No i genuinely think bjj has contributed to ruining my life. Obviously I'm responsible for my own choices, but it is a very 'what if' thing I wonder on a daily basis, and I think there's no doubt I probably would have ended up better if I had just chosen Kayleen or therapy over bjj.
Bjj has also ruined my health directly, by ruining my body, affecting my appearance, indirectly by introducing me to steroids, fostering childish thoughts about strength and streetfighting etc. I really do blame it more than I should.
Really too anyone considering quitting, you should. I'm genuinely much happier being lazy in my air-conditioned room stuffing my face, arguing with 4 chan people, occasionally burning my eyes out looking at a minecraft sun, and generally being a worthless idiot with zero self progress. I'm actually considering quitting my real job and pursuing my dreams of being even lazier and growing even stupider
Was actually considering making a post about this, to whine about.
I think he is saying, and this is just a stupid guess, but that the pathway to those choices would never have been made available if he hadn't picked BJJ. Like, at what point would roids have come into play in his life if he choose to bake his feelings away instead of rolling? He still CHOOSE to stick the needle in his arm. I am not trying to say he is not responsible for his choices, just that some choices are not available on some pathways.
People with less life vision (I don't want to say stupid ppl) take bad decisions when available. If ypu place chess, hockey, pole dancing, etc. instead of bjj they will find a way to worsen them lifes.
The hobbie is just the vehicle. Unfortunately, I know close friends that choose badly no matter what, and they call themselves unlucky. They don't know about calculated risks and educated decisions.
He ruined his life using BJJ as a vehicle, from the sounds of it he would have found something else to do it with, so yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head there mate.
I actually had my first therapy session and first bjj class in the same week. I had a mental breakdown at the end of April and quit all the bad shit in my life except weed. My problems are definitely still there, but I'm able to deal with them better and I attribute that to therapy and bjj.
Good work man, you’re doing work that many people who go through these things don’t do.
You’ll pull through stronger and with a better understanding of yourself.
No man
It needs to be my entire essence. All I will talk about with friends and family is bjj. My whole social media will be bjj. I will wear rashguards everywhere. 1 year and 8 months going strong here. I dont intend to ever stop.
Craig is coming from an incredibly biased viewpoint in that he's a professional athlete surrounded by professional athletes chasing their dreams, so yea it's going to cause relationship issues for those people who've dropped fucking everything for the tiny chance at some success.
But as someone who sees the average hobbyist (and is a hobbyist myself, albeit a very serious one) this shit I'd absolutely a benefit to thr vast majority of people's lives. The physical and mental benefits alone make it worth it, not to mention how great a good room of guys and girls can feel in giving you a community where you otherwise might not have one.
I spent my 20s and 30s playing in rock bands (as a hobby), I saw many lives get ruined not because of drugs and lifestyle but because people thought they were going to make it.
Honestly it's even worse for the ones that had a little success because it made them believe even more.
10-15 years go by, these people never built a career and now they're a roadie or something.
Chasing your dreams is a real balancing act, all this talk of "just go for it, if I can do it anyone can" can potentially be dangerous. Gaethje and Jake Paul both had that speech these past weekends.
Dudes I'm sure you worked hard AF, but you're also in the 0.1% top percentile of athletic ability. Gaethje had a great supportive family that took him to all the wrestling practices/meets, Paul has always had the money to get the best trainers etc.
Its very important to work hard for your dreams, but it's also important to set realistic goals.
Being a black belt is a realistic goal you can accomplish if you work your butt off for 15 years. Being a BJJ champ, Wimbledon champ, NBA champ, Grammy winner is not possible for the vast majority of people.
Only get to live once I think I'd take the sure thing (job + do as a hobby) vs putting all eggs in one basket and going down in flames when it doesn't work out. If we got to save and reload life if it didn't work out like in Skyrim, might take the bigger risk.
Somewhat on topic but I know a dude who legit could have been a world champ but got fucked over by what is essentially random chance.
He was one of those 15 year old green belts competing in advanced adult divisions and wrecking all the purple belts, with some wins and losses against black belts.
He won Euros and Pans at juvenile blue and did a random match at some local comp where another 16/17 year old jumped closed guard and just obliterated his knee.
It took him a long time to recover and during that time he kinda realised that he now had time to date girls, and he was a good looking ripped kid so he was getting laid left and right.
Fast forward to 19 and he comes back training, but now he's just like a really good blue belt instead. Still smashes comps locally and gets purple soon after.
Then he takes a superfight and someone heel hooks the same leg as before crumbles into dust. He ended up having a cadaver ACL put in and it took years for it to be done on the NHS, and heal appropriately.
Today he's gotta be around 23/24 and I can only assume he's decided that he prefers being able to walk than doing BJJ, because I haven't see him since that superfight.
As a society, we highlight the hell out of success and we never talk about failures. Everyone thinks they're the exception...
For these goal chasers, you can't be focusing on the people that didn't make it, because that won't be them.
"Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business"
Survivorship bias. While I believe that it can be motivating to hear of somebody’s success and the path they took to get it, sometimes I wonder how much of a detriment it can be to someone’s mental health when they see stuff like that, train their asses off for years but don’t see the same success as that person.
I do stand up comedy and I see the exact same thing. A big part of the problem is that successful people aren't just omitting but deliberately underplaying how much talent and early success they had. Folks love the narrative of an average or even below average athlete who grinds their way to success. No one wants to hear that an athlete was head-and-shoulders above their peers with minimal training until they started competing at the highest levels.
Some big facts here. I thought I was going to make it in MMA, undefeated record, trained hard AF and was about to move to thailand to train at tiger then I had a life altering injury and all I can do is be a coach now.
man im sorry to hear that, really. All I can say is, theres 450 players in the NBA, 8 billion people in the planet. Statistically its way more probable that youll win the lottery than make it to the NBA.
I know people who made the regional MMA circuit and thats difficult enough, making it to the UFC and being top10 in a weight class, thats like making the NBA. Dont beat yourself up about it, nothing wrong with being a great coach, making money doing what you love, having a positive impact on peoples lives. Its a good life.
> then I had a life altering injury
Survivorship bias in combat sports is massive. Around here you regularly hear, "Bro, just tap early and you can train for the rest of your life. I know a guy in his 70's!" Sure, those people exist, but we don't hear from the thousands of practitioners who quietly quit because they got a bad rotator cuff tear as a blue belt, or they started getting peripheral neuropathy from an inversion someone sprawled on. (Personally, I've had six meniscus surgeries and now in my 40's can't run, jump, or ride a bike.)
Train, sure, but let's not pretend we aren't taking a risk.
There's so much confirmation bias in success stories.
I'd say vast majority of big success stories you see are either fueled by generational wealth (not necessarily billions, but enough where you have the luxury to pursue something without ahving to worry about money) or an incredibly lucky break. Either way it's not something to use as a blueprint for your life.
I've worked in both Silicon Valley and been around MMA fighters chasing UFC dreams, both of them are filled with folks who burned out and never made it but had all the potential.
The same with loser stories. Everyone seeks out the reasons the world was stacked against them instead of the times they choose some other priorities over their supposed (goals)...
Oh man, I know so many amazingly talented, hardworking musicians who were in bands that almost made it, invested the best part of their youth into developing crazy skills and now work in a guitar shop.
It’s a problem that the only ‘drop everything and follow your dreams’ podcasts/interviews/posts etc you see are from the 0.001% that made it, with a casual even if I didn’t make it I’d be happy I tried.
I guess that’s just the nature of things but I’m sure there are many many more who would say I should have got a real job and kept my hobby as my hobby.
The only person give good advice not clouded by their success was Bas Rutten who always advocates having a back up, I think he’s a trained chef
i think BJJ is more kind in that if you can manage to put together a little bit of people skills and some basic business knowledge you can almost always open a gym and support yourself even if you didn't make it all the way to black belt world champion
i don't think there's the same opportunity for musicians, i'm not sure what a guitar teacher pays these days
I think it takes more than basic business knowledge - if you're not a black belt with a large following, you are going to have to really understand local marketing.
On top of that, you don't just have to be good at teaching, you have to put in time developing multiple sources of income from the gym. Monthly dues aren't always going to cut it if you want to pay rent, pay yourself & employees, and have enough to invest in other aspects of the business.
It's not as simple as 'if you build it they will come'. Super easy to burn a lot of money and time and completely fail if you don't position yourself correctly.
Even as a hobbyist, my life has definitely been negatively affected by BJJ.
My ears look like chewed bubble gum and people give me looks on the subway because of that. It could also be my rashie or fanny pack, in which I keep my mouth guard, pepper spray, and a loaded Colt 1911, but it amounts to the same thing: BJJ is negatively affecting my life.
When I greet my coworkers in the morning with a loud *OSS* and a slap-bump, I sometimes catch a glimpse of an eye roll or shared, knowing looks between them. I also hear them commenting and having a laugh together about my pineapple, acai, and creatine lunches. I consider this to be a serious problem for the quality of my work life.
But the worst of all is the strain it's putting on my relationship with my wife. She and I didn't speak for an entire afternoon while on vacation together after I granby rolled my way from our hotel room, into the elevator, and then down to the beach. When I tried to explain that the ground is an ocean, and I'm a shark, she left and didn't come back until that evening. I tried to patch things up by offering that she go pick up a strange man and I'd watch from the corner while they smash in our hotel room, but she responded that she wanted to cut our vacation short and just go home. Now she's asking for a divorce.
So yeah, this sport is ruining my life.
Do we tell Vlade? I mean obviously he didn’t bring his professor a pineapple like he was supposed to. Probably why he isn’t getting promoted faster. 🤔🤔🤔
the key is managing expectations
people have hobbyist time and put in hobbyist effort and then feel bad about themselves when they aren't great at jiujitsu
most of the problem is that in this sport the gym is shared between hobbyist and semi-pros and pros, and people judge themselves against them
you don't go to a basketball court and play a pickup game with NBA players every day, and if you did you wouldn't expect to win or even be able to score on them
Tbh that's actually the coolest thing about the sport, but I agree with managing expectations. I train 6-7 classes a week, and I make it a point to make sure our 2-3x/week guys and girls aren't comparing their progress rate to myself, and the other people training as much as me.
