Dear Readers,

My very good friend Master Paul Greenhill wanted me to share some insights on this subject. The timing couldn’t be better as I have been spending this week competing at the European Championships in Lisbon Portugal. While on this trip I have been discussing some of the main points author of the book “Outliers: The Story of Success” Malcolm Gladwell makes about why certain individuals become successful with coach and mentor Julius Park.

I won’t go into details but you may want to check his site for more on this subject : http://www.baltimorebrazilianjiujitsu.com/ you can find very insightful information there and he promised me he will write more in depth about this subject. Today I will write about my own personal experience with the hope that it can help others.

There are certain ingredients that a person needs to become successful:

1. Drive/Passion/Perseverance/Will Power: and a similar of character traits that are found within a person.

2. Intelligence/Decisions/Common Sense/Logic: and a bunch of intellectual traits found in the athlete that will help him maximize the resources around him to  the best extent possible.

3. Circumstances/Resources/Mentors: and real world situation based advantages that a person could obtain over his/her opponents.

I personally believe that to make it as an athlete in any sport you need at least 2 of the 3 ingredients above. Why? When I analyze all the possibilities:  (1&2), (1&3), and (2&3) assuming that they had extreme advantages in those 2 areas I can find a way in which the athlete can overcome the lack of an advantage in another area. For Example:

Case  (1&2) : A hard working individual , training hard, and studying matches, and saving money to buy each years matches of the world championships to be able to research the best moves can make it to the top. I know one person that did this and came up with a system that anyone can do an achieve similiar results. His name is Lloyd Irvin.

Pros.: The student will arrive at a huge understanding of the art that will allow him to become an exceptional teacher.

Cons: The lack of a mentor or good instructor will waste much time in reinventing the wheel and it will be a close race to accomplish certain athlete oriented goals as the lack of time is always a constraint.

Case (1& 3): Is probably the best scenario for a coach that wants to develop the best athlete if he had to pick from the 3 cases. Why because he will listen to the coach like an android. Sometimes athletes that have their IQ’s a bit higher but not high enough to understand that more gains can be obtained by behaving like an android rather that questioning and challenging proven methods will lose the interest of the coach and their own time asking questions instead of learning the basics well. No great coach will waste time with non-believers and doubter versus those that are true followers of the system.

Pros. Athlete will get really good really fast at alarming speeds.

Cons. Bad decision making can eventually put him in deep debts, or other life factors that can jeopardize his athletic career and training. Because everything has been almost spoon fed by the coaches, these group of athletes might experience difficulty later on becoming a successful coach themselves. A lot of coaching is troubleshooting, understanding and relating to what your students are going through.

Case  (2&3) : Extreme Intelligence with great resources can lead to deep understanding of the subject. Which means corners can be cut and tricks and gimmicks can be developed to achieve success at high levels of the sport, specially in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in which strategy plays a huge role.

Pros: The deep understanding of certain areas of the art can lead to big success at any single level.

Cons: It is usually short lived as hard work will overcome talent as talent refuses to work hard. In other words the weakness of this type of athlete is arrogance and believing that they know more than they know, and that they have a superior understanding that does not require  hard work in areas like conditioning, drilling, etc…

My Personal Approach

I will tell you that I try to improve in all of the 3 ingredients mentioned above at all times. It is essential to improve on those three  areas. It is important that as athlete you believe that you are destined to do big things. That your will power can overcome anything, and that circumstances are the creatures of man , and not the other way around.

When I opened Third Law BJJ I did it out of necessity. I was a young purple belt , very naive about what it takes to win at the highest level in the sport. I thought it was way easier than what it is. Anyways I started my school and soon I found myself lacking ingredient  #3.  I studied instructionals, matches, drilled, trained multiple times a day and I did surpass many peers with better circumstances than me. Nevertheless there those who had all of the ingredients. Even though I thought I was harder working and smarter than them, I could not overcome the mix of their good enough will power, good enough common sense and logical thinking power and great resources.  Once you view your situation  this way is very easy to really understand what is going on. It can also be intimidating when you know some of the people you compete against are training with Multiple World Champions.

Nevertheless the answer to my problem was always the same: “work harder and smarter than everyone else by doing things more efficiently while at the same time trying to make the resources around you better.” Therefore I started to develop a good team in Naples, FL . As my students get better so did I, but this was too slow of a process and sometimes students quit , determination drops leaving you short from training partners. So this alone was not alone.

