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Applying Stoicism To First JiuJitsu Competition (Episode 145)
675 Plays4 months ago
Join Caleb and Michael as they dissect the mental game of competition and explore how ancient philosophy can give us an edge in modern battles – both on and off the mat.
In this gripping episode, Caleb shares his experience competing in his first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament and the valuable lessons he learned about applying Stoic principles under pressure. Michael, who has competed hundreds of time, offers advice and challenges Caleb along the way.
Whether you're a martial artist, a competitor in any field, or someone looking to apply Stoicism to life's challenges, this episode offers actionable insight on maintaining composure and clarity – as well as challenges and reflections on how to apply Stoicism to jiu jitsu in particular.
(02:48) Jiu Jitsu Competitions
(04:58) What Is Jiu Jitsu
(07:05) Why Compete
(12:54) How Did It Go?
(17:23) Michael on Caring And Stoicism
(21:26) Michael's Advice For Caleb
(29:08) Should You Use The Restroom?
(35:06) Zooming In Too Much
(36:41) Epictetus vs Marcus on Competition
(39:24) Participation Trophies Matter
(43:11) Caleb Doesn't Like Participation Trophies
(46:15) Social Resistance And Ego
(54:05) Caleb's Learnings
***
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Narratives
00:00:00
Speaker
So you, you end up, and that's something I had to tell my sister when she's fighting world champions or famous people is like, don't try to lose well. Got to catch that in yourself. Don't lose well as like a, as a kind of ah a pride thing. And it's the same thing that happened to me. ah You got to go and do something. Try your, try your best to win. Welcome to Stowe Conversations. My name is Caleb Montrose. And I'm Michael Trombley.
00:00:25
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about something a little different. I suppose we're going to be talking through a Brazilian jujitsu competition I signed up for and competed in last month. So that would be in the end of July. So before we dive into that, we should say a little bit about What this is for some of you who are unfamiliar and then of course they talk a little bit about why we're talking about it. um So yeah, do you have any. yeah
00:01:06
Speaker
All the words. I think it's really exciting that you did your first jujitsu competition. We're going to dig into it related back to stoicism.
Stoicism in High-Stress Situations
00:01:18
Speaker
But we thought it would be a fun opportunity to break down from our personal lives a Yeah, a kind of a high stress situation, something that you are beginning to become more experienced in, and something that I have a long history of competing in, and we could talk about it as a way that we put our stoicism into practice. I thought, yeah, it's a fun topic.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. It's ah it's two things we're both passionate about. And um it's a good test case, I think, of a high pressure event, um a high pressure sport event that in a way is high stakes, but another way is not so high stakes, right? It's it's a competition.
00:02:07
Speaker
It'll probably be especially interesting for those of you who are interested in martial arts, but I think the ah thinking will probably, some of these topics will generalize and I think it's worth thinking through like what sorts of these ah things we'll talk about generalize of sport, but also of course professionally and in other contexts as well.
00:02:31
Speaker
yeah If you're not in into martial arts, the question is applying the topic is applying stoicism to high stressful situations. ah And this is like this is the test case. This is the example. But that is something that is abstractable to anybody's life, absolutely.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So then but by way of background, so I've been doing Brazilian jujitsu, this sort of art of grappling, I suppose for, I usually say for about a year, the longer story is I've been doing it for six months, the last six months, and I'm 31 right now. And when I was 22, 23, I hopped around and trained in a few other gyms in the Bay area. So totals out to probably a little bit more than a year, depending on how much you count those years previously. So that's my experience with the art. So I'm Lily Whitebell, I should say, but Michael's the the resident expert here. So you want to say a bit about about your background for those who don't know?
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, so I've been doing Jitsu seriously since I was probably 14, I'm 32 now. So that's like 18 years, I think. And by seriously, I mean, you know, as consistently as possible, probably four or five days a week. um I'm a second degree black belt, which is, you get your degrees after a certain amount of time at black belts took me around 10 years, trained seriously to get my black belt. I was at 24 and I've been a 32 now. So I've been a black belt for eight years.
Understanding Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
00:03:58
Speaker
So I'm second degree, I'll get my third degree next year.
00:04:01
Speaker
I've also competed extensively, so competed a lot locally, competed internationally, I've competed in Abu Dhabi. at the world championships in California as well. Uh, I've done a professional MMA fight and a number of amateur MMA fights. And I was a varsity wrestler. So there's a long history of grappling martial arts experience that comes from my dad who runs a jujitsu school, a mixed martial arts school that focuses mostly on jujitsu now. Um, and my, my sister is also a high level competitor. She came second at the world championships for jujitsu.
00:04:36
Speaker
So we're really a jitsu family. Uh, so something I grew up in, so that's kind of, that's kind of my outside of stoicism. That's definitely the thing that I am the most interested in and I would say good at. And, uh, so it's really fun to see you Caleb, um, digging into it and and building this skill. Should I say a quick thing about what jitsu is? Like how, for yeah, yeah maybe we should. Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, so I typically talk about martial arts, and Caleb, you know all this, but this is for people listening, typically talk about martial arts as being either striking or grappling. Striking is when you're hitting people, you think about that like boxing, kickboxing, kicking people, punching them. And then grappling is something like wrestling, you know, when you rough house with your friends, there's no hitting involved in a grappling sport.
00:05:19
Speaker
um So something like mixed martial arts like d UFC that combines grappling and striking, that's what makes it mixed. And then jiu-jitsu is a grappling sport, so there's no hitting. Of the grappling sports, it's the least restrictive one. So I typically, you know, I talk about in terms of what, restrictiveness in terms of what is, what is and is not allowed. So you think of boxing, it's a very restrictive striking sports. You can only punch. You can't kick, you can't knee. That's just an arbitrary rule. Obviously those are viable ways of striking. Boxing decided it's not allowed. And so in wrestling, for example, that's a grappling sport, no heading in wrestling.
