Before You Get Good Enough to Get Good

32 Months for One Submission

Last week, I hit a kimura.​

That sentence does not sound like much.

People hit kimuras every day in gyms all over the world.

But this one was different. Not because it was my first tap in 32 months of training.

I have gotten a few taps here and there. This one was different because I had a gameplan.

I got him into high side control. I stuck his arm between my legs to make it harder for him to get an underhook and flip me. Then, using both of my arms, I isolated his one arm. I set up the kimura grip. And I slowly applied pressure.

I have a fear of hurting my training partners by doing a submission out of control, so I went slow.

Incremental.

Giving him time to feel it coming and tap if he needed to.

He tapped quickly.

That was the first submission I have ever gotten where I had a plan, worked the plan, and got the result I wanted. It only took me 32 months.

Let me tell you what those 32 months looked like.

The Long Messy Middle

Most of my time on the mat has not looked anything like that kimura.

Most of it has been getting smashed.

Thrashing around.

Just trying to survive.

Learning how to breathe when a 25-year-old athlete has his shoulder in my jaw and his weight on my chest. Learning how to stay calm when my brain is screaming at me to panic.

For a long time, I was not doing jiu jitsu. I was just surviving jiu jitsu. There is a difference.

The first phase was pure chaos. I did not know what I was looking at. I did not know where to put my hands. Every roll was a blur of pressure and discomfort and wondering why I was paying $250 a month for this.

The second phase was slightly less chaos. I started recognizing positions. I knew when I was in trouble. I just did not know how to get out of it.

The third phase was survival. I learned to frame. I learned to shrimp. I learned to protect my neck and my arms. I was still getting smashed, but I was getting smashed for longer before I tapped.

And somewhere in there, without me noticing, a fourth phase started. I had enough bandwidth to think.

When you are drowning, you do not plan. You just try to breathe. But once you learn to float, your brain comes back online.

You start seeing things.

That is where the kimura came from.

Not from some breakthrough technique I watched on YouTube.

From 32 months of drowning until I finally learned to float long enough to look around.

The 10 Percent

I read somewhere that only about 10 percent of people who start BJJ as a white belt ever make it to blue belt.

Ten percent.

That number does not count all the people who thought about joining and never did. The people who drove past the gym and did not go in. The people who signed up for a trial and never came back. That is just the people who actually started.

Nine out of ten quit. Where do you think they quit?

They quit in the drowning phase.

They quit when every roll feels like chaos.

They quit when they have been training for six months and a brand new athletic 22-year-old walks in and smashes them and it feels like none of those six months mattered.

They quit in the messy middle.

The part where you are not terrible anymore but you are not good either.

The part where the gains are invisible.

The part where you show up three times a week and feel like nothing is changing.

They quit before they get good enough to get good.

There is a threshold.

It is different for everyone.

But on the other side of it, the game changes.

You stop being a body that gets moved around the mat and you start being a person who moves.

You stop reacting and start thinking.

You stop drowning and start floating.

Most people never cross that threshold.

They quit in the chaos.

They get discouraged.

They get distracted.

Life gets busy. Work gets hard.

The initial excitement fades and the grind sets in and they stop showing up.

And the funny thing is, they quit right before the part where it gets good.

Right before the kimura moment.

Right before the first time you have a plan and the plan works.

The Same Thing Is Happening to Me Right Now

I am a white belt again.

Not on the mat. In my business.

​I am building something that helps martial arts gym owners get more students, keep them longer, and train their staff so the business does not run them.

It is the same skills, processes, and systems I used to help my wife build a comfortable six-figure healing practice.

She works with clients she loves. They value her and pay her premium rates. She takes classes to keep building her skills. She takes multiple vacations a year.

The model works.

But building it from scratch for a new industry means I am back in the drowning phase.

I do not have a huge network to reach out to.

I do not have case studies and testimonials and proof yet.

I am cold-messaging people who have no idea who I am.

I am sending outreach to gym owners, honestly coming from a place of service, and most of them never respond.

Some tell me to stop.

A few are curious.

Here are the actual numbers.

I have reached out to roughly 345 gyms so far with an initial cold outreach.

I got better at it and added a three-sequence follow-up with about 250 of them.

Nobody answers the first message unless it is to tell you to go away.

From that, I have had seven people want a free Loom video where I break down their website and give them two or three easy things to fix to get more people to check them out.

Seven out of 345.

From those seven, so far nobody has taken me up on the next step: a free 20-minute Dojo Diagnostic where we look at their leads, trials, enrollment, and retention and find the biggest bottlenecks.

But I only started offering the next step in the last three videos I made.

Before that, I just told them what to fix and moved on.

White belt mistakes. Learning along the way.

The funnel math, from what I have been reading and studying, looks something like this. One thousand cold outreaches turns into 20 to 50 Loom videos. Those turn into four to 20 Dojo Diagnostics. Those turn into one to eight customers.

I am at 345 outreaches and seven videos. I have a long way to go. The only thing that stops me is if I quit.

Embrace the Suck

Here is what I know, because I have done this before.

I earned a black belt in hapkido.

That took years of showing up. Years of getting hit. Years of being bad at things until I was good at them.

I did not quit then.

I am not quitting now on the BJJ mat. I am not quitting now on this business.

The process is the same in every domain.

• Martial arts
• Business
• Relationships
• Health

You are going to be bad at it for a long time. You are going to feel like nothing is working. You are going to watch other people succeed and wonder what they have that you do not.

They do not have anything you do not have. They just stayed longer.

The people who make it to blue belt are not more talented than the people who quit.

They are not stronger or faster or more athletic.

They just kept showing up. They got smashed and came back.

They got smashed again and came back. They kept putting themselves in uncomfortable situations until the uncomfortable situations became normal.

That is the whole game.

Being comfortable with discomfort. Embracing the suck.

You do not need to be good. You just need to stay long enough to get good.

The kimura did not happen because I am talented.

It happened because I have been on that mat for 32 months, getting crushed by bigger, stronger, younger guys, and I refused to stop showing up.

Eventually my brain had enough data to form a plan. Eventually my body had enough reps to execute it.

That is how it works. On the mat. In business. In everything.

Most people quit in the messy middle. They get discouraged before the kimura moment.

They get distracted before the business starts working.

They never find out what is on the other side of the threshold.

Do not be most people.

Stay in the drowning phase until you learn to float. Stay in the floating phase until you learn to think. Stay in the thinking phase until you learn to plan. And then one day, you will be on the mat, in high side control, working a kimura on a guy who used to smash you. And you will realize you crossed the threshold without even noticing.

The only thing that stops you is if you quit.

If you know a gym that could use help getting more students, keeping them longer, and training staff so the business does not run them, let me know. I would really appreciate it. I am in the messy middle of this thing, and every introduction helps.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Brotherhood Drill

Invite someone to:

• coffee
• training
• conversation

Strong men build strong circles.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​Discipline Equals Freedom — Jocko Willink​

​Why?​

Because it's an opportunity to learn from a guy who has seen the worst and was still able to keep his humanity, personal leadership and being a good human being.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck