F@**@*#*@($(*(#CK…A comment on dealing with frustration

It happens to all of us, we think we are making progress. We have made it to tons of classes, we are practicing moves and then you go up against your “white whale.”

A quick diversion from the initial story, a person’s “White Whale” is a term stolen from Moby Dick. In the book, Captain Ahab is obsessed with catching Moby Dick (a white whale) that took his leg below the knee. See it is apt for the post because a person’s white whale is someone they really want to submit.

Back to the main point, we all have the one person in class who subs us, over and over again. Humility is important in Jiu-Jitsu, but so is a desire to get better. It is Ok to want to submit guys who are better than you, it shows you care about your progression. So, you go up against your “white whale” and POW! 

They submit you. You shake it off and then POW!!! Same move! It happens again and again. You can feel that heat rise up in your cheeks, you start talking to yourself, you are getting really frustrated.

I will be the first to admit, this happens to me. Recently, I have been getting caught in knee bars…all the damn time. It bothers me, the other day I punched a wall after getting caught twice in a roll by the same knee bar. 

Dumb idea, the wall didn’t knee bar me and it didn’t really get hurt when I punched it. I ruminated on the fact I got subbed by the same move on the way home. I Googled, “ways to stop knee bars”, “how to not get caught in knee bars”, “why do communists only use knee bars?”, “Why are Sambo kurtkas red? Is it because they are communists who use knee bars?” Needless to say, I am invested in solving this knee bar problem. Which I think is one of the few times where frustration can really benefit a person in BJJ.

In my experience, there are two types of people who get frustrated in BJJ. There are the people that quit when they reach a level of frustration and people who persevere. The former are not able to handle the fact that they don’t get a move or keep getting beat by a move or the same person beats them over and over. They look for immediate rewards, which come often when you start BJJ. As a person moves along in BJJ, those gains become less frequent. The extrinsic motivation fades and they end up quitting.

Could be worse! Am I right?!?!?

However, the other type of person looks at the issue causing frustration as a problem to solve. They take agency of their problem and look for solutions. Eventually, they will solve that problem and their motivation is reward with a new challenge. In this way, frustration is great, it motivates BJJ practitioners to get better.

If I were to give advice to myself starting out 6 years ago, I would say to try to solve problems for myself early on. This ability to take agency for my own development will serve be a huge advantage when I am one of the top 4 or 5 people at my gym or when I am coaching. At this point, there may be no one at the gym that can answer my question about stopping the inverted guard, I will have to figure it out on my own.  As long as I look at it like a puzzle I can solve, the frustration will only motivate me.

P.S. Still working on stopping that knee bar, thanks Doodles