Deny the Drive, Strive for Authenticity

A Philosophical Approach to Jiu Jitsu and Life

In the quiet moments before stepping onto the mats, we face a fundamental choice that extends far beyond jiu jitsu. We can choose to trust in the flesh or trust in the spirit. We can pursue drive or pursue authenticity. This choice shapes not only how we roll, but how we live.

Understanding Drive: Trusting in the Flesh

Drive, as we commonly understand it, is the relentless pursuit of satisfaction through the material world. It's trusting in the temporal—believing that our physical bodies, our immediate desires, and the tangible world around us hold the keys to fulfillment. Drive manifests in three primary ways:

Appetite represents our surrender to the physical realm. It's the emotional volatility that comes from being ruled by our immediate feelings and impulses. In jiu jitsu, appetite shows up as the anger when we're being dominated, the frustration when a technique doesn't work, or the habits that we know are detrimental but pursue anyway because they provide immediate gratification. There's also the deeper frustration when our body ultimately fails us, revealing our dependence on something finite and unreliable. Appetite is the tyranny of the moment, demanding our reward now, regardless of long-term consequences or potential harm.

Aesthetics is our preoccupation with appearance and perception. It's the constant awareness of how others view us and how we view ourselves in the mirror of social approval. This aesthetic desire drives us to train not for the love of the art, but for the image we project. We become consumed with looking the part, seeming impressive, maintaining a facade that requires constant maintenance and validation from others. Aesthetics can work in reverse as well—underperforming to avoid appearing arrogant, being equally trapped by others' judgments, just on the opposite side of the same coin.

Ambition, the most deceptive of the three, appears noble on the surface. It's the intellectual desire for human flourishing, the pursuit of fame, fortune, and glory. But ambition rooted in drive is ultimately about accumulating external markers of success. It's the belief that if we just achieve enough, win enough, earn enough recognition, we'll finally be fulfilled. Yet ambition without authenticity is a mirage—always promising, never delivering.

All three aspects of drive share a common flaw: they are finite. They depend on circumstances, other opinions, and outcomes we cannot ultimately control. Drive traps us in a cycle of seeking, achieving, and then needing to seek again, because the satisfaction it provides is always temporary.

Understanding Authenticity: Trusting in the Spirit

Authenticity operates from a different foundation. It's trusting in the spirit—the belief that we are born with a self we are meant to become, but this intended self is not automatically realized. It must be pursued, discovered, and expressed through conscious choice and sustained effort.

Authenticity manifests through three channels, operating from fullness rather than emptiness. When we're filled with hope, joy, and peace, we naturally overflow—we don't have to manufacture or force our expression, it just flows out of what's already there:

Example is rooted in hope and patience. It’s not about impressing others, but about being full present a faithful to who we are becoming. In jiu jitsu, this means showing up as a training partner, competitor, and person who acts from conviction rather than performance—who trusts the process enough to let their growth speak for itself. When we live from that place, our example becomes a quiet witness, creating space for others to believe in who they might become.

Experience is our lived engagement with the art and with life itself. It's the accumulation of genuine moments, honest learning, and a deep connection to the process rather than just the outcomes. On the mats, experience values the journey of becoming over the destination of achievement. Each roll, each technique, each moment of struggle becomes meaningful not for what it might lead to, but for what it reveals about who we're becoming.

Expression is the outward manifestation of our spirit. It's the sharing of our authentic self through our art—not to gain something, but because what is true naturally gives. Genuine expression serves others even as it reveals who we are. In jiu jitsu, this means rolling with your true style, competing as your authentic self, and allowing your unique approach to the art to emerge without forcing it into someone else's mold.

Each day we show up fully surrendered and trusting in the process, a piece of our fully realized self is given to us—like a daily ration that cannot be hoarded or saved for tomorrow. Every training session or competition requires full expression, leaving nothing in the tank, because growth comes only through present, surrendered engagement. Drive erects a barrier between the physical and the spiritual, cutting us off from the growth that we seek. When we try to control outcomes, protect our image, or hold something back, we cannot fully enter the process that reveals who we're becoming.