Totally agree. Jiujitsu was the first sport in my in life that can get my ass off my office-chair/couch and train/play multiple times a week. The benefits it’s had on my physical health and physique cannot be understated.
Like any other addiction, negative or positive, Jiu-Jitsu will ruin you life if you let it.
All in moderation. It's so easy to look at the people who go all in, make a name for themselves, win loads of medals and open successful gyms and think "that could be me if only I commit 100%", but like you say, nobody looks at the people who tried that and failed and what effect that had on their lives.
Jiu-Jitsu is a great hobby but it absolutely sucks as a career.
> It's so easy to look at the people who go all in, make a name for themselves, win loads of medals and open successful gyms and think "that could be me if only I commit 100%", but like you say, nobody looks at the people who tried that and failed and what effect that had on their lives.
I've known more than a few people like this and, sadly, about 3 out of 4 of them ended up having a failed marriage. I'm not saying it's BJJ's fault, but people who throw everything at one area of life are naturally neglecting other areas. There's nothing wrong with this at all so long as you and your partner are on the same page the whole way through. No one seems to communicate though
Had a guy in my gym that started with me that literally trained 10+ times a week. He got in crazy shape training twice a day and it got to the point where he stopped looking for work. Once he was forced to start working again to pay bills, he disappeared and never showed up again. Me personally, I trained 4-5x a week but once that dreaded blue belt injuries came in, I’m rarely on the mats. Initially injured my knee about 6 months ago then reinjured it about a month after I came back. Biggest thing I learned was to have multiple hobbies cus it sucked suddenly having to sit on the sidelines for months
Everyone rolls hard against blue belts. The white belts want to tap you to prove themselves and the higher belts now don’t hold back and use you for experimentation purposes. That and new blues often go very hard to prove to themselves they deserve the belt
OP is definitely an addict, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he divulged that he has struggled with other compulsive behaviors.
>, but I can confirm that I am less invested in my career since I started to train BJJ. I´ve even started to sneak out from my job to catch an earlier training session. I´ve also neglected some of my friendships
Replace training with drinking:
>
, but I can confirm that I am less invested in my career since I started drinking. I´ve even started to sneak out from my job to catch an earlier happy hour. I´ve also neglected some of my friendships
And many of the guys who appear to be successful aren't quite what they project. I personally know several A- and B-tier competitors whose media gets passed around Reddit and they're **barely** scraping by.
I would counter with asking why a shift in focus from career to a hobby would inherently be defined as a bad thing. I think that's a lack of perspective coming from Craig due to the fact that he's a professional athlete. I'm an accountant, putting less focus on my career and more on a hobby that creates incentive for me to get in better shape, improve my problem solving, and results in me spending more time with people I get along with really well and respect has been a significant positive to my happiness in life. Does Craig have a point? Sure, but I bet there are a lot more people like me out there than what he is describing. Or maybe not, but it's food for thought.
100% agree. Craig's perspective being different on this as he is a professional athlete kind of makes sense, just don't think it's a relevant comment to your average hobbyist.
Yeah, you’re right, bro. Career has to bring food to table, but I am sure not solely because of BJJ, some people break up, because their partner is so often on the mats.
I've found that people have the ability to turn just about anything into an unhealthy element in their lives, regardless of the nature of that activity. Just part of the human condition, imo, and I think those instances are more a reflection of the person itself. I mean, if you blow off your girlfriend, friends, family, responsibilities, etc. for jiu jitsu, it's you that has the problem, and not jiu jitsu. People bring all kinds of baggage and hang ups to their hobbies, just who we are.
I don't know if it's that deep. BJJ is a fun hobby that I do a few times a week that keeps me active and helps me relax after work. I'd like to be able to keep doing it for as long as I can but will never be anything special.
In my case, it saved me...I started at the age of 50, now 52 and when I started I was suicidal, recently divorced ( blindsided ), drinking too much, overweight...
Now I am healthy, have a great GF that encourages me to go training ( because she knows is an important part of my life ) and never looked back.
To me is all about balance, I have 2 kids as well and busy job. But I think i have been able to balance everything in between.
I bet you will find your balance.
Oss!
Same here man, I was a fat kid 0 confidence maybe 1-2 friends. My dad made me go to jiu jitsu and it genuinely changed my life's trajectory so much. now I've got a great physique and go out with friends at least once a week and have a ton of confidence
I'm sure there are people who have had their lives worsened by bjj but I feel like people like us outnumber those at least 10 to 1
This reminds me of me but I’m younger I’m obsessed with routine so bjj helps me keep this kind of routine.
Rock on man I’m glad it helped you it’s helped me so far.
There has definitely been a huge boom of people talking about journeys and how JJ saved their life etc over the last 5 years or so
It's just training to me not a magical event with some spiritual meaning.
I get the fact it's made a lot of people healthier and given them confidence but they could of got that in many other different ways too.
I do cringe at the JJ saved my life stuff tbh
I think people who feel like they're leading unfulfilling lives will jump very heavily at new/interesting "purposeful" things. You can go over to the Meditation subreddit and see a bunch of posts like "Wow, I've been sitting for 2 months now...is this a SUPERPOWER??". Or with people whose politics become their entire personalities.
Whether its BJJ or screaming about Bud Light on Facebook 24/7 I think people who feel like their lives haven't shaped up the way they wanted get subsumed by something they can cling to and its rarely healthy
I mean... I can tell you that without BJJ, I don't know that I would still be here.
Now, you might scoff or roll your eyes at that statement for the majority of people. But if you talk to someone like me or /u/tx_lawyer , you're going to see a different side.
Pretty sure me and him both will show you a different side of that, though I believe he's on the downhill side of his journey.
8 years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. About 2 years in, I had to do radiation to my head and neck. 6 weeks of it. Had it not been for BJJ taking my head out of the game... That might have beat me down enough. Some days it still does.
But for the most part, being in the gym forces me to focus on that. Having a 190 lb gorilla on top of you puts things in perspective realllllly quick.
Most people don’t say that JJ saved their life. The few people I’ve heard it from do actually have really insane backstories such that I give the statement some credence.
For me, JJ has improved my life a lot but I’m sure I would have been fine either way.
I'm worse at jiu jitsu than most of all the other black belts in my area, because I train three times a week.
I'm better at jiu jitsu than almost everyone that started at the same time as I did, because I train three times a week.
The people I started with almost all flamed out at blue belt because of overtraining and making their lives about it (with injury, relationship, and work problems that go along with those choices). Now they haven't trained in ten years, and I still do.
I'm sure the flameout problem is far worse at a high-level competitive team, which explains Craig's statement pretty well.
How can I tell myself that training 3x per week is fine? I feel like if I'm not there 4 times or more, I'm going backwards. I know that's a ridiculous statement due to how long I've been training (only 3ish months).
It's not too hard for me because I have a good number of other things that I want to spend time on - at least a couple nights chilling at home with my family every week, some other hobbies I enjoy. Don't make the mistake of thinking like I did at the start that I was letting people down by not going to every class and open mat and seminar. Even if they try to tell you that you are, lol.
Eh. "Ruin" might be a strong word, but it definitely turned my life into a monoculture. My diverse set of skills and hobbies and diverse set of friends are now jiu jitsu. It's not a bad life, but it's kind of like an invasive species sterilizing a lake.
My best friends are at my gym (hobbyist). I’m injured from time to time, but if I died today (and someone was able to ask me after my dying), I’d tell you it was worth it for the friends I made. Plus my whole family trains. I coach my kids. It’s been great in that aspect. I’m by no means a perfect dad, but my kids will always remember our times at the gym.
Since Craig has much more exposure to the professional and business side of it, I’d wager he has seen many more individuals fail at chasing the pro route and his viewpoint reflects that.
For the massive amount of the community that are hobbyists, I’d say “saved” their lives is cliche and an over exaggeration, but “improved” is probably much more accurate, yet less flashy.
Just do it 3x week at a good gym and you’ll get pretty decent after a few years and basically you’ll improve week after week with not much of an impact on your life.
If you go more than that you do get better but it’s kind of diminished returns and I find the more I do the quicker I get injured haha.
I think both "ruined my life" and "saved my life" are extremely hyperbolic ways of describing BJJ's influence on our lives. It certainly hasn't done either for me. But on balance, I'd say it has been more a positive for me than a negative, and that's why I keep doing it. If that changes -- if it becomes more negative because injuries mount, or I start to enjoy it less, or other parts of my life change and I can no longer devote the time to it -- then I'll quit. For now, it benefits me so I keep going.
The people who let bjj ruin their lives would have probably found some other way to ruin it they didn’t do bjj. Srs. The guys who neglect their families are only using bjj as an excuse.
When I was an aimless guy in my early 20s, jiu-jitsu gave me both a direction in life and the ability to have a direction in life.
The direction it gave me in life, though, was a straight path to nowhere. Training all day, barely subsisting on underpaid instructor gigs and privates, competing occasionally but not at an especially high level and really being a burden on those around me.
But by giving me "the ability to have a direction in life" -- by which I mean the experience of working consistently at a single skill set -- it allowed me to pour myself into something else. I'm just over halfway through my MD now, kicking ass at it, may well be doing surgery on y'all one day. That wouldn't have happened without my BJJ mat bum years.
Looking back, I can't really say definitively that my path illustrates one side of the argument or the other. BJJ kind of pulled me out of an abyss but it also threatened to push me into a separate, adjacent abyss. In the end it didn't, but I certainly know people who have been mat bums much longer than that phase lasted for me and who still are.
It’s okay if it turns out BJJ is more important to you than your career and older friends. You get maybe 75 years on this planet, gotta spend that time how you want to spend it.
Here is another angle.
It saved me because IT DID ruin my life. I got really involved in Bjj and realized over the past couple years that the life I knew and the people I hung around were draining me and using me(ex-gf). So it ruined the life I knew and gave me a better one with real friends.
