Faixa Roxa and other unrelated things

Yesterday was the big grading day at Pura BJJ! We had a huge group of guys testing and it was a great day all around.   I have to thank my super awesome professors PJ and Riccardo, and all my excellent team mates who help me learn jiu jitsu every day!

Six team mates and I tested for purple belt. This brings the count of regularly attending purple belts to about ten or so. Eight people tested for blue as well, so we should have ten or so blue belts on the mat on a regular basis too!  Everything is going to be so colourful, it's going to be amazing.

Back Row: Steve, Matt, James, Vu, Joel, Rob, Jon, Greg
Front Row: Chris, Alasdair, Andre, Riccardo, PJ, Kyle, Me, Rodney, Mark

Jon and I with our new belts!

Among the guys testing for blue was my husband Jon! He's been doing BJJ for just over 2 years and has gotten pretty good at things. I'm ridiculously proud of him, it's kind of silly. He's going to have his hands full with the blue lightweight / featherweight division, but I think he'll fit in nicely.



For me, attaining purple belt is a cool milestone, on the way to a much more lofty goal of black belt. It's also quite inconvenient because there are so few purple belt women to compete against locally. The blue belt scene was sparse, purple is almost non-existent. There are about five girls in Ontario who compete sometimes.  The only tournaments that had any purple belts compete in Ontario were the ones with blue and purple combined (if I recall correctly) -- even the Toronto IBJJF tournament didn't have any.  The IBJJF tournament in Montreal had one purple belt division that actually had a fight and a 3 girl absolute. It looks like the OJA is going to separate blues and purples at all of their tournaments in 2013, so I won't be getting many fights locally that way.

Grappling Co does blue and up divisions AND because they give away trips, they tend to draw some higher level girls out, like a few weeks ago Nathalia came up from Boston to compete. So, locally in the GTA I'll pretty much just be competing at tournaments that give away trips and other prizes. I'm planning on heading out to California for Pans, and hopefully Worlds, if I can find the cash or win a trip. That's going to get really expensive so hopefully I can win a trip to one or the other.  I'm also planning on hitting up IBJJF Chicago and Boston. They both had a few girls in a bunch of the purple belt divisions so will be worth the road trip out.

The other cool thing about being a purple belt is now my super fight with Alison next weekend won't look silly. People like to see fighters of the same belt fight, and even though Alison and I have fought many times in the past (as white vs blue, and blue vs purple), next weekend will be the first time we compete against each other as equal belts!  I hope my new shiny purple belt is luckier then my white and blues were (jokes, I know it's not about luck)!

Does anyone have an recommendations for belts?  I really like the colour of my new one, and don't mind the belt itself, but unfortunately, we washed and dried our belts and they both shrank significantly! I was expecting it to shrink a bit, but it probably shrank 4-6 inches! It's a lot softer and easier to tie of course, but I don't think it's IBJJF legal anymore! On a related note, I'm going to need a new ranked rash guard or two as well. What a pain in the ass being promoted is. I really like the look of the new scramble ones, but they are pretty expensive and shipping them in from the UK adds another 10 or 20 bucks on top of that! 

Mike, Celine, Lucas, Brayden, Adrian, Diana, Cierra and Johnny

On a mostly unrelated note.  The Pura Kids were in action at the JCC Provincials on Saturday as well!  I wasn't able to watch any of them compete, but I know they worked really hard to get ready for the competition and they all did great!  I spent some time with them before the competition to help them with their take downs and it was a lot of fun working with them.  I'm looking forward to helping them out again for future competitions.





On a completely unrelated note, tomorrow I start my Paleo(ish) diet. I'm going to try to stick with it for 4 weeks at first and see how it goes. The basics are no dairy, no grains, no soy, no sugar, no processed crap.  Today we went grocery shopping and spent over 200 bucks!! Meat and real food is expensive! I cooked up a whole bunch of beef and chicken and veggies for my lunches. I'm quite looking forward to trying this out and seeing how my body adjusts and deals with it. I'm hoping for some great results, but I'll settle for decent ones. This weekend will be interesting, with the road trip to Montreal and everything. 



Coming up to round out the year:

• This Friday: The super fight card in Montreal to raise money for autism: Facebook Event
• This Saturday and Sunday (I'm only attending Sunday)  Hannette Staack Seminar in Toronto
• Nov 24th: OJA Provincials 
• Dec 1st : Grapplers Quest in London

I'm looking forward to a very busy 3 weeks, and then a few weeks off from competition to relax, work on some new moves and maybe go lift some weights and stuff to get ready for the INSANELY busy 2013 competition schedule.  You can have a peek at the list of potential tournaments to attend in the GTA / Montreal / Ottawa area on the Pura BJJ Blog.  It's going to be a crazy year!

See you on the mats!

Kids and Submissions... a debate.

So there has been a lot of discussion about kids doing subs in tournaments.  Some people are all for it, and won't even bring there young students to tournaments that don't allow it.  Some people are completely against it, and won't bring their young students that allow them, at any age. 

I'm a bit on the fence and like the approach of doing "simulated submissions" that I have seen at some  tournaments. So the kids can set up the subs, but it's stopped when something is locked up but not applied.  They get 4 points and they are stood back up.  So kids get a lot of match experience, and still get to work on getting into position for subs.    

The arguments for allowing subs are:

1. kids like subs
2. teaches them to be aware of them so they don't learn bad habits
3. teaches them to be aware of subs for the future so they will know what's open when they are older
4. it's part of jiu jitsu
5. i'm not sure what else

arguments for no subs:

1. They are dangerous
2. kids don't have as much control so they can hurt each other
3.  kids don't know when they are in trouble and might not tap when they should
4. kids are still growing and getting an elbow hyper extended could have a horrible life long effect
5. parents don't like seeing kids get hurt
6. i'm sure there are others

So there are some good reasons on both sides of the coin and I can't say either side is completely wrong.   Coming from a judo background,   as kids only throws and hold downs were allowed until Juvenile, and then chokes and arm locks were allowed.  I think since I was that young, it's changed and now, i think, it's tiered so under 15 some things are allowed and under 19 others are.  I can't be sure, i'm way out of the loop.

I think, ideally,  under 15 or so shouldn't be doing joint locks.  Sure, kids are gumby and flexible and would probably be fine, but it only takes one back lock for a kids elbow or shoulder to be ruined for life.   Chokes could be fine at a younger age, maybe 12 or 13,  worse case scenario, the take a nap,  very little damage is done, especially if the refs are on top of things and stop it quick.    To me, young kids, 10 or so and younger,  probably should be putting submissions on each other,  maybe simulated subs, but not full on subs. 

I've got friends with strong opinions on both sides of this argument, and would love to here their reasons for/against  their opinions.

Do you teach kids subs at your school?  Do you want them doing subs in a competition environment?  what age do you think is good for kids to start doing subs?