Jiu Jitsu and humor: Anyone who has trained for even a short length of time in jiu jitsu or any other combat sport will tell you that sometimes the grind can be rather taxing. All combat sports have a high attrition rate – jiu jitsu is no exception. I find that humor is probably the single best means of students bonding together and with their teacher. When I teach, I try to use humor as a means of making an important point memorable. We tend to remember something that made us laugh. I also like to see students joking about the game, themselves and each other after class – that's usually a healthy sign that they are getting along well and building the camaraderie that is essential to a long lasting and unified room. Visitors are quite often shocked at the constant pranks, off color jokes, teasing and taunting that we engage in after class – almost nothing is off limits. Of course this is a serious game where the success is measured in the capacity to break peoples limbs and strangle them in a highly competitive setting – so during training time it has to be all business. Finding the compromise between work and fun takes time and varies from gym to gym. The value of humor to make important information memorable and to build camaraderie cannot be underestimated – but too, the danger of letting a room descend into a clownish atmosphere that can kill progress cannot be underestimated. Ultimately you will have to judge whether you have gotten the balance right by the results of the students and there retention of information and their willingness to stay in the program. When students think of their training as a fascinating, frustrating puzzle to be solved that improves them and their lives in a way that few others can, and brings a smile to their face when friends and acquaintances ask them about why they train – then you have probably found the right balance. Photo @stephaniedrewsphotography
