Rätselspielchen

Und während ich gestern die Gewürze umfüllte, fiel mir plötzlich auf, was für ein komisches Wort "Gewürz" doch ist.
Also "Ge-" ist in dem Kontext ja so ein Kollektivpräfix, wie in Gewäsch, Getue oder Gerümmselüm. Und "-würz" ist vermutlich mit "Wurzel" verwandt. Wurzelzeug sozusagen.

Nun würzt man ja nicht etwa mit Wurzeln, sondern vielmehr mit getrockneten Samen, Früchten oder Blättern. Seltener auch mal Rinde (Zimt) oder Blüten (Safran). Oft Mischungen (Curry). Aber Wurzeln? Von Knoblauch und Ingwer vielleicht mal abgesehen, sind Wurzeln doch eher Gemüse (was auch ein seltsames Wort ist - "Zeugs, aus dem man Mus macht"? - aber das führt jetzt zu weit).

[Poll #1367493]

The one good thing about judo is that it prepares you for studying Japanese

(I do not actually have a black belt in judo. I do have one in karate, hence the icon. If it were my judo icon, the belt should be blue. But I don't have a judo icon. You may pretend it's a very dark blue if you wish.)

- - -
Today has been a beautiful sunny day; a little cool at first, but towards afternoon temperatures have risen to around 11°C.

Figures that I did not get around to spending it in the garden, continuing the weekend's "Turning this jungle back into a garden" mission.

No, I got to spend it in the gym.

Backstory time!
My husband - still, despite the strain, arguments and demands on his time - trains a judo club. At the moment the judo department is very new, so at least there are no tournaments to attend. However, there have to be testings regularly. After all, all the kids want to have colourful belts instead of boring white ones.

Now due to some asshattery amongst the officials of our district, his testing licence isn't valid in this district. It's a complicated story. The bottomline is that he cannot do the testings for his own students, but has to get an external examiner.

Now while we were on vacation, his - that is Jörg's - co-trainer was supposed to fix a date for the testing. He claimed he hadn't managed to reach the examiner - apparently he sent one e-mail that didn't get answered. So everything was still on zero. Meanwhiles the kiddies complain because the last testing was almost a year ago, and are we never going to get the next rank? Bah.
So, back to zero.

Now the examiner happens to be the gym teacher of some of the kids in the group, so in the end everything was done all old-fashionedly with messengers on horseback foot. Unfortunately the messengers thought they were entitled to decide things they could not actually decide. In this particular case: Teacher/examiner said "Well I'm here at school anyway, and my classes end at 2 pm, so how about Next Wednesday, Two PM, Right Here At The School."
And the messengers said "Oh, so soon, great, yes!"

Unfortunately the club normally practices in a different gym.
In a different part of town.
At a different time (like, when normal people have finished working and can drive their kids to practice. Or teach them.)
BUT on Wednesdays.

So when the messengers told the other kids, "Testing next Wednesday!" but forgot to clarify the time or place, that meant... a lot of phoning. And a lot of "But I have classes until 3 pm myself!" and "But I can't drive Kevin-Luca* there, I have to work!"
Oh, and also, all three trainers have to work on a Wednesday at 2 pm. All three cannot get a day off.
So at the very least, the kids - none of them very experienced, and the youngest only six years old - have to pass a testing with an examiner they don't know, at a gym they don't know, without their familiar trainers to encourage them.
Also: While one judo-savvy person is enough for an exam at this low level, he'll still need an assistant to deal with all the paperwork.

With my husband and his co-trainers otherwise engaged, and the mother who officially runs the judo department a... dear, but not a very well organised person, guess who that task fell to!

So I got to spend four hours of a lovely pre-spring day in a gym. Watching cute little kiddies and no-longer-cute teenagers stumbling through their exams. Plus some extra advice by the wise and perfect teacher/ examiner.

And questions.
"Why did you teach the kids this form of Seoi-nage? Most children can't do it properly in a tournament situation, they don't have enough control at the shoulders. If you use both hands for the grapple, it works much better."
I did not teach the kids anything anyway, but assuming this is an inclusive "you" meaning "the club which you kind of represent by being here", I can at least answer this question.
"Because the regulations state that they have to show Ippon-seoi-nage. So that's what we've taught them."
"Yes, but there are variants that work much better! If you use both hands at the collar, that'll result in an Ippon too!"
Now what I possibly may have to explain here is that "Ippon" is what you try to get in a judo tournament. A fight ends when you (or your opponent, of course) get an Ippon.
Unfortunately that's not the kind of Ippon meant here. Because if it were, every technique should be called Ippon-something-or-other, because obviously whatever you do, you want to win Ippon.
"But the point of Ippon-seoi-nage is that you use only one arm for the grip². If you use both arms, you have a lovely Morote-seoi-nage - which, yes, works much better in a tournament - but that's not the requirement."
Which, astonishingly, he seemed to accept. Even though he insisted that Morote-seoi-nage would make more sense. And it would. Morote-seoi-nage is easier to throw, especially for kids who generally don't have any relationship with lever principles or centres of gravity yet. But the regulations ask for the basic form, not for any tournament variations. Basics first, variations later. Also, the variations tend to be less likely of breaking a beginner's arm, or collar bone...

Or:
"Oh, did you teach them Ko-soto-gari instead of Ko-soto-gake? Why?" (Both of them are allowed; the kids get to choose one. But he told them to do Ko-soto-gake, and they all did Ko-soto-gari.)
Because it used to be Ko-soto-gari on the regulations in the olden days. What do I know? I can, of course, hazard a theory. Perhaps because you tend to fall along with your opponent in Ko-soto-gake, and with children this young, who don't necessarily have full control of their fall, it's safer to do a technique where you don't run the risk of someone crushing a) their partner or b) their own kneecap or c) either³.

And the like.
He raised several other points, all of which could have been disarmed by anyone with a passing knowledge of Judo, the human body, or elementary school children. But oh well.

In the end all the kids passed their testing (and all but one had found the gym, too). The most annoying, disinterested girl actually showed some very good techniques, some of the kids were adorable and some even showed some talent.

And since most of the kids are so very young, the next testing can't be held before next year. Phew!

*Names changed to protect the guilty.
²Which teaches us that the Japanese apparently count arms (and tournament victories, too) among "long, thin, tubular objects". Like bottles. Or pencils.
³I am not making this up. When I was still practicing judo, a friend of mine - while preparing for her testing, back in the days when Ko-soto-gake, for exactly the reasons I mentioned above, was required for the green belt, NOT yellow-with-fugly-orange-stripe (explanation of the wonky belt colours of German judo; ignore the crappy Japanese counting, issa nonsense) - and she fell along so idiotically uncontrolled that she not only sprained her own leg but also broke her partner's collarbone. Yeah, good idea tossing that kind of technique at 8 year old kids with the inherent grace of Bella Swan!