After one year of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) training, I got 4 blue stripes on my white belt. The next step in the progession of BJJ is your blue belt, which is the next biggest step heading towards black belt.
The syllabus requires 6 months of training and minimum of 60 classes before you can get your blue belt, and even then you may not get it. The only way you get it is if they deem you worthy enough to get it, having seen you train over time.
So come July of 2009, 6 months of having 4 blue stripes I didn't get my blue belt, my brother did though, but he's a BJJ machine. I knew I wouldn't be getting it anyway as I was busy with uni, and having night classes also meant not being able to attend training, so I missed a lot of classes.
Come September of 2009, I was semi-confident that I would get my blue belt, but alas, it was still not my time, which made sense as I didn't really impress when I entered in a BJJ competition and lost in the first round via submission.
Come December 8th of 2009, I still wasn't sure. I had taken a month off prior due to university assignments and the flu so I couldn't go to classes to train. I returned in time for grading practice, two weeks ago. All four stripers had to do the same thing they did back when they had get their four stripes, that is show 50 techniques in 10 minutes. I was comfortable with all the techniques and the only problem was remembering them in an order that flowed well enough. Today, while waiting in line at Centrelink to hand in forms I took out my mobile cellular telephone and mapped out how I was going to do the techniques and in what order.
Come grading night I was feeling pretty confident in my ability. The instructors were also looking to really test us as well, making us grade the 3rd stripers moving onto 4th stripe. This was pretty daunting trying to count how many moves a person is doing and trying to make sure it reached 50, and if it didn't knowing which move they missed out. Fortunately it was alright, and the guy only missed out on one move, at least it should've been only that one move...
Then it was my turn, I had a minor mind-blank part way but finished in what was probably less than 8 minutes with a couple of minutes to sit around and watch the others finish.
After everyone showed off their technique in order to grade to the next level it was time for wrestling. We did 5 rounds, and as there were 5 of us who were on our 4th stripe, this meant the 2 instructors would wrestle all 5 of us, I suppose to really test us out.
The first instructor I wrestled was a brown belt, and the brother of Elvis Sinosic (who will be fighting in UFC 110 come February), he choked me out twice and both from side control position, a position I am very weak at, so I gotta work on that. The second instructor I wrestled was black belt Anthony Perosh (who hopefully will be fighting in UFC 110 come February). Knowing he would work for a forearm choke (think forearm crushing your neck, choking you), I worked to defend it, but could only resist the inevitable for so long before getting tapped out. We start again and I try to jump on top, only to get sweeped back onto the ground, what ensued afterwards was a 90+ kg man crushing a 64kg man with various body parts for a few minutes. He got me in knee ride (knee on belly, it hurts), I tried to counter, pushing his knee (which you shouldn't do but it was too painful not to), he countered this by putting his other knee on my belly, thus two knees on me, meaning all of his body weight on me. I scooted back to relieve pressure, he climbed higher with his knees onto my chest, then head, followed by shin to head, shoulder to head, back and forth, until 5 minutes of wrestling time ran out. Not something I want to go through again, thats for sure.
After wrestling we lined up for presentations and the instructors had 3 blue belts, meaning 2 of us wouldn't be getting our blue belts. The first two names were announced and neither of them were my name, so I was starting to feel anxious and worried, fortunately the third name was mine, and I finally achieved my BJJ goal of the year of getting my blue belt, at the last grading of the year no less.
The only problem now is everyone will think I'm good. So I had better start training to be good and show that I'm worthy of this belt.
So two years of training, with a few months taken off here and there and I am now a blue belt. Another 2-3 years and I'll get my purple belt. But for now, I'm fine being blue, it is my favourite colour after all...
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
My Film Animation
Last semester I took a subject called Film Animation, it was a core subject and our lecturer/tutor was a professional animator and also a very laid back guy.
