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. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


As far as our team was concerned:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Importance of Game Plans

This is part 4 of a series on the mental side of fighting and training.   Make sure you read the first 3 parts!

1. Intro and Goal Setting
2. Visualization and Positive Self Talk
3.  Fight Day Strategy

I touched on having a game plan a little bit in the visualization part of the series, but didn't really get into it much. Just said that you should be visualizing yourself executing your game plan. So, what exactly goes in the game plan and what do you do with it?

Your game plan should be simple. Those t-shirts and internet memes that say "Pull. Sweep. Submit" aren't far off from a solid game plan. It's a tad on the simplified side, but here is what you don't want your game plan to look like: "First, I'll grip with my left hand, then the right. If they step with their left, I'll go to the right. Then, I'll step in with my left, and scoop up their right leg for a single..."  Get the idea? That is way too detailed, way too much information.

Game plans can't account for every single scenario either. There shouldn't be 1000 "ifs" in your plan.  One or two is OK, but if your plan involves a lot of "ifs", then you are counting on your plan not being effective, and you need to go back to #2 and get that head on straight. Here's an example of an OK "if" in your game plan.  "Double leg straight to side control. If they get a guard, pass right away before they can close it. Follow with knee on belly to cross choke / armbar sequence.".  As you can see, there is one "if" but it resolves to the same place so we don't have a million branches.

So you've got a plan, now what?

Drill, Drill, Drill. You know the saying, "you fight how you train" or "perfect practice makes perfect" or "drill to win". All of these apply.  You need to drill all aspects of your game plan, individually, and together.    If your game plan is to get a double leg, you need to start standing when you roll.  If your game plan is to do a triangle from side control, don't pull guard every time you roll.

Now, it's important to note that I'm not saying always roll exactly what you want to do in a fight, because then you will never expand your game and never really learn jiu jitsu. But the week or two leading up to your competition should be full of very focused drilling and rolling. This is not the time to be experimenting with new techniques and playing around in your rolls. 

When your drilling your game plan, work together with your partner, let them know your game plan, so they can help you. Have them purposefully throw a wrench into your plan by reacting differently, so you can work on your reactions to all situations. Jiu jitsu may be competed as in individual sport, but it is most definitely a team sport. You will need your team mates to help get your game plan sorted and ready, and you will need to help them with the same!

There are some people out there who are against having a game plan. They feel like if they have a game plan, and something goes wrong, they will be lost like a fish out of water. But, in my opinion, if you don't have a game plan, you are already that fish out of water. If you are just reacting to what the other person does, you're going to be one step behind, the entire match. There may be a time that your game plan doesn't work out. Maybe they pulled guard faster then you could, maybe they've got legs that are a million miles long and got their guard around quick before you could pass. It doesn't matter why; at this point, you just go back to the jiu jitsu you know, and get yourself to a point that your game plan comes back into play.  

Like all the other factors in the mental side of the sport, this is going to take time to develop and work into your training and competition habits. Having a game plan will help you visualize more effectively and help you become more confident in your fights. 

So, what's your game plan?  How are you training to be able to implement it?  Where are you going to give it a test next?

See you on the mats!

Competition Day Strategy

This is part 3 of the series on the mental side of the game. If you haven't read part 1 and part 2  do it now, then come back.

It happens to everyone,  you train hard, you know your stuff, you can pull it off rolling, and then at the tournament you forget everything and get smashed.   It's not because your bad at jiu jitsu, and it for the sake of argument and this blog post, it's not because the other guy is better then you. It's likely because your not "in the zone" or any of the other buzz-words that basically just mean your head wasn't in the game.  

So, How do we fix this?   It's not easy, and it's not going to happen over night.  But it starts with the first 2 parts of this series and carries on with the rest of this post.

Developing your competition day routine

Sports players everywhere in every sport have there little things that keep them grounded when they compete.  They wear their lucky socks or underwear, they always have the exact same thing for breakfast, things like that.   These things that are often brushed away as being superstitious and nonsense can be really powerful mental tools.  Consistency in your habits will help you focus and be prepared for the day.

