Consistency and intensity are two things that are necessary to improve yourself. Not just in jiujitsu, but also in developing a habit or a skill you are interested in developing. This is my approach on the matter: At the foundation of our learning be consistent, and at key moments add intensity into the process to prepare for a test, a competition, or just to challenge yourself. I’ve realized from my experiences teaching however, that many people tend to fall into an intensity trap when it comes to learning jiujitsu and maybe even with learning in general.

The intensity trap is easy to fall into when learning something because we want to learn everything right now and become fluent in a language or tap out a black belt by tomorrow. Even when we know and understand the trap, it’s easy to make use of intensity to compensate (intensity compensation) for our lack of preparation or understanding. Here’s an example: When we begin to learn writing skills as a child we don’t start with sentences. Instead, we learn how to trace the alphabet. We learn how to spell words. We gradually learn simple sentences, and eventually we progress, through consistent teaching and learning we begin to understand how to create our own writing. But the process begins with tracing and copying letters! Can you imagine trying to write a sentence without knowing the alphabet? The intensity trap is thinking that you doing a good job of learning a skill but in fact your letters are all illegible, with spelling mistakes, and looks like gibberish. We write an entire page of gibberish (intensity compensation) and turn it in with cramps in our hand (intensity trap) thinking we did a good job. Instead, we could have focused on simply tracing a few words and called it good with half a page left.

Intensity is important and can’t be ignored. In our training to acquire and better a skill we need to understand that at certain times, we need to push and challenge ourselves through intense phases of training. However, if you have the option to train 100 minutes every 10 days or 10 minutes for 10 days which would you choose? Which situation would give you an opportunity for your body and mind to process the material taught? For you to internalize the lesson material and build neuromuscular connections? I believe the second 10 minutes a day option is better. Please understand that in this example, the only variable we are considering as being intensity is time spent in one sitting, but there are other ways to consider intensity. For example; time, effort, resistance, and variety are all possible variables for intensity.

Once we see consistency as the foundation of learning and intensity as a necessary variable to challenge, prepare, and overcome plateaus we will learn better. Consistency and intensity serve each other, and they are both essential in stimulating the learning process.

Think Strong Be Strong
Eliot Kelly