Good news first: I took third place in the “middleweight masters” (aged not less than 30 years, weighing not more than 178lbs) division of the UNH Wildcat Judo Invitational. This one marked a significant turning point for me because for the first time, I beat someone. My very first match of the day, I landed a classic “Osoto Gari” (the standard outside foot sweep) to put my opponent flat on his back. Ippon! Once someone else beat him, I was assured a place in the top three.
Osoto Gari looks like this when done by guys way, way more skilled than me:
On to the not so good news, I think I got a mild concussion in the next match. I went for an “Ouchi Gari” (pronounced as three syllables, “oh-oochi”, not two, “ouchy”), which is an inside sweep that requires you to be quite close to your opponent and thread a foot between their feet to take them backwards. Instead, my opponent (the guy who got second place) reversed it, I had my feet taken out from under me, and I dropped like a stone on my back, knocking the back of my head on the mat.
It was supposed to work like this:
I remember getting up after that brain jarring fall, bowing out, shaking hands … and the next thing I remember is (no shit) waking up halfway into my next match. I must have been coherent and seemed to be doing okay, otherwise they would have stopped me … but I have no recollection of leaving the mat, changing out my blue belt for a white one, getting called, or bowing back in. I’m somewhat pleased that even on autopilot I could hold my own for the first part of a match, though I wound up losing to a pin.
That was the morning, and then there was a several hour wait for the “senior middleweight novice” (aged not less than 18 years, weighing not more than 178lbs, and not yet ranked brown belt). When I first realized that I had lost memories for this sport, I was pretty spooked, and considered leaving the tournament. I decided that the better part of valor was to stick around. There was also the thought that if I was going to have any bad effects it would be better to have them in the same room with an EMT team rather than while doing 75mph southbound on the highway.
As the day went on, a headache came and went, and I drank a bunch of water. Eventually, my other division came up and I was put out of competition in two fights. The second one against the same “mr. brain jar” from before. Like a dumbass, I tried the same move on him, thinking that something different would happen. Nope. He cranked me the same way, but I remembered to tuck my chin and avoided further injury. Ibuprofen, coffee, and a sandwich later, and I’m feeling pretty good.
I’ve consulted three medical professionals (redmed, justkidding_nr, and thx4asking). They agree that I seem to be in pretty good shape, and that they’ll monitor me for any of the telltale signs that I broke my noggin. thx4asking shared that he had almost exactly the same experience (remembers getting hit, but nothing for the next few minutes, and “woke up” actively defending himself) during a black belt test many years ago.
Leave a Reply