Robert Drysdale, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu IBJJF and ADCC World Champion, MMA Fighter, TEDx Speaker, and owner of Zenith Jiu-Jitsu talks the power of community, competition, and humility.
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Transcript: 0:00:05.9 Mischa Z: Welcome back, everybody, to the Tools For A Good Life Summit. And right now I would like to introduce to you Robert Drysdale, world champion, a BJJ Brazilian jiu-jitsu master. Is "master" an appropriate word or...
0:00:25.6 Robert Drysdale: I go by coach or just Rob. I'm very simple.
0:00:29.9 Mischa Z: Okay, fantastic.
0:00:31.3 Robert Drysdale: No need for a lot of titles, it's all good.
0:00:33.4 Mischa Z: I love it. Fantastic. That's one thing that drew me to you for this summit. Real quick, I'm gonna read your bio. Okay?
0:00:41.7 Robert Drysdale: Sure.
0:00:42.4 Mischa Z: Fantastic. Born in the USA, from a Brazilian mother and American father, and having spent his life between these two countries, Robert Drysdale remains the only American born to have ever won both the IBJJF and ADCC world championships, the two most prestigious tournaments in all of jiu-jitsu. Furthermore, he has also cultivated a career in MMA, both as a fighter and as a coach. The author also holds a bachelor's degree in History, as well as a long-held passion for this discipline. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu and MMA. And you are the co-founder of the international team, Zenith Jiu-Jitsu, and you are the father of two girls. So I've got two friends... I'm 53, I have two friends late 40s, and as I was putting together this summit, and really, I think there's so many great modalities out there to help us as we get a little bit older in age, perhaps an existential crisis, whatever it is. But there's all these great modalities, and I think Brazil...
0:02:04.5 Mischa Z: Train going by, if you heard that. Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the martial arts, judo, are so powerful. So I've got these two buddies, both who are pushing 50, both who have started Brazilian jiu-jitsu or BJJ, for anyone who's listening and is unfamiliar with that term BJJ, and it's transformed their lives. One's been doing it for about a year and a half, and one's been doing it for about three years, so I was like, "I definitely need to get somebody on the summit who can speak to it, and why not somebody who's been in it his whole life?" And that's how I came to you. I have a couple of questions to start with. First off, can you speak to that just a little bit?
0:03:06.5 Robert Drysdale: I think there's a variety of reasons why Brazilian jiu-jitsu is appealing to a whole plethora of people at different walks of life, everything from children, to mothers, to competitive athletes, to dads, to people who've never practiced any sports or they never really felt a calling to martial arts in general, maybe people that think that fighting was despicable, all of a sudden they're madly in love with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I think there's a variety of things that come into play here, and it helps explain why Brazilian jiu-jitsu is such a worldwide phenom. I think, firstly, it has to do with we like challenges, we like things that are difficult enough for us to be able to overcome them, and I think Brazilian jiu-jitsu is like you're overcoming yourself one day at a time. Think of a video game that you play that you can beat the first time you play it, it's not very challenging, you're probably not gonna play it again. But if it's something that is constantly challenging you, if it's something that's constantly, there's new layer after layer after layer, and you can't defeat it, now you become more challenged by it, and that's what competition is. We are obsessed with competition, we enjoy competition. And competition is good, and there's a healthy way to be competitive, and I think jiu-jitsu is one of the many arenas where you can exercise that healthy competition.
0:04:25.3 Mischa Z: Yeah.
0:04:26.1 Robert Drysdale: I also think that people have become highly addicted to the endorphins from training, physical endorphins, and they get, some people call it a "runner's high" or whatever high you experience while you're working out, you experience that in jiu-jitsu as well. Granted, and I am biased here, I'm the first one who admit it, jiu-jitsu is chess with your body, it's highly, highly intellectual. It drives me crazy. It's a bit of a peeve of mine when people think of fighters as these brutes that don't know how to think, and that's why they fight. I cannot think of anything more intellectual than fighting, I really can't. It is one of the most extreme displays of human intelligence.
0:05:04.7 Mischa Z: Yes, yes.
0:05:05.9 Robert Drysdale: It's just that it's not seen that way for a variety of reasons. It's not sold that way, because if you pitch fighting that way, it might be less interesting to show business, but I've known these guys and some of these guys have never read a book in their lives, but they are some of the most intelligent people you've ever met in your life.
0:05:21.3 Mischa Z: Yeah, can I say something to that real quick?
0:05:23.9 Robert Drysdale: Sure.
0:05:24.6 Mischa Z: Sure. So my one buddy, Kevin, he said that, he started a couple of years ago, but he said, initially, it's the physicality of it, but then you realize really quickly, it's the mental game, it's the mental process, it's the strategy, that chess, and the more... If you play chess, for example, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know and you need to know, kind of a thing. Is that a good analogy or...
0:05:52.7 Robert Drysdale: It is infinite, it's infinite. We often compare it to chess. And I remember I had a friend of mine in college, back in Brazil, where he was a chess master, highly ranked, and we would argue, we'd always debate which one was more complex, chess or jiu-jitsu, and I'd win every time, 'cause you can't... Because chess is two-dimensional, and it's only got a few pieces, and the pieces only do so many moves. Human movement is three-dimensional, it has infinite movements, infinite movements. You add the emotional stress of fighting, that does... It's very few things in life can replicate that. I imagine war would be something even more stressful. I imagine a real life-threatening situation will be very stressful like that. But fighting is extremely stressful, and you gotta manage it, and it's not... It's the reason why most people are terrified of it, 'cause just the thought of it freaks them out.
