In this free-for-all-Friday Trent reacts to actor Jonah Hill’s comments about his Jiu-Jitsu abilities.
Transcript:
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;17;19
I promise this will not become a jiu jitsu podcast, but we’re bound to talk about it a bit because it’s the only hobby I have. So I just hope you’ll humor me today here on free for All Friday. Welcome to the Council of Trent. Mondays and Wednesdays we talk apologetics and theology. Friday we talk about whatever I want to talk about.
00;00;17;19 – 00;00;37;27
And today we get to talk about two non-religious things that I enjoy. One of which is Brazilian jiu jitsu, a grappling martial art. I’ve been studying for a few years now, slowly climbing up the ladder to get better and looking up and seeing a giant unclimbed ladder ahead of me. Of lots of people who are better than I am.
00;00;37;27 – 00;01;01;25
And that’s the attitude you really should have with Brazilian jiu jitsu. So that’s one thing I like Brazilian jiu jitsu. The other thing, I like Jonah Hill. Not necessarily. He’s a person. I don’t know him as a person. I have heard he is not a very great person, but he is a comedy actor. I think he, you know, his first really, the breakout role that I recognized him from would be super bad, I think came out like in 2007.
00;01;01;26 – 00;01;29;07
He was another comedies around the time he was in accepted, which is a comedy about a kid who starts his own fake college as he can and can’t get into a real college. And Jonah Hill is in that as a supporting comic relief character. I think he he might have also been in Knocked Up, as well as another comic comic relief, but his main starring role was really super bad, where he plays opposite Michael Cera, two guys in her senior year of high school who are just going to one last party.
00;01;29;08 – 00;01;49;26
High jinks and hilarity ensues. The Super Bad Is A is one of my favorite films, morally speaking. It is offensive, so I have to give it the USCCB appear rank it morally. They used to have a ranking for films. O was morally offensive, so I’m going to give it that. But it does have sort of a heartwarming theme to it, and a lot of things I can relate to at that same time period.
00;01;49;26 – 00;02;06;02
I graduated high school in 2003 of that separation from your friends, that leaving high school and going to college. Just when you go to different colleges, what it does to you, what it does to that friendship and the film Superbad itself. I mean, it’s about guys chasing girls, but it’s not like American Pie. It’s not a ranch comedy.
00;02;06;02 – 00;02;26;04
It’s really more it’s a story about friendship, and it actually has a heartwarming message related to it. And it’s good writing comedy. And Jonah Hill does a good job at that with the role that he plays. But recently he kind of blew up on social media. Somebody posted a clip of him on a podcast. I think it’s called the Smart List Podcast.
00;02;26;05 – 00;02;45;25
It’s him and three other guys on couches or on a stage, and they’re talking, and then they ask, well, the host asks Hill about doing Brazilian jiu jitsu, and Hill begins to give an answer. I think he has been training since like 2018. The facts are a little bit fuzzy. He’s been training for about eight years, since 2020, from 2018.
00;02;45;26 – 00;03;09;07
We’re going into 2027 soon. That’ll be almost nine years of training. Typically in Brazilian jiu jitsu, it takes 18 to 36 months to advance in belt levels. So there’s white, blue, purple, brown, black and so like to get to a black belt. Earliest you could get there might be training like 6 or 7 years average, probably around like 10 or 12 years.
00;03;09;07 – 00;03;27;17
Most people I know who get a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. It takes about ten years to get there and now there’s always going to be exceptions. Some people are prodigies. If you were a D1 college wrestler and you start Brazilian jiu jitsu, you could get your blue belt. You’d get it in like nine months. Really. Once you learn a few submissions, like you will dominate people.
00;03;27;17 – 00;03;44;05
And I’ve dealt with wrestlers and they they stink. Except if you get them on their backs, they’re like little turtles. They’re helpless. But they take me down every, every time because they’re so good at takedowns. But if you’re a really athletic, good wrestler and you’ve been doing this since you’re like a kid, you could you could move pretty fast to get to your black belt.
00;03;44;05 – 00;04;01;06
If you’re young, athletic, have a natural talent. Conversely, it could take it takes some people years and years. It takes them 5 or 8 years just to even get to a blue belt or to get to, you know, get to a purple belt from blue belt. Life happens. I myself, it’s going to be the slower path. I’ve been doing it now, I think, for about four years.