I can't tell you what works and what doesn't for you, Everyone will be quite different in this. Some people really like to be social at tournaments, some people don't like to talk to anyone.  Some people like to watch matches, some people that makes them very nervous.  The best way to figure out what does and doesn't work for you, is to keep a competition journal, and keep track of what happened that day leading up to your matches, and write down how you felt physically, mentally, and emotionally through out the day.  It's a bit of work, but it's well worth it.  After a few events you should have a bit of a picture of how what you do leading up to your matches affects your state of mind and your performance.

There will always be things that are out of your control, like when weigh ins are,  the time your division starts,  who you fight, what colour fighter you are.  But there are all sorts of things that you can control to counter act these unknowns and keep you focused.

This is a topic that examples will speak much louder then explanations, so let me give you a bit of a breakdown on the things that are part of my competition day strategy to get me focused and ready.
For the sake of the example, I'll use a local event that I'm driving to the morning of, since I think that is a more common case and will be a better example.

The night before:

1. pack my gear back with everything I need, including, but not limited to:
1. 2 gis, my mendes gi, and one other one, ussually a red star
2. 2 pairs of shorts, 2 rashguards, 2 sports bras
3. a full change of cloths for afterwards.
4. mouth guard, camera, extra battery, nail clippers, a fresh package of hair elastics
2. pack my non-gear  bag
1. snacks including protein bars, granola bars, some fruit
2. gatorade, usually a 6 pack, almost always grape g2.
3. a bit of candy or chocolate for quick energy and a post-fight reward
4. often i'll have some chocolate milk (the kind that stays good not in a fridge, weird, but tasty, and a good recovery drink)
3. pick out my cloths for the morning, ussually a comfy pair of jeans, my pura t-shirt, and a sweater, you never know how hot or cold the venue will be, and layers are the best way to get warm, and stay warm, but not roast when your done. Also: my competition socks, not always the same pair, but always an interesting pair, and almost always mismatched, and knee highs.
4. print out the directions, any registration confirmations, schedule, and the list of my team mates that are competing so we can keep track of the day.
5. Shower and get to bed nice and early (I like to be in bed and relaxing by 10pm, but it doesn't always work out).

Competition Day: Before the tournament:

1. Wake up about 45 minutes before we have to leave.  
2. Get up as soon as the alarm goes off (If I lay around in bed I get groggy and get headaches)
3. Check my mail, facebook, twitter.
4. Put anything that was in the fridge in the snack/lunch bag and double check my bags
5. Get breakfast, usually at mcdonalds. I know, it's weird, but I love breakfast burritos and orange juice on fight morning. 
6. Drive to the venue! I like to give myself at least lots of time to get there, generally if it's less then an hour drive, i double the time, if it's more then an hour, I give myself an extra hour to get there.  

 At the venue

1. Check in / Register right away,  pick up my free t-shirt if there is one and stake out a spot in the bleaches/stands.
2. If it's all bleachers, I go for the top of the most central place. This way you can see all the mats, and you don't have to worry about people stepping on your bags b/c your at the top.
3. I'll check my weight on the scale right away, and depending on how that is, have a snack, or not.

 More then 1 hour before my fights

• The time way before my fights I'm really relaxed, I'll be social, I'll listen to music, I'll watch the fights.  
• I tend to just be relaxed and not thinking about my matches, my division, whom i'm fighting and whatnot.
• I like to watch my team mates,  video them, or take pictures.   
•  

 Less then 1 hour before my fights

• At about the hour mark, I'll get changed into my gi, and check my weight again, just to be sure.  If i'm good, I'll have another snack, likely some of the fruit, and gatorade. 
•  At this point, you never really know when exactly your going to be up, even at the most organized and scheduled events.  (except maybe IBJJF they are pretty particular about their schedules).   So  I like to be pretty much ready to go about 1/2 hour before i'm scheduled.  
• I'll put my headphones in both ears, but not loud. I listen to mostly metal, rock, alternative.  Pre-fight is a lot of stuff like In Flames, Korn, System of a down, avenging sevenfold and killswitch engage.   I have a lot of the same songs on my car's usb drive that I do on my mp3 player.
• At this point I get a lot more anti-social, I'll still chat a bit with my team mates but I'm starting to think about my matches, and doing some visualization and whatnot.

