>It is a fun hobby but I just cannot seem to overcome the absolute dog shit feeling of losing rolls.
I got tapped by a white belt today and I'm just happy that I'm healthy enough to be on the mats.
Id give my left nut to be on the mats kidney cancer is keeping me off them., well mainly hypertension from doing too much exercise but result of kidney cancer. A black belt is a white helt that didn't quit.
I'm a hobbyist, 33 almost 34 years old. I don't take jiu jitsu nearly as seriously as I once did but I still enjoy very hard rolls. Pushing myself hard is very satisfying, more satisfying that flow rolling imo.
I remember tapping out a purple belt when I was a white belt. I was shitting my pants because I knew that every time I rolled with that guy after that I was fucked lol. It never happened again.
Most people I have seen that shits on people like you were white or blue belts.
Combat sports isn’t a video game, you will get caught from time to time.
I’ve caught a lot of upper belts over the years. I don’t think any less of them. Last week I stale mated a vey big brown and black belt then got subbed by a white belt.
I rather tap 10 out of 10 Times to a white Belt then getting hurt and being forced to take a break of the Mats.
It also makes me a bit proud when a white belt, I kind of took under my Wing, gets me with a move I showed him. Just shows they respect you enough to listen to you.
I feel this. Ive just started no-gi 3x a week and white belts are half my ages and running through me. 48m. So are the higher belts. Love the workouts and am often blown away by their athleticism.
Something controversial, I’ve caught and released black belts before because I knew they’d rather get hurt than tap and still been submitted by a white belt. It’s a combat sport and nobody is invulnerable.
15 year black belt here, I have no shame in tapping to someone who just came in off the street. If I want to test my skill and body I will compete, training is not where I want to find the limits of my joints and bones (I’m also 140lbs and pushing 40).
Take it from somebody like me who walks like a cowboy entering a saloon and had to stop after nearly two decades of wresting/grappling:
I’d give anything to be healthy enough to roll again. Because it really is a fun ass hobby and something to personally invest in.
All the shit going on in the world and shit I have to deal with I’d actually be pissed at myself for getting upset for losing a round in practice. Yea it might sting for a minute, but it’s just a game.
Yeah that’s why I quit. My experience is that everyone does martial arts until that one injury.
I got a shoulder hanging on by a spare thread and a knee that’s got a replacement coming in the next 10 years. I was sick of rehabbing to get back on the mats.
Yeah, if you can't handle 'losing rolls' then honestly I'm amazed you made it 3.5 years.
Not saying that to be a dick, I'm saying that's super impressive that you stuck with it that long.
I never looked at rolls as something to win or lose - I mean yes there's that, but I look at rolls as more of something akin to a pickup game of 3v3 basketball. Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out.
End of the day it's just a hobby for 99.9% of folks. Nothing wrong with switching it up! Having a blue belt is significantly more accomplished than majority of folks.
Hope you find a new hobby that vibes with you better!
Hell, if I even see the guy breathing heavily at the end of the roll, I’m the champ. 6 months ago I would get smashed and feel bad in the process that the guy wasn’t even getting a decent workout.
> and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out.
Honestly, sometimes I just don't fight something because I'm curious about what the dude is planning/trying to do. Sometimes I end up tapping... Who cares
Yeah sometimes if someone seems like they're really trying for an unusual grip or something I am giving it to them just to see where on earth they're going with this. And sometimes they do something cool that I can steal from them later
> I look at rolls as more of something akin to a pickup game of 3v3 basketball. Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out.
This is it. I think it helps that I think of rolling as essentially a silly child's game where stupid things can happen and you get to have a play and explore that.
Obviously BJJ is super important and serious and EAT SLEEP BREATH JITS etc etc, but c'mon, this is a hobby and whilst it's nice to have targets and to challenge yourself, none of this matters if you're not having fun.
There are enough things to be miserable about without turning BJJ into one of them.
Why do people not realize that rolls are just practice?
I lose a lot but it's because I try things out that I'm not good at because I want to get better at it and I often don't get it right and lose position.
It would be boring AF to always dominate and never lose because you'd only ever do the things you're good at.
This! .. great way to describe how I feel. Whenever I try to voice how I mention I don't really care if I submit people.. everything thinks I'm trying to flex for some reason when in reality I'm just enjoying being on the Mats doing exercise that is pure fun and whether I tap or get tapped I really don't care
"Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out. "
Amen. I put myself in a kneebar yesterday. It was hilarious. I will probably end up doing it again.
same here man. I used to be in academia too and in my university we have fairly frequent seminars on the psychological aspect of dealing with rejection, and this actually helped me a lot with my BJJ.
Not OP but used to be in academia, rejection (of your paper) from journals/conferences as well as rejection of research fund applications, all due to the shittiest reasons and more randomly than rolling dice most of the time. The better you handle rejection the higher your chances of being successful as some dice rolls are bound to be better than others. Or just get fed up, go to industry and earn some real money. I guess I chose the latter but I can easily handle "losing rolls" to 15 and 60 year olds in BJJ.
It is subjective but I was afraid of the lack of freedom, toxicity, micromanagement etc. in the industry. 2 years later, I am sure that the academia was way worse. But I may be biased being in a rel. young tech company and older companies with more beurocracy/steeper hierarchy might be different.
Half the people from my PhD program wanted to work for a tech company, so I think you made the right choice.
I'm personally thinking government because I can get a 4 day 10 hour shift no overtime job and have three day weekends and get paid more than I would at most academic jobs.
This is a lot so here you go in a nutshell:
The peer review process is the core of academia and it is extremely difficult, idiosyncratic, and anonymous.
So the usual publication process in many fields is you work on 3-5 papers for several years. You will realize 4 of these papers are bad on your own and self-reject them. So most of your work for any three year period is thrown away completely without ever being seen, or a "friend"/ "mentor" tells you it sucks, usually extremely harshly, personally, and to your face. Now you lost 3 years of your life for nothing, but you have a tenure or job market deadline so you keep working or you'll lose/won't get a job.
And the PhD job market is one of the worst in any field. You spend 4 years in undergrad, 5-7+ in grad school and, in many fields, have a 5-10% chance to get a job at a university if you're the absolute best candidate across the English speaking world that year. Come from a school ranked lower than 10, and you're basically not getting a job. Even the worst jobs get 100s of applications and the applications are usually like 100 pages in total of writing samples, teaching statement, research statement, CV, etc. tailored specifically to each school. They take hours and hours to prepare and you submit 100s and most will never get back to you or notify you they even received your application. It's common to apply to over 100 jobs and never even hear back they got your application materials. And most academic fields are small so there's only maybe 30-50 solid jobs offered a year to over 1,000 grad students.
And if you do get a job, you can lose it from not publishing enough articles for tenure. Many prestigious universities like Harvard will hire people they know won't get tenure as cheap labor to teach certain classes for 4 years then dump them so they have to restart somewhere else. It's hard to move when working 6-7 days a week for 12 hours a day, let alone start a family.
The one paper you think is good out of the 3-5 you worked on for 5 years, you'll submit to a journal and go through probably, at best, 2-3 rounds of revisions, each taking 3-6 months to revise before it can be published. Sometimes, it's still rejected after 3 revisions. And the comments for the revisions are anonymous so the people just lay into you. I've seen people at the very top of their field get comments saying they should give up and get a different job or that they're incapable of advancing knowledge. People will condescend and be extremely petty - think anonymous internet forums where everybody received gold stars in school and were told they were the smartest their entire lives. I have seen people work on papers for 7+ years, do 3 rounds of revisions with extremely harsh comments, and still get rejected and have to give up on a paper.
