Don’t ask for a light load, but rather ask for a strong back.

This quote struck me a bit while I was swimming through the vast oceans of the internet. I’ve realized that the journey to BJJ is not a easy one. For those who have quit early or chose to not to pursue further because they are looking for something easy. Again, all good things (and the rewarding ones is not easy. It’s just reality.

In my very first tourney, I actually focused on one thing: praying. I prayed that I will have a less experienced opponent who would gladly give his back for me to get the easy choke. I wished for a skinny opponent who is absolutely hapless in the gentle art. Yes. I prayed for the wrong thing.

Well, God never answered my prayer. Instead he gave me an experienced guy. The dude literally threw me around like a rag doll. A word of advice: hip throws aren’t fun. For a moment there, I thought that luck wasn’t on my side at all, or being seeded to an opponent whose skills far exceeded mine as unfair.

For that reason: I remembered that results, victories, and improvement are not about the factors that you cannot control. Yes. You can get lucky to go against someone inexperienced. But come on, where is the fun in that?

BJJ is not all about the number of wins that you can rack up in a single tourney. Competition is fun. But competition is the time where you can gauge how much you have improved, or how much you have learned.

Don’t ask for a light load, but rather for a stronger back

This became my mantra. And then, I believe that I have improved. I made every competition about my improvement and not about getting being better than the experienced or the weak, or beating  those who cannot tell the difference from an armbar attempt to a triangle. Train hard so that you can best better opponents. Believe you me, in the end, you will feel better.

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