My 2nd Tournament - Video Footage - Criticism Welcomed

Heavy Bag

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These three videos are from my 2nd tournament ever. It was the Pancrase 2008 Hybrid Wrestling Championships in Denver. It was the 0-18 month experience 180-200 class. Be nice, I've only been training 8 1/2 months and had absolutely no grappling or wrestling background before starting BJJ. That'll explain my horrible takedown attempt in the 3rd match so you don't think I'm retarded, lol.

1st Match - Win
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It was a complete blur for me, I think it's because I put so much pressure on myself for this one but my mind and heart were racing. He went for a takedown, I stuffed it and got lucky not to lose his back once I got there. I ended up trying to lock up a body triangle and finished with a RnC, something I never get in practice.



2nd Match - Win
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This match was pretty much a blur for me too. Apparently my long ass legs look like easy pickin's and people like to try and shoot on me. I stuffed another takedown and locked up an anaconda, one problem, I didn't know how to finish. Luckily, the match was restarted in the middle and as I was getting ready to restart my instructor told me what to do. I rolled again, not exactly how he told me to, but got lucky and finished the anaconda from near mount.



3rd Match - Loss and an early exit from the tourney without a medal
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I'm really disappointed in this one, and I'm hoping to see where I went wrong. As near as I can tell, my takedown sucked, I missed multiple arm triangle opportunities (even locked one up at a time but didn't get my hips out to finish), missed a kimura, didn't "finish" when trying to take his back, didn't finish my pendullum sweep which I set up perfectly, and many other shortcomings I hope you'll all point out to help me in the future. The only thing I really did well was breaking his posture for a little while, but that's hardly even a mental win for me. Unfortunately, this tournament didn't have the scores posted at the table, so I thought I was down 2-0 at the end, when in fact it was tied 0-0. This led to me throwing up a horrible triangle and him getting me to turtle. Again, unfortunately, he got points for this in this tourney and ended up beating me on the scorecard 2-0. It was a great learning experience for me, but I'm still pretty bummed I let someone beat me when I felt I had better technique.
 
good job james. for that amount of training u look solid. work that wrestling though buddy and no one will want to compete against u
 
Just curious, what did you weight in at and what is your walking-around weight? I'm curious what you cut, if anything, since you look huge compared to the first two guys...
 
Just curious, what did you weight in at and what is your walking-around weight? I'm curious what you cut, if anything, since you look huge compared to the first two guys...

Well, I usually walk around at around 205, but I ended up gaining a few pounds somehow and having to cut around 8 pounds in a week for this thing. I weighed in at 198.5, but I think there scale was a little light. I just look really big because I'm 6-5. My legs are really really skinny though, that's why I can compete at a low weight class for my body type. I could actually get a lot lower than 200 but I like ice cream and beer too much. :redface:
 
good job james. for that amount of training u look solid. work that wrestling though buddy and no one will want to compete against u

Thanks man, you're right, I really have to work takedowns. Among other holes in my game, it's a major weakness. This tournament was actually only the 6th time I've ever started on my feet with one of those being my first tournament and the other 5 in class. I feel absolutely clueless on my feet. With the gi, I'll probably just try to pull guard, but unfortunately in this tournament you got penalized for pulling guard, so it didn't even cross my mind.
 
You won with an anaconda choke... consider yourself a badass for sure.
 
so I have a question...what makes pancrase, pancrase? To me that much looked like a no gi bjj match
 
so I have a question...what makes pancrase, pancrase? To me that much looked like a no gi bjj match

It was, it was basically submission wrestling with a wierd point system. You got points for reversing position, ie going from someone's guard to their turtle guard, you only got 2 points for mount, 3 for back mount, lost points for pulling guard, could take someone down, get two points, stand back up, lose a point and continue the process if you were a superior wrestler and many other rules that weren't exactly BJJ. The people that put this on actually put on MMA type fights too, but this was just hybrid wrestling.
 
You looked good man a couple more months of experience and I bet you would of won that tourney. I started doing stupid shit in my 1st sub wrestling match too when I thought I was behind a lot more points than I was. I felt the same way when I got beat by points that I am better than that guy. I guess we have to learn from our mistakes
 
keep working those arm triangles man. Anacondas, brabos, side chokes, etc - they are MADE for people with your body type.

Keep up the good work. Although, if I was the guy in the second vid I would be pissed. The ref stops us in the middle of a submission and then lets you reapply it however you want? Seems a little unfair. I think you had it the first time, but still I dont think a ref should ever stop if a sub is locked on.
 
dont beat yourself up over the loss, you will have many years ahead of you
 
keep working those arm triangles man. Anacondas, brabos, side chokes, etc - they are MADE for people with your body type.

Keep up the good work. Although, if I was the guy in the second vid I would be pissed. The ref stops us in the middle of a submission and then lets you reapply it however you want? Seems a little unfair. I think you had it the first time, but still I dont think a ref should ever stop if a sub is locked on.

Thanks man, I'm still learning but I am finding I seem to hit those arm triangles a lot. I've really got to work on them but I'm sure in the future they can become a good weapon for me.

That second match was kind of funny, I'm not exactly sure why the ref restarted the match like that, we had room on the mat still. It probably wouldn't have ended much differently, but one of the refs even apologized to that guy afterwards.

For a tournament that used two refs on every mat, they sure seemed disorganized. Hopefully they get their shit together next year because there were a ton of competitors at that thing.
 
You looked good man a couple more months of experience and I bet you would of won that tourney. I started doing stupid shit in my 1st sub wrestling match too when I thought I was behind a lot more points than I was. I felt the same way when I got beat by points that I am better than that guy. I guess we have to learn from our mistakes

I guess if you don't get subbed, you always feel like you should have won. The guy beat me fair and square, I hate to make excuses, and I hate losing even more, lol.
 
No shame there at all man, you looked really good. Do you train mainly gi or no gi?
 
No shame there at all man, you looked really good. Do you train mainly gi or no gi?

I train mostly in the gi, both my tournaments so far have been nogi, but I've actually only trained 4 times in nogi. There is usually only one nogi class a week at our school and it's tough for me to make it that day.
 
I guess if you don't get subbed, you always feel like you should have won. The guy beat me fair and square, I hate to make excuses, and I hate losing even more, lol.

I feel like I should have won even when I get subbed. I should always win. If I lose I screwed up.
 
Good work man, I would try to get someone to teach me the arm drag from guard to take back, that would have worked perfect on that last dude.
 
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