Right away my inner monologue kicks in "Look at the fucking size of him!!". Then the guy who is telling us the rules, starts announcing the first match ups. "Don't be matched with THAT guy! PLEASE Don't be matched with THAT guy!" and of COURSE I was matched with who me and my buddy had given the moniker "Mini Brock Lesnar!"
So - we get on the mat and my heart is racing like a lab rat. I'm across the way from the dude and he decides to take his tee off! "Oh for fucks sake!! Look at the size of him!". Then I'm thinking "You know what...he's man...just like me dammit!! Fuck this shit...lets go Tim".
The buzzer sounds and after a few moments, he goes for a single leg take down. Before I know it I'm on my back with this BEAST on top of me and my last thought before the 5 minutes of defending myself from submissions was "Yeah...he's not like me. He's WAAAAAAAAAY stronger!".
Suffice to say, I lost that match and the 2 others that followed. They had beaten me fair and square but I had also helped them do it. I froze! I'd allowed my nerves to get the better of me and I was close to just throwing it all in and saying "Bollocks to this!".
Skip to my next competition and I get beaten again by pretty much all of my opponents (except one dude who hadn't been there for that long). "Yeah...forget this mate...it's a young mans game...it's not for you buddy!" - (My inner monologue mixed with my ego trying to save me from any further anguish).
Skip to my next competition and I get beaten again by pretty much all of my opponents (except one dude who hadn't been there for that long). "Yeah...forget this mate...it's a young mans game...it's not for you buddy!" - (My inner monologue mixed with my ego trying to save me from any further anguish).
I was just convinced that I sucked and was going to suck forever. Yeah...scratch this competition shit! I figured that if at the very least I kept attending sessions...while I wouldn't get good...it was at least a good workout. So I'd do a few sessions here and there...miss a bunch of sessions...do a bunch of sessions and half ass it for the most part. Then one day my instructor Martyn writes a Facebook post that resonated with me in a massive way (I'm paraphrasing it a bit to make it sound a touch more gangster)
"Don't bitch about the results you didn't get, with the work you didn't put in!"
"Don't bitch about the results you didn't get, with the work you didn't put in!"
Now, I try to be honest with myself - it helps progression in all forms of life and I had to admit...I was being a lazy, self sabotaging bum! So I decided that I was going to do this competition thing again. I wasn't worried about the winning or the losing because this is not what all this was about. This was about getting past the nerves. This was about finally conquering something that had been with me far longer than at the time, I had realised...
When I was a young kid - I was FAST! I could run like the dickens and I was easily 1 of the top 2 fastest kids in my year. I'm around 7 years old and it's my first year in primary school. My sister goes to the same school and she's 3 years ahead of me (she was fast too). So - every year there's a sports day where all the fastest kids from all the schools in the region get together and basically see which kids are the fastest. In the great scheme of things, it's quite insignificant but for me at the time - it was the Olympics! I had the speed and qualifying should have been a mere formality - all I had to do was run and I'd get to the regional match ups. So the race begins and to my left and to my right are the kids in my year that I've blitzed so many times before.
Silence...
this is it, come 3rd or higher and I'm in!
BOOM! And we're off! My legs were jelly, my heart was racing and my sister was on the sidelines screaming "COMON' TIMOTHY!!" (The only person alive allowed to call me that). The race ends...and I come 5th. 5th!!! So...I didn't make the regionals. I was distraught and far too young to realise that I'd allowed my nerves to get the better of me. My opponents didn't beat me - I beat me! After that...running wasn't so fun any more and it pretty much tailed off after that.
So when I finally realised that how I felt all those years ago, was how I felt when I stepped on the mat for that first match more than 20 years later - I HAD to do something about it!
"No more being slack, no more self sabotage...you're going to put yourself through the fire until you can get this done!"
I remember the match where I finally achieved what I had wanted to. My dad was there with one of my closest friends and my 2 little brothers. The match was with a guy called James Orton. He beat me fair and square and I was perfectly fine with that because it was actually him beating me. He had more skill, better technique and I came off the mat smiling from ear to ear!
I remember the match where I finally achieved what I had wanted to. My dad was there with one of my closest friends and my 2 little brothers. The match was with a guy called James Orton. He beat me fair and square and I was perfectly fine with that because it was actually him beating me. He had more skill, better technique and I came off the mat smiling from ear to ear!
I've never wanted to be the best...I don't really care about things like that. The entire reason for my doing jiu jitsu in the first place was for my personal development and if that wasn't a step in the right direction - I don't know what was.
If you don't give up...eventually you have to make some form of progress. If I had decided to throw it all in, I would not be the person I am today!
Until the next post
Peace and Love beautiful people! :)
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