Should you compete in BJJ tournaments?
Why Competition will only help you improve
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Let’s clarify things, should you compete, yes you should. Do you need to compete, no you don’t have to compete. We’ll explain what the benefits are and why your coach would recommend that you take a dip in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) tournaments.
You don’t need to compete to get your black belt. But be aware it will take longer. Those who compete will find that they improve at faster rate. Because of this you’ll find those who compete move up rank faster. It’s because of the improvements and not just the competing that drives this progress.
You can learn a lot and continue to get better just with practiced technique, concerted drilling and focused sparring in class. After all, there are a lot of BJJ black belts who have never competed or have only competed a few times. Competing at least a few times, is a really good idea. Let’s look at the main reasons why this is and what you can get out of it…
Why advise anyone to compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) tournament?
Here is a good reason to start: “It’s better to try something and fail, than never try it and then wonder how it could be.”
Whenever you face a dilemma, you wonder if you should do something or not, do it. The decision, if you should do it again, is based on whether it was good for or not. However, always try it first. Your life will be so much richer for it.
What competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) tournaments can give you:
Winning a match is a best feeling on earth.
Preparation for competition is tough. Maybe not so much physically as it is mentally. You can’t sleep thinking of possible outcomes. You’re planning your moves. The level of stress in your body is at the highest and for at least couple of days before the competition. When you win a match at a competition it’s the best feeling there is. All the stress goes away and for couple of days you have a glimpse, as to why pro athletes are so confident. “The winner Effect” feels amazing and can elevate your mood for days.
A potential roadblock - I don’t feel ready for the tournament.
We will paraphrase common proverb: “If you don’t think you are ready for a BJJ tournament, you feel the same as your opponent.”
It’s likely no-one ever feels 100% ready for competition. It seems as if there is always a something more that could be done. Entering a competition, you need to remind yourself when you’re anxious and remember that everyone else feels the same way. Hopefully, you are well prepared. If you are ready that’s great. It’s good to feel that you’ve done what is needed. But, when you consider yourself being ready for a tournament, you can still face danger. The danger is the expectations. Expectations create tensions, stress and self-awareness. All that can lead to a lower performance if you let it overwhelm you. But if realise you’ve done all you can and no-one expects any from you other than you give your best and have fun, then it doesn’t seem so bad.
Your second concern - I only had a few months training.
Everyone feels uncertain about their skills as a white belt. Don’t regret that you didn’t start earlier.
Why? Competition is like a speed learning. In class when you make a mistake it doesn’t matter, and you won’t remember what happened. In competition you’ll make a mistake, and it might cost you some points or worse still the match. These mistakes will be etched into your memory and you’ll vow never to let it happen again (don’t worry if it does). This will drive you to find your mistakes and fix them. Each time you fix a mistake you’re improving. Each match will bring you some techniques you need to work on, don’t ignore them. The more you do it the faster you will learn.
Everyone says you need to have a plan. But when you are new to this what plan can you have if you haven’t competed before? What plan can you have when you don’t know what you want to do?
Your plan should be simple.
First think whether you want to be on top or on the bottom? And that’s it.
If you want to be on top. Wait long enough, maybe your opponent will pull guard. If not, try your best to get the takedown. And if at the end of match, you are equal on points, you can always try to pull guard and then go for a sweep. Even if you don’t get it, as long as you don’t mess it up, you’ll get the referee nod for attempting to win.
If you like to be at bottom. Great. Pull your guard as you as you get your grips and make sure you secure the guard you want to play at. Always make sure you secure your guard and don’t try and rush into a sweep or submission. When you rush this is when you make a mistake, and your opponent can capitalise. You’re better of being patient and attacking when you’re ready rather than hoping to catch your opponent off guard.
Treat your first competition with no expectations.
BJJ competition is not for everyone. No one expects you to go and compete every time and everywhere. No one expects you to win, regardless how good you are in class. These expectations are always put on the competitor only by themselves. Once you understand this, you’ll be able to relax and enjoy competing. And even you don’t for your own sake try it at least once. It’s better to know that you don’t want to do it than wondering how it would be like.
You’re going in there to see what that is all about. Nothing more. Well ok, you can have fun too. You need to find out what you need. How to prepare and what to expect. Have no expectations whatsoever for your first competition. If you win? Awesome. If not remember what happened so you can work on what you need to improve so it doesn’t happen again. Go in there only for the experience, so you learn and improve. And here’s the thing, you’ll be shocked at just how much energy you expend and how much more tiring it is than a regular class.
Record your fights.
That is crucial if you want to learn from your competition. You will not remember much from it. Even if you do you probably will forget the actual situation in the fight. But when you record it, you can go through it with your training partners and/or coach fixing the mistakes. If you fix them having one competition a month you will outperform rest to the guys very quickly. On top of that you will have great memories to share with others later. Competing is a great achievement, and you should be proud of what you achieve regardless of the result.
What not to do at the competition!
Don’t go in not knowing the rules.
Every competition is different. They are sanctioned by different governing bodies and run by different organisers. Make sure you know the ruleset. Make sure you know what is legal, what is illegal, what are the uniform requirements, what are the weight divisions, when do you weigh in and how you go about winning. This means knowing how to win (score points) if you don’t get the submission. When preparing for a competition and you’re rolling in class, score the match if it were a competition. Know after each roll whether you would have won or lost (obviously if there is a submission it’s an easy determination).
Do not cut weight.
