The Mindset Behind Earning a Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt in 4.5 Years

Introductions and Background 0:00

Hey guys, I'm Dr. Megan Jimenez. I am an orthopedic surgeon in Jujitsu Brown Belt. Im sitting here with my good friend and partner, Dr Chris Hirasti. People usually just call him Doc Chris and that's way easier than his last name. He is an Orthopedics surgeon that specializes in hip, shoulder, and knee. And he attended medical school at Emory as well. He did his residency at Tulane and is an Atlanta top doc. For his jiu-jitsu accolades, he's a third degree black belt under Roberto Traven. he is a three time IBJJF master world champion and three-time pan IBjjf world-champion.

And in 1988, He was a Georgia state wrestling champion. So he got, and I really trimmed that down, but he has just a great guy and i'm really excited to have him here because he was an orthopedic surgeon and an amazing jitsu practitioner. Thanks for being on. Yeah, thank you for having me. So the first thing I wanted to ask you, Dr. Chris, was what got you into jiu-jitsu and what you got into orthopedics? Okay, so as far as orthopaedics goes, I come from a family of physicians so my dad and grandparents were all physicians.

So that was kind of the path for me. And then I took a little bit of a circuitous route. I went to med school, I majored in international studies, not really wanting to do medicine at that time. and I ended up graduating and with that degree I actually just played in the band for three years. What instrument? Guitar. Nice. So yeah, my interestingly enough, but the passion that I eventually had for jujitsu, I had four guitar first. And so I played in a band called Eden that played all around Atlanta, all during college.

Do you still play? So not really. You have to choose one or the other. Unfortunately, Seems like the jiu-jitsu kind of beats your hands up.

From Medicine to Orthopedics 1:49

I was wondering how you would play. So it's hard to play guitar now. Now, by the same token, I'm not going to make any excuses because if you Google Keith Richards' hands, they look worse than mine. And he plays. He's still touring the world. Just put it down and I play every now and then. So as far as orthopedics, I think that I pretty much always wanted to go into medicine. I just don't think I was sort of mentally ready to, go through med school and everything. So after being out of college a couple of years, went back to med School.

And when I went to Med school, knew I wanted do surgery. It was just what type of surgery? I thinking plastics, orthopaedics and neurosurgery. Those were probably my top three. a neurosurgeon after my first year of med school and I saw that all the patients went to the ICU and i thought you know this is not really what I want to do and then plastics I think I'm just not so artistic not that that's not I kind of was drawn to orthopedics. You know, played sports all my life. Like I said, I was a wrestling state champ, so wrestling was my big sport in high school.

And just thought orthopaedics would be good. I rotated with some orthupaedic in med school and really liked it, and so decided upon that. And you were well into your job when you started Jiu-Jitsu, right? Right. So the interesting thing, so wrestling was my big sport. Actually, my favorite sport was soccer. And I loved playing soccer, I played soccer since I was like seven years old. I love playing it, but I didn't have the best aptitude for it. so I play for years and, you know, people who who hadn't been playing as long just naturally better, they had attributes, They were real, faster and and just sort of better coordination.

We're just trying to take everybody out. Yeah. So I love playing soccer, but wrestling was something I had more of an aptitude for just pretty much since I started. I was always it was the opposite of soccer where people who had been wrestling for you know, maybe seven or eight years when I started, I was like in ninth grade in college and I already was beating them in maybe a year or so. So it's just the same thing, just, you, know I had aptitude for it. I wrestled all through high school and then wrested some for like intramural at college.

And the interesting thing about wrestling is that it is not like softball or baseball or soccer where you have like all these leads you can do as an adult. I tell my kids pick up tennis or golf because it's easy to play for the rest of your life. You know, you can always play that. But there's not like, much wrestling around. So I didn't even know about jiu-jitsu. I did my residency and after I finished my presidency in 2007, I started practice here in Atlanta. And I've always liked UFC, MMA. Have always been a big fan.

