The Best of the Podcast #4: Rules For Jiu-Jitsu #7-9 (Episode 398)

Speaker 1: What's going on guys? On this episode of the podcast, we share some of the best moments from the podcast. In this edition, we dive back into a recap of the rules for Jujitsu series. So we're going to dive into three more rules for Jujitsu. And the first rule is from episode 194, and it's rules for Jujitsu number seven, and it's attempt to control your emotions. The next rule we're going through is from episode 209, rules for Jujitsu number eight, and that's age isn't just a number. And the third rule we're going over today is from episode 222, rules for Jujitsu number nine, and that's wisdom doesn't come cheap. Appreciate y'all for tuning in to the podcast. Here's Chewy with the sponsors. Big thanks for our sponsor for helping make the podcast happen, Athletic. A T H L E T I C. As the name implies, it is a THC mint, the sort of like microdose. 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. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: Of, you know, it didn't. Uh, very easy to take and again, no grogginess, no 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.com. The promo code is Chewy Jitsu 10 for 10% off the order. Also, thanks to our sponsor Epic Roll for being a long-time sponsor of the podcast. Um, they make a lot of great Jujitsu gear. I get a lot of my stuff made through them, both for my Jujitsu brand, but also the gym that I have, like our gees 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 Jujitsu related, they make it. Um, you know, they're one of the manufacturers that uh 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 their website at epicrollbjj.com. E P I C R O L L B J J.com. And when you get there, check out code is Chewy Jitsu 20 for 20% off the order. Also, thanks to our sponsor Charlotte's Web. They are one of the OG's 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 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 to the checker 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, Charlotteweb.com. The promo code is Chewy Jitsu 30 for 30% off the order to check out. Also, if you guys want to support the podcast directly, you can check us out at Patreon, patreon.com/the Jujitsu podcast. 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/the Jujitsu podcast. 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. Last but not least, guys, if you want to get my daily email, the Jujitsu email, check it out at Jujitsu.net/join. When you join up to the Jujitsu email, you will get my daily email, as I said, almost daily. And then on top of that, I will send you an ebook that goes through 12 different strategies on improving Jujitsu faster through focused rolling. And the ebook can give you some different strategies. There's also a video in case you don't want to read, if you just want to listen to me tell you. Um, there's an ebook and a video that goes with it. But it'll give you over 12 different strategies on how to improve with focus. It's one of the most important things. And if you're an older grappler, you have limited time. And I just say this because I know our demographics, we got older people. If you're an older grappler, you have limited time training. And so you can't screw around with like, I'm just going to show up and hey, I'm here. That's fine early on, but again, it's as soon as you start to actually have a little bit of skill under your belt, you want to start giving it some focus and start directing it. And you don't have to be a black belt to do that. I'll show you how to do it both from white to black belt and everything in between. So check it out at Jujitsu.net/join, J O I N to get the daily email and get the ebook that I give away in the video. [music] Speaker 1: This is kind of a rule for myself. We'll give you a couple of them today, but one of my rules is that you always you at least have to attempt. And I say attempt because we all lose our cool sometimes. But you need to be in a control of your emotions at all times. Um, and not allow that power to be given to someone else. Because when you do, if it's in a Jujitsu setting, you do really dumb stuff like you start smacking a person until they get DQ'd. That happened with uh Cyborg. Speaker 2: Mhm. Speaker 1: Um, you get into backstage fights that happened with Goval, right? Like you smack the guy and then you guys are fighting, you know, um, and you you can get hamstrung by fear. And again, nobody's going to admit to that, but I can guarantee you if you could get inside someone's body and feel what they were feeling, there were probably some people, uh, I think Buchecha was probably one of them where like probably wasn't able to pull the trigger because of it being Gordon Ryan. Because Buchecha looked like when you watch that match with Buchecha. Speaker 2: ADCC 19. Speaker 1: Yeah. When you watch that match with Buchecha, Buchecha was abnormally I and there could have been injuries or other things going on there, but he was abnormally not active. Buchecha usually is such an absolute monster and he's all over the place. And I wonder how much of it was due to the persona of Gordon, you know. And again, I mean maybe he felt nothing. I don't know, you know, but I'm just saying just watching it and I'm like, man, that doesn't that just doesn't look like him, you know. And that could be because he's Gordon's just that good. Speaker 2: The character he is. Speaker 1: Or it could be because, you know, the uh, the emotions that played into it, you know, like, oh man, this is this this damn kid that like talks trash to everybody. I don't want to lose. Yeah, the character. I don't want to lose to this person. And so emotions have their place, but they're and they're useful when you're under your control, right? Because emotions are energy. And you can direct that energy in good places. But they shouldn't be in control. Um, and an analogy that I used in one of my emails recently was that they're like children. You can you can't let them drive the car, but you can't stuff them in the trunk either. You know, granted, you probably don't want to stuff your kids in the trunk. I don't know. You probably don't want to do that. Probably against some laws or something like that. But the idea behind that, right? It's like, it's like your children, you know, children they're they're impulsive, they're whatever. And, you know, you can you can you can flow with that, right? You can go with your kids, you can flow with with their emotions and their their spontaneity, but you don't want to let them drive the driver seat. You don't want to let the kids make the big decisions in the household, right? That's for you guys to do. You got to think about it like that. Your your emotions a lot of times can spark really fast. And you need to you need to notice them and understand them and flow with them, but they should not be making the big decisions. You shouldn't be making decisions, big decisions emotionally. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Um, and really you want to try to make very few decisions emotionally. Granted, we're human, we are emotional creatures, we're going to, um, but you want to try not to. I mean, even I remember when I was younger, one of my uh lifting mentors, Jim, he told me that he never made any decision, any big decision in his life until after a lift. He would always go lift weights first. Just so he's like he could clear his head, get out of his body, you know, basically work through the emotion and then make a decision that was rational and in the best choice that he could possibly. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Um, I've sort of done the same thing where I don't make any decision until after some sort of workout, some time away from some time away from that if it's an emotionally charged situation. And so this is an this is a situation you got to take over to Jujitsu. Um, and pretty much anything off the mat. Just as a competitor, you know, might talk trash and get gain some control over someone's emotions. There's people, you know, there's all sorts of different people that might try to hijack your emotions in order to control you in a particular way. It could be a toxic family, angry exes, uh, media corporations, all sorts of people, right? And if you allow them to do this, you effectively lose control of yourself. And uh that's a bad place to be on the mats or off the mats in my bearded opinion. Um, and I think the key about it is awareness, right? Like again, if you if you start looking at some of the decisions you make and you notice that you're a bit emotional about them, just notice that certain things are going to get you emotional. So for for instance here, let's talk off like here's an example. I'll give you two examples. I'll give you one on the mat, one off the mat. On the mat, I used to be terrible about like when someone would knee me in the face or whatever, accidentally, it would really just piss me off. Eugene will remember the days where like there was a Chewy face. I'd get like gritty and like, I'd come at you. Yep, yep. So, but again, it's not that person's fault, but I would interpret it in a negative way. Like I'm like, you're being wild, you're possibly injuring me. Whatever. Well, fast forward, you know, I didn't want to do that anymore. So I started catching myself and and taking breaths. And the culmination of this, one of the most it's it's it's strangely a proud moment for me. So, 2014, January, rolling, I shoot in for a farmer's carry takedown and my student for whatever reason knees me right in the face, breaks my nose. I fall down to the ground. I'm laying there. And there's this there's like a weird feeling that like happens whenever your body's really hurt. And I could feel the blood pulling into my hands. I looked up and everybody was like, oh, you know, this this is this is disgusting or whatever. Like they they see my my nose busted up, whatever. I knew it was bad. I didn't get mad at him. He he was really upset. He was really apologetic. And I was like, man, it's cool. Don't worry about it. Um, it's