EPT
) it was a nasty nasty cold. As to how the event itself went- not good, not good at all. I got busted rather quickly, remember how i said that there were cases in the past were wrestlers took out entire events just by double legs- well i ran into two wrestlers, and got destroyed. At first i told my team that they were too strong, too quick, too agile, i could do nothing, but the truth is, i dont know if they were. The truth is, im just not clutch. I am Mumyung and in the comfort of starleague qualifiers(READ: my own dojo), i can outmicro and outmacro anyone. But when the competition came.. No i wasnt nervous in fact i wasnt nervous at all. I wasnt crowd-shy or anything. I was just lost. I was relaxed. I didnt care at all. Sorry teamliquid, ive let you down, youll have to wait a bit more to take down a first major sporting victory under your heralds.
The event made me rethink a lot of things however.
Is my dojo any good? The answer is no. There is one insane brown belt in it, really really insane, in fact, as far as im concerned, hes really a quality black belt, but hes only 18 years of age, and last black belt promotion he just did what i did this tournament- Mumyunged it. Other then that the rest of the guys are somewhat competitive- sure- but they seem to be more of a recreational judokas. But Ill let the numbers speak for themselves- there were 6 people from my dojo at the event. Among them there were a grand total of 4 won matched(2 won+2won by DQ) and 12 lost. The closest good judo school(actually the only one on the level in NYC) however is about an hour away, and is located in projects.
The other question ill have to answer do i want to continue with judo at all. When i say i love judo i dont mean i love judo and judo only, i mean i love grappling. My problem with judo is that while what they are teaching in my dojo(while not competition level) is purely awesome- standup and ground game alike- and that is so rare in judo or BJJ schools which seem to focus entirely on one aspect of the game- the one that is most important for their sport. My problem is that the competition rules are really not my cup of tea. There are so many ridiculous ones, such as if your opponent falls on his head you get DQed. They claim its for safety but given the competitive nature of the sport wouldnt you say it actually promotes falling on ones head? The ground game is non existent, and while i do love takedowns, my love affair is with matwork. And as far as competition goals go- looking at the big picture i always had no-gi grappling as my goal. I figured however ill go with Judo until at least i get a blackbelt and then ill figure things out. But now im thinking, why not start right now, why procrastinate, why put things off.
Those are the questions i need to answer to myself in the nearest future.
I have a black belt promotion coming up on October 11th. And im not sure if i should go or not. I just dont feel it I just dont think i can close up the holes in my game in this time. We'll see.
