I have been a competitor for a long time. I have been a wrestler for years, and have seen a ton of hours of competition time. I'd get nervous for a match, but not too nervous where it would effect my performance. I'd be able to do tournaments easily. The past 3 BJJ competitions I've competed in have been terrible. I mean, I've placed 2nd, 3 times in a row, which isn't bad, but I feel like I could have done so much more. It feels like I get so nervous that it sucks the stamina right out of me. I try to calm myself, and just relax. But I'm still left with butterflies, a hard sweat, and a racing heart beat. In class I'm able to do 10 minute rounds going hard, and be able to do them fairly easily. Whenever I'm in a tournament, I can barely do 6 minutes. And when it comes to the next match, I'm so exhausted that I barely win. And it only gets worse the more matches I have in a day. I've always been a competitor, and wish to keep on competing for years to come. Any suggestions on how to get rid of my jitters? What techniques do some of you guys use to help you prepare for matches maybe the day of a competition, or weeks and months in advance?
Thanks for any help, it would be appreciated.
Of course you gas. If you are nervous and getting butterfly's then your muscles are tight and are doing more work than necessary. That's why someone like Fedor is calm and relaxed and fine and someone who should be in top shaple like Alistair Overeem always gasses.1. There are some quick relaxation exercises you can do using Bartenieff Movement Fundamentals where you lie down on the floor and close your eyes. (Too complicated to explain here but maybe you can look it up).2. Your breathing patterns are probably being impeded during the tournament so periodically I would remember to breathe. There is a whole Systema DVD and Book on Breathing by Vladimir Vasiliev at Budovidoes that is pretty good. Systema is all about relaxation and not being tense in a fight so it might help you. Breath in through the nose and out the mouth.3. You probably are too focussed on winning and fear that you don't know enough skills to win. So you have to have confidence in your skills and if you don't have those skills get up to speed on them and then you will have more confidence and not let fear make you tense and gas.
I know these situations. You are out of breath, your coordination is out of the window and you feel like you are maybe 20% of the fighter that you are in the gym.
Breathing can help you a lot. "Let every breath" by Vladimir Vasiliev is a great book and you can use the principles for you own conditioning training or in the gym.
Take care
Björn
If you can produce anywhere close to your gym level of performance you should win most matches.
Focus on your performance rather than anything else.
Doesn't it strike you as ironic that you are now nervous about being nervous?
Shit I'd like to get past the first round on my single round eliminations, much less taking a legitimate second (beating other competitors) which would send me to heaven.
I'm still just nervous about training and competing.
Consider yourself lucky.
Maybe there will be some specific advice on this forum that will help you, but basically it sounds like you just need to "philosophically" relax and the actual relaxation will follow.
By "philosophically relax" I mean just put the whole BJJ/competition thing into perspective. It's not Afghanistan or Iraq, it's not having to plug away at a job to feed your kids, it's not an IRS tax audit. IT'S FOR FUN. Remember that, always, some stress is part of the fun (Hans Selye, an early writer on the advantages as well as disadvantages of stress, emphasizes that without some stress we essentially collapse into a couch potato existence) but too much stress ruins the fun and, as you have discovered, actually undercuts performance.
Ok, now that I thought about Selye, here's a tip:
Write down an inventory of the things that cause you stress at your meets.
Then see if there are any simple ones you can cross off - like getting to the meet earlier, if getting there barely on time stresses you out; waiting in the car reading a book, if the atmosphere of the auditorium stresses you out; having a calm friend with you if your current support group is too hyper. Tapering off more the week before the match. Etc.
Use your head. It's your best friend. Besides being overlooked by most grapplers (but not those with a wrestling background) as being another useful "post".
I don't get it. If you wrestled, what's the difference?
get the power lung,it wil teach you to breath
MMAjiujitsuboxer - I think its more of the fact I don't eat much before a tournament so I can make weight.
I walk around at 170 and compete in the 169 so i don't wanna put anything on.
your kidding right?
When I wrestled in high school...Our coach would tell the nervous guys to go jerk off before their match. They usually went to State.
Seriously.
CJJScout - I don't get it. If you wrestled, what's the difference?
I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I'm a wrestler at heart, and I'm still adjusting to BJJ. I mean, I've adapted to BJJ extremely well. I got my blue belt only a few months after I started training from a legitimate BJJ world champ. But I still feel like I'm not a BJJ guy yet. I've train alot, watch bjj instructionals, and have even traveled to Brazil. Hopefully I can qualm my nervousness.
I've looked into some of the suggestions other members have made, and I'm going to start trying them. Thanks guys. If none of that stuff works, I'm thinking about seeing a sports psychologist. Anyone have experience with them?
I know a top competitor, whose identity will remain anonymous, who swears by their sports psychologist.
Yeah, I don't get it. I wrestled and got used to nerves way back in the day. Now I compete for fun, don't care if I win or lose.
