Supercup

Our fighter that James was cornering won her fight last night. Very, very happy for her. They got a couple of hours sleep, and then started driving back at 2am or 3am this morning so James could get back to coach us. He must have felt like a zombie, but he was in good spirits.

There was no one near my weight class (the other two blue belts were under 127lb), so I elected to go with the blue belt men. The lowest weight class they had was my weight. The brackets were a bit of a disaster, and it didn't occur to me that they had a masters blue men division that I could have joined. 

My first match with a guy who pulled guard (first time that's happened to me in a match in a long time). Slapped a triangle on pretty quick. I didn't check the time, but the match couldn't have lasted more than 30sec. He ended up getting 1st in the division and 2nd in absolute.

Second guy I was able to pull guard (sort of). He passed, and I'm not sure what happened after that. He tapped me with something, and that match might have lasted two minutes.

That landed me third in the division (only 3 of us).

I then went in women's blue belt absolute. First match was with a girl I haven't seen before, Ashley. She happened to be the girlfriend of the first guy I competed against. I pulled guard, but she got a knee slice pass, then on top, and I tapped to either a shoulder lock or choke. 

Second match was with Jenny, who I outweigh by 40lb. I pulled guard, managed to take her back at one or two points, and ended up with her in my guard. I won on points. It was a single elimination format, so that was that. 2nd place.

They forgot or misplaced the women's advanced no gi bracket. I was called up to compete with the purple belt no gi men, which I politely but vehemently declined. When I asked about the women's advanced bracket (Ashley, Jenny and I), there was some hub bub but then they finally got their s together and called us to the mat. However, they forgot to add to Jenny. So back they went to the bracket desk for another 5-10min to figure out how to put a three person bracket together.

Ashley and I in the first match. Again I pulled guard, and I staved off the pass for awhile but eventually she got it. She tapped me with something, I don't remember what. There was more bracket finagling as they tried to decide whether Ashley would face Jenny or if I would face Jenny. They finally decided I'd face Jenny. If I won that was it, if Jenny won she'd face Ashley. I pulled guard and got it in my head to focus on kimuras. I can't remember if any points were scored, but I feel like our no gi match was a lot more scrambly. In any case, I finally got ahold of a good kimura from guard. She was in the midst of rolling out of it and then she said she tapped. I didn't feel it and the ref didn't see it, but she said she had tapped twice. So 2nd place in no gi.

Takeaways:
I assumed it was going to be a relatively small tournament, so didn't plan on being there until 5:30pm. I arrived at 9am for weigh-ins, and assumed we'd be out of there by 2pm. I was also running late this morning, which contributed to me not packing enough food.

I don't think my warm-ups were sufficient, as I felt like I was hitting the mat cold at the beginning of each group of matches. I did go to the extra mat and stretch and do some light exercises, but I had no idea when my brackets were going to be called and didn't want to overdo it. 

I haven't rolled with Jenny in awhile and we both commented that we should find a way to roll together more often. She's 40min away though, so the commute is tough.