Gracie Barra Mansfield | Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Tag: Brazilian Jiu Jistu

Three Ways to Lay WASTE to Bad Habits & OWN Your Goals in 2016

Ah, the NEW YEAR is upon us! 2013! Wait, 2015? Dang it! I’m a mom. Hold on *looks at phone* There it is. 2016! *rewrites check* Dang it. Gracie Barra Mansfield, the premier learning center for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield area hopes you enjoyed the holidays and we hope you will join us for the New Year.

Maybe try something cool! Different! Exciting! Get in shape AND learn to be a a bad@$$ at the same time!

Whether you’re a longtime BJJ student or a newbie. Never been to class or need an armed escort to drag your lazy tail TO class, there are some ways you can adjust your thinking and your approach to help ensure you reach your goals.

No I am not a black belt yet, but I am a master at laying waste to goals..

Thing is most people fail before they ever begin. Science has proven again and again that the mind is far more powerful than the body. Our minds actually give out long before our bodies do. If we’re having a tough time reaching those goals and getting in shape? Often it’s because we started out training the wrong muscle. We need to begin with the one between our EARS.

One of the reasons that I am a huge fan of Jiu Jitsu training as opposed to other forms of fitness is that Jiu Jitsu trains us to be strong, but also TOUGH.

There really IS a difference.

Toughness is a matter of the MIND. It is a domination of the WILL. It is subduing the ego and pressing on in spite of odds, in the face of discomfort. In our modern climate-controlled world, toughness is easy to get lost. We have AC when we are hot, heaters when cold. Cushions in our shoes. We work at desks and not with our hands. If it hurts, we stop. If we are hungry, we eat. Nothing exactly wrong with that, except that the most successful people in ANY area of life are TOUGH.

Becoming a S.E.A.L. is less about who is in the best shape or we’d just recruit from the Olympics. In business, the people who do the best are those who, when faced with crippling setbacks…stay cool. They remain positive. People who do the best in their marriages or with their children or with their finances have mastered the art of pressing through pain.

That is ALL in the mind. Today, we are going to go through some easy ways to get started because you can start this TODAY and it will help you with any kind of goal.

TIP #1—Self Talk

Did you know that the human mind cannot tell the difference between a truth and a lie? That is why it’s not only important what we say to others (family, spouse, kids) but to ourselves.

Additionally the brain has a really weird way of only beginning to LISTEN at the first ACTIVE verb. This is why all goals should be phrased in the positive.

If you SAY:

Don’t forget your keys.

Your brain will HEAR:

FORGET your keys.

Thus, if you make a goal of:

I don’t want to be fat.

Brain hears:

Want to be fat.

If you SAY:

I don’t want to be broke.

Brain HEARS:

Want to be broke.

Get in the habit of speaking in positive action. I don’t want to be fat becomes I want to be lean and fit. I don’t want to be fat and tired becomes I want to be trim and have plenty of energy.

Do this with regular stuff. Instead of, Don’t forget your phone say Remember your phone. Try this on your SPOUSE, YOUR KIDS, PETS AND COLLEAGUES!

See! At Gracie Barra Mansfield…we also offer MIND CONTROL!

TIP#2—Baby Steps are Steps

Another way we self-sabotage it we overwhelm ourselves instead of piecing out large goals into small manageable actions and then giving credit that we ARE moving forward. We feel that because we aren’t seeing HUGE changes, then what we do doesn’t matter.

But I am here to tell you that glaciers carved the Rocky Mountains and they move at an inch a year.

I am a three-time best-selling author. A blog post I wrote a couple days ago had 15,000 views in a matter of HOURS.

But guess what? I didn’t start that way. My first blog had 35 visits and 33 were me checking my own site (not knowing I was counting as a hit *head desk) and 2 were spam bots. But I kept showing up. Day after dat after day.

My blog stats. The first year registering (smallest bar) is 6,700 views…TWO YEARS into blogging.

Last year in January I was a one-stripe white belt who’d just gone into remission from four months of Shingles. My resolution? Make blue belt by 2016. It was ugly. I got injured. I got sick. But it was just baby steps. Day after day. One grappling session at a time.

TIP#3—Set Up a System of Accountability

Gracie Christmas Party!

