High Life

6 June 2009

Rumble in the concrete jungle

Sindelfingen

Sindelfingen is a suburb of Stuttgart, and is known as the German Detroit, except that Sindelfingen is a vibrantly green and leafy town of 60,000 people, half of whom are employed by Mercedes, whereas Detroit is a dying, crime-ridden city of burnt-out blocks and empty lots, where angels fear to tread in case they’re mugged and their wings ripped off and sold to second-hand repair dumps.

Sindelfingen was founded in 1263, when both judo and I were in our infancy. Last week I flew in from the Bagel for the world championships held in the ‘Glaspalast’ from 28 to 31 May. If last year’s championships were a success with 29 countries competing in Brussels, this year was a triumph for the Fatherland, as 50 nations sent in teams comprising 1,000 competitors.

Mind you, I knew I was in trouble the moment I saw some of the types at the weigh-in. The bulging muscles, the cauliflower ears, the bullet-heads attached to chests without a neck — these were signs that I was out of my depth: an effete Sebastian Flyte figure among fierce savages. One thing that struck me was how many of these gorillas had shaved heads. In my time, only one man did that, Yul Brynner, and he parlayed his baldness to fame and fortune. Now a shaved pate is almost de rigueur for gays and martial artists, a strange coincidence (as I know many gays who don’t practise martial arts, and many martial artists who are not gay).

Never mind. Wednesday night was more or less sleepless, as I restlessly tossed and turned until it was 7 a.m., with my first match scheduled for nine. The prelims are simply hell. One never knows who is the new kid on the block (70 and over, that is) and who might spring a bad surprise out of the blue. Luckily, I got through to the medal round without any major injury, and then it was Deutschland Uber Alles time.Up against a German in the quarters, I got a taste of what it must have been like for the French and other assorted Europeans back in 1940. Hearing them roar in unison against me was a humbling experience. But it inspired me (pissed me off, actually) and we went at it until the end and flag time. Flag time means no points were scored so the central referee and the two judges are each given a blue and a white flag, and at a certain moment lift one of them. I was blue that day, wearing a blue gi, and fighting out of the blue corner. My opponent was white. I saw the central ref lift blue and one judge white. Turning quickly I saw the lady judge had lifted blue. I was through to the semis. The lady who gave blue had salt and pepper hair, high cheekbones and hooded eyes. She must have been a beauty when young. She again was judging when I met my Japanese opponent ten minutes later. This one was a nasty piece of work. Loud and extremely aggressive, he was an Olympic medallist in Montreal, and had been recruited to fight again for Japan in view of last year’s debacle for the Land of the Rising Sun.

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