So laid back that in the end we just worked on the one assessment, when there was supposed to be two or something. We learnt how to use old school cameras, hand held ones that shouldn't be hand held because they're quite heavy and holding them for long periods of time would cause you to do a very slow pan down to the ground and the other type of camera was used for 2D animation, called an Oxberry camera.
The oxberry camera was cool, and was basically a top down camera, you put a piece of paper onto a platform, take a picture, change the paper to the next one, take a picture and so forth until you finish your animation. Thats a pretty bad explanation of what the camera is but if you want more information, google is your friend, I'm just your mate.
So our assignment was to work in groups and make an animation of anything, done in any style we want. A group did pixellation (Example Here), another did cut out animation, another did claymation (like Nightmare before Christmas or Coraline) another did 2D animation and our group did 2D animation.
There was four people in our group and we had to work together to make one piece of animation. Knowing that I sucked at drawing compared to the other people if we did one piece of animation using one style of art when it came to my scenes they would look horrible compared to the other scenes. One idea was to have people focus on certain parts of the animation, for example one person just does the main character, I just do backgrounds and so forth but this meant lots of meeting up and stuff to get things done, and who wants to meet up with their group?
I then took the Simpsons route and pitched the idea of a main character travelling through different worlds, and each worlds is taken care of by each animator, meaning four worlds all up. The character would travel to each world via a remote control, where it came from, nobody cares...
This idea was well received and we went ahead with the idea. The character would remain similar looking throughout the whole animation and each person's part would take 30 or so seconds each. Some people had high expectations for themselves, thinking they could do Disney-esque type animation, I took an easier path and did cut outs of my character and world. I decided to go with lots of colours and a bright world for my part, as the other worlds were different. So I went with the brightest and most colourful world I knew, the Mario world!
Now, the problem with Oxberry cameras is that you cannot go back, once you take a picture, thats it, so lots of people planned their scenes before hand. Timing everything out so that the animation would look good. I had cut outs however, and didn't find the time to time everything out properly. So I did a rough timing out of my animation and come filming day what I did was the first time I animated my part, which was quite interesting. Fortunately, I could edit it in post and did so to drag some frames out or to cut some frames out to make the animation flow better.
Overall I was pleased with my part, but compared to the other parts (particularly the first and last part), I pale in comparison. 2D animation is not my thing however, 3D is where I'm at. I'll have to compile some of the stuff I did this semester to show you guys, but that'll be another blog.
The subject was pretty fun because it was so laid back, we had no worries about failing because the lecturer was so care-free, he seemed like one of those stoner guys. A whole semester and one assignment, which produced a good result, I ain't complaining!
So laid back that in the end we just worked on the one assessment, when there was supposed to be two or something. We learnt how to use old school cameras, hand held ones that shouldn't be hand held because they're quite heavy and holding them for long periods of time would cause you to do a very slow pan down to the ground and the other type of camera was used for 2D animation, called an Oxberry camera.
The oxberry camera was cool, and was basically a top down camera, you put a piece of paper onto a platform, take a picture, change the paper to the next one, take a picture and so forth until you finish your animation. Thats a pretty bad explanation of what the camera is but if you want more information, google is your friend, I'm just your mate.
So our assignment was to work in groups and make an animation of anything, done in any style we want. A group did pixellation (Example Here), another did cut out animation, another did claymation (like Nightmare before Christmas or Coraline) another did 2D animation and our group did 2D animation.
There was four people in our group and we had to work together to make one piece of animation. Knowing that I sucked at drawing compared to the other people if we did one piece of animation using one style of art when it came to my scenes they would look horrible compared to the other scenes. One idea was to have people focus on certain parts of the animation, for example one person just does the main character, I just do backgrounds and so forth but this meant lots of meeting up and stuff to get things done, and who wants to meet up with their group?
I then took the Simpsons route and pitched the idea of a main character travelling through different worlds, and each worlds is taken care of by each animator, meaning four worlds all up. The character would travel to each world via a remote control, where it came from, nobody cares...
