Preparing Your Mind for Competition

By Liz

What challenges do I face as a female competitor? 

I’ll never forget my first competition. I competed for the first time as a white belt after I’d been training for about seven months. At the last minute, I decided to cut weight because there weren’t any other women signed up for my weight division. In order to participate, I had to cut six pounds. The night before I spent over two hours in a sauna and didn’t drink any water. I woke up the next morning completely dehydrated, but didn’t eat or drink anything before the tournament. I got there and weighed in--I was still two pounds over. I spent the next hour trying to sweat it out and eventually was forced to weigh-in in a crowded gym in nothing but my sports bra and underwear. People stared at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. But I made it.

At that point, I was totally exhausted and dehydrated, but my first match was coming up soon. I drank some water and ate some bread, but it was already too late to revive my energy. My first match was a blur. The girl I was going against was a black belt in judo, and she immediately threw me across the mat and arm locked me. In the next match, I was mounted in a few seconds and submitted by front-collar choke. All I remember is being completely suffocated by the girl then I felt myself blacking out and tapped. I won my third match by submission with a triangle. That was a good moment.

During my first two matches, I was completely taken aback by the strength, aggression, speed, and skill of my opponents. And it wasn’t the first time that would happen at a competition. To this day, I still feel that way every time I compete. This is a testament to the amazingly strong and skillful women who surround me in jiujitsu, a type of strength that is admirable and inspirational for me.

Before my first competition, and before most of the other competitions since then, I’d been training like crazy, but still I was completely unprepared--or at least I felt unprepared. At most (but not all) of the competitions I’ve participated in, I’ve been completely overwhelmed and intimidated by the strength and speed of the women I’ve competed against. I’ve lost a great majority of the matches I’ve participated in--usually by submission or by a significant number of points. There are several reasons for this, I believe, which I outline below. For my BJJ sisters who have never competed before, here is what I’ve learned. For those who have competed, please comment below with your opinions and advice.

