Competition No.1: Part 1...

Today was my competitive BJJ debut. I went with few expectations but I was determined to enjoy the experience and ensure I used the day to do a bit of reconnaissance to see whether I fancied entering any more events. 

In terms of the competition itself, I was entered in the middleweight category (under 12.12 stone) but fought in the adult section as there were no other competitors in the olds. 

I bowed out in the first round after about two minutes when I fell into a leg triangle choke that I couldn't get out of. I was slightly annoyed by this as my triangle escapes are usually OK, but I couldn't get my body to respond in time. The other thing that annoyed me was that, early on in the fight, he got control of one of my sleeves and I didn't fight like crazy to get this off. And I should have done. 

So two rookie mistakes cost me. The not-stripping-grips helped him set up the triangle and I didn't do enough to prevent either. Idiot. 

On the plus side, I stayed and watched the other white belt matches and the blue belt ones, too. And there wasn't much I saw that made me think I was massively out of my depth.

Competing also made me do a brief technique stock take. So… 

My decent submissions are the standard armbar and the kimura from guard, the kimura, the americana and the arm triangle from side control. I also like the triangle from side control.

My decent sweeps are the scissor sweep and the kimura sweep from full guard, the butterfly sweep from half guard, and the upa from full guard.

My decent guard escapes are the standard hand on hip and hand on chest, knee in arse and drive back guard escape; the hands on hips and head on belly drive back guard escape; then the standing guard escape. 

The things I'm pretty bad at are guard passes from standing against an opponent in open guard and these will be the first thing I work on.

But I'm now hooked. If I'm going to do this I'm going to compete in at least one more event before the big inter-club tournament I've entered at the end of September. I probably need to do at least one event every month to build up my competition mat time.

Things to remember: Attack and work your strongest techniques from the standing start and don't wait to let the opponent determine the game. More work on standing guard passes. Work on stripping grips.