Copa Northwest 7 ... I win my first match on points. Lose my second match by armbar with (allegedly) twenty seconds left. They tell me I was ahead 2-0 before getting submitted.
Insert "Dean Scream" here.
The guy who runs the Machado Spokane (Bartinho) school talks beaucoup merde while I'm rolling. He pretty much calls me out for stalling, insisting to his guys that I'm just "riding out the clock." Hardly. The problem is more like shock: I just get mentally lost. You could freeze the action and have Alex Tribeck step into the frame and quiz me on exactly what I should be doing at any given moment in the fight and I'd get 9 out of 10 right. But en media res? I'm hopeless.
Thinking back on what I wrote in "Unhooking," I don't even think that it is laziness so much as a lack of confidence. Interestingly, Tommy (who did a great job of coaching me from the sidelines, especially in my first match) made the point that I need to just go ahead and do the "basic" standing guard pass and not worry so much about getting swept. His point was that in training we're moving slower and it's probably easier to catch a guy with a sweep who isn't going 100% to pass your guard.
Anyway, my loss can be attributed almost exclusively to my sad performance in the guard. Like I joked to somebody afterward, I'd almost rather be in mount or side control. Mamazinho seemed none too pleased that I'd lost the fight with only a few seconds to go and I can't blame him. It kills me that I actually got free from the armbar that caught me--only to get re-caught. I suppose I should feel glad that I'm not being outclassed on the mat by other white belts. But given the fact that I know EXACTLY what I'm SUPPOSED to do in order to pass the guard, yet still can't get myself to do it, is pretty sobering, or depressing, or just fucked up.
I also need to be more active from the top. Mamazinho was reffing my first match and called out for more "movement" more than once. And I already mentioned Bartinho's comments. Bartinho, I should mention, did shake my hand after the fight--which I appreciated. And I suppose his comments stung because they felt true. I still do jiu jitsu like a wrestler, which is annoying because I was never that much of a wrestler. So what's my excuse?
I'll do some more postgame in a later post. It really was a great day of jiu jitsu. Four of us white belts from Gracie Barra Seattle competed: Lindsey went 1-1, with a great triangle choke win in his first fight. Joe the wrestler won his first match. And Dave lost a tough fight. Our blue belts did really well: Clint won first place in the 147-158 blue belt, and Casey shared first place in the 159-171 division with Shawn Wilson who was back from Texas, I think. Shawn also was in an awesome, heavyweight no-gi match with A.J. from Demon Jiu Jitsu that he lost by a takedown. The other Sean, the tall blue belt, got second--losing to A.J. also. Like I said, a great day of fights--even if there was a little disappointment on my end.
Oh, and I almost forgot about Maggie, who had to fight with the fellas because there weren't any blue belt women. She lost her match, but really looked pretty good. I swear there were sweep opportunities, especially scissor sweep opportunities, that I think she could have gotten that would have given her the win. But that's easy for me to say.
I really have only a few goals for the next tournament in the fall. The first, surprise surprise, is to make the basic Gracie Barra standing guard pass like my religion. I need to hit that pass EVERY SINGLE TIME I'M IN THE GUARD FOR THE NEXT SIX WEEKS. Maybe I'll make myself do 100 pushups or something if I don't. But it is so obvious that at this level, passing the guard successfully is as close to a key to victory as anything I could imagine. To tell the truth, that's probably true at all levels--making it all the more reason for me to drill that guard pass as if my (jiu jitsu) life depended on it.
