Photo by Kaya Florczak (BJJ Photography)
I have an addiction that I’m being forced to deal with once again.
Take BJJ and martial arts training away from me and I don’t know what to do with myself. I itch, I pace, I fidget – I just don’t feel the same until I get my fix.
I’ve had to take time away from training in the past due to illness, injury, an extremely busy schedule (exam season), and more recently a global pandemic (#coronavirus2020).
Life gets in the way, and we are periodically reminded that a world exists outside of the activities that take up so much of our time.
But without BJJ and martial arts in my life – even if only temporarily – I began questioning what it is about my favorite pastime that keeps me so hooked?
Exercise and Social Support
There are many reasons why I love BJJ, martial arts, and fighting in general.
I thought I would be able to satisfy my taste for combat by watching instructional videos and classic matches from past world championships online while confined to my room.
Maybe if I threw around my lone kettlebell, connected with my inner-yogi, and spent some time meditating (like I’m always saying I should do more of), I would feel better.
No matter what I did, nothing was like being on the mats, surrounded by teammates, coaches, and friends.
The minimized human interaction experienced during this recent social distancing (#coronavirus2020) made me realize that being part of a quality social network and receiving proper social support is a huge driving factor in my desire to train BJJ and martial arts.
Social support is a major influencer of behavior in exercise and sports psychology and can do a lot to predict a person’s level of motivation, happiness, and overall well-being.
However, simply measuring the size of a person’s social network does not paint a complete picture of the state of their social well-being.
You can have a hundred lousy colleagues or you can have three close friends who you would trust with your life – in which situation do you emerge the social victor?
Measuring social support by the amount and type of support received may be a more valid measure than measuring the size of one’s network.
There are 5 types of social support commonly seen in exercise settings, each of which plays a different role in various student-student and student-teacher interactions.
The beneficial social aspects of exercise and sports are sometimes overlooked, and it’s time away that reminds us why we are continually motivated to show up, work hard, and get better.
The 5 Types of Social Support in Exercise
1. Instrumental Support
This is the most basic type of support there is.
When a teacher fixes your technique, adjusts your position, or helps you up off the mat after a difficult training round, they are expressing instrumental support.
Although this is most commonly seen in teacher-student interactions, one of the most beautiful aspects of martial arts is seeing students helping each other, modifying their movements and offering assistance to others.
Likewise, your friends and family outside of the dojo can provide this type of support too. If you’ve ever had a spouse or parent help with laundry or drive you to a training session, then you’ve been on the receiving end of instrumental support.
The martial arts community extends beyond the matted walls where we train – many individuals come together to make our martial arts dreams possible.
2. Emotional Support
This type of support includes showing feelings of concern, care, compassion, and encouragement toward someone.
The relationships between teacher and student can develop to be incredibly special over time. Emotional support plays a large role in earning the trust of newcomers and senior students alike.
Martial arts can be an intense, rough, and at times dangerous activity to practice. Having students and teachers be emotionally aware and supportive during difficult moments (and there will be many of them) keeps people coming through the door to learn, train, and grow.
3. Informational Support
What is a wealth of knowledge worth if you keep it to yourself?
This type of support includes any type of advice, feedback, or recommendations about exercise or the specific sport being practiced.
One amazing aspect of BJJ and martial arts is to see how students will help each other, offering to share personal experience, tips learned from other teachers and advice on how to improve at a quicker rate.
Naturally, teachers are most commonly providing informational support to their students.
But as mentioned above, it is beautiful to see how such an open culture of sharing knowledge and experience has emerged as a defining feature of the martial arts world.
Students helping other students, teachers taking the time to learn from the less experienced – there are no egos getting in the way, just a desire to experience, consume, and redistribute knowledge.
4. Companionship Support
Are you happy when your favorite training partner walks through the door? Do you feel more motivated to train or work out when you know a group of your friends will also be there?
These are examples of companionship support, and it’s an important one in the exercise world.
Being active with a companion can have a positive effect on your mood and can help you to forget (even if only temporarily) about the not-so-fun side-effects of working out (fatigue, soreness, boredom, amotivation).
If you were ever second-guessing a training session before remembering the disappointed look you would get from a friend for skipping, then you’ve experienced (or been the victim, however you want to see it) of companionship support.
5. Validation Support
We all want confirmation that our thoughts, feelings, questions, concerns, problems, and fears are not out of the ordinary.
Knowing that others are experiencing similar difficulties can be reassuring, especially if these issues are new and unfamiliar to you.
Validation support is important for keeping people comfortable and for maintaining confidence as they overcome obstacles along their martial arts journey.
Students offer words of encouragement to teammates, explaining how they too faced similar hardships in the early years of their training.
Teachers share wisdom and experience with students, reassuring them that their bumps and bruises, injuries, and frustrations are all normal, expected, and necessary aspects of the lifestyle.
Validation support allows students to feel like they fit in, to be comfortable in otherwise daunting situations, and to be a part of a group of like-minded people who are all experiencing similar realities.
This type of support is a relief for many students – everyone wants to feel like they belong.
I Get by With a Little Help…
BJJ and martial arts keep my mind, body, and spirit occupied for most hours of most days.
Time away from my craft forces me to reflect on what it is that I miss so much about the art.
Throws, takedowns, trips, arm locks, leg locks, strangles, punches, kicks, knees, elbows – I’m realizing the most important part of fighting is who you are doing it with.
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