Competing is a great way to help speed up your BJJ learning process and also learn a lot about yourself. Some of you may be very driven competitors who have big competition goals to accomplish this year. Some of you may be BJJ hobbyist who compete for fun on occasion. Some of you may have never competed before and plan to this year or some of you may not have any plans of competing at all. I want to take this opportunity to tell you why I feel competition is important and how it can benefit you.
First, when you make the decision to compete at a tournament, this will most likely have a positive effect in your training immediately. You will probably come to class more often and train a little harder to prepare for the competition. Also, you will be forced to evaluate your game and work on fixing some holes, something that many don't do often enough. All in all, you will be much more focused and driven during your training which will definitely lead to bigger gains.
Once the competition is over, win or lose, you should have more evidence on where you can improve, whether it is technically, mentally, physically, or all three combined. The next step is to get back to training and start working on those weak areas. You should always try to ask your instructor or other higher ranking students who watched you compete "What could I have done better?" Some people who don't compete may train regularly and never really work on their weak areas, because they are better than everyone else they train with or because of an ego issue. This could mean they are the best in the academy or they have a good way about only training with lower ranking students and smashing them, either way they are holding themselves back by not identifying where they are weak and working on it.
Lastly, competition is a mental challenge. You really learn a lot about yourself when your out there and everyone is watching you. Because of the many different things that can happen during a match, you can learn how you deal with a lot of different scenarios such as:
1) How you handle pressure and nerves?
2) Can you come back from a deficit?
3) How you deal with failure?
4) Do you lose your concentration?
5) How much do you believe in yourself?
6) Can you become arrogant?
These are just a few of the things you could learn about yourself. You may not like what you find out, but you can always improve. Just like training your BJJ technique, you should be training your mind as well. Each time you compete, you should be getting mentally stronger along with improving technically. I think that the more you know about yourself, the better person you can become. Competing can help you deal with many of life's challenges with much more ease and comfort, such as a stressful job, a physical altercation, or accomplishing a life goal. I can tell you from personal experience that competing has taught me a lot about myself and I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have that deep down urge to go out there and test myself!