Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Discussions on improving your BJJ, navigating mat-politics and all aspects of the jiu jitsu lifestyle. Multiple weekly episodes for grapplers of any level. Hosted by JT and Joey - Australian jiu jitsu black belts, strength coaches, and creators of Bulletproof For BJJ App. Based out of Sydney, Australia
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
How Do I Ask My Coach About My Belt Promotion?
In today's QNA episode. We cover questions on construction being the best base for BJJ, how to have the belt conversation, and what to eat for Jiu Jitsu.
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A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready.
Speaker 1:Essentially, at this point, the fight is over.
Speaker 3:So you pretty much flow with the goal.
Speaker 1:Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power.
Speaker 3:I'm ready.
Speaker 4:What's up? Q&a episode. We got three questions from you guys. First one coming in from Callum.
Speaker 3:All right, lads, I just want to follow up on Mr Anonymous' voicemail that he left you. He says that, or you guys are maybe saying that strongman sort of stuff is the best sort of thing that's applicable for Jiu Jitsu. So I'm saying construction, specifically the building trades, bricklay, stonemasonry, plastering, labouring, scaffolding, stuff like that. They're the trades that you want to be doing, especially like if you're maybe younger and you're into jiu-jitsu, maybe you're late teens, you've not got a job. Go and get a labouring job on a construction site, and I think it's the best form of training with the gym. So what do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh the stonemason, my guy I mean shit, anyone.
Speaker 4:I love the fucking question. Anyone that's ever trained with a stonemason, or even a fucking chippy, like a carpenter, like just someone that's working on the tools, physical? Yeah, fuck that Scaffolder, fuck that Like when they get a grip on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of. Actually, what's interesting, the strongman society. Many of them are in trades. You know, it's a very working class kind of thing, because you don't, you don't get a lot of money to do it. So many of the guys I know who are high level, fucking strongmen, have scaffolding businesses. You just see them, you know like. You see them with a ton of steel on their shoulder walking upstairs and shit. You're like fuck me bro. It's, I think, what cal cal in full respect because he's a bit biased, because he's a stonemason um funny new zealand accent, eh funny.
Speaker 2:New Zealand accent, eh how dare you Scottish for the listeners that don't know that is a fucking quintessential Scottish accent.
Speaker 4:I fucking love it, it's strong land of Paul Craig and anaconda knee braces fucking strong men. It is a land of strong men the Highland Games and fucking and women warriors yep, I think he's got a great point. I think, if, I think, absolutely, if you're, if you're a, if you're trying like if you're a young man or woman and you just want to get organically strong, get some money and go to the gyms not really in your fucking sphere of you know.
Speaker 4:Whatever ability go and get a laboring job. It will turn you into a strong cunt I, yeah, I disagree, I agree.
Speaker 2:My only take on that, callum, and you know I don't push this point to push a sore point either. It is also known for wrecking people. This is the difficulty. When you're young you will get a little bit exploited in trades, like if you're a first year apprentice, whether you're a roof tiler or a concreter, you just put through the fucking ringer, basically. And if you make put through the fucking ringer basically, and if you make it through the first year to the second year, like no, I can't, we'll teach you some shit, and then you get to put the new guy through the ring. Yeah, and I mean this is just the the systematic bullying of any good track, um, but my only concern is that you might get badly injured. It might make you in massive Titan of strength but it might also break you.
Speaker 4:That's the only downside. Yeah, and I mean, if we look at um, like if we, if we compare those two things here's a way of conceptualizing it in my mind you have, like the. The gym is a formalized place of practice. Yes, right, whatever kind of gym, it is strongman, bodybuilding, powerlifting, whatever. And to take from Kelly Starrett the way he referenced it, he's like the gym is like a ballet class of dancing. Then you get into like real life shit, let's say like a laborer, and this is like the street funk, dance, battle shit, where it's just like anything goes.
Speaker 4:Now, the beauty of having the formalized environment is that you can work on specific things in a structured way, controllable, on a consistent basis. Right, and so um, where you you know. So to that point, I know you would have had this jt anyone that you've ever coached that's worked in construction for a long period of time. They're coming in strong and all that, but they've always got some fucking major sticking issues, usually with their range of motion, like tight upper backs or a persistently fucked lower back or tight hips or just something that has come about because they do the same task day in, day out with the same tools. Yeah, there is a price to pay for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. No, I'm with you a hundred percent. Sammy the concreter, one of the strongest guys I ever grappled, one of the only guys I've ever seen just like fucking pass Lockie's guard and choke him. It's a pretty famous clip where they I think Mikhail is filming and I mean Lockie's tired, but Sammy fucking gets around and they put the gangster glasses on as he fucking taps him. You know, like Sammy the Concreter bro, like immaculate strength I mean the guy lifted weights as well I think the key is trying to find that sweet spot on having a physically active job without it wrecking you.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a bit of a juggle.
