#internaljiujitsu

I’ve always felt lazy, though I never looked the part. I started lifting weights religiously when I was twelve years old — so long ago that I don’t remember what it’s like not to work out. When you’re fit, people make assumptions about you just like they do when you’re fat. Fit people are like walking billboards for discipline. We get asked all the time how we can skip dessert or go to the gym instead of playing video games and eating pizza. The truth is, plenty of gym rats plop their asses on the couch for some Grand Theft Auto after training, but in at least one area of their lives, they’ve built beneficial long term habits.

Fit people may be disciplined enough to get to the gym because they have a passion for exercise, get a “high” from working out or are just vain — That doesn’t mean they are disciplined people. It means they’ve forged discipline in one part of their life. That’s not the same as a disciplined life in which your practice is reflected in everything you do.

I began competing as a bodybuilder when I was fourteen years old. My training and eating habits were very strict, particularly before a contest. I lived in the world of 6000 calories and twice a day workouts for nine years, but I didn’t give a damn about my health. I just wanted to be as big and freakish looking as possible. I was disciplined about lifting heavy weights and consuming 300 grams of protein a day because I had a singular goal. The other parts of my life were chaotic. I partied like a rock star when I wasn’t training for a show, used recreational drugs and would balloon up to fifty pounds over contest weight in the off season. A disciplined person, I was not, though I was building my affinity for discipline with each can of dry tuna I forced down my throat.

When I was done with competitive bodybuilding, I attacked martial arts with the same dedication pumping iron taught me. The difference was that I was older and had gone through such an intense period of being driven by superficiality and carnal desires that I was hungry for a better way of living. As I learned lessons in martial arts, I consciously applied them to everything. The more proficient I became at fighting, the more at ease I operated in my life.

At my most passionate, I only wanted to go to the gym or dojo 75% of the time. The rest of the workouts I downright hated it. I did it anyway. Why?

I don’t care for having a “boss” because I don’t like doing things just because someone told me to. Instead, I make myself do things I don’t want to do because I think they’re important. They may not appear to be needle movers from the outside, but internally these personal challenges form the scaffolding that allow me to keep reaching higher.

Doing tough tasks because they help me grow started out as me trying to prove myself. What I didn’t realize then was that managing ADHD and depression necessitates that I keep myself constantly engaged. Now, discipline has become a way of consciously exercising control of my mind and body. Starting out on a regimented path doesn’t always come easily. There’s a period of misery that must be endured before you break yourself. But once properly trained, you can get yourself to do just about anything.

Here are the seven steps that help me build lasting habits and make me seem like a disciplined person:

KNOW THE WHAT AND THE WHY

First off, figure out what you want. What do you want to change and why do you want to change it? What are you getting out of this new habit you want to form? If the reason isn’t significant enough, you won’t stick to it. That’s a guarantee.

I’d been wanting to cut gluten for a while with no success. I loved bread and pizza but I knew cutting them out would help me get leaner and feel better. But that wasn’t enough motivation for me. When I noticed my skin was dry and breaking out, and cutting gluten might help, I made the decision to stop instantly. When research into brain health showed me the effects of inflammation due to gluten consumption, the change became permanent. My brain is just too important to me.

2. KNOW WHAT’S BEEN STOPPING YOU

This doesn’t mean pointing figures at some bullshit excuse like not having enough time or loving cupcakes too much to avoid diabetes. There’s a deeper reason you haven’t already gotten started on the road to a fitter body, better job or more fulfilling relationship. Maybe you don’t think you deserve a better life. Maybe you don’t wanna outshine someone you care about. Is this stuff you are consciously aware of? Probably not, so it will take some digging to figure it out, and maybe a little professional help. Before you can reprogram your mind into making your new habit stick, you’ve gotta subconsciously believe you’re worth it.

3. ONCE YOU DECIDE, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT

The time to deliberate is before you’ve decided. Once your mind is made up, that’s it. There’s no more discussion to be had. Shutting the door to any possible objection means there’s no haggling. You do what you gotta do, no questions asked. That means no “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or “just this once.”

The moment you begin entertaining excuses, you are vulnerable to give in.

