Montreal Abu Dhabi Pro Trials Feb 9th and 10th 2013

So, this past weekend we made the treacherous trip out to Montreal for the cursed Pro Trials.   I say cursed because this is the second year in a row that Ontario/Quebec was hit by a massive snowstorm when 90% of the competitors were on their way to the event.

We had originally planned to leave around 5am on Friday morning, but as the forecast for the storm got worse and worse, we opted to leave on Thursday evening instead.   We did all our running around, collected all the passengers and were on the road from Burlington around 9:45PM.   Ideally we could be in Montreal by 3:30am.

Let's just say the situation turned out pretty much as far from ideally as it possibly could.  Matt, Daniel, and Ken made it to Montreal for about 4:30am.  This is pretty good time, considering the snow, and blowing snow that we had to drive through.  Toronto was pretty messy, which was weird because it wasn't even really snowing at the time we went through. But the roads had not been plowed and cars were driving like maniacs.  We had a car spin out, cross all the lanes back and forth and end up facing us, stopped.  It was about 2 feet from our front bumper.  Thankfully I managed to stop in time, and get my 4-ways on to avoid being rear ended. 

We had a lot of car trouble, which I am not going to get into at this point. I am waiting to see how Hyundai Canada / Hyundai's Road side assistance / Mountain Hyundai handle the situation. If they take care of things, I will be nice about it. If they don't, well, I'll get into every detail about how things went down.   To keep things simple, for now,  We didn't get to our hotel until 5:30PM on Friday night,  in a rental car.  For the ride home,  Riccardo went with Matt, and Josh caught a ride home with Dainis.  Thanks again to Dainis for helping us out!  Josh had to get to work for Monday morning and it would have been really really cozy to put 5 people in Matt's car.   Alasdair stayed to keep me company, for which I am incredibly grateful.  It would have been lonely, boring, stressful and depressing to be stuck in Montreal by myself.

We stayed at the Auberge Universal, which is pretty much across the road from the tournament venue.   We opted for the convenience of walking to the venue for 2 days over being where the weigh-ins took place.    It's a decent hotel, with a pretty good restaurant and friendly staff.   We ate quite a few meals at the restaurant because we were lazy and tired and didn't want to go out in the snow any more then we had to.    Our room was clean and spacious enough.  Two things that were less then ideal though. Absolutely zero sound proofing for the bathroom, which was kind of funny, but a little weird and awkward to.   Also, the TV in our room was pretty crappy. It was a fine size, but it was old, and the picture was pretty warped.  Not a lot of channels either.  But, we weren't there to watch TV, we were there to do watch jiu jitsu!

Weigh ins were Friday night,  we had planned on getting to Montreal a few hours before they started so Ken and Josh could cut the last couple pounds and then be ready for the 2pm start to weigh ins.  Of course we ended up leaving way earlier, so Ken was able to weigh in early enough. I have no idea what they did while we were still on the road, but they got weighed in, and ate dinner at the restaurant at the Holiday Inn.   We got to weigh-ins a bit later, because Josh had to sit in the sauna for a bit.   It was pretty rough cutting weight after our ridiculously long and exhausting trip to Montreal but he made it a-ok.

We had dinner at the Holiday Inn Restaurant, and it was pretty good.  It's reliable and tasty there, not to expensive, and it was convenient.  Josh and I both got a piece of the brownie cheesecake and it was sooooo good.    This was the start of my complete abandonment of eating paleo.   It escalated quickly and I ended up eating Pizza Hut, cake, pancakes, hot chocolate, creamy girly drinks, and everything else under the sun that isn't paleo.  I felt like crap, but whatever.  I was stressed out, and options were limited and I like tasty food sometimes.  I'm back on track now.

Saturday morning we were disappointed to find out that the hotel restaurant didn't have a buffet for breakfast anymore.   We were really looking forward to it.  They had a decent breakfast though, and no one left hungry.   They have caramel spread in those little jam packets. So tasty.   They also have this nasty looking stuff called cretons.  It's pork and cream and looked pretty gross. No one ate it but apparently it's petty normal in Quebec.

So, onto the tournament.   Here are a few observations I made about it:
A couple things I noticed while watching the events.

