30 Mar 2009
This weekend I had a BJJ competition – the “6th Annual Australian Submission Grappling Championships” (what a mouthful) – here are some videos from the weekend.
The competition went all day and I didn’t get as many videos as usual as I was one of the officials too (table scorer).
*(For those of you who don’t know what [BJJ][1] is (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) – here’s a short history: at the start of 1900’s in Japan ** Judo split off as a sport from the more traditional Japanese warrior arts or Jiu-Jitsu. At about the same time there was a large wave of Japanese migration to Brazil. A family called ‘Gracie’ adapted and changed Jiu-Jitsu until it was fairly different from the Japanese version. Due to the success of the Brazilian form of Jiu-Jitsu in the UFC competitions in the 1990s, it was realised that **grappling skills (eg Judo, BJJ, Sambo, Pankration) are just as important as striking skills (eg boxing, kick boxing, Muay Thai) (pretty obvious to anyone who’s seen a headlock in a bar/street fight) – hence the increase in popularity of BJJ. As to which martial art is “the best”, I’ll leave that to the arm-chair fighters in the forums – any martial art is good, as long as you train consistently over a long period – “3 months of xyz 5 years ago” doesn’t really cut it. And of course the best self defence is to not get into a dangerous situation or fight in the first place – by being aware of your surroundings, not getting drunk and obnoxious, keeping your ego in check when things get tense, and runninggggggg when push comes to shove.).
*
My injuries have been playing up and I’ve had the flu on and off for a month (arghh), so whilst I won both my grapples on points I wasn’t really on top of my game and I didn’t get any submissions :-( In both the grapples I was against smaller, more junior competitors so it wasn’t really fair on them, but none of the senior women entered – get off your as** and compete!!
My first grapple – versus a Moari woman from Boxing Works/Nova Uniao – she’s stocky and strong and being so short it was hard for me to get under her and take her down; but once we were down I just played my game – thanks Dan.
My second grapple – versus Karla from my own team. She’s only been training for about 9 months but she did really well and I think she’ll be a good grappler in the future. She’s also a capoeirista, and it shows it her footwork.
Some other grapples:
Genevieve from my team (green top and leggings) – she’s new but it’s really great that she’s entering competitions – they’re pretty daunting for a beginner. She was in the lighter weight division.
Just us (nervously) mucking around before going onto the mat. Like always, the waiting is the worst – butterflies, you feel ill, suddenly need to “visit the bathroom”.
Jason, a beginner from my team – he ripped his ear again and bled everywhere. Dude, wear headgear.
[1]: //www.youtube.com/v/zS2XXrv-N5A&hl=en&fs=1”><embed src=
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