Today, I’m going to talk about the lesson I learned the very first day I trained at Evolve Academy.
I drove over an hour to get to the gym and I got lost at the end, since it was located off the main road. By some miracle though, I will still early.
So I signed all the waiver forms and did my intro. It’s amusing to me now to think about that intro since I had some absolutely horrendous kicks then. That’s no longer the case.
Next, I went into the class. It was like nothing else I had ever experienced before. I was really out of shape at the time, and the workout was extremely physically demanding.
I didn’t quit though, and I made it through.
Afterwards, I went up to Master Mike, and I told him that I really wanted to do this but I didn’t know if I could. His response was straightforward; he just told me that if I wanted to perform better in the gym I had to do work outside.
That lesson has always stuck with me.
How I Have Applied it to #bjj
I learned that lesson a year before I started training #brazilian jiu-jitsu, but I can point to several instances where the application of it has helped me to improve.
The most notable example when I was a white belt was when I taught myself the granby roll. I had seen people on youtube playing inverted guard and granby rolling, and I thought why can’t I do that. So I made a project for myself.
Using drills I found on Chuck Anzalone’s instructional set, I taught myself how to granby roll and wall walk. That little project has reaped so many benefits, but it required initiative on my part.
Since then, I have had many other projects, and they have all contributed to my growth. It all started though with the idea that I had to take responsibility for my own training.