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All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of Elbow's Tight podcast.

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Today I have a very special guest with Josh Janis.

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How you doing today, man? I mean, I'm doing wonderful.

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I would say I'm doing very good, if you would.

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that's going to stay in. I'm not going to remove this.

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Yeah, yeah, that's funny. You know, sometimes you want you have like this, especially in jujitsu, we have like

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this perfectionist mindset of like, oh, we can't we can't make mistakes or we can't

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show like a vulnerable moment or something like that because they'll get taken

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advantage of. And in podcasting, I've realized that.

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And in jujitsu, like sometimes you gotta be vulnerable, sometimes you have to show

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the mistakes because people are gonna learn from those.

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And I'm gonna learn that not to try to hurry up and say very at the beginning of

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a very and special and at the beginning of an episode too fast now.

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But look, it turned out you took that chance instead of holding the person

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there, you took the chance on doing a backstep or doing some sort of weird gator

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roll. And now hopefully somebody laughed at that.

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Whereas they would be like, oh, it's just another bringing the podcast in.

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Nope, nope, now we teed it up with a wonderful dad joke.

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So hey, Josh, let's go ahead and get in straight into who you are, how you got

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into jujitsu and everything like that. Give a little people a little bit of context to who you are.

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Sure, I am Joshua Janis from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 20 years when you add it up.

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My first class was in 2000 when I was a freshman in college.

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And then there was like a three and a half year gap, you know, who knows what I was

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doing, probably partying too much.

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And then ever since then the school that I transferred to offered it as credit back

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in 2004, yeah. 0405 is wonderful and So, of course the student that I was I was like wait I can

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get credit for doing this thing that I used to do Yeah, let's do that and then

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from that Ever since been training jujitsu

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That's awesome. I don't know why we don't have more of like in Japan You know, they have like

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judo they have all these like martial arts as part of like just like everyday

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curriculum like in high school it's like one of those things you take judo, right

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and I guess it's equivalent to wrestling for us like, you know America has a huge

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wrestling but I would love to see more thrown into like the the school system as

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like a an opportunity to learn a martial art or something like that.

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You know, we have, we're even like getting rid of like shop programs and vocational

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schools and stuff like that. No, bring that back.

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Like kids, like give everyone a chance to learn something, something kind of cool

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and having a variety of sports, especially grappling sports like judo or wrestling,

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jiu -jitsu or something like that. I think that'd be kind of cool too.

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I mean, these sports also, like whether it be wrestling, boxing, any martial art,

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jujitsu, the cool thing about these sports is, at least to me, you have to go perform

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by yourself, but you're supported by a team.

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As opposed to football, and you know, I love watching football too, I'm not trying

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to shit on football, but it is different in that you can do your job, you're one of

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11 people. You could do your job as the left guard and the quarterback sucks and the team's

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pretty much gonna suck. Or you can kind of hide as well, you could have a bad day.

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If you have a bad day on the mats and you're competing or you're challenging

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yourself, well then, I mean, there's no one to blame but you.

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But when you get off the mats, you have a team supporting you.

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And that's, to me, I think that's just.

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super, super valuable and analogous to life.

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Yeah, the camaraderie you build in those moments too, I always talk about, like,

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it's one of my favorite things about the martial art is, well, I mean, I think you

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could have that camaraderie in anything that you do difficult things and go

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through adversities with a group of people.

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But I think Jiu -Jitsu, there's a little bit more of the aspect of we're together

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because we're doing it together. And it's, you know, it's like a fight between each other, but it's the mutual

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understanding of like a tap is... you should release it.

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And it builds, to me, it builds this relationship that I haven't really seen

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anywhere else. The closest thing I can compare it to is when I was in the Navy.

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It's like, you know, we go through a lot of BS in the military and you build a

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strong relationship like that.

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And it's the same thing in Jiu -Jitsu, well, not the same thing, but very similar

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in Jiu -Jitsu. for when I was starting my business, so I'm a hobbyist.

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I have a gym, my partner and I have a gym, but it's not my day job, if you will.

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And when I was starting my day job, I did a bunch of team building exercises,

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because what I do for a day job is I'm a coach, one of the companies, coach for

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business culture communication. So.

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It started off doing a bunch of team -building stuff and realistically what

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I've realized about team -building is it's just putting people through mutually

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shared experiences so it's the more difficult the mutually shared experience

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or the more unique or the more emotional that they have an attachment to it the

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stronger the bond is going to be So this this is why the military is one of the

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biggest I mean some of those guys and I was not a military guy.

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So please correct me if I'm you know, I stepping out of line here, but you have people that you're like, I would die for

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that fucking guy or for that gal, right?

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And like when you're on the mats, it's like, you know, that's my teammate.

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Like when you're watching a teammate compete or you're watching a teammate out

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there, you're like, how proud are you are?

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You know, like you're like, no, that's my guy.

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You know, yeah. Or you watch a guy fight, you know.

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So it's just these mutually scared experiences that we have said are

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difficult, which I would say. are, right?

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It's difficult to spend multiple times a week on a mat.

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It's difficult to spend, you know, five minutes under, you know, 230 pound guys,

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you know, side control while he's dripping sweat in your eyeball.

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You know, I mean, those are difficult things.

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And so because of those difficult things, we share those mutually shared experiences

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together. And that's why we we bond and that's why we get tighter.

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What do you think the relationship between like school atmosphere and those

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relationships built on the mat?

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Where do you think, because there could be tight -knit friendships built on the mat

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in a school that has a toxic environment.

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Where do you think the disconnect happens in those kind of scenarios?

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I think I'm missing in the scenarios like why is the school toxic?

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Is that what you're asking? how can you be on the mats with these people building these great relationships,

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but then you know there's like there's a toxic school or there's traits within the

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school that you would like, I don't want to be here, even though like these

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relationships are being built on the mats.

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Yeah, so I think, well, at first I was thinking you meant school, like a high

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school or something. But yeah, that's why it kind of threw me off.

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I'm like, there's a lot that goes into that.

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I don't know. Yeah.

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So ultimately, in my opinion, the culture of the gym is absolutely the most

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important thing. And you can be...

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If, let me kind of back this up a little bit, any stress or any toxic environment

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is almost certainly caused from incongruence.

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So this is, you can put this in your life as well.

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Whenever you're angry, it's most likely at an expectation something should go one way

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and then it goes the other. Like this person should be driving next to me instead of speeding up and cutting me

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off. There's an incongruence there, incongruence equals stress.

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So, this is my other business is personal coaching and This is one of the main

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tenants is congruence is the key to happiness That applies in business as

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well. So at a gym if it's like well you know one guy is You know The instructor is best

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friends with that guy so he gets away with some of the bullshit that others get

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yelled at for well, that's That's incongruent, right?

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Like sometimes you can go hard, but if you happen to catch the instructor, then he

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yells at you. Well, that's incongruent, right?

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Like just any incongruencies that you can see leads to a toxic environment.

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That being said, there's different scales of that.

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So me and you could roll in a toxic environment, as you were saying, and still

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have this mutually shared experience because you and I may agree on what this

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should be. Yeah, that's a good point.

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And I listened to your recent episode with Chris Paynes and you know, you bring up

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this, these three, the three P's that you, of how training should go, precise,

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playful and painless, right? And one thing that you mentioned to kind of like why I asked that question is

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because you meant, like you said, and their gym culture is the most important

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part of it, right? Like, how can we build a culture within a gym as not the owner?

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that could possibly, you know, supersede the bad apples within the group.

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So, a wonderful question.