4. MAKE IT THROUGH THE MUD

It’s gonna be terrible. Don’t be surprised and don’t act like it’s supposed to be some other way. Make the most of the lessons you learn while you’re down in the dirt.

The longer you do it, the easier it will get. Not that the actual thing becomes easier, but you think less of the misery before doing it. It’s just the way it is, and until you’ve learned to love it, you’re gonna hate it.

5. IGNORE THE QUITTING VOICE

During the hating it phase, you will be telling yourself to quit. You’ll say it’s not worth it and it won’t matter if you stop. It is and it does. Keep going or you will absolutely regret it.

6. IT’S OK TO ENJOY IT

Once you’ve done it enough times on the days you didn’t want to, you’ll start to occasionally look forward to the torture. You’ll wonder why you’re not dreading it anymore. Don’t question it. You’re changing. Just go with it.

7. WHEN YOU WANNA DO EXTRA, GO FOR IT

There are days you’re barely gonna squeak by. You’re gonna just finish. Then there will be days, once you’ve gone through what author Seth Godin calls, “The Dip,” that long valley of drudgery enroute to self improvement, that you’ll have plenty left in the tank in the end. Do more! Go until you have that, “ok, I’m done,” feeling. Take advantage of your high energy days because you won’t always have them.

A little extra practice here and there will go a long way, but always make sure to stop short of burn out. Leave yourself wanting more while confident you gave your all at your maximum attention level. You should definitely push until the wheels fall off once in a while, but for the most part stop once you start drifting. Too many torture sessions will make you hate the thought of practice. You probably won’t enjoy or retain what you do from that point on and your progress will suffer.

8. DON’T GO FOR THE SHORT TERM

See what you’re doing as a life change. No matter the habit you are building, discipline is cumulative. As you challenge yourself to do difficult shit, conquering or mastering something and leaving it behind does not mean momentum has to stop. Moving on to learn something new, whether related to the first thing or not, will prevent a lull in your creative thinking and keep you building on your progress. With each difficult endeavor you stick to, you build the skills and systems to conquer the challenges ahead.

With nearly everyone in the United States under stay at home orders, much of the nation is stir crazy. Big city folk who are used to being out every night and dining at their favorite pub three times a week are going downright nuts. People may always talk about wanting to slow down and just “do nothing,” but they sure are bad at it.

Stillness isn’t easy at first. Potential energy craves motion and idle minds can wander to dark places. Quieting your thoughts when you have a tough enough time sitting still is a tall order. Just like training yourself to perform an action, your body needs to be programmed to do nothing. I don’t mean lying on the couch and watching mindless television - I mean being without doing or consuming anything that distracts you from you

When beginners spar in martial arts, they move inefficiently. Unaware of when and how to expend minimal energy for maximum results, their undisciplined efforts inevitably lead to defeat. Nearly as important as the actions their skill allows them to perform are the pauses in between movements. These breaks are integral to reading one’s opponent and choosing a course of action. Frenetic movement will cause too much indiscriminate feedback to allow for clarity.

The patience to read pauses only comes with practice. The relaxed fighter can see these clues far easier than the tense or angry practitioner can. The answers to solving the puzzle of your opponent are in those silent moments you will miss if you insist on always talking — But before you can listen, you’ve gotta teach yourself to shut up.

Like the dog whisperer, you’ve gotta show your body who the pack leader is. Being manipulated by physical sensations is allowing your vehicle to drive you. When you take control of it, that machine will get you anywhere you want to go — but if you let it, it will fool you into believing the limits you’ve put on yourself. To paraphrase rapper NF, your feelings are liars. Often their goal is to suppress action that could lead to change, because change is risky. Letting your feelings run wild by living unconsciously means simply reacting to the events of your life rather than shaping them through your perception. Controlling your world begins with controlling your body.

A lot of people say they can’t meditate because their brain won’t shut off. But guess what, no one’s brain shuts off, unless they’re dead. There are always thoughts — The goal, if you can call it that, isn’t to shut those thoughts off. The objective is to allow the thought and observe it for the phantom that it is without judging its significance. Fighting off a thought once it’s in your mind is what it feels like for a white belt trying to get out from under a black belt — like drowning on dry land.

