my Arte Suave

What I want to work at…

What I found was back in a sweaty gym in Colorado Springs. What I found was back on a rocky mountain outside of Phoenix. What I found was the hours and hours of extra work that I had used to get here, to get myself to this point.

When everyone else was toweling off, I was always doing thirty more minutes of push-ups, and pull-ups, and sit-ups. When everyone was watching, I was working my butt off. -Henry Cejudo

Extra Extra! 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. I just want to do more. I have done a similar post to this with Cael Sanderson and his pullup theory to winning his Olympic gold (50 pull ups after every practice). Well I am understanding this better. This extra work makes me feel amazing. I loved the idea of ordinary men, doing extraordinary things to achieve their goals. And doing something extra everyday, is extraordinary!

Terry Brands says, “You got to find something, that no one else in the world is doing, and you’ve got to do that everyday”. Henry wrote that in his book, that Terry had said that to him

It is difficult to do somethings where I live everyday, because in bjj or grappling, it takes two, (talking about technique). But when it comes to bettering yourself with wallsits, pullups, pushups, etc, after practice, then were making little strides on our own, that in a few months become bigger strides, that in a year(s) becomes HUGE strides. This can be done on your own.

Must be amazing to have a coach like Terry Brands, or a Bobby Douglas to push you every single day to a single goal. =)

Worlds are close..And I feel fantastic! The game and my lungs are expanding. =)

Another Gen from Cael..”optimism”

via caelsanderson.com, Olympic gold medalist, my favorite person to listen when it comes to grapplingat the highest level.

Today I am going to talk about being optimistic.  Nothing is more important than being optimistic and acting with a positive attitude.

If you struggle to be confident and positive, than simply act as if you are.  The saying “fake it until you make it” seems like a cheesy idea but it will help here.  Act as the person you want and hope to become.  Do what you think that type of person would do.  If you want to be a national champion, train like a national champion would train.  Talk to yourself as you would imagine an optimistic person would.  Eventually you will grow into the type of person you want to be.

The majority of great philosophers agree that ultimately you will get what you constantly think about. 

That can be good or bad.  It all depends on you and what thoughts you entertain in your mind.  But if it is true, think positively!

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”  – Proverbs 23:7

This doesn’t mean that we are doomed to every negative thought that enters our mind.  We are human and naturally negative thoughts will enter our minds often.  It’s what you do with those negative thoughts that is important.  If you take a negative thought and put it on “repeat” mode in your mind-that’s a problem.  If you take a negative thought, feed it and entertain it–  that’s a problem.  That gives the negative thought power.  Instead, you should recognize a negative thought immediately and replace it with a prepared thought.

Have an answer ready to replace negative thoughts. 

Feed your mind with positive thoughts.

To train yourself to be a positive thinker, you need to have purpose and goals.  You need to be realistic in your goals.  You need to set goals that you can control.  To be confident you must be able to focus on what you can control.  Ultimately you want to win, everyone does.  Ultimately you want to be the state, national or world champion.  So how do you do that?  I should ask, how do you make your very best attempt at those goals?

You do by doing the most you can with what you have and what you can control.  When you set your goals before competition they need to be effort based.  It’s like wishing for a toilet seat made of gold.  Nice goal but how are you going to make it happen.  Focus on what is going to make it happen, not the end result. 

It will be very difficult to be positive when you set your expectations and goals on things that you cannot control.  You can’t control whether you are going to win or not.  But you can control whether you are going to fight, hustle, be disciplined to wrestle the match in your strong positions, and simply never give up.  Those are things you can control.  Those are the things that you need to focus on if you want to be confident.

Focusing on effort is a sign of strength.  Accepting your absolute best effort as success is strength. That idea is divine in nature.  Few are willing to do this.  You can. 

Don’t expect to be confident if you are putting your focus into things that you cannot control.

“We must learn to become creators of circumstances and not creatures of them.”  – M. Russell Ballard

The next important principle to be optimistic is to develop self-discipline.  A lack of discipline is what keeps the majority of people from reaching their potential.  Talent and hard work go out the window without discipline.  You must have the discipline to follow through with the difficult things that stand between you and your goals.  It’s hard to be optimistic if you haven’t paid the price.

“For my part, I have concluded that the quality which sets one man apart from another- the factor which lifts one man to every achievement to which he reasonably aspires while the other is caught in the slough of mediocrity for all the years of his life—is not talent, nor formal education, nor luck, nor intellectual brilliance, but is rather the successful man’s greater capacity for self-discipline.”  — Benjamin N. Woodson

My final thought is to have faith in youself.  Why would you not have faith in yourself?  You are literally a son or daughter of God!  If you remember that, you will surely know that you can do anything!  Your goals should be simply to take what God has given you and do the very best that you can with it.  It’s simple, if you allow it to be.

“Who you are is God’s gift to you, who you become, is your gift to God!”  -unknown

The mere thought of knowing that you are in fact a son or daughter of God should have you bouncing off the walls with optimism.  What can a son or daughter of God not accomplish?!  Go for it!

“Pressure? What pressure? Pressure is what my opponents will feel” -Xande

“As you move closer to your goals and obstacles start popping up, go back to the basics.  The basics are realizing that everything is an opportunity, do the best you can, focus on the simplest form of the process that will help you perform at your best, and have fun! Just because the circumstances change it doesn’t mean you have to change your focus. 

