Shovelling is boring. That's my problem.
If I'm playing Aikido and someone shovels, my response is to sigh, and detachedly counter it. I still hate it, because instead of having an interesting match, I just go through with a very well practiced counter. Shovelling takes all of the possible fluidity out of an aikido match. Instead of some kind of desperate struggle where you're constantly trying to bring your opponent over you, out of the ring, to the ground, etcetera.
It takes all creativity and skill out of the equation. Even if you have to be skilful to counter a shovel or whatever, once you know how to, it's just boring.
I suppose I could talk about the spirit of competition here or something, but shovelling pretty much kills that too. It forces both players in to a set of pre-determined moves with a highly predictable outcome. Either the person being shovelled doesn't know how to counter it, and unless they're awesomely brilliant and just haven't happened to come up with a counter until that very moment, they'll probably lose. Or they know how to counter it, and the next thing you know the shoveler is probably DQ'd.
I don't see how that's interesting, or fun.
I feel like I should mention that normally I just play for fun, but shovelling forces me to play to win, with little to no fun involved.
Last edited by FrostFyre; Jul 23, 2013 at 11:00 PM.
Reason: Oh yeah...