Your Amygdala Needs Your Attention…
This Article comes from Arcanum Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Blog
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Beware of your lizard brain.
If you’ve read Seth Godin’s excellent business book Linchpin, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If anything shows how bad I have the BJJ bug, it’s the fact that I can read a book about business and instantly start applying it to jiu-jitsu.
The lizard brain is Seth’s label for the amygdala, the tiny dual organ near your brain stem that is responsible for your most primal emotional reactions. It tries to protect you and make you safe and comfortable at all costs. Fight or flight, sex, and especially fear are all parsed by that brain. (For a demonstration of how your amygdala works, click here.)
This is of course a gross oversimplification of the amygdala’s role, but the lizard brain concept is intriguing.
Fear can keep us alive…and it has for eons. The amygdala’s job is to shut the higher-level thinking down and keep you out of danger. But now that man isn’t being chased by saber-toothed tigers, Seth contends that the lizard brain’s favorite pastime is to keep you from being a genius and an artist. It’s to keep you wrapped in the safe arms of mediocrity where you can’t get guillotined, arm-barred or choked.
How does it do that? Fringe products of the lizard brain are things like excuses, rationalization, procrastination and avoiding commitment or social contact.
Which begs the question: if Jiu-jitsu is a martial art, does that make us artists?
If not, what’s holding us back? There are certainly great artists in the world of BJJ.
See, becoming an artist is the real point Seth drives home in his book. It means placing a greater emphasis on creativity and delivery than on obedience, conformity and tradition.
I can’t help but feel that part of the journey to mastering Brazilian jiu-jitsu, to becoming a truly great grappler, is to become an artist.
I’m not talking about scrapping the principles of BJJ, acting like a hot-shot and trying to invent your own new martial art. Quality and delivery – making things work and work well – is a huge component of artistry in Linchpin.
Artistry in jiu-jitsu would mean learning the principles that make BJJ work by being willing to take risks.
By staying calm while sparring.
By not being afraid to try new things, even if you have to tap.
By throwing your heart and soul into making you and the people around you better grapplers.
By recognizing that no matter how much you want to fight like Rickson Gracie, no matter how many times you watch your Demian Maia dvds, you are always crafting your own unique brand of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and you can take pride in that.
If we’re not OK with mediocrity, somewhere along the line we have to identify what it is that is keeping us from being a genius and kick it in the nads. More often than not, that’s <a href=”http://www.arcanumbjj.com/?p=214“> fear</a>, in all its aforementioned forms.
<a href=”http://devbjj.blogspot.com/“>“Fueled by Fear”</a> is a BJJ blog I really enjoy reading. Dev’s whole “Fueled by Fear” concept has up until now escaped me, though. Fear has always been the enemy from my point of view. But reading this book has caused me to realize a few things:
- I will never be able to outrun my fears, only face them. Even then, they never completely go away.
- Fear can be your motivation, because experiencing fear is the very catalyst that allows you to overcome it. Whether it’s competition, grappling with that 250- lb brown belt in your school or just stepping through the door for your first class, you can’t progress until you identify your fears and move through them.
- If you have hammered jiu-jitsu into your sub-conscious, when Freddy Krueger attacks you in your sleep you will break both his wrists, throw him in a crucifix hold and crush his atlas rather than crapping your pants and running.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is full of great artists – people who push the envelope, innovate, try new things and aren’t satisfied with mediocrity. It’s how BJJ was born, and it’s how it continues to grow. Just because you we aren’t all world champions doesn’t mean we can’t be artists.
I’m probably preaching to the choir, since people who read this are probably the more active practitioners. But it’s a “sermon” I need to hear, and I daresay we all need to be reminded occasionally that no matter where we are in our game, there is a higher level of excellence waiting for us if we don’t let the lizard brain hold us back.
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