Best in the Practice Room

I did everything wrong so you don't have to.

I was always told that I was the best in practice. 

This is a back-handed compliment. I out-worked everyone in practice, but could never compete when it came time to. This was true in wrestling in elementary school, and cross-country and track in middle and high school. I was a constant frustration to my coaches as they saw so much potential in me that wasn’t being realized. I had better technique than everyone in wrestling, I had better  pace in cross-country. I was talented and usually made it look easy. When competition time came though, my body could not replicate what I did in practice. 

My last season of wrestling I went the whole season with only a single-win. When I was chosen to be varsity my Freshman year of high-school cross-country my coach found out about my complex, and others soon surpassed me. As someone who thought himself as competitive this was incredibly frustrating. I tried every little hack that I could: High energy music, calming music, Les Brown motivational videos, listening to unrelated videos, different breakfasts, different warm-ups. I was doing all the things I THOUGHT I needed to do. 

This was part of the problem.

I realize now (while writing this actually) that it was all just a distraction to keep myself from thinking about competing, to not feel the fear of losing. This was a MISTAKE. I needed that fear to fuel me towards winning. I had the potential to. I cared so much about performing to my expectations that I inevitably failed to do so every time. Ironically, I also didn’t care about losing, and I saw this as a virtue.

“Oh, I’ll never freak out over loss. It happens and I’ll pick myself up and try again the next time.”

Everytime I lost, I let it roll off my back and believed I could do it next time . . . without doing anything differently in the things that mattered. While there was value in knowing that I can do better next time, there was no URGENCY to the way in which I was thinking. I needed to CARE enough about losing to make sure that it never happened again. Instead I spent too much time focusing on how NOT to underperform, than how to focus on WINNING. 

I SHOULD have cared more about losing. I should have pitched more of a fit to myself. At least I would have CARED. My priorities were in disarray back then. 

I didn’t REALLY care, and this showed in my ACTIONS. No matter what I listened to, thought, or told people: I did not truly care. Outside of practice, how much did I practice? 1-2 days of lifting a week. That is it. I thought that was enough without ever running on weekends or off-season, or lifting enough to grow in strength. 

I learned about proper lifting technique and intensity from my father, and did some amateur running study on my own, but I was not disciplined enough to keep this up on my own. 

And then that brings us to another interesting contradiction. What to care about and when to care? You should CARE about losing and winning, as how else will you train hard to win if you don’t want to. I’m reminded of Uncle Chael’s words however that “The person who cares more loses.” I was shown this first-hand during one of my last cross-country races during my senior year of high-school. 

My coach finally thought of an idea to aid in my complex. He said,

“[Redacted], you and Joe don’t warm up today. And you’re going to stay together the whole race.”

What a strange idea. Joe was in the same boat as me, and our coach wanted to see what not warming up and sticking with each other would do to our performance. 

His experiment worked.

When I hit the one mile mark ahead of Joe my coach yelled,

“Where the hell is Joe? Wait up for him!”

So, unlike every other person racing, I jogged in place while waiting for my team-mate, which happened on two occasions. When we only had a ¼ mile left in the race, our coach told us to go balls out and sprint to the finish. 

When I crossed the finish line I couldn’t believe what I saw. In a race where I stopped 2 times and kept a slower pace to stay with my teammate, I was racing the same exact time I had gotten all year. I didn’t even FEEL TIRED! The one day I cared less about my performance, I had the same performance with the capacity for a much better one. It blew my mind. That experience has stayed with me to this day. 

I took a hiatus from athletic competition in college. With an intensive major and few funds, I let myself put my fitness and athletics on the back burner despite wanting to start combat sports. Bad Idea. 

We are SO BACK now though, and better than ever. Since starting submission grappling I have been in two competitions, (soon to be 3). Have I lost every match so far? YES. 

But now I’m actually COMPETING! I’m studying my losses, and TRAINING to improve my technique to ensure I never lose the same way again. I’m training OUTSIDE of practice by lifting, shadow-wrestling, doing cardio, film work, and drilling with a friend outside of practice. I am doing EVERYTHING to improve my body and mind and I am getting better. Even in these losses I have been COMPETING and not letting my opponent’s achieve anything without a fight (except once, tough loss). I am no longer the boy who is afraid of competition. I still get anxious, but I don’t do anything different than I do any other day. I still eat clean as I always do. I still lift the day of or before. I will compete under any circumstance. 

I am growing by the day, and I will be winning competitions soon. I am doing more than them, and will continue to do so. My competition complex was something I’m glad I went through, as I had to do everything wrong to eventually find out how to do it right. If this sounds like you, you can change it. Go out and COMPETE!

Train Hard, God Wills It.