PERSPECTIVE

WEEK OF 8/31/2026

 

Short one for this week, partially because I’m personally dealing with a week’s backlog to catch up on, and partially because I spent a week completely removed from the day-to-day of the gym.

Here’s the thing: training will never be easy.  If it is, you’re doing it wrong.

Because of this, it’s important to keep the right perspective.  50% of your days training will be “below average” — that’s just a statistical reality.  We can’t define ourselves by our worst days, nor should we define ourselves by our best days.  We should define ourselves by the days we can string together, and by the consistency with which we approach the discipline of martial arts training.

Your absolute worst day of training is someone else’s goal.  It’s so easy to take what we have for granted: our health, our skillset, our teammates, our gym.  But step outside of that day to day grind and realize that it’s an incredible privilege to get out there and do something difficult that provides actual, important growth.

It doesn’t matter whether you “do well” or “do poorly” in practice.  Again, half of the days are going to feel below average.  The trick is to realize that your absolute worst is unattainable for many people, and that winning in practice has nothing to do with whether you outmaneuver your training partners, but rather that you just were able to show up and participate in the first place.