May 24, 2025 • 18 mins
Have you been doing jiu jitsu for what feels like a while? Are you having to learn things the hard way? Well, we have just given you the outline of the devastating truths of BJJ, and how you can navigate these things. We hope you continue to excel on your grappling journey and are glad you're here taking our advice. Please feel free to drop a like, subscribe and a comment if you like the video.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Essentially, at this point, thefight is over, so you pretty
much flow with the goal who isworthy to be trusted with the
secret to limitless power?
I'm ready.
(00:27):
The 10 harsh truths I wish Iknew about BJJ when I started.
It's only now that I know thesethings.
And if you've just begun, thisis going to help you, so we're
going to go through them.
And if you don't know thisabout juj, to help you, so we're
going to go through them.
And if you don't know thisabout jujitsu, it might be a bit
(00:48):
of a wake up call.
It might hurt a little bit.
It might that we did say harsh,it is harsh and jujitsu is
harsh.
So let's start at the top,which is it's painful, but it's
real.
Most people you meet in jujitsuquit eventually.
It could be you, especially ifyou don't dig into these other
things.
So it's so tough.
(01:08):
You meet people when you startthe journey and you're like, oh,
we're besties, we're friends,this is great.
And then you're like a year ortwo passes and you're like, fuck
, I'm the only one standing,like there's just all new people
.
Now you feel like, even thoughyou might still be a white belt,
you feel like an og becauseyour cohort has petered out.
Yeah, I find it very rare thatpeople you start with stick yeah
(01:31):
.
Yeah, it's definitely a war ofattrition in that sense.
And when you're so frothy atthe start you you cannot
conceive of how you anyone couldpossibly ever want to quit
because it's just so much fun.
But, um, the injuries haven'tstacked up yet, that's it.
And it's usually within thatearly period.
And it leads me to the harshtruth which we've talked about.
(01:54):
It, but almost no gym owner oranyone else wants to talk about
is you will get injured, youwill.
This is jujitsu, you will, thisis jujitsu.
We know that it is a toughcontact, sport and art, but
essentially it is not a salespitch.
And even though we glorify it,when you cop that injury which
(02:16):
stops you from living your life,it makes you question your
motivation for jujitsu.
So this idea of people quitting, it's like I know for myself
when I when I caught my firstserious knee injury, it did stop
me in my tracks because I was apersonal trainer and I'm like I
can't walk downstairs, I canbarely put my fucking shoes on.
How can I live my life?
Is this worth it.
(02:37):
Yeah, you must have had amoment like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, just yeah.
And I mean I fucking still havethat moment somewhat regularly
Time to time.
Yeah, something stupid happens,like you fucking jam, your
finger gets jammed or something,and you're like, ah, fuck.
And you're like man jujitsu,god damn it.
Yeah, and I think the longer westay in it we accept it more.
(02:58):
But I think it's when peoplecop that first serious injury,
it's a bit of a wake-up call.
Yeah, that one is enough toreally rattle some people to
never come back.
But yes, I do find once you getthrough that first one, it kind
of recalibrates your perceptionof yourself and understanding
of the whole thing and I thinkit hopefully generally puts you
(03:20):
in a better position movingforward.
Yeah, provided you're able toovercome it, that's right.
And so here's the deal.
This is the hardest thing,especially when you got the
froth and maybe it starts towear off.
It takes easily.
This is a hard truth.
If you've been trainingjiu-jitsu less than like two,
three years, you suck Likeyou're not good in comparison to
people who've done it longerthan you.
(03:41):
Right, and it is so hard totell because you start you're
just training with people yourown level, and then maybe you go
to a different gym and thenyou're like they just throw you
in with everyone.
You're like, oh, I'm used tojust rolling white belts.
They're like, no, we traineveryone together here and you
just get destroyed and that'sthe thing.
There's very few things Ibelieve in life where you put in
(04:04):
two years of showing up three,four, five times a week and
you're not good at it.
In two years, you know, likewithin the scope of what jujitsu
is and so to, and I and I thiskind of leads into a different
point relevant to like why bluebelts quit.
You commit so much time, maybeit's three years, maybe it's
four years.
(04:24):
You get that blue belt and thenyou still have this sense that
you're not Good.
Yeah, and it's so tough becausejujitsu is so big.
It's true, and I mean, you knowgood is such a relative term,
isn't it?
You know it's like supersubjective, but but yeah, need
to be prepared that the firstcouple of years you're probably
going to suck.
