Midnight Squadron

The Midnight Squadron Rokkaku team, Complex & Chris (Kalika), won this year’s Smithsonian Rokkaku Challenge!

Like last year, we faced a tough crowd: Harold Ames and his Eagle Eyes team, Charlie Don’t Run, the Rainbow Warriors, and others. We used the lessons they’ve taught us in the past and started cutting people down. We won with 23 points, followed by Charlie Don’t Run (20 points) and Eagle Eyes.

Midnight Squadron took first place in the 2007 Smithsonian Rokkaku Challenge! This is the third time we’ve taken home the 1st place trophy. Chris & I showed up with no preparation, relaxed attitude, and low expectations. We fought in unfavorably strong winds against a crowded field that included notable warriors such as Harold Ames (Team Eagle Eyes), Charlie Don’t Run, and the Rainbow Warriors. Our relaxed effort to avoid conflict and sneak away with as many points as possible quickly became a frantic run to slash down as many threatening kites as were close by!

Chris and I started the day sitting under the cherry blossoms, sipping sake. A pleasant, calm way to prepare ourselves for a frantic rokkaku battle. We’d come to D.C. with minimal preparations, and frankly, did not expect much success. We had no practice for a year, no recent exercise, my battered Stars & Stripes rokkaku and only Chris’s kite line, generously donated to the cause as it was the only undamaged line in our collections. Returning to the kite field, our relaxed calm began to fray. The field was filled with kite teams, led by last year’s winner and contenders: Harold Ames, Charlie Don’t Run, and the Rainbow Warriors.

Rok Challenge organizer Mike van Meers assigned a judge to each team. This kept a pair of eyes on each kite at all times. Drew, our assigned judge, looked like he had just escaped the Matrix. Dressed in dark slacks, button-down shirt, nice leather shoes, a long wool trench coat, a bluetooth earpiece (on which he kept getting calls), and (of course) slick sunglasses. I looked at this clothes and his nice, shiny shoes, and I had to warn him, “You know, I tend to run…” He was a nice guy; I hope his shoes survived okay.

My memories of the battle are hazy as always, but I remember how quickly the battle stole my plans and thrust me into conflicts I never expected to win. Harold & Charlie are excellent kite-cutters — at the end of last year’s Challenge, Harold cut us down with an easy, quick motion. I hoped to tip as many weaker kites as I could, to try to mimic Harold’s cutting motion if the wind was too strong, and to stay the heck away from the better pilots. Instead… chaos! By the end of the first heat, we were cutting down Harold Ames in a desperate bid to keep him off our necks. Our Midnight Squadron team had 2 kills, 6 points for being the last kite up, and we only trailed Harold by 1 point (he had 4 kills & 5 points for his position).

The second heat saw more blood. Kites were tangled all over — but the wind was too strong for them to come down quickly. We’d run forwards, catch a wounded kite under our line, and knock it to the ground! The sky thinned of kites, and suddenly we were crossing lines with the tougher competitors. Slash, or be slashed! Afterwards, an interviewer wanted to call it a “killing instinct”, but my emotion was more of reaction: we were against the competition in a strong wind. We sliced down at least one before we were cut by Charlie Don’t Run. Second-to-last position in a busy 2nd heat. Midnight Squadron was in 2nd place, one point behind Charlie Don’t Run and almost-comfortably ahead of Harold’s Eagle Eyes team.

Before the third heat, Harold arranged with us to hunt down Charlie Don’t Run together, to take him out of the lead early. Unfortunately, we did not make that appointment, as Battle-Crazy-Chaos once more ensued!

Several times, Chris & I had to race other teams to the back of the field. Bumping and jostling for position of our kite line over others’, simultaneously avoiding and extracting ourselves from tangles, letting out and frantically winding in line, simultaneously avoiding being garroted by other lines, hopping over lines, and weaving under & over lines like an anarchist’s maypole dance! Chris negotiated her way literally through other teams, and politely avoided smashing the on-field cameras with her spool, though she later said, “I wanted to scream at all three camera crews to get the hell out of the way or get their expensive cameras ruined!”. At one point (was this in the third or second heat?) Harold Ames was running backwards against me, belly-slamming me all the way. I couldn’t respond in kind, so I tickled his belly button as we ran. And then we continued with the red haze of kite killing!

Near the end of the heat, our Squadron kite was in a messy battle with (I think) the Dragonfly kite and Charlie Don’t Run. I was sawing away at Dragonfly, waiting to see if they cut me first, or if Charlie Don’t run killed us while we were occupied. We cut them — I could feel our line go through, felt the snap as their line parted. Charlie and I each claimed the kill, and our judges argued for each of us. Point-wise, I think this wound up not mattering, but it was interesting. Since the judges had the matter in hand, I turned to Charlie, who I’d been diligently fleeing from for much of the day, and offered, “Let’s settle it in battle.”

We fought… and I remember little of it. A long battle in stiff wind was closing with a one-on-one duel against Charlie Don’t Run! Then his teal-and-gold kite was falling loose to the ground, and Chris & I were in a state of disbelief. Midnight Squadron had won the Smithsonian again!