Insights from Roses

Roses was pretty great. I won the only tournament I fought in. A bunch of stuff came out of my fighting-times though, that I want to remember and maybe other people want to read it too. I'm doing this bullet-point style, because I want to cover a lot of ground. I could probably write a full blog post about each and every one of these bullet points, but I'm not going to do that right now. Keep in mind the standard "this is what works for me, what works for you might be different" disclaimer, and off we go.

• Having a between-round routine is super important.
• It lets me stay in the moment.
• Set down weapons, take off hat, take off hood, take off gloves, sit down comfortably, wipe face with hood, drink water, 
• Similarly, in between rounds I should not try to think smart thoughts. Only dumb ones like, "It's cold." and "That's funny." Meditative things like that.
• Being smart is stressful. Being dumb isn't.
• Being aware of the terrain is super important.
• Literally every single fight, I went to the high ground in the list. The one time my opponent was there first, I went to the corner right next to him, intending to start on ground as high as possible. I didn't always retain the high ground, but I always started with it.
• This also meant I had the sun in my eyes, but the sun was high enough that it didn't matter.
• Being fresh is important.
• I was one of two people in that tournament who had not fought in a tournament previously in that day, I think.
• Fighting a tough opponent early isn't bad, if you have time to rest between rounds.
• "Awesome, I won that fight. I won't have to deal with them later, when I'm more tired."
• Emotional resilience is super important. One way to achieve that is to try to basically be in a meditative state the entire time. See the previous points about having a routine and smart versus dumb thoughts.
• Actually wanting to win is the most important. I have been in places where I didn't really want to win, but fought anyway. Predictably, that leads to me questioning my decisions in the middle of a bout.
• Weirdly, when I decide not to fight in a tournament and then I am convinced to sign up at the last moment, I usually do well because it leads to me not being stressed.
• Handsome Boys make amazing warm-up bouts.
• Being present in the moment is essential. 
• Never think about what has gone before. Only react to the current blade situation, right now. Don't even think about trying to do a strategy. 
• If you have a strategy, it should be something that happens without thinking. This is what bouts beforehand and drilling are for. 
• You should always be able to look at a situation and almost feel pulled to do the one correct thing. It should not be conscious. It should just be what your body does by default, without input from your higher brain.
• The way to do this is fülen - that is to say, feeling what the correct action is rather than thinking it. This is not the sense of touch, this is the sense of intuition.

Yay violence.