The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Three months ago I posted that I signed up for a local BJJ gym. The place opened up down the street, and I thought it would be a fun changeup to my routine of lifting, climbing, kettlebells, etc. I’d always vaguely thought it would be fun and valuable to learn a little BJJ, something I always intended to do in the same way that one day I think I might hike the Appalachian Trail or read Proust. Just one of those things that a well-rounded man ought to do. My best friend wanted to sign up at the same time, so I figured that would give me one friend in the gym. I’ve attended, with a gap of a few weeks for in-law obligations followed by the in-laws giving me COVID, an average of 3-4 times a week since the first week of December. Some overly verbose thoughts I’ve been holding in to avoid embarrassing myself in front of and/or boring the piss out of people in my real life with my infinite thoughts about my hobby I’m shitty at:
— This is the best thing I’ve done for my cardio since I was on the rowing team in undergrad. I feel like if I spent a month jogging I might have to change my name to FourAndAHalfHourMarathon. I feel better on the rowing machine, doing long kettlebell sets, and on the mat it is no question. The first month, one round in going hard I was exhausted. After gutting out one and a half more round, I would go home and be in shell shock. Now I can roll three or four decent rounds, walk off the mat, and go home like nothing really happened. Part of that is more efficient technique and calming down, but a lot of it is pure cardio. I’ve always been bad at forcing myself to do cardio, I have a tendency to go for a two mile run and give up after a mile and a half, or to set a goal or getting on the rower four times a week and half ass it for a while before I stop doing it altogether. BJJ forces me to do ten to twenty minutes of hard cardio at the end of every class, because the other guy is on top of me and there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m not forced to set my own pace because my opponent is setting it for me. My wife has commented that I’m getting a lot leaner, though I’m only down about two pounds my abs are noticeably more visible, and I know it’s happening because my wife didn’t just say I’m looking good, she’s getting self-conscious about the possibility I’m looking better than her. I suspect, looking around the gym, that this is noob gains from trying a completely different format of exercise and that they’ll probably max out by June, but there is a ton of value in changing things up entirely, and rolling BJJ is probably about as far from weightlifting as I can get in formatting.
— While I’m a lifting/climbing/fitness enthusiast always working on some goal or other, it’s amazing how going to BJJ has refocused the rest of my fitness routine. "Fight club gets to be your reason for going to the gym and keeping your hair cut short and cutting your nails.” I’m getting on the rower more, I’m stretching and doing yoga, I’m theragun-ing myself regularly, to make sure I’m in peak condition on the mat. And while climbing and lifting have taken a back seat, I’m trying to sneak them in between, because I can feel how the strength I built over ten years gives me an advantage rolling, and I don’t want to lose the few advantages I have. There’s something so satisfying about feeling the results of the numbers I hit in the weight dungeon out on the mat. This is motivating and centering for me in a way other things haven’t been.
— I finally signed up in large part because my childhood best friend, B, signed up too. We figured we would pretty much go together every time. B did martial arts from like ten years old to twenty one, a mixed-up karate studio from what I recall, and had some grappling experience from that. Beyond that, he’s in great shape, runs around ten or fifteen Spartan races every year, typically hitting the podium for three or four Supers (15+ miles) every year. At our first few classes, he was much better than me, simply knowing more and feeling more comfortable on the ground, and also having much better cardio. I’ve actually only made it to about five classes with him in the past three months. We both have responsible adult jobs, and the ability to make it to an evening class just depends how the day is going, so some of that is just B might make it Monday Thursday and Saturday while I make it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. But a lot of it is that he keeps getting hurt. Way too often. B seems to pick up a knock every third or fourth class and then miss four or five days healing up. B seems to be really held back by injuries, most recently his back is so bad that he’s in “I have to really think about tying my shoes” mode. The first few times we rolled when we started he dominated me, the last time we rolled together last week we were close to even but I was consistently taking the offensive on position. In a lot of ways, I think his mixed grappling experience coming in hurt him, because he was able to attempt things that his body wasn’t ready to do yet, and unwilling to get beat even though he was going to get beat eventually. Ego is the cause of most injuries, a good half sports injury stories starts with “I knew I shouldn’t have done that but…” This has me thinking about injuries in two ways. First of all like when signing an NBA star, the most important skill is availability, if you’re injured you’re not training and getting better. We’ve both been signed up for three months, I’ve attended twice as many classes and rolled three times as much, so at this point I’m getting better; an illustration of how injury avoidance is your most important task in any workout. Second, sustainability of BJJ as a hobby is a tough one. Virtually all the regulars who have been there for a while have suffered injuries, many of them severe and semi-permanent. I’m questioning if this will end up being a lifelong hobby for me for that reason. I’ve had a couple of days where Big John caught me in a guillotine and I had a stiff neck afterward, but it only kept me out for a day or two until I healed up enough to roll again and just tell my partner that if he caught me in a choke put it on slow and I’ll tap early. But I’m trying extra hard right now to avoid injuries and just stay in the game.
