I had a surprisingly good time at Camvention, where I got to do much more juggling and taking part than expected. Running the show actually meant that I didn't really have to do much until 5.
As a result I did some passing with Pascal, Lewis, James, Michael and (Mark/Cameron/Ben). Highlights being 6789a and 89a feeling increasingly comfortable, teaching Michael (of Michael and Ashley, the club passing pair in the show) lots of things that weren't two count. Remarkably, he wasn't sure if he'd ever done 6 club 1 count before! Unsurprisingly, since I stuck to short period/moderately standard stuff he was a very fast learner, including not a bad run of 9 club 1 count. Really glad that him and Ashley were so keen and interested about 4 handed siteswap patterns etc (although I hope that doesn't stop them doing good shows! not sure period 15 siteswaps work great for audiences...).
Also did a cool shooting star pattern, except with 13 clubs - basically 8-count, passing straight triples, and on the selves you move to the gap (like in the normal shooting star). Good fun, and felt runnable - a very active pattern!
Very much enjoyed the combat and glad I entered - it's the first combat tournament I've entered since BJC, due to missing EJC and starting to feel like entering was a bit of something I 'should do' rather doing it because I was excited about it. Turns out my lack of practice in tournaments didn't really matter - was very on form, and although I felt a bit bad about, was also in a bit of a ruthless, lets try not to drop any points mode. Only dropped 3 in the 19 qualifiying matches (!), including one to Phil and two to Orinoco, and none in the quarter or semi. Didn't manage to repeat the trick in the final where Jon evidently remembered how to play and had a fun, challenging, even and good to watch match - which I won 5-4 in the end, although at 4-4 he didn't claim a point which was pretty close, so it was as close as can be.
Some people seem to think that I may have put Jon in a headlock during one of the points. This sounds highly exaggerated and I encourage everyone not to watch the video footage since I'm sure it's not interesting.
The show went very smoothly and I was very happy with how it went - far better than I would have imagined two weeks before when I was panicking a bit about not yet having a finalised line-up...
I'm glad the stage hand work was appreciated - especially given we actually practised in the tech run :P
by Brook Roberts, in response to this post 2015-09-28 13:43:43