Our brains do better with accountability. Has to do with mirror neurons and getting dopamine rewards when you show up to class versus having to hide from your Jiu Jitsu pals blowing up your phone wanting to know WHERE YOU AT AND U BEST BE DEAD, PLAYAH (which is weird because that text is from a 41 year old soccer mom taking BJJ with you).

Stop listening to so much FloRida!

Anyway…

Time and again, research demonstrates that people who set goals and then who have people and a system of accountability are far more likely to succeed. Why I love BJJ is I love the people. If I don’t show? Trust me, they notice. It’s different than being a faceless person slinking unnoticed in and out of a gym.

In the end, these tips WILL help but we do have to fall in love with the process or nothing will work. It’s easy to fixate on a black belt or a fit body or a fat wallet or a bigger house and what happens is we lose steam in the inevitable Span of Suck.

Every goal worth going after WILL have what I call the Span of Suck. If you write a book? You get the bright idea and writing is SO FUN…until it isn’t. Then there is the long slogging to finish. Want to lose weight? First days in the gym are great. The Span of Suck is the next months or years of doing the same things day after day and being RELENTLESS.

Jiu Jitsu is awesome training for learning to BE RELENTLESS. Making RELENTLESS a HABIT. A STATE OF MIND. A RELIGION. Be relentless in BJJ, relentless in your career, relentless in love and LIFE. Sign up today and learn self defense, get fit, make friends, but the toughness training? The training to be an UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE? THAT is the beauty of Jiu Jitsu.

REAL Cardio

At Gracie Barra Mansfield, you are part of a team. You are not alone.

We hope you will come join us for some free classes and fall in love!

Happy New Year!

~Dojo Diva

January 5, 2016
Getting PWNED? Three Ways to Up Your White Belt Game

Dojo Diva here! As I have mentioned before, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is relatively unique. Jiu Jitsu has only FIVE belt colors (white, blue, purple, brown, black) and we are going to stay at white for a long, long time.

In fact, I tell Professor that when I actually GET my blue belt, I am wearing that sucker EVERYWHERE. Shopping. To the movies. Church. Out to eat. I am going to VACUUM the HOUSE in it. SLEEP in it.

He still totally thinks I’m kidding.

But seriously, those four stripes represent so much change and sacrifice. I work from home, so I start working at about 5:30 in the morning and work all day and then I take my son to Jiu Jitsu and assist in his class and then go to MY class and that is a good 60-90 minutes and then I have to come home and cook and lets just say it is a LONG day.

Those four stripes I now have represent countless hours on the mats being made into a pretzel by people WAY bigger than me. They are the cumulation of hundreds of bruises, a broken nose, four broken toes, and more than a thousand lessons in humility and I have loved every second of it because it is hard hard work. In a world that is so eager to hand out awards for “trying” MY DOJO is the place that tests everything I am and tells me the TRUTH.

I either earn it or I don’t.

I will be honest. Sometimes it is hard writing a Jiu Jitsu blog. I don’t feel cool. I don’t have a lot of cool moves to show you because I am still so freaking new even though I have been at this for over a year. Some days I feel like I am hot stuff and other days? I wonder if I ever paid attention to anything. Did ANYTHING Professor say manage to STICK? Sometimes I wonder if I am ever going to get it.

But even though I am no Rhonda Rousey, I am probably a lot more like you. I am closer to where most of you are. If you are thinking of starting Jiu Jitsu I can tell you it is the most fun you will probably ever have in your life. If you are new, you are sore. Buy Ibuprophen at Costo *fist bump* I love you, man. Keep pressing.

Here are some other things I have learned along the way that will help up your white belt game. Truthfully, they probably help the other colors too but I don’t know since I am not there yet.

I think brown belts bathe in the blood of vanquished enemies to make black but I’d have to google that…

Where were we? Oh yeah, TIPS!

Tip #1—Grapple at 40%

I have no idea WHY I didn’t think to do this in the beginning. When I was brand new, I thought I had to go full steam and this is when I actually got the four broken toes and the busted nose. WHY? Because I had ZERO technique so I was just relying on brute force and muscle. I made myself tired and sore and I got injured.

A lot.

And that was stupid and completely preventable.

When you are starting out, feel free to ask if you can grapple at a diminished percentage. There is nothing bad@$$ about being a white belt anyway so why do we feel we have to be all tough? We don’t. Really.

No one is judging you.

I thought people were when I was new. Now? I know better. I see the new white belts and I am all “WHOA! Slow down Cowboy! I don’t wanna get hurt, either!”

