Grading, grating, and gratulations, amongst other things.
So, I'm currently back in the old country (Aotearoa, for those keeping track) visiting with the folks down in Wellington, after spending the last week up in Auckland grading at Mau Taiaha at Hoani Waititi Marae, where the grading was held this year. Now, I've been doing this stuff for three years or so (I believe I first showed up around June of 08) and haven't been graded yet, so I organised and scraped and saved for the flight, and headed on over here, leaving $wife alone at home with Tornado.
I arrived here last weekend, after 24 hours of sitting in the dark (both halves of the flight were "night flights", so they turned the lights down so everyone could sleep. I couldn't sleep very much at all, and a full day of faffing about in the dark without Internet isn't my idea of fun, and had a friend pick me up at the airport; I'd seen this friend off from Heathrow a month ago, so it was fairly amusing to meet him over here again. Anyway, he gave me a place to stay for a week, and I kinda slept a bit and thought about training a bit, and more or less left it at that.
Come thursday night, and there'd been a pre-organised training session at the marae for 3 hours, so I rocked up to that, and am fairly grateful I did; I note that the dialectal differences between Te Reo as spoken by a Maori person who lives in Auckland, and Te Reo as spoken by an Englishman from Wales who lives in London is somewhat significant, so it was good to get a chance to listen to the (mostly similar) commands in the local dialect. I also discovered that my callus, which I had on the inside of my left thumb, got grated off over the course of the three hours. This was... unpleasant, but not entirely unexpected, so I carried on. It was useful to spar with some more variety of people than I usually do in the UK, though. More about that later. At the end, there was a meeting which resulted in an arrangement to meet the next day at 5:30 (for most of us; some of the organisers were expected to be there at 5) in the evening for the usual greeting, welcome onto the marae, et al.
So, I head on back to my hosts' house, afterwards, and get on with sleeping and packing up my stuff, so I can head on out to the marae and stay there for friday and saturday nights, and then head on down to Wellington with my oldest brother and my father, who were driving up to meet me. We caught up, and I hung about for the meeting that never arrived, and then by about half six or quarter to seven, the powhiri was started. That worked out okay, and dinner was had, and then it was pointed out that instead of "training friday night, grading saturday morning" for my little group, we'd instead be grading friday night. Minor panic mode, but stick with it and see what happens.
So, by about half eight or so, we started grading. And that went on okay, until about nine-ish, when we moved on to the sparring section of the evening's entertainment.[0] I grabbed my sparring rakau instead of the taiaha I had been using until then, and squared up. Note that there were at least ten of us in the dining hall, there; anyone who's been to Hoani Waititi might have some idea of how small that place is; I'd put it at something like twelve meters on a side or so. For sparring, that made us fairly well packed. So, I ended up with this young lady, and we started trading strikes, as per instructions. Four or five strikes in, she threw a strike to hope katau, which wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't blocked to tinana, instead... As a result, the fingers of my left hand were precisely in place for her to[1] crush them. She managed to avoid my forefinger or pinky, but battered my poor ring finger something chronic.
The next five or six people were... difficult to keep up with, for some reason. ;-]
After that, we got asked about the parts of the taiaha, which I completed, and then went to get some ice for my hand. Wrapped that up, and then we got sent out for a run around the outskirts of the marae, and the park it's set in, five times over. With three marshalls out there to make sure everyone reaches every corner, and completes the full five kilometers... So, since we were supposed to run as a group, and they asked if someone fairly healthy could take the back[3], I trudged along at the back of the crowd, making sure everyone was in front of me. By the fourth lap, we had a group of 6 or so way out in front, and four of us at the back; two reasonably healthy guys pacing the other two who were struggling a bit. So... the other healthy guy told me to run off and show folks how well I could run, since he was capable of coping. I figured he was probably right.
No more encouragement needed, I promptly shifted up a gear and took off. And passed folks. And, well, by the time I reached about 50m from the marshall halfway around, I'd just reached the two at the front. One of whom took exception to being passed, and started sprinting to the corner. As a result, I was only second out of the group to arrive at the pause point, and fifth overall by the end[2]. I'm told everyone else came in breathing heavily, whereas I sauntered in looking barely warmed up; doing the half marathon obviously was worth it, just for that. *grin*
So, by that time it was around eleven thirty or later. A quick pack up, shower, and head to bed, and stare at the ceiling for a while[4]. After napping a little, I woke up earlier than many, and stared at the roof a bit more before someone's alarm clock woke most everyone up, I got up, and started sorting stuff out for the day. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, but there was a lot of training in various areas, some sparring, and a bunch of going through the various next level of stuff to learn. There was also a fair amount of watching the higher pou's grading and sparring, and there was an awful lot of interesting details picked up off them on the way; not as much as I'd like, since we kept being dragged away from watching them to do other training and/or demonstrational exercises (like putting together a short play showing what we'd learned over the weekend, for example, that didn't end up bieng used, but was amusing all the same); this was annoying, since I don't get to watch higher pou's sparring in the UK, since there aren't any. Still, it was all good, overall.