[chuckle]
0:06:44.5 Robert Drysdale: Knowing that it's 7:00 PM on a Saturday, you're gonna have to step into a cage and fight against someone who's been trained their whole life to knock your head off. It's a terrifying thought, and it really is. And I have no issues admitting this, I was terrified every single time I stepped in there. You can't show it.
0:07:01.3 Mischa Z: Really?
0:07:02.1 Robert Drysdale: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, on the verge of crying, I was so scared. On the verge of crying. Actually, I would hope to get injured like the week of the fight, so I didn't have to fight, 'cause there's a part of me that was hoping I would get injured, so I didn't have to fight. That's how scary... And that's intelligence, that is intelligence. People don't see it, but it's to manage that, it's not for everyone. So, I think that... And then you add the physical element to it, it's extremely physical. They say that wrestling is one of the hardest things you'll do in life, and it's true, like trying to take someone down and then trying to stand back up, and you're holding them down. I think CrossFit is easy, and I'm not trying to discredit anyone, but, physical terms, and you can't compare... And then there's a technical layers to it. It's just layer after layer after layer.
0:07:50.7 Mischa Z: Layer after layer.
0:07:51.9 Robert Drysdale: 23 years of doing this, and I'm not even scraping the surface.
0:07:55.4 Mischa Z: That's incredible.
0:07:55.6 Robert Drysdale: And it really is infinite. I really feel like fighting, in general, is not appreciated as something that requires an enormous amount of intelligence and intellect in general. It's just that our definition of intelligence is so narrow, it's so limiting that we don't see it that way, we see two meatheads trying to knock each other out. But there's beauty in that, too, there's value. You're trying to defeat your opponent. It's like looking in through a mirror, you're trying to look through that mirror, trying to move faster than the mirror moves, and I think it's beautiful in many, many different levels. But it's something I think a lot of people miss, they only see a bar fight. I don't see a bar fight, I see a ceremony.
0:08:37.2 Mischa Z: Yeah. I wanna speak to two things in that regard, and one is, my buddy, Kevin, I'm gonna drop their names 'cause they're gonna be so excited that they're collaterally involved in this. [laughter] But, Kevin said it's the most rigorous exercise for him, and that it beats the hell out of him, and he loves it. At 50 years old, he's like, "Yeah, it just kicks my ass, and it feels so good," and so there's that physical outlet, which is so powerful, especially as we get older, I think, to keep that movement, and just for longevity. It's so powerful. But my other buddy, Fernando, it transformed his relationships with people, and specifically with his girlfriend that he's been with for a while, and it was... He was talking about how in the judo, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu, how it's very meditative on one hand 'cause your mind has to focus, which is awesome, and then also the patience that it teaches you and the new perspective that it teaches him, and how he was able to bring that out and find patience with a new perspective with his relationships. Can you speak to that a little bit or is that your experience as well or...
0:10:03.4 Robert Drysdale: It does help on a personal level, too. There's so many lessons. I often say that every lesson you're gonna learn in life, you're gonna learn it on the mats first. It's just that you may or may not see them, but they're all there. But there's something about... I think especially when it comes to men and women relationships, 'cause we're living in an age where we're taught that everything is exactly the same, and I don't believe that. I think that women expect a certain behavior from a man and vice versa, and I think that's the way nature is. I'm not suggesting there are fixed gender roles, but I think women do like a strong masculine figure. You just talk to them, and they'll tell you, like, "Who are you attracted to?" And they're gonna define what they're attracted to, and it fits a certain profile. There are exceptions; there might be women out there who love men who cry all the time, for example, or who show weakness or can't fix a door or can't open the door for them or can't carry groceries. These things might exist, but I think for the most part, women like a man being a man. And one thing that jiu-jitsu will do for you, or fighting in general, well, I think I'm biased towards jiu-jitsu, and obviously that's my background, but I think any kind of combat will do, is it does give you a certain level of confidence about being... You learn... Because you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose, you're gonna win.
0:11:23.8 Robert Drysdale: I think that martial arts combat, the strife, the struggle, is something that, it puts you exactly where you need to be confidence-wise. I'll give you an example. Children that walk into my gym, they have the insecure child, right, the child that can't make eye contact, he's bullied, he's made fun of, he never wins at any sport, so he doesn't try. Parents bring them into jiu-jitsu as a last hope, last resort, "This my child is doomed." And what happens is that child, initially they lose and they lose, but every now then they win, and then they go, "Oh, wow, I didn't know I could do that, I just went around." And then they lose and lose again, and then they win another one. So what it does is as they win, as they lose, it brings their confidence level up to where it should be because they walked in they were very insecure. They're not over-confident because they still lose, but the wins, they teach them that they are more capable than they thought they were.
0:12:17.4 Robert Drysdale: And then you get the child who is the bully, you get the child who is the over-confident child, perhaps because he's bigger or he's more confident, and he just walks in and he acts like he's gonna own the room, and then he walks into jiu-jitsu and he gets tapped by the nerdy kid with glasses. He loses a round after round after round to the kid, and now he's shocked, he's shocked that he just lost, like, "I didn't think that was possible." So, two things happen to the bully, he either leaves or he changes. He adapts and he goes, "Wait a second, I'm not as good as I thought I was." So it brings him down from that state of over-confidence, exactly where he's supposed to be, and then the bullied and the bully end up more or less in the same place, exactly as it's supposed to be. And when you find that happy place, you'll see the flaws in yourself, you'll see the weaknesses, but you'll see the strength too, and then you walk away with that, with a certain degree of confidence th
