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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tournament Draw Systems Explained - Part 1 (Single Elimination)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample Standard 8 complete 8 person draw sheet

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the first way:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample 13 person division to illustrate byes

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

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

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

OJA Provincials Nov 30th 2013 Report

There is so much to talk about for this tournament!  It was my first competition back since the whole shoulder incident back in early may,  we had a really great team turnout, I refereed, I competed, I was in a gymnasium for 14 hours straight.  Good times.

I guess I will talk a little bit about the tournament itself first.  It was held at Brock University, in St. Catherines.  At first, I thought this was a pretty terrible idea, it's I didn't think anyone was going to bother making the trip out there, It's a long ass drive for anyone east of the GTA.  I think the location did affect who turned out, but a huge crew from Ottawa made the trek, which pretty much makes anyone elses excuse for distance invalid.

The distribution of competitors was not the norm, but there was a LOT of them there. I believe the had over 700 registrations (if someone does gi and nogi they count as 2).  There was a LOT of kids, and it seemed like more masters and seniors then a lot of other local events.  Some of the blue belt divisions were pretty sparse, but some of the purples had more then others.  On the ladies side of things, the distribution was even stranger.  There were 4 of us in a single weight class in purple and up.  Tiffany did move up from medium heavy, but still.  4.  in one weight class.  Even 3 would have been something worth mentioning.  The blue belts were also clumped together pretty well.

 The gym was very large, but had very little seating room.  It worked out ok, because there was a lot of room around the competition area to stand, but without bleachers, there wasn't really good place to store your gear and be able to sit to watch the matches.  This venue would be pretty ideal, if they had a way to bring in some bleachers along the one wall.  It was very bright, which was great for photos/videos  and the bathrooms were kept clean, and were very close to the gym which is also very nice.

The parking, in the cheap lot, was $7 for the day, not unreasonable, but it wasn't advertised. There also wasn't signs pointing towards the lot, until you got off the main entry road to the gym and were right on top of it.  I know a bunch of people ended up in the expensive lot, and paid $2.50 an hour to park!  When you are there from 8:30 am till 10:30 pm, that adds a pretty significant expense to the day.

The tournament staff was very friendly, and all the table workers I worked with were good at their jobs.  They kept the kids around, they got the scores right, and were very pleasant to work with.  There is always going to be one or two cases of them pressing the start/stop a bit off, but nothing disastrous happened.  It did seem like they were a few volunteers short, especially towards the end of the day.  Referees were working tables because there was no one else to do it.  I know it is very difficult to staff an event of this scale, especially with volunteers and especially when it goes so late.  Props to the ones who stuck around till the end.  People like you keep the jiu jitsu world going.

The event started almost on time, I want to say about 10 or 15 minutes late.  Which isn't to bad, when you consider how many kids registered for the wrong divisions.  There was a lot of talk on the interwebs about how to keep the kids from holding up the entire day.  There is no perfect solution, but I think that running them on a few mats, instead of taking up the entire morning and early afternoon on them would get things running better.  I also thing that the tournament needs to be 2 days.  A lot of people say that this is to hard for out of towners, but let's be honest, no one who is an out of towner want's to have to be at a tournament for 14 or 15 hours, then drive home that night anyway.

The tournament ended up being about 2 hours behind by mid-afternoon.  It was a multitude of small things piled on top of each other that causes this to happen. Kids not being what they say,  kids going to the bathroom, adults going to the bathroom, having a lot of the referees also compete (guilty as charged, it causes shortages).  Volunteers needing breaks or the bathroom, lunch, watching their kids, ect, ect ect.  None of these things on their own will cause a serious delay, but they add up.  One thing that I think would help a lot, would be queuing up divisions on mats.  It seemed like they didn't start looking for the next division to run on a mat, until the previous one was 100% complete.  This leaves a mat empty for at least 5 minutes, and sometimes much much longer.  You can't go to crazy queuing up divisions and matches, or if you get a serious injury or the like, you end up with even worse delays and one mat running way way later then the others.

I got to referee a division of really great kids,  It was a white belt division, but these kids had some serious skill.  The two that stuck out most were Dash, and Malick.  Dash had more energy than I have ever scene, and his coach did a really amazing job focusing him and his energy throughout his matches.  Malick was cool as a cucumber in his matches, showed great technique, always listened to me and was really kind to the kids he fought.

