Nearly finished in Japan

Still in Japan and my training has been going fantastic. I always love coming to japan to live and train. I've been here for just over five weeks now and will be coming home at the end of this week.
My training at Tsukuba university has finished up now so I have been doing a lot of gym work, cardio and a lot of visualization. I'm a massive fan of visualization and this trip in particular I have done a fair heap of it and I really believe it has helped me mentally prepare for my next comp in three weeks time

Throughout the trip I have had a lot of trouble sleeping , but I talked my state institutes sport psyche and she gave me some really good tips on how to sleep better and I have taken some of these on board as part of my prep as well.

I'm feeling really fit and strong and my judo has improved so much since being here and I think this has got to do with a couple of things.
Firstly being in japan u are away from home and work and uni and u can spend every minute of ur day thinking, analysing and disecting judo and the different aspects u mist work on in order to improve.
Secondly the fact that you are fighting the best technical guys in the world. If you saw some of these guys in the gym you would notice that a lot of them aren't monsters lifting huge weights, but get them on the mat and due to their technical ability they are strong agile and hard to fight. The only down side is u may draw a european in a comp who IS a monster on and off that mat that's why you need both europe and japan as part of preparation and your judo journey.

Lastly I am always fighting guys my weight. As I'm the lightest weight of sixty kilos it is sometimes frustrating to constantly be fighting guys at home who are eighty kilos, its nice to come here and have so many sixty and sixty six kilo guys (it makes me want to stay)

At the moment I am on the bus on the way to mount fuji. My wife and I are going to walk to the top, its going to be an experience that's for sure. As most people know judo, like in life, there are challenges and obstacles to overcome. My challenge over the past year has been the obvious change in judo rules and the clash they had with my pickup style of judo as well as me starting full time university. there is a quote that when I heard thought was amazing.

Sir edmund hillary the new zealand fellow who was the first man to climb to the summit of mount everest, he had tried to reach the summit on two or three separate occasions on the latest time he tried and failed he is said to have look up at the mountain and said that You (mount everest) cannot get any bigger....but I can.
He then went on to climbing and reaching the summit on the next attempt thus making history as well as his achieving his personal dream.

I feel that this quote really talks to me, I have tried to reach the goal of winning a medal at the olympics or world champs and have failed twice at the worlds (last year was miserable) and the =olympics, well I dunno how to get out of the throw he threw me with, but like edmund hillary I have grown since then. I've become a different fighter than I was before, different in a good way. Different in a way where I will succeed opposed to getting close but not close enough.

So I'm gonna climb mount fuji, I'm going to imagine I'm sir edmund and overcome everything and become victorious and what I want to in judo and in life.
I can do anything through christ who strengthens me, (cant remember where in the bible it says that. ) phil 4 13.

that's all from me
matt
Beyondgrappling.com