2014 IBJJF Pans Recap / Report

It's hard to believe it's already been 2 weeks since I competed at Pans.  The entire trip was a really great experiencel; the california weather, the shopping, the training, spectating, and competing.  part of the reason it's taken me so long to get this blog post started/finished was because I could figure out what I wanted to focus on and how I wanted to structure it.  There is just so much to talk about that the thought of typing it all out was overwhelming me.  That, and I recently restarted playing diablo 3, which is another problem all together.

I'm going to start with my competition experience, and branch out in time from there.  It might be the most illogical way to do things but that's just how it's going to me.

I competed in the medium heavy division, and was actually stupidly close to the top of it, considering I was 148lbs just over 3 weeks before. It's amazing how fast I fatten up when I say F it to making a tiny weight class.   I had a late lunch and some snacks Wednesday, and some snacks before competing on Thursday.  I wasn't dehydrated or anything, but perhaps not optimumly fueled.  I ended up being 1.5 under, but hey, better under then over because at these things, they don't mess around, if you are over by 0.1 you are out.

My division had 6 people in it, that means there is 1 fight in the "quarter finals" and everyone else is automatically in the semis. That means for everyone but myself and Melissa (the girl I fought), they could lose their first fight, and still get on the podium.   This isn't uncommon in the higher belt, girls division at pans or even worlds.  That being said, I was actually happy to be in the fight in the Quarter Finals.  I wanted to have the path of greatest resistance to my medal, no matter what colour it may or may not end up being.  Please don't take this to mean I don't think the girls that got bronze earned their medals. They 100% did, they trained, they showed up, they made weight, and they fought their asses off! they earned them.

Going into this event, I had it in my head that I wanted to go back to my roots a bit.  I had 2 things I wanted to do.  Get a throw, and pull DLR and not get my guard passed imidiately.  I accomplished the first (get a throw)  in my first and third fight, and I pulled DLR and didn't get my guard passed in the second. So, even though, I didn't get the exact results I wanted, I am really happy to have accomplished those two things.

My first fight was a really fun fight. It was probably the most fun of the day.  We were closely matched, and I think we had fairly even strength as well.  She had really good defense to all my attacks and had a really good guard.  After a mid-match intermission for my bloody nose (which the medics thought they could stop wtih some glue, hahah silly medics, you've got to shove some stuff up there), I ended up winning the match on points.  I think, if the draw was different, she could have easily ended up on the podium, and even in the final.  During the match I could here Professors Rafa and Gui cornering me, which was awesome. I didn't know they were there until I heard them yelling mid-match.  They gave me excellent advice and information (no surprise really) and having them there really helped. At some point during this match, my knee got twisted in a really crazy way.  At the time, I remember thinking to myself "that's probalby not a good way to have your leg, let's move it". But after that I forgot about it until we got back to the hotel at the end of the day.

After that match I suddenly felt really really sick.  Maybe it was adrenaline, or from not eating enough, or what ever, but I got the shakes, my stomache and digestive system was trying to eat itself and I ended up running to the bathroom and spending more time in there they anyone should have to.  I ended up being on deck by the time I was out of there and my ring coordinator was not impressed.  I didn't really have time to explain because I was up almost right away.  That would have really sucked if I hadn't made it back... anyway, I was feeling a bit better, but in my head I thought I needed to not mess around because I wasn't sure my body was going to hold up to another full length match.

Second match of the day went pretty much by the books.  I pulled DLR (yay), worked it a bit, even re-guarded to DLR when she tried to pass, then I switched to closed guard when the opportunity came about.  From their i worked the grips and went for the closed guard arm bar for the win.  I felt pretty good after the match and my ring coordinator reminded me not to go far this time.

The final match was a tough fight.  Sarah is a really good, and really strong competitor from out west.  She is the only girl I fought that day that felt stronger then me, but that is no excuse. She beat me with good jiu jitsu.  I hit a footsweep at the begining and ended up in closed guard.  For the next 4 minutes it was a battle of me trying, unsuccessfully to pass and her working collar chokes and some sweeps.  My gi came undone pretty badly, but the reff didn't seem to mind,  at one point, when she pulled on my sleeve the gi came so far off my arm was exposed to my elbow!  It was pretty annoying, probably just as much for Sarah as for me!   The end came when she had an open guard, I didn't respect the grips and she armbarred me with a belly down armbar from there.  It was a pretty sweet armbar and my elbow is still not a fan of being straight because of it.  (totally not blaming her, it was brilliantly done, and she let go as soon as I yelled tap tap tap).

All in all, I am pretty happy with the results and my performance. I've got some things to work on though; dealing with spider guard, breaking grips, not giving my arm away, the ussual.  I am definitely looking forward to an opportunity to compete with Sarah again sometime.  She's got a great guard, and competing against that will make my jiu jitsu better!

Now, more about the competition in general.  It was insanely well organized and well run.  They had the draws up online, with mat number and estimated time.  They also had the order of fights online, that was updated live.  These lists were also available in the pit/corral/warmup area.  They had 2 weighin stations and once past the weigh in station, the section had lines for each mat that you had to wait in while on deck/double deck/and so on.  Having 2 weighin stations and waiting areas makes a HUGE difference in how quickly competitiors can get through and for helping the ring coordinators find the athletes.  I hope more competitions around here pick up on this and impliment it when there is more then 6 rings.

Gi check was SUPER picky.  It was the strictest I have ever seen.  Aparantly, the IBJJF has a new rule about rashguards for women, they can't be long sleeved.  They didn't feel like telling anyone about this before hand, so when I went up for gi check they told me and I was like "ummm I wear long sleeve rashgaurds all the time to IBJJF events", and they were like "Not this one".  They wanted me to just take it off, right there.  I managed to convince them to allow me to just roll the sleeves up, so it seemed like a short sleeve rashguard.  A couple of my friends had the same thing happen.   They were also really strict about the arm baggyness,  pant length, and patch / embroidery placement. I saw a bunch of people with storm pants being sent away because the embroidary on the bottom of the leg was to close to the bottom.

You can see the videos of my matches on my sponsor sweet sweat canada's post about it . Don't worry, it's not spammy and full of pop-ups.

I completely forgot to talk about the absolute!  It was probably 4 hours after my division finished, I was completely out of competition mind set, and the girl I fought was ridiculously good.  I can't say that I did a single good thing in the match lol.  Anna (the girl I fought) ended up placing third.  She was tiny (I think feather or maybe even light feather) and kicked up ass in every aspect.  Seriously, it wasn't pretty.  She won by triangle armbar about 3 minutes in.

Righto.  Enough about me!  Let's talk about my teammates!

