Blog Post 8 - Training Mindset (Kill the Ego!)
Many struggle with what the role of practice actually plays in their training. In my view, showing up to practice to “win” is a recipe for disaster and can lead to an early end to one’s competitive career.
This week we’ll talk about approaches to training and how to make progress towards your goals without inflicting harm to yourself or your training partners.
Gym Warrior and “Winning” Practice
I’ve seen it before and still continue to see it. The person who only shows up to train to kick the crap out of their training partners with no real desire to work on weaknesses or make real progress. They have a “kill or be killed” approach to training, and for some reason they are always hurt or they always find a way to injure their training partners.
Oddly enough, too, their cardio is terrible. You ask to spar with them after they just finished a round and they “need a minute,” and decide to take off the whole round and find another training partner they know they’re better than. So strange.
These guys/gals either never learned how to control themselves in training or were coached and didn’t bother retaining the information.
These people don’t last long, longevity wise. They’re always hurt and take long breaks from training, only to come back and hurt themselves again. Plus, if/when they compete, they underperform, losing to folks they might be stronger and bigger than, but get beat once the waters get deeper.
It’s my opinion that showing up to class just to get “wins” and feel good about yourself really is the wrong approach. Sheltering the ego is a fantastic way to halt your progress. Ego can be a good thing, it’s called being confident and knowing where you are sharp in your skillset. But feeding the ego without addressing your weaknesses is not going to end well.
Get out of your own way in training. Progress isn’t always going to feel good. At times, you’ll feel extremely vulnerable, like you’re better than what you're currently demonstrating on the mats. But that’s your ego snaking its way into your mind, doing its best to protect itself from humiliation and shame.
Nobody cares what is “accomplished” in the practice room. There are no gold medals or cash prizes for what you did to your training partners at the gym on a Thursday afternoon. Everyone’s record in the room is 0-0. There are no wins or losses, just progress made over time from consistent effort.
“Training is my therapy”
I completely understand the sentiment, but this ain’t it.
Training can certainly be viewed as an activity with innumerable benefits both physically and mentally. It can help reduce stress and create a very positive outlet for many people.
But full stop, training is not therapy.
Training can be therapeutic, a supplement to one’s emotional health journey. But it does not replace professional therapy.
If you have clinical problems, you more than likely need clinical solutions. If part of that is training, then great! I’m a huge advocate for exercise being medicine for folks in a modern sedentary environment like ours. A lot of sickness, I think, could be avoided if more people spent less time sitting around and more time moving their bodies, be it martial arts or some other physically demanding activity.
Progress, not Perfection
Practice should be ugly, and I don’t mean in the sense that you’re out of control. I mean in the sense that you should be purposely putting yourself in bad situations and building confidence in being able to maneuver through and escape them.
For example, if you suck at mount escapes, then you should spend considerable time being mounted and finding pathways to escape.
Practice should not be another opportunity for you to flex your strengths and make yourself feel good. Practice should be viewed as another opportunity to get better and make progress towards your goals. Where are the holes in your game? Focus on those and become more well rounded.
With particular respect to Jiu Jitsu and MMA, be ok with tapping in practice. Tapping is not losing, it’s the opposite. By tapping, you’re saving your limb so you can continue to train right away. By tapping, you’re saving your neck so you don’t have a sore throat the next day. And in the reverse, give your training partners time to tap. No one should be ripping any submissions in training. There is no sense in hurting your partners. You hurt them, now they’re injured and can’t train. The gym owner has lost a membership and you lost another training partner, all because you really wanted to finish that submission. Was it worth it?
And not every day is going to be your day. Sometimes, everything is clicking, submissions are coming along easily, or you’re picking up the technique of the day very well. And sometimes, everything seems to be falling apart. You’re getting tapped by everyone, you’re not able to hold positions, and nothing seems to be going your way.
The only thing you can do is keep showing up. The odds are you’re going to have those bad days the longer you train. But not every day is going to be like that, and in a year’s time you may look back and see how much progress you’ve made when another bad day comes around. You’ll feel better equipped to handle it because you’ve been there before and can find solace knowing you’re going to get through it and become better as a result.
If you’re in a good gym, you’ll also have teammates to help support you. Because it’s not just you that’s had bad days. We’ve all had them and it’s always nice to have a team rally around you in solidarity.
In sum, stop fixating on some nonsense idea like “perfection.” There is no such thing as perfect. The people you see competing at the highest levels have trained so much, look “perfect,” and yet they have experienced so much failure in their journey. They are elite because they chose not to allow the failures to define them. Instead, they saw failure as yet another opportunity to get better. And so can you.
Now, get out of your own way, get out of your comfort zone, and get to training. Focus on making progress, each and every day.
- Coach Red