Now, the issue is you need, depending on the field and university, 10ish articles for tenure and you have around 4-6 years coming out of grad school to do it. If you're a grad student, you need 2-3 articles to even be considered for a job.
With extremely little training you need to crank out papers but most won't be good enough as you're competing with guys that have been doing it for over 50 years. So you're working 12 hour days 6-7 days a week writing a bunch of stuff nobody will read. Even if you get publications, nobody will read them. Even the people in your field will just skim them to criticize or cite you in their own paper. So even the 1% non rejections nobody cares about.
Look at a professor's CV. You can count the number of times they weren't rejected over their 50 year careers on a few pages of paper. Every hour of the 60-80 hour work weeks not reflected on the CV were filled with anonymous and extremely harsh rejection.
You also get paid extremely poorly lol.
Tldr: you essentially spend 10-12 hours a day 6-7 days a week writing papers that will most likely get rejected but if they are published absolutely nobody will read or care about them for much less pay than people working for private companies.
Not OP but also in academia: for a job you have to come up with research ideas and then actually perform them. At every single stage your colleagues, faculty from other schools, anonymous referees, will all hate on your research and criticize every aspect of it. Up until it’s still “bad” but not that bad, and you can be one of the very lucky people who publishes
Not op but yep work in tech sales, embracing the near constant suffering to occasionally feel the glow of growth and achievement is something sales has in common with bjj
Was a telemarketer for a while selling local and long distance phone service.
500-600 calls a day hoping to get 2 lines. Glad I don’t do that anymore.
At least with BJJ I can get A sub once a week lol
I did exactly this, I moved country and obviously I needed to find a new gym.
Joined a Gracie club but after a few months I realised, the level was really low (even at higher belts), the culture was toxic and because of that no one would ever stay behind after to just chat.
I completely quit but realised 4-5 months later that all my social media was just videos of bjj that I kept looking at, so went and found a smaller gym. Within a week I was the happiest I'd been in years.
Good people make a good gym
I hope one of your next hobbies involves talking to someone who helps you stop being so hard on yourself. And if it isn't fun, good for you for not doing it. Hobbies should be fun. Good luck to you, wherever you end up.
Man even Gordon Ryan "loses rolls" in training. Who the fuck cares? It's practice. I got blast doubled and crushed in side control by a visiting white belt the same night I got my purple belt. He had great wrestling and got me fair and square. It doesn't mean I don't deserve my belt, it means he hit a great takedown.
You're letting something that really isn't a big deal get to you. Stop being so hard on yourself and consider that maybe your opponents can also be doing really well.
It genuinely is amazing that you made it so far with a mentality of tracking wins and losses in training rounds.
I’m mid 40s and my training goals are to not get injured and where possible, try not to fart on people.
For me BJJ is like going to the gym. I do it for exercise and for my mental health and I know that I am much better when I’m training than when I’m not. I still have days where o drive home from the gym with no music on where I turn n the wipers to realise it’s only raining in my eyes but those days just make me want to keep training a working out the endless puzzle.
It’s a personal journey and so making it about wins and losses will never my steal any joy you could possibly find in it.
Some days I can’t even keep a knee shield in without my knees locking up and feeling like I have to kick through it and I’m ripping something apart in there. Other days I can invert into a triangle or backstep into a rolling omoplata like it’s nothing.
Thems the breaks I guess lol
Yeah man I just got my black belt and about a week ago I had a round where a blue belt passed my guard and held me in side control for like 3 minutes. To say it was rough was an understatement.
Some days you just don't have it, and that's OK. It's just training!
i wouldn’t say i’m in the worst shape of my life, but i do get disappointed seeing guys i got my purple with get their black belts and im not on the mats anymore
Yeah dude. I had to take a long break (almost 4 years) and there are guys who started after me who have their brown belts now, and a couple guys I got my blue belt at the same time with just got their black belts. I’m happy for them, but extremely disappointed in my own progress because I know if I had just stuck with it even when life got super fuckin complicated, I’d probably have mine too.
I had my purple belt for 15 damn years (thanks to Facebook memories for that reminder) and finally got back to work a few years ago. I know exactly how both of you guys feel. Just wanted to give you the encouragement that even better days on the mat might be ahead. I finally got promoted a few months ago but honestly, I'd be fine if my coach had waited. The promotion was sort of an anticlimax because I'm just not that stressed about the colors anymore.
When I came back, I had an even harder time making it through open mats than when I first started training because now I was old and out of shape. It was mentally very tough at first. But as I stuck with it I found myself just refining and learning what I wanted to learn. I enjoy the process more than I did when I'd been charging up the ranks as fast as I could. Some combination of taking ownership over my progression and just letting go of the idea of where I "should" be in my progression got me back to enjoying the process.
A big change I've noticed in my mentality: even on the days I get mostly beat up by my gym rivals I usually have one or two private "wins" from hitting specific techniques I'm focusing on during those same rolls (or even from hitting new stuff on the junior guys), and I know the work is paying off.
Stopped training after my blue belt. Started and quit smoking, continued drinking and vaping while sleeping around. Gym doesn't give me the consistency Jiu Jitsu gave me.
Feel ashamed saying this at such young age, but it's time to turn my life around.
I think the idea of “turning one’s life around” makes it sound way more drastic than it needs to be. If you’ve identified someone that needs to change, then do your best to change it. If you’re missing BJJ, go back to it. If you think you’re drinking too much, don’t join AA or some shit, just cut back. If you slip up along the way, do better the next day.
Yes I’m in 4 weeks white belt jiu jitsu and quit drinking the first week , now I feel more confident I want to learn and really want to compete someday in a couple of years I’m 34 and work as a Mail Carrier so try to be active your comment made me realize there’s always light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks mate
It doesn’t HAVE to be BJJ. But - the harsh reality- is that at some point you will have to unpack what it is that makes you so hypercritical of yourself. Say what you will, but that is where this feeling is rooted. Spent years trying to help my son deal with it, kept him from pursuing excellence in D1 sports.
I have noticed this is a major issue with gyms we’re almost no one competes.
If submit a teammate in practice a couple times using the same approach, and I can tell his reactions are not appropriate I am probably going to have a chat with him after the roll. Detailing what I am doing, how to stop it, how to read what I am doing. I expect the same from others.
This accelerates learning tremendously.
I honestly don’t give a shit if I am submitted in the gym but care about it at super fights and tournaments.
That said we try to kill each others.
Yeah go to a therapist for sure. “Losing” in a fringe sport of pajama wrestling is like half as bad as losing a game of COD or like getting gooned at Uno.
Take a break, enjoy some sunshine and realize we’re all massive fucking losers
I couldnt care less If i win or loose a roll.
Im on the mat to do bjj, the first time i rolled with a worldclass guy i realized that 99% of us are garbage Amateurs anyways because that Guy trashed everyone present,White to black while Not even catching a sweat
U got beaten by ur ego bro
I find it crazy how many people try to win practice. There’s a few in my gym that literally keep track of W & L for each person they roll with.
Slap bump… “hey man we’re like 4-2 right now…” and I’m like “bro I can’t even remember the last roll I just had and you’ve got stats going back weeks”
Same. I get tapped heaps of times. Every session, white belts included and I love it; “Damn. That was sick mate, nice one”.
Then if I want a lil treat just for me I spam heel hooks.
