The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Our school often films the matches at the Jiu-Jitsu tournaments we host, and when we do I am the one who usually edits and uploads the videos. I actually enjoy the hours and hours of work, but sometimes I am afraid my teammates are going to hate me for posting their losing matches. I've had people make negative comments to me about it, and I feel like saying "If you don't want a video of you sucking, then don't suck!" Ha! Seriously, I've only had one person who asked me not to post their match, and of course I did as they asked, I would never want to make anyone feel bad.

I ♥ The Walking Dead!

As for me personally, I usually upload all of my competition matches that get filmed, regardless of my performance. Even though I sometimes don't really want to make them public, I feel like there are too few female videos out there as it is, and I'm trying to include all of my journey; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

However, I will admit that there is one of my videos that I chose not to share. It's from a match where I was far ahead on points with less than thirty seconds left, and then I let her take my back and choke me. The loss isn't the reason I didn't post the video (I'm used to that, if I just posted my Jiu-Jitsu wins there would only be three videos of me in competition, instead of about twelve ;). I didn't share it because the camera was directly in my face as I was being choked. You can see all of the pain, frustration, sadness, and disappointment in vivid detail. I can't stand to watch it, and I don't want anyone else to either.

I think of the end of that match as my worst Jiu-Jitsu moment ever. If I hadn't tapped, I would have won my first and only gold medal. Having it on video was helpful, because I could see what I did wrong and I learned my lesson, but I don't want to ever watch it again. I've lost in many matches, but that was the only time I have ever felt defeated (and I did it to myself). It's just too much ugliness for my ego to bear (or bare).

I know that sometimes it's hard enough to accept a loss, let alone to allow other people to watch it, so I really hope my teammates would ask me to not post their videos if that is what they would prefer. However, I would also hope that they would then ask for a private copy (which I would be happy to provide), because you can learn so much from seeing your matches. In all of the videos I have watched and uploaded, I have never felt like someone's defeat reflected negatively on them, I'm more concerned with the way they deal with it. Neither our wins nor our losses define us, they just help us grow.