Ep. 345: Back After Layoffs, feat. Elisabeth Clay

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 BJJ Mental Models.com and check it out today. Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to BJJ Mental Models episode 345. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jiu-Jitsu approach, and I'm here today with Elizabeth Clay. Elizabeth, how's it going? Speaker 2: It's going pretty good. I'm glad to be on. Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you on. Uh, second follow-up question, how's your son doing? Is he also happy to be here? Speaker 2: He's doing good. He's uh, happy to be here and playing right now. Speaker 1: I figured he would be. For those who don't know, Elizabeth has a little one. He is a special guest on this episode as well. So if you hear baby noises in the background, that's where it's coming from. But Elizabeth, I'm guessing that most of the people listening to this probably know who you are. Just in case though, why don't you give yourself a quick intro and also tell us about the kid, how old is he now? Speaker 2: So my name's Elizabeth Clay. I have won basically every major out there, not every single one, but almost every single one, E and Nogi. I have a 10-month-old son and yeah, I just did Worlds about three weeks ago and I came back with a silver and a bronze. Speaker 1: Great work as always. And this kind of ties into the topic that I want to discuss. One of the things that I love about your recent and current run is that, you know, coming off of a pregnancy, having a child, you're right back at it and you've got the child with you too. I think it's super cool. It definitely got my attention when I noticed at some of the press conferences, you had the little baby with you too. Speaker 2: Yeah, he does really good, taking everywhere with me, thankfully. Speaker 1: I figured he would be. I mean, hey, if nothing else, it's good for clicks and attention. And that's actually kind of along the lines of what I wanted to talk to you about here. I wanted to discuss your journey to taking, you know, such a a long layoff, getting back onto the mats and what that's been like. That's a journey that I think is relevant for all of us, even those of us who haven't been moms. Myself, for example, I am on the mend from shoulder surgery, so that's been a pretty long layoff for me as well. I'd love to hear what that journey's been like for you and how you did it, just in case there's any advice or insights we can share for people in similar situations. Speaker 2: So, coming back from the pregnancy, I was very lucky in the fact that I was still very active the entire time, even when I had to quit training because about, he tried to come early about 35 weeks. So I had a two-week break off there and then, you know, anything about pregnancy, you grow a lot in the end. And so after that, even trying to come back was very difficult. So I ended up basically, instead of training, I switched more to lifting, which I'd been doing anyway. And so I think me staying active in that aspect definitely helped me coming back in training and just getting back in the gym. But for me, one thing I've always done is even when I'm hurt, I still show up to the gym, most except my friends are and where I feel the best. And so I just make sure that I'm constantly like, I'm in the gym even when I'm hurt. When I was younger, blew my knee out, very similar thing, make sure that I was in the gym and still in the environment and kind of still picking up and learning, you know, if I couldn't be actively training. Speaker 1: I love that suggestion. It's something that I've heard many coaches talk about as well, just staying immersed in the culture even when you're not able to physically train and keeping the habit up. Many people that I know when they get injured or when life circumstances get in the way of their training, they get kind of depressed at the idea of being around Jiu-Jitsu when they can't train, and so they'll just distance themselves from it entirely, which I think honestly is probably the worst thing to do if you're looking to really stay engaged with the sport over the long term. I've had long layoffs both where I completely separated from the sport, but also long layoffs where I stayed engaged all the way through, and both for my mental health and for my ability to retain information and get back on the horse quickly, I found it way easier the times where I stayed engaged, whether that be going to the gym or having discussions like this with people like you. I think that if you're going to take time off and just completely cut Jiu-Jitsu out of your life, it makes it way harder to come back into it when you're ready. Speaker 2: I definitely agree, especially it makes it hard, I think, like, whether you were hurt or not or it was some kind of other circumstance that you weren't able to train, you also kind of have that like, I don't know, embarrassment or even anxiety to step back in the gym that maybe what if the training doesn't go as well or maybe what if I can't do as much, versus I feel like if you've already like been there or still around like the culture and the people, jumping back in isn't, it doesn't have that same kind of anxiety along with their expectations. Speaker 1: Yeah, do you find it hard to give yourself permission to do that? I mean, in your situation, yours of course is quite different from mine. I'm just a hobbyist. So for me, I can come back without too many expectations. But I mean, you're one of the very best in the world at this, so I imagine that for you, probably you have at least some internal pressure that you feel to come back and still be elite. And of course, that's not always healthy and productive because sometimes you need to give your body time off to rest and recover. Is that a mindset thing that you struggle with and do you have any tips for that? Speaker 2: 100%, definitely something I struggle with. I also think it's kind of a personality thing. I think that's part of why I've made it where I am in the sport as well is that's kind of my my personality. Even jumping back like from the pregnancy and stuff, my husband would have to be like, you just grew a baby. Like you've and I was like, I was training almost the whole time and he's like, yeah, you were training, but like, you just grew a baby. Your body's different right now. You just had the baby because I started training back in about two weeks, which not saying that that's what everybody should do because it's not something for everybody. It's just what I was personally able to do, but even that like it took time, even being able to do that. And like my reactions weren't the same, my balance was off, just kind of everything had to like recalibrate in every single way. I wish I had some advice for that. That's definitely something that I still personally struggle with is kind of giving myself the the grace that you need along with it. Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was younger, I found this to be a real challenge. And again, I have always just done Jiu-Jitsu for fun, never as a competitive endeavor. But even as a hobbyist, when I was younger, I found it really hard to deal with the weight of expectations that I'd have to be able to come back and perform. And it as I got older, this became easier to deal with. You know, once you've kind of been around the block a few times, you realize that a layoff in Jiu-Jitsu isn't the end of the world. But the hardest thing for me after my first big layoff was coming to terms with the fact that, look, when I come back, you know, for the first month or so, I'm not going to be the grappler that I was when I left. I'm going to be struggling against people who I used to not struggle with at all against. And I'm wondering, is that something that you had to deal with as well? Speaker 2: Not so much due to other people, it's more so about like how I personally feel with my own performance and ability of what I'm doing. It's not even necessarily like losing to people that I wasn't losing to before. But I think something that I've kind of always thought that kind of makes it easier is, you know, that month is going to suck or however long it is, it's going to suck. But that time is going to pass regardless. If you don't step foot back in the gym, that time is just going to keep getting pushed back and you're never actually going to get over that month. The faster you obviously when you feel good and healthy, that you step back in, the easier it is to just you go through as soon as you step in the gym, that timer has already started where it's clicking down and all of a sudden you're going to feel better. Versus if you keep putting it off because of that, it makes it much harder that that month is just going to sit there and kind of hang over you or or two weeks or however long it is, it takes for you to get back in the gym. And that's just kind of something that I've always, I feel like I've had that mentality like the time is going to pass regardless. I might as well, you know, just go ahead and get ahead of it and just start so it's already going. Speaker 1: Right. Now, psychologically, you touched on something that's pretty key there, which is the longer you take time off, the harder it is to ultimately come back. What you've brought up here is the importance of keeping the habit going even if you can't physically train. And that's very good advice. Coaches that I know will often say, hey, if there's a reason why you can't train, at least make the effort of coming into the gym. If you're sick and you don't want to get your teammates sick, that's understandable, but at least like drive to the gym, open the car, get back into the car and go home. Like at least do something to keep the habit alive because the longer you let the habit go dead for, the harder it is to reactivate that habit when it's time, not just because of the changing life circumstances and priorities that will fill the space that Jiu-Jitsu used to take, but also the psychological aspect. Jiu-Jitsu is a performance sport and if you've been off for a real long time, it's easy to get in your own head and get afraid to come back because like you mentioned, you're worried about being embarrassed or looking bad. Most of the time that's completely an internal concern and your teammates aren't sharing that concern with you. They probably are just happy to have you back, but it is a real struggle to come back and have to overcome that knowledge that, hey, I'm probably not going to be in the same shape that I was when I took time off in the first place. Speaker 2: I definitely agree and having that routine, I feel like also helps, but keeping up the same routine as before. Otherwise, a lot of times you see with people taking long breaks is you get them, they come back in, and they're like, oh, I got to work it back into my schedule. Versus if you keep the same schedule or similar enough to where it's easier, it makes it much easier once you're able to start back and coming and training. And you definitely touched on a point, your teammates aren't thinking about that. They're really not. People are just really happy to have you back in the gym, but I think that's part of what makes Jiu-Jitsu and people how it is, that we get in our own head and honestly, we're our own worst critics, is I think what a lot of us need to remember. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, as someone who has had life situations in the past that have gotten in the way of my training, I can tell you, there's not many times when adults get super excited, but if you ever want to see a grownup light up like a kid at Christmas, come back to Jiu-Jitsu after a long layoff, because that gets people so excited. You know, when someone goes away for a while and then a year later, they see that person coming back to the mats for the first time, they're so happy to see you. I mean, I can tell you that your teammates are not going to be judgy or upset that you're not in the same state that you were when you came in before. They're just happy to have you back. So, I think that it's always good to reframe things in that way and think less about, hey, how's my performance going to be degraded? Think less about that and think more about, how excited are my teammates going to be to see me again? Speaker 2: Definitely. I 100% agree with you there. Speaker 1: Now, if we stay in the mindset that you were talking about, where we try to keep the habit going the whole way through, I think that's the optimal way to kind of maintain your level in Jiu-Jitsu. What other things do you do to keep sharp during that time? I mean, you mentioned of course that there's other physical activities that in your state, in your situation you were able to do. I mean, with some really bad injuries, maybe you wouldn't be able to keep active, but at least you're keeping active and that's important. Did you do any sort of study or change up your kind of info intake in any way while you were off? I'm just wondering how that kind of all aligned. Speaker 2: For me, I was still in the gym because my husband was training, so I was still in the environment constantly. And luckily, I was still able to, I won't say drill, I'll say flow. I would do like two, maybe, but still that's not much. Maybe I was getting in 10, 15 minutes spots. But I was still constantly in the environment because my husband was still training, so I was still there other than the two weeks I was actually on real bed rest. I was still there basically every single day because for me, more so than like information intake and that type of thing, it keeps me not in a bad mental place. I don't do great when I'm not training, and especially like not being in the gym. So if I can't train, I need to be in the gym at least around the same people and kind of keeping up that same routine. I think if some people like to study, they should continue that. I personally don't because if I start watching it, I get upset I'm not doing it. So it ends up kind of having the opposite effect of what it should. So, I don't study too much unless I'm able to train because it is it not working out well too well for me. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. I am kind of terrible with info retention myself and I I really need to be training actively if I want to capture any kind of fine-grained technical detail. I need to actually be doing it. What I have found is that listening to conversations like this where you're not really talking about, you know, techniques, but maybe you're talking about bigger ideas, things you can't really train. I find that that kind of stuff is very helpful for when you have to take time off of the mats. But yeah, I agree with you. For me personally, if I'm not able to train, studying tape or instructionals where you're looking at specifics, it's hard for me to retain stuff and it can also kind of give you that bug where you're just you get sad because you weren't able to train. Speaker 2: 100%. I agree with you there. I think it does depend on like personality though, because some people do great with that. I wish I was one of them. Speaker 1: I am the same. My brother is one of those people who can just sit down and watch and study instructionals and retain it. For me, the way that I think is just different. That's never really been an approach that has been effective for me, but I know it works for some people and so, you know, to each their own. I would also love to ask you though, when, you know, you talked about flow drilling and flow rolling, was that something that you were able to do, I guess primarily at the gym, but you know, you have the benefit of also having a partner who trains Jiu-Jitsu as well. So you were presumably able to do it from home or pretty much anywhere you went, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, we mostly still