IBJJF 2016 Atlanta Winter Open Tournament Report

It's been a few months since my last competition, Master/Senior Worlds in Vegas, and I've been training quite hard. I decided almost at the last minute that I was going to go ahead and compete at the Atlanta Open. That that end I start working on my DLR passing, and a sequence of attacks off of DRL/Single Leg X/X Guard using straight ankle locks to attack or generate sweeps and guard passes. I also decided I wasn't going to try to cut to 141 even if it was only a few pounds. So I signed up for the 154lb division.

I showed up at the venue at about 12:30 with my division scheduled for 2:20pm. I spent a few minutes walking around the venue saying hello to people and seeing how the tournament was running. Things were running about 30-40 minutes behind, which is not too bad for an IBJJF tournament.

At about 1:30 I got changed then  took a quick 10 minute nap, then started stretching out and warming up a bit. I don't remember exactly what time we got called for our division, but it was about 3:30, so only running about an hour behind. I spent a few minutes running through some breathing exercises to try to get my energy amped up a bit then stepped onto the mats for my first match.

I gripped up and tried to work a trip into Tomoe Nage combo, I didn't quite complete the Tomoe the way I wanted to, went to a sweep attempt that turned into a bit of a scramble, leading to me getting caught in a standing guillotine. I'm used to defending the guillotine, so I was actually much more concerned with avoiding accidentally slamming my opponent when I dropped down than I was with the sub getting finished. I stayed patient and worked my way free, then hit the same pass I've been working the last couple of months. I wasn't quick enough to stop my opponent from turtling out of it,  but I was able to stall him out there and take his back. I started working for the choke and kept partially crossing my feet to get him to try to attack my feet and pay less attention to my hands. I was able to secure the collar and finish the choke.

Spent a minute talking to my coach and getting my forearms massaged, then had about a 15 minute break while other matches ran. Going into my second match I felt good. Everything felt very winnable.

My opponent was very quick to pull guard into DLR and I kept trying to work the backstep pass without much success. He was able to run me out of bounds on the single leg before I could get my hips in to roll him. He was able to sweep me, then we ended up in a small scramble when I tried to re-sweep. On the stand up he pulled guard again and, but this time on his sweep I was able to secure the single leg X-guard placement on the hip and drop right into the ankle lock finish that I've been doing off of the sickle sweep. A few seconds before he tapped here his ankle popped 3 or 4 times, it felt and sounded horrible, but he seemed fine afterwards and said it was no big deal.

With that I won my first IBJJF tournament. I now have a nice shiny gold medal which I am super proud of. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work towards getting more assertive in my game and just being better at implementing my game plan against my opponents.

Ramping up to the ATL Open

I have been training! But I have not been updating. Mostly because nothing much interesting has happened lately. Just getting in the gym, putting in the work, trying to get to that next level.

This past Saturday I went up to Team Octopus for a Team Traven group training session. Master Traven showed us some very slick foot on hip spider guard transitions into X-guard and to some sweeps if you don't quite make it to X that I liked, but I won't be able to play too much with in the short term since I'm trying to get my game properly put together for the ATL Open at the end of the month.

That means a lot more weight lifting, and a weight cut for the first time in years. I'm walking around at 144 and I want to weigh in at 141 with my Gi on, so I've got a ~7lb drop to hit, which shouldn't be hard.

I'm also refocusing on my guard retention since I think it's weaker than it should be. My passing and top game have improved, but my guard is lagging. Time to step that game back up.