Last Saturday was the NABJJF Orange County International Jiu Jitsu Open. I had no plans on going, but Friday night I got a text from Tameem Hamoui asking if I want to go since he was planning on competing. I had no plans, so I decided to go and coach Tameem (he has not lost a match in 9 years with me coaching him). Turns out when we get there, he was the only black belt in his division AND the weight class below. So in the end he had no matches.

BUT, while I was there I saw a few friends competing and took a few pictures. There was Albert Lee &emdash; a black belt and one of my teammates from back in the Apex Jiu Jitsu days, John Billingslea &emdash; another black belt and a friend from back when I worked with On The Mat and last, Chris Han &emdash; a blue belt and amateur MMA fighter from Total MMA.

Chris was there with just his parents, so me & Tameem coached him for his matches. The mat space for each match was kind of small and did not lend itself well to wrestling and especially blast doubles. Chris blasted his opponent into the judges table at least once every match because it was ~5 steps from center mat to table. Even with the small mat space causing Chris to miss out on points from takedowns he was not awarded, he still won all 3 of his matches and took home the gold in his division.

Other than that, it wasn't overly eventful as I had no plans originally to be there. But this coming weekend will definitely be much more busy. On Friday, December 8, we have one of our fighters fighting in the Celtic Gladiator 17 professional MMA card and then the Sunday after that is the Subfighter Holiday No Gi Challenge tournament in Dana Point.