Jiu-Jitsu is the fairest activity of all. Not just Jiu-Jitsu, but all martial arts, when taken seriously.
There is no distinction of social class. In my gym, there’s a bit of everything: police officers, firefighters, detectives, a militia member (yeah…), Uber drivers, delivery drivers, teachers, gym instructors – everything you can imagine. It doesn’t matter where you went to school, where you attended college – or if you attended at all –, where you work, how much you earn… If you can afford the monthly fee, you can train.
No one asks about your profession. Only after a long time and conversation that kind of topic comes up. In general, you talk about new techniques, how to avoid being submitted, and the team’s performance in competitions, with some eventual jokes that help lighten the mood.
On the mat, only one thing matters: your training. Your technique, your strength, your physical conditioning, your discipline. It doesn’t matter if you have interesting things to talk about or if you enter and leave quietly: what matters is how you conduct yourself in those 5 minutes when you’re rolling. During those 300 seconds, your mind goes into autopilot, and even though you have to think about which strategy to take against your opponent, things eventually start to flow smoothly.
You talk to people of all kinds: from the most humble to the wealthiest; from the most outgoing to the most reserved; from 14-year-old teenagers to people over 60; with all kinds of ideologies and worldviews that, in the face of the gentle art, no longer matter (at least during that hour and a half of training).
Although Jiu-Jitsu and other martial arts have a belt system that demonstrates a well-defined hierarchical structure, it’s not as if there’s arrogance from the higher belts. In fact, they are always willing to teach beginners, knowing when and with whom they can go harder or lighter in training. It’s an environment of hierarchy but with social equality, in a certain sense.
This justice causes Jiu-Jitsu to shape a person’s character, making them understand that, no matter their significant professional and social position in the world outsie: inside the mat, they are just another practitioner, like anyone else. You realize that money and status can’t save you when someone half your weight can take you down in less than 10 seconds. After being submitted in less than a minute by a kid 15 years younger than you, it’s impossible for your ego not to be bruised. That’s when you realize that it’s not a problem, and you’re not the perfect person you thought you were.
And over time, that flame for improvement starts to ignite in your heart – not to seek revenge on your opponent, but to understand how all of it is possible. You want to learn to last longer in rolls without being submitted. Then, you want to control your breathing during training. Later, you learn new ways to take down your opponent. Months or years later, you begin to master the basics – and realize that it’s just the beginning of a journey that will last until your last day, impacting every aspect of your life.