Ep. 365: Analog Versus Digital, feat. Chris Wojcik

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I have huge news. She actually did it. We're pleased to announce that Beatrice Jin, top-ranked women's competitor in North America and long-time BJJ Mental Models Premium community member has published her first ever course with us, exclusive to BJJ Mental Models. It's called Stop Being Nice. It's a three-part audio series designed to solve real mindset problems that regular folks experience in jiu-jitsu. If you struggle to be aggressive and competitive in jiu-jitsu, you'll find the solutions here. If you're already a BJJ Mental Models Premium subscriber, you've already got access, and if you are not, good news, you can get it now and get your first week free. Go to bjjmentalmodels.com and check it out today. Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to BJJ Mental Models episode 365. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent jiu-jitsu approach. I'm back again with friend of the show, Chris Wojcik. Chris, how's it going, man? Speaker 2: Good, Steve, good. It's always a pleasure to be back on my favorite jiu-jitsu podcast. Speaker 1: Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that. Well, how have you been? It's been a while since you were on. We were just talking beforehand. I think the last time you were on our feed was on one of our premium podcasts with Drew Foster, but on the main feed, it's been a while. What have you been up to? How are things going? Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I think the last time, I could be wrong, but I think this is my third appearance on the show, and I think the last one was last year right before ADCC. So, it's been maybe a year and a half since I've been on the BJJ Mental Models, the main channel, if you will. So, I've been traveling a lot, training a lot, doing a lot of seminars, competing a lot, did, uh, you know, done, uh, PGF, ADCC, obviously CGI last, uh, August a few months ago, traveling, doing the Wojlock, the world seminar tour, you know, just been very busy, but like all good things, you know, lots of cool, exciting stuff has been going on, and I'm excited to be back here today. Speaker 1: Well, thanks, buddy. And you know that I'm a big fan of the Grappler's Diary newsletter, which you put out, uh, with incredible frequency. And something that you had posted recently on your newsletter and on your social was your thoughts on living a modern digital life and maybe taking a step back from that and balancing that with the real analog world and how that's impacted your jiu-jitsu. I think this is a a really interesting conversation for people who train, especially nowadays where so much of the instruction we get into sport is digital. But I'll turn this maybe over to you to explain your thoughts on this. Why don't you expand on, uh, some of the social posts that you'd put out that led to this conversation? Speaker 2: Yeah, so it all started with, I'm trying to think exactly where this kind of realization started. I think, you know, I use the bulk of my, like, a lot of my livelihood involves like the internet, you know, whether it's writing on the internet, whether it's putting technique on the internet. Uh, I've done three instructionals with BJJ Fanatics, probably going to have a fourth one soon. I've done, I did Patreon, I did, before I was even doing jiu-jitsu full-time, I was doing ghostwriting on the internet, writing like Twitter threads for people, and writing blog posts, and doing just a lot of, like, the digital world pretty much gave me my life as you see it today. Like, I became a digital writer, I've been selling instructionals on the internet for a long time, and everything that I've done has been digital. And I think that just like anything that you do, eventually you get to a point where you kind of wonder if you've gone too far and you cannot return. And so like, I kind of had this feeling of like, I don't know if digital is like, as much as I've gotten from the internet and digital work and digital writing and, you know, I do a lot of podcasts like this one, and, you know, my instructional is like a good chunk of my income, and I'm like really grateful for that. I also feel this like yearning for the like analog experience. And it started with like, jiu-jitsu, but just, uh, newspapers. It wasn't even about jiu-jitsu. Like, I was like, oh, I miss like reading a newspaper like when I was a kid, or like reading like paperback books, or, I mean, I mean, I do read paperback books, but like I was getting a lot of joy from paperback books and going on walks and like, kind of just doing a lot of like analog stuff. And this kind of started the kind of the like my think my thoughts about this. And then I was thinking about my jiu-jitsu training and how I do watch a lot of instructionals and I found that the best learning that I've had comes from being in person. And on the flip side, as a teacher, the best learning experiences that people have had with me comes from like attending a seminar or attending a class of mine and like being able to be in the environment. And I think this is something that's really interesting because we're in a world today where like with the rise of AI and everything is digital, and it's cool because we're able to connect across the world. Like you're in somewhere in Canada and I'm in Texas, and we're able to do this podcast and have a conversation instantaneously, but it's not face-to-face. So it's just kind of like I've been kind of missing the old-fashioned way, if you will. Speaker 1: I completely understand and sympathize. I'm in my mid-40s now, and I think I might be the last generation to remember what life was like before the internet really became a thing that we all got on board with. And I completely feel what you're feeling as well. Digital has made my life so rich in so many ways. It's enabled me to do things like what I'm doing right here with you, as you said. I've made a career out of working in digital platforms and in digital spaces, and that's great. Definitely enriched my life in a lot of ways, but I too have also felt that over the last few years especially, I've maybe become imbalanced and I rely too much on the digital side now because it is so powerful. There's so much stuff that you can do with it. However, it is no substitute for real-world interactions and experiences. And I find this a really interesting conversation because if you look at the habits and the practices of jiu-jitsu professionals right now, there is a huge expectation that people will spend massive amounts of time studying digital resources. And that's incredible, right? I mean, it allows information to fly around the world and travel and transmit much faster than it used to be when I was coming up in the sport. But it also does create this interesting expectation where grapplers sometimes feel that, you know, for every hour of real training they do, they should be spending two hours at home studying YouTube videos or instructionals. And although those things have amazing value, it does create this interesting, weird sense of, for lack of a better term, digital obligation. Just people feeling like they have to spend time on their phones or on their computer watching or studying stuff. And of course, athletes of of your caliber and who do this professionally have to have a social presence as well. And I know that many people in your position feel almost chained to their phone against their will because they feel obligated to create these online profiles where people can find them. It's just a really interesting polarity between the real world and the virtual world, and how do we find the balance and get the best of both? Speaker 2: I think this is what is interesting to me. So like, recently, I did a seminar at Ryan Hall's gym in Washington, D.C. And it was interesting because Ryan reached out and he wanted to, you know, basically like learn the Wojlock. And a lot of people could like anybody can learn the Wojlock if you go on YouTube. You can learn the Wojlock, you can learn it in a minute from me, from somebody else, they'll call it the reverse Aoki or whatever, or just like, you know, anything thing in jiu-jitsu that I do, you can learn it all, you can acquire the technique on YouTube or an instructional if you want to support me, that's sick, but like, you don't need to buy my instructional to learn a few moves from me. However, the benefit of being in person is that you remove, uh, because the problem with instructionals or I think with most instructionals is that they're one-way