll give your brain 14 seconds for that one . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So, beyond the question of why someone believes they need to dope to play bridge — a game where you sit at a table and play cards — why would synthetic testosterone and a female fertility drug be needed to give you an unfair edge?

Either the combination of the drugs gives the user the ability to have X-ray vision to see their opponents’ cards or it heightens their senses to detect pheromones the other players are giving off when they’re bluffing. I really can’t see the advantages of that doping logic or even a valid excuse when caught for taking them, which is why I would love it if there’s video of a doping panel grilling this guy.

“Why did you take these substances and where did you get them from?”

“Uh, it was an accident, and, uh, they belonged to my wife.”

“Your wife takes testosterone?”

“Uh, I like my women handsome and hairy.”

Or, maybe he’ll just come clean, so to speak, and admit to why he’s taking the drugs.

“While I love the competitive and dangerous sport of bridge, I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father by competing in lightsaber competitions in France. Zhwooom-zhwoom-zhwoom!”

And here’s another seven seconds for your brain . . . . . . .

According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His book, “Stupid Brain,” is available on Amazon.com.