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It was, at any rate, a very interesting experience.
My car has not been meant to carry five people at once. Or, if five people they must be, only five people without any luggage. Certainly not five people with five sets of kendô armour plus shinai.
Miraculously, we managed to get everyone into my tiny car and even arrived just on time for the shinai check (like a LARP event. Weapon check. *snigger*).
Then came the chaos.
While Eleonor, Tena, Hak-Seung and me were still waiting in line to have our shinai weighed and measured and accepted, suddenly one of the organisators came to us and asked about our number five. We pointed at Alex, who was still assembling his shinai.
"But Andrea told me he was in her team." (Cologne I, whereas we were Cologne II: the dôjô had managed to send a team after all.)
"No, he isn't. He wasn't meant for any team at all, but Christian had an operation and can't fight, so we asked Alex and he accepted. You can ask Roland, he was NEVER planned for Team I."
Roland was in a conference with the other referees.
"But Team I has only four fighters, and the first team must have five."
So there we stood, suddenly bereft of our fifth fighter due to STUPID IDIOTIC PLANNING DEFICICITS NOT, I REPEAT, NOT ON OUR SIDE. There, I said it. It was hard enough not to shout that out in the queue.
Hak-seung, our team captain, had to correctly re-assemble all his shinai (he had brought 5). Us girls had all taken care of that in the morning, so our shinai were all accepted, although I was looked at strangely for having such a heavy shinai (I've been practicing with a shinai for men without noticing for a long time, and when I finally noticed, I had grown so used to it that there was no point in swapping it for a women's shinai). Anyway, the point is that Hak-seung had no time to look for replacement.
Eventually, Tena and me crawled over to the guys from Düsseldorf and asked whether they had, coincidentally, an additional fighter we might borrow. See how desperate we were? ME, asking. COLOGNIANS, begging for a Düsseldorfer.
Coincidentally, they had. Even more coincidentally, he actually was willing to help us. We just had to tape over his zekken, which was, of course, saying 'Düsseldorf'; but that was the smallest problem. And he fought well for us; it was not the Düssadan's fault that we lost.
After all that panic, we went into the tournament almost relaxedly. In spite of not really knowing the rules and reglements. There are many, kendô tournaments are very formal: When the teams first meet, the first two fighters already have to have their men donned. During the first and last fight, everyone has to kneel (besides the fighters, obviously, and the referees who have to run around them). The order of the fighters has to be set in the beginning and given to the referees, and any changes have to be announced at once on time and so on and so on. Even the experience from jûdô and karate didn't help much.
Anyway.
By luck of the draw, we came right into the quarter finals, where we then were beaten up by the team from Witten, who went on to win the tournament.
The first team, however, won the third place. Only because we had given up Alexander to them, of course. *grins*
- - -
( shôbu ari )
- - -
My car has not been meant to carry five people at once. Or, if five people they must be, only five people without any luggage. Certainly not five people with five sets of kendô armour plus shinai.
Miraculously, we managed to get everyone into my tiny car and even arrived just on time for the shinai check (like a LARP event. Weapon check. *snigger*).
Then came the chaos.
While Eleonor, Tena, Hak-Seung and me were still waiting in line to have our shinai weighed and measured and accepted, suddenly one of the organisators came to us and asked about our number five. We pointed at Alex, who was still assembling his shinai.
"But Andrea told me he was in her team." (Cologne I, whereas we were Cologne II: the dôjô had managed to send a team after all.)
"No, he isn't. He wasn't meant for any team at all, but Christian had an operation and can't fight, so we asked Alex and he accepted. You can ask Roland, he was NEVER planned for Team I."
Roland was in a conference with the other referees.
"But Team I has only four fighters, and the first team must have five."
So there we stood, suddenly bereft of our fifth fighter due to STUPID IDIOTIC PLANNING DEFICICITS NOT, I REPEAT, NOT ON OUR SIDE. There, I said it. It was hard enough not to shout that out in the queue.
Hak-seung, our team captain, had to correctly re-assemble all his shinai (he had brought 5). Us girls had all taken care of that in the morning, so our shinai were all accepted, although I was looked at strangely for having such a heavy shinai (I've been practicing with a shinai for men without noticing for a long time, and when I finally noticed, I had grown so used to it that there was no point in swapping it for a women's shinai). Anyway, the point is that Hak-seung had no time to look for replacement.
Eventually, Tena and me crawled over to the guys from Düsseldorf and asked whether they had, coincidentally, an additional fighter we might borrow. See how desperate we were? ME, asking. COLOGNIANS, begging for a Düsseldorfer.
Coincidentally, they had. Even more coincidentally, he actually was willing to help us. We just had to tape over his zekken, which was, of course, saying 'Düsseldorf'; but that was the smallest problem. And he fought well for us; it was not the Düssadan's fault that we lost.
After all that panic, we went into the tournament almost relaxedly. In spite of not really knowing the rules and reglements. There are many, kendô tournaments are very formal: When the teams first meet, the first two fighters already have to have their men donned. During the first and last fight, everyone has to kneel (besides the fighters, obviously, and the referees who have to run around them). The order of the fighters has to be set in the beginning and given to the referees, and any changes have to be announced at once on time and so on and so on. Even the experience from jûdô and karate didn't help much.
Anyway.
By luck of the draw, we came right into the quarter finals, where we then were beaten up by the team from Witten, who went on to win the tournament.
The first team, however, won the third place. Only because we had given up Alexander to them, of course. *grins*
- - -
( shôbu ari )
- - -