Yeah, and it's difficultbecause we we mainly compare
(04:46):
ourselves to the higher belts,because that's where we want to
go, but they've got so much leadtime on you and maybe you
follow like a, like a joshsaunders or something, who's
like got my black belt in threeyears and you're like, fuck, I
should be on track for that, Ithink, I think I'm going good.
And then you just get pummeledagain and that that's the
hardest thing.
These metrics of like, if I getthere faster, I must be better.
(05:06):
That's not necessarily true atall.
Yeah, that's right.
That's a myth.
Stripes don't matter, that'sright.
I fucking said it.
You're worried about your nextstripe.
Trust me, daddy, when you getto the next belt, and the belt
after it just disappears.
It only matters at that time,because that's your measure of
(05:27):
am I improving?
Because the hardest thing aboutjujitsu is you don't know if
you're improving.
It's like oh, I got the stripefrom coach, I must be improving.
No, no, there's people outthere not getting any stripes,
hardly getting belts, and theywill fucking destroy you.
The stripe is a bit of anillusion.
I'm not going to say it's likea scam, but it's the
(05:48):
encouragement award to keep youon track, which is a useful tool
.
But you shouldn't get fuckingdeluded by that.
Don't get caught up on iteither.
Don't imagine Like, oh, but I'mthree stripes and he's only one
stripe, I should smash him'slike no, it's not like that.
Yeah, it really.
It is a marketing tool of sorts,or retention tool to keep you
(06:11):
on track, which is valid, butdon't think that stripes
correlate with skills.
They don't.
Yeah, it's a.
It's a.
It's a bit of a, a bit of asales thing.
Now here's something which Imaybe some people are not going
to like, joe, but it is a bit ofa sales thing.
Now here's something whichmaybe some people are not going
to like, joe, but it is a harshtruth.
Well, the stripe givers aregoing to be up in arms about
your last point.
Yeah, I mean fuck them.
No, I mean respectfully.
(06:32):
Suck it, dx.
Suck it.
More isn't better, more trainingisn't better.
Some people respond to greatervolume of training and some
people actually really respondto a bit less.
Now, invariably, there's alwayssomeone in the gym who trains
more than anyone else.
They're the mat rat.
(06:52):
They usually smell a bit dankbecause their geese still wet
from lunch session.
They're always training.
You always see them on the matand generally, because they've
got crazy level volume, they'redoing better than most, even
though they may be riddled withinjuries or they may have no
income or they may just sleep onsomeone's couch or whatever.
(07:13):
Their life might not be great,but they're good at jiu-jitsu.
People assume more jiu-jitsutraining equals better jiu-jitsu
.
This is not true Like.
I know some very elite jujitsuguys who only train once a day
and actually they only trainfour, sometimes five days a week
.
Yeah, I've been testing, I'vebeen just training once a month
(07:35):
and I feel like I'm gettingheaps better.
Elite, yeah, elite, I'm goingto challenge Souders with my
methods soon.
No, that's that's what you got.
To train every week, don't dowhat I do.
But that's right.
Training more.
There's an absolute upper limitof that where it just starts to
fuck you up because you're notgetting enough sleep, you're not
applying yourself properly inclasses, you're not fucking
(07:57):
spending time with your familyor doing your job properly.
Whatever else is going on, yourlife gets um sacrificed.
So taking a minimalist approachis I can't imagine anyone that
it's not the best, best way togo about it.
Yes, maybe, if you're fucking17 and you got nothing going on,
great, go there every day.
But pretty much everyone elsehas got shit going on.
(08:18):
I think also it's not a problemto build up over time, like just
do three days a week and thendo that for a couple of months
and then go, oh, I might add afourth day, yeah, and then do
that too and then gradually justbuild up over time.
The problem is most coacheswill say, just train more,
because that's the only leverthey've got to pull.
But also, that's their fuckingbusiness model.
You know, it's a bit of a sadirony that obviously coaches
(08:44):
want you on the mat because it'sgood for their gym, it's good
for their business.
They think it's good for you.
But it also might burn you out,yeah, and then they lose you as
a customer and then yourjourney may be over.
Uh, look, gym culture will makeor break your jiu-jitsu.
If you go to a gym, and eventhough they might have many
champions or whatever, itdoesn't mean anything if it's a
(09:05):
very brutal, toxic culture whereyou just get put through the
meat grinder and then step up orfuck off, like that.
