Is BJJ Just Bad Judo? (Episode 399)

Speaker 1: What up, guys? So today's podcast episode is just yours bearded, um, walking around Costa Rica right now. It's been really difficult with the schedule that I've had traveling, which should be letting up. Actually, I think I have less travel this coming year in 2026, um, which I'm looking forward to. Last year was really rough. I was traveling. There was one month, no, no, two months where I was gone every single weekend. Four or eight weeks out of the uh the summer and every weekend, you know, I'm gone and, you know, I didn't really care for that and my son was starting to have these moments where, you know, I would come home and as soon as I would like walk out the door, he would be like, "Dad, no, don't leave me." I didn't really care for that. So, trying to travel a little bit less this year, but um down here for a fun traveling session. It's uh the Costa Rica trip. And anyway, being down here right after the Jiu-Jitsu Open competition, it just did not give us the ability to record the podcast like normal. We're trying to um keep the schedule alive because a lot of you guys listen to it and you're say, "Chewy, like when when episodes don't come out, I get messages." Right? Like if you guys are on my daily email list, which you know, you should be if you're you're listening to this, um you can join by going to jiu-jitsu.net/join or just look at my website, you'll find it. And um but anyway, a lot of people like if I don't send my emails out, I don't do my weekly podcast, people send messages like, "Hey, Chewy, what the hell's going on?" You guys don't pay anything, but you're like, "Hey, we're used to this. We're used to this rhythm." It's like, well, uh going to your gym for a class time that you're used to and all of a sudden the coach isn't there. Like, "Hey, what the hell's going on? You're supposed to be here." Anyway, with that said, I wanted to chat about an idea with you guys that I think it'd be fun um to chat about. It's something that's becoming more and more common. Um you know, I I think this stems from the need for people to sort of differentiate, a need for marketing, a need for attention and so forth. I'm sure some people probably have like real reasons as to why they do it, but I think a lot of it probably stems from everybody's just trying to gain eyeballs and say things that are maybe controversial or whatever. But anyway, maybe maybe I'm wrong. Could be could be completely be wrong, right? But there's this idea of American Jiu-Jitsu. Thanks for our sponsor for helping make the podcast happen, Athletic. A T H L E T H C, as the name implies, it is a THC mint, the sort of like microdosed. I've seen it called like the daily microdose where you take it, you're not going to be buzzed out of your brain and be slobbering around and whatever else. It's just to help get you into a particular state that could be useful for certain activities. So, for instance, they have one mint called Flow. And the whole idea about Flow is it's formulated to help you get into a more flow state. Um sometimes I'll take it during rolling sessions where especially if I'm playing with something new and I just want to like play. I don't really want to win the roll so to speak. I don't want to try to get any I just want to like see where it goes. It's I find it helpful. It helps me get into a more relaxed state. Um I don't feel any grogginess from it. Like I years ago I took uh you know, I ate some special brownies and I felt incredibly groggy the next day and I remember when I was taking the Athletic mints, I was like, I don't want to I'm really apprehensive about taking stuff because I'm like, I don't want I don't want it to mess up my my flow. Right? Of you know, it didn't. Uh very easy to take and again no grogginess or nothing. If you guys want to check out any of their products because they have several different mint formulations. All of them have a very low dose of THC and they have other cannabinoids along with them. You can check them out at Athletic, A T H L E T H C.com. The promo code is Jiu-Jitsu 10 for 10% off the order. Also, thanks for our sponsor Epic Roll for being a long time sponsor of the podcast. Um they make a lot of great Jiu-Jitsu gear. I get a lot of my stuff made through them both for my Jiu-Jitsu brand, but also the gym that I have, like our gis and rash guards and stuff. I get their stuff. Great quality stuff, good customer service. They take care of you if you need something. Uh if something goes wrong, they've got everything from t-shirts and rash guards and shorts and I mean everything and anything Jiu-Jitsu related they make it. Um you know, they're one of the manufacturers that PGF uses, the professional grappling uses that to to help make their stuff for some of the teams. Um I don't know if they still are, but they were last season. Um but again, if you guys want to check them out and just browse through their website, see if you find anything you like, go to the website at Epic Roll BJJ.com. E P I C R O L L B J J.com. And when you get there, check out code is Jiu-Jitsu 20 for 20% off the