BJJ is like air

One thing has become abundantly clear through my research to this point: people who do BJJ are a passionate bunch. One of my respondents said that the art is akin to air. For her, BJJ is a necessity. It is part of her being and fundamental to her identity. This respondent trains 4 to 5 times a week - sometimes more. When she's not training she has her nose buried deep into Gracie Magazine or has her eyes glued to competition and instructional DVDs. 

I wonder if this is an advantageous attitude? Is there a greater chance that someone with this much commitment will "burn out" much more quickly than someone who takes a more casual approach to training? I'm really curious about this because I fall into the former camp such that I'm somewhat addicted to training. Does this obsession (as my wife calls it) set me up for disappointment, burn out or let down somewhere in the future?

Or, is it the case that early obsession becomes tempered the further along in our progression we proceed? Is it that formerly obsessed BJJ players mature into a more relaxed, but still dedicated attitude? Awa Kenzo, the teacher of Eugen Herrigel in the classic text Zen in the Art of Archery (if you haven't already, I encourage you to read this wonderful little book!), boasted Ten Commandments for his archery students. One of the dictums suggests that one does not shoot obsessively. At the same time Kenzo was a dedicated teacher and archer who trained whenever his body would allow and claimed that: "If you train with the Bow everyday, you have a new life everyday" (Kenzo 2007, 46). Setting aside the obvious Zen connotations for the time being - I'll come back to this another day -, what I think is important in Kenzo's discourse is how we need to reconcile daily training on the one hand with tempered engagement on the other. 

What I think is important and what Kenzo is getting at is a mature dedication to an art or, in his case, a Way that comes from years of dedicated training. The difficulty is getting to this point without "burning out" before maturity and sophistication set in. To help me understand a mature attitude toward BJJ I am convinced that I need to replace the air metaphor.