Congratulations to Kyle Simpson, Josh Souza, and Ralph Purificato, Jr. for a GREAT showing at the North American Grappling Assocation's recent tournament!  Here's the video:

On Saturday, February 6th, we took a trip to Lincoln, Rhode Island for the North American Grappling Association's New England tournament.  I'm
very proud of our students who competed!

MSDC blue belt Josh Souza took home the Bronze medal in his division, despite injuring some ribs in his first match.  Doctors later confirmed that he tore some ligaments, and I'm relieved to hear that no ribs were broken.  Even though Josh did this in his FIRST match of the day, he continued fighting like a champion, and even nailed a flying armbar transition in each of his matches.  Josh also had several of his students from LA Boxing compete, and they did very well!  He was beaming like a proud papa, and rightfully so!

MSDC blue belt Ralph Purificato had a grueling match in a BIG division.  Ralph opened the match by countering his opponent's takedown attempt and landing in perfect side control.  There was a great deal of jockeying for position, a near-complete guillotine by Ralph, and quite a few narrow transitions.  In the end, Ralph lost on points, though he was *just* completing a guard pass to tie it up as the bell rang.  Though he was disappointed not to move on, I was very pleased with Ralph's game and the strengths he showed in a tough match!

MSDC's newest competitor Kyle Simpson fought, and despite only having 4 months experience, put on a great display in the Novice division and took home a Silver medal to prove it!  In his first match, he hit has gameplan flawlessly, getting right to guard and attacking relentlessly.  His partner tried to stall most of the match inside Kyle's triangle choke, but Kyle controlled and maintained it perfectly.  Kyle's run took him all the way to the finals, in which he fought a guy nearly twice his size (I have no idea how that guy cut down to lightweight).  I'm very proud of the time he put into preparing and of how well he did in the ring!

I'm proud of our competitors, and also the folks who encouraged them, spent time helping them prepare, and cheered them on!  Well done, folks.

PS - For the three of you who competed, I will have a DVD for you with all of your matches, so that you can watch them in their entirety.