order. Also, thanks to our sponsor Charlotte's Web. They are one of the OGs in the CBD space, the cannabinoid space and again, they have a uh a really well-tested, well-produced product. Again, CBD is one of those weird things where it's an unregulated market, right? So, the FDA doesn't have it locked down like they do a lot of other things. And so they've done studies before where the CBD market is all over the place where, you know, you think you're getting this, but you're really getting this or you think you're getting X amount, but really you're not getting that much, you're getting less than that. And so they're one of the good guys in the CBD space where they're making a lot of good products. Everything's third-party tested so you can ensure the quality of it is there and then also to you know, you know what you're putting in your body. On top of that, they have a lot of other different products, things like uh CBN products, which are great for, you know, trying to help you get more sleep. And again, as we get older, that's that's kind of an important thing. It's one of our main tools for recovery is you know, that everybody's wants to pop TRT and everything else and that's perfectly fine, of course. Do what you want to do, but getting your sleep habits in the check or is really useful and CBD can be or CBN products can be really helpful to that. They also make some functional mushroom products as well, balms and rubs, anything and everything. Just tons of stuff. Take a look at their website, Charlottesweb.com. The promo code is Jiu-Jitsu 30 for 30% off the order at checkout. Also, if you guys want to support the podcast directly, you can check us out at Patreon, patreon.com/thejiujitsupodcast. When you go to the website, you can look at what we have to offer. There's a bunch of perks and again, it's a very inexpensive price. And so again, when you join up, you get a ton of perks for I mean, it's super cheap. I mean, we're practically giving the damn thing away. Um you spend more at like McDonald's or Starbucks or whatever place you go to, you know, in one visit and you're done. And so again, if you guys want to check it out, go to patreon.com/thejiujitsupodcast. We give you guys a bunch of extra content and exclusive stuff and on top of that, you get to support the podcast that you're listening to and we appreciate it. Right. Um you see this a lot more with Americans like, oh, American Jiu-Jitsu. I actually posted a uh post up. It was like a little quote that said, you know, something to the effect of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a place where you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time. You know, you you lose yourself in the roll. You know, a lot of us have this sort of almost meditative experience with grappling. Gets us out of our head a little bit. On the flip side, you find out a lot about yourself under stress. You know, you can you can discover a lot about yourself through grappling. I think a lot of us have how you deal with stress, how you um how you manage that. A lot of people, you'll see them when they're incredibly relaxed and then as soon as you get them under a little bit of stress, they just wig out, right? So, with that, someone was sharing that to their own Instagram and they blocked out Brazilian and replaced it with American. And I just I was thinking about this and this is an idea that Chewy. So, back in the day, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu BJJ was not even called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Um prior to the UFC, it was just Jiu-Jitsu. I remember talking to Ricardo Laboreo amongst others. You know, Ricardo Laboreo is one of the OGs in Jiu-Jitsu, right? An OG world champion. He was an OG Carlson senior black belt, pioneer in the sport. And as on a side note, by the way, if you ever meet the guy, he has this sort of grandfatherly like demeanor right now. But it masks that the dude was a a damn scary grappler. I remember we had a guy on the podcast uh a couple years ago, named Alexi. I think it was Alexi and he was just talking about, you know, I think it was someone else, not Alexi, but they were talking about when Laboreo would come up, he had a motorcycle, he'd roll up in his motorcycle and when the motorcycle would pull up and they saw him, they said, oh man, it's going to be a rough day. I think it may have been anyway, I'm trying to think about who said that. We had a few um really cool old school guys on the podcast a couple years ago, but they were just talking about him just being this scary grappler back in the day, right? The guy that would just bring it um every session. We all soften a little bit with age, right? Anyways, you know, they were talking about it and Laboreo and all those guys said, yeah, we didn't call it Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, we just called it Jiu-Jitsu. That's what we called it back in the day. And then the UFC came out and again, it's this need for differentiation. