Yin vs YangThe Battle for Success in Life

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Article by Peter J. Normandia. Follow me on Twitter.

Every Monday is personal development through Jiu Jitsu…

Today, it occurred to me that achieving success in life is a lot like setting up a good arm bar. For those that don’t know, an arm bar is a submission attempt in which you use your body to hyperextend the elbow on someone’s arm. In training, and even fights, the person ‘taps’ before their elbow is hyperextended, unless they are rather dumb, which happens from time to time.

Today I was rolling with a lower belt in Jiu Jitsu. He was a stronger person than me, and weighed about 30 pounds more. I was on my knees in his guard (between his closed legs). He was ripping my right arm with all his strength, desperate to kick his leg over my head and apply an arm bar, similar to the guy on his back in the picture below.

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Now, trying to force a move on someone may work when they are less experienced because they don’t know what to do either. However, when dealing with someone more experienced, it’s a waste of time. This is because, one of the keys to Jiu Jitsu is…

Position before Submission

Before you attempt to apply the arm bar, you must first put yourself in a position to succeed. When my opponent starts pulling my arm, and sloppily wrapping his leg over my head, I immediately know what he is going for. Not only that, but there is plenty of space to escape through. This means my defense will be more successful than his submission attempt. He is trying to force my position, instead of properly setting it up.

The Set Up

After training for a bit, you realize that you must ‘set-up’ a successful arm-bar. You do this by applying the proper grips. Then you place your foot on the hip, rotate, slice your leg over their head, and apply pressure with your hips.  After doing these for a while, you realize the key is the first few steps. By making the first few steps successful, the rest of the move just flows. Once the grips are secured, and the foot is tight on the hip, the person will have a very tough time escaping, whether they know the move or not. Here is the right way to set up an arm bar…

Life is Like An Arm Bar

Life is very much the same. You can not force your way into any position in life. In order to reach your dream position, you must take the proper initial steps. Depending on your goal, it may take a long time, even years to achieve, but it is certainly worth the wait. Remember, it is not the speed that matters, it is the results.

The rest should be as simple as following your plan of action. The proper set up to any plan will make the final steps that much easier. However, if you take sloppy initial steps, your chances of success will diminish drastically, just like my opponent’s arm bar attempt. In fact, you could even wind up in a much worse position then when you started, just like he did.

Whatever you do in life, make sure you take the right steps and do it right. Put yourself in the position to succeed, or take the risk of dealing with the failure.

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‘Peter, please don’t touch the stove.‘

PJ: ‘Okay Mom‘

(2 seconds later)

PJ: ‘Owwwwww!!!‘

‘Peter! James! Normandia! What did I just say?!!‘

Welcome to the life of a hardheaded child. Growing up I can certainly say that the best way to get me to do something was to tell me I couldn’t.  It was like a trigger inside my hard head. All I would hear was a voice saying…

‘What do you mean I can’t do it? Who are you to tell me what I can or can’t do? I’ll show you.’

I guess as Humans, we all have our share of hardheaded experiences. For me, it was more of a life theme. I was as hardheaded a child as you could imagine. I simply learned better from experience than anything else. I didn’t just want to know why, I wanted to experience why.

If you provided the resistance, I would naturally push right back.

All of this changed about 4 years ago, soon after I discovered the art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). BJJ was developed by the famous Gracie family of Brazil. Known for its devastating ground techniques, the art enables a smaller man to defeat a larger and naturally more powerful opponent.

This is the key here. When you first start in Jiu Jitsu, you naturally fight against the resistance. It is a natural instinct: somebody pushes your arm down, you push right back. White belts do this for their first year, and sometimes longer. It is what we are taught: don’t let anyone push you around. However, that is no way to defeat a larger, stronger opponent. They simply are stronger, and you learn that fighting against their resistance is a losing battle.

As you progress in BJJ, you begin to learn instead of fighting against the resistance, it is easier, and more effective, to go with the flow.

Arm bar from the bottom by Roger Gracie

For example, if someone you are rolling (sparring in BJJ) against applies an arm bar from the bottom (like this picture) your natural reaction is to pull your arm up and out. Some people, even like to pick up the person applying the arm bar to try and slam them on the mat and break their grip. Both of these are the wrong move to make on any high level BJJ practitioner. They actually are hoping you will do that because it makes their life easier.

The real way to get out of an arm bar is to go with the flow. Instead of pulling up and away, you put all of your weight right down where they are pulling you. If they are on top, then you do what is known as a rollout, such as in this video.

The lessons in BJJ mirror the lessons in life.

Many times when we meet with resistance, our instinct is either fight or flight. This is natural, so there is no reason to be ashamed if this describes you. It certainly described me for a long time. This is because this mentality was extremely effective for Mammals for many years in the wild. However, as we have evolved, so have our options.

In today’s world, fighting against the resistance does not determine our chances of success.

The real key is adaptability. When I find myself in a bad situation filled with resistance, instead of going into the emotional fight or flight mode, I revert back to the mentality I learned in BJJ.  I simply take a deep breath, throw out my emotion, and try to keep a positive attitude while going with the flow. The attitude during a tough situation is, let’s see where this takes me, cause this is not a good spot, and even if that’s my natural instinct, fighting against it is a sure way to lose.

I will not lie. Even in BJJ, sometimes going with the flow can be the wrong move. However, even that has its benefits as it comes with an invaluable lesson that prepares you for ALL of your future matches.

Instead of making your life more difficult by constantly going against the grain, try the path with the least resistance.

Go with the flow. Take a chance, and see where you end up. I have found that 9 out of 10 times, you will end up in a better position.

A perfect example of this is the day I received my first i-phone bill. They had charged me like $500 for the month because I completely underestimated my minutes. Being that it was the first month since I had switched over, I gave them a call to see if they could help me out.

I was connected with an AT&T representative who wanted nothing to do with it. She flat out told me there was nothing they could do and it was my fault. AT&T will not refund a single dollar. As she said this, my instinct told me not to lose my cool. I could tell that is what she was used to. So instead, I sucked up my emotion and said, ‘Okay. Well thanks for your help. I just thought that since it was my first month, and I obviously made a mistake, that maybe there was something you guys could do. Thanks anyway.’

All of a sudden, it was like a switch flipped on. ‘Well sir, you know what, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Let me ask my supervisor and we will see what they can do.’ Two minutes later, I saved over $250.  I am sure that if I would have yelled and screamed, I may have gotten money back, but it would have been after a nightmare experience. Instead, I did what most people fail to ever do: I went with the flow.

Sometimes in life, it is necessary to fight against the resistance provided, but many times there is simply a better, less stressful way.

I have personally found going with the flow to severely reduces my stress level, opens up new doors, and take me to outcomes I never imagined were possible.

No need to worry, fight, stress and yell when you can simply go with the flow. Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I will tell you this: If I did not see my parents practice this numerous times over my life, I would have never believed in its effectiveness. I used to think my parents were weak for going with the flow. It was only as I grew older and wiser, I learned the value of their approach.