This past Saturday we took a short drive down the 403/401/402 combination West to London. It was pretty weird going west instead of east, sure was nice not having to drive straight into the sun to get there.
This edition of the zombie house was a fundraiser for a little girl who just turned 4 years old and is fighting cancer. She is the daughter of one of the members of London BJJ, so they held the competition, and a seminar on Saturday to raise some funds for Gabby and her family. Man, cancer sucks, especially for kids. I can't even imagine how hard that is for her parents. Showing up to the event and helping out while the rest of the team competed is the least that we could do to help them out.
In case you aren't familiar with the zombie house concept... It's a sub only competition that you collect submissions and don't stop. The matches are 5 minutes, and it doesn't matter if you get subbed, you just start again. At the end of the matches, subs are counted up ad tracked. Then whoever wins each weight class (the most subs) moves on to the golden sub single elimination bracket. In golden sub, it's first sub wins, and the first rounds are 10 minutes maximum, and the final is 20. If you don't get a sub, you are both out.
The weight classes are 10ish pounds and in London it was all belts combined (there was only a couple purple belts). At bigger events white and blue are together and purple and up are together. They used to use a system where there were handicaps based on belt, but white the belts separated it wasn't necessary anymore.
We had a great time at the event, Dashti ended up being put up with the 180 guys because there was no 170's and the 160 guys were all full. He did a great job with the bigger guys and managed to get 2nd in his division with a purple belt wining the division. Josh and Joel were in the same division, with some pretty excellent competitors, including Milkias from B04 who won the division very impressively despite being the smallest guy in it. Joel hit a baseball choke which would have made Jon proud and Josh demonstrated great passing and control (and a few great subs from that control). Greg was in a division with a lot of much younger, active competitors and showed a lot of good submission defensive and heart.
I really like the zombie house format. It's friendly, it's casual, and it's 25 minutes of working your ass off. There is no tapping and getting out of the fight. The people that show up to these events aren't looking for medals or bragging rights or trips or anything like there. You are there to test out your submission game and not worry about points and staying on top or any of that nonsense that sport jiu jitsu has evolved into. Don't get me wrong, I love regular competitions as well, but it's nice and refreshing to see people just going for stuff and not worrying about position and points so much.
Interestingly, the only techniques that were not allowed were heal hooks and neck cranks, and the only injury that happened was Dan's knee, but it wasn't during a sub or scramble or anything, I didn't even see how it happened really and I was watching the match. People were going after kneebahs, toe holds, slicers and people were tapping (or not) and NOT getting hurt. It was great to see that these techniques are really as dangerous as people seem to think, it's the environment that controls the level of danger.
I was "life guarding" for the event, which is like refereeing, but since there is no scores, and it's self regulated, and friendly, I really didn't have to do much. There were a few cases where I "tapped" for the competitors when they were being a little to stubburn for their own good but generally everyone was great about admitting when they were caught and also not cranking on subs. Sometimes I had to stop them from getting to close to other matches but even that rarely happened.
I would recommend checking one of these events out to anyone looking for something a little different to try out there jiu jitsu. No meatheads allowed and no ego. I think the next one will likely be back in Toronto, but they are hoping to move them around the province.
You can check out this facebook group for more information, stats, pictures and whatnot about the zombie house events.
I almost forgot to mention who won the whole thing! Iron Mike Aviado, the rooster weight! He took out his teammate in the first round of the golden sub with a leg lock (I can't remember if it was a toe hold or straight ankle lock), then won the semifinal in decisive fashion with his signature flying armbar.
In the final, he fought Josh (who won the first round against Sen, then got a bye for the second round because Milkias and Seth was a draw). Josh and Mikes match went about 7 or 8 minutes with Mike constantly threatening subs and Josh doing a great job defending, until Mike snuck in a crazy armbar and got the tap.
I've also got to give a special mention to Becca and Mandie, two ladies who joined in on the zombie house. They are both white belts and quite small and competed with the guys. Mandie ended up placing second in their division next to Sen who won it.
SO, that's that, it looks like the next one will be a NOGI event, likely in Toronto, sometime next month! Keep your eyes open for details on Facebook!
There are a few other tournaments coming up, Grappling Industries this weekend where 5 trips to Pans will be awarded! The women's divisions are looking pretty good so ladies, you should get on that asap.
IBJJF Montreal is Nov 16th. Should be good the competitor list is pretty sparse still, but that is not surprising.
OJA Provincials is Nov 30th. I am HOPING that this will mark my return to competition! My shoulder is starting to feel pretty good so now I just need to get back into shape and get rid of the rust that 5/6 months on the sidelines creates. We shall see how my body holds up to the hard training it's going to take to get back into shape for then.
Grappling Industries last event of the year will be Dec 7th in Montreal. Should be a great event to. They will be awarding a whack of "season passes" to the various absolute winners. This equals free entry to all their tournaments for 2014. I think it's a cool concept.
That's all for now! See you all Saturday at Grappling Industries, I'll be refereeing, then jetting early to head to the Provincial Fighting Championships in London that evening.