Here’s what the process of learning to sit still looked like for me in the last eighteen months. ADHD added to the challenge of meditation, particularly before I was on the appropriate medication, but through consistent practice, I was able to find a way to coexist with my thoughts while my body obeyed my commands. I began with five minutes and worked my way up to my current twenty. At the beginning, I felt like there was something wrong with me for failing to “not think.” Like so many other things, I had to make it through months of wondering why the hell I was torturing myself. Now, I eagerly go into my meditation, as if I’m checking out of everything I know in order to see things I haven’t yet realized. It took time to get there, but it has definitely been worth it.

Training Yourself To Sit

It starts with making the time. Start with five minutes, but decide that you will absolutely give yourself those five minutes every day, no matter what. You must stick to this first step, because it’s the promise you’ll keep to yourself that will give you the confidence to do the work when you may be tempted to skip a day. Gradually, you can add more time, but for now, this is a good start and should be tough enough to begin with. If you can’t find five minutes for yourself, you may need to reevaluate your priorities.

Know it’s gonna suck at first. Maybe for a long time. In Seth Godin’s book, “The Dip,” he discusses the critical period of grinding that happens after the initial enthusiasm of a new endeavor wears off. I had days that I would wake up in tears because I hated life and wanted to be dead but I sat and cried my way through a twenty minute meditation because I knew I had to. It ain’t always gonna be pretty, but you just need to get through it at first. Period.

You’re gonna want to move, fidget, scratch or anything else that will make your body feel as if its existence is being acknowledged. Let it wait. Teach it to sit still until you’re done. I always hated when I’d see a mother ignore a kid screeching, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!!” — But in this case, your body is that needy kid and you’ve gotta teach it some manners.

Don’t see it as doing nothing. If you’re someone that likes to feel productive, sitting still can seem like a waste of time. Like any component of a wellness plan dedicated to optimizing health and performance, meditation can increase overall productivity. It gives you the ability to step outside of stale thought loops to find new answers to difficult problems. Stillness can also recharge your batteries, energizing your mind and body — like a pit stop for the human machine. You’ve gotta be your own coach when you’re alone and remind yourself that you’re doing it for a reason, so you can’t quit!

See it as another part of your workout. If you’re someone who takes care of their body, you hate missing workouts. Your meditation practice should be no different. It’s a part of your workout, and in many ways, the most important part. Lots of people skip breakfast nowadays because it’s no longer seen as “the most important meal of the day,” but meditation should now hold this distinction. These are the first thoughts you are feeding your mind when you awaken, and can help you set you up for an amazing, productive day. Morning meditation is taking control of your guidance system from the moment your machine powers up. If you don’t lead it where u want to go, you’ll end up where you never wanted to be.

Ambition can infect anyone, if only for a brief moment.  When your mind runs away, you can clearly see yourself having or being that thing of your daydreams.  Enthusiasm takes hold until doubt makes its appearance - either from within you, from the toxic voices around you or from loved ones who think they know what’s best for you. The reasons why it can’t be done start piling up.  All the hard work you know it will take and the idea of failing in the end make you talk yourself out of it.

No one wants to waste their time - We all want a payoff.  The thing is, the payoff is always the same - It’s feeling good - not just in the immediate moment, but with yourself in general.  Pride in who you are is bolstered by knowing you’ve made it through tough times to get to your goal.

Where we get mixed up is in thinking that the reward is what will make us feel the elation we imagine.  Without seeing the how, we believe it is the object or the destination that will fill us with joy.  While the work to get to your goal is implied, the grind only seems romantic before and after you’ve gone through it.  During this torturous period of tireless work without certainty or reward, you curse and question your life choices.  

Taking responsibility for what has brought you to where you are goes hand in hand with taking credit for your accomplishments.  Though failure and success are partially reliant on forces outside your control, each outcome can serve as spark or dead end, depending on your reaction to it.  Those that succeed see the grind as a part of the process, while those that quit envisioned a smooth path to their prize and interpret adversity as validation for their doubt.  

