Sweating For Germany

The tragic, utterly pointless death of a Russian competitor during Finland’s annual  World Sauna Championships (the winner, who also won last year, is himself in hospital) reminded me of a piece I wrote five years ago – which I considered, at the time, to be a light-hearted impression of German preparation for the event – unwittingly almost predicting the recent tragedy…….


Shirley and I watched a wonderfully weird and wacky programme on the goggle-box, intriguingly entitled: “Sweating for Germany” concerning a group of naked nutcases who’d like to turn sitting in a Sauna into an official Olympic discipline. As it ain’t one at present, they entered, preparatory to its inauguration, what is perhaps the next best thing on the gold medallion path: the highly esteamed (sic) Finland’s annual  World Sauna Championships ready to drip their way to fame, if not fortune. The competitors, most of whom are, naturally, Finns - them being the leading nation daft enough, or perhaps bored enough (they don’tarf have to overcome long, weary winters) to organise athletic events such as: “Wife Carrying” “Mosquito-Swatting”” “Mobile Phone Throwing“  (a splendid notion) “Swamp Soccer” or the even more exotic: “Anthill Squatting” - which entails sitting bare-bummed on….what else ?….an Anthill. So to sit around shedding gallons of perspiration for pleasure; whilst having to endure temperatures rising from 230 degrees Fahrenheit (for starters) and reaching over 300%, for as long as possible without popping their ski-sticks is a right old doddle. The dreadful pain on their tortured boatraces as the incredible heat kicked in, jam-tarts raced - often at twice the normal rate - breathing became agony, and water Niagraed from their sweatglands would have provided Torquemada with untold joy. We followed with cameras, commentators, and amazed interest the German group, or rather the “Verein” (get two Germans tergether and I betcher they’ll form some society - actually the official minimum number of members needed to ground a Verein is seven, but leave us, in the interest of slight exaggeration, not split hairs) they were a mixed band of chaps and chapesses - all plenty old enough to know better, I thought - as they trained for the competition by sitting around on spruce boards, in an enclosed wooden room, inhaling scalding steam. I’ve bin to a sauna twice, and concluded that was three times too often. What a bleeding waste of precious time (for me, that is, not for everyone, as we soon discovered) ranking way up high on my avoid-at-all-cost list alongside rambling,  camping,Tracy’s bed, “Lost,” sun-bathing, watching custard congealing, or listening to “Lady In Red.” The bath (a modest description for such a many-acred conglomeration of pomp) our group frequented was quite, quite magnificent: umpteen vast marbled rooms consisting of decorated tiles, rather like the kind you see in mosques, all highly splendiferous stuff. Suss it out and, of course, at the death, it’s not simply a matter of going in for a wee bit steam and an, allegedly, healthy weight loss, is it ? Hoh dearie me no ! there’s lots more to it than that. ‘Twas never mentioned, but me and Shirl figured out that for sure plenty money was being made by the owners. There were organised specialist sauna workshops conducted by organised specialist sauna instructors, whose main desire in life is, seemingly, to provide the punters with the skills required to become, and I quote: a “professional ” (whatever the fuck that might mean) There’s a whole weird world of ritual involved, (devised no doubt by the proprietors) partly entailing learning how to whirl a bathtowel in a certain manner in order (they said)  to get the oxygen flowing through the planked-hutch in a specialist sauna way (it reminded me of that wonderful Jewish joke about the old man, the towel and the orgasm) it all seemed, I/we thought, to be cleverly contrived, and overflowingly endowed with tinkling symbolism (sic). Nota Bene: I shoved in that little “sic” as a directive for the less hip amongst you for, to my astonishment, in the past I’ve experienced a few doubts - not many, two maybe - expressed about my spellery when I fort it woz quite a jolly little joke, and not needful of a banner saying “This is deliberate, folks ! ! !” but thereyergo, it do take all salts (sic) dunnit ?) Then, ov kosst, in addition to the bathtowel routine, there’re the specialist sauna bath-oils: herbal, fruit and so on, which get flickered fragrantly from a large ladle onto the hot stones, their individual aromas acting sublimely upon the senses in specialist sauna ways, creating an ambience of, not only, “wellness” but also “togetherness” (all that yucky ‘ness  shit which is so in these days) amongst the various members of the group. Then, to heighten their pleasures; after the sweat, a dip in cool waters, whilst treated to a poolside concert of selected abstract, aesthetic ditties performed by a massed band of didgeridon’t blowers; all, nae doot, guaranteed to elevate one’s thoughts, - but a right load of old cobblers if you ask me, and even if you don’t; but then I will admit to being a bit of an anti-airy-fairy, anti-arty-farty, loutish sorter geezer; especially when it also becomes entangled with spirituality and gratuitous god-bothery: definitely not my bag. But back to the FWSC - for which our group/verein/sauna-society/nude-nitwits was training; what happens is that half a dozen masochists go into a sauna: fitted with windows so’s the, astonishingly large, audience (over 1,000) can see the sods suffer. The contestants sit there until the excessive heat (apparently one’s back, ears and nose turn burn-red, the skin splits and great discomfort rules OK ? whilst body temperatures can reach between 105% & 107 %, irrevocable cell damage occur, and ‘tis then it could be only a mere matter of moments before you’re pronounced brown-bread, and ready ter be stuck into a narrower, longer, wooden box: it’s a right old giggle, innit ?) plus the inconceivable humidity, the frantically racing heart, and lack of breath forces ‘em to leave; either one by one, or several at a time, there were no high-fives – possibly due to an inability, or lack of will, to raise an arm. The last to leave is the winner, and moves into the next round. And so it goes, until eventually just one potty participant remains: sweat covered, debilitated, but, egad, a champion ! Sheer insaunity I reckon. The thought of the misery they must undoubtedly suffer, the bearing of pain, the sheer stoicism, is horrendous - mind you, I myself am no stranger to misery and awful pain, I know what dreadful suffering and stoic endurance demands………… I once listened to an entire  Mariah Carey song.