When I was ten, there was a playground behind my parent’s backyard. It was closed off from the streets, with four small alleys that led to it. Always full of children, fighting for space.

One early morning in the weekend I skated out on my rollerblades with two pieces of chalk. Skating backwards, I drew parallel lines of chalk across the tiles. I built a road network.

That same day, the chaos started to resolve.

Up to twenty children at once were following my road system — on bikes, skates, and toy cars.

Whenever rain washed it away, I rebuilt it, each time bigger and sharper. Roundabouts, toll roads and allocated zones for the smaller children.

Then I created passports and money and used the boys with toy guns as guards at every entrance. Every child who wanted to play was brought to me first.

I was stationed in my parent’s backyard, handing out passports and money, keeping a list. Disputes ended with my words.

One boy had a skelter with a trailer — my police wagon. If someone broke the rules, I put a bounty on their head, had them captured, and locked them in “prison”, behind a fence in my parents garden. — The usual suspect being this one kid with too much energy who loved to run around and be captured.

The game spread. On weekends when I was away at judo tournaments, kids knocked on my mother’s door asking if I would come outside and run the Square.

That is who I am: a dictator at ten years old. 

Now, I created the House of Bamboo, and its playground: the dojo. A tailored environment for sessions, built with more precision than ever.