Pennsylvania based brown belt Pisey Tan joined Alysa Couce on the Jits and Giggles Podcast for episode 98 and his perspective on training culture was direct and clear. When asked about pet peeves and opinions on the mat, Tan landed on one thing above all others.
“Enjoy jiu-jitsu. Don’t go and try to destroy your training partner.”
For Tan, that principle extends to how you calibrate your effort depending on who you are rolling with.
“Be nice. Be gentle and try to work a lot of your game, and then, say you do go with a same color belt, okay? Then you could go up like 50%, 75%. And then when you go to competition, then you go for your 100%.”
He pointed to his own laid back approach as evidence of what that looks like in practice.
“I love playing half guard. I love putting my shield up, and sometimes there are some people that just like, pow, hit you in the face. I’m like, come on, man. Really? Take it easy. I got to go home after this and take care of my kids.”
His message to those who train with less experienced or physically different partners was equally straightforward.
“Don’t go and try to destroy them. I don’t care, I can handle it, but say when you train with another girl, don’t try to destroy them.”
On the subject of getting tapped out, Tan had zero ego about it.
“I love getting tapped out by everybody. It’s fun. Because at the end of the day, if I get tapped out by a D1 white belt, so be it. Next time, it was my fault that I got tapped. I got to correct my game. I got to evolve to these games that are constantly evolving themselves. It’s not his fault, it’s my fault. I’ve got 10 years under my belt, but I got submitted by him. What did I do? All right.”
That attitude carried over into how he described the feeling after a rough roll.
“When I got put to sleep, I wake up laughing about it. We’re fist bumping each other like, yo, that was so () awesome. Let’s do it again. Let’s go at it. That’s what jiu-jitsu is.”
Tan wrapped it up with a simple reminder about perspective.
“Enjoy jiu-jitsu and don’t take it very seriously, you know? Life is too gosh () short. Life is too short to dwell on negative situations. There’s something out there that can help you pull yourself out of that hole that you’re in. And for me, yes, it’s definitely jiu-jitsu.”
