The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Breathing, Framing, and Surviving in Jiu-Jitsu and in Life | S4Ep7

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

In Breathing, Framing, and Surviving in Jiu-Jitsu and in Life, I’m speaking about the importance of breathing, placing physical and metaphorical frames in your life, and surviving. I’m speaking to you folks facing challenging times, Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, fitness enthusiasts, anyone interested in self-improvement, …in other words. All humans. In this episode:Breathing in BJJWim Hof and 2-to-1 breathing techniquesSetting mental and physical frames in BJJ and lifeSurviving by balancing your "7 pillars"Godspeed y'all,Kevin

Today I'm speaking about the importance of breathing, placing physical and metaphorical frames in your life, and surviving. I'm speaking to you folks facing challenging times, jujitsu practitioners, fitness enthusiasts, anyone interested in self-improvement, in other words, all humans. But first, please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and let's get started with the People Process Progress Podcast. In 3, 2, 1. a minimum, and let's get started with the People Process Progress Podcast. I started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in 2018. I started a six-week intro program in April, tore a tendon in my thumb, then restarted

the intro in September of 2018, and it was a rude awakening for my abilities as a man. I was 44 44 and I quickly learned that someone smaller and better trained could completely control my movements and make me tap or in other words, say uncle. I continue to train to this day though. And after five years with some injury and personal life breaks in there, I still believe in the philosophy of breathe, frame, survive. In fact, people joke on me for it. And I think it's a valuable way to keep a simple mantra in your head for anyone that wants to move past white belt or stay past six months or keep going with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I also realized over

the past few years how much breath work combined with building mental frames helped me survive some of my darkest days. And now I'm going to share what that means with all of you. The first thing is breathing, which is the foundation. So according to the Cleveland Clinic and all my hospital corpsmen and emergency medical technician instructors, humans breathe 12 to 20 times a minute. Anything under 12 or over 25 indicates typically or can that you have an underlying condition or that you're putting out more effort than say you would sitting around while watching the college football playoffs but there have been some pretty spicy games that made me breathe hard we are Penn State let's go so how does altering that 12 to 20 beats a minute pattern help or hurt us so let's start with hurt like in jiu-jitsu there are positions

where people are placing their whole body weight on your chest with their knee, with their chest. It's not good. It's very hard to breathe. So through time and exposure of this fresh hell, you start to get more used to it, but not without a few freak outs and self-admittedly some tap outs. So how do we get better at not freaking out so much? So in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, what I found helpful is to remind myself I'm not actually on the street. I'm not in a fight or anything like that for real, so to speak. I'm in a gym and I can tap anytime I want.

Now, that doesn't mean that this discomfort equals like you're going to die where you can get in a cycle in your head where you feel like you are. But you have to tell yourself to take smaller, shorter breaths when you can't expand your diaphragm or your lungs because there's weight on it. And the only way I've found to get better in that during jiu-jitsu is by going to jiu-jitsu. Now, you supplement with fitness and you help your lung capacity and your VO2 max and all that kind of stuff. But jiu-jitsu is the best way to build up your jiu-jitsu breathing. And exposure to that and good training partners makes a big difference. Now, what about in life? I found the most helpful breathing treatments or adjustments to be two things for me.

One is the Wim Hof method. The other is the two to one, which I'll get into. So let's talk about Wim Hof, right? So this typically standard is very often probably two or three times a week, sometimes more. It's the breathing part. It's, you know, Wim Hof is the ice man. He's in the cold a lot. I'll talk more about him or I have before where the cycle is you breathe in your nose and you let the air out of your mouth. You do that 30 times on the 30th exhale, about halfway through, you stop, hold for a minute. When you hit a minute, you breathe in and hold for 15 seconds. Then you let that out, breathe normal a little bit. And then you start that again, except for you do it for a minute and a half breath hold instead of a minute, or as long as you can, when you start, it's, it's easy. And you can go on YouTube and see his breathing

