I remember as a blue belt, I would roll with higher belts, and sometimes get into a dominant position. But my thought would be, “Are they just letting me get here?”

It’s interesting because even at the highest level, some elite athletes feel the same way.

One of my favorite pros to watch is Ffion Davies¹, and she was recently on the Raspberry Ape podcast again. She talked about imposter syndrome and how her lack of confidence cost her potential wins early in her career.

Uh, I think I actually, yeah, a good match to go back to was against Talita Alencar on EBI. I was like passing her guard and I got to mount, I got on her back. I didn’t submit from those positions, and then I was like, couldn’t really believe that it was happening. I was like, even the commentary was like, she, Talita must be letting her do this.

But then at the end of the match she ended up like, I fell off at the back and then she passed real quick and like jumped on my back and choked me.

Um, and I was like, Oh yeah, that’s what should have happened all along. Um, but I was sort of like, God, that’s really frustrating that I didn’t have the like the confidence to go for finishes because I was like, “This can’t be right.”

Like, she must be letting me do this. Of course she’s not. Like, who’s gonna let you crawl all over her in a match? It doesn’t make any sense. Um, but that was a really good example to me. Like it really pissed me off like myself, not her, obviously, um, because I was like, Why didn’t I just be more aggressive in that situation rather than be sort of, oh, like this can’t be real. And backing off. It’s really weird.

The podcast episode is here: https://soundcloud.com/theraspberryapepodcast/episode-98-ffion-davis-2