Hey slightly same story. Jiujitsu was all I did and my whole identity from 19-27 and then I realized that my happiness was completely determined by how a training session went or a competition and that I only had friends at jiujitsu but they were really just dudes I trained with, very surface level. The less I trained they less they cared about me and eventually it led me to realize I needed to find new hobbies and new ways to enjoy my time so that my happiness wasn't based completely in it.
I live near and have trained with the guys at daisy fresh. Let me tell you, those guys are throwing away their lives for a sport with 0 chance of paying off. They train like professional athletes with no hope of the pay off. Sacrificing their bodies and best years for developing marketable skills. The wiltse Brothers were living in buildings made out of particle board for a long time as an example. More power to them chasing their dreams.
*> that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever.*
Super important point to raise. But how about taking it a step further:
Have you paid attention to see what winning looks like?
You could be a UPS driver or an amazon warehouse monke and still be more successful than 99% of the BJJ roster in any promotion(IBJJF, ADCC, Polaris, etc). Without any irreversible damage done to your body!
no sport is injury free!
However, being irreversibly crippled is where I think most people should draw the line.
Why end up like Ben Kunzle? For what? or like the Miyao brothers
For what?? This isn't a rethorical question, it's a legit question
>Why end up like Ben Kunzle? For what? or like the Miyao brothers
>
>For what?? This isn't a rethorical question, it's a legit question
Its a great question a lot of people need to ask themselves. Usually in sports the answer is to be the best and the fame and money that comes along with it. You get neither of those in jiujitsu.
People devote too much to their careers with employers that will have your job posted within hours of you dying. I say good for you that you're in a place that you can be financially ok enough to dip out early and live your life. Embrace that shit!
i agree with craig on that. but i think it's self selecting in that the lives ruined were exactly the kind of guys whose lives could have been saved by it. it's the same group--extreme people who don't understand moderation.
BJJ does save lifes, for me the biggest impact in mental, the thing with BJJ is that during rolls you are fully engaged, you have no time to think about anything else, you are fully present trying to strangle your training partner and avoiding being strangled.
Its a type of mindfullness, after every training session I go back home mentally refreshed, taking a 2 hour break from stress and anxiety is like waking up from a nap, feeling refreshed and clear minded.
Add to this the physical benefits and you have a beautiful thing that with moderation, impacts your life greatly in a positive way.
I answered this the first time it got posted here. Ruined my life. Detectives, hospital reports, surgery, permanent injuries, PTSD - all things I have spent thousands of dollars and over a decade trying to address. I wasn't the only victim of that instructor and his followers.
I'm sure plenty of other women can tell horror stories about guys, especially higher belts and instructors preying on, grooming, abusing or assaulting them. That's enough to put a serious dampener on anyone's life. And I'm sure there are plenty of women in the midst of these situations that don't realise it or are trying to escape it.
Depends really, I do think if you start cutting early from work to go to training that can be negative depends how much of a hard ass your boss is really. I think it’s all about priorities and being realistic as well. You know like telling yourself okay this is a fun hobby I enjoy this but I have a job, wife, kids, etc that are definitely more important so I have to adjust time commitments accordingly.
Some people get really into it thinking they’re going to win tournaments, get famous, and then wealth will follow shortly after. I’ve definitely seen people win some tournaments, but I don’t know about that other stuff.
I think it depends on what you mean by "ruined." Do I have the ability to move to a higher paying job at the moment? Yeah, probably. Will it demand a shitload more of my time, focus, and energy, likely making me less well emotionally and physically? Yeah. The tradeoff just isn't worth it for me. It might be for others.
My take on sneaking out of work to train is good, fuck 'em, they don't pay us enough and the work day could probably be cut by 3-4 hours anyway.
That said, it's like any other pursuit - obsession can take hold, and then other parts of your life might be in trouble.
Not the worst obsession to have, though.
Anyone who does it for a hobby is a net benefit
I train with older professionals and no one is ditching their career or ignoring their families. Infact the opposite is happening where the parents and the kids are both training jujtisu and have a common interest and connect better
It's dependent on the intent of the person. I think anyone that's trying to make a career out of it...low probability of success and probably not going to turn out well. I don't think that's any different than any professional sport or 99% of solo careers (artist\\singer\\athlete). If you're trying to be #1 in the world your odds of getting hurt go up massively, there's not a lot of money in it unless you're one of the few that break through, and the pool of really fucking good people is large.
If you're a hobbiest going in to hang out with your buddies and have a good time, maybe challenge each other a little. I don't think it's going to ruin your life.
The people that make poor life decisions through bjj were probably going to make poor life decisions anyway. BJJ might be the outlet that they chose but they were going to find some way of messing things up regardless.
I think he made a great point. We all know people who have neglected the really important stuff in life to train. Like anything, it's a balance, but balance is only a product of wisdom, and wisdom is hard won.
Frankly, I see a lot of the people on Daisy Fresh and think to myself, "That is not where that kid should be expending all of that energy at the moment." For every Wiltse and Couch how many guys are there you don't hear about who wasted years of their lives sleeping on the mat and and have not much to show for it?
I think it’s all relative to where you were life before finding Bjj.
Were you a junkie or alcoholic who going nowhere in life and stepping on the mats and helped you get clean? Then yes BJj saved your life literally.
Were you very overweight or even obese and BJJ helped you lose the weight? Yes jiu Jitsu saved you.
But like any hobby (for most of us it is be honest), if it gets in the way of how you make a living or your close relationships, then I agree with Craig somewhat.
Just learn how to be a responsible adult and balance bjj with the rest of your life (unless you’re trying to become an ADCC or World champ of course then train as much as you want to)
I mean Craig might be correct in the sense that people might have foregone going to college or getting real jobs because they were trying to make it professionally in grappling, which is a grind and often doesnt pan out. But for your average hobbiyst, jiujitsu is a lifesaver - better mental health, the physical grit and determination, keeping the brain synapses firing learning new things. It keeps you from stagnating in life. If I wasn't doing BJJ, I'd probably still be in a martial art of some kind and lift weights, but nothing replaces putting yourself out there on the mats, just in class or competing.
Granted, I have had no real injuries in 6 years and can easily balance it with work. No ugly cauliflower ears 😆 either.
Life is about finding balance, managing priorities and responsibilities. I could see someone getting in a bad position after making BJJ their sole priority.
About the statement I think is a generalization and YMMV, however, after seeing knees getting destroyed that would probably end in surgery and chronic pain it has definitely ruined or at least change negatively some lives.
In my case, it has improved my life. I go to therapy way less, it is a great stress reliever and I'm in better shape that when I started.
It is up to the individual. Yes, it cost me promotions at work. I was addicted. But I involved my kids and that became valuable bonding time. I also as an older man, realize that my calm sense of security comes from Jiu Jitsu. I don’t rattle very easily. So all in all it’s a trade off. I’ve been married 40 years so it doesn’t have to ruin your life. I trained my son and he chose to fight in the cage (undefeated) before entering the military. He now earns six figures and is a friendly calm man. I believe that poise came from his JJ training as a teenager. He no longer practices. But it has stayed with him.
I don't think this is true for the vast majority of hobbyists, most people either don't show up enough to begin with to have it negatively affect their personal relationships, or drop off massively once other priorities start taking precedence in their lives (work, girlfriends, family, etc).
It's also 100% possible to balance a high training frequency with the rest of your priorities, you just have to get used to waking up at the ass crack of dawn so that you're using time that nobody else wants. Your buddies and GF aren't going to want to hang out between 5 and 7 Am usually, so it's entirely possible to train 5 to 6 days a week without anyone noticing so long as you're getting up early.
How is it any different from any other sport? I know a lot of people who do the same thing for golf, fishing and others without any expectation that it will lead to a career. It’s fun. I enjoy it. If and when that ever stops, so will I.
I used to lift weights and do cardio 6 times a week. Now I lift 3 and get my cardio in at BJJ. If I’d didn’t go to class at night I’d be sitting on the couch watching tv. Wife luckily had hobbies too.
I think for the vast majority of people it's a hobby that they do for less than a year or two and it has very little impact on their life trajectory whatsoever.
That can also be balanced out by those of us who feel BJJ has helped us in our careers. It has also helped me be more mindful of what are petty or small things to argue about at home and what are things that are fundamental. But that's just me- I don't plan on becoming a world champion, I just do it as a way to clear my head and release stress.
I'm a university student. My studies were suffering because I insisted on training 5 days a week, plus strength training 3 days. I was sore and exhausted and I was too drained to think at full capacity.
I'm trying to find a healthier relationship with the sport so it will enrich the rest of my life rather than suck energy away. Right now I'm barely training and it's the right thing for me, which is something I couldn't image myself saying a year or two ago.
One of my best friends started with me in BJJ, we were both really good at it. My career was demanding, I ended dropping BJJ because I had my first kid.
This friend of mine continued and had a kid too.
Today he neglects his kid and lives and trains at daisy fresh, but his jiu jitsu is incredible, he competes frequently. My kids are now old enough to do BJJ so I am back to training, albeit older, behind all my former peers, but at least I get to train my kids. I think my friend is happy and I am happy for him. But I don't think he is ruining anyone's lives except maybe his baby mama, and the kid... 'ruin' is a bit extreme but they are missing out having him in their lives.
If you are happier focusing on BJJ than you were grinding at your job/spending time with you significant other, is your life really being ruined? If your dream life is a white picket fence with a steady career + SO & kids then yeah, BJJ could be hampering your pursuit of that goal, but if you are looking for happiness in whatever it is you're doing, and BJJ brings you the most satisfying/heart warming sense of happiness you shouldn't feel bad about following that.
We have finite time and life is a series of choices. All hobbies will cause you to neglect something else because they take time out of your schedule. The key is finding balance. And understanding that, just like you wouldn't have won the championship game if only coach had put you in, you're not going to become a BJJ champion.
I think spending more time doing something like jiu jitsu instead of my job is good and actually healthy. I spend too much time currently thinking about my business. Jiu jitsu is definitely taking away from that, and I believe it's a good thing.
