British Columbia’s Lower Mainland a Greater Vancouver Regional District offers a wide variety of tournaments for nearly all martial arts. Of the tournaments I have attended, the ones I most look forward to participate in are those hosted by the Canadian Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (CBJJF).
The CBJJF hosts an average of four tournaments a year in B.C., in Burnaby, Langley and the Interior. They also provide the coolest looking medals that are never the same, so your medal wall won’t have constant repeats.
They are well organized, with a long pre-registration window, and a regular registration that closes a few days before the event. There is no day-of registration, but all of the brackets are ready to go by the time the mats are set up. When you arrive to the event, you can check out your division to see who you compete against first, and how many matches to win gold.
Also provided the night before is a schedule of approximately what time your division will be competing. As a white belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I was long aware of the fact that I would be waiting several hours. CBJJF prides itself on a prompt starting time; blue belt competitors are called up to start at 9AM.
Not only is there good competition for white, blue and purple belts, but there’s a slowly increasing brown belt division. For example: at the Okanagan Winter Classic in February, a brown belt from RDC competed against a Gracie Barra black belt. By the time May rolled around for the Western Canadian BJJ Championships in Burnaby, there were three brown belts that competed in a round robin format. For the upcoming Alberta BJJ Championships there are four brown/black belts registered already.
Any CBJJF event is worth attending, and definitely worth registering to compete in. I personally find that tournaments are the best way to test your skills and your game against opponents you’ve probably never met before. I’ve always taken some major lessons away from every CBJJF tournament I’ve competed in, win or lose.
You can check them out at www.cbjjf.org. CBJJF follows all IBJJF rules and regulations.
–The Prototype’s Alter Ego