I went to a few places when I was starting BJJ again. Which I’ve been out of now again for many months. Injuries and covid. Meh.
One of the schools had a blue belt who was making fun of how clean and pretty my brand new white belt was. “This guy has no idea what he’s in for, rude awakening time, right guys? Let me show him what he’s done these next 6 minutes.”
quiet, nervous chuckles from the other nicer guys
I wanted to teach him a lesson. He asked me, “You trained before man?” I replied “On and off for a few years.” Trying to warn him that his assumption that he was going to smash me was wrong. I don’t sandbag people. I told him I worked with Marcos Santos, Marcelo Garcia and Jucao for a bit. He wasn’t really paying attention and was dismissive. This blue belt was pretty confident, something that is usually under control in BJJ so it was surprising. But to be fair, I did give him fair warning by providing the names of some well known NYC BJJ instructors.
As we rolled, I had been calculating how to trick him into thinking I was going for a kimura or something really obvious and telegraphed. I made my moves really big and wonky. I even let him catch me in some basic moves to show that I wasn’t trying to overwhelm him right away — all in the name of setting up a well-timed, solid choke.
I was looking to hop over the guy and trap his arm next to the carotid. But first I wanted him to believe I was some silly goof telegraphing everything. I even kept my pressure and control light. Then once he got comfortable with tapping me, I went for it. He was not expecting it and he resisted tapping. So, like a snake, I inched in slow and kept squeezing tighter and tighter. He was done and it was his ego keeping him from tapping. So I kept squeezing tighter and once I dropped some weight and power he tapped fairly quickly. I caught the neck clean.
I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel good to catch him in a tight arm triangle and make him tap. I acted real humble about it too. “Hey man, I got lucky.” But no, there was no luck there. He was being a bit too confident and if I were a new kid off the street, it might make me question coming back to that training environment. I’m not a fan of overly aggressive attitudes.
After that, he got way more aggressive and really came for me. So then I began to roll harder and put much more pressure on him. We were stalemated after that, and though I didn’t join that school, I went back once more after that and the guy was real quiet when he saw me. No more teasing or talking.
Lesson taught.
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