did it at at the gym just because we were still there every single day and I couldn't really do enough to make it work. Uh, doing it at home too, because I was just and that that far along you just don't move very well. And so that was my issue. But I think we still did some occasionally at home, but not too much. Speaker 1: Yeah. Another question just regarding your coach, did from a coaching standpoint, did you get any sort of different treatment or different information from your coach because you weren't training? I'm just wondering if they figured out a different way to maybe convey information or keep you sharp when you were off the mats or if you just kind of sat there and just absorbed through osmosis by taking in what was going on in the room? Speaker 2: Most areas kind of sat there and absorbed it. There wasn't too much of a a different approach there really. I think especially because it was it wasn't that long that I was off. Well, I guess it was, it was about a month-ish, a little more than that, which is probably the longest break I've taken. But with it being with the baby, it was kind of just was there, sat in the environment and kind of just took everything in, which is usually how how I'll do stuff if I'm not able to train. Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you were training probably less intensely, of course, but you were training through much of the pregnancy. How is that like? Because obviously that's going to impact what you can and can't do. I know that that topic won't be relevant to everyone who listens, but we have a pretty high percentage of our audience who are women. So I'd love to know your experience kind of tapering or changing your training as the pregnancy progressed. Speaker 2: Honestly, I would say I trained pretty normal all the way up until almost 30 weeks. I was still training pretty normal. Obviously, I wasn't doing takedowns and that type of stuff, but that was more so me making adjustments versus like my training partners having to make adjustments and I'm kind of lucky in the fact that being high level, I'm able to do that. I know not everybody can do that. A lot of times you have to have your partners make adjustments because you don't maybe necessarily have enough experience yet to be able to make all of those adjustments solely on your own. But I was lucky in the fact that I was still able to close up until 30 weeks. Even then, I was still rolling all the way up until he tried to come early. Uh, like actual rolling, um, until he tried to come early and then I got stuck on bed rest. So all the way up until about 35 weeks. Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty crazy. You know, you bring up a great point there. There's obviously some things you got to take out like takedowns and such. A big thing that I hear, especially a lot of women bring up as a concern is, you know, safety when rolling with other training partners. That's always a concern if it's, you know, a guy, especially who outweighs you by a huge amount. I presume that the aspects of like trust and weight differences become even more important when you're pregnant, right? Because I'm presuming you wouldn't, for example, want to, you know, drop in at another gym and roll with some stranger you don't know who outweighs you by a massive amount. Speaker 2: It definitely becomes you have to be more cautious of that specifically and it's really important to train with people that have predictable games. I think when you train with people that are, there were a couple people that even early on I cut out because they move very unpredictably. When you hit a certain belt for the most part, there are only so many directions you can take, right? To do something the the correct way. Training as long as I have, I know for the most part those directions you're going to take. So I can already be those steps ahead, but if somebody was unpredictable, that wasn't really somebody I would train with more so than anything or if somebody again clumsy because I don't want them to fall on me. That's always a risk. I did go to Freehill and train with people I didn't know when I was like 20 weeks pregnant, but that wasn't the normal. Speaker 1: Yeah. Something that I have found, as I got more experienced in Jiu-Jitsu, I was able to kind of handle the nuances of taking time off better. Whereas when I began Jiu-Jitsu, and I think maybe the beginners who listen to this can relate to this, when you're new at Jiu-Jitsu, like white or blue belt, having to take any time off can be really depressing. Once you've done it a few times, if you've been injured, once you get to brown or black belt and you're older, you understand it's not the end of the world and you can just roll with the punches. But it's pretty common for beginners when they experience their first layoff like this to get kind of depressed at the whole situation. You brought up of course that as an experienced grappler, you have the ability to kind of cater your training and know who's safe and know who isn't safe and work around that. But from just a mindset standpoint, do you think that things would be different if you were like a beginner? Would you have any advice for maybe someone who's less experienced and is going through a similar journey? Speaker 2: Definitely. I think if you're more of a beginner, you're going to have to, your partners are going to have to make more adjustments instead of it being solely on you. So that again, comes to people that you trust and you can communicate with. But you're going to have to have partners that you trust enough to ask to make the adjustments that you need to feel safe doing however it is, coming back training, training while you're pregnant, etc. To have partners that you can, you know, hey, when you do this, it doesn't feel good. Okay, so they can make adjustments. If you put pressure this way, like, everything's, you know, honestly, training while you're pregnant is kind of like training with an injury. So, if something doesn't feel right, you need to communicate that to a partner so they can make the appropriate adjustments. Speaker 1: I really like that bit you brought up about how you have to be especially careful around unpredictable partners. I've never really thought about it in this way, but now that you've got this into my head, there's a few people that I'm always really cautious rolling with. I like them and all, and they're good at Jiu-Jitsu, they're good training partners, but I'm always a little bit scared to roll with them because they do weird and unpredictable things, often involving, you know, throwing body weight around in ways that aren't expected. And I think of course when you're rehabbing an injury or of course if, you know, if you're pregnant, you got to be extremely careful about stuff like that. I think that's a great thing to keep an eye out for and to understand in your partners is which of them are predictable and which are are not. Generally, from my experience, the black belts and the brown belts will be more predictable, but, you know, not always. There's some crazy people who make it pretty far in the sport and so you can't always assume that experience means predictability. Speaker 2: No, I definitely agree with that. One of the guys I literally cut out training with early on was a brown belt. And literally, almost as soon as I found out I was pregnant. When I was still, I competed and I not recommend it, but I wouldn't train with him because he's unpredictable as a brown belt. Like, that's not one of them I'm going to train with, even as good as I felt, purely based on how unpredictable he is. I was like, he can come down with me. I know how he moves. That's not somebody I'm training with. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Now, you mentioned earlier that you've also had injuries in the past. You talked about blowing out your knee. Were there any significant differences in the return to mat process from an injury versus a pregnancy? I'm just wondering from a like a body standpoint, with an injury, that's something that I can relate to. I have a pretty good idea of how to rehab and recover from that. Did you find that to be a different experience from the pregnancy? Speaker 2: Honestly, it's way more similar than I was expecting. It's a little bit different in the fact that I feel like pregnancy has affected your whole body versus an injury is generally speaking a little bit more isolated. But honestly, they're very similar. How you approach it is very similar. I feel like having to deal with injuries also kind of helped, but it's a lot more similar coming back from pregnancy to coming back to an injury than anything else, other than the fact that for me it was significantly longer because I've never had surgery, so I never had something that took me that was like nine months of like my body changing, you know. Speaker 1: Yeah, and you mentioned earlier, I think this is really important. You talked about how one of the main reasons you made a point of going to the gym was to see the people that you know and to see the people that you like. And I really think, Elizabeth, I've been talking about this a lot on the podcast here recently. I really think that the community aspect of Jiu-Jitsu is highly underrated. It might actually be the most important part of Jiu-Jitsu at the end of the day. You know, for someone who's going to do this for the rest of their life, the social aspect of Jiu-Jitsu might be more important than any actual grappling technique or accomplishment that we do on the mats. And again, when people experience layoffs, many people kind of get avoidant and they distance themselves from Jiu-Jitsu, and I sort of feel sometimes like that might be the worst thing to do because not only are you losing your hobby, but you're also losing your social network, at least temporarily. You're losing your friends, the people who add meaning to your life. And so a side effect of taking time off from the mats and stepping away is it can cause depression for reasons beyond just not being able to train. It's also because you can create some degree of self-imposed isolation. I was talking to Dr. David Ley about this. He's a black belt from New Mexico and also a clinical psychologist, and he was talking about how depression works. And a lot of the time, the thing that makes depression so insidious is that it's kind of a self-fulfilling downward spiral where as you get depressed, you start to become avoidant of things. You start to kind of retreat inwards, and that leads you to become more depressed because you're losing the things in your life that bring you joy. So it's a negative feedback loop. And his advice to combating this was to make sure that you keep up the routines of doing the things that used to keep you happy, even if they're not currently feeling good right now, but to keep those routines going to try to reverse that process. So, I think again, there's much to be said about the value of staying engaged with the Jiu-Jitsu community when you're off actual training because it just makes it so much easier to keep the rest of your life meaningful and engaged, even if you're not doing actual sparring. Speaker 2: You know, I never actually thought about it in more of a psychological, but I do a very similar thing, maintaining everything, no matter kind of what's going on and that makes total sense that that kind of helps keep you out of the depression and everything. But I definitely agree like the biggest thing in Jiu-Jitsu that we really have is that community and those friendships that you build. I think sometimes you can kind of lose sight on that. Maybe I have a little bit of a different perspective being, you know, a high-level athlete, but I feel like sometimes so much attention gets focused on like competition, high-level athletes or hitting that point when in reality, I feel like the most important thing about Jiu-Jitsu is the community and like those friendships that you build. Jiu-Jitsu is an insane thing that can, you know, bring people close together that never would have even met if it weren't for Jiu-Jitsu and I feel like that community is really the most important thing that we have from this. Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always kind of held the belief that really the most important thing to keep your Jiu-Jitsu journey successful is consistency. And it's really hard to stay consistent if you're not having fun and enjoying things. And that's why your team is so important because these are ideally the people who bring you joy. All of the people I know who have burned out of Jiu-Jitsu, even the people who were, you know, super promising athletes, but maybe they burned out, it's because they stopped enjoying it. It became more of a negative in their life than a positive and that can either be because of, you know, aspects of the mental game or in some cases it can be because of the people around them, right? Having a good community is so important to long-term success because you're just not going to be motivated to stay around unless you really like the people that you're training with. So that's a really important thing for people to understand when they do take a layoff. Just because you are not actively training, that doesn't mean you need to also abandon your friendships and your relationships that come along with Jiu-Jitsu. Those two things don't always need to go together. So I think that's another great reason to kind of keep active, stay at the gym even if you're not actually training on the mats. Speaker 2: I definitely agree. I feel like that's a really important thing that kind of gets skimmed over a lot of times. Speaker 1: Now, from an actual like tactical process, when you came back, did you have to do anything from a training standpoint to kind of try to ramp back up or or get back into the right shape or state of mind? I'm just wondering if you had like a kind of a special program or anything that you did or if you literally just started showing up. Speaker 2: Honestly, I literally just started showing up. Again, I feel like the lifting helped, so I was still kind of like physically in shape because I only took about a from lifting to training was about a two-week break because I lifted right before I went into labor and then I started training back at two weeks. So two weeks off, you don't really lose that much like muscle tone or condition. And then went back in training and it was obviously slow. I still I jumped back in and just kind of did what I could, but I have, you know, a two-week old baby off on the side that's crying and is nursing. So I'm constantly like, stop, feed him, hand him to dad, go train. But I basically just kind of jumped back in and started crying, just basically doing whatever I could and what felt good, which thankfully was a significant amount even though I was I have videos from it. It was not pretty how I was moving. But kind of just jumped back in. That's that's how I've always kind of dealt with it for long layoffs is I kind of just jump head first back in. I don't know if that works for everybody, but that's kind of what's always worked for me. Speaker 1: Well, one thing about Jiu-Jitsu, folks, is they tend to overthink things sometimes. I'm sure you've noticed this. You know, Jiu-Jitsu has been marketed as like the intellectual thinking person's fighting sport. And I know everyone always wants to talk about, you know, systems thinking and concepts and, you know, mental models and, you know, we like to puff ourselves up intellectually in Jiu-Jitsu. And I think that sometimes leads us to get trapped in this analysis paralysis where we're so focused on trying to figure out the right way to return to the mats that we never get around to actually just doing it. And especially if you're trying to come back after a layoff, you got to be wary of that tendency to