When I was in journalism classes I was taught that it was always frowned upon to write articles in the first person and to write about subjects that you are too close to. Sometimes I adhere to that train of thought, and at other times I do not.

This will be one of those times. I have a story that is simply too good not to tell. It was so good that I considered writing an article for CBSSports.com about it but doing a first-person account about my wife competing at the U.S. Grappling Championships in Delaware yesterday may not make for proper "journalism." It's a story more appropriate for this blog and while we're past the point of FiveOuncesOfPain.com being my personal diary, consider this a personal e-mail that I'm sharing with everyone.

What I experienced yesterday was without question one of the most surreal moments in my life and I'm afraid I may not be able to properly convey its magnitude. But I will give it a shot anyway.

Imagine you're an amateur golfer and you decide one weekend to enter an amateur tournament in your area and either Tiger Woods or Annika Sorenstam show up out of nowhere because they were in the area and had nothing better do on a Saturday afternoon than compete. Then imagine you are assigned to play 18 holes of golf with one of them.

Sounds kind of far fetched?

Well, my wife has never played golf and probably never will but she is a competitive martial artist, and a pretty good one at that. And what she experienced on Saturday is probably the martial arts equivalent to the golf analogy mentioned above.

While female grappling has grown in recent years, it still has plenty of room to expand. Too often female martial artists find themselves in positions where they train hard for tournaments and travel great distances only to find that there is no one for them to compete against.

When my wife and I arrived at the tournament we soon learned that the only other white belt for her to compete against weighed 104 pounds. My wife is 5'9'' and simply had too much of a weight advantage. The other white belt was also trained at a Lloyd Irvin affiliate school and our head instructor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu United, Jared Weiner, received his black belt from Irvin. Needless to say he wasn't keen on the idea of my wife competing against another Irvin student in an Absolute (no weight class) division.

We were getting ready to call it a day at that point and head home when all of a sudden we saw a female arrive that had a purple belt hanging out of her gym bag. Jokingly, I asked Sharon, one of the instructors at BJJ United and one of my wife's coaches, if Andria (my wife) could face her knowing that white belts and purple belts are almost never allowed to compete against each other in Gi tournaments.

After taking a closer look, Sharon responded by saying, "Well, I think that's Tara LaRosa, actually." Without realizing she was serious, I just kind of laughed. While the U.S. Grappling Championships had a good turnout, it's not yet one of the bigger grappling tournaments around. If someone like Tara LaRosa was going to walk up to a grappling tournament, you'd expect it to be an event like NAGA or Grappler's Quest.

I started focusing on the purple belt and thought to myself, "Damn, that does look a lot like Tara LaRosa."

Wouldn't you know, it was indeed BodogFIGHT women's champion Tara LaRosa. The same Tara LaRosa who competed at Abu Dhabi in Trenton, NJ this summer and also regarded by many as the pound-for-pound number one female mixed martial artist in the world.

My wife and I kind of joked about her competing against Tara. With my wife being in the unique position of being a female martial artist, she's constantly looking for role models and there isn't a fighter she holds in higher regard than Tara LaRosa. Saying my wife respects LaRosa is an understatement. Saying that she looks up to her is a more apt statement and that made the whole prospect seem so surreal. After all, how often do you get to compete against your idol? How often does someone get to stand in the batter's box against against Johan Santana? How often does someone get assigned to cover LeBron James? And how often does someone find themselves in a position of having to try and stop LaDainian Tomlinson from punching it into the endzone? But for my wife, that was exactly what was about to happen.

While my wife and I were joking around, Sharon, a highly regarded brown belt who is no stranger to competing, wasn't really laughing. She explained to us how some grapplers love to compete and don't care who it's against. In the mind of some competitors, if they arrive at an event, they don't want to walk away without having a chance to compete at least once. LaRosa happens to be one of those competitors.

With no one else to fight, the tournament organizers presented an option to my wife of competing in a no Gi Absolute division against a blue belt and a purple belt. The blue belt, Cynthia O'Rourke, had a ton of tournament experience and has competed many times at Grappler's Quest and NAGA. The purple belt? None other than LaRosa, with former BodogFIGHT welterweight champion Eddie Alvarez and Stephen Haigh, the founder of the Fight Factory, serving as her coaches.

While some instructors would allow ego to get in the way and try to prevent a white belt from going up so many levels to compete out of fear they might get smashed in front of a sizable audience, Jared didn't care and told Andria, my wife, that if she wanted to compete, she was free to do so. Without hesitation my wife said yes. When I heard that she was actually going to compete against O'Rourke and LaRosa, I fell into a brief state of shock.

