Portland works for me. Venue could be a challenge especially when someone mentions insurance. Matches could be competitive or casual? Shame for someone to travel at great expense only to be stood up. A coffee shop meet for many might be a good idea to explore ideas and commitment?
Insurance has not been a problem yet because this is a privately hosted event. But the waivers are ... but I have a set for Washington. Oregon would need to be tweaked. I have a short write up for the 2nd one I need to finish to post here but basically I've got a set of rules that define the limits for competitive and each match can be adjusted down to the comfort level of those involved.
If you have one or more people with limited experience, you don't want them going full competitive any way or you need to pair the less experienced with someone experienced who will dial it down for them.
For example, you can show them the mount escape, the turtle attack drills, or maybe the 360 motion drill and have them go play using those.
Still in the planning phase for the Portland party. I've got two private get togethers up here in Seattle in work - Have a space I'm trying to get lined up to rent and the person from Portland who is supposed to be organizing down there is going to come up for one of them. Probably will beta test some formats and see how they work.
Par for the course, it is a lot more challenging to get one of these set up than you might figure. One of the issues was getting liability waivers in place.
Can you PM me an email and I will put you in contact with the other person down in Portland? Yes, it would be great if the two of you can get together and set something up down there. I've got my hands full trying to get something set up here and trying to help get something going 150 miles away in Portland is probably not going to work very well.
Well, I actually managed to put together a small scale version of the wrestling party the NYC folks have been doing. It had its own set of challenges from the organizational side. The biggest one was maybe the space that said they might be willing to host it went "sideways" on me. But they were helpful from the point of view that they referred me to a fitness club where the owner was definitely interested.
It was also interesting in seeing just how many people said they were interested in attending then dropped out for various reasons. No reason to go into details of whom dropped out but it ended up with just four of us with the space booked for 3 hours of wrestling. The actual participants ended up being two women, one of us local meetfighters guys, and myself. We put down enough mats to have two 10 feet x 10 foot wrestling areas side by side. The format was everyone wrestled everyone so we had some M vs M, M vs F, and F vs F matches.
The other guy needed to leave a little early so we wrapped up the event by doing some 2 on 1 with me taking the two women at the same time. That was the first time I have done more than one opponent at a time and I was thinking this was one of those "two wolves taking down a caribou" moments. I actually lasted longer than I was expecting which I think had something to do with it is harder for two people to coordinate an attack a single person than you might think.
Overall it was an interesting event to put together. And it was fun being able to watch other people you have wrestled take each other on.
My 2nd event is coming up in the next week or so. Have everyone confirmed to show up. Should have 5 people total barring any last minute cancellations. Interesting variation this time is I have one person who does not want to do joint locks vs the standard bjj/submission wrestling rules I put out for the participants. Have to figure out how to make sure anyone paired up with this person understands they have some tactics they can't use.
I'm going to give a quick summary of the 2nd wrestling party. This time everyone showed up - had three women, myself, and another one of our local meetfighters members. Same location as before - a fitness club we were able to rent off-hours. We were operating under the same set of basic rules as last time which equate to NAGA novice no-gi with a limited amount of other stuff mixed in. Then each person could dial down from that to what they were comfortable with ie we had one person who exluded joint locks.
Plus a heavy emphasis that this was not a tournament but more like along the lines of an open mat / play session. Had a mix of M vs F, M vs M, and F vs F Plus we did some other stuff like the turtle attack drill and some multiple on one - with me being the one. I don't do too much electronic gaming but that multiple on one is sort of like in a game when you get the radio call that "You have multiple incoming hostile and are clear to engage". You turn into one, try to keep one of the others from getting around to your blind side, and the furball ensues.
Other than one case in a mainstream school where three of us were fooling around after class and two of us white belts took on the brown belt instructor, these parties are my first experiences with the multiple on one and it is sort of interesting what does and does not work. What really hoses you as the one is when someone pins your legs and you can no longer turn your upper body to engage someone else.
Everyone I debriefed seems to have been pretty satisfied with the format. The one comment was we maybe should have timed each match. Which is interesting because I actually did have several timers with me but I decided with two mat in use and just 5 people, we were probably okay not using them.