 After my divisions has been called up

•  Music on, socks on, sweater on.  
• Generally I'll pace and do some light stretches before the matches, just staying warm, but not spending a lot of energy.  I'll close my eyes and do some serious visualization and self talk to.

 I'm up next

• Head over to the mat,  pacing if there is room, or just standing beside it, staying loose.  
• headphones, sweater and socks come off just before I step on the mats and it's go time.

 Match Time:

• Check the score board, make sure it's clear and the match time is right.
• Shake hands with the ref, shake hands with my opponent, and say "ooos".   This is something I've done since my judo days, back before ooos was said at the end of every sentence, on every picture that has anything to do with jiu jitsu, and before it was completely watered down.   It's me saying "Thanks for coming out, let's fight hard, and do what we came to do".  It puts my brain right where it needs to be. 
•  FIGHT!

Between matches

• Put my socks back on right away, ussually put my music on in one ear. 
• drink some gatorade 
• shake hands with the coach(if they are around) of my opponent and congratulate them and the coach on a good match.
• I'll chat with a team mate or two between matches, but generally stick to myself, keep warm, and listen to music.  I don't think about the last match, and I re-focus myself with some visualization and whatnot.

So that's generally what I do,  If it's a tournament I have to travel to, I stick to this, but of course drive to the tournament, sleep in a hotel, but It's mostly the same.  This strategy, or plan, or set of habits, whatever you want to call it, is key to me being ready mentally and physically for my fights.  It's been in development since I was about 16 or 17 years old competing in judo tournaments.   It's shifted over the years but hasn't changed a lot.

For you, it might be quite different!  You might be social until right before you step on the mats,  maybe you like to sit at the bottom,  maybe you can't watch your team mates because you get to excited and nervous and it wastes all your energy.    It's going to take some experimenting to figure it all out, but once you do, you'll have a very powerful tool to help you perform the best that you can.

Alright, this blog post is long enough, I was going to talk about game plans but I'll save that for another day.   If you have any questions about this stuff please post a comment, or message me on facebook, or twitter, or email me or whatever.   I'm more then happy to share my experiences and the stuff I've learned in courses with fellow competitors.

I'll be running a new, much easier to enter contest on my fan page to correspond with this blog post.   All you have to do is Share my blog on facebook or twitter, like my fan page, and post on there that you shared it(There will be a post to comment on to say you shared it. if it's twitter, i'll need a link to the tweet, just to verify it) Alternately, you can just share the post from my fan page that has this blog on it, if that is easier for you.  OR, if you got here from twitter, give my tweet with the link a retweet and I should see it.    The winner will be chosen randomly and will win a VVV rashguard of their choice! Contest closes October 24th.

Montreal Grappling Sept 15

Yesterday was the last road trip to Montreal for the year for me, and it turned out to be quite the grueling adventure. What should have been a 6 hour drive took 8.5 hours. A bad combination of rain, construction, and accidents left us driving at a crawling speed for the majority of the way there.

 Then, on the way home, what should have been a quick in and out stop for a bite to eat at shoeless joes in Cornwall turned into a 2h+ horrible experience of waiting, being neglected, having hair in my food, and then having to wait some more. It was terrible. I am never going to eat there again. I think we will stick to Pizza Hut in Kingston from now on.

 The hotel was an adventure as well. When we got there, there was no indication of where to park, so we were a little lost on what to do, Matt ran in to ask, and after waiting a while and stuff was told I had to come in and check in, and then we could park. Well, that took a while as well, but we got it sorted and headed down to the underground parking. It was mega sketchy but after an 8- point turn I managed to get the car parked. 

