Ascension Tournament March 1st and 2nd 2014: Tournamet Recap

The 9th annual ascension tournament went down on March 1st and 2nd this year.  It was much later in the year,  I suppose to make room for the OJA sub only event that got snowed out.  I think the date changed affected the turn out a bit, with it ended up very close to the Pro Trials, where most of the high level competitors go.   Hopefully, for their 10th anniversary in 2015, they go back to mid-January.  This event is a great way to kick off the tournament year.

The event ran over 2 days with the first day being home to the junior to adult gi divisions, and Sunday being home to the kids gi, and adult nogi divisions.  This "pre-schedule" was set ages ago, it's a pretty common way to do things b/c adult gi tends to be the biggest batch of divisions, and nogi + kids tends to be about the same size.  This year that wasn't the case, with almost 300 kids registered!  It made for a nice short day on Saturday, and a fairly long day on Sunday.

The event started pretty much on time, and ran on time, even early by the end of the day Sunday.  Crazily enough, the KIDS ran on time and early. It seems like Mata Leao and the OJA are getting better at predicting how long divisions will take and so schedules are becoming more accurate.

I refereed all day Saturday, and most of Sunday.  I didn't ref during the first two hours because Pura had a bunch of kids competing, and Alasdair was in California, so I was helping coach them and stuff.   It was a lot of fun helping them out. It's really interesting to see how different kids react to competing, winning, losing, and all the rest.

The pura kids all looked great.  It was the first competition for some of them, and they handled all the new craziness of it really well.  We did an in-house a couple weeks before and I think that helped them get used to the concept of it, and was a good stepping stone towards a proper competition.

Generally, refereeeing went pretty well. We had a few hiccups of the rules on the website not matching the rules in the rulebook and that not matching the rules on the table.  There was a lot of confusion about what techniques are allowed at what age/belt. This comes up at pretty much every event, but it seemed extra prevelent at the ascension event.  The OJA has a chart of what age techniques become allowed, but it's terribly incomplete and also isn't up to date about the new 9/10 coloured belts being allowed to do armbars(they used to not be allowed).

The OJA events all follow the same ruleset as far as allowed techniques are concerned, so it would solve a lot of tournaments problems to get that chart updated and complete.  Maybe I'll try and whip something up, it would be helpful for myself and my team and helpful for the OJA and the rest of the community.  

As a referee, our first responsibility is the competitors safety, this is something we all take really seriously, especially with the kids.  I stopped probably 5 or 7 fights in the kids and juvenile divisions mostly because of armbars.  I had one kid talk back to me about stopping his fight.  It's pretty normal for them to say "I didn't tap" but this kid was all "Look here,  my arm was safe blah blah blah".  This kid was really competitive, and I get that losing sucks and they don't have the experience to know that losing one match is way better then having a hyper extended elbow and being out for months.

Anyway...  the ascension tournament always has a great vibe, with tunes on in the background, and tasty food in the cafeteria.  Once again, I was unable to get in on that tasty food this year, because I was to busy refereeing. They did feed us referees pizza, which was cool.  Once again, they thought to bring me a salad instead, which was awesome. I think it's really cool that they remember that I generally don't eat pizza and carbs and stuff.  Of course, I was on a total cheat fest, so I ate pizza, AND salad lol.

Acai Cafe was on hand on Saturday, making their delicious bowls.  They even added peanut butter as a topping, which was AMAZING!  It's a bummer they weren't there on Sunday though, there were tonnes of people there and I think they would have done really well. I was really looking forward to more acai bowls to get me through the day on Sunday.

Ascension really works hard to make the kids have a good day.  They have trophies and awards for outstanding competitors and also very cool medals.  They take care of the adults to, with nice absolute trophies for them.

That's about all I've got to say about that.  The ascension tournament is consistently one of my favourite events and I'm really looking forward to see what they are going to do for their 10th anniversary next year!

PS: I need to stop doing these reviews weeks after the events, I forget this and it's all not fresh any more, but life is to busy sometimes.  Hopefully I can whip something up about pans before I forget it all too.

Tournament Draw Systems Explained - Part 1 (Single Elimination)

The idea for this post came to me this morning, in that half awake / half asleep phase of waking up in the morning.  With more and more tournaments popping up, each with there own little ways of doing things I thought it would be good to do a post on the various draw systems that exist out there.

There are three main draw systems that are are used in competitions (and not just jiu jitsu, all sorts of sports and games use these systems).

1. Single Elimination
2. Double Elimination
3. Round Robin

There are all sorts of variations on these three, and systems that combine them as well.  

Let's start with the simplest system:  Single Elimination.  This is what the IBJJF uses, and so does the OJA (for adults), and many other tournament organizers around the world.  The name says it all, if you lose once, you are out.  There are potentially 2 cases where there is an exception to the "single" part.  

1. If it is a division of 3.  These are done in a weird way.
2. Some tournaments will give 2 bronze medal, and some will have a fight to determine the third place.  This is often referred to as having a fight for "true third".

So, what does a standard single elimination bracket look like?  Let's start with the simplest case possible, an 8 person division.  Here is a sample of a standard, complete 8 person division.  As you can see, there are 7 matches in an 8 person division, with the winner of each match moving along the tree towards the final line. 

In all my sample draws, the red number will indicate the match number,  the blue is for the competitor names,  the green indicates who goes on that line, and the pink represents what that "round" is typically called.  

Sample Standard 8 complete 8 person draw sheet

So, in this case, the quarter finals are the first round, and the first fight is Mike Vs Ahmed and Mike wins.   The second fight is Adam vs Mandie, and Mandie wins. The third fight is Alasdair vs Matt and Alasdair wins, and the fourth fight is Stanlee vs Bruce and Bruce wins. The winners go to the next round and the losers are done.  Technically, if you lose in the quarter finals, you are part of a 4 way tie for 5th, while the winners move on to the semi finals.

In the first fight of the  semis(match number 5),  Mike faces Mandie, and Mandie wins again, moving on to the final.  The second fight of the semis Alasdair faces Bruce and Alasdair wins, moving on to the final.  Now, Mike and Bruce are out, tying for 3rd place.  

The final between Mandie an Alasdair is the 7th match.  Mandie wins, so is 1st, and Alasdair gets 2nd.

Here is a slightly modified case, for the tournaments that have only 1 third place.   As you can see,  there is an extra match.  The fight for 3rd usually happens before the final, so it is now match #7, and the final becomes match #8.   The losers of match #5 and Match #6 fight for third. The winner will be awarded the "true third".

I mentioned earlier that 3 person divisions were a little wacky.  There are 2 ways that a three person division can play out.   

Here is the first way:

It looks almost like a standard 4 person division, except that the fourth competitors place is filled in with the loser of the first match.  This is the way it works always.  The difference in how it plays out is determined by who wins the second match.   In this case,  Adam, who hasn't fought Ahmed yet,  won, so Adam moves on to face Ahmed in the final and Mike gets third place. Then, Adam, who wins the final,  gets first, while Ahmed, who lost the final, gets second place.

So, what happens if Mike wins the second match instead of Adam?  In this case,  the final does not happen, because Ahmed has already beat Mike (in the first match), So, Ahmed gets first, Mike gets second, and Adam gets third.

For single elimination, the more competitors you have, the more rounds there are,  so if there is between 9 and 16, there will be a round of 16 (which will have 8 or less fights in it), If there is between 17 and 32, there will be a round of 32.  For tournaments like the worlds, where there are divisions of 100+ the same system still applies, It is just broken down onto different pages, but the exact same process as a 8 person division is still followed.  There are just a lot more rounds. 

The complex part of single elimination comes when there are divisions sizes that don't end up perfect. The ideal sizes are: 2,4,8,16,32,64, 128, ect.  When a division doesn't have this number, then you end up with "byes" in the first round of matches.  A bye is when some competitors do not have to compete in the first round.  This is done so that the division can be narrowed down to a size that will work out nicely after that first round. 

Here is an example for a division of 13.  I've added a new colour, yellowish green, for Byes.  The byes fill in the blanks for fighters that don't exist.  Different tournaments / draw systems will represent this differently on their sheets, but the end result is the same.  Not everyone has a fight in the round of 16.  

The byes will be as evenly distributed as possible.  We don't put 3 byes at the top of the sheet and none at the bottom, or else the sheet will be lopsided. I do not know the exact formula for where the byes go, just that they are evenly spread out.   In this case, It kind of looks like I have 3 at the bottom, but Matt's bye is in the top half of the bracket while the other two are in the bottom half of the bracket.

Sample 13 person division to illustrate byes

As you can see, Matt, Dave, and Alex do not have to fight anyone in the first round, and automatically advanced to the Quarter Finals. Sometimes this will be represented by their name not appearing in the draw until the 2nd round,  and sometimes it is represented by the line for their first opponent just being blank.  I choose to illustrate it this way, so that you can see how the general structure o the sheet is still the same.

In this case, the people who lose in the "Quarter Finals" are a 4 way tie for 5th, and the guys who lose in the "Round of 16" are tied for 9th.

This is long enough for 1 post,   part 2 will be on double elimination and the various version of that system.  It starts off very similar to single elimination, but gets a little crazy depending on which variation is being used.  It's also my favourite base style.

Grappling Industries : Pans Edition (Toronto) Oct 26th 2013

Last Weekend was an insanely busy weekend for me.  It started out on Friday evening with a Matthew Good concert at Hamilton place.   Jon loves Matt good, so he goes to see him whenever he is semi-close by.  It was a really good show, even though Matt was a bit sick.