Know I knew about Jiu Jitsu and saw that there was a Jujitsu gym near me.

Wrestling, UFC, and Discovering Jiu-Jitsu 4:54

Walked in. And I was probably weighing 260, 270. I kind of overweight. But still, I mean, you know, very big and strong and used to wrestling. And so I went in there and there was this guy there who was maybe 140 pounds, 150 pounds who's the instructor. I walked in like at an odd hour, and so there wasn't a class and he was just there. We were talking and I was like, hey, can we, do you want to roll? I don't know how it can. It wasn' an aggressive thing like I'm going in, it was more like what is this?

And he volunteered to show me. We rolled and I immediately threw him down and jumped on top of him and got triangles. You got the take down though. Yeah, so I could take him out and as soon as we got on the ground, he probably submitted me three times. I'm sure I couldn't have rolled more than two or three minutes without completely dying. So it was probably in three minute he submitted me three times. I was like, this is amazing. It's good you went back because some people have that experience and they're like no, there's no way.

No, I wasn't the opposite. What is this? What's this crazy thing that he's able to do? So I got into it real heavy and I've got my blue belt in six months just because I am a wrestler. I got into it mainly because of UFC. I watched the very first UFC, I remember me and a bunch of college friends were getting together and we were at somebody's house, he's like, hey, there's this thing on, it's where all these different styles are fighting. In the beginning, people who are younger don't really realize what it was like.

You know, martial arts before UFC was Bruce Lee. It was karate, it was Chuck Norris. I mean, we kind of just assumed that These guys were the pinnacle, like just karate was the Pinnacle of martial arts. There's no clue on how well it actually worked. You just watched movies and people trained and that sort of thing. But there wasn't really any proof of it. It wasn' until UFC. I mean, UFC just opened everybody's eyes as to what was effective and what wasn''t. So yeah, I watched the first one and I was hooked.

And again, watch, i watched it at the time. And watching it at the time, you know, there were eight competitors and you got these big sumo wrestler. You got some guys who were like karate experts. Uh, You've got Ken Shamrock, who looks muscle bound and is this shoot fighter. And then you've hoist Gracie who's like 170 pounds. At the it was like, when you're looking who is going to win, hoists would have been, nobody would've thought it. It really was such a shock to see him win. Well and how they came in too, right?

Like Shamrock's coming in with like a speedo and shoes and then you got Hoyst coming with a D. But to actually watch it at that time, It really was quite a paradigm shift, just that one tournament, to see how... And you know, I mean, the whole thing with the Gracies, Hickson was obviously the champ of the family and they purposely took Hoist because they were like, well, yeah, he comes in, and he looks like a beast. But they took the guy who looked smaller and had him do it. And of course he beat everybody.

Cool. And then, so you got your blue belt and then you, I know this has always been super impressive to me. You earned your black belt in five years. Yeah, actually about four and a half. So I, you know, been training for 10 years and I've switched around schools a lot through my training and you did it in four-and-a-half, right? So how did you do that? I mean, your family, kids at the time, young kids, a dog, probably were you building a house at that time? Yeah. We bought a household. I started in 2007. Then in early 2012, I received my black belt and literally two months after I receive my Black Belt I won Master 3 Pan.

So, you know, it was I deserved the Black belt. And of course I did it under Roberto Traven. who I'm sure I am one of his quickest. Now, he was a four-year black belt. So, yeah. But he's the pinnacle of instructors. And so, you know, I definitely feel like I earned it. It was surprise, but I feel I learned it, so how did I do it? So I think the one thing was the base. So, I've always wrestled. And so I came in as a wrestler. Everybody who does Jiu Jitsu knows what it's like to go with somebody who's a good wrestler, you know, they don't know Jujitsu, but they're a handful.

I mean, the thing that happens with most wrestlers is they come in and immediately they can beat a blue belt.

