So after Kleos, I had two competitions in quick succession. This was not a good month for me, the month of September. I went to Glasgow and to Liverpool to compete. I lost every single match. I learned an awful lot about competition mentality and different approaches I needed to take. I had some close matches, some which were won on advantages only by my opponent, but in the end that’s still a loss for myself. Yet, as I said, I pulled through and I learnt a lot about myself in the process. I know that’s a cliche thing to say, but it’s true, and it made me change the way in which I approached competition and my training regime.
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Then after that came the North West Open. This went a lot better for me, because of the losses I had suffered the month before. I changed the way I mentally approached the competition. I had a brain wave regarding how I should be thinking on the mats. Rather than being a passive reactor to my opponent, I knew that I would do a lot better if I was active and aggressive. Most of the girls I compete against are bigger than me, sometimes by quite a big margin – this means I can’t afford to be passive, or on the back foot. I have to be applying my game and my pressure at all times. It paid off at North West and I won one and lost one to take bronze. Even though it was “only” bronze, it proved to me that I was heading in the right direction with my new mentality.
I told myself North West would be my last comp in 2016. It wasn’t. I headed to Newcastle in December and came away with four medals, all the matches I lost being to the same girl (looking at you Sarah!), so I was really happy with my performance there.
As you can see from my competition sidebar, I already have two competitions in the books for 2017, which will hopefully be many more once I can fund them. I love competing and I love jiu-jitsu, I’m really excited to see what 2017 is going to bring!
I couldn’t find anywhere to wrestle in Lancaster, so decided to start BJJ! After a couple of years wrestling in Manchester while at uni there, (minus some time where I broke my leg after a dicky takedown), I was hooked on grappling. I was aware of BJJ through watching the UFC and having a few friends who were competing in MMA, however, I didn’t really know about submissions, or that whole side of the game that unfolds on the ground.
After university, I moved back to Lancaster, and there was about a year where I was doing no martial arts, just lifting and running, Then I discovered that Kieran [O’Brien, Kaizen co-founder], was putting on some MMA classes at Lancaster University Sports Centre, and out of boredom and a desire to fight, got involved. Shortly after that Kaizen begun, and I’ve been training BJJ exclusively ever since!
Joe at his old wrestling gym.
What has BJJ come to mean for you since you started?
After starting with nothing but good fitness and the positional control that comes from wrestling, I’ve fallen in love with BJJ! Any kind of fighting/training to fight is fun, but the prolonged, smothering wars of attrition and limb chess just suits me down to a T. I enjoy it much more at this point, being good enough now to really experiment with no ego and string together far more stuff on the ground.
How do you think it’s changed you (if it has)?
I’m aware, more than ever, of the huge distance in front of me in this BJJ journey. I’m excited about meeting people far ahead down that road, which, if anything, has been extremely humbling.
What advice would you give yourself a year ago, if you could?
Experiment more, risk letting yourself get tapped in rolls more. Casual rolls are exactly when you should be out of your A game, testing new things, and getting beat all the time before you master it.
Tell me about your gym/teammates
I train at Kaizen Academy, Lancaster. It’s a great group of people and a great atmosphere. There’s some people I’ve been growing with since I begun, who I compete alongside and have risen with together, each of whom provide a unique aspect as a training partner. I can always count on having rolling partners on my level, and those who are both more and less experienced. On top of that Michael Wood, our head BJJ coach, is pretty much everything I could ask for in a trainer; his extremely logical, almost video game like approach to BJJ, is something I really feel like I thrive under. Also, I guess like everyone who does BJJ for long enough the gym becomes a social hub too!
What have been you best/proudest achievements to date?
Being one of the first “Kaizen” blue belts after a year obviously! Every competition gold… Not vomiting and quitting after getting kneed in the balls in the no-gi for the BJJ 24/7 NW Open, and then going on to get gold in the Gi!
Oh, and cutting my hair.
Joe winning gold at the NW Open
You just got promoted to blue belt, talk about what that feels like.
It’s just a refocusing basically. This is the path I’m on, no doubt anymore. Time to think ahead and plan accordingly, work on new areas.
