IBJJF Toronto Open August 3 2013 Report

I've been putting off writing this report and I could say it's because I'm busy at work, or training, or beating The last of us, but while that is kind of true, it's really because I'm just not really excited to write the report.   The tournament was just kind of mediocre.  There was nothing super horrible that stood out, and nothing super amazing.  So I just haven't really felt a lot of drive to write about it.  But, writing about tournaments is what I do, and I promised I would, so here we go.

There were a few things that were not great.

1. The date:  what is with big tournaments coming to Ontario on long weekends?  Five did it in on Canada Day weekend, and the IBJJF comes to down on Civic Holiday weekend.  Don't these people understand that Canadians like their long weekends to be away?  Also,  Toronto was super busy this weekend with some food festival going on, and, oh yea, the Rogers cup, at York University,  where the tournament was.
2. The location:  I mentioned it already on the date, but it's worth mentioning in two points.  Don't have a tournament at the same university campus as the rogers cup (kind of a big deal tennis thing apparently)  and then have no directions or information about where to park, which part of the building to go to(if you were lucky to find the right building easily) and whether you have to pay for parking.  We were lucky, we got there super early (no thanks to the parking lot that was the 401), and there was a tiny lot close to the building we needed.  The one ticket machine took my card, charged it, and didn't give me a ticket, but a different one worked.  
3. The scale was heavy.  A LOT of people complained about it.  A LOT of people were left running and skipping after being well on weight, or under on their home scales, which are usually accurate.  2 of my teammates didn't make weight.  One showed up late (because of the traffic, parking, and location issues) and didn't even get a chance to check before he had to weigh, and was dq'ed, even though he had a lighter gi he could have worn and likely made it.  The other, after flying in the night before and cutting and making weight on the hope scale, was a couple pounds over, and couldn't cut it fast enough.  
4. The scales were inconsistent.  The outside "test" scale was weighing people .5 heavier then the inside scale, so it was extra heavy.  This is alright, in theory, but it makes people cut extra weight and tire themselves out, just to end up being .5 under on the official scale.  Listen, If you are going to have zero weight allowance have accurate scales that are consistent.  Test them with multiple weights to make sure.  
5. Ghetto IBJJF score boards, as usual.  I complain about these every time, but I KNOW the IBJJF has good score boards, they had them at worlds.  Use them at all the events PLEASE!!!!   It's not impossible to tell the time by looking at the video recording, but it's not perfect with pauses and whatnot.  Not to mention,  it helps everyone make sure the timekeeper is doing their job.  Let's be honest, we've ALL seen it happen where the time keeper puts 5 instead of 6 minutes on the clock, or forgets to hit start or stop.  It happens more then you think and can be a case for serious issues.  If we could see the time, we (as spectators, coaches, referees) could keep the timekeepers on the ball and know when they are making mistakes.   Not to mention, it's nice as a fighter to be able to see how much time is over / left.  
6. No warm up area.  We are spoiled in ontario. The OJA always has a warm up area, it's not always big, and it's generally crowded, but it's there.  Five brought a warm up area, and Grappling Industries has introduced one as well.  It's past time the IBJJF stepped up and did the same.  They already have a corralled off area, just put mats on it.  
7. Spectator Fee: Ok, I know these are pretty standard,  but is it so hard to put it on the tournament information page on the IBJJF website,  and tell us if it's cash only?  Or maybe,  put it on the facebook event,  or tweet it, or ANYTHING!   I know in the states cash is still the more common way of paying for things, but seriously, no one around here uses cash for anything anymore.   I was left scrambling, and thankfully my buddy David helped me out.  it was nice that it was only $5 though.  Props for that. 
8. The Staff:  They were ok, for the most part.  But there were a few cases of people who didn't seem to be fully trained for their jobs.  This is a pretty common problem at tournaments, and especially when it comes to only hosting a tournament once a year and using a fresh staff.  They were all quite friendly and were working hard though, so this is really more of a neutral point.  
9. The entry fee. 100 bucks for early bird, I think it was 120 or 125 if you registered late, which wasn't really late at all, it was when most people register.  That is EXPENSIVE.  It was less last year,  even WORLDS was only 100 bucks.  I think they hid the OGA fee in the tournament entry fee, which is sneaky and I am not a fan.  I understand paying a lot for a high quality tournament, but, this tournament did not offer ANYTHING that other, cheaper tournaments don't(unless you count the t-shirt and gracie mag i mention below, but you get that at worlds to).

So, apparently there were a bunch of things that were not great... once I get going on a rant It just kind of keeps going and going and going.  A lot of this is pretty minor and a lot of it is pretty common among many tournaments.   So, please,  if you run a tournament, do not make these mistakes.  

