Today while in class at my BJJ academy, I discovered a breakthrough past what had been a source of frustration for me for quite some time. I realized that I was finally learning how to learn.
When I first began training BJJ and for a long time thereafter, my mind got lost in the details. Whenever the teacher would demonstrate a new move, I could sense my mind growing confused the more details that were articulated. By the time the instructor had finished demonstrating and explaining the fourth or fifth part of the move, my brain was just wrapping itself around the second or third detail. I’m not sure if this experience is unique to me as a 40 plus practitioner, but it’s frustrating nonetheless.
I suddenly had the realization in class today that absorbing this information has become much more natural and intuitive. I was even able to ask some thoughtful questions and could make observations that my drilling partner didn’t notice.
Why is this? I love studying languages, even if just to learn a few phrases for a short trip. I’m currently studying Japanese, which has entirely different grammar than English. Just as when learning a foreign language one must practice every day, BJJ is no different. It truly is a foreign language with its own syntax and grammar. I suppose I realized this before, but now that I’m finally training with enough consistency to recognize movement patterns and to internalize concepts, I was able to experience this breakthrough.
I’m now developing a better sense of which details to pay attention to, as well as how to organize the steps in my brain in preparation for drilling. As recently as a few weeks ago, I would find that I wasn’t even sure where to look or which details were the most important, I can now begin to file away the information in a manner that gives me enough of a foundation to begin to work with my training partner. It’s getting to be a smaller leap from passive to active learning.
I suspect that age plays a factor here as well. As a 40 plus practitioner, I bring my own inherent biases with me to class with regard to how I think I learn. Also, it’s been much longer since I learned anything in a classroom setting than it has been for many of my teammates at my BJJ academy. I’m realizing that I must always be cognizant of this in order to enable me to keep an open mind and to allow me to absorb the information more easily. I discussed the benefits for Jiu Jitsu for mental health in another post, which you can find here.
All of this just reinforces my belief that BJJ is the perfect sport to practice in adulthood, especially for those of us who are 40 plus, to prevent the mind from aging too quickly. One of the primary benefits of Jiu Jitsu is that the constant drilling and study of new vocabulary keeps our minds in a perpetually youthful state through both physical and mental exercise.
