NAGA Miami - Results/Review

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 11:21am

Ah, ****, I was searching for neebaaah, instead of neebah. Oh my God, Cp. Kneebaah, what a fucking tool!!! Anyways, nope, he wasn't there, and I'm pleased to say the vast majority of the pple I saw were a mile above that type of mental low level :tongue3:

There was one coach/instructor that I won't name that went ape-**** when a member of kid's team was competing. I won't say names since I don't know the context in which this occurred, but when it comes to kids (specially kids that are being coached into the sport), one should bite one's tongue and think of better ways to communicate dissagreements rather than turning into a squealing emotional bitch in front of dozens of wide-eye kids.

But other than that, the event was very nice.

**Goju - Joe** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 11:27am

Originally Posted by GoldenJonas

Ok, I didn't win a friggen sword, but I'm hooked on competing.

Five fights in total. I took third in No-Gi (beginner heavy weight) and fourth in Gi (white belt heavy weight).

My wife managed to get my no-gi matches on tape and once I figure out how to put them on youtube I'll post the links here for dissection.

I will rip apart my fights, some good, some bad, a lot to work on, in my log. However, for this general post, I would like to say that for a martial arts tournament, NAGA, and I'd be willing to say grappling tournaments in general, are FAR better for the state of martial arts than your typical point sparring form LARPing tourney.

This is my first "grappling" tournament. I have been to a total of 4 point sparring, musical weapons forms, etc...tournaments. Here is what I noticed. At the latter, there is always a handful of "sensie/shihans/soke/sifu", whatever, who dawn their respective "pimped out" gi's with their obnoxiously stripped belts and fat bodies who walk around like they are the toughest sons-a-bitches on the planet. At the former, you have a large group of athletes, ATHLETES, who respect each other for having the BALLS to put it on the line and get on the mat, and whose respective instructors ALSO GET ON THE MAT and let it hang. Win or lose, the matches end with a hand shake and you make acquaintances who often sit ringside and cheer you on and try to help coach you through your other matches.

In the latter, you always have a handful of guy and girl "upper" belts listening to their respective MP3 players throwing chain side kicks in the air like they are bad asses and generally walk around with their chests puffed out like they are the second coming of Ernie Reyes. At the former, your get more experienced purple, brown, and even black belts, who will come up to you after a match and say "good job, man", "I noticed you where trying to do an XYZ, next time try this set-up for it."

Granted, each of these types of MA tournaments have some good participants and some bad. However, while I know there MUST be some assholes (assholes are everywhere) at grappling tourneys, I didn't notice any today.

Grappling, Judo, MMA, Muay Thai, Boxing, etc...any live fully resistant competition or tournament is far better to show the effectiveness of what you sweat every day as opposed to performing a back flip spinning kick in the air with a silver bow staff to "Eye of the Tiger". Needless to say, I'm hooked, and I WILL be competing again...as soon as I make a few adjustments to my game.

NAGA runs a top notch tournament. There were 10 rings with matches going on throughout the day from 11:30am through approximately 5:30pm. The kids divisions were amazing to watch. Some of these kids, AS YOUNG AS 4 YEARS OLD, got on the mat and threw down. The real young kids were "non submission" matches, understandably so. The superfights were awesome and the advanced (brown/black) matches were technical wonders to watch.

You get a spattering of MMA celebs that come and go. I got my pic taken with Jeff Monson and saw one of the guys from this seasons TUF there.

The worst part is the waiting. I weighted in at 10:00am (204lbs DAMNIT!!!) and then sat until about 3:00pm until my no-gi division went off. However, given that there were over 700 competitors the wait was probably unaviodable. Once your division starts you may have about 5-10 minutes between matches to recover if you advance. My gi division went off at about 4:45pm.

Overall it was a GREAT experience and I learned a lot. I will be back after I make my adjustments.

You'ren a brown belt in another form of jiu Jtsu right? But you competed as a beginner?

I am not being a dick by the way i ask because I am in a simillar situation. I am a blue in Goju-jitsu with over three years experience in that, which by the up coming competition's rules would put me in advance division, but I only started BJJ and get my ass handed to me by white belts all the time.

However that's always starting from knees I have a much better game for throws at least than your average bjj white.

I don't want to sandbag but I would like to compete on the ground at least at my level (which is craptacular)

Any thoughts or comments on this?

**pauli** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 11:45am

yeah. i think you should ask your instructor what divisions to enter. he'll know better than we will.

**Goju - Joe** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 11:58am

Unfortunately my situation is a little weird because I am training at two places.

if this was sport Jiu Jitsu with strikes, takedown and submissions I would ahve no problem goin in Intermediate - advance.

I am leaning towards beginner and unless i get an amazing throw and submission right away I'm probably going to get wiped out.

**GoldenJonas** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 2:53pm

I thought pretty long and hard about that very question Goju. When I went over to BJJ/ATT from 3.5 years of "whatever jujitsu" I got killed by the purples and browns; I mean it was not even close. I could roll with the blues but it was mostly defensive; and I could hold my own and submit most of the whites. There are a couple of whites who have about three years of BJJ experience that are still pretty stout opponents.

I asked my BJJ instructor what division he thought I should go in. The exact question I asked him was "Hey Paul, I'm gonna compete at Naga in Miami, its my first grappling tournament, and I do not know which division I should go in, what do you think? I was thinking beginner and white belt but I don't want to be a sandbagger?"

He stated that beginner and white belt seemed appropriate and that each tournament produces different competition. One Naga may be a cake walk in beginner no-gi, while another Naga may be packed with collegiate wrestlers in the begginer no-gi division.

I figured that if I did really well in those divisions, I would of course move up next time. Hell, the guy I beat in my first no-gi match was a blue belt and he competed in the blue belt division for gi. I think the guy who won both of my divisions would have done just fine in the intermediate and blue belt levels...but you never know.

Bottom line, ask your BJJ instructor what he thinks, that's what I did. I definitley DO NOT feel that I sandbagged, how could I have, I got a third and fourth in my respective divisions.

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 6:52pm

Speaking of throws, those wrestling mats being used at NAGA looked pretty thin and lacking. I'd be worried to be thrown with authority like this.

I mention this because I didn't see that many takedowns and I only saw one throw done by a girl from ATT (a makikomi-esque throw into side control.) Nothing high impact (nothing wrong with that.)

But that got me curious: what was the NAGA ruleset regarding takedowns? Would a high impact throw be considered slamming? I should have asked that question yesterday at the tourney, but it didn't occur to me until now.

**GoldenJonas** · Posted On: 10/29/2006 7:03pm

No, a correctly performed throw, say a fully committed meroto-seionagi (sp?) would result in two points to the person executing the throw. At the rules meeting prior to the start of the tournament the president of NAGA ran down the rules. In order to get 2 points for a takedown or throw both feet of the guy being thrown must come off of the ground.

When he spoke about "slamming" he referred to slamming when someone pulls guard, standing up and slamming someone who has their guard closed on you, or slamming to counter a triangle or arm bar attempt.

Later on in the day I saw a pretty good haria-goshi (sp?) in one of the adult gi divisions, purple I think, that netted the thrower 2 points and the guy who was thrown came down pretty hard.

**El Neko** · Posted On: 10/31/2006 10:58am

I'm a judo brown belt (pretty lousy brown belt, I might add), therefor I have a fairly decent standing throws game and basic ground control, but have no idea about leg locks (including Kneebah), what division should I compete in order to not be considered sandbaging.