Finding Ego is Strange Places

I hate when my jiu jitsu coach lets me tap him out.

He let me tap him today. I’ve been bothered ever since.

Why the heck am I bothered?! We had a fun roll…our rolls are always fun (for me anyway, and hopefully for him, too). I tried new things, sucked at other things, and felt good with still others. And then…he let me work into an arm bar. And here I am, three hours later, still processing why I’m so annoyed. 

Ego. That’s what it is. 

“Your ego is not your amigo.” “Leave your ego at the door.” You’ve heard all the sayings, right?!

It’s my ego that says, “you aren’t good enough so he LET you have it.” Ego tries to protect us from embarrassment and failure. The thing is, though, that Jiu Jitsu is ALL about “failing”…failing leads to growth, if you allow it to do so. There’s nothing embarrassing about a coach allowing a student to work into something. And yet ego tries to convince me otherwise.

I KNOW that I cannot possibly “beat” my coach. I’m not trying to, either. And as a coach myself, I absolutely allow my students to work into submissions or positions they are working on learning. But still, here I am, all hot and bothered, and I shouldn’t be. 

Ego is lame. Completely and totally. It’s easy to say I don’t have an ego, until it pops up in a completely random and odd way. I’m bothered that my coach let me tap him because it reveals my shortcomings. Shortcomings will never go away in Jiu Jitsu-they’ll change and morph, but they’ll always be present. And truthfully, Jiu Jitsu wouldn’t be nearly as fun if you could know all there is to know and be perfect at it all…that’s part of the beauty of the sport-there’s always more to learn, and always something I don’t know.