Traditional vs Sport Jiu Jitsu: Which Is Better?

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Chapters

• 0:12 Martial Art vs. Sport Divide
• 0:32 Is Tradition Still Relevant?
• 1:21 Results vs. Wisdom
• 2:14 Bruce Lee, Wally Jay, and Philosophy
• 4:30 Eastern Mystique, Western Reductionism
• 6:31 Sport Efficiency and What We Lose
• 7:34 Achievement Idols vs. Deeper Why
• 11:31 The Power of Philosophical Coaches
• 15:18 Culture as Grounding: Khabib vs. Conor
• 18:36 Respect, Values, and Longevity
• 21:08 After the Podium: Meaning and Contribution

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

Essentially, at this point, the fight is over.

SPEAKER_03: 0:17

So you pretty much flow with the goal. Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless people? I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00: 0:32

Jiu-Jitsu as a martial art versus BJJ as a sport. Now the divide is strong and is much debated within the community as to whether or not the martial arts philosophy and the way it has been done in the past means anything. Is that irrelevant? Has the sport of BJJ slash grappling evolved and now made the kind of martial arts traditional side of things irrelevant? And actually, you know, I feel that this is the martial arts versus sports conversation. There's actually a lot more to it than what people are saying, which is kind of like gi versus no gee, old school, new school. Like I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. And I'll I actually want to get into it because I kind of got into a bit of a debate about this with someone the other day. Right on. And so the way that I'm putting this down is we're looking more at say a philosophical element of like understanding the bigger picture and how it all goes together versus achievement, which is just results. Because a lot of people will just point to the results. They're like, yeah, but if you've got an 18-year-old, like ex, you know, like high school wrestler who's a white belt in jujitsu, but he can just tap out a black belt, they're not a black belt. And it's like, hang on a second. Like that's achievement and and and what you build as knowledge and like wisdom over time are actually two very different things.

SPEAKER_03: 1:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59

Don't get me wrong, I'm I'm all about people having really high performance and achievement, but I don't think one necessarily like is better than or deletes the other. And I think there's actually a solid relationship between them.

SPEAKER_03: 2:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14

So the the context I want to put around this is uh I actually got into a pretty deep conversation with um an old judo guy in San Francisco, and his coach, Wally J had trained with Bruce Lee. Oh, cool. And he wanted to, he just he was on his way out the gym. I was walking into the gym, and they're like, Oh, we want you to meet this guy. It's like, oh, you're from Australia. And this guy just wanted to tell a Bruce Lee story. And I was like, hey, up for it. I'm fucking here for that. Tell me the ways, you know. And actually, you gotta be careful what you're asked for, Joe. So, anyway, without without detracting too much or side questing too much on this one, he basically talked to me for an hour about Bruce Lee learning, I think it's called small circle uh judo or round circle jujitsu. And and and it Wally J was the master of this. He introduced a lot of uh judo to the Bay Area and he trained with Bruce Lee. And so this guy was telling the story of being like a young kind of lower belt in judo and going and seeing them training and yeah, like telling stories about how he knew Linda Lee and it was pretty phenomenal. But the thing that he really that came across from him, it's not that, oh, he's some masterful practitioner, even though he's a very high-ranked judo um older gentleman, it's this philosophy that came through. And part of the reason why Bruce Lee is so beloved isn't just that he was a weapon and he could fight and he was really fit, it was his philosophy. And I think this is a thing that um we we start to lose with the focus on sport and entertainment and everything, is that the philosophy that comes through from martial art is really that thing that sustains you on this this longer path. And I mean, I'm I'm a huge fan of Bruce Lee's, but part of the reason why I loved him so much wasn't just the movies, is like when I start to read his books, I'm like, God damn, this guy's like fucking he's smart, he's got some deep thoughts going on here. And I mean you're you're a Bruce Lee fan, um, Joe. You you either get into that that that philosophical side, not just the uh Action Jackson side of things.