This idea was well received and we went ahead with the idea. The character would remain similar looking throughout the whole animation and each person's part would take 30 or so seconds each. Some people had high expectations for themselves, thinking they could do Disney-esque type animation, I took an easier path and did cut outs of my character and world. I decided to go with lots of colours and a bright world for my part, as the other worlds were different. So I went with the brightest and most colourful world I knew, the Mario world!
Now, the problem with Oxberry cameras is that you cannot go back, once you take a picture, thats it, so lots of people planned their scenes before hand. Timing everything out so that the animation would look good. I had cut outs however, and didn't find the time to time everything out properly. So I did a rough timing out of my animation and come filming day what I did was the first time I animated my part, which was quite interesting. Fortunately, I could edit it in post and did so to drag some frames out or to cut some frames out to make the animation flow better.
Overall I was pleased with my part, but compared to the other parts (particularly the first and last part), I pale in comparison. 2D animation is not my thing however, 3D is where I'm at. I'll have to compile some of the stuff I did this semester to show you guys, but that'll be another blog.
The subject was pretty fun because it was so laid back, we had no worries about failing because the lecturer was so care-free, he seemed like one of those stoner guys. A whole semester and one assignment, which produced a good result, I ain't complaining!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
My King of a Poem
There once was a man who would be King
He had to be at the center of everything
We'd turn him around, thinking we'd be safe and sound
And focused our attention on another friend we found
But he'd find a way back in the center again
Causing us all a very great pain
A pain neverending that it gave us quite a scare
For the King was here, there and everywhere
In this mixed up world of ours, things aren't as they say
For we took the King and sent him to a place far, far away
Allowing us to finally stay and play
But somehow this man who would be King
Found a way to be the center of everything
He had to be at the center of everything
We'd turn him around, thinking we'd be safe and sound
And focused our attention on another friend we found
But he'd find a way back in the center again
Causing us all a very great pain
A pain neverending that it gave us quite a scare
For the King was here, there and everywhere
In this mixed up world of ours, things aren't as they say
For we took the King and sent him to a place far, far away
Allowing us to finally stay and play
But somehow this man who would be King
Found a way to be the center of everything
Saturday, September 12, 2009
My Intimate Evening of Grand Illusion
August 8th 2009 - David Copperfield finally returns to Australia after some 10 years of not returning to Australia to do a few magic shows for us, and I went!
Here's the basic gist of what happened and just for fun how I think it happened, or didn't happen.
We (Rose and I) got floor seats, my parents got Bronze seats and they found us before we could find them so we lost that "Where's Wally" type game. Come 8pm or so the show starts with a video montage of Copperfield in the media ending with him coming out to our applause.
He started off with a simple cross arm twisting thing that everyone did, I'm sure some of you know the
little trick.
[Anyone can do this]
Next he did a steel plate penetration effect. The basic look of the effect is like a bunk bed, Copperfield lies on the bottom bunk, when the bunk above him is a steel plate that is basically infront of his face by a few cm's. A cloth is spread across the bunk bed and slowly, but surely Copperfield wakes up, going through the steel plate to standing on the steel plate.
[No idea how it's done, but I think Copperfield has the power to go through objects]
The cool thing about the show was Copperfield interaction with the crowd, getting us to clap and walking through the crowd to pick someone to go on stage with him and the next effect was one that required a ring, so of course he picked a girl. Showing a tiny baby shoe he put that into his back pocket after it has been examined by the girl and then took the girl's ring, joked about how cheap it was then made it disappear, only to have it reappear in his tiny little shoe in his back pocket, trapped in the loop of the shoe lace. Untieing the shoe lace, the ring was returned to the girl free of charge.
