How To Win The Championship Match

They say success is when opportunity meets preparation. Most matches are lost either on the mat or in practice. The matches lost in practice are due to shoddy drilling. The matches lost on the mat are due to a lack of mental preparation. It is important to understand why you lost a match to win future matches.

Shoddy practices are relatively easy to fix. Find out what you did wrong, drill it until you no longer do it. Or find out a defense to their move it, drill it until you no longer have that weakness. Fixing mental game is a lot tougher.

The mental game is actually not that complicated. You have to be prepared mentally before going into the match. This begins with nightly visualization. It continues with watching films and understanding your opponents. You have to be prepared to go into the match not just with a focus on winning but also armed with a strategy on how to win.

One needs a strategy for tough opponents because with easy opponents it is not a problem to figure out their weaknesses and overpower them. The opponents who are just about at your level require a strategy and that requires knowing your weakness and strength as well as theirs. You have to know both because just knowing yourself and not knowing the opponent is insufficient to create the right strategy.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will drive strategy because if your bottom is weak and their top is strong, you don’t put yourself into that situation. If you know that their neutral is strong and yours is weak, you don’t put yourself into that situation. If they are good at tying up and you are not, don’t tie up.

In life and on the mat, not having a strategy can be paralyzing. A smart and capable speaker will freeze up on stage if they are not prepared on speaking. But a smart and capable speaker will never show up to a speech without knowing the plan, they also will not show up to a speech without knowing their audience. The same for a championship match. One has to show up to that match prepared physically and mentally with a winning strategy. And that’s how you win a championship match.