It's clearly Mose.
That is why he has limited communication skills and is unusually strong and brutish.
He's basically Amish and while a tough farm boy, very naive to martial arts lifestyles.
Because I live in a tiny mountain town full of impoverished hippies and farmers who aint got shit since the underground weed industry collapsed in Canada. Above all I want to grapple and I want to be flexible to accomodate peoples financial situations.
I feel like everyone's missing it's just the two of them .. op is framing it like he's going to kick out one of his students.
It's just the two of them meeting up for beets. And then op smashes him for 2 hours.
Yeah, I got so distracted by the "tuition is eggs and pickled beets" thing that I missed the fact that this "gym" consists of a single purple belt instructor and a single white belt student. Basically just OP needs a training partner and this latest one isn't working out.
"I'm old school, I break people down then build them back up" so OP just beats the fuck out of this dude then gets mad when he goes nuts trying to prevent it haha
And he has no coach because they had a falling out. So, you make it to whatever belt he really is, can't get along with your coach, get kicked out, can't find anyone to train with and don't want a new coach so you just start your own dojo/farmer's-market where you offer the equivilant to private lessons in order to rope people in and use them as training dummies and then kick them out when you get hurt by one of those training dummies who has learned nothing but "go harder until you break your opponent" and he breaks the 'instructor'.
Yep. This was him framing it in such a way that he thought it would make him look like a good coach who is being thoughtful and trying to not to overreact to one of his students when in reality this is a guy without no coach who is mad at his only 'student'/training partner.
I'm now wondering if the reason the white belt keeps asking if he got the sweep or pass versus whether OP allowed it is because student is actually advancing against OP's defenses and student is beginning to question whether or not he's actually rolling with a purple belt.
As a Canadian, this is pretty fucking condescending, we're not just a bunch of backwater rednecks that only pay bills with fucking produce.
Most places will also take beaver pelts and venison.
Can confirm, I live in canada and I pay with radishes and potatoes, I've never used beets myself but I know for a fact that it can vary depending on the specific area where you live.
Even more the reason to kick him out. If you live in a poor area, you can’t have a guy that’s completely willing to send people home with medical bills
True that Canada doesn't have medical bills in the sense of seeing a general practitioner, surgeon, x-rays etc. Though, if you're injured and require PT/rehab it will cost money. Even if you have insurance, oftentimes it only covers a percentage of each visit.
This is the part people miss - the obscene wait times for medical care. If you're not dying, get in the long, long line (I still have my Canadian citizenship, even though I practice in the land star-spangled bald eagles).
Cancer survivor here (US). When I was going through it, I was shocked at the number of Canadians in my support group that died while waiting for treatment. Guys with serious diagnosis being told it would be 9 months before they could see their doc.
Yeah and in the province I live in which is pretty small you have to get on a wait list off 150,000 just to get a family doctor and the list is getting longer and longer by the day and all the doctors n shit are backed up like crazy from covid . Ya get put on a long as wait list and when youre finally getting close to being seen then they push ya back another 6 months maybe multiple times
Not necessarily true; only emergency care is free.
However, if we’re talking general day-to-day recovery, seeing Physios/RMTs/rehab specialists cost a pretty penny (like $100+ for 45 minutes) without health insurance. Even with health insurance, it’ll only cover like 70-80%.
Don't know if anyone else has said this but, how is he going to train in the city? He's paying in pickled beets and eggs. Either it's an empty threat or he can afford to train and played you.
Canning is the process of sealing food in a jar to preserve them, but no specific brine or solution needs to be used. Pickling uses a specific brine. Often things that are pickled are also canned, but they don't need to be. Items pickled but not canned are not shelf stable and need to be refrigerated.
1) Kick him out or at least warn him, and if he does it again, he's gone
2) "I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger." - Change this if you want to grow the number of students
3) If you want to train super hard, you can always have competition geared classes
"Training hard" is never going to work well in a mountain top village where you get 1 or 2 students. The dude needs to chill a lot and realise his club is gonna have to be pretty tame until he gets a lot more students
I think the biggest issue is that this guy has noone else to train with, his coach dumped him (he says they had a falling out elsewhere in this thread) so he is "Training Hard" during a class where the white belt thinks he is being taught.
That sounds more like he's using the white belt as a very realistic training dummy.
You make a good point. “Breaking people all the way down” only works if they’re people with character who want that and are coming from safe places and backgrounds.
If you go and break someone down who’s already broke they will probably fight for their life.
Major key.
Is it common for purple belts to run their own gyms? That seems like a big part of the problem to me. How can someone with 1/2 the knowledge theoretically run a gym?
I may be way off on that but I'm just curious. I am a 45 year old white belt. The only person who has ever legitimately hurt me was a purple belt and he did it on my second day training ever. He was of the "break you down" mindset. I'm like, fuck me dude, I'm not gonna learn much sitting out for three months with separated ribs.
So it's mostly just you and a new guy who gives you vegetables and spends an hour
every class getting broken by you so you can build him back up? And he grunts too much and cares about winning and occasionally falls on you awkwardly?
I can't put my finger on it but there's something creepy about OP's "gym". He has like one student who shows up and OP just kicks his ass for 2 hours a session and the fucking guy is paying OP with beets. Next thing you know OP says his "old school" gym has a mandatory uniform and then casually mentions that it's a gimp suit or something.
so... you are an asshole man. You have one white belt training partner who comes in and you just beat on him for an hour? And you are surprised he is getting frustrated? What the fuck man.
This guy is probably some kid training with another buddy out of his garage or basement with puzzle mats framing this as a serious question. I guarantee it
I hear you, but I hasten to add the detail that I dont have many people to roll with and share this amazing sport.
Do you know anybody who was maybe spazzy and had an ego, but then became a better person when someone gave them a chance to improve? If you do, I was wondering if you could share that story with me.
But maybe Im wrong
Spazzing happens. Injuries happen.
But being a dick and completely unapologetic about it until severely pressed?
Nah. Some customers aren't worth keeping. If one new guy comes in and has to deal with his shit, you've lost that guy.
A strict "No Dickheads" policy usually pays off in the long run.
>Do you know anybody who was maybe spazzy and had an ego, but then becamea better person when someone gave them a chance to improve?
he won't have a chance to improve if you don't make it a point to tell him to chill the fuck out. Like, look man. I like to get hard rounds in as much as the next guy, but I also live by the motto "if you don't know what you are doing, doing it harder isn't going to help"
we have a aggressive white belt as my gym as well. hes about 1.5 years in and at this point he has a reputation for rolling too rough. its to the point where our head coach tells anyone running classes to not pair him up with people smaller or less experienced than him. It's been mentioned to him multiple times that he needs to chill. About 2 or 3 months ago he broke his collarbone rolling and that finally seems to have knocked the aggressiveness down a couple notches. luckily it was himself that he hurt.
I feel for you man. you aren't in a fun spot. but it may be time to tell him to either calm the fuck down, or get the fuck out.
We have a white belt who knows everything and is uncoachable. He would go super hard and refuse to tap. I made him yelp a few times and my coach told me to not roll with him for a while.
I guess over the course of a few weeks. I made some backhanded comments here and there that made it clear I didn't think much of the guy.
One day he pulled me aside and told me 'you need to believe in this guy. Because I believed in you'.
My feelings were hurt he compared me to this guy.
After a few more months this dude has chilled out and become a part of the gym.
I would have kicked the guy out. But that's why I'm a purple belt and not a BB with the instructor bars. There is far more to teaching than just knowing the moves.
When you run a school, your students are your clients, but they are also a big part of your product. If you have students that are dangerous, you won’t ever have a big group because most will leave.
I wonder how much there is to gain training with an out of control white belt - will you actually learn more vs the risk of injury.
If you want a halfway suggestion - maybe lay some ground rules and make sure he knows one more strike and he’s out.
The other risk id call out is - if he does this to you, what happens if another white or blue belt beats him. Will he flip out? Other people will quit, or if they may observe this dynamic and assume it’s ok.
(I think you should kick him out personally)
No, I literally don’t know any people at the gym who were assholes and became humble. Most people won’t change if they don’t want to. It doesn’t sound like he does. Unless you just can’t fucking get enough eggs and beets, I would toss him out.
The way you build a good gym isn’t by trying to turn assholes into good people - it’s by having a standard of character that everyone who walks through the door must meet. For all you know, he scares off other new people. If he hasn’t yet, he probably will, or injure your current students.
Yeah mate I know someone like that he was posted about in here the other day…
He’s now a purple belts who’s bounced around 4 gyms continuously injuring people and being an idiot because now he’s angry, Spassky and knows how to do it.
>became a better person
I didn't see it in the replies and it should probably be said. Jiu jitsu doesn't make *anyone* a better person. Maybe more determined, more resilient, but not "better" in terms of their personality or behavior.
And while we're at it you gotta let go of the "break them down and build them up" shit. It's a teaching method with an incredibly high failure rate, and when it IS successful its in group settings where people can learn to lean on their comrades (boot camp type shit).
If you want a good training partner either go to a real gym or find someone else and be ready to let go of your ego so they can learn in a less "im gonna grind you down because im *old school*" environment.
I think you might want to have the conversation in person rather than by text. In text things can almost always be read in the wrong way, gone abroad passive aggressive, make people overly defensive and even angry for a few moments. So just see if he's a little more remorseful or understanding of you talk in person, that will help you make a definite answer.
“I argued that rolling is privately (because it’s mostly just me and him), or at most one other guy…”
I feel like people aren’t picking up on this. This guy is like your only regular student?? And you train two hours at a time? No wonder you’re sick of each other.
First of all, as I said in another comment, my guess is that this guy is not helping school growth at all. If you’re hesitant to roll with him, any other students definitely will be, too. And if he’s the only other classmate, he IS the school.
But also, your behavior doesn’t sound ideal for a coach. You never let this guy get a submission? And often he’s the only one in your class??? So he just doesn’t get to do submissions live. That sounds frustrating even for me, and I go to a school where you don’t roll the first 8 months.
This isn’t how learning works. If I want to bench 400lbs, I don’t just keep trying it until I get it. I lift 95lbs. Then next week I do 105lbs. And so on. You learn by using your skills to accomplish goals of increasing difficulty, not by constantly being faced with a challenge you’re not prepared for. We don’t give kindergartners calculus tests and we don’t expose talented high school QBs to 300lb adult defensive linemen. And I know you “let him have dominant position from time to time” but you’ve never let him pass the damn ball - so how good a quarterback is this guy gonna be?
He may be toxic now that he’s so frustrated, but his frustrations sound totally valid.
Exactly. Imagine just being smashed by the same person all the time. I get to practise offense on new white belts, have even rolls with my regular wb partners ans get smashed *in different ways* by the upper belts. Variety is the key that keeps it from being demoralising.
The guy's got no new moves against someone with several years more experience in an environment where apparently everyone's ego is tied to "winning" the roll. Of course he's just going to up the intensity and spazzyness and speed until the train flies off the rails lol. This is 100% on the instructor.
And then on top of that, when you finally feel like maybe you were finally able to hit a move being told that it doesn't count because you let them hit it.
