• Good judo doesn’t mean you win fights – this is something that few people outside the top level understand.  Some aspiring judoka have better technique than world medallists, and get themselves to the stage of having excellent strength and conditioning.  Even with great technique, a thorough understanding of how and when to apply techniques, and hours of video analysis, they might still not be able to win at the international level.  Experience, tactics, and mental toughness seem to be far more important factors.  Some of the most successful competitors in the world don’t have ‘good’ judo, they don’t throw with beautiful ippons most of the time (don’t get me wrong, they could throw the average club black belt with anything they choose at any time they choose).  Often athletes get by with good tactics, grips, and experience.  Many of them don’t know the entire gokyo, can’t do kata, and have no idea about mutual benefit and maximum efficiency.  Sometimes the ‘best’ judoka are horrible to fight, not in a beneficial “s/he’ll throw me loads” way, but in a dangerous “s/he’ll injure me” way.  That’s what makes top players who display amazing judo in international competitions so special.  This is the reality of top level judo as it is now.
• Many athletes don’t particularly like judo – they like winning and happen to win often in judo, or they like fighting and happen to do judo.  They won’t continue in judo after they finish competing at the top level.  In the richer countries some are good enough at judo to keep their funding, but don’t really care enough to train hard enough to be successful.  Successful players at the the top level can be boring, unintelligent people, or selfish, or nasty, or arrogant.  They can also be clever, funny, happy or kind.  They are just people.
• Take out health insurance – you will get injured, and public health systems in many countries are not ideal for athletes needing to make a speedy recovery.  Injury can be minimised, but not completely stopped.
• Rest the mind and body – you will burn out if you keep going forever.  I see young, enthusiastic athletes now say that if you can’t keep training it’s only in the mind, but that’s not always true.  It is important to find your limits, and not cross them too often.  The body cannot go on training indefinitely, and although you do need to push yourself harder than you could ever imagine, you must keep up the rest.  Keep activities up outside of judo, have non-judo friends, and a backup plan if you don’t continue judo for whatever reason.  Make sure that you are not only thinking about judo.
• Make sure you have a support team – from the above, you will sometimes push yourself past your limits, and at these times you must have people to catch you when you fall.  Don’t believe you can do everything by yourself.  You must be the driver, but you need backup.
• Don’t trust anyone completely – many (I believe most) people will be kind and genuine and want to help, but (apart from those who are malicious, and there will be many of those) people might not have the same point of view as you, and intend to help but actually hinder.  Think things through yourself, be careful what you say and to who.
• Judo people are crazy, you can’t make ANY more generalisations – I used to think that judo people are all kind, friendly, and hold other naive beliefs.  The judo community is as diverse as the world wide community; you can find any type of person who does judo (Putin, Bin Laden).  The only thing we all have in common is that we are crazy enough not to mind being slammed into the ground repeatedly.
• No one knows everything – no coach knows all the answers, no one can fix all problems.  Some people work better together than others, some coaches can get one player an Olympic medal, and make another, more promising player quit judo.  Even the perfect coach for a given player won’t always have answers.  Players must evaluate the information they get from every source, and take what’s useful, and store the rest away for a rainy day.
• There are no secrets, no shortcuts, only hard work – particularly in the case of people starting out at the international level, it is often believed that there is something – a particular workout routine, weights programme, running distance, training method – that will drastically increase performance.  This is simply not true.  There is a place for most sorts of training, and different things can be beneficial at different times to different people.  Suddenly doing a particular workout will often only produce results for someone who had previously been doing nothing, or something different.  You can only get to the top level through spending hours over many years preparing your body to cope with the demands of international competition; refining your skills and tactics to be able to have a plan and execute; working out what you need mentally at competitions through trial and error; and most importantly doing randori and shiai with players of a better level than you for many hours each week for years.  There will be very few exceptions to this.

I’m happy to have followed this path, I still love judo.  I’ve learnt so much, and have no regrets.  I’ve met amazing people, and have achieved things I’d never have dreamed of.  Young people wanting to follow this path (and other people who are curious), please do take note.

Tahiti is an amazing place, I had competed at the the same competition there in 2006, and had a good chance to explore the main island and also took a boat trip to one of the neighbouring islands.  That time I won silver in senior 63, bronze in junior 63, and bronze in the junior open.  We stayed in a very basic school dormitory, no hot water, no shower heads, no toilet seats, no windows and lizards on the ceiling.  After the competition there was a training camp, and a trip around the island.  I was young, and having a great time enjoying the wonders of the world.

