Liffguard
6/19/2007 6:03pm,
Just a rambling collection of thoughts I came up with recently. Not sure where else to put them.
"After BJJ class recently, I was talking with some beginners I hadn’t yet met, going through introductions and the like. One of them mentioned they’d heard someone else talking about me (dunno who) saying I was pretty good, asking how long I’d been training and stuff like that. I pretty much immediately launched into a self-depreciating speech, emphasising that I barely considered myself an intermediate and pointing out all of the other people and how much better they were. I almost felt a little flush of pride, not at the compliment itself but rather at how “humbly” I had responded to it.
I’m going to go off on a brief tangent here and talk about surfing. Surfing is a weird sport. It has all sorts of unwritten rules that have nothing to do with actual surfing performance and everything to do with image. Admittedly, this is true of most sports but surfing seems to take it to some transcendent level. One of the seemingly most pointless of these rules is the method of measuring waves. To put it simply, it’s considered not just cool but necessary to drastically underestimate the size of any wave you’ve just surfed or are about to surf. What any regular person might estimate as six foot, a dedicated surfer would barely call a three (maybe even a two). The nominal reason for this is that surfers claim to measure the waves from the back rather than the front. The actual reason is that it makes you look nonchalant and cool. You don’t look like a try-hard. You don’t look like you’re trying to make yourself seem better than you actually are.
This got me thinking about BJJ and my response to questions or statements about my relative skills. Was I actually being humble or was I just underestimating the wave? Perhaps I was doing myself a disservice in an attempt to appear humble despite the fact that humility wasn’t something I was actually feeling. That’s not to say I consider myself to be the pre-emptive reincarnation of Helio but I do genuinely feel some pride in my modest grappling abilities. Surely it would be far more honest of me simply to admit it, whilst also admitting my limitations?
My basic point is that the apparent humility of the “I suck” brigade is just that, apparent. Maybe they do suck, maybe they don’t, but the reason they’re telling you they do is that they take a certain pride in supposedly being humble. They’re just underestimating the wave. Does true humility have more to do with an honest assessment of your abilities? If you are genuinely good, is it arrogant to say so?"
A fascinating insight into the human condition? The bleeding obvious? Or am I just talking out of my arse? You be the judge!
"After BJJ class recently, I was talking with some beginners I hadn’t yet met, going through introductions and the like. One of them mentioned they’d heard someone else talking about me (dunno who) saying I was pretty good, asking how long I’d been training and stuff like that. I pretty much immediately launched into a self-depreciating speech, emphasising that I barely considered myself an intermediate and pointing out all of the other people and how much better they were. I almost felt a little flush of pride, not at the compliment itself but rather at how “humbly” I had responded to it.
I’m going to go off on a brief tangent here and talk about surfing. Surfing is a weird sport. It has all sorts of unwritten rules that have nothing to do with actual surfing performance and everything to do with image. Admittedly, this is true of most sports but surfing seems to take it to some transcendent level. One of the seemingly most pointless of these rules is the method of measuring waves. To put it simply, it’s considered not just cool but necessary to drastically underestimate the size of any wave you’ve just surfed or are about to surf. What any regular person might estimate as six foot, a dedicated surfer would barely call a three (maybe even a two). The nominal reason for this is that surfers claim to measure the waves from the back rather than the front. The actual reason is that it makes you look nonchalant and cool. You don’t look like a try-hard. You don’t look like you’re trying to make yourself seem better than you actually are.
This got me thinking about BJJ and my response to questions or statements about my relative skills. Was I actually being humble or was I just underestimating the wave? Perhaps I was doing myself a disservice in an attempt to appear humble despite the fact that humility wasn’t something I was actually feeling. That’s not to say I consider myself to be the pre-emptive reincarnation of Helio but I do genuinely feel some pride in my modest grappling abilities. Surely it would be far more honest of me simply to admit it, whilst also admitting my limitations?
My basic point is that the apparent humility of the “I suck” brigade is just that, apparent. Maybe they do suck, maybe they don’t, but the reason they’re telling you they do is that they take a certain pride in supposedly being humble. They’re just underestimating the wave. Does true humility have more to do with an honest assessment of your abilities? If you are genuinely good, is it arrogant to say so?"
A fascinating insight into the human condition? The bleeding obvious? Or am I just talking out of my arse? You be the judge!