The Academy

39 Ways To Not Be Like Everyone Else

Found this on Jason Ferruggia's Renegade Strength And Conditioning website. Thought it was worth sharing! Check it out.- Jay

39 Ways To Not Be Like Everyone Else

The problem with being like everyone else is that everyone else sucks.

My advice is not to do it…

How do you start your day each morning?

Do you angrily smash the alarm clock and roll out of bed exhausted, dreading another day doing what you hate?

Or do you spring up fresh and well rested because you went to sleep before 11pm like you know you should, and get excited to tackle another day doing what you love?

After hitting the bathroom do you stagger into the kitchen and get a pot of coffee brewing as fast as humanly possible?

Is that what it takes for you to wake up in the morning and actually feel alive?

If you eat, sleep and train properly the last thing you should ever need is caffeine to wake up.

What about your workout regimen?

Do you do focus on big compound lifts, advanced bodyweight exercises, strongman training and avoid machines and isolation movements like the plague?

Do you keep a detailed log book and track your progress week after week, year after year?

Do you stick with a program for longer than a week? It takes at least four to even have a clue what’s going and what’s working.

When it comes time for cardio do you hop on the elliptical or stair climber or do you go find a hill and sprint up it until your heart beat is visible through your hooded sweatshirt?

There’s always an easy way out. You can always live a life of mediocrity and unhappiness and do what everyone else does. Or you can choose to not be like everyone else. You can choose the road less traveled.

How do you do that?

Here are 39 ways that would be a good start.

1)    Eat only organic produce and organic, grass fed meat. Avoid any factory farmed meat like the plague and try your best to avoid conventionally grown produce when possible.

2)    Eliminate sugar from your diet completely. Fruit doesn’t count.

3)    Cut out all processed foods.

READ MORE......

Arthur Haines On Paleo "Myths"

Here's a great video from Aurhur Haines, one of our original students and first Brown Belt. He's a primitive skills instructor, and amazing wealth of knowledge. Check it out! -Jay

Science= Change

I was teaching class last night and had the unenviable task of telling a student that the way they were doing a technique was not 100% correct. Now, that happens all the time. But, the reason that this one was tricky was because he was doing it EXACTLY like I had taught him a few years back.

Here's a riddle for you:

How can you do something EXACTLY like it was shown to you, and 2 years later, be told by that same person "That's not how we do it"?

It changed. It developed.

Look, nothing of value looks the same now, as it did a few years ago. Cars. Surgical technique. Christ, Frisbee making technology has probably been improved.

If you study something deeply...... you will find little adjustments. Little improvements. I know that every single time I teach, I learn. And I see the little adjustments. In positioning. In how I communicate the ideas to people. Drills, movements.... Whatever. But, every time I teach, I improve my teaching, and the art itself.

Don't worry. It's not like I change huge things. I couldn't if I want to!

The truth is what it is. This is a science. Airplanes have gone through SIGNIFICANT changes in the last 20 years...... BUT...... aerodynamics have not. We can play with placement of the wings on the body, but the teardrop shape of the wings don't change. No one has built a plane that looks like you're pushing an open umbrella! It wouldn't work. All science is the same. BJJ is no different. Although we make constant improvements.... they are changes that the untrained eye may not even see. I have changed a lot of things from the way I learned them. But most people would be hard pressed to notice them if we held them up side by side. There's a delicate balance. Find the improvements, without straying from the scientific essence of the art. 

My point is this:

When you are taking a class, and the instructor tells you to do it differently...... and you're SURE you're doing like you were told...... Don't stress. You're not stupid, or confused. They're not being mean, or rude. They haven't lost their mind.

They are trying to improve their teaching. And your performance!

Now, if you have a bad instructor, they'll make you feel stupid for noticing their "inconsistencies".

If you have a decent instructor, they'll admit they changed it.

If you're lucky, you'll have an instructor that is excited to show you how it's different, and why. They'll help you understand the change, and get you excited that you've found a better way!