What aspect of your game is the best?
Top pressure, guard passing. Things I learnt in my wrestling days and use to my advantage.
What aspect do you need to work on?
Guard, leg stuff. I even pull guard now, something I would never have dreamed of a few months ago!
Where do you want to be in a year’s time re: BJJ?
I want to have a series of wins under my belt (pun firmly intended) at blue.
What’s your favourite sub/guard/sweep?
Sub: Americana
Guard: Butterfly-Half
Sweep: X-Guard
Have you been to any seminars/other gyms?
I dabbled around some MMA gyms in Manchester for a little bit, and went to a couple of different classes here and there. I even trained for a few weeks in London while working the bar at a festival, under a really chill Brazilian black belt doing a class at a nearby gym. I’ve trained in some nice, friendly places, and in some more egotistical, stereotypical, “MMA douchebag” type places. Nowhere really has had the sheer breadth of experience and knowledge that I’ve found at Kaizen though.
Gi or no-gi?
Probably no-gi, coming from a wrestling background, but Gi has really been growing on me lately. Lasso guard is pretty decent and I like me some bow and arrow chokes.
Joe training in the Gi
What are you hoping to accomplish in the next calendar year?
Grow my hair back!
I want to move down a weight category so get down to 73.5kg. It would also be sweet to dominate some blue belt comps like I have white.
Written by Joe Butler,
Edited by Bryony.
With thanks to Laura Jenney Photography, James Karlsen-Davies, and others for the photographs.
Went to compete in the Newcastle Open yesterday, after a last minute sign up. I decided to sign up because there were new names on the girls roster that I’d not seen before. It’s pretty rare for that to happen at smaller competitions because the same girls seem to have the fire for competition. Either way, I was excited.
I had to get up at 5.15am to get to Newcastle which was super fun, but without a little bit of discomfort we don’t get to do these awesome things. So anyway, we arrived in Newcastle in good time for weigh in, and I decided to have a mini power nap before gi-ing up. I was lying in the stands with my gi jacket over my head and I vaguely heard a small child asking why there was a pile of clothes there, and his mother saying “shhh! there’s someone underneath that!” which made me smile.
I weighed in at 54.5 with the gi on. Seeing as my category was -65kg in the gi I was (once-again) easily the smallest in my category. It doesn’t really matter, I’m pretty used to it by now. Anyway, before I was up my team mate Tim was on the mats. He won his first match with a great technical display and control. Unfortunately he lost his second match to take silver in the division. This was Tim’s first competition, however, and I think that’s a pretty epic start!
Tim on the podium with his silver medal!
After that I was up for my first gi match. The girl I was fighting was quite a lot bigger than me and pulled into closed guard straight away. She tried to go for a gogoplata from closed guard, but rather than having her hand across my neck she had her forearm across my nose and just decided to crush my face. I’m fairly sure this is illegal, cause you’re not allowed to attack the eyes or the nose. There was blood everywhere about 0.3 seconds later and it took quite a long while to stop. Unfortunately the ref didn’t actually see the action when it happened, so she got away with it. I’m sporting a lovely black eye today though!
Anyway, after I’d cleaned myself up and got myself together again I took to the mats again and went on to win my second gi match by points and take bronze. The girl stood next to me with a bronze is the girl I managed to defeat, but I’m glad she was on the podium too as this was her first comp and she was pretty nervous to begin with. Didn’t show on the mat though!!
Bronze medal in the gi division!
I then did gi absolutes and lost to Sarah Greenwood (centre in the pic above) by some submission or other. I genuinely can’t remember, I need to watch the videos again to see what happened. I think it might have been a guillotine..? I took bronze in the gi absolutes, but not before the girl who’d busted my nose earlier stormed off in a strop because apparently the girl she fought had been cheating. Hahaha…. pot, meet kettle.