overthink because it's really easy to just get trapped in this mindset of, you know, I want to have the perfect return to sport routine and I'm not going to come back until I've got it all figured out. And then the next thing you know, you're wasting time. And like you mentioned, the longer you wait to come back, the harder it is to come back. So sometimes the smartest thing to do when you're physically able to is to just, you know, don't overthink it, just get back onto the mats and get re-engaged in that habit so that you don't lose time and so that you can start reversing course and getting back to where you were. Speaker 2: 100%. I think you can sit there and analyze everything all you want, but until you're actually in it, you're not going to know 100% of the adjustments you make. I think it's easier to jump back in and then like as you're doing stuff, make adjustments. You don't have to keep it the same that it was at the beginning, but jump back in and then and then make the needed adjustments. And I think it's it's very similar to a lot of things in life. You know, it's you can only make, you can only analyze so much and you're not going to have everything until you're actually in it and then you can make the true adjustments that are going to be necessary to get just back in and ramp everything back up. Speaker 1: Yeah, well said. Now, something that is different between an injury and a pregnancy, for instance, you talked about blowing out your knee and how you were off for a very long time when that happened. This is something that I'm dealing with myself. I had shoulder surgery recently and it was a success, it went great, but the recovery time for a shoulder injury, much like a knee injury is very long. I'm guessing that having to take, you know, a nine-month layoff due to surgery, that was probably quite difficult in a lot of ways compared to taking a few weeks off from a pregnancy, right? Speaker 2: Thankfully, even when I blew my knee out with what I had done and how young I was, the surgeon actually didn't want to touch it because I tore my PCL, which doing surgery on that, you only get about two surgeries out of it, at least at that time. So I was actually, I think I was out for about three months. So, wasn't a full surgery, but I was still in the gym every day teaching, but I had the full ACL brace. But again, I was still in the gym. I was still in the gym teaching. I was in the gym during my normal training, even though I couldn't do it and was sitting off on the side slowly going crazy. I made sure that I was still like lifting what I could. I couldn't lift with anything lower body, so I basically lifted on, well, I couldn't lift with my left leg. My right leg, I would do like single leg lifts and then I lifted upper body just to stay active to kind of keep the honestly, keep the depression away because it gets pretty bad, especially with that. I I blew that out right before going into a really big competition. So that was especially difficult for me. But I feel like just very similar, keep up the routine if you can and then do whatever little things you can off on the side, which is kind of what I did. I would make like do small little drills that I could do that didn't involve my leg at all. And then slowly I was able to get back fully into it. Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I I can relate to that. When I had my shoulder surgery, you know, for the first six to eight weeks, I think it was six weeks, you've got to keep your arm in that gigantic brace. You can't really do anything. It's kind of hard to move around. Especially at the beginning, you can't even really walk around that much because it hurts so much. And I thought at first that, you know, I'd be able to deal with this, it won't be that much of a problem. And honestly, it wasn't that bad, but I live in Vancouver and around the time that this happened, you know, I I had my shoulder surgery for like the two weeks after, there was this gigantic rainstorm, which is very normal where I live. And so I couldn't really go outside and go for walks, which is something that I, you know, I love to do. If I can't work out, I want to at least get out of the house and go for walks. Couldn't even really do that. I couldn't drive anywhere in the car either because, you know, it was my dominant arm that was in a sling and I thought I just I'm not comfortable, you know, driving one-handed with my weak hand when I'm probably sedated on painkillers anyway. So I basically just had to isolate at home for weeks and I could barely get out of bed and yeah, that sucked. But I got to say, the one thing that I am really glad about that we have today that prior generations didn't is, you know, we've got the whole world in our pockets on our phone. Endless information on there and endless ability to contact people. I'm just so grateful that I get to do something like BJJ Mental Models because I can still stay engaged with people even in those situations where like I can't even leave the freaking house. I'm still able to stay engaged because I can always record a podcast, right? Or failing that, I can always just message people like you and, you know, just get the ball rolling on stuff that I can do maybe when I'm feeling a little bit better. That is a super cool thing about social media and modern technology. I mean, we could talk all day about the negatives of social media and kind of the damage that that's maybe done to society, but one of the positives is you're never really out of communication range with people. And so even in those situations where you're so infirm that you literally can't go to the gym, you still have things that you can do. And I always tell people when they get into these situations, because this is a very common message I I hear from people, they'll say like, what do I do? I got some catastrophic injury. I can't do anything. I maybe I'm even stuck in the hospital. Look, there's always video that you can watch. There's always podcasts that you can listen to. There's always people on Instagram that you can message. Just don't make the mistake of withdrawing and isolating. That is like the worst thing you can do when you have a layoff for a variety of reasons that we discussed. Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree. I I feel like sometimes that kind of gets overlooked. You know, we get in our own head, we're sad, we're depressed again, like what you were saying earlier, and it tends to have this kind of spiral effect that as you get sad, you kind of pull away and retreat and it just makes it worse. And even if you can't do anything physically again, you can reach out and just communicate and have that still, you still have that community. Even if you can't physically go to the gym, you still have that community right from your phone. You just send somebody a message. Speaker 1: Yeah. A lot of beginners when they get injured, their natural tendency is to try to just distance themselves from Jiu-Jitsu completely while they're injured. And their thinking is I'll come back later. And I don't think that's a great thing because some people I know will even step back from the community. They'll be like, I'm not going to check the team WhatsApp group because I'll just get depressed. I mean, honestly, I think you're going to get more depressed if you withdraw socially from all of the things that made you happy. That's a catastrophic mistake because if you get into this habit of being withdrawn, that's a real hard habit to break out of. So, I mean, I always tell people, if for some reason you do have to take time off of Jiu-Jitsu, don't make the mistake of stepping away from the Jiu-Jitsu communities that you're engaged in. In fact, maybe do the opposite. Use this time to get more engaged. Something I've been discussing with a lot of people recently and I'd love to get your thoughts on this is non-pros often feel like they don't add anything to the gym. They