Controlling your emotions in BJJ

Controlling your emotions in BJJ is vital. Emotional state management is just as important as the techniques you learn. Jiu-Jitsu rewards you when you give attention to “the main thing”. For many of us, not having things go our way can be a frustrating experience that takes us away from that main thing. It can lead to anger or irritation, which then clouds the sort of clear thinking that’s needed for proactive problem-solving. Here at Savarese BJJ Academy (www.njbjj.com), this is something we preach to all our students from the very beginning. In almost all cases, anger and frustration don’t actually help you. They keep you frozen, immobilizing you with no productive outcome. In addition, you can hurt yourself, your training partner or get a reputation as someone people don’t want to train with. It’s hard to get better if you don’t have training partners. An alternative is to try framing whatever problem you face in a way that assumes there IS an answer to be found, even if you can’t see it yet. It may take some time and you may need to recruit others to help. But you‘ll get where you’re going faster by emphasizing an active search for creative solutions, rather than letting your frustration paralyze you.