Wrestling vs Jiu Jitsu - Jocko Willink

okay this is part question part opinion in podcast 13 you stated effectively not explicitly that jiu-jitsu is the martial art that takes the most time to become proficient I disagree and here's why as a wrestler I've been able to pick up jiu-jitsu in a matter of about two months to the point where I can submit a blue belt here and there and mostly control purple belt possibly there is white skill ranged along belts which I only roll with lower level players I might just be a bad teacher but I've not I've not had as much success teaching jiu-jitsu guys to wrestle after the same amount of time they're after the same amount of time there may be a low high high school wrestling level I found it extremely difficult to teach new disciplines to shoot penetrate with their hips or effectively use their hips to defend us or scramble possibly my sample size is too small to form an accurate opinion but I'm curious of your thoughts on the topic thanks love listening you learned so yeah I guess when I said that I should have said grappling in general which is definitely harder to achieve a basic level of competence in rather than striking now don't get me wrong you take a skilled boxer they will destroy an unskilled boxer you take a skilled muy Thai guy they will destroy an unskilled muy Thai guy do you've changed good more Thai people before right the first person that I ever did that with that was a skilled muy Thai legit skilled Muay Thai it was like black Bell versus white belt right yeah I would think about throwing a kick at him and he would check it right and then he would throw a kick at me before I even knew what was happening right there that much better they can see your hips they move it's the same same thing with boxing if you go against a good boxer they'll Jack you up in that sport right in that sport you will get works so now that being said a good wrestler is a good grappler you are a good grappler and that's why you're able to pick up jujitsu very quickly because rest is grappling which is jiu-jitsu there are there differences yes there absolutely are differences but it's like longboard surfing and short board surfing if you're or baseball and softball if you played baseball in college when you get out on the the the office softball team you're a killer that's the way it is not it's cuz you played soft but you played baseball you didn't play technically softball it's the same thing with with wrestling and as far as the fact that it doesn't take long to learn if you're a high level wrestler to learn jujitsu yes absolutely you'll learn it very quickly look at the history of the UFC Dan Severn Mark Coleman Kevin Randleman Randy Koecher Tito all those high-level Russell's and that's the history because guess what high level wrestlers are there right now - John Jones DC it's it's wrestlers it's wrestlers and wrestlers now are there other guys that come in and fill it but the the the I would say the majority base is wrestling you know so now you also have to look at speaking of history you have to look at the early ufc's or you go to any gym in the fact is the fact is a jiu jitsu only guy beats a wrestling only guy in a fight nine times out of ten that's the way it is that now if the wrestler can learn very quickly but if the wrestler only knows wrestling and the jiu-jitsu guy only knows jujitsu the jujitsu guy is going to win simply because the wrestler doesn't know how to finish the fight he doesn't know how to finish it he doesn't have any submission holds to finish a fight so can they occasionally nine times you know one time out of ten or whatever get something and and yes that can happen but and and also I'm not talking about if you take a NCAA wrestler and you put them against the white belt or maybe even a blue belt there's a chance that the blue belt can't submit him the guy's just too strong that's if he has some awareness if he has no awareness whatsoever he's gonna get tapped out yeah and if you watch the early ufc's that's exactly what happened you know the wrestlers they might get position but they were getting choked they were getting tapped and you go to any gym right now you have a tough wrestler walk in that doesn't know any jiu-jitsu he's gonna get tapped out I mean for instance right now at our gym we got a really good wrestler named Taylor Johnson and I'll bring his name up because he eats I can remember it all cuz it's all been recent he's been training now for less than a year when he first came in he was getting tapped out you know that's the way it is he's a phenomenal wrestler two months later he wasn't getting tapped out six months later he's tapping people out so that's what happens but if you take physically kind of close people and you put pure wrestling against pure jiu-jitsu jiu-jitsu who's gonna win now there's also another thing that you're probably noticing in this situation and that is that wrestling wrestling selects for athleticism right wrestling selects for athleticism and for you to be competitive