One thing I did note for future reference - one the mats we were on were the 40" x 40" foam puzzle mats from "We Sell Mats". The side cut outs on the 40" x 40" are not the same as the 24" x 24" puzzles I have from the same supplier. It looks like they maybe scale their cutout pattern from 24" to 40" rather than use the exaxt same dimensions. So if you need to mate these two, you need the trim pieces and some mat tape to stick them together.
This wrestling party proposed for Portland might actually happen. The local person in charge is looking at a date in October and has lined up an actual martial arts school to host it. Bunch of details to work out.
General event outline would be to have all attendees go through a basic submission wrestling orientation before being allowed to wrestle and also have some experienced bjj folks serving as referees watching the mat action. Time frame would have the event open at 7PM and run until 10PM or so.
Basically this is going to be like an mainstream school open mat with some additional structure.
Portland does not have as many international flight connections as Seattle but a fair number of people like PDX better than SEA as an airport. Just looking quickly, it looks like Icelandair might be the cheapest option at $600 round trip. Or you can fly into SEA and drive down to Portland in about 3 hours if you time it to miss commute hours. If you hit commuter traffic, add about 90 minutes each end.
I think this is probably the best spot to post this. I am kicking around the concept of doing a wrestling party hosted in Portland OR with a local person there. This would be along the lines of the party that was recently done in New York ( https://fetlife.com/events/550053 ). Obvious challenges in trying to stage it in a much smaller population center. If you would be interested in participating in organizing or attending, send me a message and you can get added to the information list.
Grappler884 (0)
12/07/2017 7:35 PMPortland works for me. Venue could be a challenge especially when someone mentions insurance. Matches could be competitive or casual? Shame for someone to travel at great expense only to be stood up. A coffee shop meet for many might be a good idea to explore ideas and commitment?
nwfan53 (8)
12/07/2017 7:54 PM(In reply to this)
Insurance has not been a problem yet because this is a privately hosted event. But the waivers are ... but I have a set for Washington. Oregon would need to be tweaked. I have a short write up for the 2nd one I need to finish to post here but basically I've got a set of rules that define the limits for competitive and each match can be adjusted down to the comfort level of those involved.
If you have one or more people with limited experience, you don't want them going full competitive any way or you need to pair the less experienced with someone experienced who will dial it down for them.
For example, you can show them the mount escape, the turtle attack drills, or maybe the 360 motion drill and have them go play using those.
jiujitsupdx (0)
11/06/2017 11:37 PMAny Luck with this? I'd be interested.
nwfan53 (8)
11/07/2017 3:54 PM(In reply to this)
Still in the planning phase for the Portland party. I've got two private get togethers up here in Seattle in work - Have a space I'm trying to get lined up to rent and the person from Portland who is supposed to be organizing down there is going to come up for one of them. Probably will beta test some formats and see how they work.
Par for the course, it is a lot more challenging to get one of these set up than you might figure. One of the issues was getting liability waivers in place.
jiujitsupdx (0)
11/07/2017 6:50 PM(In reply to this)
What are you having trouble with? I've set up several of these events before and maybe I could help.
nwfan53 (8)
11/07/2017 10:16 PM(In reply to this)
Can you PM me an email and I will put you in contact with the other person down in Portland? Yes, it would be great if the two of you can get together and set something up down there. I've got my hands full trying to get something set up here and trying to help get something going 150 miles away in Portland is probably not going to work very well.
nwfan53 (8)
11/18/2017 8:41 PM(In reply to this)
Well, I actually managed to put together a small scale version of the wrestling party the NYC folks have been doing. It had its own set of challenges from the organizational side. The biggest one was maybe the space that said they might be willing to host it went "sideways" on me. But they were helpful from the point of view that they referred me to a fitness club where the owner was definitely interested.
It was also interesting in seeing just how many people said they were interested in attending then dropped out for various reasons. No reason to go into details of whom dropped out but it ended up with just four of us with the space booked for 3 hours of wrestling. The actual participants ended up being two women, one of us local meetfighters guys, and myself. We put down enough mats to have two 10 feet x 10 foot wrestling areas side by side. The format was everyone wrestled everyone so we had some M vs M, M vs F, and F vs F matches.