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And I don't know that I have a great answer for that, but I do have a couple

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possibilities, okay? So first and foremost, now is very different than training in 2000.

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You have an incredible amount of options.

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Now, obviously, not if you live in a small town, not if you're, you know, bumfuck

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Egypt. I get it.

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But in most cities now, you have quite a bit of options.

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And... What I say to anybody trying our gym is I say exactly that.

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Like, find the culture that works for you because maybe my culture doesn't work for

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you and that's okay, right?

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Pardon me. So first and foremost, I think that's important.

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And if you train at someone for somewhere for six months and you're like, ah, this

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just isn't for me, then good.

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Then try a different gym. You don't have to quit jujitsu.

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You can try a different gym. You don't have to, wow, this guy gave me my first stripe on my white belt.

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I can't leave this guy. Yes, yes you can.

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100 % you can. Believe it or not, you are an adult.

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I shouldn't tell you what to do. You can absolutely do that.

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Okay, so that would be my first thought inside your question.

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Second thought would be you can only impact what you can impact.

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So in any given opportunity, you can be the culture that you want to be.

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So if you hear, you know, some, uh,

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some guys talking shit about a teammate, don't join in, right?

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Like, you don't have to be like, oh yeah, that guy sucks.

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That was my shit talking apparently.

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Oh man, that guy, yeah, huh?

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Just one of the guys over here just, yeah, that guy sucks.

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Yeah, but we were talking about you, man.

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Anyway, so anyway, that was an.

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As an example, you don't have to join it.

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Okay? Additionally when you roll you don't have to roll to the death.

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So one of the things that I Travel, I'm very blessed to be able to travel a lot in

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do jiu -jitsu meaning with seminars So I'm BJJ Globetrotters coach.

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I go to other camps coach at different camps.

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I do seminars all the time So I roll with a lot of people and I roll with a lot of

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people let's say

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You know, if there's 200 people at a camp, 20 % of those are gonna be guys that wanna

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prove themselves. Like, oh, I've seen that guy's videos, I've seen that guy, you know, I see that

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guy rolling. I want to, you know, I wanna prove myself against him.

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And it's not, I don't even blame them necessarily.

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That's how they are, that's how they've grown up in the sport.

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They wanna see how good they are versus somebody who's been doing it for a while.

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I get it, right? But the fact of the matter is,

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If you're me, a 165 pound, you know, 41 year old, that's a hobbyist.

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I can't do every role like that.

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So it might be your Super Bowl, but it's it's my safety.

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Right. So instead of having to sit around and like say, you know, OK, well, you know, do

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this to go light or whatever. I feel their energy.

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I take a second. Every every role I don't grab and I don't have tension.

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I don't. My arms are like doodles.

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If I'm placing my hand somewhere, it's literally gently and my energy is chill,

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as chill as can be.

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What happens, what's interesting about humans is we're mirrors.

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If you came at me, Travis, and you started yelling at me, you were like, I can't

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believe you did this, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I look at you calmly and I say, Travis, I'm so sorry, obviously I offended

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you. What's going on? What can you know and you keep you on you keep yelling and I keep calm and I'm

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hearing you but I keep calm Something's gonna change.

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It's much harder to stay yelling at somebody when somebody's calm Now if you

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come in and you start yelling at me and I start yelling at you.

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Well, then we're gonna go up, right?

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Does that make sense? Same thing with Roland

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Yeah. Go on.

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Sorry. I didn't mean the interrupt. okay. I just went on a great tangent, but I'll finish that up real quick It's the same

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thing with rolling and rolling like if if you're coming at me Then I feel like I

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have to raise the the the energy level and then I raise it you raise it I wrote and

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then every fucking rounds a fight, right?

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I don't I can't handle that physically.

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That's not how I want to roll like So I don't very very very very very rarely I

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Do I up that energy and if they get into a good position?

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Cool if they submit me cool right?

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Luckily, I am blessed with the fact that like I've been doing this for quite a long

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time so I can defend myself and not have to bring my energy up and I get that

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there's some of that too but for the most part like just taking that ego out of the

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way and it's It's interesting 90 % of those people will calm down like they'll

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The roll just fine, it'll be a flow roll.

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And 10%, it's just like, well, fuck it.

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I guess this is what we're doing.

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I can't do anything about it.

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I'll stay calm, but sometimes it's just like, this is what I'm in for.

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Kudos to that guy. So when you talk about those three P's, once again, the painless, precise, and

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playful, do you take that into your training even when you go do these

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Globetrotters and you drop into these other academies?

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Is that like your main goal during your training time?

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Yeah, it's it's not that like I it's even more important to do there so if I so I'm

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a Well front headlock stuff, but like especially guillotine like I've guillotine

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glossary one and two on BJJ fanatics like guillotine I have the most depth of

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knowledge as on as far as any move and So like if I guillotine somebody outside at

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wherever that's not my home

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I always do this at home too, but especially when I'm not at home, I say,

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oh, Travis, how was that? Okay. Was that cranky?

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Where was that? You know, where you going? Did that hurt at all?

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Like I literally ask every time.

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Like it's not like unless I'm like I've rolled with them a bunch or you know,

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whatever it's the fourth game. Like I know most of the time I know it's all let go of cranky stuff or but I think

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it's even more important. And then I don't know if you know Preet Mickelson is okay.

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So Preet. is a friend of mine, lovepreet, very Estonian.

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A couple of years ago, we were rolling and had him in a guillotine setup and he's

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yelled at me. And I didn't put juice on it, meaning I didn't feel like I had it 100%, like

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technically, very precise.

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Could I have finished it? Maybe, but it wouldn't have been on what I would consider on brand for me.

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That's not what I'm looking for. It wasn't like it was world championship, right?

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And we had like a half an hour conversation after this.

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It's like, well, why didn't you do this? I'm trying to work on my guillotine.

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And I get that, right? But we didn't talk about that beforehand.

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He was trying to work on defense, of course.

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And, you know, so I got that, but also what am I going to fucking just go after

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this bear, you know, this like, this.

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Defensive jujitsu legend that like, you know, I'm just gonna start cranking.

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That's fucking make sense either Like, you know if beforehand he would have been like

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hey if you get this Give it right like alright, I I get that then we're talking

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about then we can play about it But I'm just not gonna do that, but he was

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legitimately Perturbed that that I didn't like go for it, you know, but

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you come up? Where did, where did in your journey did these, these values come from?

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Like, is it a previous injury that happened? You're like, Hey man, I need to switch it up.

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And you kind of started building this mindset or like, how did this all happen?

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Well, it's just, I see so many people get injured and I felt like how my body was

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and like, I just thought about it.

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Like, you know, growing up, my first jujitsu back, like I said, back when I was

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a freshman in college, like I trained at a place called Dave Strossers, who was an

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old UFC guy in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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And like, he was part of his house.

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He like, you know, put some mats in the house and like, you know, you get some

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water, you're walking into his kitchen.

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And like, you know, there was some... pretty big names there at the time like Big Ben Rothfell was there and like Let's

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see Nick Aguilar. Whatever all local but big at the time guys and You know that was that was more

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of a you go in you get beat up and then when I went to When I made it to my next

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place where I spent well outside of Henry Montemoros who was like the main guy in

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Milwaukee Once I made it to the neutral ground where I trained for 15 years it was

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like Again, like I would be nervous to walk in like we would go significant harder and

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like as you gain wisdom It doesn't seem like it needs to be that way like it just

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doesn't like Why why why are we trying to win every round when we all have to go to

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work tomorrow? And there please understand there's a difference between hey, I need to get some

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some Training rounds in that are really hard because I have a competition coming

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up. I get it or I have a fight coming up

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That's a different story. I'm talking about a random Tuesday night.