Rapid Progress to Black Belt 9:42

They can be purple belts if they start on top. And they can roll somewhat competitively with even brown and black belts. And so what happens is you come in as a wrestler and all of a sudden you're beating all the white belts who've never done it before. No matter, you can go on bottom, top, whatever, You just know how to grapple. Then when it comes to blue belts, if you start on top you easily beat them. If you star on the bottom it's more of an even roll. and then purple belts if spare it on to you, can actually beat some.

So you get this sort of ego thing where I think very early on, you kind of think, okay, well, I'm this good at jiu-jitsu because I can roll with a brown belt and hold my own if I, if i'm on top, and in a competition you can usually be on the top because you have the takedowns. And people like to pull. Yeah. I mean, pet peeve of mine is people who always want to start on-top, but don't have take-downs because in training, fine, You always start top. But if you don' know take downs, you're never going to get there.

So I think that's not a good thing to do. But anyway, as far as wrestlers go, if a wrestler gets to about a blue belt and commits to start learning jiu-jitsu and playing on bottom, their progression is going be a lot better. I've seen so many cases where you have guys who are really good wrestler who do very well up to know about purple belt, but they can't really compete with the brown and black because you are not always going on top and sometimes you get swept. And even a great wrestler, if they don't know a lot of Jiu Jitsu, are not that good, or not going to be able to stay on top against a black belt in D at least.

So I think the different things I did, you know, one, I was a wrestler at a good base, so I got my blue belt really quick. The other thing is very early on, probably six months in, when I started I could roll with guys after about six month, I can roll purple belts. I mean, the gym I went to with Roberto Traven, he always separates like the higher belts and the lower belts, first time I ever went there after I've been training about 6 months he put me with the high belts I never rolled with the, you know, so I was already at that level where I could stay on top and do pretty well, but I would still get beat.

I mean, I'd get beaten all the time. And even with that, pretty much made the decision just to sit for every role because I knew that my top game sort of came naturally and the bottom game is what I needed to work on. So you focused on the parts you were having trouble with. That's the thing. And so that's one of the big keys to progressing in jiu-jitsu is focus on your weaknesses. Now, when you're a white belt, you say, what should I focus? It's like, OK, everything. Right now, just roll. Just train a lot.

But once you've been training the year or two, You need to really start focusing on the weaknesses and then the other thing is consistency. I mean, honestly, I from the four and a half years I got my black belt, I don't think I missed a week. I mean, and it's not just, you know, i would train anywhere from three to six times a, week okay, but I never missed the week, even you, know injuries, whatever I didn't get injured bad enough, where I had to miss, But I just wouldn't miss. If I went on vacation, always went to a gym.

Yeah. i mean I would bring my gi with me everywhere I, went consistently for four, And then the other huge thing is YouTube. By the time I was a purple belt, I'm sure I'd watched just about every competition, high level competition footage on YouTube, and you just watch it, see what works, you learn how the right way to move is and all that sort of thing. And the the two big things I think I did is cross training and competition. So very early on, I pretty much went to every gym I could. I'm sort of a physician where I was the doctor, so I treat a lot of jiu-jitsu athletes, I am friends with everybody, but I luckily was able to go to other gyms as well.

Every time you cross train, you get exposed to something different. I think competition is huge. One competition, I mean, is equal to like 20 training sessions. Yeah, maybe more. Especially if you lose. Losing in a competition? For sure. That's where your weaknesses are exposed. You say, what do I need to work on? You'll find out. Compete. And you have the whole tape, you watch that tape and you're like, oh my God, little things. The whole match. Yeah. Even when you win, You can find little thing.

So I competed a lot and I always competed you know, pretty much right at or above my level competition. My first tournament after I'd been training six months since I was a wrestler, when it came to Nogi, I Was competing advanced division, not always winning, but I, was competing in it. And, and then I always competed adult division even though I as masters all the way up until I started black belt. When I blackbelt,I was competed masters. But I competed three, four times a year, went out to all the tournaments.

