RingoMy third IMCF is over and I find it a fairly constant battle to fight my disappointment with my performance. I spent last night dreaming of different things that could have happened, fights that should have gone differently. I’ve been explaining my fuck up to people almost constantly since that last day. Some people are reveling in the Silver we earned or their heroic performance on the 10’s and all I can muster is a simmering rage at how I’m the reason 8 people had to walk out of there with 1 medal instead of 2. I’ve been trying to turn this into positive energy, use this as incentive to build and grow. The first step on that is figuring out what went wrong.
I’ll do a full break down later as I have time to watch all the video but a common theme that seemed to crystalize as I talked to fighters was that most of our losses came when people came across things they hadn’t seen yet. In the 10’s this was unfortunately just that high level of fighting. Only a few fighters had been on that level stage before and honestly compared to the past two years, the fighting this year was just on another level. A level 5 party walked into what had been advertised as a challenging level appropriate dungeon only to find it was really calculated for a full stocked epic level party. I would imagine there isn’t a fighter on that team that didn’t level up hard from that experience. Might have had to use a few scrolls of resurrection though.
The 16’s loss to ukraine seemed to be due to a flaw in the echelon….if the opposing team can get man to man fighting quick enough it basical becomes a chaotic line battle…which is not where our 16’s excel. We need better practice fighting aggressive fighters that move too fast and sure to be enveloped….
The 5’s however seemed mostly to come down to individual match ups. My own failing was due to never having faced a dude that slick. The french quick dude, Adrian, was basically a combination of the best traits of myself, Damion, and Dale-Death From Below- Saran. I’ve never fought anything like that and had no clue how to approach it. There were some tactical errors too but they could have played if I knew how to fight that guy. I didn’t, so I went for a ride. Cat told me about getting caught by the huge french man and every time he popped his head out, he’d get bent back down….I know that position well because he does that to me constantly…but he’s never really been there because he doesn’t get to fight large good fighters with that set of skills often enough. Twice a year really.
And of course, Ukraine….It was basically like fighting a team of Myself, Jake, Sean, Brandon, Brian, who are my picks for best flankers in the league. In addition all have good feet and are willing to bang in the grapple. That plus we’ve never really faced foot sweeps like that….and they all seemed immune to suicide and double take downs(Need to work some stuff on that but I think I know how they do it. Hopefully will be putting out a video with Cat this month.)
So…if the problem is not fighting certain opponents and styles what’s the answer? Well traveling to find them is one answer but money and time makes that hard. I fight some of the top fighters in the US twice a month and found myself unprepared. But I see Damion 3-4 times a year and he has those skills that fucked me…so next time I’m at a event with him, I’m gonna see if I can pull him aside and just practice running right at him/chasing him. The two things I never do when I fight him…because I know that makes him far more dangerous. I will deliberately face his strength with my weakness if I can. Hopefully next time Cat is hanging with Bill he’ll ask Bam to put him in a bad position, something he makes sure to never let happen when fighting him, so that he can practice escaping from it…
If you found some technique exposed you, find the best in the US that does that…and fight them weakness on strength till you are ready. New year, New you. See you in the lists.