It wasn’t a major tournament like Worlds or Pans, and it’s not a story of competing after some traumatic life event happened.

In fact, it was a small IBJJF Open in Santa Cruz a few months ago, and I did it to myself.

This tournament came after I’d already competed in 38 tournaments at blue belt, so I thought I was a seasoned competitor and could handle anything.

But something was different. Since for a year I’d already been traveling the world competing by myself, I never had a team or coach with me, so my mental game didn’t necessarily involve the concept of people I care about being around me.

Well, this time in Santa Cruz, it was local to my gym, so my coaches and my team were there. This should’ve been a good thing, right? The support, the applause, actually having a coach.

But in the bull pen, I let this make me wanna win really bad. Wanting to win in and of itself is just a neutral thing… but you can definitely go overboard emotionally with it, which actually negatively affects you. I wanted to win to the point where I was hyping myself up in my head, getting angry at my opponents, trying to conjure up the will to dominate.

This pushed me to the edge. I had injured my thumb really bad in my gi division, and was eliminated in the first round. The same day, my no-gi division came around, and I was willing everything inside of me to win…

I won one match, but when I didn’t win my second one, it caused me to break.

I tried to hide it, but I actually cried by the bleachers. I think many things compounded into this — I mean, I’d been competing so much that Jiu Jitsu was my entire life at this point, even at blue belt, but what I learned for myself was that getting overly emotional beforehand can be self-destructive, and that there is a such thing as wanting to win too much…

In most of my competitions before that and since then, I don’t try to conjure up and sort of emotional state in order to perform. Instead, I’m mindful of how I’m feeling, but that’s separate from my performance. I perform best when my body is warm, and my mind is focused… not too calm, not too hyped.

This tournament was a good reminder for me.

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