I'm Back. . . Hopefully/Tournament Etiquette

Hey guys, I know its been awhile, I haven't quite had the time to keep the blog up lately. I've been writing for the Nova Uniao website; between that and other things I just havent quite been able to keep up with this, but hopefully I'll be back for good now.

Anyways, this past weekend was the 6th International AZ Open of BJJ, another great tournament run by Gustavo Dantas and the AZSBJJF. I could do a whole new review for this tournament, but I'll just give you a quick run down considering most of the tournaments managed by Gustavo will get the same review, excellent. Besides being on time as always and all that good stuff, this was actually the largest tournament AZ has ever seen, 700 competitiors. This is just a testament to how hard Gustavo works. This time around the tournament was host to a huge 16-man black belt, open bracket. With big names such as Roberto "Tussa" Alencar, Bruno Bastos, Samir Chantre, "Barata", and more. There is good reasoning for such a star-studded division though. The whole division was worth a total of $3000 ($2500 for first and $500 for second). There were tons of great matches, but the final put Nova Uniao's Bruno Bastos against GB athlete, Roberto "Tussa" Alencar. This was a great match that left "Tussa" the victor on points. You can check out the whole match below.



Like I said earlier, I could go on about the quality of this tournament, but you could get that from my review of the Southwest Classic, found here. What I really want to talk about is some tournament etiquette. As an avid competitior and mat coordinator for Gustavo, I have seen it all from both sides. One of the most important things to remember if you want a well run tournament is YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR PART AS WELL. Do your research, read what is posted online. If there is anything I like least about mat coordinating is people interrupting me from doing my job to ask me what time they compete. Competition times are posted on the web prior to the tournament and are posted at the tournament. Gustavo constantly talks about not reading what is clearly posted and I completely understand his grief. If tournament workers constantly stop what they are doing to answer questions that you should be able to find out on your own the tournament will run behind schedule. Then, not only are we answering question, but we also have to listen to people complain about how things are not on time. This is just one small example, but there are plenty, so, please do your part and read what is there for you. It will make everyone's job easier.

Thanks guys and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the blog. See you around.