Alasdair was the first to compete from team Pura on Wednesday.  His first match he completely dominated the guy with his guard, throwing up a few solid subs before finishing with a super tight triangle.  Alasdair's guard is a thing of beauty, and of terror. I feel bad for anyone who ends up in it.  His second match was a really good war.  He was working to pass a lot, and near the end took a calcuated risk to go for a rolling ninja kimura thing. It would have been amazing if it had worked, but it did not and he lost :(.  I was pretty bummed for him, because I know how hard he trained and how much he put into the competition.  Not saying everyone doesn't train, but man, Alasdair lives Jiu Jitsu and had a tonne of preasure on him (from himself, and from everyone else) to perform.   You can watch Alasdairs matches on the sweet sweat blog here.

 Matt also competed on Wednesday.  He was nursing a pretty bad knee injury that kept him from training the last week or so of their stay in Costa Mesa.  He didn't let that stop him though. After a tough war in his first match that he won on points. He went on to finish the next 3 guys and win the gold!   The second match was pretty sweet, he a sweep he's been working on for a while, straight to the back and finished with a choke.  His third match was much closer, going almost the distance with a score of 2-0, until there was an almost sweep to back where he hit a slick belly down armbar that I really liked.  The final was against the same guy he fought in the final at Montreal a few weeks earlier.  He won with an ankle lock for the gold! Matt's Jiu Jitsu is a thing of beauty. His style is that of a featherweight and it's frightening to see it done in the super heavy division.

Jon competed first thing Thursday, his first match was the 2nd of the day so he wanted to get to the venue really early to check his weight and whatnot.  He competed in featherweight, which is kind of crazy considering he is 6' tall. But he has a tiny frame so it mostly works for him.  Anyway, the venue didn't even open the doors until 8am (with it starting at 9), which I think isn't really early enough.  They gave us a mega hard time about our snacks to, which was annoying and not the thing we needed before fighting.  Oh well.  Jons' first match was excellent. He was working the guard he's been practising lately and hit a sweep with it.  He also didn't give up a sweep easily (which is is proned to do, because he likes playing bottom).  With around a minute left, he ended up down slightly (I think by an advantage, but maybe 2 points) and was playing guard.  We all saw the setup, except for the guy he was fighting, it was pretty awesome. He put the guy to sleep with his signature move.   His second match was really good  too. Again he was working his sit up guard and fighting well. Unfortunately he left his neck undefended going for the sweep and almost took a nap from the loop choke that resulted from the undefended neck.  It was a pretty neat choke and it taught him a pretty good lesson.

3 of my female jiu jitsu friends each won gold in their division.  Man those three are bad ass, Val from Buffalo, Sarah and Emily from Toronto. You guys are all awesome and kick serious ass.  Val won the blue belt light weight division, she had, I believe 4 fights, and was dominant is every single one.  Sarah was in the white belt medium heavy and pretty much destroyed the entire division.  I think maybe 1 match went to points and even that one she was ALL over the girl.  Sarah is an amazing person, but honestly, she kind of scares me hahaha.  Emily won the white belt middle weight class.  I didn't see a lot of her fights, but the ones I did she was showing amazing jiu jitsu.  My other awesome local friend Mandie didn't have quite as golden of a day, she had a super tough fight against the eventual gold medal winner, who subbed the girl before Mandie(who had a bye), subbed the next two, and smashed the girl in the final.  She only beat Mandie on points, and it was a fairly close match.  It sucks when a draw ends up that way, but at least she got a good match out of the deal.  Here's a pic of the five of us, after we were all done competing!

The rest of pans was equally excellent.  The venue was really nice, except for the staff who were doing "security" at the door.  Bag checks every morning that seemed to get stricter and stricter.  No Cupcakes, no bags of candy, no "bulky" food.  Only gatorade and small snacks.  Apparently that was the venue, not the IBJJF, so we can't be mad at the event for that.   The venue layout was great,  vendors outside the "arena" area, with the mats sunken into the floor.  This is a pretty idea setup.  The only down side was that it's a decently long walk from the seating to wear you had to be to weigh in and whatnot.  Not a big deal, but a minor inconvenience.

The food at the venue was amazing as usual, but I must admin the acai bowls were not as good as the ones from worlds last year, and not nearly as good as the ones you can get from bonzai bowls in costa mesa.  They seem to have switched to a "sorbet" which is a pre-mixed bulk made frozen paste thing.  They didn't even blend it so the bowls had less in them to.  The toppings were delish still and they did taste good(I had 5 or 6 between friday-sunday), but the Bonzai bowl I had on sunday morning, for 2 bucks less, was at least double or maybe even triple the size, had way more interesting ingredients and wasn't made with the sorbet.

The other food at the venue was the BBQ.  For the life in me, I can't remember what the place was called, but they are at pans and worlds every year.  They are based our of California and the garlic fries they serve are AMAZING.   They were more garlicy last year, but it might actually be a good thing that it was less garlicy this year. It was borderline to much garlic last year, I wouldn't think that is possible, but it is.  They also obviously sell bbq'ed meat, which was equally, if not more delish then the fries.  I supose there is a reason I'm not even currently in medium heavy right now, just reading these last 2 paragraphs hahaha.  Actually, I pigged out for just over a week after we got home to, so it was a LOT of gluttony since I competed.  I probably have an eating disorder.

Changing Gears...

There's been a lot of talk on the interwebs about all the closeouts that happened in the black belt divisions this year.  5 of the 9 Adult Male black belt divisions were closed out.  I'm not going ot go through them all, they've been covered. But I did want to talk about it a little bit.

Jiu Jitsu is a weird sport,  and there isn't really something with the same structure to comepare it to.  A lot of people online have been saying "You don't see closeouts in Judo". That's because, at the olympics countries qualify 1 spot per division, they don't get the opportunity to create a situation for a closeout to happen.  MMA fighters don't fight training partners all the time. Look at all the drama that came around with Jon Jones and Rashad Evans, at first they didn't want to fight, then one of them did, then they hated each other.

I'm not saying that closeouts are good, they really aren't.  But in some cases, I get it.  If it's your brother, or someone you train every day with, I get not wanting to compete against each other.  In other cases, there shouldn't be closeouts.  If you represent the same team, but don't even train together, you should fight.  If you aren't even on the same team anymore, you should fight.   Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of closeouts when you aren't regular training partners, but if you are, I don't see the issue.  If, by some crazy turn of events, I ended up in a final, at a big tournament, with a team mate, and regular training partner across from me, I think I would close out the division with her.  The odds of this happening are pretty low though, so my opinion is pretty meaningless.

The only good thing about all the closeouts on Sunday night was that it meant we were able to actually watch all the fights (well, the ones that happened), unlike last year at worlds, where we had to miss a few of the finals.  They also did all the medals at the end, instead of after each final, which sped things up nicely as well.  We ended up having enough time to get to the airport, drop off the car, and relax for a bit.  Speaking of the airport LAX's terminal that air canada flies out of is pretty terrible.  There isn't enough seats at any of the gates, and service at the restaurants is abismal.

