Masters/Seniors Worlds Attendees

[metallifan3091]

Alright, cool. I was mostly just curious, as I don't really see him competing much (if at all) and almost certainly not in IBJJF tournaments. Also out of curiosity, would it theoretically be possible for him to intentionally register down an age division or two (i.e. Senior 3 instead of 5) so that he entered a division that had people in it?

 

[Spazzmaster]

^ Sure, older competitors challenge themselves by entering younger divisions all the time. Guys like Felipe Costa and Eduardo Telles often enter the Adult divisions even though they qualified as Masters six or seven years ago.

 

[metallifan3091]

Alright, that's what I thought. Thanks for the information. He often jokes that if there were a 'geriatric division', he'd compete, but the truth of the matter is that despite me being 22 and him being 61, he's significantly more muscular than me. We're about the same height and weight, but he's much, much stronger than I am and quite healthy for his age (no nagging injuries or illnesses to speak of) and once he started training I think that his cardio would improve quickly. It's mostly a matter of convincing him to start, which is tough because I'm currently living almost 3000 miles away.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I got beat first round too...haha

It literally happened to half of us.

 

[gsxrpaul]

Honestly, it's not worth it to enter at that age. There are very few competitors in that division. Eight Senior 5 guys at this year's Masters/Seniors Worlds got no matches, just participation medals.

Yeah you usually get one match if that.
One of my teammates who did Senior 4 commented how he had 21 guys in his entire Senior 4 division, and I had 21 just in my light feather division. Still upset with my 3rd match, but I always learn something when I lose.

 

[TsunamiBJJ]

I'm wondering what to do next year. I'm 35 right now, so I could enter Senior 1 next year, but I really want to just drop weight and compete in Masters again.

 

[AzRich75]

I lost my first match as well to David Veloria out of Gracie Barra Seattle. I am the bald bearded one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RB1jNtr3M4

I got the drop seo nagi that goes off screen when he rushed me the second time but could not get him all the way to his back before being reset for going out of bounds. I then countered his single with an uchi mata but didn't settle into top and ended up with him in my guard resetting to middle. Once I had him in guard I just could not do anything with him due to how long he was....lol.

Feel good being my first tournament at purple except that I blew out the cartilage in my upper chest/sternum by landing on his head when I pulled the uchi mata.:icon_chee

 

[DFWGrappler]

One of the reasons I hesitate to do big IBJJF tournaments is the single elimination format. It will cast me $1000-$1500 to go to the Pans or Masters Worlds. One and done sucks. At least USJA is double elimination.

One of my opponents at Worlds about 4 years ago Immediatly at the start of our first round match shot a takedown attempt and I immedietly caught him in a guillotine...whole match was less than 10 seconds. He was from New Jersey and was pissed as he mentioned that he had spent $2700.00" in expenses (flights, hotels, ect..) for him and his wife to travel to Long Beach to compete. That's crazzzzy!!

 

[Knock Out Ned]

I've always had to do the adult division. Now that I'll be back in the U.S., I'm looking forward to having a chance to compete in the Master's division.

How do you guys, that are purple, brown, and black belts, like the shorter match times? Do you feel less tired during your matches and do you feel like you have more in the gas tank after your first match (if you win)? Also, overall do you find that there is less stalling?

 

[AzRich75]

I've always had to do the adult division. Now that I'll be back in the U.S., I'm looking forward to having a chance to compete in the Master's division.

How do you guys, that are purple, brown, and black belts, like the shorter match times? Do you feel less tired during your matches and do you feel like you have more in the gas tank after your first match (if you win)? Also, overall do you find that there is less stalling?

I got called for stalling last year despite getting four advantages to my opponents zero and my opponent this year got called for stalling. It can still happen.

The shorter times are probably a blessing for some and a curse for others. Depending on how you train is how you will feel. We do 5/6/7/8 minute matches at our academy at any given time so the shorter time is not really a plus as being able to go all out and not worry about gassing, but you need to be pretty conscience of the clock and points if you are a points player.

 

[Spazzmaster]

Just wanted to post this somewhere. Saulo in action. So calm

 

[TsunamiBJJ]

I've always had to do the adult division. Now that I'll be back in the U.S., I'm looking forward to having a chance to compete in the Master's division.

How do you guys, that are purple, brown, and black belts, like the shorter match times? Do you feel less tired during your matches and do you feel like you have more in the gas tank after your first match (if you win)? Also, overall do you find that there is less stalling?

The shorter match times means you keep a higher pace. I was more active and engaged in more scrambles in the match that I won than I would normally would be in a tournament with longer matches.

Another factor was that there was around 40 minutes between my matches. At least it was supposed to be about 40 minutes between my matches, but it ended up being less. That's a good amount of time to recover, so even though I ended up going against a guy with a bye in the first round, I don't think that having a match before that was a huge factor in why I lost my second round match.

Other than the matches running behind I really liked the format of the tournament.

I will also say that the level of competition between blue and purple is pretty different. This was my first purple belt tournament, and my first IBJJF tournament. I felt somewhat good about winning my first match, but really annoyed by losing my second. The day after my bracket I was speaking to a fellow competitor that won his bracket the year before at blue belt and this year he lost his first match at purple. There's definitely a step up in competition.

