Martial arts choices and the purpose of life

We can pencil thousands of different reasons for being alive.

This is a philosophical dilemma perhaps as ancient as Jiu-Jitsu. Our ancestors started having it when we, as human beings, first started to think (I guess we started fighting before ).

But it can be simplified in one sentence:

We are here for the sole purpose of helping others.

Whether it’s true or not, it’s irrelevant, because, if you think like that, for sure you will be able to sleep better.

Gandhi dedicated his life to better lives, and chose a great platform to achieve it. Is there a better example?

Also, once you accept it, the question funnels to: “What’s the best platform I have for helping people the most?”

In order to answer that, you need to make wise choices. Just like in a fight, armlock or triangle, takedown or kneekick?

We Jiu-Jitsu practitioners (and martial artists in general) opt all the time, and the choice we make many times can mean winning or losing. Martial arts are a metaphor for life, and as more as you train yourself to make good choices in your mat time, more are the chances you will do the same in life.

Today I was reading the article my GRACIEMAG coworker Marcelo Dunlop wrote, listing seven lessons Judo Olympic Medalist Flavio Canto had to teach. And this particular excerpt sparkled into my mind:

Flavio always wanted to make a difference and fight against the plight of the underprivileged that was stuck in his face every day, living amid the inequality rife in Rio de Janeiro. He’d hand out meals, collect clothing, trudge up favelas to try and teach the kids to read, and only after years of this did he realize that the martial arts were the greatest weapon he had for his cause.

Realizing that before what he was doing “wasn’t much, it didn’t make major changes in anyone’s life”, Flavio Canto founded the NGO “Instituto Reação”, of teaching Judo and Jiu-Jitsu at Rocinha “favela”, and since then he changed hundreds of lives.

The martial art teacher, in general, is blessed, because he’s able to better people’s lives on daily basis, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be like Canto does, teaching to poor kids. He may cause great impact simply helping a person to be more confident and therefore treating others better, or driving someone to a healthier path.

Recently we clarified GRACIEMAG mantra as “Jiu-Jitsu Lessons to Better Your Life”.

It’s clear not only to myself, but also to all my teammates (many of them working for years alongside each other), that we have chosen GRACIEMAG as the best platform to make meaning.

And you, have you decided yet, what’s the platform you have chosen to spread the good?

Comment below otherwise get back to the basics and make your choice first