If someone blows my knee out when passing the guard I sure as shit would not blame them. Don't care if practice or tournament. That can happen any given day in the gym. What is the difference? 
Just sounds like a freak accident that could have happened to anyone. Even in an amateur sport like BJJ it IS about the money. If you're going to open your own school, or do a seminar tour "World Champion!" sounds a lot more appealing than "World Silver Medalist!".
If you really want to prevent injuries, then maybe your policy should be NOT to let anyone compete.
The injury has nothing to do with rolling with someone she knew. It could've happened if she rolled against a stranger. You feel bad. I get it.
Teammates and training partners are two completely different things. I WOULD fight a teammate and have in the past. Teammate simply means we fight for the same team, doesnt mean we train together. I WOULD NOT fight a training partner. Thats a person that I train with daily. If two TRAINING PARTNERS met in the finals I believe that the better fighter should take the gold. Be honest, everyone knows who the best guys/girls are in the school.
I'm from the school of thought that closeouts should occur. However a winner would still need to be determined. This is done within the academy. If however your part of a big association and the people don't really train with one another, then by all means have them go at it in the tournament.
All that said, I think the concept of team is getting more and more outdated everyday.
spider guard - I'm from the school of thought that closeouts should occur. However a winner would still need to be determined. This is done within the academy. If however your part of a big association and the people don't really train with one another, then by all means have them go at it in the tournament.
All that said, I think the concept of team is getting more and more outdated everyday.
Exactly my thoughts!!! I train at Uprising Jiu-Jitsu which is affiliated with Axis Jiu-Jitsu. We go up there and to other Axis academies to train all the time. But when it comes down to a tournament we fight against the guys from Axis because we dont train together daily. Its all fun, no one tries to hurt one another badly and our Professors even have fun coach us. But when its a teammate/training partner from Uprising, I will not compete. We know who is better, that person moves on or gets the gold.
I leave it up to my students, the only thing that I require is that whoever brings up the suggestion of a close out has to take the silver.
Like I said earlier, you guys are giving some really good feedback. After discussing it with my son, we are going to leave it up to the students to decide. Upon reading some of the feedback, I do realize that it really is not about me or my feelings. My job is to get my students to the podium, they can decide what they want to do from there.
However, let me add a little more perspective on another factor that caused me to sway towards closeouts. I got to see firsthand how terrible the student that won felt. It seemed to me that it took a part of the joy of winning that tile away from her because she felt so bad at that moment.
Terry Maxwell -I'm going to go out on a limb here and say she feels bad because her teammate got hurt, and not because she won?Like I said earlier, you guys are giving some really good feedback. After discussing it with my son, we are going to leave it up to the students to decide. Upon reading some of the feedback, I do realize that it really is not about me or my feelings. My job is to get my students to the podium, they can decide what they want to do from there.
However, let me add a little more perspective on another factor that caused me to sway towards closeouts. I got to see firsthand how terrible the student that won felt. It seemed to me that it took a part of the joy of winning that tile away from her because she felt so bad at that moment.
Also to the poster who said "the concept of team is getting more outdated".... What concept? BJJ is competitively an individual sport, that's the hard truth. It's team orientated in the aspect that you train with your teammates, but when the weekend comes, its all you. You alone are responsible for your success and shortcomings, the whole close out culture to me is a very Brazilian thing. I grew up wrestling with 4 brothers, one of whom was in my weight class during summers. I also have several close friends who were in my weight class as well, during season. That means in the summer I'd compete against my brother, and during season, I'd have to go against guys who I grew up with every week.
My brother is still my brother and my friends are still my friends... Even though it's a sport of passion and intensity, it's only a sport. I don't know why it's so hard to understand that. There is no reason to not wrestle in the finals.
If you want to avoid the whole thing in the first place, have wrestle-offs. Winner represents the team in their respected weight class, loser can represent a "B" team or move to a different weight class for the tournament.
Hunter V - I am talking at all belts. The reality is that you do not know if you will EVER get to the finals of a tourney w the prestige of the Mundials. Not everyone is a full time competitor, some of us are in college, married w kids and full time jobs, etc. So some times when you get to that purple belt final that really may be your ONE shot at ever achieving something of importance in terms of sports competition. So yes, what is on the line is you challenging yourself and knowing in your heart that you gave it your all and either came up short or succeeded. Closeouts and private decisions regarding winning will ALWAYS leave you with doubt and are disrespectful for those who worked their asses off but came up short. If anything, not wanting to actually try to win is a bit cowardice as it allows a person to not have to fully challenge themselves when they know that EVERYTHING is on the line (and mind you there are alot of people in life that fall under this). So again, respect the sport and compete or just be a spectator.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti. He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting....
relax. it's grappling.
