UMAN Grappling Tournament

This past Sunday we were at the UMAN Grappling tournament in Rahway, NJ. I did well in my first two matches and made a stupid mistake to get subbed in my third. I ended up taking third place. In all fairness, there weren't enough participants to have different experience categories. This means that the guys I beat (and the guy who beat me) may very well have a great deal less or a great deal more experience than I do. As usual, you don't get to see me lose. That video goes into my personal collection, never to be seen by the outside world. Unless someone else took video too. Oh well, here are videos if you'd like to watch. Enjoy!

Match #1



Match #2

Youtube

I have had a YouTube account for quite some time, but I never uploaded any videos of mine onto YouTube...until now!

So far I have a video of myself grappling, as well as videos of me, Brian, & Kevin jumping up at Feron's Leap (all of which I have posted here before). Here's the link. Enjoy!

NE Grappling VI Pics

...from MMAPhotography.com They took a bunch of awesome pictures, except for the ones showing me getting my ass kicked. I didn't like those.

Four points for HVJJ.

Going for an armbar...

The beginning of an omoplata...

Can you believe he didn't tap?

Setting up the Severn...

There ya go, hope you enjoyed. Be safe out there...

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!

Sean Janicik: BJJ Blue Belt

That's right, I'm a blue belt. According to Pantene, that's equivalent to a black belt in Kickass! This is me and Karl, and yes I realize that I actually look smaller than Karl. I'm cutting weight, so shut up. Below is a picture of me and Brian that doesn't look very good blown up, but I'm still quite fond of it.

W00t!
Click here for a definition of W00t!

HVJJ In House Tournament.

So on top of my car, and my finals being this week, I'm starting to feel sick. I'm not going to elaborate on this too much, I just needed a second to bitch and no one is around that feels like listening to my bitching.

I've had a headache for the past week or so, I've gotten about 4 hours of sleep in the last two days, I can't eat anything worthwhile, and my weight seems to be stuck. I don't know why, maybe too many fucking pistachio's?

Anyway... I do have some good news. Brian had a tournament last night at HVJJ. Just a small, in house thing that consisted of maybe 10-15 different grapplers, only two of which were not Brian's students (I think). Brian had me roll in the experienced division with the likes of Karl and Brian Kim, where I was heel hooked once and got caught in two straight ankle locks. Man, do those guys like to attack the legs.

Anyway, I also went with guys who's time training more closely matches my own. I won that division, hitting two triangles and a 10 finger. My first match was with B-Man, Marine Joe. Joe has the body structure of a guy that I don't usually like to try and triangle because he's very big in the shoulders which makes it difficult to fully close. This time, it was there and I had to go for it. As usual, I couldn't close it. I got it as tight as I could and tried to get a good angle and hope for the best. I wrapped his leg and squeezed my knees together as hard as I could, but he wouldn't tap. I tried again to pull my shin into my foot but it wasn't going anywhere. At this point I knew if I was going to get it, I had to get a ridiculous angle on him. I pulled myself to his leg and when that again didn't do the trick, I went passed his leg and under him. By the time he tapped, I was almost past his other leg. That man is a monster.

My next match was with my new friend Brennan, a guy who trains in Highland. He's very explosive and strong, but I caught him with a 10 finger when he dropped his head shooting a double. I managed to jump guard and get the tap after he rolled me around a few times and almost shrugged me off. I was actually looking for the front naked, which I always am, but I'll settle for the 10 finger I guess, heh.

After him I rolled with Kevin who is a Town of Poughkeepsie police officer. That guy is strong, intense, and has great control. It is very difficult to do anything to him, especially from your guard because he stays so tight. It's frustrating, but I'm sure it keeps him out of a lot of trouble with others as well as me. Anyway, not much happened and time ran out with him in my guard. We did a two minute overtime from the feet, and he shot a single. Kevin can't make it to every class because of his work schedule which worked out for me. Had he made the last few classes he would likely have quickly taken me down. But, I pulled my leg out from between his legs and kicked out to the side. I knew I wanted to do this at some point during the evening and I was pumped! I jumped for a flying triangle, and for the first time in my experience, he stayed upright. I didn't slow down though and kept working. He shifted me to one side and I transitioned to the omoplata while he still stood, which drew from Pantene "Oh my god, a flying omoplata!" At that point we hit the mat and Kevin timed it well enough to pass himself over me and get out of it...and get points for passing my guard. I managed to scramble before he could clamp down on me, and I caught him in a triangle for the win in OT. Yay, go me.

