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Fitness

But Enough about You: Follow Me On My Competition Journey

It's competition season for grapplers, and I am getting ready for several upcoming tournaments. In the coming weeks, I'm going to write about my preparation - come along for the ride!

val worthington, valerie worthington, bjj, mma, brazilian jiu jitsu, grappling

Written by Valerie Worthington Last updated on Nov 22, 2021

The good people at Breaking Muscle have given me yet another opportunity for which I am grateful: writing about myself. For the next couple months as I prepare for several grappling tournaments in California, Abu Dhabi, and New York, they have asked me to contribute to the Athlete’s Journal section of the website, structuring one of my two stories a week (the Thursday story) as a training journal. They’ve asked me to discuss things like my diet, my workouts, my rest, my feelings, as I fill in holes in my game and count down the days till these events.

I jumped at the chance, but I’m also a little wary; note that the other journals are being written by athletes who are preparing for the CrossFit Games, which is like the Olympics of the sport of fitness. Further, these athletes have a history of collegiate competition (which I don’t – too busy playing beer pong), are basically full-time athletes (I suppose you could say the same of me, but it just doesn’t feel the same), and are all in their twenties (I am 41. While I feel great physically, I am always aware of being a little long in the tooth for this grappling stuff. But I’m not afraid to ground the other athletes if they get lippy.). So, one of these things is not like the other.

That being said, in recent years I have discovered I’m either too stubborn or, more likely, too clueless to let external stimuli dictate what I’m going to do or what’s going to make me feel happy and fulfilled. So I plan to ride this competition train as long as I feel inspired to do so – and as long as I manage to earn a spot. I have the benefit of amazing coaching and teammates, as well as the rock-steady support of my family and friends. Win or lose, how can I go wrong?

So if you’d like to come along on this ride, you’re cordially invited. And if there are certain things you’d like me to remark upon, like the physical toll competition might take on a – ahem – mature athlete, etc, please feel free to make a note of it in the comments section, and I’ll do my thing.

Watch for my first Athlete Journal entry next Thursday!

val worthington, valerie worthington, bjj, mma, brazilian jiu jitsu, grappling

About Valerie Worthington

Valerie Worthington has been moving her body since before she was born, for many reasons and with many outcomes. She really started to pay attention to how, when, and why her body moves when she began training in Brazilian jiu jitsu in 1998. From then on, she became hugely invested in educating herself about how to optimize her body movement for BJJ and how to support it in doing so. She has observed that these endeavors require her to invest herself not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and psychologically, fueling a particular interest in the influence on her life of these dimensions of athletic activity.

Valerie has developed as a BJJ practitioner via her own training and competition preparation, teaching and coaching other practitioners, and writing about her life as a jiu jitsu devotee through the lens of her education, personal experiences, and professional background. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a doctorate in educational psychology from Michigan State University. She is a first-degree black belt in BJJ, as well as co-founder and proprietor of Groundswell Grappling Concepts. She trains at Princeton Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Princeton, New Jersey.

Most recently, Valerie is the author of How to Love a Grappler: A Guide for People Who Love People Who Love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

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