• Sheer nervousness: Being nervous before competition is a huge asset. The pumping adrenaline and nervous energy can be channeled as strength against your opponent. However, sometimes I get so nervous my mind goes blank and I forget even the most basic of techniques. So while being nervous is good, doubting yourself and doubting your jiujitsu is bad. Believe in yourself and believe in your jiujitsu. When it comes to competition, it is 100% heart. Leave it all out there on the mat.
• One of the things that can help with the blank-mind problem is to drill, drill, and then drill some more when preparing for competition. When your brain turns off during the match, it’s all muscle memory from there. You have no time to stop and think about what you’re doing. Your moves need to be as natural a reflex as breathing.
• Some people, I believe, incorrectly told me to think about competition matches just like rolling at the gym. This is FALSE. Competition requires a completely different mindset and is a completely different style of sparring. During rolling at the gym, you have the time and space to experiment with techniques and to flow. During competition, it’s more like trying to destroy someone. You have to think that way if you want to win. Having the mindset of really wanting to smash my opponent has been the main thing that has set my wins apart from my losses.
• I used to have a HORRIBLE mindset at comps to the extent that I actually felt bad when I beat someone! Hence why I probably lost so many matches. Or sometimes I even felt good when I lost, thinking to myself, “Well, I bet I made her day.” FUCK THAT SHIT. This is where being raised in our culture as a woman really puts me at a disadvantage during competition because we are often too nice.
• The whole “being nice” thing goes for rolling during training sessions as well. Sometimes I’m afraid that my training partners will think I’m bitchy or too aggressive for rolling hard with them. Again, FUCK THAT SHIT. If you want to succeed in competition, you gotta roll hard and you gotta roll aggressive. Not spazzy. Technical, strong, and aggressive. There is a balance there that takes a while for white belts to understand, but it’s really important you don’t fall too far down the passive track. I was and still am a passive roller. It is a really bad habit and absolutely detrimental when training for competition.
• Sometimes the guys at my gym go too easy on me. They will roll lighter with me than they normally do or even straight up give me submissions. Maybe because I’m not as strong as them and they feel bad. Or sometimes they’ll use their roll with me to focus on technique. On the one hand, I appreciate this because lighter flow rolling gives me the opportunity to practice new techniques and also pads my ego. However, this attitude men have when rolling with me--that they should go easier on me than normal--is absolutely detrimental to my training when preparing for competition. I maintain that this is one of the main reasons I am usually unprepared for competition. Since this realization, I’ve learned to go hard with everyone, and they usually will match my strength. Sometimes I’ll tell them to please go hard on me because I’m preparing for competition, and they usually will.
• My training partners are usually 10-60 lbs heavier than me. This is incredibly damaging to my training and puts me at a huge disadvantage for competitions (see Meg’s earlier post about his topic here). While I train 90% of the time with people that are heavier, in competition I’m going against women who are the same size as me. This not only means they are much faster than what I’m used to, but also they use different techniques and strategies in their rolls. Rather than just using their weight or strength to smash me, they are sneaky, tricky, speedy, and technical in all of their movements. This is not something I’m used to when rolling with big, heavy, strong guys. So when preparing for competition, it is absolutely essential to roll with other women of the same strength, size, and skill level as yourself. These women are usually very hard to find, so if you find one, hold on to her for dear life.
• I have to admit I have never been proud of the medals I have won. At most competitions, including at the large international competitions I’ve been to, less than 5% of the competitors are women. This means that you will probably have no more than six women in your division (but more likely you will have three to four women in it). As long as you win a couple matches, you will walk away with a bronze medal at the very least. I’ve never gotten first place at a competition, but I’ve won a lot of silver and bronze medals because even if I only win one match, I will generally walk away with a bronze medal. But I never feel like I deserve it. One some level, this is a healthy level of modesty. On another level, we should never feel ashamed of expressing or feeling pride for our medals. Just be prepared to feel a sense of disappointment after your tournament, whether or not you win or lose.

Liz started jiujitsu in 2011, got her blue belt in 2013, and has competed in nine competitions. Although she is from California, she is currently training and coaching jiujitsu abroad. She’s learned through training that it’s all about the fight, not the victory.

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Love and sex with people from the gym: the best and worst idea I’ve ever had

Guest post by Anonymous

Training jiujitsu is a great way to make friends. A lot of people I know, myself included, feel very lonely, isolated, or disconnected from community. Many yearn for more friendships and human connection IRL.

Jiujitsu often fills this gap for people. There’s something about going through the challenge of training that brings people together. There’s also a certain level of trust that happens on the mat that can’t be replicated anywhere else. When you roll with someone, you engage in a level of mutual trust and understanding with them from the get-go: I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me. Plus there’s a level of bonding that happens when you sweat all over each other and stick your crotches in each other’s face--you really can’t get much closer than that.

So I have become very close with a lot of the people I met through jiujitsu. I am more willing to be vulnerable with them than with people I meet in other parts of my life. There is a mutual contract of openness and trust that often translates from our rolls on the mat to our friendships off the mat. These are very special bonds of community and friendship that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I can be myself around them. I say what’s on my mind.

Some people even compare training jiujitsu with going to church because it provides the community that modern society otherwise so often lacks. Many of my teammates I see on a daily basis. I can rely on them to show up and drill, and help me prepare for competition. I trust them to call me on my bullshit: they criticize me when I’m doing something wrong, and call me out when I’m being lazy. I lean on them for emotional support, ask them for advice, and confide in them when I have a problem.

However, sometimes these bonds of community and friendship start translating into sexual relationships.

I’ve been involved in romantic (not necessarily sexual) relationships with six of my training partners (both male and female) from two different gyms. My deepest feelings of love and my best romantic relationships have come from those I’ve had with training partners.

