Tournament Success

Roswell, New Mexico is right out in the middle of nowhere. We are three hours from the three major towns in New Mexico (Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces). New Mexico, if we’re lucky, holds two tournaments a year, both in Albuquerque. El Paso, maybe, holds one tournament a year. All these factors and a few others make it easy to see why the Roswell Judo Club doesn’t go to tournament.

All that being said, however, we finally took one to tournament. We took Alana Brumbaugh to the Southwest Championships held by Synergy Martial Arts at the Rio Rancho High School on the 27th of March. It was a wonderful experience for both her and me (as the coach).

For those of you who are unaware of judo tournaments and matches, a brief explanation is in order. First, tournaments are divided into divisions like Juniors, Seniors, and Masters. These divisions are age brackets. Further dividing these divisions are sex, weights, and ranks, if there are enough competitors to justify dividing them. Typically Senior Women’s divisions, especially in New Mexico, are not divided at all.

The matches are timed with a maximum length of time for competing but can be shortened for a number of reasons, including an Ippon throw, submission (tap out), unconsciousness (through a choking technique), penalties, or medical reasons. Senior Women’s matches are set for three minutes duration.

Alana had three matches. Her potential time on the mat for competition was nine minutes, but she didn’t need all of them! Watch the matches in the video below!



She did a great job with her matches and I was spectacularly proud of her effort and work.

I would like to thank Synergy Martial Arts for holding this tournament. I wish the scheduled Referee clinic had been held, but limited interest is limited interest I suppose.