Comments by "iorekby" (@iorekby) on "Joe Rogan on Learning Jiu-Jitsu for Self Defense" video.

@dant828 You could also apply that pretty dubious logic to anything: Don't have a PhD in Physics? It's because you're scared. Never did an Ironman triathlon? Scared. Only did BJJ but not not Dog Brothers? Definitely scared. Okay I'm employing reductio ad absurdum here, but in reality theres lots of great reasons not to do BJJ. I should know, I did it for 6 years + some change. Got my purple belt, even did a couple of comps (small comps, to be fair). After years of training, thousands in tuition, more than a few moderate to serious injuries, and having never "needed" BJJ I realised I was wasting my time doing something that was costing money, hurting me and worst of all it was something I no longer enjoyed. If I could go back and do it again, I honestly don't think I'd bother.
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Ermmm maybe? If "having it" and never needing it though costs you literally thousands or tens of thousands of $$$ over the years, causes you to gain chronic knee, hand or back injuries (which is a common occurrence of doing BJJ over a life time), you spend 100s of hours away from your family... is it really worth it if you don't need it? For me it's not, definitely not. But I know everyone is different.
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@johnpliskin8759 Exactly! We end up doing more damage to ourselves just by training for "self defence" than any phantom mugger ever would.
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@dant828 A guy in my old class who'd just gotten his blue belt got dropped at a party by some "random guy" he got in to a row with. Guy just caught him first. Did BJJ help my team mate? No, it didn't. So, yeah, I can say it isn't useful. Not all the time anyway. Go on to the BJJ sub on Reddit, you'll find stories both ways of people using it and people finding it to be of little to no help in a fight. Or Youtube. There are videos of people using it to fight people, and there are videos of people getting destroyed trying to use BJJ in a fight. And even at that, it's ridiculous rationalisation to do BJJ: I would be much less likely to be in that already unlikely situation by practising my awareness, avoidance, deescalation and flight skills which should be anyone's go to to avoid trouble. Not trying to clock choke some "random guy", who by the way could have a knife or anything else. See? I can make spurious things up to to try and justify a point, but I'd rather not as it's an incredibly weak way to try and prove an argument. Creating a false dichotomy to support an argument is deeply, deeply flawed. It's not always "useful", it's more fine grained than that.
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@num1Jaysta Again, a false dichotomy. People don't have chronic hand, knee and back problems that a decade of BJJ generally gives you. And theres 1001 ways to stay fit and healthy whle not doing BJJ. Look, if you've created a pretext that motivates you to do BJJ, good for you. But try and be objective. Not everyone gets much out of BJJ. It's not for everyone. Sometimes it may actually do more harm than good. People who insist BJJ is always fantastic, everyone should do it, theres no downsides to doing it and it's better for everyone in all circumstances to do BJJ than not, come across as irrational and cultish.
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@joansebastian7145 WOW!! What insightful comments. I'm certainly going to go re-evaluate everything I said because some faceless randomer on the www resorted to childish ad hominen responses. You do realise that those comments only underline my argument if you practice BJJ, right? Specifically the whole "cultish" thing. You're simply proving my point. If you don't practice BJJ, I've no idea why you think anyone should take anything you say seriously. Then again maybe that's not you're intention.
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@2GMichael Welcome to the wonderful world of BJJ where "everyone is great and it makes everyone a better person" 🙄 Hopefully you get your money back bud.
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@joansebastian7145 I'm sorry what's "burried"? That's not an English word. I wouldn't go on to the internet and call people "stupid" at any point, but I definitely wouldn't do it if I couldn't spell rudimentary English words correctly.
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@Beakie40k I was training for comps, you can't train for comps and not get injured at some point. It's the nature of the beast, it's the same as any full contact sport. And I mean great that you "needed" BJJ but again, many people don't need it or if they are in a bad situation can get a way out of it without resorting to BJJ.
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@joansebastian7145 And yet not a single BJJ like or subscription, or any sort of interaction on your home page. Seems legit.
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I love Joe is hyped by BJJ, but to offer a counter-point as someone else who did BJJ for 6 years: It ain't for everyone, despite the marketing. Joe sometimes romanticises BJJ wayy too much. Joe is exceptionally lucky to have landed with one of the best BJJ teachers in the world for a start. Not everyone gets taught by someone of the caliber and character of JJ Machado. And Eddie seems like a solid coach too who would make classes fun. Again, not everyone gets that. There are a ton of asswipes running BJJ gyms, who are either incomptent or just awful people. I have personally known BJJ instructiors who have * punched students during rolling because they were angry with them (it was a BJJ roll, not MMA) * Stolen from students * Verbally abused and threated students in person and online * Slept with a students wife when they knew that student suffered from depression and anxiety. I could fill a book with some of the awful things I've seen in the BJJ community. There are a lot of good people in BJJ too of course, but just go in with your eyes open. Joe has drank the Kool Aid, but hold off on doing that until you have figured out if it's for you or not.
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@treroney4720 Sadly not in my experience. Just because someone is a shitty person doesn't mean they are necessarily a bad coach. Their gyms can still be incredibly popular. For example, Ralph Gracie was a known bully who would be violent and abusive towards his students beyond the parameters of BJJ. He was a grade A prick by many accounts. He still used to have packed out gyms. His gyms are still going despite all the trouble he's been in. BJJ is full of assholes, and sometimes BJJ actually doesn't just tolerate these assholes, it's allows them to thrive. Never underestimate the human weakness of beatifying scumbags just because they happen to be talented at martial arts, or sports, or funny etc....
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@jinyow5581 Very well said and I agree. BJJ is a religion to some people, and like all religious zealots they go crazy when they perceive blasphemy against the almighty, "infallible" god of BJJ.