Speaker 4:Yeah, bro, did you know Max and Tom, those two Ukrainian twins?
Speaker 2:Beast.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're Ukrainian. We always called them the Russian twins, but I think that was mistaken. They may not like that yeah not now. When I lived in Bondi the crew of guys that would do the rope climbing the famous kind of crew they'd throw a big climbing rope. And what was it, marcus?
Speaker 2:Bondi. Marcus is the world record holder For pull-ups and rope climbing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he beat some fucking Russian monster to win the world championships of climbing and he's ridiculously strong. He's crazy. He's in his. He's probably in his late 50s now. I think he can still do like he might've even done a one arm muscle up. Like he's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Multiple one arm pull ups.
Speaker 4:Levers and just all that shit and and talk while he's doing it for like and you'll do like 20 reps. He's a wild man, yeah, um, but those twins were like the, the fucking specimens, huge dudes, they. They used to wrestle with Igor Bondi, wrestling coach in the hood. Igor MMA shout out. That's right, but I remember them being like yeah, we fucking work construction during the day and then we come home and we go like down to the gym and do like a million pull-ups and then we go to wrestling class in the nighttime. It's great. And I was just like these cunts are monsters. Like, if you can eat enough through all of that and get adequate sleep, it's going to turn you a fucking savage. You'd be a behemoth. All right, quick re-record because we realized we repeated a question on the show, but it wasn't the same. It was a new recording from the same user.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they must have thought, because we do have a delay, because guys, too many questions, please Must have thought we got to their question or it didn't come through, so they re-recorded it and so, yeah, after listening, jt was right, we had covered that one previously, so we're coming in with another one here from cal jt joey, this is cal from toronto.
Speaker 1:Love your show, guys. Yo wanted to pick your brains on something. I've been training bjj for almost two years now. Nice now, back in december, I got an email from my academy saying that I was eligible for promotion and they were asking me to rsvp for the promotional ceremony.
Speaker 1:I wasn't able to attend due to personal commitments and I let them know in advance. Now, three, four months later, I still didn't get the blue belt. So the question is I know it's generally taboo to ask your coach about promotions, but in this case do you think it would be reasonable to bring it up, or should I just keep training and let it happen when it happens? For context, I don't even think I'm at blue belt level yet. I'm still getting smashed in my roles, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, okay.
Speaker 2:Good question, great question, cal. Shout out Canada, mate. Essentially it's very different gym to gym and it sounds like your gym is very open about like hey, we're having a belt promotion, you're invited, sign up here. That sounds like pretty open discourse. Sign up here? That sounds like pretty open discourse.
Speaker 2:The fact that it's been some months now and they haven't promoted you probably tells me that they have another promotion scheduled at some other time and so really they're going to give belts out at promotion times. So maybe I'm just hypothetical you maybe miss that window. So maybe you've got to wait six months. Not because it's to do with your jujitsu, it's just how the gym works. Yeah, you know, and I know that absolute they would only really have gratings mid year and end of year and that's it, cause the gym was fucking massive so you had to really plan it to to fit everybody in.
Speaker 2:If you feel that you need a bit more time, take it Like. I think it is way better for you to come in feeling more confident in your skills than to feel undercooked. I tell this to everybody, just because I've been the impatient person being like oh, I think I'm ready for the next belt, and just even if I was or not got destroyed at the next belt level and that reminded me like fuck, all right, it's a new level. I think spending more time on the belt is cool and I think there shouldn't be a problem with you spending a bit more time there, and I think your gym sounds like they're pretty open about their times. I don't think it would be unfair to say, oh, is there another grading this year? Or, you know, like you don't have to say when am I getting my blue belt coach? Yeah, but. But just being like, oh, is there a mid-year grading or what's going on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I'd be like hey, coach, I missed. The last grading was meant to come. Could you tell me when the next one is?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I want to be cause, to be like hey, coach, you know like a discussion around that, yeah, but yeah, I think that's good yeah definitely, and I think there should be far more openness about this.
