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Last night the turnout wasn't really big on the mat. This is pretty normal for a small school like ours. I had exactly four people to spar with, and rolled with them all.

Even on a well-attended night, there might only be about 8.

The good side of this is that we are all really comfortable with each other, and are perfectly willing to try out any weird or new stuff. The chance of getting hurt is pretty low, and our egos certainly don't mind getting owned by our good friends.

The down side is that it can be all too easy to think we're doing well, when in a larger world we may not be.

Some of us worry about this. I don't.

I have been to a number of seminars that were open to everybody. I have also trained at several schools other than ours, including the huge Gracie Academy in Los Angeles. I have had literally hundreds of partners from outside of our little circle, a fair number of whom were not even from our branch of Jiu-Jitsu.

What we do in our little school is just fine. Others of us have not had my experience in the outside world, and so feel less sure.

What I've experienced has been both good and bad. The good is having lots of other partners with different mannerisms and different technique. There have also been negatives as well.

Overall, my outside experience falls into two categories.

The first has been training and rolling with people from our lineage of Jiu-Jitsu; based out of The Gracie Academy organization under Ryron and Rener Gracie.

We are all white-gi people, with a high-level of hygiene. Uniforms are treated as single-use between washes.

We all have the same basic understandings about learning technique. Things are demonstrated, and then learned with a partner, taking turns. There is no resistance when starting out on a new movement, and only very slowly ramped up. The idea is that it is all for the partner whose turn it is to succeed in the movement, and then to drill within that success.

When rolling, the majority are in it to flow. There are exceptions, but even so it always feels safe.

The other category of outside experience is that of training and rolling with people from other lineages of Jiu-Jitsu.

Here, there are also white-gi people, but also back gis, blue, and pretty much everything else. I am sure some just like the look, but some clearly do it to hide the grime. Hygiene levels vary greatly. Some people re-use gis more than once, and some clearly wear uniforms much too much between washes. This is not merely gross, but very dangerous. Bacteria and fungus thrive in such an environment.

Some are great partners for learning technique, but not all. Some insist on doing things the way they've always done it, rather than as taught and demonstrated by the session's instructor. Some do everything possible to thwart their partner when it is the partner's turn to try and perform the technique. When working with some partners, pain and injury is quite possible.

I am yet to experience a flow roll with any partner from outside of our lineage. It's as if they think they are going for a gold medal and a million-dollars in prize money in every roll, injury be damned. I like it that way occasionally, but for some of these folks it is their only setting.

It is a big enough difference that I always try to prearrange a partner whenever attending a seminar. That way I'll come home having learned as much and as thoroughly as possible, and without unnecessary injuries.

Now don't get mad if you are a black-gi, hard-rolling person. I've also had great partners with those leanings and background. I'm sure you aren't the problem.

It's just that I've only ever had a handful of know-it-all, chatty, dirty, smelly, lesson-ignoring, bad-drill, injury-causing partners, and the vast majority have been from outside of my greater Jiu-Jitsu family, and none from within my own wee school.

Therefore, I like working with them best, few as we are.