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!
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!
Showing posts with label bjj tournament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bjj tournament. Show all posts
Friday, 28 March 2014
Saturday, 7 December 2013
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!
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!
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Grappling Industries: Summer Havoc July 20th Recap
This past Saturday was Grappling Industries fourth foray into the GTA. The event was held at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto and had somewhere around 300 competitors.
They've gotten the format down pat, and it's all very smooth these days. They have weigh ins on Friday night, and Saturday morning with gi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the competition and nogi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the nogi.
Some of the things that were excellent about the day:
They've gotten the format down pat, and it's all very smooth these days. They have weigh ins on Friday night, and Saturday morning with gi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the competition and nogi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the nogi.
Some of the things that were excellent about the day:
- Started on time ran on / ahead of schedule and was pretty much done by 4pm. Most mats were done by 3:00pm
- The registration / weigh in process was quick and easy. Especially compared to past events where there was huge lines for registration due to the OGA paperwork.
- They gave away 8 trips to big IBJJF tournaments. Now, these 8 trips were not worth as much as some of the ones they have given out in the past, but with 8 of them, I'm quite certain the total value was the most they've given out.
- People are starting to understand the system and are at their mats ready to go, making the whole day smoother.
- There was a good size warm up area
- There were more masters out then at previous events, a trend I hope continues.
- The white belt ladies division was a decent size, and very competitive.
- The blue and up ladies -141 was the biggest I've ever seen.
Some things that were less then excellent about the day:
- my shoulder really hurt by the end, I was careful with it, making the fighters switch sides to raise their hand and stuff, but it still got sore.
- I had competitors from the mat beside me come onto my mat 3 or 4 times, twice they ran into me and/or my fighters. The mat area or safety area NEEDS to be made bigger somehow.
- Yacinta was the only one in the +141 blue and up divisions, so she didn't get too many fights. She still got to fight the winner of the -141 for the trips though, so at least she got some fights(and prizes).
- at least 3, and I think 4 referees who were scheduled to work did not show up on very short, or no notice. This lead to us having less breaks, and the promoters having to use backups.
- Coaches and Athletes STILL don't know the rules. Seriously people. RTFM.
- I got yelled at for not giving sweep points when someone reversed side control
- I got yelled at for DQ'ing for a heal hook.
- MANY competitors had no idea what a knee reap was and that they were doing it
- I got yelled at for allowing white belts to ankle lock. (News flash. they are LEGAL)
- The medics did an pretty good job. It's a hard job. But there were several times they had to be called multiple times to get their attention. Perhaps they need to have more so that they don't end up attending to to many athletes and not being able to keep an eye on the floor.
- There were several times throughout the day when fighters were called a whole bunch of times, and they weren't ever at the event. It would be good for the organizers to figure out a way to quickly/easily go through the weigh-in list and cross reference the draws and make notes of who never showed up. This would save some headaches for the table works.
- They use IBJJF GI weight classes, but allow you to weigh in with out your gi on. I like that they use the standard weight classes, but I think it would be better if they used the nogi weight classes because they don't have a weight allowance built into them.
Pura had a pretty small team out to the event. With it being summer and all not a lot of people are around on weekends. Here is how everyone did:
- Brayden: 4-0 in Gi, all wins by armbar for Gold! This was his first Nogi competition and he had a great showing winning silver.
- Kyle: His first competition and he went 3-1 in Gi and I believe 2-2 in nogi. Great work for his first time out hopefully he is hooked now :)
- Eric: 2-1 and one default win in Gi. This was his first time back competing in a very long time so it was good for him to work off the ring rust and now he is ready to really kick ass at the Toronto Open.
- Stephen went 3-2 looking like a beast.
- Jon went 2-2 in gi, putting 1 guy to sleep (that's 10 now). He entered in the advanced for nogi, which was a bit silly, and had a bit of a bad time against the killers David Mosleh, and Arther.
- Alasdair went 2-2 in gi. winning silver.
- Greg had a rough day, going 0-2 against a younger, larger guy. He did some great things in his matches though, and is steadily making his way down to super heavy where he is going to ruin a lot of peoples days.
The competition medal results can be found on the grappling industries website. Pictures from the event can be found on their facebook page and videos will be up on youtube soon.
On a completely unrelated note, I should get the results from the MRI today. I won't really know exactly what they mean, but it's progress. I have an appointment with Dr. Levy to go over them on August 7th. It's been pretty annoying the last few days. One day it will feel fine, the next it will feel awful. I imagine it's probably because it feels ok, so I move it more, and that pisses it off.