This time was different.  I flew in three days before, and flew out the day after I fought.  No sightseeing (save one trip to the market down the road).  A world-class hotel, and results meant everything.  The few days before the competition were spent adjusting to the time difference, getting my weight that last bit down, and getting my body ready to fight.  I did a couple of judo sessions (and felt very average, normal before a competition), an explosive weights session, and some running.  I was feeling fit, strong, and ready to fight.  The draw was done on the Friday night, and I was quite pleased to see I had my hardest fight first.  I like it that way, I can focus on my strategy and not be distracted by other opponents.  There were 5 people in my weight, two Australians, two Tahitians, and me.  They placed me in a pool with one Aussie and one Tahitian, with the winner of our pool facing the winner of the other two in the final, and the second place in our pool fighting the loser of the other two for bronze.

On the morning of the competition I woke up nice and early for the weigh in, made weight, then had some nice breakfast.  We went to the venue 90 min before the competition was due to start, and sat in the stands watching the opening ceremony.  Competition was due to start at 10, and at about 9:30 I started warming up with my roommate Darcina (who is originally from Gisborne but now lives in Perth, and is great to train with).  I felt ready to go at about 10, so sat watching the first matches in the stands for a while.  I wasn’t on until (I think) fight 26, which was a few hours later, but I like to warm up early.  The tournament organisers cancelled a few fights so I was on earlier than expected, but luckily I was keeping track myself!

I fought well in my first fight and nearly scored many times, but unfortunately made a little mistake and got throw near the end.  After the fight I noticed a pain in my shoulder, but was called on for my next fight about 5 minutes later and had only just caught my breath, so I went right on.  I had a Tahitian, and quickly threw her for wazari and held her down.  This placed me in the bronze match.  I watched the rest of the fights, and then we went back to the hotel for a couple of hours before the final block.  I made use of the free internet to talk to family and friends in New Zealand and the UK, and refocus on winning the bronze.  My shoulder had started to stiffen up, so I iced it.

When we arrived back at the venue there was more than two hours to wait for my fight, and I enjoyed watching my teammates do well.  When it came time to fight, I felt good and strong, and quickly settled my grips and threw my opponent for ippon.  This got me the bronze medal – not the result I was looking for, but still a medal and valuable Olympic qualification points.

I stayed to watch the rest of the fights, then went back to the hotel to quickly get changed, and went to the food caravans beside the sea for dinner. A large group of New Zealanders sat at a big outside table, but no sooner had we placed our order and it started pouring down, and we got split into two groups, and sat under the tiny awnings of caravans.  It was really raining down, but it was kind of nice in the heat.  Before our food was delivered it stopped again, so we moved our table outside again and wiped it down, and enjoyed massive pizzas.  I was completely exhausted, so went back to the hotel for a relatively early night.

On Sunday the cadet and junior men were fighting, so we went to watch that.  The kiwi girls had a long and unsuccessful walk trying to find an open bakery somewhere around the competition venue before the fights started, then spent the next few hours sitting in the stands cheering on the young lads.  After the medals were given out was the team competition.  I was selected to fight, but my sore shoulder from the day before had become a lot worse, and the kind Australian physio took the time to diagnose a torn pectorial muscle.  I unfortunately thus had to cheer on our team from the sidelines.  Unfortunately both our men and women lost to Australia in the final 3-2, despite some close matches.  I was really proud of how some of our kiwis were fighting.  Before the matches had finished I had to get on a bus with about half of the kiwi team to the airport, for a flight to Auckland, New Zealand.

Tahiti has changed in the past five years, the increase in modern technology made a big difference to our stay.  Lots of easy ATMs means an easier trip!  Staying in a decent hotel also made the trip better.  Good preparation at Camberley meant I fought the best I’ve ever fought, despite not getting the result I wanted.  Many thanks to Lance and enVirtua for making this happen, Luke for coaching support, Ian for the extra training sessions, Robyn for the runs, and to all my family and friends for their support.

Since Tahiti I have spent ten days visiting family in New Zealand, it was great to see everyone again.  I have seen a physio for my pec and it seems I will be out for a few weeks, I’m unsure how long at this stage.  I arrived back at Camberley yesterday, and can’t wait to start training again.

Full results for the OJUs can be found here.

Over the past six weeks I have been following a carefully designed peaking plan, with the English Open at the three week point as a test event.  Things have been going very well, and I think I can almost say I’m feeling in the best condition of my life (which is certainly saying something).  I have had the right combination of randori (often and hard), technique (often and specific to what I need), weights (targeted at what I need), conditioning (with correct duration and intensity), and runs (3.5 miles every morning, great for general fitness and weight maintenance).  My nutrition has been the best ever (although making weight is never easy, I hope to feel good this time), and I have improved quality and quantity of sleep (which I have realised is a big factor in my performance).  I have (save a few corrections) completed my PhD, which means one less thing to worry about, and have lots of interesting future prospects that are close to coming to fruition.

