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Francesca Steggall October Blog
01/11/2011

Francesca Steggall October Blog

This month working and training has been tough and I have been making  my final preparations for the European cup.

I competed at the weekend, it was my first tournament back from injury, and although it was on a small "Run out" competition which basically means I hadn't competed for a while and had to blow the cob webs off by competition with rules and getting the feel back for all the nerves, adrenaline rush and just enjoy competing. Saturday was good for this, I was very nervous just because it was my first tournament back.

I fought the weight class above my normal as there were many competitions on the same day all over the country and the turn out in the light weight was limited, there was only one other person in that weight I fought which was -52 kilo grams so we had a match to decide the winner and to get more matches I fought in the -57kg category.

I won the weight class I had entered ( -52kilo grams ) and I won one match and lost one match in the -57 kilo grams category, they were far too big for little me really!!!


My competition day:
I got to the weigh in at Midday where your licence and weight gets checked to make sure you are under the weight you are competing at, then I went to find a place to perch for the day as i can't sit still so I'm normally just wondering around with my head phones in listening to music in my own little zone.

Roughly an hour from when the timetable says I am due to fight I will put on my kit and a jumper to start warming up, this time I was lucky enough to have Ben Quilter aka Double World Champion there to warm up with me, during the warm up I normally just strut around the mat area a few times and then crack on with some OUCHI COMI which in English is repetition of technique followed by situational tactics (which I have drilled during training many times) followed by short explosive bursts of throwing, followed on with a bit of NEWAZA which in English is Ground Work. To finish I did a practise fight to get me ready. I then keep warm and chill out listening to music while I wait to be called.

This all seemed to work for me as I won my first fight within 30 seconds with an Arm lock causing a submission which is classed as an Ippon the highest point score you can get giving an automatic win, which I was very happy with.

My next two fights were at -57kilo grams the first fight went the full distance of 5 minutes and I won by Wazari which is worth 7 points, my final fight I lost after 2minutes 30 seconds by Ippon. Over all it was a good day.

I am now 2 weeks away from Spain which is a European Cup so I'm going to keep training and catch up with you next month.


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Stephen James Ruxley
BMW Service

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