It’s been a while, but I’m going off an amazing day and wanted to share my love fest for jiu jitsu with you guys! I started writing this back in November 2011. I wrote about how I was grateful that jiu jitsu helped me lose weight, and that I was so grateful for the wonderful community.
Reason number three: Touch
People need positive touch in their life. The Mayo Clinic wrote that “Touch can relieve pain, reduce blood pressure and stress hormones, and improve the immune system.” Touch deprivation has an incredibly negative effect on both human and monkey babies. NBA basketball teams whose players touch each other more win more games.
. . . touch deprived are more likely to become dependent on drugs and alcohol (1975, 1980), perhaps in search of the pleasure and serenity that physical affection brings. He also discovered that touch deprived people have more difficulty discriminating between pleasure and pain. They are more likely to engage in self-destructive conduct, and have more serious problems with behaviors that are innately pleasurable, such as affectionate touch and sexual behaviors.
We need touch in our lives. It helps us be healthy and happy. While living in Ukraine, it came to me that I was touch deprived. I realized I was rarely touched. Aside from being squished into a crowded bus, I could go weeks never being touched. It made me sad. I started hugging my friends more. Then I came to Korea and again the physical isolation began – I didn’t know anyone, I sat at home alone watching tv, I was starved for touch.
BJJ lets you meet interesting friends and do things like this!
Jiu Jitsu gave me so much positive touch. We practice with a partner in a positive way, when we spar we’re not trying to kill one another, and afterward we shake hands or pat someone on the back for doing a good job or putt an arm around a teammate – there’s a lot of positive touch in the gym, even if you don’t count all the rolling around. I find that there’s a physical easiness around my teammates, which likely has to do with the fact that we often put ourselves in harms way or in uncomfortable positions, so it builds a comradery. And several of our moves really do feel like hugs. Around the neck.
Physical silliness abounds!
“We think that humans build relationships precisely for this reason, to distribute problem solving across brains,” said James A. Coan, a a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “We are wired to literally share the processing load, and this is the signal we’re getting when we receive support through touch.”
Because jiu jitsu is in my life, my “nurturing touch” meter is brimming. My stress level is lower, I don’t feel so isolated, my mood is elevated, and life is good. Oh, and one more thing to note: When teachers pat students in a friendly way, those students are three times as likely to speak up in class. Thankfully Korea is more comfortable with touch than in America and it’s perfectly appropriate here to give my little 5 year old students hugs and read stories to them while they sit in my lap.
I’m curious as to whether or not touch in jiu jitsu is something that had appeared on your radar. I know it’s one of my reasons for being grateful about jiu jtisu, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard other people mention it as a reason why they like having bjj in their lives.
This is SO interesting! In med school we do learn that it’s vital for babies to be held and touched, or else they can die, but that that need doesn’t go away when you age. Thinking about it, I am a much happier and less stressed person after a great day with my best friends on the mat. And a pat on the back and a teammate saying they’re proud of you go a really long way! Great observation skills! Now I want to add an addendum to my latest post! Thanks!
I’m so glad to hear it! One thing that was surprising to me and yet not –
” … a study from the 1960s by pioneering psychologist Sidney Jourard, who studied the conversations of friends in different parts of the world as they sat in a café together. He observed these conversations for the same amount of time in each of the different countries. What did he find? In England, the two friends touched each other zero times. In the United States, in bursts of enthusiasm, we touched each other twice. But in France, the number shot up to 110 times per hour. And in Puerto Rico, those friends touched each other 180 times!”
I try to intentionally touch my friends more. And I love love love squishing the cheeks of the little kids I teach (with their permission always). But I still find I have friendships that are overly sanitized, and part of that is definitely because I don’t want to give EVERYONE I know access to my personal space! ^_^
I believe that. My PR friends in college were very touchy and some of the happiest people I’ve ever met! I think we have a thing or two to learn. And yeah, I think trying to find a balance is important. I mean, think about your very first day in BJJ – wasn’t it terrifying to be so close to and touch so many people? I wonder how is it you “choose” who has access to your space or not? Also, just for further reading I knew the NYT did a great piece on touch in the NBA and when it first came out people were genuinely surprised. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=0)
” I wonder how is it you “choose” who has access to your space or not?”
This may have been unclear. What I mean is: if I meet someone not in jiu jitsu, I often do not initiate touch, especially if it is a man. Contexts are important, and I’ve been known to not give someone a hug if I didn’t feel comfortable with it.
Jiu jitsu folks are generally a bit different, although there have been a few folks who raised my yellow flags and I do not have a physical easiness around them. Choosing who has access to my body can be as simple as turning down a roll, or tapping out and going and sitting out. With the little kids I work with, when they are physically violent with me I say in a clear voice “I don’t like that. Please don’t do it.” and I give them direct eye contact.
Oh and yes – I linked to that article – maybe even twice! ^_^
This is absolutely one of the reasons I started and stuck with jiu jitsu!
