Flow With The Go

A better path to jiu-jitsu and life.

Photo by Maksym Tymchyk 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

One of my favourite documentaries is “Choke” which captures the Rickson Gracie’s camp in the lead up to defending his title in the Vale Tudo Freestyle Fighting Championship in Tokyo.

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

There’s a part in the documentary wherein Rickson mentions that the jiu-jitsu practitioner needs to find the “zero point” - the place where one is completely neutral, neither here nor there. He says to the viewer:

“You need to flow with the go.”

Search the far corners of the Internet and you’ll find debates on whether or not he misspoke. Whatever the truth, I think it’s beautiful twist on an old phrase. And it offers a simple, yet profound guide to jiu-jitsu and life.

A match is full of “go”: resistance, friction, sweat, confusion, distraction, anxiety, and adrenaline all swirling together to make a perfect cocktail of chaos. In life, we have worries, self-doubts, unexpected problems - things largely outside of our control.

On and off the mats, the more I try to fight against the “go”, I deplete myself faster and burn out. The more I try to force an outcome, the harder everything becomes.

Flowing with the Go

“Go with the flow” has always sounded too passive to me.

The way I see it, flowing with the go is a lot like sailing. You’re not allowing the current to take you wherever it pleases. But rather than fight against water, you harness the power of the wind to your advantage.

Whenever I find myself trying to force certain outcomes - in jiu-jitsu, in writing, in my career, or in my personal life - things either don’t end well, or it feels like the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

For instance, earlier this year, I forced myself to join a tournament. Truthfully, I wasn’t in the best mental state to compete. The competition fell on a particularly stressful week, but I fought anyway…and was subbed in a minute.

I took a few months off from competing (partly from injuries sustained while training, partly because work got busy). When I returned to the competition mats, I was worried about being rusty, but I ended up taking Silver. Not bad, considering I was off the tournament circuit for nearly 7 months and had to move up a weight class.

Why the stark difference?

The first competition was like forcing a submission that wasn’t quite “there.” I had committed myself to a path of action that I wasn’t prepared to undertake. So, for the second tournament, I laid the groundwork for a better performance over the course of several months: “getting into a better position,” so to speak.

My ability to flow better came down to 3 things:

1. Being present and patient.
   In jiu-jitsu, as in life, things change on a dime. Getting tunnel vision and continuing on a foolish plan of action is a very real risk. Knowing when not to pull the trigger is just as important as knowing when to go all-in.

2. Staying flexible.
   Like bamboo that sways in a storm, being flexible is the key to surviving tough situations. I had to change up my training schedule and exercises to accommodate injuries and whatever life threw at me.

3. Releasing the pressure of the outcome.
   I wanted to win the first comp so badly, even though I knew deep down that I was in no shape to compete. In the second comp, I just focused on fighting well. I didn’t care about what place I took on the podium. I just wanted to go out there and give a great performance. Ironically, that approach worked out so much better (not to mention for my mental health, too).

2 Questions for You:

Have you been trying to force an outcome, on or off the mats?

How would you adjust your approach to allow for more flow?

Oss,
Rob