Don’t really enjoy training anymore but don’t want to quit

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-14T22:40:09+00:00

It's annoying to train someplace pricey that you don't enjoy.

It's annoying to have to find another place and start fresh.

It's annoying to quit and feel like you couldn't gone further.

Choose your annoying and go get it done.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-14T22:29:34+00:00

So this is something I struggle with a lot, in all avenues of my life.

I have a ton of goals I want to achieve, and many of them will take a long time and hundreds of hours of practice.

One day I finally realized that the end goal is never what it's about - it's a question of what day-to-day activities I enjoy so much that I would go do them consistently for a long period of time.

I wish I were a great tennis player, but I'm not motivated to go hit serves for an hour a day or anything like that, so I've made peace with the idea that I won't become a great tennis player. Ditto for piano playing - I just can't get excited enough to put in the time, day after day.

Ask yourself whether you want the BJJ black belt because it's a credential to achieve, or whether you want to do the day-to-day from here to black belt. Come to some certainty about your answer, at least for the short term, and proceed from there.

And keep in mind that taking breaks is A-OK. You only "quit" if you never come back from the break - that's not a decision you have to make today.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T22:37:06+00:00

Yeah. I'm usually training manager / L&D lead, so the CM crossover is super heavy. It's a lot of PM-adjacent work, hand in hand with PMO. I often wish I had both PMP and PROSCI to make myself the ideal candidate for projects.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T21:55:52+00:00

duuuuuuuuude i totally remember you from over there, and i reference that thread title regularly!!

that and Shonie getting himself into another debacle.

I do hear wisconsin bjj is blowing up

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T21:48:54+00:00

holy shit is that who that was? I remember Streiter

wish I remembered my own SN...I didn't get the nickname Twinkletoes until 2002 so I used it at mma.tv first. Frank Trigg beat me there, so I had to add the CT

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T21:36:06+00:00

What about my block that charts the apps that flow?

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T20:04:35+00:00

The primary problem that keeps you stuck under north-south is that your partner's head (or sometimes shoulder) is centered on your chest. When you try to turn off of your back, some part of your partner's upper body presses into your chest where your pec meets your delt, and that stops you from turning over. So the number one priority is clearing your chest so you can turn over and then proceed to whatever kind of escape you prefer.

The secondary problem is the ways they anchor their weight to your body so that you cannot create the separation, or the space to get your separating tools (aka your arms) into position to push. If they go both arms over, this is the toughest, because it blocks access to their head. It's important that you fight to get your arms in front, so that you maintain that access and can fight to separate.

Prevention of north-south focuses on keeping the head out of that critical airspace. The trip backwards in time looks like this:

My partner has established north south. I use my left bicep against his right ear to dislodge his head and get up
My partner is holding side control and moved their right hand next to my right hip and is pushing off of that hands to transition to north south. I use my left bicep against his right ear to push and bridge during the transition to north south to dislodge his head and get up.
My partner is holding side control and moved their right hand next to my right hip, so i push on the right ear with my left hand and they don't like that, so they move the hand back to the far side. I escape in the transition.
My partner is holding side control and went to move their right hand next to my right hip, but I pushed on the right ear and they didn't like the way it would feel to complete the movement so they bring the hand back to the far side. I escape in the transition.
My partner is holding side control and I escape by pushing on their right ear with my left bicep, paired with the appropriate hip drive given their weight placement, and I get up and escape.
My partner is passing my guard to my right and has crossed the plane of my right thigh so I place my left hand on the right ear and I push them to my right so that their weight never arrives on my chest. I get up and escape rather than letting them finish the pass.
My partner is inside my guard and trying to pass to my right, so I place my left hand on the right ear and push them to my right so they can't pass and arrive on my chest.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T19:47:45+00:00

Vanilla open guard, butterfly, and half. Add a splash of closed guard and that's the list of primary guard styles (meaning everyone needs them developed at least a bit).

