More than anything else on Saturday, I hope to break the mold. I don't think I've competed in a single match that I would have been proud to show to the few non-jiu jitsu people I know as an example of what I spend 6-8 hours a week doing (and triple that amount musing, thinking, scheming, obsessing ...). What would I send my Dad if he ever asked? Hell, what could I show my wife after all these years since she last saw me win my first gold medal as a white belt three years ago.
Goal setting is most effective when the goal clearly achievable. I want to win on Saturday. But more than anything, I want to be worth watching. Not in a vain way, but because I know that if my jiu jitsu is worth watching, there's a good chance that I'm doing something right, something worth emulating maybe, something that makes the guys and gals who haven't competed yet want to compete or the guys and gals that haven't begun training jiu jitsu to thinking about starting.
Looking back on my matches over the past four (!) years, it is tempting to blame my defeats on a lack of heart or will. I distinctly remember being angry about having to fight an overtime, and then a sudden death period after that, in my first fight at the last Revolution against the guy from Impact Jiu Jitsu in Oregon (a guy I'd lost to by armlock with 90 seconds to go after being up 2-0 after pulling half guard and getting the sweep in February). I remember being totally unenthusiastic about my next match, against the guy from Marcelo Alonso's who I lost to in February because of my mental preoccupation with what had happened in the previous match.
But the truth of the matter is that in pretty much all of those fights, I performed as far as my technique would take me. In February, I felt comfortable with the strategy for pulling half guard that Rodrigo had shown us. And in February I went 2-1 in my three fights when it came to pulling half guard and getting the sweep to go up 2-0. In July, I felt comfortable with the Jacare ankle pick off the collar drag that Rodrigo had been drilling us with. And in July, I went 3-0 on takedown attempts using that collar drag.
Guard passing at the advanced level is where I have struggled. Truth told, it is where I struggled at blue belt and white belt, as well. As much as I've allowed emotion to cloud my jiu jitsu in competition - a cloud-covering made all the easier by lack of conditioning - there has been a clear failure of technique, a point where the jiu jitsu circuity broke down and there was nothing but white noise. That, more than anything, is what has cost me "hardware" in 2009.
For what it's worth, my guard passing circuitry is better than it's ever been - and that's the circuitry that counts right now. True enough, "better" is both saying a lot and saying not so much - in the same way that the emotional magnitude of a 50% gain in a $4 stock depends a lot on the leverage involved. But the improvements are a fact and something I'm feeling more and more comfortable about testing.
Every time I've had a plan, that plan has worked up until the point where I had stopped planning. Obvious as it sounds, it is worth remembering.
