The mind game

When your muscles are tense, most of your bodily sensitivity is lost. Your reactions become slower as you are unable to feel the direction of force applied by your training partner. You gas out sooner by exerting yourself unnecessarily.

Being tense during training is the hallmark of a beginner. After a slap and a bump, it takes just a few seconds to be able to tell if you are rolling with a fresh white belt or a seasoned purple belt or above. The former is usually stiff like a railway track. The latter is relaxed and fluid in their movements.

I have been working on staying relaxed during rolling for almost two years now. I wouldn’t say I’m quite there yet but at least I’m making progress. I hope. I still catch myself tensing up every now and then. Usually it happens when I’m in a bad position or about to end up in one, but at least I’m becoming aware of it.

Some time ago I was doing some no-gi rolling with a few people. Three guys and one girl from our gym. The guys tried to rip off my head which is cool and all — it gives me an opportunity to work on not panicking even when I’m about to die.

Things went worse when I rolled with the girl after a few hard rounds with the guys. She is a bit less experienced than me and played a bit sloppy closed guard so I saw an opportunity for an arm bar and went for it.

The problem was the way I did that. It was less technique and more force. So she stopped the roll and asked me to chill out — I shouldn’t go that hard because she’s not nearly as strong as the guys I had just been rolling with. Absolutely right. So I promised to take it easier and we continued rolling and everything was cool.

Afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about the episode. Why was I being such a dick? I should know better than that. I should have learned a long time ago not to force submissions on training partners, especially weaker or less experienced than myself.

I am trying my best to be relaxed, civil and a good training partner to all kinds of people, big, small, strong, weak, experienced or inexperienced. So why did I fail?

The epiphany came after a few hours of rumination. Honestly speaking, I didn’t — and still don’t — think I was using that much physical force in that moment. I can imagine how something that feels easy and relaxed to me can feel heavy and tense to someone who a lot smaller than myself. However I do admit I was being way more aggressive than I should have been. It was very bad, inexcusable behaviour on my part and I’m sorry about that.

I realised what happened was I was not relaxed or calm in my mind. I might have been physically relaxed, but my mental state was tense like a guitar string. The last few hard rolls had put me into overdrive. After having fought hard to defend myself and not get submitted in the last few rounds I was experiencing a honest fight-or-flight response.

Up until now I have only been concerned about not being tense physically. But being tense doesn’t just happen by itself. It happens for a reason, and the reason is it’s the way your body responds to stress. It’s almost a reflex. And grappling with someone is one of the most stressful situations you can put yourself into.

Being a beginner in jiu-jitsu is stressful. You have been shown a few techniques but most of the time, you forget everything when the roll starts. You stress because you don’t know what to do and your muscles tense.

Ending up in a bad position like under a tight side control of a heavier, more experienced grappler is stressful. You feel like you’re in trouble. When you end up being mounted a moment later and find yourself in a cross collar choke, you know you’re in trouble and have to get out quick or that’s it.

Getting to a dominant position like side control or mount of your training partner is also stressful. You get excited. Quick! Rush to the submission before the guy under you escapes.

I’m not even mentioning competition. You can try to imagine the stress. Then multiply it by a few times and you’ll get the idea.

All of these situations have one thing in common. If you aren’t calm and composed, you will invariably end up in trouble. Someone might even get injured.

What this revelation means is I now believe the most important thing to learn in jiu-jitsu is how to control your stress response. Don’t focus on muscular tension. Focus on tension in your mind.

Of course, my jiu-jitsu instructor has been talking about this since my very first class. I just misunderstood him and thought he was only referring to muscular tension. Ironically my favourite gi also has the words “the mind game” on it. I’ve worn it for well over a year and never really even thought why it said that until now. I think now I understand why.

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