00:05:55
Speaker
But in wrestling, you can't choke people. You can't put them in joint locks like arm bars or kamoras or things like this. um And so jitsu is the the least restrictive. It basically allows everything. So okay, you can't hit each other. And the simple way that I explained is like, if you you can't hit each other, but otherwise you're trying to, you're trying to kill the other person, you're trying to, you know, make them give up.
00:06:18
Speaker
make them quit the fight. ah But you can't hit
Personal Experiences in Competitions
00:06:23
Speaker
them. So what that involves is that involves grappling into, you know, these these chokes or grappling into these joint locks that makes the person want to give up. um You also prioritize kind of dominant positions. So you think about back to like a school ground fight.
00:06:37
Speaker
And one person would sit on top of the other person and that other person couldn't get out, you know, and they would either taunt them or, or hold them down. That's a dominant position because obviously you're in control and in jiu-jitsu matches, you get points for that, or you win. If you get a submission, if you make the person give up with a tap out, that's, that's the equivalent of like a knockout unboxing. Even if you're losing on points, if you get a submission, you win. So that's, that's the quick jiu-jitsu intro. Anything you wanted to add, Adkill?
00:07:05
Speaker
No, i think so I don't think so. I think that's yeah that's perfect. so um yeah So I've been doing this for a while. I've been training at at different gyms um and I wanted to do a competition. Lots of people don't do competitions, but I wanted to do one because I thought it would be um One way to think about it is just, you know, what are Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specific reasons to do it? um And one reason to do a competition, I think, is that it's a good test of your skill. You know, so you'll do sparring training with people during class, but it's not the same level of intensity. So if you think about, you know, measuring your progress in something and
00:07:52
Speaker
jujitsu, you have sparring with your training partners, you have the belt system. And then I'd also thought of it as you have competition. So that's where you go out and face a stranger essentially in competition for.
00:08:09
Speaker
however long the match is. So that's one specific reason I want to do it. I think it's a good it <unk> a good way to learn, pick out particular weak points in my games, things things I need to develop, which which it certainly did. But that there's also a general reason that I wanted to do a competition, which is just that it sounded really exciting and a stressful in a positive way. So a lot of people talk about experiencing things like adrenaline dumps. So if you go to read anecdotes from, say, Reddit or other forums. People will talk about their first competition and, you know, just sort of expiring, being so amped that, you know, they really clenched their arms and such. You know, I have some quotes from people ah saying, you know, literally could not lift my arms up. My teammate had to rub my shoulders because I was literally shot for my first match that I lost.
00:09:02
Speaker
Um, someone else said, you know, they had a panic attack the first 20 sometimes they competed, uh, which is, I'm sure an exaggeration, but, uh, they say the adrenaline totally shot my nerves and I couldn't think clearly. And to me, that sounded like a good test, like the kind of situation where you don't know how you'll respond until you're thrown into it. So, you know, I was just curious, will I also have a huge rush like these people or.
00:09:33
Speaker
yeah are going to respond
Stoicism and Competitive Mindset
00:09:35
Speaker
differently. And I think that was a question I wanted to answer. And that's one of the other key reasons I wanted to do a competition. Yeah, cool. So like to reframe that basically there's, there's jiu-jitsu specific reasons, but then there's also, I mean, the way that I like to think about it, there's also just things about you as a person or a kind of transferable questions. And again, when we're talking about this Caleb, I think for anyone listening, we're going to nerd out on the jiu-jitsu a bit. I'm just, it just because that's the topic of the episode, but this has to do with, um,
00:10:08
Speaker
You know, if this is if you're giving a presentation at work or something at work is scaring you a different role, stretching your job, if you're a musician and you've never played a gig or you're playing your first kind of live show in front of a crowd, you're publishing something you like to write on the internet.
00:10:26
Speaker
Any, any, really we're talking about any sort of time where you have a craft and you're choosing to put that craft on display in front of other people in a competitive environment, or at least in a high stakes environment, what we're talking about is going to be transferable. So on one hand, there's the parts of your craft. You're going to learn about, okay, the actual technique. I thought I was good at this technique because it worked in class. Oh, but it's not working against the stranger. You're learning ah about parts of your craft, but then you're also learning about parts of yourself, which is.
00:10:56
Speaker
Okay. Am I the kind of person that overexerts I get this adrenaline rush and I, and I spend all my energy in the first two minutes, or am I the kind of person that can't pump myself up? I actually am too relaxed. So now I'm not performing. I'm treating it just like it's a regular round, not like a competition. And I think these kinds of understanding how you compete or how you perform under pressure is like a really, really helpful thing. It's a really good thing to know as a person. And I think about this when I connect this back to stoicism.
00:11:27
Speaker
I think about stoicism is about understanding the truth. right It's about like living in accordance with nature. It's about understanding the world, understanding the way things are. and The fact is that we have certain facts about ourselves that we typically haven't tested or haven't seen unless we put it unless we put our put it on the line or put ourselves in a high-stress situation.
00:11:44
Speaker
and then you know there there is um There's the actual cultivation of courage or the cultivation of calm under pressure and and transformation, but there's also that first, before you do that, before you change who you are, you actually have to discover who you are and figure out, okay, well, I'm actually really good at these kinds of things or I'm not good at these kinds of things.
00:12:04
Speaker
and just that kind of I think it's really great to have, as I was understanding you saying, that goal of, I just want to learn about myself. I just want to see what this is like and I just want to see you know how I respond to it or what it feels like to to respond to these kinds of things. Yeah, it's well put. yes I think it's a good ah good challenge and you want to see, you know I think there are just a variety of situations in life where it's it's just really hard to predict how you'll respond until it happens. Like you think you'll respond this way in, uh, some great event or some emergency or so on, but unless you actually put yourself in the closest thing you can to that event or put yourself in that event itself. So in this case, the actual competition, you're not going to, you're not going to know. And so I guess, I guess the next question is, that yeah, what did you, um, yeah, how did it go? What did you experience?
