Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Swedish Open champion!

...after only one match in my weight division ;)

As the title says, I took gold at this weekends Swedish Open tournament, which is the biggest in northern Europe with 600+ competitors. Of those 600, only two were in brown belt -82.3 kilos, so I only had one match. That suited me really well, because I was very nervous about my knee since it popped last time I competed, and it is still very sore when I train.


We went about 40 people from my gym to the competition and before I stepped on the mat myself, I was coaching our 22 kids, who did great and won a shitload of medals as usual. I was pretty tired at the end of the day when it was my turn. Knew nothing about my opponent, which I think is a good thing, because then all I know is that anything can happen and there is no pressure to perform in a certain way against him. He could be really good or really bad, I have no idea, so I just go there and try to execute my own game no matter what his plan is.

The match itself was pretty straight forward and it went better than what I would expect. I pulled guard right away even though I love to wrestle for the takedown, but I wanted to take care of my knee. Got the sweep, passed the guard a few times, mounted and finished with the crosschoke (Thanks again, Martin ;)).


I had a strange experience with this competition, as I found myself to be completely emotionless before, during and after the match. There was absolutely zero sense of nervousness or adrenaline when I was about to step on the mat, and during the match I felt nothing really. Only a lot of thoughts about tactics and focus on listening to my corner, who did a great job of keeping me informed with valuable information and suggestions. Even after I won, I didn't really care at all, no happiness or feeling of satisfaction. I've felt like this many times before but not as much as this time.


It just enforces my feeling that competition for me is nothing but a tool to gather experience. It does nothing to me towards satisfying my ego or similar. I wish it was different and I could be a fierce gladiator-style competitor like those many athletes I look up to in sports (including some of my own training partners), but I accept that I am not. I did, however, feel a great deal of happiness for my kids team, who was cheering for me during the match and obviously was happy that I won. If nothing else, I will compete to be a role model and inspiration for those I train with.

5 comments:

Brian said...

Hey!
I found your blog via Aesopian's link on Facebook.
Congrats on the fight! You executed a textbook victory, well earned through judicious training obviously.

I'm former military, and a BJJ player going back to 1995; I thought I'd add the comment that it appears as though you did so exceptionally well because you train hard, pay attention to details. Most importantly, you seemed to have let your training take over! Perhaps that was the reason behind the level emotional plane.

My compliments to you!

Liam H Wandi said...

Beautiful! When you come around to manchester you'll have to show us a couple of those moves :o)

Relax On The Mat said...

Hey Christian...quick question about your submission in this video. Whenever I've been taught a collar-type choke from the mount, the finish almost always includes grapevining the legs after the hands are in place. I noticed that you stayed very high on your opponent through the end of the submission. Do you prefer not to grapevine in general or did you think it wouldn't help in this instance?

Great match, love your blog!

Christian Graugart said...

Yes, I go to high mount on purpose, since I feel like i can put more weight into the choke there. I have seen a million variations on the mount choke in my training carreer but this is the only one tha thaw actually ever worked for me. Martin Aedma from Estonia showed it to me by inspiration from Roger Gracie, I believe :)

Canibalinho said...

Yeah that's the same way Fabio Gurgel taught it at a seminar I went to, and same way the black belts at my old school in CA taught it. Nice win Christian!

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