The referee's a...

Okay, so Saturday was sort of a rest day.  Was tired after the previous day and sat around the house chilling, did some DIY with James, building the tree house: floor is now in and the uprights are in place, just needs walls and a roof!

Then we went to watch the Matabashi Ryu black belt grading.  James was assisting in the Bunkai, I was just watching.  Their Honbu was this little traditional building with no aircon and one window, almost stuck in the 70's.  It was great.  Present was the Dai-Soke along with 2 Hanshi, 3 Kyoshi, 2 Renshi (I was wrong in my earlier post, Renshi is the first title you get, and the first bar on your belt,  Shihan being a mainland title).  Three individuals, including Arakaki junior graded and passed.  And then we went for a night out, hitting the Seaman's Club, a kind of American bar and then a traditional Japanese bar.  Me and James got back late and slightly tipsy...

This morning I was feeling the drink.  I wasn't hung over, but my energy reserves were low.  I don't drink heavily any more and now, when I do drink, it makes me tired the next day.  The entire Pankiwiez (sorry James, I'll never spell your surname correctly) household decamped to the beach and met up with Shun, Mike and a few others.  We did:

2 mile run
Press ups
Burpees
Dips
2 x 1 minute of leg raises over a ledge
Resistance band crawls
Sprints

Good session, finished with well deserve cool down time in the sea.  Ahhhh!

Between Friday's mega exertion and today's training, my hips were dead, but we still had Sumo, so off we went.

Now, to refer to the title above, I've never been a great fan of the phrase, "The referee's a wanker", but today I was feeling it.  It was a bigger competition today, with a light weight, middle weight and heavy weight division, and the rules were the same: two shoulders on the sand for a pin and a point, one shoulder did not count.  Keep that in mind.

I go in for my first bout with a vague game plan (still with no idea what I'm doing, but there you go), and the other guy gets the first point, fine.  We then restart and he goes to throw, I move into it and turn it into my throw.  On the way down my right shoulder touches the sand, but both his shoulder do and I'm on top in the dominant position.  My point right?

The ref gives it to the other guy!

Now, there's two other judges and they actually come forward to speak to the ref, but his decision is final and the match goes to my opponent.  Okay, it's done, fine.  Dodgy, but fine.

Or not.

James wins his first bout, does really well, developing the strategy of let them come close, pick them up and outside leg hook them.  And the games progress; later, in one of the competitions, someone does exactly what I did, only he gets the point (still the same ref), hold on a second, I think.  James goes through to the point where, if he wins his next match, he's in the final... he ends up doing what I did and the point goes against him! So James in now in play off for 3rd place and eventually takes 4th, but not before the champ, in his match, does the same thing I did and takes the point!

Grr... although they did change the ref after his decision against James, so there you go.  But what a wanker.  People kept coming up to me and sort of being sorry about it, saying I'd do better next time.  At the end of the day the Yokozuna (Champion) came up to me and taught me a few moves, which was very kind of him, he then told me and James what to do with weights and a training regime.  We shall return to sumo on June 5th...

The other thing I found today is that drunk Okinawans like touching me.  One person, fine, but about five of them over the course of the day came up and stroked me, either on the chest, the arm or the leg.  Humm... In fact one guy was chatting to me and his girlfriend (or sister, or daughter) decided to start getting the sand off my leg by stroking it!  I was like, Uh...

A bit of surreality to end the day.

I was going to talk about how my body's changing... but I can't be bothered.  Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.  I am waaaay furrier though, and all the hair on my arms has gone blonde!  Oh, and I got some colour today.

Peace out people.