We got up to our room, and it smelled pretty bad.  I don't know what happened it it, but it was smelly,  like a diaper, mixed with mold and i don't even know what else.  I tried to stay positive about it all, and whatnot, but it was terrible.  The room was also insanely run down, and the bedroom door had a hole in it!!  after a few minutes we decided we couldn't stay in it and went down to the lobby to ask for a new room.   After humming and hawing the very nice lobby guy gave us a new room.    It was WAY nicer!  It seems the hotel is in a process of renovating all the rooms.  The sofa bed was unsleepable,  but the sofa it self was quite comfortable for sleeping.   All in all, it was fine, but I'm not sure I would stay there again.  It was pretty cheap, but for obvious reasons. 

Alright, On to the tournament!!

We had 6 people from Pura compete this time around, which is a new record for us at these tournaments.  It was great to have so many friends make the trip down together and be there to support each other.   

Brad sporting his hard heard silver

Josh pulling a Rafa Mendes armbar

Brad competed in the -150 intermediate no gi, and blue -150 gi.   He placed 2nd in the no gi and did great in the very competitive gi division as well.    It was a lot of fun watching Brad compete.

Josh competed in the -150 advanced no gi, and blue -150 gi divisions.  He had a bit of a rough go in the no gi, but seemed to be enjoying himself anyway.  Gi went better for him and he placed 3rd. (Montreal Grappling only does medals for 1st and 2nd, so no hardware for Josh :(  ).

The goofy newfy ruining someones day with a sprawl

 Stephen, the goofy newfy, competed in -170 advanced no gi, and -170 blue belt gi.   He also had a bit of a rough day, but I think it was a good learning experience anyway.    There is no better way to learning then competing, and you win much more from a loss then an easy win.








 

Matt playing deep half guard. setting up a sweet sweap

Matt competed in the +190 advanced No gi, and the +190 blue belt gi.  This was only Matt's 2nd competition as a blue and He fought well!  In the No Gi he competed against Alex Fraser, a black belt in judo, and blue in bjj. Alex has already won 1 trip from Montreal Grappling, and Matt gave him a run for his money.  I was really impressed!  The other guy in his no gi division was a brown belt. I know Matt wasn't to happy with how his day went, I've been there, done that. But he did really well and should hold his head high!

Alasdair after the gi final

Alasdair had a great day again.  He placed 3rd in the No gi, and 1st in the -170 gi.  He made it to the final of the blue belt Gi Absolute, then lost a very close fight to Alex Fraser.    The final of the -170 was a great fight to watch.  The guy he beat was also a judo black belt and had ridiculous base and posture.  

 Alasdair and I chatted for a bit about winning.  There is a lot of pressure on us to win, because we've made a bit of a habit of doing well.   A lot of people just kind of expect us to win and don't realize that It's just as much work and just as hard for us to win as it is everyone else.   It's nice to have a team mate like Alasdair who understands what that's like and has the same kind of pressure to preform. 



I had a pretty good day as well.  I went in with a plan to try to work on parts of my game other then arm bars, because, if you know me, you know I love to arm bar. arm bars from guard, arm bars from side control, mount, triangles, half guard, I don't care, I'll try them from anywhere.   In my first fight, I stuck to this, and won with an american from side control.   Linda was super tough and fiesty,  She'll be a force to reckon with in her own weight class!

  In my 2nd fight, I got disqualified for reaping the knee. OOOOPPPS  It was a stupid mistake on my part, and I didn't even have my foot touching her hip before i was like "oh no leg doesn't go there" and took it back, but the ref saw and called it right away.   It's good to see the refs on top of the rules, but it was pretty frustrating for me because I hadn't put any pressure, and had moved it off before it was even called.   This is probably the one rule in BJJ that I find the most ridiculous.  It should be a warning, or even an advantage for the other person the first time, then 2 points the 2nd and then a DQ.  and instant DQ for it is kind of crazy.

My 3rd fight didn't happen because the other girl was injured in an earlier fight.  I hope she's ok!!  In my fourth fight I threw out my original game plan because I needed to win it to move onto the final because of my stupidity in the 2nd fight.     So I was all business and won by arm bar.       This made it so that we had 1 girl that was 4-0 and 3 of us that were 3-1.  So we did a 4 person bracket after the round robin. 

