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Make The Most Of Your Mistakes In Jiu Jitsu"Don't worry about the runner next to you. Just worry about finishing your own race." I really like this quote and I feel that having an attitude such as this is very important to one’s progress in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Martial Arts, and just life in general. People can be very competitive by nature, and that's a good thing. You want to go out, and give everything you have to win when you compete. But I think when you're goal in Jiu Jitsu is to get better, and the main person you need to be competing against is yourself. If you can leave the mat each day knowing you are better than you were before, even if it's just by a small percent, then you know you're improving. Perhaps you've fixed one mistake, you've tightened a technique, or you've learned something that's going to make your game better. That's the kind of focus that's going to really help your game. Each day you come to class your goal should be to make unknown mistakes, fix these mistakes, learn from the mistakes, and know that each time you train, or compete, you're a little bit better than you were before. Focus on improving yourself. Remember also that talent is the most apparent trait that will be seen early on in someone's training. Let's say you have two students who start training at the same time. One guy's a talented athlete and picks things up quickly. Another guy, not so much. It's easy for the less talented to get frustrated and say "Oh man, this guy started the same time as me, and in no time he's already much better than me." It's easy to let that frustrate you. You’re not running his race. The big picture is to get as good as you can get. It's a long road and it only stops if you quit because you will never stop learning as long as you keep training. So even if you're very talented, that doesn't necessarily mean you will do great as you get closer to black belt. At least, not without a lot of hard work. And just because you may be doing terrible early on doesn't mean you won't become something great in the future, if you put in the right amount of dedication. Frustration and negativity are not emotions geared toward improving and becoming as good as you can be. You have to clear your mind. Sometimes you have to take a break and really think about why you're training. Is it because you have to be better than somebody else, or is it because you want to be as good as you can and you love what you do? It's your race. You're trying to be the best you can, for yourself, and the only way to do that is to constantly improve. You'll have some days that your improvement level will be high. You'll learn a technique that clicks with you really well and you'll start pulling it off on everyone. Other days it's going to feel like everything has gone wrong. You may get tapped a bunch you and you can't seem to get anything to work for you. Everything you do, whether it feels good or bad, is a learning experience. And if your attitude is right it's going to be something positive for you, and in the long run you're going to become better because of it. In every situation, you decide what you're going to learn from it. So make it positive.
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