Many years ago, I heard about a study where big rats were paired up with small rats and their play-fighting was documented.
Apparently, if the big rat continually dominates the small rat, the small rat won’t want to play. But, if the small rat is given something like 30% success, then it’ll continue to willingly accept invitations to play-fight with the big rat.
I sometimes find myself forgetting or neglecting this lesson, especially in recent days when I only train once, maybe twice per week.
There’s a predatory instinct that gets in the way sometimes. It’s particularly prone to coming out against opponents who haven’t yet learned how to meaningfully defend themselves. I’m not talking about day-one white belts, more like experienced whites and blues, the types who I expect to respond intelligently but sometimes they just don’t.
An example of this is framing without moving. As the defender, the purpose of frames is to create space to reorient yourself. They aren’t walls. They won’t stop a skilled attacker. Sometimes they won’t even slow that attacker down if all you do it throw them up but keep the same hip-spine-shoulder-head orientation to the attacker. Frames without movement is functionally the same as trying to bench press your way out of a bottom position.
I thrive on movement, its the part of the game that keeps me coming back for more. So if you clam up, fearfully, and don’t try to escape, don’t try to counter attack, don’t try to maneuver yourself to safety, then you’re deny me the enjoyment of chasing you and so there’s no where for the aggression to go, except to hammer into you.
Should I be teaching through less harsh methods?
When I pair up with people who don’t make good defensive decisions, should I take the time that I had intended to work on my own techniques, and instead sit these people down and show them what it means to defend themselves, give them better tools, better understanding?
Sometimes, when I have the wherewithal to restrain the big mean rat inside me, that’s exactly what I do.
I remind myself, I don’t have to shut down the attacks of the lower belts right away, and I don’t have to beat them with my first submission attempt. I can practice chaining my submissions together, a skill that will serve me against players closer to my own skill, and my opponent can develop a more robust understanding of escapes, plus the will to fight until they are truly free.
What if they don’t show that will? Is it my job as an “elder” in the community to teach them? And how do you even teach these personal qualities? If I hammer them relentlessly and they hate me for it, and that fire drives them to improve at any cost, am I making my community better? If I stop mid attack to spoon feed them all the answers, am I robbing them of the chance to learn for themselves?
And what about my needs? I’m not on the mat to hurt people. But I am there to focus, to play hard.
I tend not to drill techniques, so I get most if not all of my practice in live rolls. So I often maximize what little mat time I have, mercilessly repping the moves I am working on, regardless of how many times I’ve already made you tap this round.
How do you play a combat sport with compassion for your training partners?
How do you rationalize skill disparity?
I feel very wishy-washy even trying to talk about this.
I am convinced that jiu jitsu isn’t for everyone. When I was a white and blue belt, I thought otherwise. I was among the ranks of the “never stops talking about jiu jitsu” caste. Like a street-corner preacher, I believed that I knew the way that you could save your soul. But I’ve seen too many people come and go. And my own relationship with the game has changed.
I now believe that it takes a special person to stick it out. To play through the pain. To struggle. To suffer. To keep showing back up.
Jiu jitsu doesn’t save souls, it purifies them.
So perhaps that’s my current stage of purification, the stage where I burn off my cruelty, where I show more and more compassion for the folks closer to the beginning of the path.
Gotta put that big rat on a leash.
Good Hunting,
Charles