The lyf so short

(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.)

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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!

ALLEZ LES BLEUS!

We apologize for this outburst. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled crack.

First Kendô practice since - last Summer.
250 haya-suburi.
Those who know what that means may pity me. Those who don't are lucky people.
I'm so sore.
Content because I finally went there again, but in So. Much. Pain.

Quotes of the Day:
Prof. Wilcockson: "Anyway, accents are a lovely thing. A few years ago, I had let my guest rooms to a nice young couple, and I overheard them talking and I didn't understand a word. So I said to them, 'Oh, you're from Holland?' and they glared and said, 'No, we're from Cologne!' - 'Well, missed the second vowel shift, have ya?'"

Prof. Wilcockson: "So this tale has a student, who is a rather naughty character. Students have that reputation of being naughty, you know? Not that I ever met one. A naughty one, that is. I meet lots of students, obviously."

ETA: ... and I forgot his one-man reenactment of Much Ado About Nothing! Brilliant. Pure genius.

... sorry, but there's no other word in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery.

The idiots from the German Jûdô Association withdrew Jörg's and Pino's nomination for the European Championships. Why? Because Pino only has an Italian passport and can, therefore, not be permitted to start for Germany.
A valid argument, one might say. However, that never was a problem before. (But looking at the way things are going, they're probably going to revoke their champion title from the last two years, too.) And it's not like Pino has suddenly turned Italian - he already was when they made the nomination. Bah.
Why do they always have to come up with some way to block Jörg and Pino? First they don't want to give monetary support, then they refuse to let people have team jackets, now they withdraw the nomination. It's all so very childish. "Ah, those two never listen to us, I don't like them, let's make life hard for them."
And the flights and hotel rooms in London are already booked and all, and we did look forward to it. Couldn't the bastards have thought of that earlier? Damn it all to hell.

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( Oh, diese ARSCHLÖCHER! )
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My love is gone to Hessen for a week of Jûdô kata practice again. Today was the first day of practice, in heat and all, and apparently it wasn't overly exciting (they did Itsutsu-no-kata, which is, um, very esoteric). He just called to tell me, though, that he has been nominated for the European kata championships, to be held in London on November 4th.
OMESQUEE!
Canada was one thing - those championships were basically free to enter yourself for - but now he's officially nominated, i.e., he is on the national team and all. Whoa.
*is childishly proud of her great and mighty boyfriend, yes!*

In other news, my mom has begun to knit a Ravenclaw scarf for me. Navy and copper. Wheeeee! Finally, something that has a point, rather than bulky pullovers I don't wear anyway!
... bad Lyra, that sounds ungrateful.

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( WOW! )
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Busy day!

Early this afternoon, I spontaneously met leany75 (who plays Hermione on desperatefans) and her friend Marsh in Cologne. We walked around and had lunch at Subway and shopped (well, Leany shopped, and I walked along, but it was fun although I couldn't by half the books I saw I would have liked. I got her hooked to Nichtlustig, though! *g*) and stopped at Starbucks (I didn't even know they had a Starbucks in Cologne!), whose coffee, I learned, differs from other coffees like a Fëanorian blade differs from other Elvish blades. Nice analogy, that! Now if only I liked coffee...

Well, after searching for the post office in the main station without success, the two of them left again for the Netherlands, and I, having one and a half hours left 'till practice, dropped in at the WG, where kaneda and eliathanis were just having a creative outburst. It hit me entirely unprepared, but elfy lent me a pencil and paper. The attempt at doing something creative myself ended at the point where none of us was sure how one would hold a harp (kaneda: You were right!). Poor Maglor is sitting on the sheet, unfinished. But he didn't make the transport home well, anyway. Oh well.

Practice was, as expected, laborious. Also amusing, because the university has mucked up the schedule and given the gym next to ours to a dancing seminar, but when the dancers came, they found 'their' gym full of Yoga people, who said they could take the gym next door once the karate people were out. Unfortunately, that's 'our' gym once the karate people were out. So we kind of collided. The dancers weren't nice like our medieval dancing crew is, but arrogant, except for their trainer, who was actually quite nice.
Being kind, just, humble, wise, honest, loyal and honourable, as is expected of the samurai-in-training, we gave up the gym and went outside to do kata. It didn't matter much, as it was only marginally hotter and stuffier outside, and there was hardly any dog poo on the meadow in front of the gyms. There was an anthill, though, which I managed to hit a few times. Ants in your hakama are an experience you don't really have to make.
It was about 9 pm, just as we were halfway through Daini Kihon Kata, when the long-expected rainstorm finally set in.
Yes, we did finish the kata and listened to the corrections before running back in.

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( In welchem Kaffee mit Klingen verglichen wird, und in welchem der Kampf dem Tanze weicht )
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I'll go to my lectures, then, and try to get as much as possible out of this last but one cost-free semester...

You know what? I lied. What I actually did was run off on a totally crazy journey that took me first to New York and then to Toronto. At least, it was more enjoyable than either the strike or the classes which I really shouldn't have missed, one month before the exams, oh sweet Eru allmighty WHAT WAS I THINKING?!.

