Leave Your Ego at The Door
Author: Jason Scully
www.GrapplersGuide.com (http://www.GrapplersGuide.com)


It’s very important that you make sure you check your ego at the door from your first day grappling. If you don’t control your ego, you may not realize it, but it’ll slow down your learning progress and improvement substantially.

Here are some things that you may experience if you don’t learn how to control your ego.
You’ll get frustrated and angry. Many times this happens with people who feel they should “already” do well in grappling and not get submitted or controlled. If that were the case then you wouldn’t need to take any classes.
You’ll think you’re not learning anything because every time your ego gets in the way you’ll get frustrated, lose focus, and not pick up what is being taught as well.
You won’t enjoy your training. The more you get mad at yourself or your partners due to your ego, the less and less you’ll have fun training. This usually leads to individuals quitting something they may have really enjoyed and benefited from in the future.
You’ll get injured. Having an ego is one of the most common ways to get injured. Why is that, you may ask? This is because you’re stubborn. You refuse to tap and you don’t want to accept a “loss” in training. This type of thinking is very chaotic and will lead to injuries very fast.
You’ll injure you’re training partners. The same goes for you injuring your training partners. The worst-case scenario you can have, is two people grappling together who don’t have their egos in check. This is a disaster waiting to happen. One person may refuse to tap, while the other may refuse to release a submission that they know they have applied correctly. What’s the result? An injured training partner whether it’s you or the other person.
You’re training partners may not want to train with you. People who have egos on the mat are usually the ones that most grappling members avoid. The reason for this is because they don’t want to get injured or deal with rolling in a competitive manner when they just want to get some good relaxed training in for the day.There are many ways that you can control your ego and enjoy your training from the beginning. The sooner you do, the better off you’ll be.

Ways you can control your ego are:
Accept that you will get submitted. It’s going to happen. If you don’t ever get submitted then you probably don’t need to train in grappling. You’re already good. The chances of this really happening are slim to none, but that would be the case. Know that you will get submitted eventually and do the best you can to learn from it and try to ensure that you will make it much harder for your training partner to get you again in the same thing. This way you’ll actually be learning.
Make sure you tap to avoid injury. The other end of the spectrum is actually tapping when someone has a submission sunk in correctly. Not tapping only leads to you getting injured or you possibly looking silly because you are left unconscious in front of everyone. Just tap if they have it, and improve from there.
Accept that there are people who are better then you. Once again if there aren’t people who are better then you when you first start grappling, you either need to find another gym to train at or you’re a special type of person who already is good at grappling (probably not going to happen though). The sooner you realize that many of your training partners have put the time in and have more technical knowledge then you, the quicker you’ll improve and will be able to feed off of the knowledge they can provide.
Accept that if you are new you won’t know anything about grappling and the more you train, the more you’ll learn. Most new students start with a clean slate. The more you train and the less you have an ego the quicker you’ll fill up your database of techniques and your grappling will improve every training session.
Don’t get mad or frustrated. This will only hold you back and decrease your learning rate. The more you get frustrated the less time you will actually spend on learning. You are focusing more on being upset that you “lost” then actually being excited that you have something to learn and improve upon. You have many more days to train in the future, so try not to spend any of those training session aggravated with yourself or your partner because it’ll only end up making that current training session a waste.
Take every situation as a learning experience because that’s just what it is. When an instructor show’s you a move or concept, learn from it. When you get submitted learn from it. When you submit someone, learn from it. When you escape, learn from it. When you compete, learn from it.
Don’t be vengeful. Just because someone got the best of you or tapped you doesn’t mean that you have to get revenge on them. Training isn’t a competition or a battle; it’s a learning tool.
Don’t sulk. Don’t go home with your head down and upset that you didn’t do well or you got tapped out. Sulking isn’t a healthy attitude. It doesn’t lead to anything good or productive. There isn’t any need to feel down about your training and then bring it home with you. Training is supposed to be fun and a stress reliever. You shouldn’t feel any pressure when you train. You shouldn’t feel nervous when you train. You should be excited about going to class because you know you’re going to get a great workout, learn some great things, and have fun. Regardless of how you performed in class, know that you still did something and still got something out of it in some way.
Don’t repeat your actions. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, chances are you’re going to experience the same result. If you keep experiencing the same result then it’s going to lead to the ego kicking in and then frustration and anger begins. Try your best to change your actions. That way you can experience different things related to the same situation. By doing that, you’ll eventually figure out an answer to the problem and then you’re well on your way to improving your grappling. The benefits of training in an ego-free manner are:
It’ll keep you from getting injured.
You’ll learn much faster.
You’ll have training partners that will like training with you.
You’ll ensure that you train in a safe and comfortable environment.
People will be comfortable asking you questions and answering your questions.
You’ll want to train more and you’re instructor will be even more willing to help you.As you can see from reading this section, it doesn’t pay to have an ego in grappling. Having an ego will only lead to negative effects in the long run and will hinder both your learning and it will crush the positive experiences you can gain from participating in grappling. Remember to have fun, relax your shoulders, and be calm when training. Everyone including yourself will benefit from it.

