Pick a Goal

I get tired of all the nonsense about how you should, "go for your dreams and everything will go your way."

It's a lie.

Every significant human endeavour contains a massive random component. That's right; I said luck.

Take my progress in Jiu-Jitsu. I am trying to get as high in rank as I can, as fast as I can. My age is pretty advanced for this kind of activity, and there are a limited number for years that I'll be able to do it at full speed.

I started training in September of 2011. My first promotion is one that should have happened around Christmas of the next year. I did extra private lessons, and solo practice, and finished in 9 months. I went for my dream, but luck was involved.

Early on in my training, I started repeatedly injuring my feet. It seemed to be something to do with my old toes not bending properly whenever they got slammed into the mat. Nobody else experienced this. It is certain that more than a few of these injuries involved broken toes. I just duct taped them together, and kept going. After a couple of months, it stopped happening.

If the pain had been more intense, or if my feet hadn't eventually adapted, my training could have ended right there. Logically, it should at least have slowed me down. It did neither.

Then I picked up a cracked rib at Karate. Hurt like a bugger, but like toes, there is no way to cast up a rib. Kept training, with great care. It took a very long time to heal, but eventually did.

If the crack had been a bit more severe, or if somebody had landed hard on it at Jiu-Jitsu, it could well have ended my training. It should have slowed me down, but it didn't.

Got my Blue Belt, and started working through the curriculum that would eventually earn me a stripe. It should have taken about two years. I did it in one-and-a-half. Again, I'd done extra lessons and tons of solo work.

Went and visited the Gracie Academy after that for 8 weeks. Trained for 101 classes with world-class instructors, and rolled with many, many people of every rank. Came home tired but uninjured.

By then, the promotion system was about to change in a manner that would be infinitely in my favour. Eight months per stripe would now be easily possible. It looked as if the new system would make my next promotion happen July, but that isn't how it turned out.

As soon as I got home from Los Angeles, my instructor awarded me a second stripe, which he made official at the earliest date that he could. I got to wear my new stripe in March, and it became “real” in June.

Luck had changed the system for me, and then my instructor's good will had given me an honorary promotion that became real one month ahead of the already-exciting official new system date.

The bad news is that days after my return, I hurt my knee while rolling, bad. This forced me to miss quite a few classes, and then to return while taking it easy. It got re-injured, and I ended up getting an MRI, a number of doctor visits, and a whole pile of physio therapy sessions.

If the injury had been slightly worse, it would have been all over. As it was, the medical advice, and physio, and everything I did to compensate, worked together and I healed up. It seemed to take forever, but I kept training. Major luck for me again.

Got my third stripe in February of 2015, exactly on time to-the-day. Slightly before that date, my hand went into the mat, end on, with both Scott and me on top of it. It got x-rayed, and poked and prodded, and had a visit to a specialist in the city. It didn't stop or slow me, and is also getting better.

I am now less than two months from my 4^th and final Blue Belt stripe promotion.

That will be almost exactly 4 years after I stated training.

If the system hadn't changed, I would be a Blue Belt Stripe Two. I was very lucky that they changed things radically, and I will instead be a Blue Belt Stripe Four.

Any of a myriad of injuries could have stopped or slowed my progress, but I was super lucky in that none of them did.

I am also darn lucky that my old body didn't pick up any injuries of a more significant nature. I figure I'm fortunate to still be training at all.

Am I plowing forward expecting that because I'm pursuing a dream, that things will continue to go my way.

I am not a fan of magical thinking. One bad back roll or foot lock, and I could be done.

Did I push through my injuries with grit and determination? Nope. At every class that I train while taped up, I decide if I should be training that day. The answer is usually "yes." If not, I sit on the sidelines and watch. It was dumb luck that I have had to actually sit out very few times.

What I've done is to work with what I've been given. I did the best I could out of the old rank system, and continue doing the same with the new. Avoiding injury is always in my mind, and when I get one, do the best possible under the circumstances.

I call myself a realist, both in my original goal of getting as far in rank as I can, and in my bumpy road towards attaining it.

If my goal had been, “to get a Black Belt,” it would have been dashed already. The math says that the absolute fastest one could be earned would have me in my 70s. That is just not realistic. I didn't know that when I started, but knew that the road to Black would be very, very long.

If a goal becomes impossible, it's too easy to get discouraged.

So my goal is, “to get as high in rank as possible.” I also have a shorter-term objective to get a Purple Belt. That's only a year or two off, and is therefore almost in my lap, and wouldn't be the end of my road.

And who knows, maybe the winds of luck will blow my way again. Perhaps it will turn out that the Gracie's have a modified standard for geezers, or that they will introduce one.

They have awarded Blue Belts to people much older than me, but I am unaware of any belts of Purple or above being given. Such students face a comprehensive exam process if they are from an outlying school like ours. Students at the Gracie Academy in LA are awarded rank when they are judged ready; no test. Under those test-free rules, old folks can progress to the stars.

For my goal, this isn't necessary. If I cannot get get Black, or Brown, or even Purple then the level below that will be the highest that I can reach.

In any case, the threat can lie in the attainment of the goal.

Take Ronda Rousey. Before her UFC and mma days, she was a high-level Judo competitor. She worked like a fanatic for most of her life leading up to the Holy Grail; the Olympics. She brought home a silver medal. Then what?

She lost direction. She ended up rudderless for a year or two. She drank, and even took up smoking....an Olympic athlete smoking? It took her a long time to find a new dream and regain a sense of stability.

A lot of people have the goal of earning a Blue Belt. They get it, start training half-assed for a while, and then quit.

The phenomenon repeats at Purple, as many make that their goal. Instructors say that this doesn't happen at Brown. It seems those shooting that high, shoot a bit higher to Black. I wonder if it happens at Black, but really have no idea.

It also really helps if your goal just happens to involve something you really like to do.

I really enjoy going to Jiu-Jitsu. If there is something dandy on TV, and some part of me hurts, and I'm tired, and my big chair is soft, I still get up and go to Jiu-Jitsu. JJ only happens during certain hours, and there are lots of other times for all the other things.

Even when I'm training like a nutjob, like I've done for the past week, it only adds up to 14.5 hours. That's about 12% of my waking hours. Normally it's significantly less. That's about the same as a few rounds of golf with lunch afterwards. My wife spends that much time sewing and quilting.

Whenever my body is wracked up, and all I can do is sit on the sidelines and watch, I do that, too. People seem to think this displays some kind of super dedication. Not really. If I stayed home I would just be watching TV or Facebooking, and I enjoy Jiu-Jitsu more. If I can pick up one previously elusive detail, it is worth it.

However, Jiu-Jitsu isn't the ultimate attraction in my life. For example; Helen and I love to travel, and that is something that we can do together, and with friends. The biggest retardant to my Jiu-Jitsu goal is all the holes that travel punches into my attendance.

So here are my thoughts that I think are much better than to, "go for your goals and then everything will go your way."

"Pick a goal that is realistic, and open-ended, and is in an activity that you find to be a hoot, but keep it in perspective, and keep doing it unless something more important pops up, and try to not let injury or illness stop you, but don't be all crazy, and don't let attaining your goal leave you rudderless."

I guess that is a bit too much of a mouthful to make a motivational slogan.