Throughout the last eleven years, I've been living in the middle of both cultures. Just when life was becoming a little more complicated, a little more distracting, the daily preparation of combat was beginning to take a back burner to more grey cultural projects. Enter the Mihas.
Haven't been able to been able to make it to the gym more than once this month, out of town, exhausted, working 7 days a week. All my excuses were ignored, delays not accepted; the King of Pancrase, Mike Mihas was calling. Sigh. "Yes, I will do this tournament with you." I was secretly smiling. It was going to be a good time no matter what happens, and we were going to be absolutely game.
There is something about not being prepared that would make anyone nervous. The only comfort was knowing that preparation for combat had been part of my daily routine for the last 11 years. When you cannot rely on obvious physical or athletic attributes, you have to create ever better strategies. This theory was cemented in my mind after breaking the preparation rules so to speak at the last tournament with Mr. Michael Mihas. I had been up all night after breaking up with a hell cat, and had conceded to simply coaching my friend Mike during his matches the following day instead of competing. Despite everything, Mike convinced me to step up and compete. That day I successfully faced over seven people and won two divisions. Hopefully this method of winning wasn't fool's mate.
The morning of today’s tournament, I've had horrible food poisoning, and it's pretty bad. One of those "Naked" drinks had to of been contaminated. Weren't they bought by Coke? The ingredients must be cheaper now. Sent a few texts, and almost canceled on Mike Mihas again. He didn't accept my hint at canceling. After weighting in, it was apparent that I had lost seven pounds since 6am. That gallon of water in my hand looks like a spinning top. Oh well, we were here at PACS. Pennsylvania Combat Sports Submissions Open, a smaller submission only tournament held at the PACS gym. Today their venue included a modest grouping of competitors from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. I enjoy reading the room as we enter. Heavily tattooed guys always seem to bring their creatively dressed girlfriends; these guys like MMA but for now focus on Jiu Jitsu. A few Ex wrestlers who put their wrestling work ethic into lifting weights as they decided it was easier to not wrestle in college. A few smaller guys who enjoy the leverage aspects of Jiu Jitsu, and a few massive super heavy weights that are confident in beating almost anyone there. There will be a few traditional Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioners, and they will not know how to do any stand up grappling techniques. Finally in attendance, a few professional and amateur Mixed Martial Arts fighters, each looking for a different experience.
I signed up for the no GI advanced division, Purple belt division, and was ready for the absolute or no weight class division. Unfortunately, the room was heating up, and every time I stood up quickly the room would go black and my body would drift towards the fall. Standing up felt slightly better than sitting down, and grappling felt better than standing up; either way I need to keep moving. The entire event was in a fog, as the room heated up to well over 100 degrees with humidity that was wet like steam. The walls are dripping.
Mike's advanced division match was first, and he leg locked his long time friend and nemesis with a frustrating heel hook. Why do you guys like those submissions? This ended up being his only match in this division. I was up next, facing a taller opponent with an MMA influenced style, I believe he is a professional fighter. I kept it standing for roughly six or seven minutes, slowly warming up with this first opponent. He seemed to be comfortable using the Muay Thai head and neck clinch to move people around, but this has always been a strong part of my game, so we spend much of the time pummeling from the Thai plum. We started chatting during the match, and I made the mistake of complimenting him on his clinch game. It strengthened his attack, and so I knew it was time to take him down. He kept angling his body to the side and giving side body lock access. I don't remember much of the match, except locking in a one arm rear naked choke during a scramble and finishing my new friend.
Our friend and training partner from the gym Stephen was there for his first competition experience. I was thinking the no gi aspect and submission only format might make for a slightly frustrating experience. He did well against his opponents, but in the specific position of closed guard with an opponent completely focused on stopping any submission attempts it was certainly going to be a long and grueling match. Most submissions are actually designed upon the idea that somebody will be passing your guard, you need a completely different game to deal with a stale mating opponent. Nobody to include myself had that part of their game within the first two years of training. We then talked Stephen into the absolute division, which ended up being an even longer match. He logged twenty five minutes of tournament experience, not bad experience at all.
There was some down time at this point, and the promoter was already working on setting up the no gi absolute division. To make sure the division was substantial; they opened it up to everyone. They attempted to have me compete against Mike Mihas, but we spent significant time convincing them to avoid that. If we were forced to compete, I was trying to convince Mike that he should go on because I might get sick again at any time. Mike was attempting to convince me to keep going and win the division. Thankfully, the promoter agreed to our alternative match. A large man who we had been watching earlier was pacing around near our ring; I could tell he was gearing up to compete in the absolute. He had very broad shoulders and long arms, roughly 5' 9", and wore a sleeveless shirt to show off the goods. I had glanced over at his grappling matches. He had ripped his 250 pound opponents off their feet and violently choked their neck to almost the point of injury. His explosive guillotine attack was impressive and worth avoiding. He appeared to have a wrestling background. The promoter agreed to match us up next. I walked over to him, and mentioned that we were up next. I was pacing around in anticipation, in a moment of clarity (or poor judgment) was very excited to have an all out war with a challenging opponent.
