Dragon Kung Fu

The movements of the Dragon style (traditional Chinese: 龍形摩橋; Yale Cantonese: lung4 ying4 mo1 kiu4; literally "dragon shape rubbing bridges") of Chinese martial arts are based on the mythical Chinese dragon.

A variation of the Dragon style is taught by the Loong Choo Kung Fu Society based in Penang, Malaysia and with branches in Australia. Founded by Li Ah Yu and his father near the turn of the century, this association claims it is teaching a Soft / Hard Dragon style originating from Fukkien province.

The Dragon Kung Fu practitioner typically attacks with winding low yang; that is, powerful and quick movements. For example, when striking with the fist, more power can be exerted when the movement originates from the feet, is guided by the waist, flows through the body, and exits through the fist.

The dragon stylist relies on a variety of fighting techniques that can be employed for a wide range of needs. The style uses techniques that can cripple or kill an opponent if the need arises or it can be used simply to control a minor street fighting situation.

Like most southern style kung fu, it has limited kicks and jumps and consisted mainly of fist, palm and clawing techniques. Power generated from the waist using soft hard jin.

Kayaking

Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. Kayaking is differentiated from canoeing by the fact that a kayak has a closed cockpit and a canoe has an open cockpit. They also use a two bladed paddle. Another major difference is in the way the paddler sits in the boat. Kayakers sit in a seat on the bottom of the boat with their legs extended out in front of them. Canoeists will either sit on an elevated bench seat or kneel directly on the bottom of the boat.

Whitewater kayaking involves taking a kayak down rapids. Sea kayaking sometimes also referred to as Ocean Kayaking involves taking kayaks out on to the ocean or other open water i.e a lake. Sea kayaking can involve short paddles with a return to the starting point or "put-in" or expeditions covering many miles and days. Kayaking of all kinds has continued to increase in general popularity through the 1990s and early 21st century.

There are two major configurations of kayaks - "sit on tops" which as the name suggests involves sitting on top of the kayak in an open area and "cockpit style" which involves sitting with the legs and hips inside the kayak hull and a "spray skirt" that creates a watertight barrier around the waist. Whether a kayak is a sit-on-top or a cockpit style has nothing to do with which classification it falls under. Both configurations are represented in each of the five primary classifications. While most kayaks are designed to be paddled by a single person, other configurations include tandem and even triple cockpit boats.

Amateur wrestling

Amateur wrestling is the most widespread form of sport wrestling. There are two international wrestling styles performed in the Olympic Games under the supervision of FILA (Fédération Internationale des Luttes Associées or International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles): Greco-Roman and freestyle. Freestyle is possibly derived from the English Lancashire style. A similar style, commonly called collegiate (also known as scholastic or folkstyle), is practiced in colleges and universities, secondary schools, middle schools, and among younger age groups in the United States. Where the style is not specified, this article refers to the international styles played on a mat.

In the international styles, the format is now three two-minute periods. A wrestler wins the match when he has won two out of three periods. For example, if one competitor were to win the first period 1-0 and the second period 1-0, the match would be over. However, if the other competitor were to win the second period, then a third and deciding period would result. Only a fall, injury default, or disqualification terminates the match; all other modes of victory result only in period termination.

In collegiate wrestling, the period structure is different. A college match consists of one three-minute period, followed by two two-minute periods, with an overtime round if necessary. A high school match typically consists of three two-minute periods, with an overtime round if necessary. Under the standard rules for collegiate wrestling, draws are not possible; this rule is sometimes modified for young wrestlers.

Team handball

Handball (also known as team handball, field handball, European handball, or Olympic handball) is a team sport where two teams of seven players each (six players and a goalkeeper) pass and bounce a ball trying to throw it in the goal of the opposing team.

The game has a goal similar to but smaller than the one in association football, though as the name implies, the basic method of handling the ball involves the players' hands rather than their feet. The game has been played internationally since the 1920s.

