People often think of grappling as an individual sport. We go out onto the mat at a competition and are alone out there. When we win, we get our hand raised. No one else is out there with their hand being raised. However, the more time I spend in this sport, the more I realize that it truly is a team sport.
Teammates are important even at the lowest level. Day 1 teammates should be treated with kindness and dignity because you never know who is going to wind up being the next star; you never know who will wind up being your favorite training partner down the line. A team can really be like a family, and there are few greater joys than watching someone grow.
No one ever got good at jiu-jitsu alone. There’s no good way to practice this art without other people to practice it with. You can get really good at shooting hoops or at dribbling a soccer ball all by yourself, but in jiu-jitsu all techniques ultimately require the feedback that only another living breathing person who has an understanding of the movements can give you. In this way, jiu-jitsu is as much if not more of a team sport as sports that are considered team sports.
As time progresses, we need newer teammates to continue building and growing the sport. There’s the old adage “work until your idols become your rivals.” The truth is that if you watch the history of the sport, new talent begets evolution. And interestingly enough new talent will often cycle techniques that are not in vogue at the moment back to the top of the heap. This is valuable as it allows the sport to constantly remain fresh and new. Without new teammates this would not be possible.
If you train to compete, chances are you spend a lot of time at the gym. Chances are your opportunities to make friends outside of the sport are limited. Because of this, it is natural that we become close friends with our teammates. This is yet another way that jiu-jitsu is a team sport. Because we spend so much time around those with whom we train we inevitably become close knit groups. This is valuable because when it comes time to compete, our teammates know how to bring us up, and they know how to make us feel ready to step out onto that mat, which is valuable in and of itself.
Even though we ultimately step out onto the competition mat alone, and any victory we enjoy or defeat we suffer is ours to bear, but without a team no jiu-jitsu practitioner can really grow long term. It is important that when you find a good team that supports you and helps you grow, that you support your team and help it grow. You will get as much out of jiu-jitsu as you put into it, and being a good teammate is one way to give back to the art.
