One of the ways that you can improve in grappling that I'm not sure gets mentioned enough is being selfless. We all have our own stuff, but only showing up when you feel like it or when it's convenient doesn't help anybody. Work around your injuries, train lighter when you're sore, make training a non-negotiable part of your schedule. People don't show up to get beat up by the black belt, they show up for socialization, and fun. The more consistent you are, the more consistent other people will be, and the less you'll have to deal with me.

More than any other time, we are right now in a society of expectation. When that is combined with instant access to so many things, we often think that all results happen at google speed. That's not how it works in grappling, and definitely not how it works when you train with me. When people come to me with a goal, I do my best to be very honest with them about what it will take. Very rarely do people believe me and less rarely will they put in the work. Achieving things is hard, and achieving difficult things quickly is even harder. In that there are two paths you can choose. The first path is to do the work. If you show up consistently (4 or more days per week) and maintain an eating regimen that matches your goals, you will improve. The other path is you lower your expectations to match your output. If you train once or twice a week, it will take a longer time for your grappling to improve. If you eat in a calorie surplus, you won't lose weight. Depending on how you look at it the black and white nature of what you need to do is either fortunate or unfortunate. The key is will you take the steps that match your stated goals, and will you take on the responsibility if you don't? 

If you've done Jiu Jitsu for more than a year and you don't wake up in pain, you're probably dead. It is what it is, and the same goes for putting yourself through any sort of strenuous physical exercise regiment. You'll have lumps, bumps, bruises, pains, and strains, but you will also have to determine what you can deal with if you want to get better. If you take time off for fingers and toes, you'll likely spend a lot of time off the mat. I had my gall bladder taken out and was back on the mats two weeks later... that's extreme, but there has to be some balance between the old school approach of train through everything and taking care of all of your injuries all of the time if you want to get better. If you want to grapple or fight, you probably won't ever be 100% again, but I'll take that trade. 

A few years ago Craig Jones went viral for saying nobody cares about gi grappling, and I agree, but I would also go so far as to say nobody cares about grappling in general. We see ADCC this year and it looks amazing, it's an arena full of people with pyro, projections, and introductions for the athletes, but it's never going to look like that again. Why is that? Because it shouldn't, it's not sustainable. The UFC stopped with high production value shows 200 events ago and the WWE only recently brought back fireworks to their events. Professional grappling isn't bringing in anywhere near the money of those organizations. The stands are usually pretty empty for Olympic judo and wrestling, same goes for most college wrestling matches. Maybe we can fill an arena every two years for one event, but there's no reason to believe that it's consistently repeatable, and I really don't think that we will see another ADCC of this quality for a while, it's just not practical. So for those of us that do care, I really hope you're enjoying the work they've put into this event, because I think once Mo Jassim is out, we're going back to ADCC Finland level shows. 

Throughout your training, sometimes you will have to moderate how you train. Not everyone that walks into a martial arts gym wants to have knock down drag out battles all the time. Most people have jobs, school, or other responsibilities where they want to come learn and roll, but they don't want to be unnecessarily roughed up. That's where you have to pay attention to who it is you are training with, and strive to finish with proper technique instead of what's easy. Some of your training partners will want to have the hard rolls where the things you do border on disqualification, but it's better to err on the side of caution unless you've already agreed to hard rolls. Overall take care of your training partners otherwise you won't have any left.

Eventually you're going to need to start doing auxiliary work to keep yourself training. It's happening to me, and it's happening to some of the other people at the gym. If you're young in grappling, you're probably not going to start now and get ahead of your recovery process, because I was you and I didn't. However, I will hold out hope as there is significantly more information about the benefits of recovery and how to recover since I started training. Whether you heed my advice or not, eventually you're probably going to need to figure out an exercise routine, stretching routine, diet, and recovery process to supplement your grappling habit. It's not easy to find the time, and it's not always fun, but once you make it a habit, it really does make a difference.

The longevity of your grappling career necessitates that you aren't rolling to the death all the time. Everyone in your gym will be happier and able to train more if you focus on rolling technically rather than force on force, murder, death, kill rolls. That's not necessarily the easiest thing to do when you're first starting out, especially when you feel like you're always losing. When you go up against your more experienced training partners you're probably going to lose anyway though, so rolling more technically saves you from getting roughed up. That's nice when you still have a day job to go to. My advice is to try rolling more technically and calmly to see if it cuts back on the days you feel like you got hit by a bus. 

Your effort has to match your goals, not just in grappling, but everywhere. Training once or twice per week isn't going to make your jiu jitsu better as fast as someone who trains 4-6 times a week, and that shouldn't make you mad. If you have other priorities in life then people will pass you by in jiu jitsu. On the flip side, if you prioritize grappling, then you might get passed by in life. It's great to train as a hobby, have a life outside of the gym, and want to get better, but do not be upset with the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do.

One of the things I impart to my students is that bottom turtle is not a resting position. Too often I see an overreliance on hanging out in that position, when it really isn't that beneficial. I understand that from a competition perspective it keeps you from giving up points, however the goal then must be to return to a position where you are less vulnerable. In the gym, I think we could all benefit from holding our partners accountable by attacking the turtle more aggressively and forcing action in a position that can leave them vulnerable in outside situations.  

Why is grappling so hard? I think one of the main reasons is adversity. We want things to be easy, we want to be happy, we don't want to feel bad, and sometimes that's not what we get out of training. Where in most other athletic hobbies: lifting weights, running, swimming your shortcomings are only known to you for the most part, grappling is almost a forced comparison. It's hard not to see where things aren't working, and other people can see it too. When you couple that with the inevitable physical and mental exhaustion that are part of doing any exercise regimen, it's pretty easy to see why it's not soul cycle or crossfit. I think everyone should do Jiu Jitsu, but it's not for everyone. It's just things that are hard with no end goal, and in my almost 20 years, that journey is only pleasing to a very niche group of people.