I've been in situations where I've let my ego take over and felt the need to assert my position as a better fighter on the odd occasion. One of my training buddies was pretty much taught by myself and has no other training and over the years he has got very good. He makes it his mission to tap me and because I trained him, sometimes I don't like to let him tap me as I feel I need to remain like his teacher and he shouldn't be able to tap me. It sounds so juvenile when its written down haha.

Another time I went to a No-Gi class and I was going through drills with a young guy and he felt the need to correct me a few times yet he had only been grappling a few months and I had been grappling for over 10 years. When we started grappling he was really intense and grappling at a frantic pace. I stayed relaxed the whole time and tapped him out a number of times. The same guy now trains everyday multiple sessions and multiple grappling disciplines and he has really improved a lot. I think I'm his benchmark as everytime he sees me he asks me to grapple. When its time to change partners he asks to roll with me again. I don't let him tap me although he has come very close a few times. It started off as a power trip because he was trying to correct my technique when he knew very little about it but spendng so much mat time together I don't let him tap me because he tries harder and improves everytime and I like him so It's nice that he has a real aim in trying to tap me.

Last example. I have an immature work colleague who likes to boast how good he is at everything. When I first met him he saw me reading a grappling magazine. He told me he was real good at grappling and asked if I wanted to do some on the mats in the aerobics studio in my work. I agreed. He is a lot bigger and taller than me and before we started he said 'I have to warn you, I have a lot of Pride, determination and heart and a lot of people can't handle my intensity' When he told me that I thought I need to bring my A game. We started and he lunged toward me and I caught him in a guillotine and he tapped out in about seven seconds. He coughed then said 'well done. I haven't warmed up yet though so beware' The he lunges at me again and again in a matter of seconds I had tapped him out. We rolled for about 10 minutes and I tapped him an average of once every 10 seconds. I realised he was full of talk and started to underestimate him. He tried to pull on an armbar which I didn't think he'd be able to execute but he managed to get the position. In a show of egolessness I tapped. He jumped up, shouting and screaming about how great he was and that I should watch out or he would armbar me again and he had found my Kryptonite, that I didn't know how to defend the armbar. I laughed it off.

The next day I started work on the backshift and he had told all my work colleagues and gym members that he submitted me yet failed to tell everyone about me tapping him so many times. I ended up telling everyone the truth. He ended up taunting me and I said if he ever tapped me again I'd give all the staff £100 each. So I refuse to let him tap me. I don't roll with him often but if I do I make him pay HAHAHA!

Rant over

OUCH hahaha. Thats the absolute worst, I'd not have waited for another bell. I would have dragged him back to the mats there and then. In your own school in front of your students! No wonder you lost sleep heehee.

I really do try to leave my ego at the door when I train but sometimes It just follows me right on to the mats and jumps right back inside me with a vengeance! HAHA!

Hey Sakurabafan, Glad you brought this post up again, I love hearing these types of stories.

I was rolling with a guy I work with recently. I had shown him some basic hold downs and positioning, we were drilling him to get into a dominant position, passing the guard and getting to full mount or rear mount then we'd start over again. He didn't know any submissions so he  was going on pure instinct. He is a natural athlete, works out everyday and obsessed with fitness. He's big and very strong and when he was younger he did quite a bit of drunk streetfighting so his movement was surprisingly good when we first rolled. He managed to get to a half guard position. He was very aggressive and was using brute strength to try too gain position. At one point his arm wrapped under and over my bent knee. As he straightened his arm I could feel like something bad was going to happen to my knee but it was only his second time rolling and I was in a real dilemma. I didn't want to tap to someone that had such little experience after I had been telling him of my goals to have an MMA fight this year. Luckily he didn't realise what he was doing and took his arm out and we continued. I know now the smart thing to do was tap but in the situation it was the last thing I wanted to do. heehee.

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great example. In my opinion thats how things should be run at a gym. and it comes down to the mentality the coaches instill at the gym. if they train everyone to that mentality then anyone new coming in falls in line. we have one guy who is a probably in his late teens or early twenties that still is sufferring from what my dad would call "testosterone poisoning" he lets his ego get control when he is sparing to where he will occassionaly try and dominate a new guy, or jump up his intensity a lot when he gets hit and try and hurt his sparring partner. i really respect our trainers for being good about letting us all know that this will not be accepted and we are here to learn and get better without hurting each other. when needed our trainers have paired him up with someone who can quickly put him in check.  it's important to check your ego at the door because in a fight gym there is always someone bigger and badder.

 

Untrue, I'm the Biggest and Baddest in my gym hahahahaha!  I loved these posts, nice one man! -

there used to be a guy that came to our gym and was quite an effective striker … short and compact, he was build like a brick craphouse.  his quickness was his advantage, plus he was athletic.  needless to say he's also the same guy that would be "that guy" when it came time for grappling and rolling.  since our gym is newer, we were going through grappling coaches a little too often.  well, the newest coach came in (a younger guy that's trained at American Top Team over on the east coast of Florida) and did a little rolling with the class.  after rotating thru the others, coach is up with "that guy" and "that guy" proceeds to try to man-handle coach.  he's doing decent work, but coach kept his cool as best he could and maintained decent position.  when the other dude just wouldn't relent, coach asked him mid-roll if he wanted to "go there".  "that guy" kept pressing on and quickly found his move reversed and his arse in a rear naked choke and was forced to tap or see stars.  once they broke, coach used that as a great lesson for EVERYONE in class about maintaining your partner … that they're your training teammate, not training dummy.  as has been mentioned before, if "that guy" had done that to a newbie just testing the waters, we could have immediately lost someone with unrefined skills.  lesson learned!