Red Queen Effect

You need to keep moving just to hold position.

Let's cut to the chase: you feel like you've hit a plateau. You feel like your training partners are getting better faster than you. But you might be looking at things wrong.

Ever heard of the “Red Queen effect?”

No, you probably haven't, because it sounds like the kind of pop psychology bullshit you'd only find in the business book section at an airport. But let's talk about it anyway. 🤣

The “Red Queen effect” is a reference to the Red Queen's race in Alice in Wonderland, in which Alice needs to run just to stay in the same place:

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
—The Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland

Believe it or not, this is a hypothesis in evolutionary biology that proposes animals must keep evolving to survive. I guess it's not pop psychology BS after all!

And this is where the Red Queen effect applies to Jiu-Jitsu:

Yes, you ARE getting better. It just doesn't feel that way because your training partners are getting better too, and they're adapting to you.

Jiu-Jitsu is like an elevator.

My old instructor used to tell me that Jiu-Jitsu is like an elevator. When we train together, we're all getting better and going up that elevator together.

When you look at the others in the elevator with you, it doesn't even feel like you're moving. Because they're moving too. Relativity and all that.

But as soon as someone gets off that elevator, you immediately start to see the difference in speed. And if they ever get back on the elevator, they'll be so far behind you that they may never catch up.

Ever had a training partner who always gave you competitive rolls, but then took a long layoff? When they returned, you were probably shocked at how much of a skill lead you'd gained over your former rival.

Learning is a non-linear process.

We also need to understand that skill development doesn't occur in a straight line. It's all over the place. Some days you get better. Some days you don't. Sometimes you even get worse!

Sometimes you go months or years without feeling improvement. Then one day something “clicks” and you make a quantum leap forward.

You can't control when you get better, or by how much. That's part of the process. That plateau you're obsessing over might only be the visible tip of the skill development iceberg, with the real work being done deep underneath.

On the podcast:

• Ep. 303: Building Wealth in BJJ, feat. David Bayarena

Further study:

• Red Queen hypothesis — Wikipedia