We can't be all negative, well, we could,  there was that one tournament in Michigan that really had nothing good about it.  But, this tournament had lots of good points to:

• The photographer they had, Veron,  did an amazing job!  He's been around the Ontario scene taking pictures at quite a few events lately and he is a pro.  He always manages to get the pictures of me making funny faces when I announce the winners of fights while reffing.  Seriously though, he's got some great timing in matches and takes great photos.  He didn't stick to just one mat, or division, and covered the event really well. You can see the photos here on the ibjjf album.  (This point is totally a ninja edit, I don't know how i forgot to mention him originally, but seriously , he is a great event photographer).
• Started On time:  Even early actually.  My teammate Steve was lined up and ready at his mat almost 15 minutes before the start time. Their match (which he won,  fairly dominantly (until the last few seconds when he got to relaxed and almost got bow and arrowed)) started at 10:00 sharp.  But the mid afternoon they somehow ended up a bit behind schedule, but It was manageable.  They should probably have more mats next year.  
• Competent Referees:  I didn't see any terrible mistakes by the referees. No blatant robberies or really bad calls.  That's not to say they didn't happen, but I didn't see any.  The refs weren't always quick to give points, maybe double checking in their head the situation was right or whatever, I don't know.  I just realized, there was definitely one questionable call.  My friend Arwin got ankle locked and knee reaped. You can see it in this picture.  Ankle locks are tricky, because, like in this case, the guy getting ankle locked can roll that way and it turns it into a reap.  
• Free T-shirt and Gracie mag. Everyone loves getting an event t-shirt and having a gracie mag to entertain you on the drive home, or while waiting for team mates or whatever is nice to.  
• Schedule out a few days before the event.  This is pretty helpful for planning, and they have a fairly detailed schedule which is nice.  
• Brackets online the night before.  They may not have really announced it well (or at all) but they were up by Friday afternoon.  Some people like to see who they are fighting, some don't. It's nice to have that option.   It would be even nicer if they were in a simple PDF or searchable, instead of the ridiculous silverlight app, but hey, it's better then nothing.   It would also be nice if they were posted on the wall at the venue. 
• More black, brown, and purple belts then last year.  Last year, I think there was only 1 blackbelt division and absolute. This year there was 3, or maybe even 4.  There were a bunch of brown belt fights, and tonnes of purple.  The scene is evolving and I like it!  I hope this trend continues at more tournament in Ontario. 
• More ladies were there then last year.  Last year, I don't think there were any purple belt women, no masters women, and only a handful of blue and whites. This year, there was a purple division, one or two masters divisions, lots (well, relatively lots, for women) of blues, and lots of whites!  It was nice to see.  
• More international feeling then last year. Last year, there was a few from the states, and Oli Geddes to give the tournament a non GTA feel.  This year, Oli Geddes was back again and there were a LOT of unfamiliar faces from New York especially but also a big team came from Ottawa and other fairly long drives away.
• There were some great matches.  The purple feather and light weight divisions were ridiculously competitive.  There some serious wars in them. Congrats to Arther for picking up his first IBJJF Gold!  The black belt matches were pretty excellent to.  Gringo Vs Andre Figueira was great.  Andre went after a baseball choke which was quite sneaky and put a stop to Gringos pass for quite a while.  Gringo managed to get past it though, and ended the match with his back going after a bow and arrow.  Speaking of baseball chokes! There was another guy in Jon's division who put someone to sleep with it!   It was weird to see!  They ended up faceing each other, and Jon lost, but not by the baseball choke. I'll be honest, I probably would have laughed pretty hard if he had been caught by it. But Jon respected the grips (maybe to much) and didn't try to pass when he had them set up.

Pura had a decent sized team out, but with a bunch of us sidelined with injuries and away on vacations and whatnot they weren't able to reproduce last years 3rd place results.  Everyone looked really good out there though. Especially Greg Young,  man, that guy is scary.  He is so explosive and balls out, I would not want to have to fight him.   I hope he competes more because it's pretty entertaining to watch.  

Tomorrow I find out what my sports doctor wants to do with my shoulder.  There is a small tear in the labrum, and in my bicep tendon.  No big tears, so maybe no surgery. We shall see what he says.  Either way, competition is still pretty far down the road, since I tried training earlier this week, and ended up hardly sleeping at all on Monday night because of it(truth be told, it's quite possible i just fell asleep on it wrong, because it didn't really hurt when I went to bed).

Next weekend we make the drive up the 401 to Montreal for Grappling Industries No Gi Worlds something something something. Should be a pretty good event,  they are giving away a couple trips to No Gi Worlds which would be cool to win. Alasdair and Jon will be competing, I'll be refereeing.  Should be a fun time. Then on Sunday WANDERLEI SILVA IS IN TOWN!  Tickets are very reasonable(and they are supporting relief efforts in Haiti), and it should be a cool little event.  I'll be there talking pictures and stuff.

