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