Mar 14 • Tools That Help
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: Learning to Drown
In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene tells the story of an ancient warrior who trained his soldiers by taking them out to sea and forcing them to fight in deep water. The lesson was simple. Learn to be comfortable with drowning.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is a lot like that.
It constantly puts you in situations where you feel like you are drowning. Pinned under someone heavier. Caught in a choke. Exhausted but still expected to move.At first you panic. Every instinct tells you to thrash and fight your way out. But the more you struggle, the worse it gets.
Then something shifts.
You stop panicking. You slow your breathing. You think. And suddenly you realise that if you relax, you can survive. You can find an escape. Eventually you can even learn to enjoy the chaos. That is why BJJ is more than just a sport. It is a system for dealing with pressure, both on the mats and in life. It teaches you to stay calm when things feel overwhelming.
A Community of Weirdos
BJJ attracts a particular kind of person. It is not a mainstream sport, and that is part of its charm.
You will meet computer programmers. Bartenders. Ex military. Artists. People who would never cross paths anywhere else.
There are no flashy uniforms. No big money prizes. Just a bunch of people trying to strangle each other and laughing about it afterwards.
To outsiders it probably looks ridiculous. Try explaining to someone that you spend your evenings letting people sit on your chest and twist your joints the wrong way. You will get some strange looks.
But inside the gym it feels different.
For many people it becomes a sanctuary. One of the few places where ego disappears quickly.
Getting Your Ego Smashed
If you think you are strong, BJJ will humble you. If you think you are fast, it will slow you down. It does not matter how big, fit, or young you are. On the mats, technique beats everything. In your first year you will lose. A lot.
You will be dominated by people half your size. You will tap constantly. Sometimes to the same move again and again.
It takes about a year of getting beaten up before you even begin to understand what is happening.
And that is the beauty of it.
BJJ teaches you to embrace failure. You start seeing it as feedback rather than defeat. Success stops being about winning rounds. Instead it becomes about survival.
· Did I last longer against that black belt today?
· Did I make fewer mistakes?
· Did I stay calm under pressure?
· That shift in mindset matters.
When you stop seeing setbacks as proof that you are inadequate and start seeing them as part of a process, you become more resilient. Life does not get easier, but you get better at handling it.
The Only Way Out Is Through
Many people have turned to BJJ during difficult periods in their lives.
Anthony Bourdain discovered it later in life and famously called it one of the best things he ever did. Jocko Willink often talks about the mental toughness it builds. What they understand is simple.
BJJ is not really about fighting. It is about showing up.
There are no shortcuts. No quick fixes. You improve by turning up, again and again, whether you feel like it or not. And that applies to life as well.
There is no hack to happiness. No way to avoid struggle entirely. You just show up, put in the work, and slowly get better at dealing with whatever comes your way.
BJJ will not cure depression.
But it will teach you how to breathe when you feel like you are drowning.
Sometimes that is enough.
My Own Journey
My own journey with martial arts started in 2003.
I had already fallen out of love with rugby around 2001. My daughter had been born that March and I was obsessed with her. I hated leaving her to go to work, never mind training twice a week and playing on Saturdays.
I stopped for over a year. But eventually I realised I still needed a physical outlet. Going to the gym just for the sake of it did not motivate me.
In October 2003 I joined a martial arts gym that had a traditional jujitsu class. I loved it.
A few months later, in April 2004, I signed up for an amateur MMA tournament called Grapple and Strike. Looking back, I was massively under prepared and under skilled. The manic side of my bipolar had kicked in and I became obsessed with getting fit.
I had two fights on the same day.
Nervous does not even begin to describe how I felt. I stood in a crowded room staring at the board to see who I was fighting, then awkwardly nodding at the person I would be facing.
Somehow I won my first fight. I was so overwhelmed that I went outside and violently vomited.
While I was outside, my next opponent dropped his opponent with a vicious body shot. Thankfully my teammates did not tell me that at the time.
The fight started and I have never been hit like that before or since. I genuinely thought I was going to die.
Somehow I got a draw.
What confused me most was that nobody wanted to drink afterwards. I had expected a huge celebration. That stuck with me. The fact that nobody drank.
I had seven more fights that year and eventually lost in the final in November 2004. At the time I felt like I had reached the peak of what I could achieve.
I kept training for a while, but when my son was born in May 2005 and became seriously ill, I stopped everything to spend time with him.
I went back to rugby from 2007 until 2015 and retired at 38, which is about the normal age.
A couple of years later I got restless again and did three years of Muay Thai, which I loved. Eventually I returned to BJJ in 2017 and immediately remembered why I loved it.The camaraderie. The intensity. The problem solving.
At white belt I had a great 15 months. I stopped drinking for ten months and competed in four tournaments. Two gold medals, one silver, one bronze. I was promoted to blue belt in July 2018.
Then everything went wrong.
They call it the blue belt blues. I had it badly. I trained less. I got injured. My 20 year relationship ended. When the depression really hit, I stopped training for two and a half years.
In March 2024 I started focusing on my health again. I had already stopped drinking for a year and smoking for six months.
One morning my friend, who was close to black belt, convinced me to come back. He said something simple.
"Just turn up. Don't think about it."
So I did.
The next day I popped a rib in my first session. I got some physio, went back, and have not stopped since.
I train three or four times a week now. A few months after returning I even won gold in a tournament.
The difference in my health after quitting smoking and drinking was huge.
For me BJJ is not really exercise. The mental health benefits are far bigger than that.
· The community.
· The problem solving.
· The ego crushing.
· The constant learning.
I would recommend it to anyone.
Especially kids.
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Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: Learning to Drown
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