I was paired up with Stephanie for the semi final.  She had looked quite tough and dominated in most of her fights so i wasn't going to mess around to much with her.   I had locked on an armbar, and though she tapped on my leg so I eased off, but I guess it was only 1 tap, so she kept going, so I kept going,   shortly after that I slapped on another one and she tapped verbally.

In the final, I fought the girl who I was dq'ed against.  She had won every other fight so far today So I knew I had to take her seriously.   We had some good stand up exchanges and I got a throw in.  I don't remember which one though.   I actually don't remember much about a lot of my fights,  good thing the videos will be on youtube soon.   Anyway,  like in my semi final, I got an armbar,   she yelped so I eased off, but the Reff didn't hear, and she didn't stop so shortly after I caught her in another,  but she tried to roll, and the way she rolled it ended up going on way tigher, and she tapped mid roll, but the way we went, I couldn't take the preasure off.   I felt so bad, and was pretty frustrated with the whole situation.

  I absolutely HATE it when people get hurt doing jiu jitsu.  I know it's part of the sport and shit happens, but so many times it's avoidable by taping sooner!   I try to always give people a chance to tap when I lock on a submission before I start to really put the pressure on, but so many times girls will still try to escape and then I have no choice but to put them tighter!  I'm not a mean spirited person, I'm not out to hurt people, but I'm not going to let you out because you can't admit when your caught.    I feel so bad when girls have to ice their elbows after fighting me,  It makes me want to quit jiu jitsu. 

Mandy and I after our gi fight

In Gi, there were only 2 of us.  So we had 1 match.   Mandy is a brand new blue belt, and smaller then me so I went back to my game plan of not doing arm bars.   I worked a bit of De La Riva,  and some guard passing.  I got to side control a few times and was trying to set up a brabo choke but after a while realized I was setting it up all wrong and abandon it.   She had great defense to all my attacks and when I heard my team mates yell there was 30 seconds left, I set up an armbar for the finish. 

Team Pura

So that was our day.   All in all, Montreal Grappling ran a great event as usual.  We started on time, and ran smoothly the entire day.  The super fight was very entertaining with an amazing come from behind finish!    Congrats to Jon-Taine Hall on the great finish and the new baby!! 

Dainis going for a triangle from the bottom.

One other thing,  My Friend Dainis made his Montreal Grappling Debut this weekend!  He fought in the -170 advanced no gi, and the purple and up absolute.  He is always a pleasure to watch compete as he is so technical and calm in his matches.   He ended up winning the -170 and placing 2nd in the absolute, losing a very close match to Alex Fraser.   In the Purple and up absolute, It was a small division and he had a great match with the giant brown belt that Matt had fought earlier in no gi. 

 

The next Montreal Grappling Event is November 10th.  Sadly, we won't be sending a team because we are having a big team thing that day.   But you should check it out.    Also coming up from Grappling Industries (the people behind Montreal Grappling)  Is the First TORONTO GRAPPLING GRAND PRIX.  This is the tournament to be at this fall.  They are giving away a pile of trips,  it's going to be round robin. and It's going to be amazing.   I can't tell you how excited I am for this tournament to be coming to the GTA.  You NEED to be there. 

Next weekend is the GTA Classic(formerly Bravado).  It should be a really good event.  They run a top notch tournament and i'm really looking forward to it.  We have quite a few people from Pura registered and I'm really looking forward to watching them all compete.   I'm registered in blue medium heavy, and I'm all by myself right now.   I'll gladly move up to heavy if someone registers there.   I am slowly working my way down to middle,  hopefully by Provincials I'll be there!     Also coming up is the next Zombie Leauge Event, It's No-Gi this time, and they are planning on having a ladies only division.    I don't think I will be attending because I have a dentist appointment that was set up like 10 months ago :( 


I'm going to be running some kind of contest here on my blog soon.  The prize will likely be one of the prizes I won yesterday at the Montreal Grappling event.   I've just got to figure out exactly what the contest is going to be, so keep your eyes open for it, it's going to be something fun. 


See you on the mats!

Another road trip to Montreal is in the books

And it was amazing!

My Medals are stacked on top of each other.

