Like so many of my peers, martial arts are not my
profession. Off the mats, I help oversee a slew of education programs for a
regional theatre, working with kids and adults, actors and non-actors, small community
centers and government institutions and engaging them in the exploration of
theatre arts. While I might joke that I only work to afford my jiu jitsu
classes, I am actually very fortunate to have a job that spawned from a
lifelong passion. And it’s earned me the nickname of “Jazz Hands” in our jiu
jitsu club and the bro-y teasing that comes with it.
The interesting thing is that while my two passions could
not be more different, they share similar concepts and principles with regards
to personal improvement. In teaching both acting (to kids and adults) and jiu
jitsu (to kids), I find myself using similar vocabulary and advancing similar
philosophies.
What follows are some of my favorite overlaps:
Physical and Mental
Instruments
I tell every acting student that my favorite thing about
acting, what breathed new life into me when I was an awkward, funny looking
teenager, was the fact that everything you need – the equipment – already
resides inside of you. Your body, your voice and your imagination were the all
the instruments you needed. Everything else was training. Everything else was
about unlocking your potential and challenging yourself to maximize it.
In a good acting class, you learn full body awareness,
paying attention to how you move, how others move in relation to you and what
that communicates in terms of status, behavior, relationship, etc. You would
learn voice – diction, tone, pitch, breath. And you would hopefully learn how
to utilize your imagination – constantly digging for truth, asking yourself “what
if” and devouring knowledge and information. Jiu jitsu is the same (though less
voice and more breathing). You arrive to that first class with everything you
need already there. I jumped into my first class in a pair of gym shorts and a
t-shirt. But that was it. I did not know how to shrimp. I couldn’t control my
breathing. And in those first couple of weeks, I’d tap whenever someone pinned
a knee on my belly. What’s missing is the technique and acquiring that
technique is a never-ending journey.
Now, obviously, I’m simplifying things. Just because you
learn to speak, move and think doesn’t make you an amazing actor in the same
way learning how to tie your belt and land an armbar against an unresisting
opponent doesn’t mean you’re a champion. But when you distill it down, the raw
ingredients are already there when you walk onto the stage/mats. Along the way,
you need the drive and determination, courage and discipline to be successful. And that's really the big part of the mental game - the attitude and the discipline. If you tell yourself that you can't do something, it's very likely that you won't be able to. If you tell yourself that you just can't do Shakespeare, you will never attack it. If you tell yourself that you can't do anymore squats, then your body is not going to do them itself. If you say that you're too tired to go to class, you won't. Being good at jiu jitsu is hard. Being a good actor is hard. In many ways, both arts are designed to weed out the peeps that suck. But as a practitioner, you have to work against that.
In the Moment
In acting, when a teacher or director coaches his/her actors
to stay “in the moment,” he or she is encouraging the actor to stay actively
engaged in what is going on – between him/herself and his/her scene partner,
staying open and responsive to what is happening right now in this performance
and not chasing after something brilliant that happened in a prior evening’s performance
or in the rehearsal hall. This encouragement of the actor to stay in the moment
is what ensures honest actions and responses and produces the air of
spontaneity (when in actuality, everything is scripted and will be performed
eight times a week).
In jiu jitsu, it is very similar. Staying in the moment is
what allows us to survive and capitalize. It encourages the practitioner to
stay attentive to allow for properly timed execution of carefully rehearsed
techniques. But just like in acting, though one might rehearse these techniques
over and over again, it does not mean that it will be performed the way you
rehearsed it. Actor and jiu jiteiro alike, you must work with what is given to
you at the moment it happens. On stage, an actor who fails to exist “in the
moment” will reveal the artifice, destroying the illusion that everything is
actually happening for the first time. On the mats, a grappler who is not
staying “in the moment” will likely sacrifice a position or telegraph his/her
move to the opponent.
