The Jiu-Jitsu "Waiting Game" (Episode 393)

Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome to The Jiu-Jitsu Podcast this week. Um, I am out in uh Las Vegas for the Nogi Worlds. And um, coming to you live, not live, but from our uh from our Airbnb. Um, and you know, one of the things that a lot of people talk about in Jiu-Jitsu is the waiting game. This is the same thing in uh in MMA, in any combat sport, you know, where you're playing the waiting game where you're at a point where the training's done and you're sort of going downward into that that point where you're getting ready to compete. And what we're going to talk about today is some ideas on how to deal with everything from the week of training, like what you should be doing the week of training to make sure you have the best performance possible come Saturday. Because a lot of times people, I've seen people completely destroy or even ruin their ability to compete the week of a competition by making, it's a common mistake that a lot of people make. Um, we'll also talk about the day of the competition and everything and how to deal with those nerves and the whole waiting game of that. And we'll give you some ideas and things to think about. Um, you know, both from the the actual tactical things of, you know, the things you you can use uh tips on hydration and um foods to eat, things of that nature. But then also we'll get into the more mental side of it. And so hopefully this is helpful to some of you guys that are competing at some point. Obviously, if you competed this weekend at the Nogi Worlds, and I hope you did well. I hope you did uh had a good job or did a good job and were able to have the kind of performance you want. But if not, if you're listening to this later on and you're getting ready to compete at some point, then hopefully these uh ideas will help you get a better performance for yourself. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this podcast happen. 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Um, if you want to get more details on it, join my Chew Crew by going to Jiu-Jitsu.net/join, you'll get the details because I'm only I'm only testing it out and allowing access currently to those people in the email because I feel like for the people that join the email list, they're kind of my people. Um, you know, it's not just a a swipe on Instagram or whatever. It's like you have been reading my stuff, you're here to stay. Let's do this. So if you want to check out the Masters Vault, you can do that by joining up. Um, but with that said, guys, let's get into this. So, you know, with um, when we were coming up for topics, Eugene was thinking about, you know, the Jiu-Jitsu waiting game, basically, you know, competition prep stuff. And, you know, we we've talked about a lot of different aspects of the competition prep from the training and everything else. But, um, one of the most important things when you're competing is comes down to, you know, what are you doing the day the week of, the day before, the day of, all that stuff. That all comes into your performance. Um, and so I wanted to sort of touch on that. And I think maybe we've talked to some degree, but it's something I uh see people mess up a lot. So here's an example. Last week I was at Gatlinburg. And I would we had a Jiu-Jitsu open competition. By the way, if you guys came to the Jiu-Jitsu open competition, thank you so much. It was a success. We had over 600 plus competitors. It knocked it out of the park. It was a great time. Um, but one of the things that I noticed there, and this happens probably at every competition, at least two to three people will say this. They were training really hard the week of the competition and they got injured and they weren't able to compete, right? And so this gets at something that a lot of times I um have to help out with competitors that are with me to get them to understand. I remember one of my guys that was competing at the PGF competitions back when Brandon was doing like every week at the very first season. It was like every week. They'd be going down to Alabama to compete. And I remember them telling me how exhausted they were competing. And I would ask them about their training schedule and they were training literally the day before and then going there and competing. And so I had them take four days off from hard rolling before they competed. And I remember the first competition after they implemented that protocol, they were like, man, I feel great. I like had so much more energy. I'm like, imagine that, right? Think about it this way. One of my buddies who's involved in horse racing, he was telling me that when they they have the horse races, let's say they're racing on Saturday. Pretty much all week long, they'll have the horse, you know, do a light workout, but nothing too crazy. Just enough to help them get the energy out so they can sleep and stuff like that. But nothing too crazy. And come Saturday, that horse is just itching to like run hard. They're waiting for it because you got to think these are like these horses are athletes and they're so used to exerting their bodies that if they don't do it, they start to get antsy, right? And a lot of us are like that, right? Think about like when you don't train for a little bit, how antsy you get. You get grumpy, you get on edge. And you want a little bit of that come competition day, right? You don't want to be exhausted. You don't want to be tired. You don't want to feel like, oh, man, I got to be here. You want to feel so excited to be able to get out there and get on the mats and really just get after it, right? That's the kind of feeling you want to have. And what I find is a lot of times people are neurotic about training where they feel like they're somehow going to lose their training, their skill or whatever for for taking a couple days off. But I would tell you, first off, you're not going to make any massive changes one way or the other the week of the competition. I mean, you could really screw up your weight cut if you're doing that. But you're not going to like, if you're staying tight on your diet and you're, you know, staying healthy, you're not going to make any massive changes. And also, you could push yourself as hard as you want to. You're not going to make any massive changes in your cardio, in your skill, in your strength in in a few days. It's just not going to happen. But you can make a huge dent in your capacity for the competition day by overdoing it the week of. Um, I first sort of came to this when I remember just, you know, I was going to just try it because I used to be really bad about this. I would just train all the way up into to competition day and like maybe I'd take a day off, but, you know, not much. And I remember it was uh, I think it was probably, I think it was probably the trials. You know, after um, after like studying a bunch of people, seeing some different things and protocols, I remember the ADCC trials in 2018. I got to Jersey fairly early and I got there a