Jump as the Waves Come

It’s easy to feel exceptionally overwhelmed as we navigate our ways through life; so many twists and turns and obstacles thrown into our path, that it can be difficult to feel like we have control of things. And I guess that’s the entire point of it all, is that it’s impossible to have 100% control over every happenstance in your life and you have to learn how to balance the feeling of preparedness and knowing what to do while simultaneously breathing through the tough times out of your hands. I was woefully ignorant and naive as a child, that when I would see adults I automatically assumed that they were capable and had everything all figured out. If only problem-solving was that simple. Turns out, there are so many absolute baboons meandering about, still incapable of getting their sh*t together and it honestly blows my mind. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things I suck at, but I do try my hardest to set myself up for success in life by preparing for things as best as I can. However, because I am such a Type-A control freak, I tend to spiral a bit when things out of my control go awry. A character flaw I am definitely trying to work on.

My controlling ways make be a poor passenger on a flight, a crappy copilot on road trips, a difficult subordinate, and overall someone who takes issue with certain authority figures. I know that there is a time and a place on when to no longer abide by a hierarchy, I just need to not struggle when it comes to determining the proper balance of things. I much prefer to do things myself so that they meet expectations on how I want things done yet I also tend to stress myself out and get flustered and overwhelmed when issues out of my control arise because I try to do it all solo. There are always going to be snafus and disturbances that occur outside of what we expect, and as someone who hates surprises and spontaneity, I don’t do well with these occurrences. I recently attended a Bia Mesquita seminar, and she said one sentence that resonated with me so fully, that I have not stopped replaying it over and over in my mind. When a question was asked about the way she approaches her competition training, and the different things that might arise, all she said was “Jump as the waves come to you.”

That above sentence really struck a chord with me. Just like in the ocean, you can be caught off guard by an onslaught of rough and intimidatingly large waves. It’s easy to build up the fear and anxiety as you see the water rush toward you, rising higher and higher as it grows from the distance. That afraid feeling deep in the pit of your stomach will not help you prepare for the wave, nor will it stop the wave from coming. Instead, you can learn to ride it out, timing the precision of your jump to ride the momentum and have the buoyancy carry you over the wave. Or you can panic, flail about, and suffocate under the water feeling like you are drowning. The choice is really up to you. Again, this is something I struggle greatly with, because I tend to freak out when things outside of my regularly scheduled programming pop-up. Please do not plan surprises for me, I hate them. And if I know someone plans surprise for me, that sense of impending doom begins to drive me insane, and in turn, drive the perpetrator of said surprise insane too (sorry, John).

If undoubtedly one of the greatest grapplers in the Jiu Jitsu world has found a fool-proof way to manage stress and extenuating circumstances, then surely it must work for the average competitor as well? And not just to be applied to Jiu Jitsu, but to multiple facets of our life too. If we prepare for the unexpected, and understand to shift our focus to the things in our control, our mentality will be much better off. Like they say, we can’t always choose the things that happen to us, but we can choose how we respond. Am I going to burst into tears every single time I am bitch-slapped in the face from an oncoming wave? Or am I going to take a deep breath and muster up the courage to jump and ride it out? Dreading future possibilities can only do one thing, and that is deteriorate our mental health and begin to limit our possibilities. Building up anxiety about what may happen, when it hasn’t even happened yet sounds insane when you put it like that, yet it is something that almost every single one of us does. Rather than preparing ourselves as best as possible to just jump as the waves approach, we start convoluting our brains with a bunch of what-if scenarios.

Life will always be full of overwhelming thoughts, mental challenges, extenuating obstacles, turbulent times, and success and happiness waiting just over the horizon. There is not one benefit stressing ourselves out over what is to come will help with. Even though I compete all of the time, I still get nervous. However, I know that the best ways that I can prepare is by continuing my patters of training and practice, and trying to achieve the most mental clarity that I possibly can. If I spend countless nights tossing and turning over the possibilities of what may happen, my performance tends to suffer. The only thing I can control is my performance, and not the things my opponent does, only how I react to them. By preparing myself, I will be as ready as possible and less adept to lose my grounding when it comes to “surprises.” Yet as much as I understand this with Jiu Jitsu, I still struggle with anticipations of anxiety about things in my day to day life. I’m working on it I promise. Just got to keep reminding myself to stop gazing so far into the distance and simply jumping as the waves come to me.