One of the not-so-good pieces of advice for tournaments

‘Just do something. It doesn’t have to be nice’.

Regular competitors know the moment when the fatigue hits in the middle of the bout and the mental battle closely follows. With average stamina, most get there right around midway, depending on how their energy management has been worked out. Some can go on until the end with no issue, but for most, there’s a moment when you get drained, frustrated, and seemingly have no idea how to save yourself… and then someone—often your coach—shouts: ‘Just do something. It doesn’t have to be nice.’

As practical as it sounds, ‘not nice’ loosely translates to ‘not entirely ethical,’ because after all, this is not a pigeon contest, not much is nice on the mat beyond one’s ethics. The type of ‘not nice’ moves that can happen here include sneaking in kicks, an elbow here and there, a little hair pulling, gear tearing, finger-twisting, etc. Hardly any of us on the mat are without experience dealing with them. Some of them go beyond the realm of ‘not so ethical,’ and they’re officially illegal. The issue is that many of them are only illegal when the referee sees them; until then, they’re just ‘not nice.’

The Nature of Close Contact Arts

When it comes to grappling, an advice that recommends going ‘not nice’ is as bad as it gets. In some fight sports, it might still work, occasionally, maybe… but grappling is a full-body give-and-take, and all moves tightly link you to your opponent. You’re not just exchanging techniques there; you’re having a physical dialogue, a highly charged one, with very little control over most of it. There is no way to keep cool when someone is trying to twist your wrist. And it’s not just your opponent that can’t keep cool, some coaches even make it clear to their students that if any of them gave it their all, they’d be broken down, with no apology given. Whether these coaches understand what their job actually is, is questionable, but the point is clear: ‘not nice’ moves are usually taken very personal.

The game goes on nonverbal; no one talks about anything taken personally, but people respond as if it were, with an internal tone something like: “Okay, if you’re not considering my back when sweeping, I’m not considering your knee when passing,” or “If you’re sneaking punches into your moves, I’ll sneak ball-kicks into mine.” And the list can go on. And this is how a lot of sparring turns into a grudge match.

The consequences

This is why it’s cringe hearing coaches in a tournament telling their fighters, usually with good intentions, to use ‘anything they can,’ paired with a little facial gesture suggesting it’s okay to go a bit beyond the rulebook. How bad does it hit back? With experienced competitors, very bad. With newbies, it might work due to the element of surprise. But if you look deeply into the game, fighters go out-of-rulebook when they have nowhere else to go, meaning, they already in trouble. Pissing the opponent off is not the best strategy to fix the bout.

Reason being, bringing in ‘not nice’ moves crosses the fine line between martial arts and street fighting and gives a passport to the opponent to do the same. It’s basically granting them permission to do whatever they want, freeing them from guilt, regret, and the disadvantages of compassion (if any). They’re given the green light. When one starts playing dirty, the other often stops feeling responsible for the outcome. Social inhibition? Gone. Empathy? Gone. You’ve just unlocked a version of them that feels zero guilt about butchering you; and might be better trained to do just that.

The point is: when you show someone you’re willing to play outside the rules, they’ll likely follow.
The scary part is: some opponents are better at going ‘dirty’ than you. If you’re not sure you can deal with what you’re unleashing by freeing them from guilt, you’d better not go there.

Sure, it’s a hard pill to swallow when you start to get the sense it’s not your round. Anyone who ever competed or sparred has been there. But instead of bringing in extra risk, it can be better to use the round to test out techniques you wouldn’t try when in a better position. Trying something new when you’re already losing costs you nothing, but it can teach you a lot.

Mind the early stages

You won’t always win. In fact, you’ll likely lose a lot at the beginning. Most people go six months or so without scoring a single point, and almost a year before pulling off a clear win. That’s a hard phase to be in, but it’s temporary.

In the early stages, be especially careful how you’re playing, because you can end up with a lot of injuries that make it can be very demotivating to be constantly sidelined with an injury. You’re going to spar a lot and lose a lot in the early stages, so it’s crucial to progress quickly and develop your defenses as fast as you can. The faster you pass this ‘always beaten up’ stage, the higher the chance you’ll get somewhere with your training.

The idea that one must full-on fight, smash, and win from the first session is one of the reasons why many people quit grappling such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu so early. Being a beginner is very difficult in grappling. To pass this stage faster it’s necessary to avoid injuries. A knee or shoulder injury will take you out for a minimum of two months and slow your progress for an additional six months. Make sure not to turn your bout into a street fight by calling in ‘not nice’ moves, and keep yourself intact for a fast progress.