not a big deal. I didn't lose my cool. I was I was I was emotionally calm in the situation. I was like, you know what? He didn't do it on purpose. It was an accident. Accidents happen. No big deal. And then I told everybody to get back to training. I was like, everybody was like just kind of stopped. And I was like, no, no, get back to training. We still got like 30 minutes of rolling left. You know, so like, let's get to it. And then I went and like cleaned up myself and then went to the emergency room. Um, but I was proud of that. Speaker 2: You know, the big thing about emotions and I've had some instances, um, that I'm not proud of where like, uh, I can think of a couple, you know, I've been on the mats for 12, 13 years, something like that. So I can think of a couple instances where I lost my cool. Um, and it was, um, you know, it was just usually with with a, you know, like a white or a blue belt where it was really my responsibility to control the roll. And I didn't. Uh, and and so it's my responsibility. And I got, you know, pissed off because I I tweaked something or I injured something. And, um, I think that having the awareness, you know, like it's kind of hard in the middle of a roll to do that. Speaker 1: It's tough. Speaker 2: Or even to stop the roll altogether. Uh, you know, if you're kind of tweaked something, but you can keep training, I think it can make it hard to, um, to to kind of focus on that and bring awareness to to your emotions. But like, is there something that like maybe if you're in mid-roll or mid-training that you're like in the middle of it and then somebody something happens or maybe even like, um, a careless or a reckless move. Like, I think one of those things could be, uh, I I think a situation I can remember is like, we had like, um, we had rolling going on and like there was, uh, lower belts. And usually if it's a lower belt and then an upper belt's next to them, the lower belt needs to stop. And you said numerous times like, hey, stop, stop. And I could see you kind of got irritated because it could have caused some some injury there. Like, so, bringing getting emotional on the mats or getting irritated or or angry. What do you do to like bring awareness to it, maybe even in the moment? Speaker 1: I think it's practice. I think that's I think it's really what it is. It's like, so we don't get a lot of think about modern society, right? We don't get a lot of chance to we don't get a chance to really play around in those places. So we don't have like hardcore heated debates because we don't we don't we don't debate anything anymore. It's like, either you agree with me or you're evil on both sides of everything, right? So we don't really have that place where we're like, we're going to talk about things in this heat of the moment and we both got to stay. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: We both got to stay level-headed. We don't play around there very often. Uh, very few people actually fight. So they're not used to having that that energy, that that that warrior aggressive energy come up inside of themselves. They're not used to dealing with it. Um, you can see this where I mean, it's I mean, you look at society, it's like, be nice, use your words. Um, don't hit people. And they they talk about this aggressive side in humans as if it's something bad or that it's something that we should contain. And you see them try to put the genie in that bottle. And it escapes like steam in a kettle. Just it it it you see it through things like road rage. You see it through people the way they type online to people. You see it through like people fighting in grocery stores or whatever or stupid stuff. And you see it when people are in the gym and they get really freaking angry and they have never they're not used to dealing with things in that state. All of a sudden they you stupid like whatever. You see it. You're not used to being in that state. And so you have no practice. It it's like a it's like a different mental state. It's like uh imagine like here's an example. Imagine a guy getting into an altered state with some sort of drug, right? And how he can function in that particular state or how he how he adjusts to it. Someone with practice who's been there lots of times, no problem. It's a normal day in the park for them. You give it someone the first time, holy moly, you know, like it's a different world for them. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: So, same thing. When you get angry, if you're not used to being in that or or emotionally charged or aggressive, whatever you want to consider it. If you get into that state and that warrior inside you starting to peek out, you have to like get used to what that feels like and be able to to to control yourself and be able to to to deal with that energy. Because it's just energy coming up through you. And do whatever you will with that energy, but again, direct it accordingly to what you actually want to be to happen. Speaker 2: Mhm. Speaker 1: And so I think that what happens a lot of times is people come into the gym and if this happens to you where you get emotionally like like angry or pissed off or irritated, a lot of times you're just not used to dealing with it. So, you got to chill. You got to you got to learn to control it. You got to learn to practice if you if you're if it's something you struggle with personally, then when it comes up, you got to practice and be like, okay, it's it's happening. I'm getting angry. I'm I want to like smack this dude on this back of his head for being an idiot and like hit me in the like, he didn't mean to. It's cool. Take a breath. It's all right. You know, just like I like I said, I used to be really bad about that kind of stuff. I mean, I I one of the the one of the times I was the most unproud of in my Jujitsu ever was there was a dude in like we did this Jujitsu training camp that was like three days long at the gym. We're all just exhausted, tired. And I remember he like like it was like the last roll and he went for a hill hook on me. And we're in the ghee, so we're not supposed to because we're getting ready for a competition, so we're not supposed to hill hook in the ghee for this one. Um, and he went for it. And I just lost my cool, man. I got up. I put him on neon belly afterwards. Like I pulled out of it and like I took it the wrong way and I just drove in so hard that I like I he ended up pulling some cartilage. Now, he didn't his driven didn't break. I whatever. He was okay afterwards and we actually went to like we laughed about it about a month later over breakfast. We used to go to breakfast sometimes together and just kind of hang out. No big deal. But at the time I was like, oh man, I messed up. And that was like one of the turning points. Like I can't do this. I can't I can't be this trained machine that like is trained to break people and then lose control of it. And so, you know, I was like, I I got to be in control of this thing at all times because it's dangerous. Very, very dangerous. And if if I get wild and I am not in control of myself, that's that's a dangerous thing. And so I was like, I got to be in control. So again, it's practice. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: It's not going to happen overnight. Um, but if you notice that it happens because like a lot of times afterwards, you notice, man, I didn't like the way I reacted. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Speaker 1: That's the thing, right? You you if you were satisfied with your reaction, I guess whatever. But if you get done and you're like, I am not happy with the way that I reacted. I reacted in a way that I do not like. So, be ready for it next time. You got to like when you're dealing with emotions and stuff like that, you've almost got to if there's ways that you react, you almost have to put mental guards up. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Right? Mental guards that are like at the gates, like ready for it. Like you know it's and then you feel it coming up for me. I feel like like a lot of times when I have aggressiveness that comes up, it like comes up through my chest and up through my neck. And I can feel this energy rise. When I feel it, I'm like, oh, there it is. And so I've got like the the the training and the the the experience with it to to deal with it. Now, I might turn the roll up a little bit. Like, for instance, when I was rolling with one guy and he literally just this is recently, he elbowed me, knee'd me and like did something else like several times during the roll. And I told him, I was like, chill out a little bit, you know? And then like he didn't. So I was like, all right. Now, I didn't like get all angry and I didn't hurt him or whatever thing else, but I like passed his guard real quick. And then I put him in like a put him in side control and I was squeezing. Speaker 2: Shoulder just. Speaker 1: Shoulder just. I was squeezing him. I was keeping pressure so he couldn't move. And I was just locking him down. So like I just did I gave him no space for the rest of that roll. So I used that energy towards the Jujitsu that I was using in a technical way. Just being a little bit more urgent with what I was doing. Yeah. But I think it's practice. I think a lot of times it's practice. And again, you can take this over to other stuff. Think about with your kids. Like if you I know that a lot of you guys are parents, like how many times have you like done something with your kid and you're like, man. Speaker 2: For sure. Speaker 1: I'm not happy with the way I dealt with that situation because we're all we're all human, we're all messed up. We break we break mentally and stuff and we do something we shouldn't do. So what do you do? Next time it happens, just try to be like, okay, mental note. It's like a Jujitsu match, right? Get out there and compete. I didn't do this right. Okay, we'll fix it. So next time it happens, be ready for it, you know. That's it's it's just experience. And so, but I think the big problem is is that a lot of people go through and they