00;04;01;06 – 00;04;17;18
So I would love to get a purple belt in like a year or two. If I got it in two years. That means I’ll have gone through two belts in six years. That’s three years of belt that’s on the longer end of it, but it gets longer for people. I’ve been training. I tore my ACL a few years ago.
00;04;17;19 – 00;04;36;14
That’s my training back by a whole year because I’m older. Like when tear ACL. When you’re 18, you spring back up pretty quick. When you’re in your 40s, it’s a lot harder. But I’ve advanced. I feel like I’m probably like halfway from blue to purple. I hope I would consider myself a crummy, crummy blue belt. I’m a crummy blue belt, I know it, I know how it feels on there.
00;04;36;14 – 00;04;55;00
I can survive. But a lot of technical stuff I’m not aware of. I mean, I can I can make my way with people who are similar size and untrained definitely requires a lot more energy when they’re a big person and untrained, but I think I’m aware of my limits. So Hill is asked about this and he gives an answer, and at first the answer seems to go pretty well.
00;04;55;00 – 00;05;17;01
So I’m going to play it for you here, and then I’ll pick up the part where he goes off the rails and people are really jumping down on him from the answer he gave me. Play the first part. I love Brazilian jiu jitsu. I love except my body is is begging me to not love it. 42 isn’t. My wife is often like, you’re not going to become like a professional fighter.
00;05;17;02 – 00;05;36;20
You know that, right? Like you’re a comedian. Like. But let me ask you something. If we got into it, I would feel. You’d feel I would all truly. Yeah. Okay, so right here, he hasn’t quite crossed the line yet where people could be really mad at him. So the thing is, like I said before, I am a blue belt and it’s taken me about four years to get there.
00;05;36;21 – 00;05;56;25
Hill has been training since 2018. It’s been almost eight years and I’ve looked online. I don’t know, some people say he’s a blue belt, some people say he’s still a white belt, which would be a lot like that means you barely you must barely train if you’re still a white belt and you’ve been doing this for eight years, you must be only training once a week, and you don’t really put a lot of thought into it, but you should really have advanced by then.
00;05;56;25 – 00;06;32;08
But even still, if he’s been doing it this long, I agree with him that the three other guys were on the couch with him. He’s like, yeah, I would, I would beat you guys though. As a comedian, he could probably soften the blow by saying something like, I could mess you guys up. Not because I’m good, I’m terrible, but I know you guys can’t fight for what I mean, if you have years of experience in Brazilian jiu jitsu and you just get into a tussle with someone your own size who is untrained, your same size, same age, same health, who is untrained, and you’re trained 99% of the time you are going to you’re going
00;06;32;08 – 00;06;45;07
to win, or the very least they’re not going to beat you, but you’re going to you’re going to beat them. So it would have been fine if he had just said like, yeah, I could, I could beat you guys, but don’t go, don’t turn it up. Just be like, yeah, it’s because you guys probably aren’t trained, but I’m not that great myself.
00;06;45;07 – 00;06;59;00
I’m doing, you know, I’m doing the best I can. A little humility goes a goes a long way there. I think when I was on Franz podcast, The Pints, when I was still white belt, I said I was like vanilla ice white belt. I had like a glow in the dark white belt. It was so white. But it’s the next part I think people get really mad about.
00;06;59;04 – 00;07;20;03
And that’s the best part. My favorite thing is people are like, oh, Jonah Hill, fat guy from Superbad, and I’m like, I would annihilate. Yeah, I’m not kidding. Every fight diet, if you see me try it, every fight ends up on the ground. Very good. Who’s got it? I will, unless you are way bigger than me. I have like around and find out.
00;07;20;04 – 00;07;38;09
And ladies and gentlemen, this is where we say that somebody has a chip on his shoulder. I mean, it’s just patently obvious here. And that’s where it’s just really sad to see that. I bet that people will really mean to him. You know, when he was younger, even when he was in Hollywood, before he had lost a lot of weight, that it’s hard.
00;07;38;11 – 00;07;55;26
There are a lot of people who are successful comedians. They can make people laugh, but they’re still really sad inside because there’s something about their body that they don’t like rather than most. Same example is Chris Farley, like Chris Farley was a very successful comedian, and honestly, one of the reasons that he’s funny to do, like comedic physical acting is that he’s he’s overweight.
