Welcome to Fighter Diaries, another feature of Undercard Superstar. We’ll be talking with fighters of all shapes and sizes and of different combat sports to get inside their heads and find out what it’s like to be in their shoes. This week, Andy Anderson shares his tales as he prepares for his first no-gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament. You can read Part I here and Part II here.
Well Thursday went really well, we went over variations of defending lumberjack sweeps and tripod sweeps, in the gi. The drive was really intense because the traffic due to the Pens game, and to be honest it can get tiring at times, but at the end of class I was given my third stripe on my white belt, which now means that I can attend all Blue Belt classes as well as open mat training sessions.
Friday I attended my first open mat session, and wow talk about feeling like it was my first day all over again. Getting sub by all the upper level belts was really humbling and really shows how much more I need to work to become proficient at jiu jitsu. I talked to Warren, (my head instructor) about getting on the MMA team and he told me to do as many tournaments this spring and summer as I can as well as focus on training to reach my blue belt and we will see where I am at in the late summer or early fall.
Today I attended my first tournament. I actually had a really bad adrenaline dump when I was warming up for my first match and just had a hard time focusing against a really tough wrestler who kept baiting me to shoot and would then put me in an anaconda choke, all three times I was able to escape but in trying to get to half guard on the last time he took my back and was able to finish me with a neck crank. During my second match I got up big right away but was not able to hold on and lost 9-7, however I had a 2-0 advantage. After both matches Warren went over my performance with me and the biggest thing he told me to work on was my posture standing up in my opponents guard as I would get sloppy and waste time but every time I did it correctly I easily broke the guard of both opponents and passed them to side control. He also told me that I did really well for just getting my third stripe as usually he wants students to get more live rolling in before competition and I only had one session. I had seven other teammates from Renzo Gracie Pittsburgh there competing and they all had similar stories to mine from their first tournament however with all seven being seasoned competition veterans, we finished with two silvers, a bronze and a superfight tournament champion.
All in all I learned a lot this week, most importantly that even with 9 months training in the gi, I still am very green in both Brazilian Jiu Jitsu not to mention the fight game. This may be a long journey but I am in good hands as Renzo Gracie Pittsburgh has two black belts who have placed in the Pan Ams, (Warren Stout and Roger Ambrosi) as well as a blue belt training partner of mine who won nogi Pan Ams last fall (Dean Lewis), in addition to the growing fight team which is getting better and better every week.
Thanks Luke and Undercard Superstar for asking me to journal my journey and I hope to do so again in the future for both competitions and fights when they occur. If anyone in the Pittsburgh area is interested in trying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu please check out http://renzograciepittsburgh.com/ and let Warren know that Andy Anderson told you to try it out.
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