Reflecting on Tournaments: How to Do It Right

When you reflect on a tournament and think about what work needs to be done, what do you usually think about? Do you look at your weak points and the places where you got scored on, or do you reflect on your strengths and what you were scoring points with?

If you’re like most people, we tend to reflect only on our points of weakness and what we could do better rather than also looking at our strengths and what we did right. This reflection influences what you work on in practice and what you put time and repetition into. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with working on your weak points, in fact it is a required part of improving, it should not be the only aspect you focus on. In order to be the best you can be, you need to also reflect on the positives, your strengths, and continue to improve them as well.

Why not continue to improve on what we're already good at as well as working on improving our weaknesses? If you’re already good at the single leg and can get it 6/10 times, why not improve it until you get it 9/10 times?

Too often we design our work around what we’re not doing right and forget to also continue to work on what we are already doing right. The idea here is to reflect on both the positives and the negatives, your strengths and your weaknesses, and split your working time equally between both as to continue to build your strengths but also improve your weak points. In this way, you can keep improving the things that are already winning you matches and make them good enough to beat the best guys and also weaken the negatives to a point of near non-existence.

After your next competition, be open to reflecting on both your weaknesses and strengths. Depending on the type of person you are, it may be more difficult for you to pin-point your strengths and to look at the positives, but be patient and honest with yourself. When you have reflected on both, plan how you want to improve on both and make these your purpose in practice.