don't ever reflect. They don't they don't they they they realize they mess something up, but they don't reflect on it like and think, okay, what could what could I have done differently? What could I do better? And then like mentally make a note of, all right, I'm going to be ready for this next time. You know. Um. Speaker 2: I think that uh, I know I wrote reflection in there, you know, on my on my notepad here. And I think like when I had that that situation, um, where I got, you know, I I kind of hurt my hurt my shoulder. And I couldn't train for a little bit. I I got pretty pissed off about it. In the moment, I I was kind of like, I didn't act in the right way. Um, I I would say that like taking reflection is is super important. Like you have to if you can, step away. Like I say, I'm done rolling. Like I'm I dude, I'm not just like, you know, just take if you can step away. Speaker 1: Take a walk. Speaker 2: Uh, take a walk, yeah, to um, but for me it was like, I spoke to you about it. Like find somebody at the gym, maybe that you, um, your coach or someone like a or a buddy or someone that's been there that you can that can give you some solid advice and just like, go go through the situation with them. Like, what happened? Maybe how can it be avoided next time? Um. Speaker 1: Well, and in your case, I dealt with that before. Speaker 2: Mhm. Speaker 1: You know, like when you. Speaker 2: Right, for sure. Speaker 1: I because like the situation you're talking about, you're telling me and I'm like, this is just how it is, bro. Speaker 2: Yeah, and you feel it's just something to keep in mind for yourself. Yeah, and and you also like, first of all, it's, you know, it's it's yourself, but also like if you're a leader at the gym, if you're an upper belt, a black belt, brown belt, whatever, you're a coach, you don't want to you that's not the way to act, you know. I mean, if you have to maybe put it on them a little bit, you know, after if you're if you're not injured, but maybe tweaked something, you can keep training, put them on a little bit and and and be more aggressive like you did. Uh, in a controlled way, just kind of get your point across that way. But, um, I definitely think the reflection piece is important, um, talking to someone. And for me, uh, taking some space, you know, like, why did that why did that happen? Like, why am I feeling that way? We talk about journaling a lot. I think that's that's one of the the value valuable things because some shit will come up for you, uh, that maybe you didn't even know was there just by writing it out. You start to like think about what's what's coming out on the page and, um, you know, I think reflection is is first of all, you got to find something that's that's problematic with the situation. Like if you felt like you acted, you know, appropriately. Speaker 2: Yeah, if there was a different, yeah. But. Speaker 1: There's a there's a good book I've mentioned it before. It's called King Warrior Magician Lover. Um, and it's by a guy who was like a a Neo Union, I think it's like Robert Moore and Robert Gillette. Um, and they talk about these archetypes. And if you if you listen to any of like the the people that were inspired by Young's like works and stuff like that, they were talking about these archetypes. Essentially, they're these these different like structures that are already in your brain or in your body, in your being. They're already there, but they like come on at different times. And they will manifest in different ways depending on what you do with them. And so, again, whether or not it's like right on the money or not, I don't I don't really care. I find it useful because it gives me a a good frame of of thinking for these things. And so, with that thing, like the idea with like say with the warrior and the king, we'll talk about those two. So the warrior, I kind of you see that warrior being used all the time. That's like the one that our society really loves is like getting out and getting it and getting after it, charging forward, you know, working, hustling, driving, whatever. But it's also the side of us that like can do damage to people or can be very aggressive. That's that side of us. And in the book, they talk about the sort of the sides where it's aligned with the king, and we'll talk about the king in a second, and when it's not. So the king sort of energy, the king archetype is essentially is is you when you are in line with yourself and you you know who you are, you know where you want to go, these kinds of things, right? And so if the if the king, kind of using this analogy, if the king is giving the warrior a mission, then the warrior is following like the right track, right? But if the warrior is not in control in control by the king, well then he's like a mercenary or he's just a person that's just terrible. Or if if even if you're if your mission's kind of a bad thing, well then your king's out of whack and you're becoming like a tyrant to yourself or something. But that's a whole another thing. But just basically, being in line with who you want to be. If the energy that you are using is not in alignment with who you're trying to become as a person, you should know what that you should know what that looks like. You should know that you're trying to become someone better or different, right? So if it's not in alignment with that, then there's a problem. And so if you react in a way that is not in a way that you want, you know, they'll say, it's not becoming of you. You know, like who you're becoming. So if you're acting in a way that's not the person you're trying to become, then obviously you need to be aware of that. It's it's out of it's out of alignment, it's out of whack. And so I I think that's that's like that's a useful, it's a it's a it's a short, it's not really it's a relatively short book, but it's um, it's a helpful way of me for me thinking of it is like that's the warrior in me and it has to be in control because a warrior that's let loose to do terrible things, that's like that's a terrible thing, you know, as a history geek, when when warriors are just let loose and they're not under control of a higher power of a higher authority of some sort, they sack cities and do all kinds of terrible stuff. And likewise, like when our when our warriors are let free at the wrong times, it's a bad thing. So we they have to be under our direct control and be aligned with what we're trying to do and who we're trying to be. Speaker 2: All right, guys. Speaker 1: So another rules for Jujitsu idea. This is going to be based off of a couple questions that I've been getting from some um older guys, mostly black belts. Um, but the rule for today is that age isn't just a number. You'll you'll see what I get into this in a second. So check it out. Like recently I've had a lot of black belts, and by a lot, I mean like a handful just within the last week or two, message me, and they're all in this sort of same predicament. The same sort of mental conundrum where basically they were, you know, young, snappy guys back when they were younger. They got into Jujitsu when they were in their like late teens, early 20s, trained their tails off, you know, they were coming up the ranks and got their black belt when they were relatively young. And then now they're getting to a point where they don't do Jujitsu full-time, you know, because it never was their thing. Um, some of them own businesses, some of them are police officers, some of them are just doing different stuff. They've got families, they've got other responsibilities, and they're able to make it into the gym like, you know, three times a week, which is a respectable amount, right? But the issue that they're all running into is that, man, they're going up against these tough purple belts and the purple belts in some cases are beating them. Now, it's not necessarily that the purple belts are just trashing them, but they've got these young purple belts that are younger, uh, more youthful, that are training five, six, seven days a week, and then they're coming at them. And this is in the gym and in competition. One of the guys sent me a match of his, and he competed against a purple belt, and he was over in I I believe he's somewhere over in um Eastern Europe. And uh he went against a purple belt in the competition, and he lost a close match, right? And he was like, you know, he's fine with it, but his curiosity was like, you know, do legit black belts lose to purple belts, right? Does this happen? And, you know, the other guy, uh, that I'm thinking about just offhand, he was sent me a message, and he was basically saying like, almost feels like sometimes he doesn't want to go into the gym because he feels frustrated by the fact that he's getting getting, you know, beaten in some cases by these younger guys. And he's like, man, I don't even feel like I'm a real black belt. I want to take this damn thing off. And so I bring this up because every one of us is going to be there at some point. We might be able to put it off for a little bit longer, but you're going to be there at some point. People like me that train full-time, I'm, you know, able to slow this process down a little bit, but nonetheless, I still feel its effects. And my ability to train enough to keep up with some of my younger like like guys that are like thinking about competing, it's very difficult. Like I have some guys in the gym right now that it takes a lot out of me to put it on them. You know, like after I'm done, I have I have to take a rest round afterwards. I'm so darn so darn tired, right? I'm like like, I mean, it's it's doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's crazy when you think about it. Like it's crazy thinking about being 40 when I think about what 40-year-olds did when I was younger, right? And then it's hard because as a as our as our our mind gets wrapped around who we were at some point. We get wrapped around, oh man, I used to be that black belt that was beating everybody. I was training like six days a week, twice a day, like three times a week, and all this stuff. And then all of a sudden you're having to give way to this new older version of yourself, which isn't so resilient, can't train as much, gets beat, has way more responsibilities, can't just eat, breathe, and sleep Jujitsu. And it's tough. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And it's tough. And so you've got to be able to adjust to that over time. And if you are an older black belt, obviously, I just sort of want to throw this out there. Of course, you can be a legit black belt and lose to a tough purple belt competitor. Competing is less about your just overall skill. Granted, skill has to be good. But, you know, there's a lot of other factors that play into it. Are you in shape? Are you drilling your game plan stuff? You know, because you could have over you could have less technique overall. Like I've beaten I know for a fact, because I've beaten guys like when I was a white belt or a blue belt, I've beaten higher level belts who knew way more than me. But I was able to beat them, right? But that doesn't mean that they're not what they were. And so I think it's just one of those things where you have to sort of wrap your head around this, and you've got to make room for that new person, um, that you're becoming. But with it, age isn't just a number. You can't out-technique your way out of it, right? To people say technique is king. To a degree it is, but your body is a huge part of it. And when you're rolling, rolling is a sport. Even if you're doing Jujitsu for a self-defense thing, rolling is a sport. And so in any sport, athleticism, youth, strength, speed, all those things come into play. And this is why a 65-year-old black belt who maybe did all kinds of great stuff in his heyday is not going to beat a 20-year-old black belt. It's just not going to happen. Like I mean, the 60-year-old black belt's going to, you know, get tooled if they were rolling hard, but they're not going to roll hard because obviously we're not going to do that to an older guy like that. But because of of the body. And so you've got to adjust to it. And um, just something to keep in mind. And again, for any black belt or any higher level belt that's out there dealing with a similar thing, understand that you can be a legit Jujitsu practitioner and still get beaten by younger people. It's just the nature of the beast. You can still understand the fundamentals, you can still, you know, be as driven and dedicated as you always been, but you're just going to be in a different class, so to speak, um, with your speed, athleticism, and and body. And this is why we have master's divisions and things like that. Speaker 2: What do you think, um, like how old were those black belts? Do you even know how old they were? Speaker 1: Um, mid mid to late 40s. Speaker 2: Mid to late 40s. Speaker 1: Mid to late 40s. So they just kind of went out of their, you know, because in your 30s, you can still hold it together. Start to get into your 40s. You start to get into your 40s, it starts to slow down a lot. Like even my my coach Sean. Like Sean, like I remember Sean meeting Sean, probably the first time I rolled with him, he was probably in his late 30s. Beat the brakes off me. I was 25, right? Beat the beat the snot out of me. And then, you know, as I'm getting older, like Sean can still roll a little bit, but like, man, his knees all banged up and he's been through a lot of battles over the years as far as because he was a hardcore competitor for a long time. And you know, it's like he just can't do what he used to do. Now, when that guy shows me a technique, I don't like scoff at it and go, well, I just beat you in a roll, Sean, you know, or I just like I just got the better of you because we, you know, when I roll with him, we we roll like fun. We're moving around, you know. But I don't like, you know, I don't say, well, you know, you couldn't even roll four rounds last time, Sean, so I'm not going to listen to anything you have to say. I'm like, if he says something, I'm going to listen because I know he knows a lot more stuff than I do. Been around for a long time. Seen a lot of stuff. And so I think there's a difference there. But again, you know, anytime we're talking about rolling, rolling is a it's a sport. And so we have to understand that anytime you're talking about a sport, as you get advanced in age with a physical sport, it's going to be a problem. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: So a lot of that like and you see almost like the it's like they're closing in. It's like you're in a race, right? You're a sprint and they're just catching up, catching up, catching up. You're both going to that finish line. Eventually they're going to they're going to pass you up. And the the the difficult part about it is this, that they're usually if they're younger than they're 20s, they're only going to get more technique, better technique. They're still going to probably develop they're they're at least going to keep their their physical prowess, right? So, let's talk about these like older older black belts. Like what what how do you approach those type of rolls? Like what do you do? Speaker 2: Well, first off, you just have to be like, you have to re-humble yourself. Speaker 1: Again, this is a this is an issue, right? Because it's like if you're getting like I I like sometimes like uh there's days where I'll go into the gym and some of the the big strong guys, they'll get the better of me. I don't I don't want to stop doing it just because it happened. It's going to happen sometimes. Some days I'm just a little off and they're on and, you know, they're catching up, right? You know, for me, I don't think of it as like a race to the finish line. I think of it almost like is if like a like maybe you want to think of it as like a a graph going up showing the skill and our ability. And then and then what ends up happening is ours is up here. Theirs starts climbing and as theirs starts climbing, ours starts descending downward. Because eventually you're in essentially a slow state of decay, right? I mean, so you're just like slowly losing a little bit. Like when you lift weights and stuff, a lot of times as you get older, you're just trying to slow it down. You know, like you can't you're not it's at some point you're not going to get bigger or stronger. You're just trying to slow down the the the loss of it. And Jujitsu sometimes, you know, you're not going to get any like more you're not going to get better physically with your ability to execute techniques. So you're just slowing it down a little bit and then you got to enjoy it for what it is. So you've got to again, it's all about the movie we play in our head. It's fine to play one in the head, but you have to make room when a new scene comes in, right? Because like when if say you get beat by some person and you're having trouble adapting because you are getting older, you hanging on to an idea of what you were like when you were 25 isn't really going to help you anymore when you're 40 or 45 or whatever. Like, you just you can't train the same way. It is what it is. You've got to adjust. And trying to hold on to that rigidly is going to be a problem. I think that's the first thing. And again, this goes back to Jujitsu. You got to humble yourself. We say it all the time, but then when we're in those situations, it's hard. Yep. It's hard. Like I'm a black belt. I shouldn't be losing to a purple belt. I used to be able to beat this purple belt. Now, they've beaten me or something, you know, whatever. You just like you you would you, you know, you just have to humble yourself. You wouldn't tell some other person if you were on the outside, you wouldn't tell them to quit or get upset about it. You'd be like, oh man, it happens sometimes. It is what it is. We just have to take our own medicine. But I think in all those situations, we just we've got to humble humble ourselves. Now, when you roll with them, you know, sometimes you just have to kind of take your licks. Again, you know, a lot of times if you're a black belt and you're decent, even if you get beat by them, a lot of times you'll be able to protect yourself and not get caught in any weird spots and stuff like that. You just may not be able to sort of assert yourself on someone like you want to. You just have to adjust to that. And that's going to happen to all of us because even if you're not a black belt, if you just start if you're just climbing up in age, you're going to have to adjust your rolling depending on when you get, you know, if you started in your 20s or your teens and then you're getting all of a sudden you're in your 30s and 40s, you're going to have to adjust. I think this is one of the things that causes a lot of people who take big long breaks and come back and they get themselves injured. Like, for instance, I had a guy that used to train with us who was a college wrestler, and D1 level wrestler. And he came back to Jujitsu or came came into Jujitsu, done a little bit, became into grappling after a long way off, and he was going like super fast. He'd always run into injuries. You know, like, what's because you're trying you're trying to be the guy that you used to be, right? Mentally, you feel like the same person, but physically, you're not, right? And I think that's one of the cool things about Jujitsu is it does keep us in touch with who we're becoming physically. Because you think about like the guy who was a like a badass in high school or something or college, and he thinks he's like still there. And mentally, because he he has his body hasn't been updated. You know, with the he hasn't had a an update on his software, so to speak. Speaker 2: Hardware. Speaker 1: Hardware, yeah. Software is still the same. Software hardware, yeah. So, software, software, you know, is uh has uh it's not synced up with your hardware. You know, and so when you roll though, you get a quick sync up, oh crap, like I'm exhausted. I I can't do it. It's like like for instance, when you uh when we came back from the lockdown, felt like the same person. You didn't feel any different. You start rolling, you're like, whoa. Speaker 2: Felt very different. Speaker 1: I'm exhausted. And then the next morning, you're like, I feel like I hit by a truck. You know? Speaker 2: It's like I I remember coming back and um, I was like, do the move. Do the thing. Move, move. And I'm like, nope. Or it's like, oh, this is like it's going to take me a second or two. Like and and that that doesn't that doesn't work. You know, if you're going to get somebody that that's coming after you and then you're just really late to respond, your timing's off. I think I think it's one of the big things developing your timing. Speaker 1: Well, timing's one of the first things to go. Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, maintaining it doing something consistently, you know, that's how you maintain it. So like let the question that some of those guys asked you and primarily kind of what we're getting at is, what does it mean to be a legit black belt? What is a legit black belt? Now, if we base it off of purely like performance rolling, submissions, competitions, whatever, well, that's different story. But a legit black belt is is different for some reasons that you've mentioned before. Um, and one of them is like, you know, I I think that you have to be a good leader. That's that's part of being a legit black belt. Speaker 1: Can't be. Speaker 2: Well, you can explain what you see. Like, you know, when you're promoting someone, we've we've talked about it before, but it'd be nice to kind of hear again, like what, you know, what you're thinking of because you're not going to give them a black belt and then take it away. You know what I mean? Like, oh, here's a black belt. I'm going to demote you now to brown because you're getting crushed by purple belts. So what is that to you? Like, in your opinion, when you promote somebody, put somebody on that wall, you're looking at for some qualities. Let's talk about that. Speaker 1: Legit black belt. Yeah, legit. And and that could be even, you know, I mean, you promote people that are older, right? You got some guys that are that are older, they promoted late 30s, a lot of us, some 40s. So, yeah. Well, so I think that every every person is a little has a has a situation going on. And you have to take that person's, you know, situation into account. If I've got like a let's say, for instance, if I've got like a we up we um promoted a woman who's a like in her 50s. Speaker 2: To blue belt, right? Speaker 1: To blue belt, right? Okay. Well, I didn't promote her just because she was trashing all the white belts. She's 50. She's 50-year-old woman. She's still tough. She's an old she's an old judo lady. She's tough as as nails. But at the same time, she's 50, right? And whether you're a 50-year-old male or female, it's not going to matter. It's going to it's going to be tough. But she put in her time. She knew she was doing. She was moving well. And she was improving and she was able to execute techniques that should she she should be able to do as a blue belt. And she's demonstrates a good behavior, good uh good attitude around the mat. You know, like she's a good person to mat. Like she's I've never seen her once get get mean or anything like that. She's even competed a bit, um, and did well in competitions, right? So, um, yeah, I promoted her. A black belt, right? So again, similar thing, you know, first off, it's there's very much a attitudinal component. If I don't think you're a good person, I don't want nothing to do with you as a black belt. Because as a black belt, you are going to be a leader. People are going to look at you. This actually for me, this starts at purple belt. Like if you get a purple belt for me, like that's already kind of on the thing because if I if if I even detect a little bit of like scuzziness. Granted, some people can hide it better than others. But if I if I detect any scuzziness from you, I'm not promoting you. Speaker 2: Well, let me stop you there. So if you do detect that, usually you're not like, I'm not promoting you, but you do give people kind of a way to to write the ship, right? You give them like a you maybe have a conversation or what do you do? So let let's start start there first because that's kind of that path to black belt. It starts, you know, very early on. So, they're on the verge of that that blue to that purple. And then they maybe they're not of what you feel is maybe physically or uh skill-wise they're there, but in in some other aspects they're not. Speaker 1: If if it's an if it's an attitudinal thing where it's like something with their behavior type thing, I I'll tell them what's going on. Like, and for you guys that are I'm not trying to be a school teacher, but like, for instance, if I have someone on the mat that's being disrespectful to their training partners, um, that's being disrespectful to other coaches. Speaker 2: How so? Speaker 1: Uh, I've had people I've had people show up late for every class. They just show up just to roll. I'm like, no, get off the mat. Like, just you're never there. Like, you're just going to show up whenever you want to. Like, that's not how this works. Like, that's incredibly rude to the coach because that's basically saying, I don't need your stuff. I'm good, you know, whatever. So it's it's rude to those coaches. Now, there's some people that have reasons as to why they're late sometimes. You know, people have like conference calls or family stuff. It happens, right? But I'm talking about someone that's like all the time. Or they're not respectful. I've seen guys like this is something I did and I didn't I didn't I don't want anybody else to do it. I've seen guys get off the mat and smack the mat and get angry, right? Okay. If if if you leave the mat angry because someone got the better of you, it's incredibly rude to your training partners. Like, why are you so good that you don't deserve to get beat? So you deserve to beat everybody else, but they don't like but that's that's ridiculous, right? You got to be in control of your mind. You got to be in control of your mindset. I think again, we're doing a martial art and I think there's still some of that we're we're trying to develop a better, stronger version of ourselves throughout the process. So if you're losing control of yourself, that's a bad thing. That's that's a that's a sign of something going on. And so there's different stuff like that, right? Then I'll I'll just give them the I'll tell them, like, hey, you got to correct this. You got to like change this. You got to be mindful of this. You shouldn't be doing these things. And that's not something I that's not behavior I'm going to reward. I don't care how good you are at Jujitsu. How like well you're how much you're able to beat people. Um, if you're an asshole to your training partners, I don't really want anything to do with you. Because it becomes a cancer in the gym. You know, and you get people like I've had people like do locker room talk where they'd be talking about I submitted so and so. Talking about who they submitted. I'm like, bro, this is this is not how this works. Like, don't talk about it. Because if you talk about it, then it creates a weird thing where I don't want to I can't roll with you in a manner that I can that that helps me overall. It's going to be a it's basically going to be a fight because I don't want to lose to you because you talk. Yeah. And so that that creates a bad thing in the atmosphere. You know, the idea is that we want to be able to essentially roll with each other. And if one of us gets each other, we're just we're picking the other person back up. I'm like, all right, let's get back to it. Let's put let's let's sharpen each other back up, you know, not I'm going to talk about it afterwards. And so those are some examples. And so if any of that kind of stuff or other stuff's going on, that has to be checked early. I'll give someone a blue belt if they're still a little like little weird, but I won't give them a purple belt because purple belt to me is where you really start to get to that point where people look up to you in a big way. Blue belt's kind of like, ah, you're still kind of a beginner. You just got your you just got past white belt. Purple belt, ooh. Like, you're a purple belt. That's a big deal. So, you know, that that has to be in place. And then from there, there's usually by black belt, there's typically a style component to it where that person has a very distinct style where I could probably close my eyes and roll with that person and I would know exactly who I was rolling with based upon what they're doing. Like, ah, you've got this is what you've developed. You've developed this whole sequence, this whole system of techniques and everything else. Very good, very good, right? And that's something that they can pass down. Because again, you know, ultimately, I think it's not about Jujitsu at least in my version of it. You're not I don't want you to be a automaton. I don't want you to be like a mini Chewy. I don't want you to just regurgitate these 500 techniques in a big test and say, here you go. I want you to go into this thing and discover what works best for you and what you can use the best and then bring that back. Because then we can all benefit from that. Because then it's like like last night when we had a guy had a loop choke question. You've got a really good loop choke. Well, he can ask Eugene who has like lots of lots of submissions from loop chokes. You know, because you've done it. I've I've I've never had a loop choke submission in competition. I've had some in the gym, but you have lots in competition and lots in the gym. Great question to ask. Um, you know, having guys like um Evan who, you know, Evan and Jeff who really, really like leg locks. Have them to teach leg locks and be around. That's really helpful. Having Brandon to teach wrestling. That's fantastic. Having, you know, Damon every now and then he jumps in and maybe he'll show a key mora. You know, I mean, it's good to have all that stuff pulled together. And so this way we all benefit from