June 5, 2025 • 25 mins
Have you missed training a few days in a row? Maybe a few weeks? Maybe a few months? It happens to all of us along the journey for various reasons. The biggest part of this is the fact that you do get back on the mats. Even though it may seem daunting to head back to the gym, getting the first class out of the way is the biggest part.
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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 is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
I stopped training BJJ and thisis what happened.
(00:36):
It's kind of profound.
It happens to us all.
There is something that willcause you to stop training it's
not always injury.
And then what comes next?
And for me it was prettyprofound?
There's a few major things inhere that I learned, I
experienced, which I think canhelp folks if they're scared of
(00:58):
stopping BJJ.
They don't know what comes next.
You had moments in your lifelike this Joe had heaps Forced
out the game for a while.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, forced voluntary, you know, yeah, yeah,
A bunch of different.
I mean shit.
When you've been doing it forlong enough, it happens.
Right, it does happen.
Sometimes I've been okay withit, other times not.
But yes, it is fascinating whatyou learn when you take some
time away, A mix of bothpositive and negative things.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, and we're going to talk about some key things
in here which will probablysurprise you If you're someone
who's on the BJJ train right now.
You're training consistently.
You couldn't imagine lifewithout it.
There's also some upside tostopping, so for me it was a
relationship thing, had someturbulence in my personal life
(01:43):
and I had to step away from thegame around the brown belt times
and I actually it was when Iwas getting ready to get more
into jujitsu.
But there it goes and the thingI found, the first thing that
happened to me when I stoppedtraining jujitsu was I actually
my body felt better.
(02:03):
I actually was sleeping better.
My body felt better, my jointsweren't aching, I was like-.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
COVID-19 effect.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
No, it was similar, but it was probably.
It was a bit earlier than that.
It was more the 2016 phase ofmy life, but it's crazy to me
because I had never thought thatI could feel physically better
by not doing jiu-jitsu.
And what it made me realize is,just fuck, how much is this
taxing my body?
(02:35):
Um, which just really surprisedme, because when I was in it, I
was just enjoying the, the fireof it so much.
I didn't think about just howachy my back was or how sore my
neck was.
It was just worth it, becausethat magic feeling when you're
rolling it's just like likenothing else matters, yeah.
But then when I stopped, Idefinitely had like a probably
(02:57):
four to eight weeks where I waslike, wow, I feel great.
Like it was just quitesurprising to me, uh, the
difference it made in my body.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I, um, I'm fuck anyone that's taken, you know,
longer than a couple of weeks.
You're like, oh shit, I feelreally good.
Um, and then you realize thatyou, you do kind of exist with a
baseline of ache and sorenessand, you know, muscular tension
and whatever which really comesabout from any physical pursuit
Um, but pursuit, but it is quitea nice experience when you get
(03:27):
out of bed and you're like Ifeel pretty sprightly, knees
don't hurt, yeah started gettingstronger in the gym again.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I mean, this was something that a lot of people
reported during COVID right.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
When, like, people stopped going to the gym,
stopped going to jiu-jitsu, andthere's something to be learned
in that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, no, and there's something to be learned in that
.
Yeah no.
It's strange because that wasthe last thing I expected,
because I associate so many goodfeelings with jiu-jitsu, and
then not doing it had me feelingphysically better, which made
me start to question my love ofthe game a bit, because the
thing that took me away fromjiu-jitsu was not injury.
It was different.
It was an injury to the heart.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It was a little bit Just on that.
If you extrapolate that outfurther, do you believe that?
Well, if I just took more timeoff, then I would just feel
better and better.
I would hit a zen level ofhealth and fitness.
Do you think that's the case?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
No, I believe there is a point at which it doesn't
do that, but I was still kind ofgoing to the gym.
So it wasn't that I wascompletely physically inactive,
but I just didn't have thedemand of jujitsu there.
But here's the thing, which isthe flip side of this, which is
the negative, is mentally I felta lot worse.
(04:38):
Like you know, I'd gone througha breakup, there's all that.
But I just I actually realizedthat I had massive FOMO because
obviously I was still seeing allmy friends.
People are like, oh, when youcome back to training, like
there's this, all these elementsof, of, of, of missing out.
But mentally I wasn't doingwell.
(05:00):
Like I realized I had like ajujitsu dependence.
Well, like I realized I hadlike a jujitsu dependence, like
I didn't realize how meaningfuland how much I relied on jujitsu
, almost as a form of outlet andnot therapy, but like, yeah, it
was just so important to me interms of stress relief and
getting the good hormones inyour brain and dopamine and all
(05:22):
that shit.
That was gone.
So, even though I felt betterphysically, I became not
depressed, but I was down, I wasreally struggling mentally when
I stopped jujitsu.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Was that the lack of the training, or was it purely
just that you were not doingjiu-jitsu?
Was it the people that youdidn't see?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It was a bit of everything, I think.
I think what's great aboutjiu-jitsu is it gives you a
sense of purpose that you don'tnecessarily get from.
Other things, like when youleave the gym you're not
necessarily going oh man, couldhave nailed that last rep a bit
better but with jiu-jitsu youtry to hit that sweep and it
failed and you got passed andsquashed or whatever happened.
It really hardwires in yourbrain Like it does you just go
(06:12):
fuck.
You know it might just be onemoment from that class, but it
stays with you.
But the upside on that is itgets you thinking about it and
gets you watching instructionalsand plotting and planning and
it it just creates a job foryour mind to do.
