The Tournament

So finally Saturday arrived. All of us have been waiting and preparing for this day. For most of us it was our first tournament and we were excited and scared. It pretty much went like this:

We arrived and there were tons of people there, not like the weigh in where there were 7. It took an hour to get the rules started. After that all white belts conjugated to one corner while blue belts to another etc. It took another 30 min to sort out all the brackets. Finally the first fight of the day, Ashley.

Her's was the first and only fight going on. She was fighting a bigger girl who was much stronger. The other girl tried some horrible attempts at a take down. Finally Ashley gave it to her. When they went down the girl landed in mount and attempted an americana. It was horrible. Like she had never done one before. Ashley wasn't tapping from it because it wasnt on right. Unfortunately Ashley didn't bump the right way to get this girl off of her. She kept bumping toward her not trapped hand which allowed the girl to post out. Ashley went almost all the way but got caught with a choke at the end.



My fight was right after her's. The guy wasn't really bigger or stronger but he was faster. We locked up and he tried to take me down a couple times. After I realized he couldnt take me down I tried a hip toss. It was, in retrospect, a horrible attempt. I landed in the bottom half guard. I was working from there and I attempted a sweep but he took mount. I attempted a sweep from there and he grabbed an arm. He went for the armbar but my thumb was facing down and to the side. The ref stopped the fight and asked if i had tapped. I told him "no i didnt tap, he doesn't have it" he said okay and let the guy sinch it deeper. Since he didn't have it I rolled over into his guard. I waited a little to long and eventually pu my hand on his stomach inched it over and caught me in a deep armbar that popped the elbow three times. I just had my ass whooped.



The rest of the morning wasn't looking so good either. Tonja got caught in a flying armbar not 15 seconds into the match and nate was beat on points. The tide started to turn with Corey. He won all his matches. Nate stepped up against another opponent and won all those. Scott dominated a blue belt and won second. Peter was without a doubt the most impressive. He owned everyone. His last match he was up 8-0 and let the guy tap him with a weak guillotine. He ended up with silver. Over all a good experience and I will come back stronger.