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Okay so to keep up with recent events I had jury duty kinda. I got dropped from it on day one but not before filling out a big long form that made me really evaluate my role in society. I think it was the caffine and all the crazy stuff that had been happening to me as of late. I feel like a teenager again. (That's not a good thing by the way). So to clear my head I rented some anime (who does that now that we have the internet?). I got all pumped up watching samurai champloo again and so I took out this black carbon fiber bokken my friend had gotten me for my 23rd bday almost 5 years ago. Now I have a bad history with bokken. When I lived in Himeji I was renting this crappy appartment on the edge of the red light district. I ended up putting several dents and large dings in the walls, ceiling and light fixture doing battle with this one huge cockroach and trying to figure out how the characters in the piece of samurai fiction I was writing were going about their awesome duels. (That was a different bokken than the one I shouldn't have picked up again but I'll get to that.) I got away with that thankfully because my landlord wasn't very observant and he was already ripping me off for the place. Later on after returning from Himeji about the time I got that black bokken I was at the fencing academy I run, after everyone had gone home and I had finished cleaning up. I took out my shiny new carbon fiber bokken and swung it around a bit. I have no formal training I just make cuts like I see them in chambara cinema, manga, anime or read about in books about kendo. I put a huge dent in this old pine pillar that supports the whole frigging building just by misjudging my reach. ( sweatdrop ). Now it's important to note that I am not a big guy. I just manage to find or be given bokken posessed by evil spirits or something. So anyways, tonight I'm watching Samurai Champloo and I'm all pumped up and a little weepy at the same time just because I love the ending so much. I start thinking about the hippy who threatened my father with a gun last week and it just made me so angry. So as I'm walking back to my room with my bokken in hand I launch a thrust at nothing in particular. Well it hit my doorframe and crushed the wood out of the way. I can see a near perfect indent in the door frame in the shape of the tip. The bokken is of course unphased because it's pure evil and doesn't care about my doorframe. The only indication of my immaturity and momentary lapse of self control is a tiny set of fibers from the wood that aren't perfectly smooth inline with the thrust. They just barely flair in a different direction. I swear though every time I pick one of these things up though it ends up doing damage. I'll have to consider this carefully.

Now I'm not the first person, the only person or the last person that is going to want a professional fencing league. If you're not a fencer and you're reading this it might be a little confusing at times but I will do my best to clarify what I mean. As it stands now the USFA (United States Fencing Association) kowtows to the F.I.E. (Federation International d'Escrime I believe but my french and my memory are not great) and they desperately want to stay in the olympics. To do so as I understand it, our athletes must maintain their amateur status. This I believe is a mistake. We should form a professional league and abandon the olympics. I think the way fencing often comes across is pedantic and or romantic. I don't see a need for either trait. Fencing is a heck of a lot of fun! I think despite the problems with cheating that will arise from a drastic departure from what is being done at the moment is necessary. I think the first thing we should abandon is the strict adherence to rules about our uniform. We should make certain safety related clothing mandatory but allow for other clothing to be worn over the top of it. But wait, isn't that even more romantic than what we have now? Yes it is, and in this case I think it's a good thing. Imagine if we could dress up as a fantasy hero of ours, or an anachronism or a space alien or anything aside from blasted white and still compete in a fun and exciting athletic event. That's not enough by itself though. We need big prizes, to act as extra incentive to our less financially endowed athletes (that would be me except I'm not exactly athletic smile ). We need corporate sponsorship! We need to stop being so pretentious and get down to what's important: fun. I have no problem with having friggin SKITTLES written across my jacket in big rainbow colors or VIAGRA written across my knickers. We also need to go to a wireless scoring system, we need to allow coaches to communicate via radio or friggin satellite if they want with their fencers. This is important the way I see it. Really give the coaches some credit and make them famous too, like in other sports. We also need some permanent facilities to host our big national events so that we can dispense with this crazy bidding system we have now. We should also have only one weapon per facility so that we can hire professional referees and cut down on the number of days an event takes to complete. Fencing could be the next big thing if we just let it happen.