Flowing with the Go (12 page)

I learned some great lessons that night. Achievement involves taking risks. Coach had called my bluff. It requires effort and challenge to be your best. Discipline is doing what is hard and necessary. What I was doing was work, hard work. Other people believed in me, so I had to believe in myself. Once I could overcome what was holding me back—or just admit to and honor it—then I could know what I needed to do to move forward.

It's hard to put ourselves into situations that will challenge our chutzpah. We fear not being good enough. That's why we have to give ourselves over to trust. We have to believe that we have surrounded ourselves with quality people who care about us and who will help us stay the course toward whatever our measure of personal achievement might be.

24
Leave Your Ego
in the Gym Bag

T
he ego is a terrible taskmaster. It taunts some people into a muscle tee and swagger, and suggests they enter a gym that advertises MMA on its sign. Foster's is primarily a Jiu-Jitsu gym, but it does offer some classes in MMA. Jiu-Jitsu has become an essential part of the mixed martial artist's skill set, so people, mostly men, come to the gym thinking they will be the next great cage fighter. Some enter the gym thinking they are already the next great cage fighter. You can always tell who these guys are. They walk into the gym like everyone has been waiting for them to show up. Their chests are either puffed out or maybe slouched over (because the weight of their massive pecs makes it hard to stand up straight). They sign the waiver to participate with nonchalance as if they are telling themselves, “I hope everyone else signed one of these because I am gonna do some pun-ish-ing to-day!” After they whip off their oversized hoodie, they step into the gym in their flashy fight shorts and skull-covered rash guard. Coach has an innate sense of these guys. He will look at them the way you look at a person who has bad BO, but is the only person who doesn't know it.

With the restraint of a saint, Coach will give them the skinny on gym protocol and talk to them about lining up when class gets ready to start. Newbies are at the end of the line. These cocky guys always seem insulted that their superior talents are not recognized and they must stand to the left of the lowliest white belts. Usually their eyes are shifting around, and they bounce on their toes trying to seem calm and collected, but we see them flex their biceps and touch their abs as if trying to draw our attention to their impressiveness. If you talk to them, they will usually tell you about their extensive fighting history and the number of hours of TiVo'd UFC they have watched.

Most, but not all, get gassed out during warmup. Of course to them, warmup is a waste of time because they came here to “punish some peo-ple.” And unlike the humble rest of us, who recognize that our Jiu-Jitsu needs improvement and who are eager to learn new moves, these guys already know everything, so they won't ask for help. In fact, many will try to tell you what to do because—of course— they already know it all. Maybe it
is
possible to learn everything from YouTube.

When it comes time to spar, Coach will not usually let new guys roll. Instead, they must watch or keep time. This is out of respect for their safety. But Coach has a sixth sense for these cocky guys. They tell him they have years of experience already and are raring to go. I love this part. So Coach will relent, as if impressed, and have these guys roll with the upper belts for a while. During these rounds, the cocky guys are trying to muscle their way through their opponents with no technique at all. They are jumping, tumbling, grabbing, and scrambling all out of control. The buzzer goes off, and they pop up: “Hey, no problem. Kicked his ass.” Eyes are going back and forth checking to see who saw them.

All the while, Coach is watching from another ring, biding his time like a cougar stalking his prey. Not as easy as it looks on television, huh? And then he invites them to roll with him. They stand up a little straighter, try to hide that they have been gasping for breath, and act as if: “Finally, someone of my caliber.”

They recapture their swagger, shake hands, and “it's time to punish some peo-ple” —only it's them who gets punished. Hungry for some humble pie? It's like a submission seminar. Coach takes no prisoners. He often seems to channel Ironman, like he's murmuring, “Do you recognize my authority now?”

