Leave your ego at the door vs. Keep your ego beside

The trend

‘Leave your ego at the door.’
Somehow that ended up becoming the unofficial slogan in a lot of clubs.

There’s a lot of problem with this trend. Not because the idea behind it is always wrong, but because it already puts this weird blame on you before you’ve even walked in. Plus, people throw around the word ego like it explains everything—any pushback, any mistake, any discomfort. Just stamp it as ego and move on. From the fighter’s own personal side, however, the most important note is that ego maintains the boundary between the self and the outer world, your opponent included. Without it, you’re basically an open target. So yeah, ego isn’t the villain here. Most of the time, it’s part of how we make progress.

Think about what happens when we train. You’re literally lending your body to someone else so they can get better. You’re letting them choke you, bend your joints, and maybe slam you around a little while they figure things out. And you trust that they won’t go too far You’re exposing yourself to their inexperience and whatever emotional state they’re in, all while practicing techniques that can be dangerous—like chokes. Most of us have heard stories, and some have seen first-hand how badly things can go. It’s a level of trust most people wouldn’t give to anyone, not even the person they share a bed with. Yet it’s built into this path of growth.

Not everyone on the mat sees the depth of that deal, though. Some folks just want to smash. Some act like your safety is automatically guaranteed. Some will abuse your good faith. Some walk in thinking every body in the room is there for them to experiment on however they want. I passionately promote training, but part of the truth is that no club is a rose garden. If you want to stick with it long enough to actually get somewhere, you need to develop your ability to draw your lines. That means keeping your ego up to says, ‘Hey, that’s enough,’ or ‘No, that’s not okay for me.’ Don’t get me wrong, ego can run amok, but in high stress situation, which is the playground of emotions, it’s not commonly does so. On the mat, ego in most cases helps you to stop others treating you like a disposable dummy. Quite a useful feature.

Conflict as broken self-image

One potential reason behind the popularity of this ‘leave your ego at the door’ slogan, and the quite harmful demonisation of ego, is that there are a few experiences on the mat that are just plain hard to handle. Losing a round, getting tapped, getting scored on by someone newer than you… those moments sting. These would need being supported through them rather than blamed, because those cracks in your self-image are real, and they’re not simple to patch up.

Loosing brings up a lot of self-questioning causing great disturbance a fighter has to deal with. And all of that hits you while you’re still breathing hard on the mat, with a bunch of people around who can see your reaction in real time. That social pressure alone adds a whole extra layer of stress. It’s a lot for anyone to juggle, and if we want to be really honest here, it holds many trainees back more than the physical difficulty does.

When coaches don’t recognize the dept and just how tough these moments are, they miss a big chance to help people grow both technically and emotionally. Just slapping an ‘ego issue’ label on someone who’s dealing with a distress doesn’t fix anything. If anything, it piles on more shame and makes the whole experience heavier. A bit of understanding would do far more good than another lecture about leaving your ego outside like it’s a dirty pair of shoes.

Conflict as broken alliance

There is another case with a seemingly very similar outcome, that is a natural response to a broken “agreement” or to a boundary intrusion. There are ethics in training—some are just basic rules for being respectful during close physical contact, some come from fight sports in general, and some are specific to each club. Not knowing or not appreciating them will inevitably cause friction. We all go into a round with our own idea of how a training buddy should be treated, but sometimes our idea doesn’t match the other person’s at all and the club become an emotionally challenging place.

Take the classic example: one goes too hard despite what’s expected in that context, use street techniques or derogative comments as a part of their game etc. When that happens, reacting emotionally isn’t an ego outburst, it’s self-preservation. It’s your body and mind saying, “This isn’t okay.” The defence language after a broken alliance is commonly a self-advocative one, “I’m not taking this,” or whatever version of that comes out in the moment.

The real issue is when a coach sweeps all of this under the same “ego issue” label without taking time to understand what actually happened. It’s the easy route, just blame ego, pretend the conflict is simple, and move on. But the thing with emotions is that they fester, and they are for a good, self-preservative reason. They leading to conclusions under the surface, and the next time it happens, the reaction is even stronger.

Look deeper

Clubs are full of different kinds of people, each with their own life principles and ways of seeing the world. Put that many personalities together, and conflict is just part of the deal. Labelling all of them as “ego issue” without looking deeper into the distress the fighter is struggling with misses the point and helps no one to resolve the conflict or gain self-insight. All trainee has to deal with collapsing self-image, clashes of life principles and will still have to keep going with the spar. These challenges does help build emotional governance, but only with proper support.

Sometimes you have to keep going even when you already know, thirty seconds in, that your partner isn’t going to play fair. And in that moment, there’s really only one thing standing between you and getting steamrolled: your ego. It’s the part of you that says, “Nope, I’m not taking this,” and helps you draw a line or step away. Later, when you become technically superior, you can finish the round on your terms. But until then, keep your ego beside!