Never hesitate to ask if a technique seems slightly different!

You're probably right!

And, I will love the opportunity to be a better instructor, and show you how and why!

Now, go train.

-Jay

Jason "Mayhem" Miller= Real Man

Ok, that was a realy stupid title for several reasons. 1- the "gender as definition of strength" thing is so dumb. There are strong ass women, and weak ass men.... so..... "man" as an adjective for strength is nonsense. And 2- if you DO use that type of "real man" language..... at least describe a truly strong person! Real strength is not what most would think. Jason "Mayhem" Miller has written an awesome article describing how a truly strong person behaves. It is not what the "dudes" that read Maxim would've expected to come out of a "cage fighter". Check it out. Jay:

Mayhem’s 7 Man Laws

The guys at Maxim asked me to write for them, and let me be the first to say, IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME. I have been sitting here for damn near a decade with tornado of ideas spinning in around in my head of things men need to know.

Who am I? You might know me as the "bully show guy" or "Jason Ellis' friend" or "the dude on Ultimate Fighter that can take a beating." Or maybe you have no goddamn idea who I am.

Hello, my name is Mayhem. It's nice to meet you.

I’m not that Mayhem from the goddamn Allstate commercials - the one played by Liz Lemon's dummy boyfriend. I'm the actual Mayhem. I've been Mayhem for a long time. Even my mom calls me Mayhem.

I've been an MMA fighter for 12 years. My next bout is May 26th at UFC 146 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I also have a special on Hulu, called A Day in The Life, so when you're finished spanking it to girly pictures on Maxim.com you can go to Hulu.com and watch what I have to go through on a daily basis. Now that the boring ass introductions and shameless self promotion is over, let's get down to bidness.

You need to act like man. I can help.

Here are a few Man Laws that I gathered over my years of adventuring. I hope you will find them helpful, or at least entertaining.

1. A man needs to learn something new every day.
I am not telling you to learn useless animal factoids from the bottom of Snapple caps, so that you can recite them in order to get girls to exchange numbers with you at Starbucks, but here are some just in case you need the help:

Turtles can breathe through their butts.

A snail can sleep for 3 years.

Most koalas have chlamydia.

I'm asking you to learn something that will improve your life. Something about your job, or something that will get you out of your mother's basement. Take a business class. Apply to a  technical college. Shadow someone who does what you wish you could do.

I spent many years being a beat-up-dummy for UFC champion Tito Ortiz...for free. But constantly being around him taught me how to slam someone off the side of the cage and elbow them in the face.

Maybe you know how to make a "Purple-Eye" (three shots of espresso into a cup of coffee). It means nothing unless you have the motivation to use that knowledge. For instance, maybe you should have a cup of coffee.

2. Men don't smash their fellow man.
This should be pretty self-explanatory, but please allow me to elaborate for those of us who are oblivious, pathological 'haterz.' Run your own race. Worrying about what the guy in the next lane is doing will just get you tripping over your own tiny girl feet.

There will always be guys more handsome than you, with more money than you, and with a bigger, uh, feet than you. It won't improve your position in life to chuck stones their direction, it'll just decrease your foot-speed.

You can't smash someone down to bring yourself up. That negative attitude just begets more negativity, sending you into a death spiral that keeps you from reaching your potential. Also, nobody wants to hang out with your whiny ass.

Don’t hate on your pals at the bar. Don’t hate on people you don’t know. (Yeah I’m talking to you, anonymous Twitter douche. It makes you look weak to your 16 followers.) Don’t even hate on your enemies. Keep your eye on your own prize, and try to build up the people around you. We all push one another up with that positive mental attitude, but remember....

3. It’s every man for himself.
Just because you have a support system, doesn’t mean you need to use it for every little stumble you have. I infamously lived in a van outside a California gym for a year (remember, Tito didn’t pay me). Sure, I could’ve called my daddy and got him to cosign on a lease on some cruddy apartment. But I refused to admit to him that maybe I should have went to computer school.

