Joe Rogan has never been shy about paying respect to the brutal roots of Brazilian jiu-jitsu training — and he recently reflected on how grueling those early days really were.
Rogan recalled his time training at Carlson Gracie’s academy, where the warm-up alone was enough to break most students:
The warm-up was so intense.
But by the time you got to actually training, that was like a break.
It was a break because I can hold on to this guy — I don’t have to do somersaults over and over again.
At Carlson Gracie’s school, there was no easing into the session.
Students were expected to push through punishing bodyweight drills before even thinking about rolling:
They would do like duck walks and bear crawls.
Their idea was, hey, you should be fit enough that you could do all this sh*t and it’s easy.And then you start training, and then you’re fit to train and it’ll help your training.
While Rogan acknowledged that this approach built tough, conditioned athletes, he also recognized its flaws:
If you’re trying to teach people something, the worst way to teach them is when they’re exhausted.
This wasn’t exclusive to Carlson Gracie’s camp.
Rogan drew parallels to Ken Shamrock’s infamous Lion’s Den tryouts, where recruits had to survive a near-military crucible of conditioning before being allowed to train:
Back in those days, nobody knew what sparring light was all about…
You produce animals when you do that.But you’re not going to produce the most technical guys, for most of the people.
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