I am pretty sure he was sick last time he was in Hamilton to, so maybe he is just allergic to the city.  We met up with some friends before the show and I ate poutine and cheescake.  "But Patricia", you say, "that's not keto at all".  No, it is not, every once and a while, when my schedule get's crazy, I take a break and eat lots of terrible food.  Last weekend was one of those weekends.  I felt pretty crummy because of it, and every time i do it i swear not to. But then a few months later I'll do it again.  It's a good reminder of why I eat the way I do.

After the show everyone wanted to go out drinking and for another bite to eat (at like 11:30 PM).   I declined and drove Jon's car home because I didn't want to referee on  2 or 3 hours of sleep.  The sacrifices I make for you people, you have no idea haha.   Of course, I still didn't get a great nights sleep because of all the ringing, and Jon not being home till who knows when.  He was the smart one, didn't register or the competition because he knew he'd be in bad shape for it.

Anyway,  the referees were supposed to be there for 8:20am, so we could have a little meeting, get organized and get the show going on time.  Surprise, Surprise, only 2 or 3 of us were there at the expected time, and a couple strolled in only a couple minutes before nine.  It would have been nice to have said meeting, so I could be more informed when people come up and ask me questions about divisions I am not refereeing.  I am not going to name names, or point fingers, but come on guys, if we want to be treated like professionals, let's act like them by being on time and being professional at all times.

I had a very good experience as a referee last weekend.  I wasn't yelled at once!!  It was amazing.   I did have to ask one coach to stop yelling at a fellow referee, but they didn't yell at me, and stopped yelling at the other referee as well.  I also had one or two questions where people were unsure about why advantages were scored they way they were, but they were quite polite about it, and very respectful of my explanations and decisions.  It was really refreshing.  Now, all this could be because I had to leave around 3, and missed most of the nogi, but I like to think it's because the spectators, coaches, and competitors are becoming more respectful and maybe even learning the rules.

One thing, looking back, that happened more then I would like, was me making simple scoring mistakes.  Once I scored 2 for a pass instead of 3,  and once I scored 2 for a  sweep, when it was actually a reversal (fighter A swept straight to mount, maintained for 3, then got reversed, i scored 2,4 then 2 for the other).  BUT,  in both cases,  I realized my error and fixed it well before the match was complete.   Getting the score board right after mistakes like that can be a bit of a challenge, especially when the score keepers are spending more time on their phones then paying attention to the match.  This seemed like a bigger problem on Saturday then it normally is, but I am not sure why.  Some of the regulars were not there, and perhaps the new people were not explained enough about how important paying close attention was.  There were no crisis's because of it, but it was fairly frustrating.

The event started a couple minutes late,  this is not the norm for grappling industries, but I think that, with all the changes to the process of weighing in and whatnot that were made for this event, it is not surprising, and is forgivable.   A lot of people showed up just before weighins closed so they ended up bogging down the weighin line and causing that to go late.   I think a stricter cut-off would help with this, and perhaps having 2 weighin scales, so that the rushes could be handled more efficiently.  Having a "check" scale would alleviate this as well, because then the weighin station wouldn't get bogged down with people who are just checking their weight.

The event ran pretty smoothly once it got going,  There were about 60 gi matches per mat, then about 25 or 30 nogi matches.  Gi was wrapped up, except for absolutes, by about 2pm, and nogi started on several mats at about that time.  It was delayed a bit, on some mats, because the gi absolutes, but that is pretty much unavoidable.   Matches were all wrapped up by 5:15 or so.

The mat areas were back to to small size that Grappling Industries normally has when they have 10 or 14 mat areas.  This did slow the matches down, and made me sad as a referee (and would make me sad as a competitor as well).  In order to have 7 mats in one row, it's pretty much unavoidable though.  People want to be able to see all the mats, but they also want bigger mats.  I really like having at the mats in one line, because it generally means you only have to look out for people coming onto your mat from one or two sides, instead of 3.  While that may seem minor, it means more attention can be paid to the competitors.   It also makes for the best spectator experience because views are not blocked when there is only spectator seating on one side of the gymnasium.   In venues  like the Pyramid in California, this obviously isn't an issue because there is seating on all sides, and it's raised.  But in most gymnasiums, there is only seating on one side.  Hopefully the next event they can come up with a configuration that offers a bit more safety area, while still being spectator and competitor friendly.

I mentioned earlier the changes to the weighins.  Grappling Industries is constantly evolving to best serve the competitors.  The changes they made were made with a lot of input from the community and were, what I think, a really good compromise that serves all sides well.  The old style of allowing night before weighins, and using the standard GI weight classes, when athletes could weighin without their gi on, was creating an environment that allowed much more serious weight cutting and gave advantages to local competitors who could weighin the night before.   Now, they use the NOGI weight classes, still allow you to weighin in whatever you like (just not naked) and have ONLY morning of weigh ins.   I really like this setup.  It pretty much means I will never be able to fight in the smaller womens weight class, but, let's be honest,  I probably don't belong there,  and I think this way pretty much stops everyone who was squeaking into divisions they didn't belong in, no longer able to.  I noticed a few regulars have moved up a weight class with this change, and I think it'll shake things up and make for a better experience for everyone.

I had the pleasure of refereeing quite a few of the women's matches, particularly the two white belt divisions.  One of the greatest things about refereeing the ladies was the camaraderie they all showed to each other.  They all cheered for each other, no matter what team they were from.  They supported each other.  Almost every match ended with a hand helping each other up and a hug.  Not a bro, quick tap on the back hug, a proper hug.  For 5 minutes, they try to beat the crap out of each other, but as soon as the match is over, everyone is friends again.  Even during matches, there was a lot more "sorry"'s then you would ever hear in a guys match.  Though, that might just be because there is generally a lot more hair to be pulled.

Here is one picture that is a great example of how the ladies divisions were.  Both of them smiling and having a good time.  Here is another, smiles all around.    And one last one.  It was amazing to watch and be a small part of.  Mandie won the -136 division, and Maura won the +136 division.   In the absolute final (well, there was only 1 fight for the absolute, since there is only 2 weight classes)  Maura got a great footsweep, but then got a little ahead of herself and Mandie snuck in a tight guillotine for the win and a trip to California.  Yacinta won the blue and up trip, she has won a fair share of the trips that grappling industries has given away,  she has amazing judo and her Jiu Jitsu is catching up quickly!   I am really looking forward to being able to compete with her when I am back.  I think we will have some great matches.

My Teammate Matt won the blue belt trip!   He smashed through his division, then won the absolute in a most impressive fashion.  This is the first trip that he has won, and I do not think it will be the last.  He trains like a monster and even though he is a heavy weight (220ish) He moves and fights like a light weight or feather weight.   I cannot wait to see him compete at Pans in March and al the other tournaments before then to.


Eric Phan from Open Mat won the purple/brown trip.  It's pretty amazing that he, as a tiny, fairly new, purple belt could win the absolute.  He had to beat some very tough guys to get there and he doesn't dick around trying to win on an advantage or two so I really enjoy watching his matches.  I imagine he will be ruining a few peoples days at Pans as well.

Eric Chibuluzo won the white belt trip.  This guy is one scary human being.  He has only been doing jiu jitsu for a few months, but he already competes, and wins matches, in the nogi advanced divisions.  His jiu jitsu is... not beautiful, but he is ridiculously athletic and knows enough to use that athleticism.  He is going to be a serious force to be reckoned with in the years to come as he moves up the ranks.

The Acai Cafe was at the event again, I hope these guys are at every tournament for the rest of time. I freaking love Acai bowls.  I will cheat any diet I am on, for an acai bowl.  They actually ended up selling out on Saturday, so I think that is a good sign that they will continue to come out to tournaments.  I only got 1 bowl on Saturday, I was planning on two, but didn't get a chance to get away to buy a second before I had to leave.  I hope they add peanut butter to their menu soon, then, it would be perfect.

Also on site was the gi hive.  The Gi Hive is a relatively new company, based out of Ontario, that sells great gis and gear, at reasonable prices and with cheap shipping.  If you have ever shopped for gis online, you know that is a tricky balance.   He has a nice variety of gis and the customer service is top notch.  

SO, as I said earlier, I had to leave at 3,  it ended up being more like 3:30, which, when you add the terrible Toronto traffic to, made me have to adjust my plans, and drive a little faster then I would have liked, to London.  My other officiating job of the day was judging fights at the inaugural Provincial Fighting Championships in London last Saturday.  It's important to note, I do not work for PFC,  I work for the Ontario Athletic Commission.   As such, I can't really get into a lot of details about the fights, or talk about my opinions of the results ect ect.   What I can say is this:  It was a great night of fights and I hope PFC will continue to puts cards on.  Not only so that I can have more work as a judge, but so that Ontario MMA fighters have a place to fight.  With the Score no longer putting on cards, It left a pretty big hole in the scene.   So hopefully new organizations like PFC an SCC can put on a couple events a year and give our guys somewhere to fight!

This past weekend marked 1 year since I started refereeing jiu jitsu!  I have worked at 14 events and refereed probably over 1000 matches.  It's been an amazing learning experience and I am glad that I have been able to referee so much this year, since I was unable to compete for such a large part of it.  I have to thank Grappling Industries  for taking the risk of having me as a brand new referee at one of their events, and for continuing to employ me.  I also have to thank the OJA for following their lead and letting me give back to the community at their events as well.   The money I have made from refereeing (and from judging MMA)  all goes straight back into my Jiu Jitsu career so I have to thank everyone for supporting me, by employing me.  

