apocalypse? now

 

I remember the first time I heard about the concept of "the end of the world", it was in boarding school in 1992. It was October, I think, and I sat waiting for some momentous event that would forever silence life. In my condition at the time, I was thoroughly and deeply disappointed when it didn't happen, and I carved those sentiments on the desk in the back corner of the classroom. I guess it was a form of buyer's remorse. I had bought into the idea so quickly, grasped at it like the proverbial drowning man clutching at a rope because it seemed like a brilliant way to solve everything. Just end it all.

With the passing of each failed "end of the world" notification, the buyer's remorse has lessened, and I have come to realise something, and it is this:
We are living in the apocalypse.
For good or for ill, our world is changing irrevocably. And perhaps the "end times" isn't what the Christians promise, where the Christian God will come down and smite all of the evil(according to them)doers and gather the rest of them up and take them away in a glorious rapture. And perhaps it isn't any one of the hundreds of other promises of scenarios where "we" (the good guys) will be saved and "they" (whoever isn't considered part of the good guys) will be destroyed. Perhaps the "end times" is actually just that: the end of the world AS WE KNOW IT.

Here are some of the articles in the news today (not mentioning Trump - we've all had enough of that for a long time):
Standing Rock Protests
South Africa's Zuma State Capture
Japan's Earthquake
Selfie Deaths Rising (really?)
Google Boosts AI Research
Study Links Fracking and Earthquakes
Australian Thunderstorm Asthma
Putin and His Missiles


It is happening right now. We see our planet being changed all around us, at an increasing rate. More and more species of flora and fauna are becoming extinct, our cultures are changing more rapidly, becoming increasingly coca-colonised by homogenising Western influences. We as a species are breeding at an exponential rate, and using up more and more of our planet's natural resources. And the key word here is exponential. Things are changing faster and faster, and we appear to be moving towards a singularity. Not the kind that ends with the earth being crushed by the terrifying gravitational forces of a black hole. Rather, a cultural and existential singularity, in which some kind of paradigm shift will occur once our changes have reached a point where they can go no further.

I can't predict what will happen. I'm not a scientist, and after all of the times the world has already ended, I don't put much stock in prophecies.

For me, the apocalypse was an event which promised an end to all of the horrid, wasteful, malicious and damaging activities of people that I saw more and more around me. Specifically to my own personal circumstances, it represented an end to the constant bullying and victimisation that I was experiencing at school and hostel. If it meant an end to my life as well, then I was also perfectly happy with that. As long as it was just over and done.

I've come to recognise with time that waiting for the apocalypse to end the world as we know it is just waiting for the easy way out. It means we no longer have to go through the daily grind of waking up, going to work, working, going home, cooking, eating, sleeping. There will be a change to the routine, something different. Something that breaks the cycle. I don't think that the apocalypse is the answer, though. In the words of Annie Lennox, "Dying is easy, it's living that scares me today."

Whatever the future may bring, I think we need to have the courage to face it, and not to wish it away in fire and ashes, because I reckon there will be a lot of disappointed people out there who realise in their deathbeds that they have spent their lives waiting for something to happen that was unfolding slowly, every day before their very eyes.

So this is me. Don't think for a moment that I'm not prepping. I am. But I'm not prepping for the end. I'm prepping for the beginning of something new. And I'm no longer hoping for the death of my world. I mean to live.

Here's a song for all of you:

https://youtu.be/Z0GFRcFm-aY

"after the tournament" and other short stories from the Rogues

I'm not sure if it happens with everyone out there, but I have noticed that in my small circle, the closer you get to a tournament, the more you start prefacing each statement with the words, "After the tournament...". By about a week or so before the tournament, almost every sentence begins with, "After the tournament..." and you can see the people to whom you are talking actually rolling their eyes at you because they are so sick of hearing you make all of the promises to them which just basically confirm that "the tournament" is more of a priority in your life than any other thing that you have to do for anyone else.  And you don't really care because you know it's true and you expect everyone else to understand. Also, you genuinely believe the promises that you make when you start them with, "After the tournament, I promise I will..."

We put everything off for about three weeks before the tournament. We didn't do anything but armour, work, eat and sleep. We did manage to bathe a bit, which was good. And of course, the Beastie got me as often as she could get away with.