little bit earlier because it was much cheaper to fly out um, on a Tuesday or something like that, you know? And uh got out there and was basically just I I would go to the gym and like walk around, sit in a sauna and stretch, but I didn't really roll or anything. And for, I think it was like four days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, four days, right? And then Saturday comes around, get a good warm-up in, and I mean, it was one of my better performances uh that I had had around that time. And I had so much energy. I had six matches and overall felt pretty damn good. And I can't help but think that that's part of it. And then afterwards, I kept instituting this long period of rest where it almost felt like uncomfortable that I was resting. You know, I would roll on Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I would rest. I would drill, I would get a sweat in like yesterday, I drilled uh on Tuesday, but today, I didn't I just stretched out, but I I didn't roll. Tomorrow, I'll do a little bit of movement. Um, just to help the guys get warmed up, but don't don't Friday, I'm going to compete. So four days off. But I would tell you, by when Friday rolls around and I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go. And so one of the things that I would tell you guys to do is if you're one of those people that's training hard up until like almost the day of or the day before, I would tell you take two, three, maybe even four days of rest. And you could do active recovery. You know, you could drill at a light pace just to kind of go through your movements and feel good. You know, go for some long walks, maybe sit in a sauna and stretch out a little bit, do something to get a sweat, do whatever you got to do to kind of keep your body calm because um a lot of times there's some nervous energy that you might want to get out leading up to the competition. But beyond that, you don't really want to push it. And see how that feels for you. I know that sometimes people, you know, have a hard time with that, but um, I would tell you it's worth giving a shot. And a lot of professional athletes that I know of, they do similar stuff when possible, right? They take a good amount of rest off and then they they feel energized when it comes time to compete and be at their best. Speaker 2: It's hard to shut that off, right? Like, I mean, if you are so consistently training, Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 2: And you're really pushing it and then all of a sudden you got to back off. Get your Speaker 1: It's like you're not brushing your teeth or something. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's um, I think some of it's nerves too. Um, it's just like I feel like something you can control is is like, man, I'm putting the time in and I'm doing as much as I can. And I think that um, in some ways that's calming, I think. It's uh, because like I said, we're neurotic about it. We're getting this, you know, I started doing as I've gotten older, I've really started doing kind of almost like these training camps essentially. Like I'm six to eight weeks out. I'm starting to really dial in and really make sure I'm working on my cardio and getting in consistently as much as I can. And then you kind of do that for a while and you get in this rhythm and all of a sudden you got to stop the rhythm. You got like, hold it. But um, one suggestion, honestly, if you're kind of hesitant to do this, try it out of competition. Like really, you know, do like a practice run, a trial run, see how it goes for you. Maybe like on a Saturday, you know, should be like an open mat or a class. See how you feel. See how your energy feels if you've kind of really trained hard and then kind of taking a little time off just to see how it does. Um, I think you're right though, it gets you, you have all this energy and kind of just you're ready to get after it and and you feel pretty good. Speaker 1: Well, and everybody's probably done this. So first off, most people most people don't value the opposite side of the same coin of training. There's training and there's like there's the the stimulation and then there's recovery. And the recovery is just as important as the stimulation, right? Like um, you know, my coach Eli will always say that you're, you know, when you especially when you're talking about muscle growth, right? Your your your ability to improve, your ability to grow is limited to limited by the your rate of recovery. So, you know, how you recover is going to determine how well you um improve. And most people have probably experienced taking a couple of days off because life gets in the way. You know, sometimes like you're on your training routine and all of a sudden life gets in the way. You know, you have to take a couple days off. Maybe you're kind of, you had the sniffles, but you weren't really sick, sick. Um, you know, or maybe, you know, family stuff happened. And all of a sudden you come back after three days of rest and you have these fantastic training sessions. You know, I've experienced it so many times where I come back and I'm like, I've got so much damn energy opposed to, you know, when you're in the middle of those training camps, a lot of times you can get to the point where you're kind of you're lethargic, you're not your sharpest, but you do it anyway. And there's a value in that sometimes too. Um, but a lot of times again, when we're talking about getting to the end of our uh our competition prep, we want to start letting our nervous system recover, letting the muscles uh recover, letting the body recover a little bit and then just coasting into this thing, right? Because you've you've built this body, this machine um to have this certain capacity. Well, now it's time to let that thing recover and just do enough to coast in, to keep it where it's at and then just go into the competition and be as as healthy and as repaired as you can be, um, opposed to maintaining that high intense training session and training volume that all the way to the week of and then, you know, you never really recover from it. Speaker 2: Yeah, you can kind of almost like, I mean, in some ways overtrain. Everybody's got their limit. And the amount that you can train is, you know, you've got the other side, like you said, the other side of the coin where the amount you train is going to be affected by your ability to recover. Because some you may train and and do all the right stuff and then you just feel flat. And then we've all had tournaments where we come in, we feel flat. And so, um, you're just trying to mitigate some of that stuff and and I know it seems counterintuitive, but man, so many people have done it and had good success with it. Like I said, you had a big run in 2018. You had what, five, six matches? I mean, it's Speaker 1: Yeah. Six matches. Speaker 2: And you were in your mid-thirties, mid Speaker 1: Early thirties. I was 32 at the time and it was up with a bunch of young guys and, you know, I had some young black belts I had to deal with, you know, and Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Uh, was able to take third. So pretty good performance overall, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. For sure. I mean, and and you kind of were, I think not getting able to train as much. So I think you had like one of those uh Speaker 1: I I did that one on a whim. I mean, that was like, I took it two weeks before I decided I signed up and did it. I was training, but I wasn't training like hard, hard. And I was just like, I'm going to go do it and and see what happens. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you're your your game's uh you can go compete anytime and probably do just fine. You've done it so many times. It's it's one of those things like right now I'm having uh I'm dealing with a little knee bursitis. It's keeping me off the mats and I'm like, you know, I'm I'm looking at the the Jiu-Jitsu open in January and I'm like, man, if my knee gets better, like I could I could maybe hop in, you know, I could probably be fine. I'm not going to, you know, maybe my cardio's not going to. And I've been working on my cardio and stuff. So, but but still, yeah. It's one of those things, man. You're not going to lose like your skill in a couple weeks or even in a week. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, if you really start slacking off completely, there's some stuff, but a lot of times you can you can get back a certain amount. And also too, you know, it depends on the level that you're trying to compete at. If it's, you know, uh, you know, a small regional competition, you don't need to be in the best shape you've ever been in. If it's like, you know, worlds or something, then maybe you want to step it up a little bit. So there's, you know, different things. Like this this past year, I competed several times at 215 pounds when I was bulking. And then I decided what I was going to do worlds at a lower weight class and decided to cut down for it. Um, you know, and so you can bounce around a little bit. You can take some more serious and some others not as serious if you decide to do them, you know? Speaker 2: Yeah. What about like, um, the day of or maybe like the day before, like getting to the venue, um, that type of stuff. Or we can even back up and talk about like maybe what you want to bring with you to the venue and kind of how to be prepared. Speaker 1: Well, you know, so it all depends on the person. So you always have to consider that, right? Um, I'm going to share some of the things that I do, but ultimately you as a grappler, just like your your game, everybody sort of develops their own little rituals and their you know, their little things, you know? So, um, for me, I always have two sets of uniforms because you just never know when a tournament may, you know, tell you you can't wear that or something happens, maybe something rips. Um, I've seen that happen before with clothing, right? Um, so I always have two sets of uniforms. And then from there, you know, you have your warm-up warm-up gear, like sweats and stuff. And then you get your snacks in. You know, you need you need to have you must have snacks. I I've seen I've seen people just completely just die on the mats. And I don't mean that like obviously figuratively. Just figuratively bomb out because they're exhausted because they don't have snacks. They don't have any Gatorades. They don't have any dextrose. They don't have Pop-Tarts. They don't have little food that they can nibble on, peanut butter, whatever it is that you like. I personally like Pop-Tarts. I think they they do a great job and I have dextrose. Um again, I'm looking for calorically dense foods that digest pretty quickly and pretty easily with a lot of sugar in them to where I can keep my blood sugar up as I'm going through those days because again, when you're competing, if you've never done this before, your heart rate is just humming along. It's not like a normal day. Like my my normal resting heart rate's like 50 to 60 beats. Um and then it gets down into the 40s when I'm sleeping. Competition day, I'm sitting at like 80 to 90. And I can quickly get up into the 170s. And so again, your body is in such an intense state that it is not normally in. And so you are just burning through fuel. And so you want to and because you got to think about that, your heart rate's elevated. So you're just constantly burning more calories at rest than you would be normally, right? And then when you're competing, you're not competing um and just at a nice pace. You're competing at a hard pace. And your heart rate's just it's up there. And so you are burning through fuel and you want to be able to replenish that quickly. And so again, you know, the the sugars and stuff like that are very helpful. I know sometimes people have apprehensions towards you. Sugar and things like that. And again, you know, you don't want to be eating like that all the time, but for a very specific purpose, things like dextrose or Gatorades, um things like Pop-Tarts or you know, people sometimes people even eat like gummy candies. Obviously, you don't want to go overboard with it, but getting that fast-acting sugar there can be really helpful. And so I like to have snacks. And then I like to have some I'll usually take a towel or a pillow or something because again, a lot of times when you get to the competition, sometimes you're there kind of early, depending on, and you just need to chill out and relax. You don't want to be up just you know, one of the mistakes I see a lot of people make is they get up and they want to walk around and like, you know, on the day of their own competition, kind of talk and hang out and stuff. You don't want to do any of that. You want to go off into a corner and relax and take your time and be in your own little world. That's what you want to do. You want to you want to zone in and relax and just that that's it. Um, I've seen so many people where they will be up and about talking to everybody and doing the whole thing. And then it's time for them to compete and they're exhausted, right? So you want to go off and and like this is why it's for me, it's like so hard to coach and and compete on the same day because it's like if I'm if I'm coaching, I'm like or if I'm competing, I'm competing. I don't really I can't really coach you that much. Like at the ADCC Atlanta this year, my division didn't go until like five something. And then some of our guys were going earlier. And so when they were going, I would go coach them their first match and then I was like, you're on your own now. Like you got I got the first one. I got to go chill out because otherwise like my my heart rate is just as much when they're competing as like when I'm out there. I'm like, I'm because I'm I'm emotionally invested in these people. Speaker 2: For sure. Speaker 1: Uh and so you got to find that way to kind of again, because why? What's the purpose? If you're constantly watching matches, if you're constantly up and about and you know, doing this activity