Scaring away the new guys (kinda long)

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This is stupid. White belts, especially the one OP describes, need to be encouraged and built up to withstand the rigorous of BJJ. Its easy to smash them and make excuses that they're "weak" or "pussies" . The hard part is putting in the time to develop a team mate. Not everyone that walks into BJJ is Alpha. Encouragement and mentoring goes a long way.

They'll wash out on their own without initially grinding the shit out of them. This is just as bad as counting Gym Taps.

On the other side, this attitude is detrimental to the business aspect of the academy.

I think maybe you're misinterpreting what I do to them (or maybe you're not). I run a submission train on white belts, but I'm not stacking them, holding them under the shoulder of justice, giving them bald spots on their beard, etc. Ignoring submissions on them though does them a disservice. I think I can still be the most welcoming guy while racking up a tap a minute.
 
I think maybe you're misinterpreting what I do to them (or maybe you're not). I run a submission train on white belts, but I'm not stacking them, holding them under the shoulder of justice, giving them bald spots on their beard, etc. Ignoring submissions on them though does them a disservice. I think I can still be the most welcoming guy while racking up a tap a minute.

lol giving them bald spots on their beard. That's pretty funny. Just a question for you and not a criticism - ever think about a catch and release approach? When I severely outmatch my training partner, I will chain subs together, release when I get one, try and get another based on their reaction, etc. I almost like it more than ending the roll with a single sub because when I can put 2 or 3 together in a few seconds back to back, it feels good man :)
 
When I severely outmatch my training partner, I will chain subs together, release when I get one, try and get another based on their reaction, etc. I almost like it more than ending the roll with a single sub because when I can put 2 or 3 together in a few seconds back to back, it feels good man :)

same here, but also with throws and takedowns. will throw with perhaps seoi nage, let them scramble to their feet, then hit them with maybe a kosoto gari, or whatever i'm in the mood for lol, then chain submissions and positions.
 
Bet the school owner ain't thinking that.


There are three big money making products in the 'martial arts' industry; selling children's day care, selling self-esteem to females, and selling unwarranted self-importance to males.

If you want to be 'legitimate' and provide real virtue and improvement to people, you will definitely lose out on the last market. It is possible however to provide two of the former products without unduly adulterating your 'flagship' product for the lowest common denominator. You just need to compartmentalise and make it obvious you're selling different things to different people.

Alas, the compromises one is impelled to make by the gods of our degenerated moderne age!
 
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Whaaaa! Who cares? There are soft ass BJJ academies and tough academies.
I'd rather be in a room full of killers.

Make sure you pick that tough academy or you have a training group that is all on the same page.

I'm sure the owner wants a room full of killers as well, but at the end of the day it's cutting a large part of the market out.

A couple of years ago we had a guy, sedentary lifestyle comes into the gym to start training because his buddy was doing it.. To be fair, I think his buddy who was pretty new just wanted someone to beat up on. In any case, he was a fan of mma (as most that walk into the gym are) and wanted to train a bit of UFC. No problem with that at all, better he train than not was what I thought. Time to roll and my old instructor just didn't know how to control a room, especially if he was in a bad mood. This guy gets absolutely worked, like knee rides, knee rides on back, cross face of doom EVERYTHING. He's nearly in tears. I'm telling the guys to take it easy on him and no one is. Whelp, haven't seen the guy ever since. He pops up on my FB feed once in awhile and all I see is him drinking, partying, being a bit of a bum and he looks bigger than he was before. He could've been a killer, but we'll never know.

On the other side of the coin, we've got a guy. Pretty strong (actually crazy strong), works a desk job, quiet unassuming guy and has done very few contact sports previously. We let the guy work, he's diligent, always shows up for class or if he's injured he's there watching. I have a feeling that if he had been crushed he might've left as well. But the team let him work and more importantly, if a crushing was to be had, it was a technical crushing was opposed to a I've been through a gym war crushing. This guy's a killer now, the nicest, quietest killer, but I make sure to hide my arms when I'm around him.
 
lol giving them bald spots on their beard. That's pretty funny. Just a question for you and not a criticism - ever think about a catch and release approach? When I severely outmatch my training partner, I will chain subs together, release when I get one, try and get another based on their reaction, etc. I almost like it more than ending the roll with a single sub because when I can put 2 or 3 together in a few seconds back to back, it feels good man :)

I don't do catch and release per se, but generally speaking if they're working the right defense I'll go with the flow and chain to the next submission until I find something wide open.
 
And most of the hard nose stuff I'm talking about is for people who have been training for around a month. If someone is brand new I usually give them a little game, like recover posture in the guard or keep my posture broken from closed guard. But once they have enough info to roll, we're rolling.
 
