My advice for anyone who has not done a tournament before

I'm entering my first tournament in November.

I'm a Judo guy entering a BJJ competition. So I'm expecting to get some good throws in, unless someone tries to go koala bear on me.

Should be an interesting experience.

Thanks for the tips.
 
Alright, a new tip for you guys. Something at least that I find is a very good idea for tournaments.

Even though the grappling tournaments are open to any grappling style, we can pretty much agree they're Gi and No Gi BJJ tournaments. In the No Gi, there could be some SAMBO or wrestling moves, but it's still mainly Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

BJJ's big contribution to grappling was not the submissions. Neither was Judo's. The lineage of Jujitsu, in a nutshell, went Jujitsu-Judo-BJJ. When the Japanese taught Judo to the Brazilians, (I forget the name of the Japanese guy) they were teaching Judo with some classic Jujitsu submissions. So the Japanese were already doing submission fighting; they weren't just doing Judo. So if you're in a BJJ tournament, submissions are not your only friend.

No, what makes BJJ different is one main philosophy: position before submission. This is a safer, more rational approach to groundfighting both on the street and in sport competition. Before you look for a submission, look to gain a dominant, stable position; one that maximizes your offensive options and minimizes your opponent's defensive options. That way, when you seek a submission, you have a better chance of finishing it and a smaller chance of having your position reversed.

So, always, ALWAYS take a dominant position before seeking a submission. Always. Never get greedy with submissions, no matter how good you are at them. In the gym, I am really good with toeholds. I've tapped BJJ purple belts with them before. When I competed, I broke the guy's guard, and I got greedy. I thought I could end the fight early with a toehold. Instead of gaining a dominant position, or at least a good solid leglock position, I got greedt and stupid and gave him my back while going for a toehold. The result: I got rear naked choked. Something I shouldn't have been caught by.

Here's the way I think it should be done. And if you disagree, of course, please give your input. The purpose of the forum is to share knowledge and opinions, not to listen to one person. In the gym, keep it active as possible. Go for submissions all the time. And to get better at holding positions, drill positional wrestling. In other words, BJJ with no submisisons. Stay after class with a partner and just work takedowns, guard passes, sweeps, and reversals with no submissions. Attempt to hold a dominant position as long as possible when you achieve one, and attempt to reverse a weak position as quickly as possible. But during class, never stay still, and go for lots of submissions. When you get to competition, don't go for lots of submissions. Instead, seek the position that you work best from, and hold it. Once there, go for your bread-and-butter submission. It should be fairly simple, it should have a good set-up, and it should always have a back-up plan. If he defends that submission, you should already have another move set up to counter that, or at the very least, he shouldn't be able to reverse the situation.

For example, you should not attempt to take someone down, and hope to submit them with a can opener or a forearm choke. First off, they're easy to escape, and second off, they're not reliable submissions and you're not in a good position. Instead, seek to pass the guard, and attain side mount. There are lots of variations on the side mount, and you should either have one that you're best with, or you should be able to switch between them. When you get to side mount, if you feel you work best there, stay in side mount. Do not go for mount if you're not strong in the mount. Now, as long as you can hold that side mount, and as long as he doesn't have points on you, you already have won the fight. I suggest switching between styles of sidemount though, because if you stay still for too long he will figure out a way to escape it. Scarf holds, modified scarf holds, etc. When you're in YOUR best position, you should know several submissions from there as well. Do not, do not, do NOT get greedy with submissions. You're in the dominant position. You have time. So relax, and let your main focus be holding that position. Work some setups, and take the submission ONLY when the opportunity presents itself. If you learned the moves correctly, and you practiced them enough, then you will spot the openings for them.

I'm going to quote Bas Rutten on this (I've been working on memorizing the Big DVDs of Combat before I move on to the Sperry Vale Tudo and Submission Grappling DVDs). "Position before submission" and "NEVER give up your position." He's right. Follow those two rules. The name of the game is positioning. As long as you remember that, you'll be all set.

So, feel free to disagree (catch wrestlers probably will), but if you want to take advice from me, follow this list.

What to do before and during competition

1. Be mentally prepared. You need to be mentally prepared above anything else. With enough self-discipline, even if you're out of shape, your mind can make your body do anything. Always be ready for the most important match of your life. Don't doubt yourself, and don't ever be intimidated. Remember your opponent is human just like you, and he can be beaten. You're a lot better than you think you are. Be mentally ready for an all-out sprint to the finish, and psyche yourself up.

2. Be physically prepared. After you have a clear, calm mind that is ready for battle, you should have a physically fit and adept body. During training, you should be treating your body like a temple. Allow yourself one cheat day a week if you really can't lay off the alcohol or junk food, but no more than that. At least 6 days a week, you should be eating good, healthy foods. Always attempt to stay on weight. If you eat right you should never have to cut weight or starve yourself. It's much better to pass up that brownie than to pig out and jump rope in a plastic bag and starve yourself. Do the right cross-training. It should be short and intense. Include lots of sprints in your roadwork routines, and in the gym, never stop or slow down when you roll. Avoid slow, long-distance cardio. Interval routines are your God.