1. They were being very strict on what was allowed under peoples gis.  I saw more then one fight stopped mid match, and the fighter had to take of the tights they had under their pants.  I really don't see how tights would affect a match, but they were very strict on that.

2.  They were being very strict on belts being tied.  A few times fights were stopped in the middle just to tie belts back on.  Nothing like killing the momentum. I saw a few fights that the re-starts from this went badly and guards were past or people were swept that I am certain wouldn't have happened without the restart.

3.  They were NOT being picky about gi sleeve length.  It looked like a few people were wearing 3/4 length sleeves, or short sleeves.  It's weird to be so picky about things that don't matter, and then allow some of those gis to be worn.

4.  The quality of refereeing was all over the place.  I know refereeing is a hard job, I've experienced it.  I try not to give other referees a hard time, but man,  some of the calls that were made really made me scratch my head.  There were several decisions that I was wondering if i was watching the same fight!  That being said, there were also some very good decisions made and a lot of very tricky fights to referee. 

5.  There was an unusual amount of gi rippage happening.  I saw at least 5 pairs of pants ripped in one day.  Those are seriously weird odds.  Normally you hear about 1 or 2 pairs in a long day tournament.  This weekend was not long days.  Not even 300 competitors over 2 days.   I'm curious what the underlying cause is for this.  People wearing their favourite gi?  People being extra intense with their grips?  Who knows.

6.  Overall the tournament was very well run.  It ran on schedule,was smooth sailing as far as I could see and generally 10000X better then then New York Trials.


As far as our team was concerned:

Alasdair won his first match by submission with only a bit of time left.  He had the guy in a triangle for a while, but he got out.  In the end he took the back and got a RNC.  It was a great match to start the day.   He drew his good friend Dan Davis for the second round and a very close first few minutes of the match ended with Dan taking home the win.   I imagine it was pretty weird fighting someone your as close a friend as those to are.  I mean, I'm friends with a lot of my competition, but I never train with them or anything.

Josh had a really good, low scoring fight with Nihad from Gringos,  who ended up wining the division, and taking 2nd in the light weight absolute.  I think Josh has made it his new life mission to beat Nihad while they are both still blue belts.

Matt  went 1-1 in his weight class, placing 3rd and 1-1 in the absolute, which put him in 5th I believe.  He won his first fight quite handily and in his second fight he was ahead, but it was clear the cold/flu had sapped his energy.   In the absolute Matt won his first fight in a dominate fashion and then faced a very tough Nathan Dos Santos from Toronto BJJ.  These guys have fought a couple times and it was a great match.  Matt's gi ripped 1/2 way through the fight and in the end Nathan came out with the win.  He went on to place 2nd in the Blue belt heavy absolute.

Daniel fought in the middle weight division, which isn't his usual division.  He didn't realize that it was no-gi weigh-ins the day before.  He was significantly smaller then his competition, but still managed to put on a great fight.    He won his first fight quite handily.   In the second fight, his gi ripped, and he ended up losing a tough battle.

Ken won his first fight as well, with a score of 17-0.  Then he came up against Brody from BTT (Alpha MMA).  They had a very eventful match and Brody came up ahead on points.   I would love to see these two fight again sometime.   Brody ended up winning the division, and winning the white belt absolute!   In the Absolute Ken faced a kid we all call Bocek because he looks a bit like Mark Bocek.

Overall, a pretty solid day for the team. Not amazing results, but certainly not bad.  Everyone fought their hardest and represented well. 

Overall, the level of Jiu Jitsu at the tournament was outstanding.  I think the purple belt divisions were especially stacked.  There was no easy way to the finals, and every fight on Sunday was a close match.

 I would have liked to have seen some more girls out.  It seemed like there were less then last year.  There was 0 white belts, which is almost understandable, considering they are lumped together with all the blues, in a single absolute. But It's not unheard of for an experienced white to beat blues,  2 years ago a while belt won the whole thing!  I can totally understand why there are so few trips for the ladies, when they just don't show up.    I really liked that they had more weight classes, I thought this would draw more women out, but I guess the fact that you still had to win a single absolute kept a lot of the white/blue away.

Here are the pictures I took.  If you know any of the people in them that aren't tag, please suggest the tags for me! 

