I started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) a little more than two years ago, approximately one month before my son was born. I guess I skipped training for a few weeks. My coach is a still active competitor having already won gold in several european or world championships in his weight division. He is strongly encouraging us to compete in local tournaments or even the european championships. After six to seven months of training I was convinced to go to my first competition.
From time to time the gym is arranging competitions locally - which is a great opportunity to test your skills against real resistance. Competition match schedules are usually public only one or two days before the event and your first match could be at 9am already. I dislike having to drive for hours very early in the morning or needing to pay for a place to stay the night before event. Attending a competition that can be reached within an one hour drive is rare and should be considered seriously. Because a handful of my team mates was attending the competition and my coach was encouraging me, there were just to many arguments to go for it. So I was about to have a my first fight. On the day of the competition the match schedule is constantly changing, due to athletes missing and fights ending early due to submissions. It might happen that your match starts one hour earlier in the worst case. That is why I came two hours earlier with my partner. I barely remember anything from before the fight - only the feeling of nervousness and anxiety. About 45 mins before the estimated match begin I was warily trying to get warmed-up constantly looking around, monitoring how the others did it.
Finally my name was called and I went to my mat. I shook hands with the referee and with my opponent. The match started. What really took me by surprise was the force I felt, when my opponent grabbed my collar and pulled. I had never experienced such intensity during sparring before and I immediately knew that this was different. My response was to resist with equal force. We somehow ended up in open guard with me on top and I quickly passed guard and managed to get side control. Again, I was surprised about the intensity at which my opponent was trying to get out of it. I was unable to keep him pinned and I got swept (reversal of positions). We ended up in half-guard with me being the bottom player. We spent the majority of the round in this position and I was already gassed out (after probably 1:30 minutes into the match) - barely framing and keeping my opponent from passing. I felt like I was fighting for my life, while his corner was constantly in my ear as he got close to pass multiple times. The match ended 3:2 in my favor. My heart was pounding out of my chest, I could barely stand, my forearms were burning. If the referee would not have taken my arm and lifted it as you can see in image, I would not have been able to myself. My forearms were so burnt out that I was unable to make a fist. The coach recommended to pour cold water over my forearms to get rid of the stiffness as my next match was already around the corner. I had maybe one or two matches in between until my next match. But I was done.
When the next match started my whole body felt heavy, I was exhausted. My opponent took me down quickly, passed around me and when he was about to pull on my arm for an armbar I already tapped as I was unable to resist anything and I was afraid of injuries. It was my opponents first match of the competition and he was still fresh. As this was a single elimination tournament, in which you can no longer continue after loosing one match - this was the end. We were five athletes in this whitebelt -94kg division and I scored the bronze medal.
Even though this first tournament felt terrifying in a way, I was proud, that I did pass my opponents guard and won the match. It was a great feeling to overcome my performance anxiety, nervousness and my opponent in general. The little cherry on top was to get a medal as a little reminder of what I have experienced and achieved.
Over the course of the past two years (and a few months) I attended more competitions. Most of them were local ones, but I did also once travel to Hamburg to attend an Abu-Dhabi Jiu-Jitsu Pro (AJP) competition and participated in the IBJJF European Championship. Each competition is a cherished memory as I had to overcome my fears every time, had larger audiences, had very tough and strategic matches, defeated fearsome grim-looking, bald and tattoed dudes and of course had to deal with loosing matches or not performing to my expectation. My favorite competition of them all is probably winning a silver medal as a whitebelt at AJP Tour in Hamburg. Firstly, the weigh-in the day before was already really crowded. The atmosphere was different than the local competitions I was used to. The location was larger, there was way more audience than I was used to. The audience, especially the different teams, were screaming from the ranks in order to cheer for their fighting team members. It was loud. We participated as a bigger team of around 12 to 14 people. The team spirit was high. I was extremely invested in the matches of my fellow colleagues. I felt every scoring, loss and win with them. It was a great team experience. My own fights felt so high-stakes. In total I did 3 matches. My first opponent was one of those fearsome-looking tattoed One-Punch-Man type of dudes. Whenever I looked he was not even warming up. I won by points with a relatively comfortable lead. The second match was extremely close. It was spent almost entirely in half-guard. Whenever I was able to score a sweep, my opponent would sweep me soon after. In the last 60 seconds the score was 4:4.
My opponent had been crushing my face with his shoulder most of the time. I felt like a punching bag. Because I was unable to keep the top position for very long up until now, I figured that if I tried to sweep now, he would be able to get the points back. Luckily my head was twisted in a way, that I could see the scoreboard and timer. My opponent was concentrating most of his efforts to pressure into my face. I knew I had the necessary grips to hit the sweep, which I used the previous two times (leading up to my 4 points) for a third and final time. So I endured the pressure on my jaw for another 50 seconds and got the sweep for a third time. Immediately, I could see him quickly glancing to the scoreboard - his face was full of disappointment as he realized he would not be able to even the 6:4 score. Even though I must have looked way more beaten-up, I mananged to get the win. Later that day I would realize one corner of my mouth would not move anymore. Luckily, this did not stick. The finale I got caught in a triangle after my opponent surprised me with a straight ankle lock attempt almost 1 minute into the match. Later in the changing room my coach would come up to me giving me some advice, thoughts on my matches and words of appreciation. I think I even saw his eyes getting wet a little.
In summary, I fear and love competitions and I love them, because I fear them. And because I fear them so much, overcoming or just coming out of them feels extremely gratifying.