I even won a prize! Brian bought a bunch of jiu-jitsu and MMA related books and DVD's for the winners choose from. Yes, I'll end that sentence, and this one, with the word "from." I picked Randy Couture's Wrestling for Fighting or something that sounds like that - the book is still in my car so I can't look. I haven't had the chance to look through it yet, but it should be pretty cool.

Anyway, I've taken my little break from studying and paper writing. Back to work. Be safe out there...

Mon Oreille

I'm done seeing the doc for now with regard to my ear. He did say that he wanted to see me in a month or so just to check up on it, but he's happy that it's as drained as it's going to get and it isn't infected. Infected has an entirely new meaning to me now since I've been watching 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Great movies, although certainly not for the squeamish.

Anyway, the ear seems to be as good as it's going to get. The Doc says that I'm good to start working out again, but doesn't want me doing any sort of heavy lifting. As far as returning to the mat goes, he definitely doesn't want it getting hit or rubbed. After the slicing I went through my ear is so damned sore and throbbing that I whole heartedly agree with him. I may go to jiu jitsu just for the instruction, but I'm certainly not going to be doing any rolling for a while. Anyway, that's my blogging update for today. Be safe out there...

Cauliflower Ear

So, I just had the nastiest case of ear madness so far. My father who is an E.R. tech at Vassar Hospital took a look at it after I asked him if he could drain it for me (I've never done it before, and I also don't have needles or syringes with which to do it), and he said "I'm not touching that." I didn't really think that it was that big of a deal, but he convinced me to come into the ER to get a referral to an eye/ear/nose/throat guy. So I did, hoping that they would just drain it there and I wouldn't have to go through the entire referral process and all. When I got the cut on the back of my head, the guy who put the staples in for me was into martial arts; I was hoping to get him as my doctor and have him treat me, but that wasn't the case. I did see him, and he was morbidly impressed. I was hoping that he'd tell the doctor I had that he'd do it himself if my doc wasn't confident about it, but even he told me that he wasn't going to mess with it either.

Anyway, I guess I can understand it...along with all the fluid built up in there, I was loosing circulation. I didn't realize it, but parts of my ear were turning white, and other parts still had bruising. There was swelling that not only wasn't going down, was getting worse. I met my Dad for his birthday dinner on Sunday evening, and met him again when I went into the ER Monday night. He noted that the swelling was worse, and I hadn't been training at all in between. The swelling had increased, and was cutting off circulation. Crap.

So, today I went to the specialist and he wouldn't drain the damn thing either...he sliced my ear open in three different places. He put holes in my ear! He then proceeded to wrap my head in gauze as tightly as he possibly could; he had put some stuff in the cuts he had made so that they wouldn't close and the ear would continue to drain on its own. Great.

Now, I look like a Crypt or Blood who accidentally put his bandana in a bleach load. Obviously I can't train, but he warned me against sweating or showering, as this would make the bandaging fall apart. Also, increasing my heart rate would only bring more crap to my ear that would have to drain as well. This means I can't even go for a run if I want to.

So on Thanksgiving Day, I'll be meeting up with him in the morning to take off the bandages. No training, no running, no nothing. I really don't even want to go outside looking like this, heh. I do have plenty of homework to catch up so I'll be busy, but this really, really sucks.

What's New

Just in case anyone actually checks this out for updates on everything Janicik, I figured I'd take a minute to write some words.

I think I'm finally starting to get my shit together. The apartment is looking more and more like living space instead of a storage unit, I'm catching up on my school work, and I'm training again. I'm not training quite the way I was; some days I know my head just isn't in it. For the most part, however, I'm back on the mat.

I'm not doing NAGA. I was planning on it originally, but then shit happened and I changed my mind. As it turns out, even if I wanted to do it, I'm in no shape to. During training, I thought I was safe from a key lock that I was caught in because I had slipped my elbow in and there was no strain on my shoulder. What I didn't realize, was that the strain that would have been on my shoulder transferred entirely to my elbow. It hurt, and it still hurts. It doesn't keep me from training, but it I definitely do not want to risk getting caught with that in competition. I will soil myself from the pain if someone gets even close to that and, as a result of competing against me instead of training with me, they'd do what they had to do to get me to tap. I would do the same.

