I didn’t go to Jiu-Jitsu to become the best. I went to reclaim something I didn’t have growing up—a sense of power.

And I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s exactly what I found.

I Wasn’t Playing Their Game

At two separate gyms, I became “that guy”—the strong white belt who didn’t roll the way people expected. I didn’t focus on crisp technique or clean transitions. I just moved the way my body told me to. I used pressure, balance, and timing. I didn’t gas out. And I didn’t get tapped.

Not once.

Even when I rolled with purple belts. Even when they were giving it everything.
They might not admit it, but I was tougher than they expected—and that got to them.
Instead of acknowledging it, they tried to dominate me. Crush me.
Some even cross-faced me when they couldn’t submit me.

So I quit. Because I wasn’t there to be a target for someone else’s ego.

I Wasn’t Reckless—I Was Instinctive

People might have called me “spazzy.” But they didn’t understand what was actually happening.

I wasn’t just using strength. I was using leverage—feeling where their weight was, lifting limbs to shift balance, listening to tiny shifts in pressure. I was applying technique, just not in the way it was taught. I was building something of my own.

My main game? Take them down. Let them tire. Apply pressure. Stay calm.

Most of the time I didn’t even need to submit them.
There was just this knowing—I could control you, and you couldn’t move me.

And for someone who’d felt helpless most of his life, that feeling meant everything.

It Wasn’t About Winning

It was about reclaiming something my nervous system never got to feel growing up:

  • That I could hold my ground.
  • That I didn’t have to collapse.
  • That I didn’t have to perform or beg or explain.
  • That I could take up space—and still be calm.

It wasn’t easy.
Sometimes I absorbed the aggression of others and passed it on.
Sometimes I trained with people who didn’t feel safe.
I didn’t know how to discern back then. I thought I had to roll with everyone.
But I’ve learned.

What I was doing wasn’t immature. It was a kind of embodied resistance.
I was saying: You can’t break me—not anymore.

So Yeah, Jiu-Jitsu Taught Me I Wasn’t Weak

And I’ll carry that forward, even if I never step on the mats again.

It showed me something I couldn’t learn through words or theory:
That I’m not broken.
That I never was.
That my body knows how to survive—and now, maybe, it’s learning how to feel safe too.