Pressure makes Diamonds

Pressure - a lot of us don't like it. But 'pressure' in it's various forms, forces us to grow, change, adapt.
The pressure that a H.I.I.T (High Intensity interval Training) workout places on our metabolism, forces us toward a better state of fitness - the pressure of competition forces us to improve our BJJ game - the pressure of needing to support our family forces us toward better financial fitness - the pressure of needing to remember something (for a test or exam) forces our memories to improve - in short, pressure forces adaptation. What we need to do is, if possible, be more selective about what kinds of pressure we subject ourselves to. But when utilised to effect - pressure can build diamonds.
JBW

Accepting Trial & Error: Means the acceptance of error

Strict adherence to what we know is a sure-fire way to live out our own personal groundhog day. In opening ourselves up to the possibility of failure, we carve out a path to success. In staying with the familiar, we also tend to develop for ourselves the habit of ignorance.

There is the way we would all like the world to be and then there is the way that the world actually is. Being in denial about how things work in the world is a sure-fire route to mediocrity and frustration. It is always worth investing some small portion of our energy in learning how leverage works in the realms of finance and business. Denial of a basic understanding of these dark arts usually comes down to either ignorance or laziness. Both are curable.

My good friend Dave Meyer has great label for the ignorant position – he calls it the crocodile state … wait for it … yes; because crocodiles are found living in de Nile. Awesome! Classic Dave Meyer. Love him.

Eyes on the prize!

To quote a favorite maxim of my Uncle … ‘When in doubt …. Attack!’
Don’t read too much into this – I am just mentioning it to attract your attention. It is though, somewhat relevant to what I want to talk about today; and that is the original idea behind the development of BJJ – and that is – to incapacitate the opponent.
Now, there’s no doubt that organized competition has impacted hugely on how BJJ has evolved over time; especially so during the past three decades. But, as with all things, for every ‘pro’ there is a corresponding ‘con’. The downside of competition (although in my view the positives well and truly outweigh the negatives) is that people can begin to rely more and more heavily on strategy to win matches, and possibly lose sight of the original concept – which is, to repeat myself, to incapacitate an opponent.
I was fortunate indeed, that I received all of my foundational training and most of my subsequent training from the Machado brothers; most of whom placed the focus on winning by submission, as opposed to a ‘points victory’ – or more flimsy still, a victory by advantage.
The idea – at the end of the day – is to control our opponent and then ‘submit’ him/her. Let’s not lose sight of the prize!
It is, it seems, human nature to lose sight of the prize. We work to make money, to improve our lifestyles and better enjoy the time we have on this planet - but how many people become absorbed and owned by their work - and make the accumulation of wealth their reason for living?
There's on old story that goes something like this:
' There was a man who used to love to go fishing with his son. One day a wealthy entreprenuer bumped into him and began to advise him as to how he could use his talent for fishing to make a lot of money. He explained that he could become a professional fisherman - and after a year or two he would have enough money to buy several more boats and then would be able to employ others to help him catch even more fish. A few more years of hard work, he explained, and he would have earned enough to buy a fleet of fishing boats; he could then control the whole fish export market of his region. A little more work and he could buy the markets and he would become the wealthiest man around.
But the fisherman then asked him 'So what ... what would that give me? What could I do then?'
The man replied 'Well, then you would have the time to do whatever you liked. You could go fishing with your son ... whenever you wanted!'
The fisherman shook his head and simply replied 'But that's what I am doing right now! No thanks!'
And walked off down the beach with his son.

A nice parable about how easy it is to lose sight of the prize.
Best wishes all
JBW

Choices

It is intuitive to think that choice is good – and that more choice is even better. But in some circumstances, this is not necessarily the case – both on the mat, and off the mat in the wider landscape of our lives.
Forty-four flavors of ice-cream; better or worse? Sometimes, having more choice just makes it much more difficult for us to make an actual decision. Think about it – you walk into a store looking to buy a new plasma TV – and you are bombarded with choices, different brands, different prices, different colors, different features – most of which, we know very little about. Does more choice, a greater amount of options, make our ‘choosing’ any easier … I think that it often just makes it far more difficult.
On the mat, or during any other ‘action-infused’ environment or circumstance, more choice just slows us down; this has been referred to as ‘MENTAL LOG JAM.
SO, when we are confronted with lots of options – and in today’s world, we have more available than ever before – how do we ‘prioritize’? We need to prioritize, so that when ACTION is required, we do something, we pull the trigger.
Well, on the mat for example, when we have say, half a dozen ways to pass the ½ guard, we should (if circumstances permit) choose the option that sets us ON THE PATH to our preferred side control attack. When we have options, and we have the wherewithal to choose, we should choose the option that sets us ON THE PATH to achieving a goal we have set for ourselves. We should choose the option that allows us to spend more time with the people we care about; we should choose the option that puts us one step closer to being where we want to be, or doing what we want to do.
When we choose – when we make decisions, we set ourselves ON A PATH – but where is that path going? And who else is on that path beside us? Every path we choose, sets off a series of consequences – which in turn, impacts on the kinds of choices that will be available to us as our futures continue to unfold. Choice begets choice – so cultivate the habit of choosing in a way that puts us on the path we would prefer … sounds simple, but I see many people making extraordinarily bad choices … when even the smallest choice sets us on the path leading to our future …
JBW

All or nothing?