Speaker 2:We're fucking grown-ass adults Like you're not being an entitled child, like you've been invited to grade, which means they think you're ready, that's the signal, you've been given the signal, and so to just have a bit of a discussion about it, and you know you're not doing it in an entitled way, it's just a it's open communication and I think there's something about that which which needs to come into jujitsu, which is just a maturity thing. I think it's just, it's just been open about it and you just want to make sure you're ready, because you want to be there, you want to be part of the club. What you're doing is not disrespectful. That's my take.
Speaker 4:Cheers Cal.
Speaker 2:Yo appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, I freaking love Sodi. Why? Because I'm always dehydrating myself with too much caffeine and when I got to hydrate I get a Sodi. Sodi is the sponsor of today's show. It is delicious. It's got the perfect mix of sodium, potassium and magnesium to keep the water in your muscles so you can grapple better for longer. Go to Sodi S-O-D-I-Icomau and use the code BULLETPROOF15, get 15% off. Get hydrated and power on Shoo.
Speaker 4:All right, next question no name.
Speaker 5:Hi, what's up guys. My name is Masir, I'm from Sweden. I'm a huge fan of your podcast. My question is I'm a four-stripe blue belt. I've been training for about eight years, but the problem was I started in Ogi and in my previous club we didn't get promoted, we didn't get a belt, we just trained and we competed at a high level. And then, when I started, training.
Speaker 5:Gi at the club. I got promoted to blue belt after three months of Gi training. But now I've been blue belt for almost two years and I had a discussion with my coach because I'm almost two years as a blue belt and many people in my club think I should be a purple belt a long time ago. But the problem is that my coach follows the IBJJF rule and thinks that I should wait my two years as a blue belt before he can promote me to purple belt. So my question is like what should I do? Should I just wait or should I find a new club?
Speaker 2:Thank you guys.
Speaker 5:Appreciate you guys' work and stay healthy.
Speaker 2:We've had this before.
Speaker 4:That sounded like a fucking boning machine in the background, like an AI stay healthy. We've had this before. That sounded like a fucking boning machine in the background, like an AI sex machine.
Speaker 2:We've had this question before. We had this question two weeks ago.
Speaker 4:Two weeks ago. Yeah, nah, we never had anything with that much background noise. Oh, we might have had the same kind of question, but not. Yeah, I don't. That came in three weeks ago and it's not played. That was our first play.
Speaker 2:Was it? Yeah, I swear we had that exact same question. Guy had done no gi come to gi. Do I stay with my gym or do I leave? I swear, exactly the same question.
Speaker 4:Well, let me offer him a response anyhow. I mean, it's a common question, right, sven? Sven I think it's Sven, let's just go. Yeah, um, don't fucking leave the gym, man. It's all fine, just keep doing what you're doing. If the coach, if that's the coach's standard for it, that's great. Do two years or three years or whatever. No big deal, bro, like, you're gonna probably be on purple or brown belt for a lot longer than that. Um, it's definitely not an issue that, like, your coach gave you an explanation which, in my mind, is perfectly reasonable, and so I would just be like, cool, and then don't worry about it and revel in the fact that people roll with you and go, bro, you should be a purple belt. That's a lovely thing to hear. You won't hear that when you get your purple belt, no one's going to say, bro, you should be a brown belt. So, like, yeah, enjoy the limelight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is that you know, I'm such a mixed bag on this because I feel that belts matter in so far that you put the work in and you work your way up. So if it means something to you, it does matter. But also belts don't matter in the sense that some people get higher belts and maybe it seems undeserved because their skill level and there's some people with crazy skills who are not higher ranked and you go fuck, they should be a higher rank. What's going?
Speaker 3:on with that.
Speaker 2:And ultimately, either way, it doesn't matter, as long as you're prepared to fucking just keep building. I think that's really it. I think the biggest challenge is you versus you, like, if you're still getting better, you love the coach and you're fucking pounding away on the sex machine. I mean the treadmill. I don't condone the treadmill, I don't know what's going on there, but if that's a treadmill, stop right now. Sex machine I fully endorse.
Speaker 4:Come on sex machine.
Speaker 2:Get that tolerance. You've got to work this ass. What I'm saying is crunch these cheeks, snap your dick off. Uh, I think that you got to be persistent and, at the end of the day, as long as you are, you, in your mind, are like I'm getting better, I'm sticking at this. You seem like a very persistent person. There can be no downside. I wouldn't see a reason for you to switch gyms.
