12 Ways Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Can Improve Your Life: 11. Challenges You

In your  Brazilian Jiu Jitsu journey you’ll encounter a variety of challenges. They’ll  range in difficultly, size and purpose.  It is important to have both easy and difficult challenges because both serve their purpose. For example, an easy task you set for yourself, like staying after practice to drill for five extra minutes, can lead to the creation of much more difficult challenge such as staying for a second class on a consistent basis.

When it comes to the size of a challenge it is important that the goal is parallel to where you are in your Jiu Jitsu journey. For example, a challenge for someone just beginning Jiu Jitsu could be consistently showing up to practice three times a week. Once you’re further along in your journey the challenges will grow as you and your skills do. For someone who has joined the rank of blue belt, they might change their challenge to participating in their first competition.

The purpose of a challenge has one of two purposes, to help you grow mentally, or to improve your physical abilities.  An example of a challenge to improve your physical condition would be to lose weight, gain muscle or to become more flexible. These are achieved through activities such as stretching at the end of class, sparring with your teammates, and participate in group warm up. Challenges involving mental growth tend to be more personal and harder to achieve. This makes them all the more enjoyable when your able to crush each one.  A goal you can set to improve yourself mentally might be something such as getting over the fear of competition. It is important to work your way up to meeting these challenges and not just throwing yourself at them. This is because if  rush to quickly to achieve this goal and fail you can become discouraged and never come back to it, but if you take small, consistent steps towards this goal, you might fail, but it won’t be as devastating and hopefully have the support from your teammates and coaches to continue. It is important to maintain growth in your challenges because that is what will help you to improve and grow throughout your journey.

“A black belt is a white belt that never quit.” This quotation perfectly encapsulates the theme of the never ending  positive and proactive challenges Jiu Jitsu practitioners face throughout their lifelong training. One of the many great aspects of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu  is that you can never be done with the sport. One does not ever stop learning in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It is an ongoing process of continuing to improve your skills. This means the challenges never have to stop. As soon as you crush through one challenge, the next goal is up and waiting for you to bust through. It’s also important to realize that there will almost always be someone on the mats who is more knowledgeable and willing to help you through the challenges Brazilian Jiu Jitsu presents.