Miha Perhavec, a Slovenian-born jiu-jitsu black belt and instructor at Legion American Jiu-Jitsu in San Diego, recently shared some humorous wisdom on how to handle getting tapped by a lower-ranked practitioner:
“There are two things you can do to protect your ego if you get submitted by a lower belt,” Perhavec explains with a grin on Jocko Willink podcast. “One option is to let them tap you two more times. Because if they say they tapped you once, that’s believable. But if they claim they tapped you four times, no one’s going to buy that.”
He continues, “The other approach, which I personally prefer, is to immediately go for the exact same submission they just got you with. Because if I tap you with whatever move right after you tapped me, it doesn’t really count as one-to-one. It’s more like I could have done this to you whenever I wanted.”
Perhavec acknowledges these tactics are more about saving face than actual skill development. He emphasizes that the healthiest approach is to view getting tapped, even by a lower belt, as a learning opportunity.
“In reality, tapping is just part of the learning process,” he notes. “The goal should be to figure out what you did wrong and how to prevent it next time, regardless of your partner’s rank.”
The jiu-jitsu instructor adds that maintaining a sense of humor about the situation can help ease any bruised egos. “At the end of the day, we’re all there to learn and improve together,” Perhavec says. “Being able to laugh it off and keep training is what’s most important.”