I'm looking forward to next year's trials. I'm not going to have a concussion, and I'm going to be in good shape for it.  Hopefully I'll be able to cut for the -132 division and It'll be fun.

This weekend is the Toronto Grappling Tournament.  We've got 10 people competing, so that should be a good time.  I will be refereeing again, so I won't be able to watch my team mates :(   That is the downside to contributing to the sport I suppose. 

The F.F.C. Autism Charity event

Yesterday, Alasdair and I made our way up to Montreal one last time for the year. We thought we were done with the 401 East for the year back in early November, but then this event came up and I was happy to make the drive one more time.

A little background in case you don't know about this event. It was organized by Glen MacKenzie, known as Glen MM on Facebook. He seems like a pretty cool cat. There were nine super fights: three purple, four brown, and two black (I think that's the right break down). All of the money from ticket sales and raffle sales went to two autism foundations. I think one was a research program, and the other a martial arts program for kids with autism.

I wasn't originally on the card, but when her scheduled opponant Elsa Sery injured her back training, Alison suggested me as a replacement and I was happy to help! I think fighting for a cool event like this is a much more worthwhile cause then competing in a tournament for a medal or whatever. I shuffled some plans around, got the day off work and I was in!

The event was nice enough to put us up in a room for the night, pay for our parking and get us coupons for a continental breakfast in the morning. Gringo is such a nice guy, he refused to let them even do that, so more money could go to the charities! I would love to have the financial freedom to do that, but this road trip probably will end up costing three or four hundred dollars when you take in time off work, gas, food and whatnot. I was happy to be there even with those expenses, but to have to pay for a room and parking on top of those would have probably broken the bank.

So how were the fights you ask?

I missed the first two because I was warming up. Up first was Mike Trembley and a local guy. Mike won on points, and from what I heard it was a great match, Mike had a triangle at one point and it looked like it would be over, but then later in the match the other guy got Mike in a tight kimura and they went out of bounds.

Second fight was a no gi purple belt match, I have no idea what happened in it.

3rd fight was Alison and I! I think we gave the crowd a great show. If you looked at the score board at the end it looked like a slaughtering: I lost 22-0, but I felt like it was a pretty competitive match. I stuck pretty well to my game plan at the beginning, but once again, when I didn't get my pass points it threw me off and it went a bit downhill from there. I did defend the kimura (thanks everyone at Pura for trying to take my arm off on Wednesday) and also one or two other attempts, but I kept reguarding a terrible half guard and getting it passed, so Alison raked up the points. I managed to create some decent opportunities, but I was sloppy and wasted them. I've got a few things to work on before we fight again!

I missed the 4th fight because I was helping my friend Dainis warm up for his fight which was 5th. Dainis fought Ryan Keller, a local brown belt who was ridiculously strong. It was a really great match. They did quite a bit of standup and Dainis got a throw straight into an arm bar. The crowd went crazy and Ryan managed to power out of it. They spent a lot of time in Dainis's guard and near the end Ryan got a nice half guard sweep and almost pass to tie it up. The ref decided to do a 5 minute overtime instead of a decision. Dainis really picked up the pace and laid it on in the over time, passing to mount twice and winning 16-2. 

Next was a nogi fight between the 10th planet guy (Louis Ho) and another local guy (Ord Millar). The local guy started strong with a nice takedown, but the 10th planet guy quickly set up a nice deep half guard and worked a banana split sub! Yes, you read that right, he did a banana split sub in real life! I've never seen it work and this guy wad actually pretty flexible, I was insanely impressed! He got sub of the night for it, and it was well deserved.

The last brown belt fight was Jimmy Tat, from Revolution BJJ vs David Guigui. It was a pretty fun fight to watch, Jimmy worked a lot of guard stuff and in the end caught the other guy in a slick arm bar. 

The first black belt fight was a tight game of attempted guard passes and sweeps with the guy with the mustache and tattoo winning by a single advantage. There probably could have been one or two more advantages scored on the match, but I think the right guy won.

Last match of the night was Gringo vs Mark. It was insanely close with no scores at all in the first 10 minutes, or maybe one advantage each, I forget. Either way, Gringo was working a nice closed guard almost the entire match setting up sweeps and stuff but Mark was defending well. Gringo almost got a really nice sweep -- he came up, but wasn't able to maintain enough to get the points. They ended up doing a 5 min overtime where Mark was able to get some points and a nice looking inverted triangle but was unable to finish. Mark won by five points or so I believe.

