First Tournament...

[JaredExtreme]

Well, I participated in my first BJJ on saturday, it did not go well at all. My opponent was the same height/weight as me and rank (white, no stripes). But, this kid was 16 and I'm 19, so i pretty much thought I was gunna ownsor him. So, we shake hands and start the match. We grab and he IMMEDIATLY jumps to guard. It was fine with me because when we hit the ground hard (we were only about 145-150 lbs) the impact loosed his guard and i easily passed and got side mount with a forearm across his throat. What I DIDN'T know is he had lossened my gi and was applying the gi choke where you take the skirt of your oppenent and use the it for the choke leveage. I tried to lower my chin and push away, but i couldn't get out, even though I had SIDEMOUNTED HIM! I tapped and the match was over in like 20 seconds. What made it worse was that because he was the only guy in my weight class, I got a 2nd place medal, which I totally didn't deserve. I'm REALLY frustrated about this, I dunno if i'll do another tournament. advice?

[Hookah Smokin Caterpillar]

Wow, I had my first tourny on Sat.

What happened with me is there was 17 guys in my division and I was the 17th, so since no one was there for me to fight I had to move up to the next division. I was so worried but I won my first fight 9-0 and my second fight by Triangle in under a minute. I lost my third fight 9-3 because I was so tired and everyone there was so much stronger than me. However, all that did was help me work on my weakness (strength, cardio, not many positions) and hope I'll win my division if I fight in the right one next time. I wouldn't just quit going to tourney's because I lost once. I saw a guy get triangled in 20 seconds (more than half the time it took me to beat my opponent) so its not like you did too bad. In BJJ getting caught happens all the time, especially with a Gi choke like you took

[Lacrymosa]

Could be worse, man....

My first BJJ tournament was the Colorado Karate Associate 1997 season finale. The Mile High Atmosphere and my recent recovery from the flu resulted in my quick submission.....

...if only he had applied a lock on me.....

Begin: Being relatively skilled in judo, I went for my favorite throwing combination: fake uchi mata and topple him with a tai otoshi. IPPON! Er....I mean 2 POINTS!

Then it happened: He quickly sucked me into his guard and swept me in about as much time as it took for me to describe it.
My slim lead vanished as he was now mounted on me. 6-2

Yes, I was sick, miserable, and completely out of my element when my foe got the mount on me. He was on top of me for 3 minutes of our 5 minutes match. My wussie ass tapped from sheer exhaustion of being trapped underneath.

It took awhile to live that tournament down. It was humbling, embarrassing, and hard to forget.

[SweepEm]

Hey Lackie, sorry to hear that you weren't successful in the tournament.

Dudes: not every one is going to win the whole division when they first enter a tournament. Someone has to lose. And it's not shameful if you do lose.
Look around in your class, there are plenty of wimps that won't compete.
They have all the excuses; Oh, I'm hurt, I have to work, can't get there, too much school work.....etc.

Be proud that you stepped up and went to compete.

JE: hey, take the medal and display it proudly, you scored points for your team.
That's what I try to do. In the Senior's and Master's division, there just aren't that many guys that compete. Last tournament, I had to go against a guy that was much heavier than me, I missed the cut off weight by 2 lbs. and he was in the Senior's division. They paired us together since there were a total of 4 of us in the same weight division for the whole tournament.
As usual, the good news, bad news scenario.
the good news is that I got second place, bad news is that there were only 2 of us. But our team gets points.

My first tournament, I absolutely sucked. Nothing worse than seeing a whole room full of your fellow students and their friends and family seeing you do such stupid things. But I at least held my head high since I competed when many of my friends wussed out.

[Lacrymosa]

When it happened, I took it kind of hard, but it was definitely a learning experience. You can imagine my embarrasment of dragging my friends and my wife-to-be to a tournament 3 hours away, just to have it end unfortunately.

My tournament experiences have been much happier since that moment.

[Angel_of_Pain]

Dont worry about it man, just train it will come whit time and whit a lot of lose. Ok I got something to tell and its hard for me cause I'm very competitive, when I started training grappling it took me 4 months too finally make someone quit in a match! But once I tapped someone out I was on a roll victory was my best friend. When I did my first tourney I needed to fight guy's that where 3 years older then me and atleast 15 pounds heavier but i did not quit and kicked there ass until the finals where I lost but I gain the respect of everyone at the tourney and thats important. Its not about winning or loosing its about RESPECT!

[Mako]

JE,

Sounds like a nice throw! Don't sweat the loss. Think of it as a blessing for seeing what you can improve so early in the game!
You showed the "juevos" to step on the mat and compete, Something most people will never experience. I bet you never get caught in the choke again, right? I saw a cool interview with Bas Rutten once. He said he got so upset when he would get caught in a sub, he would tap and then go over it again and again in his head, making sure he never got caught in that particular sub again. Keep your chin up (or in this case, maybe not!) LOL!

Mako