Stay Humble
(Published June 10, 2022)
One of the defining features or characteristics of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for me is effectiveness. And more specifically it’s measurability. It’s very easy to gauge your level of effectiveness in BJJ because of the high emphasis that we place on live training with 100% resistance.
But this can also be deceptive because you never know when someone is taking it easy on you, or experimenting with new things.
During my first roll with a BJJ black belt, I felt like I was doing really well. I was able to get on top, pass the guard, mount, and take the back. I even felt like I got very close to applying a rear naked choke. But then at the end of the round he was able to escape and get on top.
What I didn’t know at the time was that this black belt was toying with me. He would let people take his back, and spend four minutes of a five minute round just defending.
Then one of his students would give him a signal when there was one minute left in the round, and then he would actually start trying to do things to you. He would escape, get on top, and if he had enough time left in the round he would finish you with a submission.
Incidentally, one minute’s not a whole lot of time to do all that. It’s challenging. That’s probably why he picked the four minute mark instead of the one or two minute mark.
Instructors do this kind of thing with their students all the time. When you’re the best guy in the room you have to get creative if you want to continue improving.
From the student’s perspective, you never know what little games your instructor is playing with you. If you’re not savvy to all this, you might mistake yourself for being better than you really are. A false positive of sorts.
Some instructors like to leave openings on purpose sometimes to see if their students have the ability to one, notice and two, take advantage of it.
It’ll usually have something to do with one of the lessons that they’ve covered recently, or perhaps something that they’ve been working on with that student in particular.
Sometimes an instructor will just sit back and let a student work so as to see what he’s learned so far.
But in doing so, instructors walk a fine line.
A little adversity is good for a student. But it’s like medicine. You have to use the right dosage. Too much and they can get discouraged and quit. Too little and they get that false positive..
I was talking with my buddy Jason about this the other day, and he had a great story that illustrates this phenomenon.
It was back when he was a purple belt. He was rolling with one of his instructors, a guy named Nick.
He took Nick’s back towards the end of the round. When the round ended he was pretty happy with himself.
Then he made the age old blunder of mistaking kindness for weakness.
Grinning ear to ear, eyes wide open, he said, “Wow, I took your back there!”
“Yeah, good job.”
“I think if I had a little more time I probably would have finished you! “
“Hmm… Oh yeah? Let’s go again.“
As you’ve probably already guessed, Nick was taking it easy on him that last round. But the next one wouldn’t be so easy.
Jason says Nick tapped him more times in that second round than he could count.
It was a humbling experience, and Jason admittedly needed it at the time.
And if the story ended there, it still would’ve been a good one. But it didn’t.
He’s rolled that way with Jason ever since. Every time they roll, Nick takes Jason to the proverbial woodshed. He’s relentless and absolutely destroys him every single time.
Now Jason has this masochistic kind of personality to the point that he actually gets a kick out of this. He revels in it. He grins ear to ear every time he tells the story.
But not everybody’s built like that. And I think it’s important to point out that there are some people who think that they are built like that… but really aren’t.
It’s one thing to hear the story and think, man that sounds awesome! But like so many things in life, it’s different when it’s actually happening to you.
So instructors have to try and figure out what the right dosage of adversity is for each of their students. Knowing that if we dole out too much it might cause them to quit. But if we dole out too little, it might give them a false sense of security.
And add to that the fact that your instructor teaches multiple classes a day, up to seven days a week depending on where you train. That’s a lot of mileage on the body.
Please forgive them if they don’t roll at 100% intensity with every student, every round of every class.
As a general rule of thumb I’ve always assumed that if I do well against my instructor, it’s because he’s taking it easy on me. And that attitude has served me well.
True, I’m getting better every day, but so is my instructor. And yes, it gets harder to improve the better you get, so that gap will narrow. But if we’re both doing our best to improve, I’m never really going to catch him… at least until his body gets too old to do this anymore… but then again I think we’re the same age. So yeah, I’m never really going to catch him. But I digress.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that on those days where you have a good round against your instructor and are actually able to pull a few things off, you might want to consider the possibility that he’s taking it easy on you.
Might be a good attitude to take with those higher belts as well while you’re at it.
Stay humble and keep training!
- Mike