Then I tried competing a lot to make up for the difference but then I couldn’t do this while leaving the school behind without falling apart. That’s when I realize that my success dependent on having a functional automated business for my martial arts school. As I started to accomplish this things became easier as  had  more money to  travel and compete and visit my mentors. This is where I am at currently, constantly improving on all of the 3 ingredients, but specially on number 3.

The funny thing is that ingredient 3 teaches me how to become more efficient in the other areas. It is a never ending cycle.

I want to end this article by saying that an athlete above all things must believe in the power of the human mind and will power and the ability of humans to overcome obstacles regardless of how big they may seem from the distance. It is true that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and that is the journey where the true prize lies, and not the destinations ( titles , gold medals, etc..). It is in the journey that you will learn the most about yourself, character, discipline, honor , and self- improvement.

Sincerely,

Roberto Torralbas

The BJJEngineer

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You should have read so far:

Goals for Athletes Part 1: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=328

Goals for Athletes Part 2: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=329

Goals for Athletes Part 3: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=330

&

Goals for Athletes Part 4: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=331

As promised in  our last article you can multiply the effectiveness of the 3P’s method with a couple of additional techniques. First, after you have written down your goal in the positive, personal, present tense, write down three actions that you could take immediately to achieve that goal, also in the present, positive, personal tense in your spiral notebook.

…write down three actions that you could take immediately to achieve that goal, also in the present, positive, personal tense in your spiral notebook

For example: Your goal could be to reach the black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 5 years. You could write, “I earn my black belt  within the next 5 years” You could then write immediately underneath:

1. I plan every day in advance.
2. I start in immediately on my most important task
3. I concentrate single mindedly on my most important task until it is complete

Whatever your goal you can easily think of three action steps that you can take immediately so that you can achieve your goal. When you write down the action steps you program them into your subconscious mind, along with the goal. At a certain point, you’ll actually find yourself taking the steps that you wrote down, sometimes without even thinking about it. And each step you take will move you more rapidly toward your ultimate objective.

There are two times a day that are ideal for writing and rewriting your goals. These are the last thing in the evening before you go to bed and the first thing in the morning before you start off. When you rewrite and review your goals in the evening you program them into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind then has an opportunity to work on your goals all night long while you are sleeping.You will often arise with wonderful ideas for things to do or people to call to help you achieve your goals.

When you rewrite and review your goals in the morning before you start off you set yourself up for positive thinking and positive acting all day long. Just as physical exercise in the morning warns up your physical body and muscles, reviewing your goals in the morning warms up your mind and prepares you to be at your best throughout the day.

The sum total result of rewriting your goals and reviewing them each day, morning and evening, is that you wil impress them ever more deeply into your subconscious mind. you will gradually move from positive thinking to positive knowing. You will develop a deep and unshakable conviction that your goals are attainable and that it is only a matter of time before you achieve them and you will be right.

Roberto Torralbas

The BJJEngineer

Don’t forget to visit the  UndergroundJiuJitsuLab.com.

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Before Reading Part 3 I hope you read:

Goals for Athletes Part 1: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=328

&

Goals for Athletes Part 2: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=329

Goals For Athlete Part 3: Start Doing This Technique Today!

As promised today I will share this technique I started implementing:

WRITE YOUR GOALS DAILY!

I got this technique from Success Coach Brian Tracy. Brian says that this is a special method that has taken more people from rags to riches than any other single method ever discovered. It is simple, fast, effective and guaranteed to work if you will practice it.

Before understanding why this technique works you should read Part 1 and Part 2 in which we discussed briefly that: “You become what you think about most of the time.” This is the great truth that underlies all religion, philosophy, psychology and success. Whatever you can hold in your mind on a continuing basis you can have. I hope you believe this because this is they key to achieving your goals.

Many people today talk about the importance of positive thinking.his clip called “The Secret” which a lot of people liked , well I thought IT SUCKED! But hear me out. Positive thinking is important, but it is not enough. Left undirected and uncontrolled, positive thinking can quickly degenerate into positive wishing and positive hoping. Instead of serving as an energy force for inspiration and higher achievement, positive thinking can become little more than a generally cheerful attitude toward life and whatever happens to you, positive or negative. To be focused and effective in goal attainment, positive thinking must translate into positive knowing.

