📝 Jiujitsu Actually Should Be Therapeutic

A horrifying scandal is unfolding in front of the jiujitsu community. I think we need to address why jiujitsu isn’t therapy, even if science says martial arts could be.

That means if you’re only interested in technique skip ahead to the Help Desk updates.

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Now let’s get into it.

A scandal has taken over jiujitsu. Izaak Michell, this year’s ADCC Oceania Trials Winner at -77KG, is evading police after allegedly sexual assaulting several women.

The public isn’t privilege to many details yet. We do know a handful of women have publicly come forward to say Izaak violated them. One was his former teammate’s sister who is a jiujitsu competitor herself.

Horrifying isn’t the half of it.

I live in the same city that many of the alleged crimes took place. And I happen to know several members of Austin’s police force. I can say that I'm hearing Izaak is closer to a life in prison than he is to ever competing in jiujitsu again.

Izaak’s countrymate and former coach, Craig Jones, is doing his part to aid in Izaak’s capture by posting Instagram stories of his whereabouts. Izaak last competed about a month ago in Thailand. Then he never came back to America. Originally it seemed like he was enjoying a break back home in Australia. Today it looks like this was a calculated move to evade American law enforcement.

What happened? Why would a professional athlete throw their life away by disregarding the humanity of their fellow practitioners as soon as they entered their prime?

I thought jiujitsu made us better people?

I’m not a scientist. I don’t play one on TV. I used to have to spend days upon weeks reading scientific literature to talk to them for my job, so indulge me as we review some literature related to this topic.

I was curious so I spent a bit of this weekend trying to find papers on how exercise impacts mental health and how martial arts specifically might help.

In 2023 The British Journal of Sports Medicine conducted a review of systematic reviews to synthesize evidence on the effects physical activity has on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in adults. Some important findings were:

This review of reviews did not explicitly touch on martial arts. I would argue that between “yoga” and “all physical activity types” martial arts should generally be accepted as physical activity that can improve mental health. Still, it’s important to look at what other research says about martial arts specifically.

This review concludes “there is support for martial arts training as an efficacious sports-based mental health intervention for improving wellbeing”. I couldn’t find the full text so I pressed on.

Funny enough, this short paper surveyed 420 BJJ athletes to find black belts are more likely to present “higher mental strength, resilience, grit, self-efficacy, self-control, life satisfaction, and better mental health than white belts, with no differences in aggression”. But of the 420 athletes surveyed, there was hardly any controls done for the age, number, and gender of these athletes. I’m not sure what you could hope to do with this information.

Then I was able to come across some larger reviews of martial arts more generally.

This master’s thesis reviews many papers about martial arts. The author notes that most studies performed on martial arts are hard to parse through because they look at different styles, populations, and a whole host of other variables. But the general takeaway is most studies demonstrate positive outcomes on mental health and wellbeing. Each martial art has a unique style and philosophy, but they all seem to share a common objective rooted in mental, philosophical, and historical pieces that make training helpful for mental health and well-being beyond just learning how to fight.

It’s kind of en vogue for jiujitsu people to remind others that the martial art is not therapy. It’s a hobby. Some consider it a sport, but almost no one should invest their life into fighting friends on the floor to develop their sense of wellbeing.

But then you look at what the (limited) research says and it argues the opposite.

So, what gives? Why isn’t jiujitsu building better minds? Why is everyone so quick to dismiss jiujitsu as a legitimate therapeutic intervention?

I was at open mat this past Saturday. Midway through the session I found myself sitting beside a woman who trains at my gym. She’s a black belt that has been training for more than a decade in gyms all over the world. She has a good grasp on jiujitsu culture and the competitive scene.

Can I ask you something?

Sure.

Do you feel safe here?

What?

As a woman training here, do you feel safe?

Yeah. Yes. Of course. What the fuck are even you talking about?

We proceeded to go back and forth about Izaak, jiujitsu culture, and gym safety generally. I don’t remember everything she said but one thing stood out.

I think the current no gi culture is ruining jiujitsu. I know this sounds stupid or whatever, but everyone who is getting into jiujitsu now skips the gi and skips the steps that actually make you learn the culture.

The more I think about it, the more I think she’s right. I don’t think you necessarily need to train in the gi. But the theme of her argument is dead on.

In 1985 a short study was conducted on tae kwon do students. The authors, Trulson and Kim, found that as students became more experienced they showed lower anxiety, sense of responsibility, a decrease in risk taking willingness, were less radical, had increased self esteem, and were generally more socially intelligent. These trends were especially pronounced in the black belt levels. The authors went on to say aggressiveness often comes from low self-esteem and that martial arts may reduce aggressiveness through this mechanism.