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@seetsamolapo5600 Right but these are pastimes for most people. Not like jobs we need to make a living. I'll happily fight my corner in work. With BJJ though I don't have to put up with a room filled with brainwashed eejits worshiping some psychopath in a gi. I do take your point though that if you had a goal to be say, a successful BJJ competitor, you find the best coach out there and forget about everything else. I get that ruthlessness and amoral attitude. But like I said, for most people it's a hobby, and we're also paying customers. No coach who happens to be a Grade A a$$hole is entitled to my time and money just because they won the Pan Ams 10 years ago or their last name rhymes with Fracie.
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@EL-mn9ng Which probably means you can live in a nice place in a safer neighbourhood. And you can afford to buy and maintain a car that rules reliably, negating the need to walk around at night. I could go on but I applaud your success and it's definitely a far better investment than BJJ.
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@juicymuscprod9624 How the hell do you learn BJJ if you don't pay for classes? I know a few people offer to do gym admin or cleaning for free lessons, but that is rare and there's only so much a gym needs that. If you are talking about setting up a home gym and learning from tutorials, a) that's not a great way compared to going to an actual gym for a multitude of reasons b) that still needs money for things like mats and tutorials etc.... So it's defintely not free.
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@juicymuscprod9624 Dude now I know you are clowning. If you don't have mats you'll end up screwing up your knees and back.And if it's an overly litigious country like the USA, what happens if this person teaching you sues you because their knee got jacked up with no mats? And how many people do you think are just waiting to take time out of their own life to teach someone for free (with zero insurance and no mats)? If you're being serious, sorry, but you haven't thought this through well enough. Unless it's an immediate family member they aren't going to teach you for free. Times are tough for everyone but especially BJJ gyms. Gym members aren't going to be teaching people for free, in the midst of a pandemic. And even when the pandemic is over, they aren't going to be putting their own training at risk by teaching for free. I know for a fact if some BJJ gym owners knew their students were teaching for free, they would freak out and kick them out of the gym. No one interested in BJJ is going to risk that.
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@jujasname Dude its not excuses its just dumb. It's like saying someone is making excuses because they don't want to drive a car off a cliff. The single most expensive item any BJJ gym has to buy is mats. They cost thousands, even for a small space. Do you really think thousands of BJJ coaches would waste all that money if mats weren't necessary? If you want to train like a meathead sans mats, no one will stop you. I can pretty much guarantee though you will eventually do irreparable damage to your knee, shoulder and back joints though. I cannot stress enough how dumb of an idea that is.
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@GMfish What an absurd comment. I've achived a lot (academcially) compared to most people. I've completed 2 Masters degrees. I've lived and worked in 3 different countries on 2 different contients. I've completed half-marthons and raised a lot for charities. I've tried plenty of things. Some have been very fufilling. Others have been wastes of time, and no amount of cultishness or aggressive marketing from the BJJ community will convince me, as a former practioner, that is wasn't a waste of time for me, a waste of money and a pointless thing to put my body through. In case you didn't read my orignal comment I actually did BJJ for 6 years! I did try it. As I have tried many other things. All your comment did is make you seem lazy and ignorant. Please read comments more carefully in the future.
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@juicymuscprod9624 There is a lot of controversy around what the miltary in the US uses. Some peopel want to revert to the older CQC training, some want to do more of the MMA stuff. The reason? Private contractors. Private contractors come in to coach the miltary. It's not even to do with "what works" (chances of a SEAL having to take someone out with an armbar are miniscule) but it's to do with what sells. People like Jocko have connections with the military, and they use those connections to sell their product (e.g. BJJ and MMA lessons) to the military. The CQC guys also want to sell to the military. Who gets in depends on who is in charge, and whether they have connections, or indeed a vested interest, in getting certain civilian contractors in. ` What "works" isn't the salient factor.
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@jujasname People can indeed justify just about anything they want to do. Doesn't mean their reasoning is sound or sane.
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@BERSONE1 "Bitchmade", brought to you by some anoymous randomer behind the safety of the internet. Tell you what champ, why don't you tell us more about yourself? Show us your belt ranker profile and your vids of you rolling and destroying mere mortals.
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@titocristobal5573 It wasn't some big discussion lol! It was mentioned in passing.
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@Zether-sl5vl And you sound like you've been doing BJJ 15 minutes lol. BJJ is injurious by nature. Look at the guard for example. When you have someone in guard and get stacked, that is horrible for your spine health. Doesn't matter if it's not high intensity. Gripping a gi is horrendous for your finger joint health in the long term, even with "medium" effort. Unless you are just drilling and only doing no-gi, BJJ will end up injuring you. People believing this fairy tale that you will never get hurt doing BJJ eventually get a rude awakening.
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@Zether-sl5vl That is the dumbest argument. It's not an either-or lmao!! You make it sound like the choices are do BJJ or do nothing lol. There are a million ways to exercise compared to BJJ, and frankly, a lot of them are a lot better comparatively. Less injurious, burn more calories etc... BJJ is designed to make you more efficient over time, to require less strength and energy. And guess what, that means you burn fewer calories. BJJ gets to be a poorer workout the longer you do it, especially if you are doing "light of medium" intensity training. Becoming worse as an exercise system over time is a feature of BJJ, not a bug. Anecdotally, I burn more calories doing Kettlebells or swimming for an hour than I do doing BJJ. Realistically most of us have other things in our lives, we only have so much time for exercise classes. If someone is only interested in BJJ compared to all other exercises, sure, it is better than nothing. But otherwise, it is not close to the best exercise choice.
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