This is Jocko Willink…
Pretty Badass Huh?
This is also Jocko Willink…
So is this…
And this as well…
If you can’t already tell, he’s a man of many talents. Jocko Willink: Navy SEAL (awarded the silver star and bronze star for his service in the Iraq War), Martial Artist, Podcaster, 1# New York Times Bestselling Author and a very, very scary, strong-as-hell dude.
Oh yeah, he’s also a black-belt under the one-and-only Dean “The Boogeyman” Lister.
On his podcast, Jocko answers a question, “Why have belts if they’re not something to strive for?”
Jocko encourages looking at jiu jitsu progression as more than just a ranking system and the color of your belt.
Here’s how Jocko explained it:
“He (the mailer of the question) sent me this random thing… You know hey, I don’t know if I want to do this stuff about belts..
At some point jiu-jitsu become a lot more than just belts. Eventually the Jiu-jitsu itself completely bypasses what the belts are and what the belts mean. Now, you say to me well that’s because you’re a black belt. Of course they don’t matter to you, you’re already a black belt… The fact is that didn’t happen to me at black belt, that happened to me at like purple belt. I think about mid way of my purple belt time I had no care whatsoever of what belt color I was. Literally zero. And I just wanted to get better, I just wanted to know more, to keep training and I never even thought about it after that. “
“That’s the other thing I’ve noticed in teaching kids jiu-jitsu” Willink continues, ” The kids that are a little bit more cerebral… You know the parents will think: my son he’s kind of a nerd, he’s kind of a smart kid I don’t know if he’s going to like it. But the opposite is actually true very often. Where the kid that’s cerebral, he’ll recognize as soon as you show him 3 things . Like you said – his wheels are turning he’s going wait a a second, this is a skill I can learn, and if I can learn to do this and the other guy doesn’t know this I will be able to beat him. And so cerebral kids often get into it even more than you know some kid that’s like a natural bruiser. ”
Joe Rogan agrees: “You know 10th planet jiu-jitsu is just filled with nerds. They’re all nerds. Assassin nerds. It’s really kinda interesting. ”
Jocko again: “And you’re not being facetious when you use the word nerd. Assassin nerds.”
Wanna learn something? Check out his Twitter, you won’t regret it…