Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ)

Master Victor: [00:00:00] Tap out early. Don’t feel ashamed. It’s gonna happen. The actual Jiu Jitsu that we know today came from the Gracie family. They took Jiu Jitsu, made it their own, and called it Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. My understanding of it, I’m Brazilian myself, I love Jiu Jitsu. It’s one of my passions. Just know it. Pace yourself.

Give yourself, like, a month of just going. And know it’s gonna be hard. Know it’s gonna suck. Why not try to understand how that happened? What did they do? How did they move? What did they move out of the way?

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Victor Alameida: And how y’all doing? We’re back here for another episode of The Unlimited You. First, before we get started, check out the hoodie. My buddy, Pale Horse, from our meditation episode, he created this. He’s got some boy dude stuff. Some amazing graphics in the back. Check out his website, it’s Pale Horse Designs.

dot com, pretty sure it’s dot com. Right. Pale horse designs and amazing work. he does a lot of like sacred artwork, murals and stuff. he’s the one who got us into meditation, me and Caroline, and he does an online meditation as well on his Instagram every Tuesday at 8pm. So if you. Are ever interested in, you know, trying out meditation and you don’t know how to do it.

And you’re like, Oh, I want to try it, try [00:02:00] it once a week, Tuesday, 8 p. m. It’s streaming. You can just pull up your phone and do it right there. So that’s an easy way that you can get into. These meditations, I was actually having a conversation, with Caroline’s boss, Steve. What’s up, Steve? If you’re watching, and he was asking like, you know, what are some of the ways we can implement some of the things we talk about here?

Because we’re talking about, you know, making life changes and implementing them in a way that we can better ourselves. Right. And we started by doing these things slowly. So if you just jump in, trying to meditate for an hour every single day, you’re probably going to But if you do, maybe like Once a week and you try a guided meditation by someone who knows what they’re doing and Chris does a really good job He guides it really well.

He does it beautifully and with good intention good focus and Always a little bit different that way you’re learning and you’re you’re taking a deeper. It takes you a little bit deeper And, you [00:03:00] know, it’s just a good way to, for you to really dive your feet into that aspect. As far as like, let’s say you’re going into training, like we’re about to talk about jiu jitsu.

If you want to get into jiu jitsu or, you know, pick your discipline and then go try it out. Maybe you start out once a week, maybe start out twice a week. And there’s a lot of gyms. you are able to do that, where you don’t have to go four days a week, because some people don’t have that kind of schedule.

So it’s a good way to introduce yourself into these environments, is pick a school, you know, pick one that you’ve done some research on, make sure they’ve got some good reviews, they are teaching and talking about your material, and go train. So today we’re going to talk about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So the history of Jiu Jitsu, right? It originated in Japan from Jiu Jitsu. And the actual Jiu Jitsu that we know today came from the Gracie family. They took Jiu Jitsu, made it their own, and called it Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It’s essentially a grappling style of martial arts. [00:04:00] some people call this soft style of martial arts because you’re not throwing punches, but it’s not necessarily soft.

You’re, you know, going for chokes, going for arm breaks, going for kicks. working positioning, learning how to move and control an opponent and your distance. It is a very practical way to learn martial arts for a self defense purpose. So it’s a very beneficial martial arts to learn. you know, striking is often what’s going to be used in a self defense situation, but Some fights go to the ground and it’s important to know what, if you’re in a confined space especially, it’s very beneficial to know how to maneuver in a grappling situation.

Wrestling is also a really good, you know, Greco Roman wrestling. Amazing. You’re learning this different way to apply the muscles is very different than striking where you’re loose all the time here. You’re having to control and exert a lot of force a lot of the time. So you have to build the body’s endurance for [00:05:00] that type of muscle output.

It’s very different. And, the Gracie family essentially started spreading it along Brazil and then different families, really started practicing and kind of making it their own. Now there’s a few different styles. You have like the Yamasaki family who trains here close to us in Rockville. They’re amazing.

The Gracie style is amazing and each one has a kind of different flavor, but they’re all essentially Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And what I like about personally the Gracie style of teaching is the way that they’ve broken down each individual move and created a curriculum that’s safe for the integration of people.