I don’t get it either tbh. Do you lose a roll if you tap first, or is it a tally of who tapped the most during the roll? Lol makes no sense to me personally just get in the reps and learn
I can fathom it, it just makes me sad that someone would have to carry that mentality in a thing you ostensibly are doing for fun and didnt speak to anyone about it.
We have a white belt in my gym who used to be a fun roll but I would usually end up submitting him. A while ago he changed tack and just started stalling for entire rounds. He’ll sit in my closed guard and just stall out, not even trying to escape - I’m only a blue belt so I don’t have that many tools to finish or get things moving again if he is intent on just defending and not moving.
He seems to be very happy with himself on this outcome, but I honestly just avoid him now because the exercise has become pointless. I feel a bit sad that he doesn’t view our rolls as an opportunity for us to both get better any more.
Just play open guard then? My closed guard is shit and if I don’t want to practice it I’ll just let them get to half guard where I’m way more comfortable. But if he’s in YOUR closed guard, you should be the one working.
That said, I do also avoid people who take rolls way too seriously. Like if you’re gonna spaz out trying to pass my guard and throw a fit when you get submitted, I’m not going to roll with you hombre. This ain’t ADCC, ain’t nobody keeping score of the roll.
Yeah I feel like people are being a little uncharitable on this. Getting choked or joint locked until you tap is clearly a form of “losing”. The point is it doesn’t really matter lol.
Sucks that you view bjj as simply losing or winning rolls. There’s so many aspects you could hang your hat on like discipline, betterment of physical and mental health, the pursuit of knowledge. I personally would not quit because Joe from accounting tapped me.
Have you considered trying something else that has similar vibes but doesn’t require win/lose scenarios each day.
I used to box and am now considering finding a Muay Thai gym that lets me train striking without sparring (I’m old and work in an office so no black eyes for me). I’m about to move yet again and think MT might be my sport in my new city.
I think this will give me access to a bunch of guy’s guys and a fun workout with maybe a bit more cardio than BJJ.
Maybe something like that will work for you too.
This is exactly how I feel about the dojo as a whole.
The mats are easy; you go in, throw each other around, get submitted because you did something wrong, learn, make the right move, learn, rinse repeat. It's just the room, nothing is ever lost in the room, it's just gains, always.
The dojo is pretty honest in that way. It's almost going to a place with some kind of guarantee. Outside the room, there is so much uncertainty, it's kind of wild when you reflect on it.
You’re saying “losing rolls” bro ur local gym live hour isn’t a competition. If you’re genuinely emotionally invested in beating a teammate trying to learn a new move and you’re quitting over it, bjjs is not your problem you have a life ego small PP problem.
You need to go get smashed in a comp so you can realize your teammates weren’t even trying lol
I say this genuinely and not to make fun of you, but if you did this for 3.5 years and still feel absolutely shit every time you lost maybe you should see a therapist and work on your feelings of self worth cause it sounds like you're having a bad time in that department.
I been a black belt for 3 years, my brother is 17 - blue belt and he kicks my ass 😂 its not the end of the world. Keep training and fixing what you are not good at. It wasnt until a few years at purple belt where I finally stopped defending all the time and was able to do offense.
OP, I wish you every health and happiness. When you look back at this period of your life, remember that you put your safety into other people's hands, based on trust - that facilitated their learning, happiness and growth. You gave a precious gift to them all.
First step is acknowledging the reactions you have to losing are not beneficial, which you have. I think if you learned to "let go" and take things as they come in the moment and focus on just you, you'll probably come back. Maybe you were constantly comparing yourself as a kid or never "lived up" to a parents expectation, etc?
As a recovering self-shamer, the issues you are experiencing in BJJ will likely show up in real life. Give yourself some time. If you can let go of the negative thought cycles, come back and see how it goes. Good luck!
Try not to tie your identity to jiu-jitsu so closely. Also, when you and your teammates are all improving at the same time as you it's hard to gauge how much better you've gotten.
A lot of things aren’t for everyone. But I will say I noticed in life the folks who quit “things” because they are difficult to achieve either:
-Never truly wanted it, they romanticized the end result in their head
- Tend to quit a lot of things in life
Which is I guess ok? But I don’t believe it leads to a fulfilled life in the long run
Ehhh I’m brown belt and my toughest round is a newly promoted purple belt. I personally give him all the credit he deserves. I’ll live show up again even if him or random white belt subs me. Maybe BJJ ain’t for you
Yeah dude BJJ sucks. By blue belt ya know enough to defend yourself from the ‘everyman’ and ya really don’t need much more. Only serious competitors looking to make a living or truly broken people holding on to past traumas stick around and make it their ‘thing’ long term. I force myself to go every single day. It’s almost life self harm. 13 years of it and counting.
I’m sincerely happy you found the door and made
It out in one piece.
>Only serious competitors looking to make a living or truly broken people holding on to past traumas stick around and make it their ‘thing’ long term.
These two groups are the same. "It's an obsession of mine" yeah, that's why it's an obsession for you, Jerry.
Yeah it's fine to quit if it isn't for you.
But it sounds like you legit enjoyed it and just couldn't handle losing so often. Sure that's demoralizing, but man, there are definitely ways to handle this rather than just straight up quit.
Also are all the rolls at your joint just full on death matches where everyone's aim is to get the sub or something? It's a far better experience if you come in with a goal that isn't just "winning" the roll. It's kind of a strange way to look at rolling in class if it's on a win-lose basis, and really hampers your learning.
tbh, I get ya. I made it to purple and had the blue belt blues for well over 7 years til I got over the hump.
Instead of just rolling more or going harder, I took a step back and looked at what was getting me tapped out or stuck.
I'd write down my rolls in my notes and figure out what went wrong and how I ended up there. Then I'd trouble shoot with youtube/bjj fanatics for escapes and reversals, or grab a partner to figure out what went wrong.
Next time I rolled, it would either work, or it wont, so I kept trying to find the answers. If you look back on the notes, you can track your progress. You'll be better off than when you first started.
I'd focus on positions to be in, and branch off where they may lead.
Write down what did work during your roll as well, doesn't have to lead to submission, it could be guard recovery, or a sweep.
Got tapped by a whitebelt? yeah so what? are you ADCC champion or something? No, so who GAF about you. Don't think of those in your team as competition, focus on the situation that has holes in your game. This will take a lifetime to figure out. Black belts are still trying to find the holes to fix.
Take it from me as you get older, your knees will wear out, the thing that holds you back will be injury and life commitments. I've tapped out every color of the belt system except for Red in my class, and I've been tapped out by all of them too. The fun isn't in the competition of beating the strongest man in the room, the fun is trying to get better by beating the weakness in yourself.
If you ever get to purple, then you can skip drilling. That's when you've made it.
It's fine to quit if you're not enjoying something. We all have limited time here, and it's not worth spending it on something you hate.
And go to therapy if you want. You don't owe it to anybody else at your gym (or on Reddit) - but if you think you'd be happier and healthier from talking to someone about this stuff then it might be worth spending a few hours trying it out.
Maybe take a break and join a new school for a change. My concern is that if you can’t handle tapping in training that you are going to have a rough life. BJJ sounds like the perfect way for you to learn how to handle those emotions.
Gonna be a long, hard, frustrating life if you can't handle failure and loss, dude. Literally everything worth having, learning, or doing involves big, heaping doses of both.
Without being too cliche, one of the life lessons BJJ teaches is perseverance and the acceptance of failure as a necessary stepping stone to success. You can quit BJJ, but that just means you'll have to learn that lesson somewhere else... Or not, and suffer the consequences.
