Professor Christian Simmerling grew up ski racing and playing football, played professional football for a few years, and found in jiu-jitsu a way to keep an athletic career going into his 40s and fill the void football left behind. With Pete hosting solo, he explains what a football player brings to the mat, from dropping the hips on contact to a habit of real preparation that he feels jiu-jitsu competitors have only recently embraced, and why a purple belt should not be discouraged when a white-belt wrestler with years of mat time tosses them around.

Christian urges students not to throw away techniques that don't click early, describing how the balloon sweep he once hated now works on big, athletic opponents, and why jiu-jitsu has to seep into the subconscious rather than be solved with endless what-ifs. His favorite transformations are shy 13- and 14-year-olds who start looking adults in the eye, and he has firm advice for parents: if you don't train, criticize nothing and praise everything. He closes on preparation as a life skill, the difference between being hurt and being injured, and the sign on his Calgary school's door: jiu-jitsu is not for everybody.

In this episode

• 0:00 Welcome
• 1:05 Meet Professor Christian Simmerling
• 2:08 Extending an athletic career
• 4:13 What football brings to jiu-jitsu
• 6:25 Respecting the wrestler's mat time
• 8:37 Don't discard techniques
• 11:53 Letting jiu-jitsu become instinct
• 15:03 Shy teenagers who change
• 17:14 Advice for jiu-jitsu parents
• 20:21 Are kids really softer now
• 22:24 Humility and the rare super villain
• 24:28 Preparation off the mat
• 28:46 Finding the right school
• 30:52 Hurt versus injured

Watch on YouTube · Subscribe to The Jiu Jitsu Mindset