thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

I’m sure at one point or another we’ve all heard this advice in Jiu-Jitsu. To just stay loose. I was reminded of this advice the other day while I was rolling. Now, someone didn’t give me this advice from the sideline, and it wasn’t a comment made by my partner at the end of our match. It wasn’t spoken at all. It was felt. My training partner that day felt so tense, so rigid and was trying to…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Keeping Tough Rolls in Perspective

The last two nights, I’ve had a handful of tougher rolls. A few athletic white belts who managed to just wear me down, a couple fellow blue belts and I think at least one brown belt was in the mix. And it was just a tough couple nights of rolling. It would have been easy for me to become discourage. It would be easy for me to second guess myself in comparison to the opposition involved in these…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Veterans Day

Today is Veteran’s Day. I won’t go into great detail about what that day is or why it’s in existence. If anything, I may ask why it’s only confined to one 24-hour period. It’s no secret that I, myself, am a Veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces. I served our country for a decade, and for that experience, I am very grateful. But I don’t say that looking for you to thank me for my service. I actually…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Levels of Jiu-Jitsu

The other day I was talking to a friend at the gym. A competition was coming up and he is a relatively avid competitor. It’s just in his martial arts DNA. He started out in the Tae Kwon Do world and progressed through the ranks and competed in that art. It was natural for him to go out and compete in Jiu-Jitsu. For him, this just makes sense. As we talked a third party asked me if I was competing…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Etiquette & Hierarchy

I was listening to a podcast recently and they were talking about Jiu-Jitsu gym etiquette. It was a lot of the standard things that anyone who has trained for a while has heard. Wash your gear, wash your belt, trim your nails, show up clean, etc. A lot of the hygiene is broad, generic and spans across gyms everywhere. A lot of the etiquette can be very gym specific, when and where to bow, which…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Here We Go... Again

It wasn’t too long ago that I gave an update on my views on competing in Jiu-Jitsu. In short, I didn’t enjoy competing and I don’t intend on going out of my way to compete again. I concluded by saying that if there was a charity tournament that wasn’t a complete hassle to attend, I would consider competing under those conditions, but otherwise, I’m not interested. I bring it up again because…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

How To Survive

I was scrolling through some social media page and came across this quote: It isn’t the strongest that survives, it’s the one most adaptable to change. It doesn’t take too much imagination to relate this quote to Jiu-Jitsu. It’s pretty well known that strength, although an asset in Jiu-Jitsu, is not what you can solely base your game on. After all, it was Helio that said Jiu-Jitsu “was designed…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

The Silent War

I wouldn’t be doing any justice without first saying this, so I’ll put it right up front. If you are in a dark place and need to talk to someone, REACH OUT. If you don’t have anyone in your contact list that you can reach out to. Pick up your phone and dial 988 (my fellow veterans can press one to reach the Veteran Crisis Line). I’ve seen this quote floating around in various mediums on social…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

A Different Perspective

So I came across this podcast. Actually, I came across it a while ago now, I just haven’t gotten around to thinking about it- I’ve had a lot of other things on my mind. But I thought it was a rather interesting concept, and I had caught up on all my other podcasts and thought, why not give this podcast a whirl. The premise of this podcast is that it is from a white belt’s perspective. It’s not a…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Knowing Your ABC's

I was listening to a podcast recently, and the host said something that got me thinking. It’s not far off from what I’ve mentioned recently, about the people who fill their head with so many options, it actually becomes a hindrance rather than an asset. I actually don’t even know what the podcast was actually saying, as I was driving around some particularly stupid people at that exact moment,…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Stimulating Choices

Two psychologists came up with this concept in the 50s, and I am sure I will oversimplify it, but it says that the more possibilities there are, the slower your reaction time will be. Another way I have heard it said is that the fastest reaction is to a single stimulus. One stimulus, one reaction. Why I bring this up is I was at a seminar not too long ago, and the coach who was teaching said…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

Comparison/JOURNEY

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and I think there is some truth to that, but it’s such a finite statement. Like many things in life, the key is moderation. If we don’t put guide rails on things like comparison, that’s when it can become a thief of joy. I know in the social media world when social media-founded depression was on the rise, people started coming to…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

A Mental Shift: Frames

“I’m Not Sure What to Do with My Hands.” – Ricky Bobby So we’ve talked about this mental shift for a while now. Much of it had to do with our spinal posture and base. Pretty much everything from our head to hips. But there are a few more elements to your Jiu-Jitsu game, and those are arms and legs. So, what do we do with these appendages? We use them as frames. Now, frames was a term that I am…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

A Mental Shift: Base

So we’ve been talking about this mental shift I’m going through. It started with a realization that Jiu-Jitsu was more than showing up and learning a technique and then having a technique chess match while sparring. Then we opened up the can, which stemmed mostly from some coaching tips I heard during a match. The two that stuck with me and started to get me thinking in this new light were about…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

A Mental Shift: Posture

So we left off last week with two phrases that started this train of thought, and ultimately a mental shift in how I perceive Jiu-Jitsu. They were prompts to two participants in a roll I was observing. “Drop your base so you don’t get swept.” “You lost it because you let them posture up.” Now, there are more elements to my new thought process, but I’d venture to say that these two are the…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

A Mental Shift

Now, I’ve been training for some time now. And what I’ve been thinking about lately I’ve been thinking about for a while, but it just wasn’t coming together. I wasn’t able to make sense of what I was thinking in relation to Jiu-Jitsu. But it’s definitely worth exploring, and I think what’s been going through my head is likely a sign of Jiu-Jitsu maturity. Here’s where it started: When we first…

[thinkingthroughjiu-jitsu]

The Mind Body Connection

It’s no secret that Jiu-Jitsu has seemingly endless amounts of physical benefits. I mean, between Jiu-Jitsu and some slight diet modification, I lost nearly 70 pounds. Also, there’s a noticeable difference in my cardiovascular health and an increase in my flexibility. (Side note: I’m no sorer than I was before doing Jiu-Jitsu, if anything, it help alleviate some of my aches and pains from years…