Lauren the Momminator vs. I-Pei the Brazilian Softwood: The Rematch

You may recall my previous performance at my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament in April. My modest goal had been to last the entire 5 minute round without losing by submission. As it turned out, it was a draw whether I lost by points or submission, since the final score was 13 to zero, and the match officially ended seconds before I tapped out from the rear naked stranglehold that Lauren the Momminator had on my throat. I felt confident that our second jiu jitsu tournament, held on June 7, would be a different story. I had been training consistently to increase my stamina for multiple rounds and to improve techniques to submit my opponents. I also knew that Lauren the Momminator was coming to the tournament a week after a vacation in the Virgin Islands, and like a shark sensing potential weakness in its prey, I was out to WIN this rematch.

There were only six women competitors at this school tournament because Haley was out of town to help her aunt. This left her sister, Keaton, the Collie girls, Devyn and Jordyn, my comrade with two kids the same age as mine, Michelle, Lauren the Momminator, and myself. I realized that without Haley, I had a good shot at coming in third place if I won my match against Lauren. It was likely that Michelle and Keaton would eliminate the Collie girls in the first round because of their superior experience, so I wouldn't have to fight them myself. I haven't sparred enough against the Collie girls to know how I would fare against them. I have an extra two months of experience on them, but that little extra training is probably outweighed by their strength and size (do recall that their father is a former pro football player). Granted, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is about leverage and not strength and size, but if both opponents are roughly equal in technique and strategy level, the stronger opponent can muscle their way to victory.

The adult tournament was scheduled to occur after the children's tournament was done, but the schedule was changed to have the women's matches held in between the children's matches. This was done so that many of the competitors, who either had siblings or kids in the children's tournament, did not have to stay longer than needed. I knew about the schedule change so I showed up at 10 am, an hour before the adult tournament had been slated to begin. By the time I had arrived, Michelle had won over Devyn in a close match (she had been down by 2 points, but her husband yelled that information to her and she rallied for an arm bar to submit), and Keaton had won over Jordyn. Joao came over between the children's matches to ask me to alert him the moment Lauren showed up so that we could have our match. As it turned out, Lauren never got the message about the schedule change so she showed up a little before 11 am. I was raring to go and she was caught a bit by surprise because she had only just arrived.

I had decided to wear a mouthguard because I had chomped my tongue the week before and I really didn't want to take the chance of reinjuring that part of my anatomy. Joao looked at me as we waited on the mat for Lauren and he said, "Wow, a mouthguard, you look like a warrior. It's kind of scary, actually."

"Yeah, that's the idea," I drooled.

Lauren arrived, a bit breathless, and bounced around a bit to stretch out as Joao explained the rules. Take downs and sweeps are worth 2 points, passing the guard (moving past the opponent's knees) is worth 3 points, mounting the opponent's belly for 3 seconds is worth 4 points, taking the opponent's back and placing your hooks is worth 4 points, sitting on the opponent's back while they lie flattened on their belly is 3 points, and pressing one knee on the opponent's belly while extending the other leg is 3 points.

We began the match, both grabbing each other's lapel and sleeve, then breaking apart. After the classic circular dance performed by beginners who don't know many take down techniques, Lauren put her right leg to my belly and sat backwards, dragging me down to my knees, then completed the takedown by rolling me to my back. I managed to wrap my legs around her in a closed guard position without too much difficulty, and a glance at the scoreboard confirmed that she had 2 points for the takedown to my zero.

For the next 4 minutes, I had her in my guard and she was unable to escape. I tried several of the basic submissions I knew from this position: lapel chokes, guillotines, arm bars, a Kimura arm lock, but they were not successful.

Her gi was sliding off and it was hampering both of us, because every time I tried to pull on it, it would slide over her head. Joao, refereeing, pulled it back down, and as I looked at him questioningly he said, "It can't block her view." In the meantime, Lauren used the distraction to knock me onto my back from my partial sitting position.

She however, was not going anywhere, so eventually I tried a sweep and flipped her over so that I ended up in a mount position, putting 4 points on the board for me a little less than halfway through the match. My internal corner man, the one who yells instructions from the corner of my brain did not pipe up until Lauren rolled me on my back again seconds later, still with my legs locked around her in closed guard.

"You are down points," he said. "She just swept you so you're down points. You need to make more points."

I didn't question that inner voice that kept telling me that I was down points. The timer called the 30 second warning, and my internal corner man admonished with more conviction, "You are down points. You are down points. I know, why don't you try that cool sweep you just learned last Saturday? It's foolproof."

Yeah, I thought dazedly, how did that sweep work again? Open the guard, put my feet on her belly, grab her ankles...

