Ever wonder how a quiet meditation session can lead to the intense art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? How does every tap on the mat become a lesson in growth? Join me as I share my journey—from sacred art and guided meditations to mastering grappling moves that teach resilience and control. Ready to challenge your limits and unlock your potential? Let’s dive in together.

Give yourself, like, a month of just going. And know it's gonna be hard. Know it's gonna suck. Why not try to understand how that happened? What did they do? How did they move? What did they move out of the way?

Victor Alameida: And how y'all doing? We're back here for another episode of The Unlimited You. First, before we get started, check out the hoodie. My buddy, Pale Horse, from our meditation episode, he created this. He's got some boy dude stuff. Some amazing graphics in the back. Check out his website, it's Pale Horse Designs.

dot com, pretty sure it's dot com. Right. Pale horse designs and amazing work. he does a lot of like sacred artwork, murals and stuff. he's the one who got us into meditation, me and Caroline, and he does an online meditation as well on his Instagram every Tuesday at 8pm. So if you. Are ever interested in, you know, trying out meditation and you don't know how to do it.

Because we're talking about, you know, making life changes and implementing them in a way that we can better ourselves. Right. And we started by doing these things slowly. So if you just jump in, trying to meditate for an hour every single day, you're probably going to But if you do, maybe like Once a week and you try a guided meditation by someone who knows what they're doing and Chris does a really good job He guides it really well.

If you want to get into jiu jitsu or, you know, pick your discipline and then go try it out. Maybe you start out once a week, maybe start out twice a week. And there's a lot of gyms. you are able to do that, where you don't have to go four days a week, because some people don't have that kind of schedule.

You're, you know, going for chokes, going for arm breaks, going for kicks. working positioning, learning how to move and control an opponent and your distance. It is a very practical way to learn martial arts for a self defense purpose. So it's a very beneficial martial arts to learn. you know, striking is often what's going to be used in a self defense situation, but Some fights go to the ground and it's important to know what, if you're in a confined space especially, it's very beneficial to know how to maneuver in a grappling situation.

It's very different. And, the Gracie family essentially started spreading it along Brazil and then different families, really started practicing and kind of making it their own. Now there's a few different styles. You have like the Yamasaki family who trains here close to us in Rockville. They're amazing.

The Gracie style is amazing and each one has a kind of different flavor, but they're all essentially Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And what I like about personally the Gracie style of teaching is the way that they've broken down each individual move and created a curriculum that's safe for the integration of people.

So when you're starting out going through their system, it really allows you to train in a safe space without that potential of injury because that's what was happening in the early days of Jiu Jitsu. Is people were getting in there, they were just rolling, they would throw you in there without people knowing about anything.

And, you know, it's still snowy out here. It's not a safe environment, so you want to create a safe environment for the students. So the art and the way of teaching evolved because it is a very dangerous sport. You're pulling and extending limbs out. You're choking people out and I can tweak necks, tweak arms.

If the people inside of the gym aren't being respectful in the way that they practice the art, now it's very critical when you go to. A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym. You want to be looking out. Are they going hard and pulling stuff out and being disrespectful to each other? Or are they respecting the instructor, training well, you know, going hard?

You got, Mario, Yamasaki's school. It's, Fernando. Fernando, they're amazing. And definitely check it out there. I've rolled once there with, a brown belt friend of ours. He took us there. Amazing place and you find little pockets there. Usually any Gracie certified gym as well. you're, you're looking for to be pretty well off.

the Gracie's established a very good system learning online, right? So you can also learn online, but the thing is you need something to practice with. So striking, I can just, you know, throw punches in the air. hit a bag, but you're not going to get the same practicing a jiu jitsu move in the air. You need a body, you need somebody to be practicing with.

So that's a good way to train online if you don't have access to it, if you don't have the time to drive somewhere if it's too far, that you can get this kind of training. Now the problem with just training with one person and training at home is that you're not exposed to the way that other people roll.

