The art of looking at jiujitsu from new angles

Feeling unmotivated or stagnant in your jiujitsu training?

In that case, Master Rickson Gracie invites you to look at your technical questions from other angles.

A fresh look at old problems is the best path to success. In any field.

How about heading to Japan with us, to remember a curious case?

At the end of the last century, Japan Railways East won the bid to run the project of a bullet train between Tokyo and Nagano, which was to be completed for the 1998 Winter Olympics.

But things took a wrong turn. The tunnels drilled into the mountains began to leak water, and with ancient Japanese tenacity, a team of engineers began to address the problem. Analyses were made, complex plans were drawn up, and the new project came out—time-consuming and expensive.

Just then, a simple worker from the company, probably a practitioner of martial arts, became suspicious of the proposed solution. With passion and curiosity, he began to think of an alternative with a different outlook. One day, while observing the problem from the inside, within the tunnel, he felt a great thirst. And he drank a sip of the problematic water flowing down the walls of the even more problematic tunnel.

Eureka. As he sipped and refreshed himself with the wonderful liquid, the employee felt that the taste of the water was spectacular, better than the best mineral water served in the company restaurant.

The idea kept growing in his head, until he went to his boss and offered him a sip. His suggestion was to start bottling and selling the mineral water as premium water.

Oshimizu bottled water was born, as told by the social scientist and psychologist David Niven in one of his books. "A big expense was turned into profit, just because someone looked at the situation in a different way," Niven noted.

What about you? Have you tried attacking your problems from new angles? You can always count on Rickson for that.