Effortlessness

Jiu Jitsu can be one of the hardest things you will ever do. It doesn’t have to be, but most of us come into the practice with baggage and patterns of behavior that are detrimental to our evolution. It typically takes us years to truly come into our own as Jiu Jitsu practitioners and most of us will drop out before we get to that stage. A few common sentiments and thoughts that exist in Jiu Jitsu circles are as follows: there is about a 90-95% drop out rate and white belt, and of those who make it to blue belt, another 90% drop out rate. A black belt is just a white belt that never quit their practice. This seems to be counter productive to the growth of Jiu Jitsu as a global practice of wellness, self-defense and art. It seems to be such a shame that this practice that can improve the physical and mental health and well being of so many seems to inherently lend itself to such attrition. I believe that there are some lessons that we can learn that can help each of us to become the exception to the rule, and if we have enough people following these lessons, the overall attrition rate in the beginner ranks of Jiu Jitsu will be lowered.

Lao Tzu said “An integral being knows without going, sees without looking and accomplishes without doing”. 

My Jiu Jitsu professor, and third degree black belt, Kola Ajose tells us repeatedly that our bodies naturally know how to move if we simply listen to them. The commonality in both these teachers’ lessons is that when we are integrated into the nature of the universe, all that we attempt will become effortless. The interesting thing in my personal experience has been that Jiu Jitsu has been made more difficult because of my own insecurities and issues, rather than the mastery of any one particular technique. That is not to say that we don’t need to practice techniques in the thousands of repetitions so that we make the movements reflexive. The difficulty has been compounded because I have not trusted and believed that they would work due to not trusting myself. 

So how do we get to a stage of effortless accomplishment, not just in Jiu Jitsu, but in everything we do in life? I believe there are three things that we can practice that can get us on the path. These are acceptance, responsibility, and defenselessness. These three ideas will bring us more in harmony with the nature of the universe and increase our power to accomplish anything we set out to do. The universe is intelligent and functions effortlessly and spontaneously. When we fight against the nature of the universe due to our own egotistical ideas of how things should be, we are wasting huge amounts of energy in a futile effort. Similarly, as a beginner in Jiu Jitsu, we often struggle mightily against our training partners because of our own egotistical efforts to avoid humiliation and submission. 

By firstly accepting that people, situations, circumstances and events are simply happening, we surrender to the will of the universe. Everything in your whole existence has led up to the particular moment that you are experiencing. The entire universe has spent its energy in getting to this moment, and no matter how mightily we struggle, we’re not going to prevail. The moment is as it is and we have to accept it. Of course, you can wish for things to happen differently in the future, but in the current moment, you have to come to an acceptance. You have to understand that your struggles against the present moment are due to your feelings about the present. Therefore, you can choose to control how you feel about it. When you have completely accepted the present, you are then able to move on to the next step in the journey.

The second step in the journey is responsibility. Roughly, this means the ability to have a creative response to the current circumstances. In order to create responsibility, you first have to stop blaming anything, including yourself, for the current circumstances that you have just accepted. Getting rid of that baggage of blame can lead you to start seeing opportunities in all the circumstances in your life. For example, it is common to start blaming yourself on the mat when a training partner has you in a submissive position and you start giving up on the roll. You can also start blaming yourself for life events such as job loss, failed marriages and any number of other life circumstances. By accepting that your training partner has a dominant position, without the negative thoughts of self-flagellation, you start observing for openings to regain your position to equate the circumstances of the roll. By accepting your life circumstances without blaming your previous company that laid you off, or your previous spouse, or yourself, you can then objectively start planning for the next stage of your life. You can then create something truly beautiful and pass your positive energy into the universe.

The third aspect of the path is to be defenseless. This seems antithetical to Jiu Jitsu which is a martial art for self defense. However, hear me out. We spend enormous amounts of energy every day trying to defend our viewpoints and actions. This is all ego driven to protect our own sense of importance in the universe. However, once we have accepted and are responsible to the universe, we quickly realize that our own ego is insignificant in the unlimited scope of the universe. Once we come to the understanding that we can’t defend ourselves against the infinite power of the universe and relinquish our defenses, we gain access to massive amounts of mental and physical energies. Have you ever felt utterly drained from having an argument with someone? The more you resist, the stronger you will be resisted. What if, instead, you decided not to defend your viewpoint? You gain much more creative energy from being flexible and non-resistant. You learn to be flexible and open to change. You learn to be in the moment. As Ted Lasso once put it so eloquently, “The past is history, the future is a mystery, this moment is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present”. 

If you accept, respond and are defenselessly in the moment, you will feel energized with the creative nature of the universe, in both your Jiu Jitsu practice and in everything you attempt in life. This missive started with a question about how to create longevity in a Jiu Jitsu practice. However, the lessons can also be applied to your life so that you can live to your true purpose and in harmony with the universe.