Hey Bro, How did the tournament go?
Yeah I know, the tournament was like 2 weeks ago, but better late than never right? I am not gonna even type a new better written recap, but instead copy and paste snippets from emails already sent. Yay lazy!
This is actually two modified emails that I sent to a friend that was curious about my first BJJ tournament. It's long, so read at your own risk.
Email One
...The tournament was a lot of fun. I forget the name of the high school where it was held, but you go here for more info.
We got there at about 9am for weigh in. I weighed in at 174.5 and LV at 165 with gi's on. I think we were both in our respective middle weight divisions.
The order of the tournament is as follows: kids, juniors, women, men's masters (above age 30), men's adult. Within these groups the order is by descending belt rank so...brown belts go before white belts.
So... for most of the tournament I got to hang out, watch other people's matches, and cheer on the people that I roll with on a weekly basis. Good times. This is probably what I like the most about the tournament. Lots of people came out to show their support. The kids divisions were awesome because...they are kids, and kids are always cute. Surprisingly some of them were really good. I saw armbars and triangles! getting performed by kids that barely come up to my waist. The women's divisions were also fun to watch. I have a new found fear of short girls with corn rows because of a certain tiny but ferocious girl that tackled and armbarred her opponent in about 60 seconds. And then there was LV.
At about noon LV's division was called. So we all giddily relocated to go cheer her on.
There was actually only one other girl in LV's division, but since a different girl that was supposed to be in like superheavy weight unlimited (she was 220lbs) didn't have anyone to wrestle with, the 3 girls got combined in the unlimited bracket.
LV went 2-0 in this bracket. Let's say there was LV, Girl A , and Girl B(for BIG). Girl A beat Girl B. Next, LV beat Girl A. Then Girl B beat Girl A, and finally LV beat Girl B. Seems like the beginning of a logic puzzle, but that's how it went. So anyways, KC won match 1 with a collar choke, and match two with an armbar. I can give you more details. But I think I will send you a couple videos.
So she took gold in this bracket and then fought Girl A in one round to take gold in her actual bracket.
I'm gonna go get lunch, but I will fill you in on the rest later.
Email Two
...LV did a great job handling the two girls. She won three matches by submissions, got 2 golds and was ready to throw down with some lunch by about 12:30.
Oh I mentioned the order of matches in the last email. If you did not pick this out from my explanation - my bracket was near the last to go. So at 12:30 I was expecting to start before 3, since the tournament was over at 3 pm the previous year, but more people were competing this year. So... I sat around hanging out, drinking water, watching matches, and oscillating between being nervous and not caring. Drinking water killed time, but it made me a regular of the third urinal from the left in the men's room.
My bracket didn't actually get called until about 4:30. By this time, I was just tired of waiting. I wasn't nervous, nor was I pumped. I was more relieved than anything else. We had 18 people in our bracket, which was one of the largest if not the largest bracket. I knew that if I kept winning I would have to win at least 5 matches to medal because there were so many people.
About four matches went by before my name was called. Me and my opponent went onto the mat. He changed out of his whitebelt to a red belt, we shook hands, the ref said a little spiel, and the 6 minutes started. Even though I didn't feel nervous, as soon as the match started, something came over me. Background sound was muffled, my body started feeling heavy, and my mind and body didn't quite feel in sync. I assumed it was a huge adrenaline dump across my nervous and circulatory system. The weird thing was that I didn't feel nervous..or what I think nervous usually feels like...but anyways.. I really didn't have much time to think at that moment because my opponent was trying to push/pull me around. I guess the adrenaline caused me to get tired really fast, so all I could do was try to conserve energy and let my opponent expend without giving him too much. One strategy that I used, which I learned from my roommate, was to put the top of my head under his chin kind of by his chest so that when tried coming forward while we were pulling/pushing at each other he would be uncomfortable. That's about all the strategy that I could muster in the state I was in. After about a few minutes of pushing and pulling back and forth with no take downs, my oppenent managed to get a leg. Like usual, I sprawled my legs back, but I couldn't get one free. In my efforts to readjust, I ended up sitting on my butt, which gave away 2 points for a takedown.
I don't know how much you know about BJJ positions, so I am just gonna say that I ended up getting 3 points with a minute left and stalling the rest of the match. So i won. 3-2.
30 minutes later I lost 2-0 (take down). This definitely was more of a "real" take down but was more of a result of my stupidity than my opponent being strong or fast. I almost got a sweep that would have given me the win, but time ran out.
30 minutes after that I lost 1-0 (sudden death take down).
So I didn't really get to do much BJJ because of my lack of aggressive take downs.
I wasn't really disappointed because it was a fun weekend, and I feel closer to people in my class, but as the days went by I was definitely a little upset because I feel like I didn't really get to do much "real" BJJ. Oh well, we live and learn.
Anyways...the experience definitely has changed the way I train and has made me more interested in BJJ/JKD...
Oh yeah, Team McVicker took 2nd place for like the 3rd year in a row, and more detail results can be found here because the Hoosier Open page has not been updated yet.
Oh btw, I like BJJ!
