Rolling the Dice
How to live more boldly and embrace uncertainty
In September 2020, a good friend of mine bet me I wouldn’t compete in a jiu-jitsu tournament, with zero prior experience. I’d have roughly 40 days to train for the event and then compete against other white belts and blue belts. At the time, I was looking for something new to throw myself into, so I flung caution to the win and registered for the tournament. I joined the same jiu-jitsu school as my buddy in Boston (he’d been training for about eight months at this point) and got to work.
The next 40 days consisted of me getting my ass handed to me from people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and genders. I attended 80 classes before the tournament and saw some serious improvement along the way. Some days were two classes per day, sometimes even three. I remember the feeling of getting on the mat for the first time. I rolled exclusively with my friend - beginners nerves were real - and looked like I didn’t know up from down. Despite feeling competent and athletic, everything on the mat seemed to move a million miles an hour. Thankfully, I had size (6’4 210) on my side, but that didn’t prohibit me from getting humbled day in and day out. I remember two instances in particular.
The first came at a 6AM session. I spent the first few rounds rolling with these two large and skilled blue belts, essentially playing defense for 10 minutes straight. After bringing my confidence down to damn near zero, I got paired up with a 16-year-old kid. Perfect, I thought. I can finally get some reps in without feeling like a hopeless child. Well, about 20 seconds into rolling with this 16-year-old I realized my fate had not changed. On this day, I would unfortunately be used as a rag doll by anyone and everyone. I worked as hard as I could to maintain inside position, but this kid was good. At this point, I had been training for ten days and felt a growing competence in some of the basic principles of leverage and defense - I guess that’s what happens when you spend your first 20 classes only playing defense, living on your back, and having to say “tap” on repeat. Using my strength to maintain inside position only worked for so long. The child I was rolling with knew what he was doing and he quickly passed my guard and moved into position to isolate my arm for a tap. Am I seriously about to get tapped by a kid right now? I thought to myself. If my ego needed any readjusting, this moment would serve to do it. I found myself tapping a few moments later. Not once, but multiple times.