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(00:00.302) Today I want to talk about the benefits of jujitsu and why healthcare workers really need to learn at least some of the basics of jujitsu to help themselves out as well as protect their own patients sometimes from themselves. Jujitsu is a form of grappling that was originally invented or at least mostly invented in Japan and it was invented because The locals were getting invaded and the people that came in were wearing armor. So they had to defend themselves or at least understand how to defend themselves against these people in armor because they could not build their own armor and therefore they would just get run over. The Gracie family brought over Jujitsu from Japan into Brazil and then eventually America. This method of grappling is extremely effective and there's multiple videos online that show instructors from other forms of combat like karate as well as bodybuilders as well as street gangs who try to engage practitioners of jiu -jitsu and they essentially get defeated. So it's very effective and it was so effective that it was adopted by the army, the navy, the air force. you know, several special forces, including the Navy SEALs. And so now it's been popularized by the UFC. So why should it be popularized for healthcare workers? Well, for one, there's several physical health benefits, including improving cardiovascular health, because you're on the mat and you're rolling and it's kind of like a high intensity HIIT training. but it's a little bit different because you're going for like three to four minutes and it's intervals in between those minutes that you're kind of using these bursts of energy to grapple with the other person. It enhances muscular strength, endurance, and even flexibility. So usually before you start training, you'll do a warmup where we run around the mat like four times, then we may face towards the mat and do, (02:20.014) like side stepping and then face the other way do side stepping and Then we may go and try and do things like sprawling and then getting back up with technical getup so there's a lot of initial benefits As far as cardiovascular and muscle strength and endurance go there's also Burning calories so people that I've met and talked to in jujitsu. They'll burn and lose you know, 20 to 30 pounds within the first six months because they're just going at it and it really helps them to maintain a healthy body composition. The other thing is you get good coordination and balance. You have to learn how to use your feet and position your body in space to stay on your feet. So this is really helpful. especially as we get older because our sense of balance starts to kind of decrease. Then there's stress reduction, right? And everybody in healthcare work needs some type of stress reduction. We face multiple problems throughout the day that are very daunting and extremely high acuity and high stress. So as you roll, and rolling means... Doing grappling in jujitsu. You're releasing these endorphins and you're reducing your stress and Afterwards you have a big sense of peacefulness and calmness Usually on your drive home at least that's how it goes for me and I've heard multiple other people describe it as the same thing and so it also helps with things like anxiety and depression and the army understands that it helps with PTSD so That's really, really good because we also experience PTSD in the healthcare industry. The other thing that it helps with is your own kind of mental discipline because it promotes focus and concentration and mental resilience, which again, we all need in this health space because there's lots of times when we may be doing overnight. (04:41.55) shifts and we need to maintain our focus and concentration. And so that's really helpful there. Plus along those same lines, you'll understand that it helps you with problem solving because you'll be thinking about, well, how did I miss that move or what could I have done better? And it's kind of like a game of chess with your own body parts. And so you really have to think about it and do a little bit of strategic thinking. The other aspect is that when you get there, you'll notice that people in the Jiu -Jitsu class can be really social. If they're not, you may want to find another Jiu -Jitsu gym because usually almost every normal gym that I've been to, there's good socialization going on and you get camaraderie among your friends there that you develop. And there's all sorts of range of people that go there. There's everybody who's, you know, from a plumber to, um, I've seen, you know, the, the people who, who I gratefully think to pick up my garbage in front of my house, as well as, you know, people, doctors and attorneys and engineers and, um, nurses and nurse practitioners. And so everybody there is a nice wide range of people that you can learn from. So you can actually make new friends. especially if you're just graduating residency and moving to a new city. Plus, there is this aspect of learning injury prevention and rehab, understanding that, okay, I'm hurt now and I have to stop training jiu -jitsu for a little bit. And so you understand that and you learn this and your instructor should... I don't want you to practice right now. I want you to rehab that a little bit and go get seen by a doctor or physical therapist instead of having to be on the mat again and get re -injured. So that's another really fantastic aspect of it and learning to actually feel your body and understand that. (07:03.534) what it's telling you and how you need to act upon that. And another great one, as far as the lifestyle habits go, the mind -body connection enhances mindfulness and your own body awareness. So the mindfulness aspect is learning to listen to your breath when you're rolling and learning to control that breath, which in turn controls your anxiety and your ability to move through space in a manner that you want to move. So as a side note, I should say that mindfulness, it has been somewhat bastardized in the corporate world as a scapegoat. However, there is true and proven benefits of it