No Easy Route to
Success
Over the last 15 years, I have met countless students
determined to make it as a professional actor. Some approach me for advice on
how to break into films and TV. They swear up and down that they will never
give up, that they have the passion for it, that they are willing to sacrifice
for it and cannot imagine doing anything else. And I always greet them with the
same poker face that hides my shade. I talked that same game as a teenager and
while I still work in theatre, I’m not a professional director, actor or
writer. Why not? Because it is one thing to say it and another thing to do it.
And the road is not paved in diamonds. Rather, it is years (sometimes, decades)
of failure, set-back and rejections. It is years of self-doubt and constantly
redefining what success looks like. To be fair, along the way, there are
numerous opportunities for growth and if one stays the course, there are
rewards if one is open and receptive to them. You have to take the small,
non-paying, non-speaking parts in that terrible play because you’ll meet that
actor or writer who will help land your next project. You have to go to ten
more auditions this week after losing out on the last ten parts you auditioned
for because if you’re not in line, someone else will get the part that was
meant for you. You have to shell out hard earned cash to attend that seminar
with that legendary actor because he/she might share that one technique that
will unlock your voice or reveal why you’ve been sucking at that one particular
monologue.
Same for jiu jitsu. There might be the lucky douchebag
prodigy that comes in and destroys everyone like he was born with superhero
acai in his veins. But that’s a rarity. Most senior practitioners didn’t start
out great. They didn’t earn those gold medals, black belts and run their own
academies cause they wished for it to happen. More likely, they sacrificed time
that would have gone to their families, rolled longer and harder than their
bodies wanted to and swallowed insane amounts of pride after countless defeats.
We have all met those new white belts who ask you, “how long
will it take for me to get my blue belt?” And every upper belt gives the same
shade-hiding poker face to him/her. Because like acting, jiu jitsu just doesn’t
work like that. There’s no schedule of when you’ll achieve success. There’s no
deadline for when you’ll win gold at a competition. The only certainty is that
you have to work for it. There’s no faking it. Like our most successful (and
best) actors, they followed through with what they said they wanted and never
gave up.
No Comparison
At the end of every promotion, my coach always counsels the
team, whether it’s juniors or adults, that promotions are a reflection of your individual
progression. It is not a comparison between you and anyone else. It is an
assessment of where you are in your journey, taking into account where you
started, how much you have grown and what your potential is. And yet, we are
human and cannot help but compare ourselves to our teammates.
“Why did I only get one stripe and such and such got two?”
“How did that person get a blue belt when I have tapped them
out so many times?”
“I competed three times since the last promotion and I don’t
even get a stripe?”
These feelings are
valid. Not necessarily correct, but they are valid. Same goes for acting. Actors
are ridiculously competitive and because of the nature of their work, mildly to
severely narcissistic (I guess the same can be said for jiu jitsu, even though
we are always taught to check your ego at the door). When you learn that a peer
of yours was cast in something you were up for, it can be infuriating. Sometimes,
I will attend a performance and judge an actor intensely, thinking to myself, “how
the f-ck did this guy land the part? I can act circles around him.” And yet, I’m
not. He’s getting paid to be on stage while I paid a lot to sit off stage. It sucks,
but it’s unproductive to waste time thinking about it. The better response is
to focus less on the other person and more on you. In no way am I advocating
that you beat yourself up for whatever perceived shortcoming. Instead, it’s great
time for self-reflection. If you felt like you deserved another stripe, what
might be your coach’s reasoning to withhold it? Did you attend as many classes
as you did in the past? Have you retained and applied the techniques in recent
months the way you did when you were an eager white belt? Have you achieved the
goals you set out for yourself since the last promotion? It’s unlikely that you’ll
have solid answers, let alone a response if you were brave enough to approach
your coach about them. Same goes for an actor inquiring the same feedback from
a casting director (advice – don’t do it). Instead, take this reflection and
add it as fuel to the fire. Let it inform you of your next set of goals. What
is under your control? How can you improve
to the point where that next casting director shouts, “hallelujah, thank god
you walked into this audition room – I finally found the Stanley Kowalski I’ve
been looking for”?
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