For me, having wheeled myselfinto a very tough environment,
it suited me because I wantedthat smoke.
For most jiu-jitsu folks, Ithink that's a recipe for
disaster.
You go oh, but they've got allthe best people, yeah, but they
(09:29):
don't actually really care aboutyour long-term success.
I believe that is a huge redflag.
And if you buy into the oh, butthey've got really good
champions, that's fuckery Good.
Gym culture looks like themgiving a fuck about you as an
individual.
No matter where you're cominginto it, whether you've already
(09:51):
got a blue belt or you've neverdone jujitsu, they actually care
more about you as an individualthan how good are you at
jujitsu.
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Yeah, I would agree with that.
I mean, those things are notnecessarily mutually exclusive,
but they often are.
Yeah, in that if a gym is reallyfocused on building great
competitors, they're probablynot as focused on fostering
(10:58):
beginners and keeping jujitsuopen to all different types that
want to come in and do thething.
It's like, no, no, no, we're,we're interested in building
killers and so, yeah, find aplace that matches whatever it
is that you're after.
And we know this after manyyears that most people aren't in
jujitsu to roll to the death atevery session and want to make
it their fucking be all and endall.
(11:19):
It's just something, an awesomething that is part of your life
, and so, in that way, find agym that sort of delivers it to
that degree.
Yeah, this kind of goes off theback of that, which is it's
hard to hear.
If you don't, if you're doingjujitsu right now and you don't
have a gym buddy, you're goingto time out, you're not going to
(11:39):
make it.
If you're going to jujitsu andyou're just like, oh, it's fine,
it's fine Like I'm not mateswith everyone there, but it's
fine.
No, you need a gym buddy.
You need someone who you cantalk to whether they're like
senior to you or junior to youor whatever it is in your gym
who you can relate to somehowpersonally to negotiate this
really fucking harsh, bumpy roadwhich is jujitsu.
(12:00):
You don't have a gym buddy in.
You're fucking done Like youwill not last in jujitsu.
This is what I have found,because I have seen very capable
people with huge potential butbecause they weren't able to
connect with people in the gym,they invariably stopped coming.
Because you need something morethan the skills.
You're sort of outside of thesocial fabric of the place.
(12:22):
It's tough, especially if yougo into an established gym which
is a bit clicky.
Yeah, you feel it.
You're like they startedtogether, or those are all the
tough guys, or that's the girlsgroup, or like where do I fit in
here?
So Gym Buddy kind of helps youto navigate, that it gives you
another person that can keep youaccountable.
And actually I think great gymsusually find a way to oh, you
(12:44):
should go in with so-and-so,yeah.
Oh, find a way to oh, youshould go in with so-and-so,
yeah, yeah, didn't you say thatyou?
You know you fucking love videogames.
This guy's fucking all aboutthe crypto, right, fucking this
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He's got a really good deal foryou.
You should, uh, follow him oninstagram.
I should go start a meme cointogether.
The blockchain, am I right?
Um, what number are we up to?
We are right near the end.
Holy shit, we're so close,we've got, so got three to go.
(13:05):
So many harsh truths.
It's tough, right.
Ten harsh truths.
It smacks you in the face, itpunches you in the guts, but you
need to hear it so that youwill stay in the game.
Uncle Joey and JT are the onlyones that are going to tell you
the real deal.
Give it to your fucking role.
(13:30):
People are like I thought youguys were advocating yeah, we
are going to all the otherepisodes.
Trust, stay with me, you willnever master jujitsu.
You won't.
And how do I know this?
Because I've spoken to peoplewho I thought had mastered the
game, like people, four-timechampions, five times, ten times
world champions.
You talk to them and they'relike nah, man, it's too, it's
too big.
Yeah, but this is actually agood thing.
Don't look at this the wrong way.
Some people are like, oh, butif it's impossible to ever get
(13:50):
on top of it, no, you're goingto get insanely good at
jiu-jitsu.
You put the time in and youwork at it.
But the great thing is, it'swhat's referred to as like an
infinite game.
You never quite get there.
Even though you might be sogood at an armbar, someone might
show you a small detail whichyou never knew before, but now
your armbar is better.
It shouldn't be an inherentlynegative thing that you, you
(14:17):
know, you're not quite.
I think people really feel theneed to control something or
feel like I own this or this ismine, and jujitsu is just so
freaking infinite.
You will never master it, sodon't get hung up on that.
