Rollercoaster Rides

For most people, BJJ can be quite an emotional rollercoaster ride because of the many 'highs' and 'lows' one endures during the long and hard journey.  When BJJ students talk about having a great training session it’s usually because they pulled off a submission or two, or maybe just gave somebody a hard fight; that means a ‘high’ for one person and a ‘low’ for the other. 

This type of martial art is particularly made up of these ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ but students need to accept and deal with them without resorting to an emotional crisis and call off sick at work the next morning.  If BJJ is your thing and your only goal is to submit, then you may be gravely disappointed because that may not happen often enough to satisfy your indulgence and you may be missing the whole point of the exercise.  Rolling (a more diplomatic term for wrestling) should be about exploring and discovering where both persons can benefit from it.  It's not about feeding someone’s ego at the expense of the other. 

If you are in this game try helping each other to try something new to experience it under pressure.  One can be the ‘master’ and the other, the ‘student’.  Then they can swap roles. This sort of training is a great self-esteem booster, this is how the professionals do it.  Try it first before you say you don’t like it.
GA