Why Your Job Isn’t To Win in Training
Listen, we all love to win. I know the feeling (and the opposite feeling all too well), but trust me when I tell you that your job isn’t to win in training. In a competitive scenario, the mats are a battlefield. But when it comes to your every day training, the mats are instead a laboratory for development. While the primal urge to "win the round" is strong, and natural, indulging it often leads to stagnation, plateaus, and, ironically, a slower path to your holistic Jiu-Jitsu development. I’m going to illustrate how prioritising winning sabotages your own development using three common scenarios.
Scenario A: The High-Effort Stalemate (Efficiency Drift)
You’re in the middle of a free sparring round with one of your peers. Perhaps a friend of yours. Perhaps a frenemy. You and her or him are locked in a familiar struggle: you fighting desperately to pass the guard, and them fighting desperately to retain it. You’re sweating, tired, and it feels like a great "grind." The round ends with a handshake, satisfied that you both "worked hard."
The problem is that you’ve spent 90% of a valuable training session gaining only marginal improvement in one small, known exchange. This is Efficiency Drift, where you’re becoming marginally better at the one thing you are already decent at, while neglecting the 99% of techniques and positions you need to learn. You maximized effort but minimized the information exchange.
Scenario B: The Overpowered Victory (False Confidence)
You, a bigger, younger, explosive, handsome (probably) blue belt, consistently smash your way past more experienced purple, brown and maybe even some black belt training partners who are significantly lighter, older, or less athletic. You impose your single, dominant game (e.g., a relentless crushing top game to a powerful Americana). You walk off the mat and smile to yourself, smug in the satisfaction of yet another series of training “victories”.
The problem is that instead of developing BJJ skills, you are reinforcing the habit of relying on athleticism over technique. These "wins" grant False Confidence. When you face a truly skilled opponent of similar size and strength, your entire game will crumble because you never played in other positions, learned to play off your back, or developed good timing or technical skill. Relying on size, power, explosivity, and strength is an admittedly powerful shortcut, but one that can ultimately bottleneck your technical development.
Scenario C: The Beginner’s Burden (Learned Helplessness)
A brand-new white belt, perhaps juggling work and family, comes to class eager to learn. They get crushed, spending 90% of their roll time being "ironed out" in mount or side control, repeatedly submitting while having no idea how to escape. They go home defeated.
The problem here is a failure of the training environment. The advanced partners "winning" against the beginner are selfishly prioritizing their ego over the development of a potential future training partner. For the beginner, this creates Learned Helplessness and often leads them to quit. The experienced partner misses the opportunity to work on flow, positional transitions, and controlled submission setups, which are skills far more valuable than holding a new student down.
Breaking the cycle
Now, you don’t have to be a genius to follow the thread here. In all three of these scenarios no one is developing their game or skills to any significant or effective degree. Everyone is repeating established cycles instead of engaging in skill acquisition through exposure to new stimuli. Effective skill development doesn't come from repeating the same successes, it comes from exposing yourself to new, often uncomfortable situations and learning how to adjust and adapt based on new information.
To break the cycle and unlock growth, you must fundamentally change how you define success in training.
Before you slap hands, discard the idea of the "final score." Instead, set a specific, technical objective for the round. The "win" will be the successful execution of your process goal, regardless of whether you submit your partner. Below are some examples, and where and how you can think about sparring differently.
Instead of: "I'm going to submit my partner." - Try This: "I will attempt a specific sweep (e.g., X-Guard sweep) at least three times."
Instead of: "I need to win the round." - Try This: "I will successfully maintain closed guard for two minutes, focusing only on my grips."
Instead of: "I must get to the position where I can use my best techniques." - Try This: "I'm only going to use my weakest submission (e.g., Darce choke) today."
You must be willing to exchange positions and temporarily accept a disadvantage. Getting swept or losing position is not a failure; it is an exchange of information. When you get swept, your partner has shown you a successful entry. Your job is not to panic and immediately recover, but to analyze the entry point and begin developing the specific defense for that move. You can read more about this idea in my article “How to Redefine Winning Jiu Jitsu”.
To accelerate this learning, actively seek out positions you are bad at. If you hate being in bottom side control, start the round there. Force yourself to practice your weakest links.
Utilize the Power of Specific Sparring
The most powerful agent for technical learning is Specific Sparring (or Positional Sparring). This structure strips away the pressure and need to “win” a round by defining the rules and the goal:
If you start from an almost ironed out half guard: You are forced to develop your deep half-guard or butterfly sweeps.
If you start from bottom mount: You must learn to escape.
Specific sparring creates a high-pressure, low-stakes environment. Losing the position simply means you restart, not that you lose the "round." This removes the emotional barrier to trying new techniques and forces you to build pathways out of your comfort zone.
The point I’m making is that skill development doesn’t come from repeating the same cycles over and over again, it comes from exposing yourself to new and different situations and then learning how to adjust and adapt based on what you’ve learned. This is why specific sparring is so powerful as a learning agent, it forces you in to specific positions from which you must work.
Conclusion
Your path to black belt is not measured by the number of times you win against a compliant, weaker, older or smaller training partner. It is measured by the quality of your technical repertoire and your ability to adapt to new situations. Trust me, the last thing I’m going to consider when it comes to promoting you is your tap count.
Trade the momentary satisfaction of a "win" for the exponential long-term growth of your skill set. Focus on gaining information, redefine what winning means, and the victories will follow naturally and consistently.