If you haven’t learned it already you will soon. If you have learned it then let this be an affirmation. We all have to learn how to say, “thank you”.
I consider myself a Jiu-Jitsu guy. I’ve put my time in on the mats. I’ve suffered the injuries. I’ve been choked, beat up, broken and spit out only to repeat it again. I’ve won. I’ve lost. I’ve gained some insight.
One insight I’ve gained is to say, “thank you”. When a teammate chokes you out you need to thank him/her. Why do we thank them? It’s not just to express gratitude for a teaching moment. It’s to affirm the mindset we need. We need a gratitude mindset.
In life, we focus on the winners. We focus on the pretty faces, the bright lights and the money. All too often we don’t dig deep into what makes a human being successful. We also don’t quantify the limitless incarnations of success, but that’s a whole different subject.
Mindset plays a big role in determining success. Luck plays a big role too, but let’s focus on the things we can work on. Confidence and humility are two sides of the mindset coin. You don’t enter a Jiu-Jitsu tournament in order to come in last. You enter to win. You take on the challenge in hopes of securing the top position on the podium. Everybody else in the tournament wants the same spot on the podium. They will not roll over, and let you take the gold. You need to have the humility to understand that you aren’t god’s gift. It’s going to be a fight. You will be subject to a trial by fire.
When we do warm-up drills in class we prepare for the battle ahead. We’ve been doing a new drill. In this drill, we grab a partner’s legs. We lay on our stomach, and we have to drag our body on the ground as they step forward. We traverse the room on the mats.
I’ve been calling out to the room, “YOU’RE A SLUG. WE’RE ALL SLUGS… WORTHLESS SLUGS!”
I’m not doing this to be an asshole or a class clown. I’m doing it to instill the idea that none of us are better than anybody else. We are all imperfect, and working ourselves up from slug status. It’s the humility needed to push harder. We mustn’t rest on our laurels. The work is never done, and we have never arrived. There is no arriving.
I get my ass kicked frequently. I get my ass kicked by all sorts of folks. Big folks, small folks and folks with lower ranks throw me whoopings. It’s routine. I also make saying, “thank you”, to my ass kicking teammates, routine. I mean it when I say it too. I thank them, because I know they are doing a lot for me. When they kick my ass I have to deal with it. I have to learn from it. Then, I need to take the lesson and apply it.
You can take the lessons from Jiu-Jitsu, and apply them to your life. That’s the real secret of this martial art. It can teach you how to protect yourself. That’s not the whole art though. The biggest lesson isn’t how to get gold, choke big men out or be a badass. The lesson isn’t that we’re all “WORTHLESS SLUGS” either.
The real lesson we can gain from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is how to say, “thank you”, and mean it.