Resolve to Progress without Judgment
Hello! Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve written, and the last things I wrote about were weekly blog posts related to a “personal project,” which basically amounted to a resolution I made last year to learn a new Jiu-jitsu technique every week for a year. I managed to do about 12 weeks worth of techniques and related blog posts and then life got crazy. I started getting more stunt work. I performed in and produced a short film (there’s a shot of me working on it below. As a result, my training focus shifted. I’m okay with this. Here’s why.
The whole point in making resolutions or setting goals is to give yourself focal points for your personal progress. Sometimes those focal points are perfectly set and you move from A to B smoothly on a charted course. Other times your needs change so you have to shift your focal points to other things to reflect those needs. Just because you have to change course doesn’t mean you’re abandoning the journey. And who’s to say what journey you should be on anyway? You get to choose your journey so if you want to make unscheduled detours or even completely different direction changes, it’s up to you. As long as you don’t abandon your personal journey and keep progressing in your mind, body and spirit, you’re making something of your life. (more…)
Personal Project for 2016: 52 New Jiu-jitsu Techniques
Happy New Year, everyone! I’ve decided that this year I’m going to try to bring a bit more fun and whimsy into my life. It feels like I’ve gotten a bit too end-goal oriented that I’ve lost a bit of my sense of playfulness, particularly in my training in the martial arts and for my career as a stunt performer. So rather than just focus on the things I want to accomplish, I’m going to take more time to remember why I got into my training in the first place, to relax and have more fun on the journey. As a part of this, I’ve decided that I’m going to learn one new technique related to Jiu-jitsu each week this year. My choices will be more focused around learning something that looks fun to learn and do rather than for pure practicality. (more…)
Fight or Flight: Choosing to Face a Fear or Walk Away
The martial arts present many challenges for the student. The student will find themselves facing a number of different fears as they progress in their learning. In our dojo, it starts on day one. Most people have some degree of fear of falling and hitting the ground. It’s instinctual. We fear that we’ll hurt ourselves… until we accept through progressions that one can learn to do it safely. Students also have to learn to make contact with their strikes so that they learn good targeting with their partners. There is a fear they could accidentally hurt someone. To keep things safe, we have students start hitting slowly and lightly, developing their control then increase the speed and power as they do so. As control increases and the student reaches the intermediate level, they are introduced to sparring. The unpredictable nature of sparring increases the stress of the training, leading to the influences of adrenaline. In this scenario, when students first start, they fear getting hit or hitting someone too hard, especially in the head area, even when the sparring is relatively relaxed and controlled. (more…)
Facing Our Demons through Martial Arts Training
We all have our crosses to bear in life. We all face our own unique stresses, pressures and frustrations. Sometimes they are small enough that they can be muted when we step into the dojo and set about our training. On other occasions they creep out against our will, sometimes in startling dramatic fashion, but facing our demons is a good exercise for the martial artist and an important part of our mental development.
Demons Come in All Forms
Our demons, whether they are challenges in our jobs, our relationships, our bodies, our minds, etc, can lead to challenges in our training. Sometimes we have more trouble paying attention because we’re distracted by our demons. Other times, we have trouble getting our body to do what we want it to. We can feel more irritable losing patience with oursleves and others. On a really tough day, we can completely lose control of our emotions and break into tears when put under pressure physically or emotionally in our training, or even just from a kind gesture that opens our emotional flood gate. I’ve seen all of these happen in some form over the years. (more…)
Why We Root for the Underdog
This past week, I ran a test in which I was testing a woman who was even smaller than me for yellow belt. At one point, I switched up her partner to give her an attacker who was close to twice her size to see how she’d fare. And when faced with the additional pressure, she rose to the challenge. I couldn’t help by smile inside my mind as I checked off the technique from the sheet.
The day before the test, I went to parkour class in which we were told to do a vault of some sort and land into a full sprint. I did a kong vault, but took off a little too close, clipping my knee on the hard wood apparatus as I did so. It made a big bang, which I reacted to with a grunt of pain, but somehow still made it over and landed in the requisite sprint. While there were other people who cleared the obstacle much more elegantly than I did, somehow I inspired cheers from the whole class that weren’t there for anyone else.
We all do this. Unless we have a vested interest in a particular party, if given a choice of who to root for, we usually pick the underdog. We love underdogs because they represent triumph over a struggle. Truth be told, we all feel like underdogs at various things in our lives, so when we see someone give it their all, struggle through the effort, yet emerge triumphant, it encourages us in our own endeavours. We can believe that if we make the effort that we too may triumph over our own struggles.
The people who seem to achieve things easily, even if they had gone through their own struggles in the past, don’t usually give us this reminder. But we should strive to remind ourselves; the people we exalt most in life were probably underdogs who kept at it. Few people in the world possess what we call “natural talent.” What appears as natural talent that came out of nowhere is usually someone who just quietly put their nose down and set about working on a particular skill, failing a thousand times in the process, but failing forward, eventually achieving the skill that receives recognition they are now afforded. But at some point, they were that underdog. At some point they had a low level of skill and experience and and to push past boundaries, falling flat on their face once in a while, to get where they are today.
