Local athletes crossed over sports last week in New Mexico.
Mixed martial artists, a karate black belt and former wrestlers tested their skills in a sport that combines elements of the aforementioned. That sport is grappling.
Grappling is similar to wrestling where competitors overtake and opponent physically to win by the most amount of points. But instead of pinning someone, a person must force a tapout by submission to be crowned the victor.
Montezuma Martial Arts Studio took five grapplers to Southwest Grapplefest V at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, N.M., last Saturday, and four came home with medals.
Its big, especially for our first tournament, said Kaan Clark, Montezuma Martial Arts trainer and grappler. Im really proud of all of them. They all worked really hard.
One of the grappling newbies was Mandy Herrera. She had to compete in the 145-pound female advanced class. Herrera fit right in though, and climbed her way to the championship round before losing to Geneziz Rodriguez.
She was tapping them out and holding her own with all of them, and took second place. Its huge, Clark said about Herrera.
The young woman is very confident and feels she can only get better in the sport.
It was kind of scary at first, but once I got in, I started doing what Im doing. It all just went away. It wasnt as scary as I thought it was going to be, Herrera said. It boosted my confidence pretty well. I plan on going back down again.
Herreras older brother is professional MMA fighter Isaque Sandman Martinez. He also decided to try grappling for the first time and took second place in the 215-intermediate class.
It was awesome. Ive been wanting to go to a jiu jitsu tournament competition. I just didnt know what to expect, Martinez said. I definitely figured out a lot of stuff I need to work on. Its not just getting in there and rolling, its thinking about your technique. You can control the whole round, but if you dont have the most points, you lose.
Montezuma Martial Arts taekwondo instructor and black belt Josh Edwards competed at 190-intermediate. The former wrestler and cage fighter placed second after training for a week.
I mentally prepared a lot. I told myself, Im bringing home a medal, Edwards said. I was just focused on bringing something home. When I made it to the final round, I said, here it is. It felt really good. Being a small studio, hopefully we can keep doing it and bring some more medals home.
Neil Padilla placed fourth in the 215-advanced class. It was his first grappling tournament, too.
Ive bee training in jiu jitsu for a while. People told me Im pretty good. At the last second, I went into the advanced (class) and just said, lets see what happens, said the tall, stocky Padilla. I placed. It was real hard. I fought a lot of big guys. I was probably one of the smallest heavyweights. But I had some speed on them and I just did the best I could. For a real small town like Cortez to bring home anything, I feel like its an accomplishment.
All five grapplers plan to head back to Rio Rancho and compete at the 2011 Southwest Grappling Championship on Saturday, Oct. 22, at Cleveland High School.
Reach Bobby Abplanalp at bobbya@cortezjournal.com.