while you're in that that state of, you know, that aroused state that you're in at competition where your heart rate's higher, everything else, you're just going to burn through more and more energy that you desperately are going to need when it comes to time to compete. Now, maybe you're not that, you know, revved up for the competition. Maybe you can do that kind of thing. But I would tell you that especially if you have any issues with like anxiety and stuff like that or you're on the edge, you really need to do that. Um, one of our competitors this past year, I was uh she was getting ready to compete, you know, within like an hour or so. And her head just all over the place. I could just tell, you know, I was talking to her. I was like, you okay? And she's like, just antsy. And she was in the room and it was like an ADCC competition. The room was loud, it was music was playing, there's yelling, the whole deal. You're surrounded by hundreds of people. And I told her, I was like, go outside and just get some space. We'll text you when it's time to come in. And she went into the like outside of the like outside of the main hall where it was nice and quiet, chill, and just she sat there and just kind of was just relaxing. And then, you know, shortly after, it was like texture, boom, she came back in and did really well. She had two really beautiful submissions um from her full guard. So it was like it was it was great. And so again, that's an example of that where, you know, you can wear your stuff out the day of when you're getting there just by being up and about. So, again, I keep a pillow or something where I can kind of go relax. And then from there, you know, you got to figure out what you do. I like having music. I like to have headphones where I can kind of listen to music or whatever and relax and then um kind of get me zoned in. And then um I wear a heart rate monitor um where when I'm warming up so that I can hit a certain zone. Um for me, I like to hit a certain zone and I like to hit a certain heart rate for a for a specific amount of time before I ever get out on the mat. And this is ensuring me basically that I've I've properly revved up my own engine because I think of uh my body at this point like an old Buick. You know, it's like, it'll get you where it it'll get you where you need to go, but uh, you know, we we can't just like turn the engine on and start, you know, revving it up really high. We need to like let it sit and warm up for a little bit. You know, one of those older cars, you got to got to let it warm up a bit. Um, I remember my wife bought me a uh I I'm fascinated by flight and aviation and stuff like that. As a kid, I was just uh just completely fascinated by planes. And I remember she bought me a uh a thing, it was a gift where we were where we all rode around in like a biplane. Um, and so uh, I remember when, you know, we're there, the guys that they're, you know, getting the engine going. We sat there for about two minutes while the engine's just, you know, because, you know, he said it's like a, I guess it's it's probably obviously parts are on it new, but the the engine model, I guess itself is like an old like rotating engine that's probably 80 years old. So he's like, you know, he's like, let it warm up a little bit. Um, and, you know, same kind of idea. So before you crank the crank the the gears out, you don't want to step on that mat without having gotten your body into that state. It's a shock to you. Um, and so uh, you know, I like to have that. And so then, you know, if I've got my snacks, I've got my gear, I've got my heart rate to to monitor that and get that going. And then I've got my sweats to keep me warm afterwards. I'm pretty much good to go, man. Um, and then, you know, as far as the the day of, along with snacks, I personally like to have um a few different things for hydration. You can do coconut water and things like that. I like the element packs. So a lot of times in my dextrose, um I'll have an element pack in my dextrose along with like creatine and everything else that I use. Um and I'll typically if I have like say four matches or so, I'll probably go through two of those elements throughout that period. Um just because you're sweating so I'm sweating so profusely and I'm burning through so much of it. It really helps kind of get me back together. You know, you know, as far as uh my cognitive function. And then I also uh have a little snack of some sort for after the competition's over. You know, like a little uh I really like chocolate with some orange pieces. Speaker 2: Ooh, the chocolate. Speaker 1: I'll I'll do chocolate with some orange pieces like right after the competition. Just got something to look forward to to where I can either celebrate my wins or uh, you know, Speaker 2: And not not not celebrate my wins and do the other opposite, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Luckily that hasn't happened too many times in in the last few years. Speaker 2: Yeah. I um, yeah, I agree with pretty much everything. I I liked the thing with getting to the venue. I I used to get there so early. And like so early. And I was like, no, I now like the last time we we did ADCC here in Louisville, I got there maybe like an we had our scheduled match match time. I got there maybe an hour and a half, something like that. And then they're going to usually going to push. It's going to be around that time. So I want to give myself some time to get in, get changed, walk around the venue, just kind of get a feel for where the mats, like where the mat numbers are, where I'm going to be. Just so I know when I get called, where I'm going to go. And then I go like you said, find a corner. Um, I have my hoodie. I like to have my hoodie on and just to stay nice and warm. And then uh, you know, headphones. I like my headphones, my uh noise canceling headphones. Of course, you want to hear what you what you got going on. Um kind of keep track of things. And you can always do that on your phone now with smooth comp. You can do that pretty easily. But like, I don't like hearing anything. I don't want to hear any noise. So I've got my music and I've got my stuff. I'm just kind of chilling, breathing, and then I like to really get my heart rate up a little bit. Like you said, you've got a certain I don't uh keep a heart rate monitor. I should probably pay attention to that to see where I'm at. Speaker 1: I started doing it I started doing it just at a sheer interest. You know, because I was like, let's see what my heart rate's doing. And I was just surprised by how high it gets, how easily. Speaker 2: That's wild, man. Speaker 1: Dude, it's dude, because it's like at the gym to get it to 170, I've got to cook. Like that means that I'm in the middle of a hard roll. In in a competition setting, like and me just warming up with one of the guys and I mean that state of mind where I'm I don't want to say that I'm mean, but I'm far more aggressive. It's like, dude, it's it's up there. Like everything's done with a