Competition strategy for dummies
Since I got back into competing 2 years ago I have had the same conversation many times over, so I’m making this little post so I can direct freedivers there next time I get asked! Many freedivers who are not so experienced and are quite new in the competition world, don’t always have their objectives clear when it comes to their motivation for being in a competition and what their main goal is.
So, you want to compete at a certain competition; the first question you need to ask yourself is WHAT IS MY GOAL, not in terms of numbers, but more in terms of what is your priority and what you want to achieve.
Even though yes, on principle you want to compete to do the best you can, you also need to know what you want to achieve and how to go about it.
Do you want to do this competition to qualify for a national or world championship? Or are you trying to break a national record? Or do you want to win a first place medal in your favourite discipline? Or you want to be the overall winner? Or you aim at at placing high in your country or world ranking?
As you see there are so many reasons for being competing, and depending on what your main goal is, then your strategy will probably change.
You also need to keep in mind what the competition format is. Competitions generally include anywhere between 1 and 6 (or more) days and may or may not have rest days in between. That will change a lot the way in which you should play it out.
Are you there to beat others or to compete against yourself?
If you want to get a medal or be the overall winner, you need to look around and see what the others are doing and strategize a bit: are there stronger freedivers than you, and if yes, are they also after the overall points or are they there to break a record (in which case they probably won’t be in your way)?
But if you are there to do your own thing, like breaking a national record for example, then it doesnt matter much what others are doing, unless they are freedivers of your same nationality going after the same record (this can often happen during national pool competitions for example, bit it is not as likely on an international depth competition).
Sacrifice your ego
Sometimes people want too many things at the same time an that usually leads to disaster: maybe you signed up for a 2 days comp and you aim both at a record and an overall win, which mean you can only do one dive per each discipline. That can add a lot of stress and can end up in failing a dive (and consequently also the overall) = total failure of both objectives.
In such situations, sacrifice your ego and pick only one goal instead, and if both goals have the same value to you, then pick the one at which you have bigger chances of success. If at said competition there are other freedivers who are known to dive significantly deeper/longer than you, then dump the idea over overall points and go for the record if it is more accessible.
Or maybe you are having a 4 days comp with no rest days in between; the idea of performing at your max for 4 days in a row is flawed and will lead to a bad outcome. On multi-day events you may have to skip a day and use it to recover, and you may need to start with the hardest discipline and finish with the less demanding one, even if that is not the order that you would prefer.
Are you at a qualifying competition for the national team but your ego is dying to do a big dive? Pushing it can cost you a spot in the nationals. But if you dont care about entering the nationals, then go for a big dive because you have nothing to lose; in fact those small no-name comps are ideal for push dives, because it will put less mental pressure on you than a bigger international competition.
There are way too many scenarios to cover them all, and my point was not to come up with a complete competition guide to follow blindly, but rather to illustrate a concept with some example to make one single point: YOU NEED TO THINK! (which seems obvious but many people seem to lose the ability to think when they are nervous or excited or too eager). And ideally you want to establish your goal even before you sign up, so that you (or your coach) can prepare your training plan accordingly.
And always keep in mind that being hungry is good, but being greedy is dangerous.
Some of my most recent competitions: despite being on the podiums, some of the decisions I made on these comps were utterly stupid and I’m sorry to tell you that no matter how much you think you know and how experienced you think you are, you will always making some mistakes along the way. Unfortunately there’s no learning without erring.
Yes to all of it, plus: write down the goal so you can check back in case you “forget” later what the original plan was, and you end up feeling upset because it didn’t pan out as you wanted.