Last December, I was hanging out with some friends when my buddy Keith mentioned he’d been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a few months. My ears perked up.

I had never tried any martial art before, so I had no idea why I was intrigued. But I’ve always been curious, willing to experiment — especially after hearing so many people rave about it. Despite having zero experience, I figured, why not give it a shot?

But frankly, I was scared.

I’d dipped my toe into the jiu-jitsu waters before, attending two separate intro classes — one at the famous Gracie Academy in New York City, and another at a local gym near my apartment in Queens. Both times, I walked out completely wrecked, covered in blisters, and absolutely convinced I was never doing that again.

Yet every year, when it came time to write down my New Year’s resolutions, “Try Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” somehow always made the list.

After months of fear and procrastination, I finally committed to BJJ, walking into Oyster Bay Jiu-Jitsu Academy nearly a year ago. Ten months of training 3–4 times a week, and now I’m that guy at the party trying to convince everyone to try it. But instead of pushing burpees like a CrossFit enthusiast, I’m raving about rear-naked chokes and arm bars.

What is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

Just like meditation took the world by storm in the early 2000s, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is having its moment in the spotlight. It seems to be everywhere now — on podcasts, in books, TV shows, and even magazine spreads. What once felt like an underground niche has exploded into mainstream culture, and you can’t scroll for long without seeing someone talk about jiu-jitsu’s benefits, both on and off the mats.

Some notable practitioners include Mario Lopez, Mark Zuckerburg, Tom Hardy, Keannu Reeves, Gisele Bündchen, Jason Statham, and Wiz Khalifa.

And yet, I didn’t personally know anyone who practiced it.

The name alone sounds intimidating — Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It conjures up images of jacked dudes with cauliflower ear — a badge of honor earned from years of getting their heads twisted and slammed.

So what’s the deal with this sport?

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or BJJ, has its roots in a Japanese martial art that dates back to feudal times. It made its way to Brazil in the early 1900s with a wave of Japanese immigrants. The Brazilian Gracie family then took this “gentle art” (as it roughly translates) and transformed it into the highly effective, world-renowned self-defense system we know today.* By the 1920s, they had evolved it into a fighting style that allowed someone to defend themselves without relying on strikes, kicks, or weapons.

The beauty of jiu-jitsu lies in its principles of leverage and technique. It’s designed so that even someone smaller or less athletic can overcome a much bigger, stronger opponent — making it one of the most effective self-defense tools, regardless of size or strength. BJJ has earned a lot of colorful descriptions over the years, but the one that hits closest to home for me is this: it’s like trying to solve a 200-pound Rubik’s Cube that’s actively trying to kill you.

Getting My Blue Blet: Still Clueless, But Slightly Less

Earlier this week, I earned my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. After ten months of getting choked, pinned, and wondering why I signed up for this, the promotion felt like more than just a step up from white belt — it was a badge of hard-earned lessons.

Jiu-Jitsu hasn’t just taught me how to defend myself (though that part is pretty cool); it’s profoundly reshaped how I approach every corner of my life. I know that sounds cliche but bear with me. The discipline, the failures, and the constant pressure to adapt don’t just stay on the mats — they bleed into how I handle everyday challenges, relationships, and the chaos of life.

Metaphors aside, it’s been life-changing in ways I didn’t expect. In just one year, I’ve picked up some invaluable wisdom, both on and off the mats. So, here are a few things I’ve learned from getting tossed around for 10 months — and how they’ve sneakily worked their way into my everyday life:

Just Show Up

Want to get better? All you need to do is show up. It’s not about who’s best. It’s about who’s left.

A black belt is just a white belt who never quit.

Be Willing To Suck

If you want to get good at anything, you have to be willing to suck at first. Nothing checks your ego quite like jiu-jitsu. It will repetitively and efficiently humble you — over and over and over again. Not only will you suck, you’ll also be getting your ass handed to you (literally).

Within an hour, you’ll get humbled so many times, in so many different ways, that learning through defeat becomes a familiar feeling. To become competent at jiu-jitsu, you have a long road of humbling defeats ahead of you. There really is no other way.

Jiu-jitsu teaches you how to lose. More importantly, it encourages you to focus less on the competition and more on improving your own game.

Patience Pays Off

There’s an old story about patience that I love:

A martial arts student approaches his teacher and asks, “How long will it take me to master this craft?”

The teacher replies, “10 years.”

The student, looking impatient, responds, “I want to master it faster than that. I will work harder than anyone else. I will push myself to practice for many hours every single day. I won’t rest until I become a master. How long will it take then?”

The teacher considers this new information, smiles, and answers, “20 years.”

Jiu-Jitsu is a life-long pursuit.

Unlike other martial arts where you can quickly ascend through the ranks, earning a black belt in BJJ can take decades. Much like becoming a grandmaster in chess, achieving a black belt in BJJ requires years of dedicated coaching, relentless drilling, and facing countless formidable opponents.

