頭張る

Ganbaru. 頭張る. Often translated as “do your best” or “hang in there,” but the full weight of it in Japanese goes deeper than that.

It implies persistence in the face of difficulty. Not just effort, but sustained effort when it would be easier to stop. Not enduring passively, but pushing through actively.

I think about this word a lot on the mat.

There are sessions where nothing feels right. Your timing is off. Your training partner is finding everything. Your body is a half-second behind your brain and your brain is operating at reduced capacity anyway. The sensible thing would be to write off the session and go home.

Ganbaru is what happens instead. You stay. You keep working. You try to find one thing that’s useful in the mess.

This isn’t the same as ignoring pain or training through injury — that’s just stubbornness wearing the wrong costume. Ganbaru is the choice to remain present and engaged when disengagement would be easier.

The sessions where I’ve improved most, looking back, were often the hard ones. Not the ones where everything clicked. The ones where nothing did, but I stayed anyway and kept finding things to work on.

The mat is a very honest place. If you keep showing up, it will keep teaching you.

— Vince

Vince Choo

BJJ 3rd-Degree Black Belt · 5th Dan Karate · Coaching since 1993 · VCBJJ Bangsar, KL