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah. So I was pretty nervous about it. Certainly. Pretty nervous to know who I'd be facing. I had two matches for sure. Um, I signed up for two different divisions so you can compete in the gi, the jujitsu gi or no gi. So I signed up for both and I was pretty nervous, pretty wired beforehand.
00:13:19
Speaker
And, uh, but I, for the most part, I think I was able to reframe that nervousness into a kind of excitement. Um, it wasn't, uh,
00:13:34
Speaker
a kind of, there weren't really thoughts around, oh, I'm going to fail, I'm going to embarrass myself, you know, there's a little bit like that. But, you know, I know that's a possibility. I know failure is a possibility. So long as I do my best, even if I get highlight reeled or something of this sort, it's, you know, I do I did my best. That's ah all I can ask of myself.
00:13:55
Speaker
But there's still almost like a primal kind of excitement or energy before the competition. And so like the day before, I barely slept. During that actual day, I was thinking about it a lot. Normally, I'm pretty focused and at work pretty zoned in. um But I was certainly thinking about it looking forward to it as a, you know,
00:14:18
Speaker
I mean, I was just, my attention was drawn to questions about the competition, simulating different things that could happen, reminding myself of what I was going to try to do, uh, and so on. So that's, uh, that was, that was the beginning, um, enter the competition. I ended up losing both of my matches. The first one went into overtime, uh, that I was taken down.
00:14:42
Speaker
and the person had a submission attempt, so they got they they beat me by points and over time. And then the second one, I was submitted by a triangle ah within the gi. So those those are the two two losses. I learned a lot about you know things to work on, of course.
00:15:00
Speaker
i ah The first match, I was very wired. I didn't have an adrenaline dump. you know These other people, they talk about,
00:15:12
Speaker
getting so wired that they put, you know, 100% into every single grip, clench everything and so on, and then can't lift their arms and so on. During the competition, I walked by a number of people who after their competition basically just rolled over and were laying there, like round, I'm like sure you've seen that too. But you know, people just laying on the ground after their matches, multiple I saw multiple people throw up either before or after their competitions. So ah there was that.
00:15:43
Speaker
i yeah I'm sure you're familiar with that kind of atmosphere. um And then, but I was certainly, you know, I didn't think I had that dump, but I was wired. I don't think I would felt, I don't think I thought as clearly, you know, looking back at my match, I think, you know, why didn't I try this often when I'm rolling?
00:16:04
Speaker
Um, what, when I'm doing jujitsu, I'm not ah entirely relaxed, but I've, I think you become more and more relaxed as you train more. Um, and I remember a specific moment where I felt relaxed in that match, but through the rest of it, uh, I was pretty still pretty wired. I think and in that moment really felt like I was just trying to force a ah few strategies. Um,
00:16:33
Speaker
um which which were reasonable things to do, but given that I didn't have the, you know, I was basically had the person in what's called closed guard, tried a few different attacks from there. ah Those worked out well enough. And I think I made, and as I think back on that match, there were some openings there for other things I could have tried, but instead I, ah you know, saw those openings and took them a different direction every time. um And,
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, so i did I think when I do it again, if i I would like to be sure to find that balance between intensity and feeling more mentally relaxed such that I can think more creatively about about what I you know ought to be doing strategically. Anyway, so that's just some notes on on the first match. and what like to dig Yeah, there's a lot to dig into there right there. um This gets me all pumped up. I always love talking about this stuff.
00:17:31
Speaker
So of something I've experienced, like I just pointed it back to a stoic lens. Um, something I've experienced and something I've wrestled with in stoicism is, you know, stoicism teaches us that we have these kinds of fizzly logical responses based on our value judgments. We get nervous. We experienced adrenaline when we think something matters, right? And when you're doing something, I think when you're doing something that is in front of other people, when you're doing something that's explicitly competitive, um,
00:17:59
Speaker
It's very hard to not care about how a jitsu match goes or any sort of competitive or social thing goes because we're getting a lot of cues that this matters. There's a podium, there's trophies, there's people watching and cheering. We're getting a lot of cues like that. And so I think it's totally normal to get nervous. And then the other thing is that it does matter. We want to care. And so one thing I've struggled in my own jitsu, and it sounds like you're struggling in the same thing,
00:18:28
Speaker
Okay, well, well you know if I think my life depends on doing well, i'm good I'm going to get really nervous and I'm going to throw up before my match and I'm going to gas out. Okay, but if I say, well, virtue is the only thing that matters, you know how I perform doesn't matter. I'm probably going to underperform.
00:18:45
Speaker
Or not it's not how i it's maybe maybe there' there's a virtue in competing well. But if I say something like, oh, this is just a you know this is just a collection of people cheering over an arbitrary game. if you If you start doing that kind of thing, you kind of work your way out of any sort of excitement. So one thing in in my study practice is I've struggled. Star Citizen's helped me a lot deal with the extreme nerves, but I've struggled to also find that middle ground. Whenever you're doing something where you're just like, I want to care about this. I want to do well.
00:19:14
Speaker
And when I care, I get nervous and I experienced this adrenaline and this um lack of focus.
Improving through Competition and Stoic Practice
00:19:21
Speaker
I mean, maybe more focus and in a so in a more focus and in in a yeah small range, but not a kind of not a kind of free form creativity as you were discussing.
00:19:32
Speaker
But how do I, how do I get the right amount of that? Not too much, not too little is something that I've struggled with in my stomach practice. And the way you perfect that is by doing it right. Like you just did, but it sounds like you were experiencing that same kind of thing. It's like trying to find that middle ground, right? Yeah, I think so. I think one piece of advice I saw is to come into a match, just assuming you're going to lose and assuming you're going to try stuff and you're going to fail, which I think probably is not bad advice for first timers.