There aren't to may more events left to finish of the 2013 year of Jiu Jitsu.  

The IBJJF Montreal Open is on Nov 16th.  It's fairly expensive, but very well run, and a good opportunity to get some IBJJF points for rankings (which don't actually get you anything but bragging rights) and to test your jiu jitsu against the Montreal scene.

November 23rd is the NoGi Zombie house event at Toronto Nogi.   Zombie House events are a LOT of fun, they are a completely different environment compared to a regular tournament and I would recommend anyone who doesn't have an ego give one a try.   

November 30th is the OJA Provincials in St. Catherines.  This is the tournament I am aiming to make my comeback at.  Training went pretty well last week, until I got sick, but I am feeling better now, so I will be back t the grind on Monday (or maybe tonight for an open mat).  There are some trips to california on the line, and bragging rights as the "Provincial Champion".  Also, the medals are quite nice looking.

Wrapping up the year, Grappling Industries has an event scheduled for Dec 7th in Montreal.  They are giving away season passes to all their events as the grand prizes.  This is a cool concept because it will hopefully get people to travel a bit more and expose the Montreal people to Toronto and vise versa.  This is also the weekend I have set for myself as a deadline for whether I will cancel my shoulder surgery or not.  Sadly, this event has been canceled :(

The OJA has released their tentative schedule for 2014.  It looks a lot like the 2013 schedule.  Hopefully, it stays the way it is.  2013 had quite a few date changes, cancellations and location changes.  Events with *'s by them have the location and date confirmed, and I assume, the venues booked so are very unlikely to change.

SO, This post has gotten pretty long, I guess I'll stop rambling now.  See you on the mats!

Grappling Industries: Sunshine Blvd Sept 7th 2013 Recap

Grappling Industries was back in Toronto this past weekend for a smaller event then their past events.  I didn't count the competitor list but  it we ran 5 mats with about 90 matches per mat.  In the past there have been as many as 14 mats but with less matches per mat. 

First, I have to say, as a referee I LOVED the setup.  The small mat areas they have had in the past has been the biggest negative for their events.  They had very large mat areas, with a double row between for a safety area.  I wasn't run into from a neighbouring mat area once!  Only having a single row(of mat areas), Instead of two also allowed for better viewing for the spectators.  Speaking of spectators, the fee was 15, which to me is pretty high,  but they post what it is on the website so I can't complain to much, and as a referee I didn't have to pay, so it didn't affect me.
 
There are a few reasons why I think.the event was smaller then their past events.

1.  The proximity to the GTA classic.  This is a well established event that a lot of people really look forward to.  It's a solid tournament that is always in mid September so people plan to attend it.  Hosting an event only two weeks before will certainly make you lose some potential attendees.

2.  Their last event in Toronto was only 6 or so weeks earlier.  When the Ibjjf comes to a city twice in one year, its 6 months apart, not 6 weeks, they do that for a reason!  They also have another event at the end of October, 6 or 7 weeks away again.  There is lots of talk of an over saturated market, and I think they will feel the pain of it hosting 3 events so close together. 

3.  It was the weekend after everyone went back to school.  Kids are just getting back into their school routines, post secondary students are settling into their school year homes and parents are dealing with kids who are back to school.  The last thing on any people's mind this weekend is a Jiu jitsu competition!

So yeah, it was smaller, but it was well run, there was really good competition in a lot of the divisions and there was acai!

I love acai bowls.  I discovered them when we went to Costa mesa for the first AoJ training camp is summer 2012.  I had resisted trying them until the last day of the camp because I don't know why.  Anyway, we.all went the the place just down the road from AoJ after class and waited like 40 min for the bowls, it they were amazing.  Fast fwd to worlds 2013, we were in Costa Mesa for a few days before and I was really watching what I.ate for the first few.days because I was still disillusioned into thinking I could compete, but then I realized I could not,and ate a bowl the last day we were in Costa mesa, and then every day at worlds. 

So anyway, a couple guys from Toronto Bjj have started the Acai Cafe and this past weekend was their first event!   The bowls were simple, just granola and banana,  it they were really tasty anyway.  They seemed sweeter then I remember from California,but that could just be me.  Hopefully next time they have a few more toppings like coconut, peanut butter and cocoa nibs.  The prices were reasonable considering the costs to get acai packs up here.  The bowls were smaller then California,  it that's not terrible because the ones in California are almost too big.  Just a side note,  they will be at the GTA Classic next weekend, and also at the next Grappling Industries Toronto event as well.
 
Ok, enough about acai. 

I got to referee some pretty excellent matches and I was also requested to not referee some other matches.  This is a first for me, and I have to admit I was pretty shocked and sad when David came over to my mat and said someone wanted to have a different ref for their matches.  This was a first for me and I didn't take it very well.  I'm sure it's nothing personal, maybe they don't like that I ask the fighters to switch sides so I can raise their arm properly. Who knows.  Anyway, after that, I sat around for a bit and got over it fairly quickly after I ate some pizza and acai.

One competitor stood out for me while refereeing the blue belt -154 gi division.  The whole division was pretty stacked with some amazing fights,  Myles Allen hit a pretty sweet triangle on Kevin Wheeler really fast, which was almost disappointing, because I was looking forward to seeing them really duke it out ya know?  Props to Myles though, he has sick triangles.

But, That is not who I wanted to talk about, one of the competitors went 4-0 in the round robin, winning every single fight with a loop choke!   Milkias, from Body of Four, has ridiculous loop chokes!  It's scary how he sets them up, from almost any position.  Standing? No problem, Guard?  done,  Getting guard passed? done.  It's like Jon and his silly baseball chokes!  I had an inkling about that he worked them a bit, when he was training at the redstar training a ways back.  He hit it on a few people there.  Those were good times,  I hope we can do that redstar training again soon.  Maybe I'll actually be able to roll this time! Back on topic:  Loop Chokes are pretty awesome, and I think I might want to start working them into my game a bit.  That's right, me... doing a choke, we shall see.  I'll probably just end up using it to set up an armbar.

One other thing about refereeing that I wanted to talk about was how disrespectful a couple of coaches were to some of the referees.  If you think you know the rules so well, put on the tuxedo shirt and bowtie and try doing the job yourself.  Seriously.  I know, as a coach, you want your fighter to win, but abusing the referees isn't going to help them.

One particular case that stood out in my mind relates to the infamous baseball bat choke.  Fighter A had fighter B in his guard,  fighter B passes, and fighter A sets up a baseball bat choke, but incorrectly his arms never crossed so fighter B, who is passing is never in danger of being submitted.  The referee gave the 3 points and eventually fighter B ended up back in fighters A's guard, 3 points ahead.   Maybe the coach didn't see that the choke wasn't being effective because of the angle, but that doesn't give him the right to make a scene and insult the referee the way he did.  Even if the choke was effective, I've seen HIGH level referees(at IBJJF events) give pass and back points for competitors stuck in baseball bat chokes(I've seen points given to a guy as he promptly takes a nap) so to go off about how terrible the refereeing is because of a situation like that is even more ridiculous.

Personally, I had one case where I had the crowd pretty upset with the delay in giving an advantage.  There was a scramble, I can't remember exactly what, and one guy almost gets the other guys back, he's got one hook in, and is controlling pretty well, but never get's that 2nd hook in.  Anyway,  the crowd is yelling for the advantage, but I am focusing on the fighters, and in my head reviewing how they got there to make sure I didn't miss points or an advantage for the other guy before I give the advantage for the back.  It probably looked like I wasn't going to give the advantage so I can kind of understand why they were yelling for it.  So I didn't let it phase me.  I just hope that people didn't see the delay as me being influenced by the crowd to give the advantage.

The event started on time, as usual, and ran pretty close to ontime.  Nogi did start a bit later then estimated, maybe by 1/2 hour or so, but there wasn't much a lull between gi and nogi so that wasn't to bad.   I headed out a bit early, since I was going camping, but 2 mats were already shut down, and it was pretty much just absolutes running when I left at around 4:15pm.

As with pretty much every tournament I have attended as a spectator/competitor/referee/other  there was some confusion about which techniques were legal and not legal for the various ages of kids.  I was lucky to not have to referee kids, so I only had to keep what's legal for different belts straight and not worry about ages.  You'd be surprised that adults sometimes don't even know what they are allowed and not allowed to do.  Anyway,  with the kids, guillotines are not supposed to be allowed and there were some matches where they happened.  I don't want to blame anyone, but it sucks for the kids when they get guillotined(and the refs stops it before they even think about tapping) and lose, when that technique isn't supposed to be allowed for like 5 or 7 more years!

As referees, especially for kids, we really need to review the rules and know what is allowed and not allowed.   Like I said, this happens all the time, not just at Grappling Industries but it's something, as a referee I know I even need to work on, because I was asked the next day, which subs are legal and which aren't and I couldn't nail down a solid list off memory.  I usually have a copy of the rule book with me at tournaments (IBJJF Rules for ones that follow that anyway) so I can reference it before a match If I have to ref some kids of various ages and I think perhaps tournaments should supply an easy to read, clear, and detailed list of what is allowed at what ages/belts for the referees, but also for the coaches and spectators.