I then had a bit of wait for my no-gi division fights. It was only Sarah and I in the no-gi division, and she subbed me with a nice Kimura. I was being a bit nooby and failed to hide my arm effectively whilst I was in deep half guard – oh well! Will learn that one!! I then signed up for no-gi absolutes. I fended off a deep triangle choke by Sarah and survived a lot longer only to get caught in something or other (again, I need to see the videos to figure out what happened), but then I went on to win my second match by 18 points to 4. I was really chuffed with this because the girl I fought was significantly heavier than me, and it was a tough match. I was able to follow my half-guard game though and sweep before taking the mount and back. She fended off an RNC attempt to reverse, but I took half guard again and was able to sweep and pass again, so the points racked up. It was a good match and I was super pleased with myself; I am making gains!
Silver! Being a total dork though, I’ve got my eyes closed!
Ze and Kieran from Kaizen also competed and took home two silvers after some tough matches, with Kieran competing in the Advanced category against a seasoned purple belt.
All in all it was a really great day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself (other than getting my nose crushed). It was also super nice to hang out with some of the girls I’ve met before matside, and to meet competitors who’ve I’ve not seen before.
We might be competitors, but we’re all their for the same reason, and we’re all BJJ girls, so it’s lovely to get to have a chinwag and catch up on the matside.
Final tally!
Anyway, this was the final tally from yesterday’s competition. Soon they’ll be some lovely shiny gold ones to add to that, but I’m really chuffed with how I performed yesterday and am looking forward to working on my game even more.
There was something that my coaches and fellow practitioners spoke about when I first started doing jiu-jitsu – they spoke about the fact that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu would blow my mind.
At first I had no idea what they meant. How could a sport do that? You don’t really hear about hockey players having their mind blown by some new tackling move.
Then it happened to me. I think it’s the moment where all the principal based teaching at Kaizen started to come together and began to open up a myriad of possibilities as to what I could do with my jiu-jitsu. I started to see moves and opportunities everywhere, and now at least 4 out of 5 times I step onto the mats at Kaizen something new is revealed to me; some new technique or possibility that hadn’t thought of before.
I was discussing this with Ze the other day, and also about the difficulty of conveying what this phenomenon is, and just how it happens. People who don’t do BJJ sometimes struggle to comprehend what I’m talking about. I think it comes from the fact that the instructors are just so involved with what they’re teaching. Not a day goes by when I don’t see Michael sitting in the lounge watching some jiu-jitsu video, or on the mats testing out some new theory or other. Each of the instructors is devoted to understanding the academic and scholastic approaches to their art, not just to being able to execute a move in a monkey see, monkey do kind of way. Not only this, but it also comes from the way that the principals are explained to the students, so that once the principal is understood, lots of different opportunities are available.
Ze described it well once, but I’d like to expand on his analogy. Imagine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as a corridor with a million and more doors. What Kaizen Academy does is hand you the master key, and show you how to adapt it, so you can open up hundreds of thousands of doors in one fell swoop as long as you understand how it works. This is in comparison to some other teaching techniques which would see you crafting the key to each door individually. This is what I mean when I say my mind is blown. It’ll be because the move I’ve just witnessed and understood has allowed me to open another hundred thousand doors.
Hope that made sense…
Until next time,
B
x
With thanks to Laura Jenney Photography for the image.
Members of Kaizen Academy gathered together at the weekend to celebrate the first anniversary of the gym. There was live music, dancing, light-up poi, and some speeches to celebrate how awesome this place is and how far we’ve all come in a year. I even got to make one!
What was slightly unexpected, however, although very deserved was what happened during BJJ Coach Michael Wood’s speech…
The belt in his hand is probs a giveaway.
First up to be awarded his very well deserved blue belt was Joe Butler. Joe recently smashed through his gi division of fifteen(!) at North West Open to take gold, and only missed out on gold in the no-gi division because he managed to take a knee to the goolies and had to spend the rest of the match trying not to die. In the end he took away bronze. He’s now hoping that he’ll have less people to fight, but that the matches will make him work that extra bit harder.
Joe getting his blue belt!
Joe wasn’t the only one to be awarded his blue belt on Saturday night, with the second one of the evening going to Thomas Ngai. As Michael said when giving it to him, he probably should have had it a long time ago! Tom won the Hong Kong Open in the gi in 2015, and his technique and game has been making leaps and bounds ever since.
Tom with his new (recycled actually) blue belt.
