"What the F**k! Did you f***ing learn something?!" -The conclusion to my last roll...

Hey folks,

First off, sorry if the title offended anyone. I know that I offended the shit out of someone at my gym tonight. Also, the term "old man strength" isn't meant to be offensive. Guys over 30 just somehow mutate into beastly muscle creatures. Anyways, this is kinda long.

I was curious what the proper gym etiquette was when you have a position for a long time. This is the first time that someone has acted upset after rolling even if it was a stalemate. I've been practicing jiu jitsu for about a year and a quarter-ish.

If you don't want to read the little story, the gist of it is that I had the guys back for a long time. Maybe 12 - 15 minutes.

So here's the story in point form play-by-play but maybe not all in the same order. It's just the shit I did. You can skip past it to where there's a double space to skip the roll.

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I ask the guy if he wants to roll.
He agrees.
We shake hands.
I pull guard.
He puts his elbow on my throat to keep me flat on my back.
I push the arm past my head and transition to back.
I lock in a body triangle from on top.
At this point I'm playing with his arms and trying to make space but he's just staying tight and turtling (sp?).
I try to wedge my hand under his chin but that doesn't work.
I try pushing his arms down and having another go at it.
Still nothing from that position.
I pull him on top of me so that I'm working off my back and I try again. Same deal. He's staying really tight.
I try rocking him on to his stomach but he bases his leg out.
I see this as an opportunity and I hook his leg with my leg that is holding the body triangle.
At this point since I have his leg secured I try to pull his elbow away from his body and slip my head in to attempt a twister. This guy has old man strength so that didn't happen. After trying twice I give up.
I switch to body triangle the other side and I deep hook his arm thinking about going for an armbar but my leg is stuck so I abandon it and go for the rear naked again. Nothing.
I switch body triangle sides a couple times. Try hooks. Same story.
At this point I'm hoping that his arms are tired so I try to push them down at his side and I'm trying to body triangle him with his arm inside but once again the old man strength prevails.
I try twice more switching sides but I fail. The guy is solid as a rock.
At this point I'm getting frustrated so I just throw my leg over his shoulder in a reckless fashion hoping to slip around him into a triangle or teepee.
At this point he finally reacts (over 10 minutes into the match).
He goes to half guard and I sink in a crappy d'Arce choke.
I fail miserably and from there he goes to grab my legs and I know his going to wrestle the crap out of me so I push him away with my foot so that I can sit up again to avoid having him get into a tight side control since he's pretty good at it.
I notice that he landed on his ass pretty hard so I apologized immediately.

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At this point he gets up and starts bitching at me loudly enough so that the entire gym can hear. I was taught to respect my elders so I apologized and didn't try to be too confrontational.

He starts: "I have too much respect for you to tell you to get off my back and try something else but WHAT THE F*** MAN?! Did you f***ing learn something? You're just hanging on proving how strong you are with your legs. You just wasted 10 minutes of my time. I know that I didn't learn anything there. If you can't do anything then just try something else! We know you can control me with your legs. How many times did you try something on my back?!"

"Two or three dozen submission and transition attempts I suppose. I never get people's back." I reply.

"Yeah! So that's 36 times! You did nothing for 15 minutes except waste my time."

At this point I'm getting a little irritated since he's well known around the gym for scooping a single leg and passing to side then just chilling in north-south forever looking to smother his training partner in a "choke" that does little else but crush your jaw.

So then I says: "You do the same thing with top control! You'll lie on people for 10 minutes at a time. I never get back and I finally had a chance to get some reps in. At the very least I got some leg endurance training out of it."

Then he says: "No referee worth his salt would ever let you just hang on like that in a tournament."

This back and forth goes on a bit and I'm trying to apologize for him since I didn't know that I had done anything wrong.

He didn't try to get a higher position than me. He didn't try to pull my arm down and use to to spin into my guard.

I think he got tapped out earlier that night by an athletic guy that has only a month of experience so that may have upset him.

The point is. Did I breach any gym etiquette?
If he had simply asked to restart then I would have. That's fine.
This is just bugging me and I was hoping to get some insight since a lot of you guys have been around doing this for a while.