I refereed some of the nogi blue belt matches at the end of the day,  by this point, we had been working/competing for 12 hours with very little rest/breaks.  I reffed a match with Remy, from one of the ascension schools.  He had some really nice jiu jitsu, and was very polite.  He swept a guy from an ankle lock attempt and I totally missed the points. He very politely asked me about them, and I got out of my haze and awarded them. I could have penalized him, in theory, but that would probably be against the spirit of the rules.  At this point, I realized I was pretty brain dead, and a couple of the remaining referees got together and used the  reff system to finish off the day.  None of us were fresh enough to be doing the job alone anymore.  I got over ruled on a couple calls (when I was a corner). 2 of which were excessive celebration penalties after a win.  They wouldn't have made a difference in any of the matches, but I think that people need to know that they could be penalized for it, and at big events like pans, worlds, ect the referees WILL penalize you for things that may or may not be excessive, if they are feeling negative.  To me, being a bit anal about it locally, will help them keep to the straight and narrow when they get to the big leagues.

Warning: Rant:
This tournament is labeled the "Provincials"  but it is open to people who aren't from Ontario. This is m biggest pet peeve about it.  I know it's just a label, but when you are trying to build the sport into a model that follows other olympic sports, and are trying to make it legit.  Having Americans compete in it, makes the name a sham.  There were some great competitors out, from non-ontario, and it's great that they come to the events we have here, because it gives our guys good matches, but I feel like the tournament called provincials is not the place for that to happen. I have the same issue with the IBJJF "Nationals" and grapplers quest "world championships" and even the IBJJF "worlds" and "Pans".  When I told my co-workers about the tournament they were like "oh yea, so if you win you go to nationals?"  no... "oh, is there qualifiers for it?"  no... "oh, so why is it provincials?"  who knows.

End of rant.

Alright, now that I have that little rant out of the way, let's talk about my first competition back in 7 months.  As you probably know, at the Ontario Open last year, I got kimuraed and my shoulder wasn't to happy about it.  There are some tears in there now, and it took pretty much 6 months of not using it a lot and doing physio ect to get it to a manageable state.  I did have a surgery scheduled for February, but have since canceled it.   I was pretty nervous about competing with it, but it held up fine.

In my weight class, I faced Natalia in the first round.  We fought a long long time ago, when I think I was still a white belt! She arm barred me pretty quick.  She is also coming off some time off, from over training and being burnt out.  It was awesome to see her back on the mats, and having fun.  I won that first fight by kata ha jime, which is like a collar choke from 1/2 having there back.   In the final, I faced my more local (and less one sided) nemisis, Tiffany.  I had a good plan going into the match, and almost executed it, but left my arm in the wrong spot and she took care of that pretty quickly.  I cannot make any mistakes fighting her!   we are now 3 wins for Tiffany, 2 wins for me.  I hope to even that score back up in 2014 :).

In the absolute, which was actually the same 4 competitors, because like I mentioned earlier, we were all together, I drew Caitlin in the first round.  The only time I had competed with Caitlin in the past was at a zombie house back when we were both blue belts.  We had a great round and I had scored 2 armbars on her back then.   I got a good judo throw on her to side control, and managed to maintain that position for a few minutes,  I got knee on belly a few times, but didn't maintain it long enough most of the time to score the points.  I was looking for mount, armbars, chokes, taking the back, but her defense was very good.  I got sloppy on an armbar, and the match spiraled out of control in a hurry.  We ended up with her on my back out of bounds and when we reset in the middle I quickly got the hook out, and scrambled like crazy.   I don't remember what the score ended up being at the end, but it was a little to close for comfort.  I hope she competes a lot in 2014, because it was a really really fun match!

In the purple+ absolute final, I faced Natalia again.  She fought Tiffany in the first round, and won on points.  SO we had both had a full 8 minute length match. 8 was a weird choice for match length. Purple belt matches are 7, and black are 10, not sure where the 8 came from, because we were supposed to be fighting black belt rules.  Or maybe they went down to brown, since brown was the highest in the division.  That actually makes sense.  Anyway,  I don't remember how the match started, but I ended up in side control, and was looking for armbars and knee on belly some more.  I got my hand in deep in her collar and got a paper cutter choke for the win.

The last match of the day was against Tamara, who won the blue belt absolute.  This was the match for the trip.  It was black belt rules, 8 minute match.  I don't remember exactly how it started either, but we ended up coming up, she was trying to get to my back and I was like "Oh hey, black belt rules, let's go for a knee bar".  I admit, it was in the back of my head all day to try to get a leg lock of some kind, I blame Egor the leg lock king.  We ended up with me turtled fishing for the knee for quite some time, not a very exciting bit of jiu jitsu there, but I realized she was sitting to heavy for me to get roll and extension for the knee bar so I grabbed her foot for the toe hold instead.  I rolled through and got the tap.

Going into this tournament, my only real goal was to not get hurt.  coming off of the long layoff, which was just coming off of another layoff from a concussion, I really just wanted to be able to go home in one piece and be able to compete again soon.  The trip was always in the back of my head, but I wasn't going into the day thinking "I am going to win that trip".  That being said, man, am I ever glad I did.  It was an amazing birthday present to myself to earn it.  I was semi-planning on going to pans anyway, but I just spent 1600 bucks on my car, so that plan was a bit up in the air as of the week before the tournament.

