Mental Health and My Jiu Jitsu

It's world mental health week and today and I've pulled up a bit sore after yesterday's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu demonstration. I like to use my proficiency in Jiu Jitsu to preach the benefits of sport and movement skills for mental health. And the fact I've pulled up sore should tell you I haven't been practicing what I preach.
Anyway, that's not what this is about. It's about mental health and how you need to get a damn hobby.

I started back into the martial arts in 2004.  I had been a champion in a couple of disciplines in my youth and had studied numerous systems throughout my twenties. I had always been interested in competing in Mixed Martial Arts, but a very fast-paced job stressed me out. The period of unemployment that followed sent me the other way - into a state of depression. I pretty much ate myself into a stupor. So, MMA was not going to be an option.

Several months later, though, I had a good job and lived right near a tropical Queensland beach. Things were looking up. I got back into some decent shape and decided I was going to start training again.

A younger workmate had been studying karate for some years and wanted to learn grappling. I had some grappling experience, so we began training together.I'll call him Paul. Paul had been diagnosed with ADD and struggled with concentration. Even in his karate class, where he felt most at home, he couldn't maintain his concentration for an extended time.

But you know what? Nothing makes you concentrate quite as hard as a 120kg man crushing your chest and trying to twist your arm out of its socket. So it was that Paul learned to focus. That focus began coming into his work and home life and he began to settle.

With Paul's help, I prepared for my first professional MMA fight. I travelled to Toowoomba - my old home town - and came in with the crowd behind me. I walked out to raucous applause, touched gloves and had my head caved in in less than 40 seconds.

That's not an exaggeration the right hand side of my face was damaged enough that my wife couldn't bear to look at me. My son didn't recognise me and freaked out when he finally did and I was wearing mirrored aviators three months later to hide the bruising that was still there.

But I loved it...... The unbelievable rush of endorphins is something no drug could ever come close to. Despite the terrible damage done to my right eye and everything around it, there was no pain. I had tested myself and had come up short physically, but not mentally. I was now a professional MMA fighter. One of a select few in Australia back in 2004.

I had been introduced to a bloke named Ross through Paul. Ross was Paul's senior in his formal martial arts classes. He was like me in that he'd been very successful earlier in his martial arts career and wanted to broaden his horizons. He brought along a bloke named Harry. Harry was huge! And a very proficient Judo player. Together, we formed the imaginatively named Boyne BJJ club.

Since we had no mats, we trained on a tarpaulin in my back yard. That was tough work. Especially when Harry smashed you into the ground and came down with his 140kg frame on top of you. But we figured it would toughen us up - and it did. Once that happens to you a few times, competing in your weight division on mats feels a lot like relaxing on a mattress.

It was hot, too. The Central Queensland summer is 40 odd degrees and extremely humid. We'd be on the tarp - in the sun - straight after work at 4pm.

The lack of mats, and ridiculous training conditions - not to mention the lack of formal instruction - would have turned normal people off. Our attitude was different, though. We figured that the heat and humidity would improve our endurance. And it did. In Brisbane competitions, when others were complaining about the lack or air-conditioning, we felt marvelous.

When a qualified instructor named Dom moved to our area, we began training in his garage. We continued training just as hard and we had a number of people come through. Most didn't like the up close nature of the sport or the intense physical work required to excel. We managed to expand the number of regulars, though. Ray was a bit older than the rest of us and tough as nails. He was physically fit and intense and was immediately addicted to the physicality of the sport of Jiu Jitsu. Keith was an acquaintance from work. Long-haired and quite carefree, Keith loved to travel and play guitar. He was the smallest of us (by far) and loved the way the sport offered him the opportunity to use his superior speed and flexibility to get the better of the rest of us. He brought his wife-to-be along and Kel became a lynchpin of the crew, as well.

This crew helped me prepare for the three much more successful professional fights I had during 2005. I became a contender for the XFC Super Heavyweight and Heavyweight titles and I appeared on national television when my July 2005 fight was broadcast on Foxtel. I was in the local news a lot and I even appeared in a Ralph magazine article on Mixed Martial Arts.

Ross had started fighting MMA and had similar success, as well.

When Dom moved on, I took over the running of the club again and the regulars kept coming. A new bloke, Stef started doing extra training with me. Stef would get so stressed in training that he sometimes couldn't sort his left from his right. But, within a couple of years, he was a state champion and national runner-up.

Stef was promoted to blue belt not long after I left the area. I always wish he'd received his blue belt from me - because he deserved it then. A blue belt takes in Jiu Jitsu takes as long to achieve as a black belt in some systems. Keith had become the first person I promoted to blue belt some time before and Harry had followed just before I left.

When I look back on this crew, I often wonder what made the group what it was. Knowing each person's history, though, you could easily infer that we each felt an affinity through emotional turmoil. For each of us, Jiu Jitsu became the glue that held our minds together. We had all been through so much. Several of the members had serious, diagnosed conditions. The rest had been through some very difficult emotional times.

Our crew was an extremely functional group of somewhat dysfunctional individuals who knew they had a place where they didn't have to be beholden to the stresses and anxieties of their life. A place where they could learn new skills and test themselves against each other. Mostly, though, I think they could immerse themselves so fully in the activity that nothing else mattered.

Talk to some surfers, chess players and others who seem to have a different kind of connection with their pastime. They'll tell you the same thing. OK, not exactly the same thing. I'm pretty sure surfers and chess players think a little differently. But they'll tell you it's about the "Zone". It's about relaxing and focussing intently on the task at hand. And they'll tell you that nothing is more relaxing.

There is a very sad side to this story, though. I had never considered that emotional connection the old crew had and why we bonded so well until this year. Some five years after I moved away and the club folded. Earlier this year, we lost Keith to the spectre of mental illness. It has been cause for some serious navel gazing on my part.

I have come to realise that while the focus we're putting on mental health this week is a major step forward, there is a simple and critical step to managing your own mental health that we all need to do. Find your release valve. Find the activity that motivates you to excel. The activity that allows you to concentrate with laser focus. The activity that relaxes you and takes you away from your stresses and anxieties.

This mental health week, start looking for your Jiu Jitsu.