More than any cool sweep, submission, or defensive technique that I have ever been taught during my short time as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student, the one tip that has left a lasting impact upon me was “leave your ego off of the mats.” I may not have been training long, but I’ve been to my fair share of BJJ clubs in my area. And though each club gave me a unique experience, my current club is the only one that taught me the proper way to learn in a competitive atmosphere.
Except for my current club, all of the previous BJJ clubs I’ve been to had one thing in common: they were all cut-throat competitive. They were stacked with borderline gigantism roid-heads crushing the skinny 145-pounders, and the socially unwell taking out their issues on innocent victims.
I am not saying our club isn’t competitive. In fact, we do quite well at local tournaments. And it is not competition itself that is the problem. I believe competition is vital to our everyday lives. It pushes us to become better athletes, better students, and better professionals. If you have even a morsel of Capitalism in your blood, you would join in with me and say that competition is what makes the financial world turn. But when the competitiveness gets as fierce as it did in those other Jiu-Jitsu clubs, it evolves into ego.
It is unfortunate when people train with the mentality that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a zero-sum game. So many writers and instructors stress the point that your training partner’s gain is your gain too. Whether we like it or not, the one’s we compete against are the same one’s who are going to help us improve our guard. For me personally, I can attest that the same guys that crush me and tap me out are the same guys that have given me the most useful tips, and taught me the coolest submissions.
This same mentality, leaving one’s ego off of the mats, has been so encouraging and helpful to me so far during law school. Until my first class, I had never been engulfed in so much competitiveness. Everyday started and ended the same; I was locked into a small class of peers who were simultaneously my study mates, and the very competition my grades were measured against. If any of you are unfamiliar with curved grading, think about it this way: if everyone in your Jiu-Jitsu club is passing your guard, sweeping you, and submitting you with ease, chances are you won’t get that first stripe at the next promotions.
(Sidenote: I realize that not all instructor’s base promotions upon performance relative to the rest of class, but I thought it was a fun way to explain the bell curve system.)
It did not take long for me to realize that the law school lecture hall was no different than the Jiu-Jitsu mats. I can either learn everything I can from every roll, or I can look like the biggest idiot trying to injure training partners two-times smaller than me. Analogously, I either can make friends who are willing to give and take ideas about class, or I can rip pages out of the the reserve library books, refuse to share my ideas with others, and eventually have no one to turn to when I really need help.
Sam Suk
West Coast BJJ & MMA 