00:20:01
Speaker
just because there are so many things pushing you in the other direction. You know, you you have people shouting. you have your ego involved. It's one against one. you know If you lose, it's in a real sense entirely on you ah your own performance. um In addition to you know this sort of, I think, almost like primitive energy where you're in combat with another person, right? you know You're circling each other just like in the stories of old. And then I think there's like so there's some physiological
00:20:32
Speaker
probably novel physiological responses to that if you haven't been in many fights or ah similar types of competition. um So, I mean, that might be decent advice for first timers. And there's, of course, the connection to the stoic idea of premeditatio malorum, you know, it's imagining that you lose.
00:20:52
Speaker
imagining that that you fail or what have you, which I think is useful. And I did do that a number of times. I didn't fully adopt the mindset that I'm going to lose. Um, so I didn't go the whole way with it. Um, though I could see why some people, if they internalize that mindset in a way might find it almost more freeing. And because they've never done it before there, they'll get energy from the intensity of the event anyway.
00:21:20
Speaker
where Longer term, I suspect that strategy might not work, but at least for the first first first time, it seems like reasonable advice. What do you think? Yeah. the The advice I always give people, and I should take this own advice in the rest of my life because like but because I give it in jitsu, but I don't think I'd give it to myself in other words. The first time you compete, my advice to new people is always your goal when you compete is to compete.
00:21:42
Speaker
Your goal is to not withdraw your name from the bracket or make up an excuse to not do it. Your goal is just to go and do it. And once you've done it, you will then discover how you compete. And then, and then that will emerge a set of new goals that are actually based in like information. Okay. I got too nervous. My goal next time is to be less nervous. Okay. I was physically very tuned in, but my strategy was terrible. My goal next time is to have better strategy.
00:22:11
Speaker
i I felt really relaxed in the morning, so I had a huge breakfast and then I got really sick because I ate too much. so so it's like I was too nervous, so I didn't eat anything. so My goal next time is to like you know force myself to have that granola bar no matter what. and so the The idea is it's just giving yourself permission to lose as a mechanism, lose, perform under expectations because it's not always jujitsu. I want to keep the conversation a little bit broader.
00:22:39
Speaker
But giving yourself permission to not do perfectly as a mechanism by which to get valuable information that can then provide valuable, actionable, short-term goals that will lead to actual better performance. Because what somebody have what what typically, for me, the biggest risk is actually you don't do the scary thing. You don't put yourself on the line. Going and losing comparatively or going and you know playing a show and not doing well or writing something that's not well received, that is actually a much smaller risk because you you're getting information. And once you have information, you can improve. So that for me is like you've got to expose yourself. I mean, to use Nassim Taleb idea, you've got to put your skin in the game essentially to pay attention to feedback and to improve further. So that is the first goal for me. It's just like getting the courage to have skin in the game.
00:23:31
Speaker
um In terms of visualizing yourself losing, I think the momento mori thing, or not momento mori, but pre-meditate to a momento mori would be a bit dark. You could do it. If things go if things go really wrong, I could die. Yeah, you-meditation of evil, I think it's good to like psychologically accept that bad things can happen.
00:23:59
Speaker
But I think part of competition is also, I mean, i'm I'm getting myself all pumped up just talking about this. I can feel it. Part of competition is the beauty of competition is actually saying I'm going to genuinely try.
00:24:11
Speaker
I'm going to genuinely try my best so that if I lose, there's no excuse yeah because because you don't want to be like, I don't care if I win. And then you lose it. Well, I didn't care if I won. So, because now you're denying yourself the honest feedback where if you go, I care if I win, I'm going to try my best. This is the best me I can be on, you know, this day with this much experience. That's the best me.
00:24:34
Speaker
And then when you lose, you go, okay, well, that's actually, yeah, that the best knee wasn't good enough. I need to take that and incorporate that. So that I think is the issue. I guess that to to wrap that up, you know, coming in with the expectation to lose is good advice. If it's the difference between you competing or not, because I think the number one priority is putting yourself on the line. The number one priority is doing the scary thing.
00:24:55
Speaker
But once you do the scary thing, I think it's it's important to genuinely try to win because that is when that is when your failures, you you can't excuse, make an excuse about them because you you tried and you lost. So now now you've just got to accept that you weren't good enough and you've got to improve where you weren't good enough. And you deny yourself that opportunity if you give yourself this excuse like, oh, it didn't really matter to me. Or, you know, I was expecting to lose anyway. What do you think about that?
00:25:24
Speaker
I think that's right. I think ah to some extent it might depend on some of this advice depends on who you are as always. So I think, uh, you know, I'm competitive. I've been in enough competitive context to know that I'm going to try to win as hard as I can. And, but I know there are other people who perhaps might be in that situation and pre-meditatium alarm. There's that risk that once you put yourself out there, you've in some ways, you know, set yourself up.
00:25:55
Speaker
to tolerate failure, but not motivated yourself enough to do your best. I suppose that's that that's the risk you know to give a your all when you're out there. Something that I did find useful, especially I think for people who are more maybe perhaps competitive or ah is in terms of visualizing ways things could go wrong is being caught in a bad position and reminding myself that if it's really bad,
00:26:21
Speaker
it's just one tournament and I shouldn't push through it. At some point, you know you need to tap and like if you're the kind of person and there are these people who already in training situations don't tap as much as they should and competitions get themselves messed up for really low level tournaments, um which I think is unreasonable. So I think visualizing being caught in a bad position And tapping, you know if you're the kind of person who knows, sometimes I maybe push it a bit too much in training situations already, ah is perhaps good advice. you know I've just went done one competition, so I wouldn't put too much weight in this advice, but it seems reasonable to me. And I did watch someone clearly get caught in an arm bar, and they should have tapped. They didn't.
