Our Fitness Director Entered a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Tournament. Here's What Happened
I’ve thought a lot over the years about physical strength and self-defence. I grew up in a relatively rough area. I don’t want to oversell it – it wasn’t exactly a war zone – but it was the kind of working-class environment where scraps regularly broke out, and in my teens physical altercations were the rule, not the exception. When I was 17, one of my best friends was killed on the doorstep of his own home trying to stop an attempted burglary. I won’t share the details as they were relayed to me by his girlfriend, who was present on the night of the tragedy, but this event profoundly affected how I think about physical capability and vulnerability.
I didn’t realise quite how much the echoes of this ordeal had influenced my motivation to train until I tore my bicep from the elbow in the summer of last year. I’d always taken great pride in the ‘rough and tumble’ brand of exercise I employed. Manhandling unwieldy objects that weren’t designed to be lifted – from 100kg sandbags, to giant stones to telegraph poles – had fostered a quiet confidence in my capacity to protect myself and others. Now, my arm in a sling, unable to lift even the smallest dumbbell in my set, the spectre of vulnerability I’d thought I’d long since exorcised loomed large. Dramatic? Certainly. But honest.
Reflecting on these long-subconscious motivations led me to ask whether there were other activities I could explore that were more directly complimentary to the goal of self-defence. The obvious, and most visible choice, given its current popularity: Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Unless you have your copy of Men’s Health delivered to the rock under which you live, you’d be hard-pressed to have missed the meteoric rise of jiu-jitsu. Thanks in part to its record of vicious efficacy in competitive mixed martial arts – with nearly all UFC champs religiously training the takedowns, arm locks and chokeholds that are the mainstay of the tradition – the Brazilian-founded evolution of the original Japanese jiu-jitsu is one of the quickest-growing sports on the planet.
It didn’t take much Googling to find a gym local to me. As I walked through the doors of Reef Jiu-Jitsu in Essex, I was greeted by a large surfboard hanging on the wall, nestled among too many gold and silver medals to count. I had chanced my way into a very good school. The juxtaposition of the surfboard and silverware instantly reified an impression I had already formed of BJJ: namely, that the cool, relaxed exterior of its archetypical practitioner hid the sort of physical proficiency that didn’t just look good in solo displays of martial artistry, but worked in practice, consistently. I was ready to roll.
A Human Rubik's Cube
You might well be familiar with the almost cliched idea that martial arts aren’t about strength, but rather ‘using your opponent’s size against them’. This concept was, of course, why I chose jiu-jitsu in the first place. But what I wasn’t prepared for as I hit the mats for the first time, was just how cerebral a pursuit this would be.
I had tied my belt repeating the mantra, ‘Don’t use your strength, learn the skill,’ but in reality, it took a lot of strength just to keep myself out of trouble, even with my fellow white belts. The gap between knowing just a little, and my absolute vacancy of skill seemed infinite as I was thrown, choked and otherwise folded up like a pretzel.
I would describe myself as ‘physically literate’. I have a good sense of spacial awareness, a decent mind-muscle connection and take to new tasks reasonably quickly, but my first few sessions felt as though I was asking my body to run an app it hadn’t downloaded yet: I was frantically tapping the screen to no avail – an apt analogy given the amount of actual ‘tapping’ I was doing. That said, each session left me both surprised and invigorated by the small improvements I was making. Unlike weight-training, in which you progressively and methodically add weight, something about the headway I was making here seemed fundamentally mysterious. From what I know about the brain, the nervous system and the human body in general, I can infer what was happening each time I went into a six-minute, one-on-one bout, after 30 minutes of drilling specific movements and positions, but something still felt mystifyingly effortless about the way new movements, both offensive and defensive, would seemingly be unlocked at random intervals.
The closest approximation I can make is to the sport of climbing: it’s extremely demanding and requires a great deal of problem-solving, but you don’t have time to pause and ponder, lest you exhaust yourself and fall – or in the case of jiu-jitsu, fall prey to your opponent’s next move. You simply commit to diligent practice, before getting out of your own way and surrendering to the flow of the activity.
As a brief aside, I’ve also never felt spryer and more mobile as I do since integrating jiu-jitsu – and that’s speaking as someone with well over a decade’s experience in the training domain. Contorting your body into and out of all manner of unconventional positions (as well as having it contorted for you), sounds like a recipe for injury. But in my experience, I’ve found it to be the most effective and practical form of mobility work I’ve ever encountered. I’ve heard jiu-jitsu described as ‘murder yoga’, and that’s a moniker I professionally endorse.
