Flowing with the Go (16 page)

The mental-strength process was very introspective. Kathleen asked me to identify three succinct goals for the competitive process. One was a training goal that would take me into the tournament. The second was a goal during the tournament. The third was my goal for two weeks after the tournament. The first two were easy to identify. While training, I wanted to be calm and confident. I wanted my energy to be clear and focused on the task at hand, and I wanted the anticipation to be exciting. During the tournament, I wanted to be fully present, calm, quick, and confident, knowing what to do. I wanted to keep moving, breathe, find the flow, and “make the second effort,” as the coaches had encouraged. Kathleen rephrased everything into ‘I will” statements with visualization cues.

It was the third goal that I had never considered. I was familiar with the idea of goal-setting in sports, but I had never been asked what I wanted to get out of a contest two weeks after it was over. I thought about this goal for quite some time before I answered. I wanted to feel positive about the experience. I wanted an increased sense of camaraderie. I wanted to be proud of my courage and accomplishment, and I wanted to embrace life again.

I listened to my iPod, I took a plane, and I went to the tournament on June 1. Several pages could be written about the tournament experience, but I'll condense it for the sake of focus, despite that there are a couple of good stories to tell. It was exciting to be part of an international tournament with teams from Mongolia, Sweden, China, Japan, and, of course, Brazil. The intensity with which the Brazilians cheered for their competitors was inspiring; it was obvious that Jiu-Jitsu is much more of a mainstream sport in Brazil than in the United States.

The gym floor was covered with mats for a total of ten rings. There was Jiu-Jitsu going on all day every day. I thought I would have my fill of BJJ, but it never got old. There was so much to see and learn that I didn't know about, but there was also a lot that I did know: moves I recognized, mistakes that I might make myself. It was a remarkable observation, which validated for me that I had every right to be there.

It's quite an ordeal to check in, get your gi checked, find your ring, and stay calm. My check-in was a debacle. No one had heard my name called so when I finally checked in on my check-in, my ring leader already had my name scratched. So we got that cleared up, and then I almost got disqualified because I couldn't get my wedding ring off. I had always worn it in local tournaments, and no one had ever said anything. I yanked on it hard, held my hand in the air, spit on it, twisted it—as my eyes teared up with panicked humiliation. I finally got it off, but not without a huge blister on the side of my swollen finger. I couldn't get my ring back on for five days afterward. Yeah, nice and calm. No problem. I'm a rock (not).

I had my match. It went okay. I blew my takedown by going in too straight and not putting my head in the right place, which led me to take myself down in the end. And then I was on the bottom, under my nemesis body type: “short-round.” I hung in there, but I had taken myself down with only forty-five seconds left and just never recovered. I'm sure my coaches could say more. I haven't wanted to watch the tape. I'm sure I look like a bug being squished under a large, stubby thumb.

When I texted everyone who wanted to know, I just told them, “I lost, but I'm not a loser.”

After my match was over, I shook hands with “short-round,” pinched myself to make sure I was still awake and walked to the side where Coach was waiting. I did not feel too terribly disappointed. I did have some grappler's remorse . . .
if only I had
. . . and I was babbling with nervous energy. Coach was nodding and then he said, “Well, next time you—”

My head snapped up to look him in the eye. “Aren't I done? Can't I be done?”

Somewhere in my grandiose plan, I'm sure it was written that if I trained hard and stepped onto The Big Stage, then I could be done. I wouldn't ever have to compete again or train that hard (or drink beet juice). But Coach was shaking his head, “No, you're not done.”

And being the young, wise sage that he is, he was right. I wasn't done.

And I'm still not done. Will any of us ever really be done? Where would I go if I was done? What would I do? What could possibly be more rewarding than what I had been a part of for the last five months? I was part of a process that transformed me into a better human being.

And the journey continues, does it not? If we stop chasing goals and pushing ourselves, and if we just settle, then we will stop growing and never realize the potential we have to live fully.

Yup, Coach was right. I'm most certainly not done.

33
World's Greatest Food Stories

M
y trip to the World Championships in Long Beach, California, was the first time I traveled to a tournament as an adult member of a team and not as the coach or as the chaperone of teenagers. It was apparent that being an adult team member means that you are treated, well, like an adult. “Everyone just kinda does their own thing,” was what I heard when I inquired about flights, hotel arrangements, and rental cars.
Hmmm, there wasn't a
team mom doing all of this for us?
I had to be my own team mom and worry only about myself. That thought was both liberating and lamentable.

Our small but mighty team consisted of myself (novice division/ white belt), Rich (white belt in the area for a wedding so why not roll), Ken “Rhino” (blue belt), Ethan “E-Dub” (purple belt), Bingo (brown belt), and Coach. The order of events called for the white belts to roll on the first day, the blue belts the next day, and then purple belts and so on. Team Foster had someone competing each day.

I arrived the day before the competition started and met some of the team at the hotel. We were going to drive to Irvine to work out at the gym of Coach's coach, the esteemed BJJ practitioner and professional MMA fighter, Giva “The Arm Collector” Santana (so named because he has won thirteen of his seventeen professional MMA bouts by armbar). Giva's gym was in full swing, and we took a corner of the mat to loosen up and roll lightly. It was a privilege to watch Coach roll with his mentor, one of the best in BJJ. After hugs, “thank yous,” and “see you at the tourney,” we took off for the first of several laughable tales that revolved around food.

