Competition lifestyle

Sup guys,

I'm coming up at 5 years training consistent and my instructor has been giving me a lot of positive feedback on my game lately. He was a black belt world champion at his weight in the early 2000s, so I don't take his feedback lightly.

In five years I've trained just about everyday but have only competed maybe 5 or 6 times, while reffing a few other times. The last time I competed was 2 years ago at blue belt. My professor is encouraging me to compete, as he feels I could do really well. At my old school, when I was a white belt/early blue, we had some higher level guys that were uber-competitive during rolls that completely turned me off from the comp culture. Lately tho I'm seeing guys do very well in comp that I do well in rolling with at the academy. I get excited watching the Worlds and EBI's...something about seeing training partners of mine go represent and achieve success gives me confidence that I could have some success. Obviously they're two different universes tho.

I was hoping to reach out to anyone with a decent amount of comp experience about their perspective on how to use competition for personal growth and growth as an instructor. I could ask for growth in your game as well, however I do not think anyone would dispute that your Jiu Jitsu in itself will improve by competing. I didn't want to compete for awhile cuz I didn't want to be branded a medal chaser, moreso out of how I viewed some of those higher belts who were all about chasing medals at whatever tournament they could afford to go to. In other words, I didn't want to do it for the 'wrong reasons,' for whatever that's worth to you. Maybe it was just a sour first exposure to comp. I've been the other extreme, the lifestyler, rolling, eating, sleeping, rolling some more, sorta thing. Being single, sacrificing social events for training, traveling all over to train, training during times when I probably should be doing other shit;). I am really at an odds of whether or not to put it out there. My goal is to become a top-notch teacher as well as a ref at bigger tournaments, I would be open to competing more with the right perspective. I feel there could be great personal benefit. I had surgery on my L4/L5 disk (microdiskectomy) to basically shave it down since it was protruded. This was back in January. I was at the academy everyday while recovering and the two months I took off were loaded with mental stimulation. I came back and although my body needed some tuning up, my game and my mind were never better. Now I'm at a crossroads.


TLDR: Please feel free to share how comp has helped with your personal development and/or development as a coach. Also, if you have any stories of having surgery and then coming back later to have success at a competition, I'd be very interested to hear :)

Best advice I can give you is this: compete for yourself. No matter what the outcome will be, you will find that the people who love you will still love you and the shit-talkers will still be talking shit.

F**k it. I'm competing.

Just get in there and compete... I love competing usually do about 8-10 comps a year. You soon learn what works and what doesnt under pressure and thats one of the best things for your development. Im one of those people who studies my losses rather than my wins, and looks at my mistakes and what I need to work on in the gym. This will accelerate your journey and make you a better grappler imo