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu came out and then when you had um I believe it was Renzo tried to use the name Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and Hori ensued him. And it was like, no, you can't use that name. You know, that's our name. Even though they were the same family, it is your name, you can't use it. And he just said, screw it, I'll use Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And so you have this whole stemming from it. Um again, it's a marketing standpoint. It it basically separates, you know, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from the other types of Jiu-Jitsu that are out there, right? Um nothing wrong with it. But here's an interesting quote from Robert Drysdale's book titled The Rise and Evolution of of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Good book, um interesting read. For some of you guys, you won't like it because it's going to go against some of the mythology of Jiu-Jitsu, which for me when I read it, it didn't make me look down upon anybody. It actually I like because you you have to know, right, that some of the the there's mythology in the heroes that are built up around you, right? It's like when as an American, we're taught this weird history of our forefathers as if they were these perfect humans, which is all bullshit, right? And when then when you actually read the history about who they were, it's so much better than they're like a real person. And you're reading through the struggles that they had and you're like, this is a real person. They did this amazing stuff. They weren't some mythological person. They were like you and me, but they chose to do certain things. Um, you know, reading the biographies of guys like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and all these guys, Benjamin Franklin. I mean, these guys were incredible for what they did, but again, they're just normal dudes. And when you read the sort of perfected image of them, it kind of makes them seem like they're these people that you can't be. At least this is the way that I interpreted it, but then when you read about who they really were, you're like, oh, this guy's a dude. He's just a dude like me, made mistakes. And they chose to do some incredible things along the way and a few key decisions led to them becoming who they were. So, I think it's um I think it's better to dis dismantle the mythology and look at them as real people. And when I'm talking about people in Jiu-Jitsu, I'm talking about Carlson, I'm talking about Helio, um Carlson's or Carlo Carlos, excuse me, these people. So anyway, there's a part where um Robert Drysdale says, not that every not that anyone in Judo cared. As its leadership saw, Judo was destined to grow with or without the Gracie brothers and their idiosyncratic technical preferences, which Judo because at the time understood to be simply bad Judo. And uh this matches up with some of the stuff I've read from one of Masahiko Kimura's journals or interviews. Um I can't remember which one, but I remember reading about it and it was about his famous bout with Helio Gracie. In the um interview or the journal that entry that I read, he talked about the weird Brazilian Judoka, their strange rules and their soft mats. And he mentioned how because if you if you read about them, and a lot of cases the mats were softer uh or excuse me, harder back then. And a lot of times he would throw people and KO them, right? Knock them out with a throw, but he mentioned how he threw Helio multiple times, couldn't KO him with the soft mats. And so he applied the um Gayaku, is that what it's called? Ude Garami, basically the Kimura, what we what we have paid homage to, the Kimura. And just you know, put put Helio in that and that's when the match was over. And so it kind of going back to the idea, you know, AJJ, BJJ, GJJ, that's Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, MJJ, you don't know what MJJ is? That's uh the newest spin-off of American Jiu-Jitsu, it's called Murican Jiu-Jitsu, right? Um bad joke there, you know. Good thing that you're not around me, otherwise I might have actually heard some laughter or maybe been crickets, but either way, whatever you call it, it's all Jiu-Jitsu. You know, now I I think that you could say that the Americans are getting a hold of it and we are putting a unique spin because of our background in wrestling. Wrestling is just so ingrained in our culture. You know, we a lot of us have the chance to do it in high school and middle school, now elementary school. And so that places a unique place with it because, you know, a lot of countries don't have wrestling in their school system. It's not a part of it, right? We do. So that's uh that's part of it. And when you get into like American, um American martial arts, folk style is a uniquely American martial art. Right? It stems from catch as catch can, but it's a unique American thing. The rest of the world does, you know, freestyle international style wrestling, which I honestly, you know, maybe it's just because I that's what I did. I prefer folk style. To me, there's a lot more control. Like if you look at freestyle wrestling, international wrestling, you'll get a big takedown, a couple