There might be something wrong with me. After all the anguish and frustration from being injured. All the work and patience to return to training. Even with a thick scar running down my arm as a reminder. Four months after breaking my arm, three months after returning to the mats (and even that might’ve been too fast), I found myself driving across Georgia towards another New Breed competition. The usual butterflies and nausea surging through my body. Yet there I was, jumping right back on the horse after it bucked me off just a short time ago.
Last time I competed at a New Breed, only a handful of Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu athletes competed. Yet we came home with the third place banner. A few months later, while I was in Seattle breaking my arm, they rose to second place. This time, we had our sights set on the team trophy. It felt like just about everyone at Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu signed up to compete. Clueless white belts through slightly less clueless blue belts. All hoping to contribute towards team points.
Despite my health concerns, I got swept up in the excitement as well. This time, though, only committing to the Gi portion of the tournament. This New Breed functioned as my first “real” blue belt tournament. Not my minute or two of a NAGA before breaking my arm and rushing to the ER. Not sure anyone can really counts that towards “experience.” Or maybe closer to “character building” in the way Calvin’s dad (from Calvin and Hobbes) defined life’s struggles. Surely, though, I didn’t come away with a lot of technical and tactical lessons from the day. At least not in the way competitions should be used for training feedback. So this felt like the first “real” competition at blue belt. Or at least one I could imagine not rushing off to the ER sometime during my first match.
Since the injury, I hadn’t trained No Gi at all. Part of it had to do with breaking my arm in a No Gi match. A lot of it, though, had to do with simply not caring much about No Gi. The past few months of growth have been in the Gi – DLR, Collar Sleeve, Collar Drags, pretty much anything on AOJ Online. Further, and a bit more honestly, this was during the rise of leg attacks and my 36 year-old body wasn’t exactly sold on putting my knees at risk. I could handle ankles, but for some reason I imagined my CLs (ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL) turning to dust like a vampire in the sun when heel hooks and reaping remained on the table. Hence, I only signed up for the Gi portion of the competition.
I didn’t give much thought about the tournament until the day of. I trained as I usually did. Drilled as I usually did. Studied as I usually did. Really, though, I believed the “win” entailed returning to the competition mats. Not necessarily a gold medal. Instead a boost of confidence to keep going despite my setback earlier that year. That being said, I wanted to “contribute” to the team points as much as I could (hopefully with a gold).
##
The day of competition arrived before I knew it. With another great turnout by Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu, a bevy of teammates ran around the mats competing in No Gi. Between matches, I sat with Kennith Jackson (KJ) to watch his bracket unfold. Quite a few of his opponents also signed up for the Gi portion (the bracket both of us signed up for). Soon enough KJ’s finals arrived. I watched and cheered as he decisively won gold. As we waited for the third place division to end, we liked our chances of closing our Gi division. There was no animosity or side eyes as we realized we’d be competing in the same bracket. Instead, I knew how tough he was and, according to him, my technical aptitude gave him problems.
##
For being from the same academy, they placed KJ and I on opposite sides of the bracket. The No-Gi silver medalist would be my semi-finals (and second) opponent. If I got that far. Up first, though, was a guy that lost in the first round of the No Gi division.
Compared to my previous competitions, I started out incredibly aggressive. Confident and focused on dictating from the start. I found a cross collar grip from the feet and fully sent a collar drag. I landed on top as he scrambled to half guard. I remember passing, but then being too attached as he bridged for a reversal. I pulled him into my closed guard and took a breath. I was still up on points, but not sure what to do as my mind raced through too many techniques. I could’ve clung to closed guard and wore out the clock. That would be the white belt thing to do. The simple thing. The thing that, yes, would’ve kept me safe and eke out a win, but I wanted to show my abilities. I opened to collar sleeve and shot a triangle. He postured up and I followed with another collar drag. I passed again and swung around his head for an armbar. The attachment to his limb proved to be way too loose and he easily escaped. I stood with him as he backed away. I took a second to glance at the clock and scoreboard to gauge how much effort to give the last few seconds. Then BAM.
It happened too fast.
He dove for a takedown and instinctively I sprawled without looking. I saw stars as we stood back up. My opponent stopped moving. His face looked pale. Something blurred the vision in my left eye. Someone in the crowd gasped. I heard something (water?) dripping on the mats. I looked down and saw blood. I touched my left eye and my hand came away sticky and red. Shit!
##
When I was about 12 years old, I often stayed over at my friend Daniel’s house. He was one of about a dozen brothers (a slight exaggeration). I really can’t remember how many brothers were in his household, but Daniel was the second oldest with Alan a few years older and driving age. The youngest was still a baby. The household a veritable zoo of boyish shenanigans like all-night Nintendo tournaments and Nerf fights and general tomfoolery.
Daniel’s family lived in a small subsection of trailers near the airport of our small Alaska town. From there we would march out to empty gravel lots to play softball or kickball or tag or have snowball fights or explore abandoned hangars and shacks and otherwise be boys out in the wild. It felt more alive than my home where I was the only kid in a household of mostly silence. So every chance I got, I slept over at my friends’ house. Especially if they had siblings.
This time it was the start of winter, probably November because of both of our birthdays and it made sense to celebrate together. On Sunday morning (before I headed home), his brother offered to pull us on an inflatable sled behind their snowmobile (such serves as entertainment in deeply rural Alaska). Slowly dragging us across the snowy tundra and up the best sledding hill. Then we’d careen down the hill before crashing into puffs of new snow. Again and again, Alan towed us back up the hill on our own personal ski lift until we realized we needed to get back to their trailer before my parents arrived.
