Episode #36 - Returning With Intention: Letting Go Of The Need To Be Good At Jiu-Jitsu

A late night drive after class can turn into a spiral: replayed rounds, imagined judgments, and the quiet pressure to be great at jiu-jitsu. We decided to confront that pressure head on and rebuild a healthier way to train one that trades validation for longevity and brings back the simple joy of learning. With a renewed plan for 2026 and a mix of solo reflections and real conversations across the community, we’re focusing on depth, consistency, and the kind of honesty that keeps people on the mat.

We unpack where pressure hides: comparisons that happen even when you try to avoid them, highlight reels on social that sell the illusion of straight-line progress, and unspoken academy expectations that make you feel like you should win certain rounds or never ask basic questions. We look at how identity can twist a rough night into a referendum on who you are, and how that fear narrows your game until play disappears. The antidote isn’t to stop caring; it’s to redefine what “good” means. Think awareness over dominance, sustainability over spikes, and honest reps over curated outcomes.

You’ll hear practical ways to train lighter and improve faster: set a single intention per session, protect curiosity, and zoom out beyond a bad day or week. We talk leg locks, inversion experiments, and why giving yourself permission to be “bad” for a while is often the fastest path to real skill. We also touch on culture why humility wins, how positive leadership makes progress feel possible at any age, and why patience is baked into the belt system for a reason. If you’re competing this year, you’ll get a balanced mindset for pursuing medals without letting pressure steal your sleep.

Subscribe, share this with a teammate who needs it, and leave a review with the single intention you’ll try next class. 

Chapters

• 0:40 New Year, New Intentions
• 2:47 Format And Schedule For 2026
• 4:47 Naming The Quiet Pressure
• 7:19 Comparisons, Social Media, And Timelines
• 8:39 Unspoken Academy Culture And Expectations
• 10:03 Identity Traps And Fear Of Looking Bad
• 12:33 How Pressure Narrows Your Game
• 14:39 Goals Versus Expectations
• 16:25 Redefining What “Good” Means
• 19:20 Letting Go Restores Play And Curiosity
• 21:55 Permission To Be Bad And Experiment
• 24:15 Single-Session Intentions And Zooming Out
• 26:24 Patience, Humility, And Culture
• 30:10 Competing Without Pressure And Community CTA
• 36:47 Sharing, Staying Consistent, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:40

