Now I have passed my PhD viva, I (theoretically) have lots more time to spend on judo. I do have five pages of corrections to make to my thesis before I can make my final submission, and the small matter of finding some employment, and some funding for judo.
My most major correction is to do with the use of the << symbol. Non-mathematical readers please bear with me! In my thesis I have defined the << symbol to mean that we can find a function to specify how much smaller one thing is than another (when they are both very, very small!). This, however makes things difficult sometimes, as we might have a << b << c << d, and not as yet know how to specify the functions, and we might later need to redefine these variables and thus the functions may change. The standard way to deal with this is to define infinitesimals, which are quantities smaller than any positive real number, but greater than zero. We can define however many we like of these, in an order of magnitude that we specify, and thus they will satisfy the requirements. However defining infinitesimals requires a great deal of preliminary work and an increase in notation. I think that this unfortunately might be necessary. The results are true either way, and either method of proof is acceptable if done correctly, but my current method is not exactly correct, and although it is easy to see what needs to be done to make it correct, this still needs to be done! Mathematical readers – please excuse the vagueness and inaccuracy in the previous!
I have a few further corrections to make; there is only one that I am slightly uncertain about. I have already made about 75% of the initial corrections, most being typos. It was a nice feeling to get a good response at my viva, but I do still have some work to do to make my final submission! After my submission I have been encouraged to publish a paper on my results in a journal. It will be nice to be a published mathematician, but again it will be a non-trivial amount of work to condense the results of a PhD thesis into a journal article.
Judo – this past week I have done quite a bit of extra training. Every morning I went for a 3.5 mile run, and did a few extra throwing sessions throughout the week. I find running the best thing for base fitness, and more importantly it makes weight management easier. I intend to keep this training up until I leave for Tahiti, two weeks today. Last Friday seven of us went to a local field and played football for just over an hour, it was a great team building exercise, and it is also a great way to do a long run. Because of the English Open last weekend most people were tapering off, but I am peaking for Tahiti so trained right through, and thus did a very hard circuit on Friday by myself. This brought back memories of the hours I spent in the early mornings in my dojo in New Zealand, doing circuits by myself with my dog tied to a chair for company.
On Saturday we drove up to Sheffield in the minibus, its great travelling in a group for a change. I had decided to fight in the -70 division instead of my usual -63. Primarily this was a practice competition and my goal was to get a few fights in, so it was good to fight some stronger players. It was also nice to be able to go out for a big dinner the night before I fought! The weigh in was from 6:30am, and as my roommate was close to her weight we went there first thing. We then came back to our hotel for a few hours for breakfast and a bit more rest and arrived at the venue ready to warm up at 9. The order of fights was published immediately, and I wasn’t due to fight until 3:30pm, which meant a day of waiting around. I ran into an old friend who was fighting -66, and they were due to fight at 10, so I warmed him up as he was alone. For the rest of the morning I helped with the videoing of other Camberley fighters. At about 12 I warmed up the two Camberley -63 fighters, and then went back to the videoing.
The competition was running about an hour ahead of schedule, and -70s started around 2:30. There were eight people entered, forming a knockout. I didn’t know my first opponent; I immediately felt the strength difference at the higher weight. I got a good grip after a couple of exchanges, and threw her for ippon inside the first minute. My next opponent was the winner of the next fight, so I watched it closely. My opponent turned out to be a short right hander, who did lots of drop attacks. When it came around to fighting time again I managed to dominate the grips, and put in lots of attacks that were close to working. She fought in a very defensive, bent over manner, and was penalised for not attacking early in the fight. I kept dominating the grips and trying to get her into a position to throw, but she kept bending over, resulting in her getting two more penalties. Another win, not by ippon but I was happy with it as I was clearly dominating the whole fight, and succeeded in beating a very negative fighter, a style I’ve had trouble with in the past. This placed me in the final. My opponent was a girl I have fought many times in training, and once before in a competition (when I used to fight -70 a few years ago, and I lost on a split decision), so we know each other very well. I had a definite plan, and succeeded in winning the grips and attacking. After about a minute in however, I fully committed to a big attack, but she managed to move out of the way and use my momentum to twist me to the floor for a nice ippon. I was not too disappointed as it was a practice competition, she is a lot bigger than me, and I was fighting and attacking well. Overall I was happy with the day. It made a big difference to be with all the other Camberley players, and it was nice to be matside coached by Craig Fallon and Carl Finney, thanks heaps!