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Reflections on the Open TKD EC 2012, Part I


The Bad
I'm hugely disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the tournament was awesome and except for a few details the organization was highly professional. What I'm unhappy about was my own performance. I feel like I under-performed really bad. To say things straight out, I lost in the first round.

It's not the fact that I lost in the first round that bugs me. Every other competitor does, in a [single-elimination tournament]. There's an important difference, however, between doing your best and losing with dignity on the one hand, and just not fighting well on the other hand. Consider [my last full-contact bout] - even though I lost those finals, I'm much more content with that fight than [the corresponding half-finals]. Did my best, put up a great fight and got knocked out in the last round. Stuff happens, that's just part of the game we play.

Still, this time, I lost before even setting foot on the mat. There's a couple of reasons for that, most of which I won't touch here (some I might not even know, I have to spend some more time reflecting on what happened yesterday). Definately a big piece of the puzzle was my extreme weight cutting. While weight-cutting is an integral component of any weight-class regulated sport, I guess I just overdid it this time. In a matter of just a couple of days, I dropped down from nearly 80kg to 69.8kg on friday. Due to organizatorical issues, I went for 30 straight hours without any food and (much worse) water.

Me immediately after weigh-in. No water for 30 hours.
I thought having more than 36 hours (friday night + saturday day + saturday night) would be more than enough to rehydrate and refuel. Maybe it was and my lack of drive wasn't at all connected with my weight. I honestly can't tell. In any case I can tell that this didn't actually give me any additional energy... Definately need to experiment more on this topic. Can't afford to lose important fights because of excessive cutting. I'll work out a functional solution to this one soon, just need some time to get my mind straight.

Once I recover (both mentally and physically), I'll post more on my fight and the lessons that can be drawn from the whole thing.

The Good
On a very positive note, Chris took bronze in the semi-contact division (men -70kg). I don't begrudge it to him, he absolutely deserved it. Won three fights against really high-class competitors from
  1. Mussia
  2. Moldovia and
  3. Poland

Lost against an english in the half-finals. Now the awesome thing is Chris had just had ACL surgery six months ago - so he basically entered the tournament without the ability to throw explosive kicks. Now especially the lead leg pumping sidekick is a principal weapon in point-fighting. Being robbed of this tool would put most fighters in a very bad situation. Chris, on the other hand, made the best out of the situation and relied on his blazing fast blitzing attacks to score time and again. "Reduce to the max", at it's highest. Chris did what I failed to - he stuck to a solid gameplan. Guess I'll be writing a couple of retrospective posts on what Chris did over the course of the next days...

Anyhow, a more detailled report on the [EC2012] will follow once I'm back on my feet.

So long,

take care
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