and anyone who uses it as a scapegoat needs to get down to jiu -jitsu. and take a few lessons. So mindfulness should not be used as a scapegoat to be placed on healthcare workers in place of reducing either their hours or patients that they need to take care of or getting them additional help. It should not be used as an excuse for that. So getting back to judas. So. Overall, it encourages the development of your own resilience and perseverance because there's a lot of times when you'll be like, oh, I don't want to go do this and you're going to do it. And you're like, wow, I feel 10 times better. And I always feel better after jiu -jitsu. There's almost no time that I really don't. So it teaches you to think about your own trajectory in, in the future and how doing something now can help you feel better later on. And the other thing, and this is for you and even your own patients, it gives you self -defense skills. You can use practical self -defense techniques. And one of the stories that I have is I was in the ER and we had a psychiatric lockdown wing. And I remember somebody had come in and they were on... (09:22.126) They had tried to unalive themselves. And so they were under watch, you know, under my care. And I was sitting there at the front desk and he had wanted to leave and you know, he's six foot two, probably 240, 260 and I'm five eight, 180 pounds. And then I saw, I call security and security is now five two and you know, 140 pounds. So I'm like, oh wow, this is, this is not going to work out very well. So the patient tries to leave and I'm able to slip behind him, get arms around his waist, pull him quickly and then slowly down to the floor. So the quick is the drop down where I kind of drop my knee behind him, behind his knees and he falls back then I catch him and slowly lower him to the ground and then get on top of him and put knee on belly on him. And neon belly is where I just put my knee in the middle of your belly or your sternum and it really helps to keep you down. And it's just that the more you try to get out, the more pressure you have. So we are able to. hold him down until more security came and then we were able to get him into the room and Restrain because he's likely to go and either unalive himself or seriously hurt somebody else So that was just one instance Another instance was where? Protecting a patient from themselves as they're waking up out of anesthesia and I was in between her arm and The side of the bed so her arm was on an extender and I was standing in between her arm and the bed itself and so she wakes up she starts to have a an episode of like anxiety and aggression and So she starts squeezing on me and she's like almost squeezing Like, you know squeezing the crap out of my my stomach and lower abdomen and (11:31.598) So I slipped my knee in there and I pushed her arm back and with my knee and it's, it's almost effortless for me at that point, because you realize in jujitsu that your legs are extremely strong compared to the rest of anyone else's body part. Um, so, you know, she was probably maybe like two, uh, 70 or so. And so I slipped my knee in, I pushed her arm back and. I strap her arm back down to the extender because she's essentially delirious, right? So that's just, you know, one other instance of self -defense skills. And these can take you, you know, six months, a year to really get down. But by then you're progressing, you know, really well in jujitsu and you really understand it. And... it can really, really help you out as well as your own, as well as your own patients. So sometimes the jujitsu will have a women's only class because you also learn that women, their body mass is usually significantly less than a man's. So sometimes they have women's classes and then, you know, or sometimes they don't, sometimes they're mixed, but when you first start out, the instructor will usually pair you up with a higher belt because a higher belt understands the intricacies of moving slowly through the motions of Jujitsu so you don't get hurt. So that's how it should go. And if it doesn't, you may ask, can you be paired up with a higher belt? Because sometimes the instructor just doesn't notice. So what do you need if you first go there, right? Well, you're gonna need a gi and you can look on Amazon, search Jujitsu gi, it's spelled J -I -U, J -I -T -S -U and then G -I, Jujitsu gi, so you can look for one that will fit you. I'm five foot eight, 180 pounds, I wear an A2 and so you can order just a regular gi off of Amazon, doesn't have to be a super special one and then you also want to order a (13:58.83) mouth guard so you can order a mouth guard off of Amazon and then you also want to order some hand sanitizer because you do not want to get a staph infection on your first day. So the last aspect I'm going to say is that you can protect yourself with it and I remember there was somebody, or you can protect others with it actually. There was a nurse who got in a confrontation with somebody on the OB -GYN delivery wing where I was at and I had to come up behind that person because they had pushed the nurse and so I was able to kick behind his knee and then he dropped and I was able to get him in a seatbelt hold and pull him down to the floor and wrap my legs across his abdomen and lock that in and hold him down and he was not hurt at all. I just was able to lower him down and get him down to the floor so that way he was not hurting the nerves again. So that's just some of the really good and extremely helpful benefits of jujitsu that I suggest that everybody should get trained in. I also say that, hey, if you're a high up in the hospital, sponsor an event, right? Go to one of your local MMA gyms or one of your local jujitsu gyms and sponsor an event to get your people trained. Um, if you're in near a Gracie gym or something like that, they have, uh, I believe they already have some type of healthcare training seminar that they could probably do. And it's great for everybody, kids to, um, grandparents. So. Get out there, do a little bit of experimenting, which is good for your mind, and check out some jujitsu.