3. Have a game plan. Once you feel like you're mentally ready for the competition, begin thinking about what you're going to do. Mentally rehearse the match in your mind. This is even better to do during the weeks that you're training. First plan a takedown to do. You should be good with this takedown, and you should be invincible to guillotines, sprawls, and whizzers when you hit this takedown. Still, to be safe, you should be practicing how to get out of those situations. If you can, pick 3 ways that you're going to safely get to the ground, and train these obsessively. After planning how you're going to get to the ground, begin planning out your plan of attack, and what you're going to do if things go wrong. When you do a takedown, you should end up in side mount or mount, but if things go wrong and you end up in his guard, have a plan for that. Always be planning ahead, and mentally rehearse it in your mind. Plans are never fool proof, but trust me, it's way better than going out there and improvising. Studies have shown that physically AND mentally practicing something is more effective than just doing one of these. So have a well-thought game plan that covers your ass in all situations.

4. Warm up before every match. You should have sweat dripping off of your forehead when you step onto the mat. If there's not enough room to warm up, wear a sweatshirt, beanie, and sweatpants, and attempt to keep moving. Whatever you do, keep your body very warm, and be sweaty. The only feeling worse than coming onto the mat with cold muscles is losing the match that could've been won with proper preparation. Jump rope, practice takedown shots; whatever you do, keep moving and keep warm. While warming up, remember to keep your mind calm and ready, and remind yourself of your game plan and your ability to do this.

5. When you step on that mat, your opponent is your enemy. I don't care if you know him, if he was your best man at your wedding, whatever; do not go easy on him. You trained your ASS off for this match; you sweat and bled and ran and maybe even starved just to walk into this building, and to top it off, you paid YOUR money to enter this tournament. This guy is trying to take what you've worked for. Remember that. You didn't pay 65 bucks (NAGA pricing is wonderful) to let people wipe up the mat with you. Look him in the eyes, and don't be intimidated by him. You are a wrecking machine. You've prepared yourself for this tournament to the best of your ability, and you're ready to clean house. The only thing standing in the way of the victory is that guy standing in front of you. Trust me. It sounds crazy, but this is the mentality you NEED to have. You cannot observe his big biceps or his mean stare and think "This guy will probably beat me. But I'll try my best and have fun." No. Grappling is fun AFTER the match, when you realize "Hey, that was fun!" You can't have that on your mind during the match. You need to be ready to fight this guy. The only matches I have ever won, in any combat sport, were the ones that I believed in myself and treated my opponent as an enemy. Don't start throwing punches, but do what it takes within the rules to beat him. Crossfaces, digging your chin in his ribs; as long as it doesn't break the rules or leave you open for a submission, do it. There is no holding back.

6. When the match starts, stick to your game plan. You should have planned 3 ways to get to the ground, and trained those until you're really good at them. If you trained to pull guard, and didn't train a low single leg takedown, do NOT go for that low single. Your game plan was revolving around you pulling guard, and you trained that move. Of course, you should've trained 2 other ways, just in case. I am 0-2 with low singles. I rarely train them, and both times I've tried them in competition, I've gotten guillotined. It sounds closed-minded, but seriously, stay with your plan. If you worked hard enough on your game plan, you shouldn't ever have to improvise.

7. POSITION POSITION POSITION. The whole fight revolves around position. Don't listen to anyone in the crowd except for your coach; who should be aware of your plan, and should have approved of it. You don't owe anyone a fancy submission. You owe yourself a victory. Mistakes are made when you get greedy. First get yourself into the best possible position, and HOLD IT until you're ready for the next step. Remember that you should have planned plenty of things to do in this position, and what to do should he get out.

8a. Don't let winning get to your head. Enjoy the feeling of winning; those of us who have won in competition know exactly why we do this crazy thing called jiu-jitsu. To me, there is no better feeling in the world. When you trained your ass off, and you fought a hard fight in a challenging division, and you won, you won't be able to stop grinning. You might feel like laughing. But don't let it go too far. Chances are you did make mistakes, and you were just lucky enough that you didn't get caught in them. After your win, review what you did wrong, and remember to be careful of that. If you have another fight, though, keep yourself in the zone. Be ready to go again.

8b. Lose gracefully. If you lose, you lose. But only think about the loss AFTER the match. Never let the thought of losing come into your mind before your fight. Losing sucks. It's a shitty feeling we all have to deal with. If you lost, it's always one of two things: a) you were outclassed (there are sandbaggers) or b) you made a mistake. Hopefully it's always B. There's lots of room for mistakes. You didn't train right, your game plan wasn't thought-out enough, you got greedy, you didn't warm up; humans are not perfect, and chances are, you are going to make mistakes. But always strive to follow 1-7 perfectly. After you lose, most likely, whether in your head or out loud, you're going to say one word, and it begins with the letter F. After that, relax, and review in your mind what went wrong. Learn from your mistakes. You'll learn a lot more from a loss than you will from a win. Remember, it's real easy to be a man when you're on top, and you won, and everyone is saying your name. What makes a real man is when you're down, and everything is shitty, and you lost, and you can pick yourself back up again.