certain amount of intensity and I I don't even realize it. Like one of the guys, one of the guys that was warming up with me for one of the ADCC competitions this year, uh Bobby, big guy, 200 like 45, 250 pound big fella. Um strong, right? Muscular. And he was talking about when we were warming up, he was like, Jesus Christ, dude. He's like, you're clubbing me. And I'm like, Speaker 2: Feel it. Speaker 1: Knocked around, right? And um, you know, because again, it's just to me that's kind of the fun about the competition because when I'm competing, it's like a state that I cannot get into normally because, you know, when I'm at the gym, I I like you guys. I want to take care of you. And so even when I'm going hard, there's always a little bit pulled back. Whereas and then also too in these competitions, it's just like, I don't know, man, your body takes over. And it's it's like, I've said this before, when I compete, I feel like I'm I'm someone else. It's like when I go back and look at it, I'll go watch my matches and sometimes I'm just like, wow. Look what I did. Like I I'm almost surprised sometimes by the stuff that I do because some stuff is like made up on the spot. I never drilled it or whatever. It just happens. And the other stuff is like I drilled it a bunch and it happened just like I I wanted it to. It's so but it's just amazing to see and it's fun to watch because it's like it's like your training takes over and the thought process is gone and it's just those are like my best performances where it's like, I don't want to say it's mindless, but it kind of is where it's like the body's taking over and I'm literally along for the ride and my like head is kind of like going, oh, look, I'm I'm single leg I just did a single leg takedown. That was cool. I just choked this dude out. You know, that kind of it's that kind of thing. Speaker 2: It's autopilot, dude. It's autopilot. It's just like you've been there, yeah. It really is. I mean, instinctual too. Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, to your point, we're talking about getting there early. I like getting there early enough to where I can walk around and feel the room. Um, there's an interesting thing I remember reading about where um, because like, you know, for instance, the idea of scent, you know, animals give off scent and animals can detect scent, right? And humans are somewhat detached from that, right? We try to cover up our scent. But there was an interesting thing that I was reading about where they took people that were in sort of stressful situations. And they essentially took their scent. And they would give them to they would they would give those scents to other people who were not in a stressful state. And they said that when they when the person would begin to smell those scents, their amygdalas would turn on, right? Like so their fight or flight response. Obviously, they're not going crazy, but they would they would see that there was an amygdala response. And so you're like, that's that's wild. Because what happens when you go into a room that's like a competition? You can just feel it. And you can't put your finger on what that is, but you can feel it, right? You can feel that something's up. You even go into a really hard training room that's where it's getting real intense. You feel something. And I think probably part of that feeling is and I I this is my sort of theory and my guesstimation is that I bet there's a I bet we're like with all that fear, anxiety and nervousness going on. There's our our the the composition of our sweat and smells do does change. And so I imagine on a deep level, we don't realize it, but we're probably detecting these scents and these these different scents being given off and it's causing a response in our bodies, right? Um, I don't I don't know why that wouldn't be a thing because other animals do it, we do it. And like I said, our our the the composition of our sweat does change depending on the type of situations that we're in when we're when we're perspiring. And so it only makes sense. So that's my theory on part of it. It's like so I want to go in the room. I want to like because initially for me, as soon as I walk in the competition room, it's almost like I can feel this like energy in me. I'm like, oh, there it is. Like I it's almost like kind of hits me a little bit and I need to like just be with it for a minute so that it relaxes and that takes me a little bit and then afterwards, I can settle down. Now, you may not be as prone to anxiety as I am. Um, something I have, you know, not not everybody is. But I would tell you that, you know, even the best competitors that I know, they say similar stuff. You know, guys like, you know, that have competed in one, they still need time to settle in that environment for a little bit. And so like you, like I said, I like getting there a little bit earlier so I can pace the room, walk around the room, get a lay of the land, kind of figure out like which mat am I going to be on because the mats are typically posted like which one am I going to be on. And kind of know where I'm at and then just kind of bring in make it as make it as many knowns as I can. I know the mat that I'm going to be on. I know the bullpen I'm going to be in. I know what my weight is. I know I I I know as much as I need to know. And then from there, it's just time to, you know, chill out, wait a little bit and get ready to warm up and uh go out there and compete. Speaker 2: Yeah, I try to keep as as similar a routine as I would, um, if I'm like training every day, like when I'm going to the gym. There's a certain kind of movement, certain warm-up that I do that I like to do. And then the other thing is, um, there's always this initial like shock to your system, you know, kind of when you when you clinch up with someone or start to, you know, start start pushing and shoving and grabbing and grip fighting. And so having some of that to do before you actually get into competition and do it, Speaker 1: 100%. Speaker 2: Is is kind of just gets that like the shock of it out of your system. The other thing I really like to do is, um, I like to do some sprints. I like to just jog a little bit and get my heart rate up and then let it settle and then I like to do a little bit of sprints. Just to get my body used to get my heart rate up, then get it back down. Heart rate up, get it back down. Because that's something for me between matches, the ability for my heart rate to get down quickly and efficiently is super duper important. I think that that makes makes sure I'm not as fatigued for the next match. Um, the other thing, you know, that I do, I, you know, I eat at a certain schedule, regardless, like so I I'm not going to eat right before a match, but like if maybe I don't go till one, I'm already going to have breakfast and have lunch and whatever else. I kind of keep my same meals. I try to keep them as consistent as possible. So my energy's kind of consistent and it's it's hard because like I'm not terribly hungry, so I almost force myself to eat a little bit. But, um, I've found that just keeping my food, and I might modify like keep the macros the same, modify some of the foods, uh, you know, I'm makes a little more simple to eat. Like you said, digestion's a little more simple, but, um, it keeps my energy kind of consistent, so I don't feel like I have a crash. