Our mission statement at Jedi Jiu-Jitsu is “we don’t teach Jiu-Jitsu. We teach life improvement through Jiu-Jitsu.” To make that mission statement work requires a community of like-minded individuals with the same goal. How do you build that? Simple - you treat people how you want to be treated, with respect, kindness, courtesy, and a laugh.
The benefits of that life improvement through Jiu-Jitsu include, mental and physical improvement and health. Jiu-Jitsu gets us in better shape physically and keeps our minds active and learning - thus always growing and improving. Jiu-Jitsu relieves stress. You will be hard pressed to find any other activity that will get rid of stress as well as a friend trying to playfully strangle you.
I was at a Tom DeBlass seminar this weekend and he said something that struck a cord with me. “People use Jiu-Jitsu selfishly without considering what that means”. They use Jiu-Jitsu to get in better shape, stress relief, an escape or release from the everyday world. And thats what we want. But sometimes we forget that in order to reap the benefits, we had others helping us along the way - coaches, teammates and training partners. You rely on them and they rely on you. Thus you have teammates depending on you. Life happens and we cannot always attend class and that is understandable. But there are instances where we may just not feel like showing up and take a night off. Understandable. But what if the people that helped you along the way had not felt like coming in but had the discipline to push through? Where would you be now if they had not? Training on the rough days will always make the good days even better. Plus you never know who you are impacting by just showing up.