So, it was a pretty great day for me,  It was also a pretty good day for my team!  We had a good sized group out, I think about 18 competitors or so, not bad for a club who's 4th year anniversary is coming up! The kids looked great out there. They didn't all win medals, but they showed great jiu jitsu and a great attitude.

One thing that was pretty funny for me to see was some of them being a little to active and not holding a position long enough to get their points.  We always encourage them in the gym to not camp out and to keep moving, but they took it a bit to far and went mount, side, mount, side, mount side, back and forth, for like 1 second each. I guess it's something we will have to clarify a bit with them when the roll.  One thing I saw from a lot of the kids divisions was kids getting to mount and not going anywhere from there.  It's the downside to not having any submissions, but it lead to some pretty frustrated kids, who just got stuck in mount for 3 minutes.  Let's be honest, if all the person in mount is doing is trying to stay there, it's really really really hard to get out.  I feel like stalling could/should still be called from there, if they aren't looking to go to the back control, or something. I don't really know what the solution is to this.

It was great to see Brad out competing again.  He had a pretty long layoff for his tooth situation and ended up taking home the gold medal in his division after a very close final match.  Will be good to have him back on the tournament circuit with the rest of us crazies.

I could write a paragraph about every single team mate who competed, but that would get pretty boring for you guys, so I will just add 1 more thing about all that.  It was great to see Stephen earn a couple silver medals.  He's had a pretty rough go of things, with touch draws, close matches and has been kept off the podium at blue till now.  He avenged a loss from earlier in the year, and showed some pretty slick jiu jitsu through out the day.

Last bit about my teammates competing I swear.  Alasdair and Bruce had a really exciting match.  There was quite the crowd watching them and it was intense!  Alasdair won on points after Bruce evaded and gutted out of all his submission attempts.  I think these two will have a great friendly rivalry going for 2014.

Pura closed it's doors for the day for this tournament, so everyone could come out and support the team.  It was AMAZING to have so many people out cheering, hanging around, and supporting us competitors.  It really helps when you are in a tough match to hear someone cheer for you.  I've been to tournaments completely alone, and it didn't really bother me that much, but after having so much support and seeing the team all together like that, I never want to compete alone again.  By the time my absolute was over, there wasn't a lot of people left, but a few stuck around and it was amazing to be able to share that experience with them.  I totally don't blame, or hate on, or hold it against anyone who didn't stick around, those kids were from there from like 8am, and I didn't finish fighting till at least 8pm.  The fact that so many non-competitors came out to watch, and that so many competitors stayed longer then they needed to was amazing.  So, Thank You ALL for your support at the event, and every day at the club.

Changing gears again...

It was sad to hear/see that someone had stolen all the gold medals and a lot of the silvers.  Word on the street is it was some random kids, but no one will every probably know.  This just highlights the need for more staff at events like this.  The OJA handled the situation though, and will be mailing out the medals to all the people who did not get one.  They had a set for doing the awards and pictures for though, which was nice.

This tournament wraps up the 2013 season in Ontario.  There isn't any more competitions until January.  January and early 2014 is looking pretty busy, with a couple sub onlys, ascension, pro trials and a mysterious tournament from the cbjjf apparently coming to town.  The OJA sub only is going to be in Kitchener, which will be a pretty good change of scenery.  I like that the OJA is moving tournaments around the province, I know the GTA has a pretty good chunk of the competitors in the povince, but contrary to popular belief, Toronto isn't the centre of the universe, and they should be willing to make a short trip out of their bubble for a few events a year.

I think that's about it.  I feel like I am missing some things that I wanted to talk about, but this is pretty long now, So I guess they can wait, or be forgotten or whatever.   I am planning on writing a 2013 recap/ summary/looking back post in the new little while It will probably be combined with a looking forward to 2014 type things.  Highlight the events I am looking forward to, and my goals for the year.

Cheers!  See you on the mats!

GTA Classic Sept 21st 2013 Recap

Last Saturday was the Annual GTA Classic. This is one of my favourite tournaments of the year. They have been hosting it in mid September or years and it's one I know a lot of people look forward to to kick of the back to school season. It's an OJA tournament, which meas it's consistent with a lot of the other tournaments in Ontario as far as weight classes, age divisions, and allowed submissions.

 It also means they use the Mata Leao software to do the draws which is pretty sweet software. On two of the mats they had the new scoreboards running which use giant tv's and a laptop instead of the normal electronic scoreboards. It also recorded all the matches automatically. The one downside to this system was that is really slowed down the progress of the matches. It seemed like the table workers had to enter the names and division into the computer from the paper draw for every match which doesn't sound like it would take a long time, but it certainly delayed things since it had to be done in between each match.

