Now that the Olympics are here, I was wondering if anybody ever had a shot to compete in them.

I had a shot, but it was still a long shot. When I was much younger I was in martial arts. My particular discipline had just been allowed as an exhibition sport during that Olympics. The rumors were flying several years prior (which makes sense, since they are planned at least 4 years early). I heard the rumors and wanted to go. At the time I thought the Olympics was the best it gets. What better achievement than to go to the country my sport originated in and represent my country. I competed in several state and national level tournaments and did very well. I was always at the top of the state competitions, normally placing first or second. At the national level I was top three. One of the guys I always competed against at the state level was always top two at the national level events he went to. He and I were always one and two at the state competitions we attended together. Because he lived near a larger city he had more access tournament information than I did in my backwater community, so he attended more national tournaments than I did. He was ranked in the top 20 nationally. The reason he was ranked so low after doing so well at the national tournaments was due to not attending enough of them.

Since the sport was new to the Olympics, there really wasn't a well defined recruiting system so the already existing national and state tournaments served that function. After one national tournament I received an invitation to attend a summer training camp (more like a tryout than a training camp) in preparation for other larger events. The invites were only given to those who finished in the top three of their competition at the tournament and those who were nationally ranked in the top 5. If I performed well enough at the camp, I would have gone on to the Pan-Am games and the Jr. Olympics. Both were the last stops before going to the Olympic tryouts. Before I went to the national tournament I was told by my father and his wife, I would be able to go to training camp if I wanted and IF I was invited. I was also told that was a big if on the invite and I probably would never be invited because it was very competitive. It cost about $3000 for everything, food, training, hotel, travel, everything. Once the invite came ALL funding ceased. I could only afford to continue training, but no more major tournaments (at least $50 per plus travel and hotel). If I went to a local tournament I had to find someone to take me and I had to pay the entry fee myself. At the end of my three year run I had a total of 20-25 trophies from all of the competitions I was in. Of all those, I only have one left. My proudest, my bronze medal. I worked my **** off for that medal.

My training for the two years prior to the invite consisted of class three days per week for 2-4 hours per day. Saturdays was 4 hours because I attended both the adult and children classes. Basically I attended all classes my school had and any seminars my Master instructor invited us to. About six months out me and several other students attended the normal classes and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we were training on out specialty (sparring) for 3-4 hours per day. We did a round robin sparring regimen. Basically we had two competitors in the ring. We would fight for three minutes. One would leave and a new person would come in. We typically had three or four students there training. The instructor who was present would jump in and spar everyone at least twice. There was no break. At the end of the six months everything came down to speed and making an opening. We had no natural openings and we could block pretty much anything that came at us. Class sparring became boring, because none of our peers could touch any of us, while they were easily picked apart. Fortunately the instructors saw this and only had us spar the other students to train them. When we were being trained in class we would spar the instructors.

Those were good times. I only wish I hadn't lost the funding of my father and his wife, due to doing so well. So tell your story. How close did you come?

 

If I had run in the 1948 Olympics, a 46.23 in the 400m run would have won me a gold medal. I Graduated HS in 1985, so I guess I didn't come all that close. lol

 

Really 100 views and nobody was a good athlete?? Wow, all y'all are some couch potatoes. :-)

 

Hey now, I think I could easily pull down a Gold if they did have couch potato as an event. Just because CP isn't a recognized event doesn't mean you need to talk down our "special" powers!