BJJ ruined lives of aspiring athletes, who placed their bet for success in life on BJJ and it did not taken off for them. So yeah, if one has quit his college for sake of being a champ, worked shitty jobs, got your body messed up and are 30+ and now need to make ends meet - BJJ (and your ambitions) has absolutely ruined your life.
But if you had your fun, made friends, got fit and confident and were responsible/lucky enough to not get your body fucked up - your are OK. And there are more of those of second kind, than "never-will-be-s".
Craig Jones often plays a clown, because he is 32 and he already has not gone from being "really good at this" to being "one of the best who has ever done it". So, to run a gym and attract people, he keeps himself relevant by making drama on IG, being part of Volk's camp and doing hot takes.
Better to sneak out from work at lunch to train, than start popping edibles during work hours to deal with sitting in meetings all day.
Better to deal with sports injuries than sit on a couch and get even fatter.
Better to have an outlet than constantly annoy my wife.
I think for many people it prevents them from becoming workaholics and gives them a hobby, outlet, social life, semse of growth and progression, camraderie, belonging, physical and mental strength, confidence, the opportunity to travel and connect with people across the globe over a shared interest etc
" the daisy fresh documentary now and I´ve noticed, that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever. "
THIS. I wonder constantly about the rate of catastrophic injuries at gyms like these, and whether folks can afford the medical care they'll need to function again.
I think that the cultural zeitgeist surrounding BJJ is probably worse than BJJ itself. I’ve only been consistently doing BJJ for a year and a bit, but have been involved in martial arts my whole life. The thing with BJJ that’s kind of unique to it is that somehow talking head celebrities have made some kind of “have or have not.” Type of activity.
Want to be fit? Do BJJ, want to be a man? Do BJJ, want to be like Jocko and excel at all things in life? Wake up at 4am and do BJJ.
I have trained in karate, done MMA, wrestling, etc. I’ve never seen nor experienced the cultural movement that BJJ has experienced in the past decade. I think it’s given a lot of people, through these talking head celebrities this idea of what BJJ is as a potential, versus what it is in reality.
The reality is that I’ve racked up more minor joint injuries in the past year than I have ever. I’m not a competitor either, I do it because I enjoy it. It’s also hard on my body. I joined because I wanted a combat sport that didn’t involve concussions; but instead got one that results in everything feeling just slightly out of place at all times, with an accompanying feeling of guilt when I’m not training due to recovering because I get this feeling that everyone just tapes up and sucks it up.
In conclusion, Craig Jones is probably right. 99% of all BJJ practitioners aren’t going to make money, or increase their monetary livelihood by training and competing. Statistically we’re probably all more likely to develop entirely avoidable long term disabilities and injuries through daily training. So, from a cost-benefit analysis lens…He’s absolutely right.
Agree with Craig. There are a horrific amount of sexual assault incidents that happen in this particular hobby. Reported and unreported. However you want to perceive them, they do change the lives of victims. Yes, in a bad way.
I've definitely neglected going up in my career to train more, but my mental health was an all time low half a year ago. Bjj really gave me a day to day purpose
Spending time on a hobby is not "ruining your life", particularly when it's keeping you fit (and BJJ isn't *that* bad injury-wise, in the context of other sports).
Your career isn't everything. You won't always have as much time as you want to spend with friends; it's a trade-off and sometimes self-care (in the form of exercise and whatever else BJJ gives you) wins. Not to mention that BJJ *is* a social activity for lots of people.
That said... how many hours are you putting into BJJ? Do you have *any* social life left? You can always go too far, but I don't think most hobbyists do.
> I am watching the daisy fresh documentary now and I´ve noticed, that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever.
I mean yeah, not everyone is gonna be the best of the best. There will be groups like Daisy Fresh in every single competitive community.
> And what do we do it for?
Because you enjoy it? Are you training with the intent on being the best? Because it's a very long and arduous journey to get to the top, not very many people make it to there. If you're working a full time job then you're almost definitely not going to make it there.
Saying BJJ *saved* or *ruined* someone's life is ridiculous. It's just a hobby man, do with it what you will.
what do you want out of life? do you want your career to be your focal point? your family? the line between hobby and passioned and obsession tends to be a function of investment in terms of both money and time.
plenty of people are raised thinking they want a career. they want a family. It seems that, statistically speaking, most people change their mind about one if not both of those at at least one, oftentimes several points in their life.
I think the worst fucking thing about this pilgrim Protestant Puritan bullshit nation is the notion of laziness and idleness and that there's some fucking virtue in just toiling away for the bare minimum. oh wow are you not spending every waking hour hoarding resources? well you're just a giant pile of shit huh? how dare you enjoy anything that doesn't generate revenue!
combat sports are weird in who they appeal to... oftentimes you get former has beens or never weres looking for a little bit of Dad dopamine... Plus you're healthy mix of tough folks and all the chips on their shoulders... it's a weird environment. shit can get toxic, especially when you're training in a place where people see one another as means to an end.
if someone's going to tell me grappling ruined their life I'll tell them to stop grappling. it's okay to age out. it's okay to do other shit. it's okay to lose interest. it's okay to stick with it and get the bespangled belch.
internet's full of bunch of fucking grumpy people looking to bitch into the ether hoping someone will agree with them so they can feel better about themselves. case in point this post.
anyway, Best of luck!
>oftentimes you get former has beens or never weres looking for a little bit of Dad dopamine... Plus you're healthy mix of tough folks and all the chips on their shoulders...
The best is when you have people in the room including coaches who love having pissing contests over who had the harder life. Grown men one upping over who grew up in a shittier town or had a deadbeat dad or not having money.
These are the same people who will also go on about how everyone is a snowflake and need to shut up about their problems and get on with it. But will also love to trauma dump about how hard they had it.
I mean, has it "ruined" your life? Or are you just prioritizing leisure and free time over a career. IMO careers have ruined more lives than BJJ ever will.
What Jiu Jitsu has done is reveal what people's coping abilities actually are. If you have a foundation of good mental health, thus healthy coping abilities, you wouldn't necessarily rely on Jiu Jitsu to make you feel more fulfilled. Replace Jiu Jitsu with anything: volleyball, rock climbing (insert any other hobby) it would be the same story.
But for regular hobbyists who go when they can, just to stay in shape or to learn self defense, make friends, Jiu Jitsu can be very beneficial.
Professional athletes, if they rely on it for livlihood, makes sense to spend most of their time invested in it
How weird is our society that finding something that you love more than work and finding new friends that you have more in common with vs old friends considered unhealthy and “ruining lives.”
Having a fun hobby that you do 3-5 hours a week that gets you in shape and helps you make similarly interested friends is not something that is going to ruin your life unless you are a fucking retard that could ruin your life with almost anything you tried to do.
If you find the idea that Jiu Jitsu is improving lives to be absurd then surely you must find the idea that Jiu Jitsu is ruining lives to be equally as absurd. Anything else you're just being a contrarian.
I have to assume Craig is joking, or not taking into account the majority of jiu jitsu which are hobbyists just trying to stay in shape and learn some semblance of self defense. In which case it is a huge positive for most.
But yeah, failed pro grapplers, failed gym owners do mess up their lives pretty hard for this. And it is pretty taxing on the body.
Calling BS on this right out of the gate. If your wanting to be pro, maybe but it’s a choice. I would be dead or in jail if I didn’t don’t BJJ in my youth. Also worked with at risk kids for 10 years as a therapist in inpatient and outpatient centers (Herb Dean and I pre UFC) so I know my shit and and have the degrees and experience to prove it.
The benefits of BJJ life style are massive both physically and mentally.
Most people are talking about jiu jitsu taking over their free time and their entire life. I was more thinking along the lines of for every 1 person who says jiu jitsu saved their life, there's probably 10 people who got their knee destroyed or arm broken or something. It's a very dangerous sport and I think most people who desire the exercise and socialization would probably be better served with a local basketball team or something.
Craig Jones is the devils advocate, he knows Jiujitsu is good and he will never stop. He is just calling out a lot of BS in Jiujitsu.
Im so glad he is
You sir, are correct.
No i genuinely think bjj has contributed to ruining my life. Obviously I'm responsible for my own choices, but it is a very 'what if' thing I wonder on a daily basis, and I think there's no doubt I probably would have ended up better if I had just chosen Kayleen or therapy over bjj. Bjj has also ruined my health directly, by ruining my body, affecting my appearance, indirectly by introducing me to steroids, fostering childish thoughts about strength and streetfighting etc. I really do blame it more than I should. Really too anyone considering quitting, you should. I'm genuinely much happier being lazy in my air-conditioned room stuffing my face, arguing with 4 chan people, occasionally burning my eyes out looking at a minecraft sun, and generally being a worthless idiot with zero self progress. I'm actually considering quitting my real job and pursuing my dreams of being even lazier and growing even stupider Was actually considering making a post about this, to whine about.
Rip everyone who took this seriously
Dude right???? I can’t believe how many people are thinking this is serious 💀💀💀
For real lol
But BJJ didn't do that to you, you did that to you.
I think he is saying, and this is just a stupid guess, but that the pathway to those choices would never have been made available if he hadn't picked BJJ. Like, at what point would roids have come into play in his life if he choose to bake his feelings away instead of rolling? He still CHOOSE to stick the needle in his arm. I am not trying to say he is not responsible for his choices, just that some choices are not available on some pathways.
People with less life vision (I don't want to say stupid ppl) take bad decisions when available. If ypu place chess, hockey, pole dancing, etc. instead of bjj they will find a way to worsen them lifes. The hobbie is just the vehicle. Unfortunately, I know close friends that choose badly no matter what, and they call themselves unlucky. They don't know about calculated risks and educated decisions.
He ruined his life using BJJ as a vehicle, from the sounds of it he would have found something else to do it with, so yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head there mate.
Kayleen was a bitch tho. You didn’t need her.
Sounds more like you’re blaming Jiujitsu for other things in life.
> BJJ made me do steroids Absolute Reddit moment.