Yeah, yeah, cause it can bevery disappointing when you
cause you do think in thebeginning that you will get to a
point of mastery.
Yeah, and then at a point youdo realize, wow, that that
mastery never comes.
But sometimes that feeling likeespecially when you've, like,
(14:39):
got a little bit of experienceand like you've got a bit of a
game and it's going okay, you'relike, yeah, yeah, I think I'm
across it all.
This is my game, yeah, I'm onthis.
It can hit you like a ton ofbricks when you realize I'm not
across it at all.
Yeah, I remember like the firsttime in Sao Paulo, watching like
them demonstrate certaintechniques.
I was like, whoa, there's like10 steps to this.
I thought there was one.
(14:59):
Like I've been doing this forthree or four years, I didn't
know it was done like that.
Like you, you may relate tothis where you're like how come
no one showed me this before?
Like how come I didn't knowthis before?
I've been doing this wrong forfour and a half five years, fuck
.
But the great thing is you knowbetter now and this is the cool
journey of staying in it.
But uh, look, it doesn't geteasier.
(15:21):
You just get better, like it'shard.
It doesn't matter if you're a,you know five.
Get better Like it's hard.
It doesn't matter if you're a,you know five weeks in and
you're a white belt, or you're10 years in and you're a black
belt.
It is hard.
Jiu Jitsu doesn't get easier.
At every level there will be newchallenge, technically,
physically, personally, all thisshit.
But that is the value in it.
(15:43):
You are getting better.
You are rising to the challenge.
The value in it you are gettingbetter.
You are rising to the challenge.
This challenge, like don't letit beat you down, but it's
fucking real.
You get to that next level andthen it's just well.
It just gets more difficult indifferent ways.
But that is the beauty, is theincreasing challenge.
You never are similar to themastery.
You never arrive.
(16:03):
This is similar.
I was talking to a friend ofmine who's like borderline
contortionist and I said to herlike how's it feel when you like
can do a backbend and put yourhead on your heels and stuff.
She's like fucking hurts.
Like when you hit that endrange, it doesn't matter if
you're really flexible, it'sstill.
It's not like, oh, it'scomfortable, yeah, like when you
hit the top end of whateveryour capacity is, it fucking
(16:25):
hurts.
So you just embrace that thisis in the name of improving and
fuck that's what it is.
Right, so harsh, but true, uh,jujitsu ain't getting easier.
Last but not least, don't hateme folks.
Well, hate me now if you will.
Black belts don't matter.
The black belt totally doesn'tmatter, unless it's mine.
(16:47):
Well, even then it doesn'tfucking matter.
Um, don't matter to me, son.
No, because it is just the, youknow, without getting too
Buddhist or philosophical in it.
Like you know, death is thenext step.
The black belt is just a stepamongst many steps and the
problem is it's also.
The marketing of jiu-jitsu islike oh the black belt, oh the
(17:08):
master, all the things.
And you know, once you get it,it not that it's meaningless,
but it doesn't.
It does.
It's not the epitome ofjiu-jitsu.
It doesn't mean what youthought it was gonna mean.
No, it means something verydifferent, but I mean it's.
It's obviously still of immensevalue.
But yeah, you thought that itwould mean you'd mastered the
shit and you're like, oh gosh,oh, you think I'm an expert now?
(17:31):
Yeah, no, none of that, no, andthat is confronting when you've
spent so many years workingtowards this thing.
Yeah, and the reason why Iwanted to talk no one tells you
that.
That's why we're fuckingtelling you.
We're fucking fucking tellingyou.
You weren't fucking telling youand it's not a point of
discouragement.
(17:51):
All these points ultimately meanthat you stay in jujitsu.
You are going to be a better,tougher, smarter person, but you
do have to overcome all thisfucking challenge and as soon as
you can accept that thesethings are the case and keep
moving forward, then you are onthe path, my friends, and you
will get there.
If these things knock you offthe path because no one told you
(18:14):
, or it's a shock to your system, I think that's sad, because I
want to see everybody stay onthe path.
That's right.
Your potential is limitless.
It is If you choose to acceptthe lessons herein.
It is If you choose to acceptthe lessons herein, yes, sir.
So there it is, the truth ofall truths, and so we do not say
this in a form ofdiscouragement.
We say seek the discomfort,stay on the path.
(18:37):
You will get there, we believe.
Thank you,
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Essentially, at this point, thefight is over, so you pretty
much flow with the goal who isworthy to be trusted with the
secret to limitless power?
