Jocko Underground 171: Does Jiu Jitsu Ruin More Lives Than It Saves??

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 171, sitting here with Echo Charles, getting ready to answer some of your questions and provide courses of actions, things to consider, perhaps some immediate actions to take to send you down the path in a very positive way. So let's get to it.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Before I read this, can I tell you that I wish I had this outfit when I was younger?

• 0:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you and me both.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Would have helped.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hi, Jocko Akko. I love the podcast. I've been a longtime listener. I got started in jujitsu because of your podcast. Currently a purple belt and have dealt with some pretty gnarly injuries, including a torn ACL and multi-level disc replacement in my neck. Every time I get injured, everyone tells me I need to quit. And the argument makes sense. I lose time from work and training and when I get injured. I also have spent at probably $20,000 on medical bills between surgeries, PT, and other ways of recovering from jujitsu. Can't seem to pull myself off the mats and love training maybe more than anything, but can't help but wonder if Craig Jones is right, that jujitsu ruins more lives than it saves.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Should I stay on the mats and keep training or find a more safe activity? If I stay, how should I change my training? I love working stand-up, but wondering if I should become a guard puller?

• 1:32Jocko Willink?

  Well, so there's a lot of variables here that we don't have all of them.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  Because we don't, yeah, there's some details missing, but you know what, we can make some assumptions or provide some overall guidance. First of all, can you keep training? The answer is yes, you can keep training. But it does sound like your training may need some adjustment. My guess is, and this is an assumption, my guess is you need to chill. That's my guess. My guess is you need to chill. You probably need to get more chill training partners. My guess is you need to drill more and train, roll live a little less, maybe play more games in jujitsu, maybe a little bit of that ecological approach.

• 2:25Jocko Willink?

  Maybe yes, absolutely become a guard puller, but more important, don't train a bunch of stand up because your chances of getting hurt increased quite a bit.

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  Adjust your game to protect your neck. You know that inverted roll that you do? You know that that sacrifice that you make in your head pulled when you go under for the deep half guard and all that? Got to make some adjustments to your game.

• 2:51Jocko Willink?

  So, those are my immediate thoughts, right? Now, if you are already super chill and you already roll to protect your neck and you already don't do stand up and you already don't roll hard and you just and you're still getting hurt this much, you need to take all that stuff down another level. Now, maybe you're just learning the techniques, right? I've had people over the years that did not train jujitsu, but they learned the techniques. They couldn't train jujitsu for a variety of reasons. Maybe they had, you know, whatever, just a variety of reasons. They can't actually train. They can't actually roll. They want to know the moves. They appreciate the game and so they learn jujitsu.

• 3:35Jocko Willink?

  You could get to a point where that happens.

• 3:39Jocko Willink?

  Would that be hard for the jujitsu junkie like you to, you know, do that and keep off the mats? Yeah, but also, but if the alternative is being all dinged up, then yeah, we can't do anything else. I love jujitsu. I absolutely love jujitsu, but if it meant I couldn't like work out, couldn't surf, couldn't ski, couldn't run. You know, like, there's a point where that rest of that physical activity I want to be able to do. So, but again, I don't think I'll ever have to make that sacrifice because I think I can train in a way that I don't have to sacrifice my body.

• 4:19Jocko Willink?

  So that's what I would think about. I would think about chilling more, think about using more technique. I would think about playing some of these ecological games where the goal isn't to submit the other person and rip their head off. The goal is to get the underhooks. The goal is to sweep, right? The goal is to get the sweep. The goal is to not get swept. The goal is to get the, the, the inside leg entanglement. Like what, play some games and have some fun. You don't have to freaking go crazy every time.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  And then, yeah, if you're training a bunch of stand up and you've already been injured, you've already trained, hurt your ACL, it might be time to chill on the stand up a little bit. What, what did I miss? Echo Charles?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  To be honest, I don't know if I could have put it better, that chill part, because in a nutshell, that's real.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  And chill training partners, yep.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe. I mean, it is hard to avoid training partners mentally, you know, when someone asks to roll and then you say no to one guy. And then 30 seconds later, you say yes to this other guy. It's like, I understand that that's a little bit.

• 5:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, until you get injured a bunch and you're like, you know what, dude, I'm not training with this dude. Like you let your ego go. Hey, look, you don't like me? Cool. You know, I got hurt with you twice and I'm not doing it anymore.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's real.

• 5:41Jocko Willink?

  There's another little note that I have here, which is

• 5:46Jocko Willink?

  there's, I've known people that have never trained jujitsu a day in their life and got neck surgery with, you know, disc replacements or fusions. Never trained jujitsu. I've known people that have never done anything active.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  Didn't play football, didn't play rugby and got disc replacements in their neck, disc replacements in their lower back, fusion in their lower back, fusion in their neck.

• 6:12Jocko Willink?

  I've known people that played soccer, basketball, surfing,

• 6:18Jocko Willink?

  squash, tennis, bagmitten, just any sport that got ACL surgery.

• 6:27Jocko Willink?

  I've known people that got ACL surgery after they got out of the car and stepped funny on the curb, after they stepped on the dog toy when he was walking down the stairs at night, like.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  There are things that happen. Now, in my opinion, I don't know how much this dude is lifting and doing mobility. Because if you're not lifting, your chance of getting hurt are a lot higher. That's, that's across the board. That's getting out of your car, stepping on the curb, that's, that's stepping on the dog toy, that's playing a pickup game of basketball. If you don't lift weights. And you don't do pull ups, push ups, dips and squats and deadlifts. And overhead presses and overhead squats. And you know, and kettlebell swings and snatches. If you're not doing these things, your body ain't ready for this. And I'll tell you what, dude.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  I can tell you like this is fresh in my mind. I did squats today. Getting under the bar right now. Getting just, just getting the shoulders warmed up. I used to not even think about, you get under the bar, do a squat. But right now. There's a, there is a. One minute to 90 second. Stretch. To get in position, you know, to get loosened up to get in position under the bar for a regular squat. If, so if I wasn't doing that. What, when would my shoulders get stretched out? When I got freaking put in an Americana or when I got put in a, in a Camara. That's when I would get stretched.

• 8:08Jocko Willink?

  So you have to keep moving in order to keep moving.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, Dr. Luke on that one.

• 8:17Jocko Willink?

  Right? You've gotta keep moving if you're gonna keep moving to, to just do jujitsu. You can get away with it when you're 20, you can get away with it when you're 25. But you're not gonna get away with it when you're 29 and 32 and 35 and 40 and 42 and 47 and 50 and 53. You gotta lift, you gotta work out, you gotta train.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  So interestingly, in this question, unless I missed it, nowhere does he say, I train jiu jitsu, I lift, I do calisthenics, I do sun salutation every morning and I measure my progress. You know what I'm saying? I'm not seeing that in here. Makes me a little bit nervous. Are you, do you have a stretching protocol? Cause if you don't, you need to have one. Are you lifting? Cause if you don't, you need to be. If you haven't, you need to start. So I will throw those out there. But all that being said, ACLs get blown out. Uh, neck issues happen. Shoulder injuries happen.

• 9:29Jocko Willink?

  And that's regardless if you're doing jiu jitsu, playing basketball, playing soccer, anything. Picking up your kid, throwing your kid up in the air, boom, oh, turn my, tore my labrum. That stuff happens to people, especially people that ain't getting there.

• 9:50Jocko Willink?

  That is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground Podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jacood underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's jacood underground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistance@jacood underground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.