Mark Zuckerberg is finding a love for the sport of jiu-jitsu and is not afraid of being embarrassed on the mat.
When the UFC and MMA first jumped onto the combat sports scene it was marketed as a test to find which martial art was the best. Quickly it became known that Brazilian Jiu-jitsu was among the highest tier of martial arts. With one of the godfathers of BJJ Royce Gracie winning UFC 1 people around the world got their first taste of jiu-jitsu on the world stage.
Since the 90s fighters have been incorporating jiu-jitsu into their training in order to become a well-rounded mixed martial artist. Now people who do not have the desire to compete are using jiu-jitsu as a way to supplement their workouts and to have a base of self-defense. More and more celebrities are using jiu-jitsu and getting involved in jiu-jitsu tournaments, most notoriously Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark Zuckerberg explains his love of jiu-jitsu and mental health for his mental health
Zuckerberg is known for being the CEO of Facebook now called Meta. He began his journey in martial arts several years ago. He began posting on social media videos of himself rolling on the mats, and hitting pads. Now he is entering jiu-jitsu tournaments and winning.
“I’m a competitive person. Doing sports that basically require your full attention, I think is really important to my mental health and the way I just stay focused on doing everything I’m doing. So I decided to get into martial arts and it’s, it’s awesome,” he said on the Lex Fridman podcast. “I got a ton of my friends into it. We all train together. We have a mini Academy in my garage. And one of my friends was like, Hey, we should go do a tournament. I was like, okay, yeah, let’s do it. I’m not gonna shy away from a challenge. I registered under my first and middle name, so Mark Elliot and it wasn’t until I actually like pulled all that stuff off right before I got on the mat that I think people knew it was me.”
Zuckerberg recently lost at a tournament after he was choked out. There has been some fallout considering he was denying the fact that he was unconscious and fans were saying that he was. All this doesn’t seem to be affecting him much as Zuckerberg said after 20 years in business he is no longer afraid of being embarrassed.
“The main thing, people who train jiu-jitsu it’s like you need to not have pride because of all the stuff that you were talking about before about you know, getting choked or getting you know, joint locked,” he said. “You only get into a bad situation if you’re not willing to tap once you’ve already lost, right but obviously when you’re getting started with something, you’re not going to be an expert at it immediately. So you just need to be willing to go with it. I mean, maybe I’ve just been embarrassed enough times in my life.”
Zuckerberg is finding a passion for mixed martial arts both in the striking world and the grappling world, he intends to keep on competing in tournaments win, lose, or draw.
