To be a master--

squirt squirt

2 Be a Master. I racked and racked my brain for something I could successfully teach to someone else that included a portion of folk knowledge, and finally came to the conclusion I only qualify as a TRUE master in one thing: Pokemon. In this one area have I successfully climbed to at the very least a high regional level. And so it was that a seed began in one of my dear roommates, Brad.

Competitive Pokemon battling consists of using six creatures Nintendo has created with the ultimate goal to, like boxing, knock out the opponents six team members. Each Pokemon has a unique combination of statistics (such as attack and defense), types (water, fire, grass), moves (Tackle, Scratch, Leer) that are utilized by the battler. Optimal teams use all of these variables to make the strongest team of six possible in order to progress up a kind of tournament ladder. Battles are played on a simulator created just for the purpose of competitive battling; this simulator reflects battling on the cartridge games played on Game Boys as closely as possible.

Brad was an attentive student throughout my whole demonstration. We walked through what it takes to make a solid team of the cute characters and delved deeper into the coding of the Pokemon games than any curious eight-year-old would care for.

The fact that I'm having trouble typing up just how in-depth Pokemon really is makes me believe that it really does qualify as a type of folk knowledge. It's a social phenomenon all around the world with connections that extend to just about every six to twelve year old with lush memories for each. Explaining, in person, just how large the scope of this virtual world reaches really qualifies the experience of competitive battling. Rather than being a more "useless" skill like quarter catching, Pokemon opens up connections to a large section of society.