Friday, March 29, 2013

2013 Pan Ams

So I had intended to do a run up to this years Pan Am games up here to keep everyone up to date who's far away.  Obviously that did not occur since the event occurred last week.  What can I say, next time.  However, I can say that the experience is one that everyone who is serious about BJJ should undertake at least once in a career.

I normally compete in regional events at middle weight.  For an event this size, I cut back to light weight.  That's right, I dropped from my post-Holiday scale tipping 184.5 to 165.5 in full gi the day of the event for my Senior 1 Brown Belt match.

This was NOT a good time.  However, a friend of mine put me onto the Dolce Diet which he had used to cut for a MMA fight.

http://thedolcediet.com/

This turned out to work really well.  I don't know that the whole program works long term, but I followed his three week weight cut specific program the last run up and it worked great.

The IBJJF runs a pretty fantastic tournament pretty much any time.  For one of their majors they out do themselves.  Not to mention, where else do you go that you randomly bump into the likes of Royce Gracie in the food court before watching Andre Galvao win matches live.  Pretty awesome stuff.

If you're unfamiliar with the organization (some of my karate friends might not be I suppose)  here's the info:

http://www.ibjjf.org/

They truly are the premier BJJ organization out there for competition.  The rules might be a bit convoluted (I think they are even more so after taking a ref course out there) but they keep their athletes safe and run pretty much on time. Which if you've ever been to a NAGA for hours on end you'll appreciate.

As to my match, well, I lost in the prelims.  That said, everyone in my division, myself included had a good history of making the podium at regional level events.  My match was against a guy who'd medaled at the Pans at Brown last year AND placed in the last two World events.  Add that to the four stripes he was sporting on his belt and one can assume he's been at brown a while.  I made the jump last November.  All of that considered, I was happy that I wrestled him well.  I went out to win as opposed to wrestling not to lose.  There's a difference and I ended up on the right side of the equation despite the loss. 

I can live with that. 

Here's the bout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZVBGYaFaCM

You'll see where I lose connection and he capitalized.  Let me put this out here right now:  he was an excellent competitor and better than me. 

Now, I can start to look forward to the next outing.  NAGA is up in April (very maybe) and hopefully the IBJJF comes back to Chicago in the fall.  I'm looking to try to get some more tournies in at brown.  I won't be cutting serious weight again until the IBJJF though. 

Thanks to everyone who gave me a hand getting ready.  We'll do it again next time!