Dear Legion,
Avid readers of the Letter will remember that we were going over injury prevention in volume XI. Injuries—especially chronic ones—have been vying for the throne of terminated jiu-jitsu careers since man first started grappling. However, lurking in the shadows is their most formidable and successful competitor: comparison.
So, this month jiu-jitsu Marcus Aurelius from Wish.com is bringing you a collection of thoughts on comparing yourself to others, why it’s natural, how it can be dangerous and who to compare yourself against instead. You will also meet the one and only—Randy.
From there, we’re diving into two homegrown matches of the month, a battalion’s worth of promotions (including a black belt one), new events, results from American Nationals, 4th of July schedule and more. Let’s begin!
Don't compare yourself to others
Comparison is the thief of joy. — Anonymous
Unless you exist on a different plane than everyone else, living some kind of meditative existence with no sense of ego, you will look for comparisons—it’s human nature. These comparisons can be fuel, or they can be poison. Most of the time, they come in a little glass bottle with a nasty-looking liquid and a skull and crossbones—not in a steel can you can strap to your Jeep.
The problem isn’t that we compare—it’s that we rarely compare fairly. Too often, behind-the-scenes footage gets stacked against someone else’s highlight reel. Simply being aware of this, and remembering it on the tough days, is an antidote to the poison.
The mats are flat, but not an equal playing field
It’s Tuesday afternoon at your dojo. Your face is getting smeared against the grooves of the tatami as someone performs Chinese water torture on you with their sweat. But you can survive that—it’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable.
Then comes a break. You sit out a round, leaning against the mat, catching your breath. You look at who’s rolling—and there he is: Randy.
The guy who started on the exact same day as you, just a few months ago. Holy moly, he’s giving the blue belt who just grated your face like a chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano everything he can handle. How the heck is he so good? Wow, he even hit the move of the day.
Class ends. Randy takes a shower and injects nandrolone directly into his buttock, like he always does. He drives home to the mansion his billionaire father bought for him in Rancho Santa Fe, destroys the meal his nutritionist prepared, and meets his trainer at the gym for a late workout. Then he watches two of his D1 wrestling matches from college. Finally, he studies Miha’s No-Gi Video Manual for hours before going to sleep in a hyperbaric chamber.
You drive home (no music), tuck in your three kids, pay the bills, and help your wife clean the house. You tell her: “I don’t think I’m going to go to jiu-jitsu anymore. I just don’t have the talent for it.”
Zoom out on the timeline
“People have an innate drive to evaluate themselves, and when objective standards aren't available, they compare themselves to others to assess their own abilities and worth.” — Paraphrased from Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory (1954)
Comparing yourself to your peers is natural—in fact, social psychology has a long-accepted theory demonstrating that humans use social comparison as a default mechanism to judge their progress, especially when clear benchmarks are missing. Comparison will happen, and it can be either adaptive or maladaptive. It can help you learn, grow, and self-regulate. Or it can lead to envy, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and reduced motivation. Unfortunately, the latter is more common.
So what should we do if comparison is unavoidable? Expand the timeline. Instead of comparing yourself to your peers (or Randy) in today’s class, this week, or this month, stretch the comparison to five years—or even a decade—from now.
Oh, you’re whooping my butt today? Let’s see how it goes down five years from now.
Statistically, your white belt nemesis won’t be there. And no matter how difficult jiu-jitsu feels right now, with consistency, you will progress.
And if your nemesis who stopped training four years ago comes back for another go, he’ll be the demotivated one. Grappling is a tortoise-versus-hare situation—if you can be patient and love the game no matter what, you’ll win in whatever comparisons are plaguing you now.
Compare yourself against your past self
If we can’t stop comparisons because we’re wired to try to look for ways to evaluate our progress, then we should be looking for the best possible comparisons.
One of the best is to compare yourself with your past self. Take mental snapshots of how you feel about your jiu-jitsu and the things you’re able to do in training or competition. Would the current version absolutely mollywhop the first day you? Would the present version win against the version of you from several months ago?
If the answer is yes, then no worries, you are progressing. If the answer is no, you either haven’t been making it to class enough, or you’re experiencing a plateau. Both of those situations have solutions, so there’s nothing to worry about.
