What Is Truth?
Despite their numerous health advantages, all sports run the risk of overusing certain parts of the body, resulting in injuries. Due to their close contact nature, contact sports are notoriously high risk activities when it comes to injuries. Grappling arts, that involve or focus on controlling the opponent by grabs and weight tend to show a regular pattern of damage. To receive the right care...
‘Leave your ego at the door’ has, somehow, become the unofficial slogan of BJJ. But the fact is, that ego maintains the boundary between us and the outer world, in this case, the opponent that is. Without ego or with a weak ego, we’re very exploitable in conflict situation. During training, we use our body to help our sparring partner to grow and to practice allowing them to cause us bruises and...
In most clubs I’ve trained at, there were strict drinking restrictions during the class. We were offered a water break, which if someone missed they weren’t allowed to drink. Sometimes this break was topped up with a series of ‘life lessons’ on how we build character and toughness by withstanding thirst, or even, how spoiled we still are, because the coach wasn’t allowed to drink during...
Finger, hand, and wrist injuries are common in grappling arts such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Judo due to the nature of the sport, which involves intensive gripping and holding. Why taping? Taping the fingers is often done to support and protect the joints, tendons, muscles, and the skin against the repetitive gripping and twisting motions used in these combative art forms. Taping the fingers can...
“Why do I have back pain when I can do so many sit-ups?” – A question that comes back regularly, so worth a little dive into the core mechanics. As we know now, back pain (especially lower back pain) commonly derives from weak abdominal muscles. So, working out the opposite muscles to your back sounds like the right answer to your problem. But is it really? Well, the fact is...
Due to its common association with the military forces, we need to clarify that mental toughness has different reference in civilian life than it has in a military context. As in military context, it means withstanding the physical and mental hardship that arises from a situation. In civilian life, however, that approach cannot possibly bring success, since the goal is a high quality life which...
Competition preparation is a hard beast to conquer: it’s like preparing for a high-stake blind date. It cannot be compared to any regular conditioning neither in terms of physical nor mental preparation. The preparation work starts when the thought of enrolling to a competition has matured into action. Even by browsing event calendars and their intro pages, you’ve already stepped into a different...
The price of abundance Society is a very noisy place. The nickname ‘urban jungle’ is not accidental; cities are as loud and crowed as the wild. There is no difference in how challenging it is to survive either. The battle has simply moved from the physical realm to the mental one. As while in the wild, one battles with the elements of nature and the scarcity of food and goods, in urban settings...
The meaning of success, in a broader sense, is the raised quality of one’s life, which in itself symbolises growth and contentedness. The success of one-time events, like winning a championship are part of this journey as they continue on into one’s daily life: they bring respect, admiration, and a better social position that increases the quality of life. The winning of a championship in...
A good number of coaches I’ve worked with repeated this message: anytime you skip training you give your opponents a chance to become better than you. That day is wasted because you didn’t get any further in your path and you are no better than yesterday. I have a very different view on this. The truth of the matter is, it is not only your physical condition that you bring with you when...
What Is Truth?