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
The Pain Paradox: Why Jiu Jitsu Enthusiasts Embrace Suffering
Do you love the sport of Jiu Jitsu? Do you consider yourself an athlete? OR, are you just a masochist using Jiu Jitsu as your mechanism. We dive into why BJJ folks love the pain that comes along with Jiu Jitsu and what the reasons are behind that.
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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. We all suffer in jujitsu, but what is the quality of your suffering and can you improve it? What the hell am I talking about?
Speaker 1:I believe that jujitsu people, bjj folks, are actually masochists. Jujitsu is really just BDSM in cotton pajamas People hurting people, other people taking the beatings, the people doing the hurt and like it, the people taking the beating, like it, and the roles interchangeably switch. Bondage domination, it's all there. It's all there. The amount of uh to argue with, yeah, and it's all there, it's all there. The amount of uh to argue with, yeah, and it's kind of we get embarrassed about it but we kind of don't mind. You know, it's it's all part of poor heart of joe, that's right, it's all it's all part of being a man. But but ultimately I I think that the thing that we're not thinking about in our lives is as many parts of our life that are hard, and I was watching a video the other day and I didn't love it, but it was true. It was saying you know, being unfit is hard, like it has its own difficulty. Going to the gym is hard. You know being an alcoholic is hard, but being sober is also hard. You've got to choose your hard right. You've got to choose where you find difficulty. But there was a quote that really fucking hit me the other day which was pretty powerful and essentially it was saying something easy, done in the name of pleasure, it's short-lived and the shame lasts a long time, whereas something hard done, like repeatedly, even though it is harder in that short term, the pride or the value and the carryover goodness of it lasts a long time, or the value and the carryover goodness of it lasts a long time.
Speaker 1:So we often do things that maybe we're not super proud of. We might have parked a bit bad, taken up two car parking spots just on a shit park. You're like I'm just going in for milk, it doesn't matter, it'll just be five minutes, but you know you're not proud of that. In the same way, if you do a good park and you nail it and you've made space for someone else, you're like I've done my civic duty here. You'll reflect on that park for many years to come. Yeah, you know you're dying in deathbed. Oh yeah, I parked well, you know like that.
Speaker 1:But it's all these little things that build our life right, little things that build our life right, and the quality of your suffering is what I want to talk about. Because there's a guy I know let's call him Sam. His name's not Sam, his name's Kyle, but so anyway, let's call him Sam. He's fucking. This guy complains about everything. His life is fucking easy. You sit him on a satin cushion. The cushion's like fucking not soft enough. You know like there is nothing about this guy's life which is hard and, as a result, everything is suffering to him. You know like there's actually no, he doesn't have a true gauge on how hard life can be and so, therefore, everything's fucking hard. You know, yeah, like fuck, my room service just shows up, struggle, shit. You know like, oh fuck, dude, like what can I tell you? You know like hopefully, challenge will present itself in your life. It'll fucking learn your fucking lesson.
Speaker 1:The great thing about jujitsu is it gives us an opportunity to suffer in a controlled way, which then allows us to have an experience on life. Like they say about wrestling, that like, once you've done wrestling, like everything else is easy kind of thing and I honestly believe, if you train hard, whatever that looks like for you, whether you're trying to be a world champion or you're just, you're a two or three or weaker like those moments of intensity that allow, that frees us by giving us a certain amount of hard and suffering. That, like, makes the rest of life's experience more controllable. And I feel that when we start to think about a value in the suffering and the challenge, it makes it better for us. Right, does that make sense? It does. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine, yeah, I very much share the same sentiment about jujitsu and that it allows you to live a deeper experience of things.
Speaker 1:Do you think there's a lot of people who perhaps I'm sure people listening are like, yeah, fucking a vibe with it. But do you think there are people who train jiu-jitsu that are maybe not fundamentally aware of this? Yeah, 100%. And this is why I wanted to talk about improving your suffering, because there's people who do come to BJJ and then they complain about many things related to it. You know, I've got this key graze on my face. I'm getting these cauliflowers. No, my fingers hurt all the time, bro. That's the fucking juice. That's what it's kind of what it's about. Like life is 99% journey, like there's no arriving in this thing. That's what this is. That is the value.
