Semi-Charmed Life

Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard

From Andre Galvao's new book, Drill to Win:

At Careca's academy, my first real jiu-jitsu memory was that I was not one of the talented students. Careca confirmed this to me, and oddly enough, I beamed with pride. How strange to be happy about a lack of natural skill? For me, this elation stemmed from my strong performances, both in class and at my first few tournaments. When I had to work three times as hard as my classmates to learn something, I knew I was not the wunderkind. When I saw new students excel where I struggled, I understood that my time in jiu-jitsu would be all about determination. Nowhere was this more obvious than when examining my relationship with Chuck, one of my closest friends at Careca's. He was so flexible and fast (and flexibility is a talent), but he did not train like me. He didn't need to. What took me days of training to learn took him only minutes. However, as time went on, he drifted to drug use and focused less on training and more on his own talent. He knew that he could always "just pick things up." As a result of our two diverging attitudes, I started to win even more championships, while his performance plateaued. The reason is simple, I slept, trained, ate well, focused, resisted partying, and excelled. Talent can help so much in the beginning, but you cannot reach the top without hard work.

I have so much respect for this man.

On another note, it really sucks to be known as "the martial arts guy" at work. I feel like there definitely is a stigma attached anything that is related to martial arts, at least in America. For people who have absolutely no idea what Brazilian jiu-jitsu is, they probably associate it with hokey pokey crap like the stuff they see in the movies (think Karate Kid).

Whether I like it or not, martial arts will probably forever be considered a fringe activity and it's as good as telling people that I play World of Warcraft or that I love Star Trek marathons (one of them is true). Also just as an FYI, even though bjj is considered a martial art, I do not think of it as such. I view it in the same vein as if one were to say they did boxing or did wrestling, because even I think the phrase "martial arts" is a loaded one.