Ever found yourself grappling with the guilt of missed family dinners for one more roll on the mats? Check out the latest Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu episode as I deep dive into the complexities of weaving the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu into the fabric of our daily lives without neglecting our loved ones. With stories from our own lives and fellow practitioners, like the father caught in the push and pull of family time and BJJ classes, we explore the delicate balancing act and offer up practical strategies for maximizing those precious training hours.
As a dedicated BJJ enthusiast, I've had to navigate the intricate dance of fitting four to five hours of weekly training into a bustling family schedule. This episode sheds light on how involving our families in our journey, like my own experience of bringing my kids to a New Year's Day open mat, can help turn our solo pursuits into shared experiences. Our guest chimes in with their insights on the crucial role of communication with partners and colleagues, ensuring they not only understand but also bolster our commitment to the sport we adore.
We switch gears to discuss how to keep the BJJ flame alight amidst the whirlwind of work, family, and other commitments. From tuning into podcasts to sifting through instructional videos, we cover an array of ways to stay plugged into the Jiu-Jitsu world, even when you can't make it to the gym. We wrap up with personal victories over weight loss and stress, highlighting how this martial art supports both our physical and mental fortitude. A huge thank you to our esteemed guest for sharing their expertise and anecdotes, and remember, the conversation doesn't end here—join us on Instagram or shoot us an email with your own tales from the mat. Keep those Gi's ready! Oss.
Ever found yourself grappling with the guilt of missed family dinners for one more roll on the mats? Check out the latest Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu episode as I deep dive into the complexities of weaving the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu into the fabric of our daily lives without neglecting our loved ones. With stories from our own lives and fellow practitioners, like the father caught in the push and pull of family time and BJJ classes, we explore the delicate balancing act and offer up practical strategies for maximizing those precious training hours.
As a dedicated BJJ enthusiast, I've had to navigate the intricate dance of fitting four to five hours of weekly training into a bustling family schedule. This episode sheds light on how involving our families in our journey, like my own experience of bringing my kids to a New Year's Day open mat, can help turn our solo pursuits into shared experiences. Our guest chimes in with their insights on the crucial role of communication with partners and colleagues, ensuring they not only understand but also bolster our commitment to the sport we adore.
We switch gears to discuss how to keep the BJJ flame alight amidst the whirlwind of work, family, and other commitments. From tuning into podcasts to sifting through instructional videos, we cover an array of ways to stay plugged into the Jiu-Jitsu world, even when you can't make it to the gym. We wrap up with personal victories over weight loss and stress, highlighting how this martial art supports both our physical and mental fortitude. A huge thank you to our esteemed guest for sharing their expertise and anecdotes, and remember, the conversation doesn't end here—join us on Instagram or shoot us an email with your own tales from the mat. Keep those Gi's ready! Oss.
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@Caffeinated_JiuJitsu
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu the blend of white belt enthusiasm, black belt wisdom and a dash of caffeine for that extra kick. Dive deep into the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as we explore the journey, techniques, challenges and the sheer joy of the sport from a White Belts perspective, from intriguing interviews with renowned coaches and professors to playful fun episodes that'll have you chuckling mid-roll. We've got it all brewed and ready. Now, stepping over the mess and into your ears, here's your host, joe Motes.
Speaker 2:
And welcome back to another episode of Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu. I am your host, joe Motz. This is the podcast that we dive in deep into the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the topics that interest most of us who practice Jiu-Jitsu, and pull out all the insights that we can for you, the listeners on and off the mats. Today we have a really applicable topic to discuss and thank you for everyone's patience and getting or waiting on new content to come out. I've got a couple of months of content planned, pre-planned, several episodes already recorded and they'll be posting similar to the schedule that they were before. And I bring that up because the topic that we're discussing lot of the content from being posted and recorded and edited and all of that and that is the topic of balancing jujitsu with our daily lives right the balancing the mats in life and making time for jujitsu, work, family and external priorities. So how do we manage time between training, work, family? We're going to explore some practical tips on integrating jiu-jitsu into our busy lifestyle, ensuring that we keep progressing in our training without dropping the ball elsewhere. So grab your favorite caffeinated beverage. Typically, I have a coffee. This evening I am drinking a cherry Pepsi. So no coffee right now and let's roll into this topic. So I think the first thing we need to do is understand. I think the first thing we need to do is understand the challenge and the core of the challenge, and one of the most common things that we all face is this balancing act that we have to do in finding the time for regular training amidst career responsibilities and family obligations. It's not just about squeezing in hours, it's about making those hours count.
