When every round is tough – keep going – there is a deeper skill to learn: The best time to learn nuanced skill is when your mind and body are fresh. Nonetheless there is a skill that you must learn that you will NEVER learn when you're fresh and rested. This is THE SKILL OF grappling WHILE YOU'RE EXHAUSTED. This is a truly important skill. Anyone can fight well when they're fresh – but it takes a special discipline to maintain your composure and decorum when you are close to collapse. You can only learn this through experience. There are subtleties to this aspect of the game. You must learn to pace yourself within whatever reserves you have left – to manage your dwindling resources and still get to your goals – to change your goals to stay within your endurance. All these are learned by putting yourself in duress. So next time your mind is screaming at you to sit out the next round – go back in. You will learn more about yourself in the next few minutes than you did in the previous decades before you learned to grapple. Those lessons will be vital for your development both on and off the mats.