[Copperfield mucked up the trick the first time, and had to do it again, but I don't think anyone noticed. I know how this one is done, but I'm not telling how, just incase one day I want to do something similar]
The next illusion involved borrowing a shiny red tie from one of the audience members. With hundreds of shows done, there always seems to be someone in the first few rows who happens to wear a shiny red tie. This illusion was a fun one, making the tie dance around on its own, singing along to the song played, putting the tie into a box, having it continue to sing and dance with no one touching it, it was fun to watch. In the end three other ties pop out of a box and sing and dance before jumping out of the box, dying in the process and the shiny red tie is returned to the person who wore it after the song is over.
[I think most people have a good idea how this is done (magical strings), but I just loved how well the tie was being manipulated]
Next was a card trick! Picking two women from the crowd Copperfield pulled out a scorpion in a box and made one of the women hold the box, freaking her out to our amusement. After some teasing, trying to make the other woman touch the scorpion he had her pick a card, lost the card into the deck, had her shuffle the deck and then made a fan with the cards, picked up the scorpion with his barehands and lowered it onto the fan. The scorpion then managed to pick the right card with it's pincers. Quite cool.
[The scorpion was taught very well]
Next was an illusion, one I really liked because it was extremely visual. Getting into a box, with his head, feet and hands the only things you can see Copperfield shrinks himself down so just a head, small box, hands and feet. After which the platform is revolved to show how small he is. A very cool illusion. He then made a joke about John Howard and how short he was but got a "oooooh" reaction from the crowd to which he replied "Thats what they told me to say".
[Copperfield is a robot, that can shrink]
The longest part of the night would be the Grandfather prediction. Telling a story about his grandfather and how he played lotto and wanted a fancy car he attempts to have us predict those numbers, along with two other things. All throughout the night there was a briefcase hanging infront of the stage, which contains those predictions, so now we're about to find out if Copperfield is right.
3 people chose 2 different double digit numbers, resulting in 6 numbers (for lotto), someone was asked to specify a time for when he last was uh..in bed and I think the last person said what colour underwear they were wearing. The briefcase is opened, showing a piece of paper and a tape, playing the tape the numbers are revealed to be correct, the number of hours since was right and the colour of the persons underwear was right. To top that off, two number plates were brought out, which had the lotto numbers on them. Two pedastals were then put in the middle of the stage, people were standing around the pedastal, two people hugged the pedastals and a giant curtain was draped around the top of the pedastals and 5 seconds later it was taken away revealing what probably was the car the grandfather wanted. It was a pretty amazing reveal, seeing a whole car in the middle of the stage.
And just to prove it was real, Copperfield jumped into the car and turned it on.
[Prediction plot can be worked out. Car reveal can be speculated upon but otherwise I have no idea]
At some point he showed a video of one of his escapes, the one where he hangs upsidedown, escaping from a straitjacket held by a burning rope, dangling above flaming spikes. He makes it and escapes.
Throughout the show, one two occasions a duck walks across the stage, interrupting Copperfield as he talks to the crowd. Well, now it was time for the duck to do his trick.
Here's a video of the effect, saving me from explaining it.
I will say that it's cool how the spectator joins in and does the slow motion run too, which always happens. The only difference between this one and the one I saw was the "other" duck "pee'd" on the crowd as he made it's way to the bucket.
[The duck can teleport]
The floating paper/rose was next. And the internet has a video of this too!
When Copperfield started to fold the paper into a rose I was all "Noooo!" because I wanted to do that for Rose, but now she's seen Copperfield do it first. Oh well, I'll still do it anyway, eventually.
[I have an idea how its done, and should learn to do it, and to do it as well as Copperfield]
The fan illusion was something I had read a bit about. I read that someone got injured during the illusion (one of Copperfield's people) so I was interested to see this illusion.
Basically, a giant fan is shown, from side on a platform is on one side. Copperfield walks through the fan, but doesn't appear out the other side. Rather, he decides to appear in the middle of the crowd, on top of a box with fans to blow the amazement around. This illusion made me go "Woah!", mainly because he appeared in the section infront of me so it was pretty close.
