Anthony Bourdain is an American chef, author, and television personality. He is known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and in 2005 he began hosting the Travel Channel’s culinary and cultural adventure programs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and The Layover. In 2013, he joined CNN to host Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.
Bourdain’s wife. Ottavia is an active blue belt BJJ competitor. Last year, she convinced him to start training at Renzo Gracie academy in New York. Bourdain talked to Stephen Daniels of Bloodyelbow, amongst other things, about his BJJ addiction:
“Stephie Daniels: You recently skipped New York traffic to take a helicopter to BJJ practice. How did that come to pass?
Anthony Bourdain: You asked me a couple years back if I would ever train, and I said to you, “Hell no!'” Now, I’m like all of these other sick f*cks out there. If I don’t train, I’m like going through drug withdrawal. I feel miserable and worthless if I miss a single day. I’ve been going a lot. I’m not commuting to NY every day like Ottavia, but given the opportunity to fly in for family training day, it made perfect sense to me.
Basically, for the last year, every day that I’m not shooting, I’m training. From the last day of the show, I’ve been training at Renzo’s every single day, sometimes two sessions a day. Sometimes in regular class with the general population, and then again in a private session to figure out what I f*cked up in class.
Stephie Daniels: A couple of years ago you were totally against learning the art, then this past Christmas you caught the bug and had started training. Now you’re a full blown BJJ addict. You’ve come full circle, it would seem.
Anthony Bourdain: I have reasonable expectations. I am a white belt. There’s not a single thing for me to be proud of when I walk out onto the mat, but I am really having a good time. I’ve discovered that it’s a lot like writing. I think that they appeal to the same part of my brain.
If I have a good writing day, I get up and write for an hour or two or three, after which I basically paint myself into a corner or up a tree. I can’t go any further. I’m out of ideas. I don’t know where I’m going to go next. I’ve created a problem for myself by not being able to continue. The rest of the day I’m thinking about how am I going to fix this and what am I going to write tomorrow.
When I go to the gym, inevitably, as happens in jiu-jitsu, you are presented with a series of problems, which chances are, you do not solve [laughs]. When I finish at the gym, I’m thinking for the rest of the day about how I can go in the next day and suck a little bit less than I did today.
I don’t really have a goal in mind. I’m just looking to suck a little bit less every few weeks.
Bourdain with wife Ottavia
For me, I don’t really have a goal in mind. I’m just looking to suck a little bit less every few weeks. It’s very satisfying when something actually clicks and I can see improvement. When I don’t spend an entire hour squashed on the mat, that’s very satisfying.
It’s much more about the creation of new problems that’s maybe even more interesting to me than any notion that I’m going to get somewhere in particular. I’m really liking this endless process. They’re also nice people. They’re very supportive. I’m 58 years old and I was in sh*t shape when I started, and now I go home feeling good. It’s physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I love it.
Stephie Daniels: What was it like for you in the beginning?
Anthony Bourdain: I had a really hard time. I mean, my first classes where I went into the general population…the first few classes and the warm-ups just destroyed me. The warm-up was the most terrifying part of the class. I didn’t mind getting squashed by a guy 1/3 my age, you know, some high school wrestler with a sadistic streak [laughs]. That wasn’t frightening at all to me. It was the f*cking warm-up and the idea of sitting there gasping for air and struggling to not vomit off to the side of the room.
Getting through that certainly feels a lot better, and yeah, I’m probably in a lot better shape. The thing is, I’m not fighting time here. I’m not going to be 30 again. I understand these things. Again, I have very realistic and limited expectations of where I’m going to be with this. I don’t even care where I’m going to be. I just know that I’m really enjoying this ride.
Stephie Daniels: You compared BJJ to writing earlier. Do you find any similarities with cooking, or is that too far removed?
Anthony Bourdain: They’re very different. Cooking is a very instinctive thing and it’s also about multi-tasking. It’s about doing the same thing the same way over and over. I don’t really see a lot of similarities with cooking other than repetition, repetition, repetition. You learn to cook by doing the same thing over and over and over again, until it’s second nature. You know when a piece of steak is done just by listening to it, or there’s a little internal alarm you have where you just know when it’s done.
If you were to stretch it a bit, I guess you could say you could sense an omaplata coming [laughs] in much the same way. I’m still at the point where I’m not seeing stuff. Again, I’m a white belt. I’m still spazzing out about how to breathe and when to use my energy. Right now, I don’t know anything, but I’m looking forward to maybe someday knowing something.
Stephie Daniels: I saw that you finally christened your gi with some blood. Did you frame that or did Ottavia the Laundry Machine swoop down and wash it?
Anthony Bourdain: [Laughs] I didn’t even know until afterwards. It was nothing, a tiny little nick. When you’re all into your session, you don’t even realize it. Nobody even told me about it until afterwards. The guys didn’t think I seemed to mind it so they didn’t tell me until the end. We were having a good day.
There are a few bad days, but mostly they’re good. If I’m still around at this point and haven’t been seriously injured, that’s a good thing.
Stephie Daniels: This has really become a family affair for you guys. I saw your daughter got a special belt, you added another stripe to yours and Ottavia has been at this for three or four years now.
Anthony Bourdain: I think she was surprised that I actually started doing it. It is a family thing, but we’re all sort of going at it for different reasons and I think we’re all getting different things out of it. I think it’s also something to note that often, I will be training in the same room as my daughter [laughs]. You always have to be humble in jiu-jitsu because there’s always someone better than you at any level.
I often find myself training and looking across the room at my little seven-year-old training the same moves and executing them with impeccable grace and flawless technique. It definitely puts me in my place. If I think I’m having a good day, I look over at my daughter, doing a flying armbar, it’s both exhilarating as a dad, and humbling as a fellow practitioner [laughs].”
