I recently met up with a friend to have some coffee and talk. His son is a wrestler and BJJ practitioner. Recently, his son left BJJ. He's at an age where he is exploring the world. Wrestling is one of the ways his son is testing himself. He has been competing at a high level. He has won some tough matches. I saw some clips from his dad, and the kid is a serious athlete. He lives and breathes for wrestling now, but why? Also, why did he leave BJJ?
I understood the kid's mindset. He wants to test himself in the world. The BJJ circuit for him at his age is not going to be as challenging (from a competition standpoint). Wrestling at his age is brutal. The practices are hell, the coaches are damn near evil and objectivity is the name of the game. He isn't just sparring. He's putting it on the line with serious stakes. His father is proud, and totally in awe of how his son is shaping into his own entity.
I realize that the kid is smart. He's a gifted student, and he's always searching for answers. As humans, we can't just be satisfied with what is. We want to discover the whole truth even if it's futile. The son specifically switched from BJJ to wrestling, because he wanted to grapple with truth beyond his initial scope. He's reaching out beyond what he had known before. He made a move towards objectivity.
Subjectivity is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty, art and a myriad of other human concepts are subjective. In fact, they are the domaine of humans. Objective truth is a fact that is not to be disputed by humans. Objective truth is godly (possibly God himself). When we engage in a sport like wrestling we get to glimpse the nature of God. It is not subjective. One opponent is pitted against another; the battle ensues; one person wins, and the other loses. It is objective.
Jiu-Jitsu is exploding. Now every celebrity and their mothers are doing it. If we aren't careful Jiu-Jitsu will go the way of karate. I love the art too much to let that happen. It won't be my doing though. Everybody needs to follow somebody, and Jiu-Jitsu is a very attractive path. In the future, blackbelts won't mean as much. Jonah Hill is close to getting a blue belt. Now, I haven't rolled with him. I can't tell you if he's good or not, but I can tell you that it's annoying to see the art this magnified. My professor started doing the art when nobody did it. He was an original punk rocker, so to speak. I was the next wave of weirdos who came into it. Now, Jiu-Jitsu is like when twenty-year-old girls wear Sex Pistols t-shirts. The objectivity is leaving the building.
Wrestling, especially at the high school level is still serious. It's brutal, and only the best of them can hang. My first love was art. My second love was sport. My first love exists in our theoretical realm. It is how I make sense of the world around me. My second love touches on the objective truth. It's how I search for the face of God. It makes sense to me that the son is searching like I am, and that wrestling is his journey up Masada. I only hope he comes back to Jiu-Jitsu at some point. He will find more in the art again, especially when the objectivity transcends wins or losses.