All in all it was a great night of fights to watch as a fan, and I learned a few things in my fight with Alison. So its win/win even though I lost.  

The event was packed to the rafters with fan. It ended up being in a much smaller place because the hotel booked the original room for a paying customer and we got bumped to a smaller place, which is totally understandable. The hotel hosted the event for free and also donated 1000 points to each fight winner, which I think works out to a free night or two, very generous of them. SAU was also a sponsor of the event, donating free entry to their next tournament to the winner, which is pretty cool. I will probably check out their tournament next time. Popeyes nutrition donated a huge prize pack for the sub of the night as well.

Thanks to Alasdair for coming along and cornering me, I may not have listened to everything he yelled but I tried most of the time. Also, thanks to Clidan, who happened to be in town for the UFC, for coming out to watch and work the camera for me. It's amazing to have teammates like this who support me everywhere. 

So that's that. Next weekend is provincials. I'm fighting for free, or I would probably skip it. I'm also refereeing which will be fun, and stressful.

The weekend after that is Grappler's Quest in London, once again fighting for free and refereeing. I've been hoarding away my referee and commission money to save up for Pans and Worlds. It's a slow process but hopefully I can save some other money as well and I'll be able to compete there.

Another road trip to Montreal is in the books

And it was amazing!

My Medals are stacked on top of each other.

First, a bit about the tournament in general.

It was well run, all of the staff that I talked to were fluent in English and French, which made it easy for them to communicate with everyone.  The event started on time, normal for IBJJF, but a luxury I'm still getting used to.   The last Montreal Grappling was pretty well on time to, so It's catching on!  One or two of the mat areas had some trouble finding their first couple competitors, but once the ball was rolling it went steady and ran on time all day.  We were even a bit ahead of schedule at one point I believe. 

The venue was one of my favourites: Centre Pierre-Charbonneau. It's like a mini area with the competition floor sunk in so all the seats have a great angle.  It's easy to get to, has free parking, and is generally clean.  It is showing it's age,  a lot of the seats were broken yesterday and replaced by folding chairs strapped to the seat.  Which was fine, they were probably more comfortable anyway.  

Most of the divisions were pretty well attended, the black belts were pretty sparce, with only 5 competing I think.   All masters and seniors to.  Oliver Geddes was there, but I don't think he got an opportunity to fight, which is a shame because he is here in North America doing a tour and training and competing at as many tournaments as he can. Here's his blog and website:  .

A bit about the trip in general

Toronto traffic sucks.   We left around 2pm from Pura BJJ where Alasdair was teaching a day class.  I knew traffic would be a bit rough, but my goodness, that doesn't even begin to describe the situation.  It took nearly 3 hours to get past the entire GTA (like past oshawa). Which should have been about an hour and a half.   My clutch foot was starting to cramp up!  I love driving standard 99% of the time.  Toronto traffic is the other 1%.  We made 1 stop for a stretch/snack/gas/bathroom break and got into Montreal around 9:30 pm.    I had been warned that traffic in Montreal would be bad because of all the construction, but it wasn't bad at all.   I guess because we weren't coming in during rush hour.  

We stayed at the Holiday Inn which was the official tournament hotel.  It's nice enough, but is mandatory valet parking, and it costs $26/day!   which was a bit of a kick in the pants when we were leaving.  Oh well, I've paid more then that in Toronto.  The room was nice and spacious, we had a nice TV and the beds were comfy.   The bathroom was small, and a little run down, but functional.   The view was nice enough, not the side of a building or anything.  Weirdly, around 10:30 or 11pm.  We heard a commotion and sirens outside, and there is about 10 cop cars, and hoards of people crossing the road.  I have no idea if it was a protest, or just all the university students milling about or what, but it went on for a while.  Traffic was backed up both ways as far as I could see!  We didn't bother with the continental breakfast, both of use were well under our weight so we had a proper breakfast and it was really good, for only about 10 or 12 bucks each.  