Back then, we didn't have regional Atlanta Open and all of that sort of thing. It was pretty much pans and worlds. And that's the other thing, as far as promotions, it's hard for your instructor to hold you back if you just won Brown Bell Worlds. Yeah. So, you know, I won brown belt master. When I got my brownbelt, Traven was like, You're not getting, because it was quick. And he was, like I'm not going to give you your black belt for a while. I mean, he just mentioned that. and then I went and won like pans, brownbelts and everything.

He went in. It's hard to hold it back. And then I think the last thing, another big thing is the instructors. When I say instructors, so Traven was my main instructor and he's, like I said, he is world class. highly respected in the jujitsu world and an amazing instructor. So I had a very high level instructor and then on top of that of course watching every competition footage because back then pretty much the only thing you could watch was competition. Footage because it used to be that before about 2010-2011 most people were of the idea that it was secret.

Yeah, keep it to your gym. So all the gyms, Alliance and Gracie Baja and Nova U now, they all wouldn't really share techniques. Like it, you didn't want to cross-train too much. You didn' t share technique. Everybody had their own secret techniques and so the only way to learn techniques was either to buy DVDs or- Go to the gym. Yeah, go to gym and yeah. So what changed that is Marcella Garcia. He started this MG in Action website and he was the first person to basically just say, I'm going to throw it out there.

It was revolution. Of course, everybody does it now. Andre Galvao and Art of Jiu Jitsu, Gracie Baja, Atos, they all have their websites where you can just go and see everything they do. You got BJJ Fanatics, you got Jiu Jitsu X, there's a lot of options. But back then Marcelo Garcia was the first one that pretty much just said, I'm going to put it all out there. All my techniques, everything. And you can study me. Because people were worried, oh, they're going study and learn what I am doing. Marcelos was like, listen, my stuff, it works whether you know it or not.

He said I think it's better for Jujitsu as a whole. I love that because we would have never met without that opening. Well, we wouldn't have through orthopedics. But most people I meet during in jujitsu is from traveling and cross training.

Training Methods and Cross-Training 17:28

Right. And so I loved that he did. I didn't know he Did that. He was the first one that I'm aware of that started a website. People cross train to an extent, but but not like online. Online it was you would not be able to see a lot of training footage. Yeah. In Marcella, basically his website was like every day, every training session he he would post it. And then of course he posted all of his class and all his techniques, everything he did. What's important for Jiu-Jitsu, right? It's spreading like wildfire.

The thing about Marcelo that's interesting is even after doing that of, course, he still beat everybody. But Marcelos, the thing is he will say that the stuff he does, it works whether you know it's coming or not. I mean, Marcel is interesting. He only does like four submissions. This guy who's one of the ghosts of Jujitsu He does guillotines, rear naked chokes of some sort, arm bars, and north-south choke. That will be 99% of his submissions in any of this training or any other competition footage.

Why? Because that stuff works. So anyway, that's nice. Very good. Well, moving on to kind of more injury related stuff, since we're both surgeons and both train. The big joke is I'll slap hands, bump fists with my friends and then they'll say, oh, you're funny because you can break me and you fix me. And I always joke that I should like carry my business card in my gi. But I know we were talking before this and said, You've done that before. So what have you done? We're like, obviously not on purpose to get business.

You know, having been doing Jiu-Jitsu in Atlanta so long and the type of surgeries I do are, you know sports related. So yeah, I definitely have treated tons of Jujitsu athletes. I mean it's funny like when I also cover the IBJJF competitions here and you, know it is nice to see but I'll be like looking on the mat and I mean, probably like 20 of the people at any Atlanta Open tournament I've operated on. Yeah, I'm pretty much, whenever I go to the gym, because I... Okay with this and I tell them and the guy the professors know it's fine.

But um, yeah, I mean if somebody gets hurt They'll just call me over, you know, and and i I do that all the time. Um, if someone gets hurts there, You know i've put in shoulders on the mat Well, same whenever i'll be rolling and then I just hear doc doc and it like an immediate I joke that one time one of my friends she uh broke her ankle. It's like dislocated broke. Her ankle Yeah And I was rolling and I about to get choked by one of my buddies, Anthony Turrell. And he's, he has me in a bow and arrow.