Welcome everyone to the first episode of Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu in twenty twenty-six. And before we jump into today's episode, I want to take a minute to catch up. And if you've been listening to Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu for a while, you probably noticed toward the end of 2025 it's been a little quiet. And uh I want to be really clear about something up front. I didn't disappear because the passion went away, or that I was closing down the podcast. If anything, it's it's quite the opposite. And sometimes, you know, life asks you to train differently for a season. And that's something that I've been going through with work, life, family, kind of that that master's life. 2025 was a year of uh work and recalibration for me on the mat, off the mat, and uh behind the mic here. And rather than just force content out there to stay consistent, I made the decision to take a few uh few months off and listen and get really clear about what I want the podcast to be moving forward, and that brings us here, brings me here to 2026, and I'm genuinely excited about what is ahead. And this year, you know, caffeinated jujitsu. I'm coming back with more intention. We're gonna have more depth. We've already, I've already got a calendar full, at least through the first quarter of guests that have committed and are coming on, coming up very soon in an episode. I'm not gonna spoil the surprise episode, but have another icon and legend that is gonna come on and share with us. And we're just gonna have overall more consistency without losing those honest, real conversations that our beloved jujitsu community is is built on. And the plan for 2026 for me and caffeinated jujitsu is is simple and sustainable. I'm going to look to try to do about two months or two episodes a month, and it's going to have a mix of solo reflections like this episode and some thoughtful conversations with coaches, competitors, gym owners, and we're going to really be, I'm going to really be as consistent as I can with the White Belt Chronicles. I've had a lot of people ask me when that was going to kick back off. So just really everyday practitioners who live this art in their own way and make sure that on the podcast, we're not creating a lot of noise, but having more meaning behind the content that that we're putting out. We'll talk about uh jujitsu, but also identity and discipline, pressure, community. Uh, we're gonna talk about longevity. Have a whole series uh planned for uh longevity. That's something that that I worry about. How can I keep myself healthy at my age and continue on all the way till I receive my black belt and beyond, and why so many of us keep coming back to the mat even when it's hard. And if you stuck around, thank you. And if you're new here, welcome. This podcast is for people who train because jujitsu gives them something that they just can't quite explain, but wouldn't give up for the world. So thanks for giving me a few moments to catch up this evening, and um, let's get into this episode's topic. So before though we get into anything technical or philosophical today, I want to kind of just sit in a feeling that a lot of us know, but we rarely name. We can really put our finger on it or say it out loud. And that feeling is when you're driving home after training and replaying rounds in your head, not because you're excited, but because you're actually frustrated. You start thinking things like I should have done better. Why did my training session feel so sloppy? Why does it feel like everyone else is improving faster than me? That's something that I dealt with for a long time. And what makes it tricky is that nobody else said anything. No coach called you out, no teammate criticized you. It all happened. This whole conversation has happened quietly and internally. And that's what I mean by by quiet pressure, because that's what it is. That's that's the thing that we can't name. It's this quiet pressure to be good at jujitsu. And jujitsu doesn't yell at you, it it kind of whispers, it plants little doubts slowly in your mind. And if you if you don't pay attention, those whispers can turn into beliefs about yourself. So today isn't about fixing your guard, or sharpening your submissions, it's about understanding the pressure that shapes how you train and why you as an individual in your individual journey shows up. You know, I think one of the hardest parts of jujitsu is that you're sometimes surrounded by these mirrors, right? Every role is a comparison, even when you don't want it to be. You notice who taps you, who you can't pass, other guard, who seems absolutely untouchable, who maybe gets coached differently. I've seen that before and kind of felt a different way about it, you know. Sometimes I have seen well perceived those that are more athletic, who pick up pick up the techniques faster and kind of use them more than others, maybe get a little more coach time. It's again a perception, more than likely not a reality. Um, but we see that and we can get frustrated. And even if we or if you tell yourself I'm focusing on my own journey, your nervous system is still taking notes. And then you add social media into mix into the mix, which I'm guilty of of staying on the the jujitsu Instagram pages and all of that. You know, you don't see the years of frustration, you don't see the injuries that people have had to overcome, you don't see the bad days, you see these quick highlights of them being super successful and hitting every sweep and submission. You see the final outcome, you see the medals, you see the promotions, you see the confidence, and without realizing it you start to develop this mental timeline or start believing that there's a timeline that you're missing. I think another besides trying to follow this un uh realistic and non-existent timeline that we've created for ourselves, another huge source of pressure is is unspoken academy culture. And no one says it directly, but you kind of feel it. Sometimes you feel when it's expected that you should win certain rounds. And sometimes in your school you can feel when you're supposed to lead, you feel when you're supposed to know something, and the problem is those expectations are rarely aligned with the reality of what your academy's culture, what your school's culture really is, which is everyone's life's different and everyone's journey is different, and no one in there, but probably the professor has any type of expectations put on them coming in the door, starting their journey. And you know, I I've seen purple belts and brown belts come in and have bad days and be submitted by lower belts, or you know, come in and not roll at all. Everyone's life, like I said, is different, and we all have different stress. Our bodies recover different. We all have different, you know, external outside of the gym responsibilities. But the the mat does not show you context, it only shows you outcomes. And I think that that is where the pressure grows on all of us. And you know, we we get caught in this uh identity trap. And you know, it's almost like training becomes our self- our self-worth. And you know, something I really want you to sit with is the moment jujitsu becomes part of your identity, it can gain, or it gains the power to hurt you or disappoint you. And that doesn't mean identity is bad, it just means it can be powerful in a positive way or a very negative way. And when someone asks you, What do you do? and jujitsu is part of your answer, the stakes change. You know, now losing feels like failure, it doesn't feel like just fun learning or something you're doing on a Saturday or a weekday evening. Now tapping feels like embarrassment, and now bad days feel like proof that you are not who you thought you were on the mats, and