Contributor: Benjamin Kohn
To my adoring fans, I thank you for your support as I ice my swollen right leg after competing. To my doubters and haters, look at my shiny gold medal mofos. Anyway the moment I got there, things seemed to be running smoothly. The adult gi divisions actually started on time this year and I was told I would be weighing in approximately 20 minutes from that time. I checked my weight and of course, I was about a pound over. Knowing I had 20 minutes, I threw on a sweatshirt and grabbed the jump rope, pissed a few times, and made weight. Running smoothly right? Well not so much since one of the guys who was supposed to be in my bracket was mistakenly not so they ended up mixing the divisions together.
My first fight was against a guy who couldn’t make weight at Middleweight and was now in my division of Middle Heavyweight. This was fine with me as he was basically my size, definitely thicker than me up top but his legs and hips definitely felt weaker than mine. Very strong upper body though and I had a hard time with my grips. Before describing the match, I will admit that every time I compete, my first match/pre first match I am very nervous. This most likely stems from the very first time I ever competed where I got injured 2 minutes into my very first match when someone pulled guard on me. In this and the other BJJ competition I’ve partaken in, I was extremely tentative and honestly scared to take risks in my first matches. It cost me a match last year and this year I worked a lot more for control than for submissions in the first match. I am not some ultra-alpha male who is going to claim “ya I knew I would win bro” because I didn’t. I was scared and nervous and it took me that first fight to really get going. Now onto the breakdown of a very slow paced and probably boring-to-most match.
I immediately shot for a sloppy double leg which he sprawled on easily. I brought my legs around and proceeded to trap him in a loose half-guard which I managed to tighten up a bit. The pace slowed as we both fought for hand positioning, working for the underhook and overhook. I eventually managed to get in a deep-half guard position and attempted a half-hearted sweep attempt but he had a really good whizzer and kept his base well. In another sweep attempt, he once again kept his base very well and my knee was now across his belly. Looking back, I should have gone for a scissors sweep but in the moment, I was a bit frozen up. After locking up my half-guard briefly, I created a bit of space and re-established my full guard locking it in and settling a bit. I will now mention that my wonderful father decided to yell “shift your hips” to which I gave him a look of utter, what the fuck, which is why you will hear laughter in the video. After recounting the hilarity of this moment to my opponent, we both had a good laugh and continued our battle of attrition. A little over two minutes into the match right now and after a few seconds of grip fighting, I attempt to gain control to work my signature sweep, the pendulum sweep. He defends properly by sitting back on his hips, not allowing me to bring his weight over my body. I than next attempt to gain control of his left arm and climb my legs up to work a triangle which fails and back to full guard. While he kept attempting to grab both collars to stand up, I used a trick that Bernardo Faria (IIRC) taught us to stop him from making the grip, which is to grab both collars above their hands and yank in opposite directions. Worked very well and I definitely recommend it to someone who has a hard time stopping their opponents grips. Every time he tried to stand and break open my guard I would begin to threaten with the pendulum sweep and he would immediately sit down shutting both of our offenses down and causing a bit of a stalemate. He kept a low base and made it hard for me to really do much but because of my nerves, I didn’t really try to force any openings and was content to play the waiting game. After some more grip fighting, he stood up and attempted to open my legs, which succeeded at as I failed at attempting more sweeps. He finally managed to get his right elbow inside and I threw up a weak omaplata attempt which I tried turning into a triangle which he easily shucked off. He then rolled me over and attempted to turn into me getting my back but I quickly turned the corner getting the takedown and 2 points along with it and ended up in his butterfly guard. While trying to pass, he pushed me off and stood up, and I knew there was very little time left so I honestly stalled and stayed on the ground scooting towards him. He quickly rushed me trying to pass my guard and get 3 points and we ended up in with him having a front headlock on me when time ran out.
It was a slow, and not very good match in my opinion which I admittedly froze up in. I tried my best to get over the nerves but it took me some time to get over that hump. It wasn’t until my absolute first round match that I truly got over those nerves (and that was the one I lost). I will talk about my other matches in follow up posts but in the meantime please feel free to enjoy and comment on the post as I will also have Luke post videos of the matches if he wants to. Until next time, train hard and keep reading my shit.
-Ben can be reached at [email protected] or @agentbenten.
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