Here are some short stories from our travels to the Joburg tournament.

The mad armouring rush
We managed to make or fix all of the armour and weapons that we took to Joburg in about a month.
I made a cuirass for Bronwen and one for me, a pair of splinted cuisses for Bron and a scale aventail to replace the one that fell to pieces at Red Lion. To be fair, though, I was at work most of the time, and so our trusty workshop minion, Kenneth Mgeje, did all of the gruntwork.
Josh made himself a pair of arms (pauldrons, elbows and vambraces), finished his stuffed gambeson, and also made two swords, an axe and reshaped and rehafted a mace.
We worked on other things in between, but that was mostly stuff that required sewing, and so when it came to crunch time, the armour took priority and the surcoats and my replacement fighting shoes did not get made.
There are always little extra things that take time which you never think about until you realise you can't put on the armour (or possibly keep the armour on) without them. Like arming ties for gambesons, refitting straps that have broken or are too short or too worn, adding on an extra something to augment the new whatever that you made to replace the old one, or simply reworking armour bits until they fit comfortably. Like I said, it all takes time.
For the last week, Matt the Goat and Bron pulled in and worked with us in different ways to make it so. Bron also got a video of our final prep about two hours before we left.

Travels
It was an interesting challenge we set ourselves, since it turned out that if Jimmy-Steve hadn't got a chest infection and had actually been able to come along, we probably would have had to bauper him and his gear onto the roof with bungee cords, since that was the only place left to put anything.
We borrowed The Boat from my Mom and Doug. It's a '95 Ford Fairmont 4l automatic with a boot that can take two dead bodies. OR three armours, a six-man tent, and other small clothes bags, six swords, a polearm, an axe, a mace and four shields. We put the box full of tools, the sleeping bags and a helmet in the back with Bron and Matt, and I had stuff in the front with me. It was full, and (here's a Firefly reference for the geeks) we were using double fuel for full burn.
There was an amazing storm with lightning everywhere around us, and taken together with Josh's three praying mantids he saw that day, I recognised the omens of success in battle.
On the way up, we missed the turnoff, and Joburg being what it is (even the freeways are just big knots) we only realised once we were on the other side of it and heading for Kimberley. It was a rather disappointing discovery for those of us who had sewing and other shit to do in the morning, and who wanted to sleep before 02h00. We got there with a sniff of fuel to spare at just after 02h00, and that was that. Josh sewed the rest of my aventail and then we passed out together. Thanks, Eric, for waiting up for us!

Fighting
We were up early, armouring, sewing and generally doing last minute shit whilst trying to ignore the small pre-fighting twinges of adrenaline.
Every tournament happens the same way: about a month beforehand, once it's way too late to change anything at all, I start to feel like I'm not strong enough, not fit enough or fast enough, not prepared enough, that I'll most likely lose all of my fights and make a laughing stock of myself.
A week beforehand, it gets so bad that I constantly feel like screaming at people if I'm not training.
The morning of the fighting, though, I feel calm and just a little edgy. Like I can smile at someone and hold a decent conversation, but if my control slips a little, I could reach out, grab them and bite whatever reaches my mouth first until there is blood.
So that's pretty much how it went. Except for the biting. There was no biting. I don't think that the sleep deprivation that we all experienced for the week beforehand helped us at all, but we managed to keep it together, which was good.
We got everything done and ready so that by the time the bouts began, we just had to watch and wait. We have a saying in our circle that the first fight is always a fuck-up, and we wanted to have a couple of short rounds with each other first, as an extra warm-up before the fighting began. We barely were able to warm up, as it was, and didn't get any fighting in.
Josh fought well. His first fight wasn't a fuck-up. Neither was mine. Bron felt like she could have done better. Some of the fights they had were very close, and I felt it could have gone either way.
In the end, though, Bron placed third in the women's sword and shield and Josh got bronze for the men's. I got gold, so all of the Rogues got a bit of loot.