Relying only on yourself will forge you into a Hattori Hanzo blade that can chop the head off of any foe that stands before you. Sure you’ve got the chips stacked against you. Your name doesn’t begin with “Kim Jong” so you probably don’t have any clout, power, or two cents to rub together, but that just means you have nothing to lose.

I read some story in some old self-help book that I can't even remember, and it contained a something I will basically plagiarize in honor of this being on the Internet:

The twins of a deranged serial murderer grew up. One got heavy into drinking, drugs and basically being a social miscreant, culminating in finally murdering a guy over some petty reason. The other twin made his way through school, earning a degree, and running a small business that flourished. Two guys. The same genetic make up. They asked both, one from his office desk, the other through the glass of a prison visiting room, “Why do you think you turned out the way you did?”

They both responded with basically the same answer,

“Look at my father, what else was I supposed to do?”

It’s all in your mindset, young Jedi.

4. A man takes chances.
Of course a man is courageous - I shouldn’t have to write it as a rule. No risk, no reward. But once you take the risk, there ain't no half steppin’. Once you got the courage to commit to something you had better go balls out and take it to the limit.

5. A man is persistent.
I have everything in my life because I was unwilling to quit. I feel like in our increasingly sissified society, where everyone gets a participation trophy for showing up, we've become a bit soft on losing. You are supposed to lose sometimes.

You are supposed to be a sobbing mess, scream to the sky and wish you were never born.  Feel that sting- the unmistakable pain of your own spirit repeatedly shanking you in the kidneys with a dagger of self doubt.

Now jump forward from that image as hard as you can into the future. You’ve lived life, you took the chance and if nothing else you got some life experience from it. Take that knowledge, it counts as the one thing you learned today. Build off of it--that takes a special kind of courage, which brings us to our next Man-Law...

6. A man is honest with himself.
The hardest thing for a man to do is face the truth about himself. We all are built with a mechanism inside of us that somehow lies and tells us we are way more badass than we truly are--some of us had mothers who fed our ego entirely too much, conversely some of us were raised in an environment that beat us over the head with insults until we are convinced that we are unworthy.

7. A man figures it out himself.
Let me share something personal with you. I learned a huge life lesson when meeting one of my heroes, Chuck Palahniuk. As someone who loves to read and write and fight, I was anxious to meet the author of one of the Gospels of Man: Fight Club.

I sat through a talk on his latest book, which I later read, but didn't think it was as awesome as Survivor or Choke or Invisible Monsters. My focus was the book that made the movie that we all saw, and our GF's saw because Brad Pitt was goddamn hot in it. Fight Club, while very short, was well researched, well written, and provide some social commentary on the State of our Union, plus a nice bonus, SPOILER ALERT: The main character was batshit.

All of his books are badass, and I want to write badass books too after I'm done risking my brain in the cage, so after the lecture I hopped in line to ask Chuck a question.I made sure to be the last one in line, so I could get some uninterrupted instruction on how to make my work stand out.

When I finally arrived, I came face to face with a short, tan, smart-looking man in a pink shirt. His demeanor was focused and he had an air of flamboyant awesomeness that probably comes when you write books that Hollywood makes into movies.

I introduced myself, and poured my heart out on how his book sent my life in a crazy right turn, inspiring me to channel my youthful aggression into fighting. After that, I stammered through some specific questions I wanted answered, and first he gave half-ass answers that said "I'm tired, beat it." Then he deflected them, and focused on the fact I was a fighter. He gave me the advice, "Be careful, don't get a detached retina."

Yeah, thanks a lot for the tip pal. I didn't come here to receive an ophthalmological exam.

Dejected, I walked back out to the busy L.A. street and yelled "CHUCK PALAHNIUK DIDN'T TEACH ME SHIT!!!!!"

On the way back to the car, I was thinking more and more about the meeting, then I realized something. Without words, Chuck was saying something much larger. He was saying, “Figure it out your fucking self. I didn’t work my ass off to be an awesome writer just to give out the knowledge for free to some mouth-breather with cauliflower ear!”

