Why BJJ? - Confidence
(Published May 25, 2022)
“Confidence is very sexy! “ - Jack Palance
In the 80s there was a series of commercials for Skin Bracer Aftershave featuring Jack Palance. He was an older guy with a wiry frame and a gravelly voice. At the end of the commercial Jack Palance would smile and say, “Confidence is very sexy!” And say what you want about Jack Palance, but the man had confidence!
I remember he was onstage at the Academy Awards one year, and he dropped down and started doing one arm push-ups! I remember thinking, man, I wanna be like that when I’m his age! Which reminds me I need to get back to work on that one arm push-up goal!
Several years ago I was traveling around interviewing at different high schools to get an NJROTC instructor position. After one of my interviews the principal took me and the other Naval Science Instructor out to lunch. As I was answering his questions he paused at one point and said, “You’re confident. I like that.“
That I never really thought of myself as an overly confident person. When I was a kid I didn’t have much confidence to speak of at all! So that got me to thinking, what is it that he “misinterpreted “as confidence?
I was a Navy helicopter for 20 years. And one of the things that Naval aviation values in its officers is well roundedness. Another is the ability to “figure things out on one’s own.
And to that end our community had a way of shuffling junior officers around from one job to the next within a squadron pretty regularly. We used to joke that if you ever get to the point where you feel like you got your job wired, then it’s time to switch you to a new job.
This could be a huge source of frustration. Some would even call this wasteful or inefficient. And would have a point.
But shuffling jobs so often does have one major benefit.
After 20 years of switching jobs every six months or so, I eventually got to the point where you can put me in a job that I’ve never done before, in a profession I have zero experience with, dealing with subjects I know absolutely nothing about, and I’ll be up to speed enough to get the job done acceptably within a week or two. Within a month or so I’ll be as good as the last guy. Give me six months, and I’ll be really good. And if you give me a year or more, I’ll have my systems set up so that I can do the job in my sleep. I’ll be an expert. And I’ll be able to teach other people how to do that job and get them up to speed in record time!.
I can say that I possess the ability to do that, with 100% certainty, because I’ve done it over and over and over again.
The high school principal interpreted that as confidence (and he offered me the job by the way).
It didn’t feel like confidence to me at the time. It just felt like a fact.
I used to think that confidence was this unsubstantiated feeling that people would get thinking that they were better than they actually are. You have all these new age gurus out there nowadays that will tell you to boost your confidence by looking in the mirror and repeating over and over again, “I can do this!!” as if that will somehow magically give you the ability to do so… or at least brainwash yourself into thinking you can.
But that fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy doesn’t give you real confidence.
Real confidence is having been there enough times to know that you can find a way to successfully navigate through it again.
Now I think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu does something similar for you.
When you start out you’re gonna be stuck on the bottom, a lot. You’re gonna get smashed by guys that know more jujitsu than you.
But if you stick with it long enough, you’ll learn how to escape those positions. And when you learn how to escape a position that you previously thought of as inescapable, that experience bleeds over to every other aspect of your life.
I’ve been in positions that I thought were inescapable, unwinnable, and then was subsequently able to escape and win. I’ve done this literally thousands of times!
And when you have this experience of having escaped inescapable positions and won unwinnable situations, then the next time life is beating you down and circumstances seem on escapable and/or unwinnable, there’s a part of you that is able to take a step back, look at the problem, and say, “I can do that. I don’t know how yet, but I know that I’ve done this before. I’ve won the unwinnable. I have beaten the Captain Kirk, Kobayashi Maru scenario. If I’ve done it before I can do it again. I just have to figure out how.”
That’s how real confidence works. It’s not some superficial, unsubstantiated feeling of false confidence that people try to manifest into being with mantras and empty platitudes. Real confidence comes through experience.
And I have to be real with you. You’re not going to win them all. But that mindset of “I’ve done this before, I can do it again,” that comes from actual experience is so much better and so much more productive than the “oh my gosh, what am I going to do?!?!“ mindset.
So if you’re looking to build a little confidence, and becoming a Naval Aviator is off the table for the time being, then look no further than your local BJJ Gym.
- Mike
P.S. If you live in Oak Harbor, Washington, feel free to stop by. I would love for you to be my guest at Big Mike's BJJ!