Often times as adults we move forward in our endeavors with a very serious attitude. Sure there are things that you have to take serious or else you will end up without a job, in debt, or lonely, but for the most part it is safe to say that hobbies and extracurricular attitudes have a little wiggle room. When it comes to jiu-jitsu, when you are too serious about it all, it hinders your growth. Now I guess I should explain exactly what "too serious" is. I personally love jiu-jitsu with all my heart, it has changed my life tremendously and I would be heart broken if I ever had to stop doing it for some reason (knock on wood), this to me is the good kind of serious that will eventually lead to a black belt. On the other hand, too serious is when you go in the gym and all you can think about is how many people you are going to submit today because your boss pissed you off (or you leave with a count of how many people or who you submitted), or you go in day in and day out and you never smile or talk to anyone you just train, or maybe you get mad when you hear people laughing in the corner and you say to yourself "that's why I'm better than them, they don't take it seriously!". Let me be honest for a sec, I used to be that guy. When I was that guy I was getting better, no doubt, but that was only because I was training 8x a week.
When I started to look at jiu-jitsu as playtime (for lack of better words) that's when I noticed exponential growth. If you are too serious, you go in and you say "I will not tap today!". Someone can be choking you so bad that it feels like you are being beheaded, and you still won't tap. Not because you are trying to escape, but because you're serious. If you do end up tapping, now it's time to go ape shiet. Wrong mentality.
If you're not tapping, you're not learning. If you never end up in a bad position, how will you ever learn to escape? And so on. This is why kids learn so well, they don't give a shiet, like the honey badger! They are always having fun and slowly gaining skills at the same time. You learn jiu-jitsu by exploring and gaining experience through trial and error, not by being close minded and serious. Next time you roll just play around with different positions and create scenarios and see if you can think your way out of them. This is how I started to look at training now that I can't train as much as I did as a white belt, and I can say that despite a 3-4x a week training schedule, I still learn just as much as I did at 8x a week. Its all about attitude and your mentality. Think like a child, minus the tantrums. If you stay in a state of play, you will learn more each day. Ciao!
