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Scott Carpenter - Black Belt
Location: Bali MMA - Bali, Indonesia
What is Jiu Jitsu?
At this point, I feel like it's just part of my life, part of my routine. Every now and again, you want to have a break, but I feel like if I'm not doing it, then life feels a little bit abstract. Obviously on top of that, it's my career, it's my social network, it's like, a hobby. So yeah, it's my whole life in a package.
Jiu jitsu can be a lot of things, it depends what you want it for, you know, like, if you just want something that's a fun way to stay in shape, and it's a bit different from just doing strength and conditioning and it can just be as simple as that. But if you want it to be a philosophical thing and you want it to be like a whole martial art kind of thing, it can be that to. Or if you're someone who's training for a MMA of self-defense, of course you can do it for that as well as like, I guess it depends what's yeah what's the end goal what's your perspective? For me at this point, I don't really care about it for a fighting thing or self-defense thing. I just do it because I like it. So I'm not in here trying to, you know, be a tough guy or doing it thinking, what if something xyz that happens to me in my life out on the streets, it's not it's not that for me anymore. It's purely because I enjoy it. So I guess it depends on your outlook and goals.
How'd you get started?
I started when I was 21, my brother actually started before me, and I was just lifting weights and working at a gym, and I thought that I would just, like lifting weights forever.
Then I got bored of it. My brother was doing jiu jitsu before that, and I had, like, no interest back when he started. But then he kind of stopped doing jujitsu to focus more on striking. I was living with my brother, my mom, my brother back then, my brother kind of like wasn't training jiu jitsu anymore, but he still had the gear and it was just folded up in the front room of the house. And I was bored of lifting weights. I just want to I want to give this a go and see if I like it. And if I stick with it, I'll stick with it. So yeah it was my brother's influence. Obviously I enjoyed the first class. I remember telling myself, you're probably going to get fucked up on the first one, so stick to it for like a month or so, at least, just to see if you can. You're not going to become great in a month, but just see if you actually improve, you know? So like I didn't have too much expectation. I didn't want to get smashed, I remember thinking like, if it's not great, maybe stick to it just to see how it goes, because the probably not going to go great. I knew it was going to be difficult.
What's something Jiu Jitsu has taught you...?
It's ups and downs. Yeah. There's always ups and downs. Sometimes you're up, sometimes it down. when you're up, it feels pretty good. But you never think you're going to be down again. And then when you're down you think, I don't know why I'm doing this for, but it always ends up coming good again. So yeah, it's got its ups and downs, but that's part of it.
And that's life, you know.