I'm ready.
(00:27):
The 10 harsh truths I wish Iknew about BJJ when I started.
It's only now that I know thesethings.
And if you've just begun, thisis going to help you, so we're
going to go through them.
And if you don't know thisabout juj, to help you, so we're
going to go through them.
And if you don't know thisabout jujitsu, it might be a bit
(00:48):
of a wake up call.
It might hurt a little bit.
It might that we did say harsh,it is harsh and jujitsu is
harsh.
So let's start at the top,which is it's painful, but it's
real.
Most people you meet in jujitsuquit eventually.
It could be you, especially ifyou don't dig into these other
things.
So it's so tough.
(01:08):
You meet people when you startthe journey and you're like, oh,
we're besties, we're friends,this is great.
And then you're like a year ortwo passes and you're like, fuck
, I'm the only one standing,like there's just all new people
.
Now you feel like, even thoughyou might still be a white belt,
you feel like an og becauseyour cohort has petered out.
Yeah, I find it very rare thatpeople you start with stick yeah
(01:31):
.
Yeah, it's definitely a war ofattrition in that sense.
And when you're so frothy atthe start you you cannot
conceive of how you anyone couldpossibly ever want to quit
because it's just so much fun.
But, um, the injuries haven'tstacked up yet, that's it.
And it's usually within thatearly period.
And it leads me to the harshtruth which we've talked about.
(01:54):
It, but almost no gym owner oranyone else wants to talk about
is you will get injured, youwill.
This is jujitsu, you will, thisis jujitsu.
We know that it is a toughcontact, sport and art, but
essentially it is not a salespitch.
And even though we glorify it,when you cop that injury which
(02:16):
stops you from living your life,it makes you question your
motivation for jujitsu.
So this idea of people quitting, it's like I know for myself
when I when I caught my firstserious knee injury, it did stop
me in my tracks because I was apersonal trainer and I'm like I
can't walk downstairs, I canbarely put my fucking shoes on.
How can I live my life?
Is this worth it.
(02:37):
Yeah, you must have had amoment like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, just yeah.
And I mean I fucking still havethat moment somewhat regularly
Time to time.
Yeah, something stupid happens,like you fucking jam, your
finger gets jammed or something,and you're like, ah, fuck.
And you're like man jujitsu,god damn it.
Yeah, and I think the longer westay in it we accept it more.
(02:58):
But I think it's when peoplecop that first serious injury,
it's a bit of a wake-up call.
Yeah, that one is enough toreally rattle some people to
never come back.
But yes, I do find once you getthrough that first one, it kind
of recalibrates your perceptionof yourself and understanding
of the whole thing and I thinkit hopefully generally puts you
(03:20):
in a better position movingforward.
Yeah, provided you're able toovercome it, that's right.
And so here's the deal.
This is the hardest thing,especially when you got the
froth and maybe it starts towear off.
It takes easily.
This is a hard truth.
If you've been trainingjiu-jitsu less than like two,
three years, you suck Likeyou're not good in comparison to
people who've done it longerthan you.
(03:41):
Right, and it is so hard totell because you start you're
just training with people yourown level, and then maybe you go
to a different gym and thenyou're like they just throw you
in with everyone.
You're like, oh, I'm used tojust rolling white belts.
They're like, no, we traineveryone together here and you
just get destroyed and that'sthe thing.
There's very few things Ibelieve in life where you put in
(04:04):
two years of showing up three,four, five times a week and
you're not good at it.
In two years, you know, likewithin the scope of what jujitsu
is and so to, and I and I thiskind of leads into a different
point relevant to like why bluebelts quit.
You commit so much time, maybeit's three years, maybe it's
four years.
(04:24):
You get that blue belt and thenyou still have this sense that
you're not Good.
Yeah, and it's so tough becausejujitsu is so big.
It's true, and I mean, you knowgood is such a relative term,
isn't it?
You know it's like supersubjective, but but yeah, need
to be prepared that the firstcouple of years you're probably
going to suck.
Yeah, and it's difficultbecause we we mainly compare
(04:46):
ourselves to the higher belts,because that's where we want to
go, but they've got so much leadtime on you and maybe you
follow like a, like a joshsaunders or something, who's
like got my black belt in threeyears and you're like, fuck, I
should be on track for that, Ithink, I think I'm going good.
And then you just get pummeledagain and that that's the
hardest thing.
These metrics of like, if I getthere faster, I must be better.
