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About This Episode In this episode of Tapped In, David Figueroa-Martinez explores the common hurdle many practitioners face when stepping onto the mats: struggling to tap into physical assertiveness and aggression. Whether shaped by polite office environments, starting the sport later in life, or past experiences, many students default to being overly passive. David breaks down how constructing a deliberate alter ego—drawing inspiration from top competitors and iconic figures—gives you permission to lead the dance, commit 100% to your techniques, and build genuine mat resilience.
3 Key Takeaways
- Permission to Be Assertive: Most adult practitioners come from environments where physical assertiveness is discouraged; an alter ego creates a psychological boundary that makes healthy aggression feel acceptable.
- Leading the Dance: Waiting for your partner to dictate the pace leaves you reacting; committing to initiating the first grip or move immediately changes the dynamic of the roll.
- Heart Can Be Cultivated: You don't have to be born a relentless scrapper; mindset, perseverance, and commitment to the fight can be practiced and internalized over time.
Chapters
- 00:00 – The Difficulty with Mat Aggression
- 01:13 – The Adult Baggage & The Corporate Contrast
- 02:37 – Why Most Beginners Default to Passive Rolling
- 03:41 – The Alter Ego Strategy (Sasha Fierce to Mamba)
- 04:47 – Constructing Your Mat Persona from the Right Models
- 06:05 – Becoming the Initiator: Making the First Move
- 07:37 – Reframing Adversity: How the Alter Ego Handles Trouble
- 08:44 – Debunking the Myth: Can You Teach Heart?
- 10:48 – Giving Yourself Permission to Step Up
- 11:23 – Community, Patreon Library & Coaching Wrap-Up
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Transcripts
Full Transcript
**** Welcome to Tapped In, my name is David Figueroa-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing the alter ego.
**** When you are newer or specifically when you're newer, we're going to have a lot of students who aren't necessarily okay with bringing out the aggressive side. It's new to them. They've maybe worked a corporate job, they've never worked, they've never played organized sports that highlighted aggression. They might be working through past traumas where aggression was deemed negative or associated with something that was uh bad in their life.
**** So you're going to have a whole host of people that come in that don't know how to address that aspect of the sport. That might be you. That might be a student of yours, a training partner, and it's pretty common. It's more common than we really want to be, we want to admit, because of our, so many backgrounds that come into this. It's different than any other sport that we jump into.
**** It's not basketball, it's not soccer, it's not baseball, it's not high school wrestling. The majority are coming into, I would say, in your 30s. Uh you know what I mean? If we're going to be honest, a good majority, a good percentage of the people that join jiu-jitsu recreationally are going to probably be in their 30s starting out.
**** And you carry a lot of baggage, a lot of things that you've already come through and experienced, and you have an adult career that has not necessarily valued or put a whole lot of emphasis on being aggressive. Most of us are worked in environments where you're supposed to be respectful of others, there's no touching, there's no personal space uh invading, there's no there you have to watch how you speak to people. And those environments don't necessarily equal apple to apple with what we do.
**** So when you max in or you combine all these different issues or reasons why we're not used to being aggressive, and being aggressive, and and pushing the pace, and being assertive, and all these other things physically at that, uh sometimes we struggle. Sometimes we struggle opening that side or tapping into that side. And don't get me wrong, some of you do not struggle with this at all. Some of you, it's in there. It's ingrained in there. Maybe you played Maybe you wrestled, maybe you played football, maybe you played another sport that had that ingrained in you.
**** But many of us don't have that. And for those of you that are struggling with tapping into that, I would consider, you know, tricking yourself: creating an alter ego of some kind, creating a version of yourself that would allow you or have permission to enter the grappling space more aggressively.
**** Um I know a good percentage of students, especially the starting out, who don't have that aggressive side to them. So they're very passive when they play the sport, they're very passive when they spar and when they drill. They allow a lot of things to happen that they shouldn't. So if you can tap into a version of you that is okay with being more aggressive, you're going to benefit from the sport about a bit more.