September 7th is the next grappling industries event in Toronto.   Here is the poster.  They are giving away a bunch of trips, as usual.  I've got my fingers crossed my shoulder will be magically ok by this, but I think that is an unrealistic dream and I am planning on more like maybe the IBJJF Montreal, or even something early 2014.  

Also coming up is the GTA Classic.  This is one of the OJA's best tournaments.  It's a good back to school kind of event.  Gi only, so it's not a super long day. Plus they give samurai swords to the absolute winners, which is bad ass.  (I'll be honest, the quality of last years swords is a bit suspect, but maybe mine was just a lemon).  Registration opens Friday(August 9th), and the first 50 get a t-shirt!  

There is a cool new site in the works called True North BJJ.   It's focus is on getting tournament information out there that is useful for people.  It's going to steer away from the Meme's and bro-ness that seem to be around on a lot of jiu jitsu communities and work more on getting quality content that people who do jiu jitsu in Ontario and the surrounding area want and need like transit information for tournaments. You can find them on  twitter and facebook or their website.  Look for some content written by yours truly to be there soon(ish), as I get time to write it.

Don't be surprised if you don't here from me till after grappling Industries Montreal. Life is pretty crazy right now, with my work moving to Hamilton(YAY), and probably going to be starting seeing my phsyio therapist regularly (and for doing more then a few range of motions exercises) plus lots of strength training outside of that.  

I'm going bike shopping this weekend I think, it would be pretty pathetic for me to drive the 6-7k to work when the weather is nice.  I'll probably end up biking some days, taking the bus there and running home some days, and then when the weather gets shitty, driving.  I haven't really biked since like 5 years ago camping, and before that, it was probably almost 5 years to.  My butt was super sore after that, but hopefully it adjusts quickly.  I think I'm just going to get a super cheap one first, and then if I actually get into the habit of biking, maybe next spring save some money for a fancy one. I don't want to spend to much, b/c let's be honest, downtown Hamilton isn't the safest place to have a bicycle.

My New Project!

Hey Everyone!

So, I posted this on facebook last week, but I haven't posted it here yet.  Starting in September I will be teaching a ladies only class at Pura BJJ!!

Like it says on the poster, Wednesdays 6 to 7 pm, starting in September.  It's going to be free for the month of September as well!  After September, there will be a special membership, that includes the ladies only classes and the BJJ 101 classes.  Of course the ladies are welcome to getting a full membership but professor PJ wanted to give them some options to help with the transition and to make doing jiu jitsu easier for them.  

My friend Heather,  in the picture, is going to be at the classes to, so the ladies will have some experienced people to work with and help them along the way.  The class dynamics will be kind of weird at first, because it's going to be almost entirely new students.  They won't have the hierarchy of experienced students that most classes have.  I  ran into this when I was starting up a judo class years ago to.  I think there will be a few less egos this time around so it should be a smooth process.

I'm really excited for this opportunity.  I'm super thankful that Prof PJ is giving me the chance to teach some classes and build a army of jiu jitsu girls:)!   I'm really hoping a few catch the competition bug eventually but I'll be happy even if none of the new students ever compete to!   I just want to help them learn jiu jitsu and have fun!

We may run into some technical difficulties,  the ladies change room is quite small... There is definitely not room for more then 3 or 4 at a time in there.  We may have to commandeer the boys changroom.  That might be awkward though, because the class is gig to be right after the kids, which is a mixed class, and I think there will be a class after as well.... logistics are complicated hahah.  We might have to move some of the boot camp junk from the cubbies to, since there will be more then 1 girl needing to store stuff there at a time. 

I've been trying to come up with a little information handout type thing, with the class details, and bits of important information to give the ladies, but it's been so long since I was new to a class, I don't really know what would be to "DUH" and what is information that they really don't need for now.   Any ideas?

I've been trying to come up with idea for spreading the word about this,  it's posted on facebook, here on my blog. I'm not going near most grappling forums because they are full of assholes.  I wonder if Goodlife would let me put a poster up at the gym there... It's right by Pura, and they have business cards there already.  hmmmm  any other ideas?  Maybe I should post it on r/hamilton,  it's a pretty  quiet sub reddit, but they might like to know.

In other news...

At the time of writing this,  I still don't have the results from my MRI, my shoulder STILL hurts all the time, I can't sleep on my left side, I can't pick shit up with my left arm, and in general it's just plain shitty.  

My work is moving to hamilton in just over a week! I could bike to work, if I had a bike,  public transit is a pretty decent option, and if I was desperate, I could walk!   