technique. I'll link to that as well. But I've really found that, um, it's, it's very similar to when I was a hospital corpsman or EMT, or just being in a hospital with people that were family or friends that are patients, there's this thing called an incentive spirometer, right? And it's like a snorkel kind of thing that you go, you breathe in, you try to hold the balls up. That's an exercise for your lungs. That's what the Wim Hof is. It also has this other metabolic stuff, which I'm not getting into. But I found doing these breathing exercises helped me when I'm then on the mats in a tough spot, trying to breathe because I practice holding my breath right now. Don't hold your breath jiu-jitsu it's hard to do but sometimes you're in super tough spots so basically it's a workout for your lungs and you can tell the difference after a few sessions

this two-to-one breathing exercise is more of an acute stress reducer and Andrew Huberman's talk about it he didn't make it up it's been around a lot of ways but basically this is two quick breaths in your nose and then out of your mouth. It helps really calm your nervous system. I do this a lot when I get into the cold plunge, when I sit in it or dunk and come up. I'm doing the two to one breaths quite a few times to calm myself down. I've advised my sons to do this when they're stressed out or when they run up the stairs and socks and hit their shin and that pain just takes over.

You all know what we're talking about. So Wim Hof breathing and two to one breathing, I found very helpful for not just in jujitsu when you have to go there and just experience that. And then also in life where when you have better lung capacity, when you just are in better shape, when you know these kind of tools and there's a lot more, it's very helpful to use these on a regular basis and then acutely as you need to with the two to one. So the framing, so we've talked about breathing or a couple of tools to use for breathing or breath framing, framing helps reduce damage, right? So in jujitsu framing helps, but it doesn't stop the threat. It doesn't stop your opponent, right? And what I've been taught essentially is, is use my arms and legs right under the neck and the hip

somewhere to control distance, prevent or try to prevent my opponent from gaining leverage, crushing me, getting around my legs, taking up space so that I can prepare for my planned exodus, hopefully from the bad spot or just get in a better spot. And so frames are a critical part of jujitsu, just like shrimping, moving your hips back. But you have to frame constantly every jujitsu session just like shrimping, when you're moving your hips back, but you have to frame constantly every jujitsu session I'm framing in some capacity. So how do I apply that in life? So this is what I've called pillar four. And if you've heard me on like the Hope Is Not A Plan podcast I did before any other posts or followed me online, I have these seven pillars that I strongly believe in and hope that you will take on. But pillar four is setting boundaries. So in life, you can set these frames, right?

If you're at home, you're online, you're at work, you're in the public, it helps for us to set boundaries between us and what or who isn't serving us or maybe is proactively trying to negatively impact us, right? This doesn't have to be an overt physical attack. It could be words or someone's demeanor or the way to act or just, you know, the stink eye you get and you get it all the time or maybe in meetings, people will be disrespectful. We got to set boundaries. We got to let folks know what's happening and maybe assert ourselves sometime. That to me is a frame. It's a mental

frame to say, hey, I'm not accepting this, right? We need to do that. And it's hard to do. So instead of just looking down and taking it, head up, shoulders back, be confident and speak out to that. It's setting guidelines, right? On what are some hard and fast rules we have to do because of financial things or something like at work, or maybe chores. These are the chores we do and here's why we do them. And that's the framework that we're within, right? And this is where you hear, you know, boundaries are saying no is a helpful tool. It saves you time, it saves you regret from not saying no from taking on too much, maybe. So if you're framing in jujitsu, right, keep those elbows in, but keep them between you and the other person. And you'll learn how to do that maybe from your school, wherever you're

at and reduce that damage. And in life, set some mental frames for yourself as well, maybe frames between you and something that you're using too much of or not using enough of. Sleep. And I'll talk about that here in a second. So then there's surviving, right? Adapting to overcoming. I've found in my 50 years, life is about survival, right?

It's not realistic to think we'll live a life without mental, spiritual, physical injury. It's impossible. So how do we survive? I don't have all the answers, but in jujitsu, remember we're training for ourselves first and foremost, right? We can get caught up and lost and everybody else and what is that person doing and what is that? But this is for you. If you've signed up, if you're going, if you're going to try that trial class, right? All the blood, sweat, tears, pain, joy is for us, right? It will go on as long as we want it to.

