Why You Choke In Competition (And How To Fix It)

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Transcript

Q And A Kickoff

SPEAKER_05 0:00

It's QA episode. Welcome. You guys are super fucking lucky because today we've got Raspberry Ape joining us to jump in on answering your questions. If you want to leave us a question, you go to bulletproof for bjj.com, hit the podcast tab, record us something. Um we love it. We get to connect with you guys, hear your voices, and please tell us where you're from because sometimes we fucking pine over this for a while, and it's really nice to know. First question coming in today from Ariroa.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Let's go. And I'm wanting to ask about focusing strategies and what strategies you guys used as competitors to help yourselves focus and shots competition uh in Zune and be prepared for the task at hand being the match. I've seen very mixed results in competition, uh half wins, half losses, half losses, half decisions. And so I think that most of my worst performances, I was thinking too much, and my reaction times were way too slow. And other times when I was performing well, I don't even know what the fuck happened. Oh I don't know if you can swear, but yeah. My question is how do you guys focus in competition uh or even in the training room? And what advice would you have for young athletes trying to lock it, which is I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Cool, should I jump on that? Yeah, please. Okay, so I'll try and dilute uh relatively quickly something that I was doing a lot whilst I was sort of in my competitive uh uh serious competitive days. I worked with a sports psychologist. Um prior, I thought that sports psychologists are for people who are pussies, and uh that that that that that was for people who had problems that they needed to sort out. And of course, that was a very immature and incorrect opinion. Of course, you go to a strength conditioning coach not because you're weak, but because you want to get stronger. And you go to a sports psychologist not because you're mentally weak, but because you want to become mentally stronger. So um I underst I started to understand the importance of that. I started working with a sports psychologist and he taught me a technique. We did some visualization stuff, and I'll try and uh I'm not sure how practical this uh will be, but it will give you an idea of something maybe to look into, which is we we uh essentially made a uh conditioning queue for preparation for competition. So this involved sessions of visualizing, watching myself compete to be the ideal competitor that I wanted to do, how I walk, how I step on the mat. And when you're visualizing, you want to be very vivid with it, you can smell that nasty, sweaty smell, you can hear the the audience or the crowd shouting in the back, you can feel those horrible neon lights, the feel of the mat underneath your feet, all of that, and then watching yourself um, you know, kick ass basically and and act exactly how you want to act and be confident and you know win and how you act when you win, and then you can visualize not just looking from a third person but actually in the first person, and then connecting that to a physical uh action and a Q word in your head. So that can be whatever the action is, the whatever the word is in your head, that's a personal thing up to you. And also I would visualize stepping into an imaginary circle on the ground where like all of those things that confidence, the strength, the power, this crisp technique, the no nerves, all of that stuff. I could step into that, I could close my eyes, I could do my action, I could say my word, and then boom, I'm stepping into that person. And I worked on that for a while. And for me, it's this was a very, very powerful technique where essentially, and this this was important because when I was competing at a high level, I was very, very serious about competing, and the intensity that you need to compete at a high level is not conducive for life. You can't be that professional athlete when you're at a dinner with your friends or family, you can't be that professional athlete when you're sitting in traffic because it's too intense, and that's where you see professional athletes um uh with drug problems, with getting into fights, you know, having having serious issues due to that intensity. So, what I was able to do by developing these techniques was to separate my competition self from my rest of the life self. You had Daniel Strauss and you had the Raspberry Ape. The Raspberry Ape chills out in the back seat all the time until it's time to perform. And at that point, we pull over, I go into the back seat, they go into the driver's seat, and then I can just let him do his thing. And that meant that I could rock up to the competition, I would fall asleep in the stands beforehand. I am completely relaxed because I have the confidence knowing that half an hour before I compete, I'm just gonna change roles. The Raspberry Abe steps in and he can do his thing. So not a huge amount necessarily of not a complete practical framework for developing that, but an idea of the sort of stuff that you can do to really enhance that psychological advantage. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 5:13