I asked Jared if it was true and probably didn't phrase the question right. "You're actually going to let her compete against Tara LaRosa?," I asked. He shot me a look back, probably thinking I was questioning his judgment and said, "Yeah, why not? Andria needs all the experience she can get, and this will be good experience for her. She has nothing to lose." I wasn't questioning his decision, merely I was still in a state of shock that my wife was going to compete against the top female mixed martial artist in the world.

But at that point, I did start to question in my head if that was the right decision. But Jared was right, my wife had nothing to lose. However, just the idea of her going against LaRosa after only three months of ground training was still something to think about. I overheard a time keeper say, "Well, it's not like she can punch her in the face." Good point. That being said, LaRosa is best known for her grappling ability. My wife had trained exclusively in Muay Thai at Philly MMA up until getting injured several months back. In a strange way, I think I might have actually felt better if this had been a striking contest.

At the end of the day though, if my wife didn't care, why should I? My wife is usually a nervous competitor but actually appeared to be pretty relaxed. She was definitely looking at the situation as an opportunity where she had nothing to lose and a lot of experience and knowledge to gain. So why not?

LaRosa and O'Rourke started out competing in the finals of the no Gi division in their weight class. O'Rourke, who trains out of the Renzo Gracie affiliate school Ground Control in Baltimore, displayed a finesse technique that contrasted to LaRosa's power style. In a very spirited match, LaRosa took the final, winning on points by a score of 6-2.

Next up would be LaRosa and my wife competing in the first match of the no Gi Absolute division.

As a writer, I live for stories like this because you couldn't cook something up like this even if you wanted to. I think I actually forgot to be nervous for my wife because I was so concerned with getting pictures. I mean, who in their right mind would believe a story like this? I needed to document this so I could show proof later if someone accused me of pulling a Jayson Blair or a Stephen Glass.

After taking a few minutes to catch her breath, LaRosa was set and ready to go. As the referee gave them the all clear and they slapped hands, I thought to myself, "Is this really happening?" I still couldn't believe my wife agreed to compete without hesitation? I'm a terrible grappler and probably always will be, but let's just say I was good enough to compete and found myself in the same situation. As much as I'd love to say I would jump at the opportunity, the reality is that I probably wouldn't.

The opening portion of the match was a bit of a standstill with a lot of jockeying for position while on the feet. Eventually the fight would go to the ground with my wife in bottom position and LaRosa on top. While LaRosa had the more dominant position, what happened next was almost inconceivable.

I don't know how, but my wife somehow caught LaRosa's neck and had her in a guillotine. A TIGHT guillotine. A guillotine that LaRosa was trying to get out of but couldn't. By now a crowd had formed and everyone from our school was getting pretty animated in anticipation of a major upset.

For a moment, I thought LaRosa might be on the verge of giving up. But the reality was that even though my wife had the choke in tight and LaRosa looked extremely uncomfortable, my wife was applying the choke in half-guard as opposed to full guard. Had it been in full guard, my wife would have had enough room to leverage her hips higher and apply more torque on the choke. While you can tap someone from half-guard, you aren't going to see a grappler as tested and accomplished as LaRosa submit to that.

So close, yet so far away. LaRosa eventually pried herself from the choke and went on the offensive. She went for numerous submission attempts but my wife simply would not budge. While LaRosa vs. O'Rourke was strength vs. finesse, the battle between LaRosa and my wife was strength vs. strength. Neither was giving the other much room to work with.

Time finally elapsed with LaRosa being declared the winner on points, winning 6-0. While my wife lost, she walked away with a moral victory. She showed no fear in going to the mat against a world class competitor and not only held her own, but got in some offense as well.

While I was surprised my wife's performance, I guess I shouldn't be shocked. She won her Muay Thai division at the WKAs after only a few months of training this past July; she once fought a male competitor in a amateur MMA bout; she even fought an amateur MMA bout with only six months of Kung Fu training against a respect female fighter. If I sound like I am bragging, it's because I am. This is my wife that I'm writing about, for crying out loud.

For LaRosa, December 15, 2007, will go down as just another tournament. For my wife, it will be a day she will never forget. Best of all, we were able to talk with Tara after she had finished competing for the day. She was amazingly nice and more than willing to share her years of experience in martial arts with my wife, willingly passing down some of her vast knowledge. For someone like my wife, the insight and encouragement she received was invaluable. It was like getting hitting tips from Ichiro.

In talking with LaRosa, it was clear that she is everything that's good about female MMA. MMA and martial arts in general is not just something she views as an avenue to make her famous and it's not just something she does to pass the time -- it's her life. She has the passion, drive, and commitment to the sport that makes her worthy of being the true face of female MMA.

If you're a female MMA fan who has never trained and are reading this blog, I highly recommend you go check out a school near you and observe a class, whether it be MMA, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or Muay Thai. Martial arts needs you and you just might like it.

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Sam Caplan

Lead Writer/Editor - ProElite.com

SamCaplan.ProElite.com