Not a beginner, but the first time dealing with a horrible loss... any advice?

[drop bear]

And by the way. My issue isn't people being mediocre. My issue is the constant rhetoric of dragging people down that are trying not to be.

 

[_Simon_]

So you don't really engage in that emotional risk. And you don't know anyone who engages in that emotional risk.

Well I do. And they go further in martial arts than you or me.

Which is why you wouldn't understand someone who does.

It isn't egotistical to suffer a loss. It is egotistical to condemn someone for their suffering.

Yep makes sense to me.

I know when I started competing I was doing it for the experience and connecting with other martial artists in the community. Then I really started to enjoy it and actually tried to win. It pushed me as a martial artist and I learned so much in the process.

It is very humbling to work so hard for something and have a loss. It's a great practice in putting yourself out there, putting something at stake and willing to be vulnerable. You grow, big time. And when training to win (and by that I don't mean throwing a tantrum when you lose and being a dick to the other competitors, but in training to be your best and work towards something), you really start to see the value in it. It can have a deeper meaning than just a 'trophy', and I'd say alot who compete see that it's what the competition and winning symbolizes rather than what material stuff you get.

You see the ones who want it, the glint in the eye, the focus, the drive and willingness to overcome all limitations and barriers, it's inspiring. Watching the Olympics you see that... just how long and how much effort they went into preparation, and how uplifting it is when they get a win. You see the spirit within them driving them and expressing their potential. It's a shame when people can't see the value in that, and judging the Olympics or sporting endeavours saying "so much money, could have been put to better use", they're missing the point entirely, and it's all about context and the place it has in humanity.

And the mental/emotional component is huge... so much to process and work through.

And everyone competes for different reasons for sure. And that's not to say that those that don't compete are "playing it safe". To each their own really, there's value in each approach.

But for sure I definitely see the value in competing to win. Not as a thing to fulfill the ego, but a way of seeing what strength you have in you, and it serves to inspire so many other people in the process too.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

People who are willing to accept more loss are willing to try harder. And are generally better at stuff.

A way of dealing with a crushing defeat is not competing. But it is striving to be mediocre. Can't win, don't try.

A way of rationalizing that mediocrity is suggesting that striving big and loosing hard is somehow immature or egotistical. Because it makes people feel better about their own decisions.

That's some good, thoughtful stuff, DB. I can't do it justice in a response at the moment (the Hobbit and I stayed up until almost 4AM doing our annual Lord of the Rings marathon). I'll try to remember to come back and comment later.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Yep makes sense to me.

I know when I started competing I was doing it for the experience and connecting with other martial artists in the community. Then I really started to enjoy it and actually tried to win. It pushed me as a martial artist and I learned so much in the process.

It is very humbling to work so hard for something and have a loss. It's a great practice in putting yourself out there, putting something at stake and willing to be vulnerable. You grow, big time. And when training to win (and by that I don't mean throwing a tantrum when you lose and being a dick to the other competitors, but in training to be your best and work towards something), you really start to see the value in it. It can have a deeper meaning than just a 'trophy', and I'd say alot who compete see that it's what the competition and winning symbolizes rather than what material stuff you get.

You see the ones who want it, the glint in the eye, the focus, the drive and willingness to overcome all limitations and barriers, it's inspiring. Watching the Olympics you see that... just how long and how much effort they went into preparation, and how uplifting it is when they get a win. You see the spirit within them driving them and expressing their potential. It's a shame when people can't see the value in that, and judging the Olympics or sporting endeavours saying "so much money, could have been put to better use", they're missing the point entirely, and it's all about context and the place it has in humanity.

And the mental/emotional component is huge... so much to process and work through.

And everyone competes for different reasons for sure. And that's not to say that those that don't compete are "playing it safe". To each their own really, there's value in each approach.

But for sure I definitely see the value in competing to win. Not as a thing to fulfill the ego, but a way of seeing what strength you have in you, and it serves to inspire so many other people in the process too.

