You're Not Bad At Jiu Jitsu... You're Learning It Wrong

Speaker 1: Why you never remember anything after going to Jiujitsu? Jiujitsu amnesia, folks, it happens all the freaking time. Uh, I've experienced it multiple times, most times, I would say. And it sucks because you go to Jiujitsu, you're all geared up, you've eaten your food, you've had your caffeine, you do the class, you get to the end of the class, you're like, what? I, what did we do? Or you the next day, you forget straight away. Speaker 2: It's usually when you go back to class and coach like, hey, remember that thing we did and you're like, no, blank. Don't remember a fucking thing. Blank. And Speaker 1: But I got to still got a sick jump guillotine and that's what I'm going to hit tonight on everyone. Speaker 2: I know. Speaker 1: I know what I'm working. Forget what you got, coach. Um, look, trying to learn too much is at the heart of this. And I want to unpack this because this is very common and obviously I I I'm probably guilty of this uh as a coach and Joe will uh give testament to this of trying to give too much to a student in terms of overloading them with information. And then you do this, and then you do that, and also this and this and and you think that you're helping your student, but actually you're you're hurting them by giving them too much instruction. You're overcoaching, and that really means that none of it sticks as a result. And look, obviously everybody's different in the way they teach Jiujitsu, whether they're they're of the kind of CLA persuasion and they're setting up games and Speaker 2: Constraints led approach for those not in the know. Speaker 1: You're in the G-Souto school, or you like to drill, or however you choose to um, you know, learn. If you're out there, you're trying to learn Jiujitsu and you've experienced this uh Jiujitsu amnesia, it's it's a very frustrating thing. And one of the major causes of this is task switching. Now, in our modern day, distracted lifestyle, Speaker 2: Hmm. Speaker 1: You may have had this, Joe, where you you you you're kind of getting on something, you're you're sitting down, you're like, I'm totally killing this fucking spreadsheet right now. And then your son comes in. Oh, what is it, buddy? And he's like, I just uh painted the dog red. You're like, and what? And you're like, fuck. You go, sort that out, and then you come back and then maybe some something you get a phone call. And you're like, you it it's broken your ability to focus. Half an hour later you come back, you're like, shit, where was I? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: This task switching serves as the biggest kind of neural tax of anything. And they're saying that's a lot of the reason why people are not as effective at their jobs or doing things or focusing is because there's constant task switching. Whether it be an email, a call, a sick kid, whatever the bloody hell. In Jiujitsu, it is very common that the coach will show you one thing. You'll drill it or practice it somehow through a game or a situation, and then you'll just switch. And at no point have you really spent that much time on a thing. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: You've experienced this before, Joe. Speaker 2: Oh, all the time. I'm I am all in on that the prevailing culture in Jiujitsu is is absurd in how it expects students to learn. Speaker 1: It's cooked. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely that you know that every every class this week I'm going to show you something different. Something new. Yeah, hey, tonight we did leg locks yesterday, so tonight let's do back attacks. Tomorrow let's do this cool half guard thing. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Um, and and and to expect that that single exposure in that one hour, that 90-minute class is going to be sufficient to build any kind of understanding for that student. Even for me as a black belt, I forget the majority of the classes I go to because it's something that is unrelated to to my game. Yeah. And it's and it's like we're just doing this for the first time today, and then there's no repetition of it tomorrow or next week. And then it's like like here, you know, here's here's an interesting kind of thought, right? Let's take your standard grappler who trains three times a week and so over a 50-week year that is 150 training sessions, right? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: 150 hours of Jiujitsu. If you broke that up, if we said let's assign let's assign 10 lessons to a particular technique. Like let's go like Speaker 1: Or position. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's go 10 lessons on mount. Yeah. 10 lessons on back attack. 10 lessons on guard passing, right? And you could kind of change the the 10, 15, 20, whatever you want. You go that's a lot of lessons on that. Now, we're saying 10 lessons, so that should be 15 unique skill sets that that student has has has has achieved, gained by the end of that year. Now, if you train Jiujitsu for five years, you should be really fucking good. Speaker 1: You would hope so. Speaker 2: But we're not. Because we don't do it like that. Speaker 1: No. Speaker 2: We go, I got to give them new shit every day. And as a result, there's just no there's no there's no like um Speaker 1: You simply don't remember the shit. Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't stick. Speaker 1: Doesn't stick. Speaker 2: And and but here's the other thing with that, Joe. Speaker 1: You might have learned something in January, coach comes back to it in in end of February, you're like, right, we're going back to that. Good stuff. And you're like, I don't even remember what we did. So every time you're like kind of relearning and not sticking. So even if you were to do it 15 times, it doesn't hit. And the thing I wanted to go there. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, and sorry, for my example, I'm like 10 times in a row. Speaker 2: Oh, in a row. Oh, yeah, like every for the next 10 lessons we're just doing this. Speaker 1: This, right. Speaker 2: Yeah. But every most coaches I know are too scared to do that. Speaker 1: That's right. Speaker 2: They're like Speaker 1: It's too boring. Speaker 2: It's boring. The guy everyone's going to leave the gym. Yeah. You know, like there's this belief that like you have to throw novel, fucking exciting things at people every week, otherwise they're not going to show up. Speaker 1: Yeah, I I think that's just I don't know if that's actually based in any truth at all. Like Speaker 2: I think it's lazy coaching. Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's a lack of it's a lack of long-term perspective and it's just going like, oh, I'll just figure it out on the way into class. Speaker 2: Maybe, but maybe is it also a little bit of inexperience or lack of confidence that the person is like, no, I got all this good shit. I don't want to hold it back, like Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? On the flip side, you know, like it's not that they're not doing enough, they're doing too much, you know, on the other side of that. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: But what you said is a key phrase is it's unrelated. Now, this is a key thing with memory. So there's a really good um learning coach, a guy called Justin Song, who was a medical student. Always Asian dudes. Oh, mate, he's the best. He's the smartest. Speaker 2: Smartest Asian dude. Speaker 1: Shout out to Justin. He um, his YouTube channel's sick. It's all about learning and he was studying medicine and he was like, fucking we're all in here just fucking snorting Adderall and just punching mad hours. Why is no one doing this better? Like surely we should find a better way to do this. And he was saying the biggest problem was the information was unrelated. So, he's like your brain is looking at information like, um, is this going to stop me from dying or not? Okay, it's not going to stop me from dying. Like if it doesn't relate it to something that you classify as important or relevant, you will literally not remember it. So he's like, it's super important that the teacher or you as the learner find a way to connect the information to something that's related to you. But this is the biggest problem, right? Coach doesn't really think too much about your game. You've come to this system, you've come to learn what we have to show you. So even if you've done rugby or you've done wrestling or whatever, it's like, no, no, no, you're doing spider guard now. You're like, I'm like, I don't know anything about this, right? So it doesn't connect. And the idea of it being unrelated means it it will not stick. Speaker 2: Doesn't have like anything to attach to. Speaker 1: No, and that is really important and I think whether you're an individual learner or you're a coach, you're hearing this, having a way for it to connect. It's almost like you you've probably had this, Joe. I have it more times than I care to remember. Um, it's just from probably being overcaffeinated and and maybe being insincere. I forget people's names. I meet someone straight away, I fucking forget them. Speaker 2: I think everyone reports a bit. Speaker 1: You know, it sounds like you're you're at a party or you just like, oh, hey, meet so and so. You're like, hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. And then you just Now, if I don't actually connect their name to something, that name is gone. Speaker 2: Yes. You know what I think that is, though? I think it's usually well-meaning. I think it's you're so concerned about what you're going to say next. You're like, introductions happening. I'm going to ask this guy, how do you know the person whose birthday it is? And so and then and so then you go to that and then you're like, fuck, I didn't even pay attention Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: To the name. Speaker 1: The thing, yeah. Speaker 2: The thing which we each consider to be very important. Speaker 1: Yeah. But uh, so here's the thing, the thing that I do to try and overcome that is I say, oh, um, what's your last name? Like what what are your initials? Or what's your middle name? Or I try to find a hook and I'm like, oh, your name is Jordan Michael. Michael Jordan. All right, cool, cool. Like I I I have to create a memory hook. Speaker 2: Is there a Brian Kobe at the party here? Hey, Brian. Speaker 1: Mamba, am I right? No, I just the hardest thing for me is like, if I don't do it, I Speaker 2: Hey, if I can give you my honest recommendation for one of the best supplements I've implemented in my daily, particularly for my Jiujitsu training, it's Sodi. It's these electrolytes. We talk about them all the time. They've sponsored the show for some time, but it's excellent. Flavor's great, but more importantly, the electrolytes are exactly what my body wants in a hard, sweaty Jiujitsu session. It