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My name is Romeo Barnes. I'm an author and a BJJ black belt with cerebral palsy. This blog is about my life balancing existence in two worlds. My latest book, My World is now available Amazon.com. Glad you're here, enjoy the journey.

Competition vs Coaching and "The Zone"

I've said before coaching makes you a better competitor because having to break things forces you to understand how and why they work, but it goes much deeper that. Competition requires you get into a zone. A zone of hyper-focus where everything is in slow-motion and thinking is not required there is no nervousness, there isn't even logic there's only action. This is why if you ask any athlete what happened during "X" or "X" play they'll either reply "I don't know" or "I have to watch the tape." This is also why when people ask if I ever get nervous my reply is, "No. When I compete, I'm going to work." Training is fun, competition is business and that will never change and in business the zone is a prerequisite. If you can't reach the zone, go home. Coaching requires not only the ability to make things easier to understand, but the ability to motivate and lead; the ability to make people believe in you, so that they can believe in themselves. Once you've mastered this ability, it's much easier to reach that zone yourself because you actually know what it takes to get there simply because you had to explain it to someone else. Coaching is a different side of the same coin. An athlete has to get into the zone to complete his work, a coach doesn't have to get into the zone himself, but he has to know where it is so he can help his athlete find it. Coaching is a very interesting all it's own.

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