Money Can't Buy Jiu Jitsu Happiness
the real cost of jiu jitsu
For years I’ve talked about how jiu jitsu is an expensive sport/hobby, but I’ve never really sat down and reflected on the expenses for it. Writing this essay has been an exhausting, eye-opening affair. It has shown me not just how much time that I spend on jiu jitsu, but how much of what I earn goes towards this activity.
Jiu jitsu will be a central part of my life for 2022, but I want to be more intentional about how I spend my money. But for now, here are the insights for 2021.
Note: for this analysis, in addition to provide rough estimates, I also give the figures in relative degress. So, one 🥋 emoji = one monthly membership.
Membership Fees
School 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 USJA 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 Secondary Gym (for lifting) 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋
The membership fee was fairly reasonable for the area that the school was at. I also paid for a lifetime membership for USJA, on top of the initial per year fee (the lifetime fee was a special they ran around Thanksgiving). You need it to compete in events, but also to even train, as the sport of judo can be dangerous and requires specialized sports insurance.
I also started paying a separate gym membership for weightlifting. You don’t really get muscles from doing jiu jitsu because most of it involves using as little energy as possible. The lifting helped my neck, back, and legs become stronger, which in turn allowed me to get less injured.
Commuting
Lyft Fees 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 🥋🥋🥋🥋
I spent a whopping amount on Lyft rides because I don’t drive, my school was far away from the Metro and in Virginia. A hefty chunk of change was spent getting to/from various sites during tournaments, camps, and out-of-town gym visits. A small part was for a Lyft Pink membership to get a discount off each ride.
Taking a Lyft became stressful over time. Lyft drivers would get lost, almost crash, fail to find my pickup location, come too early or too late even when I scheduled the time range, and some were just plain weird. If I forgot to schedule a ride, I would have to fight the surge pricing and make difficult choices about when to arrive. Plus, the majority of the classes started during DC rush hour—which was barely manageable even though most people were working from home.
For 2022, I’m hoping to utilize a lot more public transport and biking. It will be a bigger time suck for sure, but I am hoping a few hacks will help ease the stress of commuting. First, I plan on using Google Maps to plan what trains I will take on the Metro, so that at least I can figure out the best time to leave home/class. Second, I am only going to go to schools next to the metro or within walking distance, which should encourage me to use the Metro or to bike there on days with good weather. Third, I also don’t have any camps or competition planned for jiu jitsu, at least in the first part of the year, and that should greatly cut down on the “outside of class” costs. Finally, I plan to factor that “dead” time to “alive” time by writing, listening to podcasts/audiobooks, or doing mobility exercises.
Tournaments and Camps
Registration Fees
🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋
Lodging
🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋
🥋🥋🥋🥋
Amtrak
🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋
Flights*
🥋🥋
*redeemed miles reduced overall costIn 2021, I wanted to compete as much as possible and also try out different training camps. It ended up being an exhausting and expensive journey, although I did have some great adventures in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Las Vegas, and Florida. Roughly 45% of the tournament fees were for Grappling Industries, which I did decently at. The remaining 55% were a really stressful judo tournament as a first-timer and IBJJF tournaments, all of which I lost in the first round.
For 2022, I don’t intend to compete in any tournaments and instead invest in activities that more directly affect my skill development. Thus, I want this money can go towards more low-stakes — but still productive — development in jiu jitsu, like private lessons and open mats.
After more careful reflection and soul-searching, the 2021 tournament year has been mostly a net negative in terms of time spent away from classes and my partner. The thing is, I never really set out for myself the goal of competing as much as possible. I did it because one of my teammates was doing it, and I felt the need to keep up. I also thought the more I could have success in competition, the sooner I would get promoted.
Overall…just some really weird (but understandable) motivation for A LOT of time, money, and sacrifice. I spent a lot of lonely nights not training and being by myself in my room, sometimes with spotty internet. The lows of the tournament were really low, and the highs were few and far in between. In addition, the vacation days that I had went largely to tournament travel and attendance—as anyone who has competed knows, traveling for a tournament is not a real vacation.
