Could blitzball be played?

I mean, in the real world. I don’t know if anyone already plays blitzball, but i’d like to give it a shot. Blitz time?

Only if people can hold their breath indefinitely and somehow kick a ball under water so that it goes further than about a foot.

That’s something that always confused me - how do Blitzers and Al Bhed hold their water for such a long epriod of time? Do they hold their breath? have they actually learned to breathe water? (That’s my theory - If you remember, in the beginning of FFX, Tidus wakes up on the beaches of besaid in the water - face down.) What’s so special about them that lets them do that?

I’d say video game logic.

Nothing. Blitzers are regarded as “awesome” for being able to resist that long, but there is never any explanation on how the heck they can do it. I could understand the other races and maybe even Tidus (Being a sentient illusion and all), but there’s no reasoning for how humans like Wakka do it.

As for the topic, a few reasons for why Blitzball could not be played:

[ul]
[li]4 minutes without oxygen causes brain damage and death. Blitzers spend 5 minutes in a row while playing, and you have to add the fact that they are doing physical exercise, cutting their resistance even lower.
[/li][li]The players would need super-human strength to kick and pass the ball trough water at those lengths. Have you ever tried kicking a ball underwater? If it goes farther than a meter, congratulations.
[/li][li]The players would probably die sooner or later, since whooping someone to death is apparently allowed.
[/li][/ul]

It may be something in the water, i don’t know silly statement i just thought maybe they did something to the water to make it special or something.

That still doesn’t explain the oceans and rivers that Tidus and Wakka go in, again with Tidus laying face down in the water).

I just attribute it to being the same reason the characters can use magic and stuff.

As for the topic, blitzball might be possible with scooba gear. Otherwise, it would take a shit load of training and very few people would be able to do it. I saw a thing on Ripley’s Believe it or Not about a couple of people who do free diving and they managed to dive pretty deep without gear and hold their breath for insane amounts of time, I don’t remember the exact number though. However, scooba gear would probably be the only way to make it really possible. I won’t comment on the ball since a light and soft ball wouldn’t go very far, but a heavier ball could move easier (but not as far as in the game).

There are several mention about this… One is a Besaid Aurochs in FFX mantions that Wakka can swim around the Island 5 times with out coming up for air, most of the Aurochs came up after the first or second lap.

In FFX: Eternal Calm DVD, (I consider it as part of the FFX and FFX-2) Yuna suggests that she is holding her breath. She commented that she’s inproving but not ready for a game yet.

The Air in Spira May have more a significantly more Oxygen than Earth… But that still won’t expain strenght

In FFX - Another Side, Another Story, we can see Yuna practicing holding her breath underwater. At that point, she says she can do it for two minutes. This probably means holdings ones breath is a learned trait. Also, somewhere in FFX, someone says that the best blitzball players can hold their breath for an hour. The world record for breath-holding is 12 minutes, 47 seconds, and that is motionless, facedown in a pool of water. Its also debatable because he was breathing pure oxygen before going under. The accepted record is 8 minutes. Either way, this still does not include any activity.
But what if that’s not water?
In the movie The Abyss, they show divers using liquid oxygen in high pressure environments. Liquid oxygen is in fact real, you can look it up. Of course, then why would they need to hold their breath? Well, who knows. Maybe it could be another type of liquid, oxygen-infused water. It is fantasy. Also, we see that the border of the Blitz Sphere is penetrable, so maybe players poke their heads out of the sphere while playing to get a gasp. Otherwise, they may be able to get oxygen from bubbles. There is a mermaid show in florida that uses this method. It takes some training to get the hang of it.

Maybe Blitzers had a converter of some sort embedded in their lungs. Something similiar to artificial gills. If you notice, it does look like they’re breathing during games. As for the strength required for kicking it, my best guess would be that they’re all chizzled, they must have been doing it since they were little kids, around 4.

In FFX-2, suddenly Paine, Rikku, Brother etc. become Blitzball players with no previous training. So who the heck knows?

Brother was a player in FFX, the fastest attacker in the entire game and only second to Tidus in overall performance because of the latter’s Jecht Shot.

As for the rest… c’mon, it’s FFX-2.

Well they all seemed to be pretty chizzled…everyone in the game always seem chizzled >.<

My cousin and his friends tried this over the summer, with scuba gear.
All but two of them are in the marines, one is a local swim champion, and it still didn’t work. I think you’re fucked.

Well, who says it has to be water? What are some liquids that aren’t near as dense as water, but not damaging to the body?

HAH! Nerdy Marines! Wait a minute…

If it were physically possible, then blitzball would be a cool game to play.

But since it isn’t, it is always fun to dream.

They really are a rather motley crew, most of them are nerdy, two of them are communists, and all of them have problems with authority.

Wouldn’t the ball just float away?

It isn’t that hard to make a ball that’ll sink and probably not too hard to make one that’ll stay around a certain depth. It all just depends on how dense the ball is.