Yeah, so when your braindoesn't have that job to do,
it's like looking around, likeyou know there's the meme where
(06:34):
the brain's like hey, you awakeand it's like, hey, you asleep.
It's like almost you're therestaurant just lying there at
night.
You know, like it's one ofthose things that like, short of
having a real problem to solve,your brain will kind of invent
problems for you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And I think having that big hole, like having that
gap, I didn't have something tooccupy my mind and I was pretty
confronting and that made mefeel like pretty down, like I, I
, I, I felt like maybe it waslike a low-level depression, but
I just was not enjoying so manyother things I was doing
(07:13):
because I didn't have jujitsuyeah, right it made me realize
like I had this kind of uhjujitsu dependency, because it's
been such a big part of my lifefor such a long time to have
like an extended stop was, likefelt bad.
I think a lot of a lot of folksfeel that way for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, and I mean, um, yeah, as you kind of touched on
, like could be for a multitudeof reasons that folks would feel
that, um, certainly the biggestprimary one initially is just
the physicality piece, isn't it?
And if you've just gone fromwhatever training training hard
four times a week to now nottraining, and if jiu-jitsu was
the only physical thing you did,you're going to feel that like
(07:51):
hormonally fucking, like, likejust your whole physiology is
now experiencing a differentreality and it might be nice for
a little bit, but buteventually you're going to start
to pay a price for that.
I mean something, something thatI think about in those times,
because going back to that firstpoint of body feels good, right
with the time off, somethingthat I start to like initially,
(08:14):
I'll like that in the short term.
It's like, oh, it's great, andyou know, maybe whatever, a
couple of weeks, a month,awesome.
But then you start to get tothis point where you're like,
wow, I'm actually just kind ofsoftening, like I'm just getting
stale.
Yeah, I'm just gettingcomfortable with being
comfortable.
Yeah, you know, and and andjujitsu is like one of the few
things I do.
That does bring me somelegitimate challenge, both like
(08:36):
mentally, emotionally, but alsophysically, and you're like, and
I think none of us want tobecome completely soft, right?
no we're already pretty softliving here in the West as we do
.
But so, yeah, so I start tofeel a thing of like oh shit, I
think this is going to turn meinto something I don't want to
become.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and look the kind of the sidebar on that is
so much of my life was jiu-jitsu, which wasn't just the exercise
, it was your friends, it's theroutine, it's the place it holds
in your life for you to havestructure.
You know, and I had as much asI had my job as a personal
(09:15):
trainer.
I, you know it was the thing Ilooked forward to in terms of
like I see a friend, there'sjokes, you know, you've got all
these other aspects.
I just had a hole in my life.
I had basically two breakups.
I had the breakup that causedme to kind of go away from
jujitsu because it disrupted,like I had to move.
(09:36):
Sleeping on my friend's couch,I had fucking 26 kettlebells and
my fucking fucking Hyundai XLits bottoms just dragging along
the ground.
Like life was shit.
But I also had to break up withjujitsu because I could not be
there, I couldn't train, Icouldn't teach.
So it was just a fact that Ihad this gaping hole in my life
(09:58):
of like it was very hard to fillthat with anything else.
Like nothing felt as rewarding.
I think this is what I'm tryingto tap into here is that I would
still see my jujitsu friendsaround, because it was like
around St Kilda and you aroundthat area and I'd see them.
They're like oh, when you comeback to training man, you're
like soon, bro, soon, yeah, yeah, fuck.
(10:22):
You know I didn't want to,didn't want to like, really I
open up to like the fuckery inmy life as to the shit I was
working around.
But I think it's this feelingthat like, even though I was
like playing a bit of socialbasketball or I was just fitting
stuff in a bit more time withother friends or whatever it is,
it didn't feel like anythingreally felt that would fill that
(10:45):
void at that time.
And so then I had to fuckingdevelop other interests, joe,
which is that was kind ofconfronting because it made me
realize, fuck, I don't reallyhave any hobbies, like what am I
doing with my life, that thisis the only thing I give a shit
about.
And then I was like shit, Ineed to develop some other
interests, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What did you arrive at?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was trying to have something that had a social
aspect.
Um, it was trying to havesomething that had a social
aspect as well as the, you know,something physical.
So I did, I did start kind ofdoing a bit of basketball with
some friends, and then that wasgood, just catch up with people,
just social sport basically.
And then I was doing a bit ofrock climbing.
(11:31):
That was cool.
Um, it was like I neededchallenge physically but I
needed social, yeah, and so Icouldn't get it from one thing,
so I actually had to do a bunchof shit which was um, it was
still good.
It was great, um, but it itdidn't quite feel the same.
You know, to have that kind ofone cure all thing that I could
(11:51):
depend on.
I had to work a lot harder toget that kind of one cure-all
thing that I could depend on.
Yeah, I had to work a lotharder to get that satisfaction
of challenge, social stuff andand personal reward.
Yeah, how about you, joe?
Have you had moments whereyou've been like, fuck, I need
to.
I think I need to learn somefucking, some carpentry I mean,
I just think about that everyday, all day?
no.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But I mean, have you had moments where you've had
maybe jujitsu was a bigger partof your life and then you didn't
necessarily have other hobbies,or you know, I think I've
always been quite fortunate inhaving the gym Right, because
the gym has always given me,like a big sense of purpose and
also community, and so, you know, when jujitsuitsu falls away,
(12:33):
like at the times, I've alwaysgot that, yeah, so I never feel
a void of like human connection.
