- AtoZ Challenge 2024
- Gettting ready to AtoZ
- A is for Actually/Abundance
- B is for boo…. Brilliant things
- B is for Bad Idea Bears
- C is for Challenging
- D is for Dark #AtoZ2024
- E is for environment #AtoZ2024
- E is for Editing
- F is for Finders Keepers
- F is for Family and Friends
- G for Groups – AtoZ 2024 #MondayBlogs
- G is for ‘Only the Gods are Real’
- H is for Home
- I is for ‘I am, I feel…’
- J is for Jump (a poem)
- K is for Killing #AtoZ
- L is for Ludosport (what else?) #AtoZ
- M is for (e)motionless
- M is for Mourning
- M is for Meditation #MondayBlogs
- M is for Magic
- N is for normal
- N is for November
- O is for Outer Space
- P for Psychosis #Mondayblogs
- Q for quotables
- R for reality
- S is for singing and other music
- T is for Time and Travel
- U is for Understanding
- V is for Via
- W is for Wishes
- X is for Xray and other medical stuff
- Y is for Yesterday
- Z is for Zebras and ZZZZs
- And…that’s it – An AtoZ Rounup
I hear ‘Via!’ a lot. But today, I wanted to write about it in two contexts.
The ‘Ludosport’ Via
LudoSport. I’m not obsessed, I promise. But if you’ve watched it, you might not understand what happens at the start of a duel. So I thought I’d write about it.
Via – or go, is used as a marker to start a match in LudoSport. We’re told to Salute (Saluto!), and I usually curtsey and sweep my blade out as far as I can. Others sweep their blades down to the side and bow their head. This is a mark of respect to our competitors. As I’ve mentioned, LudoSport influences a lot of what I’m doing right now, and I’ve started to add the salute and bow to any ‘formalised’ fighting I’ve added to stories.
After we’re given ‘Salute’, we’re told to guard.
After that, the command ‘Via’ is given and we start to duel. In this context Via is ‘go’, ‘start’.
But I also wanted to talk about getting places.
Via, or to go via, is a way of saying we’ve been or planned to go a less than direct route. I’ve had a writing career that’s gone via everything people can think of. I’ve also had a writing career that’s happy, fulfilled and solid. So, I’ve gone a cirucitous route and that’s ok. And I’ve found that’s ok to go the less than direct route. My life has been that way too – while I’ve been with Tempus for 20 years, I have to say, my relationships before him were not exactly ideal. And I’m not saying it’s perfect for us now either, nothing is, but I can genuinely say that I go to bed every night, happy and thankful for Tempus’ presence in my life (if you wanna know more about that, I don’t talk about him often in public as he’s a very private person, but there’s a post called ‘A Nanowrimo Love Story’, which talks about how we met).
We often think of diversions as bad. I’ve started thinkng of them as good, and I’ll be writing about it in Acts of Change, and did write about it in Run Girl, Run and Light Dancing. Going ‘via’ isn’t always the worst thing for you, and you never know, something might spark something interesting.
As for the duelling, I know how to write about fear while duelling now, so that command, ‘Via!’ is often the start of me having a bit of fun, but I also now know how it feels to fight, one on one with someone, with a ‘sword’. And I use that as my inspiration for my books too.
Kai is a writer, author and avid reader. A mental health advocate, Ludosport athlete and coder. She’s the mother of two young adults, owned by two cats, and lives with her beloved in the Cotswolds.
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