Speaker 2:
And you know, I was talking some time ago to a fellow practitioner. This was a father of, I believe, two small children they were school-aged but they were small whose person initially struggled to attend his gym's evening classes, and he shared with me how he felt guilty missing an hour of family time after he'd been at work all day, and how and how it affected his motivation. He would find himself during training kind of thinking, you know, got to. You know, kind of got to hurry, I need to get home, there's stuff I have to do with the kids, they need help with homework, or or he would find himself watching you know, watching the clock, and instead of really enjoying his, his time and not feeling rushed and focusing on learning the technique of the day or what have you, and I could understand where he was. I could understand where he was coming from with that and that feeling.
Speaker 2:
I don't train at night, I train early in the morning. We have a 7 am to 8 am class every day, monday through Friday, and our open mat I believe our open mat's at 11 am on Saturday. I believe our open mat's at 11 am on Saturday. So we have pretty good hours that work for me for regular training, your daily dose of jiu-jitsu, so to speak. However, for me, the challenge is the extra stuff that I want to do in jiu-jitsu that when I do, I feel a little guilty. It's the seminars, it's the workshops, it's the competing on the weekends and I I don't compete nearly as much as I would want to because of, you know, external obligations outside of jujitsu.
Speaker 2:
If I had my way about it, I would compete. You know all three IBJJF opens here in Atlanta. I would try to get to some in. You know, south Carolina, I think they do three in Charleston a year. They do two or three in Nashville and I would just, you know, I would just compete a lot more.
Speaker 2:
But there's a financial aspect to that. Um, I have five kids. So there there's not a ton of extra spend of money at the end of the month. We're all paying our monthly dues and our fees. We have equipment and gear we have to buy, and then anything after that. You're making some sacrifices somewhere. Most seminars are done during weekends as well, so anytime I attend a seminar which I do try to attend those when they come to to our gym, and you know, those are the things that that I deal with.
Speaker 2:
Um, as far as either feeling guilty or not finding enough time for or not being able to balance to where I guess you could say I get get kind of my feel. But as far as my training goes, uh, I I feel like I get good daily training, but if I were to take another job or if another life, situation would change. Obviously that would change. So our lives outside of the gym absolutely dictate the amount of time we can put into our training, and so what we need to do is we need to think about some practical things that we can do as practitioners that will help us in this balancing act right. So let's take a look at a few of those, okay, and let's kind of talk some of these out. Some of these may apply to you or they may make sense. You may do some of them I know I do some of them and some of them still might not work or you might not see an impact using them. You just ultimately have to kind of find what works for you.
Speaker 2:
But one of the first practical tips and exercises we can do is prioritizing your schedule, and that's crucial, but not just in jujitsu. You should be prioritizing schedules when it comes to your work, your family, your home improvement list, whatever it is your home improvement list, whatever it is right. It's about planning and prioritizing jujitsu around these fixed commitments, like work, is our number one fixed commitment. We have to work right. We have to provide for our families and ourselves, and using tools like digital calendars or apps can be a game changer blocking out time, setting reminders in your, your, your smartphones, training you know just as you would for a meeting or say, some type of of work event, right, and setting those type of reminders.
Speaker 2:
I use journaling a lot. I do this thing called bullet journaling. That's been life-changing for me, and then I have a separate kind of planner when it comes to work and then I also have a planner when it comes to things with the family and, and you know, all the way down to doctor's appointments, and if I don't keep those and if I don't stay on top of those I forget, if I don't put reminders on my calendar at work for stuff that happens, you know, outside of work, then you know blocking off my, my training time on my you know Microsoft Outlook work calendar and I put in a reminder if it's not, you know, a morning training session. I, at the beginning of my jujitsu journey, I set a goal for myself of training for five hours a week, whether you know, straight through Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday or if I miss a Monday, that means I need to double up on you know, tuesday or Wednesday I need to get five hours and for a long time I was able to get those five hours in and in many weeks I was able to get, you know, six, seven hours in. I think the most I got was like nine or eight hours in, but over time, uh, that's kind of dwindled down to where I'm lucky If I get my five hours.
Speaker 2:
You know, summer's coming up, the kids are getting older. My 13 year old is now in baseball. 13 year old is now in baseball, two of my boys are in swim and then and then you can't, you know, stay gone forever. Your spouse is going to go crazy, especially if you have a stay at home spouse that's home with the kids all the time. So, you know, all these outside um commitments have made it to where, on average now, I'm getting four, um, solid training days, uh, four solid training hours a week, and I'm kind of lucky if I get five. Now, now I'm absolutely committed to getting back to that five Um, I am going to prioritize jujitsu into my schedule more, going to prioritize jujitsu into my schedule more, and you know, that's that's something that that I believe is a practical tip, that that we can use and, you know, if we plan for it, we uh, we'll tend to to execute on it.