We left the tournament at around 3:45 or 4:00pm.  It was still going on, but we wanted to hit the road.    A quick stop at tim hortons for a frozen lemonaid (oh man, i think i am addicted, so delish) for me, and an ice capp for Alasdair and we were on the road.  Traffic was GREAT all the way home.   We made another pit stop for gas and coffee just outside of kingston, I wanted to just make 1 stop in kingston, but we weren't going to make it lol.  We stopped in Kingston for Pizza Hut, which might be the new tradition for Montreal tournament road trips.  It's pretty well the 1/2 way mark and the service is good and quick!  We didn't go to crazy, only had a medium stuffed crust meat lovers.  It was amazing.  I've been dieting pretty hard, making my way down to medium heavy, and now trying to make my way down to middle, So pizza was quite the treat and i enjoyed it immensely.  We were out of there in less then 1/2 an hour and back on the road.   Dropped Alasdair off around 10:30 or so and I was home before 11pm!

And now what you've all been dying to hear about...right?  or maybe your just humoring me by reading this haha

It was a great day for me, I had 5 matches, and won 4 of them by arm bar and one on points.  The best part for me was getting to fight new people!  The only person I had fought before was my friend Sherri from the Ottawa area.   Laura came all the way from Nova Scotia to compete!  She is one of the coolest people I have met through Jiu Jitsu and I can't wait to hang out with her at a tournament in the future.  She's got mad arm barring skills and won most of her fights by them!    

In medium heavy there was 3 of us,  so me and Laura fought first,  I won, so then Laura fought Andrea and Laura won. So then me and Laura fought again and I won.  So it ended up with Gold - Me, Silver - Laura and Bronze - Andrea.   


 In the absolute there was 6 girls.   I had a fight in the first round against Sherri,  it was a great match and she was ahead on the board at one point i think!  I ended up getting a sweet oma plata sweep that'd Alasdair showed us in class one day and I had been working on.  so that was pretty sweet.  anyway, I got an arm bar eventually so I moved on to the semi's.   

In the semi's I fought a girl named Terri, who is a middle weight, who had no one to fight in her division :( .   She also had a bye, so she had gotten the mega short end of the stick match wise yesterday.  She pulled guard on me really quick, and I had a hellova time passing it.  Her legs were really strong, and she did a great job breaking down my posture.  Eventually we had a few scrambles and I got passed her guard to side control.    Time was called about 10 seconds later.  It seemed short, but I thought nothing of it.  Turns out, It was only 5 minutes instead of 6!!  So she lost a minute of fighting to.  I personally don't think the last minute would have changed the way the match turned out,  I love side control and once I get there, I don't usually lose, but it's jiu jitsu and anything can happen, so it's to bad we didn't get to play out the full length fight.

On to the final!  Against Laura again!  Laura won her 2 fights in the absolute by arm bar to get to the final.  We did a bunch of stand up, both getting so good attacks in and once I got bored of that I pulled guard,  her balance was to good for my lazy tired judo!    We worked in guard for a bit and a eventually sneaked an arm bar in.  

I really have to thank all the girls who came out to compete!  It was great to meet you all and compete with you.   I'm looking forward to seeing you again!


Alasdair is an animal 

 

He's a kitten... a vicious, no mercy, triangle arm bar machine kitten.  Check out his fan page, it's amazing.  Anyway... He won his division decisively, subbing all his opponents by triangle/armbar or just plain arm bar.  Then went on to get silver in the absolute, subbing the ultra heavy weight Vijay by triangle, winning by bow and arrow, winning on points, and losing a very very close match to Carl in the final.     




HEY POTENTIAL SPONSORS!!! SEE THESE PODIUM PICTURES?  YOU COULD BE ON THEM!   *WINK WINK*  CONTACT ME TO HELP ME OUT!

My First Montreal Grappling Tournament

2 weeks after the New York Pro Trials we made the road trip down to Montreal once again.   This time it was Jon, Andre and I.  The Competition was the Montreal Grappling Experience (March 24th).  I don't remember how exactly we came across these competitions, I think someone on the team, maybe Brad, or Alasdair came across it first, but scheduling kept them from going. 

