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[Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, also called BJJ, Submission Wrestling or grappling is a martial art that combines elements from judo and wrestling, but also allows strangulations and joint manipulations – that is, you don't stop when one party hits the floor, but continue with floor fighting until one gives up. In other words, everything is allowed with the exception of punches, kicks, and dirty tricks such as bites and scratches. All forms of aids and weapons are of course also prohibited.]

In the past, when I told people that my free time was spent meditating and BJJ, their reaction was that they were two opposing activities. But lately I have noticed that more and more people are saying the opposite: that the two must complement each other well. On the surface, both are true: On the one hand, meditation is a calm activity, at least from the outside, while wrestling and BJJ are violent activities characterized by competition, blood, sweat and testosterone. On the other hand, in the heat of battle, there is no other choice but to be present in the body and in the moment. If you are distracted for a short moment, you get quick feedback, because in a split second your opponent is on top of you and has blocked your airway or is well on the way to breaking your shoulder, elbow or knee. Therefore, in BJJ, as in all sports, a certain degree of mindfulness can have a positive effect on your performance.

For my own part, I have long sensed connections and strongly felt that a fantastic synergy is a possibility, but only relatively recently have I gained enough insight to be able to work in that direction. What I will try to describe in this blog post is my process of trying to make BJJ and meditation practice merge into a higher unity.

Aggression

When you, as a beginner, throw yourself into trying to survive with big, sweaty men on top of you, there is a tendency to tense up and use up all your strength extremely quickly. In BJJ lingo, you ”tense up and gas out”.
But when I started, I had the opposite problem – I was too inactive. I lacked the ability to contact my aggression and use it to fight harder.

I had always thought of it as a quality that aggression wasn't a big part of my personality. Being able to keep a cool head, forgive others easily, and generally avoid conflict must be a positive thing, right? But as I began to examine this attitude, as aggression slowly became contactable during training and showed its face in other life events, I discovered that aggression was probably not missing from my personality structure, but rather repressed.

In tournaments, even when I had gradually become somewhat accustomed to the adrenaline and pressure of competing, I was still unable to squeeze the last bit of explosiveness and will out of my performance, and therefore often ended up accepting defeat. Likewise, in my work as a substitute teacher and classroom teacher, as well as in romantic relationships, it was a challenge for me to set clear boundaries.

I now began a relatively extensive digging work in collaboration with therapists and meditation teachers, and once Pandora's box was opened, there was a lot to tackle. With the help of my parents, I found situations from my childhood that could help shed light on the situation. I gradually came to mind situations throughout my life where my temper had run out on me. There were relatively few, maybe 15, and that's why they stuck out.

The shadow

The gradual contact with my own aggression opened up deeper aspects of the shadow work than I had previously had access to. My primary process with my own unconscious sides up until now had been of an important but relatively superficial nature: What I had done was to try to notice which behaviors in other people aroused negative emotions and reactions in myself, and then to try to pull the projection home by noticing in what way I myself possessed similar character traits – or was afraid to allow corresponding sides of myself.
I now discovered that I often projected my shadow onto people who had difficulty controlling their anger, people who said or did things in their outbursts that hurt others. This is consistent with the discovery I made with the help of therapists and meditation teachers, namely that I have such a great respect for the damage that uncontrolled anger can cause that I have therefore needed to suppress my own aggression.

This part of the work is by no means something I am done with, and it is doubtful that I ever will be. But lately I have begun to have more direct experiences of my own shadow side, when I am in contact with negative emotions such as anger or sadness. In these situations I can feel the seeds of violent ideas and actions, which I fortunately trust I will never carry out. But the experiences have given me a clear understanding that I am a human being, just like all those on the planet who commit inhumane acts are – that it could be me who killed, destroyed the planet and harmed my fellow human beings in ways that are barely bearable to think about, had my upbringing, my circumstances been different.

These kinds of insights are overwhelming to confront, and they would have been even harder to navigate without my practice and my martial arts. I also feel that it is precisely because I have the tools available that my dark sides dare to show themselves now, because there is confidence in my system that they can be handled. My approach has been developed in part in dialogue with therapists and meditation teachers, and involves feeling the emotion, the phenomena – feeling Hara just above the navel as well as the solar plexus and breathe in. And then, carefully so as not to physically harm myself or others, to channel the fierce energy into my martial arts.

Click here to read the continuation of Jonathan's storyg i ‘'Martial arts and practice'.