The Best BJJ Advice You'll Ever Receive Is...

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Chapters

• 0:03 Ready, Not Tense: Framing the Topic
• 0:32 What Makes BJJ Advice Good?
• 1:09 Context Matters More Than Opinions
• 1:44 Tools, Jobs, and Individual Fit
• 4:57 Autobiographical Advice vs. General Truths
• 7:15 Limits We Place on Our Own Jiu-Jitsu
• 10:56 Read the Person, Not the Hype
• 13:24 Seek to Understand Before Advising
• 16:25 Two-Part Filter: Know You, Know Them

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

Better listen very carefully. A good martial artist does not become tense but ready.

SPEAKER_02: 0:12

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_01: 0:27

I'm ready. What is good BJJ advice and what is not? Now, everyone likes to share their opinion with you. They like to tell you what to do. And sometimes when you don't know what to do, for lack of a better answer, you go, That's it. That's the answer. And it's not necessarily the case. We need to actually work out if the person giving you the advice is giving you something which will help you or hinder you. And we need to break it down a little bit. So uh Joe, there was there was a scenario where someone was given some advice. They brought it to me and they said, Is this good advice? And I said, Heck no, that is terrible advice. What kind of advice? It it was training advice, but it, you know, like gym work or gym stuff. But this this person generally people speak from their experience. And that's for the most part, that's what people have.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

Or they have some professional knowledge or they've they've seen some stuff. So they they draw their conclusions, but they don't necessarily explain it or relate it to you as an individual. Yeah. And and generally, you know, the best advice can take many levels. Sometimes devoid of important context, perhaps. Yeah, a lot of a lot of context. And so I I had read a book re recently called Adapt, and it's all about uh thinking and problem solving, asking different questions, and it brought up some relevant points that I wanted to uh kind of talk about with within the world of uh BJJ. Because you know, it's a big it's a big thing, the the skills, the fitness, the the philosophy, all the stuff. But sometimes when someone's giving you advice, it it actually has nothing to do with you. It's just them, someone just giving them um a biographical kind of monologue of what they've done. And you're like, oh, I could just copy that person, they're great. And this is the thing that I commonly get. I you've you've you've probably had a similar experience, Joe, where someone goes, Oh yeah, but like Gordon Ryan does this, therefore X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_00: 2:31

Obviously, that's what's gonna work for me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:32

Yeah, and uh, I mean, if you've actually met the person or you understand them a bit more, you might have more insight to say, well, hey, maybe that's not the case. Have you have you had examples of this, Joe, where someone's either given you what they thought was good advice and it was trash, or you know, have you had this scenario?

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

Yeah, I mean, I I think as a coach, right, as a long time coach, I sniff it out pretty quick when someone's just giving me when someone that's unqualified to give me advice. And what I mean by that, like I'll take advice from anyone, right? From anyone, but I can discern usually if it's good advice or a stab in the dark or bad advice. Yeah, and so what I mean by that is yeah, when someone just gives you something and you're like, this motherfucker knows nothing about me, and they've given then I'll I'll I'll treat that as a very cheap piece of advice. Yeah. But when it's when it's someone that I respect as a coach or when it's information that I know they've given me based on their consideration of my context, then I'm like, fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

And I I think that's super important, right? Like you can have many people who are good examples, they they live, they live by their values, and you're like, oh, that's a good example. They're they're they're living by what they believe, right? But that doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. And I I think that when you are in the the job of coaching or helping someone else, you always try to give it that context of how does this work for them? And so I was saying this about uh this works specifically for exercise, but it also works for BJJ as well. Is you've got the job to be done, whatever that is, whether it's a takedown, a sweep, a lift, and you go, right, this is the job to be done, whether it's getting stronger, getting more flexible. Uh there's tools to address the job, but then it's like how to use the tool. And you've got to ask yourself, could this person use this tool to for this job, this problem that they have? And for the best part, people in jujitsu, they don't don't even think about it that deeply. They just go, yeah, I always hit this sweep. It's the best sweep ever. You're like, uh, maybe that works for you because you're six foot six and you you've got you know legs as long as I am tall. And so I I think what I wanted to do with this chat is just talk about that there are ways for us to look at somebody and and identify whether or not this is this is a good piece of advice, or maybe it could be steering you in the wrong direction. So the the first um framework that was being used in this book, and I I've forgotten the name of the author, but whatever. Hopefully, uh we can search it out and someone will drop it in the comments to let me know. It was saying, is this advice purely autobiographical? So it is just it only lives within the world of this person's experience, that it does not generally apply anywhere else. Right. And so, sure, it might be really good for them, but they've actually never tested it outside of that. They've never taught anyone, they've never helped anyone else get better at business, jujitsu, whatever else. So they're like, yeah, it works for me. And so that's that's only one data point. And it and so the analysis on this was has this belief or has their advice helped them or limited them? And and would it help you or limit you? Right. You know, and so I think this is this is like a pretty good way to look at things in terms of like like a belief system. So oftentimes people were like, oh, if you don't want to do that, that'll just it'll get you small. Oh, I wouldn't want to stretch, it'll make you weak. You know, oftentimes people learned something many, many years ago and they never updated their knowledge. So the advice they're giving you was I've been running lately, by the way, but I'll save that for later. How dare you? Oh my god, you're about to flip this podcast on its head. Oh my god, Joe.