You must absolutely know and believe in the depths of your being that you are going to be successful at achieving a particular goal. You must proceed completely without doubt.You must be so resolute and determined, so convinced of your ultimate success that nothing can stop you. Everything that you do to program your subconscious mind with this unshakable conviction of success will help you achieve your goals faster.

This method of writing your goals daily can actually multiply your talents and abilities and greatly increase the speed at which you move from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. One of the most important mental laws is:

“Whatever is impressed is expressed.”

Whatever you impress deeply into your subconscious mind will eventually be expressed in your external world. Your aim in mental programming is to impress your goals deeply into your subconscious mind so that they lock in and take on a power of their own. This method helps you to do that.

This is Brian Tracy’s experience:

“For many years I worked away at my goals, writing them down once or twice a year and reviewing them whenever I got a chance. Even this was enough to make an incredible difference in my life. often I would write down a list of goals for myself in January for the coming year, in December of that year I would review my list and find that most of the goals had been accomplished, including some of the biggest and most unbelievable goals on the list.”

I then learned a technique that changed my life. I discovered that if it is powerful for you to write down your goals once a year, it is even more powerful for you to write down your goals more often. Some authors suggest that you write down ad review your goals once a month, others once a week. What I learned was the power of writing and rewriting your goals every single day.”

Here’s the technique:

1. Get a spiral notebook that you keep you at all times.
2. Each day open up your notebook and write down a list of your 10 to 15 most important goals, without referring to your previous list.
3. Do this every day, day after day .

As you do this, several remarkable things will happen. The first day you write down your list of goals you’ll have to give it some thought and reflection. Most people have never made a list of their ten top goals in their entire lives. The second day you write out your list without reference to your previous list, it will be easier, however your 10 to 15 goals will change, both in description and order of priority. Sometimes, a goal that you wrote one day will not appear the next day. It may even be forgotten and never reappear again. Or, it may reappear later, at a more appropriate time.

Each day that you write down your list of 10 to 15 goals your definitions will become clearer and sharper. ou will eventually find yourself writing down the same words every day. Your order of priority will also change as your life changes around you, but over time after about 30 days, you will find yourself writing adn rewriting the same goals almost every day. You will get far greater and faster results enjoyed by those people who write their goals down only one time. Your results will double and triple and increase 5 and 10 times as you use the same power of goal setting that we have discussed earlier, but now writing your goals down every day.

Ok… That’s it for now. In Part 4 of this study we will go in more detail and discuss what special rules to follow to get this to work really , really well, but don’t forget to start writing your goals tonight or first thing in the morning.

Roberto Torralbas

The BJJEngineer.com

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Before you read this you should read PART 1 - GOALS FOR ATHLETES: http://bjjengineer.com/?p=328

As promised today I am going to talk about a crazy study that was perform twice in history that will blow your mind away.This is from the book “What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School” by ~ Mark H. McCormack:

The study of our interest was conducted at Harvard in 1979 and 1989. In 1979 the graduates of the MBA program where asked:

“Have you set clear written goals for your future and have made plans to accomplish them.”

It turned out that only 3% of the graduate had written goals and plans, and 13%had goals but they where not in writing, and fully 84% had no specific goals at all.

Ten  years later in 1989 they interview the same graduates . They found that the 13 percent who had goals but not in writing were earinng twice as much as the 84 percent that had no specific goals.

But the surprising figure is that the 3% who had written goals and plans to achieve them were earning ten times as much as the other 97% of graduates from that class all together.

HOW ABOUT THAT!

Writing down your goals is no cliche…If youa re able to wriet them down they will be more clear and give you a betetr sence of direction.

In my next goal article I will write about a goal setting technique I just discovered that works your subconcious mind like you have no idea.

Roberto Torralbas

The BJJEngineer

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Before I even begin to write the following article I am going to let you know that if the following sounds very intelligent I don’t want to get any credit for it. What I’m doing is adapting ideas from one of my favorite books “Goals” by Bryan Tracy for athletes. This is a book which I recommend anyone to read or get in the audio book version.

