8/24: SUFFERING
Ask yourself: What makes you stronger? Is it all the good times, the parties, the times when everything is going great in your life? Or is it the times when life is beating you down, when things are crashing around you and you have to find your way through the maze of problems that life is throwing at you? There are so many analogies and memes we have all heard around this topic, but one of my favorites is this. Me: “God, why did you take me into such deep waters?” God: “Because I knew your enemies couldn’t swim.”
Cleary, we know that we are built from the struggles in our lives. It’s how we learn. Without any pain causing us to change, so few of us would ever change. I’ve long since learned, especially in Muay Thai, that it is way more effective to let people get punched in the face one time to train them to keep their hands up than TELLING them a hundred times to keep their hands up.
Suffering is on the forefront of my mind right now as I have been struggling to lose the weight I need to lose for Master’s Worlds over Labor Day weekend. Every year it’s gets a little harder to get my body to cooperate and just drop the weight. (Aren’t we SUPPOSED to shrink as we get older?!) Last year at this time I told myself it was probably the last year I was going to compete at Light Featherweight. But after losing my first match in the last 15 seconds of the match, I knew I had some unfinished business in this weight class. My goal is, and always has been, to win IBJJF Worlds as a black belt and the Light Feather weight class is my best chance.
This suffering keeps me in check throughout the year, however. It’s estimated that 70% of Americans are overweight or obese. That is a staggering number and a sobering statistic on the health of this country. Look back at magazine articles and advertisements from the 60’s and 70’s, and you only see a tiny portion of the population overweight. For me, being 5 lbs above my preferred walking around weight is a sign I’ve let myself go. Most people think that’s crazy.....5 lbs......what's the big deal?. But I’m guessing at least 70% of people think that's crazy. But it’s what forces me to make the changes I need to make quickly so that 5 lbs doesn’t turn into 50. The suffering it takes to make Light Featherweight to focus on achieving the highest level competition goal I have forces me to keep my body in check throughout the year. The closer I am to the target weight during the year, the easier the month before the event is.
Martial arts, and in particular Jiu-Jitsu, has a primary element of suffering, which is why so few people in this world can commit to it. When you are new, no matter how tough you think you are, you are going to be on defense a good majority of the time. You are going to get put in uncomfortable situations every day. When you do, one of two things are going to happen. You are either going to have the resolve to work through the suffering, the resolve to get 1% better each day, the resolve to know that given enough time you will become an incredibly talented practitioner….OR…..you are going to quit. Getting good at anything takes time, suffering, and failure. Every day you have to make the choice to either embrace the suck or quit. When you look in the mirror at the end of each day, which person do you want staring back at you?