Speaker 4:And if you were like I've been on this belt for like six years, then I'd be like, oh okay, maybe that sounds a bit weird, but you know, like two, three this is all very kind of normative timelines Just keep smashing. Yeah, bro. And also, too, if your coach gave you a shit response, but for them to say, look, this is the rule set.
Speaker 3:This is how I do it.
Speaker 4:And it's like all right, great, it's a good response. Third question coming in Luke Wait, yeah, luke.
Speaker 6:What's up guys? This is Luke calling in from the States. Thanks for doing the podcast. Big fan of it.
Speaker 6:I just had a quick question around nutrition and wanted to hear your guys' thoughts on it. Just for some background, I'm a 23-year-old blue belt, weigh about 170, and I'm about 5'10", training jiu-jitsu about four to five days a week and lifting about four days a week as well. Been doing that for a few years now.
Speaker 6:The problem I keep finding myself in is not being super consistent with how I'm eating. I keep going back and forth between eating what I think I need to do for getting strength and size gains and then going back a couple weeks later to eating to maintain a certain level of leanness, basically because it's kind of cool being at a certain body fat percentage, rightly or wrongly. But yeah, because I'm just going back and forth all the time, I don't really find myself making any big progress in either one of those ways. Just wanted to hear your guys' thoughts on what you think I should be prioritizing. Maybe share um how you guys do things um pretty good about eating just you know whole foods and good stuff but um, it's mostly just going back and forth between um like low carb versus higher carb, and and uh, and that whole thing going down the the joe rogan rabbit holes, if you will. So, um, yeah, just looking forward to hear your guys' thoughts. Thanks, awesome.
Speaker 4:And why is it that a fucking 23-year-old American boy just sounds like a fucking jacked? 45-year-old man Like I never sounded like that. It's Joey, I'm 23 years old.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Man, he's got that voice, he's got that deep, he's got that. Uh, he's got that, that, that deep man voice. And look, there's no sex machine running in the background either.
Speaker 2:Disappointingly no I think, ultimately man it's. It's like many things in life, and making a decision and committing to a thing is is pretty important. And, speaking as someone who has body dysmorphia and and goes through this, this in and out, like every single day, like during the day, in my head the insecure voice has been like you ain't big enough, you ain't strong enough, more calories. Go in the gym lifting the heavyweights. Getting home End of the day, look in the mirror. I'm like fuck, I'm fat. I need to cut back Shit. Step on the scale. Oh my God, I got to drop weight. What am I doing? You know, like it's just, it's really. Your brain can do terrible things to you, especially if you feel insecure or you're worried about how you look, right, and then it's a lot of us, doesn't matter male or female, you have a degree of self consciousness.
Speaker 4:The key is to and irrationality. Yeah, in your self assessment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and, and. Really, from the outside anyone would be like dang, that guy looks fit and you're like I'm a skinny bitch.
Speaker 4:You're like yeah, but I'm like 1% too much, I'm vascular.
Speaker 2:You've got to commit, You've got to commit. It's the same as jujitsu and I think your biggest challenge doing jujitsu as often as you do and lifting I mean, you're a young man and it sounds like you're interested in nutrition, which is great To put on size, you have to eat in a calorie surplus. However you do it, Whether it's high carb, low carb, doesn't matter. You got to eat a bunch of calories to grow, which will mean you have to put on a little bit of body fat. Now I feel self-conscious because I feel like I'm a bit fat right now because my body fat percentage is higher than it's been before, but I'm growing right. So that's kind of the aim. So if you can go back to your goal like, yes, I'm trying to get bigger, then you've got to just tell yourself I'm going to do this for 12 weeks.
Speaker 2:And the problem is, Instagram has our brain warped because you see all these clips of people looking super lean and super jacked and you just don't know their stack. Like you say, listen to Joe Rogan. Man, fuck Joe Rogan. Like he's on more drugs than fucking Gordon Ryan. Like you can look at Joe and be like, wow, he's a cyborg. Yeah, he's a fucking cyborg Like.
