Is air guitar a real sport?

Air guitar is not officially a sport. And we won’t be seeing it at the Olympics anytime soon. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t competitive. According to Michael, strumming invisible strings is actually quite difficult to do. In fact, people compete from around the world.

According to Wikipedia, Judges use the same 6.0 score system as in traditional figure
skating: Judges must give contestants a score from 4.0 to 6.0 on each of the following:

Technical merit—how much the performance looks like the
real playing, including accurate reproduction of all fretwork, chords,
solos and technical moves.
Mimesmanship—how convincingly the performers can mime their
performance, and create the illusion of an invisible guitar, apart from
the technical accuracy of the fretwork
Stage presence—a charisma of rock star, the ability to rock,
lack of stage fright and power to drive thousands of listeners; involves
guitar showmanship and other emotional demonstrations.
Airness—the most subjective criterion, as “presentation” in figure skating—how much the performance was an object of art by itself, not only a simulation of playing guitar.

Watch the full interview to learn what it takes to compete in the Air Guitar World Championship.

Host an episode of PRETEND

Michael shreds a mean “pretend” guitar. He is also a PRETEND podcast supporter on Patreon. If you want to co-host an episode with me, consider supporting the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pretendradio