often feel like, you know, well, I'm just I'm just a casual hobbyist. I'm not great at this. What value can I possibly bring? My experience has been that sometimes these people are often the most valuable because they come into the gym with interesting skill sets from the rest of the world that can be very helpful. As an example, a friend of mine, Sarah Rafferty, she as, you know, kind of like as a side hustle, she's the agent for Adele Fornarino and Brianna St. Marie and Jacob Driscoll and a bunch of others, right? And that's a skill set that she brings from the business world into Jiu-Jitsu. So I think you can apply the same idea here as well where, look, if you can't actually train, but you want to be useful for the team, there's probably other stuff that you can do, right? I mean, you could help people run social media on the team. There's other ways that you can stay engaged beyond just actually training on the mats. Speaker 2: No, I completely agree and then even not necessarily running the social media or stuff like that, having those people in the gym are what bring the energy and what bring the community and everything when you step in the gym, which is honestly what I personally think most of us truly enjoy the most about Jiu-Jitsu is that feeling that you get, not all in training, but hanging out with the people that you like and having that and most your quote-unquote hobbyists or normal people that are there are the ones that help have that energy. Otherwise, not every gym even has pros. So what do you do if if the your hobbyists, whatever, don't show up? Like that's that's what makes the gym what makes a gym a gym. That's what makes it the community and and everything that you like to step in there and the energy and everything that makes Jiu-Jitsu fun. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think sometimes the hobbyists and the casuals struggle more with layoffs than the pros actually. And I mean, I think it's because, hey, from a pro's perspective, if you're a Jiu-Jitsu professional, you have to come back. It's your job, right? You have to come back. So there's no question about it. Whereas for a hobbyist, it's really easy for them to just kind of put this on the back burner and focus on other things. And again, I think hobbyists get in their head a lot of the time and they think, well, I I'll just I can just take time off because no one's going to miss me, right? No no one cares if I'm not there. I'm just a hobbyist. And again, for my experience, that is absolutely the wrong perspective and it's just not factually true. Hobbyists beat themselves up all the time about whether they're good enough, but I have never once heard a Jiu-Jitsu professional disparage the hobbyists. I've never heard a pro say like, man, I hate those hobbyists in the gym. They add no value. That is absolutely not the case. In fact, it is often the opposite because having the casual grapplers there, they are so important in building up that support network for the professionals that lets them do what they want to do. So, I would encourage people if they're, you know, quote-unquote just a hobbyist, don't disappear from the gym just because you think no one cares. People do care and they will miss you and your absence will be felt maybe in ways you didn't quite expect. Speaker 2: I definitely agree with you. Hobbyists are what what make all of it or hobbyists or casuals or not, however you want to to put it, that's what literally makes the professionals. The 1%. We don't have Jiu-Jitsu for the 1% of Jiu-Jitsu, you know? I don't even know if professionals are even 1% of it. You know, your casuals, your people that just enjoy it, your normal people are what make Jiu-Jitsu Jiu-Jitsu. The professionals are just the 1%. Speaker 1: Now, on that topic of of normalization, I want to talk to you about your experience as a a new mom because one of the things that I love about following your stuff is you bring your kid with you everywhere. I mean, I can tell you, you know, to disclose it, I'm the father of a young daughter. And to see moms out there who are unapologetically moms, it means a lot to me because so many, it feels a lot of the time like often when, you know, women come back from a pregnancy, they kind of try to put a line between their mom life and their Jiu-Jitsu life. But I think it sends such a powerful message, especially to the up-and-coming women in the sport where we normalize this. It's like, look, people have kids, right? You can bring your kids with you. Particularly that one press conference you did where you had your son with you on your lap, I absolutely adored that. Talk to me a little bit about that perspective. I'd love to know what your experience has been like doing this. And also, I'd be curious to know, have you gotten any pushback about this or have people mostly embraced this as part of kind of a new movement? Speaker 2: So, with me and my husband both being professional athletes, that was something I kind of, it wasn't even a thought. So it wasn't something that I was like, oh, like I really want to bring him with me. Like, he he has to go with us. We we both go. There's not, he can't stay with dad at home. Dad's with me there because he's a professional as well. He's he's either competing or he's in my corner coaching. So it was kind of always a thing like he was going to be there and thankfully, I really haven't had any pushback. Most people love when I bring my son with me or even for the press conference, they actually, they're like, hey, you want to bring him up? And I was like, oh yeah, like if you're okay with it, I just what like, I was worried he was going to make noise. Um, and luckily, they were super nice. They're like, no, no, no, we think that's great. If you're comfortable, bring him up. You take him up there, which was great. He tried to eat the microphone, which was funny. Speaker 1: There you go. Speaker 2: But he's honestly, he goes along with me to everything. Right now, we're here for the UFC BJJ. My husband's competing. He's here with us. He'll be in the back with us as well. Even though I'm not competing, I'm in the back because my husband's there and he'll be right there with us. So, thankfully, I really haven't had any pushback as far as like to me. One thing that's kind of funny, I lost a couple thousand followers when I announced my pregnancy and I've kind of been stagnant around the same amount since then. I think I dropped to like 51,000 and I'm back up to like 53 now. But when I announced the pregnancy, I actually lost a number of followers. And so I wouldn't say that I've had like pushback directly, but I feel like that's kind of a form of it. You know, I announced the pregnancy and I lose like thousands of followers. Speaker 1: That is so weird. That that is unbelievably fucked up when you think about it because I mean, like as a guy, if I posted a, hey, we're having a baby photo or something, you know, or made an announcement, I guarantee I would not have that reaction from my followers. So that is crazy that you lost that many followers just by having a kid. Speaker 2: Well, especially I waited to announce it too. So it wasn't even like in the beginning. I'd still been posting basically the same because I'd still been training and then at around like 18, 19 weeks, I posted I was pregnant and almost immediately thousands of followers I lost. So I know it was directly because of that. But I've also noticed it's kind of a trend with being a woman. If I post I get engaged, I lose followers. My husband gains followers or fiance at the time. We get married, I post I get married, I lose followers, he gains followers. And then I feel like with each step, it's just larger and larger and larger amounts. I'm really not sure why that's the thing because yeah, obviously my son's on my Instagram, but I still post being an athlete. Like that's the main thing on my Instagram is really just my life and being an