Jiu Jitsu Training | Training And Mental Engagement

Recently I have been thinking about mental engagement when training Jiu Jitsu. I’ve also been recollecting on my experiences up to this point of training; I have been training for about a year and have a new belt from a recent promotion. It’s been an enjoyable, good road, and I’ve had consistent and strong attendance.

But that’s the rub.

When I am truly honest I feel there have been some classes this past year where I took “getting better” for granted. During these classes I thought of improvement as an automatic process and something that does not take much mental effort. I am in class, I thought, so surely I’ll improve.

I have noticed when I am not mentally engaged in class I don’t get much better – or at least, I improve at a much slower rate. I believe most people – most of the time – are the same. When I refer to “mental engagement” I am talking about concentrating when the instructor demonstrates, taking repetitions seriously, asking questions – doing whatever you need to do to get everything out of it.

In contrast, the default mental state I think we often find ourselves in while training is something I’ll call “autopilot”. In “autopilot”, you are are still in there and participating, but the mental engagement isn’t at as high of a level. Being in “autopilot” is not necessarily a waste of time; you are still putting time on the mat, you still gain muscle memory and toughness, you just don’t learn as much as if you were engaged. I don’t not think there is anything necessarily wrong with attending class with this level in engagement. It’s still a workout and you are still helping your fellow classmates. And as mentioned, it is still time on the mat.

In fact, one of the realities for anyone who cannot train full time and/or has a full life outside of the sport (e.g., the stresses of career, travel, kids, bills, school) is that it is often difficult to consistently be fully engaged mentally in class, every class. We are all human, after all.

Still, after thinking about this I have decided to take mental engagement more seriously. I’m going to focus on being consistently present and more mentally engaged during classes. Hopefully – and perhaps somewhat ironically – I’ll improve at a faster rate.