New York is big, loud, hot and impressive. We spent the first two and a half days of our trip with Jörg's cousin Kurt and Kurt's boyfriend Richard. They have a flat on 44th street close to Times Square. Didn't get any of the touristy things done, not even Miss Liberty because of Jörg's pocket-knife, which is a long story. ( Ok, ok, the story runs like this: )

Instead, we walked around more or less aimlessly for two days. We saw Ground Zero, which, no offense meant, looks a lot like that excavation pit in Cologne where they're planning to build the new Anthropology museum, except for the part where you know what happened here that didn't happen at the Heumarkt. The site isn't overly impressive, at any rate. What is impressive is the timeline they put up above it; talk about goosebumps. We saw the UN building but didn’t go inside for lack of time.
We ate Chinese food and Mexican food and watched Batman Begins. 'tis a good movie, it really is. And that from someone who never liked Batman much. But LIAM NEESON OME SQUEE!

On Sunday, we flew to Toronto. I have been flying a lot in my rather short life so far, but this was the first flight that really, really scared me. You know, when you think about the USA and Flying, you immediately think of all sorts of safety measures and safety madness. But that’s all a lot of noise and little substance. ( Another long story. )
Jörg unfortunately stowed the camera away in the overhead department, so we could take no pictorial evidence of the sun setting over New York or of the Niagara Falls from very high above. *le sigh*

In Toronto, we met Pino and drove over to Isa’s flat. Isa was The Other Star Wars Fan in High School and now studies psychology in Toronto, and as she’s not using her flat at the moment (because she’s back in Germany until July), we could stay there. Us and Violet, a distant friend of Isa’s. She was nice, so that was no problem. Isa’s flat is on Wellesley Street. Now the street signs in Toronto are often colour-coded, so you know which part of the city you’re in (it’s pretty large, as I said), maybe the historical village or the business village or whatever. In the Wellesley/Church Village, the colour chosen is a rainbow…
But the churches in Toronto observe Pride Week, too, so that’s all very Canadian.
There was a dentist’s practice with a huuuuuge smile (and nothing else) on the practice sign, which made us sing the Dentist Song from Little Shop of Horrors whenever we passed.

After New York, Toronto seemed clean, relaxed and clearly arranged, although it is a pretty big sprawl of a city. Although we walked around a lot (expecially to the Eaton Centre), Pino also had rented a car, which was useful because the championships took place in Mississauga, half an hour’s drive from downtown Toronto via the Gardiner Expressway on a good day. Alas, the championships. Rather badly organized, considering they were the fucking Judo World Masters. The program got changed a lot, they cancelled both the seminar meant to inform the participants about the bases of valuation and the seminar meant to cure mistakes in the kata. So no-one knew what the referees were actually looking for (judging by the competition, they were looking for loud kiai, show-offy attitude and profound lack of knowledge about what the techniques are actually for. I mean, I’m not the bestest judge of kata, but even I know that a disarming technique that involves grabbing the BLADE of a knife is a rather stupid thing to do. Another valuable lesson: It doesn’t matter if you lose your weapon in the middle of the kata as long as you’re American). Combined with the cramping resulting from Pino’s ambition (“We just go there and do our thing. Doesn’t matter what place we make.” Yeah right.), the kata Pino and Jörg showed got them tenth place. Which sounds good, considering these were the World Masters, but if you SAW the other pairs (and only two of them were actually equal to, or possibly better than, Pino and Jörg), it’s extremely frustrating. Pino, in spite of telling everybody how much he didn’t care, was VERY vexed [and is now refusing to go to the Hessian Championships on Saturday. Childish and unwise, but apparently he cannot be convinced.]

We managed to relax on the lake a bit. We managed to see the Niagara Falls close-up, though not for long. Jörg managed to talk me into wanting a red dress. I managed to buy some books, though not nearly as many as I would have liked. We managed to watch Batman Begins again. And then it was already time to return home.
Toronto International is a lot more professional than La Guardia. Not much more efficient, but more professional about it.

Also, it’s SO satisfying to see all the idiots who think they have to line up for boarding so they get into the plane fast fast fast sent back to their seats, and the airport workers having people with children board first, then the very last rows, then the next ones, etc. Because I hate people who sit in the front rows and run into the plane first and then block the gangways because they have to stow away their carry-on luggage. Eru damn them all. Anyway, this time they had to wait until the end, which makes my inner kinslayer smile. Especially as I was in row 36, i.e. in the back, i.e. among the first to check in.
The flight was extremely annoying because it took off an hour late (because six persons had gone missing, or were there but not officially boarded, or whatever), because one idiot smoked on the toilets (we were lucky the pilot didn’t initiate an emergency landing; smoke on the toilet means fire on the plane, after all), and because another idiot got totally drunk and swayed along the gangways because he didn’t find his way back to his seat. And the stewardesses didn’t do much to help.
Not the best way to celebrate my 50th flight. (Well, it might also have been the 49th or the 51st, but I like to think it was #50.)

Ah, well. I’m back, still alive, tired, scared of returning to university, unmotivated and did I mention tired?

Also, OMG I have a Zen! It’s excellent. Love it. I shall call it R2. Or Heian, which was the name of my character’s R2 unit in my very first RPG. But probably just R2.

(Incidentally, on the first day in New York, I was given a Zen Micro t-shirt. They wanted to talk me into buying a Zen Micro, and I said I already had the 20 GB one, so they gave me a “large t-shirt for the large Zen”. Muahahah.)

One day, I shall find out why I always have to leave Canada before Canada Day.

A more coherent post with photos might or might not follow.

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*No offense meant to Air Togo. I’m sure they try.
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Keine Übersetzung, bin zu faul jetzt.