You can always stop. You're not there forever. You're not under a lifetime contract. So survive by making this your jujitsu journey, your path. And like me, if you're lucky to have found two great jujitsu schools, you'll also make friends along the way, create bonds. They can only be created through hardship and it's worth it. And I encourage each of you to look up your local jujitsu gym, visit it, sign up for an intro class, and observe

so you can start learning practical survival tips for physical confrontations while you're also building up your mind that will help you survive and work through hard conversations off the mat, out of the gym. And in life, this is where those seven pillars come in. And I mentioned The Hope Is Not A Plan podcast. I'll share those back on this feed. So I'm going to run through these real quick. The first is to take ownership, right, of where we are and where we want to be.

No survival happens. We don't excel in life if we don't take our own ownership. And I've seen lots of folks and posts and talk to folks and the fingers pointing outward. Well, it needs to point inward first for diet, exercise, sleep, what job you have, what you don't have, what's your relationship like, what are you doing to help or hurt it? The second thing is to strengthen our brain, right? And train it to handle stress. Regular mindfulness is critical. It's a great tool that I use 10 minutes a day. Physical health is critical survival. This is the third one. And it can be achieved by regular movement of some kind, right?

Walking, weight training, jujitsu, yoga. There are so many ways. You can pick something that you love if you'll do it, but you have to move. Sitting around is horrible for you. And living a stagnant life is not good for you. The fourth is boundaries, which I mentioned earlier, right? So we covered this. I won't get in other way.

Humans are not meant to be alone, no matter how many leave me alone memes or posts exist, or I just want to live on an island by myself. This is my fifth pillar and it's human connection, right? And I have found in my darkest hours and my hard times, and maybe you have too, that the connection with my friends, with my family, the discovery that friends and family have gone through or are going through the same or similar thing that I have has been eye-opening and that it opens doors to conversations. So if you're having a hard time, you're having a great time. Don't shut in. Reach out to folks.

Establish that pillar five and make connections or reestablish them. The sixth thing is sleep, right? It's when our mind and body heal. It's also one of the areas of health and wellness that humans in 2025 now are horrible at because we are connected 24-7. We're looking at screens constantly. I've been guilty of this. I try not to.

And a bright screen and all the stuff you think about and this and that right before bed is awful for your brain. You don't sleep good. So I encourage all of you to look up sleep hygiene and implement some of those best practices. The seventh, I think to to me is the most important because it supports the other. The first and seventh are kind of, to me, in a tie. And it's without faith, many of our species' greatest would never have been known, right? Victor Frankl, who I admire so much in his work, Man's Search for Meaning Has Changed My Life. I've read that

book four times. He maybe wouldn't have made it out of the concentration camps without his faith in humanity and himself and something bigger. Dave Thomas, who was the founder of Wendy's, credits his faith, and he happens to be a Christian, with all the work he did to get kids adopted, right? He made tons of money on burgers. He didn't have to do that, but he credits his faith with it. And there's endless other stories of other faiths of believing in something bigger. And that's the power of it, right? And whatever your faith is, it's yours. It's between you and who or whatever you believe in, but it is well worth exploring. So a quick rundown of the seven ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep, faith. That to me is survival. Paying attention to these throughout our lives will make a big difference and help us not just survive, but thrive a bit. So let's bring this all together. The breathe, frame, survive concepts

are easy to understand, right? They're much harder to implement in the heat of the moment on the BJJ mats, when you've almost hit a car and you have that shorter breath or the loss of a loved one, like so many experienced on New Year's day and throughout our lives so what do we do i encourage all of you and each of us to give the wim hof breathing a try once just once this week when you're feeling stressed try the two to one two in your nose real fast and breathe out right to put up those physical frames when you're stuck inside control if you're training jiu-jitsu or wrestling to build those mental frames when it feels like you're being crushed by life you can even think about it like a triangle which is the strongest structure right what are these frames between me and this thing or me and this person

and to survive to live for those around you to live for yourself thank you all for listening to this episode breathing framing and surviving in life and in jujitsu. I hope the tools and perspectives I've shared help you as I'm not just the salesman. I'm also a customer. There's more at peopleprocessprogress.com from me on X and Instagram at Penel, P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G and fitness, cold plunge, Brazilian jujitsu lessons learned on the People Process Progress YouTube channel. Just hit 520,000 views. Really appreciate that. Remember everybody, our hope ignites, right? It gets us going. Our plans will guide us and we'll adapt as we need to, but it's the actions that we can take and do take that will transform us. Godspeed y'all.