Why we need to get our butts kicked...

The Indonesian Submission Championship 2010 has been completed, and the event was a huge success – the record number of participants, more clubs and countries represented in the competition, and the dominance of Synergy BJJ on ISC were pretty much broken at that tournament. To put it bluntly, we got our asses kicked. Before this year’s ISC, I think many of us were complacent at the start of the tournament. How many of us come for open mat sessions and exchange techniques? How many were preparing specific gameplans and train with other schools, some out of pure laziness and/or complacency, others due to fear of others acknowledging their gameplan and prepare a specific counter for the game plan. Personally, I see that lots of us are losing that fire that we had even a year ago, and we’ve paid the price.

Is it all that bad? Definitely not! Complacency is the enemy of progress, and the cure for that is getting our asses kicked. Without it, we’ll drive into a comfort zone, feeling that we’re on top of the world. Even champions like Georges St. Pierre need some ass-kicking to keep him from slowing down (ie: the first fight against Matt Serra where he lost the belt). Like all champions, GSP didn’t spiral downward into depression, but instead, he came back, better and stronger than ever, get his belt back, and pretty much cleaned out the division of potential challengers after 5 successful title defenses.

The key is how we response to get our asses kicked. We can either go into a downward spiral, or we can took the lessons from it, learn from them, and come back stronger than ever. So, where does this ass kicking put us Synergy guys into? Being what we are, we got that fire back! We want to regain our dominance in our own event. Hell! Some of the guys wanted to go overseas and compete overseas, and some will travel to Bali more often and plan weekend bootcamps with Niko – an idea which previously labeled as not cost-efficient last year.

So, let me ask you this again? Is it all that bad in getting our asses kicked? Definitely not! We need them to remind us to keep improving, and get us out of the comfort zone. The question is, are we able to keep that spirit of improving and not moving back into the comfort zone? Only time will tell, and I do strongly hope we don’t sit back and spiral downward into the comfort zone again.