Maybe it was our age or feeling a little wild, but we agreed to head back a little faster. Why not? Almost like a boat hauling someone on water skis. Zooming and skidding and laughing all the way. Why not? It would be fun and exciting and the worst that could happen was tumbling into the snow before loading ourselves back on the sled. Why not?
BAM! Shit! That sorta hurt.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Your eye?”
“What? Oh fuck.”
“Fuck.”
“Put your glove over it.”
As Alan hit the accelerator, Dan and I lurched and spun off the sled. At some point we collided heads and my eye split open for the first time.
##
BAM! Shit! That sorta hurt.
There was about 30 seconds left in the match at New Breed. I was way up in points and far from struggling in a submission when my opponent and I collided heads and my eye split open for the second time in my life. As I knelt on the mats while holding my oozing face, my opponent and his coach agreed to call the match and give me time to hustle over to the medical tent.
Visions of NAGA danced through my head. I searched for Rachelle. Pinched lips and arms crossed, she stood in the crowd looking at me. She and I thought the same thing. Here we go again. I sat in the medical tent as teammates and Rachelle surrounded me. The medic wiped off my wound and broke open a superglue vial.
“I think we can glue it, but not sure it will stay. It’s pretty wide.”
I looked at Rachelle. “Hey, at least it’s not my arm.”
She smiled. A hint of a laugh caught in her throat.
Derek Kaivani, Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu’s assistant instructor, came over between matches. He watched the medic work on me before turning away with a greenish hue spreading across his face. I knew a bad sign when I saw one.
Derek said, “I’m stalling them a bit, but you have about five minutes if you want to do your next match. Do you want to do your next match?”
I looked up at him. “What do I have to do to win?”
He turned back towards me. “Pull guard and keep him at a distance. De La Riva and collar sleeve. The stuff you’ve been working in my classes.”
Greenlight.
##
Derek sat in the coach’s chair and nodded towards me as we started. I took a second to imagine all the videos I’d watched and all the time spent after class with Matt Shand working a more proactive guard pull than the standard elbow-collar full guard technique. The sort that I had watched on AOJ Online and imagined the Mendes Brothers and the Miyaos doing at the highest level. Quick collar grab and swing into DLR. Then it’s off to the races.
As we slap-bumped, my muscle memory took over. I pulled as I imagined. Went right into an off balance, loading them onto my feet before pulling them over the DLR hook. I used my grips to pull myself on top and land in mount.
It was textbook. It was six quick points.
As he framed to fight the position, I heard something dripping. The thud-thud of water on a flat surface. I winced at the sound before seeing a droplet of red on the mat. I put my head down to hide my wound, but also to help maintain the top position.
My opponent, though, trapped my arm and bridged hard. Now I had him in my closed guard with my eye exposed to the light. After getting grips on my Gi, my opponent stopped moving. He looked up at the ref.
“He’s bleeding again.”
I knew it was over. My competition day prematurely coming to an end. Again.
I slinked off to the medical tent for the second time in 30 minutes. They probably thought I was asking for a loyalty card where the 10th visit was free. Instead, they wrapped up my wound with gauze and an ACE bandage. For my time, they sent me home with a goodie bag full of superglue and an icepack. Alas, not the gold medal I was hoping for.
Not the best start for my blue belt competitions. 0-2 with 2 medical DQs. I couldn’t even return for the third place match, but at least I went home without any broken bones.
##
From the medical tent, I watched KJ beat my semi-finals opponent for the second time that day. He won his double gold and I was proud of him. I could tell he wanted that and he certainly earned it.
Both golds helped propel the Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu to the team trophy and first place banner. An overall successful day for everyone…except me.
I don’t want to make it sound like I was sad or bitter about the injury. I was actually quite happy for KJ and Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu. It just sucked that I couldn’t contribute how I had planned and it sucked that I got injured…again…while competing at blue belt. I even thought my performance felt like I’d turned a corner in confidence and techniques. Hitting stuff I’d been practicing and grasping at a style I enjoyed.
But hey, shit happens. Leaving me to ice my face until I returned home.
##
Sitting in our spare bathroom, we unwrapped my bandaging. The initial superglue already clumping and shedding in weird spots.
“We should’ve got stitches,” Rachelle said. “Or a steri-strip.”
“Can we glue it again?”
“I can try, but we have to clean up this mess first. You’re probably going to bleed again. Can you get in the tub.”
We peeled off my t-shirt and I stripped down to my underwear. Ready for blood to start back up again and make a mess. I thought about when I broke my arm and she had to help me shower. I thought about the cost-risk of competing or simply doing jiu-jitsu. I thought about anything except Rachelle probing around my would with tweezers and tissue.
I’m glad I didn’t watch in the mirror. I imagined the scene in Batman 1989 when Joker saw himself in the mirror for the first time. Smashing the glass before laughing at himself and what he had become. As Rachelle picked and scraped at the initial superglue, I bled again. More of an ooze, though, that we blotted with gauze.
“Okay, don’t move. I’m sorry if it stings.”
With full concentration, she dabbed superglue into my wound. It didn’t sting, much, but it was cold. I imagined being a statue until she said, “That should do it,” as she blew on it. “We’ll have to let it dry before applying more ice or showering.”
My eye bruised up pretty good. I’m only mentioning this because the next week I was presenting at a work conference. I wore big glasses the whole week in hopes of semi-hiding my wounds. Only one friend (Dave) asked.
“Jiu-Jitsu?”
“But I won the match,” I said with semi-pride.
“Worth it?”
“Yep.”