it. So I to me, we benefit from you going on your own path and then coming back and it's it's very much like um, if you look at the the the story of like uh the Joseph Campbell framework of like the hero's journey, right? The hero goes out, discovers the elixir, the magical thing, and then the the hero comes back. And then it shares this thing with everybody, right? And so it's better for me instead of saying, here, here's your step-by-step process to get to this thing. No, no, go out and explore. Go out and go out and find your techniques. Don't worry about the one like there's some that as a from white to blue belt, probably I'm going to want you to know a few things. After that, you've got your fundamentals down. You could you could defend yourself in a fight. What am I going to do arbitrarily add more stuff on top of this? Well, now you need five techniques from this position instead of three or something. Oh, that's then we're just now we're just doing like like like elementary school busy work, right? Like it's like, okay, now you're in this grade. Now we're going to give you two pages of homework instead of one. No, no, I want you to go experience this stuff. I want you to go find some stuff that you can then develop your own style, bring it back and show everybody. And so there's that element to it. That typically starts obviously at purple belt and I think in blue belt and then gets in develops more and more. Um, and then there's obviously a skill component to it and an effectiveness component, I guess is what we consider like an ability to um use the techniques and apply them to people. But again, that has to be taken into the context with age, size, everything else, you know. So again, if I've got like a, you know, 50-pound, 140-pound person, I'm not going to expect them to like put it on someone who's like, you know, 270 pounds and, you know, half their age or something. It's just probably not going to happen. It is what it is. So there's a lot of components that go into it, but I think the big ones are like, you know, really when it gets to black belt, do you have a style? Have you went out and figured out your stuff that you can share? Are you able to uphold that belt skill-wise realistically to your particular position? And are you a decent person on some level? I mean, again, we're all messed up and we're all screwed up in our own ways because we're human, right? But like, do do I feel comfortable with you saying I'm a Jujitsu black belt? And do I feel comfortable with you sharing that and then being like, yeah, okay, that's cool. That's a good guy. You know, that's a big component because again, you're going to be a representation of me and people are going to look to you. People are going to as a black belt, people will come up to you whether you think so or not. They're going to come in and they're going to be like, you're a black belt. You will then set the tone. Right? You're going to set the tone. People are going to follow your example regardless of what you think or do. And so I want to make sure that people can set a good example. It's very important. Um, you know, I I a culture of a culture of a gym is incredibly important, um, from a standpoint of keeping people together, from a business standpoint, for all of it. And, you know, for for from a training aspect, you have to protect that. And so you can't allow that to you can't let let it go willy-nilly and just like give any yahoo a black belt. You know, and again, that's not necessarily everybody's thing. Some people were like, hey, I can beat this guy and I've won these competitions and they'll give him a black belt. And that's totally cool. It's perfectly fine. Just not me. And again, the cool thing about Jujitsu is that we can all kind of do this a little differently on our own way. Um, and so, so today's lesson, today's rule for Jujitsu is that wisdom doesn't come cheap. Now, when I say this, it's instantly like, yeah, we know, right? But here's the deal. Here's the thing that I noticed from people, and this is something I've said many times. When people get into Jujitsu, they know it's going to be a struggle. They know it's going to be tough. They know it's going to be a really difficult thing to to take, right? And initially it is, and they get to a point where it seems to be getting better. But what ends up happening with people a lot of times is when they face their own difficulties, like everybody wants a struggle until it's their turn to have a struggle, basically. You know, and I think this is a thing to keep in mind because if you if you look at it this way, the way that I'm going to tell you in a second, if you look at it a certain way, nothing bad really happens to you. And so what I mean by this is like, kind of as a grappler, nothing really bad happens to you depending on the mindset you take. Every failure you have is a lesson to learn from. Everything that, you know, sometimes it's unfortunate like injuries and stuff like that, you can become stronger, you be you can become a better person from it. Um, even I even take this mentality to pretty much everything off the mat as well, where again, a lot of times when I'm going through difficulties in my own life, I'm looking at it like, okay, this is a chance for me to get better. I'm going to get something from this whole this whole thing. And again, this is my struggle to bear and that's just life. That's the way it is. And, you know, again, the difficulty is going to make me stronger as long as I as long as I'm willing to endure it. And that's something to keep in mind because I use the other day, I used an analogy. I said that that, you know, Jujitsu much like life and everything else is like a Ferris wheel. Right? Sometimes you're on top, but don't get too attached to it because you're going to end up on the bottom at some point. And if when you're in the bottom, don't get too down about it because eventually you're going to go back up as long as you're on the ride. And so with this with this wisdom doesn't come cheap idea, and this idea that, you know, you can you got to pay for your experience, you got to pay for everything. On a emotional level, there's that. It's going to be difficult and you've got to be willing to stay on the ride the whole time and uh not get off just because it gets difficult. Again, you knew this is what you signed up for. And we know this is what's going to happen with anything we do. And then there's the other side to it, which we can get into, which is it's going to not always be cheap monetarily. Right? And and it's funny because people seem to get very upset about that part. I I guess my mindset with money has always been different. Um, I never looked at I never looked at like paying money for things that I really wanted to do or experiences I wanted to have as a bad thing. Um, but but I've seen so many people that like, you know, they'll say, I'm not going to spend $100 and do a tournament and possibly lose my first match. No way. I'm like, why not? Like, I've done it. I've done it plenty of times. I've paid like between I remember like I there's one match where I think collectively all the travels and everything else. I spent like $1,500 and got put out my first round. It sucked. It was awful. But I learned a I learned a hell of a lot from it. And it was actually it was actually interesting is that $1,500 loss ended up helping me make money later on because I was able to and I was able to kind of recoup it from specific things I learned in that particular match that I didn't commit uh the mistakes I didn't commit later on. Um, but this is just the idea. You know, when we we get into things, wisdom is emotionally and physically draining. It's tough to gain and it's generally also pretty expensive. Even in the business side of things. I've paid a lot of money to like meet people, to pay for courses and learn stuff, to meet people for lunch. Like I pay people like good money to just sit down and have lunch with me and let me pick their brain for a little bit. And it was money well spent. I don't look back and think, oh man, they got me on. They they got me over on something. I was like, no, it was really well really good money because I can see something afterwards that came from it. Um, and so that's where we're going to start off with. Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot a lot of uh stuff. Lot lots to unpack. Like, uh, you know, talking about the emotional, um, investment, right? It's it's a roller coaster. And it's like, I think that every belt level or every part of your Jujitsu journey or path has some emotional, some different types of things, uh, emotionally that you kind of deal with. I don't know. Like I think it's hard to, you know, as a white belt, you're kind of on the bottom of that, you know, if you think of the Ferris wheel or whatever, you're on the bottom, man, you're on the bottom and you're you're um, you're constantly the nail. And and then you get, oh, I got a sweep here or I didn't get submitted this roll. And then it just a little bit by little bit, you get rolling. Then you then there's newer people that show up. And now you're not the newest person. You're a little bit better than them. You have a little more skill. So I think like, you know, being having that mindset that it it it will, it will get better. I would say all people, but most people will get better, you know. I think some some people just aren't into it or they don't quite understand or what happens. Speaker 1: Which is okay. Yeah. Speaker 2: Which is okay. And Jujitsu is not for everybody. We talked about it. It's it's a if we look at what we do as uh Jujitsu athletes or martial artists, it's kind of crazy a little bit, right? It's a little like we we uh choose to go uh out of our way, out of our nice, comfortable lives to go to this place where people are going to physically and emotionally, uh, try to, you know, it it's emotional for me like to lose or whatever, go like even during a roll, like, ah, I'm going to, you know, hitting a submission or being close to being submitted. There's just a lot of