Kade Ruotolo, alongside with his brother Tye, has been surfing for as long as they’ve been training Jiu-Jitsu – ever since they were kids.
And, even though he had a dangerous experience or two, that isn’t going to steer him away from hitting the waves.

It all started with their father, explained Ruotolo in a recent ONE Championship interview:

Surfing, Jiu-Jitsu, skateboarding, it was before we can remember, like 3 years old. It all spirals down from our dad.

Our dad, his three main things in life are Jiu-Jistu, surfing, and skateboarding.
We’re pretty much mirror images of him, clones of him.

That’s just what we find the most pleasure in doing.

There are a lot of similarities between surfing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu:

The main thing is it requires balance, which obviously you need in Jiu-Jitsu.

Strength, you need to be strong. If you’re weak surfing, then you’re not going to get very far, especially when the waves are coming.

Plus, there’s a lot of mental strength that goes into surfing:

You might take a bomb on the head, and then all of a sudden you swim three, four strokes to the surface, and then you got four more [waves] coming.
That’s all mental.

You start thinking: “Am I even going to make it under these four?”

So, there’s so much mental strength and physical strength involved in surfing, so it definitely translates to Jiu-Jitsu.

 

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