Life Revelations From A 63 Week Part-Time Jiu-jitsu Training Schedule

Yes, it’s true.

The life around you in this moment reflect its very nature.

If it didn’t you would have achieved this vision you hold within your mind already.

Don’t agree?

Please prove me wrong.

There’s things in life that are quite literally given without having to put zero effort such as natural genetic potential, being born into a particular family, etc.

A significant percentage of the population of the world today were not as lucky compared to others that were birthed into fortunate life positions: due to external circumstances, such as socioeconomic status or access to resources, can influence one's opportunities and challenges in life.

But there is hope for those that have not given up…

It’s one of the most fundamental stoic principles that appears throughout the centuries that still holds true today.

There are two essential factors:

1. Uncontrollable: Feeling thirsty itself is uncontrollable. It's a signal from your body designed to initiate you into action to survive.

2. Controllable: You can't directly control thirst, but you can consciously control your direct response to it by deciding then putting into action on what to drink to satisfy your thirst.

What ultimately lies between the uncontrollable and your reality is controllable factors that directly influence your reality: your response, choices then your decision to act…

UNCONTROLLABLE => CONTROLLABLE [response x options:decision x action] => YOU CONTROL REALITY

*don’t expect to understand this immediate as this a very big concept that has been condensed down to a simple formula - take your time to process it then it’ll come alive when you are ready

*Read more on this related subject here: Philosophy x Jiu-jitsu: How Timeless Wisdom Creates Your Desired Life Experiences

How you respond [gaining control back from the uncontrollable] based on your perspective of objective reality to experience a subjective reality through conscious control…

While the cycle continues again and again.

Now it gets trickier adding further complications:

Throughout evolution it has been proven time and time again that men are more logical than women who are naturally more emotional than men.

As a whole living species on earth: overall human beings are emotional by default.

Simultaneously, we have the ability to increase awareness via conscious thought and communication, both verbally and in writing. Across history, as we consider the countless languages spoken and written, this process results in the accumulation of shared knowledge, contributing to what we understand as the collective consciousness [the current state of knowledge].

How are humans not consciously superior than chimps, dolphins and a few other animals with cognitive ability.

The living proof is all around you.

How else do you think humans could have become the most dominate species in history despite not being the strongest, fastest, largest and every other survival traits animals posses that we don’t.

Despite these innate emotional tendencies rooted in our evolutionary history, the power of conscious decision-making allows individuals to transcend emotional barriers and pursue long-term goals.

True power lies in deciding to act in spite of existing short-term emotions that may interfere with your long-term life outcomes.

Read that again.

Within the domain of your self-awareness: logically you know what to do to get what you want… yet you experience countless emotions that may or may not result in actions aligned to what you must do.

Emotions become a never ending rollercoaster with it’s ups and downs exactly like your overall life experience so far.

The beauty of self-consciousness is you can control your behavior and actions regardless of the emotions present.

In these moments you must focus your attention and energy if you want a fighting chance to change your existing circumstances in order to self-actualize your ideal future.

The current life situation you find yourself in is the culmination of both unconscious and conscious responses, choices, decisions and actions, influenced by existing behaviors intertwined with uncontrollable circumstances.

Simply by engaging in new behaviors that are aligned to your Ideal Self for an extended period of time would result in actualizing your ideal future.

The painful problem you face now is staying consistent in this new behavior [building new habits while eliminating the bad, dealing with limiting self-beliefs, becoming a byproduct of your environment] to actualize this Ideal identity.

This consistency is vital to collect enough life experiences that proves to yourself you have created a new identity.

Your mind wants to see proof… not be told false promises without a result.

What exactly is it that stops you from engaging into the Ideal Self’s behavior to create this new identity?

YOUR #1 WORST ENEMY: THE RESISTANCE

The Resistance manifests in various forms, from self-doubt and procrastination to fear of failure. Its insidious nature undermines our confidence and saps our energy, leaving us trapped in a cycle of frustration and self-sabotage.

Understand: your short-term emotions does not give a single fuck about you achieving your most desired life outcomes as it only care about one thing:

Survival

Your primal instincts uses your emotions to ensure your survival using these two core factors:

1. Seeking Pleasure

2. Avoiding Pain

If anything gets in the way of that your primal instincts kick in - asking your mind for help by providing you every logical and justifiable excuse in the book - making sure you ‘survive’ and stay in your comfort zone.

And with modern societal digital and physical infrastructures, civilization's default is comfort to the point of atrophy [if we strictly allow emotions to dictate our actions and behavior in life].

The Resistance only grows stronger the more you feed this invisible self-sabotaging force with excuses and given into it’s power of you.

In this never ending battle with The Resistance…

Self-Discipline emerges as our beacon of hope.

Equipped with this weapon we can push through discomfort and uncertainty, reclaim control over our actions and steer ourselves towards our desired outcomes and life experiences.

This is the beauty about Self-Discipline as its not something you are either born with or not.

Self-Discipline is a skill that can be developed exactly like how you learned how to read in english.

Billions living among us today adopt this societal false narrative with zero hope for achieving a desirable life experience.

Society blindly accepts that the uncontrollable cannot be controlled. When in reality you can control the uncontrollable by using your perspective.

Changing Current Reality = [Ideal Behavior] x [Self-Discipline] x [Time] => Desired Life Outcomes + New Identity

*Read more on this related subject here: Philosophy x Jiu-jitsu: How Timeless Wisdom Creates Your Desired Life Experiences

JIU-JITSU PART-TIME TRAINING SCHEDULE:
63 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS [0 REST WEEKS]

• 5x Pre-training workout/drilling & stretching

• 5x Jiu-jitsu training sessions

• 5x Post-training workout/drilling & stretching

• 5x Post-training ice bath recovery sessions

• 3x Flexibility & Mobility sessions

• 3x Strength & Conditioning sessions

• 3x Jiu-jitsu drilling sessions

• 1x Rest day on Saturdays

The “secret” to such a massive accomplishment?

