ALWAYS CONNECTED
by
Kimberlj Boehm
There exist a well-known proverb about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and its positive affect on social relationships that says „bjj connects people“.
This May our team fought on different fronts in different countries at the same time so we couldn’t stay all together physically, but we fought with the force of our team connected in our minds and hearts. Team spirit has no boundary, so we all stepped on the battlefield with the united power of our Pound for Pound family.
Of course everyone of us went into the fight with his or her individual goals, but we walked the walk together, striving in the same direction to give our best, have fun and enjoy the moment.
In overall we came back home with 3 medals from Zurich and one medal from Zagreb as well, plus one of our brothers won the ticket to the Grand Slam Tournament in London next year. All of us fought good fights, some won and some lost, mostly very close by points. But it`s not all about the medals. A gold medal is beautiful thing, but if you`re not enough without it, you will be never enough with it.
The real fight was fought every day in the preparation and our toughest opponents were the people we saw every day in the mirror. The effort is between you and you, coming to the gym every day sweating your ass off, no matter if you had a hard day at work, dealing with pressure or adversity, no matter if you`re sick, injured or tired. A true champion wins in his mind first, it is a decision, a commitment you make and the actions will follow your thoughts.
Yes, sometimes a small mistake costs you a fight, but the knowledge and the experience you win are priceless. In bjj there is no losing, you either win or learn and you will never stop learning. If you ever think you know all about it, it will jump on you and hit you as hard as life. Sometimes you have to get worse before you improve, sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward, nothing is tougher than facing your weaknesses and start working on them and this is exactly what we do – together, always connected!