Tournament Review Tuesday: AGC Invitational
December 16, 2008
I arrived at the December 13th 2008 Association of Grappling Competitors (AGC) tounament a little bit past noon time with a few of my students from Omoplata BJJ. This is pretty late for a grappling tournament, and that means sleep for me. Hurray. The competitors were all hanging out and weighing in as we showed up, the Ryan Hall seminar was about to start in twenty minutes. I went over to Ryan and Seph Smith (another talented fighter under Lloyd Irvin) to catch up and introduce my students.
The Ryan Hall seminar was cool and casual. He asked when we wanted to learn, in addition to some of the stuff he had planned on working on. We worked on some pass prevention techniques and principals, and then went into a bit of inverted guard for a triangle setup.
The tournament was in a small venue, and the number of competitors was fitting. The divisions included 170 and under intermediate no gi, 205 and under intermediate no gi, 170 and under blue belt gi, and 205 and under blue belt gi.
The rest of the tournament included super-fights, including fighters like Danny Lauzon, Renan Borges, and Sean Eager, as well as a 155 and under no gi pro devision, which I was lucky enough to compete in.
170 and under intermediate no gi first, followed be 205 no gi. There were about 2 or 3 matches going on at the same time in this small venue, but everything seemed to go right about on time. The pro devision started and I was the first match. I won my first and second match and lost in the semifinals to Ken Stone who went on to the finals to face Renan (BTT Boston black belt and no-gi pan-am champion). After rolling for while a white with no clear winner and advantages on both sides, Renan ended up winning in the ending seconds with an X-guard sweep. I tied for third place with Paul Gorman (brown belt under Jay Jack out of Maine) because there was no third and forth place match.
After the pro devision, the other no-gi devisions continued swiftly and went right into gi. It was interesting watching guys from such different skill levels and sizes compete. In the 170 and under weight there were guys weighing 140 grappling guys sucking down from 180. There were about half white belts in the blue belt devision.
After tying his super-fight with Renan of BTT, I caught up with the master of funny accents and eater of spicey food, Seph Smith. I asked how he was doing with training and work, since apparently he no longer has a vehicle - some drunk hit his pickup recently. “I’ve been doing well, training in Arlington all the time with Ryan” he stated. I talked to him about his website, and if that meant more seminars or lessons in his future. “No, I really just want to make a living. Someone actually made the website for me which I really appreciate (www.SephSmith.com), but I’m not necessarily getting more involved business-wise.” I went on to talk about what his main goals were. “I wanna go to the Abu Dhabis and win that thing.” I went on to ask him about his super-fight with Renan, and what he thought about him. “I think he is very good, he has all the little details down. Like, he’s very aware of everything going on - he’ll do little things like put his big toe on your leg so he knows where it is.” I talked to him about how close he was to tapping Renan; “Yeah I knew I was close there but he was able to turn in. I was also unaware that our match wouldn’t have three 5 minute rounds like the other super fights.”
I also stopped by to talk with Mr. Ryan Hall himself. A few months back he was injured pretty badly while training, and has had a few surgeries on the effected area near his wrist. I asked him when he planned to be back fully with live training. “For the Abu Dhabi” he said without a millisecond of hesitation. “So you plan on being fully healed by the time the Abu Dhabi competition comes around?” I asked. “I don’t want to hurt myself before then. I hoping to be invited, winning the Abu Dhabi is my biggest goal right now.” Ryan went into a bit of detail in terms of how he plans to face his competition (haha); “I plan to win the majority of my matches with grappling moves.”
Micro: “How else will you go about winning, Ryan?”
“With Jedi mind tricks, or when all else fails, bribery” he said while holding a straight face.
I asked what else was on his plate besides psychic skills. “I want to win the Mundial at brown belt.”
“What about the no-gi Mundials?”
“The Abu Dhabi trumps all that.”
True. We chatted Bit longer about the state of BJJ as a sport, and I bumped into some other grapplers.
I caught up with Sean Eager, on of Jay Jack’s fighters from Maine. I asked him about his super-fight. “I faced some Team Link purple belt who was pretty good. I ended up getting him with a heel hook.” I asked Eager what he thought of the tournament. He said some of his guys back in Maine were disappointed that there wasn’t a heavier weight class (about 205).
