I would love to be able to hang out and do Jiu Jitsu for several hours per day but the reality of life is that as a family guy and friend, I’ve got a helluva list of “better things to do.”  Its not uncommon for me to attend class for 30-40 minutes and then excuse myself early.  As a parent there are hundreds of times I have been sitting in a parking lot waiting for my kids’ or wife’s practice/meeting to conclude and think, “why not go sit in on BJJ class” for that time period.  (Note: I don’t do this without previously informing the class leader of my timing issues) I’d rather sit in a class to learn something and get my heart rate up a little than watch videos on my phone.  Sometimes, all I’m really looking for out of the class is something to make me twitch and then I can leave.

             When I get into a good rhythm of BJJ training I will be on a mat 5-6 days per week, sometimes twice a day.  When I get into that mode of training, my sleep is filled with muscle twitches as my mind revisits my day’s mental and physical grapples.  Every time I toss or turn in my bed, it’s proceeded or concluded with either a shrimping and/or umpaa/bump movement.  Although its irritating to my wife (who also does bjj) to have to defend her neck or take time to recovery from me shrimping and pushing her off the bed but she understands…shes done it to me.

            This twitching action is my subconscious mind going over the struggles of the day and mentally correcting my day’s actions and reactions to stressful situations.  Although I find BJJ to be a stress-reliever, it does require a great amount of focus and physical exertion…which can lead to stress.  In addition, learning a new technique can be frustrating until the move is successfully accomplished.  If the technique becomes a new obstacle/counter to my “game” then my subconscious is going to have a real problem on how to handle the technique during my next sleep session and thus causing me to twitch even more.

               As I have said a million times…the subconscious mind doesn’t have a sense of humor.  It believes and records everything around us as fact.  Your subconscious mind does not differentiate between the training or “real deal” modes of physical exertion.  So being in class, seeing, hearing and feeling the movement (and consequently any associated pain) of a new technique helps me to “twitch” a little more thus increasing my muscle memory for new techniques and allow my movements during sparring to be more fluid and “second nature.”