[jaysculls]

8. Focus on Past Failures and Future Endeavors – Many people are stuck in a slump and have negative thoughts because they can’t get past previous failures they may have encountered and/or they’re worried about how they’re going to perform in the future. They waste a lot of energy worrying about these situations they currently have no control over instead of focusing on what they’re going to do in the present. This can lead to someone being in a slump because they lose focus in their current training sessions and it hinders their learning.

9. Down on Yourself – Another common scenario that usually leads to a slump is when you are constantly down on yourself. Instead of focusing on your successes in your training you only think and dwell upon the times you didn’t do so well and the times you got tapped out. This leads to you being constantly down on yourself. You start to feel that you’re not any good and that you keep “losing” so you’re probably not going to get any better. Having these thoughts and building upon them could lead to a major slump that can be hard to get out of.

10. Compare Yourself To Others – If you constantly compare yourself to others and you don’t focus on just your training alone, then this can lead to you possibly falling into an area where you are in a slump. Many people focus a lot on what their training partners are doing. They pay attention to their partner’s successes and to their partner’s failures and they compare those situations to themselves. If you see one of your partners who has been training just as long as you have doing very well in grappling but you’re not, this can lead to you wondering why that person is excelling and you’re not. While for some, this situation can be a source of motivation. For many others it only leads to self-doubt and frustration. When you start to experience these negative feelings it hinders your learning and then next thing you know, you’re in a slump.

11. You Achieved A Goal or Won Something and Then Became Unmotivated – This is another common situation that can lead to being in a slump. What happens to some individuals is they work hard, test themselves in a competition setting, and do well. After they do well they feel they deserve some time to relax and take off. This is definitely ok for most people, but for some it is counterintuitive. During the relaxing off time they start to get comfortable with not doing much. Then as time goes on it becomes a habit. It becomes harder and harder to get into the gym which leads to them not getting better and improving since the last time they competed. This is a very common scenario for some people after their first competition.

12. Overanalyzing and Not Trusting Your Gut and Instincts – Have you ever heard anyone say to you, “Don’t think too much”? Have they ever told you just to react and not overanalyze things. The reason you hear someone say this to you sometimes is because you’re constantly analyzing a situation and thinking about it while never actually getting started. You’re always trying to figure out the right thing to do before you even do it. Before you know it, time has flown by and you did nothing. This can definitely lead to a slump and a decrease in learning.

13. Your Practice Isn’t Suited Well For You – Another reason why you might be experiencing a slump is because you may have come to a point where you practicing environment isn’t quite for you anymore. In the beginning you should always improve because you’re fresh and you don’t know much, but as you are training more you are going to need a training environment that can adapt to your adjustments. For example let’s say you’re someone who loves training and when you go to the gym to train you want to get as much drilling in as possible and as much rolling. Then after training you’re more than happy to talk with your peers. However the training environment doesn’t match. It’s more of a club environment where the students sit and talk just as much as they drill. This is an environment that isn’t good for your particular training style. You may also have an instructor who tries to motivate you by yelling, while you don’t particularly respond well to this type of coaching style. If this is also your case, then it can cause you to shut down and really slow down your learning.

14. Laziness and Haven’t Been Training Enough – Some people want to do a grappling sport and be the best they can be, but at the same time they don’t want to put in the work to get there. They want to be good right away. They don’t really like hard workouts and they don’t drill as much as they could. These are the lazy people. They train once a week when they can train more and they drill 10 times max when they probably could have drilled the same technique 20 times. If you are this type of person there is going to be a chance of you being in a slump for the duration of your grappling career.

15. Your Partners Have Figured Out Your Game – One of the most common reasons why you might fall into a slump is because your training partners have figured out your game. They know exactly what your favorite techniques are and how you react. This makes it much harder for you to do what you want when you’re rolling live. It’s very important that you realize that this is happening and you work on adjusting your game so you can keep moving forward. You can’t keep doing the same things over and over because you won’t get the results you used to. You have to vary up your game to make your training partners have to catch up again.

The big question to ask is, “Are these easy to fix?” Some may be easier to deal with than others and some will be very hard to deal with, but you should be able to correct all of them. While focusing on getting out of your slump you want to do your best to be patient, always thinking about the positives and never the negatives. The reason many people have trouble getting out of slumps is because they are constantly building a mountain of negative thoughts in their brain. Be happy that you have the opportunity to train and be in this world in the first place and that will be your first step to dealing with slumps that get in your way.

Part 2 of “Dealing with Slumps and Ruts of Grappling” will go over what steps you can take to concur each one of these slump causing areas.

Thank you for reading!
Jason