John Danaher has once again shared a crucial insight into the learning process of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – one that challenges the fear many grapplers face when evolving their game.
In a recent post, Danaher explained that any major improvement in Jiu-Jitsu requires a temporary sacrifice:
Whenever you add something major to your game, there has to be a period where you forsake your previous skills in order to focus on the new skill.
It’s a reality most practitioners experience but rarely embrace.
The human mind and body have limited capacity – time, energy, and focus are finite.
As Danaher notes, the more energy you dedicate to learning a new technique or concept, the less you can spend maintaining the skills you already have.
That imbalance often leaves athletes anxious that their hard-earned strengths will fade away.
And according to Danaher, they will, to some degree:
Skills are perishable. If you don’t work on them, they diminish.
But he also reassures students that this decline is temporary and necessary.
Unlike learning a new move from scratch, re-learning something you’ve already mastered happens far more quickly:
Don’t be concerned.
It is much easier to re-learn skills than to learn them from scratch.So if there is some diminishing of your previous skill set as you pursue new skills, rest assured that some periodization of focus in the future will quickly bring them back, and you’ll have the new skills as well!
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