Egos in BJJ: Do They Disappear or Get Inflated?
There is a saying in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu “Leave your ego at the door”. How many people actually leave their egos are the door when they come to train? Not as many as you think. Many of us believe that if someone has a bad ego that we can “chin check” said person by tapping them out a few times and giving them a hard time in sparring. While this might work with some new students who have never trained before there are many who will actually be unphased by this. They will keep coming into the academy with their bad egos and keep training hard. The only problem is that the more they train and improve, the worse their egos could get worse.
I have seen white belts who have been training less than a year trying to constantly correct blue and purple belts on the techniques they are doing. The question then becomes “How do you deal with this person’s ego?”. Do you talk to them about it? Do you try to “chin check” them? Or do you not say anything? There is not a correct answer to that question because every person and situation is different. Ego in BJJ is not always this extreme however. You might just have someone who refuses to tap to someone in training because they are a lower belt or even because they are a girl. While this might not be as difficult to deal with than someone who tries to go around teaching everyone, this is dangerous because it can lead to injuries due to someone being too stingy to tap.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a great martial art to enable people to be able to defend themselves, gain self confidence and just become a better person. However, some people become better practitioners but not necessarily better people.
What do you think about the egos in BJJ? Does it kill our egos, inflate them, or does it depend on the person? Let me know in the comments!
Photo Credit: http://www.bjjpix.com
The post Egos In Jiu-Jitsu: Do They Disappear Or Get Inflated? appeared first on Jiu-Jitsu Times.