Toughness. Effort. Technique. Discipline. These are the four qualities needed for success in any arena. This is an old coaching maxim that I have believed for years. While I think it is true of every endeavour, I think it is especially true for the grappling arts. These four things, when demonstrated consistently, pay off in very specific ways, develop very specific traits, but more on that later. For now, let’s just say, good things happen.
Fighting is hard. Even in victory it is frequently painful and exhausting both mentally and physically. It is, in a word, hard. This should seem obvious, yet you might be surprised how many people I meet in the gym who seem to have somehow overlooked this fact. Fighting is hard. If you want to succeed, hell if you simply want to begin, it takes toughness. Toughness is to me the single most important quality in a fighter. Toughness, both mental and physical, is what allows you to rise to the challenge in the first place. Toughness is the ability to ignore the uncomfortable, to endure the painful, to accept the embarrassing, and to absorb the bewildering. If you are going to train, you are going to get hurt. Show some toughness. If you are going to learn something new as complicated as fighting, you are going to get it wrong. Show some toughness and try again. Fighting is a contest of wills, yours vs mine, if you don’t want to be broken, toughen up.
Yet toughness is not enough. No one ever won a fight through toughness alone. You gotta work. The ubiquitous Rocky Balboa quote says that “it’s not how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” The moving forward part? That’s effort. You can endure, but if you want to win, you gotta work. Anyone who has been fighting for any reasonable amount of time can tell you about a time they just plain got out worked. We all have a story about that one opponent we know, just know, we could have beat, but just didn’t try hard enough. Just didn’t dig deep enough. Just came up short on effort. These are the hardest losses to take, because you have only yourself to blame. If you want to win, you gotta work. If you want to be strong, you gotta lift. If you want to be fast, you gotta run. If you want to learn, you gotta study. In short, if you want to be good, it’s going to take effort. Tough.
Toughness gets you in the door and effort gets you a seat at the table, but you know what that is good for? Not much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a start and it’s head and shoulders above, as Teddy Roosevelt called them, “those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” But in terms of fighting, in terms of winning? It ain't enough.
You know him. He’s in every class. He’s big, strong, and fast. He’s tough as nails and he’s trying his ass off. He also has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s doing it as hard as he can. He’s the fucking worst. The difference between strong and good is technique. You need to know what to do, where to apply that effort. Technique magnifies effort. Technique is leverage. Technique is skill. Technique is the scalpel where effort is the hand that holds it. Technique is the art. Technique is why we are all here. Technique is both what works and why it works. I’m talking about fighting here because frankly it’s the all I’m qualified to speak on, but we could be talking about anything. What is the difference between the line cook and the Chef? Anyone who has worked in a kitchen will tell you it isn’t effort. Line cooks frequently work harder and longer. It’s knowledge and ability. The Chef is in charge because they know more. In kitchens they say a sharp knife is a safe knife. Sharp knives don’t slip and if they cut, they cut clean. Technique is like that sharp knife. It simultaneously helps us do less and let’s us do more. It asks less strength, less effort, then asks us to spend what we saved somewhere else. And you know what, it takes a long time to learn. It takes a lot of studying, a lot of failing and a lot of losing. Acquiring the technique takes a lot of effort and it’s going to be tough.
So you're saying to yourself, “I have those three things. I’m tough, I put in the effort, and my technique is sharp.” But what of discipline? You may know how to work, but do you know when to rest? You might be hard to tap, but do you know when to admit you're beaten? You may know every attack there is but can you wait for an opening? Are you early for every class but never come back too soon from an injury? Can you set a trap but also resist taking the bait? Discipline is as much about what we avoid as it is about what we do. Where I teach we talk a lot about the importance of grip fighting. “Every time you tap,” my instructor says, “it is basically the same story. He grabbed me, he did what he wanted, I had to tap.” Armbars, heelhooks, or rear naked chokes. It’s always the same story, he grabbed me, he did what he wanted, I had to tap. The easiest place to break the cycle is before it starts. Grip fighting. There’s just one problem. It’s fucking boring! It is the most important but least fun aspect of the sport. It doesn’t feel like fighting and it makes for bad TV. That is exactly why it is so important though, because it’s boring. When we grip fight, we are barely touching. It is the least physical, most mental aspect of fighting. I’m talking grip fighting here, not grip breaking which can be very physical. Grip fighting is that soft dance before we really make contact. It is as close to my mind vs your mind as a fight can be, and you know usually wins? Not the fighter who does something special, but the fighter who doesn’t get bored and do something they know they shouldn’t. We all give up grips in the name of ‘getting things started.’ I do it all the time in training. And you know what, I do it all the time competing too, because that’s the way it works. Or as Aristotle put it, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” l lack discipline in my grip fighting. I give in to impatience. I give in to overconfidence. I give in to the myths of my own toughness, my own effort, and my own technique and so betray them all. When we are grip fighting, I’m stacking my discipline against yours and we’re going to learn something about each other. What do you want your opponents to learn about you?
Discipline is one foot in front of the other, head down so you don’t see the distractions over the horizon and don’t miss the pitfalls underfoot. Discipline is going to gym instead of the bar, the mat instead of the couch. Discipline is washing your gi every class. Discipline is drilling until the coach tells you to stop, not until you've ‘got it.’ Discipline gets you to the warm up on time, toughness gets you through. Discipline feeds the patience that creates the opening for that single leg, effort puts him on his ass. Discipline is that voice in the back of your head that says ‘I don’t care that he’s almost passed, don’t push the hip, win the wrist,” technique is the rolling kimura sweep that gives you the comeback victory. Discipline both raises your hand and allows it to tap.
So there you have it. The four things you need to be successful in anything, but especially in Jiu Jitsu. I’m confident that if you spend a little time you can apply the same test to any other topic, but as I said, fighting is all I really feel qualified to discuss, and that by just the thinnest of margins. Ask yourself where you feel you need the most improvement and what you can do tomorrow to work on it.
