Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Would Jocko Do An MMA Fight? | Career Opportunity VS Family Needs

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

>Get Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Would Jocko Do An MMA fight? When you should and shouldn't get a dog. Getting a hold of a haphazard schedule and staying on the path. What to do if you think you have a good leader, but a bad team. Career opportunity VS family needs.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 211. Sitting here with Echo Charles and we have got some questions from the field. We have responses, answers, recommendations at a minimum some courses of action you can take to proceed forward and win in life. Let's get into it. Courses of action. That's good. At least find yourself out of the maze that life can become sometimes. See what I'm saying?

Life can be tricky. Maybe even a direction. We like it. You've got four possible solutions. choose a good one and effective one, but you're already saying ahead of the game. Yep. That's what I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for adding that. I just felt that it would be helpful.

Chuck. First question. Check. Hi, Chuck. I have a lighthearted question for you. I want to ask if you guys would ever compete professionally in jiu-jitsu or fighting. I was recently at a hockey game. And as I used to play hockey, I realized how bad I missed playing.

I wondered if you felt that way about fighting although I know you do jiu jitsu all the time would you ever fight someone in the octagon at your current state and the level thanks for your time uh yeah man well i guess i guess i don't know um the main the main thing here is time because if you're going to go get into uh compete in jiu jitsu and i wouldn't compete m m ms because the m ms is is the m m ms has evolved to a point where like guys are just freaking so good, which is weird, because in the early UFCs, you know, we could watch those or I could watch

those early UFCs and know that like, oh, I could hang with that guy. And actually we did, you know, we trained with a lot of those guys back in the day. And so you'd know like, oh, there's like, we're in the same zone, you know what I mean? But nowadays, like these guys are just ridiculously better. Most of them.

So, MMA is kind of out of the question right now. But then, you know, of course, I'm around Jiu-Jitsu all the time. And the thing is, you have to train Jiu-Jitsu a lot to be ready for competition. And competition is no joke. And so I generally have a hard time stringing together enough training for a long enough period of time where I'd be like up to speed type thing. So that's kind of why the other thing, but also like I competed a lot when I was younger and I basically stopped competing once the war started.

So I started training in like 19, well, the initial training was in the early, like 1992, 1993, started, learned the basics of jiu jitsu, started actually training in like 9090, late 1995 and then was competing as soon as there was a tournament right yeah and then did a bunch did competed a bunch in those years 95 96 97 98 99 2000 2001 the war started and I competed a few more times when I was in college but then it was like I just didn't want to get hurt and not be able to do my job which when you compete your chance of getting hurt go out up. So that's another reason. And, you know, I just, I just get, I just enjoy training a lot. And I get the gratification filled from training jiu-jitsu and train with a bunch of great guys and everyone's

cool training partners. You know, everyone's good. These, you know, I train with like guys that are really, really good. Guys that are world, like actual world class guys. And I get to train with them. And everyone's cool, you know, and no one's, no one's trying to hurt each other. There's no ego. Like, it's just, it's just fun, it's good. And jiu-jitsu is so fun anyways. So that's probably what I'll stick to. Yeah, makes sense.

Do you, I've always felt after about, like, let's say, 40 years old. Actually, it was like, once you kind of get into, like, a career that's steady and, like, you start a family and, you know, so. The competition, like, feeling like, oh, I want to compete in this and that, like, for real, and commit to a competition seems to shuffle down the priority list pretty quick. That's how it happened for me. Yeah, well, you know, your family becomes a priority more than, like, some weather, whatever the competitive thing you might do. Yeah, that can happen for sure.

Right. Yeah. I feel like that has happened. Because I'll feel that a lot of the times. Like, when I watch, like, freaking coach Rana and UFC freaking BJJ, I'm like, I would do a super fight. against somebody, you know, like somebody, you know, about my age and weight or whatever. Is that a challenge? Literally the moment I stopped getting inspired by the TV that I'm watching, I'm like,

bro, I'm so glad I don't have to mentally prepare. Because really it's mentally. And yeah, if you have, which is going to be harder for you, but if you have the schedule that you can train and stuff. Yeah. Okay. But then there's the mental pull to it, you know? Like, I don't know.