We didn't have time for another singles category because it was going to rain, and, offered a choice between longsword and buhurt, the overall vote was for buhurt.
The Rogues had been training for the buhurt for ages, and I was excited at being able to field a team of Rogues in buhurt. At go-time, though, Josh wasn't able to compete because he had a gap over his lumbar area, and then the marshal noted a gap I thought I had taken care of on my arms. I had to make the smart choice and not push to be let in because financially we cannot afford for me to get a broken arm.
I felt very disappointed and very grown up and responsible and there was the Fuck You part of me jumping up and down shouting, "Get in there! Get in there you chickenshit! Stop making excuses! They're only excuses. Nothing will actually hurt you! Just get in there!" and I was sorely tempted to give in and go with it.
I think since I started this blog, I've had some kind of shift in my perspective, and I can draw distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable risk. Acceptable is when you know that you're going to get fucked up, but you also know that you have sufficient armour covering you to reduce the chances of serious injury. Unacceptable is when you know you're going to get fucked up, and you also know that the armour you're wearing is not capable of mitigating that fact.
I didn't go in and I'm not sorry. There will be another chance for that and I will be ready to take it.

Bronwen took the opportunity and went in with Aiden, who was once my bestest squire and minion, (remember I mentioned him in the post about the squires?). It was Aiden's first tournament, and he fought like a lion. Bron is about five feet tall, and she got into the lists and faced off against these guys who are tall and strong and who were wielding falchions and axes. She stood up to them, took the shield punches, and gave it her best without fear, and that is a credit to the Rogues. I was even more impressed when she stayed in for another round, after getting chucked face first into the sand.
That tiny tank now has more buhurt experience than I do. Am I jealous? Of course. Am I threatened? Nope. I always knew she would be a better buhurt fighter than me, and that was the whole point of recruiting her. Am I proud? Hell yeah. So proud.

As far as the fighting is concerned, I think the tournament itself was well-organised with enough support staff for counting, timing, recording and squiring. There was shade and water and places to sit down. The vibe was friendly and easygoing and I was pleased with the number of new fighters who took part. Our hosts, Eric and Vanessa, are such lovely people. They gave us food and drink and good conversation, and their kids and animals are all adorable. It was very easy to feel at home there with them, for which I am grateful. They made an effort to make the event good, and they succeeded par excellence.

I was disappointed that a South African tournament had, for the first time, separated men and women into different categories. What I really loved about this sport in South Africa was that no-one ever felt the need to split up people by gender or age or any other distinction. We all fought against each other at every national tournament. What I found most disappointing was that I believe the other female fighters had a part in enabling that decision. I think they actually didn't want to fight the guys.
I know that I didn't benefit from the fighting. I mean, I got a gold medal. Yes, my first gold medal. And I'm pretty stoked with it. In fact, I brought it to work today for Show and Tell with my colleagues. But honestly, it felt more like I had been sent to eat at the kiddies' table. And I don't believe that the standard of women's fighting in South Africa is going to improve very quickly if we allow our women to take the easy route and just fight each other, especially if they are all noobs. I'd have foregone the medal in favour of some proper tournament experience, and so should have the rest of the women.

What is that funny flowery smell I detect in the air? Oh yes. It's the lingering aroma of soap, from the box I'm standing on. Let me get off it now.

Josh and I awoke very early the next morning to witness a cicada climbing out of its exoskeleton. It took an hour or more and I kept dozing off and then waking up to keep track of its progress. I think that it was a significant medicine for us as a team, and I was grateful for that recognition from the Gods. I think it's important sometimes to be reminded of the steps you have taken and how much further each step has brought you down the path. In my estimation, last weekend was a milestone for the Rogues. It heralded our team's emergence into the national scene. We were there as a team and we made our mark as such.

We decided to have longsword fighting the next day. Of course, no-one else pitched up for it, and there was no support staff, so we simply had some friendly sparring. I fought with Eric's wife, Vanessa, who is a very new girl in armour, and who is showing some promise with a longsword. She is quick and fun to fight. Bronwen also fought her, and also found it a good experience.

Vanessa on the left, me in the middle, Bron on the right.

Josh fought against Eric, who promptly broke his sword on Josh in their second round.That was quite sad. Here's proof.

Don't worry, he's not really crying.  Not on the outside.

We got to test out the amazing longsword that Josh made. It is a thing of beauty and balance, and we were all impressed with how it moved.

