05/14/2022
Thanks so much to Egor Radzik] Primal MMA Academy] for the promotion this week to BJJ Purple belt! This belt took a longtime to achieve but it’s worth it.
In a world full of martial art schools that hand out high rankings and black belts within a short time frame…Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu still holds old school Samurai martial art standards. To advance and receive higher ranks in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu you have to pay your dues in class by getting beat down after beat down, and suffer loss after loss, year after year, with improvement coming very slow. Therefore, you must EARN your belts.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can teach us that loss can be a great thing if we learn from it. Life is about constant loss. So the question becomes…How do we learn and deal with the loss that we constantly face?
We can learn to deal with it by bravely getting up after being knocked down and learning from that loss. We deal with it by building our resiliency to loss through the support from our BJJ brothers and also supporting them through the frustrations and plateaus of training. Finally, loss through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can teach us to apply the great Samurai BUDO values of courtesy, self control, integrity, harmony, humility, order, responsibility, respect, and love for humanity to our lives. These values should grow in us through BJJ training because you come to realize that there is always someone else that will be bigger, better, stronger, faster, younger or more experienced than you on the mats…and in life.
When you come to except this fact, you can move forward in life with more strength in knowing who you are and where you stand in the world.
Thank you to all Primal MMA Academy] brothers for your knowledge and having patience with an older practitioner like myself, thank you to Professor Egor Radzik] for creating an awesome training environment where we are allowed to be ourselves and improve at our own pace, and the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for teaching me, and will continue to teach me, some great lessons for my life! OSS!!!