I got it, Chuck.

If you can’t learn from an experience, it’s because you haven’t thought about it hard enough. I thought about this one and figured out that it’s up to you to have the courage to risk your ass trying to make your dreams come true. If you quit shy of your goals, you’re the only one that has to live with it.

There are 7 Man Laws for you. The rest are for you to write - after you make my Americano.

Caution/Progress

Caution and progress are mutually exclusive. You can only have one to the degree you're willing to let go of the other.

I say it all the time in martial arts. Turtling up is a great way to defend being punched (caution). But when in the turtle, you're not doing anything to make the punches stop (progress).

And, you have to mean it! By that, I mean that you can't sort of punch while really wishing to turtle. You have to commit to the punch. You have to give yourself 100% to taking that risk. Otherwise, you just left caution behind for nothing!

But, honestly, this isn't a boxing lesson.

For me, martial arts have always been a microcosm of life. Almost like that book "Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten". The way I live life, everything I needed to know, I learned on the mat!

Obviously, I'm talking "life lessons" here. Clearly, I didn't learn math or english on the mat. But I learned "how" to live.

That little boxing lesson from earlier...... That clearly has application in life. You can't go into that job interview "sure" it won't work. You have to commit to that "punch" you're throwing. You can't make progress trying to "cling" to caution.

So.... clearly, I'm saying GO, GO, GO!! No caution, EVER! Head down! Windmill!

Not, so much. The trick is the play between the two. Yes, all progress is from having taken the risk. But continuous progress..... Longevity...... That takes caution! You have to be able to come out of that turtle and throw! And then get back in it, and regroup.

I always think of it in my head as a gunfight scene in a movie.

If they just ball up behind something and never come out.... All caution. No progress. If they just walk all smooth forward while shooting (think Terminator)..... All progress. No caution.

You need to use a bit of both.

and here's where it gets philosophical.

You have to believe 100% in your plan to succeed.... And completely willing to fail.

If you don't believe it can work, you won't really commit. And then it won't work.

If you don't want to risk failing, you won't really commit. And again, it won't work.

If you get yourself all pissed and willing to go out in a blaze of glory..... you will.

You can't ever be so down on yourself, that you can't see the possibility of it working. Or so dependent on your current success that you can't try to improve.

I've done both.

When I was a kid, life was scosh difficult. (Waaagh! yes I would like some cheese with that whine) My point is that because life kinda sucked, I was willing to take risks. Or so I thought. See what I learned is It's not a "risk" if you have nothing to lose. So while I seemed like a "taking my shot" kind of guy, really, I hadn't had to take any actuall risk. I was just plodding forward shooting, cause I was gonna get shot anyway..... may as well go out like that. That's not true risk.

Consequently, I made a lot of progress. I'd managed to accomplish a lot of really cool things. And that's when it went downhill. I started taking less risks. Well, I should say as my life improved, I actually had things to risk!

Once things go "well" for a while, it's hard not to want them to keep going well. Then, you start changing decisions to reduce risk. At some point you look up and realize you've been "turtling" for a looong time! And sometimes, if you've been "safe" for so long..... You comepletely lose your courage to take the risk to move forward.

You are what you do most often.

You can't get so comfortable you stop being willing to take chances. And you can't be so sure you're going to "go out swinging" that you never take the time to make safe when you can.

I guess what I'm saying in this rambling post, is this.....

Be safe when you need to be. Be willing to lose it all to take a shot.

And everything you need to know about life you can learn from fighting.

