Running on Fumes

Step One in toughening up mentally: Keep grappling even when I feel like I have nothing left.

In Tuesday afternoon's class we did four ten minute grapples. I went against Fabio first, a blue belt next, then a purple belt and then another blue belts. Needless to say, I was tired. In fact, I was tired about six minutes into my first grapple. I remember thinking during my third grapple against the purple belt, "Just keep breathing and moving."

Then, in the night class, I went against all higher belts again: one brown belt, a blue belt and a 3 stripe white belt. I've noticed that since the tournaments my instructors have been going harder on me. Not "mean" hard. The intensity has definitely gone up, though. I take that as a good thing. They wouldn't be doing that unless they thought I could handle it....I hope. ;) Anyway, I got really tired again in my last grapple against one of my instructor, Mario. I was trying to survive, so I just focused on defense. It was either that or get choked out.

This is something the tournaments have shown me. I need to push forward even when my muscles are telling me they're done. It's mind over matter. Yes I'm tired. Yes I'm breathing hard. Yes my arms feel like jello. But I can still keep going. And, if my technique is strong, I can still defend and even get to a dominant position and attack.

The key for me is staying calm. If I start to think about how tired I am, I start to defeat myself. If I just keep my head in the game and keep moving, I find that I can go for a lot longer than I thought was possible.