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Mindfulness and Martial Arts

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“The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in an act of uniting with something.”
– Koun Yamada

Jiu-Jitsu, and combat athletics in general, demand from the user a certain level of concentration. You can’t wrestle, you can’t roll and do well, if you’re lost in the neurotic thoughts of the chattering mind. Worry and desire, self-conscious ponderings about the social environment around you, financial stress, that all fades away during a hard roll; and that is precisely why so many people find the act of rolling in Jiu-Jitsu (sparring with your partner in manner that is neither patterned or contrived), so enjoyable. In that sense, Jiu-Jitsu is kind of a short cut to a more clear and present awareness. Its performance requires that of you, and that requirement is a beautiful gift.

Jiu-Jitsu isn’t the only thing that accomplishes this. Golf legend Arnold Palmer, phrased it this way:

“You’re involved in an action and vaguely aware of it, but your focus is not on the commotion but on the opportunity ahead. I’d liken it to a sense of reverie – not a dreamlike state but the somehow insulated state that a great musician achieves in a great performance. He’s aware of where he is and what he’s doing, but his mind is on the playing of his instrument with an internal sense of rightness – it is not merely mechanical, it is not only spiritual; it is something of both, on a different plane and a more remote one.”

Surfing, snow boarding, skiing, rock climbing, bike riding, running, or any other physical activity that requires a certain level of intensified focus, can take its players to these states of consciousness. But the combat arts do come with a few distinct advantages that these other activities don’t bring. First, you’re dealing with something extremely primal within us, hand-to-hand combat. Something our ancestors had to engage in, generation upon generation, just to survive. Because of that the ego is laid bare in a way that’s much different from say, running. With running you may be alone. With Jiu-Jitsu you’re in competition with another human being who is trying to dominate you physically. The name of the game is to literally force the other person to submit. To make them give up. And that act of giving up involves a very practical reality that can’t be easily scrubbed away, a physical act.

You must tap out.

Tapping on your partner means you’re forced to concede to your opponent in a way that is anything but ambiguous. It’s one thing to concede to yourself, during a run, to tell yourself that you can go no further or faster. It is an entirely other thing to have to concede to another human being who you were just engaged in a physical battle with. And now, publicly admit, they’ve beaten you. Most Jiu-Jitsu players have to do this multiple times a practice, and thousands of times over the years. In fact, it’s a required part of the improvement process. You can’t get good without putting yourself through it. That makes it different – different in a primal, visceral, important way. Different in a way that makes it perfect for our objectives, perfect in a way other things, while also requiring high levels of concentration, simply can’t match.

I’ve watched many men over the years begin Jiu-Jitsu, experience rolling for the first time, and quit immediately. Often times the larger the macho persona, the faster they flee the mat. This is especially true in SBG, because we have world-class female black belts. Having to tap out to another man is something a lot of men can’t handle. Being forced to tap out to a woman is something more than a lot of men can’t handle.

The humility required to attain a real level of demonstratable skill in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu isn’t essential in a fantasy based martial art. In Aikido, you only pretend to be thrown against your will. The techniques taught, like most traditional martial arts, only work when both parties pretend. Its an act of make believe. It becomes a shared delusion. And like most delusions, it provides plenty of dark places for the ego to hide. Those closets and corners where the ego digs in are buried well within the mind. And not noticing that self-delusion entails a lack of mindfulness. In fact, the more skilled the fantasy-based practitioner becomes at pretending what they do works, the less mindful they become.

It’s too charitable to say Martial Arts training can enhance mindfulness. It’s more accurate to say combat sports like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, due to their true and sincere nature, necessitate mindfulness while they’re being engaged in. While fantasy based traditional martial arts very often have the opposite affect, retarding the growth of that same, present and clear awareness. The very act of placing something in a pattern means you can learn to respond faster, while focusing less. The very act of dealing with a competitive opponent who is coming at you in a way that is anything but choreographed, means that in order to to respond to the pressure you’ll need to focus more. It’s not that both are good but different, rather, its that one method of training, dead patterns, makes it easier to remove mindfulness from the movement – while the other, alive training, makes it harder to be anything but mindful.

Jiu-Jitsu isn’t the only combat sport that accomplishes this. You can get it from boxing, MMA, Muay Thai, or any other ‘real’, meaning competitive, meaning sport, Martial Art. But those also tend to come with a price. A price the body pays, and perhaps more dangerously, a price the brain pays. And while Jiu-Jitsu too, like any sport or exercise, can take a physical toll – it doesn’t come with a price tag labeled “brain damage”.

