IBJJF 2012 NoGi Worlds: My Experience & Fights

Okay, let’s get straight to the goods for this one.  Here is my first match:

At 00:11 seconds as we reenter the half guard battle, we start off with him acquiring the under hook first.  I cannot afford to do that.  I need to make sure I am first to the grips.  Grabbing the shorts at 00:33 will eventually get me penalized (I don’t even know why I was grabbing them.  In fact, I remember thinking to myself, “oh crap, I am grabbing his shorts I need to let go.”  I missed an opportunity to come up on a single leg trip at 1:05.  The arm in guillotine he was working for at 1:30 was definitely bugging the hell out of me, which is why you see me adjusting to “Z-guard” and putting my forearm on his bicep to relieve some pressure.  At 3 minutes in I’m starting to gas; I am not thinking sharp and I’m just moving kind of stupidly for some moments until I make myself aware of the fact that this isn’t what I practice and this isn’t what I am trained to do.  I extended my legs out too far at 3:49 in order to establish some type of guard which is what allowed him to pin an ankle and start working for a standing pass.  I cannot make those types of mistakes, it is too costly.  I need to be more patient in the sit up guard until they engage.  I don’t even have words to describe the sloppiness from 4:30-4:48.  That was just all around wack on my part.  He didn’t want to hug me at the end. =[

Second Match:

Sorry for the crappy video, I failed to empty my camera so it was recorded by phone.  Lmfao at me literally running away.  Truth is, I had a feeling this dude had a decent single or double leg, and I wanted NO PARTS of that.  I had to GTFO of there double time!  Really frustrated that I lost the side position at 2:52 and allowed myself to be put into half guard after passing.  Once I get to a dominant top position I want to stay there for the entirety of the match until I submit my opponent.  This is something I am going to specifically ask my instructor about.  I was trying to go to knee to the belly on the way to a head and arm choke on the opposite side, but I must have done something wrong to have been put into half guard so easily.  I lost a prime opportunity there.  Thanks to my teammate Randy, I was pretty comfortable while he was working for a kimura at 4:40.  But, that’s not a good thing though.  I shouldn’t allow myself to be put in positions where I can be compromised.  I was absolutely dead at the end of this match.  I was breathing really really hard, and I was starting to cramp up on all up and down my arms.

Quarter Finals

Although I had not recovered from my last match, I was determined to win.  I needed three more matches for the gold, and I told myself that I was going to carpe-f#*($-diem.  Still breathing heavily, I walked onto the mat, took a deep breath, reaffirmed in my mind that this was my day, and got straight to business.  At 00:30 I was just dead… lol.  He did a good job of using pressure to keep me down, but I also didn’t do enough to fight back.  I was so tired, I rested there for a bit.  My instructor saw that and yelled at me to get active, but he had a very dominant position and he knee cut me for the pass.  At 2 minutes, I finally get my ass in gear a bit, but I just can’t think clearly and, worse, my technique was getting sloppy.  If I had secured an underhook at 2:30, I would have had an opportunity to take the back and start winning the match.  Again, at 2:45 I should have had the presence of mind to explode to pummel for an underhook and take the back.  But, I was very confused at this point.  I was no longer rolling.  I was hesitating.  Looking at the fight again,  I wonder if he baited me to shoot for a triangle at 3:40.  I should have started working my sweeping series, but instead I shot a triangle which almost got me double undered.  The rest of the match is me just operating on will.  I mean wtf was that at 5:25?  Immediately after shaking the ref’s hand I hustled my ass to the bathroom and I threw up.

Final Thoughts…

*Queue GSP impression*
I was not impressed by my performance.  I could not get my A game going and I relied heavily on my B game.  I relied on a system that I did not drill once for this tournament.  In fact, I don’t remember ever drilling this again after I learned it in a seminar my instructor taught.  It is unsatisfactory to not be able to get the gameplan you had going in to a tournament to flow.  It’s so obvious to me how much more work I need to put into this system.  I was slow in entering, I was slow in beginning the sweep, and I was slow in finishing the sweeps.  I lost the mini positioning wars and that allowed people to put me flat on my back.  I need to do some serious pummeling drills from this position.

My nervousness still needs a lot of work.  I wouldn’t say I have elite athlete level conditioning, but in training I can go 4 hard fought rounds and not feel anywhere near as terrible as I did after these fights.  I attribute most of this to the adrenaline dump I had.  It just zapped my energy.  I thought this was getting better, but evidently not.  I’m not sure if I need to compete more, or learn some mindset tricks to get my mind right.  Either way, I want to step on the mat at tournaments and feel like it’s just another day at the office.  I want to feel comfortable but focused.

I still have yet to review the footage with my instructor, we’ll see what he says.  He was there, and he already talked to me about some things I did wrong.  But, we need to disect this with more scrutiny in order to improve.

All in all, my goal is to win tournaments by submissions.  I am will not be satisfied until I can do that.  It may take a lot of work, but I look forward to it.

Follow me: @rubeneavila