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Your cardio is not the problem, your efficiency is. If you’re getting tired in a dominant position, something is wrong. It could be anxiety or it could just be that you’re using energy when you don’t need to, but you definitely shouldn’t get tired on top. This is the nexus of not using strength, it’s not that it won’t help you or it’s not necessary to have, but of all the attributes, strength is the most depleting. It doesn’t take much energy to be flexible or to be fast in short bursts, but strength changes so much about your energy usage. Your muscles wear out, your breathing changes, inappropriate use of strength becomes a hindrance when you have long duration training. Strength is also sort of the stand in word for trying too hard without doing anything. In general if you feel fatigued cardiovascular wise, how you’re using your energy is more likely the issue.
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You grow what you plant and nurture. Sometimes what you plant, and nurture does not grow, however if you don’t plant it, you can’t grow it. You also can’t plant one thing and expect to grow something else. The input needs to match the desired output even with no guarantee of a harvest. Take the time to put the work in, make the sacrifices while you can. The sooner you start making the choices that get you to your desired outcome the better. There are no guarantees, it may not work out, it probably won’t be easy, but you can’t know if you don’t start. Is failure really that bad? At this point how many times have you died from not succeeding, my guess is zero because you’re reading this. Make the effort, do the thing, put in the work, try. There are very few things that have the dire outcomes we build in our minds regarding failure.
All change is scary, physical changes, emotional changes, philosophical changes, they’re all very difficult. Many times, it is easier to reject change. Even your own body rejects change. Biologically we all crave stasis, it’s better for survival in a world that we no longer live in. We also crave community, but a desire for a comfortable community only produces more of the same. If what you are doing now isn’t working or isn’t working as well as it should, the solution isn’t more of the same. Improvement comes from perspective shifts; the only way I change is by making the choice to change. I get better by conscious effort. Right now, many things about myself are changing and it’s been very difficult, but I would also say it’s been better. Impermanence is a part of everything and most things you want to change are changeable, but it’s not easy. The decision then becomes whether you believe it’s worth it.
No one learns at the same rate, and we all have attributes that determine the speed of our success in something. In grappling especially, it can be difficult to have someone come in off the street or with less experience be successful where we are struggling. That is not your business, and it will only cause you irritation. Your focus is on yourself. What are you doing to improve? How are you turning the tables in your favor? What can you change from your lack of success? Without self-analysis, improvement comes slow. What are the things that you need to change and what is within your control? Do not worry about the speed of others but instead focus on what needs to change with you.
You won’t always feel like you’re getting better. There will be lots of times in your grappling journey that you may feel like you’re stagnating or even getting worse. Most likely you’re not getting worse, and in fact you’re probably just improving less slowly than you have in the past if anything. When you start, it takes a while before you don’t feel completely lost. Then, you start to put the pieces together and usually that leads to a rapid ascent. Finally, people start to figure out counters to the things you’re doing and that’s a plateau. Your improvement just seems to flatten out. This cycle will repeat itself for your entire grappling career. The parts where you feel like you’re not getting better will vary in duration, and if you have enough tools in your bag, you may not notice them at all, but you’re not alone in feeling like you’re stagnating. In grappling we are Sisyphus, except the hill never ends and the boulder never falls back down. It just gets stuck…a lot.
https://youtu.be/XoRolVC4AYs?si=_eSQkjuJ8mQZnpcR
https://youtu.be/IvDiyOGbPqM?si=m9J7YCxM9AN_LkLV Currently I’m reading “The Courage to be Disliked” and one of the lines struck me in regards to what we do. “Answers from someone else are a stopgap and have no value”. I agree, guidance is better than answers if you want to learn anything. I have had many great teachers of many subjects, but unless I came to my own conclusions and internalized their information and guidance for myself I could not use it. That has nothing to do with their ability to teach or my ability to learn, it’s just a patience game to reach the appropriate level of understanding. I often use my scissor sweep as an example of how learning Jiu Jitsu works. I had probably learned a scissor sweep 60 times, drilled a scissor sweep hundreds of times, even taught a scissor sweep a few times, but I didn’t feel like I executed it well until I was a purple belt. That’s at least 5 years, probably more where I wasn’t very good at something basic that is now integral to my game. In fact, I was probably better at x-guard for a time than a simple scissor sweep. The ridiculous thing about that is I taught myself x-guard out of a book. The answers you find for yourself are always better than the answers given to you. It’s counterintuitive to almost everything we understand, and can be incredibly frustrating, but I think if you really analyze things you will find that you are the greatest catalyst of your own learning.
1a. Tackett Drill
1b. 1c. Double leg- hands or hips 1d. Disengage 2a. Dog fight- top position or leg entanglement 2b. 2c. Up/Down- use legs to off balance 2d. Beat hips and knees 3a. Attack across center line 3b. Beat hips and knees 3c. Omoplata- finish or sweep 3d. Exit danger 4a. 1/2 UH-pass 4b. RDFC 4c. 1/2 OH- pass 4d. RDFC 5a. Side control- finish 5b. RDFC 5c. Gift Wrap- finish 5d. RDFC 6a. Mount cross grip- finish with cross grip 6b. Neutral or better 6c. Mount- isolate arms to finish 6d. Neutral or better 7a. Straight Jacket 7b. Remove chest to back 7c. Arm isolation 7d. Remove C2B 8a. Pass 8b. Stop 8c. 8d. I was asked if I’ll ever compete again the other day, and the truth is I don’t know. I said that I would take it seriously the next time I competed after my match against Jake Watson, and so I still intend to do that. At this stage my success is not that interesting to me, I already know what people at the top of the mountain are like and I’m not there, so trying to be there takes away from the other things in my life. Competition in Jiu Jitsu is good if you enjoy it, or you want to show yourself you can do it. It’s a good way to see your deficiencies and get better. I don’t have to compete to know or do any of that, all I have to do is go to the Bronx. Me competing doesn’t serve my goals right now. It doesn’t make my business better, it doesn’t make my students better, it doesn’t make my life outside the gym better, it’s just not something I can focus on for myself. There may come a day where I can put my focus more on myself and into competing, but that’s not the cards I’m playing with right now.
So I put up a Kobe Bryant quote the other day that spoke about how the amount of hours you practice doesn’t matter as much as being present in practice. Which is true if you are actually going to practice. Kobe Bryant was notoriously the first person in the gym and the last person to leave. He spent more hours practicing than almost anyone. That tends to be true of most elite athletes. Even when they’re not getting ready for anything a lot of Jiu Jitsu athletes spend 4 hours a day training. So yes being present in practice matters if you actually go to practice, but the first step is going to practice. One hour a week is not going to make you Kobe Bryant or Mikey Musumeci no matter how in tune you are. Go to training and when you’re there, actually be at training.
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AuthorThis is the blog page of Chuva BJJ. It's where you will find information that seems pertinent to the academy. Archives
February 2025
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