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So You Have ZERO TALENT For BJJ? Don’t Despair – But Do This

So You Have ZERO TALENT For BJJ? Don’t Despair – But Do This

You’ve been training Jiu Jitsu for a while and you truly enjoy learning techniques and rolling, as well as the overall atmosphere in the academy. But, alas, to your horror… You figured out that you’re an absolute anti-talent for BJJ!
That sucks, we’re not going to lie to you. Just the thought of it is enough to destroy your drive. However, there are still 3 things that you can do to keep improving – even when you have zero talent!

 

„HARD WORK BEATS TALENT…

… when talent doesn’t work hard enough!“ Familiar with that saying? Well, it’s about time that you take it to heart.

You see, there’re so many talented Jiujiteiros out there. But do you know just how many of these super-talented (and even averagely talented) guys and girls will fulfill their true potential?
Not a lot. There are so many BJJ athletes that wasted their talent by not giving their best in training or by leaving Jiu Jitsu for good that it’s not even funny anymore. So much unfulfilled potential and medals – both personal and real ones – left on the table.

Honestly, you don’t need to be talented at all to become good at Jiu Jitsu. You just need perseverance. You need to show up every single day, as often as you can, and give it your best when you drill and roll. Work on your mindset before anything else.
That’s it! This will place you miles ahead of all those talented individuals that don’t have the grit and the work ethic like you do.

 

FOCUS ON SMALL IMPROVEMENTS

Right after you get your mindset in check, the next hurdle you should cross on your „no talent journey“ should be your everyday improvement.

Even the uber-talented Jiujiteiros will get sad if they’re focused only on how much progress they’ve made on the „grand scale“. That is, if the only thing you’re focused on is how good you are today versus how good you were three, six, or even more months ago… You’re not going to have a great time.
This is because you can’t notice the progress you make on this large of a time scale. Your training partners and coach can, but you are sort of blind to just how good you’re getting! (And you are getting better!)

So, instead of thinking about progress as something that happens across large time chunks, focus your attention on improving every training session.
This can be as simple as making sure that you try out a new technique each time you roll. That you improve every single time that you give it a shot, in one aspect or another. But it can be anything else as well; just make sure that it’s about making small steps of improvement.

 

TALK TO YOUR COACH

But, in the end of ends… Are you sure that you’re anti-talented? Or could it be that your mind is playing tricks on you? For, just as bad as you are in gauging your progress, you may be even worse in figuring out the amount of talent you have.

And do you know who has a better idea about this than you do? That’s right – it’s your coach. He has seen more people train than you have and has extraordinarily much more experience than you do. So, share the doubts you have about your talent with him.
Chances are that two things will happen: he will either say that you’re lying to yourself, or that you truly do lack talent… And if it’s the latter, he’ll give you personalized advice on what you should work on to become better!