Anger and Jiu-Jitsu

How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that aroused them in us?

Marcus Aurelius; Meditations; 11.18.8

Today’s quote was, as these things so often are, perfectly timed. I have not written in some time due to a wonderful trip to Greece (more on that in my next post) and also due to an increase in my attendance at my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. While any increase in my frequency of attendance can and should be attributed mostly to simply enjoying the activity and my desire to improve, over the last month or so it has been mostly because I chose to compete in a local tournament in 2 weeks as of the writing of this post.

Not wanting to lose, I have been going 5 times a week (as opposed the 3 times a week minimum I set for myself when I began). That is in addition to daily weightlifting sessions in the morning, work, and a dramatic increase in my study of the French language in preparation for my next assignment.

I tell you all of this not to brag or to make excuses. Instead, it is simply to explain that last night I was relatively tired both mentally and physically. I am fine today (I will be going to BJJ in about an hour) and last night represents a small dip in morale that I think is inevitable in any pursuit like this one. But the experience is ideal to explain some Stoic Ideas.

There is a fellow student in the class who, though he began around the same time as me, is admittedly better than I am. Mostly this is because he has come to more classes, worked harder, and practiced more than I. There is no way around that reality and he deserves all the credit due to him for that. Truthfully, I generally like to roll with him because he forces me to play my best game and I only get better from our bouts.

Last night, however, I was not on my game, either mentally or physically.  He picked me to roll at the very end of class and in a short span of time he had me in a really bad position. I can’t provide any excuses because I make mistakes to get there, but it was nowhere I have not been before. Any other day, getting into a bad position, while obviously not ideal, is also not irrecoverable. I have enough training to know how to stay calm and execute the counters and maneuvers necessary to escape. It is not a sure thing, but I have been there before.

Unfortunately, I allowed myself to get angry. Not at my opponent (he’d merely done his job) but at myself and at the situation. My emotions crept in. Mental fatigue was not my excuse for the bad position, that is simply a matter of I need to keep working hard a practicing. Instead, my mental fatigue acted to let emotions outflank my better reason. Instead of breathing, staying calm, thinking and deliberately moving my way to an escape, I allowed myself to get mad.

My anger led to me trying to escape using my strength rather than technique: useless in Jiu-Jitsu. It led to my breathing to become erratic and inefficient. It led to my mind to be unable to find an appropriate counter to my opponent’s moves. Not only did my anger make me tired, useless and dumb, but also my opponent, sensing that I was struggling, was able to sink his hold on me in further, creating more discomfort, and diminishing my chances of escape. In turn, this made me angrier, and I had caught myself in a spiral of depreciating survivability.

To be clear, this entire event took less than 20 seconds. Afterward, I acknowledged what had happened and moved on, only reflecting on it now for the purposes of this post. I did not stay mad or act like a poor sport or any of that. Jiu-Jitsu, like life, is not about winning every time, but about learning from the times you lose and getting better. I also wish to emphasize that I am not using being tired as an excuse for stumbling as a Stoic. At the end of the day I allowed emotion to take over in a highly un-Stoic manner.

The lesson I took from that brief crumbling of my Stoic walls is the lesson that Marcus Aurelius wants us to hear in today’s quote. The consequences of my anger were far worse than the consequences of a few mistakes on the mats. Often in life, our emotions make things worse than they would have been had we remained calm. To put it blithely: When life has you in mount, the solution is not to flail around, a victim of your own passion and panic. Instead, stay calm, breath, and remember that you know how to fix this.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-obstacle-is-the-way/201708/stoic-response-anger

Seneca on anger, part I