Last week was particularly intense, with five sessions (e.g. run, individual technique, weights, conditioning and randori) on some days.  I was exhausted by the end of it, but feeling great. I had a very restful weekend, and did a bit of light training (running, power work and a little technique) on Monday and Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon I flew out of Heathrow at 4pm, heading for LA.  I arrived in LA with about 5 hours until my connecting flight, but to my dismay I had a nightmare time! I had to wait in a queue for about an hour to clear immigration, then for another hour to clear customs.  I didn’t know where to go for my connecting flight, but finally was told to get in a line and waited for ages to clear security.  I finally got to the gate and was hoping for a bit of a lie down when I realised my flight wasn’t on the screen, and when I asked someone else I was told I was in the wrong terminal.  It took me a good 30 min to find the right terminal, then I got in the line to clear security again.  When I finally got to the front of the queue they told me that I couldn’t use the boarding pass that was printed at Heathrow, I had to go to the airline counter and get a new one printed.  I found the counter (luckily there was no queue this time), but they took ages trying to print my new pass, as I had already checked in and that was incredibly confusing for them!  I also had to sign a document saying I was happy to be seated in an emergency exit row, which I had never had to do before.  I finally got my boarding pass printed, and had to get in another queue to clear security again.  I eventually got through, and made it to the gate just as my flight was boarding.  As soon as I got to my seat I fell asleep, and when I woke a few hours later I found a cold dinner beside me.  I ate a bit of fruit and fell straight back to sleep, and only woke when we were landing.

We landed in Tahiti about 5:30am and it was still dark, but during the time it took to clear immigration and customs the sun had risen, and it was a beautiful day.  As I was travelling alone I was waved through the customs section, while locals travelling with massive plastic boxes were thoroughly searched – how strange.  I was met and had a flower necklace put around my neck, and eventually was driven to the hotel.  My room wasn’t ready until midday, and I had been told to go to one of my teammates rooms, but the reception told me to wait by the pool, where I quickly feel asleep.  My teammate came and found me a little after that, and we had to get ready for training.  I still hadn’t been in my room, so I got my bag from the hotel storage and spread my things out in her room, and found a judo gi and went downstairs to meet the rest of the team.  Most of the cadets had gone to see one of the islands, so there weren’t that many training.  We had to walk a good 20 minutes to the venue in the blazing sun, and we did a basic session, I was really feeling the heat and travel!

When I got back to the hotel I could finally get in my room, and after chatting to a few people online I fell sound asleep, and didn’t wake up until 10:30pm when my roommates arrived.  I had a little catch up, and within an hour I was back asleep, and didn’t wake up until this morning.  We had a team meeting at 8, and another training session at 9, which was a bit more structured.  I’m still feeling the heat and travel, but not as badly as yesterday.  After training I had a quick dip in the pool, and then a little lie down.  That brings us to my shopping trip at the market, and to now.

I shall write another post at some stage after I have fought – wish me luck!

Finally, a big thanks to enVirtua for making this possible.

Two youtube favourites:

Check out this, a video about the great Camberley Judo Club (featuring yours truly being thrown, and in the credits).

If you’re into a bit of original music check out this.

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!

In the UK PhD vivas usually have one internal and one external examiner, with the internal being from the same university and the external not.  In my case my internal was from Bath, in the same department and similar very broad area (theoretical computer science/mathematics) but not a specialist in my work.  My external was from France, and she is one of the most eminent researchers in my field; it was a pleasure to meet her.  I used her work frequently in my thesis, so it was great to put a face to the name.

It was just the three of us in the room, and there were no time limits, we had as long as it took for them to be satisfied.  I started with my presentation, and found that the examiners had many questions on most slides.  I found the benefits of having two examiners with different knowledge bases, as the internal examiner would ask questions that would tend to be asked from a general mathematical audience, and the external would ask very specific questions related to intricate details of my work, and frequently ask why I took certain approaches.  It was an enjoyable challenge to explain my work to people with varying levels of base knowledge.  To prepare for this exam I had given my presentation to some of my non-mathematical friends, and I have to say it was a good feeling to present to an audience who was somewhat interested in and comprehending of what I was talking about.  I found I was able to answer almost all the questions with relative ease, and there were no major issues.  A few minor technical and style issues were brought up, which I will be able to resolve easily enough.  My presentation lasted for almost the entire viva, as it seemed a good way to work through the thesis.  There were a few questions after, and then I was asked to return in about half an hour.  The whole viva lasted only about 90 minutes, I was prepared for a lot more.

