Benefits of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

I got out of the service about 6 years ago. When I got out, there was a part of me that felt like I was lacking. My sense of purpose was gone, and there were certain aspects of my former life that left a hole. After my transition plan fell apart, when sure things became uncertain, I spiraled. I ballooned up to 240 pounds and completely loss myself. I attempted to gain traction. I found some volunteer work that fulfilled a little bit of my sense of purpose. I got myself on to a new career path. But there was still somethings that I just couldn’t put my finger on.

Unfortunately, I found Jiu-Jitsu way too late, but in this case, better late than never. I’ve been involved with the Jiu-Jitsu world now for a little over 2 years. Here are the things I’ve learned I was missing:

Physical fitness-
I tried to stay fit, but obviously it was a failing endeavor. I will be honest, I was not fit at 240 lbs. I was chunky, I was slow, and I was weak. Even with a decent amount of knowledge and access to equipment, I could not stick to a routine, especially after the transition plan came crashing down. I lost motivation and I did not have the discipline in place to fall back on. When I started training Jiu-Jitsu , my physical fitness started to simply fall back in place. First of all, Jiu-Jitsu is a full body workout like none other. It builds strength, flexibility and endurance in a way that no other training I’ve done before had. As I started to transform because of Jiu-Jitsu , I honed in on my nutrition and started to train off the mat, this time with Jiu-Jitsu 2-4 times a week as a foundation. I was getting back to my active duty level of fitness, if not even better. Long story short, it’s a great way for us veterans to get back to being physically active and in shape; and stay that way.

Mental health-
I got to a low point where it was hard to express what was going on in my head. I didn’t have an outlet. I couldn’t afford an outlet. The nail in the coffin, I was living with my parents and there was a seemingly endless amount of alcohol for consumption (hence the drastic weight gain). I needed something to work on my mental health. I believe it’s a crucial pillar to our overall wellness, and I didn’t have the things in place that I did while in the military. My fitness was in the tank, my community had shrunk and any friends I had were new. I needed more than what I had supplemented before. Jiu-Jitsu became a great stress reliever. Don’t hear what I’m not saying, I didn’t go out on the mat and try to kill everything that moved to relieve stress, even as a new white belt. But it was an outlet. It was a physical way to problem solve, be under stress, under pressure and work my way out. This translated to the stresses and pressure of everyday life off the mat. Early on, I looked forward to those once a week, hours upon hours of rolling in the garage. Not only did it help with my mental resiliency as stated before, but it helped me to get my emotions in check with the benefit of not having to use words (something I’m still working on).

Camaraderie-
As mentioned before, after transitioning out of active duty, my community was in the dump. I had a few colleagues from the church I was volunteering at, and fewer from the job I was working, but overall, the community and camaraderie was just not there. When we started rolling in the garage, and as more folks joined in, I started to feel that camaraderie again.  We built a small community of folks who were relatively consistent to roll in the garage. We were introducing folks to the art almost on a weekly basis. And then the camaraderie blew up when we started training at a local academy. There, they are all about a family concept, and that spoke straight to the camaraderie aspect. I am grateful for the staff and team at our academy, and I’m not sure if that missing camaraderie would have been filled without them, without Jiu-Jitsu .

Confidence/Self-Esteem-
As you can imagine, blowing up 50-60 pounds over a few months, maybe a year, having your flawless transition plan fail, and then falling into a pit of despair and depression didn’t do much for the whole confidence and self-esteem area of my life. The transformation I’ve gone through, mentally and physically, greatly due to Jiu-Jitsu boosted my confidence and self-esteem. It gave me an outlet to prove to myself that I can do hard things, work under literally crushing pressure and be successful, even when the odds do no look to be in my favor.

Further develop life skills-
In the military, troops develop a set of life skills as military service requires discipline, dedication, teamwork, focus, problem solving, resilience, etc. The list could go on and on. A veteran can easily apply a lot of what we gained in the military into other areas of life, but what I found is many of those are perishable life skills. We may not completely lose them over time, but like a knife, they can become dull. We need something to sharpen those skills. Jiu-Jitsu became the whet stone for those skills. To progress and advance in Jiu-Jitsu , it takes dedication. I’ve seen plenty of half-assed Jiu-Jitsu participants, and I specifically chose participants over practitioners, come and go. Some you could even say they’re “casually consistent,” meaning they show up enough to remember their name. But they don’t progress, they don’t advance, and they reach a plateau and typically stay there. Dedication and discipline mean put in a couple classes a week, be consistent and be a good student. This may not be for everyone, but I keep a journal specifically for Jiu-Jitsu . I write out what we were taught, step-by-step and then who I rolled with and if anything stuck out in those rolls. I have certain goals in that journal, and I annotate what I did to work on those goals, or what I need to do next time to get closer to achieving them. Focus and problem solving are other life skills honed on the mats. It’s not hard to tell if your partner is not focused during instruction, even easier to tell if you’re not focused during rolls.

Finally, many a veteran have been engrained with a certain warrior spirit. We signed on a dotted line, knowing good and well that it meant we may take a life and we may very well have ours taken from us. Knowing that you may be put in a situation where you’re required to take another human’s life is not a light subject. There’s a deep mental and spiritual work that should be done before that point, and I believe a great deal of PTSD stems from not doing that pre-work. But once that warrior spirit dwells within us, it’s not going anywhere. It’s always there. It’s always in the back of our minds. It’s always trying to edge its way forward. Jiu-Jitsu is the avenue that has best suited continuing to train and feed that warrior spirit. Engaging in combat, in grappling, keeps the warrior spirit at bay, yet ready to strike out when it must be called upon.

Thanks for reading.