One of the authors, Trulson, conducted a related study on males under 18 scoring highly on psychopathic deviation, schizophrenia, and hypomania. These subjects also scored low on measures of interest in the opposite sex, suggesting a predominately masculine type of response. This group was labeled "juvenile delinquents".

These juvenile delinquents were given training in "traditional" tae kwon do, "modern" tae kwon do and in physical activities, all with the same instructor. The "traditional" training included meditation, general and specific tae kwon do exercises including kata, lectures on philosophy stressing respect, confidence, self-esteem, fitness, patience, perseverance and honor. Personal responsibility was stressed in these lectures. The "modern" training contained only free-sparring and self-defence techniques as well as other physical exercises. The control group participated in various physical activities and was intended to control for maturation and contact with the instructor.

At the end of 6 months the control group showed no changes in aggressiveness but some increase in social adroitness and self-esteem.

The "modern" training group showed a greater tendency toward delinquency than before the training and a very large increase in aggressiveness. The “traditional” training group uncovered the opposite.

The "traditional" group displayed a normal psychological profile, with no delinquent traits after 6 months of training. They displayed an aggressiveness below the average, as well as lowered anxiety, increased self-esteem, social adroitness, and orthodoxy.

Trulson attributes the effects of the "traditional" training to four things:

In a follow-up study of these subjects the 'traditional" students remained non-delinquent while "modern" and control group students exhibited delinquent traits.

The author notes the effects on aggressiveness in the "modern" group with extreme concern as there are many martial arts schools now teaching youths which may be using this type of training and which may be producing more aggressive students.

After 15 years of practicing, teaching, and working in martial arts I can confidently say they can be therapeutic. If you disagree it’s probably your gym’s fault.

My senior year of high school began with my dad going to rehab and the police changing the locks on our door. I became homeless.

My best friend let me sleep at his place so at least I had shelter. And I had a job at the time, so I could feed myself and buy gas to get to get to school. But the gym I was training at stopped asking me for membership dues. They never said why, but I have to think it’s because they wanted to make it easy for me to train so I’d have a positive place to go after school and work.

That community saved me from spiraling to depression, drug addiction, and probably an early grave. Now I can’t imagine doing anything other than paying it forward.

When I hear stories like Izaak’s I get sick to stomach. He violated the trust of training partners in a sacred space that should facilitate character development. He was so focused on conquering a sport that most people don’t know exists, let alone care about, that he turned into a hyper aggressive monster. And the people around him seemingly let it happen. At the very least, they didn’t create a room that stops that bullshit.

If you are reading this and you teach martial arts it’s your responsibility to build a better room. You need to prevent inconsiderate, hyper aggressive behavior before it becomes a piece of people’s character.

Creating a gym that is helpful for more than hard rounds is walking a fine line. You need to be a place where men and women that need to work on themselves can, while actively correcting students’ misbehavior and removing those that repeatedly violate your code of conduct.

You have to expect people will mess up, let them, and then help them right their wrongs.

Of course you can teach your students to want to dominate exchanges and win matches. You should. But if you emphasize winning at all costs, don’t be surprised when your students treat their training partners like tools instead of people.

Jiujitsu is not therapy. That doesn’t mean it can’t be therapeutic. To the contrary, it seems like martial arts have a greater capacity to impact mental health than many other forms of movement medicine.

If that is true and you do teach martial arts it’s your responsibility to control your training room to stop the next Izaak from walking whatever path made that boy into the monster he is today.

Rafael Lovato Jr. is an American martial arts hero. Not only is Lovato the first American to win the Brazilian Nationals at black belt, he’s also the first person to take an IBJJF Grand Slam. That means he won gold at the IBJJF Brazilian Nationals, European, Pan American, and World Championships in the same calendar year.

What’s most impressive about Lovato is how he has continuously challenged himself throughout his career.

Lovato recently enrolled at Oklahoma City College to compete for their wrestling team this year at 42. He even won his first match this past weekend! This is after placing third at the Freestyle Wrestling Masters Nationals in the Master B 35-42 220-pound (100 kg) division last year.

In between his Brazilian jiu-jitsu and wrestling careers Lovato made a great run in MMA. In just under five years he was able to take Bellator’s middleweight title from Gegard Mousasi. And he won that contest with crafty classic Brazilian jiu-jitsu like what we see below.