When I returned the examiners informed my supervisor and I that they recommend that I should be awarded a PhD on the condition of minor corrections being made, with three months being given to do this.  I was extremely happy, and extremely relieved!

Later that evening we enjoyed a dinner in Bath with our respective partners, which was a great experience.  I am not often lucky enough to spend time conversing with academics.  Good food, good wine, good company.

I was due to fight in the British University Championships that weekend, but I had some paperwork issues, and I was extremely tired from my viva, almost at the point of collapsing.  I felt guilty for letting down my university, but decided not to fight, as I could not be sure I’d put in my best performance.  Instead I slept the whole weekend, and boy did I need it!  Monday morning training started again, I will be competing in the English Open on Sunday so am bringing my weight down.  Otherwise I am training through this weekend; I am using it as a preparation competition for the Oceania Championships three weeks later.  I’m loving this life!

I want to thank my examiners for agreeing to asses my work; it takes a lot of time and effort to read over a thesis, and also to run a viva.  I also want to thank my supervisor Nicolai for all his hard work and patience, and my second supervisor Guy for his help.  Thanks to Lance for being a rock.  Most of all I want to thank Luke for driving me everywhere, calming my nerves during the small hours, and generally being brilliant.

Over the past few weeks I have attended a training camp in Germany, competed in Prague, and taken a week of rest in a small town in Yorkshire.  I resumed hard training again a week ago, starting six weeks intense build-up to the Oceania Championships in Tahiti.

The training camp went well, although I turned up to the last session to find only the Greek men.  The session ended up being cancelled, unfortunately training camps tend to die out a bit later in the week.  I flew straight to Prague on the Friday, made weight well, and fought well.  My opponent was from Kazakhstan, and I had lost to her last year very quickly.  This time I had analysed videos of her fighting, and had devised a plan.  I successfully executed my plan and stopped her getting a grip she could throw with, for the most part.  The fight was very close, unfortunately she scored two yukos.  I lost, but I fought well, and was dominating the latter half of the fight.  I see a great improvement in my judo since I came to Camberley.

I flew back into Heathrow on the Sunday, and on Monday I got the bus and train up to Yorkshire, to pretty much literally sleep for a week.  I had competed in three world cups and participated in one training camp over a very short period (thanks to enVirtua for making this happen!), so this rest was essential to prepare me for my next training cycle.

The following Monday I resumed training, starting with 30 minutes rowing and 30 minutes nagekomi early in the morning, as extra training with my fellow foreigner Irish Ian.  Normal training started at 10, and we had weights followed by intense running.  The rest of the week continued in this fashion, lots of hard training, following an individual plan specifically designed to prepare me for the OJUs.

I spent the weekend at Camberley, but three of my clubmates participated in the Swiss Open, with Sophie brining back a gold medal – well done!  On Sunday was the junior English Open, and two Camberley fighters reached finals, with Jess winning gold and Lasha winning silver.  It is great to have my training partners doing well, it is easier to succeed when people around you are succeeding.

This week is quite special for me, on Thursday I have my oral exam for my PhD.  For the past three and a half years I have been undertaking research in the Computer Science department at the University of Bath, into areas of pure mathematics.  In January I submitted my thesis, and on Thursday I have to defend my thesis to internal (from Bath) and external (from France) examiners.  I will start by giving a 30 minute presentation on my work, and then be asked questions until the examiners are happy I have made an original contribution to knowledge.  This could take hours!  I am very nervous, this is the culmination of more that 6 years at University, and if I pass I will hold the title of Doctor of Philosophy.  I have been doing a lot of preparation over the past while, and have now got to the stage of over-thinking and seeing mistakes where there are none!  (I actually thought writing this blog post might give me a bit of a break and bring me back into the real world for long enough to allow me to re-enter mathematical reality.)  After I have passed (assuming I will), I may write more details of my research in another blog, if anyone’s interested, and post my thesis online, but currently I want to put all my mathematical energies into passing!

I have my exam on Thursday, and on Friday I’m driving up to Sheffield to represent Bath in the British Universities Judo Championships.  I have participated in this twice before, missed it last year, and hope to win a gold medal the year, the final that I’m eligible.  It is a great competition, with kyu (lower grade) divisions, and dan (higher grade) divisions which often have good international competitors.  I’m not concentrating on this as a performance competition, I am fighting up a weight class and not peaking for it as I am putting most of my energy into maths this week, but it should be a good experience.  The team event on Sunday is always fun!

