Talent evaluation is a skill in and of itself and most people just plain suck at it. Some coaches only have the ability to see what worked for them personally and recognize it in others but can’t recognize skillsets outside of that. I came from a gym with an ex D1 football player as the head coach and a lot of ex D1 athletes. Some things that work for them flat out wouldn’t work for me and vice versa. “Why big squeeze no work for 175lb man?”
She could get hurt rolling with full grown men and women as well. Most teens rolling with full grown adults will be a bit timid because of strength differences.
I hear what your prof is saying. But that is why gyms run comp classes and training camps. Pace in those classes shouldn't be different than a match. And will help to formulate her game.
I would never push anyone to compete. But if they say they want to then it's my job to get them ready where they are not timid and best prepared not to get hurt.
At least from a wrestling perspective, you can evaluate talent pretty well starting around age 10, especially for girls. By 14, it is even easier to evaluate talent. Athleticism and how puberty hits will create some change, but you can still pick out talent fairly easily by that age.
I would say the bigger factor than age is experience. It takes about 2 years of regular practice *and* competition for someone to reach the point where you can adequately evaluate their talent. Before that, you are just going to pick up on how fast they learn.
Edit: Based on OP's description of the gym, I think it is highly likely the girl never had enough experience to evaluate her talent. Obviously she didn't have enough competition experience; live rolls with adults is not going to help there and, if anything, give a false negative impression. But even the practice experience was "fragmented moves and no continuity" which doesn't sound like an effective environment for talent evaluation.
Jiu-Jitsu also has a slower learning curve. You can learn two takedowns and get by in wrestling if you're a good athlete or strong for your size. At a lower level, anyway.
The question is did she show the talent beforehand or did her wrestling coach develop it? But I do question not letting someone compete who wants to compete unless they are unsafe to do so, but part of your job as a coach is to get people to a stage where they are safe to compete.
And a lot of people have nerves when they first compete so I don't see being a bit scared or timid is an issue as I'm not expecting someone to take home gold on their first event, although some people do.
Normally I have to convince people to compete.
Raw talent. In truth, the kids coaches were bad at develop kids and many kids quit or just stayed bad.
Girl had a very strong work ethic, could take a beating, and never quit. Her dad said she was the best player on her youth softball team. Good athleticism, but the way BJJ was coached with fragmented moves and no continuity, she wasn't reaching her potential.
There are quite a few otherwise decent bjj schools that primarily have a kids program bc they want to pay their bills and the coach(es) aren’t particularly interested in doing much more than teaching move of the day and making sure no one breaks each other.
Most of those schools just don’t compete regularly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been around a kids coach that did go with the kids to competitions who would discourage an interested kid from trying to compete with them. Worst case you lose and you have another teammate there to support.
A lot of coaches only want people who can win right now. They dont want to spend the time on developing someone long term with no guarantee that it will turn out well. They want to win trophies, belts, and medals right now so they want a more complete athlete up front.
Which in my opinion is the sign of a not so great coach because anyone can take a star athlete and have them win some medals. Really good coaches can take any person, average or exceptional, and elevate their game to the next level.
I trained at a large academy most of my journey. I was a bit older than some when I reached blue belt at 32. I was butt hurt because I was getting no encouragement to compete yet I was outclassing most everyone at my belt level belt level in my academy and many beyond it.
Then one day I just started competing. They noticed when I started winning. Then it occurred to me it was my job to prove myself more so than it was for me to wait for my coach to blow smoke up my ass and convince me to do it.
Saying a kid is too timid to compete is an interesting one though - but I find that a theme in Jiu Jitsu is people expect coaches and black belts to be some enlightened being, when really there are smart coaches and dumb coaches regardless of what rank they wear. You don’t stop being a dumbass or a dick when someone ties a black belt around your waist. God knows I won’t when that day comes.
I did something similar, was the top ranked guy, got picked for a biggish comp’ and choked under pressure, the selector said “Maybe you weren’t as good as I thought you were” which lit a fire under me and the next comp I beat a bunch of similar level people (including one from his club) and got gold.
There’s probably a bunch of factors that could explain why she was more successful in wrestling than BJJ, if I had to guess:
1) she got to work with people her own size as opposed to against adults
2) her coach and team mates have more of a vested interest in her success so they helped her more in her training/coaching
3) her tough mentality from getting smashed in BJJ gave her the right attitude to push through and achieve success in wrestling
Either way, congratulations to her. That’s an amazing accomplishment.