Yeah I know, the tournament was like 2 weeks ago, but better late than never right? I am not gonna even type a new better written recap, but instead copy and paste snippets from emails already sent. Yay lazy!
This is actually two modified emails that I sent to a friend that was curious about my first BJJ tournament. It's long, so read at your own risk.
Email One
...The tournament was a lot of fun. I forget the name of the high school where it was held, but you go here for more info.
We got there at about 9am for weigh in. I weighed in at 174.5 and LV at 165 with gi's on. I think we were both in our respective middle weight divisions.
The order of the tournament is as follows: kids, juniors, women, men's masters (above age 30), men's adult. Within these groups the order is by descending belt rank so...brown belts go before white belts.
So... for most of the tournament I got to hang out, watch other people's matches, and cheer on the people that I roll with on a weekly basis. Good times. This is probably what I like the most about the tournament. Lots of people came out to show their support. The kids divisions were awesome because...they are kids, and kids are always cute. Surprisingly some of them were really good. I saw armbars and triangles! getting performed by kids that barely come up to my waist. The women's divisions were also fun to watch. I have a new found fear of short girls with corn rows because of a certain tiny but ferocious girl that tackled and armbarred her opponent in about 60 seconds. And then there was LV.
At about noon LV's division was called. So we all giddily relocated to go cheer her on.
There was actually only one other girl in LV's division, but since a different girl that was supposed to be in like superheavy weight unlimited (she was 220lbs) didn't have anyone to wrestle with, the 3 girls got combined in the unlimited bracket.
LV went 2-0 in this bracket. Let's say there was LV, Girl A , and Girl B(for BIG). Girl A beat Girl B. Next, LV beat Girl A. Then Girl B beat Girl A, and finally LV beat Girl B. Seems like the beginning of a logic puzzle, but that's how it went. So anyways, KC won match 1 with a collar choke, and match two with an armbar. I can give you more details. But I think I will send you a couple videos.
So she took gold in this bracket and then fought Girl A in one round to take gold in her actual bracket.
I'm gonna go get lunch, but I will fill you in on the rest later.
Email Two
...LV did a great job handling the two girls. She won three matches by submissions, got 2 golds and was ready to throw down with some lunch by about 12:30.
Oh I mentioned the order of matches in the last email. If you did not pick this out from my explanation - my bracket was near the last to go. So at 12:30 I was expecting to start before 3, since the tournament was over at 3 pm the previous year, but more people were competing this year. So... I sat around hanging out, drinking water, watching matches, and oscillating between being nervous and not caring. Drinking water killed time, but it made me a regular of the third urinal from the left in the men's room.
My bracket didn't actually get called until about 4:30. By this time, I was just tired of waiting. I wasn't nervous, nor was I pumped. I was more relieved than anything else. We had 18 people in our bracket, which was one of the largest if not the largest bracket. I knew that if I kept winning I would have to win at least 5 matches to medal because there were so many people.
About four matches went by before my name was called. Me and my opponent went onto the mat. He changed out of his whitebelt to a red belt, we shook hands, the ref said a little spiel, and the 6 minutes started. Even though I didn't feel nervous, as soon as the match started, something came over me. Background sound was muffled, my body started feeling heavy, and my mind and body didn't quite feel in sync. I assumed it was a huge adrenaline dump across my nervous and circulatory system. The weird thing was that I didn't feel nervous..or what I think nervous usually feels like...but anyways.. I really didn't have much time to think at that moment because my opponent was trying to push/pull me around. I guess the adrenaline caused me to get tired really fast, so all I could do was try to conserve energy and let my opponent expend without giving him too much. One strategy that I used, which I learned from my roommate, was to put the top of my head under his chin kind of by his chest so that when tried coming forward while we were pulling/pushing at each other he would be uncomfortable. That's about all the strategy that I could muster in the state I was in. After about a few minutes of pushing and pulling back and forth with no take downs, my oppenent managed to get a leg. Like usual, I sprawled my legs back, but I couldn't get one free. In my efforts to readjust, I ended up sitting on my butt, which gave away 2 points for a takedown.
I don't know how much you know about BJJ positions, so I am just gonna say that I ended up getting 3 points with a minute left and stalling the rest of the match. So i won. 3-2.
30 minutes later I lost 2-0 (take down). This definitely was more of a "real" take down but was more of a result of my stupidity than my opponent being strong or fast. I almost got a sweep that would have given me the win, but time ran out.
30 minutes after that I lost 1-0 (sudden death take down).
So I didn't really get to do much BJJ because of my lack of aggressive take downs.
I wasn't really disappointed because it was a fun weekend, and I feel closer to people in my class, but as the days went by I was definitely a little upset because I feel like I didn't really get to do much "real" BJJ. Oh well, we live and learn.
Anyways...the experience definitely has changed the way I train and has made me more interested in BJJ/JKD...
Oh yeah, Team McVicker took 2nd place for like the 3rd year in a row, and more detail results can be found here because the Hoosier Open page has not been updated yet.
Oh btw, I like BJJ!
posted by Brandon at 5:41 PM
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