A dying Judo Master's lesson to develop extreme competency

Kanō Jigoro was the legendary founder of Judo. He was small and unremarkable in stature yet tossed much larger opponents over his head with ease. He pioneered the central tenet of Judo: using someone’s weight against them.

Kanō’s journey wasn’t easy in the beginning. In the mid-19th century, he was a young disciple who sparred with other senseis and was defeated in humiliating fashion. Yet, eventually, he became unbeatable. Masters fumed as Kanō flipped them like a pancake. They wondered how things had changed so drastically.

What happened?

How did Kanō transcend competency thresholds? First, he was persistent and took time to study how the body moved. He stepped outside the normal bounds of combat wisdom, researching and testing new techniques from other martial arts. He studied human anatomy.

After trial and error, he discovered a key insight: the easiest way to throw someone was to break their posture. By bending them at their hips, they lost their defensive strength and balance.

Five decades later, after immortalizing his legacy, Jigoro’s health began failing him. On his deathbed, he asked to be buried in a white belt instead of a black belt. He wanted to be remembered as a learner, not a master.

It makes his dying lesson even more notable. Any new craft will throw us on our heads many times over (as I learned firsthand in judo class). But even when we stop getting thrown, we should continue thinking with the humility and hunger of a white belt.

Yet it’s easy to feel demoralized in a world where talent is so visible, where people are incentivized to rub it in our faces. There’s a phenomenon I’ve long called the Law of 13-Year-Old YouTubers. No matter how good you are at something, there’s a 13-year-old on YouTube who could totally dominate you at it.

Think you’re good at chess? Watch this blindfolded 13-year-old beat six adults at once. Think you’re good at piano? Here’s a one-armed teen playing Flight of the Bumblebee.

Breaking the pattern

More than two decades ago, I was a tall, lanky 15-year-old, who was warming the bench for my high school basketball team. I was humiliated and frustrated. I was literally the worst guy on the team and felt like the bottom tier of the male hierarchy.

That summer, I walked over to the military base every day and played with off-duty sailors. Many of them were standouts in high school and college. They could still run like the wind and windmill dunk while wearing a backpack and military boots. They were far, far better than anyone I played with in high school.

Like so many others, they’d faced the reality that — unless you’re among the top 400 basketball players in the world — you’ll need to get a regular job.

Seven basketball courts filled the huge warehouse. Every time I stepped into the building, I was greeted by the sound of large humming industrial fans and a crescendo of bouncing basketballs and shouts from varying distances.

The entrance felt like the smoldering portal to The Dimension of Sore Losers. There wasn’t a single day where I didn’t see grown men shouting, arguing or even fist-fighting over a pickup game. You’d have thought one of them owed the other money. Initially, I fared quite poorly on those courts. Coordination, speed, and ball awareness were absent from my athletic gifts. The only thing I had going for me was that I was tall.

They usually put me under the basket, like a cheap traffic cone at a high school driving school. But often enough, I made myself useful. The ball fell into my hands, and I dished it out to someone. However, let me be clear: The number of times I was dunked on, ticked upwards like a global population counter.

Seeing a 6’1, 220-pound brick of muscle charging down the lane, bulldozing me, was often the preceding factor in a chorus of laughter. I was never destined to be a basketball star. There would be no tear-filled signing day where I strapped on a 76ers hat with my mom standing beside me.

However, within that massive talent discrepancy, my skills were yanked upwards. I became stronger and more coordinated. I learned how to minimize “damage” when being outclassed. Like a judoka, I learned to properly break my fall.

When a brawl broke out, I learned to duck stray punches. You might look at grown men arguing over a foul and getting into fistfights over pickup basketball, and think it’s toxic and immature. You might be right. However, over time, I’ve realized it was their passion on display. These men were living in the moment, treating these games with an urgency that fed energy into the courts. It put everyone on notice: this game matters.

You’d better jog your butt back down the court and play defense. I became strides better at a game I was destined to stink at. I felt alive. I loved it.

Conventional wisdom, the scourge known as exceptionalism, holds that we should only do things we are talented at, where success is near assured. Such thinking ignores the harsh inner critic most people harbor. It is the fierce voice that shoots down hobbies shortly after they begin.

And sure — the reality is: you will be fairly average at most things you try, if not worse.

But remember that every skill you take up, no matter how unrelated to your source of income, identity, or pride, adds value. Hobbies are proven to increase well-being, improve mood, and reduce stress. You become more interesting. Those skills cross over into other aspects of your life in subtle, unexpected ways. While other people watch TV, you are learning.

Even better, a hobby you are terrible can suddenly cross into the realm of competency. Don’t be surprised if one day, someone says, “Wow, you are so good.”

Former President, George W. Bush, famously took up painting after leaving office. When he began, his wife asked him if everything was alright, thinking he was off his rocker. Nothing about him seemed particularly artsy, and he even admits the art community was never his biggest source of political support.

Friends predicted he’d give up within a week. Months later, reports surfaced that painting was the only thing Bush talked about at parties. Any off-beat subject was veered back to watercolors and pastels. Eventually, he became a competent artist, surprising many critics. Let me repeat, George W. Bush, the president known to be bumbling and goofy, became good at painting after starting in his 60s. It highlights the unbridled power of passion and persistence.

There’s no rule that says you can only enjoy something if you’re a natural at it. Otherwise, karaoke bars wouldn’t have a two-hour wait list to get on stage and howl at the moon. There’s also no rule that says natural ability is the only path to competency.

So often, I’ve heard people say, “I could never be good at that.” And they use that as the singular reason not to try something new.

By testing new things and proving to ourselves that we can improve, we reinforce the idea that we have control over our lives and destiny. The horizon of our potential feels wider.

On those basketball courts, I became friends with people from very different walks of life than my own, which was admittedly privileged. I am grateful for those connections. They changed me.

But I had to be willing to step into the competitive fire, where their passion for the sport burned to the touch. I had to fail and be awful. I had to stand out and be different in every sense of the word.

Do not scorn the honorable journey of the novice. Embrace the humility and hunger of a white belt. It is within this mentality, and the urgent craving to learn this new “thing”, that so much progress awaits.

But no fistfights if you lose.