Moving Into the Empty Space: A Personal Note
Be Efficient [Train Smarter] -> Train Harder [Do more]
Summary of Today’s Email + Some Housekeeping Things
Today’s newsletter is influenced by some deep thought at the time of this writing figuring out where in my life I’m moving into resistance and how I can “move into the empty space”
Jiujitsu has given me a lot yet I still find myself ignoring its principles
I repeat: There is ALWAYS empty space. Find it and move into it.
Go with the flow: In other words, “train smarter so you can train harder”
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I remember a few years back, I was hurrying down some stairs… wearing socks.
I took a bad step, hit the edge of the step with my heel and I slipped.
Time slowed down and I had this brief out of body experience…
I watched myself unconsciously catch the third step down perfectly with the foot that slipped off the initial step. I gracefully pistol squatted myself down, somehow catching the eccentric portion of that squat perfectly to get to the base of the steps with my trailing foot.
I paused for a second and thought “God Bless Jiu-jitsu.”
I’m convinced that my skills in jiu-jitsu (including mobility and the strength in random places jiu-jitsu has given me) are the only reason I was able to so elegantly slip down some stairs and catch myself in stride. I marked the sign of the cross and went about my way.
I think I was a brown belt at the time, I’m not sure. And even then, just as I am now, I grateful for many things in jiu-jitsu.
The truth is, jiu-jitsu has given me a great many things. It’s given me a business, an income, wonderful students. It’s given me strength, mobility, peace of mind. It’s given me calm in a noisy world. And it’s given me the focus to thrive in chaos.
This past week, I wrote on “Moving into the Empty Space” .
The article, for paid subs, was on how people in jiu-jitsu love to move into resistance and not away from it. I highly recommend it if you’re having trouble using too much energy.
In any case, this morning after some deep thought, I reminded myself of this article because I, too, find myself moving into resistance too much. I am asking myself, where is the empty space?
Jiu-jitsu has taught me how to identify paths of least resistance yet I find myself crashing into it everyday in other aspects of life. Why?
I think hustle culture gets glorified too much. I’m a big fans of the Goggins’s and the Jockos of the world but I also think of a deleterious effects of hustling such as:
Working too hard (and at the wrong things)
Being less efficient and focusing too much on effectiveness
Injuries as a result of pushing too much and not prioritizing recovery
I tell my students this all the time: Hard work isn’t always the answer. Jiujitsu is all about leverage. More important than working hard, you have to know which levers to pull.
When we get caught up in the grind, we tend to miss out on the flow. And jiu-jitsu is all about flow.
Going with the Flow
I remember a few months ago, I was hitting a lift. I wasn’t feeling it. I was grinding it out and wondering if all this energy was worth gaining a few extra pounds on a barbell. I talked to my gym buddy Judd and in a nutshell, he just said “man, sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.”
This was great advice but I grinded it out (ground it out?) anyway. I had an amazing lift. The problem? I was fried.
So it went with heavy strength training. I was always battling CNS fatigue and I never wanted to train (jiujitsu and other things). I didn’t even have much energy for work.
Fast forward another month or two and I start competition shooting. I did my first comp and I was hooked. I thought about how I could incorporate sprints and movement drills so I could complete the courses much faster.
Then… I hurt my rib.
After competition shooting and my rib injury, I changed up my entire lifting/strength/conditioning regimen. I had to explore a bunch of new ideas to keep me in the gym while recovering while also focusing on more movement stuff for shooting. And then it hit me… I found myself “going with the flow”.
The result has been that my strength gains are suffering and I’ve lost a couple of pounds (albeit looking leaner!) BUT I’ve had more energy for training and working on the business.
By “moving away from the resistance” I’ve managed to hit the gym and lift regularly while also keeping up a training regimen. I seem to have solved the training issue.
For my training, it was a matter of getting back to an idea of “going with the flow” and finding opportunities to improve that didn’t remove my odds of training the next day.
As an example, I’ve got a ton of work to do today so I prioritized my work and got some light calisthenics and some light sprints. After I’m done working for the morning, I’m going to the range and working on movement drills.
My “Lazy Sunday” Tools today [Not Pictured Gymnast Rings, Sprints and Firearms]
My goal is not to smoke myself so bad that I can’t get my work done and I don’t train tomorrow.
The empty space for me today is not crushing myself with a lift OR with shooting a competition (I withdrew from one last minute) so that I could have the energy to get important things done and also ensure I was nice and recovered for a heavy day tomorrow. Tomorrow I plan on suffering. [Growth requires suffering].
Get the idea?
So what’s next?
What troubles me this morning that led me to think about my gratitude for jiu-jitsu and a near death (or torn ACL) experience falling down my stairs?
It’s all business related which is beyond the scope of today’s email :)
The short of it is, I’m asking myself this question: where is the resistance? Where is it not?
What am I spinning my wheels on and what actually moves the needle?
These are the questions I’m asking myself as a business owner that have helped me in jiu-jitsu. And I believe the answers lie somewhere in “going with the flow.”
But back to training… Remember:
Move into the Empty Space. Train smarter so you can train harder. Be more efficient so that you can do more.
Housekeeping Recap
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