If you have trained for more than a few months, you've probably experienced a plateau. You know, one day you are sprinting through the jungle of jiu-jitsu euphoria, and the next you are stuck in a pit of quicksand. You feel like your progress has stopped and you are literally struggling just to keep your head above water. Like well-timed eclipses, these lulls in your training are normal if not predictable. If you've trained for years, you can probably even predict when the next one will hit. (Hint for new blue belts: There's a big one coming soon.)

It may not be the end of the world, but few things can be more frustrating than the feeling like you are not making any progress. This is especially challenging in jiu-jitsu where your first year feels like Christmas every time you step on the mats. Every technique is new and learning just a couple of moves means you've nearly doubled what you know. Trust me though, one day your instructor will actually teach something you've seen at least once before. The first step is to recognize that a plateau is little more than your mind and body adjusting to the routines you put them through. The more you train, the more this will happen.

The hardest part of plateauing is that usually, your natural reaction will be to do exactly the opposite of what you really need to do. I remember after what seemed like an eternal plateau, I wrote a lengthy, whining email to my instructor and mentor Matt Strack. I ranted on and on about how I wasn't progressing even though I had tried everything from changing my diet to watching youtube videos. I got a very short, profound email in return. "Shut up and go train." I'm sure he said it more tactfully than this, but the message was the same. In the time I had spent to write my complaint about progressing, I could have easily been tapped by at least three people. By wasting my time thinking about the plateau I was on, I was prolonging it. I just needed to get back on the mats.

Professor Sauer has said it so many times, the solution is time on the mats. When you feel like you aren't making progress, go make progress. Get on the mats. There is no substitute for training. The more you train, the more progress you make. If you feel like you aren't going anywhere, train, train and train some more. I poured myself into my training. Within a week my plateau was gone and the passion was back.

When you feel like you aren't progressing, go train. Do all the things you've heard your instructor say a hundred times. Whatever belt you are wearing, put on a white belt in your mind. Look at every technique like it is the first time you've ever seen it. Change who you are rolling with. Fight from the bottom. Get tapped. Decide now to make the most of every second you have on the mats. Then watch what happens to your jiu-jitsu.

Happy New Years. Now shut up and go train. ;)