Head, Shoulders, Knees, Plateaus

If you’ve trained Jiu Jiitsu for a significant amount of time and can say with the utmost confidence that you have never felt undeserving of your rank, I’m calling shenanigans right now. Some days you go on the mats kicking butt as the hammer, and other days you get pounded as the nail (I’m also subtly patting my back for using a g-rated analogy on this one, you’re welcome.) The best is when you finally feel like you are getting the hang of something as an “experienced beginner” only to have a brand new guy take you to school on athleticism and strength. My professor likes to say that for every 20 lbs someone has on you, it’s like an additional belt color. Perhaps he is just trying to soothe my ego because as a 105 lb MMA fighter with a walk around weight of 115, almost everyone would be a black belt in comparison to myself. Or perhaps he actually knows a thing or 2 when it comes to this journey seeing as he is the owner, head instructor, black belt, and accomplished world champion with the most glorious beard to ever grace the mats who also has significantly more life experience than myself and I should probably shut up and listen to him more. Eh, debatable I guess. (Jk, please don’t hurt me.)

One of the things he did discuss with me recently is something that I think every Jiu Jitsu practitioner needs to hear: plateaus are an illusion. So many times we feel as if we fall stagnant on our journeys and that we simply aren’t improving. Sometimes, we may even feel as if we are regressing, especially when  a newer and much lower rank manhandles us into submission. I, myself, have felt this way specifically, especially after performing poorly in a tournament. I think that instead of plateauing, we are improving at a slower rate that is almost indiscernible on a daily basis and something that can only be truly realized further down the line. For instance, you know when someone loses a significant amount of weight over the course of a long period of time? Well, when you see that person every day you may not realize how drastic their transformation is but then you look back in photos to see that they literally lost half of their body weight. It’s incredible. But then you look at someone dropping fat and water exceptionally fast to make weight for a fight and it becomes a lot more noticeable. The difference is, the rapid weight loss comes back as soon as the competitor re-hydrates and refuels whereas the person who changed their whole body composition is in it for the long haul. BJJ is eerily similar. We look at the newer people showing a quick, immediate improvement because they came into the gym with zero knowledge and practicality of this martial art. They have nowhere to go from there but up and can look like a flailing fish on their first week during warm-up shrimps, to someone who can actually bridge the following week. Easily a 60% improvement. The better you get, the smaller the improvements get (I’m talking the 1-2% range). But trust me when I say that they are there and will prove to be invaluable in the long run, whether you recognize it or not.

When my tattered up, faded blue belt was practically falling off of my gi, there was maybe 1 time when I thought I might be ready for a purple belt. There have easily been 99 other times when I seriously doubted ever having that thought, scoffing at the incredulity of it all. I compete so often that people are under the false assumption that I’m good and posses certain skills. Jokes on them because I just work exceptionally hard and refuse to allow myself to lose by having a defeated mentality. I lose a lot, but people seem to forget about the losses when you win, especially when the wins are exceptionally more prestigious. But I’m only okay with losing if my opponent is truly better than me. It won’t ever be because I didn’t put the work in or I became to exhausted and frustrated that I “allowed” myself to succumb and relent. Some of the best advice I ever received was that everyone has a part of them that is okay with losing, what varies is how large or small we decide that part is. I’m lucky to train in a safe environment with an exceedingly helpful team that is conducive to both my growth as an athlete and competitor, but to my mental fortitude as well. In the gym, I tap early and often to stay safe, and also lessen my aggression out of respect for my teammates. In competition, it gets amped up a little bit and my level of acceptance at losing decreases abundantly. Though I really only try to inflict pain in the cage and would rather my BJJ be exempolary of skilled prowess and technique vs gritty violence.

I get beat often in the gym and it is so hard for me in there so that it can be easier for me when it actually counts and where it matters. Now, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t days where I felt like an abysmal representation of 2 striped purple jiu jitera and I wanted to surreptitiously erupt in tears, but I bite my upper lip, brush off my shoulders, and get ready to train some more. I embrace the suck. I learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. After all, the only thing I can control in the scenario is myself. There are techniques I can use to control my opponent or bamboozle them into reacting a certain way, but nothing I do can alter their state of mind unless they allow it to affect them. Same for my teammates. Lately, I have found myself being frustrated at witnessing wasted potential. So much talent from people unwilling or unmotivated to put forth the effort. It seems like everyone wants to be a champion,but no one wants to put in the work. I can’t make people do what’s best for them if they won’t bring that responsibility upon themselves. It’s easy to be lazy, it’s harder to risk failure. Don’t be the person that only pushes themselves in training when there is a competition looming around the corner. Be the person working harder very day to get better, because you will, and slow progress is infinitely better than no progress. Even if you are not an active competitor, make sure the time you spare to be on the mats is not wasted. Same concept applies outside of the BJJ world. Though I can try to steer people in the right direction, ultimately they are solely responsible for themselves. It kills me knowing they will only learn this the hard way but sometimes you got to sit back and allow those tough lessons and punishing mistakes to occur and hope they heed the warnings and advice for next time. I will continue to try and lead by example and have a ‘no days off’ mentality when it comes to working hard (barring injury and self sanity of course) both in the gym and in life.

You are not your rank. Rank is a respected accomplishment that should be acknowledged and adhered to, but it is not the end all be all. There is no room for an ego on the mats and BJJ is one of the most humbling experiences someone can endure. You will submit people with more training than you and you will also be dominated by lower ranks as well. Not every black belt you encounter will be a decent human being and not every white belt you cross paths with will be a spastic feat of fury ignorant of the art. You will feel like you are unworthy of your belt at one time or another, and you will also feel on top of the world at other moments. It is the constant ebb and flow (and push and pull) that comes with Jiu Jitsu. Don’t listen to the small voice in the back of your head calling you terrible and proclaiming your ineptitude. Your instructor wouldn’t promote you to the level you are at if they didn’t believe you earned it. In fact, it’s actually quite disrespectful to your instructors and teammates to voice that opinion. I promise you that you have greater potential than you have ever realized, and by drowning out the negative thoughts scouring the crevices of your brain, you will continue to thrive; whether at a crawl or an accelerated pace, you will inevitably improve. Your body will hurt, your knees will ache, your shoulders will be sore, and your head will fill with doubt, but you wont ever truly plateau. At every belt, and at every rank, you will be a better you than the previous day, either at 60% or at 1%. I’d like to end this post with a blunt but very wise tidbit of advice. No one cares. Just go train.