Recently I was thinking about how difficult love can be, and what exactly love is, or what it takes love to be to be successful. There have always been many theories, sayings, and now, memes, about what love is. One meme I saw recently covered many sayings over the years of what love is:

Love is Patient.

Love is Kind.

It does not Envy.

It does not Boast.

It is not Proud.

Love is not Rude or Selfish.

Love always Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres.

Love never Fails.

Anyone who loves their friends or family, or has been in love, knows that these things are not always easy, but they do hold true when you truly break down what love is, or what it takes for love to be successful.

Like anything in life, love is not always easy, and no matter what you believe, or how hard you try to live up to these standards, it is much easier to fail, than to manage love correctly. It is a process, there will be mistakes, there will be learning moments; love is not an easy choice, and in some ways, it's not a choice at all.

Lately I have thought quite a bit about the correlation between love and jiu jitsu. In fact, you learn so much more about life through the practice of jiu jitsu. It truly is a martial art that is very applicable to your life in so many more ways than on the mat.

Love is Patient. Jiu Jitsu is Patient.

Patience in the journey.

Both love and jiu jitsu are about the journey. It's easy to get caught up, and to beat yourself up over mistakes and setbacks. But if you are committed long-term, and focus on the journey, rather than the day to day hurdles, you will experience success.

Patience in the technique.

The technique has an ironic twist. In jiu jitsu, you must learn techniques, with the end goal of having muscle memory, to gain a feeling of action and reaction, where you execute the technique based on feeling rather than thinking. The problem with love, is that is is inherently a feeling first. This feeling is so strong that you may not always know how to control this feeling, because you have not properly mastered the techniques to control this feeling successfully.

Patience in learning to relax.

Both love and jiu jitsu require you to relax both mentally and physically to improve, sustain longer, and make better decisions. Relaxation will improve your mood, help you deal with stress, and control questions and anxiety. In love, just like jiu jitsu, this takes practice, and is necessary to be successful.

Patience in seeing progress.

The lack of seeing progress is one the greatest hurdles in life, love, and jiu jitsu. It's so easy to want to give up and quit, when you feel like all of your effort is being wasted. It can be difficult to pin point the details of what barriers are holding you back, or causing you to plateau. One of the biggest comparable things that apply both to love and jiu jitsu is over-looking the small details. When you plateau in love or jiu jitsu, try to examine the small details, because those tiny details combined can make the largest difference.

An article on thoughtcatalog.com regarding 10 steps that are signs that your relationship is progressing reads:

Paying attention to small details.

The small details always matter. They are hardly noticeable at the infancy stage of a relationship but they should become more obvious to each party as the relationship progresses. Why? Simply because if a small detail were overlooked, the potential effect could be HUGE and definitely NOTICEABLE. Yeah… you probably got that.Getting the wrong-coloured flowers may seem negligible from the perspective of guys, but it means a hell lot more to the girls. I know that… been there myself. The small details always matter. (Just to reiterate this point!)

Jiu jitsu was founded on the mastering of small details, the tiny differences that make it easier for a smaller, slower, weaker person to defend themselves. The tiny details in your relationship with the person you love are the details that make the relationship special.

Patience in understanding the concepts.

It has been said that understanding the concepts is more important than understanding the techniques. In jiu jitsu, you can learn thousands of techniques, but there is always a counter, always a hurdle to overcome for a technique to be successful, and techniques are useful, but the application of a technique can fail for multiple reasons. 

There are always outside factors that can affect the application of techniques in love and jiu jitsu. That does not discount the importance of learning and applying techniques, it just shows that the concepts that make techniques work, are important for when you need to change course and adapt. Life requires the ability to adapt and overcome, even when factors you cannot control, or for-see, are constantly being hurled your way. Love and jiu jitsu are no different. The practice of the concepts are adaptable, and hold true, while techniques come and go, and are refined based on the concepts.

Patience in uncomfortability. 

In order to be successful, you have to be able to accept and thrive, despite the different levels of being uncomfortable. If you cannot accept that there will be moments that you just aren't going to be comfortable, you cannot train yourself to work through those tough moments. Both love and jiu jitsu provide enough uncomfortability to last a life time.

Patience in general.

We've all had those moments with your significant other, your friends, your family members.. and dare I say, your kids, "I'm gonna kill 'em."

Love is Kind. Jiu Jitsu is Kind.

Being kind to someone is a very strange thing. In some ways, kindness may be very natural, but in general, humans have a natural inclination of selfishness. There are benefits to being kind. It can impact your happiness, your healthiness, your ability to be successful, your ability to handle stress, and in some cases impact your ability to live longer. 

Jiu jitsu can be a very violent art. Like any martial art, or fighting in general, you learn the abilities and techniques that can physically, and emotionally harm another individual. So with the art, comes the responsibility. You should never take the art of self-defense and use it as the art of unreasonable force on others. In reality, even when you are defending yourself or others, you should be considerate of your opponent. Different levels of the application of force should be recognized. Just because you can use a certain level of force doesn't mean that you have to or should. 

Kindness also carries over into training. I don't know if I've met as many kind people as I have in my jiu jitsu journey. Sure, there are also assholes along the way, but most do not last long, or they change along the way of their own jiu jitsu journey. Kindness to your training partners builds trust and a bond of good faith.

It Does Not Envy, It Does Not Boast, It is Not Proud.

