NE Grappling VI

My third tournament ever was also my second time up at Ithaca for Ryan Ciotoli and his Bombsquad's NE Grappling VI tournament. The first time I did pretty well, coming in second out of 16 guys competing at 159 pounds in the beginner classification. This one I didn't do so well.

For a month, I was trying to make 145 for this tournament, and it turned out to be the wrong idea. I felt like crap, could barely train, and in the end it was decided that I wasn't going to make it anyway and I moved up a weight class. So right before the tournament, I gave up eating a normal diet and all the good training that I would have gotten in turned into mediocre training because I felt like shit the whole time. Not only that, but I moved up an experience category, which really was the right thing to do. I don't really belong with the beginners anymore, no matter how poorly I performed with the intermediates. I'm pretty down on myself, but I'm realistic: I've still only been training about six months. I just got my blue belt, and some of the guys that I rolled against have been training for 2 years and may be purple belts. However, I'm not going to deny that I wasn't at my best. I definitely didn't roll as well as I could have. Anyway, I'm not pissed off to the point where I'm discouraged; I'm pissed off to the point that I wanted to go home and hit the mat for more training that day.


Anyway, Marine Joe did pretty well; his division wasn't deep enough for the normal weight classes, so he ended up having to roll with guys that had 20-30 pounds on him. He still managed to kick some ass, landing two armbars. One of the armbars he got slammed for, and technically won by disqualification, but the guy's arm would've snapped if he didn't slam or tap so we'll continue to call it an armbar.

Karl also did well. He achieved one of his goals, which was to hit his signature "unicorn." I don't think he ended up getting the tap from it; my division was ongoing while he was rolling so I didn't get to watch him too much. I do remember the guy coming up to Karl after and I was sitting right next to him. The guy marveled at Karl's flexibility and wanted to know what the hell it was he was doing to him. Now that I think about it, I think that was the purple belt that Karl actually ended up getting with a triangle.

Christian cleaned house. He was very cool and calm the entire time too; he's wrestled for years before and was telling us how at wrestling meets he might even have hours between matches. His division was particularly heavy (beginner 145) and he had more time between matches than any of us. In any case, he dominated and won the belt. His first match he went out and did exactly what he said he was going to do. He did a simple duck under, picked his man up and slammed him to the mat where he quickly finished him. There were a couple matches with guys that gave him a little bit of trouble, but in the end he was simply too strong and fast for anyone. He brought home the gold and made it look good.

Anyway, that was pretty much the weekend. Cliff, Katlyn, and Kevin made their way up to see me roll, and snagged video of all my matches. Although I'm disappointed that they came to see me stink the place up, they still had a good time. Brian was impressed by Katlyn's lack of comments such as "is this almost done?" She's a good sport about everything. I'm glad they came.

Anyway, I did mention that they took video. I had three matches, and won only the first one, so that's the only one you get to see. Here it is. I'm sure it's going to be a pain in the ass to download, so as I've said before with other videos I've uploaded: Walk away and come back to watch in 10 or 15 minutes if you want to see it that badly. See you - ON THE MAT!