No Expectations

Some 23 years ago, maybe less if it were a rerun, I saw an episode of the show Becker that changed the way I thought for years to come. It’s a thought process I still hold onto to this day, through I’m trying to limit it in some of my life. Dr. John Becker, in referencing his approach to the holidays, says,

“I have absolutely no expectations. No expectations, no disappointments.”

There it was. No Expectations, No Disappointments. What a revolutionary thought. So I started to apply it to my life. More and more, this mini-mantra took over more and more of my life. I stopped expecting things, and low and behold, I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get them. Like I said, I’m trying to move away from this, especially in my faith. That’s where this thought process got toxic, when I stopped expecting things of God to prevent disappointment. But that’s not faith. Faith is being expectant in how God will work in your life and patiently waiting to see it. But this doesn’t mean I don’t apply the no expectation clause to other parts of my life. Namely holidays, especially my birthday, my troops when I was an active duty supervisor, and now on the mats. Let me explain.

I think a lot of people come into Jiu-Jitsu with certain expectations. Some have rather innocent expectations, like losing weight, increasing fitness, or learning self-defense. Others have skewed expectations. I see this mostly in those who either have had some other form of martial arts training, or those who think they do. Here are some examples I’ve seen recently.

1. A young tae kwon do black belt who’s dojo dabbled in “MMA” decided she want to find a place that had a stronger focus on MMA. She landed at our academy and immediately had this expectation that she knew what she was doing. It didn’t help that one of the higher ranks was smitten by her, and was taking it easy on her. Her “tapping” him out kind of gave her a bit of an ego and her expectations of greatness grew. Just the other day, while I was sitting out with a injury, I got to witness her get smashed and the frustration that ensued. It makes me wonder how long she will stick with it. Side note, the last time we had a young TKD black belt come in, she stuck around until her first stripe or so, and realized how long it would actually take to add a BJJ black belt to her resume, that she quit and went back to fancy kicking.
2. The second is probably the more dangerous version, and these are the people who think they know something. Again, just recently saw this. This guy has been coming to either our kick boxing or MMA program at the gym for a few weeks, maybe a month now and recently decided to hop on the mats for some Jiu-Jitsu. He decides that the advanced no gi class was probably the best place for him to be. Now, our gym doesn’t let new people roll, as we want to be sure that you have some sort of idea of how to be safe and have a grasp on the culture the coaches have spent years creating. But what slips through the cracks is folks who’ve trained in other programs, so they’ve met the total class amount to spar, even if it may be their first BJJ class. Anyways, this guy was uber aggressive and completely clueless. There were a few times that I swear they were about to go through the front window had I not gotten the coach on the mats attention. He was dominating the tinier opponent, who from what I could tell, he brought to the class. But once he started with someone closer to his size who had been training longer than him, it showed. Again, there was frustration, and he went back to his little friend so he could feel dominant again.

Now, I had been training for sometime before starting to train at the gym I’m at now. I had also dropped in at a few other schools here and there and had some understanding of the basics of Jiu-Jitsu. And by this I mean, I had trained enough to get one stripe on my white belt when I started at our gym. But even with this, I went in with no expectations. I didn’t expect to be as good as the multi-stripped white belts, I didn’t even expect to be as good as some of the fresher looking white belts. I went in humble, and ready to soak up all I could in this new environment. And the no expectations worked there. It was rough the first couple weeks. My rolling experience was relatively narrow, maybe just a handful of different training partners in my time. The other body types, levels and game styles threw me and I was being wrecked on a consistent basis. Yet, I was never disappointed with myself. I just kept learning and growing and finding my place in the food chain.

Even to this day. My expectations are low and vague or completely non-existent. For example, when I roll with some higher belts, I expect that I can survive the entire match without tapping. It doesn’t always happen, but the expectation is so low, I don’t get disappointed. With new(er) white belts, I honestly never know what to expect, unless I have worked with them in the past, so I don’t expect anything out of those matches. I never go into a roll expecting to tap, sweep or pass. Now, the lack of expectation does not mean I lack the motivation or drive to try to accomplish those things, and there are sets of goals or things I focus on in my rolling that I still try to accomplish, but I don’t weigh myself down with expecting to accomplish the things I’ve set out to do. If I do, that’s great and a check in the win column. If I don’t, I try to figure out what I could have done better to succeed in those goals. And my goals are not always submissions.

Anyways, for those of you playing along at home, here’s our current list of mantas I live my life by:

1. Do no harm; Do know harm.
2. Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
3. No expectations, no disappointments (situation based)

Thanks for reading.