¶ Stepping Away From BJJ
A good martial artist does not become tense , but ready . Essentially , at this point , the fight is over , so you pretty much flow with the goal . Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power ? I'm ready . I stopped training BJJ and this is what happened . It's kind of profound . It happens to us all .
There is something that will cause you to stop training it's not always injury . And then what comes next ? And for me it was pretty profound ? There's a few major things in here that I learned , I experienced , which I think can help folks if they're scared of stopping BJJ . They don't know what comes next .
You had moments in your life like this Joe had heaps Forced out the game for a while .
Yeah , forced voluntary , you know , yeah , yeah , A bunch of different . I mean shit . When you've been doing it for long enough , it happens . Right , it does happen . Sometimes I've been okay with it , other times not . But yes , it is fascinating what you learn when you take some time away , A mix of both positive and negative things .
Yeah , and we're going to talk about some key things in here which will probably surprise you If you're someone who's on the BJJ train right now . You're training consistently . You couldn't imagine life without it .
There's also some upside to stopping , so for me it was a relationship thing , had some turbulence in my personal life and I had to step away from the game around the brown belt times and I actually it was when I was getting ready to get more
¶ Body Feels Better Without Training
into jujitsu . But there it goes and the thing I found , the first thing that happened to me when I stopped training jujitsu was I actually my body felt better . I actually was sleeping better . My body felt better , my joints weren't aching , I was like- .
COVID-19 effect .
No , it was similar , but it was probably . It was a bit earlier than that . It was more the 2016 phase of my life , but it's crazy to me because I had never thought that I could feel physically better by not doing jiu-jitsu . And what it made me realize is , just fuck , how much is this taxing my body ?
Um , which just really surprised me , because when I was in it , I was just enjoying the , the fire of it so much . I didn't think about just how achy my back was or how sore my neck was . It was just worth it , because that magic feeling when you're rolling it's just like like nothing else matters , yeah .
But then when I stopped , I definitely had like a probably four to eight weeks where I was like , wow , I feel great . Like it was just quite surprising to me , uh , the difference it made in my body .
Yeah , I , um , I'm fuck anyone that's taken , you know , longer than a couple of weeks . You're like , oh shit , I feel really good .
Um , and then you realize that you , you do kind of exist with a baseline of ache and soreness and , you know , muscular tension and whatever which really comes about from any physical pursuit Um , but pursuit , but it is quite a nice experience when you get out of bed and you're like I feel pretty sprightly , knees don't hurt , yeah started getting stronger in the
gym again .
Yeah , imagine .
I mean , this was something that a lot of people reported during COVID right .
Yeah .
When , like , people stopped going to the gym , stopped going to jiu-jitsu , and there's something to be learned in that .
Yeah , no , and there's something to be learned in that . Yeah no .
It's strange because that was the last thing I expected , because I associate so many good feelings with jiu-jitsu , and then not doing it had me feeling physically better , which made me start to question my love of the game a bit , because the thing that took me away from jiu-jitsu was not injury . It was different . It was an injury to the heart .
It was a little bit Just on that . If you extrapolate that out further , do you believe that ? Well , if I just took more time off , then I would just feel better and better . I would hit a zen level of health and fitness . Do you think that's the case ?
No , I believe there is a point at which it doesn't do that , but I was still kind of going to the gym . So it wasn't that I was completely physically inactive , but I just didn't have the demand of jujitsu there . But here's the thing , which is the flip side of this , which is the negative , is mentally I felt
¶ Mental Struggles After Quitting
a lot worse . Like you know , I'd gone through a breakup , there's all that . But I just I actually realized that I had massive FOMO because obviously I was still seeing all my friends . People are like , oh , when you come back to training , like there's this , all these elements of , of , of , of missing out . But mentally I wasn't doing well .
Like I realized I had like a jujitsu dependence .
Well , like I realized I had like a jujitsu dependence , like I didn't realize how meaningful and how much I relied on jujitsu , almost as a form of outlet and not therapy , but like , yeah , it was just so important to me in terms of stress relief and getting the good hormones in your brain and dopamine and all that shit . That was gone .