We always have access to the fundamentals of jiu jitsu—and to a glimpse of our realized self, but we can blur or even darken our awareness of it when we are stuck in a cycle of drive. People can struggle for weeks, months, even years—not for lack of ability, but because drive-based thinking creates a fog that obscures their natural access to growth and expression.

The Philosophical Foundation

What makes authenticity profound is that it operates from abundance—we already possess an intended self worth becoming, and the joy is in the discovery and expression of that self. Drive is our limited idea of what we think we can become—an image shaped by fear, comparison, and borrowed expectations. It lacks imagination because it’s not truly ours. Instead, it’s often stitched together from the opinions, projections, and cultural standards we’ve absorbed without question. Authenticity, on the other hand, is the pursuit of who we were actually made to become. It’s not imagined—it’s uncovered. And that discovery requires faith, patience, and courage.

This hope of meeting our fully realized self gives us the strength to endure the process. We’re not chasing worth—we’re discovering it. Even in struggle, there’s peace, because because every setback becomes part of the story of who we’re becoming.

Drive offers no such peace. It builds our identity on unstable ground—performance, praise, perception. And worse, it’s often built on an inherited vision of who we are. When that vision starts to crack, we don’t just lose confidence—we lose our sense of self. Authenticity, by contrast, is grounded in something deeper: a self we didn’t invent but are learning to uncover.

The Essential Choice That Jiu Jitsu Forces Upon Us

Jiu jitsu possesses a unique and unforgiving honesty. It strips away all pretense and shows us exactly where we stand with brutal clarity. Few other activities confront us so directly with our limitations, our fears, and our true capabilities. But here lies the crucial fork in the road: how we interpret this honesty determines everything that follows.

Jiu jitsu can make us feel more insignificant than before, driving us either to give up on ourselves entirely or creating a desperate need to prove ourselves through comparison—to prove that we are more significant than another person. When we get submitted, dominated, or struggle with techniques that others seem to master effortlessly, we can interpret this as evidence that we're not enough. The constant comparison often becomes an internal battle, where we either fold under pressure or try to restore our worth by proving we’re better than someone else.

Or, jiu jitsu can reveal that we were born unique and significant, and that the mat is a tool to help us reach the fullest version of ourselves. The same submissions, the same struggles, the same moments of being overwhelmed become less like threats to our identity but more like revelations—clues about our current state and invitations to grow into who were were created to be.

I believe, there are no ordinary people. Each person steps onto the mat with a distinct set of experiences, worldviews, attributes, and personality—any of which can shape personal expression of the fundamentals of jiu jitsu. This personal style isn’t something we manufacture, but as something we allow to flow from us. The mat becomes a laboratory for this discovery, and our engagement with others becomes the canvas for our most authentic expression..

This is the primary insight that transforms everything: the spirit gives the body meaning, and the body gives the spirit expression. This symbiotic relationship reveals why authenticity is so powerful—it's not about denying the physical world, but about understanding its proper relationship to the spiritual. When we know we were born with meaning built in, we become empowered to be patient, disciplined, and creative. Every aspect of our lives—our training, our wins, our losses, our struggles—becomes a resource, shaping and refining our expression.

The painter doesn't create for profit, though profit may come. The painter creates because there's something within demands expression, something that longs to be seen, known, and shared with the world.

The authentic jiu jitsu practitioner approaches the art the same way—not primarily to win, though winning may happen, but to express something true through their movement. Competition becomes an opportunity—not to dominate, but to demonstrate the uniqueness of their journey.

The choice between drive and authenticity doesn’t happen once—it happens every time we step on the mats, every roll, every reaction to success or failure. The real test is whether we’ll see the moment for what it is—and have the courage to deny the drive and choose authenticity.