This past weekend SF Open was an amazing experience. Although our association is less than a year old we had affiliates from three different academies (one from Oregon!) make the trip to represent! Ashley Florence, Aaron Zaballos, Manny Diaz, won their division and Ruben Quevedo won his division AND the absolute. Claudia Diaz, Andy Hung, Peter Heerboth, also took home medals for their effort. Manny had a tough fight in the absolute against Miyao and nearly pulled it off but fell short taking home 3rd. Every one who competed did exceptionally well, and I am very proud to be part of the team.
In the black belt division Queixinho got third in his weight and the absolute. He had a tough fight with Gui Mendes but came up a few points short. As for myself no one was in my weight class and after giving it a lot of thought I decided to compete it the absolute. I haven’t been training very consistently but got in some good training the past week so thought it would be a good gauge for Pans. In my first match I played a very tough opponent and won on points 30 X 24. My next match was extremely tough and I fought hard winning a close one by advantages. At this point I was extremely gassed and thought about pulling out. After talking with my team, I decided to compete in the final against a very big and technical Gustavo Dias. I will give a full break down later. I’d like to congratulate every one who competed, it takes a lot of training and is very mentally challenging to compete. I’d like to congratulate Gustavao Dias, he already won the ADCC qualifier in San Diego, look out for him in 2013!
Lastly I want to thank my team, you guys are the best. Next up Pan Am’s!
