Copa Barbosa 2014

I've been taking a lot of creatine along with doing P90X so it was difficult for me to drop any weight. I usually enter the under 76 kg category (Lightweight) but this time I went in the under 82 kg category (Middleweight). I've been hovering around 78 kg so it seemed OK for the tournament but on the day I weighed in at 76.5 kg. My opponent felt much bigger than me at around 80kg and I also entered the absolute division and the opponent was 95 kg in that one. That felt really big since there are not many bigger guys at my club and most of them hover around the under 70kg category. I'm used to dealing with speed and not size so much.

I felt really good on the morning and throughout the day. No nerves and I attribute this to the fact that I felt in really good condition from P90X. I was forearmed with the knowledge that my tank would last through the match and I could push the pace.

Thinking about the spider guard armbar here

Looking for the right moment to get the standing pass

During the first and only match of my category there were a lot of scrambles and movement with briefs stops as one of us played guard. I won the match basically from a standard straight leg spider guard sweep and then later on I passed the guard. I was also swept with an omoplata as I went for a standing closed guard break and allowed my arm to be free and grabbed after I broke the guard. The opponent was really good with this sweep as I saw him do it to another competitor later on. I really enjoyed the feeling of knowing I have the ability to sweep and get out of trouble of a larger stronger opponent.

K-sensei's guard work was great to watch

 During the open-class category, there were only 3 of us since 2 guys who were listed down never showed up so I got to face off against a 95 kg opponent in the finals. He was very decisive in his passing and just seemed to power straight through the lasso spider hook I had, I re-guarded twice. The second time was when I was in side control, I managed to bridge and get to half-guard then he used a knee cutter pass with his far leg posted. I could not slip out the back and F-sensei later told me to underhook his posting leg and switch my hips to sweep him to the side. I will work on this during Sunday morning practice.

Kondo-san on the right had some good battles

I believe that working out every morning for the last 6 weeks (P90X) and doing Sunday morning 2 hour drills has really helped me to get better and get my first win as a purple belt in a tournament. I've been a purple belt for just over a year so really needed to finally get a win against a person at my rank to really feel like I deserve to be a purple belt myself. It was also nice getting a medal from Marco Barbosa!