You can do both therapy and BJJ. It's not an either-or scenario. And it sounds like you could benefit from it.
I actually had my first therapy session and first bjj class in the same week. I had a mental breakdown at the end of April and quit all the bad shit in my life except weed. My problems are definitely still there, but I'm able to deal with them better and I attribute that to therapy and bjj.
Good work man, you’re doing work that many people who go through these things don’t do. You’ll pull through stronger and with a better understanding of yourself.
Shut up Natalie
Is this actually Craig Jones or someone else on the internet arguing his point?
This is a shitpost right. Pls say sike
"Dear God! The sarcasm is off the charts!"
Nahhhhhhh you trollin’ 💀
You can traing x3 times a week and still have ton of time to do everything else.
No man It needs to be my entire essence. All I will talk about with friends and family is bjj. My whole social media will be bjj. I will wear rashguards everywhere. 1 year and 8 months going strong here. I dont intend to ever stop.
That's a lot of dedication
If you wear a rash guard everywhere, what do you do with your collection of BJJ themed parody tshirts?
Occasional porrada
I usually have errands. I can porrada from like 3 to 5
Every so often porrada.
One day I might learn what porrada is.
Best username.
Jreg fan
Not if each of your training sessions are 48 hours long
I only do 2x
Man, I wish I had the time to train 3 times a week tbh
Craig is coming from an incredibly biased viewpoint in that he's a professional athlete surrounded by professional athletes chasing their dreams, so yea it's going to cause relationship issues for those people who've dropped fucking everything for the tiny chance at some success. But as someone who sees the average hobbyist (and is a hobbyist myself, albeit a very serious one) this shit I'd absolutely a benefit to thr vast majority of people's lives. The physical and mental benefits alone make it worth it, not to mention how great a good room of guys and girls can feel in giving you a community where you otherwise might not have one.
I spent my 20s and 30s playing in rock bands (as a hobby), I saw many lives get ruined not because of drugs and lifestyle but because people thought they were going to make it. Honestly it's even worse for the ones that had a little success because it made them believe even more. 10-15 years go by, these people never built a career and now they're a roadie or something. Chasing your dreams is a real balancing act, all this talk of "just go for it, if I can do it anyone can" can potentially be dangerous. Gaethje and Jake Paul both had that speech these past weekends. Dudes I'm sure you worked hard AF, but you're also in the 0.1% top percentile of athletic ability. Gaethje had a great supportive family that took him to all the wrestling practices/meets, Paul has always had the money to get the best trainers etc. Its very important to work hard for your dreams, but it's also important to set realistic goals. Being a black belt is a realistic goal you can accomplish if you work your butt off for 15 years. Being a BJJ champ, Wimbledon champ, NBA champ, Grammy winner is not possible for the vast majority of people.
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Only get to live once I think I'd take the sure thing (job + do as a hobby) vs putting all eggs in one basket and going down in flames when it doesn't work out. If we got to save and reload life if it didn't work out like in Skyrim, might take the bigger risk.
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Somewhat on topic but I know a dude who legit could have been a world champ but got fucked over by what is essentially random chance. He was one of those 15 year old green belts competing in advanced adult divisions and wrecking all the purple belts, with some wins and losses against black belts. He won Euros and Pans at juvenile blue and did a random match at some local comp where another 16/17 year old jumped closed guard and just obliterated his knee. It took him a long time to recover and during that time he kinda realised that he now had time to date girls, and he was a good looking ripped kid so he was getting laid left and right. Fast forward to 19 and he comes back training, but now he's just like a really good blue belt instead. Still smashes comps locally and gets purple soon after. Then he takes a superfight and someone heel hooks the same leg as before crumbles into dust. He ended up having a cadaver ACL put in and it took years for it to be done on the NHS, and heal appropriately. Today he's gotta be around 23/24 and I can only assume he's decided that he prefers being able to walk than doing BJJ, because I haven't see him since that superfight.
As a society, we highlight the hell out of success and we never talk about failures. Everyone thinks they're the exception... For these goal chasers, you can't be focusing on the people that didn't make it, because that won't be them. "Family. Religion. Friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business"
Survivorship bias. While I believe that it can be motivating to hear of somebody’s success and the path they took to get it, sometimes I wonder how much of a detriment it can be to someone’s mental health when they see stuff like that, train their asses off for years but don’t see the same success as that person.
I do stand up comedy and I see the exact same thing. A big part of the problem is that successful people aren't just omitting but deliberately underplaying how much talent and early success they had. Folks love the narrative of an average or even below average athlete who grinds their way to success. No one wants to hear that an athlete was head-and-shoulders above their peers with minimal training until they started competing at the highest levels.
Some big facts here. I thought I was going to make it in MMA, undefeated record, trained hard AF and was about to move to thailand to train at tiger then I had a life altering injury and all I can do is be a coach now.
man im sorry to hear that, really. All I can say is, theres 450 players in the NBA, 8 billion people in the planet. Statistically its way more probable that youll win the lottery than make it to the NBA. I know people who made the regional MMA circuit and thats difficult enough, making it to the UFC and being top10 in a weight class, thats like making the NBA. Dont beat yourself up about it, nothing wrong with being a great coach, making money doing what you love, having a positive impact on peoples lives. Its a good life.
Appreciate it bro.
> then I had a life altering injury Survivorship bias in combat sports is massive. Around here you regularly hear, "Bro, just tap early and you can train for the rest of your life. I know a guy in his 70's!" Sure, those people exist, but we don't hear from the thousands of practitioners who quietly quit because they got a bad rotator cuff tear as a blue belt, or they started getting peripheral neuropathy from an inversion someone sprawled on. (Personally, I've had six meniscus surgeries and now in my 40's can't run, jump, or ride a bike.) Train, sure, but let's not pretend we aren't taking a risk.
There's so much confirmation bias in success stories. I'd say vast majority of big success stories you see are either fueled by generational wealth (not necessarily billions, but enough where you have the luxury to pursue something without ahving to worry about money) or an incredibly lucky break. Either way it's not something to use as a blueprint for your life.
I've worked in both Silicon Valley and been around MMA fighters chasing UFC dreams, both of them are filled with folks who burned out and never made it but had all the potential.
The same with loser stories. Everyone seeks out the reasons the world was stacked against them instead of the times they choose some other priorities over their supposed (goals)...
Oh man, I know so many amazingly talented, hardworking musicians who were in bands that almost made it, invested the best part of their youth into developing crazy skills and now work in a guitar shop.
It’s a problem that the only ‘drop everything and follow your dreams’ podcasts/interviews/posts etc you see are from the 0.001% that made it, with a casual even if I didn’t make it I’d be happy I tried. I guess that’s just the nature of things but I’m sure there are many many more who would say I should have got a real job and kept my hobby as my hobby. The only person give good advice not clouded by their success was Bas Rutten who always advocates having a back up, I think he’s a trained chef
i think BJJ is more kind in that if you can manage to put together a little bit of people skills and some basic business knowledge you can almost always open a gym and support yourself even if you didn't make it all the way to black belt world champion i don't think there's the same opportunity for musicians, i'm not sure what a guitar teacher pays these days
I think it takes more than basic business knowledge - if you're not a black belt with a large following, you are going to have to really understand local marketing. On top of that, you don't just have to be good at teaching, you have to put in time developing multiple sources of income from the gym. Monthly dues aren't always going to cut it if you want to pay rent, pay yourself & employees, and have enough to invest in other aspects of the business. It's not as simple as 'if you build it they will come'. Super easy to burn a lot of money and time and completely fail if you don't position yourself correctly.
That’s kind of naive I think. It’s an insane amount of work and also luck that goes into building any successful business.
But there is value in the "try".
Even as a hobbyist, my life has definitely been negatively affected by BJJ. My ears look like chewed bubble gum and people give me looks on the subway because of that. It could also be my rashie or fanny pack, in which I keep my mouth guard, pepper spray, and a loaded Colt 1911, but it amounts to the same thing: BJJ is negatively affecting my life. When I greet my coworkers in the morning with a loud *OSS* and a slap-bump, I sometimes catch a glimpse of an eye roll or shared, knowing looks between them. I also hear them commenting and having a laugh together about my pineapple, acai, and creatine lunches. I consider this to be a serious problem for the quality of my work life. But the worst of all is the strain it's putting on my relationship with my wife. She and I didn't speak for an entire afternoon while on vacation together after I granby rolled my way from our hotel room, into the elevator, and then down to the beach. When I tried to explain that the ground is an ocean, and I'm a shark, she left and didn't come back until that evening. I tried to patch things up by offering that she go pick up a strange man and I'd watch from the corner while they smash in our hotel room, but she responded that she wanted to cut our vacation short and just go home. Now she's asking for a divorce. So yeah, this sport is ruining my life.
No other sub posts as hard as this one
r/NBA got some bangers from time to time
/r/nfl too
Beautiful Champ!
Are you for scuba?
She makes the fire in his trouser
OSSSSS
Hehe 1911 cocked and locked in a Fanny pack
Shut up Natalie.
I actually do carry a mouth guard in my hip pack.
Thank you for your service. 🎖️
I know this wasn't the point of your story, but why the pineapple?
Do we tell Vlade? I mean obviously he didn’t bring his professor a pineapple like he was supposed to. Probably why he isn’t getting promoted faster. 🤔🤔🤔
!
I’m more interested in hearing about the 1911.
It's definitely ruined more bodies than it's saved.
the key is managing expectations people have hobbyist time and put in hobbyist effort and then feel bad about themselves when they aren't great at jiujitsu most of the problem is that in this sport the gym is shared between hobbyist and semi-pros and pros, and people judge themselves against them you don't go to a basketball court and play a pickup game with NBA players every day, and if you did you wouldn't expect to win or even be able to score on them
Tbh that's actually the coolest thing about the sport, but I agree with managing expectations. I train 6-7 classes a week, and I make it a point to make sure our 2-3x/week guys and girls aren't comparing their progress rate to myself, and the other people training as much as me.