There are three big money making products in the 'martial arts' industry; selling children's day care, selling self-esteem to females, and selling unwarranted self-importance to males.

If you want to be 'legitimate' and provide real virtue and improvement to your customers, you will definitely lose out on the last market. It is possible however to provide two of the former products without unduly adulterating your 'flagship' product for the lowest common denominator.

Alas, the compromises one is impelled to make by the gods of our degenerated moderne age!

There's a bit for everyone. Totally agree though that appealing to part 3 doesn't tend to make money in the long run, or rather there's nothing like a trail commission where they tend to keep coming back for more. Those guys are very much fly by nighters.

I'm not advocating a complete watering down of the art, but rather, appealing to a different part of the art. I'm more against the crush factor. There are numerous ways to make a person feel helpless in BJJ utilising solely technique and body positioning. Use those initially, then as they improve gradually add pressure. It's hardly fair to beat up a person that is, for all intents and purposes,completely defenceless in the name of "showing the art".
 
I remember Adrian Pang (One FC) stating his rule in sparring newer guys is 'hit me as hard as you would like to get hit back'. As a near 38 yr old, 7 year purple lol this is a good measure for me. I work my less developed techniques and positions at a moderate pace but if they start getting stupid and aggressive its knee ride baseball bat chokes and bow and arrows till the point gets across.
 
Honestly, You can completely dominate without being a dick and Crushing Their Spirit. If anything they will be amazed by how effortlessly you Sweep, Control and Submit them and That is what will keep them coming back because they want to learn how you are doing it.

It's not smart or lucrative to let your white belt with 2 weeks of training get smashed by some midlife crisis blue belt.
 
Jiu-Jitsu isn't for everyone.

Bjj/gjj is. It's easy to throw a bunch of tough guys in the room, let them beat each other's up and then the ones that survive are great. It takes actual effort to build somebody into a strong martial artist.
 
What do you guys think?

If this happened to me and I planned on walking out, I would have knocked your ass out and taught you a lesson about how jiu jitsu is only one aspect of fighting. Now THAT would have been funny.
 
Bjj/gjj is. It's easy to throw a bunch of tough guys in the room, let them beat each other's up and then the ones that survive are great. It takes actual effort to build somebody into a strong martial artist.


You say one thing then in the very next breath describe why it's not actually the case, lol.

>If you're so tough, then figure out a way to make Private Pyle get with the program!
>if you're so tough, then stick this needle in your eye to prove it!

Implicitly granting the fact that it can, indeed, become an increasingly large PITA to find ways to make some certain person(s) get with the program; to such an extent that it can start interfering with your service to everyone else in fact, too their detriment. Indeed, in certain cases to such an extent that it is not even a feasible possibility altogether. (Such is the unfairness of fairness.)

There's a subterranean thread i notice that often runs through conversations of these sort, that really is more on an ideological level before it is particular to whatever practical circumstances that are the matter at hand... that really is more on the level of sentiment before it is on an ideological level.

There is a distinction, between the logic of testing someone, and the logic of tutoring someone. In the latter case, it is often assumed, as a given, that 'failure is not an option'; that whatever contingencies may be the case you have no other option but to adjust fire, however it may be possible and to whatever extent it may be possible, as constrained by the indelible limitations of scarcity in all forms. Obviously, this mode tends to be the domain mostly of personal apprenticeships and the like, where greater information and control is available. And obviously, on a visceral level, most people are highly attracted to this mode due to insecurities, the aversion a narcissised self-narrative or less 'reality coherent' idealization of self has to being devalidated (by failure), and over all the creeping existential dread incurred by the abstract idea of 'being left behind'.

In the former case, failure is not only a option in the design, but in fact the intention of the design; a test is a filter who's sieve is some criteria intended to select for some desirable virtue, attribute, or qualities in the elements so tested; often constructed to provide further information along a sliding range or grade of those criteria (ie, being able to tell what has 'higher performance'); intended to remove, exclude, or separate away elements that are not coherent with the system using it, without which the system cannot function properly.

In reality, you often have elements of both in a good training program, tuned to various levels too a golden mean to best suit your needs. A large scale training program, most certainly, cannot possibly be made to serve any great value without possibilities of failure or exclusion on some levels; where the teleological implications of further accommodation of some malfunctioning element would start to become increasingly antiethical to the systems teleological purpose; where the system would start rewarding malfunction, creating moral hazard.

Totally agree though that appealing to part 3 doesn't tend to make money in the long run


Ah, no, you may have missed my meaning there. On the contrary, there's a lot of money to be made by marketing to part 3, money you will be missing out on if you want to be 'real'... as you yourself have ably argued in this thread.

