Challenging Perceived Beliefs

One of my perceived beliefs was challenged yesterday. Two, actually. I’m pretty sure I missed the next several minutes of instruction because my brain just could not fathom what I had just learned.

My jits coach is a big guy. Big compared to anyone, really, and definitely big compared to me. He likes pressure passing. I’ve always thought, “well, duh, he’s HUGE! Of course he likes to use pressure.” But apparently, this was not the case.

He was introducing pressure passing to us as “A way to pass not THE way.” Then he shared a story…

Years ago, his coach, Matt Thornton, introduced pressure passing to him. (Wait, what? He was already a black belt at that point.). Not only that, but he sucked at it. He kept falling into submissions. Struggled to find his balance. Exerted a lot of effort trying to figure it out. But then, he stuck it out. He worked it until it became natural and effective and he added it to his passing game

I actually love when my beliefs about things are challenged like this, because usually, it exposes other beliefs that I’ve built upon them. In this instance, I realized that I had built a belief that “it will never work as good for me as it does for Ray because he’s much heavier than I am.” This then informs how I approach learning and practicing pressure passing. If in my head I believe that I will never be “that good at it”, then I’m never going to put in the full effort needed to figure it out. If I believe that the skill of pressure passing is predicated on how much weight one has, then I will never be able to see my true potential at using it because I’m smaller. Realizing that Ray had a hard time learning to use it, means that weight has nothing to do with it, and further, that MY weight has nothing to do with it.

I had no idea that I had built a framework of belief about my potential for pressure passing based around another false belief. Exposing the first belief exposed the second. Exposing both allows me to more fully explore without built-in inhibitions about what I can and cannot do.