My BJJ Rut Made My Half Guard Better
If you have all peaks with no valleys. You have with flat land.
If you have all letters with no spaces.
Youhavesentencesthatlooklikethis.
The ups are great. But the downs are a necessary part of life. I mean how do you know what up is if you’ve never been down?
When things are coming down as they do for all of us at times. Ride the wave down into the valley and prepare for the next opportunity to climb back up to an even higher peak.
And appreciate that the sour in life allows you to truly value the sweet.
Resisting the Valleys
I wrote this on IG yesterday. And I was getting at the idea of not resisting those times when you’re coming down. It’s something I struggled with when I was younger, hell I still struggle with it sometimes even now.
Because if you try to resist, it prolongs the process and you become stuck. But if you move with the downward slump it will push you right up to the foot of the next mountain you’re supposed to climb.
Turning Point as A Purple Belt
One big turning point in my BJJ came as a result of a downward trend in my game. Early on, I hated losing and hated having any situation where I thought I was “getting worse” or going down instead of up.
This caused me to be pretty good in the beginning as I focused only on a handful of techniques all the time. This direct gameplan gave me a clear road map to follow when I rolled.
But if you stay on the same road forever. You have a pretty limited view of the world. And my view of BJJ when I reached late Blue and Purple Belts was lacking.
Be Willing to Get Worse Before You Get Better
You have to be willing to get worse sometimes before you get better. Things have to be torn down before they can be built back up.
Going back to my peaks and valley analogy. I had been sitting on the edge of the peak resisting going down. As I looked across at the higher mountains in front of me. I wanted to be there. But I was reluctant to make the journey through the dip to get there. This reluctance slowed my progress.
It wasn’t until I was able to accept “getting worse”, going into the valley so to speak, that I was able to get substantially better. It’s like the old saying, “you’ve got to crack an egg to make an omelet.”
This happened following a conversation my coaches had with me as a Purple Belt and following several poor performances at tournaments.
Following this conversation I began to yield.
Instead of resisting the failures and screw ups in training as a negative. I just chose to accept them as part of the process and move with them. The yin and the yang or training. The sweet and the sour. When my mindset shifted, my BJJ game (and life if we are being honest) went through an amazing period of positive change.
It’s also part of what lead me to cling to the Half Guard style Renato showed me in 2008. I was hungry for new information. And this hunger to get out of this slump was what propelled me to an even higher level of skill.
Had I not been in a downward rut. I’m not sure that I would have truly taken in the information Renato showed, and it would have been terrible for my game as Half Guard has become a staple of my BJJ.
As I talked about recently as I launched my Half Guard Sweeper Series. The Half Guard was one of the 1st times I had a reliable bottom position to attack from that I was able to use successful in BJJ competitions.
But I would have never developed this system of sweep and attacks had I not been in a slump looking for new information and ready to receive it.
You can check that series out below.
Move with the Down
We all have frustrating times. And you can allow yourself resist them which means you’ll enjoy a longer stay in the valley, just go with change. Letting yourself look up to an even higher mountain and choose to make the climb.
