My roller coaster ride of 2011

2011 year in review

I thought I would share with you a summary or overview of my year 2011. I had an extremely interesting rollar-coaster tupe year with many ups, downs, loop da loops and flats.
Stating off early in January I headed down to a training camp with Aussie 66kg fighter Ivo dos santos (ivojudo.com). I then fought and won the act international open beating all of my opponents by ippon. Our oceania championships where being held in April so in march we headed off to budo university in Japan where we trained twice a day for 2 weeks. Unfortunately the huge earthquake and tsunami devastated japan and cut our three week camp short.
In April I competed and won our oceania championships and gained 180 points towards my olympic selection campaign. For those that don't know in order to qualify for the Olympics you must be within the top 22 nations in the world. The international judo federation take your top 5 results in the first year and top 5 in the second year- they put them all together and the top 22 nations in the world qualify their spot at the Olympic games. This simply means a lot of travel and a lot of pressure- not to mention the fact that us Australians cannot drive to any tournament we must fly overseas a minimum of five times a year.
Soon after our Oceania championships I was training with a good friend and with 30 seconds left in the training session I attacked with a completely normal drop seoi nage- my opponent defended the attack and I felt a lot of pressure in my rib before it pop out of place. I dislocated my intercostal rib cartilage. It was very painful - I couldn't breathe, walk, drive or get in and out of bed (not to mention the shiny of sneezing. I also picked up a stomach bug at hospital and I can tell you right now that vomiting with a broken Rib cartilage is not fun at all.
I ended up having 6 weeks off completely of ALL exercise (as I was unable to do any sort of deep breathing or abdominal contractions.) therefore I had to forgo our national championships and it was the first nationals I hadn't placed at in 13 years.
In early July the aussie team flew to the America's to compete in the Miami world cup, us open (non Olympic qualifier), Venezuela world cup and the el Salvador world cup. We decided to do these tournaments for a few reasons but the main reason being that the year before the entries were small and hopefully easier to win- this year was not the case.
At the miami world cup I placed 7th beating fighters from sweden and Dominican republic before losing to Mongolia and Canada.
Us open: I lost to an American by the name of Andre Taylor before beating a Brazilian and the. Losing to a fellow Aussie.
Venezuela: I had a tough battle against a huge Brazilian but lost by a waza ari despite my numerous flying armbar attempts.
El Salvador: I beat the American Taylor before losing to alves from brazil and then Romero from equador.
The world championships were in paris later in the year - I drew a rough first fight in 2010 European champion milous from France.
Samoa world cup was probably my worst performance of the year. I had a great national training camp leading up to the competition but I just wasn't on that day. I drew a fighter from hong kong who wasn't much chop but threw me with the craziest, weirdest most bendy ko uchi makkikomi thing that landed me flat in my back - game over for me (and such a crucial tournament for Olympic points.)
Because I did so badly at the worlds and Samoa I decided to compete in the Tokyo grand slam and the qingdao grand prix in Beijing in mid December. it makes for a long year but to game points for the Olympic selection I would fight anywhere.
In Tokyo I drew Mackenzie from great Britain he has won a few world ups but his styles works so well against me and I had a good game plan But walked forward one too many times and got throw for a waza ari that u could not recover.
Qingdao grand prix I got pounded - lets not talk about that one :(

In conclusion my judo was up and down in 2011 with many major and minor injuries along the way but that is just what happens to elite sportsmen. I was telling a client that even elite level table tennis and badminton players get injuries as all elite athletes training almost too much- but training is part of the journey.

2012 brings a lot of training dieting and competing- I have a training camp in January before competing in a number of tournaments throughout jan and feb. At the moment u need to win the Oceania champs in 2012 to qualify for London but it is going to be a very tight squeeze into the last few spots- but I'll keep training hard and trying my best and see what happens.

Throughout 2011 i have picked up a new sponsor in no bull supplements. The No Bu team pride themselves on not making ridiculous statements that so many supplement companies make. They sell extremely cheap good tasting protein for a fraction of the cost most companies sell for. If you do take protein and are keen in trying something different or want to save some money check out nobullsupplements.com.au and if you make a purchase mention me and you will receive a free t shirt or singlet.
I am still bring sponsored by pat from grapplingstore.com. Pat supplies me with the best judo suits and rash guards available to judo players as well as some great protective gear. I highly recommend you check out what pat has in store because I guarantee you will not be dissapointed.

On a personal note I am continuing to complete my bachelor of primary education at university. I am just over half way and am enjoying my studies.
I have also been writing articles a d a number of ebooks- I really enjoy wrong ebooks because there is so much out of date and poor content on YouTube and the net that I want to pass on good information to all judoka around the world. My next ebook strength training for judo is an amazing ebook which answers every single question that u have been asked through my website or blog.

2012 brings a lot of new challenges
I am applying for a job in the fire brigade as well as leading a small group of young men at my church's youth group. I will be continuing my study as well as training my butt off.
It is exciting times and I am so looking forward to it.
I encourage you to think about 2011 and 2012 and what you need to change in order to get what you want. That may be train more often or train less, eat cleaner food, hang more with family and friends or to simply be a more positive person. All I can say is good luck in 2012 I hope it is everything you wished it could be and more.
Talk soon
Matt