This tournament format,  which I talked about earlier, is probably my favourite.  It could use a few tweaks here and there, but they are working on it, and it is amazing.   Guaranteed 4 fights (if there is 5 people in your division or more, which is quite likely because there is a limited number of weight classes).  Then the top people out of the round robin fight in a final, or semi final/final  to determine a winner.   I think this could be improved that if only 1 person wins all their fights then they should win first place, and only use the semi/final system if there are ties.

2 other blue and up girls girls registered for the event which is pretty sweet, because let's be serious,  to have more then 1 other girl in your division is kind of a rare thing.   These two are super tough, amazing bjj girls to!   Melissa Biscardi made the trip all the way from Toronto, and Melissa Hebert is more of a local, but she's a trooper and loves competing as much as I do i think!     The only down side is at the time, I think I had 50 or 60 lbs on each of them.  I give them mad props for fighting me still.  If I was tiny like them, I'm not sure how I'd feel fighting a fatty like I was then (and I'm still much bigger, but it's not really my fault i'm 5'10, whatever, that's not what we are talking about here). 

Melissa and Melissa fought first, and had a great fight that ended with Biscardi ahead on points I believe.  I then fought Biscardi and managed to sneak ahead on points, barely.  She's got an amazing guard that gave me a tonne of trouble to pass!   Nice guard pulling skills to, I didn't get a chance to use any judo... I so rarely do anymore :(   next I fought Hebert, and man, is she tough for someone so small!   In Both these fights I was trying hard to be technical and not just through my fat around to crush them.  I had to use some strength to keep Hebert from escaping everything though, she's so explosive!  I was very impressed.   I ended up catching her in a ugly modified bow and arrow type choke that wasn't very pretty, or nice.     Because they always have a final, Melissa B and I fought again.   I came out ahead on points again, and it was an even closer match then the first!  I think if I fight her again, now that I am about 30lbs lighter then I was then, It's going to be a great match!  (not that these weren't but I think it will be interesting to see what my decreased size, but increased fitness will add to the mix)


After our division was done, I had an exhibition match against a girl who didn't get there in time to register.  Her name was Mariana or Marina or something like that.  I wish I could remember!  I felt so bad that she missed registration and couldn't fight!   Melissa B and I both did an exhibition fight with her so she didn't go home without any experience.     She was smaller then me, but bigger then the Melissas.   She had a great guard and  super strong grips, but I managed to keep my base and eventually pass and somehow get an arm bar. I don't remember exactly how.  

All in all it was a great tournament.  Well run, and loved the format.   I was disappointed when i couldn't make it out to the next one, but made it out to the last one, and fought the boys, which you've probably already read about.

I wish more girls would come out and compete.   I know your out their ladies!   Someone has to make the first step and register, or no one else will.  I've been trying!  As of this past weekend, I have competed in 11 events, and registered for 12.  There was absolutely no one for me to fight in Niagara.  Competing is one of the fastest ways to improve, it's a great way to meet new friends, and like Tyler Durden says 'How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?'


Here's a link to the next montreal grappling event.  I strongly recommend you make the trip.  It's a great atmosphere and a great way to get more experience: http://grapplingco.com/grandprixmg.html

I really wanted to win a trip to Abu Dhabi

After the Ascension tournament, I had my confidence back.  I felt like I had gotten most of the rust off from my long time off and I was back into the swing of things.  So I registered for the Montreal Abu Dhabi Pro Trials.  

We had a pretty decent size team head out to Montreal for the event, which was pretty cool.   Weigh Ins were the day before, which was great, for those on the team who weren't in an open weight class.  Unfortunately, for the Abu Dhabi Pro Trials,  there is only 2 weight classes for women.  and I'd likely have to cut off a leg to make the lower one.   The weigh ins all went fine,  hopefully next year they bring in some more staff, or find a way to stream line the process because it wasn't to quick, and the line up filled up the entire hotel lobby for much of the afternoon/evening.

The venue for this tournament is the BEST venue in Canada for grappling competitions.  The

Centre Pierre-Charbonneau is a great venue,  It has seating all around the "arena"  and the arena is sunk in, it's almost pretty square, so there isn't really a bad angle from anywhere.  I've got some good memories at this place from judo tournaments back in the day and that familiarity helped me be focused and get into the zone so to speak.  

