In jujitsu, you indicated giving up or submitting by tapping on your partner (or verbal tap). It shows that you got caught, your partner can let go, and then we can go again until the round is over.
this is important because it allows you to continue to train/learn from mistakes. the feedback loop is immediate. It lets you know that whatever I did is bad and I shouldn’t do it again if I don’t want to get submitted. Through various iterations, you learn what to do and more importantly, what not to do.
This means there’s a mutual trust between both people to respect the tap and let go. when you put someone in a precarious situation, close to tapping, it means you have their life in your hands. if you break their arm, it means they can’t work or live their live normally. So it requires not only control on the person applying the submission, but also the recognition that you’re at the end game and you need to tap. Sometimes you only get one out of two, worst case scenario, you don’t have any.
This makes communication and awareness from both people in order to make this dance work safely and efficiently. This greatly needless reduces injury and allows both people to improve. I’d argue the best way to improve is to consistently not get hurt so you can keep coming to class. Once you’ve tapped, your opponent will let go and then you get to do it again.
This is unique in combat sports because in order to win in order sports, especially in training, it requires inflicting damage to the other person. For sports that require striking and high impact, the recovery and risk for injury is much higher. You can look at boxing or football, the short term effects (injury) and long term effects (brain damage) are evident. Not to say Jujitsu doesn't cause injury, but majority of it can be prevented through tapping.
Now that we know proper etiquette and the rules, if two people don’t abide by those rules, you get disastrous results. You usually need a few circumstances in order to lead to uncompromising situations: culture of the gym and ego/emotions.
The gym culture will set how people behave and what is tolerated. Similar to how work cultures are, if it’s a culture where it’s cut throat and everyone is out for themselves, you’ll likely see backstabbing or sabotaging. If the work culture is centralized in which every single decision and process has to be approved by one person, innovation will be slow and micromanaging will be prevalent.
Culture is an invisible force that tells people what they can and can’t do. At one of my previous workplace, the culture required mandatory social events—fun at first but then it was annoying to be forced to do something. People quickly lost interested or simply made up excuses to not go. It wasted a lot of money even though leadership was adamant it made a difference towards building relationships. If it’s forced, chances are people won’t like it.
Culture will also dictate behavior and actions—positively or negatively. Negative culture (NC) is zero-sum game in which there are no mutual winners. Someone must lose. Positive culture (PC) allows for everything to flourish and gain. NC fuels the ego and puts everyone’s emotion on alert, similar to walking on thin ice. Think about a situation where any suggestion you give to your team instantly gets put down and ridiculed. You’ll eventually just won’t say anything and that may be the thing that needs to be brought to attention. PC tells everyone that each person can contribute and will be rewarded for helping each other.
Why does it matter which culture we partake in? You’re spending at least a third of your day in an area, where effort, time, energy, thoughts, relationships, skillset, and more will all be influenced/affected so it’s worth choosing the right place considering the benefits or consequences.
Sometimes circumstances doesn’t give you the luxury of choosing. We all can’t have ideal situations that satisfies all of our needs. Most of us deal with dilemmas of providing for culture or benefits for terrible bosses. Either way, it’s a countdown of abused or getting the happiness sucked out of you and perhaps quitting.
This is something that you may or may not control, but let’s look at different cultures of our lives outside of work. You’ll have to ask what’s the culture at home, when i’m with friends, or by myself. This is important because just like work, you’re spending a lot of time in these areas so it will undoubtedly affect your judgement, thinking, and actions.
The ideal scenario is having PC across the board. You have a friend culture that uplifts one another, perhaps challenging each other to get better or connecting each other to someone that can help their goals. At home, your personal culture might mean to focus on improving your skills, learning new things, and not to let any negative emotions leak onto your significant other or kids.
I believe having even one NC is poison and will negative affect other areas of your life. You can have great work and friend culture, but if the individual culture is plague with negativity, it’ll eventually turn the positive into a negative.