The real kicker is that my right elbow isn't the problem. About a single week ago, the same thing happened on my left arm, but the popping noises that the joint made were audible to Brian who was a good 20 feet away. It didn't hurt immediately, but I knew I was in trouble. Over the next couple days it swelled like a balloon and the pain increased exponentially. This will take a very long time to heal. I'm hoping that by icing it daily and pumping myself full of ibuprofen a few times a day, I'll be healed in 9-10 months. Shitty.

Not so shitty as Cliff. His leg is worse. We've gone on a couple runs even though we both probably knew it was a bad idea. Turns out that it was a VERY bad idea. The situation has worsened, and Cliff is thankfully trying to completely eliminate running from his mind for a good year. We're all hoping that won't take that long, but we're not really in the driver's seat, or the runner's shoes, on this one.

School for me is another topic all together. I don't want to get into it right now other than to say to everyone who's interested that I'm still here and I'm going to finish the semester as well as I can. I've said that before, but I'm telling myself as often as possible to simply man up. There's nothing else I can do.

So there you go.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I've decided I'm a Rangers fan. I figure that accusations of disloyalty are warranted, but at least I'm coming back into the Ranger fold and not rooting for the Islanders ::shudder::. The reason I started rooting for the Devils when I was younger was because everyone around me was a Ranger fan and I wanted to be different. Although I remained a Devil's fan when the Rangers won the cup, and have since then, I'm over that being different for the sake of being different fad I guess. Also, I find that getting to the Meadowlands is easier than getting to the Garden, and cheaper. Now that the Devils are moving further south in Jersey, it won't be as easy. Plus, why the fuck am I rooting for a New Jersey team? I hate New Jersey.

NAGA: NAGC 2007

I will be competing in this tournament as a featherweight. Here's the flyer, and here's the official site.

This is sweet on many levels, one of the biggest ones is the fact that we can weigh in the day before. It would be even nicer if the featherweight division topped out at 145, but I'll take 149.9. Time for me to start running and starving...

Promotion

Last night, at HVJJ, I got a promotion. We had a great open mat session, and afterward learned a bunch of new stuff from the mount position. As well as learning the specific details on a few different things to do from mount, the philosophy of treating your mounted game the same as your guard game was instilled into us, and I'll try to think more along those lines from here on out. I've already used the triangle from mount many times before, but I'm looking forward to working on my gogoplata.

Anyway, the important point in this post is to announce that I got a promotion. I was awarded two stripes, bringing me up to three. I am now a three stripe white belt, and damn proud of it. So feel free to do the comment thing with your congratulations! HA! Anyway, that's that, go me.

The Most Brutal 10 Finger of All Time

This is Dan Miller. While at Planet Jiu-Jitsu, he learned and mastered the move while he was with Rob Kahn. See definition of "mastering the guillotine" by clicking below.


The Most Brutal Guillotine Choke in MMA
Uploaded by Bulletproof2

Intro to Visual Arts

While studying ancient cave paintings in my art history class, I found myself wondering what I would want to put on a cave for people to find thousands of years later...then I realized what it would be, without really even trying to. The images just came to my mind, and this is what came out of my pen! Can you tell what it is? A flying triangle! HA!

Another Week

So, in recent days my MMA gloves have come in, along with a few rashguards and other stuff. I've also ordered headgear and better shin guards. The necessity for headgear was announced by Brian last night when just about everyone who sparred (not me, my ankle is still banged up) demonstrated their proficiency in head kicks. And now, I find myself asking...why?

After speaking with one of my "cut persons" it was explained to me that while the staples are indeed ready to come out if I want them out, the skin would still be very weak and still very susceptible to being reopened. Whether the staples stay or go, my situation doesn't really change.

Shit. So I'm going to leave them in, since with or without them I'm still DL'ed. I am still not going to be able to do MMA, jiu jitsu, or wrestling for another week. I am going to tend the deepest wound, the depression associated with not doing jiu jitsu, with a special medicine I call "alcohol." Le sigh...

