Reflection

Took awhile for me to slow down enough to do a write-up, but I'm going to do at least a portion tonight.

Winning at Pans was in the top 5 list of highlights of my life. It felt utterly surreal at the time, and even now I still don't think I've accepted that I reached a goal that I set for myself. The goal wasn't to necessarily win gold, but to compete as well as I was capable of competing at one of the largest BJJ tournaments in the world. The first three matches that I had were me at my competition best. Namely, being able to play the game that works most effectively for me, which is to pull guard and work submissions from there. Not only work submissions, but to get my favorite (triangle) twice.

My loss in the absolute semi-final haunts me. She was an excellent opponent with a great top game. My coach warned me of this before the match. I didn't take him lightly, but once my guard was passed it was all over. I think on a day where I was fresh I would have fared better, but at that point in time I had no escapes in me. She was definitely better than me in that match, and even fresh I'd have a devil of a time escape her top control.

I decided to do a quick chronological summary, otherwise this would probably get waaaaaaaaaaay too lengthy.

Thursday:
Nando competes first, and I'm very grateful for that. Learned a lot of things about the process that I wouldn't have even thought of, such as having your license on you at all times, wearing shoes, and how useful wearing a backpack would be. He went out and gave it his all, even with a banged up groin and foot. With very little hip mobility he managed several escapes, but couldn't mount any offense.

Thursday Night:
Most of the joint team (WA, NV, Brazil, MI) go to a school near Huntington Beach to train. I stay put in the hotel b/c I was still getting over being sick and felt fatigued. Wanted to rest and get a good night's sleep. My roommates get back sometime after 11, and then sometime after that (maybe an hour or so), Nando comes in with a couple of guys that he had just picked up from the airport that had flown in Brazil. They crashed on the floor.

Friday Morning:
I wake up and meet the Brazilian teammates, both of which are called Victor. Only much later did I find out that one had Victor for a first name and one had it for a last name. We also had a Victor on our team from MI, so I just started calling everyone I didn't know "Victor".

We get to the arena, and even with the interrupted sleep, I'm feeling ready to go. I stretched for awhile above the stands, and then headed down when my bracket was scheduled for the bullpen. I warmed up more in the bullpen, and had numerous anxious thoughts about my gi passing inspection. I'd seen quite a few of my brand/model on the floor already, so figured it would be ok, but was still sweating it.  I had another brand in my backpack, but you really don't want to mess with that anxiety when you're supposed to be focused on a match. Finally got called up, passed the gi inspection, and was ready to the hit the mat. I wasn't in the bullpen very long, maybe 20 minutes.

I was lucky enough to be on a mat where my teammates could stand just off to the side to watch instead of being up in the stands. I bowed onto the mat, shook the ref's hand, and immediately pulled guard. I think I started messing with cross collar choke that wasn't very fruitful. Not sure how I ended up isolating an arm, but eventually I did and locked in the triangle. Could not finish it from guard though. I thought I heard my coaches yelling diametrically different advice "forget the head, control the arm!" and "forget the arm, control the head!" but to be honest I couldn't hear anything clearly. I held onto that triangle for dear life, and got to the point where I started worrying about points if I couldn't finish. I was able to rotate and get the mounted triangle, after which my opponent quickly tapped. I was damned happy for the win.

I was able to talk with my coach briefly before my next match, and he advised that my next opponent was probably a judo player and big on takedowns. Don't screw around with takedowns, pull guard immediately. My guys were rubbing my arms and asking about my legs, worried that I'd blown them out on the long triangle attempt. Fortunately, my legs still felt pretty good.

Next match, I pull guard immediately and close it as soon as I can. I again start fussing with collar choke. I try to isolate an arm for a triangle, but it's not happening. And then, I fixated on her right arm and decided that I was going to get the arm-bar. She started to stand up, but I had the grip and ability to hang on, and got the freaking the arm-bar. I could not believe it when she tapped. I just won gold! I jumped to my feet and then hopped up and down like an idiot. I was stunned. The ref raised my hand and after I came off the mat I ran over to my teammates and coaches and gave them mad love over the barricade.

A little while later our bracket was called to the podium, and I received my very first Pan medal.

Friday Afternoon:
I was on cloud nine for hours. Absolutely thrilled. After awhile though, I realized that I needed to refocus on the absolute bracket that was scheduled for 5pm. Long story short, I tried to start getting in the zone around 4pm and didn't step on the mat until after 7:30pm. It was a looooooooooong wait in the bullpen. I think the lack of sleep, the euphoria from earlier, and the attempt to wind up my energy for several hours took it's toll. The bullpen was also a disaster. They were trying a new process for getting athletes to the mats and it was not working well.

I stepped onto the mat and same game plan as before...pull guard and attempt submission. This went very similar to the first match. Locked in the triangle, took a long time to finish. Started to worry about time, so I rotated around and moved it to a mounted triangle for the tap.

My last match I didn't do well at all. I pulled guard, but couldn't close it. I kept grabbing onto her collar but was petrified b/c of the way her sports bra or top seemed to be coming off while I was reaching for the collar. I was worried that I was going to pull the whole shebang off. She was very good at preventing me from closing my guard, and when I tried to work DLR she passed into side-control and stayed there for the duration of the match. I didn't feel like she was going for submissions, but she felt heavy as hell and I couldn't escape. I couldn't hear anything my coach might have been telling me. I don't think I got mounted, but I might have. Lost on points, probably at least 4-0.

I was bummed after the match, but very tired and happy to be done. I was pretty sure I had lost in the semi-finals, so was hoping I was going to get a bronze. The brackets were really weird though, and for quite awhile I figured I wasn't going to medal. After a long wait, they finally called our bracket to the podium and lucky for me, I got bronze. I was very, very happy to be able to snag two medals.