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What the fuck are we doing? Right? And so like when you really think about it, what the fuck are we doing?

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Why are we trying to kill each other? Why not understand?

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Exactly what's happening, right? Like I've seen so many rear naked chokes or naked strangles That are okay you put

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you know the arm underneath here lock it up and squeeze what the fuck is that

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what's happening? Why am I doing that like it's and on everything just just everything and so

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Once you think, okay, wait, I don't need to pop Travis's head off.

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All I need is to be very precise.

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I need to make a connection here, make a connection here, and then I need to

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compress the head forward. How I do that, the world's your oyster, right?

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But that's what I need to do when I'm on your back.

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Connection here, it doesn't need to be a heavy connection.

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No, it literally just needs to be a wet noodle coming through with just a

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connection. And as I compress everything forward, well, then I'm kinking the hose.

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No pain, more efficient, more effective.

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So why wouldn't I do that version instead of put your arm under here and squeeze?

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But we all parrot what we've known forever, or known, right?

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We just parrot what our coach says, but like, let's understand what we're doing

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because then I know that if I have something and I can't compress your head,

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well, why am I on a random...

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Thursday afternoon, gonna just break my arm across your trachea.

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Like maybe I get you to tap from that pain, but what fucking good is that?

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Like nobody in a high -end level competition is gonna tap from that.

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Additionally, now you have to drink weirdly out of a straw for the next two

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weeks. You know, like it's just, none of it makes any sense to me.

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So I don't know that I can point at an exact moment on when it happened, but over

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time, the more that I saw, the more that I was like, hey, we can do this a different way.

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Like let's really get people understanding what they're doing, right?

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Like how are they breaking an arm?

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Although as Chris says, which I fucking love, spraining an arm, it sounds way

22:03

less, it sounds like it takes the bite out of it, as he says, like, cause that's

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actually what you're doing. You're not, I mean, the arm can break and there are instances where like, but

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realistically we're trying to. Viciously spraying an arm, you know, so let's learn how to do that It's gonna make

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us better when we're precise and it's it's not gonna be as hard on our bodies So we

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can train more which means that we're gonna get better at jujitsu.

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It's a win all over

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Do you think something like this should be preached more to day one practitioners?

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I grew up in an academy where it was always like, you don't have to kill each

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other. You know what I mean? There were still rounds that people rolled hard, people still got hurt and whatnot

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because we're not baking cakes.

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It is a martial art. You know what I mean?

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But do you think this is something that...

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How would we throw this into curriculum for...

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new practitioners. You know what I mean? Like how can this be applied to like a beginner's class?

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Every day. I mean, it's not a To me it goes back to that culture that we were talking about

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earlier every day apply it meaning When I'm to whatever I'm teaching right like I

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take okay. Well, this is the the precise nature of what we want to do This is what we want to

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do This is a way of doing it.

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But realistically I want to catch like on every submission almost every submission.

23:30

I Want to connect with my legs?

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I want to attach my legs, attach my arms, break with my hips.

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Okay. So like, how are you doing that?

23:40

If you can attach, let's just say a normal traditional arm bar, right?

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Like just a, like they were not even from guard, just, just you're laying there dead

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and your arms are like this and I'm getting in there for, you know, an arm

23:50

bar. Most people, like they know where to put their legs, but what are they doing with

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them? What, what activity are they doing with them?

24:00

They don't know why they're doing it. Right? Like, and then.

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And then like we know, okay, thumb to the ceiling or thumb away from our chest or

24:06

however you want to say it, right? But why?

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Right? Like, could that be, like, and maybe you kind of get it, okay, well, that's where

24:17

the elbow hit. Yes. But then where's the fulcrum?

24:20

Where should our hips be? How are we applying that pressure?

24:23

Right? Well, what, if you understand that you can control with your legs, control with your

24:28

arms, then break with your hips, when you have that much control, I don't even, I

24:33

know that I have you. I don't need to, I don't need to go rah!

24:36

And then something happens.

24:38

You know? So when it comes to playful, how can we find the balance of wanting to do hard

24:48

rounds, wanting to get training in that, you know, we can both grow from and really

24:52

push ourselves while still keeping it playful?

24:55

You know what I mean? so, you know again, I think communication Travis you got a competition coming up and

25:03

you're like hey Josh, I want to I want to I want to go today.

25:07

Yeah, cool Let's go.

25:09

We know that that role is going to involve less movement most likely most likely less

25:16

information Because more movement equals more information more information makes

25:21

better decisions so

25:24

I know that, oh, you passed my guard, Travis.

25:27

You know, you're in worth thinking points and we're thinking competition.

25:31

I can expect that you are going to try to hold me down or, you know, or like really

25:36

control that process. Whereas if we were being playful, perhaps you hold that for three seconds and then

25:42

you go for an arm bar right away or whatever your game is, right?

25:47

Maybe that's what you would do, but in a competition setting, you wouldn't feel

25:51

comfortable doing that. So instead you're going to hold.

25:54

So some communication between us makes sense because sometimes you are going to

25:59

want to go hard. But I guarantee you, if you're a hobbyist, what you're going to want to do, assuming

26:06

that you want to stay healthy and assuming that you want more information in your

26:11

jujitsu and you don't want to win every round, what you're going to want to do is

26:15

be playful. So you have more movement.

26:17

And if you have more movement, that's more information.

26:20

And I wish somebody would argue with me that more information doesn't mean better

26:24

decision -making. It's common it seems like common sense, right?

26:29

So Yes, sometimes hey, let's go right like let's fucking let's do it, right?

26:35

But then I know that's not my learning rounds, but you probably want more

26:40

learning rounds than fights for all the reasons

26:44

I think also keeping it playful too, when I roll with like newer practitioners like

26:49

white belts that have only been doing it for, you know, a couple of months, if

26:53

that, I really just try to make it like playful, joking around, kind of like,

26:59

Craig Jones talked about this to your point earlier when you said like, you

27:02

know, you're just, you're loose, not giving too much feedback.

27:05

Craig Jones talked about the second he rolls with people at camp, he lets them

27:09

know this isn't serious. You know, he's doing stupid stuff from the get -go and a...

27:14

Big question or a big comment that I'm sure you hear all the time too from newer

27:18

practitioners, I just don't know what to do.

27:21

It's like, well, don't worry about that. Just like, let's just build the reps of just going through around and just having

27:28

fun and getting comfortable with that because then everything else will come

27:33

with it. And I'll argue with you a little bit, too much information for those people is not

27:38

good, right? Because then they're just inundated.

27:41

They're like, I don't know what to do with all this.

27:43

You know what I mean? But you don't know what you don't know and I always always talk about you have to

27:51

build your base of information before you can really seriously start asking

27:55

questions or really seriously start learning like you just need to have like a

28:00

general understanding of something in order to feel like you can learn from it.

28:05

But if you don't roll then you're not ever going to have that build that base of

28:09

general understanding of what happens in a live round.

28:12

so you can build the information off of that.

28:15

That makes sense. 100 % how I like to think about it is Principles as a gated community and you

28:21

need at least one method You have to understand one method for a key into that

28:26

principles and then once you're in there you can play around and do a bunch of

28:29

stuff So you you said something and a great argument by the way, that's a really

28:34

good point that too much information can be Detrimental or or they just won't

28:41

retain right? So The challenge that you brought up is retention if there's too much information.

