What specifically do they teach about how to compete?
Is it:
-loosen your hands and forearms up between matches to refresh your grips?
-think positive, have a gameplan?
-bring flip flops so you don't have to keep on taking your shoes on and off whenever you step on and off the mat, or go to the bathroom?
-how to register and what divisions to do?
-how to cut weight?
I think that most of that type of stuff is pretty easy to pick up for anyone (and a lot of people compete just fine without worrying at all about most stuff like that). I've seen family members of competitors who don't even train who can perform most functions of that nature.
When I watch coaches coaching before and during the matches, I usually see them giving either technical information, such as "your opponent is good at leglocks, hide your legs", or generic mental coaching such as "you are going to win this match, you want it, you trained hard for it" or "don't stress out, stay calm, breathe". During the matches, a lot of coaches seem to again focus on either technical advice "grab his leg, sweep!", psyching the competitor up "move move move!", being aware of the other guy "he's getting tired, keep passing!" or time keeping/score keeping. Again, I think all of these functions can be performed by someone who doesn't compete.
Is it motivational? Do the students want a competition hero to lead them through their matches at Grapplers Quest? I can see that. I think a lot of people get confidence from knowing that they come from a competitively successful team/instructor. This is common to all martial arts; "My teacher learned from Bruce Lee himself, so you know he can fight", or "My teachers teacher is a 5x World and Pan am champ, so I'm learning from a student of the best!"
Honestly, I go back and forth on this subject, especially as it pertains to creating a competitive school and taking people from beginner all the way to the highest levels of competition. I think for beginner and mid level competition, a decent instructor with or without competition experience will work fine. I think to develop a powerhouse competition team with guys that are winning at the highest level; I am less sure. I think that there are enough competitors at the highest level that come from instructors who haven't won much competitively to say that it is possible to develop strong competitors without having competition experience. I think the stars have a align well and the instructor has to be really exceptional at putting together the best resources for his athlete for this to happen.