like back exposures, just you basically getting to this little alligator roll where you're just flipping the person around and you'll win the match. Whereas in folk style, there's an emphasis paid on riding out the person and actually pinning them and holding them, which I think is one of the reasons why I think folk style wrestling is a great addition for Jiu-Jitsu because there's a lot of stuff that folk style does that Jiu-Jitsu does, but we do it for different purposes in wrestling. Um like like leg rides and things like that looks almost like back mount, but for different reasons. Um there is the guillotine in wrestling, which is a twister in Jiu-Jitsu. Can be used for a pin or it could be used to, you know, attack the back and the spine. Um but yeah, it's just it's just an idea, right? I don't for me, I don't really get hung up on the names. I think uh at the end of the day, it's all Jiu-Jitsu. Whether you want to call it American, whatever. I tend to use BJJ just because it's a very simple acronym. Everybody knows what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is. And I could care less about, you know, fighting over this or that about the name, you know, because I think at the end of the day, martial arts, whether it's Judo or not, are all going to morph. If you look at Judo now, it's changed a lot over the years, right? And if you look at it like in the 80s when the Russians came into it from different martial arts and they were using certain tactics that have since been banned, you know, they were they were changing the landscape of of Judo, but it was still Judo, right? And so I think about that like this, it's it's to me it's all Jiu-Jitsu. I use BJJ to talk with people and so that it's easy to search it up on the internet because everybody kind of understands that. But as far as like what I personally think of it, that's what I think of it, you know. This what was originally bad Judo became Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and whatever else we want to call it now. Um and and sort of going back to this, what he was talking about in that book, if you guys didn't know, is that, you know, when you think of the Gracie challenge, this insistence on or openness to fight all comers and fight them in in combat to test out that you're the best. That wasn't unique to the Gracies, right? The Judoka had already been doing that. The the the Judo players were going around the world like saying, let's let's show what we can do. And they would take on fights with people, wrestlers, um strikers and different things like that. And they were going around doing this. And then the uh the Gracies did this and the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighters did this again to a uh um another degree. So, um again, those are some interesting books. Robert Drysdale has two books, actually, I think three books now and they're interesting books to read um about Jiu-Jitsu history if you're interested. Again, if you cling to this myth of Jiu-Jitsu and you you sort of hold people up on a pedestal, it may bother you. I remember talking about it and people got really angry about me about with stuff about Helio and that's not the purpose of it. I think probably the coolest part about those books is realizing that in a time when people would do worked matches, fake fights, not fake, but you know, predetermined outcome type things, Helio refused. He was always willing to fight. Without Helio and Carlos's blind faith in the vision that they had, you know, Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, what we practice would never become what it is. And so, I think those guys did incredible stuff for us. But, I'm not going to, you know, sort of hold them up onto some pedestal for a person that they never were, you know, because there's this idea that Helio was this frail little dude. And if you actually look at him, I mean, the dude was a good-looking, healthy guy. You know, he was an athletic guy, especially for the times. You know, this is, you know, back in the day, people weren't as big as they are now. You know, you look at the the average weight of an American GI, they were they were much smaller then. And you look at him and he was a good-looking dude, in good shape. And um Carlos was actually smaller if you actually look at him side by side to each other. Um you know, and again, he maybe he was frail when he was a kid or whatever, but nonetheless, he grew to be a strong athletic man and would fight guys in in combat and and did a great job. So, just sort of a preference if you get into it with that. There is that to to research. But again, my thoughts on American Jiu-Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the whole deal. And um hope you guys are doing well. Hey, listen, guys, um while I'm here walking around in Costa Rica doing this podcast with you, if you guys want to get information about the next coming Costa Rica vacation that I have, it's going to be in um June 2026. We'll be in Costa Rica here again. It's a lot of fun. Again, you get the Jiu-Jitsu sort of camaraderie, community. You'll be with yours bearded