(05:06):
That's not necessarily true atall.
Yeah, that's right.
That's a myth.
Stripes don't matter, that'sright.
I fucking said it.
You're worried about your nextstripe.
Trust me, daddy, when you getto the next belt, and the belt
after it just disappears.
It only matters at that time,because that's your measure of
(05:27):
am I improving?
Because the hardest thing aboutjujitsu is you don't know if
you're improving.
It's like oh, I got the stripefrom coach, I must be improving.
No, no, there's people outthere not getting any stripes,
hardly getting belts, and theywill fucking destroy you.
The stripe is a bit of anillusion.
I'm not going to say it's likea scam, but it's the
(05:48):
encouragement award to keep youon track, which is a useful tool
.
But you shouldn't get fuckingdeluded by that.
Don't get caught up on iteither.
Don't imagine Like, oh, but I'mthree stripes and he's only one
stripe, I should smash him'slike no, it's not like that.
Yeah, it really.
It is a marketing tool of sorts,or retention tool to keep you
(06:11):
on track, which is valid, butdon't think that stripes
correlate with skills.
They don't.
Yeah, it's a.
It's a.
It's a bit of a, a bit of asales thing.
Now here's something which Imaybe some people are not going
to like, joe, but it is a bit ofa sales thing.
Now here's something whichmaybe some people are not going
to like, joe, but it is a harshtruth.
Well, the stripe givers aregoing to be up in arms about
your last point.
Yeah, I mean fuck them.
No, I mean respectfully.
(06:32):
Suck it, dx.
Suck it.
More isn't better, more trainingisn't better.
Some people respond to greatervolume of training and some
people actually really respondto a bit less.
Now, invariably, there's alwayssomeone in the gym who trains
more than anyone else.
They're the mat rat.
(06:52):
They usually smell a bit dankbecause their geese still wet
from lunch session.
They're always training.
You always see them on the matand generally, because they've
got crazy level volume, they'redoing better than most, even
though they may be riddled withinjuries or they may have no
income or they may just sleep onsomeone's couch or whatever.
(07:13):
Their life might not be great,but they're good at jiu-jitsu.
People assume more jiu-jitsutraining equals better jiu-jitsu
.
This is not true Like.
I know some very elite jujitsuguys who only train once a day
and actually they only trainfour, sometimes five days a week
.
Yeah, I've been testing, I'vebeen just training once a month
(07:35):
and I feel like I'm gettingheaps better.
Elite, yeah, elite, I'm goingto challenge Souders with my
methods soon.
No, that's that's what you got.
To train every week, don't dowhat I do.
But that's right.
Training more.
There's an absolute upper limitof that where it just starts to
fuck you up because you're notgetting enough sleep, you're not
applying yourself properly inclasses, you're not fucking
(07:57):
spending time with your familyor doing your job properly.
Whatever else is going on, yourlife gets um sacrificed.
So taking a minimalist approachis I can't imagine anyone that
it's not the best, best way togo about it.
Yes, maybe, if you're fucking17 and you got nothing going on,
great, go there every day.
But pretty much everyone elsehas got shit going on.
(08:18):
I think also it's not a problemto build up over time, like just
do three days a week and thendo that for a couple of months
and then go, oh, I might add afourth day, yeah, and then do
that too and then gradually justbuild up over time.
The problem is most coacheswill say, just train more,
because that's the only leverthey've got to pull.
But also, that's their fuckingbusiness model.
You know, it's a bit of a sadirony that obviously coaches
(08:44):
want you on the mat because it'sgood for their gym, it's good
for their business.
They think it's good for you.
But it also might burn you out,yeah, and then they lose you as
a customer and then yourjourney may be over.
Uh, look, gym culture will makeor break your jiu-jitsu.
If you go to a gym, and eventhough they might have many
champions or whatever, itdoesn't mean anything if it's a
(09:05):
very brutal, toxic culture whereyou just get put through the
meat grinder and then step up orfuck off, like that.
For me, having wheeled myselfinto a very tough environment,
it suited me because I wantedthat smoke.
For most jiu-jitsu folks, Ithink that's a recipe for
disaster.
You go oh, but they've got allthe best people, yeah, but they
(09:29):
don't actually really care aboutyour long-term success.
I believe that is a huge redflag.
And if you buy into the oh, butthey've got really good
champions, that's fuckery Good.
Gym culture looks like themgiving a fuck about you as an
individual.