While Jon and I were in California, we trained twice before the competition. The first time, we hit up an open invitation from Brea Jiu Jitsu to anyone in the area for pans, and the second we visited AOJ for a morning fundamentals class.

Brea Jiu Jitsu is run by TrumpetDan, a brown belt Bruno Paulista. He's a super nice guy and is fairly active on the interweb in the Jiu Jitsu communities.  Jon chatted with him a few times and wanted to take him up on the offer, so we headed to Brea on Monday evening to train with them.  Brea itself is a cool little town with a really nice downtown.  We ended up in the area really early, so we hit up starbucks and enjoyed the atmosphere of their downtown and the lovely california weather. Brea Jiu Jitsu is tucked away in a plaza on "the wrong side of the tracks" as Dan put it.  It's a lovely plaza, but there really isn't much going on in the town once you pass it.  The class was a lot of fun and we had a great time.  It was ridiculously hot and humid in the gym, which killed my cardio a lot worse then I have ever experienced in my life.  Everyone at Brea was really friendly and I got some good rolls in while we were there.

On Tuesday, we hit up the early morning fundamentals class at AOJ.  It's always amazing training at AOJ, and I wish we had had more time to be able to train their before competing.  Unfortunately we both have jobs that limit the time we can get away, so we have to take what we can get.   We worked on pulling x-guard, some drills and some rolling.  It was a really excellent experience and it was nice to be on the mats with Professors Rafa and Gui again.  After we trained, we hit up the laundry mat to wash our gis and then went to the condo Alasdair and Matt were renting while they trained at AOJ the previous 2 weeks.  Once they were all packed up and ready to go we crammed all their crap into my car (these guys do not pack light!) and headed back to our hotel.

Our hotel was pretty excellent, it would have been more excellent if the OJA had paid for 3 full nights like they said they would instead of the 3 nights at a cheap hotel they found weeks after I had booked after asking what they would cover.  But hey, what can ya do?  We stayed at the embassy suites in Irvine. It was the closest hotel on the map that I could find to the venue, and also has free excellent breakfast.  Another bonus about this hotel is that the rooms are really big. They are "two room suites" so there is the bedroom, and then there is a living room area which also has a decent size table, microwave, fridge and a sink.  It's not quite a kitchenette, but hey, it was nice.  The staff was really friendly and didn't even blink when I said we were double charge for internet one night, he just took it off right away.  That is the downside to this hotel, parking and internet were not free.  I did a lot of searching, and trying to find a decent hotel, that had free parking, wifi, and breakfast, in the area, was pretty much impossible.

On Saturday, our friends Rico and Danica (who Jon knows from way way way back before he even met me days) who live in Arizona came out to California to hang out with us, so we dropped the kids off at the venue and went with Rico and Danica to The Getty.  This place was really really cool!   It's a pain to get to in LA traffic, and an even bigger pain to get back form, but it was totally worth it.  It's an art gallery that was built way up in the mountains, that is free, and full of amazing work by serious historical artists.  When Rico suggested it, i was like "ehhh, i guess that could be kind of neat", but it was way better then "kind of neat". A bonus, to how awesome it is, it's also free, except for parking, which was only $15.  If you are in the LA area, I would highly recomend making a trip there.

We ended up back at the venue with Rico and Danica along with us, intime to watch a lot of the blackbelt fights.  There were some good matches, and Rico and Danica are starting to kind of understand Jiu Jitsu now (they were also in California for a day when we were there for worlds and watched some then).  After we got bored of that, we went for dinner to Umami Burger.  Our teammate Steve goes on and on and on about this place so I wanted to make sure we got there this time around.  Boy, am I glad we did.

The service was exceptional, and the food, my goodness, the food was amazing.  You wouldn't expect burgers to be worth going on about, but they were.  All the sauces were amazing, the onion rings were the tastiest I've ever had, the sweet potato fries were delightful.  I had the "Manly Burger" which was cheese, bacon, and some sauces and stuff.  I can't remember exactly, all I remember is how delightful it was.  Everyone loved their food, and no one left hungry.

The prices were pretty reasonable for the quality of the food to. Not mcdonalds cheap, but not insane either. I think it worked out to about 20 bucks if you got a burger and a side. Well worth it in my humble opinion. I will make a point of getting Umami Burger every time I am in California from now on.

I took a tonne of pictures at pans, mostly of AOJ, Atos, and Ontario people, but on Saturday and Sunday I just took pics of random black belts.  It was fun.  Here are the albums of the pics I took. Enjoy!

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3 & 4
• Day 5
  

I think this novel is long enough now,  and since I have a tournament to check out tomorrow, it's about time to wrap this up.   I won't be competing because of my knee, I was hoping it would be well enough, but when it totally crapped out on me demoing a leg drag for the kids class on Wednesday, I had to withdrawl.

See you around!

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.

Handy Dandy Rules and Format Comparison

Hi Everyone!

 So, the other day I was thinking about the different events out there, and the differences in the rules, and Jon and I talked about a post we saw that was suposed to be about the differences in the rules in various promotions, but really didn't tell you anything.

 SO I thought, why not make a fairly comprehensive chart, of the various promotions that I know about with the differences and similarities of each. I tried to list all the things that people might care about. This chart generally applies to ADULT GI DIVISIONS. Of course ADCC is nogi, and when I could, I made comments about a promotions nogi rules as well. IBJJF the rules are identical for gi/nogi so that is why there are no notes about the differences there.

 If there are any mistakes, omissions, or things you would like added, please leave a comment, or message me on facebook, twitter, or reddit, or however else you want to contact me. If there is another promotion out there that hosts events in more then one city and has an easily accessed rule set, send me the info, and I will try to add them. I'd like this to be as comprehensive as possible!

 I know the chart doesn't fit perfectly in my stupid layout, sorry about that, I haven't spent that much time trying to make it all responsive and beautiful. As a programmer, I am ashamed, but I'd rather get this information out sooner and deal with making it absolutely beautiful later.

If you know 100% the answer to any place I have left as a question mark, please also let me know.  I couldn't find anything in those events rules books to confirm or deny how they handle the situations.

If you see a little Number like this ⁹⁹⁹⁹ Click on it, it will open a cool little tooltip with more information about it. They aren't the prettiest, but it sure beats scrolling up and down, or clicking and getting automatically scrolled down.

Each heading links to that organizations most current rules (that I could find).

