Medals and Memories and Memes (by sarah)

Today we watched the womans marathon which is part of the Olympics. It was fun spotting landmarks and talking to Jean about London and running. She loves the fact that her great grandmother won a medal for running in the Olympics of yester year - this lead her to start doing 'put your hand up if...' competitions.

It was mainly hands up if someone in your family is/was a runner, if you've been in an Olympics etc... but one of the questions was if you have ever been in a marathon. I put my hand up.

'Really?'

'Yes Jean a half marathon'

She then would not stop talking about it so I went to see if I could find my folder of bits. I did and produced the medal - explaining carefully that it is not a bronze medal I did not come third I just came in before a certain time and I can't actually remember what that time was. I ran the half marathon in 1998 during my A'levels with a friend from Guides. My cousin was in the same race though she is younger then me - she came in before me but was being like a young runner person at the time.

We on the other hand had just decided we'd do it for charity and my aunt (mother of the running cousin) had to lend me a pair of legging shorts to run in as I didn't have any. My trainers were good quality nike but had been bought in a charity shop for £4 - I left them in Kenya as a donation to a school/orphanage in 2000.

I remembered that I had been unable to drink the drinks so me and Gemma just poured the water over the top off our heads as our main issue was not thirst but over heating!

And so I ran a half marathon with no training and found it wasn't actually that hard at all.

I have fond memories of that race and so was excited when in my second first year at uni my room mate was training for the London Marathon - she had all the gear including full body suit making her look cool and scifi and I occasionally had to do a sports massage on her. She did really well - I on the other hand watched it on Telly whilst making the first full blown wiggly pets as congratulation presents for her and the other girl who were running. I was on crutches with torn ligaments which had resulted in me being flown back early from a field trip in Spain.

In the same folder I also found my old school report full of good efforts but a regular C if not D in PE. Basically I did not do team sports except football but as the girls club was disbanded that didn't last long. There was also certificates such as Young Writer of the Year and The Royal Mail competition which I won whilst still being in the bottom set for English.

There was a newspaper clipping of me and others sitting in sleeping bags outside the Trinity church in Romford to raise money and awareness for the homeless. And a certificate for Havering Citizen of the Year Award 2000 for the Kenya project.

There was stuff for the Buddy Reading Scheme and the Bully Line and the Tree Planting for Thames Chase with local dignitaries and singing on the South Bank and many many other things. This plunged me into memory lane, full of whist and nostalger and the feeling I have somehow come off the tracks. It made me sad which also made me feel somewhat middle aged.

As it is the feeling could have been worse, could have been darker and deeper but fortunatly this year has been pretty amazing with a medal in the Creative Olympics and a place in the Gloucestershire Poet Laureate finale to be held in two weeks time at the Cathedral and so much more.

I did however turn down a last minute oppurtunity to maybe perform at the Olympics as have just been doing so much I could not have fitted it in without letting people down. I regret not being involved in some way but for me it came on the wrong year - next year I would be well enough to have done things. So as part of getting me fit I have agreed to do the London Olympic Walk Challenge route with friends next year. At the moment a three mile walk with the stick leaves my pelvis sore.

I have a lot of training to do me thinks!

I am also starting my belly dancing classes in September which should help to stabilise the pelvis anyway. Alaric has also taken up a 'sport'. These were in the pipe line for years and we just needed groups near enough to us - this has happened at just the right time - ie when we are suddenly going - oh poo we are old and unfit!

However, that is another thing the Olympics have shown us - we are NOT TOO OLD! Alot of those athletes are in their 30's we can shape up still.

This brings me on to the meme part of the title. We are Geeks - not exactly renowned for physical prowess and yet both of us won awards and what not for things Archery, riffles and the like - the Olympics has reminded us that there are more sports than football, rugby and cricket. As Alaric tells Jean how to row a boat I am struck by the fact that geeky friends are now signing up to fencing classes after seeing the Tron-esk setting of the contests.

I myself found myself hooked to the archery, I made the statement, 'I miss archery' and Al responds with 'I've already looked up the local group for you.... I would like to do archery too.' Jean then walks in and says 'Mummy can I do some bows and arrows with like real arrows at a club or something?'