this shows up in very subtle ways. You know, you hesitate before rolling with someone newer because you don't want to look bad. You avoid asking questions during technique that's being taught because you don't want to be perceived as someone who should already know something. You feel exposed when you're struggling. But the truth is, the real truth is everybody struggles. All of us are struggling. Every level doubts themselves. And every long-term practitioner has questioned, you know, quitting at some point for this kind of quiet pressure that I'm talking about. I do believe it's something that fades over time. I know I don't feel it as much as I used to. There was a time when I think when I was crossing over from maybe my third or fourth stripe as a white belt and then into I guess the early few months of my blue belt, I consistently felt this pressure. And everything that I'm talking about here is is all things that I've thought of and thought about and felt myself. And, you know, I think silence by not talking about it with say your coach or your favorite training partner or what have you, you know, silence can make that pressure heavier. And, you know, I think it's important that we identify or that we're able to identify how the pressure shows up on the map and how it can turn into this fear-based training. And you know, when pressure takes over, training stops being playful. You stop experimenting with new guards, you stop taking risks, you stop allowing yourself to be bad at things. You get so focused on wanting to win the round and save face that you train defensively, and not defensively in any any technical sense, but but emotionally, right? The frustration seeps in and it makes the round even harder or it makes the competition round even scarier, and you hold on to you know top position longer than maybe you should. You avoid these these guard retention battles, you don't chase submissions that might fail. And over time, over time, our game gets very, very, very narrow and very siloed. Another way pressure shows up is emotional fatigue, and you're physically capable, but you're just mentally drained and you dread certain rounds. You leave training feeling empty instead of energized. I know there's been a few times in my journey where I've I've, you know, left early, or I've just not completed the whole class, or I've set out rounds that I knew I had plenty in the gas tank left. I just I just did not feel that energy and electricity to to train. And that's a sign that you're carrying expectations into every session. Now, I want to take a moment and and say that I I do feel in every training session, whether you train two times a week, three times, four times, five times, whatever, that you should have goals for your training session. If it is to learn a new technique and get every step right and feel really comfortable with the move that's being taught during that training session. Or if it's, you know, you want to play a certain guard or you want to go for a uh certain sweep, that's goals. What I'm talking about is these expectations to go in and and win every round that you know that's that's kind of impossible, that you set the expectation that every submission that you want to land will land, that you will get every takedown. Like expectations when they're mixed in with goals, right? When I guess when goals become expectations, expectations are very heavy, very, very heavy, and pressure makes every role feel like a test instead of a lesson. And when everything feels like a test, buddy, burnout is not far behind, I can tell you that. And burnout, especially mental burnout, which is way worse in my opinion than physical burnout because your your body repairs uh a lot quicker than your mind, in my experience, and it's very hard to get through that mental burnout. So I think we also need to think about what or we need to redefine what good actually means, and I think good actually means maturing in jujitsu. At some point we have to mature in our definition of success on the map, and because chasing validation through performance, chasing validation through your coach or your professor, chasing validation from I mean, even your your Madden Forcer or your you know top A technical players in your your gym? It's it's just exhausting and mentally exhausting. You know, what if being good meant awareness instead of dominance? What if being good meant understanding your weaknesses and still showing up? What if being good meant knowing how to train sustainably for decades, not months? I every gym I've ever trained at has had, you know, at least one or two, maybe more, higher belt uh uh practitioners in them. And when I say older, I mean I'm talking, you know, mid-60s, late 60s. Uh there were a couple that were in their early 70s and have been doing it for decades. And that, like, what if at the end of the day we take all the expectations, we take all of the pressure off and say, you know what? If I'm still training when I'm 60 or 65 or 70 or whatever, then I have been successful at jujitsu. You know, there's a very quiet confidence that comes with accepting where you're currently at and taking care of yourself so you can reach where you're going to be once you have fully matured in your jujitsu journey. It's something that I look forward to. You know, I'm I'm probably right at three years now. I've got a long road ahead of me. And, you know, coming to this realization of um relieving the pressure to be good or better than someone or meeting a expectation um that's not achievable, that's not a goal. Now that I've kind of removed that from my journey, my training has become fun again, my roles have become zero stress, it's all learning, and I've actually been doing a lot better, you know. I've taken on I've taken on the past month or two, or at least the past month, working leg locks. That's something new and uncharted for me, and it's exciting. And going into it, I didn't put any pressure on myself and say, Well, you know, Joe, you're a three year blue belt, and you should know uh heel hooks by now. You should be doing really well with ankle locks. I didn't put any of that junk, any of that crap on myself, and it has been nothing. But you know, fun, interesting, addicting. It's really added another layer to my, or it's starting to add another layer to my jujitsu technique and skill set and game plan. So yeah, it's it's just real exciting when we take that that that pressure off. And I think it's about acceptance too. I think acceptance says things like, This is my body today, this is my skill set right now. This is my season where I'm at. I think everyone goes through these seasons multiple times where they feel like this pressure to be good, where they feel like they're not improving. And I think from the place of removing these expectations and redefining what we feel or think about what good is and what good looks like. I think it's from this place that growth, our growth, my growth, your growth will actually accelerate. So, you know, remove that that junk because now, you know, you're you're not training to protect your ego, you're back to that that basic of your training to learn. And learning thrives in safe environments where pressure does not exist, where good is properly defined. And that is the place. If you're out there and you're listening to this and this is something that's hitting home and you've been struggling with this, when that pressure's gone, when we let go of that quiet pressure, we're kind of returning to to play, right? We're returning to that fun side of jujitsu and letting go of permission. This may sound like super counseling, psychiatrist, whatever, which I'm none of those, neither of those, but letting go of pressure can start with just individual personal permission, you know. Give