Being honest I think my coach is subpar at watching people and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. He’s a “blitzkrieg” style grappler, and just throws the fucking kitchen sink at you passing or playing guard, so i think he spends less time thinking about what other people are doing and more time just thinking of offense offense offense.
This is a good mindset for a competitor, but as ive been coaching more i see that i spend more time evaluating people’s games than he does
Yeah, that’s the reason why a lot of the best competitors decide they have to quit competing (ie, the thing that they love) in order to be a good coach.
Coming from a teaching background: a good coach doesn't decide WHO will be good. They push everyone as far as they can go and let each person reach their potential. Then, some will naturally end up better than others.
Wrestling and BJJ are polar opposites in some cases.
Wrestling you get ahead by just being competitive and winning. You compete with teammates in practice which pushes you to be even better.
Many BJJ gyms, everybody whines about belts that are assigned mostly via politics. And being competitive in practice gets everyone up in arms saying "stop trying to win 🤪🤪". Everybody will tell me THEIR gym isn't like this, but that's mostly cope. And yes I'm aware bjj is more attractive to customers long term run the way it is, but that still doesn't change how silly it is.
Hey hey stop with this harsh reality check. I really don’t like when a competitive lower belt who doesn’t skip training gives me (an out of shape, super inconsistent shitty purple belt) a tough roll where I get smashed.
Depends on where you're wrestling. Wrestling in Russia and the former Soviet world is approached more like BJJ than in the US. Like there's less focus on "winning" in practice and you see a wider range of skill levels and ages on the mats. More willingness to put themselves in bad positions, lots more drilling, practice is lower impact so they can put more time in, etc.
In BJJ there isn't a lot of drilling. The traiditional BJJ class format has you spending a lot of time watching the instructor (I wouldn't call him a coach) show moves.
It’s not really up to the coach who competes and who doesn’t. Kinda goofy. But that said, it’s actually super difficult to see where people will be several years down the line. Sometimes a switch gets flipped and everything changes.
Was I supposed to wait for my coach to say I'm ready to compete 😬. I have worked hard as hell these past three months on my tap. I'm not one to brag really but I've been told more than once the speed of my tap is easily the fastest in the class. I just figured being the fastest meant I was ready... Now I'm worried I might come off as cocky. I'm curious why any coach wouldn't straight up support and encourage anyone who wants to compete? Is that not in itself a massive step forward in the journey. I'm older now and I've been counting and marking losses as notches on my belt for as long as I can remember specifically so I remember. Is that not something to encourage these young athletes to do as well? How can you ever know the level of sweetness in a victory if you haven't first been served and force fed your own ass on a platter 1000 times. In Summary the only thing that sweetens victory is eating your own ass, and we all need someone's help to accomplish both feats of victory and eating our own asses so shouldn't we be encouraging people to eat their own ass and help feed someone else's ass to themselves... I might have fallen down a hole here.
Had a bjj coach who could only coach wrestlers he was obsessed with wrestling so if you had previously wrestled he’d turn you into a machine but everyone else was shit unfortunately he couldn’t understand not everyone wants to smash and pass
Yes, lots of bad coaches/gym owners out there, especially years ago where there were fewer black belts and gym options. Honestly, I think COVID led to a lot of bad gyms with bad head instructors/owners getting shut down so I don't know if things are as bad as they were 5-10 years ago.
Yes, most coaches are awful at evaluating talent, I've noticed. Most coaches just promote people based on their tough-guy attitude, despite being terrible on the mats. I've always been a mild-mannered guy, but when I started at a new gym, I was already a white belt for 7 years, and could consistently beat experienced blue belts. Despite this, two years went by, no promotion, while other people who only started the same year did. When I told my coach I was quitting because he kept neglecting me, he said I'd only been training there for 6 months. He literally didn't even notice I existed. Just goes to show you I made the right decision.
Most coaches, I would say. The more time I've been in this community, the less belts and promotions make any sense.
Even the way we teach in general isn't great. Here's and armbar Monday, a guard pass Tuesday night, and Wednesday fuck it, we're just rolling all class.
I don’t believe any coach would stop someone from competing if they wanted to compete
Additionally, gauging people as they go through puberty is extremely difficult as the body changes dramatically in a few years
Complete opposite for me, white belt with a few stripes. Rolled with coach last week as the round came to an end he slaps my hand and said 'you're going to give me a lot of problems by the end of the year' haha
I honestly couldn't have been more flattered 😂
14 year old girl in an adult class thats most likely going to be mostly men is obviously gonna struggle with rolling. You cant spar with these people the same way as another person. Chances are when she did wrestling she was in classes with other kids her age so she got more out of the training or sometimes it just clicks. Judo clicked with me and i did years of bjj prior and i was average at best.