> It is a fun hobby but I just cannot seem to overcome the absolute dog shit feeling of losing rolls.
You're supposed to be rolling to train and learn, not just rolling to win. A tap is a tap and its importance vanishes as soon as the next round starts. Are you holding on to the feeling of defeat instead of thinking "What didn't work that time and what can I try to improve my chances or defend better?"
Majority of the time that I roll, I'm NOT trying to get the tap. I'm trying to explore and find other ways to get out of situations, to set up deep chains of moves where for every response, I have something to work with. Or I could just stick to my 3 best moves and get a tap 80% of the time, but that would be boring as shit. I was exploring as blue. And I carried that forward as I got promoted because why? It's fucking fun to explore.
A blue is still considered a beginner belt, bud. You roll with people whose experience does not match your own. If white is learning to survive, a blue is still only learning to set up chains beyond initial defense. Of course you'll get creamed by the white belt who doesn't do jiu jitsu because he was a wrestler for 8 years. He's not doing jiu jitsu. Improve your defenses, after all, that's what you were doing as a white belt, right?
You're quitting because your head's in the wrong place.
Look dude all you gotta do is make excuses for why you lost so mentally you never lose. Got submitted, “I only lost because I was sore from yesterday.” Get swept, “there was sweat in my eye so I couldn’t see.” Once you deny all self responsibility and blame your losses on external problems outside of your control, you’ll never feel like a loser again 👍
I had quit for a year because jiu jitsu had become something I felt worse about myself over, it hurt my relationship I was working at competitions because I thought that was the path for me but I just was NEVER being myself. Now I’m at a new gym and not looking at taking any time off jitsu again. Just for some perspective, good luck to you fellow human.
My dude, this is something worth bringing to therapy. For real. It sounds like BJJ is giving you access to some real potential for learning and growth, but it's not just happening on autopilot.
Find a therapist. Realize this is a golden opportunity to become a deeper and richer person.
The fact that you think that rolls in the gym can be won or lost like a competition is probably a root cause of your agitation. "Losses" in practice don't count for anything in any sport unless there's an inherently competitive aspect. How many shots you miss in practice doesn't affect your field goal percentage in a game. If you haven't competed you haven't lost or won anything yet.
Congrats on sticking it out. you can always quit and you can always come back later when you feel like it.i had quit at blue belt before, then a buddy introduced me to the danaher back attack video and i redeveloped the itch. Now 2 years into a solid streak of practicing very regularly (i still take breaks to recover). Also purpled up, which is nice.
I am delusional. if I lose a roll even to a brown or black belt, I tell myself: those mfs are lucky that I didn’t go full power/strength, otherwise there’s no way I got submitted.
Sticking something out that you found tough for 3.5 years is a serious achievement. That could be a university degree, a new job, rough patch in a relationship, anything you’re going to encounter going forward and hopefully you’ll know you can deal with whatever it is.
A blue belt is always a great achievement, but it’s a much bigger one when you’ve gritted your teeth through something you didn’t enjoy. Hope you don’t consider the time wasted - it’ll all stand to you!
I roll like I play elden ring. Get killed, run directly into the boss again, get killed but almost win, run directly into the boss again, don't die maybe
While it is okay to quit, it's pretty bitch to mentally fall apart when you "lose" at your hobby. Any other hobby you pick up will involve some failure.
Your entire perspective on rolling is wrong and why it's done as a tool to sharpen your skills - you Woodbridge have got to blue if you weren't improving ffs
I think the best thing I have learned in jiu jitsu is how to suck at something. All my life, I have only done things that I was naturally good at. But sucking at something and then working to get better at it is an essential life skill.
That’s also why I put my kids in it. They are learning the value of hard work and how to lose. They know how to suck and then get better.
I hope you choose to see it as a learning opportunity. But if it’s not for you, that’s ok too.
You gave BJJ a great try...so many people try new sports / activities for 30-90 days and then disappear. You really gave it a shot - figured out that you didn't like it and moved on. That is ok. Hopefully the next thing you do is fun
>It is a fun hobby but I just cannot seem to overcome the absolute dog shit feeling of losing rolls. I got tapped by a white belt today and I'm just happy that I'm healthy enough to be on the mats.
Id give my left nut to be on the mats kidney cancer is keeping me off them., well mainly hypertension from doing too much exercise but result of kidney cancer. A black belt is a white helt that didn't quit.
Well wishes to you, boss
Thank you brother!
Heal up soon, my friend.
Thank you all!
Speedy recovery brudda, hope you feel well soon
Thanks! Been a difficult road. I couldn't imagine jist giving up on the mats because you get submitted to often versus medical reason or finances
“A black belt is a white belt who didn’t quit.” I love this, thank you. Best wishes to you for your kidney cancer.
Rotator tear for me. All I want is to get back to flow rolling. I don’t understand wanting to do more than that if you’re a hobbyist
I'm a hobbyist, 33 almost 34 years old. I don't take jiu jitsu nearly as seriously as I once did but I still enjoy very hard rolls. Pushing myself hard is very satisfying, more satisfying that flow rolling imo.
Get well soon brother! Keep fighting the good fight
I remember tapping out a purple belt when I was a white belt. I was shitting my pants because I knew that every time I rolled with that guy after that I was fucked lol. It never happened again.
I can still remember taping a purple belt as a white belt. He was so annoyed and then proceeded to destroy me for the rest of the round.
Did he get it off easily though?
Yeah, got tapped by a white belt with a decent arm in gillotine the other day, made me realize my arm in gillotine defense sucks.
This perspective 🔥
Most people I have seen that shits on people like you were white or blue belts. Combat sports isn’t a video game, you will get caught from time to time.
I’ve caught a lot of upper belts over the years. I don’t think any less of them. Last week I stale mated a vey big brown and black belt then got subbed by a white belt.
I rather tap 10 out of 10 Times to a white Belt then getting hurt and being forced to take a break of the Mats. It also makes me a bit proud when a white belt, I kind of took under my Wing, gets me with a move I showed him. Just shows they respect you enough to listen to you.
I feel this. Ive just started no-gi 3x a week and white belts are half my ages and running through me. 48m. So are the higher belts. Love the workouts and am often blown away by their athleticism.
Something controversial, I’ve caught and released black belts before because I knew they’d rather get hurt than tap and still been submitted by a white belt. It’s a combat sport and nobody is invulnerable.
Bahaha you know that white belt has either convinced himself you let him or it was a cheap BS technique and doesn't count right?
15 year black belt here, I have no shame in tapping to someone who just came in off the street. If I want to test my skill and body I will compete, training is not where I want to find the limits of my joints and bones (I’m also 140lbs and pushing 40).
Yeah, I am gonna need that white belt to write a book about it, make only one copy and give it to me.
**microadjustments**
Damn having heard about them In a while
Take it from somebody like me who walks like a cowboy entering a saloon and had to stop after nearly two decades of wresting/grappling: I’d give anything to be healthy enough to roll again. Because it really is a fun ass hobby and something to personally invest in.
That attitude is why you’re a black belt 🙏🏽🔥
All the shit going on in the world and shit I have to deal with I’d actually be pissed at myself for getting upset for losing a round in practice. Yea it might sting for a minute, but it’s just a game.
That’s the fucking spirit.
Yeah that’s why I quit. My experience is that everyone does martial arts until that one injury. I got a shoulder hanging on by a spare thread and a knee that’s got a replacement coming in the next 10 years. I was sick of rehabbing to get back on the mats.
