A Good Big ‘Un

10th October 2023, White Belt Diaries VI

It’s an old boxing cliche that quickly proves to be equally true in my BJJ experience – ‘a good big’ un, always beats a good little ‘un’. It was a favourite of my dad’s when I would complain as a boy about coming off worse from a bruising wrestling exchange with my older brother or one of his friends.

One of the aspects of jiu jitsu I was immediately taken by was the egalitarian nature of the sport – you’re all treated equally in classes, you’re all judged by the merit of what you can do on the mat, you’re all given the same opportunity to progress and learn. No one particularly cares who or what you are. 

But that certainly does not mean that we are all equal in jiu jitsu. Size matters.

From its inception, BJJ was designed to give the little guy a shot in a fight with the big guy. But that depends on somewhat of a knowledge gap between the little guy and the big guy. And sometimes three stripes on, or a different colour of, a belt is not enough to overcome double-digit kilogram differences in size.  

One evening I head to the beginner class as I was aching from a particular tasty roll a few nights before. I wanted to take it easy. Unfortunately, I was paired up with a 120 kg meathead. It was a long hour. I came out sorer than initially intended. Another time, a rather large rolling partner – widely regarded to be on some ‘special supplements’ – seems to be able to get out of objectively terrible positions I place him in with strength alone. Again, I came out sorer than I’d hoped.

But as another favourite saying of my father went when complaining about rough treatment: ‘you play with the big boys, you get hurt. Don’t want to get hurt, don’t play with them.’

The disparity in strength and size mean that, while not being beaten up, when sparring man-mountains of lower or equal rank no amount of greater technique or knowledge is of much advantage due to the sheer size and strength difference. If your training partner is more senior in rank to and bigger than you… boy that’s a tough 5 minutes of sparring. Strength advantage is not the only benefit to being bigger – sometimes guys are so large, you can’t do basic positions due to their physical proportions. The unforeseen benefit of a beer belly.

The reverse has also been true. I know I have had the advantage when rolling with smaller blue belts, where technically I sense I am far inferior, but have the ace card of size or strength on my side. The difference is even greater across the sex-divide or significant age-gaps.

The egalitarianism only goes so far. All things being equal, the bigger will almost always defeat the smaller.

The main thing you can do is keep studying, keep practising, to increase the knowledge gap between you and most of the big ‘uns in the world as much as possible. And you learn to appreciate rolling with both the bigger and littler guys as they teach you different things.

You learn when you are the beneficiary of the size and strength card to not rely on it. You learn what works when you are the little player, you find out weaknesses in your skillset where you’ve been relying on being stronger or bigger. You learn to make sure that when you’re the junior rank rolling with the more senior, that you don’t rely on strength or size to get the win and the easy ego boost. You try to meet your rolling partners on as much as a level playing field as possible, so that the skill becomes the thing at play rather than anything else.  

You learn to be a good ‘good big ‘un’ in the hopes of being a great little ‘un.