Learning a new language is difficult. I have been trying to learn Spanish for awhile now. I am getting better at it, little by little. I practice it as often as I can. I have heard that when I start to think in Spanish, I will know I really have it.
I don't think in Spanish yet. But I think in jiu jitsu.
I remember when I first started BJJ, just a few months in, I would find myself suddenly thinking jiu jitsu. What I mean is, I would think and work through moves that didn't go quite right the night before in practice. I would analyze it, work through it in my mind, think of alternative techniques I could have used. Thinking jiu jitsu. In the middle of the day. At work.
When you don't practice a language that you are trying to learn, you lose it. I didn't practice jiu jitsu much this summer. I hadn't practiced it much until recently. That made me sad, and it made me lose a lot of my confidence. I stopped thinking jiu jitsu. For awhile, I felt I could never go back. I thought that things would be too hard forever. The truth is, not going to Elite made things worse.
When you are learning a language, it is important to be around people who also know and practice the language. Immerse yourself. It's also important to overcome fear in speaking the language. A lot of times, I won't speak Spanish because I am afraid I will mess up and sound stupid. It's the same with jiu jitsu, especially with getting back to it. I was afraid to go back to the gym for awhile. I was afraid of how I would look, having lost any fluency I had gained. It was one step forward, ten steps back. But not going at all wasn't helping anything. I needed to be in a place where jiu jitsu was spoken openly and easily, where I could be safe to make mistakes, where there were people to lift me up and encourage me to keep going.
I have accepted this coming year as a hard one. That doesn't mean it can't also be good, that it can't make me stronger. It has and will. But I can't be hard on myself, either. There will be days and weeks that I can't train. I am navigating this year as a newly single mom. My finances are different, my schedule is different. I have set long-term goals for a reason and the words "for now" are an important part of my vocabulary. But there's good news: I have started thinking jiu jitsu again.
It happened two weeks ago on the way to work, and it was a definite marker for me. I was just about to the gate where I enter the parking lot, and I caught myself doing it: working through a move from the night before. I was rethinking my technique, reworking the move in my mind, just as I had done a million times before. I was thinking jiu jitsu without even trying, without realizing it. It was natural to me. I knew then that I was back, and it made me smile.