Grappling Industries is making some pretty major changes to their events for their next one in Toronto, On October 26th.  You can read about the new changes to the format on the announcement post here.  The highlights are: kids will be split between white and colour belts, and white belt kids will be no-sub, while colour will follow the IBJJF rules for allowed subs.  Finally, they will be changing the weighins so that nogi will use the IBJJF nogi weight classes, and Gi will use the Gi weight classes and weighins will be done before your first match, instead of the night before/first thing in the morning.

 I am a fan of pretty much all of this, except for the weighins not being first thing in the morning.  I love the first thing in the morning weighins, it gets it out of the way, it lets you know who is there and who isn't and it keeps things running better throughout the day.  Jiu Jitsu is pretty much the only sport that uses the right before the match weighin system and I don't know why it loves it so much. I know it's to combat weight cutting, but It generally just means people who are naturally close end up fighting hungry and dehydrated.

Coming up next (in my best Mike Goldberg voice):

The GTA Classic:  Saturday Sept 21st in Toronto.  There will be Acai, samurai swords, food bank donation collections and lots of Gi Jiu Jitsu.  It's pre-registration only and registration closes sometime next week. I couldn't find the date off hand. I imagine it closes on Tuesday or Wednesday.   You have to be a member of the OJA to compete and you can register through the OJA's website.

The Canadian Submission Expo aka Sub-X:  Sunday Sept 21st in Toronto. This is a really cool charity fight show that will feature the absolute finals from Saturday's GTA classic as well as a bunch of other really great super fights.  It's all for charity and well worth the trip to Toronto for the afternoon.

JCC GTA Invitational: Saturday Sept 28th. This is a kids/juniors only event put on by the OGA.  These tournaments are unique in that it's kids only and they use simulated submissions for the younger/less experienced competitors (this means they only have to lock the submission on, not apply it).  They've made some changes about what is allowed at what age/belt so make sure you check the rules before you go!

Zombie House Submission League: Saturday Sept 28th.  This is a really cool event that has been fairly "underground" for the last couple years.  It's basically sub-only matches that go 5 minutes, and you get as many subs as you can.  It's a very chilled out atmosphere and very friendly.  It's split up by weight classes not belt and there are handicaps applied to the various belts, so if a white belt subs a purple, it's worth way more then purple subbing a white.  It's worth checking out on a Saturday afternoon.

Grappling Industries Montreal: HWY 401 Edition.  Saturday Oct 5th They are moving up to the big gym at the same location, and using 5 big mats like this past weekend in Toronto.   The last event in Montreal was pretty cozy, so this will be a great change.  They are giving away 8 trips to the last Grappling Industries event in Toronto for 2013 (Oct 26th).  If, you happen to be from the GTA, you can always cash out the prize.  I like the idea of giving trips to Toronto, I hope it gets some more mixing of the Jiu Jitsu scenes in the two cities.

SAU: Autumn Jiu Jitsu Games. Saturday Oct 12th in Montreal.  I still have not made it out to one of these events, and I don't think I will this time around either. But I have heard a lot of good things about it. They do a double elimination Gi tournament, and a subonly nogi event in one day.  Worth checking out if you are in the area.

Ottawa BJJ Open: Saturday Oct 19th  Sunday Oct 20th in Ottawa.  This is a Gi Only event that should bring out a lot of the Ottawa area teams that don't often make it out to the GTA or Montreal events in big numbers.   You need to be a member of the OJA to compete and it is pre-registration only.

Grappling Industries Toronto: Pans Edition: Saturday Oct 28th. This is the event I mentioned earlier with the format changes. Don't tell me I didn't warn you about the weighins when the time comes.  They are giving away 5 trips to California for the IBJJF Pans.  If they get 500 competitors, they will double that and give away 10 trips!   That is absolutely crazy.  I may just register and fight with 1 arm!

So, that is a busy time coming up. There are a bunch more events to round off the year, but I think that is enough for now.  I'll probably be at all the grappling industries events, and any of the ones in the GTA.  It's not really worth it for me to travel to the non-near by ones unless I have teammates competing so we shall see about Ottawa and the SAU event.

Upcoming events in the Ontario Area (Summer Edition)

Hello Lovelies!

As you probably know, my shoulder is fucked. So I won't be competing in most (likely any) of these events! But, I thought, just because I can't compete, doesn't mean I can't talk a bit about them and help the potential competitors get an idea what each is about and the history and whatnot of them.

Saturday June 22nd - Ottawa International BJJ Championships.  This is the second year for this event.  I thought I wrote a blog post about this one last year, but it appears I did not.  So, here is a mini re-cap.  It was pretty much BTT Canada vs team Renzo Gracie, with a sprinkling of other teams mixed in.  It was part of a fit-day expo of some sort, and there were fitness model competitions, crossfit, and pole dancing demos going on in the same venue.  We brought a team of 4 to the event (myself, Alasdair, Greg M, and Jon), and managed to place 3rd overall in adult gi.  This year,  it seems like they have a much larger variety of teams coming out to the event, which will be good.   There are a bunch of brown belts registered and it's shaping up to be a pretty epic super fight like brown belt absolute.  Here is the facebook event for the tournament and here is the events official website.  Registration closes TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. So get on that.  Now.

Saturday June 29th - Five Grappling presents Ontario 1.  These guys are shaking things up a bit.  They are tweaking the rules, bringing in HUGE super fights, a ridiculous seminar(Marcelo and Xande), and tonnes of prizes and gifts(gear bags, sub prizes, lanyards, something from storm, and more) for the competitors.  They have been working their asses off to promote this event and I really hope the community supports them for all their effort.

The rule tweaks (that I LOVE):

1. Kneebars and wrist locks for all adults.  Personally, I maybe would have kept keebars to blue and up, but the current IBJJF rules that don't allow them until brown is just silly.  I think Kneebars are great, and they areally aren't that much more dangerous than an armbar, unless you try to be a hero and twist out and bust your know knee up.  Wrist locks are the same, as long as people aren't assholes about it, they are perfectly safe.  
2. No Advantages.  This means no more almost passing, or almost sweeping and sitting on an advantage for 10 minutes to squeak out a win. 
3. 2 points for coming up from the double guard pull.  This should mean that people will be more willing to come up, b/c if they get re-swept, the score is still even, instead of them only having an advantage, and the other guy having 2 points.  I think it will make for a more aggressive game.
4. 6 minute matches, ala Abu Dhabi Pro.  I like it,  it means people can push the pace, and not worry about having to fight for 10 minutes. and it means if people are going to stall, we only have to watch 6 minutes of it, instead of 10.  
5. Weigh in 1-4 hours before your division.  This means, if you are close, you don't have to starve yourself all day.  It also means when it's time for a division to start, we don't have to wait for everyone to get weighed in.  This should make for a much smoother process.

This tournament got input from 25 or so of the top BJJ competitors in the world when they were planning this event, and making the rules, and everything. They are trying to make the sport more spectator and competitor friendly and I think they are headed in the right direction.   I will likely be helping out with tables, or something at this event

Saturday July 6th - Mat Militia Ladies Sub Only Show.    I was pumped for this event when they announced it.  I was going to be in it, but now I can't.  I think the divisions are full, but you should totally go watch it and support the event.  They are accepting donations for the Breast Cancer Society of Canada at the event and the whole thing is being run to raise money for that.  There is no entry fee for the competitors, but everyone is being encouraged to donate to the cause.  Some of Ontario's top ladies are competing and it's going to be an excellent showcase of jiu jitsu!    I will likely be helping referee at this event.

Saturday July 13th - IBJJF New York Open.   Does it seem like they just had one here? Why yes, they did!  It was a solid event, and I'd go back, If I could compete.  I think it will be a bit smaller this time around, since it's been less then 6 months since the last one, and Mundials just happened and no one likes to compete in the summer.  That being said, It's a good venue, reliable competition and they have nice big medals.  So, if you are in the area, it's worth checking out.  Pre-register only, and don't be that guy or girl who complains about registration closing early because it's full and you booked your flight and hotel before registering and now are screwed. Register first, then book your travel. 

Saturday July 13th - OJA Sub Only Event. This is going down in Thornhill, which is close to Toronto. It's GI only, and that's about all the information that is available at this point. It will be no time limit I believe, kids age 11 and up and should be a lovely time.   I hope they can get more information, and registration, and whatnot out soon, or this might be a dud.  They tried to have one about 6 months ago, but scheduling and venue conflicts just made it not happen. At least, if it does end up sucking, the ladies have the Mat Militia event the week before to have fun at.   I will likely be refereeing (though, not much to referee in sub-only), and or supporting my team mates.

Saturday July 20th  - Grappling Industries: Summer Havok    They recently announced that they will be doing this tournament INDEPENDENTLY.  This gets them free from the political fight between the OJA and the OGA, and hopefully means that those people who are strictly on either side can now support the event.  That being said, I have talked to the guys who run this(since I work for the event, and happen to be sponsored by them) and they have assured me that they have a great insurance policy that has equal coverage to what the OGA or OJA have.  So, don't worry, It is perfectly SAFE to compete at this event.    

Alright, on to the good stuff!  EIGHT trips are being awarded as prizes for absolutes.  TWO of those are going to the ladies!!   They will also have prizes from their sponsors, as usual.  The rest of the tournament will be as usual for these guys, round robin (4 fights), morning weigh ins, no gi on for the weigh ins,  competent referees and a good atmosphere.  They will be recording the fights, but they have been slow to get them posted.  They don't mind if you record your fights yourself.   One difference will be, since there is no OGA registration to deal with, the process in the morning should be much simpler and smoother! YAY!  I really hope my shoulder is magically better in time for this, because it seems like every time they put trips on for the ladies, I'm broken.  Last time it was the concussion, now my shoulder.  I competed at the last one in Montreal, when there was no trip of course. (I didn't win anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter that there was no trip heh)  I'll be refereeing at this event!

