I apologize for having not updated my blog in such a long
time. The heading of this blog post is exactly what this is. As an update for my participation
in the IBJJF Worlds, I figure I’d throw out how my trip has gone thus
far. I have been in Los Angeles for a
full 7.5 hours at the current time of typing this post, have gotten perhaps a
collective three hours of sleep and was forced to eat McDonald’s or (seemingly)
die of starvation. I had always wondered
and fantasized about how easy it would be to live in southern California so
that I could train at some of the best schools in the world and then travel to
the top tournaments in the world quite easily, but if I were to only do two,
three or perhaps four tournaments in California per year, wouldn’t it be just
as easy to live somewhere on the east coast and then fly out to California when
necessary? There are, after all, great
schools in the eastern states. Let me
put into perspective my personal traveling experience, comparing what it’s like
to drive to New York City for a tournament and what it’s like to fly out to
California:
Weeks in advance, I purchase my
ticket to California and begin planning what days I need to leave Pennsylvania
and, of course, return back home. I may
not be able to find a direct flight from Pittsburgh, and in this case, I needed
to connect in JFK or else pay an astronomical price just to connect in a more ‘logical”
area (somewhere between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles). I chose the cheaper flight, which happened to
be a steal, sacrificing what convenience I’d otherwise have. I get ready to board my plane and fall victim
to a somewhat common woe that passengers sometimes face – a delayed
flight. My plane from Pittsburgh to New
York is delayed 45 minutes, and then again another 45 minutes when we are
sitting on the tarmac. Luckily my
connection in New York was very long and I was able to make my next flight with
plenty of time to spare, though I didn’t expect what was going to happen next.
I arrive in Los Angeles, happy
(though sleep deprived as I can never fall asleep on planes) to be in my final
destination and ready to get to my teammate’s apartment to rest up for a day of
training, until my worst fears come true at baggage claim. My baggage is nowhere to be found. They tell me that it, for whatever reason,
was set on another plane and that I’d have to pick it up at 10:00AM the next
day (a time that I am, at the time of writing these words, awaiting
eagerly). They told me this at
12:45AM. I had to choose between taking
the time and money to go from LAX to Pasadena, then waking up early and taking
the trip from Pasadena to LAX to retrieve my luggage and then from LAX back to
Pasadena one more time, all the while disrupting my friend’s sleep schedule, or
I could simply stay in the airport until I retrieve my luggage and then leave
at a more ‘appropriate’ time of the day.
I chose the latter and rather grumpily frumped around for hours, hungry
and cold, inappropriately dressed for airport air-conditioning, unable to find
even a Denny’s that was open. The only
24 hour restaurant in the area was closed for renovating this particular day. Perhaps if I were not so cheap, none of this
would have happened and I could have just taken a direct flight that would have
transferred my luggage like what was originally supposed to happen, but I want
to save what money I have as a broke blue belt to make it to the other big
tournaments later in the year.
In my
grumpy tantrum I was yelled at by a foreign woman for unplugging her
unattended-to phone from the only outlet I could find so that I could charge my
own laptop and phone, which were on their way to electronic-suicide, and was
given a sweatshirt to wear by a woman who was waiting with me in the terminal before
the workers could start their shifts.
After being handed the sweatshirt, she proceeded to tell me she’s been “feeling
sick”. I asked if I should be wearing
the sweatshirt and she assured me that she only feels sick because she ate some
really bad Mexican food the other day and she thinks she’s probably pregnant,
or something. Thankfully I had nothing
to worry about. I decided to take the
sweatshirt off and walk around the airport a bit more to find the closest restaurant
that would be open the soonest. It was
McDonalds, and I ate my egg white McMuffin and hashbrown like a champion should
as soon as it opened for business. While
I’m quite ashamed at what I needed to eat and I was upset at what I had to go
through, it is perhaps a consequence of my previous choices and a lot of bad
luck. Either way, it is a rough way to
start a week of training at a new gym before the biggest tournament in the
world. Comparatively, my trips to New
York City for No-Gi Pan Ams and the New York Open consist of figuring out what
time I will leave before the weekend of the tournament to get to my parents’
house in Philly and then figuring out when to leave the morning of the
tournament so that I get there in time for my division to start. Generally there is no trouble other than
waking up very early in the morning to compete in the very first division of
the day (which is usually blue belt adult rooster weight).
Living in California certainly
seems great to me, though I suspect the travel is equally as difficult for the
competitors living on the west coast that want to compete on the east coast –
luckily for them, most of the major tournaments such as the IBJJF Worlds,
Nationals, Pan Ams, No-Gi Worlds, and a few big “International Open” events are
all hosted in the southern California region or within reasonable driving
distance of it. The only major
tournaments on the east coast are No-Gi Pan Ams…and perhaps the New York Open,
which happens to draw a lot of competitors due to its importance as being one
of the only major gi tournaments in the northeast that is easily accessible by
people in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston alike. Is this unfair to east coast competitors that
we must deal with the travel expenses and difficulties more so than west coast
competitors at the highest level of competition? It’s worth a thought. Perhaps the IBJJF could consider moving
worlds or Pan Ams around between New York City and Los Angeles each year…there
may be a lot of schools in Southern California, but there certainly aren’t a
lack of schools in the Mid-Atlantic, and there are a whole lot of good
wrestlers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Am I the only one that thinks this way?
Perhaps I’ll think differently after a good night’s sleep and a good day
of training.
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