About a month or so ago, I was walking home from my BJJ
class, thinking about my day and how far I had come ever since I started the
little journey I have been on to find myself (this also will be the story of
another post later sometime)
You know how people walk into gyms and have a list of goals and you're just ready to crush every single one of those things you have your mind set on? well I didn’t have that the first time I walked into Mass BJJ and met Mike and Nate. To be honest I didn’t have much left at this time: I was going through a rough patch in life, I was lost and it was just a never ending fall to the abyss that felt like an eternity. Everything was falling apart and I needed something to hold on to. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on my way back from meeting with a friend for a late afternoon coffee and I passed by the gym that had just relocated to a new place literally 5 minutes away from my house. I stood outside, in front of the door and took a peek inside: the light was dim, it was as if the gym was about to close but there were still some people inside. So I walked in and greeted the people I found inside. After a few words with Mike, co-owner of Mass BJJ, I signed up for a trial because I thought “Why not? That might be fun and at this point I literally have nothing to lose". It was all I needed for my life to take a new turn, this time for the best. After a few months of training, sweating, drilling, frustrations from being choked and submitted but also of learning and taming the storm that was raging inside of me, I finally got promoted. I was getting my first stripe and boy did it feel good!
On my way home that day, I tried to think about what I would say if somebody asked me what that stripe meant to me. Of course I would say it’s an acknowledgement of the hard work and the hours I put in on the mat. But in all honesty, it was much more than that. That stripe to me was and still is a symbol of Hope as well as a little victory in my fight to stay alive.
Why? You might ask... Well simply because honestly I don’t think I would
have made it otherwise. When I started BJJ I was looking for something to
hold onto to when everything was falling apart. I was desperately in need of
something I could invest myself in, pour my heart into; something that would
help me get my head out of the water. I was in need of something and/or someone
to rescue me because I was dying inside and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu saved my life. Mass BJJ
gave me my life back.
That stripe is also a symbol of strength and endurance. I am
not the broken girl who walked in Mass BJJ for her first class and was on the
edge of fainting 2 min into the drill. Walking home after that first class,
lightheaded, my legs barely holding me, I understood the meaning of the saying
“what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Training BJJ made me stronger and
it is not just my body. Physical strength is nothing when it comes to being on
the mat. Because you can be 300lbs and be taken down by somebody weighting half
your weight. The strength I am talking about is the mental one. The first thing
that I wrote on the goal board when I started training was “challenge my
limits” and I am happy to say I did. My mind is much stronger and as a results
I have grown comfortable getting out of my safe and comfort zone. I have grown in strength and I am still getting comfortable
being uncomfortable and accepting challenges I wouldn’t have accepted years
ago. One of them was the challenge of evolving and going from thinking “I
can’t” or “I will never be able to do that” to “If I put in hard work, I will”
or “One day I will be able to do that. I just have work on this”.
Reflecting on how I things have turned out for me lately and
how far from my expectations I am standing at the moment, I thought it was a
much needed thing to take a break and celebrate that little victory. Little but
not so much because of the significance it carries. As we just celebrated
thanksgiving, I thought it was the right time for me to stop and be grateful
for that victory right here. It is so easy to get discouraged and disappointed
because we don’t see the big things happen but what we forget is that the accumulation
of the small victories create a ripple effect leading to the big victory. Raising
today my bottle of water (while having some chocolates... of course...) to celebrate a small
victory that is nothing but the sign that greater things are laying ahead of
me; but at the same time a victory not so little because of how meaningful it is. Indeed a huge victory on
the old me, a huge milestone in the transformation process that is happening in
my life at the moment, a huge step forward in my journey to find myself in the
midst of the chaos surrounding me. To our “littles” victories and to the
biggest moment of joy they have brought to us, celebrating and being
grateful/hopeful as sometimes it is important to be gentle with yourself
and appreciate the results of your hard work because you are doing the best you can with just what you have and sometimes it's not much. So...
Cheers
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