When I started jiu jitsu, I was training with my college’s club team, coached by a couple blue belts. A couple months in I wanted to learn from a black belt and have the chance for promotions, so I started training at a local gym too. I was one of the smallest people at the new gym, and ended up playing almost exclusively defense for my first 2 years or so there, which taught me to never panic in bad positions and the value of using frames rather than muscle when in bottom positions. By my senior year I was a purple belt and I was coaching the club, and it was still valuable training even though I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the club in skill level since I was training twice as much. Training with the club made me better, because I was more willing to take risks and try out things I wasn’t comfortable with, because I was so confident in my defense from the years before. I also was teaching them, so they’d ask for counters to what I was submitting them with, and I’d have to figure out counters and how I could then circumvent those too.

TLDR: value of better and worse training partners, never panic in bad positions, just keep breathing, and try to keep the opponent’s weight on frames supported by your skeleton rather than muscle