13/09/2015 - Competition | Hereford Open

Coaching #002
The Point 4, Hereford BJJ Open (Competition), Dave 'Dewi' Coles , Hereford, UK - 13/09/2015

For most of my time in jiu jitsu, I've been aware of the Hereford BJJ Open (they started in 2009, I think, three years after I began training). Dave Coles has always had a reputation as an excellent tournament organiser, running things professionally and on time. It was certainly a much bigger venue than the last comp we attended, with more 'big' teams in attendance.

The main warm-up area was clearly marked off-limits to coaches and spectators, with a long bench in front of each competition mat. Unfortunately, what ended up happening was that most of the spectators stood behind that bench to cheer on their team, meaning if you were in the staggered seating, you couldn't see anything. Though that isn't an easy issue to resolve, as understandably people want to cheer on their team mates: perhaps making the benches only for coaches and no standing?

On a personal note, one of the reasons I was pleased I had some students keen to go to Hereford was that I knew a lot of my old training partners and friends would be involved. Pippa was there refereeing, as was my instructor Kev and several friends from Chris Rees Academy like Rob and Omied. I also got to catch up with Chiu, plus say hi briefly to Kevin Webb (the classes I took from him back in 2010 still rank as among the most impressive I've experienced, from a teaching perspective).

The divisions ran mostly on time, Simon's lightweight (76kg) division was underway by around 10am, after a 09:15 weigh-in. Jim had a longer wait in the middle-heavy (88.3kg) division of about an hour and a half IIRC, while Kirsty had a similar wait after weighing in at 13:30 for female middle-heavy. Sadly for Kirsty, her division didn't have enough people in it and was therefore merged with the category above. That didn't happen at Roll Models, because they offered free entry to women (and £5 to their next event on 10th October). If Roll Models can keep that up, it's a huge plus for female competitors: competing against people your own weight is a luxury men can take for granted! ;)

It meant that in both of Kirsty's fights at Hereford, her opponents had a significant weight advantage. The winner of the division was 76kg, landing some powerful hip throws. Apparently she's a pro MMA fighter, though I'm not sure if that was just hearsay. I thought Kirsty did really well considering that, with a tight defence giving very little away. That was reflected in the points: the first fight her opponent won on a pass 3-0, whereas in the second it was a mere single advantage.

All three of the team put on a good performance, I thought. Their closed guards were strong and tough to pass. Jim very nearly landed a loop choke in both his fights, especially at the end of the second. Simon also looked strong, holding out in a triangle for over a minute before the pressure on his neck got too much. I can sympathise, as I've had a nastily tweaked neck from refusing to tap to the pain of a triangle before: it would be much worse if it had been in the death-grip of a competition!

I continued with my low-key approach to coaching, shouting out things like 'Posture!', 'Stay on your toes!' 'Stay calm!', 'Keep breathing!' and the like. A lot of the other coaches were going into great detail, particularly during the women's matches I saw. Competitors were literally pausing to look at the coach, waiting for their next instruction. It certainly works, as those competitors also won. However, in my experience so far, the competitors can't hear me very well anyway, especially with the tunnel vision of adrenaline taking hold.

At open mat, the feedback I've gotten every time is that brief imperative reminders come through better and are the most useful thing to hear, along with the time if it's getting towards the end. I'll keep on asking when we do comp prep (i.e., a mock competition match during open mat) to see if that changes. Might well vary from person to person as well, given there have only been five competitors from Artemis BJJ up until now.

Everybody I watched fight (both my students and others) looked to be having issues with attacking from closed guard. The first problem is breaking posture, then moving into some kind of attack. It's a problem I've had myself, which seems to have been at least partially resolved by the most recent month of closed guard focus back in Bristol. I spent that whole month focusing on the shoulder clamp when in closed guard, finding it helps open up angles and make closed guard more proactive. I therefore want to institute some drills to familiarise students with that, based around posture breaking. Maybe pull the elbows, along with the shoulder clamp reach and posture break, then finally the two-on-one grip break to the back? Lots of options.

I'd like to do some more work on blocking the cross-face too. It's natural to start side control with the person already in cross-face, to practice escaping that position. That's valuable, but I'd like some drills that emphasise you don't have to accept the cross-face in sparring, especially outside of specific sparring. I've been using the current position of the month at Artemis BJJ (side control) to practice what Jeff Rockwell calls his 'Sit-Up Escape System'. I refer to that as stiff arm: either way, it's been helping. Something else to add into drills. :)

Another thing this comp highlighted (as did Roll Models) was other aspects of being a coach. Shouting stuff when people are competing is a part of it, but I think a much bigger part is being there to motivate, encourage and reassure the competitors. I feel it's also important to emphasise that while winning is obviously nice, competition is much more valuable as a learning tool. You're not going to win every time, but you can definitely learn something useful every time. If you can do that, then each competition you attend becomes a way to further your game.

