10/13/2026
Great work by Emily Kerr-Finell and Kayla Natal IBJJF No Gi PANS. This was our first “major” as a team, and we had a very tight and productive camp in preparation for both women’s divisions. Emily was finally able to show her wrestling skills in a war of a first match, fighting through numerous scrambles, pins, scores and near scores to take her opponent’s back in the last 20 seconds for a narrow points win. Her 2nd match was won via accidental smother. It’s a pleasure to see Emily’s competition awareness, comfort, and resolve grow from tournament to tournament. Emily holds the standard for work out put in the gym, and we are very fortunate to have her training with and inspiring us.
Kayla is probably the most technical and intensely accurate students we have in the gym. She has an exceptional pressure passing game for a smaller athlete and a dangerous submission based guard. She stepped completely out of her “gi” comfort zone to prepare for this event and checked all of the boxes for preparation against an experienced division of heavier women. She got caught up in an unexpectedly skilled 50/50 battle for the majority of her only match, scoring a beautiful and intuitive sweep before falling behind by 2. The match ended with her on her opponent’s back with one hook entered and an arm around her neck, for a points loss. Kayla teaches our Tuesday 4:15pm Gi class, and if she wasn’t so successful in her personal, would certainly be teaching more.
As always, we are very fortunate to be a small part of an environment that promotes hard work, self analysis, failure and success. Thank you to all of our students who are a part of this process.