education. So like, there you can't watch my instructional and then ask a question that I will respond to in real time. You can maybe send me an email or send me a message and I'll get back to you in like a day or whenever I see it. And that's great because then you can kind of make this like a two-way education, but you're really slowing down the the learning process and it's going to be very difficult to build skills this way, right? And the other thing too is that most of if you look at most jiu-jitsu instructionals nowadays, they are just catalogs of technique. They are just like, here's move one. If they do this, here's move two. And it's you're not actually learning how to do anything. You're just learning moves. So, for me, one thing that I've kind of I kind of did with my last instructional a little bit, and I think my next instructional, I'm kind of in the process of working on like a more online academy because I want to eliminate this kind of problem is that these instructionals now are just one-way education. They're not, um, really, they're designed to show but not to teach. And so I think that the problem with digital education is that it shows you everything, but it doesn't really teach you how to do anything, and it's difficult to do on your own without context. And so I think that that's kind of something that I've been really interesting in in terms of training and my own learning is like going somewhere and learning from somebody and being putting myself in the environment or feeling what the experience is actually like because that's the way that you really truly learn something and it sticks in your brain. You know, like I've watched, I can't tell you how many thousands of jiu-jitsu videos I've watched over the years and how few have actually stuck in my mind longer than like an afternoon or one training session. I feel like so many times I've come into the gym and I've had like a a move in mind from a YouTube video or, you know, Jason Rau does really good breakdowns on Instagram. So like I'll watch a Jason Rau's reel and I'll be like, oh, that's sick. I'm going to try that. And then I'll go in and try it, but that doesn't mean that I'm actually learning how to do it. It's like maybe I'm spamming one move, but it's not doesn't mean I'm actually getting better at jiu-jitsu. Does that make sense? Speaker 1: It completely makes sense. This reminds me of some of the conversations I've had with a lot of the coaches who really prioritize the ecological approach in the classroom. The thing that those folks have in mind, which is completely accurate, is the realization that you can't really learn a physical skill just by reading about it or watching a video. However, I would argue that the flip side of that, and maybe sometimes where they they get a little bit overzealous, is you still can get value out of watching an instructional, but you can't really learn the thing. It's kind of like you mentioned. It can put information in your head, it can give you ideas, but that doesn't mean you can execute the move. The Wojlock is a perfect example. People can listen to you and I talk about it and explain it and watch videos on it, and they can conceptually understand what it is. They can recognize it when they see it, they can recognize it when it's being done to them, but that doesn't mean that you can learn a new technique like that just by watching a video. It can plant the idea in your head, and maybe that can steer the direction of your training, but until you've done it and really immersed yourself in that situation, in that environment, you don't truly know it, if that makes sense. That has been my observation. And often because there is so much content out there, people get almost a degree of content FOMO where they feel obligated to watch everything because there's always new interesting stuff happening. What can wind up occurring, though, is you spend a significant amount of your training time just watching and researching, but not actually doing. And I think if you really want to make valuable use out of all of that research time, you have to have a practice that ties that back to the real world where you take what you've seen in the digital space and you create a real-world training program where you can apply it in the class. I agree with you completely with your criticism about instructionals. Most instructionals that I've seen are just like a big catalog of techniques, and most of the techniques that they catalog are honestly kind of weird and obscure, just strange variations that you're rarely likely to see. Sitting down and watching a modern instructional in many ways would be like sitting down and reading the encyclopedia. It's not a bad thing, and it can be very educational, but it's also a lot. And sometimes if you want to get better at jiu-jitsu, it might make more sense to just hop on the mats and train. Right? There's always this interesting dynamic of how much of our time needs to be pre-planned and pre-studied versus just showing up and having fun on the mats and where do we find that balance? Speaker 2: Yeah, there are three things that I've thought of from what you were just saying. The first is, so in writing, because I'm pretty I read a lot, I study a lot of jiu-jitsu, but I also like consume a lot of content like writing education because that's kind of the other half of my business. And one thing that a lot of like top writers on the internet talk about is like you should never be spending more time consuming content than you are creating your own. And I think that's kind of a valuable insight, and I think that the same thing should be true. Like, you should never be spending more time studying jiu-jitsu than you are training jiu-jitsu. It should always be like training first and study, uh, supports training, but it does not take over training. So that's kind of the first real or like kind of thing that came to mind from what you were just saying. Uh, the second is in in my classes, I've been doing a lot of CLA because teaching here in Austin at the former B Team, now Simple Man, we have a lot of advanced students. So, for me to show up and teach how to do an ankle lock or how to do a body lock pass or how to do a double leg for the thousandth time is not really a valuable use of my or anyone else's time in the classroom. However, doing more like CLA kind of stuff is really helpful because it gives people the ability to implement the skill. So like, and then it's like kind of learning how to coach in that way is kind of the challenge that I'm working on, but this is like kind of just knowing your audience a little bit because kind of the final thing is like a lot of people do not have like a knowledge base to work with. Like, if you're a white belt and you just don't know how to move, you don't know what jiu-jitsu moves look like, the idea, like you need to have some sort of frame of reference. So I think there is benefit to kind of going through the katas or whatever, like the static motion because you're, uh, learning what jiu-jitsu is, and then you should be maybe spending more of your time on than we once thought like on implementation. But that's kind of kind of what I've thought is like, for me, like, especially right now, I'm kind of in a period where I'm trying to reinvent my style a little bit. It's like, I'm not really learning new techniques, I'm just getting better at the techniques that I already know. And I think that's something that is a balance, right? Because like if I'm, if my focus was coaching, like if I wanted to be John Danaher, I would need to spend like as much time per day studying grappling as that man does, which is a lot. And the reason that he does that is because he's trying to find the most effective moves or concepts or techniques that he can show his students and then kind of help them kind of design a practice around that. But like, just the show up and learn moves and train, it will only get you so far is kind of what I've learned in the last year or so, I would say. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I think I first had this discussion with John Thomas on this podcast many, many, many years ago before we even got to 100 episodes. And we were talking about this age-old balance between thinking about jiu-jitsu, you know, jiu-jitsu concepts or mental models or systems or what have you, versus actually applying it and doing it. And individual techniques and details, and how do we map these two things together? And it is a challenge because I think they both have benefits. At the end of the day, you have to train jiu-jitsu to get better at jiu-jitsu. You can't just watch instructionals and never train and expect to get better at it. So, we do need to prioritize our in-person training. However, on the other hand, we really can't deny that watching videos and exposing yourself to content, it can dramatically increase your overall knowledge and that can impact your training. When YouTube started opening up and and becoming really popular within our sport, and when BJJ Fanatics became a thing, suddenly all of this information that used to be very hard to find became really easily accessible. And we saw firsthand what a difference that made in the sport. The ability, the skill level, the knowledge of the average grappler has gone up an incredible amount since I started. It would not be crazy to say that, you know, the average blue belt today is probably as good as a mid-to-senior purple belt from when I started, and part of the reason why is just because it's easier to get information. So that stuff does have value, but it also does create this sea of noise, and I know it can be very overwhelming for people, particularly those who have a a more casual relationship with the sport. A lot of people don't, maybe the majority of people who train jiu-jitsu, they don't go home and watch instructionals all day. Jiu-jitsu is just this hobby that they do on the side. And so there can be this tremendous pressure for people who are hobbyists to be spending more time studying and researching, and that can create challenges for them psychologically because if jiu-jitsu is just this fun thing they do on the side, they're probably already studying and researching work-related skills they have to do for the real world. So it it creates this interesting pressure on the average athlete where they feel like they have to keep learning this stuff, and it's just a it's a very challenging balance. You know, where when do I watch and and consume in the digital world versus when do I go and train? And what does that look like and how does that vary depending on what my relationship is with the sport? Speaker 2: Well, I think what's interesting is the like then we kind of if we're talking about content, I think about like the difference between a video versus audio because if you think about it, like if you think about when you're competing in a match, you cannot reference like your coach can't be like, see this, this is what I want you to do. Is like get a like you can't show a picture of like a body lock and be like, get the body lock. You have to be like, hands around the hips or, you know, get his hands to the mat or something like this to force action. So like, it within the this is I think maybe where like something like audio comes into play is like in terms of instruction, it's very important. Like, I've always tried to be a good communicator in terms of like I tried to be a good speaker because I think that's really valuable in jiu-jitsu because anybody can show a move, you know, but in order to like break it down in a way that makes sense using your words, that is something that people I think are going to be able to recreate. Like, you can show somebody what a beautiful armbar looks like, but if you can break down the key components to a beautiful armbar using words and making it in a recreatable manner, that I think is really powerful in terms of instruction. Like, if you can coach somebody, I I did my first ever virtual private recently. And I was a little like reluctant at first because I was like, is this really going to work? Am I going to get any is this person who's paying me money going to get anything out of it? And it ended up being really kind of an interesting experience because like if I said anything that was like not completely precise, it would fuck up the whole thing, you know, like if I said grab or use your right foot when I meant left, they couldn't do the move properly. So like, I think just having the ability to speak well is really important as a coach and as an athlete trying to learn things or trying to distill information. Does that make sense? Speaker 1: 100%. When I started doing this podcast, the thing that has always made us stand out a little bit is we focus purely on education and teaching jiu-jitsu. And we don't talk so much about culture or news or current events. And I remember when we started this, a lot of people pushed back and said, you can't learn jiu-jitsu through audio, that's ridiculous. And I think over the years I've been proven right on that. Audio is a very powerful vehicle for learning for precisely the reason that you brought up. When you have visual aids available, especially when it's a one-way conversation like an instructional, it's really easy to get super prescriptive like you said, and just show what you do and ask the other person to copy it. So, you know, put your left hand here, put your right hand here, this is what I would do. And the idea is that you're trying to show rather than teach. And the person on the other side is expected to study and just duplicate your movements exactly. And we know now that that is not the way that people effectively learn motor skills. This is why I'm generally critical of too much of a reliance on video instructionals. It's not that they're bad, but it is that some instructors use video as a crutch because rather than having to explain or unpack what they're doing, you can just show it and say, just copy me, which is not really the greatest way of teaching. You're at that point doing what you talked about earlier, you're creating maybe a catalog of moves, but are you really teaching a person? I love audio as a vehicle because if someone wants to talk about jiu-jitsu and teach without a visual aid, they have to really reverse engineer in their head what they're doing and why they're doing it and explain that. If you and I were to sit here and talk about the Wojlock, for example, in painful detail about hand and arm placement, we would lose everyone in 10 seconds. And like you said, if we made one single slip-up where we said left instead of right, now we've completely ruined everything. Right? It's very hard to teach that way. However, if we set down and say, okay, forget the details, but conceptually, high-level, here's the goals, here's why you would do it, here's when you would do it, here's what your body should feel like when you're doing it, here's how you should be positioned relative to your opponent. It forces you to simplify your thinking a lot. And I find that that stuff communicates very well through audio. Also very well through the written word, like you do on the Grappler's Diary. And man, we're getting back to that now, I think, where people are starting to realize the power of the written word again. It really felt for a while like people were just not interested in books or reading anymore, and everything was going digital with YouTube and then shorter form content like TikTok. But I think recently there's been a whip-lash effect where people are getting back into the power of text to communicate. I mean, you're a prominent Substack writer. The growth of Substack as a writing platform for all sorts of content has been really exciting to see because it's giving me hope that the written word is not dead at all. It's actually very much alive, and people are starting to remember the value of that approach. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is a one thing that I kind of came up when you were talking about explaining was an idea that popped in my mind is like, I'm trying to remove the words like so from my instruction entirely. Like, if I do teach technique, which like if I do a seminar, you know, people are not coming to my seminar for me to show them like a game on or like, you know, CLA stuff. I try to teach more technique when I do seminars. My classes maybe swing more in the games direction now. But if I teach a technique, I try my hardest not to be like, I grab the arm and pull like so and then just pull the arm, you know, because this is not a effective way of demonstrating what happens. And I think like, or just doing things is really difficult for people to comprehend. And I try to instead talk about, uh, when I teach technique, talk about desired outcomes. So like, if we're talking about like the Wojlock, it's like, what is the desired outcome? The desired outcome is that he can't put weight into his foot. And we're using our chest as the mechanism for making this happen. And just like any foot lock, it's like if you can prevent them from putting weight into their foot, then you can break the foot. Because then they're going to think, okay, instead of thinking, I pull the arm like so, like how Chris said or whatever, I instead think about making it so that my partner can't put weight into their foot. And I'm like doing whatever because that's going to like, and this is kind of I guess tiptoeing towards like CLA kind of stuff, but like I still I find that like for breaking, because I teach and I've talked to Greg about this even. Like, breaking is you can't really do a game for breaking without breaking, you know what I'm saying? So it's hard to do like like you do have to kind of explain some part of the the technical side of what's happening, but we still need to be doing it in a way that is replicable as opposed to just demonstrating and showing what we're doing. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, this is the argument that a lot of the very traditional martial arts use. And that's actually not even fair. I guess I should say, that's the argument that a lot of the more bullshido martial arts use where they will say our techniques are so dangerous that, you know, you can't even train them properly. That is something that we make fun of, but there is a truth to it. There is a certain level of danger with certain techniques where you can't do them 100% all the time, submissions being the obvious example. You can't just crank them until you break someone's leg to get practice because then you don't have a training partner. So, there is a point with every martial art where we have to scale back a bit and we have to simulate to the best extent that we can. And the way that many coaches get around this, of course, is prioritizing control. If you can control someone well enough, then you can eventually break what you're trying to break because they can't get out. So, that's where the whole, you know, position over submission idea comes up. It makes a lot of sense. But that does illustrate that there are certain things which are just inherently hard to teach. Some things you just have to do, but again, safety concerns, right? Techniques like Connie Basami or guard jumping, banned at a lot of gyms. And it's not that these techniques don't work, but it's that the danger around them can be significant enough that you got to be really careful. And I always find that to be an interesting challenge point in jiu-jitsu. The spaces where we truly have to be careful training these things because just the act of training it has its own danger involved. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So for me now, especially nowadays, like when I first started doing seminars, some people would want like leg locks, or some people would want like body lock passing, because I was kind of showing a lot of different stuff in competition, but over the years, what has kind of, you know, point like kind of become the thing that I always am brought back to is like leg lock breaking mechanics. And it's interesting because it's like, it's always like toting the line of what is safe and what is not because it's like, okay, all right, guys, we're going to do leg locks today. Your ankle will be sore at the end of the day, pretty much no matter what. Even if you tap early, probably still going to be sore because they're going to yank on it for an hour and a half. And so like, there is, I mean, it's just there is some danger and some like you can't really, you can't really put the submission and submission grappling without the threat of some danger and some pain a little bit, you know. So for me, I've been all over the US and I was in Asia just teaching like breaking mechanics on leg locks. And it's very interesting because like, it's like the one thing that you can't really do again, you know, like you when you break someone's leg, you break it once. But you need to know how if you are in that situation in a competition or whatever. You need to know how to break it. And then also too, if you know how to break it, then you know how to not break it, which is equally as important then for safety, right? Like, if you know how to do the Aoki lock, then you know when you've got the Aoki lock and you don't need to, you know, put the pressure on, you know. So it's like the people generally who have the best leg locks should be in theory, you know, ego aside or, you know, whatever accidents happens, but the people who have the dangerous leg locks generally are the safest to train with. Like my coach Jeff, he's the person I trust the most to grab my leg. Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. Something that you mentioned earlier is how students can sometimes misunderstand the nuance when you just give them instructions. So, I can come up with a very relevant example of that. I know sometimes on this podcast, I will give an example, and people will think that maybe that is meant as a rule. So, common example, there was a discussion I had recently with someone where they were they had an objection with the way that I had explained how to get Kazushi while standing. And what I had suggested is one way to get Kazushi is if you want to get someone off balance, you can add some pushes and pulls into your stand-up game because that forces them to start moving their feet and having to accommodate their base, and that can create windows. And I guess some people had interpreted that as meaning that when standing up, you should always just be pushing and pulling your opponent, and that's the only way to get Kazushi, which is not what I said at all. You know, my understanding of Kazushi is very much in line with how Jigoro Kano explained it. Kazushi is just the art of breaking balance. There's one way to do it, but there are other ways as well. And the challenge I find, and the reason I try to avoid doing this on this podcast when I can, the challenge I find is that when you start getting really explicit about the exact steps you want people to follow, they sometimes will lose the nuance and they'll think that you're giving them rules that must always be followed. Whereas maybe you're only giving them an example to illustrate a point. That kind of nuance gets very easily lost when you're telling people what to do, which again, I think is another endorsement of the ecological approach because they try to shy away from doing this. And that's part of the reason why when we talk about jiu-jitsu like this, I try to avoid getting too prescriptive and telling people exactly what they should do because it's so easy to misunderstand that or misread the intent. And that doesn't even get into things like body type differences. The way that I do a move might not be the same as the way that you do it. And I think sometimes when we're communicating digitally and we're trying to teach online rather than in person, we have to be very mindful of that nuance. A lot of these things can shake out in the wash much easier if you and I are sitting down and training together, right? I mean, if I misunderstand your instruction, but you're right there working on it with me, you can correct me as I go because it's a two-way conversation. But most of the time when we're consuming digital content, it's one-way. And so there's always the risk that the person will misread what you're saying and run with it, and you as the content creator don't have the ability to correct course for them unless they contact you and ask, right? But that's hard to do at a certain scale. So I always find I have to be incredibly careful with what I say online because I never want to give people accidental false instructions that they might run with. I wonder if you encounter that approach as well because you exist across multiple mediums. You do so many podcasts, instructionals, the written word. I wonder if you have any guidelines or thoughts on how to streamline and optimize your message so it gets received the best way possible. Speaker 2: That's interesting. I kind of feel like this is maybe not the answer that you were looking for, but I kind of find that like I've kind of accepted that no matter what I say, I will be misconstrued. It's inevitable that you will be misconstrued by people no matter how clear you are. Like, I'll put out what I think is the most clear piece of writing ever, and I'll still get people who are commenting questions that are answered within the post. I'll reference the post within and I'll say like, if you see on slide three or if you see in paragraph three of today's Grappler's Diary newsletter, I said blah, blah, blah. So I think that it really comes down to like the student almost. They're like people are going to always make their own judgments or their own kind of assessments on what you're saying or selling or doing or whatever. And so it's really difficult to be construed to be like, have people understand like it's really hard to have people say or understand exactly what you're doing the way that you intend it to be. And I think that's like a there I think there's like some quote about that that's like the the version of you that exists like the way you see yourself, you're the only person in the world who sees yourself that way. So it's very hard to even in a face-to-face interaction, it is very difficult to come across clear. Like when I show things in a seminar and I use like the best language that I do and I'm like, wow, I killed that. I'll still get a few people who are like just confused because maybe my communication style is, you know, not that we don't mesh or maybe they think the way I talk is boring or maybe I talk too slow or maybe I use like a word they didn't understand or maybe I talk too fast or, you know, whatever. So it's like it's whatever you do, people are going to misconstrue what you say is kind of what I've found, unfortunately. Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some truth to that, and you kind of have to roll with the punches there and accept that people will just not always resonate with the way that you communicate and what you're trying to communicate. I mean, for example, I sometimes think, man, I'm probably talking too fast on this podcast, but I know that there's people who listen to this at like two and a half times speed, which seems fucking crazy to me. But people do it. And it really makes me realize that people want to consume information in different ways. I mean, you bring up a great example. I think we've all got personal stories of instructors that we really didn't like, but that everyone else seems to adore, or vice versa. And sometimes that happens. There are certain coaches whose speaking style just doesn't work for me, even though I know they're very good, and I know that other people love them. I mean, I'm not going to put anyone on blast, but there are some very well-known instructors that I know are excellent at their job, but they just don't speak the way that resonates with me. But man, if you can find a person who speaks in a way that you just vibe with, that can make learning jiu-jitsu so much easier. My advice to people is don't get caught up on a single instructor too quickly in the jiu-jitsu digital space. You know, you have this you have access to the entire directory of jiu-jitsu instructors all around the world in a device in your pocket, and you can watch it anytime. So, take advantage of that and explore, right? Don't commit too early to your favorite digital coach. Find a bunch of them, and if you can find someone where it just feels easy to learn from them, then you want to keep doing that. And if you find someone where it's just not working for you, it's okay to move on and go somewhere else, even if the rest of the sport seems to say like, this guy, this girl, they're perfect, they're an amazing coach. That doesn't always mean they're the best for you. I like it when I can find someone who communicates in a way that resonates on the same frequency as me. And what that answer is for me is going to be different from that how you would answer that question or how anyone else would, and that's okay. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think that we get so caught up in like, who's got the most titles or who's got like the most who won ADCC last year, and we'll see that like, we'll conflate like winning medals or winning titles with the ability to convey information, you know. And like, I don't think this is always true. Now, sometimes it is true. Sometimes there are athletes like I think like Gordon's instructionals, just name someone who has helped me, his instructional, even though he's from the the other gym, right, and he's supposed to be the enemy, but Gordon's instructionals have been really helpful for me over the years, and I've learned a lot from them. But then there are other guys who like, you know, as you said, are like kind of more well like famous in the sport, known for their instructional content, and just for whatever reason, I struggle to pay attention. Guys who are like many different guys, but guys who I struggle, maybe it's a a stylistic thing, maybe it's the way they're structuring their lesson, maybe it's just the way they're moving their body, I don't feel that I can replicate it. But there are some people who I think do a really good job for me. And I think that it's really important to then like, as an instructor, I think what I think about is like knowing that I'm not going to be everybody's cup of tea, kind of what I aim to do is I aim to just do the best job that I can and to be as like, like I aim to just put out like I try to put out the newsletter I would want to read. I try to put out the instructional that I would want to watch. I try to write the book that I would want to read. And I think you can't really do a whole lot more than that without going into like some deep people pleasing that is just not going to make you happy in the long run. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that's interesting about the digital space is the sheer volume of stuff that's out there. It can make it very hard to stand out, and it can also create this really challenging analysis paralysis within people because we only have so much time to consume digital content. As you already mentioned, it's not great to be over-consuming that. We don't want that to become unbalanced with the amount of actual training time that we have. So people sometimes get a bit of analysis paralysis where they they're so much stuff to study that they almost have to study what to study before they study because there's just so much info out there. The example that I give quite often is your Netflix queue. How many times have you popped open Netflix looking for something to watch and there's so much stuff on there that you spend an hour just looking through stuff without actually watching anything because just processing all of that incoming information winds up taking all of your time, and then you check your watch and you realize, man, I don't have time to actually watch anything now because I spent the whole night just trying to figure out what is out there. This is an interesting problem that comes up in the worlds of information architecture and user experience. There are two concepts that I was made familiar with back when I used to work in that space. And, um, there's this balance between what they call findability and discoverability. So, findability means you can actually find something. I know what I want, I just don't necessarily know exactly where I can find it or what the details are, but in my head, I know what I want, and I just need someone to point me in the direction where I can get it. So, as an example, you know, if you want a recipe to make casserole, you know what you want, you just don't know how to do it, so you can go into Google and find that relatively easily. However, there's also this other element of discoverability, which is where you don't necessarily know what you want, and you're relying on someone else to present those ideas to you to give you ideas so that that can kind of help your steering. That to me has been a really interesting framework to look at digital content in the jiu-jitsu space because we do have what I guess we could call classical instructionals that are effectively just a giant encyclopedia of techniques. And I would consider that to be a findability tool, where, look, I know what I want. I know I want to learn the Wojlock. I just don't know how to do it. So, I Google Wojlock and I find your instructional and then I learn from there. However, there may also be people who are more in the discoverability stage, meaning that they don't even know the Wojlock exists. Maybe they just know they're having a problem. They can't finish the heel hook. They don't know that the Wojlock is a thing, but they want a tool that they can use when they're struggling with the heel hook. So the question now is, how do we get in front of those people and give them the idea that they need without them even knowing that they need it? And that's a very different problem to solve. So I'm always thinking about these when we create digital content. Some of the times we're trying to solve a known problem. Sometimes the goal of a conversation like this is just to just put ideas in front of people and give them a list of things that might be interesting so that they can go and pursue that further. And I find that that is a a real consideration when making digital content because you have to when there's so much stuff out there, you have to really be clear about what you're making because ultimately, when people find you, they're going to resonate with you based on your vision and your goal and what you're trying to do, and the clearer you are about that, the more likely you are to build a defined audience around it. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. When I think about like the different products that I've put out, I think I've definitely done some of both. Like, I think the Wojlock, the world instructional is definitely more of a findability kind of tool where it's like, it's basically just every ankle lock that exists, and that's what it is, you know, it's not like helping you solve problems, it's not like, it's like this is but that also too, it's like, you know, you think about where I was in my career when I put that out, it's like, okay, here's this foot lock. It just looks different. It's kind of similar break to a lot of other things that exist, but it's like, this is something that looks different from what you see most people doing. So here's what it is, and here's like a bunch of other stuff that you can learn too. And then I think what what's cool is like a product like that, like it contains details that would maybe help people, you know, who have problems with leg locks, so they can get better and solve those problems, but that's not what it was created for. And then I think something like my book, the Grappler's Diary book, it was more so written reflectively going through the jiu-jitsu experience. So then people who are who, you know, it was more so just to like solve the I wrote it to kind of for people who feel like they want more direction in their training, and that was kind of the objective there. And now I think going forward for me, it's like, I want to just help people, I don't want to like just show more stuff. I really want to focus on connection, and I want to help people solve problems that they're having in jiu-jitsu, whether it's feeling like they can't get to the gym and you know, feel like what like when they get to the gym, they don't have a plan or feeling like they are having a hard time getting to the gym as often as they could. So maybe helping with like discipline and motivation or scheduling or stuff like this. Things that you think about as you maybe you know, you're a young athlete, these are things that didn't come up, you know, I didn't think about what if I'm plateauing, I would just train more. You know, it was not a problem that I had to solve because I had the I mean, you know, I was 21, 22 and didn't really have a full-time job. All I had to do was just work harder and you can kind of solve these problems that now as I'm a little bit older, like my I mean, you know, 28, I'm not old yet, but like the difference between being 19 and being able to train three times a day and being 28 with 10 years of training on your body, you can definitely feel like I have to go about my training differently now than I once did. And I'm kind of realizing that there are a lot of problems blocking the path to progress that I did not experience. Like they maybe existed, but I never experienced them, so I didn't have the wherewithal or the ability to solve them. So I think like when I think back about a lot of my writing from like, even like three years ago, it's like a lot of it was just focused on discipline and working hard and training hard. And now I'm working more on like trying to find creative ways to maximize the time that I do put in. Does that make sense? Over time, trying to put in early on when I think what I was training a lot, it was more just kind of here's a bunch of stuff that I learned because I just learned a bunch of stuff. And now I'm kind of getting to a point where I'm, okay, now I'm having these problems and I got to solve these problems and I want to put out a resource that's going to help people solve the same problems that I've been struggling with. Speaker 1: And I find that when you think through these kinds of issues, you have to approach them differently from the way that people might traditionally approach a jiu-jitsu instructional or jiu-jitsu content. When you watch an instructional, the idea is all of these answers are being presented to you. And the challenge with that approach is that often those answers don't align exactly with the problem you have. So if you try to just take them verbatim as is, you might struggle to apply them the way they were intended. When you're creating content through the written word or through audio, sometimes the value is not in presenting the answer. Sometimes the value is, you talked about, is in presenting the problem. I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast don't do so because they want specific technical details, but because we can present and frame problems that get people thinking. And sometimes that's good enough. So you talked about things like burnout and plateauing, common problems that every grappler faces. The way that people might choose to approach that is to give someone a a listicle with here's the the 10 tips for overcoming burnout. And that can help. But sometimes just framing the problem so that you start a dialogue about it creates enough value because often once people understand that, hey, this is a problem, this is not just some weird deficiency with you, but everyone deals with it, it is a thing. That can kind of unlock a space in in our brains where now we can start approaching it more productively. It seems to me that many of the challenges that especially beginners face in jiu-jitsu come up because they feel like they're the only person in the world having these issues. Whereas in reality, like you said, things like burnout, things like not feeling like we're learning fast enough, getting frustrated because we can't remember everything that happens on the mats. These are universal experiences in the sport. And sometimes just telling people that and sharing that our side of the story, our experience with that problem can be valuable enough to help people get themselves out of that rut as well. Speaker 2: It's funny you said that. I when you're talking about the the problems that everybody has, immediately I thought of Reddit and the amount of times I've seen a post on Reddit, I think I'm the worst jiu-jitsu white belt ever. I've seen this post. I'm sure you've seen it many times too, Steve. There are so many people who think they're just the worst jiu-jitsu practitioner ever. And it's really just a lack of community around these problems. Like we often come together in jiu-jitsu over many things, but people don't really come together over their problems. It's there's not like a bunch of people talking about why they're struggling to make progress or why they're not performing as well as they would like. It's more so I mean, maybe it's just not in the culture, I think, but that's kind of another interesting aspect. But like if you can get a community full of people who are struggling to make progress, but all want to be better, this I think is better than having one coach who's telling you the way is his way. So I think that having that open dialogue with people, whether it's on the internet, or I think best case scenario is in person with your training partners or friends from other gyms, like having a dialogue about uh, how you're progressing in jiu-jitsu is super valuable. So many conversations I've had with people in jiu-jitsu that I've been like, wow, I wish we could just I wish everybody could have heard this conversation because we're being super, you know, really good grapplers, being honest about how difficult it is to be good at jiu-jitsu. It kind of puts into perspective when you're feeling like you're the worst person ever or like you're not getting better. Like recently, like even this week, I've kind of been hitting I hit like a little plateau in training, I would say this week. I was making a lot of incremental gains over the last like three or four weeks, and then this week felt slow for some reason. And it's if I hadn't encountered this problem before, if I was a white belt who had been training for two months and I was getting better, and then all of a sudden I stopped, I would probably think that maybe jiu-jitsu is not for me, maybe this is the hardest sport ever, maybe I'm going to suck forever, who knows. But kind of as someone who has like a decade of