On the mat, the truth

Master Rickson Gracie has always known that the mat is the best invention for detecting people's truth — much more effective than anything with electrodes, or modern psychological tests. 

And that's something Rickson started noticing even before he got his blue belt, at the age of 13. 

In his book "Breathe: A Life in Flow," the champion reveals that the first time he learned about this was during a drubbing he took in BJJ when he was a kid. It was little tells transmitted by the behavior of his training partners before, during and after training. For example: when someone would shake his hand without being able to look him in the eyes. Or, especially, by the posture of guys “who beat me so mercilessly but made excuses not to train with my older brothers.”

That was when Rickson, without any type of judgement — and still without understanding exactly what fear of losing or human insecurity were — made the decision. Whatever happened, he had but one certainty: he never wanted to grow up to act like those people. 

How about you? What do you learn about others, and yourself, with each training session?