 The Acai Cafe was in attendance again. This was their second event and they have stepped up their game! They brought in a small size, which was great for kids, or weirdos who don't like a lot of acai and they brought in hemp seeds, cacao nibs, and shredded coconut. These added toppings were amazing and make the cafe even more amazing. They had to set up outside of the gym, which made them less visible, so I hope they still made lots of sales. You can check them out on facebook and suggest they add peanut butter for their next event :)

 The tournament was scheduled to start at 9:30 and started around 9:50, not bad at all, considering they re-work all the kids brackets that morning because parents don't know how much their kids weigh and they never dq a kid for being over weight. I think that this is a great policy and I can totally forgive them for not starting on time because of this.

 The kids turnout for this competition was great! I think, other then the ontario open, it was probably one of the biggest turnout for kids I have seen all year. The GTA classic does round robin for the kids, so they tend to get 3 or 4 fights. They also don't allow any subs for the younger ones, and progressively add subs as the kids get older and higher ranked. It's a bit complicated as a referee or coach, or even athlete to keep it all straight on what's allowed for which kid, but it generally keeps the kids safe while allowing them to do jiu jitsu. It ran a bit behind, but it was running solid throughout the day. There wasn't many times, that I saw, where nothing was going on on the mats.

 There was a break around 1:00pm for a special presentation. Professor Scott Shilling was presented with his third degree by Mestre Sylvio da Matta Behring which was pretty cool to see. Scott has been a very active member of the community and has produced some top notch competitors as well. You can watch the video of the presentation on youtube.

I was refereeing at this event, and was pretty focused on that for the entire time I was there.  I reffed a pretty wide variety of matches from 7 year old white belts to coloured belt kids, to masters white and blue belts.  It was kind of nice to have such a variety.   I stopped a few kids fights for armbars before they tapped on Saturday.  Every single one was pretty upset about it, "I didn't tap", but the look on pretty much every single coaches face was that of understanding and appreciation for me keeping their students arms safe.  I had one kid in a triangle/armbar and It very much looked like they tapped, but when I stopped it, they said that they did not tap.  Everyone else seemed to think there was a tap as well, so I stood by that decision to stop the fight.

I got to work with the usual skilled crew of Ontario referees, including Ontario's newest black belt Jason Chin-Leung who is a really great referee.  New to the team was Matthew Isaacs who is quite young but has been around jiu jitsu for a few years now.  I didn't get to watch him to closely, but when ever I had a minute and looked over, he seemed to be handling himself very well.   I'm looking forward to watching him develop as a referee.

While I was refereeing, one of the other res came around to give me a break so I could get some snacks, but he told me it was all cookies and sweats, so I passed.  I really appreciate a tournament that provides snacks and water and drinks throughout the day.  It helps us out a lot, it just happens to be that I follow a very low carb "diet" right now and can't eat any of that.  Then, the most amazing thing happened around lunch time.  Tony came to my mat with a giant caesar salad with chicken!   He remembered from past events that I try not to eat pizza and crap when I am not being a fat /depressed/glutton and made sure I got one of the salads!!  Man,  nothing makes you feel more appreciated then that!  It's seemingly small gestures like that that make all the nonsense that we as referees have to put up with a lot more tolerable.

The GTA classic had pretty nice event t-shirts, which they gave to the first 50 people registered, I think they even extended that to everyone registered before a certain date.  They also had sweet prizes for the absolute winners: Samurai swords, and tournament hoodies.  They were really nice hoodies to,  well built and great looking style wise.  I wish I could have competed and won them!  That sounds like I think I would have won them if I competed, which is not what I mean.  There were some very tough looking purple belts that I watched for a bit between reffing and I think I would have had some very excellent matches if I had been up to competing.

On a semi related note... A whole bunch of new purple belts have just been promoted!  I hope they all come out to compete soon!   You know who you are ladies!!  We need to work together and compete together to help grow the scene.  The purple belt ladies divisions in Ontario could be realy interesting very soon!  There are some matchups I really want to see  like Caitlin vs Tiffany and Tushara vs Kaitlyn.    Someone make this happen!

I had to leave at 3:00 to go work at the UFC event at the ACC.  I didn't need to be there till 5:00, but with the Gardiner being closed, I wanted to give myself some extra time.  It's a good thing to, what google mats said should take 50 minutes, took just over 2 hours, before I gave up and parked and walked the last 2.5KM.  My plan was to take the 401 to the DVP and take that down to whatever road that was before it hits the gardiner, but when it was stop and go at Eglington I abandon ship and took the streets all the way down.  I was on queen st for over an hour!

The UFC was a pretty great experience, as working MMA events usually is.  I did not get an opportunity to judge, but since reading all the shit people have been saying online about my colleagues, I am actually happy that I did not.    It's so infuriating to see people who have NO IDEA what the are talking about saying people were robbed and going on about controversy or blind judges.