Format and Such
	IBJJF CBJJF OJA	Grappling Industries	Grapplers Quest	Five	Naga	ADCC	Abu Dhabi Pro
Bracket Format	Single1	Round Robin2	Single	Single	Single	Single	Single
Match Length	5 / 6 / 7 / 8 /10	5	5 / 6 / 7 / 8 /10	6	4 / 5/ 6(pbb)	6-1012	6
over time	No	No	NOGI and Superfights only	No	Ref Discretion	Yes13	No
Weigh in time	Before Division	Morning Of	Night before, or morning of	4 to 1 hour before division	Night before, and morning of32	Morning of3	Night before only
weigh in with gi?	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Weight Classes	Standard34	Standard34 ,37	Every 10lbs ish 35	See Chart38	Every 10lbs is36	See Chart39	Varys 40
pre registration only	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Absolutes	Medal Winners	Gold Only	Sign Up and Pay	Sign up and Pay	Sign up and Pay	Medal Winners	Medal Winners4
Gi rules25	Very Strict, White/Blue/Black, no frays Page 28	Less Strict, But follows IBJJF Rules Gi and Uniform	Any color, but must match Item 16	blue, black white matching Page 16	No color or matching restrictions Page 46	N/A	Follows IBJJF Rules kimonos
Rashguard under gi	No	No	No	No26	Yes	N/A	No
nogi uniform regulations	Black rashguard and board shorts, no tights	rashguard and board shorts	rashguard and shorts, tights or gi pants	rashguard/tight top and shorts, tights or gi pants	minimum - shorts	No real rules	N/A
cups allowed	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No real rules	No
entry fee(one division)31	IBJJF - 100(ish) CBJJF - 70/90 OJA - 50-65	60/7033	100-120	100	80(ish)	80	100-120
Membership Fee	IBJJF - 3527 OJA - 2528	N/A	0/10/3529	0/10/3530	N/A	N/A	35
Points and Advantages
	IBJJF CBJJF OJA	Grappling Industries	Grapplers Quest	Five	Naga	ADCC	Abu Dhabi Pro
Points for Sub Attempts	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Advantages for Sub Atempts	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No5	No6	Yes
Points for Takedowns	2	2	2/37	2	28	2/49	2
Points for Knee on Belly	2	2	210	2	2	2	2
Points for Sweeps	2	2	2	2	2	2/411	2
points for passes	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
Advantage for pass to turtle	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
points for mount	4	4	4	4	4	2	4
points for back mount	4	4	4	4	4	2	4
points for back control	4	4	4	4	4	3	4
points for body triangle (back control)	-	-	-	4	-	-	-
double guard pull	Adv	Adv	?	2	Adv	?	Adv
penalty for guard pull	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Allowed Techniques
	IBJJF CBJJF OJA	Grappling Industries	Grapplers Quest	Five	Naga	ADCC	Abu Dhabi Pro
Kneebars	Brown/Black	Brown/Black	All Adults15	All Adults	Brown/Black14	All Adults	Brown/Black
Wrist Locks	Blue	Blue	All Adults	All Adults	Blue	All Adults	Blue
Heel Hooks	No	No	Nogi only16	No	Nogi only	Intermediate+	No
Toe Holds	Brown/Black	Brown/Black	Brown/Black18	Brown/Black19	Brown/Black17	Intermediate+	Brown/Black
slicers / compression locks	Brown/Black	Brown/Black	No20	Brown/Black	Brown/Black	Intermediate+	Brown/Black
slams	No	No	No	No	No	Yes21	No
spine locks (twisters)	No	No	No/Yes22	No	No/Yes23	Yes24	No
Banana Splits	13+	13+	Not Mentioned	Not Mentioned	18+	Intermediate+	13+

• 1 - OJA - kids they use round robin (usually under age 8, sometimes under 11)
• 2 - 4 fights in the round robin, then if there is a tie, they do a single elimination bracket to determine winners. Divisions of 2 will do a best of 3, divisions of 3, you fight each guy twice, divisions of 4 I think you get only 3 fights.
• 3 - I see some posts saying they don't do day before anymore, we haven't had one one these around anymore, and there was some controversy about the weigh ins the last event, so I wouldn't count on this information being 100% accurate.
• For the qualifying tournaments, many divisions, you must win the absolute to earn a trip. It varies by divisions how well you must do in your weight class to qualify, Normally it's top 4, but sometimes it is top 8.
• 5 - Five does not give advantages at all, so nothing for sub attempts, but in the case of a draw, sub attempts are the first thing that is considered when choosing a winner.
• 6 -ADCC does not use advantages at all.
• 7 - 2 points if you end up in a guard, 3 points if you end up in side control or mount.
• 8 - Naga has some strange rules about take downs in NOGI, where sometimes you only get 1 point. This chart is about Gi Rules only. You are best off reading page 19 or their rule book.
• 9 - ADCC gives 2 points if you finish the takedown in a guard position, and 4 if you finish passed the guard(like side control or mount)
• 10 - Grapplers Quest does NOT give points for knee on belly in NOGI.
• 11 - ADCC considers reversals as sweeps as well, and sweeps that end passed the guard earn 4 points.
• 12 - ADCC has pretty convoluted match times. national and qualifier events have 6 minutes for the first rounds, and 8 for the final, the world championships has 10 and 20. Also note, ADCC does not score points for the first 1/2 of the match.
• 13 - Overtime is 1/2 the match length. Only 1 overtime per match.
• 14 - Kneebars are Allowed for ALL adults in NOGI at Naga
• 15 - Kneebars are legal for all adults in gi, and nogi at Grappler's Quest, they are even legal for advanced kids/teens in nogi.
• 16 - Heel Hooks are legal in the Advanced and Pro and Superfight NOGI divisions only at grappler's quest. ***the OGA, who grappler's quest works with in Ontario, does NOT allow Heel Hooks, so they would never be legal, in Ontario.
• 17 - Toe Holds are legal for all adults in NOGI at Naga
• 18 - Toe Holds are legal in Advanced NOGI adult divisions at Grappler's Quest
• 19 - Toe Holds are legal in the Expert NOGI adult divisions at Five
• 20 - Calf crushes are NOT legal in Gi at Grapplers Quest, but are in advanced/professional and brown/black. They have contradictory rules on their website, so I would confirm with them at the event before going for one in the Gi divisions.
• 21 - Slams ARE allowed, but only to escape a sub, slams from guard are not. Yes, ADCC is crazy.(not for beginners or intermediate)
• 22 - Neck/Cervical Locks are only allowed in the advanced / pro NOGI divisions at Grapplers Quest
• 23 - Neck/Cervical Locks are only allowed in the All Adult NOGI divisions at Naga.
• 24 - Spine Twisters are NOT allowed in the Beginer ADCC division
• 25 - Everyone has something in their rules about gi's and nogi uniforms, your best bet is to just look it up, since I don't feel like writing a paragraph in each box and making my table ugly.
• 26 - It doesn't say in the rules that it is allowed, it just doesn't say that it is not allowed.  According to a facebook post, they are not allowed.
• 27 - IBJJF -  Black belts, kids, juveniles, and possibly others need to have a membership to compete. eventually everyone will.  The CBJJF does not have a membership fee.
• 28 - All competitors must be registered with the OJA, membership is valid for the calendar year
• 29 - Grapplers Quest in ontario is sanctioned by the OGA, which comes with a $10 per event, or $35 for a year membership fee
• 30 - Five in ontario is sanctioned by the OGA, which comes with a $10 per event, or $35 for a year membership fee
• 31 - These vary event to event, and location to location and are just here as general indicator.
• 32 - Night before is currently only at the Toronto(and future, large events)
• 33 - 60 in Montreal, 70 in Toronto. Kids are less
• 37 - Grappling Industries uses the IBJJF NOGI Weight classes for their single weigh in(gi or nogi), and you can weigh in wearing as little as you want (undergarments required).
• 39 - ADCC Weight Classes
  see the official weight class page Here

