Derek Sanderson, a 34-year-old purple belt at Cascadia Jiu-Jitsu in Portland, Oregon, registered for the October 2026 CBJJ North Coast Invitational on Wednesday. This is his seventh registration in the past twenty-four months. He's competed in exactly two of them. His Instagram bio still reads "Competing Athlete." Here's the timeline: July 2024: registered, competed (145-pound division, lost to a gold belt in the semi-finals). September 2024: registered, paid the $85 entry fee, claimed a family emergency two weeks before the event and never showed up. November 2024: registered, competed (placed third, celebrated by posting a meme of himself in his gi with the caption "Back, Baby"). February 2025: registered, cited a work conflict in early January and ghosted. May 2025: registered, claimed a lower-back injury that mysteriously healed by June. July 2025: registered, said his girlfriend needed him to help move apartments that weekend. September 2025: registered, mentioned traveling for business but provided no details. October 2026: registered again, this time with a text to his training partners: "Guys, I'm serious this time. Cutting weight Monday." His training partners at Cascadia installed a betting pool. The rules are simple: whoever guesses the exact month Derek re-registers next wins that round's pot. The current pool is $240. Nobody's betting on October 2026 being the month he actually competes. Cascadia's tournament director, Marcus Webb, stopped confirming Derek's entries after the third no-show. Webb now receives Derek's registration, verifies payment clearing, and documents the entry in a spreadsheet titled "Sanderson – Track Only." When asked about Derek's likelihood of showing up for October, Webb said: "He will not show up. He will re-register in November claiming the weight-cut was 'too aggressive for his body type,' and we will have this conversation again. This will continue until one of us dies." Webb's worked in tournament organization for sixteen years and has never seen a competitor with Derek's specific commitment to registration and aversion to actual competing. Derek's reasoning, when pressed by his training partners, has evolved. In mid-2024, it was travel: his job required unpredictable hours. By late 2024, the excuse rotated to work stress: he couldn't focus on competition while handling a "major project" (he works in commercial real estate and was not, in fact, on any major project). By early 2025, it became injury: his knee, his back, his shoulder — whatever body part he'd stopped training hard to protect. By mid-2025, the tone shifted to philosophical resignation. "I've just lost the drive," he told his training partner James Okonkwo in July 2025. "Competition was fun before, but now I'm checking TikTok between rounds in my head." Okonkwo replied: "You haven't competed in seven months." Derek re-registered in September. The financial commitment is staggering if you're not paying attention. At $85 per entry, Derek's sunk $595 into competition registration over twenty-four months. Divided across the two times he actually showed up, that's $297.50 per competition attended. Webb told Derek this. Derek's response was to register again. What makes Derek's pattern particularly absurd is the ritualization surrounding each registration. He doesn't just sign up online. For the October tournament, Derek: spent $340 on a new Tatami gi "for fresh energy," followed the tournament's Instagram account (142 followers, mostly other competitors and their parents), downloaded the bracket template from the CBJJ website and studied potential matchups against people who hadn't registered yet, created a "pre-comp training" note in his phone titled "8-Week Protocol" (he opened it once, added the note "cardio?" and never opened it again), and texted the group chat with a detailed explanation of why THIS registration was different (his schedule had "stabilized," his body was "finally cooperating"). The group chat did not respond enthusiastically. Okonkwo suggested Derek might benefit from examining why he registers if competing genuinely doesn't motivate him anymore. Derek's response: "That's why THIS time I'm going to compete. The break will have me hungry again." This was the same statement he made in February 2025. The broader gym culture at Cascadia has adapted to Derek's cycle. When Derek registers, there's a two-week period of cautious optimism where teammates ask follow-up questions about his training. "How's the knee feeling?" "Did you get your wrestling conditioning dialed?" "You thinking 145 or heavyweight this time?" Derek answers earnestly. He seems to genuinely believe, in that window, that he will compete. By week three post-registration, the optimism evaporates. By week four, Derek will have introduced a logistical complication. By month two, he will be registered for the next tournament and the cycle resets. The Instagram bio — "Competing Athlete" — has become a running joke. Purple belt Marcus Chen, who trains three days a week alongside Derek, created a bit where he introduces Derek to new students as "Our resident competing athlete. He competes in registration, which he's very consistent about." Nobody laughs harder than Derek, who sees no irony in the designation. Cascadia's owner, Janet Park, stopped asking Derek about his tournament plans. Park realized the answer to "Are you still training for October?" is functionally meaningless. Derek will say yes. Derek will train normally. Derek will skip a week in late September citing "travel" or "lower back tightness." Derek will text on the Friday before the tournament with something along the lines of "Family emergency came up, so gutted about missing this one." And Derek will re-register for the next event within sixty days, powered by what can only be described as an infinite well of hope or an inability to stop subscribing to the narrative of himself as "someone competing next month." The October 2026 registration has already taken its place in Cascadia's calendar. The betting pool is accepting wagers. Webb's created a new tab in his spreadsheet. And Derek, browsing the CBJJ website on Thursday evening, is already eyeing November's registration date "just in case October doesn't work out for some reason."