experience, I have enough experience to be like, okay, this plateau is could be overtraining, it could be just a plateau from skill development, it could be a sign that I need to work on specific problems, I need to study new ways to solve those problems. But like these are things that when you're a beginner, you just don't have the perspective to even think about, much less do. Speaker 1: Yeah, and that kind of gets back to that discussion of findability versus discoverability. Many of the real problems that beginners have, they don't even understand that they're problems. They're so focused on looking for a technical solution that they don't realize the real solution they need might be more philosophical in nature. And I think the way that we can help people with those problems is through connection and through putting ideas in front of them, like you try to do with your newsletter. Something that I know you've talked about is steering too far in the direction of the digital at the expense of the real world. And man, I can I feel that, right? The beauty of digital solutions is that they tend to be frictionless. You can do them much more easily than in the real world. I mean, at this point in time, you know, if I wanted to, I could probably live my whole life without ever having to leave the house, right? You can get groceries delivered, you can work remotely. There's a lot of frictionless solutions out there that make things easier, and many of them are digital. The problem is that although we desire frictionless solutions, frictionless is not always better. Human beings create friction. So, if you want to live a frictionless life, the easiest way to do that is to remove human beings from your life, which is also not good for us because that's contrary to our own psychology. And we hear about this being talked a lot now about the loneliness epidemic, especially young men. And I think a big part of that is just people who live more in the digital world than in the real world. And I find this to be a challenging balance because there is tremendous value in the digital space, but I feel like if you really want to get value, real value out of digital stuff, you have to find a way to map it back to the real world. There's no point in watching a bunch of digital jiu-jitsu content if you don't have a way or a plan to map that back to reality and what you do with your training partners. So, this is something that has been very much on my mind as we produce more content of different types. How can I structure these conversations or the material that we make so that it encourages a level of human connection, whether it be with me or our community, or even just giving people tools to better engage with their own local community or at their gym? That is super important, and I think that that is almost more important than the studying in the first place. The really good athletes who make the most out of every moment, they have a plan. They don't just sit around and watch instructionals. They tie that to their training with a degree of intention. They have a training plan for everything that they study, and that often means that they're studying less, right? Maybe they're really laser-focusing on one thing. And that can kind of fly at the odds of our natural inclination with technology because sometimes we feel like we have to watch it all. I really think that for a lot of people, just laser-focusing on one instructional at a time and actually turning it into a training program, that's going to give you more bang for your buck than trying to watch every single video on Submeta. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's correct. I think that this is how I've always watched instructionals. It was just because I would get bored. It wasn't really I wasn't like so smart, it was more like an ADHD thing. But I would watch 15 minutes tops and then go try the stuff that I was learning in the instructional because it was more digestible for me. I would get bored if I tried to force myself to watch any more. But because of that, a lot of the stuff that I learned from the instructional, I actually did implement into my game. I think the the thing with the digital content, it's it's I sometimes as well, like I'm kind of in the same boat. I put out a lot of digital content, pretty much always trying to put out a little bit more, whether it's on a different platform or better content on the same platform that goes a little deeper into subjects. There is the fear of going too deep and focusing too much on the digital. I think that one thing that I've found is like I've been trying to as much as I can, if I want to learn from someone, I try to go see them in person. I'm lucky that I do jiu-jitsu full-time and I have the luxury to have access to some of the best grapplers in the world. But like if I want to learn from, like if I want to learn more about the ecological approach, I can go train with Greg Souders. If I want to learn more about wrestling, I can go train with Justin Flores or whoever the best wrestlers are in the sport. I I can go, you know, I live in Austin, I can go find Jason Nolf and learn some wrestling from him. I think that there's so much value in having face-to-face interactions in the sport. And for me as an athlete looking to take the next steps in my development, the big thing is doing the digital because there is value in putting out ideas and sharing ideas, both for me as a writer and also for a consumer. I'm hoping I wouldn't write anything if I didn't think that there was a possibility that my ideas or the stories could help people. But I always try to when I can prioritize like an in-person experience, in-person training because this is where all of the physical growth happens. Like you can get better as a writer, but nobody sees it until the writing is better. You can get better at wrestling, but nobody sees it until you're showing better wrestling. So everything as you said, everything has to be in person. And I think that was maybe the realization with the whole analog versus digital thing in the first place was this kind of realization that we spend so much time focusing on things that do not exist once you hit the off button on your phone or your computer. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is kind of crazy how much of our lives we live through this little rectangular device in our pockets. That's almost like a an entirely different life in many ways. And I feel that sometimes, like there's this digital version of me who is almost like a different person that most people engage with. But then there's actually the real me who is in many ways a very different person. And sometimes people might perceive me a certain way, and I know that that is a concern that all athletes have is how do I balance these two personas? Of course, I want to be as authentic as possible. I would love them to be the same person, but the reality is when people interact with you online, it's just a fundamentally different experience from being in person with someone. I get this a lot, right? Because we've got a really popular Discord for our premium members, and it's so funny because there's people on there that I've talked to for years, right? Who I consider to be really good friends of mine. But really, I only know them by their screen name. And then one day I'll meet them in person at a seminar, and it'll blow my mind because there'll be this real human in front of me, but they've got a a real name, like John or something, right? You know, they're they're a real human being. And in the back of my head, I know this person is actually a really close friend of mine. I've exchanged thousands of messages with this person over the years. But I have trouble reconciling that that is the same person as this stranger standing in front of me named John, who I'm meeting for the first time. Like, it's a really weird thing. And my advice for everyone who consumes a lot of digital content is try not to make it a one-way experience. Try to make it a two-way experience if possible. If there is someone out there who is making digital stuff that you get value out of, whether it's written word, podcast, video, what have you, engage with them. However you want to do it, right? Leave comments, send a note of appreciation, ask questions. I think people sometimes are afraid to do that because they don't want to waste people's time. Man, I don't know about you, Chris, but as a content guy, I love it when people reach out to engage with me, whether they ask me questions or give me suggestions on how to be better or even just