Many athletes – indeed, many people – seem to posses an ‘all or nothing’ attitude. I know that I was very much like this at one time (not so long ago). Some examples of this would be:
- If I can’t climb to the top of the mountain, I won’t go near it at all
- I’ve fallen off my diet this weekend, so I won’t bother with it come Monday
- Something has disrupted my workout routine, so I won’t bother to start over again next week.
I think that this type of thinking, really restricts us and holds us back. Nowadays, if I fall away from an eating, training, or any other regime that I have set for myself (for whatever reason) – then as soon as circumstances allow, I get right back on track. It’s not our ability to stay on track that counts for much – it’s our ability to GET BACK ON TRACK – that really sets us on the path to success. Life will throw stuff in our way – we cannot predict everything – the better we are at getting back on track, when this does happen, the more joy, success and fulfillment we will have in our lives.
JBW

On Mission

The road from white belt to black belt - particularly in the art of BJJ - can be a frustrating and sometimes confusing one. There are just so many variables, that this in itself can lead to confusion. At times like that, when we become confused or frustrated, it is often a good strategy to pick one idea/position.technique - make it your 'mission' and then every time you hit the mat, focus the larger part of your attention on making it happen (or perhaps making a part of it happen). That's another thing that is often misunderstood - we don't need to make the whole 'technique' happen, we might just start with the first part of it - perhaps a 'grip' or something; we just need to have a clear goal in mind and start taking steps toward achieving it. Rock-climbers, attack difficult climbs like this - they abseil down from the top of the climb and work away at te difficult part of the climb - (siege tactics) - until the master it. Only then do they go to the bottom of the climb, and do the whole thing. So - feeling frustrated? - then pick something, a sweep, a position, a submission - or maybe even just a grip - and make it your mission.
BTW: same thing goes for everything else outside of the mat - feeling frustrated with your fitness, health, finances - choose one thing to improve, and make it your mission.
Best wishes
JBW

Specialise in everything

Stock market crashes - tsunami's - earthquakes events - floods - and on it goes!
How can we prepare for unexpected events like the and the many others we cannot yet imagine? Our ability to adapt to the unexpected is a big part of why we humans have been so successful when other species have not fared so well. We adapt - we survive - we flourish. Unexpected events (the bad kind- as opposed to the good kind) still have their 'positives' - the more we are are exposed to these events, the better we are able to adapt to them - and make the best out of a seemingly difficult situation. At the end of the day, it's often 'perspective' that allows us to smile in the face of seeming misfortune. The stock market crashes - but we are still eating good food, breathing good air and still have our family and friends. We get tapped out by a lesser rank, but we still have our health and we are still driving our car and not walking twenty kilometres a day to school like the many less-fortunate people in other parts of the world. Our car gets a flat tyre - but seriously, is it that big a deal? A person who loses his shoe only has to spend five minutes with a man with no legs and things don't look so bas after all. We adapt - and our ability to do so, to a large extent, defines us as a species. We are the ultimate adapters ... we adapt because the world and our environment requires that we do so. Our ancestors, every one of them dating back as far as we can imagine, were gifted adapters ... adjusting to the unexpected, many of them, on a daily basis. Only the over-specialised find it difficult to adapt. The 'deep generalist' specialises in everything - and flourishes in an environment that throws up the unexpected at every turn.
JBW

Risk takers

Innovation is naturally driven by necessity and circumstance, and our capacity for creativity seems boundless; but it is when we are cut loose from the confines of familiarity that we can truly tap into our innovative potential. Becoming more innovative is more about familiarising ourselves with risk, and less about staying with the tried and true. Living, working and training in an environment that allows for, or even encourages, risk-taking, provides us with a sure-fire path to betterment. The more we are 'punished' for taking risks, the less inclined we will be to do so, and the more opportunities for growth we deny ourselves. Most of us are risk-averse; naturally so; for this trait has been passed down through the DNA of our ancestors - if they were not risk-averse, we probably wouldn't be here today. But the world we live in has a very different set of risk factors than the one occupied by our ancestors - we can go to the shop and try a new food, without much risk of dying from it .. but how many of us choose to do this? An how many, find great comfort in staying with the tried and true? Someone had to ride that first horse; someone had to eat that first olive; someone had to build that first bicycle. On the mat, when we try out new ideas, we are taking risks - but think on it - what price do we pay for messing up? Easy .. tap out; start over and try again? Risk = Zero!
JBW

Talent is over-rated.

Talent is over-rated! As is 'potential'. What counts is action - and plenty of it! I have talked about this before - the 10,000 hour rule. it had become an accepted standard, that if you wish to achieve real expertise in any given subject - do 10,000 hours of focussed practice. Another way to interpret this is to practice for 20 hours a week, for a decade. That's the bad news! The good news is that genetic factors don't seem to come into it at all - so called 'prodigies' (mozart, tiger woods, etc) have just done the work - when you dig into their backgrounds, they all have one thing in common, they had notched up their 10,000 hours of practise, well before their peers had. In other words - and I like this - ANYONE CAN DO IT - just do the work!
One would think that we can often shortcut the road to expertise by going and asking an expert how he does what he does - and then just 'skipping' straight to that - but the problem with this approach is that the expert usually has a very limited idea of how he or she does what they do; the reason for this is due largely to so-called 'expert amnesia'. Expert amnesia refers to the lack of conscious understanding that most experts suffer from - due to the fact that the evolution of their performance took place over 10,000 hours or so of practise and the hundreds of minute (barely noticeable) improvements they made during that time sort of 'crept in' under the radar - resulting in an invisible/difficult to define set of small behaviours/skill-sets that account for much of their expert performance. When you ask them what they are doing - they usually describe their performance by saying things like 'I have a kind of gift' - 'I was always able to do this' - 'It's like a sixth sense', etc. often they don't mention their 10,000 hours of practise! I remember learning my first armbar from mount - and then immediately being asked to perform 1000 reps. Had trouble walking the next day - but I got a hold of that armbar concept pretty quickly. Within the first month of training, I had knocked up my 10,000 armbars. Secrets out! Go for it!
JBW