00;07;55;27 – 00;08;12;00
I mean, it I feel like it does help a little bit, makes you makes you jolly. It makes you it makes you more fun when you’re using especially physical comedy and things like that. But Farley was really struggling with a lot of this that like, he would like girls and they didn’t like him back because of his body.
00;08;12;02 – 00;08;27;04
Aziz Ansari is another example. He’s not overweight, but he’s just kind of a shorter, smaller guy. Super funny guy. But he’s even confessed that he’ll like women and they don’t like him back, even though he’s wealthy. He’s, you know, he’s wealthy, he’s famous. He’s a he’s a handsome guy, too. He’s just not a very big guy. He’s kind of a smaller guy.
00;08;27;04 – 00;08;46;18
And so that is hard. That is really hard. So I feel for the guy that he had this, you know, he felt bad about all this. But the thing is, dude, you don’t want to become the monster that tormented you, right? That’s just a classic trope. Like the victim of bullying. If they don’t grow in virtue, they become the bully themselves.
00;08;46;18 – 00;09;02;23
I mean, so many people who are bullies were victims of bullies. That’s just that’s the cycle. That’s how it perpetuates itself. And so I can see here that Jonah Hill’s victim of bullying. People tease him, their meaning, him about his weight. They have power over him. You know, maybe it’s social power. The thinner, more, more attractive. And they have power and he doesn’t.
00;09;02;24 – 00;09;19;20
Now he does Brazilian jiu jitsu. He does lessons, he feels like he can win and he knows stuff. And now he suddenly has power. He has a physical power, like he’s had power from money. He’s had power from influence. But probably being overweight, going to being thin, he never felt like he had physical power. Now he has physical power.
00;09;19;20 – 00;09;37;09
He could fight somebody. And I think that went to his head. And now he’s like, he wants payback. He wants payback for the people who are mean to him. Like, yeah, I’m going to show you. But that’s just not the right attitude. It’s, you know, it’s certainly not a Christian attitude, even not a virtuous one. If you care about virtue, that’s not going to make you happy to do that.
00;09;37;10 – 00;09;53;02
See, what I love about Brazilian jiu jitsu is when you do it right, it kills egos. The people I know who are black belts, people I know who are really good at this sport. 99 times out of 100, they’re a few jerks, but nearly every time they’re humble guys because in order to get good, they had to get pounded.
00;09;53;03 – 00;10;09;13
You know, they had to, because in order to get good, they had to get driven into the mats, painfully submitted over and over and over again. I remember I didn’t like jiu jitsu until about 18 months in because I was getting walloped. And then now I still get walloped. But it’s fun for me because I know what’s going on.
00;10;09;14 – 00;10;25;22
I know I can learn from it, but you go through it and it crushes your ego. It’s like, okay, I can’t have an ego here. I have to learn and there’s always going to be somebody better than me that I can learn from. And so you have a humble confidence that arises from it. And it’s just so unfortunate to see whatever Hill is doing.
00;10;25;22 – 00;10;45;08
Some people are like, oh, I think he’s kidding. I’m like, I don’t think he’s kidding. I think he legit. When you usher a challenge like that, like I would never just be like, hey, I’m Trent Horn, Catholic apologist. Come at me, bro. I’ll destroy you. I would never just issue that kind of a public challenge because I can’t.
00;10;45;09 – 00;11;08;15
Even the black belts I know would not do that, because there’s lots of people out there that they could just be good at fighting. They could be huge. If you’re just a huge guy, you have advantage. I mean, jiu jitsu helps. Like, I’ve been able to submit people who are twice my size, but it’s not easy when I fight somebody, when I fight people who are over, if they’re untrained and they’re over 250 pounds, two 5,300 pounds, 320.
00;11;08;16 – 00;11;26;22
It’s it’s not fun. I am nervous because they’re big. They’re bigger than me in some cases are twice. They’re almost twice my size. The only hope I have is to drain their gas tank because they’re carrying a lot of weight. It’ll make them tired. So I got a stall for like two minutes. Then they’re tired, then take their back or do something like that.