Yeah, or even and this wassomething I was going to touch
on that jiu-jitsu brings for alot of people, which is a sense
of belonging and almost purposewithin a group, like within a
collective, and, and you know,some of that purpose comes from
your belt rank where you're like, oh I'm a blue belt now, like I
(12:54):
gotta, I gotta uphold thestandard and I gotta stand there
in the lineup, and you know,and it kind of sounds silly, but
but these little, these littlethings are actually, um, they,
they really do echo parts thatexisted in a more tribal society
.
Yeah, to some degree right, I'mnot saying that they had
rankings, but, but just thissense of purpose and belonging
and a role to play.
(13:14):
Um, so I've always, you know,benefited from having that in
multiple realms, but, um, youknow, I I would say that, for
the most part, when jujitsu,when jujitsu is off the table
for me, um, I got no shortage ofstuff to fill my time with you
know, yeah, and it's and that'susually maybe a bit of a battle
(13:35):
because something else will takeits place.
You know, I'll just be cuttingdovetails every other afternoon
of the week and then, and thenwhen it comes time to get back
on the mats, I'm like but I'mcutting dovetails tonight.
I just got this really nicefucking chisel set that I've
sharpened right, I just learnedthis fucking lap joint that I
really want to fucking work onthe secret samurai woodwork, and
(13:56):
so it's like kudos, jt jtbought me a very nice japanese
chisel, by the way.
I did um, it's a pleasure touse, but yeah so.
So in that way, and I think thisis why I've always been a big
advocate of like people who areinjured should still show up to
the academy- yeah because youdon't want to remove that time
slot from your schedule, becauseit's very hard to carve it back
(14:17):
out, unless you got nothingelse going on, in which case
you're like hey, I'm just notgoing to watch Netflix for four
hours tonight, I'll just do itfor two, and the other two I'll
go to training.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, and that's, I think, the difficulty for many
people is, like when you can'tactively do a thing, you become
a spectator, like, I think, thisis something.
A bad habit of mine morerecently is I get I take an
interest in something andsomehow I think that consuming
the thing is the same as doingthe thing, not true?
(14:50):
Like the business podcast youlisten to yeah, yeah, yeah
Instead of actually answeringthe emails like how do I
optimize my email flow?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Tell me how I do that .
I haven't checked my inbox forsix weeks Sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
But I think we can all do this from time to time,
where you're like all right, Ican't wrestle right now because
I've got a bung knee.
I'm just going to watchwrestling highlights.
You get that little dopaminehit of like, oh, if my knee was
good, instead of doing your kneerehab which is painful.
(15:24):
Yeah, I totally fucking wouldhave sat alive the fuck out of
that.
No, you don't.
And it's just because we livein a consumerist culture, and
I'm not just talking aboutbuying shit.
Often we do that to feel better, like, oh, I got new wrestling
boots.
When I come back, bro, it'sfucking on, you know.
And it's not necessarily aboutthe buying, it's the filling of
(15:47):
the void.
That's the thing.
It's like, how do I fill thistime now?
To feel good, because thissense of emptiness is making me
feel shit about life, like, fuck, what's my life now?
Who am I?
And so then you do these thingslike doom scroll on instagram,
or you fucking stalk down allyour competitors that you think
(16:08):
are doing better than you andjust leave stararky comments in
their posts.
Fuck.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I don't do any of that Plot for their downfall.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
No, I'm joking, I've never done that.
Only one time, recently.
I was training jujitsu and Igot so tired and so thirsty and
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(16:56):
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But then this is the thing Ithink regardless of what's going
on in your personal life injury, breakups, job, you name it I
(17:20):
have found that uh cause, forexample, like I quit Taekwondo,
I just cut it cold.
I there's something thathappened and I was like,
basically, coach expressed aloss of faith in me and that
killed the dream.
And maybe that was good, butI'm a pretty.
I've been in my lifetime an allor nothing person.
(17:41):
I literally walked away thatday after that conversation and
never went back.
I haven't done a Taekwondoclass since, because it just it
was strange, I guess I put toomuch faith in that coach and so
him telling me you're done.
I just believed him.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I was like, okay, I guess.
So he thought, oh, thisconversation means that it
lowers my expectations and I canjust get this guy as a coach
and I can get him a teaching.
And it killed the love of thegame in me.
I never went back.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You think he didn't know?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
it was going to do that?
No, not at all.
I think he was like nah, I gotthis guy for life.
Like he's a he's a lifer, he canbe a good coach for me and
teach kids class and doors.
No, I didn't even talk to himagain.
Actually, that's not true.
I did go back and talk to himand explain myself, but he
didn't really give a shit.
He tried to sell me amembership.
Oh wow, I was like bro, Ibought a lifetime membership.
You fucking forget that Fuckout of here.
(18:39):
Wow, I came to apologizebecause I felt bad.
It was like probably like 18months later I was like no, I
want to go back there and talkwith him to tell him because I
respect him.
But yeah, it kind of broke myheart.
But here's the thing aboutjujitsu that's not what happened
.
I got to a point where I had togo back Like.
I got to a point where I waslike you know what?
(19:02):
I've got to get this back in mylife somehow and it was the
best.
Coming back to jujitsu was thebest, even though at that time I
wasn't competing.
Fuck, it was so good, like justseeing your friends coming in
doing a class, not a comp class,just do a class.
Coaches like oh man, haven'tseen you for so long.
(19:22):
Oh, thanks bro, have a goodrole.
Class, not a comp class, justdo a class coach is like oh man,
haven't seen you for so long.
