Wow Wii!

I got my first exposure to a Wii Friday night at a party with some old law school friends. I didn't know much about it before that evening, only that they use some crazy technology that lets you move the controls through the air to determine your moves when you play. Seems so space age. Anyway, I was sure that I wasn't going to be any good at it, because you know when playing tennis for instance, you actually have to swing your arms and not just press buttons.

As it turns out, however, I'm pretty good at Wii. Or at least I was last night. Matt and I won our tennis match in a best of 5 series. In the last game, the other team failed to return the ball due to my hard and fast serves. I also played four frames of bowling, where I managed to pick up a couple of spares and two nine pin sets.

But the best was knocking Matt out in the boxing tournament. The boxing was by far the best game on there. It's just like taking a Tai-Bo class - you're just throwing punches and blocks in the air. And it was a great workout. My heart rate was up, I was sweating. And we only played three rounds. The next day, my shoulder and arm muscles were actually pretty sore from it. I've done Tai-Bo plenty of times, but I tell you I have never had such an effective boxing-type workout. I think the glory of beating Matt certainly helped in pushing me to throw as many punches as possible. And what's great about the Wii is that, it's an equalizer when it comes to strength. Of course, Matt is stronger than me and could totally knock me out in a real fight. But with the Wii, it's all about timing and blocking the hits - my actual strength comparative to my opponent isn't a factor. It makes you want to play the strongest guy you know, just because you might actually beat him (Aaron Clark, you're on notice!)

Anyway, I can't imagine that we'll be getting a Wii any time soon. But I have to say, I'm a big fan. What a great workout. I can't wait to play again sometime.