Sometimes the Bear Eats You
January 26, 2007

Wednesday, my Jiu Jitsu instructor crushed me. But good. He beat me standing up, sparring. And he tapped me out at least a half-dozen times on the ground. He pushed me around like I was a white belt. I know he's a world champion, but still.I've been at this for eight years. I should be able to hold my own.

It hasn't always been like this. For a while there - when he was focusing on stand-up skills and I was sticking to submission wrestling - I could go 10 minutes with only a single tap-out. Once or twice, I went without a tap. And every so often, I passed his guard - something even black belts rarely do with my instructor. But that time has passed. He is competing at such a high level now that he must have every aspect of his game at 100 percent. And he can't waste time fooling around. If he's going to train, he's going to train hard. And if that means beating his most loyal student, that's the way it's going to be.

I am telling myself that this will be good for me.

' Yesterday was frustrating, because I never got to do the catch-up writing I had planned to do.

So when I woke up today, I resolved to have a strong day.

At noon, JM came by to run my through my strength and cardio training. We are working on a new routine that combines calisthenics and sprinting. It's pretty brutal, but I have been making some gains from it and so was looking forward to a good hour.

What happened was not good. It was non-stop torture. JM gave me a new set of challenges that seemed like they should have been easy, but it was murder. After 20 minutes, I was totally beat. After 40 minutes, I could barely move.

As I lay on the ground sweating and gasping for breath, JM looked down at me and shook his head, smiling.

"Damn," I said. "I thought I'd do better than that."

"Sometimes you eat the bear," he said, "and sometimes the bear eats you." That phrase has been running through my head all day.

There are days when I feel like I can accomplish everything well And there are days when I feel like I can't do anything well or right.

When you have a really tough day, you do feel like you've been eaten by a bear. And sometimes that makes you feel like quitting. But if you push the doubt out of your mind and keep going, you usually find that your luck and your performance change for the better. And then you have a day when you feel like you "kicked ass and took names," as Matt Furey likes to put it. You have a day that makes you feel like you've eaten the bear.

To achieve anything exceptional, you have to recognize that sometimes the bear will eat you. But to accomplish any important objective, you have to learn to accept the setbacks that are an inevitable part of any journey.

If you go into a new endeavor expecting that each effort will show better results than the one before, you will be thrown for a loop when that doesn't happen.

The setbacks are just part of the process. You move forward two steps and back one. Sometimes the backward step feels like more than a step. Sometimes it feels like you've been mauled.

Begin with the right attitude and you will end up with more success. Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.

posted by M. Masterson @ 2:00 PM,

4 Comments:

At 7:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had a BEAR of a day yesterday. I have to tell you that I absolutely LOVED this post.

It was very timely for me. Very timely indeed.

Thank you for your post. I look forward to reading your blog everyday.

 
At 11:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michael, I'm thrilled that you take BJJ! It's an ageless sport that the world is starting to embrace.

Now I understand your post last week about USAToday covering NHB fighting.

I missed the poker wave, but I've put myself squarely in front of MMA with my new online store and fighter management company.

Good luck rolling next time, hope you tap him with a triangle!

JuJitsu Training DVD

 
At 9:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice post. Sometimes the bear catches us by surprise, sometimes we are the bear feasting without effort. So true.

 
At 5:05 PM, Blogger Ulli...The Wall Street Bully said...

Perfect timing Michael. The bear got to me yesterday. As there certainly will be days like this again, there will also be those where you're simply operating in the "zone."

No sense in worrying about a bad day, I simply go on and forget about it.

Ulli...

 

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