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The Bermuda Small Circle Jujitsu Academy held a youth grappling tournament during the month of November at the Bermuda High School for Girls. Approximately 20 children participated in the tournament. There were two divisions that participated in this tournament; the Lil' Barracudas Division ages 4 to 7 years and the Soaring Eagles Division ages 8 to 13 years.

Corrie Cross, age 7, won the Lil' Barracudas division with an awesome display of transitions from one hold down to another. Runner up was 7 year old Darrin Pitt. Special mention was given to grapplers Seth Malpas and Kristian Singh. Both boys, aged 4 years old, showed great attitude and determination. This age division was required to grapple continuously for one minute.

In the Soaring Eagle's Division Shawn Harvey Jr. and Jirani Welch grappled to a draw after a series of grappling rounds.

This grappling match proved to be the highlight of the tournament with Welch taking Harvey to the mat with an outside reap but Harvey managed to find the guard and mount an attack on Welch.

It was feverishly contested with Harvey trying for a rear mount and Welch trying to maintain Harvey in the cross body position. The match ended with both grapplers even on points and exhausted after a two minute round. Harvey managed to hold his own against a much larger opponent, which is reminiscent of when Royce Gracie was taking on much larger opponents in the UFC. Second runner up was Tahj Dean.

Tyra Simmons, aged 9 years old, won her girl's age group with an awesome display of pinning her opponent to the mat consecutively after her opponent tried to reverse the position. Cassandra Pitcher, aged 12 years old, won her girl's age group. Unfortunately she didn't have any formidable opponents.

Shawn Harvey said in a press release: "This grappling tournament was a huge success with no one picking up any injuries. All of the children had a great experience learning the grappling game. For those of you who may not be familiar with the sport of grappling, it consists of takedowns, hold downs and reversals. The grappler gains points by continuously executing techniques for one or two minutes. Basically it's like playing chess, you have a series of moves to checkmate your opponent."

He added that the purpose of this tournament was to prepare the students for international competition.

"We will be going up against our affiliate schools in the U.S. and we need the exposure to get our children prepared," Harvey said. "This can be a very emotional sport with children getting pinned. We have excellent instructors to train and coach our children to adjust and be more confident and less fearful. Our students are not only learning grappling skills but also life skills and responsibilities.

"They must maintain good school grades and help out at home. These children are well-rounded and participating in these classes help them to have more confidence, pride, respect, self discipline and focus than a child who has never participated in these classes." said Sensei Harvey.[[In-content Ad]]

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