All I want you to do is to give this a shot; if you give it a shot then you become addicted to it and you’ll do it every single day of your life. As you may already know, I have made a very successful career in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu despite the lack of high-level training partners in the town where I live (Though I travel to my instructor’s schools as often as possible, including Master Lloyd Irvin and Julius Park among others).

Bryan Tracy writes about a moment of awareness when he was 21 year old. That’s when he realized that everything he was going to have in life he had to make happen himself — that no one was going to ever successfully help him achieve the things he truly wanted. I had a similar moment when I found myself homeless and unable to provide for my mother. It was a low point in my life. I did not have an epiphany but I was forced by life’s trials to realize that I was either going to be successful or a total failure, that I was either going to feed my self or starve to death. It’s this time in my life that I’m so thankful for because it changed me forever.

I feel so much desire, so much passion to prevent that from ever happening again, that every day I’m not working towards achieving my goals or improving my life I feel my entire world is falling apart. These are very personal thoughts that occur every day in my life and I’ve never shared them with anyone before, until now, but I feel that they could be of value to many of my readers and that’s why I finally decided to share it with you.

Throughout this article I will state a couple of rules for success in achieving goals.

Rule 1: Do not expect that anyone will do anything for you. Do not expect any one will do you any favors. Realize that everything that happens to you is up to you and you alone. If people do favors and other things for you give them thanks, but don’t expect them to do it again.

That being said, let’s move to the next rule which is very simple but often overlooked. The next rule in essence implies that in order to achieve your goals you must know where you are going, work your butt off to achieve them, and do it diligently every single day of your life. Most athletes don’t know exactly what they want to achieve in a sport just like a lot of people don’t know what they want to achieve in their lives. It would be impossible to achieve a destination without first knowing where it is.

Rule 2: Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them and work on those goals every single day.

If you believe in this advice and following it would probably bring you more success than anything you learn in school, in life, or at your dogo

The next rule follows from rule number two.

Rule 3: Move towards your goal one percent faster every day. Improve your current state by one percent every day.

This rule I did not get from Bryan Tracy, but I decided to include it here because of a great advice I received once. It goes something like this “If you improve your current state by one percent every day then you will have improved by 365% by the end of the year, which is something we can all be satisfied with.” This was the best advice that was given to me about business. I don’t know if you noticed that the person giving me this very good advice was not a very good mathematician, as this one percent rule works as compounded interest: improving 1% every day will end up giving you more than 365% improvement by the end of the year, as each day achieving 1% improvement becomes harder since you have to improve not from the point where you started but from the previous day. In BJJ this means that by the end of the year you will have improved way over 365% if you do it every day. The key part is “if you do it every day:” you have to have discipline. The reason I like this rule is because is easy to forget how to work towards our destination, it is easy to get off track but this rule always gets you back on the right track.

Rule 4: You become what you think about.

Some time it is hard for people to believe in this last rule. It is easy for people to be disappointed in visualizing themselves as having a million dollars and not ever getting to have it. But I’ll give you my own personal experience. If you step into my BJJ school you will see a lot of things posted in the walls: boards, TV, pictures of students, awards, etc, all done for a purpose. I guarantee that if you walk into my school you’ll be able to tell a lot about me as a person, the things that I like and dislike. All those things in my schools started as an idea in my head, which I realized later on. That’s what this rule is really telling us, that any idea can become a really if you work towards it every day. Everything you see in the world that is made by people started as an idea in someone’s head.

In the second part of this article: “Goals for athletes (continued)” I will give you a great experiment that was conducted twice in history that will blow your mind away.

Until next time,

Roberto Torralbas,

The BJJEngineer

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Words of Wisdom

************************************************************************

LEAVER YOUR OWN FAVORITE:

“Quotations, Proverbs, and Sayings”

IN THE COMMENTs SECTION

***************************************************************************

Over the years in this sport , one accumulates words of wisdom, that help make sense of it all here are some the staff wishes to pass down to you:

Planning:

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”
- Proverb

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”
-Alan Lakein

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”
-Proverb

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”
-Thomas Alva Edison

“To be prepared is half the victory.”
-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”
-Charlie Batch

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”
-Thomas Paine

“If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s.”
-American Proverb

Teamwork:

“Whatever you must need in life, the best way to to attain it is to help someone else who needs it more than you.”
-Rafe

