Are you willing to suffer for what you want? It’s going to happen….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"article":"Ask yourself:\u00a0 What makes you stronger?\u00a0 Is it all the good times, the parties, the times when everything is going great in your life?\u00a0 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?\u00a0 There are so many analogies and memes we have all heard around this topic, but one of my favorites is this.\u00a0 Me: \u201cGod, why did you take me into such deep waters?\u201d\u00a0 God: \u201cBecause I knew your enemies couldn\u2019t swim.\u201d\r\n\r\nCleary, we know that we are built from the struggles in our lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s how we learn.\u00a0 Without any pain causing us to change, so few of us would ever change.\u00a0 I\u2019ve 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.\r\n\r\nSuffering is on the forefront of my mind right now as I have been struggling to lose the weight I need to lose for Master\u2019s Worlds over Labor Day weekend.\u00a0 Every year it\u2019s gets a little harder to get my body to cooperate and just drop the weight.\u00a0 (Aren\u2019t we SUPPOSED to shrink as we get older?!)\u00a0 Last year at this time I told myself it was probably the last year I was going to compete at Light Featherweight.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\r\n\r\nThis suffering keeps me in check throughout the year, however.\u00a0 It\u2019s estimated that 70% of Americans are overweight or obese.\u00a0 That is a staggering number and a sobering statistic on the health of this country.\u00a0 Look back at magazine articles and advertisements from the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s, and you only see a tiny portion of the population overweight.\u00a0 For me, being 5 lbs above my preferred walking around weight is a sign I\u2019ve let myself go.\u00a0 Most people think that\u2019s crazy.....5 lbs......what's the big deal?.\u00a0 But I\u2019m guessing at least 70% of people think that's crazy.\u00a0 But it\u2019s what forces me to make the changes I need to make quickly so that 5 lbs doesn\u2019t turn into 50.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The closer I am to the target weight during the year, the easier the month before the event is.\r\n\r\nMartial 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 You are going to get put in uncomfortable situations every day.\u00a0 When you do, one of two things are going to happen.\u00a0 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\u2026.OR\u2026..you are going to quit.\u00a0 \u00a0Getting good at anything takes time, suffering, and failure.\u00a0 Every day you have to make the choice to either embrace the suck or quit.\u00a0 When you look in the mirror at the end of each day, which person do you want staring back at you?","featured_image":"","featured_image_id":"","featured_article":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-426","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n