But let me explain. I do not just mean IBJJF tournaments (or your local promoters), I mean in the sense that we gain the most of our knowledge through applying techniques during ‘Randori’ also called live sparring. It’s important that we see and understand that without the ability to try out techniques at full speed, we will never know if they are useful or even possible for the practitioner to perform. But let me talk about a few types of competition:

And by local I mean anything that isn’t an epic road trip or flight to get to. These tournaments allow you the most time to prepare at your gym and at your house. They do not make you deviate too much from your normal preparation and allow you to leave the nest a bit and go try to work your techniques out on someone who is both trying to beat you and doesn’t grapple the same way that your school does. Nothing will inspire confidence in your techniques like being able to pull them off against a fully resisting opponent like this. However there are some drawbacks.

These are the kind of tournaments that are more than a day long trip and require some time away from home. These are great at a few things. Firstly, moving even regions can make you compete or train with people and styles you may have never seen at home. Second, it’s a great team bonding experience to go on trips together. And third, it’s good to get out and see some things while also accomplishing your other life goals. A lot of my ‘vacations’ are geared around training and tournaments so I can be as productive as possible. Also, by traveling away from home, it forces you to really evaluate your diet, tournament prep and routine. I feel that I am much more ‘stressed’ by away tournaments and have to learn to adapt at a higher level. Home field advantage is a real thing, so learn to overcome those other stressors and obstacles you get while traveling. To be fair though, here are some cons:

I live to travel to other schools and their open mats, from time to time. This allows me to train with and meet new people in BJJ, plus the mental stressors of grappling with people whom you have never met is the same as competing, even if at a lower level. People, in my experience, generally try a bit harder when rolling with people whom they don’t know or train with regularly and so they can show you some holes in your game that the people at the gym didn’t or wouldn’t normally show you. I have also had the pleasure of grappling with people during open mat which treat it as a matter of gym honor to beat me. As frustrating as it can be at times, you learn a lot about yourself and your BJJ from those people, be open to the lessons. Though, this isn’t as good as competing:

Perfect time to try your game and train with people who are interested in you succeeding, don’t want you to be hurt, and are also trying to improve. There are no ‘cons’ to gym randori in the sense that, at a good gym, you could get numerous different speeds and ‘feels’ to your grappling sessions. Don’t be afraid to communicate with your partners about what you want to work on and also do not be afraid to lose. A lot of people go as hard as they can, get tired, and then ‘tap out’ from position so they can sit out for a bit. Use that time that you are on bottom getting smashed to evaluate which parts of your game are more attribute based and try to fix them. Your partner deserves to train to, so try to not take that away by giving up early. Also, it teaches you to be mentally tougher every time you overcome that adversity and desire to concede defeat early. I learn and have learned the most training and competing with my students and training partners every day. 

Without training live we have no context in which to learn. Without randori and different avenues of competition, both inside and outside the gym, we will fall victim to being another "Traditional Martial Art" with no relevancy in real life. Beware of where and how you train.