E174 | Finding Your Flow: Balancing Jiu-Jitsu and Home Life

Full Transcript

David Figueroa Martinez: Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing balancing Jiu-Jitsu and the home life. Uh, this, especially if you're new, is going to be a challenge. Uh, we tend to get addicted to this new prize, whether it's Jiu-Jitsu or some other hobby. And when we as practitioners find how beneficial it is for us, and how fun it is, and how much we get out of it in a nurturing way, and just what it does for our mental, our physical, everything on board, everything under the sun, it can create a, a moment for us where we just dive headfirst.

You, you've seen the white belts that come in, and they want to train five, six times a week. They want to sneak in training during lunch hour if they can, they want to jump in, and everything about them becomes training-oriented. And in some cases, we start adding BJJ to our handle on Instagram, and everything becomes Jiu-Jitsu related. Our conversations, things that we're studying, what we're spending our money on, what we're spending time on. And that process, or that phase, can sometimes become problems at home. And I've yet to hear a podcast or see a post relating to that endeavor or that phase of Jiu-Jitsu.

My belief is this: if your home life is struggling, then your Jiu-Jitsu is going to struggle too, because it's—it's going to feel like you're stealing time or you're being selfish. You want to, uh—you want an understanding at home of what you can do training-wise that your partner or your kids feel like they're not second fiddle to the passion that you have for this hobby or this sport, whether you're competing or you're a hobbyist or whatever. That you don't want them to leave thinking that this is your priority. First off, you have your work, which is going to be a massive uh, portion of your day. Then you got your spouse, your kids, Jiu-Jitsu. Some of you may be taking care of uh, other family members.

Uh, you might be taking care of siblings, you might be taking care of parents, grandparents. So there's a huge responsibility for you, specifically if you have a job that maybe requires more than 40 hours a week, that balancing act is really tough. The more kids you have, the tougher that gets. If you have three, four, five kids and your spouse now has to kind of watch the household while you're off at training, or maybe you have really young kids, it's tough. It's tough to balance, and it's tough to understand how you're going to make everything work. Um, my thing—I don't have kids, so I'll be clear. I have never had to juggle kids. I don't have them. The thing that I've had to juggle is my—my job and my spouse, and sometimes like commitments that I have to my mom or some other friend or some other thing that we got going on with maybe in-laws or whatever.

Uh, when I got—when I was getting ready to get married, we went to couples counseling, and it was something that was geared through or suggested—I don't even think it was suggested, it was mandated through the church that we were at. And the thing that they were very adamant was—and I take this away almost 20 years later—was when we were there, they talked about who's going to do what, what are you going to do for the chores, who's going to balance the books, who's going to uh, do the cooking, and—and all these other things that people sometimes don't think about when they are starting a life with someone. You just kind of assume that, oh, it's just going to get done. But it doesn't really get done. You really got to figure out who's going to do what and why, maybe a certain skill set's best for them in that sense, maybe it's best for you to understand these other things. It's really hard to kind of understand that—that process.

But one of the things that I took away that really stuck with me, again, nearly 20 years later, was the emotional bank account. And again, don't take this analogy to think that you're going to make a bunch of deposits and then you're going to steal time later knowing that the deposits are there. It's not meant for you—so when I explain this, it's not meant for you to take advantage of, and it's not meant for you to do something nice knowing that you're going to piss someone off later. That's not what this is about. But the analogy was: if you are not making deposits in your emotional bank account with your spouse, your kids, and you come into a hard phase where maybe, in this case, you have been bitten by the Jiu-Jitsu bug and you're going to spend a lot of time there.

Or maybe you decide to compete, and for, I don't know, three, four weeks, you're going to spend more time at the gym than you normally do, and that can cause some upheaval. So you decide that you're going to do those things, but if your emotional bank account is close to zero, or it's already in the red, when you make that decision, it's going to put you in the negative territory. And it's going to create issues at home where your spouse is feeling neglected or looked over or ignored, and that they're not getting their ends—their—their needs met. Same with your kids. So the thought process was, you do the things that you need to do knowing that at some point you may get selfish.

Maybe you have a tendency every once in a while to be a little moody, maybe you have a tendency every once in a while to get a little selfish with something. And because you've done all these other things in place, knowing that we're all going to have those bad days where maybe we get home and we're a little short with our spouse or we're not as attentive, maybe we're exhausted from work or whatever, it allows us to have a buffer. So that when that happens, the spouse isn't completely turned off to being with you, because they understand that more often than not, you're fulfilling their needs and you're fulfilling the needs of the household. So you do the things that you need to do on a regular basis.

