Finally: Meister Barry

I was already given a ‘golden SSDeV’ pin because of my work in promoting locksport. But in general the only people wearing these pins are champions of one of the German locksport disciplines. And up till yesterday, nobody outside of SSDeV earned one that way….

golden champion pin

For more then ten years German based SSDeV is organizing championships, and for all that time nobody outside their community managed to win one.

Until yesterday, when my dream came true. I finally won a German SSDeV game. In his case the impressioning championships (but frequent readers of this blog could have guessed that). And I really earned and deserved my golden pin the right way!

Besides winning the games, I also managed to break the ‘time record’ that was previously owned by Peter Danilov (05:35). I opened my lock in 05:13. And … in this time even managed to file two keys! My first key was cut too deep, so I had to remove it from my handle and change it for a new one. I still do not understand how I managed to file two keys and break the ‘fastest time’ record, but it for sure explains the blister on my finger.

Looking back on it, I must say I relatively quickly mastered impressioing. My first serious blogbosting dates from January 17, 2007. I admit I invested a lot of time, and must have files at least five hundred keys from that day on. The moment of pure bliss yesterday was worth the efforts …

For level of completeness: The second place went to Ronald Mayer in 10:51, followed by good old Arthur Meister in 10:52. That is only one second between the second and third place. Fourth place went to Dörthe Clemens who was really thrilled by opening her lock in 13:00. Fifth was the person I feared most at the beginning of the games: Dr. Manfred Bölker had an off day and opened his lock in 15:24. Sixth was André Matuschek in 38:40. Last one to open the lock in the 60 minute limit was Micheal H. in 43:54.

the champions

At the ceremonies, SSDeV president Steffen Wernéry publicly congratulated me and said he was very happy for me. One sentence later he said (with a smile) that the outcome of this event was a disgrace for the German organization. For the first time ever, a “non-SSDeV’er” became ‘Meister’. He promised ‘a nice reward’ for the person who would bring back the impressioning title to Germany at the Toool.nl organized LockCon event next month. In other words: there is a price on my head 😉 Well … I am not loosing any sleep over that. On the contrary, it is one of the biggest compliments I received in a long time.

Lets see if at LockCon this tradition of ‘non Germans’ winning lockpicking championships can be continued. I know for a fact we have some good (and fast) lockpickers at Toool.nl, and the list of highly skilled lockpickers coming from other countries is quite impressive too. And we all know it can be done now….

16 Responses to “Finally: Meister Barry”

  1. mercurial says:

    Wow! Congratulations and well done Barry!

    Certainly a well deserved victory, given the dedication and practice you have put into impressioning.

    Your winning margin is quite impressive, too!

  2. Walter says:

    Congratulations Barry, well done! Since it took you two keys, does this mean you can do impressioning at LockCon in about 2 minutes? 🙂 Wow, what an accomplishment, just over five minutes..

    As an aside: I did win the Blitzöffnung in 2003 (but was not the only winner) so a non-German has actually won something before 😉

    And now, back to practising for LockCon!

    Walter.

  3. Han Fey says:

    Congratulations, I was there and your time was impressive.

    A double congratultion, because you are the first “foreigner” who won the “golden” SSDeV pin.

    I must say I also have a “golden” SSDeV pin, but these I got because of the many presentation I gave for the SSDeV (in German!!!)

    But concerning the impressioning championship, during Lockcon it starts all over again.

    Han Fey

  4. Mike Ehv says:

    “I came, I saw, I conquered.” :))

    Now up to Sneek…

  5. Karin Spaink says:

    Oh wat geweldig Barry! Niet alleen heb je de titel in de wacht gesleept, maar je bent ook nog ‘s de eerste buitenlander die ‘m dat flikt! Je hebt alle reden om buitengewoon trots & blij te zijn, en voortaan ga ik je ‘Meister’ noemen 🙂

    Dikke, dikke felicitatiezoen,

    – K –

  6. henk says:

    Very impressive,sorry I missed it,nightshift is a pain sometimes….:-(
    Congratz Barry and ofcourse the German participants,sharp times,see you in Sneek or Amsterdam soon!:-)
    Eventhough it is sad for the person in question but as we all have read,even the very talented amongst us can have a off day…Goodluck in Sneek Manfred!!

  7. richard says:

    Barry,

    Gratz with this big achievement.

    And thanks for the great presentation you gave lately in Delft!

  8. I first read “two keys”…”record time”…”blister”…then popped open the picture of the said keys and was like “..is that blood on the keys?” 😀

    You guys are taking it too seriously 😉

  9. Travis says:

    Congratulations Barry! You truly deserved that with all the work and time you have dedicated in this sport.

  10. Julian says:

    Big congratulations, Big Barry! I think there will be never a chance for me to reach this fabulous time. But I will participate anyway in Sneek again.

    @Jaakko (and maybe other readers of this blog): the color on the keys is applied before the competition, in order to assure that no one can use a prepared key, f.i. you could file it down to the first step before, to save time during competition.

  11. Julian, thank you for that information, I ad forgotten the meaning of the paint 🙂

  12. paul says:

    super barry nog maals in sneek
    groetjes paul

  13. Jimmie says:

    Hi Barry

    CONGRATULATIONS Barry !!!! ;-))

    I will be at Sneek for the championship I hope I shall get some time for training a little before cause as you know I,m traveling.

    Jaakoo I was in Helsinsky 3 days ago no time … just 2 hours over there for a connecting flight

    I’m sharpening my (file) teeth !!! 😉

    greetings ++ jimmie

  14. Manfred says:

    Congratulations Barry !

    That was an impressive impressioning in five minutes. There was no blood and no tears at the championship. After sweat ( filing a few hundreds blancs in the last year ) we could see Barry smiling.
    You are a great champion!

    See you for the next round in Sneek

    greetings Manfred

  15. Frank E. says:

    He Barry, well done!!!

    You came, you filed, you conquered?

    hehehe 😉

  16. […] though I won a number of international championships, I am not really much of a competitive player. For me it is more […]