What Kind of Month May Has Been
I have been making incremental adjustments to enhance my jiu jitsu experience, and I’m finally ready to report on the results of these adjustments. Some of these are still ongoing and will probably deserve a part two, but for now, there’s definitely enough to discuss.
Meditation: I finally started meditating somewhat consistently again, missing only 2-3 days at most this past month, instead of the usual 7-10 days. It’s been nice to see the cumulative, positive effect that it has in lessening my anxiety. In the past, whenever I’ve started feeling good enough, I would stop meditating. Things would then go south and then I would find myself ironically too frazzled to feel like meditation would do anything good for me. So, I’m proud of myself for sticking to it and happy that I’m feeling the benefits of it.
Sports Psychology Sessions: I am currently seeing a sports psychologist, and we have had around 6 sessions so far. The first few sessions were really about my letting out angst regarding jiu jitsu and mostly focused on my past issues. I wouldn’t say that the past is totally out of the way, but now we are finally moving onto more proactive topics, like developing confidence and working on a pre-performance routine.
I personally have found therapy to be very helpful, and so my sports psychologist is also a licensed therapist. I have also personally found the advice given to me by supposed other mental coaches in jiu jitsu to be too generalized and unhelpful. Because jiu jitsu is so important to me, the sport does bring out some deep-seated issues that perhaps have been addressed in different contexts, but are harder for me to deal with in jiu jitsu. That’s primarily the reason why having a sport psychologist has been so beneficial because it is very specific to the situations that I encounter during training and competition.
Attitude Adjustments/Awareness: I have been trying hard to have a better attitude whenever I’m met with adversity in training. During training, I often find myself getting frustrated at not being able to know how to do a specific move or not knowing the correct answer to something right away. Or I am overly concerned with what people are thinking of me when we are in the middle of drilling or sparring.
Right now, I’ve been working on letting go of these attachments and also finding something more desirable to become aware of: my own feelings and thoughts as they cross my mind while I’m on the mat. I realized that using my phone right up until the start of class was causing me to become unfocused, so I’ve taken to putting my phone in the cubbies. I also found that it helped to keep certain mantras in mind if I was intimidated by a certain sparring partner or technique. These small things helped me get back on track whenever I started to feel frustrated with myself. The more I practice it, the faster that I feel I can bring myself back to a good place.
Having Realistic Expectations: I used to think that I could watch an instructional, take detailed notes about it, and make it work almost immediately with little to no difficulty. Unfortunately, that was never the case, because as one of the black belts told me, “It’s hard to solve a problem that you’ve never encountered before.” Or, in this case, it’s hard to solve a problem that I’ve never felt before.
I got discouraged from studying as a result, because they make things seem so clear in an instructional at first, but then actual practice because one of those “expectations versus reality” meme moments that leave me questioning my ability to learn any jiu jitsu at all. Now, I have a much better approach, which is to watch the video about 1-2 max, and then have the specific intention of working on it to see where my understanding is lacking. This process of data collection is so much less nerve-wracking than the ridiculous expectation I used to have that if I was truly good for jiu jitsu, that I could download anything into my head if I just paid enough attention.
Understanding When to Train for Performance vs Understanding: Earlier on after Pans, I identified that one of my gaps was that I simply did not do enough free sparring rounds. Sometimes after a long day at work, the thought of having to focus for five straight minutes, much less get a “winning” outcome in a sparring round felt insurmountable. It was also getting in the way of growth as well, because I would think to myself, “Well I don’t want to get my guard passed today, so I guess I won’t go with X person today.”
A lot of this still goes through my head, but it’s getting better. On the days that I train for understanding, the process is much more cerebral and collaborative. I’m able to ask my partners questions and we take time to reflect on the positions and scenarios before trying again. It’s a much more nebulous process than straight repetitions, but generally, I come out of the session with at least a renewed sense of interest and knowledge about the position, or at the very least, an understanding of what I still find confusing or mysterious.
On the days that I train for performance, I make it as part of an intentional effort that folds into competition preparation. Part of competition success for me revolves around actually cuing my brain in the right way to know that RIGHT NOW is TIME FOR PERFORMANCE and NOT FOR CURIOSITY. I’ve been playing with different ways to get into that flow state, but the first step is to set aside days in which I want to make this happen. Setting aside days in advance is a little like preparing for a competition, too, since you don’t get to choose the days in which you compete depending on your mood.
Personal Affirmations: I used to think that affirmations didn’t work for me, but since talking to the sports psychologist, I’ve realized their value. Specifically, affirmations are an efficient way to summarize what helpful lessons I’ve learned on the way and to focus my mind in a way that’s efficient for executing sound technique. Affirmations take me out of that frenzied, dissociative anxious state and grounds me in a mental place that’s both calm and reassuring.
Affirmations are also very, very personal, as I’ve started to discover. I may write a post later that describes my personal affirmations, but after reading dozens of sports books, I’ve come to realize the best affirmations are the ones that are specific and unique to you. When you use someone else’s affirmations, it bypasses the process of actually reflecting on your emotions and desires and clarifying your sense of self. When I’m more clear on what I want, the affirmations resonant with me every time, effortlessly.