BJJ Interveiws: The Part Time Grappler Interviews the Winners of the Crazy Ass BJJ Gi Design Competition

BJJ Interveiws: The Part Time Grappler Interviews the Winners of the Crazy Ass BJJ Gi Design Competition

 

You've all seen the designs, now let's meet the brains behind them. In a series of 5 posts I, Liam - The Part Time Grappler -Wandi interview our three winners. The journey is just beginning...

http://parttimegrappler.blogspot.com/2010/11/bjj-interveiws-part-time-grappler.html

WINNERS!

ULTIMATE WINNER:
Evan Mannweiler with 'Pin up '
Evan will get his gi custom made by Tatami Fightwear.

CRAZY WINNER:
Aaron Shiels with 'Scorpion'
Aaron wins an Estilo Premier gi

FUNNY WINNER:
Francisco Arias with 'I'm Lovin' Jitz'
Francisco wins a Zero G gi

Huge thank you to everyone who voted and everyone who took part, this has been spectacular!
Big thanks especially to Liam Wandi who writes the Part Time Grappler blog for being my project partner, to Tatami Fightwear for their sponsorship and unstinting support of the contest and to all my blogger friends who supported and lent a hand.

Listen out for The Fightworks Podcast this Sunday where I will be interviewed about the contest!

FINALS!!!!!

The judges have chosen! Head on over to the Tatami Fightwear Facebook group and vote for your favourite design. You have until 23:59 EST 12th OCTOBER to do so. The entry with the most 'likes' in each of the three categories will become the winner.

Thanks to all our judges for the tough task of whittling nearly 400 entries down to just 19. The judges were:
Bill Thomas - BJJ Weekly
David Webb - Kombat Clinic
Romeo Pagulayan - MMAGearGuide
Gareth and Lee - Tatami Fightwear
Georgette Oden - Georgette's blog
Steve Zacher - Steve BJJ
Liam and Nadine Wandi - Part Time Grappler
Adam Adshead - Factory BJJ
Seymour Yang - Meerkatsu

ENTRIES ARE NOW CLOSED!

Sob! It's over. We've now closed the contest to new entries and the judges will now proceed to select their 15 favourites - five from each of the three categories:
1. Ultimate winner (wins a custom gi)
2. Crazy Winner (wins a Tatami Fightwear Estilo 'blinging' gi)
3. Funniest winner (wins a super light Tatami Fightwear'Zero G' gi)

It'll take the judges a couple of weeks (maybe sooner) to find the 15. Once they do, the 15 finalists will be posted on the Tatami Fightwear Facebook group page where anyone (once you join the group) will be able to 'like' the entries they think should win. The designs with the most number of 'likes' in each ategory after two weeks will be declared the winner. Remember, this only applies to the 15 chosen finalists as posted on the Tatami Fightwear Facebook group gallery - not the Crazy-Ass Facebook group gallery.

Thanks to each and every person who sent in an entry or supported from the sides. It was such good fun to see the different designs and be a part of a world wide phenomenon. Good luck if you did enter a design, stay tuned!

ONE WEEK TO GO!

Hey guys, only one more week left to go before the closing date for the competition - 15th September 2010.
Ooooooh! Who will be crowned ULTIMATE crazy-ass gi winner? Will it be you? It could be, but you better get your skates on!

Entries have been coming in from all over the world. Let's take a look at some patriotic themed entries from our international BJJ brothers and sisters:

CANADA:


BRAZIL:


THAILAND:


ITALY:


USA:


GRANDE BRITAINE!


SWEDEN:


Actually we had entries from many more countries around the world, so thank you to everyone.

Funny Ha Ha!

Man you guys like to goof around with your Crazy-Ass gi designs! Well good, because we're offering a big prize to the funniest. Maybe one of these entries might win the funny category? Let's see:

BJJ Blogger Francisco Arias, creator of DSTRYRSG came up with this MC-inspired design:

A lot of entries featuring the nude body as a gi design, clever that, no-gi, gi in disguise, hmmmm:

You'd have to be a mad cow not to love this Ki-moo-no from my own instructor:

And finally, well, I dunno I think it's a big ego that has to put their own face on their own gi. Actually this wasn't created by me, but by one of our contestants. I think this is a strong winning candidate myself...

Kids Rock

Hey gang, getting a few entries from our younger entrants which just goes to show that Crazy-ass gi designing fever is sweeping all the age groups!

Here is one created by the 5 year-old son of one of our contestants. He say his mum designing her own gi and thought he would try to same, totally unprompted without any help, here is his effort:



and here's one by a 15 year old girl who's father sent in her entry. His daughter has been training BJJ for two years so is well and truly a BJJ addict!



Of course how heartless could I be if I did not let my own kids have a go at the Crazy-ass gi design? so here is my 4 year old daughter's kitty inspired effort:

And this is my 2 year old son's Ben 10 inspired artwork. Lovely!