Rob Kahn's Seminar at HVJJ

Today was the Rob Kahn seminar. Rob is a black belt under Royce Gracie, and owns Tampa Gracie Jiu Jitsu in...Tampa.

Anyway, he was up to corner Brian for his 32 second fight on Friday, and he stuck around until this afternoon to do the seminar, and give me a private lesson. I just wanted to say that Rob's personality and teaching are great. I felt very comfortable with him, he looked me in the eye when he spoke and I learned a lot. In fact, there was only 1 physical move that I hadn't seen before from Brian, but he introduced me to a new way of thinking about and gameplanning with regard to jiu jitsu that is going to help me out big time. I can't wait until I get these damed staples out of my head so I can hit the mat hard and start working again.

That was just the private lesson. While doing the general seminar, for which there was a great turnout, I did learn a bunch of new stuff that I'm looking forward to trying. I could go into each one in detail, but I really want to move on to the next subject.

As everyone suspected, or at least was hoping for, Brian was promoted to Brown Belt! This was a long awaited and very well deserved promotion. Although I haven't been training with Brian with the intensity that I am now, I know the kind of dedication he has to the sport. I am increadibly happy for him. Everyone was increadibly happy for him; there were many shaking hands and hugs going around the room in his honor. Brian was obviously happy beyond happy; he looked on the verge of tears. Congratulations man, I'm happy I was there.

There were several other promotions as well: Jamie, and Karl both got stripes, and Brian got his purple belt. Congrats big time to you guys too, and I'm positive I'm forgetting someone here, and I apologize. My head is rocking from my f$%^&*ing cut, and I'm having a hard time reading the more I do it...therefore, this post ends about now.

The only other thing I want to say is that I don't have pictures, but pictures were taken. I'll be putting them up as soon as I get my hands on them. Be safe out there...

I Have Staples In My Head

I have staples in my head.

Yes, staples. I guess they're more popular nowadays than stitches; from what I hear, they're a lot less painfull too. I guess I can't really attest to that, because I don't remember the last time I've had stitches, but I'm getting off topic.

Brian is fighting tonight, and last night he weighed in. I haven't heard, but I'm guessing everything went fine because his weight has been closer this time than any other of his fights. Anyway, he wasn't there for class last night after Muay Thai with Brendan, so it was just two hours of open mat. I was rolling for about an hour and a half with no issues. For most of the time I rolled with Karl and although I feel that I'm getting better each time I hit the mat, he still pretty much kicked my ass the entire time. I did manage to get a triangle on him, but chokes are pretty much useless against him, as he's very thin; you have to have it on perfect. I had to loosen up a little bit to go for the omaplata and, knowing it was coming, Karl wiggled out.

After a while, I think we both wanted to roll with other people just because rolling with the same person the entire night would be boring, especially if there are 10 other people there. Anyway, I wanted to roll with Joe, because I'm closer in skill to him than Karl, and he's much bigger than me. The reason I like this so much is because he's very difficult for me to tap, but he's not turning me inside out all night either, like...well, Karl.

So after a few minutes of rolling with Joe, I got rocked. In a scramble, I rolled to my knees and tried to shoot for a single. Joe, I think, was trying to drop down and maintain top position on me. Unfortunatly, the first point of contact we made was his elbow to the back on my head. I didn't go out, but it hurt like hell for a second. Joe apologized, and seemed pretty upset. I wasn't upset, but he wanted to take a look at my head anyway...sure enough, I was bleeding pretty good.

The bleeding did stop relatively quickly, but Joe had said that I was going to need stitches...then Brendan said I'd need stitches...then Nightcrawler...then some others. So I went home to change, not worried about the time between cut and stitch because I knew I'd be waiting to be seen once at the hospital anway. The wait wasn't too bad, but wait I did. Anyway, the doctor was pretty cool. He numed me up, closed the hole in my head with 5 staples, and sent me on my way.

He told me I shouldn't train for a good week or two, best case not until the staples were taken out (2 weeks). Sadly, I couldn't ablige the man. I will take it easy for a while, but if I can get Brian's approval, I have to go to Rob Kahn's seminar on Sunday. I also scheduled myself a private lesson with him, which came with a bonus free private lesson with Brian somewhere down the road.

