Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can be brutal on the body no matter what your age. As we get older, our bodies become less resilient and we feel every little ache and pain for days and sometimes weeks after rolling. Our bodies ache and hurt so much that we have thoughts of giving up training and switching to a less painful hobby or at least I do.
I have lost count of the times I have said I am giving up Jiu Jitsu and hanging up the gi, only to return to the mat a couple of short weeks later, feeling fresh and invigorated and ready to go again. To be clear, when I say invigorated, I don’t mean the body is fresh and invigorated, those aches and pains are still there but the mind is fresh and refreshed; I have a whole new perspective, love and appreciation for the gentle art. Granted, that enthusiasm usually wears off again, the day after the first roll back, when I am feeling like I have been run over by a steam roller, but the love and appreciation is still there, along with the absolute addiction to rolling.
There is no other feeling like rolling, especially when you are on fire, feeling the flow and dominating every roll. But even when it is not going your way, the thrill and excitement of rolling is indescribable.
This pleasure we get from rolling, even when we are getting smashed is the ultimate oxymoron:
you feel so alive when you are literally getting crushed to death
Nobody outside of the sport could possibly understand it, but once you have been seduced by BJJ there is no quitting, no matter how hard you try. Addiction really is the only word that can describe it, but what is it that we are addicted to? It’s not the aches and pains that’s for sure. It is not the fatigue, the weakness, the anguish, the frustration, the panic, the fear, the despair or humiliation? It’s definitely not the losing, but then its not the winning either. For some newcomers to BJJ it might be the winning, but once you have been in the game for a while, the winning is irrelevant.
I have experienced all of those feelings and emotions when training, I still do on occasion, but with time the negatives feelings disappear. Of course things like fatigue will still present themselves but we learn to deal with them better. We can’t let a little thing such as tiredness effect us and detract us from our goal. But what is the goal? is the goal to win? for some the goal is to win, at all costs, but not for me.
For me, the goal is to overcome, to adapt, to survive, to persevere and ultimately to learn, not necessarily to learn techniques, submissions and defences which will obviously be part of the process, but to learn skills that will help in other areas in my life. To grow and to evolve into a better more rounded human being. Being able to break arms and legs and to be able to submit a man merely by the use of pressure is an added bonus.
Let’s face it, we probably all started BJJ as a way to learn functional fighting and self-defence skills and even if you only make it to blue belt, you will be much more equipped to deal with a violent encounter than the everyday man on the street. But if you continue your journey through to purple belt and beyond, you will learn skills that will help you in many other ways. You will learn to overcome adversity and how to strengthen your mind. BJJ will teach you humility and how to put your ego aside. It will teach you patience and calmness. It will teach you respect, decency, morality. It will teach you courage, resilience, determination.
But one of the most important lessons you can learn from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the lesson of being honest with yourself.
You can talk a big game when sitting on the couch watching the UFC but there is no lying on the mat. You cannot bullshit your way through a roll. Once you have slapped hands and bumped fists any boasts, brags and acts of bravado will quickly go out of the window, any exaggerations of capability will be put to the test and any any false credentials will be exposed.
You cannot lie on the mat, either to your opponent or to yourself, BJJ is the ultimate purveyor of truth.
