Competing a lot/ high stress.

[Respeezy]

Hi guys,

Was thinking about something today and was wondering about other peoples opinions on it.

Competing for me is still a pretty high stress situation, i am very tensed especially in the week before competition and find it hard to think and focus on other stuff.
Therefore i do not compete much, i like it but the costs are too high in terms of being unproductive, stressed and unable to focus on other things.

What i was wondering about is, does putting yourself in a high stress situation give you benefits that i am not seeing right now?

I am contemplating competing more/ a lot, but aside from improved jiu jitsu i wonder what that would do for me in terms of benefits in whatever area. For example would putting yourself more often in high stress situations make your tolerance for stress lower? , those kinds of things.

 

[Thrawn33]

When something becomes routine it becomes less stressful.

Do you drive? Remeber your first time merging onto a busy highway? Parking in between two expensive cars? Backing up in a tight spot? Driving in low visibility with heavy rain or snow?

Having a little stress is actually good for you, because complacency kills, but it's hard to ever have no stress in a competitive environment.

 

[Respeezy]

I am just wondering about the effects outside of bjj competition, more in terms of what it can do for me in general life. Because quite frankly the stress isnt worth it just for bjj ( for me) even if it gets less. I mean i did some competitions and some times there is more stress than other times, but it is not really gettig less in a linear way or anything.

 

[Russky]

I think it is more about learning how to avoid being stressed. I also feel very stressed about competing.

I competed one week ago. To avoid pre-competition stress I was telling myself that I will make decision on that day if I feel good about it. When asked I'd answer that "I am thinking about it". That made my life much easier.

 

[Respeezy]

I think it is more about learning how to avoid being stressed. .

Thats a good point.

 

[The Apostle]

Of course it will help you in other areas of life. If you compare wrestling, bjj, or any other one on one sport such as tennis, one of the things I like about them is that it is you vs. them. If you are a linebacker on a football team and the other team scores because the DB blew his coverage, it's not so much your fault. On the inside, or the outside, you can "point the finger" at someone else for the reason things went wrong.

You can't in grappling. You are out on the mat alone. It is all on you. How hard did you train? Did you make more sacrifices than the other person? Did you work harder? Could you have done another set of push-ups or practiced more takedowns when you were exhausted?

I feel being aware that everything is on you, in a tournament, in front of everyone, helps in other areas because of that pressure.

If you think about even high school wrestling, there was usually a dual meet during the week and then a full blown tournament every weekend. There you are a pimply, pre-pubescent teenager stepping out onto the mat in front of your whole school, friends, girls, family, teachers. Some schools had a spotlight centered just over the wrestling mat so that the entire gym was dark except for you and your opponent on the mat. If you made the finals of a tournament, then you had 7-15 other schools watching too. Lots of pressure. Do you really think standing up in front of the class after that to give a 2 minute speech was stressful?

Now that we're adults though, apply it to aspects of your life now. Have to give a presentation? Nervous? Well you did just put it all on the line in training and out on the mat in front of probably hundreds of people. Trying to land the next big client over a rival firm? Did you work harder than the other company trying to get the same customer? Could you have done more?

Wow, this is getting long, but one more thing. I used to be on a submarine. A huge chunk of the Navy is drilling, drilling, and drilling. We would drill casualties over and over for days every week so that in an emergency we could still carry out our actions if we were dead tired ("not going to practice this until we get it right, we're going to practice this until we can't get it wrong.") Fires, flooding, injuries, etc.

Even now 20 years later, that pressure and stress applied to me then pays dividends now. I know that for the most part, life is pretty simple. Even emergencies at work aren't really that big of a deal in the bigger picture. Nobody is dying, we're not going to sink to the bottom of the ocean and implode.

I think a good question to ask yourself is why you get so stressed. Will you be embarrassed if you lose? Are you nervous because you know you could have done more? And then this little motivator...

 

[biscuitsbrah]

It makes you more of a man. Every time you compete you are a little more alpha male than before.

 

[j123]

I am just wondering about the effects outside of bjj competition, more in terms of what it can do for me in general life. Because quite frankly the stress isnt worth it just for bjj ( for me) even if it gets less. I mean i did some competitions and some times there is more stress than other times, but it is not really gettig less in a linear way or anything.

I haven't competed in BJJ, but I have competed in some Muay Thai fights (4 fights, 3 exhibitions).
No major carry over to general life.
I do tend to get adrenaline surges over normal things though. Once when I got called into HR by a complaint, when the room got quiet and I was being told of the complaint, I felt a slight surge coming up. It subsided afer I realized the BS it was and nothing was going to happen.

