the fighting

This blog post comes to you with images compliments of Caroline Walsh, our very favourite IMCF photographer and all round lovely Irishwoman.

Every time I go to a tournament overseas, I am humbled by the company in which I find myself. Being in this sport of medieval combat, I have developed an appreciation for the state of existence that is being an athlete. It is not something that you can do once, or for a period of time. It is a way of living and working towards an almost ethereal goal. I understand this through experience. So at tournaments, when I meet those athletes who have inspired me to bet better, do more, push harder, aim higher, I am once again reminded that it is possible; the goal, however ethereal, can be reached, for a time at least.

The standard of fighting this year was better than before, and I was impressed that everyone from last year seemed to have upped the ante.

My fighting friends gave a good account of themselves, although some unexpectedly did not win, and others did even better than they expected to.

I'm not sure if that is a reflection of the calls made by the marshalls, or the relative levels of fitness and skill of the fighters. I know that Battle of the Nations was the weekend before, and the fighting was apparently quite intense, and this could also have had a bearing on the performance of some.

Whatever the circumstances leading to the results, there was fighting. It was good quality sport. And once again, having watched a lot of it, seen the upsets and noticed the appeals and results, what made me proud to be a part of the sport was that all the combatants still accepted the marshalls' decisions as final, and showed good sportsmanship, which is not easy to do if you believe the decision was unfair. There were a few instances of this, and I am not mentioning it as a criticism of the marshalling, but as a testament to the sportsmanship of those involved.

This year, my friend and fighting inspiration, Laurent, won the Fair Play award. He was surprised. No-one else was.

But I want to talk about our buhurt teams because that made me particularly happy.

Firstly, thanks, Florian.

Our women's team, with four members, performed well together. Each of us brought our unique superpower to the lists and used it to the best of our abilities. Or skill levels. Which is all you can ever ask of a team.

It was a happy coincidence, though, that our best was good enough to beat the French and the Australian teams, who have roughly the same level of experience as us. In our pool, however, we also had the two big fish: Quebec and Ukraine. They, being the experienced and well-disciplined teams that they are, made short work of us, and we were left on our backs in the lists wondering what the hell just happened.

I guess that is as it should be. For now.

Our very young and inexperienced team beat the people we could have beaten, and this is said with all respect to the French and Auzzie women, because it was still some damn fine fighting and good fun.

We lost to our betters. Quebec and Ukraine took gold and silver, respectively, with Finland taking bronze.

And so we use our experience of fighting them to inspire us to train harder, do better. "Git gud" as they say. That is the impermanence of being an athlete - there is always more work to be done, and further goals to improve towards.

Next year?  Who knows. We might even bring home some loot if we work hard enough. Nothing is impossible, and I believe that our team can do it.

Our mens 5s team debuted this year at IMCF. Josh arrived an hour before the matches started. It was nail-biting. But they went on with five fighters.

I don't want to say that our 5s team crushed the Scots and the Irish. That's because I have many friends on both of those teams and I know how hard they work at this sport. They are also good fighters with massive hearts. The thing is, though, we grow them big and very strong in our land. Maybe it's all the sunshine.
Whatever the case, there was fighting. Our guys won those matches and then faced the Polish 5s. This is a team of experienced and well-trained fighters, usually in the medals for a first or second. And for a few moments, our guys had the Polish a bit concerned. They had the win in two rounds, but both rounds ended in a one-on-one.

Sometimes it's not the victory that is satisfying. Sometimes, it can just be how hard you make your opponent work to gain the win.

Our guys made it to the eliminations, and were then denied further progress by the French, who I believe also took silver in that category.

For a debut tournament, I'd like to think that our guys turned some heads. Next year will be interesting. That is a certainty.

In terms of individual categories, only Hylton and I had actually competed internationally before. Both of us made it out of our pools in sword and shield but were denied further progress at eliminations, unfortunately. Still, a good effort given the standard of fighting, and nothing, I believe, to be embarrassed about.

In longsword, I progressed to the match for bronze, but lost it to Bene from Quebec. She is an experienced fighter and a well-trained, disciplined athlete, and I felt no shame in losing to her. I do feel more driven than ever to get better, train harder, fight faster. Maybe next year, I can do better.

Our new fighters also did as well as they could.

Although KC chose to put the team first and withdraw from the polearm category (there was some trouble with her helm coming off), she showed some real promise in the match that she did fight against Denmark. I am very excited to see how she does in future tournaments, if she decides to focus on polearm duels.

Anton was also in the polearm duels. He took a pounding from guys a lot bigger than he. But he is tough as nails, and gave a good opposition each time. I was told that he really did fight like his namesake, the badger.

