Just like every floundering, spazzy white belt, I went on my jiu jitsu journey and had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Back when I lived in San Diego, before I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which changed my life, I had already been training Muay Thai for a few years. It was quite difficult, as any martial artist from beginners to intermediate knows. In any practice, whatever your goals may be, whether it is a hobby, competition, or career, you can expect to go through the biggest dip of your life when you first start, meaning you’re going to suck…really, really bad. Anyone that has tried anything difficult, knows the frustration that comes with the learning curve which has to be overcome in the beginning, middle, the end…and so on. The work never stops. As you go on with your journey, you will meet the dreaded “plateau” of your skill level commonly known as the “blue belt blues.” And that’s if you can make it past the part of getting smashed everyday as a white belt where statistically, most people quit. Personally, I think it is mostly from the hurt ego that you feel from just straight being terrible at it. Most people can’t bare with it psychologically. Yes, life happens, but let’s face, a lot of it is excuses. If you can make it past that, it gets a little bit easier, because you have a little sense of knowing what you’re actually doing, at least from my experience, You know your inter workings of your body mechanic better, learn more tools, figuring out nuances of what you should and shouldn’t do, depending on the situation. You just have a better overall idea of how it works.
When I first signed up, that is when I met Wesley Burriesci. At the time he was working the front desk to help onboard sign ups for new students and attended to customer service. I saw him every single day, attending each classes in between, as he worked at the gym throughout the day. To me, I pictured it as a movie. Somewhat of a hero’s journey to master a craft. He cleaned the mats. The guy that sticks around because he lived and breath jiu jitsu. He picked the brain from one of the best practitioners in both jiu jitsu and judo, Paulo Fernando. It was just more than working there. As I look back on it, since hindsight is always twenty-twenty, and seeing him now, being the business owner of one of the biggest jiu jitsu gyms in San Diego, He was on a mission. I know this from talking to him on my podcast. For him, it was more than learning the art of jiu jitsu, there was a bigger plan in place, whether he was conscious of it or not at the time, and that is to serve his community and become a big influence in serving others by owning that gym where he was breaded. It was my ultimate pleasure to have him on the podcast, as we went through a conversation of mental gymnastics in philosophies discussing the crossover of life and jiu jitsu. Just like I’ve had the path to my own journey, we shared these and the idea that I took from our conversation, is that we both think in principles.
No matter how you see yourself in life, your thoughts are always going to dictate your actions. Reason being, is thoughts come first, then everything else follows like the emotions you feel and the actions you take. Most of the time, we do everything based on our emotions and justify it with rationality. It only heightens when we get in a state of fight or flight mode as our amygdala in our brain is triggered and kicked into high gear. By then, we’re flooded with sometimes unwanted feelings and our thinking brain shuts off. Being reasonable by then, has gone out the window. That is when it’s great to have principles and philosophies that you live by through your values in your back pocket. I noticed my friend Wes has a great understanding of this concept. To be able to practice, teach, and run the business of a jiu jitsu school at high level everyday, calls for emotional stability. Knowing this from experience, the in’s and out’s of the business is very difficult, especially when you run an establishment with multi programs ranging from kids to adults classes, administrative work, employee management, and just overall being a leader. As I spoke with him, to me, his biggest leverage is what he has learned in jiu jitsu and applied it to the world of business. Meaning he runs it through principles. Examples of principles, just to be clear, is the values you believe in and never go back on. “you are who you surround yourself with”, “actions speak louder than words”, “ always be honest with yourself” etc. When being swayed in different directions, this is the most important concept that you can fall back on, when “how to tutorials” guides fail. The lesson here is to maintain persistence to be able to put on several mask on a daily, whether that is being an instructor, business owner, running events for the community, and all the above. It’s all within your belief system and for that I commend him in high regard and I’m sure his community would say the same.