So my fight was the only (or maybe 1 of 2)  fights in the first round.  which means, unlike 90% of my division, I didn't automatically qualify for the absolute, which was the division that the winner gets the trip for.  I'm sure by the tone of this post already  you can guess how my match went.   I lost.  It wasn't a terrible match,  It was very close on points, but then i got frustrated, and left my arm out,  and tapped.  The worst part is, my arm wasn't in trouble,  before I had even tapped the first tap it was free.   I think in my head, I had given up because I was down on points and there was very little time left.   I quit fighting, and that's the worst thing in the world.  

After the match, I managed to mostly hold myself together until I got away from people, but I was so mad at myself, and disappointed with myself that I couldn't hold back the tears.  Once I got myself back together (mostly)  I headed back up to my team to cheer them on and whatnot.  As long as I didn't think or talk about my match I was fine.   It's funny, even now, like 6 months later, if i think about it I get angry at myself and If I dwell on it to long I'll get on the verge of tears.  I hate being a girl sometimes!! 

Sadly, none of the team was able to win the finals of the absolutes to win a trip.  At least we got to go some early sunday instead of having to wait around for someone to fight in the final.  There's always a silver lining, or something like that!

On the way home, my team mate Alasdair (who also really wanted to win a trip)  asked me if I wanted to go to NYC in two weeks to try to win the trip there.   I don't think he was serious at first,  but the more we thought about it, the more it seemed like a great idea.    So we registered, booked a hotel, and bought some overnight bus tickets.    Sadly, Alasdair ended up separating his shoulder in a super fight at sub x. and we scrambled to replace him, so Kyle came along instead, which was fine by me!  I just didn't want to be in NYC by myself!

We got to the bus station in Buffalo early,  so ended up on an earlier, express bus, which put us in New York at 3 or 4 am.    We found a cab and got to our hotel.  (which has a checkin time of 4pm.)   Thankfully, No one was in our room that night/morning so they allowed us to checkin!   I'm so glad they did, we were exhausted and I have no idea what we would have done otherwise.  

On Saturday we wandered to time square and did a bit of shopping and site seeing.  Then weighed in.  Nothing to exciting or unusual.   We got some food after,  and I spent the evening relaxing in the hotel and Kyle wandered NYC.    We had a great breakfast at the breakfast diner across the road from the hotel, checked out, and took a cab to the venue.

I think by the end of the weekend we ended up spending at least 100 bucks on cab fairs!   But it was convenient and got us where we needed to be.   We had some adventures trying to get a hotel back to NYC proper after the event, but it all worked out in the end.

On to the event!    I got a better draw this time around, sort of,  At least if I lost the first round, I could still get into the absolute!  Good thing to, because I lost on points, to the eventual division winner Nicole Whissel.   It was a close match but her wrestling and tight guard prevailed.   I won't get into details, but the timing for this tournament was bad, and I was probably at about 50% strength, which, when dealing with wrestlers, isn't so good, but even at 100% I think I would/will have trouble against Nichole. She's one tough chick!     I had some trouble convincing the tournament people that I still qualified,  They thought it was only semi finalists, not quarter finalists. But once they saw their own tournament flyer It was all sorted out.

In the absolute, they had some pretty crazy draws.  The first place people from the two divisions ended up facing each other in the first round!  and losers like me had byes!   I wasn't going to complain, I needed all the help I could get.    There was a lot of draws that day that had much bigger problems.  (like people having 2 or 3 rounds of byes straight into the semi finals, in a division of 16 ish).   Anyway....   In the Quarter finals,  I faced Rita Floyd in a good match. I ended up winning by arm bar!  

Then in the Semi's I fought Hana Fisher.   We had some good stand up back and forth ness, and then I pulled guard, I should have trusted in my Judo more, but I didn't see any good openings, and didn't want to waste to much energy and time on it.    She ended up passing my terrible guard and we had some scrambles and back and forths  and I ended up in  kimura somewhere in there.    Now, I have a bit of a past with kimura's I've been in a few to many and my shoulders really don't like them.  So i tapped fast and that was the end up my day.    Hana ended up winning the trip, so I at least lost to the champ.   She medaled in Abu Dhabi and also placed 2nd at worlds.  So I don't feel terrible losing to her at all.  Hana and Nichole had a crazy crazy crazy close match for the final. I felt sad for Nichole because she, like me, had competed in Montreal with less then the desired results! 