Everyone's going to roll different. There's going to be different styles. So this is where going into competitions can become really useful, but can be detrimental if you don't approach it right. And this is another thing to consider when you're going to a jiu jitsu gym. there's gyms that are going to train you for competition.

And this is really important when you're training self defense you're worried about getting punched in the face You're worried about all of these different other elements that are not in that point system because in competitional Brazilian jiu jitsu You're not going to be a punching each other.

You're literally trying to grapple one another and gain position you get points for changing position gaining position on somebody and take downs Submissions, escapes, reversals, things of those natures, which are great to learn, is great to execute, and can be exceptionally useful in a fight.

Because, think about this, if that punching element's there, the second they punch, there's a hole, and then you can buck them. Changes everything. And, that element is also gonna freak the person on the bottom out. And, I like to train jujitsu in a way that you're not punching each other, but you're just throwing, like, little slaps.

Little slaps. Little reminder, hey. Hey, this is open. Hey, boom, boom. I tap you in the chin. I tap you here. Not like a slap. It's a little, little tap. Like you, you just move them a little bit. You know? It's a little reminder. Because that's all we need is, you need to know that right now I can hit you in the face.

So, in competition jujitsu, there's a lot of different also competitions that are doing it where you can do submission only. You either win through submitting the person, or it's a tie. If you survive, it's a tie. that I think is a really great way to do it if you go to a competition like that. Because then you're actually Learning that stuff, right?

I think that isolating these different kinds of trainings and then bringing them together is going to refine them, right? And that's one thing that, maybe you want to consider. it's good to train mixed martial arts, but I think you do lose some aspect of that traditional kind of refinement that you get out of it.

So, something to think about, something to think about. And we also have, like in MMA. you, when you learn all of these things, you are getting used to impressioning, and it makes you have reflexes that are more in tune with proper self defense. MMA is not the king of all, because you're still only trying to knock them out.

And that's one of the things we have to consider when we are training for self defense. Anything goes. It is, you can kick their head off while they're on the ground. And if you're on the ground and someone's standing, that's a problem. If you're on the ground and there's multiple people, and you're fighting one person and they're all trying to attack you, that's a problem.

We, in BJJ, you also learn how to not be taken down. Every person in BJJ does not want to go to the ground. They don't want to go to the ground. They want to restrict you. They want to stop you, right? You can do that standing oftentimes, or they can throw you to the ground like a judo move. That's where judo, oh, judo, judo is amazing.

Judo is the art of, I mean, it goes way deeper than just throwing. There's a lot more to judo, but people know it as the art of just throwing, right? It is exceptional. Twisting the hips, twisting the body, creating a foundation, and then looping that person, and just the impact alone would knock somebody out.

And I love jujitsu. So my experience with Brazilian jujitsu, I've been training jujitsu in the belt system for about. I trained, started training about 10 years ago, and in the pandemic, I think it was about six years of training, I was right about to get to purple belt level. I got, I have a blue belt with three stripes and everything closed down.

I teach, beginners and, some levels of intermediate because I myself need to advance my own jiu jitsu. My understanding of it, I'm Brazilian myself. I love jiu jitsu. It's one of my passions. It's like I want to do jiu jitsu all the time. Right now, as I'm building my business, I get to do it at least once a week.

We're gonna be changing the schedule up so that we can do Jiu Jitsu twice a week, Muay Thai twice a week, and Taekwondo four times a week. And we're gonna just work on the schedule in a little bit to provide more classes. More training! Hey! Hey! And, Jitsu, so Almost to that purple belt level, I'll be probably looking at a new training opportunity of like where I can advance my belt level soon for Jiu Jitsu.

It's pulling my stuff in. So that's another thing. Jiu Jitsu people get injured very easily. If you are not careful, the majority of injuries come from you trying to. Pull something and then your elbow comes out and then it hits, hits somebody in the face, right? You're not used to how much strength and then you yank too hard or you know, you're, you're going for something you reach through with the leg and you accidentally send a knee through the face cause you're not as familiar with these kinds of movements.

