transforming my trauma through jiu jitsu
I am 11 months in. The first week of October, it will have been a year since I started on this journey training in jiu jitsu.
How it started was on a complete whim. Most of the ways that I heal are started in this way, where there is not much logic behind it, just a gut feeling. Something kept drawing me to a non-profit’s website, and there was something about the website I couldn’t ignore. Specifically, it was the portion on self-defense classes. As I looked at it, it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t looking for more aggression in my life, I’d had plenty of it. I was not interested in self-defense classes. Yet, every synchronicity seemed to keep leading me back to this website, more interested and intrigued than ever. I listened to some podcasts there, and was overwhelmed with a feeling of resonance. There was something about them and how they spoke and lived that really struck a chord with me. I just couldn’t pin down what it was at the time.
In any case, I shut that website tab so many times, not understanding what self-defense would do for me if I took a chance on it. However, I eventually followed my nagging curiosity back to the website to apply one night just to see what would happen.
I showed up to the self-defense classes as a sexual trauma survivor and was beyond triggered. I felt fragile. I did not want to yell, I did not want to kick or punch, I was not used to standing in my own sense of power and strength. The instructor there was patient with me as my whole body seemed to fall apart there every time I showed up. She trusted me in my ability to take care of myself, though. She didn’t judge what was happening, and she allowed me to explain what was happening in my own way without jumping to conclusions. That was the first green flag I noticed.
As I went from my self-defense program to working to find a jiu jitsu gym I liked so I could continue training and see if I got any better, I sobbed so much of the time, thinking that I was just too sensitive for this martial art. The first three months were the worst. I really thought I was wasting my time. Scared wasn’t a good word for it, I was terrified. You try doing something where your body shuts down every time you do it around a bunch of strangers. As I failed over and over, I spoke to myself with the message of,
“Your body is allergic to this, and you need to stop. This is for the strong and the confident, not for those weak and tiny and traumatized like you.”
It truly humbled me, as someone who is so used to carrying so much and managing my complex life on my own shoulders, typically leaning into my talents and the things I’ve thrived at to get by. It felt so opposite to come to this thing I was terrible at where I needed to ask for help. I thought people would see me as emotional and dramatic as I fell apart on the mats, and not “talented and inspiring” like I had been in many of the hobbies I had succeeded at in life. Why should I build relationships from this space of hardship at this thing that my body was hating? I kept silent as my insecurities ate me alive, showing up to this place just to cry and convulse a majority of the time. I apologized occasionally for doing so, and was only met with understanding, kindness, and encouragement. That was the second green flag.
I am extremely lucky to have found the community I did. When I tried out multiple jiu jitsu gyms, I tried to get a sense of where I felt safe. I learned there were many different types of jiu jitsu gyms where different people gravitated based on what their goals were. There were traditional gyms that had been around for decades, more competition-based gyms, mixed martial-arts gyms, and others. Some felt way more masculine dominant, while others felt more nurturing, trauma-informed, and supportive.
The one I ended up at listened to my needs. Reading a book called “Transforming Trauma with Jiu Jitsu,” there was a recommendation in the book about a survivor having somewhere to go to regulate their nervous system with breathwork when they were triggered so they could continue to train. I thought this would assist me greatly if I intentionally asked for it. In the book it even explained that just the thought of having a place to go would make the survivor feel safe, knowing it was there for them if they needed to use it. The gym I was training at came through and they provided me a space for that, and I felt safe having a place to go where my body could release the pent up trauma it needed to. I started to notice a big change in me following this.
As I continued to train, there were sudden moments I had big releases, and I would use the room, and my instructor would check in with me. Each time I just allowed the emotions to flow, I would get better and better at using breathwork to come back to a state of neutral so I could go back and train. The more that I did this, the more my body got used to different positions I was in, and I could feel myself getting more and more physically confident in my own body. The episodes got shorter and shorter, until I found that there were a couple months I had gone to training without having any reactions at all. During this time, I was overjoyed to earn my first stripe.
The progress I’ve seen on this journey this last year has been incredible, but there was something else I had to humble myself over relating to this process. Much of the time we see healing moments like this as you either heal or you don’t, and I eventually had to move out of that mindspace. Because guess what? There are still times my body freaks out on the mat. They are way less frequent, for sure, but somewhat like someone working to get sober, there is a piece of the trauma that looms, waiting to eat you when you think you’ve gotten rid of it. When I have a really stressed nervous system, the trauma comes back up, and I regress for a moment. I don’t let it discourage me, though, because the difference is that I know how to handle it now. The episodes are still way shorter than the hours they used to be, and I am grateful.
To be honest, it’s not even just a physical thing at this point for me, either. Jiu jitsu is more than a sport, it’s more than self-defense, and it’s more than a somatic therapy. It’s a community. It’s a family. It’s a container I feel held in. It is somewhere that people of different belief systems gather to feel more strong and safe in their bodies and to have fun. It’s a routine. Every week, it’s there, with the same warm-ups, the same structure, the same smell, the same experience - just learning new tricks.
As someone who has only ever experienced constant chaos and change, it is a strange new & inviting comfort that I have surrendered to.
No, I don’t always feel understood there. No, everything doesn’t always go to plan. No, I don’t always feel 100% in my body when I’m there. Sometimes, to put it lightly, I REALLY HATE IT.
But it has made clear to me that I can’t rely on anyone else for my safety. This experience has taught me that it has to come from me. Spaces become safer when I work to make them safer. I become safe when I actively work to keep myself safe. I am my safety. (And I gotta speak up.)
And sure, this is me on my soap box, proclaiming all of the transformative things that have come from jiu jitsu. But it wasn’t until recently that I identified the thing I resonated with in those people on that nonprofit website when I curiously looked at it a year ago.
We’re okay with getting our ass kicked! We accept that as part of life experience. We’re okay failing, and working to do better. We’re okay with talking about the trauma. We’re okay with taking a hard fall and getting back up again, even if we sob and get real dramatic and chaotic about it.
Do you wanna know a secret? Those are the strongest people that exist. Those are the ones who survive and thrive.
And this is just coming from me, but… Go into that deepest fear. Do that thing you hate more than anything. For me it was jiu jitsu, but for you it could be something different.
Watch how frustrated and emotional you get from a place of self-awareness. Tell yourself you’re quitting if you want to. Take a break. Break your hand because you did the wrong grip. Scream about how much you hate it.
But go back every week. Learn something new every week. Watch how much you change. Watch how much you grow, even if you think you’re barely making any progress.
The light will emanate from you, and you won’t even know it, or see it.
You will have unconsciously become strong, and brave, and safe in your body along the way. It will seem like it was all magic, because it happened…
all while you were getting your ass kicked!
And that’s just my weird jiu jitsu gospel truth.