  Mens -145.2 lbs -169.5 lbs -193.7 lbs -218.0 lbs +220.5 lbs

  Womens -132.2lbs +132.2lbs

• 34 - IBJJF Weight Classes

  Class	Male Gi	Male NoGi	Female Gi	Female NoGi
  Rooster	127	122.5	-	-
  Light Feather	141.5	136	118	113.5
  Feather	154.5	149	129	124.5
  Light	168	162.5	141.5	135.5
  Middle	181.5	175.5	152.5	147
  Medium Heavy	195	188.5	163.5	158
  Heavy	208	202	163.6+	158.1+
  Super Heavy	222	215	-	-
  Ultra Heavy	222.1+	215.1+	-	-

• 35 - Grapplers Quest Weight Classes.
  *Not all weight classes are available at all age/skill levels. check the official post about it here
  

  Mens Bantam (129.9 lbs. & below) Flyweight (130-139.9 lbs.) Feather (140-149.9 lbs.) Light (150-159.9 lbs.) Welter (160-169.9 lbs.) Middle (170-179.9 lbs.) Cruiser (180-189.9 lbs.) Light-Heavy (190-199 lbs.) Heavy (200-209.9 lbs.) Super (210 lbs. +)

  Womens Class A (119.9 lbs. & below) Class B (120-139.9 lbs.) Class C (140-159.9 lbs.) Class D (160 lbs. +) Absolute (Open Weight)

• 36 - Naga Weight Classes

  Mens Fly Weight 129.9 lbs. & Under Bantam Weight 130 to 139.9 lbs. Feather Weight 140 to 149.9 lbs. Light Weight (50 to 159.9 lbs. Welter Weight 160 to 169.9 lbs. Middle Weight 170 to 179.9 lbs. Light Heavy Weight 180 to 189.9 lbs. Cruiser Weight 190 to 199.9 lbs. Heavy Weight 200 to 224.9 lbs. Super Heavy Weight 225 & Above

  Womens Fly Weight (119.9 lbs & Under) Light Weight (120 to 134.9 lbs.) Middle Weight (135 to 159.9 lbs.) Light Heavy Wt (160 lbs. & Above)

• 38 - Five Grappling Weight classes

  Mens Flyweight up to 124.9 lbs. Bantamweight 125 - 139.9 lbs. Lightweight 140 - 154.9 lbs. Welterweight 155 - 169.9 lbs. Middleweight 170 - 189.9 lbs. Light Heavyweight 190 - 209.9 lbs. Heavyweight 210 lbs +

  Womens Bantamweight up to 119.9 lbs. Lightweight 120 - 134.9 lbs. Welterweight 135 - 149.9 lbs. Middleweight 150 – 169.9 lbs. Heavyweight 170 lbs +

• 40 - Abu Dhabi Pro Weight classes vary by qualifier and event. Your best bet is to just check the website for the qualifier you are attending.

IBJJF Worlds AKA Mundials 2013 Tournament Report

So, I've been trying to figure out the best way to blog about this whole trip and tournament and my experiences around it and have decided to have 2 posts.  The first (this one)  about the tournament and then later, as I have time, I will write the novel that will be my experience over the entire trip and all the fun and not so fun things I did and didn't do over the 9 days. 

There is so much to talk about, that I am going to break this down into a few sections and sub sections.  The tournament in general: broken down by good, and bad, and then go over some interesting fights, some results from my teammates and friends, and who knows what else. 

The tournament in General

The good stuff

• The Venue, known as "The Walter Pyramid" was pretty much perfect.  It fits 12 mat areas with ample space for the bullpen, check in area, podium, and t-shirt distributor.  The floor was restricted to athletes only, and didn't have space around the edges for people to stand around, so it kept the viewing angles nice and clean.   They had a camera on one of the mats all day, every day, which was broadcast on a giant screen, which also showed commercials for the sponsors every once and a while.  This was a cool touch, it took us a while to figure out what the seemingly random music that started up every once and a while was.  There was enough space in the stands for all the spectators, and for the finals on Sunday they brought down the extra section and it was all pretty well packed.   The seats were a mix of benches and chairs. I would recommend going for the chairs, because the lack of backs on the benches gets annoying pretty fast when you are there for 10+hours a day 4 days in a row.   The venue was pretty easy to find, and parking was only 5 bucks a day, which isn't unreasonable at all.  

·         The Food! It wasn't cheap, but man oh man was it every tasty.  Silvio’s BBQ provided the main dishes.  The garlic fries were absolutely amazing, and the chicken was divine.  It was also insanely expensive, $7 for fries, and like 12 bucks for a chicken sandwich, but it was totally worth it.  They only take cash, which was fairly inconvenient, but I had enough cash for what I wanted so it's all good.  The other place I had food from was the Acai place.  I can't remember what it was called though.  The bowls were quite a bit smaller than places for acai bowls in Costa Mesa for about the same price.  But I suppose you are paying for the convenience of not having to leave the venue.   The big pain in the ass is that apparently last year people spilled them all over the seats so they didn't allow them in the stands.  So I missed a bunch of fights to eat acai.  Worth it I suppose, but it would be nice to be able to eat my lunch / breakfast / dinner / snack in the stands and not miss any of the jiu jitsu that was happening.  There was also a typical stadium food stand with pretzels and Starbucks coffee, but why would you want that when you could have Silvio’s or acai bowls!! 

• General Structure and whatnot:  Like most IBJJF tournaments, it all started and ran on time from what I could tell.  I didn't have a schedule handy throughout the day, but my team mates all fought at around the division start time.  On Saturday, the referees were all on the mats, and 8 or 9 of them started exactly at the start time, with the other 3 or 4 starting within a minute of that.  It was pretty impressive to see a tournament manage the sheer numbers of people that were there to compete. Getting my free t-shirt and Gracie Mag was a smooth process as usual as well. I don't think everyone realized they were available because the line never seemed very long.  They were tucked under the bleachers near the bullpen.  The mat coordinators seemed to do a pretty good job, sometimes they were a little quiet, but I didn't see or hear anyone talking about being DQ'd because they didn't know they were up, or didn't find their mat organizers on time.  The customer service people were really nice too, when I went there to withdraw because of my shoulder they were very sympathetic and stuff.  It was a quick and easy process too. 