Attack your goals like the grade school kid dreaming of something big.  Swing for the fence.  You should want to be the person who shoots the ball when your team is down by two and you have 10 seconds left.  It’s all just a game.  We were sent here to take what we have and do the very best that we can with it.

 Think like a child.  Have fun and play hard. ” -Cael 

Advice from a Olympic Gold Medalist on

[Here is some] advice as the post season draws near.  The best advice I can give, is to simply remind you that the fundamentals win big matches.  There are no mysterious secrets.  It’s easy to think that something magical is responsible for success this time of the year.  It’s not.  Tricks don’t win big matches (not consistently.)  Lucky rabbit’s feet don’t win big matches.  A nice fake-bake tan doesn’t win matches (but does look good!)   

Attitude wins big matches.  Determination, focus and fun are the keys.

Choose to win and attack.  You’d be surprised how what you choose to do down deep in your heart actually comes true.  If you choose to hustle and fight you will.  If you choose to get beat because your opponent is too good…you will.  Choose to win and you will.

Determination

Self-explanatory- be determined.  Be determined to wrestle the match where and how you need to .    Fight! Wrestle in your strong areas.   Control the tie up.   If it’s not your position, your opponent probably likes it.  Get the heck out of there now and back to where you want to be.  Refuse to not be successful.  Don’t take “no” for answer.  If your opponent stops your first 10 shots, get it on the 11^th.  If your set ups aren’t working, set up your set ups.  Do whatever it takes out there.  Big things come from doing the best that you can with the little things.  Be determined to take care of the little things. Hustle.  If you make a mistake, hustle to make up for it.  Hustle is often the difference between two evenly matched opponents.

Focus

Focus and discipline go hand in hand.  Take care of yourself.  Get plenty of sleep.  Don’t entertain negative thoughts, no matter how tempting it is.  That’s discipline.  Negative thoughts are just like harmful drugs.  Someone can offer you the drugs, and you say “no thanks.”  That’s exactly how it should work with negative thoughts.  When one pops in your head, you say “no thanks.”  Same thing.

Be disciplined. Do the little things that others are unwilling to do or rationalize that it’s not important.  Much of the time discipline is not doing something, or sacrificing something.

 Focus on what you can control.  Stay focused on your game plan in throughout the match.  Stay focused even if something doesn’t go as planned.  Stay focused and determined.  Find the “eye of the hurricane” and stay there.  No matter what’s going on around you, you stay calm and focused in your own bubble.   A lot of things, people, distractions, obstacles etc will try to steal your focus.  Say “no thanks” and keep your poised focus on what you want.

The ability to stay focused on the process (the small steps that make things work) in stressful times is a cornerstone of a “gamer.”  Nothing magical.  Hold on…the discipline to keep a narrow focus is magical and will bring optimal results.

Have Fun

What’s more fun than chasing dreams and attacking goals?  Nothing.  It’s all about perspective and seeing the truth.   We are all natural competitors. We compete every day for all sorts of things.  It’s a challenge to be the best that you can be, and unfortunately..to be better then everyone else.  Go see who the best is.  You might not enjoy the pressure that you feel.  You might not like what you have imagined the consequences of losing to be. That stuff is make-believe. Don’t confuse it with your actual competition.  Don’t let it blur the truth. You enjoy wrestling and you enjoy winning.  Remember and focus on that.  You have not won your next match.  Go get it and enjoy the challenge. You mean all I have to do is score more points than my opponent and I win?…..yep..that’s it!

Determination  -  Focus   -  Fun

via caelsanderson.com

Don’t “should” yourself..

via caelsanderson.com..I really love this post by Cael..Never leave anything to chance.

Don’t step in the “should!”

One of my favorite people in the world is Bonnie Epstein.  She has coined the phrase “Don’t should on yourself!”  It’s perfect and we would all benefit greatly from implementing her counsel into our lives.

It is very easy to beat yourself up over past experiences.  Don’t do it.  Be grateful for the learning experience and work to correct any mistakes. 

The “should of” disease will limit your growth.  “I should of” done this or that etc etc.  You can’t change the past.  Learn from it and move on.  It’s very easy and common to live our lives chin deep in “should’s.”  Everyone is an expert after the fact. I’m pretty sure a less then average person can look back after an incident and say I (or you) “should” have done something else.

People make mistakes.  You will make mistakes.  Just try to not make the same mistake again.  But even that can be difficult.  Progress comes in degress.  Difficult things get worked out through trial and error and most importantly through relentless determination.

 ”I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  – Thomas A. Edison

Focus on what you can do now and do it.  Let go of the “should’s.”

“You are responsible for everything you think, say, do and feel, but you are not responsible for how what think, do, say or feel makes other people think, say, do, or feel.”  -Bonnie Epstein

(I butchered the quote a little but you “should” (haha) be able to get the point.)

We are responsible for how we feel and respond to every incident in our lives.  We can choose to be positive and happy or we can choose to negative and sad.  The choice is yours. 

Don’t step in the “should!”  Choose Joy! and go kick some rear!