Julian fought in the longsword in Josh's place, and I would not have chosen anyone else for the job. He is a tough, fit competitor and he also made it out of his pool, after which, he met the Lithuanian who took gold and was eliminated. Again, no shame in that defeat. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see the fighting live.

I think that in terms of overall individual and team performance, we have definitely improved on last year in every respect. Now, all we have to do is fight more, train harder, be better. Git gud.

It's an ethereal promise of a goal that is never fully or permanently attainable. Like a commitment to integrity, you can't just do it once and then it's done. It is the work of a lifetime, to be an athlete. That win is there, if you dedicate yourself to it each morning. And the win is not necessarily in the medal or the marshall's decision; it is also in being better every time, achieving things you weren't sure you could.

And so when I meet fighters who I consider to be my mentors and inspiration, I may seem to be a bit of a fan girl, but really, I'm realising again that this person is a living embodiment of the dedication it takes to meet the requirements of the sport. That is important to me because they show me that it is possible. And to be a part of it all at this level is a humbling experience for which I am grateful.

keep your head down and keep training

Socially, I've always been awkward. As the years have progressed, I've picked up a couple of tricks to help me get through most social encounters. Smile. Listen. Be interested. Keep smiling. Make eye contact. That's the hardest one. It's so incredibly personal to look directly into someone's eyes. You could get lost in their thoughts and their past and never find your way out.

Scary!

When I am speaking to someone I admire, my eyes sometimes feel like they're going to cross because one part of me wants to make eye contact, create that bond, that friendship, and another part of me is hesitant to go there and discover that there is no bond or friendship, no connection or kindred spirit. Just another dick.

So I rarely actually speak to people at all unless I'm drunk or similarly intoxicated by adrenaline. I think many of my fighting friends that I meet at IMCF must now think of me as that creepy chick who smiles a lot and gushes about fighting. But I want to talk about things that are significant and meaningful. When I realise that what I have to say isn't significant or meaningful or indeed worthy, I just tend to smile or give compliments. So, yes. Me. Awkward as fuck. Who would have guessed it, me being a lecturer.

When it comes to getting along with people, every one of my SA team mates, with the obvious exception of Josh, will say that I am difficult. I have noticed it myself that if I have to deal with an authority figure, that figure had better stand up to some intense scrutiny or there will be no deal.
Unfortunately, everyone is human, so most days, there is very little in the way of dealing happening as far as I'm concerned. This has been a source of much consternation in the past, and always the politics will result.

Me using KCs helm for longsword. You can see KC (left) and Bron (right) just behind me. Thanks, Caroline Walsh for the photo - you are an artist.

I think that the more I attend tournaments, the more I understand the dynamics of myself. On the surface, there's the camaraderie and the smiles and the brotherhood that is our sport, and that is all genuine. But underneath, there is a questioning or a judgement on every call of a marshall, of every decision of a winner, of the progression or denial of every appeal, the pools, the times, the counters and whether there is a conflict.

The authority must successfully face some heavy scrutiny and come out of it mostly unscathed for the fighters to accept the results.

There will also always be an element of complete fair play and contentment; gratitude simply for the chance to fight, and that is what makes it better for everyone else, too.

In my case, the person who brings out that element in me is Josh. He is not about asserting authority over me, or being the person I want to be worthy of having a conversation with. He transcends all of that and is, just the other part of me. The part that is free to just enjoy the chance to fight.

The point that I think I'm working towards is this: no-one really knows what is going on inside or underneath (well, now I guess more people do in one respect), but you can bet it's not what you imagine it to be. So ignore all of the inevitable awkwardness, the politics and the shit-talkers, and all of the people who don't understand, and just focus on that part that is pure: the love of fighting.

Whatever happens, keep your head down and keep training and things will be fine.

This is what I tell my team, and now it has become clearer to me in a much larger context, but on a more personal level as well.

If I wanted to be flippant, I could end off with a remark about how this sport is cheaper than therapy, but it really isn't. It is, however, so much more satisfying.

the wheel

The UK visa application process is split between a middleman, TLSContact, and the UK Decision Making Branch in Pretoria.

There is no instance in which it is possible to speak to an actual human person who will answer enquiries, without first making it into the office, which will only happen if you have booked an appointment.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here because I should first explain why. Why this post at all? Everyone already knows that getting visas is a pain, right? Well, this is why: this particular visa process is a clear indication of the shape of things to come, and I will explain this further now.

Let's just first look at the process itself, and then we can discuss the implications thereof, once we have the basics down.

