BJJ tourney

I competed in a BJJ tournament for the first time in quite a while over the weekend. I've been getting over a few chronic injuries and haven't been in shape to compete in a while.

My first match, my opponent pulled guard. I was much stronger than him and I got a bit cocky. I tried an old school move to get him to open guard. I used a collar choke from inside his guard to bait him to go for the armbar and open his guard. He went for the armbar, but managed to trap my arm by grabbing the sleeve with both hands and pulling it over his head. I'd never seen this counter before and I got caught. Additionally, when he took the armbar, I got knocked over and both of our bodies landed on my outstretched arm, spraining it pretty seriously.

I accepted my mistake and decided to continue in the double elimination tournament despite the injury to my arm. After having to wait over an hour for my second fight, I was finally called up. I pulled guard this time since I didn't want to wrestle with a bad arm. I landed in cross guard. He tried to pass a few times and I kept him square with the hips, throwing a couple submissions at him to keep him off balance. Eventually, I moved to the deep half-guard and swept the guy. (the ref never gave me points.) Just as I began to pass, the ref told us we were going out of bounds and had to restart in the center of the mat. He would not drag us over and after breaking, my opponent claimed he did not remember the position and grips. Despite my protest, the ref decided to start us from butterfly guard. My opponent was also given sleeve control on both arms! He quickly swept me. I assumed the score was now 2-2 after we had both been swept. I continued to stuff his attempts to pass. The ref kept restarting us and never giving the correct position!!! With about 1 minute left, I heard my teammates shouting "you have to go now, you are down on points." I was confused and tried to set-up a sweep. I couldn't find an opening, so I transitioned to full guard and went for a collar choke, but time expired.

Overall, I felt fine about my performance outside of my one huge mistake. There is nothing I can do about a bad ref. I need to work on my counter to the cross body half guard pass as my opponent was able to stall effectively with it. Otherwise, I need to keep my strategy and not try new and high risk moves in a competition.