Tournament Preparation

A couple of weeks ago, one of my fellow ECU students asked Jonathan “JT” Torres, what he focuses on in the weeks leading up to a competition. JT quickly replied:

“I like to work on my favorite techniques when I’m getting ready for a tournament.”

I don’t compete that often, but when I have, I often spend the weeks leading up to a tournament trying to fill the holes in my game. I’ve noticed that I’m far from unusual in that regard.

Of course, JT has far fewer holes than I do, but I quickly recognized the logic in JT’s statement. The week before a tournament is not the time to add new techniques, or attempt to fix weaker techniques. It’s a time to focus on strengths.

Adding new techniques takes time, repetition, and testing before it truly becomes integrated. The time to test out a new technique is not during the stress of competition, but back home training with your teammates.

When I discussed this topic with ECU founder JoJo Guarin, he pointed out an extra benefit of focusing on favorite techniques – confidence! Favorite techniques are usually favorites because we’ve had success with them. We’ve probably used them hundreds of times in class, and know that they work, while we may be unsure of a relatively new technique we learned only a couple of days ago.

Finally, I would like to join all of my ECU family in congratulating ECU kickboxing instructor Daniel “K-9” Cion for his victory in his professional MMA debut.

I hope you enjoyed the second edition of the ECU BJJ and MMA blog. As always, comments and suggestions are appreciated.