I reckon this is just the start of a blue belt flood. So many people have made such ridiculous gains this year, taking their technique to new levels, bringing new things to the game. Many of the members are so invested in this sport and are getting so so good as a result. Here’s to many more promotions and well deserved recognition. I’m not going to say who I think the next ones are going to be, but I’ve got my betting money on our resident foot locker, and our flying armbar machine…
Until next time,
Love
B
x
With thanks to Laura Jenney photography for capturing these.
Okay, so most people don’t actually call it a Kimono, but I already used the letter ‘G’ so Kimono will have to suffice. So, this article will be talking about the gi, or rather discussing the two sides of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; gi vs no-gi. There are a lot of articles out there regarding the subject, and the (supposedly) manifold differences between the two. I disagree that they are totally at odds with each other. Quelle surprise.
I mean sure, there are differences between BJJ when done in the gi and when done without, but to hear some people talk about it would almost be to suggest that it was two different sports. This is something that has always been denied at Kaizen Academy. This is due to the fact that the style of teaching is principal based, rather than technique based. Therefore, whether or not you’ve got a jacket and pants on simply adds different nuances to the principal, rather than completely changing the game. There is a gi culture growing a bit at Kaizen, mostly thanks to Michael’s efforts. When the gi classes first started about five people would show up, now there’s at least fifteen to twenty regulars who don the pyjamas.
Some practitioners won’t practice in the gi, and others won’t ever take it off, saying that they “don’t do” that side of the sport. This doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me. They’re two halves of a whole. I mean, sure, have a preference if you must, but to completely disregard one side seems nonsensical. To me it seems like a split in the road, but the two paths run parallel to each other; you can see one path from the other, and they both lead to the same destination. You can cross between them at will, but one might offer slightly different scenery in points than the other. There are some people who train BJJ who go as far to say that if you don’t train in the gi then you shouldn’t be allowed to level up (in terms of belts). To me that is utter trash. Some of the best practitioners I know rarely train in the gi (although I have seen it from time to time), and I’m always blown away by their jiu-jitsu and their approach to the sport.
This post could be immensely long – discussing the fact that there are different guards that have strengths and weaknesses in gi and no-gi, and all the nuances therein. That’s not the point of this post and I would be ill equipped to discuss most of it anyway seeing as I have just dipped my toe into the world of jiu-jitsu.
I’ll admit, when I first started BJJ, the idea of putting on a gi seemed a long way off for me. I came from a more MMA based/grappling style of training, so therefore (other than a brief foray into Judo) had never worn the gi to train in before. I avoided it at first, doing the odd class here and there, but not really taking it seriously. I wore my old Judo gi to train in, but the sleeves were too short and the material too thick to be properly appropriate for BJJ. Eventually I bought my own gi; the honey badger black one from Tatami, and started to take gi training more seriously. I found that actually I quite enjoyed it, and that contrary to my earlier beliefs, it wasn’t so different from what I’d already been doing. The main downside was (and still is) the fact that it gets so hot!
As a smaller person there are some advantages (I’ve found so far) to training in the gi which you don’t necessarily get without. One is that I can hold onto my partner. Obviously this is one of the biggest differences between the two. I hear so much talk about grips that I think I have the word imprinted on my brain. Don’t get me wrong, grips are useful (especially when your opponent is trying a sneaky backstep from half guard!), but they’re not the be all and end all. Some practitioners get so freaked out if they don’t have their grips that the rest of their technique goes out the window. Our coach is damn good at addressing grips, so if someone rolling with him thinks grips > technique they quickly get corrected!
I will continue to train both, and enjoy both, and probably switch from having a slight preference in one or the other depending on what I’m doing at the time. At the moment my preference is lying with no gi because I’m making strides in that recently. In a couple of weeks I’ll probably be raving at a new thing I was doing in the gi. Who knows? I tend to do better in competition in no gi as well, and have been competing without the gi for longer. I fully intend to do both as often as I can next year though.
So, which do you prefer? Or do you approach them both with the same attitude?