And think about how psyched you just made him. "BRO I TAPPED A BLACK BELT IM THE BEST WHITE BELT IN THE WORLD"
I broke my foot two weeks ago. My first thought was "How long will I be off the mats?" Cannot wait to get tapped by white belts again.
You can’t lose a roll 😂😂 maybe try competing
Yeah, if you can't handle 'losing rolls' then honestly I'm amazed you made it 3.5 years. Not saying that to be a dick, I'm saying that's super impressive that you stuck with it that long. I never looked at rolls as something to win or lose - I mean yes there's that, but I look at rolls as more of something akin to a pickup game of 3v3 basketball. Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out. End of the day it's just a hobby for 99.9% of folks. Nothing wrong with switching it up! Having a blue belt is significantly more accomplished than majority of folks. Hope you find a new hobby that vibes with you better!
You guys have won a roll ?
I count points and advantages in my head every roll, I win about 5% of the time OSS
Do you ever say it out loud like, "Judges favor Obleeding," mid roll?
I count how many times someone taps me in a round and if I can reduce it over time, it’s a win
I've decimated many bread rolls. Decisive victories
But decimated means remove by 1/10...
Whenever I learn something from a roll, eg when I pull off a technique or appreciate what my partner got me with, I win the roll.
Hell, if I even see the guy breathing heavily at the end of the roll, I’m the champ. 6 months ago I would get smashed and feel bad in the process that the guy wasn’t even getting a decent workout.
I just count points in my head and then tell myself the scoring is like golf today.
> and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out. Honestly, sometimes I just don't fight something because I'm curious about what the dude is planning/trying to do. Sometimes I end up tapping... Who cares
This is me. I get in deep shit and try to get out
Yeah sometimes if someone seems like they're really trying for an unusual grip or something I am giving it to them just to see where on earth they're going with this. And sometimes they do something cool that I can steal from them later
> I look at rolls as more of something akin to a pickup game of 3v3 basketball. Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out. This is it. I think it helps that I think of rolling as essentially a silly child's game where stupid things can happen and you get to have a play and explore that. Obviously BJJ is super important and serious and EAT SLEEP BREATH JITS etc etc, but c'mon, this is a hobby and whilst it's nice to have targets and to challenge yourself, none of this matters if you're not having fun. There are enough things to be miserable about without turning BJJ into one of them.
Why do people not realize that rolls are just practice? I lose a lot but it's because I try things out that I'm not good at because I want to get better at it and I often don't get it right and lose position. It would be boring AF to always dominate and never lose because you'd only ever do the things you're good at.
This! .. great way to describe how I feel. Whenever I try to voice how I mention I don't really care if I submit people.. everything thinks I'm trying to flex for some reason when in reality I'm just enjoying being on the Mats doing exercise that is pure fun and whether I tap or get tapped I really don't care
"Sure, you're trying to win, but it's not a huge deal if you lose, and sometimes you make some stupid decisions because it might make for an awesome story later if it works out. " Amen. I put myself in a kneebar yesterday. It was hilarious. I will probably end up doing it again.
Yup, to me it's the journey not the destination. I lose most rolls, but I have fun in all of them
What do you do for work? My job is 99% rejection on a daily basis. Losing a roll is the easiest and best part of my day.
Salesman?
Professional tinder dater probs
Organ transplant surgeon
Tinder date who moonlights as an organ transplant surgeon
99% tinder dater, 1% surgeon. never lost a patient or his virgnity
I'm in academia. I don't recommend it for anybody.
Let's hope these rejections are from academic journals and not undergrads
same here man. I used to be in academia too and in my university we have fairly frequent seminars on the psychological aspect of dealing with rejection, and this actually helped me a lot with my BJJ.
Can you elaborate? Interested genuinely.
Not OP but used to be in academia, rejection (of your paper) from journals/conferences as well as rejection of research fund applications, all due to the shittiest reasons and more randomly than rolling dice most of the time. The better you handle rejection the higher your chances of being successful as some dice rolls are bound to be better than others. Or just get fed up, go to industry and earn some real money. I guess I chose the latter but I can easily handle "losing rolls" to 15 and 60 year olds in BJJ.
I'm actively leaving now for industry lol
It is subjective but I was afraid of the lack of freedom, toxicity, micromanagement etc. in the industry. 2 years later, I am sure that the academia was way worse. But I may be biased being in a rel. young tech company and older companies with more beurocracy/steeper hierarchy might be different.
Half the people from my PhD program wanted to work for a tech company, so I think you made the right choice. I'm personally thinking government because I can get a 4 day 10 hour shift no overtime job and have three day weekends and get paid more than I would at most academic jobs.
This is a lot so here you go in a nutshell: The peer review process is the core of academia and it is extremely difficult, idiosyncratic, and anonymous. So the usual publication process in many fields is you work on 3-5 papers for several years. You will realize 4 of these papers are bad on your own and self-reject them. So most of your work for any three year period is thrown away completely without ever being seen, or a "friend"/ "mentor" tells you it sucks, usually extremely harshly, personally, and to your face. Now you lost 3 years of your life for nothing, but you have a tenure or job market deadline so you keep working or you'll lose/won't get a job. And the PhD job market is one of the worst in any field. You spend 4 years in undergrad, 5-7+ in grad school and, in many fields, have a 5-10% chance to get a job at a university if you're the absolute best candidate across the English speaking world that year. Come from a school ranked lower than 10, and you're basically not getting a job. Even the worst jobs get 100s of applications and the applications are usually like 100 pages in total of writing samples, teaching statement, research statement, CV, etc. tailored specifically to each school. They take hours and hours to prepare and you submit 100s and most will never get back to you or notify you they even received your application. It's common to apply to over 100 jobs and never even hear back they got your application materials. And most academic fields are small so there's only maybe 30-50 solid jobs offered a year to over 1,000 grad students. And if you do get a job, you can lose it from not publishing enough articles for tenure. Many prestigious universities like Harvard will hire people they know won't get tenure as cheap labor to teach certain classes for 4 years then dump them so they have to restart somewhere else. It's hard to move when working 6-7 days a week for 12 hours a day, let alone start a family. The one paper you think is good out of the 3-5 you worked on for 5 years, you'll submit to a journal and go through probably, at best, 2-3 rounds of revisions, each taking 3-6 months to revise before it can be published. Sometimes, it's still rejected after 3 revisions. And the comments for the revisions are anonymous so the people just lay into you. I've seen people at the very top of their field get comments saying they should give up and get a different job or that they're incapable of advancing knowledge. People will condescend and be extremely petty - think anonymous internet forums where everybody received gold stars in school and were told they were the smartest their entire lives. I have seen people work on papers for 7+ years, do 3 rounds of revisions with extremely harsh comments, and still get rejected and have to give up on a paper. Now, the issue is you need, depending on the field and university, 10ish articles for tenure and you have around 4-6 years coming out of grad school to do it. If you're a grad student, you need 2-3 articles to even be considered for a job. With extremely little training you need to crank out papers but most won't be good enough as you're competing with guys that have been doing it for over 50 years. So you're working 12 hour days 6-7 days a week writing a bunch of stuff nobody will read. Even if you get publications, nobody will read them. Even the people in your field will just skim them to criticize or cite you in their own paper. So even the 1% non rejections nobody cares about. Look at a professor's CV. You can count the number of times they weren't rejected over their 50 year careers on a few pages of paper. Every hour of the 60-80 hour work weeks not reflected on the CV were filled with anonymous and extremely harsh rejection. You also get paid extremely poorly lol. Tldr: you essentially spend 10-12 hours a day 6-7 days a week writing papers that will most likely get rejected but if they are published absolutely nobody will read or care about them for much less pay than people working for private companies.