Finally, let me give a shout out to new online BJJ news media service BJJHQ, run by Aaron Gaskill. He's just submitted his design and he plugged our contest on his site. Thanks Aaron!

Prizes prizes prizes!

Oooh good people, I'm so excited I nearly ripped my ripstop pants! But seriously how cool is a competition where winners get the chance to have their fantasy custom gi actually made for real? But better than that, how cool is a contest where the silver and bronze medalists can walk away being the envy of the crowd with their prizes? Oh yes people, I can now officially reveal that a second winner of our Crazy-Ass design a gi contest will win Tatami Fightwear's brand new, not even yet available to buy for mortal folk - Estilo Competition Kimono. See the photos below and whet your appetite:

Wow! How bling is this gi. Bling I say! A little spec about the gi: lightweight pearlweave jacket and canvas trousers with cool contrast stitching, trim and drawstring, and brand new patches and logos. Ooh niiiiice! Wearing one of these, you'll be too busy high fiving your team mates to actually go training.

But wait, there's more. Our sponsors said, hey Crazy-Ass contest person you, why only two top prizes? let's offer a third, uh huh a third awesome gi prize. So for one more lucky winner, you will win a top of the range ZERO G gi. Man this gi is so popular they can't make enough of them. In sexy black or pure lovely white, the Zero G is an awesome uniform and light as a sparrow's tail feather. Okay, I lied, the Zero G is actually lighter than a sparrow's tail feather. Some photos:

Hey, if a Tatami gi is good enough for Fernando Terere, it's good enough for us mere mortals, right?

More details about winning categories later - it could take us some time to check out each and every one of the TWO HUNDRED gi designs that have just been submitted. I mean WOW! people, I love you all, thanks so much for taking part. I can reveal that the top finalists, selected by our panel of expert judges will be announced on Tatami Fightwear's Facebook Group page - so go join the group.

But the contest still has a couple weeks to go so you have plenty of time - we're closing entries 15th September 2010. Be a crazy-ass gi designer now.

Here Kitty Kitty

The Crazy-ass design your own gi challenge is officially the most addictive phenom in the world right now! Don't believe me? Well you should ask some of our contestants who have been busy scribbling their efforts by the multitude. Top contributor still goes to Korean BJJ blogger Julia Johansen who submitted x19 designs. Hmm, one shy of twenty Julia - comeon we like round numbers!

Another blogger, Stephanie aka Jiujitsunista, is out from training due to injury, but she's obviously channelled her BJJ lust into designing gis - all six of them including this femme tastic little number below!

Not to be outdone, Stephanie's sister Allie, aka Allie the Clear Belt- also a BJJ nut and blogger has offered us her kat-tastic design:

We've also been featured over at top BJJ and Judo interview website Kombat Clinic. I thoroughly recommend you pop on over to KC for interviews galore with elite grapplers from around the world.

Finally, I leave you with this video - the second made by our Crazy-ass gi partner Liam proving that inspiration for gi designs can literally come at any time, anywhere!

CRAZY-ASS GI DESIGN COUNTRIES

Yo! This is a quick snapshot of the countries where people have been visiting this challenge-blog:

As you can see, that's just in the past week or so!

How often in a lifetime does an opportunity like this come along? Where you can express yourself artistically and freely, risk nothing and win it all? Competing against people from all over the world???

Don't wait. Express yourself!

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

But I can't draw!

Yes you can! If you can churn out armbars, triangles and flip flying fantastic guard passes aplenty, then you have the brains to put a pencil onto a piece of paper and scribble a design - no computer skills needed. Look...here are some recent entries where the contestant did not have access to a computer to design his gi:









In other news, a big Crazy-ass gi thank you to all our blogger brothers and sisters for blogging about the comp: Steve Zacher sent us his very imaginative designs (the butchers cut above is one of them), Daniel Mower who writes the snazzily designed Arcanum blog sent some stunning contributions, Jay Beard way out there in Arkansas blogged about the comp with his Elvis inspired outfit...oh yeah people, bloggers united we stand!

And, you can catch more about the comp on the popular weekly newsletter BJJ Weekly. Subscribe to BJJ Weekly now to catch up with tons of cool content, techniques, hints, tips and articles. Don't forget also to join our Facebook group and, if you fancy, have a mosey on down at our sponsor's website to see the cool banner they created to advertise the comp.

Finally, Crazy-ass gi HQ did not post this on Sherdog, someone else did, and it seems to have elicited some rather 'interesting' unofficial gi designs. go check it out here.

Thank you guys, keep rolling, keep designing. Osu!

We cheated!

Liam and I are so addicted to designing gis that we can't stop entering designs ourselves. Of course our entries are not eligible for the final showdown and prizes (drat!) but we did them anyway.

