Saturday, I competed in my first tournament as a Blue Belt. I had to drive two hours to get to the venue before 9:30 am so that I could weigh in. When I got the, I realized that I could have slept in for a while longer as the weigh-ins were very unorganized.
Andrew, Brian, and Chrissy were doing the bracketing for the tournament. They really do a great job getting the brackets set up.
The tournament itself was very long! I had to wait ALL DAY before I could compete. Normally, with the US Grappling events, the executive (30+ age bracket) goes in the morning and I would be done by 2pm at the latest. With this tournament, my bracket did not get called until 4:30pm. Once my bracket did get called, I was pretty relaxed and ready to go. I tried to sleep earlier in the day but just could not get comfortable.
My first match went alright. I got caught in a baseball bat choke. I would like to say that I won my fist Blue Belt match, but I didn’t. I pulled guard and had a sloppy scissor-half position when I went for a kimura. My opponent crushed my legs to the ground and passed my guard. He then got a hand in my collar and I fought hard to not allow him to get his other hand in. He did eventually get his hand in and checked me. I was pretty discouraged, but Andrew reassured me that it was just my first time as a blue, so I took solace in that. I felt like I should have done better in that match, but oh well it was very good experience.
My next match was much better for me. My opponent pulled guard and started working for submissions. He was pretty aggressive, but I weathered the storm of his attacks and with 30 seconds left in the match, I passed his guard and started working to submit him. We got too close to the edge of the mat and the referee stopped the match and restarted us in the center of the ring. At that point, there was about 10 seconds in the match and all I had to do was hold on and not allow him to reverse the position. In the end, I held on to win. I ended up getting second place overall in my division. It felt so good to get my first win as a blue belt. It is starting to sink in that I can compete at that level.
Jay Rollins (my teammate from downtown), was also there competing. This was his first real tournament. He did the in-house tournament this past December, and has been fairly consistent in his training for the past few months. He is still very new and needs to drill a lot, but he pulled out a 3rd place finish in White Belt super lightweight. In all, he won 3 matches and showed a lot of heart!
Sunday was open mat at Andrew’s school. I got to roll with Tyler (blue belt from Yamaski), Andrew, Vince, Dax, and Daniel. I felt really good rolling with those guys. My teammates are so good and I feel like they make me better every time that I roll!
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