Everything we do, whether or not we care to admit it, is a game.
If you are playing someone else’s game, you will lose.
But with clearly defined rules and outcomes, you can play your own game on your terms. Even when others are playing their game alongside you.
Let’s take a deep look at what that means and how we can win each and every day.
Who’s Game Are You Playing?
Every single day, you are playing a game.
Think about all the requests, favors, proddings, pushes, and direct orders that tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing.
- This is how you should be practicing martial arts.
- The way you’re training off the mat is wrong.
- You have to be doing X stretch to improve Y guard.
- This style of martial arts is better than that.
- You are a terrible person if you don’t cross-train.
- You’re a terrible person if you DO cross-train at another dojo.
Everything is a game to get you to believe in a particular mindset to get you to do something.
This article is a plea to get you to start thinking on your own. But it’s still me trying to get you to do something that I want you to do: believe in what I’m saying and become a subscriber to the Juyukai. 🙂
Ask yourself these two questions;
- Do you know what game you’re playing?
- And, Who’s game is it?
If you don’t know, then guess what? You will never win.
You can mindlessly follow along with the masses. Or, you can take the time to figure out what’s truly important to you in your grappling practice and life.
Here is the formula:
- Play your own game (or else you’re losing)
- Know the rules (understand what it means to win the game)
- Play to win the day (create a solid strategy)
- Play one game at a time (stay focused)
We must decide what game we want to play and, most importantly, focus on playing our own game.
Here’s an example of what can happen when you don’t play your own game.
Imagine showing up at a new grappling academy in a different country after training for nearly 30 years in Japan. You have a vast array of experience in multiple martial arts and competed for many years in all of those arts. However, you’re older now and simply looking to continue training for the love of the art. That was clear back in Japan, and the group you trained with knew and respected that.
Having moved back to the US, you notice that things are different from what you thought. The style is slightly different, and the people are bigger, stronger, and younger than you. In the first class you attend, you find that you are one of the highest-ranking students there. Being the new guy and the other students thinking they have something to prove, you become a target they can use to show their worth to the instructors.
Welcome to my first array back to the United States last year.
Don’t get me wrong. The people were all great individuals, and I remain friends with them.
However, for the first time in a very long time, I found myself playing other people’s games.
It wasn’t that I threw my particular grappling style to the way-side. I continued to focus on that side of things.
In trying to fit in, be the nice guy, and show respect, I mindlessly followed their cues, teaching style, desires for the art, and way of practicing. While there is beauty in being open-minded and receptive to learning new things, it shouldn’t happen at the expense of playing your own game.
By not playing my own game in a way that would have been best for me, I ended up getting injured. The funny part was that it wasn’t even a student of the gym but a visiting student I was practicing with when it happened.
As an older martial artist with so much experience, I failed to follow the one rule when training with others that has served me so well in my own game:
Never let your guard down.
Letting my guard down is precisely what I did, and I paid dearly for it.
As I lay on the ground, not being able to move or breathe, I realized my mistake.
But it was too late.
That back and groin injury kept me from training for months, eventually leading me to leave the gym. I honestly still have trouble with my groin today.
Thanks to that injury, I was forced to take a deep, hard look at what mattered most to me and design the game I should have been playing.
Here’s how I did that.
Creating Your Own Game.
For every game you’ve ever played, there was a construct, rules, and a way to win. Within that existed micro-plays consisting of movements you needed to win to move you toward the ultimate goal of winning the entire game.
Those small micro-plays are the daily battles that must be won each day.
If you win enough small battles, you’ll win the game.
Winning battles comes down to strategy. And the better your strategy for winning the day, the better your chances of winning the game.
Recall those four points I laid out above:
- Play your own game (or else you’re losing)
- Know the rules (understand what it means to win the game)
- Play to win the day (create a solid strategy)
- Play one game at a time (stay focused)
Deciding what game you want to play is going to take some soul-searching. And the way I like to tackle this is by asking myself four sub-questions:
a. What am I training for?
b. What is important to me?
c. Who do I want to train with?
d. How do I want to train?
Clear answers to these four questions create a solid foundation upon which you can design your game and win the day.
Let’s break each of these points down.
The 4 Lenses of Martial Arts
According to the late and great martial arts master, scholar, and writer Donn Draeger, there are four lenses through which to look at the study of martial arts:
- Shiai – Competition
- Goshin – Self-Defense
- Satori – Enlightenment
- Shobu – Killing / Lethal
In his opinion, you should only have a single end-point goal, or else you will end up with none.
This isn’t to say you can’t play multiple games throughout your life. However, if you’re trying to play multiple games at once, you won’t win at any of them. So, the real focus should be on playing one game at a time.
