If you wait until you are 100% ready before competing, then you will never compete. You can always be fitter, more technical or more composed. Feeling follows action – not the other way around. It is never as hard as it is the first time. You will be nervous, you will will be scared and you will doubt yourself before your first competition. But I can promise you that you will grow more than you ever have during regular classes and lessons.

Do not be focused solely on winning, nor afraid to lose. These are both outcomes. All fighters, even the greats, lose at some point. There is just too much of a random element in grappling / BJJ competition to allow anyone to achieve a 100% win rate. Try instead, to focus on the process. If you learn something from your competition experience, then win or lose, you have have gained. Some of my most important and enjoyable matches have been ones in which I have lost the fight, but gained valuable insight.

Submission Grappling is a new sport with a long history. The object is to submit your opponent using a variety of joint locks and chokes, or to win the match on points. Competitions in this sport resemble Brazilian Jiu–jitsucompetitions, although competitors do not usually wear gis.