Dear Future Students,
Written before teaching my first-ever jiu-jitsu class, what I want my first few students to know about me, about jiu-jitsu, and about the journey ahead.
Dear future students,
Before we begin, there are a few things you should know about me, about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), and about everything you’re about to get into that I wish I’d known when I first walked through doors like these almost six years ago.
The first thing you should know is this: I’m probably about as nervous as you are, if not more. I tried hard and did my best to get the support I needed to stand up in front of you today and to do a good-enough job that you’d like to come back and see me twice a week. (We’'ll see how many of you come back on Tuesday).
In efforts to underpromise and overdeliver, but also to tell you the truth, I can tell you that I will not be great at this on my first day—much like anyone here who is completely new to jiu-jitsu will not be great at this on the first day. Practicing jiu-jitsu is a skill. Competing in jiu-jitsu is a skill. Teaching jiu-jitsu is a different skill. Despite the subject matter of jiu-jitsu being in common, each of these skills require its own kind of practice.
All of this is to say that I am here and ready to suck and challenge myself along with you, and I promise to do what it takes to improve. Because if there is one thing that this sport has taught me, it’s that with focus, dedication, and deliberate practice, improvement is possible—and improvement is only the beginning.
In my case, and in the case of many other people I know, that improvement can transform into total reinvention.
If you’re searching for proof that starting a martial art can change your life, you’re looking at it. Eventually, I’ll have a book to tell that story in full, but for today and this context, I’ll keep things brief.
If you met me six years ago, my main form of cardio was “running on the Tinder Treadmill,” as I call it (swipe left, swipe right, repeat for ~60 mins a day). My primary form of strength training was raising fork or glass to mouth with whatever I could eat or drink. Any time I spent that wasn’t in an office was spent trying to fill the hole in my heart from a bad breakup and find something to fill my life—a life that was very beautiful on the outside but empty on the inside.
I did not know what I was getting into with jiu-jitsu when I started out. I did not know if I would stick with it, and I know for a fact that most people who saw me walk into my first gym believed that I wouldn’t make it to a second class. I was out of shape. I was twenty-five pounds heavier than I am right now. I was four months shy of my twenty-seventh birthday. It had been assumed that I was a “battered woman”, and while I was never physically abused, in certain ways, I was battered by decades of verbal abuse from a brilliant but unwell father and—between internalizing his words and being a striving overachiever by nature—from being hard on myself.
I came into a gym looking to toughen up, to get my “swagger” back, to fight for some better version of myself that I believed was somewhere in there. Somewhere in the holes I was looking to fill and in the emptiness that seemed to swallow my life.
In that very first class, on Wednesday March 22, 2017, I found a glimmer of that better self. It was a hint of a spark, but it was enough to keep going.
And every day I train, I find more and more of it.
That’s what has kept me coming. Your “why” for being here and for continuing to be here will probably be different. But you should know that this is what compels me and gives me confidence to come up to the front of the room for the very first time, even when I don’t have every credential in the book.
I am not a tenured black belt of twenty years, but I lived through being a beginner recently enough to remember how much it sucks.
I did not start this sport as a kid or have any natural athletic gifts that made this come easily or naturally to me—my training began later in life, as an unathletic office worker, and as a deliberate choice.
I had a lot of reasons to quit. And I chose to discount them all.
I am not the best teacher in the world, and I’m not even the best teacher of jiu-jitsu within a few miles of this place. But I am committed to being the best I can be at this gig and to do right as I do it—to do right not only by you, but by everyone who ever invested in me and got me to the point where I even could even consider teaching. I wouldn’t be here if my first coach six years ago hadn’t believed in me and been ‘on call’ for ideas on how I might approach teaching this class. I wouldn’t be here if my coach down the road in Marietta didn’t give me his blessing for this opportunity and help me shape and rep my full lesson plan for the next two weeks.
When you ask me questions, I won’t have all the answers, but I will do my best to find them for you.
When I come to class, I promise to bring my best attention, focus, and care to teaching you as I would to my own training.
I do not know who of you in front of me will stick with this sport for the long run, and I think that’s a good thing. No one who first taught me would have bet on me, and I like to think I proved them wrong by being stubborn enough to grind it out and survive class over class, year over year. I was “the runt of the litter” in my white belt class in 2017, and now I’m one of the last ones standing (so to speak—or sitting to guard). That can be you, too.
If you feel out of your league or inadequate in some way during class, don’t count yourself out and don’t be discouraged. Try not to concern yourself too much with how you’re performing day to day or relative to your peers. Jiu-jitsu is a long game, with local mininima and local maxima, but it tends to trend “up and to the right” so long as you stick with it with the right attitude. If you work hard, focus on learning, and focus more on process with less regard for the outcome, you will go far. If there’s one thing I wish had been told to me more as a white belt and as a (hungry, ambitious, burnt-out) blue belt, it’s this: there is so much richness to be found on this journey that will be more meaningful than a stripe, a belt, or whom you beat in training on a given day.
The last thing you should know about me is this: I made a lot of choices in my life the last six years on account of jiu-jitsu and I’ve yet to regret them. Every problem I’ve ever needed to solve could eventually be solved with more time on the mat. I uprooted my life and career for jiu-jitsu for over a year—more on that some other time. While BJJ is not my living or my identity, it is a significant part of my life. My soon-to-be husband is the guy who used to work the front desk. Many of my best friends and memories have come from sweating over and under strangers in kimonos and spandex.
Now before we begin, please remember the following:
Cut your nails. Clawing is not a technique.
Wash your gi after training every time. “Stinky” is also not a technique.
Take care of your training partners—while this is an “individual sport,” you can’t do it alone.
Chase good jiu-jitsu, not rank. Seek to understand the underlying principles, not just memorize a bunch of moves.
You are not too old, too fat, too thin, too weak, too whatever to start. The best day you could have started was yesterday or some other time in the past. The next-best day to start is today, and the best time—the only time you have for certain—is now.
Allow yourself to surprise yourself with how far you might go.
Last but not least, have fun. That, above all other things, will be what keeps you here.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
Sincerely, your brown belt coach who is a white belt in teaching,
EZ