I have learned many invaluable lessons from these sexual and romantic relationships. I have learned what it means to be respected and valued by a partner. I have learned to trust and to be trusted in deep and moving ways. I have witnessed what I want to have in a life-long partner someday. I have experienced love. I have experienced hot, passionate, love affairs that lasted one night, and stable partnerships that lasted years. Having a partner both on and off the mat is one of the most beautiful, thrilling, and fun things I’ve ever been able to experience in my life. I don’t regret any of it.

I’m not in a position to tell anyone what to do. However, after learning these lessons and experiencing this love, the first advice I have to give is to proceed with EXTREME caution.

Even though a lot of good things have happened, I’ve also had a lot of bad things happen as a result of my romantic relationships. Awkward encounters on the mat. Embarrassing moments at the gym. Spoiled training sessions. Broken hearts. Angry resentment. And the worst of all: a broken community. The community of people that I cherish so much is now fractured. Not completely destroyed, but broken in different places where ex-lovers have destroyed the trust that once held us together.

We can go back to making small talk and being civil at the gym. But we can never go back to that place when we drilled for hours and then afterwards went out on midnight snack runs and talked for hours until dawn broke. Maybe if we had just stayed friends we could still have those moments.

Sometimes people who were amazing friends turned out to be terrible romantic partners. Sometimes I just realized it wasn’t a good fit. I can’t say whether or not the sex was worth it. It just is what it is and I can’t turn back the clock. But I can make a conscious effort to be more selective, conscious, and thoughtful about my decisions in the future. And I caution you to do the same.

The second lesson I learned was: don’t rush into things. It seems really exciting at first. You think it’s perfect in the beginning: now you have a partner on and off the mat, and someone who understands jiujitsu! You might be afraid that you’re going to miss out on this opportunity. But if they’re really your friend, and will be a good romantic partner, there’s no rush. They will wait for you.

The third lesson I learned: don’t mistake the trust and bonding you form on the mat to be the same as the trust you build off the mat...at least not right away. Let those people earn your trust in other ways off of the mat. Some people are awesome training partners and you would trust them with your life on the mat, but they’re terrible friends or even terribly unhealthy, either physically or mentally. Or they might be great friends off the mat, but that doesn’t mean you can necessarily trust them with your deepest, darkest secret. Or they might be trustworthy people, but that still doesn’t mean you should have sex with them.

Remember you could lose a friendship and a training partner. Just like you have to take care of your training partner on the mat, you have to take care of yourself and your training partners off the mat. Otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of broken hearts, awkward moments, no more training partners, and no more community.

There’s an old saying: don’t shit where you eat. If you’re going to engage with love and sex at the gym, be prepared for the consequences. If things end badly, you’re still going to have to see that person on a regular basis. In my somewhat limited experience, I’ve realized that jiujitsu is a great place to form a community and meet friends, but not to find sex partners. It’s just too much close contact and not enough space for either person. Jiujitsu creates an environment of community, bonding, and trust, but leave all of that stuff on the mat.

What if you meet that perfect person through jiujitsu? In that case, friendship first. In my case, I will have to trust them on multiple and deep levels. And I will have to draw up some kind of agreement with them on what to do about training after we break up.

I used to be idealistic and naive. I used to think that having sex was no big deal, and that I could have sex whenever I felt good chemistry. I also expected my partners to avoid causing drama and to act like adults. I thought that if there were problems, we would talk them through. In this way, I thought my romantic relationships wouldn’t effect training. Now I know this not to be true.

It’s kind of like driving and wearing a seat belt. Before, I thought that because I was a good driver, I could go through life without my seat belt. But after getting into a couple accidents, I realized that maybe I was a reckless driver after all. And no matter how good of a driver I am, I can’t necessarily depend on others to be, and definitely can’t control whether or not other people are good drivers, too.

So I’m not saying we should go through life never daring to leave our homes or being too scared to drive a car for fear of getting in an accident. I’m just saying we should wear our seat belts. And being willing to wear our seat belts--that is, protecting our vulnerabilities--actually gives us more freedom to go where we want and do what we want.