It’s BJJ 24/7’s North West Open this Sunday and Kaizen Academy is taking its biggest team yet. We’re taking fourteen athletes, and we’re entered into nineteen different divisions across the weights and experience levels. I’m very excited to see what the team can achieve because I think everyone has been working extremely hard to prepare for this competition. Everyone has been working on their games and developing the different aspects that they favour or that they’re best at.
As for myself I picked myself up after BJJ 24/7 Liverpool and looked at where things went a bit belly up. I’m feeling confident about Sunday and I’m very excited. The division I’m in, the white <56.5, is the biggest division I’ve ever been in. It’s still small compared to some of the guys divisions, but there’s six in the gi division and the same in no-gi. It should be good and I see all of this as a learning experience. I love going with a large team, Liverpool was very fun (stressful, but fun), and the most exciting thing is that in this competition Kaizen is fielding a team including five girls! We’ve always had a large contingent of girls training on the mats (now on and off to over a dozen), but five is the most we’ve ever taken to competition.
Considering that the gym only turned one this week, that we’re taking fourteen to a regional competition speaks volumes about how far we’ve come. Most of the people who are entering have been training consistently for less than a year, and their confidence has burgeoned to want to compete.
I’m not going to say how many medals I think we can bring home, but I think we’re going to do well and that everyone will do themselves proud. Just stepping up to the mats is freaking awesome.
I’ve been working hard both on the mats and in the weights room this month. I’ve been trying to eat more (doesn’t seem to reflect in my weight though!!), and I hope that it will pay off. This is going to be my last competition this year (I think) so I’m super excited about heading along. Now I’m going to focus my attention and see what happens on Sunday with the support of a fantastic team.
So, it’s been a little while since I did one of these, so I thought I better get back into the habit. This week we’re looking at back control and specifically the seatbelt grip.
In BJJ the back is clearly the one of the most dominant positions. It’s worth four points under IBJJF rules. That it is a dominant position is especially true for smaller practitioners like me. If I manage to attain side control on someone, if they’re much bigger than me, whether they’re skilled or not, they can probably just sit up or bench press me off. I only weigh 52kg. For an 80kg+ guy, lifting me off them is not a particularly difficult issue. Yet, if I’m on their back, clearly the bench press is useless. Muscles are no use when somebody is clinging to your back like a monkey.
I’ve been told by all my instructors that I should seek the back at every opportunity, rather than anything where strength and weight could be a factor. So (just for the purpose of this blog), say that you’ve got to the back – what do you do once you’re there? And how do you stay there?
The key principal is to keep your hips in line with the other persons hips. All their escapes come from them manoeuvring out to the side, down or up, so that their hips are no longer in line with the person attacking the back. In doing this it makes it a lot easier to escape the position and to negate any submission attempts. So for the attacker to be able to progress to a submission, it’s important that their position is maintained long enough to be able to see it through.
One of the key ways of doing this is by maintaining the seatbelt grip.
So called the seatbelt because you’re effectively strapping yourself to your opponent like a seatbelt, one arm under theirs and one arm round their neck to meet in the middle. An over-under hug from the back if you like. Key point to the seatbelt is that your choking hand should be on the bottom of the grip to hide it from the defenders attempts to pull it down. Another key point is that your grip should be high with your elbows squeezing together. Clearly you can’t actually make your elbows meet ’cause your opponents body is in the way, but the tighter they are, the tougher it is to break the grip.
A lot of people say that the key to back control is the hooks on the legs, and yeah sure this is very important to complete control, but it is not impossible to stay on someone’s back without hooks, as long as the seatbelt is maintained. We have a drill that we do at Kaizen sometimes where upon getting the seatbelt grip the attacker tries to stay on the opponents back without the hooks. It’s surprising just how effective this is if the grip is tight and correct, and you follow your opponents hips with your own (manoeuvring your opponent to make the most of a back take is a whole ‘nother post).
The seatbelt grip isn’t everything, clearly, but it was amazing how much easier it became for me to stay on someone’s back once I’d figured out how to use it alongside the principal of hip alignment. Sometimes I still fall off if I lose my grip, or am too hasty attempting a submission, but my back control taking has certainly become a lot stronger since making minuscule adjustments to the way I fastened my seatbelt.
