Not All Friction Is Bad.
And Not All Flow Is Good.

Hapkido taught me to move. BJJ taught me to create resistance. Both taught me that the real skill is knowing which one the moment requires.

One of the strange things about going from striking arts into grappling is discovering that something you spent years learning can suddenly become the wrong answer.

In Hapkido, one of the biggest things I had to learn was how to flow.

I am five foot two.

I was rarely going to be the biggest or strongest guy in the room.

Trying to stand in front of somebody larger than me and trade power for power would have been stupid.

So I learned to move.

I learned to use my happo undo (eight directions) footwork to get around my training partners instead of standing there waiting to get run over and clobbered.

Mobility, agility, and speed became some of my gifts. The better I got, the more I learned to lean into them.

Move.

Change the angle.

Get off the line.

Do not be where the attack lands.

Circle around the bigger guy.

Make him turn.

Make him reset.

Then move again.

I became the mosquito.

Not necessarily drawing blood.

That is what Kali, Escrima and Arnis are for, lol.

But annoying enough that the bigger, stronger, slower guy could not just plant his feet and impose his game on me.

That lesson went deep:

Flow around the obstacle instead of fighting directly through it.

It served me well for years.

And then I started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

BJJ basically said:

Because now the big guy was not standing six feet away from me.

He was attached to me.

We were in the smallest combat circle.

Chest to chest.

Hip to hip.

Or, worse yet, chest to back.

There is not much room for clever footwork when another human being has wrapped himself around you and is trying to turn you into a floor decoration.

Suddenly my instinct to move fast could make things worse.

I could scramble.

I could be quick.

But if I did not know where I was going, I was just going nowhere faster.

And burning energy while doing it.

Meanwhile, the bigger, stronger, slower guy did not need to chase me.

He could pressure me.

Put weight on me.

Make me carry him.

Wait.

Let me tire myself out.

Then smash me after I had done half the work for him.

That required a different lesson.

I had spent years learning how to reduce friction so I could move.

Now I needed to learn how to create friction so he could not move as easily.

• Frames
• Elbows
• Knees
• Structure

Connection to the floor.

Little wedges and obstacles between his pressure and me.

Slow him down.

Make him work around something.

Create just enough space.

Just enough resistance.

Just enough delay.

And then there is the gap.

That is when speed becomes useful again.

Not random speed.

Not panic.

Not thrashing around like an idiot because MOVE FAST! is the only answer I have.

Useful speed.

Create friction.

Find the opening.

Then flow through it.

That has been one of the more interesting lessons of becoming a beginner again.

Because it turns one of our common assumptions upside down.

Not all friction is bad.

And not all flow is good.

We love the word flow.​

It sounds effortless.

Smooth.

Natural.

Zen.

Everything clicking together.

And that is wonderful when the thing flowing is taking you somewhere you actually want to go.

But water does not care where it is going.

It follows the easiest path available.

People do that too.

You can become incredibly efficient at doing something that is not helping you.

Wake up.

Grab the phone.

Check notifications.

Check email.

React to everybody else’s priorities.

Bounce between tasks.

Avoid the uncomfortable thing.

Tell yourself you will do it later.

Repeat tomorrow.

Pretty soon you have created flow.

The entire sequence happens almost automatically.

Congratulations.

You built a flywheel.​

It just happens to be spinning in the wrong direction.

That is the part we sometimes miss when we talk about habits.

A habit is not good merely because it is automatic.

Automatic simply means you have practiced it enough that it requires less conscious effort.

You can automate excellence.

You can also automate avoidance.

You can build a flywheel around:

• training — or procrastination;
• learning — or distraction;
• courage — or comfort;
• taking action — or endlessly getting ready to take action.

The flywheel does not care.

You feed it. It spins.

Sometimes Friction Is Exactly What You Need

Shawn Achor describes a useful idea in The Happiness Advantage called the 20-Second Rule.

The basic idea is to make a behavior you want easier to begin and make an unwanted behavior harder to begin.

That is friction.

Just placed deliberately.

The lesson is not:

Eliminate friction.

The lesson is:

Put the friction in the right place.

If I want to train, I reduce the friction between me and training:

• Pack the bag beforehand.
• Put the gear where I will see it.
• Know when class starts.
• Remove the stupid little obstacles that give me an excuse not to go.

But if I want to stop mindlessly checking something?