• The level of competition was insane!  Seriously, so many black belts in one building.  It was ridiculous.  12 mats, all running brown and black belt fights.  It was impossible to watch them all! We couldn't keep track of all the fighters we wanted to watch!  It was also insane to see guys who we thought would crush their divisions lose.  It seems like what used to be a purple is now blue, and what used to be brown is purple, and so on.  In 90% of the non-black belt divisions I watched, the guys/gals on the podium need new belts.   There are a few cases where this isn't true, like Dominyka, who just got her brown belt, and some of the smaller ladies divisions, where even losing your first fight got you on the podium. But, 9/10 divisions, it was far past time for a promotion for the finalists. This made for some pretty excellent fights at all the belt levels but also it seems like people are after medals more than progression.  

• The Sponsors.  There were plenty of gear companies represented, and also some multi-brand companies like fighters market and whatnot.  If you needed some new gear, you could easily get it.  The prices were reasonable as well.  Koral had a pretty sweet deal of 2 gis and some other crap for like $200 bucks.  I think Jon would have gone for it, if our bags weren't really full already.  Shoyoroll did a special tournament only release.  We were supposed to get one for a teammate, but there was a giant line 3 hours before the release so he was out of luck.  It’s cool for tournaments to have sponsors like gear companies in case they are mega anal (like the IBJJF is) and the gi(s) you brought were not legal.  That being said, you should bring proper fitting, non-torn gis to tournaments and bring more than one, two at least, 3 is better.  Pants tear all the time.

Alright, on to the bad stuff, this is not a short list, and considering the prestige and cost and everything that goes along with "the Worlds" this list should be non-existent.

• Terrible Refereeing, Favoritism, and Inconsistencies:  These three all go hand in hand. They were DQ'ing some people for knee reaps, ignoring them completely for others, and only penalizing for others.  It didn't matter if there was a sub involved or not.   They gave some people advantages for the saddest excuse for a submission and others which looked insanely tight got nothing.  They gave advantages and didn't give advantages for almost sweeps/passes/takedowns just as willy-nilly. And then there were the penalties. The most blatant of which was the penalty Ary Farias getting a penalty for leaving the mat area before is hand was raised.  Now, this IS technically a penalty, but, seriously, probably 50% or more of the winners went out of bounds after they won.   Let's also not forget there is a penalty for excessive celebrating, and let me tell you, there was a lot of that going on, and NO ONE got penalized for that either.  It was frightening to watch the referees give decisions.  I don't really want to get into it too much, I know, as an Atos member, for me to say "Atos got screwed" is going to just sound like I’m whining because my team lost a few matches.  It wasn't just Atos though; so many people’s hard work and dedication were wasted/ruined by the incompetent or just plain biased referees.

• Long Days Schedule Changes: The tournament was originally scheduled to be 5 days.  Wednesday to Sunday.  A few days before the event, they cut it down to 4, jamming everything in, and making those 4 days ridiculously long.  The competition started at 9 am Thurs through Saturday and some divisions were not scheduled to start until 7PM or later While this isn't so bad for a local competitor, who can come and go as they please, for the competitors who planned their travel around the pre-scheduled, and thought they would only need to be at the tournament wed/thurs and booked their fights to accommodate that, it kind of screwed them over.  It also made for extremely long days for the coaches.  I'd much rather have to be at a venue for 5 days that are 10-5, then 4 days that are 9am to 9-9:30 or pm.  
• The Sound System: Most of the time, it was barely ok,  there many times where you couldn’t understand who they were calling or what mat  It was pretty annoying.  Some of the announcers were better than others, but it was generally very muffled.  The female announcers were the most difficult to understand, they were quite, and their accent was pretty thick.  I've been to tournaments that had much worse PA systems, and ones that have much better.
• No ATM.  This is pretty self-explanatory. Thankfully the Acai bowl place took credit cards through an IPad  so I was fine, but the BBQ took cash only, and it was more expensive then the acai so that was a pain in the butt.  The IPad for taking credit cards was pretty cool.  I think that's a technology that has been pretty easily available in the States for a long time, but it's pretty new in Canada I think.  Anyway, not a horrible problem, but rather inconvenient if you don't know in advance.
• Not knowing the rules.  Fighters, coaches, referee, you name them, and they didn't know the rules.  Seriously, People calling for points when they most definitely shouldn't.  People doing techniques that aren't legal in their division (and not just reaping).  I saw a blue belt dive on a knee bar.  The worst was in the semi-finals, a black belt stuck in a triangle, on his feet, walked right out of bounds.  There is a rule, you cannot flee deliberately out of bounds to escape a submission it’s an immediate DQ.  This guy didn't seem to realize that this was an offense at all, let alone one that warranted a DQ!  
• Poor Sportsmanship:  Lots of people were guilty of this.  From cheering and carrying on because someone won because of a penalty for the other guy after the match was over (Ary), to athletes skirting the knee-reap rule and injuring their opponents with obvious inward knee pressure.  I'm all for team spirit, and supporting your team mates, but there was far too much excessive chanting, heckling, booing, and whatnot.  I'm fine with celebrating your wins, especially hard fought battles, but to boo competitors on the podium, or any of the other crap that was happening was not acceptable.
• Terrible Score Keepers: These high school students cost several athletes wins.  They were too busy messing around on their cell phones to score a match properly.  It was awful.  They missed scores many times, and put them on the wrong side more than once.  One of the Miyao's, I Believe, Joao, ended up losing his match because the score board said he was up an advantage, but either the referee, or the score keeper screwed up, and in the end, the advantage was the other guys and he lost.  There were plenty of other cases where the score was messed up and it caused so much confusion.  A tournament that charges 95 bucks a shot, and has probably 3000 people should be able to hire competent table workers.  
• Ontario's Performance:  It was a rough day in the office for most of the athletes from Ontario.   Only a couple made it to the podium and many lost in the first round.  Not performing poorly was Open Mat's Scott Bacon (Gold) and Ostap M (Bronze).  Sadly, Ostap forgot to register for the absolute, so didn't get a chance to double medal.  The guys from Pura went 1-3; Toronto BJJ had a rough day as well.  I am probably missing a few others, but I can't think of them.  It's crazy to see competitors that destroy on the local scene lose at tournaments like this.  Especially ones that perform so well at other huge tournaments like Pans.  I think this partially goes back to the level of competition, and the travel, time difference, not eating regularly, and all the other things that go along with a tournament like this.  Whatever, Next year will be better!!
• Gender Bias: The male black belts had the quarters, semis, and finals, all on Sunday.  The Women only the finals.  How does that make any sense?  My only theory is that some of the women's black belt divisions did not have enough competitors in them to support having semis and finals on Sunday, but I don't recall any of the podiums not having 4 competitors on them.  