Back to maths…

Last night I heard about a massive earthquake in my home town of Christchurch, New Zealand.  We had a big one last September, but this one is so much worse, multiple fatalities and the city seems destroyed.  I spent the night trying to contact my family and finally managed to hear that everyone’s ok at 5am.  Still didn’t really get any sleep, and ended up missing training today.  I always feel very guilty missing training and this is no exception, but I was so tired and don’t think I would have been able to concentrate.  It’s so hard being on the other side of the world and hearing about all this happening in the place where I grew up, I feel so helpless.  I’m so lucky my family is ok.  It brings things into perspective.

I started writing the following on the plane here, it all seems pretty minor in comparison now:

Over the past few weeks it had been more training, more fighting.  Last week the intensity increased, with some hard conditioning and weights sessions.  Monday morning always seems to be particularly torturous, this week we had 4 x 4 min flat out running around the track.  Maybe doesn’t sound like a lot of work, but it sure feels like it!  I’m probably one of the worst runners ever, so always seem to be far behind everyone else, but since I’m a judo player this doesn’t really matter, the benefits are related to how hard I work, not to how fast or far I run.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get to randori at Dartford on Monday night as there was an accident on the motorway causing massive traffic delays, a real shame because there was apparently quite a few visitors.  Speaking of visitors this week we have had an American athlete visiting Camberley, it has been good to have her around, even though a bad knee has meant she hasn’t been able to train fully.

Last weekend I competed in the Austria World Cup.  Unfortunately I again didn’t win my first fight, and consequently had no further opportunities.  I did fight much better than in Bulgaria, however, and felt on another day I could have won.  Austria was very beautiful.  The competition was held in Oberwart, which was about 90 minutes from Vienna.  We stayed in a kind of health village, about 10km from the venue.  This time the participants were spread about five hotels in the same little village, I was lucky enough to stay in probably the smallest one, which had a family-run feel and delicious meals.  Unfortunately to get to weigh in on Saturday morning I had to walk uphill in sub-zero temperatures for 15 minutes to get to the main hotel, which is certainly not ideal.  In addition to the proximity of hotels there were other logistical problems, including the official bus forgetting to collect people from my hotel on the morning of the competition, which resulted in us arriving very late, and leaving minimal time for a warm up.  The only large team staying with us was the Dutch, and their coach was very nice to me, a lone kiwi, and made sure I got into the extra transport she arranged.  As for the fight itself, I drew Morocco which is not traditionally a strong judo country, and managed to learn she is right handed.  The fight was very even at the start, but I got thrown for wazari about three minutes in, and again with 20 seconds to go.  I was not happy, and when I was fighting I felt a lot less than 100%.  As always I have learnt a lot from this experience.  No excuses, I had an off day and performed below my ability level.

So, now in Germany.  Arrived Sunday night, was happy to be collected at the airport and taken to my hotel as I was worried they might have forgotten about a team of one arriving on Sunday.  I met up with another kiwi Jason who is from my club, and who competed in the competition, and with the two Australians he trains with in Paris.  It was good to see them again.

Monday morning we had first training at 11, 4 x 4 min newaza and 5 x 5 min tachiwaza.  I had quite a good session, did particularly well in the newaza managing to hold down some good fighters.  The tachiwaza was also quite good, but I have a bad habit of saying yes to everyone who asks to fight me no matter what size they are, and this resulted in me fighting a couple of heavyweights.  I really should stop fighting much bigger people at training camps, I just feel rude saying no if I don’t have a partner already.  I guess that’s one of the things about being a full-time athlete, you have to learn to be selfish and do what’s good for you, even if it’s not nice and polite.

Monday afternoon was 9 x 5 min tachiwaza, and I had an ok session.  I fought lots of random Germans, along with a few foreign fighters.  I arranged to fight one of the top Japanese fighters 7th but she forgot and by the time she managed to tell me there was no one left without a partner, so I had to sit that one out.  Apart from that I did all the fights, and was able to work on some of my gripping targets.

It has been good to not be alone for once, there are a few Camberley players at the camp and our coach Luke has come along for a couple of days.  I think this is the first time I’ve had a coach at a camp, and it’s so good to receive some feedback, something I’m really not used to.

I’m looking forward to going to Prague.  I’m going to concentrate on preparing to fight my best for the rest of the week, and also on making weight and doing some preparation for my PhD viva which is less than a month away.  Sometimes it gets hard to know where to best put my energies, all part of the challenge of trying to live life to the full!