Overall the tournament seemed to go well, with notably less drama than the average tournament - most of which might have been due to the small venue and smaller number of competitors. The super-fights were very exiting, especially Danny Lauzon’s match, which lasted nearly 15 minutes until Dan finished with an armbar. I’d love to see more of these at other tournaments. I left about 6:25pm, and said goodbye to all the guys hanging out on the mats.
- Daniel Faggella, aka Micro
This is the fourth in our new column, Tournament Review Tuesdays, where FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. - Caleb
Tournament Review Tuesday: Asian Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship
December 2, 2008
Black belt absolute finalists
Team Standings:
1st Paraestra
2nd Gracie Barra
3rd place Purebred/Lloyd Irvin Guam
The first day of action saw Mike Fowler of Team Purebred/Lloyd Irvin Guam winning the black belt adult absolute in stunning fashion. Mike won his first fight by armlock and his second by points. On the other side of the bracket Marcos Souza of Bull Terrier Bon Sai won his first two by submission. The final was the match of the day with Fowler submitting Souza with less than a minute left despite being down on points 14 to 4. Another American standout making a name for himself was 19 year old phenom J.T. Torres submitting 5 opponents with a mean back attack game to win the brown belt absolute.
J.T. Torres wins AOJC double gold.
Day 2 action had great performances from Brasiliero champ and 2006 AOJC (Asian Open Jiu Jitsu Championships) champ Isamu Shishido dominating the black belt pena division. American Robert Drysdale showed to perform but was without an opponent. Andy Wang representing Taiwan BJJ lost by points in his first match in the master black belt absolute. A repeat performance was in order for Team Purebred/Lloyd Irvin Guam`s J.T. Torres winning 5 matches to take the leve brown belt division. Mens black belt medio division was the setup for another final consisting of Daisuke “Amazon” Sugie against Mike Fowler. Both submitted their 2 opponents easily before meeting up in the final. Amazon came out on top with a lapel choke from the back early in the match. Both players had the Tokyo Budokan spectators on the edge of their seats.
- Stephen Roberto from Purebred/Lloyd Irvin
Tokyo Budokan
This is the third in our new column, Tournament Review Tuesdays, where FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. - Caleb
Tournament Review Tuesday: Royler Gracie David Adiv Association Tourney
November 18, 2008
Royler Gracie
This Sunday, November 16th, 2008, the Royler Gracie-David Adiv Association held its annual international tournament in Marlboro, NJ. The RGDA International Championships brings together all the representative academies from around the US, Canada and abroad for a one-day team-only tournament.
The event is intended as a friendly scrimmage to keep the RGDA Jiu Jitsu family tuned up for upcoming competitions in everyone’s respective states or countries but ultimately it is like big family gathering, where people who have not seen each other in over a year can get together, reminisce, catch up on news and then try to choke each other out! The friendly atmosphere extends to the mat where every match ends with mutual admiration.
Among a field of over 125 competitors total, over 25 young players from age 10 to 16 showed some great Jiu Jitsu skills that bode well for the team’s future prospects. These kids showed up to give it their all and really had the place on its feet.
From within the RGDA Team, it was Performance Jiu Jitsu in NJ that took the 1st place with most wins but one of the highlights of the day was the Brown Belt “Superfight”.
Aaron Morris, Brown Belt from RGDA-PA (Pennsylvania, USA) faced Dave “The Gumby” from RGDA-Canada (Montreal, Canada) for a middleweight match that was a demonstration of top-shelf Jiu Jitsu. Both players moved at the measured-pace and technical flow that all true BJJ aficionados like to see. Flowing from position to position, Morris and Gumby transitioned from top to bottom, from guard to standing, until the Canadian finally secured an armbar from the mount. Both players showed how to represent what a black belt-to-be should “roll” like!
The RGDA International Jiu Jitsu Championships has been growing steadily from its first year in 1999, as has the association. In years to come the tournament will continue to be a place for Royler Gracie’s representatives to develop their skills and camaraderie and produce future Mundial champions!
