Day 83

Busy, Busy, Busy. Or not so much any more. On Thursday I finished my internship for the not to be mentioned large British Aero Engine manufacturers. So now I am poor, but able to dedicate myself 100% of the time to training Jiu-Jitsu.... Yes, you are all jealous. Well don't worry, I'm still injured so I have not been able to dedicate myself to anything other than the occasional moan about my elbow.

I couldn't fight at the British open, so that's two competitions I've invested in and missed due to injury, I hope the money is going back into the jiu-jitsu community. Only because I didn't get to fight, if I did fight I wouldn't care what had happened to the money. I did go down to the the British open just to watch. I saw some great fights and I have a few on video but they are stuck INSIDE my camera, and I don't know how to get at them. (I've lost the cable) I'll post them up posthumously next week.

I went down on the Sunday, or the Main day as it should have been called. Don't want to offend anyone over 30 so I'll stick with Sunday. As I wasn't competing I was very relaxed and thought the competition was fairly well organised, but then I didn't have to wait around for what always seems excessively long periods after your name has been called or in between fights, as is usually the case for competitors. I would estimate that there were probably 200 spectators, but a lot of those were people who had fought earlier in the day or on the lesser of the main two days, also known as the Saturday. Still it was a good turn out.
I saw a few black belt matches. They happened at about 3.00pm. All the mats were cleared. The tension started growing. I don't think a single person in the hall missed the call for the black belts to warm up. There was a sense of anticipation from that moment on.

Braulio Estima introduced the first two fighters (super-feather) to thunderous applause. As the two men shook hands and received final instructions from the ref, a respectful hush settled over the crowd. I was amazed at the situation, there is a lot of respect in Jiu-Jitsu. Not false, unearned, ceremonial respect, just honest respect, when you see a black belt you know they can roll, there is just no other way to get to that level in this sport.
I won't go into details of the matches. There was a good fight between (the only names I can really remember) Michael Russel and Kevin Web (sorry for mis-spellings). I turned away for 10 seconds and missed the submission. I'm hoping that Geeza, general legend, and head coach at Gracie Barra Bristol will have uploaded the fight so I can catch it on his youtube channel. Incidentally if you didn't know about Geeza's channel it's a great way to devour any free time, 100% competition jiu-jitsu, 100% submissions (my favourite is the little girl armbar)

"If a win isn't by submission, it's just unfinished business" - Geeza on countless occasions 

In more headline based current affairs I would like to have a rant (secondary sport) about sportsmanship. 99 times out of 100 competition matches, the loser tends to thank the winner for the experience (actually they tend the thank each other) and the opportunity to test their skills and test their game. I would hope that most of you agree on this point, now take this shining example and compare it to this abomination...

Somebody Triangle that Twat. Ahhhhh hypocritical of me you may say. Well no actually it isn't, because no one looks up to me, I'm not a role model and I would be ecstatic if the number of people who were aware of my foul language in this post numbered over 100. Wayne Rooney, however is just an overgrown child. Well done mate, you kicked a ball into the back of a net 3 times. Why are you swearing directly at a camera? What inconceivable thought pattern has led you to believe that that is a good idea. And what has made me even more annoyed is going on that youtube video (I hope the FA/ Sky don't remove it too quickly) most of the comments are along the lines of 'So what, he's a good footballer.' I could write rubbish about this all day so I'll just end with:
I think if you reach that level of sport, where people are watching you there are some unwritten (actually they are written just not enforced in the case of football) rules which you may not like but if you're being paid over £100,000 a week then you should bloody follow them.

Sorry

Yes well it's now two months until the Worlds and I have not even started training properly. If I were religious I'd start praying. I might send one up to Helio.