The Second Mountain of Jiu-Jitsu

There’s a predictable arc to most pursuits that ask everything of the body. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is no exception.

In the beginning, the trajectory is all about ability, mobility, competition. It’s a steep, but rewarding climb. We push hard, because we’re still filled with what is sometimes called fluid intelligence—the raw mental horsepower to solve novel problems quickly, adapt on the fly, and explode into creative solutions.

In jiu-jitsu, fluid intelligence shows up as scramble speed, lightning transitions, and the stubborn belief that one more round, one more camp, one more comp run will be the thing that cements us. And for a while, it works. The medals come. The highlight reels play. The body mostly cooperates.

But then—sometimes gradually, sometimes in one unmistakable moment—it stops cooperating. The fingers ache. The gas tank doesn’t refill as fast. The new players pass your guard like it’s just a suggestion.

And this is where a fork appears in the road.

One path is clinging: to the medals, to relevance, to the belief that your best years are always just ahead if you can just train harder or rehab smarter. This path is seductive. It flatters the ego. But it also breeds resentment—first toward your own body, then toward your younger teammates, who, through no fault of their own, are simply becoming what you used to be.

The other path is harder to choose, but infinitely more rewarding. It’s the path of crystallized intelligence: the stage where your value is no longer based on speed or novelty, but depth. You know what works. You’ve felt a thousand grips, seen a thousand mistakes. You can walk a student back from a plateau not because you’re smarter—but because you’ve been there. You’re the calm voice in the storm. The mentor.

But this shift requires humility. And, frankly, grief. Letting go of that first mountain—the mountain of self-glory—is painful. Yet only by doing so can we begin the climb up the second: the mountain of meaning, contribution, and legacy.

This doesn’t mean becoming invisible. Quite the opposite. It means becoming more visible in the ways that matter: not in the medal count, but in the moments someone younger says, “I hit that because of what you showed me.” Not in the spot on the podium, but in the quiet nod of respect from someone who knows the real game now runs deeper.

Of course, the other side of this equation—the younger generation—has its blind spots too. They often ignore the quiet wisdom of the veterans. In the rush toward innovation, they repeat old mistakes. And sometimes they write off the old guard as obsolete—failing to see the profound value in experience that no YouTube breakdown or Instagram reel can capture.

But the burden of maturity lies first with the elders. We must model what we hope they’ll become: gracious, calm, precise, and unafraid to let go of the spotlight so others can stand in it.

The irony is this: the more you give the game away, the more of it you actually get to keep. Not in the form of wins, but in something better—respect, gratitude, and maybe even a lineage that echoes long after your last time on a podium.