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 To Assemble Your BJJ Support System
You want to get better but you feel stuck? Or maybe you can't stop getting injured, and you don't know how to get yourself back. Even though these martial arts are solo missions, it's so important to get the right team behind you to succeed. Learn a little bit more about that in this episode...
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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?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Are you racing your jiu-jitsu race with an F1 team behind you, or are you solo, stuck on the side of the road in a broken down Tarago? This is a question because martial arts is a solo pursuit, but you need a coach, you need training partners, you need a team, you need support. To be successful in BJJ and any other martial arts pursuit, even though it's solo, you need a team and we need to talk about a different kind of team that's going to make sure you stay in the Jiu-Jitsu game.
Speaker 2:Just on that team thing, is there a little bit of a? Um, there's maybe a little bit of a romance in jiu-jitsu about doing it like the lone wolf, the ronin yeah, yeah, solo samurai.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you know, like, um, like you know, and and of course, like maybe craig jones had a bit of that in his not story. No, I mean, he didn't actually right, he had coaches, but from what you see and what people probably know, it can appear as though, oh, like he was kind of a lone guy fighting against the big team.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's a misconception. I mean, I don't even buy that in any way, shape or form. I think Craig.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm saying that there is. I'm not saying that that's actually what happened, but I'm saying that maybe that's part of the story a little bit.
Speaker 1:Maybe I think, if we look at the history of martial arts, that yes, you could get someone like Miyamoto Musashi, who was like I depend on me, I depend on no one else. Whatever, he still had military training right. He's still like, even though he was like an odyssey in himself, he still trained in the military and then he formed his own conclusions. He did a bunch of self-reliance stuff. But when it comes to BJJ, you need training partners. You can't just kill everyone you meet Like. You're not going to get a lot better that way and if we look at not even the importance of your lineage, you still need someone who knows you to know how to help you as much as you can be independent and form your own ideas. Everybody needs a bit of feedback. So step one is like having a coach right, like that's so important and we accept that. I think in jujitsu it's accepted that you need somebody who you learn from and that might change over time. But you don't come into the game knowing everything and even though you might learn really quickly and your coaches may evolve, you might start with your coach and then you might go train at a bigger team. Bigger team, you travel internationally, you learn from everyone you train with. But essentially, you can't develop as an individual without opponents and training partners. Yeah, so it's very accepted that you've got a coach, you've got training partners you work with, and when we look at the concentrations of teams whether it be New Wave or it'd be Atos or B-Team or Absolute MMA or whatever your chosen concentration of martial artists is, having good people around you helps you in a lot of ways, because it shortcuts a lot of learnings. Yeah, and so we know that. We know that. But now the team we're going to talk about right here isn't necessarily just your martial arts team, the trainer, et cetera we're talking about. Do you have a personal trainer? Because we know there's people out there that have S&C coaches and the elite level jujitsu athletes like Andy Murasaki, or I mean even the B-team guys. Who's Andy Murasaki? Andy Murasaki, actually, I think he might have got silver at the recent World Championships. He is one of the top level black belts in the world who has an elite level strength conditioning coach and does elite level strength conditioning. Ah, right on, like we look at the Atos guys, right, they got Alex um from Electron. Yeah, and so when you don't know what to do but you want to get good at something, you need help, you know, and this is what we do, right, if you like.
Speaker 1:For me, I'm not a handy guy. I'll be completely honest as much as I like to think that I could fucking pick up some tools and fix some shit, if I can pay someone to do it, I will, because I don't want to fuck around and waste time. I also don't want to flood my kitchen, break my car. I really in those realms of my life, I don't want to fuck around and find out. I want to find someone who knows and get help, because it saves me time, right?