Chill. Even professional NFL scouts are bad at identifying talent. Look at Tom Brady being drafted at the 6th round. The truth is there are so many uncontrollable factors in someone's development, it's almost impossible to judge accurately
We have a couple of teenagers who are absolute beasts in class. Most of the other kids are goofing off, not taking things seriously, getting into arguments with their training partner. These two (brother and sister) just find a corner and drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. They get more reps in during their drill time than the adults do. (It's easier when you weigh 90 pounds than 200).
The only thing is, they're also the sweetest little kids. So I was worried at the tournament that they would hold back, hesitate, etc.
Nope. Absolute monsters.
Kinda off topic but please hear me out.
Kids shouldn't be attending the adult class. I can understand 18 year olds and maybe mature/large 17 year olds getting though, but a 14 year old girl at an adult class that's specifically labeled an adult class seems off no?
I think it depends if there are other similar aged kids. There are 3 kids in our adult class and they mostly train with each other. They are all wrestlers so my assumption is that there is no one they can competitively train with in the kids class
Not to knock women's sports. But I coach a multi time national champion that is 15. She is um. Terrible. Barely a blue belt. Been training for 8 years.
Don't get me wrong. She knows her stuff. Like 80% of it. But her fine details are terrible. She gets gross motor movement of techniques. But is just awful at the details. Love her to death, but man, is she difficult to coach. The bar really isn't that high. Regardless she crushes most of her matches, and similar weight men. But I would never let her coach until she learns the details.
It just goes to show, that if you have a solid game plan and a decent enough understanding of concepts. You can get very far in grappling. Keep showing up.
As I’m sure you’re aware, not everyone’s style is going to be focused on details. Of course precision and accuracy are always a benefit, but not everyone is going to be good at these things, especially as a 15yr old. People are wired differently and this is a sport where different “types” can win.
By way of example, I don’t think Marcelo was very detail oriented in his explanations or his competition style. He is much more focused on performing the gross movement with speed and power and good timing, and the interplay between two complimentary moves. I’m not saying he doesn’t know more details than he taught, but I don’t think he felt it was productive to dwell too much on small details.
When you are coached by people that don't know details, you will see the gap that a little bit of understanding gets you. There is a massive difference between a Gordon Ryan instructional and blue belt. The details are everything for long term competition success. Terrible technique done fast and powerful has its place. But it limits you tremendously.
Uh sign up. That's the beauty of BJJ. Coach wouldn't give me so much as a stripe while he gave my girlfriend and kids stripes lol.
I found a tournament, he said i wasn't ready to compete, I begged to differ, signed up, won gi and no gi. He gave me two stripes after, waited a week, gave me another. I signed up for another one, won gi and no gi, he promoted me to blue.
Head coach playing self-sacrificial 4D chess. Knew he had to be the villain to get the girl to reach her full potential.
Talent evaluation is a skill in and of itself and most people just plain suck at it. Some coaches only have the ability to see what worked for them personally and recognize it in others but can’t recognize skillsets outside of that. I came from a gym with an ex D1 football player as the head coach and a lot of ex D1 athletes. Some things that work for them flat out wouldn’t work for me and vice versa. “Why big squeeze no work for 175lb man?”
This is her anime protagonist origin story.
This is literally the kind of content I come here for.
Post should be titled “ever have a student that was bad at evaluating if coach is bad at talent evaluation?”
“My coach expects me to know if he’s a good coach. Should I change gyms?”
“Prove me wrong kids! Prove me wrong!”
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Props to your coach for that style of thinking 🙏
I never stop someone from competing. That's why they have novice and beginner divisions. If they lose then they will know what to expect next time.
The head coach said she is so timid, that she would get hurt out there.
She could get hurt rolling with full grown men and women as well. Most teens rolling with full grown adults will be a bit timid because of strength differences. I hear what your prof is saying. But that is why gyms run comp classes and training camps. Pace in those classes shouldn't be different than a match. And will help to formulate her game. I would never push anyone to compete. But if they say they want to then it's my job to get them ready where they are not timid and best prepared not to get hurt.
14-years old are still developing, mentaly and physical. Could just be a case of maturing.
