When people look at me now, they tend to see essentially a finished product (not that I am done working on myself mind you – just that there is a level of performance I have achieved) especially when it comes to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. What they don’t see is the blood, sweat, tears, energy, time, and money I put in to get here.Whenever I talk about people trying to start training in any kind of H2H fighting methodology, there is immediate pushback along the lines of “that’s easy for you because you do this for a living and have natural gifts and don’t have to deal with physical limitations that make it hard for me”. I chuckle, usually out loud, because that is so patently ridiculous that it can only be met with laughter.

First of all, I DO NOT do this for a living. Teaching and training is an avocation, not a vocation. I have a Monday through Friday, 8:30AM to 5:30PM job, and have done this since the day I left college some 35 years ago. I have also been happily married or in a relationship with my wife for more than 31 of those years, and have two children that I have raised for the last 30. I don’t have copious free time, nor have I ever had such. I have had to find the time to train, and have had to give up other things to do so. I watch little TV (most of the shows that get the office water cooler talk I have never seen like the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, True Detective, etc), and stopped doing similar minor amusements. I do things with my family, I read, or I teach and train. To do something important means to sacrifice things that stand in the way. And TV, ANY TV, is something that won’t be missed.

And the most laughable aspect of someone insisting this is easy for me is the fact that not one part of my martial journey has been easy. I have no physical gifts at all. I was the kid picked last for dodgeball in PE in school. There has not been a day in my life that I have not suffered from severe asthma. In fact, I have been hospitalized for major attacks multiple times, and have come very close to death twice, once as a toddler and another time only about 6 years ago.In short, nothing has come easy to me. When I started with my BJJ instructor around ’93 or ’94, if you had polled everyone training there, including him, and asked of everyone there who was the least likely to end up a black belt, I would have received all the votes. And yet, 26 years later, not only am I a black belt, but a third degree one, and one that was given by someone who is well known in the jujitsu community to be one of the stingiest of all with promotions. And to top that off, I help run his academy, teach the Fundamental classes, am responsible for making blue belts there, and fill in for him when he is travelling. I also have done okay in competition including being an American National and Pan-Am champion, as well as medaling in major tournaments all over the world, including Brazil and Europe.

So why and how did I get here? As the great Stoic philosophers say, it is good that it does not come easy. Seneca said that “Success comes to the lowly and to the poorly talented, but the special characteristic of a great person is to triumph over the disasters and panics of human life”. In short, you may get lucky, or have some genetic gift and can succeed, but the true victory is the success when the word conspires to stop you. I had everything stacked against me in my jiu-jitsu path, and yet I overcame them. And in doing so, not only do I have the satisfaction of that success; I also can take pride in that I earned it every step of the way.

And here is something I truly believe in my heart of hearts. That triumph, gained through adversity, sticks with you forever. I have it with me, and I can always know that I can succeed, even if it means lots of hard work and time. Most of the best jiujistsu players I have met are the ones who have stuck with it, and that marks them permanently, and enables them to always get better and to keep working, and to not get discouraged or to give up when things get a bit rocky. Persevere, and you will succeed. I know it is hard to see when you are on the road, especially in the early stages. That is why so many people quit BJJ those first two years. The challenge to even understand the art, let alone master it, seems so daunting and vast that it will not be achieved. But believe me, it can be. If I can do it, so can you. Every single one of you reading this, I guarantee it.