I hate losing...

Like most people, I hate losing. I had a Ju Jitsu tournament this morning and it was a fail. I keep going over the two matches I lost trying to figure out what went wrong. Then my arm has a spasm of pain and I remember, Oh yeah... I gave her my arm and gave her the match. I fail. My second match only lasted like two seconds before the girl was wrentching my arm out of it's socket. I still can't figure out what went wrong with the first match though. I had back control so many times. I was putting on the choke and she just slipped out. I put her in a triangle choke quite a few times as well but I couldn't get it right. I tried to pull of an arm bar which I usually have a high success rate but she was too strong. Or maybe I'm just too small. I let myself get too comfortable with those I practice with. My muscle memory was trained to Kendall's moves and the moves of those in my class. I wasn't expecting or prepared for anything else. I can't help but think, What if I had gone religiously to the club from the beginning of the semester? Would it have even made a difference to my sorry set of skills? I came into the tournament entirely too confident. I should've known these girls wouldn't be like the ones in my class. I kind of knew, but I had hoped they would be just like them. I could have taken them all if that were the case. This is my problem with losing. When I've been so excited for something for so long and when it finally comes I fail and let myself down I obsess over it and it keeps me up at night. The same thing happened at the end of last summer. I had been so excited for the summer because I was finally going to clear the wake while wakeboarding, but when the summer came to a close I had yet to soar over the width of the wake. I stayed up going over cutting out, turning, cutting in, bending the knees, and springing. What went wrong? I thought I was cutting out really hard...Ugh... I wasn't cutting IN fast enough. Maybe I need to turn the board more. It's not horizontal enough. Anyway the moral of the story is that when I fail I can't sleep. I know it's over and I can't change it, but I still obsess. I need to find another Ju Jitsu tournament and at least beat one person. Then I think I will finally be at ease... Until then, may you enjoy the happy dreams I will miss out on as slumber to the dreams of grappling and failing again and again. Joy...

2:03 am...Whitney out.