Judo Tournament

I had my judo tournament on April 18. The tournament was taken place at Alameda High School in the new gym. This was my first judo tournament I have been to and I could of went to the earlier tournaments but I did not want to. Instead I waited near the end of the school year for my judo tournament and we were required to go to at least one tournament. Usually I am nervous on my martial arts tournament. On my other Vietnamese tournament I got owned from sparing and this one I try to stay com and confident.

A few days before on a Friday after school both classes helped set up the tournament for Sunday and we got community service for. It became really tiring became we had to bring judo mats from the dojo to the table area where the back entrance to kofemen was. Each mat was probably about 15 pounds. In the dojo we took some of the mats out and it was so dusty underneath the mats. I had a lot of dust attracted to me while I was loading the truck. This process took about two hours including 5th and 6th period to transport the mats to the new gym. It took awhile to unload the mats off the truck. Then we set up the gym with four running mats while took awhile. After we were setting up the new gym the worse part was bringing out the 4 wheel dollys and back to the dojo. It took four people to bring out the 600 pound dolly out the door and down the stairs to the dojo.

The day of the tournament came. We had to come early at 7:30am to help. We paid for our entry and weight-in. Some people helped label the medals saying "PROF. JAY ALOHA INVITATIONAL JUDO TOURNAMENT". Our matches was going to take awhile and the tournament starts at 10:30am. We had to help the judges keep track of scores and pooling which is pairing up people in the same weight division in groups of 5. The beginning of the tournament was the little kids, teens, and the black belt division. I helped keep score for a few hours and chill with my sister.

Finally our tournament started to come at around 1pm. I waited with my friend Amir and we found out we were in the same pool. Which means i get to go against my friend. We were lucky to be in a pool with four people because it is faster and a better chance of wining a medal. I went against everyone in my pool and my first match was against Amir. I tried my best and stay com. The match started and I waited for him to grab me and as soon as he grabbed me I went for a throw but he tried to counter me. he almost got me and i fell on my butt but it didn't count. The opponet has to get the play on their back to win. The reff stopped us and start back in the middle. I grabbed him and tried to do a left sided throw to get him off guard but I did half of it and still got him on the ground. As he was on the ground I tried to choke him but the reff stopped us again. The third time I tried my throw again and I got him on his back and I won. My second match was against a yellow belt that i just found out after our match. I lost fast to this guy because he had more experience than me. So I did the first move with a foward throw but he countered me. My third match was really quick and it took about 10 seconds to win this one. I was against a talls person and before my matches I was examing his moves when he went up. I notice his legs were weak and off balance most of the time. When I went against this guy I tested out a small sweep and I got him off balance already so I went for a back sweep and got him down. I won 2/3 matches and got 2nd place. When the tournament ended we repeat what we did on Friday but backwards taking the mats back to the dojo.