Это его первое письмо в создаваемой сейчас дискусионной группе сильнейших:
Hello to all members,
I have so many things to say, that probably this initial post won't
cover even one percent of it. But is a start...
I would like to begin by assuming that all the people involved in this
discussion are honestly interested in
seeing european Go evolve into something stronger and better. I thus
hope that personal feelings will be left aside
and what i have to say here will not create discomfort to any of you,
because my intentions are to do something
for our community.
I will start by stating some obvious things, that are obviously not
understood by some people who have the power
to change things in Europe ( i mean the Go community) .
Every sport, and even arts( theater, cinema, music etc. ) requires a
certain structure to be successful as a social manifest. The vital
levers that move such a machine are:
1. the top group, who is the image that stimulates the mass to strive
to achieve their status, the sponsors to see
a value in what they do etc.
2. the managers: in our case the tournament organisers, the european
federation and local federations staff, the people who find sponsors
and the sponsors themselves
3. people who promote : this is a very rare and precious class of
people, in our case, there are Go lovers in almost every country who
volunteer to teach begginers. For the moment they are the ones who
provide us with most of the next generation supply of players, but
volunteer work is very hard to do without help and they need to be
motivated and encouraged
4. the mass of players: this is usually split between people who love
the sport as a hobby and would like to participate ans sometimes get
involved , and people who get ambitious and strive to become the next
generation of
top players
Just compare objectively with any sport of your choice and you will
see that this is how it works.
I was a pro player in Japan for 7 years, so i could have a very good
insight on how the Nihon Kiin works .
The managers and the pros are two very different class and they
couldn't survive on their own, they need each other.
The sponsors put no money in amateur tournaments at all, they are only
interested in the very top level. They
need the image , and to get that they invest in the top group. The
managers make the actual deals with the sponsors while the job of the
top players is to create legends.
European Go is still very young, and the way it was structured was
totally dependent on asian influence.
Japanese missionaries mostly brought Go in Europe for the last 50
years or so. The tournaments were mostly
sponsored by them, european Go congress had Hitachi as a sponsor for
very long, Fujitsu sponsored the
grand prix tournaments. At the time it was the only thing to do, as we
were savage in the ways of Go and knew
little about it.
But now things are starting to change. Out community slowly became
bigger, stronger. Still, historically i think
we are in a very primitive era of european Go.
The feeling i get nowadays is that asian conquistadors come at their
leisure to plunder our resources. After first
making contact , converting us and helping us, now they come for our
gold. We have bows and they know gunpowder, of course this war is
unfair. We need to find our identity if we are to survive this.
And here i believe that all the people who went to the other side ,
who sacrificed a lot to learn and who know how things can be, who
realized that the asians are not invincible, just stronger than us
because they studied the secrets of this game long before us, those
people are really a strong weapon for us in building our independent
Go society. They know now the secret of gunpowder and have their
rifles ready to shoot, but they are few and need help from their
connationals.
I hope you all understood by now that i am talking about all the
former inseis and pros , who came back with a
knowledge that is very precious for european GO. We can build now our
own dojos, make our own pros and
evolve by ourselves, we just need help.
Well, excuse me, i got a bit carried away. My point is just that there
are now people in Europe who try to make a
life by playing and teaching Go ( not only former inseis, many other
veterean top europeans like Vladimir , Radek)
and they are a valuable asset, because they have the time and the will
to spread the game, as well as a high
knowledge of the game.
Until now the main mistake of european organizers was to minimize our
efforts and not really recognize us,
to put the spotlight on asia and give asian players many advantages
in the detriment of european top players.
We can see the result, a demoralizing wind blows strongly among
european top, many veteran players are not seen anymore in
tournaments. This affects the mass, they lose motivation. It affects
the Go promoters, because
they can't show something valuable to pursue to their fresh students
and they can't keep them interested for long because of that...
Shortly, the whole machine will stop working if one of the essential
levers i was talking above is not well oiled and taken care of.
My post is too long already, i will just end it with some practical
proposals.
1. First of all , the identity of this newly created strong player
commision was stolen from the start. Matti , with all
due respect, it was not good to create this and announce from the
start that you will be the overseer. It'a a bad start also that people
like me , Guo Juan and many others were not event sent a notice about
the creation of this new commision. The name means nothing in the
actual configuration. You belong to the manager class right now
and you should be the link between us and the EGF . We need to make a
team of high Go level people who are
genuinely interested in changing things in good, 5 to 10 people should
be more than enough as members of the basic team. A site of this
commision has to be created, and the topics discussed by it put on the
forum for public discussion. We have about 8 months until the next
AGM , where we should be recognized as a respectable
and important body of the EGF, with power to influence the decisions
concerning tournaments and life of top european Go players in
general.
Please don't misunderstand me, i am not talking about creating an
elitist movement. The situation of the top european players obviously
begs for the creation of this comitee ( it can also be the seed to a
future european
pro players association) , it is really neccesary. But lower ranked
players shouldn't need to apologize on the forum for stating their
opinions, they are very welcome and constructive. Things can only go
well if we respect each others values and learn to communicate between
us.
2. Topics to discuss :
what can be done to better the life of Go players who strive to live
out of GO
european congress ( this is hot, i saw and heard many opinions. my
idea, since the EGCC already proposed to merge the championship with
the Ing cup, i would say that there is no way to make such a big
mistake as breaking a tradition of 50 years, but we can keep the idea
and organize separately the european championship
during the congress , in 24 people only europeans . the rest will play
in the open, to me this seems like a simple solution)
grand prix tournaments : as Pop mentioned, is quite strange to see
that less money prompted the organisers to
make more tournaments. should be the other way around
european top players training sessions : if we are to invest in paying
some asian pro, i think the best idea is to employ them to teach our
strong players. Takemiya teaching a 20 kyu is fun to watch, but
meaningless
Ok, this was too long and i got tired.
I am curious to hear opinions now:)
Catalin
Александр Динерштейн,
Go lessons [
breakfast.go4go.net]
Разобранные партии [
www.go4go.net]
Журнал "Гоама" [
gogame.info]
Новости с серверов Го [
GoSensations.com]