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I eat a lot more carbs. Um, Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: For sure. Like, for instance, if I'll drop the protein in my my meals on competition day and I'll increase the carbohydrates. Um, assuming that my weight is where it needs to be, right? Um, and that's because again, I don't necessarily need as much protein the day of. Again, when you when you go into what is your body, what kind of fuel is it running on in competition day? It's running on like, uh, you know, the the the carbohydrates that we're eating, right? Again, it can run off fat, but again, when it comes to high intensity exercises, our body likes carbohydrates. And so typically, you know, I'll increase the rice if it's a later day or later later meal or the oats or the cereals or like you said, you start throwing in Pop-Tarts and things like that. Um, this week I'm competing at somewhere around 11:00. So I'll have a normal breakfast. And then beyond that, I'll have snacks because I'll probably wake up, have breakfast. Um, I also drop my coffee intake a little bit. So, you know, for me just again, I don't want to I don't want to drink too much coffee so that it revs me up too, too much. Um, you know, so if you're one of those guys that ends up that's a lot of uh like a lot of people I know of of like really overdo it with energy drinks. And if you're one of those people and like even in training, I remember having one guy years ago who would come into the gym and he was he I remember there was just one day he was really exhausted. We were talking and he was telling me about he was drinking, you know, this one particular energy drink that has like almost 300 milligrams of caffeine. So I said, hey, man, why don't you cut that out and maybe do a little green tea. Green tea is like enough to where you probably won't get a headache for from it, but it's very mild as far as, you know, um that goes. Maybe you could always do a black tea if you wanted to, but you know, if you want a little bit more. And he did, he switched to tea and he he felt so much better because he was so much his heart was wasn't as revved up, so to speak, right? Um, and so for me like on the day of a competition, I'm already going to be revved up more than ever. So I don't need to like overdo it with caffeine. And so I typically lower my caffeine intake a little bit on the on the day of. I increase my carbohydrates, lower protein a bit. Um, and then but I still keep the foods the same. You know, um again, a lot of times people ask about like what food should I be eating. And again, it's going to be dependent upon you. Um, the only foods that I don't normally eat is I don't normally eat Pop-Tarts, but I know that I can digest them pretty easily, so I don't mind. Um, but otherwise, that's like, you know, if it's a later day, it's like rice and some meat and um some fruit, uh oats, uh some cereals. I I'll eat some different things like rice checks or rice or uh rice crispies. Um, those are pretty easy to digest and um, you know, then my normal dextrose workout drinks and things like that. I mean, it's it's very simple. Um, you know, because like you said, you don't want to change anything. I remember one time years ago, this is like I learned this lesson like really early on in grappling. I was uh I was a senior in high school. And I was in the quarterfinals of a competition. And I ended up uh going up against a guy. That was I I was seated to beat the guy. But I remember that morning, you know, instead of eating the normal thing, which I would eat, which would be eggs, oats and a banana. That's what I used to eat as like in my high school year. I remember all the guys were going out to Dairy Queen to eat. Now, I didn't normally eat Dairy Queen, but I was like, oh, whatever, it's not a big deal. And I got uh or no, it was Burger King. That's right, because I got a croissant sandwich. That's right. So I went to went to Burger King, got a croissant sandwich. And man, oh man, it did not sit well in my belly. I remember after that match was over, I beelined it for the bathroom and just, you know, I was trying not to like blow my guts out into my singlet. That would because, you know, as a as a teenager in high school, you don't live that down. If you if I was the one that took a dump in my my singlet, right? In front of all the guys, like that's that's who I'm going to be forever. And so, you know, I I got I got uh I got beat in the match, ran off to the bathroom and was whatever, never ate that Burger King stuff again. And but anyway, I come back and win third. But I remember I just it wasn't good. And so that was very clear to me like I need to eat the same foods. And so for a lot of you guys, if you're eating a diet that makes you feel good, that's what you should be eating, right? The same stuff. Now, if you're eating junk food and bad food, I don't want to say bad food, but food that's not geared towards performance, then you should probably change that leading up to the competition. Um, you know, and then eat the good food the day of the competition. You don't want to radically change your diet in an instant and, you know, have gastrointestinal stress because you decided that, you know, one day you're going to change your diet rapidly to support your performance. You should be eating the same stuff over and over again. Speaker 2: Yeah, I would be leery of, um, like most tournaments now have like kind of food set up, food stations, whatever it is. And it's usually like fried this, fried that. Really avoid. Yeah, you don't know what like how you're going to digest that stuff. And also a lot of fat, fat, you don't digest quickly. Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes about six hours for for. Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's just going to sit on your gut and you're going to feel like ass. If you've ever eaten like a real fatty meal, like how do you feel after you start digesting? You feel kind of like a slug. You're like, ah. Speaker 1: Right. You want to take a nap. Speaker 2: That's right. You want stuff that kind of revs you up. And then like you said, like it's almost like, um, I would say getting a ton of caffeine is like your car overheating, right? Like you need just enough. But if you eat too much or you drink too much caffeine or it's like almost like you're just like at such a a high revolution that you just you're your car can't function. You kind of overheat and you and you want to have to do. Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. It's almost like if you think of like a tachometer, right? That's revving your RPMs. It's um, you know, your idle. When you start taking a bunch of stimulants, um, you just you raise your idle, so to speak, right? So, you know, if you're idling at one, well, all of a sudden the tachometer is just sitting at two, three, whatever. And then if you throw in a competition where you're already revving a little bit higher at idle, just sitting there, then again, it just you're your baseline's there and you have less wiggle room to work with, right? Um, and this is kind of what happened in in the gym where the guy like when he would use these big energy drinks, his heart rate was jumping. His blood pressure was higher, everything else. So as soon as he'd get on the mats, I mean, he's just he's hitting his max heart rate versus, you know, a little less caffeine, he felt a lot better and he's not idling as higher and his body's not revved up as higher. So when he gets in there and competes, he has a or was rolling, he had a little bit more room to work with, so to speak. Um, but yeah, so it's just like you like you said, revolutions. It's just like your body's revving up too too hard, too fast and uh not going to be ideal for a competition situation. Speaker 2: All right, Chew, so let's let's talk about we've kind of worked our way day before, week before. Now we're there. We're getting ready to step on the mats. Like what's what's your mindset? What mantras? What are you going what's going through your head? What are you visualizing? What are those kind of last second preparation things, um, for you and then I'll kind of share what I got. Speaker 1: I mean, man, I think the biggie is one is you have to be careful of your thoughts because it's really easy in those situations to go into like weird places. Um, to sell yourself short, to build up your opponent. Yes. Um, to get worried, to get fearful, you know, things like that. Again, you know, for me it's it's changed over the years, but one thing, I was talking to a guy, there was a guy Sid who came to the Jiu-Jitsu open this past past weekend. And um, at the seminar afterwards, I was I was doing some Q&A. He was asking questions and he said, man, he's like, you know, what do you do and things like competition or whatever where like you're nervous or, you know, that kind of thing. And you're, you know, you're second guessing yourself. And, you know, there are a few things. One is that ultimately you just do it. That's part of it, right? Because, you know, even if you lose, there's power in just doing something that you're afraid to do, right? Like Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about this, right? Do the thing and you get the power. And even if you're not successful, just simply doing something that like makes you feel uneasy, that scares you a little bit, that makes you second guess yourself. Even when you do it and you come out on the other end and you're okay, it's like, you still feel empowered by that, right? Um, but a lot of times people surprise themselves. You know, I I could tell you that some of my biggest wins are the moments where I was like amazed by how well I did. Like I went into those matches kind of nervous, like, oh my God, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this, whatever, you know. Like and then all of a sudden I came out on the other end like basically with a different perspective as to who I was and what I was capable of, right? But you don't get those perspectives if you don't test yourself, right? Um, with everything you do. You know, it's so easy to just to be a to be fearful, to be afraid, to worry about stuff and just not do anything at all. Um, and so a lot of times you discover what you're really made of when you test yourself. And then what happens is you get you get evidence, right? So a lot of times people can get into these places where they feel bad, they second guess themselves, they downplay themselves. But you got to think about like all the evidence that you have that leads you to think a certain way about yourself. Like, for instance, if I go to a competition and I look at guys and, you know, maybe I'm like, man, this guy looks really tough, so forth, so forth. But then I can look back at the mountain of evidence from all the years. I can say, man, like, yeah, he's tough, but I've done this, this, this and this. And, you know, I can lose matches, of course, but you're going to be have to be a tough dude to beat me. And if I lose, that's fine, but you're going to have to bring it because I don't typically lose matches super easy, right? So it's like most of the time if I lose matches, it's to, you know, like like last year at Worlds, I lost to a guy who's like the number one black belt at Master 2. He literally just by by not even close margins. I mean, the dude's just he hasn't been beaten in like three years. And I was like, took him down to the wire of the match, right? We had a good match together. And so I'm like, I'm all right. You know, and so again, you may not have that evidence, but you could also go to your gym. How do you, you know, you, oh, man, I'm that guy looks so tough. I don't know if I'm going to do well, whatever. Well, how do you do when you roll with the people in your your gym around the same skill level, the same size, everything else. You have this stuff building up all around you. You got to focus on that because your mind can go in dark places pretty quickly in competition day. And then you got to focus on just what are you going to do? Because the way you win matches isn't by thinking about being on the podium. It's not thinking about how tough that person is or how you want to win really bad. It's about thinking about like how are you going to beat this person? What techniques are you going to use? What's your game plan? You know, are you going to come after them and club them really hard and try to take them down? Are you going to pull guard? What how are you going to defeat this opponent? That's something you got to focus on. Um, and when you think about it that way, it becomes a far more resourceful mindset because you're thinking about like what is their game and how can I defeat this game versus, oh, man, look how good their sweeps are and look how good this is and and just building this person up. You're looking at the person and you're actively trying to find a chink in their armor and you make them human. It's really easy to look at someone and build them up and not notice all their imperfections. We do this with everything, right? Like we can notice all of our imperfections, all of our uh deep uh what would be the word, uh deficiencies. But then when we look at someone else, we sort of ignore them. But if you look at a person and you're really trying to dissect their game to figure out how to beat them, you start to zone in on those things. A great example of this was I had a guy years ago, very good competitor. He he had been on a tear and played a really good open guard game. And so when I was watching his matches, I noticed that he was really strong to one side and was very weak to another side. And by weak, I mean relative, just