TL;DR:

Love and sex at the gym will foster close friendships and enable passionate love affairs, but will also inevitably create drama. Proceed with extreme caution and be prepared for the consequences.

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Should You Compete with Men?

By Meg

You train intensely during the weeks leading up to the competition. You drill the same moves over and over again for hours. You shove your body past its comfortable limits. You eat just chicken and eggs to make weight and lie awake at night practicing chokes on the pillow.

Then there are no women to fight.

As competitors, we all want the chance to test and prove ourselves, but as female competitors, we don't often have that luxury. So what do we do when presented with the opportunity to compete--in the men’s division?

That's not me. That's the one and only Hillary Williams.

I completely advocate for competing with men if you are comfortable with it. However, before you start the match, take some time to think about the risks. In addition to much higher chances of injury, you are possibly subjecting yourself to awkward and offensive situations.

My Experience

When no other blue belt women showed up to the January 2015 Xuzhou competition, the organizers acquiesced to my request to compete with the men. To say the least, it was a surprise. Competition organizers in China had never allowed mixed matches before, and I wasn’t expecting to be among the first.

The night before the competition, my teammates asked me how I could do this to a man. How could I put a male competitor in the position of looking like a dick if he wins, or looking like a fool if he loses? Why couldn't I just sit out?

I took this to heart for a moment before replying with, "Men have so many opportunities. I get one match for every four of theirs. I'll take my chances where I can get them." And upon further reflection, does this sport not treasure humility? Does it not promote the idea of a smaller person being able to beat a bigger person? Why am I responsible for society's warped views of my opponent?

Despite the comments from my male teammates, I decided to give it my best shot.

I would love to say this story ends up like a Hillary Williams BJJ fairytale: The shirtless, ripped, handsome male shows up, and I climb onto his back and choke the living crap out of him. It doesn't. I got thrown so hard I bounced when I hit the floor, and I lost by double digit points.

Before the match, I had to draw a name, because no one wanted to fight me. They wanted to leave it up to chance. Whoever fate didn't smile on had to roll with me. Okay, that's dramatic, but that was how it felt while I chose a name and they anxiously watched. This was seconds before we walked on the mat.

When the match started, my opponent's coach was cheering for me. I'm sure he was teasing his student, but the fact is, I wasn't taken seriously enough to be considered a threat and my presence was a joke. I was given third place when I should have been fourth. The organizers just wanted a foreign woman in the winners' photo alongside the men.

My opponent is on the far left.

On the day, I wasn't bothered by any of this. I was happy and grateful to have a match, but you know, hindsight is 20/20. Thinking back on it makes me feel like a joke and used for publicity. Also, this bronze medal does not belong to me.

At this point during edits of this blog post, my fellow blogger Liz stopped to remind me that although I lost by points, I was not submitted. She says that's something to be proud of, and she's right.

Furthermore, I did learn a few great lessons that day, just as any competitor would during a normal match. Not only did I improve my game, but I learned it is great to be the underdog. I felt considerably less nerve-wracking pressure. Everyone already expected me to flounder and fail, so I was free to win or lose as grandly as I pleased.

“One of the things about being an underdog, there’s no pressure. Nobody expects you to win. It frees you up to go out and compete. We often complicate things with fear of failure, all that baggage of winning and losing. Being an underdog is freedom.”

- Randy Couture, UFC Hall-of-Famer and three-time heavyweight champion

So Should You Compete with Men?

I can't tell you what to do, and I can't offer you a definite yes or no answer. It all depends on how comfortable you are with the risks of injury, embarrassment, and disrespect. Not that discriminatory and ugly behavior is acceptable, but it's possible it may happen.

I would compete with men again, and I've already tried when, again at the Shanghai International Open this month, there were no other female blue belts. The organizers said no that time. I'm dying for chances to improve and test myself. As far as I'm concerned, any gender discrimination will just train my mind to be as tough as my game.

