Mikey Musumeci, the ONE FC featherweight submission grappling champion and 5x BJJ World Champion shares his wisdom on how to deal with nerves when competing. The gist of the Mikey Musumeci BJJ advice is that fear can make you freeze unless you embrace it.
If you look at Mikey Musumeci BJJ matches, you really couldn’t tell that (or better said, if) he was afraid. However, according to a recent Instagram post made by the ONE FC featherweight submission grappling champion and holder of just about every other title shy of ADCC, fear is ever present, and you should aim to accept it as such.
In fact, this latest Mussumeci BJJ advice goes deeper tracing fear back to shame:
“Fear, shame, and perspective – there are many emotions that are constantly triggered when we compete. We become so afraid that we will be judged by our result from others (shame), and that makes us in a state of fear. This fear can make us freeze; this fear can take all the energy out of us.”
The Mikey Musumeci BJJ wisdom goes further, offering a solution through reflection:
“When I have experienced this feeling, I use it as a time to reflect on my life and the people in my life. If I lose tomorrow will my mom still love me? Will my friends and family still be there for me? Of course they will.
Sometimes when we are emotional, the first answer is to override our emotions with logic, and then the next step is to change our perspective. Realize what a blessing it is to have the opportunity to compete!! So many people in this world are unable to do the things they have a passion for, so we have to be grateful that we are able to do these things.“
He concludes that we should be grateful for the feeling of nervousness that we often say we hate :
“”I’m so nervous; I hate this feeling!” Everyone that competes will say this from time to time. (Including myself…) But the truth is we have to be grateful we are able to feel for competing, feeling for competing means we care about it enough to have feelings for it right? What becomes a way worse feeling in life is running away from things that make us uncomfortable because we are so scared to feel them; that’s when we stop living.”
Musumeci is currently pushing for a grappling match against Demetirous “Mighty Mouse” Johnson.
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