Okay! Jiu Jitsu as a self-defense program. We did Part One with Robert Drysdale and we went over a little bit of the history of Jiu Jitsu and we also went into some of the aspects of self-defense. On this part, Part Two… we'll be going into much more on the self-defense side, some of the pros and cons and you know why people you know, gravitate to Jiu Jitsu. Again, this interview just really… it's just dense. It just has a lot of really good information on it. It will really help all of you that are… come from the BJJ Community have been asking me questions about you know, how to integrate self-defense in your BJJ. Can't get a better guy than Robert. If you haven't seen Part One, make sure you do that! You know, we went over that… We talked about Robert's book that he has coming out "Opening Closed Guard" is already out. The documentary itself "Closed Guard" should be coming out soon.
He has a couple of legal issues. He's still tying up. But again remember… this guy, you know is one of the top competitors when it comes to Jiu Jitsu. Obviously one of the top American competitors, his bona fides you know, went over them on the first video highly suggest you see that. But you know… he has trained some top, top people and he really looks at the subject very succinctly and I think you're going to really enjoy this. So we get right into it here… in this Second Part and let's do it! Tim: Well, I've seen in the military set… I've never seen anything because I was there at the beginning when the Gracie's came in and started training with the military. I've never seen such a cultural takeover of any type of a martial art or talk about… the military guys absolutely love it.
They love the competition in the community. It reinforces everything that they do. In fact, that's how you and I met! You know we met originally to my Oz Special Forces friends that worked with you and that whole thing when I travel around there's nothing like the community of Jiu Jitsu. I mean it's incredible people and within there you meet some amazing people! So I totally understand that. I think when you touched on… You know one of the interesting things that I try to tell people all the time about going to the ground… It is on a one on one situation, it taught me. All my kids are doing BJJ. That's they're starting at. It's gonna be their base. Especially my girls.
I want them to get used to be getting grabbed and feel confident that way. So I think it's an outstanding base where you have to… touch base is exactly what you're talking about. The majority it does in street fights and bar fights and things happen when the person is on the ground and people are… or other people are kicking in because they're able to deploy other body weight into you and you cannot move your body weight that time. You're going to absorb everything when you're on the ground. So that's a consideration. But I think what's interesting is, I think everybody's trying to do this either or and I think you can get tremendous benefits from…
If you've never grappled and I consider you not just BJJ, I consider you truly an a grappler. You know, I mean… because you know all aspects of it. I think grappling is something that is a great base for everybody to have because there's… the biggest fear people have is being dominated that way and, but then to extrapolate beyond it… I think it is even more important. Especially in recognizing the variables you're talking about.
Robert: No a 100% like… I never, I would never say that BJJ by itself is a complete form of self-defense. Like there are people that argue that. I'm like… Because there is knife defense but it's the same almost everywhere you know like, you know… take a gun. So, it's like very similar but it's not practiced… So, and the other thing is you know… it's problematic because you know, you don't even know…
Again! You don't know how many people you're fighting. You don't always know and especially in a nightclub or bar where a lot of, most of my experience and fights happen in those environments, right? You have to be very good or have awareness of like who you're fighting, to have a gun or not and how many people you're fighting. And all these things that thinking quickly and developing a strategy quickly. And most Martial Arts gyms in the world are not preparing for that… period. Right? That's my take on it. I think that you know, once again having that… the contact… the friction, the conflict… right? That right there is going to prepare you. That's missing in most curriculums from my experience. I think MMA is a great foundation. Once again, for talking one on one… MMA is great because it's very complete and it has, it has absorbed over the years the best Martial Arts.
Because if it doesn't work, it gets whited out, right? This is selection process and MMA keeps the very best! But again… it doesn't factor in guns, knives. There's a like… there's a whole new world there. I normally joked that the best form of self-defense is Track and Field. (Tim: Yeah!) Yeah, like even like if you're a professional fighter… depend on the circumstances like running really is the best and…
Tim: What would be the benefit to a professional fighter taking part of something like that? I absolutely agree. It's how you make your money. It's how you are! Robert: Oh you get sued to if you win! Better lose! Tim: That's the other thing too. You know, it's very… there's no real upsides to it and it's interesting when guys are mature enough to figure that out. You know, you see some of the younger fighters sometimes don't get it and yeah, it gets them in tremendous trouble sometimes.
