So while I’m sat on a train heading to Brighton I have a lot of time on my hands so today I want to talk about the average Joe’s competition mindset. See the reason I haven’t blogged in a while is because I have been mostly preparing to compete at the Welsh Open in May and while I may not be the most physically gifted BJJ practitioner in the world, I believe that everyone should compete a few times at their respective weight and belt category, just so you can measure where your skills are against other people and clubs.

Cutting weight is a huge part of competition, with many athletes looking to make weight in a weight category that will give them the best advantage. The best way to cut weight fast is through the Ketogenic diet, which is a High Protein, high fat, low carb diet. A lot of people will look to bulletproof or keto oils to supplement their high fat diet. Once the body goes into ketosis body fat will just melt off.

When competing you need to focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses, which is where my preparation fall flat. I always look at trying to improve my weaknesses instead of focusing on growing my strengths. When my guard gets passed, I focus on why my guard was passed instead of utilising my explosive bridging. So this year I’ve gone back to the drawing board and am focusing on what makes me a good fighter instead of how to stop other people beating me.

Thinking positively

When I roll hard for competition I always feel deflated after my fights because I didn’t perform to my best ability or I finished the fight under mount. What I had forgotten is the 12 points I had already scored beforehand and the fact that if it was a real BJJ match, I would have won. I need to think about the whole game and not the moment.

I also have a problem a thinking more about the other person instead of myself, I focus on their game instead of mine and this time it’s hopefully something I can fix before the time comes. At the moment I’m thinking about how many points I score instead of how many they scored.

Hopefully by putting this down on paper I can focus more on being a good fighter than how other fighters are better than me.