The time has come to place the Second Nature blog into the archives and pursue other avenues of sharing the art. What started as a fun way to gather experiences and thoughts about my passion for jiu jitsu over four and a half years ago has opened my eyes for new possibilities in life. The original hope was that Second Nature would eventually become a brand, but the more I put into it the more I realized that wasn’t what it was ever about when I started writing about grappling. The goal was to show the evolution of the mind over the years of how one perceives art. I think I managed to capture that aspect.
Second Nature was proof that art becomes a part of who you
are the more you immerse yourself in it. It takes ahold of your character and
transcends all parts of one’s life and can even influence the decisions you
make over time. When I first started writing I wrote about what I thought
people wanted to hear rather than the things that meant most to me. I
eventually flipped the switch and started writing for me and if that’s the only
person who was going to read it then so be it! I just wanted to log my thoughts
into a database so I could see where I was at mentally.
Jiu jitsu creates a lot of questions for yourself over time,
as do a lot of things, yet I constantly found myself at times trying to force
writing. A funny thing about forcing writing is just like forcing a move in jiu
jitsu, it usually does not work in your favor. I wrote about it in plenty of
the blogs, but ‘Finding Your Flow’ captured this idea the best. Taking your
time to feel the imposing force and using it to your advantage is the key to
success. In the time periods where writing practically wrote itself, I used the
flow of my stream of consciousness to man the helm and the rest is history.
All of the talks about a martial art of my choosing becoming
‘second nature’ is something I hold near and dear to my heart. I truly believe
that over time we have this ability to perform this dance unconsciously and we
let that flow just flow. Just like the law that energy can neither be created nor destroyed unless an external force
acts upon it, I believe things that are engrained into the level of Second Nature cannot be broken as well.
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My wife made me an amazing gift last year to support my
pursuits of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, my blog and the hope that one day I could use
these skills to create a living doing what I love and sharing it with others
who have that same passion. I had been so touched by it that I was almost
heartbroken when it turned out I was going to go in a different direction, but
it deserves its own place in this history. Thank you for your support my love.
Last thing I have to share is that sometimes life will pull
you in a different direction than you originally intended to go in. That is
completely fine. Accept that life isn’t linear and that the flow of it can
bring you to new horizons. It takes a lot of courage to board that ship and
take the voyage, so give yourself some love and embrace the opportunity to
learn and grow! We all have amazing things to experience in life, all we have
to do is trust in the process.
I look forward to share more with you all in the future, but through different a different lens. Goodbye Second Nature Blog, thanks for the ability to watch myself and others grow.