**** And I equate it to um like Sasha Fierce as a musician, I equate it to Prince, I equate it to kind of wrestling terms like Stone Cold Steve Austin, I equate it to Black Mamba. I equate it to these people who created these ego alter egos in order to tap into a spot of them that they could not walk around with all the time.
**** Like no one wants to walk around with the Mamba mentality 24/7 in everything you do. And I and I understand there's aspects of that that do translate to other things, but you don't want to be an asshole everywhere you go. You don't want to be aggressive everywhere you go. You don't want to be Mike Tyson in in the boardroom when you're Mike Tyson in the ring, you know what I mean?
**** So it allows us to kind of tap into these things that we're not so sure that we have, or are locked in somewhere. So one of the things you can do, and I would suggest making this alter ego—and I know this sounds weird—as closely matched to you as possible.
**** Tap in and borrow aspects of other people that you that you find uh kind of interest you. When I was coming up, I didn't have a whole lot of male representation in my life. I didn't have uncles, I didn't have a grandfather that was involved, and my dad was kind of, if we're going to be honest, distant. So for me, I had to I had to watch how other men moved. I had to watch specifically how male characters moved on TV.
**** So I started emulating, in my own way, aspects of each of those characters that I found valuable and that I found I can kind of relate to. You can do the same thing. When you're creating this alter ego for yourself—please don't talk to other people about it, it's going to come off as very weird—but when you're getting ready to to to spar, tap into that and say this version of me is okay with imposing themselves physically on someone else.
**** I'm dialing up an aspect of myself that's in there that I'm not comfortable pulling out, but for this specific spot makes perfect sense. It's okay to, I have permission to. Um I would pull aspects from certain athletes that maybe you are in relation to, maybe have similar body types, maybe there's something about that person that identifies with you. Study them. Study how they approach training, study how they approach uh uh in in a roll or a competition.
**** If you're someone who loves um Leandro Lo, Marcelo Garcia, uh Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, watch their interviews. Start paying attention to how they handled adversity, how they handled uh practice, how they handled getting into the game themselves, how they handled difficult situations of the game, um how they would trick themselves. Because a lot of them talked themselves into the role that they were playing. A lot of them switched off aspects of their personality that did not suit them at that at current spot.
**** It's difficult and and it sounds weird to do, it really does. But I think it's incredibly helpful for those students who are trying to figure out what kind of grappler they're going to be, and they can't quite pull these things out of them because they're not naturally there. After a while, and you feel more comfortable, and you feel more assertive, and you feel sure of yourself, you're going to understand that once I slap hands, when I get on the mat, this is the version of me that I'm going to start playing. This is the version of me that I'm going to allow to come forward.
**** It's It may not be perfect, it's not going to be doesn't mean that you're going to win every round or you're going to win the rounds that you're not your skillset can't back up. But it at least changes the mental approach of what you're doing. It changes how you're the confidence level, it changes how much you're going to commit to a decision, even though if you don't know that that decision is the right decision.
**** Often times the right move is the one that you commit to 100%. And if you can commit 100%, it's because you're feeling more confident in what you're doing. There's plenty of people out there that I've rolled with who they are 100% committed to a technique that is completely wrong, but because they were so committed to the technique, that actually turned out pretty good.
**** So that's kind of what we have to get into. Create these these versions of yourself that, again, have permission to be different than what you are off the mat. Um I just heard a story, it was on a podcast and this gentleman, he was trying to get one of his kids—he worked for the Lakers—trying to get one of his kids to be a little bit more aggressive. And he had to he had introduced him to Kobe or Kobe happened to be nearby or something.
**** And Kobe kind of pulls him aside and says, "Hey, so we can be an asshole on the court." And he literally stepped on the court: asshole. Stepped off the court: nice guy. Stepped on the court: asshole. Stepped off the court: nice guy. And he was demonstrating that on the court he can be a different version of himself. He's given himself the authority to be able to do that.
