Magic Phrase

I trained at the PSLPB headquarters in São Paulo, Brazil, from Feb to the beginning of July in 2016.
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PSLPB is the team that the world-class BJJ players like Leandro Lo, the Miyao brothers, Tiago Barros, Hiago George, Thalison Soares, and Diego Pato represent/ed.
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When I was there, Lo had already left the team, and the Miyao brothers were already based in NYC.
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But PSLPB was (and is) still one of the toughest teams for light weight players.
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It’s a place where all sorts of talents congregate because they want to become the next world champion. The next Leandro Lo. The next Miyao. The next Thalison Soares.
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Many people come to and visit PSLPB with such an ambition, but I suppose the majority of them leave as well because they are most likely to have to face the reality that their jiu jitsu sucks.
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Well, compared to the other world-class BJJ players there anyway.
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And, not surprisingly, that’s the reality I had to face as well.
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I was doing OK against many of them… but against the really good ones?
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Pretty much after every session, I wondered what I had been doing all these years.
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Eventually, I changed my mindset, and things started getting better afterward though.
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Anyway, if I am to summarize my lessons there into two words, it will be easily…
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Não para.
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That means “Don’t stop” in Portuguese.
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I think I heard this phrase more than anything else while rolling.
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It’s a magic phrase because reminding myself not to stop is somewhat responsible for improving my performance.
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I’ll talk more about it in the next post.
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p.s. When I was at PSLPB, they had a competitor session from 10:30 am from Monday to Thursday. They would just roll until noon. I don’t remember how long each round was, but probably 5 or 6 minutes. The intervals were like 30-60 seconds.