Pan Jiu Jitsu Games in Irvine, Ca

I wrote this a while ago, and am just now putting it up…

For your reading pleasure:

We went, we fought, we gorged ourselves on açai and donuts.

Things went pretty well all things considered.  I won two more matches than when I fought in Worlds last year I lost my first matches, both in the weighted and open divisions-this time I again lost the weighted division, but in open I won two matches. Yay!

…Ok, it was more like one and a half, but technically it was two! The second match I won from an automatic disqualification when the girl messed with my knee which might be ok for no-gi, but is definitely not allowed in blue belt division. The third match believe it or not the girl got a judo ne waza (groundwork) move on me which caused me to tap. Sonofabitch.

But, I felt more confident, I felt like I could handle it, and that’s what matters the most. I didn’t feel too panicked, or rushed…well, except when I was under a bigger chick, that was kind of scary.

It was a good experience overall, and even boosted my own confidence, which is pretty awesome

….and now, for Worlds…. ::gulp::

The Facebook Phenomenon

So as I was adding friends through facebook (because I’m a huge nerd) I ended up looking through one friend’s account that had a lot of the girls from my highschool class.

And I went to an all-girls school, so that’s a lot of freaking girls.

Anyway, while being surprised at all the ones that were not incarcerated, or not dead (that’s amazingly harsh, I know, but if you knew some of these girls you would be surprised as well), I noticed a pattern.

In lieu of any information about themselves, they only put their wedding day countdown. That’s it.

No favorite book, movie, even a song. Nothing.

And that bothers me. I mean, I know Facebook is not the end-all, be-all of who a person is, but that’s all you want people to know about you? That you are attaching your life to another person’s?

I guess this relates to jiu jitsu because I kind of see marriage as being on a team: you have your individual wins and losses with the support of the other person behind you, and vice-versa. Max will always have my back, but I am the one that is stepping on that mat, I’m the one slapping hands and starting the matchwith my opponent , no one else. Marriage in my opinion most certainly does not mean that you truly become the same person. That’s just creepy.

I just think it’s insane to throw away the personality that you have cultivated throughout the years just to attach yourself like a barnacle to another human being.  How is that healthy? I’m glad I have something like jiu jitsu that of course I share with Max, but it’s not something we have to be joined at the hip for to enjoy. It will always be different for the both of us, because of simply who we are. Max will never compete as a small woman, and I’ll never compete as a tall man. But at the end of the day there are certain things we can relate to that will bring us together, even when we may not have the exact same experiences.

I can’t help but wonder what will happen 5-10 years down the road when they realize they willingly gave up a life, a personality, a sense of self because they were so enamored with the idea of being a wife. Not because they had to pull on the “Mom” hat and play the adult, putting all childish things aside, but because they played out their fantasies of being the bride….

But what happens afterwards?

Back to Work!

Tonight was the first time since Pan-Ams I went to class, and it actually felt pretty good.

I can’t write much, but we worked on De la Riva, did some positional training, sparred, and I got a stripe on my belt!

Whoooo!

I feel proud. Obviously.

But, as it is also ‘nose back to the grindstone’ time, I must end this post to go to bed early: Max wants to get up at 6am to practice before I go to work.

After learning about my stripe he made it 6:15.

…he’s so caring.

tomorrow I’m getting on a plane

It’ll be radio silence here for a couple of days as I head off to California for the Pan Ams.

So everyone, be safe, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

See you in a couple of days!

Brevity is the soul of wit, so I shall be brief.

State exam tomorrow.

Right on the cusp of making weight.

I fly out Wednesday afternoon.

I will probably be happy and sad when this tournament is over.

And eating a bunch of donuts.

Then End.

So Close, and Yet, So Far

It’s down the to wire for the Pan Games (they used to be called Pan-Ams until someone decided to drop the Ams…don’t ask me lady, I just work here).

