Jock Willink: Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.

In a recent interview, Dean Lister Blackbelt and former Navy Seal Jocko Willing discussed some of the benefits of training jiu-jitsu:

Jiu Jitsu is a great workout both mentally and physically. You want to be strong for it and flexible for it. You want to have explosive energy and you want to have endurance. So it’s a very good all-around physical conditioning tool. Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.

However, he makes the salient point of one of the biggest problems people have when starting jiu-jitsu . . . checking their ego at the door:

I loved teaching the guys as much as I could, and as much as they wanted. The thing about Jiu Jitsu is it is also not for everybody. It can be very humiliating and humbling. If you have a hard time dealing with the fact that someone smaller than you may be able to tap you out, it is going to be difficult. There are two reactions you can have to that reality. Some people take it as a reason to learn more so that it doesn’t happen again, and some people decide to do that by never stepping into a gym again. You really never know who will make what decision. For me, I knew I wanted to be able to make sure that it wouldn’t be done to me, and I would be able to do it to other people.

You can read the entire interview here.