So when you’re starting out going through their system, it really allows you to train in a safe space without that potential of injury because that’s what was happening in the early days of Jiu Jitsu. Is people were getting in there, they were just rolling, they would throw you in there without people knowing about anything.

And then you get an injury and be like, I don’t want to do this. I’m getting injured and I can’t even work now. So, that’s changed [00:06:00] with, you know, a lot of the schools learning that this was happening. They’re, you know, cycling through students, they’re not retaining students because it’s not a safe environment.

And, you know, it’s still snowy out here. It’s not a safe environment, so you want to create a safe environment for the students. So the art and the way of teaching evolved because it is a very dangerous sport. You’re pulling and extending limbs out. You’re choking people out and I can tweak necks, tweak arms.

If the people inside of the gym aren’t being respectful in the way that they practice the art, now it’s very critical when you go to. A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym. You want to be looking out. Are they going hard and pulling stuff out and being disrespectful to each other? Or are they respecting the instructor, training well, you know, going hard?

But not like pulling random stuff. And you can tell just by looking at these people rolling their intention and the atmosphere in there. So just make [00:07:00] sure he’s a good atmosphere when you’re going to these schools and you know, you’re in a good place when, when you find one, In Rockville, I definitely recommend, Yamasaki’s amazing, amazing school.

You got, Mario, Yamasaki’s school. It’s, Fernando. Fernando, they’re amazing. And definitely check it out there. I’ve rolled once there with, a brown belt friend of ours. He took us there. Amazing place and you find little pockets there. Usually any Gracie certified gym as well. you’re, you’re looking for to be pretty well off.

the Gracie’s established a very good system learning online, right? So you can also learn online, but the thing is you need something to practice with. So striking, I can just, you know, throw punches in the air. hit a bag, but you’re not going to get the same practicing a jiu jitsu move in the air. You need a body, you need somebody to be practicing with.

So they have a curriculum online where you can have a friend and you essentially practice with them and you practice the move through a [00:08:00] video and you can work through the belt system that way. It’s a really good way to, you know, learn specific skills, train it, and then you record it and send it to them.

So that’s a good way to train online if you don’t have access to it, if you don’t have the time to drive somewhere if it’s too far, that you can get this kind of training. Now the problem with just training with one person and training at home is that you’re not exposed to the way that other people roll.

Everyone’s going to roll different. There’s going to be different styles. So this is where going into competitions can become really useful, but can be detrimental if you don’t approach it right. And this is another thing to consider when you’re going to a jiu jitsu gym. there’s gyms that are going to train you for competition.

They’re just like. Talking about points and points and points and points and points. This is this point, and you’re trying to get that choke out. But their focus then becomes on just this point system, and you lose the self defense aspect of the art, which needs to be [00:09:00] really trained in at all times, otherwise it’s not second nature.

And this is really important when you’re training self defense you’re worried about getting punched in the face You’re worried about all of these different other elements that are not in that point system because in competitional Brazilian jiu jitsu You’re not going to be a punching each other.

You’re literally trying to grapple one another and gain position you get points for changing position gaining position on somebody and take downs Submissions, escapes, reversals, things of those natures, which are great to learn, is great to execute, and can be exceptionally useful in a fight.

I’m not saying that. I’m saying that sometimes, in that kind of training, some people do not take seriously the self defense aspect. So if you are doing and going in that route, make sure you are considering the self defense aspect. You know, is that person sitting up there and you’re like trying to grab their hands, but [00:10:00] they can beaten down on your face and you’re not protecting your face, you know, you’re, you’re over here.

Because, think about this, if that punching element’s there, the second they punch, there’s a hole, and then you can buck them. Changes everything. And, that element is also gonna freak the person on the bottom out. And, I like to train jujitsu in a way that you’re not punching each other, but you’re just throwing, like, little slaps.

Little slaps. Little reminder, hey. Hey, this is open. Hey, boom, boom. I tap you in the chin. I tap you here. Not like a slap. It’s a little, little tap. Like you, you just move them a little bit. You know? It’s a little reminder. Because that’s all we need is, you need to know that right now I can hit you in the face.