00;11;26;22 – 00;11;40;12
But it’s it’s not easy. So you just issue a challenge. I tell a Jonah Hill, he says in the clip. He’s like, unless, you know, you’re a lot bigger than me, I could do that. Yeah, but even someone who’s your own size, like people who street fight, that’s why I’m really glad that I did kickboxing for for a few years.
00;11;40;12 – 00;11;59;24
I want to get back into it. I just keep putting it off, but I have at least the reflexes with it. Like, if you don’t know, to protect your head and you only know jiu jitsu, one lucky punch could drop you like a sack of potatoes. So that’s one thing Hill doesn’t sound like. Yeah, someone could just be really good at kickboxing and fighting, throwing blows and they’ll knock you out.
00;11;59;24 – 00;12;12;25
So you’ve got to be careful of that. And some people are just really good grapplers. You don’t know who’s out there, who’s good, and some people, they will just fight like crazy. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, you know you’re going to be in for, you’re going to be in for a world of hurt. I also so that’s just one.
00;12;12;27 – 00;12;32;19
Even if you were just a regular person who is training, I’d be like, dude, you cannot you cannot issue open challenges, especially when you might still be a white belt, even as a blue belt. Blue belts, a beginner. I am a beginner. I know the fundamentals, but I get wrecked constantly at the gym by other people who are who are better than me, or people who just have cardio and strength.
00;12;32;19 – 00;12;47;19
It’s like maybe I don’t get wrecked, but like I’m not able to submit them. I just, I just hold them off, whereas without training they would they would dominate me because they’re, you know, they’re younger, stronger, bigger. I can at best to a stalemate. I can’t beat them because I don’t have the advanced skill set to do that yet.
00;12;47;22 – 00;13;09;26
So even if you were just regular training, it’s a bad idea to issue this challenge. But I think one reason Hill has this like false confidence about him and his ego is so inflated. I have heard he might only do private lessons. Privates can be helpful. I’ve done a few privates in my life just to get a technique down a lot better, and there is something enjoyable where it’s just you in a coach and you really get a lot of private attention.
00;13;09;27 – 00;13;27;10
It’s nice, it is nice, but if you only do privates, you really lose out on the whole experience. Like, I could see him only doing a private lesson with a coach cause he doesn’t want to go to a public class, you know, because everybody’s gonna want to come after him. He’s a famous actor. They want to choke out Jonah Hill and that put that on tape or whatever.
00;13;27;11 – 00;13;42;12
That would be hard. But at the same time, it’s like, if you don’t do that, if you only have your coach and you’re paying your coach, he’s going to go a little softer on you. It’s not the same as even if he goes harder, it’s not the same as that chaotic hard energy. When you go to an open mat, you don’t know who you’re getting.
00;13;42;13 – 00;13;59;00
They could be better or worse, same, different styles that you’re dealing with. Like, you know, if you only train with one person, you’re only used to that one style. People have all kinds of styles and you don’t know how to respond to it. And so he’s just not used to also like the ego crush, like you go to the open mat and people just wallop on you.
00;13;59;00 – 00;14;16;17
And he’s just not used to that in the builds up this kind of false confidence. And so that’s where I would have a lot of concern if that’s his training regimen. So yeah, just to tie it all together I would say, you know, appreciate Jonah Hill’s comedy. But if you hear this like, don’t please don’t allow this to taint your image of Brazilian jiu jitsu as a sport.
00;14;16;18 – 00;14;33;03
I think it’s cool even if you’re middle aged like I am. I know people who are in their 50s who get started and they enjoy it. It’s good exercise, strength training, self-defense, bonding time. It’s just a good time for guys to be able to have guy time with other guys and, you know, just enjoy Joe’s company. A lot of the funniest things to do with the mat is we roll and we just talk about stuff.
00;14;33;04 – 00;14;48;10
It’s just classic male bonding time a guy has been doing for thousands of years, and every culture men figured out wrestling, and that’s how they wanted to bond with each other. Right. And it continues this day. And so I would hope someone like Jonah Hill, maybe if you had a more communal atmosphere, I could bring him down a bit.
00;14;48;11 – 00;15;04;00
He could have that same bonding, and he could learn now that he has physical strength and power, you know, just to get over the people that were that were mean to him, you know, and become something better than that. So that is all I have for you all today. Thank you guys so much, and I hope you have a very blessed weekend.