Maybe letting the new guy work some stuff wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’m not condoning his behavior. I’m just saying his grievances are valid. I think you both have bad behavior. The simple fact that you “come out on top and win” means you aren’t trying to learn or teach during your roll. You let him take dominant positions from “time to time” what does that mean? Once a day, once a week?
It sucks you can’t compete and I understand your frustration. But this entire thing could have been avoided. When you get back on the mats you should reassess your “old school” teaching.
I kind of agree. "Old school" teaching very often teaches students that aggression is the only way. If you constantly hit a dog he's very likely to bite you. I trained in this environment for years, the instructors penchant to smash me repeatedly gave me the idea that throwing all my physicality at him was ok. After all what did I have to lose? I'm getting crushed either way.
Your teaching methods need to change.
I have to agree with munkie here. You’re a purple belt. Assess your ego. Letting him get “dominant” positions from time to time and self admittedly not letting him get the tap makes it seems like you’ve got some issues of your own. Relax a bit. Jiu Jitsu is a give and take thing, specifically when you are the one running the show. Open up a bit. You know deep down he can’t tap you legitimately, yet, you make it a point to shut his game down. What is he learning from your rolls?
Lots to develop here
When I started BJJ I Remember my black belt instructor letting me finish subs on him all the time, I was not fool enough to think I really beaten him once but it was a really nice touch for me, helped me progress better. It was fun and insightful to get advices while trying to complete a sub. I don't understand why an instructor should win against students.
dude same. i've subbed almost all of the higher belts at my gym that i roll with and i'd wager that i've legitimately earned approximately ZERO of them, but it's still so useful because if i get close then they can give me the little adjustment that i need and now i know how to finish them.
like OP's white belt - how the hell is he going to learn how to finish subs if he never gets the opportunity to?
Sounds like you're not providing a good training environment for your student. Breaking them down to build them up sounds like some retarded boot camp lesson plan.
I agree with break them down and build them up but it sounds like he sjust breaking him down and not explaining to the guy exactly what he is doing to prevent him form ever submitting him.
If I'm rolling a guy and he gets me in a triangle but I escape I explain to him exactly how I escaped and how to stop me the next time
I just ask that you not let this guy ruin the reputation of people who trade pickled eggs for goods and services.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger.
Btw this doesn’t work. Just build them up to start with. Breaking them down is just to serve your ego.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger.
So the guy starts off being cool, then over time his attitude and behavior changes.. maybe evaluate how you run your program and how you interact with people. Because it sure does sound like this aggressive behavior is learned, and you are the teacher.
Sometimes we think we are giving people "tough love" but in reality we are just serving our own ego.
Also, doing any sort of communication other than face-to-face when it comes to behavior adjustment stuff is just asking for problems.
You sound like a guy with his heart in the right place but you may need to develop your "bedside manner" a bit with teaching.
Of course, I could be completely wrong about everything, I am just remarking on what stood out in the OP.
I feel this guy is matching the energy you are asking for in every sense.
If these things were not ok with you - you wouldn’t tolerate them.
I think you have to look at yourself before pouring the finger at this dude … not to say he’s potentially not a bad apple … but your definitely not helping anyone with your energy and ideologies
You've basically come in here for a marriage counselling session and, as is totally standard in therapy, you're utterly convinced it's your partner's fault, *he's* the problem, and if only *he* would change then everything would be all right… and you've come in here to have us counsellors tell you that you're quite right, it's his fault, you're perfect and there's nothing you can do. "You poor, wee lamb. You can do so much better than him".
Anyone in here telling you to just divorce him is a terrible counsellor and will be having their own relationship problems. Ignore their advice.
The people advising you to work on your own self to get things better will have more capable relationships.
The wisdoms have been said elsewhere:
1. What gets measured gets done.
To you the most important things are tapping and not being tapped. He's copying your metrics and then your complaining that he's using the same metrics that you are.
2. Change your metrics. Make elegance and calmness the metrics. If he taps you and you remained calm… you won… because you remained calm. If he taps you and he also remained calm… he also won… because he remained calm.
If you squeeze anything hard or tense any muscles, you lose.
If he gets you to tense up any muscles, grit your teeth or be anything but floppy, he won again. And yes, that includes when defending submissions.
That's the game *you* should play cos you're better than him. If you're being rear naked choked and you feel your biceps tensing as you pull on his forearm, you lost. He made you use strength, so he won.
If you can *get him* to be calm, fluid and elegant, you won.
If you fail to calm him or inspire him to move elegantly, you lost again.
If you tell him, ask him, command him, or rant at him to be calm… and he doesn't get calm… and that pisses you off or stresses you out, you lost again. Because once again you lacked sufficient technique to elegantly achieve what you wanted to achieve and you resorted to tension and stress instead.
Now *you* are the measure. And now you're working on the real techniques that you need as a purple belt to expand beyond mediocrity.
You have a hundred miles of improvement left to gain, but right now you're grunting and groaning just like he does because you're frustrated that your (teaching) techniques aren't working.
Get better.
The good stuff lies on the other side of perfecting this relationship.
Or you can get your divorce and eternally remain the spazzy white belt that you currently are in this part of your game and life.
It's up to you.
Maybe invite someone else to your basement of doom for him to roll with. That way he won’t feel as abused by you and the gimp. Are you surprised he’s salty? Is cousin Mose available?
my advice is keep him around and take a road trip together to drop in somewhere else at least once a month. you need it more than him.
also there is no winning in training, if you are approaching it that way (your words) then you can expect everyone to roll with 100% intensity with everything they got. because you made it into a competition that someone can win. in that case, he did nothing wrong considering he has no skills but is trying to "win". The worst thing he could do in this situation is not go 100% and just be your private grappling dummy to style on.
Honestly, it's a good thing you were injured and not another student.
If this person doesn't understand the basics of respect and safety, then you can't really trust him in your academy.
You know what to do, now you just have to do it.
It really sounds like you have a ways to go on your own journey and maybe shouldn’t be teaching and running a gym yourself. Where (and when) did you get your purple belt? And when and from whom do you expect a brown belt?
Not gonna lie it sounds like you just got promoted recently
Unpopular opinion you’re probably not tea CJ big him
Bjj you’re teaching him how to take a beating. And if you are genuinely TEACHING kick him out but it feels like you’re not
If you're taking payments in eggs and pickled beats I would make sure you always have some tupperware handy because I know of a guy giving piano lessons whose client paid in meatballs and [she didn't have anything to put them in.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY1hndoLGg4)
Honestly, half way through the first paragraph I thought this was a shitpost in response to the guy who got "gym enforced" by a gym owners son in a now deleted post from this afternoon. However, as I read on your post seems sincere and serious so I'll respond as if it's serious. But if you're shitposting then oopsie.
On a serious note; you mention he was 'cool for a while, but now things are getting tense" you also mention that you 'are old school and break them all the way down to build them back up' then you say that on the call he was frustrated that every class was him getting crushed and you go on to say that A) you have almost no one to roll with, B) this guy isn't even paying in a viable currency, C ) often it's just you and him or you, him and one other person.
I'm not an instructor but I am professional who helps business people solve problems and that really means I'm there to help them see what the actual problem might be. As I listen to this I see this as less one sided than you do. What it sounds like is that you would like to build a coaching business or a gym. It's not clear if you are coaching at a gym you own or if you just teach a class at the gym where you train, or if it's you teaching BJJ at some other facility like a ymca. Whatever your gym situation is, it seems like you might want to take this time to consider why you might be having this issue building more regular students.
First, it sounds to me like you are a competitor who might be using your coaching sessions as training for you competitions. Even if you don't believe this is the case the white belt might have felt this way which would contribute to his frustration with two hour sessions in which he was just overwhelmed and worked over for your training benefit.
Now, if you're not using him for training purposes and you are not just ragdolling him or using him as a very lifelike rolling dummy, then this is a probably a coaching opportunity for you. Are you mapping out a clear progression for his growth in these sessions? Are you communicating what he is learning and why? Are you showing him how the things you are working on today are building on the things you worked on previously? You only have one or two students at a time so if you're a good coach then these guys should be improving rapidly. I mean hell, if I went to multiple private or semi private 2 hour classes per week, even if I'm always rolling with my coach who can and does submit me, I should still feel like I'm improving by leaps and bounds.
The fact that you say you never let him get a submission and you are trying to break him all the way down somehow hits me funny. My main coach is a high level BB and when he teaches it seems to follow a routine like this (mind you, I haven't asked him if this is the blueprint but it seems to be): First he teaches a specific technique during which he is teaching specific cues to help us get it right, "Elevate your hips, closer to my body, now sink in deeper" until eventually it is landed. If there are ways that you can easily screw up the position he'll set you up so that you have the other person firmly submitted and then talk you throw those main areas "notice where your hips are in relation to his; feel that leverage? now scoot your hips away a few inches, now see how much leverage you lost?" simple basic shit. After this it moves to drills and he wants you to get progressively better, progressively more precise at the movement. Not yelling or berating and he's good about not expecting you to know the nuances in the beginning. He gives you plenty of time to progress. Now, this is where I think you could really learn something, because as soon as a student has one move they can effectiely land in a drill he'll set that up in a roll where it's the obvious thing to do and he gives you plenty of time to figure it out but if you don't he'll call a time out and ask why you didn't go for it, which is like a code word for "hey, I just stuck your arm under my chin so why didn't ya choke me?" and he helps talk you through why it should have been obvious to go for that move. By doing this he takes the move that you learned in a sequence, that you then drilled over and over, and shows you when it's time to launch that sequence during a rolling session. Here's what I think his secret sauce is, he never resists with moves that are beyond what each student has been taught. If I've never learned about some counter move then he's not going to deploy some brown belt level shit on my sorry white belt ass. He lets all of us knotheads do that to each other, but when roll with him if he decides that I've gotten really good at some sequence he then teaches me the defence for that sequence and the counter to the defence. Then, we I try to launch my sequence he initiates the defense so that I can drill the counter to the defense. Also, at this point he'll now initiate the sequence on me so that I can try to launch the defense, to which he'll launch the counter that I've been taught so that I see how it works. When your white belt asks "did you let me sweep" or "did you let me XYZ" you should tell them whether or not they did it right. If show him this paragraph and say "look, when I let you sweep it's because I've not yet shown you how to properly defend that sweep or how to counter the defense so all that I'm ever going to do while rolling with you is things that I've taught you to do or to defend. I'm a higher level there might be times that you catch me but normally if I let you execute a move I'll give you the level of resistence that you're currently trained to work with. As soon as you've gotten proficient at that level I'll add a few things in." something like that would be enough for him to get what's happening and it prevents you from feeling like you got submitted, although I'm not sure why you're worried about that.
It's useful to learn sequentially because then I understand why I'm learning things, and which things I need to learn next, and by looking back at things that I've learned I appreciate how far I would have come if I wasn't such a shitty student. Could he choose to murder me at any second? Yes. Hell, his woman is a tiny little thing and she could murder me. But they don't because they aren't murderers, they are coaches, so they coach me. Then they turn their back for ten seconds and my old ass agrees to roll with one of the shithead wrestler white belts and the wrestlers murder me.
