I may have mentioned this once or twice, but I’ve recently started taking jiujitsu (Brazilian, not traditional) alongside my lovely girlfriend Vita. As the entirety of my martial arts training up to this point has been striking based (namely boxing and sanshou kung fu), I felt that I had a massive gap in my martial knowledge. Thus, I needed to learn how to grapple, despite my reticence towards sweaty man grappling.

At the risk of sounding like a “jiujitsu guy” (who seem to be the martial arts equivalent of Mac users)…I’m really digging the class, and learning a substantial amount of things—and as soon as me and Vita’s schedules sync up, we’ll be doing more videos on the subject.

 In addition to the martial skills I’m learning (because my life wasn’t complete without knowing multiple ways of breaking somebody’s arm), I’ve learned (or rather, re-learned) a very important lesson: the necessity of all men to occasionally face humbling.

I have to some extent touched on this already in my articles on the bitter fruit of katabasis, and how even the miseries of childhood bullying, humbling, and involuntary celibacy can be a net positive in the grand scheme of things, citing myself as an example. But, as the people in this dojo are mature and (for the most part) level headed men and women, there is little going on that can be construed as either bullying or enforcement of involuntary celibacy. Nonetheless, I feel that to get humbling and get your ass kicked on a regular basis by people vastly more skilled than you is something that you need to do, especially in my situation:

When I was finished with undergraduate and grad school, I had 5 or so years of striking experience. I had and still have powerful, controlled, and precise punches and kicks, knees and elbows. And though I have not had formal training since then, I was good enough to teach martial arts professionally for more than a year. And when I’d spar with my fellow teachers *cough* and occasionally with random friends and/or women on our first date, I’d batter them pillar to post (not actually hurting them, of course, but I’d definitely win on points).

When you’re in a situation of repeatedly winning fights (pulled punches though they may be), you tend to get a somewhat inflated sense of self. You might start thinking of yourself as a real bad SOB, who can kick anyone’s ass. Perhaps even go pro!

(Note that I myself never thought that I could do so, merely one of my opponents stated this—for the record, I have no illusions about my skill: I know I’m not nearly good enough to even THINK about that).

Needless to say, going into a place where I am a complete novice, and getting smeared across the mat on a regular basis, was something that I feel I needed to do. It reminds me that I still have a substantial way to go, and truly I will never “stop” learning martial arts (even the oldest masters will freely admit that they are always learning as well). And, as stated above, the environment is genuinely a friendly and supportive one—despite what the 80s movies taught us, most martial artists are very humble and friendly people.

It is, indeed, the ideal environment for learning in my opinion: a combination of grueling physical training and brutal competition, with a friendly and supportive learning environment once the bell rings and everybody takes a breather.

And so I say to you: if you are not being humbled on a regular basis: start! You need it, trust me.