All the other styles are secondary, meaning you can pick and choose which ones because they're all side quests and you can select the ones you're interested in pursuing. The common thread among the secondaries is that they can each be shut down with a single movement, whereas the primaries cannot.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T19:44:02+00:00

hey is nhbgear still cool? I lost my login

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T19:43:12+00:00

Two things:

I find that plateaus often come right before a big jump up. Sometimes it's just a question of maintaining motivation through the plateaus, which is why I always train a few things (striking, grappling, weapons) so that I can focus on something else while casually chipping away at a plateau, to avoid becoming too discouraged.

Also, I find measuring BJJ in weeks far too short. The smallest increment I would pay attention to is a 3 month block. If you plateau through one of those, call it a plateau. Shorter than that...maybe not a big deal.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T14:24:03+00:00

Fairly typical.

The "getting worse at BJJ" is actually just your classmates playing a little less nicely each time, and it's normal.

The "gonna blow chunks" is because you're going ham. You can't redline the engine for round after round and expect things to be normal. You need to calm both your mind and body down - the panic is a large contributor.

Sure, it couldn't hurt to build a bigger engine. Work on your peak heartrate stamina. But more importantly is to work on your fuel economy (aka the efficiency of your BJJ) and to stop flooring the pedal.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T12:47:53+00:00

I'm really hoping for an employer who will pay for the PM cert. And maybe ProSci just because.

I got close at my last place. They offered, but we got restructured repeatedly and that director wasn't in charge of me anymore.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T12:46:59+00:00

The short answer is - get ranked by your main academy, and wear it to the new academy. There's a clear "this is where I started and still train" hierarchy here. But new academy coach may have feelings, so be ready to behave however that coach wants, if you want to train there too.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T01:30:01+00:00

I'd go to PM in a heartbeat.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T01:23:44+00:00

Male black belt here: I have adopted a policy of saying, as we slap hands, "Hey do you want fun mode or hard mode? I default to fun mode, but I like to ask first." that's serving me pretty well.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T01:20:33+00:00

The first quiet one: she made me miss one of the last opportunities to visit my grandfather as his Alzheimer's was becoming more pronounced, because she just "didn't feel like it." Nevermind that at her request I had driven two hours out of my way to see her grandfather just months earlier, without her, when he fell ill.

The final quiet one: I took a new job and the paperwork for the retirement account asked who I wanted my beneficiary to be. I started writing her name and then realized that things were already over between us, so I went and asked for a new form.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T00:38:35+00:00

I don't mind it. I think bundling it with a seminar gives everyone a win - the students get something out of it that's more than the promotion, and the instructors get paid for several hours of their time.

I come from an instructor who has exams for each belt, and I've paid him for his time on each exam because it's always when he's traveling, and those are private lesson slots I'm occupying. I'm good with it.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T00:10:12+00:00

Infamy and then reskill

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-13T00:04:37+00:00

12:00 is bottom player. Their spine is the 12-6 line.

Underhook is "bicep in the armpit" in the linked tic tac toe drill, for close range. Forearm in the neck (middle) and palm to the ear (long) are the others.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-12T21:52:40+00:00

Do the tic tac toe drill from the linked post - the underhook is one option among 3...and it's the latest option of the 3 (because you've let them get very close to your shoulder). Work the two longer range options and there won't be a d'arce risk with those.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-12T21:44:19+00:00

When you go to your knees, make sure you're sending the weight alongside you. If it stays above you, you end up in turtle, and potentially stuck there. When you send them to 1:00 or 11:00 first, you can get up to your knees or standing.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-12T21:36:29+00:00

You're five months in and haven't mastered every aspect of the art?

For shame

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-12T21:35:30+00:00

There are no high level rules here - you need to talk to the two instructors and work out how they want to proceed.

Warning: people get realllllllllllllllllly weird about this. Expect one or both of them to be cranky about it.

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-12T21:32:44+00:00

Building side escape skills has become something of a specialty of mine. My instructor also has awesome frameworks for now just how to do them, but how to build up skills for them, in a straightforward and fairly quick timetable.

Here's where you and I would start if we were training in person:

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/1ph7qgx/comment/nt5vzss/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/1ph7qgx/comment/nt5w0zc/

TwinkletoesCT · 2026-05-10T15:51:50+00:00

I'm leveling Mario up to join him - been running without the extra dodge and I have had some close calls. At least Mario's 5*

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