BDB Martial Arts Club Tournament 2004 Review:

First off, I would like to thank and congratulate all the participants of the grappling tournament on Saturday (Sept 11th). We had a good turn out with many students competing for the first time. This tournament was intended to give students at BDB Martial Arts and Harris International clubs a chance to compete in a safe and friendly environment, but with the feel of a competition to help them gain experience. The event and fights ran very well. Good job guys and girls.

This was the first time I have ran an event at our new facility and the three, 20ft by 20ft competition squares were fantastic! I would like to give a big thanks to Fabian Cortez and his brothers from Conquest Painting. This competition areas work out great.

This was also a first for the rules we used in the matches. These new rules were great! They encouraged fighters to try hard for a submission and this in turn created very fast paste and exciting fights. The round robin format also gave ever fighter at least 4 fights each (as the smallest division had 5 fighters) which is great experience. I will definitely be using these rules in my future tournaments.

Thanks also go out to Willie Elman for donating a door prize of a Mott's Clamato goods package and to Chris Hsiung for bringing in a wobble board donated by Calgary's Fitter First ( www.bongoboard.net ).

One more thanks needs to go to all the volunteers who did the refereeing and timing. They were:

Shane Landstrom
Paul Sukys
Blair Svoboda
Arlin Pachet
Brad Cardinal
Willie Elman
Nick Ring

Great jobs guys.

Updates: I will be sending out updates on the October 2 grappling tournament, the October 23 and 24 Roy Harris seminar, and the start of kids BJJ classes either later today or tomorrow. Look out for them! Take care everyone. Brian Bird