Saturday is the IBJJF Toronto Open.

Then 2 weeks after that is the OJA Tournament in Sudbury, and Grappling Industries in Montreal.  Then, in September Grappling industries is back in Toronto, and the GTA classic is also back!   We will be making the trip down the 401 to the Grappling Industries event.

Can you believe it's August already?  holy crap, where on earth did summer go?  I would have thought that with my shoulder being useless time would have gone slow, but I have no idea what happened to June or July!  

There is going to be a camp at Art of Jiu Jitsu in November!   We had so much fun last summer I really hope we ca get to it.  I've got my fingers crossed that it will be over a weekend so It doesn't take to many vacation days and whatnot.

Oh!  How could I forget,  Rick Slomba from AOJ is going to be at Pura all week next week.  If my MRI shows my shoulder is toast, I'm going to train and deal with the pain.  If it shows it's not so bad, I'll probably sit on the side lines.  Either way, it should be a pretty excellent week.

That's all for now,  I'll have a report for you next week.  Maybe Monday even, but if I am anything like the MRI department at the general, it'll be 2 weeks.

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:

• 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.

OJA Sub Only July 13th 2013 (recap)

Today was the OJAs first sub only tournament.  They were supposed to have one in the fall(i think, maybe winter), but it didn't happen, trouble with finding a venue, scheduling, and who knows what else made it not happen.  It seemed like this one wasn't going to happen either.  It wasn't announced/confirmed util about 6 weeks before it, and information and details were slow to come out and sparse at best.

It was small, probably only about 50 competitors, but the ones that showed up fought hard and fought well.  There were no ladies fights (other then a couple kids who were in mixed divisions), and no brown or black belts.   The biggest division I think had 5 or maybe 6 competitors in it.  The ladies mostly showed up last weekend to the mat militia sub only show, it was free, and announced way before this one.

The tournament started on time, and ran on schedule and ahead of schedule.   There was 6 mat areas, but we probably could have finished the tournament just as quickly on 4.  There was a lot of down time on the mats due to the divisions being small, and the posted schedule fairly spread out.  It wasn't intolerable, and was actually a nice pace.

The kids divisions showed some great jiu jitsu.   They were only allowed to do arm bars, and chokes where the referee can see the other kids face, like RNC, triangles not pulling on their head, collar chokes, and so on.  Not a lot of kids came out, and I can totally understand kids(and their parents/coaches) not wanting to do the sub only format. I think they should probably not have kids divisions next time. That being said, I refereed Ever vs Liam, and these kids showcased amazing jiu jitsu, great cardio, and great heart.  I was really impressed with both of them.  There were also some younger kids on the match beside us that showed amazing transitions and flow. The future of BJJ in ontario is very bright!

There were some amazing fights in the blue and purple divisions to.  I didn't get to watch a lot of the white, so I can't say for sure.  But I did ref one between two guys who obviously knew each other well. They had a good fun match, probably should have focused a little more and chatted less. But it was cool to see the comradeship and whatnot.  I could have gone without the coach(err friend, who really knows if anyone actually considers Mike a coach) heckling and whatnot, but whatever.

The blue belt absolute had some crazy matches.  Myles triangled Sean Kent quickly in the 2nd round and everyone was in shock.  Myles has a ridiculous guard and I hope, for the sake of all the up and coming blue belts, he gets his purple belt soon.  The podium for the blue absolute was gold/silver closed out by Kevin and Kofi from gringos, with the bronze medals going to Matt from pura and Myles from united.

The purple absolute podium looked like this:
1 Alasdair Barr Pura BJJ
2 Greg Deniken Matador BJJ
3 Adam Blackadder Matador BJJ
3 Lonnie Warner Gracie Humaita

There was even a white belt absolute! Which the OJA doesn't usually do, but did anyway, I think because it was a sma turnout and we had time or it.   Here are the white belt winners:

1 Donnie Mckenzie BTT Canada
2 Dean Wheeler Kumo Jiu Jitsu
3 Mark Riley Bruckmann MMA
3 Nick Routier Gringo BJJ

Here are the complete results.


There were a few hiccups, of course.  This was the first event of it's type in ontario.  There have been other sub only events.  But they were invitationals, or open weight only, or more like shows.  This was the first tourament, open to everyone, with divisions and whatnot.  There were some complications which deciding and sticking with how long the matches would be, but it all worked out in the end.  If the silly boys had just listened to me when I said the original way they were doing a few things was unfair and didn't make sense, it would have saved me some headaches and probably others. But hey, it all worked out in the end, and no adult fights ended in a draw.  (any that DID have a time limit didn't hit them).

