The universe wants me to watch judo

[shadowspar]

Apparently the universe really wants me to watch olypmic judo.

The CBC is streaming a live video feed of the finals and semifinals of the judo competitions. This is extremely awesome, because in previous years you were extremely fortunate to catch much judo on TV if indeed any at all. The admittely minor downside is that there only seems to be a live feed and with the time difference, that means that the action starts around 6am EDT.

I'd hoped to watch as much of the coverage as I could, but if I'm up late or don't sleep well, trying to get up at 6 in the morning will make me nonfunctional for the rest of the day. Since this is the case, I haven't actually set an alarm to wake up in time to watch judo. As it turns out, though, I haven't needed to -- two out of the past three nights, my daughter has helpfully woken up in the middle of the night and then fallen back asleep at the magical hour of...6 in the morning.

Surely this is divine providence at work. =)

On another note, this is really the first time that I've been actively participating in an olympic sport when the olympics rolled around, and it kind of changes my perspective. I am probably never going to go to a major international competition, let alone the olympics, but even myself and my little club out here in the sticks are connected to something much larger. It was astonishing to see how many judoka were bearing their national flags into the stadium during the opening ceremonies, and how many different countries judoka were coming from. Maybe I've always subconsciously thought of judo as something that originated in Japan and spread around a bit to North America, Brazil, and Western Europe. It was awesome to be disabused of that notion. African nations fielded judoka. Russia and the former Soviet republics are extremely strong competitors. Israel. Iran. Italy. Cuba is a judo powerhouse. (Who knew?) Even tiny little nations like Malta sent a number of very tough judoka to Beijing. It's very cool to be reminded that I have peers practicing the same sport as I in every corner of the world.