replenishes uh my system with all the stuff that I need after all of that sweat. Uh magnesium, potassium, salt, it's great stuff. You can get yourself a bunch and you can get yourself a discount if you go to Sodi, S O D I I .com.au and use the code Bulletproof 15, you get 15% off your order. Speaker 1: Today's show is brought to you by our good friends at Raised Nutrition. Raise the bar. They've got all the flavors. They've got tropical acai. If that doesn't speak BJJ, I don't know what does. They've got salted caramel, which is delicious. And they've also got rich chocolate and roast almond, which goes awesome with coffee. So if you're looking for a snack to power your BJJ, this is built for you. It's all the clean, good stuff without the nasties. Whether you're trying to get some energy before training or you're trying to speed your recovery after, go to raisednutrition.com and use the code Bulletproof and you'll get yourself some free bars. Get it today. It will go. And so similarly with Jiujitsu techniques, I or positions, I have to find a way to connect it to an existing piece of knowledge. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: Otherwise it just it's not happening. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And here's the other thing too. Um with the whole task switching, we start to get into this idea of multitasking, right? It's like, it's actually bullshit. It's been proven that you can only really focus on one thing at a time. And if you're doing three or four things at once, you're probably doing them poorly. You're doing them worse than you should. Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you if you think that you can focus on four things at once, then you don't actually know what proper focus is. Speaker 1: That's right. Speaker 2: You're just yeah, you're just you're surviving and doing a shit job of all. Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. And so the challenge is often times when you're learning Jiujitsu, your coach will ask you to do four things at once. Now, put your hand here and put your foot like that and make sure your elbow's up like this and like brace and then you're like, what the fuck am I doing here? Like I'm spinning plates. I how can I juggle? Like it is insane the expectation we put on ourselves to be able to do so much stuff, especially if you're in a very weird body position. You're upside down and they're sprawling on you and maybe smell their balls because they're sprawling in your face and you're like, Jesus, how am I going to get a sweep from here? Speaker 2: Try not to think about the balls. Don't be gay. Don't suffocate. Don't Speaker 1: Shout out to the gay fam. Well, I mean, whatever. I think it's one of those things that you can get yourself in some pretty confusing situations in Jiujitsu, which is it's it's funny. Speaker 2: It's so much going on. Speaker 1: It's so much going on. And and this is, I mean, this is largely where a lot of coaches really just have have kind of lost any kind of connection with what it's like to be a beginner. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Where like you've got someone new that's come in, they're dealing with the whole fucking stress of being in a a new environment, in a place where they don't feel like they belong yet and all that and then the physical contact and then they're like, you know, having hands on them from their training partner for the and and coaches like trying to walk them through the 15 step setup to fucking pass reverse De La Riva. Yeah. You know, and you're like, mate, like you know what I mean? It's just so and you see it and you I cringe so much. It's like, man, fuck, come on, like and this is where I think that like exercise and strength training has really developed a lot as a science whereby it's like we know the most effective way to teach it and it's like breadcrumbs, little bit, little bit, little bit. And it's like little bit today, little bit next week. You know, it's like this gradual process. Um, whereas Jiujitsu is just like stuck in the dark ages with this shit. Not not all, right? Like there's and and this is to to just give reference to Saulo and the CLA thing. I believe that he is trying to like I believe that what he's doing, I I don't really vibe with the way he's going about it. But I think that that is introducing an idea to people which is there's better ways to teach this shit. And I think that that is revolutionary and needed. Speaker 2: Sure. Speaker 1: And and and I do agree I do agree with what you're saying there and look, um, Greg's out to the side, but full respect. Um, and and and anyone who's doing that, you know, there's a lot of people, I have a lot of friends who are training with Greg and saying lots of good things about his methods, you know. Um, but the thing that I want to kind of circle back around on, which is what what you had said at the start, Joe, which is this idea of doing too much, like, you know, switching and and and a new technique every different class. Um, Ken Robinson, Sir Ken Robinson, uh RIP, who passed away, I think a year or two ago, is one of was one of the kind of most expert people in education and types of learning. And and really he had a lot of negative things to say about modern education because it was really based on the industrial revolution and bells and whistles and making people sit and work in a factory and this kind of thing. But the thing he said that was um the reason why he believed