SPEAKER_02: 4:19

Yeah, yeah. Um actually Adam Adam Charles gave me a a book of Bruce Lee's uh philosophical writings, which uh, you know, it's not the kind of I didn't read it cover to cover, but it's like it's interesting, right? It's like his just kind of musings on this on philosophy, right? Um, and I think I think for anyone around our age, yeah, we got into martial arts because of well, we got into jujitsu because of martial arts culture. Yes. And that martial arts culture was sold to us through the action films of the 80s and 90s, sure, right? Stephen Sagal, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, yeah, Van Dam, you know, um, Jackie Chan, Jet Lee, like all this. Sure. And obviously some of those people better actual martial artists than others, some of them just, you know, half-decent actors.

SPEAKER_00: 5:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

Um, but so so for all of us, that was the foundation, right? Like you think about um Hard to Kill Steven Segal. Sure. And the one of the most iconic scenes in that whole fucking movie for me is when he's rehabbing himself coming out of the coma. And he does the and he's putting the he's giving himself acupuncture. Yeah. And you're like, oh my god, he's putting needles in himself. And then he's got the fucking burning, the burning incense on the end of the needle, and you're like, oh, this is so hectic. Magical Eastern magic. Right? And it's it was that whole fucking like prick tease of like secret Chinese shit, yeah, you know, like like kumite.

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dark arts, the dim muck.

SPEAKER_02: 5:47

Yeah, like and talking like Ari's gym. We're talking about that before. Kumite jujitsu. Yeah, definitely. It's like the whole the whole eastern thing is is a thing for us. Now, um the culture that we're in, though, like in the West, is Western culture. Sure. And so I think for us, it's the the Eastern side always presents a little bit of that mystique. Um, but our bias is always to westernize things.

SPEAKER_03: 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:13

And then and I mean, I'm I'm going a bit meta here, but I actually did a conversation on Joe the JB's podcast, East versus Western Strength Philosophy. Ah, okay, interesting. And my whole contention there is that the West is inherently reductionist. Okay. And so it wants to reduce everything down to just the effective thing. Yeah. And a really great example of this is that ancient cultures through it for thousands of years, for fucking generations, have eaten turmeric root because they know it to be incredibly healthy. Fucking lowers your cholesterol, reduces blood pressure. Inflammation, right? But so in the West, we create curcumin tablets, which is a fucking reduced tablet of the active ingredient in turmeric. It's like you could just cook a delicious curry, but instead you want to buy a supplement and have the pill. So in any case, I think that that inherent bias towards reductionism, we do a similar thing in jujitsu. It's like, look what's working on the mats.

SPEAKER_03: 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:09

And so sports jujitsu starts to prevail, but it's sort of bitness in the ass where a lot of us are like, actually, I kind of like the whole martial arts thing. I like the bowing. Yeah. I thought the gi was cool because it's like a uniform and shit. Yeah. You know, so and and not, um, you know, everyone knows I'm a big no-gi fan, but sure, I think in our quest for effectiveness and efficiency, we we're we're sacrificing something.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

I no, I agree with you. I I mean the the the reason why I wanted to have this chat is the the argument, well, not argument, the discussion I had with this person is they were talking about Gordon Ryan. And actually that argument was pretty flawed.

SPEAKER_02: 7:47

The poster boy of the of the Western approach. Yeah, which is you know he's the Dolph Lundgren, ironically, like he's jabbing it all up. And then just the winningest, the winningest, but also a vacuous, superficial, valuesless, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