I guess that is all for now. The IBJJF Toronto Open is in a week and a half, registration closes this Friday. So get on that. It should be a pretty excellent event. We are heading to Montreal for the Grappling Industries event on August 17th as well and after that is another grappling industries event in Toronto, and then the OJA GTA Classic both in September.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention this!!
There are some women's open mats coming up in the Province as well! This is pretty awesome, and I wish I could participate in them. You ladies should all check them out.
Check out this facebook group for details and information on ladies jiu jitsu in ontario.
THIS SUNDAY in Toronto
Women's ONLY OPEN MAT on Sunday July 28th at 10am at Action & Reaction MMA.
August 25th in London:
See the facebook event for details.
On a completely unrelated note, I should get the results from the MRI today. I won't really know exactly what they mean, but it's progress. I have an appointment with Dr. Levy to go over them on August 7th. It's been pretty annoying the last few days. One day it will feel fine, the next it will feel awful. I imagine it's probably because it feels ok, so I move it more, and that pisses it off.
I guess that is all for now. The IBJJF Toronto Open is in a week and a half, registration closes this Friday. So get on that. It should be a pretty excellent event. We are heading to Montreal for the Grappling Industries event on August 17th as well and after that is another grappling industries event in Toronto, and then the OJA GTA Classic both in September.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention this!!
There are some women's open mats coming up in the Province as well! This is pretty awesome, and I wish I could participate in them. You ladies should all check them out.
Check out this facebook group for details and information on ladies jiu jitsu in ontario.
THIS SUNDAY in Toronto
Women's ONLY OPEN MAT on Sunday July 28th at 10am at Action & Reaction MMA.
August 25th in London:
See the facebook event for details.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Five Grappling - Ontario 1 June 29th Tournament Report
So, this past weekend was Five Grappling's first event!
On Friday night they held a seminar at the venue with jiu jitsu legends Marcelo Garcia and Xande Ribeiro. Also at the seminar was 27 time mundial champion Renato Laranga! On a semi related note, a super fight between Marcelo and Renato was announced on Saturday.
I wasn't able to attend the seminar, but from what I heard it was quite excellent. Marcelo and Xande have fairly different styles and body types so it was great for people to get their different perspectives on the techniques and see what kind of changes you need to make to have things work for different body types and styles. A couple of my team mates, and some of my friends from other schools attended and had nothing bad to say about it. I was originally registered, but had to withdraw from it because of my shoulder. I'm pretty bummed I missed it.
My perspective of the competition is a bit skewed because I was working the entire day. My job was to sort out 1/2 the fighters into queues for their mats runner. It was a chaotic job, that left me with tired feet, a sore shoulder, no voice and no patience by the end of the day. I'm not sure I would do the job again, but it was interesting anyway. There were some issues that were out out fives control.that made the job more difficult then it needed to be and I think at their next event it will be much easier and less stressful.
The event started at 10am with a rules meeting. They basically went over the major differences between the five grappling ruleset and the ibjjf rules that everyone is used to. This was a really good idea, because not everyone reads the rules of the competitions they enter and it probably saved the table workers and referees some grief from the coaches. That being said, moat of the adults were not at the venue yet, so they did not benefit from the meeting.
The first portion of the day, which was gi kids, women, and masters took longer to get through then planned. This was mostly because the competitors didn't listen to the instructions from the meeting, and the runners and myself. They would not stay in the bullpen, when they were coming up, or enter the exit and go straight to their mat, and all sorts of other, incorrect behaviour that left us looking for fighters and waiting around. The other issue was that the speaker and Mic setup in the bullpen did not get loud enough and the speaker was at the back of the bullpen, when it should have been at the front, near the warm-up area so the announcer could call people from the bullpen admin area without setting off lots of feedback.
The system for the draws was pretty sweet, each match got a number, so if you paid attention to your mat, and kept an eye on things, you would always have a pretty good idea of when you would be up next. This is not a new thing for competitions in other sports like wrestling and judo, but it is new to jiu jitsu, so there will always be a learning curve. I hope its a system that is adopted across the board by all the various promotions because it really is a great way of doing things.
So, the super fights ended up starting later them scheduled, and running before all the kids/masters/womens nogi was complete. This was a bit annoying but not the end of the world. After the super fights things got back on track quickly and I believe the tournament was wrapped up by 6 or 630 pm.
The superfights were all great fights. There were 2 submissions I believe, Thomas Beach won by submission(sadly I missed this fight because we haf a mini meeting during it) and Michael Lierra Jr submitted Dainis Ng.
Alison vs Sijara was a very entertaining match. They both almost got a kimura and if there had been a few more seconds Alison would have likely score some more points to take the lead. Sijara won 5-2.
