As with most competitions I sign up impetuously months in advance and work out the details later, normally
this means finding a team mate to blag a ride with and in this case sorting out accommodation.
I was heading down with Yusuf, my regular traveling companion and his son Ibrahim. Given Yusuf's fondness for the accelerator we made good speed and decided to stop in on the Grapplethon that was taking place in Bristol to raise money for Kinnergy, a local counselling service.
It was great to stop by and see another side of the BJJ community outside from all the smashing and team posturing which is the preserve of the tournament scene. We didn't have time to embrace the community side of the event but I managed a quick roll with Yusuf and Ibby and 30 minutes with Scott, a purple belt who showed me a few ways to tighten up side control. I would have loved to have had a roll with Tanya Tansiri but we had to be on our way.
The evening in the hotel was spent ironing my gi to try and get it to dry faster (yes I'm disgusting and would normally have a clean gi but it wasn't part of the plan and hard rolling isn't conducive to a grapplethon so it wasn't so bad)
The comp was well run and was 'running to time' due largely to how vague they had been about starting times, blue belts were to start at 1.30 starting at the lighter weights so I wasn't called till after 3.00.
In the first match he pulled guard so I came on top and got stuck in a triangle from another shoddy pass, I turned out of it and ended up in reverse mount(?), after dismounting into side control I made my way into regular mount got rolled going for a cross collar choke and got the tap after switching to a triangle.
My second match saw me pull guard and quickly lock off a triangle, my opponent stretched me out and locked his legs over me which led to a scramble and me ending in reverse mount yet again (???). This time my dismount was a little undignified and he was able to drive forward into me giving me a deep grip under his chin. With encouragement from my team mate Andy, I switched from an arm in to an arm out guillotine and finished in classic Straussian (that's now a word) fashion.
By this stage it was coming up to 4pm with my bus back to London leaving at 4.30 I was worried that I would miss it. Thankfully my opponent for the final Sean Coates had been quickly applying his 50/50 footlock game and was fresh and willing to hold the final sooner so I could get home. I knew going into the match what to expect, 50/50 is obviously a position he practices much more than me so I knew I'd be in deep waters if he was able to take the game there. It didn't take long to end up in 50/50 I managed to defend the footlocks and attempted to come on top but couldn't untangle myself without giving him the footlock on the other side. I figured I'd go for a wrist lock but telegraphed the arm bar when I returned for a second go at the far wrist. Oh well, I learnt a lot and felt I'd done a good job defending a tough opponents primary attacks in his strongest position, plus I'd picked up my silver medal made it to the coach stop on time.
Outside of my matches there were good performances from my team mates from the Isle of Wight, with our resident pitbull Andy Law coming out ahead against a mirror image of himself and James 'the Hammer' Dixon taking bronze in my category, regrouping strongly after losing to Sean in the first round. Yusuf needs to remember he's not skateboarding and pull guard occasionally after giving up a few takedowns and Louis did a great job flower sweeping to mount.
All in all a great day, a great competition and I'm likely going to be back to try and win the other half of the ying/yang shaped medal in the Welsh Nogi Open.