First, a bit about the tournament in general.

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

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

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

A bit about the trip in general

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


Alasdair is an animal 

 

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




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

Zombies....arrrrgggg....brains...subs...

The Zombie House is a completely unique approach to competition.  It borders on almost not being competition due to the rule set, environment, and ultimate goals.   It's been branding and run as an "Arte Suave Submission League" and has been going on since Oct 2010!    They took some time off and had their first event back just this past weekend on August 18th. 

This past weekend was my first exposure to the zombie house and I had a great time!   Stephen and I made the trip to Inner City MMA (in downtown toronto). We left mega early because you never know what the state of the 403/qew/gardiner is going to be.  Good thing to, because it turns out, spadina was closed, which was very inconvenient.  We were one of the first people there, even though we were a few minutes after the time they had suggested everyone be there by!  shame on you people who strolled in after the official match start time.  you know who you are!

So we signed our lives away,  paid the fee (only $25!) ,got changed and chilled till everyone arrived.   Once we were all mostly there we went over the rules / guidelines  for the event.

Basically, in my words:
1. Subs only.  and if you tap, you restart.
2. Roll hard, but don't be a dick
3. No Refs, but "life guards" who will do their best to keep you in your space, and will call a sub if they think your being stupid by not tapping.
4.  5 minute rounds.
5.  All belts fight each other,  but are handicapped by points, and subs allowed.
6.  4 weight classes, round robin, You fight 5 guys/girls in your division.
7. Girls and Guys fight together!

So that's that.   We got the day rolling.  4 fights went at a time. Using a single timer.  so it all ran very smoothly.  A few times we had to pause the timer but it all ran very smoothly!

Unfortunately gringo had to leave early, and took a few of his guys with him, including my 5th fight!   but i still got 4 great matches. 

#1 - Caitlin!  Yay a girl!   was nice to fight a girl after the weekend before at montreal grappling.  Even better, we were pretty much the same size! Outstanding!  We had a great roll, she almost caught me in a triangle, and i got 2 arm bars.  very back and forth.

#2.  Gregg King - I had watch Gregg at montreal grappling (he fought my team mate twice). He should just be renamed Triangle King.  Man were they slick! and tight!   we had a pretty good roll.  He caught me in 4 subs, I almost got an armbar at the end, but i think he decided to take it easy hahah.  all in all I learned I need to work on my posture a bit to avoid those pesky triangles.

#3 Nihad (from gringos).  Another Great roll!  Nihan is mega technical, and strong, felt a bit stronger then Greg, but maybe that's just their styles.   He caught me 4X as well, and I didn't really launch much of an offense,  to busy trying to keep my head out of his triangle and my arms attached haha!

#4 Andy (from gringos)  Andy's a white belt, with a couple stripes, but he rolls really really well!  We had a great back and forth match.  He has really good back attacks that kept me defending steadily.   We ended up going 0-0.

That was my day. I ended up with a score of -6.  which.. isn't so great, but I had a lot of fun, and would definitely go back.

They are working on putting together a Ladies Zombie House!  I can't wait for something like that. It'll be amazing.  Keep your eyes open for it ladies.  It's a great way to get some experience, and try new things, and see how your game is coming along in a safe, cheap, and friendly environment.

Here's the website for the zombie house: http://zombiehousebjj.com/  

That's basically it.  I'd recommend it to pretty much anyone looking for some extra mat time, or looking to try out some new setups and subs without having to worry about the other person stalling or loosing on points, or getting subbed.

Thanks to the whole Inner City MMA / Shah Franco Team for hosting and putting on a great event.  and thanks to everyone who came out for the great rolls, support, and fun.   Oh and Stephen, for coming along I LOVE having team mates that come to tournaments and compete with me!

I really wanted to win a trip to Abu Dhabi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An interesting adventure for the first tournament back.

Let's go waaaaaay back, to January and my first tournament back after a long time off due to injuries, lack of motivation, and a school change.   It was only 8 months ago, but seems like a lifetime.  I feel like my Jiu Jitsu game has completely changed since then and it's probably a good thing, because I looked terrible. 