28:46

Now, let me ask you, let me kind of counterpoint that.

28:52

The type of information and the type of learning that we're talking about, if

28:55

you're talking about the, I'm going to use logical mind and emotional mind, because I

28:58

use this in my personal coaching all the time.

29:01

So emotional mind will just associate with body, if that works for you.

29:06

Yep. Logical mind, brain, like how we're thinking about things, right?

29:10

So. If we're looking at things from a logical perspective, think about when you're

29:14

rolling and you're like, oh, what should I do next?

29:16

Well, whatever that answer was at that time, it's probably gone.

29:20

Right? If I'm looking for something specific, if I'm working on something specific, and I

29:27

start thinking about it, it's like, God, I'm so far away from that, that it's just

29:31

absurd. And it just seems like I'm always so far away from it because it just slows

29:35

everything down. That mind cannot process too much.

29:40

Right, certainly on a scale, but that logical mind needs to take the time to

29:46

think Your emotional mind or what your body's feeling In my opinion is Constantly

29:54

learning so it's not it's now would it be learning that?

30:00

I could then be like, oh, I now know how to do this arm bar in 13 different ways

30:05

No, but it is it is learning in that

30:09

For some reason, I know that I can kind of stay out of that arm bar if I just kind of

30:13

wiggle my shoulder just a little bit, right?

30:15

But that applies so many different places and you subconsciously or through your

30:18

emotional mind picked up that information.

30:21

So that's how I look at those differences in information.

30:25

And I haven't yet found somebody that was like, that was too much like when it's

30:31

movement based. No, that's a good point because you know, you build muscle memory, you know, your

30:38

muscles don't have like memory like that, but that's the key that we use.

30:41

And that's a great point because going back to just getting those rounds in, then

30:47

you start building that body awareness of like, oh man, now I know I don't want to

30:52

move that way because there is pain.

30:54

I don't want him to get in this position because there is pain.

30:58

Like, you know what I mean? Like there, or a lot of times we learn from negative

31:03

things and positive things. But most of the time when you first start, you realize like there's not a lot of

31:07

positive. So you're like, I don't like that knee on my belly.

31:10

I'm just not going to try to get there. You know what I mean?

31:13

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

31:16

so when we are training on the mats and we are feeling pain in these positions or

31:26

these submissions or whatever it is, how can we take that as a learning opportunity

31:31

to know how to correct it without with the information we have, if that makes sense,

31:40

right? So if we're like, we are having our arm fully extended.

31:44

And we're like, holy shit, that kind of hurts. How can we use that information to learn next time I don't want to get there?

31:51

So I wonder

31:58

I don't know that I have a great answer for this question because it seems like it

32:02

would depend on so many different variables, like depending on what it is,

32:06

but ultimately I think the pain, if you feel, the onus is probably on the

32:15

offensive person to make you feel safe and understand that the culture of the gym is

32:21

safe, that you can then, you know, extend your arm, feel what it is.

32:26

Uh -oh. Tap tap tap, right?

32:31

If the other person doesn't know what the F they're doing, they have no attachment

32:36

on legs, a hand, and they just rip a hip into your arm, as an example, you don't,

32:43

you're never gonna find what that is, right?

32:46

And like, so I think a lot of it is the onus of the, I like the idea of finding

32:55

the edge for your body.

33:00

But you have to do it in a way that you have to do it in a culture that you know

33:06

that you're going to be okay. When I apply submissions, it doesn't matter.

33:12

Like commonly leg lockers will kind of get you in a heel look and they give you that

33:16

look like, I have you now.

33:19

Like how far do you want to push this? Right? I basically do that with every submission, right?

33:23

Like, okay, you can do that with an arm bar. You can do that with a camora.

33:26

You can do that with. Name your submission, right?

33:30

Like and sometimes like if they really want to fight it and I think they're gonna

33:33

hurt them So I just let it go right because I don't want them and then I'll

33:36

talk to him after be like, hey man You understand that you know, I had my hip

33:41

directly on your knee. I controlled your hip your knee and your ankle You understand that you were fucked

33:48

here, right? And not not like because oh, I'm fucking great at leg locks But because they they

33:55

need to know that right and so then I give them

33:58

Hey, if you have space, let's just like an outside heel hook or something.

34:04

If they have space from your opponent's hip and your knee and you wanna fight it,

34:12

I mean, I don't, cause I wanna keep my knees healthy, but if there is space

34:15

there, okay, I'm okay with you fighting it in here, right?

34:19

But if they have a connection with their hips and your knee, tap.

34:25

And. Yeah. And look, like you could say, now if they're training, if they're, you know, at

34:31

the highest levels, that may be a different story.

34:34

That's not who we're talking about. We're talking about hobbyists.

34:40

Yeah, completely agree. So the first thing that came up in my mind when you were saying that is how often

34:46

should we be finishing submissions then?

34:49

all the time. You could finish, but it's the way, what I'm, you know, sitting here preaching is

34:56

it's the way that we do it.

34:58

You should have, again, attach with your legs, attach with your arms, break with

35:03

your hips, but if you have that attachment with your legs and your arms, no matter

35:06

what it is, a strangle, a kimura, a leg lock, doesn't matter.

35:12

Obviously they're all very different, but like you still have that.

35:15

If you have that, then you can sit there and give them that, you know, like,

35:19

You know like and then if you want you can let them play like really deep submission

35:24

escape, especially if they're a competitor But you know most of the time we're like,

35:29

yeah, I tap so go for them all the time But understand what you're going for so my

35:36

newest I was gonna do this on fanatics, but I think I'm just gonna release it on

35:40

our patreon gentle art lifestyle patreon and It is half of it's up there already,

35:48

but it's 27 of the most popular submissions with exactly understanding what you're doing

35:56

and what you should be going for and if you understand that if if you understand

36:01

everything about that submission or at least I shouldn't say everything there's

36:05

ways to make things better and like but if you understand a good amount of the

36:09

control from that position and you can control that person from the submission go

36:13

for him every five seconds I mean, that's probably a little extreme what the guy

36:16

play but you know, like I

36:19

Cool, I have no problem with submissions.

36:22

I have a problem with ego and people saying I haven't got this guy in a year

36:27

I'm so close Don't do that

36:32

What do you think it's about submitting people that makes us so excited and like,

36:37

like we just like, to your point, you know, I haven't got submitted my friend in

36:42

so long. I'm right here right now. I just want to try to crank it as fast as possible.

36:47

So that way I can get it and get this victory or you know what I mean?

36:51

Like, like, I know we're supposed to leave our ego at the door.

36:54

We always talk about don't, don't bring your ego, but at some point I do think you

36:58

do need some ego on the map because otherwise you're just going to be.

37:02

like a timid dog, like doesn't want to look at anyone, doesn't want to go for

37:07

anything, right? You do need some ego to know that you can accomplish these things or is that

37:11

confidence or like what's your idea on that?

37:15

Well, that that's an interesting thought so I don't think anything is inherently

37:21

bad and things like confidence and ego are traditionally good until they're not Which

37:28

is a weird statement if you really think about it So one of the best ways that I've

37:34

seen it Stated was this is talking about confidence and it was years ago in one of

37:40

my coaching classes They called it the confidence cliff

37:45

So you need confidence in yourself to get something done.

37:49

Excuse me. Pardon me.

37:54

You need confidence to get something done, right?

37:56

Like if you are a timid dog, you're gonna stay down and you're not gonna get

38:00

anything done. So you need that confidence.

38:03

Okay, I got this let's say it's business.