Yeah, and and sorry if you're friends with him. No, I mean, whatever. I don't I don't know him personally, but I know people who train with him and know him, and he's polarizing. The people who are in his camp love him and think he's he's the greatest. And then and and and and even people who don't like him acknowledge his skill, they acknowledge how great he is. Undeniable, undeniable how good at jujitsu he is. This doesn't mean that he has something to share with you philosophically. The argument that this person was saying was like, well, Gordon Ryan just does bodybuilding workouts, like that must be the best workout for jujitsu. You're like, no, dickhead. That's that is not the answer. Like I think someone, you know, and this probably goes a little bit more between the idea of what makes a great athlete and what can make a great coach. And when you get into more the martial arts side of things and we're looking more at the philosophy, the why behind the how, as much as you've got a lot of great people, like uh you know, and I I I'm not saying this to throw shade in any way, because I'm sure all of these people I'm gonna name have some philosophy behind what they do, but it hasn't been communicated. So let me give some examples Gordon Wright, Brock Lesnar, John Jones, like these people are examples of athletic monsters, people who've dominated and just done things other people have not done. But if you try to talk to them about the why and the the the understanding, it's not there because they don't give a shit. They're not trying to do it to help another person or better understand life or anything else. They're just there about I just did what it taked to win. And that's what I did. And I do the I do what it takes, and that's it. And fuck, who cares what anyone else thinks? You know, and there is a if you look at some of these people It's like the the results, the results are the most important thing. Yeah, and maybe that you could say that's a philosophy, but I believe that there is there is a a midpoint. I I think you can I think you can do both. I think there are examples of people who but anyway, I've kind of I digress. The reason why I wanted to name these people, and I would even go so far as if we want to go more to the gi, a guy like Jacaré Souza, who beat Hodger Gracie, beat a number of people, and it wasn't necessarily because he doesn't have a philosophy, but maybe he didn't have the means to articulate it, or he didn't have the platform because he was, you know, uh like a poorer Brazilian and and maybe didn't have the social media when he was successful, you know. But I think of Jacquaret Souza as an amazing athlete. But if you think of him, like who are his students? Who did he coach? Who did he produce? Do you know what I mean? Like you look at a lot of these great athletes, they had no intention to go beyond themselves. They're doing it for themselves, and that's fine.

SPEAKER_02: 10:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:58

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 10:58

I mean, yeah, I mean, I suppose in defense of that, arguably, you have to be very selfish to be the best, right?

SPEAKER_00: 11:04

Yeah, yeah. There is there is a component of that, but that doesn't mean that you don't have a really solid, like uh an understanding behind it, which the set of values and fuels that and I mean so let's say if you you know you mentioned like Lesnar, John Jones, etc.

SPEAKER_02: 11:25

Everyone like you can compare that and then you go George St. Pierre. Well, that's this is where we're going. This is where we're going.

SPEAKER_00: 11:31

So if we go to the other side of that, and you know, you know, I know people are not gonna agree with me on this, but I think the reason why someone like a Bruce Lee, uh Hickson Gracie, right? John Danaher. John Danaher, uh, I'm gonna go, actually, this might sound a bit far out, but let me explain. Eddie Bravo.

SPEAKER_02: 11:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:51

And I'm also gonna say at the end of the list, Phil Jackson. As the the coach of the Bulls and then the coach of LA.

SPEAKER_02: 11:57

Why are you fucking going into the NBA then?

SPEAKER_00: 11:59

I am, I am. Stay with me. The reason why these guys have had such a big impact on the culture is they had more to say other than just do the umbar like this. Yeah, this is how many times I've won. Yeah. They had people who were their peers who were maybe as achieved athletically, but or maybe they weren't that achieved athletically, them personally, yeah, but their impact is greater because they did think about it, they did put together systems, they did go further than just achievement.

SPEAKER_03: 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

And this is, I believe, born of that martial arts element, which is the philosophy.

SPEAKER_02: 12:37

What about fucking Abdulmanap Numagomedov? I mean, here's a you know, I don't know if you've watched anything on some of them. But but there's a but there's a set of values, right? And there's a philosophy behind this.

