Photo by Daria Kochetkova Photography. IG: Tebezvonu.

For serious competitors: Everyday will not be a great day or even a good day. Your love of Jiu Jitsu has to give you the strength to find a way to train when you don’t want to.

Tom DeBlass

Anybody who has ever trained knows that feeling of unwillingness to train. That feeling of tiredness, laziness or desire to hang out with friends instead of going to train.

Almost every time when we feel like not training we make our decision, to go to that particular training session or not, based on strength of our will at that moment and we don’t include other important factors which can help us to shift our perception and go training more energized, excited, motivated or even joyful. Type of advice which supports aforementioned is the most common one: “just do it”. But what to do when this doesn’t work? And in most cases, it won’t.

The main thing to do, in these types of situations, is to accept that negative feeling and stop running away from it. After that, you should be able to shift your focus on next 10 tips:

1. Start thinking about that great feeling of accomplishment that you have after every training session. Try to make it real in that particular moment, don’t just think about it.

2. Focus on technique which you want to improve and try to find missing parts of its successfulness on your own. This will make you wanna try things you came up with.

3. Turn on some music that makes you feel pumped up and tape your fingers while you’re listening to it. This will make you feel like a warrior preparing for the battle.

4. Try to remember the reason why you started training BJJ. Think about your beginnings and how far have you come. How you changed your body and mind because of the spot. Be grateful to BJJ because all of benefits you gained out of this martial art.

5. Call your friend from the academy, the one that doesn’t miss out very often. Let him motivate you and pass his energy on you.

6. Think about your goals in BJJ. Make a comparison between the feeling of not achieving it and the false relief of not training today. You will know what to do.

7. Decide that you’re going to roll light today. Don’t pressure yourself, be aware that some days it has to be like that. Roll with sparing partners that have understanding for this. This can also be very beneficial for your technique.

8. Turn on some video about BJJ or watch your favorite fighter compete.

9. Try to remember your spot in the team. Think which way you are making value to your academy and the people that you helped. Don’t let them down today or let them to motivate you this time.

10. Think about people who are doubting in you. Don’t let them be right this time! Show all of those haters who you really are!

I hope that these 10 tips will help you next time when you don’t feel like training, if they don’t there is always good old “just do it”. ☺ If neither of this helps you, maybe it’s best for you to take a break for that day. Sometimes it’s best like that.