This article is courtesy Paul Greenhill aka the wise grappler
A few days ago, I had an interesting discussion with a high-ranking student about whether he should go to a grappling class or not when he felt too tired to go. The conversation took place because he asked my opinion as to whether he should miss the third consecutive class after being too busy at work to attend two previous training sessions. He admitted that missing the first two classes were beyond his control, but the third one was due to laziness. And his concern was if he missed the third class, it might get easier to miss the fourth and maybe not go back at all. I told him that he shouldn't be having the "Should I go to class tonight?" conversation with himself because that was more likely to keep him from going to class. I also told him that he should definitely go to class and whenever faced with that decision in the future, to ignore the internal mental debate and just do it. The grappler understood my point, shut down the debate in his head whether to go to class or not, went to class, AND had a great time learning some cool stuff. That grappler was me. Yep, even as a black belt, there are times when life gets in the way and I can't train. And then there are times when I don't want to train because I want to go home and watch TV. Whenever those "I don't feel like doing chit!" moments creep up on me, whether it's grappling or cardio training, I just shut down the internal voice in my head that wants to give me a hundred reasons why I shouldn't train and tells me to go home and chill because I deserve it. And I ALWAYS feel better when I've decided to do what I needed to do instead of what I wanted to do. So, the next time that you're driving home from a long day and that little voice keeps telling you to drive by the exit to get to your training academy and head on over to happy hour or home, stop the discussion and do what you need to do by going to class. You'll be glad you did.
