Looking back and moving forward

After competing in the Kuclo Classic last May 20th, I decided to continue the preparation and compete at the NPC Oklahoma Championship. Things were going pretty well and by the end of the first week post Kuclo Classic, I was confident that it would be an easy transition. Off course, everything changed on Sunday, May 28th when I woke up with a sore throat. I thought to myself: maybe I just snored a lot last night, it will get better. Woke up on Monday and it was getting worse, and some symptoms of sinus infection started to kick in. By Tuesday I was pretty much done, had to go to the hospital to get some medication, because I wanted to get better to drive to Tulsa on Friday.
It was the worse peek week that I ever had, couldn’t really train properly, and even my appetite was bad. However, I never, ever thought of quitting. I just wanted to get better and do the show. By Friday I was better, woke up with 188lbs and felt confident that by the time that I arrived in Tulsa I would be lighter. Done, during the weight in I was 182lbs, pretty much lost a bunch of water while driving from Dallas to Tulsa. Yes, I stopped many times to use the restroom, and I eliminated all sodium from my food on that day. The result? A good second place in the Master Classic Physique division:



While the result was great to me, the learning experience was amazing, because I really had to put a lot of effort to not give up, and that was pure mental toughness. Something that I’ve being training for a long time. On top of that, I was in Tulsa on my own, my family was not there. I drove by myself, and I had no one there to support me. But when I finished the show, I had a huge sense of accomplishment, because I did what I planned to do, and didn’t allow all the obstacles in my way to deviate me from my goal.

We all have this power within, but as anything we do in life, in order to externalize this power we have to constantly practice and train to get this power more solid and stronger. Many people give up on their dreams when they face the first obstacle. I came a long way to quit, and as long as I’m doing what I love doing, I will continue pursuing the best version of me, because this is my ultimate goal: beat the Yuri’s version from the last show, from last year, from my previous version. It’s always a battle of me against myself.

To wrap up this great season and in honor of everyone battling to conquer their own journey, here a nice video with the people that were always by my side.


I’m grateful to have them and thankful for my journey. But never satisfied, because the best is always yet to come!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Always take full responsibility for your actions

Image
I still remember in 2003 when I moved to US and a friend in Brazil told me: man, now you will get really fat, because everything there is big, and you will only eat burgers . I heard, but I didn’t really process the information since deep inside of me I knew that I will only eat what I wanted, nobody could really force me to eat. However, he was right, I jumped from 220 lbs to 280 lbs from 2003 to 2010. If this was muscle gain I would be happy, but it was pure fat….36% body fat in 2011. Although he was right, I was also right, because even on my deepest days of “fat boy” eating fast food and thinking about my past shape as soccer player in Brazil, I was like: why am I’m damaging myself?! In between thoughts I asked for more French fries…it was a black hole! But the fact that I never tried to find someone or something to blame (other than me) also helped me to be more determined to change, because I knew I was the one in control. If I could damage myself so much in 7 years, what c...
Read more

Get comfortable being uncomfortable

Image
Today we are starting another Destination Challenge , and again I will hit the same key tip: your mind is going to play the biggest role in this game of change. You usually don’t get really physically tired, because your mind will give up first, and your body will just obey what your mind tells him to do. The book “ How Bad Do You Want ”, brings a lot of scientifically examples that your mind is in control of your physical performance. Even athletes that are in a better physical shape, can be defeated for the ones that are in a much better mental state to support the pressure. Here one important paragraph from this book : “The British neuroscientist Vincent Walsh has even suggested that sports competition is the single most challenging thing the human brain ever does—more challenging even than “purely” mental tasks like solving differential equations and also more challenging to the brain than it is to the body.” If you want to get a bit inspiration this week, watch 4 minute...
Read more

The odd outcome

Image
Last Saturday (09/19) I attended the first IBJJF tournament since COVID outbreak. I trained really hard during the pandemic, and I dropped from 222 lbs to 204 lbs with the help of my nutricionist Greg McCoy. The intention was to also get back to bodybuilding stage by end of 2020. But before, I wanted to compete in BJJ again, since my last competition was in March, at the IBJJF Houston Open, where I won.  Coincidentally , my opponent in Austin was the same that I competed in Houston, but although the opponent was the same, I never underestimated that the outcome could be different, I just didn't realize it would be so drastic.  We bow to each other, wrist bump and started the fight. It felt deja-vu, since we went to exactly same grips and same initial movements. Some attempts to grab my leg, just like in the initial fight, and some attempts from my side to break his balance and go for tai otoshi. After 1 minute and 36 seconds, I was trying to attack in a tai otoshi position, bu...
Read more