stuff that goes on. But like, we choose this. And it's sometimes like, why the hell do we do, you know, why do we do this? Because that investment, that emotional investment, physical investment, eventually pays dividends because after a tough training session, man, do you feel good? You feel like you're on top of the world. You feel relaxed. You feel like you accomplished something. So I think emotionally, uh, it it it it's beneficial, but you got to go through some of the the dark spots too. Speaker 1: Sure. Well, and, you know, something to think about is I I think I I really resonate with this idea from uh Ernest Becker's work where he says that a lot of what humans do is to try and gain self-esteem, right? So we're all searching for a place where we belong, where we can grow within and where we can be worth something, right? You think about this. Everybody's looking for their little space. I think a lot of times this is where a lot of it's unfortunate, I think. And then this is I'm I'm a bit older, so maybe this doesn't ring true with people, but I think that a lot of people who are younger and they criticize the whole society that we live on live in is terrible and awful and, you know, yada yada yada. Even though it's, I mean, compared to what's existed in the past and and even exists right now, it's amazing. Um, but I think it's because the game's not working out for them. And instead of continuing to work for it, you know, they're I mean, because the game does let's be honest, the game doesn't work for most of us in our 20s. I mean, we're all struggling most of the time, right? It doesn't you don't really feel like you pick up a stride until you get into your 30s, at least for me. And they just want to say, well, this game sucks. I'm not playing this anymore. And then they find they try to make their own game where they can be, you know, that thing. You know, and I think that's a case where you have this in Jujitsu where we come in and we're all searching for it. And so if we've tend to take a liking to it or take an act to it, and we get better, and we get the skill that not everybody can have, slash not everybody's willing to develop, that feels pretty damn good. Like it feels pretty damn good to be good at something that's very difficult. That just that has a way of impacting your life in so many levels because you as a person like you can legitimately see like I can do something that not everybody can do. You know, I remember having that experience in wrestling. I got good at wrestling and I was winning lots of tournaments and I was like literally physically beating people, you know, taking them down, slamming them, pinning them to the mat. And then like I could like walk around school and I was like, you know what, no matter what, like, I'm good at something that none of these people are even remotely good at and they don't they don't they couldn't be good at because they don't want they don't have the the willingness to put themselves in through this difficult sport. Because to me, like in high school sports, wrestling is like wrestling's it. Like I remember seeing like other practices and they were tough, you know. I mean, like I remember I remember being in football practice, full full pads, middle of the summer, it's hot, everything else. And, you know, it's like 100 degrees outside and we're sitting here running in this pads. It was nothing compared to like an average wrestling practice. When I got done with wrestling, when we'd go to football practices, I remember being able to run circles around everybody because I'm like, you guys are out of shape compared to what we're doing in there. Because they would just try to kill us in the wrestling room, you know. And so there's something to be said about going through that. And Jujitsu's, you know, again, Jujitsu's not nearly as hard as like a high like a a well, it depends on the gym you go to. An average Jujitsu class where you come in and train, it's not nearly as hard as like a hard wrestling practice. Um, some Jujitsu gyms run their practices like that, but your average gym isn't running like that. But it's still very difficult. And most people in society don't have the stomach to do that. You know, because they'll look at us like you said, like crazy people. I know that like I I shared this the other day. My nose got broken back in the day and then I remember I went to the doctor to uh to get the the gauze taken out. Basically, by gauze, they were like, it was it was literally like gummy worms. It was like they were dissolvable gauze. It wasn't actual gauze. It was like this this like weird gummy worm packing. And so he's like, you know, taking them out of my nose. And uh at the end of it, he goes, so man, uh are you going to keep doing that Jujitsu stuff? And I was like, well, doc, it I mean, I I was a full-time coach at this point. I was like, it's uh it's kind of what I do for a living. So yeah, and I mean, I love doing it. It's like what I've kind of devoted my life to. And I remember he just kind of looks at me and goes, huh, you know, then he goes back to do it. Like, you could tell he was like, what's wrong with this person? Like, what what's wrong with this Neanderthal that's sitting in my chair, you know? Um, but again, they they just don't get it. And so there's something to that. And again, also the wisdom that you gain through growing through that difficult experience is powerful. Because I I've thought this a number of times. I tend to trust people who do difficult stuff more than I trust people who don't. Um, and I know that sounds weird, but it's just because like, you kind of know who you are on a deeper level when you've been through some stuff, right? When you've been through some difficult stuff. Because, you know, a lot of people they can skirt through life and basically get by without having too, too many difficulties. But like, when you get to experience like the different sides of yourself in the room where you're in a contained space and you get to deal with it, it's it's very powerful. Because like, for instance, like when I was younger, I had a temper, bro. And I didn't know how to control it. I learned how to control my temper through Jujitsu because basically I would get angry because I was getting smashed, I get frustrated. And if I got angry, it went from bad to worse. So I realized like when I'm in difficult situations, I can't get angry because angry's not going to help. You know, this is why like sometimes like I remember a buddy of mine, um, years ago, he was another Jujitsu guy. He came over to my house. And um, at the time, we had a house that where this um, this like we had this issue with the plumbing that we had to take care of. It's not important. But basically, we all went to go uh watch a movie that night while he was in town. We come back and the washing machine, because we put put our gees in there, the washing machine water had overflowed and there was water everywhere. And I was like, damn. And I remember I just like got down and just started cleaning it up. And he was just like, I remember he goes, bro, he's like, you didn't even get mad or anything. I was like, why am I going to get mad? What's it going to do? I was like, it's just like be it's like I'm in the situation where like right now with this water, it's like the same thing as being smashed under side control. I can get pissy all I want to, but it's not going to get me out of this situation. What's going to get me out of this situation is be cool, calm, collected, figure it out. You know, in that situation, I was like, what's going to get me out of this is basically just get a damn mop and just get get to mopping, you know. Um, again, but that's a that's a thing, that's a piece of wisdom that I gained from through grappling, through being in difficult situations over and over again. And again, you know, you you would you would like to think that this is kind of just universal to human nature, but it's not. Because think about how many people fly off the handle all the time when one little bad thing happens and they don't have control over themselves. And so when you go through difficult physical things like Jujitsu, like wrestling, grappling, you get a deeper insight into yourself. And not just the good stuff. You get insight to the bad stuff. This is why I talk about the idea that uh a gym is like a walled garden. It's an analogy that was used in a book by a guy named um uh Robert Bly in a book called Iron John. And in the book, he talks about the fact that everyone in their life needs a walled garden. Because basically the walls provide protection from the outside world. So inside of our gym, we're dealing with a lot of stuff. And the gym walls and the culture itself provides protection from the outside world. Because again, we would not trust someone we did not know to put us on an arm bar or a choke and to respect the tap or to like let go when we get caught in something, right? And then from there, the he said that it's the dark rich soil that then is combined with the sunlight, the light, the brightness to be combined all together with the our efforts and our our dirty work with our hands to create something, to to grow, right? And so if you use that analogy, I mean, this is what we're doing. We're working with the dark sides of ourselves. We're working with the brighter sides of ourselves, right? So in the same in the same room, you could be pissed off and frustrated one minute. The next minute you submitted your buddy and you help him back up and you show him what you did so they can improve better in later on, right? You can have these beautiful things going on and it's through your effort that you create these things. And so I think that that's uh that's a powerful place uh to to be able to work with yourself, to do work. And it's done not in some sort of like woo woo fashion, right? Where we're like, like we got to grow, man. You know, it's like you're working with yourself in the sense where you're faced with difficult stuff and you have to. There's no choice, right? Like I never I never thought of