I like how a lot of people went to look at the box after the show to see if there was anything but nup, just a normal box with fans.
[Either Copperfield knows inta-teleportation or there was a double involved, you take your pick]
Pretending to finish the show he goes off stage, only to return to do his final illusion, which was awesome. Grey balls are thrown into the crowd, thirteen in total. I was hoping to catch one but didn't get close at all. Some people are seated on the stage to keep an eye on things and the rest are directed to sit on a platform with seats. A curtain is draped around the platform with the people and they are given torches to shine while seated. After shining their torches for a while they all turn off, the curtain is taken away and they are all gone! Copperfield points into the crowd and all those people who disappeared are standing behind the section I'm in waving their torches about. A very magical ending to the show indeed.
[At some point the people disappear and make their way to the back, but how they disappeared I've no clue, so awesome]
Overall it was a good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It went for an hour and a half which is pretty good timing, but I would've liked it to go a bit longer. Makes me want to be a magician!
Here's the basic gist of what happened and just for fun how I think it happened, or didn't happen.
We (Rose and I) got floor seats, my parents got Bronze seats and they found us before we could find them so we lost that "Where's Wally" type game. Come 8pm or so the show starts with a video montage of Copperfield in the media ending with him coming out to our applause.
He started off with a simple cross arm twisting thing that everyone did, I'm sure some of you know the
little trick.
[Anyone can do this]
Next he did a steel plate penetration effect. The basic look of the effect is like a bunk bed, Copperfield lies on the bottom bunk, when the bunk above him is a steel plate that is basically infront of his face by a few cm's. A cloth is spread across the bunk bed and slowly, but surely Copperfield wakes up, going through the steel plate to standing on the steel plate.
[No idea how it's done, but I think Copperfield has the power to go through objects]
The cool thing about the show was Copperfield interaction with the crowd, getting us to clap and walking through the crowd to pick someone to go on stage with him and the next effect was one that required a ring, so of course he picked a girl. Showing a tiny baby shoe he put that into his back pocket after it has been examined by the girl and then took the girl's ring, joked about how cheap it was then made it disappear, only to have it reappear in his tiny little shoe in his back pocket, trapped in the loop of the shoe lace. Untieing the shoe lace, the ring was returned to the girl free of charge.
[Copperfield mucked up the trick the first time, and had to do it again, but I don't think anyone noticed. I know how this one is done, but I'm not telling how, just incase one day I want to do something similar]
The next illusion involved borrowing a shiny red tie from one of the audience members. With hundreds of shows done, there always seems to be someone in the first few rows who happens to wear a shiny red tie. This illusion was a fun one, making the tie dance around on its own, singing along to the song played, putting the tie into a box, having it continue to sing and dance with no one touching it, it was fun to watch. In the end three other ties pop out of a box and sing and dance before jumping out of the box, dying in the process and the shiny red tie is returned to the person who wore it after the song is over.
[I think most people have a good idea how this is done (magical strings), but I just loved how well the tie was being manipulated]
Next was a card trick! Picking two women from the crowd Copperfield pulled out a scorpion in a box and made one of the women hold the box, freaking her out to our amusement. After some teasing, trying to make the other woman touch the scorpion he had her pick a card, lost the card into the deck, had her shuffle the deck and then made a fan with the cards, picked up the scorpion with his barehands and lowered it onto the fan. The scorpion then managed to pick the right card with it's pincers. Quite cool.
[The scorpion was taught very well]
Next was an illusion, one I really liked because it was extremely visual. Getting into a box, with his head, feet and hands the only things you can see Copperfield shrinks himself down so just a head, small box, hands and feet. After which the platform is revolved to show how small he is. A very cool illusion. He then made a joke about John Howard and how short he was but got a "oooooh" reaction from the crowd to which he replied "Thats what they told me to say".