Saturday August 3rd - IBJJF TORONTO   Last year was the first year the IBJJF brought their event to Ontario and it was a well run event.  It was smaller than most of their tournaments, but just as well run.  I think this year will be bigger and better than last.  Now that people know that the IBJJF run a great event, I think they will be more willing to shell out the slightly higher entry fee to participate.  That being said, this past Ontario Open was run as well as any IBJJF tournament I've been to, so they may have to step up their game if they want to lure people out.  Here is the facebook event for the tournament.The IBJJF only uses brown and black belt referees, so I won't be working at this event, but, if my shoulder is healed up, I'll be competing.  

Saturday August 17th - OJA Northern Ontario Championships  This will be the first BJJ tournament in Northern Ontario (that I am aware of).  It's a bit of a trek for most of us, but Sudbury is a pretty beautiful area,  so make a weekend camping trip of it or something.  This should be a solid event, but I have a feeling it will be small.  Hopefully they get people from Manitoba out or something.  

Saturday August 17th - Grappling Industries Montreal: Nogi Worlds Edition  This is likely where I will be this weekend.  It's not that I don't like sudbury, but the OJA separates blues and purples, and there are only about 10 purple belt girls (being generous) in ontario, and none of them are near sudbury.  There are lots of blue and purple belt girls in the Montreal area, so the chance of having someone to compete with is much higher at this event.  Also, I'd rather have 4 fights than 1 or 2.  That being said,  you know the drill by now about these events.  The Montreal ones are smaller, but equally well run.  They get a lot of MMA and Judo guys out, so the vibe is a bit different.  Be prepared to see guys almost lose by stalling b/c they don't know you can't just sit in side control to win a match.  They are giving out 3 trips to NoGi worlds at this one (edit: confirmed: one of which is for the ladies), so If you are hunting for a prize trip, check it out.

That about round off the summer. I hope I didn't miss any. There are a million IBJJF tournaments happening all over the world now, a bunch of which are this summer, chicago, boston, atlanta.  They aren't really in my area, and I won't be travelling to them, so I didn't get into the details on them.  All will be solid tournaments, in theory, so If you are in those areas, check out the IBJJF schedule for more info.  

In September we will likely have another Grappling Industries tournament, and the GTA classic, but I don't think either has been officially announced and neither has a confirmed venue and date, so I won't post about them officially let.

See you on the mats (or the sidelines, whatever)!

Montreal Grappling: April 28th 2013

This past Saturday we made the short (well, relatively short, compared to Chicago and New York) trip down the 401 to Montreal for the Grappling Industries Montreal: Mundials edition.  It was a lovely trip, traffic was pretty much perfect and we made great time.

The day started off with a trip to the dentist, which is never very fun, but a semi-necessary evil.  I didn't go to the dentist for the longest time because I had no coverage and was a poor student, then house poor, then jiu jitsu poor. Now, my work, and Jon's work both have coverage, and we are DINKS, so the dentist is a-ok.  Anyway... everything was fine at the dentist, no cavities! Yay!

So we picked up Stephen around 11:15 and hit the road.  We made great time out of Toronto, and the 401 was smooth sailing all along.  We stopped for gas at the Odessa service center (just before Kingston) and carried on straight to the hotel.  

We stayed at the A Loft hotel, by the airport.   It's a weird hotel.  It's right on the airport property, so we had to pay $10 parking, but compared to the downtown hotels, that's nothing.  The hotel had a strange vibe.  Hipster, modern, but loft-like - so tall, rough ceilings, and weird use of space.  The front desk lady was very friendly and helpful, and had excellent English.  The room was nice and large, but only had a shower, and the bathroom door was a sliding door, that didn't really seal or sound proof too well.  I swear that is my most common complaint when it comes to hotel rooms.  When you’re staying at a hotel, with 3 or 4 or 5 people, you don't really need or want to hear them all do their business.  The room had 2 queen beds, and a little couch/bench thing, that someone could sleep on in a pinch.   It also had a very large desk, and a very nice TV.   The really neat thing was that the TV had a box with a bunch of different plugins that hooked straight to the TV.  The hotel also had cables to lend out, but they had run out when we asked. 

We got directions to Amir (which is a Middle Eastern chain in the area) from the front desk lady, and Jon and I headed out for some food.  Stephen was a fatty, so he stayed at the hotel watches streams of people playing video games.  I don't understand this phenomenon, but apparently it's quite popular, 100’s of thousands of people were watching it.  Weird.  We picked up some tasty food and then wanted to go to Wal-Mart to pick up a cable, and maybe some drinks and snacks, and it was closed.   Walmart closed at 6:00pm on a Saturday.  What is wrong with Dorval?  Anyway... some interesting traffic circles and construction later and we were back at the hotel.

The food was tasty, I asked for chicken shawarma, but got beef, but that's ok.  I enjoyed it anyway.   We streamed the fights on my netbook for a while, and then on Stephan's laptop after he fell asleep.  Some decent fights, but some very strange calls!  Like the instant stoppage for the eye poke.  Wrong call by the referee. He should have had the doctor come in and check him out, give him a chance to recover a bit, and keep fighting.  I fell asleep during the first fight of the main card, and still haven't watched the rest.  I did see the clip of Jon Bone's toe going all crazy. Ewww, that is freaky.    While we were watching some of the fights, Stephan the Fatty took a super super hot shower, and turned the entire bathroom into a sauna pretty much,  to sweat out a few lbs.   Not ideal, but the best we could come up with without a tub, and no Sauna in the hotel.

In the morning, we checked out, and headed to weigh in.   Jon weighed in at a whopping 162lbs with all his clothes on.  That boy needs to move down to feather weight.  He is too small for lightweight. But he likes candy and pizza more than fighting people his own size so whatever.   Stephan squeaked by right on the 1lb allowance of 169, wearing much less the Jon.    I weighed in at 152, with ALL my clothes on, except my shoes.  Hello Middle weight, it’ll be nice to see you at the Ontario Open.  It didn't really matter how much I weighed because the division is +141. 

After weighing in, we headed to our traditional breakfast place for the Montreal Grappling tournaments, Cora (previously known, and always for me known as Cora's, calling it just Cora is awkward and dumb).  We like to go here because it's just down the road, and has a lovely selection, and, there is almost always someone with us who is cutting the weight closes and starving by the time weigh ins come around.  They are pretty quick and, unlike the ones around here, it's not very busy.  Jon got the maple latte, which was disappointing, so, don't bother with that if you are in there.  It sounds so promising, but does not deliver.

Back to the tournament.... I had 3 matches with my friend Sissi.  She's a ridiculously good blue belt from BTT Canada.   We fought once before at the Toronto IBJJF tournament and I won by armbar.  That was when we were both in medium heavy.  I believe she has been fighting in Heavy for the last couple tournaments, but barely, so the weight difference isn't really enough to be a factor.    I'll be honest, I underestimated her.  I came in expecting the Sissi I competed against in Toronto, and got a version about 5x better!   Man, she has gotten good! 

I won our first match on points; I believe the score was 3-10 or so.  I can't remember exactly.  I got a pass, a sweep, and maybe mount?  She definitely got a pass, but that may have been it.  In our second fight, she came out more aggressive, and scored early.  At one point, with about 1 min left, I was in her guard, and she went for a hip bump/kimura/sit up sweep, and her elbow caught me in the side of the head and eye.  I panicked.  It was bad. My brain was like "Ahhhh I’ve got a concussion, ahhh panic, ahhhh you can't fight anymore ahhh ahhhh ahhhh” I completely stopped fighting and she got to mount and I'm still panicking.   I tapped and it took me a while to re-compose myself.  I wasn't actually hurt, but I clearly have some mental shit to get over still.  After the match I told the match setter I couldn't fight anymore, and sat down.   I thought about it for a bit, calmed down, and realized, it was all in my head, and I was actually fine.  So I asked to do the 3rd fight, Sissi was all for it, and David and Mathieu were fine with it as well.   So, third fight, she was super aggressive again, and I was trying to play the new stuff I was working on, with DLR, and rolling to recover my guard and inverting and whatnot.  It worked OK at some points, but eventually I ended up flattened out on my stomach, with her hooks in.  For like 3 minutes.  Throughout the match she had racked up a few stalling penalties and was 1 call from being disqualified.  She kept busy enough to avoid the DQ, but didn't really go for anything.  It was pretty frustrating to be stuck on the bottom like that, but it gave me motivation to tidy up my game and not get stuck like that again!

Jon's second opponent forgot his pants.  How do you go to a tournament without pants?  I always bring 2 full sets of gear for a tournament, gis, shorts, rashguard, sports bra.  Two of each.  You never know what could happen, and this way, if anything does, I've got it covered.   Did he not have a teammate he could borrow pants from? Or buy a pair or a gi from the gi hive, who was there pimping some wares.  They actually had some really nice stuff, cheap Redstar gis, Tatami gis, and scramble rashguards. Also, Gi Soap, which isn't for washing your gi, it's for washing your body, after doing gi things. 