Terry Maxwell -Like I said earlier, you guys are giving some really good feedback. After discussing it with my son, we are going to leave it up to the students to decide. Upon reading some of the feedback, I do realize that it really is not about me or my feelings. My job is to get my students to the podium, they can decide what they want to do from there.
However, let me add a little more perspective on another factor that caused me to sway towards closeouts. I got to see firsthand how terrible the student that won felt. It seemed to me that it took a part of the joy of winning that tile away from her because she felt so bad at that moment.
First off... Thank you for giving serious consideration to the feedback. I was hoping that as I typed my earlier post, that it wouldn't come off as douchey, but I thought that being a little more extreme with your logic would help to make things clear.
Now, when you think about the type of academy atmosphere that you want to engender, I can appreciate the close out. You want "traning partners" in bjj. You don't want guys holding back from each other and not showing each other moves or helping guys out because they're going to meet up in the finals...Maybe becoming your biggest rival. If they feel they'd hold stuff back, I'd just assume that they close out....and I don't think that having inhouse matchups to determine who will represent would be a remedy for that....Maybe the person who's been more dedicated to the mats and contributed the most as a leader, teacher, etc. should be chosen to be the winnder in a closeout?... idk. I'm not really sure there's a wrong answer at this point.
Mike Wazowski -Hunter V - I am talking at all belts. The reality is that you do not know if you will EVER get to the finals of a tourney w the prestige of the Mundials. Not everyone is a full time competitor, some of us are in college, married w kids and full time jobs, etc. So some times when you get to that purple belt final that really may be your ONE shot at ever achieving something of importance in terms of sports competition. So yes, what is on the line is you challenging yourself and knowing in your heart that you gave it your all and either came up short or succeeded. Closeouts and private decisions regarding winning will ALWAYS leave you with doubt and are disrespectful for those who worked their asses off but came up short. If anything, not wanting to actually try to win is a bit cowardice as it allows a person to not have to fully challenge themselves when they know that EVERYTHING is on the line (and mind you there are alot of people in life that fall under this). So again, respect the sport and compete or just be a spectator.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti. He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting....
relax. it's grappling.
oh I am relaxed. The reality is that those who are all for closeouts really don't want to put it on the line and that is fine. Just don't compete and instead roll at the academy, problem solved.
I saw a comment online about him..." he looks like the guy in zombie movies that has been bitten and is hiding it from everyone else".
I'd go against my mom in the first round, much more so the finals. And she would expect me to go as hard as I could. She'd be pissed if I didn't.
I love my mom.
Hunter V -Mike Wazowski -Hunter V - I am talking at all belts. The reality is that you do not know if you will EVER get to the finals of a tourney w the prestige of the Mundials. Not everyone is a full time competitor, some of us are in college, married w kids and full time jobs, etc. So some times when you get to that purple belt final that really may be your ONE shot at ever achieving something of importance in terms of sports competition. So yes, what is on the line is you challenging yourself and knowing in your heart that you gave it your all and either came up short or succeeded. Closeouts and private decisions regarding winning will ALWAYS leave you with doubt and are disrespectful for those who worked their asses off but came up short. If anything, not wanting to actually try to win is a bit cowardice as it allows a person to not have to fully challenge themselves when they know that EVERYTHING is on the line (and mind you there are alot of people in life that fall under this). So again, respect the sport and compete or just be a spectator.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti. He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, But he keeps on forgetting....
relax. it's grappling.
oh I am relaxed. The reality is that those who are all for closeouts really don't want to put it on the line and that is fine. Just don't compete and instead roll at the academy, problem solved.
I have always been in favor of close outs with training partners. I have lost a coin toss to my best friend in a tourny and he can tell you that that is his only win against me. I have also done an MMA stick fight against him and knocked him out by accident, I felt like shit about it! My views on close outs are because training partners know how to fight each other, why give a tutorial for future competition? That being said I try not to tell people what to do when they are the ones paying the entrance fee. I will tell them how I would handle it but it is their choice. When I was competing a lot, I was there to beat strangers not the dude I drove up with.
I think that although this is an individual sport, you did not get there on your own, so if teammates get to the finals that is a fitting display of the team's skills.
Didn't cyborg and Popovich close out like 4-5 divisions in one year? I might be wrong but I remember hearing about that a few years ago.
Sorry about your student. Hope it isn't a torn ACL.
I competed against a team mate once and lost, but luckily neither of us got injured.