I think one of the more amusing parts was that my trainer in the UK passed me a tipare[5] to pass to the trainer over here. I passed it on, on Thursday or Friday. On Saturday, he passed it back to me, since most of the other Pou Tahi folks hadn't brought their own, and the whole shebang was only going to be two days instead of three, so they couldn't have a tipare awarding ceremony, and I should get my trainer back in the UK to award it to me. And since the entire club in the UK is 5 people, including myself, there's very little ceremony at all... *grin*
Sum total of injuries, other than to my pride[6,8], included the base of my left forefinger and thumb, where they wrap around the haft of the rakau, were more or less grated off; the top of the second knuckle on my left hand was also abraded away by the inside of the sparring gloves; a blister on the base of the pinky finger on both hands, on the left the top was ripped off entirely; scratches across the inside of my right wrist; both calves and thighs were sore; a large blister on the arch of my right foot, drained into my sock where it popped; the second toe on my right foot has a blood blister under the nail; and the inside of my big toe on my left foot, where it touches the second toe, had a blister, popped, and ripped the skin off completely.
All in all, lots of fun had. And then I trundled down to Wellington in the back of a car, aggravating any stiffness, and met up with my folks, which is where I am now. Include an evening spent with the whanau, and much fun and ribald commentary was had.
++, would do again.
[0] Okay, so it wasn't too entertaining for me, unless you mean in hindsight, but I'm sure the folks watching were amused.
[1] Entirely unintentionally, I might point out. At least, I think so. I'd hate to think someone was deliberately aiming for my hand...
[2] I didn't sprint the last half kilometer, I just kept going at my usual pace anyway. And didn't overtake anyone, since there wasn't really a need.
[3] They also said we had an hour to complete it. I think we just scraped in, but I'm not sure.
[4] The major issue with poor sleep over the entire vacation has been the extreme shortage of $wife in my bed. At the marae was no exception.
[5] Headband. Specifically, it's a black headband with a pattern on it, where the pattern is in the colour of the level of the wearer; this means you can glance at someone and see how high they've been graded, for example.
[6] Apparently[7] I had my arse kicked by a girl in the sparring on Friday night.
[7] It might be true; I was somewhat too busy to notice.
[8] Also, someone asked my father and brother if I was seventeen. I shouldn't have shaved, it tends to confuse people, or so it seems[9].
[9] That's probably more than enough footnotes.
I arrived here last weekend, after 24 hours of sitting in the dark (both halves of the flight were "night flights", so they turned the lights down so everyone could sleep. I couldn't sleep very much at all, and a full day of faffing about in the dark without Internet isn't my idea of fun, and had a friend pick me up at the airport; I'd seen this friend off from Heathrow a month ago, so it was fairly amusing to meet him over here again. Anyway, he gave me a place to stay for a week, and I kinda slept a bit and thought about training a bit, and more or less left it at that.
Come thursday night, and there'd been a pre-organised training session at the marae for 3 hours, so I rocked up to that, and am fairly grateful I did; I note that the dialectal differences between Te Reo as spoken by a Maori person who lives in Auckland, and Te Reo as spoken by an Englishman from Wales who lives in London is somewhat significant, so it was good to get a chance to listen to the (mostly similar) commands in the local dialect. I also discovered that my callus, which I had on the inside of my left thumb, got grated off over the course of the three hours. This was... unpleasant, but not entirely unexpected, so I carried on. It was useful to spar with some more variety of people than I usually do in the UK, though. More about that later. At the end, there was a meeting which resulted in an arrangement to meet the next day at 5:30 (for most of us; some of the organisers were expected to be there at 5) in the evening for the usual greeting, welcome onto the marae, et al.
So, I head on back to my hosts' house, afterwards, and get on with sleeping and packing up my stuff, so I can head on out to the marae and stay there for friday and saturday nights, and then head on down to Wellington with my oldest brother and my father, who were driving up to meet me. We caught up, and I hung about for the meeting that never arrived, and then by about half six or quarter to seven, the powhiri was started. That worked out okay, and dinner was had, and then it was pointed out that instead of "training friday night, grading saturday morning" for my little group, we'd instead be grading friday night. Minor panic mode, but stick with it and see what happens.
