Vids & Photos

I was showing my room mate this morning my fight at the Olympics and the video has been edited now the sitehas my full Olympic fight from start to finish rather than just the throw the Greek (or should i say gerogian) threw me with.

you can find it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyCPrwrr32A

also i caught 2 really nice throws today in video one is beau -66kg getting thrown with a big uchimata the other is our 90kg guy sean getting thrown with a nice drop seoi nage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLCYA2kk5A

drop seoi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWjpzZvWuDU

Also here is the room where me and cooky are staying and also the view from our balcony.

have an awesome day guys

matt

2nd day in taipei

Man i just typed a whole half post and then it accidentally got deleted now i have to start again.

today was the first day of competition and for many of the Junior Aussies it was a very big wake up call to what international level competition is all about.
Many of the Aussies placed today but from Canberra Sara collins had a few tough fights but ended up losing 2 fights and winning one to get third place.
Hopefully this secures her spot for the Junior world champs in a few months time.

Today we woke up nice and early around 630am and went and weighed ourselves. I was dreading a little bit my weight but i have been watching everything i have been eating and ended up weighing only 62.5kg.

We went off to training this morning and wearing my sauna suit underneath my gi after training i weighed around 61.7kgs. I still don't fight for another 2 more days (on Sunday) so obviously you dont want to be dehydrated all tonight and all day tomorrow so this close to competition i just try to make sure i eat as little solid food as possible and fill up mostly on fluids.

This is because food can stay in your stomach for a few days while if you are full of fluid you can just sweat in out at training and a small stint in the sauna. Today i have had a piece of toast and 1 frozen coke and 2 caramel frappes from Starbucks, and man are they so yummy.

due to the weather being really humid here i try to drink stuff that takes a while to drink and that is stacked full of carbohydrate. So you can have 500ml of water with no energy content at all or you can have 500ml of yummy caramel crushed ice with a bit of caffeine in it to fill you up and because it takes 10-15 minutes to drink it will cool down your body temp quite nicely.

Tonight my roomy and i will probably just hang out and watch a movie or so, we watched never back down last night as well as some ufc all access videos too.

Also on a more important note (kind of) i got my draw given to me the other night. and its a good one....

i drew Indonesia first round and they aren't to strong so if i can get through him i will be fighting the winner of Macao and Chinese Taipei in the semi final. Japan and Korea are both on the other side of the draw to me so i hopefully wont fight them to the final.

but first off is Indonesia, ill worry bout the others later.

If i can figure out how to post some videos i will post 2 nice throws i was lucky enough to film today

Now off to relaxing and some study
Have an awesome day
Matt

Day 1 in Taipei

Whenever i know a trip is coming up i already start planning what book i will bring with me while i'm away. On some trips i have read anywhere between 6-12 books in 2 or 3 weeks. That was before i was studying at university.

But lately i have been reading a few novels by conn iggulden based on Genghis Khan. i have been looking for the 3rd book in the series for a long time and couldn't find it anywhere. but in the bookshop at the Sydney airport (how good are airport bookshops) i found the 3rd installment of the series.

So for the whole plane trip here i sat next to someone i didn't know and just read my book and slept, then read some more then slept and i also watched the latest Star Trek movie. It's awesome..(I'm a nerd i know.,)

We finally got into Taiwan's airport and out of the 31 people on this trip i was the unlucky guy who had one of my bag left in Sydney airport. Lucky enough i had my Judo suits in the bag that had arrived with me with a few pairs of jocks so ill be fine. i get it back tonight so im keen to brush my teeth and get my schoolbooks to start studying.

we are staying in a nice hotel and im rooming with my good friend josh cook. Its good rooming with someone that also has 2.5kg to lose in the sauna cos when i sauna on Saturday ill have a 'sauna buddy'.

the hotel was a fair distance from the airport so after i filled out the lost bag paper work we caught the bus to our hotel and we pretty much went straight to sleep. Although the hotel is nice our beds are hard as rocks, i think if i laid on my doona on the floor it would be softer than the bed itself.

Regarding time difference, Taipei is 2 hours behind Australia and for the last couple of weeks i have been waking up at around 7am,. So this morning i woke up at 7am our time or 5AM Taipei time. and to make it even funnier josh (the guy im rooming with) is a builder so he was awake before me so hopefully we adjust to the time pretty quickly.

Today we had a training session run by Gavin and it was good to turn the legs over and get the 'Plane feeling' out of your body. When we arrived last night i was 64.1kg but after the session this morning i was 61.7kg which was so fantastic.
I didnt think i would have been that light but i was so i am very happy about that so for lunch i went to Starbucks and had a caramel frappachino (yum) and a salad wrap which was good as well.

i have been saying some of the 2 words i remember from the Olympics. Ni how (hello) and che che (thank you)

We ha vent heard anything about a typhoon so i think everything is pretty safe regarding that but i was looking through the hotel book and it has a life and safety part... earthquakes and typhoons.... why live here? i don't think i would

the weather is very hot, i don't know how hot but it is very sticky and gross. its the type of weather where you put a pair of socks on and walk to the end of the street and back and they are all sweaty so u have to wash them.

