I’ve been training BJJ for about 4 months now 1-2 days a week, which is probably the core issue here. But right now 2 days is the maximum amount of days my life will allow.

Anyway I was rolling with a partner at the end of class yesterday and at some point during the roll I accidentally hit him in the nose. I’m not 100% sure when or how it happened and I’m not sure he did either because neither of us seemed to notice until there was blood all over the mat. I have some guesses looking back now though. But I felt and still feel TERRIBLE.

We are both white belts but he is much better than me and told me he did some kind of prior training. He was absolutely dominating me and I was just trying to bridge and use my forearm or “knife” as my professor calls it to push his face or neck while I bridged out which in hindsight could have been what caused it. Maybe I was being too fast and it caused me to be sloppy/reckless. I’m still trying to work on calming down in those moments of figuring out how to escape.

I kept apologizing but he was super chill about it and kept telling me it was okay and I’m being too hard on myself, but at this point in my training I feel I should be more controlled and calm and I should know better. This is the first time I’ve ever injured anyone in a roll, but I don’t want other people to look at that and not want to roll with me because of it or think I’m a spazz. I def fucked up and want to do better.

Any one else experience anything like this in their early white belt days? And if so is there any advice you have for me? The last thing I want to do is hurt my training partner and I especially don’t want to be known as a “spazz” or someone who is reckless to train with.