On being competitive
A dive into my psyche - buckle up!
OK y’all… this one is going to start off sounding like I’m full of myself and/or bragging like whoa. For that I apologize, but I have to lay the context to underscore the point. So please bear with me…
Me and competitions
I have been active in historical swordplay in some sense since 1995. In that time I have fought in many, many tournaments. I have won scores of them - likely over a hundred.1 I have placed in the finals and semi-finals in many more. I have won tournaments across several “kingdoms” and at a couple wars within the SCA, I have gold and silver and specialty medals from HEMA tournaments, and I have prizes I was awarded for winning WMA tournaments before the term HEMA was applied to activities in the U.S.
Before I got into swordplay I was an award-winning percussionist. Throughout junior high and high school I won first chair in District, Regional, and Area competitions, earning a place in All State band by my sophomore year. I won a scholarship to major in percussion.
My high school garage rock band even won some battles of the bands.
Hell, even getting into law school and the U.S. foreign service can be considered competitions!
All that to say - I’ve been competing pretty successfully in different ways throughout my life.
So it’s taken me a long time to fully embrace the realization that I am not a competitive person.
Stay with me as I try to unwrap this and explain why it’s relevant.
What does “competitive” mean?
Like most behavioral characteristics, competitiveness is a spectrum.2
Some people are not particularly competitive, others are more so, and a few seem obsessed with winning in every context. But it seems that up to half of all people fall on the “I am competitive” side of the spectrum:
One study of just this concept found that nearly half of people surveyed would rather make $50,000 in a world where the average salary is $25,000 than make $100,000 in a world where the average is $200,000; that is, they prioritized making more relative to other people rather than having a higher overall income.3
Does challenging yourself count?
If we allow that competing against yourself and your own expectations defines one as a competitive person, then maybe in fact I am high on the spectrum. But if what we’re talking about is the stereo-typical competitive person who choose to or are driven to be better than another person or people - then no, I’d have to say I’ve learned over time that that’s not me.
Some will insist that people who get good at something - a skill, an art, a game - are by definition competitive.4 I don’t buy into that. Just because someone puts in extra work or endeavors to master a skill doesn’t mean they are competing with anyone outside of their own desire to understand and become proficient at something that interests them. And while I have many names for that - self-driven, high expectations, maybe even perfectionist - I don’t consider that trait competitive.
If we accept a definition of “competitive” to mean “relating to, characterized by, or based on competition,”5 and we accept that “competition” means the act or process of two or more bodies or individuals competing for an end result (which is the generally-accepted understanding of what it means to compete, I believe), then in my opinion working to excel and improve is only seen as an indicator of competition by those who are themselves on the competitive side of the spectrum. In other words, individuals who judge their improvement against the performance of others see that same trait playing out in other people whether it’s there or not.
External vs internal drives
Many people need or prefer the external push in order to improve or move ahead. That is a very natural state. Having a gym buddy or hiring a personal trainer is the only way some people will consistently work out. The culture of Crossfit gyms is usually built around a hyper-competitive atmosphere - to beat someone’s time or to not let others who are doing the same WOD get ahead of you. And this helps a lot of people find their drive.
And I believe that many of those people cannot see any other way to succeed or move ahead. Competing with others is what drives them. So they interpret any who are challenging their dominance in a skill or art as also competitive and wanting/needing to beat them. And sometimes that gets corrupted into convincing people that winning itself is the goal. And they often believe that everyone who seems to be playing the game wants to be the winner. But that’s not the case for a significant number of people.
It’s about curiosity
For many people - myself included - understanding the material or skills and getting better at implementing them is the goal. Winning can be and has been a byproduct of that goal, but being seen as the best in a tournament series isn’t what drives us. Being viewed as better than other people isn’t the point.
I’m driven by trying to understand how *this* works. Why did they do things *this way?* When I find a puzzle that interests me, I want to dive in and try to solve it. And no one else needs to be involved in order for me to throw myself at it. (Though, of course, to test ideas based on a competitive activity, one must test those ideas against others, so I use tournaments to do just that.)
Drumming
I wanted to play the drums, so when I had the opportunity (my sister’s boyfriend loaned me his kit) I dove in. I got a beginner’s book on playing the drumset by Vinny Appice and went through it slowly and methodically on my own. This led to an escalation of wanting to play all the percussion instruments. So I immersed myself in band - where I had access to many of them.
I practiced the music for All-District Band tryouts to see how I’d do. I didn’t compete expecting to win, or even knowing what that may lead to. I just went and was curious to see how I did. When years later I didn’t win first chair one year in high school I was disappointed, but more than that I wanted to meet the one who scored better and hear how she played the material. I wanted to expand my skill and be better than I had been.