And you need to do something about it. Because if you don’t do something about it, you’re going to get knocked out because your head is on the ground. Awesome. Makes sense. Once we do all of that, right, once you train like that, you’re not thinking about it. You just It’s just there, [00:11:00] right? It’s just like blocking, it’s just like throwing a punch.

So, in competition jujitsu, there’s a lot of different also competitions that are doing it where you can do submission only. You either win through submitting the person, or it’s a tie. If you survive, it’s a tie. that I think is a really great way to do it if you go to a competition like that. Because then you’re actually Learning that stuff, right?

it’s not about the points. You’re literally trying to survive and it’s a different application. And if you want to integrate it into martial arts training, into MMA training, it’s also different. There is a really big benefit to training this stuff in a vacuum. If you’re training these skills in a vacuum, then you become really sharp and you, you can needle and thread through them and then you take them outta that vacuum and then you try them out in an MMMA situation where you have punches and kicks the at you and you try those take downs, you try some [00:12:00] punches, boom, it opens up, you throw an arm bar, but.

I think that isolating these different kinds of trainings and then bringing them together is going to refine them, right? And that’s one thing that, maybe you want to consider. it’s good to train mixed martial arts, but I think you do lose some aspect of that traditional kind of refinement that you get out of it.

So, something to think about, something to think about. And we also have, like in MMA. you, when you learn all of these things, you are getting used to impressioning, and it makes you have reflexes that are more in tune with proper self defense. MMA is not the king of all, because you’re still only trying to knock them out.

You still have rules, right? And self defense supersedes all of this, and this is the, this is kind of the point I’m getting to. When you get to self defense, eye pokes are legal, nut shots are legal, elbow to the knee to the face while the ground’s legal. So all of these rules that they’re training by, [00:13:00] still go out the window.

And that’s one of the things we have to consider when we are training for self defense. Anything goes. It is, you can kick their head off while they’re on the ground. And if you’re on the ground and someone’s standing, that’s a problem. If you’re on the ground and there’s multiple people, and you’re fighting one person and they’re all trying to attack you, that’s a problem.

We, in BJJ, you also learn how to not be taken down. Every person in BJJ does not want to go to the ground. They don’t want to go to the ground. They want to restrict you. They want to stop you, right? You can do that standing oftentimes, or they can throw you to the ground like a judo move. That’s where judo, oh, judo, judo is amazing.

Judo is the art of, I mean, it goes way deeper than just throwing. There’s a lot more to judo, but people know it as the art of just throwing, right? It is exceptional. Twisting the hips, twisting the body, creating a foundation, and then looping that person, and just the impact alone would knock somebody out.

And then they’re open. [00:14:00] Boom. Right there. You can, you can hold them out. So you’re, you’re learning a lot of these skills in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. There’s a lot of schools that will also start you from your knees or your feet, depending on your skill level. Some schools, when they haven’t taught. Yeah, some schools start with throw downs, depends on where you go.

And I love jujitsu. So my experience with Brazilian jujitsu, I’ve been training jujitsu in the belt system for about. I trained, started training about 10 years ago, and in the pandemic, I think it was about six years of training, I was right about to get to purple belt level. I got, I have a blue belt with three stripes and everything closed down.

And since then, I haven’t been training under a proper teacher. We’ve been like rolling around, going to places, rolling with people, went to Brazil, rode with some black belts there and just getting training, you know, absorbing it Wherever I can, just rolling whenever I [00:15:00] can and I do teach it.

I teach, beginners and, some levels of intermediate because I myself need to advance my own jiu jitsu. My understanding of it, I’m Brazilian myself. I love jiu jitsu. It’s one of my passions. It’s like I want to do jiu jitsu all the time. Right now, as I’m building my business, I get to do it at least once a week.

