skribs113 133
Grandmaster
A couple years ago, I posted this thread about a rough white belt in class. I had a different (but similar) experience yesterday. It's being handled, so I'm not necessarily here for advice (although I wouldn't say no to it), but I just wanted to share this story. It gets juicy in Chapter 2, so stick around.
Chapter 1
New year, new faces at the gym. One guy looks like it's not his first rodeo. I go up, introduce myself, ask if he's trained before. "Oh yeah, I'm a brown belt." We're chatting, having a great time. He mentions a couple of things that make it sound like he's going to be fun to train with. Things like, "I'm 50, gotta stretch every day. Sometimes at my old gym I'd be trying to flow roll and we get folks who go 100%."
Then my friend came over, a competition blue belt. I tell my friend, "Go easy on him, it's his first day." (My friend could tell I was lying). They joked around. The new brown belt mentioned he had seen my friend compete, and he was impressed by him.
(It will be relevant later, I'm light weight, a black belt at my gym [who's relevant later] is either light or medium, I'm guessing this new guy is medium-heavy, my friend is heavy, and my Professor is currently in either Super Heavy or Ultra Heavy).
This is when the newcomer mentioned stretching, and my friend was talking about being sore from yesterday's class. I said, "He's old, he's 40," which got another laugh.
During warmups, my friend and I were talking. He mentioned that it was nice to have a new brown belt, and not someone who was a jerk like a previous brown (now black) belt we had, who I don't believe is a member of our gym anymore (mainly due to what he did during Muay Thai classes). Or if he is, his presence has reduced significantly.
Chapter 2
We cut to the second round of rolls for the night (or "sparring" for you non-grapplers who might have stumbled into this thread). The newcomer had just gone with one of our black belts, I had just gone with a day 2 white belt. I asked the new brown belt to roll. We slap bump and go. I spend a couple of seconds trying to establish grips at flow roll speed.
He then proceeds to do a new (to me) version of a double leg. He uses a headbutt to off-balance me, then grabs my legs to get the take down. He takes me down, wins in the wrestling game. I'm able to scramble a little bit here and there, but I'm also not wanting to go bat crap crazy and still trying to bring down the tempo of the round to more of a technical flow roll. He gets the tap, we reset. Next round, he gets to mount, elbows me in the face in the process. Tries for a mounted triangle and loses it, eventually we get into leg entanglements (which I am still very unfamiliar with), and eventually he subs me with a heel hook. And this wasn't an "upper belt practicing heel hooks on a lower belt" where you catch and release. He was 100% going for the submission.
I should mention the rules (again, for those who aren't as familiar with IBJJF rules). Headbutts aren't allowed. Striking (including elbow strikes) are not allowed. Heel hooks are not allowed at purple belt (which he knows I am), and you definitely don't rip them in training.
I considered backing out of the roll. I also considered explaining to him the rules of our gym. But I didn't want to come across as the guy whining because he lost.
After my round, I saw my Professor go over and ask for a roll, but the new brown belt said he needed a round off. I had also considered trying to give my Professor a signal to mat enforce, but decided against it.
Chapter 3
After class, I waited until the guy left, then had a talk with my Professor. He said, "Oh yeah, I saw that. I was going to set the tone with him early. But first round, I saw [the black belt] kick his butt, so I just figured we were good. I guess he needed an ego boost. What you didn't see is while he was smashing you, I took off my t-shirt" (he had a rash guard underneath) "to show I was ready to go. He saw me getting ready to roll and knew what was up. So when I went up to him, I was going to give him the business, but that's when he was like, 'oh no I need a round off.' He knew what was coming. Don't worry, I'll talk to him next time, let him know how we do things at our gym. For you...just avoid him for now. Don't tell him you're not rolling with him, but just try to find others to roll with.'"
After I got home, I got in my friend's Discord server and we were chatting about this while playing games. I blamed my friend for jinxing it when he said, "It's nice we have a new brown belt, and not a jerk." My friend told me that the newcomer ducked rolls with him, too. Probably because he knew that we were friends and he had crossed the line with me, and this is a bigger competition guy.