Like a bat out of hell, Lauren swooped down after I unlocked my legs from around her waist and attempted to put me in side control. I hooked my leg around her back and tried to climb on her back, my internal corner man saying, "Yeah, 4 points will put you over her," but I didn't have the right leverage and suddenly, she had me in side control.

"Time!" they called, almost immediately, so that it was too late to extricate myself.

"Oh well," my corner man sighed, "you were down anyhow."

Lauren and I gave each other congratulatory slaps for a good match, and as we stood up, Joao came over and said to me, cryptically, "You won. But BADLY. You made one mistake--you opened your guard. You shouldn't have opened your guard!"

"I was trying to sweep her," I blathered blithely, surprised that I had won. But I hadn't, since Joao raised Lauren's arm in victory, and I turned to look at the scoreboard to realize that the score was 4 to 5, and I had lost the match in the last moments when I had opened my guard and allowed her to put me in side control.

In the cruel minutes, hours, and days after I discovered that I had needlessly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, I had many an opportunity to whack my forehead and think, "What in the name of Gracie was I thinking? How had my internal corner man been so inept?"

I spent the entirety of the match thinking that I was losing, a persistent sort of negativity that had become habitual to the point that it overcame all logic such that 2 + 2 = 5 in my mind. That is, even if Lauren's second sweep had counted for points, which it hadn't, her score would have been 4, since sweeps only count for 2 points. We therefore would have been tied, and even if I had sat there in closed guard for the rest of the match, I could have won on advantage points (given for attempted submissions).

Another failure of logic was my decision to attempt a sweep to earn all those extra points I thought I needed to win when I was already ahead by 2 points. Excuse me? A sweep is worth a measly two points. Why didn't I just attempt another 4 point mount, or (let's be a genius here) better yet, keep up the submission attempts. After all, a submission is the most decisive and efficient way to win.

My Tuesday and Thursday morning instructor, Trent, had only a week earlier told me, "You have a really good closed guard that you should just keep people in."

"That's what I've heard, but I hate feeling like I'm just lying there," I said, thinking of all those times people eventually peeled off my legs and put me in (where else) side control.

"No," he said, "just hold your opponent there until they make a mistake."

Trent said later that week in class, "You lost in the last 3 seconds! It was like something you would see if someone was trying to throw a fight."

No, when I throw a fight, I make it obvious, like 13 to zero, and a bonus tap-out for good measure.

"I nearly yelled out at you," he continued.

"Why didn't you?" I wailed, jumping up and down. But I knew why he couldn't, he had been scorekeeper.

I wondered what Joao would say during our next scheduled class. I came prepared to hear another lecture about why I shouldn't have opened my guard. But instead, he said, "I was going to e-mail you to tell you that I thought you did a really good job, but I decided to wait to tell you in person. You have improved so much! I couldn't root for you because I was refereeing, but Trent and I both had our fingers crossed because you were doing so well."

"But I came so close to winning. Instead I made that stupid blunder!" I sighed.

Joao looked at me wearing his "Wise Sage" (not Wise-cracking Sage) expression and responded, "In 2006, when I was in the Worlds competition, I did the same thing. I was ahead 4 to 2 and in the last 30 seconds, I opened my guard, and lost the match by one point. It was the finals, and it was a really hard match. After losing that match, I just sat on the mat and cried."

As a result of being point minded in the finals, Joao won the bronze medal instead of the silver medal in the World BJJ competition. It was one of those stories where I couldn't find a lot of comfort in it because it made me feel badly for him. The idea, I suppose, is that tactical mistakes are made in tournaments at every level of competition. All we can do is to attempt to learn from our errors.

Keeping my guard closed, or just the concept of maintaining confidence and patience in a dominant position, is the easier lesson for me to understand and possibly incorporate. The more difficult lesson is the one to quiet that inner critic who never even let me realize, much less enjoy, that I had been dominating the match. What point is all that bravado before the match, psyching myself up to believe that I could win, when during the match itself all I heard in my head was that I was losing? In times of duress, our perceptions are skewed, and perhaps we are not failing as badly as we think we are, or perhaps we are not failing at all. Maybe we're even winning.

My daughters came to watch the match, carrying a sign reading "Go Mommy!" I was glad at least that I didn't offer them the specter of the previous tournament, of their mom getting whooped.

Squirrel said, "You did great, Mommy! You were winning all the way until just the very, very end!"

"But I wanted a medal," I pouted, the Botox sting of this loss rejuvenating my puerile attitude.

Back at home, Squirrel solemnly hung the medal she made for me over my neck, a bronze bell attached to several strands of yarn. She had written on the bell, "You're a WinNER!"

Indeed, I am. And I have the cowbell to prove it.