FanPost

BJJ In House Tournament

via www.hassettsjiujitsu.com

Sup Maniacs? I wrestled in a tournament at my gym today and took first place in the Mens Advance/Intermediate(divisions were mixed together) under 150lbs division. I weighed in at 129 and went 3-0 with 3 subs. I made this fanpost because this is the first time since I joined Mania that ALL of my matches were successfully filmed.... Seriously, I've done 22 tournaments and bring multiple training partners who all have cameras and Iphones and I have TWELVE videos total. That's fucking absurd. Anyway, videos and break downs after "The Jump"

Note: Let me know if the videos can't be seen due to facebook privacy or some other BS.

MATCH 1

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=397507653635110&notif_t=video_comment

First opponent is the classic strong spazzy wrestler. The vid doesn't show it, but I opened up with a failed arm drag and then pulled half guard. He tried to guillotine me from my half guard(which is my fucking move), so I elbow escaped to full guard. After a couple seconds of solid spine adjustment, he let go and I started to attack. He tried to pass but left his arms to high up(In guard, its dangerous to have your hands behind the bottom guys head) and i threw up in armbar. It was semi-tight but he stood up and slammed me(fairly illegal but whatever). After being moved back to the middle, and I put him in a loose triangle. I switched to a reverse triangle and then, being the Diaz fanboy that I am, went for a gogo but he pulled away. Then, I grabbed a kimura and wrenched it behind his back. I heard crackling, but spazzy wrestlers don't tap to shit so I had to let go. Finally, I grabbed an over hook from my full guard and threw my legs up high. I trapped both his arms, and then isolated one and hipped in hard. He stood up and lifted me in the air but I held on this time. A foot off the ground, I cranked on his arm until the ref stopped it.

Thoughts on this match: I'm sorta disappointed in my guard. I normally keep a much more open guard with a lot more butterfly. At the time of the match, he moved so quickly that I didn't want to risk opening my guard and was content to play closed guard. While that works against average guys, top guys will tear that type of guard apart. This match didn't help improve the most important facet of my game. Overall, I can't be too disappointed though. A sub is a sub.

MATCH 2

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=397516136967595

I've met my second opponent at other tournaments before, he's a nice guy who has wrestled my main training partner(a bigger,better, older me) and got choked out by him in a Cope Nova tournament. On to the match. I'm a fairly slow starter, and he definitely took advantage of that by pulling guard quickly. The set up is missed on the video, but he spun me around and took my back. The people I train with every day love to take my back and choke me, so I wasn't worried about him and immediately began scrambling to get out before he got points. I scooted out the back door and dragged his upper body to the ground into his guard. Unfortunately for me, this left me in a bad position and he tried to attack with a triangle. Triangles suck, so I stuck my head down and left my arm out for an omaplata. He went for the omaplata and what I did next is one of my favorite tricks. If you watch carefully, you'll notice before I did a forward roll I grab his arm and pull it in between my legs. This allows me to roll into my own omaplata. He realized this as he came up and tried to pull out but I locked up a triangle. After about a minute of trying to finish the triangle(the reason I couldn't finish was his arm was tucked under my leg and I couldn't get the proper angle) I grabbed his arm in an Americana grip and bent it backwards. He tapped, and I moved onto the finals.

Thoughts on this match: I am a dope for letting him get the almost back take. My training partner that I talked about above does that same setup all the time and he's twice as skilled and rarely hits it on me. I'm happy with my back defense though. Training with purple belts who like hurting you does have some advantages. I also need to work on my triangle more, my inability to get the proper angle could have screwed me if I didn't catch his arm. I would have gassed my legs out and possibly gotten my guard passed. Not good.

MATCH 3

In the finals, I wrestled one of my training partners. I have a video, but I think its a complete douchebag move to post a video of a match between two training partners. I'll give a quick summary though. We are both guard pullers, so I make sure to pull first. For about 3 minutes, I keep a very open guard and aggressively hunt for sweeps and subs but he defends and nearly passes a few times. At that point I'm getting a little worried because I know how tough he is. I grab his head in a guillotine attempt, but know I don't have it. I transition to what we call the Jeff Jones' sweep, similar to the sweep Chris Cariaso uses in this gif but without the cage

via assets.sbnation.com

He defends put leaves his arm out so I go for an omaplata. He does the exact same grab arm and roll thing I did in the above video, putting me in an omaplata. So I do it back to him, rolling and putting him in an omaplata AGAIN. This time, I'm wary of his attack and step out for a mounted triangle. I lock it up, roll, and the tap comes a few seconds later.

Thoughts on this match: This was the match I was happy with. I played my game and opened my guard up and never let him settle. By keeping a constant stream of attacks, I only needed him to make one mistake. When he did, I capitalized and finished. I was never in much danger although he did threaten with D'arce attempts and near guard passes. Overall, this was a good practice tournament. I have a 10 minute super fight match on the 30th, and I've been training my ass off(when not cursing at maniacs). It's Gi, and sub only which means if neither of us are subbed it is a draw. I'll make a fanpost on that if my cornerman don't utterly fail to take a video. This brings my record to 44-18 with 30 submissions. Thanks for reading if you made it all the way through

(In pic from left to right: Training partner from match 3 with 2nd place, Me with 1st, guy from match 2 in 3rd, other guy in 4th that I didn't wrestle via sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net)

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