Lessons For Hard Times

What to do when you're in a little bit of a funk.

Mar 27, 2026

I try not to be a complainer, but it does happen now and then.

The last few weeks, for example, I have found myself complaining, being frustrated, and feeling sorry for myself a bit more than normal.

I’ve been struggling with my training progress/performance. I’ve been traveling constantly for about a month, business has been going well, but I miss competing, and I have been frustrated about the opportunities I haven’t really been getting. I have a wedding that is just 28 days away, I’m about to move, and to top it off, I’ve been struggling with my health a bit — physical, mental, injuries, etc.

The whole shabang.

It puts me in a kind of uncomfortable position.

Yes, I am full of gratitude. It’s nice that the problems I’m struggling with nowadays are levels above those that I struggled with 2 years ago.

But it doesn’t really feel much different. The funk is still the funk.

And while that can be frustrating, in it is the solution to dealing with the funk that helps me. It can maybe help you if you’re in a funk.

It feels the same because it is the same.

I haven’t reached the level of “crying in a mansion” yet, but I do have a very nice life these days.

I have a woman who loves me, whom I am about to marry. I have a full-time job that is literally just a hobby that I took very seriously. I even get to write things on the internet for some reason, and a lot of people read them.

And so yes, the struggles of today do pale in comparison to the struggles of 2-3 years ago, when my water got shut off, I couldn’t pay my bills, and I was all alone here in Austin.

But the struggle feels the same because struggle, regardless of how much money you have, feels pretty much the same always.

It’s still a struggle, and you have to address it the same way.

Struggle does not discriminate if you just won the CJI pot or if you’re literally getting seminars canceled because people can’t pay your fee because no one wants to go.

Regardless of why you're struggling, the suck is going to feel pretty much the same. The only difference, I guess, is if you’re starting in a better place, you can endure a little bit more struggle before you end up back where you were before.

But it’s the same feeling, it’s a similar predicament, and you honestly are going to have to problem solve it the same way.

So what did I do last time I struggled really badly?

I’ve struggled a few times in the last few years.

Just before moving to Austin, I was in a funk because I couldn’t make progress in Jiu-Jitsu. I solved this problem by changing my location, working really hard in the gym, and competing frequently in literally whatever show I could book.

After my loss in Kazakhstan last summer, I struggled a lot as well. I felt like I was stuck in a rut, like training had lost its fire, and like I was on a crash course to a dead-end in my career. So what I did was invest in training my mind, put in the work, and rebuild my physical and mental strength.

In every situation where I have struggled, I’ve always had to do a few really important things:

Find a new approach
Commit to the approach
Get stronger
Keep moving forward

So right now, I’m in a funk because I’ve been a little run-down. But being a bit tired doesn’t mean I should take a really long break, sit back on a beach with a beer and a book, and just not have a care in the world about how I’m going to feel better.

This would not make me happier. This would not make me less run-down. When you’re in a funk, the last thing I’ve found to be helpful is to sit in that funk.

Think of yourself like a boat. If you don’t set the sail, the current guides you, and you just keep going where you’re going. If you hit a storm, you can either go through it or go away from it.

I’ve never actually sailed, but you get the idea.

If you don’t like where you’re going, go somewhere else.

Closing Thoughts

Just a short post today, because like I said, I’ve been in a funk, and there’s been a lot going on.

My ducks aren’t in a row; they’re in chaos. I’m staying disciplined, putting in my daily effort, my work moving in the right direction, but I’m also trying to reset a bit. It’s only March, and I’ve already done 15 seminars, and I leave for number 16 this weekend. Because of all the travel, I’m really trying to maximize my time at home.

I’m trying to spend as much time with my soon-to-be wife as possible. I’m trying to enjoy my hobbies, like reading, cooking, and racing. I’m trying to get to a point in my training where I'm excited to be on the mat every day. I’m trying to see friends who will be a 2 and a half hour flight away from me.

I’ve been slacking a bit with writing, but the point of this post is that these kinds of funks, I think, are human. If you try to do anything well, you’ll have periods where it doesn’t seem to go well.

You’ll have periods where you feel stuck.

If you’re like me, hopefully today’s post will help you feel a little bit unstuck.

The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu education podcast!

In Episode 382, Steve Kwan sits down with Tum Energia to tackle the information overload problem in modern jiu-jitsu. The challenge isn’t finding good technique anymore. It’s filtering through a mountain of it and figuring out where to actually start.

📺 The Netflix Problem: More options should help, but they don’t. Too many techniques creates analysis paralysis, and that hesitation kills your rolling just as much as bad technique does.

🦶 Games Before Techniques: Tum walks through constraint-based games like “dirty feet” that teach your body how to move before you ever need to name a technique. Keep your feet pointed at your partner, get hooks, find grips. That’s it.

🚩 Train Your Cues: Instead of memorizing technique trees, build automatic triggers. Arm crosses the body? Back take. Hips lift? Leg entry. Inside space opens? You’re already there. Simple flags beat complicated sequences.

🧊 The Cube in Closed Guard: Picture a cube sitting on your opponent’s chest. Stay outside it, you’re safe. Let your head or limbs wander into it, you’re cooked. A clean way to think about posture and danger zones without overcomplicating things.

👔 The Lapel Trick: Tum shares a detail from a seminar that floored him: wrap the gi lapel around a kimura grip. One hand. Done. Fifteen years of training and he’d never thought of it. The best details are usually the dumbest ones.

🌍 Cross-Train for Mirrors: Rolling at new gyms doesn’t just expose holes. It can also reveal strengths your regular training partners have quietly built up resistance to. Sometimes your stuff works better than you think.

🎧 Hit this link to listen now.