I'm not going to be able to be at every comp - my girlfriend needs some weekends with me too, after all - so hopefully some of the regular competitors will be able to take on that role too. We've only been to two competitions thus far, but a 'competition team' is already beginning to form. I'm sure as the students interested in competition (not everyone is, which is totally fine: competition is just one part of BJJ) gain more experience, that 'assistant coach' role (for want of a better term) will be filled. Particularly as they are all now more experienced on the competition mats than me, with my whole one competition fight. ;)

05/07/2015 - Competition | Roll Models

Coaching #001
Horizon Academy, Roll Models (Competition), David 'Morcegao' , Stoke-on-Trent, UK - 05/07/2015

Competition has never been a major part of my BJJ journey, but it's got lots of useful advantages, especially from my more recent perspective as somebody running a club. Perhaps the biggest is that it enables me to see if the jiu jitsu I'm teaching is applicable outside of my club, when Artemis BJJ students face unfamiliar opponents who are trying their best to stop them applying their technique. There is also the social side, both internally for the group heading to compete, as well as externally, meeting people from other teams and reconnecting with old friends. Then there's the experience that students bring back to the club, meaning the lessons learned from competing can help all of those back home.

I was therefore excited to see what would happen at our first competition: I've only been to two BJJ competitions before, firstly the Bristol Open in 2007 (still the one and only time I've ventured onto a tournament mat myself), then the Boca Raton International Open in Florida last year. The three students bravely stepping up to enter Roll Models were Kirsty, Steve and Ross. None of them had trained BJJ for more than a few months: Steve began last October, Ross started in January and Kirsty has been with us for three months.

Kirsty is the person responsible for motivating everybody else (she even drove us all there and back, despite competition nerves). As soon as she decided to enter Roll Models, she immediately set about encouraging the other students. The best thing about Roll Models is that they clearly care about having a good gender balance, just like I do at Artemis BJJ. To that end, women could enter their inaugural competition in Stoke at the Horizon Academy for free. Very cool decision by the organiser, David 'Morcegao', a well known figure on the BJJ forums.

The venue was a swish school sports centre, with tiered seating, a good bit of mat space, clear acoustics, changing rooms and showers. Upon entry, you were given a form to fill in along with a wristband indicating whether you were a competitor or spectator. A high level of organisation was evident throughout the day. Morcegao was running around with a microphone, announcing divisions, making sure the walkways stayed clear and highlighting the event sponsors, Valor Fightwear (who had a stall at the back of the hall).

For the spectators, there were three superfights towards the end of the day, with a particularly entertaining clash of the titans between Wayne Samways (aptly nicknamed 'Silverback') and Stuart Austin. You also got to watch a massive projection of a recent BJJ comp on the wall. Handily, that projection was also used to let people know the wifi password, as well as display information about divisions (pretty much all ran on time). Morcegao's humour throughout helped establish the laid-back, friendly atmosphere of the competition, perfect for the white and blue belt market it was targeted towards.

I was impressed by the attitude of the refs, judging by the two guys I saw at close hand while coaching my students. The mat 1 ref gave out helpful advice to competitors after every single fight I saw him officiate, a cool bonus for the fighters. The chap on mat 3 was also welcoming and cheerful, exactly the kind of person you want to be in charge of nervous first-time competitors.



My first student to get stuck in was Ross, in the featherweight white belt division. Over the last month and a bit we've been doing comp prep on most Sundays, which for me was mainly a chance to practice my coaching. The main lesson I learned from that was to keep it simple, as in the heat of competition not much is going to get through. That's even more the case when you come to the real thing. I therefore was shouting single words like 'Posture!', or short sentences like "Stay on your toes!" Repetition seems to help too, as if they don't hear the first time, they will normally catch it after the third or fourth time and jog their memory.

I was really pleased to see that all of the Artemis BJJ team looked calm (whether they actually felt calm is another matter, but I thought they looked it ;D) and were able to put into practice plenty of what they had been taught. Ross hit a lovely double ankle sweep, most importantly coming up and driving forward straight away. He was able to win his first fight on points, doing well in the second, but eventually getting caught in an arm triangle. Laura kindly took a load of video (as well as being official Master of Bags when people were heading off to compete), so I'm looking forward to analysing that later to see if I can offer any pointers.