And so bizarly for the first time.... ever the geeks and nerds are on fire with the meme of sports! Friends confess that they now know athletes names and that they have scoured the wikipedia pages and the like inorder to get a better understanding of sport! What is going on?

This is not spectatorism but rather a seperating of the skill and self driving coolness of the competitors from the spectator bully mentality that we have all associated with sport - starting with the old 'take out the ankles with a hockey stick' in school. Like many things science included, love of sports is not embued in our school system or at least wasn't. You were either good at it or not. And worse you were either on the team or not and the team place had nothing to do with your skill but everything to do with the picking and your social rank in the play ground.

I personally thought I sucked at all sport until I went to a sports centre with the methodist church and wasn't made to take my glasses off - I won a badminton competition. I am aware that I would have struggled with sport no matter how it was taught due to the dyspraxia but on the other hand - I practiced each day until I could catch a ball - I had the drive and also I was good at gymnastics being double jointed/having hyper mobility - that should have been developed but wasn't.

All this aside I have never seen so many of my non-sporty friends suddenly so interested and intriged - I wonder how long it will last?

I think as it is basically super hero training and real life skill levels to be attained there is a good chance of sport permeating to were it has never been welcome before.

Krav Maga (by alaric)

I've always enjoyed combined mental/physical challenges. As a child, I often entertained myself with things like getting from one part of the house to another without touching the floor. This required planning, and finesse; the combination was exhilerating.

I enjoyed my time in the Combined Cadet Force, as many of the exercises we were set involved this combination; and I particularly enjoyed being in the school shooting team. Especially when we went out to electronic target ranges and did exercises involving running to checkpoints with an assault rifle, diving into the prone position, inserting the magazine, shooting at targets as they popped up, and then running to the next checkpoint. It was like playing Time Crisis!

However, that kind of thing has been missing from my life for the past decade or so. Also, I've been spending far too much of my time sitting in cars or at desks, with my main exercise being carrying heavy objects (such as sleeping children) for short distances. I was feeling a keen desire to exercise more.

Then about a year ago, Jean started doing Ju Jutsu, and I started to wonder about taking up a martial art. I remember, many years ago, a friend saying he was taking up Krav Maga, an interesting-sounding Israeli martial art that grew from self-defence techniques in the Jewish gettos of Hungary before World War 2.

However, my searches found no nearby Krav Maga groups; the nearest was in Bristol. So I gave up on this idea for the time being. But a few weeks ago I spotted a poster in a shop window in Cheltenham advertising local Krav Maga courses; sure enough, a group had started!

So yesterday evening, I turned up to give it a try.

It's delightfully pragmatic; most of the attacks seem to revolve around wacking your attacker as hard as you can in the softest bits of them you can reach, then running away. The first skill I started practicing was how to kick somebody in the groin, punch them in the face twice in quick succession, pull them down hard onto your rapidly-rising knee into their stomach, elbow them in the kidneys, and end up behind them (running away, of course), in one smooth motion. We then proceeded to have a try at being pinned from behind by one person while another ran at you from the front; there is a technique to escape the grip and leave the person gripping you curled up in a painful ball on the floor, but doing it while also dealing with the person coming at you from the front makes it a lot more interesting. There were also some more abstract exercises in dealing with large numbers of people coming at you, avoiding being cornered or surrounded, and getting them to get in each other's way. That involved some physical activity in keeping moving, but it was mainly a mental exercise, observing the paths of the attackers and planning your movements.

The practising was good exercise in itself, but we also did a bit of general fitness exercise, largely as part of the warm-up before getting into the practice. I left feeling tired but lively, and today I've been feeling the ache of growing muscle over much of my body, so it's been a good work-out.

I got on well with the other students, who were very helpful with the new people in their midst; and the instructor seems to be a truly intriguing and inspiring person!

It was good challenging fun, so I'm going to keep going, hopefully switching to the Gloucester group that will be starting on Mondays in September!

I turned up in a shirt and trousers, straight from the office, but most of the people there had track suits. Black ones, and t-shirts with martial-looking imagery on, were particularly popular. The contrarian in me is now wondering if I can get a glittery pink tracksuit in my size...