5/23/2010 - In House Tournament

John had the In House tournament at Josh Saper's School in New Jersey. Josh is becoming an affiliate after years of training both BJJ at Maxercise and rising to a Brown belt in Judo with me at the Philadelphia Judo Club. His space is larger, there is a parking lot, the club is a little difficult to find but overall it went well. It was actually so big and attended by enough other clubs that it would be better to call it a local tournament than an in house. All 6 Maxercise associations were in attendance, plus another 4-5 non affiliated clubs came as well. The total number of competitors was by far the largest we have done. I actually saw very few matches as I was making brackets and running the 4 mats. I kept things moving quickly and we got through everyone by 3:30. I think the model we stumbled on of one person managing the matches and keeping the mats utilized works well, if they have a good idea how to make brackets and run the divisions. Information for the tournament, results, videos, etc can be found at www.maxerciseinhouse.com (or at least I am told the pics and vids will go up).

Again I was surprised by how much of the push for all of the clubs to come and support the tournament was part of an anti Regis backlash. Half a dozen purple brown and black belts who led teams to the event came and were enthusiastic about coming to the tournament and wanting to come to the Chestnut street club to train in both BJJ and in Judo. Several of them have already been back and more are promising to come. One of them had just returned from training at Saulo's main academy in San Diego and talked about how great the training there was. I'm looking forward to being able to go and take advantage of that myself.

Unfortunately this is an example of how Regis burned so many bridges with good players and good people in the east coast BJJ community. He is a marvelous instructor and an incredible technician, but there are a lot of good, highly ranked players who won't have anything to do with anything involving him strictly for personal reasons. It has been good to see so many old friends who are so supportive. Just seeing so many new (old) training partners and the opportunities that are now available is a good thing.