Here is what I say to all of you.  You sit through a 24 hour course,  pass a 3 part 6 hour test that you need (IIRC) 85% on to pass, and judge a 5 round barn burner of a fight that you cannot get a single round wrong on.  Then, shadow a judge for a few fight cards, and then actually sit in the judges seat and THEN, and only THEN can you say ANYTHING about how a fight was judged.  Hearing people say things like round 4 should have been a 10-8 and that Gufstason CLEARLY won the first 3 is as maddening as spectators or coaches asking for points for back control when there are no hooks or when they get made when adults do ankle locks.

OK, enough about that. It isn't really jiu jitsu related, but I know a lot of people who follow jiu jitsu follow MMA so I had to get that out there.  There was no controversy in the title fight on Saturday.  NONE.  The most controversial thing was Jon Jones corner trying to sneak Greg Jackson in as a 4th corner when the Ontario Commission only allows 4.

The Ontario Provincial Championship was announced this week!  It's going down November 30th, in St. Catherines.  I am undecided on wheter I like that it is in St. Catherines or not.  I was quite looking forward to Kingston, which was the tentative location announced at the beginning of the year.  I think that St Catherines is a very very long drive for anyone east of Toronto and I fear it will be the south western Ontario regional event with a few americans mixed in, instead of a true provincially attended event.   That being said, it's a much shorter drive for me then Kingston, so I won't have to blow money on a hotel, which is always nice.  They are giving away 4 trips to California, for the IBJJ Pans.  That, in theory, should bring out some bodies!  I'm a bit said it's 3 trips for the guys and only 1 for the ladies, but the numbers can justify it.  Sort of.  I think that there will be just as many blue belt girls and brown/black belt men and they should get their own trip, instead of being lumped with the purple/brown/black women.

This Saturday is the Return o the Zombie House!!!  This is a great little event that is a completely different format from anything else out there.  It's friendly but competitive and a great way to spend the afternoon.   You can read about the event on their website, and on the facebook event.  I am planing on heading down to body of our to check it out!

Grappling Industries has at least 2 more events on the Horizon.  Montreal on October 5th, and Toronto on Oct 26th.  In Montreal they are giving away 8 trips down the 401 to the big event on Oct 26th, where trips to California will once again be on the line.  I won't be going to Montreal (firt One i've missed this year I think!) because I am getting in some much needed nature time with my sister.  I will be at the Toronto event on October 26th and you should be to!

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

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. 

Niagara Open March 23rd 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are a few things coming up:

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

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

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

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

Ascension 2013 Tournament Report (Jan 19th and 20th)

This past weekend was the 8th annual Ascension tournament. It's the unofficial kick-off to the BJJ season in Ontario, and it's always a good time. Omar Salvosa and his wife Beverly, along with the OJA crew, do a great job with this tournament.

The Ascension tournament is always a bit different from the rest of the OJA tournaments,   It's got a bit of a friendlier feel,  it's got a good vibe.  That sounds really cliche, but it's true.  They take their time to make first time competitors feel welcome and appreciated.  They give a shout out to the masters who take time away from their work, and family to support the event.   They appreciate everyone who comes out to play.   Omar also gives out a bunch of unique awards at his event.   There are trophies for great sportsmanship, fighting spirit, and technical excellence.   These are nominated by the referees and table workers.  Myself, I nominated at least 5 or 6 kids and adults for the awards, I think a few of them were chosen,  Sorry other mats, I may have used them all up lol.

The OJA introduced new rules for subs for kids, which were partially implemented at the Ascension event. Arm bars are allowed a bit sooner, and a selection of chokes.  Safety is always paramount, and the referees were instructed to stop the fights before arms were fully extended and whatnot.   I think this is a great way to get kids familiar with submission, without unnecessarily risking injury.

The tournament started almost on time,  and stayed on schedule all weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday were over around 5pm.  I think this was partially due to a slightly lower then in the past attendance, but was also due to the table workers, runners, referees, and all the tournament staff doing everything they could to keep the matches flowing.   Weigh-ins are always the hold up, and it will always be this way when doing weigh-ins right before a division starts.

There were plenty of prizes for division and absolute winners,  t-shirts, rashguards, shorts, and gis.  The sponsors of the event were very generous with their prizes.  There wasn't any really big prizes, like trips to worlds, but I don't think that was necessarily a bad thing.  I don't think every tournament needs to have that, and Ascension has a different atmosphere.  It's a fun tournament, that is great for beginners, and also a great way to kick of the season, and try new things.  I'm not saying that if they had some bigger ticket prizes it would be bad, but that kind of thing ups the intensity of the competition, and I think might take away from the chilled out vibe of the event.