Public Accountability: I checked into every session via posting on my personal IG stories on time to not break my streak.

I’m another human being just like you. Of course there were multiple times I didn’t feel like going to the next session but… I knew people were watching.

This lead me to tap even more into my Self-Discipline because I had ‘skin in the game’ by putting my reputation on the line so it felt like a lot was at stake.

Completing the task was bigger than myself… and quite frankly nobody ever regrets completing a session anyways so it becomes a win-win situation.

Jiu-jitsu is a very physically demanding hobby so getting an injury is a likely possibility which would disrupt the ongoing streak.

Knowing this I made the intention to go from passive training to Deliberate Training with the following outcomes in mind:

1. Drastically reduce the risk of injury

2. Improve skillset as fast as possible

3. Invest the time I made available to jiu-jitsu to make these two happen

…and that’s exactly what I did.

Was I doing this to prepare for a competition to prove that I’m better than others?

No, I was only doing it because of my love and passion for training jiu-jitsu [with the added bonuses of the body transformation and beneficial learning experiences to life beyond the mats].

As I delved deeper into my deliberate training approach, I began to uncover profound insights into human nature, drawing from my unique perspective as a philosopher training jiu-jitsu.

With this improvement rate my perspective offered me a fresh lens through which to observe the training environment, revealing intricate details and subtle dynamics that I had previously been unaware of.

Every time I step onto the mats now - no matter where I am currently traveling in the world - it feels like I’m in a foreign zoo with primates that I can verbally communicate with as we train together in this physical language called jiu-jitsu.

As you can imagine getting to learn about a country’s culture through the art of war is quite the experience.

With this perspective in mind: I don’t understand why anyone would quit training jiu-jitsu…

Multiple training partners asked what was the one main takeaway that they could implement to reduce injuries and make fast improvements like I did during this experiment.

As simple as it sounds: be extremely selective in who you train with.

There’s a lot more to it but by selecting safe training partners that you trust [reducing the risk of injury down to nearly zero] my jiu-jitsu skillset grew at an exponential rate in correlation to the consistency linked to my developed level of Self-Discipline x Momentum that follows.

Being in this unique Flow state - both on a macro and micro level while the intensity fluctuates - I was able to pick up on such nuance I never seen before as my mind familiarized itself in an abstract physical art form.

Almost like magic my body went through a radical transformation because I perseverance through all the justifiable excuses for me to skip a session. Truly amazing what the body is capable of if one simply allows the body to adapt to the conditions regardless of mind’s excuses.

What’s even more fascinating and mind boggling to consider:

Every single jiu-jitsu practitioner is a unique individual that has a completely different experience compared to the next and this is a recipe for nothing but great conversations and relationships.

SELF-DISCIPLINE: THE ESSENTIAL SKILL TO LIFE

By tapping into the raw power of your Self-Discipline you can apply it to quite literally anything you want to achieve.

Self-Discipline was used to complete an immersive 63 week part-time jiu-jitsu training schedule.

Self-Discipline was used to read at least one hour every single day for over a decade.

*more proudly I can say I have not eaten McDonalds for even longer haha

Self-Discipline was used to quit my dependency on alcohol to socialize for a year to develop my sober personality.

Self-Discipline was used to work 100 hour work weeks to build my 1st successful business after 9 experiments.

Self-Discipline was used to track my time for over a year.

…and now my Self-Discipline will be used to write at least one article per week for you to read.

*If you haven’t already, I would highly recommend you sign up for the POJ Entry newsletter to receive new thought provoking articles sent directly to your inbox every week - sign up here: https://www.philosophyofjiu-jitsu.com/subscribe

The process to actualize your most desired life outcomes is simple:

1. Identify what your Ideal Self’s behavior connected to your most desired outcomes and life experiences

2. Leverage Self-Discipline to engage in Ideal Self’s behavior

3. Allow time to runs it’s nature course until you become your Ideal Self

This is exactly what I did to complete a 63 week part-time jiu-jitsu training schedule and the rewards from such a unique life experience are still providing a tremendous return on time invested, including not only my jiu-jitsu but every area of life, still to this day.

Many nuance lessons and discoveries have been collected after completing this milestone using Self-Discipline:

• optimized time management is absolutely necessary to not only maximize your day’s productivity but your overall life experience

• it’s actually scary how much time people waste without being aware

• so many people wait around for unreliable emotion called ‘motivation’ to spike them into action [do yourself a favor and remove it from your vocabulary]

• be laser focused solely on one metric: the process while tracking progress towards an ambiguous goal that requires time to pass

• people’s self-limiting beliefs single handed destroy the possibility to accomplish their goals to make a dream a living reality

• a significant portion of society is not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to engage in the Ideal Self’s behavior… even if it’s their biggest passion and number one focus

• many remaining stuck and feeling confused as to why nothings changed is due to a misalignment to their thoughts, words and actions

• anyone can experience any life experience they want if only every second of their time is aligned to a purpose

• society’s technological infrastructure is scientifically designed to distract you from your priorities… the price you pay are your goals

• and so much more…

Now comes the ultimate question:

“How do I develop self-discipline exactly?”

I’ll get into extremely nuance details in a future article “A Practical Step By Step Guide: How To Build Self-Discipline [So Easy A Child Does It]” so be sure to sign up now to the POJ Entry newsletter down below so you’ll get it in your inbox the moment its published.

See you on the mats,

POJ