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Dear Subscribers,
Greetings!
I'm going to talk about something unrelated to painting and then I'll
bring it back around, because I'm finding a lot of common threads here.
Bear with me for a moment ;).
I began my training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 5 months ago, and yesterday
I competed in my first tournament. For those who are unfamiliar, BJJ is
a grappling martial art in which the goal is to [usually] take the
fight to the ground and submit your opponent via choke or joint lock.
In training, you tap to signal your surrender, and everything is
totally fine, but both parties have an understanding that the
continuation of that position could have resulted in broken bones, torn
ligaments, unconsciousness, or death. I've found that this momentarily
complete dissolution of ego and the necessity for trust results in a
training environment that is incredibly supportive and positive, and
the people who stick with it are some of the friendliest and most
generous people (of all ages and genders) that I've ever met.
Anyway, back to the tournament. My bracket had 3 people and so I had 2
matches. The first match was a draw. I felt good going in, but as soon
as my opponent brought me to the ground I was like: "Ooooh shit, I'm
already exhausted"-the adrenaline dump was crazy. Thankfully, I didn't
panic, and it became a back-and-forth and I had my share of dominant
positions, and we ran out the clock. The second match did not go well
for me. Nerves and a brain fart resulted in a very sloppy/rushed take
down attempt. My opponent secured an armbar (hyperextension of my
elbow), I tried to escape it but failed, and at only 41 seconds into
the match I had to tap.
My immediate reaction to the loss was intense frustration with myself.
A bit later, I felt relief that it was over. And now, I feel
anticipation to get back on the mats tomorrow evening and continue to
learn, and eventually compete again.
As with painting, bjj is a learning process that has no end. My
accumulated experience with painting has helped me to completely accept
this aspect of bjj, and so I'm able to enjoy these beginning stages of
bjj even more than I enjoyed first learning how to paint. Back then,
everything was so urgent and it seemed that there was so much on the
line. Now, with bjj, I have no "end goal"--my only desire is the
continuation of learning, for as long as I can. This is so absolutely
freeing. I'm trying to feed that attitude back around into my
painting--being my career, it can be easy to forget.
I'm also seeing a lot of mutual benefit between bjj and my teaching
experience. I definitely had a ton of nerves going into the
competition, but those nerves would have been so much worse had I never
taught workshops and given painting demonstrations. Performance under
pressure has gradually become a little more familiar. At the
competition I was like, "at least I don't have to do any public
speaking" and now in any future painting performance situation, I can
say to myself, "Hey, at least I'm not fighting for my life". Haha.
_____
TRAILER!
Speaking of learning and teaching, my new streaming video workshop from
NOH/WAVE Academy has been released! Click on the image below to watch
the trailer on YouTube:
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And here below are some screenshots from the 6 hrs of streaming
content:
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For those of you who order, please let me know how you like it!
Learn more about the Video Workshop
_____
Thank you for reading! See you in a month-ish. -David
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