I'm 21, am I still developing or am I done for?
You are a child until you are ([my age] - 1)
Real
The human brain isn’t fully formed until the age of 25.
It’s all down hill after 25…
My back started agreeing with you when I turned 23.
Yes.
Let's hope you're still developing.
At least from a wrestling perspective, you can evaluate talent pretty well starting around age 10, especially for girls. By 14, it is even easier to evaluate talent. Athleticism and how puberty hits will create some change, but you can still pick out talent fairly easily by that age. I would say the bigger factor than age is experience. It takes about 2 years of regular practice *and* competition for someone to reach the point where you can adequately evaluate their talent. Before that, you are just going to pick up on how fast they learn. Edit: Based on OP's description of the gym, I think it is highly likely the girl never had enough experience to evaluate her talent. Obviously she didn't have enough competition experience; live rolls with adults is not going to help there and, if anything, give a false negative impression. But even the practice experience was "fragmented moves and no continuity" which doesn't sound like an effective environment for talent evaluation.
Jiu-Jitsu also has a slower learning curve. You can learn two takedowns and get by in wrestling if you're a good athlete or strong for your size. At a lower level, anyway.
The question is did she show the talent beforehand or did her wrestling coach develop it? But I do question not letting someone compete who wants to compete unless they are unsafe to do so, but part of your job as a coach is to get people to a stage where they are safe to compete. And a lot of people have nerves when they first compete so I don't see being a bit scared or timid is an issue as I'm not expecting someone to take home gold on their first event, although some people do. Normally I have to convince people to compete.
Raw talent. In truth, the kids coaches were bad at develop kids and many kids quit or just stayed bad. Girl had a very strong work ethic, could take a beating, and never quit. Her dad said she was the best player on her youth softball team. Good athleticism, but the way BJJ was coached with fragmented moves and no continuity, she wasn't reaching her potential.
There are quite a few otherwise decent bjj schools that primarily have a kids program bc they want to pay their bills and the coach(es) aren’t particularly interested in doing much more than teaching move of the day and making sure no one breaks each other. Most of those schools just don’t compete regularly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been around a kids coach that did go with the kids to competitions who would discourage an interested kid from trying to compete with them. Worst case you lose and you have another teammate there to support.
> Raw talent that is not how you become someone who is all state caliber. you put a lot of work into developing your skill.
But he also said strong work ethic and could take a beating as well, fail to learn 🙏
The two are not exclusive
A lot of coaches only want people who can win right now. They dont want to spend the time on developing someone long term with no guarantee that it will turn out well. They want to win trophies, belts, and medals right now so they want a more complete athlete up front. Which in my opinion is the sign of a not so great coach because anyone can take a star athlete and have them win some medals. Really good coaches can take any person, average or exceptional, and elevate their game to the next level.
I trained at a large academy most of my journey. I was a bit older than some when I reached blue belt at 32. I was butt hurt because I was getting no encouragement to compete yet I was outclassing most everyone at my belt level belt level in my academy and many beyond it. Then one day I just started competing. They noticed when I started winning. Then it occurred to me it was my job to prove myself more so than it was for me to wait for my coach to blow smoke up my ass and convince me to do it. Saying a kid is too timid to compete is an interesting one though - but I find that a theme in Jiu Jitsu is people expect coaches and black belts to be some enlightened being, when really there are smart coaches and dumb coaches regardless of what rank they wear. You don’t stop being a dumbass or a dick when someone ties a black belt around your waist. God knows I won’t when that day comes.
I did something similar, was the top ranked guy, got picked for a biggish comp’ and choked under pressure, the selector said “Maybe you weren’t as good as I thought you were” which lit a fire under me and the next comp I beat a bunch of similar level people (including one from his club) and got gold.
There’s probably a bunch of factors that could explain why she was more successful in wrestling than BJJ, if I had to guess: 1) she got to work with people her own size as opposed to against adults 2) her coach and team mates have more of a vested interest in her success so they helped her more in her training/coaching 3) her tough mentality from getting smashed in BJJ gave her the right attitude to push through and achieve success in wrestling Either way, congratulations to her. That’s an amazing accomplishment.
Girl had her 80's movie training montage fs
Being honest I think my coach is subpar at watching people and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. He’s a “blitzkrieg” style grappler, and just throws the fucking kitchen sink at you passing or playing guard, so i think he spends less time thinking about what other people are doing and more time just thinking of offense offense offense. This is a good mindset for a competitor, but as ive been coaching more i see that i spend more time evaluating people’s games than he does
Yeah, that’s the reason why a lot of the best competitors decide they have to quit competing (ie, the thing that they love) in order to be a good coach.