-Jay

 

 

 

Renzo Gracie Interview

Renzo is one of the best people in BJJ. He's one of my long time idols in the game, and he happens to be our lineage! Know your roots. Check it out- Jay

 

Student Question

I got a very common question from a student the other day about "how" they should be training with people. The big question in the beginning is always: how "hard" they should be training with people. Their scared to accidentally hurt someone. But, they also don't want to not "try" and get steamrolled. Plus, bigger people always feel weird when training with newer, or smaller people. This was my response. -Jay

As far as the training etiquette, it goes like this; if they're remotely close to your size and more skilled than you, you don't have to worry about hurting them. Not that you should try, but the theory is that you shouldn't be able to even if you were trying! With smaller people, it may be a different story. Their skill level may not be great enough yet for them to overcome the disparity in size. If they are tooling on you, feel free to go harder. If they are struggling to handle you, lighten up. It's like that with everyone though, not just advanced belts.
The thing in BJJ is this; you are your partners resistance. In weightlifting the weights are your resistance. If you lift a bar that's too light, you won't develop your strength. If you lift a bar that's too heavy you'll get hurt. You need the bar to be just heavy enough to be hard to lift, but possible. Well, in BJJ You are the resistance. You're the bar. If your partner just CANNOT move you, be lighter. Not so light that it's a joke. Don't patronize them! It should be almost out of their reach but not quite! If you're with a partner that can crush you..... Be the heaviest bar you can! They need it!
This isn't a purely selfless endeavor though. You aren't just their bar. They are yours! So if you get a heavy bar... you're working on power. If you get a light bar, you're working on form, or doing volume, or working on a new lift you're not good at yet, etc... It's the same in BJJ. If I go with people I barely survive; we brawl. I bring my A game. I give them no room! If I go with someone less challenging, that's when I'm working on my endurance, or my B and C games. Or, when I practice escaping bad positions by allowing them to happen first. Or, I work on advanced strategies. For example, how can I trick them into making a certain mistake? Or, can I find a way to switch from "this" technique to "that" technique. These are all things you can't work on when you're fighting to survive!
Each partner can be a valuable training experience, regardless of the traits they bring. And you have to become valuable to everyone you train with. Make sense?

 

Inspiration For The Day

This was at the Atlantic States Open weightlifting meet 2012. He was in the 85-90 year old category. He broke a national record at this meet. I didn't catch his name, because I was so blown away I forgot to wright it down. I was absolutely inspired.

So..... what is your excuse again?

 

Congratulations, You Lost.

Every fight I go to, there are invariably a few people there who have just lost for the first time. And I always give them the same speech. I thought I would share it with you. It goes like this:

Me- How'd it go?

Them- I lost.

Me- First loss? (I have guessed already)

Them- Yes.

Me- Congratulations.

Them: (Blank stare)

Me- Look, you're never going to be the fighter you have the potential to become, until you go through a few key experiences. And one of them is a loss. That's just part of the journey to who you will be.... If you make it through. I tell all my fighters this same thing. I don't even consider you a real fighter until after you come back from a loss. Anyone can beat ass. That's easy. Winning fights doesn't make you a fighter, it just makes you feel good about yourself. But to get beat up. And come back.... That, is a fighter. So, like I tell my fighters, congratulations. Cause now, you finally have the chance to prove what you are. Good luck.

-Jay

Designing The Perfect Human Habitat

Reading Desmond Morris's book "The Human Zoo", got me thinking about lifestyle design in the context of Zoos. When we decide we're going to care for an animals future, we put it in a zoo for safe keeping, and management. In the past, we just put them in cages. And guess what, not so good. It was only after we understood "Habitat Design" that we began having healthier Zoo animals. Well guess what folks. We are in our own Zoo. And for the same reason. We want to protect ourselves. We want to separate ourselves from the cruelty of nature, and manage our future. So,we built our own Zoo. Here's the bitch...... we refuse to use the same principles of Habitat Design for ourselves. Here is an excerpt from the book I'm working on about that subject. It's my own convergence of Desmond Morris, And Cesar Milan! -Jay

