-Sandbagging during Tournaments-

[JWebb]

I dont understand how you can sandbag in a GI tourney. I mean dont you compete at what ever belt you are ie white..blue..purple. If an instructor hasnt promoted a guy then thats not his fault. I have not had any problems with sandbagging in the GI divisions. The No GI division is a different story. My first ever NO GI tourney I had been training for a total of 3 months so I enter the beginner class. I was expecting to go up against guys new like myself. First match I go against a guy and I notice that he has caulis from hell (both ears) and came right out with a wrestling stance. Needless to say I got subbed and he went on to sub all his opponents and win the division. Come to find out from some other guys that knew him he had wrestled for years including college. So when I asked them "why is he competing in the beginner division then"? Thier response was "well he's still a white belt in BJJ".

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

I dont understand how you can sandbag in a GI tourney. I mean dont you compete at what ever belt you are ie white..blue..purple. If an instructor hasnt promoted a guy then thats not his fault. I have not had any problems with sandbagging in the GI divisions. The No GI division is a different story. My first ever NO GI tourney I had been training for a total of 3 months so I enter the beginner class. I was expecting to go up against guys new like myself. First match I go against a guy and I notice that he has caulis from hell (both ears) and came right out with a wrestling stance. Needless to say I got subbed and he went on to sub all his opponents and win the division. Come to find out from some other guys that knew him he had wrestled for years including college. So when I asked them "why is he competing in the beginner division then"? Thier response was "well he's still a white belt in BJJ".

sandbagging in Gi is simple.....if your a white belt with 18 months or more of training and you enter white beginner...that's sandbagging.

 

[JWebb]

sandbagging in Gi is simple.....if your a white belt with 18 months or more of training and you enter white beginner...that's sandbagging.

Huh...I live in the midwest and all the GI tourneys here are just straight up by belt and weight class. So if your a white belt heavyweight you are in the white belt heavyweight with everyone else they were not broken down to white belt beginner...intermediate ...advanced. But I see what you are saying if a tourney did break it down like that then there would some sandbagging.

 

[mcjpd3]

Don't sweat the sandbaggers. If they catch you, tap, learn, and move on. Eventually, you'll pass the punks.

Also, don't assume you have no chance. Every dog has his day:

I competed in the Gracie Open in Lynwood this weekend. I've been doing BJJ for about five months, have no previous grappling experience, couldn't roll for five weeks before the tournament due to a separated shoulder, and fought in 29 and under depsite the fact that I'm 37. What happened?

I went to the finals in white belt super heavy and lost on points. I took home a big, fat silver medal. If I can do that, anyone can. Ain't nothing special about me. I just showed up and fought hard.

 

[CoutureFan16]

exactly, you should enter it and go in with the attitude that it'll be a learning experience. no one goes undefeated, no one. For those who win their first tournament after just a few months of training with no previous grappling or martial arts background...great, but that's a rarity.

To get myself psyched up and motivated for my first tourney, I told myself I was going to win, and I believed it. And I won all three of my matches for first place. Since then Ive lost but it doesnt really bother me. I know that I made mistakes that caused me to lose and that I could have won if I hadn't made those mistakes. I know Im not going to win them all but being confident in yourself and wanting to win isn't a bad attitude to have, as long as you can accept defeat.

 

[Rory McDonell]

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. Theres no skill level rankings in wrestling, just weight classes, and everyone handles it just fine.

 

[JWebb]

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. Theres no skill level rankings in wrestling, just weight classes, and everyone handles it just fine.

If you are comparing it to wrestling then I guess I would be like taking a Senior who has wrestled for years and letting him wrestle in the freshman class so he could take out all the freshman who have only been wrestling for a few months.

 

[Bubble Boy]

Also, don't assume you have no chance. Every dog has his day:

I competed in the Gracie Open in Lynwood this weekend. I've been doing BJJ for about five months, have no previous grappling experience, couldn't roll for five weeks before the tournament due to a separated shoulder, and fought in 29 and under depsite the fact that I'm 37. What happened?

I went to the finals in white belt super heavy and lost on points. I took home a big, fat silver medal. If I can do that, anyone can. Ain't nothing special about me. I just showed up and fought hard.

Dude, thank you. I'm an old fucker and I'm about to compete in my first BJJ competition. I totally needed to read your post like I needed the movie "Fight Club" when it came out.

 

[Balto]

I dont understand how you can sandbag in a GI tourney. I mean dont you compete at what ever belt you are ie white..blue..purple. If an instructor hasnt promoted a guy then thats not his fault. I have not had any problems with sandbagging in the GI divisions. The No GI division is a different story. My first ever NO GI tourney I had been training for a total of 3 months so I enter the beginner class. I was expecting to go up against guys new like myself. First match I go against a guy and I notice that he has caulis from hell (both ears) and came right out with a wrestling stance. Needless to say I got subbed and he went on to sub all his opponents and win the division. Come to find out from some other guys that knew him he had wrestled for years including college. So when I asked them "why is he competing in the beginner division then"? Thier response was "well he's still a white belt in BJJ".