I left Gatwick 6:30am Friday, which meant leaving at 3am, which meant only a couple of hours sleep.  Luckily a very kind fellow was able to take me to the airport, which meant I didn’t have to sleep there, as I have done in the past.  Slept fretfully the whole flight to Bulgaria, was met at the airport by guys holding a ‘judo’ sign.  They told me it’s cheaper to change money at the hotel, so I jumped in and got my first look at Sofia.  There was snow everywhere, random tall apartment complexes towering over otherwise lowrise buildings.  Signs with strange characters, and the odd English word.  The radio playing music with English lyrics, as is the case almost everywhere.  I arrived at the hotel in about 15 minutes, you never know how long these airport transfers will take, and the driver often speaks little to no English.  I was ushered to the accreditation room, the only one there at the time.  This was a relief, as I often have to wait in a queue for hours, not nice when making weight.  This is a disadvantage of travelling alone, the coach usually does all this.  Another disadvantage – single supplement on the room, this time it was 95 euros per night, plus a 10 euro entry fee, resulting in me handing over 200 euros in cash.  I confirmed my flight departure schedule, name, date of birth, weight; picked up back patches, entry pass, info pack.  I could then finally go to the hotel reception to collect my room key in exchange for my passport, and go up to the 13th floor to a room of my own for two nights.  It seems in Bulgaria smoking indoors is normal, and this was especially apparent in my room.  It was about 1pm, and I just wanted to sleep, but there is one thing every judo player wants to do immediately on arriving, and that’s find the official scales.  I dumped my bag, and went straight back down to the ground floor, found the scales easily enough, and came up with 64.1, which is not too bad.  I went straight back upstairs and fell asleep, setting my alarm for 5pm, but on waking resetting it for 7:30pm so I could go to the draw at 8.

Before the draw I rechecked my weight, and was happy to be 63.6, I always seem to lose loads sleeping.  Officially one is meant to wear a suit to the draw, but I walked in wearing my tracksuit confidently enough, and sat near the back.  No one questioned me.  Yet another advantage of having a coach – I was the only athlete there.  They started with lightweights, first showing the list of entered athletes on the screen, along with world ranking positions to decide seeding, and give a couple of minutes for anyone to correct anything.  Then the draw button is clicked, and the seeded athletes are placed in the respective positions, and the rest of the athletes are placed randomly (as far as I know).  This is done instantly, then the result is shown on the screen for a couple of minutes, and printed out.  I only stayed until 63 was done, I saw I had an unknown Swede first, and quietly left the room.  There is generally some talking after the draw about judogi regulations, rule interpretations etc, but frankly I didn’t have the energy to listen to any of that.  I went straight back to my room, and fell asleep again.

I woke at 6:45am, which is 4:45am British time.  The official weigh in was 7:30, and I immediately went downstairs to check my weight.  I was happy to be 62.6, the lightest I’ve been for some time.  The hours of sleep had done me good, and I had no need to sweat off.  I even had a little water while waiting to weigh in.  After checking my weight I quickly went upstairs again to get my passport, water bottle etc, and went to sit in the weigh in room.  On Saturday there were 48, 52, 57, and 63 fighting, and there were high entry numbers, with 35ish for 57, so the room was crowded.  I didn’t feel like standing packed in a queue for half an hour with semi-naked hungry girls, so I sat in the corner of the room, sipping on a tiny bit of water.  There were two sets of official scales, and 48 and 57 weighed in first, so there wasn’t really any point in me lining up anyway.  I waited until the queue had all but disappeared, and then stood up and got straight on the scales, officially weighing in at 62.75.  I immediately downed half a litre of water, and went to breakfast.  The hotel obviously wasn’t prepared for the chaos that is breakfast after a judo weigh in, and couldn’t bring the food out fast enough.  I managed to get a bowl of muesli with milk, eaten with a fork as there were no spoons, a glass of juice, and made four jam and cheese sandwiches.  Before going up to my room again I asked at the reception to change some money, but to my dismay they said this service is unavailable today!  This meant I would have to go to the competition with no local currency.  Very bad advice from the guys who picked me up at the airport, I think from now on I will get local currency at the airport irrespective of what I’m told.  I went straight up to my room, got my things together, and got on the 9am bus to the venue, which was about 10 minutes away.