I'm like about tap and she goes, doc. You know, I, joke, she saved me. So I like, thanks for breaking my ankle. But I always carry stuff in my car. Like I remember I went to my and got splinting material and making a mess on the mat. That's the stuff I enjoy. People will come over and say, sorry to bother you. No, this is, who I love to treat. Right. This is the population. I enjoy it. Yeah, but I've had a couple of people I have actually been rolling with. Twice I had somebody who cut their head open or their eye because they hit my knee or I hit them by accident and I took them to my house and sewed them up.

Got to take care of them when you hurt them. Exactly. Well, what's the worst injury you've ever seen in fighting? Orthopedic wise, I mean, knee dislocation, seen that before. You know, the worst injuries, in MMA and boxing are the concussions. So I've seen some pretty bad knockouts. I had one athlete that actually had a brain bleed. Luckily, I mean, we diagnosed it there while they were on the mat. The ambulance, well, they didn't diagnose us, but we knew something was bad. But the ambulance was there.

So we rushed them to the hospital. And that's a good call because it's tough sometimes when you see a concussion or whether you send them or not. Right. Right, so we're both ringside physicians and you are one of my mentors, you and Dr. Andrea, who is also in Atlanta. And so the two of you kind of mentored me since I came out a couple of years ago. So anytime I'm at a fight and I am like, oh God, this is wild, I'll just give you a call. Because you've been here 15 years, right? So those concussions are really scary and we are usually better off sending them than not.

I will tell you the high level promotions like UFC, I mean, we'll send 80% of the fighters to the hospital after. I'm not saying they all need it, but we're super careful about it. If in doubt, then we will usually refer to get a CT scan. And then I think that probably the worst injury for me, because I don't treat this, is Derek Brunson when he broke his jaw. So he was fighting Yellow Romero. And, you know, Romero elbowed him in the jaw and basically broke his jaw in half. And you see the teeth come up.

Yeah. I mean, his teeth were separated. But it's not just losing a tooth, like the whole gums. Here's the thing is, for me, that was the worst injury I've seen because I don't treat that. Now, if somebody's an oral surgeon, they probably look at that, oh, I mildly displaced jaw, they're not even worried.

Treating Jiu-Jitsu and Fight Injuries 22:48

They're like wiring it and sending them to the ear. It's the same thing. Like I watched, I was watching when Anderson Silva kicked Chris Weidman and when Chris, why I didn't watch when, but I wasn't actually watching that fight when Andersen Silva kick Chris Wideman. Of course, everybody was Oh my gosh, look at his leg. I was at the bar and everybody's losing their mind. He's got erotic eyes, chill. You could be better than he was before. Yeah, he'll be walking tomorrow. That's an easy surgery. So that doesn't really bother me to see his legs go like this.

But it's good for the show, huh? Oh yeah. Yeah. All right. Great. What tips do you have for injury prevention? I know you were, you had some stuff on your Instagram, which I'm going to link to after you've your top 10 things that you can do. The first one we were kind of laughing about. So if you want to talk about that one and maybe give us two or three that are your favorite things to teach people to prevent injury. I think honestly, the number one way to, or the best thing you could do to That's what we were laughing about.

Just be good. Don't suck. White belts necessarily have a higher injury incidence than competitive black belts. Competitive black belt probably have higher incidents but it's because of the intensity of what they're doing. It's still better for at any level to get better at Jiu Jitsu and have your body understand which way you're moving and feel comfortable with the moves. Learn more and more how the other person is is going to move as well I talked to people bigger guys right when they come to grapple with me 125 pounds versus like my boyfriend who's over 200 Yeah, I'm like don't smash and use all your force because I can't really do much to that when you're pretty good.