I think the level of competition in NYC was actually higher then Montreal. Hana came all the way from Texas, and there were girls from all over.    In the end I was bummed about not winning the trip (again), but Not nearly as devastated as I was in Montreal.   I don't really know why.   What I do know is that next year,  I am going to win a trip.   I have been training and competing like a crazy person and no one is going to stop me from getting to Abu Dhabi. 

Boys are strong!

This past weekend we made the long road trip out to Montreal for the Montreal Grappling Grand Prix.   If you've never heard of these events, you must live under a rock.

They are pretty much the best bang for your buck for Jiu Jitsu competitions.  $50 gets you 4 fights in a round robin division, for only $20 more you can do Gi AND No Gi.  This is, of course, assuming there is at least 5 people in your division.  Which is generally the case because they currently  have only 4 weight classes, which still works out pretty well.

These tournaments run smooth, and the competitors are all very friendly.  It's a great atmosphere for new and experienced competitors alike.  On top of the great experience,  and the cheap rate,  they are giving out trips to tournaments like the worlds and pans!

OK, enough going on about the tournament and how much I love it.  Back to talking about ME!

No girls registered for this tournament. I don't know why.  So often I see and hear girls complaining about small divisions, and not getting enough fights and blah blah blah.   Then when they have an opportunity like these tournaments to get lots of fights and experience, NO ONE SHOWS UP!    I guess the fact that there is no weight classes for women can be pretty intimidating for the smaller girls.   But they would add weight classes if enough girls showed up.   Maybe it's a chicken and egg situation, I don't know.  But it's pretty disappointing and frustrating for me.   

So what do you do when there are no girls to fight?  FIGHT THE BOYS!   or at least try to anyway.  What an experience.  First off, all the guys were super cool about having a girl in the divisions and I am so thankful for that.  There could have been some serious drama. Like:   "This is the MENS division" "I don't want cooties"   "I'm not comfortable fighting a girl"  but there was none of this.  Apparently there was a few "There's a girl in our division??" questions, but no drama and no complaints that I know of.

So I had 4 no gi matches in the -170 intermediate division.  They were all pretty fun, the first one not so much, because I gave up my back and had my jaw squeezed to the point I thought it was going to dislocate.  I probably should have tapped sooner, but I didn't want to tap to something that wasn't actually choking.   The guy had pretty decent back control, and scary squeezing power.    I lost the 2nd by RNC as well.  The third fight was against a younger, more reasonably sized/strength guy. We had a great back and forth match and I won on points (barely).   I really enjoyed this fight because I felt like we were more evenly matched strength wise.  My last fight I lost on points.  I almost had an arm bar, but couldn't quite extend enough, and I couldn't break his posture to get the triangle locked in either.  It was a pretty good fight to.

I realize I'm going on about strength a lot, and BJJ is supposed to be about technique,  I know it is, but let's be honest, when technique and skill are equal, strength wins.  and when technique and skill are close, strength wins.    I know I made a lot of mistakes,  and when the fights are posted on you tube I will be watching them and reviewing what I could do differently.  I know I need to focus more during my matches,  I was in a weird mind set and didn't react quickly to a lot of things I should have.

In Gi, I only got 2 matches, b/c due to some back luck, I ended up drawing the 2 guys who didn't show!   I enjoyed the Gi matches more then the no gi.  I think partially because I actually train in a gi, and partially because having something to grip allowed me to control them a bit more and stuff.   Either way,  I lost both these matches by Sub to.  The first by head and arm choke and the 2nd by Kimura.     But, I did get a chance to play a little DLR and guard work which was fun. 


I think, in the future, I might only do GI against the guys.  Fighting guys is a lot more exhausting and I really don't train no gi so I'm bad at it!  

Thanks to David and Matt from Montreal Grappling for allowing me to compete with the guys, and thanks to the guys for not being dicks about it!     Also, thanks to my team mates for pushing me hard enough in training so that I wasn't completely outgunned by the guys.  And thanks to the tournament sponsors for the rashguard and gi :)

That's all for now!  See you at the Zombie House Tournament on Saturday!