The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make In Jiu Jitsu

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” – Ray Bradbury

There are two types of students in Jiu Jitsu: The Purposeful and the Insincere.

The Purposeful attends to the moment, has a plan, and uses the experiences of each day to inform their understanding of the craft. They are sincere. They are focused. They stretch their limits.

The Insincere goes with the flow. They show up and put in their time. With a laissez faire relationship to training, they go through the motions. This is grounded in the belief that mat time equals progress.

To the untrained eye, these students look the same. They both show up to class on time. They are consistent in their training. They both “train hard”.

But only one of them is training.

The Purposeful Comes in with a purpose, committed to resolving a problem or sharpening a skill, and creates rapid development. He has a systematic approach of calculated action that provides consistent and forecastable results.

The purposeful trains. The Insincere exercises.

The Insincere moves and sweats. He still experiences great struggle. But it’s not aimed at anything, and therefore, he doesn’t become much.

The Zone of Optimal Development

The Purposeful lives in the zone of optimal development. He knows this is where growth is found. It’s about mat time WITHIN this zone. The longer he can experience this state of tension, the more skilled he becomes.

The Purposeful adopts the responsibility to engage in optimal resistance, voluntarily choosing aspects of Jiu Jitsu that elicit growth.

He does not beat a dead horse using the skills he has already mastered. That’s too easy. He does not try flying-berimbolo-karate chops he saw on TikTok. That’s too hard (and unnecessary).

He trains the skills that lie within the zone of optimal development. The Insincere rarely experiences this zone.

The Insincere sticks to what works. The over-reliance on tools that led to past successes that impedes future success. The Insincere is the student who clings to that cherished technique that was his “go to” three years ago and that remains the case today. He has mastered the knife and continually brings it to the gunfight.

Or…

The Insincere tries whatever techniques the Instagram algorithm picks up. Dabbling in difference aspects of Jiu Jitsu with no cohesion between them.

Deep vs. Shallow

The Purposeful goes deep. He explores the nuanced aspects of a particular domain of the craft. He seeks to understand the counter to the counter to the counter.

He entrenches himself into a single area of focus and lives there. Exploring and collecting information. Fine tuning and stress testing his findings. The purposeful pursues nuance in the depths of their chosen domain.

The Insincere likes shallow. He accepts superficial understanding as absolutes. He stays on the surface of things where its comfortable.

“The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We're like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep.” – Steven Pressfield

The Levels of Jiu Jitsu

Hear me out.

There are 5 belts in Jiu Jitsu. Let’s assume this represents 5 levels of skill. You can assign one of these levels to every technique you know.

You have some skills that can work on black belts: that’s a Level 5 skill. You have some skills that only work on white belts: that’s a level 1 skill.

Due to the infinite nature of Jiu Jitsu, we will always have Level 1 skills. The trick is having the humility to use them.

Every Moment In Jiu Jitsu Should be Difficult

The Insincere will develop some Level 4 or Level 5 skillsets. But he will cling to them. He will use them with Level 1 students. Which means, he will not experience the friction that growth requires and is essentially wasting his time.

The Insincere will do this for years. Maybe it’s intellectual laziness or limitation, maybe its ego and pride. The source of the limitations may vary, but the effect will be the same: a lack of progress.

The Purposeful honors the levels. The Purposeful uses Level 5 skillsets with Level 5 training partners. He uses Level 1 skillsets with Level 1 training partners. And this is how he stays in that zone of optimal development.

He is perpetually stretched because he is the one doing the stretching.

Growth Comes From Friction

Growth over time is simply the volume of friction positively engaged with.

The Purposeful loves friction. Seeks it out. Worships it. The Insincere avoids friction.

The Purposeful understands that this friction is the source of growth, and therefore, seeks failure. He understands that missing the mark in a roll is hitting the mark long-term because he is stretching his capacity. He is walking that fine edge between order and chaos and by default, stumbles in chaos often.

The Insincere clings to order, to what they know. And when they experience the discomfort, the honesty, the awareness of the shortcoming that failure provides, he turns away. He makes excuses. He goes back to what he is good at.

Because he thinks friction is “bad” or a reflection of his worth.

The Purposeful labels the same pain as growth, as progress. He experiences the same failings but none of the frustration. Because he understands that this is the path forward.

How to Get Really Freaking Good at Jiu Jitsu

When you engage in live training, use skillsets that are equal to or lesser than the level of your teammate. Do this for a decade and you will become a world-class black belt.

Use Level 5 skills with Level 5 teammates. Use Level 1 skills with Level 1 teammates.

This is how blackbelts get better training with white belts.

You’re a Level 1 teammate with practically zero skills? Cool, I will work on a guard I suck at, on my bad hip, focusing on one specific concept I never use, I’ll give myself a tight deadline to achieve success, and if all else fails, I’ll tell you exactly what I’m doing.

…and use one arm.

Boom! The Level 5 Blackbelt practices a Level 1 skillset and achieves optimal resistance that his growth requires.

What This Means Long Term

In the day-to-day trenches, The Purposeful and The Insincere look the same. They both train hard. They both are consistent. They both practice Jiu Jitsu.

But on a long enough timeline, a chasm emerges. The twin camps of The Purposeful and the Insincere become the twin camps of the World-Class black belts and the Bad Black belts.

And here’s the big crescendo moment!:

This is entirely up to the student. The instructor has no say in the matter.

Take my academy for example.

The advanced class each day is really two classes. The first class is the instruction period. That’s my class. The one I teach and the curriculum I provide. The second class is the live training portion. That’s the student’s class. The one they teach and the curriculum they provide.

As the instructor, all I can do is provide the tools during instruction, strategies for implementation, and the awareness of these ideas. The student decides to sink or swim with them.

“Opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.” – Jordan Peterson

Conclusion

I opened this article with a quote from Ray Bradbury:

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” – Ray Bradbury

The Purposeful live in that zone of optimal development. This is how they are filled to the brim. This is how they tip themselves over. This is how they let the beautiful stuff out.

I am obsessed with constant improvement. None of us can fathom what our potential is. What could we become if we lived in this zone of optimal development for decades? What if we actually got 1% better every day?

We would manifest the divine.

I don’t think that is hyperbole. I think it’s real. We owe it to ourselves, and the people we serve, to find out.

I’ll be honest. I have not been fully transparent with you or my students. I have my motives. There is a trojan horse here, for sure. There are soldiers inside with clandestine intent!

It's not mastery of the craft that I want for you. That’s great, but it’s not the final stop on this beautiful ride of Jiu Jitsu. I want you to master yourself.

This cultivation of mastery has laws. Mastery of all must begin with mastery of one. We must venture far into one discipline so that we have the capacity to go far into all disciplines. For us, this first discipline is Jiu Jitsu.

And when we are successful, that mastery transcends the mat:

As a father.
As a mother.
As a husband.
As a wife.
As a son or daughter.
As a friend.
As a leader.
In our health.
In our work.
In our passions.

Are you ready to live in that zone of optimal development? Are you ready to join the camp of The Purposeful? I think you are.

Go then.

Train. Don’t exercise.
Cling to purpose. Don’t wander.
Seek friction. Don’t turn away.
Go deep. Not shallow.

The world is redeemed by The Purposeful. And so is your guard passing.

What a strange and beautiful life we inherit, that these two are so intertwined.

P.S.

I’m giving a 100% FREE online workshop about achieving goals next Wednesday, January 24th at 7pm. You should come. Reserve your spot here: Matakas.us/transform-reg