… is fear itself.

In 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt made that famous statement.  But never has the statement been so salient for me as it was this weekend.

I have not actually competed very many times in Judo.  Also, it has been a year since my last competition.  Until this weekend that is.

We showed up early for weigh-ins (9:00).  My son Ty got to start competing starting at a bit after noon.  But my bouts did not actually get started until probably about 3:00 in the afternoon.  What all of this means is that I had a good six hours so sit around and stew about my first competition in a year.

I have to tell you here, I am not afraid of confrontation.  In my job I negotiate hard issues, deal with aggressive lawyers, an have had to slug it out in some very tense situations.  Even outside of the workplace I am not a person to cringe from confrontation.  I don’t go looking for trouble, but have always been willing to deal with it when it comes.

But waiting is something different.  This isn’t the moment of exhilaration when you realize you need to deal with a confrontation.  This is hours of that same primal, crippling nervousness that I haven’t felt since grade school, and watching the clock all day before going to meet at the flag pole at 3:30 for the clandestine throw down.

As some of you who follow this blog know, I am a fairly new brown belt in Judo.  The man I was to face was a very, very experience and tough black belt.

But once I stepped onto the mat, and fear was gone.  It was on.  The first match I feel I did okay, but he pretty well owned me.  The second match I feel I did much better.  I avoided several of his throws, and at once point took his back and worked toward (an eventually unsuccessful) choke.

But I was jazzed.  I loved every minute of it.  Even though he beat me soundly, I would have been happy to step back onto the mat a dozen more times to face him.  I was learning and experiencing.  I was better than I thought.  It was a great!

I saw several of my good friends feeling this same creeping tension throughout the day.  I was so impressed with how they all did.  Win or lose, I hope they enjoyed the experience, and learned as much from it as I did.

But the main reason that I wanted to write this article really comes back to the title:  As FDR told us, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  How true.  The advice for myself that I take away is to be eager to be on that mat.  To remember the excitement.  To keep from letting that all-day tension eat at me.

I can only hope that anyone else can benefit as well.

I’ll try to get a post up later this week with some pictures from the event.

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