What Competition Brings Out in Me

This weekend I played in one of Bali’s biggest padel tournaments, the Island Cup.

It was an intense 3 days of competition, full of highs and lows, dramatic super-ie breaks and the kind of pressure I haven’t felt in years. And somewhere in the middle of it, I rediscovered something about myself I'd almost forgotten.

I love this shit.

Not just padel. The arena. The stakes. The feeling of being fully called into a moment.

For me, this is what life is all about.

Finding the Arena Again

For a while now, it’s felt like I have been on the sidelines. Coaching and advising others on how to perform at their best. Although I enjoy that work, I still feel like I want to be in the arena myself. To test myself and see what I’m made of.

I’d been in search of something that would challenge me in new ways, which is when I discovered padel.

I've been immersed in the Bali padel scene for about twelve months now, and this weekend I wanted to see how I performed under pressure in one of the big tournaments.

So with my regular partner Martin, we entered the silver level, which is the intermediate level for Bali. We were confident, maybe quietly cocky, as we expected to be among the stronger teams.

We were right. Until we weren't.

When I Was at My Best

Through the quarter-finals and into the semis, I was in a state I can only describe as locked in. I was highly activated, but full engaged. Present in the moment.

Before each match I made a simple decision: stay connected to my body, stay in control, don't let nerves run ahead of me. Trust myself to make good decisions without overthinking.

That sounds straightforward, yet it’s not easy to do in practice when the stakes matter.

In the last 16 and quarter final matches, I was able to do this flawlessly. With my partners aggression and my controlled patience, we we able to get ahead early and dominate the other teams by targeting their weaknesses. After winning 6-1, 6-1 and 6-2, 6-2, our confidence was sky high going into the semi-final.

We were about to embark on the battle of a lifetime.

After a bit of a nervy start, we fell behind for the first time all weekend. We couldn’t quite get our shots going and our opponents punished our mistakes. We soon found ourselves one set down and in danger of letting this match slip away from us.

Yet at the start of the second set, we were locked in and we came out firing. We adapted out strategy, prevented their stronger player from dictating the points and hit some big shots in key moments. We managed to close out the set 6-4 with some of our best padel of the weekend.

Now it was 1-1 in sets and we would have to play a super-tie break to 10 points to see who made the final.

The pressure here was immense. I could feel my whole body almost vibrating with energy and adrenaline. Every point mattered and I needed to stay fully focused. My girlfriend Helen and a friend Joe were courtside, feeding us more energy. Instead of trying to control my state, I fed into it.

Let's fucking go! I kept saying to myself.

I wanted this moment. I wanted the pressure. I wanted to be right where I was.

How the scoring went is a bit of a blur, all I know is that it was an intense back and forth encounter which could have gone either way. After winning back to back points we found ourselves 9-7 up, with me serving the for match.

I hit a perfect serve into the side glass, our opponent hit his lob short, and my partner Martin came in with a monster smash to win the match.

We were into the final and I was buzzing.

More than the win, I’m proud of how I was able to perform. When you're fully in it, there's no room for anything else. No thoughts about how you look, what people think, what happens if you lose. Just this point. This ball. This moment.

That's what sport does that almost nothing else can: it forces you into the present.

The Final, and What Changed

In the final we lost 6-0, 6-2, against a team that was simply better than us.

But that's not quite the whole story.

Before the final, Martin invited a group of friends, some who had never seen us play, some who had played with us. They all sat close to the glass and it felt great to have people supporting us. But it also increased the pressure.

Now instead of just enjoying the match, I wanted to perform. I didn't want to fail in front of them. I made the decision to look at the floor and not engage with the crowd, trying to shut out the pressure rather than use it.

In the semi-final, the crowd was fuel. In the final, it became extra pressure.

That shift, from doing to being watched doing, made me more rigid. More careful maybe. Less free. I lost my creativity and my trust in myself to choose the right shot. Whilst trying not to make mistakes, I made more mistakes than ever (which one of my padel friends kindly reminded me of after the match).

I don’t think we would’ve won this match even if I played at my best. But that’s not the point.

It's the same pattern I know from running as a teenager, when I used to want to impress my dad with a fast time. The moment you start performing for others, you lose access to the version of yourself that actually performs.

What Training Is For

There's a reason athletes talk about trusting your training. It's not a cliché. It's the whole point.

You train so that in the moment that matters, you don't have to think. The decision has already been made. The movement has already been wired in. Your only job is to show up and let it happen.

Thinking is the enemy of performance. Not because thought is bad, but because when you're in the arena and the pressure is high, conscious thought is too slow. It second-guesses. It calculates outcomes. It worries about what people will think.

The body, when properly trained, already knows what to do.

This is why preparation matters so much. Not just physical preparation, but mental. The deliberate decision to feel my body rather than live inside my thoughts. When I was able to do this, I played my best padel.

The final was a reminder that I still have a lot of training to do.

The Beginner's Mind at the Bottom of Gold

On reflection, I realise that we simply weren't good enough to beat the team in the final.

Not because of the mental game, but technically and tactically. Their slice, their control at the net, their overhead placement. We don't have enough experience against that style, and we got exposed.

A friend watching said we could have competed better if we'd played slower, more patient padel. He's probably right. But that's also not a game plan we currently have. We don't have a plan B.

And that's fine. It's actually important information.

Because now I know what to build.

I'm going back to private lessons. Back to the beginning, in a sense. Starting at the bottom of the gold level and working my way up over the next twelve months. I don't want to just be competitive at silver. I want to be competitive against the kind of team that beat us.

I gets me to tap back into the beginner's mind. Which isn't about pretending you know nothing, it's about staying open enough to learn what you can't yet do. It means checking your ego at the door and choosing growth over comfort.

I know how to do this. I've done it before, in poker, in business, in how I think about myself. Every meaningful reinvention I've gone through started with being willing to be bad at something again.

This is just the next one.

What the Weekend Gave Me

I came away with a runners-up medal I don't care much about, and a set of insights I care about enormously.

Competition strips things back. It shows you who you are when the stakes are real and the outcome is uncertain. It puts you in contact with your best self. And your most defended one.

At my best this weekend, I was present, aggressive, and free. I wasn't thinking about winning. I was playing.

At my worst, I was managing: managing the image, managing the risk, managing what people were thinking of me. And in trying to control the outcome, I lost access to the performance.

The lesson isn't new. But it's one thing to understand it intellectually, and another to feel it in your body at 9-7 in a tie-break with everything on the line.

You can't think your way into the zone. You have to trust your way in.

And you have to be willing to keep doing the work so that trust is earned.

I'm grateful I have a body that can handle everything I ask of it. A partner who rises to the moment. Friends who show up. And a sport that continues to teach me things about myself I wouldn't learn anywhere else.

Adam