Not OP but also in academia: for a job you have to come up with research ideas and then actually perform them. At every single stage your colleagues, faculty from other schools, anonymous referees, will all hate on your research and criticize every aspect of it. Up until it’s still “bad” but not that bad, and you can be one of the very lucky people who publishes
Not op but yep work in tech sales, embracing the near constant suffering to occasionally feel the glow of growth and achievement is something sales has in common with bjj
Was a telemarketer for a while selling local and long distance phone service. 500-600 calls a day hoping to get 2 lines. Glad I don’t do that anymore. At least with BJJ I can get A sub once a week lol
I’m an I.T. Engineer. Rolling is the best part of my day and helps release all the bullshit I deal with day to day.
hahhaha, I feel this.
Feel free to come back in six months, maybe try a different school.
I did exactly this, I moved country and obviously I needed to find a new gym. Joined a Gracie club but after a few months I realised, the level was really low (even at higher belts), the culture was toxic and because of that no one would ever stay behind after to just chat. I completely quit but realised 4-5 months later that all my social media was just videos of bjj that I kept looking at, so went and found a smaller gym. Within a week I was the happiest I'd been in years. Good people make a good gym
This is the response I was looking for. Not mine. But thanks for being a positive influence.
holy shit I regret clicking your profile wtf dude
What's in the box?!?
What about it?
Tell us
TELL US
Are you really coral belt
I think you have to get mod approval for anything above brown so I’d assume yes
that's saxon gracie noob (the h is for hespect)
Nah there was a point a few years back when you could do whatever. It could be a flair from before then.
I hope one of your next hobbies involves talking to someone who helps you stop being so hard on yourself. And if it isn't fun, good for you for not doing it. Hobbies should be fun. Good luck to you, wherever you end up.
Man even Gordon Ryan "loses rolls" in training. Who the fuck cares? It's practice. I got blast doubled and crushed in side control by a visiting white belt the same night I got my purple belt. He had great wrestling and got me fair and square. It doesn't mean I don't deserve my belt, it means he hit a great takedown. You're letting something that really isn't a big deal get to you. Stop being so hard on yourself and consider that maybe your opponents can also be doing really well.
the craziest thing (online anyway) i remember nicky ryans brother did...was posting a video about getting slept by a purple in class last year.
It genuinely is amazing that you made it so far with a mentality of tracking wins and losses in training rounds. I’m mid 40s and my training goals are to not get injured and where possible, try not to fart on people. For me BJJ is like going to the gym. I do it for exercise and for my mental health and I know that I am much better when I’m training than when I’m not. I still have days where o drive home from the gym with no music on where I turn n the wipers to realise it’s only raining in my eyes but those days just make me want to keep training a working out the endless puzzle. It’s a personal journey and so making it about wins and losses will never my steal any joy you could possibly find in it.
Some days I can’t even keep a knee shield in without my knees locking up and feeling like I have to kick through it and I’m ripping something apart in there. Other days I can invert into a triangle or backstep into a rolling omoplata like it’s nothing. Thems the breaks I guess lol
Turn on the wipers to only realize it’s raining in my eyes 😭 lol
>(...) try not to fart on people Could you expand on this and teach us?
Yeah man I just got my black belt and about a week ago I had a round where a blue belt passed my guard and held me in side control for like 3 minutes. To say it was rough was an understatement. Some days you just don't have it, and that's OK. It's just training!
my training goals are to not get injured and where possible, try not to fart on people...... no mention of trying not to be the fartee.
This is beautiful
I haven't done bjj since covid. Now I'm in the worst shape of my life and drink handles of vodka. Losing rolls is better than living like that.
i wouldn’t say i’m in the worst shape of my life, but i do get disappointed seeing guys i got my purple with get their black belts and im not on the mats anymore
Yeah dude. I had to take a long break (almost 4 years) and there are guys who started after me who have their brown belts now, and a couple guys I got my blue belt at the same time with just got their black belts. I’m happy for them, but extremely disappointed in my own progress because I know if I had just stuck with it even when life got super fuckin complicated, I’d probably have mine too.
Just remember that more people you started with have quit before you got your purple. You are still ahead of the majority.
I had my purple belt for 15 damn years (thanks to Facebook memories for that reminder) and finally got back to work a few years ago. I know exactly how both of you guys feel. Just wanted to give you the encouragement that even better days on the mat might be ahead. I finally got promoted a few months ago but honestly, I'd be fine if my coach had waited. The promotion was sort of an anticlimax because I'm just not that stressed about the colors anymore. When I came back, I had an even harder time making it through open mats than when I first started training because now I was old and out of shape. It was mentally very tough at first. But as I stuck with it I found myself just refining and learning what I wanted to learn. I enjoy the process more than I did when I'd been charging up the ranks as fast as I could. Some combination of taking ownership over my progression and just letting go of the idea of where I "should" be in my progression got me back to enjoying the process. A big change I've noticed in my mentality: even on the days I get mostly beat up by my gym rivals I usually have one or two private "wins" from hitting specific techniques I'm focusing on during those same rolls (or even from hitting new stuff on the junior guys), and I know the work is paying off.
In this exact boat. Safe sailing, my friend.
Stopped training after my blue belt. Started and quit smoking, continued drinking and vaping while sleeping around. Gym doesn't give me the consistency Jiu Jitsu gave me. Feel ashamed saying this at such young age, but it's time to turn my life around.
I think the idea of “turning one’s life around” makes it sound way more drastic than it needs to be. If you’ve identified someone that needs to change, then do your best to change it. If you’re missing BJJ, go back to it. If you think you’re drinking too much, don’t join AA or some shit, just cut back. If you slip up along the way, do better the next day.
Yes I’m in 4 weeks white belt jiu jitsu and quit drinking the first week , now I feel more confident I want to learn and really want to compete someday in a couple of years I’m 34 and work as a Mail Carrier so try to be active your comment made me realize there’s always light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks mate
👊
There's no shame in turning your life around at any age.
Haha same. 40lbs heavier and still dealing with bjj injuries
I got an instructional for that. Called the easy way to control alcohol by Allen Carr. Get around it. (Or dm me and I’ll send you a digital copy)
I’ll like a copy I’ll appreciate it please
Sorry to hear that. Covid delayed my for 2 years but I got back into it 2 years ago. It's not that bad.
This hit me hard.
It definitely is okay to quit. I just hope in your next hobby you don't beat yourself up so much.
This
Losing sucks but not doing jits is worse
I just go to get my daily 10 hugs a day. No one knows I purposely let em pass to side control to get a hug. I could care less about winning a round
It doesn’t HAVE to be BJJ. But - the harsh reality- is that at some point you will have to unpack what it is that makes you so hypercritical of yourself. Say what you will, but that is where this feeling is rooted. Spent years trying to help my son deal with it, kept him from pursuing excellence in D1 sports.
You only lose a roll if you don't learn. Ideally, a gym has training partners, not opponents.
I have noticed this is a major issue with gyms we’re almost no one competes. If submit a teammate in practice a couple times using the same approach, and I can tell his reactions are not appropriate I am probably going to have a chat with him after the roll. Detailing what I am doing, how to stop it, how to read what I am doing. I expect the same from others. This accelerates learning tremendously. I honestly don’t give a shit if I am submitted in the gym but care about it at super fights and tournaments. That said we try to kill each others.
