Joseph HannanBJJ meditations: Pulling the trigger
Even now, fear halts the advancement of a position toward its conclusion, which is usually a submission attempt. The tension mounts to its breaking point and I stop. I fear losing what I have gained, and I fear what that loss might say about me. There’s a scarcity mindset at play here in the technical aspects of the game and thematically across my life. But, no risk it, no biscuit. And there’s a socialized mindset, too: Certain people, certain ranks, to whom and which I can’t lose. But what w...
Joseph HannanBJJ Meditations: The rupture of unsoundness
I’m a beginner again. The ocean stretches before me like a pane of painted glass, strands of white foam striping it at intervals. I’m nervous. I can feel it in the way my breath hangs suspended in my chest, my ribs refusing to expand to let air in. This image was created by Dall-E AI, using the following prompt, which was refined by Chat GPT: Create a dynamic illustration capturing the exact moment a novice surfer is tossed from a towering wave, using vibrant colors and expressive lines to co...
Joseph HannanBJJ Meditations: Jiu Jitsu’s bitter pill
Jiu Jitsu prepares many flavors of pain for us. One of the most bitter flavors of pain comes from a revelation. Jiu Jitsu reveals our physical limitations.The Crypt of the Capuchins. Rome, Italy.I became acutely aware of these limitations when I turned 32. Double or triple training sessions left me, best case, feeling half-assed and, worst case, sick or injured. I had to back off. I had to slow down. Granted, this is not the case for everyone, but I was running up against the limitations of m...
I'm a writer, journalist, and consultant with a passion for Web3 and crypto. I write about both topics and experiment with NFT fiction.
Joseph HannanBJJ meditations: Pulling the trigger
Even now, fear halts the advancement of a position toward its conclusion, which is usually a submission attempt. The tension mounts to its breaking point and I stop. I fear losing what I have gained, and I fear what that loss might say about me. There’s a scarcity mindset at play here in the technical aspects of the game and thematically across my life. But, no risk it, no biscuit. And there’s a socialized mindset, too: Certain people, certain ranks, to whom and which I can’t lose. But what w...
Joseph HannanBJJ Meditations: The rupture of unsoundness
I’m a beginner again. The ocean stretches before me like a pane of painted glass, strands of white foam striping it at intervals. I’m nervous. I can feel it in the way my breath hangs suspended in my chest, my ribs refusing to expand to let air in. This image was created by Dall-E AI, using the following prompt, which was refined by Chat GPT: Create a dynamic illustration capturing the exact moment a novice surfer is tossed from a towering wave, using vibrant colors and expressive lines to co...
Joseph HannanBJJ Meditations: Jiu Jitsu’s bitter pill
Jiu Jitsu prepares many flavors of pain for us. One of the most bitter flavors of pain comes from a revelation. Jiu Jitsu reveals our physical limitations.The Crypt of the Capuchins. Rome, Italy.I became acutely aware of these limitations when I turned 32. Double or triple training sessions left me, best case, feeling half-assed and, worst case, sick or injured. I had to back off. I had to slow down. Granted, this is not the case for everyone, but I was running up against the limitations of m...
I'm a writer, journalist, and consultant with a passion for Web3 and crypto. I write about both topics and experiment with NFT fiction.
Subscribe to Joseph Hannan
Subscribe to Joseph Hannan
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
“The mind stops with recognition.”
– Josh Waitzkin
We recognize something, we put a label on it, and we put it in a mental box. This can be constructive for higher-order thinking because now we have a mental model of this thing. We can chunk it and move on to integrating new information.
But as soon as we put a label on it, we close the door on further exploration and evaluation. We close the door on curiosity. We also close the door on depth.
To use a personal example, I’ve been doing jiu jitsu for seven years and my ankle locks are dogshit. The straight ankle lock is deceptively simple and that’s partially why I’m seldom able to finish it. My mind has frozen at the recognition of the ankle lock instead of probing it with greater curiosity, challenging my assumptions, asking questions, really exploring it without putting it in a box.
I also see this tendency in other students. There’s this little linguistic tic that I’ve picked up on. Most of the time, if you ask someone, “Are you following me?” Or, “Does anyone have any questions?” They’ll say something like, “Makes sense.”
What they’re actually saying is, “I’m in this recognition frame of mind where what you’re saying stands for itself and is apparent to me.”
But really, we should be making sense instead of saying, “Makes sense.” Instead of saying, “Makes sense,” we should be about the process of making it into sense. And that process never stops.
That’s not to say, I’m never going to use an ankle lock in competition because I haven’t fully mastered it. But rather, I strive to constantly re-engage with the question of, what is the ankle lock? What is the optimal positioning here? What makes the break more devastating?
And that’s how I can stop myself from becoming static. That’s the intellectual and embodied behavior that prevents you from becoming the 300-pound bullshido master, who no longer spars. His students whisper in hushed tones, “Master no longer spars because if he so much as touches you, he’ll kill you.”
That shit comes to fruition because we stop the process of making sense. We settle into this recognition frame of mind. We default to the passivity of “Makes sense.”
The alternative is to be in this constant cognition and experiential frame of mind. To think with depth and to experience with profundity.
Category: Inner Work
Tag: Makes Sense/Make it Sense
Recent meditations
“The mind stops with recognition.”
– Josh Waitzkin
We recognize something, we put a label on it, and we put it in a mental box. This can be constructive for higher-order thinking because now we have a mental model of this thing. We can chunk it and move on to integrating new information.
But as soon as we put a label on it, we close the door on further exploration and evaluation. We close the door on curiosity. We also close the door on depth.
To use a personal example, I’ve been doing jiu jitsu for seven years and my ankle locks are dogshit. The straight ankle lock is deceptively simple and that’s partially why I’m seldom able to finish it. My mind has frozen at the recognition of the ankle lock instead of probing it with greater curiosity, challenging my assumptions, asking questions, really exploring it without putting it in a box.
I also see this tendency in other students. There’s this little linguistic tic that I’ve picked up on. Most of the time, if you ask someone, “Are you following me?” Or, “Does anyone have any questions?” They’ll say something like, “Makes sense.”
What they’re actually saying is, “I’m in this recognition frame of mind where what you’re saying stands for itself and is apparent to me.”
But really, we should be making sense instead of saying, “Makes sense.” Instead of saying, “Makes sense,” we should be about the process of making it into sense. And that process never stops.
That’s not to say, I’m never going to use an ankle lock in competition because I haven’t fully mastered it. But rather, I strive to constantly re-engage with the question of, what is the ankle lock? What is the optimal positioning here? What makes the break more devastating?
And that’s how I can stop myself from becoming static. That’s the intellectual and embodied behavior that prevents you from becoming the 300-pound bullshido master, who no longer spars. His students whisper in hushed tones, “Master no longer spars because if he so much as touches you, he’ll kill you.”
That shit comes to fruition because we stop the process of making sense. We settle into this recognition frame of mind. We default to the passivity of “Makes sense.”
The alternative is to be in this constant cognition and experiential frame of mind. To think with depth and to experience with profundity.
Category: Inner Work
Tag: Makes Sense/Make it Sense
Recent meditations
No activity yet