The medical staff were competent, friendly, and quick to respond to the referees calls for them. Sometimes even coming over before they were called.   They treated everyone with respect and seemed very reasonable in their recommendations of who could, and could not keep fighting.

On Saturday, there was a surplus of referees!  It was great, in a way, but also not so great.  Since, at this event, the OJA introduced a new way of paying us.  Now, instead of a flat fee for the day, we are payed hourly, based on time spent actually refereeing.  This is, I think, quite fair most of the time, because someone who refs nonstop 9am until 6pm deserves more then someone who shows up in the morning, but leaves at lunch.   Unfortunately,  some of us wanted to ref more then we were allowed because there was too many refs.  I was only able to referee for 4 hours, and that was including being part of a 3 ref team for the absolute matches at the end of the day.   So, I think this system is great, but needs some tweaking, which I will be talking to Tony and the OJA peeps about.  Either way,  we don't get paid a ridiculous amount, and we aren't really doing it for the money, so it's not a big deal at all; more of an observation than a complaint really.   On Sunday I refereed nonstop from the first match of the day, until the very last match of the day and it was great.   We had a lot less referees, and some went home early so I didn't have to take any breaks :)  So, I talked with Fernando, and apparantly this isn't the standard, they all pay their refs how they like, so some are flat rate, some are hourly.   Hopefully that is something that will be communicated to us before each event :)

I had a few firsts as a referee this weekend.  I had 2 people go out on a choke, one from a standing guillotine, which I was a bit slow to notice. Because of the way they were moving around, it looked to me that he was still ok. The second was in the teens division, from a standing cross choke, that turned into a take down. I was right on top of this one though, so it was stopped quick. In that kids next fight he got another cross choke, and I stopped in before he had a chance to go to sleep, since I saw how effective they were in the last match.

I also had to call my first slam. It was in the adult white belt division and the guy stood up in an arm bar and slammed the guy. It was pretty blatant, but of course the slammer said he just lost his balance, but there was a clear lift and downward motion. Mike (Bryers) was watching from the mat beside me and agreed with my decision. I felt bad for the guy, because it was early in his first match, but we have to call that stuff.   

Oh, that reminds me, in the kids divisions, they did round robin for them, so they all got more then 1 fight, whether they won or lost.  Also, divisions of 6 were split into 2 pools, so almost every kid got to go home with a medal.  I think for the kids, that is a great thing.  For the "youth" divisions, they still did round robin for extra fights, but the pools were combined at the end so there was only 1 division.

I was really impressed with the level of skill displayed in the kids and teen divisions. These kids are going to be MONSTERS when they grow up.  It's insane to see the take downs, transitions and techniques they are pulling off.    I'm so jealous of them, and how young they are starting jiu jitsu.   The next generation of fighters will destroy the current generation.  Kids with grey, or yellow belts are doing stuff that a few years ago you would see in blue belt adult matches.   It's crazy to watch and see how the sport is progressing.  

We can't talk about Ascension without talking about the food!  It ran out on Saturday.  :( I wasn't able to get any of the delicious jerk chicken, but there was plenty of other options, just none that were paleo.  My fault for having a picky diet. Sunday I made sure to send someone to get me lunch early so I could have some chicken.  It was soooo good.  Spicy, very spicy, but not in a horrible face burning way.  They had some very tasty looking pasta salads, brownies, and plenty of fruit as well.   I think the food situation is often overlooked at many tournaments and venues.   It sucks when you're hungry at a tournament and all you can get is a gatorade.

I briefly mentioned using the three ref system on Saturday and wanted to touch on this some more.  I think it's something that should be utilized as much as possible, especially for finals, semi finals, and absolutes and most especially when there are prizes on the line.  We, as refs, are human, and can make mistakes.  We try hard not to, and don't make a lot, but it sucks as a competitor to lose an important match because of it.  Having 3 refs per match (one in the middle, two on the opposite corners).    If the side refs both disagree with the middle ref, the call will be changed.  If only 1 does, it is not changed. Majority rules and all that.  I think this is a great system, Judo has used it forever and it really helps, it's also a great tool for training new referees.  If you have 1 new referee work in with 2 experienced referees, they won't be able to ruin someones day and will learn the ropes quickly in the hands on environment. I hope that, eventually, the day will come where we can have 3 refs per mat area at all events, all day.  I think it would be a great milestone for the sport. Currently there just isn't enough referees in Ontario to pull it off. 

I got a new OJA referee shirt this weekend to, which is nice, because at Provincials in November, they only had XL left, and it was like wearing a tent.  I'm not the fanciest dresser by far, I don't generally give a crap about stuff like that, but I gotta say, I look pretty silly in some of the pictures.  A well fitting shirt adds a nice level of professionalism I think.  Now, I just need to find a new pair of dress pants that fit a bit better, having to constantly pull them up was a bit awkward and annoying.  Also, apparently they need belt loops, because a belt is part of the uniform.  I should ask Tony if there are specifications on the belts, I think my fruit belt would be quite nice.

