The first time Ronda competed in the senior national championships, she was 17 years old and already ranked number one in the U.S. after having already been in the finals of two international tournaments (the U.S. Open and the Rendezvous in Canada, where she placed second and first respectively). She'd also won the Ontario (Canada) Open.
As a junior, Ronda won most of her matches by one of two throws (uchi mata and o soto gari). Grace Jividen, who had been number one until Ronda beat her at the U.S. Open, came out prepared and took a posture that made it really difficult to get in either of those. Ronda threw her with drop seoi nage to win her first senior nationals. Walking off the mat, Grace shook her head and remarked that she had never seen Ronda do a seoi nage.
Trace Nishiyama, one of the coaches from Venice Dojo, answered,
"That didn't mean she didn't have one."
Actually, that was the second national championships Ronda won with that throw. She also won the junior nationals when she was 12 years old throwing everyone with the same throw.
Ronda won every senior nationals in which she competed.
For all of those who call Ronda a one-trick pony and say they have prepared to defend against her arm bar - I just realized today that two of the three arm bar entries we drilled most when she was a kid I have yet to see her do in a fight. The third one was the arm bar she did on Sarah Kaufman.
Proof we live in LA
We have had the same dentist for 16 years and his son was also on some reality show, called "The Hills" , which I find strange because I'm sure the Pratts live in Malibu. When they were watching one of her fights, Spencer was surprised to find his father knew Ronda. Dr. Pratt said that smile was some of his best work. (Great dentist, highly recommend him.)
Reality shows don't seem to be that tough to get on since Ronda and her friends were just on one, both of the Pratt kids were, and four other people I know from the same club! (Hayastan) have been on The Ultimate Fighter before.
Julia has had the same best friend, Kiah, since she could crawl. I have lots of pictures of the two of them with Ronda in the middle, and lots of pictures of the two of them with Lenny Kravitz in the middle (he's a friend of Kiah's parents). As far as I know, Ronda and Lenny have never met.
(I don't watch TV. I didn't know anything about the show the Pratts were on, or that Kiah's Uncle Lenny was a musician until my oldest daughter told me, accompanied by much sighing and eye-rolling at my lack of coolness.)
2 comments:
Indeed, that was random...
"That didn't mean she didn't have one."
That's awesome. That's right. Mess around with a judo player and see what happen to you.
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