Tournament Overview The USA Judo Senior National Championships were held May 3rd and 4th at the Grand Sierra Resort & Casino in Reno, Nevada. This year's National Championships had over 620 entries from athletes across the United States. I competed in two divisions--the 48kg Senior Elite Division as well as the 48kg Brown Belt Division. In the Senior Elite Division I ended the day going 3-1, my only loss coming from the #1 seed in the tournament and eventual gold medalist. After the loss, I came back to win the next match and my first ever National Medal, a bronze. This result boosted my overall national ranking to a career high, #5 in the nation. I also competed in the Brown Belt category to get additional fights and experience. I ended up with gold, winning all my matches by ippon (a full point). My thoughts: the good Now that I've had some downtime (while traveling back home), I've had a chance to really evaluate my results, the weekend as a whole, and my progress. I'm proud that I've accomplished yet another one of my judo goals: to medal at a USA judo senior national championships. For this being only my 2nd Nationals and my first at 48kg, placing third isn't too shabby. I started to figure out and understand the USA 48kg player's game. It's very different from my own in that it's very quick (some would say spazzy) and a bit sloppy (compared to the way traditional judo is played). This was really my first time experiencing it, so the fact that I performed as well as I did competing against a new style of play is admirable. Another "good" thing about the weekend was that I competed against and beat (for bronze) a girl that's being doing judo since she was 4 and is also a black belt. She has two to three times more experience in the sport, yet I was able to perform well enough to get the win. Last but certainly not least, I moved up in the national rankings to a career high, number 5 and also solidified my spot on Team USA to compete in a World Cup tournament in Miami this fall. This tournament is an A level international tournament and will give me c a chance to earn Olympic qualifying points. My thoughts: the bad Now, as some of you may know, I'm rather hard on myself...so with every success, there are definitely things to work on and improve. Though this weekend was rather successful, I have to admit that I was disappointed in a few things--the first being how I performed during the senior elite bracket. I had a chance to really make a statement on the national stage and make sure everyone knew who Ashley Hejlik was and that I was a force to be reckoned with. In some regards I did, however not to the extent that I wanted. I fought against the #1 seed in the tournament and #1 ranked girl in the USA, but went out on the mat timid, hesitant, and questioning my own abilities. "Am I good enough? Do I know enough judo? Have I competed enough? She has two to three times my experience...can I compete? She's fought numerous times on the international stage." These are the thoughts that went through my head and inevitably, was my demise. I questioned myself, my abilities and my confidence. That can't happen. Judo is probably 80% mental and confidence. I basically defeated myself. I had my chance to fight for gold and I let it slip through my fingertips. Confidence in my abilities is definitely a part of my game that needs work. The other thing that really stands out which I found to be disappointing, is that I didn't play MY judo. I was stiff, timid, didn't commit to my throws, and didn't attack nearly enough. I let my nerves and lack of experience get the better of me. Luckily, halfway through the bronze medal match, I started to find my groove and pulled out the win. I just wish I would have done MY judo throughout the whole tournament. Yet another thing I will have to work on at practice. Next steps Thankfully, with the success I had at nationals, I earned the opportunity to represent USA at more international, Olympic-point-generating tournaments. That means I have A LOT of work to do--on the mat, mentally, and also finding ways to financially take these trips. I will head right back to practice tomorrow to get working on the holes in my judo game. I have some scouting to do (both for national and international players I could face). I'll be watching videos of their fights on YouTube and I'll analyze their game and come up with a strategy to attack their weaknesses. I have some recovering to do as well. Besides the obvious soreness, I also need to rehab my shoulder (which was injured multiple times and never healed properly). I probably should see my physical therapist as well as my chiropractor to get healed up. I also need to work on my mental game and confidence. I'm hoping to find a sports psychologist I can work with to help me with this aspect of my game. My next big tournament will be next month inEl Salvador. After that, in the late summer I'll be heading to Miami to compete in another World Cup. To see additional tournaments, check out my competition schedule here. In order to pay for these tournaments, I'll continue to seek out additional sponsorships, partnerships, grants, and donations. If