Oh, thanks bro, have a goodrole.
Fuck, that was great.
I miss this shit.
I gotta come back somehow.
You know, even if it wasn'tnecessarily at the same level I
was training before.
Just having a little bit of itin my life improved the quality
of everything else, yeah, andand as you would have
experienced before, that whenyou have a good class, life is
(19:46):
fucking nothing.
Nothing's nothing's bad.
Yeah, everything's everything'sbrighter.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
it's just got a nice glow on it, dude.
Um fuck, was I gonna shit.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's right, it was something special you'll get it,
you'll pull it out, butessentially I the the thing.
For me it was probably justgetting my life sorted.
It was officially broken up.
There was this protracted delayof are we getting back together
, Are we not?
You know all this stuff.
We didn't get back together.
I had to get my own fuckingplace.
(20:18):
Oh, with the broad yeah.
Anyway, you know, whateverthat's what I wanted to ask.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
So, with that, do you feel like the time off allowed
you to kind of rebuildinspiration or motivation?
No, I was just-.
Or was that never the thingthat was lacking?
I was just struggling.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It was also like I probably built too much of a
dependency on that relationshipRight that now it was not in my
life.
Not the jujitsu relationship orthe broad, both Right, the Not
the jujitsu relationship or thebroad, both Right, the lady and
jujitsu.
But I had to get my life stablebefore I could come back to
jujitsu.
I had to get my own apartmentand I had to get rid of a bunch
(20:54):
of stuff.
I had to give away most of mykettlebells.
I had to just get life undercontrol.
Can you imagine I fucking builtup that cache of kettlebells my
whole fucking career and giventhem fucking PCYC, ungrateful
fuckers.
Nah, it's good, spread thestrength.
But I got my own place justaround the corner from my mate
Shannon's place Good to connectwith them, got myself stable and
(21:16):
I was like you know what, I'mokay now, things are cool and I
didn't feel great about thebreakup still, but I was able to
have some balance in my lifethat I could go back to jujitsu
and it was the best feeling.
Sick, yeah, it was one of thosethings that I think that you
don't know how good it is untilit's not in your life.
(21:38):
And then I actually had to takea different approach to get it
back in my life and then it wasfucking awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, I really.
I do feel that like one of themain things with this chat is
that often what's nice, or likesome of the nice things that
happened as a result of takingtime away from jiu-jitsu they're
only nice in the short term.
It's kind of like when you goon holidays and you're just
eating out all the time, sure,it's really fun.
(22:06):
For a little while.
You're like, oh fucking, lookat this breakfast place.
Oh shit, what are we gonna getfor lunch?
You know, buffet dinner,whatever the fuck.
And then usually after a fewdays you're like, man, I'm so
sick of all this, like I justwant to make some basic shit
yeah and you start.
You start to realize that liketoo much of a good thing is
actually not enjoyable anymore.
So it's like it's nice to havethree evenings a week where you
(22:33):
now no longer have to drivesomewhere, spend 90 minutes and
come home late and eat a latedinner.
Like it's nice to just havethat time at home.
Maybe you can watch a littlebit, watch a fucking Netflix
show with your missus.
Like I noticed that right whenI'm off, j'm off jits I'm like,
oh, we can like watch sopranosor some shit, sure, whereas when
I'm training it's like no,there's not much going on in the
evenings besides my training orwhatever yeah um, but you know,
(22:55):
same deal.
It's like, oh, wow, I actuallygot to bed earlier and had a
better sleep because I didn'tfucking stay up late at.
You know, after training havethese things.
But at a point you're like,well, what's actually more
important to me, what's morespecial?
And if jiu-jitsu is the one foryou, you do often be like, no,
(23:15):
the juice is worth the squeeze.
I'm happy to not be able towatch Netflix every night.
I'm happy to feel a bit beatenup in the mornings, um, because
I get to push myself, I get tobuild a bit of, like, physical
durability, uh, robustness, butalso get to be around people
that I love and feel like I'mconnected to something.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, I think the jujitsu gives way more meaning
or it gives a greater sense ofsatisfaction than many other
things I've done, and that's whyI still love the game, that's
why I still want to be around it, however I can.
And I think that's the thing,that when you think you've quit,
(23:59):
even just when you think you'reout, you got me back in you,
son of a bitch.
Just when you think you're out,you got me back in you, son of
a bitch.
You know, and that's.
There's actually nothing wrongwith that, because it wasn't.
I had had enough time off.
I had nine months off.
I had enough time off that itwasn't like an addiction and I
can't quit it.
I had basically quit withoutsaying I've quit.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And I chose to take that step, to walk back in, and
it wasn't disappointing, it wasactually the right decision,
whereas for some of you outthere you might stop and that's
the last time you ever dojujitsu again, and and maybe
that's the right thing for you.
But the cool thing is, withjujitsu, you can it's always
(24:42):
there yeah, you can always goback and whatever Sign back up
again yeah wherever you're at,you move towns, whatever.
It might be not the same as thegym you started at, but it'll be
something different and it'llstill be super rewarding.
There it is.
Folks, just because you stopdoesn't mean you quit, but yes,
I hope you got something out ofthat.
(25:02):
We appreciate your staying allthe way to the end.
If you made it this far, weknow you're a dedicated person.
Dedicated people like andsubscribe, so please do that now
.
Appreciate y'all.
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 is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
I stopped training BJJ and thisis what happened.
(00:36):
It's kind of profound.
It happens to us all.
