Batting .500

Alright kids. Here it is. I weighed in, with my gi, at 78.6kg. The guy at the scales said, "Eh, whatever." I didn't eat all night or all morning. I rode the Hankyu, in misery to Takatsuki, where I found that I was in the same car as Mana, the jiu-jitsu hottie. Her job you ask? An underwear designer. Great. I'll put up some pictures of the match later. But first, to my matches.

I was up against a guy from Cobra Kai West, which is a pretty hard core gym. One reason I worked so hard to make weight is that being a 78kg Anglo-Saxon and being a 78kg Asian man are somehow different things. 78kg Asian guys are big. The guy I was up against was big. He looked like a wrestler or judo guy, or maybe rugby. I was ready to go, having spent an hour eating yogurt and grapes, and drinking Pocari. From the tachiai the guy grabbed me and was strong. Really strong. I fought off the takedown, but I got tired really quick. Well. You can see for yourself. (Caitlin was nice enough to show up and take the video.)


What the ref doesn't know is that I have really, really loose shoulders, at that sub was nowhere close to in. I was ready for the fight to start from there as, in sparring, I work from that sub attempt to work back to half-guard and guard. Anyway. It's my bad. I lost.

A lot of Purebred wins and more grapes and yogurt, plus onigiri and Pocari filled the next few hours until I was on again. It turned out to be a good match. Having two pro fighters yell at you all through the match makes you a little nervous but also does make you go as hard as you can.



It is probably hard to understand what went on in this fight and why I won. I won off of a small point in the scoring rules that I didn't know until Thursday night. I had been told that taking the back and doing a body triangle (wrapping your legs around your opponent and securing one of your ankles behind your other knee, forming a triangle and thus trapping your opponent) was sufficient to get 4 points. I always use this technique as I have long, flexible legs. However, competition scoring demands that you secure your feet inside of your opponent's thighs, not crossed over themselves before they will award the 4 points. With about 30 seconds left to go I am in the other dude's closed guard. Takuya Sato starts yelling at me "There is only 30 seconds DO SOMETHING!" Because I am losing. What I was working with was a very small battle to get my knee under the other guys ass so that I could bring my leg back and break his guard. When I finally did, he tried to armbar me. He couldn't get my thumb pointed up and I was able to yank my arm out, grab his belt and take his back. I shoved my feet down into his thighs and looked at the ref to make a call. Daisuke, one of my teachers, starts yelling for the ref to give me the points. He does. I secure the guy to keep him from sweeping me, look back at the clock and watch the last seconds tick off. I wasn't sure I had won for a few seconds. When I came back, Murakami, the main brown belt at our school, told me that if both my fights had been like that, he would have given me my blue belt. I don't know if that is good news or bad news. Anyway, it was a good time and makes me want to train even more.

I shaved the beard. I have a new scrape on my nose and my neck hurts.