I think a lot of the reaction has to do with how much of our identity (rather than effort, which may be correlated, but isn't the same) we invest in the thing...and especially in the win. When I've competed in sports, losses were disappointing, but never crushing and never all that important. Wins were exhilarating and fun, but never all that important, either (in fact, I can't really think back and actually remember a single significant win in a game, now that I think about it). It was playing the game that was important to me, and putting everything I had into it at the time. I mostly played in goal when I played soccer. The game I remember most vividly, I dislocated a finger a few minutes into the game. I played that game out in goal, because we only had 10 players that day, and nobody else with experience in the goal. We lost pretty handily, but I was happy about how hard I'd played and with the rest of the team's effort. To my point, my "identity" was as a good soccer player who gave all he had at games and practice, but there was no more of me tied up in it than that, so a loss didn't really hurt.

 

[dvcochran]

Hi there,
I signed up to this forum because I wanted to share my story with a wide audience of people I don't personally know and get their honest opinion about what recently happened to me. English is not my native language so you could find some sentences being a bit "off", I apologize in advance. So, here's the story:

A logical and cogent way of thinking.

I'm 25 years old, I've been practicing kickboxing since I was 11 and jiu-jitsu since 2014. I never really competed until 2015. I've always been pretty good at kickboxing and when I started entering tournaments and stuff I always did very very well in increasingly bigger circuits.

So you enjoy tournament sparring and have some degree of skill. So far so good.

Key point of the story: I kinda have a "nemesis", a girl one year younger than me who joined my gym a bunch years ago and with whom, for some reason, I immediately developed a bitter rivalry. We really couldn't stand each other and hard spars sometimes became proper fights. Once we even got in a fight in the locker room, and another time we really beat each other up on the lawn outside the gym, with the end result of both of us going to the hospital. I am pretty ashamed of that since I am usually a mellow and friendly person who never gets into fights or whatever! After that incident I was ready to leave the gym but she did it even before me. But when I began competing, she crossed my path again in a bunch of occasions.

What is your training environment? If you are in a formal dojo/dojang where was the instructor(s) and what are they doing to mitigate such encounters and help each of you process your anger into something positive. In the competition realm, this kind of adversarial relationship in class can be a good thing, if learned you use productively. This clearly is not your case. You need to be under someone who can teach you how to use this aggression and more importantly control it.

We fought 4 times, in real matches, like it should be. The first three times I got two decisions and we had a draw. The fourth time, things went differently. Clearly, it was the most important match of all because the stage was quite bigger than the previous times. Early in the fight I felt very confident and I managed to give her a really hard time. It came to a point I hit her hard a couple of times and she looked stunned and was noticeably slowing down. When I saw her like that I decided I had to KO her and recklessly started throwing everything I got at her. Next thing I knew, they were waking me up and asking me if I was alright. She knocked me out cold. They told me she hit me with two right hooks in a row that stunned me, then KOd me with a kick. There is a video recording of that match but I never wanted to watch it.

I lost a bunch of times before, and I was TKOd once, but I've never been KOd in such a brutal fashion, and especially by my "arch-enemy" during a match I was clearly winning. The physical damage is now gone, but since that day I kinda lost a bit of my confidence and my grit...[/quote]

Clearly you are very competitive. I get it. But you have to adjust your perspective if you want to keep a competitive edge. You best performances and drive only comes to the surface when you are fighting this one person. It just doesn't work that way. You are getting up to your best level when fighting her, then loosing your drive and ambition either based on the results of that match or when fighting someone else. In other words you are emotionally getting high, high in one scenario then getting low, low for everything else. A good fighter does not do this. Ask yourself, "can I perform at the same high level without the visual and emotional motivation of fighting this one person. That needs to be what you work on to get your mojo back.

I know there are some controversial aspects in this story, especially regarding my behavior outside the ring, but as I said I came here to get honest opinions about this whole story. THanks a lot.

Controversial is overstating things. It is just being childish and letting emotions control the event. Not what an experienced fighter does and certainly not what a martial artist does. You are 25 so you should be maturing beyond this kind of emotion. Period. If you truly have skills good enough to compete in a legitimate circuit, and you truly enjoy the competition aspect, forget about this girl and start getting ready for you next match. In short time you will feel much better about yourself. Step back and look at yourself for someone else's point of view and ask yourself "do I like what I see". What you don't like has to go.
Keep in touch and let us know how it goes.