No matter where you're cominginto it, whether you've already
(09:51):
got a blue belt or you've neverdone jujitsu, they actually care
more about you as an individualthan how good are you at
jujitsu.
You know what I love whensomeone shares a secret with me
and that secret is helpful, andthe secret that I'm going to
share with you today is the newflavor from Sodi.
(10:11):
I'm talking about mandarin.
I didn't think there wasfresher flavors, but I'm telling
you that mandarin it hitdifferent.
Not only does it give me sodium, potassium, magnesium to keep
my muscles pumping, it gives methe chef's kiss of freshness.
I cannot recommend it enough.
Now, if you want to getyourself some new flavors they
also have Kiwi you need to go tosodicomau and use the code
(10:38):
bulletproof15 to get 15% off.
Get fresh and get that flavor.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
I mean, those things are notnecessarily mutually exclusive,
but they often are.
Yeah, in that if a gym is reallyfocused on building great
competitors, they're probablynot as focused on fostering
(10:58):
beginners and keeping jujitsuopen to all different types that
want to come in and do thething.
It's like, no, no, no, we're,we're interested in building
killers and so, yeah, find aplace that matches whatever it
is that you're after.
And we know this after manyyears that most people aren't in
jujitsu to roll to the death atevery session and want to make
it their fucking be all and endall.
(11:19):
It's just something, an awesomething that is part of your life
, and so, in that way, find agym that sort of delivers it to
that degree.
Yeah, this kind of goes off theback of that, which is it's
hard to hear.
If you don't, if you're doingjujitsu right now and you don't
have a gym buddy, you're goingto time out, you're not going to
(11:39):
make it.
If you're going to jujitsu andyou're just like, oh, it's fine,
it's fine Like I'm not mateswith everyone there, but it's
fine.
No, you need a gym buddy.
You need someone who you cantalk to whether they're like
senior to you or junior to youor whatever it is in your gym
who you can relate to somehowpersonally to negotiate this
really fucking harsh, bumpy roadwhich is jujitsu.
(12:00):
You don't have a gym buddy in.
You're fucking done Like youwill not last in jujitsu.
This is what I have found,because I have seen very capable
people with huge potential butbecause they weren't able to
connect with people in the gym,they invariably stopped coming.
Because you need something morethan the skills.
You're sort of outside of thesocial fabric of the place.
(12:22):
It's tough, especially if yougo into an established gym which
is a bit clicky.
Yeah, you feel it.
You're like they startedtogether, or those are all the
tough guys, or that's the girlsgroup, or like where do I fit in
here?
So Gym Buddy kind of helps youto navigate, that it gives you
another person that can keep youaccountable.
And actually I think great gymsusually find a way to oh, you
(12:44):
should go in with so-and-so,yeah.
Oh, find a way to oh, youshould go in with so-and-so,
yeah, yeah, didn't you say thatyou?
You know you fucking love videogames.
This guy's fucking all aboutthe crypto, right, fucking this
guy.
He's got a really good deal foryou.
You should, uh, follow him oninstagram.
I should go start a meme cointogether.
The blockchain, am I right?
Um, what number are we up to?
We are right near the end.
Holy shit, we're so close,we've got, so got three to go.
(13:05):
So many harsh truths.
It's tough, right.
Ten harsh truths.
It smacks you in the face, itpunches you in the guts, but you
need to hear it so that youwill stay in the game.
Uncle Joey and JT are the onlyones that are going to tell you
the real deal.
Give it to your fucking role.
(13:30):
People are like I thought youguys were advocating yeah, we
are going to all the otherepisodes.
Trust, stay with me, you willnever master jujitsu.
You won't.
And how do I know this?
Because I've spoken to peoplewho I thought had mastered the
game, like people, four-timechampions, five times, ten times
world champions.
You talk to them and they'relike nah, man, it's too, it's
too big.
Yeah, but this is actually agood thing.
Don't look at this the wrong way.
Some people are like, oh, butif it's impossible to ever get
(13:50):
on top of it, no, you're goingto get insanely good at
jiu-jitsu.
You put the time in and youwork at it.
But the great thing is, it'swhat's referred to as like an
infinite game.
You never quite get there.
Even though you might be sogood at an armbar, someone might
show you a small detail whichyou never knew before, but now
your armbar is better.
It shouldn't be an inherentlynegative thing that you, you
(14:17):
know, you're not quite.
I think people really feel theneed to control something or
feel like I own this or this ismine, and jujitsu is just so
freaking infinite.