“Great wrestlers make other wrestlers great”
-Dan Gable

Talent

“Talent is everywhere, winning attitude is not.”
-Dan gable

“Hard work beats talent when talent refuses to work hard”
-Lloyd Irvin

Training

“Practice makes perfect”
-Proverb

“Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent”

-Proverb
“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.“

-Vincent Thomas Lombardi

“Greatness in the mat is achieved through training that make you push to survive.”
-Dan Gable

Character

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have”
-Vince Lombardi

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will”
-Vince Lombardi

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
-Vince Lombardi

Mindset

“Forget Yesterday. I know what I had to do that I did not do to be where I want to be. Now tell me friend what do I need to do today to get to be where I want to be tomorrow.”
-Lloyd Irvin

“Win with humility, lose with dignity, but don’t lose”
-Bob Sidden

“Everyday is a battle. We either losing or winning. We either moving up the slope, or sliding down”
- Lloyd Irvin

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will”
-Vince Lombardi

Time Management

“Don’t leave for tomorrow what can be done today”
-Jose Marti

Circumstances

“Man is not the creature of circumstances, Circumstances are the creatures of men.”

-Benjamin Disraeli

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious. ”
-Vince Lombardi

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11 Major Attributes of Leadership

1. Unwavering courage based upon knowledge of yourself and occupation
2. Self Control
3. Keen sense of justice
4. Definiteness of decision
5. Definiteness of plans
6. The habit of doing more than payed for.
7. A pleasing personality
8. Sympathy and understanding
9. Mastery of detail
10. Willingness to accept full responsibility
11. Cooperation

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Not too long ago I started to wonder, Why so many people are addicted to BJJ?  Why do their lives change more and more as they embark on the journey? Why do priorities shift to make more space for BJJ? And why, at the same time, are there some students who never get caught up in the lifestyle and move on?

Helio Gracie said in his documentary “Hélio Gracie a hístoria do Jiu Jitsu no Brasíl”:

Attempted Translation: “Jiu-Jitsu is an art so efficient, and it gives people so much confidence/security that it don’t matter if the person studies 3,4,5,6,8 or 20 years…couldn’t translate ( my Portuguese needs work)… It is this simplicity and great efficiency of defense that everyone regardless of the reason ……couldn’t translate ( my Portuguese needs work)…that anyone that trains jiu-jitsu will imporve his way of thinking by 50%.”- Helio Gracie

And I couldn’t agree more, but why?

Back in college, I came across some of the work of the physiologist Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970). In his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” I learned about his idea of self-actualization and thehierarchy of needs.

Maslow, a psychologist, studied those he considered “exemplary people,” including Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass, rather than mentally ill or neurotic people. “The study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a crippled psychology and a crippled philosophy,” he wrote. From his studies, he developed what he called the hierarchy of needs.

Lets take a look at the pyramid.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are the “deficiency needs,” which are physiological and the top level representing “growth needs” that are associated with psychological needs. The lower the level, the more importance it is: deficiency needs must be met first. The higher needs or levels in this hierarchy can only be focused upon or achieved when the lower needs/levels in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. For example, if you are struggling to manage to put food in your table or pay rent, the idea of having a functional relationship will not be crossing your mind anytime soon.

Now, if a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. For instance, say you are a serious Jiu-Jitsu competitor at the esteem/self actualization level and you suffer a major injury. You will temporary visit level 1 (physiological level), and try to meet those deficiencies, but in the back of your head you will be very well aware that your competition is gaining ground on you. Therefore you will still train to the best of your abilities, do your research etc…

Some readers who saw the pyramid can probably already think of examples of how Jiu-Jitsu can help at each of those levels. This small discovery and connection to BJJ, while simple, is so enlightening because it easily explains why so many people restructure their lives completely once introduced to a good program that allows them expand on each of those areas.

Let’s see how BJJ helps each of these levels.

Deficiency needs

The lower four layers of the pyramid are the “deficiency needs” (physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, and esteem). If the deficiency needs are not met the individual feels unhealthy, anxious and tense. These deficiency needs are:

Physiological Needs

Most people who train BJJ have most of their basic physical needs satisfied, especially in the “First World.” Nevertheless, Jiu-Jitsu allows the individual to improve fitness levels, engage in good nutrition, and understand that good rest is as important as hard training. Jiu-Jitsu helps any individual not only satisfy this level, but to excel at it.

