Martial Farts

I won’t bother describing the whole weekend as I will be uploading a video showing the adventure later on.

This is about the BJJ!

Team Scramble!

First up was Andy, who’s been training MMA for a while, and grappling only a few months. My advice to him was to “be first”, knowing that the person who initiates or completes the first takedown has a huge psychological (and points) advantage. Andy pressed the action straightaway and had his opponent on the back foot. They scrambled for a while and eventually hit the floor. I can’t quite remember exactly what happened but Andy ended up fighting to keep the guy from taking his back.

In a moment of clarity, as the guy started sinking in an armbar, I yelled to Andy “Step over his head with your left leg!” at the top of my voice. Andy heard, pointed to his right leg, I shook my head, he pointed to his left, I nodded, he stepped over and saved himself from the armbar. Awesome!

After that, Andy passed the guys guard and had a good grip for side control. He held it for one… two… thr— the guy started wriggling and… no points! What?! The match was over with Andy losing to two advantages. Points really could have been awarded for Andy’s guard pass but hey ho, that’s the way it goes.

He put in a sterling effort for his first competition, and on such a big stage, too.

A couple of hours later I was up.

I had purposefully changed my plan of attack for this. I am tired of being a BJJ guy who pulls guard or drops down like an octopus with a hangover, and had been practicing my shots. I did shoot. It felt good, but looking at the video it was pretty lame. Still, at least I have a shot to call lame now. My little shot, that I will pet and groom and feed until it gets big and strong. Anyway, my opponent, Aaron, was kind of pulling guard at the time so an easy two points for me.

He had a tricky guard and although I felt strong pinning his arms and standing up to try to break it, it wasn’t happening. I fended off a couple of triangle attempts and found myself in an armbar. Aaron spun to sink it in, then I felt the pressure suddenly ease off so I followed him to the ground and passed his guard. Then I realised the ref was tapping me and everyone was shouting.

I think the fact that just about every official there was from Braulio’s (my opponent’s) team meant they were a teensy bit eager to call the match. I was honestly flummoxed as I had not even started to tap. Luckily they recognised it and allowed the fight to continue.

Then I got triangled. Balls! Aaron was good; his triangle just crept up on me and before I knew it I was seeing stars. (He went on to win the gold via triangle too, so that’s good.)

Aaron and some butt face.

After the fight he told me he read my blog, which was cool. Interestingly he had seen my videos and noticed that I liked to play guard a lot, which is why he had pulled guard himself. And I had surprised him with the takedown! That tickled me.

The judge told me straight away I would be fighting again for third place, which was a good consolation. I really wanted third place.

I had about 20 minutes or something, and then fought again. Same deal, shot for the takedown, ended up on top. He had some deep hooks but I defended the sweep pretty well.

I put my head down for the Arimaki pass, usually a staunch and reliable soldier in my arsenal. However, I didn’t tuck my head in enough and presented my pencil neck for him to wrench off, which he dutifully did. It’s still sore now.

So, two fights and two losses. Bums.

There was plenty of good news though.

The fights were fun, and I didn’t get slaughtered. I learnt two very important lessons. 1) If you feel a triangle creeping up, do something about it. 2) Tuck the head in during the Aramaki pass.

I didn’t feel out of my depth at all, which was different to my first comp at blue belt. I was pleased about that. I felt physically strong enough to compete at the same level as my opponents which was also a good feeling.

We hung out most of the day with John from Art of Jits, who’s acquaintance I’m very happy to have made.

I met another guy, Daire Darragh (hello Daire Darragh) who confessed to being a reader of my blog.

And I sold a couple of magazines.

LOOK AT THE LOVELY MAGAZINEY YUM YUMS

I had a little chat with Roger Gracie, with Braulio, with Lagarto, with Nick Brooks, and generally hob nobbed with the very likeable British BJJ crowd.

There were some excellent fights, with Nick Gregoriades competing against Luciano Cristovam (I may have totally butchered those two names… oops.) at the Elite class, and some guys from London Fight Factory absolutely cleaning up a whole bunch of divisions. Two of their fighters fought each other in the final and put in a very acrobatic display of awesomess.

Flying sockbar

Look out for the video soon!

Lots of peoples.