Winning and losing. Two situations in which every Jiu Jitsu player will find himself at some point, most of us facing defeat in our very first session and keep doing so for a long while. But then the transition happens. We start winning against some of our partners. Then what? Should we brag about that? It sure would seem that progress took place.
The answer is a resound NO.
Jiu Jitsu is one of the arts were ego can do the most damage and it can do so in multiple ways.
No partners to train with
Bragging about your victories during training is a sure way to get people to avoid you during training. They will refuse to drill with you, they will refuse to spar with you. You will find yourself with little or no partners and the others will often reject you. If things will escalate even further, you may even find yourself without a gym and thus be forced to go somewhere else.
Smashed by higher belts
Jiu Jitsu will put you in our place, sooner or later. If your attitude is not the right one and you start bragging about beating other people, you can be sure higher belts will hear about it and possibly decide to put you in your place. If you do find yourself smashed in sparring afterwards, then you should know what caused it.
No belt promotion
Bragging is a sure-fire way to show what a bad attitude you have. You can rest assured your Professor will notice this and bad attitude is a great way to not get promoted to a higher belt.
False sense of power
At the end of the day, what matters are results from competitions. It is absolutely worthless to tap everyone out in training if you cannot replicate that in competitions where it matters. Do remember that form can vary a lot for athletes and you may find yourself at the receiving end of submissions from partners you thought can’t submit you. What happens then?
If you think you’re that good, just remember that Garry Tonon admitted to being tapped around 15 times each training session. Remember, we are talking about a world class athlete here.
World class athletes aren’t braggers. World class athletes are humble. They let competition results show if they are good or not.