All YouTube videos were filmed by Laura Jenney Photography.
So I headed off down to Liverpool this Sunday to compete in the latest event put on by BJJ 24/7 Events – I was expecting big things because the Manchester Open had been so good. More on that to follow.
Kaizen Academy was fielding its largest team to a competition yet, so I thought that that was really exciting. For many of the competitors it was their first “big” competition, so it was exciting for them as well. I predicted in the last post that we would come away with nine medals – we didn’t reach that total. Instead coming home with five – one gold, one silver, three bronzes. I think we would’ve got more if we’d have stuck around for absolutes (open weight categories), but due to the event overrunning by quite a lot, the absolutes were pushed right back to the end of the day (6pm) and most of the team couldn’t stick around that long in order to take part.
We arrived in time for the beginning of the event because one of my teammates was up in the first division at 10am. One of the things that was a little bit strange, and different from Manchester, was the fact that there was no warm up area. The sports hall we were in could just fit the four matted areas, with space around the edge to walk, and then the viewing gallery/medal podium, but there was nowhere to warm up or down.
The mat area – photograph courtesy of Jits Art
Unfortunately Mat, who was up first, lost both of his matches in his division. The first one was to an accomplished Judo player who had a set game and a mean Americana. The second bout was lost to an RNC I think. Mat’s second match is available to watch here. It was Mat’s first big competition, however, and it takes a lot just to step up onto the mats and find out what it’s like when somebody is actually trying to beat you aggressively. It’s a totally different atmosphere to the rolls you get used to in the gym, even if you’re going hard with your partner.
Mat in the -67.5 white belt – photo courtesy of Jits Art.
At around the same time the no-gi masters -91.5 was taking place, in which Kaizen Academy had two competitors. Robyn was up first and lost a hard fought match. It was unlucky for Robyn because at one point he had a deep footlock attack on his opponent but that guy must have had feet of steel! He was able to escape and take Robyn’s back before sinking in an RNC – watch Robyn’s match here. Kam was also taking part in that division and he won his match in style with a flying armbar, sunk in once it reached the floor. Watch Kam’s match here. As a result that division yielded one gold and one bronze for Team Kaizen.
Kam on the podium.
Up next in terms of Team Kaizen was Luke’s division. The organisers were extremely liberal with mat side time for competitors, which meant Luke was called about forty-five minutes before he actually stepped onto the mat! I think this was because matches were running to overtime a lot and the divisions weren’t moving as fast as anticipated.
Luke standing mat side waiting to fight – photo courtesy of Jits Art.
I was also called to mat side in this time and had my first match whilst Luke was still waiting for his! I was up against a girl called Lucy Harrison, who was very smiley and lovely.
After an initial failed attempt to pull guard, I managed to get my butt to the mat but she escaped, causing me to roll and have to play half guard on the side that I’m not used to! This was a bit of a nightmare and it took me a while to secure my underhook. I eventually managed to get my hips out and secure a sweep into an over-under position. Initially I was okay at securing the leg, but then I got caught in a triangle. I struggled to escape for a while, almost managing it at one point, but with 16 seconds left on the clock before overtime, I could feel the world going grey at the edges so I tapped. Watch the full match here.
Photo taken by Papa Seager.
I also got thwacked in the nose at some point during this roll because as I stepped off the mat I noticed that there was blood on my face and hands. I ended up having to use some of the first aiders stuff to clean up. It wasn’t bad, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t break it. It must have just had a bit of a knock which caused it to bleed. I didn’t have another match in this division, which I thought was a little odd ’cause there were three of us and I was anticipating a round robin, so I got the bronze medal.
By this point Luke had fought two matches and was waiting for his final. He’d won both his first two matches in style with his characteristic footlocks. Both his opponents were good at defending them, but they succumbed in the end. Watch his first and second match. His final was going much the same way, but the guy had clearly been watching his previous matches so was doing his utmost to keep his feet and legs away from Luke. He managed to push the match to overtime and after a gruelling three rounds of overtime managed to clinch the gold. Watch the final here.
Luke… being Luke, on the podium.