Speaker 1:The value in undertaking this is the suffering and the learning it gives you, which then opens you up to be a better human in your day-to-day life and there's too many motherfuckers complaining about things that really are kind of good for them. In a way, like in the same way when the body has like an immune response, like an antibody, you know, you bring in a weak version of the disease so the body can build like a tolerance for it and then your immune system is strengthened. Very similar to jujitsu. You have these lower, smaller forms of suffering. So when you come to a really great suffering or a great sorrow, like death or whatever it might be, some kind of loss or everything you built, your business collapses. You have started to build a toolkit and a tolerance for suffering that enables you to get through that shit.
Speaker 1:So that's where I feel that a lot of jujitsu folks are missing, that the suffering is the that's kind of the good. You know people like, oh, this is the shit thing about jujitsu, like nah, man, that's that's kind of good. As much as we don't like to glorify injuries and we don't like to glorify, like, doing things to death. I think there is a value in the suffering you get from jujitsu, which people are missing and seeing it as negative. Yeah, I think, um, I often, you know, when I, when I think about stopping jujitsu right, it was something I reflect on, you know, sort of regular intervals, uh, just like, oh, how's that going to play out, what's it going to be like when I decide, you know, will that time come? And the.
Speaker 1:The thing that I always find very hard to reconcile is that it's very hard to add something else into my life that's going to give me the same level of kind of physical suffering and spiritual, and I mean that's a very privileged thing to be able to say, right, no, I was literally watching fucking videos on some of the, some of the gaza victims, sure you say, which just fucking have, you know, destroyed? Yeah, and I feel I feel really, actually really sad about that. So, you know, in a way, I just got to acknowledge that for me to sit here and talk about how this simulated thing that I do, jiu-jitsu is, but, but let's keep it. Uh, relative to our life, it is though it is, it is like one of the toughest things that a lot of people who live in an affluent Western society can go and do. Right, and for some people, it is absolutely the hardest thing they'll ever do in their life.
Speaker 1:Sure, and look if you're making all the right moves. You're listening to the podcasts, you're gathering information, you're learning about health, about flexibility, about strength, jujitsu, performance, and you're even upgrading your behaviors. Maybe you're doing the hydration thing that we've been telling you. Maybe you're even going to the gym, but when you go into the gym, your shit's a little bit inconsistent. Sometimes your training's good, sometimes it's not so good, and over the course of the week you don't really know if you're getting any better. This is exactly why we created the Bulletproof for BJJ app. It's so that you can follow simple plans which are going to maximize your gains in the gym strength and flexibility without having to spend any more than a couple of hours a week there, so that you can focus your time on the thing that you love, which is jujitsu.
Speaker 1:You can take a two-week free trial right now of the Bulletproof for BJJ app. All you got to do is go to the app store, download it and start training. And the best part is, once you join the app, you'll be able to speak directly with JT and myself, as well as the Bulletproof coaching staff, so that we can help you on your journey. We also offer a 100% money back guarantee, so if you don't love it, we'll give you a cash back. Go to the app store, get the app. We'll see you on the inside.
Speaker 1:If you've experienced war, if you, if you've experienced like, yeah, this probably, this conversation is probably losing your whole family. This is not what this is about. I guess what I'm saying here is that for many people, the, the, the first world western, take now the east doesn't have the same view philosophically that you know, the suffering is the learning, whereas it's like no suffering should be avoided, no, like I'm going to do whatever I can to not experience that it was like. No, that's, that's really. You know, even though we say, oh, there's no such thing as losing, just learning. Yeah, but people walk around with mad loser attitudes like, oh good, fucking cut on my face. It's like nah, scars man, like that's a lesson, that it's your character, right. And this idea of building character and building resilience comes from suffering and really the key underpinning quality, which a lot of business people talk about, is your ability to take, eat pain and take suffering is what will? They're the people who win in the longterm. If you can't take it, you're going to drop out and therefore, no, there's no longterm gain.
Speaker 1:And I was talking to a friend who has a young family and he was thinking about quitting his job because he hates it. And I was saying, look, man, I know how you feel, because he's not appreciated and he might get promoted but it's not going to make him a lot of money. And he's got this little daughter who's like not even a year old and he's the major bread winner in the family. His wife she's gone back to work but she's been pregnant, all this stuff right. And I said, man, you've got to really and I was really trying to give myself some advice here, but I was really sounding it out to him when you connect your suffering to a greater purpose, it makes it more meaningful.