You could have an amazing experience competing with men, and I think most of the time, it really will be great. A large portion of jiujitsu males are very respectful and understanding. Then there are those jerks who ruin it for everyone. Either way, when you walk onto that competition mat with a man, hold your head up and be proud, win or lose. You are one badass woman, and you deserve as many opportunities as your opponent.

Meg started jiujitsu in 2012, got her blue belt in 2013, and has competed in four competitions

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Fueling the grappler’s body: eat to train, don’t train to eat

By Liz

Why do we care about nutrition as female grapplers in particular?

I’ve always been self-conscious about my body. Every time I look in the mirror, I’m either too skinny or too fat, too bony or too muscular. My roommate said to me the other day, “I remember one of my first impressions of you was that you were really skinny.” I thought back to the time when she and I had first met. It was a time when I thought I was fat, and I was actively restricting my eating and exercising like crazy. I thought I was fat, and yet when I look back on pictures of myself at that time, I look emaciated.

As women, distorted images of our own bodies are all too common, and as a result, many of us tend to have very destructive attitudes toward food. Some of these habits include not eating enough, disordered eating, and feeling averse to building muscle.

Firstly, we need to make sure we are taking in enough fuel to support our unique BJJ lifestyle of actively building muscle, burning high amounts of calories, and sustaining endurance through long training sessions.

We’re not the cardio bunnies on the treadmills. We aim to train and eat for power and strength, not so we can look as slim as possible. So we require unique nutrition, namely high amounts of protein and carbs. According to my nutritionist, for someone weighing 140 pounds and regularly training jiujitsu at least two hours a day, this means eating at least 95 grams of protein per day (equivalent to four hamburgers) and 300 grams of carbohydrates per day (equivalent to five bowls of pasta).

Secondly, I believe in eating in order to fuel training, not training in order to eat.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I train hard so I can eat whatever I want. If I didn’t train, I would be so fat.”? I know I have. And still do. I often think of jiujitsu as a way to support my over-indulgent eating habits. From macaroni and cheese to ice cream, I love my fatty and sweet foods, and being able to burn off the calories from the foods I love is a huge motivating factor for me to get to the gym. However, training in order to eat can easily lead to restricting, binging, and purging behaviors, an unhealthy road of disordered eating that none of us should start walking down.

Although I myself am guilty of this mindset, I want to advocate for abolishing this unhealthy attitude and replace it with a new way of thinking. Let's think of food as the fuel for our training sessions, rather than thinking of our training sessions as reasons for eating. As grapplers we have to watch what we eat so we have the strength to be the best we can be, not so we can lose weight.

Women are under incredible pressure to have the perfect figure not only from the media and the men in our lives, but also from other women and ourselves. How often do we talk to other women about how fat we are? About how we’re trying to lose a couple of pounds? And however unintentional, we are under a lot of pressure from ourselves and others to please the men in our lives by striving for that perfect figure. That perfect, elusive, impossible figure: Big boobs, six pack, thin waist, and big butt.

To quote one of my favorite books called Eating in the Light of the Moon, by Anita Johnston, a book that has been invaluable to me in overcoming my own eating disorders:

“Why is it that those aspects of a woman’s body that are most closely related to her innate female power, the capacity of her belly, hips, and thighs to carry and sustain life, are diminished in our society’s version of a beautiful woman?”

Thirdly, I advocate for building muscle.

Sometimes I worry I’m putting on too much muscle. People say jiujitsu is designed for a smaller opponent to defeat a larger opponent. Well, I call bullshit on that. If they are significantly stronger and bigger than you, you have a notable disadvantage. And so I’ve taken up weightlifting and rock climbing as a way to get stronger, and I’ve noticed significant improvements in my game. Yes, you still have to concentrate on technique, and yes getting stronger won’t instantly make you better. But putting on muscle is a part of the game and it’s helped my jiujitsu a lot.