Next was Steve, who looked really dominant in his fight. He also looked calm, doing well through the stand-up phase despite an injured knee, then almost successfully landing a clock choke I showed him a few weeks back. He would have won if he had established his hooks in back mount. Naturally it's cool to win, but I don't care as long as they manage to test what they've learned. Steve certainly did and to my eyes he passed with flying colours. I'm sure he'll do even better in his second comp. :)

Finally it was Kirsty's turn. We've been developing a specific gameplan for her, which she executed with aplomb on both her opponents. After a narrow defeat in her first fight (against a tough competitor from GrappleThon stalwart Chris Paines' school), she won a hard-fought bronze in her next mach. I know how much she has worked to prepare for this comp, so it was a great moment to see her get that medal put around her neck. Well done Kirsty, great job by Steve and Ross too! :D

Update July 2015: Here's some video, showing Kirsty's medal-winning match.



We're planning to be back at the next Roll Models, then before that Hereford. I've got a list of upcoming competitions within reach of Bristol on the Artemis BJJ website: if I've missed any, drop me a line or leave a comment. I'll be updating this post once we've got some video, depending what the students are happy for me to publish. ;)

05/08/2007 - Competition | Bristol Open

Note to anyone Googling "bristol open": this post is about the Bristol Open from August 2007, so you're probably looking for a more recent event of the same name (they do a bunch of these every year). I had the exact same problem when I was doing a search, but that should be less of an issue now that they've changed the name, to UK Premier BJJ Championship. ;)

UWE Centre for Sports, Bristol Open (Competition), Pedro Bessa, Bristol, UK - 05/08/2007

First tournament, first loss. Not that any of these affected the eventual outcome (I lost because the other guy successfully applied his technique, whereas I didn’t), but I do wish I had a better two weeks in the run up to the event. Kicked off with the minor irritation of losing my gumshield on the Thursday, followed by the rather more serious irritation of finding my parent’s house had been burgled on the Friday. I then managed to fall ill during Monday, which I hadn’t quite shaken off by the time the competition rolled around on Sunday.

I think its likely my illness - which is the second I’ve had in a fairly short space of time - was brought on by cutting weight. I’ve been maintaining between 60-61.5kg for over a month now, which probably wasn’t healthy. So next time, I reckon it would be more sensible to simply try and eat properly, not merely eat less, and then compete at whatever weight I am on the day. For me, that’s normally 64-65kg, so the -70kg category would mean I don’t have to worry about the weight of my gi. Ideally, I’d manage to pack on a bit of muscle and get up to around 69kg in a gi, but with my weedy frame, crap diet and lack of discipline, that’s very unlikely.

Anyway, enough whining: I arrived at the UWE Centre for Sports about 10:00, my girlfriend kindly providing the lift. Took me a moment to spot them, but I eventually noticed the rest of RGA sitting on the tables outside. There was a fairly large group of us (which as far as I’m aware is normal for RGA), which made the whole occasion pleasantly sociable. I was also pleased to see Dominique and her husband Gary there, as they’re two people I often chat to down at the Academy. Dominique had decided to compete late on, Gary coming along to give her and the team in general some support.

Pippa handed round the registration forms, which meant we got our swish Bristol Open t-shirts. Hopefully the screen print will last on these: whatever company Pedro Bessa used, they did a good job. A few people were weighing themselves to check if they needed to sweat a couple of pounds off or move up a division, but I was pretty confident I’d make weight. I already knew I was below target due to the flu (I’d dipped below 60 the day before), so didn’t have any worries about topping 64kg in a gi.

The event was due to kick off at 11:00, actually beginning around 30 or 40 minutes after that. As the lightest, my super featherweight category was up first, which I definitely preferred to a long wait. Nick G, who had come along to coach us, told me to go warm up with Liam. That consisted of a few drills with light resistance, after which I stretched out.

My name was called out (or rather, the usual mispronunciation that inevitably results from its confusing spelling), along with three other guys. I made a point of introducing myself to the rest of the super featherweights and shaking their hands, as I like to keep things friendly and polite. However, still only remember two of their names, Dave and Steve (both of whom I think have competed before. Steve said this was his third tournament, and I think Dave crops up here - that could be someone else, though). Turns out the weight wasn’t such an issue, as the organisers decided to add on a kg (I think Dave was about 65.2kg or so). I was the lightest white belt male there, at a measly 61.8kg in my gi, whereas the others all either made exact weight or were slightly over.

Steve fought first, although I didn’t watch him win his match. That meant I was up against Dave. I had little idea what to do from standing, just gripping Dave’s gi and arm in the manner of the throwing drills I’m used to, until Dave pulled guard. My normal tailbone break didn’t really get me anywhere, and I think it was at this point I somehow ended up underneath Dave trying to grab his legs. I could just about hear Nick telling me to base out on a leg, but Dave managed to drag me down and wrap up my head. It wasn’t comfortable, but I also wasn’t stuck in any kind of submission. Hence when Dave then disengaged and stood up, I assumed we were being moved back to the centre of the mats. To my surprise, that was apparently the end of the match, Dave’s hand being raised.

