Based on their 2009 schedule, the Gracie Barra competition team gets its game on two weeks out (the second Friday before the Saturday) for the Pan Ams, and three weeks out (the third Friday before the Saturday) for the Mundial (Worlds).
I remember reading somewhere that Lloyd Irvin also gets his competition team on a different footing once they are 30 days out from an upcoming event.
I've put together a visualization - from on the bottom to submission finish - that I will be focusing on for the next three weeks. Outside of drilling specific lessons, I want to make sure that I see every situation I am in during live training and free sparring through the prism of this visualization, and then pick up from that point and move forward toward the finish.
I think that is part of the trick when you are both trying to prepare for the very specific demands of competition and continue your fundamental jiu jitsu education at the same time. There will definitely be situations that won't be applicable to the visualization, the plan. And that's just how it is. But in order to be most productive over the next 3/4 month - and to see if this approach even works for me in the first place - I need to keep an eye on that through-line, and see everything as just another sinew of that rope.
