Tag Archives: advantage

Long Road Back to Worlds

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This is a tough one to write. I’m disappointed; just spent a few minutes looking through the screen lost in thought about life, the absurdity of pursuing goals, setting new goals, etc. I guess you can call these the dark moments after a tournament. I performed worse than I wanted, losing my last match by 2 points. I won’t say anything more about the matches except that I earned a total of 6 advantage points throughout the tournament for almost passing. That says it all to me.

The IBJJF put up a picture of my loss. I made it my computer’s desktop background to remind myself of what I was missing today.

The main reason for my disappointment is that I wanted to win gold as a confidence boost for Worlds in 5 weeks, and the reason I didn’t win is because my heart wasn’t in the match. That’s a crushing realization, and calls for a few changes in my training. It’s time to get serious. I have to build confidence in my technique and my cardio. I know exactly the things that need to be done. Given how much responsibilities I have at work, the things I know I need will be that much harder to get into my schedule. But I’ll do my best.

Thanks for everyone’s support, and congrats to the many new and old jiu jitsu friends that I ran into today. Everyone who I saw compete fought their asses off.

Submission Only Finals

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Saw this poll on FightWorks Podcast and thought that this is a great idea for tournaments: make the finals match submission only.

The poll suggests this for black belt divisions at IBJJF events. However, I think it would be a great idea for finals of any division except maybe the most novice ones (kids, white belt, etc).

An alternative is to make it an opt-in option. So, if both competitors agree, then it’s submission only, otherwise if either disagrees, then just do a regular points match. Although obviously this alternative has some unfairness issues.

I won far too many matches by 2 points or even on advantages. When the time runs out and I’m only up by 2 points, I feel like I was saved by the bell, like I never was put to the test. I do see jiu jitsu as a chess match, and respect the game for its technical merit, but in the end it (especially a finals match) is a battle. To win a battle you have to make the opponent give up, no excuses, no referee close calls, etc.

All that said, I don’t think I would want every match to be submission only, lol. Or would I? I’m doing the US Grappling submission-only tournament in September. If it’s anything like what people say it is, it’ll be a great experience. Here’s a highlight from one of their submission-only events:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUcrpJxki8