Navigating Ego on the Mats: Why It Matters and How to Manage It

Ego has killed more BJJ careers than injuries.

Ego is a tough thing to deal with in Jiu-jitsu, it has always been a tough thing to deal with and we as humans are not great at dealing with it in the first place. The thing with Jiu-jitsu is it is a very difficult sport, not just because it is mechanically complex but because it places you in direct conflict albeit controlled conflict with other people almost every single day. As much as we want to talk about how much it doesn’t affect us, we as humans are not the best a dealing with our egos.

When you are in direct one-on-one conflict with someone, it is rare that it is going to end in a stalemate. That means that there will always be a “winner” and a “loser” for this reason it can be very difficult to deal with this as part of Jiu-jitsu. To top it off frequently when you are new, you end up losing while grappling, a lot. It can be incredibly difficult to deal with for any person and it often is one of the largest drivers of people quitting Jiu-jitsu early, sometimes even after their first trial class. However, it doesn’t have to be this way, it takes work but we can overcome our natural tendencies of ego.

The biggest thing that worked for me when dealing with ego especially in the beginning (yes I know that was a long time ago now) was looking for small victories. When I started Jiu-jitsu I was younger and smaller than almost everyone in the class, in fact, I was still a kid not even fully developed grappling with adults. One of the things that I found was incredibly helpful for me was to focus on small victories, and sometimes these victories were extra small. Things like I was able to only be submitted 5 times in a 5 minute round or I was able to stop the first attempt at passing my guard. Eventually these victories grew and I got better, but I still focus on small victories when I am grappling. I still try to celebrate even when things workout correctly or I try something and it works as intended.

The second thing involves how you frame your training in your mind. People get into Jiu-jitsu for a lot of different reasons, but often those reasons are the thing they are thinking about while they are grappling. So someone that joins Jiu-jitsu for self-defense is thinking about self-defense even when they are getting mauled by the purple belt accountant who was struggling with a spreadsheet all day. This can be extremely damaging to their ego and can lead to feelings of failure because they are not accomplishing their goal of defending themselves. So as you go into training you need to frame it in your mind as practice and even if you lose in training it is only practice and not the real thing. It is important to keep the reason you joined Jiu-jitsu in your mind, but not always at the forefront. By framing your training time as only practice with no stakes you can help control your ego and make it easier to keep at training.

You can actually combine these two strategies as well. By framing your training as practice and focusing on little victories you can focus your practice on things you need to improve on. This focus and the use of small victories while you train can help you improve on areas you are struggling with faster. This in turn goes to build up your confidence and help control your ego.

The other thing you don’t want to do is once you have some success, don’t let it go to your head. Once you get a little better at Jiu-jitsu and you start having success, the first or even the 500th time that you get reminded that you aren’t the best in the world can have a huge blow to your ego. It is always good to remember that there is always someone out there that can beat you. There is nobody in Jiu-jitsu that competes that I am aware of that has stayed undefeated. Even the best grapplers lose sometimes. It is important to keep that in mind when you encounter someone that beats you on any given day. It might even be someone you usually beat, maybe they are having an especially good day. By keeping in mind that there is always someone that can beat you it makes it easier to accept when you do end up losing a round or two.

Ego can be helpful building you up, but it can also be something that knocks you back down. It is a difficult thing to deal with in Jiu-jitsu, but it is something you can overcome and deal with to keep training and keep going.