Vics 2011

It's been a long day at Aqualink in Box hill for the first Vics this year and I'm exhausted. The turn out wasn't so high as I know some clubs are heading to the Belgium open next week. This meant there was only 5 in my division with others similar to mine. I'm glad for this reason that Taekwondo Victoria elected to change the program and make the competition a round robin. With a guarantee of three fights, I thought this would be a great opportunity to get some valuable competition time in the ring. The intent would be to pick some clear goals before and really work on them during the day.
I had an injury concern with my right hamstring and wasn't able to do much training the week leading up to today, so my initial goal was to work on ring positioning and maintaining pressure on my opponent while attacking mainly with the left foot. Luckily after a good warm up my right leg felt good enough to use though I still didn't have complete confidence using it.
Looking at my first opponent I thought I was blessed because I had a good clear height advantage over him. My game plan is generally to try to score a few head kicks as they are a valuable 3 points and then try a few things.
Just before we were about to go on I was really feeling the nervous energy. The thoughts of "its been 9 months since I'd fought last" and "I've missed quality training time due to another injury" were plaguing my mind and doubt.
My couch Adam told me it was good to feel that uneasiness and I agree with him. It gives you a little adrenalin and puts you on high alert for what is about to come.
Starting the round I was over anxious, rushing my attacks and just wanted to knock the pour guy out so I could get off the court quickly. In the back of my mind I still had plenty of doubt about my injury and wasn't confident in my ability because of this. Recalling the round I once again fell into some bad habits of not setting up my attacks and not continuing to follow with two to three kicks. My first round was bad even though I was ahead on points.
Adam told me to settle down and rather than throw 30 average kicks make 10 kicks really count. We started the next round and I tried relaxing a bit more though can recall that whenever my opponent was in scoring range I felt I should attack. (This reminds me of the Para World Championships were whenever my opponent was in my distance I would kick and continue to kick). I managed to score some head kicks but felt that they were not quality kicks as they were lacking good technique.
The round seemed to finish quickly and next thing I know the referee has called an end to it declaring me the winner. First thing I learnt today, if you are 12 points or more ahead of your opponent by the end of the second or anytime during the third you are the winner. Its a really good rule as when players are not equally matched you don't have one player completely smashing another and ruining all there confidence and self esteem. I noticed this last year at the nationals were I saw one competitor 25 points up on his opponent. The sad thing was the losing competitors couch did not withdraw the player so the uneven match continued.
After my fight had finished (as I saw it, one round early) thinking back it would have been better for me to be more composed and control the pace of the fight so it continued into the third round. I could have used the last round to try a few things out still in competition but without the pressure of trying everything to win. A note for next time.
The second thing that I became aware of sometime later was the impact that the smaller ring had on the entire fight. So I can slide out I tend to always have one mat of space between me and the red boundary, which with the new court size puts you smack bang in the middle. What does this mean? It means you are constantly in range of your opponent! The new court size creates continuous pressure were it is very difficult to break off and move around. You have little space behind you to retreat before your out the ring and getting a warning.
I wasn't prepared for this at all and often found myself out of position because of it. I think this will force people to change their styles to accommodate the lack of space. Long combination kicks like running double wont be as effective as you will not be given the space to pull it off. For me it means a change of style were the focus will be on short techniques.
For my second and last fight (against the gold medalist, congratulations Matty!) Carlo specifically said to work on short and sharp techniques. One thing I know for certain is the next few weeks my focus will be to get comfortable sparring in the new ring dimensions.