I decided that I wanted to compete in grappling this semester, and my BJJ club just sent me an email about an upcoming tournament. http://www.prokarateweekly.com/Story101.htm I am, of course, highly excited/terrified about this tournament. The only competitions I've ever done before were tournament karate and special divisions (kickboxing, etc.) run at karate tournaments. I've done BJJ for about 8 months over the course of the last year, and judo for about two months in the middle of that. I plan on entering the novice division. I'm around 145, so I'm not sure what division I'll weigh in at. My big fears are the following: -Someone throwing all their weight into an armbar and breaking my arm. -The fact that the no-gi division allows leg locks, including heel hooks -Wrestlers. People who wrestled in high school for 4 years and then do BJJ just terrify me. Any advice for an upcoming grappler?
those are some slightly oddball rules. shirt grabbing is allowed? heel hooks are one reason i don't compete no gi anymore (outside of inhouse tournaments). just not worth it. (the other reason is that i don't compete at all right now ) usually i see heel hooks allowed for advanced only. edit: wait, if you're competing novice, heel hooks aren't an issue *anyway.* find out exactly what you weigh, and if they're weighing in with or without gi (probably without). if you can get under 145, do so. it's very unlikely that someone will break your arm. i had my elbow hyperextended at a tournament, but definitely not broken. did take me out for a couple weeks. oh, and wrestlers aren't a problem. wrestlers with RINGWORM are a problem. (still not sure why they let that guy on the mats...)
Whooo! My tournament was yesterday. It went, I must say, quite well. I took bronze in gi and silver in no-gi, fighting a grand total of five matches and winning three of them (two by armbar, one by points). I managed to get in one "big air" hip throw (koshi garuma) in the no-gi division, which made me very happy. I guess the cross training in judo is paying off. I managed to completely avoid getting injured. My fear of leg locks were for naught - even if the divisions they were allowed in, I think I only some one attempt at an ankle lock. It was a really fun experience. I can't wait till my next BJJ tournament. Hopefully, there will be some videos up soon that I can post.
Nice one. Yeah the whole BJJ competitive thing isn't really all that scarey. If you come from a striking background where the pressure is full-on then BJJ tournies will seem pretty tame by comparison. I've only been to two myself... but they were skads easier in many ways than even the earliest amatuer fights I had in either Muay Thai or Boxing. The overall attitude is much, much different. Much more mellow. And in general it doesn't take ages to recover like it can in boxing or Muay Thai... even when you win. Keep at it bro and keep us posted!
No videos yet... but I have a few pictures of my no gi matches. I'm the one in the fetching bicycle shorts and WMU Gamer's Guild t-shirt (I fight on behalf of all nerds!). I'm desperately trying to hold down my opponent in a scarfhold after a koshi garuma. He started to take my back, but I shrimped out and got an armbar from guard. This after said armbar. He claimed that he didn't tap out; this picture indicates otherwise. Regardless, it was a good thing the referee stopped him, because his elbow was starting to make noises. A lot of the fight looked like this. I got several armbars and triangles from the guard, but he stacked me and I couldn't finish them. He also came very close to getting me in a kimura at one point. I eventually won this match by points, after what felt like 15 minutes of grappling. I've got another tournament coming up on the 24th. I'm already excited for it.
Nice! err... nice biker shorts. Seriously though... good on ya mate. Big props for competing and posting the fotos. Looks like good fun was had. A few questions: Why did you wear wrestling shoes? Is that what you normally train in? What was the approx. total numbers in attendance? Did they run it where they had two bouts going on at the same time? Did they have an open weight cateogry where you could possilby end up grappling against someone who was much heavier than you? It seems like gettin' video footage is always the biggest pain at comps. Everytime I go to get it - my bouts seem to have only been shot by the other countries teams and with the rivalry between us and Taiwan... not much chance of gettin' copies of it. Damn.
Thanks. I find the shorts both comfortable and fashionable . I am still up in the air on whether or not I prefer to wear shoes. I got the wrestling shoes over Christmas, mostly to protect my toes (I came very close to a toe injury). In training, I tend not to wear them that often, as I prefer to be better ventilated. I find they get in the way on some things (like try to sweep my leg over for an armbar), but I've been told they're a big help with takedowns and takedown defense. There was a fairly large attendance. I'm not sure the total number, but I'd estimate several dozen. Much better than I usually saw at karate tournaments. There were also a lot of people watching. They actually had four rings going simultaneously, which was nice. It all went pretty expeditiously. There was an absolute division (no weight or skill categories), but I did not compete in it. Seeing as I was in the lowest skill and weight category myself, I was content just to do my own divisions. However, one of the people from my club did win the absolute division. There was someone from my club with a camcorder, and I believe he got my fights. Hopefully I'll be able to get those videos from him.
Congrats Great job McClaw. We call the scarf hold kesagatame in judo. You looked good out there mate. Look most people don't even have enough guts to just get out there and compete. Here's a great saying I picked up from one of my students. We all get butterflies in our gut when we compete. The trick is to get those butterflies in the right formation. Congratulations again. Thanks, Sensei Tom
Congrats mate. I did a comp a few months ago. I hadn't trained for a few months and was overweight so I ended up in the 73kg-83kg category. Only trouble was, no other women turned up, so ended up in the MEN's 73kg-83kg category. Ouch!! It was a good laugh though and great experience. I managed to hold 3 out of 7 of them of them to draws, so I was quite pleased overall. And it was 7 more rolls than I would have done that week otherwise!!
Videos! The videos of the tournament are finally up on youtube! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1XJnmezbhY]First Gi Fight[/ame] This one switches between my fight and that of another person in my club. I'm the one in the shoes. I got really, really exhausted in this fight. I managed to buy some time at the end by jumping through with the triangle, and so I lost by points instead of submission. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALwcjVrbEKo]Second Gi Fight[/ame] The fight for bronze. I'll let this one speak for itself. Unfortunately, the end of the fight is missing - I ended up winning by armbar, not by choke. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-86koIiTZ8]First No-gi fight[/ame] One of my favorites. I got a nice hip throw about 58 seconds into it. The other guy seems kind of upset at the end when I hug him. He claims he didn't tap out, but the ref said he would've stopped it anyway. Win win for me. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNhFyd7sgSE]Second No-Gi fight[/ame] Sadly, most of this fight is missing. But trust me, it was epic. I won by points. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d6ffwGiQFk]Third no-gi fight[/ame] I got completely and utterly owned in this fight. At least I made it to the finals. My lessons from this: I need to tighten up my armbars and triangle chokes. I got a lot of them, but I couldn't sink them most of the time. I need to defend my back better. I lost my back a couple times while trying to keep side control. Stacking. I got stacked a lot. I need to get better at defending that.
