How to Redefine Winning in Jiu-Jitsu
- miadnajafi
- Nov 25
- 2 min read
by Wayne Tomsett, author of Cheat Codes: The Secret Guide to Winning on the Mats
Failing with Enthusiasm
If you train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for any length of time, you’ll quickly realise something uncomfortable but essential: you’ll lose far more rounds than you’ll ever win. Far be it from me to be pessimistic, but I am realistic, and that’s the reality of the sport we play. It is a sport of continuous struggle.
So the question becomes, how does one keep showing up, stay motivated, and find meaning when “winning” by submissions isn’t happening very often?
The answer is to reframe what success means and fail with enthusiasm.
Rethinking What It Means to “Win”
When people start training, they often treat rolling like competition. They measure success in taps: “I caught two people today, but got tapped three times.” It feels logical, after all, submissions are the clearest, most visible outcome of a round.
But the thing is, if tap outs are your only metric, you’ll end up miserable. Because for most of your Jiu-Jitsu journey, especially in the early years, you’ll be the nail far more often than you’ll be the hammer. But that’s okay as long as you learn to recognise all the other ways you can “win” a round.
Let’s grind Jiu-Jitsu down to grains of sand, the small, measurable pieces of progress that make up the art. Inside those grains are all the tiny victories that build real skill over time.
The Many Ways to “Win” in Jiu-Jitsu
There are so many wins in Jiu-Jitsu that have nothing to do with submissions, and all of them are more valuable than counting the taps during class:
Doing more consecutive rounds without sitting out. Win.
Successfully passing guard (even once). Win.
Recovering guard when you’re under pressure. Win.
Lasting longer before tapping to a heavy top player. Win.
Sweeping someone you couldn’t move last week. Win.
Maintaining control longer from mount or side control. Win.
Breaking grips and regaining posture. Win.
Attempting a new move you’ve never tried before. Win.
Successfully climbing the ladder. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.
Every one of these is a victory, and more importantly, a measure of tangible progress.
If you survive thirty seconds longer today under that 90kg brown belt’s side control than you did last week, that’s a huge win. If you recover your guard more times against that relentless guard passer, you won that exchange. You’re collecting data. Every attempt, every adjustment, every breath under pressure all of them count, and they are all victories.
By framing success like this you’re doing three extremely important things:
You are associating success with achievable, attainable targets that are wholly aligned with positive, regular skill acquisition.
You’re disconnecting “tapping out” with the feeling of failure, instead associating it with feedback gathering.
You’re tapping into a learning approach called gamification, which as learning science shows, is tremendously beneficial in acquiring deep, reliable skill that can be recalled under pressure while drastically increases your motivation to do so.
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