I knew I wouldn’t be on for a while as I had a bye first round, and the competition is done round by round, so I wasn’t in any hurry.  I slowly got changed, and then did some warming up on the official mat area.  There was very little space, and I had no partner, so I had to use a very little corner to do shadow uchikomi and stretching.  Despite not having anyone there I was feeling good.  I have put in some past good performances travelling alone, I think it can allow me to concentrate on my performance and not get distracted.  I was listening to my ipod and feeling confident and relaxed, more so that I have in the past.  I was pleased to see that referees were available to check that judogis met the new requirements during the warming up, and took the opportunity to put my mind at rest.  One of my sponsors (enVirtua) has just bought me two new Mizuno Shiai’s, and they hadn’t been worn or washed yet, so I was happy they passed with flying colours.  At 9:50 everyone was kicked off the official mat into the warmup area, which was very small.  I was pleased one of the Japanese girls I trained with at Tsukuba last year before the worlds recognised me and gave me a big smile and a wave.  I had a little chat with an American girl that I fought in Samoa at the end of last year as well, but I prefer to keep to myself on competition days.  I had to wait for about 2 hours to fight, I was on 24th on mat 2.  During this time I went from lying down listening to my ipod with my eyes closed, to warming up again more fully just before I was due to go on.  About 2 fights before mine I went to the accreditation check area, and handed in my pass.  I gave the kid with the box my ipod, socks, and water, and stood next to my opponent, ready to go on.  She was a bit taller than me, and I know her coach a little because he was a student on the EJU judo degree at Bath that I helped run a couple of years ago.  It is nice to have a coach matside, but when I don’t it doesn’t bother me too much.  The fight before us went into golden score, which prolonged the waiting time.  I knew she fought in a particular way that I find difficult, as I had seen her warming up, and also the American girl I talked to had fought her and told me a little.  I had a plan going in, and felt confident.  My plan worked for all of 5 seconds, then I made a mistake and let her dominate me, and she threw me for ippon in 17 seconds.  Disaster.  I knew that she was my nightmare fight, just the style I hate dealing with.  I had a plan, but I was not practised enough in executing that plan, and perhaps the plan wasn’t sufficient.  I felt so embarrassed, so much money, so much travel, so much effort for 17 seconds.  Probably one of the worst fights in my life.  That’s the way with judo, one tiny mistake, leaning the wrong way once, or not pushing hard enough, and it’s all over.  So harsh.  But I guess it means that we are forced to learn from mistakes, otherwise competitive judo would soon become infeasible economically and mentally.  Personally I feel that a great disadvantage coming from New Zealand is lack of experience.  Most of my opponents have been competing around Europe since they were pre-teens, and I only had my first international when I was 18, and that was only a small competition in Australia.  They competed nearly every weekend, I competed maybe 4 or 5 times per year.  However I can’t use this to make excuses, this is the situation and I must deal with it.  I must use my other strengths to compensate, and at the same time try to get as much experience as possible.

After I fought I got various texts from people who had watched my fight online, it made me feel somewhat less alone.  I ate the sandwiches I had made that morning, and had a little sleep.  I watched the Swedish girl’s next fight, and she beat the top seed in our quarter quite convincingly, she is very awkward to deal with.  I felt like going back to the hotel to sleep, but also felt obliged to watch the rest of the day’s fights, which is what I ended up doing.  The Swede lost her next fight, which was the quarter final, but looked like she could have won it, and again lost in the repêchage, placing 7th.  All her opponents struggled with her, which made me feel a little better, but not much.  There was a break for the opening ceremony at 5, and I had a little nap on the warmup area again, which was by now almost empty.  The finals started at 6 with lightweights, and surprisingly all the 48kg matches finished with ippon in a few seconds.  The rest weren’t so quick, and I think all the 63 matches went into golden score.  As soon as the Dutch girl Stam had started holding down the Japanese girl in the final and it was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere, I got my things together and walked to the bus that was waiting outside.  On the ride back to the hotel I heard from some American girls that some rooms had been broken into on the 9th floor, and laptops, money and passports had been stolen.  Very bad news.  Luckily I was on the 13th, and when I got there I was relieved to see my things were fine.  I had a quick shower, then went to the Italian restaurant next door.  I was dismayed to learn they didn’t accept credit cards, and was happy that I was able to talk them into accepting euros, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to have dinner.  A large pizza, full meal salad, and fanta came to 6 euros, which was very decent.  I went back to the hotel and took my laptop down to the lobby to try and get on the internet, but about 20 people had the same idea and the connection was essentially non-existent, so I gave up and went to sleep at 9pm.

This morning I got up at 9am, had some breakfast, packed my bags, and was taken to the airport.  I’m now about to touch down at Gatwick.  It has been a very expensive trip to emphasise an already known weakness, but as Lance said to me it’s better to make mistakes now than in London.  I know what I have to work on, and I have already made a time to work on it with my coach.

Monday morning we have explosive weights.  Rather than doing things like sets of 5 on bench press, or heavy squats, we do plyometric pushups, or triple hops.  The session is relatively short, and we are keen for a hot shower and a hot lunch afterwards.  Living with about 20 full-time judo athletes however means that showers aren’t always hot, and kitchen space is sparse, so sometimes it’s as much of a fight to get the chicken under the grill as it is to get an ippon in randori.  It’s an intense, unusual environment, that not everyone would enjoy, but it produces results.