I shall claim it for my own and call it "The Sword of a Thousand Truths" and it shall be mine.

I don't have a photo of it to add, though, so you can't see it.


The journey home

We left rather late, having fought till midday, and then had lunch afterwards. We realised the time and hurried to pack up and go, but we left at about 14h00.

Fortunately, we didn't get lost getting out. Joburg freeways have this cool thing where they funnel all of the tourists in the direction of the beach, so wherever you are on the freeway, at any given offramp or interchange, there will always be "Durban" on one of the options. Usually, it will read something like (and Joburgers, please forgive the inaccuracy) Germiston (which is 10km away) / Witwatersrand (which is 20km away) / Durban (which is 633km away and in another province). Here's a clip of the trip.

We only really had to watch out for the bad drivers because they are like flying ants - they come out with the rain. And it did rain a bit. Our path was largely unimpeded until we got to Nottingham Road, which is on the home stretch inside our province. A truck had jack-knifed and tipped its load, stopped traffic for two hours while cleanup operations took place.
We listened to Hammerfall, stood in the middle of the freeway and smoked cigarettes, Matt the Goat walked down the road and had chats with other people, and I opened up the bottle of Black Grouse. Good times.
Josh was unimpressed, being the driver and thus not able to partake. Matt the Goat got that bit into his Rogumentary, which will feature on this blog once he has cleaned it up and handbraked it down to a civilised size. Yes, it is a real thing. We made it a real thing.

We finally got home around 22h30. Bronwen muttered something by way of greeting and stumbled off to her car, and got home about 15 minutes later. It was good to be home.

Lessons
Although it has become a tradition for us to be armouring until the very last second before fighting, we decided once again that is really is unnecessarily stressful, and that we need to make every effort in the future to have our gear ready way in advance to avoid that shit happening again. I'm hoping this dream will become a reality because I really, really hate it. We hardly got any sleep for a week beforehand, didn't train nearly as much as we should have, we didn't get to warm up properly, we wasted a lot of energy and focus on hurrying to get things done hours and minutes before the fighting began, and our fighting suffered because of it.

We approached the tournament with not a small amount of trepidation because there have been (and still are) politics that have divided the veterans of our community and caused all kinds of hurt. I think that we underestimated everyone else's capacity for being able to act decently and keep it tidy whilst enjoying the hospitality of a neutral host. I think, also, that the presence of so many new people in the scene, who are just really keen and happy to be there, "living the dream" (and let's face it, that's what we all do when we get into the lists and fight), diluted the contentious issues and made it better for everyone. So maybe I should have relaxed a bit more about that.

Our team's overall fitness and skill peaked about a month before the tournament, and then dipped way down because we sacrificed so much of our training time making armour. If we had gone up and fought at the beginning of October, we would all have kicked ass hard. As it was, we didn't do too badly, but both Josh and Bron were frustrated because they knew they had been fighting much better before the tourney. So once again, it comes down to having gear ready to go far in advance, and then focussing on training and fighting prep.

There are actually other armoured fighters in Durban, outside of our team. For whatever reason, they have seldom or never competed in any Combat Pit tournaments, and I'm guessing that the reason is because they do not want to seem disloyal to their club, or some other such misguided belief. I think that we will need to reach out once again and extend once again the invitation to come and fight and train, because the more people we have to fight against, and the more often we fight, the better the level of fighting will become. Insulating ourselves from each other for the sake of (oh I have no clue what - insert relevant reason here) is silly and self-defeating.
Of course, if it is too difficult to commit to attending a local tournament for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, one day in the month, then perhaps you should rather take up something easier, like golf.


The next tournament our team will attend is the national qualifier. Fortunately, this year it will be held in our province, so even if Serenity the Subaru is not going by that time, it will be less of a mission to get there. Our team will compete for the right to represent South Africa at IMCF and/or Battle of the Nations in 2017.

So, now we know what After the Tournament really means: we rest for a week and then start preparing for the next one. Then, After the Tournament, we can look at doing things like fixing the windows, digging the trees out of the roof, cleaning the house, washing the car, sorting out all of the clothes we don't need, fixing that plug point...