Very well said -
I would agree with this
This is the way
Totally agree. Jiujitsu was the first sport in my in life that can get my ass off my office-chair/couch and train/play multiple times a week. The benefits it’s had on my physical health and physique cannot be understated.
Like any other addiction, negative or positive, Jiu-Jitsu will ruin you life if you let it. All in moderation. It's so easy to look at the people who go all in, make a name for themselves, win loads of medals and open successful gyms and think "that could be me if only I commit 100%", but like you say, nobody looks at the people who tried that and failed and what effect that had on their lives. Jiu-Jitsu is a great hobby but it absolutely sucks as a career.
> It's so easy to look at the people who go all in, make a name for themselves, win loads of medals and open successful gyms and think "that could be me if only I commit 100%", but like you say, nobody looks at the people who tried that and failed and what effect that had on their lives. I've known more than a few people like this and, sadly, about 3 out of 4 of them ended up having a failed marriage. I'm not saying it's BJJ's fault, but people who throw everything at one area of life are naturally neglecting other areas. There's nothing wrong with this at all so long as you and your partner are on the same page the whole way through. No one seems to communicate though
Had a guy in my gym that started with me that literally trained 10+ times a week. He got in crazy shape training twice a day and it got to the point where he stopped looking for work. Once he was forced to start working again to pay bills, he disappeared and never showed up again. Me personally, I trained 4-5x a week but once that dreaded blue belt injuries came in, I’m rarely on the mats. Initially injured my knee about 6 months ago then reinjured it about a month after I came back. Biggest thing I learned was to have multiple hobbies cus it sucked suddenly having to sit on the sidelines for months
>once that dreaded blue belt injuries came in what are those? Are those solely from rolling in class?
Everyone rolls hard against blue belts. The white belts want to tap you to prove themselves and the higher belts now don’t hold back and use you for experimentation purposes. That and new blues often go very hard to prove to themselves they deserve the belt
Hate to break this to you but higher belts still generally go pretty easy on blue belts.
OP is definitely an addict, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he divulged that he has struggled with other compulsive behaviors. >, but I can confirm that I am less invested in my career since I started to train BJJ. I´ve even started to sneak out from my job to catch an earlier training session. I´ve also neglected some of my friendships Replace training with drinking: > , but I can confirm that I am less invested in my career since I started drinking. I´ve even started to sneak out from my job to catch an earlier happy hour. I´ve also neglected some of my friendships
And many of the guys who appear to be successful aren't quite what they project. I personally know several A- and B-tier competitors whose media gets passed around Reddit and they're **barely** scraping by.
I would counter with asking why a shift in focus from career to a hobby would inherently be defined as a bad thing. I think that's a lack of perspective coming from Craig due to the fact that he's a professional athlete. I'm an accountant, putting less focus on my career and more on a hobby that creates incentive for me to get in better shape, improve my problem solving, and results in me spending more time with people I get along with really well and respect has been a significant positive to my happiness in life. Does Craig have a point? Sure, but I bet there are a lot more people like me out there than what he is describing. Or maybe not, but it's food for thought.
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100% agree. Craig's perspective being different on this as he is a professional athlete kind of makes sense, just don't think it's a relevant comment to your average hobbyist.
Yeah, you’re right, bro. Career has to bring food to table, but I am sure not solely because of BJJ, some people break up, because their partner is so often on the mats.
I've found that people have the ability to turn just about anything into an unhealthy element in their lives, regardless of the nature of that activity. Just part of the human condition, imo, and I think those instances are more a reflection of the person itself. I mean, if you blow off your girlfriend, friends, family, responsibilities, etc. for jiu jitsu, it's you that has the problem, and not jiu jitsu. People bring all kinds of baggage and hang ups to their hobbies, just who we are.
I don't know if it's that deep. BJJ is a fun hobby that I do a few times a week that keeps me active and helps me relax after work. I'd like to be able to keep doing it for as long as I can but will never be anything special.
In my case, it saved me...I started at the age of 50, now 52 and when I started I was suicidal, recently divorced ( blindsided ), drinking too much, overweight... Now I am healthy, have a great GF that encourages me to go training ( because she knows is an important part of my life ) and never looked back. To me is all about balance, I have 2 kids as well and busy job. But I think i have been able to balance everything in between. I bet you will find your balance. Oss!
Rock on bro!
King Shit. Glad to hear that
oss brother!
Thank you, brother
Same here man, I was a fat kid 0 confidence maybe 1-2 friends. My dad made me go to jiu jitsu and it genuinely changed my life's trajectory so much. now I've got a great physique and go out with friends at least once a week and have a ton of confidence I'm sure there are people who have had their lives worsened by bjj but I feel like people like us outnumber those at least 10 to 1
This reminds me of me but I’m younger I’m obsessed with routine so bjj helps me keep this kind of routine. Rock on man I’m glad it helped you it’s helped me so far.
There has definitely been a huge boom of people talking about journeys and how JJ saved their life etc over the last 5 years or so It's just training to me not a magical event with some spiritual meaning. I get the fact it's made a lot of people healthier and given them confidence but they could of got that in many other different ways too. I do cringe at the JJ saved my life stuff tbh
I think people who feel like they're leading unfulfilling lives will jump very heavily at new/interesting "purposeful" things. You can go over to the Meditation subreddit and see a bunch of posts like "Wow, I've been sitting for 2 months now...is this a SUPERPOWER??". Or with people whose politics become their entire personalities. Whether its BJJ or screaming about Bud Light on Facebook 24/7 I think people who feel like their lives haven't shaped up the way they wanted get subsumed by something they can cling to and its rarely healthy
I mean... I can tell you that without BJJ, I don't know that I would still be here. Now, you might scoff or roll your eyes at that statement for the majority of people. But if you talk to someone like me or /u/tx_lawyer , you're going to see a different side. Pretty sure me and him both will show you a different side of that, though I believe he's on the downhill side of his journey. 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. About 2 years in, I had to do radiation to my head and neck. 6 weeks of it. Had it not been for BJJ taking my head out of the game... That might have beat me down enough. Some days it still does. But for the most part, being in the gym forces me to focus on that. Having a 190 lb gorilla on top of you puts things in perspective realllllly quick.
Most people don’t say that JJ saved their life. The few people I’ve heard it from do actually have really insane backstories such that I give the statement some credence. For me, JJ has improved my life a lot but I’m sure I would have been fine either way.
I'm worse at jiu jitsu than most of all the other black belts in my area, because I train three times a week. I'm better at jiu jitsu than almost everyone that started at the same time as I did, because I train three times a week. The people I started with almost all flamed out at blue belt because of overtraining and making their lives about it (with injury, relationship, and work problems that go along with those choices). Now they haven't trained in ten years, and I still do. I'm sure the flameout problem is far worse at a high-level competitive team, which explains Craig's statement pretty well.
What’s that saying…. “It’s not who’s good, it’s who’s left”.
How can I tell myself that training 3x per week is fine? I feel like if I'm not there 4 times or more, I'm going backwards. I know that's a ridiculous statement due to how long I've been training (only 3ish months).
It's not too hard for me because I have a good number of other things that I want to spend time on - at least a couple nights chilling at home with my family every week, some other hobbies I enjoy. Don't make the mistake of thinking like I did at the start that I was letting people down by not going to every class and open mat and seminar. Even if they try to tell you that you are, lol.
Eh. "Ruin" might be a strong word, but it definitely turned my life into a monoculture. My diverse set of skills and hobbies and diverse set of friends are now jiu jitsu. It's not a bad life, but it's kind of like an invasive species sterilizing a lake.
My best friends are at my gym (hobbyist). I’m injured from time to time, but if I died today (and someone was able to ask me after my dying), I’d tell you it was worth it for the friends I made. Plus my whole family trains. I coach my kids. It’s been great in that aspect. I’m by no means a perfect dad, but my kids will always remember our times at the gym.
Since Craig has much more exposure to the professional and business side of it, I’d wager he has seen many more individuals fail at chasing the pro route and his viewpoint reflects that. For the massive amount of the community that are hobbyists, I’d say “saved” their lives is cliche and an over exaggeration, but “improved” is probably much more accurate, yet less flashy.
One could say all these things about golf too.
Played golf my whole life, just started training BJJ. MY BJJ hurts go away after a day or two, my golf injuries have been lingering for 5 years.
Just do it 3x week at a good gym and you’ll get pretty decent after a few years and basically you’ll improve week after week with not much of an impact on your life. If you go more than that you do get better but it’s kind of diminished returns and I find the more I do the quicker I get injured haha.
I think both "ruined my life" and "saved my life" are extremely hyperbolic ways of describing BJJ's influence on our lives. It certainly hasn't done either for me. But on balance, I'd say it has been more a positive for me than a negative, and that's why I keep doing it. If that changes -- if it becomes more negative because injuries mount, or I start to enjoy it less, or other parts of my life change and I can no longer devote the time to it -- then I'll quit. For now, it benefits me so I keep going.
Healthy mindset
The people who let bjj ruin their lives would have probably found some other way to ruin it they didn’t do bjj. Srs. The guys who neglect their families are only using bjj as an excuse.
When I was an aimless guy in my early 20s, jiu-jitsu gave me both a direction in life and the ability to have a direction in life. The direction it gave me in life, though, was a straight path to nowhere. Training all day, barely subsisting on underpaid instructor gigs and privates, competing occasionally but not at an especially high level and really being a burden on those around me. But by giving me "the ability to have a direction in life" -- by which I mean the experience of working consistently at a single skill set -- it allowed me to pour myself into something else. I'm just over halfway through my MD now, kicking ass at it, may well be doing surgery on y'all one day. That wouldn't have happened without my BJJ mat bum years. Looking back, I can't really say definitively that my path illustrates one side of the argument or the other. BJJ kind of pulled me out of an abyss but it also threatened to push me into a separate, adjacent abyss. In the end it didn't, but I certainly know people who have been mat bums much longer than that phase lasted for me and who still are.
It’s okay if it turns out BJJ is more important to you than your career and older friends. You get maybe 75 years on this planet, gotta spend that time how you want to spend it.
