If you want to get to black belt, you need to do it with friends. Maybe you can do it alone but I think that’s a dumb idea. I believe that a lot of people quit because they don’t make connections and they didn’t care enough, or at all, about helping others.

People ride bikes, they play basketball, they go bowling. They have all these hobbies and they do it because they have friends to do it with. They share tips, train each other, push each other.

People leave jiu-jitsu because of injury, or something happened at home, their job changed, or whatever. Everyone has those kind of things happen to them. But not everyone accepts quitting as an option.

As people get older, it’s harder to maintain friendships. Jiu-Jitsu is a way to do that. If you can’t have a guy’s night out or girl’s night out every week or every month, it can be really hard but jiu-jitsu can be a substitute for that.

I met some of my best friends through jiu-jitsu, and these are people that I would never have met if it wasn’t for jiu-jitsu. If you want to stick with it, if you want to reach mastery, you have to open up, be vulnerable, and you have to make friends.

The best way to do that is to give, teach, and share everything you know. I’m an introvert and a shy person. It drains me to zero to teach class. But I do it partly because I discovered that being a giver just feels good. So somehow, even on a selfish level, helping others get better instead of myself is a net positive.

Did you know it actually (usually?) feels better when someone tells you that you helped them figure out a problem than it feels to tap someone out? At worst, it’s 50/50. But victory for yourself often isn’t as rewarding or as someone sharing a victory with you.

Help others get better. Helping others helps you.