Find inspiration in every person’s efforts on their own journeys seeking excellence. Admire the underdog who keeps at it without the string of previous successes to keep them encouraged. Admire the people at the top of their game who keep up their training because they are the example of that hard work paying off and continuing to pay off. Apply the lessons we learn from these people on your own path toward success. We’re all underdogs at something, but it’s the way we frame ourselves and our journeys that keep us reaching for excellence on our own journeys.
Thoughts on Fitness Trackers in Martial Arts Classes
The first time I saw a Fitbit on a student’s wrist in class, I reminded the student that jewelry was not allowed on the mats. He apologized, but also pointed out that it wasn’t simply a bracelet, that it was a fitness tracker that helped him monitor all their physical activities. I thought it was an interesting device, but ultimately asked him to take it off, as that was the rule. Since then, a couple of other students have stepped onto the mats wearing one, saying that they just forgot about it because they’re so used to having it on, as they hurriedly removed it and returned to their training. (more…)
Getting Comfortable with Discomfort in the Martial Arts
In Jiu-jitsu, there is a lot of close contact in our training. We’re always in each other’s personal space, which can be uncomfortable for people just starting out. Just yesterday, I was demonstrating a defense in which I was prone on my belly while my attacker was kneeling between my legs, holding my wrists down with his body weight pinning my torso. Oh and my demonstration partner was over 200lbs too. For most people, this would feel uncomfortable between the invasion of their personal space and the feeling of being immobilized physically. But if we’re to learn how to defend ourselves, it’s absolultely vital to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
If you let the feeling of discomfort take over, it can create a panicked state, a desperate desire to get out. In this state of mind, it’s hard to focus and see opportunities that can help facilitate your escape. Without the ability to think critically about the best options for escape, you’re more likely to flail about using all your strength up in the struggle. If you’re bigger and/or stronger than your attacker, this may work out, but if you’re at a strength disadvantage, you’re more likely to tire yourself, further limiting your ability to escape. (more…)
Don’t Let Ideals Keep You from Taking the First Step
I have a lot of friends who have children. Every one of them loves their children and what being a parent has brought to their lives. At the same time, not one of them said they felt 100% perfectly ready to have their child when they first got pregnant. They all pretty much said that there would never be a perfect moment of readiness, particularly for their first child because they couldn’t know everything they needed to know about all the challenges their particular child would bring. This is also true when it comes to taking up a martial art.
While there are some challenges that are obvious and controllable, like finances and scheduling, fitness level should never be the thing that holds a person back, unless it’s related to injury recovery or care. Most people want to take up martial arts training because they want an interesting activity that will help them stay fit. There is absolutely no need to hold off starting one’s training to get in better shape first. Training WILL get you in better shape, especially if it’s something you enjoy. A former student of mine named Rick started training with us as an out-of-shape 63-year-old. He struggled through his first few months but made so much progress in that time that he lost 70 lbs. Read his story here. Pride can be a factor for some, but in the right school, you’ll have all the support and encourage you need to work on your fitness as you train. (more…)
The Slight Edge Applied to the Martial Arts
I’ve been reading a book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson (see links below for more info). It’s a personal development book based around the concept that our success in anything, in our careers, relationships, fitness, skill acquisition, in life, is based on the little things we do or don’t do every day. The idea is that making big gains usually involves working toward a goal incrementally over a long period of time. The good thing about this is that these increments are small and easy to do on an ongoing basis. The bad thing is that they are also easy NOT to do.
When you make the time to do the small incremental task on a day, you don’t immediately see some massive change. Change is happening, but it’s so small that it’s unnoticeable. On the other side, if you don’t do the task, you don’t immediately see any negative side effect, making it easy NOT to do. You can easily justify in your mind that not doing it one day is not such a big deal. But according to the author, there is no such thing as coasting along with no change. You’re always either moving toward greatness or away from it, however small those movements may be. I recently experienced an example how powerful these small incremental movements can be if you keep them going.
How You Adjust Your Intensity Dial
The other night I was having a conversation over wings with a few of our students. We were discussing the different martial arts instructors they have been exposed to at the dojo during guest instructor seminars. The topic of one’s personal intensity came up in the context of how intense overall the various instructors were. It got me to thinking about my own intensity and how I use it in training, teaching and life in general.
Intensity Defined
Intensity may not be the perfect word to describe what I talking about here. When I say intensity, I mean that fire you draw on when you are dealing with heightened circumstances. If you train in the martial arts, you may have already experienced it at some point, whether that was during a belt test, sparring or some form of intense training circle. This mental state is basically the controlled use of adrenaline. While in this state, your surroundings are more clear. Your attitude is more serious, more focused. You’re not thinking about all the steps before taking an action, you just act on the instincts you’ve developed for yourself. (more…)
We're proud to announce that Lori O'Connell Sensei's new book, When the Fight Goes to the Ground: Jiu-jitsu Strategies & Tactics for Self-Defense, published through international martial arts publisher Tuttle Publishing, is now available in major book stores and online. More about it & where to buy it.