Speaker 1:I don't want to waste time and I think this is where you know getting a personal trainer, finding a physio who can help you with your injuries, finding a doctor who gets jujitsu Like they're not going to misdiagnose your staff infection as a spider bite and you end up with fucking medical resistance staff Like I think it's so important to find people who are your allies that help keep you on the track of jujitsu. And you, you, you've gone through a process of uh, even though we we both have contacts, um, in the health and fitness industry, joee, you've had to work through your own process of finding appropriate people to help you yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:You always like it comes out of necessity, doesn't it? When you, when you cop an injury or you've got something that is not immediately resolved, like you go to one, you go to a doctor and they tell you like fuck, that didn't help. And you go to a fucking physio and that didn't help. And so you start to realize, man, I really fucking need someone that just knows what I do. They get it and you know is like fucking with it. And yeah, like there's a lot right that you're looking for. But when you find that person, you're like that person is that's exactly who I'm looking for, my guy, and I'm going to keep that person close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is the thing that is probably not spoken about enough in jujitsu is that you do need more than one person Like as much as you might have someone who's super reliable, your kind of go-to best mate with the advice, whether it be you know, like we all have someone who's like really good at technology. So you've got a mate and you're like man, I've got this problem with my fucking laptop, whatever it's like oh, it's easy, you just do this. Or you've got a mate who's really good at cars, just obsessed with cars, so you're like can you fucking have a look? What the fuck's going on here? So having someone who is very reliable, understands jiu-j, can help you. He's going to save you a lot of fucking time when you break down.
Speaker 1:And the reason why I wanted to bring this up is I'm not really a fan of F1. But I was admiring the efficiency of an F1 team to fucking get a car back on track. So this guy's tire blew out. He pulls in and within I think 15 seconds this guy is fucking sorted and back on the track that fast. And honestly you're like, how's that possible? They've got 20 guys going nuts making sure everything's perfect and there's millions of dollars there. But Jiu-Jitsu is the same and you have a limited amount of time in the game in Jiu-Jitsu. So how much time you spend stuck on the side of the fucking highway with no help will limit how much time you get spend back on the road. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean those, those instances when you don't, when you don't have the team for the specific problem, right, like you don't have someone to go and see about your bad shoulder it costs you weeks, pain, months of pain and shitty training and frustration, because you're like, ah, I went and saw someone but they weren't fucking very helpful and trained it. You know, it's just this, this whole, whereas when you got that person, you fucking go there the next day, you get the information you need and you're on track. You know on track makes you, makes you understand where this terminology comes from, doesn't it? Yes, sir, it does, but um, but it does, but it really is invaluable. And I think it's only when you're faced with the dilemma of, oh my God, I actually don't fucking know who to go and see about this right that you really come to appreciate. I wish I could not be stuck in this fucking dilemma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, the reason why I talk about this is because I've made all the fucking mistakes. I'm not saying this because, oh, I'm so superior, I've got it all worked out. The amount of time I've wasted in a fucked situation because I didn't know better, it makes me cringe now. So I've been that person broken down on the side of the highway, didn't have a spare tire, or it wasn't pumped up, or I didn't know what was wrong with my car. But how good is it, when you've paid for the insurance, to have the roadside assistance? They come, they show up, they fix it for you, they tell you what's up and, fuck, you're back on the road. Yeah, wow, that's great, I'm back in the race, baby Back, fucking ring, ring, and so, yeah, just fucking burnouts in the Taraga.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's the thing about this idea of being broken down. Obviously, this idea of being broken down, obviously you don't stop living your life. You're not just parked, you're parked in terms of you can't do jiu-jitsu, but you're still battling along with the fucking flat tire in life. But this makes your experience of life way more miserable. Yeah, yeah, like I think this is the thing that we underestimate, that that injury you caught at jiu-jitsu turns into like kind of downgrading the the goodness in the experience of life off the mat. Yeah, and, and we just don't, um, we don't really realize what that costs us in terms of just happiness.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're our own worst enemy with, with that shit too. Like, um, I had the conversation with with, uh, my lady the other day where you know she's had this ongoing kind of shoulder pain and you know it comes up quite often and you know it's like how's it going? It's a little bit better today, oh, not so great today. And I was like you know, what are we doing at the gym? She's like, oh, working on some shit and working on some muscle ups and stuff. And I was like like how many of those you're doing it's like, you know, like singles, and I'm like you shouldn't be doing that, like you gotta fuck shoulder. And then, but it's like, but why like? It's like you know, and I'm like, well, all right, fuck. And so I threw the book at her. I was like it's true range.
