This past Saturday the Gi portion of the IBJJF NY Summer Open was held at the Nat Holman Gymnasium on the grounds of the CCNY.  The competitors who traveled down from our team were Ethan, Julie, Laura, and myself.  Brian was there coaching us although he was originally planning on fighting, but was sidelined with a lingering injury which he picked up competing in Las Vegas. Aside from myself who drove down Saturday, everyone else went and stayed the weekend for the sake of convenience.  The No-Gi portion of the tournament was held on Sunday and since I wasn't competing in it, I figured there wasn't any reason to spend the weekend.

Upon arrival at the tournament site the first thing you noticed was the heat, and although it didn't bother me too much, it was stifling.  Typically during the summer months, we train with the doors closed and no air conditioning.  It makes for a rough day on the mats, but it serves to make our training much more intense than an actual tournament.  Although not a fan of this at first, honestly, now I wouldn't have it any other way and am glad Brian does it.  

One thing you can't be ready for was the crush of people breathing up all the oxygen.  If I had to guess, I'd say there were at least 900 people there, in the heat, breathing heavily. There was definitely a whole lot of recycled, low O2 pecentage, stale air in that place.

Getting into our matches, we all had mixed results with some wins and some losses.  I think each of us took something away from each of our experiences and can reflect on the weekend as a teaching moment.  Starting with the Gi results:  Laura's first match was against the eventual division winner and Open class runner up.  In her division, Julie fought one of the eventual division finalists, and Ethan managed to beat his first opponent before bowing out in the next round.  In No-Gi, Julie was able to secure third place in both her division and the Open weight class. 

In my first divisional match I was down on points and ended up losing 3-0, which was good enough for third place.  There were a few things I messed up on which I started to address tonight in the gym.  Since I lost my only match, I decided to stick around for the open weight class.  My first opponent was a heavyweight which seems typical for me.  Somehow I managed to beat him with an Americana while in his half-guard.  I was down on points and while trying to free my leg to go to mount, managed to isolate his arm and get the tap. In the Open weight final, I gave my opponent (another heavy weight) a good battle before losing on points.  It would have been satisfying to win the open class, but I'll take second and get back to the "drawing board" to keep working on things.

And after all the matches were done, I made sure to stop at Rory Dolan's Restaurant in the Bronx for oysters, burgers and beers...only after I drank two pitchers of water though, which was after drinking 3 Gatorades!!

I already put my matches up on YouTube and will add some photos to Flickr sooner rather then later.  My phone died on me last month and I lost all my matches and some of my pics from the Ammo Purple Belt Challenge :( So I'm not going to delay uploading things anymore.