First it's an armbar, then a choke from the top, the back, the side. Coach will toss them left, right, over, under, and put them in triangles and guillotines. They try to be tough at first and not tap, so Coach puts the squeeze on nice and slow, like he's deflating the ego in their fat heads and giving them a chance to save some face. It has been said that egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. Well, stupidity should hurt. Some of these guys save nothing and can barely make it to the end of the line to bow out. A few will figure it out and admit that maybe, even though they once won a bar brawl, they are not the next Anderson Silva (the current UFC Middleweight Champion and the promotion's longest reigning champion). You might see those guys again, but the deflated ones never return, which is really no loss. They leave and then tell their friends what a crappy gym it is—full of pussies. We know better. Our gym is full of confident, quality people. So what if we humiliate a prick every now and then.

25
Go with the Flow

T
he colloquialism “go with the flow” is used as a training mantra inside many Jiu-Jitsu gyms. It may seem, on the surface, that this is a simple directive to move seamlessly and in concert with your opponent. As a student new to Jiu-Jitsu, I found out that “go” and “flow” have many meanings and that the only seamless movement I could make occurred while I was standing in lineup. I also found that uncovering the secrets of “going with the flow” was helpful in navigating my journey through grief.

The “flow drill” is often assigned to us as a warm up exercise. In the flow drill, you roll in a non-combative manner with your partner and allow things to just happen. If you are in position to get swept, you let the sweep transpire and then flow into your defensive position. Your instinct wants to fight the sweep, shift your weight, and protectively reposition your body. You eventually learn to just go with the moment by calming your conscious mind. If your partner is reinforcing the learning experience, they willingly accept your new position and let you maneuver into the next offense. In this relaxed situation, you are able to feel the subtle dynamics that are taking place without anxiety making you tense and resistant.

The legendary Jiu-Jitsu master Rickson Gracie is credited with saying, “Flow with the go.” This perspective puts more emphasis on the “go,” or what is happening to you. As a life lesson, I see that mantra as a constructive way to accept what is happening to us and to develop countermeasures that are safe for us physically and mentally. We all have a way of letting our habits gain momentum. Our habits can carry us into a mindless and unfeeling state from one comfortable, or uncomfortable, situation into the next. Like muscle memory, our habits can help us flow. But our habits can also hinder us. Our physical and mental habits can keep us from moving forward and growing as athletes and as human beings.

Coach helps us identify our habits with a training drill called “Chess.” Very much like the board game chess, this drill takes place one move at a time with your partner. You start in an agreed-upon position—for example, closed guard. Whoever is going first (usually the person with the higher rank) makes only one move. One move means grabbing their left sleeve with your right hand, putting one foot on the mat, or shifting your right hip to the left. One move does not mean executing a technique in its entirety.

This drill accomplishes many things. It forces you to plan several steps ahead. It forces you to counter your opponent's move while formulating your own attack. And your opponent is, likewise, planning to counter your move. You can only be successful at this drill by consciously and skillfully executing the “go” and not falling into the traps of your habitual moves. I have trouble with this drill because I am not yet skillful enough to plan many steps in advance. I also have trouble because I become more focused on what I am planning than on what is happening at present. And I have many habits that do not always advance my position. This drill gives me anxiety. There is too much time to worry that I have made, or am going to make, the wrong move. And there are no take-backs.

My expenditure of emotional energy on things I have done wrong is much greater than the energy I use to recognize things I have done right. The isolation of moves in the chess drill provides an opportunity to practice being more compassionate to myself. If you were observing this drill, you would likely see two types of people. There are the people who make a move and radiate confidence. These are the people who have already embarked on a path to victory in their own minds. And there is the other group—the group that moves a foot and immediately sighs or rolls their eyes or says, “dang it,” because they already believe that they have embarked on a futile path. Like a physical habit and its muscle memory, this behavior reinforces negative mental habits or neural memory. Negative habits include thoughts of self-depreciation that lead us to give up on ourselves. These are the negative habits that keep us fighting discomfort and uncertainty instead of learning to live with those feelings and discover who we can fully be.

