Leaving your ego on the edge of the mat

We've talked a lot about ego here on the blog. I can honestly say that everyone does an outstanding job of keeping their ego in check. A couple of good things happened this week that prompted me to share some additional thoughts.

I was rolling with Tate the other day. By the way, I really like his grappling style. He's fluid and isn't afraid to try new things. He flows from one thing to the next and is tough to handle. He and his brother have been training for an upcoming MMA fight, so his cardio is right up there as well. Ultimately, after a long roll, Tate tapped me out with a toe hold. I could see that he was beaming over his victory and this made me happy. He told me that was the first time he had ever tapped me out.

It made me remember the first time I tapped out my instructor, Darin. I was so excited about it, but at the same time I didn't want to be disrespectful. I wanted to let everyone know what I had done.

So now whenever I get tapped out, especially if it's your first time, I know what it's like and I'm honestly proud of you for doing it. It sort of goes back to one of my core philosophies about teaching. My goal is to make my students better practitioners than me. I want to teach them everything I know, no holding back, so they can grow as I have and experience the knowledge as I have.

The other thing that happened this week was that one of the students told me they had finally tapped out someone who they had previously been unable to tap out. They were excited about it, but at the same time felt like they shouldn't be, because of the whole ego thing.

No matter how much we try to convince ourselves that ego doesn't mater, it is a large part of Jiu-Jitsu. The key is to keep it in check and not let it drive you or rule your motivations in the mat. 99% of our Jiu-Jitsu students have this figured out.

You almost have to have some amount of ego in order to excel. One must have that inner drive to get better. But, here is the tricky part.

When you don't perform well, or lose a match, you must be able to look at it as a learning experience. You can't turn inside yourself and look at it as a negative thing. It will eat you up. You have to keep your head up so you can continue to learn and get better.

When you out-perform your own expectations, you must also keep your ego in check. As soon as you perch yourself too high on that pedestal, someone will come along and easily kick it out from underneath you.

The flip side is this. I think it's important to revel in those victories, no matter how small. It is not that we want to make the other person feel bad. We want to realize how far we've progressed and realize we can do things we were once unable to do. Sometimes this is just the beginning. The birth of an understanding that we can do better than we thought. Maybe it's nothing more than an understanding that no matter how good at Jiu-Jitsu someone is, that person is still just a human being and is not invincible.

kudos to these two students for entering into a new level of learning.