00:27:05
Speaker
and you know they seem
Risk Management and Strategy
00:27:08
Speaker
like they got hurt pretty bad. So yeah, that that clearly happens. and And this is just a local tournament, right? it's not It's not that important, even if you might feel it as in the moment.
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, so I guess there's some like Aristotelian golden mean advice there, right? of um If you're the kind of person who's going to try too hard, you need to you need to give yourself advice to cool it down and to be like, okay, i i before I get my arm broken, I need to remind myself a couple of times that it's okay to tap at this local non-professional sporting event, right?
00:27:43
Speaker
um and and But if you're the kind of person that is going to likely not try hard and ah you kind of feel yourself pull away from the competitive nature of the thing, maybe you need to give yourself a reminder to try harder. A funny thing about jujitsu in particular, that's the there's the thing that I've done the most competition and so maybe it's the other ways, I found the white belt, the beginner match is the most physically intense.
00:28:08
Speaker
Almost because it's almost like at the beginner level, you kind of tap in to something a bit more primal or instinctive. And I found at that level, I almost had to, if you got someone in a choke, you almost had to make them go unconscious. Like they were just not, or you got them in an arm, but you almost have to break their arm.
00:28:25
Speaker
Whereas at a higher level, somebody's able to, they're almost existing at two levels. they're they're Yes, they're athletically performing, but they're also skilled at this art and they're like, okay, I recognize I'm not getting out of this, so I'm going to tap yeah even before it hurts. yeah I think- They're like the chess master resigning.
00:28:41
Speaker
Like they know yeah that's it it's that's exactly what it's like. It's like three steps away where with the beginners, they're, you know, there's only, they're going to go down to just the king on the board every time yeah and play those extra, those extra last 10 turns or whatever. As you, as you, the king gets put in the corner, they're not quitting. Um, and it's a, it's a, uh, it's admirable in one sense, but it's, it's um and not good if it ends up leads leads to injury or or makes it kind of unsustainable for you.
00:29:08
Speaker
Um, one thing that I think, uh, Chris, get your thoughts on this topic as well. One thing that I think I did, uh, well in my preparation for this is physically. I felt like I had to use the restroom before the match, but it did not make sense given the amount of water I had consumed. And so I didn't. And I i think that was the right read of my actual physical state. Um,
00:29:35
Speaker
And one reason not to do that is just I think that it was to do that kind of thing would be to give into a kind of nervousness and sort of push the momentum on a negative kind of ah thought pattern almost. So I think there, you know, there are probably a few things like this, whether it's a physical sensation, ah weakness in the legs, or what have you, or maybe more some negative self talk or something like this, where
00:30:06
Speaker
that's normal to some extent, but can be overwritten. It's not, you know, not every physical sensation is a signal or good information. um And I think to act on it would almost confirm, Oh, I am nervous, but I don't you don't need you don't need to do that. It's almost like a It's sort of interesting because I think Stoics often talk about responding to impressions that are mental, right? They're mental content. But impressions also have these physical aspects. And if you're you know if you think about this, you people who are relaxed, they don't feel like they need to go ah use the restroom before the match. people who are
00:30:48
Speaker
not, you know, they're nervous in the restroom, uh, throwing up or what have you. And so if you, if you know, if you have enough information to know, yeah, I don't actually need to use the restroom right now, do the things that make you more like the person who are relaxed, uh, you know, in a way provides you evidence that you are relaxed and has a kind of positive momentum to it, I think.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's an interesting example. I mean, i i I will confess I have never not gone to the bathroom when I feel like I can't need to pee. So i often I will often go to the bathroom many, many times before a match, a ridiculous number of times, and an unnecessary amount of time. So maybe I will put this into practice next time. It never occurred to me. um But I do recognize it's a ridiculous amount.
00:31:32
Speaker
but But yeah, it sounds like so. So in stoicism, there's this idea of you get an impression. If you ascend to it as being true, it then influences your emotions, your feelings. It has this kind of physiological response. If it's about, you know, oh, this tournament's a really big deal. You should really be nervous about it. If you ascend to that, you're going to start feeling certain things in
Stoic Actions and Emotional Management
00:31:51
Speaker
your body. You're going to have to start having certain responses, right?
00:31:55
Speaker
And what I'm taking you to say is to say, well, look, maybe maybe you've assented to that in some capacity, but you're actually able to kind of pull the feedback loop, either interrupted or start moving in in a different direction if you start actually acting counter to that. Whereas if you feed into it, if you feed into it, it gets worse. But if you start to kind of override it and and act the way a calm person would act, it's it it maybe gets better and you correct it.
00:32:22
Speaker
I always see people sleeping at tournaments and I always think that's like the coolest thing. I think it's so yeah yeah very badass. um And sad I've been able to do it sometimes. But yeah, I think that's a great point. It's also an interesting way of like not over-intellectualizing things, which I think we as Stoics Myself is a stoic at least. We learn so much that so much of our behavior, our emotions, it's all it's about how we think about things. It's about ah our impressions and how we how we respond to them, and how we reason about them. And it can make kind of it can make things very wordy. It can make us try to like outthink anxiety.
