The Tidbit
Current Musing
Last week, I wrote this:
Appreciation for jiu jitsu takes a mix of grit, humility, and disregard for the impracticalities for integrating training with a pandemic, a toxic training environment (at my former school) and my 6 other side-projects (at one point, tree climbing). And that was just the beginning, since mental health and quality time with my partner were also at the forefront of my mind.
This past month has been an exercise in navigating my emotions around these factors, while at the same time trying to stay present when I’m actually at the gym.
I then set forth five questions that I was tracking and promised answers.
Here’s where I’m at so far:
How does showing appreciation openly and specifically for my training partners and coach improve my experience of class?
Showing appreciation openly has helped people understand when they are making a positive impact on my life. Sometimes people can’t tell if I’m having a good time in jiu jitsu, because they are likely focused on their own emotions as well. When I tell them that I’m appreciative of their efforts, this forms a connection that would not have been likely in the first place. Specific appreciation is stating specific things that I enjoyed about my experience training with them, like an executed sweep or their passing pressure.
When I take time to set intentions before class, how does it change my perception of what I’ve gained?
I have a more clear way of evaluating my experience.
Without intentions, I am comparing on a pretty rough criteria: “did I feel better or worse after training?” However, this does not help me with setting my intentions for the next class.
With intentions, I can see where I’ve strayed off the path that I wanted to explore. And more importantly, I can ask myself why and how that deviation occurred. This helps me self-correct along the way from one training to another.
How do various methods of reflecting on my training experience (quantitatively or qualitatively) alter or reinforce how I feel about my training?
I started writing in a journal each day about my feelings around how training went (both jiu jitsu and lifting). I find that writing every day helps ease emotional pressure buildup, especially when I write to explore my feelings, not to explain them to anyone else.
Does sharing my experience around training help or hurt my mental state around the progress I’m making?
Except for this weekend, where I posted extensively on my social media, I have not been openly sharing my experience with training outside of 1x1 communication with current or former training partners. I have found this to be very freeing. I think what I’m realizing is that if parts of my life are on display to the world (even if that is a very small group of people), it can feel like a trap if I don’t live up to the image that I think I’m creating.
It is extremely hard to be sincere on social media. (However, I do like celebrating the people who post about their success on social media provided that I know them as people first.)
Where are my trigger points that affect my learning and growth, both positively and negatively?
Positive triggers: fun or calming music; the same warmup routine; saying hello to people and taking some time to listen to them
Negative triggers: social media comparisons; trying to learn jiu jitsu while hungry; overthinking
There’s more to explore so I’ll be back with an update next week.
Until then — good training!