SPEAKER_00: 6:18

All right. Now that's there is one universal truth we know.

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

Go on. No, no, no, no, no, no. We can we could talk on that. But it it's interesting because you might get someone who is quite and this is talked about uh a a fair bit, uh, that you know, your jujitsu coach isn't necessarily your life coach. Sometimes they're cool with the philosophy and they can give you something nice, but they might just be really good at jujitsu and then terrible at everything else.

SPEAKER_00: 6:43

Yeah, so you want to kind of know vector that in when accepting advice, advice, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 6:50

Especially crypto investments, yeah. Well, like if their love life is a mess, you don't want to take dating advice from that kind of a person. So I the thing with me is whenever I'm talking with somebody, I'm always interested to understand uh about their beliefs and how they're going because sometimes people are just enjoying their lives and they're having a good time, and why would you spoil that? But uh oftentimes people are walking around with ideas that are maybe holding them back. So, for example, uh relevant to jujitsu, I trained with a guy many years ago. He was very much in the the camp of the Miao brothers, Mendez brothers, Bolo when that was like really hot, talking probably 2012-ish, and it was just like, oh, the Birambolo is the oh, it's the secret weapon. This guy would never come up, even if he'd half swept, he would never even come up on the sweep. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, Oh, well, I don't want the risk of getting swept. I'm like, but you could get two points, right? You could that could make the whole match. He's like, Yeah, but I don't want to risk it. I'm like, so so what then? He's like, Well, I'm just gonna keep doing this until I take you back. I'm like, what if you don't take my back? He's like, I was like, mate, that seems you're a bluebelt. That seems to be kind of limiting in terms of your whole jiu-jitsu. Don't get me wrong, like, you know, I want to encourage everybody to do their jujitsu their way, but it just really struck me as uh antithetic to jujitsu. Yeah, it kind of blocked the learning and the development. I was like, wow, that's crazy. And it wasn't that he was young, he was a guy in a mid-just. I want to win, but only in this one very specific way. And if I can't win like that, then I can't win. Yeah. You're like, oh, okay, well, all right, good luck sucking at jujitsu. But it that's that's the funny thing that you often encounter people, whether it be in jiu-jitsu or the gym, that they have these like they impose these limits on themselves artificially. Right. And then they someone might say to them, Hey, how do you do jujitsu? And they're like, the bolo is the only way.

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

Bro, never come on top after you've swept, because all you're gonna do is get swept. Yeah, that's that's basically how it goes.

SPEAKER_01: 8:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you can you think of any examples where of someone either giving you bad advice or limiting advice, thinking they were doing you a favor?

SPEAKER_00: 8:58

Oh, yeah. I mean, no one's given me any advice since I got a black belt.

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

But I'm saying maybe more than ever, guys.

SPEAKER_00: 9:06

Outside of jujitsu.

SPEAKER_01: 9:07

Um, outside of jujitsu, oh yeah, all the time. You know, when people are just really well-meaning, yeah, and they they want to help you, yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, that's I don't know if that's solid.

SPEAKER_00: 9:16

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm trying to think of trying to think of when like I I witness bad advice all the time in the gym. Um, like particularly when I go on like lift weights and shit at the gym near my house. Yeah. Um, it's just a big commercial gym and there's just so much fucking shit going on. Of course, like just pure fuckery. And I listen, I eavesdrop on the coaches there that doing PT with their clients, and and I eavesdrop on the big guy that's you know the little guy's asking some advice from. And um, no one gives me any advice there. I try to get into exchanges with people. Okay, yeah, because I'm usually trying to give them some advice, but no one wants to hear it. Sure, sure. So so no, to to you know, to answer your question, no, I haven't I haven't had that recently. But I probably give off a little bit of like a don't come near me. Yeah, if you're gonna give me some fucking advice, it better be qualified. You know what I mean? Because I probably know more about all this than you and all your mates. Sure. Um not to sound like a fucking wanker.

