Competition Jiu Jitsu and Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis and grappling might seem like an odd pair, but the reality is that Jiu-Jitsu is a sport that has become an identity for a lot of us. It is this identity that is the problem...

There are two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it - Oscar Wilde

If Jacques Lacan, the famous French psychoanalyst or the most controversial since the German Sigmund Freud, could read this blog, he would most certainly take a puff of his cigarette and scoff at another attempt, albeit a failed one, to reach Jouissance. The amalgamation of jiu-jitsu, grappling, and psychoanalysis might seem like an odd pair in the beginning, but to understand “Why do I compete”, one must look at it through a psychoanalysis lens, much like all things in life.

Of all the things that Jiu-Jitsu offers, competition for grown adults is one of those features that will always distinguish it from other traditional martial arts like boxing or wrestling, for hobbyists. Few sports will offer a 30-year-old father working a blue-collar job to go compete at the Worlds or Europeans, and even fewer will allow the leeway to not get injured while competing as opposed to boxing, muay thai, or wrestling. In that, Jiu-Jitsu is an anomaly. But why to compete at all? What drives a mother of two to compete at your local Grappling Industries for a 5-dollar medal which probably would end up as decoration? Herein lies Jacques Lacan and psychoanalysis.

To understand the structure of human subjectivity, Lacan deduced a Borromean Knot entwined between the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. The Real is the order of enjoyment (jouissance), the subconscious; the Imaginary is our alter-ego, shapes, figures, and fantasies; and the Symbolic is the order of signifiers like law, rules, and language. The Borromean Knot is a way of describing how all three things are dependent on each other and how all three parameters need the other to survive. Slavoj Zizek explains it in much simpler terms in his book How to Read Lacan.

For Lacan, the reality of human beings is constituted by three intertangled levels: the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real. This triad can be nicely illustrated by the game of chess. The rules one has to follow in order to play it are its symbolic dimension: from the purely formal symbolic standpoint, ‘knight’ is defined only by the moves this figure can make. This level is clearly different from the imaginary one, namely the way in which different pieces are shaped and characterized by their names (king, queen, knight), and it is easy to envision a game with the same rules, but with a different imaginary, in which this figure would be called ‘messenger’ or ‘runner’ or whatever. Finally, real is the entire complex set of contingent circumstances that affect the course of the game: the intelligence of the players, the unpredictable intrusions that may disconcert one player or directly cut the game short.
(How to Read Lacan, pp. 8–9)

However, nestled between the knot lies Objet Petit A and it is this Objet A that we need to understand. To put it quite bluntly, Zizek would certainly agree with me, Objet A, is the root cause of all desire. It is the cause of desire which we did not even know that we had in the first place. It is the hollowness that we feel and the lost jouissance, that we never had in the first place. Our imaginary self, our alter-ego, relentlessly tries to achieve this Objet A and that is why we are so invested in idealized images of ourselves. These images serve to disguise our real self and conceal our lack, or as Lacan terms it Castration. The catch here is that I can only desire the image of the object and not the object itself. Because once I achieve the object, I reach once again ‘a lack’, a stage of Castration. And once again the whole process begins again. It is like a dog running after its tail, even if he gets the tail, he would still run after it, but he does not know why. Competing in grappling should not be seen any different than this.

In a rather mundane world, competition can give a sense of purpose. A sense of purpose that we did not even know that we wanted in the first place when we started training Jiu Jitsu. Competitors are usually highly addictive Jiu-Jitsu hobbyists and it is this sense of the Imaginary that we impose on to us. It is this sense of Imaginary that drives us from one competition to the other. Our alter-ego evermore present ebbing us on to the next medal. The catch here is once again, what after winning the next medal? Among all of this, our lack, our Castration, is always present in some form or other. For some, it might be the lack of having a stable career, or for others maybe a relationship. Applying the band-aid of competition might work in the short term but that lack will manifest itself in one way or the other. Craig Jones once said that Jiu Jitsu has destroyed more lives than it has saved, I might not completely agree with the statements but Jones is not wrong. If Jiu Jitsu was an Olympic sport only the black belts would compete, only a handful of us would even make it to black belt, and only a few would establish their academies or earn their bread through the sport. Most of us will amount to Jiu-Jitsu nothingness. But still, 30-year-olds are competing every two months, maybe even more.

James Carse explains finite and infinite games in his book perfectly. Finite games aim to win, for some by all means possible. Infinite games focus on progression. Competition grappling is a finite game where one has to win, and one has to lose. Finite games help in massaging our alter-egos, getting likes on social media posts, or the elusive ‘fountain of youth’ for this generation- getting famous.

Competition Jiu-Jitsu should be taken as a finite game inside the bigger circle of infinite games. That infinite game can vary from life goals to other objectives and competition should be seen for what it is - two people fighting in pajamas for a 5-dollar medal. But it should also be seen as a game to overcome one’s fear, one’s anxiety of physical confrontation, and one’s ability to perform under extreme physical stress. Our sense of Imaginary should then be focused on those margins that help us in the overall infinite game of life. Our Castration should not hold onto other things that give us a sense of illusion of being complete.

Psychoanalysis and grappling might seem like an odd pair, but the reality is that Jiu-Jitsu is a sport, competition Jiu-Jitsu moreover, which has become an identity for a lot of us. It is this identity that is the problem. Sure, we might win a couple of medals here and there, but that does not change the fact that a lot of us will always be hobbyists. If Jiu-Jitsu is taken as a way of life, that helps you to eat better, train, lose weight, and get mentally and physically fit, competition Jiu-Jitsu should be taken as a pill to help you perform better under stress, or deal with other mental issues like anxiety. It should be seen as a pill that takes you face-to-face with your fears. Competition Jiu Jitsu should not be taken as the ‘Red Pill’ in Matrix which changes your world drastically, after all, there is only one winner in this finite game.