I really wish I had better news but yeah I didn’t do so well in this tournament (actually scratched that I didn’t do well at all! hahahha). I got a Silver in No-Gi and a Bronze in Gi for my efforts for the weight divisions and totally bombed out in the Absolutes for both lolll. Re-looking back at the videos makes me cringe inwardly as I wonder what the F*** I was doing. LOL. But hey loads to work on and back to the drawing board. :) 

My bag actually got snatched while I was competing. We left it in a pile and I was having a match and during those moments when my team-mates were cornering, someone decided to take my pouch.  So my wallet, passport and mobile phones were all gone gone gone in the morning. Seeing as how there was really nothing I could do (and I had finished all the necessary stuff like reporting to security, cancelling my credit card, ATMs and mobile phone line) I just went on my merry way and continued on with the competition.

Anyway after the Gi competition was over on Saturday, I went to file a police report and ate dinner nursing a very sad and troubled heart with my team-mates. I’d love to thank all my team-mates for loaning me cash and just being there for me. By Saturday night I was pretty distraught when it finally sank in that my passport was gone and that I was going to be staying in Manila for god knows how long till I get my replacement passport. I had booked my ticket to fly out on Sunday but well since my passport was stolen I had to postpone my flight indefinitely since I didn’t know how long it was going to take to get a replacement and because the embassy is closed on the weekends no one had any idea either. 

Since there wasn’t anything I can do (since the embassy was closed), I decided to continue on with No-Gi and just competed. After no-gi my team-mates flew out on Sunday evening and I was very lucky that Jonna Bee was kind enough to house me that night. She even took some time off to bring me to the Malaysian Embassy to get my replacement passport done. I’d also like to thank Professor Kamphius for allowing me to chill at KMA Gym (which is literally right next door to the Malaysian Embassy) and Macarig and Apples for taking me out to lunch and dropping me off.

All in all it was surprisingly easy and hassle free to get a replacement passport on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised. I went in around 9:30am, filled out the forms, gave a copy of Malaysian IC and 2 passport size photos, paid 750 pesos and was told to come back in a few hours. By 3pm I was given an Emergency Certificate to leave Manila and immediately book the next flight out of Manila to KL (8:55pm). I had a little trouble with immigration when I was exiting but it was just a lot of waiting around rather than anything else as they had to check the system. I finally arrive home at 2am the next day. I never thought I’d ever be this happy to see the Immigration Officers at LCCT KLIA. Nothing beats the feeling of coming home after such an ordeal!!!!!

Now the problem is getting a replacement passport. =/ 
From what I’ve spoken to people it takes AGES to get a replacement passport and this basically means I can’t leave the country till then *sobs*. I am allowed to apply for an Emergency Certificate to travel but that is subject to approval and it’s basically a one time use. I’ll have to reapply for every trip I plan to go and of course this is only for countries that don’t require a visa. So I can say goodbye to Australia and Japan for now. So needless to say I won’t be competing anywhere soon as I can’t even fly out of the goddamn country! 

In retrospect, it would be very easy to blame the fact that my stuff was stolen and use that as a crutch and an ‘excuse’ for my really bad performance at the Pan Asians but looking back I don’t really know. My opponents did great and had really good technique and honestly were just simply better competitors. I definitely learnt a lot from them such as ‘have a gameplan stick to it’, ‘tenacity in the time of adversity’ and the classic ‘it ain’t over till the final buzzer sings’ because yeah miracles do happen (some of the times).

Anyway train hard, train more and train always! :) 

Okay so we’ve got a couple of Leandros in the gym now since we’ve been drilling his passes nonstop (aka the Spazzamoris Champ Hail Mary pass).

Leandro Lee

Leandro Lim

Leandro Chee

and there’s me of course:

Leandro Ling.

I know we’re lame that way.

So the guys at the gym have been drilling and attempting to emulate Leandro Lo’s crazy almost possessed style of fast passing.

Team-mate: I’m going to drill so I can pass like Leandro Lo!!!
Me: Okay you do that, I’ll drill so I can become Leandra Lee
Team-mate: 

Yeah I’m lame that way…..

Gosh, it’s been ages since I’ve been on Tumblr. 

A lot has happened in the past 4 months. I’ve gotten a raise at work and the workload started getting a bit crazy. So I started focusing more on work and less on BJJ and well the Tumblr got abandoned for a bit (even though I was still training).

But I do love journaling/tumbling/blogging/etc…. because it allows me to air out my thoughts… my brain tends to function more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff (+2 cookies if you got where that reference came from! ^^) 

Let’s see…

In February, Yuri Simoes was in town for 3 weeks. Gosh I love the dude. Really great guy! 

I think the girls nearly DIED trying to lift Yuri up. HAHAH He was genuinely scared. :D

Somewhere along the way I participated in Zombie Run. It was a fun experience but kinda dangerous cause the terrain was literally in a jungle trek so very uneven slopes. Loads of people got injured. I’m just happy I escaped with my life pack still on me! The Jits definitely helped cause I was doing bear crawls, changing levels, forward rolls and shit dodging the ‘zombies’. Who says Jits ain’t practical! :P

Took part in a local tournament in Penang (which is famous for delicious good). I probably ate more than I rolled HAHAHHA. Got a bronze for no-gi, not bad with all the Char Kuey Tiao in my BELLY. Hahahha!

Than finally grading! Where I got another stripe added to my belt:

There’s a lot more girls at my gym now! We have about 9 girls which is pretty insane actually considering the fact that in early 2011 it was just me and Monstrinha and then a year later the Boss joined us together with Fadinha. Then we had 5 other new girls join us in the later half of 2012. All in all it’s been a good experience because the new girls are white belts and I’ve kinda been forced to take a more senior (mentor) role to the girls. It helps me grasp technique better cause I have to explain it when I partner with any of them HAHAHHAHAHA. 

So yes it’s back to business as usual over here. I’ll try to be more consistent in my updates. 

Thank you for not giving up on me Interwebs! I really appreciate all the lovely messages I’ve received while I was away.

 Time to train hard and train always!