“The greatest failure is failing to fail.”

We’ve had a great block of training with the advanced group at Matakas Jiu Jitsu. We’re emphasizing the tenants of Deserted Island Jiu Jitsu and changing the magnification of our aims.

We are focusing on the mini-games within the major areas of grappling, with an emphasis on the accrual of time spent on our weaknesses. The team is doing well. From a technical perspective, we are improving at a faster rate than I’ve ever seen.

To maintain this growth, last night we addressed the killer of sustainability: frustration.

What is Frustration?

Frustration is the negative emotional experience that arises when we perceive we have failed to advance toward our goal. Often, the degree of frustration is proportional to the damage our ego has sustained.

We could address this frustration. But this would be like scooping water out of the ship’s hull rather than plugging the leak. We must go further up the chain of events.

The Goal of Training

The goal of training is to grow, to become a better martial artist for having trained. This growth requires friction. The training is successful when we experience the friction that our growth occurs.

That’s it.

A common mistake is to assume that “success” in a roll is a proxy for progress. We do this at our peril.

If you whooped all your training partners and looked like the most recent embodiment of Gordon Ryan, with each roll being an effortless execution of your talents, you did not grow. You chose a path of insufficient resistance.

If your goal is to fulfill your potential, you want to experience as much resistance as you can tolerate, as much friction as you can positively digest and convert into wisdom.

Therefore, training at every skill level requires a degree of difficulty and challenge.

Rats and Jiu Jitsu

Rats love to play. They, like us, like to wrestle. But they don’t know Jiu Jitsu, so the winner of the match is almost always the bigger rat.

But the big rat is wise. He wants to keep the game going. As they say in Rounders:

“You can sheer a sheep many times, but skin him only once.”

The big rats let the small rats win 30% of the time, otherwise, the little rat will get discouraged and no longer participate in the game. How does this apply to you?

You have the need to win and feel esteem in Jiu Jitsu, and you have the need to experience the friction your growth requires. If you are “winning” 100% of the time, then your future potential suffers the loss.
If you are “losing” 100% of the time, you may not return to play the game.

The key is to experience the maximum amount of friction that you can tolerate long term. Perhaps the rats are on to something with this 30% success rate.

Navigating the Emotions of Failure

I could go on some long breakdown of the emotions, what they mean, and how we can navigate them. If you struggle with these emotions, I would like to direct you to Jiu Jitsu and the Ego. It’s the best book we have on the subject. I’m biased, but I think it’s true.

In the context of this conversation, we must go further upstream.

Your frustration is not the problem. The issue at hand is your definition of success which causes the frustration in the first place.

It’s a clarity problem. Not an emotions problem.

Redefining Success

Success is friction experienced and growth attained. Success is becoming a better grappler than you were when you woke up that morning. Success is progress. Everything else is idleness.

We must redefine success and failure.

Failure: experiencing an absence of friction-inducing growth, often the result of clinging to cherished techniques to “win” today.

Success: the conversion of experience into wisdom, the positive engagement with resistance that elicits an adaptation to become a more informed and complete grappler.

Freedom from frustration is experienced when the student properly engages in exploration, in search of information, with an absence of concern for one’s appearance in the process. When the “failures” which used to cause frustration are now seen for the successes that they have always been, these are no longer mistakes. They are treasured experiences sought after, hunted down, and assimilated.

These are not shortcomings of the individual, but rather, the necessary experiences on the path to development.

Conclusion

The Purposeful seek resistance and craft a home within the difficult. They use all experience as fodder for their continued development. The Purposeful define success as friction positively encountered.

Success is the accrual of wisdom. Frustration, then, can only arise in the absence of friction.

The fates have been kind to us. Jiu Jitsu is infinite. We are limited. Therefore, we will never experience an absence of friction. This means, then, that we will never again experience frustration.

It’s all grist for the mill of our becoming.

And maybe, just maybe, Jiu Jitsu becomes what it has always been:

Play.