Day One – Afternoon
When we regroup after lunch, the tables are pushed forward and we’re finally getting to some hands-on learning.
After a morning of PowerPoint slides breaking down what we should be looking for as judges and a few stories that won’t be shared here, Jerin is ready to go through the 110 techniques listed on the itinerary as moves you “need to be able to identify prior to starting the course.”
I’m not exaggerating either. There are 110 techniques to have an understanding of before you start the course. This isn’t a weekend retreat with games and making friendship bracelets; it’s work and it’s hard, but is 100% worth it. I think. So far.
This was the most difficult part of the course for me, and not because I didn’t know certain holds.
In a class divided 60/40 with inexperienced participants making up the bigger portion, listening to the experienced set detour the demonstrations from learning the holds and the accepted names for testing purposes to “Well we call it this” and “Do you remember when so-and-so used that on so-and-so?” over and over and over is like nails on a chalkboard. I love sitting around bullshitting about old fights more than anyone I know, but when there are people in the room trying to learn, myself included, I need you to stay on point.
Jerin was frustrated by this too. He repeatedly breaks out his signature phrase “there’s too much white noise,” trying to bring the focus back to making sure that the neophytes knew what the hell a 100% sweep looked like. After all, personal opinions about how Eddie Bravo names his moves wasn’t going to be on the tests tomorrow.
Regardless of the surrounding chatter, the demonstrations cleared up a lot of questions for a lot of people, and that is one of the important things to take away from a course like this. While everyone hopes to pass, it hasn’t happened yet that an entire class were presented with certifications at the end of the two-day marathon. But pass or fail, everyone can walk away with an increased understanding of what they’re watching during a fight.
After a quick break, we turned to watching fights and handing in practice scorecards.
We’d watch a round, turn in our scores and then pause while John and Jerin sorted through the slips. Once the votes were tallied, John would go through and ask different people to explain why they scored the round the way they did. As I anticipated at the start of the day, it usually began with someone on the other side of the room.
Needless to say, an argument or two took place during this exercise. Every answer for Fighter A was counter-punched by a participant who saw Fighter B getting the better of things. At the end of the discussion, John and Jerin weighed-in with who they felt won the round.
This is where I first started to worry about the “scoring the fight” test that was coming the following day, and here’s why: judging is subjective and you don’t get to watch each round with slow motion replays and a rewind button.
While I could see how John and Jerin came to their conclusions on who should have been awarded the round when we broke the fight down minute-by-minute, I knew there was a chance I wasn’t going to see those things when the action was “live.” After all, this is why we have close fights and split decisions in the first place, right?
The confidence I had built throughout the afternoon was shaken thanks to a couple of close fights that I score “the wrong way.” While I wasn’t second-guessing my knowledge, I knew that I wanted to be of sound mind on Sunday, so instead of heading to the casino’s theatre to watch an evening of fights, I jumped on the SkyTrain, transferred to the bus, walked two miles up the hill in the pouring rain and went to bed.
I wasn’t going to be the guy who failed because I was out having fun when I should have been studying and getting a good night’s sleep. I’d already been there, done that, got the three-year degree that took me four-and-a-half years to prove it. No need to revisit the University of Waterloo when the first half of the day had already felt similar to high school. Just get some sleep and be ready for tomorrow.
Besides, we were starting at eight and Jerin was coming in an hour early to go over techniques one more time. That meant I had to be at the bus stop by 6:15 if I didn’t want to miss out on the extra instructional time.
Day Two is going to be a torture.