I'm glad it's handled, and glad folks at my gym have my back. I'm also glad I didn't get injured. But it's funny, because my impression of this guy now is all he has is TRT, wrestling, and dirty tricks. I have a much better impression of our gym's brown belts after this, because they're much tighter in the execution of their techniques.
Chapter 1
New year, new faces at the gym. One guy looks like it's not his first rodeo. I go up, introduce myself, ask if he's trained before. "Oh yeah, I'm a brown belt." We're chatting, having a great time. He mentions a couple of things that make it sound like he's going to be fun to train with. Things like, "I'm 50, gotta stretch every day. Sometimes at my old gym I'd be trying to flow roll and we get folks who go 100%."
Then my friend came over, a competition blue belt. I tell my friend, "Go easy on him, it's his first day." (My friend could tell I was lying). They joked around. The new brown belt mentioned he had seen my friend compete, and he was impressed by him.
(It will be relevant later, I'm light weight, a black belt at my gym [who's relevant later] is either light or medium, I'm guessing this new guy is medium-heavy, my friend is heavy, and my Professor is currently in either Super Heavy or Ultra Heavy).
This is when the newcomer mentioned stretching, and my friend was talking about being sore from yesterday's class. I said, "He's old, he's 40," which got another laugh.
During warmups, my friend and I were talking. He mentioned that it was nice to have a new brown belt, and not someone who was a jerk like a previous brown (now black) belt we had, who I don't believe is a member of our gym anymore (mainly due to what he did during Muay Thai classes). Or if he is, his presence has reduced significantly.
Chapter 2
We cut to the second round of rolls for the night (or "sparring" for you non-grapplers who might have stumbled into this thread). The newcomer had just gone with one of our black belts, I had just gone with a day 2 white belt. I asked the new brown belt to roll. We slap bump and go. I spend a couple of seconds trying to establish grips at flow roll speed.
He then proceeds to do a new (to me) version of a double leg. He uses a headbutt to off-balance me, then grabs my legs to get the take down. He takes me down, wins in the wrestling game. I'm able to scramble a little bit here and there, but I'm also not wanting to go bat crap crazy and still trying to bring down the tempo of the round to more of a technical flow roll. He gets the tap, we reset. Next round, he gets to mount, elbows me in the face in the process. Tries for a mounted triangle and loses it, eventually we get into leg entanglements (which I am still very unfamiliar with), and eventually he subs me with a heel hook. And this wasn't an "upper belt practicing heel hooks on a lower belt" where you catch and release. He was 100% going for the submission.
I should mention the rules (again, for those who aren't as familiar with IBJJF rules). Headbutts aren't allowed. Striking (including elbow strikes) are not allowed. Heel hooks are not allowed at purple belt (which he knows I am), and you definitely don't rip them in training.
I considered backing out of the roll. I also considered explaining to him the rules of our gym. But I didn't want to come across as the guy whining because he lost.
After my round, I saw my Professor go over and ask for a roll, but the new brown belt said he needed a round off. I had also considered trying to give my Professor a signal to mat enforce, but decided against it.
Chapter 3
After class, I waited until the guy left, then had a talk with my Professor. He said, "Oh yeah, I saw that. I was going to set the tone with him early. But first round, I saw [the black belt] kick his butt, so I just figured we were good. I guess he needed an ego boost. What you didn't see is while he was smashing you, I took off my t-shirt" (he had a rash guard underneath) "to show I was ready to go. He saw me getting ready to roll and knew what was up. So when I went up to him, I was going to give him the business, but that's when he was like, 'oh no I need a round off.' He knew what was coming. Don't worry, I'll talk to him next time, let him know how we do things at our gym. For you...just avoid him for now. Don't tell him you're not rolling with him, but just try to find others to roll with.'"
After I got home, I got in my friend's Discord server and we were chatting about this while playing games. I blamed my friend for jinxing it when he said, "It's nice we have a new brown belt, and not a jerk." My friend told me that the newcomer ducked rolls with him, too. Probably because he knew that we were friends and he had crossed the line with me, and this is a bigger competition guy.
I'm glad it's handled, and glad folks at my gym have my back. I'm also glad I didn't get injured. But it's funny, because my impression of this guy now is all he has is TRT, wrestling, and dirty tricks. I have a much better impression of our gym's brown belts after this, because they're much tighter in the execution of their techniques.