There is something that willcause you to stop training it's
not always injury.
And then what comes next?
And for me it was prettyprofound?
There's a few major things inhere that I learned, I
experienced, which I think canhelp folks if they're scared of
(00:58):
stopping BJJ.
They don't know what comes next.
You had moments in your lifelike this Joe had heaps Forced
out the game for a while.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, forced voluntary, you know, yeah, yeah,
A bunch of different.
I mean shit.
When you've been doing it forlong enough, it happens.
Right, it does happen.
Sometimes I've been okay withit, other times not.
But yes, it is fascinating whatyou learn when you take some
time away, A mix of bothpositive and negative things.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, and we're going to talk about some key things
in here which will probablysurprise you If you're someone
who's on the BJJ train right now.
You're training consistently.
You couldn't imagine lifewithout it.
There's also some upside tostopping, so for me it was a
relationship thing, had someturbulence in my personal life
(01:43):
and I had to step away from thegame around the brown belt times
and I actually it was when Iwas getting ready to get more
into jujitsu.
But there it goes and the thingI found, the first thing that
happened to me when I stoppedtraining jujitsu was I actually
my body felt better.
(02:03):
I actually was sleeping better.
My body felt better, my jointsweren't aching, I was like-.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
COVID-19 effect.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
No, it was similar, but it was probably.
It was a bit earlier than that.
It was more the 2016 phase ofmy life, but it's crazy to me
because I had never thought thatI could feel physically better
by not doing jiu-jitsu.
And what it made me realize is,just fuck, how much is this
taxing my body?
(02:35):
Um, which just really surprisedme, because when I was in it, I
was just enjoying the, the fireof it so much.
I didn't think about just howachy my back was or how sore my
neck was.
It was just worth it, becausethat magic feeling when you're
rolling it's just like likenothing else matters, yeah.
But then when I stopped, Idefinitely had like a probably
(02:57):
four to eight weeks where I waslike, wow, I feel great.
Like it was just quitesurprising to me, uh, the
difference it made in my body.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I, um, I'm fuck anyone that's taken, you know,
longer than a couple of weeks.
You're like, oh shit, I feelreally good.
Um, and then you realize thatyou, you do kind of exist with a
baseline of ache and sorenessand, you know, muscular tension
and whatever which really comesabout from any physical pursuit
Um, but pursuit, but it is quitea nice experience when you get
(03:27):
out of bed and you're like Ifeel pretty sprightly, knees
don't hurt, yeah started gettingstronger in the gym again.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I mean, this was something that a lot of people
reported during COVID right.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
When, like, people stopped going to the gym,
stopped going to jiu-jitsu, andthere's something to be learned
in that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, no, and there's something to be learned in that
.
Yeah no.
It's strange because that wasthe last thing I expected,
because I associate so many goodfeelings with jiu-jitsu, and
then not doing it had me feelingphysically better, which made
me start to question my love ofthe game a bit, because the
thing that took me away fromjiu-jitsu was not injury.
It was different.
It was an injury to the heart.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It was a little bit Just on that.
If you extrapolate that outfurther, do you believe that?
Well, if I just took more timeoff, then I would just feel
better and better.
I would hit a zen level ofhealth and fitness.
Do you think that's the case?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
No, I believe there is a point at which it doesn't
do that, but I was still kind ofgoing to the gym.
So it wasn't that I wascompletely physically inactive,
but I just didn't have thedemand of jujitsu there.
But here's the thing, which isthe flip side of this, which is
the negative, is mentally I felta lot worse.
(04:38):
Like you know, I'd gone througha breakup, there's all that.
But I just I actually realizedthat I had massive FOMO because
obviously I was still seeing allmy friends.
People are like, oh, when youcome back to training, like
there's this, all these elementsof, of, of, of missing out.
But mentally I wasn't doingwell.
(05:00):
Like I realized I had like ajujitsu dependence.
Well, like I realized I hadlike a jujitsu dependence, like
I didn't realize how meaningfuland how much I relied on jujitsu
, almost as a form of outlet andnot therapy, but like, yeah, it
was just so important to me interms of stress relief and
getting the good hormones inyour brain and dopamine and all
(05:22):
that shit.
That was gone.
So, even though I felt betterphysically, I became not
depressed, but I was down, I wasreally struggling mentally when
I stopped jujitsu.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Was that the lack of the training, or was it purely
just that you were not doingjiu-jitsu?
Was it the people that youdidn't see?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It was a bit of everything, I think.
I think what's great aboutjiu-jitsu is it gives you a
sense of purpose that you don'tnecessarily get from.
Other things, like when youleave the gym you're not
necessarily going oh man, couldhave nailed that last rep a bit
better but with jiu-jitsu youtry to hit that sweep and it
failed and you got passed andsquashed or whatever happened.
It really hardwires in yourbrain Like it does you just go
(06:12):
fuck.
You know it might just be onemoment from that class, but it
stays with you.
But the upside on that is itgets you thinking about it and
gets you watching instructionalsand plotting and planning and
it it just creates a job foryour mind to do.
Yeah, so when your braindoesn't have that job to do,
it's like looking around, likeyou know there's the meme where
(06:34):
the brain's like hey, you awakeand it's like, hey, you asleep.
It's like almost you're therestaurant just lying there at
night.