There is a great deal of physical discomfort in Jiu-Jitsu. It's obvious to most people that having an arm hyperextended, a shoulder locked, or a neck squeezed between the back of someone's shin and thigh can cause discomfort. What might not be so obvious is the mental discomfort. When I first started training, I would tap at the slightest sensation of physical discomfort, and I would tap if I believed I was going to experience a slight sensation of discomfort. I would panic if my arms got pinned in positions that made me feel vulnerable, although it didn't hurt. I would also panic in certain positions that made me feel claustrophobic.

Much of the mental discomfort I experienced from grief felt a lot like the mental discomfort of Jiu-Jitsu. Nervous, anxious, claustrophobic, insecure, vulnerable. I was a beginning griever just like I was a beginner BJJ practitioner. I had to practice being in uncomfortable positions. Just like it is easier to tap than to battle, it was easier to avoid dealing with thoughts that made me sad and turn to unproductive behaviors. Combating discomfort in Jiu-Jitsu is dealt with head-on. If you hate being trapped in side control, then Coach has you start each sparring session trapped in side control. If we are learning an escape, Coach has us practice it from “worst case scenario” position. This usually means that your opponent has control of your head and a dominant starting point. When I was training to compete and was uncomfortable scrambling to position, I had to start all my sessions lying on my belly instead of starting on my knees, forcing me to quickly scramble to an advantageous position.

Over time I found that I could stay in an uncomfortable situation longer and longer and not panic. With practice, I learned to not be so afraid and to relax into the position and defend myself thoughtfully. I started small. Sometimes I would tell myself to take one more breath before I tapped, that I had to hang in there for a moment longer than my initial submission response told me to. It took time, and it took practice. It took not avoiding positions I didn't like, but instead using them as opportunities to put more tools in my toolbox and more courage in my heart.

I was training armbars with Brick one practice, and Brick was praising the strength and consistency of my armbar. My response to him was, “Now all I have to do is get on the top, and I'll be fine.” Coach, who was nearby and has satellite-dish ears, (figuratively, not literally) heard what I said and, as astutely as ever, remarked, “You need to think that you will be fine from any position.”
Ah, yes. Right
again.
As long as I kept thinking that I would be more successful in one position than another, I would continue to hold myself back.

I was holding myself back in the grieving process as well. I wanted to protect myself against discomfort. I didn't want to “go with the flow.” I didn't want to go to the places that made my heart break over and over again. Seems like a logical survival instinct to protect ourselves from discomfort, doesn't it? Cold? Put on a coat. Hungry? Get something to eat. However, protecting myself from my emotional discomfort was not helping me survive it.

In the gym, we could recreate a worst-case scenario. But I would never want to recreate my emotional worst-case scenario. Lisa and Kathleen both encouraged me to be honest about these feelings to myself. During my personal “quiet time,” when my mind was supposed to be free from worry, I was to allow myself to think about those deep feelings that I feared . . . but only for a short period of time. (I bought three sand timers with durations of one, two, and three minutes.) During that short period, I was to feel those deep emotions as fully as I could let myself. I had to live in those feelings and acknowledge them. I had to honor that they were a new and acceptable part of who I was. Through this process, I learned that to feel with such intensity, which left me drained and aching, is a feature of being human. I learned this was a gift—to be able to go there, visit those intense thoughts, and then let them be. I thought I was broken, that I had to fix these thoughts to be whole again. But I didn't. I had to let them be my “go,” and I had to let them teach me a healthy way to flow within the world again.

26
Echo of Unanswered
Questions

O
ne day, Kathleen shared with me that people often ask her how she can do the work that she does, counseling people through grief and life transitions. She said that her work has shown her that there are basically three groups of people: those who never recover and digress to a state of abandoned reality; those who move forward in an emotionless state as if their tragedy never happened, alienating all compassion; and those who rejoin life, finding a new way to define themselves not as their tragedy, but as people who have suffered and endured to live again. It is the latter group that gives her hope and encourages her to continue the work she does.