Onra:April21,2011

Hafa Adai,

Registrations is being accepted til the 21st for The Art Of War 6- No Gi Submission Grappling Challenge this coming Saturday, April 23rd

TheMarianas Open date has been reset to June 25th.

After sitting in a discussion with some competitors of our grappling community, it was inspiring to discuss how far Jiujitsu in Guam has grown.

We had been conversing over ideas of who would make a great superfight or exhibition bout in the next Marianas Open and had come to so many feasible ideas

that held water. Keeping in mind that the success of Grappling and MixedMartialArts has been based significantly on its entertainment value—it’s quite impressive to see that our community has developed enough skill to impress and in some way, educate an extremely supportive and growingly critical audience.

Primarily a superfight should be something that would draw interest from not just our grappling community but also from the attending spectators. For the sake of evolution, it should illustrate skill and strategy. For the sake of the audience, It should be entertaining and avoiding any mismatches, it should make competitive sense.

Regarding Marianas Grappling, What we are blessed to  have here is not just the skills from our athletes to entertain but an overall intention from our promoters to educate. This is a way of thinking that has progressively graduated options in Submission grappling and Jiujitsu from offering a way of fighting to paving a way of sport and for some—even encouraging a way of life.

In the past, it may have seemed that Jiujitsu was billed locally as a superior way of total fighting, connecting itself to occasional open challenges. Although that mentality might still exist for some, it really has evolved  into different things.

Once in part defining itself as THE authority in no holds bared fighting, Jiujitsu has since come to be just one of many parts of the highly-evolved Mixed Martial Arts competiton.

Now that local MMA competition and Jiujitsu have taken flight into their own separate destinations—it seems that Saipan is following to suit with the Art-Of-War seeing higher numbers in competitors as well as other assets unfolding in the on-going sophistication of their combat sports environment. It has become a healthy by-product and one of the greatest testaments to Jiujitsu’s positive direction in the Mariana Islands

Does all the recent discussion mean that grappling is the King of local combat sports? Not necessarily. Tae Kwon Do, Kyokushin Karate, Boxing, and Wrestling all have their achievements that deserve reseect and credit too.But we cannot ignore the honorable measures, in such a relatively short scope of time, that have been taken to escort the Grappling industry and athletic grappling identity towards the horizons our young and old aim for in industry and athletics today.

It’s only April and in 2011 alone we have landmark and successful performances such as Team Purebred/lloydIrvin Jiujitsu’s 1stplace team finish at this years Pan Youth Jiujitsu tournament, we have seen several articles of Mike Carbullido’s victory in the PanAms,  we have seen Guam-originated company Shoyoroll’s climb to become one of the world’s top Jiujitsu Kimono manufacturers, and heard of Universal Alliances victories in the Philippines and AbuDhabi.

Abu Dhabi– Are you serious?What’s amazing is that yes, we are.

Efforts are evolving, horizons are expanding, and our Guam flag continues to fly high—inside and above our competitive efforts.

Not too long ago on Guam, it was an elite occasion to intersect with a BrazilianJiuJitsu bluebelt.  Now we have a battalion of blue belts pushing for a company of purple belts motivating a small platoon of brown belts under the leadership of a squad of blackbelts with efforts coming from a collected and collective brigade of proud Guamanians and Chamorus–setting multiple targets for self-improvement and island glorification.

Among other things and in other words…for Strength and Honor.

Much respect.

Thanks for dropping by.