I got to do a bit of coaching this weekend too. We had a very small team out for this event,  unfortunately, a big chunk of our competitors are on the sidelines with injuries, and with Gui being at the gym all week, a lot of people were focusing on that instead of competing.   

Heather had a great fight, but unfortunately, her good knee suffered an injury late in the fight when she was ahead, hopefully not a bad one, and she ended up losing on points.   I think I made a coaching error in this fight, encouraging her to go for an arm bar, when she was up on points and in a pretty stable position.  Maybe she should have stayed where she was, and eeked out a points victory.  This would have been the safer route, there wasn't that much time left.  Maybe then her knee would still be fine :(.  

Dave the Barber had an insanely close first fight, he scored an advantage for an almost pass, but then got 2 stalling penalties so ended up losing b/c the score was tied 1-1 advantages and he had a penalty. I may be biased, but I don't think he deserved the stalling penalties. I can see how it may have seemed like he was stalling on the top of 1/2 guard, but in reality, he was working his hardest to pass that guard unsuccessfully. I think this is something that isn't uncommon for referees to mistake. An unsuccessful attack isn't the same as stalling. An inability to get the under hook doesn't mean he isn't trying his hardest to get it. Anyway, Dave got to have another fight for third place, and won that one on points. We've got some things to fix so we don't get stalling penalties again but was a pretty good day for Dave.

Ken won his division handily. He has improved so much over the last few months!   He's a lot more patient when he is fighting, waiting to get his points before moving on to improve his position and go for subs.  Just that has made his game much more stable, and keeps him out of trouble.  He won his first fight with a bow and arrow choke, and the 2nd by arm bar.  I was really impressed!

Jon had a bit of a rough day, but that is to be expected as a new blue belt.  He worked some of the concepts Gui talked about this past week and was decently successful with them.  But in the end his grips for the choke were not quite right, and he ended up in a bad position and got choked.   He did well for his second match as a blue belt and I think he'll have a good day on Saturday in Montreal.

I think I've rambled on enough about this event.   Next up is Montreal Grappling Jan 26th. I'll be refereeing and supporting 3 teammates at this one.

Two weeks later is the Pro Trials, back in Montreal. I was planning on competing, and winning at this event, but that plan was derailed at Grappler's Quest.  I've still got a hotel room booked, so I'll probably go anyway. I think one or two guys from Pura want to compete.

After that is Toronto Grappling. I'll be refereeing again, and I imagine we will have a decent group out to compete. If you're looking for a good event to try out competing this is the one to go to.

See you on the mats!

Stuff and Things

So I normally blog about a tournament as soon as I get home, but I have nothing good to say about last weekend, so I don't really want to talk about it. I lost because of poor reffing in the very first round of my division. So I was the ONLY person in my division who didn't get into the absolute by default. So I went all the way to New York, for five minutes of jiu jitsu. It wasn't even a standard length match, they only do five minutes. I don't want to sound even more like a big whining baby so I'm not going to get into it.

I will NOT be returning to the Abu Dhabi Pro Trials in New York, and I will be strongly cautioning against it to anyone I talk to about it. I'll stick with the Montreal Trials from now on, which are run very well, have qualified referees and have added a bunch of weight classes for the women this year.

Check out the facebook event for the Montreal Pro Trials here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/427250647334271/   I will be competing in the Purple and up division, maybe -61kg but likely -68kg. 61kg will be quite a challenge for me to make, but it puts me at the top of the absolute, instead of the bottom. The weigh-ins are the day before, so in theory, I can dehydrate a bit of it, and still perform well.   When my mom reads this I'm going to get a lecture, but I deserve it. 134 lbs is really really light for someone who is 5'10. 

Yesterday, I agreed to replace an injured fighter on a super fight card in Montreal. I will be facing my friendly nemesis Alison Trembley in a purple belt super fight, assuming I pass my grading on November 10th. If I don't, well, I guess it will be a mixed belt super fight, which is fine, because a lot of tournaments are blue and up anyway so it's all good.

Alison and I have some serious history, we have competed against each other six times in the past, four of which took place at the Ontario Open last year. I have lost every encounter with her, but I feel like in the gi matches last year I wasn't being outclassed or anything, she was better than me, no doubt, but it wasn't like I didn't belong in the match. I did score some points on her, which is more than the people she fought in her division at worlds last year can say! I'm really looking forward to fighting her again because she is one very tough cookie, and it will be a good measure of how my jiu jitsu has come along in the six months or so since the Ontario Open. 