The other guy needed to leave a little early so we wrapped up the event by doing some 2 on 1 with me taking the two women at the same time. That was the first time I have done more than one opponent at a time and I was thinking this was one of those "two wolves taking down a caribou" moments. I actually lasted longer than I was expecting which I think had something to do with it is harder for two people to coordinate an attack a single person than you might think.
Overall it was an interesting event to put together. And it was fun being able to watch other people you have wrestled take each other on.
nwfan53 (8)
11/30/2017 7:41 AM(In reply to this)
My 2nd event is coming up in the next week or so. Have everyone confirmed to show up. Should have 5 people total barring any last minute cancellations. Interesting variation this time is I have one person who does not want to do joint locks vs the standard bjj/submission wrestling rules I put out for the participants. Have to figure out how to make sure anyone paired up with this person understands they have some tactics they can't use.
nwfan53 (8)
12/08/2017 7:13 PM(In reply to this)
I'm going to give a quick summary of the 2nd wrestling party. This time everyone showed up - had three women, myself, and another one of our local meetfighters members. Same location as before - a fitness club we were able to rent off-hours. We were operating under the same set of basic rules as last time which equate to NAGA novice no-gi with a limited amount of other stuff mixed in. Then each person could dial down from that to what they were comfortable with ie we had one person who exluded joint locks.
Plus a heavy emphasis that this was not a tournament but more like along the lines of an open mat / play session. Had a mix of M vs F, M vs M, and F vs F Plus we did some other stuff like the turtle attack drill and some multiple on one - with me being the one. I don't do too much electronic gaming but that multiple on one is sort of like in a game when you get the radio call that "You have multiple incoming hostile and are clear to engage". You turn into one, try to keep one of the others from getting around to your blind side, and the furball ensues.
Other than one case in a mainstream school where three of us were fooling around after class and two of us white belts took on the brown belt instructor, these parties are my first experiences with the multiple on one and it is sort of interesting what does and does not work. What really hoses you as the one is when someone pins your legs and you can no longer turn your upper body to engage someone else.
Everyone I debriefed seems to have been pretty satisfied with the format. The one comment was we maybe should have timed each match. Which is interesting because I actually did have several timers with me but I decided with two mat in use and just 5 people, we were probably okay not using them.
One thing I did note for future reference - one the mats we were on were the 40" x 40" foam puzzle mats from "We Sell Mats". The side cut outs on the 40" x 40" are not the same as the 24" x 24" puzzles I have from the same supplier. It looks like they maybe scale their cutout pattern from 24" to 40" rather than use the exaxt same dimensions. So if you need to mate these two, you need the trim pieces and some mat tape to stick them together.
nwfan53 (8)
9/04/2017 10:11 PMThis wrestling party proposed for Portland might actually happen. The local person in charge is looking at a date in October and has lined up an actual martial arts school to host it. Bunch of details to work out.
General event outline would be to have all attendees go through a basic submission wrestling orientation before being allowed to wrestle and also have some experienced bjj folks serving as referees watching the mat action. Time frame would have the event open at 7PM and run until 10PM or so.
Basically this is going to be like an mainstream school open mat with some additional structure.
AKgrappler (2)
7/06/2017 9:59 PMI would be interested in going to event like this. If I could fit it in - winter would. E the best for me
nwfan53 (8)
7/01/2017 5:12 PMEvent Status Update - 07/01/2017. It looks like they were able to find a venue to host the event. Preliminary planning progressing.
Wrestlewatch (3)
7/02/2017 3:16 PM(In reply to this)
Its a long way to go but you never know, so keep me in the loop please.
nwfan53 (8)
7/02/2017 4:19 PM(In reply to this)
Portland does not have as many international flight connections as Seattle but a fair number of people like PDX better than SEA as an airport. Just looking quickly, it looks like Icelandair might be the cheapest option at $600 round trip. Or you can fly into SEA and drive down to Portland in about 3 hours if you time it to miss commute hours. If you hit commuter traffic, add about 90 minutes each end.
nwfan53 (8)
6/11/2017 10:44 PMI think this is probably the best spot to post this. I am kicking around the concept of doing a wrestling party hosted in Portland OR with a local person there. This would be along the lines of the party that was recently done in New York ( https://fetlife.com/events/550053 ). Obvious challenges in trying to stage it in a much smaller population center. If you would be interested in participating in organizing or attending, send me a message and you can get added to the information list.