[Copperfield is a robot, that can shrink]
The longest part of the night would be the Grandfather prediction. Telling a story about his grandfather and how he played lotto and wanted a fancy car he attempts to have us predict those numbers, along with two other things. All throughout the night there was a briefcase hanging infront of the stage, which contains those predictions, so now we're about to find out if Copperfield is right.
3 people chose 2 different double digit numbers, resulting in 6 numbers (for lotto), someone was asked to specify a time for when he last was uh..in bed and I think the last person said what colour underwear they were wearing. The briefcase is opened, showing a piece of paper and a tape, playing the tape the numbers are revealed to be correct, the number of hours since was right and the colour of the persons underwear was right. To top that off, two number plates were brought out, which had the lotto numbers on them. Two pedastals were then put in the middle of the stage, people were standing around the pedastal, two people hugged the pedastals and a giant curtain was draped around the top of the pedastals and 5 seconds later it was taken away revealing what probably was the car the grandfather wanted. It was a pretty amazing reveal, seeing a whole car in the middle of the stage.
And just to prove it was real, Copperfield jumped into the car and turned it on.
[Prediction plot can be worked out. Car reveal can be speculated upon but otherwise I have no idea]
At some point he showed a video of one of his escapes, the one where he hangs upsidedown, escaping from a straitjacket held by a burning rope, dangling above flaming spikes. He makes it and escapes.
Throughout the show, one two occasions a duck walks across the stage, interrupting Copperfield as he talks to the crowd. Well, now it was time for the duck to do his trick.
Here's a video of the effect, saving me from explaining it.
I will say that it's cool how the spectator joins in and does the slow motion run too, which always happens. The only difference between this one and the one I saw was the "other" duck "pee'd" on the crowd as he made it's way to the bucket.
[The duck can teleport]
The floating paper/rose was next. And the internet has a video of this too!
When Copperfield started to fold the paper into a rose I was all "Noooo!" because I wanted to do that for Rose, but now she's seen Copperfield do it first. Oh well, I'll still do it anyway, eventually.
[I have an idea how its done, and should learn to do it, and to do it as well as Copperfield]
The fan illusion was something I had read a bit about. I read that someone got injured during the illusion (one of Copperfield's people) so I was interested to see this illusion.
Basically, a giant fan is shown, from side on a platform is on one side. Copperfield walks through the fan, but doesn't appear out the other side. Rather, he decides to appear in the middle of the crowd, on top of a box with fans to blow the amazement around. This illusion made me go "Woah!", mainly because he appeared in the section infront of me so it was pretty close.
I like how a lot of people went to look at the box after the show to see if there was anything but nup, just a normal box with fans.
[Either Copperfield knows inta-teleportation or there was a double involved, you take your pick]
Pretending to finish the show he goes off stage, only to return to do his final illusion, which was awesome. Grey balls are thrown into the crowd, thirteen in total. I was hoping to catch one but didn't get close at all. Some people are seated on the stage to keep an eye on things and the rest are directed to sit on a platform with seats. A curtain is draped around the platform with the people and they are given torches to shine while seated. After shining their torches for a while they all turn off, the curtain is taken away and they are all gone! Copperfield points into the crowd and all those people who disappeared are standing behind the section I'm in waving their torches about. A very magical ending to the show indeed.
[At some point the people disappear and make their way to the back, but how they disappeared I've no clue, so awesome]
Overall it was a good show and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It went for an hour and a half which is pretty good timing, but I would've liked it to go a bit longer. Makes me want to be a magician!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
My Second BJJ Competition
On Sunday the 2nd of August 2009 I entered my second BJJ competition.
I would've entered more during the year but wasn't able to due to various things such as no free Sundays. But finally I've got a free Sunday and used it to enter this competition to see how I've improved (or not) over the last year since my last competition.
One thing that changed was my weight, I could no longer enter in the under 61kg division and had to step up to the 61 to 67kg division, a tough division. So I was happy I gained weight, now I just need to gain weight so I'm in the top of the division (ie. 67kg) and have that slight weight advantage.