Thanks for reading,
Jason

This list is incredible. You should get this printed, framed, and sell them.

Hope I'm not stepping out of line by suggesting this, but can "Don't force anything; technique over strength" be added? I've have my neck cranked to high hell by new people trying to sink something that just isn't there. I've seen people come in, use all their strength and stamina to hold a bad position and then be useless the rest of the round (and the rest of class), causing them to lose valuable, productive mat time. This point just seems lost on a lot of people for a while after they start training.

Thank you again for putting this together. I have bookmarked it.

I'm going to play devil's advocate, and disagree with what seems to be established reason within BJJ, simply because I believe that empirical practise does not hold up to the theory.

I've practised BJJ for a number of years, in a number of different academies, with informal and formal training environments. During which time, I have found, just about every single person 'has an ego' in regards to how they train, experienced and inexperienced alike. The difference between those who seemed to be the better people to roll with and the worse people to roll with was exactly what their self-image as a BJJer was attached to.

Newbies tend to start with the self-image of either "I'm going to get my ass kicked for the next few months...may as well learn as much while I'm getting an ass-kicking as I can, because this is awesome!" or "I'm going to make it as hard for this guy to tap me as I can!". Either of these can lead to progress, the latter of which in a far slower manner. However, the newb (at least the newb that lasts) stage of training is not where the really destructive mindsets seem to form. It's the EXPERIENCED guys that seem to have the worst of the worldviews.

You may be wondering exactly what I mean by this. Simply put: That list of jasculs' describing the consequences for 'lack of ego control?' I've seen many of those attributes in just about every single BJJer, from white to black belt alike, and it's more due to the sense of what the ego is attached to

This being - the question of "Where do I fit in the heirarchy of where I train/compete - who can/should I be able tap - who should tap me?"

It's a ludicrously unhealthy mindset, and I've seen it that many times as to believe it's sublimely ridiculous. I've had people do all sorts of things to me because they don't think I should be able to tap them, and do all sorts of crazy things to escape submissions. And yes - whilst in popular vernacular this may be referred to as having an ego, in experience and as per Freud it is impossible NOT to have one.

What I attach my ego to, and what I believe is the healthy thing to attach one's ego to is personal technical prowess. I want to make myself into the most technical BJJer I can possibly be, from every angle or position I find myself working from. Whilst that can lead to considerable frustration (I can be tearing a bloody swath through purple belts and higher on the mat and still be unhappy that my open guard isn't working quite as well as I'd like it to), I still think that it's a far healthier way of looking at BJJ as regards to oneself as it takes the focus away from a competitive based value structure as relates to one's own prowess generally within an academy structure which should not be seen as a competitive venue in the first place for the sake of improvement of the group skill level.

Anyway, that's my $0.02. I'm not meaning to take anything away from your article, jasculs as I believe it does contain many valid points. I just believe that the phrase "leave the ego at the door" doesn't really work in practice

Great article, and an interesting alternative take following it. I do agree that some amount of drive/desire is necessary to a degree, but I try to bypass the whole "ego/no ego" thing altogether.

This is just what works for me, but I try to simplify it and ask, does a particular action defend/advance my position in reality, or defend/advance what I believe my position should be? IE there's a huge difference between a timely armbar escape, and that awkward, vein popped in the forehead, quaking from the exertion, both hands clasped so tightly they're cutting off circulation kirk-out move that's really just a desperate attempt to deny that in this particular instance, you're done.

Whow...now this was cool...an excellent article and a good answer from a poster!

I think we have to see this ego issue in more depth...letting go of it is more dificult in the sense that most bjj players(heck, most martists) take classes out of something derived from a ego issue, from self confidence to a need to excel in a new playing field.

So if you have someone that takes bjj because he wants to excel in comps and be the big winner, you have a ego issue.
If you have someone that has been bullied or something and wants something to help him fight off ****, you have a ego issue.
If you have someone(insert reason), you have a ego issue...what changes in my opinion is the level and type of ego.

This weekend was the BJJ European championships and out of ego Takumi Nakayama was choked to sleep and took way to long to come back to his senses...he even collapsed again in the mat and the scene was scary to say the least. That happened out of some twisted sense of pride and ego that prevented him from tapping, which is probably the fisrt thing you learn in the mat.