So , even though I felt better physically , I became not depressed , but I was down , I was really struggling mentally when I stopped jujitsu .
Was that the lack of the training , or was it purely just that you were not doing jiu-jitsu ? Was it the people that you didn't see ?
It was a bit of everything , I think . I think what's great about jiu-jitsu is it gives you a sense of purpose that you don't necessarily get from .
Other things , like when you leave the gym you're not necessarily going oh man , could have nailed that last rep a bit better but with jiu-jitsu you try to hit that sweep and it failed and you got passed and squashed or whatever happened . It really hardwires in your brain Like it does you just go fuck .
You know it might just be one moment from that class , but it stays with you . But the upside on that is it gets you thinking about it and gets you watching instructionals and plotting and planning and it it just creates a job for your mind to do .
Yeah , so when your brain doesn't have that job to do , it's like looking around , like you know there's the meme where the brain's like hey , you awake and it's like , hey , you asleep . It's like almost you're the restaurant just lying there at night .
You know , like it's one of those things that like , short of having a real problem to solve , your brain will kind of invent problems for you .
Yeah .
And I think having that big hole , like having that gap , I didn't have something to occupy my mind and I was pretty confronting and that made me feel like pretty down , like I , I , I , I felt like maybe it was like a low-level depression , but I just was not enjoying so many other things I was doing because I didn't have jujitsu yeah , right it made me
realize like I had this kind of uh jujitsu dependency , because it's been such a big part of my life for such a long time to have like an extended stop was , like felt bad . I think a lot of a lot of folks feel that way for sure .
Yeah , and I mean , um , yeah , as you kind of touched on , like could be for a multitude of reasons that folks would feel that , um ,
¶ Finding Alternative Hobbies
certainly the biggest primary one initially is just the physicality piece , isn't it ?
And if you've just gone from whatever training training hard four times a week to now not training , and if jiu-jitsu was the only physical thing you did , you're going to feel that like hormonally fucking , like , like just your whole physiology is now experiencing a different reality and it might be nice for a little bit , but but eventually you're going to start to
pay a price for that . I mean something , something that I think about in those times , because going back to that first point of body feels good , right with the time off , something that I start to like initially , I'll like that in the short term . It's like , oh , it's great , and you know , maybe whatever , a couple of weeks , a month , awesome .
But then you start to get to this point where you're like , wow , I'm actually just kind of softening , like I'm just getting stale . Yeah , I'm just getting comfortable with being comfortable . Yeah , you know , and and and jujitsu is like one of the few things I do .
That does bring me some legitimate challenge , both like mentally , emotionally , but also physically , and you're like , and I think none of us want to become completely soft , right ? no we're already pretty soft living here in the West as we do .
But so , yeah , so I start to feel a thing of like oh shit , I think this is going to turn me into something I don't want to become .
Yeah , and look the kind of the sidebar on that is so much of my life was jiu-jitsu , which wasn't just the exercise , it was your friends , it's the routine , it's the place it holds in your life for you to have structure . You know , and I had as much as I had my job as a personal trainer .
I , you know it was the thing I looked forward to in terms of like I see a friend , there's jokes , you know , you've got all these other aspects . I just had a hole in my life . I had basically two breakups . I had the breakup that caused me to kind of go away from jujitsu because it disrupted , like I had to move .
Sleeping on my friend's couch , I had fucking 26 kettlebells and my fucking fucking Hyundai XL its bottoms just dragging along the ground . Like life was shit . But I also had to break up with jujitsu because I could not be there , I couldn't train , I couldn't teach .
So it was just a fact that I had this gaping hole in my life of like it was very hard to fill that with anything else . Like nothing felt as rewarding . I think this is what I'm trying to tap into here is that I would still see my jujitsu friends around , because it was like around St Kilda and you around that area and I'd see them .
They're like oh , when you come back to training man , you're like soon , bro , soon , yeah , yeah , fuck . You know I didn't want to , didn't want to like , really I open up to like the fuckery in my life as to the shit I was working around .
