You’ve probably heard the saying “Jiu-Jitsu saved my life” and while that sometimes is an exaggeration, I have certainly met many practitioners where that may have literally true.
Some practitioners I know have quit using hard drugs once they fell in love with Jiu-Jitsu or cut back on drinking. Many others will tell you how Jiu-Jitsu has helped their anxiety, depression, confidence or helped get them through a tough time in their life like a divorce or other life stressors.
I myself say all the time that Jiu-Jitsu is my therapy. It’s the one place I come to relieve tension and not think about the millions of other things that weigh me down throughout the day.
For a long time, I wasn’t sure what it was about Jiu-Jitsu that made those who trained regularly fall in love with it. It thought perhaps it was just the release of dopamine or the relationships we build with our teammates, but the other day when I took a seminar on positive psychology, I realized that Jiu-Jitsu gives us much more than that.
Jiu Jitsu Increases Our Sense of Well-Being
The pursuit of happiness is something that most of us have in common and try to achieve in one way or another. Happiness however is often hard to define. In 2012, Dr. Martin Seligman (one of the fathers of positive psychology) described five components that people pursue because they are intrinsically motivating and contribute to wellbeing:
- Positive emotion
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Accomplishments
He coined those five components “PERMA” and in my opinon that is exactly what Jiu-Jitsu gives us.
Positive Emotions
In Jiu-Jitsu we are always provided with the opportunity for positive emotions (hope, interest, joy, love, compassion, pride, amusement, and gratitude). Experiencing positive emotions helps negate many of the negative emotions we deal with and help make us more resilient against negative emotions.
I can’t think of a class I have taken or Jiu-Jitsu related even I have been too where at some point I am not smiling, laughing or feeling good vibes.
Engagement
Engagement as referred to by Dr. Seligman is “being one with the music” or being “in flow”. Flow refers to the loss of self-consciousness and being completely absorbed in an activity. You’re in the present and totally focused on the moment.
Anyone who trains can tell you that especially when rolling (live sparring) you often enter a state of flow without realizing it. It’s hard to think about that report that is due tomorrow when your teammate is trying to strangle you or when you finally see an opportunity to hit an escape you’ve been trying to hit all week.
There are many times I almost didn’t go to class because I wasn’t feeling well mentally or physically and all that goes away as soon as I start rolling and suddenly, at least in that moment, I feel really good.
Flow, or this concept of engagement, occurs when the perfect combination of challenge and skill/strength is found (Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre, 1989).
Rickson Gracie even wrote a book entitled Breath: A Life in Flow which I have read and gifted to several people.
There are many other ways we can practice entering a state of flow by being present such as spending time in nature or engaging in things we really enjoy and can get lost in, but Jiu Jitsu does that naturally and beautifully without us even thinking about it.
Relationships
Positive relationships are very important in having a sense of well-being. Positive relationships include relationships where we feel loved, supported and valued. Jiu Jitsu again does this naturally. If you find the right academy for you, it’s only natural that those strangers will quickly become like family. As hard as they may push you in training, they are always happy to see you, encouraging, want to see you improve and care about you.
I was telling one of my Jiu-Jitsu teammates who I now consider a very close friend that the last time I genuinely made good male friends was my sophomore year in high school. Now at my academy I have training partners I consider brothers and sisters, people I can talk to about my problems and also help them with theirs or just be a sounding board. I have people I laugh with and enjoy spending time with on and sometimes off the mats.
For the most part, the entire Jiu Jitsu community tends to be like that, but of course you will develop special relationships at your academy and probably make more friends than you have made in a long time.
One’s social environment has been found to play a critical role in preventing cognitive decline, and strong social networks contribute to better physical health among older adults (Siedlecki et al., 2014).
Meaning
Having a sense of meaning or purpose in life is extremely important and it’s different for everyone, however training gives us a sense of meaning and purpose in many ways.
Some people train because they want to achieve a black belt someday. Others train for self-defense or physical fitness. Others train because they like to help teach the new student, lower belts or kids classes when they can. They enjoy giving back and helping others. Some train because they enjoy challenging themselves or competing. Others train because they enjoy being a part of something bigger than themselves.
For me it started as a journey of physical fitness and something I wanted to be able to teach my son and it still is, but now I want to achieve a black belt someday. I also enjoy teaching new students and being a part of a family of men and women from different worlds and cultures, but we all share the same passion.
People who report having purpose in life live longer, have greater life satisfaction and fewer health problems (Kashdan et al., 2009).
Accomplishments
Accomplishment in PERMA is also known as achievement, mastery, or competence and that’s another thing that training Jiu-Jitsu offers. It can be small accomplishments like making it through the warmups without resting (that was my goal for the first few weeks when I first started), to perfecting a sweep, guard or move. It can be but doesn’t nor should it always be about stripes and belt promotions because we all know that while those definitely feel great and are encouraging, they often are out of our control.
We achieve a sense of accomplishment by working toward and reaching goals, mastering something and/or having the self-motivation to finish something we set out to do. This contributes to wellbeing because individuals can look at their lives with a sense of pride (Seligman, 2012).
So now when I look back on how and why Jiu-Jitsu is so life changing for myself and others who fall in love with it, I see that it’s because Jiu-Jitsu offers all of us opportunities to work on our well-being and happiness by providing us PERMA regularly.
Research has shown positive associations between each of the PERMA components and physical health, vitality, life satisfaction and commitment. Proactively working on the components of PERMA have also been shown to decrease psychological distress and increase wellbeing.
Of course, there are other ways and other opportunities to work on and increase PERMA in your life and Jiu-Jitsu shouldn’t be your sole source for all of it, but it’s beautiful that it offers so much instinctively.
Grappling with Jiu-Jitsu 