How did your first tournement go?

[jericksen5]

Just had mine saturday. It sucked, to sum it up. First off, it was in bumblefuck IL, and run by a bunch of hicks. Supposedly they were supposed to bring in some bjj blackbelts to run it and they got snowed in from their flight. So the people running it had no idea what they were doing, they had to ask a few people that were competing to be the judges. According to the website, it was going to be NAGA rules, but then it wasnt. They gave 2 points for aggresively pulling guard?

They had a really small turnout, so they lumped all the divisions together. Novice, beginner, and intermediate were all in the same division, and it was split 175 and under and 176 and over. When we arrived, they had no liability waivers, nor did they have medical staff or emt's. When a girl got choked out, the ref just picked her up and patted her on the back till she came to. I popped my knee, and had to get up and hop over to concessions to ask for ice.

When they called my "division," they had lost my registration card. They also lost the registration card of another guy from my school that came up with me, so they said in order for one of us to advance we had to fight eachother. I already roll with this guy 3 days a week, now i drove 4 hours and paid $40 to roll with him in a tournement? He had alot of training and tournement experience on me and i lost on points.

My last complaint was that they put the 3 mats they had in the corner against the wall, so people kept getting smashed into the wall. And then they kept a bunch of boxes covering half the mat, so guys kept rolling into these cardboard boxes and they had to keep moving them back to the center. The entire adult gi division didnt get to go, and a bunch of no gi guys never got to go, a few of them got refunds.

Anyways, was anyone elses first tourney as shitty as mine? Was your 2nd one much better?

[whipyourasstyle]

WOW, that SUCKS!!!

Keep your head up, it can only get better after that. NAGA tends to be OK. Generally the prootions that have held more than a few tourney's have the kinks worked out. Head for the GQ, NAGA, or PAN AMs

[Jimmy Cerra]

In my first grappling tournament, I fought in Men's No-Gi Beginner - 190 lb. I was triped and taken down into side control. Eventually my opponent managed to apply an americana that ended the match. I wrote in my journal:

I learned several valuable life lessons there:

1. By not eating, you can lose up to 3.5 pounds in a day.
2. It pays to be punctual; the line gets long quickly.
3. Overestimating your enemy is just as bad as overestimating yourself.
4. The best don't talk too much. Ironically I shouldn't be posting in my journal then.
5. It hurts to lose, even when it was expected. It hurts alot.

So I lost my first and only match of the day after about 1.5-2 minutes. Hey, I couldn't tell the time - too busy grappling. That embarrassment will fuel me for next year.

The next year, I got second in both gi and no-gi in the intermediate and white belt 145 pound divisions.

[BeRGLeZ]

Whoa dude that REALLY sucks. Mine was well organized, however I competed after only a few weeks of training and got steamrolled. My plan was to go in as hard and as aggressively as I could and hopefully win by points/position (I knew LIMITED submissions ie 2 chokes? lol). Anyway I almost got the better of a scramble, and after being sweeped I was mounted and got choked 3 mins into the fight haha..

[Tapout_monster]

man that really sucks. i cant relate i dont roll bjj....i want to but theres no gym around where i live.

[J Storm]

Frodo, u went from 190lbs to 145 in a year??

[hayliks]

first bjj tournament was alright, was about 2hrs behind, i didn't really know the rules quite well, i beat my first opponent 26-0, i thought there might have been some sort of techfall rule, but there wasn't. after my match some guys from my school told me next time just hold mount or side control after about 8-10 points. i didn't really know any submissions. my second match i won 15-0, this time being more controlled and not trying to score every opportunity possible. my third match was against another strong wrestler and he had a few years of bjj on me. the match actually went into double overtime 0-0. i didn't know overtime wasn't sudden death, i got a takedown to go ahead 2-0, thinking the match was over, i kind of let him go, he almost swept me we went out of bounds, i scored a second takedown and won 4-0. the finals i was up 8-0 and my opponent with 1 min left put on a halfhearted footlock on me. guys from my school told me just to pull him into me and chill. so i just did that for the last minute and won.

[jasond]

Wow, Man. That sucks. Sorry to hear your first tourny went so bad. My first tournament wasn't perfect, but compared to your experience I'm not complaining at all.

[GJJNY]

Mine? It went bad. First tournament I entered was the Pan Ams. The competition wasn't very good, but my nerves killed me and I blew a bunch of chances to finish my opponent in the first few minutes. At least you can blame your experience on something other than yourself.

[Hamm]

Man even though that sounded bad I cant wait for my first tourney.