In a recent episode of Fighting Matters featuring BJJ black belt and mental health advocate David Figueroa-Martinez , experienced practitioners made a compelling case that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructors must expand their role beyond technical instruction to include emotional and mental development for their students.
“When I came up, the two emotions that I normally saw were annoyance or anger. Often times with men, those are the two that I often see. Something may happen and instead of attributing it to what it actually is, they just get pissed.”
This emotional limitation extends beyond the mats, affecting competition performance and interpersonal relationships. As Figueroa-Martinez noted,
“You lost a competition, you got pissed because you made a mistake. Instead of addressing what the actual issue is, which is like maybe you were embarrassed and you don’t accept or acknowledge that you were embarrassed, you’re resulting everything to I’m pissed and I’m angry.”
The conversation, which included veteran practitioners Steve Kwan from BJJ Mental Models, Mike Mahaffey from Old Bastard BJJ, and Jesse Walker from Rough Hands BJJ, emphasized that effective coaching extends far beyond technical instruction. Kwan argued:
“The best coaches I know are often not the best individual grapplers but rather those who excel at uplifting people and building confidence.”
“Jiu-jitsu expertise is cheap and plentiful. If you are a great jiu-jitsu coach or you are a really good jiu-jitsu practitioner, that is not a rare skill set. The best coaches that I know are the ones who focus on that rather than like who gets the most submissions in competition.”
The panel discussed how traditional masculine conditioning has created barriers to emotional growth. Mahaffey, who holds a master’s degree in social work, shared:
“I was never really given any of those tools to process that stuff. I was a pretty violent sh**ty kid because I was never really given any of those tools to process that stuff.”
This conditioning creates what the panel identified as performative masculinity, where instructors feel pressured to appear invincible and all-knowing. Figueroa-Martinez emphasized:
“Be genuine, express your shortcomings, express the things that you’re struggling with so it doesn’t become or doesn’t look like, oh, he has it all together.”
The black belts offered guidance for coaches looking to develop their students’ emotional intelligence:
“Have conversations with them on their level and make it a theme for the week or the month if we’re dealing with specifically kids and not adults.”
“People in jiu-jitsu who teach jiu-jitsu have the unique position of being one of the only places I think where a lot of these kids get that real authentic in-person connection.”
“Use your platforms in a way that when you’re not just sharing flashy techniques or sharing some drama within jiu-jitsu, genuinely throw things out there that are better for the overall health of your gym and jiu-jitsu as a whole.”
The discussion also addressed unique challenges facing younger practitioners, including cyberbullying, social media isolation, and economic uncertainty. Figueroa-Martinez noted that many young people
“have a lot of adults reaching adulthood and now figuring out that things aren’t working the way they wished” due to overprotective parenting that prevented natural childhood failures and learning experiences.
The panel concluded that the BJJ community must evolve beyond its traditional focus on competition results and technical prowess. Kwan summarized:
“We focus in this community way too much on like who is the absolute best in the world? Nobody cares. The big thing I would love to see is a move away from this like only the technique matters conversation and talk really about what coaching actually is. And that’s about how do you uplift people?”
Figueroa-Martinez‘s final advice to instructors was:
“Just be genuine and honest. Your image is going to flourish when people feel that they can learn from someone who’s genuine and honest, who can be led by someone who’s genuine and honest. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have all the answers, but like just that genuineness is going to go so much further.”
