So, my first ever blog post.
As a short introduction, my name is Mahana, and I’m an athlete living and training full-time at Camberley Judo Club, hoping to represent New Zealand in the 2012 London Olympics. I’m also almost finished a PhD in mathematics.
I hope this blog will give an insider’s view of what it is like to be training full-time and competing at a high level. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to pursue my dreams, and want to be able to share this experience.
Yesterday was an unusual day at Camberley. Instead of the usual 2-3 training sessions, we had test fights. The British trials are in a week and a half, and most of the players here will be competing. This is one of the most important competitions of the year for British judoka, as placing in the top four secures them a place on the national squad. For the first time in a while the trials are not open entry, and athletes have to qualify through placing at the four home country opens, and the British open. Wildcards are also available for athletes who have been competing internationally or have been injured. This means that not all the athletes at Camberley will be competing at the trials, but the club has representatives in most of the 14 senior weights. Being from New Zealand I cannot personally compete, although I did qualify and receive an invitation letter. I will definitely be along to watch. Those athletes that are not competing (myself included) have other competitions in the following weeks, so all of us need to prepare for fighting. I haven’t competed since last November, so the test matches were an excellent way to re familiarise myself with competition nerves.
A normal judo match at senior international lasts for 5 minutes, but can finish at any time if either competitor gets an ippon (full point, sometimes called 10 points). Test matches are sometimes run this way, and sometimes last the full time irrespective of scores. Today most matches were ippon win, save a couple. At 11am we were all ready to go in the dojo, and we started doing our own competition warm ups. About 15 minutes later our referee for the day came and told us the first three fights (I was on third), and about 10 minutes after that our coach pinned the complete fight list on the wall. At about 11:30 we were told to clear the mats, and the test matches started.
We just had one as opposed to the usual three referees, and he is one of the Camberley coaches and the father of one of the promising juniors (who could not make the test matches due to A levels). The first two matches were boys, and were quite exciting. I was a bit nervous for my first fight, since I had to fight my room mate who has a style I find difficult, and since we fight each other all the time we know each other well. After a slow start I managed to get her in a hold down, but she escaped after about 15 seconds, giving me a yuko score (the smallest). There were no other scores for the rest of the fight, giving me a win. There were about 8 fights now until my next fight, so I took some time to bring my heart rate down, then put my socks and a hoodie on to keep warm and sat in the corner of the dojo to watch.
There were some very exciting matches, everyone was fighting really hard. Although it was Wednesday and we had already had three hard sessions (tachiwaza (standing) drills, weights, and randori (free fighting)) on Monday and three sessions (active recovery (run), hard circuit, and randori) on Tuesday, people still seemed to be able fight hard and fast. Judo is amazingly demanding on all components of fitness, and judoka have to be excellent all around athletes. I had my second fight about 45 minutes after my first. This time I was fighting a girl who is in the weight below me, and a lot shorter. She is also very physically strong, and is very good at a throw I find hard to block. Again we fight each other very frequently, so we know each other well. This time neither of us managed to get any score for the full five minutes, so the match was declared a draw. This doesn’t happen in usual judo competition, there is normally golden score which means an extra time is added, during which any score wins. If there is no score during this time then the three referees decide on a winner by simultaneously raising a coloured flag corresponding to the player they believe has been attacking the most. This was one of (if I remember correctly) only two draws of the day.
There were now another 10 or so matches until my final fight, so again I wrapped up warm and watched. There were some surprises, and some very nice ippons. It’s always interesting to watch people fight in a competitive situation and compare how they fight in randori. My final match was against a boy, which would never happen in a real competition. He’s about 10kg lighter than me and a lot younger, but still a bit stronger and very fast. I think I actually fought best in this match, I almost threw him a few times, before he threw me with a tomoenage for wazari and then held me down. There were three more matches for the day, then it was time for a shower then lunch.
We had the rest of the day off, for once, so I took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep, then proof read my PhD thesis, and sort out entries and flights for upcoming competitions and camps. I’m also in the process of trying to sort judogi that are compliant with the new regulations, and attach the backpatches ready for my first world cup of the year at the end of January. There is always lots to be done behind the scenes in competitive sport, things like finding cheap flights, choosing which events to enter, ensuring someone is there to collect a player at the airport when they arrive in a foreign country. These admin type things took a good few hours.
We were lucky enough to have our technical guru Lance Wicks (who is also my manager/website developer/advisor/adoptive family/pretty much anything needed, I owe him loads!) film our fights, so we will be able to analyse them with Luke (our coach) sometime soon. I find this particularly useful for me personally, when I have competed I frequently watch my fight videos at least ten times before the day is out. I am a very cerebral person, and like to find a problem and solve it rather than just repeat the same mistake. I am having trouble with a particular gripping situation, and my opponents (consciously or otherwise) seem to have realised, so I need to work on this urgently.
I am writing this on Thursday on the train from Bath to Camberley, having come to Bath to submit my PhD thesis finally. Unfortunately the print room had a backlog so I couldn’t physically submit it, but I have arranged for friends to pick it up for me tomorrow. It is a good feeling to be nearly done. I now just have to write a paper for publication that presents the main results of my thesis, and prepare for the viva (oral exam) which will be on 17 March.
So that’s my first blog post, now to get onto filling out my Individual High Performance Plan as requested by Judo New Zealand.