I bet I was a real peach to grapple with.

*hangs head*

Anyway…

Just trust me. It does you ZERO good to go full speed with crappy form. You won’t learn and you’re just more apt to injure yourself or your partner. Or you and your partner. Or you and your partner and the people next to you AND the Jiu Jistu Moms watching nearby and then it just gets all awkward when a Jiu Jitsu Mom retaliates with a CHAIR so just BACK OFF and ease up, okay?

And, to be blunt, BJJ doesn’t work that way. It’s easy. Smooth. Like jazz, only with chokes.

Watch Professor. He barely even breaks a sweat turning people into twisty ties.

GOOD Jiu Jitsu is fluid and beautiful. Breathe. FLOW.

Tip #2—Private Instruction is an AWESOME Investment

I don’t make any money off this, so you can take this as an honest opinion and not someone trying to sell you something. Private instruction pays MASSIVE dividends. MASSIVE. HUGE. HUGE!!! In class you just can’t learn what you can learn from on-on-one with a pro.

For MONTHS I would get smashed in full mount. No matter where I went or what I did? Somehow managed to get mounted and game over. I took ONE lesson and now? In the six months since I took that lesson NO ONE has yet to submit me from the mount.

And I didn’t believe it when my instructor said I would own that escape. I had been decimated by it so many times I couldn’t imagine myself having any power in it.

By the way, I am a 5′ 3″ female. Most of the time, my opponents are much bigger, so me being mounted is no small deal. It stinks getting smashed. But, he was right. My small size became my advantage.

Before Lessons—> ROADKILL
After Lessons—> RADIOACTIVE SUPER FERRET

BUT I had to take that time to gain the TECHNIQUE and that NEVER would have happened without that additional investment. It wasn’t even the technique of escaping that was most valuable. In private training, the instructor grapples with you. He did with me. By doing this, he was able to identify then correct all my bad habits that were putting me in the position to get mounted in the first place.

So. Private lessons. You can thank me later.

The holidays are coming. Treat yourself. Treat a family member or a friend.

Tip #3—Beware of Overtraining

One thing that has undermined me a bit is that I AM so eager to belt up. I was going to class a lot and I was also training outside the dojo and I ground myself down. Recently got pretty sick and it forced me to take three weeks off.

But the funny thing was, when I returned, I felt far stronger. In retrospect, before I was forced to take off I was tired. Overtraining had affected my performance on the mats. I was sluggish and my moves were sloppy and forced. With a little rest? My game was far better.

Sometimes, less really IS more.

In the end, embrace the white belt experience. If we are going to be here for a while, might as well have fun and take in all we can :D.

If you are in the Fort Worth-Arlington area, come by for a free month at Gracie Barra Mansfield!

~Dojo Diva

October 22, 2015
10 Tips Everyone Should Know Before Training Jiu Jitsu

Image via Gracie Magazine

Gracie Barra Mansfield, Texas strives to bring you the best Jiu Jitsu training in the Fort Worth/Arlington area. We’d like to share these TEN TIPS for Beginners from Gracie Magazine:

If you are a white belt just starting out or have been practicing the martial art for many year now, it doesn’t matter! We all should read these 10 tips in order to get the most out of our Jiu-Jitsu training and make sure we’re up to speed on all things in the future. Check it out:

1. Trust and be trustworthy.

NEVER hold a sub past the tap out. When in doubt as to whether your training partner has tapped, let go—better safe than sorry. By striving to be a more reliable training partner and trust your teammates and coaches, the environment becomes a safer and more pleasant place in which to learn. If you’re not having fun, none of it makes any sense. Jiu-Jitsu is something you carry with you for the rest of your life. Each stage should be great; after all, the art is the most wonderful addiction you could possibly have.

2. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is done in a gi.

As trendy as it is, make sure to have a good understanding of the techniques using cloth before venturing into “No-Gi”. It’s easier to adapt your Gi techniques to No-Gi than vice-versa.

3. Don’t ask black belts to roll.

You can train with black belts but make sure you’re invited. This tip is kind of old fashioned and is often resented by recently promoted students. It happens that the higher-ranked feel like they are being “challenged” when a lower belt summons them to train. You have to realize that they know who is available just by the way the person looks at them. Look at them humbly and make it clear you’re available—if they want to, they’ll invite you…

CONTINUE ARTICLE

August 14, 2015