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Adele Fornarino - Black Belt
Location: Perth, WA
What is Jiu Jitsu?
Every answer that I give is quite cliche, but to me, Jiu Jitsu is the pursuit of control over somebody who doesn't want to be controlled. I think it's a well designed martial art that is usable for everyone and anyone, it doesn't matter about your capabilities, anyone can find a way to make it work for them.
How did you get started?
When I was about nine or ten years old, I actually wanted to be a police officer. So I googled the nearest martial art place, didn't put anything specific, just what's the closest martial arts centre to me? And it happened to be teaching bjj, and the coach happened to be an amazing coach.
I really enjoyed it and I was incredibly competitive. I was the only girl in class, so I wanted to beat up all the boys. I wanted to be bigger, stronger than all of them, and win in every exchange that I could.
What has Jiu Jitsu taught you?
Jiu Jitsu has taught me a lot of different things. I think the main one that stands out is patience. In this day and age, we want things fast, we want input very fast and very instant. Jiu Jitsu is something that doesn't offer that. It takes a long time to master things and you feel like you're getting it and then you come up against somebody that gets it a little bit better than you do. So you're constantly striving to understand different areas of Jiu Jitsu and different strategies. It's definitely taught me a lot of patience.
This year, the quote that sticks with me is, comparison is the thief of joy. I think that it's really important to understand that you're on your own journey and you're going to experience Jiu Jitsu and competition and all those things very different to how somebody else does.
I think that was something I found really hard to wrap my head around as I was constantly comparing myself to these high level athletes and being quite hard on myself about what I wanted to achieve in the span of a year. I think that that left me more upset than I should have been. It's definitely good to want to strive to do more, but it's also good to celebrate what has already has happened.