Feel free to interpret this any way you would like. After all, this is about you and only you.
So start by asking yourself this first question:
What are you training for?
Use those four end-point goals listed above to help you have a clear focus point. This will change over time depending on where you’re at in your life and why.
For example, maybe you start off with self-defense, and after becoming very comfortable with it, move on to competition. After many years of doing that, you shift your focus to the enlightenment side of things. This is actually the path I am on. But let’s come back to you.
Let’s say that you want to compete. That’s great! Go deeper and ask yourself the profound reason for wanting to compete. What is it about competition that pulls you in that direction?
Next,
What is important to you?
Within that construct of Competition, does competition mean being the best at your gym? Winning the local tournament? Maybe it’s winning a regional tournament?
Once you have that, go deeper and ask yourself why you made that decision.
Continue to peel back that onion to understand what is important to you and why.
Who do I want to train with?
You need to find LIKE-MINDED people to train with, and the answer depends upon what you decided in your previous two questions.
The most crucial point here is to find those who share similar desires to yourself.
That will make playing your own game much more enjoyable.
Lastly,
How do you want to train?
If you are a 130lb mother of 3 looking to learn some basic self-defense, attending a competition team-based BJJ club open mat once a week probably isn’t in your best interest. Not to say you wouldn’t learn a thing or two. But I’ll venture to say that there is a better way for you to train.
Now that you have some clarity, you can tackle the following:
Know What Winning Means To You
My current martial arts game is playing towards Satori – enlightenment. Don’t take this to mean that I want to become a guru or mythical being. In this context, enlightenment means practicing martial arts in a way that allows one to practice in harmony with oneself and one’s training partners. At this point in my life, it is about finding peace within myself both on and off the mat.
To me, “winning” this game means letting go of the things that don’t serve me so that I can continue to practice and stay on the mat forever.
It is not about winning competitions anymore. That’s a game I played for many years.
It is no longer trying to be the best person at the gym. Nor is it about gathering as many new techniques as I can. Been there, done that.
Winning the day now means focusing on doing less but better.
I am working to cut out the moves that no longer serve me so I can focus on mastering the ones that matter to me.
It’s not about being a champion or proving I’m a badass. Something I notice quite a few people hold in high regard here in the U.S. That’s a topic for another time.
I want to show up and enjoy practicing my martial arts for as long as possible while practicing with people who share similar desires to do the same.
That is why I created the Juyukai practice group.
Rules Of The Game
Knowing how to win the day means knowing the rules. To better understand this concept, here are the rules of my martial arts game.
Rule #1 – Focus On Less
Similar to how I look at my fitness training, I am more interested in doing less, yet in a more dedicated and expansive manner.
The way to focus on less is to find what serves you best.
Does that flashy Instagram technique with 12 steps serve you in your grappling game? Depending on where you are in life and your grappling, it could or could not.
The important thing is to be very clear on what DOES serve you and cut out what does NOT serve you.
Yes, this is very difficult, and I understand the fear of missing out.
However, having that clarity allows us to fully immerse ourselves in the deep study of a single thing and get so good they can’t ignore you. Thank you Cal Newport. 🙂
A great example is my Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu instructor, a 3-stripe black belt in Osaka, Japan. He spent one year, I kid you not, solely focused on getting as good as possible at all aspects of the arm bar. Now, when you roll with him, you WILL get arm barred. He has studied, practiced, and perfected it from all positions, and it’s a thing of beauty.
Does it mean he can only use arm bars? Of course not. But through the intense study of focusing on less and going deeply into the study of that topic, he has expanded his entire BJJ game.
Having less to focus on makes it easier to show up, do the work, and get VERY good.
And speaking of training,
Rule #2 – Train Every Day
Training every day doesn’t mean you should go hardcore, full-out every day. Nor does it even mean meeting up with other people every day to practice together.
You can practice solo movements, research and study a particular concept or technique, and review past videos of yourself. Then, go to class, learn more, drill, spar, practice, and try out what you’ve studied with your training partners.
It is better to do a little each day than cram a lot of training into a single session.
And if you’re having trouble getting in your daily practice, remember that visualization also plays an integral part in skill acquisition.
But,
Rule #3 – Don’t Let It Consume You
Martial arts play an enormous part in my life. But it doesn’t run my life.
Finding a healthy balance between your martial arts and daily life is essential to continue doing this forever.
When I was younger, all I did was train in martial arts in Japan. I worked at a martial arts complex inside a shrine and attended as many classes as possible throughout the day. I did everything from Kyudo, Kendo, Daito-Ryu Aikijujustu, Shorinji Kempo, and I loved it. In the evenings, after my day at the shrine, I would attend Judo practice at the Minatoku Police Station. I was single then, without the responsibilities I now have.
