I flew to Sydney on Friday night as part of the SUB Apparel Team to compete at the 2012 NSW State Championships. This was somewhat unexpected for me, and having just started to work on new things at training, I was keen to test it all out. I entered all divisions: under 56kg gi, under 56kg no gi – which ended up being u71kg due to lack of smaller competitors, and both open weight gi and no gi.

The plan was to put myself completely out of my comfort zone; not playing the stand up game and playing guard in all my fights! I ended up with 2 gold medals (u56kg gi and u71 kg no gi) and bronze in the open weight gi. I had to scratch from the no gi open, so that we could make the flight home.

Although this comp highlighted just how much I have to work on – specially the confidence to pull off new sweeps, submissions and guard recovery, I am very proud of myself. I was able to pull off some sweeps, pass relatively easily and come back to win from being 7 points down with 1.5 minutes to go in one of my fights.

It was also great to roll with some new girls and to meet the amazing NSW BJJ ladies. They showed some really good jiu jitsu – white through to purple belts.

Having the SUB Team to help, support, coach, learn from and laugh with really made my trip. What an amazing bunch of guys. Be sure to check out www.subapparel.com

“Every game is an opportunity to measure yourself against your own potential.”

– Bud Wilkinson