38:05

I got this product idea. Okay, now I'm gonna take this idea I'm gonna do the first steps to get it going.

38:09

Okay. Well now I I got a prototype and you used to man if you lose confidence at the

38:14

prototype You're never gonna get it done. So you need to go up there, but then there's a cliff and that cliff happens

38:20

when ah, I got this we have you know our first five dollars in the bank, you know now we're

38:27

fucking successful Travis I don't need to listen to you.

38:31

I don't need to hear I know better I know that the problems that you're telling me

38:35

that we're having in the factory. I know that that's both you just work harder That me that's That you know, then

38:43

that confidence is what's gonna kill you, right?

38:46

So you you've already off the cliff on that?

38:51

So you're right, ego is the same way.

38:54

You need to, not need, because I think there are other ways.

39:01

Ego isn't a bad thing to experience life and experience jujitsu to a certain

39:08

degree, but once it stops you from getting good information and puts blinders on,

39:13

then it becomes a bad thing. Yeah, absolutely.

39:18

When it comes to instructionals and learning outside of teaching on the mat,

39:26

how do you guide your students into or people come to you for information?

39:33

How do you guide them in the vast variety of things that we have on the internet

39:37

that they can get or seminars and whatnot?

39:40

How do you guide them to make the right decision?

39:43

That way, when they come back to class, They're not going for random things that you're like, what are you even doing?

39:48

Like you're gonna you're gonna hurt someone because we're not no one's ever

39:51

seen that before. I am I Bring all of it take all of it in like like I think this in life in general

40:02

like don't just be a Democrat Don't just be a Republican.

40:06

Don't just be a libertarian Take it all in and make decisions based on what's

40:10

important to you and feel free to vote one way and then four years later vote another

40:15

way it's information, you know, if if You know, you saw something if you're a second

40:21

day white belt and you saw a rolling back take into a flying heel hook.

40:29

That's obviously, that's beyond my pay grade.

40:32

But if you see that, right?

40:35

Like, okay, like, cool.

40:38

If that excites you, let's play with it, but let's understand it.

40:42

Don't just fly into that heel hook, right?

40:47

And again, that comes back to culture.

40:49

But. I'm all for, I mean, we have a Creativity in Jujitsu class on our schedule every

40:53

Wednesday. And, you know, we'll do weird shit.

41:00

Actually, if I may go on a little sidebar on that, because it's, so my, my partner,

41:07

my girlfriend is a brown belt and she is, was a school teacher, a high school

41:13

teacher. And so she looks, she teaches Creativity in Jujitsu.

41:17

She, She rolls like a, I think somebody called her interstellar space creature while

41:24

rolling or interstellar space octopus or something.

41:27

Like she's a, just the weirdest, really awesome roll.

41:31

Anybody listening to this that has rolled with her is gonna be like, yep, that's a

41:36

good, yep. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

41:39

So Megan put together a unit using avatar the last airbender.

41:44

I don't know if you're familiar with avatar the last airbender.

41:47

Are you? So, okay, so there's the bending or the elements air, water, fire, earth.

41:55

So we've gone through over the last couple months, we've gone through in each class

42:01

and okay, so these are techniques that we could see being more towards airbending.

42:07

This is a style of rolling more towards airbending.

42:09

This is a style of rolling more towards earthbending.

42:12

These are more earthbending moves.

42:14

And man, it's been fucking awesome playing these.

42:19

Like, like I've learned that I'm a natural airbender as a grappler, right?

42:25

And, uh, but I thought it would be more water.

42:28

And like, once I really think about how water forms to everything, I realized how

42:32

much space I was giving people.

42:34

And it like ever since then, now it's like,

42:37

If I attach to your arm, it's just awful.

42:40

Like, you know, like, cause I'm thinking of like every little gap, just like the

42:44

old Bruce Lee quote, like something like, be like the water, the water, pour the

42:49

water in the cup, it becomes the cup, pour water in the teapot, it turns into the

42:53

teapot, that type of thing. Like, oh, okay, I want to be attached to this arm or whatever.

43:00

So creativity, like finding stuff on YouTube, creativity, any...

43:07

Submission let's figure it out. I I please look at it.

43:10

Please find it. I grow from that too I could be like, oh shit Well that you know, that seems pretty

43:15

awesome and I've never seen that or you know Bring it all our culture dictates

43:21

that we're not just gonna do flying heel hooks

43:24

So do you think that there should be this preconceived idea of minimum knowledge

43:33

level for certain submissions, like white boats can't do heel hooks or leg locks or

43:39

whatever? What is your point of view on that?

43:44

Oh, you're cracking the fingers if you guys aren't watching. He's getting ready for this one.

43:49

There's one of my favorite stories that happened in the last few months a Student

43:57

from another school came to our open mat and said I Have a competition is a blue

44:02

belt. I have a competition coming up I plan on training no key or I plan on doing both

44:07

key and no key However at my school, we don't learn leg locks until Brown Bell.

44:14

I Heard this is where it gets awesome. I heard

44:18

that you will teach heel hooks to white belts.

44:21

Can you show me some stuff? A badge of honor, man.

44:27

Yes. I don't steer, I don't think anything is, and I understand this is against

44:34

tradition, but fuck it, man.

44:36

I don't think anything is, we shouldn't be teaching, because quite frankly, that's

44:42

like trying to control the wind.

44:45

You don't think that your student, if they want to go learn heel hooks, you don't

44:48

think that when they go on YouTube, would you rather be in your gym where you can,

44:55

You can tell them, hey, this is the breaking mechanic.

44:58

This is what you have to be aware of. These are all the things that could hurt you or that you could hurt somebody else.

45:05

Let's understand it and then go.

45:08

I would much rather have that than say, no, no, no, no, that's not for you.

45:15

It just doesn't make, especially when at Bluebelt, at grappling industries, there's

45:20

a bunch of leg submissions that you can do.

45:22

Yeah. Whatever like they might not been grappling industries, but like in her

45:28

whatever one that she was doing she like it was no heel hooks so it was anything

45:33

else but heel hooks and so like Yeah, I like but I want my guys if they go to an

45:40

open gym or an open mat at a different gym They should know hey I'm in trouble here.

45:45

I got a tap or they should know I caught this guy But I don't want to rip his

45:49

fucking leg off and then you know, but all those

45:52

White lotus guys are always painful and not precise, you know, like, no.

45:59

Information, I want to help people get the information that they want to do.

46:03

Travis, if it's your, you know, if you've been grappling for a month, but you have

46:08

some sort of natural disposition to go on upside down, cool, let's play with that.

46:13

Let's play with it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't also learn other things, but like, let's play

46:19

with it. Let's see. Because my journey isn't your journey.

46:26

So how do you handle new new practitioners when it comes to your class?

46:30

Do you have a beginner's class or like an on ramp or do you just throw them straight

46:34

into the shark tank day one?

46:36

I just beat him up. No Yeah, I preach all this and like I said in congruence right I preach all this and

46:48

I just beat the shit out of no Yeah, we have a white belt method class which is

46:59

the only class that I so I have a whole curriculum that I created in that

47:05

curriculum I have four white belt method class specifically

47:11

And then in that class, I try to get them to start on one of those two days.

47:15

It's a Tuesday or Thursday. So I try to get new people to be there on that particular class.

47:20

And then we have on a Mondays, what's more like an ecological class.

47:24

Now I have a little bit of challenges with eco, but there's a ton of good stuff about

47:29

it, right? Like in just that, a live drilling with, you know,

47:38

To me, a little bit of a game and making it even and understanding that we're both

47:42

working together. Like Chris says, solving a puzzle, that's great.

