Tournament for stripes.

Mid-American is having Rodrigo Vaghi in town, teaching and grade BJJ students out. We had a number of blue belt promotions this morning and one purple belt.

I was expecting to just roll a bit and show technique for stripes. I was, however, mistaken. Instead, we weighed in for a round-robin tournament. It was very good to compete again so soon after my last tourney, because I felt that I could immediately apply lessons learned from there....and I did.

My first match went well, as I started in guard and managed to pass guard twice, using two different passes. I was pretty happy with that situation and won on points.

My second match was a loss, but one that I don't feel bad about. The guy I faced is a stud (Abe Wagner from TUF 10) and won the entire weight class. I shot a weak double leg (I'm staring judo soon....enough of this) and ended up with him on my back. I defended well, at least well enough, and avoided the choke and the arm bar attempt, ending up in his guard. I fought to break his guard, but he was just very strong and harassing, with an active guard that kept me unsettled. I attempted a low posture pass, but he stuffed it and got back up to his knees, pushing me over into my guard, though I never really got to establish closed guard and didn't shrimp fast enough to avoid the pass. He smashed me in side until he got me to move my arm out of position and then he got the Americana on me. I need to protect my arm more.

My third match went well, though also a loss. I attempted a few sweeps, but eventually pulled guard. I tried my flower sweep twice, a pendulum, he was too locked in posture for a hip over, nothing seemed to be working. I went to open guard and ended up in De La Riva, which is too loose for me....but it worked, so maybe I just need to get over it. I got the sweep from there. Somehow, or another, he ended up in knee on belly on me without getting any pass points and our time ran out. 2 to 2. Sudden death overtime. So, I attempted a drop Seoinage which didn't work and ended back up in my guard. I rolled to an omaplata which I just could not turn into anything, either the finish or the sweep, and he ended up passing guard. I need to work the mechanics of that betters, so that I don't waste the opportunity again.

My final match was probably my favorite (though I like the 3rd very well too, from a technical stand point). I shot a double, again, that went no where and the guy swarmed me like a pack of wild dogs. He was all over me. I turtled to weather the storm. He pulled me over and I turtled again, avoiding the hooks. Finally, I was able to Granby Roll to guard. I held him there for some time, looking for collar chokes. He stood in my guard and I went to spider guard and tried a sickle sweep from them, which unsettled him so he dove back into my closed guard. He left his arm on my chest, so I arm dragged it across and trapped it there, looking for a pendulum type sweep. He changed his base to defend it, so I started creeping around to his back, finally taking his back and keeping it when he rolled over to his back. I worked a clock choke but he started to spin hard, so I moved to mount and started a collar choke again. Once his hands got high, I shot my knees up his arm pits and found that one of his arms was just dangling in front of me....Americana from mount.

Most importantly, Rodrigo and Ed both watched my matches and had good things to say, so I'm on my way to ranking with them.