You know, like it's one ofthose things that like, short of
having a real problem to solve,your brain will kind of invent
problems for you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
And I think having that big hole, like having that
gap, I didn't have something tooccupy my mind and I was pretty
confronting and that made mefeel like pretty down, like I, I
, I, I felt like maybe it waslike a low-level depression, but
I just was not enjoying so manyother things I was doing
(07:13):
because I didn't have jujitsuyeah, right it made me realize
like I had this kind of uhjujitsu dependency, because it's
been such a big part of my lifefor such a long time to have
like an extended stop was, likefelt bad.
I think a lot of a lot of folksfeel that way for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Yeah, and I mean, um, yeah, as you kind of touched on
, like could be for a multitudeof reasons that folks would feel
that, um, certainly the biggestprimary one initially is just
the physicality piece, isn't it?
And if you've just gone fromwhatever training training hard
four times a week to now nottraining, and if jiu-jitsu was
the only physical thing you did,you're going to feel that like
(07:51):
hormonally fucking, like, likejust your whole physiology is
now experiencing a differentreality and it might be nice for
a little bit, but buteventually you're going to start
to pay a price for that.
I mean something, something thatI think about in those times,
because going back to that firstpoint of body feels good, right
with the time off, somethingthat I start to like initially,
(08:14):
I'll like that in the short term.
It's like, oh, it's great, andyou know, maybe whatever, a
couple of weeks, a month,awesome.
But then you start to get tothis point where you're like,
wow, I'm actually just kind ofsoftening, like I'm just getting
stale.
Yeah, I'm just gettingcomfortable with being
comfortable.
Yeah, you know, and and andjujitsu is like one of the few
things I do.
That does bring me somelegitimate challenge, both like
(08:36):
mentally, emotionally, but alsophysically, and you're like, and
I think none of us want tobecome completely soft, right?
no we're already pretty softliving here in the West as we do
.
But so, yeah, so I start tofeel a thing of like oh shit, I
think this is going to turn meinto something I don't want to
become.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and look the kind of the sidebar on that is
so much of my life was jiu-jitsu, which wasn't just the exercise
, it was your friends, it's theroutine, it's the place it holds
in your life for you to havestructure.
You know, and I had as much asI had my job as a personal
(09:15):
trainer.
I, you know it was the thing Ilooked forward to in terms of
like I see a friend, there'sjokes, you know, you've got all
these other aspects.
I just had a hole in my life.
I had basically two breakups.
I had the breakup that causedme to kind of go away from
jujitsu because it disrupted,like I had to move.
(09:36):
Sleeping on my friend's couch,I had fucking 26 kettlebells and
my fucking fucking Hyundai XLits bottoms just dragging along
the ground.
Like life was shit.
But I also had to break up withjujitsu because I could not be
there, I couldn't train, Icouldn't teach.
So it was just a fact that Ihad this gaping hole in my life
(09:58):
of like it was very hard to fillthat with anything else.
Like nothing felt as rewarding.
I think this is what I'm tryingto tap into here is that I would
still see my jujitsu friendsaround, because it was like
around St Kilda and you aroundthat area and I'd see them.
They're like oh, when you comeback to training man, you're
like soon, bro, soon, yeah, yeah, fuck.
(10:22):
You know I didn't want to,didn't want to like, really I
open up to like the fuckery inmy life as to the shit I was
working around.
But I think it's this feelingthat like, even though I was
like playing a bit of socialbasketball or I was just fitting
stuff in a bit more time withother friends or whatever it is,
it didn't feel like anythingreally felt that would fill that
(10:45):
void at that time.
And so then I had to fuckingdevelop other interests, joe,
which is that was kind ofconfronting because it made me
realize, fuck, I don't reallyhave any hobbies, like what am I
doing with my life, that thisis the only thing I give a shit
about.
And then I was like shit, Ineed to develop some other
interests, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What did you arrive at?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
It was trying to have something that had a social
aspect.
Um, it was trying to havesomething that had a social
aspect as well as the, you know,something physical.
So I did, I did start kind ofdoing a bit of basketball with
some friends, and then that wasgood, just catch up with people,
just social sport basically.
And then I was doing a bit ofrock climbing.
(11:31):
That was cool.
Um, it was like I neededchallenge physically but I
needed social, yeah, and so Icouldn't get it from one thing,
so I actually had to do a bunchof shit which was um, it was
still good.
It was great, um, but it itdidn't quite feel the same.
You know, to have that kind ofone cure all thing that I could
(11:51):
depend on.
I had to work a lot harder toget that kind of one cure-all
thing that I could depend on.
Yeah, I had to work a lotharder to get that satisfaction
of challenge, social stuff andand personal reward.
Yeah, how about you, joe?
Have you had moments whereyou've been like, fuck, I need
to.
I think I need to learn somefucking, some carpentry I mean,
I just think about that everyday, all day?
no.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
But I mean, have you had moments where you've had
maybe jujitsu was a bigger partof your life and then you didn't
necessarily have other hobbies,or you know, I think I've
always been quite fortunate inhaving the gym Right, because
the gym has always given me,like a big sense of purpose and
also community, and so, you know, when jujitsuitsu falls away,
(12:33):
like at the times, I've alwaysgot that, yeah, so I never feel
a void of like human connection.
Yeah, or even and this wassomething I was going to touch
on that jiu-jitsu brings for alot of people, which is a sense
of belonging and almost purposewithin a group, like within a
collective, and, and you know,some of that purpose comes from
your belt rank where you're like, oh I'm a blue belt now, like I
(12:54):
gotta, I gotta uphold thestandard and I gotta stand there
in the lineup, and you know,and it kind of sounds silly, but
but these little, these littlethings are actually, um, they,
they really do echo parts thatexisted in a more tribal society
.