SPEAKER_01: 10:14

No, but it's your job. Yeah. It's your job, right? Like I think it's it's here's the thing it's a gym is a social space whether you're doing BJJ or or you're just you're lifting or what what whatever the social gathering is around physical activity. And everybody f has different, um, probably a different feeling on how qualified they are to give advice. I've been here 20 years, I don't know what's going on, kind of thing. It's very different. Like we don't often hang out in a dentist's office with a ton of people. You know, there's not just some random guy on the side being like, nah, nah, like that's nah, don't do a root canal like that. Nah. You're like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 10:52

Like there's a professional in the room. That makes me recall one. Last time I went to the dentist, right? She's uh she's you know, cleaning my teeth. You know, really nice lady. It's the first time I'd been to this dentist. I did my teeth doing the whole, you know, they did the fucking the full clean. And then um she said, uh, how often do you floss? And I said, I floss every day. Oh, and she said, I'd like you to floss twice a day. Oh, right on. And I said, nah, I'm not gonna do it. I'm like, I look, I get it, I understand it might be of benefit, but I'm like, I just know like once a day is perfectly adequate. And uh I'm sure there's a bit of extra benefit from going twice, but I'm not gonna do it because the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Yeah. And she said, all right, no worries. And then she's like, um, do you ever do oil pulling? You familiar with where you squish like coconut oil around your mouth? No, no, no. I don't know anything about this. Please enlighten me. It's a it's a thing, it's a thing in health spaces. You you basically take like a teaspoon of coconut oil, or I think castor oil people use. Okay. And you you squish it around your mouth and it liquefies very quickly because it's warm in there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Nice.

SPEAKER_00: 11:56

Um, but it pulls out like toxins and bacteria and shit, apparently, from the gums and the teeth. Oh, wow. Yeah, and you do it for like, I don't know, five, ten minutes and then you spit it out. Right. And she's like, Do you ever do that? I'm like, I think I did it once. Right. And she's like, I'd like you to start doing that regularly. I'm like, sure, how often? She's like, every day. I'm like, no, it's not gonna happen. And I'm like, because I'm like, I'm like, you first of all, like I brush religiously twice a day. Yeah, and and you I scrape my tongue, I floss every night. I'm like, I'm pretty good with my dental, but you haven't asked me about my dental hygiene. Yeah, you're just trying to habit stack. And so I'm like, I'll fucking do it once a week for you, but um, but I'm like, she's given me advice before even understanding what my process is. And that was the thing where it's like, no, no, no. I understand my process and I understand, you know what I mean? Do you think you would have been more receptive if she'd asked you first? Yeah, so right, like in the gym environment, where it's like, well, what training are you already doing? Right? Or what's your game look like? Why are you doing it? Do you like playing top game? Do you like playing right? So gang gaining context first, okay. Now that I know that, here's something that I think it would help you. Right. So for her, it would have been like, all right, once a week, fucking Sunday night, I want you to oil pull.

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:10

You know what? And it'd be great if you did it every day, but I know you're probably not going to, so just once a week. And I'd be like, good advice, I'll take that. Yeah, yeah. But so it's that thing, right? It's like when someone hasn't made an effort to understand where you're at, then any the advice could be fucking here or there.

SPEAKER_01: 13:25

Yeah, I think that's an incredibly important point.

