The legendary grappler says it has to do with love.
“Why do I beat a lot of people? Because I love it so much, that’s why. Everything about Jiu Jitsu, I love it – the school, the mat, the ring. I always believe that. Maybe I am not better than my opponent, but I know for sure I love my training more.” –Marcelo Garcia
Love has a warming effect that heightens our senses, and increases our aliveness. It enables us to act and move with greater strength. With it we can increase our chances of winning, be more creative, and most importantly, we can help others.
When we love something we find it pleasing; it imparts a sense of joy and produces happiness from within. This not only gets to the core of our Jiu Jitsu training, but to the real essence of our being.
When an activity has some sort of outside payoff – in Jiu Jitsu it is usually belts, medals, cash, etc — it’s known as an “extrinsic reward.” When there’s no payoff except for the joy or the love of it, it’s known as an “intrinsic reward.”
Experts are now seeing intrinsic reward as the silver bullet of motivation and a principal key to high performance.
This is because humans are motivated by happiness – and the love and joy that originates from inside us (intrinsic) will always bring greater happiness than the rewards that come from the outside (extrinsic).
It is normal to feel most effective when we are simply doing what we love. Of course we can’t just be a seeker of joy. We need to work hard to perfect our craft, and we definitely need to be challenged.
However, in order to get the best from ourselves, we should feel that our craft is never actually work.
If we naturally feel this love of Jiu Jitsu, we are lucky. Like the communist-era Sambo players hand wringing their gi jackets – we need to wring as much joy out of our BJJ practice as possible.
Even if you feel the love is not in you, you might need to delude yourself that it is – because it is the people who love their craft the most that also work the hardest.
“I wasn’t a good student, and even now I never say that I am better than anybody, but I know I love Jiu Jitsu more than anybody. I love the energy and that it gets deeper the more you study.” – Marcelo Garcia