One good comparison to make is against yourself from the past, but not just in terms of performance when rolling. How much better do you deal with pressure in your life since you started training? How does it feel to walk down the street now that you’re much more familiar with physical violence?
The semi-annual membership sale is back. As you may know, we don't like to do too many sales around here, but we do one for America's birthday. This year you can get the best price of the year + a free and exclusive Red, White & Blue rashguard. There are 15 available in total. Beginners can take advantage of it and get the beginner course for free, saving over $1000!
If this works for you, click the link below to get your and the front desk will send you a confirmation. If you have any questions, get in touch with the front desk as well!
Get the deal of the yearMatches of the month
This month, selecting the matches of the month has been incredibly easy. Paige Clymer and Rana Willink competed at WNO 28, the most important event in the world this past month. Spoiler alert, they both took home impressive victories.
Watch Paige's and Rana’s matches below. If you're hungry for more no-gi and their matches are too short... I suggest you have a look at UFC AJJ’s reality show and especially, the first three title bouts they did. You may spot yours truly as one of the judges, for the reality show matches as well.
Reality show.
Title matches.
Belt Promotions
Congratulations to everyone who got promoted in June, especially Mike with his black belt!
Black Belt
Michael Guskey
Brown Belt
Eric Schaumburg
Purple Belt
Klaus Schmidt
Guy Gonen
Will Robinson
Blue Belt
David Dager
David Nguyen
Alice Asoyan
Felix Vega
Chris Marshall
Alex Sobrado
Damian Howard
Bobby Susserman
Matthew Jimenez
Patrick Humphries
AJJ at the IBJJF American Nationals
🥇Coach Tyler McKay
🥈Coach Jake Semsem
🥉Allen Bahng
June Top Attendees
🥇 Kristina Rogovoy - 31 classes
🥈 Jason Bunch - 29 classes
🥉 Jimmy Wang - 29 classes
New / Changed Classes
Monday 5pm - A new women’s all-levels No-Gi class taught by Paige.
Wednesday 6:15am - Classes on this day are now No-Gi.
Saturday 10am - Gi classes with Sunshine are now 1hr long and focus on situational training.
Sunday 11am - New No-Gi situational training class with Andris, which had an average of 25 attendees for the first three classes. Great for parents, as a kids class is going on at the same time.
Events
4th of July Open Mat
On Friday, all classes will be canceled, but we will host a free open mat from 12pm - 2.30pm. On Thursday, Saturday, Sunday all classes will be on as normal! You can invite less fortunate friends (they train not at Legion) as well.
LEO Workshop
Legion is grappling home to many law enforcement officers, from all kinds of services, from the local to the federal level. For us, jiu-jitsu is a hobby, for them it’s a hobby that can potentially save their life, as well as the life of the person they have to detain, arrest or otherwise control. Even the most radical defund the police / ACAB person would have to agree that law enforcement learning and regularly practicing jiu-jitsu makes everyone safer.
That’s why we’re excited to host the first LEO workshop, with the principal instructor being our own member - Oscar Magana, who is a Border Patrol officer with more than a decade of experience teaching grappling tactics to law enforcement.
The workshop is completely free with a registration through Eventbrite. If you know any LEOs, please send them the link and invite them.
🗓️ Saturday, July 19th
🕑 2:00 PM
Women's Self Defense Workshop
Paige and Rana graciously took time out of their busy competition schedule to run a Women's Self Defense workshop right here at Legion.
With a packed mat full of women ranging from experienced grapplers to some who have never even heard of Jiu-Jitsu - Paige and Rana taught basic Jiu-Jitsu strategies to help them safely and effectively learn how to defend themselves in many self-defense scenarios.
Stay tuned—we’ll definitely be doing more of these.
Outro
There you go, you are now very informed about what’s been happening at Legion in June, with a glimpse forward into July. It doesn’t get any better than training with perfect temperatures with the sun setting and a breeze coming through the bay doors.
P.S. Reminder, I teach a Judo for jiu-jitsu class every Saturday at 12pm, it is all levels and dedicated to all kinds of takedowns. If you’re trying to improve them, which you should, I’ll see you there.
P.P.S. The 4th of July sale is limited to 15 for existing members. This link will expire in 5 days. Please contact the front desk if you need any help, or you have any questions.