The beautiful struggle

Through the struggle of training we expose ourselves to the possibility of becoming better versions of ourselves. 

Different people react in different ways to the stresses, challenges and struggles of training in an art like BJJ. As I have pointed out before, it is not the stress itself that produces anything of significance - it is our response to that stress that is important.

it is natural to try and avoid stress; after all, it is unpleasant. I do not like it. But I heave learned something about it over the years and it is this; without stress, we do not change. And by change, I mean grow, evolve, learn, improve. 

We stress our body; the physical form adapts and grows. This is how exercise works. The same goes for our mind/intellect/powers of reasoning/problem -solving ability, etc.

Life is struggle; in the natural world this is what has underpinned the evolutionary process. In our personal lives, stress provides us with an opportunity to test our response - and an opportunity to grow/evolve and learn from that response.

BJJ provides us with a somewhat unique form of stress. BJJ is about problem solving; but unlike other problems that are often presented to us in life, in the struggle on the mat we don’t have the time and luxury of being able to sit back and ponder the problem. In fact, the problems we encounter on the mat, are of the rapidly evolving kind; we have little time to ponder on our answer (like we would have when playing chess for example where the problem remains ’static’ while we try to come up with a solution). 

In placing ourselves into the unique environment of the BJJ mat, we expose ourselves to opportunity for personal growth and development. The benefits are numerous and substantial. It might not be easy; it is not supposed to be. it might not be for everyone; but then again, it’s not supposed to be. 

• JBW