00:33:00
Speaker
And I think there's something to be said, which I think you're hitting on here, where there's just some moments where it's like, I cannot outthink this, not at my current level of progress, not at my current level of not my current relationship with the the things that are going on. I'm just going to be nervous. And it's like, maybe I can't think my way out of it, but I can act a certain way that can start to actually have a calming effect. That's that's what I think of when you when you when you say what you're saying is like, get yourself out of your head, start acting the way a calm person would act, and that can have a bit of a better effect. Maybe there's something to be said for stoicism as being like a long-term therapeutic approach. And even when we're talking about pre-meditatium allorum or thinking about your how you how you deal with things going into the competition, when you find yourself in the competition,
00:33:47
Speaker
there There is i there's still some stoicism. I still do. I don't but remind myself I'm going to lose before a match or something, but I still will tell myself things. I still will have kind of like mantras of like, I'm just going to go in there and do my best. Like I'm just going to go in there and perform to the best of my ability today. And I find those kinds of things call me and I find they direct my attention, but I guess there's also this physical or action part that that you're adding to it too.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. i think that's I think that's right. And I suppose if you want to dive more into the Stoicism side, what Stoics would say, ultimately we make decisions and some of those decisions concern, you know, how we think, how we talk to ourselves, but others concern, of course, just how we, our next action in response to different physical stimuli, yeah which is just a fancy way of saying,
00:34:41
Speaker
Ultimately, I think the stoic see things as unified and although a lot of our focus is on the verbal, you know, because, you know, we express knowledge and symbols, words and so on. Ultimately, the physical and you know, the intellectual are the same for the stoics and I think in a deep and deep way. Yeah, there's that relationship there.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah. ah I don't know if this is something you've thought about as much, but I think... um
00:35:14
Speaker
There is a ah sense in which some of these experiences I've noticed around soccer or deeper type meditation experiences um do become more difficult to describe in words. So an example of this for this competition is like the nervousness, the energy surrounding the competition to me feels like it zooms in ah zooms in focuses on a specific point.
00:35:43
Speaker
And I found it helpful to do ah you know like view from above type exercises or remind myself of different mantras that yeah life is opinion, universe is transformation. I think that's one of my favorite mantras that reminds myself of so a larger perspective and sort of helps me not zoom in so much to ah specific you know focal points where you almost feel and certain there's this something that valuable with that amount of focus, but it almost feels a little bit too intense or too hard, kind of fragile in a way. But it's kind of thing that's, ah I think a little bit difficult for me to describe. I'm not sure if I've captured properly where, like um you know, these ideas of view from above is useful gestures at it in the right way. But um you know, if i it might not might not resonate with everyone. What do you think?
00:36:41
Speaker
I mean, I get what you mean. I think i think anybody gets what you mean if you you think about people listening, you know, think about the last time you've done something that was really stressful, that was some sort of like specific event, a talk, a competition, a presentation. There is this kind of zooming in.
00:36:56
Speaker
And when I was thinking of, when you were saying was that, you know, epicte dis an approach to competition, maybe a real approach to competition, because Epictetus's approach focus on what's up to you. The dichotomy of control is like, is zooming in. It's just zooming in. Well, you know, don't zoom in on the wrong thing. Narrow your scope of of attention to the correct things. Don't say, Oh, I don't like this referee or all, you know, the, the opponent was kind of rude to me before the match. What kind of, what kind of rude guy is this? How am I going to deal with that? Um, instead of something like this, keep yourself focused on how you're going to compete. Whereas your Aurelius perspective is this zoom out, which is to say, you know,
00:37:42
Speaker
I don't know, that you know this is this is like a small moment in a larger life, in a larger world, and it's a moment worth having, and it's a valuable thing to do. but ah man I'm putting some words in your mouth, but it's not the only thing. It's not the most important thing, um and I don't want to lose perspective of that by by hyper-focusing and or hyper-obsessing.
00:38:03
Speaker
um and I just think there was this interesting contrast with the Epictetus approach, which is to like almost lean into the zoom in, but just just nail it, do it correctly. you know yeah yeah Yeah, you're right. That is an interesting contrast. i think um I think um in a way, you're always trying to capture both of those approaches, but it's probably much easier to start with one rather than.
00:38:32
Speaker
One reason why I love that maxim so much from Aurelius, ah you know, life is opinion, the universe is transformation, is that it does get at, or at least reminds one of both of those things. You know, life is opinion, that means focus on judgment, focus on forming accurate judgment, think well. ah The universe is transformation, that reminds you of that larger ah perspective, you know, the flux of things, the impermanence of things. But I think you're, you're right that I think you can remind your initially, I think it's useful to, if you find yourself zooming in, maybe one strategy is zoom in on the right things.
Challenges and Self-Improvement
00:39:18
Speaker
Another strategy is see if you can zoom out a little bit, get ah a larger perspective.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, and and one thing about stoicism to these stressful events that I want to apply is that I argued earlier and i argu I argued before that like what matters is doing these things because these things provide really valuable information for self-improvement either within your craft, your career, your hobby, or but as a person. And i so I think the biggest impediment to learning is not doing these things. And we don't do these things because they're difficult. And so we often teach stoicism or we can think about stoicism as like, oh, the stoicism is the difference.
00:39:58
Speaker
For i want to say high performance, I don't know the right word, like you know the stoic way to become the Olympic gold medalist. But if you can use stoicism, and this is the thing I try to do in my own life, if you can use stoicism just to compete, just to do the scary thing,
00:40:15
Speaker
um That is going to have such major benefits to your life. So there I guess i guess the there is stoicism for performance in the moment and then there's stoicism to just doing the thing because you didn't you didn't need to compete.
00:40:31
Speaker
Nobody would have judged you. You don't have any reputation around it. It's not part of your identity at all. So you just like chose to do a scary thing. And I think there's something about stoicism there about encouraging that and giving us tools to do that. You notice it was affecting your work. It was affecting your attention.
00:40:48
Speaker
It's stressful and there's something very, if stoicism can even just teach you to do the scary things, to put yourself on the line, to put yourself in these kind of moments, that is a huge, huge benefit to a life, I think. It's ah it's something really worth cultivating. Yeah. There's that, there's that Epictetus quote, which is, you know, do you want to be a wrestler, an Olympic wrestler? Do the things a wrestler does. And a lot of those things are pretty boring.
00:41:17
Speaker
you know, exercise, diet, um, and so on. So you can do, just do the things the wrestler does, whether they're stressful or not. And those are almost things you just need to take off. Am I eating the right things, training the proper amounts? Do I do the competition? Um,
00:41:40
Speaker
That's, you know, the first step. And then, then you can think of, you know, there are all these questions about now when you're performing, you know, how do you manage the stress ah of that event? But and both, both are integral. There's that simple phrase of just like, just show up, you know? And so I don't want to, I don't want us to just talk about stoicism. I don't think we're doing that, but I i don't want to just talk about stoicism as like, yeah, you competed, but if you were a better stoic, you would have gotten the gold. You know, like there's a, there is a real.
