Joe Rogan on Learning Jiu-Jitsu for Self Defense

The older I get, I'm just a puss man. I need a man up. I used to be so aggressive. Well you're a big dude, you're strong. That's why nobody messes with me. Oh, so they leave you alone so you become a person because of it. Yeah. You know what it's like? It's like... Like you like fight and all that stuff. Like I can't even like... If somebody punched me in the face today, I don't know how it would react. Like I don't know. I used to be a bouncer at clubs. I played college football. Like I was a tough dude. Now... You're falling apart. Dude. I'm gonna get you a gym. No, no, no. I'm in shape. But I mean like a fight gym. No, no. Why? No. Learn how to fight a little bit. No! Not to fight people. So you don't worry about it. I never worry about it. Okay. Well then don't worry about it. Because I'm at home at 8 30. Sleeping by night. What do you mean by you do stand up? I know. I saw you at the improv the other night. I know. Nobody's gonna jump on stage. I'm talking about family. You never know, man. You never know. People are crazy. Has anyone... That dude jumped up on the WWF and attacked... Who did he attack? Bret Hart. He attacked Bret Hart. During his speech. That's crazy. Bret Hart has gotta be like, how old is he now? 61 and he's a stroke survivor. So fucked up. And the guy tackled him. Yeah. Jesus Christ. But Joe, seriously, you think anybody's gonna jump on stage when you're on? Some dude could easily. Dude, you would fucking kill him. No, there's a lot of people that can kill me. Don't get confused. I know a lot of them. I just have a minear all the time. Yeah, I get that. But like, I just don't see me doing stand up talking about family and love and a dude because I hate family and love. I'm gonna jump up there. No, it's not rational. No, you're right. A rational person wouldn't do that, but you're not worried about rational people anyway. Okay, so say I started to go to a fight gym. Where would I start at? What would I do? I would say you should try jujitsu because it's fun, it's a really good exercise, and you'll learn some stuff. You'll learn how to do it. It's a technique-based art. Say if there's guys that I will do jujitsu sparring with, we call rolling. There's guys that I will roll with that are weaker than me, smaller than me, and tap me every time I roll with them. And I'm a black belt. Like, that's reality. Like, there's guys out there that are 150 pounds that I can roll with that I know will tap me virtually every time we roll. Because their technique is sharper, they train more often than I am, they're more focused, they're more in the groove. But I also heard you say, like, in one of your podcasts, you've got to watch out who you train with because they might just try to hurt you. That's true. So I need... You got to go to a good school with good ethics. Because a good school with good ethics, they get rid of those guys. Do you know one in Studio City? I'll do it. Sure, I'll get you a spot. No, I'll do it. I want to learn... There's a good spot just a little further than that in Tarzana. Okay. Machado's, where I got my black belt. It's John Jock Machado. I train there sometimes. And he used to have a place in Malibu, but it closed down because of the fires. But they have an outstanding gym. It's one of the best in the country and it's in that area. As far as teaching, top notch. But there's a lot of really good Jiu-Jitsu schools now. It's not like... When I started in 96, it was hard to find a good gym. There was only five of them in all of California, right? Because it was just starting out. It was like 93 is when Jiu-Jitsu sort of emerged in the public consciousness because of the UFC. Then the gym started popping up. Popping up. But I was really lucky. There was Hicks and Gracie's, which is where I took my first class. And then Carlson Gracie's. I thought they were the same and the other one was closer. So I just switched to Carlson's. I didn't know shit. It was a white belt. And then there was Machado's and then a couple other places. How long does it take you to get to a black belt? Like for you. Some guy... It took me a long time. I was a brown belt for eight years. But it was just because I wasn't training as much as I should have. They don't give them away. You have to be a real black belt. But who decides? What is somebody just watching you? Instructors. And you do... People know. Everyone knows. It's like, you know when a guy is fucking killing... Like Theo Vaughn, for example. Theo, I love him. He hit a groove some time ago, whether it's two years ago or whatever it was. And I remember being in the back of the store and I was like, dude, this motherfucker's on fire. He started hitting that groove where you go and sit down. You want to watch his set. And I think when that happens in jujitsu, it's the same kind of thing. Guys start talking about like, dude, Mike has been tapping everybody. Dude, his jujitsu is so sharp. And you're like, man, I'm going to watch him roll. And then you watch him roll. You're like, dude, that pass, that guard pass. And then guys start asking like, how often are you training? I'm going five days a week now. Really? Yeah, and I'm taking two privates. Fuck. And then you know, like this guy is on the quest. And you'll see a guy go from white belt to black belt in three years. They have to be super exceptional. Like really unusual athletes, unusual mindset, unusual discipline. It can happen. Most of the time, like a garden variety estimate is like 10 years is realistic. Okay. From white belt to black belt for a regular person. If you really train hard and you really dedicate yourself, but freaks can get there quicker. Like BJ Penn, he won the Mundiales, which is the world championships after three years of training. Three years of training, he was a black belt, won the world championships. I won't be doing that. BJ is a special guy though. He's also got legs that are like arms. He has leg dexterity, like no one on the planet. Yeah, I got chicken legs. That's actually good. Is it really? Yeah. You could cinch up triangles on people with chicken legs. Yeah, for real. Cinching up people everywhere. You just think about it in terms of leverage. Guys with longer limbs, like a Hodger Gracie is a perfect example. He's a