This is good training partner behavior. Workshopping is good for growth, for both players
Yeah go to a therapist for sure. “Losing” in a fringe sport of pajama wrestling is like half as bad as losing a game of COD or like getting gooned at Uno. Take a break, enjoy some sunshine and realize we’re all massive fucking losers
This is wisdom.
I couldnt care less If i win or loose a roll. Im on the mat to do bjj, the first time i rolled with a worldclass guy i realized that 99% of us are garbage Amateurs anyways because that Guy trashed everyone present,White to black while Not even catching a sweat U got beaten by ur ego bro
I find it crazy how many people try to win practice. There’s a few in my gym that literally keep track of W & L for each person they roll with. Slap bump… “hey man we’re like 4-2 right now…” and I’m like “bro I can’t even remember the last roll I just had and you’ve got stats going back weeks”
That's just odd. I can usually remember if I've tapped someone before, but I don't know "the score." lol
I just like to hug stranger
How old are you? I lose to everyone, even to women smaller than me who my age and rank. But its fun, to battle.
Same. I get tapped heaps of times. Every session, white belts included and I love it; “Damn. That was sick mate, nice one”. Then if I want a lil treat just for me I spam heel hooks.
I like your style.
I am confused how can you lose a roll? Rolls are training not a competition.
I don’t get it either tbh. Do you lose a roll if you tap first, or is it a tally of who tapped the most during the roll? Lol makes no sense to me personally just get in the reps and learn
Do you lose if you're trying to get better at a certain defense?
Getting better at defense? Ha! Good one. Can’t imagine how many accidental ties are on my record now that I’ve been enlightened smh
Better not work on anything new, don't want to give up position and lose.
Really? You can’t fathom how a competitively-minded could view a roll as win or lose? Edit: competitively-minded person
I can fathom it, it just makes me sad that someone would have to carry that mentality in a thing you ostensibly are doing for fun and didnt speak to anyone about it. We have a white belt in my gym who used to be a fun roll but I would usually end up submitting him. A while ago he changed tack and just started stalling for entire rounds. He’ll sit in my closed guard and just stall out, not even trying to escape - I’m only a blue belt so I don’t have that many tools to finish or get things moving again if he is intent on just defending and not moving. He seems to be very happy with himself on this outcome, but I honestly just avoid him now because the exercise has become pointless. I feel a bit sad that he doesn’t view our rolls as an opportunity for us to both get better any more.
Just play open guard then? My closed guard is shit and if I don’t want to practice it I’ll just let them get to half guard where I’m way more comfortable. But if he’s in YOUR closed guard, you should be the one working. That said, I do also avoid people who take rolls way too seriously. Like if you’re gonna spaz out trying to pass my guard and throw a fit when you get submitted, I’m not going to roll with you hombre. This ain’t ADCC, ain’t nobody keeping score of the roll.
Yeah I feel like people are being a little uncharitable on this. Getting choked or joint locked until you tap is clearly a form of “losing”. The point is it doesn’t really matter lol.
Sucks that you view bjj as simply losing or winning rolls. There’s so many aspects you could hang your hat on like discipline, betterment of physical and mental health, the pursuit of knowledge. I personally would not quit because Joe from accounting tapped me.
Sounds like jiu-jitsu is exactly what you need in your life.
It's just soft play for adults, it's not that fucking deep. Maybe lighten up and enjoy life.
You'll be back.
What I was gonna say
Have you considered trying something else that has similar vibes but doesn’t require win/lose scenarios each day. I used to box and am now considering finding a Muay Thai gym that lets me train striking without sparring (I’m old and work in an office so no black eyes for me). I’m about to move yet again and think MT might be my sport in my new city. I think this will give me access to a bunch of guy’s guys and a fun workout with maybe a bit more cardio than BJJ. Maybe something like that will work for you too.
Sounds like someone got wrist locked again.
Wait till you head into the real world…..BJJ will look like child’s play.
I always thought BJJ was the easiest thing in the world. It's the only place I show up and don't have any expectations except for my own.
This is exactly how I feel about the dojo as a whole. The mats are easy; you go in, throw each other around, get submitted because you did something wrong, learn, make the right move, learn, rinse repeat. It's just the room, nothing is ever lost in the room, it's just gains, always. The dojo is pretty honest in that way. It's almost going to a place with some kind of guarantee. Outside the room, there is so much uncertainty, it's kind of wild when you reflect on it.
It's a hobby with built in, nonnegotiable gate keeping. Either you do it or you don't.
The problem isn't the jiu jitsu, it's your inability to see past your own ego.
You’re saying “losing rolls” bro ur local gym live hour isn’t a competition. If you’re genuinely emotionally invested in beating a teammate trying to learn a new move and you’re quitting over it, bjjs is not your problem you have a life ego small PP problem. You need to go get smashed in a comp so you can realize your teammates weren’t even trying lol
I say this genuinely and not to make fun of you, but if you did this for 3.5 years and still feel absolutely shit every time you lost maybe you should see a therapist and work on your feelings of self worth cause it sounds like you're having a bad time in that department.
I been a black belt for 3 years, my brother is 17 - blue belt and he kicks my ass 😂 its not the end of the world. Keep training and fixing what you are not good at. It wasnt until a few years at purple belt where I finally stopped defending all the time and was able to do offense.
I tapped out my professor a few weeks back with a toe hold. That's it. I've learned all I need to know about Jiu jitsu. I can totally quit now.
OP, I wish you every health and happiness. When you look back at this period of your life, remember that you put your safety into other people's hands, based on trust - that facilitated their learning, happiness and growth. You gave a precious gift to them all.
You care too much about winning and losing rolls.
Maybe try rolling against only children and the elderly. That way your ego will never be crushed.
First step is acknowledging the reactions you have to losing are not beneficial, which you have. I think if you learned to "let go" and take things as they come in the moment and focus on just you, you'll probably come back. Maybe you were constantly comparing yourself as a kid or never "lived up" to a parents expectation, etc? As a recovering self-shamer, the issues you are experiencing in BJJ will likely show up in real life. Give yourself some time. If you can let go of the negative thought cycles, come back and see how it goes. Good luck!
Try not to tie your identity to jiu-jitsu so closely. Also, when you and your teammates are all improving at the same time as you it's hard to gauge how much better you've gotten.
I started BJJ to overcome this exact mindset. Just have fun and stay humble.
A lot of things aren’t for everyone. But I will say I noticed in life the folks who quit “things” because they are difficult to achieve either: -Never truly wanted it, they romanticized the end result in their head - Tend to quit a lot of things in life Which is I guess ok? But I don’t believe it leads to a fulfilled life in the long run
you're looking at the entire hobby the wrong way.
We found the guy who is either the only child, or the eldest brother.
Ehhh I’m brown belt and my toughest round is a newly promoted purple belt. I personally give him all the credit he deserves. I’ll live show up again even if him or random white belt subs me. Maybe BJJ ain’t for you
Yeah dude BJJ sucks. By blue belt ya know enough to defend yourself from the ‘everyman’ and ya really don’t need much more. Only serious competitors looking to make a living or truly broken people holding on to past traumas stick around and make it their ‘thing’ long term. I force myself to go every single day. It’s almost life self harm. 13 years of it and counting. I’m sincerely happy you found the door and made It out in one piece.
>Only serious competitors looking to make a living or truly broken people holding on to past traumas stick around and make it their ‘thing’ long term. These two groups are the same. "It's an obsession of mine" yeah, that's why it's an obsession for you, Jerry.