But if you just become technical and lighten up your weight, you will learn so much from small females, small people, because we have to really have technique to get around the big guys. So that was what I took from Get Better at Jiu Jitsu. Get more technical, study more, and don't focus on your strength in training. Yeah, and that's it for sure. And going along with that is there's a philosophy called neuromuscular training. Basically, it's about your body being better coordinated, your nervous system and your muscles being coordinated.

For instance, with an ankle sprain, what typically happens, If someone has already sprained their ankle, they're more likely to sprain it again. Why? Because of proprioception. So, you know, in a normal ankle you get to a certain point and your nerves pick up right away that you're stretching it too much and your your muscles fire automatically automatically and it comes right back where it's supposed to be but once somebody sprained their ankle that proprioception the nerves going to it are damaged so it part of the problem with you know recurrent sprain ankles is well you may have torn some ligaments okay but a lot of times you've just stretched some legaments but you're more likely to strain it because your body your doesn't really know where the ankle is in space as well and that's why it like physical therapy and training, balance board, things like that that help with...

I mean, the connection's gone. That connection is gone, so your muscles don't fire automatically anymore once you've had that sprain. So I talk about proprioception a lot, like on my Instagram, and the importance of it, especially after I tore my ACL, just how important that single leg stuff is. But for people that don�t know what it is, can you kind of explain what proprioception is? It's not a conscious thing, but it's the ability of your body to know where it is in space, basically. It is the feeling that the joints have around them so that they know exactly where everything is.

Where it comes into play again is at the extremes of range of motion. before something actually pops. You can have a pain in your ligament and that means it's already stretched a little too far. Your body's actually going to be better off recognizing that it is getting close just because of of where it is, and then it reacts. So proprioception is basically just the feeling of your joints, but it's more about your joint's knowing where they are. It's an automatic response that you have to train, because when you're in the moment, playing soccer, whatever the sport is, you can't be like, okay, ankle fought, like perineus.

You can just tell your muscles. Yeah. It's about training. And that's where, the more that you do jujitsu and you drill, for instance, um, better that your body knows where things are. And going back to ankle sprains, that's super common injury that we see regardless of even out of sport. And people will often immobilize their ankle and just like sit on the couch. Yes, you could do that for a day, two days, whatever, get the swelling down, but I straighten to PT, right? Because you need to start working on that proprioception and not let that thing stiffen up.

All right. So we talked about some of our favorite prevention, which is just Yeah, and there's some other injury prevention tips which I have like a 10 list. It can be as simple as things like be aware of your surroundings. I mean, if you're training next to an open window. Right, don't keep going. You laugh about it, but one of the most old school intense gyms I've ever been to is Unity Jiu Jitsu in New York. Went and trained up there at their old place. Morela Santana's there, the Miao brothers were there.

That place was, that was awesome. So old school was like this tiny room, there's like no air conditioning, so it gets super hot. There's a shower there, and people will actually, in the middle of their training, they'll run, jump in their shower with their gi, because the shower's right next to it, it's tiny. And then they will come out and keep training. In the same gi? Yeah. But you know, the thing is, is they actually had, they had mats going all the way up to windows. It's a second floor and there's two windows at the end of it.

Injury Prevention and Proprioception 28:38

And they have mats goin' all way. So, I mean, probably just don't let white belts train near the window. Not many meow brothers. I'm sure they stay away from it, but. You know that's, it's like, be aware of your surroundings. Is there, you knows, there water on the mats? Is, a lot of sweat. Yeah. Don't slip. Things like that. Yeah. Cool. And one of the last questions I had for you was, what's your favorite surgery to perform? I would say is rotator cuff repair. Simply because, I mean, people I like doing it.

It's a fun surgery do and people do really well. I means, it depends on how old they are and how bad their rotators cuff is torn or how long it's been there. But for most rotater cuff tears, i think people knew very well it is elegant to like there's We're doing it now with cameras and we can go in through these couple little pokes and fix somebody's rotator cuff and you can add different things. There's so many things on the market, which the research, you know, that's probably another topic for another day, but you could add patches.