When I was compete, I competed for six years, just like straight, competing, competing, competing. It was all, like, that's all I would really think about was, like, the competition coming up. And I'm not even saying, like, stress about it. I'm just saying, but you just think about it all the time. You know, I like kind of, kind of a lot of the decisions you make, like you can't go drink and do all this stuff or whatever. It's like, that's kind of, it mentally, you exist kind of there a little bit, you know, a lot or a lot more. So I don't, I am not in the mood for that part of it at all. You know what's kind of cool is I was talking to Coach Rana and

She was like the horrible feeling Of why did I sign up for this? What am I doing here? Why did I volunteer for this? I don't really need to do this I could say I sprained my ankle walking over here and not have to do this like all those things and she's like this is the only way I can get that feeling Oh like the only way you can get that like I've got to overcome all these little mental things. She's like the only way I can get it is to compete. Yeah. That's the only because, you know, we go out, you know, it's like, just like I was just saying,

like I'll go out and train. I'm going to train in about an hour. I'm going to train with, you know, we'll get out there. We're going to, you know, what is it? Slap, bump and roll, right? And I'm going to do that with a bunch of people. I'll tap. They'll tap some people.

It won't really matter. Have some draws. But like, it's no one's watching. No one cares. No egos are hurt my ego doesn't care their ego doesn't care it's all good But then when you take that out onto the stage You know and you're competing and then all of a sudden it's a win or lose all these people are watching you It's accepting defeat it's being dominated being beaten but despite all your investment and all your training

You've lost and and losing in in grappling or in fighting of any kind is very very Tribal and primal and personal because it's like hey if you be me in basketball guess what if you beat me in basketball I will still like push you and let's fight you know what I mean there's still that there's still that if you beat me in hockey I'll be like okay cool let's fight if you beat me in a sprinting race guess what I say you go hey you're slow jaco you suck and you know what I say I'll beat your ass right we fight that's what we're doing but when you just fought and you lost the fight there's nothing else to say and even even you don't even

see like occasionally you see it occasionally you'll see like a grappling scenario where the grappling outcome of a grappling match will escalate into a fight but you don't see it very often because everybody kind of knows like if I if I just beat you in a grappling match I would beat you in an MMA match a lot of times right everyone kind of accepts that but so it's so to get that feeling of like bro why did I even what what what decisions have I made in my life right now and can I undo them to get out of this scenario that I'm going into and you know it's kind of funny um to think about because anytime you're going to go do something if it brings you to the point you're like damn I wish I would have made a bunch of different decisions so I didn't have to be here right now

but that's what rano was chasing yeah she's like that that feeling of like this I absolutely do not want to do this right now and I'm gonna do it. She likes that. Yeah. Oh my God. Well, you know, she hates it. Right, right. But she loves it.

She's like, she says, oh, she told me the 19 things that she hated about it. And then she goes, that's why I have to do it. Right. To get that feeling. It's all packaged up in this. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's just like anything, I guess like working out. Like the only way to get that feeling you have after a workout is to do the workout.

You know, that workout's gonna suck. Yeah. Anytime you're gonna do something hard, you're like, oh, this is gonna suck. I wish I didn't have to do it. But the only way to get that good feeling is like So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen Go to jaco underground.com and subscribe and we're doing this We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we're doing this so that we can support the jocco podcast which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way but we but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors and we're doing it so we can give you more control more

interaction more direct connections better communications with us and to do that we are we're building a website right now where we'll be able to do the utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us so thank you it's jocco underground.com it costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month and if you can't afford to support us We can still support you just email assistance at jaco underground.com and we'll get you taken care of until then We will see you mobilized

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