Half-flys and hookers

I was lucky that it was a Kiwi friend took me under her rugby wing.  She was looking for someone to watch the Super 15 tournament games with her. I agreed with the condition that she'd have to spend the our first game together answering my questions. Tri-Nations and Rugby World Cup have followed in succession.

I'm still working out the finer points of the positions but I GET IT!!!

I got the jist of rugby before; it's just similar enough to American football that I got the concept of running the ball into the goal area, or kicking it through goal posts. It's was all the penalties and subtleties that were lost on me.  She patiently answered all my "what was that?" and "what happened there" s over the course of the game.  I'm still seeing something new every game.  The scrums are making sense, I can see where a team get a foul on line-outs, and I'm starting to follow kicking v throwing v running strategies.  I get it now.  I don't instinctively plunge headlong into an NFL vs Rugby argument on the side of the Americans any more. 

Crouch, touch, pause, engage

I'm now a dutiful All Blacks fan.  Before you go jumping on me as a fan who's jumped in on the backs of the most famous, most prodigious team for just those reasons, hold your horses.  The friend who taught me about rugby is KIWI, that means she's an ALL BLACKS fan. Since I learned from her, and watching them, they're my team. A week or two ago I sent her an sms saying that we were playing and I meant ABS (All Blacks), not the USA, who I didn't even know had a team until two weeks ago. And incidentally there are over 90,000 pro rugby players in the US.  Really??

I love sport.  I grew up watching baseball and football.  I feel in love with football (aka soccer) when I saw it live for the first time in Guatemala.  My team in the FIFA World Cup were the Spaniards.   I supported Spain from the beginning and might have been the only one doing so in Jakarta. They won to boot! I'm hoping that the same magic will work for the ABS.  I almost got my American card revoked for not supporting the US then and I was questioned about it again for RWC. When we get to the Olympics then it'll be a different story but until then . . .


I watched the last three rugby games of open play in the Rugby World Cup.  The quarterfinals will start next weekend and I'm excited about it.  I have learned some of the players on other teams and see strengths and weaknesses in them. I was sad to see Scotland knocked  out of play, and even sorrier to see how dirty the Italian team played against the Irish (which made me happier the Irish team moved on).  Great resource for RWC

Plus the All Blacks have the Haka. Wicked cool.

I will unabashedly admit that there might be another reason I continue watching rugby. Sonny Bill Williams and Dan Carter may be the reason I like rugby.  I like the physicality, the athleticism and the players.

Dan Carter, Abs

Sonny Bill Williams, ABs

Do you blame me? Drool.

Be a Sport!

Here's the detailed account of this years first Teacher's Sports Day!!!  Feel the saccharine tone in my voice?  That's because I was faking my sweet interest, and poorly at that.

On Friday the students left after fourth period, about 10:30 in the morning.  The teachers were to be finished about noon so that we could have TEACHERS SPORTS DAY!!! Da dada daaaaa!! It was a team building exercise involving ALL the teachers at JIKS.  Now even though the elementary, middle and high schools are all on the same campus, rarely the twain shall meet. I know a lot of the names of the secondary teachers form mentions about the office.  I've seen quite a few of them walking in or out of school but I think I'd only spoken to about two of them since I started last August.  This sports day was also going to include all the Korean teachers from the different schools AND the administrative office.  It had all the making of a disaster.

This was the notice we got about the days events:
* Sports Day Schedule

          Time                         Events   
  1      12:00 ~ 12:20          Warm up   
  2      12:20 ~ 12:40          Dodgeball( Female) (5분씩, 3Set)    
  3      12:40 ~ 13:40          Volleyball (Female+ Male, 3Set)   
  4      13:40 ~ 14:00          Volleyball for friendship (KT+Native, 1Set)   
  5      14:00 ~ 14:30          Table tennis ( F + M, 1Set)   
  6      14:30 ~ 15:00          Badminton (Male, Male + Female)   
  7      15:00 ~ 16:30          Dinner( Cafeteria)   

  1. Please, go to the gym by 11:50.
 2.Winners( team) will get the vouchers for leaving early and Karaoke Voucher( equivalent to 1,000,000).
   Go! Go!

I went into it in a foul mood.  Normally we'd get to leave early that Friday since the kids had testing.  I'd thrown a week long fit about the female only dodgeball (what, no bikini mud wrestling?). The other three sports to be included were volleyball, table tennis (henceforth to be referred to as ping pong :P ) and badminton.  I can understand volleyball.  It's a team sport and they wanted teams of nine.  I've been in Asia a year and a half, but I still can't get the fascination with the faux sports of badminton and ping pong.


It kicked off with toe touchy warm up to a pop 80's song.  Then lots of standing around waiting.  The schedule was almost immediately scrambled in favor of starting with volleyball for friendship. Next came something unexpected.  I started out in the Bule vs Korean volleyball match and had a good time.  I stayed in for part of the elementary vs secondary matches.  It was fun.   I was then completely mind boggled by the dodgeball.  I may try to use diagrams to explain that soon.  When the dodgeball wrapped up and the "non-sports" kicked in, I perked up with a cold Bintang.  I was starving when we entered the gym so I had some mildly sweet brown rice balls with raisins which were much nicer than I know they sound, and some watermelon. I talked with three guys from the secondary school and met two others.  It was great.


About 2/3 of the bule lot trouped up to the canteen/cafeteria for food.  They had quite the spread set out for us.  We all agreed it was better than the last school meal out at a Korean restaurant.  One big benefit of working at a Korean school is that they eat pork.  And the roast pork was excellent.  Add in veggies, life giving kimchi, noodles, etc, etc and it was a meal for a king.  There were beers around and bottle of soju (think Korean tequila) a plenty. By the time I begged off at 4:30, I had a touch of a beer buzz and a full belly. The conversation was entertaining for the most part and the day wrapped up well.


The last good news of the day?  The elementary school won Sports Day.  We earned one "early leave day" free pass for the staff, and we used it yesterday!  I'm often surprised here at JIKS, but to have a positive surprise hit me double.