I had some other crap to write about, but I can't remember now.  Or, I've decided it's not worth getting into.  Overall the tournament gets a B or B+.    We'll be going back next year, of course, because it's one of the only events I can get more then 1 or 2 fights in a competition.   

I think that's enough rambling for now, I’ll write more about how the trip in general went next week while I am at a conference in Portland with nothing to do in the evenings.

2013 Ontario Open May 12th and 13th Tournament Report

Move over IBJJF,  there is a new king of the tournament scene, and it's name is the Ontario Open.

As you probably know,  since you read my blog, or at least, you pretend too read my blog, and like the post when I put a new link on facebook,  I have always said that the IBJJF run the smoothest, most professional tournament I have attended.   Not Anymore.   The Ontario Open just stole that crown,  with very little pomp and flair.  They've been uping their game every year, and this year tipped them over.   This comes after reports from Dallas and Vegas that the IBJJF has been sliding.  I was not at either of those events, so cannot say for sure, but stories of running behind schedule, and confusion at weigh ins, and other bad things have been coming up on the communities I frequent.  But, this is not about them, It's about the Ontario Open.

Lets start at the very beginning, the registration process.  In the past at OJA events, you would have to register for the OJA on site, or, if you were already a member for the year, you would just have to check in.   Now, you register online before you register for the event!   I actually saw someone complain about this on facebook, I need to know what kind of drugs they are on, or if they have ever had to deal with the line up at any tournament that doesn't do everything on line.    The online process isn't perfect, and you still need to duplicate some information, so I give them 8/10 for that.  Check-in at the venue was fast and easy. They had printed lists of names, and slapped a wrist band on. There was never a long line at the door and they were very friendly and lovely.  It was a 30 second process verse 20 minutes to 45 minutes that I have experienced at other events(IBJJF New York anyone?). 

They posted a competitor list early (not quite IBJJF early, but who needs a list with 5 people on it), and it was updated regularly leading up to the deadline.   They were prompt with updating peoples changes when the competitors made mistakes, and were quick to answer questions sent via email or facebook.

The venue was the Brampton Soccer Centre.  This is a favourite venue in the BJJ community, and it's easy to understand why. It's very simple to get to and it has ample, free parking.   The gymnasium is gigantic, and easily supports the 10 rings the Ontario Open ran, and could likely support up to 12, maybe even 14.   There is food available, and plenty of room for sponsors.  The one down side is the lighting situation,  the wall opposite the spectator area (which is on the 2nd floor, so they have a great view) is all windows.  So, when you are taking pictures or video, they get screwed up and dark, because all the light from the windows makes the camera go "Hey it's bright, I'm going to be dark".   The other, minor problem is, while having the spectator area above the gym, offers a great view, it is not overly large, and I think if the tournament grows anymore,  It may become over crowded.  I know our space started out comfortable, but as people went downstairs to compete, and came back up, it shrank drastically.  I even had a strangers gi on top of my gi bag at one point.  No big deal, we are all friends and whatnot in the community, but that is a pretty good indicator that space was limited and people were feeling cramped.

So, we got to the tournament about 30 minutes before it was scheduled to begin, and low and behold, competitors were already weighing in,  all the mats had staff at them, and the referees were dispersed to the mats.  Half an Hour before the scheduled start.  Are you serious?  This was our first indication that we were indeed in for a treat.  Speaking of referees,  the head referee was none other than Andre Terencio, the head referee of the IBJJF.  Arguably the best BJJ referee on the planet.  The 18 member team, consisted of 90% Brown and Black belts.  There were, I believe, 2 purple belt referees, both of which had extensive experience.  They had 18 referees for 10 rings.  It was great to see the referees able to have breaks,  watch each other work, and have rest and food.   This keeps them fresh, and alert and makes them better referees all day long.  That being said,  the refereeing wasn't perfect,  there will always be mistakes, but they were minimal from what I saw  As usual,  Jon had points score against him when he went for a baseball bat choke (got his guard passed),  and there were some points from 50/50 that were missed, but overall,  excluding crazy situations,  the refereeing was solid!

The first matches started right on time, and that schedule was maintained throughout the day.  Divisions were even started early!  Of course, if not everyone was there yet,  they waited until the scheduled time,  but It was amazing to see the efficiency improvements.   They had 2 large TV's set up with a feed showing what divisions were on what mat, and which divisions were currently being weighed in.  This was really helpful with the kids on Sunday Morning, and was a cool extra as a spectator.  It could use some improvement, as the font was small and difficult to read, and the corner screen should have faced the spectator area better.  But, that's just being picky and looking for things to complain about.

They had paramedics for the medical staff, which is always good.  They know how to handle the serious injuries and head trauma that can sometimes happen.  They do have a tendency to recommend going to the hospital pretty quickly, but I think, they have to do that to cover their asses.  I think, ideally, a combination of paramedics, and athletic therapists, or a sports injury doctor would be perfect.   The paramedics are great for assessing concussions,  and major injuries, but for determining a torn ACL, or other weird sport specific injuries, they are a little bit out of their element.  Also, having an athletic therapist would be super helpful when it comes to having injuries taped to keep competing.  That being said,  they were very friendly,  very attentive to the mats all day, and well equipped to deal with everything that came up throughout the day.

Saturday's absolute saw 10 trips to the IBJJF worlds given out.  10!!!   4 of which went to the ladies.  Unfortunately, none went to me.  Whatever, one day I will beat my nemesis.    The prizes went to the following divisions:

• Brown/Black Male Heavy Absolute (middle and up) LEE VILLENEUVE
• Brown Black Male Light Absolute (light and down) DARSON HEMMINGS
• Purple Male Heavy Absolute (middle and up) MATTHEW PASQUALE
• Purple Male Light Absolute (light and down) REUBEN SAGMAN
• Blue Male Heavy Absolute (middle and up) NATHAN DOS SANTOS
• Blue Male Light Absolute (light and down) ERIC CONG PHAN
• Purple and up Female Heavy Absolute (middle and up) ALISON TREMBLAY
• Purple and up Female Light Absolute (might and down) MELISSA BISCARDI
• Blue Heavy Female absolute (middle and up) YACINTA NGUYEN-HUU
• Blue Light Female absolute (light and down)  AJ REITSMA

Congratulations to all of these winners.  It takes an insane amount of skill, dedication, and hard work to be able to win these absolutes and my hats off to all of you! 