Speaker 2:Shoulder extension. It is maximal loading, it's um, it's loading. You're going into a passive position under full load. Yeah, I'm just like it's basically all of the things you shouldn't be doing when you have a fucking injury in that particular joint. And you know, I think she's a bit fucking, just kind of spewing that. It's like, oh, why do we have to have this conversation? Jeez man. But you know, but if we step back, step back from, it's like like weeks, maybe months, of talking about it.
Speaker 2:So months where it's been a thing, yeah, months where in training it's been on her mind, it's been affecting the quality of the training session. Yeah, right, I'm hoping that this is talking to you grapplers out there that you're like, yep, I'm fucking on the mats, I'm rolling and I'm telling my partner, oh, my shoulder's still fucked, oh, my knee's still a bit, whatever, yeah. And then it's like cunt, if you just fucking went and did something about it, like went, found that person, paid them 120 bucks, got an assessment, got some exercises, started doing them, this is all gone and you're just on the fucking road to recovery, yeah, you know, and you're not spending months on like subpar training sessions and frustration and just feeling like shit you're trying to get stronger for jujitsu and you're not sure how we've got the thing for you.
Speaker 1:It's the bulletproof for bj app. Now the cool thing about the app is we update the programs. That's right, and we've got some new programs dropping real soon and we want to get you in there. The great thing is, you get a 14-day free trial so you can get in there, play around, have a feel, and here's the deal If you don't like it, we have 100% money back guarantee. So you have nothing to lose. Get on the free trial, go to the app store or the play store, download the app, take the 14-day free trial and we will see you in there.
Speaker 1:Like, why would you? No one, I think none of us. If someone gave you the option, they're like look, you're going to feel like shit for six months, you're going to be in pain and your jiu-jitsu is going to suck. Or you can spend a bit of money, take a bit of time, a little bit of discomfort in the short term, but you're back on the mats in two months and you feel great. Which would you choose? Now? I'm the person who I before being kind of a broke-ass jiu-jitsu athlete, didn't pay money for that you know how you get the wheelbarrow. We talked about the wheelbarrow wheel, like when you've got the, you got a spare tire. But it's this little, don't go over.
Speaker 1:Oh, the cheese, cutter the cheese cutter wheel and you're just like you even feel your cars on a bit of a slant when you're driving like. So, having gone through that experience and it being very immature in my approach to car maintenance, all that shit, Now being an adult and having gone through the fuckery and being like, nah, actually I'm going to pay the extra money to have a proper extra tire. It is pumped. I've paid for the best tires. I pay the premium on the roadside assistance so that if I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere I can get towed. You know, a hundred kilometers and it doesn't cost me anything. Like by investing in the assistance, I've saved myself so much stress.
Speaker 1:When the shit goes down, yeah, and that's the thing we don't really realize how fucked it can get until the shit goes down. You know, and we want you to be prepared, Like not only do we want you to improve your experience of jujitsu and life and bouncing back, getting back on track, but it's also like we don't want anyone to be stuck in that shit spot. You know, you regularly see it, and what the good thing is about being prepared is you're not as shocked when it happens. But when you're not prepared, it's catastrophic. Yeah, you know. Like you're not prepared, it's catastrophic. Yeah, you know like you're really. You're really in fuck town. And so give an example. When I was a teenager, we moved to Dubbo and we had hired a truck to pull our stuff in there. Why'd you move there? By the way, my mom got a job as a course coordinator for TAFE. It was like a very senior position, really good for her career, and so we moved out to Dubbo. Fuck, that was informative. How old were you? I was 14.
Speaker 2:Right on, oh shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bro, it was a tough time. City kid, when I say city Penrith, western Sydney kid Living in the country, mate, it was a harsh adjustment. Yeah, wow, I definitely had to bite down a little bit. I got in more fights in that one year than any other time in my teenage life. Oh wow, I got punched in the face so much.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Right, it was wild. I probably got end up like 140 detentions for fighting.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jesus, I didn't even start them. If you talk too much, you get punched in the face. Were you a big talker back then? I was Hard to imagine, but I talk less now than I used to. You probably deserve some of those punches, maybe some, maybe some. But right, I wasn't, I was just trying to make friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, oh, that's fucked on the weekend I went to the movies.
