There are two Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments coming up in February in Colorado, one in Denver and the other in Colorado Springs: Grappling Industries on the 5th and NAGA on the 12th. Here is a guide to help you prepare. Read on for great tips and tricks to get you ready for your first tournament and helpful tools even if you are a veteran competitor to gain the edge and get that gold.
So, you’ve decided to enter your first jiu jitsu tournament. That’s great, most people never compete so you should be proud of yourself for even thinking about it. But now how do you prepare? What can you expect? I participated in my first competition in the beginning of December, and I am here to share what I learned from that experience. Spoiler: I lost every match and there are many things I could have done differently.
Pre-Tournament
Are you ready?
I started jiu jitsu in early August of 2021 and felt that I was ready to compete within the first two months of training. I am a competitive person and have competed in many sports previously so I thought, naturally, after my two months of 3-4 classes/rolls per week I should be able to compete. It was only after a conversation with my coach that he convinced me to wait a little longer in my training before I tried a competition. White belt is a very, very deep division as the participants could have been training anywhere from a couple of months to more than a year, with some people fully deserving a blue belt. It was very naïve of me, in retrospect, to think that I would be even a worthy opponent after only training for two months. This is not to say that you should only compete if you think you will win, rather, competing before you are ready physically and mentally can lead to a discouraging experience, when the goal of competition is to inspire furthered commitment and improvement.
Expectations
Your mentality going into the tournament is critical because it dictates what you are going to get out of it. If you go into a tournament with high expectations for yourself, expecting to beat everyone and come away with the gold, you are only dooming yourself to disappointment when you lose. And you will lose a match or two, especially at your first tournament. Fixation on winning will lead to fixation on losing which is unproductive, wildly unmotivating, and the opposite of what participating in a tournament is supposed to be about. Rather than going in looking to win everything you must go in with the intent to learn from the experience. That knowledge should be used to improve your jiu jitsu and do better in future tournaments. A phrase that is very important to remember is “we do not lose, we either win or we learn.” This way, no matter the outcome of the tournament you will feel you have come away with something instead of feeling that you have only lost.
Preparation
- Rolls/Training
First and foremost, your instructional classes will not be enough. You need to roll live, and you need to live roll hard. You MUST train at competition level pace and intensity. If you do not do this then you will get smacked by everyone who did. Competition intensity is nothing like rolling with people at your gym and without preparation you will be taken completely by surprise and probably lose. Rest day(s) before a tournament are necessary but, in the weeks before, you should be rolling hard. Not all gyms allow their lower stripe white belts to roll, and some don’t even allow it until blue belt. In this case, you should almost certainly wait to compete until you can get real and intense rolls in. At High Altitude, you start to roll live in Intermediate BJJ class which has a 2 stripe white belt minimum requirement.
- Cardio
If you are training as hard as I mentioned above your cardio should be solid but there is no such thing as too much cardio. At white belt, matches are 5 minutes long and sometimes you are going back-to-back with little to no breaks in between. Also, this being your first tournament, your stress and anxiety will often cause an adrenaline dump that leaves you exhausted during or after a match. It is a horrible feeling and having better cardio will allow you to recover quicker. You should be doing aerobic and anerobic cardio, not just one or the other.
- Should I cut weight?
I’m going to come out and say this but absolutely do NOT cut for your first tournament. If you are slowly slimming as a result of your training and diet, then that’s great but you absolutely should not be doing wrestling/MMA style weight cuts. You are not a professional, there is no cash prize at the end, there is no reason to subject yourself to that kind of discomfort. You need all the energy you can get, do not deprive yourself of food. This might mean you’re in too high of a weight class or you’re in the weird middle of a class, neither of which are ideal, but just do it anyway. Size is important but technique is king. If this is too big of an issue for you then you should withdraw and wait for a time when you’ll be in a comfortable weight class. Speak to your professors regarding weight cut, they will discourage it, especially at this stage in your competition career.
- Game plan
You need a plan. You want to dictate and control what happens, not rely on reacting to what your opponent does. Think about these questions: What are your strong positions? What are your best submissions? What positions do you want to avoid? What should you do when you are in a bad spot? For every strong position you should have one to two submissions that you are good at and for every bad position you should have one to two escapes/sweeps. When you are doing your practice rolls, you need to explicitly focus on these to make them as perfect as they can be. You do not need to be a master of every submission or escape, you need to be very good at a few. I did not do this and I think it was one of the single largest reasons I had such a hard time during my competition. Don’t be discouraged if your plan gets thrown out the window. Be ready to adapt to the challenge. This is why rolling with a variety of partners in different classes is essential to helping your prepare.
- Points or submissions?
This is a difficult question to answer before a match as it depends a lot on you and your opponent. While ending a match sooner with a submission is always better, there are times when holding position/control and securing points is a better option. If there are 30 seconds left and you are up by a single point, sometimes it is better to maintain control rather than attempt a transition or submission attempt where they may escape and have an opportunity to score their own points or submissions. Also, you may be against an opponent who is not tapping to very deep chokes or locks, in which case you might save your energy by focusing on earning points rather than burning out on submissions. As I said, ending a match early with a submission win is always the best option but there is no shame in winning on points. The coaches at High Altitude, suggest putting some points on the board and then going for submissions if time allows.
- Know the rules
A good plan and strategy mean nothing if you get disqualified. All tournaments have specific rules Grappling Industries rules and NAGA rules for what submissions are allowed and not allowed based on age, experience, and division (gi/no-gi). Make sure you know exactly what you are and are not allowed to do in your division, all of which can be found on the website of the tournament you are competing in.
Stay tuned for part two where we will go over what to expect on tournament day.
