Smarter not Harder!

I recently read a post on Facebook from ECU Purple Belt Jeff Schneider:

“Sore and it's only Tuesday... I got ran over by some ECU jits last night, time to buckle up and train harder.”

While I’m far from one of the world’s foremost experts on Jiu-Jitsu – I’m a Purple Belt too, I’ve had the privilege of training with some of them. Also, I bring my experiences in fields ranging from auto mechanics to philosophy to law, and beyond.

Somewhere along the line, I was taught the phrase, “Work smarter, not harder.”

I thought that phrase applied beautifully to Jeff’s problem. So I posted:

“Jeff, maybe it's time to train SMARTER? I watched you go harder and harder last night and you kept making the same mistakes. Going harder works against lower-level guys, but higher-level ECU guys are able to capitalize on the mistakes, no matter how hard you go.”

“No Easy Rolls” has become the unofficial motto of ECU. Every healthy body trains hard every time they walk into the building. The only to way to advance at ECU is to learn that if you train at an ECU school you have to pay attention to both the mental and physical parts of the game.

I sent a draft of this post to JoJo to find out if I was on the right track. JoJo responded with a great message:

“Strength fades as you get older, but technique will stay with you until you get old! So I say work on your technique and timing, and it will serve you better.”

Hopefully, everyone who reads this will see the wisdom of JoJo’s statement. Rather than kill ourselves trying to train harder and harder, let’s train smarter, and focus on technique and timing.

Thanks again for reading the ECUBJJ and MMA blog. Part II of the Jared Weiner seminar is coming soon, and several ECU competitors will be competing at the Abu Dhabi US Trials so we should have interesting stories from the prestigious competition.