Here's Liam's monkey themed gi:



I like the check inner lining and cutesy monkey logos.

I've gone for the ultimate in team-themed gis - the Hannya! this Japanese god or demon figure is the basis of the logo in the club that I train at: Mill Hill BJJ. We are part of the Roger Gracie Team, hence the wording on the back.



If you think you would like to hav a go, then send us your entries. We've got lots of prizes to give away thanks to our sponsors Tatami Fightwear!

One Hundred!!!

We've now gone moving footage friendly! That's right you can now watch the young and lithe Liam talk with wild enthusiastic passion about the Crazy-Ass gi campaign.

In other news, we've hit 100!!!!!! Wooot!!!!!

Yep, we've just had out 100th entry courtesy of the prolific horse-loving BJJer down under, Fenix. Thanks Fenix, hope to see more!

Here are some awesome gi designs from today:

Link Love

Wow!  Another womnderfully crazy day at the head offices of your friendly neighbourhood Crazy-Ass Gi comp organisor! We've had a ton more entries and I must say, the designs just keep getting better and better - you guys out there really have unleashed a torrent of creativity!

More online chatter about the contest - Portuguese White Belt offered us three of his feline inspired designs. I like these, they're very personal to the author and yet I could easily see these being worn in the dojo:

Crouching kitten from the Portuguese White Belt Blogger

Over in the Journey of Fenix, our Aussie based artist has been hard at work submitting seven eye-catching gi patterns. Yes folks, our gi design game is more addictive than Tetris!

Reminds of a sixties sci-fi TV program

And word seems to be spreading further afield as our Crazy-Ass gi contest has attracted the interest of several forums and news sites. Notably, MMAGearGuide.net gave us a bit of cool coverage. I like this site, it's like one huge shopping catalogue and Romeo the owner seems very on the ball, so I asked him to be a judge and he kindly agreed. I'm not sure he knows what he's taking on, after all, it's day three now and we've gathered over 75 entries already!

Our most prolific contestant is Julia Johansen who writes a very excellent blog. After submitting 20 or so entries I think her most recent is also her most personal, something she feels very passionately about. I'll let her explain:

"This gi is to help raise awareness of violence against women. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is one way for women to help protect themselves. From http://www.saynotoviolence.org/ 'Based on country data available, up to 70 per cent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime.' Additionally, 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide may be abused in their lifetimes. I put the handprint behind the flap of the gi so it is only partly showing because it is an issue that hides in plain site."

JiuJitsoka by Julia Johansen

More online chatter, this time on the forums. Someone posted about our contest on The Underground and both Liam and I began threads on two large UK-based forums: EFNSports and Cagewarriors. You'll also find a thread started by Julia on JiuJitsuForums. We're leaving the other big US-based forums for now just so we don't get too inundated.

Thanks everyone, I leave you with this very attractive little number. If this one wins, I wouldn't mind asking Tatami if they can make an extra one just for me!

Hypno-tastic!

Playa!

Hoorah, we've just had our 50th design entry. Well done Max! In other news, we're happy to welcome on board two excellent BJJ online magazines: BJJ Weekly and Kombat Clinic. They'll be helping to promote the Crazy Gi Challenge and act as finalist judges when we have all our entries.

In the meantime, enjoy these new designs submitted by our growing contributors list:

Wow people, I never expected to see this many ultra fabulous dream gis...keep em coming!

Blogger Power!

OMG! After launch day yesterday our emails were besieged by Crazy Ass gi designs from our friends, training partners and curious passers by. Oh yeah people, this Crazy Ass design your own gi idea is kicking into gear and we hope it will be a WORLDWIDE phenom.

So let's take a look at blogosphere to see who's been chatting about our challenge:

To start, there is the shy and bashful Meerkatsu with his little opening gambit:

Then Mr Part Time Grappler himself turns in a Rio-themed design:

At this early stage it seems to be the ladies that have seem to have come up with the goods so quickly. Julia Johansen as has been mentioned before has been incredibly prolific, with her 10, yes 10! designs so far! Here's one of her latest, and it's already a very strong contender for top honours:

Another top lady BJJ blogger, MegJitsu, lost her entire working day by scribbling away at her entry - a truly femme tastic phoenix and oriental design of her own making:

And yet again, the ladies beat the guys with their prolific output. Jiujitsunista submitted a number of sci-fi and mythic themed designs, one of which I quite like:

...and well the list goes on. I'll keep you posted on the entries as submitted by our blogger friends and everyone else. In the meantime, catch up with all the entries so far on our Design Your Own Crazy-Ass BJJ Gi Challenge Facebook Group (phew!)

Our First Entry

Oh My God!!! Check our these excellente submissions from the one and only Julia Johansen http://juliajohansen.wordpress.com/