As we locked up, he shoved my arms down and away. You must avoid getting an arm broken when going against such a large opponent. He was operating in short explosive bursts, and as described after the match, he felt three times stronger than he looked. Steroids. I've trained with and competed against people on Steroids for years. This guy was easily stronger than any of them, and stronger than several other opponents in the past that had weighed almost three hundred and fifty pounds. Grappling and trying to control this guy was like holding on to a spooked draft horse. Every time we locked up, I was taking damage like an MMA fight. I quickly decided that he had wrestled in high school, but gave it up during his first two years of college where he transitioned to becoming an unnatural body builder. I gauged that he would snap me down and threaten the guillotine if I made a mistake during a lower body takedown, and that he would attempt to push me up against the ropes and finish with an ankle pick if given the opportunity.
I quickly realized his neck was not conditioned, he wasn't able to keep up with Thai Plum neck pummeling, and kept the center line of his body unguarded. Some have speculated that I had just worn him down, but this came far later. I was able to drive my opponent backwards due to a type of off balancing movement used to remove yourself from a pin against a MMA style cage. I feathered this technique driving into his "dead zone" methodically which allowed me to frustrate and fatigue a very linear opponent. Several times he would shove me away, and my back would touch the far ropes. (Almost as exciting as WWE) I was able to take him down twice, and from pinning/side control situations he was posting and pushing with his arms, attempting to bench press me away. It was working quite well for him, and the pushing on the head and neck was close to causing serious damage. I naturally adjusted the angles, but had to focus body pressure in two unique areas to prevent what only a heavy weight or super heavy weight can do. Either side hip, either side shoulder, at different types prevent class specific types of movement. For when he almost popped up, the pressure was recircled back into him to reflatten. During a scramble, I took the neck in a one armed rear naked choke. It was fairly close, but he used his power to release the grip and successfully reverse our position. I had told Mike that if it didn't end in a choke, it would end in a battle for the omoplata. I locked the shoulder to prevent upward movement, but decided on the arm. I locked it out aggressively and early, not to break it but to make it impossible to stalemate the submission. It worked, and I staggered back to my friends in victory.
Mike was up next, and before we knew what happened he had already triangle choked his opponent. Kody Tuttle mentioned that Mihas hadn't wasted any energy in doing so. Next, Kody had a long and technical match with a very game training partner from his gym Ground Zero. Wow that was long and dynamic. The highlight of the match was when Kody had him in a full arm bar, and his opponent was wiggling out of it in a truly precarious and hard to watch situation. It went back and forth many times, but Kody ended up finishing his opponent. At this time, I was offered a "By" because I finished such a large opponent, or some other reason. I was attempting to stay conscious at this point, but at the same time paying attention to what was going on. They wanted me to face Mike Mihas again, and the the winner would face Kody. I told them I would give up my chance at second place for an earlier match with Kody. It kind of been a long running joke, but Kody had written a unique description of one of my matches on youtube awhile back. He changed it after a few months, and all was forgiven. It was always the idea though that he would have to compete against me one of these days, and we were going to try and make that happen. I wasn't energetic, but was game. Due to my slower movement today, I was concerned about not reacting to leg locks quickly enough and head position in regards to guillotine chokes. We had a pretty good match, but it was slow and involved a fair amount of close contact and pressure. I went for an armbar after a kimura was threatened, and a few chokes were threatened and considered. I do wish I hadn't let the last one go. In the last stanza, there was a bit of separation between us, most likely due to a half guard situation. I was placed in an inverted heel hook, and his legs were fully figure four'ed around the target leg. I turned a few degrees, and couldn't turn any more. Submitted by that risk oriented submission, and pay back for using similar submissions years ago.
After a break, Kody and Mike finished the bracket for first and second place. After a long and grueling match, Mike's arm was twisted into submission by most likely a kimura or kimura variation by Kody. 1-1 for the day, but with an even more extensive personal record against each other.
I had one more match, the three stripe purple belt that I faced at the beginning of the day. Putting on a GI after those hot matches in a steamy 100+ degree room was not something I was ready for. Foolishly and with impatient bravado, I shuffle walked huffing and puffing towards my fresh opponent. I hit a clean judo throw right off the bat, and almost transitioned into side control to mount. A few scrambles later, and I was a balled up mess on the ground with my opponent hunting for something to finish me with. This reminded me of prior heat exhaustion in the Army. I was tempted by quiting due to exhaustion. Lots of ideas and realities flashed through my mind, and finally decided to fight to my death. From the turtle position, I hit roughly four sacrifice throws/rolls that were successful, but my opponent and I kept getting tangled in the ropes and restarted at the center of the mat without an improved position. (Crap, I want side control) Minutes later, I secured a triangle choke for the finish, and was so glad to be done. We closed the tournament, and posed for the last pictures. I would like to thank all my new and longtime friends for a great experience, Michael Mihas for making this happen, and for the people of PACS that were so kind and generous.
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