As I said, it is a two-part process. TLSContact are the sole gateway through which South Africans may apply for UK visas. If you want to pay four times more for the same thing, you could engage the services of a middle-middleman, who will take your money and do the same thing on your behalf. They exploit the fact that visa applications are unnecessarily frustrating, tricksy and dicey, and I am tempted to theorise that the middlemen and bureaucrats make it so, specifically to encourage the use of the middle-middlemen, so that they don't have to deal with the whiny, nasty, smelly masses. Or something.

Back to the process. You have to have an email address and a stable internet connection, or you are screwed before you begin. Also, although it may technically be possible to fill in the application on a cellphone, the reality would be ardous enough to destroy any but the most hardy and stalwart soul. So, basically, desktop is essential.

You must fill in (it seemed like) 50 pages of questionnaire with all kinds of details. One positive aspect of the whole thing - and perhaps the only one - is that they save your application. This is probably a really perfunctory nod to the fact that it is so long, takes forever to fill in, and requires information so unexpected that you need to go away and get it.

Once you have actually completed the form-filling-in marathon, they ask if - IF - you can attend an appointment at one of the venues listed below, and they basically imply that if you can't you are effectively screwed and may as well not continue. So, you choose your nearest commercial centre.

Then, they ask you to pick a date and time. And here's another rub: the first two appointments, at 07h30 and 08h00, are paid. To book one of those slots, you have to pay R1600. The visa application itself costs R1600, but we'll get to that shortly. For an early appointment, you need to cough up.

Now here's a side note: I have done visa applications before. My success rate is 3/3 for Schengen visas and 1/1 for a UK ancestry visa. That was a long time ago and I had already been back in my homeland for years when it expired.
The point is that I'm not a noob at this. I understand the conventions. So when they said to pick a date and time, I understood it to mean what every other application means: your appointment will be held for 24/48 hours and confirmed when proof of payment is received. Right?

So I picked the date and time which was well within the recommended time limit, and proceded to try to pay.

The options were: VISA or MASTERCARD

That is all. Credit card only. No EFT. No PayPal. No Amex. No Diners. No Bitcoin. No cheque cards. No debit cards.
Not one of the commonly-accepted (and expected) alternative payment options was available. Just credit card. Master or visa.

So, safe in the understanding that my appointment was booked and simply required payment, (since there was no other indication to the contrary), I looked for an email address or (dare I even think it!) a contact number for a (shame on me for even forming the words in my mind) customer service or help line.

Of course, there wasn't one. Through some sneaky trick of the interwebs, I managed to find out where their offices are in Durban. I say "sneaky trick" because it didn't appear on their website, and any information I manage to get off the net that is actually reliable, I consider a sneaky trick. So I went to visit them in person. Perhaps this was expected, since they clearly had no accessible phone lines.

I rode there during my lunch break, and got right up to the office door before I was stopped by a very polite security guard in a cammo uniform. To an ignorant member of the general public, he would have been mistaken for a soldier. Good play, TLSContact!

They wouldn't let me in because I had no appointment that day. Now, I've had years of experience dealing with people of all kinds. This experience has taught me one thing: in this context, no-one gives a shit, and getting loud and indignant will never, ever help. So, the more frustrated you get, the more you must make yourself smile. The more you feel like shrieking, the softer your voice must become. And the more you want to let the blood flow, you must display double the amount of compassion and kindness.
This is the only way.

So they let me wait in the corridor for half an hour until the right person happened to walk past me, and then the security guard pointed him out and asked him to help me. The exchange took maybe twenty seconds. Not even half a round at IMCF. It went something like this:

"Hi, please would you help me. I need to pay for my appointment, but I don't have a credit card. Can you give me banking details for an EFT, or maybe PayPal details, please?"

"Sorry, no. Only credit card payments. That's not us, it's the embassy."

"And there is no other way?"

Head shake.

"At all?"

Head shake.

"But I am a member of a national sports team. I need to go to a tournament there and I don't have a credit card. What must I do?"

"Find someone with a credit card."

Silence. Awkwardly. I could see he wanted to go, but South Africans in this position are normally too polite to just walk off.

"Okay. Thank you."

Why did I say thank you? Because it wasn't his fault, nor was it his problem, but he took the time to speak to me in a system that was clearly designed to eliminate all of the helping and favours and time-taking and other forms of basic kindnesses that have been lost in other parts of the world.

So, it took me a day and a half more to organise a credit card and transfer the money into it. When I arrived back at that old stalling point (pick a time and date), I went to my spot and discovered not only that it was unavailable, but that the only appointments available for the rest of that whole week were the early ones, where you bend over first, and cough.