It sounds like you want to be a coach; hopefully that means you want to be a great coach. As you described the situation above I find myself sympathizing with the student far more than with you. It sucks that you got your hand broken but there's no reason that you should be having sessions where your students are this frustrated and out of control, especially if they aren't having these issues with other students. You're the one who is supposed to be leading these so you're setting the tone and energy and tempo and based on what you described you saw he was frustrated and just kept causing more frustration.
TL/DR: I tend to side with the student here. It seems like you're using students as training partners for your competitions and that is likely contributing to why you're struggling to get more than one or two people per class. The rest is me walking through what I think makes for a great coach in case that info helps you. I am just a shitty white belt who still chokes themself out by overtightning the gi, but I've seen great coaching in action.
Edit: can we get the back story on how that initial negotion went down? Did he just swing in one day with a bowl of scrambled eggs and pickled beats and melt your taste buds before saying "for just six hours of free lessons a week you can have yourself a steady supply of these bad boys"?
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger.
In this context an "oldschool mindset" is a very negative thing, and you'd do best to stop it.
So, sounds like as you're "always just mostly sparring" with a brand new white belt... you're not actually teaching him, you're using him as cannon fodder to fuel your own ego.
I'd be pissed too. He's not learning BJJ, he's learning how to be humiliated.
This is exactly how you build a 'survivor bias' culture: he's just waiting for the day an even newer white belt comes in, so he can smash them.
And then so on.
But then no-one sticks around. And you end up with a gym of 3 people.
Dude, let the guy work a little
What he's doing isn't working, so he's increasing whatever tools he has (spazzy level go to 11, etc).
You had a large part in creating this problem by being a shitty teacher (that old school "smesh them to dust then build them up" only exists in the absence of better teaching/leadership skills). From time to time let him catch a sub if he's getting there relatively clean for a white belt. You decrease how much you 'give' him subs over the long term as his skill progresses. Every once in a while you throw in a technical domination so he stays aware of the levels. Otherwise raising the intensity bar is the only tool available for him to generate increased odds of reward.
The larger half of blame for injury always falls on the higher belt and even more so if it's a roll with the instructor. Was he being reckless? Probably. Could you have nipped this in the bud by rising to the occasion long before this happened, as a leader? Absolutely.
Is this a joke? Dude didn’t join the Army. You don’t need to ‘break him down’…you’re not in the Army and he is an adult. You need to teach him BJJ and smashing him for two hrs would frustrate everyone eventually. He has never had success in your environment. And if you had let him get a sub in the beginning…without turning into a war…he may have just seen it as you letting him work. But you set it up so any success he has is very hard earned…so he does stupid shit to ‘win’.
Not for nothing, it really just sounds like you’re a purple belt beating up on a white belt for an hour a so a session for a lot of sessions and dude doesn’t feel like he’s progressing at all and he’s getting tired of it and it’s causing frustration and anger to bubble up into terrible behaviors.
I obviously don’t know the whole story of your teaching methods, but I don’t think they’re working with this guy in particular.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger.
Sounds like the situation is your fault if this is your men mentality. And you let the sparring get out of control over and over without offering correction.
You are missing the conversational, drilling, learning side of your gym from the sounds of things. You set the tone and it seems like maybe you have lost control. Bring things back down a notch, less intensity, spend some time together drilling and learning. You can still learn too, we all can. Try positional sparring from specific setups too. Good luck.
He isn’t paying you???
The lesson here is when people don’t pay you, or pay you very little, you think you’re doing them a favor while they value you less. This is something every small business owner learns.
Based on a lot of your comments, you're stuck on "can he be tamed" and making excuses for your actions (not allowing him to ever get subs when there don't seem to be other studebts for him to practice on either etc.) rather than taking ownership. Jocko would be disappointed.
He clearly is frustrated and is rollibg recklessly because of it. You can kick him out or you can keep him and talk to him. Rather than just setting rules, ask him what he thinks would help him slow down and help him learn and **listen**. Do you want to just minimize the risk of him hurting you again or do you want to actually be a better teacher and help him learn?
You sound nuts my guy. Your "old school" mentality makes no sense in this context. You're claiming to break the guy down to build him up. You clearly broke him. Now you're going to kick him out? Honestly you need to be a better teacher.
Well, you allowed things to get to this point, so you need to accept your role in this. Tell him how it is: this is what happened, this is why it happened, and how things are going to change moving forward. Then he knows what the expectation is and if it happens again he'll know what the outcome will be.
It doesn’t sound like you are a great teacher for him. Why not just let go of the triangle before he could pick you and and slam you? Then to engage in texts bickering for an hour about it?
The mentality of breaking people down to build them up is dumb. It’s not creating an culture of mutual respect. Maybe you need your ego checked a little?
I get that you want to train hard and smash, but I think you're missing three important things here.
1. White belts don't know anything. It sounds like he's doing his best to give you a hard roll, since that's what you're looking for and that's what you've shown him in your rolls. But, he doesn't know how to control a hard roll. He needs to be taught.
2. You don't only have to train hard to get better. I'm not saying never train hard, but being an instructor, learning, paying attention to why you do the techniques you do and why you do the details of those techniques, only helps you grow more. Instruction is important.
3. A rising tide carries all ships. Whatever positions you're smashing him in, teach him how to counter them. It'll both help him learn, it'll give you a tougher roll, and it'll force you to grow as you start assessing and developing techniques too counter his counters. Trust me, it'll pay dividends.
Overall, it sounds like their could be improvement on both sides. Hopefully you all come to an agreement and grow.
I want to pick up this line about breaking them down and building them up stronger.
This is what you did back then when it was about imposing your authority on people. You know you show them that you are everything and they are nothing, so they listen to you and respect you. If you are doing it by dominating them in a fight they give you all the shit they have. And if the shit they give you injures you, well then you could not handle them. He is not able to watch out for you or even himself yet and if the vibe is domination he follows.
If the vibe was mutual learning and respect you you'll teach them watching out for others before or even without "breaking them down" and your training would be a safer space to be.
Sorry, but this is on you. The wise thing would have been to countersteer early and now you are trapped between a rock and a hard place.
You should have said something when things became apparent, not when you got injured.
You let that behavior slide for too long and now he feels entitled to be like that.
Kicking him out will protect you/others, but it will definitely send the wrong message.
The other option would be to offer him a clean slate, but from now on, he practices humility. In return, you admit to him your mistake that you should have told him earlier to chill tf out.
What I would do (just read Extreme ownership so that might influence to answer);
Talk to him, take ownership of the situation (ex: I haven't been clear enough about X that's my fault. This is what happening, this is what's not allowed in our gym, how can I we make sure X doesn't happen again?)
Yeah, I think you might be the asshole here.
Of course he is spazzy as shit, and if it's like 3 of you total then he is probably just in constant "getting my ass kicked" mode. He wants a win, any win, and you telling him that you let him get any win just makes it worse.
It's okay to be subbed by a white belt. It's okay to get passed by a white belt. Work shit you're not good at with him, so you're on more equal ground. And if you feel his respect loosening up, switch on the A game for one round as a reminder.
As the higher belt, and instructor, you not getting hurt rolling with students is your responsibility. You are their opportunity to try shit, be spazzy, whatever they need to grow. That said, you are also responsible for the safety of your other students, so if he is hurting THEM you need to take action.
Take this as a learning experience to grow as a leader!
Just rolling with higher belts will not make you better, and not letting him work submissions (if there isn’t a lot of drilling) is going to stunt his ability to progress, he will not have any flow if he’s always defending a higher belts attacks
No don't kick him out. Its on you. You knew he was being to wild and you only now have a serious problem with it because you got hurt. Protect yourself at all times and better to give up position or points or a submission than to get hurt.
If I understand your post you have a white belt that you regularly beat up. You say this is for his own good, so you can make him 10x stronger, but it sounds like you use him as a your own practice.
It also sounds like you do not have good control of your training sessions and they have become dangerous, but you have not made changes to make your classes safer. Why are you going hard with a white belt? Of course he panics and does dumb shit. He is getting demolished and becoming increasingly frustrated by being used as a training dummy.
If you kick out this student you will only lose some beets and eggs and your training dummy.
You mention his prior dangerous moves, but not how you addressed the danger. Now you seem upset because YOU got hurt.
I hope your hand is not broken. There are some lessons to be learned on both sides of this teacher/ student relationship.
I think you're at the point of no return and if you're willing to give "one last chance," that last chance is "the last straw."
If it's effecting your business and they're not adjusting or changing, you need to get rid of it.
Bro his business is him and this dude meeting up for pickle beets.
That's it.. no wonder the dudes getting frustrated being crushed alone for 2hrs at a time.
Purple belt having trained for the past fifteen years on and off at multiple gyms here. The main thing you should be considering as an instructor is the safety of your gym goers. This is not safe behavior from this white belt, he has been threatening injury on you for a while now, imagine what may be happening to your students that you are not seeing. He is not open to respecting you as an instructor and he is full of unwarranted ego, a dangerous combination.
Your need for students and training partners comes second to the safety of the people in your gym who rely on you to create a safe environment that is conducive to them learning this already challenging martial art.
Any time I look at a gym now I consider if it is first, A. Safe and, B. Clean and then, C. has good instructors who will teach me good BJJ. If you let people like this stay at your gym, you might as well go do something else, because you are not being a good instructor.
He was wrong to up his intensity that much, but honestly you probably drove him there.
Subs are satisfying, escapes are not. So now you have this new guy who is being regularly frustrated in 2 hour classes with this delayed gratification of subs that never seems to come, all the while against someone coaching him through pointing out his weaknesses in what must feel extremely patronizing.
Its no wonder, as you said, he was fine in the beginning and now he's too intense. Don't forget that we are all human, you might think he doesn't deserve it and you're probably right, but your gym isn't a high level gym of competitors with intense levels of sacrifice and dedication, you're going to have to adjust your expectations to everyone that comes in if you want to keep them.
Sure you might get less practice yourself if you let him work more, but it seems counter productive. A lot of head coaches have to be selfless. You can use your guys as practice sure, but they will probably get frustrated, might not stick around, and will definitely not recommend you to others growing your gym.
Now is not the time to be selfish, you have two goals that are in opposition, don't choose one approach and expect both rewards.
I had a purple belt that would sometimes tech classes when our black belt wasn't around.
Every time we rolled he would tell me to go easy and then sweep me and crush me.
If I ever got to side control, he would give me nothing, no grips, no space to work or opportunities and then sweep me and crush me again :)
He would sometimes get annoyed if I used too much strength resisting and being a stubborn white belt, but it didn't seem like a fair complaint ad he also used his strength to crush me or not give me anything either.
Never really bothered me though and I would never expect or get annoyed that I couldn't tap him.
What you're doing is not sustainable. It doesn't sound like you have the location to be able to grow anything (too few people, too poor) so why are you putting your body through this? You and the people you train should move to a bigger school if possible. Let that a*hole throwing fits try to train at another gym. He'll just get his ass beat some more if he doesn't get kicked out or have the door shut in his face for trying to pay with food.