Then it was Neil’s turn in the -91.5 adult no gi. Neil took both of his matches to overtime and if it had been the standard points method of BJJ he would have dominated both his opponents. Unfortunately both his opponents were savvy in their overtime rounds and just managed to pip Neil to the post. It was unfortunate because Neil’s jiu-jitsu had been more technical during his rounds. Watch his first and second fight here. He was disappointed, but he needn’t of been, his jiu-jitsu was very good. Competition just sometimes gets the better of you.
Then it was time for my gi match, where I was once again up against Lucy. This match went better than my no gi match, and I found myself in a dominate position a few times. She had several good submission attempts early on but I defended those. Unfortunately I was unable to capitalise on this defence and ended up getting caught in a flying armbar at about 3.30 time wise. I attempted to wiggle free, and nearly had my elbow out, but she put it on deeper and I decided it wasn’t worth a broken elbow so tapped! I was actually quite pleased with my performance, despite getting caught, because I feel I was a lot more in control of my technique and that it was just a good match. Watch the match here. So once again I picked up bronze in that division.
The team’s final competitors the day was Jack Morgan. It was his first major competition as well, but unfortunately he lost his first match and due to the fact he was in a stacked bracket meant that he didn’t get another one.
I am so so proud of my team though. As I mentioned earlier, for many of them this was their first “big” competition, and they all rose to the challenge really really well. It made each of them aware of the atmosphere of competing, the potential adrenaline dump that can occur, the aggressiveness of opponents, the noise of spectators etc. etc. It’s very very different to rolling in the gym. All of them are aware of the bits of their games that they want to work on now, and we’ll come back stronger than ever at the next one.
As for myself, I’m going to be working on my submission defences, and securing dominant positions. I was able to get into good positions, but then struggled to maintain them long enough to progress. It’s the North West Open in about four weeks, so we’ll see what happens there. The brackets already look bigger than normal for that and not everyone’s signed up yet!
I’ll admit it straight off the bat that I’m a little bit nervous about Sunday. It’s strange that I feel this way, I’ve not felt nervous before a competition in the past, except perhaps my first one – which was all the way back in February – so it’s a little strange to feel it now.
I think the reason for it is two fold. One is that Glasgow knocked my confidence. As much as I tried not let it affect me, losing my matches was definitely a blow after I’d been working so hard on specific aspects of my game. I tried to learn from it, however, and you can read my blog post about Glasgow, and what I hoped to take from it, here.
The second reason is that it’s submission only. It’s a little counterintuitive that I should be nervous about this. I’ve done a sub only comp before and it’s the one I won gold in. That was against players who did more MMA than jiu-jitsu however, so this is going to be an entirely different ball game. Also I’m more familiar with the points system, rather than the submission system with the EBI overtime rules.
We had some practice with the EBI overtime rules at competition class at Kaizen the other night. We practiced all the options; attacking and defending both spiderweb arm bar and the rear naked choke position. I was okay at resisting submission for quite a while in most cases, so I’ll just have to test it out against the opponents on Sunday. Once again I’m doing both gi and no gi, so we’ll have to see how that works out. I enjoy doing it that way, it gives me more fights during the day and quite frankly, at this level, I do everything for the experience. I do try and hold onto the adage of you win or you learn whenever I head into competition.
I’ve been training hard over the past few weeks since Glasgow, trying to iron out kinks in my game. Seeing as this is submission only, however, the game changes somewhat. My coach, Michael, always says that you must have position before submission, otherwise it’s never going to work, so I guess working on my positional game will give me better potential for gaining submissions.
Anyway, it’s only a few days to go until Saturday, I’m under weight (of course!) and nearly set to go.
Kaizen is taking it’s largest team yet which I think will be really exciting. There’s 8 of us going to compete (me and 7 of the guys), and they’re competing in a broad range of weight categories across the white belt division… Anyone wanna place bets on how many medals we can bring home? With 8 of us, participating in ten divisions, I’m going to call that we bring home 9 medals… Any takers?
We might be competitors, but we’re all their for the same reason, and we’re all BJJ girls, so it’s lovely to get to have a chinwag and catch up on the matside.
Girl On A Mission 