I was reading a Kevin Randleman interview the
other day and he was talking about the life of a wrestler. Amongst other nuggets of wisdom he was
sharing, based on decades of competitive wrestling, he said, “ (In wrestling),
we get our butts kicked by everybody everyday. You never win in practice. Someone
is always there to beat your ass. If you’re that good, then there’s someone
there that good with you because you didn’t get there by yourself.”
That brought to mind my own experience in
training jiu jitsu. I do get my butt kicked by everyone everyday and just last
night, I got caught in a nasty arm bar from a really technical sparring partner,
which compounded the arm bar I got from one of the black belts two weeks ago (I
know, I know, my arm bar defense sucks big time!). Mr. Randleman says that no
one wins in practice (in his case, anyway), but in my experience, I do – every
time. But then my goals are most probably different from his. I don’t set out
to win every time I spar. My goals are much more simple and specific to my own
learning needs – to be able to assume a better position, to prevent someone
from establishing a better position, or even just lasting longer than before against
a very skilled partner. I may have “lost” a sparring session in a general
sense, but in my mind, as long as I had those little boxes ticked in my head, I
come out as a winner.
Cheesy, I know, and not very “alpha”, but
in my opinion, to succeed with anything, as with life, you need to set realistic
but dynamic goals. And it is MY journey, you know…
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