Human As Animal

              I began this journey looking into creating the best possible situation for our dogs. During this process I followed the Dog Whisperers concept of fulfilling their Primal Requirements. Much of the literature was about their nutrition, and activity being “Biologically Appropriate”. That mean that you’re supposed o look scientifically at the animal and determine what they were genetically “meant” to eat, and do. Zoos design "Natural Habitats" along with the Biologically Appropriate food. This is to try to keep the animals mentally healthy by allowing them to feel comfortable in their natural setting. They realized that the animals were not as physically and mentally healthy in a sterile setting. From these lessons we can see that we all agree, that in order to give the best possible care to an animal in our charge we should fulfill their evolved genetic requirements. If we study that animal’s genetic evolution, we can determine the habitat (lifestyle), nutrition, and activity patterns that provide them the best possible chance for complete health. The thing is, we’re animals. And as animals we also have a genetic evolution that determines OUR ideal, habitat (lifestyle), nutrition, and activity patterns. Don’t we deserve the same dedication to health we give our companion and zoo animals!

Building The Homo Sapiens Natural Habitat:

I believe that in order to regain our lost health and happiness, we must fulfill our primal genetic needs. We must address ourselves in the order of Animal-Human-Culture-Individual. I think that in order to be healthy in our mind, our brain chemistry and our physical bodies must be strong and healthy. You achieve that by supplying the body with what it’s been engineered for eons to function with. We evolved to be active, fit, strong, social animals. In the last century our “advancements” have taken us farther and farther away from the nutrition and activity patterns that best suit us. Our genetic tendencies are having the wrong effect on us. In a survival setting the human tendency for “efficiency” is vital. It helps us save energy! Our laziness saved our lives in the harsh primal world. Our gluttony also had a purpose. If you were stranded on an island and came across a pizza and a bucket of ice cream, you’d be stupid not to eat it. Sugar and fat kept us alive. We are hardwired to get the most calories we can with the least activity we can manage! Your urge to sit on the sofa with a box of Twinkies is genetically correct. We just have to understand that in this day and age our circumstances don’t match our genetics. We are supposed to find the least difficult path to the most calorie dense food because it was so damn hard to find food at all. Not anymore! Our environment has changed. Just like if we were underwater and wanting to breathe. The instinct to breathe isn’t “wrong”. It’s just not right in that environment. We have to use our intellect to overcome our instinct. Our instinct says move only as much as you have to, and eat everything you can get your hands on. We have to use our brains to purposefully recreate our Ideal conditions. We need to eat healthy, whole foods. Give our bodies the things we are missing in our new modern lives (sleep, sunlight, missing nutrients from poor food supplies), so our bodies can heal themselves. I think that in order to regain our physical potential we have to move our bodies in the ways that have shaped our health for millions of years. We have to move every day at a sustained low level (this is key for proper brain chemistry). We must regularly move heavy things. We have to simulate running for our lives by sprinting and navigating obstacles. We should be able to walk, run, jump, balance, and move on all fours, climb, swim, lift, throw things, and fight! We should regain comfort with one of the most Primal of activities, and playfight as much as we can! Every animal does this naturally, including us. But as we get older we get civilized and shun this activity. We have to accept this part of our "Animal" requirements. What about the "Human" part? Humans, are social animals, and that means wee need to connect with other animals in a pack. And, I don’t mean on the internet. I mean actually in person. Connect with nature through other animals. If not people, then dogs (our nutritional/activity/pack requirements are VERY similar). Preferably both! We should stimulate our brains with challenges and creative endeavors. Cavefolk were inventors and artists! We need those activities to fulfill our "Human" requirements. Then we get to "Culture". Obviously that depends on how and where you came up. But each "tribe" will have it's own things that to them feel necessary. the environment I grew up in shaped me. It's like that for everyone. Then we hit the "Individual". These are the things. that are unique to us as individuals. Obviously, we have to honor our individual needs.

Thing is, it's like a ladder. If the "Animal" isn't healthy, it hard for the "Human" to be healthy. If the "Animal" isn't healthy, it will be hard for the "Individual" to be happy. You have to create a base level of health in the lower levels to give yourself the best chance of at the next rung up! Do these all these things for a sustained period of time and you can’t help but get back in sync with your true primal nature. You will be happy, healthy, athletic, creative, and whole.