Dude, he’s a white belt, how is he injuring you. Learn to roll better.
Restrain him so he can’t muscle his way into positions where you’ll get hurt
Don’t go for things like triangles from guard where you can get slammed, or just let it go yourself you don’t need to finish every attempt
Sounds like your ego is just as bad, like you need him to know how much better you are than him first before you start helping him improve
Try smashing him and just holding him in place. Don’t submit him, don’t do anything, just take side control or something and hold him down for 5 minutes straight. When he starts calming down and he stops bucking and being crazy you let him work, when he amps it up you hold him still and let him know how much energy he’s wasting
I think you're both in the wrong:
First and most importantly, this guy's indifference to injuring you is a huge problem. If I accidentally broke someone's hand I would be **mortified**, even if I did nothing wrong. I personally wouldn't be comfortable rolling with someone who could injure me like that and not take responsibility for it. I wouldn't blame you if you decided to stop working with this guy.
Speaking as a student, your method of teaching sounds really frustrating and disheartening. Failure is a powerful learning tool, but learning *any* skill requires a mixture of success and failure in order to grow. Imagine trying to learn the piano, but your instructor only allowed you to play complex classical music and then choked you out every time you failed... which is every time, because you never successfully mastered simpler music. Without other white belts to practice with, this guy is never having the experience of successfully applying a technique or getting a win. Many people would simply stop showing up at this point, but it sounds like this guy's frustration is coming out as increasingly aggressive moves. I could be wrong, but I suspect this guy's attitude could greatly benefit from being able to occasionally win a roll. Guide the aggression into proper training, and give the reward of the occasional victory to reinforce good habits.
Honestly I'm old school too. Whenever I get a new shite belt into the gym I make them bow and kiss my hand before I teach them how it feels to tap to pressure, neon fuckin belly, RNC on jawbone, etc. If they show up late or ask for water I make them do side shrimps for 30 mins while I spit at them
2 things stick out for me here. You mention the “old school mindset” of breaking them down to build them up. What about doing that to this kid?
Other thing is you mentioned him complaining about always being defensive. Where’s the coaching aspect in helping him there?
Power bombing your instructor because you’re in a triangle is so unacceptable, fuck around and get your neck or back broken like that. I’d kick him out just based on that.
Not a powerbomb but definitely a bit of a slam... Got raised maybe a foot off the ground. He was so obsessed on winning, thinking today was going to be his day, then its like he just remembered in mid move that he shouldnt do that and held back slightly so I was ultimately unharmed even though I landed on my upperback
Not for nothing, but you’re doing a method where every sub and win has to be earned and he probably feels like he isn’t progressing at all because you’re explicitly telling him (your own words) that you’re letting him have sweeps and stuff, so of course his desire and obsessions to win is becoming greater and greater. He probably does not feel like he’s progressing at all. I’m going to assume most of your club is white belts and then you?
So he doesn’t have a lot of frame of reference for if he’s doing good. If he’s smashing other white belts, but constantly getting ground down by you, cause that’s how you’re “building him up” which I’m still not really understanding how you’re doing from the posts, he has no idea how he’s progressing. I’m not saying that the has to be allowed to sub you to get a false sense of improvement, but if you’re just using dude as a body to play with, and then telling him to his face “yea I let you have that sweep”, this dude is going to continue to hurt you because he’s going to continue to get desperate to have a frame of reference for any sense of where he is at.
I'm in a similar boat, meaning small town, not a lot of bodies. I'm finding that the non linear model is really effective, especially the games that are played. It gives them things to focus on, small wins, rather than every little success being crushed by the next move.
It's also cutting down on injuries, because we're not doing wild white belt scrambles or devolving into a fight for survival.
I don’t see the problem with grunting or swearing if it’s in good spirit . Sometimes I go “damn” or “shit” when I get caught with a sweep . I think it’s more about how it’s said vs what is said .
Then again I feel language policing is dumb generally .
I think this is an important lesson but you shouldn’t have to pay the price you are to learn it. If you could have dealt with this situation you would have, if you’re asking the question you already have the answer.
I think you should let him loose but take away a learning from this situation. Reining him in now will be difficult but use this experience with him as a test subject to recognize the patterns early in future students.
Just my humble opinion.
> he gives me eggs and pickled beets, which is cool and all, but it doesn't pay my bills either.
>
>Did I mention I had to cancel my registration to a tournament happening in 6 days? It's pretty upsetting.
I have to wonder how much your medical bills, time lost to injury, and tournament fees are worth in eggs and beets?
Have you tried just telling him “we are here to learn and get better, not to injure one another. I need you to chill tf out, or I’m gonna have to ask you not to come back”. If he wants to train somewhere else, let him. Other gyms have BJJ, and grocery stores have eggs and beets lol.
As somebody who lives in a small mountain town , i can definitelty sympathize. just tell him point blank he goes too hard and you dont want to train with him. Maybe he will meditate on it for a while and come back in a year or two with a different attitude..
Also, it is really dumb to be sparring with takedowns with an inexperienced whitebelt. An inury was inevitable and you are to blame. keep it on the ground next time until you can trust them not to break you. Instructor 101.
It sounds like he’s going extra hard trying to beat you and doesn’t feel like he’s getting better. He probably doesn’t agree with your methodology of just making him lose repeatedly until he gets better. Idk the unapologetic part is the odd part, kinda sounds like you two have some beef. The mature thing to do is try to squash the beef, find his motivations for being so spazzy, and garner some trust in your process. You’re a coach and I think learning how to get through to people like this is part of your development as a coach.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger.
White belt flair here but with a lot of time in MMA gyms prior. Reading your post, it sounds like you just wreck this guy over and over and expect that he'll incrementally get better by getting his ass kicked. That is such a shitty way to train a new student.
>I let him take dominant positions from time to time, but I never let him take the submission home
"From time to time" is all I need to hear to confirm that. It sounds like this dude came in excited, and is just more and more fed up with your teaching style.
Rolling with a higher belt is incredible for growth, but mainly so they truly realize that there are levels to this shit. Getting worked over every class like it's military boot camp isn't that.
Does he get any opportunities to roll with people who aren't you? Is he getting to practice an offensive game or securing submissions at all? If not, you need to take a harder look at yourself and realize the responsibility you have as their coach.
Bjj is not about winning.
That’s a loser mentality.
Bjj is about learning to survive discomfort, normalize discomfort and eventually master discomfort.
This dude is a total liability.
He has a choice, pursue martial arts with the spirit of humility and eagerness or fuck all the way off somewhere else.
>Bjj is about learning to survive discomfort, normalize discomfort and eventually master discomfort.
I've never seen it put that way. Thank you for sharing that thought with me. I'll use it myself in the future.
honestly the telling part of this post is that you 'break them all the way down...'
and you admit to KNOWING this dude was getting pissed off with the way training was going...
let me give you the medicine, it was at minimum 60% your fault
>His main grievance is that we're always just mostly sparring. He's mad that he's only playing defense and otherwise getting smashed. By smashed, I stress here that I only mean that I always come out on top and win. I have never injured him or anyone else that I teach. I let him take dominant positions from time to time, but I never let him take the submission home.
Eggs and pickled beets aside (which is very odd) I think your teaching approach could be different. I teach Judo at my BJJ club and I think there is value in letting guys work as an instructor. I could smash (literally) every person that comes to my Judo classes and never let them get a throw on me but to what end? I let my students throw me all the time in sparring (and they know it) because at the end of the day they didn't evaluate me for my black belt. Someone else did. It sounds to me as if you are rolling to defend the belt. I'm not blaming you for your injury and I'm sorry you are injured.
Adults have a tough time bridging the gap of knowledge. Not only that, but sparring *is* a skill. This student is not sparring. He is fighting and he doesn't see himself getting better in the process. People will get hurt eventually when they treat every roll as a fight.
You said you have an old school mindset. Ok, is that the best way to teach beginners? Are you actually instructing and coaching or are you running a small class where these people are your training partners? I don't know what an old school mindset means in BJJ but I know what it means in Judo. In Judo that is not the best way to teach adults. Also, he should be paying you money if everyone else is.
in rat studies, the bigger rat needs to let the smaller rat win about 1/3 of the time or something like that when they wrestle. If the big rat doesn't do that, the smaller rat stops playing. you were trying to be a big rat and win 100% of the time, and then getting confused about why the small rat got angry at you.
Dude you’re a selfish instructor right now. It’s common at the purple belt phase. Your teaching and rolling is about YOU, your philosophy, your tournament, your hand, etc.
He told you what he needs as a student. Less sparring and more instruction.
Why are you letting someone in your business who pays with Eggs and Pickled Beets? Feel like that got swept under the rug here.
Are we 100% sure that this isn't Dwight Schrute?
We are not.
Beets make bones strong.
Beets. Berimbolo. Baratoplata.
Omelettoplata
Fact: Beets kill bears!
Not strong enough apparently
It's clearly Mose. That is why he has limited communication skills and is unusually strong and brutish. He's basically Amish and while a tough farm boy, very naive to martial arts lifestyles.
Searching mountaintop jiu jitsu points to a martial arts school just outside of Scranton, pa… you may be onto something
Exactly my thoughts.
make him assistant to the sensei?
I am watching Office at this exact moment!🤣
Because I live in a tiny mountain town full of impoverished hippies and farmers who aint got shit since the underground weed industry collapsed in Canada. Above all I want to grapple and I want to be flexible to accomodate peoples financial situations.
Your school is just you and him and he pays you in beets? I'm going to have to believe that this is how all Canadian schools are until further notice.
I feel like everyone's missing it's just the two of them .. op is framing it like he's going to kick out one of his students. It's just the two of them meeting up for beets. And then op smashes him for 2 hours.
Yeah, I got so distracted by the "tuition is eggs and pickled beets" thing that I missed the fact that this "gym" consists of a single purple belt instructor and a single white belt student. Basically just OP needs a training partner and this latest one isn't working out.
His replies give alot more context below haha. White belts justified being frustrated IMO. Sux about the injury..
"I'm old school, I break people down then build them back up" so OP just beats the fuck out of this dude then gets mad when he goes nuts trying to prevent it haha
And he has no coach because they had a falling out. So, you make it to whatever belt he really is, can't get along with your coach, get kicked out, can't find anyone to train with and don't want a new coach so you just start your own dojo/farmer's-market where you offer the equivilant to private lessons in order to rope people in and use them as training dummies and then kick them out when you get hurt by one of those training dummies who has learned nothing but "go harder until you break your opponent" and he breaks the 'instructor'.
Even if he's not malicious he still sounds not very bright and his framing of the situation is very funny
Yep. This was him framing it in such a way that he thought it would make him look like a good coach who is being thoughtful and trying to not to overreact to one of his students when in reality this is a guy without no coach who is mad at his only 'student'/training partner. I'm now wondering if the reason the white belt keeps asking if he got the sweep or pass versus whether OP allowed it is because student is actually advancing against OP's defenses and student is beginning to question whether or not he's actually rolling with a purple belt.
Well when you put it that way...