Learning to focus in your BJJ class, and being forced to focus when you roll, you’ll still find neurotic thoughts popping up when you’re under pressure. You’re trapped on bottom, you’re having trouble breathing, your opponent starts to drag a forearm across your throat; you struggle to even move an arm underneath him, to block it. The voice within you tells you to quit. You don’t. You ignore that voice. You defend your neck. You survive. Eventually your opponent moves, just a little, just enough. You find the space and moment to escape. You’re back to guard. You can breath. Your opponent is tired. You sweep. You hold. You submit. You’ve won.

Those moments will happen. Over the years, they will happen a lot. Likewise, you’ll have moments where you’ll lose the battle. You’ll be bested. That’s necessary. But what may get missed, if you’re not careful, is just how often you’ve overcome that little voice in your head in the process. That’s a huge part of the practice. That’s a huge part of the benefit to what we do. And as long as you don’t give up unless you have to, because you’ve tried and failed, as long as you don’t stop and walk off the mat before your opponent has imposed the win, or you’ve overcome the position – these lessons in mindfulness, in non-attachment to the negative sub-vocalization that echoes within our skulls, are inevitable. And that’s beautiful.

That’s the pressure of Jiu-Jitsu, and of combat sports in general, that is innate in their practice, and difficult to replicate with other activities. Whether you take up BJJ or not, and if you’re serious about self-defense and serious about developing that healthy relationship to violence, I hope you do – you need something demanding, something physical, something that makes you sometimes want to give up, something like BJJ in your life.

“Try not to localize the mind anywhere, but let it fill up the whole body, let it flow throughout the totality of your being. When this happens you use your hands where they are needed, you use the legs or the eyes where they are needed, and no time or energy will go to waste.” – Takuan (advice to a samurai warrior)

Five Traits for Leadership

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“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Stanley McChrystal

Having good coaches, having good mentors, having men or women you respect as role models, is important. They are all around. You can find them in surprising places. They aren’t always Generals, like Stanley McChrystal. They are everyday people doing things for other everyday people, everywhere. Having them in your life directly is a blessing. And it is one of the great benefits of a good Tribe. But they don’t have to be physically present, or even of this generation. You can pick your mentors from anywhere, and any time period. For me that means people like Dr. James Orbinski and Charles Darwin. People who, after spending time with them in books, leave me both inspired and wondering what the hell I am doing with my life. People like the Stoics, not the self-help gurus. I don’t recommend picking those who profit on building up your self esteem, like Tony Robbins (I highly recommend Steve Salerno’s book on that topic SHAM). I do recommend picking those who, after reading about their actual lives, make you feel a touch of shame. I need that. It reminds me what we as human can do – when we are our best. Pick mentors, living or dead, who are not just better accomplished, but actually better human beings.

The qualities of leadership vary, just as human beings do. General Marshall and General MacArthur were both world class leaders. And they couldn’t have been more different. But as is usually the case, and just as it is with delivery systems, it’s useful for us to look at leadership traits they shared. Things all the good leaders I’ve met and read about in my life seem to have in common.

Let’s break these down.

There is such a thing as a natural leader. And you can learn the skills of leadership. Those two statements are not in contradiction.

What’s a natural leader? A natural leader is the kid in school, who walks into the room confident and makes a plan, which the other kids naturally follow, and who just assumes that role. You know them when you see them. If you’ve taught school, even pre-school, you’ve probably enlisted their aid in keeping the other kids in line. Sometimes, unguided, these kids can become bullied, bullies, or even outcasts – because they’re different. But with some direction they can also thrive as leaders.

Being a leader is a necessary component of running a successful gym, at least the kind we build in SBG, because those gyms are also communities, Tribes. Those communities require leaders, men and women who have the confidence needed to do what’s necessary, and the integrity required to take responsibility for it if it fails, or needs adjusting. Travis Davison is such a man. He was my fourth black belt, and the first black belt from my own Portland Gym (my first three black belts being Luis Gutierrez in Florida, John Kavanagh in Ireland, and Karl Tanswell, who was from the UK). When he was a young blue and purple belt, he still acted as a kind of natural social hub. Students who were experiencing different issues but who were too afraid to talk to me, the head coach (this is not an uncommon phenomenon), found themselves discussing things over with Travis. This wasn’t because he was appointed to that position at the time. It wasn’t because I suggested it. It was just who he is. Some people are natural leaders. His better half, Kisa, is the same way. It’s no surprise then that when they moved to Montana, and opened up their own gym, it quickly grew and flourished.