I’m not saying that training all the time is a bad thing. I still think about those days at the training hall in Japan. But if you have a family and responsibilities, ensure you have balance.
Train intentionally and as often as possible, but not at the expense of ruining your life off the mat.
This leads to the final rule I have for myself,
Rule #4 – Know When To Bow Out
As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized I don’t need to win every battle. Instead, I choose the most important battles and let go of the others. I wish this were something I had focused more on throughout my years. You could say I was a bit “intense” back in my day.
Once a week, outside of my regular judo practice, I would attend Judo open mat at the Osaka Castle training hall, called Shudokan. This practice is reserved for black belts only, and there is always a mixture of people from dojos all over Osaka. As a young judo black belt, thinking I had something to prove, I used to pick out what I thought was the toughest guy in the room and ask him to do randori.
Did I get my butt handed to me 99.9% of the time? You bet. Did I learn a lot? You double betcha.
I loved every single minute of it. Unfortunately, that way of training led to my body getting beat up and worn down over the years.
This also relates to a general rule I have about training with other people that I mentioned above;
Never let your guard down.
Not letting your guard down will keep you safe and help you know when it’s time to bow out. Something I should have done when training with that visiting student last year.
Nowadays, I’m particular about who I train with and how I do it. I love to train hard and go live, but compared to my younger days, it’s super chill and more about having fun.
Well, except for when it comes to my two kids. I’m always up to step on the mat and let ‘em try to submit their old man. They’re getting closer and closer to doing that every day!
Now, if you’re young and at that stage where you’re looking to go super hard, then by all means, have at it! But as you age, pick your battles and play the long game instead.
These four rules are what I focus on winning each day:
- Focus On Less
- Train Every Day
- Don’t Let It Consume Me
- Know When To Bow Out
These are my four rules for playing my game of moving towards Satori. Focusing on these four points and striving to win the day helps me enjoy the process and continue to step on the mat for as long as possible.
Winning The Day
The way to the day for me is to make sure that I keep it easy for me to play my game.
My strategy to win the day is based on my first rule:
Focus on less.
To me, this means having a single theme for my martial arts practice. This typically runs for an entire month.
For some people, that might be tough, but it allows me the freedom to go deeper into a specific topic. It makes it easy to show up and know what to do daily since my focus is simply on that single theme.
At the end of the day, I ask myself;
“What did I learn about that thing today?”
Remember that daily training is one of my rules and includes practice and reviewing material outside of class. Keeping it easy to do by focusing on a single theme at a time allows me to go deeper and master it.
BTW, mastery to me means the ability to use a movement pattern or skill in various positions smoothly with precision and proper timing in live situations.
This is how I like to train in Juyukai.
In class, we are currently focused on exploring how to hunt for an arm and maneuver ourselves into the Kimura Control / Key Lock from both standing and the ground.
We look at different situations and positions, using live-based training that takes us through multiple movement patterns. Constraint-based games are what we use in practice as a way to explore the concepts around that single theme.
The attacker gets good at moving to the control position, and the defender improves at either staying away or getting out of it.
Winning the day in class means having a little better understanding of that control position each day.
If you’re wondering, it doesn’t mean you forego other movements. You must still use various moves to get you into and out of the Kimura Control position in live training.
Outside of class, you can use visualization to practice the movement patterns in your head. You can also review sparring footage or live matches in how others maneuvered into the control position.
In other words, you can “train” every day and see significant improvement since you are honing in on a single theme.
That is one example of what I mean by focusing on less.
Of course, this is easier to do if you are in charge of your own practice. If you’re attending class, you probably won’t be able to dictate the lesson. However, you can still play your own game by focusing on a universal theme for your martial art.
You might not know what will be taught in your grappling class each time. However, you can choose a personal theme to focus on. For example,
- Not overextending your legs when playing open-guard
- Not overextending your arms when framing
- Keeping proper posture throughout a technique when drilling it
- Breathing nasally while sparring to keep your movements controlled
- Working towards a specific position when sparring/rolling/going live
Outside of class, you can do what I suggested above by reviewing video of the movement or concept you want to improve. Visualize yourself performing it, and even take the time to shadow spar it.
The main thing is that you need to focus on what YOU can control and not fall into the trap of playing another person’s game.
To recap, for me, it all comes down to these four points;
- Play your own game.
- Understand what it means to win the game – know the rules
- Play to win the day
- Play one game at a time.
Only you can decide the game you want to play and how you want to play it. Answering the questions in this article will help you figure out your game, rules, and what it means to you to win the day.
This is what will help you continue to enjoy your martial arts and keep you on the mat forever.