SPEAKER_00: 12:49

There is, there is for sure, and maybe it's not as accessible because it's blunt force trauma, um, which is oh, you're a six-year-old child, wrestle at bear. You don't get food till you fucking wrestle that bear. Yeah, I mean, it's tough, right? I mean, you could say the same about, like, say, um uh Tiger Woods, right? Amazing athlete, but you know, his father pushed him a lot, and we've seen that come undone, right? Because morally, philosophically, maybe there's a there's a gap there. Well, there's a yeah, lines can get crossed, right? Well, no, no. The reason why I'm saying this is like, because you the reason why I say this is the reason why I mentioned Eddie Bravo, amongst that, is even though Eddie was a kind of counterculture uh icon, I guess, in that 90s period of jujitsu, and he was smoking weed when that was far less you know acceptable. And I actually didn't like that about him. I didn't smoke weed at that time. I was like, man, I think that's a a note against him. But what he had was he just had a different philosophy on training, and he was so steadfast in it, he decided to invent this whole other system, right? And the thing that attracted his crowd and his audience, and the reason why 10th planet still exists to this day is because he had like an alternate philosophy, which wasn't the mainstream jiu-jitsu philosophy. Yeah, you know, and it it is its own phenomenon within the culture, and you could say that he's one of the pioneers of no-gi jujitsu or for sure, yeah. Like that's what he did. And the reason why I think why Choke, the documentary, is so powerful, is because Hickson has this, it's kind of like a sage-like um wisdom, wisdom, yeah. And he's a fucking brute, right? He's beaten the fuck out of people bare knuckle. It's not that he's not the athlete and he's not a beast, he is, but he has this other element which gives you more. And I feel like the interplay between these, if you look at it, is it will be very difficult to have a Gordon Ryan without a John Danaher. You know, like you the I think where we're losing or where jujitsu is maybe missing out in our big attention on big performance and big athletes, is that we don't actually look at what produces them other than the individual. You know, like you if you if you only focus on John Jones, you forget that he had Greg Jackson. Like, you know, he would he maybe wouldn't have become what he'd become without without the help of Greg Jackson. And that, you know, really Michael Jordan couldn't have become Michael Jordan without Phil Jackson, uh, the basketball coach, because he was quite zen, and you know, Jordan was such an intense motherfucker that he actually needed someone to be like, all right, look, Michael, don't punch everyone's face in today. Like, let's just play basketball together, kind of thing. You know, and he he had an amazing way. He did it with Dennis Rodman, he did it with all these people because I mean, it wasn't that he was a star athlete, he was a he did, Phil Jackson did perform and did a lot of things, but his ability to give the philosophy across, which it sounds strange to draw martial arts, um, but he followed Zen philosophy, he followed uh Buddhist philosophy to try to enable people to do their best. And I I feel like the the problem with the attention, the attention goes to achievement. That's what we give a fuck about. Give me the results. Connor McGregor, fuck yeah, that's entertaining, that's sexy, that's hot.

SPEAKER_02: 16:18

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SPEAKER_00: 17:06

But uh, so who is Connor McGregor's coach? I fuck, I forget his name.

SPEAKER_02: 17:10

Oh yeah. Uh John.

SPEAKER_00: 17:13

John, someone or other? It'll anyway. It'll come to us. It'll come to us, or I'll search it. But really, his major role was just trying to contain Connor. You know what I mean? Like just keep him on track. And I feel that what we miss when we just focus on achievement and we just think about sports jujitsu, we forget that there needs to be a guiding principle behind it. Even if it's not the personal philosophy of the athlete, it's there to kind of keep them from going off the fucking thing.

SPEAKER_02: 17:42

Yeah, I mean, this is this is the whole idea behind a culture, right? A culture is like a like a foundation upon which a person can return to, and it helps to guide their behavior and decision making. So yeah, it's not. I mean, I don't see it as like there's anything wrong with the with the pursuit of winning or the the absolute like John Kavanaugh. John Kavanaugh.

SPEAKER_03: 18:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 18:06

The the necessity to be completely selfish when you are at that top level because you are like you're fucking that's what you or your whole waking hours are dedicated towards you winning. But in the absence of having some kind of culture or you know, um some sort of bedrock that can help ground you. I mean, this is a great example of, and this is what I'm getting at with the with Nemagomedov, right? The father, Kabib versus Connor. Yeah, you could you could literally see Connor become corrupted by his own success. Of course. You could see it with John Jones, less so, but no, no, no. It was I mean, John Jones is just kind of uh just seems like a crazy piece. Crazy character. Yeah, it just seems like a piece of shit, just like a bit of a bad dude. But but Connor, you could actually, because for a time there, Connor's Connor's winning was exactly what he needed to propel himself forward. Yeah, but then it got to a point where it's just started to undermine his whole fucking you know existence, and now he's just a piece of shit. Yeah. Whereas you see someone like Khib, who was so like so staunch in like so attached to his culture, so staunch in the values, right? Yeah, of being a Muslim, being a Dagestani, whatever it was, right? All of those things. Um, you know, the way he retired, the way he conducted himself. But so you're like having that having that cultural bedrock. Grounding is it's grounding, exactly, right? And that's GSP's that guy, Leo Machida's that guy.

