Rolling With Emotional Detachment

Rolling With Emotional Detachment

By Mik Milman

I’ve written often on the topic of the mental approach toward training. But this article will specifically discuss the concept of rolling without emotional attachment.

We all go into a roll with baggage whether aware of it or not. How your roll went with that person last time you trained, where you think you’re at with your game, or maybe you’re just flying high lately in respect to your Jiu Jitsu game- we bring such things into every roll.

We have these established ideas about ourselves and when things don’t seem to go our way it is natural for us to have an emotional response. But where is this emotional response coming from?

What this comes down to is reality not meeting expectation.  We have all made assessments of ourselves at some level, most of us being overly generous. When we find our assessment to be inaccurate we get frustrated and when we get emotionally frustrated it is natural to get angry.

It is important here to distinguish that anger isn’t always directed toward your opponent. More often than not, it is toward yourself for not living up to your expectations.

A helpful side note: next time your opponent seems angry with you during a roll, just know it’s probably not about you, it's more likely about them.

So can you use emotion to train harder? Well, no, not the kind that makes you angry. Emotions have the capacity to empower you or weaken you. positive emotions are energizing. Feeling proud for losing weight or overcoming a challenge are two great examples.

Negative emotions are equally  powerful but draining. For example getting down on yourself for losing to someone you thought you could beat.

Let's talk further about how negative emotion affects your roll.

Negative emotion  causes both the body and mind to become singly focused and leads to tension. It clouds your mind from what you should be doing such as getting to your side, protecting your head, changing direction, etc. Instead you are consumed with frustration.

Jiu Jitsu is not a fight or  flight situation in which we need that pump of adrenaline (ask a white belt at their first competition how that goes for them).  There are many things happening at once that we need to be in tune with

By relaxing and rolling without emotional attachment we are able to do so.

Easier said than done right?

Well, there are concrete steps you can take toward having that mentality.

First off, proper breathing. Breathing works in a cycle. The more relaxed you are the better you breath, and the more you breathe with intention the more relaxed you’ll be. We can’t always control our mental state, but one thing we can control is our breathing. With proper breathing our heart rate goes down, oxygen is better delivered and we begin to have much more mental clarity. We also begin to become more in tune with what is going on with and to our body. This is the first step to letting go of your ego.

When you are able to remove yourself from the experience, you become so much aware of what’s happening that you will begin to not just notice, but feel things that are happening almost as if before they happen.

Jiu jitsu is an elegant and nuanced dance played beautifully between two participants. Remove the concept of self and all the baggage that comes with it and fall in love with the movement.