Jon went 1-2 in his matches.  He scored his first points in almost a year and first points at blue belt.   Jon has a weird style; He pretty much doesn't pay attention to the score and constantly tries to sub people.  It works, sometimes, but he tends to lose on points if it gets to the end.   His last guy was a judo guy, and it was insanely obvious. He had no idea what the rules were, and almost got disqualified for stalling, in the first minute and a half.  He sat in side control doing NOTHING for almost 2 minutes.  Then, moved to mount, and did the same thing.  The only reason he wasn't disqualified was because Jon was squirming so much it made him look busy.    I love to see the judo guys come out and compete, but know the rules, and play the game.  You don't see basketball players trying to play soccer and carrying the ball or dribbling it down the field, do you? 

Stephan went 1-3 in his fights.   He had some tough guys, and the weight cut really affected his stamina and power.  He gave the guys a hard time though, and got a chance to work his DLR guard a bit.  We are working on the mental side of the game together for the next few weeks and He is going to ruin people’s day at the Ontario Open and Worlds.    Oh, the fight he won, it was with a beautiful loop choke.  It was nicely set up, and the guy didn't see it coming. 

One competitor that stood out to me on Sunday was Kieran from Lin martial arts.   I've seen him compete before I think, with mixed results.  I noticed him warming up with a team mate and was really impressed with the flow of their roll and the level of skill they were showing.   In all the matches except one he showed some really nice open guard stuff and pretty much dominated the division.   He fought the judo guy Jon fought and got stalled out with the guy in his guard not trying to pass or do anything.  It was a shame to see, but I think it was a great lesson for him.  I'm really looking forward to watching him compete in the future.

We didn't stick around for much after we were done fighting.  We were looking at a 6.5 hours (ish) drive home and work early in the morning.  We stuck around long enough to be able to give Mike B a ride home, and took off.  Mike went 3-1 for the day, and, probably should have been 4-0, but I didn't see the entire match he lost, so I cannot say for sure.

The drive home was pretty uneventful as well.  There was this one van, who insisted on staying in the fast lane, and not driving very fast.   They would go 105 for a while, then 110, then 115, then 105, then 125 for a while.  It drove me crazy.  They were causing all sorts of traffic headaches, and people kept tailgating me because, you know, by tailgating the person in front of you, it gets the car, 10 cars up, that is the reason for the slowdown, to go faster.  

It started raining around Oshawa, which caused some traffic slowdowns, but nothing major, with the detour to Brampton, and dropping of Stephan, it was about 7 hours all together to get home.  Not bad at all. Considering last time we went to Montreal it took us 19 hours to get there and about 9 to get home.  I love summer road trips, except ones that start on Friday afternoon, and involve going through Toronto traffic.

The tournament itself was smooth, as usual. The mats were cleared at 9:55am and matches were being called right at 10:00am.   Things went smooth all day, except when the few guys who registered and didn't show up were called.  That caused a bit of a delay, but nothing Major.  In the future, Grappling Industries will be giving refunds, instead of no-pay for people who earn a free entry to their events.  I think this will help keep people honest, and hopefully keep the now-shows to a minimum.    What they should have done, was cross reference the weighin list, or the check-in at the door list, with the draw sheets, before handing them to the tables, so that they would know if the guy was there or not.  This would take some time, but will save time down the road.  Hopefully, in the future, they will be able to do that.

The new medals came in! And they are nice!   I didn't get one though :(  All of the silvers were stuck in transit lol.  I probably would have just used the old medals for one more event, but Hey, I like how excited these guys are about making their events better each time.    Like I said, last time, the next thing they need to get is some kind of noise maker, to signal the end of a match.  You can't always keep an eye on the board as a referee, and it's difficult to hear the score keeper sometimes.  Also, the mat size, as I mention after every event.  They need bigger mat areas, or even just an extra row of black between the mats.  It would make for a lot less stoppages, and would be much safer in general. 

So, this weekend I am heading to the OJA coaching course.  I don't imagine I will get much out of it, as I have already completed NCCP all the way up to Level 3, which is the level you need to coach everywhere but the Olympics (for Judo). But hey, I could pick up a tidbit or two, and it's always good to attend these kinds of things to keep up with the times and be on the same page as everyone.

Next weekend is the Ontario Open. The BIGGEST and highest level tournament in Ontario, probably in Canada.  They are giving away 10 trips to worlds, and tons of rashguards, belts, gis, medals, trophies and other crap.  It's going to be an amazing event.  Registration closes on Monday, so, if you’re in the area, or driving distance, or flying distance, seriously, if you can get there, Do it!

2 weeks after that is WORLDS.  Yup, we are going to California Baby!!   Jon and I are flying out on May 24th, training at Art of Jiu Jitsu till the tournament (4 days), and then competing at the Mundials!   I've already got 8 girls in my division!  EIGHT!!!!  Can you believe it???  That is more purple belt women than have attended any of the tournaments I have been to since December, and they are ALL in my division!   I am so excited!!  Alasdair and Stephan are also going to worlds.  They are heading up 5 days earlier, and, coming back with us Sunday night.    It's going to be an amazing 10 days.

The weekend we are in California training, is Grappler's Quest and FILA.  If you are in town, you should check them out. They should be pretty great events.  Grappler's Quest is giving out trips to Las Vegas to some of the absolute division winners, and lots of other cool prizes to.  The FILA event is a qualifier for the FILA worlds, which will take place later in the summer, in London, ON.

I was supposed to go train today, but instead, I got some groceries, cooked some lunches and finished registering and paying for the camp.  I suppose these are all things that needed to be done, but I hate missing class.  It's really difficult juggling a full time job, training, conditioning training, teaching classes 2x a week, and finding time to do things like cook, laundry, and other household things. Not to mention going on competition road trips on weekends, when most people would be doing the catch up on the non-work-things.  Oh well, this is the life I choose, and despite this little bit of whining, I love every minute of it.

Hey you, do you have a company or brand you want to get more exposure for, how about sponsoring me?  I'll pimp your wears, I'll advertise your stuff, I’ll spam my friends (well, maybe not spam them, but share stuff with them).  I could really use some financial assistance for worlds and whatnot.  I've already spent about 5000 bucks this year on tournament trips, and that's not including all the money I have spent towards worlds. 

See YOU on the mats!

Niagara Open March 23rd 2013

This past weekend we made the trip south west down the QEW and 406 to the 2nd Annual Niagara Open.   Last year, this tournament was quite small, and was plagued with quite a few issues revolving around staffing, draw systems and inexperience.   They tried a few new things to try to make the tournament better but unfortunately most of them didn't work out.

This year was 1000X better.  They had a lot more help from the rest of the OJA crew and that made a huge difference.  They used a standard OJA registration system and the usual Mata Leo draw system which is very powerful.  They brought in and scheduled the referees through the OJA referee group.  They also changed venues.   The old venue wasn't really bad, but this one had a bit more space.

The gymnasium was just about the right size for the tournament.   It was cozy at the middle of the day, when the kids and parents hadn't all left yet, and all the adults were there, but there have been plenty of tournaments in the past that had way bigger space issues.  It would have been nice if they had the room to pull out both sides of the bleachers, but it wasn't a big issue.  They won't be able to grow the tournament at this venue though. It only fits 6 mat areas, and there is not enough space for more.

 One thing that wasn't too clear with this venue was where to park.  They did have some signs outside, but they pointed to the gym, not the parking lot, and by following them, we ended up at a lot that cost $2.50 per 1/2 hour or something insane like that.   We turned around and found a better lot that was only $6 per day.   They did a good job of posting signs in the building that the gym was in. Unfortunately, they all referenced the gymnasium the gym was in, which wasn't on any signs until we got to the hallway that the gym was in!   But, by just walking down the hall, looking for signs, we did find it without making any wrong turns.  It was just confusing, because the signs didn't have arrows or anything.

The one issue they did have was with scheduling.  The tournament was scheduled to start at 9:00am and the first matches were on by 9:20 or so.  I'll call that pretty much on time.  It was a little bit slow getting started with only 1 or two mats running, but that's not unusual.   I feel like this is a hurting point for many tournaments.  Things always get jammed up in the weigh in -> finding the people -> getting them on the mat time process.  This happens at OJA events, and it happens at IBJJF events.  I see it everywhere.  Unfortunately, if tournaments insist on having weigh-ins right before the first match, there really isn't a way around this.

By the time the kids were wrapping up, we had managed to catch up, and were actually ahead of schedule for a few minutes.  They couldn't start the next divisions for about 10 minutes, according to the schedule, so there was a lull in action for a short time. Then, somehow, by 3pm, we ended up almost 2 hours behind!  I think this was a combination of misjudging how many white and blue belt adults there were and how long it would take combined with a traffic jam at the weigh in, and some trouble finding competitors.

There was also an issue of not being able to start the blue belt no-gi divisions, because the blue belt absolute wasn't able to run until all the blue belt divisions were done. One of them got majorly delayed because of 2 serious injuries on the same mat.  They probably should have moved some things around to accommodate those divisions so they could keep things moving, but the trouble is, no one ever knows how long an injury will take to clear the mat, and it may have taken longer to shift things around than the injuries to move!  It's a tricky situation.   Either way, we ended up wrapping up the last match around 8:30pm.  So, just shy of 12 hours of matches for the day.