SPEAKER_00: 19:28

Well, exactly. Well, I was gonna say Charles De Bronx, right? Like you can look at these people who have achieved the highest heights, and yeah, there's a degree of self-focus to achieve it, but it doesn't mean you have to be a selfish piece of shit. Like we can see Charles De Bronx win or lose. He's still very respectful of the opponent, almost loving. You know, you see him win or lose. Like even when he got knocked out, he was like, Oh man, like good for you, you know. Like he was, and that guy gives a fuck about his hood. Like he's yeah, he's from the ghetto. Yeah, and and yes, I think I I had GSP here, but I was gonna say, look at a guy like Mohammed Ali, right? He had the philosophy as well as being an amazing athlete. You know, he's Did he? I'm less familiar. Well, Mohammed Ali went to jail because he said, Well, I'm not gonna go bomb the Vietnam. He's like, he said, Viet Cong never called me the N-word. Yeah, right. And he literally went to get inscripted and they they publicized it. He lost his heavyweight title. He lost like, I think, like six years of his prime to being locked up. Yeah, wow, because he wouldn't go fight in the Vietnam War. And, you know, I I would actually say, like, George St. Pierre, the reason why he's so beloved is he kept that martial arts. He was an amazing athlete, you like one of the most athletic guys in in that era, but he kept those principles and he wouldn't curse and he wouldn't, yeah, he wouldn't be as entertaining as a Diaz brother. You know, like he was fucking hell. I love that shit. Yeah, you know, and I look, I think Rose Nama Yunus is a really good example of somebody who it was so important for her to be a good person. Like that was as much as she's wanted to knock you out, like she just wanted everyone to know that it she wanted to be an example of like principle, yeah, and and and keeping that. And so in this discussion of I of martial arts versus sports, I believe there is like an interplay, like a strong interplay that that that that philosophy and the people who do take time to build that are the support system, as you say, the culture, the bedrock, that these performances, these high performers can be built on. And you can just see it's kind of sad, right? That a lot of these top performers, they kind of it is hollow because they become the champion and then now what? Yeah, like it's you know, like the result is is one percent of this whole journey. And if all you're doing is speed reading to read the last line of the book, then you kind of miss the point. And and I feel like for the best part, um, a lot of folks in jiu-jitsu are getting distracted by just focusing on the achievement of the outcome without actually cultivating any philosophy or any understanding there.

SPEAKER_02: 22:05

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a cautionary tale because you like going back, yeah, going specifically into our world of jujitsu, you it's very easy to get caught up in the in what's working. And then you and then you sort of just start, then you sort of sacrifice, you're like, no, I'm not in the philosophical world, I just want to fucking learn the techniques that are dominating right now. And then before before long, you're like, Well, I've departed from from maybe the actual thing that got you into it, or maybe not, maybe you never got into it for that. Um, but then it's like, all right, well, whatever, like once your competition years are over and stuff like what then? What do you got? Yeah, like if it's all about that, you know, and potentially then it's like, well, that now's your time to exit. Yeah, you know, but I think for like I know for me, right? The these days I'm like, oh, I'm seeing a role that can be played within the culture that sits outside of just being the toughest guy in the room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:59

And I would actually say there is huge leverage to the black belt trying to be the toughest guy in the room. Well, do what you like. I mean, don't I I would never I would never discourage that, but I think the problem is some people start to feel like they lose their value because they're not that guy anymore. Maybe they were. Yeah. But actually the the the huge point of contribution is your ability to help another person, and then that enables them to be great. And that that is that is actually, I think, the the great kind of circle of jujitsu life is when you can enable others and then the culture continues, and that's what we love. Let's keep it going, folks.