SPEAKER_00: 13:27

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SPEAKER_01: 14:19

You know, and you know, we're on here giving very general advice anyway. That's what we do. But as part of this, also, I I do regularly, I will ask somebody, like, how relevant is this to you? Have you asked yourself, is this information relevant to me? Don't just take it as gospel, you know. Um, the the thing I was just looking for is the older Italian men who stand around building sites and give advice. Ummarel. Ummarel, exactly. Joey knew it straight away. I had to google. I want to be one of those guys somewhere. Joey, you are the one. I'm fucking already there. You're already there. Except he'll just see some guy like doing some woodwork in a shed, like a garage. Joey walked past by. Hands, hands go behind the back. What chisel you got there? Are you sharpening them today? Yeah, just start losing your edge. Got your flat cap on. But um, it's one of those things that uh the reason why I mentioned a dentist's office, you don't you don't see some random person just coming in and heckling the dentist. I think to put context around, you've been giving people fitness advice, you know, a lot of years, and you've been paid a lot of money over that time to have the craft of doing that. So you're not just some random in the gym. Yeah. You're not just some guy punching a ton of gear and just, you know, being like, yeah, just do what I do. You know, it's not that. It's your professional opinion. Not yet. Not yet. It's coming. But um, you know, Joe's gonna be the buffest umoral you've ever seen. But the the interesting thing around this kind of questioning of advice, uh just unpacking it, is does this person have your best interests at heart? Now, what I mean by that is can this person actually see the difference between them and you? Because, you know, let's uh shout out Big Harris. Uh, he's been putting the work in. Big Harris. Big Harris. You know, Big Harris is gonna take you down, he's gonna smash past your guard, and he's gonna Americana you from sight control.

SPEAKER_00: 16:17

For the other 99.99% of listeners who are not familiar with Big Harris, he's um we we haven't actually met him person, but he's a fan. Have you met him? Oh he's a fan of the show.

SPEAKER_01: 16:27

Definitely. I'm trying to, I I felt like I met him at the ADCC, but maybe I'm wrong in saying that. I apologize. I I feel like I've met him, but friend of the program.

SPEAKER_00: 16:37

He he just he just I think he just won like the ADCC Advanced Division in his he's a big boy, huge rig, like I don't know, tough somewhere between six and a half and seven foot, maybe, and and very big. Strong guy, yep. Strong guy.

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

Don't get me wrong, great dude, puts in the work, does his thing, I respect the hell out of him. And I'm not saying this to, but I'm saying someone who's of that archetype will have a different approach to jujitsu to say, uh, you know, a 55 kilo man who's very flexible or woman, you know. And so they're two very different pieces of advice from those two athletes, yeah, as to how you would approach jujitsu. And I and this is what I was talking about in terms of best interests at heart. Obviously, the person's trying to help you by giving you advice, but if they can't look at you and see where you're at and have enough introspection to see where they're at, you know, mm-hmm I think that this is where uh good intentions can have less good outcomes. Yeah, you know, they're like, well, this is what I do and it's it works for me, and you're like, oh, I'll try that, and you get triangled. Or you you try that and you get fucking crushed. And so it's not that they have bad intentions, it's not that they're like, oh, see how I mean sometimes. Sometimes you get people who are trolls, maybe in Brazil, yeah, or maybe, but maybe just some random, you know, uh vengeful purple belt or brown belt gives a white belt some bad advice just to mess them up. But uh I think it's on you as the person who's receiving the advice to just go, uh, maybe that's not as good for me as it might sound.

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

Yeah, you gotta be able to read between the lines and you gotta take it all with a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_02: 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:21

Um because yeah, I mean, exactly as you said, right? This is where like the value of someone like a good coach, right, is really immeasurable because they they know your context.

SPEAKER_01: 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:34

And and and that's what a good coach does. They know your context and they give you advice accordingly, or they go accordingly. Yeah, yeah. And and that that advice obviously changes over time as you progress. It's it's like when I did um I did a Lucas Leprey seminar a bunch of years ago at at you know the the Alliance in Sydney, Adam's first gym, and um none of his game applied at all uh is just so complicated. There's too many grips, too many steps. I was just like, nah. And so, you know, I mean, potentially if I had a conversation with him outside of that and told him this is what my game, you know, maybe he would have given me, but I just coming off that, I was like, wow, this guy's multiple time world champion, amazing. But whatever it is that he was selling that day, I was like, no, I'm not buying any of this.