That's fucking cool. I um I like to step into the arena and I take out a big fucking bow and arrow and fucking do this. Yeah, my shot you guys someday gets me in the zone. No, I I love that. I I'm just gonna offer very quickly because I know we're short on time, but look, I didn't we're you know, two different people here, right? I competed at some local competitions up until Brown Belt. Um, but I always found that just at for me dealing with the nerves of competition, I liked to just get out there and be friendly and fucking see friends. And so I found socializing and almost trying to distract myself from the gravity of the thing allowed me to bring my best to competition. When I tried the other thing, and it could just be that I didn't try it enough or do it, you know, to a focused enough degree. But when I tried to be really sort of headstrong about what I was doing, it just wasn't me. Um, and so I just offered that as an alternative take, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, and I think one of the hardest things to manage is how um psychologically aroused you are. Like, am I too hyped or am I underhyped? And so it's different for different people. Well, I'm a bit of a hype monster, like I need to get almost red line and then pull it back a little bit. Whereas for some people that's not the way to go. So for me, the thing that helped me, I work with a sports psychologist from when I did taekwondo, was knowing how close you are to being completely too psyched. Yeah. And then you're one, getting yourself there, but then two, pulling yourself back enough to not be kind of out of control. And so for me, uh I had one or two things I would do there to get myself appropriately psyched, but then keep myself inside of that so I could perform properly. Yeah. But there it is.

Neck Injury Rehab Boundaries

SPEAKER_05 6:58

Sick question, I did I QA, bro. Thank you. Uh, next one coming in from Jen. I haven't been excited about wearing a ghe for some time. However, recently partnering with our chemical fight wear, and I can tell you their gis feel great. The beauty of wearing a hemp gi is that they are strong, they're gonna last the test of time, they're high quality, but they're light. And I would go to say that you couldn't get that kind of lightness in a cotton ghee. And so the beauty of that is, especially here in Australia where it's really hot during the summer, having a lightweight ghee that's strong is an absolute godsend. I'm a big fan of our chemical, and also the beautiful part of it is that it's a very environmental-friendly fabric to be using rather than cotton, which is energy intensive. So if you want to get your hands on some alchemical flightwear gear, you should go check it out at alchemical.com.au. And if you use the code Bulletproof15, you'll get 15% off your purchase.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Hey guys, Jen from Oregon in the United States. Love your show. Um, I recently received a diagnosis of mild to moderate vertebral artery dissection, which I am quite confident happened during a failed triangle attempt, uh attempt on me, obviously. Um more like a face smash. Uh I'm gonna be off the mats for probably two to three months, um, you know, on blood thinners to prevent clotting. Um my question is when I have doctor approval to start moving again, what neck strengthening exercises do you recommend or just movement in general? Um probably will start doing my own kind of mat drills before I, you know, roll with anyone. My husband is a upper level purple belt, so I'll be safe to roll with him as well after I feel comfortable. But yeah, just looking for you know general advice, movement advice, strengthening advice, mental health advice. Um, yeah. Love you guys. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

Jim, what a legend, please, Dan.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah, firstly, uh, I'm glad to hear that you're okay. Um that's uh that's a very nasty injury, and uh hopefully all's all is all right. You know, I'm not gonna give any advice on on neck injuries, uh, on exercises, to be honest. I give advice uh for injury stuff if it's something that I am confident about. This is something that I'm not confident about. I'm not a doctor, so I stay very clear just to be on the safe side. I don't want to give anyone some bad advice there. So maybe you have a maybe have a little bit more. Uh but what I will say, I mean, this will come out, I assume, after the first episode. A good time to listen to that first episode and talk about injuries. And look, three months is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Make sure that you're healthy, make sure that you're safe and uh and and be careful who you're training with. And it's one of those things that I'm aware is a risk in jujitsu, you don't hear it too much. But but yeah, you know, in the meantime, you can it's a good chance to work on other things if you're able to work out and and strengthen other areas, watch some tape, go to class and just hang out. The two or three months hopefully will fly by pretty fast. But if either of you guys have any advice on practical neck exercises, that's another story.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