Another thing the tournament did really well was feed the staff!  There were volunteers coming around constantly offering cookies, water, and other snacks.  Lunch was pitas from the pita pit!  This is a way better option than the pizza a lot of other tournaments do, but much more expensive so I understand why we normally get pizza.  The only down side was the meat ones were all ham. I try to avoid eating large amounts of pork when possible, but I ate one anyway. And by one I mean, all the meat and cheese from one.  I'm doing a ketogenic diet right now, and a pita doesn't exactly fit that mold.   It would be cool if they had turkey, or chicken instead next time.

Finally, I had a new experience at this event.  Pura had a pretty large contingent out to the even, so it was unavoidable for some of them to end up at the mat I was refereeing.   I made full disclosure to the other athlete in every case, and offered to swap out with another ref if they wanted.  Most people were like "Of course not, it's fine", a couple asked to swap, which was totally fine as well.  I didn't get all butt-hurt about it.  In one match, the coach was like "yea, no problem, it's all good" and then as soon as I scored any points for the competitor who was from my team, shit hit the fan.  He was yelling and making a scene.

As soon as the athlete from my team grabbed on and stopped moving for 5 seconds he's yelling "she's stalling she's stalling". Thanks, I see that, but 5 seconds isn't stalling, 20 is.  I DID give her a stalling penalty at the appropriate time.    She ended up stalling again with only 30 seconds left, so I gave another penalty and advantage for that.  In the end she ended up winning by 5 or so points and the other coach was livid.   There was absolutely nothing I could have done differently within the rules to change the outcome.  The points and advantages / penalties given were all clear cut; in fact, I was probably quick to give the 2nd stalling penalty.

When they were up to fight again, I quickly asked another referee to do the match.  I didn't need my teammate to be harassed and have her accomplishments marred by his irateness.   Turns out she won by armbar so it didn't matter, but I didn't want to have the tournament, my teammate or anyone else have to deal with that drama.   In the future, if there is a referee available, I won't even bother asking, and just swap out for the match.  I think this is fairer to my teammates and the tournament as a whole.  I know I can be impartial as a referee, but some people don't know the rules, or will do/say anything to have their students win so I will do what I can to avoid that kind of nonsense in the future.


The level of competition at this year’s event far exceeded last years as well.  Last year there were only a handful of purple belts, and some of the adult blue divisions only had 2 or 3 people in them.  This year light and middle purple each had 5 or 8 competitors, and some of the other divisions had a few as well.   Several of the blue belt divisions had rounds of 16 as well, which did not happen last year.   The while belt divisions grew as well, and there was even 1 brown belt fight.  The ladies divisions were disappointingly small, with only feather and light having any competitors, most of which were from a single club.  There were no blue, or purple belt ladies registered (other than myself).

There were a few guys at the tournament that stood out to me with their impressive display of skills and techniques in their matches.  I didn't get to watch everyone all day so I'm sure there were plenty of other equally impressive displays of jiu jitsu, but I wanted to take a minute or two to highlight a few that I saw while refereeing, and during my break.

Arther and Graham from team Ascension.  I mention these two guys together, because Graham is practically a blue belt clone of Arther these days!  These guys both have a really good 50/50 game, as much as I hate that game, and they both have sick straight ankle locks.  They are also berimbolo machines.  Their style isn't always the easiest to referee, but they don't dick around and try to win by a few points or an advantage, so it's always an exciting match.

Ahmed and Ramie Chaarani are another pair that stood out. I had the pleasure of refereeing  a few of Ramie's gi matches and one or two of Ahmed's nogi matches.  I don't know why these guys don't compete more often because they are ridiculous!  They have a great level of patience and control in their matches that keeps the match at their pace and works pretty well for them.  Ahmed unfortunately (for him) had to face Alasdair in the first round of gi, and lost, but he made up for it by winning the nogi division.  Ramie cleaned up his gi division with impressive style as well.   The best part about these guys is that they also referee so they help keep the tournaments running.  Maybe that is why they don't compete that often.  Either way, I’m looking forward to watching them compete more in the future.

Speaking of Alasdair... I don't want to be biased because he's my teammate, but man, he was impressive in Niagara this past weekend.  He fought in the middle weight division, which is not his normal division and still ended up placing 2nd.   The final was a really tough match where the other guy really pushed the pace in a kind of spazzy way, a style very different from Alasdair's game.  But it was a crazy match to watch anyway. In the absolute, Alasdair avenged his loss and won the whole thing.  That is insane for a light weight, who has only been  purple for less than 6 months!

Pura had a HUGE team out to this event! It was great to see so many people competing from our small team.   We managed to take home the 2nd place in adult gi, 2nd place in adult nogi, and 2nd place overall awards!!  Everyone fought hard, especially all the kids.  The club was well represented and I couldn't be more impressed with everyone's attitude throughout the day.

It's a week later and I'm finally done writing this.  I've been sick for the last 2 weeks, but yesterday it dawned on me, that it might just be allergies.  I never used to have allergies, so I don't know what they really feel like, but it seems the last couple years I've had allergy like things happen to me at typical allergy times.

There are a few things coming up:

Pura In House next weekend (Pura people only, talk to Brad or any of the office people if you haven't signed up yet!)

New York Open!  April 20th. This should be a lot of fun.

Toronto Grappling Italian Edition.  April 13th.  3 trips to Rome on the line. If you’re a purple or brown belt, or no gi advanced male, I'd get on this.

The ONTARIO OPEN.  It's not till May, but I am excited for it.

Adventures in Chicagoland for the IBJJF Chicago Winter Open 2013

This past weekend (March 9th and 10th 2013) was the IBJJF Chicago Winter International Open. Say that 10X fast. Tournament names are getting kind of long these days eh? I suppose it has to be so long, so you know exactly what you're attending. I wouldn't want to get the summer and winter event mixed up, and International in the title makes it sound so much more prestigious. I'll give them one point, "Open" is much shorter than "Championship" or "Tournament" so they've got that going for them at least. Anyway... the naming convention the IBJJF uses is not actually the point of this blog post. Though, I could go on a pretty good rant about it if you let me.

We left home, well, actually we left work, around 4pm on Thursday, wanting to have an extra day in Chicago to train, and see some sites. The drive was actually pretty reasonable. Jon Guzzled a sugar free Rockstar as soon as we hit the highway, so we ended up having to stop for a pee break before we even got to the border. We crossed the border in Sarnia, after about 15 minute wait, we had to answer the standard questions, no getting out of the car to open the trunk this time.

We stopped again in DeWitt for some gas and food. The subway there was weird. They don't have "Sub sauce" in the states apparently. They also have different bread and cheese options which all sounded pretty tasty. I got steak and cheese sub, turned salad, with extra meat. She put 3 containers on, instead of the normal 2, and didn't even charge me extra. They also don't do combos like we have here, but the cookies and drinks are cheaper, so it worked out in the end.

Carrying on, we found a few decent radio stations along the way. 101.5 the banana based out of Flint, MI was probably my favorite. It was a weird mix of 97.7 102.1 and 107.9, with a dash of 107.1, plus heavier stuff that no station in Ontario will play, like the new David Draiman side project, and Five Finger Death Punch, and other cool bands. We also listened to 106.1 and 107.1, but they didn't last long. Closer to the city, we had a lot of trouble finding a decent radio station, we spent more time channel surfing than actually listening to a station for more than 1/2 a song.

As we got off the highway and neared our hotel, we were a bit worried we had chosen poorly, It was dark, and it seemed like we were driving in a pretty sketchy neighborhood. There was a lot of factories and such. Turns out it's the end of a bit of an industrial area, but it's mostly bakeries and whatnot, not steel plants or chemical shit. On the other side of the hotel (that we didn't drive up from) there is 2 nice looking neighborhoods, and a pretty big shopping center- not a mall, but a Walmart, Payless, and a few other shops and restaurants.

The hotel itself was surprisingly decent, considering it was rated 2.5 stars on hotels.com. It's a good thing I look more at the user ratings than the hotels stars. The outside was bright orange and freshly painted and well maintained. The lobby was nice, and clean and also well maintained. Our room was clean, comfy, but a bit cozy with the 2 queen beds in it. The bathroom was more soundproof than some other ones we've had in the past, but not as sound proof as you would like to have. The room itself was decently soundproof too, but we could hear people in the halls on Saturday night.

Breakfast was powdered eggs in scrambled or patty form, sausage or sausage patties, some cereal, bread, and fresh waffles. They had the usual juice machine, and coffee and tea as well. Decent for being included, but by Sunday morning we wanted some non-powdered eggs. They did have pretty sweet flavored coffee creamers, which would have been good, if I drank dairy or coffee when I am not at home. (I do drink coffee at home, but only with coconut oil and a bit of coconut milk).

The free WiFi at the hotel was pretty nice, we didn't need a code or anything, which is less of a pain than some, but I suppose a little less secure. Oh well, if someone wanted to steal my identity, they would have by now. I haven't really made it that difficult. The hotel also had pretty cool vending machines that had cold drinks and food, together in one! They also had a pain killer vending machine, full of Tylenol, Advil, Excedrin, and who knows what else. A bit weird I thought, but handy if you get a headache!

So, from leaving work, with two breaks, to getting into our hotel room, it was about 8 hours. Not bad at all. Definitely worth the drive for a big competition. Not something I want to have to do every other weekend or anything, but I'd consider doing it a few times a year.

On Friday, we were planning on heading to Brazil 021 to train, but when I woke up I wasn't feeling the greatest and didn't want to end up tiring myself out and then getting sicker. I almost always get sick when I go in an airplane, so I was a bit paranoid. I also thought it would be pretty rude to show up to someone else's gym unwell and get them all sick, and be a bad partner for whoever I worked with.