But I think it's this feeling that like , even though I was like playing a bit of social basketball or I was just fitting stuff in a bit more time with other friends or whatever it is , it didn't feel like anything really felt that would fill that void at that time .
And so then I had to fucking develop other interests , joe , which is that was kind of confronting because it made me realize , fuck , I don't really have any hobbies , like what am I doing with my life , that this is the only thing I give a shit about . And then I was like shit , I need to develop some other interests , yeah .
What did you arrive at ?
It was trying to have something that had a social aspect . Um , it was trying to have something that had a social aspect as well as the , you know , something physical . So I did , I did start kind of doing a bit of basketball with some friends , and then that was good , just catch up with people , just social sport basically .
And then I was doing a bit of rock climbing . That was cool . Um , it was like I needed challenge physically but I needed social , yeah , and so I couldn't get it from one thing , so I actually had to do a bunch of shit which was um , it was still good . It was great , um , but it it didn't quite feel the same .
You know , to have that kind of one cure all thing that I could depend on . I had to work a lot harder to get that kind of one cure-all thing that I could depend on . Yeah , I had to work a lot harder to get that satisfaction of challenge , social stuff and and personal reward . Yeah , how about you , joe ?
Have you had moments where you've been like , fuck , I need to . I think I need to learn some fucking , some carpentry I mean , I just think about that every day , all day ? no .
But I mean , have you had moments where you've had maybe jujitsu was a bigger part of your life and then you didn't necessarily have other hobbies , or you know , I think I've always been quite fortunate in having the gym Right , because the gym has always given me , like a big sense of purpose and also community , and so , you know , when jujitsuitsu falls away ,
like at the times , I've always got that , yeah , so I never feel a void of like human connection .
Yeah , or even and this was something I was going to touch on that jiu-jitsu brings for a lot of people , which is a sense of belonging and almost purpose within a group , like within a collective , and , and you know , some of that purpose comes from your belt rank where you're like , oh I'm a blue belt now , like I gotta , I gotta uphold the standard and I
gotta stand there in the lineup , and you know , and it kind of sounds silly , but but these little , these little things are actually , um , they , they really do echo parts that existed in a more tribal society . Yeah , to some degree right , I'm not saying that they had rankings , but , but just this sense of purpose and belonging and a role to play .
Um , so I've always , you know , benefited from having that in multiple realms , but , um , you know , I I would say that , for the most part , when jujitsu , when jujitsu is off the table for me , um , I got no shortage of stuff to fill my time with you know , yeah , and it's
¶ The Inevitable Return to the Mats
and that's usually maybe a bit of a battle because something else will take its place . You know , I'll just be cutting dovetails every other afternoon of the week and then , and then when it comes time to get back on the mats , I'm like but I'm cutting dovetails tonight .
I just got this really nice fucking chisel set that I've sharpened right , I just learned this fucking lap joint that I really want to fucking work on the secret samurai woodwork , and so it's like kudos , jt jt bought me a very nice japanese chisel , by the way . I did um , it's a pleasure to use , but yeah so .
So in that way , and I think this is why I've always been a big advocate of like people who are injured should still show up to the academy- yeah because you don't want to remove that time slot from your schedule , because it's very hard to carve it back out , unless you got nothing else going on , in which case you're like hey , I'm just not going to watch
Netflix for four hours tonight , I'll just do it for two , and the other two I'll go to training .
Yeah , and that's , I think , the difficulty for many people is , like when you can't actively do a thing , you become a spectator , like , I think , this is something . A bad habit of mine more recently is I get I take an interest in something and somehow I think that consuming the thing is the same as doing the thing , not true ?
Like the business podcast you listen to yeah , yeah , yeah Instead of actually answering the emails like how do I optimize my email flow ?
Tell me how I do that . I haven't checked my inbox for six weeks Sort of .
But I think we can all do this from time to time , where you're like all right , I can't wrestle right now because I've got a bung knee . I'm just going to watch wrestling highlights . You get that little dopamine hit of like , oh , if my knee was good , instead of doing your knee rehab which is painful .
