3rd Grab & Pull Competition - 25-Jul-2009

Right here goes.....

This is my first post so I thought I would start off with writing about the Grab and Pull competition in Brighton. Its the third one this year and was held at the King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove.

I'd been there back in April this year but only as a spectator - Matt was competing and I went down to watch him fight. So I already knew the place but not from a competitors-eye-view!

We had to get there to register for 9am so it was a pretty early start for me. I picked up Jadon (see my blog list - Jadon Ortlepp "Tapping Like Riverdance") and we headed on our way. Jadon was coaching, although when we got there it was only myself and Antony Loobey who were competing from Andy's academy! Unfortunately we had some injuries in the training leading up to the comp - Andy pushing us too hard! Hehe.

But we had fantastic support, and I'd like to thank Sheena, Anna, Jadon, James, Scott, and my mum, dad, Matt and Eve for coming to support! :)

Antony was up first. I missed the first half of his fight but if my memory serves me right, I believe he lost on points. It was a brilliant fight to watch though, both guys had a lot of talent and it really could have gone either way.

The women were on pretty quickly at 12 noon. The ladies white belt weights were so similar that we were split into the lower and higher categories between our weights.

My first fight was against Rachael McMillan who I remembered from the British Open in Birmingham in June. She got points for the takedown and mount. I'd injured my rib the previous week in training and was finding it difficult to sweep her. I went for a choke but had no position at all so tried again to sweep but Rachael had me in an ezekial choke and I tapped. It's very confusing with all the coaches and spectators shouting instructions at "Rachel" and "Rachael" lol.

Within minutes I was called up for the Absolute open weight. My first fight was against Camilla Parker. I got the points for the takedown but she pulled guard. She had a tough grip and was constantly pulling half guard as I was passing. But I passed and got to side control, then I got points for the mount and eventually she tapped once I had her with a cross-collar choke.

My second fight was with Rachael again. It was all kind of a blur, I don't quite know what happened but as she was on mount and I was bridging I felt this surge of pain and I was in agony! I tapped. It's a shame because I had really been looking forward to seeing my potential but my injured rib had got the better of me! I didn't even get the chance to get presented with my medals. Pippa got them for me and I left early to get home and get my injury seen to.

It was a brilliant day and I went home with so much new experience. I'm going to concentrate on my difficulties in training from now on and can watch the videos back and see where i can learn. I'm not sure which competition I'm going to enter next but it's going to be hard training up until then. I've always got more to learn!