In the afternoon we relax, or some of us study or work.  Personally I resist the temptation to watch the film the boys have put on in the living room, and sit on my bed starting to write a paper based on my thesis for submission to a journal.  After making a little progress, I take a nap.

At 6:45pm we leave in the minibus for randori at the British Judo Performance Institute in Dartford.  We all chip in £2 for petrol, and listen to music while making the long journey, not talking much.  The session at Dartford starts at 8:15pm, and there are reasonable numbers on the mat.  We do a basic warmup, some newaza drills, some newaza randori, then the mat is separated into two contest size areas with a curtain, and we converge on one side to get more atmosphere for the standing randori.  We divide into women and under 66kg men, and heavyweights, and do randori of either 5 minutes or 3 minutes, with the shorter more intense.  We get about 7 fights each, with a break of the same duration in between while the other group goes on.  The 12 players from Camberley take a quick shower after the session, then pile into the minibus for the drive back, which is even more quiet than the journey there.  Everyone is tired, or thinking about the weekend.  We get back shortly after 11, and I go straight to bed.

Tuesday first thing we have active recovery, which essentially means whatever you want, although most people go for a run.  At 11:30am we have tachiwaza technique.  We warmup as always with ‘the game’, which is a strange mixture of netball and rugby, and loved by all.  We then have a short session consisting of uchikomi, explosive work, speed work, and nagekomi.  We finish shortly after 1, and I head off to make my lunch.

A particular problem for judo players is keeping their weight down so they can compete in the category that suits them.  There are all sorts of crazy stories about crash dieting, and almost everyone has done it at one point, but it is best to bring down weight steadily and well in advance of competitions.  Judo players loosing weight is not like normal people loosing weight, at least not at the elite level.   A normal person frequently just needs to do a bit of exercise and cut out the snacks, and will start to shed some pounds.  An abnormal person, a.k.a. a judo player, however, already does a lot of exercise, and needs to eat loads more than a normal person just to be able to continue training.  Most judo players make weight by adding a distance run to the schedule, usually before breakfast, and cutting down on carbs, particularly late in the day.  Closer to competitions the nasty stuff like food and fluid restriction can come into play, but theoretically most people should be able to keep eating and drinking if the make weight right, and don’t crash diet.  There is always a temptation to binge on bad foods when there isn’t a competition in the next week or so, which means a large percentage of judo players make weight badly a large percentage of the time.  Personally I have struggled to make my current weight group -63kg, not so much because I like bad food, but more because I lack the time, energy and resources (i.e. car and driving license) to get loads of fresh fruit, vegetables and lean protein, which is what I should be eating.  Making weight has been a significant issue for me, to the extent that making weight right has become one of my bigger goals in judo.  After discussions with my manager/boss/all around judo guru Lance, we decided to trial an interesting option, having meals delivered to me by the healthy meal delivery company Nutrichef.  I got my first delivery last Friday, and now the freezer is stocked with two plastic containers for each lunch and dinner for Monday through Sunday, and the fridge has a container for each breakfast.  So far the meals have all been tasty and easy to cook, it’s amazing how much energy I used to spend in trying to figure out what to eat.  I used to often live on toast and cereal, which is exactly the opposite of good nutrition for athletes.  I will see how it goes, and if it’s value for money.

Tuesday night was randori at Camberley, and there were loads on the mat.  It was a great session, although I was quite tired.  We started off with the usual game warmup, then did a bit of uchikomi, before moving into standing randori.  We divided into 2 groups, heavy and light, and did randori of various lengths.  We finished the session with three ippon-win newaza randoris for each group.

Wednesday morning 11am was again randori at Camberley, again with good numbers on the mat.  This time we started with newaza, and I got the chance to beat up Lance (I think he was being nice to me!).  After about 4 rounds we did some tachiwaza uchikomi, then went on to tachiwaza randori.  This time 5 volunteers stood out the front, and partners came out to them.  They did 2 min 30 sec with this partner, then changed partners, did the same with next partner, then the partner stays out.  This means each person gets 5 min randori with 2 different partners.  After a hard session we do a bit of a cool down and stretch, then head off for lunch.

This is where we’ve reached so far in the week.  We have tonight off, then weights and newaza technique tomorrow morning, and optional randori at Camberley tomorrow night.  Friday is no training as we drive up to the trials in Sheffield, and the juniors (U20) fight on Saturday, and the seniors on Sunday.  It should be a good weekend.

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.