I think one of the really important things that kept the double dq from happening and got us home on time was the fact that you could lose by stalling.   We called staling pretty quick, and they stacked up like they normally would in a regular match. So there was no stalling out to rest or keep a dominate position.   I don't think anyone actually got dq'd for stalling, but knowing it was possible kept people active.

My team mates had a pretty good day.  We only had 3 guys out, but they managed to place second in the team rankings!   Yes, it's a small tournament, and gringos, at #1 was way ahead. but still,  there were a bunch of teams with the same or more competitors.


That's about it for this event, it was a short day, so it gets a short post!

Next weekend is the grappling industries summer havoc.  Round Robin, early weigh ins, and smooth running make this an event worth showing up to.  They did raise the prices, but there is no sanctioning/organization fee so it's basically the same as it was before.  They are giving away a bunch of trips to 2 different ibjjf events. Mostly for the guys, but 2 for the girls.  All you ladies need to get out to that event because it's such a good opportunity to get lots of matches, and maybe win a trip to a cool tournament in a new city.  I hate that I can't fight, but refereeing is going to give me more then enough trouble with my arm as it is.  Today wasn't to bad, because there was no points to give out, but when i raised one guys hand with it, he was excited and swung it way up fast, and that hurt like a mofo.  

Two weeks after that is the IBJJF Toronto Open.  This event was a bit small last year, but well run, and a good event.   I'm hoping it grows a bit this year, and we can one day rival the New York, Boston, or Chicago open (of course, the ontario open rivals them, but it's not an ibjjf event, but it's just as good as them).

A couple weeks after that is grapping industries sunshine blvd.  Then the GTA Classic.   I don't have a link for that yet.

Lots of good stuff going on in the GTA for the rest of the summer.

See you... around, mostly on the sidelines.

In case you are not up to date on my shoulder situation:
1. I have an MRI scheduled for Sept 26th
2.  Every medical professional (2 very experienced physio therapists, the best sports doc in the country, and his resident surgeon)  all came to the same conclusion about it. That I have a torn labrum, possible torn rotator cuff, and a highly unstable shoulder.  That all have said it will probably need surgery, but they won't order it without an MRI.   I sure hope I can get a cancelation, or can pull some strings to get that MRI moved up, because at this rate, I don't even want to think about when the surgery will be and how long after that I'll be back.   I generally love our health care system, but it's times like this that I curse it.
3.  It was feeling better 2 weeks ago, then I trained a bit, and it got very bad again. I accidentally slept on it a couple nights and it hurts really bad in the morning when I do that.  I thought maybe the injury had been in my head, or that it wasn't as bad as it seemed, or that i donno, it was't as bad as it seemed first off, but the way it's been the last week makes me think It really is that bad :(
4.  I'm trying very hard not to get horribly depressed about it. It's difficult because I am a total endorphin junkie and being so inactive is really difficult for me.

Tata for now!

Why do the ladies get their own sub only tournament?

This was asked by a facebook friend of mine today, after this past weekends mat militia women's sub only event. 

In this case, it was because they had a guys version a few months ago and wanted to give the ladies a chance to showcase their skills as well.    It was free to compete in, and they collected donations to support a breast cancer charity.  All very cool and I am sad that I missed it. 

But, the question still stands and has been talked about by many.  Why do we need / want ladies only camps, classes, tournament and what not?

There are many many reasons, and they don't all apply to everyone and I doubt every reasons would apply to a single person, but it all comes down to community and not being an outsider.

Have you ever walked Into a  room and been the only young person? Old person? Have you ever taken a course and upon surveying the participants felt completely out of place?  Do you have a hobby that society or your friends and or family think first suit you?  Do you wish you had friends you could talk to about your favourite things but can't because none of them have a clue?  If you answer yes to any of these, then you have a slight idea what its like being a lady in the Bjj world. 

It's not abnormal for their to be zero or one girl in a typical class at moat schools. There are some that have more, and because they have more, they attract more, but that is far from the norm.
It's not abnormal for womens divisions in tournaments to have less weight classes(if any) and less belt division. But, even with these accommodations, empty divisions and combined divisions that leave huge disparities in size and skill level. 

Let's be honest when practicing Bjj, we get close, far closer then most people are comfortable with.  It's weird, its awkward at first, and as they say in all the memes "its only gay if you make eye contact".  Shit like that does NOT inspire anyone to try jiu jitsu, and most certainly not women!  Comments like "that's what I came here to see" when a fighter almost has a wardrobe malfunction are equally damning to the sport and don't really make us girls comfortable training or competing with or around guys.  

