2015-06-20: The Real Reason

The glasses give me a casual style

I am not a very good athlete. I always forget all the rules about getting a good nights sleep, how to taper training and so on. I am good at remembering to eat lots of food so I guess that is one good thing. I am not sure if it is the right food though.

Possibly a more dignified style

Regardless I have made it to the World Championships again and this time I felt there was a chance I could do pretty well. Ewa can't compete in the Worlds as Poland is not yet part of the International Federation.

Sweden are very tidy

Ewa fights tomorrow in the Friendship tournament. I hope to not be allowed to compete in the Friendship tournament. First place through Third place from the Worlds are not allowed to compete in the Friendship, this is a bit of a stretch but with a bit of luck could happen.

Kato and Satsuki on the right, 2/3rds of the mens tam is from our Japanese dojo. Aichi Represent!!

I have hopes of meeting up with Satsuki from our home dojo. We will both have to win all our matches up until the semi finals but this feels doable.

America always knows how to do the flag and group photo things properly. Most teams wait, watch them then copy it.

I have received an exceptionally lucky draw which just boosts my chances.
In the afternoon for the teams matches Satsuki and I both play in the first position and if we had met in the morning it will be an exciting match whichever way the morning played out.

The imitations can be somewhat less well executed.

To play Japan in the teams competition means beating Belgium who are very strong but are rumoured to have not been training as much recently due to new families.

It took a second to work out what was wrong with this photo

A couple of people that know Satsuki and I have expressed hope that this would happen. Some of them even hoped I would win in the morning just to see Satsuki go into insane overdrive in the afternoon.

But we got there

It felt like it could be an exciting day.

Germany are merry pranksters

The middle German is my first match of the day. His name is Stark. Just like Ironman. I like the song Ironman but I am trying to remember not to sing songs while fighting this year. It didn't work so well in a previous year. That year I had Peaches by The Stranglers in my head.

This feeling turned out to be quite deluded and I lost in my first match. I do seem to be the kind of competitor that either does really well or really poorly.
I guess it builds character.

The Ladies on the Australian team had their first competition fighting.

After a morning sulk (but no crying) we had the teams competition I played Francois, one of the Belgian twin brothers who are exceptionally good, and started to find my fighting style again. He beat me by a single point which was annoying but an okay result. Peter beat Tyl, the other twin, and Alastair held off his opponent for a draw. Both of which could be considered upsets.
In the past this would have meant a winner take all match with one person chosen to represent each team. Peter felt I was regaining my skills and I should represent the team which likely would have been against Francois.

Flora drew a Japanese in the first round. This is possibly not the best introduction to competition one could hope for.

Unfortunately this year it has been decided that a draw is decided by Hantei, judges decision on whose naginata was the nicest. That was a little disappointing.

Satsuki lost in the morning as well. He lost to Francois. In the afternoon he did indeed go batshit crazy and beat Francois in a few seconds. So all was not lost in entertainment stakes.

We at least take home the knowledge that Belgium was pretty surprised at the way things went and with any luck can make next time even more successful.