Not too any great extreme of course. But the inherent logic, or 'tension' if you will, is there; ease up on the gas pedal, potentially get more customers. The incentives are all there: how far will you go?

Of course in reality things can often be somewhat more nuanced than that. Certainly, if you are very smart, you can find ways to market a gym that adheres too legitimacy. Indeed, you can say the most important marketing is how you 'market' yourself inside your own store; you can market it in ways that appeals to the abstract satisfaction that people get from having 'correct options' (a 'Will Too Right' i sometimes call it), along with that which can allow them to win arguments; 'of course it is better for a gym to teach a martial art that is actually effective, why else would you do martial arts, right?' And et cetera. Market it in a way that portrays facing the reality of people's abilities and making real improvements and being comfortable with where you stand in relation too other people as high status, unlike the obviously low status fakers, cheaters, and charlatans of mcdojos who never know themselves or anything else, and so on. And indeed, it could well be possible to make even more money through this manner, or if not, you can at least make it so you are perceived as higher status (which, for humans, tends to be the more valuable currency), and also the alleviation of not selling your soul to the devil. but...

But... it is much easier to make money by selling that unwarrented self-importance. All for the low price of a sociopathic disregard for long term consequences or the overall health of ones tribal organism in general. A trifling sum in many humans' point of view.


One of the most common, and perhaps impactful, sources of narcissistic injury, is when a subject discovers limits too their own power; so often, when there is something that causes them stress, or discomfort, or upsets them in some manner, and they can't see a way to make it go away. A classic example can be a child who's parent discovered them stealing, or lying, or shirking, and chastises them with a punishment. Or a soldier sitting in a foxhole under bombardment of artillery so many miles away. Or someone on the internet saying things they don't like.

Obviously, such a sort of situation is something that our present milieu often tries to avoid or obviate however possible.

And obviously, such a situation is exactly what needs to happen for a person to grow as a person; events that definitively refactor their perception, suddenly ejecting them from a solipsistic mode of thought, where the lizard brain believes itself to be all powerful and has no thinking with regards to the workings of creation beyond lashing out at dimly perceived sources of stress, into a world entangled mode of thought, where the subject starts seeing greater wholes in which it is component; in which there are definite processes that operate in accordance with definite principles; in which it sees it must participate in certain processes, observe certain rituals in certain ways, in order to remove certain stressors, or gain certain validation, to achieve certain outcomes. That which it sees can perform better or worse.

Or in other words, the child learns that observing precepts set out by the omniscient father figure results in cessation of undesired punishments, and even good things it likes happening. Even if the punishments involved may be the most horrible and abusive you can think of, as long as they are consistent, as long as the kid can observe a pattern in behavior, they can discover a new feeling of control over their destiny, and that is what makes all the difference, they will still be able to make it, what will allow them to be able to make it out in the wide world in general, so full of things outside ones direct will. (Which, all happens to also be part of why rates of ptsd in the military and elsewhere have steadily skyrocketed over the years, in spite of the fact that it may appear, on an objective level, that conditions and situations faced are on the whole far less odious than many previous large scale conflicts heretofore. The important part is not really what the event itself is like, but their *perception* of control with regards too the events, and conditioned response [or lack thereof] to stress.)

In a gym that is 'real', such situations are not just an inevitable part, but in fact the whole point. So of course, if such is your target demographic, the question basically becomes: how do you, as an aspiring gym owner in peoria who likes the idea of teaching an obscure combat sport, provide a childhood upbringing they never got?
 
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Im a smaller guy, 145 lbs, so I don't feel bad crushing brand new white belts, unless I'm rolling with a kid or a girl who doesn't know what she's doing.

Also I have no self esteem and I'm suicidal nearly every day so I have to aggressively smash white belts to boost my ego a little bit. It's temporarily therapeutic
 
This thread title should be changed to I smash and bully 2 week white belts with no training and I don't give a fu@k.
 
If this happened to me and I planned on walking out, I would have knocked your ass out and taught you a lesson about how jiu jitsu is only one aspect of fighting. Now THAT would have been funny.
Pretty tuff.
 
If this happened to me and I planned on walking out, I would have knocked your ass out and taught you a lesson about how jiu jitsu is only one aspect of fighting. Now THAT would have been funny.

We use to have a guy with a striking background. He would always mumble "if i could just punch" when sparring. His takedowns and takedown defense was terrible. At one point I stopped while we were rolling and said "if you could strike I could strike too" from then on when I got dominant position I would pull my arm back and balled my fist like I was going to punch him. He stopped mumbling it and I never stopped pulling my arm back and balling my hand. He now lives in asia and still works out. I like the kid but if he comes back to town I will be balling my fist again....
 
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