“You can't imagine how many times I won a fight and lost to myself. I left the mat disappointed. It's not enough to win, but instead to know whether I made the right movements, dosed my energy and finished in the right way."
—Rickson Gracie
“You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.”
—Pat Riley
“To accept defeat… is to be liberated from it. Once you accept, you are free to flow and to harmonize.”
—Bruce Lee
“Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.”
—Matt Biondi
“If winning is God's reward, then losing is how he teaches us.”
—Serena Williams
“If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
—John Wooden
“We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”
—Vince Lombardi
“When you learn to see jiujitsu as a whole, you learn to accept a loss, to forgive your opponent, to be more patient and more level-headed, to apologize in the same way that you refuse to run from a fight."
—Rickson Gracie
Comments
I remember back in 2014 I fought my first tournament at the Copa Pacifica in Huntington Beach. I did it because I was leaving for Spokane for a new ministry, and I didn’t want to leave the kids I was coaching without being in the same tournament I was coaching them in.
Problem was, I was fighting a guy who is 50 years old also – – but in far better shape. He was better trained by our same coach and just flat out paid more intense attention to Jiu-jitsu. My focus had died.
But I went to my loss alone and with joy, because I knew that I was dedicating the loss to my master Cleber Luciano his wife Lili, and all of our kids. Thank God!
Love, Chaplain Steve☦️
Very nice!