Coming of age

Coming of Age

The OIA judo state championship was held at Leileihua last year.  As long as I placed sixth in this competition I would be qualified for states.  So far, I had made it to the finals match.  I was in the warm up room getting ready for this very important match.  I was visualizing all my techniques in my head, replaying them over and over just like you would with a DVD player.  As I visualized them I was doing repetitions of the techniques.  I felt focused, like a lion getting ready to strike his pray.  All the cheering, yelling, and distractions around me were muted.  I heard one of the staff call "Bryson Castro". Finally, I was called to step on to the mat to face my opponent.  I was ready.

As I walked on to the mat, I felt like a there dog was in my stomach pawing and playing with my insides, but when I looked into the crowd and saw my family and team, the dog decided to sit.  I took a bow on the mat and faced my opponent.  I remember thinking, I worked hard to get here, and I can do this.  I bowed to my opponent and the referee said the word that started the match, “Hajime!”

The whole match was a blur.  In the beginning my head was spinning like a carousel going at a hundred miles per hour, but I grabbed a hold of the reigns pretty quickly and was in control of the match.  Soon my adrenaline started to kick in and I could feel my techniques start to activate like a program in a robot.  My body did exactly as I told it and I was dominating the whole time, but just two minutes in the round the referee said the word “Mate” and the matched stopped.  He then called for his two fellow referees and they started talking together privately.  As I waited I stared at my opponent, waiting to get the match started again.  The two referees went back to their seats and the head referee pointed his hand at me and said the word every judoka never wants to hear, “Hansokomake”.   As soon as I heard that word I thought I was dreaming.  It had meant I had been disqualified.

At first I was confused and wondered what I had done wrong.  I looked at my coach for help, but he had no idea what had happened either.  So I took a bow off the mat and accepted my fate of defeat.  I felt as if I had made a bridge with my bare hands, and a huge wave just came and swept it all away.  As soon as I walked toward my coach I fought really hard to hold back my disappointment, anger, and most of all tears, but as soon as I reached the dam which held back the river in my eyes burst.  My coach told me to stop and looked at me.  He told me “I am proud of how I performed out there; you dominated most of the match.” As I listened to his words it went through me like a ghost.  I still felt like I had hit the lowest part of the sea floor.  He told me to go find my parents, and he was going to go find out what had happened.

I looked into the bleachers filled with a lot of people, and spotted my parents seated at the top row.  As I walked up to them I was surprised to hear congratulations and smiles from them.  Even though I lost they were proud of me because they knew that I had worked hard to get to that point.  To see my dad, my mom, and my younger siblings smile and be proud of me made me feel a little better.  In my head, I still felt like a lost.  I kept thinking, “I will know whether or not I really beat my opponent, or if he really would have won.”  I sat with my parents for about thirty minutes, when my coach asked me if I had a recording of the match, which my dad had.  Coach told me that they had disqualified me for unsportsmanlike conduct; the referees claimed that I had pushed my opponent into the mat.  As I walked down with my coach to the referee’s room I got words of sincere congratulations and phrases like “you would have beat him Castro” or “you will always get him next time” all of my teammates.  When my dad and coach went into the referee’s room I waited just outside of the door.  As I waited I thought of all the support I got from everyone on the judo team.  They had all sincerely felt I would have won.  As I thought about it more I felt more positive and didn’t take my loss as a loss.  I felt like I gained and won the care and respect from my team mates.  When my dad and coach came out of the room I knew that they had not lift the disqualification and I would not be able to compete in states.  I felt crushed, but I had gained more that I lost.  I gained friend and respect.

Before I close, I want my readers to know that I had not pushed my opponent into the mat.  Everyone watched the video and I had pulled upwards, even the referee changed his accusation of pushing to pulling away violently, but watching the video is not how I became of age.  I grew up in many ways after that competition.  I had learned that even though I lost something that was important to me, there are people out there who are there to comfort me.  I also learned that even thought I worked hard to get to the OIAs, and got disqualified, people didn’t care whether or not I won or lost, it was about how much effort I put into the competition because they had seen me work hard the whole year with them.  As much as I worked hard I would not have been able to do it without my teammates and on top of that my family.