Safety needs

With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual’s safety needs take over and dominate their behavior. These needs have to do with people’s yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent and the unfamiliar rare. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.

Safety and Security needs include:

• Personal security from crime
• Financial security
• Health and well-being
• Safety net against accidents illness and the adverse impacts

Obviously Jiu-Jitsu can help you feel more assured when confronted in a self-defense situation, but is that all? The practice of Jiu-Jitsu and the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle allows individuals to live healthier lives. Training translates to better fitness levels, causing the individual who trains to feel healthier than who do not.

Once the practitioner makes Jiu-Jitsu a priority in his life, he realizes that he does not really need expensive cars, clothes, houses, to be happy. This helps with the financial security aspect of this level. When you have very little to pay and owe very little you feel less worried about your finances and you can save more. This provides a safety net against accidents/illness and the adverse impacts.

Security of employment is also helped. Why? Well if you have little to pay now, you don’t need to be CEO of a big company and have those pressures to pay your bills. There are few CEO jobs out there, but a lot of blue collar jobs. So you are not worried at all when a recession hits, because you will still be able to afford to train and live your dream lifestyle.

Security of family should be an easy one as long as you are in the right school. If you train hard and your school trains hard, you will find friends and a family there, even if you lack a big biological one.

I like this quote a lot and it think it helps understand what Jiu-Jitsu does for a practitioner:

Social needs

“The richest man in the world is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least” –Unknown.

After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). In the absence of these elements, many people feel loneliness, social anxiety and clinical depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. An anorexic, for example, ignores the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging. Many good teams allow you to belong to a great cause, which is your Jiu-Jitsu improvement over the years, and also to be a part of an environment where because everyone is there for that same reason. As I mentioned earlier, the room and the mats become a second home for many of the practitioners. A lot of self-respect is given to everyone that trains, espeically the most experienced and best competitors, instructors, and masters. There is a hierarchy on the mats just like in a household family.

Esteem

All humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. It may be noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels. At a good school you will be respected for your efforts to learn Jiu-Jitsu and improve your life. Now you can take this to higher and higher levels as you progress through the belts, win competitions, develop other students, gain experience, run your own school, etc… The more hard work you put in, the more esteem you will receive from your peers. But remember, just by coming in everyone will think of you as part of a family.

Aesthetic needs

Goals! The motivation to realize one’s own maximum potential and possibilities is considered to be the master motive or the only real motive, all other motives being its various forms. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for self-actualization is the final need that manifests when lower level needs have been satisfied. In BJJ this is what every you want to accomplish, the World Championship, become a legit black belt, own your own school, etc..

Self-transcendence and Success of offspring

Near the end of his life, Maslow revealed that there was a level on the hierarchy that was above self-actualization: self-transcendence. “[Transcenders] may be said to be much more often aware of the realm of Being (B-realm and B-cognition), to be living at the level of Being… to have unitive consciousness and “plateau experience” (Asrani [serene and contemplative B-cognitions rather than climactic ones]) … and to have or to have had peak experience (mystic, sacral, ecstatic) with illuminations or insights or cognitions which changed their view of the world and of themselves, perhaps occasionally, perhaps as a usual thing.”

He stated that the achievements and success of his offspring were more satisfying than the personal fulfillment and growth characterized in self-actualization.

Have you ever heard of the old martial arts movies like:

Where the old teacher says you still have a lot to learn grasshopper and is found meditating at the top of a mountain and one day becomes the day where the student “surpassed the teacher.”

I learned a while back that this while funny because of the nature of kung-fu movies is really true. Understanding that Jiu-Jiutsu is more than about being the best ion the world, having this many world championships, etc… it’s about personal growth it’s a huge step. One may be able to comprehend it but not necessarily achieved it. The sign of a good teacher is one who is able to produce students who eventually surpass him and teaches them that it is their job to do the same, at the same time, feeling better about his students accomplishments than his own. This Jiu-Jitsu continuity allows for the art to keep getting better. I always say at 70 years old (well I borrowed this idea from my instructor Julius Park), no one will care about how good your BJJ was, many few will be remember after 100 years even 1000 years in the Jiu-Jitsu history, but what you get to keep is the growth you achieved through your engagement in Jiu-Jitsu and the challenges it brought you.

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