Stayin' Alive

The Judo Tournament was this weekend. L, Z, & I all competed. We all survived.

L took 3rd out of 3 in his division. The poor kid weighed in at 43.3 pounds, so his weight class was 43-58 pounds. In addition, the announcer messed up the names when they were calling competitors to the right mats, and we didn't hear his name get called. When he finally got to the right place (due to some error on my part), he had to go straight to the mats and fight and was caught off guard. He fought harder in his second match, but still lost. He was disappointed, but getting a medal anyway helped soothe that a bit.

Z took 2nd. Unlike L, he weighed in at 42.3 pounds, so he was the heaviest in his weight class. He won 2 matches and lost 1. He was really nervous, so I'm more proud he went out and fought hard.

In my class there were 4 competitors. I signed up for Master's (over 30, any belt color) at the recommendation of my Sensei. So did Anne (the other Mom in my Judo class). Well, due to a paperwork error, our Sensei ended up telling them to put us in Senior Novice. This class included a 13 year old white belt who outweighed me by 40+ pounds and a white belt cadet from the Academy. Uh, this was exactly what I tried to avoid by signing up for Masters.

My first match was against the cadet. I got an Ippon (which means I threw her so hard the match ended on my throw). I was really happy about this later when a friend told me he'd seen her at other matches and hasn't seen her get slammed, and when I found out that her and her cadet buddies were calling Anne and myself "the Moms". Heh. My second match was against the girl who outweighed me. I did get a score on her and survived when she landed on my head, but lost the match. My last match was against Anne, and I won. I ended up with 2nd overall.

And to top it all off, the Packers are hosting the NFC Championship!