How is your progress in BJJ? Are you moving forward or are you moving backward in your BJJ journey?
As you know, we are being evaluated on the mats every time we train. In my early days, I made just about every mistake possible. My main obstacle was no doubt……myself! My ego was strong, and my attitude was wrong!
Speaking from experience, this is my take on if you are progressing or not.
Do you fight submissions in practice, and or do you refuse to tap because “it doesn’t hurt yet”? The key word is yet….you will eventually get hurt.
Are you trying to win every position during drills or sparring… no matter who you are rolling with? If you are an upper level belt who is doing this, you will NEVER progress at Hendo BJJ. The guys who taught me could have killed me every time I was training with them, but they didn’t. They helped me learn.
If you are rolling with someone smaller or less experienced, do you help them, or smash them? If you are smashing them….you clearly don’t understand how we train and how you are limiting yourself.
Do you put yourself in bad positions and work your way out of them with people who are not as experienced as you, or do you dominate? Nobody learns in this scenario.
Are you cocky on the mat and/or do you try to humiliate your training partners?
Are you doing techniques “your way” no matter the situation?
Are you a white belt, teaching other white belts, and possibly teaching them wrong?
Are you snatching submissions in a dangerous manner?
Are you obsessed with the belt or getting stripes?
Be honest with yourself. I personally struggled with just about every one of the above actions at some point in my BJJ journey. Sad but true.
When I ditched the ego, (actually I was HUMBLED BIG TIME by my instructor) I decided to grow up and try to mature in the sport…..and I began to improve and try to just enjoy the journey…..EVERYTHING changed for the better.
Check your EGO AT THE DOOR, be honest with yourself and enjoy the process. It doesn’t happen overnight. But keep showing up, plugging in and getting your reps….and good things will begin to happen.
If on the other hand, you are guilty of any of the above….like I was, you owe it to you to make the needed changes, because that rut only gets deeper.
“Train Hard, Train Smart….Train for LIFE”!