We’re gonna be changing the schedule up so that we can do Jiu Jitsu twice a week, Muay Thai twice a week, and Taekwondo four times a week. And we’re gonna just work on the schedule in a little bit to provide more classes. More training! Hey! Hey! And, Jitsu, so Almost to that purple belt level, I’ll be probably looking at a new training opportunity of like where I can advance my belt level soon for Jiu Jitsu.

And, I’ve been thinking about the online one, but I might look for somewhere around here and just go in person because you [00:16:00] get so much more out of rolling in person. You get so much more. Yeah. Cause, you know, it would be nice to get a purple belt. But I’m working still through an injury here. The inside of my quad needs some further work.

It’s pulling my stuff in. So that’s another thing. Jiu Jitsu people get injured very easily. If you are not careful, the majority of injuries come from you trying to. Pull something and then your elbow comes out and then it hits, hits somebody in the face, right? You’re not used to how much strength and then you yank too hard or you know, you’re, you’re going for something you reach through with the leg and you accidentally send a knee through the face cause you’re not as familiar with these kinds of movements.

The majority of injuries are done now by beginners to intermediate people or to other beginners. So we don’t usually have beginners rolling with each other. You usually have like an advanced person with a beginner [00:17:00] or a high level intermediate with a beginner and vice versa Until that beginner is at a decent level and then they can start rolling each other without hurting one another And you can really understand this when you roll with somebody when you’re rolling Brazilian jiu jitsu You can understand if they understand the language of it Or wrestling in a sense of grappling.

And that is how they react. A lot of people react to being grabbed by freaking out. You freak out, you’re being grabbed. You know, this, you do, people don’t want to be touched sometimes. And you’re having to be comfortable in these awkward situations and you have somebody trying to move you and involuntarily.

And in this sense, you’re trying to learn how to defend that and then move them involuntarily into a position where. You neutralize their aggressiveness. Really, that’s what we’re going for. You’re trying to neutralize a threat. And that’s really all you’re learning how to do. And you need to be put in the situation that you understand all of the different ways that you can [00:18:00] be attacked.

This goes for stand up and on the ground. So that you can learn and impression your body in ways to actually defend these ways and then properly attack against them to neutralize that threat. So it’s not just like a, A lot of beginners, you’re learning how to survive at first. That’s kind of the The first, that’s white belt.

That’s where it starts. White belt. You’re learning how to survive. You’re just, you’re getting, you’re getting put in these different situations. You’re learning how to move. You’re gonna learn some missions. You might be able to pull some off. But when you’re like really rolling against some experienced people, you’re just, you’re just gonna be learning how to survive.

Unless you’re just gassing it real quick and throwing stuff real hard at it like when, if you’re super strong and athletic, some things come easier, but Skill in Jiu Jitsu and the way that you can move the hips and change the way their body is moving is going to win over that athleticness. People who are athletic and have that ego about them and just want to complete a move.[00:19:00]

They’re just gonna, that’s how people get hurt. So when you approach learning Jiu Jitsu, know you are going to get choked out. You’re gonna be tapped out. And tap out. Tap out early. Don’t feel ashamed. It’s gonna happen. You’re gonna do it to other people. Other people are gonna do it to you. And every time it happens, rather than approaching it like, ugh, he tapped me out again.

Ugh, he choked me out again. Ugh, he did this move again. Right? You’re like defeated in there. Why not try to understand how that happened. How did, what, what did they do? How did they move? What did they move out of the way? What did they grab to put you in this compromising situation? So it doesn’t happen again.

That’s the whole reason you’re training. Hey, let’s go. So when you’re, when you’re in white belt. That’s all you’re doing. You’re learning some moves. Blue belt, you’re really polishing. You’re learning how to attack. You’re learning how to move on your feet. You’re learning how [00:20:00] to kind of escape around and getting more technical with applying some of these submissions.

And you’re becoming good at using them. At Purple Belt, it’s, it’s like precision work. It’s like, you’re, you’re, you got a razor blade and you’re starting to dice in to every little potential thing. And you can, you can start cutting into any little block, no matter how strong they are, no matter how big they are.

