Quotes About Bjj

#1. BJJ is like trying to solve a puzzle that keeps changing..so magnificent ... yet completely humbling.

Phillipe Nover

#2. I've learned to fall like the BJJ player, to protect the body through controlling the distribution of force by slapping the mat with hands open. With hands open. Hands open. Open. O Pen.

Cameron Conaway

#3. The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, but with its ability to allow any man of any size to survive.

Cameron Conaway

#4. Each increment of knowledge imparted in this way is so satisfying-and one's ignorance at every stage so consequential-that the process of learning BJJ can become remarkably addictive. I have never experienced anything quite like it.

Sam Harris

#5. I believe that which you study is only matched in importance by the sincerity with which you approach it.

Chris Matakas

#6. In Jiu Jitsu, we often fall into the trap of simply trying a technique "harder," rather than recognizing that it is a poorly chosen tool for the task at hand.

Chris Matakas

#7. Jiu Jitsu provides a place of fellowship that, unfortunately, our society has largely failed to create.

Chris Matakas

#8. This is the opportunity the fellowship of Jiu Jitsu affords us. To reach our highest potential of self, and then to offer that self to another.

Chris Matakas

#9. As an instructor, my goal has always been to use Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to help our students achieve their goals, whatever the case may be. I have yet to find a better vehicle for growth, and the moment I do I will certainly pursue it with the rivaled fervor that I approached Jiu Jitsu.

Chris Matakas

#10. Jiu Jitsu has shown me that we are not confined to the lot which we inherit. We are not bound to these fetters eternally. They are temporal. We can transcend them should we sincerely choose to. Sincere effort is in fact the rarest virtue among man.

Chris Matakas

#11. For the sincere student, it mustn't be enough to simply understand Jiu Jitsu. We must seek to understand ourselves.

Chris Matakas

#12. Relationships formed through Jiu Jitsu are deeply rooted in respect for one another, and this is often not the case in matters of modern society.

Chris Matakas

#13. Jiu Jitsu removes the societal walls that we have been forced to unknowingly hold up with our adopted beliefs. It removes the limits of common thought, and allows for expression of our highest ideals.

Chris Matakas

#14. Jiu Jitsu can be a source of total transparency such as a mirror, but it takes a conscious choice to see what it has to say.

Chris Matakas

#15. In Jiu Jitsu an inch is a mile, and a second is an eternity. Use each wisely.

Chris Matakas

#16. We call it training. Not because we are training for Jiu Jitsu. We are training for life.

Chris Matakas

#17. I can think of no more worthwhile aim than pursuing mastery in this craft while transcending one's own limitations.

Chris Matakas

#18. Jiu Jitsu gives each of us something that no other sport can. We have the opportunity to become truly great regardless of what circumstance fate has handed us. We have complete freedom and responsibility to achieve whatever level of mastery we wish.

Chris Matakas

#19. There is no concrete way to play Jiu Jitsu, and this is why so many different types of people find joy in it.

Chris Matakas

#20. It is fellowship, this most fundamental need on our way toward achieving our highest expression of the human experience, which Jiu Jitsu provides.

Chris Matakas

#21. The infinitude of Jiu Jitsu allows for the infinitude of the types of practitioners. There exists a game for each and every one of us which is specifically possible within the confines of our particular skill set.

Chris Matakas

#22. Through Jiu Jitsu I have developed many of the most meaningful relationships in my life, and if that were the only benefit of my practice, Jiu Jitsu would still be the best endeavor I have ever undertaken.

Chris Matakas

#23. Thoreau went to the woods. I went to the mats.

Chris Matakas

#24. We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.

Chris Matakas

#25. Any advanced student will tell you the best way to recover guard is simply not to get your guard passed in the first place.

Chris Matakas

#26. Jiu Jitsu is a vehicle for self-discovery and growth. It reminds me of my ego, of my insecurities, and of my shortcomings.

Chris Matakas

#27. I would more appropriately define mastery as the technical ability possible within the constraints of your particular existence. It must be noted that this is a subjective definition, and that this degree of mastery would be individual to each of us.

Chris Matakas

#28. An arm bar in a vacuum is worthless. It is the realization of the truths which constitute that arm bar that is the real treasure we seek.

Chris Matakas

#29. We must remember that science is a way of using empirical evidence to better understand our world. We are all scientists, just many of us are not very good ones. However, we are all capable of exercising our intellects in a purposeful, linear pursuit of knowledge.

Chris Matakas

#30. You are never as good as you think you are, and you are never as bad as you believe yourself to be.

Chris Matakas

#31. Your progress as a Jiu Jitsu practitioner is a direct reflection of the standards you have for yourself.

Chris Matakas

#32. Jiu Jitsu gives me an ideal to strive toward. Technical mastery lies on an infinite continuum and completion of this skill is impossible. Every time I train I have something that I can improve upon, and this will hold true for each and every training session that lies between me and my grave.

Chris Matakas

#33. The only way to consistently perform at your potential is to ask: Am I better than I was yesterday?

Chris Matakas

#34. All of Jiu Jitsu is finding a way to get your partner to willingly go where you want him to go in the first place.

Chris Matakas

#35. We must not learn to try harder. The key is to learn how not to try in the first place.

Chris Matakas

#36. True mastery, it turns out, is not found in accumulating each and every tool under the sun. True mastery is learning that there are really only a handful of tools, and it is the proper application with correct timing and setting that makes them so useful.

Chris Matakas

#37. Where the hell is your guard?" She shouts.
Damn if she doesn't sound like Haley. "I'm tired."
"Do I look like I care? You're getting the hell pounded out of you. If you want to tap out, then tap out, but don't stand there and let him win.

Katie McGarry

#38. To achieve anything we must grind, but to enjoy anything we must flow.

Chris Matakas

#39. Jiu Jitsu is a baptism by combat, and serves a purpose in the inner life of the individual that has always existed, but our modern culture fails to acknowledge.

Chris Matakas

#40. This is a trust that you just cannot find in modern society for there are no conditions to forge it.

Chris Matakas

#41. By becoming a black belt, you will become whatever it is you wanted to be in the first place, and Jiu Jitsu will have served its aim.

Chris Matakas

#42. Autopilot is great, and removal of thought is one of the highest ideals of training. But removal of thought in the moment must be preceded by purposeful thought beforehand.

Chris Matakas

#43. Do not seek victory, for victory in itself will not serve you. Seek to understand what made the victory possible.

Chris Matakas