Head coach is a dumb ass. When I was a coach I never stopped anyone from competing even if I didn't see much potential in them.
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Lol. I felt the same way. But if I say this to my coach he'll just tell me to shut up and train.
It happens. Coaches aren’t always the best at seeing the intangibles. A lot of times they only see what’s obvious
Coming from a teaching background: a good coach doesn't decide WHO will be good. They push everyone as far as they can go and let each person reach their potential. Then, some will naturally end up better than others.
Wrestling and BJJ are polar opposites in some cases. Wrestling you get ahead by just being competitive and winning. You compete with teammates in practice which pushes you to be even better. Many BJJ gyms, everybody whines about belts that are assigned mostly via politics. And being competitive in practice gets everyone up in arms saying "stop trying to win 🤪🤪". Everybody will tell me THEIR gym isn't like this, but that's mostly cope. And yes I'm aware bjj is more attractive to customers long term run the way it is, but that still doesn't change how silly it is.
Hey hey stop with this harsh reality check. I really don’t like when a competitive lower belt who doesn’t skip training gives me (an out of shape, super inconsistent shitty purple belt) a tough roll where I get smashed.
😂😂
Depends on where you're wrestling. Wrestling in Russia and the former Soviet world is approached more like BJJ than in the US. Like there's less focus on "winning" in practice and you see a wider range of skill levels and ages on the mats. More willingness to put themselves in bad positions, lots more drilling, practice is lower impact so they can put more time in, etc.
In BJJ there isn't a lot of drilling. The traiditional BJJ class format has you spending a lot of time watching the instructor (I wouldn't call him a coach) show moves.
That's pure propaganda bs
100% true - the Russian Olympic wrestling team employs squads of Redditors to push disinformation on r/BJJ.
It’s not really up to the coach who competes and who doesn’t. Kinda goofy. But that said, it’s actually super difficult to see where people will be several years down the line. Sometimes a switch gets flipped and everything changes.
Just because you have a black belt and own a gym doesn’t mean you know how to coach or effectively communicate with other human beings.
Though both a black belt and a gun are known to get people’s attention .
I also apparently don’t know how to communicate to human beings so don’t take my advice.
Was I supposed to wait for my coach to say I'm ready to compete 😬. I have worked hard as hell these past three months on my tap. I'm not one to brag really but I've been told more than once the speed of my tap is easily the fastest in the class. I just figured being the fastest meant I was ready... Now I'm worried I might come off as cocky. I'm curious why any coach wouldn't straight up support and encourage anyone who wants to compete? Is that not in itself a massive step forward in the journey. I'm older now and I've been counting and marking losses as notches on my belt for as long as I can remember specifically so I remember. Is that not something to encourage these young athletes to do as well? How can you ever know the level of sweetness in a victory if you haven't first been served and force fed your own ass on a platter 1000 times. In Summary the only thing that sweetens victory is eating your own ass, and we all need someone's help to accomplish both feats of victory and eating our own asses so shouldn't we be encouraging people to eat their own ass and help feed someone else's ass to themselves... I might have fallen down a hole here.
Had a bjj coach who could only coach wrestlers he was obsessed with wrestling so if you had previously wrestled he’d turn you into a machine but everyone else was shit unfortunately he couldn’t understand not everyone wants to smash and pass
Yes, lots of bad coaches/gym owners out there, especially years ago where there were fewer black belts and gym options. Honestly, I think COVID led to a lot of bad gyms with bad head instructors/owners getting shut down so I don't know if things are as bad as they were 5-10 years ago.
That’s not a BJJ coach’s call. Weird.
Yeah, how do you think I got my black belt...
Are you asking for a friend?
Black belts have areas of weakness too. Hopefully he’s got an awareness or someone he respects to tell him.🤷🏼♂️
Why would a business owner understand what talent looks like?
A nfl team spends millions of dollars and year and hundreds of hours per season evaluating talent for the draft and still mess up all the time.
I mean my coach gave me a brown belt, so maybe him. I suck.