Mentorships
1x1 weekly calls to review training footage 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 1x1 bimonthly calls for mindset development 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 Ad hoc text messaging support for conceptual development 🥋
Earlier on in 2021 I became frustrated with my lack of concrete progress in jiu jitsu, particularly in sparring. I had made great strides with drilling but the point of jiu jitsu is to fight, and I wasn’t having much success with getting things to work. On top of that, I felt like my instructor was giving an inordinate amount of time to specific students instead of to me.
Taking a feather from my high school academic days, I decided to invest in three mentorships for myself.
I started working with a high-level black belt who I had taken a private lesson with during his seminar tour. Every week, we would review footage from training and talk about what to fix specific to my game.
I renewed my contract with a female brown belt who focused specifically on mindset development. I scheduled calls, usually every two weeks, and reported back on the commitments that I made on the last call and any new issues that popped up.
I signed up for a more ad hoc type of mentorship with another female black belt where we discussed abstract principles that I could concretely apply in training, like flow, play, rhythm training, and the like.
I feel a little weird talking about getting outside help for my training. It feels gunner-ish and I’m well aware that many people see their membership as a huge drain on their resources already, let alone three damn mentorships. Yet, what I’ve discovered is that getting coaching is a lot more different than instructing. Coaching means guiding someone through the journey that they are on and instructing is really just spoonfeeding information. The instructor in class simply does not have time to look at your shortcomings and answer your questions each session.
Training Gear
BJJ Gis 🥋🥋 Judo Gis 🥋🥋🥋 Rashguards & Spats 🥋🥋🥋
With increased training, comes increased laundry. I bought all new uniforms in 2021 and my closet is still filled with them for 2022. My old gis were crinkly and tight from too many dryer trips.
This is one expense that I don’t regret spending money on. There’s a lot of choices for what you want to wear in jiu jitsu, and it’s one of the ways that people show off their personalities.
Instructionals
BJJ Fanatics 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋 Grappler’s Guide 🥋 Grapplearts 🥋
2021 was a year that I really started to dig deep into learning by myself, for myself. But, I would be remiss if I failed to admit that I sometimes bought instructionals more for the same reasons you buy an outfit that you wear once, rather than to enjoy the product over time.
I learned that I’m not one of those prodigies that can watch a move once or twice and be able to execute it in sparring (duh); there is no “Get Rich Quick” scheme in jiu jitsu. I also learned that instructionals make me really sleepy and that I can only absorb the material if I watch only 2-3 techniques at a time, take notes, ponder it mentally, drill it, and then attempt it in situationals.
Of all of the purchases, I would say that Grappler’s Guide was certainly the best one. This website is essentially an encylopedia of techniques that is updated constantly. I find the search function when I have a specific issue that I need to troubleshoot. I found the larger “systems” instructionals to be overwhelming, unless I already had a good foundational basis for the covered positions.
Recovery
CBD Gummies/Tincture🥋🥋🥋🥋
After seeing enough people tout the benefits of CBD, I decided to try it for myself. It’s unclear if CBD directly has helped me recovery, but indirectly it has assisted in making me sleep better, which does directly aid in recovery.
Sports Massage (25 sessions) 🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋🥋
After a particularly long weekend spent with agonizing neck spasms, I finally contacted a sports massage therapist that I had been eying and asked to be scheduled for a massage. Prior to this, I had been doing massages only once in a while, but massage therapists kept telling me that I needed multiple sessions, not just one. It turns out, for really tight muscles, it does take several hours to loosen up different parts of the muscle. I have been getting massages twice a week, regularly, and they’ve been a gamechanger in terms of my overall happiness.
I still need to take care of myself during training, but knowing that there’s backup helps lift some of that physical (and mental) burden.
They say that money can’t buy happiness, but that it can buy experiences that allow you to enjoy life just a little bit more. To some extent, I agree with this statement. But I hope that I also take the time to be more present and enjoy each of those experiences. I hope that whenever I do spend a dollar in jiu jitsu, that I fully feel the positive impacts of whatever I have invested in and mitigate the potential negative effects. But most of all, I hope that I will find more ways to experience abundance and happiness in jiu jitsu beyond the dollar.
