What’s the key to self-confidence in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, especially if you haven’t competed (nor won) a lot?

Gordon Ryan has two pieces of advice that will be of great help to every BJJ athlete who’s in search of confidence on the mats.
The first tip has got to do with being successful in the gym:

The confidence will come from success in the gym. For example, if I had you roll with a world championship-level black belt in the gym – and you’re a blue belt… And he just beats you up every single time, every single day – and I ask you to fight another world championship-level black belt in competition, you’re not going to have any confidence that you’re going to beat him up.

But if you’ve had success in the gym, where you’re competitive with that world championship black belt, and you’re winning the match… Then, [when] you go out in the competition, you’ll be like: “Okay, I know the level I’m operating on here.”

And so, it [confidence] comes from repeated success in the gym.
And that will only come over time, as you develop the skills and you have that knowledge.

Yet, another source of confidence is having a great defensive game:

In addition, having a strong and sound defensive game will give you the confidence to go out and attack.

I know, when I go into these matches, that the absolute worse-case scenario is that a guy scores an advantage or passes my guard for a few seconds and scores some points. And that’s the worse that can happen.
Because I’m very confident in my ability to escape pins and my ability to escape submissions; whether they’re early or fully locked in, late escapes.

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