I've been lucky in my martial arts career, I started judo young before I even thought about how awkward some positions are, so it was normal and not weird for me from day one. Adults coming to the sport don't have that luxury.   I've also trained at schools that always respected me and didn't make me feel like an outsider.   That being said, I did choose to not train at a club because I was told "the guys wouldn't be comfortable with me in the class and that I should try cardio kickboxing". That was a few years ago, the club now has ladies in their classes, and will remain unnamed.

I've also been lucky because I am not an average build, I'm tall, and not exactly built like a model. Years of working with my dad in the tire business, martial arts, and Dutch genetics have made me not exactly petite.  So I don't have the troubles a lot of smaller more petite women do.   That being said, I'm still female, and. While I am not petite, I don't have a guys body either and still struggle with being less strong and having the lovely issues that come with the hormone roller-coaster that is our lives.  (water retention, mood swings, joint issues, ect, higher body fat ext). 

So you say, "really small, and really big guys have to deal with some of these problems to"!  It's true, and I feel bad for them sometimes, but the fact of the matter is, there are minimum 3 more weight classes for guys, and there are also masters and sometime senior divisions and most tournaments.   If. Guy had no one in their division at a small tournament or they are on the extreme ends or in an alder weight class, they will, almost Guaranteed have to chance to move down to adult or up one weight class.  For us, we don't have different age categories, and chances are, there is no one up a weight class, or two, or you are already in the top weight class, which is 50 lbs lighter then the guys.

Here in Ontario, tournament promoters are pretty good about supporting women in the sport.   A lot give us discount registration fees, which some of my male counter parts complain about.  But, as I have explained it to them. With the average division size for women sitting at 1 or 2, of 3 if you are lucky, and the average male division at somewhere between 8 and 16,  if they win, they get 3-5 fights, if we win, we get 1 or 2.  So, it's fair that we pay less right?  Also, many tournament give out prizes for absolutes or specific divisions,  it used to be the norm that the guys prizes would far far far outnumber the ladies, if there was prizes for the ladies at all.  This is also improving greatly, with the Ontario Open giving almost 1/2 to the ladies, and grappling industries committing to always having at least 1 trip for the ladies.  

I've had conversations with masters guys athletes, with them complaining and stating that they should have trip prizes or other prizes for their divisions to, because there are more of them then their are women.  My argument was, and still is,  they have the OPTION to compete in the old guy division, we don't have the option to compete with the guys (not normally anyway, grappling industries has allowed it, in some cases, when there was 0 competition available).  So, they choose to be in the smaller divisions, so I feel like they aren't actually being discriminated against.  That being said, saying the women are discriminated against is not really true either.  It's business plain and simple.  Should there be big trips for divisions/absolutes that have 1 or two competitors in them?  Hardly seems fair to the promoter!  It's not really the promoters fault there is no competition, and it's not the fault of the athletes that did show up either.

It's tricky to balance, and even talk about without someone getting offended.  I think it's totally fair that there are LESS trips/prizes for women, but we should get the chance to compete for a trip if our male counterparts get the chance.  What I mean by that is:  if there is a white belt guys, blue belt guys, purple+ guys, and blue and up girls trip, then the while and blue belt ladies should either have a trip for themselves as well, OR the opportunity to compete up in the division that does have a trip.  Sure, they probably won't win it,  but then, neither do all but 1 of the guys in their respective divisions.  It isn't fair to the promoter to expect them to have exactly equal prizes when the competitor pools are so insanely different in size.

So, why do we need our own classes/camps/events?  So we can complain to each other about all this.   So we can work together to try to fix all this, and so we can roll with some one who isn't either afraid to hurt us or trying to fix their ego by simply overpowering us. and so we don't always have to roll with smelly boys who have cooties. haha.  You think I am joking, but seriously,  boys are smelly.  But then, sometimes girls are to.  PSA to everyone, wash yourself, wash your gi.

For competitions, we need /like our own events because if we have our own events, we can plan them and work together to all get to them.   It's nice to have our own thing.  Also, because we are excluded from events sometimes. Like the gracie nationals, the 32 MAN showdown, and other things.  Most tournaments do have divisions for us, but they tend to be combined weight/belt classes with less prizes and whatnot, which, in most cases I am fine with. But I'm not fine with events that disclude us completely and that is why we "NEED" to have our own sub only event Kofi :P

This blog post really is all over the place isn't it?  Whatever, this is how my trains of thought work.  I am not your typical woe is me, poor me, I am a girl in a boys world type person. I've been lucky with who i've trained with, and the community around me.  I've got a great gi sponsor who supports me, even though I don't give him nearly as much exposure as the guys do(smaller divisions, lack of divisions = mess mat time = less advertising time). I'm also sponsored by grappling industries, who really are trying hard to help the women in the sport.  By being sponsored by them, I compete at their events for free.  This generally means, that any other girls who show up, have someone to fight. I think doing things like this really helps build the sport.  I know a lot of people don't want to register and waste their time/money when they have no one to compete with.  (of course, I am on the side line with this useless shoulder injury, so the theory isn't quite in practice at this moment).

