Earlier in the year I made the decision to go down to the IBJJF worlds to compete.
Competing at some level in the sport was something that I was thinking of doing for a while and after some thought about it I figured why not just go big and just straight into the deep end of the pool. So for the last nine months I’ve been training as much as I can to get into a place where I would feel ready to put myself out there and see how I stack up in what’s arguably one of the largest competitions out there.
And today was that day.
I walked in, watched some matches with some of the folks I trained with and then it was my turn to jump in and see what would happen.
But by the time I stepped onto the mat I was able to put aside all the noise in my head and focus on doing what I’ve been training for over the last several months. I was able to control my opponent, get into a position of control, and eventually get a win by submission.
My next match. That however was a different story. The person I was against was simply better than I was.
And you know what. I’m ok with that.
I know a lot of folks sit and dissect things when they loose and try to rationalize the loss and go through a pile of scenarios where they would have been able to win if only <insert scenario here> happened. My opponent just had better JuJitsu than me and I have work to do if I’m going to get to that level.
In the end the person beating me took the gold, so I will admit that helps soothe the ego a little bit in that regard.
I’m still going to take pride in what I was able to do today. And I’m extremely thankful for the team that I have been training with. On the off chance that one my teammates is reading this – without all of you I wouldn’t have even gotten on the plane, so thank you all.
And now I’m going to try to burn off the last of the adrenaline that dumped into me during my matches. I might be hovering six inches off the bed exorcist style while I try to get to sleep.