I’ve got a handful of students that started with a different martial art. Of them, only one appears to have gained any advantage over my other students who came in with zero experience. And that one student actually competes in hand-to-hand combat.

Some students are black belts in their other art, and they also happen to be among the worst when it comes to grappling. I wonder if it’s because they had no contact with others on their way to black. These students practiced forms and broke boards and hit bags.

Sometimes, learning something just to learn is worse than neutral. Depending on the school, it can be a negative. I think about my short time learning wing chun. This was years before starting jiu-jitsu. After a couple of months, I wished someone would do something, so that I could show off my skills. Years later, I realized how lucky I was to never get into any altercations. I could’ve been humiliated, or killed.

I like to say that any training is better than no training, but it depends on just what that training is. For anyone I care about, I’d rather they have one hour per week of jiu-jitsu, than five hours a week of almost anything else.