As a four-stripe white belt for a couple of months now, the threat of a blue belt has been floating ominously over my head. I know you’re thinking, “Is this guy nuts? Blue belt isn’t something to fear, it’s an accomplishment!” While I don’t disagree, as it’s something I’ve been wanting for the past 6 years or so, at the same time receiving my blue belt would put the kibosh on gi competition for me for a while. Let’s face it – I’m no BJJ prodigy, and I only get about 4.5 hours a week to practice, on average. There’s no way as a newly-anointed blue belt I would be able to compete in a gi division with people who may have had their blue belts for 1-3 years already (and likely on the verge of receiving their purple belts). I don’t fancy the idea of sandbagging either. So I knew I had to compete at least one last time as a white belt, and I would have to do it soon.
That being the case, I saw the Grappler’s Quest Beast of the East competition as my last chance to go at it as a white belt. I entered in the Beginner No-Gi and White belt BJJ divisions, both at cruiserweight (180 – 189.9lbs). The no-gi matches were on Saturday, the gi matches on Sunday. And the results:
Beginner No-Gi Cruiserweight (180-189.9): First place, gold medal!
BJJ White Belt Cruiserweight (180-189.9): Lost my match to referee’s decision (tied match at 2 pts, 1 advantage each).
Videos (and possibly images) coming soon!
Videos have been uploaded!
My first no-gi match:
I need to work on my single-leg takedown defense, as you’ll see again in the next video. I think I like going to my back too much so I don’t mind getting taken down this way, but it’s risky business giving up 2 points so easily. Fortunately I manage to hold a high guard, and used the threat of a wristlock to force the reverse triangle. I then started attacking the inside arm to try for a shoulder lock, which made him force the arm back across in defense, making it easier for me to switch to the normal triangle.
Result: Win by triangle choke.
My second no-gi match:
I like watching this match because it gives me a chance to see how my stand-up has evolved. It’s not fantastic and there’s lots of holes I’m sure, but I tried a lot of things I’ve never felt comfortable with before. Arm-drags, Russian (2-on-1), duck-under (sloppy attempt, but still). My crowning moment in this match, though, was easily the lateral drop. I’d never done the move before, not even in practice, but I had seen it in videos before decided I wanted to do it right then. The moment felt right, he had a lot of upper-body pressure on me. Sometimes you just have to take the leap – and it was totally worth it! I subsequently managed to get reversed, but I slid into guard and locked in a choke for the tap.
Result: Win by guillotine choke.
With two wins in a row I was able to secure a gold medal in my division.
My gi match:
The next day was all gi divisions. My opponent was much stronger than I expected. I had a great coach in my corner, Alberto Marchetti, a brown belt under Renzo Gracie, who helped me bring the match to a tie of 2 points, 1 advantage each. I couldn’t get the last advantage with the choke, and lost by referee’s decision. I’m OK with that, as I can see that I’ve vastly improved over last year. There were definitely some mistakes that should not have been made and will be addressed in my coming training sessions. I also need to get more comfortable with competing in the gi. In no-gi I think I feel pretty comfortable, and my mind’s in the right place. But it seems like in my gi competitions my mind is all over the place, and the most basic, obvious ideas just fly right out of my head. For example, I think I could have gone for a double-leg takedown at 30 seconds – there was definitely some sort of sweep potential there, though at the time I couldn’t think of anything to do. There were also times when he was in my guard and I should have pulled my knees in when trying to break posture, but never did. That’s something that should be second nature by now, and I’m rather disappointed it wasn’t.
Next time.