9. Avoid keeping records. No, I don't mean the kind you play. I mean things like "I'm 5 and 0" or "10 and 1." Don't fall into that. In fact, personally, if I were you, I wouldn't even keep a record. I'm taking it out of my signature after I finish this post. Focus on your achievements, and learn from your mistakes. Records cause people to do ridiculous things. Because all humans have at least some tiny case of OCD, they will overthink imperfection. If you have a nice, shiny, 10-0 record, when you stain it with a loss, you will beat yourself up over it. Don't do that. Who cares what your record is? If you went out and won 1st place in Abu Dhabi, do you think anyone would care what your record is? You could be 0-10, but if you achieve big things, that doesn't even matter. Records are for people with no real goals. If you have a ridiculously good record, get rid of the ego and move up a division. There is ALWAYS tougher competition. Until you're a 5-time consecutive NAGA Absolute Champion, Abu Dhabi 1st place finisher, and National Champion of your country, you can always find better competition. Once you win first place in a division, or once you've been doing BJJ for a longer time than a division asks for, you should move up. You owe it to yourself and to the other people who have been training their ass off. Record-keeping leads to sandbagging; the ultimate display of cowardice.


So, if you're competing, go over that list. Even if you have competed before, go over that list and make sure you're following it. If you disagree, or if you think something should be added, feel free. I'm always open to new ideas, and you should be too. That's the only way we'll ever get better.
 
Addition to rule #3:

You should always be the initiator. You cannot let him come to you, and expect to be good enough to reverse the situation. Pick at least 2 good takedowns, and then train pulling guard for the times that you fight a better wrestler. In any case, you need to be aggressive. Trust me, you cannot wait around like you can in the gym. So your plan should always revolve around YOUR actions first, and then you should have plenty of backups in case he beats that.

For example, you have a double-leg and a pummel-to-body lock planned. This isn't a bad idea, because then you have an attack for the upper body and lower body. Your opponent ends up being a skilled wrestler in upper and lower body, and defends those. You go with your third option and aggressively pull guard. Good choice. Especially if you're good from your guard (you should be; it's inevitable). First off, it's a good idea because then you stop him from being able to earn points for his specialty: takedowns. In NAGA, when you pull guard, a takedown is not awarded to the top man. Also, when you let him come to you and take you down, you take a chance that he will end up in side mount. Why take that chance? Go right into guard.

You need a plan, and you need to aggressively use it.
 
Iceman5592 said:
Alright. For those of you who are more experienced, what I write is going to be really obvious to you most likely. But bear with me for people who haven't competed yet.

I just had my second tournament, and I did really poorly compared to my last one. I went 0-2.

So afterwards, I went over in my mind everything that I did wrong. Well first off, I moved up in divisions. I did Teens Intermediate and Adult Beginner (I have 4 months' experience in No Gi BJJ and I just finished my Sophomore year of high school wrestling). So the competition was tougher.

Okay, so for those of you who haven't competed yet, but think you're ready, the BIG thing about tournaments is (especially NAGA), the grappling is much different from what you're doing in the gym. Because you're going for short fights, and because it's a tournament, guys will go all-out. And they will be fighting you.

For example, at my gym, I have been in 30 and 45 minute matches against guys who have up to a year of experience on me. And they're actually trying. But at tournaments, in those 4 minute matches, I actually get tired. Because people will be going all-out.

So the big thing I came home with after yesterday's NAGA is that I need to learn to carry over my skills into competition. I came unprepared physically and mentally. I barely prepared for this tournament, and I got about 5 hours of sleep the night before. Now, I'm not saying I would've taken 1st place had I prepared and gotten sleep. No, I think I entered challenging divisions (for me), and I was up against good competition. But I got stuffed pretty quickly in both fights, and I KNOW I can do WAY better than I did.

Again, anyone who hasn't competed, just remember this. That you need to come prepared for a war. Warm up before every match. You should have sweat dripping off your forehead when you come into a match. Mentally prepare yourself to physically exert yourself 100% for those 4, 5, or 6 minutes.

Both matches, I had been sitting down the whole time (granted, there was no room to jump rope, and Kipp Kollar was asking that everyone sit), I had only had 5 hours of sleep the night before (thank you insomnia), and I just came in unprepared. When I stepped out onto the mat, I was with guys who were pumped, and full of adrenaline, and I was more nonchalant about the whole thing. As a result, I got caught because I made stupid mistakes both on and off the mat.

Oh well. It was a learning experience. I'll come back next time and do better. Hopefully someone here can learn from my mistakes besides me.


good info. Also, if you have not warmed up properly, you are likely to get serious injuries. I know this from experience.
 
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