What have you felt? Like the, I'm always interested about the culture of Brazil. The culture of Brazil… I mean, obviously there's a lot of violence in Brazil and in its various parts. It's a beautiful country! The people are amazing and it has some of the friendliest people in the world. How did… or what was the difference between immersing yourself in Brazilian culture also immersing yourself in true Brazilian Jiu Jitsu from so you know… top sources that aren't really available here or at the time at least? And what's it like to go from a culture in Brazil to coming back to the US? And then the US culture in regards to…
You know, violence and how quickly… is there a difference that you've noticed? Robert: Oh yeah, oh yeah! Like Brazil here's the thing, when you grew up in Brazil you kind of developed the 6th sense. You kind of know where you're at. Like you know… you develop this 360 awareness that you kind of lose when you're in the US because it's fairly safe here in comparison. Right? Like I've never had even close to an incident, Brazil… you have to be watching the whole time, right? So you, it becomes… if you live there it's safer and intuitive because you develop that awareness.
You know what to do or what not to do. It's like, you know… it's a lot of times that people, they don't have this awareness that get mugged or live with their guard down at some point. Which happens right? But like it's… Brazil's have very interesting place to me because I swear they're the happiest people in the world man. They know how to have fun. Likeyou… it doesn't matter how bad things are. Like, you know… there's a problem in the US that we had Covid and like people are fighting over toilet paper. Like I've had in my hometown, like we have like… two or three months of no water. And no one's killing them! They're like, they figure it out in a way and they can even make a joke about it. They're very resilient people in that sense. But again, there's you know… the violence is a huge problem there. There's no doubt! I've had to use Jiu Jitsu in the past there but again, I know where I'm at and I know, you know like you know…
You have to gauge the situation before you uneven it because normally you just want to run away. But if sometimes, if you… if there's a situation where you're not at risk, you know, the person doesn't have a gun or a knife and it is one on one then I've had to use it before. But for the most part man, Brazil is a very… it's a very happy place of very happy people. They know how to party. They know how to have fun. They don't need alcohol for it either. They don't need to be in a nightclub, They know how to have a good time, But there's, you know… it's one of those places where it's very, it was an amazing experience growing up there. Most of my competition, probably the 4 or the non Brazilian was competed the most in Brazil. I don't think there's anyone else's competing Brazil more than me. You know, I lived there for so long.
But it's not a place I would want to, you know, raise my kids to be honest. Even though it's a very, as a child it can be a lot, very happy… It's also very dangerous. So there's those two sides. Tim: Yeah, you… that's an interesting thing you just said about growing up there and immersing yourself in being a foreigner in Brazil. Did they, even though you had a Brazilian mother… did they treat you as an American? Robert: Yeah At some environments, like when I first meet… people will immediately, because I'm you know, I'm white. I got light eyes. My name is Robert Drysdale. I don't… I stand out.
I always stood out. You know if I'm, once I'm in with like six months in, they'll like "Okay, this guy's Brazilian." So they accept me as Brazilian after but immediately I'm always, I'm always… I've been a Gringo my whole life. It's funny when I first moved here, I wasn't Gringo as well as full on Brazil. I'm a Gringo on both countries. But after a while people sort of like now, people that know me take me as American and my Brazilian friends who know me, they take me as Brazilian… right? People that don't know me very well, they always assume on the other. That's awesome! That's actually really cool. Okay, so… there's a lot of good stuff in there about, you know, how… you know, the idea like we've always talked you know, we talked about the idea of the duel and that's what most people think when it comes to self-defense.
And it's really, it's really refreshing testimony like Robert, who's top competitor… You know, assist there and says "Hey! Yeah, one on one. We're in good shape, but you know… the variables that you have to take into account and it's just a very sobering fact that a lot of people want, you know… But the draw and we're gonna talk more about this in the next one. The draw BJJ is, it's an outstanding community man. I mean every guy I know that does BJJ and I know mostly men.
There a lot of women do it too, But most of my friends are men that, do it, they just love the community. You know, it's just amazing and I get that aspect of it. The danger part of it is when you think it's a one size fits all. And I think Robert's done a really good job of laying out "Hey, the strengths of it." And then some of the things you got to be concerned about, some of the things you want to fill in.
So I hope this is helping some of our BJJ watchers and getting some good info out of this. The next two parts are are awesome! You're going to get some really, really good stuff out of that. So… thanks for watching! Remember guys, you know it would really help you if you go to survive violence dot com, put your email in. Give us, you know… a chance to give you a free masterclass. Lots of great content. You also make sure that you always get all the announcements early. Anything that's going on. Any of the subject matter experts you see on this channel well be making sure that if they have announcements will put it out to you because we want to keep you with the most relevant, up to date information and the best way to do that is to go to survive violence dot com. Also, please subscribe! Give us a like! Give us a…
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