in wrestling you need to be strong quick athletic agile all those things are important and I've seen that you know with the the school where my kids wrestle and you see it what it's like when you get a strong athletic kid and how they're able to execute moves better than someone that's not that good of an athlete and so wrestling does that wrestling is selective so if you wrestled guess what you're a really good athlete you and if you did well wrestling or he wrestled for a long time you developed that athleticism because you had to be explosive you had to train hard so that's that also blue belts you look at a blue belt a blue belt is basically a person that's been doing jiu-jitsu for a year maybe two years right so that's the same thing as a lower-level high school wrestler right a low-level high school wrestler was a guy that didn't start wrestling until he was a freshman year started wrestling well that's a low-level high school wrestler and guess what he's getting beat so you should be if you're a good wrestler you should be able to once you understand the basic principles of jujitsu you should be able to beat blue belts because they're a year into the game that's the way it is yeah you take a competitive wrestler and you go against somebody that's you know seven years in and now they're a brown belt well that's that's a competitive high school wrestler that's a senior and he started training in sixth grade that's seven eight years go against a seven or eight year jiu-jitsu guy you've got now you've got a good match and likely legit to guys gonna win now again if you take know if you take a pure wrestler versus of pure jiu-jitsu the juicy guys gonna win all day all day so you know there's no denying and like I just said there's a reason that wrestling is the the premier skill set in the UFC that predicts champions no doubt about it it is a great and incredible martial art I I wish that that wrestling had kept its roots as catch wrestling and still had submission holds and all that because it would just completely change the game but it doesn't so you have to add them later there's also something else too where I think that I think that people in general wrestling's not for everybody mmm right it's a very hard sport and I think that people avoid that grind of as far as as far as the okay you're gonna get good at wrestling now how much it's a guy now I'm gonna make you good at wrestling jujitsu guys have void the grind I shouldn't say all of them but some often do do two guys avoid the grind of the takedowns and the intensity of wrestling they're not looking for that that's one of the things that makes it so appealing to a very broad range of people is that you can train it at a at a mellower pace right and that's also why if you go do jiu-jitsu tournaments wrestler do really well in jiu-jitsu tournaments because they understand the intensity of rounds of limited time of Smashing someone of going all-out jiu-jitsu guy that's been traded in the gym name ready for that first tournament there's no jiu-jitsu guy in the gym that goes to the first tournament and says yeah that was just like what I thought it was me like no they not used to that intensity they're not ready for it so I mean and of course not taking away from jiu-jitsu guys that train like Mad Men with total intensity and get after it's super hard to go as those guys exist as well and also last little thing on this there are also some wrestlers that don't adapt to the slower pace of jiu-jitsu they can't adapt to that and they don't adapt to the slower pace of MMA and so they their whole career they gas out and there's plenty of pro MMA fighters UFC that have come in high-level wrestlers that they couldn't ever quite make the transition to MMA so you know bottom line these are these are points that I pretty much agree with that the that this this guy made and wrestling's awesome I think it's a great base I think it's it's a form of grappling and it complements jiu-jitsu and Egypt jiu-jitsu complements it and I wish that it was one sport yeah but it's not so you have to do both yeah and it seems like like two because he was originally not complaining wasn't complaining but his premise was that you know jiu-jitsu is is not in fact the hardest one to master you know wrestling he's implying that wrestling is harder to master you know because he taught jiu-jitsu guys wrestling and they didn't pick it up right it was kind of in jujitsu you can break all kinds of wrestling rules in jiu-jitsu yeah and but wrestling guys when they'll come in if they they have to learn to break some wrestling rules otherwise it's gonna be their detriment sure a lot of them a lot of them carry over a lot of a lot of the strengthen but man if a wrestler can't break the rule to to go to his back there's a lot of rest the wrestles will give up their back all day there's they don't want to go on their back you know and that's why they're gonna get choked all the time but if like Taylor you that's a good example Pro Hill fucked he broke