Order from Chaos

One of the things I love about BJJ (and perhaps this is one of the reasons that many find it to be so addictive) is that as time goes by and we slowly become better at the art, we begin to tease some semblance of order from what initially may seems to be a world of chaos.

I think that many of us feel we are ‘getting somewhere’ when we begin to establish some semblance of control over our world. Certainly, when we feel ‘out of control’ , for me at least, we experience stress - and so we struggle to bring order to bear in as many aspects of our lives as we can.

No doubt, someone will want to re-butt by offering the idea that we cannot control everything (or even much at all) - and although, I would refute this to a point, they would be partially correct … we cannot always bring order to a chaotic situation, and in those times, another kind of learning takes place. But usually, we emerge after such experiences, slightly the wiser, slightly more competent, etc.

On the mat, in rolling, start out by trying to identify those places/positions in which you feel some small amount (or significant amount) of control. The more of these you establish, the better your rolling experience will become. As you improve your game, hopefully, you will spend more time in state of ‘order’ and do your best to ensure that your partner spends as much time as possible in a state of ‘chaos’. 

Rendering order from chaos - both on and off the mat - is just another way we enrich our lives and our life-experience.

- JBW