How do you prepare?

[Nidan Melbourne]

I'm curious to know how do all of you active competitors (or parents of) prepare before on the day of competition and the week leading up to competitions?

If you compete in both kata and kumite do you prepare differently or the exact same way?

Be it a warm up (what do you do), listen to music or whatever you do?

[skullsplitter]

The week of I normally make sure I get a couple of good sparring sessions in. If I plan on doing kata at the tourney then I get an instructor to check me out one last time. The day before I don’t really do anything other than when I have time I try to visualize myself sparring at the tourney. At the tourney I do little other than stretching. I’m old and I need whatever energy I have to for the matches.

My son….during the week leading up to a tourney he’s in class and any open floor times just fine tuning things and getting an extra sparring session in. He typically does not train at all the day before the tourney. He uses that day to relax and let his body rest. He likes to get to the tourney about 90 minutes before start time. He’ll stretch, run through his weapon and kata, socialize with his friends from other schools, and help any younger students from his school to prepare. Almost always he will have at least one headphone on for music. Before point sparring starts, he’ll have someone hold focus gloves so he can warm up his combos.

[Nidan Melbourne]

The week of I normally make sure I get a couple of good sparring sessions in. If I plan on doing kata at the tourney then I get an instructor to check me out one last time. The day before I don’t really do anything other than when I have time I try to visualize myself sparring at the tourney. At the tourney I do little other than stretching. I’m old and I need whatever energy I have to for the matches.

My son….during the week leading up to a tourney he’s in class and any open floor times just fine tuning things and getting an extra sparring session in. He typically does not train at all the day before the tourney. He uses that day to relax and let his body rest. He likes to get to the tourney about 90 minutes before start time. He’ll stretch, run through his weapon and kata, socialize with his friends from other schools, and help any younger students from his school to prepare. Almost always he will have at least one headphone on for music. Before point sparring starts, he’ll have someone hold focus gloves so he can warm up his combos.

Not bad at all.

I am a kata competitor by nature. Week of a tournament as you, I prepare by going to my kata-set a few times over to ensure the pattern is correct and to work on timing.

The tournaments here in Melbourne are normally held on Sundays so I train my normal days (Mondays + Wednesdays) and teach on the Saturday morning. The Saturday before I will go through the full walkthrough before I start my kata and what i do after i conclude my kata.

On the day I will normally rock up 15-30 minutes prior to the start of competition for the day (most start at 8:30 am), to get used to the mats there and to the area that is the center. I have my fiance come with me for support and she assists in helping me warm up. So once I have warmed up sufficiently i will practice some kihon and kata also will assist other competitors from my dojo warm up prior to their events

[DWx]

Depends very much on the tournament for me. Just been away for a week long competition that I was preparing 6 months in advance before. That involved plenty of extra technical sessions, lot more fitness (mainly interval work), peaking about a week and a half before the competition started. The week before I deloaded and did minimal work, mainly focusing on the technical side.

If it's a smaller local tournament I'll do away with the fitness prep as I should already have a baseline level but continue to focus on the technical aspect, resting a day or 2 before.

Day of, tul (kata) always come first so to warm up for that I tend to do a bit of kihon, stretch loads for about 30 min before and maybe run through my choice form. Our "kata" competitions run a little differently from the norm in that alongside our chosen form we will also be asked to perform a random one chosen from the syllabus up to our current grade. In the past I've had a ritual where I have to do every single one on my own outside before going on the mats but I've forced myself to drop that as was getting into right states questioning myself about technicalities and stressing out. Now just leave it to muscle memory!

For sparring, I'll skip to get a sweat on. Lots of dynamic stretching and then pad work. If I do it properly it takes me around half an hour.

I also compete in breaking... For that its headphones on and lots of dynamic stretching.