2/5/2011
In-House BJJ Tournament this AM. Participants were from 2 local schools, GB Huntington Beach and GB Arcadia. My shoulder is still a little sore, but did not affect my performance so that's good. I think taking Thursday & Friday off was just what I needed.
I'm currently a 2-stripe blue belt and I weigh 215 lbs. I had 3 matches, all matches were 5 minutes:
1) Fought a 4-stripe white belt from the other school. He's about 200-205 pounds. He got judo grips pretty quickly and almost tripped me, but I was able to execute a collar-drag to single-leg takedown. Actually surprised myself with that. I landed in half guard, and I worked slowly & methodically and passed straight to mount. This guy was very flexible & slippery on the bottom, however & he regained half-guard. This time I passed to side control and again to mount, where he regained half guard again. I passed again to side control and ran out of time. So I won, but to be honest, that's one I should have won. I saw this guys next 2 matches & he was pretty good, probably very close to a blue belt.
2) Another 4-stripe white belt - this guy is 215, same weight as me. He came out really aggressive, looking for a takedown. I sprawled, he tries a collar drag, I defended, and since he was on the ground I pushed hips forward & he stayed there & locked up his closed guard. I broke his guard after a couple of tries, and then passed to side mount using a technique from this week

From side mount, went to mount, kept everything really tight, moved to high mount & slowly worked for a collar choke. Didn't get swept & got the tap.
3) Third match was against another blue belt. We are pretty evenly matched, but he's lost some weight in the past few months & now I outweigh him by about 20 pounds. We start standing, I shot for a double, left my neck out & he locks up a guillotine. I defended, got my head loose & we're standing again. He pulled guard & worked for a long time to try to pass his guard. It was tough. When there was 1 minute to go, I was able to advance to half guard & from there I went quickly to side control & then mount. I won on points.
So I won all 3 matches, which was great, but more importantly I met my goals for the day, which were:
- Get a takedown
- Don't give up a takedown
- Play top position.