Little Ponds

Here in Arizona I have run in to a few interesting personalities here in Arizona.

Let me first set the stage. I wear a Purple Belt with a cute little stripe on it. In our flavour of Jiu-Jitsu, that takes a minimum of about 4.5 years to earn, and in my case I have trained for a year more than that.

Three times this week I've run into other students who want to teach me something. It wasn't a case of, "let's learn this together," but rather, "I know this thing and I'm going to teach it to you."

One was a guy with an absolutely brand-new Brown Belt. A partner and I were rolling near him, and my buddy tried an omaplata. It was pretty good, but not tight, so I worked one of the official omaplata counters halfheartedly to make the move more difficult for him, but not impossible.

The new and highly-enthusiastic Brown Belt hurried over to show me this other, much better move that was his absolute favourite. I listened politely as he explained and then demonstrated a technique that is one of the official omaplata defences, that anybody who was doing the move that I was performing would also certainly know. Oh, well; it was his first day as a Brown Belt.

Also worked with a partner who also wanted to teach me lots of things, and to give me tons of little tips. He was a Blue Belt, with a stripe or two, meaning he has trained about 2 years less than me. It wasn't that he was spotting errors in what I was doing, but rather showing me extra techniques that had nothing to do with the lesson material that we were supposed to be working on. Interestingly, I already knew every one of the items he was so eager to bestow upon me. Why would a Blue Belt assume that he knows more than a Purple Belt? Does he do this with Brown Belts also, and with Black Belts.

He kept doing it through the entire lesson portion of the class.

When free-rolling time came, I expressed my displeasure by pressing him a bit more than I normally would. He didn't seem to like getting flipped and swept, and so pushed back with vigour, and strength. We had been warned that this would be an abnormally long, 14-minute roll. I kept pushing, but paced myself accordingly. Before the time was out, my partner was exhausted, and actually stopped moving altogether. I asked if he was OK, and he said that he was, but he still didn't move a muscle. I sank a few practice submissions on him, much like I would on a grappling dummy, and then the buzzer sounded. Never had a partner give up so completely during a role.

We were told to grab another partner for another go, but my friend said he had to get back to work, and left to get changed.

I had another Blue Belt training partner do much the same thing a couple of days earlier. He kept trying to play instructor on me, and he was an even lower rank than the other guy was. His Blue Belt didn't have any stripes at all. Granted, he seemed more knowledgeable than his belt implied. I'd say he should have a stripe or two, but he didn't.

In LA, this just doesn't happen. There are plenty of times when a student with a lower rank than me clearly knows the technique we're working on better than I do. When this happens, I solicit his or her knowledge, and they are always happy to help. However, they don't assume that they should be the teacher of somebody higher ranked without first being asked.

Maybe in these small-pond schools these guys are kind of a big deal, even though of low rank. When somebody new shows up on their turf, they think they still are.

It would be like having a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Brown Belt drop by at our little academy up in Canada, and me trying to teach them stuff that any Brown Belt should already be expected to know.

That would be nuts.