The Injury Cycle
I was talking to my business partner, training partner and good friend Dewey Nielsen the day after he injured his hip (training with me) and I remember thinking about the times I’ve been injured over the last 11 years.
As practitioners of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu we are all familiar with injuries, “physical setbacks”. I learned after my last major “physical set back” (heel fracture) that the emotional and mental journey can be more difficult than the physical.
Like other trauma whether it’s physical, emotional or mental we go through a cycle of grieving. Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance are all normal. I found out (through my day job as a F/F) and now as an older practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that this cycle is real and the more I understand about it the better I move through each of stages.
The goal is to keep training, there are many benefits in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but most people do not stay with it long enough to really find out the secrets of the sport. Hopefully understanding the grieving cycle will help keep us on the mat for a long time.
Purposeful Movement 1
My mentor in the fire service, Ed Hartin always pushes his fire behavior instructors to achieve 10,000 hrs of purposeful movement. Studies have shown that 10,000 hrs is what’s needed to become a content expert in a given field of study.
How many black belts have put that much time into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? If my math is correct spending 10 hrs on the mat each week equals 520 hrs a year. It would take over 19 years to reach 10,000 hrs at that pace if mat time was the only way to gain proficiency (and that’s a lot of time on the mat).
Does this mean that it should take a student 19 years to become a black belt? No it should not. The average is 10-12 years and that depends on several factors. I believe that a black belt will be at or near the 10,000 hrs range, it will not solely be mat time.
The BJJ practitioner will spend almost as many hours thinking, talking, writing and watching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. As we all know BJJ is a chess match as much as it is a physical test.
Where are you on your journey to 10,000 hrs? Probably closer than you know. It all counts, every hour on the mat, every YouTube video watched, every discussion with training partners.
“Gentle pressure reletlessly applied”