And then there's going to be moments where, for example, 'Hey, uh, I'm sorry, but I have this competition coming up. I'm three, four weeks out. Um, I'm going to add an extra day or two of training. Is this okay for you?' They can make the decision, 'Well, I can't—can you tell me what the schedule looks like?' And then you guys can work out what that might look like, what responsibility—responsibilities that spouse has to take on, because they're going to have to take up something. And then you can decide, 'Okay, and off—once I get back, we'll work this out or we'll work some other thing out, or I just—I really want to make sure that this—I'm well prepared for this competition.' So that discussion has to be had. Again, if your home life is not uh, taken care of or is being neglected, you're going to have some major issues and problems, and your Jiu-Jitsu is going to suffer long-term.

So I have always been—and I'm not saying that I have always gotten it right—but I've at least always been conscious of what it means for the home life. Again, I don't have kids. But I want to make sure that she's okay and that she understands like, 'Hey, what I'm taking on is going to require me to be home less.' For me lately, it's uh, the number of classes I'm teaching. So then I have to decide, every time that someone requests or I come across a teaching opportunity, I don't make the decision myself. I get with her and I discuss it. I'm like, 'So it means that I'm going to be doing this every other Friday.' For example, when I took on Five Peaks. So I knew that giving up every Friday to teach wasn't going to work out well, even if it meant more money coming in, because the time together is super important.

So I came up with, 'Hey, what happens if I teach every other Friday? Do you have an issue?' She did not. Gives her time to enjoy her movies or whatever. I get those two extra classes in a month. Um, 'All right, so I'm being requested to substitute at a—at a gym nearby. Do we have anything going on on X date?' 'Uh, no, it's good, go ahead.' So it's not asking for permission, but your partner needs to be involved in the decisions you make so it feels more like a partnership. So whether you are just a student and you're training three days a week and you want to add that fourth, or you're training three days a week and you understand that home life is suffering a little bit because maybe the schedule you're training on isn't great, but you don't want to give up Jiu-Jitsu, so one of the things you can do—just a thought—go to an early class.

I teach 5:00 AM three days a week, and the reason I can do a lot of the things that I'm doing teaching-wise is because of those three days a week that are 5:00 AM, do not touch uh, any time that I would devote or use or spend at home with the spouse. They're—she's asleep. We're not doing anything at 5:00 AM. So instead of sleeping in, I go take care of that, allows me to do things that I want to do, allows me to train, allows me to put some time in. And then if you're a student, that allows you to have the afternoons free to do the things that you need to do with the spouse and the kids. So really take time to decide what works best for the family. Because at the end of the day, yes, Jiu-Jitsu gives us a lot of benefits and gives us a lot of—it's great for the mental, it's great for the body, it's great for confidence, it's great for health, it gives us a third place to go to and hang out with friends and have a community that's super supportive. All that is great, and we shouldn't feel selfish for wanting it, because without it, many of us would have issues.

We would have—we would be unhealthy, be hea—heavier, we would be maybe moody because we don't have the social interactions that we have with Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe it helps out some of your anxieties to—to get to—to expel that energy out. So it's—it's not beneficial for us to feel like, well, it's—it's selfish that I—that I want this. You should want it! But you also need to work with your spouse and the kids, and make them understand—make them understand sounds rough—explain why this is so beneficial to you, and in most cases, your spouses already see it. My wife saw it. Like, they see the different version of you that—that has come about after starting Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe you're more confident, maybe you're more mellow, maybe you're just too tired to be angry or—or upset or moody, that's a whole 'nother thing. But you often see the difference in people. The way they talk, the way they walk, the way they stand. Jiu-Jitsu's a big positive for so many of us, so I don't want you guys to feel selfish for—for wanting the specific time that you need.

Because both spouses should have that, not just you. Your spouse should have that as well, however she feels or he feels they need it. But we have to be flexible and understanding of what that's going to look like for the home dynamic. I've seen way too many new students, even some more experienced students, spend so much time at Jiu-Jitsu. They get there, they—they say they're only—we have this running joke. I remember this guy who was like, 'Hey, I'm only supposed to be here for an hour. It's already an hour and 20 minutes. She's pissed.' And we joked, and I understood, and I legitimately, 'Hey bro, you should probably leave.' But it was this joke of like, man, she's already pissed off. What's—what's another half hour? I'm already in trouble. And sometimes you can get away with that when your emotional bank account is full and you've done the things that you should be doing, date nights and taking care of things around the house, and your spouse will be understanding.

But if you're neglecting home and doing that, you're shitting all over that relationship and that—those tasks and those responsibilities. It's a—it's a difficult balancing act, and for some people, it's going to mean sometimes I can only train twice a week. Maybe you supplement two night classes and you get a third class in by going to 5:00 AM. Or you get a third class in by going to an early open mat on the weekend, knowing everybody's—people are taken care of, it's 7:00 AM, they're not quite awake yet, I get home, I make breakfast, or I get home and I take care of the kids and let her leave or let him leave or whatever. But get creative, understand that the family comes first, and you don't want to cause any turmoil on that. Jiu-Jitsu's super important to you, get creative with your time slot and how much you can train and how much you—time you can devote, because this matters, but so do they. Do not put your training ahead of them at all.