Some of the best advice I ever received from Lloyd Irvin was regarding rivalries.
To many times, competitors get focused on a single opponent rather than focusing on the big picture. A common situation would be as follows: Adam loses to Bill. Adam then focuses all his efforts on beating Bill. He trains with Bill in mind. Studies film on Bill. Formulates a gameplan to beat Bill. Finally, the day of the rematch comes and Adam wins. Sounds great, right?
Now what if both matches were in the first round of the novice division?
When a competitor focuses on a personal rivalry, he becomes defined by his rival. In some cases, both individuals rise to the challenge and it creates epic battles such as Ali vs. Joe Frazier or in current BJJ, Rafael Mendes vs. Cobrinha. On the other hand, it can sometimes limit the competitor by taking the competitor’s eye of the final prize.
Now in the examples above, both guys were at the absolute top of their sport – but that is often not the case. A White Belt should not be focusing all his efforts on defeating the White Belt from the last tournament but rather focusing on developing the skills necessary to face and defeat the multitude of blue belts that await him at the next level (and who most likely are better than his white belt rival). Would you rather be the BJJ World Champion or the guy who beat the returning Champion and then was eliminated next round? Set your sights on the end goal, and don’t worry about the little speed bumps on the way.
This is one of the reasons I send my Baltimore Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitors to different tournaments all over the United States rather than have them fight the same guys over and over in the Mid-Atlantic. Because we were competing so much, a lot of the competitors started to focus on facing so-and-so from another local school – which was pointless. I want them to focus on developing the abilities and gaining the experience to win the big international and national IBJJF tournaments rather than being the best team in Baltimore. After all, constantly producing IBJJF champions would lead to that title but that title doesn’t lead to IBJJF champions.
That is why we make a solid effort to send the team around the United States. Next up is the Houston International Open!
See everyone in Houston!