Thanks for your replies folks. I appreciate it. :)

Tell him, next time, he is free to tap out anytime if he feels so hopeless he cant escape your back mount.

Also, practice finishing from the back for a while.

i always like fighting out of tuff positions and don't care what my opponent dose if it last to long i might ask for a restart.

Yeah.. im no scholar on gym etiquette.. but id say that could have been a pretty good learning experience for both of you. I mean.. if neither of you are doing anything then its pointless. But working for stuff and failing is still learning. You were figuring out what works and what doesnt when you have someones back. He was learning how to escape (or at least trying to). I wouldnt be too upset if someone had my back for ten minutes. Thats great practice for me to learn how to defend my back. Sure nobody got submitted, but i think that can be just as insightful into your jiujitsu game as winning/losing. its just part of the learning process. He cant be mad at you because you found an area he's weak at and worked it. Thats just strategy.

control comes before the sub, sounds like his problem. He's just projecting his frustration. It's not like you were telling him to squeel like a pig or anything

He's just crying because he was stuck. Where was the head instructor during all of this?

Sounds like he brought his ego with him to rolling.

If someone wants to spend 15 minutes on my back trying to choke me they are welcome too, great for my defence. I would thank you. He should have to.

He was disrespectful.

You did nothing wrong in my mind. If he was so worried about it ( not learning something that is) he could have learned how to escape the back, or better yet how to control his anger. People who act out like that get talked to by our teachers. They get down to the real issue to try and solve it. If they seem to be a consistent problem they are asked to leave our school. Some people are just chodes. Try not to let it bother you.

Round timers..

Fight gyms are good because everyone is usually super friendly and humble and polite and respectful and theres no bullshit and posturing.

you may not realise it at first but old people can be more immature then younger people. i had an experience where i easily beat an oldie with a back choke when i visited my old club and there were no hard feelings at the time. when i got home i found she was bitching about it on her blog. the point of rolling isnt necessarily to finish but to work on control and escapes. you obviously learnt alot about control during this session, perhaps he didnt learn anything because he didnt attempt to escape. does he expect people to get off his back if he tightens up like a rock and does nothing? that's just foolish.

The guy that was bitching at Shawn is the oldest guy at our gym, 45 yrs old maybe (even older than me!) and he's also an orthopedic surgeon. And he's a tough sob, so we give him respect, as we should. He's generally a good guy. But I think he was frustrated last night by his own performance and he took it out on Shawn. Shawn's gettin' pretty good btw. The Doc was out of line, and he did admit to me that he had lost his cool and took it out on Shawn. But he should have apologized to Shawn, instead of telling me.

Shawn its his problem, not yours, its sounds like you not only were correct technically, but were also trying to "keep the peace". And if the you were rolling and the same opportunities occurred, I wouldn't change a thing.

And me personally...I don't care if your the president of the world, if you act like a douche on the mats, your going to get treated like one. Someones position outside of the gym shouldn't matter while your training in the gym, everyone thats on the mat deserves the same level of respect.

Us old guys resent you young fellers for your,um,youth?

"And me personally...I don't care if your the president of the world, if you act like a douche on the mats, your going to get treated like one. Someones position outside of the gym shouldn't matter while your training in the gym, everyone thats on the mat deserves the same level of respect."

Chris FTW!!! We need an ego check on isle 4, ego check on isle 4 please ;)

Give each other some deep tissue massages and make up :)

Thanks for your input guys. I wasn't sure if I was being a dick by sticking to the back or not since I'm still pretty new to the game with only a year under by belt (I don't even have one of those) and he's been doing it for 30ish years.

As for the whole "Any ref would stand you up". In your experience in tourney's, does that hold true?

...and yeah... I could totally go for a deep tissue massage.
This whole exercise thing makes me feel like shit, lol...

Wait this is the same guy that scrappes his wrestling shoes on your leg to make you lose lockdown? ... The one time I miss training :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eddie Bravo

Give each other some deep tissue massages and make up :)

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and put some Tussin on it...

In response to your question, I've never seen anybody get stood up when you have their back and are looking for submissions in a tournament