Sorry for month of low activity on this blog but I enjoyed a well deserved post-PhD low activity period after the rush of defense. But now, I am back with this:

If you are familiar with this blog, you probably recognized the star of the noorderwind. And you might even have understood why it’s here! Yes, we had a show last week-end and, as you can see, I can enjoy my non-scientific activities again! In fact, I did that quite a lot since my defense and I also started to work out a little to get somewhat in shape again after nearly 6 month of let down since shooting the movie in March.

So, we had a show last week-end during the Gothic en fantasy beurs 2009 in Rijswijk. Due to a relative lack of time for the preparation, we organized our show as a knights tournament. It actually turned out to be a really good idea! The public responded very well to the show, choosing to support one or the other opponents during each fight. We were confident that we prepared something nice but still didn’t expect it to work out so well because we didn’t have as many rehearsals as we wished. So, instead of boring you to death telling you about the show, I’ll just let you watch it and enjoy! A member of the group manged to shoot all of the last show of Sunday so I hope you’ll have fun (just in case you wonder, I am the knight with a white coat of arms).

Of course the videos don’t look like the real fight and you don’t get the feeling of seeing it live (which is the first comment I always get when someone who saw our videos watches us live) but still, that’s really nice to have these videos to share this with people who couldn’t be there. The idea to have a commentator all through the show made some of skeptical at first but I also think it turned out very well in the end. On a personal level, I think I look a bit stiff and chubby on the video and I was a bit stressed because I never had such an important role in a show before but I guess the overall effect is what matters most and, as a group, I guess we can be quite proud of ourselves. On a side note, you might notice that I block a blow with my left hand at the end of my fight on the second video. It was not planed that was and I had a sore finger for a few days (still now actually ^^) but well, I guess it only means that I still need to train a bit more and really get back in shape. I have to leave you now but I have plenty of other things to tell you so I’ll try to post something this week-end from a new place where I’ll stay for a couple of month. I’ll tell you all about that next time. Stay tuned!