What Training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Taught Me About Healthy Self-Destruction
How to become someone you don’t recognize — in all the best ways.
When I was 17 years old, I was someone who I didn’t like being around very much.
I was anxious all the time, painfully insecure, and I based my self-esteem solely on my perceived spot in the social hierarchy. As a wrestler throughout my youth, I thought that my place in the social hierarchy was determined by my ability to win fights, smash people, and be obnoxiously aggressive — all things that I didn’t even really want to do. My only real goal in life as a 17-year-old kid was to prove that I was tough, strong, and athletic.
That was until my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class made me like a bag of soup.
Even as a lifelong wrestler, I couldn’t hang in the Jiu-Jitsu training room. I was 17, and I was grappling with grown men. My training partners threw me around, choked me (using my own clothes), and I was forced to tap out seconds before I went unconscious. It’s a miracle I didn’t get severely injured.
In the time since those early days, I’ve gone from total newb in Jiu-Jitsu to purple belt world champion to one of the top brown belts in the world. At each belt, I’ve been forced to completely reinvent the way I…
