Surf Cat

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Dashel Pierson

I was actually looking forward to being choked out by six-time Jiu Jitsu world champion, Rafael Mendes. Or perhaps being tapped out with a bone-twisting armbar – at the very least.

But my fatalistic Tyler Durden dreams of catharsis via crap-beaten-outta-me were quickly crushed upon entering the Art of Jiu Jitsu gym in Costa Mesa, California. “This is a school,” Mendes told me with a grin sweeter than a butterscotch candy, “it’s not a fight club.”

Cascaded in pristine white from the floor-spanning grappling mats to the high ceilings, the RVCA-owned Art of Jiu Jitsu gym looks more like a blue-chip painting gallery than a sweat and blood-stained fighting dojo. In the early afternoons, kids ranging from three to 13 years old swap their school uniforms for a traditional martial arts Gi. They circle up and attend classes crafted from the Mendes brothers (Rafael’s older brother, Guilherme, is also a multiyear world champion blackbelt) and their extensive experience with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which was derived from Japanese Judo by the well-known Gracie family in the early 1900s.

And although there are classes for the adult learners, too, my fantasies of donning a Gi and eating a slice of humble pie were not going to play out today. Instead, since a class was starting soon, I merely loitered on the sidelines to watch a quick demonstration from Rafael and his sparring partner/recent blackbelt recipient, Zach Neminsky. And in between chokeholds, we chatted about Jiu Jitsu’s seemingly unlikely, but totally rampant rise in popularity with a particular subgroup: surfers.

Mendes and Neminsky at RVCA’s Art of Jiu Jitsu gym in Costa Mesa, CA. Photo: Pat Nolan | Lead photo: Pat Nolan

“All the kids who come here to practice Jiu Jitsu, they surf, too,” Mendes said as a mob of rambunctious and towheaded toddlers gathered on the mats for their after-school class. “They come straight from the beach, with sunscreen still on their faces and sand in their hair. We’re always finding sand on the mats.”

In fact, it’s not just surf kids in Southern California who’ve been practicing Jiu Jitsu as a supplement to surfing. Everyone from Kelly Slater to Joel Tudor, Kaiborg to Eli Olson, and many more notable names in surfing have, for a long time, been accompanying their time in the water with training in the gym. And one pro surfer who has dedicated more time to the mat than most is Kauai’s Dustin Barca.

“I got into Jiu Jitsu and boxing for all the wrong reasons,” Barca reminisced. “I wanted to be the toughest guy around. And it definitely made me a tough guy, but it also made me a way better person. I wasn’t somebody looking for trouble. Jiu Jitsu is humbling like that. You might get into it for the wrong reasons, but you’re gonna get tapped out, you’re gonna get choked out. There’s nothing more humbling than somebody choking your neck and you can’t do anything about it.”

And although he continues to have a career as a mixed martial artist – he’s currently undefeated with a record of 4-0-0 – Barca credited the best year of his competitive surfing life (2009) to the time he spent buckling down in the gym. Specifically, he attributed one aspect which he gained from Jiu Jitsu as influencing his surfing success: confidence.

“Once I started dedicating more of my life to Jiu Jitsu,” said Barca, “that’s when I started doing well in surfing. I made the tour, I went to a lot of contests on the QS. I owed it all to the training I was doing in the gym. It gave me that extra confidence. It gave me that pep in my step to believe in myself. I let go of a lot of insecurities. I pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to in surfing after I started training. That was the missing link in my competitive surfing.”

Obviously, there’s the physical benefits of practicing martial arts, which will convert to another body-focused sport like surfing. “Balance, posture, strength, and hip mobility,” said Neminsky midway between a chokehold from Mendes, “those are a few things that totally translate to surfing. The warmups are a lot of the same things you would see guys doing on the beach before paddling out.”

“There’s nothing that gets you in better shape than Jiu Jitsu,” says Dustin Barca. “You’re working out everything from the tip of your forehead to the tip of your toes.” Photo: Jeremiah Klein

But perhaps more significant are the mental crossovers between surfing and Jiu Jitsu. Particularly, this mental fortitude can help while surfing big waves, as Barca elaborated: “One huge thing Jiu Jitsu teaches you is to breathe in uncomfortable situations. Like when you’re surfing big waves, you need to know how to not panic when you’re getting pounded. You have to relax, or else you could die. That’s how Jiu Jitsu makes you feel every time you do it. You either relax and figure out how to get out of a situation or you have to tap out. It has that similar survival aspect.”

In terms of strategy, it’s become almost cliché to compare Jiu Jitsu, or any of the martial arts for that matter, to a game of chess. Two opponents, each with an arsenal of moves, attempting to execute their plan of attack from pawn to king, handshake to takedown. And the same can be related to surfing, but with a slight tweak of the metaphor.

“Jiu Jitsu is a reactionary sport,” said Barca. “You’re reacting to what your opponent is doing. And it’s like that in surfing, too. You’re reacting to the ocean, to what the wave gives you. In Jiu Jitsu, if a person makes a mistake then you take advantage of that. But in surfing, it’s not necessarily the person you’re competing against. It’s more so if the wave gives you a section, then you react to that.”

And on the other hand, there’s a saying about surfing that’s definitely become a cliché: “Hey (insert slacker epithet of choice here), surfing isn’t a sport…it’s a way of life.” Despite being cringeworthy, that saying – like most clichés – holds some truth. And more than the other similarities between surfing and Jiu Jitsu, this one is perhaps the realest. The ocean humbles you, so does grappling on the mat. As a result? All that ego-killing will have a positive effect on how you approach your day-to-day life — or at least, so they say.

“The first time a kid comes into the gym,” Barca said, “they can’t look anyone in the eyes, they shake your hand and it’s completely limp and dead. But within a month or so that starts to change. Even the parents are seeing a huge change from their kids in the households. For me, that’s one of the biggest benefits from Jiu Jitsu. Yeah, it gets you in shape, you’ll be stronger when you’re surfing, but you’ll also become a better human being.”

“There are so many connections with surfing and Jiu Jitsu,” Barca says. “They’re these two different worlds, but they both collide. There’s hundreds of blackbelts who are also surfers.” Photo: Russ Hennings