What It's Really All About
A reminder.
When I was younger, I wrestled.
Wrestling was the hardest sport that I ever did. If I’m honest, wrestling sucked.
6 am workouts year round. Weight-cutting every week of the season. Miserable practices in layers of sweatpants and hoodies. I also had to do the whole thing while in high school, trying to maintain a relatively decent intellectual function and being at that awkward age where you care more about what everyone thinks of you than what you think at all.
Wrestling was not fun, but there was a silver lining that made me fall in love with the grind of the sport.
That silver lining was that one day — one day pretty soon — my wrestling career would end. I wasn’t going to the Olympics, didn’t want to wrestle in college, and didn’t know what I would do afterward.
Eventually, I stumbled into the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and it transformed my life in every single way possible for one main reason:
There is no end in sight.
The Jiu-Jitsu rabbit hole goes deep.
I’ve come a long way in Jiu-Jitsu.
I, like most people, started out in normal classes, getting beat up every day, and with a white belt with zero stripes. I, like most people, started by falling in love with the martial art and eventually becoming obsessed with submission grappling.
I, like most people, had an obsession that was way stronger than my skill on the mat.
It snowballed from there.
I started competing, and my desire for my competitive results and understanding to match my obsession with the sport of grappling became the magnum opus of my life for years on end. Most days, it still is. I love training, preparing to compete, inventing moves, and trying to get those moves to work in real-life situations.
But along the way to this goal of understanding the sport and reaching my potential, Jiu-Jitsu became more than just a vehicle for improvement.
It also became my job.
When you make a hobby your job, it changes things.
Last week, I went on vacation to France with my beautiful girlfriend (and editor).
This was our first holiday in a long time. It was also the first time that we took a trip to Europe that wasn’t mainly for a BJJ competition. It was my first real week off work in a long time. I didn’t get on a mat, I ate mostly bread, meat, and cheese, and I barely even did any writing.
It was a real break.
The first 3 days or so, were a bit unpleasant mentally. I kept thinking about what I needed to do when I got home, my upcoming competitions, and the other big projects that I’ve been working on for the last few months and will be finishing up soon.
As I was doing this, however, I was also immersed in the lifestyle of another country. I was learning about the culture and the mindsets of people in it. I was away from the stressful life of a pro grappler and I was in the life of someone on vacation with their partner in one of the most beautiful vacation destinations in the world — the French Riviera.
This is when I had the realization of what “it” is really all about.
The Western war on fun.
I don’t really have too many hobbies anymore unless listening to music while working or watching a movie or show at the end of the day to decompress counts.
My hobbies are my career.
A lot of people in America in particular are not so lucky. Our culture is very individualistic and success-oriented and most people make work and career advancement the center of their lives. They have maybe one or two hobbies, and if they’re like most people, they probably either take the hobby really seriously or they don’t actually do it at all and instead use it to signal that they’re not crazy.
I put myself in a weird spot.
I write and do Jiu-Jitsu and write about Jiu-Jitsu. Everything is either a main hustle or a side hustle. The pursuit of mastery in this random grappling art and the craft of writing has consumed me and changed me to the point where I can’t always tell the difference between work and play.
I love what I do, but because of that, I work most days of my life.
After a few days in France enjoying not working or training, I started to realize how much of my life I was losing to an obsession with working.
Closing Thoughts
This post is a bit all over the place, but I guess that’s because the idea of better balance in my life is something that I think about a lot but am not actually good at in practice.
This last part of the year, I’ve dealt with a lot of health issues, injuries, and stress. I’ve tried to do what most Americans do and out-optimize my problems instead of actually going to the root, taking a break, and trying to refocus. I wanted the quick fix to insomnia, back pain, and everything else that was plaguing me.
But the truth is that a quick fix is never the right fix. Only if you actually take the time can you really find some sort of balance.
The problem is, if you’re like me, you’re probably either in a culture that doesn’t encourage decompression or you are so deep in your own world that you can’t imagine doing anything that doesn’t quench your ambition and drive to further success.
Life is not all about success, continuous improvement, and winning — at least not without a price. What the culture demands of you is probably not what you need.
Have the courage to customize your life a bit more than you already are.
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week we're joined by Trey Hucks! Trey is best known as the founder of Slime Mold Grappling Club, an amazing database of Jiu-Jitsu games based on the ecological approach and other coaching best practices.
In this episode, Trey makes the case for "Beer League Jiu-Jitsu," a mindset emphasizing the social and communal benefits of Jiu-Jitsu first and foremost, above athletic accomplishments or performance.
To listen, look up BJJ Mental Models wherever you listen to your podcasts or just hit this link.
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Gym 1801 is a brand-new martial arts and fitness facility in Evanston, Illinois.
Apart from being one of the most beautiful Jiu-Jitsu gyms in the world, Gym 1801 is the home to world-class Jiu-Jitsu instruction. Additionally, the gym offers top-of-the-line recovery tools like cryo, red light therapy, and sauna, and a wide array of classes like yoga, HIIT, and athletic training. that will give you everything you need to reach your potential on and off of the mat.
When I think about what I would want in a dream Jiu-Jitsu Academy, Gym 1801 has everything I could think of and more.
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