The International Handball Federation organized the Men's World Championships in 1938 and every four (or sometimes three years) from World War II to 1995. Since the 1995 World Championship in Iceland, the competition has been held every two years. The Women's World Championships have been played since 1957. The IHF also organizes Women's and Men's Junior World Championships.

As of February 2007, the IHF lists 159 member federations which represent approximately 1,130,000 teams and a total of 31 million players, trainers, officials and referees.

Handball is played on a court forty meters long by twenty meters wide (40mx20m), with a dividing line in the middle and a goal in the center of either end. The goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular line that is generally six meters (6m) away from the goal. There is also a dashed near-semicircular line that is nine meters (9m) away from the goal. In established play (which is most of the time, although counterattacking is becoming increasingly important), the defenders stand right outside the 6m line, with the attacking players throwing the ball to each other a bit outside the 9m line, trying to create an attack (either by shooting from a distance, or passing to a player standing at the 6m line).

Netball

Netball is a non-contact sport similar to, and derived from, basketball. It is usually known as a women's sport.[citation needed] It was originally known in its country of origin, the United States, as "women's basketball". Invented in 1895 by Clara Gregory Baer, a pioneer in women's sport, it is now the pre-eminent women's team sport (both as a spectator and participant sport) in Australia and New Zealand and is popular in the West Indies, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom.

Like basketball, the game is played on a hard court or soft court with scoring rings at both ends, and with a ball resembling a basketball (but lighter, smaller and slightly softer in construction, even mainly white). The hoops are of smaller dimension and height in comparison to basketball hoops, though they contain no backboards. It is possible to play netball using a basketball net but if there is any contact between the ball and the backboard of the net, the ball is considered out of play. If a goal is scored off the backboard it does not count. The court is divided into thirds which regulate where individuals in each team are allowed to move, and two semi-circular "shooting circles" at each end from within which all scoring shots must be taken.

A netball court is slightly larger than a basketball court, being 30.5m long and 15.25m wide. The longer sides are called Side Lines and the shorter lines called base Lines. The court is divided into three equal areas. A 90cm-diameter Centre Circle is located in the centre of the court. A 4.9m-radius semi-circle on each base Line is called the Goal Circle. The court lines are not more than 50mm wide. The goal posts are 3.05m high from the top of the ring. The rings have an internal diameter of 380mm and are located 150mm forward from the post. The rings are made of 15mm diameter steel.

Badminton

Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players (singles) or two opposing pairs (doubles), who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their opponents' half of the court. A rally ends once the shuttlecock has struck the ground, and the shuttlecock may only be struck once by each side before it passes over the net.

The shuttlecock is a feathered projectile whose unique aerodynamic properties cause it to fly differently from the balls used in most racquet sports; in particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly than a ball. Because shuttlecock flight is strongly affected by wind, competitive badminton is always played indoors. Badminton is also played outdoors as a casual recreational activity, often as a garden or beach game.

Badminton is an Olympic sport with five competitive disciplines: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles, in which each pair is a man and a woman. At high levels of play, the sport demands excellent fitness: players require aerobic stamina, strength, and speed. It is also a technical sport, requiring good motor coordination and the development of sophisticated racket skills.

To win in badminton, players need to employ a wide variety of strokes in the right situations. These range from powerful jumping smashes to delicate tumbling net returns. Often rallies finish with a smash, but setting up the smash requires subtler strokes. For example, a netshot can force the opponent to lift the shuttlecock, which gives an opportunity to smash. If the netshot is tight and tumbling, then the opponent's lift will not reach the back of the court, which makes the subsequent smash much harder to return.

Surfing

Surfing is a surface water sport in which the participant is carried along the face of a breaking wave, most commonly using a surfboard, although wave-riders may make use of kneeboards, body boards (aka boogie boards), kayaks, surf skis, and their own bodies. Surfing-related sports, such as paddleboarding and sea kayaking do not require waves, and other derivative sports such as kitesurfing and windsurfing rely primarily on wind for power, yet all of these tools may as well be used to ride waves.

Two major subdivisions within contemporary stand-up surfing are reflected by the differences in surfboard design and riding style of longboarding and shortboarding.