Fighting is never what it seems when it’s done well.  At least not until the final moment.  The knockdown, knockout or tap are the product of a slew of split second decisions and bold execution. The intricacies are hidden. Experienced martial artists who are masterful fighters must be good actors.  They must be able to fool their opponents by setting up traps that will make them lower their defenses and make a mistake.

I have witnessed many great fighters capable of technical excellence that completely fell into cave man survival mode in the cage or ring.  Every blow became life and death.  Set ups were gone.  There was no illusion.  Everything was coming straight forward.  Not like real life at all.

In reality, there are zig and zags.  Straight lines are just imaginary things we made up to make ourselves feel in control. Everything is always coming at angles. Bobbing and weaving your way through, brawling and sprawling when you have to, but always working to hit more than you get hit.

One of the most limiting things about many traditional martial arts is the absurd rigidity of forms. Predetermined movements prepare you for pretend fighting. Learning a form someone else created and doing it just like them creates a disconnect between the development of the martial artist and his fighting ability.  He is unable to express himself at this early stage in his development, when his most unfiltered truth will most likely show itself quickest. The art develops in a vacuum, leaving interpretation to the firmly indoctrinated.

This is where martial arts went wrong for so long.  Simply trusting the legend of what was passed down because it was gospel. There was genuine fear before UFC 1 that these deadly martial arts masters would end up killing and maiming each other.  Reality hadn’t set in yet.

Then there is the reality beyond that reality.  Combat sports supply an instant gratification, validating your best or worst opinions of yourself.  Cultivation of the spirit and the importance of budo is not overtly written into the doctrines of these disciplines in a way that young practitioners can relate to.  It seems necessary to step out of the ego’s shadow in order to understand the nature of the masochism.  Beyond proving machismo, there is a need that is being met.

I had a student who insisted on fighting in MMA and Muay Thai despite a 1/6 record that saw him take some major ass whippings.  Everyone on the team wanted him to quit fighting.  I urged him to stop but something in him needed the beatings. His dad was an abusive alcoholic, and this kid had to prove that he could survive the worst beating anyone could throw at him and keep coming. Tough as nails, but dumb as fuck.

At pro practice once day, I asked a room full of mma fighters why they put it all out there in the cage.  None of them knew why they fought, except for one. 

Jared Gordon, UFC lightweight, is a survivor of sexual abuse and drug addiction that has made it his mission to help people that may be suffering the way he did. Jared has a clear mission.  It informs his explosive intensity and drives his ferocious determination.

The rest of the team was at a loss and did their best to joke through the exercise.  They simply hadn’t processed anything in their lives deeply enough to unearth what lies beneath.   They were only working with the clichés they’ve heard elsewhere.  Training can become just about doing what everyone else does, but harder, or finding unnecessary twists to shit that already works. Having a purpose programs your mind to move in that direction with increased will and determination.  The thought becomes a homing signal, guiding you toward it, though there will undoubtedly be unexpected detours.                                                                                                           

The reason we train is often not evident to us until we’ve been through the bumps, bruises, slumps and nearly quit ten, 20 or a hundred different times.  It’s finding a dirt road when you’ve been chopping your way through an overgrown jungle.  At least now, you have a path.

A martial artist that begins to explore his mind along with his body immediately builds connections between his practice and life.  The mind becomes a tool to control the body’s progress.  The mindful martial artist is the captain of his own ship.  The only one of us that is truly free.

Fighting is a vehicle for the pain and anguish we willingly inflict upon ourselves in pursuit of validation or penance.  Grueling training and fierce competition, the heartbreak of injury, inevitable deterioration of skills and loss of identity, all to get to the why of it all.  

While affirmation of their own existence is a burdensome necessity for some, others seem to simply...exist.  The simplicity of their lives is enviable to those that suffer from the endless questions in their head.

A martial artist must question.   He must be open to his hypothesis being disproved, his calculations incorrect.  He must learn from failure or cease to exist independently, blending into a fabric woven by the world around him..

Constant growth through the testing of technique and skill becomes the backdrop for the personal growth synonymous with The Martial Way. 

If  you are choosing to stand still, ignorant of the wake that has brought you to this moment, no lesson will be learned.  Outcomes are left to fate, luck, the other. anyone or anything but you.