Self and Society: combat sports such as jiu jitsu teach us much about the complex interplay between ourselves and the people around us. It is on the face of it, an individual sport. You go and engage your opponent alone and as such, learn valuable lessons about self reliance and individual accountability. On the other hand, the entire learning and preparation process is very much social. We must learn to fit in to a group and form strong bonds of trust, mutual benefit and loss and cooperation. Jiu jitsu is fought and expressed as an individual but learned and perfected as part of a group – thus it provides an excellent balance between our need to develop strong individuality and our need to be a positive part of a social structure – nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the aftermath of success in competition. Here Eddie Cummings enjoys the admiration of friends, fans and support team after another big win
