Jiu jitsu creates a vehicle for success through personal ownership and a growth mindset. To achieve skill in jiu jitsu, one must stop making the same mistakes and instead grow to create new answers for problems that had once been impossible. This concept of self-reflection, followed by redirection and the will to do better, will carry over easily from inside to outside the dojo.
Here’s an example. When a defensive position, pressure, control, and space must be managed. This creates a difficult environment for the person defending. So what’s the best option when your opponent is using their weight and pressure to control your body? The obvious answer is to follow what the instructor taught; breathe, create space, escape. The first of those steps is the most difficult to teach.
Sure anyone can breathe, but when someone is holding you down and your coach yells, “Breathe”, what he means is "Detach yourself." He can see you struggling, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Once you take a deep breath you can look at the situation from a bird’s eye view. What you will see outside of yourself is that you’re OK. Your awareness changes and you realize you CAN breathe, which clears out the mental confusion and fog. It’s only then that you are able to prioritize options, after which a plan to escape formulates and becomes clear.
Problem solving skills develop from resistance
This is a small instance in a much larger and more complex problem-solving vacuum that is created by the necessity to survive and overcome. Through the platform practiced, we see that only growth comes from resistance. Luckily the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu provides a safe and practical training format where resistance can be 100% between partners. Jiu jitsu is the only martial art that can be practiced like this safely. This “resistance” is the fact that another human is trying to control your body, isolate your limbs, and force you to tap out. “Tapping out”, is necessary for developing a growth mindset because it forces humility upon everyone. Humility forces personal reflection and evolution towards a more efficient and calculated human, on and off the mats.
Discipline improves skill
Several skills develop over time that help enhance the character of an individual. Self-confidence is often an attribute desired, and it develops from self-practice, which comes from self-discipline. Discipline is necessary in any successful venture, and from self-discipline we see skill in the art develop.
Trial and error carve the path of least resistance. While learning jiu jitsu, the students experience a series of hurdles, many mirror their own personal culpabilities. When faced with problems in jiu jitsu class, the students have to make a choice, either they can acknowledge the problem and make the necessary adjustments ratify it, or they allow someone else to dictate the path and the only option is resistance to stop the other practitioners plan.