Observing, analyzing and adapting: As a coach, the single most important part of my work is the process of observing the gym training and competition matches of my students and their peers, analyzing their successes and failures and finding the causes of these; and then adapting the training program to be able to replicate those successes and avoid the failures into the future. YOU AS A STUDENT MUST ENDEAVOR TO DO THE SAME WITH YOURSELF. Of course your coach will be able to help, but recognize that he has many others to help also, and so only a certain amount of time and attention can be paid to you. The bulk of this work must be done by you. This might seem ludicrous advice to someone who is a beginner in the sport, since they may not feel qualified to make such observation and analysis, let alone adapting your own training program. Don't worry, you will learn in time. Just as you learn the physical skills of the sport over time, despite beginning from a state of ignorance, so too will you learn over time the greatest skill of them all – the ability to assess your own success and failure and make rational modifications to your behavior to bring more success and avoid previous failures. The problem for most people is that they approach jiu jitsu as a PHYSICAL quest – that's natural, since a huge part of the sport is physical. The whole observation