You will never master it, sodon't get hung up on that.
Yeah, yeah, cause it can bevery disappointing when you
cause you do think in thebeginning that you will get to a
point of mastery.
Yeah, and then at a point youdo realize, wow, that that
mastery never comes.
But sometimes that feeling likeespecially when you've, like,
(14:39):
got a little bit of experienceand like you've got a bit of a
game and it's going okay, you'relike, yeah, yeah, I think I'm
across it all.
This is my game, yeah, I'm onthis.
It can hit you like a ton ofbricks when you realize I'm not
across it at all.
Yeah, I remember like the firsttime in Sao Paulo, watching like
them demonstrate certaintechniques.
I was like, whoa, there's like10 steps to this.
I thought there was one.
(14:59):
Like I've been doing this forthree or four years, I didn't
know it was done like that.
Like you, you may relate tothis where you're like how come
no one showed me this before?
Like how come I didn't knowthis before?
I've been doing this wrong forfour and a half five years, fuck
.
But the great thing is you knowbetter now and this is the cool
journey of staying in it.
But uh, look, it doesn't geteasier.
(15:21):
You just get better, like it'shard.
It doesn't matter if you're a,you know five.
Get better Like it's hard.
It doesn't matter if you're a,you know five weeks in and
you're a white belt, or you're10 years in and you're a black
belt.
It is hard.
Jiu Jitsu doesn't get easier.
At every level there will be newchallenge, technically,
physically, personally, all thisshit.
But that is the value in it.
(15:43):
You are getting better.
You are rising to the challenge.
The value in it you are gettingbetter.
You are rising to the challenge.
This challenge, like don't letit beat you down, but it's
fucking real.
You get to that next level andthen it's just well.
It just gets more difficult indifferent ways.
But that is the beauty, is theincreasing challenge.
You never are similar to themastery.
You never arrive.
(16:03):
This is similar.
I was talking to a friend ofmine who's like borderline
contortionist and I said to herlike how's it feel when you like
can do a backbend and put yourhead on your heels and stuff.
She's like fucking hurts.
Like when you hit that endrange, it doesn't matter if
you're really flexible, it'sstill.
It's not like, oh, it'scomfortable, yeah, like when you
hit the top end of whateveryour capacity is, it fucking
(16:25):
hurts.
So you just embrace that thisis in the name of improving and
fuck that's what it is.
Right, so harsh, but true, uh,jujitsu ain't getting easier.
Last but not least, don't hateme folks.
Well, hate me now if you will.
Black belts don't matter.
The black belt totally doesn'tmatter, unless it's mine.
(16:47):
Well, even then it doesn'tfucking matter.
Um, don't matter to me, son.
No, because it is just the, youknow, without getting too
Buddhist or philosophical in it.
Like you know, death is thenext step.
The black belt is just a stepamongst many steps and the
problem is it's also.
The marketing of jiu-jitsu islike oh the black belt, oh the
(17:08):
master, all the things.
And you know, once you get it,it not that it's meaningless,
but it doesn't.
It does.
It's not the epitome ofjiu-jitsu.
It doesn't mean what youthought it was gonna mean.
No, it means something verydifferent, but I mean it's.
It's obviously still of immensevalue.
But yeah, you thought that itwould mean you'd mastered the
shit and you're like, oh gosh,oh, you think I'm an expert now?
(17:31):
Yeah, no, none of that, no, andthat is confronting when you've
spent so many years workingtowards this thing.
Yeah, and the reason why Iwanted to talk no one tells you
that.
That's why we're fuckingtelling you.
We're fucking fucking tellingyou.
You weren't fucking telling youand it's not a point of
discouragement.
(17:51):
All these points ultimately meanthat you stay in jujitsu.
You are going to be a better,tougher, smarter person, but you
do have to overcome all thisfucking challenge and as soon as
you can accept that thesethings are the case and keep
moving forward, then you are onthe path, my friends, and you
will get there.
If these things knock you offthe path because no one told you
(18:14):
, or it's a shock to your system, I think that's sad, because I
want to see everybody stay onthe path.
That's right.
Your potential is limitless.
It is If you choose to acceptthe lessons herein.
It is If you choose to acceptthe lessons herein, yes, sir.
So there it is, the truth ofall truths, and so we do not say
this in a form ofdiscouragement.
We say seek the discomfort,stay on the path.
(18:37):
You will get there, we believe.
Thank you,
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