How to Impress Women: Finger Jousting

It’s always exciting when FSC gets to expose its audience to a brand new sport, one that is either so young or so confined to its home geography that the population at large hasn’t discovered it yet. Today, FSC presents a sport all but guaranteed to make friends and impress women. I’m talking about the sport of finger jousting.

Finger jousting, according to the Pseudo History on the homepage of the World Finger Jousting Federation (WFJF), was started by the ancient Israelites. The WFJF actually claims that Moses himself played (I’m not making this up) and that finger jousting is the chosen sport of the chosen people. The WFJF also claims the existence of a text called the Book of Phalanges (I’m still not making this up) that the First Council of Nicaea almost used while writing the Nicene Creed. Can you imagine Christianity today if a pillar of its philosophy had been based on poking each other with your index finger?

The sport actually has a fairly detailed code of conduct, philosophy and set of rules. I won’t get into the details here (although I’d like to revisit them in a future column), but check them out on the Basics page. The general premise is that two jousters attempt to earn points by poking each other with their index fingers. Depending on the version you play, there might be different points for different parts of the body.

Currently the sport is spreading slowly. Its “hotbed” is the metropolis of LaGrange, Georgia. Besides the Cinco de Mayo Leisure Jousting Social Event, there do not seem to have been many official events this year, nor do any appear to be planned. The lack of organized events is probably attributable to the youth of the WFJF, which just celebrated its first anniversary, according to Julian Glick, the “Lord of the Joust” (i.e., president of the WFJF). You can fix this, though. Start your own finger jousting clubs and plan your own events.

The sport is starting to attract some media attention. Its inherent goofy athleticism (as embodied by the fact that most competitors are part of the “gaming sub-culture”) has sparked the curiosity of radio, blogs and Yahoo’s The 9 video show. WFJF’s media page has links to all of it. I recommend you check them out.

And you’re probably asking yourself “How does this attract women?” Here’s how – start poking a girl, finger jousting with her. It doesn’t matter if she plays or even knows what it is, in fact this works better if she neither plays nor knows about finger jousting. Start poking her. Finger joust the hell out of her. I promise you’ll get a strong reaction.