yourself permission to be bad, permission to experiment, permission to train like a student, someone fresh off the street and right onto the mat, right? Think back to that passion that you had. And, you know, maybe this is something that higher belts are listening to and feeling this pressure to be good. And I think getting to that mindset of think like a student, be okay to experiment, be okay with I'm air quoting here in Sadi, you can't see me, but giving yourself that that permission to be bad. I know putting this in practice for myself. So I've always found inverting to be just a fascinating technique and aspect of jujitsu. I love it when I'm watching an IBJF competition, black belt level, and they they start just inverting like crazy into armbars and triangles. And it's something that I've always avoided. And because I was feeling the pressure, the quiet pressure of, well, if I try something, I need to be good at it. I need to, you know, everyone needs to see how awesome I am. I have purposely veered away from it and never tried it. But now, over the next couple months, I'm working on a lot of inversion techniques and inverting and specifically from lasso. I love lasso guard, but you know, some time ago I quit playing it because I was under this quiet pressure to be good. Uh, at the time, I was one of the only ones that seemingly in the academy was doing some lasso stuff. I really like Marcus Tonoko. If you get a chance to check out his instructionals on BJJ Fanatics or YouTube, he's got an awesome YouTube channel. He does a lot of lasso, but he also does a lot of inverted or inversion from the lasso. So, long story short, now that that quiet pressure is gone, and I have made a commitment to relieve that and release that this year, who knows? Maybe inversion and inverting becomes a big part of my game and kind of changes uh a lot of my success on the mat. I'm excited to see how it goes. I'll have to keep you updated. I think also one of the most freeing things that you can do is is go into class, go into a training session with a single intention. Maybe that one goal is not to win. It's not to dominate, it's just to explore maybe that one idea that you set for yourself. Maybe my single intention looks something like I am going to do one successful inversion or inverted triangle attempt in my first couple of roles or by the end of class, right? Something that you know you can fail at, but you still um have reached your goal, or whatever that intention is, you it has given you no pressure because who cares what the outcome is? It's you're trying something new. You're not trying to win, you're not trying to dominate, you're just exploring this intention, this idea, and pressure dissolves when curiosity shows up. And I think that that is um a practice that I'm definitely going to practice what I preach and focusing on those single intentions when I train. Another powerful shift is taking a broader look at things, kind of zooming out and ask yourself, you know, will this round matter in five years? Uh will this bad day define my journey? Will this bad week or even month really define my entire jujitsu journey? And almost always that answer is is gonna be no. I think that's one of the things that I love so much about jujitsu, is there's a lot of things, but especially that, and this this isn't a short-term martial art, right? It's not you in six months, you're a black belt and a master, or like this is a lifetime commitment journey. It's with you from the time you start, you know, and if you if you stay with it to the time you're physically no longer able to be on the mat. And then it's still part of your life through the community, right? And I think understanding that and keeping that in focus will help you relieve this this quiet pressure. The mat's gonna always be there, your teammates will be there, and growth will still be possible, always possible. But only if we let go of that weight that we have never been meant to carry. I think it's human nature sometimes to put added pressure on ourselves. Um I've done this throughout my my personal work career. I did it in the military. Probably did it even as a kid and didn't realize it. But I I think that we have to be aware of that. And we need to keep this this pressure in check. And you know, K before I wrap this up, I want to leave uh you with something I f something that's simple, but I I feel important. And that's if you're feeling this quiet pressure to be good at jujitsu, it does not mean you're failing, you're far behind, you're not progressing, it means in my opinion, that you care, and caring is what keeps people coming back to the mat long after the excitement fades, because that initial excitement fades. It does 100%. I never thought it would for me, and it did, and it caught me off guard. But I care about jujitsu. Jiu Jitsu is part of my life, it's permanent, it's not my identity anymore, but it's it's woven into who I am as a person. And most people quit this you know, quit this art quietly. They don't announce it, they don't make a big decision, they just slowly stop showing up because the pressure starts to outweigh the joy. So if you're still here, if you're still tying that belt two, three, four times a week, if you're still walking into the academy even on days you feel off, or you're just not feeling it at all, and that matters. You don't have to win every round. We don't have to prove anything to anybody. That's not why we got into jujitsu jujitsu. We didn't go to a trial class, walk in and say, I am here to snap necks and cash checks, right? I I came to join jujitsu because I wanted to beat literally everybody in this building. No. We came to jujitsu because we heard it was a great community, we heard that it was great for our physical and mental health, we heard that it was a great martial art and self-defense to learn, and we don't have to live up to some invisible standard that nobody, none of us, as a community, at least I didn't get the memo, if there is one, that that this invisible invisible standard that nobody ever agreed on. You just we just have to keep showing up with honesty, with passion. Jiu Jitsu doesn't reward perfection, it rewards patience, right? That's the entire makeup of the belt system, right? Of the promotion system in jujitsu. It's it's patience, consistency, and giving a damn. Rewards jujitsu rewards humil humility. I'm so glad that a majority of our gems that exist now understand that ego has no spot, no room, is not welcome. I s we see all the stuff that's going on with IG, with the the SA and all these predators that are on the mat, and they're immediately once it comes out, they're they are being held accountable. And I know that's I went a little right quick, but it's the most humble person is, in my opinion, the person that is going to improve the fastest, that is going to get the most out of the training session, the others are going to want to be with. I I don't know if any of the listeners know a gentleman by the name of Ian McPherson. Ian is an Alliance black belt champion. Uh, he trains or he runs the jujitsu program out in Ackworth, Georgia, the Alliance out there. And the positivity that Ian Professor uh McPherson puts off, just being around him, his students, and the academy is in a positive, vibing, no pressure place. Just him being who he is and being humble. And um, it rewards jujitsu rewards people like that. And people who are willing to stay in the process long enough to be changed to be changed by it. Right? Not expect results overnight, every week, over a year. Right? It may take a couple of years. I feel a lot more confident in it three years, obviously, than I did two years or one year or six months in. But it's because over time I've allowed myself to little by little relieve some of that pressure.