a small note of thanks. Like, that means a lot. And I think people sometimes they don't realize how rare that is for people to actually reach out. It's quite rare for people to engage with creators online. I can also say, though, if you are a grappler, it doesn't matter if you're a white or a black belt, going ahead and doing that and starting to reach out to the people in the sport that have helped you, even if they don't even know who you are, that's how you network. That's how you build a lot of these great relationships, right? You're in a place now where you can go and you can train with Greg Souders or whoever you want. Most of the time, that starts with sending a DM on Instagram. And I think regular people need to do that more often. Just send a message to your favorite jiu-jitsu online instructors. I think most people would be shocked at how easy it is to get a reply from people. Right? Most of the time, that stuff does get read, and people will try to reach out and engage. So, my big suggestion for making the digital world less fake is to engage with everyone and try to find the human and build a real relationship. Not some parasocial relationship where you it's just one-way, but where you are actually going back and forth and establishing a dialogue with the people whose content you enjoy. Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in the same boat there. I try to respond to everybody. I you know, if if it's like a competition and I get a lot of messages, sometimes I miss a few, but I try to respond to pretty much everybody who, you know, sends me a message or reaches out or sends an email or something like that because it is the best way to as a creator, it's like, oh, okay, it's nice to know that I'm not just posting into the void. There are actual people with lives besides my content that are out there consuming this. And it makes you kind of as a creator, it makes you feel like what you're doing matters a little bit more because you know it's not just for you and it's not just for the internet. It it does start to feel more like a community. As a consumer, I know for me, I've reached out to some of my favorite creators over the years, and it's always been super helpful. Like, they've always been no creator, worst case scenario, they don't respond, and they maybe they didn't see it, maybe they were busy that day, maybe they got too many messages. Best case scenario, I've gotten access to some of the best minds in not even just jiu-jitsu, like different industries have just responded to my DM on Instagram or Twitter and helped me out. So it's like, if you can reach out, you know, one, you and I appreciate it. A lot of athletes I know appreciate it. And other industries, even people appreciate it. It's like a message goes a long way. Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when so much of the, uh, default behavior on the internet tends to be more negative. If you can find a way to bring positivity into that space, people will remember it. To your example, there have been times when I've reached out to people, and I didn't hear anything back, and I thought, oh, they're just, you know, they didn't see it or maybe they're ignoring me. But then I found out through the grapevine that actually from someone else that actually, no, this person did see my message, and maybe they forgot to respond, but they really appreciated it, and they remember who I am because I sent them some message. So even if they don't respond necessarily, just getting a note of affirmation or some some advice or some suggestions, it's really helpful. It can be very intimidating to make content like this and put it out into the void, especially if you're not getting regular feedback. So I would say for most people, man, if you want to build a strong network in this sport and turn all of this digital stuff into an analog real-life experience, it starts with using the internet to build connection with people. But I know, Chris, that you've got a lot on the go right now, and I don't want to take up too much of your time. I do want to plug your work, though. If people want to follow you or check out some of the writing or the other content you produce, how can they do that? Speaker 2: Yeah, so on, uh, Instagram, I'm Chris M. Wojcik. Just kind of if you type in Chris Wojcik, it's I don't think I'm the first one that comes up yet, but I'm like one of the first ones that comes up. And then the Grappler's Diary is my blog. You can find that. We I do short little posts on Instagram three days a week. I do a daily, uh, weekly newsletter every Friday on Substack. And then generally put out some other bits for our paid subscribers throughout the week as well. And then I wrote a book that came out in January. So this is the first time on the the podcast that I've, uh, been on this podcast since the book came out. So the book is called A Grappler's Diary. So there's The Grappler's Diary is the blog, A Grappler's Diary is the book behind the blog, and it's just it's kind of like a daily stoic type format for jiu-jitsu and thoughts and training and reflections and stuff like this. So, uh, if you're interested if you like reading about jiu-jitsu, if you like even if you like listening to jiu-jitsu, it's um, it's a good resource for anyone who wants to just kind of learn more about stuff besides just technique because I I didn't really want to write a a technique catalog. I wanted to write a book about my experiences. But if you are interested in techniques, I did, uh, Wojlock the World is my leg lock instructional. And then my newest instructional is called Don't Get Passed. It's guard retention, and it does have some techniques, but it also has kind of some some constraint-led approach games and stuff that I used in preparation for things like CGI and, uh, who's number one and stuff like that. So, uh, those are kind of that's kind of all the work that I got going on right now. Speaker 1: Amazing, sir. Well, I will link all of that in the show notes to make it easier. I mean, if we want to talk about actionable things that people can do, the number one thing that I suggest is to get people to sign up to the Grappler's Diary newsletter. It's my really my top recommendation for other people's newsletters in the sport, and the free tier alone has a ton of stuff. So I will put a link in the show notes. Also worth saying that, hey, look, we all have the ability to influence the future of the sport. We can all vote with our dollars. We are still in a place in jiu-jitsu where although it is growing, it's hard to make a living out of this sport. And, you know, your Netflix subscription, your coffee money, if you put that towards one of the athletes that has really helped you, it makes a big difference. So, if you can spare it, I definitely suggest signing up to the paid tier of Chris's newsletter because that helps him, it helps you, it helps the growth of the sport. Voting with your dollars helps a lot. If you want more from us, everything we make lives at bjjmentalmodels.com. The podcast, the newsletter, all completely free. So make sure you cash in on that. And BJJ Mental Models Premium is how we float the boat around here. It is the world's largest library of jiu-jitsu audio content. Our focus is education, not just in terms of teaching you jiu-jitsu, but in terms of improving your overall lived experience in jiu-jitsu. We're also branching out into educational audio documentary style content. We really try to do something unique and different here. We've got about 600 paid subscribers at this point, making us one of the larger platforms in the space, and there really is no one else doing what we do specifically. If connection and interaction with other humans is the thing that you're looking for, our platform is also quite unique for that. The community has always been one of the main pillars of what we do. There are amazing networking opportunities, both for students and for business owners in the sport there as part of Premium. We even offer marketing and, uh, business services if you go up to our Pro tier under BJJ Mental Models Premium. I always ask people consider supporting us there. That's all at bjjmentalmodels.com as well. I will put in the link in the show notes to make it easy for people to find, uh, both to my stuff and to yours, Chris. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Steve, for having me on. This was a great time. Speaker 1: You are most welcome, buddy. I appreciate it greatly. And thank you to the listeners as well. I appreciate that too. We will talk to you in the next episode. See you then.