Speaker 2:He's not the best example because he's a multi-multi-millionaire who's on all the drugs and I would never encourage you to do what he's doing, and I don't think you need to because you're a young, healthy man. But if you want to get bigger, you've got to eat more. If you want to stay lean, you've got to eat that bit less, and you can do it a number of ways, but you've got to fucking commit to it, bro, and I think committing for 12 weeks, three months, is really good. And if you're already on the leaner side which has been 170 pounds at 5'10" I say you are I would go more towards the bulk. That's what I would encourage you to do, and then, once you get to the other side of the 12 weeks, then make a call where you go.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's solid advice To offer. Like a different perspective, luke, I find the idea of like, choosing a specific thing and like, oh, this is my bulking season. That's never worked for me personally and you know, while I do kind of do that roughly right, like I'm like, oh, I want to make sure I'm getting, I'm really going to zero in on my protein right now, I'm going to make sure I'm getting enough calories I actually think that what works best for me is just to be moderate, like moderation, imagine I know right, you, joe.
Speaker 2:Worthington being moderate, I know, I know.
Speaker 4:It's one of the areas in my life where I feel like I can truly achieve moderation. Fuck me, it's one of the areas in my life where I feel like I can truly achieve moderation. Um, but you know, like, and and this is also you know me, you know in my 40s now, like I, you know talking to guys at the gym and stuff. I'm talking to a guy in his 50s the other day and he was talking about how his son is just like eating the fridge out and he's just like man, like 20 eggs a day, and he's just like. He's like I don't fucking understand. Like he's a bit older, right, he's like I don't get it. And he's like just fucking eat like a mediterranean diet, like that's, that's just what I do. And then this guy looks incredible. Right, he's like 50, he doesn't look enormous, but he's like lean, muscular, strong, yeah, right, all the things that you kind of want to be as you get older, and so I like that's, that's one thing.
Speaker 4:But then I also listened to a lot of the podcasts, right, peter Atiyah, fucking Huberman, all that, and there you know, and even our ass, right, we tell you like, yeah, two grams of protein per kilo body mass. It's a lot of fucking food, man Like. If you follow what the science shows us about, like optimizing for for whatever health on gym, it's like that's a shitload of food I got to eat and it's an unnatural amount quantity because our bodies were actually never meant to be in surplus right, no, and we were never meant to eat that much protein.
Speaker 4:That's right. And so you temper this thing with like well, I kind of want to maximize my return on investment in the gym, yeah, but I also want to like whatever, just feel good, and not be full of food all the time and not be so fucking stressed about about eating, sure, so it's really hard to know where to land. I would say um, you know, if you're getting stronger, if you're, if you're feeling good on the mats, then I would see no need to change anything drastically about chasing a hyper-specific goal. Just keep being the cunt that goes to the gym all the time, gets on the mats and eats pretty healthy 80% of the time, and you're going to be a fucking savage. And that's what I like all through my that's what I've been my whole life Like. If I look for my twenties nowadays, I and my thirties nowadays, I have to be a little bit more aware of what I eat, otherwise I will gain body fat.
Speaker 4:This I've become aware of in recent years. But that's just as another perspective right. Go with the more structured like pick a focus and stick to that because that fucking works, or just ease up on the whole thing and just be a healthy cunt that trains.
Speaker 2:That's true, yeah, and I mean I'm with Joe in terms of the idea of health. But with Joe in terms of the idea of health, but from what you're saying it sounds like you. You know, and I'm not trying to encourage any kind of unhealthy mindset but you got to fuck around and find out. You know, you go eat the cans of tuna, go eat the 12 eggs, go go find out how your body responds. And if you don't like it, then you'd be like, all right, I'm not going to do this and you will find the happy sweet spot for you.
Speaker 2:But I do believe in seasonality, in things Like I will have times when I will eat crazy amount of calories and then I have times where I'm like, no, I'm not doing that and I will let my body change, kind of every kind of three to six months. So I will do a bit of a seasonality thing and I actually think that is more in align with what is healthy. So I think for a season, a three month period, it's worth trying something, whether that's staying leaner, getting bigger. Fuck around, find out, and you're going to get your sweet spot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. And if you can view yourself like as a bit of a training experiment right In perpetuity, it's like well, fuck, yeah, give it a run, see what happens. Some cool shit. Yeah, send us some progress pricks brah, progress pics, brah. Hey, sick questions today, guys. Thank you. If you've got a question for the show, go to bulletproofforbjjcom, hit the podcast page and record a voicemail now and we will feature you on an upcoming Q&A episode. See you, guys, on the next one.