I think of negativity like mold—if it’s close to something, it’ll start spreading to that as well. Unless you remove the mold, or worse, ignore it, then prepare for all of the repercussions.
How do we build positive cultures?
This is the golden question, and it’s a good idea to look at our role models are. For me, they’re my brothers and it’s not because of nepotism or that we’re blood related. They simply let their actions lead. From the workplace to home, they simply didn’t talk about how they wanted to achieved things, they set out goals and relentlessly worked after it. Whenever something wasn’t working, they didn’t rush to fix the problem. They sat and thought about it until a viable option came out.
This is important since we have to consider both long and short term consequences of our actions and the direction it’ll lead us. If you try to solve a problem and don’t consider the result of it a couple of years or decades down the road, it ends up costing you much more than the original problem.
Just ask Australia and their solution to protect their sugar cane from larvae beetles was to introduce the cane toad. Problem was that the cane toad didn’t bury deep into the soil to eat the larvae, and instead ate local wildlife. They bred quickly and soon became a multi-million dollar agriculture headache that doesn’t seem probably to stop any time soon.
One of the things my brothers did to ensure a positive culture was to be extremely selective with who they let in their inner circle. They have set high standards because they know that all it takes is one wrong person to influence them to make one bad decision. Also, surrounding yourself with the right people also raises the level of everyone around you.
I saw this first hand during summer soccer camp where I got an opportunity to join other kids and practice with them for a whole month. They were selective in their choice of players so everyone in this camp was really good. I didn’t know how I got selected because I was nowhere near the level of the other kids, but I see how fortunate I was. Everything was different—the standards of play, the coaching, the strength and conditioning, the tactics, it was like learning how to play soccer all over again.
As expected, I was lost and confused and naturally got yelled at a lot. I wasn’t technically skilled or strong, but I learned to stay after practice and get more training in. Under a watchful eye, I learned that the skills I was doing before camp was a waste of time and I should focus my attention on other skills that would directly transfer onto the field. For example, instead of juggling the ball, I should focus on communication and where to place myself at the right position so I could lead an offense or disrupt a counter.
As camp ended, I’ve gotten used to the pace and play, and could keep up with all of the other kids. Once I got back to my school, everyone felt like they were moving in slow motion. I was one step ahead of everyone, and felt frustrated when my teammates couldn’t play similar like how my club team was. You only notice the difference when your environment changes.
If your network has people that are constantly improving, you will undoubtedly improve as well. Inversely, if you have peers that are stubborn and won’t change their ways, you’ll be like that too.
Lead through action
Another method is to be the culture through your actions. Whatever is your ideal version of culture is, you need to define them and then start living it. If no one is there to lead, then it’s up to you to lead.
Rosa Parks is an example of bravery and courageous in times of racial discrimination and bigotry. Where few dared or to even think, she stood her ground and inspired many others to do the same. Most importantly, she gave others the inspiration to fight for what they believe is right. This is important because in order to fight against what seems to be an unsurmountable wall, you need hope and tenacity. Even an ember could turn into a forest fire.
You don’t have to do anything on such a grand scale, in fact, I’d argued for starting even smaller and keep it personal. It’s easier to change yourself first than others. It can start with holding yourself accountable if you make a mistake, then figuring out a solution instead of blaming people. Now you’ve become a problem-solver. You don’t let mistakes or mishaps deter you or affect your behavior. In fact, it now becomes an opportunity.
Now you start building, block by block, and be strict with what you let in or out for your culture. Just as a negative person can change everything, so can a poor attitude and habits. It’s a constant fight and you can easily slip right back into comfort and let your hard work all go to waste. As you age physically is the time when you shouldn’t let other people do things for you or to let your physique degenerate. More than ever, you need to focus on doing tough things to preserve independency for yourself and for others around you.
There’s a known phrase in jujitsu called “ you either win or you learn”. But depending on the culture, it’s either true or it becomes you do whatever it takes to win or you leave. In an art where your livelihood depends on the other person, respecting the tap is sacred and necessary.
Until next week!
Scott
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