My first tournament

Today was my first tournament, the South Bay Open down at Cal State Dominguez Hills. The tournament itself was great, well-run with committed competitors and organizers alike. You could tell it was a tournament put on by practitioners rather than people looking to make a buck. I look forward to competing in it next year.

As for my performance, I was disappointed. I thought I was at a certain level, but within a tournament setting it was all for not. I lost both of my matches by submission, the first by a keylock and the second by an arm bar. I would have liked to have won a match in my first tournament, but at least that's a goal that I can train for that's a bit more attainable in the short term than a podium spot.

My first match, I was paired with a guy who easily outweighed me by 25 pounds (I weighed in at 175, so he was at least 190-200) and it showed. I was in the middle weight class (more on that later), which is between 167.5 and 181.5, which I thought was appropriate given my size. I was mistaken. He basically smothered me the entire time and simply weighed too much for me to effectively push him off or compete for position. As most of you know, I'm a pretty strong dude for my size, so you know that if I couldn't get him off of me he had a pretty good size advantage. At this point, I don't have enough finesse in my game to overcome that kind of a weight difference, especially against an equally or more skilled opponent. Needless to say, I was not in a good spot from the start, and never fully recovered during the match. I have a video of the match here:


The second match I was much more evenly paired up size wise (the guy was taller than me, but I didn't feel like he had a ton of size on me), but the guy basically outrolled me. I made a mistake trying to push him off, left and arm hanging for a split second too long, and he took it. I'm cool with that, he beat me fair and square, props to him. The video I have of that match isn't quite so clear, and it's from far away, but here it is anyway:


All in all, the tournament was a great learning experience for me. It was great to finally see the kind of fighters produced by other schools; the new competition certainly highlighted some holes in my game I didn't realize I had (given the fact that all my current training partners learned the same stuff I did). A few lessons to take away from it:
1: First and foremost, this was my first and last time in the middle weight division. I will be dropping down to light (167.5), which means I need to cut weight for my next tournament in August. Not ideal, but gives me a way better chance to succeed since it would put me at the top of the weight class rather than toward the bottom.
2: I really need to work on my stand up game. I had a hard time going for take downs, which has never been a problem for me in practice. I need to really evaluate exactly why that is.
3: The tournament setting is way more nerve wracking than I anticipated. I need to calm down and treat it like just another roll. I think I got too excited, lost my focus, and that caused me to make mistakes.
4: Don't compete if I have anything important to do that day. Almost didn't make physics tutoring today because I felt like I got mugged. Need to have a total day to devote to just getting back to life; while two rolls may not seem like a lot, consider these were less like practice rolls and more like all out, winner take all, death match rolls. Fighting for the integrity of your bones and continued consciousness is very taxing.

Finally, some shout outs. First, congrats to Ian on grabbing a podium spot. Also, congrats to Jose on 4th and to Khalil on winning his first match. Our school did well today considering we only sent four guys. More good things to come out of this group. Also, thanks to our professor, Rodrigo, for driving up for Irvine at 9am to coach us and to everyone who sent me support before and during. I truly appreciate you all reaching out to me.

And now, time to ice my foot and shoulder and hit the hay.