It’s easy to get addicted and want to train every day of the week — but jiu-jitsu is hard on the body. If you train too hard too frequently, you run the risk of injury. It’s taken me some time to accept that missing one day of training won’t erase all my progress.

The time horizon for improvement is years, not days.

The most important thing is staying in the game long enough to allow compounding to work its magic. The longer you’re able to stay in the game, the more significant your growth.

You Either Win or You Learn

Some days, I’m lying on the mat after an upper belt spent five minutes turning my body into a pretzel when they’ll drop a revelatory piece of advice on me. It may be something small, but often those tiny details are crucial to help avoid future errors.

Every roll has a lesson, and every opponent has something to teach. 

You sweat, choke, get your arm trapped. When you give it your all, you will experience discomfort, exhaustion, and frustration (sometimes all at once). But at the end of a BJJ class, I almost always find myself smiling and laughing with the other guys, geeking out on different moves and techniques.

Turning Struggles Into Strengths

Getting better at jiu-jitsu teaches you:

• The problems you thought were insurmountable, are fully surmountable
• The opponents you thought were unbeatable, are beatable
• And the body you have that you thought was incapable is capable

The deepest benefits of jiu-jitsu come off the mat. It teaches you to approach life with a mindset of rational problem-solving through trial and error.

Jiu-Jitsu is all about handling rapidly changing problems under stress. It helps you recognize an issue, adjust your approach, and keep adapting as things change. Confidence doesn’t come from success. It comes from surviving failure. It’s internal. You become confident by believing in your ability to handle difficult situations. Doing hard things often makes doing other things easier. So it gives you this sort of problem-solving mindset, which I think applies throughout life itself.

It’s made me look at everything in life as a puzzle to solve. Where I would normally give up or get frustrated at my inability to mount a TV or learn a new video editing software, I now apply the same problem-solving mindset from jiu-jitsu.

• How am I approaching this wrong? 
• What can I do to get better? 
• How do I get more competent at this particular skill/discipline?

Calm Through Chaos

One of the hardest lessons in jiu-jitsu is learning to relax while someone’s trying to choke you. Upper belts often joke about how white belts use every ounce of strength, often forgetting to breathe, while a calm purple belt disassembles your limbs at a 50 BPM heart rate.

Early on, I was guilty of this — muscling my way out of every grip and hold, fueled by adrenaline and panic. One day, my professor gave me a piece of advice that stuck: “Rolling should feel like jazz.” 

Our instincts tell us to meet force with force — if someone pushes, we push back. But in jiu-jitsu, you learn to flow with your opponent’s energy and use it against them. That’s where the “art” in martial arts comes in. It’s like a writer who says more with fewer words. A black belt doesn’t fight force with force; they stay calm, flow with their opponent, and patiently wait for the right moment to capitalize on their opponent’s energy.

When I roll, I remind myself to breathe calmly through my nose. Sometimes, I even close my eyes to feel the movements rather than think through them.

Sparring isn’t painful. It’s calming. After 90 intense minutes of drilling and sparring, I find I’m less aggressive or angry about small things that would normally bother me.

Final Taps

I’m a firm believer that doing hard things is essential for all human beings. Jiu-jitsu is one of the hardest physical things I’ve ever done. The sore, aching muscles that the morning after class feel great, and I find that a few days off has me craving the feeling. We can learn so much about ourselves when we push our bodies to the limit, quieting the endless stream of distracting thoughts in our minds.

I could probably write a whole book on all of the ways jiu-jitsu has altered how I approach life. Believe it or not, this is the edited-down version of my initial article.

Ultimately, it’s taught me that the most significant victories are the ones we accomplish within ourselves. That getting good at anything requires the same process of 1) sucking, 2) daily repetition, and 3) mastering fundamentals for a long time. It’s also taught me to never underestimate anybody — not just in grappling but in life. Dad strength is real.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this post is that everything in life can teach us something — whether we like it or not. The real question is: are we willing to learn? Maybe that’s why I’m a hobby collector. It’s not that I want to juggle a bunch of random activities (trust me, I don’t need more things to do), but because each one helps me learn a little more about myself. It’s like self-discovery with a side of chaos.

So… who’s signing up???

-KB

Footnote/Fun Fact

*The first-ever UFC event in 1993 was co-created by Rorion Gracie and was won by his brother Royce — both grandsons of one of the primary developers of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Carlos Gracie Sr. UFC 1 was the world’s introduction to BJJ. Weighing only 178 lbs, eighteen-year-old Royce Gracie entered the tournament wearing his now-iconic gi and defeated professional boxers, shootfighters, wrestlers, and karate world champions in a smothering grappling style most fighters had never seen nor felt. The event and outcome catapulted Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to new heights in the United States and worldwide.