So, ummm, yea.  Girls only events are cool. I wish we had more of them.  Co-ed events are even better.  Guys only events already exist and on one even blinks or notices.

If you are a member of the female half of the population, there are a bunch of facebook groups where there are open mats organized and stuff.  Ontario has one, Boston has one, There is the Women's Grappling Network,  the Grappling Camp group, and I am sure there are many more.  If you are looking for opportunities to roll and train with women they are out there!!

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!

Handy Dandy Rules and Format Comparison

Hi Everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Womens -132.2lbs +132.2lbs

• 34 - IBJJF Weight Classes

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

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

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

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

• 36 - Naga Weight Classes

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

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

• 38 - Five Grappling Weight classes

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

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

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

Upcoming events in the Ontario Area (Summer Edition)

Hello Lovelies!

As you probably know, my shoulder is fucked. So I won't be competing in most (likely any) of these events! But, I thought, just because I can't compete, doesn't mean I can't talk a bit about them and help the potential competitors get an idea what each is about and the history and whatnot of them.

Saturday June 22nd - Ottawa International BJJ Championships.  This is the second year for this event.  I thought I wrote a blog post about this one last year, but it appears I did not.  So, here is a mini re-cap.  It was pretty much BTT Canada vs team Renzo Gracie, with a sprinkling of other teams mixed in.  It was part of a fit-day expo of some sort, and there were fitness model competitions, crossfit, and pole dancing demos going on in the same venue.  We brought a team of 4 to the event (myself, Alasdair, Greg M, and Jon), and managed to place 3rd overall in adult gi.  This year,  it seems like they have a much larger variety of teams coming out to the event, which will be good.   There are a bunch of brown belts registered and it's shaping up to be a pretty epic super fight like brown belt absolute.  Here is the facebook event for the tournament and here is the events official website.  Registration closes TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. So get on that.  Now.

Saturday June 29th - Five Grappling presents Ontario 1.  These guys are shaking things up a bit.  They are tweaking the rules, bringing in HUGE super fights, a ridiculous seminar(Marcelo and Xande), and tonnes of prizes and gifts(gear bags, sub prizes, lanyards, something from storm, and more) for the competitors.  They have been working their asses off to promote this event and I really hope the community supports them for all their effort.

The rule tweaks (that I LOVE):

1. Kneebars and wrist locks for all adults.  Personally, I maybe would have kept keebars to blue and up, but the current IBJJF rules that don't allow them until brown is just silly.  I think Kneebars are great, and they areally aren't that much more dangerous than an armbar, unless you try to be a hero and twist out and bust your know knee up.  Wrist locks are the same, as long as people aren't assholes about it, they are perfectly safe.  
2. No Advantages.  This means no more almost passing, or almost sweeping and sitting on an advantage for 10 minutes to squeak out a win. 
3. 2 points for coming up from the double guard pull.  This should mean that people will be more willing to come up, b/c if they get re-swept, the score is still even, instead of them only having an advantage, and the other guy having 2 points.  I think it will make for a more aggressive game.
4. 6 minute matches, ala Abu Dhabi Pro.  I like it,  it means people can push the pace, and not worry about having to fight for 10 minutes. and it means if people are going to stall, we only have to watch 6 minutes of it, instead of 10.  
5. Weigh in 1-4 hours before your division.  This means, if you are close, you don't have to starve yourself all day.  It also means when it's time for a division to start, we don't have to wait for everyone to get weighed in.  This should make for a much smoother process.

This tournament got input from 25 or so of the top BJJ competitors in the world when they were planning this event, and making the rules, and everything. They are trying to make the sport more spectator and competitor friendly and I think they are headed in the right direction.   I will likely be helping out with tables, or something at this event

Saturday July 6th - Mat Militia Ladies Sub Only Show.    I was pumped for this event when they announced it.  I was going to be in it, but now I can't.  I think the divisions are full, but you should totally go watch it and support the event.  They are accepting donations for the Breast Cancer Society of Canada at the event and the whole thing is being run to raise money for that.  There is no entry fee for the competitors, but everyone is being encouraged to donate to the cause.  Some of Ontario's top ladies are competing and it's going to be an excellent showcase of jiu jitsu!    I will likely be helping referee at this event.

