This past weekend we made the long road trip out to Montreal for the Montreal Grappling Grand Prix. If you've never heard of these events, you must live under a rock.
They are pretty much the best bang for your buck for Jiu Jitsu competitions. $50 gets you 4 fights in a round robin division, for only $20 more you can do Gi AND No Gi. This is, of course, assuming there is at least 5 people in your division. Which is generally the case because they currently have only 4 weight classes, which still works out pretty well.
These tournaments run smooth, and the competitors are all very friendly. It's a great atmosphere for new and experienced competitors alike. On top of the great experience, and the cheap rate, they are giving out trips to tournaments like the worlds and pans!
OK, enough going on about the tournament and how much I love it. Back to talking about ME!
No girls registered for this tournament. I don't know why. So often I see and hear girls complaining about small divisions, and not getting enough fights and blah blah blah. Then when they have an opportunity like these tournaments to get lots of fights and experience, NO ONE SHOWS UP! I guess the fact that there is no weight classes for women can be pretty intimidating for the smaller girls. But they would add weight classes if enough girls showed up. Maybe it's a chicken and egg situation, I don't know. But it's pretty disappointing and frustrating for me.
So what do you do when there are no girls to fight? FIGHT THE BOYS! or at least try to anyway. What an experience. First off, all the guys were super cool about having a girl in the divisions and I am so thankful for that. There could have been some serious drama. Like: "This is the MENS division" "I don't want cooties" "I'm not comfortable fighting a girl" but there was none of this. Apparently there was a few "There's a girl in our division??" questions, but no drama and no complaints that I know of.
So I had 4 no gi matches in the -170 intermediate division. They were all pretty fun, the first one not so much, because I gave up my back and had my jaw squeezed to the point I thought it was going to dislocate. I probably should have tapped sooner, but I didn't want to tap to something that wasn't actually choking. The guy had pretty decent back control, and scary squeezing power. I lost the 2nd by RNC as well. The third fight was against a younger, more reasonably sized/strength guy. We had a great back and forth match and I won on points (barely). I really enjoyed this fight because I felt like we were more evenly matched strength wise. My last fight I lost on points. I almost had an arm bar, but couldn't quite extend enough, and I couldn't break his posture to get the triangle locked in either. It was a pretty good fight to.
I realize I'm going on about strength a lot, and BJJ is supposed to be about technique, I know it is, but let's be honest, when technique and skill are equal, strength wins. and when technique and skill are close, strength wins. I know I made a lot of mistakes, and when the fights are posted on you tube I will be watching them and reviewing what I could do differently. I know I need to focus more during my matches, I was in a weird mind set and didn't react quickly to a lot of things I should have.
In Gi, I only got 2 matches, b/c due to some back luck, I ended up drawing the 2 guys who didn't show! I enjoyed the Gi matches more then the no gi. I think partially because I actually train in a gi, and partially because having something to grip allowed me to control them a bit more and stuff. Either way, I lost both these matches by Sub to. The first by head and arm choke and the 2nd by Kimura. But, I did get a chance to play a little DLR and guard work which was fun.
I think, in the future, I might only do GI against the guys. Fighting guys is a lot more exhausting and I really don't train no gi so I'm bad at it!
Thanks to David and Matt from Montreal Grappling for allowing me to compete with the guys, and thanks to the guys for not being dicks about it! Also, thanks to my team mates for pushing me hard enough in training so that I wasn't completely outgunned by the guys. And thanks to the tournament sponsors for the rashguard and gi :)
That's all for now! See you at the Zombie House Tournament on Saturday!
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