Semi-Charmed Life

Photo Blog

After spending a good part of the night trying to convince my friend N to start a blog, I somehow ended up motivating myself to renew my Project 365 efforts. The first time around I ended up stopping because it was such a nuisance to have to carry my camera around all the time. If I chose to use my iPhone to take a picture, there was no easy way to update this blog with the picture.

I went with Tumblr because of its simplicity and its ease of use. I can update my tumblr through my instagram app and I have my phone on me 99% of the time.

Check it out here:

http://boastreefsandwich.tumblr.com

It'll just mostly be pictures with some captions. I'm going to try and stay away from reblogging material, but we'll see how that goes.

SSSHHHHHH!!!!

I've been collecting all these random thoughts that I was planning to break up into separate posts, but who knows if I'll ever get around to doing that or if I'll still remember whatever it was I was thinking about later on.

What do you think is an acceptable level of noise in your apartment on a Saturday night? We had some friends come over Saturday night to have a few beers and play Cranium. Some music playing from my room. I believe around 11 my upstairs neighbor came downstairs and said we were being too loud, and that he had to wake up early.

I lowered the music and throughout the night we tried to contain our voices as much as we could. But I mean, it's a Saturday night, we're drinking beer, and we are freaking playing Cranium. We're not going to be whispering the entire time playing Cranium.

Some time later, possibly a little after midnight, they forego the whole coming downstairs and knocking on our door thing and just start stomping on the floor.

This time I was annoyed. I thought we were at an acceptable indoor volume level. It's a Saturday night. This is our apartment. Nobody's dancing. No music is being played at this point. We all were talking at what I thought was a reasonable level.

So at this point, should I have acquiesced to their demands that we shut down the whole operation? Kick everyone out and call it a night? We tried to finish our last game quickly, but the fun was already beginning to fade. Being sucked out by the boring fuddy duddys that live upstairs who started to stomp on the floor intermittently.

Even by the time everybody left, a little after 2am, when it was just my roommates and I talking they yet AGAIN gave a few emphatic foot stomps. At what point is it on them to just accept that it's the fault of house that we live in? This is probably the first time we've had a gathering at our apartment, so it's not a regular thing.

The worst part is now somebody is being a little passive aggressively vindictive by slamming all their doors and stomping really hard on the floor when they walk. They can do that all day because personally it doesn't bother me. I find it pretty amusing that people can be so passive aggressive.

Okay I lied in my beginning paragraph. This took longer to write than I expected, as I was plagued with pangs of ADD attacks and jumped from website to website browsing.

And I'm tired.
GOOD NIGHT!

Losing

“When you win, you don't examine it very much, except to congratulate yourself. You easily, and wrongly, assume it has something to do with your rare qualities as a person. But winning only measures how hard you've worked and how physically... talented you are; it doesn't particularly define you beyond those characteristics.

Losing on the other hand, really does say something about who you are. Among other things it measures are: do you blame others, or do you own the loss? Do you analyze your failure, or just complain about bad luck?

If you're willing to examine failure, and to look not just at your outward physical performance, but your internal workings, too, losing can be valuable. How you behave in those moments can perhaps be more self-defining than inning could ever be. Sometimes losing shows you for who you really are.”
― Lance Armstrong

I competed in another tournament on Saturday and lost the match 0-0, 2 advantages to 1. After a brief attempt at competing for grips while standing, I decided to pull guard because I did not feel confident in a standing exchange for a takedown. Poor execution led me to land in half guard instead, which is not a position I am very offensive in. I was able to maintain my underhook and prevent him from passing. I was able to eventually slide into deep half guard, which is a position I'm much more more comfortable in. I worked for a sweep and ALMOST slipped out the backdoor to take his back but I made a costly mistake by not keeping a hook on his leg, which allowed him to swing it around and recompose himself. I got no points but 1 advantage point for that.

He ends up going for a knee cut pass and I try to stave it off in a reverse de la riva position. I was trying to work for an inverted sweep to back take but was never able to invert myself properly. I'm not sure if it was because he was too low or if it was some other technical error on my part. He ends up freeing his leg from my hook and almost passed my guard but he was never able to fully establish control of me for 3 seconds. 1 advantage for him.

I scrambled to a turtle position and he nearly takes my back but he goes too high up and I slipped out the back door when time runs out. He does not get points for taking my back but he gets the advantage for the near attempt.

I'm disappointed in myself because it definitely felt like a match that I had the ability to win. Losing is NEVER a good feeling, especially in a contest solely between two individuals in a sport where the core principle is to physically dominate your opponent. After losing, I don't want to talk to anybody or see anybody. I don't want to hear good job or anything like that. I just want to sit alone for a bit and let the feeling pass.

There are a few positive takeaways though.

My nerves are affecting me less now. The first three tournaments I competed in, the entire match is like a blur to me. The adrenaline also got me to tense up way too much and my body overall felt like it was stiff and unresponsive. In this match I felt like my faculties were there and I felt pretty loose. I was not very nervous going into it, and when the adrenaline kicked in when I stepped on the mat my mind felt like it was still clear.

The footage that of my matches is incredibly valuable. I love being able to see what I did wrong or what I could have done differently at any point in the match. I have a handful of things I'm now meaning to work on for the next few weeks.

People that know me well know that I am not a competitive person by nature. I am not driven by the will to win. I wish I was, but I just do not have that cut throat competitive edge. I am driven by the desire to learn. I don't enjoy  competing, but I see it as an incredibly useful too to improve my jiu jitsu. If you have made this far then you deserve to see my losing match if you're curious.