Ghost Combatives Turkey Tournament
Ghost Combatives Tournament
After a flurry of tournaments in October, I was pretty bummed out when I found out that there wasn't going to be anything local going on to compete in for November. I caught word though that Fort Lewis was hosting an Army combatives tournament. It being my only chance at competing in November (It helped that it was free too) I jumped at the chance.
When I say jumped, I quite literally jumped into this one. I trained Monday night, came home and showered, grabbed some blankets and made the 3 hours drive down to Fort Lewis. I slept (the best that I could, it was a cold night!) in my car that night at a Walmart parking lot. All of my Army gear still being in North Carolina, I woke up early at hit up a local surplus store to grab a set of uniforms, grabbed a banana for breakfast and headed over to the fight house to start the day.
I loved the vibe of this tournament. It had one of those old school feelings with just a dozen fighters and just two or three spectators. The rules were pretty standard; no weight class, single elimination, and a 5 minute time limit. The room was quiet when the first two competitors stepped on the mats, and with the exception of occasional clapping at the conclusion of a match, there was silence as two soldiers battled it out for victory.
There's an interesting thing about Army Combative tournaments in that there is no separation of skill levels. That means it is entirely possible for Tim Kennedy to jump into one and have a match against a brand new white belt. It definitely can make for some interesting matches.
I had a total of four matches that day and three of them were over in under a minute. A paper cutter, a falling base-ball bat choke, and an Omoplata being the submissions. I did have one tough match against a Judokan that went the way you'd expect it to go with a Jiu-Jitsu and Judo guy. He hit a foot-sweep right at the start and dropped into side control. I quickly responded with a reversal and followed it up with a flurry of submission attempts. I did feel the effects of little food and sleep during this one, as my gas tank just didn't show up with me, but I was really impressed with his defensive game. After fending off four minutes of Kimura attacks, it went to the judges and resulted in a split decision in my favor.
The cool thing was that while I was moving up through my bracket, Jake was moving through his. I'm fairly certain he finished all of his matches with submissions, demonstrating great JiuJitsu through control and position to get the finishes. We hadn't trained together in over two years, and it was really cool to see the continued proficiency that he had acquired in that time. We met in the finals and honestly, I found myself wishing that I wouldn't have showed up to this one.
I think at the heart of competitors there is a drive for good competition. The medals are fun to bring back to the school and hang up on the wall, but for me it's much more about the training that led up to the event, and the level of the opponents that you go against. At that moment I felt like I had entered myself into a white belt bracket. It was obvious that my former teammate would have easily won the whole thing, winning the recognition and admiration of his unit, but instead I had unknowingly showed up to take that. The thought of throwing the match fleeted through my mind, but no, that just didn't seem like the right thing to do, and instead would be disrespectful to my opponent and the competition. So I decided to proceed and put my best out on the mats.
Because it was the week of Thanksgiving week, the prize was a freshly cooked turkey from the Army chefs. I thought this was just the most fantastic thing ever, and you can see in the picture I got the biggest kick out of it. Knowing the ridiculous amounts of turkey that I'd be eating for the rest of the week, and not wanting to have it hang out in my car for the three hour drive back, I passed the turkey off to one of the local soldiers hoping that they would enjoy it.
Overall it was a great event. With straight forward rules, a simple bracket, and a we just came here to grapple and get better atmosphere, it was a well run tournament. In the future though, I will be holding out for a bigger scale combatives tournament before making the drive back down.
Steven McMahon earned his Kyuki-Do Black Belt in 2011 from Grand Master Kim at Kim's Black Belt Academy and his BJJ Purple Belt in January 2017 under Professor Charles Nunley. He currently trains out of Wakizashi BJJ in Oak Harbor under Professor Eli Trevino. He is an active competitor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Army Combative tournaments.
After a flurry of tournaments in October, I was pretty bummed out when I found out that there wasn't going to be anything local going on to compete in for November. I caught word though that Fort Lewis was hosting an Army combatives tournament. It being my only chance at competing in November (It helped that it was free too) I jumped at the chance.When I say jumped, I quite literally jumped into this one. I trained Monday night, came home and showered, grabbed some blankets and made the 3 hours drive down to Fort Lewis. I slept (the best that I could, it was a cold night!) in my car that night at a Walmart parking lot. All of my Army gear still being in North Carolina, I woke up early at hit up a local surplus store to grab a set of uniforms, grabbed a banana for breakfast and headed over to the fight house to start the day.
There's an interesting thing about Army Combative tournaments in that there is no separation of skill levels. That means it is entirely possible for Tim Kennedy to jump into one and have a match against a brand new white belt. It definitely can make for some interesting matches.
I had a total of four matches that day and three of them were over in under a minute. A paper cutter, a falling base-ball bat choke, and an Omoplata being the submissions. I did have one tough match against a Judokan that went the way you'd expect it to go with a Jiu-Jitsu and Judo guy. He hit a foot-sweep right at the start and dropped into side control. I quickly responded with a reversal and followed it up with a flurry of submission attempts. I did feel the effects of little food and sleep during this one, as my gas tank just didn't show up with me, but I was really impressed with his defensive game. After fending off four minutes of Kimura attacks, it went to the judges and resulted in a split decision in my favor.
The cool thing was that while I was moving up through my bracket, Jake was moving through his. I'm fairly certain he finished all of his matches with submissions, demonstrating great JiuJitsu through control and position to get the finishes. We hadn't trained together in over two years, and it was really cool to see the continued proficiency that he had acquired in that time. We met in the finals and honestly, I found myself wishing that I wouldn't have showed up to this one.
I think at the heart of competitors there is a drive for good competition. The medals are fun to bring back to the school and hang up on the wall, but for me it's much more about the training that led up to the event, and the level of the opponents that you go against. At that moment I felt like I had entered myself into a white belt bracket. It was obvious that my former teammate would have easily won the whole thing, winning the recognition and admiration of his unit, but instead I had unknowingly showed up to take that. The thought of throwing the match fleeted through my mind, but no, that just didn't seem like the right thing to do, and instead would be disrespectful to my opponent and the competition. So I decided to proceed and put my best out on the mats.
Because it was the week of Thanksgiving week, the prize was a freshly cooked turkey from the Army chefs. I thought this was just the most fantastic thing ever, and you can see in the picture I got the biggest kick out of it. Knowing the ridiculous amounts of turkey that I'd be eating for the rest of the week, and not wanting to have it hang out in my car for the three hour drive back, I passed the turkey off to one of the local soldiers hoping that they would enjoy it.Overall it was a great event. With straight forward rules, a simple bracket, and a we just came here to grapple and get better atmosphere, it was a well run tournament. In the future though, I will be holding out for a bigger scale combatives tournament before making the drive back down.
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