Ego: friend or foe?

Foe...

No time for a proper post tonight. Started with a 30 min private with Professor Matthias. Sat out most of the grip break and take down drills. Odd number of training partners and I didn''t want to risk injury. Technique included side control to mount and a triangle transition from side control. 3 rolls. Around 6 minutes each. Got a Blue and two Whites. The blue and one of the whites likely outweighed me. 100% on the guard pass attempts. Major improvement. Roll with the lighter White is the focus of tonight's post. ~20yr olds. Maybe 190 lbs or so. Wrestling background with ~4 mos experience, but he apparently took a few months off. Didn't recognize him. Wild ride. Had I kept my ego in check, I wouldn't have picked him - and I certainly would have forced him to play my game. Alas..I did neither. I chose him and I allowed his pace and intensity to dictate the round. Shot 3-4 arm bars from guard, to no avail. He stacked each and I had to rework guard. Several sweeps including one from spider. Had him in north-south and locked the figure 4 to execute kimura. Had it cranked more than 45 degrees and got distracted. He couldn't be that flexible could he? I lost focus. He managed to escape. I transitioned to arm bar. Had it tight...he didn't tap. Extended hips and pulled harder. Still no tap. REALLY? C'mon. Time ran out. Crazy ego-filled roll. Instead of slowing him down, I went with his pace and shot arm bars when I should have bailed to a sweep set up or side control survival / escape. When he stacked those attempts, I ended up having to sweep from side control or recover guard anyways. At one point he locked in a d'arce set up when i set up a butterfly guard sweep, but didn't know how to finish it. Anyways...ego is my foe. I risked injury trying to show that a Baby Blue Belt, enven a middle aged baby blue, could handle the most athletic and aggressive White. Did I handle him? I suppose. Didn't submit him, but the roll was crazy tough. I could have done a better job controlling the roll. Oh well. Next time.