SPEAKER_02: 33:26

So good chat.

SPEAKER_03: 33:30

Next time you feel the pressure or feel that that quiet pressure creeping in when a round doesn't go your way, because there'll be plenty of rounds that don't go our way, or progress feels slow, just take a breath and remind yourself why you started jujitsu. Not to be impressive, not to be perfect, but to learn, to grow, and to challenge yourself in a way that few things in life can. It's great to be back. I am looking forward to the 2026 um podcasting season year, if you will. I am competing this year. I'm actually doing some new breed competitions. Uh, we'll be doing IBJJF competitions as well, but probably later in the year, maybe the 2026 fall or winter. Um opens here in Atlanta, but the goal is to compete at least four times. No pressure. I feel zero pressure. I'm excited about the process of training. Um, I am going in with the mindset that I've got enough silver here on my desk and on my walls that it's time to bring some gold home. But this is gonna be an enjoyable, fun thing for me. It's not going to be pressure-induced, something that keeps me up at night. Oh my gosh, I didn't train two, three, four times this week. I'm definitely gonna lose that competition that's five, six months down the road. None of that. Gone. And if you are competing this year or if you are feeling any of this pressure, just let it go. Let it go. Work on letting it go. If you know you you need help letting this pressure go, or somebody to talk to, your professor, your coach, uh, your gym captain, whatever you call them at your at your academy, should 100% be somebody that you could go to and talk about with this. So if they're not, you might want to rethink your academy. And if this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. I do get emails at the caffeinated jujitsu at gmail.com. Love, you know, the questions I get, even if it's just a thumbs up for the episode. But reach out, send a message. I'm so lucky and grateful and thankful that you uh caffeinated jujitsu has made it in the top 50% of all of Buzz Sprouts podcasts, and that opens it up to I don't know, like 50 different podcast platforms. So, but most of the traffic we get go comes or that I get comes from Spotify and Apple, and I believe you can reach out through any of those. You can also join the caffeinated jujitsu uh community on Instagram, leave a comment, reach out directly. Um this post will go up, gosh, actually tomorrow on the 12th. So share the episode with someone who you feel or know might need to hear it. I guarantee you, some of your training partners, your battle buddies, your in-the-trench people, your ride or dies, somebody's dealing with this pressure. And if you're coming back uh for more and you know you've enjoyed this episode, you're a new listener, and you're like, I can't wait for to see what else is is coming out. I'll see you here. Like I said, the goal this year is twice a month throughout 2026. But until next time, remember, always keep your passion brewing.