 

[Uchi Mata]

The shorter match times means you keep a higher pace. I was more active and engaged in more scrambles in the match that I won than I would normally would be in a tournament with longer matches.

Another factor was that there was around 40 minutes between my matches. At least it was supposed to be about 40 minutes between my matches, but it ended up being less. That's a good amount of time to recover, so even though I ended up going against a guy with a bye in the first round, I don't think that having a match before that was a huge factor in why I lost my second round match.

Other than the matches running behind I really liked the format of the tournament.

I will also say that the level of competition between blue and purple is pretty different. This was my first purple belt tournament, and my first IBJJF tournament. I felt somewhat good about winning my first match, but really annoyed by losing my second. The day after my bracket I was speaking to a fellow competitor that won his bracket the year before at blue belt and this year he lost his first match at purple. There's definitely a step up in competition.

For sure. I don't think I lost more than maybe 1 match my last year as a blue belt, I'm something like 2-4 as a purple belt. And some of those matches I lost, I got beaten really badly which I think only ever happened to me once or twice the whole time I was a blue belt. The margin for error is much lower.

 

[Knock Out Ned]

Interesting. Thanks guys.

 

[Waldorf]

How do you guys, that are purple, brown, and black belts, like the shorter match times? Do you feel less tired during your matches and do you feel like you have more in the gas tank after your first match (if you win)? Also, overall do you find that there is less stalling?

My experience has been it doesn't reduce stalling and might even encourage some, but maybe a different kind of stalling. You get some matches where the competitors match up is a little more uneven and someone still racks up a lot of points gets a dynamic sub, but a common scenario might be fight a few minutes from the feet, get it to the ground and then once points are scored grind it out for a minute or so left in the match, or if points are scored on the feet, start moving a lot more cautiously as time draws near. I think evenly matched competitors, maybe a more consevative style of some older players contribute to this too, but the match length definetly does. Plenty of people still pull guard, but in my experience older guys are a little more likely to work standing, and that eats up time. If it gets to the ground with only a few minutes left and you end up up by 2 or 3 points or even an abvantage, I think you're less likely to take a big risk and chance giving up a score.

 

[TsunamiBJJ]

For sure. I don't think I lost more than maybe 1 match my last year as a blue belt, I'm something like 2-4 as a purple belt. And some of those matches I lost, I got beaten really badly which I think only ever happened to me once or twice the whole time I was a blue belt. The margin for error is much lower.

From my experience and what I've observed watching as many matches as possible is that at purple belt it's not really about the things you do correctly, it's more about what you do or do not do wrong. It seems the first mistake you make will generally be the beginning of the end.

There is also a new aspect of competing where you have to punish people for doing the right thing. Everyone in theory at purple belt should be good enough to take advantage of someone's mistakes - but at purple belt and up you have to punish someone for doing the correct thing.

If you have someone that is staying safe on the bottom of mount and relaxed/waiting for your mistakes you have to have a definite plan for moving them out of their comfort zone when they're reacting correctly in terms of BJJ tactics being used. I find that part of the game interesting.

 

[Uchi Mata]

From my experience and what I've observed watching as many matches as possible is that at purple belt it's not really about the things you do correctly, it's more about what you do or do not do wrong. It seems the first mistake you make will generally be the beginning of the end.

There is also a new aspect of competing where you have to punish people for doing the right thing. Everyone in theory at purple belt should be good enough to take advantage of someone's mistakes - but at purple belt and up you have to punish someone for doing the correct thing.

If you have someone that is staying safe on the bottom of mount and relaxed/waiting for your mistakes you have to have a definite plan for moving them out of their comfort zone when they're reacting correctly in terms of BJJ tactics being used. I find that part of the game interesting.

Yeah, and unlike at blue belt you rarely do something that someone hasn't seen before. I won a whole lot of blue belt matches because I used deep half and X guard, and many people I fought had no idea how to react. That hasn't happened at purple belt. Now I find it's less about surprising someone than it is about being able to get to the next position faster than the other guy, to transition better. Most matches I've lost it was because the other guy was able to transition faster than I was, not just in scrambles but in terms of things like going from one pass to the next based upon my reaction as the guard player. Even though I really hate chess analogies in BJJ I'm going to use one: as you get better the number of threats you have to force your opponent to think about before breaking through increases. Also like chess, as you get better the size of the largest mistake you can recover from goes down quickly.

What I mean is that at blue belt if you get your guard passed it's not that big of a deal, you can probably at least get back to half guard most of the time. Guys just aren't that good at holding positions. Even if you get mounted or give up your back, you'll probably get a chance to get back in the match. At purple, I've found that margin has shrunk a lot. Once guys have gotten positions they like, it's been very hard if not impossible to get back in the match. And when I watch black belt fights, the difference often seems to be that if they give up the wrong grip, they're either getting swept or passed and then there's really not a lot of going back. Your margin for error just goes down so quickly as you move the up ranks.

 

[NateTx4112]

The gaps are DEFINITELY smaller for opportunity and get exploited much quicker when mistakes are made.