Second Tournament – Get Better (Updated)

A quick note before I head to bed to get some rest before the tournament tomorrow.  At my first tournament, I had 4 matches, 2 in gi and 2 in no-gi. In both divisions I lost my 1st match by head-and-arm choke. And I lost my second match by points.  As I’ve heard several times at the gym, tournaments exist, in part, to see how you’ve progressed and to learn where the holes are in your game. It might be fun to sweep all your matches, but at this stage, you probably won’t learn much (although, I wouldn’t mind finding out first hand 🙂 )

So for the Victory Grappling Championships tomorrow my goal is to do better than I did at Sasquatch. For me that means:

1. NO losses by arm-triangles

2. NO losses by submissions

3. Set up an attack

4. Get a sweep

5. Score points against my opponent

6. Win a match

I listed those in order of things I want to accomplish. To be honest, if I can manage to pull off the first two in 4 matches, then I’ll consider it an improvement. If I can set up an attack in a match or two, I’ll see that I’ve grown (I didn’t do that at all at Sasquatch.)  If I get all the way to #6 I’ll be ecstatic.

Updated

I ended up going 3-5 yesterday, for a total of 8 matches. I went knowing I’d get 4, and not expecting too many more than that. I lost both matches in my gi division, then won my first match in the absolute (open weight) gi division. Then lost my second match. At this point, I had lost 3 matches to 2 guys, both of whom are Mid-America students. The two guys I lost to ended up 2nd and 3rd overall in the absolute division.

Then no-gi came, and I lost my first match there. To be honest, I wasn’t even that bummed, I felt like I had gotten the monkey off my back by winning a match (first win at a tournament for me.)  He ended up taking my back towards the end and won 4-0. If I had paid attention better when Kyle went over toe-holds, I think I could have won. I grabbed his foot and tried for one, I just didn’t have it. My opponent even said afterwards that he was ready to tap when I started twisting his foot, but that I just didn’t have it.

I did the no-gi absolute as well. I won that match by guillotine. I pulled guard and pulled my opponent down, locked it up. At this point I was pretty ecstatic. I don’t have a lot of no-gi experience and only entered no-gi because I figured I was already going to be at the tournament, so why not get some experience.  I then lost the next no-gi match, to the same guy I lost to in my first no-gi match. That put in the bronze medal match. At this point I was 2-5. 5 losses to 3 people. I end up winning my bronze match, and the guy I lost to twice in no-gi takes second overall.

In the end, I lost to 3 guys (2 of which are from the same school.) All 3 placed 2nd or higher in the absolute, so it wasn’t a bad day.  Let’s look at the goals I set:

1. NO losses by arm-triangles

2. NO losses by submissions

3. Set up an attack

4. Get a sweep

5. Score points against my opponent

6. Win a match

I ended up getting 3 of my 6 goals. I lost all 3 of my matches against teammates by submission. 2 by arm-bar and one by triangle choke.  I didn’t get a sweep, although I was told after my gi-absolute match that it had more to do with me not trying a sweep. A couple people pointed out that I was set up, just didn’t pull the trigger.

I also didn’t score any points. So in 2 tournaments, I’ve yet to actually score a point, but I have 3 wins.

I feel like I improved, but obviously I didn’t meet all my goals, so those will carry over to the next tournament.

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