Anyway, that's pretty much the end of the story...except I should note that the headache from which I was spared last night hit me hard when I woke up this morning. At about 2:15 today, only my first cup of coffee helped a little bit.

Ah, the joys of combat sports. First my ankle (which is actually healing quite nicely), and now this. I've never had a cut this bad, fortunatly, and I've never had staples before. Anyway, have a good!

Taking the Back and Saving Your Ankles

Last night I learned that not crossing your ankles while you've got back mount does not necessarily save your ankles from being broken.

Brian (not McLaughlin...sorry dude, I forgot your last name) put his right leg across the inside of my right foot while I had his back, and "figure four-ed" (such a strange term) his legs...sucked.

No, my ankle isn't broken, but I'm definatly hurting. I'll be back on the mat tonight. I think the only thing I won't be able to do is run for awhile, actually. In any case, I'll be thinking about this with every throbbing step I take around campus here at New Paltz.

On a better note, I hit a flying triangle last night...the first one I've ever gone for. I didn't really think about it, honestly. My thinking was that I was going to jump guard, but I had the right hand positioning to go right into the triangle...I was pretty happy about that.

NE Grappling V Pics!

While up at the NE Grappling V tournament I ran into Derek Constable, who is with MMAPhotography.com. Brian alerted me to the fact that they had many pictures up from that tournament, so I thought I'd check it out. He wasn't kidding; I found many pictures of myself, as well as everyone else on the team. Here they are!

---

This kid had me in a front headlock that I couldn't back out of, so I did the only natural thing...I launched him.

---

Although I was straining (as I'm sure you can see in my face) I wasn't able to finish this. My foot wasn't where it needed to be. I was originally going for an omaplata, but he rolled me back over and I went for the gogo. Didn't work, but made for some sick looking pictures. I ended up getting a sweep out of the deal too, because when I let loose and he pulled up and out, he stood and I kicked him down...



...and sat up to try and pass.

---

These pictures shows the only time I was an any kind of danger of tapping.



This one looks like the triangle is sunk pretty deep, but I'm pretty proud of my reputation for being difficult to choke. With Brian screaming instructions to me from the sidelines, I was able to step over and make my way out.

---

One thing that I know I go for a lot is taking the back from mount and side control. The Gift Wrap is one of my favorite moves, and you can see one of the ways that I compound the move below. Notice my hand on his bottom leg, it will help me roll him over.



Sometimes I'll go for the gift wrap from mount, and jump to side control once I have it, as you can see me doing here.



Now, I go for the back!



Anyway, these pictures are great and help me remember all the fun I had for myself, as well as getting to watch everyone else on the team compete. Definatly go to MMA Photography to see the rest of the pictures. Everyone who competed is on there; Big John and Karl especially have some sick pictures up. 'Til next time!



Sean Janicik: 3-1 for 2nd place.

NE Grappling V

So I had my first grappling tournament ever Saturday! I was pumped up for it for a long time, and I would like to say I trained my ass off for it. I certainly did train my ass off, but I train just as hard every day whether I have a competition coming up or not.

We went up there on Friday and stayed in a hotel for the night. The next day, we got to the tournament at...I guess it was 11? Something like that. I made weight without much of a problem; I got on the sale at 159.5 with no shoes, but fully clothed with empty pockets. I proceeded to drink a lot of water and Gatorade, and I ate a bunch of food that Carol had brought with us from the (really nice) continental breakfast at the hotel. Originally, my group was scheduled as the last to go, so I got comfortable. As it turned out, I wasn't the last to go, but I still wasn't going for quite a while. I wasn't upset by that though, I got to watch everyone else on the team work.

The kids went first, and HVJJ cleaned house. Both John John and Little Derrick beat everyone they went against, and shared first place instead of competing against each other for first.
Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't do quite as well as the youngest of our crew did. We didn't do so hot in the team division, but there really aren't many complaints. Karl kicked a bunch of ass, and everyone else had some pretty talented people. Last year, our team only lost first place by 1 point, but this year, teams came STACKED.

Anyway, I'll post a link to the results once they've updated the website. Now, on to how I did.

