WARNING: If you’re considering competing, but haven’t made up your mind, you may want to avoid this article. Go watch some tournament submission highlight reels, preferably set to heavy metal music, and get pumped up.
People frequently ask me why I don’t compete. First, let’s clear some things up:
- It isn’t because I’ve never done it and am scared to try. I have competed before. The opinions in this article are based on experience through several tournaments, run by several different organizations, over several years.
- It isn’t because I’ve never won. I’ve won some (and lost some). This isn’t a whine-fest because I can’t cut it and need to justify not trying.
- I’m not evangelizing. This is how *I* feel about competing, for myself, personally. I encourage others to compete. I coach competitors, often very successfully.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, here’s the executive summary of Why Eric Doesn’t Like Competing in BJJ:
- Competitive spirit. Drive to be (perceived as) “the best”. I don’t have it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in America, where sport is life and winning is all.
- In that spirit: I’m not the best. I know I’m not the best. There will always be somebody better at my weight and rank and age and experience level. If I come home with a gold, it just means that guy (really those guys, plural) didn’t happen to be there that day. This diminishes the value of my “gold”.*
- As combat sports go, BJJ is fairly “pure” – that is, despite the competition rule set, a tournament match is pretty close to A Real Fight. However, some people are determined to bring home the “victory” no matter what, so they study how to work the system and finagle the rules. I consider this unsportsmanlike and sleazy. It diminishes the value of a gold medal. In an ideal world, the winner would be the better fighter, not the better “player”. (It should be noted that I know some people who win matches and bring home medals with unimpeachable integrity. These people have my utmost respect.)
- The value of a victory is wildly variable. Unless you were there on that particular day watching that particular competitor, you have no way of knowing whether he brought home a silver after fighting five deep against tough opponents, breaking a rib, and losing the final by one advantage point; or took gold in a two-man bracket by squashing his one opponent who had to move up in weight because his bracket was empty. Even in a single match, you get your hand raised whether you submitted your opponent in 20 seconds or scored one advantage point on an almost-sweep and then stalled the rest of the match.*
- To expand on that point, a medal doesn’t mean much. There are so many divisions that bringing home a medal is almost a foregone conclusion. Let’s do some rough math on a hypothetical example: IBJJF has nine weight brackets for adult males. Times five belts. Times three medals. That’s 135 medals. A biggish tournament has about 600 competitors total. Let’s say half of those fight in adult (as opposed to master’s) male divisions. So just by walking on the mat, any of those guys has a 45% chance of coming home with a medal – win or lose.
- Luck of the draw sucks. Most competitions are single-elimination. This means you can be the second-best fighter in a 30-man bracket, but if you happen to fight the best one in your first (or second, or third, or fourth) match, you walk away with nothing, same as the worst fighter in the bracket. Conversely, the fourth-worst fighter can get a first-round bye, beat the three worst fighters in the bracket, lose the last match and come away with a silver.*
- Cutting weight is stupid and unfair, not to mention dangerous. This is one place where IBJJF has it right: they weigh you right before you get on the mat. Most other organizations have weigh-ins the day before; the guy you’re fighting might be 15lbs overweight because his coach knows how to banana-bag him after the weigh-ins.
- Tournaments are notoriously poorly organized. You are pretty much guaranteed to spend most of the day waiting for your bracket to be called. Then once it is called, you had better be there or you’re disqualified (no refunds). And you’ve got to be ready to jump on the mat right away. So you’ve got two choices: stay warmed up all day (and be exhausted and dehydrated when your turn comes); or grapple cold, which is a great way to get injured.
- Some people love the adrenaline. I hate it. It doesn’t make me stronger or faster; it makes me nauseous and weak – and then I crash.
*A lot of this averages out over time. But you don’t see people giving you the whole picture when they’re showing off their medal case.
Now, I don’t want this to be a 100% downer article, so it’s only fair if I list some of the positives of competition as well:
- It takes courage and heart to step on the mat all alone, face off against a complete stranger, and put your training to the test in a public forum.
- A tournament is great motivation to step up your training and make big gains in your skill, strength, endurance, speed, etc.
- You can’t beat the camaraderie you glean from going to a tournament with your teammates, watching each other fight (win or lose), screaming from the sidelines, congratulating (or commiserating) afterwards, and going out for a big, unhealthy meal and drinks afterwards. (I get this from accompanying and coaching my teammates; but *somebody* has to do the fighting.)