But in terms of competing, I go through the same roller-coaster every-time:
beginning of camp (8 weeks): nervous as fuck
mid camp (4 weeks): confident, but a bit nervous
2 weeks out: panic mode, I get hit with a move in sparring I didn't drill, and start to overthink how I should've of done so, etc. Why am I doing this, maybe if I get hit with a car, I'll have an excuse to ditch the event (10sec later I realize the retarded thought it was, and scrap that idea entirely)
1 week out: confident and ready to go
2 days before: nervous again, will I make weight, etc
day of: ready, excited, embracing it, can't wait for it-type emotions

Cerrone went over this somewhat in a vid/highlight before, I feel it relates to everyone who competes in combat sports

 

[71Fish]

I think learning to deal with tournament stress help immensely in my personal/work life.
Like most people, I really hate public speaking. But I have to do it all the time, and I'm usually telling people who make way more money than me that they aren't doing their job well enough. After getting pounded and choked out on the mat (tourney or just training) you think I can't deal with a few tough questions? Bring it on.

Not much is more stressful than (The Apostle already said it) being on the mat. Do you remember how stressful it was that first day you showed up to your BJJ/fight school and had everybody look at the new guy?

 

[Uchi Mata]

I am just wondering about the effects outside of bjj competition, more in terms of what it can do for me in general life. Because quite frankly the stress isnt worth it just for bjj ( for me) even if it gets less. I mean i did some competitions and some times there is more stress than other times, but it is not really gettig less in a linear way or anything.

I don't think BJJ competition benefits you much outside of helping you improve at BJJ. If that's not enough, don't do it. Presumably you're an adult, you probably don't need to learn lessons about striving and not giving up and focusing on a goal (the sort of things kids learn from athletic competition), so if the stress is severe and you don't care enough about improving your grappling to compete then don't do it.

 

[Respeezy]

@ The apostle, j123 and the others thanks for the replies.
And that video of cowboy is awesome.
More replies still welcome obviously.

 

[pistol3]

Competing for me is still a pretty high stress situation, i am very tensed especially in the week before competition and find it hard to think and focus on other stuff.
Therefore i do not compete much, i like it but the costs are too high in terms of being unproductive, stressed and unable to focus on other things.

I have the exact same problem! I can't focus on work, or anything else really other than jiu jitsu the week before a tournament. I think the mental aspect leading up to the competition is even tougher than the fight. The funny thing is that winning or losing a jiu jitsu competition will have no real impact on my life. All the pressure and stress is self-induced. It definitely discourages me from competing more. I have not figured out what to do about it. Like the others said, the solution is probably to start competing as much as you can and building confidence in yourself. I think a lot of my nervousness and stress comes from a lack of confidence in myself to able to perform to the best of my abilities on tournament day.

 

[JustTheTip]

Until recently I competed very often.My brother still teases me about how nervous I was for my first few competitions. The thing is, the more you compete, the less stressed you get. For me, I just realized that nobody in the building cares about my match as much as I did.The bigger the tournament, the less people even watching you because there are so many matches going on at the same time as yours. Another thing I realized was that people really forget about your match even if it went bad. I remember watching Cobrinha get arm bared fairly quickly at Pans by Rafa. At the time I just felt so bad for Cobrinha because his school was so hot and everybody was watching.Then a few months later,it just seemed like everybody forgot about it and that loss really didn't effect him. That there really made me realize how much I overrated the effects of my matches win or lose.
Competing has really helped me in non-bjj life because regular public things are small potatoes compared to stepping on the mat against a guy who has been training hard to tap me.

 

[Respeezy]

It seems like people have different types of nervousness or rather different reasons to be nervous.
Some of you emphasize being nervous over things like being watched.

I feel pretty confident in my skills and i actually sort of enjoy "showing my jiu jitsu to people", definitely not saying i do not worry at all about these things because i also do, but it doesnt seem to be my main nervousness creator.

The cause of my nervousness is more that i think about it the whole time and i sort of start feeling like its 2 minutes before my match already a week before and i am in a tensed ready to go state a lot of the time which is exhausting, stressfull on my nervous system and makes it hard to focus on other things.

I mean who can have an intelligent discussion, pick out wallpaper or concentrate on studying when he's pumped with adrenaline to fight for his life with a bear