You can do a lot to try and augment it if needed. And every rotater cuff is different, every tear pattern. But in jiu-jitsu, I haven't seen many rotatater cuffs. It's not really a common injury in Jiu Jitsu I don't think. I mean, I have seen quite a few. The people who get rotator cuff tears usually are the older jiu-jitsu athletes. I don't see it as much in 20 and 30. Right, the more competitive people, like knees, shoulder dislocations. But once you get in the sort of the master's 40 and over, um, It happens.

Okay. The last thing I wanted to talk to you about was what kind of advice would you give to hobbyists and competitors that have full-time jobs? You know, we work about 40 to 60 hours as orthopedic surgeons. We cover games on the weekends. Were ringside doctors. You also have kids. What kind of advice, because I hear a lot of people, they'll say, I'm so disappointed. I haven't been in in three weeks. Life just took over. So I always like to ask people that are doing it, that have a lock going on.

What advice do you give to these people? I think number one is priority. You've got to make it a priority in your life. My priorities for the last 15 years pretty much have been family, work, jujitsu. but not necessarily going to this concert or, you know, it's about priorities. I mean, if I get off at five o'clock or six o´clock, I have a gym that I can go. For me, part of it was also kind of going into different gyms. Some would start at 6.30, one someone starts at 7. 30, things like that. But for the most part, It's, about planning the day so that you have the time to do it.

And then, You know, it doesn't matter if I'm tired, you know. And first off, I learned very early on that I could feel like crap and I go and feel great after. So just the community. Yes. With your friends there. Yeah. Or get buddies to like friends that will text you and say, hey, are you coming tonight?

Balancing Work, Family, and Training 31:48

Yeah, because then you're like, oh, OK, yeah. I think I. Think priority is is just a big one. Pretty much I mean, just would, if i didn't train for two days, i would be very much on top of my mind, when's my next training session gonna be? And I would make it work. And then priorities also, everyone has their own thing with their wife and kids and all that kind of stuff. I think I pretty much sometimes just had to put my foot down and be like, okay, I'm gonna go to Jiu Jitsu. Or have a nice conversation before saying, hey, look, this for me makes me very happy.

If I don't do this, You have to take care of yourself in order to be helpful to the people in your life. And that's just a really important concept. I mean, you really have take to care yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, before you can help the others in life and be an asset to them. Well, I always preach that through medical training and everything, but that is really not Not for you, right? Medical training, you've got to put yourself pretty far down the pole, unfortunately.

But once I came out of all my training my first year out, I was still putting everyone else first. And it was, it I miserable. I really stressed. It wasn't sleeping. Then when I put myself first, and I know it sounds terrible, people say, how are your patients not first? Because if I'm not the first and not happy and sound of mind and have my sleep, then how can I treat them in the best way? So putting yourself first I think is important. Not all the time, but Yeah. Yeah, all right. And what's next for you on and off the mats?

I mean, you know, right now it's pretty much just continue. I'm not really competing anymore. So I am teaching and training with people and trying to help the rest of my team. Developing the next set of competitors. Exactly. Get ready for their competitions and that sort of thing. As far as orthopedics goes, I mean, just everything is going great with that. Enjoying it. Yeah, yeah. I just keep working, taking care of patients. And then, you know, for the ringside physician stuff, sort of already established with Really, that's kind of keep trying to be as excellent as possible with it.

That's awesome. I'll do my best. Very good. And where can people find you? So I'm at Emory Orthopedics.

What's Next and Where to Find Him 34:18

So if you just look up my name on Emery Orthopaedics, you can get an appointment or come in. Yeah, great. Then your Instagram? Instagram is BJJortho. I'll link out to it. On Facebook I'm Doc Chris. Awesome. And on Instagram I think I am BJJOrtho. Yeah and people can go through my stuff and we'll post about those 10 prevention injury or 10 ways to prevent injury. Well thanks so much for being here. This was awesome. Thank you.