10 Years of BJJ - My Jiu-Jitsu Journey - Part 4 (I Finally Won Something!)

(This is part 4 of this series. If you haven't seen part 3 it can be found here.)

I guess you live and learn...

 

So, I got whooped in my first ever competition, which I'm sure many of you have experienced. But, I never quit training, I just carried on.

 

When I was in the kid's class, there were many kids of similar age and size to me, and even a few older kids, who were obviously much bigger and stronger than me. So when I trained, I always pretty much had good training partners and good rolls.

 

Now when I look back on it, none of those people are training today. Actually, most of them stop training after only a couple of years, some even less. I guess as a kid you want to try everything, or do the same things as your friends are doing. Every time I tell somebody I do Jiu-Jitsu, the usual response I get is "I used to do karate when I was a kid", or some other martial art. Not a lot of kids actually stick with any sport, not just martial arts. Most of my friends as a kid tried lots of different sports, and guess what? None of them are doing any sort of sport today. So the fact that I have stuck with this sport for a decade of my life is actually pretty impressive.

 

When I was a kid, I pretty much had no real 'game'. I just tried to get top and use my size to force my way to a dominant position where I could try and make good use of my weight. Obviously, as I got older, I realised that this strategy doesn't work all that well. Actually, it sucks!

 

So, as I said previously, I got smashed I my first competition. But, there was another competition coming up on November 14th, which was a day after my tenth birthday. And it was in the same place, and run by the same organization, so I thought I would give it another shot. Actually, after my last experience, I was a bit hesitant to say yes, but my dad did eventually encourage me to say yes.

 

The night before I went out for my birthday, and woke up early the next morning to drive to Worcester, my new favourite place! (jokes). Actually, I used to really hate those drives to Worcester. It used to take over three hours to get there, and I always used to get travel sick, so it wasn't exactly a pleasurable experience before I got to the competition.  

 

So, we finally get to venue. The good old Perdiswell leisure centre! That name will forever be tattooed on my brain. And it's pretty much the same procedure as last time, get there with my heart almost beating out of chest, wait in a massive queue to weigh in, and spend hours waiting to be called to fight. So, as you can tell morale was at an all-time high.

 

After hours of waiting around, I finally get called to fight. As always at these competitions the categories were pretty big. Surprisingly enough, I actually wasn't as nervous as before, probably because I knew what to expect, but of course I was still nervous. But this time I felt different, I really wanted to win! And I felt pretty pumped up, and pretty sure that I was going to at least make it to the final today, even if it kills me. And guess what, I actually did make it to the final! I won three matches straight to make it to the final, and lost by two points to take silver. I'm not certain what the score was, but I definitely know I lost by a two point margin.

 

After I lost in the final, I was pretty gutted to say the least. I mean I made it all the way to the final, and to lose at the last hurdle was so disappointing. But a silver medal wasn't bad for my second competition, and it was a pretty nice birthday present!

 

 

Last time I got completely smashed, and this time I did pretty well. I can't really remember all that much about the matches themselves, as it was nine and a half years ago, but I do remember lots of failed double leg attempts, which were pretty embarrassing! But I actually managed to hit a few. To be honest I absolutely suck at takedowns! Still to this day I can't do them to save my life. Hence why I resorted to becoming a guard player.

But, I finally won something!

I hope you guys enjoyed.

Catch you later,

Giordano