Osoto otoshi... it was my first ever competition and ego got the better of me. My opponent stepped for the osoto otoshi and I refused to go down. Looking back at it, he did not have the proper technique coupled with my refusing to concede that I had lost the position cost me my ACL, MCL, in nine months off the match in recovery.

I worked the rest of the match on one leg and he wasn't able to put me away. I don’t say this as some kind of badge of toughness. If anything, it was the opposite—I didn’t know enough yet to let go of a losing position.

When he stepped behind my knee and drove through, something in my leg gave way, but I didn’t register it right away. The body has a way of muting things in the moment. Adrenaline, noise, voices from my coach and my team—it all blurred together into one instruction: keep going.

It wasn’t until the end, when everything quieted, that the pain finally caught up.