I was doing three visa appointments, and to bypass the whole addition and multiplication stage of this story, it was far too costly to do it that way.

So I picked the earliest three, which worked out to 12 working days in stead of 15, believing (why oh why was I still so naive in my outlook?) that at the interview, I would explain the circumstances to the people, and the people would smile and nod sympathetically, (and a little condescendingly), and make it go through in time.

When I went for my appointment (there was no interview, nor very much human interaction at all), I tried to explain all of this, and was met with the same response from all of the people, who herded me through the processing stages along a route that resembled an abattoir chute in so many different ways.

"We just deal with the paperwork, they are the ones who actually make the decisions. To be honest, they wouldn't really care anyway."

I get that. Caring is an emotion that only happens when a person has some kind of vested interest in a subject or issue. You have to make people care, most of the time. In this case, I was hoping that the thing that would make them care would be the tardy return of passports preventing members of TeamSA from competing at an international event in their country. I mean, that would smack of bias, wouldn't it?
No-one gives the SA soccer, cricket or rugby teams their passports back too late, do they? But then again, those guys do everything together, and they probably have it all organised by some or other functionary within their respective organisations. Athletes, right?
Our team are more like a bunch of cats that return to the same stranger's house each night because she puts food out.

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. To be fair to both parts of the process. There was one more selection to make at the end of the form, once you had selected VISA or MASTERCARD. That was which service you wanted. The normal one was "free" (so just the cost of the application plus any additional charges you racked up along the way, like the conveniently-timed appointment). If you wanted a decision in ten days, you could pay R4 500 (or almost three times the cost of the visa itself). If you wanted a decision in 3-5 working days, you could pay R20 000 (or some similarly fantastical figure which does not appear in reality in our household).

So, yes. Technically, I could have gotten the visas early, but again, we don't have that kind of cash, so, no.

Here's the twist, though. It would probably have been cheaper to pay the extra wad of cash because while my passport came back in time, Josh's and Tala's didn't. This set off another chain of events which ultimately resulted in the changing of their tickets for an extortive amount, and then their being denied the ability to check in to that flight because Emirates got overly technical about the paperwork Josh needed to take Tala on the plane. It's not that he didn't have the required paperwork, they just wanted more, and they refused to hold the check-in for ten minutes so he could get it.

Being in Perth as I was, it took ages (half an hour) to get it done and emailed, since people there (with the exception of the lady at the Scottish Tourism place) seemed spectacularly disinclined to try to help at all. So, the documents were received ten minutes after check-in closed. They did not hold the gate. They gave no quarter at all, and also seemed to enjoy doing it.

To me, Emirates' decision to conduct their business the way they did after Josh had clearly demonstrated that he was not abducting the child was unfair, illogical and (I'm not prone to saying this, but) bordering on discriminatory.

But we're nearing the end of this drama, and here's the part that I actually wanted to write. Up till now, this post has just been a painful recounting of all the ways that things went wrong. But the process itself needed to be explained so that the analysis could be understood. So here goes.

There are several indicators in the process which shout to the world the shape of things to come. This shape can be defined by two general characteristics, and they form a picture of a future in which only the docile, unquestioning, conformist wheel-runners can enter the UK.

Let me break it down for you. I spoke of several indicators. Here they are:
- email address
- reliable (preferably desktop) internet setup
- credit card (let me emphasise this CREDIT card)
- money to buy time
- the ability to navigate the online application process without any human assistance or interaction, or the money to buy the services of someone who can

These conditions, by successive application, exponentially slim down the likelihood of travel, even simply to visit and experience, for most of the people living in my country. Mainly, though, it's the money thing. I mean, how many people living in any rural community have access to a credit card, let alone the cost of a visa application (for a ten-day visit!)?

I spoke of two basic characteristics of the future UK. They are:
-shared responsibility resulting in obfuscation of accountability, and;
-societal eugenics.

Let me explain a bit further. When a task is performed by one person, one branch, one company, or even one government department, there is a point where you can actually hold someone accountable for poor decision-making, and there might even be some kind of judiciary body or ombudsman who will be able to impose a penalty on the person who is being held to account. At the very least, you can phone and ask or complain. This was how it was done in the late 90s when societies began to become hyper aware of consumer rights and terms like "financial literacy" made their way into schools and women's magazines. But this did not suit certain groups. They discovered ways to sneak through the gaps or slink around the ethical barriers. An example of this in South Africa are the labour brokers, which became very popular as a result of the labour laws being tightened up and fair wages and treatment of staff becoming mandatory. Big corporate entities and others did not want to have to deal with the cumbersome ethics that came with employing staff, so they farmed that out to labour brokers, who took a chunk of every paycheck and also took the responsibility of fair wages and treatment of those companies' backs.