In tow-in surfing (most often, but not exclusively, associated with big wave surfing), a surfer is towed into the wave by a motorized water vehicle, such as a jetski, generally because standard paddling is often ineffective when trying to match a large wave's higher speed.

The first European record of surfing in Hawaii comes from Lieutenant James King, who completed the journals of Captain James Cook upon Cooks's death in 1779. At the time, surfing had already been an integral part of indigenous Hawaiian culture for generations. Native Hawaiian surfers rode waves lying down, sitting or standing on long, hardwood boards. Surfing is a sport of native Hawaiian life as any major sport is part of western life today, if not more. It permeated Hawaiian society, including religion and myth. Hawaiian chiefs would demonstrate and confirm their authority by the skills they displayed in the surf.

Cheerleading

Cheerleading is a dangerous but exciting sport sport that uses organized routines made from elements of tumbling, dance, and stunting to direct the event's spectators to cheer on sports teams at games and matches and/or compete at cheerleading competitions. The athlete involved is called a cheerleader. With an estimated 1.5 million participants in allstar cheerleading (not including the millions more in high school, college or little league participants) in the United States alone, cheerleading is, according to Newsweek's Arian Campo-Flores, "the most quintessential of American sports." The growing presentation of the sport to a global audience has been led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there are now an estimated 100,000 participants scattered around the rest of the world in countries including Australia, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Most American high schools and colleges have organized cheerleading squads made up solely of students. Several colleges that compete at cheerleading competitions offer cheerleading scholarships.

Parachuting

Parachuting is an activity involving a preplanned drop from a height using a deployable parachute.

One type of parachuting is skydiving, which is recreational parachuting, also called sport parachuting.

The history of parachuting is not clear. It's known that Andre-Jacques Garnerin made successful parachute jumps from a hot-air balloon in 1797. The military developed parachuting technology first as a way to save aircrews from emergencies aboard balloons and aircraft in flight, later as a way of delivering soldiers to the battlefield. Early competitions date back to the 1930s, and it became an international sport in 1951.

Today it is performed as a recreational activity and a competitive sport, as well as for the deployment of military personnel Airborne forces and occasionally forest firefighters.

Parachuting has complex skills that can take thousands of jumps to master, but the basics are often fully understood and useful during the first few jumps. There are four basic areas of skill: basic safety, free fall maneuvers, parachute operation, and landing.

Polo

Polo is a team sport played outdoor on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Riders score by driving a white wooden or plastic ball (size 3–3.5 inches, weight 4.25–4.75 ounces) into the opposing team's goal using a long-handled mallet. Goals are only valid if the scoring rider is mounted. The traditional sport of polo is played outdoors, and each polo team consists of four riders and their mounts. Play occurs in seven-minute periods, called chukkas. The full game is played over eight chukkas; however, depending on league rules, matches can also have four or six chukkas.

The modern indoor variant is called arena polo. In arena polo, there are 3 instead of four players on each team and chukkas are 7 1/2 minutes in length. The playing area is 300' x 150'.

Another modern variant is snow polo, which is played either outdoor or indoor on snow on a frozen ground or ice. Each team generally consists of three players and also the equipment differ from the sport of polo. Other variants include elephant polo, bike polo and Segway polo. These sports are considered as separate sports because of the differences in the composition of teams, equipment, rules, game facilities etc.

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games (often referred to simply as The Olympics or The Games) is an international multi-sport event subdivided into summer and winter sporting events. The summer and winter games are each held every four years (an Olympiad). Until 1992, they were both held in the same year. Since then, they have been separated two years apart.

The original Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and was celebrated until AD 393. Interest in reviving the Olympic Games proper was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead" in 1833. Evangelos Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in 1859. He paid for the refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium for Games held there in 1870 and 1875. This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived! Here is strange news indeed ... the classical games of antiquity were revived near Athens".

Swimming

Swimming is movement by humans or animals in water, usually without artificial assistance. Swimming is an activity that is both useful and recreational for many species. Its primary uses are bathing, cooling, travel, fishing and escape. An individual's ability to swim can be judged by speed or stamina.

