First Tournament - Tomorrow

Well, tomorrow is d-day. Tournament time.

Tuesday night was my last real class before this tournament. My instructors told me that was to be my last workout before Saturday's tournament because they don't want me getting bruised, pulling a muscle, or getting hurt right before the event. Speaking of bruises, on Tuesday, I received one by striking Mr. Mc's elbow with the back of my hand. It swelled up immediately, but I iced it after class so it doesn't hurt so much now. The  the bruise looks pretty impressive though. That is example 1 of why "No more workouts until after the tournament!" is in effect.

Last night I ran a few laps with the kids during the warmup and then just assisted Mr. Mc with teaching in class.

Since my last post, I have been getting mentally ready for the tournament and working out strategy. I have a good idea of what my game plan is going to be, but it's hard getting an exact plan when I don't know who is going to be competing in my division. Hopefully there will be more than five women, but who knows. Last year I think there were three in the point division and only two in the semi-knockout. . . .

Nerves are an issue. I haven't had a big event like this since my red belt test back in March. I'm a little nervous, which is to be expected with this being my first time competing, but I think I have it under control. At least, I think I do. I'm constantly going over strategy in my head and repeating the rules and legal striking areas for both divisions.

This past week, I've even caught myself sizing people up as I walk around campus and thinking about what techniques I would use on them, how I would move to get inside their range to be able to hit them, and how their height would cause me to adjust my guard so I can cover up when I'm hitting them. Not that I would actually attack them of course! My mindset is just on a constant repeat of "tournament, tournament, tournament. . ."

I'm meeting my instructor early tomorrow morning and driving up with him and the others from my class. I'll have a full report of how the tournament went soon.