— It’s tougher to measure progress in BJJ than other sports I’m used to. The gym I’m attending is small and casual and largely unstructured, there’s one “fundamentals” and one “advanced” class each week, but every other day is “all levels adult,” with adult running from local high school wrestling champs to fifty year old black belts who have been grappling for thirty years to thirty something moderately athletic guys like me. The black belts drop in on the fundamentals class and the advanced class is open to everyone, so even those don’t make much difference. There are probably forty or so total members, five to twenty in any given class any given night, and as near as I can tell I’m just about the last real new guy to sign up. So for me, there are a lot of nights I’m just getting beat on. Progress looks like losing slower, like getting caught in fools mate traps less often, like forcing my opponent to methodically take me down, break full guard, pass half guard, and then fight for a submission instead of just rolling over me. To a large extent setting goals has been thwarted by how variable any given night can feel. One practice I might roll with three guys who are just above my level, another I might roll with two black belts and a 260lb former state champ wrestler. Those two practices are so different that the goals I have for each can’t really be compared. The first three months my goals were things like: get one submission. Get a submission from guard. Get a submission from a dominant position. Hunting for those helped encourage me to avoid being totally passive when rolling, and being willing to accept getting subbed as long as my k/d wasn’t zero. Now I’m thinking more in terms of defense, from learning more about the fundamentals, and I want to focus on getting through twenty minutes on the mat, first without getting subbed, and then without losing guard completely. I don't know if these goals are actually achievable, as my opponents probably have been taking it easy on me and have vast reserves of physical and technical ability that they will unleash on me once I resist. But, hey, at least I'll be more fun for them to roll with.
— I didn’t realize people really did steroids. It’s weird realizing first of all that a decent number of guys are on some kind of dosing cycle or other, and second that a lot of them aren’t that strong. It’s really not the difference maker it is often made out to be. I have nothing against mild steroid use morally, it’s something I would consider in another ten years or so, but I’m just surprised to actually see it. It’s one of those things I’m always surprised when I run into people who actually do it, like hard drugs or leaving your wife for a younger woman. I understand that such things are normal, but I kind of assume they happen somewhere off camera statistically, not right in front of me.
-- I avoid rolling with the women in class like the plague. Because I truly have no idea what to do when I'm rolling with them. I don't want to just muscle them around, but I don't want to play pattycake, but I don't want to disrespect them, I don't know. There's just no winning that one.
— I’m dumping so many thoughts here because I’m embarrassed to talk about it too much to friends and family irl because, well, I suck. At what point is it even a remotely interesting hobby? When one enters a tournament? Wins one? After a year? Three? Ten? It just feels so odd to talk about a new hobby one sucks at as an adult.
-- I'm trying to resist the urge to get into BJJ culture. I don't want to read too much about BJJ, get into the debates I hear around the gym that I know are raging somewhere on the internet. I've always over-intellectualized things, this is an experiment for me in just doing the damn thing.
The first half of this post filled me with Dread. I have always considered BJJ and to hear the positive side of it, I was convinced I'd have to do it.
I've always been, frankly, scared of stepping into combat sports. I am not a winner at any sport - consistently Luigi to someone's Mario. That's bad enough in things as trivial as racing - applied to combat sports it just sounds like too much of an emasculating exercise.
Then there's keeping to a rigorous schedule which seems impossible with my work and children.
Between that and the potential for injury that would affect now essentially 3 sports I..... Think this is a safe pass on something to take up?
Despite all this I've always considered it so irresponsible to have no martial arts prowress. I'm extremely bad at carrying regularly and your body is a weapon you have with you all the time.
