Sean Butler-Galliera
"When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, my mind went to the usual places – Am I going to die? What’ll happen to my wife? How will this affect my son? Will I suffer? Could I have prevented this? Why me? After my initial diagnosis was followed up with a relatively positive prognosis and a few different possible treatment routes, all of my thoughts went to how I could live my life most fully. I’ve heard people say things like “live like there’s no tomorrow”, in order to inspire urgency and to recognize how short life can be. For me, I couldn’t live like there’s no tomorrow because even if my life was to be shortened by cancer, I still have things that I want to do that won’t be able to be done tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that.
All of us who practice Jiu Jitsu know that it’s a long road to black belt. At the time of my diagnosis, I was a purple belt. Pretty far along from white belt, but still a considerable way from black belt. Definitely not something that I am going to be able to accomplish if I simply “live like there is no tomorrow”. I did decide, however, to place some more urgency on my training. I wanted to not necessarily speed up my progression (that’s probably not really possible anyway), but I did want to make my Jiu Jitsu journey more complete. I wanted to experience ALL of Jiu Jitsu. I was on the mat the next day, and I let my training partners know the situation, and that they shouldn’t take it easy on me just because I have cancer because I wasn’t going to take it easy on them. I started to visit other academies whenever I could in order to experience other learning situations and to train with other people. I made sure that every moment that I spent on the mat was well spent – I had to get something out of every moment.
Since I started to have a heightened sense of “Jiu Jitsu urgency”, I’ve had the pleasure of training with legends of the art like Royler Gracie and Pedro Sauer while also training with recent world champions. I traveled to Brazil, and trained in several places there. I was promoted to brown belt by my instructor, Pat King, and his instructor Royce Gracie. I haven’t competed in a tournament since blue belt, but I’m going to reenter the competition scene this year so that I can really test myself and my body.
Cancer sucks. In every way possible. Having something in your life that can inspire you to live your life most fully doesn’t suck. Jiu Jitsu has been one of those things - I’m glad that I have it. And, while I’m certainly not happy to have cancer, I am glad about the urgency that it has given to my Jiu Jitsu training. The urgency that it has instilled in me helps to ensure that I experience the path most fully. I plan on being around for a long, long time. And, for as long as I can, I’ll be training Jiu Jitsu."
All photography in the People Who Train series is by photographer Mik Milman. See more of his work here.
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