myself as like, I need like something new age where I needed to like lose my temper because of whatever, because I'm going to get myself out of alignment with my chakras. I was just like, this isn't working. Speaker 2: He left. Yeah. I got you. Speaker 1: Uh, I knew I was going to get you on that one. Because because you you you uh anyway. The um. Speaker 2: Dude, there there's something like uh. Speaker 1: Dude, there there's something like uh. Speaker 2: Resilience, you know, like you you build resiliency. That doesn't come from doing easy shit. Speaker 1: Right. Speaker 2: Comes from doing difficult things. It comes from constantly like doing something a little harder, pushing a little harder, you know. Uh. Speaker 1: It's like, damn, we got to do like six six-minute rounds, whatever it is, you know. It's like, that's tough. Now we're going to positional work from areas where you're weak or you're you don't have a lot of success or you got to be stuck in, you know, in mount under this big, strong purple or brown or black belt and and then it just it's annoying and and like you're right. You you you can panic and waste your energy and then maybe give up a a submission. Or you can stay calm, stay tight, get get your hands in the proper position, make your frame and then go. Pick your battles, pick your timing. And you just kind of know the I don't I don't feel like it it's so much as a reaction, but it's like a like a calculated uh movements. Everything's kind of, you know, people that are very good at Jujitsu are more calculated. They're kind of setting up positions, you know, they're planning almost like they're they're already know where they want to be, but they have to go this roundabout way sometimes with the with the skilled uh practitioner. But like, that resiliency, man, like not getting pissed off about stuff that like, you know, like road rage or easy one is like, you know, driving and somebody cuts you off, you know, the gym's on Dixie Highway. Shit happens all the time. People cut you off. Sometimes you get rear-ended at while you're stopped going to the gym. Uh, that stuff happens. But like, you just you're like, man, it is what it is. And and after you do some difficult things, like you don't take those easy, um, those easy outs to get pissed. It's it takes a little more. I'm not saying for me, I'm not saying like I'm I don't ever lose my temper, but I'm less likely to. And especially in Jujitsu, like I I'll get I'll get I'll get frustrated. I'm not necessarily angry. I'll get frustrated, but I'll always most of the time if I have a a frustrating training session or a roll, like I'm like, all right, I this is what I need to do better. I always figure something out or I learn I I pick something up that I can work on. Speaker 1: Yeah. And then there's the other side to it where sometimes it's expensive, like it's expensive emotionally and physically, but it's also expensive, um, monetarily. But here's the thing I want people to think about, right? Because I I I see this all the time. Some people obviously don't care. But I've seen so many people make such a like a stink about the fact that gyms cost money, that tournaments cost money, that I mean, you know, and the thing is is that like, I mean, I wouldn't ask anyone else to like, you know, basically not get paid for what they do. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to ask someone else to like, you know, if like a like some doctor or something was getting ready to to work on me, right? I'm not going to try to short change them. It's because of whatever. I'm like, bro, like I you're a doctor and you're getting ready to work on me. I want you to do the best you can do. And so you spend all this time developing this skill. I don't want you to like get short changed for it, right? Sure. And so people develop a lot of time into these things and it takes a lot to get all the stuff running. So it's it's one of those things. But the the money thing, here's the thing to think about. There's a difference between valuable and expensive. Like, those are two different things. Something can be very, very expensive. And then there's other things that cost a lot of money, but they could be immensely valuable. Yeah. So to sort of tell people like like, for instance, like one person, like I've paid like over $1,000 to like spend time with a business coach to just sit down and have lunch with him. Actually, not even a business coach. It's a guy who's been in business, who's done stuff that I wanted to learn about. So I'm like, I I paid him money. I was like, let me sit and let me sit and have lunch with you. Paid over $1,000 for it. It was immensely valuable. Not expensive. Um, and again, this wasn't at a time when I was just rolling in dough, by the way. It was it was just like, hey, like I I I thought it was a worthwhile um thing to spend on. Um, I've spent I've spent I I don't even want to think about how much money I've spent on books, courses, things like that to improve either my business, my personal development, or any of this stuff. I don't want to think about it because it's so much money, right? And with competitions, I probably have spent a large portion of my income over the last, you know, 20 plus years on competitions, Jujitsu travel, training, everything else. And I find it valuable. The difference with me with expensive, like I think I think TVs are expensive. This is why I did not buy a TV until this past year. I haven't had a TV since I was like 20 years old. Because I was like, they're expensive. It's a thing that sits on my thing. It wastes my time. Um, I don't get anything productive really for it. I mean, it gets I get to turn off my brain for a little bit, but I got I can do that in other ways. Um, to me, it's a very expensive purchase. I don't really think I get enough from it to to value it. I got it now because I've got some extra money to spend. So why not? Um, buying some expensive car. For me, that's really I see I see some really nice car that's brand new is very expensive. Because I'm like, I I'm not really into cars. Now, other people could judge this differently. This is a judgment thing. This is subjective. But I look at things like cars. I look at things like really big houses is expensive. Because I'm like looking at it. I'm like, what am I going to do with all this stuff? You know, like I just I I it's not my thing, right? Um, and so you got to think about it. And as a Jujitsu practitioner, it can be different. Everybody's got their subjective, you know, the things that they see, uh their subjective sort of value systems for things. And they have things that they're after. But if you're someone that's like really serious about Jujitsu, who maybe wants to be a coach someday, the thing that I would get you to urge you to consider is if you were so focused on just like, I don't want to spend this money on something, right? What are you going to have to give to people when you're a coach? Right? Like what experiences are you going to have? Like because you're not going to have any. You're because you're like, well, tournaments are too expensive. Training trips are too expensive. Um, you know, gym dues are, oh, this is really expensive. I mean, you're just not going to have anything to give to anyone. Right? So you're not you're not filling up your own cup. And, you know, if you you think about this, like college is expensive. Like some college degrees are very valuable. Some college degrees are rip-offs and they're incredibly expensive. Right? And because it's like, you know, some of these college degrees you'll get out with like, you know, 50 to 70 grand of debt and you can't get a decent job. Some degrees are very valuable, they're very specialized, and you can get out and make some good money. And so to me, it's like, with Jujitsu, like let's say if you're really getting into Jujitsu and you want to do something with it, which is what I wanted to do, I never I I saw it as kind of almost like like instead of I instead of paying for college, I'm paying I'm paying a lot less money for this education that I'm getting here. Um, through different means. And so I think but I but regardless, I think that before you judge something as expensive based upon its dollar dollar amount, you have to sort of consider, is it valuable to you? And a lot of times if we look at our lives, most people have some measure of expendable money to burn, right? Um, I I've I've been around like when I was a kid growing up, I remember like having family that were really, really poor. And somehow they always had money for a pack of smokes. Right? I'm like, I don't know. I was like, how do you guys always have money for that? Like I I thought this is a kid. I was like, how do you guys have money for cigarettes? You guys are always saying you got no money, but now you got like five bucks, four bucks or whatever it costs to go get a pack of cigarettes. I'm like, that's a lot of money. You know, you think about that every day. Like that's a lot of money over time. Speaker 2: It is. It is. Speaker 1: So, you know, we all got expendable money. We all have some. So, if you're going to like, you know, use it, it would be worthwhile to use it on something valuable, which may be technically monetarily, it might be kind of expensive to you, but if it's valuable to you, then it's a good trade-off. All right, guys, thank you all for checking out this episode of the Jujitsu podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of the podcast. Appreciate y'all checking out this episode. Um, big thanks to our sponsors for helping make the podcast happen. You can check them check them out at athletic.com. A T H L E T I 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 flow state or getting a good workout in or resting and recovering. And so they 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.com and the promo code is Chewy Jitsu 10 for 10% off the order. Also, thanks to our buddies over at Epic Roll. Epic Roll is a Jujitsu brand company made by Jujitsu practitioners, right? 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