When you’ve been training long enough, you develop an awareness. You don’t put all of your weight on someone who’s half your size when you have side control on them. You know that the new guy doesn’t know how to move yet. He needs you to slow down, and you do it without him saying anything.

Nobody really teaches you this directly. You hear it, but you have to feel it, and you have to be it.

The gi is part of why this is hard to learn. The first way it works is a good way: it’s an equalizer.

It allows the minimum-wage worker to engage with the six-figure executive. They’re dressed the same; they’re working together. You can’t tell the difference between them. They’re just jiu-jitsu practitioners.

People who’d never meet anywhere else become training partners. Sometimes they become friends. It’s the sameness of the uniform that closes a distance most things in life can’t.

The gi also hides things. It hides age. It hides the wear and tear.

Somebody who’s almost 60 can look 40 in a gi. A 30-year-old might look at him and just think, “Oh, he’s just a bit older than me.” That older guy could have 20, 25, 30 years on that younger guy, and it’s not just speed and strength. It’s recovery. It’s the knees. It’s what it feels like the next morning.

Younger students don’t always adjust. Sometimes it’s ignorance. Sometimes it’s not. It’s just that they can’t see what the gi is hiding.

I’m almost 50. Some of my blue belts probably think we’re closer in age than we are. I have to tell them, “Picture yourself in 20 years. That’s me right now. Take it easy.” Once you say it out loud, they usually get it, but someone has to say it.

The gi brings people together. That’s worth protecting, but it also covers up the things you need to know to be a good training partner. The gi is an equalizer, but it doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention. You should look at it as a reason to pay more attention.