I’d been feeling pretty crappy during the bout, so while losing is never fun I was happy for the rest. Having walked over to the other RGA fighters, they asked me what happened, to which I could only reply I didn’t know, as I hadn’t tapped. I thought maybe I’d been choked out or something and not realised, but couldn’t remember Dave securing any hold. I don’t remember this at the time, but I was told later that my RGA team mates protested that I hadn’t tapped, and this resulted in Dave and I fighting again.

It wasn’t Dave’s fault, as I’m informed what happened was that the ref tapped Dave’s back to indicate he’d got an advantage. Dave thought the ref was telling him to stop because I’d tapped or something, so stood up. Its entirely possible that Dave might have gone on to secure some kind of choke, although at the particular point we were stopped, I didn’t feel in immediate danger.

Restarting, I decided that this time I’d pull guard. Apparently because Dave got a hand on my leg as I did so, I lost a point: something to be careful of when pulling guard. I’m much happier in that position, so I started to try and work for a submission. My initial thought was to go for a sit-up sweep and then perhaps fall back for a kimura, but instead I ended up trying for the armbar. I had Dave’s arm and my legs in position, but he was able to twist and keep his arm bent, eventually moving into side control.

I settled into a defensive posture, then heard Zaf shouting for me to bridge. Unfortunately, my escape didn’t go quite as planned, meaning that Dave had a good try at pulling my arm back for the submission. I resisted him for a while, but Dave eventually managed to get the arm straightened out underneath him, as he faced the floor. The arm was completely isolated and it was clearly a matter of time before Dave got the sub. I was worried that maybe with the adrenaline I wouldn’t notice the pain in time, so tapped rather than try to muscle out – that proved to be sensible, as the arm did twinge a bit afterwards.

I much prefer to lose to an armbar than the unusual circumstances of the first part of the match, and I’m also glad I did at least get the chance to go for a sub of my own. Gary estimated that the whole thing took about seven rather than the five minutes limit for white belts, though if that’s the case, definitely didn’t feel like it. Unfortunately, that lingering flu (I assume it was flu, perhaps adrenaline and nerves also playing a part) hit me with a vengeance once the adrenaline wore off, so I had to have a lie down on my bag. As there were only four of us, I thought I might have to go do another fight, which I really didn’t feel up to, but fortunately I wasn’t called. Dave went on to win the division, so I did at least lose to the champion. No bronze medal play-off meant I could go get changed and then enjoy everyone else’s fights.

While getting into my new t-shirt, I met one of the guys I’ve seen on the EFN forum, Pege Leve. He and his daughter recently got their blue belts: had a good chat with him about his training, how he got that nickname (means “take it easy” in Portuguese) and general stuff on competing. Putting some faces to names is one of the things I was hoping to get out of going along to Bristol, so glad I got that chance.

I’m not totally certain of all the RGA results, but I saw Oli win his division, Christina and Joanna splitting the gold and I think Pippa also triumphing in her category. A guy I haven’t had a chance to speak to yet, Dominik, stormed his way to victory, and Liam clinched the silver after a whole bunch of fights in his group.

Oli's quarter final:


Oli's semi final (against a pro MMA fighter, IIRC):


Oli's final:


I was also pleased to watch Dominique go one better than SENI and beat her first opponent, coming close to defeating the second too. Yasmin fought in the same division, managing to get the bronze in her play-off bout. I think Gavin, another guy I haven’t had much of a chance to chat to, won his division, or at least won a bunch of his fights. Of course, the results will be up on the main Roger Gracie site anyway, so that will confirm it. I missed the absolutes, as I had to leave early, so could be that provided RGA with additional medals.

Andy Roberts winning the purple belt division:


I should probably compete again some time (think I’ll limit it to places I can get to easily, like London and Birmingham, or if a bus from RGA is available), but I’m in no great hurry. I’m glad to have got the hurdle of my first tournament out of the way, especially experiencing the adrenaline dump. Hopefully I’ll feel a bit healthier for my second competition (worth mentioning that I wasn’t the only one feeling sick: IIRC, Dominique and Christina were both also coming off an illness).

Passing guard is something I definitely still need to develop, and escapes remain a priority. The advanced class should help beat that into me, so we’ll see if I can make any improvement by the time I come to compete again.

 Update: Full results are up on EFN – turns out I got a bronze (the ‘nm’ in my surname frequently gets misread as ‘mn’, which I’ve always found interesting from a linguistic standpoint) because I lost to the eventual winner of my division. Zaf kindly picked it up for me at the event, passing it on to Pippa to give it to me tonight. Nice to have a medal, even if its technically a medal for losing. ;D


Non-RGA fights Brown belt superfight (Otavio Souza):


White belt male light (Neil Cooper, I think)


White belt male heavy (Dean Aplin):


White belt female heavy (Sasha Hook):


Purple belt male (Darren Yeoman):