Excuse Me: I Need To Go Train
When I was a blue belt, I ran a small University jiu-jitsu club. One fall, we pooled our club budget with our personal funds to fly Matt Kirtley, an Eduardo de Lima black belt and writer behind the long-running Aesopian.com blog, from Florida to Pennsylvania to host a seminar.
At the time, Matt had just recently been awarded his black belt. Students asked the usual questions:
• How long did it take?
• Was it difficult?
• What was your promotion ceremony like?
• How did it feel?
These are fairly typical questions for a black belt, but one question in particular caught Matt’s attention: What do I have to do to get to the black belt level?
Matt, sitting cross-legged with his hands on his knees, paused for a moment. After some consideration, he said:
“Go to class. That sounds simple, but it’s really the hardest thing for people to do. You have to go to class every week for years. Going to class when jiu-jitsu is new and fresh and exciting is easy. The not-so-secret secret is to go to class when you don’t want to. You are allowed to not want to train as long as you get in the car, walk in the door, tie your belt, and train anyway. I feel like that’s a cheap answer because everyone wants some insightful look behind the curtain, but that’s it. Go to class, and keep going to class.”
Matt has since become a good friend, and his advice has stayed with me, especially on the days when deep down inside of me I am frustrated with training and hate jiu-jitsu.
Yes, as much as you might love the sport, there will be times when you despise it.
Jiu-jitsu is not like the average hobby. If you take a few years off of painting model cars, you might feel a little stiffness in your brushstroke, but you will not feel terrible about spending time away from your miniatures. Miniatures don’t get better than you while you are away, and they don’t show you how much they have improved by dragging your silly not-been-training body up and down the mat, sprinkling in submissions for good measure.
Jiu-jitsu is not like most hobbies.
The Root of Excuses
The old saying goes, “No Excuses.” We’ve plastered it on posters and t-shirts, and coaches have yelled it to students as they struggle through a challenging round. Excuses are a problem, but they are a symptom of a deeper problem. When we understand the source of excuses, we can better equip ourselves to conquer them when they arise.
Fear. You might be afraid of trying something new. Of failure. Or hard work. Of getting hurt. Of being embarrassed. Of losing. Of not being good enough. When you are afraid, your mind will find any way possible to escape what it perceives as a threat. If your excuses are rooted in fear, you have to address what you are afraid of in order to overcome it.
Boredom. Jiu-jitsu is a long road. With a black belt roughly 10 years away and training expected to continue long after that, you have to expect that the honeymoon phase will wear off. You will hit a plateau, and your interest will waiver. When you get bored, you have to find ways to take control of your training and inject new energy into your training to make it interesting again.
Pressure. Outside forces can affect how you feel about your training. Your job, your family, and your friends can complicate your priorities. That is not to say that these things are not important (they are!). Rather, if you can’t balance the demands on your life, you might find yourself not enjoying training and looking for a way out.
These are powerful, complicated forces. Understanding how they work will help you to better understand what might be holding you back. Personally, I’ve dealt with excuses rooted in all of these areas. When I had my second knee surgery, I was terrified of getting hurt again and having to go back for surgery. Truthfully, that fear still holds me back from time to time. I have gotten bored with my training and had to seek out new sources of inspiration and knowledge to keep me engaged. Not long after my body fell apart, I got married. I had to recognize that like my training, my marriage needed attention and dedication to blossom.
In each case, the excuses I used to duck out of training or to not train as hard as I should have masked their real source. Your excuses are likely playing the same game.
Hacking Away the Symptoms
While you seek out the roots through the weeds, you still have to deal with the growth on the surface. Here are five excuses, and how you can deal with them in the short term while you play Freud on the real problems.
1. “I’m too tired to train.” Get to bed early and on time and keep some pre-workout drink handy for the days you’re feeling too drained to get out on the mat.
2. “My significant other wants me to stay in.” Your personal relationships are important. Talk with them about your priorities and agree on a training schedule (a compromise) that makes everyone happy.
3. “Tonight’s class is too hard.” Yes, that’s the point. No one expects you to blow through it like a super hero. Do your best, even if it means failing. If your instructor and classmates don’t respect you trying, you need to find a new school.
4. “Class isn’t fun anymore.” The sheen will wear off. Make it a point to work with a training partner that makes class fun or take a private lesson to find new challenges to take on.
5. “The couch is so comfortable.” Yes, couches are made to feel like that. About halfway through the class time that is going on without you, I promise you, you will regret not going. Knowing that you will regret it will make it easier for you to get up and train.
The journey may be long, but it’s an opportunity to become better. You won’t just become better at jiu-jitsu, but you could become a better person along the way. You might learn more about how you work and who you are, which has value beyond the mat.
So go train.
