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
We Left BJJ And Here Is What We Found Out…
Have you missed training a few days in a row? Maybe a few weeks? Maybe a few months? It happens to all of us along the journey for various reasons. The biggest part of this is the fact that you do get back on the mats. Even though it may seem daunting to head back to the gym, getting the first class out of the way is the biggest part.
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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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1: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 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-.
Speaker 2:COVID-19 effect.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:Yeah, imagine.
Speaker 2:I mean, this was something that a lot of people reported during COVID right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When, like, people stopped going to the gym, stopped going to jiu-jitsu, and there's something to be learned in that.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2: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?
Speaker 1:No, I believe there is a point at which it doesn't do that, but I was still kind of going to the gym.
Speaker 1: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 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.
Speaker 2: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?
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of a lot of folks feel that way for sure.
Speaker 2: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, certainly the biggest primary one initially is just the physicality piece, isn't it?
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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?
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:What did you arrive at?
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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?
Speaker 1:no.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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 and that's usually maybe a bit of a battle because something else will take its place.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1: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?
Speaker 2:Tell me how I do that. I haven't checked my inbox for six weeks Sort of.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:I don't do any of that Plot for their downfall.
Speaker 1: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 go to sodicomau, use the code BULLETPROOF15, and you get 15% off today.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:You think he didn't know?
Speaker 1:it was going to do that? No, not at all. I think he was like nah, I got this guy for life.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:it's just got a nice glow on it, dude. Um fuck, was I gonna shit.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:It was also like I probably built too much of a dependency on that relationship Right that now it was not in my life.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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.