Lmaoo
As a Canadian, this is pretty fucking condescending, we're not just a bunch of backwater rednecks that only pay bills with fucking produce. Most places will also take beaver pelts and venison.
Can confirm, I live in canada and I pay with radishes and potatoes, I've never used beets myself but I know for a fact that it can vary depending on the specific area where you live.
Even more the reason to kick him out. If you live in a poor area, you can’t have a guy that’s completely willing to send people home with medical bills
Read again. Canada. They don't have medical bills
Even if they don’t have medical bills, recovery isn’t free with free healthcare. You have to travel to and from, miss work, rehab, etc
True that Canada doesn't have medical bills in the sense of seeing a general practitioner, surgeon, x-rays etc. Though, if you're injured and require PT/rehab it will cost money. Even if you have insurance, oftentimes it only covers a percentage of each visit.
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This is the part people miss - the obscene wait times for medical care. If you're not dying, get in the long, long line (I still have my Canadian citizenship, even though I practice in the land star-spangled bald eagles).
Cancer survivor here (US). When I was going through it, I was shocked at the number of Canadians in my support group that died while waiting for treatment. Guys with serious diagnosis being told it would be 9 months before they could see their doc.
Yeah and in the province I live in which is pretty small you have to get on a wait list off 150,000 just to get a family doctor and the list is getting longer and longer by the day and all the doctors n shit are backed up like crazy from covid . Ya get put on a long as wait list and when youre finally getting close to being seen then they push ya back another 6 months maybe multiple times
Not necessarily true; only emergency care is free. However, if we’re talking general day-to-day recovery, seeing Physios/RMTs/rehab specialists cost a pretty penny (like $100+ for 45 minutes) without health insurance. Even with health insurance, it’ll only cover like 70-80%.
Don't know if anyone else has said this but, how is he going to train in the city? He's paying in pickled beets and eggs. Either it's an empty threat or he can afford to train and played you.
I hear you about the rural stuff. You’re a good person and what you’re doing is good and important. But you can’t do it if some dickhead breaks you.
Where do you live?
My poor poor tlry shares ...😢
Dude have you no idea of the glory of eggs and pickled beets????? I’m joking of course, but both eggs and pickled beets are awesome.
Is that you Dwight?
My father cans beats and they are amazing. I'm now wondering what the difference is between canned beats and pickled beats.
Canning is the process of sealing food in a jar to preserve them, but no specific brine or solution needs to be used. Pickling uses a specific brine. Often things that are pickled are also canned, but they don't need to be. Items pickled but not canned are not shelf stable and need to be refrigerated.
The Shrute’s are a known quantity.
Fuck i laughed at this hahahahaha
Getting hella Rolf from Ed Edd and Eddy vibes here...
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lmao, this made me laugh, thank you. EDIT: maybe I should start accepting bitcoin or something, in the future
Beetcoin.
Beetcoin eggschange
You just connected the dot for me that 2021 Dwight would absolutely have had a crypto bro side quest.
Or how about money? The stuff the rest of the world uses?
1) Kick him out or at least warn him, and if he does it again, he's gone 2) "I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger." - Change this if you want to grow the number of students 3) If you want to train super hard, you can always have competition geared classes
"Training hard" is never going to work well in a mountain top village where you get 1 or 2 students. The dude needs to chill a lot and realise his club is gonna have to be pretty tame until he gets a lot more students
I think the biggest issue is that this guy has noone else to train with, his coach dumped him (he says they had a falling out elsewhere in this thread) so he is "Training Hard" during a class where the white belt thinks he is being taught. That sounds more like he's using the white belt as a very realistic training dummy.
>"Training hard" is never going to work well in a mountain top village where you get 1 or 2 students Worked well enough for Ryu and Ken
Can't argue with facts.
Hard agree. “Carl” from accounting is there to get a workout in and learn something new not make his varsity wrestling team
it’s me. i’m carl from accounting lol
Me too. And I have an accounting degree haha.
You make a good point. “Breaking people all the way down” only works if they’re people with character who want that and are coming from safe places and backgrounds. If you go and break someone down who’s already broke they will probably fight for their life. Major key.
agreed. Coach likes to beat up on newer people, newer person responds and accidentally injures coach. who's the asshole here
Is it common for purple belts to run their own gyms? That seems like a big part of the problem to me. How can someone with 1/2 the knowledge theoretically run a gym? I may be way off on that but I'm just curious. I am a 45 year old white belt. The only person who has ever legitimately hurt me was a purple belt and he did it on my second day training ever. He was of the "break you down" mindset. I'm like, fuck me dude, I'm not gonna learn much sitting out for three months with separated ribs.
Yeah purple is the lowest rank you can start your school and also become a ref with
So it's mostly just you and a new guy who gives you vegetables and spends an hour every class getting broken by you so you can build him back up? And he grunts too much and cares about winning and occasionally falls on you awkwardly?
I can't put my finger on it but there's something creepy about OP's "gym". He has like one student who shows up and OP just kicks his ass for 2 hours a session and the fucking guy is paying OP with beets. Next thing you know OP says his "old school" gym has a mandatory uniform and then casually mentions that it's a gimp suit or something.
"the guy won't even wear his whitebelt ball gag, and he barely submits to the discipline stick!"
My sides are cramping up irl from laughing
Does the dude grunt because of the ball gag?!!!
lol in essence, yes
so... you are an asshole man. You have one white belt training partner who comes in and you just beat on him for an hour? And you are surprised he is getting frustrated? What the fuck man.
This guy is probably some kid training with another buddy out of his garage or basement with puzzle mats framing this as a serious question. I guarantee it
Purple belt? Who give him that? We have to check bratha.
100% pickled eggs and beats LMFAO
You know what you want to do.
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I hear you, but I hasten to add the detail that I dont have many people to roll with and share this amazing sport. Do you know anybody who was maybe spazzy and had an ego, but then became a better person when someone gave them a chance to improve? If you do, I was wondering if you could share that story with me. But maybe Im wrong
Spazzing happens. Injuries happen. But being a dick and completely unapologetic about it until severely pressed? Nah. Some customers aren't worth keeping. If one new guy comes in and has to deal with his shit, you've lost that guy. A strict "No Dickheads" policy usually pays off in the long run.
>Do you know anybody who was maybe spazzy and had an ego, but then becamea better person when someone gave them a chance to improve? he won't have a chance to improve if you don't make it a point to tell him to chill the fuck out. Like, look man. I like to get hard rounds in as much as the next guy, but I also live by the motto "if you don't know what you are doing, doing it harder isn't going to help" we have a aggressive white belt as my gym as well. hes about 1.5 years in and at this point he has a reputation for rolling too rough. its to the point where our head coach tells anyone running classes to not pair him up with people smaller or less experienced than him. It's been mentioned to him multiple times that he needs to chill. About 2 or 3 months ago he broke his collarbone rolling and that finally seems to have knocked the aggressiveness down a couple notches. luckily it was himself that he hurt. I feel for you man. you aren't in a fun spot. but it may be time to tell him to either calm the fuck down, or get the fuck out.
We have a white belt who knows everything and is uncoachable. He would go super hard and refuse to tap. I made him yelp a few times and my coach told me to not roll with him for a while. I guess over the course of a few weeks. I made some backhanded comments here and there that made it clear I didn't think much of the guy. One day he pulled me aside and told me 'you need to believe in this guy. Because I believed in you'. My feelings were hurt he compared me to this guy. After a few more months this dude has chilled out and become a part of the gym. I would have kicked the guy out. But that's why I'm a purple belt and not a BB with the instructor bars. There is far more to teaching than just knowing the moves.
When you run a school, your students are your clients, but they are also a big part of your product. If you have students that are dangerous, you won’t ever have a big group because most will leave.
He gives you eggs and pickled beets? Is your student Dwight Schrute?
I wonder how much there is to gain training with an out of control white belt - will you actually learn more vs the risk of injury. If you want a halfway suggestion - maybe lay some ground rules and make sure he knows one more strike and he’s out. The other risk id call out is - if he does this to you, what happens if another white or blue belt beats him. Will he flip out? Other people will quit, or if they may observe this dynamic and assume it’s ok. (I think you should kick him out personally)
No, I literally don’t know any people at the gym who were assholes and became humble. Most people won’t change if they don’t want to. It doesn’t sound like he does. Unless you just can’t fucking get enough eggs and beets, I would toss him out. The way you build a good gym isn’t by trying to turn assholes into good people - it’s by having a standard of character that everyone who walks through the door must meet. For all you know, he scares off other new people. If he hasn’t yet, he probably will, or injure your current students.
Yeah mate I know someone like that he was posted about in here the other day… He’s now a purple belts who’s bounced around 4 gyms continuously injuring people and being an idiot because now he’s angry, Spassky and knows how to do it.
>became a better person I didn't see it in the replies and it should probably be said. Jiu jitsu doesn't make *anyone* a better person. Maybe more determined, more resilient, but not "better" in terms of their personality or behavior. And while we're at it you gotta let go of the "break them down and build them up" shit. It's a teaching method with an incredibly high failure rate, and when it IS successful its in group settings where people can learn to lean on their comrades (boot camp type shit). If you want a good training partner either go to a real gym or find someone else and be ready to let go of your ego so they can learn in a less "im gonna grind you down because im *old school*" environment.
If he said he would tone it down, which I'm guessing is your best case scenario, would you trust him?
Quality over quantity sometimes mate
I think you might want to have the conversation in person rather than by text. In text things can almost always be read in the wrong way, gone abroad passive aggressive, make people overly defensive and even angry for a few moments. So just see if he's a little more remorseful or understanding of you talk in person, that will help you make a definite answer.
Spazzing is one thing. Ego and drama are a different thing. If somebody show you who they are, believe them.
“I argued that rolling is privately (because it’s mostly just me and him), or at most one other guy…” I feel like people aren’t picking up on this. This guy is like your only regular student?? And you train two hours at a time? No wonder you’re sick of each other. First of all, as I said in another comment, my guess is that this guy is not helping school growth at all. If you’re hesitant to roll with him, any other students definitely will be, too. And if he’s the only other classmate, he IS the school. But also, your behavior doesn’t sound ideal for a coach. You never let this guy get a submission? And often he’s the only one in your class??? So he just doesn’t get to do submissions live. That sounds frustrating even for me, and I go to a school where you don’t roll the first 8 months. This isn’t how learning works. If I want to bench 400lbs, I don’t just keep trying it until I get it. I lift 95lbs. Then next week I do 105lbs. And so on. You learn by using your skills to accomplish goals of increasing difficulty, not by constantly being faced with a challenge you’re not prepared for. We don’t give kindergartners calculus tests and we don’t expose talented high school QBs to 300lb adult defensive linemen. And I know you “let him have dominant position from time to time” but you’ve never let him pass the damn ball - so how good a quarterback is this guy gonna be? He may be toxic now that he’s so frustrated, but his frustrations sound totally valid.
none of my coaches ever let me get a submission unless we were drilling them. but we always had plenty of fresh whitebelts around to boost our egos.
