Instructor advising a team mate not to enter comp yet

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Kevza

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Just wanted to throw this out there as I know a lot of people say competing is good for experience regardless of ability.

Anyway a team mate of mine is wanting to do his 1st comp in a few months time. Hes a white belt and its a gi comp.

Hes pretty decent positional, defensively but maybe lacks solid submission attacks. Hes in his 30s , been training roughly twice a week for about 18 months and is of slim athletic build.

Ive told him to get in there and don't worry about placing and hes all for it, but hes just told me our instructor has advised him not to compete just yet. Whats opinions on this?
 
Sounds like your instructor wants him to sandbag if he's been training a year and a half, doesn't suck and is in good shape.
 
My first thought is that he should compete. Next thought is to ask what reason the instructor gives for that advice.
 
Well ive only spoke to the briefly about it today, but I think he feels hes not training enough. Im really not sure. I mean for me personally, the guy probably wont win but it shouldn't really be about that .
 
thats odd every instructor ive met would recommend everyone compete as soon as possible , like you said win/lose is not the point.
 
he sucks so much that he may get discouraged and quit BJJ altogether.
 
18 month white belt training twice a week AND he's told not to compete (despite a training time at which many people would already be a blue)?... that's odd.
 
the only time i was told not to enter a competition was because my instructors knew that the organizers werent worth a damn and id be wasting my money.
 
My instructor first told me not to enter a competition after only a month and half of training. He thought about it for a few seconds then said "you know what go for it". A few minutes before the tournament I asked the assistant instructor how do the points and rules go. His advice was "Just submit everyone then you do not have to worry about points".
 
best is to go early.

otherwise you build all that tensions and expectations for learning the hard way later on (18 months in that case).

only way to get better at competing is to compete.
 
sounds very strange, even if he sucks. maybe he feels that if this guy gets destroyed it will look bad on him?
 
I don't know what reason the instructor gave.

But to be honest, I think white belt competitions, especially for the older population, are kind of dumb. For younger guys with MMA-aspirations, it's probably a good idea.

Otherwise, white bet comps are a compete train wreck in every aspect, and a waste of money. Not to mention, white-bet skill levels are radically different.
 
hard to say without actually knowing the situation, but i know my instructor encourages competition and probably the only time he might advise against it is if he feels a student may respond to competition in such a way that he may be a danger himself or others, i.e. not tapping or going too hard even in a competition setting.
 
Rivet L said:
I don't know what reason the instructor gave.

But to be honest, I think white belt competitions, especially for the older population, are kind of dumb. For younger guys with MMA-aspirations, it's probably a good idea.

Otherwise, white bet comps are a compete train wreck in every aspect, and a waste of money. Not to mention, white-bet skill levels are radically different.
Click to expand...

your talking shit, im old and enjoyed all my white belt comps.
 
jujijimmy said:
your talking shit, im old and enjoyed all my white belt comps.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry. That was not my intent. But large brackets of guys that don't (quite) know what they're doing is a recipe for injury (and false positives/negatives). And at the end of the day all we learn is who's the most athletic. If the skills were there, they wouldn't be white belts.
 
The fuck? I did my first comp after 2 months of training bjj. Just this last weekend my gym had two guys who had been training for 1 and 2 months compete. I did well back then, they did well last weekend. And this is training once or twice a week.

You either compete or you don't. Unless you're injured, putting a time line on when you're ready is just an excuse.
 
Kevza said:
Just wanted to throw this out there as I know a lot of people say competing is good for experience regardless of ability.

Anyway a team mate of mine is wanting to do his 1st comp in a few months time. Hes a white belt and its a gi comp.

Hes pretty decent positional, defensively but maybe lacks solid submission attacks. Hes in his 30s , been training roughly twice a week for about 18 months and is of slim athletic build.

Ive told him to get in there and don't worry about placing and hes all for it, but hes just told me our instructor has advised him not to compete just yet. Whats opinions on this?
Click to expand...

I told my coach I was going to compete and he criticized me at the academy and on FB for wanting to do so. I went and competed in 2 tournaments and lost and competed in another and won my division in No-Gi. Now my instructor is acting all nice to me. Im going to 4 other tournaments between february and july.

Long response but I believe he should compete if he wants. It'll help him find some holes in his game and set a good goal for himself.
 
I have no idea what this guy's particular situation is. But I am not too shocked to hear about an instructor advising someone not to compete. I myself advise people not to compete all the time.

I see a lot of people compete and learn absolutely nothing from the experience. Why? It is because they did not prepare properly for it, and as a result, they already had an excuse for losing in their mind before they even went.

If you want to guarantee that you learn nothing from a competition, make an excuse.

For example, I will hear a guy say something like "Well, I haven't been training much, and my cardio is terrible. But I think I'm just going to compete anyway for the learning experience."

That's a great way to learn nothing. On the off chance he wins, he won't change a thing. On the much better chance that he loses, he also won't change a thing. He will just blame his loss on his lack of cardio, which he already knew going in anyway. He will just tell himself that had he trained properly, things would have gone differently. He had his excuse all ready to go before he even stepped on the mat. Absolutely nothing changes, win or lose.

Anytime I see this happening, I advise the guy to give the tournament a pass and wait for another one that he is willing to try without any excuses. Those are the tournaments you actually learn from, the ones you are fully prepared for and are just willing to accept the results with no qualification.

I think competing when you have your excuses lined up beforehand is probably even detrimental. It is much easier emotionally than actually putting yourself on the line, so it becomes a trap. Then you think you are doing all of these competitions, but you are really not. You are just tricking yourself.

If I waited for my knee to heal, if I had been training more consistently, if my weight was right, etc, etc, etc.

Not sure if that is this guy's case, but any instructor is bound to see a ton of this in the average gym. So I don't think it is weird at all to tell a guy not to compete if he is already making excuses for why he isn't fully ready.
 
How consistent is his training? Does he really train 2x per week? Or does he just show up every so often??
 
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