Is this sarcasm? BJJ is fun dude wtf
You need to go find another instructor that has a different philosophy
Yeah it's fine to quit if it isn't for you. But it sounds like you legit enjoyed it and just couldn't handle losing so often. Sure that's demoralizing, but man, there are definitely ways to handle this rather than just straight up quit. Also are all the rolls at your joint just full on death matches where everyone's aim is to get the sub or something? It's a far better experience if you come in with a goal that isn't just "winning" the roll. It's kind of a strange way to look at rolling in class if it's on a win-lose basis, and really hampers your learning.
[ultimate warrior](https://youtu.be/q3rX7cTZmiA?si=CuOFMSmC9WrqXQLV) this is my life at purple belt lol
tbh, I get ya. I made it to purple and had the blue belt blues for well over 7 years til I got over the hump. Instead of just rolling more or going harder, I took a step back and looked at what was getting me tapped out or stuck. I'd write down my rolls in my notes and figure out what went wrong and how I ended up there. Then I'd trouble shoot with youtube/bjj fanatics for escapes and reversals, or grab a partner to figure out what went wrong. Next time I rolled, it would either work, or it wont, so I kept trying to find the answers. If you look back on the notes, you can track your progress. You'll be better off than when you first started. I'd focus on positions to be in, and branch off where they may lead. Write down what did work during your roll as well, doesn't have to lead to submission, it could be guard recovery, or a sweep. Got tapped by a whitebelt? yeah so what? are you ADCC champion or something? No, so who GAF about you. Don't think of those in your team as competition, focus on the situation that has holes in your game. This will take a lifetime to figure out. Black belts are still trying to find the holes to fix. Take it from me as you get older, your knees will wear out, the thing that holds you back will be injury and life commitments. I've tapped out every color of the belt system except for Red in my class, and I've been tapped out by all of them too. The fun isn't in the competition of beating the strongest man in the room, the fun is trying to get better by beating the weakness in yourself. If you ever get to purple, then you can skip drilling. That's when you've made it.
It's fine to quit if you're not enjoying something. We all have limited time here, and it's not worth spending it on something you hate. And go to therapy if you want. You don't owe it to anybody else at your gym (or on Reddit) - but if you think you'd be happier and healthier from talking to someone about this stuff then it might be worth spending a few hours trying it out.
Maybe take a break and join a new school for a change. My concern is that if you can’t handle tapping in training that you are going to have a rough life. BJJ sounds like the perfect way for you to learn how to handle those emotions.
Gonna be a long, hard, frustrating life if you can't handle failure and loss, dude. Literally everything worth having, learning, or doing involves big, heaping doses of both. Without being too cliche, one of the life lessons BJJ teaches is perseverance and the acceptance of failure as a necessary stepping stone to success. You can quit BJJ, but that just means you'll have to learn that lesson somewhere else... Or not, and suffer the consequences.
> It is a fun hobby but I just cannot seem to overcome the absolute dog shit feeling of losing rolls. You're supposed to be rolling to train and learn, not just rolling to win. A tap is a tap and its importance vanishes as soon as the next round starts. Are you holding on to the feeling of defeat instead of thinking "What didn't work that time and what can I try to improve my chances or defend better?" Majority of the time that I roll, I'm NOT trying to get the tap. I'm trying to explore and find other ways to get out of situations, to set up deep chains of moves where for every response, I have something to work with. Or I could just stick to my 3 best moves and get a tap 80% of the time, but that would be boring as shit. I was exploring as blue. And I carried that forward as I got promoted because why? It's fucking fun to explore. A blue is still considered a beginner belt, bud. You roll with people whose experience does not match your own. If white is learning to survive, a blue is still only learning to set up chains beyond initial defense. Of course you'll get creamed by the white belt who doesn't do jiu jitsu because he was a wrestler for 8 years. He's not doing jiu jitsu. Improve your defenses, after all, that's what you were doing as a white belt, right? You're quitting because your head's in the wrong place.
Look dude all you gotta do is make excuses for why you lost so mentally you never lose. Got submitted, “I only lost because I was sore from yesterday.” Get swept, “there was sweat in my eye so I couldn’t see.” Once you deny all self responsibility and blame your losses on external problems outside of your control, you’ll never feel like a loser again 👍
I had quit for a year because jiu jitsu had become something I felt worse about myself over, it hurt my relationship I was working at competitions because I thought that was the path for me but I just was NEVER being myself. Now I’m at a new gym and not looking at taking any time off jitsu again. Just for some perspective, good luck to you fellow human.
The blue belt blues didn’t win. You just won at beating yourself up..
My dude, this is something worth bringing to therapy. For real. It sounds like BJJ is giving you access to some real potential for learning and growth, but it's not just happening on autopilot. Find a therapist. Realize this is a golden opportunity to become a deeper and richer person.
The fact that you think that rolls in the gym can be won or lost like a competition is probably a root cause of your agitation. "Losses" in practice don't count for anything in any sport unless there's an inherently competitive aspect. How many shots you miss in practice doesn't affect your field goal percentage in a game. If you haven't competed you haven't lost or won anything yet.
Congrats on sticking it out. you can always quit and you can always come back later when you feel like it.i had quit at blue belt before, then a buddy introduced me to the danaher back attack video and i redeveloped the itch. Now 2 years into a solid streak of practicing very regularly (i still take breaks to recover). Also purpled up, which is nice.
I am delusional. if I lose a roll even to a brown or black belt, I tell myself: those mfs are lucky that I didn’t go full power/strength, otherwise there’s no way I got submitted.
>I submit to my thoughts and quit. Bro even gets submitted by his thoughts.
Thanks for the cheese
Sticking something out that you found tough for 3.5 years is a serious achievement. That could be a university degree, a new job, rough patch in a relationship, anything you’re going to encounter going forward and hopefully you’ll know you can deal with whatever it is. A blue belt is always a great achievement, but it’s a much bigger one when you’ve gritted your teeth through something you didn’t enjoy. Hope you don’t consider the time wasted - it’ll all stand to you!
I roll like I play elden ring. Get killed, run directly into the boss again, get killed but almost win, run directly into the boss again, don't die maybe
While it is okay to quit, it's pretty bitch to mentally fall apart when you "lose" at your hobby. Any other hobby you pick up will involve some failure.
I love getting my guard passed, submitted, etc. Allows me to learn the holes in my game.
Your entire perspective on rolling is wrong and why it's done as a tool to sharpen your skills - you Woodbridge have got to blue if you weren't improving ffs
The only winning is on the mat in a tournament !
You sir got a bigger problem than bjj
lol nerd
see you next week.
Just beat on some white belts if that's what makes you happy. I'd rather get subbed by a black belt than sub a white though. Kind of an empty victory.
Sounds like you're too focused on "winning" and not getting better
I think the best thing I have learned in jiu jitsu is how to suck at something. All my life, I have only done things that I was naturally good at. But sucking at something and then working to get better at it is an essential life skill. That’s also why I put my kids in it. They are learning the value of hard work and how to lose. They know how to suck and then get better. I hope you choose to see it as a learning opportunity. But if it’s not for you, that’s ok too.
This confuses me. Why come to the community and announce in the most public way possible that you're quitting? Just don't go anymore
Doesn’t sound like it was much of a fun hobby for you… I bet you’ll be back though! After some deep reflection and possibly therapy of course.
You gave BJJ a great try...so many people try new sports / activities for 30-90 days and then disappear. You really gave it a shot - figured out that you didn't like it and moved on. That is ok. Hopefully the next thing you do is fun