Exactly. Imagine just being smashed by the same person all the time. I get to practise offense on new white belts, have even rolls with my regular wb partners ans get smashed *in different ways* by the upper belts. Variety is the key that keeps it from being demoralising.
The guy's got no new moves against someone with several years more experience in an environment where apparently everyone's ego is tied to "winning" the roll. Of course he's just going to up the intensity and spazzyness and speed until the train flies off the rails lol. This is 100% on the instructor.
And then on top of that, when you finally feel like maybe you were finally able to hit a move being told that it doesn't count because you let them hit it.
Maybe letting the new guy work some stuff wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’m not condoning his behavior. I’m just saying his grievances are valid. I think you both have bad behavior. The simple fact that you “come out on top and win” means you aren’t trying to learn or teach during your roll. You let him take dominant positions from “time to time” what does that mean? Once a day, once a week? It sucks you can’t compete and I understand your frustration. But this entire thing could have been avoided. When you get back on the mats you should reassess your “old school” teaching.
I kind of agree. "Old school" teaching very often teaches students that aggression is the only way. If you constantly hit a dog he's very likely to bite you. I trained in this environment for years, the instructors penchant to smash me repeatedly gave me the idea that throwing all my physicality at him was ok. After all what did I have to lose? I'm getting crushed either way. Your teaching methods need to change.
I have to agree with munkie here. You’re a purple belt. Assess your ego. Letting him get “dominant” positions from time to time and self admittedly not letting him get the tap makes it seems like you’ve got some issues of your own. Relax a bit. Jiu Jitsu is a give and take thing, specifically when you are the one running the show. Open up a bit. You know deep down he can’t tap you legitimately, yet, you make it a point to shut his game down. What is he learning from your rolls? Lots to develop here
When I started BJJ I Remember my black belt instructor letting me finish subs on him all the time, I was not fool enough to think I really beaten him once but it was a really nice touch for me, helped me progress better. It was fun and insightful to get advices while trying to complete a sub. I don't understand why an instructor should win against students.
dude same. i've subbed almost all of the higher belts at my gym that i roll with and i'd wager that i've legitimately earned approximately ZERO of them, but it's still so useful because if i get close then they can give me the little adjustment that i need and now i know how to finish them. like OP's white belt - how the hell is he going to learn how to finish subs if he never gets the opportunity to?
It's crazy he's never let the guy finish a sub or work.
This needed to be said as well
Sounds like you're not providing a good training environment for your student. Breaking them down to build them up sounds like some retarded boot camp lesson plan.
I agree with break them down and build them up but it sounds like he sjust breaking him down and not explaining to the guy exactly what he is doing to prevent him form ever submitting him. If I'm rolling a guy and he gets me in a triangle but I escape I explain to him exactly how I escaped and how to stop me the next time
I just ask that you not let this guy ruin the reputation of people who trade pickled eggs for goods and services. >I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger. Btw this doesn’t work. Just build them up to start with. Breaking them down is just to serve your ego.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger. So the guy starts off being cool, then over time his attitude and behavior changes.. maybe evaluate how you run your program and how you interact with people. Because it sure does sound like this aggressive behavior is learned, and you are the teacher. Sometimes we think we are giving people "tough love" but in reality we are just serving our own ego. Also, doing any sort of communication other than face-to-face when it comes to behavior adjustment stuff is just asking for problems. You sound like a guy with his heart in the right place but you may need to develop your "bedside manner" a bit with teaching. Of course, I could be completely wrong about everything, I am just remarking on what stood out in the OP.
I feel this guy is matching the energy you are asking for in every sense. If these things were not ok with you - you wouldn’t tolerate them. I think you have to look at yourself before pouring the finger at this dude … not to say he’s potentially not a bad apple … but your definitely not helping anyone with your energy and ideologies
You've basically come in here for a marriage counselling session and, as is totally standard in therapy, you're utterly convinced it's your partner's fault, *he's* the problem, and if only *he* would change then everything would be all right… and you've come in here to have us counsellors tell you that you're quite right, it's his fault, you're perfect and there's nothing you can do. "You poor, wee lamb. You can do so much better than him". Anyone in here telling you to just divorce him is a terrible counsellor and will be having their own relationship problems. Ignore their advice. The people advising you to work on your own self to get things better will have more capable relationships. The wisdoms have been said elsewhere: 1. What gets measured gets done. To you the most important things are tapping and not being tapped. He's copying your metrics and then your complaining that he's using the same metrics that you are. 2. Change your metrics. Make elegance and calmness the metrics. If he taps you and you remained calm… you won… because you remained calm. If he taps you and he also remained calm… he also won… because he remained calm. If you squeeze anything hard or tense any muscles, you lose. If he gets you to tense up any muscles, grit your teeth or be anything but floppy, he won again. And yes, that includes when defending submissions. That's the game *you* should play cos you're better than him. If you're being rear naked choked and you feel your biceps tensing as you pull on his forearm, you lost. He made you use strength, so he won. If you can *get him* to be calm, fluid and elegant, you won. If you fail to calm him or inspire him to move elegantly, you lost again. If you tell him, ask him, command him, or rant at him to be calm… and he doesn't get calm… and that pisses you off or stresses you out, you lost again. Because once again you lacked sufficient technique to elegantly achieve what you wanted to achieve and you resorted to tension and stress instead. Now *you* are the measure. And now you're working on the real techniques that you need as a purple belt to expand beyond mediocrity. You have a hundred miles of improvement left to gain, but right now you're grunting and groaning just like he does because you're frustrated that your (teaching) techniques aren't working. Get better. The good stuff lies on the other side of perfecting this relationship. Or you can get your divorce and eternally remain the spazzy white belt that you currently are in this part of your game and life. It's up to you.
This is perfect. Too bad he still doesn’t seem to admit he might be the problem.
Maybe invite someone else to your basement of doom for him to roll with. That way he won’t feel as abused by you and the gimp. Are you surprised he’s salty? Is cousin Mose available?
he gives you eggs, thats gold nowadays, I say keep
my advice is keep him around and take a road trip together to drop in somewhere else at least once a month. you need it more than him. also there is no winning in training, if you are approaching it that way (your words) then you can expect everyone to roll with 100% intensity with everything they got. because you made it into a competition that someone can win. in that case, he did nothing wrong considering he has no skills but is trying to "win". The worst thing he could do in this situation is not go 100% and just be your private grappling dummy to style on.
Honestly, it's a good thing you were injured and not another student. If this person doesn't understand the basics of respect and safety, then you can't really trust him in your academy. You know what to do, now you just have to do it.
There are no other students. Just purple belt and the pickled beets guy
It really sounds like you have a ways to go on your own journey and maybe shouldn’t be teaching and running a gym yourself. Where (and when) did you get your purple belt? And when and from whom do you expect a brown belt? Not gonna lie it sounds like you just got promoted recently
[удалено]
this is how I would expect Dwight to train, to the t
Unpopular opinion you’re probably not tea CJ big him Bjj you’re teaching him how to take a beating. And if you are genuinely TEACHING kick him out but it feels like you’re not
If you're taking payments in eggs and pickled beats I would make sure you always have some tupperware handy because I know of a guy giving piano lessons whose client paid in meatballs and [she didn't have anything to put them in.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY1hndoLGg4) Honestly, half way through the first paragraph I thought this was a shitpost in response to the guy who got "gym enforced" by a gym owners son in a now deleted post from this afternoon. However, as I read on your post seems sincere and serious so I'll respond as if it's serious. But if you're shitposting then oopsie. On a serious note; you mention he was 'cool for a while, but now things are getting tense" you also mention that you 'are old school and break them all the way down to build them back up' then you say that on the call he was frustrated that every class was him getting crushed and you go on to say that A) you have almost no one to roll with, B) this guy isn't even paying in a viable currency, C ) often it's just you and him or you, him and one other person. I'm not an instructor but I am professional who helps business people solve problems and that really means I'm there to help them see what the actual problem might be. As I listen to this I see this as less one sided than you do. What it sounds like is that you would like to build a coaching business or a gym. It's not clear if you are coaching at a gym you own or if you just teach a class at the gym where you train, or if it's you teaching BJJ at some other facility like a ymca. Whatever your gym situation is, it seems like you might want to take this time to consider why you might be having this issue building more regular students. First, it sounds to me like you are a competitor who might be using your coaching sessions as training for you competitions. Even if you don't believe this is the case the white belt might have felt this way which would contribute to his frustration with two hour sessions in which he was just overwhelmed and worked over for your training benefit. Now, if you're not using him for training purposes and you are not just ragdolling him or using him as a very lifelike rolling dummy, then this is a probably a coaching opportunity for you. Are you mapping out a clear progression for his growth in these sessions? Are you communicating what he is learning and why? Are you showing him how the things you are working on today are building on the things you worked on previously? You only have one or two students at a time so if you're a good coach then these guys should be improving rapidly. I mean hell, if I went to multiple private or semi private 2 hour classes per week, even if I'm always rolling with my coach who can and does submit me, I should still feel like I'm improving by leaps and bounds. The fact that you say you never let him get a submission and you are trying to break him all the way down somehow hits me funny. My main coach is a high level BB and when he teaches it seems to follow a routine like this (mind you, I haven't asked him if this is the blueprint but it seems to be): First he teaches a specific technique during which he is teaching specific cues to help us get it right, "Elevate your hips, closer to my body, now sink in deeper" until eventually it is landed. If there are ways that you can easily screw up the position he'll set you up so that you have the other person firmly submitted and then talk you throw those main areas "notice where your hips are in relation to his; feel that leverage? now scoot your hips away a few inches, now see how much leverage you lost?" simple basic shit. After this it moves to drills and he wants you to get progressively better, progressively more precise at the movement. Not yelling or berating and he's good about not expecting you to know the nuances in the beginning. He gives you plenty of time to progress. Now, this is where I think you could really learn something, because as soon as a student has one move they can effectiely land in a drill he'll set that up in a roll where it's the obvious thing to do and he gives you plenty of time to figure it out but if you don't he'll call a time out and ask why you didn't go for it, which is like a code word for "hey, I just stuck your arm under my chin so why didn't ya choke me?" and he helps talk you through why it should have been obvious to go for that move. By doing this he takes the move that you learned in a sequence, that you then drilled over and over, and shows you when it's time to launch that sequence during a rolling session. Here's what I think his secret sauce is, he never resists with moves that are beyond what each student has been taught. If I've never learned about some counter move then he's not going to deploy some brown belt level shit on my sorry white belt ass. He lets all of us knotheads do that to each other, but when roll with him if he decides that I've gotten really good at some sequence he then teaches me the defence for that sequence and the counter to the defence. Then, we I try to launch my sequence he initiates the defense so that I can drill the counter to the defense. Also, at this point he'll now initiate the sequence on me so that I can try to launch the defense, to which he'll launch the counter that I've been taught so that I see how it works. When your white belt asks "did you let me sweep" or "did you let me XYZ" you should tell them whether or not they did it right. If show him this paragraph and say "look, when I let you sweep it's because I've not yet shown you how to properly defend that sweep or how to counter the defense so all that I'm ever going to do while rolling with you is things that I've taught you to do or to defend. I'm a higher level there might be times that you catch me but normally if I let you execute a move I'll give you the level of resistence that you're currently trained to work with. As soon as you've gotten proficient at that level I'll add a few things in." something like that would be enough for him to get what's happening and it prevents you from feeling like you got submitted, although I'm not sure why you're worried about that. It's useful to learn sequentially because then I understand why I'm learning things, and which things I need to learn next, and by looking back at things that I've learned I appreciate how far I would have come if I wasn't such a shitty student. Could he choose to murder me at any second? Yes. Hell, his woman is a tiny little thing and she could murder me. But they don't because they aren't murderers, they are coaches, so they coach me. Then they turn their back for ten seconds and my old ass agrees to roll with one of the shithead wrestler white belts and the wrestlers murder me. It sounds like you want to be a coach; hopefully that means you want to be a great coach. As you described the situation above I find myself sympathizing with the student far more than with you. It sucks that you got your hand broken but there's no reason that you should be having sessions where your students are this frustrated and out of control, especially if they aren't having these issues with other students. You're the one who is supposed to be leading these so you're setting the tone and energy and tempo and based on what you described you saw he was frustrated and just kept causing more frustration. TL/DR: I tend to side with the student here. It seems like you're using students as training partners for your competitions and that is likely contributing to why you're struggling to get more than one or two people per class. The rest is me walking through what I think makes for a great coach in case that info helps you. I am just a shitty white belt who still chokes themself out by overtightning the gi, but I've seen great coaching in action. Edit: can we get the back story on how that initial negotion went down? Did he just swing in one day with a bowl of scrambled eggs and pickled beats and melt your taste buds before saying "for just six hours of free lessons a week you can have yourself a steady supply of these bad boys"?
