comics

There are moments you build up in your mind that can never live up to the image in your head, and then there are moments that loom so large in your mind that you don’t know what to do with yourself once they are over. Things that occupy your every waking thought and action for such a long time that coming back to the rest of reality after they’ve past leaves you directionless. Moments that, as large as they are, are over almost before they’ve even began and before you can process them, and so it’s hard to even process that the moment has passed. You’re still there – either because you’re still wanting more and don’t know how to let go, or because the moment has changed you into something new, and now the reality you have returned to must itself be changed to fit the new you.

I didn’t take first place at the Powell Street Sumo Competition. I went into it “wanting to win” in the sense that I wanted to sincerely try my hardest. I didn’t want to give in at the first sign of tough resistance or choke in a key moment, and I can say that I didn’t do either of those things. But I didn’t *really* expect to win. I, a relative upstart in sumo, with a whole 4 months of serious grappling training couldn’t *really* think I could win multiple rounds against larger, stronger, more experienced competitors without enduring a single loss.

That’s the thing about sumo: it’s over in an instant. If anything other than the soles of your feet touches the ground, you’re out. One hand, one knee, the top of one foot, and you’re out. Not to mention that ring is not very big – it only takes a few steps back and you’re at the edge, and before you know it, you’re out.

An entire Summer of training. Doing 3 to 4 different training sessions a day, often with a nap in between. Pushing myself harder than ever before and achieving new abilities I can safely say I’ve never possessed, all backed up by my incredible coach, Sony Sahota of Praxis Gym, some awesome training partners, so many wonderful friends, and, of course, my beautiful and ever-supportive wife. I basically got to play at being a professional athlete this Summer, and I truly feel like this has been one of the greatest Summers of my life.

And in an instant it was all over.

Poor Miele keeps getting matched up with me. Thanks to cartoonist, James Lloyd, for snapping this photo!

My first match was against an opponent I had faced back in the Spring. A skilled grappler who, granted, is a little smaller than me, and but is also long-time member of the Sumo Sundays Club. But my single-leg takedown game was just too polished this Summer, and in the blink of an eye, I seized an opportunity to snatch up their leg and then it was all over.

But my next match, well, that was up against the previous winner of the “Super Heavyweight” division at the Spring Basho, so I, uh, hehe, couldn’t move him even an inch. Before I could find a moment to snatch up his leg, or even get my bearings, he had pushed me to the edge of the ring and I came down on my back – pulling him with me, but that makes no different in sumo.

I am glad to say that my disappointment was only momentary. Even before I found out at the end of the competition that I would win the “Fighting Spirit” award, I knew I wrestled my best and stuck to my game plan and proved that my had training paid off. When I lost, it was clear that no amount of training I could have done in that time period could have allowed me to go all the way and take first place this year. The competitor who won really deserved it. He’s the head of the Sumo Tigers team here in the city and he’s been training hard to win Powell Street for a good 5 or 6 years. As strong as I am and as experienced as I am in other martial arts, and as much as I was living and breathing training this Summer, someone like me isn’t going to just walk into a competition and take 1st against someone who’s been living and breathing this for literal years. It was a humbling experience wherein I saw just how far I had come, but also how much further I could still go. The best outcome from a period of intense work and preparation.

Honestly, even if I had won, I would be feeling much the same way as I am now. This moment I had been building towards for so long, over in the blink of an eye. Now what?

During training, my grappling coach said something to me that stuck with me (partially because it happened to line up with my Tarot reading). He said that for a brief period you need to become the competition. You have to be one with the moment, the situation, all the dynamics going on, and respond to it naturally, honestly with exactly the energy that is required to fill in the space left by the shifting tides in and out of the moment. But when it’s over, you need to separate yourself again and come back to life.

I think this is the real change that occurred in me: for a brief period of time I was the competition. I lived for training, all I thought about was training. The was no separation between myself and the moment I was preparing for. Until, I suppose, I was knocked out out of it by, as the wonderful announcer put it, “losing a battle with physics.” I met the moment ahead of me and gave myself to it as much as I was able to. And when that tide receded, I was able to smoothly and calmly let it slip away beneath my toes. That doesn’t mean I know where I’m going next, just that I can be ready to receive whatever the next tide holds.

I wrote in my last post about where I want my training to go once these challenges I have been building towards for so long are over, but I really can’t just be focusing on training. Living like a professional athlete is great, but a professional athlete I am not.

I know I gotta get back to making art again, whatever that looks like in this modern digital hellscape. But I also know I can’t go back to how I had been living prior to this period of training, which had me largely artistically treading water, just trying to survive. I need purpose. I need something that drives me, not just in my physicality (which is easy to find) but in my artistic output.

Christ. 2019?? I’ve been sitting on this WAY too long.

Actually returning to my comic, Starfist Gemini, is certainly on the table for a long-term art goal for me, but having a concept of a project isn’t enough. Powell Street wasn’t the vague concept of “sumo wrestling”, it was a specific, defined event. A date I had to be ready for, with specific parameters of how I needed to be ready. The primary thing that has held me back from actually pulling the trigger on returning to Starfist is a lack of a defined plan for its release; a lack of a defined outcome for working on it. In the past, I could just put comics on social media and that would result in views, likes, Patreon, book orders – all the things needed to sustain an art career. But social media doesn’t work the way it used to (and I hate it and it was killing me), and long-form, full-page comics meant for print don’t read super well online, and unfortunately, it’s not the easiest thing to tuck into working all day long on a comic without revenue. What I need to do if I’m serious about doing graphic novels is actually pitch them to publishers – I’m just gonna have to get over my fear of rejection for this project that is so close to my heart. Hopefully, my meeting of the moment of Powell Street has taught me that I can meet the moment required of me in order to make the art I want to make happen.

Truly, what this is going to take is some soul-searching on my part to understand what I want to accomplish as an artist.

Just who am I now that this moment has passed?

Oh right! I’m Buff Aunt Bria!

If you live in Vancouver, don’t forget to come my FREE Queer and Trans Karate class! Mondays at 6:30 PM at 825 Pacific Street! All bodies and abilities welcome!