for a solid week. We'll be up here training, eating food together, having some fun. And um, you know, if you come to the camp, one of the things that I sort of stress to people is that we're going to work on less than what you may think. I'm not big on blasting people with a lot of information. I would rather use a few key things that I think are really important. And we hammer those details in for the week. So this way, when you leave, you can go use that information on someone immediately in your next training session when you get home, especially because they won't have trained in the same environment as you, right? So again, if you guys want to check it out, you can go to uh it's Hero BJJ Retreats. You can find it on Google, you can find it on um Instagram and Ron will help set everything up. It's it's a really affordable price and especially considering that it would be tough to get a hotel room for, you know, roughly around the same price as the camp. And then you get to train with me and all the guys and stuff like that and we have a good time. Uh generally, the camps themselves are on the smaller side, which I do intentionally. I find it it's a little bit better, a little bit more intimate. There's a chance for us to actually go to like group dinners together. We can train a little bit more together, roll a little bit more together. I get to give you a little bit more attention. So, we purposely keep the camp um that I do in the summer, I'll know a little bit on the smaller side in comparison to some of the other ones. So this way, you guys get a little bit more attention. And um again, if you guys have any questions about it, let me know, but it's a fun time. And uh hopefully you guys enjoyed this sort of solo podcast. Chewy ramble as we walk through this little uh wooded area in Costa Rica. And um hope you're doing well. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make the podcast happen. You can check them check them out athletic.com, A T H L E T H C. As the name implies, they make THC microdose mints. So it's a very low dose of THC along with other cannabinoids to help you get different states um to improve functions like getting into a flow state or getting a good workout in or resting and recovering. And so they've got a lot of cool products there. You can check them out and get 10% off your order if you go to their website at athletic, A T H L E T H C.com and the promo code is Jiu-Jitsu 10 for 10% off the order. Also, thanks to our buddies over at Epic Roll. Epic Roll is a Jiu-Jitsu brand company made by Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, right? It's it's people like us that are training, doing the damn thing, out there competing sometimes, living the lifestyle and then also, you know, selling cool gear. And so if you guys want to check them out, go to epicrollbjj.com. And the promo code to save 20% is Jiu-Jitsu 20 for 20% off the order. Also, if you guys want to check out our long time sponsor Charlotte's Web and get some of their CBD, CBN products or even some of their functional mushroom products like Lion's Mane and Reishi to assist with a number of different functions. Go to their website at Charlottesweb.com. And they have a huge discount, 30% off. So you go use the promo code Jiu-Jitsu 30 for 30% off the order on whatever you buy. Um again, this is stuff that I think is really useful. I give my my students samples and a lot of them end up getting more of it. Many of you had sent me messages saying you enjoy the products and so again, they've been a long time sponsor and uh we appreciate them and check them out. 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I'll even send out different like book lists generally like once or twice a year with just a list of books you can check out and also send out Jiu-Jitsu tips and also give special offers to people. Um you know, where basically you get discounts that I don't send anywhere else. And so you can check it out at jiu-jitsu.net/join and when you join up, you will get my focused Jiu-Jitsu ebook and video, which goes into 12 different strategies. And again, I kind of go I I ramble on in the video a bit more, so there's more than there, but I go through different strategies on how you can improve faster. Improving in Jiu-Jitsu requires focus. And the the less time you have, the more focus you need to be because you don't have the window to just make up for bad training with more effort, more time. You don't have it. And so you got to be dialed in. And so this will give you some strategies on how to do that and like where to start. So if you're thinking, okay, I want to be focused, what should I do? It'll give you different strategies that you can implement during open rolling. So you don't have to even do drilling or none of nothing like that. It can just give you strategies and questions to ask yourself and ways to think about what could I do to get the most out of my open rolls. So if you guys want to get access to that, check it out at jiu-jitsu.net/join to do that. And uh guys, that's it for the podcast. Thank you as always and we'll talk to you next time.