Life is chaos.

All the organizational things we try, all the methods and tricks we do to attempt to manage that chaos is just a band aid. There is no solution, except learning to surf the big wave.

That is why Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is so useful, and tends to become so addicting to so many people. There is nothing more chaotic (except for life itself) than grappling. There is so much happening, and so fast, and tiny fractional changes completely alters what can occur, that learning to deal with it gives you some nice tools to dealing with the variables of everyday life.

Case in point: if you move your elbow in an entanglement by one inch; that spells the difference between success and failure (i.e. life or death). No other aspect of fighting will such a miniscule change matter so much. If we are in a ranged shooting encounter, and you move your elbow an inch, there is little that will change. Maybe I slightly expose a body part or remove a body part from targeting, or I slightly increase or decrease my recoil control, but that will most likely will not affect the fight, but an inch is all it takes for an opponent to get that better control over a limb, or to sink in that choke a bit tighter, or for him to get a better position.

 This factor can lead to much early frustration in jiu-jitsu. We start to think we finally have that move ready to land on our training partner, and in the blink of an eye that opportunity is lost, and we may not even realize why, especially when we are early in our jiu-jitsu adventure.

And this is one of the reasons why people who are new to being on the mat need to be circumspect in any conclusions they think they arrive at. There is a very good chance they are not seeing the entire puzzle. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have thought “I get it now” to then having to completely revamp that opinion. There is just too much going on and it always leads to information overload.

The good news is that if you continue to chug along and refuse to quit, you start to see some order to all that chaos. Well, if not order, at least you get a handle on how to handle the chaos. You start to see how to surf and stay a bit ahead, or you build the reactions to handle the non-stop changes and variables that get thrown your way. And that is where you start to have some tools to handle the chaos of life. After all, if you can handle that higher belt that outweighs you by 50 pounds and you adjust on the fly to keep him from passing your guard, then dealing with the sudden client crisis at the office seems a tiny bit more manageable.

It is not easy, and it does not necessarily come quick, but it does come. Just keep after it.