Motivation

When I first started with the jiu-jitsu, I couldn’t get enough… because let’s face it… it’s a hell of a lot of fun putting your friends in armbars and triangle chokes and what have you. After a while though, my instructor Renato began having me roll exclusively with the higher belts (purple+).

After my will was broken repeatedly for an extended period of time (like a year), I inevitably became discouraged… because let’s face it… it sucks to get your ass handed to you regularly. Along with the discouragement came a plateauing in my improvement and a decline in confidence in my techniques.

For a while I just kept going and kept getting frustrated. Frustration breeds anger, and anger leads to the dark side, right? Then my technique would go to shit and I’d try to muscle my way to submissions and hurt myself or my clubmates. Not pretty.

So I did the unthinkable. I took time off.

After a few months of chilling, I went back to jiu-jitsu fresh and tried a big change in game with focus on the x-guard and half-guard. Of course there was an issue of fitness that I had to overcome initially, but after that hump, I was good. Now I’m back to learning new things again and this time I’m trying to be more inquisitive and not taking it personally when I get tapped. After all these guys are my clubmates and friends.

How do the rest of you deal with motivation when you feel yourself plateauing?