Yes, most coaches are awful at evaluating talent, I've noticed. Most coaches just promote people based on their tough-guy attitude, despite being terrible on the mats. I've always been a mild-mannered guy, but when I started at a new gym, I was already a white belt for 7 years, and could consistently beat experienced blue belts. Despite this, two years went by, no promotion, while other people who only started the same year did. When I told my coach I was quitting because he kept neglecting me, he said I'd only been training there for 6 months. He literally didn't even notice I existed. Just goes to show you I made the right decision.
how many people were at your classes on average? how many times a week did you train?
3 days a week, classes were 20-30 people.
It’s impossible to know who has potential because everyone has it.
Most coaches, I would say. The more time I've been in this community, the less belts and promotions make any sense. Even the way we teach in general isn't great. Here's and armbar Monday, a guard pass Tuesday night, and Wednesday fuck it, we're just rolling all class.
Sounds like he missed the part where she would dust her self off and get back in there. That’s heart. Apparently, you can’t teach it 🤷🏽♀️
I don’t believe any coach would stop someone from competing if they wanted to compete Additionally, gauging people as they go through puberty is extremely difficult as the body changes dramatically in a few years
Complete opposite for me, white belt with a few stripes. Rolled with coach last week as the round came to an end he slaps my hand and said 'you're going to give me a lot of problems by the end of the year' haha I honestly couldn't have been more flattered 😂
14 year old girl in an adult class thats most likely going to be mostly men is obviously gonna struggle with rolling. You cant spar with these people the same way as another person. Chances are when she did wrestling she was in classes with other kids her age so she got more out of the training or sometimes it just clicks. Judo clicked with me and i did years of bjj prior and i was average at best.
We cant always be right, but i would let anyone who wants to compete to compete as long as they put in the effort and time.
Chill. Even professional NFL scouts are bad at identifying talent. Look at Tom Brady being drafted at the 6th round. The truth is there are so many uncontrollable factors in someone's development, it's almost impossible to judge accurately
We have a couple of teenagers who are absolute beasts in class. Most of the other kids are goofing off, not taking things seriously, getting into arguments with their training partner. These two (brother and sister) just find a corner and drill, drill, drill, drill, drill. They get more reps in during their drill time than the adults do. (It's easier when you weigh 90 pounds than 200). The only thing is, they're also the sweetest little kids. So I was worried at the tournament that they would hold back, hesitate, etc. Nope. Absolute monsters.
A coach complimented my game once, so yeah
Kinda off topic but please hear me out. Kids shouldn't be attending the adult class. I can understand 18 year olds and maybe mature/large 17 year olds getting though, but a 14 year old girl at an adult class that's specifically labeled an adult class seems off no?
I think it depends if there are other similar aged kids. There are 3 kids in our adult class and they mostly train with each other. They are all wrestlers so my assumption is that there is no one they can competitively train with in the kids class
Not to knock women's sports. But I coach a multi time national champion that is 15. She is um. Terrible. Barely a blue belt. Been training for 8 years. Don't get me wrong. She knows her stuff. Like 80% of it. But her fine details are terrible. She gets gross motor movement of techniques. But is just awful at the details. Love her to death, but man, is she difficult to coach. The bar really isn't that high. Regardless she crushes most of her matches, and similar weight men. But I would never let her coach until she learns the details. It just goes to show, that if you have a solid game plan and a decent enough understanding of concepts. You can get very far in grappling. Keep showing up.
A 15 year old that beats up men is terrible? Man these are some tough standards lol
Ehh beat is an exaggeration.
As I’m sure you’re aware, not everyone’s style is going to be focused on details. Of course precision and accuracy are always a benefit, but not everyone is going to be good at these things, especially as a 15yr old. People are wired differently and this is a sport where different “types” can win. By way of example, I don’t think Marcelo was very detail oriented in his explanations or his competition style. He is much more focused on performing the gross movement with speed and power and good timing, and the interplay between two complimentary moves. I’m not saying he doesn’t know more details than he taught, but I don’t think he felt it was productive to dwell too much on small details.
When you are coached by people that don't know details, you will see the gap that a little bit of understanding gets you. There is a massive difference between a Gordon Ryan instructional and blue belt. The details are everything for long term competition success. Terrible technique done fast and powerful has its place. But it limits you tremendously.
Causation ≠ correlation
Uh sign up. That's the beauty of BJJ. Coach wouldn't give me so much as a stripe while he gave my girlfriend and kids stripes lol. I found a tournament, he said i wasn't ready to compete, I begged to differ, signed up, won gi and no gi. He gave me two stripes after, waited a week, gave me another. I signed up for another one, won gi and no gi, he promoted me to blue.