you're interested in helping fund these trips or know someone who might be, please check out myGoFundMe page. If you or someone you know is interested in sponsoring me or partnering with me, I'd love to hear from you. Please know, you'd be in good company! I'm currently sponsored by an international health food company as well as a multi-million dollar publishing company! Check out my sponsors here. As promised, here is the tournament information for Senior Nationals. I've provided the tournament location and schedule of events. All of my fights will be on Sunday. I'll be fighting in the 48kg Senior Elite Division as well as the 48kg Brown Belt Division. Most likely I'll be providing updates about the weekend on my Facebook Page, so be on the lookout for those. If the event is streaming live, I'll put that information both on here and on my Facebook Page. No guarantees they will be streamed live, but my Dad and possibly my brother will be attending, so hopefully they'll be able to get a few videos of my fights so I can share them with you all! 2014 Senior National Championships May 03-04, 2014 Sponsored and Hosted by: USA Judo and Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority Tournament Headquarters & Tournament Site: Grand Sierra Resort and Casino 2500 East Second Street Reno, NV 89595 Nearest Airport: Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO) Saturday May 3 Senior Shiai Female: 57kg, 63kg, 70kg, 78kg, +78kg Male: 73kg, 81kg, 90kg, 100kg, +100kg. Sunday May 4 Senior Shiai. Female: 44kg, 48kg, 52kg, Open Male: 55kg, 60kg, 66kg, Open All master, brown belt, novice and VI categories SCHEDULE OF EVENTS Friday, May 2 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Check-in/ registration ALL kata, master and shiai competitors. 7:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m. Official weigh-in Sr Shiai: Heavy weights 7:00 p.m./ 8:00p.m. Official draw for heavy weights Saturday, May 3 9:00 a.m. Competition start for heavy weights 1 Hour after completion Welcome Ceremonies & gold/silver matches of preliminaries 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Registration/weigh-in for all Brown Belts 3:00 p.m. Meeting/Draw for Brown Belt categories 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Official weigh-in Sr. Shiai: Light weights Sunday, May 4 9:00 a.m. Competition start for senior light weight categories. 1 Hour after completion Gold/silver matches of preliminaries Brown Belt categories begin immediately upon conclusion of senior medal matches. I have about 3 weeks until the 2014 USA Senior National Championships, this year being held in Reno, Nevada. This tournament will be the first time I'll be able to really gauge how I rank and compete among the 48kg girls in the U.S. I'm going into this tournament with a lot of confidence. I am only seeing gold. If I leave Reno without a gold medal in the 48kg senior elite category, I'll be very disappointed with myself. With that being said, I have a lot of work to do in order to prepare. I'm still trying to recover from all of the traveling, training, and competing (plus work at my marketing job) but I may need to get started full-bore training without an ideal amount of recovery. My training looks a bit like this...
As you can see, I have a lot of work to do in the short 3 weeks that I have left. :) I'm hoping to bring back another gold like I did in 2013. When I get more time, I'll put together the information about Nationals for you--if you're interested in the details. When, where, what time...all that good stuff. Stay tuned! **Edit: Here's the link to the tournament information! 2014 continues to be a good year for me on the mat. So far I’ve attended 4 tournaments and have won my weight category in 3 of them. This past weekend (Saturday, April 4th) I participated in the 27th Annual Liberty Bell Judo Classic on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and won my weight category. With the win, my national ranking in 48kg jumped up to number 7. The weekend was a long one, but rewarding, nonetheless. The weekend started with a four hour trip to Philly (right after work) on Friday, in order to make it in time for registration and weigh-ins. I easily made weight (47.6kg), saw some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while, then headed to get some grub at Chipotle. Saturday was quite exhausting (as you can probably imagine). The tournament started bright and early at 9am—I don’t think I got on the mat until after 1pm. While I was waiting to fight, I was able to watch and cheer on some of my teammates. I only had 3 matches, but two of them were against girls I had never fought before—so it was nice to experience a fighting style different from my own. All three of my matches were won on the ground. Two were won via a move called Sankaku-Jime (or triangle choke/pin) and the other was won by a pin called Kesa Gatame. Winning this tournament gives me a “D-level” ranking on the national roster and 3 points. It doesn’t sound like much, but it puts me one step closer to reaching my goal for 2014—to be ranked #1 in the US in 48kg. |
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