There’s a phase in every skill that nobody warns you about. It comes after the initial rush — the part where everything is new and you’re improving so fast you can feel it in your body. You hit your first pull-up. You survive your first sparring round. You run a mile without stopping and think, …
Every athlete takes breaks. The hard part isn’t the fitness you lose — it’s the story you tell yourself about losing it. Here’s how to make the comeback easier than your brain wants you to believe.
I started crying on the way to my first jiu-jitsu tournament. It was the first time I was competing in the sport, and although it was an unofficial competition — a no-gi rollathon held at a local gym, nothing that will go on my record as a jiu-jitsu athlete — I was unbelievably nervous. While …
Three months ago, after years of not understanding what the hype was about, I turned up at my first Brazilian jiu-jitsu class. I quickly became hooked. I’m not alone in my experience — people who train jiu-jitsu often become fanatics about it. Many end up training for years, decades even, — a feat that’s nearly …
