In competition, things rarely go as planned, and for that reason people often fear competition because they fear the unknown. For me, realizing how to deal with this made preparing for it far easier.
Rather than focusing exclusively on working from dominant positions in training, I also focus on escapes and reversals. I’d say that half of my time preparing is spent where I am most scared of being put in competition and the other half is spent trying to get to where I want to be.
Losing fear of the worst case scenario positions results in the ability to more comfortably seek out good positions. The best example of this is the open guard. If you are terrified of getting your guard passed there’s a good chance your guard recovery sucks. If your guard recovery sucks and you play open guard and your opponent passes your guard, it’s game over.
Novice competitors approach this problem by trying to not open their guard. The best thing to do to address this while preparing for competition is to avoid closing your guard in training; let people pass and then get back to the guard. Get to the point that you almost want people to pass your guard so you can recover because it wears them down mentally and puts you in better positions.
Preparing for competition should of course include planning for your “A Game”, developing a strategy that you want to execute, and maybe even getting a backup plan as well. However, the chance of you imposing your will perfectly on an opponent is low, and it is far more likely that if you are paired up with someone of similar size and skill. Because of this, training for competition should be somewhat ugly. You should be looking for voids in your game and then trying to figure out how to deal with those voids.
In the weeks leading up to a competition, you should train like you plan on competing. Find teammates who are roughly your weight and can challenge you, and start standing. Try to execute your A-Game but at the same time at least part of the time make deliberate mistakes to see how a live opponent will react. Sometimes mistakes lead to openings in your favor. But not usually, i’s best to know what the other person is likely to do.
In competition your goal should be to conceal any weaknesses and enhance your strengths. Being aware of your weaknesses and trying to get rid of them is the optimal goal for competition oriented training, whereas the competition mat is the place to test the aspects of your game that you have sharpened to razor sharp precision.
Preparation for competition is where the determination of success or failure is made. The better you prepare, the smarter your training regimen, the higher the likelihood that you’ll win. How do you prepare for competition?
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