I guess I'm asking a bit for your take on it given all that
I felt very similarly to you. I'd run across the history of BJJ at different times, and considered it a worthy pursuit, and ran into interesting people who did BJJ over and over from Anthony Bourdain to Lex Friedman to Ray Cappo from Youth of Today, and it was one of those vague things I thought I should do at some point. And then this gym opened up nearby and I felt like ok it's going to be tough to do this at 33, knowing I'm going to need to suffer from the ego death of sucking for months before I improve and being used to being good at most things I do during the course of my day. But I'm not getting any younger, and it is worth a shot.
I'm a fellow non-winner, I've never been the best at anything, decent but not great. And I'm not going to lie to you, there are times it is emasculating and embarrassing and anyone who says otherwise is lying. But it's a lot like golf for me. The frustration of sucking pays off in that magic moment when you hit the ball right on the screws smooth and easy and it flies straight and true right where you wanted it to go. I find that personally, as long as I get a win every week or so, I can handle the losses and frame my improvement as meaningful. I take pride in the little things: being difficult to submit, taking longer to submit, never giving it away, always being up to continue the round or roll again. Remember that the original Rocky film doesn't end with Rock winning the fight, but simple making it to the final bell; even in a weekend warrior BJJ class you can feel people give up their arm just because they're exhausted and they want it over with. Not doing that becomes a point of pride, gutting it out when your opponent has you in mount and making him work for the submission.
Beating my brain into shape to make myself do that has become its own goal of this exercise. I've started giving funny nicknames to the guys who always kick my ass, and when I draw them for a round I'll joke about how I love rolling with them for [reason]. And it's cheesy as fuck, but it actually makes a difference, I'm more optimistic in those rolls and I perform better, fake it til you make it I guess.
As for injuries, they accumulate everywhere. No serious sportsman avoids them, I'm convinced I've avoided serious injuries in large part by being non-serious about a lot of things rather than serious about one. The injuries I see around me in BJJ cause me to be cautious, and lead me to question whether I'll keep up three or four classes a week for the next six years rather than the next six months, but realistically powerlifters aren't any better and running clubs are only a touch improved. Injuries are the price we pay for not sitting around on our asses. But in that way, switching to BJJ for six months is probably salutary in that I'm not trying to deadlift 500 or jerk 285 in that time, so a stiff neck or two is a fair trade for the back or shoulder injuries I'd dodge.
I agree, and wouldn't have gone at all if the gym near me didn't have good scheduling, with classes I can attend every day of the week. Even then, I'm lobbying every time I see the head professor to get him to do a 6am class once a week so I can get in another day consistently. if the schedule were worse, I wouldn't bother.
If there's a gym near you, do a trial class. Every gym I've looked at (three around me, plus another four that are near my summer vacation towns that I checked out on the internet) offers the trial class free. That will tell you vastly more than I can; a lot depends on your gym. Do you like how they do things? Do you get along with the people there? I've heard tell of gyms that don't let fresh white belts roll for months, I would probably not have stuck around in those gyms because the fun and workout aspects wouldn't be there for me; where at my gym I rolled the first class I was there, and the only sop to being new that I got was that I didn't get too much shit for quitting midway through the gauntlet. On the flipside, for another student, not rolling for months might help avoid that emasculation problem. How you get on with the instructors and fellows at the gym is a big one. Your experience is just going to vary. Some bigger gyms might limit you to specific newbie classes, which once again might help versus being thrown into the deep end of the pool right away, some days the move of the day is so over my head I get nothing from it; but for me I value being able to get there any day I can with my chaotic schedule, so if I could only go certain days it wouldn't work for me. To a certain extent, I can't tell you whether to do it or not unless you lived in PA and were going to go to my gym.
Final pitch, that sold me at the end of the day: you and I have this in common, neither one of us is gonna make the fucking Olympics in anything. We're JAGs. What's devoting six months of your fitness program to BJJ cost you, in the grand scheme? Now is the best time to do it, you're never going to be younger. And in six months, you'll probably have learned enough that you can at least intelligently dissect a UFC match in a bar, and roll for fun with somebody should the opportunity arise, and defend yourself from takedowns or get back up and run away in a fight against an untrained opponent.
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