By next week we will be starting our competition training camp for a competition on October. This will be my first competition as a purple belt. Few things that I'm thinking about. On one hand being a fresh purple, I know I'll going up against people who have a lot more experience than me, so I have to give it my all during competition training. On the other hand, also being one of the senior students (and occasional instructor) I also have the responsibility to show the younger guys and lower belts how to go about doing a good competition training the right way.
Few things I plan to execute during the competition training. These are some of the things that I found to be important when going about a camp.
1. Enthusiasm
Nothing beats enthusiasm when going about a hard endevour such as a competition camp. The training is gonna be tough and there needs to be a cheerleader that will encourage the younger competitors to suck up the grind. Back when I was a white belt our purple belts and blue belts would be the ones doing this. Now its our turn to show how to do it.
2. Game Planning
Having a game plan during a competition is of great importance. It forces you to narrow your focus on particular moves that you do well and chain them into a coherent whole. Often times you won't be able to do the plan on the comp day but having a goal in mind when you are there in the mats will help you make decisions much faster since you have an aim to go for.
3. Situational Drilling
With a game plan in place, drilling becomes key in executing that plan perfectly. Since a game plan has various steps, chunking them down to various situations will help with getting the muscle memory in place. When we are in the mats we don't want to think about our moves, we want to execute, and in order to do this we must drill all the positions in our game plan until we don;t have to think about them.
4. First Point
There was a study a few years ago that showed that 80% of matches were won by the guy who got the first point. When you see a number that significant then you know that you need to focus on that. It is always psychologically and physically more demanding to fight your way to beat a guy when you are down on points. Its better to exert the effort to get to the first point and maintain it than to claw your way up to a win.
5. Suicides
Everyone loves suicides right? Well I actually do. It's a great tool for learning how to deal with being in bad situations and getting out of it. It forces you to be comfortable with being on a bad spot. Once you become comfortable being in a bad spot you realize that you just need to take everything step-by-step in order for your to get back to a more ideal situation. It removes the panic feeling when faced with adversity, especially with newer guys.
6. Simulation
Simulation is a great tool for getting a feel of the competition day itself. Especially for people on training for their first competition where they don't know how it feels to be at the center of the mats, heart pumping with excitement, hearing everyones cheers. It can be disorienting. So you gotta get ready for that feeling, visualizing, simulating audience cheers and jeers, having a referee there, and listening to your coach. You gotta execute your game plan during the chaos of a competition day experience. Being calm, collected and focused during all that can be achieved with good simulation scenarios.
