“ I just know there’s something dark in me and I hide it. I certainly don’t talk about it, but it’s there always, this Dark Passenger. And when he’s driving, I feel alive, half sick with the thrill of complete wrongness. I don’t fight him, I don’t want to. He’s all I’ve got. Nothing else could love me, not even… especially not me. Or is that just a lie the Dark Passenger tells me? Because lately there are these moments when I feel connected to something else… someone. It’s like the mask is slipping and things… people… who never mattered before are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me. “
Okay, so this is actually a quote from the TV series Dexter, secretly and metaphorically describing his serial killer persona, but I thought they were actually a couple great lines that capture the feeling of any unwanted part of an identity, feeling the burden of something you can’t help but carry around.
The ego is kind of like Dexter’s “dark passenger,” this kind of negative being that lurks deep within everyone.
Jiu-jitsu has made me think quite a lot about the ego, not only because the sport makes you more self-aware but because it deals with guys trying to kick each others’ asses all the time. It’s easy to see that having a big ego makes learning jiu-jitsu extremely difficult. No matter who you are you must constantly get beat and suffer to improve at all. Those who are constantly trying to feed an ego have to deal with the burden of trying to constantly win at all costs. However, it’s too simple to say “lose your ego. Just get rid of it.” But I believe that no matter who you are, that screaming demon impatiently waits and cannot simply be disconnected.
When it comes to the ego, I have a couple thoughts and many questions. Where does the line stop between having a positive self-image and allowing your ego to rear its ugly head? Doesn’t having some ego push you to get better?
Many of us have trained with people who become extremely angry if they get tapped and who readily show it. But is it truly better to only show calmness but boil on the inside? Worse than a blatant display of pride is the ego that shrouds itself in elitism, the kind that “quietly” thinks it’s better. So how do we escape our egos? Do we simply listen to what we know is good advice? I find the cognitive dissonance truly fascinating that often happens during training. There are always those situations when you make mistakes, get tapped, or receive sharp criticism your head will point you toward wisdom but bad feelings will brew inside anyway.
In a sport where the goals are submissions, nonverbal communication becomes very important. Holding a choke a little longer than necessary, a pat on the head, or even breathing a certain way are all actions that take on certain meanings and mean drastically different things depending who does them. This is why understanding ones ego and how it effects his or her interactions with fellow training partners and competitors is so important. Jiu-jitsu is a world with a structure that sits upon a contradiction – a hierarchy built upon the strength of weakness.
The main thing to remember, I feel, is your training partner. If you take care of those around you and keep them healthy and improving, then they will improve you. And more often than not, you forget about the rat race.
