I hope that you have already thought about this subject a bit, but just in case let me talk to you about Mentors and Role Models and how important they are in our field. I hope you are listening.

THEY ARE VERY IMPORTANT!

Before I go into deep detail about this, lets examine three famous teachers/students: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Socrates (470-399) is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is also an enigmatic figure known only through other people’s accounts. His famous student, Plato, called him “the wisest, and justest, and best of all men whom I have ever known.”

Plato (437-347) was Socrates’ prized student an a Classical Greek philosopher, who, together with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy. Plato was also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world.

Aristotle (384-322) is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy, together with Plato and Socrates. He was Plato’s prize student, a Greek philosopher and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology. He was the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle’s views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance.

In nutshell and for our purposes here, what you need to know to get my point is that in this example, a good teacher helped inspire a good student, who in turn became good teacher and produced his own good student. Not only that, but they pushed their works farther and farther. Socrates never wrote any of his wisdom, Plato wrote it for him after his death, and then Aristotle took the philosophy and applied to many other areas of science that his teacher Plato never had the chance to do. Anyway, these three men are responsible for a lot of modern thoughts and sciences because Philosophy is the mother of all sciences, math, biology, and even jiu-jitsu. It’s the search for wisdom.

Could have Plato done everything he did if he had not met Socrates? Could Aristotle have done everything he desired if he had not met Plato?

Say they all were born in love with the search of wisdom at the same time and were not influenced by one another. AT BEST the three of them will have reinvented the wheel at the same time. Plato was influenced by Socrates, and Aristotle by Plato. It is no coincidence that three went on to become names that will not be forgotten until the human race ceases to exist.

Back to Jiu-Jitsu!

Look at these photos:https://bjjengineer.comwp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=215&type=image&TB_iframe=true&height=500&width=640

Pair #1:

Pair #2:

Pair #3:

Pair #4:

Pair #5:

Easy one? See if any one can answer what do they have in common? What have they all accomplished?

After you answer the above questions, only one thing follows. Find your mentors:people that you believe can help you achieve your goal and give you the wisdom they posses. Find your role models: people in whose footsteps you want to follow. Surround yourself with successful people, but be loyal and honest. Make up your mind, believe in them, and move forward because time it is not what we have in our hands. When evaluating a mentor, always remember that actions travel farther than words, belts, and accomplishments. You might take classes for three years with an ADCC champ and get no where if he doesn’t want you to become a star as well. Evaluate his actions.

Now I see all of you calling Marcelo Garcia and Leo Viera and the conversation goes something like this:

Excited Pupil: Teacher Marcelo Garcia, I want to be your student and World Champion just like you. I read this article, it motivated me. I want to be your prized student.

Tired Of the Same Story Mentor: There is the line buddy.

No good mentor will take you as a pupil without knowing you are worth his time. You will have to show and prove yourself to him before he takes you seriously. It’s just a question of time management. The mentor is not a jerk; he just have to many people claiming to become the next Jiu-Jitsu star.

Finally, One Piece of Advice: Don’t Complain. Just do what you’ve got to do for as long as required, do what you are told. If you do that, your shining day will come. If you don’t, you are alone to blame for your shortcomings. Believing is achieving.