Yeah , I totally fucking would have sat alive the fuck out of that . No , you don't . And it's just because we live in a consumerist culture , and I'm not just talking about buying shit . Often we do that to feel better , like , oh , I got new wrestling boots . When I come back , bro , it's fucking on , you know .
And it's not necessarily about the buying , it's the filling of the void . That's the thing . It's like , how do I fill this time now ? To feel good , because this sense of emptiness is making me feel shit about life , like , fuck , what's my life now ? Who am I ?
And so then you do these things like doom scroll on instagram , or you fucking stalk down all your competitors that you think are doing better than you and just leave stararky comments in their posts . Fuck .
I don't do any of that Plot for their downfall .
No , I'm joking , I've never done that . Only one time , recently . I was training jujitsu and I got so tired and so thirsty and it dawned on me I hadn't drunk any sody . I've become so reliant on sody as my go-to for hydration . Now , what is sody ? Sody is the perfect blend of sodium , potassium and magnesium .
In all of the flavors , whatever you like raspberry , kiwi , mandarin berry , they got it all . So not only is it delicious , but it is effective in keeping you hydrated . So when you roll , your energy is high , you don't get muscle cramps and you bounce back quicker . If you want to do more training , so
¶ Discovering What Truly Matters
go to sodicomau , use the code BULLETPROOF15 , and you get 15% off today . But then this is the thing I think regardless of what's going on in your personal life injury , breakups , job , you name it I have found that uh cause , for example , like I quit Taekwondo , I just cut it cold .
I there's something that happened and I was like , basically , coach expressed a loss of faith in me and that killed the dream . And maybe that was good , but I'm a pretty . I've been in my lifetime an all or nothing person . I literally walked away that day after that conversation and never went back .
I haven't done a Taekwondo class since , because it just it was strange , I guess I put too much faith in that coach and so him telling me you're done . I just believed him .
Right .
I was like , okay , I guess . So he thought , oh , this conversation means that it lowers my expectations and I can just get this guy as a coach and I can get him a teaching . And it killed the love of the game in me . I never went back .
You think he didn't know ?
it was going to do that ? No , not at all . I think he was like nah , I got this guy for life . Like he's a he's a lifer , he can be a good coach for me and teach kids class and doors . No , I didn't even talk to him again . Actually , that's not true . I did go back and talk to him and explain myself , but he didn't really give a shit .
He tried to sell me a membership . Oh wow , I was like bro , I bought a lifetime membership . You fucking forget that Fuck out of here . Wow , I came to apologize because I felt bad . It was like probably like 18 months later I was like no , I want to go back there and talk with him to tell him because I respect him .
But yeah , it kind of broke my heart . But here's the thing about jujitsu that's not what happened . I got to a point where I had to go back Like . I got to a point where I was like you know what ? I've got to get this back in my life somehow and it was the best . Coming back to jujitsu was the best , even though at that time I wasn't competing .
Fuck , it was so good , like just seeing your friends coming in doing a class , not a comp class , just do a class . Coaches like oh man , haven't seen you for so long . Oh , thanks bro , have a good role . Class , not a comp class , just do a class coach is like oh man , haven't seen you for so long . Oh , thanks bro , have a good role .
Fuck , that was great . I miss this shit . I gotta come back somehow . You know , even if it wasn't necessarily at the same level I was training before . Just having a little bit of it in my life improved the quality of everything else , yeah , and and as you would have experienced before , that when you have a good class , life is fucking nothing .
Nothing's nothing's bad . Yeah , everything's everything's brighter .
it's just got a nice glow on it , dude . Um fuck , was I gonna shit .
That's right , it was something special you'll get it , you'll pull it out , but essentially I the the thing . For me it was probably just getting my life sorted . It was officially broken up . There was this protracted delay of are we getting back together , Are we not ? You know all this stuff . We didn't get back together . I had to get my own fucking place .
