I listened to a podcast where someone talked about how much it changed their life for the better. Looking back I think part of it was that he was a blue belt. Y'all blue belts have a way about you that makes this thing seem accessible, approachable, attainable. I think if the person was a black belt it might have been different ironically. 

The more we leave unspoken, the less we are able to communicate and support each other. I think we have fewer words, skills, and tools to support each other and modify the mental challenges than the physical challenges - myself included. 

You have talked out loud about the mental challenges Tony (and some others have too) and I really appreciate it even when it might seem small. I think that alone does a lot to make what we do more accessible for people to start and keep doing. 

For me it's more of a mental challenge. I also think there are a lot of changes we make all the time for the physical challenges. We might modify how we do a technique for a different body, age, or injury. We can lower our intensity, and we talk about how to communicate all this with our training partners too. It's normalized so most days if I'm tired, or even when I'm in pain, I can still train and be (mostly) sure that people will understand. 

Mental stuff is more of a challenge because when my cognitive load is maxed, oftentimes there's little that helps modify things in the moment so that I can keep training effectively. When it comes to the other mental challenges (emotions, mindset, trauma, etc.), I think sometimes it's the elephant in the room. I notice and appreciate the things people do to support each other and me with these mental challenges, and often it's in a quiet unspoken way which is often the right approach in the moment.  ❤️ BUT...

I love the phrasing of it as a "thinking art!" I think I started thinking about this question because I wanted to know how I could become a better training partner (aside from just more time/knowledge/skill/etc.). I feel so lucky to have had so many awesome training partners, and I want to be able to be that for them and others. But the more I think about it and reading everyone's responses, it's really helpful for framing how to choose training partners, which is also something I need to be more intentional and improve on. 

I love when Thomas says "let's play." It's easy to get really serious when we are training to choke people lol. 

It definitely seems like trust is a part of everyone's answer in some way or another! I think it's so special to be able to practice trusting and building trust with people on such a consistent basis. There's not many other places/activities where we can do that. 

I love being able to have conversations too. Especially since half the time I'm not even focused on "getting better," I just feel lucky to be there that day getting to spend time with cool folks. I really admire the people who can sustain their motivation with just wanting to get better, but for me it's more often the cool people and trying something fun/silly/dumb that makes me able to "just keep showing up."

Being able to help me without making me feel stupid is a big one! There are lots of opportunities to be humble which is cool, but I learn so much more when I can salvage some confidence at the same time. 

It's always helpful to me when people have a submission like 80% there but they pause so I can try to escape. That way it's a lot less likely that I get hurt (or hurt my training partner) if I try to wiggle out of something the wrong way. And because it's funny to pause and appreciate the moment where my training partner could break/hurt/choke me lol but we just laugh instead.