Navel-gazing re: attitude

Someone who has agreed to fight you has agreed to serve as part of your test, your struggle for knowledge, your quest to make yourself better. –Sam Sheridan


As I'm sitting around thinking "What I wouldn't do for a piece of pizza- or ten", the inevitable "Why am I doing this?" questions start circling around in my head.

My recent batch of comps, I did specifically because I wanted to learn how to deal with the adrenaline dump. While I won't say that comps no longer make me nervous, They are now making me much less nervous than before. So I'm not sure I'm still making decent progress on that goal.

I do not enjoy competing, my record is phenomenally lousy.... and while I do feel that I learn things every time, I find myself once again wondering if it's a worthwhile pursuit.

I was well aware before even starting BJJ that the major limiting factor in my martial arts progress is my own defeatist mindset. I don't really know how to fix this. Continuing to train, and continuing to compete, thinking that at some point all the work is going to result in enough increased skill to make me feel more competant... it's not working.

I have made something of an effort in the last two years or so to be slightly less negative in my training blog- to mention more positives, and cut myself down less often. But it's not enough. To truly tackle this hurdle, it's going to take something else (probably multiple something else's). I don't know what. All I know is that it wouldn't be easy, and I feel exhausted just contemplating the question.

Yet if I am truly serious about my training, and not just going through the motions, I can't ignore this forever. It's the elephant in the room, and it's looming larger and larger. It's not just going to go away, ad I'm going to be stuck behind it as long as I fail to deal with it.

I'm having a sense that picking up Kung Fu again might be part of the key. I have really dropped the ball on this. It's hard for me to continue training without a teacher. Also, just the thought of Kung Fu is wrapped up with so much emotional trauma that I'm terrified that working forms again- tearing that scab off, so to speak- will result in being pulled further into the Black Hole of nightmares and depression. It's the same fear that working on art is igniting- only more direct; closer to the belly of the Beast. Just the thought of doing forms makes my stomach roll over queasily.

While there is certainly a spiritual component in BJJ- and that's mostly about what you put into it- so far I haven't gotten it to trip my spiritual triggers in the way that Kung Fu did.

I do not know how to proceed. But "ignore" is becoming more and more unworkable.