.
.

Rodrigo Cavaca: “We Must Learn From Our Mistakes In Jiu-Jitsu, In Order To Enrich Our Future Victories”

Rodrigo Cavaca: “We Must Learn From Our Mistakes In Jiu-Jitsu, In Order To Enrich Our Future Victories”

Rodrigo Cavaca is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a coach of many BJJ champions. Back in the day, he made spectacular improvements on his Straight Ankle Lock (back during his win-it-all 2010 year); which made it a popular submission in Arte Suave.
Today, Cavaca leads Zenith Jiu-Jitsu alongside Robert Drysdale. In a text that originally appeared on Graciemag, he shared his views on the relation between life and training BJJ… As well as how important it is to gain values through each process:

Today’s world is very lacking in care, respect and other values ​​that the martial art offers people. Obviously, I mean the values ​​that are demonstrated and taught when we stick to the essence of this martial art. Jiu-Jitsu, for example, adds these values ​​and principles, but not all places promote such teachings. This learning takes place from the mat to life and vice versa, that is, there is an exchange of experience and energy, in addition to establishing a connection with other people.

He emphasized the importance of guiding BJJ students not just through training itself, but also through the journey of self-knowledge:

Our procedure at Zenith is just to serve people well and offer what we have best, which in turn is not just the best way to teach a class or teach a technique, but what is best in our hearts. Our idea is to guide these people through a process that I went through alone, which is the journey of self-knowledge, and put into practice all my forty years of experience to generate these people many achievements in their futures.
For this, we seek to work daily with patience and trying to do the right thing in easy and difficult times. Making mistakes and suffering momentary defeats is something inevitable in the construction of an individual’s history, but we must try to learn from these mistakes, in order to strengthen our base and enrich our future victories.

Cavaca also stressed out the necessity of life off the mats in the growth of athletes:

Life off the mat greatly influences who we are. We have creation within our homes, our characteristics, our traumas. To assist in this journey of self-knowledge, it is necessary to have places and strategic friendships; so that these give us strength and good examples. That’s what we do at our school. I don’t consume any informative content on social media. I just follow people who are better than me, who have something positive to communicate.
We must seek out and follow people who are better than us, because they are always teaching us, even without realizing it. Today, I have references from good people, and consequently, good gyms and initiatives.

Read the full article (in Portuguese) on this link.