Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
This is the official podcast of the Bulletproof For BJJ movement. Hosted by JT & Joey. Each episode the founders break down problems that Jiu-jitsu people experience, giving guidance and tips to improve your training for BJJ. With the goal of helping every body on the Brazilian jiu-jitsu path reduce their chance of injury, improve their strength and mobility to become more resilient.
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Why Pickle Ball won't Save your BJJ!
Do you play tennis, squash maybe even pickle ball? There are many great and fun hobbies but that does not mean it translates to better BJJ. "But I heard it's good for hand eye coordination?" It doesn't help when someone is sitting on your chest crushing you into submission. Now if you have played Rugby or American Football and have spent years tackling people to the ground and holding them there- this is a translatable skill that will definitely help your take down game. JT goes on a tear with this one folks, whatever you do don't mention pickleball!
to it A humbleness and an ignorance that I admire. Joey's going to become a striker. Folks, you heard it here. First Call him bulletproofforboxingcom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's coming, but I'll tell you what doesn't translate to BJJ, apart from boxing, what's that? Pickleball. People are getting into pickleball in the United States of America. It's just a version of a small-scale racquetball, but it's become popular. It's not tennis, it's smaller. This will not help your BJJ. Now, what has been….
Speaker 1:Why are we talking about this? I want to talk about this because people are doing shit which isn't going to help their jiu-jitsu and it's driving me fucking crazy. People like oh yo, I picked up a bit of badminton for hand-eye coordination. The fuck, you're going to get double-legged into next week. It will not save you, like I. I think the thing that people misunderstand is like, for example, we'll watch the ufc. People go oh, I've got the grappler and the striker or whatever the matchup right and invariably, like most people who are in the ufc to a high level, have done grappling like, even even great strikers can also be great grapplers, but when you see someone who's a superior grappler, they still dominate the grappling exchange even though the other person has the skills right. And so I'm speaking to people who have less than five years of jiu-jitsu experience. I'm speaking to you all right now. Well, I'm speaking to whoever the fuck's listening to this. But it's funny because I was listening to a discussion between inexperienced jiu-jitsu folks talking about doing additional things to improve their jiu jujitsu, folks talking about doing additional things to improve their jujitsu, and some person was talking about hand-eye coordination related to table tennis and then someone's like oh, how about pickleball? And I was like what the fuck is going on right now? These skills don't translate, my friends.
Speaker 1:Swimming doesn't translate, like yeah, you've got a great gas tank. When you're floating in however much water and it's cool and it's whatever, it won't save you. It doesn't matter that you did water polo. You might be really tough in the water when someone's gouging your nuts and elbowing you in the face. You might be tough as fuck in the water. When you're in jujitsu and someone can sit on your chest and gravity is affecting you, you're going to die.
Speaker 1:It's just a non-translatable skill. But if you get someone who's played rugby league and they're used to running at someone headfirst, picking them up and throwing them on the ground or maybe they're an NFL linebacker just running headfirst into another body, putting them on the ground and smashing them in the submission. That's a translatable skill. You're like, yeah, I see that that makes sense. But no one's like yeah, man, I just started taking up rugby league to get better at jiu-jitsu, because it's fucking too much. It fucks you up, right.
Speaker 1:And so the thing is, what has kind of I wouldn't say it's been eating me, but it's just like I don't know why people do this as a mental exercise. They're like oh, I'll take up something that's completely unrelated. I've heard it's really good for hand-eye coordination, but it doesn't mean shit. You don't have to strike in in jujitsu. Like you know, being able to keep your balance is probably more important. If somebody was like do some slacklining or some shit, well, no, not even that. Like it's funny, because you like, for a long time, uh, there was this thing with stability work. People get on fit balls, right. Oh, I can do squats on fit balls and I'm jumping from a fit ball to a trapeze. It's never going to sweep me again. It's like no, they've done studies to show that it only makes you good at balancing on a fit ball. It actually didn't reduce ACL injuries in football players, right, you know and I'm not saying that means that everything you have to do is jiu-jitsu.
