Unnecessary Pressure

This is my 3rd IBJJF World Masters, it's the only tournament that I have never taken a podium position (ever ?) since I have been a Black Belt.

I've travelled with my family, our first ever Major International Tournament that we have all fought on, actually it's the FIRST tournament that we have all competed on as a family. Lucky for us it's the BIGGEST BJJ event in the World ... no pressure.

We travelled from Perth to Las Vegas and arrived 2.5 days before we competed. This was a little uneasy in my mind as I think it may be too long between our last rolls at AMMA gym and then jumping in to compete. Anyway, it is what it is.

Emma and myself have always had a strong competition relationship. She competes, I corner her and we (as a general rule) are pretty much unstoppable when we are together like this.

Today, Emma and myself are competing at the same time (yep, we travelled half way around the world to compete at the opposite end of the stadium at EXACTLY the same time). This was the first issue. The second issue is that we had no one to look after our two boys while we competed! The building is the size of Bunnings and it is packed!! (More on this in another blog)

The next issue was making sure we were able to warm up in the bull pen, get into the competitors area and compete (35 minute or so) while are kids are alone.

The last issue was that I needed to win my first round. I had to! For our family to take the podium, I had to get through the first couple of rounds in a tournament that I have never placed in! No pressure at all 😜

I felt comfortable, I had studied my opponent and knew EXACTLY how the bout would pan out .. I spoke to Emma about this before jumping on, telling her how I was going to win! It reinforces the mental projection for me and reassures me that I've got the game plan right!

So, prior to stepping on the mat to compete I had a few additional pressures to contend with. Breathing helps, relaxing helps ...

For me, I needed a tune (head phones on) that took me out of 'competition mode' and into focus mode. I found that the adrenaline of my 'comp mode' beats had pushed my 'dump' too high and I was 'over ready' too 'high to compete' and needed something that brought me back into the zone.

My two songs (which I had mixed into the comp mode bears) - (I'll blog this a little later on) - are 'Body' and 'Jackie Chan'. I had these songs playing during our competition training sessions as well as while I'm stretching post training while I go over my competition training in my head.

To counter the additional pressure, to stay focused and centered I found music to be one of the best things to keep my mind in the zone.

You've got to set the music up in your training and post training so that it means something to you mentally as well as a point of distraction.

Hope this helps