Happy New year, and thanks for stopping in to Serenity through Sweat. I hope 2020 finds you all in good health, happy disposition and appropriately sweaty.
I was training Jiu Jitsu with the owner of my gym the other day and he said something that has stuck with me well beyond our roll
Brad is a business owner, a black belt masters world champion, an incredibly gifted athlete frequently training with people half his age, and he likes to talk. It’s not uncommon for our training rolls to be 60% rolling 40% talking. And most of it is pleasantries or whatever the topic of the day is, but this particular comment has me thinking about its value beyond a grappling context.
Brad had asked our new head instructor Alec (new to our school and fresh off an ADCC competition) about how to escape a position and Alec replied (I’m paraphrasing) “sometimes if you drop the cake you don’t get to just pick it back up, you have to go back to the kitchen and make a new one”
From a grappling context I totally understood the idea. The best defense for some positions is to never be put there to begin with. We need to learn to sense the danger in positions before it is too late, and if we don’t, then you tap, reset, and try to learn for the next time. But what about outside Jiu Jitsu?
How many times in my personal or work relationships have I “dropped the cake”? And then my initial reaction is that everything is fine, I’ll just pick up the cake off the floor. I know when I screw up, especially if I’ve hurt someone I care about, I want to fix it ASAP. But the cake is on the floor and baking a new one takes time and effort, (plus I’m not a great baker so probably some more practice)
On the same note, if someone I love “drops the cake” am I giving them the opportunity to go back and make a new one, or am I kicking them out of the kitchen?
With the arrival of the new year the majority of us probably have some resolutions to better ourselves, improve our relationships, etc… How are we going to respond when we inevitably drop the cake on one of our new resolutions?
Forgiveness is a tough ask and a two way street. Whether you are forgiving a friend or co-worker, or even forgiving yourself, or you are asking for forgiveness, at some point we all drop the cake. Finding serenity is a much easier journey if we can learn to forgive ourselves and others, (and stay out of any leg reaps).
Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.
