So one of my favorite matches happened right after I got my black belt. My first opponent at black belt was Bill Jones who is a Pedro Sauer black belt and runs one of the biggest schools in my states and who is a fantastic instructor. The cool story behind this match is that when I first started bjj Bill was the first one to give me a stripe on my white belt. So it was a really good experience to have my first opponent at black belt is the person that gave me my first stripe. I got smashed on points and was pretty nervous about competing against him but I tried really hard and went for a foot lock but he escapes and after the match Bill came up to my school to help me with my foot locks! It was an amazing learning experience.

Thanks for this post, it was fun to go back through some videos of old matches. Favorite one might be really difficult to pick, but off the top of my head, Swiss Open 2011 was a competition where I felt like things worked really well for me. It was a period where both me and my students competed a lot, I was in great shape and everything kind of came together those days.

At this competition I had a handful of matches, all against strong opponents that pushed me a lot. Managed to keep my breath for long matches, actively attack a lot and pull off many of my best moves. This semi-final is probably the best example (https://www.youtube.com/w[...]WKmimbQvsM) but the final was also good (https://www.youtube.com/w[...]iknt3bgICQ). It was one of those tournaments where I really felt like a confident competitor afterwards :D Only thing I'm not so proud of, is how much I pulled guard back then haha but my body hurt too much to wrestle, I remember.

Honorary mention, MMA fight from 2003 (https://www.youtube.com/w[...]kCPamwxUQQ). Never been so far out of my comfort zone in my life, damn I was scared :D

Actually it's a match I lost by submission.. It was my first Pro Super fight after coming back from Pancreatic cancer at 53.. I lost but at the time my opponent was undefeated and had won all his matches by sub.. It showed me even after everything at my age I could still hang with the big dogs


https://youtu.be/PpW-hOxJvjM

I have only had 4 in BJJ. I would say all of them. Even the 1 loss. I am happy my family especially my son who was making his BJJ debut the same day got to see it.

I will say my first match I did call my shot to my coach before the match. He asked me what I was going to do. Easy answer. Blast double to side control and submission. It went down just like that. I would have tried the same thing in my next 3 matches but all the next competitors were smaller and quicker so it went differently.

My high school wrestling debut was about the same way. I literally had not wrestled in my life and the coach put me in a wrestle off match my first day. I didn't know squat. I did know football though. I was a middle linebacker... Spear tackle = blast double right... :) I picked him up and drove him into the mat which I was told later was probably illegal, but I did know any better.

I still remember the gasps of all the wrestlers gathered around the wrestle off ring when I picked him up off the ground and all of them went oooohhhh when we hit the ground. He was 250lbs and I was about the same. It was alot of beef hitting the mat.