The 2011 AFBJJ-SA Open was another event for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on Adelaide, South Australia. The day had no shortage of excitements with many of South Australia’s best grapplers and BJJ players out in force. As per usual there were also a number of interstate competitors, something that is always great to see as it helps broaden everyone friendships in BJJ across Australia. The idea of being a Gi only event is something that some people loved. Others were a little disappointed about not being able to have a No-Gi division but unfortunately the logistics of running such events means you can’t always do everything everytime. The day featured plenty of great matches and was yet again proof that BJJ is rapidly evolving at every level.
 
Our final medal tally was one that we were very pleased with, our team of competitors was a little smaller than usual and many of our older competitors entered the Adult division rather than their respective age divisions (ie Masters, Senior etc) but we still ended up with plenty of great results to be proud of. In fact some of our older blokes even managed to win medals in the divisions with the young fellas. There were many highlights for us amongst our ISOHEALTH team, a random bunch worth mentioning are:

• Alex Sims, Scott Kenney and Gordon Chong taking all the medals (Gold, Silver, Bronze)in the Adult White Belt 61kg division. There were some very tough competitors from other teams and there some very close battles, to see all three of those ISOHEALTH’ers come through and fill the podium was definitely something, not just because of the great result but because of how great these young men are as human beings, they are quite simply terrific young blokes!
• Ray and Mikey closing out the bracket in 61kg Adult Blue to take Gold & Silver;
• Scott, Little Lachy and Crazy Lachy taking out Gold, Silver and Bronze in Adult 79kg Blue Belt. This was especially impressive to see given that the 79kg Blue Belt division is always one of the biggest coloured belt divisions in any comp. They had some great battles to get there and then Crazy Lachy and Scotty chose allocate Gold to Scott and Silver to Crazy Lachy rather than fight each other in the final. Meanwhile Little Lachy put in a great performance in his battle for the Bronze with this event being one of the first times in South Australia that competitors fought for the Bronze Medal rather than it being awarded by default to whomever lost the semi-final to the eventual Gold Medal winner;
• We were really pleased with everyone’s performances but it was especially validating to see our Adult Blue Belts doing so well. They took Gold in 4 out of the 6 weight classes and Craig took Bronze in Adult Blue Belt Open Weight. As such a young club it was great to see this to reaffirm that we are on the right track with the development of our team. I haven’t yet awarded any Purple Belts but with performances like these we will definitely have some Purple Belts being awarded next year