Speaker 1:No, you didn't use big note, shut up, bang, yeah, basically. Yeah, dude, I'm just defending myself. You know it was a tough time, but, um, it definitely helped open my eyes up and, uh, close my mouth. But, um, so what happened was the the higher truck had retread. So this is when the the truck company's like, oh, we don't want to buy new tires, oh yeah, we'll just glue on this tread. And the retread had worn thin and it whipped off and fucking pulled the mud flap, steel mud flap into the tire, and so it was a double tire.
Speaker 1:It was a big truck moving all our stuff and I was like, holy fuck, like it was just me and my mom and my dad and my sisters were in the Tarago van with all of our shit in that. You were like following the truck, yeah. So they were behind us somewhat and I was like, fuck, we're a bit stuck here. Anyway, my dad had shown me how to change a tire and I'm like, well, fuck, like it's just a bigger, harder version of that, right. So I'm just like trying to lever this steel fucking mud flap out and trying to You're changing a truck tire, I'm changing a truck tire Right on With this crazy jack, yeah, this crazy jack that I had to crank for like half an hour to get it high enough. But then this elderly couple came, just pulled up. They're like oh, you didn't spot a bother. And we're like yeah, they're like okay. And they like pulled out these little witch's hats. They had a fucking picnic basket.
Speaker 2:They made my mom a cup of tea, like had a little thermos and shit, got a little fold-out chair.
Speaker 1:They were just like. I think they were even older than boomers. I think my parents are boomers, like whatever the greatest generation was. That's who they are, you know. Yeah, like they were, they were the. They fought world war ii. Um, they were so prepared, bro, so something that was a very stressful situation. It's still kind of stressful for me, but my mom was like pulled up in the camper chair cup of tea.
Speaker 1:They gave her a sandwich and shit and I was like wow, but I like I was like I'll take a snack anyway, got this fucking tire off, got another tire on, like I was actually able to change the tire because my dad fucking showed me how, and if no one's ever showed you how you are fucked, yeah. But the benefit I think in what we do, joe, in terms of like bulletproof, is not only are we going to pull up on the side of the road and give you a sandwich and, you know, help you out and make you feel better about being in a bad spot, we teach you to fix your own tire. Yeah, and this is the thing for the best part, not everyone's got the money and, you know, not everyone's got the resources to have a full team. You have to become your own team, and so, in so doing, you do need to learn about how to rehab your knee.
Speaker 1:You do have to learn about what are the right stretches. You do have to learn about these different ways of maintaining yourself. So, even though it might take an initial investment to train with a trainer and learn the techniques or whatever else like that, you do have to become quite self-sufficient as a jujitsu person. So, if you don't, because as many people out there are like I don't have money for that. That's 150 bucks. But in the long term it saves you money by investing on learning how to look after your shit. I think that's also another element of this idea of team. When you become more capable, when catastrophe strikes, you can deal with it a bit more, even though it does help to have folks giving you advice and kind of coming in to help make the experience less traumatic. Ultimately it will be you who has to do the rehab, it will be you who has to do the stretches, it will be you who has to look after yourself, on the advice of these team members.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your team allows you to build up your base of knowledge about how to look after yourself and it's quite incredible after you've I mean, even for folks who have been grappling for a few years and copped a couple of injuries they can probably think back to maybe how much they didn't know about injuries and rehab and and stuff prior to doing jiu-jitsu. And now they've been through that. Like actually, yeah, I did learn something when I went through that whole fucking shoulder thing last year.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, those sort of having those allies helps you to become a smarter uh, a smarter operator in this fucking realm of athleticism, where injury is just a part of the thing for sure, and so, knowing that your time is limited, you need to stay on track to get the most out of your jiu-jitsu. You do need help, you do need to learn more, and really, by doing that, you're controlling the controllables, and that means you can have a better time on the mat.