In the main event Darson and Gianni double guard pulled but Gianni came up for 2. The rest of the match was Darson playing Dlr and Gianni trying to pass. This may sound boring but it was actually quite entertaining.
The medals and belts for the divisions were really nice looking. They even had kids size belts for the advanced divisions. The award presentations were pretty delayed for the first half of the day, but I believe once they got going they handed them out as things went along Hopefully next time they will give them out as the divisions complete, since people had places to go and things to do, it was a holiday weekend after all. They gave out sweet gear bags to every competitor, and also gave a bag, with a certificate for hatashita international to the competitors who their matches by submission. I like this idea and I hope it becomes more popular.
All in all it was a successful event, and or their first tournament it was more than acceptable. There are some kinks to work out, but they almost all revolve around the draw system and should be fairly easy to resolve. I'm working on writing out some tips and fixes for the promoters that were apparent from my end, and I am certain that the next event will be even better!
On Friday night they held a seminar at the venue with jiu jitsu legends Marcelo Garcia and Xande Ribeiro. Also at the seminar was 27 time mundial champion Renato Laranga! On a semi related note, a super fight between Marcelo and Renato was announced on Saturday.
I wasn't able to attend the seminar, but from what I heard it was quite excellent. Marcelo and Xande have fairly different styles and body types so it was great for people to get their different perspectives on the techniques and see what kind of changes you need to make to have things work for different body types and styles. A couple of my team mates, and some of my friends from other schools attended and had nothing bad to say about it. I was originally registered, but had to withdraw from it because of my shoulder. I'm pretty bummed I missed it.
My perspective of the competition is a bit skewed because I was working the entire day. My job was to sort out 1/2 the fighters into queues for their mats runner. It was a chaotic job, that left me with tired feet, a sore shoulder, no voice and no patience by the end of the day. I'm not sure I would do the job again, but it was interesting anyway. There were some issues that were out out fives control.that made the job more difficult then it needed to be and I think at their next event it will be much easier and less stressful.
The event started at 10am with a rules meeting. They basically went over the major differences between the five grappling ruleset and the ibjjf rules that everyone is used to. This was a really good idea, because not everyone reads the rules of the competitions they enter and it probably saved the table workers and referees some grief from the coaches. That being said, moat of the adults were not at the venue yet, so they did not benefit from the meeting.
The first portion of the day, which was gi kids, women, and masters took longer to get through then planned. This was mostly because the competitors didn't listen to the instructions from the meeting, and the runners and myself. They would not stay in the bullpen, when they were coming up, or enter the exit and go straight to their mat, and all sorts of other, incorrect behaviour that left us looking for fighters and waiting around. The other issue was that the speaker and Mic setup in the bullpen did not get loud enough and the speaker was at the back of the bullpen, when it should have been at the front, near the warm-up area so the announcer could call people from the bullpen admin area without setting off lots of feedback.
The system for the draws was pretty sweet, each match got a number, so if you paid attention to your mat, and kept an eye on things, you would always have a pretty good idea of when you would be up next. This is not a new thing for competitions in other sports like wrestling and judo, but it is new to jiu jitsu, so there will always be a learning curve. I hope its a system that is adopted across the board by all the various promotions because it really is a great way of doing things.
So, the super fights ended up starting later them scheduled, and running before all the kids/masters/womens nogi was complete. This was a bit annoying but not the end of the world. After the super fights things got back on track quickly and I believe the tournament was wrapped up by 6 or 630 pm.
The superfights were all great fights. There were 2 submissions I believe, Thomas Beach won by submission(sadly I missed this fight because we haf a mini meeting during it) and Michael Lierra Jr submitted Dainis Ng.
Alison vs Sijara was a very entertaining match. They both almost got a kimura and if there had been a few more seconds Alison would have likely score some more points to take the lead. Sijara won 5-2.
In the main event Darson and Gianni double guard pulled but Gianni came up for 2. The rest of the match was Darson playing Dlr and Gianni trying to pass. This may sound boring but it was actually quite entertaining.
The medals and belts for the divisions were really nice looking. They even had kids size belts for the advanced divisions. The award presentations were pretty delayed for the first half of the day, but I believe once they got going they handed them out as things went along Hopefully next time they will give them out as the divisions complete, since people had places to go and things to do, it was a holiday weekend after all. They gave out sweet gear bags to every competitor, and also gave a bag, with a certificate for hatashita international to the competitors who their matches by submission. I like this idea and I hope it becomes more popular.
All in all it was a successful event, and or their first tournament it was more than acceptable. There are some kinks to work out, but they almost all revolve around the draw system and should be fairly easy to resolve. I'm working on writing out some tips and fixes for the promoters that were apparent from my end, and I am certain that the next event will be even better!
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