As confident as I am that some like Travis, possess natural leadership skills – I am equally sure that others, almost anyone, can be taught them. And more to the point, that all of us no matter what our experience level is, can always get better at them. Even General MacArthur.

How do we become better leaders?

By working on the five skills that are found in every leader I’ve ever met or studied – regardless of how different they were:

1- Confidence: display confidence, always – but stay honest.
2- Implementation: take action, always. Never complain or whine.
3- Accountability: take full responsibility – no excuses.
4- Inspiration: build others up, always. Rejoice in their success.
5- Gratitude: be grateful for everything, always. But always strive for more.

Trait one, confidence, is essential if you’re going to teach. All of our coaches in SBG go through extensive coaching programs designed to give them the skill-sets needed to teach a good class. One of the most common and most pernicious fallacies out there in the BJJ world is the notion that, because someone is good at BJJ themselves, meaning they have skills when they roll, they must therefore know how to teach. We will discuss this in more depth further on, but suffice it to say, some of the worst BJJ teachers I’ve ever met were world champions.

The first lesson we give them in the intro, coaching 101 course, is that confidence, which in application can mean something as simple as speaking loudly and clearly, is the foundation every other teaching skill is built on. No one pays for a class where the teacher mumbles inarticulately, with wishy-washy statements, ambiguous instruction, and an anxious demeanor. To command the class you need to stand tall, speak loudly, and let the students know exactly what they are supposed to be doing. If you can’t do that, you can’t even begin the process of teaching a group well.

This doesn’t mean false bravado, or any pretense to knowledge one doesn’t actually have. Our coaches are taught to say “I don’t know”, anytime they don’t actually know. Remember, authenticity is one of the cornerstones of SBG. A common phrase you might hear one of our younger coaches use is “I don’t know. But that’s a good question. Let’s ask coach Cane.” Or, if the students have more experience – “I don’t know. But that’s a good question. Let’s try and see if we can problem solve that.”

I’ve seen coaches that were a little too cocky. And when that happens, the process itself will humble you, because Jiu-Jitsu will always throw up new questions that no one, except maybe Rickson, has all the answers for. I’ve also seen coaches that were too humble, and who felt they needed to roll with, and tap out every student in the class, before they would feel comfortable enough to teach. Both extremes are misguided.

First, no one has all the answers to the problems that arise in a fight, or a Jiu-Jitsu class. We use the principles of Jiu-Jitsu to find the answers. And we focus on fundamentals. But we always have to be humble about our Jiu-Jitsu, or our Jiu-Jitsu will humble us.

Second, it isn’t your job to prove Jiu-Jitsu, or any of the delivery systems we teach, works. That experiment has been done and repeated countless times. The material stands on its own. Confidence isn’t cocky. Confidence is commanding yes, but it is also kind. Finding the right balance, confident in your curriculum but humble in your application, is an ongoing and never ending process. Confidence: display confidence, always – but stay honest.

After confidence comes implementation, and that could just as accurately be phrased – doing. Leaders are doers. Leaders implement. When something is wrong, when something needs fixing, some people complain and whine about it. Others do something about it. The doers are the leaders. A student isn’t getting something, don’t bitch about it – help them. The gym isn’t running as it should. Don’t moan about it – repair it. You have to step up and lead from the front.

Lead from the front is something you’ll hear a lot, from a lot of people. If you are someone who plans on saying it a lot, I suggest you think deeply about it – deeper than most go.

It is good advice. Marcus Aurelius phrased it as being strict with yourself and lenient with others. An admonition I try and remember everyday. Don’t ask from others what you’re unwilling to give. This is all good advice. But it isn’t enough to model one behavior, and fail as a hypocrite on another. Leading from the front requires two key things – first, we must never forget what Aurelius said. And second, we must keep the big picture in mind – what do you really want to lead on? Don’t pick little tasks. Tasks vary in meaning, person to person, and moment to moment. Lead on traits and principles. Principles and traits transcend tasks. What would you really like to embody?

It’s your list to make. But by way of example, I’ve picked three:

Happy, Kind, and Productive.

Happy is a tough one. Happy is a result. So while listed as the first goal – first trait, it’s really best measured last.

Productive is getting stuff done. What stuff?

My general thesis as a teacher has always been that every individual is very different. Take competition, some will love to compete. For some I admire, competition is a solid path towards self-knowledge. For others, people I also like and admire, competition isn’t something they really want to do. It doesn’t move them. To push everyone towards competition would be a mistake. I don’t want them to be afraid of it. I don’t want my students to be afraid of anything like that. But I also don’t want them to feel shoved into it. So with something as benign as Jiu-Jitsu competition, I treat it like a new food. Try it at least once, you might like it. If not, that’s okay too. With MMA or boxing, it’s very different, due to the danger of TBI (traumatic brain injury). I only ever want those who truly feel drawn to fighting in a cage or ring for the right reasons, to ever try.