Besides, I enjoy weightlifting and rock climbing, and muscles are sexy!

What and when should I be eating?

Here is my daily training and eating plan while I’m living in the States, which gives me good nutrition, enough calories, and is cheap and time efficient for the student lifestyle. I created this plan after meeting with a nutritionist and after many months of trial and error.

I haven’t included exact proportions because these will depend on your body weight: heavier and more muscular people need to intake more calories than shorter and more petite people. Portion sizes will also depend on how active you are and whether or not you are strength training and trying to build muscle. In the end, the best thing to do is what I like to call “body’s choice": eat until you feel full, and eat when you’re hungry.

Breakfast: A bowl of oatmeal with whole milk, ground flax seeds, and grapes
Mid-morning snack: A few slices of cheese and an apple
Noon workout: One hour of lifting weights, BJJ drilling, kickboxing, or rock climbing
Post-workout: Protein shake
Lunch: Chicken with rice or bean chili
Afternoon snack (Three hours before evening training): Greek yogurt with fruit
Pre-workout: Banana
Evening workout: Two hours of jiujitsu (usually one hour of drilling and one hour of cardio intensive rolling)
Dinner: Spinach salad with kidney beans, eggs, or chicken and ranch dressing.

I also eat nuts, peanut butter, and whole milk throughout the day to reach my caloric goal, especially on intense training days.

After creating this plan, I kept track of my calories and estimated that I consume around 3,000 calories a day and burn about 1,000 calories a day. I recommend MyFitnessPal for a week or two just to see how much you’re consuming, and for longer if you’re actively trying to gain or lose weight.

Remember to HYDRATE, HYDRATE, HYDRATE till your pee is clear! I drink coconut water on hard training days and during competitions, because it naturally replaces electrolytes. I also really like to drink kombucha (fermented mushroom) drinks with chia seeds especially on hard training days. Otherwise I try not to drink soda pop, coffee, or alcohol. I stop eating three hours before training and stop drinking water one hour before training.

It’s essential to consistently be eating enough calories with high nutritional content. Eating well the day of training isn’t going to help much if you’re eating like crap the rest of the time. It’s the same with water: drinking a gallon of water right before training isn’t going to help. It’s more about staying hydrated throughout the day.

Here are some other tips my nutritionist gave me that I found useful:

• Eat slowly and enjoy your food. It should take ~30 minutes to eat a big meal.
• Listen to your body. Follow your body’s choice, and eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. Eat what makes you feel good in the long run.
• Eat a lot of vegetables.
• It’s okay to cheat sometimes. Obviously the ideal is to eat well 100% of the time, but we all know this is virtually impossible. Shoot for eating good foods 80% of the time and let yourself eat bad foods, like white bread, fried chicken, sweets, etc, 20% of the time. 

TL;DR?

I know way too many women who think they’re fat when they’re incredibly gorgeous.

I wish for all of us to be happy with our bodies however they look right now--short, tall, muscular, lanky, skinny, or fat. Because we are gorgeous no matter what size we are. What we need to focus on as grapplers is giving ourselves the correct nutrition and the appropriate amount of calories to fuel our training that will help us improve our health and our jiujitsu.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that having a perfect body will make us happy. It’s even easier to get caught in the mindset that if only we had the perfect body, people will like us more. Sometimes we think that food will fill some sort of void that we are missing--love or sex or companionship--or we use food to help with stress, anxiety, or loneliness. I know I’ve been there.

In taking this journey together, I wish for all of my BJJ sisters to realize the beauty of their bodies while thinking about food as essential fuel and as an important part of the training process. Love yourself, love your body, love your training. Take care of yourself and TRAIN HARD!

Liz started jiujitsu in 2011, got her blue belt in 2013, and has competed in nine competitions. She's learned through jiujitsu that she is only confined by the walls she's built herself.  

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