Yeah, to some degree right, I'mnot saying that they had
rankings, but, but just thissense of purpose and belonging
and a role to play.
(13:14):
Um, so I've always, you know,benefited from having that in
multiple realms, but, um, youknow, I I would say that, for
the most part, when jujitsu,when jujitsu is off the table
for me, um, I got no shortage ofstuff to fill my time with you
know, yeah, and it's and that'susually maybe a bit of a battle
(13:35):
because something else will takeits place.
You know, I'll just be cuttingdovetails every other afternoon
of the week and then, and thenwhen it comes time to get back
on the mats, I'm like but I'mcutting dovetails tonight.
I just got this really nicefucking chisel set that I've
sharpened right, I just learnedthis fucking lap joint that I
really want to fucking work onthe secret samurai woodwork, and
(13:56):
so it's like kudos, jt jtbought me a very nice japanese
chisel, by the way.
I did um, it's a pleasure touse, but yeah so.
So in that way, and I think thisis why I've always been a big
advocate of like people who areinjured should still show up to
the academy- yeah because youdon't want to remove that time
slot from your schedule, becauseit's very hard to carve it back
(14:17):
out, unless you got nothingelse going on, in which case
you're like hey, I'm just notgoing to watch Netflix for four
hours tonight, I'll just do itfor two, and the other two I'll
go to training.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, and that's, I think, the difficulty for many
people is, like when you can'tactively do a thing, you become
a spectator, like, I think, thisis something.
A bad habit of mine morerecently is I get I take an
interest in something andsomehow I think that consuming
the thing is the same as doingthe thing, not true?
(14:50):
Like the business podcast youlisten to yeah, yeah, yeah
Instead of actually answeringthe emails like how do I
optimize my email flow?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Tell me how I do that .
I haven't checked my inbox forsix weeks Sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
But I think we can all do this from time to time,
where you're like all right, Ican't wrestle right now because
I've got a bung knee.
I'm just going to watchwrestling highlights.
You get that little dopaminehit of like, oh, if my knee was
good, instead of doing your kneerehab which is painful.
(15:24):
Yeah, I totally fucking wouldhave sat alive the fuck out of
that.
No, you don't.
And it's just because we livein a consumerist culture, and
I'm not just talking aboutbuying shit.
Often we do that to feel better, like, oh, I got new wrestling
boots.
When I come back, bro, it'sfucking on, you know.
And it's not necessarily aboutthe buying, it's the filling of
(15:47):
the void.
That's the thing.
It's like, how do I fill thistime now?
To feel good, because thissense of emptiness is making me
feel shit about life, like, fuck, what's my life now?
Who am I?
And so then you do these thingslike doom scroll on instagram,
or you fucking stalk down allyour competitors that you think
(16:08):
are doing better than you andjust leave stararky comments in
their posts.
Fuck.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I don't do any of that Plot for their downfall.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
No, I'm joking, I've never done that.
Only one time, recently.
I was training jujitsu and Igot so tired and so thirsty and
it dawned on me I hadn't drunkany sody.
I've become so reliant on sodyas my go-to for hydration.
Now, what is sody?
(16:35):
Sody is the perfect blend ofsodium, potassium and magnesium.
In all of the flavors, whateveryou like raspberry, kiwi,
mandarin berry, they got it all.
So not only is it delicious,but it is effective in keeping
you hydrated.
So when you roll, your energyis high, you don't get muscle
(16:56):
cramps and you bounce backquicker.
If you want to do more training, so go to sodicomau, use the
code BULLETPROOF15, and you get15% off today.
But then this is the thing Ithink regardless of what's going
on in your personal life injury, breakups, job, you name it I
(17:20):
have found that uh cause, forexample, like I quit Taekwondo,
I just cut it cold.
I there's something thathappened and I was like,
basically, coach expressed aloss of faith in me and that
killed the dream.
And maybe that was good, butI'm a pretty.
I've been in my lifetime an allor nothing person.
(17:41):
I literally walked away thatday after that conversation and
never went back.
I haven't done a Taekwondoclass since, because it just it
was strange, I guess I put toomuch faith in that coach and so
him telling me you're done.
I just believed him.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I was like, okay, I guess.
So he thought, oh, thisconversation means that it
lowers my expectations and I canjust get this guy as a coach
and I can get him a teaching.
And it killed the love of thegame in me.
I never went back.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
You think he didn't know?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
it was going to do that?
No, not at all.
I think he was like nah, I gotthis guy for life.
Like he's a he's a lifer, he canbe a good coach for me and
teach kids class and doors.
No, I didn't even talk to himagain.
Actually, that's not true.
I did go back and talk to himand explain myself, but he
didn't really give a shit.
He tried to sell me amembership.
Oh wow, I was like bro, Ibought a lifetime membership.
You fucking forget that Fuckout of here.
(18:39):
Wow, I came to apologizebecause I felt bad.
It was like probably like 18months later I was like no, I
want to go back there and talkwith him to tell him because I
respect him.
But yeah, it kind of broke myheart.
But here's the thing aboutjujitsu that's not what happened
.
I got to a point where I had togo back Like.
I got to a point where I waslike you know what?
(19:02):
I've got to get this back in mylife somehow and it was the
best.
Coming back to jujitsu was thebest, even though at that time I
wasn't competing.
Fuck, it was so good, like justseeing your friends coming in
doing a class, not a comp class,just do a class.
Coaches like oh man, haven'tseen you for so long.