Im willing to place money that it isn't the tournament or competitions that make you nervous. Its the thought of loosing, and the pressure and stress you put on yourself not to loose. I know Im not breaking any new news here, but thats why you roll so easily in class and probably dominate, and gas out in comps.
My advise is simple but probably really hard, just enter tournaments to have fun, win or loose. Look at it like a learning experience, and try not to put really high expectations on yourself and you'll roll much better. With those high expectations comes doubts, then loss of confidence, and then nervousness you might actually loose, then its harder to think clearly and you roll tight. Look at all the top competitors, noone wins every tournament. Try to change your outlook on competitions and you probably won't have as much stress and will probably roll closer to your potential. Hope this FRAT helped!
Before a match, every time your thoughts drift to worrying about when you are going to win or lose, or whether your conditioning is good enough, or other such thoughts about your performance, IMMEDIATELY stop those thoughts and start thinking about your game.
Visualize what techniques you will use in given situations. Run through possible scenarios that may play out during the match and what you will do. Fill your head with with specific thoughts about the things you do well in each situation. Incorporate little visualizations about how it will feel to pull off the techniques. Technique comes from the mind and your mind needs to be in the fertile technique oriented state to be able to create the solutions to the problems that will present themselves during the match.
Try yoga and meditation, and then when you are at the tournament you can use the yoga to loosen up and the meditation for the breathing, relaxation and mental balance. It actually works really well.
The idea to go rub one out before the match, while funny, can work quite often also. Try getting road head on the way to the tournament.
My other answer is to take a trip to gain confidence in your game. Some people have transformed themselves from good competitors to world class by training with someone with a winning mindset. The perfect example is Lovato. The guy was a good competitor and had solid BJJ. He started training with Saulo and Xande and he has become a machine. The great training with them is certainly one aspect of it but the bigger one, imo, is that the think and train like winners. They expect to win and losing is not and option. When this mindset gets into you everything changes from you 'trying to win' and it becomes seek and destroy.
Some great advice by everyone.
I always made an effort to slow myself down and slow down the pace of the match, but I think thats just my style though
Great advice
Thanks for all the advice guys.
AlliancePA - I think that may be a good idea. When I wrestled, I was on a very successful team that was expected to win every match. Not only win, but dominate. And that's what we did, DOMINATE. I think I have gotten away from that mentality. Instead of expecting to win, I am now hoping to win. At match time, I no longer reflect on my training, but instead I replace my confidence with nervousness. I think this is key; I became less confident, and it allowed myself to doubt my abilities, and thus becoming nervous.
sovann - Scott Sonnon gave me some good advice, archived by Stick
Awesome link, thank you.
AlliancePA - Try yoga and meditation, and then when you are at the tournament you can use the yoga to loosen up and the meditation for the breathing, relaxation and mental balance. It actually works really well.
....
I'm a big fan of yoga and meditation, but the gulf between the mental quietude and physical relaxation induced by yoga and meditation, and the tension of a tournament, is so great that I don't think yoga or meditation can really bridge the gap on tournament day.
But I DO think they are terrific in controlling the overall level of stress in the weeks prior to the tournament, plus they are really good for speeding recovery. It's hard to heal quickly if you are having trouble sleeping or are just generally jittery all the time.
That having been said, SOME of the benefits of yoga and meditation can rub off on your during tournament day, I just wouldn't expect any magic cure.
The western way of dealing with competition day stress - cardio work, stretching, chilling and listening to music or motivation pep talks - may be more effective. You just have to be careful not to overload yourself, which just increases the level of stress anyway. As one great coach told me, you have to want to win like hell, and not give a damn, both at the same time.
BTW, in terms of yoga and meditation, there's a lot to choose from these days.
In yoga, there's hot room yoga (Bikram) and regular temperature yoga, yoga with slow static postures, yoga with a lot of strenuous movement. Thanks to the '60's hippies, yoga schools are everywhere, plus they are populated mainly by hot, thin chicks. :-)
I also really believe that some of the so-called "soft" styles of Chinese kung fu, like tai chi and pa kua, provide a very soothing effect on both mind and body, and in some cases are easier to accomplish than classic silent "sitting meditation" a la Zen style, for example. However, they take a substantial investment of time to learn, and most of us are focusing whatever extra time we have on learning more bjj.
If you don't have the time to invest in learning tai chi, and chi gung is too "out there" (the flowery effete stuff old Chinese ladies and men do in the park) there IS an alternative in the form of some static postures (Zhan Zhuang) similar to the good ole horsestance that are really good for calming the mind, don't make you lethargic or put you to sleep, and can be done in a five to fifteen minute routine (but not at a tournament or you will invite great hilarity and rolled eyes):
http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Kam-Chuen-Lam/dp/0736044809/ref=pd_sim_b_2
If you ever really get into it (something I wouldn't recommend, it's possible to get "hooked" on meditation), this guy is really good:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?_encoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Yang%20Jwing-Ming
Since I like to multi-task I (which, ironically, is counter to the basic meditation principle of emptying your mind), I like the "standing meditation" exercises since I get some exercise while working on my meditation.