All I knew about my matchup was the name of the person I would be wrestling in the first round. There were 16 people in my round, so to come first I'd have to beat 4 people, a very tiring feat, considering that after my first and only round in my first competition I was so tired I couldn't hold a bottle properly, though that could also be attributed to not warming up beforehand.
This time I did warm up.
We were ushered into the marshalling area where we were to wait for our name to be called out. We were also told we were not allowed to wear a shirt or rashguard underneath our gi's or a cup, so I had to rush to the bathroom to remove my cup, putting myself in more than enough danger.
I was a bit nervous too, I think it was because of the whole unknown thing, not knowing who it was I was wrestling or when I would be, so I found it hard to put my mouthguard in my mouth, almost gagging each time I go to put it in. Eventually I got it in my mouth so I just kept it in there, and waited until I was called up.
So I was called up and 30 seconds later, came back out as I lost to a rear naked choke, which feels a lot worse than it sounds. I was quite disappointed as in the weeks prior during training while wrestling I would often give up my back to my opponents and then proceed to escape. Unfortunately in competition, people tend to go all out and give it all when they wrestle, and when someone's arms are around your neck choking you out with all their might, unless you counter it, or feel like passing out, you gotta tap. The thing I didn't like most is that I knew how to defend against the choke, but never did it, I only knew from watching the UFC, but now I know for sure how to defend it.
The next competition is on November 8, the Sunday after all my assessments are done so I'll be pretty stressless. I plan to enter and get pass the first round this time.
There's also another competition in September at Sydney Uni which I might enter for the heck of it, to get competition experience. Either way, my BJJ record is now 1-1, can't let it go below 50%!
The camera man saved me from a visual embarrassment, even though I would've liked to see his grip around my head....
I would've entered more during the year but wasn't able to due to various things such as no free Sundays. But finally I've got a free Sunday and used it to enter this competition to see how I've improved (or not) over the last year since my last competition.
One thing that changed was my weight, I could no longer enter in the under 61kg division and had to step up to the 61 to 67kg division, a tough division. So I was happy I gained weight, now I just need to gain weight so I'm in the top of the division (ie. 67kg) and have that slight weight advantage.
All I knew about my matchup was the name of the person I would be wrestling in the first round. There were 16 people in my round, so to come first I'd have to beat 4 people, a very tiring feat, considering that after my first and only round in my first competition I was so tired I couldn't hold a bottle properly, though that could also be attributed to not warming up beforehand.
This time I did warm up.
We were ushered into the marshalling area where we were to wait for our name to be called out. We were also told we were not allowed to wear a shirt or rashguard underneath our gi's or a cup, so I had to rush to the bathroom to remove my cup, putting myself in more than enough danger.
I was a bit nervous too, I think it was because of the whole unknown thing, not knowing who it was I was wrestling or when I would be, so I found it hard to put my mouthguard in my mouth, almost gagging each time I go to put it in. Eventually I got it in my mouth so I just kept it in there, and waited until I was called up.
So I was called up and 30 seconds later, came back out as I lost to a rear naked choke, which feels a lot worse than it sounds. I was quite disappointed as in the weeks prior during training while wrestling I would often give up my back to my opponents and then proceed to escape. Unfortunately in competition, people tend to go all out and give it all when they wrestle, and when someone's arms are around your neck choking you out with all their might, unless you counter it, or feel like passing out, you gotta tap. The thing I didn't like most is that I knew how to defend against the choke, but never did it, I only knew from watching the UFC, but now I know for sure how to defend it.
The next competition is on November 8, the Sunday after all my assessments are done so I'll be pretty stressless. I plan to enter and get pass the first round this time.
There's also another competition in September at Sydney Uni which I might enter for the heck of it, to get competition experience. Either way, my BJJ record is now 1-1, can't let it go below 50%!
The camera man saved me from a visual embarrassment, even though I would've liked to see his grip around my head....
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