Today’s message goes out to those more experienced grapplers out there. Maybe you have several years under your belt and hundreds of hours of roll-time to your name. However, when you see that new person or “high-energy individual” you may tend to avoid them. Perhaps you think they’re below your skill level, or you don’t want the potential trouble or issues that it could bring to your well-being.
This thinking could be detrimental to your growth in Jiu-Jitsu. Inexperienced grapplers tend to do things unpredictably, which helps keep you on your game. Newer, or even spazzy, students tend to be more “dangerous”, meaning you need to be more on-guard and alert.
Just because you may have skill, and the newer student is not up to your perceived level, doesn’t mean you should develop a false sense of security. Experienced grapplers need to roll with new students to further educate themselves on the “what could happen”. Plus, this translates well over to “street” encounters with total strangers and/or untrained individuals.
Bottom line, rolling with everyone is one of the best ways to learn how to deal with all forms of energy or aggression, all levels of technical skill, and to understand what you still need to work on.
Besides, newbies and spazzes are people too. ; )
Learn. Drill. Roll. TRANSFORM!
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