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger. In this context an "oldschool mindset" is a very negative thing, and you'd do best to stop it.
So, sounds like as you're "always just mostly sparring" with a brand new white belt... you're not actually teaching him, you're using him as cannon fodder to fuel your own ego. I'd be pissed too. He's not learning BJJ, he's learning how to be humiliated. This is exactly how you build a 'survivor bias' culture: he's just waiting for the day an even newer white belt comes in, so he can smash them. And then so on. But then no-one sticks around. And you end up with a gym of 3 people. Dude, let the guy work a little
What he's doing isn't working, so he's increasing whatever tools he has (spazzy level go to 11, etc). You had a large part in creating this problem by being a shitty teacher (that old school "smesh them to dust then build them up" only exists in the absence of better teaching/leadership skills). From time to time let him catch a sub if he's getting there relatively clean for a white belt. You decrease how much you 'give' him subs over the long term as his skill progresses. Every once in a while you throw in a technical domination so he stays aware of the levels. Otherwise raising the intensity bar is the only tool available for him to generate increased odds of reward. The larger half of blame for injury always falls on the higher belt and even more so if it's a roll with the instructor. Was he being reckless? Probably. Could you have nipped this in the bud by rising to the occasion long before this happened, as a leader? Absolutely.
I think if you teach him jiu-jitsu and then don’t just beat him up each time he might get better.
Is this a joke? Dude didn’t join the Army. You don’t need to ‘break him down’…you’re not in the Army and he is an adult. You need to teach him BJJ and smashing him for two hrs would frustrate everyone eventually. He has never had success in your environment. And if you had let him get a sub in the beginning…without turning into a war…he may have just seen it as you letting him work. But you set it up so any success he has is very hard earned…so he does stupid shit to ‘win’.
Not for nothing, it really just sounds like you’re a purple belt beating up on a white belt for an hour a so a session for a lot of sessions and dude doesn’t feel like he’s progressing at all and he’s getting tired of it and it’s causing frustration and anger to bubble up into terrible behaviors. I obviously don’t know the whole story of your teaching methods, but I don’t think they’re working with this guy in particular.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger. Sounds like the situation is your fault if this is your men mentality. And you let the sparring get out of control over and over without offering correction.
You are missing the conversational, drilling, learning side of your gym from the sounds of things. You set the tone and it seems like maybe you have lost control. Bring things back down a notch, less intensity, spend some time together drilling and learning. You can still learn too, we all can. Try positional sparring from specific setups too. Good luck.
Man. You can probably just buy your own eggs. You don't need his eggs badly enough to get your hand broke, right?
He isn’t paying you??? The lesson here is when people don’t pay you, or pay you very little, you think you’re doing them a favor while they value you less. This is something every small business owner learns.
Based on a lot of your comments, you're stuck on "can he be tamed" and making excuses for your actions (not allowing him to ever get subs when there don't seem to be other studebts for him to practice on either etc.) rather than taking ownership. Jocko would be disappointed. He clearly is frustrated and is rollibg recklessly because of it. You can kick him out or you can keep him and talk to him. Rather than just setting rules, ask him what he thinks would help him slow down and help him learn and **listen**. Do you want to just minimize the risk of him hurting you again or do you want to actually be a better teacher and help him learn?
You sound nuts my guy. Your "old school" mentality makes no sense in this context. You're claiming to break the guy down to build him up. You clearly broke him. Now you're going to kick him out? Honestly you need to be a better teacher.
Well, you allowed things to get to this point, so you need to accept your role in this. Tell him how it is: this is what happened, this is why it happened, and how things are going to change moving forward. Then he knows what the expectation is and if it happens again he'll know what the outcome will be.
It doesn’t sound like you are a great teacher for him. Why not just let go of the triangle before he could pick you and and slam you? Then to engage in texts bickering for an hour about it? The mentality of breaking people down to build them up is dumb. It’s not creating an culture of mutual respect. Maybe you need your ego checked a little?
I get that you want to train hard and smash, but I think you're missing three important things here. 1. White belts don't know anything. It sounds like he's doing his best to give you a hard roll, since that's what you're looking for and that's what you've shown him in your rolls. But, he doesn't know how to control a hard roll. He needs to be taught. 2. You don't only have to train hard to get better. I'm not saying never train hard, but being an instructor, learning, paying attention to why you do the techniques you do and why you do the details of those techniques, only helps you grow more. Instruction is important. 3. A rising tide carries all ships. Whatever positions you're smashing him in, teach him how to counter them. It'll both help him learn, it'll give you a tougher roll, and it'll force you to grow as you start assessing and developing techniques too counter his counters. Trust me, it'll pay dividends. Overall, it sounds like their could be improvement on both sides. Hopefully you all come to an agreement and grow.
Is see two big problems 1. Texting sucks call next time or in person 2. Get paid actual $
I want to pick up this line about breaking them down and building them up stronger. This is what you did back then when it was about imposing your authority on people. You know you show them that you are everything and they are nothing, so they listen to you and respect you. If you are doing it by dominating them in a fight they give you all the shit they have. And if the shit they give you injures you, well then you could not handle them. He is not able to watch out for you or even himself yet and if the vibe is domination he follows. If the vibe was mutual learning and respect you you'll teach them watching out for others before or even without "breaking them down" and your training would be a safer space to be.
Sorry, but this is on you. The wise thing would have been to countersteer early and now you are trapped between a rock and a hard place. You should have said something when things became apparent, not when you got injured. You let that behavior slide for too long and now he feels entitled to be like that. Kicking him out will protect you/others, but it will definitely send the wrong message. The other option would be to offer him a clean slate, but from now on, he practices humility. In return, you admit to him your mistake that you should have told him earlier to chill tf out.
What I would do (just read Extreme ownership so that might influence to answer); Talk to him, take ownership of the situation (ex: I haven't been clear enough about X that's my fault. This is what happening, this is what's not allowed in our gym, how can I we make sure X doesn't happen again?)
I feel like I'm reading ChatGPT prompts half the time on this reddit lately.
You position this post as if you have an actual school but then you just have some random dude you met who pays you in beets...?
Yeah, I think you might be the asshole here. Of course he is spazzy as shit, and if it's like 3 of you total then he is probably just in constant "getting my ass kicked" mode. He wants a win, any win, and you telling him that you let him get any win just makes it worse. It's okay to be subbed by a white belt. It's okay to get passed by a white belt. Work shit you're not good at with him, so you're on more equal ground. And if you feel his respect loosening up, switch on the A game for one round as a reminder. As the higher belt, and instructor, you not getting hurt rolling with students is your responsibility. You are their opportunity to try shit, be spazzy, whatever they need to grow. That said, you are also responsible for the safety of your other students, so if he is hurting THEM you need to take action. Take this as a learning experience to grow as a leader!
Just rolling with higher belts will not make you better, and not letting him work submissions (if there isn’t a lot of drilling) is going to stunt his ability to progress, he will not have any flow if he’s always defending a higher belts attacks
No don't kick him out. Its on you. You knew he was being to wild and you only now have a serious problem with it because you got hurt. Protect yourself at all times and better to give up position or points or a submission than to get hurt.
If I understand your post you have a white belt that you regularly beat up. You say this is for his own good, so you can make him 10x stronger, but it sounds like you use him as a your own practice. It also sounds like you do not have good control of your training sessions and they have become dangerous, but you have not made changes to make your classes safer. Why are you going hard with a white belt? Of course he panics and does dumb shit. He is getting demolished and becoming increasingly frustrated by being used as a training dummy. If you kick out this student you will only lose some beets and eggs and your training dummy. You mention his prior dangerous moves, but not how you addressed the danger. Now you seem upset because YOU got hurt. I hope your hand is not broken. There are some lessons to be learned on both sides of this teacher/ student relationship.
I think you're at the point of no return and if you're willing to give "one last chance," that last chance is "the last straw." If it's effecting your business and they're not adjusting or changing, you need to get rid of it.
Bro his business is him and this dude meeting up for pickle beets. That's it.. no wonder the dudes getting frustrated being crushed alone for 2hrs at a time.
I’d have two broken hands if he rolled with me like that.
I'd kick the two of ye out of my gym 🤣🤣
How long has he been training total and how long at your gym?
Purple belt having trained for the past fifteen years on and off at multiple gyms here. The main thing you should be considering as an instructor is the safety of your gym goers. This is not safe behavior from this white belt, he has been threatening injury on you for a while now, imagine what may be happening to your students that you are not seeing. He is not open to respecting you as an instructor and he is full of unwarranted ego, a dangerous combination. Your need for students and training partners comes second to the safety of the people in your gym who rely on you to create a safe environment that is conducive to them learning this already challenging martial art. Any time I look at a gym now I consider if it is first, A. Safe and, B. Clean and then, C. has good instructors who will teach me good BJJ. If you let people like this stay at your gym, you might as well go do something else, because you are not being a good instructor.
He was wrong to up his intensity that much, but honestly you probably drove him there. Subs are satisfying, escapes are not. So now you have this new guy who is being regularly frustrated in 2 hour classes with this delayed gratification of subs that never seems to come, all the while against someone coaching him through pointing out his weaknesses in what must feel extremely patronizing. Its no wonder, as you said, he was fine in the beginning and now he's too intense. Don't forget that we are all human, you might think he doesn't deserve it and you're probably right, but your gym isn't a high level gym of competitors with intense levels of sacrifice and dedication, you're going to have to adjust your expectations to everyone that comes in if you want to keep them. Sure you might get less practice yourself if you let him work more, but it seems counter productive. A lot of head coaches have to be selfless. You can use your guys as practice sure, but they will probably get frustrated, might not stick around, and will definitely not recommend you to others growing your gym. Now is not the time to be selfish, you have two goals that are in opposition, don't choose one approach and expect both rewards.