I was in a division that consisted of 16 guys, all at 160 pounds. It was the biggest division of the tournament! I'm not sure if I was actually nervous, but I was certainly pumped. I remember trying to calm myself down as I watched the first couple matches before I was to go on myself. My first impression was that everyone was very athletic, and apparently very good. I guess I was at least a little intimidated, but it didn't effect my mindset. 90% of the people I train with are also teachers to me, so I get my ass kicked regularly; I'm not going to let that effect the way I roll.

So the third match is about to get going, and that's my first one. The kid I'm rolling is taller than me and I felt as though he was bigger than me too, but we both had to make the same weight so I wasn't worried. It was definitely a battle. He seemed to be pretty athletic. He didn't have much wrestling so I got the takedown pretty easily. The match seemed to go on forever, but I maintained top control for all of what I remember. I took the mount a bunch of times, and eventually he showed me his back. I sunk the hooks in, and went for the choke, but it felt like he ducked his chin. I was really high up on him and I felt like he could have rolled me eventually if he wanted to, so I grabbed my hand and squeezed the life out of his head. The Severn (sp?) worked, and I got the tap.

The next guy, I really don't have any memory of...maybe if someone tells me a little bit about it, then it'll come back to me but the other 3 matches I had stuck out significantly to me. This one must not have been as interesting as the others. This one, my second, I won on points. I know I could have finished the two that I won on points if I had enough time, but I'll take the win in any case.

With the second kid I rolled, we put on a gymnastics exhibition (or so it felt like for me)! I scored a bunch of takedowns in that one, but we went back in forth on positions on the ground. I was getting tired at this point. As it turns out, my cardio isn't what I thought it was. Anyway, he swept me a bunch of times, I swept him and reversed him a bunch of times. One takedown I got on him was pretty impressive to the spectators; I got a lot of compliments on it! We were doing some handfighting and it wasn't going very far. I managed to get double underhooks and wasted no time: I launched the kid. I picked him as high up off the mat as I could and drove my entire body into him. My feet left the ground before he landed, and when he did, the force of my entire weight drove into his chest. I'm not sure when in the match that happened, as we did have an overtime. We were tied on points at the end of regulation, so we had a 2 minute overtime in which I racked up enough points to put him away. My next match would be for first place.

Final Match: By now I feel pretty whipped. I did have some energy left, but I felt as though I had lost all explosiveness. The kid is a wrestler, and when you're working against wrestlers, you're working against explosiveness. Anyway, we hand fought for quite a while, and I believe he got the takedown on me. He was very heavy on me, and my several attempts to sweep him were all unsuccessful. I am not as confident in my guard as I am my top game (although Mike completely disagrees with me), but Brian did a great job coaching me, and was a mere few feet away when I went for a gogoplata. I was VERY close to finishing the match at that point...in fact, Dave told me that I will probably hear him on the video Jaimie was making for me saying "If he finishes with a gogoplata, he'll be my hero." I was kicking and pulling as hard as I could, but the guy toughed it out. I think he had his chin in and knew he wasn't in danger so regardless of the discomfort I may have put him through, he remained calm. I am often able to tough things out that aren't perfect (10 fingers, triangles, etc.). Anyway, he made his way out of that, and controlled me for the rest of the match. I think he passed my guard toward the end of the match too, which would have made the score 4-0. I'm not sure exactly what the score was, but everyone was telling me that it was a close match. Hopefully, the results will be up on the NE Grappling Website soon.

So, I came in 2nd place in my division of 16 guys. I had a great time, and that's all that I was really up there to do. I love the sport, and I hope to compete again soon. Brian has me thinking about an upcoming pseudo MMA fight in October. More details on that to come soon, but I'd like to go again in straight grappling before the year is up. Anyway, I'm happy with the way I did, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and I hope everyone else up there had at least as much fun as I did. Salut!

P.S. The videos will be up as soon as I get my hands on them!

Congratulations Dave!

Tonight Dave was awarded his blue belt! Huzzah!




HAHAHA!!! Ah, I kill me...ok, here are the real pictures.

Click here for the full size version.


Nothing like being promoted with a (almost) broker finger!

Click here for the full size version.


Tonight we also took a few HVJJ pictures in sorrowful anticipation of Waffle's departure...sniff...





Full size images can be found here and here, respectively.