Thesis Wednesday: So You Want to Be a Successful Grappler?

If you haven't seen the above video, watch it.

Do you want to be successful?
Do you like to sleep?
Do you like to eat sh*&^% food?
Do you want to be successful?
Do you like to take nights off from training?
Do you skip training when your wrist is hurt, or your knee is busted, or you already trained during the morning class?
Do you skip out on drilling and repetitions?
Do you want to be successful?
Are you the first off the mat when free rolling is slowing down?
Do you skip Friday Open Mat b/c you're tired from working all week?
Do you skip training b/c it's a hassle to bring the kid and keep an eye on him and roll?
Do you want to be successful?

The above questions cannot all have the same answer.

Winning is about one simple thing: Choice.

Eventually, you'll have to decide if eating sh&% food is more important than winning.
If getting wasted with your friends is more important than winning.
If video games or chasing girls is more important than winning.
Yes, moderation has its place.
Not if you want to be a world champion.

You have to be insane dedicated to be willing to do the work to be the best.
There has to be something wrong different with you to put in the sheer hours required to be good at this.

There has to be something different about you to show up to a lifetime sport where you accept that in reality, there is always someone better.
I used to think Golf was a stupid game. I couldn't understand why guys would play a game that there was no attainable perfection.

Then I started training Judo.
And one day, I realized...that I would never be good enough. That there is no perfect randori or roll. That as soon as you dominate the white belts, it loses it's enjoyment.
As soon as you dominate the blue belts or the whatever belts, and the challenge fades....the joy diminishes.
The lifelong pursuit of progression, of learning more each and every day, of remembering things you've forgotten.....that's what the sport is actually about.

Singular focus. Vision.
Compartmentalizing failure or reshaping, re-framing it into the process of elimination where if you are not directly improving, you are eliminating all the wrong or less effective or less efficient ways to do a technique or combination.
Willingness to accept the plateaus and continue training despite the doldrums and self-doubt.