Exercising on home leave
When I was living overseas I came back to stay at my father-in-law’s house for home leave a few times. I found a couple decent sized dumbells in the house and while I was staying there I set myself a few times a week to carry them down the hill to the pool and do a 20-30 minute routine, then swim.
My father-in-law, Kyle, was going three times a week to workout under the eye and encouragement of a personal trainer. Kyle once told me that he could not understand how I can make myself work out. He said he needed the pressure of someone expecting him and waiting on him in order to get in the car and go do the thing. Left to his own devices he wouldn’t.
While I was intellectually aware of Kyle’s mindset, that was a stark reminder for me that being self-driven is often being viewed as an outlier. I was working out because I had set myself a baseline and wanted to improve on that baseline before I went back overseas at the end of my visit. Not because someone was leaning on me or expecting me to do it.
(I get that this probably isn’t competition per se, but it’s still an example of needing an outside impetus to drive a practice.)
But - not Crossfit
Conversely, I joined a Crossfit gym several years ago to see what the hype was about and because they used kettlebells, which I’d recently learned to really enjoy. I stayed a few months, because it became part of my routine, but I eventually figured out that I didn’t like the competitive culture. People barking at me - even in encouragement - is really distracting and a de-motivator for me. And I don’t judge my practice and my improvement against anyone but myself. It’s just not the way my brain operates.
When I practice with weights or ride my bike or do virtually any other exercise, I don’t want external pressure driving me, and it usually distracts me when it’s there. I drive myself as much as I want to, and that’s usually plenty!
How this relates to tournaments and winning
So here’s the point to all this.
Many people I know are puzzled by things I say about tournaments. I’m aware that some even believe I’m lying or trying to seem holier-than-thou when I say that I’m not focused on winning, or that winning is not my goal.
But it’s true. I’m rarely focused on beating the person I’m facing in a fencing match. I usually view my opponent as a series of actions I need to provoke and counter - a puzzle, if you will, that I need to solve in the right way and quickly.
I’ve found if I start thinking about getting the win and about being the winner I’m more likely to subconsciously want to dismiss those borderline touches and emerge the winner. And if I start doing that, I’ve undermined my entire reason for fencing - to learn the techniques and implement them cleanly and successfully. If I win because I didn’t acknowledge hits that might have been good then I’m neither the best fencer of that match (let alone the tournament), nor did I successfully demonstrate that my techniques worked. I merely ended up being told that I won.
My biggest hurdle
One evening after a large tournament in Texas I was sitting in a circle of 30 or so top fencers and someone said “alright, everyone - who is your biggest hurdle? Who gives you the most problems on the field?”
They proceeded to go around the circle and name other skilled fencers who “had their number” or who always challenged them more than anyone else. When it came my turn to say something the answer was obvious to me, but no one else had said it: “Me. I’m my biggest hurdle. I am harder on myself than anyone here, and I give myself more hurdles to overcome than anyone too.” After I said that a few others agreed that they are their own worst competition. I’m pretty certain, though, that some in that group didn’t understand the concept.
Conclusion - e.g. “so what?”
So in the end it comes down to this - I’m not a competitive fencer. As far as fencing is concerned, I’m an amateur historian working on a type of applied history, using sparring and tournaments to test my interpretation of the historical manuals. I am not driven by the need to be the top fencer, or to stand on the podium, or to beat the person I’m facing. I am driven by trying to make the tactics that were written about in the 16th and 17th centuries work against people who don’t want them to. And that’s ok. I can be successful at what I’m doing too.
All that to say - this tent is big enough for all types of fencers. There are all kinds of reasons people enter tournaments and want to spar with others. The person you’re facing may not - probably doesn’t - have the same goal as you or even the same reasons for being there. You don’t need to understand it, but don’t assume the person facing you has your same mindset.
And do not feel like you need to fit in to a certain way or a certain mindset in order to find your place in this thing we do, or really any thing that you want to do. In the words of Simon Sinek:
Find Your Why.6
Next up:
Skill progression - Making a plan to improve part 1 (Paid subscribers)
A status report on my fencing manual (All subscribers)
I stopped counting, and don’t care to try to go back and remember them all for reasons that will become clear throughout this article.
Eastern Oregon University. “Psychology of Competitiveness | Eastern Oregon University Online.” Eastern Oregon University, 12 Oct. 2020, online.eou.edu/resources/article/psychology-of-competitiveness/. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
Ibid.
Shuda, Dayne. “The Psychology of Competitive People.” Ghost Blog Writers, 28 Jan. 2020, ghostblogwriters.com/the-psychology-of-competitive-people/. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
“Definition of COMPETITIVE.” Merriam-Webster.com, 2019, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/competitive. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
Sinek, Simon, et al. Find Your Why. Portfolio Penguin, 5 Sept. 2017.