Create friction:

• Move the app.
• Log out.
• Put the device somewhere else.
• Make yourself take one extra step before automatically doing the thing you said you wanted to stop doing.

One strategy makes the good behavior easier to flow into.

The other deliberately puts a frame in front of the bad behavior.

That is BJJ applied to the rest of life.

Sometimes you need movement.

Sometimes you need frames.

Then the Flywheel Takes Over

Doing something once does not change much.

That is why people get frustrated.

You pack your gym bag one night.

Big deal.

You block one distracting website.

So what?

You go to one class.

You write one page.

You make one difficult phone call.

Nothing magical happens.

But you do it again.

And again.

And again.

Now the next repetition becomes a little more normal.

A little less dramatic.

A little less expensive mentally.

You do not have to negotiate with yourself quite as much.

That is the flywheel.

At first you are pushing this damned heavy thing and wondering why anybody thought this was a good idea.

Then it moves.

Then it moves a little easier.

Then momentum starts helping you.

Training is still hard.

Writing is still hard.

Leadership is still hard.

Learning is still hard.

But starting is not quite as hard.

A hard thing becomes manageable because you have built a system around repeatedly doing hard things.

I have experienced that in martial arts over and over.

You do not suddenly become comfortable being uncomfortable.

You collect repetitions.

Showing up becomes normal.

Being confused becomes normal.

Getting stuck becomes normal.

Trying again becomes normal.

Eventually something that used to require enormous effort becomes part of who you are.

But there is a warning buried in that too.

If the flywheel is pointed the wrong way, repetition does not rescue you.

It makes the problem stronger.

If every time you are uncomfortable you avoid the problem, you are practicing avoidance.

If every time somebody challenges you, you get defensive, you are practicing defensiveness.

If every time you are overwhelmed you grab the phone, you are practicing escape.

If every time something feels difficult you decide you need another book, another system, another tool, another plan before starting…

you are practicing preparation instead of action.

And yeah, I’ve been guilty of that one too.

The flywheel is still working.

Just not for you.

The Real Skill Is Knowing Which One You Need

That is what I did not understand when I only thought in terms of flow.

Flow is not the answer.

Friction is not the answer.

Habits are not the answer.

They are tools.

A hammer is great.

Unless you need a saw.

​The more useful question is:​

What does this situation require from me?

There are moments when you need to get out of your own way.

Reduce friction.

Move.

Take the opening.

Flow.

There are other moments when the easiest path is exactly the one you should prevent yourself from taking.

Create friction.

Put in a frame.

Slow the bad pattern down.

Give yourself enough time and space to choose something better.

And then there are the behaviors important enough that you want repetition working in your favor.

Feed the flywheel.

Do the rep.

Then another.

Then another.

You do not have to make life effortless.

Martial arts certainly are not effortless.

Neither is:

• building a business;
• maintaining a marriage;
• becoming stronger;
• learning something difficult;
• developing a new skill;
• becoming somebody you respect.

The point is not to make the hard thing easy.

The point is to stop making the hard thing harder than it needs to be.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Take one area of your life that has been harder than it should be.

Do not redesign your entire life.

Do not build a new 37-step system.

Look at one thing.

1. Where do I need more flow?

Maybe you already know what you should be doing, but you have made starting unnecessarily difficult.

Remove something.

Change the angle.

Make the useful action easier to enter.

2. Where do I need more friction?

Maybe the problem is not that you lack discipline.

Maybe the bad choice is simply sitting there with the door wide open.

Put up a frame.

Make yourself work around something before you fall into the old pattern.

3. What flywheel am I feeding?

Do not judge the habit by what it does today.

Look at where a thousand repetitions will take you.

Then change one small thing.

Not twenty.

One.

Move the bag.

Remove the app.

Put up the frame.

Change the angle.

Do the rep.

Then do it again tomorrow.

Sometimes the warrior needs to flow.

Sometimes the warrior needs to create friction.

And eventually, if you have built the right flywheel, you do not have to fight quite so damned hard just to get yourself moving.

You can save that energy for the things actually worth fighting for.

📚 Leader’s Library

​Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte​

Why?

Because your brain should be used for thinking, judgment, creativity, and action—not desperately trying to remember where you put everything.

Forte offers a practical method for building an external system that helps you capture useful information, retrieve it when needed, and turn it into meaningful work.

Your second brain should support the first one.

It should never replace it.

Because if you're going to make decisions, you might as well learn how to best on yourself to make the best decision.

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