The Value Of Good Training Partners

Over the last few months I have found myself enjoying training jiu-jitsu less. A few years ago I had a good group coming to our lunch time class midday at the gym. Regardless of which of us had to miss a class, due to some change at work, we always had a handful of good people.

Over the last two years that’s changed. Each of us have had to shift our schedules due to work and it is rare that I see any of them.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last few months is a distinct lack of interest in going to class now. I had a long stretch where I had to teach the class myself, which was fine.

However, I found what was particularly distasteful was dealing with new people. Not your average person, the working guy on his lunch break, the mom with some kids in tow, but the young men who would come in wanting to posture and “prove themselves.”

Dealing with them was just not why I was in the room. Sure I could, but why? There was never any benefit that stood up against the commensurate risk that came from wildly explosive, young, untrained opponents.

Epictetus Discourses (Book 1, Chapter 24): “A boxer derives the greatest advantage from his sparring partner—and my accuser is my sparring partner. He trains me in patience, in gentleness, and in calmness”.

So my conclusion wasn’t that something was wrong with jiu-jitsu. It was just the people I was doing it with.

When I have a good training partner, the joy would come out. I would find myself lighting up, interested in what we were doing. When I didn’t have a good training partner, it just ended up feeling like a waste of everyone’s time.

The latest set were two brothers. They would show up and while articulate and respectful, they also only had what I describe as a “switch.” They only had two modes, no effort, used for static drilling with no resistance or they were at 100% trying as hard as they could. They were only “on” or “off” This would often spill into static drilling with other new people. I had to repeatedly tell them to calm down, remind them that there was no “winning” when learning a new technique or drilling. What they needed was a “dial.” The ability to self-regulate and control how “hard” they were going during training.

Nothing seemed to get through to them. Eventually, I lost patience and started changing the way I rolled with them. Usually, when training with a less skilled person I’ll intentionally dial back my effort to a level that provides them with an opportunity to actually do something and show me their jiu-jitsu.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.20: “In the gymnasium, someone may have scratched us with his nails or have collided with us and struck us a blow with his head, but, for all that, we do not mark him down as a bad character, or take offence … So let us behave in much the same way in other areas of life: let us make many allowances for those who are, so to speak, the companions of our exercises. For it is possible, as I have said, to avoid them, and yet to view them neither with suspicion nor hatred.”

With these two, I just stopped. First, I just submitted them repeatedly, over and over again. Continuously through the rounds. Over and over again. Sometimes with the same things.

Then I shifted to putting them in extremely uncomfortable positions and keeping those positions as uncomfortable for as long as possible.

After about 3 months, something clicked. They started listening. They calmed down and started actually trying to do the things they were learning in class rather than just exert all their strength and power on instinct.

Today, they are much better training partners. Today, I look forward to seeing them walk in the door.

I know this isn’t what everyone needs when they walk in the gym. This method certainly isn’t my first choice with new people.

Apparently, it was what these two needed.

They’ve turned into much better training partners now. I can still see them struggle with their instincts, but they seem to get better with each passing month.

Seneca On Providence (Chapter 2): “I have no sympathy for you, my men, if you have never known a tough opponent, never been matched against a strong adversary. For without an antagonist, where is your might?”

So I suppose we need to always be creating the room we want. I can’t control who walks in the door, but to a certain degree I can control who stays. By selecting and encouraging the people who will be good training partners for others in the room we can set a tone and standard that keeps the office workers, the parents with kids, the normal people safe from the unchecked pointless aggression of the deluded youth who have no other reason to be on the mat than to “beat” the other person by any means necessary.

There are gyms that welcome, want, and encourage that energy and that is fine. Those are the right gyms for those people. For the people who aren’t trying to prove they are the next big UFC fighter, I hope I can cultivate a space where the average person can improve their combative ability without sacrificing themselves on the altar of some naive young person’s lack of self-control.

The number of BJJ black belts I have seen retire from teaching and training due to catastrophic lingering injuries is higher than I think is generally acknowledged in the community. As best I can tell from the ones I directly know, they generally attribute it to freak accidents that happened because they felt they needed to roll with everyone in the room. Whether class or open mat. My own lingering catastrophic injuries are from exactly that. A random person who showed up to an open mat once and then was never seen again.

In a sense this makes me want to NOT be promoted. Is that the expectation? I’ve seen plenty of lists of “BJJ gym red flags” that list “teacher not willing to roll with everyone” as a red flag. The implication is that this means that person doesn’t have actual skill to back up their belt.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because they are an accretion of lingering, debilitating injuries that have come from rolling with the randos who wander through town and then disappear after injuring people, sometimes permanently, because they have no skin in the game. They have no relationship with the gym they come into and permanently end the training career of the single mom who just wanted to get in shape.

In a sense, it is kind of pathetic that our BJJ community doesn’t acknowledge this better. The consequences of these jiu-jitsu ronins are that normal, regular people get their BJJ careers cut short due to the ego and pride of someone who cares nothing for their training partner of the week. It’s just another body to exert their dominance over and stroke their egos.

Of course ego is not all bad, but unchecked ego is the problem that results in unnecessary damage to people who are not in the same room as the people for the same reasons.

Perhaps that is the distinction. It’s OK to be in the room to want to go hard as as you can. Just make a point of doing that with the people who are there for the same reason. Find out why the other person is on the mats and then try to roll in a way that matches their goals. You can still find value in rolling with them in different ways, but you’ll get more from your training partners if you do this and be better prepared for when you do find someone that wants to go just as hard as you.

Ultimately, this gets down to a respect for the other people on the mat. If you only care about yourself, you’ll just use them for your ends. If you see them as fellow training partners whose goals are just as important as yours you just might find yourself in a better more useful room.