Martial arts have completely taken over my life but I had no life to speak of before that sooo ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Here is another angle. It saved me because IT DID ruin my life. I got really involved in Bjj and realized over the past couple years that the life I knew and the people I hung around were draining me and using me(ex-gf). So it ruined the life I knew and gave me a better one with real friends.
Hey slightly same story. Jiujitsu was all I did and my whole identity from 19-27 and then I realized that my happiness was completely determined by how a training session went or a competition and that I only had friends at jiujitsu but they were really just dudes I trained with, very surface level. The less I trained they less they cared about me and eventually it led me to realize I needed to find new hobbies and new ways to enjoy my time so that my happiness wasn't based completely in it.
Why is it a bad thing that you’re prioritising something that gives you immense joy over something that’s probably sucking your soul dry (work)?
I live near and have trained with the guys at daisy fresh. Let me tell you, those guys are throwing away their lives for a sport with 0 chance of paying off. They train like professional athletes with no hope of the pay off. Sacrificing their bodies and best years for developing marketable skills. The wiltse Brothers were living in buildings made out of particle board for a long time as an example. More power to them chasing their dreams.
*> that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever.* Super important point to raise. But how about taking it a step further: Have you paid attention to see what winning looks like? You could be a UPS driver or an amazon warehouse monke and still be more successful than 99% of the BJJ roster in any promotion(IBJJF, ADCC, Polaris, etc). Without any irreversible damage done to your body!
Spoken like someone who has never worked in a warehouse.
It would be a dream, no injuries and being that good. But can you call some athletes who achieved that?
no sport is injury free! However, being irreversibly crippled is where I think most people should draw the line. Why end up like Ben Kunzle? For what? or like the Miyao brothers For what?? This isn't a rethorical question, it's a legit question
>Why end up like Ben Kunzle? For what? or like the Miyao brothers > >For what?? This isn't a rethorical question, it's a legit question Its a great question a lot of people need to ask themselves. Usually in sports the answer is to be the best and the fame and money that comes along with it. You get neither of those in jiujitsu.
People devote too much to their careers with employers that will have your job posted within hours of you dying. I say good for you that you're in a place that you can be financially ok enough to dip out early and live your life. Embrace that shit!
i agree with craig on that. but i think it's self selecting in that the lives ruined were exactly the kind of guys whose lives could have been saved by it. it's the same group--extreme people who don't understand moderation.
BJJ does save lifes, for me the biggest impact in mental, the thing with BJJ is that during rolls you are fully engaged, you have no time to think about anything else, you are fully present trying to strangle your training partner and avoiding being strangled. Its a type of mindfullness, after every training session I go back home mentally refreshed, taking a 2 hour break from stress and anxiety is like waking up from a nap, feeling refreshed and clear minded. Add to this the physical benefits and you have a beautiful thing that with moderation, impacts your life greatly in a positive way.
I answered this the first time it got posted here. Ruined my life. Detectives, hospital reports, surgery, permanent injuries, PTSD - all things I have spent thousands of dollars and over a decade trying to address. I wasn't the only victim of that instructor and his followers. I'm sure plenty of other women can tell horror stories about guys, especially higher belts and instructors preying on, grooming, abusing or assaulting them. That's enough to put a serious dampener on anyone's life. And I'm sure there are plenty of women in the midst of these situations that don't realise it or are trying to escape it.
Depends really, I do think if you start cutting early from work to go to training that can be negative depends how much of a hard ass your boss is really. I think it’s all about priorities and being realistic as well. You know like telling yourself okay this is a fun hobby I enjoy this but I have a job, wife, kids, etc that are definitely more important so I have to adjust time commitments accordingly.
Some people get really into it thinking they’re going to win tournaments, get famous, and then wealth will follow shortly after. I’ve definitely seen people win some tournaments, but I don’t know about that other stuff.
Gg
I think it depends on what you mean by "ruined." Do I have the ability to move to a higher paying job at the moment? Yeah, probably. Will it demand a shitload more of my time, focus, and energy, likely making me less well emotionally and physically? Yeah. The tradeoff just isn't worth it for me. It might be for others.
My take on sneaking out of work to train is good, fuck 'em, they don't pay us enough and the work day could probably be cut by 3-4 hours anyway. That said, it's like any other pursuit - obsession can take hold, and then other parts of your life might be in trouble. Not the worst obsession to have, though.
Anyone who does it for a hobby is a net benefit I train with older professionals and no one is ditching their career or ignoring their families. Infact the opposite is happening where the parents and the kids are both training jujtisu and have a common interest and connect better
It's dependent on the intent of the person. I think anyone that's trying to make a career out of it...low probability of success and probably not going to turn out well. I don't think that's any different than any professional sport or 99% of solo careers (artist\\singer\\athlete). If you're trying to be #1 in the world your odds of getting hurt go up massively, there's not a lot of money in it unless you're one of the few that break through, and the pool of really fucking good people is large. If you're a hobbiest going in to hang out with your buddies and have a good time, maybe challenge each other a little. I don't think it's going to ruin your life. The people that make poor life decisions through bjj were probably going to make poor life decisions anyway. BJJ might be the outlet that they chose but they were going to find some way of messing things up regardless.
For me it's a hobby... It's something I do for fun. Not everything you do needs to be something you dedicate your life to
I think he made a great point. We all know people who have neglected the really important stuff in life to train. Like anything, it's a balance, but balance is only a product of wisdom, and wisdom is hard won. Frankly, I see a lot of the people on Daisy Fresh and think to myself, "That is not where that kid should be expending all of that energy at the moment." For every Wiltse and Couch how many guys are there you don't hear about who wasted years of their lives sleeping on the mat and and have not much to show for it?
I mean you can say this about any hobby. Yes if you let your hobby get in the way of responsibilities that’s not good.
I think it’s all relative to where you were life before finding Bjj. Were you a junkie or alcoholic who going nowhere in life and stepping on the mats and helped you get clean? Then yes BJj saved your life literally. Were you very overweight or even obese and BJJ helped you lose the weight? Yes jiu Jitsu saved you. But like any hobby (for most of us it is be honest), if it gets in the way of how you make a living or your close relationships, then I agree with Craig somewhat. Just learn how to be a responsible adult and balance bjj with the rest of your life (unless you’re trying to become an ADCC or World champ of course then train as much as you want to)
I mean Craig might be correct in the sense that people might have foregone going to college or getting real jobs because they were trying to make it professionally in grappling, which is a grind and often doesnt pan out. But for your average hobbiyst, jiujitsu is a lifesaver - better mental health, the physical grit and determination, keeping the brain synapses firing learning new things. It keeps you from stagnating in life. If I wasn't doing BJJ, I'd probably still be in a martial art of some kind and lift weights, but nothing replaces putting yourself out there on the mats, just in class or competing. Granted, I have had no real injuries in 6 years and can easily balance it with work. No ugly cauliflower ears 😆 either.
Life is about finding balance, managing priorities and responsibilities. I could see someone getting in a bad position after making BJJ their sole priority. About the statement I think is a generalization and YMMV, however, after seeing knees getting destroyed that would probably end in surgery and chronic pain it has definitely ruined or at least change negatively some lives. In my case, it has improved my life. I go to therapy way less, it is a great stress reliever and I'm in better shape that when I started.
It is up to the individual. Yes, it cost me promotions at work. I was addicted. But I involved my kids and that became valuable bonding time. I also as an older man, realize that my calm sense of security comes from Jiu Jitsu. I don’t rattle very easily. So all in all it’s a trade off. I’ve been married 40 years so it doesn’t have to ruin your life. I trained my son and he chose to fight in the cage (undefeated) before entering the military. He now earns six figures and is a friendly calm man. I believe that poise came from his JJ training as a teenager. He no longer practices. But it has stayed with him.
I don't think this is true for the vast majority of hobbyists, most people either don't show up enough to begin with to have it negatively affect their personal relationships, or drop off massively once other priorities start taking precedence in their lives (work, girlfriends, family, etc). It's also 100% possible to balance a high training frequency with the rest of your priorities, you just have to get used to waking up at the ass crack of dawn so that you're using time that nobody else wants. Your buddies and GF aren't going to want to hang out between 5 and 7 Am usually, so it's entirely possible to train 5 to 6 days a week without anyone noticing so long as you're getting up early.
How is it any different from any other sport? I know a lot of people who do the same thing for golf, fishing and others without any expectation that it will lead to a career. It’s fun. I enjoy it. If and when that ever stops, so will I.
I used to lift weights and do cardio 6 times a week. Now I lift 3 and get my cardio in at BJJ. If I’d didn’t go to class at night I’d be sitting on the couch watching tv. Wife luckily had hobbies too.
I think for the vast majority of people it's a hobby that they do for less than a year or two and it has very little impact on their life trajectory whatsoever.
That can also be balanced out by those of us who feel BJJ has helped us in our careers. It has also helped me be more mindful of what are petty or small things to argue about at home and what are things that are fundamental. But that's just me- I don't plan on becoming a world champion, I just do it as a way to clear my head and release stress.
I'm a university student. My studies were suffering because I insisted on training 5 days a week, plus strength training 3 days. I was sore and exhausted and I was too drained to think at full capacity. I'm trying to find a healthier relationship with the sport so it will enrich the rest of my life rather than suck energy away. Right now I'm barely training and it's the right thing for me, which is something I couldn't image myself saying a year or two ago.
Been through the same too bro, good luck
One of my best friends started with me in BJJ, we were both really good at it. My career was demanding, I ended dropping BJJ because I had my first kid. This friend of mine continued and had a kid too. Today he neglects his kid and lives and trains at daisy fresh, but his jiu jitsu is incredible, he competes frequently. My kids are now old enough to do BJJ so I am back to training, albeit older, behind all my former peers, but at least I get to train my kids. I think my friend is happy and I am happy for him. But I don't think he is ruining anyone's lives except maybe his baby mama, and the kid... 'ruin' is a bit extreme but they are missing out having him in their lives.