And that is how they react. A lot of people react to being grabbed by freaking out. You freak out, you're being grabbed. You know, this, you do, people don't want to be touched sometimes. And you're having to be comfortable in these awkward situations and you have somebody trying to move you and involuntarily.

This goes for stand up and on the ground. So that you can learn and impression your body in ways to actually defend these ways and then properly attack against them to neutralize that threat. So it's not just like a, A lot of beginners, you're learning how to survive at first. That's kind of the The first, that's white belt.

That's where it starts. White belt. You're learning how to survive. You're just, you're getting, you're getting put in these different situations. You're learning how to move. You're gonna learn some missions. You might be able to pull some off. But when you're like really rolling against some experienced people, you're just, you're just gonna be learning how to survive.

They're just gonna, that's how people get hurt. So when you approach learning Jiu Jitsu, know you are going to get choked out. You're gonna be tapped out. And tap out. Tap out early. Don't feel ashamed. It's gonna happen. You're gonna do it to other people. Other people are gonna do it to you. And every time it happens, rather than approaching it like, ugh, he tapped me out again.

Ugh, he choked me out again. Ugh, he did this move again. Right? You're like defeated in there. Why not try to understand how that happened. How did, what, what did they do? How did they move? What did they move out of the way? What did they grab to put you in this compromising situation? So it doesn't happen again.

And you're becoming good at using them. At Purple Belt, it's, it's like precision work. It's like, you're, you're, you got a razor blade and you're starting to dice in to every little potential thing. And you can, you can start cutting into any little block, no matter how strong they are, no matter how big they are.

At Brown Belt, you're, oh man, at that point It takes a lot longer to go through these belts. Brown belts are at a different level than you have black belts. And then you have the degrees of black belts, coral belts, red belt at the top for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, not many red belts. And the black belts at Jiu Jitsu are.

And if you rush through it. You're not gaining the skills. It really, you need, you need time. You need time to soak it in. So the earlier you start, the better, but it's never too late. I don't care if you're 40, 50, 60. Go out there, try it. Try it. It's never too late. Start strengthening the body. It is amazing for your body because you're learning how to turn and use these muscles that are critical in mobility.

Make sure you're doing proper recovery. You're taking maybe a few ice baths. You're heat patting it up. You're putting some ointments on there. You're stretching. You're rolling. You're using a massager. You're going to get a massage, right? You're using the sauna. You're properly hydrating and getting nutrients in your body.

If you're not doing this, your body's just gonna go And then something goes, and then you get hurt. Right? And then it's worse. I know. Cause I have hurt myself too many times. I'm working on an injury right now. I thought it was better and then went climbing and then I heard it more. Uh, it happens. It happens.

So like I can do all this stuff, but I can feel the restriction in some areas. So I have to rehabilitate different muscles. So injuries really set things back. So you gotta, you gotta really be aware of your own limitations when you're training things like this. When you first do jiu jitsu, you're gonna be gassed.

Just know it. Pace yourself. Give yourself, like, a month of just going. And know, know it's gonna be hard. Know it's gonna suck. Know it's gonna be, like, physically exhausting. And then the next couple days after you train, you're just gonna be like, What the hell? That was I feel like I got ran over by a truck.

It's nice. It's really nice So go out there, practice jiu jitsu. It's really important. It's really important. It's one of the best methods of self defense for restricting an opponent without striking them. It's really great for taking down bigger opponents. It's really great for close range combat and getting things done on the ground, for moving, for protecting yourself, and it's a complement to And that's why we do it.

We're going to talk about the synergy of all three of the main disciplines that we do. Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu after we have our Muay Thai episode coming up soon. Eight limbs. Okay. But before that, we're probably going to have one more episode in between. And I'm going to try to get it done before Loveburn.

It's going to be beautiful. I already have some, pictures of the current. murals that we're working on. My friend Shamal is doing the outlines. They're gorgeous. I'm filling in with oil paint. they're going to look amazing. So I'm actually about to go work on that. I hope you all have a good day.

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