"Humility" by Yuri Marmerstein

My brother, Yuri Marmerstein, is a movement artist/trainer, an acrobat/gymnast, a hand balancer, and a teacher of movement skills.  He currently lives in Las Vegas but travels around the world running hand balancing workshops.  He also has a facebook page and a blog where he posts fairly regularly.  This post comes from his blog:

My Past Experience in Grappling and Humility 

Today I want to write a little bit about a mentality I used to have, and a lesson I learned from having it. We are all guilty of having an ego from time to time, and it is important to appreciate the reasons to stay humble.

During my college years early on in my movement journey, I trained with the MMA club. It wasn't anything too hardcore, mostly just some basic Muay Thai and BJJ. Occasionally we did some weapons work like Escrima or Kali.

The club was run and frequented by average college students, so my having above average strength, flexibility, pain tolerance, and work ethic came as an advantage. I was able to progress pretty quickly, though it may have been attributed to my preferring training over partying.

I felt especially confident during the grappling portion, but I would soon find out that my confidence was very misplaced.

I had played around with some wresting as well but never had any formal training. I found if someone was close to my size, I was able to overpower them. However, someone who had actually trained in wresting was usually able to pin me.

Fast forward a year or so, I am visiting a friend's college during my long winter break. They have an open BJJ training where visitors can sign a waiver and roll. At this point I had already been training(many bad habits, though I didn't know it then) capoeira, MMA, tricking, basic tumbling, and some gymnastics strength so I had a pretty high self opinion. Prior to rolling with who I believe was the teacher for the BJJ club, I thought I would have at least been able to hold my own against him due to the stuff I had been doing. I could not have been more wrong.

I did several rounds with the BJJ teacher, and every time he would literally have me in a lock within seconds. It didn't matter how much stronger than him I may have been or thought I was, superior technique and experience beat me every time.

So this is what it's like to actually be good at grappling, I thought to myself. Turns out I was a big fish in a small pond. I had never previously experienced BJJ at a higher level, and that caused an ego to form.

I have gone through similar experiences with other forms of movement, but none as profound as this. I had completely gotten my ass handed to me.
Here are several lessons I learned from the experience(I didn't grasp a lot of these until many years later):
There is always someone better than you
If there is nobody in your circle better than you, seek someone out on occasion to be inspired and/or humbled
As soon as you think you'e "good", you automatically lower your guard
As soon as you think you know something, it impedes your learning capabilities and closes off your mind

Stay humble, continue through life as a beginner and a student. I have found that the further I go, the further I see there is to go. Every step I take forward gives me a better view of the world, and I see how vast and overwhelming it really is. It's not discouraging by any means; I would rather be aware of the possibilities. You could be the biggest fish in your aquarium, but there is a whole ocean out there.

This is very applicable and important in Ultimate as well.  Many of us play in communities that are relatively small, and we can find ourselves in situations where we aren't being regularly challenged.  Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone can help you continue to improve. One way to do this is to seek out the highest level of competition you can - if you aren't in a huge ultimate hub, try traveling to attend tryouts for the most competitive club team nearby (or an AUDL/MLU team).  Even if you don't intend on playing with that team, you will find that playing within new systems and against new players will force you to look at things in a new light and will expose some of your weaknesses that you may not have known before.

You can also challenge yourself within your own community: if you normally handle, try cutting for a game instead.  If you are a cutter who likes to huck, try a game where you look off every huck and try to throw a break instead.  Try running new defenses/offenses where you don't necessarily have muscle memory to guide you, and have to rely more on reading the field and the situation. There are a lot of ways to push yourself and discover your weaknesses, and regularly doing so will allow you to continue improving as a player.

I was fortunate that in my time at WashU I got to matchup a lot against Evan Karson (current captain of Contra).  Karson was an incredible defender and a tenacious competitor, and every night in practice he pushed me to get better.  While driving with him to one of our first outdoor practices of the spring season, I told him that I was confident he wouldn't be able to point-block me for the rest of the season.  That night, he hand-blocked me on an around dump. This was just the nature of our relationship - neither wanted to let the other win, and we consistently made each other better as a result.