So this brings us back to productive. What does productive mean to you?

A book you need to write?
A family you need to spend more time with?
A friend you need to sit down and talk with?
A business that requires your attention?
An exercise routine you need to be doing?

Productive is, and should be, different for every person. And most of us know what we need to do. Even if it just means starting close, cleaning your room, washing the dishes in the sink. A Zen like approach. Do what you know should be done – now.

Next is kind. Kind, like happiness, is more difficult than productive. Aurelius was talking about being tough on yourself and understanding of others, but it’s always easier to externalize it all. Be tough on yourself and tough with everyone else. Demand so much from yourself, and others, that you live in a state of constant disappointment and anger. On a positive note, some people who live in that state can be extremely productive. They are always pushing. On a negative note, they also end up pushing people away. When you attack people they tend to shell up. They get harder to mold. That’s a failure of leadership.

Paul Sharp addressed this once when he talked about how he talked to himself. One of his mentors said to him “would you ever talk to anyone else the way you talk to yourself?” It’s worth thinking about. The best of us often trip up here.

Leadership is an act of picking people up, not pushing them away. And that picking up includes ourselves. Each and every day. Picking ourselves up, focusing on our objectives, being productive, and remembering to be kind along the way.

Productive. Wake up and make your bed.

Kind. How are you speaking to yourself, and others, as you do it.

Happy. The state that follows when both right action (productive) and right word (speech/thought) meet. Happy follows, naturally, from the above.

After thinking it through I realized my leadership objectives, what I wanted to model in myself, was a life that was productive, kind, and as a result happy. It’s one thing to say it, it’s another to implement it. Implementation: take action, always. Never complain or whine.

After confidence (attitude), and implementation (action), comes accountability.

The moment you make an excuse, you fail as a leader. The more accountable you are, the more you lead. Gym is failing, what did you do wrong? Class went badly, what did you do wrong? Staff is floundering, where did your training with them break down? It always comes back to you. Things go wrong. Problems arise. We do the best we can. It still happens. It always will. When it does, take full and complete responsibility. If it’s your staff’s fault, who hired them? Who trained them? Who supervises them? It’s still always you. If a student is being disruptive, who was in charge of the class? It’s still always you. It is always your fault.

Leaders assume responsibility. That’s called taking command. And a life lived with total responsibility, or as BJJ black belt and former SEAL commander Jocko Willink phrases it – extreme ownership – is a life well lived. Few things are as destructive for a human being as seeing themselves as the victims of their life, rather than the authors of it. Don’t be that human. It’s a miserable way to live. A surefire way to remain a loser. And a total barrier to leadership. Take ownership of your life by taking responsibility for all that happens in it – that’s leadership. Accountability: take full responsibility – no excuses.

A confident – accountable – doer, that’s a good start to a good life. But leading others requires a few more things. You also have to inspire them.

Inspiration can come from example, from seeing someone pick themselves up time and time again, from seeing someone overcome adversity. That’s one powerful way. There are others. Think about the things that inspire you. Watching people who care about you, take joy in your success, is inspiring. Noting how your continued success creates even greater opportunity for you to help others succeed, is inspiring. Good people succeeding, kind people, that’s inspiring. There is a pattern here.

Now think about what’s not inspiring. People who gloat after they win, are not inspiring. Selfish people, mean people, vulgar people, winners or not, are not inspiring. In fact, when people like that win, it often has an effect on others that’s the opposite of inspiring. There is a pattern here as well.

Rejoicing in the success of people who work hard and earn it, is healthy and inspiring. It is inspiring for those who worked hard, and inspiring for those who noticed. To inspire people is to build them up, not tear them down. Ridicule, sarcasm, insults, these things are not inspirational. Good coaches care enough to hold their students accountable, but they also use the power of their words to build them up. To let them know that they can pick themselves up. They can keep trying. That although the end goal may never be reached, that, as Coach Fitz said we would never conquer the weakness within, drive the worst of ourselves away for good, or finally, completely win – there is glory in the quality of that struggle. And that’s inspiring. Inspiration: build others up, always. Rejoice in their success.