It feels so close, and yet so far in a way, like it’s in another world. The tournament is taking place in California, so that is kind of another world in my book: the one with chipper airline workers on the intercom system and Muslim janitors who stop in the middle of everything to whip out the prayer rug for a 5 minute meditation.

Ok, I have to admit, that was kind of cool, in a “wow, I’ve never seen that before” kind of way.

Honestly, while I am looking forward to competing, part of me kind of wants to get it over with: it’s a point I get to, especially when I’m studying for a test. I feel like I’ve prepared myself and psyched myself out so much, that my brain just says, “ok, we’re shutting down until you move onto something else, because now you’re just beating a dead horse.”

I hate to admit that, but it’s true. It’s not that I don’t want to be there, it’s I don’t want to keep feeling nervous and anxious about how I do out there. It’s just gotten to the point with all the training and the working out and the dieting that my mind, body and soul are at the brink of having had just enough abuse, but I feel like if there is a single day that I skip training for something other than absolutely important (like for work) that I will be cheating myself and keeping myself from doing my best out there.

So, in a few days we will see if all the dieting and the training have paid off: honestly, I’m looking at this more as a report card than the final exam. I want to see how I measure up, what I need to work on, and what I can do well in the heat of a match.

I will attempt to post tomorrow night, and once or twice before I head out to California, but I don’t feel comfortable taking my laptop out to the West Coast.

They might try to blow patchouli smoke into it and tell it to enjoy the sunshine, or something else completely weird and West Coast-y

I kid, I kid….

Annnnd This is the Part Where I Get My Ass Handed to Me

I thought I was going to do just a light training tonight. I thought I wasn’t going to roll around and fight like hell just to make sure none of them sat on me for a couple of minutes (as I mentioned before,  pinning is totally allowed in Judo, whereas in jiu jitsu it’s considered stalling, ergo eventually penalized).

But then one of the Judo girls came in, and I thought it would be a good idea to train with her for a little, just to sweat a bit and warm up before the takedown portion of Judo (I thought I was only staying for 1/2 the class! HA!)

Girl can fight, yo.

There were some differences that she didn’t know about, and we worked on, but I was definitely sweating good and hard by the end of the class. Well, technically it was open mat, but that’s besides the point.

Judo, I ended up staying the entire 2 hours, not learning anything new, but going through everyone’s plan for the tournaments that are coming up in the next week or so.

I worked on my Ouchi Gari, and the girl I rolled with earlier worked on her Seionage and some other throws…I think Tai Otoshi, and then she said a long Japanese word that I kind of just stared at her for a second kind of like a dog does when you talk to them sometimes. Then I just nodded and let her do her thing.

As much as I like the Harai Goshi, I don’t think Pan-Ams is really the time and place for it: your hips need to be just in the right spot for it to really be successful, and it takes a while to get back into that kind of precise timing and positioning.

Anyway, I stuck around for some sparring, which is where I totally got my ass handed to me. And I deserved it. These guys have been training consistently for quite some time now, where I was training for a while, then took 2 years off, and now I’m back.

You think I would have learned my lesson, but no, I seem to lack the ‘give up’ switch when it comes to being involved in an activity.  This comes in handy some times, other times, it makes situations a little sticky. But I digress.

One thing  I will *mildly* gripe about is one of the guys in the Judo class has a habit of videotaping the sparring sessions. And I don’t have the heart to tell him that I hate it. I hate most records of my face, voice, expressions and actions. That’s just a  part of my behavior. It seems like a lot of the Judo guys like it, so I’m going to try to keep my big mouth shut, but I can’t help but cringe a little on the inside every time he pulls out that damn camcorder.

Maybe I should just embrace it, but I can’t help but worry that one day I would go overboard and play the matches I lost over and over again, treading a little too close to comfort to that character in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective that obsessed about the one failed football kick with the Miami Dolphins, “Laces Out, Dan!”

For now I’ll just keep my mouth shut…and avoid looking up judo on youtube.