**** And I'm not saying you have to be an asshole when you train or when you're competing or you're rolling, but you are allowed to be the different version of the corporate version of you, or the warehouse version of you, or the office version of you, or the sales version of you. Because those two live in different lanes, it doesn't mean that you are not allowed to to push, and be more assertive, and be more commanding physically. It's a weird sport.
**** It's weird to start in your 30s, 40s, 50s for some of you, and never had a moment of physical aggression other than when you were a kid where you're now permitted to be that way. So you're a little out of practice. And the best way, in my opinion, is to if it doesn't come out naturally, is to create this this version of you that allows it that is allowed to play that way.
**** And again, as weird as that may sound, to think yourself as a different version, it can actually assist, it can help. It can allow you to to give permission to that and push forward. Um start small. Today or this week: "Hey, I'm going to be aggressive. I'm going to be the person that does the first move." The character in my head of myself, if I can cultivate one that I would be proud to associate myself with: he is nice, he's respectful, but he's aggressive. He makes the first move.
**** He doesn't wait for his opponent to grab onto his lapel or grab onto his sleeve and put him on his back foot. No, that version of me that I that I'm really trying to be, he makes the first move. And then when you start making that first move, a couple of things are going to happen: you're going to understand, oh, now you're the lead in the stance. Whoever's making the moves is usually the lead. And I understand we can reverse the position, we can get swept, we can even get submitted off of that move.
**** But the other person then has to respond to us. That puts you in a different light. That puts you just a step ahead at very least. You're not always going to make the right move, sometimes you're going to make a decision that doesn't quite pan out. But a strong defense is what? Strong offense.
**** So create that that narrative of that ego of yourself, the alter ego of yourself that is resilient. He doesn't the charac- main character in the movie doesn't beat himself up relentlessly. She doesn't put herself down relentlessly. She and he figure out what has to be done, and no matter how bad the movie gets, they address the things that that need to be addressed. They make the changes that need to be made. They counter, and they fight, and they claw, and they scratch until they get back into a position where they can now win.
**** That's Those are kind of the traits that you want to pull for yourself, so that it starts to so the rounds start to feel a little different. Um one of the hardest things to get is people will argue: you can't teach heart. In my opinion, that's a false statement, and I've had these debates with people. I think you can fake it. I think you can talk yourself into it. I think you can it's a it's a trait that you can learn, specifically if it's about something you care about and something that you want to get better at.
**** I may not have heart in wrestling, I don't give a shit about wrestling. So someone might put me in the ring or on the mats in a strictly wrestling event, and you may not see my heart. I don't care enough. But I love jiu-jitsu. And even when I was a white belt, blue belt, the thing that I learned to to cultivate was, "Hey, I might go and I might get submitted, I get smashed, but I'm going down swinging." Like in a saying.
**** So I think that you can fake it until it's part of you, and you can build up heart, and you can build up your mindset to say, "You know what, I'm I'm I'm not going to quit here. Where I normally would, I'm not going to quit here. My alter ego would never quit here." And you start building. You start opening things up, you start pushing, you start understanding what that alter ego would do in a certain situation, and then you start identifying it a little bit more.
**** Um as I know this is pretty abstract, it's maybe a little weird, uh but I really for those of you who are struggling with being aggressive, I would really attempt this. I would start talking to myself in a certain way where when I step on the mat, these are the characteristics that I want to impose on other people, and I want to carry within myself.
**** Um so if there's any questions on this or anything else, please let me know. We have a Patreon page up. Uh my entire library is going on that. It's growing every week. Um my workshops are going on that. We have exclusive episodes of the podcast that go on that that are generated by uh subscriber requests, and issues, and dilemmas, and problems. And then we have some direct coaching if you want to get that done, also available. If you have any questions, please let me know. Until next time, thank you so much.
