A year ago I was chanting lines from Dune in the dark the night before a competition, trying to talk my heart rate down.

This time I slept fine.

My third competition was PKD, a few weeks ago, and I walked in with no expectations at all. Not "don't get tapped", not "do better than last time". Nothing to prove. Clear mind, a smile on my face, and a strange calm I'd never felt before a fight. No nerves, no stress, no anxiety. Just there.

I ended up fighting five times that day. The scheduling was terrible - I'd finish one match, sit down, and a minute later someone would shout, "Dhruva, you're up!" And each time, instead of the usual jolt of panic, I just thought, oh, okay, let's go. One fight done, next one. There was no hesitation, no doubt, no fear, none of those thoughts that usually crowd into your head and pollute everything. I was completely in the moment. In between my own fights I was cornering friends and cheering people on, the way I love to.

I'm a guard player, so most of my game is defensive - I'm usually on my back, taking what's thrown at me, waiting for the moment to turn it around. Somebody watching said I was playing like Rahul Dravid. Everything on defence, nothing getting through, just patiently blocking and blocking until the bowler runs out of ideas. I don't think I've ever been paid a better compliment.

Five fights. Three wins, two losses, with a loser's bracket that kept me busy all day. By the end I was completely exhausted, and happier than I'd been in a long time.

But the result isn't what I'm proud of. I'm proud of the mind I walked in with.

Last year was a crash course in my relationship with fear. The first competition, I didn't sleep. The second, I won a fight and was so overwhelmed I nearly couldn't do the next one. Both times, the fear was louder than the fight. This time it just wasn't there, and I didn't do anything special to make it go away. It was all the mornings on the mat, all the rounds where someone better than me held me down and I had to breathe instead of panic. At some point, calm stopped being something I had to summon and started being something I'd built.

That's the thing nobody tells you about composure. You can't borrow it on the day. You earn it on all the days before.

I think that's going to be useful for a lot more than jiu-jitsu.