00:42:07
Speaker
and we we We really make fun of participation trophies or medals, and maybe they shouldn't be medals because you didn't place, but there is a real value to participation. There is a real value to doing the scary thing and learning, even though you lost both your matches.
00:42:25
Speaker
And I guess I'm just like taking a second to celebrate that. And also um saying that, you know, if that's all your stoicism gets you because you know you're at a point in your life where you're not prioritizing jitsu, you're not prioritizing being a professional or competitive athlete.
00:42:43
Speaker
It has also gets you is like the ability to do the scary part of your hobby that makes you learn faster. That's a beautiful thing. And I just, I just, I'm celebrating that regardless of the result of the tournament, which is not the same thing as being okay with losing. I think you also still want to go in there and try to win and try to genuinely compete, which is you said, you know, you don't have an issue with, but there is also this beauty in, in yeah, learning and participating.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think yeah, I think there's something to that. On the other, on the other, I think maybe that's that that works well in this context. um ah ah So I before, before doing jujitsu, I used to run a lot and I did a handful of marathons and the first marathon I did a lot of people would say, you know, good job, main thing is that you completed it. And I always thought, I'm going to, I would to complete the my first marathon almost like no matter what, probably, like I would knew that I would not
00:43:41
Speaker
I would probably injure myself to complete my first marathon if I had to. like There's no way I'm not going to finish it. So in some ways, I always thought that was somewhat obnoxious, but there is still something I think probably it depends like on who who you are, perhaps. And I think probably the the martial arts one case is more challenging ah for me. you know And it's a in a sense more optional, you whether you compete or not. ah Also, maybe you just don't find competitions as scary as I do. like it's just like It's just not a fun thing. It's a fun it's fun thing after, but it's like it's not an easy thing. you know It's a stressful event. That's true.
00:44:23
Speaker
I think so competition I felt was both stressful and fun. um Yeah, so maybe that's just a a different point. I think differently about about running, which is also stressful and fun. But, you know, I mean, maybe perhaps I'm just less excited about ah the fact that I did it.
00:44:43
Speaker
But I don't know. It depends, you know, like my my father's done marathons. Maybe if, you know, the first marathon ever, you know, first generation marathon runner or something like this, then it'd be a different matter. I think there's also something about.
00:45:02
Speaker
Maybe I'm wrong about this. I don't know if running a marathon is that different than practice. Sure. Maybe jujitsu competition is a lot different martial arts company. yeah that's a starting point One-on-one. There's also this idea and in jujitsu where you're like breaking the other person's ego.
00:45:19
Speaker
Like it's two of you and one of you is going to leave embarrassed and and have lost, you know, it's just like, it's very, ah that was something I really struggled with was like not feeling bad beating another person when I first started competing. day Oh man, I'm sorry. Cause I feel sad when I lose. So I'm making you feel sad. Um, there's something to that that I think makes it a bit different than running. Although, I mean, don't, I might be wrong. I don't, I haven't have ever done a race.
00:45:46
Speaker
No, you're right. Yeah, I think you're, you're right. There's, I think races are different and they, they have some similar issues really, you know, that a little bit of adrenaline at the front might cause you to expire, ah so especially for longer
Final Reflections and Strategic Adjustments
00:46:01
Speaker
races. So that might be a novel kind of challenge, but the degree of difference I think is significantly larger between practice and competition in the martial arts case. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um,
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah. Any, and um, I guess my, my question for you is any other big, anything you feel like you learned about yourself or anything I guess that you would do differently. Well, so I didn't talk about my sec, like maybe I could talk a little bit more about my second, my second match, which is so one thing that was interesting about my second match is that the person cornering me knew the other competitor and mentioned that.
00:46:45
Speaker
this person had trained longer. And he sort of told me that in the sense where like the information I got was this person is better than you. So like, you know, do your best, but I've trained with this person before and they've trained longer than you are. So, you know, and that, that impression may be accurate or inaccurate. I think, um,
00:47:16
Speaker
I think what I should have done coming into that match, what something that might've been interesting would have been playing either a higher risk game or significantly lower risk ah game than I was intending to. instead of like Because with that, that does give you information for I think for how you ought to perform and probably would have been smart for me Because you know I trust this person's judgment. you know Maybe I misunderstood their remark, of course, but if I played slightly higher risk, maybe did something like a little bit more tricky during stand-up that they wouldn't have been expecting, that could have paid off.
00:48:00
Speaker
um Maybe there would have been more chance of me winning, or I could have played lower risk on the other side. Whereas I think I was a little bit more relaxed in my second match, which was ah good, but I didn't maybe ah update to that information appropriately. And I think part of it is just that both of those strategies are,
00:48:25
Speaker
you know, the higher risk strategy carries with it a kind of more risk of, you know, since severe failure or something. And then the lower risk strategies often just kind of seem lame or something like that.
00:48:39
Speaker
I didn't, uh, looking back at it, I think there was part of me that I didn't want to seem, I still had some more social resistance. I think then was ideal to, to see me to see, to see me in lane or to lose spectacularly. Yeah, to lose spectacularly.
00:48:59
Speaker
even when probably I think you know i think but maybe you disagree with this, but I think it would have been rational for me to take either of those strategies instead of play my more you know standard type game. but i mean i mean From the jitsu perspective, putting on the jitsu coach hat, I don't know if you have enough experience to have that. I'm not a good musician, so but you know like somebody who's a good musician, they have like different styles they can play. It's okay. Well, you you know you you got to be jazz here instead of rock and roll, even though you really like to play classical.