When preparing for a competition, using diet and exercise to get down to the weight is good. Don’t do any extreme dieting, you want to go in feeling your best. Do NOT water load and cut weight on the day of the competition. This will leave you drained and at great risk of injury as you won’t have time to safely rehydrate. It’s better to be in the middle of a heavier division feeling your best than draining yourself physically and mentally to make a lower division just so you can be at the top of the weight division. When you go in and compete feeling week, unfocussed, tired and a myriad of other symptoms from weight cutting you’ll give yourself a bad experience you’ll be less likely to want to go back and do it again.
Don’t be late.
Competitions usually run behind schedule, ahead of schedule or even on time, and usually all on the same day. Make sure you get to venue early with plenty of time to check in, check out the arena, plenty of time to warm up and mentally prepare. You don’t want to turn up to suddenly hear your name being called and you have to run to the marshalling area or worse still to hear from your teammates that you were disqualified for not turning up. Get to the venue early so you can enjoy the day and atmosphere. Cheer your teammates on while they compete. This also allows you to see how the event is being run and what is happening. You’ll be more in tune with what you need to do if you give yourself time to get yourself ready.
Here are some extra bonus reasons for competing.
Self Defence
This might seem counterintuitive, but even if your reason for training jiu-jitsu is self-defence then it’s still a really good idea to compete in a couple of tournaments during your BJJ career. Stepping onto a mat to face an unknown opponent in front of your teammates and a random assortment of spectators is stressful. That stress results in a ‘fight or flight’ reaction, where tons of adrenaline and other hormones get released into your system.
This stress dump can be debilitating if you’ve never experienced it before. Common reactions include holding your breath, getting exhausted instantly, the mind going blank, fine motor skills disappearing, and a complete inability to formulate and follow through on a plan. (All of these symptoms could be terrible if experienced while defending yourself.) The good news is that you CAN get over it. All you need to do is to expose yourself to it in incrementally increasing doses of stress.
In fact if you’re training at all then you’ve probably already started this process…
Maybe you were scared when you were thinking about walking into your first BJJ school, but you eventually went in, right? Good for you! It was a small example of confronting your fears and dealing with adrenaline. Maybe you were probably a bit freaked out when it came time to spar, right? Sparring with can be intimidating if you’ve never done before. Grappling with a stranger who’s trying to beat you can be quite confronting, but you dealt with as you’re still here. Handling the adrenaline dump and learning how to keep on thinking in a stressful situation, is way more important than learning ‘The right techniques’.
If your goal is self-defence, then going to a tournament or two is a great way to test (and improve) your composure under fire. By exposing yourself to scary-yet-relatively-safe situations like a tournament then you’ll continue to get better at dealing with the adrenaline dump and making decisions under pressure.
It Sharpens Your Game
If you have a tournament coming up in a month then inevitably you’re going to train differently. You won’t want to look foolish on competition day, so you’ll pay more attention during drilling, you’ll skip less classes, you’ll do additional conditioning, you’ll work on resolving your weak areas and sharpening your strengths.
You’ll also learn a lot at the actual tournament itself. You’ll face competitors who you won’t know what they’ll do, you may not be familiar with their style of grappling. This clash of unexpectedness and variety of styles can teach you a lot! Maybe you’ll face someone with strong takedowns, or maybe they’ll pull guard and start wrapping up your lapels, maybe they’ll be more nervous than you and just hold on for dear life. It doesn’t matter what they do, in the end every match is valuable experience. That will allow you to improve and expand your skills.
You may have a tough match against a spider guard specialist that makes you determined to develop one or two really good, reliable passes against that position.
Maybe you’re winning matches but being completely exhausted at the end of them makes you realise that you need to work on your conditioning.
Maybe you’ll make a mistake and get submitted making you determined not to be caught that way again.
In the end everything that happens is a driver to go back to the gym and fix the mistakes that happen so next time it doesn’t happen again. Competitors will always improve at a faster rate for this very reason. You’ll remember getting submitted in front of your friends and family even though you may get submitted every day in training and not pay any attention to it.
It's a great way to build friendship and community.
One of the best reasons to compete is the community that is developed with your training partners. You’ll train together in preparation for the events. You may travel down together. You’ll warm each other up, you’ll watch each other compete, you’ll share the disappointment in the loses and share in the joy of victory. This builds great friendships that will go beyond the mat but it will also make you look forward to getting to class to catch up. You’ll not want to let your friends down so you’ll make sure you turn up even when you’re not feeling the mood. But in the end, being their for your friends will improve your game because in the same light they will be there for you. Success in BJJ is a result of individual excellence that is built upon the shoulders and support of the teammates around you. You can be successful alone in this sport, it is an individual team sport.
In Closing…
Competition can be an especially useful tool to accelerate your Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) development, but it should also be the student’s choice whether to do it or not. If you’re experiencing a ton of unwanted pressure to compete then maybe you’re at the wrong club. Saying that, the success of BJJ is built under pressure. BJJ was developed as self defence against a myriad of styles, it was fine tuned in the street. You don’t need to do that thankfully. But you won’t get good at BJJ if you don’t roll or spar in class. What is competition but the ultimate rolling experience. So even if you only compete once, do it, you may surprise yourself and enjoy the experience and do it again. Even if you don’t, you can know that you’ve been in there and experienced it.
You don’t need to compete at tournaments to get your black belt, but you’ll probably get there faster if you do.
Good luck with your training regardless of how often you compete!
If you're interesting in more information on our BJJ classes please check out our
BJJ Page
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Kings Academy is the Premier Martial Arts Academy servicing Liverpool and South Western Sydney with classes in BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), Muay Thai, Boxing, Wrestling, and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
