This weekend Submission Conference put on their first event in San Diego, California. This is a review of the basic things that the event did right and wrong at this event.
The SubCon tournament offered a myriad of different choices for people to compete in. There was a kids, adults, and masters tournament for Gi and No Gi. The kids part of the tournament went on at the beginning of the day and also there was super fights between the start of the Adult and Master tournament and the end of the kids tournament.
The super fights are a nice touch but they took a little over 45 minutes and stopped the whole tournament to do so. While that is fun for the spectators who want to watch the super fights, it is unfortunate for the people who are fighting and want to actually get on the mats. The tournament only ran an hour or so behind which is good considering they were running a double elimination format which can cause problems logistically with getting everyone into the fights they need to be in.
The tournament ran smoothly for the majority of the part but there were some inconsistencies in riffing that is normal amongst the regional tournaments. The biggest thing that hinders most tournaments outside of the big organizations is the riffing. Inconsistencies always hurt the promoters since they trust people to run a tournament correctly but not paying attention or not following the rules hurts them. Multiple times there were quick points given to competitors for something they did not secure. For example, the person needed to secure a sweep for at least three seconds to get the points but multiple times people were given points for it as soon as it happened regardless of what came next.
The most egregious is the safety of the competitors. Some illegal moves were thrown on during the tournament like calf slicer at a level of No Gi that was not supposed to happen and the matches were not even stopped. Still, it was a great tournament, with a good amount of competitors that ran all in one day. Look for a SubCon tournament near you as they are running a tournament every other month or so.