Gordon Ryan has turned grappling into one of the most open-source elite sports on the planet.

Every detail of how he passes, pins, back-takes, submits, and repeats the cycle is right there for anyone to study.
Yet even with hundreds of hours of instructionals available, Ryan believes his dominance isn’t threatened at all – because most competitors will never truly study them:

One of the biggest questions I get is: you have hundreds and hundreds of hours of instructionals.
Aren’t you afraid people are going to, like, just steal your stuff and use it to beat you?

Yeah, if they actually watch the instructionals, like, people are just too arrogant to even purchase the instructional and watch it.

In other words, mastery is blocked by ego. And Ryan contrasts this with his own approach.

When Felipe Pena caught him twice with the same back take, Ryan didn’t dismiss it as luck or scramble to invent something new.
He did the opposite:

That sucked. I hate you for it, but that was a good move, and now I also use it.

You can’t really get to a true level of greatness without being humble, without some kind of humility.

If you just think you’re the best at everything all the time, it’s a pretty delusional way to think about things, and actually very counterproductive.

Ultimately, Ryan isn’t worried about sharing his knowledge because his confidence comes from understanding that very few people will commit to the uncomfortable work of changing how they think, train, and measure themselves:

If you can just show up every day for a decade and do the thing, you’re already ahead of 99% of the people.

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