It seems that governments everywhere can slink just as well as corporations. Instead of dealing directly with people, they brought in a company. The company adds very little value, if any at all, to the actuall application process. However, they do bring that break in the chain of accountability, which is so desirable. They don't have a "help" desk, nor do they speak to people because that is the job of their middleman or agent, in this case, TLSContact. But TLSContact has no obligation to help or speak or answer because they don't make the decisions, they just collate the paperwork. And thus no-one can be held to account, because there is no account to give.

Cellphone service providers and their middlemen work in exactly the same way.

Very sneaky.

And of course this leads us onto our second characteristic, that of societal eugenics, which is creating a society with a specific set of desirable features.

The UK, the granmother of all nanny states, has no desire of a society that questions its purpose. The UK government, in service to those hidden "powers that be" consciously or no, has created the perfect beta testing ground for all kinds of social manipulation. It is a society of safe, disarmed, happy citizens, who work every day, drink every night, do a bit of a protest now and again when another country deserves a tut-tutting, and generally contributes to keeping those great, massive cogs of consumerism turning.

Don't get me wrong. I really, really love some of those people. They are wonderful, kind-hearted souls, and they are blissfully unaware that they live in a golden cage. But being from South Africa, I see the cage for what it is. All of the tiny, seemingly insignificant freedoms that UK citizens have progressively given up so that they may be "safe" and "free" alarms me to the very core of my being. (I wish I could be more specific, but if I did, this would turn into a book).

Yes, you get hooligans and deviants in the UK already. The societal eugenics programme is already dealing with those types, and they will eventually be forced to change and conform or go elsewhere. The UK visa process is designed to weed out most of those independent thinkers, those people who prefer to keep their freedoms, live by their own norms and embrace a lifestyle that does not revolve around propping up the agenda of the state, which is to farm people for taxes.

The funny-sad thing is that I don't think that even the farm workers (bureaucrats) get any benefits. Only the owner, and that, I might add, is not the Queen.

The UK visa process is par of that societal eugenics programme. It says to outsiders:
What? You don't live in service to the banks and thus the entire commercial framework on which our system is built? We don't want you. Debt-free, hey? Nope. We can't own you, we don't want you.If you want to travel here, get on that wheel and run. Make the cogs turn. Submit yourself to the system. Get an email address and a phone so we can track you and listen to you. Spend your money so you leave a trail we can follow. We do not want people who are independent of the system. We do not want cats or foxes. We want hamsters. Nice, sweet, docile, wheel-running, system-compliant, disposable, replaceable hamsters.

One of the Ukrainian fighters actually described the visa application process as "humiliating" and I have to agree.

In addition to all of the personal information, there is also a baffling series of questions about your political activity and other such nonsense. I can only imagine it's a bit of legal ass-coverage because, and I do mean really, what terrorist is going to check the "yes" box on a question like, "Have you ever been involved in terrorist activities?"?

And if he checks the "yes" box, will another box appear on the screen marked "details"?

It's just ridiculous. What if one of our older Struggle activists were filling it in? He or she might very well check the "yes" box, since the ANC was classified as a terrorist organisation during the apartheid era.
Then what?

Sorry, Thabo. You can't come in. You checked the "yes" box. Ha!
Wait, but we know you. You can come. But him - we don't know him. He must stay out.

I just feel, generally, like that whole process can be described in three words:

elitist as fuck

And although I have roughly five and a half months left on my UK visa, and I doubt I'll be granted another after this post goes live, I have no desire to go back there again.

When I think of my experiences outside of the medieval combat world and people (this includes staying with sword-fighting-related friends), there are a jumble of terms and phrases mixed in with the memories, like boiling frogs, 1984, chipping, gamification of society, tracking, censorship, propaganda, newspeak, thought police, safety regulations, enslavement, and I have a sense of dread.

Societal eugenics. I mean, what kind of society lays flowers at the deathsite of a career criminal, and forces an old man out of his home and village for defending himself? The UK government has, through careful positioning of messages establishing the desired societal norms and values, created a society that will ignore the basic right to personal safety in favour of sanctions against gun use. And the government no longer have to lift a finger or say a word. This society will now disarm itself, in more ways than the obvious.

Societal eugenics at work, boys and girls. That is how the fringemonkeys and free thinkers will be pushed out - by their neighbours, families and friends. Anyone who doesn't fit the mould is treated as an aberration and castigated. There is no tolerance for competing perspectives.

The shape of things to come? The wheel.