Thursday, February 24, 2011

Everybody is fighting something....

It's been just over 24 hours since one of Christchurch's darkest days..

I woke up like 'any other Tuesday' at 5:40 to get ready for training, alarm went off, checked facebook then time seemed to stop. Reading peoples status' made me realise this was no 'aftershock'....

Quickly I tried to get my phone onto a network so I could call home, it took a few minutes which felt like an hour but finally I was able to call home.. Thankfully everyone in my family was ok but it was still one of the most unnerving phone calls I've had to make, the strain on Cushlas voice made me realise how real this all was and throughout the day it got even realer..

The scenes of Christchurch, MY CITY, being in ruins bought tears to my eyes, was hard to hold back seeing the iconic parts of Christchurch knocked down. Seeing videos of people devestated made me feel sadness, anger, helpless and scared all at the same time.

Words still seem to escape me but all I could think to myself was something I'd been saying/thinking a lot which was a quote by Renzo Gracie - 'Everybody is fighting something'

Just one week ago I was fighting fit and had a real 'coming of age' fight for me vs one of the best out there. My fight was simple, Judo.

Then after this I was on the injured list but again my fight was simple, rehab my body and do everything I can to get back on the mat.

Then just over 24hours ago the fight became something much bigger.. What can I do to help my city... Being on the opposite side of the world made this difficult.


The only thing I can really do is provide positivity, lend an ear to those who need it and do my best to try and uplift my community.

Here's one thing I know about Christchurch people. They're tough, not the 'walk around being staunch' tough but the 'Do what we gotta do' tough. One of the reasons I love my city is the sense of community we have there.

So while Christchurch is going through some of the toughest times and some people are mourning I know we'll get through this.

Kiwis fight. And no matter what the fight is We expect to win.We Don't quit. And even when we do lose We Come Back Stronger..

Everybody is fighting something... Sometimes the fights are harder than others, sometimes there's more on the line and sometimes we feel like there's no hope But I know this is one fight Christchurch will win.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Life is a hard teacher....

Well just finished fighting today in Hungary... another tournament another 1st round exit...


The thought pattern for this tournament was to be very relaxed/take my time... What ended up happening was I was passive/reactive and didn't apply any pressure to my opponent at all.. Basically I was the passanger and this was confirmed after only 45seconds on the clock when I was sent for a ride.

It was a hard loss to take (as they all are). I don't mind losing but losing in such a fashion is never nice. Also I'd had a great training camp prior to this so was looking forward to fighting. My Judo was starting to come together nicely and I was really hoping it would crossover to the tournament

The hard part about it is that you generally fight about 2months behind your training.. So while I'm training really well and starting to get a new style sorted it is still going to take awhile to put it into practice.

The hardest thing during this stage is to stay mentally strong, it takes A LOT to get your a$$ beat and stay positive during it.. You can call it anything. The grind, the hard yards whatever but at the end of the day it's just a case of putting a positive spin on the worse situations...

Really though I just have to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm training as hard as I possibly can and I've made big changes to my Judo so I've basically just got to keep doing the grind, keep setting goals for each session and really just stay positive. I can't let the failures get to me too much and keep focusing on 'baby steps'

As I've always said "Judo Was Not Built In A Day"

Tomorrow we arrive back in Paris at around 10pm then will be up at 6am for morning session and a hard week of training towards Grand Prix in dusseldorf.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Week 2 & 3 Update:

Hey everyone

Well for the last two weeks my laptop has been out of action. This on top of busy busy days has meant I've been a slack blogger (slablogger?) but will do alot better from here on out!

Some really interesting times over the last few weeks. The training is hard, like really hard! But with that comes mental toughness, conditioning and of course and improvement in Judo!


I'll give a non-linear rundown of the last few weeks split into Tournament, Training, Life:


Tournament
I've competed twice since being here. Firstly in Georgia which was an experience! The country was beautiful but at the same time I felt unsafe while being there.. This led to the hotel being our only friend but with that comes feelings of isolation & is far from ideal in buildup for a tournament.



I fought against a guy from Azerbaijan in my opening fight. I started well and was feeling pretty good against him but about 90seconds in I was 'resting' on my grips and then lost control of the fight and was thrown for ippon. 



As is world Judo one loss and you're done so it was in the stands for the rest of the day watching/learning/scouting the other competitiors there..

2nd tournament was on the weekend here in Paris. This is the biggest tournament in World Judo in terms of crowd & also it attrachs the Creme de la Creme in terms of fighters as well.

In this tournament I was drawn to fight Hungary first fight. I was feeling pretty confident for this fight as training had been going well.

However I lost the mental game on this day as I got too worked up before the fight and was trying to do things at 110 miles and hour and ended up getting caught after about 90seconds...

Both losses really sucked (as all losses do!) but I learnt so much from both of them and I've already started to make huge changes to my game.. The big thing now is making sure I really incorporate these changes this weekend in Hungary.

Training

Training has been great! Last week was the same as the first week with a taper towards the end because of the Paris tournament.

This week has been amazing. There is a training camp on and there is close to 500 guys on the mat at once! By the end of the week I will have completed 45 rounds of 5mins fights, exactly the experience I need. Again there's no mugs here! I've already fought 5 World/Olympic medalists and effectively all the top World Judoka are here.

As I said earlier I've made huge changes in my game and one of the big changes is being more relaxed with my fighting.. If you compare it to striking it's the same as a boxer who is tensing his shoulders/arms too much. A) he becomes slow and B) he fatigues a lot quicker. This small change has made a huge difference to my Judo and it's really helping improve my game.. The great thing of training here is your 'faults' get identified pretty quickly!

Life

We obviously there's a huge adjustment going from my beautiful life in Christchurch to living the otherside of the world without my family and friends but it's actually going really well! We have our 'Judo Family' over here (2 Aussies, 2 Kiwis, 3 Kyrgyzstanis) and obviously the French guys we train with so I don't get too homesick. 

We've had a bit of time in between trainings/going to war to do some sightseeing and Paris is a great city. My friend Roland from Switzerland is here at the moment so it's been great to see a familar face (Roland lived/trained with us for a year in NZ).

My French is developing slowly. Reading = 3.5/5 Speaking = 2/5. I'm now setting myself weekly goals to help me work on it harder. This week my goal is to order food speaking only French, so far so good! Next week my goal is to be able to ask Judo questions at training. Baby steps!

Well That's all for now. Promise I will update more often! 

Jason