Perspective

There are some thoughts that I've been wanting to articulate since this weekend, and I think I finally have the space to give it a go.

The first is that I was completely stunned at how well the three of us did. I keep throwing the word "proud" out there when it comes to my teammates, but it doesn't sufficiently convey the depth of my feeling, even if it's accompanied by a bunch of adverbs. 

I wasn't anxious, but I wasn't particularly excited about competing in my own bracket. I was drained from running around to their matches and all of the involved emotions. Having breakfast and then a few snacks throughout the day was nowhere enough food to be at top form by 6pm. I made a huge error in not figuring out how to get food.

Related, I regret not doing absolute. I had a solid chance to double-medal and even get another gold. THAT would have been pretty amazing. Had I managed the food situation better, I could have chilled out after my win and just sucked it up to compete. I knew from previous experience that absolute often runs late. 

My second win was sloppy. I'm not at all pleased that I gave up a sweep so quickly. I knew she was good at deep half and I still tried a risky move to take the back instead of making staying on top a priority. If nothing else, this is an opportunity to learn from a win.

I'm really over the bandying about of the term "world champion". It's fun to joke about it with friends, but the reality is that I won two matches. Two. The tournament happens to be called 'World Master'. I am not a world champion. I won my division at a tournament, that's it. Buchecha and Mackenzie Dern are world champions. James is making a big deal about having three world champions, and I'm not feeling terribly comfortable with it.

Now that Rachael has been promoted to purple, we're going to have to figure out how we're going to handle tournaments. We knew this would come up sooner or later. It's possible that I could drop down to Med Heavy, but I don't think I'm going to want to do that except for possibly Pans and Worlds. I think my plan until next May is to compete adult divisions. If I get consistently steamrolled then I should reconsider doing adult Worlds next year. I might do it anyway...I really want to see the black belt matches at Worlds. Even if I suck in comparison to my division I'd regret not trying. Next year will be my last year in my 30s and possibly my last year at purple. I don't expect that I'd be promoted to brown before summer of 2017 but it's possible.

My game the whole week has been absolutely sucking. I don't know what's wrong. I don't feel extra pressure, I just feel kindof clueless on the mat. I'm fairly certain that it's just a phase and will pass.