Billy Graziadei, founding member of Biohazard and a longtime Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, recently spoke with UFC Hall of Famer Matt Serra about the role Jiu-Jitsu has played throughout his life and career.

For Graziadei, Jiu-Jitsu serves a similar purpose to music, providing both balance and an escape from everyday stress:

Jiu-Jitsu for me now is also as equivalent and as balancing as my music is. It’s an escape.

You got all the stuff that’s blowing up in your head and you step on the mat and it’s gone.
It’s all silence and you look at everybody and it’s just good vibes and high fives and then you kill each other for an hour and a half.

And then you high five each other and go home.

A third-degree black belt, Graziadei explained that years of touring never stopped him from finding training opportunities:

I got my black belt under Rorion. Since 2008, I came here. I was loyal to everyone.
I was with the Gracies, but because of touring the world, if you were a second stripe white belt and you loved Jiu-Jitsu, you were my brother and I would roll with you backstage or go to your garage.

That mentality extended to life on the road:

I open up the dressing room and I tell people I post and I’m like: “Yo, I got mats, I got extra gis, I got rash guards. Come and train. You want to come out backstage, come and train.”

Graziadei also recalled advice from legendary coach Pedro Sauer:

Pedro Sauer told me a long time ago, he said: “Dude, you’re getting older. Pick your partners. Don’t try to train with the 22-year-olds. You know, you’re a black belt, and you’re going to have a big target.”

But I never did. I was always since the beginning the biggest dude that walks in the room, I go for that dude. I want to roll with him.
I want to be in the worst situation and be able to survive that situation. So I still do that.

The years of training eventually took a toll, though:

The younger cats that were just so fast and so strong at 22, 25, they would sometimes catch me, and I stopped caring about, oh, you caught me. I didn’t focus on that.
It was like, you know what, I’m going to put myself in this situation. Let me see what I can do with this.

My shoulders got tweaked so bad, dude. They’re all torn up.

Now, Graziadei says longevity has become his primary focus:

The tendons and the ligaments, they dry out.
And at my age, I want to keep training, and I want the two things I want most: one, not getting hurt, and not getting my partner get hurt.

I also want the dude and the person that I train with to walk away going: “Yeah, I love training with Billy.”
And that’s awesome for me.

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