Speaker 2:
Thinking about um, another practical tip and this, this probably is more the, the best tip or the best practical thing we can do um, I think it's one of the the hardest things to do effectively and that's communicate with our families, our, you know, maybe, our work and getting, maybe not work, but getting our families and those that that we're responsible for, getting them involved in, you know, your jujitsu journey, or at least helping them understand your passion can make a huge difference. Um, my, my own family will sometimes come with me, um, to training they. I think a couple of the kids, a couple of the boys have been one or two times to Alliance. I remember on New Year's Day Iron Wolf there in Brazelton had a open mat on New Year's Day and I was home, of course, I was off and two of the boys, two of my boys, went with me to open mat and they got on the mat, they participated, we had a great time. We were brought in the new year doing jujitsu together and there was no stress, there was no. Oh, I can't believe you're training jujitsu on new years. There was none of that because I included them. I wasn't gone from them, I was. You know, I was spending that much needed time with them. I wasn't taking away time to go do something that I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:
It's important that we understand that because our passion, our excitement, our obsession for jujitsu can at times kind of take over and and make us not bend or prioritize that time with, with, with family, or prioritize it on maybe. Maybe you don't have a family or kids, but you're in college and you know you need some extra study time, but you know you know Saturday's an open mat and I'm thinking I'm going to go there for a couple hours instead of study for an exam. So it's the same thing in prioritizing your time, communicate to your friends, your families, your coworkers your passion, and that can be a huge difference. I know my coworkers ask me all the time, almost daily. You know how's training going. They know that that's something that's important to me. They know if I say hey, you know I'm going to train jujitsu for lunch, that I probably didn't get to training that morning and that this is important to me. They have seen, over time, my physical health change, my mental health change and they know that that's a positive thing in my life. So they allow me to prioritize that, and I hope you work for a company that does that as well and allows you to prioritize your training as well as your work.
Speaker 2:
Another practical thing that we can do is integrating jujitsu into your lifestyle. Making small lifestyle adjustments can significantly boost your training without overwhelming your, your schedule. And what am I talking about here? For instance, listening to BJJ related podcast. That's not a plug for this one, but, yeah, I hope you listen to this one regularly and you can do that during your commutes, during business trips, when you're in hotels alone, or you can watch instructional videos during your downtime and those can keep your mind sharp and engaged with.
Speaker 2:
With jiu-jitsu. I will say be be mindful of you, know who you watch and what you listen to. I kind of compared a little bit to to religion. There's, there's some crazy, crazy things out there. Just make sure that if you're in your forties and fifties you know you're not trying to do flying arm bars. It doesn't do you any good to watch those types of instructionals or rolling Camorras or or anything that you you see on YouTube or IG. That is just outlandish.
Speaker 2:
Focus on watching instructionals that align well with what you're taught in your daily training. Watch instructionals on things that you know your body and your level of athleticism can do. For instance, I typically only watch instructionals that have to do with you know, like old man, jujitsu type stuff, stuff in closed guard, pulling guard, double leg, double leg, take down, blast to anyone. There's no reason why I would watch those type of instructionals. I'm not going to do that on the mat ever. So you know, put those things into your day-to-day.
Speaker 2:
I do a lot of journaling I've talked about you know I've gotten to mind mapping a lot, so I'll come, you know, off a week's training. Every day I put in my journal what we learned that day and then on the weekend, what I try to do is build out these mind maps for these techniques. Again, if it's a technique that I know I'm going to use, right, I don't use a lot of spider guards and very seldom use butterfly guard, but I do find myself in butterfly guard a lot. So this past weekend I built a mind map on butterfly guard pass. So just doing things like that and studying your notes that you took from the week before or reading Reading is another thing you can do, and studying your notes that you took from the week before or reading Reading is another thing you can do.
Speaker 2:
I think almost all of us have the Jiu-Jitsu University book. We have a copy sitting in our academy for anybody who wants to browse while waiting on training or a role. There are a lot of good audio books out there. I just read a good one about Hicks and Gracie I think it's called Breathe. And then there's a great book called Opening and Close Guard Can't remember who it's by about the 7 am to 8 am time of your life. You know time in your life and by doing that, when you're not able to train, you're still able to stay connected with jujitsu, thinking, thinking about another.
Speaker 2:
The reason why we want to put practical things in place and it's a practical tip in itself is we want to maintain our motivation and our mental health around jiu-jitsu. And staying active in jiu-jitsu not only keeps you physically fit. We all know that. We all have experienced those of us who've trained consistently. I'm not talking about those and this isn't a dig but those that maybe train once or twice a month or once a week. I'm talking about those of us who train religiously. We're steady, we're committed. It's part of our life. It keeps us physically fit, but it also improves our mental health and stress management.
