#4 Masters North America

#4 Masters North America, Long Beach, CA

One person in my bracket, and one person alone in a lighter weight Master 4 Purple belt bracket.   So I was expecting 2 matches: 1 in my bracket and 1 in the open class bracket.

This was my first tournament going down to middle weight.  Used an enema first thing in the morning to clear out any extra weight I could. Ha!  I got to the tournament early so I could check my weight. 153.0 lbs.  I needed to be 152.6 lbs.  I had 4 hours to lose the remaining .4 lbs.  I immediately had text discussions with teammates back home, and Ileah who was with me at the tournament, to decide the best way to get the weight off.  Water pills, laxatives, sauna, cardio, coffee were all ideas we threw around.  I drove to Target, and I bought a scale and a swimsuit since I thought I could use the hot tub where I was staying to sweat out some weight. 15 minutes in the hottub and 0.2lbs down.   Another 15 minutes and 0.4lbs down.   I doubted the scale was incredibly accurate, so I headed back to the tournament to test my weight again.   0.4lbs under! 
When I officially weighed in, I ended up being 0.6lbs under!  I immediately started hydrating with liquid iv in my water and eating some chocolate covered almonds, but overall I felt pretty good for it being 2:30pm with no food or water.

Master 4, Purple, Middle weight bracket:
My opponent came all the way from Norway!  We were the only 2 in the bracket.  She weighed in 20 lbs less than me.  She just wanted a match so went up to my weight class.  She was tall and slender, being close to a head taller than me.  We had a takedown battle until she decided to pull guard and brought me into an elevator sweep.  While up in the air I was just hoping for a safe landing and kept my head tucked.  I landed well with her coming into mount and me laughing at how ridiculous that felt.  She was all over me but I had good frames and never felt in serious danger.  I even was able to improve my position a couple times getting back to a guard.  I just kept smiling because although I was clearly losing, I was doing so much better than my past matches.  The bell rang, and I was so excited.   I had lost, but I hit my goal of going the distance!  My opponent's hand was raised but I was so excited for this achievement.   I collected my silver medal and immediately noticed it was significantly heavier than my other medals, which just made it even cooler!  I made weight in a new weight class and reached another milestone.  

I signed up for open class. 3 people in the bracket!  A couple hours to wait.  When I sat down I noticed my neck was hurting a bit, but nothing major.  Another win!
I opened my phone to see messages from my family.   They watched the match live on flograppling and were so proud of me.  It was so cool to share this with them even though they were back home in Washington. 
I achieved 2 of my goals, making weight,  and lasting an entire round.  I was ready for a new challenge.  My next goal would be to score a point.  I was fairly certain I had never scored a point so it felt like the right next goal.

Open bracket:
Match 1: My first match was against Trine from Norway again.   She pulled again and this time no elevator sweep!  I had an arm weave and was pressuring her knee to start a pass, but didn't have enough pressure and was pulled into a triangle setup.  It was a lot of pressure, and I didn't want to risk hurting my already sore neck so I tapped quickly.  New mistakes.   I'll take it!

I headed back to the athlete check in area to get my bag assuming I was done and would be taking home bronze.  I looked at the board and saw I was listed again to go against the other woman in our bracket.   I was super surprised, and after a bit of a wait I headed back to the mat. 

Match 2:  My opponent, Patricia, was local to California and considerably smaller than me.  We had a stand up battle and not wanting to gas myself, I pulled guard.   She was pressuring forward trying to choke me.  I was trying to arm drag her, without much luck. I opened my guard and sat up and got an underhook.  She pivoted to my back and pulled me backwards.   I was able to get my back to the mats quickly and pressure back into her to come up on top.  I gathered her legs and started inching towards her head as she framed off mine.  I ended up on top of half guard and started working my ezekiel choke. I wasn't on my good side but managed to get it.  I got a tap!  My first submission ever!  I surpassed my goal of scoring a point and got my first submission instead.
After this, we were sure the bracket was done.  I'd be getting silver.  But nope, as we started to walk away we were brought back to the mat for the final match.

Match 3:  I had minimal time to recover.   I was exhausted, especially since I thought I was done.  The next match would be a repeat of Match 1.  We didn't know why, but we were going again.  I was so tired but stepped up to the mat once again.  Another guard pull from Trine and a fairly quick sweep bringing her into side control.  She was on top of me for a bit before pulling me backwards to take my back.  I got my back to the mat but she was able to come up to mount and pull an armbar attempt.   I defended but my grips broke open, so I tapped.  Lasted about 3 minutes.

This last match took me a while to recover from.  I was absolutely exhausted but excited for all I accomplished.  
Double Silver after 4 matches.
More matches than anyone else in my brackets.
I was so ready for dinner and another hot tub soak.

Thanks for the matches Patricia & Trine!

New goals

• Win a bracket

• Score a takedown

Key takeaways:
- When I can get my hands behind their head during the takedown battle, I should be thinking about snapping them down. 

- When I pin someone's knee down I need to mean it.  Needs to be less cosmetic - less weight on my toes, more on the hand.

- Don't allow my weight to be loaded on someone's feet.  When they are pulling guard, immediately be thinking about removing their foot from my hip (or even better, start my passing sequence before they can settle).

- I should have looked for the double ankle sweep when I had someone pressuring forward in my closed guard.

-I need to work on my open guard.  It's a major weakness in my game.

-I should level up my closed guard to become more deadly.

Places I visited:
- Queen Mary - went on the haunted tour. Tour guide was great, and it was fun exploring the ship.  They run it like a hotel which is pretty cool.  The gift shop had a thimble that I added to my collection.

Restaurants
- Kanpai sushi bar near LAX airport - I had a very small dinner of salmon and snow crab nigiri.  Both were excellent.
- Open Sesame, Long Beach - my celebratory dinner!  Lebanese mezza platter that was awesome and tasted even better after doing bjj.
- Sweet Jill's Bakery - after dinner, walked down the street to get celebratory cake.  Confetti cake was awesome.   This place made every cake every mom has ever made and was open until 10pm!  Why doesn't my town have bakeries open until 10pm!
- Creme de la Crepe - I got the crab eggs benedict.  It was pretty disappointing.   Everything on my plate was bland.  Even the salad dressing.  Usually when I get crab benedict, it's large lumps of fresh crab and is delicious.  This felt like canned crab and had no english muffin.
- In n Out burger near LAX - I needed to gas up my rental and found myself next to an In n Out burger.  I got a Grilled cheese and fries and it was wonderful. 

Upcoming tournaments:
June 17 Indianapolis, IN
July 1 Portland, OR
July 15 Austin, TX
Sept 1 Master Worlds, Las Vegas