that rule quick and that's why he's so good cuz he can expand his mind and break that rule so but consider the jiu-jitsu guy right now he has to learn all they see so he has to essentially and not so much break the rule you can probably break some rules you know but not going back whatever but you just think I doesn't have to break any jiu-jitsu rules necessarily case in point how much time and effort am I gonna put into learning a takedown correctly when it barely decides the match exactly there's a mental there's a mental gap into the desire for knowledge because if I if you take me down cool I'm gonna get in you I'm gonna be you're not gonna pass my guard whereas when a wrestler shows up he has to learn this stuff otherwise he's losing he's getting tapped out he's getting choked yeah so that's a great great point there yeah very true so yeah you don't have to you know and even when you say okay Jiu Jitsu should focus more on takedowns and it's really cool and you should definitely focus on the takedown so you got to learn them and it's very important but at the back your mind as a jiu-jitsu guy I'm like just bull guard yeah I don't really care if you take me down it's okay or and then now we're talking about in this case we're come out saying that me personally because I don't like potentially but and here's the thing to even add to that even if you're considering the comparison of wrestling and jiu-jitsu take the takedown situation take not all takedowns are quote unquote wrestling takedowns yeah I can be like okay I can not learn wrestling at all and still be good at takedowns if I learn judo or fight you know if I learn something so again so it goes it's basically you're taking something really vast with a lot of easy ways to maneuver around certain techniques and still be vastly successful and then you're basically saying okay let's take that person who has that approach and narrow it down to this much more difficult approach and way less effective approach essentially is the vastness of grappling I can still be successful in grappling without learning XYZ wrestling moves and then you want to teach them these XYZ wrestling moves probably some that can go against you especially when it comes to energy energy conservation and all this other stuff that's why a guy maybe yeah who might be difficult to learn that but how you said there's a gap in the motivation there's a difficult to wanna learn or kick or care about learning this thing when it's gonna serve me less in my grappling no doubt you can just look at the human facts of jiu-jitsu there's a reason why takedowns are not emphasized very much energy to at a normal academy in normal academy they do not have the focus on takedowns like wrestling wrestling in wrestling the takedown wins you doesn't win you the match on record but that's a huge part of wrestling is getting the takedowns jiu-jitsu it's it's a little tiny percentage of the match give you two points yeah but it doesn't mean anything to me because I'm gonna submit you yeah in just the nature of the game you know wrestling is takedown pin there's more to it I understand but jiu-jitsu is just submit the guy you know soju gets it in in a way it's like just just get it to the ground you can hit off your back you can win them from the top you can wear a wrestling son like that yeah I know people literally pull guard and then win from there back on top zero in the match and so so the fact that you can pull guard gives you this entire out to get away from doing takedowns and you can still be victorious yeah very very often yeah and that goes along with these even these techniques that he mentioned like you know you know see hit basically that there's there's a lot of moves in there there big moves big moves and they do help you but like I said that they're just they're simply not necessary you know I mean any physical move is helpful to know and to defend whether it be from offensive you know or defense position but again if you're trying to narrow it down and teach these guys who their approach and their knowledge comes from the vastness of grappling yeah and you want to narrow it down to this thing it may or may not work you know and it may or may not serve you it could work against you but here let's try to learn this real hard yeah you can have that gap in motives you actually don't care about the takedowns yeah and I'm gonna go on record now as saying this just because jujitsu doesn't focus on takedowns doesn't mean that you shouldn't focus you should learn takedowns you need to know takedowns from a self-defense perspective from an MMA perspective takedowns wrestling you have to do it I mean that's why my kids wrestle you know it's because I didn't wrestle and I hate that fact because I go against like he's saying you know I go against a good high school wrestler it's hard for me to take him to the ground you know you get somebody that wrestled in college I know what's I know I'm not good now I I have developed good takedown defense over the years and it's