athlete, which my son's a part of that. I'm not going to cut him out. So in that way, I feel like I had quote-unquote pushback, but I really haven't had any from actual like people. I've only really had support thankfully. Even from organizations, I've I've never had anybody be like, no, you can't bring him. You can't bring your son. So I'm I'm really thankful in that aspect that I haven't had any issues. Speaker 1: Now, you and I have talked in the past about the business end of Jiu-Jitsu. For those who don't know, we did a whole course on building and maintaining grappling confidence. It's on our BJJ Mental Models Premium service and you were one of the the people that we talked to there. And you talked in that chat a lot about how one of the benefits of confidence is not just for actual competing, but because it helps you with some of the difficult conversations you have to have in Jiu-Jitsu around things like sponsorships or fight contracts. I'd love to know, has that been impacted? Like when you become a mom, um, have you noticed a different change of pace in the kind of opportunities that you might get or has the kind of the the impact been limited to things like Instagram followers? Speaker 2: Thankfully, I think it's been kind of limited to more of like Instagram followers. I really didn't have, I'm very thankful in the fact that the sponsors that I had, I didn't lose any of my sponsors during pregnancy, which is rare. I will admit that that's rare. It's very, very common for women when they post that they're pregnant or when they have a child to lose sponsorships or after you have the child for people to not renew a sponsorship. I won't lie, I was nervous about it because I had just signed right when I was pregnant, I just signed a brand new sponsor, Gnarly Nutrition. And so I basically, I literally went in, did signed with them and I didn't compete because I was pregnant and we signed right at the beginning of the year. So I basically did an entire year, well, not entire year because I jumped back into Nogi. So like seven months, signed with them with them paying me and I'm not competing. Yeah, I'm still posting obviously and I'm posting them and I'm doing stuff. But they signed an athlete and an athlete should be competing. And luckily, we went through, I did the Nogi season, still signed under them. When we came to renew, they renewed without like no issue, no nothing. They've never had any pushback. They've never been anything but supportive. And in that aspect, I feel very lucky because I know that's not always the case. I know a lot of female athletes, the reason why a lot of us wait so long to announce is due to the fact that we will lose sponsorships, lose opportunities, lose seminars. I was still teaching seminars all the way up until 28 weeks. But when I posted all of that cut way down. I did a bunch of seminars all the way up until I posted and then I only had one after I posted that I was pregnant. And I I kind of understand it, but at the same time, I was still trying to teach. I can teach a seminar fine pregnant. And I think in that like seminars and that type of stuff did slow down definitely when I announced it, but I feel like overall, I was pretty lucky with the experience I had, but that's definitely not the case for a lot of women. Speaker 1: That is unfortunate to hear. That's really actually kind of messed up that you would lose sponsorships over being pregnant. I mean, especially because I can tell you as someone who has, you know, sponsored athletes on all manner of of events. You know, we've sponsored people at CGI, at ADCC, we sponsor people on UFC Fight Pass. And I can tell you, we never get any business because, you know, someone saw Joseph Chen wearing our logo. Like no one sees that and then thinks, oh wow, I've got to go and give this company money. I guess it's good for visibility, but it doesn't really matter that much. What really matters from a sponsor standpoint is getting, you know, just verbal endorsements. When, you know, when one of our athletes goes and does a seminar or they talk on a podcast about us or they recommend us to their friends, that moves the needle way more than anything that actually happens on the competition mats. So, it actually seems kind of crazy to me, as someone who does sponsorships, it seems kind of crazy that someone would cut a sponsorship because you're pregnant because from my experience, that would actually be the optimal time to sponsor someone because I know since they're not competing, they're probably going to be doing nothing but social media, seminars and other things where they can directly promote me. So, that I think is both a, you know, an ethically stupid decision to cancel a sponsorship because someone is pregnant, but also a business stupid decision because I think you're losing out on actually the best window to really get that athlete to do some work for you. Speaker 2: I've also I've seen it in contracts where it's in a contract. This is one time and I I won't name the company, but I was sent a contract and this is before I had my son. In a contract that if you get injured or pregnant, they will terminate the contract. And it is a company that primarily supports women, but they will terminate it if you get injured or pregnant because you can't compete. Speaker 1: Is that even legal? I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds seriously messed up. Speaker 2: I think because it's not technically an employee situation, they can do stuff like that. But I I actually don't know if it's even legal. Speaker 1: God, well, hey, look, if anyone out there wants a sponsorship, I'll tell you if I when we sponsor people, we're not going to cut you because you got injured or pregnant or something. That sounds a little bit messed up. But I think that's very illustrative of some of the challenges that women in the sport still have. I mean, things have gotten way better just in the last few years, but clearly there's still a long way to go. Speaker 2: 100%. I agree. It has gotten a lot better, but there's definitely still leaps and bounds that we have to go specifically in in that aspect. And I don't think it's just Jiu-Jitsu. I think it's a lot of a lot of sports unfortunately still. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think at least in Jiu-Jitsu, there is a lot of active attention on this right now. So even though we have this problem, I think we're also in a unique position to do something about it. And of course, you're kind of at the head of the tip of the spear there making that happen, which is awesome. Again, I think it's great to normalize being a parent in the sport. You know, no one would think twice if a dad, you know, brought their kid somewhere, but for a new mom, suddenly, you know, a lot of people might look at that as controversial. I think it's great that you do that and, you know, you talked about how often, you know, I can tell say this as a parent now, a lot of the time people are really worried like, what if my kid cries or makes noise or whatever? I mean, look, that's just life. That's part of the human experience, right? You shouldn't have to go into hiding because you've got a baby that's going to cry. I mean, babies cry. That's just the thing they do. People just have to get over it. At least that's my take on it. Speaker 2: You're not wrong. Speaker 1: So what are things looking like today? Where are you training out of now? I know you're originally from Alaska, right? But I believe you've moved on. Speaker 2: Yeah, so I started training up in Alaska, but right now, I'm in Arizona. So I've been there for a couple years now. Training has been a little bit different. We had been training at Kishino's gym in Goodyear, but haven't been training there for about the last year. So right now, we kind of train at two different of the Aries gyms there and we kind of run our own little training there. Speaker 1: Got it, got it. And how long do you think until the kid is training? Speaker 2: He's already on the mat. I'm I don't know. I hope he wants to train. I'm terrified that he's going to be like, mama, I want to do soccer. I won't tell him no if he wants to do something else. You can do it. You're going to commit, you're going to finish the season because that's what we do. I won't tell you you can't do another sport, but man, is it going to be hard. Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been lucky. My daughter is a fan of Jiu-Jitsu as well. She does it all the time. I also worry sometimes like, what if she changes her mind? But you know, that's part of being a parent is understanding that you're not just creating a little clone of yourself. They are their own people and they're going to do the things that ultimately bring them joy. And so I've had to come to terms with the fact that, hey, if she just decides I don't want to do Jiu-Jitsu, that's going to be something I just have to live with. But so far, she seems to really enjoy it. And I think like you said, if this has been part of your kid's life for as long as they can remember, it's probably going to make it more likely that they're going to want to stick with it, right? I think it's also good too to make your kid part of your life. I can just say as a as a grownup who's had kids, um, often people try to separate their parent life from their like business professional life. And I think that's a mistake. I think it's inauthentic. I think it makes your life a little bit, you know, schizophrenic. I think it is easier and more authentic if you bring those things together and that means sometimes you bring your kid to work, right? I think it also is a healthy experience for them as well because they then have a better understanding of who their parents really are. Speaker 2: 100%. I definitely agree. I think it's because as people, we kind of try to maintain the same similar, we're always talking about like growing and changing and then for some reason, and I I even kind of struggled with it a little bit being like, man, I don't want my Instagram to like just turn into my son. And thankfully, even when I like I posted that when I first had him, I was like, sorry if I'm like posting too many baby pictures. I had people thankfully be like, no, like we're here for your life. You have a son now that's part of your life. We follow you as an athlete and for your life and your son is a part of it. And so luckily, I kind of had those like, I feel like I've built a very a good community. And so I had people be like, no, no, no, like we want to see that. But I think we try to maintain the semblance of who we were before when when you have a kid, your life changes. Even if everything is the same, like I have the same job, I still show up to train. I have a son now. It's going to change and that's that's okay. That's healthy. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think too that if you want to have real fans, they have to know who you really are. People are often of the mindset that like, hey, I want my business page to be just business. It's just going to be technique clips. And there is some wisdom to that. You know, you don't want to let your social media get so all over the place that people don't even know what you're really doing. But you also want to be authentic to who you are because at the end of the day, people aren't going to get emotionally attached to like an Omaplata tutorial. But they do get emotionally attached to athletes that they respect. And the more they know about who that athlete is, the more likely you are to forge a connection with them. I mean, Rafael Lovato Jr., I follow him and like his Instagram is like just baby pictures now, right? Because he just had two kids a few years ago. So it's just baby pictures and I think that's a good thing, right? It helps you as an athlete come across as a more complete person. Speaker 2: Yep, I agree. I 100% agree. I mean, I feel like if you're just an there's so many athletes out there. That's the thing. They're not going to like build the bond with you if you're you're just an athlete. People want to bond with a person. You need to be a person. And I think that that's a struggle that you get because also when you show being a person, you're going to get some critiques. But that's okay because not everybody is for not every person is for everyone. Be you, who likes you will follow you and who doesn't, doesn't need to follow you. That's okay. You don't need every single person out there to love you. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well said. Well, Elizabeth, as we tie this one up, any closing thoughts on this topic of just kind of, you know, we talked about rebounding from time off. Anything that you wanted to mention that we didn't discuss or did we cover everything? Speaker 2: I think we covered everything, but just to kind of put it out there again, the most important thing is to not overthink it. Set the day you're going to go back as long as, you know, assuming your body feels good and just go back in and do what you can and make the adjustments as it feels good. Speaker 1: Well said, well said. Well, if people want to follow you or look for seminars or check out your work, how can they do that? Speaker 2: So, Instagram for athlete and like my life for seminars, anything like that. Instagram and Elizabeth Clay BJJ is the best place. If you want to kind of see a different side of content, I do have a TikTok. There's like nothing Jiu-Jitsu over there. So if you're looking for Jiu-Jitsu, my TikTok is not for you and it's the same thing. It's Elizabeth Clay BJJ, even though there's no Jiu-Jitsu there. But those are the two places you can find me. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, I will put links in the show notes to make it easy for people to find and follow you. I'll also put links to our stuff. It's all at BJJ Mental Models.com. All episodes of the podcast are there, both full-length episodes like this and also our mini concept breakdowns. It's all completely free, so really no reason not to grab it. Also make a point of getting on our newsletter if you haven't already. It's 13,000 strong. And I always tell people, if you want to level up with us, BJJ Mental Models Premium is the way that we do it. It's the reason we don't have ads on the show. It allows us to do what we do and fund the athletes that we fund. It's what it is. It's the world's largest library of audio courses on Jiu-Jitsu concept, strategy, tactics. Think Audible or Masterclass, but for Jiu-Jitsu, whereas most other services give you kind of endless techniques. We focus more on big ideas, things that are best communicated through audio and through conversation like this. You can also go up to our coaching tier and from there you get direct coaching from quite literally some of the best black belts in the world. All of that info is at BJJ Mental Models.com. I will put a link in the show notes to that plus Elizabeth's stuff to make it easy for everyone to find. But Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming by and thank you to your son as well. He was a great guest. Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on and uh I think he enjoyed it. He's good. We're sitting here playing with bottles on the floor. Speaker 1: That's the best thing about a kid that age is everything is a toy. It gets more difficult when they get a bit older and they start wanting like a Nintendo Switch too. But when they're that age, anything that is colorful, it's going to be fun. Speaker 2: It's the best. I can just give him like a half a jig and he's happy. Speaker 1: Well, hopefully he doesn't eat it, but otherwise, hope he has fun. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth. I really appreciate it. Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. Speaker 1: No worries. Thanks to the listeners too. We'll talk to you next time. See you then.