Last week i was the first student from Paramount BJJ to travel to Europe to compete in the European Championships. The European Championship is held in Lisbon Portugal and is the first Grand Slam event of the year.
This was also my first trip outside of the United States. The flight to london wasnt that bad, but we had an 8 hour layover before we left for Portugal. We used this opportunity to ride the subway into Mayfair and see a little bit of the city. After site seeing for a little bit, we returned to the airport for a short flight I arrived in Portugal.
Thursday was the first day of the tournament and my division was scheduled for 12pm. We arrived at the venue at 9am and i felt relaxed, but ready for what was ahead of me. I got a bye in the first round, so i ended up waiting around in the bullpen for about an hour after my division was called. When i was finally called i felt ready to perform. I won the first match 11-0, controlling all areas of the fight. The second was even through about 5 minutes with not much happening. The referee called a stalling penalty and took away an advantage point. Having never been on the good end of a stalling call i thought that he had taken the advantage away from me, when it was actually called on my opponent. Since i thought i was down an advantage i decided to open up an go for broke. I ended up getting my guard passed and my opponent taking my back after i turtled up.
After getting knocked out of my division i had the opportunity to fight again in the National Team Tournament. I was selected as one of five members to represent America. The National Team Tournament is County vs Country in a best of five match battle. Our Team consisted of four Team LLoyd Irvin members, Devon Delbrugge (Crazy 88), Al Washington (Crazy 88), Joey Ruggerio (Third Law), and myself Eric Desmarais representing Paramount BJJ.
This was my first time competing as a team, which made it very different from what im used to. We represented America well by being the loudest and craziest team in the bullpen. We were all feeding off each others energy and getting hyped for the matches. In total we defeated 4 different countries, Russia, France, Norway, and Finland in the finals. I really enjoyed competing alongside my teammates and helping take the gold medal home to America!