really tall, long guy. So in the best jujitsu players ever, they can do things with those limbs that a shorter person can't do. In terms of like leverage from joints and stuff like this. There's advantages to every frame. There's a guy like Husammar Pahlara, who's a famous tank of a guy. He's like five, seven, 200 plus pounds and just rips guys' legs apart. He uses this short style to dive in on people's legs and get them in heel hooks and in bars and rip their legs apart. He's terrifying. And that style heavily favors being built like a little tank. Whereas that long, like you are, you're a tall, long guy. You would have good darst chokes, good rear nakeds, good arm bars, good triangles. You would have length and leverage with that length, especially with triangles. Because long-legged guys, sometimes a guy like me with short legs, like I'll get my legs crossed and I have to adjust a lot to be able to cinch up by triangle, whereas you might be able to just close it up right there. So you'll have like more opportunities for triangles because of the length of your limbs. Would you have ever been at a point in your career when you were doing how would you have been in the UFC? Like at your prime? Like I have no idea. I have no idea. I would have had to have gotten way better. Like when I was fighting, I was just kickboxing. Yeah. I was kickboxing. First it was tag window and then I went to kickboxing. And by the time the UFC came around, like on the ground, I was useless. I was a straight white belt. I would get ripped apart every day. I would go to the gym. And if I tapped anybody, like if it was like a week went by and I tapped one guy, I'd be like, whoa, I fucking tapped a guy. Yeah. I wasn't tapping anybody. There wasn't that many people doing it. So I was going with like, there was a couple of white belts maybe. And then there was like blue belts and purple belts and brown belts. And those guys would always tap me. So that's just how it went for a long time. When you are, you know, unless you're some kind of freak, like some big ass football player or some like super athlete, you're probably not going to be able to hold these guys off. They're going to, they're going to choke you. Now, was it true you're going to fight Wesley Snipes? That was way later though. Way later. That was a brown belt by then. And I'd been doing a lot of training. Would you have beaten him? I don't know. Because we never did. He's a real martial artist. He's a real martial artist, but he doesn't know jiu-jitsu. The thing is- But that must have been exciting though for you to train. I was super excited. Because I was thinking like, I knew that he was a real legitimate martial artist. Like he throws kicks and punches and it looks really good. Like he really does know his shit. But I also know he never fought. And there's a big difference between throwing kicks and, and I haven't fought in a long time, but I probably fought a hundred times. Yeah. So I've been, I've felt that nerves. I know what that's like. It'll be crazy as fuck to do it again. That's what I was thinking. I'm like, it'll probably scare the shit out of me. But I think I know what to do. Like I think I know how to like get in there and start fainting. Start giving some movement and see how he reacts. And then the worst case scenario is like, I'm like in a scramble. I'm going to strangle this guy. Like if this comes to a scramble. Yeah. Because the average person really doesn't know how helpless they are until a jiu-jitsu black belt grabs a hold of you. And then you just go, Oh shit. Like I'm helpless because in a fight, you really think like you might be able to punch a guy. Like maybe if he's fronting me and he's swinging at me and I'm swinging at him, maybe I hit him first. You really think that, but there's no swinging. If it's a jiu-jitsu fight, if, if, if you guys get into some sort of a tussle and that guy grabs you and trips you and boom, and he's on the ground with his hand on your jacket and a knee on your chest, you're a dead man. You're a dead man because there's no lucky shot. Yeah. A jiu-jitsu black belt is just going to close the distance like that evil fucking crab. And he's just going to squeeze your fucking neck and there's no way you're going to avoid it. And there's no way you're going to survive it. You're just not going to. That's why you don't fight people. Like, like you can't fight people. But I'm just, you can't fight random people on the streets. Like when you're young, that was the thing. You could go to bars. Yeah. Like I, I had some friends that like to throw down when I was younger and I wouldn't do it. I was watching, but good for you now. It's kind of like you got to watch everybody because you don't know what kind of training they're doing. Like everybody's so educated on it and it's so big right now. Well, some guy fought off a guy in the subway that was attacking with a knife with some moves that he learned watching the UFC never even trained before. He just knew what to do. Yeah. He like knew what to do because he'd seen guys like get the mount and drop ground and pound. He like knew what to do based on watching it. Yeah. It's crazy. I think it's good. Like when you mentioned, I think it's good just to learn. So you would feel better about yourself in case danger comes. Yeah, man. You want to be the person that gets to make the decision. Here's the thing, right? If you don't know how to fight and there's some drunk asshole who doesn't know how to fight either, but he might come over and punch you in the face and sucker punch you and he could hurt you or knock you out in front of your woman. You want to be the one who gets to decide. Yeah. If I'm in a situation and some guy and he's like reasonably close to my size and he's being an asshole and he's drunk and he gets aggressive with me, I can decide what to do with him. I don't want to hurt anybody, but I'm not going to let you hurt me. Yeah. And you get to decide. We've all seen these 7-Eleven fucking parking lot fights on YouTube or some asshole, and both of them don't know how to fight. But one guy might fuck that guy up. He might kick him in the face while he's down. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be in that situation and definitely walk away whenever you can. Always.