So, by about half eight or so, we started grading. And that went on okay, until about nine-ish, when we moved on to the sparring section of the evening's entertainment.[0] I grabbed my sparring rakau instead of the taiaha I had been using until then, and squared up. Note that there were at least ten of us in the dining hall, there; anyone who's been to Hoani Waititi might have some idea of how small that place is; I'd put it at something like twelve meters on a side or so. For sparring, that made us fairly well packed. So, I ended up with this young lady, and we started trading strikes, as per instructions. Four or five strikes in, she threw a strike to hope katau, which wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't blocked to tinana, instead... As a result, the fingers of my left hand were precisely in place for her to[1] crush them. She managed to avoid my forefinger or pinky, but battered my poor ring finger something chronic.
The next five or six people were... difficult to keep up with, for some reason. ;-]
After that, we got asked about the parts of the taiaha, which I completed, and then went to get some ice for my hand. Wrapped that up, and then we got sent out for a run around the outskirts of the marae, and the park it's set in, five times over. With three marshalls out there to make sure everyone reaches every corner, and completes the full five kilometers... So, since we were supposed to run as a group, and they asked if someone fairly healthy could take the back[3], I trudged along at the back of the crowd, making sure everyone was in front of me. By the fourth lap, we had a group of 6 or so way out in front, and four of us at the back; two reasonably healthy guys pacing the other two who were struggling a bit. So... the other healthy guy told me to run off and show folks how well I could run, since he was capable of coping. I figured he was probably right.
No more encouragement needed, I promptly shifted up a gear and took off. And passed folks. And, well, by the time I reached about 50m from the marshall halfway around, I'd just reached the two at the front. One of whom took exception to being passed, and started sprinting to the corner. As a result, I was only second out of the group to arrive at the pause point, and fifth overall by the end[2]. I'm told everyone else came in breathing heavily, whereas I sauntered in looking barely warmed up; doing the half marathon obviously was worth it, just for that. *grin*
So, by that time it was around eleven thirty or later. A quick pack up, shower, and head to bed, and stare at the ceiling for a while[4]. After napping a little, I woke up earlier than many, and stared at the roof a bit more before someone's alarm clock woke most everyone up, I got up, and started sorting stuff out for the day. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, but there was a lot of training in various areas, some sparring, and a bunch of going through the various next level of stuff to learn. There was also a fair amount of watching the higher pou's grading and sparring, and there was an awful lot of interesting details picked up off them on the way; not as much as I'd like, since we kept being dragged away from watching them to do other training and/or demonstrational exercises (like putting together a short play showing what we'd learned over the weekend, for example, that didn't end up bieng used, but was amusing all the same); this was annoying, since I don't get to watch higher pou's sparring in the UK, since there aren't any. Still, it was all good, overall.
I think one of the more amusing parts was that my trainer in the UK passed me a tipare[5] to pass to the trainer over here. I passed it on, on Thursday or Friday. On Saturday, he passed it back to me, since most of the other Pou Tahi folks hadn't brought their own, and the whole shebang was only going to be two days instead of three, so they couldn't have a tipare awarding ceremony, and I should get my trainer back in the UK to award it to me. And since the entire club in the UK is 5 people, including myself, there's very little ceremony at all... *grin*
Sum total of injuries, other than to my pride[6,8], included the base of my left forefinger and thumb, where they wrap around the haft of the rakau, were more or less grated off; the top of the second knuckle on my left hand was also abraded away by the inside of the sparring gloves; a blister on the base of the pinky finger on both hands, on the left the top was ripped off entirely; scratches across the inside of my right wrist; both calves and thighs were sore; a large blister on the arch of my right foot, drained into my sock where it popped; the second toe on my right foot has a blood blister under the nail; and the inside of my big toe on my left foot, where it touches the second toe, had a blister, popped, and ripped the skin off completely.
All in all, lots of fun had. And then I trundled down to Wellington in the back of a car, aggravating any stiffness, and met up with my folks, which is where I am now. Include an evening spent with the whanau, and much fun and ribald commentary was had.
++, would do again.
[0] Okay, so it wasn't too entertaining for me, unless you mean in hindsight, but I'm sure the folks watching were amused.
[1] Entirely unintentionally, I might point out. At least, I think so. I'd hate to think someone was deliberately aiming for my hand...
[2] I didn't sprint the last half kilometer, I just kept going at my usual pace anyway. And didn't overtake anyone, since there wasn't really a need.
[3] They also said we had an hour to complete it. I think we just scraped in, but I'm not sure.
[4] The major issue with poor sleep over the entire vacation has been the extreme shortage of $wife in my bed. At the marae was no exception.
[5] Headband. Specifically, it's a black headband with a pattern on it, where the pattern is in the colour of the level of the wearer; this means you can glance at someone and see how high they've been graded, for example.
[6] Apparently[7] I had my arse kicked by a girl in the sparring on Friday night.
[7] It might be true; I was somewhat too busy to notice.
[8] Also, someone asked my father and brother if I was seventeen. I shouldn't have shaved, it tends to confuse people, or so it seems[9].
[9] That's probably more than enough footnotes.