The format for Sunday's No Gi Event was a bit different than the normal OJA style. It was not split by belt, but by experience.  Novice being less than 2 years, and expert being over 2 years.   This was a cool idea and it lead to some very interesting match ups.   Unfortunately, I think it scared a lot of competitors away, the nogi divisions were significantly smaller than the gi divisions, which is not that unusual, but when you think that the expert, should, in theory, encompass all the blue, purple, brown, and black belts,  they should have been much larger.    I think the fact that the prizes for the absolutes were much less significant also affected the numbers.   That being said, there were some ridiculously good matches in the nogi on Sunday and I hope that they can tweak the format a bit and get more guys and gals out next year.  I was really looking forward to the nogi,  since, with the combined levels, I actually had a division of 4.  Unfortunately, an injury kept me from being able to compete. :(

Speaking of Sunday's experience... How did I forget,  THE KIDS RAN ON TIME.   You heard me right.  The kids!  Ran on Time!   How is that even possible?  I don't know, but they did it!!  Like normal,  they moved kids up that were to heavy for their division, and they combined and rearranged on the fly as they had to and STILL ran on time.  Everyone was certain, that nogi would be starting late, but low and behold,  they were weighing people in almost an HOUR before the scheduled start and some nogi divisions started before the scheduled start.   One thing, with the kids, that wasn't quite ideal, was, one of our kids,  only got 2 fights,  in a division of 9.   They did 3 pools of 3, and the winner of each pool went against each other.   The OJA normally does round robins for the kids, so the pools were to be expected, but I would think a pool of 4 and a pool of 5 would be better. Divisions of 5 they leave as one pool, so It seems like the best case.   Then some kids get 3 fights, and some 4, but that's better than most of them getting 2, except for the 3 winners, who get 5.  It would work out to be more even that way, in the long run.

We had a decent size team out to the event this time around.  Not nearly enough to threaten for one of the team trophies,  but considering the size of our club, I think 22 competitors is pretty good.   I believe, all together,  the team earned 5 golds, 7 silver, and 5 bronze.  I try to keep track, but it's hard sometimes.  Some teams had several pages of competitors. I hope, next year, that they implement the IBJJF rule where only 2 competitors from one team can register per division.  After that, they have to register as a different team.  I think that will make for some more interesting and diverse divisions and team trophy winners.  I still don't think our small team would vi for the title, but when one team has like 15 affiliates then are they really actually teammates?

Enough about that... Let's talk about my awesome team mate Matt.  Matt used to be... a big boy,  but, he's worked his way down to making super heavy!   It's been insane watching him shrink over the last few months.  He's put my journey to middleweight to shame!  He trounced the Super heavyweight guys like they were children and he did it with a smile.   It was a pleasure to watch, he fights and moves like a light or feather weight.  Here is one of his fights from Saturday.  Feel free to turn the sound down/off It's full of inane conversation and stupidity.  Here is another one, from nogi on Sunday, again, turn off the sound, it's full of me heckling the referees and being a bad person haha.   Anyway,  Matt is crazy, and lots of fun to train and roll with. 

I suppose I should talk about how my matches went,  I don't really want to though, because I wasn't to thrilled about my performance.  In my division, I only had one fight, since it was just the two of us.  Tiffany implemented her game plan pretty much perfectly, and I did very little to stop her.  I'm not sure where I was for that fight, but hey,  She did everything right and kicked my ass.  

The absolute went a little better.  First match was against Alison,   it was a good match, as much as a match against Alison can be.  I have yet to beat her, and this weekend did not change that.   It went down to points in the end,  with Alison winning 29-0 or so.  I did get a semi-decent armbar attempt in, but it was sloppy and easily defended.  She had me in a triangle at one point, but we ended up out of bounds, and my head was almost popped out anyway. 

At this point, I had to explain to the guy with the drawsheet how they worked.  I know a 3 person division is a little odd, but they probably should have explained them.  I also had to tell them how long my rests were supposed to be.  It's all good though, they believed me and everything carried on wonderfully.


Next, I had to fight Tiffany again,  because it was just the three of us, so as the loser of the top half of the bracket, I filled in the empty spot on the bottom half.   This fight went a lot better than the first,  I passed her guard, and set up an armbar, she escaped, we had some scrambles, and I passed and set it up again.  I managed to get the tap after a couple minutes of fighting.  It was a great match I think.  

This put me inline for a rematch with Alison for the final.  I started out good, but then put my arm in a stupid place and bam! Kimurad!!  She didn't crank it any harder than she really needed to.  But, since I didn't have a grip on anything, it ended up wrenching pretty bad.   But, if she hadn't have done that, chances are, I would have gotten a grip, and defended, and blah blah blah.  I don't blame her one bit for my shoulder getting tweaked.  It's still pretty sore, but I'm not taking any advil or anything for it anymore so that is progress.   It's just kind of weak, and hurts if I do something stupid like try to change the water bottle cooler at work using mostly my left arm.   I'm just going to take it easy this week,  train light next week, and do what I can to protect it till worlds. 

Speaking of Worlds!!!   Steve leaves on Saturday, Stephen and Alasdair leave on Sunday and Jon and I leave on Friday!! Joel is actually in California right now on a kind of vacation.  He's scoping out the sites and hopefully arranging for some team t-shirts for us.  I am so freaking excited!  Training at Art of Jiu Jitsu for a couple days and then competing at worlds.  It's going to be great.  Last time we trained there I felt like my game improved like crazy from all the small details and the intense pace that they push there.  I'm really looking forward to rolling with my extended team mates again, and with all the new ones that have joined since last summer!  We are fighting under the Atos banner at worlds (well, some of us,  that registered before 2 other in the same division did).  This will be a very different experience, because we will be part of such a large team who could vi for the team title.  This is so weird compared to having a little team of 3 or 4 or, when a big crew comes out 20, who come out to play and support each other. 


We aren't going to have much time for site seeing this time around, not like we did last time either.  I'd love to beable to hit up Atos San Diego while we are there.  Maybe it will end up part of the training schedule for the camp.  I'd also like to get some shopping in, of course, hahah. 

Also coming up fairly soon is the Five Grappling Event. I met the organizer/owner of Five at the Ontario Open this past weekend.  He seemed like a very cool cat, and they have a lot of great ideas to grow the sport of Jiu Jitsu and build a league and whatnot.   I think the event in July is going to be great and would strongly encourage anyone looking for something a little different to check it out. 

Grappling Industries is also coming back to Toronto in July.  The 20th to be exact.  It's going to be a killer event, with lots of trips and prizes.  I will be refereeing, as well as competing in the gi AND nogi!

I made this cheesecake last night, it's keto friendly, but not diet friendly, if you know what I mean. It's super addicting and I can't stop eating it.  I need Jon to come home and stop me from putting another slice in my fat face before I end up struggling to make Medium Heavy, not just Middle hahah.    Here is my pin of the recipe on Pinterest.  I love pinterest.  I have found so many amazing recipes on there.  I have pinned a billion of them, and tried about 20 or so.  I wish I had way more time to cook and bake, I would love to try every single recipe I've pinned.  Though, if I did, I'd probably be right back in Heavy in no time.  and ain't no one got time for that. 

I think that is enough rambling for me for one day.  My shoulder is getting kind of sore from typing anyway. 

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!