Bronze Medal

I took home the bronze at the Bluegrass Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open today. It was a fun day and I learned a lot about what I need to work on. Another great learning experience!!!

The number one thing I tried to improve on from my last tournament was my nerves. At my last competition I was worn out before I ever started because my nerves and adrenaline had me exhausted. This time I had a better handle on it but it was still a HUGE factor. We arrived  for weigh-ins at 8:30am & I didn't compete until 4ish. The whole time my heart was beating faster than normal, hands were shaky, felt weird & tingly, etc.. Then when I finally competed I felt worn out. It wasn't as bad as my last tournament but it was a still significant factor in my performance.

I think the reason why I had my nerves a little better under control this time was because of two things - confidence & experience. The more I train and compete the better it will get. My goal is to get to the point where when I go to compete it will feel like another day of rolling at Jiu-Jitsu class.

One of the matches I lost was from not being able to escape the triangle. I stacked him and tried to move around his head but when I started to move around his head I lost the gable grip - this resulted in him tapping me out with an armbar from within the triangle hold . Tomorrow I will look at iGrapple to see if there are any escape options other than the one that I tried.

Another problem I had was overall strength when put in awkward positions and trying to escape. Yes I know........good Jiu-Jitsu is about technique and leverage - not strength! But when your opponent has you in an awkward position that you haven't trained for yet, you don't have much choice but to rely on strength. I think a good start to improving on this is to work on my overall conditioning and to try and find some way to get more roll time with my training partner purposely putting me in bad positions. I will also check iGrapple for any possible techniques that may have helped that I haven't learned yet.

Keep Training!