47:46

Then we have creativity in jujitsu.

47:48

And then we have a long form rolling class where like no explosive movements, no

47:52

holding for any amount of time. You're going about 20 % and we're rolling for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on, you

47:57

know, what the guy who rings the bell, it's amazing.

48:00

And then in that class, especially, I'll put myself in crazy shit.

48:05

Like, you know, because I know that...

48:07

They're gonna if they're gonna try to submit me we're still rolling but it's at

48:11

a 20 % level so like once it's like oh no, all right, I tap you're like So anyway, I

48:19

think I lost my question. I just oh, that's right.

48:22

We were talking about Beginner's class.

48:26

Yeah, so teach them all man.

48:28

I all the information, you know, and if you're interested in something awesome I

48:32

don't try to curb that I'll help you know, I'll give you the sugar

48:36

as long as you eat your veggies too. You earlier you mentioned the being able if the gym culture isn't right.

48:47

And this this conversation is really revolved a lot around gym culture and the

48:50

people that are in the academy. How can people know before signing up if it's right for them or not?

48:57

What are some tips you could give them to to find the right academy?

49:03

Well, I mean, that's tough because the right academy is going to be different for

49:06

different people. So I'm not sure that I could say things that I like, but that may not be for you.

49:16

I mean, like, there's some schools that are very popular that I don't think is

49:26

good. And so if I were to give you an answer to that.

49:33

then it would be quite bias, right?

49:36

But if just, I guess, just like anything, see, talk to the person, feel their

49:44

energy, if you understand what I'm saying with that.

49:46

Like, roll with people, how helpful are people, if that's your thing, right?

49:51

If your thing is, I wanna be a fucking world champ, well then look around and

49:54

say, okay, well, how are these guys going?

49:57

How are these guys training? How, you know, what is their record with?

50:03

You know training people in winning competitions what you know, there's so you

50:08

have different things to look out for For what it is that you want?

50:13

By the way, you know, I'm sorry. Let me I want to make sure

50:16

great. I am providing, I think a good coach in general provides perspective.

50:23

I don't think so like, uh, when, like one of my businesses is, I say personal

50:29

coaching, but life coaching. Whenever I heard life coaching, I'm like, what the fuck?

50:32

Why would anybody, why would anybody like think that they know that like they're

50:37

that much better than me that they're going to coach me? That's not what it's about at all.

50:41

It's about having somebody to provide perspective because all the judgments that

50:46

I've made. put blinders on and I'm missing information.

50:50

So everything that I say on these podcasts, like, yeah, I'm passionate

50:54

about, but that's, you don't need to be passionate about it.

50:58

And I'm not even saying that I'm necessarily right.

51:00

I'm just providing a different perspective.

51:03

So I, you know, I know that especially this podcast, I don't know, this team must

51:06

got fucking jacked up, but like, I don't want it to be like, this is the way I want

51:16

to. say this is a way.

51:20

Yeah. Yeah, I usually tell people if they're at an academy or they're looking for a new

51:27

academy or whatever, I always tell them the first thing that you should look for

51:30

in an academy should not you have to, but if it fits your lifestyle, right?

51:35

If you can afford it, if it's close enough, if it has classes that you can

51:40

attend, right? All these things are very important, right?

51:43

Like... yeah. kids welcomed?

51:46

Like is it an environment you want your kids to be in or your spouse or whatever,

51:49

right? Like those are all things that like you should look for right away.

51:53

And then it's like, what are your goals within Jiu -Jitsu?

51:56

What do you want? Do you just want to be a hobbyist? And it's a lot easier to find an academy.

52:00

If you want to be a world champion, well, that's going to take a little bit more of,

52:04

you know, some fine tuning in the search, you know what I mean?

52:07

And then, you know, you weigh in balance.

52:09

What's more important based on what your goals are?

52:12

And I've seen, you know, some people actually heard me say that.

52:16

I had got a message from someone and they're like, hey, that was such a great

52:19

way to look at it because I was driving, you know, X amount of time to an academy

52:25

because I really liked it there.

52:28

But now I leave work and I go to an academy that's closer to my work.

52:32

And then I get to train right after work and I just go home and it's so much

52:35

better. I was like, well, I didn't even think about that.

52:38

Now I tell everyone, I'm like, well, look at an academy closer to where you work.

52:41

Maybe that's the better option.

52:44

a hundred percent that makes that makes total sense and like when you when you

52:47

think about building habits like You don't tend to build habits that are difficult

52:52

for you if you had to you know walk in the snow You know uphill both ways to get a

52:58

cigarette it would be Yeah, yeah, I mean you yeah you wouldn't smoke as much right

53:07

like you like well I could go for a cig but I

53:10

Then I got to walk barefoot in a snowstorm for 45 minutes.

53:13

Ah, I'm gonna pass.

53:15

And so, I mean, that's what we're talking about.

53:18

Ultimately, we probably agree that it's good to have the habit of Brazilian Jiu

53:23

-Jitsu. And your environment matters.

53:29

Meaning, if it's right next door, you're way more likely to go in even on a bad day

53:35

than if you have to sit in LA traffic for an hour and a half.

53:41

Don't know why I brought up LA traffic. There's zero.

53:44

I don't live in LA I haven't been to LA for like seven eight years, but man Yeah,

53:53

yeah just just randomly shitting on LA traffic

54:00

so for your your three peas do you plan on like releasing anything for them to go in

54:05

greater detail about it? sorts of different stuff man, so The so half of the three peas Instructional is on

54:15

our patreon on the gentle art lifestyle patreon The other half I'm working on

54:19

right now really good quality I'm really proud of what that I was able to put

54:27

together Additionally, I'm going to do a string of seminars literally all over the

54:33

world or at least this is my goal

54:37

So do a string of seminars all over the world and the cost for the seminars is

54:40

just an active membership on the patreon So that could be yeah, that could be I

54:45

mean you literally could just Like sign up that day for five dollars, you know,

54:50

because our lowest level is five bucks so just an active premium membership and You

54:57

know you can come on in so I guess if I if you don't mind if anybody yeah, if anybody

55:03

I this is

55:06

Doing all these podcasts. I shouldn't say all these this is I think my fifth one I'm doing a lot of podcasts

55:13

and I think the goal is to Promote the idea of painless precise and playful not

55:21

not only because it's better for our health But also because it's better

55:25

jujitsu. It's more effective jiu -jitsu And so I think these are win -win ideas If you like

55:31

that, then there's gonna be a community for you on the patreon

55:37

And then, you know, I'm just gonna try to build that community through the seminars

55:41

that I do in this particular way. No, I think that's great.

55:45

Because I mean, when you messaged me about it, I was like, oh, those that's, that's

55:51

great. The way to think about it, because a lot of times, you know, we don't think about

55:56

those things in our journey, we think more about training as hard as possible, making

56:00

it on Matt as much as possible, getting made as many rounds in as possible.

56:04

And then the the safety aspect or the the other things to keep us on the mats

56:10

longer, kind of get pushed to the wayside for the short term goals or the short

56:14

term blinders that we have on, right?

56:16

And for everyone that's listened to this most, like I mentioned before record is a

56:20

hobbyist. And so hopefully these three P's really open people's eyes up to like, oh, wait a

56:26

second, how should I should approach these roles today?

56:30

Just today, maybe a little bit differently.

56:32

And then tomorrow I can go a little bit harder.

56:34

And then the day after that, maybe put it these little piece, could you could you

56:39

apply? Are they all inclusive?

