The View After Being Soundly Defeated

Life itself is not a competition. However, in the process of living, there are moments when you choose to challenge yourself to something specific, and as a result, a clear win or loss is determined.

What I am trying to talk about is this.

The other day, I entered a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament. I challenged it, and I lost. Moreover, it was a loss so clear that no one could complain about it.

I started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu three months ago. My child started taking lessons, and while I was watching the class during drop-offs and pick-ups, it eventually became my own hobby.

It is a rather intense sport for someone starting in their mid-forties. Although I like moving my body, lately I have only been going to the gym sporadically. The only time in the last few years I can say I gave it my all was a 5km race I participated in a few years ago.

However, I had experience doing judo in a club during my student days. Even if the rules are different from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the roots are connected. Therefore, I thought to myself somewhere that I was not a complete beginner.

If it is among other white belts, I can fight. I might even win. To be honest, I had a little bit of confidence.

On the day of the match, my turn came, and I stood on the mat. The opponent who appeared was a woman 15 years my junior. Since we were in the same weight category, her build was not much different from mine. She had dyed her hair blue and had a cute atmosphere, but her expression was tight and focused, exuding a sense of having no openings.

With the referee's signal to "start," the switch for battle was flipped. Once I got a grip, I would sweep her legs and take her down. From there, side control. If it seemed possible to go further, I would move from knee-on-belly to mount position. I challenged myself to recreate the scenario I had imagined many times.

However, the grip the opponent had on me was heavier than I expected. Her grip was firm, and she was strong. I tried to get a grip too, but I couldn't get it well. I swept her legs, but she didn't fall. I intuitively thought, she is stronger than the opponent I imagined in my head. I felt impatient inside.

Calm down, calm down. Just do the same thing you have been doing.

Finally, my leg sweep worked, and I took her down. I scored two points for the takedown. However, I fell down as if tangled with her and got caught in her closed guard. Now, the ground battle begins. I tried to escape from her guard, but the grip she had on my sleeve was too strong to break. The pressure from her legs was also strong, and I couldn't get out. While I was doing that, I was flipped over, and this time I was on the bottom. While I was solidifying my defense, she kept unleashing technique after technique.

Before I knew it, she was aiming for a foot lock. Oh no. With my other leg, I pushed her arm away with all my might and managed to escape. I was out of breath faster than usual. Even though it had just started?

I focused even more on defense. From the sidelines, loud voices from my coach shouted, "Stand up, stand up!" "Face your opponent!" If I could stand, I wanted to stand, grab her around the knees, face her, and switch to offense. But I had no strength in my hands. Even while doing that, her attacks did not stop. I was so busy defending to avoid the worst-case scenario that I couldn't make a single proactive move. And in the blink of an eye, five minutes passed. I lost to my opponent on points.

As I watched the referee raise my opponent's arm high and declare the outcome, the first thing I thought was, "this wasn't supposed to happen."

I should have been able to do more. Why couldn't I? I couldn't understand it right away, and I was shaken. The feeling that I couldn't do anything rushed over me like a muddy stream after a heavy rain, stirring up my heart.

I didn't want to lose. The feeling of not wanting to lose made me run to defense in the face of my opponent's strength.I forgot that the best defense is offense, and I ended up focusing entirely on defense.

It was a feeling that couldn't be expressed by simple words like "I'm frustrated that I lost". Words of encouragement like "It's your first match, so this is normal" or "It's amazing that you just challenged it" sounded reasonable, but I couldn't seem to change my mood with such comforting words. The day ended without my heart clearing up, and I kept thinking about why my heart wouldn't clear up. And then I realized something.

I'm not frustrated that I lost. I can't forgive myself for accepting that I would lose while I was fighting. And having realized that, even if I can deceive those around me, I cannot deceive myself, and I am just standing there. This is who I am right now.

Three months ago, I had the desire to try Jiu-Jitsu, but at the same time, I was hesitant. The deciding factor for starting was when my husband joined after our children, and I learned that as a gym campaign, if I joined as the fourth family member, I could take classes for free. I took the first step for the trivial reason that I am weak to free offers.

For the first month, I wasn't actually that into it. I kept going partly to motivate myself, thinking that since I had gone to the trouble of starting, I should stick with it for a while.

Things changed after the two-month mark. A female teammate of mine was going to compete in a match, and as one of the few women at the gym, I started going more frequently to serve as her training partner.

By sparring frequently with a superior opponent, I definitely improved. She was a 25-year-old blue belt with three years of jiu-jitsu experience. At first, I was completely overwhelmed.The first thing I did to fight better was to thoroughly imitate her fighting style. From her stance and posture to her attack patterns and the techniques she used to defend, I studied it all. Then, I reflected on the situations where I was frequently beaten and thought about how I could prevent them. I learned how to fight by plugging the holes one by one.

As I repeated this practice day after day, there came a point where I wasn't just getting beaten; I was able to fight back every few times. And by the time I had been doing jiu-jitsu for three months,the techniques I had learned began to connect organically. The dots became lines, turning into a faster, more fluid flow. I became able to execute techniques in response to my opponent's movements, and I felt that my combat ability had leveled up.

It was in the midst of this progression that this match took place.

What leaves a worse aftertaste than the defeat I was trying most to avoid is ending a match without having done what I should have done. I knew that from the beginning, and I've had similar experiences in the past. But experiencing it again this time, I realized, 'Ah, that's right.'

There is a certain gap between understanding something in words and actually knowing it well enough to put it into action. This seems to be true for things other than jiu-jitsu as well. I want to learn. I want to properly draw lessons from this crushing defeat and fight better next time.

Thinking this far, I finally stopped blaming myself for my incompetence.Because blaming myself won't help me extract any lessons from this experience. The starting point is to acknowledge that I challenged myself and took that first step. I, with three months of jiu-jitsu experience, put on a beginner's mark, entered a tournament, and went up against an opponent with two years of experience who was 15 years younger than me. Come to think of it, I should applaud my own optimism for thinking I could win in that situation.