This last weekend was the IBJJF Pans championships in Irvine, CA hosted by UC Irvine. I love this tournament just because I enjoy the arena, the massive size of the tournament from juvenile division all the way up to the Master 6 division. It’s probably the biggest tournament in the world. I noticed however, that this year there seemed to be less competitors than the past, especially in the adult black belt division. I could have been wrong, but that was the feeling I got when I was down at the tournament.

From El Dorado Hills, coach Aaron Martinez participated in the tournament, winning his first match as a black belt competitor! It was great to be able to coach him. I didn’t compete because I’ve been working back from an injury I sustained in January and after it flared up in February have been taking things slow. Regardless of the injury, I still made my way to the tournament because flights and hotels were already booked, and it is always a good opportunity to study and learn from watching tournaments. It’s been my experience that while many people learn a lot when they compete in tournaments, you can also learn so much from attending the tournament and watching the action. Aside from watching coach Aaron, I watched most of the adult black belt division, Tanner Rice, Iwaski Masahiro, Matthew Rice, Garret Aldrich, and a few of the adult brown belt competitors.

I thought I was going to see a lot more worm guard and lapel use from the open guard, but I was surprised that I didn’t. There was a lot of 50/50 positions, de la riva, lasso/spider guard, and occasionally half guard attacks. The biggest thing I noticed from the adult division was the specificity in the use of grips to attack and defend attacks. The black belts have a strong command of what grip they want and what grip they do not want their opponent to have. In the gi, this seems to be a very important skill to know and utilize. There were other positional movements and submission set ups that I took notice of. We will be covering them in class for the next few weeks after I get to go back on flograppling to restudy some of the matches and positions.

I learned some new things about the rules as well. The most prominent being the single leg advantage rule: As the rule is now, when an opponent drives someone out of bounds on a single leg from a standing “takedown” situation an automatic advantage is given to the athlete performing the takedown. However, in the case of a single leg from a potential “sweep” no advantage is given if the position goes out of bounds. Although I also heard that this rule will be changed as part of the revisions in the coming months.

Although I was disappointed to be sidelined for another tournament, I’m glad I didn’t push through the pain to make a show. Sometimes you need to let your body rest and recover from injuries in order for them to go away. While It’s not unusual to persevere at times when you are injured, it’s part of being an athlete and especially professional athlete, you need to listen to your body and allow injures to fix themselves. I can’t wait to get back into the game!