56:43

Do they have to, in your eyes, do you have to have all three at once or can you apply

56:47

them individually in roles?

56:50

So I think painless and precise go together almost always.

56:58

Playful can be the outside kind of contender in that.

57:04

If I take a second and talk about playful for a little bit, it's going to be that me

57:10

saying again, playful allows you to move more, more movement, programs, more

57:17

information, more information makes better decisions.

57:20

So that's like part of your movement.

57:23

That's just a concept.

57:25

The painless and precise, precise is more effective.

57:30

Precise is more efficient and precise keeps people safe.

57:34

And painless means that we're not going to a tap.

57:38

You want to grind my gears?

57:40

A tap is a tap.

57:43

No, you're my friend, Travis.

57:45

Why the fuck if I get you to tap because I took my

57:49

knee and dug it in the back of your neck and you tapped like gotcha gotcha bitch

57:56

right like what the fuck no no that's not what we're doing here because if needed

58:03

you could eat that you I mean it's gonna hurt but you could you could eat that and

58:08

then you're gonna have an angry dog on you right it doesn't it just doesn't make any

58:13

sense so painless you can apply things painlessly

58:18

Remember that health is gonna be number one.

58:21

Also if you're constantly training hard I'm not you can train hard different ways

58:25

by the way, but let's say traditional tough guy hard if you're training hard all

58:31

the time You're probably injured more And if you're injured more, do you think that

58:36

you're gonna take in as much information if you're off the mats three months out of

58:40

12 on average Right just all the little dings and bumps like do you think that

58:45

you're taking in as much information is the person who?

58:48

Is going 80 % instead of 100 and is on the mats 11 and a half out of 12 months right

58:56

like Common sense like so to me.

58:59

It's again. It's just a win -win.

59:01

There's just no Even if you're trying to be a world champion, train playfully more often.

59:12

So when it comes to the painless aspect though, I was just thinking about this in

59:17

my head, like where do, you know, like spinal locks or twisters, neck cranks, you

59:26

know, rear naked strangles, but across the jaw, like all these are like legitimate

59:30

things within the context of Jiu -Jitsu.

59:32

Where do you see those fall in under these three Ps?

59:36

Like, should they just be avoided or?

59:39

Same thing as everything. You have to know how to apply it.

59:42

If you're just, oh, there's a fucking twister here, baby, let's go!

59:47

Right, like, it's just, don't do that, right?

59:51

But you can sit in a twister and give them that same eye look that you gave on the

59:55

heel hook, that you gave on the arm bar. You're like, hey, we're here.

59:59

Right, like, you know, you're, and when I say painless, obviously,

1:00:05

Like you said, we're not baking cakes or whatever analogy that you used earlier,

1:00:08

right? But there's a difference between the pain of a twister that you are, you have

1:00:16

control, you've attached with your legs, attached with the arms, you're gonna start

1:00:19

breaking with the hips, you have control.

1:00:21

There's going to be an applied slow pain that you're giving them an opportunity to

1:00:26

tap from. I get that, right?

1:00:30

What I'm saying with painless is, let's...

1:00:34

Let's not just rip things. Let's not do things that that purposely hurt our intent matters.

1:00:42

But if it's on the competition grounds, crank that.

1:00:45

Crank that. No. look, sure.

1:00:50

I mean, like then a win is a win, a tap is a tap.

1:00:52

If you're at ADC3 trials, everybody signed up for that.

1:00:56

That's not what everybody's. see some crazy stuff there too.

1:01:00

these fucking guys that are, it's wild.

1:01:03

A guy like me is going up against Andrew Tackett, not me, Regener, but I'm gonna

1:01:10

fucking lose that. 100%, I'm not holding, he's got a locked in heel hook, I'm fucking tapping, man.

1:01:18

I'm not gonna see, I'm sure that he can rip apart my knee.

1:01:22

I'm 100 % sure, I don't need to find that out.

1:01:26

Whatever it costs to do that, to do the tournament, like.

1:01:29

Even if you win, like you're not winning anything.

1:01:33

It doesn't train more.

1:01:35

If it's a life or death thing or a fight for the UFC championship and a fucking

1:01:41

million dollars in line, cool, let's do it.

1:01:43

Let's rip apart the knee. Let's do it.

1:01:46

But like other than that, man, I just don't see a situation where that makes a

1:01:49

ton of sense. If it's 6 p .m.

1:01:51

on a Tuesday, you just left work, you got to go home, make dinner for your kids,

1:01:56

it's probably not worth it. Probably not right and if it is find the gym that that is worth it.

1:02:02

That's not white lotus. That's not our gym Right, and that's that's okay I'm not even I'm not even

1:02:08

trying to shit on you if that's your style of jujitsu.

1:02:10

Just I don't want that right That's I just I want to train I mean I've trained five

1:02:16

and a half days a week right like sometimes six sometimes five and I roll

1:02:21

every day that I'm the most every days that I'm there right if I'm not doing

1:02:26

sometimes I'll have done it I got into boxing recently, so sometimes I'll do boxing workouts before or

1:02:30

whatever, which is a humbling sport.

1:02:33

I haven't boxed in like 15 years and like, oh God, I'm so inefficient.

1:02:38

I digress. If that is your thing, very, very cool.

1:02:42

Very cool. Just don't, not at my gym, not in the culture that I want to be.

1:02:47

And like, you know, you can skip rolling with me too.

1:02:51

You know, like I don't want that.

1:02:53

Even like, even if it's a blue belt and I can fucking.

1:02:57

There's not much of a chance that there's going they're gonna you know do anything I

1:03:02

still I don't want that energy. Okay, I just that's just not that's not for me Might be for you cool

1:03:09

completely understand.

1:03:11

Well, Josh, this was a great conversation, man.

1:03:15

Uh -oh. Yes, sir.

1:03:18

We brought it up before we got on the podcast and I want to hear about this

1:03:23

because this goes right into the three P's.

1:03:25

If you don't mind, is that...

1:03:28

Awesome. So I had read on an interview that you did that you said that Jiu Jitsu or something

1:03:36

like this, of course, I'm not, I'm paraphrasing, but Jiu Jitsu made you feel

1:03:40

like you were 10 years older. Can you explain that?

1:03:44

Yeah, I mean, it's just when I was first started jiu -jitsu, I was in my mid 20s

1:03:48

and it doesn't it doesn't I don't feel that way necessarily anymore because I

1:03:52

don't get to train as much and as hard as I used to just because my life is so busy

1:03:58

with my family, kids and work.

1:04:00

And but when I was like on the mats, you know, all the time training as hard as

1:04:05

possible, I had that mindset of not being painless, precise or.

1:04:11

playful. I was, you know, trying to go as hard as possible, as much as possible.

1:04:16

When I slowed down, when I finally slowed down, that's when my body was like, oh,

1:04:20

here it is. Like, and I have injuries from the military too.

1:04:24

So those all, you know, they were just like hiding, waiting away.

1:04:27

And my body started to relax a little bit more and it's not, it wasn't used to

1:04:32

training as hard and my body started to hurt a lot more.

1:04:35

Now, my, now I feel much better because you know, my, my body's much more used to

1:04:40

not having that intensity and whatnot.

1:04:43

But sometimes when I do go a little bit harder on the mats, it does.

1:04:47

I'm like walking away like, yeah, that hurt.

1:04:49

That was a hard one.

1:04:52

And I think it's just from my greenness in the sport.

1:04:57

I've been doing it for five years now, five, six years.