Well, at least I found them laughable, because I was the only one on the team not cutting weight. I wasn't even required to weigh in for my division (162 pounds and above). The gentlemen, on the other hand, would be disqualified for being even one-tenth of a pound over at weigh-ins. E-Dub had to lose fifteen pounds before his match and he started the process two weeks before Worlds. Rhino and Bingo each had to lose twelve pounds and brought sauna suits in their carry-ons. Why we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant, I will never understand. If I had to sit across from a bottomless bowl of chips and not touch them, you would have had to duct tape my arms to the chair. Coach and I ordered whatever we wanted off the menu and munched on chips, while the guys had taco salad without the meat, tortilla shell, cheese, sour cream, or guacamole, and washed it down with southern California water that tasted mildly of wading pool.

The next day, I rolled.

On the second day of the tournament, Rhino rolled, so he was thereafter released from the bondage of caloric deprivation and got to pick where we ate lunch. We ended up at Boston Market. What transpired was a restaurant endorsement debacle. Rhino was starving, so he ordered the first appetizer on the menu. The waitress disappears, returns, and says that they are out of those . . . “How about the mozzarella sticks? They're my favorite.” Sure, okay, bring some mozzarella sticks. Waitress disappears, returns, and says, “Oops, we don't even have mozzarella sticks (giggle giggle). Oh, I . . . uh . . . just, like, had them when I went out last night and (giggle giggle) that must have been what I was thinking.”

Who wouldn't have been flustered standing in front of a cloud of testosterone and four sets of shoulders so wide I was forced to balance on one butt cheek from the edge of the booth?

After that, they failed to have what I wanted to order, and I learned that Coach is very serious about his food. He wouldn't let me have one yam fry off his plate. He made me order my own. I felt like the little boy who didn't get a star. Every calorie is precious if you want to keep your guns loaded, I guess. The last insult to our consumer satisfaction came when Bingo, with two and a half more days to cut weight, got a bill for three dollars because he ate five celery sticks.

That night, we ate California Pizza Kitchen so that E-Dub and Bingo could order whole-wheat–crusted pizza without cheese or meat and some plain lettuce. E-Dub, looking like a poster child for malnourishment, was mesmerized by the table placard displaying the seasonal dessert: mile-high strawberry shortcake with whipped cream.

“After tomorrow (drool) that's what I'm gonna get. We hafta come back here.” Okay, E-Dub, you bet. Meanwhile, Bingo was shell-shocked that his bill included an additional four-dollar charge because he indulged in a couple of tomato slices.

E-Dub rolled the next morning, and we spent the day at the expo center watching some high-caliber competitions. As promised, we hit up California Kitchen Pizza again so E-Dub could have his mile-high shortcake. Unfortunately for E-Dub, his stomach had shrunken so much it couldn't manage the whole mile. It was more like a couple of blocks and some whip. Bingo became the replacement poster child, drooling over the same placard.

Friday night was the day before my birthday, so the guys took me to a movie and for a lesson. If am capable of learning anything at all in this life, it is this: when you are the only person in a group who has not seen all of the movies that preceded the movie you are watching, you must not ask any questions about the movie plot or characters. To do so puts you not only at risk of being ostracized, but when done in a group of Jiu-Jitsu–practicing males, can lead to serious bodily harm. The movie of note? “X-Men: First Class.”

At this point, Bingo was the only one left to roll. Or what was left of Bingo to roll. We then headed back to California Pizza Kitchen for his mile-high. But, in what would turn out to be the biggest disappointment of the trip, they were out of strawberry shortcake. Bingo, his lust for shortcake rebuffed, receives a few bro-hugs from the guys, pulls himself together, and says, “That's okay, I want In-N-Out Burger.” So off we went.

The anticipation during the ride was like waiting for manna from heaven. Manna? We found Mecca: right next-door to In-N-Out Burger was a Chick-Fil-A! We had reached nirvana . . . or at least the men had. I was coming off five months of beet juice and a nutritional overhaul. I wasn't sure I could digest a burger without seeing it twice.

The guys looked like hyenas over a kill—heads bowed, jaws grinding, traces of ketchup in the corners of their mouths, runaway lettuce on their shirts, an errant French fry making its escape under the table. It was an Animal Planet episode right there in the In-N-Out parking lot. I watched, transfixed, my Tiny Tot burger getting cold in its red plastic basket. This display was indeed evidence that the metabolism and gastroenterologic tolerance of the male stomach supersedes that of the average female.

Before Worlds, I had set my goals with Kathleen. I wanted to feel positive about the experience—even two weeks or more after worlds. I wanted an increased sense of camaraderie. I wanted to be proud of my courage and accomplishment, and I wanted to embrace life again. It was now three days since I competed, and I felt I was well on my way to achieving this goal. I had engaged fully in a novel undertaking that left me feeling positive about the sport of BJJ and competition. I had shared that experience with teammates who were now friends. I was proud of myself. I had followed through. I felt happier, more lighthearted, and I knew that the outlook from which I had previously viewed my life would never be the same.