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I stared down at the mat in disbelief.
Sweat, pouring down my face like a faucet.
I had just been tapped out for the fifth time in less than five minutes by a man half my size….
To make matters even worse, he looked like Harry Potter.
Whatever ego I entered the training room with that day left my body faster than the beads of sweat puddling below me.
This humbling experience was nearly 15 years ago. It was the first time I did live rounds of submission grappling.
Prior to it I had some experience in traditional wrestling and thought adding in submissions to the equation wouldn’t be all that different.
Ego was my tuition payment on that error.
My Harry Potter-esque training partner was a jiu-jitsu brown belt who was preparing for ADCC trials (the grappling equivalent of the Olympics), and I was a fresh young white belt who thought I was up for the challenge relying on brute force alone.
He quickly dispelled me of this notion by repeatedly submitting with ease.
He had an
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