actually takedown offense because I have offensive ways of defending takedown you know I'm gonna throw submissions but I can't go back in time and go through the the training that you get when you're a high school wrestler and and college wrestler I can't do that I can't do it I mean I just don't have the time and the motivation to do it because I'm in the same boat as as you know what the guy that you're just talking about how much time am I going to focus on takedowns I know I go against a college wrestler he's taking me down I go against a good high school wrestler there's a good chance he's taking me down yeah so how much time and effort I mean I could spend the next five years I could go through a competitive circuit I could join the wrestling club but am I gonna do that right now is that time effective or do I just want to get better at Jiu Jitsu and then have access to the rest of the grappling spectrum that you just talked about well it's an obvious choice I'm gonna focus on the spectrum that has the most the most application in every situation I'm gonna be in yeah so if you if you get the chance wrestle wrestle as much as you can learn your takedowns drill your takedowns put your kids into wrestling jujitsu for sure put your kids into wrestling you know they don't have to worry about it then yeah the fact remains some people they don't want that beef you know where you gotta go and wrestle you're a man that's hard you know and even like a wrestling you can have a wrestling style to your jujitsu you know but again if you don't want it you know who didn't wrestle Craig Craig Baker Aker ya didn't wrestle ya you ready you'll be like where did you wrestle in college is what you thinking he's pure Jiu Jitsu yeah didn't wrestle in college yeah didn't wrestle in high school didn't even wrestle in high school he feels like a total wrestler when you're with him and his takedowns are great yeah and there's some Brazilian guys that have come up that you know Brazilian UFC fighters that are very good wrestles that never wrestled before they have really good takedowns yeah and but you know you're gonna even have to worry if it work for that and these kids that come out of high school yeah that wrestled in high school they got it yeah that work has an input yes gift that they got yeah but for these guys and back to the question for these guys that he's trying to teach and he totally says like it could be my sample size I understand yeah that's a good point actually but because the sample size be big you can get guys like Craig they'll pick that stuff up real quick but at the end of the day when it comes to as he put it when it comes time to shoot penetrate with their hips or effectively use their hips to defend or scramble you can omit all of those things from a jiu-jitsu guy and he can still win and beats vasin successful you know so scramble mm scrambles a questionable one yeah to be almost devil yeah but again I mean you know we've moved you scrambling is a very good valuable thing to have in jiu-jitsu yeah much more valuable than you know being able to penetrate on the shop yeah yeah agree but yeah wrestlers right that's a weird that's such an interesting bro I roll with this I feel bad that I forget his name but I roll with him every time I see him and he swallowing me a given may be 165 maybe and but an awesome wrestler new guy - under one year and his game is resting but he's like high-level rest and also if I play the wrestling game and I know I know wrestling like I'm solid I can wrestle against good wrestlers maybe not Taylor but good wrestlers so I can play and I'm bigger than him you know so if I go and wrestle to wrestle this guy bro he liked it you run game on you yeah I'll run his game push but if I just slow down in my mind be ok he's a wrestler it's just yeah let's work around the wrestling ah no problem yeah you know but once the once he if he can give up the wrestling rules you know you know yeah but he because he has that athleticism he switches hips like all quick base just like like he's built into the ground that's how good his base is you know it's a yeah wrestling yeah and I guess from a human nature perspective here for you to apply this to other situations in life think about when you're trying to get people to do things think about the motivation that they have in their head not not motivation of like let's go but not the actual the actual mental motivation of what they're gonna gain from what you're trying to give them and do they see the reason of why it's important yeah you gotta play across the board jiu-jitsu the life wrestling is life wrestling is grappling rappeling is like

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 737,562

Keywords: discipline, freedom, military, extreme ownership, leadership, advice, jocko willink, echelon front, navy seal, jocko podcast, excerpt, echo charles, leader, lead, win, defcor, discipline equals freedom

Id: 12_p_1HoIvM

Length: 21min 28sec (1288 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020