Uh I've I've bulged a couple of discs in my neck before, and that obviously not as serious as what you've experienced, but um it did disable me pretty hard. Um, two things, two things I want to just get to here is one, in your return to training, just no triangles, right? No neck stuff. Like you've got to be super open with your training partners, just be like, this is no go. You know, like it doesn't matter, even you know, it it's so tough because you can't always control who you roll with, but you've just got to let people know that up until the point that you're really confident and you've had that clearance, there can be nothing around the neck. And the second thing I'd say on neck rehab is uh a lot of stuff with neck rehab is movement-based. And I'd say that the thing that is neglected is actually uh isometric strength. It's just your ability to stabilize your head in different positions. Um, and that's really neglected. Um, so they're gonna get you to do a variety of things to strengthen your neck, but actually, one of the most important things you can do is just get all the muscles around your neck, your upper back, to keep your spine in alignment and just get good at that again. And so, yeah, hopefully you're consulting a physio, but I I would encourage you to find a way to get that into your rehab diet.

SPEAKER_05 11:36

Yeah, I think covered it all. Best of luck, Jen. Next one coming in from Gray.

Ecological Jiu Jitsu Explained

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Hey guys, this is Gray from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm a 64-year-old blue belt, about to get my purple belt, my professor says. Double gold pans winner. Hooya! Hey, what is the deal with all of this ecological bullshit? I don't understand this stuff. It's just positional sparring and they keep trying to rename everything. It's a bunch of crap. What do you guys think? Uh see ya.

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Can I just offer something here? Please. We had Greg Souters on the podcast. Okay. Really appreciated the chat. Lovely bloke. I I I I did put something to him, which was basically what Gray just said, and he wasn't able really to tell me that it's any different. Well, he just said, yeah, he said that the difference is coaches are using tools of ecological jujitsu, but they don't understand what tool they're using and when. And I'm like, that's that's a that's fair, that's fair. So what you're saying is you've gigged out on it harder, but it's not that it's not present in a conventional form of jujitsu. And I think that this is the confusing part for maybe for Gray's. Like, aren't we kind of already fucking with a bit of this? And what do you have do you have a take on ecological?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Have you talked on this before, Dave? Ecological dynamics is not a training methodology. It's a it's not a training methodology, it's a uh it's a philosophy of how we learn. Um you know, constraint-led approach would be then sort of the result based on the understanding of ecological dynamics. Uh, the idea is that you learn things by doing them, not really by being shown them. And that's something that I have believed in for a very long time. Um, live is important. I think that positional sparring differs from a constraint-led, a purely constraint-led approach in that you are instead of, you know, positional sparring is we start from side control, we start from mount, we start from the back, and you just go or okay, you're looking to sweep or submit. I think where we're moving towards, and I don't think it's a bad thing, I think it's a good thing, is that we're being much more specific in the tasks and outcomes and win criteria of these specific sparring rounds. So yes, uh, it is specific sparring if you wanna, it is a type of sparring that is specific, but it does not resemble the stuff that most gyms are traditionally teaching. And I think more importantly, those people that are with a more traditional approach, they're spending 45 minutes drilling techniques against non-resistant opponents, followed by 25 minutes of sparring specifically in another 15 minutes of free rounds. That's different to a constraint-led approach or ecological dynamic framework where you are doing essentially zero resisting or very often zero uh uh drilling against unresistant opponents. So there is a difference there.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

Yeah, and also if you go a little bit deeper on it, and it's not too hard, there's lots of information out there. I would recommend, even though you're already the double gold champ, um, do a bit of reading because it it actually starts to talk a little bit more about perception and how we understand uh how we process information. So it does get kind of technical in a way. From the outside, it looks like the same thing, but if you uh do your own research, you will find there is a bit of nuance there. So I would recommend to dig a bit deeper. The truth is out there.

Closing Thanks And Submit Questions

SPEAKER_05 15:13

Great. Thank you. Shout out Atlanta, Georgia, guys. Thanks for your questions. Go to the website, leave us one for the next question. Thank you, Dan, for being in the studio. Thank you very much for having me, guys. Absolute pleasure. See you guys on the next one.