Yesterday, we travelled to Somerset, KY to watch our nephew, Christoper Caldwell, compete in a small Ju-Jitsu tournament. \u00a0This is the first time I’d seen any kind of martial arts competition in the flesh and I must admit, I was impressed.<\/p>\n
When we got there, they were just about to get started. \u00a0There were a bunch of competitors in a wide variety of age groups and weight classes. \u00a0There were kids as young as 7 and 8 competing. \u00a0These kids were awesome. \u00a0They were pulling out submission moves I’ve seen watching UFC fights on TV. \u00a0The only difference was the kids were obviously not strong enough to really sink the holds in.<\/p>\n
Anyway, Christopher was competing in the 14 – 17 year old age group. \u00a0Now, I feel we need a little bit of history to set this story up. \u00a0So here goes. \u00a0Apparently, Christopher had been a Ju-Jitsu practitioner since he was young. \u00a0Like, around 10 or whatever. \u00a0He had also won a number of tournaments, both with and without the Gi (I think thats how you spell that) and decided a couple of years ago that he didn’t want to do that anymore.<\/p>\n
We found out on Wednesday that he had decided to compete and thought it would be cool to get out there and support him. \u00a0Christopher stands about 5’8″ tall, weighs in at about 160 lbs (~72 kg). \u00a0However, he can bench close to 300 lbs (135 kg), so it’s safe to say this kid is strong. \u00a0Really strong. \u00a0The tournament was a double elimination, submissions tournament, meaning you get AT LEAST two bouts and the aim of the bout was to submit your opponent in anyway possible, without bending individual digits (fingers and toes). \u00a0Now, back to the story…<\/p>\n
Christopher went into this bout with little, or no preparation. \u00a0We kinda got the idea that he expected to be able to just pick up where he left off. \u00a0His first bout was against the eventual winner of is age group. \u00a0To start with, it looked like the fight was pretty even. \u00a0Christopher managed to get his arms under the guys chin and was applying a lot of pressure. \u00a0This was evident on the kids face, as it had quickly become a very dark red color. \u00a0Suddenly, the kid managed to pop his head out and was soon on top of Christopher. \u00a0Some seconds later, the bout was over and Christopher had lost. \u00a0When I spoke to him a few hours later, he said he had just burned himself out.<\/p>\n
The second bout was against a kid who only 14 years old and much smaller than Christopher. \u00a0This fight was over so quickly, I can’t even remember how Christopher won, I just know he won.<\/p>\n
This lead to the rematch with the kid he first fought. \u00a0Like the first match, it looked like Christopher had the upper hand to start with. \u00a0Also like the first match, \u00a0the kid suddenly had Christopher in an arm lock and began pulling back on his forearm, while pushing his elbow forward. \u00a0Needless to say, Christopher tapped out and took second for the tournament.<\/p>\n
All Christopher said after the fight, was that he couldn’t do anything anymore. \u00a0He was a little out of touch with the rest of his competition needed to get some serious training done to get back in to shape. \u00a0It was very impressive to see what he and the other guys could do and to be honest, I am kind considering taking up the sport. \u00a0My only concern is that my shoulders are really shaky and I think there is a real risk of one of them getting popped out of the socket. \u00a0For the moment, I think I’ll stick with the bowling and think about it a little more.<\/p>\n
We might be heading up to Columbus, OH in two weeks time to watch him fight again. \u00a0He hasn’t decided if he’ll actually go up to compete yet, but it would be cool to get out there if he does. \u00a0We may even take the bowling balls with us and throw a few games while we’re there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, we travelled to Somerset, KY to watch our nephew, Christoper Caldwell, compete in a small Ju-Jitsu tournament. \u00a0This is the first time I’d seen any kind of martial arts competition in the flesh and I must admit, I was impressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2FJaA-1N","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kellytehuna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}