Here is a link to the Facebook event for the super fights: https://www.facebook.com/events/267227370058467/ All of the proceeds from the event are going to an autism charity. None of the fighters are being paid, we are all donating our time and efforts to support the cause. The event has some great sponsors on board, and is taking place at the Holiday Inn Midtown Montreal, which seems to be a very supportive hotel to the Jiu Jitsu scene in general. It is often the official tournament hotel for events in Montreal. VIP Tickets are $50 and regular tickets are $30, hit up the Facebook event to order them.

Also coming up is the OJA Provincials. Myself and 4 team mates(Alasdair, Matt, Jon and Heather) have all earned free entry into the provincials by earning points throughout the year at other OJA events.  Alasdair was 2nd in male adult Blue, Matt was top 10 in white belt no gi, Jon was top 10 in white belt gi, and Heather was top 5 in female white belt gi. Congrats to all of my teammates and also to all the other athletes who earned their way to Provincials. It should be a great event, even though they aren't giving away any trips.

Last but certainly not least is the Grappler's Quest North American Championships coming up Dec 1st in London. They are giving way $500 to a bunch of the absolute winners, so that should bring out some top level guys and girls. This will be the last event of the year for me, and will be competition number 18 for the year, or 19 if you count the super fight.  

I'm really looking forward to the break between Grapplers Quest and Ascension in January. I am going to spend some time developing some new techniques and having fun with jiu jitsu instead of always being super focused on the next competition and the testing and everything else. 2013 will be quite different than 2012.  As a purple belt, I will have a lot less opportunities to compete locally. I will limit myself to tournaments that have significant prizes for the advanced divisions (because that will bring people out to play) and to the few tournaments that Pura will be attending officially as a full team. I plan on going to Worlds and hopefully Pans in California, as well as the Chicago, New York City, and possibly Boston IBJJF Open tournaments.  These tournaments have all had some purple belt ladies in my division in the last year, so in theory, I will have people to compete with there.

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

Soluntion to the Grapplers Quest Vs Provincials Dilema

So... we've got two tournaments that want to be on the same day.  What a mess.    

Disclaimer:  I respect and consider many of the OJA and OGA people as friends. They are both doing amazing things for the sport in their own ways.  This isn't a personal attack on anyone. It's a discussion of a bad situation, that isn't really anyone in particulars fault. It is just a situation.  I'm not blaming anyone, and I'm not pointing fingers. I hope that this doesn't alienate anyone.

Late last night Grapplers Quest promoters announced that GQ is coming back to Ontario Dec 1st.  It was hinted at earlier in the week that they were coming back, early December, but had to wait to annouce the date until it was firmed up with the venue.

Throw in the mix on Wednesday, after someone asked in the OJA Facebook group where the provincials would be held, we all got a shocker that it wouldn't be the Nov 23/24th date that had been on the OJA website since very early this year, It "should be December 1st and 2nd".  But, like GQ. They couldn't announce anything until they had the venue confirmed.

So.  NOW WHAT?

Here's my soluntion.

Turn the 2 tournaments into ONE.  Co-Promote the Grapplers Quest.  Grapplers Quest North America, Brought to you by the OGA and the OJA.  Two organizations working together for the good of the sport and the competitors.  Can you imagine how amazing that would be?   No more short Staffed GQ.  No more lack of prizes for the provincials.   It's WIN WIN WIN WIN.  No one wins when we have 2 tournaments on the same day,  Even a week apart some people will choose one of the other. Some will do both.    As part of this Grapplers Quest North American Championships as they are calling it,  have the "Provincials Divisions" that are open only to residents of ontario.  and have the regular divisions to.  wouldn't add that much to the day. In theory.  Or don't I don't think provincials was going to be closed to Ontario only anyway.    Maybe put an Ontario flag on the medals or something. 

Give the people who have earned free entry to provincials, free entry to the grapplers quest.  That'll convince the gta people to make the trip down the 401.  Make it so if you have OGA or OJA membership your covered and don't need to pay any extra membership fees.   Have Both organizations sponsors present and advertised on flyers and stuff.  Work Together at all things, share the costs, and share the profit.

FOR THE GOOD OF JIU JITSU. WORK TOGETHER.  

It's time to put aside the blame game, the "I had the date first", the "You should have asked me", "No you should have asked me" .  Put the egos and politics aside.  Put your money where your mouth is, and do something for the sake of the sport.   

I know it won't be easy, it's far fetched, it's crazy But It would be AMAZING.  The OJA probably has a deposit on the venue, but it's not confirmed, so I can't imagine it's impossible to cancel.  Take that cost out of their contribution.  I'm sure there are complications about insurance between the two organizations, but there has to be a way to make it work. 

 London might not be Ideal for people on the far side of Toronto, but it's not a terrible drive, and it's a nice city.   It will be good for south western ontario athletes to not have to drive 3 or 4 hours to get to a tournament.