"Constant Pressure": An Origin Story
Summary of Today’s Email + Some Housekeeping Things
Today’s newsletter is influenced by particularly rough training session I had as a brown belt. Here’s the summary:
Pressure bursts pipes or it makes diamonds.
True growth happens through suffering (if you can manage your perspective)
Some of the worst training sessions of your life will turn out to be the best ones
I’ve changed pricing for this newsletter as well as going back to the original format everyone came to love before I started getting too creative. As of now, billing is still paused but by Thursday, I’ll turn it back on and lower the price to $5. Paid posts will be delivered every Friday.
$5/Mo. will be new billing price (down from $16.97). This helps buy my ammo (JK, sort of…)
Free content (Mondays) about my training and learning. You’ll get helpful articles on things I’m currently learning and how I apply them to life/jiujitsu/mindset/etc. Occasionally there will be some hidden video content behind a paywall.
Paid content covering my private lessons for the week (the original concept for this newsletter, on Fridays, unless otherwise specified). I’ll keep these videos behind the paywall.
This email is free today.
Training Partner: “Pressure Makes Diamonds.”
Me, after getting the shit kicked out of me: “Or it bursts pipes…”
Training Partner: “Well, that’s also true.”
I almost broke.
I remember sitting in my car, completely crushed. Just had another beat down from one of my peers, a 260lb former All American RB who also had been a black belt longer than I’d been training.
I was having a spiritual crisis wondering why I ever started training in the first place. It was one of those coming to Jesus moments. It was a lesson in humiliation, not humility.
I remember thinking “I’m going to ask him wtf his deal is. What did I do to piss him off?” It felt personal.
But, I have too much pride to admit I was getting the shit kicked out of me. I just let it stew.
Immediately after this training session was over, my training partner saw my despair.
“Pressure makes diamonds” he said.
“Or it bursts pipes.”
This reply was the only way for me to throw some kind of shit back to him because on the mats, I had nothing. I felt like a child except he wasn’t going easy on me like you would training with a kid. There was a clear message that was being sent… I just couldn’t decipher it at the time.
Soon after, I had an epiphany. “This is it. It’s coming.”
I’d been a brown belt for a couple of years now. I knew my black belt was on the horizon but I hadn’t connected the dots yet. This had to be some kind of spiritual test that I had to go through in order to develop this “awakening”. And in many respects, it was.
A few weeks later, I get a call from my Professor telling me my black belt ceremony is penciled in for the 8th of July. He says there’s something he wants me to do first and so I did what he asked.
A few weeks later, I was awarded my black belt.
That particular training session was as close to “rock bottom” as I’d ever been in jiu-jitsu. There I was, a brown belt feeling the lowest I’d ever felt. I’m not even exaggerating. It was humiliating. He clowned me in front of my students too. If I had to pick a “top 3 ‘I might quit’ moment”, this was in the top 3.
But again, I have too much pride to show my training partner just how much it affected me until after the fact. I just came back. And I trained…
Between that training session and my black belt, the only thing that really helped was the realization that I was close. I shifted my perspective from “woe is me, I suck” to “I just have to beat this last level and then it’s mine.” I make the joke to my students that what got me my black belt is that I was too dumb and too stubborn to quit. Maybe that helped but, in any case, I was not going to let another human being break me. So I trained. I trained hard and I took the beatings in stride.
Am I a diamond? No clue. This is the part of the metaphor that loses me.
I just train. I apply pressure to my life everyday.
Hence the name, “Constant Pressure.”
This training session influenced my mindset.
True growth comes from suffering. You must suffer physically, mentally and spiritually. You must apply the right amount of pressure to your daily life so that you can come out the other side shining bright.
Keep applying pressure, my friends, and don’t let your pipes burst.
I’d written about this training session as a turning point in my jiujitsu journey in my second book, Jiujitsu 201. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do! Also, my first book can be found here: The White Belt Survival Guide
If you enjoyed this, please be sure to like and subscribe to my newsletter if you haven’t already! I love sharing my knowledge.
To recap some housekeeping stuff:
I’ll be resuming billing Thursday
The price will be reduced from $16.97 to $5.
The format will go back to its original format: Notes from my private lessons. Every Friday, you’ll get emails highlighting some important concepts that I guarantee will be worth the $5/month. $1.25 for every email that improves your training? No-brainer.
Subscribe now!