The tournament in question is the Michigan Open.  Now, there are a couple different tournaments that are run in the Detroit Michigan area.  Apparently there are some that aren't terrible, that are run by a completely different group of people.  I haven't been to one of theirs yet. 

We had a lovely drive to the hotel,  which turned out to be AMAZING!  In case your ever in the dearborn/detroit area, I highly recommend "The Henry".  It's full of art and is classy.   The rooms were nice and breakfast was delicious and reasonably priced.    The only thing is, the ceilings are a bit low for jumping on the beds.

We should have known we were in for a treat when the tournament "start" time came and went with not even a hint of something starting soon.  About 1.5 - 2 hours after the scheduled start time the super fights started.  Now, this is something that was actually pretty cool. They had 7 or 8 black belt super fights!  Now, if only 1/2 those black belts stayed around the whole day to ref, we would have probably had a much better day.

There was no weigh ins.   Nope, you didn't read that wrong.  They had a scale there,  but not a single person was asked to step on it.  There was no gi inspections, there was only the honour system.   Which is a nice thought, or a complete lack of caring, hard to say.    This didn't really matter to me, I was in the open weight class anyway, but 2 of my team mates were pretty close to the top of theirs, so were dieting and eating accordingly.   Seems like we were the only ones who didn't get the memo, because it seemed like an awful lot of people were to big for the divisions.

I mentioned the reffing earlier,  It started out ok, the refs were focused, and doing a decent job.  But, in my first match, I had the girl in an arm bar, at the edge, by the table,  and it was stopped, and we were stood back up.  We weren't in an "Unstable" position and I didn't get any points for it.  In the end it didn't actually matter because I got her in another one, but that's not the point is it?

A couple hours later, the tournament is crawling along,  more times then not there is only 1 or two matches going and it seems that there is only a couple refs left, who, more seem really interested in the other match(s) going on, or their children running on the mats, while a fight is going.  I think at the end of the day, there was only 2 refs left!

By the time the absolute came around,  about 75% of the people who had signed up had left.  The only ones sticking around where the people who travelled to get there.  Someone not associated with the tournament took over the draw because it was such a disaster. They did an ok job, but forgot to account for needing 2-4-8-16-32 style rounds to end up with a fair draw.   No one really cared anymore at this point. So it got the job done.

One good thing about this event was the level of competition.  A lot of tough guys showed up and the guys divisions were well attended. As usual very few girls showed up to play.  which you'll see is a recurring theme on here.

I can't imagine going back to this tournament.  It was far to under staffed and under organized to make the drive and stay in a hotel and have all those extra expenses.  If it was local, we might give it another chance.   If you happen to go next year, let me know how it is, but don't say I didn't warn you!

  

Hello, My name is Patricia and I am a tournament addict.

Welcome to my blog!  

Here I will rant and ramble and talk and discuss and complain, and compliment and generally go on about the tournaments I go to and all things related to them. 

But first, a little bit about myself.

Name: Patricia VanderMeer
Belt: Blue (2 stripes)
School: Pura BJJ
Affiliation: Mendes Bros / Art of Jiu Jitsu
Job:  Web Programmer
Other Martial Arts I've done:  Judo, Japanese Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, Boxing, MMA
Family: I've got a big family.  They are very supportive of my obsessions, except when it makes scheduling family events difficult, which is fairly often.  Thankfully my husband trains with me, so I don't have to worry about him ;)

Now you know everything there is to know about me.

Here's a video of me getting beat up by Tiffany Bayliss from last weekend!   For someone in 2 weight classes below me she sure is strong and has great arm bar defense, and scary triangles.  I'll admit, I was almost out there in the middle of that triangle.  If I had known I was ahead, and that there was 30 seconds left, I might not have tapped. But, chances are I would have gone out,  so I'm not sure what's worse.    Either way, lessons learned and all that.

Looking forward to hitting the mats and working on my terrible triangle defense!


My next few posts will likely be about some of the 9 tournaments I have competed in (or maybe the Niagara Open, where I had no one to play with, but still went to support my team).    See you on the competition floor!