Speaker 1:If it's just you in your own selfish wants, dislikes, whatever the fuck, it's actually not that meaningful. But if you're suffering on behalf of your daughter or feed your wife or protect your family, that means something. And just by thinking about it just that little bit differently. Connecting your suffering to a higher purpose improves the quality of your suffering. If you're just being a miserly little selfish fuck and you're being poor me bro, shut the fuck up. But I mean, maybe tell your therapist. But essentially, if you can just read and I do this myself sometimes if I'm getting the sads and feeling sorry for myself, I'm like no, no, no, I'm doing this on behalf of being stable for someone else. I'm, I am being less, I'm having less fun in my immediate life so I can be there for my mom and dad. I am living in a place I don't necessarily want to live, so my rent is cheaper, so I can afford to lend money to my friend or these things where it's not necessarily about you.
Speaker 1:And I believe that when we start to think about jujitsu in this way, when you are improving yourself and suffering in the name of a higher purpose, which is potentially helping a teammate or being part of your team or helping your coach, it means more and the quality of the suffering is higher. That's what I'm talking about. I like it. And so for you, joe, have you had like a moment? Like cause? You're saying that you know there's moments of like fuck, do I want to keep doing this? Like fuck, you know, like you have huge value to give in jujitsu and you've, you've been, you've been teaching lately, right, like, those people are benefiting from your jujitsu experience and they look to you as a leader Like, yeah, it may not value, it may not benefit you, it might even be detrimental to you as the instructor right, we're talking about the cost of that but it helps those people. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:And I think for me it, um, it shows me that that, like what I want, like my role in Jiu Jitsu, can evolve if I want it to. Yes, so for the longest time it's just always been about me being the hammer and fucking smashing everyone that I can, sure, right. And then you get to a point where you're like, wait, can't do that forever. I'm going to build hammers, yeah, I'm going to build chisels, yeah, but you're also like, oh, like I actually still really want to be around it. But that perspective, that lens that I used to look at it through, is no longer relevant to my context, too linear. So in a way, I'm not saying I'm fucking coach for hire, right, but it's enjoyable for me to still be connected and be teaching some shit and sharing some stuff with the crew. So I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, like I can look at it through a different lens, you know, and that could continue to evolve, you know. And so, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:Um, it sort of shows me that like, if I want to, I can stay around for as long as I want. Yeah, you know, and I mean, but you're someone who has looked after themselves, so you've got the option. Yeah, you know, and I know that there's plenty of people out there who have that warrior mindset of being injured and that suffering gives them meaning as a warrior. You know, like, and we've kind of spoken about that before, but I think there is something to the just you being very intact and you being very stable enables and helps other people in jujitsu. And I think the difficulty if you've spent a lifetime in juj-jitsu, you know, 15, 20 years you get to the end of that. You can get pretty burnt out from it and you're like, oh fuck, I can't. It's such a, it's so demanding. But coaches, just for the love of the game, will they'll keep it going just because they, they love their students much to their own detriment. Yeah, and I think a lot of them also can't foresee of any other possibility. Right, they, they're just like, fuck, I got to keep this going, which I think is short-sighted. Sure, because, yeah, I think things can evolve and you don't always have to be. You know, you might be the coach that was fucking up everyone. You know you're the savagest cunt on the mats. You don't have to be that person forever. You can still be the coach and the leader forever. You can still be the coach and leader. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so I do.
Speaker 1:I really do think that the people that we look to, that are that are further down the journey, um, of both life and jiu-jitsu. You realize, fuck, they've been, they've been able to adapt jiu-jitsu to, to where they're at, and I think it's the ones that are unable to who ultimately crash and burn. Yeah, that's because, and the and the suffering is, you know, maybe the nature of that suffering changes too. Right, it evolves. Yeah, it's maybe not so much a physical thing once you're further down the track, I don't know. Maybe it's something different then. Yeah, oh for sure, but the way you think about it can really change your experience of it.
Speaker 1:So, if you can just look at a situation which might feel uncomfortable or hard and it's challenging you and maybe it's pushing you to want to quit jujitsu or quit your job or whatever it is. Yeah, I think, if you can understand that we're all part of a context. You know we're just a thread within the great rope of this thing called life, within the great rope of this thing called life, that you are an important part of it and so staying in it it has huge value beyond your own self. So we suffer, fathers, and together we improve. There it is, fam. That's the pod we appreciate y'all. And to help other good people like yourself, please like, share and subscribe. We appreciate it.
