Winter Escape
My quick holiday to Florida came and went. We had an uneventful flight on JetBlue to Orlando, picked up the rental car and headed straight off to the hotel. The hotel was the same Holiday Inn Express we stayed at last year and like last year, they assigned us a room with an existing occupant, which made for a mildly uncomfortable situation until it was straightened out. After getting settled it was off to bed for the tournament on Saturday, except there was a hotel full of kids and the neighbors across the hall decided to have a marathon, ass-slapping, donkey punching, screaming, fuck fest. Normally I don't care, but both made for a long night. Needless to say, we won't be staying at that hotel again.
Saturday was tournament day and after a delay of about an hour and a half, it was my turn to compete. There were nine of us in the Adult division and once they called us to the bullpen, it went pretty quickly. My first match was against another guy from NY, I pulled guard and started to work. He escaped, and passed for 3 points, then after a bit scored another 2 on a sweep. I managed a sweep and then we battled back and forth for a bit. The key point (for me) is when, unlike my last tournament, I looked at the clock/score and realized I was down on points and running out of time. I popped up, passed to his back and attacked, sinking one hook in and bugging the neck, until I was able to get the other hook in for 4 points and the submission.
My next match didn't go quite as well. My opponent was fast and squirrely but it was a winnable match. I made errors including almost getting caught with an armbar, sitting down resulting in 2 points for my opponent, and giving up my back. Yeah, there were some errors for sure. However, I'm going to look at them all as learning opportunities and refreshers. Each is something which I need to and will work on in my upcoming training. Although I do feel a bit better after this tournament compared to my last, I know I still have a long way to go. Right now I might not be able to fix too much since some of my teammates are competing this weekend, but once these comps are over, I plan on making a concerted effort to address my errors.
The rest of our time in Florida was filled with visiting family, eating and even visiting a theme park. My father has a small place in Fort Meyers, so we took a road trip and went out to dinner with him on one of the nights. Laura's Grandmother, Aunt and Uncle also live in Clearwater, so we drove out there to visit and eat dinner with them.
On the Tuesday before we came back, we went to Universal Studio's Wizarding World of Harry Potter which was pretty cool. Since we got there early and it was cold (for Florida), it wasn't too crowded and we didn't have to wait in any lines. I'm not real big on rides, but it was definitely worth going to visit. After spending the day wandering about we had worked up a pretty good appetite so it was off to BoiBrazil Churrascaria for dinner followed by some acai at Kingdom Acai.