Animals with lungs have an easier time floating than those without. Almost all mammals can swim by instinct. Bats, kangaroos, moles and sloths can swim, despite their rather strange shapes. The few exceptions include apes and possibly giraffes. Land birds can swim or float for at least some time. Ostriches, cassowaries and tortoises can swim.

The goal of competitive swimming is to be the fastest to swim at a given distance and drop time. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century, and comprises 34 individual events - 17 male events and 17 female events. Swimming is a popular event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 13 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool. Competitive swimming's international governing body is FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation), the International Swimming Federation.

The four competitive strokes are the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle (front crawl). While "freestyle" and "front crawl" are often used interchangeably, freestyle is the more common name and is used in most all club-swimming or international competitions. A swimmer may actually swim any stroke or combination of strokes in a freestyle race. Swimmers generally choose to swim front crawl in a freestyle event since it is typically the fastest stroke.

Tennis

Tennis is a game played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players (doubles). Players use a stringed racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt (most of the time yellow, but can be any color or even two-tone) over a net into the opponent's court.

Originating in Europe in the late 19th century as "lawn tennis", with its roots going back to the ancient game of real tennis, tennis spread first throughout the English-speaking world, particularly among the upper classes. Tennis is now once again an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society, by all ages, and in many countries around the world.

Except for the adoption of the tie-breaker in the 1970s, its rules have remained remarkably unchanged since the 1890s. A recent addition to tennis has been the adoption of "instant replay" technology coupled with a point challenge system which allows a player to challenge the official call of a point.

Along with its millions of players, millions of people world-wide follow tennis as a spectator sport, especially the four Grand Slam tournaments: Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. The growth of tennis in Eastern Europe and the Far East has been especially notable in recent years.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods (born Eldrick Tiger Woods,[1] December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, Woods was the highest paid professional athlete in 2006, having earned an estimated $100 million from winnings and endorsements.

Woods has won 13 professional major golf championships, the second-most of any male player, and 61 PGA Tour events, the fifth-most of all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the Career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on Tour. Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record nine times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has tied Jack Nicklaus's record of leading the money list in eight different seasons. He has been named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year four times, a record he shares with Lance Armstrong.

Golf

Golf is a sport in which a player, using several types of clubs, hits a ball into each hole on the golf course in the lowest possible number of strokes. Golf is one of the few ball games that does not use a standardised playing area; rather, the game is played on golf "courses," each one of which has a unique design and typically consists of either 9 or 18 separate holes. Golf is defined in the Rules of Golf as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St AndrewsThe first game of golf for which records survive was played at Bruntsfield Links, in Edinburgh, Scotland, in A.D. 1456, recorded in the archives of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now The Royal Burgess Golfing Society. Golf has become a worldwide sport, with golf courses in the majority of countries.

Golf competition may be played as stroke play, in which the individual with the lowest number of strokes is declared the winner, or as match play with the winner determined by whichever individual or team posts the lower score on the most individual holes during a complete round. In addition, team events such as fourball have been introduced, and these can be played using either the stroke or matchplay format. Alternative ways to play golf have also been introduced, such as miniature golf and disc golf.

Football

Association football, commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and it is the most popular sport in the world.[1] It is a ball game played on a rectangular grass or artificial turf field, with a goal at each of the short ends. The object of the game is to score by manoeuvring the ball into the opposing goal. In general play, the goalkeeper is the only player allowed to use their hands or arms to propel the ball; the rest of the team usually use their feet to kick the ball into position, occasionally using their torso or head to intercept a ball in mid air. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is tied at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time and/or a penalty shootout, depending on the format of the competition.

The modern game was codified in England following the formation of The Football Association, whose 1863 Laws of the Game created the foundations for the way the sport is played today. Football is governed internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), commonly known by the acronym FIFA. The most prestigious international football competition is the World Cup, held every four years. This event, the most widely viewed in the world, boasts an audience twice that of the Summer Olympics