Should You Compete?

Whether you compete or not is a personal decision, one that I will never force on a student. You do not need to compete to reach a high level of skill, nor do I see it as a necessary condition to qualify as a high-quality training partner. What matters more than anything else is your engagement in the learning process—indifferent training will translate into poor results whether you compete or not.

That being said, I do believe that competition represents an important experience that can bring significant benefits even if you don't do it often. Although you can find many reasons to compete, in my experience the two most common are the following:

1. Competing for dominance: The purpose of competition is to demonstrate your absolute superiority over others. Winning is everything, losing is for the weak.

2. Competing for growth: The purpose of competition is to test yourself, expand your horizons, and improve your game. Winning is the goal, but losing has value as well.

I think that the second option is the most beneficial for the majority of people, from both a psychological and skill development perspective. The average martial arts practitioner is not on the path towards a career in competition, and the dominance approach tends to have a significant number of downsides compared to the benefits of winning.

However, a little bit of dominance-style ego can be healthy and sometimes the growth crowd gives itself too much leeway for losing. It's not a binary either-or in most cases, but more like a spectrum that accommodates many different blended perspectives.

When I evaluate a student, I spend a significant amount of time observing them to see which side of that spectrum they lean towards. Do they fall apart when they lose, even in training? How do they handle feedback, particularly when it comes to deeply engrained habits? Are they willing to take risks in order to grow? What kind of foundation do they have in place already?

These are all important questions to answer early, because competition is, if nothing else, an amplifier of pressure. A student who responds poorly to the low-pressure environment of a training room will likely fail when confronted with the high-pressure environment of a competitive match.

As an athlete, you have to ask yourself: do you even want that kind of pressure in your life? When you sign up to compete, you are voluntarily adding a significant amount of stress to your day to day existence. Not only do you need to show up on the day of the competition to battle it out with an equally skilled and sized opponent, but you need to engage in competition-specific training, cut weight, lift, manage your sleep, etc.

While that is a lot to digest, in most cases the process of preparing for a competition alone is worth it. Even if you lose, getting yourself into competition shape and sharpening your skills to get ready provides tremendous improvements. For that reason alone I believe competing can be a benefit to anyone who practices martial arts.

Is that a price you're willing to pay? If not, that's fine—it's your life to live, not mine. But if that sounds interesting, there's much to discuss and discover.