Oh , with the broad yeah . Anyway , you know , whatever that's what I wanted to ask .
So , with that , do you feel like the time off allowed you to kind of rebuild inspiration or motivation ? No , I was just- . Or was that never the thing that was lacking ? I was just struggling .
It was also like I probably built too much of a dependency on that relationship Right that now it was not in my life . Not the jujitsu relationship or the broad , both Right , the Not the jujitsu relationship or the broad , both Right , the lady and jujitsu . But I had to get my life stable before I could come back to jujitsu .
I had to get my own apartment and I had to get rid of a bunch of stuff . I had to give away most of my kettlebells . I had to just get life under control . Can you imagine I fucking built up that cache of kettlebells my whole fucking career and given them fucking PCYC , ungrateful fuckers . Nah , it's good , spread the strength .
But I got my own place just around the corner from my mate Shannon's place Good to connect with them , got myself stable and I was like you know what , I'm okay now , things are cool and I didn't feel great about the breakup still , but I was able to have some balance in my life that I could go back to jujitsu and it was the best feeling .
Sick , yeah , it was one of those things that I think that you don't know how good it is until it's not in your life . And then I actually had to take a different approach to get it back in my life and then it was fucking awesome .
Yeah , I really . I do feel that like one of the main things with this chat is that often what's nice , or like some of the nice things that happened as a result of taking time away from jiu-jitsu they're only nice in the short term . It's kind of like when you go on holidays and you're just eating out all the time , sure , it's really fun .
For a little while . You're like , oh fucking , look at this breakfast place . Oh shit , what are we gonna get for lunch ? You know , buffet dinner , whatever the fuck . And then usually after a few days you're like , man , I'm so sick of all this , like I just want to make some basic shit yeah and you start .
You start to realize that like too much of a good thing is actually not enjoyable anymore . So it's like it's nice to have three evenings a week where you now no longer have to drive somewhere , spend 90 minutes and come home late and eat a late dinner . Like it's nice to just have that time at home .
Maybe you can watch a little bit , watch a fucking Netflix show with your missus . Like I noticed that right when I'm off , j'm off jits I'm like , oh , we can like watch sopranos or some shit , sure , whereas when I'm training it's like no , there's not much going on in the evenings besides my training or whatever yeah um , but you know , same deal .
It's like , oh , wow , I actually got to bed earlier and had a better sleep because I didn't fucking stay up late at . You know , after training have these things . But at a point you're like , well , what's actually more important to me , what's more special ? And if jiu-jitsu is the one for you , you do often be like , no , the juice is worth the squeeze .
I'm happy to not be able to watch Netflix every night . I'm happy to feel a bit beaten up in the mornings , um , because I get to push myself , I get to build a bit of , like , physical durability , uh , robustness , but also get to be around people that I love and feel like I'm connected to something .
Yeah , I think the jujitsu gives way more meaning or it gives a greater sense of satisfaction than many other things I've done , and that's why I still love the game , that's why I still want to be around it , however I can .
And I think that's the thing , that when you think you've quit , even just when you think you're out , you got me back in you , son of a bitch . Just when you think you're out , you got me back in you , son of a bitch . You know , and that's . There's actually nothing wrong with that , because it wasn't . I had had enough time off . I had nine months off .
I had enough time off that it wasn't like an addiction and I can't quit it . I had basically quit without saying I've quit .
Yeah .
And I chose to take that step , to walk back in , and it wasn't disappointing , it was actually the right decision , whereas for some of you out there you might stop and that's the last time you ever do jujitsu again , and and maybe that's the right thing for you .
But the cool thing is , with jujitsu , you can it's always there yeah , you can always go back and whatever Sign back up again yeah wherever you're at , you move towns , whatever . It might be not the same as the gym you started at , but it'll be something different and it'll still be super rewarding . There it is .
Folks , just because you stop doesn't mean you quit , but yes , I hope you got something out of that . We appreciate your staying all the way to the end . If you made it this far , we know you're a dedicated person . Dedicated people like and subscribe , so please do that now . Appreciate y'all .