Saturday July 13th - IBJJF New York Open.   Does it seem like they just had one here? Why yes, they did!  It was a solid event, and I'd go back, If I could compete.  I think it will be a bit smaller this time around, since it's been less then 6 months since the last one, and Mundials just happened and no one likes to compete in the summer.  That being said, It's a good venue, reliable competition and they have nice big medals.  So, if you are in the area, it's worth checking out.  Pre-register only, and don't be that guy or girl who complains about registration closing early because it's full and you booked your flight and hotel before registering and now are screwed. Register first, then book your travel. 

Saturday July 13th - OJA Sub Only Event. This is going down in Thornhill, which is close to Toronto. It's GI only, and that's about all the information that is available at this point. It will be no time limit I believe, kids age 11 and up and should be a lovely time.   I hope they can get more information, and registration, and whatnot out soon, or this might be a dud.  They tried to have one about 6 months ago, but scheduling and venue conflicts just made it not happen. At least, if it does end up sucking, the ladies have the Mat Militia event the week before to have fun at.   I will likely be refereeing (though, not much to referee in sub-only), and or supporting my team mates.

Saturday July 20th  - Grappling Industries: Summer Havok    They recently announced that they will be doing this tournament INDEPENDENTLY.  This gets them free from the political fight between the OJA and the OGA, and hopefully means that those people who are strictly on either side can now support the event.  That being said, I have talked to the guys who run this(since I work for the event, and happen to be sponsored by them) and they have assured me that they have a great insurance policy that has equal coverage to what the OGA or OJA have.  So, don't worry, It is perfectly SAFE to compete at this event.    

Alright, on to the good stuff!  EIGHT trips are being awarded as prizes for absolutes.  TWO of those are going to the ladies!!   They will also have prizes from their sponsors, as usual.  The rest of the tournament will be as usual for these guys, round robin (4 fights), morning weigh ins, no gi on for the weigh ins,  competent referees and a good atmosphere.  They will be recording the fights, but they have been slow to get them posted.  They don't mind if you record your fights yourself.   One difference will be, since there is no OGA registration to deal with, the process in the morning should be much simpler and smoother! YAY!  I really hope my shoulder is magically better in time for this, because it seems like every time they put trips on for the ladies, I'm broken.  Last time it was the concussion, now my shoulder.  I competed at the last one in Montreal, when there was no trip of course. (I didn't win anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter that there was no trip heh)  I'll be refereeing at this event!

Saturday August 3rd - IBJJF TORONTO   Last year was the first year the IBJJF brought their event to Ontario and it was a well run event.  It was smaller than most of their tournaments, but just as well run.  I think this year will be bigger and better than last.  Now that people know that the IBJJF run a great event, I think they will be more willing to shell out the slightly higher entry fee to participate.  That being said, this past Ontario Open was run as well as any IBJJF tournament I've been to, so they may have to step up their game if they want to lure people out.  Here is the facebook event for the tournament.The IBJJF only uses brown and black belt referees, so I won't be working at this event, but, if my shoulder is healed up, I'll be competing.  

Saturday August 17th - OJA Northern Ontario Championships  This will be the first BJJ tournament in Northern Ontario (that I am aware of).  It's a bit of a trek for most of us, but Sudbury is a pretty beautiful area,  so make a weekend camping trip of it or something.  This should be a solid event, but I have a feeling it will be small.  Hopefully they get people from Manitoba out or something.  

Saturday August 17th - Grappling Industries Montreal: Nogi Worlds Edition  This is likely where I will be this weekend.  It's not that I don't like sudbury, but the OJA separates blues and purples, and there are only about 10 purple belt girls (being generous) in ontario, and none of them are near sudbury.  There are lots of blue and purple belt girls in the Montreal area, so the chance of having someone to compete with is much higher at this event.  Also, I'd rather have 4 fights than 1 or 2.  That being said,  you know the drill by now about these events.  The Montreal ones are smaller, but equally well run.  They get a lot of MMA and Judo guys out, so the vibe is a bit different.  Be prepared to see guys almost lose by stalling b/c they don't know you can't just sit in side control to win a match.  They are giving out 3 trips to NoGi worlds at this one (edit: confirmed: one of which is for the ladies), so If you are hunting for a prize trip, check it out.

That about round off the summer. I hope I didn't miss any. There are a million IBJJF tournaments happening all over the world now, a bunch of which are this summer, chicago, boston, atlanta.  They aren't really in my area, and I won't be travelling to them, so I didn't get into the details on them.  All will be solid tournaments, in theory, so If you are in those areas, check out the IBJJF schedule for more info.  

In September we will likely have another Grappling Industries tournament, and the GTA classic, but I don't think either has been officially announced and neither has a confirmed venue and date, so I won't post about them officially let.

See you on the mats (or the sidelines, whatever)!

IBJJF Worlds AKA Mundials 2013 Tournament Report

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

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

The tournament in General

The good stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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