No points, no time limits, just submission tourney

Just wanted to ask if there was any chance of one of those "No points, no time limits, just submissions" tournaments coming up in Toronto (or Ontario)? I personally favour the idea of fighting to submission, getting a conclusive finish instead of simply playing the rules to rack up the points and just waiting for the time to expire.

I don't know if others feel the same way as I haven't discussed it with anyone else, so I'm just wondering out loud :).

Lautaro

The big problem is that it doesn't cater well to scheduling of the tournament, some matches will be quick, others might take forever, and if you want to generate any profit at all it also doesn't cater well to audiences because many of the matches aren't very exciting as they tend to devolve into long drawn out stalling demonstrations.

If it was an invitation only and one division with some of the continents best grapplers, this could work. But if its open, the tournament will take a year to finish.

They did a tournament like this years back in LA called the So Cal Pro Am. It was great but took forever.

The Gracies did an invite only event as well called the Ultimate Submission Challenge, it was good but got boring.

Since we're just thinking out loud, what if there were a jiu jitsu equivalent of a speed chess match?



Both competitors would be given a time on their respective clocks -- say seven minutes -- and the clock would run unless they were attacking. The maximum match time in this case could be 14 minutes but there would be a guarantee of at least seven minutes worth of action.



Alright, back to the dark, cold chasm of reality.

I see. Well, thanks for sharing your thoughts, guys. My grappling style isn't very good for point tournaments with time limits, but once my knee heals up I'll try to get back into shape for action in some upcoming competitions.

Lautaro

Actually, there's talk about doing one in Buffalo or Toronto next year. There's already another one scheduled for Rochester in... July, I think? I'm happy to pass along the request to Chrissy, Brian and Andrew.

US Grappling has run several of these now and have it down to a science. I've reffed two of them (reffing is easy; you just stop the match when somebody taps). At the one I did in Northern Virginia this past April, there were over 100 competitors with gi, no-gi, absolutes and masters divisions on eight mats. The first match started at 11 sharp and we were out of there, with the mats rolled up and everything packed in the truck, before 6pm... way better than most jiu-jitsu tournaments.

USG keeps stats on match times, submission types, etc. Even with the no time limit thing, the average match length is something like 7-8 minutes. The one in Rochester zippped by... by the end of the day we were running on only two mats and we were still out of there by 3-ish.

Stalling is minimal (except for the legendary three hour match in Winchester) - people fight hard to win.

I've never had as much fun at a tournament as I have at USG's sub-only tournaments. I really hope we can get one in Toronto next year.

Sounds great, Alaina! If it isn't possible, then we still have plenty of tournaments going on here to keep up with :).

Lautaro

trianglegrrl - Actually, there's talk about doing one in Buffalo or Toronto next year. There's already another one scheduled for Rochester in... July, I think? I'm happy to pass along the request to Chrissy, Brian and Andrew.



US Grappling has run several of these now and have it down to a science. I've reffed two of them (reffing is easy; you just stop the match when somebody taps). At the one I did in Northern Virginia this past April, there were over 100 competitors with gi, no-gi, absolutes and masters divisions on eight mats. The first match started at 11 sharp and we were out of there, with the mats rolled up and everything packed in the truck, before 6pm... way better than most jiu-jitsu tournaments.



USG keeps stats on match times, submission types, etc. Even with the no time limit thing, the average match length is something like 7-8 minutes. The one in Rochester zippped by... by the end of the day we were running on only two mats and we were still out of there by 3-ish.



Stalling is minimal (except for the legendary three hour match in Winchester) - people fight hard to win.



I've never had as much fun at a tournament as I have at USG's sub-only tournaments. I really hope we can get one in Toronto next year.


 She pretty much said it all.  You can check out the results from our last 5 Submission Only events here:



http://www.usgrappling.us/results/



The overall vibe is far less stressful than at a points torunament, too.  The coaches aren't screaming so urgently, the competitors aren't so nervous once the tournament starts, and the refs freaking love the no pressure matches.

I would love to see/compete in this type of tourney in the GTA.