I was just curious as to know what others do to mentally prepare themselves for competition. How important do you think it is? Can it backfire on you? Myself, in the weeks leading up to the competition, I find I get very nervous and maybe even a little aprehensive about the competition, so I need to boost my self confidence a little. I like to write little notes to myself about what I am good at and stick them where I will see them, bathroom mirror, bedroom wall etc. It sounds really silly, but I find it helps me a lot! I sort of talk myself into being how I want to be in the ring. On the day, I don't like to chat or muck around too much with my friends. I have to think about what I am going to do. I like to watch who I will be competing against, and see how they are, if I can I try to psych them out. For example, I saw once that I was up against a girl that was younger, and lower ranked than me. And she looked nervous. So while everyone was warming up and stretching, generally throwing their arms about, I went to stand beside her, and then I punched the wall beside her a couple of times. It was plaster so it made a nice loud bang! It sounds like a really strange thing to do but it worked. The whole match she pretty much stood there like a stunned fish while I wailed on her! But I have had it nearly backfire on me as well. I had spent weeks telling myself that I was going to destroy anyone I met in the ring, only to find on the day that all my matches were against people I knew from my club (Bad luck of the draw I guess). I really wanted to win, but not against my friends. Though we all stood together before hand and agreed not to hold back. I didn't, until I did a reverse hook kick and connected really hard to the other girls face, and I hurt her enough that she had to stop for a moment while the medics came to check if she was ok. It made me freeze for the rest of the match and I couldn't do anything, because if I did, I was scared I would hurt her again. Because I didn't have any other mental plan, I was stuck. Though I still ended up winning the fight, I look back at it and feel embarrassed that I couldn't cope with how hard it would be to spar one of my friends. Has anybody else had such an experience?
Had to wrestle one of my training partners in a grappling division once at a small tournament... it was no big deal as he'd already had my number for months tapping me regularly so I just did my best but still ended up losing.
But I am curious to know, what sort of things were going through your head during the match? What do you think you would have had to do differently to win?