So instead we looked up some outlet malls and headed out to the Chicago Premiere Outlets. There are a lot of outlet malls in the Chicago area, but we chose this one because it had a store that each of us wanted to go to. The trip there was a bit of an adventure, we took a few different highways and almost all of them had tolls. I think there and back cost us almost 20 bucks! Would have been nice to know that before we got on the highway. We ended up actually not paying a toll getting onto the highway on the way back, because it only took IPass and coins. Seriously, who has all this change all the time? Not us! We put in like 3 bucks Canadian, but it didn't seem to like that. Whatever, we are going to invest in an IPass before our next road trip because they are good for the bridge tolls into New York, and toll highways all over the north east/ and middle of the states.


The outlet mall was pretty sweet; it was like an outdoor mall, with semi-covered walkways and such. It would be really nice in the early summer and late fall. It's probably kind of hot in the middle of summer, and probably pretty cold in the winter. It was nice enough for us with jackets on. There were about 120 stores, but we only went into maybe 5 or 10.

First stop was the Coach outlet. You may be surprised, but I love purses. I've got probably 10 of them. Which, for a typical girl is probably not that many, but most people think I'm 100% tomboy and don't care about girly things like purses and shoes. We spent probably an hour there, it was glorious. So many beautiful bags, purses, wallets, wristlets. Did you know Coach makes jackets? Me neither, but they do. They were ok looking. They had 65% off their already discounted prices so I could actually afford to buy something. For those men out there who don't know, a nice size, good looking Coach purses can easily cost $300 or more. I spend all my money on Jiu Jitsu, so there is no budget for $300+ purses.

 Anyway, I picked up a purse, wallet, wristlet and a present for my sister, who still thinks I bought her a pair of crocs hahahah. I'm so cruel; I've been teasing her about it since I bought it. She loves Coach and purses and things more than me, but is far more responsible with her money, so would never actually buy something for herself. Jon was actually amazingly patient, and helpful in the store! After about 45 min he was starting to wear out, but I was very impressed. He even helped pick out a color and while not all of his suggestions were quite on par with what I like/want he did good. I think partially because he knew if I spent that kind of money on a frivolous thing for me, he could to!

Next stop was the Bose store. Bose make the legendary Quite Comfort Noise Cancelling Headphones. Think Beats by Dr. Dre, but higher quality and less douche. Jon has been looking into headphones and thinking about buying a pair for a few months, so the opportunity to get them for about $75 (after the price and tax difference) less was too impossible to pass up. We are all responsible like, looking at them, trying them, then leaving to think about it and coming back later. I don't think sales people expect anyone to ever come back, but we did! We also went to the Lindt outlet, which was not very outlet like at all. Sure, they had lots of everything, but some of the prices were actually MORE than at a regular grocery store or Walmart. I was VERY disappointed.

The Underarmour store was a bit disappointing as well, not cheap, and lacking in selection of compression wear on the girl’s side. I did get 2 new pairs of knee high socks though. Reebok was more of the same. Some of my favorite under-gi shorts are reebok, but they don't even seem to make the kind I usually buy anymore :( I got 4 more pairs of socks (for the same price as the 2 pairs at the Underarmour store doh!). But that's about it.

We headed back to our hotel, with a stop at Walmart for some drinks and candy (for Jon, of course) and also Payless shoes, where they had almost an entire row of size 13 and 12 women's shoes!! It was glorious! Of course, I can't really walk in in the 6 inch heels or other ridiculousness that was there, but just having the selection was amazing. I bought a pair of WOMEN'S airwalk skate shoes for $15. Amazing.

Next stop was Applebees for dinner, there didn't seem to be much else around, so we settled. Applebees has a new appetizer that is blue cheese and beer dip with pretzel sticks. It was actually pretty good, and I don't like blue cheese, or beer. They also have amazing mozzarella sticks, and not like 4 that you get hear, a serving was 9 or 10. Seems like there is a reason America is fatter than Canada. That being said, all of North America could take a hint from Europe on appropriate serving sizes. I had a steak, which was way too salty, and some veggies. It was alright, but nothing compares to the Keg.

So, back to the hotel, and guess what's on TV. Storage Wars, a marathon! I don't know why I love this show so much, but whenever we are on the road, it seems to be on TV and we watch it. I find it hilarious and entertaining. I also like Auction Hunters, but that one doesn't seem to be on as much.

 Anyway, on to the tournament. It was a typical IBJJF tournament, the venue was pretty nice. A little cozy on the floor, but it was kind of like a mini arena with seating above in 2 tiers. Great viewing angles for everything. It ran rather smoothly, but there were plenty of times that there was only one or two of the eight mats running. This happened in Boston as well. It seems like they weigh in area is the hold up, and the hesitation to use the microphone to call people when you need them. Maybe I've been spoiled and the tournaments in Ontario are getting better, but it seems like what we have going on here is just as good, if not better run these days.

I competed in the heavy weight division for this one, because that was where there was actually a person to fight. I came in 1lb under the limit, which actually surprised me, because before I left for Chicago w/o my gi I weighed 156. So I guess that extra salty steak had me retaining a lot of water, because I should have weighed in at 159 or so, not 162.5. Oh well, no matter. Marla was only like 165 so it wasn't really an issue. I wish I could say I got beat by a girl way bigger than me, but she wasn't lol. She was way stronger, and was technically solid as well. I admit I underestimated her; it’s not that often I fight girls that have a serious strength advantage on me, but this was one of those times. That combined with good jiujitsu led to me being on the defense almost the entire match and losing on points.

The absolute went a bit better; I fought Marla's teammate Teresa (I think that was her name, now I feel bad for not remembering 100%). She was in light, or maybe feather, pretty small either way. But also insanely strong, again, underestimated how strong she could be and barely squeaked by on points. The match ended with me being omaplata’d, I wasn't in a lot of danger, but I was pretty stuck.

I fought Marla again in the final of the absolute. I was ready for her this time, but the match still did not go my way. I had a better game plan, but made a mistake when I was passing her half guard that led to a scramble and then the fight spiraling wildly out of my control. She armbarred me about 3 or 4 minutes in I think. Not my best performance by far. I've been working on the pass all week, and next time I fight I won't fuck it up. Even though I did win a match, I was not as happy with how the fights went in Chicago compared to Boston. I feel like I created more opportunities for myself in Boston whereas in Chicago I didn't have a good game plan going in. I'm going to be working on that the next few weeks and I will put it to good use in New York.

I've got to mention and applaud my friend Gringo (Fernando Zulick). He won the fight in his division with absolute domination and then in the absolute beat a guy who weight close to 300lbs. The absolute fight was not the most exciting fight, but when the other guy can crush you like a worm, you've got to play a different kind of game. Gringo also won his nogi absolute, beating another big guy.

We went out for Chicago deep dish pizza at this place called Gino's East. It took like an hour to get there because of the insane down town Chicago traffic. It was brutal. We lost the Gringomobile on the way, but after a bunch of waiting and wondering what to do we ended up finding them back. Gino's East lets you write on all the walls (except for some doors, and the bathroom and other key places). The service was decent, the pizza was AMAZING and the company was alright to. Gringo and Nihad even wrote Pura BJJ with the Gringo Jiu Jitsus that they wrote all over the walls.

We went to this Egyptian Place for breakfast in the morning; it was tucked away in the corner of the Walmart plaza. It was called Mena's Grill and Omelet or something so we figured omelets are good. We didn't even know it was an Egyptian place until we got inside. We both got a "skillet" mine was Mediterranean and Jon's was vegetarian. Mine had chicken, beef, veggies and potato with some scrambled eggs on top. Jon's had veggies, potato, and cheese, and some eggs on top. They were huge, and tasty, and very reasonably priced. I would recommend the place to anyone.
On the way home, I was pretty sore and kept seeing billboards for this place called "The Chocolate Garden". I was intrigued, and used the excuse that I needed a rest and a stretch to stop by there. Man, was it ever worth it. I had this Chocolate Mocha latte thing that was more like melted chocolate with a splash of coffee, so tasty and rich, but a little sweeter than I would have liked. I think a little less white chocolate would have been ideal. I also bought 2 two packs of truffles (1 chocolate mint, and one white chocolate lemon) and a 16 pack of truffles. All together it was over $60!!! Insane I know, but seriously, they were the best chocolates I have ever had. So rich, silky and delicious.

I'm sure I am forgetting some interesting things that we came across but this blog is long enough, and I would like to get something up before the next tournament. Speaking of the next tournaments:
Niagara Open is coming up on the 23rd. This should be a good event, it’s being put on by the OJA and registration closes in a couple days.

The next Toronto Grappling event is scheduled for April 13th. They are giving away 3 trips to Rome for the IBJJF European tournaments that are coming up. None for the girls, but purple/brown guys get all the fun.

The next event I will be competing at is the IBJJF New York Open on April 20th. A bunch of us from Pura are making the road trip down so that should be a lot of fun. Hopefully there are a few girls for me to fight there.

Also coming up on the horizon is the Ontario Open. This is THE biggest and best tournament in Ontario every year. Fernando has been building this tournament up over the years and it is better every year. They are giving away 10 trips to worlds. 10! That is insane. Four of them are going to the ladies which is more than fair, considering the attendance differences.

That's all for now! See you on the mats!