Years ago I was on a Tactical Team. We’d train for and conduct operations in the counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, high-risk warrants and arrests and things of that manner. Our team had a motto, “Find Work.”
Early on in my time with the team, I fell victim to this, just as I saw the probies come on and do the same. When we would enter a building, it could be a very overstimulating experience. Many times, we would find a new guy standing around looking a bit lost. One of the seasoned guys would call out, “FIND WORK!” which typically meant one of three things. First, cover a door. Secondly, stack up on someone covering a door waiting to make entry- no one goes in a room alone. Thirdly, cover dead space (an area that can not be visually assessed from where the team is without movement and cutting the angle).
While reminiscing on some of my tactical training, I kept coming back to that motto, “Find Work” and started seeing how it can be applied in Jiu-Jitsu. Obviously, it’s not quite the same as when entering a building searching for a barricaded subject, but hang in there, I think you’ll see my point.
When we roll in Jiu-Jitsu, even while drilling with moderate resistance, we need to adopt this mentality that we need to FIND WORK. Jiu-Jitsu is the gentle art, the yielding art, and what that means to me is that I need to be finding work- finding space, finding leverage, finding movement. And what is crazy, unlike yelling at the new kid to “FIND WORK!” while he’s standing in the middle of a room we just entered, as an observer, you may not immediately notice if a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner is finding work. This is because sometimes, finding that space or point of leverage is a subtle movement. A slight shift of the hips, or hooking your toes under their shin. These are those “micro-adjustments” that cannot be seen, especially by the untrained eye, from the outside.
In my Jiu-Jitsu journey, and even occasionally now, I will find myself in a relatively safe space, and start barricading myself in a defensive position, fortifying prior to their onslaught of submission attempts. And although that is finding some work, it’s not forward movement work. On the Tact Team, we’d enter a room, and if it suited our needs, we’d deem it our foothold. This is where we’d stage other tactical resources, establish a casualty collection point, and a fall back point if fit hit the shan. So yes, for a moment, we’d take a beat and fortify a position, but only with the intent of going forward. A tact team that barricades itself in a room is not doing the hostages barricaded in another room any good. Both in a tactical scenario and in Jiu-Jitsu, forward progress is a must.
So that’s where I want to change my Jiu-Jitsu mentality. When I get to a good position to set a foothold in, do that, have decent defenses ready but then move forward. Find the work that progresses, not lies stagnant, waiting for the enemy advance. Finding work means at some point you must take it to the enemy. But at the same time, doing it in a smart manner by finding the space, finding the leverage, finding where you can move.
So I guess I’ll make it official:
- Do no harm; Do know harm.
- Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
- No expectations, no disappointments (situation based)
- Developing feeling is good. Developing feelings is bad
- Find Work
Thanks for reading.