If you want your journey in love or jiu jitsu to be successful, the key is to control your ego. Ego leads to boasting, to envy, and to being proud. The most common saying I have heard in my jiu jitsu journey is "leave your ego at the door." You cannot expect love to survive the battles with ego, specially when you are too proud to apologize, and to learn from your mistakes. One key point that applies to love is that you can love someone beyond your ego, but you shouldn't love someone beyond your self-respect. This point is cross-applicable with your jiu jitsu experience. You must learn how to balance ego with self-respect, which is not always an easy task.

Love is Not Rude or Selfish. Jiu Jitsu is Not Rude or Selfish.

Jiu jitsu is very weird. It is an act of violence. However, it is also compassion. It can reduce the amount of pain and damage used to gain compliance. Jiu jitsu teaches not to rely on pain compliance. You have a meter with levels of pain used for compliance. If you are attacked you can attempt to take an opponent down with little to no striking, and little to no pain to gain control over them. Of course, there may be times when using force and pain are a must, but like in the points before, your ego should not be the determining factor. Just because you can hurt someone, doesn't mean you have to or should. Causing pain to another person can be driven by rudeness, or selfishness, all related to ego.

You should not be rude or selfish to your training partners... to some extent. If you are rude or selfish, you will not have many people that want to train with you. Sometimes you have to put your personal feelings or goals aside, in order to keep training partners around, or to allow them to grow. This can be said for love and relationships as well. If you are are rude or selfish, and you are not considerate of your partner, even in circumstances beyond your control, you will impact your relationship negatively. It cannot grow and stay strong when rudeness and selfishness is a constant.

On the flip side, there are times when you must be a little selfish in order to grow. Balance is key.

Love always Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres.

One blog post I recently read talks about the importance of love being tenacious.

Love is tenacious at protecting, tenacious at trusting, tenacious at hoping, tenacious at preserving. Tenacious can be replaced with "it always," as in it always protects, it always trusts, it always hopes, it always preserves.

In jiu jitsu tenacity is a must. Professor Jason Yerrington wrote:

Jiu Jitsu was made for the person facing insurmountable odds. It was not developed for the bigger, stronger, faster, more athletic person. It was developed so the smaller, weaker, slower, and less athletic person could use angles, leverage and movement to dominate and submit their opponent. For this reason we can truly say that jiu jitsu is for everyone! It takes tenacity though to truly become proficient at the details of this art. This week think about your game. What areas are you more tenacious in. Where do you need to build some forward momentum in your game. Be tenacious in your quest for knowledge. Be tenacious in your training. Do this and i promise you will overcome insurmountable odds!  

The process of jiu jitsu will teach you the same as love: Always protect, Trust the system, your professors, and your training partners, Never give up hope and stay in the fight, stay in the process of training, and most of all be ready to persevere.

Love Never Fails. Jiu Jitsu Never Fails.

Many may shake their head and counter with love can fail. That's not true, love does not fail, the practice of love can fail, human beings can fail at love. Love itself, and the concepts of love are perfect. IF you follow the concepts, you will be successful. 

Many would think the same about jiu jitsu, but does jiu jitsu actually fail? I'd say no, you can make mistakes, there will be learning moments, the practice of jiu jitsu is not an easy choice, but jiu jitsu does no actually fail. Any failures of the practice of jiu jitsu are mistakes, and mistakes are what build a stronger learning of what jiu jitsu is and how to apply the concepts regardless of barriers. 

In love, and jiu jitsu, there is no such thing as failure, there is only the process, that teaches you never give up, trust the process, grow in the process.

Jiu Jitsu is Love.

Past Episodes of How to Jiu Jitsu:

Episode 1 Episode 2

Episode 3 Episode 4

Episode 5

@framelalife is a 2 stripe blue belt under Royce Gracie. I train at Three Rivers Martial Arts which is in the Royce Gracie Network. Three Rivers Martial Arts is very lucky to have a large staff of professional instructors including: Jason Hawkins, Eli Knight, Derik Perry, Jim Hemphill, Eric Romanak, Clay Mayfield, and Dustin Lynn. The primary focus of Three Rivers Academy is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu but also includes Jeet Kun Do, Judo, Silat, and Martial Arts Concepts.

Related articles:

http://www.grapplearts.com/new-to-jiu-jitsu-youll-need-a-lot-of-this/#

https://www.jiujitsutimes.com/want-get-better-jiu-jitsu-learn-relax/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-strgar/improving-relationships_b_913398.html

http://bjjstyle.com/hidden-indicators-of-improvement-in-bjj/

http://thoughtcatalog.com/nicholas-goa/2014/11/10-little-signs-that-your-relationship-is-progressing/

http://www.jiujitsubrotherhood.com/why-concepts-are-better-than-techniques-in-bjj/

http://love-worldplatform.blogspot.com/2011/01/understanding-concept-of-love_28.html

http://www.wordcentral.com/byod/byod_search.php?term=uncomfortability&type=exact

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/10/facts-about-being-nice_n_5791778.html

http://jiujitsumag.com/5-lessons-you-should-learn-from-cobrinhas-incredible-jiu-jitsu-career/

http://matt-mitchell.blogspot.com/2008/12/matts-messages-love-always-protects.html

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=tenacious&*

http://ohanajiujitsu.com/blog/43725/Tenacity