Introduction

I’m still on my way back from the 2010 Central American and Carribean
Games and boy oh boy am I pissed.

I really don’t have the right to be pissed but I’m pissed anyway.

I had 6 competitors fight this weekend and we lost every single match.

Every one!!!

To say we were out of our league is an understatement.

I have a team of 15 and 16 year olders and some college students who
are home for the summer competing and another dude who is a blkue
belt. For all intents and purposes I have a team full of junior and
cadet level judo players who ARE the best in the country so they get
to compete at senior level competitons such as this.

So although I really didn’t expect them to go out there and man-handle
some adults, I did expect us to take a few matches here and there.

But I had to have a MASSIVE reality check.

—————————
Reality Check
—————————

Because I’m on the service provider side of martial arts and more
specifically, judo in this case, I kinda forgot how freaking expensive
this sport is.

Winning without paying your duues in Japan, Europe, Brazil, and thru
international training camps and competitons is damn near impossible
and to expect to do so is asinine.

I’m no different than any other high achiever… I think I can fix any
and everything. I CANNOT. I can “help” to fix it and advise in the
fixing and quite frankly make some small “fixes” but I can’t fix “it”.

The grind is the grind.

You have to jump in it, love it and learn from it.

You have to learn how to manage a fight, fight a fight, emotionally
regulate yourself and fight no matter if you feel good or bad.

Now here’s what I am very happy about!!!!

————————-
On the cognitive
side, my kids are
SHARP!
————————-

It is a lot easier to fix and repair a car if you have knowledge about
its inner workings and know the make and model.

My kids know, gripping, judo and what is happening to the
strategically and tactically.

They just need the match time and experience to work on “implementing”
what it is that they know.

I was super pleased when reviewing the video that they knew what was
happening to them and could see it. One young man on the team said,
“Dr. Ferguson, everything was just like you said, but it was happening
soooooo fast!”.
I laughed.  I told him, “Unfortunately at this time you all aren’t
able to move that ‘fast’ with each other. You need more, different and
better practice partners to make this adjustments and more
competitions.”

——————————
Decreasing The
Learning Curve
——————————-

Going to a tournament and getting beat and not knowing why it
happened, or worse yet, thinking you know and then going home and
training “harder” is a waste of time.

The only problem with this, is that people “think” they know.

Case in point….

I was watching a match this weekend where a young man was standing
“righty”, gripping “righty” and tried to do a left side ouchi gari
with his left leg.

It was some of the dumbest ish I’ve ever seen.

Of course he was thrown for ippon.

After he came off the mat and was in the back warming up area I was
watching his teammate and coach try to corect him on his ouchi gari.
After being fed up with this I couldn’t help myself.  I said, “the
reason why he got thrown was because he was standing righty, gripped
as a righty and sent his left leg in to do ouchi.” I then illustrated.

The coach, then said, “that not what happened.”. LOL

I shook my head and walked off.

They WILL NEVER be able to fix their problems. We will.

I was humbled this weekend. I’m usually a miracle worker of sorts.

This will be a grind from the ground up.

I love it!

***********************
Closing
***********************

I am in the process of re-releasing Judo Sucess Secrets. It will be
here in August.  These emails are setting the tone, foundation and
conversational landscape so that I may answer your question with the
re-release of Judo Success Secrets. Many people are finally
understanding what I mean when I say that being good at judo has
nothing do to with judo. Nothing at all. Its about governing yourself
professionally and KNOWING what to do.

Take care and have a great day.

Dedicated to your success,

Dr. Rhadi Ferguson
2004 Olympian
http://www.GripToWin.com
http://www.UndergroundGripfightingSecrets.com
http://www.NewazaMadeEasy.com

P.S. We made a concentrated and concerted effort to focus on the
technical development of the team in the Bahamas. Now the strength
building phase begins. If you are a member of my eCoaching program,
get ready for a sneak-peek of the Bahamian Strength and Conditioning
Program. Remember, I’m training juniors, not adults ;-).

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