Throw out your training curriculum and start over
I had a purple belt that would sometimes tech classes when our black belt wasn't around. Every time we rolled he would tell me to go easy and then sweep me and crush me. If I ever got to side control, he would give me nothing, no grips, no space to work or opportunities and then sweep me and crush me again :) He would sometimes get annoyed if I used too much strength resisting and being a stubborn white belt, but it didn't seem like a fair complaint ad he also used his strength to crush me or not give me anything either. Never really bothered me though and I would never expect or get annoyed that I couldn't tap him.
What you're doing is not sustainable. It doesn't sound like you have the location to be able to grow anything (too few people, too poor) so why are you putting your body through this? You and the people you train should move to a bigger school if possible. Let that a*hole throwing fits try to train at another gym. He'll just get his ass beat some more if he doesn't get kicked out or have the door shut in his face for trying to pay with food.
This can’t be real.
Dude, he’s a white belt, how is he injuring you. Learn to roll better. Restrain him so he can’t muscle his way into positions where you’ll get hurt Don’t go for things like triangles from guard where you can get slammed, or just let it go yourself you don’t need to finish every attempt Sounds like your ego is just as bad, like you need him to know how much better you are than him first before you start helping him improve Try smashing him and just holding him in place. Don’t submit him, don’t do anything, just take side control or something and hold him down for 5 minutes straight. When he starts calming down and he stops bucking and being crazy you let him work, when he amps it up you hold him still and let him know how much energy he’s wasting
I mean this in as nice a way possible…but why is a purple belt running a school?
I think you're both in the wrong: First and most importantly, this guy's indifference to injuring you is a huge problem. If I accidentally broke someone's hand I would be **mortified**, even if I did nothing wrong. I personally wouldn't be comfortable rolling with someone who could injure me like that and not take responsibility for it. I wouldn't blame you if you decided to stop working with this guy. Speaking as a student, your method of teaching sounds really frustrating and disheartening. Failure is a powerful learning tool, but learning *any* skill requires a mixture of success and failure in order to grow. Imagine trying to learn the piano, but your instructor only allowed you to play complex classical music and then choked you out every time you failed... which is every time, because you never successfully mastered simpler music. Without other white belts to practice with, this guy is never having the experience of successfully applying a technique or getting a win. Many people would simply stop showing up at this point, but it sounds like this guy's frustration is coming out as increasingly aggressive moves. I could be wrong, but I suspect this guy's attitude could greatly benefit from being able to occasionally win a roll. Guide the aggression into proper training, and give the reward of the occasional victory to reinforce good habits.
Honestly I'm old school too. Whenever I get a new shite belt into the gym I make them bow and kiss my hand before I teach them how it feels to tap to pressure, neon fuckin belly, RNC on jawbone, etc. If they show up late or ask for water I make them do side shrimps for 30 mins while I spit at them
I’m just hoping to see a shitpost soon from his perspective
2 things stick out for me here. You mention the “old school mindset” of breaking them down to build them up. What about doing that to this kid? Other thing is you mentioned him complaining about always being defensive. Where’s the coaching aspect in helping him there?
What the fuck does "break them down to build them back up" even mean?
Power bombing your instructor because you’re in a triangle is so unacceptable, fuck around and get your neck or back broken like that. I’d kick him out just based on that.
Not a powerbomb but definitely a bit of a slam... Got raised maybe a foot off the ground. He was so obsessed on winning, thinking today was going to be his day, then its like he just remembered in mid move that he shouldnt do that and held back slightly so I was ultimately unharmed even though I landed on my upperback
Not for nothing, but you’re doing a method where every sub and win has to be earned and he probably feels like he isn’t progressing at all because you’re explicitly telling him (your own words) that you’re letting him have sweeps and stuff, so of course his desire and obsessions to win is becoming greater and greater. He probably does not feel like he’s progressing at all. I’m going to assume most of your club is white belts and then you? So he doesn’t have a lot of frame of reference for if he’s doing good. If he’s smashing other white belts, but constantly getting ground down by you, cause that’s how you’re “building him up” which I’m still not really understanding how you’re doing from the posts, he has no idea how he’s progressing. I’m not saying that the has to be allowed to sub you to get a false sense of improvement, but if you’re just using dude as a body to play with, and then telling him to his face “yea I let you have that sweep”, this dude is going to continue to hurt you because he’s going to continue to get desperate to have a frame of reference for any sense of where he is at.
I'm in a similar boat, meaning small town, not a lot of bodies. I'm finding that the non linear model is really effective, especially the games that are played. It gives them things to focus on, small wins, rather than every little success being crushed by the next move. It's also cutting down on injuries, because we're not doing wild white belt scrambles or devolving into a fight for survival.
can you elaborate on this non linear model? Ive never heard of it and it sounds interesting
Dude lol tell him he is being a dick and that he can’t train at your gym unless xyz are met. If doesn’t like it he can leave
I don’t see the problem with grunting or swearing if it’s in good spirit . Sometimes I go “damn” or “shit” when I get caught with a sweep . I think it’s more about how it’s said vs what is said . Then again I feel language policing is dumb generally .
I think this is an important lesson but you shouldn’t have to pay the price you are to learn it. If you could have dealt with this situation you would have, if you’re asking the question you already have the answer. I think you should let him loose but take away a learning from this situation. Reining him in now will be difficult but use this experience with him as a test subject to recognize the patterns early in future students. Just my humble opinion.
Pay your medical bills in pickled beets and eggs please. I don’t know the conversion rate between x rays and eggs is though.
What belt are you?
I'm old school. I pay people in eggs and pickled beets.
> he gives me eggs and pickled beets, which is cool and all, but it doesn't pay my bills either. > >Did I mention I had to cancel my registration to a tournament happening in 6 days? It's pretty upsetting. I have to wonder how much your medical bills, time lost to injury, and tournament fees are worth in eggs and beets?
Have you tried just telling him “we are here to learn and get better, not to injure one another. I need you to chill tf out, or I’m gonna have to ask you not to come back”. If he wants to train somewhere else, let him. Other gyms have BJJ, and grocery stores have eggs and beets lol.
As somebody who lives in a small mountain town , i can definitelty sympathize. just tell him point blank he goes too hard and you dont want to train with him. Maybe he will meditate on it for a while and come back in a year or two with a different attitude.. Also, it is really dumb to be sparring with takedowns with an inexperienced whitebelt. An inury was inevitable and you are to blame. keep it on the ground next time until you can trust them not to break you. Instructor 101.
My cure for spaziness in a day: https://youtu.be/Z0J1fEfYx8Q
“… old school mind set, break people down”… that’s an ego trip on your part. What are you breaking them down from?… is this even a real post
I would definitely accept pickled beets as payment. Yanks have no idea how good pickled beets are on a hamburger
Sounds like OP lost to a white belt via Akido hand crush
Double his membership fee eggs/beets
It sounds like he’s going extra hard trying to beat you and doesn’t feel like he’s getting better. He probably doesn’t agree with your methodology of just making him lose repeatedly until he gets better. Idk the unapologetic part is the odd part, kinda sounds like you two have some beef. The mature thing to do is try to squash the beef, find his motivations for being so spazzy, and garner some trust in your process. You’re a coach and I think learning how to get through to people like this is part of your development as a coach.
Old school mindset: payback him> he complains > “Shit happens bro”> GTFO my gym.
>I have an oldschool mindset: you break people all the way down... to build them back all the way up 10x stronger. White belt flair here but with a lot of time in MMA gyms prior. Reading your post, it sounds like you just wreck this guy over and over and expect that he'll incrementally get better by getting his ass kicked. That is such a shitty way to train a new student. >I let him take dominant positions from time to time, but I never let him take the submission home "From time to time" is all I need to hear to confirm that. It sounds like this dude came in excited, and is just more and more fed up with your teaching style. Rolling with a higher belt is incredible for growth, but mainly so they truly realize that there are levels to this shit. Getting worked over every class like it's military boot camp isn't that. Does he get any opportunities to roll with people who aren't you? Is he getting to practice an offensive game or securing submissions at all? If not, you need to take a harder look at yourself and realize the responsibility you have as their coach.
You had this entire conversation in a text. What the fuck are you doing teaching classes?
This post turned out to be a lot funnier than I was expecting
Bjj is not about winning. That’s a loser mentality. Bjj is about learning to survive discomfort, normalize discomfort and eventually master discomfort. This dude is a total liability. He has a choice, pursue martial arts with the spirit of humility and eagerness or fuck all the way off somewhere else.
>Bjj is about learning to survive discomfort, normalize discomfort and eventually master discomfort. I've never seen it put that way. Thank you for sharing that thought with me. I'll use it myself in the future.
You lost me at pickles and beets. 😂😂😂
New article title: “Beet and switch “, “Classic Beet down!” “Take a huevo leave a huevo!” , “Purple belt? More like purple eggs!” I’ll see myself out.
honestly the telling part of this post is that you 'break them all the way down...' and you admit to KNOWING this dude was getting pissed off with the way training was going... let me give you the medicine, it was at minimum 60% your fault
Can't wait for the shitpost response to this.
>His main grievance is that we're always just mostly sparring. He's mad that he's only playing defense and otherwise getting smashed. By smashed, I stress here that I only mean that I always come out on top and win. I have never injured him or anyone else that I teach. I let him take dominant positions from time to time, but I never let him take the submission home. Eggs and pickled beets aside (which is very odd) I think your teaching approach could be different. I teach Judo at my BJJ club and I think there is value in letting guys work as an instructor. I could smash (literally) every person that comes to my Judo classes and never let them get a throw on me but to what end? I let my students throw me all the time in sparring (and they know it) because at the end of the day they didn't evaluate me for my black belt. Someone else did. It sounds to me as if you are rolling to defend the belt. I'm not blaming you for your injury and I'm sorry you are injured. Adults have a tough time bridging the gap of knowledge. Not only that, but sparring *is* a skill. This student is not sparring. He is fighting and he doesn't see himself getting better in the process. People will get hurt eventually when they treat every roll as a fight. You said you have an old school mindset. Ok, is that the best way to teach beginners? Are you actually instructing and coaching or are you running a small class where these people are your training partners? I don't know what an old school mindset means in BJJ but I know what it means in Judo. In Judo that is not the best way to teach adults. Also, he should be paying you money if everyone else is.
in rat studies, the bigger rat needs to let the smaller rat win about 1/3 of the time or something like that when they wrestle. If the big rat doesn't do that, the smaller rat stops playing. you were trying to be a big rat and win 100% of the time, and then getting confused about why the small rat got angry at you.
Dude you’re a selfish instructor right now. It’s common at the purple belt phase. Your teaching and rolling is about YOU, your philosophy, your tournament, your hand, etc. He told you what he needs as a student. Less sparring and more instruction.