SPEAKER_01: 19:19

And I think that's possibly where seminars are maybe less valuable than say private lessons, yeah. Because it's just it's generic, it's like one size fits all. And so, yeah, it's it's still good jujitsu, but it doesn't mean it's applicable. Yeah. Um, and then I think the other thing to the other question to ask when given when you're receiving advice from someone or you're seeking advice from someone is to ask why do they have this perspective, right? And this is this is the thing I've been trying to do a bit more to be a bit more reasonable in my approach of being disagreeable. Wow. Because you know, talk about steel manning something, right? Like you're like, okay, why if I were to have this person's perspective, why why would they think that? Why would Dr. Mike think TGUs are no good? You know, because maybe he's never done them that much, and maybe he just doesn't, he just thinks it's a a joke because it's not it's not relevant to him. So you go, okay, in that context, that makes sense. But in the context of it not being relevant to BJJ, then that's maybe a different conversation, you know what I mean? So that's the thing I have been asking myself more recently. Why does this person think this? And sometimes, if I could be fucked, I will say, what why what makes you say that? Like where what in your experiences have led you to think XYZ? And on the internet, generally people don't give a fuck for that much nuance. They're just like, you're wrong, dickhead, fuck off. You're like, oh, okay, great. I'm with you. You can fuck off too. Great chat. Um, and so that I think for me makes me realize that often people don't they don't even think about why they say what they say, they just say it. They're just like, oh yeah, it's good. Does the job, yeah? And you're like, nah, I for me personally, because I barely listen to fucking anyone, I just don't. Uh I'm very resistant. Unless the person is really qualified and they're really fucking good at what they're talking about, then I take interest. But generally, I'm very um I'm not receptive to just general advice. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Unless it's very specific and it solves a problem that I need solved, I'm not hearing it. Because I I feel like for the best part, it's a it's a waste of time. And it doesn't mean you can't learn from anyone, you can, but I'm only interested in a very small amount of things. And the rest of it for me, I feel is like very distracting. Uh and so when it comes to uh the the perspective, and and you you probably I think you're probably you're pretty good at this because you actually do this to me a little bit. You will sometimes I'll say something maybe a little bit outlandish, because also I'm trying to I'm trying to get an emotional reaction from Joe, which is challenging sometimes. And you'll be like, What? Hang on, what why did you say that? What are you what are you talking about? And then you you you you make me um qualify what I've said, and that's it's really good, right? Is that a habit of yours in terms of just talking with people, or is this something you've kind of learned over time in terms of just trying to uh have a conversation with with with another human?

SPEAKER_00: 22:33

Uh Stephen Covey, seven laws of highly effective people. Okay, yeah. Seek to understand before being understood. Ooh, there you go. That's a fucking soundbite right there. Fucking big one, man. Like just well, okay, I'll using your specific example, right? Uh, in an exchange, you you taught you say a lot. I do. You say a lot, and um so so I'm prepared, like, all right, you're you're you're you're going on a thing right now, and I've got to go with you. And and so the foundation upon which that you're making this case, I need to just well, hang on. This is foundation one, clarify that for me. Okay, cool. Yeah, proceed, next one, so that I can gain the whole picture.

SPEAKER_02: 23:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_00: 23:17

Versus if I just let you go, I'm like, fuck me, there's about half a dozen things you said, which I probably mostly disagree with, but I also don't understand the context. So I'm like, so it's it's context, right? I gotta know. And sometimes, right, it is also like, is, and this is the case with anyone that you're conversing with, is what they're actually saying what they're trying to say, or are they trying their best to communicate something and the word what they've said hasn't done a perfect job of that. So then in that way, it's like, all right, let me get to the heart of what you're trying to say. Yep. And so, yeah, that's a bit of that. But I but so and so I know that with you, right? Whereas if I like I've learned this, right? We've been in business for long enough. If I respond and I and I haven't got my ducks in a row, yeah, then potentially it's like, oh wow, we're just we're we're both out on some fucking dinghy in the middle of the ocean, no one's got any fucking oars, and it's like this isn't good for anyone, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, let me try and whittle this down to a thing and then we can talk about the semblance of organization.

SPEAKER_01: 24:20

Some information that maybe you could use, not just two men rambling.

SPEAKER_02: 24:25

Fuck you, Xavier.

SPEAKER_01: 24:26

Um, yeah. So look, I I think at the end of the day, whether it's fitness, health, business, anything like that, as much as a person can be a very good example of the advice they would give you, it doesn't necessarily mean that is the thing for you. So I think there's like two important pieces of the puzzle here. One, understanding your situation, because if you actually don't know where you're at, you don't know where the holes are, and therefore you don't know what's applicable. And then two, like, is the person giving you the advice do they even, you know, can they even look beyond their own experience to see if, well, maybe this isn't relevant for you. I think that's like a a really important piece of that. And if you don't know where you're at, and the person you're seeking advice from doesn't even care where you're at, then the the information's almost it's almost borderline irrelevant.

SPEAKER_00: 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:21

Yeah. There it is, folks, question the questions, and maybe you'll get an answer.