Judo comp starts tomorrow so ill train in the morning and then go check out the comp. i better do all my schoolwork tonight because i know i will be too busy and brain dead to do it while im thinking bout the comp and saunaing etc.
although all my schoolbooks are in the bag that i don't have.

catch you all later on
take care
also you can comment after my post and i will be able to see it and reply
Matt

Matts whereabouts

the main reason why i started this blog is because in the next few months i have so much going on, and it's all interesting stuff.
I am in Taipei this week for the Pac Rium championships,
i then leave on Monday and travel to England where we are linving and training for a week and a half
In england we will be competing in a fight night style event that is a fundraiser for the club we will be training at
I then travel to netherlands for the World champioships before coming home
I get home on 3 of september but i am lucky enough to have www.grapplingstore.com sponsor me as of September onwards. As part of this sponsorship i am one of the priveleged few who are attending an invitation only seminar with the world famous Royler Gracie on the Saturday and i am then competing in the Royler Gracie cup held on the Sunday.
Pat from Mizuno is also giving me alot of training gear including nice new judo suits that will fit nice and give me the edge above the guys i am competing against.
The week after i will be comprting in the NSW international open and then 2 weeks later is the Victorian international open champs in which case i will see how i am feeling as i may decide to fight -66kg.

And in between all this i am trying to complete my degree in primary education as well as spend as much time with my wife sam who is so supportive of me i cant believe how lucky i am.

No i better get going because my brand new laptop (4 days old now) is running out of battery and i will be off on a hunt to find an adaptor as the one cooky bought is for usa europe and great britain and then ill be off to training to sweat up a storm and throw some dudes.

Have a great day
Matt

Lead up to Pac Rim

Welcome to my blog that I decided I would start up. The reason I started my blog is because I have a pretty busy schedule over the next few months and what better way to let everyone know what I’m up to than by starting an online blog.

In the last few weeks I have been training hard in lead up to the Pac rim championships in Taiwan and the world championships in Netherlands. We had an AIS camp in Canberra which was very hard but exactly what I needed in order to prepare my body for the world champs.
On top of that I have also been practicing for my 2nd Dan (Ni Dan) black belt which I thankfully passed last Saturday.

Due to the not so good quality of the Video I will make another one when I get back with no one
in the background and a nice quiet environment.

I have had a pretty bust last week and a half, catching up on all the schoolwork I missed due to the ais camp, I got offered a full time position at the ais a few days a week so I worked out there 830am to 5pm wed thus and fri as well as service station on the weekend and a few pt sessions for my clients ash and krishan before I go overseas.

This week has also been pretty hectic catching up with the family before I go as well as studying for my maths test I have today (it sucks I know) as well as starting my low fibre diet in order to make weight this weekend.

It a little bit annoying having a competition 2 weeks out from the world championships because if you are tapering for the world championships a lot of people just believe tapering is mental and physical and that all and that you can just taper through a smaller level comp like the Pac rim champs. But if you are dieting over the course of 6 weeks for that 1 competition it is really annoying to then have to make weight hard for a comp 2 weeks out and then have to diet down again to make weight for the bigger comp again in 2 weeks time.

O well it has to be done. In saying that though we are going for 3 weeks and am fitting in 2 competitions and maybe even a fight night in England so that should be good to. The more international competitors you can fight against the better it will become.
This Pac rim comp should be interesting to see what nations will come along. Chinese Taipei has 2 teams entering due to host nation as well as Japan and Korean teams. Last Pac rim Choi (the guy who won Beijing Olympics) won the Pac rim beating the #1 Japanese guy who won the tournies of Paris Super A tournament.

In the last few AIS camps I have been dieting and it really has affected my performance during the camp as well as my recovery between sessions and the last few camps I have been on the brink of getting sick,

But the last Ais camp although I was dieting and carb cutting a little at dinner I still had a fantastic training camp, I was ranked 4 overall out of the 20 men there which was great because I haven’t been to a hard training camp since the last one in April.

Since the ais camp my bodyweight has been pretty low, I have been around 63.5 64 every morning which is great and now starting a low fibre diet I should only have to sauna, if my body responds nicely around 2.5kg.to make it even better I am competing on the last day of the Pac rim and the first day of the worlds. This is good because I can hopefully keep my weight down for a short amount of time but also at the worlds I can enjoy the high quality competition without the feeling of the nervousness mixed with hungriness in my stomach.

Well i’m off to study a bit more for my maths test and then have lunch with Samantha and my Mum, and hopefully spend the rest of the day with Sam.

ill do another blog in a few days hopefully put some photos and videos up as well
matt

New Rules for Judo Backpatches

This week the international Judo Federation brought in a new rule reagrding back patches at World cups, grand slams and Grand prixs. Now everyone has to have the same backpatch. This is really annoying considering they only brought the rule in regarding name badges this year and when everyone has gone out and bought some patches =and sewn them on, they then change the rule again.
But on the up side of that i think the new rule makes alot of sense. At this years worlds there was so many different varieties of name patches, and different colours. Some names were b lue, red, green, black and even pink. And from a spectators view it looked a bit stupid because everyone has a different style of name.
With this new rule in place, (although its going to cost us some extra money) it will look much more proffessional and cleaner for spectators. For an example of what the back patches look like click here
http://judoforum.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=8894
The bottom panel is removeable so each World cup you go in the tournament organisers will rip them off and put new ones on.

So we will see what happens hey
Matt