At Brown Belt, you’re, oh man, at that point It takes a lot longer to go through these belts. Brown belts are at a different level than you have black belts. And then you have the degrees of black belts, coral belts, red belt at the top for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, not many red belts. And the black belts at Jiu Jitsu are.

In the equivalent of a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo. That’s how kind of we see it. And a purple belt is about the equivalent of [00:21:00] a black belt in Taekwondo. it takes a long time in Jiu The reason is it takes a lot of time for the body to understand how to do these things and calm down and to gain the strength and endurance to be able to perform them.

And if you rush through it. You’re not gaining the skills. It really, you need, you need time. You need time to soak it in. So the earlier you start, the better, but it’s never too late. I don’t care if you’re 40, 50, 60. Go out there, try it. Try it. It’s never too late. Start strengthening the body. It is amazing for your body because you’re learning how to turn and use these muscles that are critical in mobility.

It increases and drastically shoots your mobility to the sky because you’re having to literally twist and bend in all of these kinds of ways to get through, right? To pull an arm, to move around the person. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. Jiu jitsu can be very destructive. So if you’re [00:22:00] rolling hard, if you’re rolling often.

Make sure you’re doing proper recovery. You’re taking maybe a few ice baths. You’re heat patting it up. You’re putting some ointments on there. You’re stretching. You’re rolling. You’re using a massager. You’re going to get a massage, right? You’re using the sauna. You’re properly hydrating and getting nutrients in your body.

If you’re not doing this, your body’s just gonna go And then something goes, and then you get hurt. Right? And then it’s worse. I know. Cause I have hurt myself too many times. I’m working on an injury right now. I thought it was better and then went climbing and then I heard it more. Uh, it happens. It happens.

I jumped, I jumped down before it was like, Oh, it’s fine. I jumped in, like stood up and partially tore a little ligament in here. But it’s healing. I just got to strengthen different areas. Like I can move fine, but because I got hurt, right? This specific area is not strong anymore. So my legs are [00:23:00] pulling in a different way.

So like I can do all this stuff, but I can feel the restriction in some areas. So I have to rehabilitate different muscles. So injuries really set things back. So you gotta, you gotta really be aware of your own limitations when you’re training things like this. When you first do jiu jitsu, you’re gonna be gassed.

Just know it. Pace yourself. Give yourself, like, a month of just going. And know, know it’s gonna be hard. Know it’s gonna suck. Know it’s gonna be, like, physically exhausting. And then the next couple days after you train, you’re just gonna be like, What the hell? That was I feel like I got ran over by a truck.

Because you did. You got ran over by multiple trucks, and it gets easier, but then when you start rolling harder It’s still kind of feels the same Eventually, eventually when you really build up the tolerance and the strength it goes away But you got it you take it gradually But then you got to build up the tolerance the strength and then you can roll for like two hours And then you’re like sore for [00:24:00] like a day or two, and then you’re good.

It’s nice. It’s really nice So go out there, practice jiu jitsu. It’s really important. It’s really important. It’s one of the best methods of self defense for restricting an opponent without striking them. It’s really great for taking down bigger opponents. It’s really great for close range combat and getting things done on the ground, for moving, for protecting yourself, and it’s a complement to And that’s why we do it.

We’re going to talk about the synergy of all three of the main disciplines that we do. Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu after we have our Muay Thai episode coming up soon. Eight limbs. Okay. But before that, we’re probably going to have one more episode in between. And I’m going to try to get it done before Loveburn.

Loveburn’s coming up soon. If you haven’t checked it out, all our social media, we’ve got our glass artwork, Vito Glass [00:25:00] Art on Instagram, Farah underscore Academy on Instagram, Farah Academy. com, Farah Academy. There’s nothing in between there, com, that’s our website. And I’ll be posting up pictures of the installation, all the stuff.

It’s going to be beautiful. I already have some, pictures of the current. murals that we’re working on. My friend Shamal is doing the outlines. They’re gorgeous. I’m filling in with oil paint. they’re going to look amazing. So I’m actually about to go work on that. I hope you all have a good day.

Subscribe, like send to a friend, and we’ll see you on the next episode of the unlimited. You unlocking your potential.

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