Speaker 2:
I have never had a conversation with someone who trains jujitsu regularly, who who did not mention either. It's helped me with my physical fitness, my physical health. It's helped me either with my mental health or stress, stress management. Every time I have a conversation and it goes in that area, they, they mentioned one of those three things, and it's literally everybody that I'll talk to, and including myself. You know I I shared that I've lost a lot of weight doing jujitsu. I still don't eat the way I should, but I do burn a lot of calories during the day in training. It's absolutely helped with my mental health and stress management. You know I'm a dad, as I mentioned a five, I have a full-time job. I'm a senior leader in my company, so we have a lot of, you know, strategic business type stress that goes on there. And anytime I'm able to train I like to start my day training. So I have kind of a clear head to go into it. But it always helps.
Speaker 2:
And another practical thing that we can do is and this will help us maintain motivation is setting short-term and long-term goals. You know, within jujitsu, and this can provide kind of a roadmap to keep us motivated and focused. And you know your short-term goals. I'll just use myself as example. My short-term goal is to get back to consistently training. You know, five, five hours a week and not missing. If I miss a day I have to do a double day. You know a morning and lunch, can't do an evening, it's, it's too much.
Speaker 2:
So, um, long-term goal is to win at least two IBJJF opens probably going to be here in Atlanta and then a long, long-term goal is to attend and compete in one of the big, you know, jujitsu competitions, whether it's pans or worlds or master worlds one of the big ones. So you know, the long-term goal is attainable. The short-term goal is attainable If you've, you know, had any business school type education or just any any type of education or advice around goal setting. You know that they have to be measurable, they have to be attainable and they have to be specific. So if you have, if you know, if you have any struggles with setting short-term, long-term goals for jiu-jitsu, I am happy to connect with you and share more in depth on how I set my goals. I practice this thing called goal setting to the now.
Speaker 2:
It's a method that was popularized in the book called I believe it's called the One Thing by Gary Keller, I think is the author and goal setting to now just really really has changed my life and how I set goals and achieve them in corporate America and my professional job. And now since I've started using it in jujitsu corporate America and my professional job and now since I've started using it in jujitsu it's helped tremendously as well, if it let's. Let's recap really quick. So if we think about the practical steps that we can take, uh, we can prioritize our schedule, prioritize jujitsu into your schedule.
Speaker 2:
You know, give yourself a visual representation of when you're going to train, how many times you're going to train this month. Set your goal, communicate to those that your Jiu Jitsu journey impacts on your passion, include them on what you can include them on and what they're interested in being included on. I always get a little jealous when I see the families who all train together, where the mom trains and the kids train and you know I do. You know I won't say I get jealous, but I just think that is really really cool and kudos to those families who train together. And then the other thing we talked about is integrating that jiu-jitsu into your everyday lifestyle. Right, that's the podcast. That's, you know, reading a book about jiu-jitsu, studying your journal, starting a journal and studying it. You know, just making that part of your day to day somehow some way has helped those of you who are struggling to think of some practical ways and things you can do to balance this jujitsu journey that we love so much and help you continue training. The last thing that any of us want to do is get burnout and then jujitsu become a stressor in our life, jiu-jitsu become a stressor in our life. So, again, as we wrap up, remember that finding a balance is is really a dynamic process and and it's going to need regular adjustment. You're going to need to take a step back consistently and see if you know, if you're running these types of tips or you've kind of come up with some of your own, if it's working out and try out strategies. You know, try the ones we discussed and remember it's it's okay to adapt as your life and commitments changed, and you know.
Speaker 2:
Thank you everyone for continuing to. You know several of you have sent emails to the caffeinated jujitsu Gmail account asking when content's coming, and you know, thank you for your patience as I have had to deal with life and the balancing act that we talked about here, and don't forget to continue to share your own experiences on tips on this topic and send them to me. I don't monitor the Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu IG account as much as I used to, just again, because a lot's going on right now and the link is in there still and you know if any questions come in through there, I'll maybe check from time to time. But you know the biggest thing follow the podcast, send your questions to the email and attach to the podcast. You can follow the podcast on Spotify, apple or really wherever you get your podcasts. And you know with that, remember, stay grounded, stay caffeinated and let's roll into this journey together and I'll see you on the mats and in the next episode.
Speaker 1:
And that's the final tap on today's episode of. Caffeinated Jiu-Jitsu. A big thanks to all of our listeners, especially today's insightful guest, for sharing their BJJ knowledge and tales. If you felt that adrenaline rush and are hungry for more, hit, subscribe, drop a review and spread the jujitsu buzz. For show notes and to contact the host, reach out to the email provided in the podcast description and to join our grappling community, head over to Instagram. Get those geese. Crisp your coffee strong and always be prepared for the next roll Oss.