First of all, there is the indisputable benefit to your own training. I don't care how hard you fight in open mat, the experience cannot parallel a competitive match, especially against someone from outside your own school. I started understanding Jiu-Jitsu on a much deeper level after I started competing. It gives you a perspective you really can't get anywhere else.
When you compete, it also helps your fellow students. As you improve, so do they, and you may even be able to learn things from your opponents that you can share with the class. Your successes and failures in competition can be used to help teach us all. You might not realize it, but some of the Jiu-Jitsu classes we've had were based on Conan answering questions that came up during our tournament matches.
Having more actively competing students can also help your school. A lot of tournaments will post the number of competitors from each school, and award points based on medals. The more people you have competing, the more points your team can potentially earn, and the higher you will place. This is great advertising, and helps bring respect to your school.
Even when I lose in competition, it still helps me, and even my team. Since there are so few women, I always get a medal, therefore I always earn points. At the last Best of the Best, I was the only person from Team Jiu-Jitsu Fighter to earn any points, yet we still tied for fifth place (out of six) because of my three measly points. If a few more would join the competition team, I believe we could easily bring that number up.
There are down sides to competition; the cost, time, travel, and injuries just to name a few. Yet I personally believe the benefits are worth it. Besides, I don't think I could really call myself a Jiu-Jitsu fighter if I'd never been in a competitive Jiu-Jitsu fight.
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3 comments:
Absolutely correct on this post! I have the pleasure of coaching my kids team in many tournaments each year. We have a small team compared to other schools who have multiple locations. At the last tournament we took 10 kids and we took third overall out of 29 teams! There are many benefits to competing, most of them you named. Rolling in the gym is much different then competing in a tournament. To me, tournaments give you more of a realistic situation of how you would use your jiu jitsu. Just think about everything emotion or feeling that you go through leading up to your match. They could be the same if you had to defend yourself. Your gym is your zone, and when you are out of your comfort zone, how are you going to react? That to me is a true benefit of competing.
Totally agree, for me it is the training leading up to the competition that is the biggest benefit. I train harder, make more classes and I loose those few nagging extra pounds to make weight. All of this results in a sharper game and better timing.
money is a huge factor for me. these tournaments are so expensive. fortunately, our dojo has a descent priced tournament every once in a while.
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