In Western Pennsylvania, we don't have very many official BJJ schools so gi sandbagging is a real problem.

There are a fair number of grapplers around that train like me. I don't have any official school taught by a BJJ black belt (I wish I did), but I still train regularly. I pretty much just train no-gi. No-gi is very popular around here because wrestling is huge. Also people tend to feel silly putting on the gi when they don't have a BJJ rank.

Tons of people train no-gi in small informal groups. When it comes time for a tournament, many of these people buy a cheap gi and enter the gi division for the hell of it and for more fights. They wear a white belt because they don't have a rank.

Although the gi is different, it is not that different. Lots of these guys have years of wrestling and no-gi and crush the legit white belts despite the fact that they never train gi. There are tons of gi white belts that enter intermediate/advanced in no-gi.

These guys are perpetually white belts because they don't have an instructor to promote them. Nobody wants to self-promote, so these guys just crush white belts year after year.

If I ever fight with the gi, I'm just gonna do blue belt because I have too much no-gi experience to fairly enter as a white belt.

 

[demolidor77]

Don't sweat the sandbaggers. If they catch you, tap, learn, and move on. Eventually, you'll pass the punks.

Also, don't assume you have no chance. Every dog has his day:

Thats it. Try your best and learn from it. Train hard and be hard to beat.
Sandbaggers aren't good grapplers if they were they would be testing themselves with on the higher ranks.

 

[El Gato]

It should be years of experience like 1 month to 1 year beginer , 2 -3 years inter , 4 years plus advanced ...Something along those lines would be good ...

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

It should be years of experience like 1 month to 1 year beginer , 2 -3 years inter , 4 years plus advanced ...Something along those lines would be good ...

I've seen a few tourney registrations where it's 0-6 months, 6-12, 12+ for white belt, then 0-2 year blue, 2+ blue...and so on.


But usually when you get to the actual tourney, the 0-6 division is so bloated that they wind up dumping 6-12 and sometimes 12+ into it to create a single white belt division...since everyone is supposedly 0-6 months

 

[Bubble Boy]

It should be years of experience like 1 month to 1 year beginer , 2 -3 years inter , 4 years plus advanced ...Something along those lines would be good ...

El Gato, your the first person who's put it out there so plainly. Your estimates sound about right to me. So a judo guy with 5 years (just judo) should compete maybe blue belt for his first BJJ tournament you think? Or go advanced against purples?

BTW, did you ever get my PM thanking you for that dvd? Can't tell you how much I appreciated that addition to my collection.

 

[satchmo]

It should be years of experience like 1 month to 1 year beginer , 2 -3 years inter , 4 years plus advanced ...Something along those lines would be good ...

I don't think that would prevent sandbagging either, because you could easily lie about your experience, those kinds of things are hard to document.

 

[rerard]

plus what if someone trains half ass, I think the belt system works good for gi but I dont think there is much of a solution for sandbagging in no-gi.

 

[ichimonji]

what happens in High School when 2 9th graders compete one hasw been doing it since he was 5 yrs old and the other for less than 6 months?

 

[JWebb]

what happens in High School when 2 9th graders compete one hasw been doing it since he was 5 yrs old and the other for less than 6 months?

Then the guy whose been doing it since he was 5yr old should atleast be moved up to the JV team.

 

[El Gato]

El Gato, your the first person who's put it out there so plainly. Your estimates sound about right to me. So a judo guy with 5 years (just judo) should compete maybe blue belt for his first BJJ tournament you think? Or go advanced against purples?

BTW, did you ever get my PM thanking you for that dvd? Can't tell you how much I appreciated that addition to my collection.[/QUOTE= Yea something along the lines . I'm just throwing ideas out there but it seems like it would be fair . As someone said in another post there is always going to be sand bagging , thats true but I know when I go to tourneys I don't go alone and sure as hell wouldn't fight down a division just to win . My teammates wouldn't allow it or let me live it down ... - Bubbleboy - Yes I got your PM . I thought I responded , Sorry my bad . Glad you like it . I have not come across any mention of it any where , I thought it would be easy to find another copy . I just wanted to compare videos and see if it is really hard to get or not .

 

[killakoy]

At the NAGA I attended, I remember Kipp saying something along the lines of - "For an amazing display of technical prowess... watch our novice division." Cracked me up... but not far off.

 

[abhi]

I take it sandbagging is someone who is a fighter who enters low level of fighting even though he is better than that so he can win it