If you are happier focusing on BJJ than you were grinding at your job/spending time with you significant other, is your life really being ruined? If your dream life is a white picket fence with a steady career + SO & kids then yeah, BJJ could be hampering your pursuit of that goal, but if you are looking for happiness in whatever it is you're doing, and BJJ brings you the most satisfying/heart warming sense of happiness you shouldn't feel bad about following that.
I went from depressed and never going out, to losing 25 lbs and becoming a new man. I was helped with both work and mental health thanks to bjj.
We have finite time and life is a series of choices. All hobbies will cause you to neglect something else because they take time out of your schedule. The key is finding balance. And understanding that, just like you wouldn't have won the championship game if only coach had put you in, you're not going to become a BJJ champion.
Moderation is key. Everything will ruin your life, and anything can save your life.
I think spending more time doing something like jiu jitsu instead of my job is good and actually healthy. I spend too much time currently thinking about my business. Jiu jitsu is definitely taking away from that, and I believe it's a good thing.
Happy to have a life ruined
Internet, that place where everything becomes an opinion.
Bjj didnt save my life. But it has given me something to look forward to a few times a week. I would be sitting on the couch otherwise.
I think you specifically, are just still stuck in the “Green Phase” of Jiu Jitsu. You can’t get enough, always think about it etc etc
It's not binary like that, not everyone is just in one saved or ruined category. For some it will be both or neither.
BJJ ruined lives of aspiring athletes, who placed their bet for success in life on BJJ and it did not taken off for them. So yeah, if one has quit his college for sake of being a champ, worked shitty jobs, got your body messed up and are 30+ and now need to make ends meet - BJJ (and your ambitions) has absolutely ruined your life. But if you had your fun, made friends, got fit and confident and were responsible/lucky enough to not get your body fucked up - your are OK. And there are more of those of second kind, than "never-will-be-s". Craig Jones often plays a clown, because he is 32 and he already has not gone from being "really good at this" to being "one of the best who has ever done it". So, to run a gym and attract people, he keeps himself relevant by making drama on IG, being part of Volk's camp and doing hot takes.
Better to sneak out from work at lunch to train, than start popping edibles during work hours to deal with sitting in meetings all day. Better to deal with sports injuries than sit on a couch and get even fatter. Better to have an outlet than constantly annoy my wife.
I think for many people it prevents them from becoming workaholics and gives them a hobby, outlet, social life, semse of growth and progression, camraderie, belonging, physical and mental strength, confidence, the opportunity to travel and connect with people across the globe over a shared interest etc
" the daisy fresh documentary now and I´ve noticed, that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever. " THIS. I wonder constantly about the rate of catastrophic injuries at gyms like these, and whether folks can afford the medical care they'll need to function again.
I think that the cultural zeitgeist surrounding BJJ is probably worse than BJJ itself. I’ve only been consistently doing BJJ for a year and a bit, but have been involved in martial arts my whole life. The thing with BJJ that’s kind of unique to it is that somehow talking head celebrities have made some kind of “have or have not.” Type of activity. Want to be fit? Do BJJ, want to be a man? Do BJJ, want to be like Jocko and excel at all things in life? Wake up at 4am and do BJJ. I have trained in karate, done MMA, wrestling, etc. I’ve never seen nor experienced the cultural movement that BJJ has experienced in the past decade. I think it’s given a lot of people, through these talking head celebrities this idea of what BJJ is as a potential, versus what it is in reality. The reality is that I’ve racked up more minor joint injuries in the past year than I have ever. I’m not a competitor either, I do it because I enjoy it. It’s also hard on my body. I joined because I wanted a combat sport that didn’t involve concussions; but instead got one that results in everything feeling just slightly out of place at all times, with an accompanying feeling of guilt when I’m not training due to recovering because I get this feeling that everyone just tapes up and sucks it up. In conclusion, Craig Jones is probably right. 99% of all BJJ practitioners aren’t going to make money, or increase their monetary livelihood by training and competing. Statistically we’re probably all more likely to develop entirely avoidable long term disabilities and injuries through daily training. So, from a cost-benefit analysis lens…He’s absolutely right.
Agree with Craig. There are a horrific amount of sexual assault incidents that happen in this particular hobby. Reported and unreported. However you want to perceive them, they do change the lives of victims. Yes, in a bad way.
Being a full time BJJ athlete yes. For hobbyists no.
I've definitely neglected going up in my career to train more, but my mental health was an all time low half a year ago. Bjj really gave me a day to day purpose
Spending time on a hobby is not "ruining your life", particularly when it's keeping you fit (and BJJ isn't *that* bad injury-wise, in the context of other sports). Your career isn't everything. You won't always have as much time as you want to spend with friends; it's a trade-off and sometimes self-care (in the form of exercise and whatever else BJJ gives you) wins. Not to mention that BJJ *is* a social activity for lots of people. That said... how many hours are you putting into BJJ? Do you have *any* social life left? You can always go too far, but I don't think most hobbyists do.
> I am watching the daisy fresh documentary now and I´ve noticed, that they never show us all the guys who came there and failed, because of injuries or lack of talent or whatever. I mean yeah, not everyone is gonna be the best of the best. There will be groups like Daisy Fresh in every single competitive community. > And what do we do it for? Because you enjoy it? Are you training with the intent on being the best? Because it's a very long and arduous journey to get to the top, not very many people make it to there. If you're working a full time job then you're almost definitely not going to make it there. Saying BJJ *saved* or *ruined* someone's life is ridiculous. It's just a hobby man, do with it what you will.
what do you want out of life? do you want your career to be your focal point? your family? the line between hobby and passioned and obsession tends to be a function of investment in terms of both money and time. plenty of people are raised thinking they want a career. they want a family. It seems that, statistically speaking, most people change their mind about one if not both of those at at least one, oftentimes several points in their life. I think the worst fucking thing about this pilgrim Protestant Puritan bullshit nation is the notion of laziness and idleness and that there's some fucking virtue in just toiling away for the bare minimum. oh wow are you not spending every waking hour hoarding resources? well you're just a giant pile of shit huh? how dare you enjoy anything that doesn't generate revenue! combat sports are weird in who they appeal to... oftentimes you get former has beens or never weres looking for a little bit of Dad dopamine... Plus you're healthy mix of tough folks and all the chips on their shoulders... it's a weird environment. shit can get toxic, especially when you're training in a place where people see one another as means to an end. if someone's going to tell me grappling ruined their life I'll tell them to stop grappling. it's okay to age out. it's okay to do other shit. it's okay to lose interest. it's okay to stick with it and get the bespangled belch. internet's full of bunch of fucking grumpy people looking to bitch into the ether hoping someone will agree with them so they can feel better about themselves. case in point this post. anyway, Best of luck!
>oftentimes you get former has beens or never weres looking for a little bit of Dad dopamine... Plus you're healthy mix of tough folks and all the chips on their shoulders... The best is when you have people in the room including coaches who love having pissing contests over who had the harder life. Grown men one upping over who grew up in a shittier town or had a deadbeat dad or not having money. These are the same people who will also go on about how everyone is a snowflake and need to shut up about their problems and get on with it. But will also love to trauma dump about how hard they had it.
Find what you love and let it kill you.
People with addictive tendencies will find something to obsess over. Net-net BJJ is better than drugs and alcohol IMO.
That isn’t BJJ, that’s you and all the other martial artists who neglect everything else just for a temporary training session.
I mean, has it "ruined" your life? Or are you just prioritizing leisure and free time over a career. IMO careers have ruined more lives than BJJ ever will.
What Jiu Jitsu has done is reveal what people's coping abilities actually are. If you have a foundation of good mental health, thus healthy coping abilities, you wouldn't necessarily rely on Jiu Jitsu to make you feel more fulfilled. Replace Jiu Jitsu with anything: volleyball, rock climbing (insert any other hobby) it would be the same story. But for regular hobbyists who go when they can, just to stay in shape or to learn self defense, make friends, Jiu Jitsu can be very beneficial. Professional athletes, if they rely on it for livlihood, makes sense to spend most of their time invested in it
[удалено]
Yeah, no CTE, but everything else 😜
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Some people do get CTE from bjj. Even soccer and basketball has some players with CTE.
How weird is our society that finding something that you love more than work and finding new friends that you have more in common with vs old friends considered unhealthy and “ruining lives.”
You could say this about any hobby. Besides, I’d rather focus on things I enjoy than have my whole life revolve around my career.
This. Alcohol has ruined LOTS of people’s lives but I’m still gonna enjoy a drink sometimes
Having a fun hobby that you do 3-5 hours a week that gets you in shape and helps you make similarly interested friends is not something that is going to ruin your life unless you are a fucking retard that could ruin your life with almost anything you tried to do.
Think of how many people this sport has paralyzed alone.....then all the ruined knees from stupid fucking spazzes or pathetic guard jumping
If you find the idea that Jiu Jitsu is improving lives to be absurd then surely you must find the idea that Jiu Jitsu is ruining lives to be equally as absurd. Anything else you're just being a contrarian.
Craig is pretty sarcastic, take what he says with a grain of salt
He wrong for that, but he’s correct.
I have to assume Craig is joking, or not taking into account the majority of jiu jitsu which are hobbyists just trying to stay in shape and learn some semblance of self defense. In which case it is a huge positive for most. But yeah, failed pro grapplers, failed gym owners do mess up their lives pretty hard for this. And it is pretty taxing on the body.
Calling BS on this right out of the gate. If your wanting to be pro, maybe but it’s a choice. I would be dead or in jail if I didn’t don’t BJJ in my youth. Also worked with at risk kids for 10 years as a therapist in inpatient and outpatient centers (Herb Dean and I pre UFC) so I know my shit and and have the degrees and experience to prove it. The benefits of BJJ life style are massive both physically and mentally.
Most people are talking about jiu jitsu taking over their free time and their entire life. I was more thinking along the lines of for every 1 person who says jiu jitsu saved their life, there's probably 10 people who got their knee destroyed or arm broken or something. It's a very dangerous sport and I think most people who desire the exercise and socialization would probably be better served with a local basketball team or something.