(19:22):
Oh, thanks bro, have a goodrole.
Class, not a comp class, justdo a class coach is like oh man,
haven't seen you for so long.
Oh, thanks bro, have a goodrole.
Fuck, that was great.
I miss this shit.
I gotta come back somehow.
You know, even if it wasn'tnecessarily at the same level I
was training before.
Just having a little bit of itin my life improved the quality
of everything else, yeah, andand as you would have
experienced before, that whenyou have a good class, life is
(19:46):
fucking nothing.
Nothing's nothing's bad.
Yeah, everything's everything'sbrighter.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
it's just got a nice glow on it, dude.
Um fuck, was I gonna shit.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's right, it was something special you'll get it,
you'll pull it out, butessentially I the the thing.
For me it was probably justgetting my life sorted.
It was officially broken up.
There was this protracted delayof are we getting back together
, Are we not?
You know all this stuff.
We didn't get back together.
I had to get my own fuckingplace.
(20:18):
Oh, with the broad yeah.
Anyway, you know, whateverthat's what I wanted to ask.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
So, with that, do you feel like the time off allowed
you to kind of rebuildinspiration or motivation?
No, I was just-.
Or was that never the thingthat was lacking?
I was just struggling.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It was also like I probably built too much of a
dependency on that relationshipRight that now it was not in my
life.
Not the jujitsu relationship orthe broad, both Right, the Not
the jujitsu relationship or thebroad, both Right, the lady and
jujitsu.
But I had to get my life stablebefore I could come back to
jujitsu.
I had to get my own apartmentand I had to get rid of a bunch
(20:54):
of stuff.
I had to give away most of mykettlebells.
I had to just get life undercontrol.
Can you imagine I fucking builtup that cache of kettlebells my
whole fucking career and giventhem fucking PCYC, ungrateful
fuckers.
Nah, it's good, spread thestrength.
But I got my own place justaround the corner from my mate
Shannon's place Good to connectwith them, got myself stable and
(21:16):
I was like you know what, I'mokay now, things are cool and I
didn't feel great about thebreakup still, but I was able to
have some balance in my lifethat I could go back to jujitsu
and it was the best feeling.
Sick, yeah, it was one of thosethings that I think that you
don't know how good it is untilit's not in your life.
(21:38):
And then I actually had to takea different approach to get it
back in my life and then it wasfucking awesome.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, I really.
I do feel that like one of themain things with this chat is
that often what's nice, or likesome of the nice things that
happened as a result of takingtime away from jiu-jitsu they're
only nice in the short term.
It's kind of like when you goon holidays and you're just
eating out all the time, sure,it's really fun.
(22:06):
For a little while.
You're like, oh fucking, lookat this breakfast place.
Oh shit, what are we gonna getfor lunch?
You know, buffet dinner,whatever the fuck.
And then usually after a fewdays you're like, man, I'm so
sick of all this, like I justwant to make some basic shit
yeah and you start.
You start to realize that liketoo much of a good thing is
actually not enjoyable anymore.
So it's like it's nice to havethree evenings a week where you
(22:33):
now no longer have to drivesomewhere, spend 90 minutes and
come home late and eat a latedinner.
Like it's nice to just havethat time at home.
Maybe you can watch a littlebit, watch a fucking Netflix
show with your missus.
Like I noticed that right whenI'm off, j'm off jits I'm like,
oh, we can like watch sopranosor some shit, sure, whereas when
I'm training it's like no,there's not much going on in the
evenings besides my training orwhatever yeah um, but you know,
(22:55):
same deal.
It's like, oh, wow, I actuallygot to bed earlier and had a
better sleep because I didn'tfucking stay up late at.
You know, after training havethese things.
But at a point you're like,well, what's actually more
important to me, what's morespecial?
And if jiu-jitsu is the one foryou, you do often be like, no,
(23:15):
the juice is worth the squeeze.
I'm happy to not be able towatch Netflix every night.
I'm happy to feel a bit beatenup in the mornings, um, because
I get to push myself, I get tobuild a bit of, like, physical
durability, uh, robustness, butalso get to be around people
that I love and feel like I'mconnected to something.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, I think the jujitsu gives way more meaning
or it gives a greater sense ofsatisfaction than many other
things I've done, and that's whyI still love the game, that's
why I still want to be around it, however I can.
And I think that's the thing,that when you think you've quit,
(23:59):
even just when you think you'reout, you got me back in you,
son of a bitch.
Just when you think you're out,you got me back in you, son of
a bitch.
You know, and that's.
There's actually nothing wrongwith that, because it wasn't.
I had had enough time off.
I had nine months off.
I had enough time off that itwasn't like an addiction and I
can't quit it.
I had basically quit withoutsaying I've quit.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And I chose to take that step, to walk back in, and
it wasn't disappointing, it wasactually the right decision,
whereas for some of you outthere you might stop and that's
the last time you ever dojujitsu again, and and maybe
that's the right thing for you.
But the cool thing is, withjujitsu, you can it's always
(24:42):
there yeah, you can always goback and whatever Sign back up
again yeah wherever you're at,you move towns, whatever.
It might be not the same as thegym you started at, but it'll be
something different and it'llstill be super rewarding.
There it is.
Folks, just because you stopdoesn't mean you quit, but yes,
I hope you got something out ofthat.
(25:02):
We appreciate your staying allthe way to the end.
If you made it this far, weknow you're a dedicated person.
Dedicated people like andsubscribe, so please do that now
.
Appreciate y'all.
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