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From divisive billionaire Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, to Keanu Reeves and comedian Jonah Hill, its seems the “it” past time in the male celebrity world is Brazilian jiu jitsu (BJJ).
Before he died by suicide in 2018, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was vocal about both his addictions and love of the sport. Controversial podcaster Joe Rogan and actor Tom Hardy are both BJJ advocates.
In New Zealand, rugby legend Tana Umanga competed at BJJ World Masters in 2022, and LAB drummer Brad Kora owns a gym in Whakatane.
These men are all high-achievers in their chosen fields. Many also have intense personalities. Musk has been described as a demanding micro-manager who was bullied as a kid. Bordain was open about past heroin addiction and Hill has spoken publicly about mental health and body image issues.
Eddie Murphy, children’s coach and trainer at Auckland’s Tukaha BJJ says the sport is alluring to addictive personalities, largely due to the community vibe and the fact that anyone, no matter how fit or strong, will be humbled on the mats.
Murphy himself lived with mental health issues since the age of 14 and is “very passionate” about the benefits of the sport.
“You’ll get a lot of ex-addicts of hard drugs alongside people with really extreme obsessive compulsive disorder. They’ve got very common drivers to them.”
For Murphy personally, BJJ helped with his mental health because of the, “honesty of it”.
“When you’ve suffered from a long-term mental health issue, you have a lot of excuses tucked away for why you can’t do certain things. For me, jiu jitsu stripped away a lot of excuses and showed me I was capable of more than I was allowing myself.”
“The mats don’t lie,” he says.
The sport is a grappling-based self-defence martial art and is primarily ground-based.
There’s a lot more to it, says Murphy, than, “me man, me smash”. Pure aggression won’t get your far in jiu jitsu. The aim is to control, rather than hurt, your opponent.
It’s why, he says, so many men over 30 take up the sport. They can get an intense training in, without the danger of other combat sports like MMA or kickboxing.
When Bourdain became obsessed with jiu jitsu, he detailed his journey through anonymous posts on the social forum reddit, which were published in 2022 by Rolling Stone.
“I’ve been training about a year, and only recently gotten solidly hooked,” he wrote in 2014, adding he trained every day.
“Now it’s an obsession. I’m in shit shape, gas early, and of course, hurt like hell after training. Given the limits of any reasonable expectations, am I out of my f…ing mind?”
Gareth Ealey is the head coach at Auckland’s Westside jiu jitsu and says he’s seen a lot of people with addictions or mental health issues come through the gym over the years, and he’s found the mats give a ”sense of belonging”.
But for other obsessive personalities, like Musk and Zuckerberg, or perhaps high achievers like Umanga and Reeves, there’s a problem-solving aspect to the sport that Murphy and Ealey say is appealing, largely due to opponents constantly moving and changing tactics.
“As soon as you solve one small thing the whole problem immediately changes, and you have to deal with something else,” says Murphy.
“For high performers in the business world it’s super appealing. You get to go through the high of figuring something that seems impossible out, and suddenly it’s not over. You have to keep thinking on your feet.”
And, he says, it’s great for people’s egos.
“You’re constantly getting humbled … [but] you keep coming back. You get stronger through being constantly humbled.”
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