modern day contemporary education was flawed was you make someone sit in a room for 40 minutes, an hour, and then the bell rings and they have to change rooms, and then they have to go study some other piece of information. And then go to another and switch, switch, switch, switch, switch. And then there's no real solid evidence to suggest that this is a good way to learn. It's just a system. And he was like, actually, and and every child's different, you would allow a child to be immersed. And they've shown that just letting a kid work on something with curiosity is one of the key ways for them to absorb the information the most. So why would you also make them uh or subject them to something that they're really not interested in because that they will actively block like not want to learn that and do things to distract the other people who do want to do it. And, you know, I was definitely one of those kids. You know, like try and jump out the window or do fucking anything else but be stuck in a room being subjected to something which is just really there's no curiosity there. And to it's this idea that they have to keep switching. And really, if you could leave somebody who was in, yeah, and we've all you've probably experienced this too, Joe, like we're talking about I wanted to go throw to your um experience playing guitar, uh learning guitar. When you kind of get in a bit of a flow, you're like, oh, I'm I'm I'm it's I'm clicking, you know, like you're like, oh, I'm in a good mode here. And it's it's kind of rare, like it doesn't it doesn't happen every class, but when you get it, it's a beautiful thing. And I know I felt that in Jiujitsu where I'm like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I'm getting that. And then I was able to execute the technique in a roll and I'm like, fucking the learning is happening today. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: But that's not every class. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's few and far between. Speaker 1: Right. And and so what um, so Ken Robinson was talking about was allowing kids to be immersed in an idea or allow them to stay in something longer than just like 50 minutes. Like just leave them. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a really fascinating point is because we do that in high school, don't we? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where Speaker 1: Constantly switching switching topics. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's it's funny. I had my first parent teacher interview the other day. Speaker 1: Oh. Speaker 2: Right, because my son's in kindergarten and first term's done and and um, you know, you sit with the teacher for 10 minutes, they give you a bit of a spiel. It was really nice. But but you know, she was um, the teacher was able to show us some stuff they've been working on and they're learning numbers and letters, right? And um, she had made the point like, don't force any of this stuff down their throat because if you do, like we give some they give some extra kind of books and things to read, but they're like, if they don't want to do it, don't push it because you're just going to make them push back. If they push back, then nothing gets in. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 2: You know, and so she's like, we've just got to keep it fun. And I was like, that's fucking cool. That makes me think that at least in early childhood development, it's got it must have come a long way, right? Since from when we were in kindergarten. Speaker 1: Sure. Speaker 2: You know, in terms of like they are more aware of the kids' imitations and that fun is a huge part of it. Speaker 1: Play. Speaker 2: That shit probably goes out the window after primary school. Speaker 1: Maybe. Speaker 2: Or probably, you know, in year three or something, but but yeah, you would hope that over time the education system, at least a half decent one, like I tend to think ours is okay, could evolve. Speaker 1: Sure. Speaker 2: Um, but yeah, the foundation of it is still kind of based on this industrial revolution requirement for workers, isn't it? Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I think this is the hard thing that deep processing is what leads to good connections and good learning. And, you know, like I never did really any formal Portuguese lessons, but I was learning at a crazy rate just watching, learning, picking up body language, like just listening to the language. And Speaker 2: Being in Brazil. Speaker 1: Being in Brazil. And I think anyone who's ever had that immersive experience of like, you don't have a fucking choice. Almost no one here speaks English. You better pick up on some words. You might have a dictionary or Google Translate, but you you have no choice but to absorb this information. And the need to to do it is is I wouldn't say desperation, but you know, like um, Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a necessity. Speaker 1: It's a survival instinct in a lot of ways. And when it comes to Jiujitsu, you know, it's kind of sink or swim. You don't learn this escape, you get choked. And and if you don't really understand like obviously the coach is there to facilitate and and shape it and steer it. But I I feel like part of the problem here is that we end up going really shallow across a lot of things and not deep on one thing, and that's why it doesn't stick. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: This is this is the I believe the root cause. And like you were saying, maybe it's uh fear from the um instructor of like, oh, I don't want the students to be bored. But without allowing uh a a good amount of time for, you know, obviously students in Jiujitsu class are all different walks of life and ages and all of that. But letting them talk and discuss and, you know, like actually that's a funny thing. There's a funny line that um Sir Ken Robinson says in one of his talks is he's like, and and look straight ahead and don't talk to the student next to you because that's cheating. And in the workplace we call it collaboration. And then, you know, like it's like, you know, this idea of a structure then you could let three or four students sit together and kind of put it together and and then maybe there's a good outcome there without your ego as the instructor. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Like I taught you that. You know what I mean? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1: Because that that um learning happens at a lot of different speeds. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: You know, um, I had a fucking thought on that. It's gone. That's all good. Speaker 2: As it were. Speaker 1: No, no, I I I think the the challenge is you're running a school, you're an instructor, you know, people are used to a format of X amount of time, X amount of information, and I want to feel I've done A B and C, right? That's the the formalized element. And yes, as an as a owner and an instructor, you've got to be able to conduct various levels of skill, whether it be beginners, intermediate, advanced, whatever. Speaker 2: Oh, actually, sorry, my point just came to me. Speaker 1: Yes, please do. Speaker 2: I was chatting with um one of the coaches at the gym today, Choc. Yep. Um, who trains at Capoeira Jiujitsu. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: You know, like like a solid boy. Um, heard great things about the gym. He was saying he's been going lately, he's been doing three sessions a week, two regular sessions and then one fundamentals class. Okay. And I was like, what's the fun? He's like, I was like, is that just like sort of more basic shit? He said, yeah. He said, it's mad. He's a he's a four-stripe purple belt. Like he'll be a brown belt soon. Speaker 1: I thought he was a brown belt. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. And um, and he's like, oh, it's actually mad because I'm just sharpening up on basic stuff that doesn't get taught in the other classes that I learned a long time ago that I need to keep refreshing. Yeah. And it made me think, he's not the first like colored belt that I've met that has that has said that they get a lot from going to a fundamentals class. And I think that, you know, that's a that's the writing's on the wall there, right? When you've got a high-level student, because I can see, I'm like, yeah, fundamentals class would be great. It would be awesome to just explore those basic, like bread and butter sort of constants of Jiujitsu technique that are underpinning all of the other more flashy stuff you're learning. Speaker 1: Sure. Speaker 2: But I know as well, you drift away from it. Speaker 1: And you forget things. You do. You need to refresh. Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you even you see it on you see it on Instagram, you see some fucking old school guy say, you know, like a um, uh, who's that motherfucker? Pedro Sauer. Sure. You know, and he's a great speaker and he then he says some little quip on, you know, about, you know, something that always do this, like some kind of concept and you're like, oh, that's a wonderful concept. Of course, yeah, I've heard that or I I mean to do that, but I it wasn't in my mind. I think that that is a student saying, like that that that that attendance of colored belts at fundamentals class is them voting for, I'd like to just learn more basic shit more often and rehash the same shit all the time. Yeah. You know. Speaker 1: And I I wanted to just I wanted to kind of parcel this up with this idea of the primary uh we talk about like a I think it's primacy and recency. So it talks about that the space is approximately six to seven days. So if you started learning something on the Monday, you do need to come back to it around Saturday and Sunday. So, look, learning Jiujitsu and forgetting what happens at class sucks. But the thing you have under your control, you don't have your instructor under your control, but as the individual, I believe, if you learned something on Monday and you didn't get a chance to like experience it again in class through the week, Saturday open mat or Sunday, like that space of five to six days, that's when you get back in with your classmates and people who are at the same class on Monday go, hey, can we go back over that thing? I believe that is going to go a long way to stopping you from like just losing all this time because without memory it's like, yeah, it's fun, but it doesn't build to anything. Speaker 2: No, it's way more satisfying to be able to train and know that you are absorbing at least the bulk of what you're covering. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Is a very satisfying thing and you feel your Jiujitsu getting better. Speaker 1: You feel it build. Speaker 2: This is like this is what I'm here for. Speaker 1: Yeah. Build some momentum and and retain that info. There it is, folks. Learn up.