 

[DocWard]

Why? Because I've never lost a fight? Sure I have. Plenty.
But it's not a horrible loss.
I lost an eye in a fight. That might qualify as horrible.
Your mum dying in a fiery crash. That's horrible.
Your child dying because some idiot wouldn't vaccinate theirs. That's horrible.
Watching your best friend die a slow miserable death from alcoholism. That's horrible.
Some nutter intentionally driving a car into a crowd. That's horrible.
You got your butt kicked in a competition match?
That's not horrible. Suck it up.

Well, I for one am relieved that we have you here to tell us what we can and can't consider horrible, regardless of our own personal lives and history and your lack of knowledge of them. While at face value the title seems hyperbolic, I'm not so deific as to stand in judgment of the OP. Offer advice, sure. Since I don't know anything-squat, zero, nil, null, nada, zilch-about the OPs life, personal experiences, fears, psyche or weaknesses, I don't feel qualified to do more. I'm glad you do.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Well, I for one am relieved that we have you here to tell us what we can and can't consider horrible

You're welcome.

 

[Steve]

There might be a correlation between really wanting to succeed and succeeding though.

Do many elite athletes share this ho hum approach to competing?

I have a ho hum approach to competition as well. But the I am also not very successful. But the people who have a serious attitude towards competition tend to do better.

Is this striving to be mediocre?

I believe that there is an important distinction between competitive drive and resilience, and that really successful, elite athletes tend to have an overabundance of both. Or at least, I should say, lack of one or the other is limiting at some point.

Look at Rhonda Rousey or Mike Tyson, as just quick examples. Sure, they were elite athletes who did really well, but once the veneer of invincibility was peeled back and they suffered a truly disappointing loss, they were never the same.

On a much more "average joe" level, folks who are competitive but not resilient will tend to go 100% until they hit a snag of some kind, and then quit. See it all the time in all manner of situations.

 

[Steve]

You're welcome.

Stop trolling.

 

[DocWard]

You're welcome.

In the future, I will give your thoughts and opinions the same worth I give those of others who regard themselves so highly.

 

[Dirty Dog]

In the future, I will give your thoughts and opinions the same worth I give those of others who regard themselves so highly.

As I will yours, of course.

 

[Headhunter]

At the end of the day with all this. If the worst thing that ever happens to you is you lose a sport fight....then I'm very envious of you

 

[KenpoMaster805]

You let your ego get the best of you thats why you got ko and shes girl calling her arch enemy is not right maybe shes your arch enemy because you have an attitude thats why she hates you sparring is sparring suck it up like man of course in sparring u gonna get hurt or even knock out maybe your hitting hard in sparring thats why she hits back harder

 

[Buka]

In competitive fighting you should never take things personal.

The OP, who's a young fighter, tells us - Early in the fight I felt very confident and I managed to give her a really hard time. It came to a point I hit her hard a couple of times and she looked stunned and was noticeably slowing down. When I saw her like that I decided I had to KO her and recklessly started throwing everything I got at her. Next thing I knew, they were waking me up and asking me if I was alright. She knocked me out cold. They told me she hit me with two right hooks in a row that stunned me, then KOd me with a kick.

When you take things personally in the fight game and throw "everything you have at your opponent going for a knockout" bad things tend to happen. It's an old story, we've all seen it too many times to remember. In the grand scheme of things, not just in life, but in the fight game itself, I don't consider it a horrible loss, I consider it a lesson learned. Sounds like it from the OP's honest description of the match.
Strong emotion in competition tends to bleed into anger. Anger will slow you down, distort your sense of distance, interrupt your breathing, tire you and screw up your timing. But I suppose getting slowed down, having distorted distance, poor breathing and timing and tiring is a Horrible Loss - because it's easily avoided. Let's hope it's a lesson that will help the OP in the future.

Always remember, swinging for the fences in baseball is one thing, but in fighting the fences sometimes swing back.

 

[paitingman]

Reassessing things after a shock like this is normal. You reassess your training, your methods, your motivations.
Hopefully, it lets you get a good look at what is good and bad for you.
It's normal to not feel so confident in this period of questioning things and owning up to mistakes.

My advice is to not dwell too hard on the loss itself. Learn your lessons, decide what direction you are going to take and keep training hard.

I would also advise you not to dwell on the advice of dudes here who can't even help but make fools of themselves on this very thread.