It’s kids' class. We’re teaching a headlock escape. After the demo, I pick a volunteer, a five-year-old. He comes up, lies down, and I wrap his head.

I help him get his feet near his hips so he can bridge. Then I feel his arm around my back. If he bridges the way we do it with adults, I roll straight over that arm. He could get hurt.

So I adjust. I bring my own feet in and do my own bridge, so I roll over my shoulder instead of him. He ends up on top. Sigh of relief. The students and parents clap for him.

Later that night, I check the footage. It holds up.

The next day, one of my class helpers asks me about it. He said he had trouble working on the escape with certain kids during class. I told him I did the move. Ninety percent of it was me.

It doesn’t matter if the kid thinks he did it. What matters is he did the technique.

I grew up pretending to be a pro wrestler with the neighbor’s kid. We had matches, pins, and every move we could remember from TV. I never thought it did anything for my jiu-jitsu.

But it turns out it made me a better instructor.

It doesn’t help in sparring. In sparring you test each other. You don’t “sell” a move. It’s real, it’s a “shoot.”

But teaching’s different. Being a good bad guy means making sure the other person’s technique works.

That’s not confidence-building. That’s safety. A five-year-old can’t take a live roll from an adult yet. So I build the control in myself, and the technique still lands the way it’s supposed to.