00:49:35
Speaker
or when you're beginning it's like it's you don't have that you don't have different you know you don't have your high risk game versus your slow low risk game i think i think that sounds plausible as a strategy for some of the more developed time but i think technically it just takes some time to develop the craft so you can have layers like that but i i get what you're saying and i think it's it's not a bad strategy i think the and then i think the thing that's not jujitsu specific is that social resistance we have to And that's why I talk about you got you have to want to win because you only when you truly want to win do you realize, oh, I came in here trying to win, but I didn't choose the strategy that gave me the best chance of winning. And then it's why, okay, well, I realize I actually have more ego than I thought I did, or I have social resistance, or I don't want to come off silly in front of other people, which is only something you realize if you also wanted to win and and those two ideas kind of smack against each other and you realize the contradiction in your behavior.
00:50:30
Speaker
Even for myself, I've competed, you know I don't want to toot my own horn here, but just contacts for the people listening. like I've competed hundreds and hundreds of times. I just was competing constantly for 15 years of my life. and One thing that I would fall into, and I talk about this with my sister a lot, as she's another high-level competitor, is you end up in that issue of like losing well.
00:50:51
Speaker
So I thought, you know, I thought, remember I was at the pan, the Pan Am championships for jitsu and I was fighting a guy who came second at black boat worlds and I was losing to him by two nothing and you everything. This is when it's like, I got to take a risk, but also if I go home and make an Instagram post and say that I lost this person to nothing, everybody's going to say how impressive that is and how close that is to, you know, how good of a match that was. So you, you end up.
00:51:20
Speaker
And that's something I had to tell my sister when she's fighting world champions or famous people is like, don't try to lose well. Got to catch that in yourself. Don't lose well as like a, as a kind of ah a pride thing. And it's the same thing that happened to me. ah You got to go and do something. Try your, try your best to win. Even if it means you end up losing spectacularly and you don't have that kind of ego backup of like, well, I lost a really close match to someone who was good. So it's the exact same thing for me. And I think it's a good thing to catch.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Another example of that, I think, is that the person the first person was a pretty good wrestler, significantly better wrestler than I was. And I should have, the during regular time, I pulled guard right away. sorry to come you up okay Just for the non-jiu-jitsu people. So pulling guard, you both we both started on our feet, and pulling guard is when you go to the bottom position, right? Like you go in you go on your back. So instead of wrestling with this person, you you basically went straight to the ground so they couldn't do the wrestling with you.
00:52:18
Speaker
what you're saying Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you need to have grips and so on. But I think people think it's lame because it's less exciting, probably less fun to watch, at least for a lot of people. yeah You know, they like to see people standing up and wrestling and someone throw someone else to the ground. You know, that's exciting. So at least ah in overtime, I think I made the mistake of, you know, I'm gonna try to stand a little bit longer than I should have. And where the predictable thing happened, which is that I got taken down. And then I lost points and then eventually lost the match. It would have been much more I think it would have been smarter just to do the exact same thing I did in regular time, even though it was you know kind of rote,
00:52:54
Speaker
but would have been closer to my game and more more realistic, I think. Yeah, it is funny how even the language of lame, that is socially motivated language. And you know keb I don't take you to be a person who's very, you don't strike me generally as a person who's very like, cares what people think, I will say. like i think I think you're kind of, you know, you you're not really super,
00:53:16
Speaker
ah yeah I don't know. you don't you You do what you think is the best thing to do, not because other people say it. and so But even in your own language, you're feeling that kind of social pressure of, oh, I want to i want to compete in a way that's exciting. I want to compete in a way that people think what I'm doing is cool.
00:53:33
Speaker
And I totally relate to that. I feel the exact same thing all the time when I compete. i think I think I've gotten better at not listening to that voice or that input or that kind of stimulus, but it's still there. There's still that kind of energy and pressure when there's a crowd that, I mean, it's what Seneca warns about, right? Like the crowd, right? The crowd wants something.
00:53:53
Speaker
You know, and you and you can give the crowd what they want or you can prioritize your own benefit and at the expense of the crowd and that takes a lot of courage. Yeah. So in terms of of learning, so next time I compete, I'll probably, I'll need to think more about how to do this, but I think if there's some way I can be more relaxed such that I can be more creative, I think that'd be useful. And then, you know, I think more about, ah you you know, if I decide next time I compete, that it's advantageous just for me to pull a guard right away to do that every single time without fail. um Totally. and then like Yeah, yeah. And then then of course, there are also some other specific, you know, to just use type skill issues I need to work on. But I think those in terms of, I guess, if you want to think of those as abstract or more general takeaways, be like trying to
00:54:46
Speaker
get into a place where I can be more creative, think better. um And then, you know, not not be able to succumb as much to whatever social pressures or even internal expectations I have, but you know, define my game and then to the best of my ability, uh, you know, play it. one So at the extent of over generalizing, I think we have that big perspective, small perspective there at the end, right? Like you can get creative and relaxed by expanding your perspective. Creativity, a lack of creativity comes from to being too focused. So you, you don't see other options available to you.
00:55:24
Speaker
But then that idea of I'm just going to do my game is actually about directing focus. So, you know, your focus should be directed on what is the best game plan for me to do well. And then, you know, the fact that people are watching.
00:55:40
Speaker
doesn't matter the fact that, uh, you know, this person, you know, they, this person did a move or they seem scary or or good at this thing. That doesn't matter. It's like you you got to keep focused on the game plan. So there's like almost one aspect is expanding focus and one aspect is constricting focus. Um, which is kind of cool. It's cool to have to do that both at the same time. And that's a skill. That's what socialism is about. In my view is like making good use of impressions under pressure, right? Yep. Yeah. That's well put. Awesome.
00:56:11
Speaker
Cool. Fun to talk about. Yeah, that was fun. Congratulations. All right. Thanks, Michael.
00:56:18
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the app store or play store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyre.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.