in comparison. He was very good on both sides. But I noticed that when he was beaten, he was beaten by people passing to his right, which is most people's weak side with half guard and everything else. And so I observed what he was what happened and there was a trend that I found and I said, well, let me try to use this to my advantage. And sure enough, that's what I did in that match. I passed to the right side to to win. And so it's just an example of that. Like instead of looking at this person being in awe of what they're doing, you're watching FloGrappling or watching them on YouTube or getting in your own head about it or even watching the day of the match and just just go out there and focus on how you're going to beat them. And again, if you don't beat them, it happens. That's part of Jiu-Jitsu. We don't always win. But it will be a far more resourceful place. And then the last thing for me that helps is I look at it this way. My son will still think I'm like the coolest dude ever. Like if I come home, he'll still be screaming, Dad, as soon as I walk through the door and we'll want to play with me. My wife like has loved me whether I win or lose and she's not leaving me because of that. It doesn't affect me my ability to support her. Um, so really it comes down to this is all me. This is all side quest stuff. And unless you're a very small percentage of people in Jiu-Jitsu, probably less than 1%, you're doing this for fun, right? You're doing this competition to test yourself. It doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of your life. It's small potatoes. It means it's meaningful to you, but it doesn't really matter. And so when you think about it that way, that allows you to be a little bit more free and less fragile and less focused on the less focused on the expectation and allows you to then go say, like, let me just go after this person. Let me go into the middle of the ring. Let me see what I'm made of. Let me see what I can do. And let me go after him opposed to playing scared, playing ten to um timid and then holding up where your game, you're unable to show your best and you leave the mat more pissed off at yourself because you didn't go for it versus even if you lose and you go after the person and you attack them with everything you got, even if you lose, you walk off the mat with your head high because you're like, you know what? So what? I showed courage in the face of nervousness and anxiety and some some you could even consider maybe fear. And you were able to go after someone and see what your game was made of. And if you came up short, then so be it. Learn from it. But you know you gave the person everything you got. And so uh those are some of the things that have been helpful to me as far as conquering all of that. And again, this is someone who does this for a living, who has eyeballs on him. Like when I compete, people are watching me who I've never met before because they want to see what happens. Um and I also have my students and everybody else looking up to me. So again, I have more pressure than the average person. And that's kind of how I deal with it. Personally. Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's um, all great points. Like I I would rather, of course, be better prepared than less prepared. Um, so one of the things I do is I I just kind of focus on like the work I put in, like the training sessions I had, the training partners I've gone with that are tough, that push me, that really I feel are very good. And then I kind of go back to that. And I also think about the strength conditioning work I put in and like the cardio and the kind of the stuff outside of Jiu-Jitsu that I did to prepare my body as best as I could. I think those are really important. And then something that uh I just think about my opening. Like what am I going to do? I don't want to go in there and be like, what am I going to do when I when I start connecting to them or if I start fighting grips. I already know what I want. And maybe have a couple options from there. But I kind of have an idea what I want. It's really hard too to say, man, that person looks strong or they look big or they look scary, you know? So I try to really um just focus on what I can do, what I'm capable of and kind of the the prep work I did to get in there. I think it's super important. And that's what at least keeps me kind of sane and um because everybody feels strong when you get in there and you lock up with everybody feels freaking strong, dude. So it's just uh they will. And and I'm sure and and I'm sure to them, you feel strong or I feel strong, you know, like because we're we're you know, if we're in the similar weight class, we're going to feel not not far off, you know? So I think they're going to feel feel my strength as much as I'm going to feel theirs and that's kind of part of it. Speaker 1: That's right. Hey, guys, thank you for being here uh with us this week. Um hopefully I uh will have met some of you at Worlds, Nogi Worlds. Um big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this podcast happen. Charlotte's Web CBD, um CBN and other products such as functional mushroom products. They got a lot of stuff, balms and rubs too. Check them out at Charlottesweb.com. The promo code is Jiu-Jitsu 30 for 30% off your order at checkout. 30% is a hell of a discount on anything you buy if you want to try it out and see how things affect you. Also, big thanks to our sponsor Epic Roll. If you're looking to get some nice Jiu-Jitsu gear that's premium quality, comes with great customer service and cool designs, you can check them out at Epicrollbjj.com. And then when you go to checkout, just use the promo code Jiu-Jitsu 20 for 20% off at checkout. Also, if you want to join us uh inside of our Patreon and support the Patreon, which you again, that supports the podcast, rolling over to patreon.com/thejiujitsupodcast to join up. It's available to you. And then last but not least, guys, if you want to join my daily email, you can do so by going to my website at Jiu-Jitsu.net/join, J O I N, where you'll get my daily email. Also, for any of my older grapplers out there, um I'm currently releasing my Masters Vault, um program, which is going to be very different from anything I've released before. If you want to get details on it, join my Chew Crew email list because that's kind of who's getting first crack at it. Um, because I kind of want serious people inside the group. And I figure if you're willing to join up and become a subscriber of the Chew Crew, then you're more serious than the average bear. So, um, Jiu-Jitsu.net/join is the website. You'll get some free ebooks and video resources when you join up. And then you'll get my daily email from there. So, guys, appreciate you guys. Hope you're doing well. And uh if you guys have any questions for us, feel free to send them in uh to us either by uh Instagram or by email at Jiu-Jitsu Podcast@gmail. But otherwise, I appreciate you as always listening and watching. And we'll talk to you guys next time.