One of the most important things for success in Jiu-Jitsu (or any other endeavor, for that matter) is the drive and willingness to learn. To improve and perfect your skill set.
Strangely enough however, this is an easier task for those who’ve only started their journeys. Those who have been doing it for years, however, often find it difficult to sustain the required level of ambition.

Tye Ruotolo knows that well. Here’s what he had to say in a recent interview for ONE Championship:

I think it’s important to have the ambition to learn.
I see a lot of my teammates – they go in, and because they’re training three times a day, their ambition to learn is gone.

It’s the third training session, I see them, and they’re just there, they’re not learning, they’re not grasping ideas.
They’re just there, so every time I train, I make sure I’m mentally ready to absorb and get better.

It’s all about knowing yourself and balancing out what needs to be balanced out:

Our whole careers, we’ve kept that mentality.

And like I said, there were a couple times where we didn’t quite have that balance so good.
And we were over it, you know, and then we realized like: “OK, we gotta bring the balance back.”

And then boom, OK, we’re getting what we need to get done in jiu-jitsu.
And we’re still enjoying the other aspects, so we’re just always trying to find the balance.

 

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