Clarissa Shields' First Day Training at JacksonWink

So tell me what the training's been like. But what was the first day you started MMA training? I would tell you, I was having anxiety for about a week. I couldn't sleep. Really? I couldn't really eat because I had signed a contract with the PFL, but I didn't have a plan. And it was bothering me. It was like, what the fuck? You know, so I'm like, OK, where am I training at? Who am I training? When do I start getting ready? Was it a conversation with Jon Jones that brought you to Jackson and Nicole Jones? I was actually going to reach out to them, but thank God they reached out to me. Oh, perfect. And I was like, oh, thank you, Jesus. Because it was like, I already had hit up Jon up on Instagram. And he was being all busy and stuff, and he didn't get back with me until I landed in Albuquerque. He was like, yo, you're coming to Albuquerque? He was like, yeah, I'm going to push up in the hotel and let you drive my car. And I'm like, dude, thanks. But it would have been great to hear from you last week. But he ain't no helping me out with that. And I trained him for about a good two or three weeks. And Johnny Bones was there the first week watching, kind of scoping a little bit. And it was like, we just figured out that we were twins. And that was the best thing ever, because he's a hard worker. He's smart. He's strategic. And we believe in hard work. And he started drilling me like the coaches would just sit on the side and just watch us for three, four hours. And they would see like, I'm full of energy. I'm like, let's go. What else you got? And he was teaching me stuff. And Coach Wink would come in a little bit. Sometimes Coach Jackson would come in. But sometimes it was just me and Johnny. And it would be just kind of just looking at greatness from the outside. And they would never give me any crap after. But like my first day going to the Jackson Wing gym, I looked at the cages and stuff. And I was walking to the gym, to the cage. And I thought to myself, what the fuck am I doing here? When was the first day you grappled? First day? First day. First day. And that's the thing. I thought I said that in my head. I'm like, Jesus, what am I doing here? And I said it out loud. And then Misha, who works with Jackson Wing gym, he looked at me. He's like, Clarissa, it's going to be OK. And I was like, what? And he was like, you just said Jesus, what are you doing here? I'm like, oh, I'm so out of my mind. I thought I said it in my head. I was like, I'm not even saying right now. That's hilarious. I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm just so like, I'm just nervous. And they're like, I think Coach Jackson asked me, he said, what are you most worried about? And I'm like, I'm not worried about the striking, the punching, or the kicking. I'm not worried about that. I'm like, I'm just worried about being on the ground and not knowing how to get up. I've been having nightmares about this shit. And all of a sudden, he just was like, all right, get on your back. What? That sounds like Greg. That's what we're going to start with. He's like, we're going to strengthen your weaknesses and also make it to where you can put everything together to where it's you. And ever since that day, I've just been super comfortable. I think I had one training and just where I was like, man, this is so hard today. We did the same thing the next day. And I was way better and comfortable at it. It's just like being on my back and having to fight off my back is just not what boxers do. So it was uncomfortable. But we had been doing different stuff on our back. But then just this one drill was like, oh, man, this is stressful. I didn't feel like I was. What was it like defending against ground strikes, when you're on your back and someone's hitting you? Well, that's the thing. Was that weird? He taught me what the defense was. And he said, you're worried about somebody hitting you in the face, but you've got to realize that they've got to make it past your feet to then get you to the face. So it's like a lot of leg action really is. A lot of shrimps, a lot of just keeping your feet there, keeping your hands up, being defensive, and knowing what to do when they do get past your feet or what to do. So that's my thing of like, I'm not worried about it happening. I just want to know what to do when it does happen. I want to have a game plan for everything. And when they understood that, they were like, you're a very smart fighter. And they start teaching me. And I learned stuff really, really fast. I don't know because I'm younger or because I'm smart. Well, you're an elite athlete. You understand your body at a very, very high level. I think, like I said earlier about whatever you want to do in life. If you become an elite boxer, like you have two-time Olympic gold medalist, I think you could do anything. It's just a matter of if you put the same drive and focus and dedication that you've done to boxing, you could apply that to anything. Whether it's you want to become a dedicated grappler, I think you could be a world class grappler 100%. You just have to dedicate yourself. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I'm going to do. I think I'm supposed to fight in boxing again, like September, maybe December. So this time I have here from April to September or December is really going to be focused on in the May. So I'm putting in a time for it. But then it's still just like, just got to see how much I can consume. Because some days they teach me so much. And I'm like, oh my god. Like my brain is tired from thinking about it. But I learn it. And once I learn it, I get it. And I take so many notes in my phone. And I got videos of stuff that I have in my phone. So when I'm at home, I can do some of the training and do some of the techniques just so I can just keep it in my mind and keep it refreshed because I understand how important repetitiveness is. Yeah, it is. It's everything. And when you're training for ground fighting, do you ever think of yourself as maybe competing in a wrestling tournament or a jiu-jitsu tournament or something like that someday? No. I don't look at that because Coach Tusa, who's my MMA coach, MMA jiu-jitsu coach, and Coach Jackson and Coach Wink, they said the best MMA fighters are the ones who know how to mix everything up together. So sometimes you go into just wrestling and you start getting into wrestling mode. And then you do jiu-jitsu when you start doing jiu-jitsu. You want to know how to punch and throw your kicks and punch and be defensive and everything together and do jiu-jitsu stuff all with the MMA style, which I feel like was super smart. And I only can say this stuff because I asked them the same thing. I think I'm so competitive that when I found out about the color of the belts in jiu-jitsu, I'm like, oh, I got to be a black belt. Right? And they're like, hmm, not so fast. We want to teach you jiu-jitsu and you to learn it, but you're not going to learn like the regular person will learn it. You're learning strictly for MMA. And so just learning that is like, once you get more profound in MMA and you learn how to mix stuff up and you have enough jiu-jitsu to get you to high level, when you're against high level fighters who know this, then we can start getting you more experience in jiu-jitsu. But right now, we want you just to do it, just to learn it with MMA style. Do you remember the first time you tapped somebody out? Me? Yeah. I haven't. You've never tapped anybody out? No? No. So do you do just plain jiu-jitsu sparring? Do you roll? Yeah, I do rolling with Coach Tusa, which some days is fun and some days it is not because he's a black belt, I think, with like triple stripes and stuff. And I mean, he doesn't take it easy. He's super like, I hate being grabbed. So my main thing is like, oh, you grab me, get off me. Right? He's like, no, you want to do stuff that can advance your movement. How could you get in a position to where you're winning? At first, my mind was completely defensive, which I'm super, super relaxed at getting people off me. Like, you grab me, OK, you touch me here, oh, you touch me here, OK, let me get back here. I'm on the ground. He showed me this. Let's work on that. But oh, I see an arm bar. I'm trying to grab it. Just being like that. But at first, I was super defensive. Now I'm kind of offensive with it. And when we're trying to do the whole jujitsu thing, I'm like, man, it's still hard. It's a whole different level of breathing. It's five minutes compared to the two minutes that I do on boxing, even though I spar three minutes, but still three minutes compared to five. It's way different. But just getting that cardio up there and just having to do the wrestling stuff. It's not easy by far. But it's fun. Some days it's fun. And some days I'm like, man, I can't wait till this hour and two hours and I'm going to get the hell out of here. So are you doing any live jujitsu roles with other people other than the coach? Or are you just doing it only with the coach right now? I've done some kickboxing sparring with other fighters. I haven't done anything jujitsu yet. But that's because of the timing, too. Once we were really starting to get into it, I had a boxing match get scheduled. And that was, to me, I had to make that be more important than MMA at the time. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free, only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips. 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