1:05:01

I'm just a blue belt. And so I still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to just my body alone and

1:05:08

how I apply myself within the martial art.

1:05:11

But it's getting better. You know, it's getting better.

1:05:13

I'm sure by the time I'm, you know, a seasoned purple belt, you know, hopefully

1:05:17

one day a black belt, I'll have those abilities to not have that happen.

1:05:20

But until then, if I have if I have two weeks of solid training, my body's like,

1:05:25

you suck. So here's my two questions that I have for you.

1:05:31

First, how do you know what your body is gonna feel like?

1:05:34

How old are you? 34 you said? Yeah, 34.

1:05:38

How do you know what your body feels like when you're 44?

1:05:42

I mean I can only I can only imagine like.

1:05:45

let me tell you as a personal anecdote, I'm 41.

1:05:49

I feel better than when I was 31 because of how I'm rolling.

1:05:54

So, and I train more and yeah, that's the hope, right?

1:06:00

Like, so that's number one, right?

1:06:03

You don't know what you're gonna be like at that age.

1:06:06

Number two is as a narrative, we kind of chatted about this, as a narrative,

1:06:12

believing something is gonna be,

1:06:15

That may be what comes true.

1:06:18

So you want to be careful like oh, I just get sore way more often I often think of a

1:06:23

story when I tried out for a for basketball when I was a sophomore in high

1:06:27

school I went so hard the first day of practice like I played a lot of like pick

1:06:32

-up ball But I never ran I never ran sprints and I just you know went balls out

1:06:37

the second day I was the sorest I've I could even run I could couldn't do

1:06:42

anything and that was when I was

1:06:44

15 years old or whatever right like It's not necessarily because of your age you

1:06:52

tend to believe these not you we Tend to believe these narratives because

1:06:58

everybody's like oh when you get older well You know when I turned 30 hours when

1:07:03

I turned 35 when I turned 40 man That's great for them.

1:07:07

But what do you believe right and if you choose like, you know, I'm really not that

1:07:12

so I guess, you know, like, nah, I'm good.

1:07:17

Life is so much easier and so much better.

1:07:19

So I just wanted to put that out there and I know it's picking on you a little bit,

1:07:22

but I happened to read it and I thought it fit in with what we were talking about.

1:07:27

No, it's great. You brought a good point.

1:07:30

I don't know what I'm going to feel like when I'm 44. I might feel much better than I do now because I'm just like I alluded to, like

1:07:37

I'm just more experienced within the martial art and I've been doing it longer

1:07:40

and whatnot. So I hope that's the case.

1:07:43

I hope I'm not a blue belt at 44 years old.

1:07:46

right. But what if you could have started doing painless, precise, and playful right when

1:07:50

you start on a math, right?

1:07:52

Like, yeah, so.

1:07:54

talked to Mike Bidwell, who runs the BJJ After 40 Facebook group and everything

1:08:00

like that. And he just wrote a book. And one of my questions to him was like, how can I prepare for training at 40 in my

1:08:08

30s? He's all like, he's like, oh, that's easy.

1:08:11

He's like, you just got to think about things.

1:08:14

Like, how is this going to affect me in the long run? Like being fully extended multiple times in an arm bar in a class.

1:08:22

is going to have it might not hurt super bad now, but down the road, it could have

1:08:26

more ramifications in your training.

1:08:28

So just, you know, like things like that, and then intensity and training and stuff.

1:08:32

And so no, I definitely now I think about it more.

1:08:34

I'm like, I can't I can't be I can't be doing super hard rounds with a 20 year old

1:08:39

kid anymore, all the time.

1:08:41

Every once in a while, it's fun. I enjoy getting smashed, you know, or having a hard round, but I'm, you know,

1:08:46

I'm not 2526 anymore. So I got to I got to look at different perspective.

1:08:51

Something for listeners or at least something that I think about often is just

1:08:56

like a rubber band breaks at tension.

1:08:59

Like you don't have just a regular rubber band just hanging out and it just breaks,

1:09:02

right? You stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, break.

1:09:05

The more that you're at tension, the more likelihood that you have something to

1:09:09

break. And tension doesn't just mean a locked out arm bar.

1:09:12

Tension means how you grab something, how you grab someone, how your muscles are

1:09:17

when you go around somebody's head. Are they flexed or are they relaxed?

1:09:21

tension all over. So the more that you can limit that tension, the more that you are, in my

1:09:29

estimation, a little bit safer as you're. And I completely agree with that too, because when I roll with the new white

1:09:35

belts, like I said, the first thing I tell them is like, dude, like you're holding on

1:09:39

for dear life on things that have nothing to do with being good at jujitsu.

1:09:45

Like, relax, it's okay. And I know it's so much harder to to like actually put that into implementation when

1:09:52

you're newer because you're just fight or flight takes over for a lot of people,

1:09:58

right? But it is safer for everyone if you can just like relax.

1:10:04

Like if you can be more playful or not have to worry about like, oh, he's going

1:10:09

to submit me. Yeah, I am going to submit you.

1:10:11

Like not you, but you know, I'm like, and say like, and that's okay, right?

1:10:15

And I will let you get into a position where it's advantageous for you so you can

1:10:19

build that confidence and know what it feels like to be in a dominant position.

1:10:23

And then I'm going to get out of it and I'll probably submit you.

1:10:26

But...

1:10:28

Yeah. And that's part of the game, right?

1:10:30

Like that's okay. That's just okay.

1:10:34

So. All right. Well, Josh, thank you again.

1:10:37

Once again, if people want to find you Oh, I digress.

1:10:41

I like to end the show with the same question every single time if you can give

1:10:44

one piece of advice to a brand new white belt, what would it be?

1:10:48

Diaphragmic breathe.

1:10:51

Learn how to breathe. There's nothing more impactful to your life.

1:10:55

There's nothing more impactful to jujitsu than learning how to breathe.

1:10:58

Almost certainly, or what I see is most people step on the mat and they're fucking

1:11:04

dead tired and then, you know, I can roll for two or three hours straight and it's

1:11:09

only, it's not because I'm some fucking super athlete.

1:11:12

It's because I've learned how to breathe.

1:11:15

So diaphragmic breathe, learn how to breathe.

1:11:18

We go over some of that stuff on the Patreon as well.

1:11:21

But I don't think there's anything more important than breath.

1:11:25

If you want to find you, check out your stuff.

1:11:27

Where can they find you at? On Instagram, joshuajay, underscore, BJJ.

1:11:33

On Patreon, gentleartlifestyle .com.

1:11:37

And under gentle art lifestyle, I'm sorry, on the Patreon, it's gentleartlifestyle.

1:11:41

The website is gentleartlifestyle .com.

1:11:43

On the gentle art lifestyle, you can go onto the white lotus page.

1:11:47

You can see some of the camps that we do. We put on two camps a year here in Milwaukee.

1:11:51

Some of the other, you know, like cold exposure things that I do.

1:11:56

And then some of the personal coaching as well you can all find on the gentle art

1:11:59

lifestyle website But if you want to be a part of the community and you could join

1:12:03

the patreon for free certainly but obviously any of the premium Levels you

1:12:10

get a free seminar. I'm gonna be all over man. It's gonna be fun

1:12:13

Perfect. Well, Josh, thank you so much for coming on the show today, man.

1:12:18

Be sure to go.

1:12:21

Be sure to go check out Josh and all of his stuff, man.

1:12:24

This was a great conversation. I can't wait for people to hear it, man.

1:12:27

So thank you guys so much for listening to Washington at Home.

1:12:29

Remember, no oil checks here. Peace.