Speaker 1:But if you were thinking of taking up a second thing to improve your jiu-jitsu, I would not recommend it be pickleball, badminton, baseball bat and ball shit. Like, don't do it to yourself, you're wasting your time there. How about cricket? Surely it's fucking God's game. Shut the fuck up game. God must be a boring drunk. I hate cricket. No, it's just one of those things that like I'm sure there's fucking smashing sixes all over the park. Get the fuck out of here. No, it's, it's a drinking game. In the same way, I think baseball is very similar. Like if you're super tanked and you just want to sit there, at least baseball players are juiced up. They're fun to to look at Big units just hammering.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know about that. I don't. I can't say that I favor one or the other. But what? Why am I talking about this?
Speaker 1:If you go to jujitsu and you have someone across from you and their hobbies are like recreationally, I play, or they were an ex, they also do powerlifting, they also do wrestling, like these are their hobbies outside of jiu-jitsu, they're going to destroy your badminton ass. You've got to think that the things you do outside of jiu-jitsu can just be for fun and that's cool. But don't kid yourself in thinking that it will actually improve your performance in grappling Right. You know what I mean. Yeah, like in summer, you know we were kind of talking about Joey is going to turn into Guido Hatzitz. He's going to start dutzing everyone. He's going to start striking. It's great as a skill to have.
Speaker 1:Striking is distance management all that. It's a totally different skill to grappling, which is just fucking come here, grab. You know, even though there is a degree of distance management in the stand-up you have to still find a way to get your hands on a person, whereas in striking that's a different fucking story. Yeah, I have seen many high-level strikers absolutely just eat shit at jujitsu. You know, like kickboxing champions come to jujitsu, get put on their back in a hard crossface and then want to quit. It's too much, it's just they just don't know how to deal with that.
Speaker 1:Jimmerson was the original. Oh, really, he was the boxer that fought Hoist Gracie with the one boxing glove. Oh right, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Hoist kind of just had him in side control or something and he tapped. Oh wow, maybe he turtled and yeah, I don't think he actually had a choker applied, but Art was just like he's fucking squeezing me, get off me, get off me, stop hugging me. Yeah, and it's just one of those things that there are certain things that you might do for fun. That's totally cool, enjoy that.
Speaker 1:But don't think that that's going to help your jiu-jitsu. I think you've just got to burst people's bubble here a little bit and look, you might just think, oh yeah, but this person, they do X, y, z. That's not what's making them a great grappler. In the same way, the Diaz brothers, when they smoked weed them. Smoking weed didn't make them fitter, but they're so fit they smoke weed. It's in spite of. They did well in spite of smoking weed. Now you could say, oh, the weed helped them focus, because maybe they had adhd or whatever the fuck, but that the weed smoking wasn't the key ingredient to being a great fighter.
Speaker 1:There's many other elements as to why they are as good as they are, and so when you see a guy like um, say, jeff glover, jeff glover loves to bounce around on a fitball and flip and jump and all that, that's not what makes his jiu-jitsu awesome. You know, and I think the problem is people tend to conflate things. They take something that's unrelated and think it's causal, and it is not. It is not causing them to be good at jiu-jitsu, it's just there and they also are good at jiu-jitsu. Don't make this mistake.
Speaker 1:Pickleball sounds like fun. Can't wait to give it a try. Look out, sounds like a drinking game. Here comes Joey. No, it's just it's. It's you know how? In Brazil they have like a on the beach, the kind of paddle ball. It's like a doubles. It's like a doubles version of that with like a net. Nice, it would be fun. Yeah, I'm sure. If recreational activity get your heart rate up, yeah, why not? Because you're wasting your fucking life, you idiots. What are you doing? Like you do jujitsu, please do things that will enhance that. That's what I would encourage you to do. Very nice, much love.
