so, i've been doing jiujitsu for the past month and a half and i'm eager to start competing, things is i don't know how to gauge myself against others. So my question is what's the level of competition like on the starting level, and how long did you guys wait until you started competing.
i dunno try the bjj forum
start now, best way to learn.
Work on your takedown defense. One thing you can expect at a Jiujitsu tournament are sandbaggers (guys that are really experienced grapplers that compete at a low skill level).
Wrestlers often do this, having wrestled all through middle school and high school, maybe even college, they enter the 1-3 months Jiujitsu experience division.
thanks for all the answers guys, mods, please move? thanks.
I have been traing for about 2 years in bjj. i competed in a holiday toury/toy drive for kide sponcered by JJ Machado. i had two matches. i lost the first one by arm bar(careless move i still think about) aand i won the secound by points. I really didnt care if i won, the main point was to prove to myself i had the balls to get out there in front of people and give it my best. i had alot of fun and plan on doing it again someday. By the way im 39 years old.
39!? damn, good shit though.
Akira: We have all seen worse posts in here so give it a break.
Vic: Best time to compete is when you feel comfortable, but the sooner you get the first competition out of the way the better off you will be. No matter when you start though it is always going to be nerve wrecking; it gets better with experience.
thanks for the advice guys, i'm a firm believer that competition makes for GREAT strides of improvement in whatever sport you're competing in.
basically, it's fundamental.
^^ agreed. the wost thing that can happen is you tap, and most of us do it all the time in class anyway. you will be proud of yourself!
You can start anytime you like. Forget take down defense as a top priority. If you go against a very good high school or decent college wrestler and you are brand new to grappling you are going to get taken down no matter how much sprawling you do.
In the whitebelt division there are often some good wrestlers who are wearing gis and white belts. This is NOT sandbagging. They are in fact white belts. I have no problem with a good wrester being in that division. Its the no-gi sub grappling tournaments where wrestlers like to "massage" their experience level to the <6months of grappling that gets old.
In any BJJ tournament its great to win, but just competing is its own reward. WIth only a month and a half under your belt, you need to train everything, but having a good guard is going to go alot further for you at your current level of experience than all the sprawling in the world. Picking a takedown to try to get down pat will also help alot.
thanks for the advice dude, i also have 4 months of judo training and have done some small local in club tourneys so the stand up game shouldn't be too bad for me.
i kinda like using a half-guard game and sweeping, just being really active, you know?
how about... points vs. submission?
I had been doing no-gi bjj for about two or three weeks before I entered my first tournament. I was warming up next to Jeff Monson, Diego Sanchez and other notable grappling machines.
You gain so much more from competing than not competing.
I promise you.
You'll find that all the phenom type grapplers are the ones competing every weekend or so.
it's called research. it's what all great thinkers do.
"I had been doing no-gi bjj for about two or three weeks before I entered my first tournament."
did you by chance enter the novice or beginner division?