Semi-Charmed Life

Ups and Downs

I had such a demoralizing training day yesterday in my jiujitsu class. I was getting caught in bad positions all day, getting swept, submitted and overall I just got clowned with. On days like those I wonder to myself how much progress am I really making?

Training is a lot like life though. There are the good days and then there are the bad days. The bad days hurt because on the those days I ask myself, what am I doing? I've been doing this for so long, why does it feel like I'm going nowhere? The bad days hurt because they force me to question and doubt myself.

This is no different than when I have a bad day or if I'm going through a rough patch. It's the tough times that try to break you and make you doubt yourself. This is when it's most important to be resilient and remind myself that it's just a temporary setback. There will always be obstacles and sometimes things won't go my way, but I have to tell myself to stick with it.

That's the beauty of jiujitsu I guess. Training has really become a part of my life, such that I don't ever see myself quitting. I'll be training til the casket drops. Every time I'm on the mats, I learn something new. Although there is an air of camaraderie between all the guys that train at my gym, I have no illusions that in the end this is my own journey. Whether I improve or not is on me.

I can see why people say that guys with big egos usually end up quitting in jiujitsu. Some days when you get your ass kicked all day long, it's demoralizing. It's demoralizing because it is very hard to accept that all the training I've done amounted to nothing. You train for a certain amount of time, and you expect a certain level of performance commensurate with the time you trained. So when I perform poorly against guys who have trained for a relatively shorter amount of time compared to me, it's a blow to the ego.

And again, I have to remind myself that this is an individual journey. Every person learns and progresses at a different rate, and that it's never a race. I'm here to enjoy myself. Both in jiujitsu and in life.

No idea where I'm headed with this rant . . . but I'll be back on the mats come Monday.