When I started bjj, the only other time I would touch someone was when I was introduced to someone at work. If not for bjj, weeks would go by without a human touch. I definitely noticed. In retrospect, that may have been the first time in my life I was in such a touch deprived environment, which might be why I noticed. I participated in sports for most of my life, which seems to cause strong tendencies among teammates to do things like hug each other, jump on their backs, or lift them off the ground, and my previous jobs were more hands on, so to speak– tackle football games and attempts to throw someone fully clothed into the ocean occurred spontaneously at office parties.
I really like the French custom of shaking hands with friends when you meet them. When we were teenagers, some of my male relatives from France were too cool to kiss me on the cheek, but they would shake hands instead. I think it’s a nice compromise between a hug and not touching at all, and it isn’t necessarily considered a formal gesture the way it is in the U.S. It’s appropriate both with people you barely know and your best friend, so you could touch someone every day without invading their space.
Do you mean the French custom of kissing people on the cheek? I really like that as well. It feels very comfortable to me.
It’s weird – my background was in nerdery, and it’s super common for people to NOT touch each other. You watch tv, play video games, use the computer… save for conventions it’s very easy to be isolated. The only sport I’d done before was tkd and in that case you are helping partners stretch, but overall you’re just trying to hit a pad or kick a pad. Again, not so much positive physical contact.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who enjoys the positive human contact that bjj provides!
Yes and no. It’s customary to either kiss on both cheeks or shake hands. Relatives and friends get kisses. Everyone else gets handshakes. In my experience, teenagers and young men tend to prefer shaking hands. Older French men shift back to kissing friends on the cheek. For example, I kiss a brother or male cousin on the cheeks while shaking his hand at the same time. I think we evolved from kissing cheeks as kids to shaking hands when we were older teens, to this, now that we’re over the kissing is yucky phase. When I kiss my female relatives of any age, and older male relatives, our hands are usually on each others’ upper arms.
As a kid, I definitely preferred getting kissed on the cheeks by French people I didn’t know to being squashed into a bear hug by Americans I didn’t know. I still do.
By the way, I recall now that even as a teenager I noticed and appreciated the extra human contact I got through sports. Perhaps I got a lot of physical contact early in life, and that made me more aware of it later. My parents were pretty hands on and had no stroller. We were carried in arms or placed on my father’s shoulders. (Needless to say, both my parents were pretty sturdy.) Once I was big enough, I had to walk, always while holding a parent’s hand. I would also crawl into bed with them and wrestle my dad when I was tiny.
So so true, I think you’ve hit on something really important saying this. Contact is really sometHing primordial in us all that all humans need., …me and my girl are always having a hug. Sport too, back slapping high fiving, group hugs….it’s all a social builder most Defo.
Every body.should get a few big hugs and a few high fives every day!
It’s really wonderful. I’d never played any sort of team sports before, so all this was new for me.
So true!
Though, it’s funny as I know a couple people who won’t try BJJ because it is so close contact and you have to touch people.
I’ve always been kinda shy and disliked “huggy” or “touchy” people. Though after all this BJJ, I feel more comfortable when others hug or touch me. Maybe a mix of more experienced contact with others and some confidence. Though if it is harmful and unwanted, I know what to do to them! /armtriangle
I totally agree – it’s intimidating realizing how close you’re letting strangers. Until you become addicted. ^_^
I’m glad that you’re more comfortable now. It would suck to remain totally uncomfortable with close contact after this long in jiu jitsu!!
Interesting. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but generally speaking, I HATE being touched. If somebody I don’t feel really close to tries to hug me, I will back away and stick my arm out for a hand shake. I avoid relatives who I know are touchy-feely. I’ll make myself uncomfortable sitting in the back of a car to avoid touching anybody sitting next to me. So never being touched sounds pretty good to me (with my girlfriend being the obvious major exception).
The whole “yay! Let’s hug!” as a greeting is something I especially dislike, when it is somebody I either don’t know well or, even worse, have just met for the first time. Although that’s not to say I never hug anybody when saying hello, but I think it needs to be meaningful, so a reflection of me being genuinely super-excited to see that person. So, I hugged Georgette when I finally met her in person last year, same with Jodi, and I’ll hug you too when I finally make it to Korea. 🙂
Jiu jitsu is a strange anomaly for me, as on the face of it, that would be the worst possible sport for me to choose. For some reason, the context changes everything. I don’t mind the body contact at all in jiu jitsu. I’ll always slap hands before a roll. When teaching, I will grab somebodys ankle, elbow, leg etc to correct the position (thanks Bullyproof!). Weirdness.
I would totally hug you back! I hope you make it over here some time – that would rock.
I think that hugs CAN be very meaningful, but I prefer that they are like candies – always nice to have. ^_^
The flights from the UK to Korea are cheaper than I expected when I last looked, but as I’m going to the US again in a few months and planning yet another US trip next year, that’s three BJJ-focused big holidays in a row. I’ll need to cool off on that for a couple of years at least, as my gf definitely deserves a few big holidays focused on her interests after 2014 (given that we only get limited holiday time). 😉
Unless I can convince her that Korea would be awesome. I know she’s interested in going to Thailand again (she was ill for most of the few days we were there before, and that was just Bangkok), so something along those lines (e.g., super-pretty beaches) would work. Or maybe I could do some kind of stop-over in Korea? I’ll have to get planning for 2015… ;D
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