Finally, gratitude. Confident – accountable – doers that inspire others, is as good a definition as I’ve seen. That’s leadership. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, when the training is over, the matches finished, the lessons completed, what do we leave ourselves with, what do we hold to so we don’t lose our way? Here I would draw a distinction between leaders that have found their way to happiness, and those still searching. That happiness, to the degree I’ve experienced it, can be measured in gratitude.

Gratitude – for those that came before. My coaches, like me, made mistakes. Those mistakes paved a way forward, because as their student I could learn from them, and as a result, to a degree, not repeat them. I advanced forward thanks to their hard work. I am forever grateful to them. Not just for what they taught me to do right, but also, for what they showed me would turn out wrong.

Few things are as a vulgar as a sense of entitlement. Like hypocrisy, or vanity, entitlement betrays a weakness of character. Entitlement is the opposite of gratitude. Every Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach on the planet, every BJJ Instructor who makes his living teaching this art, who puts food on his or her table by promoting our sport, has the Gracie family to thank, in one form or another. Were they perfect? Who is? Did they make mistakes? Who doesn’t? Was your grandfather, or great grandmother perfect? Did he or she make mistakes? Do we want to be the kind of human being who looks backwards, from our advanced and privileged vantage point, and judges our ancestors with contempt and conceit? We know what people like that look like – and it’s gross. Or instead, do we want to wake up thankful for all the lessons their lives have given us, while remaining driven to try and make ourselves and those around us better in every way? Only one of those two options lends itself to a state rightly called happy.

My coach Chris Haueter, had to deal with the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu politics in a way I never did. He wasn’t the type of American who sucked up to his teachers by using a fake Brazilian accent, sheepishly emoting “Oss!”, or adopting that 9th grader bad boy persona that’s so popular amongst the dull. Because of that, he was respected by the Brazilians in a way those who belonged to the ‘bowed too low when you’re looking’ crowd never could be. But he still had to watch his step if he wanted to be received with open doors at the next training session. I never did. My sessions were hundreds of miles away. And I was training with wrestlers whose only interest was what you could do, not who you name dropped. My position was a luxury. Without Chris putting up with what he did to learn what he could, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did, one thousand miles north. Who would I be if I forgot that?

Last weekend I sat in a restaurant after one of our large Spring Camps. My wife Salome was there. My baby son was with us. Everyone was laughing, and happy. And I turned to Travis Davison and told him that I can’t believe we get paid for this. Everyday I get to do what I love for a living. To be able to teach Jiu-Jitsu and functional martial arts, and feed my family doing so, is something I’m always grateful for. It isn’t something I ever take for granted. And I thank my coaches and my ancestors everyday for the privilege.

Think for a moment about what life was like for your great grandmother. In Steven Pinker’s latest book ‘Enlightenment Now’, he presents volumes of evidence, which show conclusively just how far we’ve advanced in just about every measure of human well-being. Let’s look at just the last century, since my great grandmother was born. A third of children in the richest parts of the world used to die before the age of five, and today that figure is 6 percent in the poorest countries; maternal mortality in the poorest parts of the world is less than a third the rate that the richest experienced two centuries ago. The proportion of people killed annually in wars is one-sixth of what it was in the 1970s. Literacy has climbed from 12 to 83 percent of the world’s population, and child labor is slowly dying out as schooling becomes universal. And I am only skimming the surface. These advances are so easy to forget. Our current state of, by our ancestor’s standards, unimaginable prosperity can effortlessly be taken for granted – if we allow it. Don’t. Gratitude: be grateful for everything, always. But always strive for more.

1- Confidence: display confidence, always – but stay honest.
2- Implementation: take action, always. Never complain or whine.
3- Accountability: take full responsibility – no excuses.
4- Inspiration: build others up, always. Rejoice in their success.
5- Gratitude: be grateful for everything, always. But always strive for more.

Five traits I try and nurture daily. It isn’t always a winning process. I fail all the time. I have moments where I lack confidence. I frequently procrastinate when I should be implementing. I don’t always take full accountability, and can hear myself making excuses, even if only in my head. I know there are many occasions, too many, where I have failed to inspire. And if I was as grateful as I should be, I’d certainly be happier. But I wake up, and try again. It’s all any of us can do.

In David Brooks’ book, ‘The Road to Character’, he offers profiles of some of our greatest leaders. Men like Eisenhower, and women like Dorothy Day. Thoughtful biographies, written by authors like Brooks, remind us of the lesson Coach Fitz tried to teach – that the glory to be had is found in the quality of the struggle. Familiarize yourself with the kind of historical figures Brooks writes about, and other, real human beings, who model these same qualities. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by men and women better than I am. Do the same.