- Armando Basulto, North Carolina
This is the second in our new column, Tournament Review Tuesdays, where FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. - Caleb
Tournament Review Tuesday: NAGA North American Championships
November 11, 2008
The NAGA North American Championships took place this weekend at Essex College in New Jersey. The tournament seemed to flow relatively smoothly with the large gym at Essex. I showed up at about 1:40 pm and had less than an hour until my advanced division, not bad. Not too bad. I later caught up with fellow competitor and well known ref Ryan Parker to talk about the tournament. I asked him how the tournament was going. “What time is it, seven? Yeah this is pretty good, better than those events where we get out at midnight.” Been there, and I’m sure he has many times. He agreed that doing the kids and teens divisions on a separate day is a huge factor in tournament timeliness. Unlike the last NAGA Worlds, this event had that separation. I then asked him how the economic recession was affecting NAGA and its events. “We haven’t felt much of it here” he said. “We had less pre-registered competitors, but over all it was still big.” He then told me that he had actually seen an increase in membership at his gym, The Boneyard in Massachusetts.
I caught up to speak with Justin Hammerstom, an MMA fighter and owner of the fightwear company Boston Brawler. “I don’t know, we’re still doing fine” said Justin in response to my question about the recession. Joe Cuff (one of the prime movers in running the NAGA events) state that recreation and entertainment didn’t seem to be as effected as other realms of our economy. He might be right.
Getting into tournament action, I met up with Dan Simmler, a Mat Serra brown belt and owner of Simmler BJJ. He lost his first no-gi fight to a Penn State wrestler and purple belt, but ended up finishing for third place. When asked about the competition, Dan responded, “the competition was pretty good, that last guy in no-gi was kind of a lemon though.” Nice, Dan. He went on to win his division in the gi, winning by baseball bat choke and then by armbar. Dan has plans to teach a seminar in Maryland in February, in addition to possibly traveling to south east Asia to teach for a while. “I got in touch with Luke of BJJ-asia.com. Apparently they have a ton of schools out there but only a few black belts.”
Bumping into a few other competitors, I chatted with Greg Saunders, a purple belt under Lloyd Irvin who also won his gi division. I talked to him about what had changed in his game recently. “I used to play a guard game a lot like Ryan [Hall]” he stated, “but now I’ve been working differently.” Apparently its been working out for him. He went on to demonstrate a cool sweep and I went on to see some more competitors.
I ran into Frank, a 19 year old white belt at Lloyd Irvin’s academy. He had finished first first in his no-gi division and third in his gi division. Frank went through a large division and seemed to have had a blast. “I had six fights in gi today. I really liked the tournament… I’m getting the BJJ bug!”
Other notable occurrences include the appearance of Matt Serra who came to check out the event and be his charismatic self.
Before leaving I talked to Ryan Parker once more about upcoming NAGA events. “We’ve got something coming up in Chicago and Texas soon. Locally, we’ve also got the New Englands, right up in Rhode Island on Valentine’s Day weekend.”
- Daniel Faggella, aka Micro
This is the first in our new column, Tournament Review Tuesdays, where FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. - Caleb
Tournament Review Tuesdays
November 11, 2008
Time for a new feature here on The FightWorks Podcast.com! Let me introduce it this way:
Fox News has uReport.
CNN has iReport.
The FightWorks Podcast has Tournament Review Tuesdays.
As you know, we feel that some of the best content that we offer in our Brazilian jiu-jitsu internet radio show comes from you, The Mighty 600,000.
The idea behind this one is simple: I am not able to get out there and cover all the Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling events out there but you guys & girls are out there most weekends at a tournament somewhere. Why not get visibility into all that great jiu-jitsu content? So we are accepting written reports of tournaments that you attend.
A few of guidelines about what we are looking for:
- Please keep your reports between 300 and 1,000 words. We want some detail but do not need an encyclopedia.
- No bashing. You are a reporter.
- No promoting. You are a reporter.
- If you want to mention your own performance at the BJJ or grappling tourney, that is okay but remember the report is not about you, it is about the tournament.
- If I think your report needs a little polishing or tweaking before being published, I will take care of that. But I won’t change the meaning of your content.
- If you send along a few photos, we will try to get one posted with your report. If the photo is of a grappling or jiu-jitsu match in progress, please try to tell us who it is in the photo.
- You must have your report emailed to me at caleb AT (this website) DOT com by mid-day on Monday. That way if there’s any last minute questions about your report, we can hammer them out.
I think that covers it for now. I may edit the guidelines above if I have forgotten anything. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Oh, and if you did not know already where to find out about upcoming BJJ tournaments near you, iCompete.org is a great resource.
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