Looking For a Fight
Fortunately for the purposes of this article – and my desire to test my newly honed skills – Brazilian jiu-jitsu has a vibrant competition scene. Unfortunately for me, the only competition that fell within my copy deadline was the London International Open – a prestigious event attracting serious competitors from around the world, all of whom would outmatch me to a hilarious degree.
On the day of the competition, I was ambushed by an unexpected and grim insight – one of the most conspicuously overlooked (and dubious) challenges professional fighters face: making weight. Through my own negligence, I’d entered the wrong weight category. I tried to move my entry, but to no avail. So, in the week running up to the competition, I had to shed some pounds at a speed, and in a manner that I’m not proud of.
On the day of the comp, feeling hungry, dehydrated and lethargic, I stepped on the scales still 2kg heavier than the cut-off point for my category. With just an hour to spare, I covered myself in as many layers as possible, including a weighted vest I’d fortuitously stowed in my car, and got moving. This is ill-advised, unhealthy and frankly dangerous. I was successful, but I’m sharing this not as a brag, but a cautionary tale. I felt like death, and in a very real, physiological sense, that’s the way I was headed. If your goal is to lose weight for vanity reasons, this is emphatically not the way to go, my girlfriend cried when I arrived home later that evening, telling me I looked 20 years older.
Stepping into the arena and shaking hands with my opponent, I had just enough time to reflect on what an odd dynamic this was – warm, cordial formalities followed by brutal attempts to manoeuvre one another into positions where the possibility of serious injury or being rendered unconsciousness forces a submission. In retrospect, this contrast is emblematic of one of the most important facets of jiu-jitsu: the fact that your ability to defend yourself in any confrontation is not at all predicated on how angry or frenzied a state you can whip yourself into, but the ability to remain calm and controlled. This game isn’t about flying into a rage in the hopes of a Hulk-like power up. As the Greek poet Archilochus remarked, ‘We don’t rise to the level our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.’
Being strong helps, undeniably. And being fit or well-conditioned even more so. But skill and technique act as a huge lever, allowing you to capitalise on and express that strength tenfold. You can put a bigger engine in your car, but unless you know how to drive it, you’re not going to win any races.
So how did I hold up? Well, I held up. Better than I thought I would. I was on my feet, in a fairly combative position for more than half of the match. My opponent’s considerably greater skill, accrued over years of practice, unsurprisingly got the better of me. I landed in a position where my jaw was being crushed under his full weight; the only recourse of action I could see would open me up to an even less favourable strangulation. With no idea of how long I’d have to endure to beat the clock, no mouthguard to save my teeth, and too fatigued to hip bump my opponent off, I tapped my opponent’s arm, bringing the bout to a close.
While this outcome should come as no shock, it left me pleasantly surprised, and proved, at least in my mind, that my paltry two months of training just a few days per week were enough to upskill me noticeably. I was beaten, squarely, but at no point did I feel like a victim.
Keep On Rolling
It’s rare that I speak in absolutes. ‘It depends’ may well be my epitaph. But I’m happy to push all my chips into the middle on this one and say that taking up Brazilian jiu-jitsu is one of the single most impactful things you could do to improve your health.
As an exercise professional, this referral is based on the improvements you’ll see in your mobility, cardiovascular health and strength. Done right and regularly, it really does tick all physiological boxes.
This recommendation comes from the fact that, in just a few short months, I’ve felt a sense of community, curiosity and potential for progress and learning that I haven’t felt in a long while. Do I feel more confident in my ability to protect myself and others? Considerably. As an aside, in a conversation with Alex Johnson – an instructor at Reef and black-belt athlete – we explored the idea that jiu-jitsu is not just an effective way to keep yourself from harm, but due to its nature, it’s also a effective way of keeping your opponent from harm. More than just self-defence, it could be seen as a kind of self-and-other-defence.
More importantly, as a 36-year-old man, I feel confident in the fact that I haven’t reached some imaginary physical peak that, at this point, I’m just maintaining. That stronger, bigger or leaner aren’t the only goals worth chasing.
I’m now far less curious about how I tune this body up, and far more curious about how I drive it.
You Might Also Like
