Enjoying some exciting days

It’s been two weeks since I last wrote here. Where did that time go? 

In school colours

Wrestling again

I've been at two wrestling tournaments in the last two weeks! The first was a single, but long day with a lot of wrestling and three or four hours of travel.

The second, the first four days of this week, were spent away with the school’s current wrestling team as a female chaperone and fan. Also as the wife of the team driver. I’d thought my days attending such events were over, but was grateful for an official reason to indulge again. It’s a sport that can really get under your skin and, yes, this event pretty much confirms that we’ve got the bug. And we saw a lot of wrestling. The days were long, I estimate we spent about 30 hours in the gym where the three-day tournament was hosted, with 300 or more other people. The sport itself is pretty quiet but spectators and coaches can make a lot of noise!

The first 60 to 90 minutes of the days in the gym started quietly as we were often the first school to arrive. It was a time that they had warm-ups and meetings, so I pulled out my computer and got what work done that I could. But once the wrestling started I inevitably found it much harder to concentrate and, having already dealt with the “lower hanging fruit” of my to-do list for work, gave up trying to achieve much more. Editing and writing take a fair bit of concentration and I was concerned that I’d probably make errors I’d later regret!

This was one of my favourite moments of the
tournament (it's a screenshot from a video I
took for the wrestler's mum). An unexpected but
vital victory in the finals of the duals.

Of course accompanying the team means you’re pretty much on from breakfast time to after dinner. They were long day, but not as emotionally draining as when our own kids were doing it, though I can’t claim to be tear-less for the whole event! We know how much these kids put into training and it’s amazing to watch and encourage and walk alongside them, especially through an emotionally gruelling three-day event.

What was particularly amazing to watch again was the value of a good team. I’ve seen it before: individuals performing above what you think they can do because they have the higher goal of wrestling for the team. The team aspect of this particular event was really on a different level for our guys, and they pulled together so well. Everyone’s contribution was meaningful, even one point made a difference (each bout they could contribute up to 5 points to the team’s total, it depended on if and how they won or even lost a bout). The end result for the semifinal and final came down to just 2 or 3 points difference between the teams!

The US Army base is situated on towards the
south-western border of the Kanto plain, and
has a pretty nice mountain view. Blue sky
like this also thrills my Aussie heart.

The guys achieved what no other CAJ wrestling team has achieved: won both portions of the competition. The team got the highest number of points in the individual portion of the competition and then also won the team-portion (duals).

We had another surprise when we arrived home on Wednesday night: a bunch of teachers and their kids were waiting for us in the car park with pop-out streamers and a big sign: Champs. So fun!

Both working (and matching in
wrestling team hoodies)

The other wonderful part of this whole event was doing it with David. This whole learning to live without kids at home after being married 27 years includes a lot of choosing to do things together. And this is a shared interest, so it was lots of fun.

Ah, but I’m raving on about wrestling before and most of you couldn’t care less about that!

Other exciting stuff

It's been a great week all round. A couple of "big ideas" I've been working on are starting to gain traction (running a small writers retreat for our mission and taking an international trip to meet up with others doing social media within our organisation). It's taken months of patient work to network, get permissions, and gather information, but I'm excited to see movement.

After some quiet weeks at work, I've also hit a busy time with the magazine: 23 edited articles to check with authors before shooting them off to our designer. They've all landed on my desk in the last 10 days or so!

But I love this kind of busyness. I've mentioned before that I struggle with the changes in pace that come with my work. Sometimes they are predictable, but day-to-day sometimes not so much. A couple of weeks back I started the week waiting on a lot of people to get back to me, and then on the Wednesday it all started pouring in!

However, I'm tired. I ended last week with a cold and then jumped straight into four days of what was like a busy school camp. We got back around 8pm Wednesday and straight back into work on Thursday. I'm very much looking forward to a quiet, restful Saturday tomorrow.