there may be some truth to this. That is certainly the case with a guy at my current gym. Total ass, bitched about not getting his blue, thought he was better than our instructor b/c he'd been allowed to get to superior position. Instructor heard this and SMASHED him the next class and when he was like "I don't know what happened... I normally do really good against you" the instructor said "dude, I could do this every day if I wanted, but what would it prove." From that point forward it clicked and he's been a very good teammate since.
Unfortunately, there are folks out there that are going to be asses regardless.... kinda like BruceOnJuice has been over the course of this thread since Zuzitsu made a slightly dumb post.
