{"id":4298,"date":"2017-11-22T14:17:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T20:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=4298"},"modified":"2017-11-22T14:34:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T20:34:38","slug":"bad-days-as-valuable-as-good-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=4298","title":{"rendered":"Bad Days As Valuable As Good Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hope you don’t mind some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu thoughts as they apply to life. Ever since I got promoted to blue belt in June, I’ve been experiencing what people call “blue belt blues”. It’s sort of like an existential crisis about hitting a slump in your previously exponential learning curve,\u00a0 the pressure of performing like a blue belt in the gym, and the desire to experiment while failing (aka getting smashed by white belts). This nagging feeling has been following me for a while.<\/p>\n

I always seem to be chasing that “high” of achieving a flow state in sparring. The times I feel my imagination and body\u00a0 moving in sync are rare and extremely gratifying. On those days I walk out of the gym feeling great about myself and my progress. A lot of the time recently though, I feel mentally and physically blocked; like I’m climbing a steep hill, on a hot day in slow motion. I get pretty down on myself and game plan ways to achieve that flow state in the next session.<\/p>\n

I’ve also been cutting weight for an IBJJF No-Gi Worlds competition in mid December: avoiding carbs (pasta, rice, bread) and sugar. This is making me cranky and low energy in practice, which contributes to my frustration in trying to achieve flow. All of these factors have been causing me to question my skill and willpower, also causing me to often leave practice on a mental down note; thinking that the solution is to somehow open up a chain of techniques that will lead me back into feeling like a ninja.<\/p>\n

Last night I came home in this defeated state of mind after practice. My brother was having a party with his climbing buddies, and they were watching a documentary on the first female climber to send a 5.15a<\/a> level difficulty climb. Margot Hayes spent 5 months, day in and day out, failing every day, on a problem that was considered by many to be too difficult for female climbing ability. After 5 months (if I remember correctly) she defeated the problem which was great – but what I found more inspiring was the way she handled her daily grind.<\/p>\n

I had a bit of a light bulb go off in my head in that moment. It’s weird that I can come across all kinds of inspirational quotes on Instagram about “embracing the grind” but most of the time they don’t really connect with what I’m specifically going through. What I realized was that I was putting all my mental rewards into having a Good Day. But the Good Day is a reward that comes from the lottery gods. It’s a thing that happens after you’ve been grinding through days or weeks of Bad and Mediocre Days: days when you feel a little off, you’re trying shit and it doesn’t work, you’re constantly finding yourself fighting from the bottom, or you just feel weak. Those are the days, I realized, that when you still show up and fight, you are exhibiting and growing in your spirit. The fact that you came into the gym and did it when you didn’t feel “on” is a victory. The good feeling of being a gym smasher shouldn’t outweigh the mental reward you give yourself for being a grinder on the days that you feel like your game is garbage.\u00a0 What I’m saying is, feeling like ass is a really good opportunity for testing and rewarding your resolve.<\/p>\n

I think this message is kind of obvious, but it’s weird how it didn’t click with me until I found a way to internalize it through an inspirational climbing video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hope you don’t mind some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu thoughts as they apply to life. Ever since I got promoted to blue belt in June, I’ve been experiencing what people call “blue belt blues”. It’s sort of like an existential crisis about hitting a slump in your previously exponential learning curve,\u00a0 the pressure of performing like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4298\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}