A Day In The Life Of Professional Black Belt BJJ Competitor Will Tackett (SSOF Ep. 50)

Will Tackett2:07

We'd actually tried out a few Tao, karate gyms and stuff. We were big fans of Bruce Lee growing up. We watched a lot of Bruce Lee with my dad. We just loved martial arts, so we were always into it and wanted to check it out. We tried it out. We thought it was great. We learned how to shrimp and replace the guard and just simple stuff, Americana and things. It was just great. We just thought it was really cool.

We got to stay and watch the adult program after the kids program, got to see them roll and do submissions and things, and that was really exciting. So we just decided to keep with it. And it was just my brother and I, Andrew. So we were training together and kind of started to get better and better. And then my dad joined and started training in the adult program, maybe a month or two after us. Just wanted to make sure we liked it and stuff first.

And then probably about a year into it, I started competing and I did a local tournament. And the rest is history. Just kept competing, kept training. And from an early age, pretty early, probably about, so in 2009 I was eight years old, so probably around 10 years old, I was pretty sure, I think I was right about 10, I'm pretty sure that right around 10, I was like, okay, I want to do this for a living.

When I turn 18, I want to move to Brazil and I want to get my black belt in Brazil. Because at the time my coach was a brown belt. The guy that I was learning from, there wasn't really high-level jiu-jitsu in Texas at least. And I had just watched all of the old ADCCs and seen just all the Brazilians kill it. So from my 10-year-old brain, it was thinking all the good jiu-jitsu's in Brazil. That's where you got to go and get your black belt.

So that was my thought. I had this little plastic ATM machine that was battery powered and you could put money in or something. And I would put my money in it and save it up in that little plastic ATM and say, like, this would be my trip to Brazil money. Because tickets to Brazil are expensive. That's what I'll pay when I turn 18. I'll move to Brazil and I'll get my black belt there as soon as possible. And then whenever I get my black belt, I'll come back and open up a gym.

So obviously a little bit of a different idea of what actually happened.

James de Lacey4:32

Brazil came to you. Austin's now the place.

Will Tackett4:32

Yeah. I've exceeded expectations, to be honest. I expected to, at 18, move to Brazil and get my black belt and then just open up a gym, kind of call it there, right? But the more I competed, the more I enjoyed competing and the more I kind of got addicted to the thought of becoming the best and being, maybe not even the best, but the best version of myself. Everyone wants to be the best, but being the best version of yourself I feel is the best way to get there.

So I would just compete a ton and I really liked the idea of what competing kind of did for me. Because as a young age, really competitive, you lose a match, you cry. It's frustrating because you get your arm busted in a tournament. Or you don't get your arm busted and the ref just calls the match because it's a kids match.

So they didn't let submissions go all the way when you're a kid. So there's a bunch of different reasons. But when you're a kid, you lose, it's frustrating. You're like, oh, I worked really hard for this. I wanted to win the match or whatever. So it's frustrating.

So what that did for me, it taught me a lot. And I grew up with two brothers and a sister. So had a lot of siblings and we were always involved in sports. Really competitive household. So it just kind of drove me to keep competing. And I wouldn't say that I was the best at jiu-jitsu when I was a kid. I was okay. I could win local stuff, but I wasn't anywhere near world class.

So that kind of encouraged me and made me want to keep competing and want to keep getting better. Because it's not like I was just getting easy outcomes and easy results. It was really hard fought. So that was great. And like I said, that was my goal as a kid, is to get my black belt, go to Brazil and get my black belt there. But ended up getting my black belt when I was 19 years old, which is fairly young, one of, not a lot of people get black belts at 19 years old.

I got my black belt at 19 years old by Rodrigo Cabral, who's Brazilian, but here in Austin, Texas, didn't have to move out. But even before I got my black belt, I was traveling and competing all across the world, really. So I got to go to Ukraine and London and Brazil and all different places, Paris, and it's just been really cool all over the US. And it's just been a lot more than what I ever would have thought of at a young age.

Now my goals are even bigger than I would ever have thought that I would dream about or want to achieve. But now my goals just keep getting bigger and bigger. And it kind of all comes back to competing. So just trying to keep competing, because that helps me to, one, get better, because you're having to chase this result. And this result that's always getting further and further away, because the competition doesn't stay the same, right? The competition gets better along with you.

So you're constantly having to chase it. And that's just really challenging and fun for me and helps me become better. And on top of it, when you win, obviously you get recognized for your accomplishments. And that comes with sponsorships and recognition for things like online coaching or even coaching in at

A gym. So that's just all the different – the competition for me is the investment for my future. And I really enjoy it. I think competing is really challenging. If no one's ever really competed, I encourage people to compete because it shows you a lot about yourself that you normally wouldn't necessarily see on a day-to-day basis.

We have competitive lives in a way, but not really, right? The most we really compete for is we compete for the bare minimum, mostly, right? Okay, well I need to make sure that I get a house. If you have a family, I got to feed my kids, I got to get money in the bank and I got to pay the bills – that's what you're competing for. But you're not competing to be the best at anything a lot of the time. Some people do, and those are the people that are super exceptional.

But on average I think people aren't really competitive. So when you are now doing something like a fight where you're competing against somebody and the other person is trying to hurt you, it's even a thicker layer to it. Because then now you're having to – yeah, one, you're competing more than you would in your normal life because now you're having to actually do something that you're going to have to win at.

Because outside of schooling, we don't really do much competition anymore. All sports kind of end after school. Tests and things end after school. I mean, you can obviously compete and excel in your job, but it's not as needed.

But in competing, if you don't win, it's not necessarily – you don't want to just keep losing. It's kind of frustrating, and you can get injured too. Had a lot of injuries through losses. So it's definitely really challenging, and it teaches me a lot about myself. And I try to encourage a lot of people to compete if they ever can, even if they're a hobbyist.

There's a lot of competitions where hobbyists can compete against hobbyists. And yeah, it's tough. You got to maybe cut weight, maybe you got to put yourself in a good physical condition. There's a lot of little attributes that go into it that I think all become positive.

I was actually coaching one of my teammates and students that he had never really competed before, and he was planning to enter into a season of a few competitions. He was wanting to really devote the next six months to competing. And halfway through it, right before he entered his first competition, he was like, "You know, this has been really stressful and really tough and hard and everything.

But even if I go out there, maybe I can't even make weight or something, or maybe I go out there and I just totally mess up and lose my first match, make a big mistake," he said, "there's so many positive outcomes that have occurred just leading up to the tournament than just the tournament, even the result itself."

He could have no positive outcomes from just the result. He could lose completely and do terrible, but everything in the lead-up has been positive and has helped him out. And I remember him telling me that, and I was like, "Yeah, that's exactly how I feel when I compete." I feel like the whole lead-up process and everything is just really beneficial overall.

And that's just really what my life's now come to. So I'm just competing all the time, and I'm just chasing that goal of just trying to make the best jiu-jitsu person of myself. And with that comes a lot of other challenges because you got to round out the other areas of your life, right? But as of now, I'm just really enjoying it. And yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything else. So I like competing because I get to meet a lot of people and get to travel. Now it's just great.

James de Lacey11:14

Yeah, dude, I know what you mean. I've been in a few super fights around here in Austin at the end of last year and didn't do so well. That's how it goes.

I plan to get back on it later this year. Obviously, want to get back to training and things after our baby and stuff. So man, I'll be looking to compete. I mean, in Austin there's just super fights every week. There's just so much going on, so you can just compete anytime, almost. Which events did you compete on?

Will Tackett11:37

The Valve Submission Series, the first one, and the Black Widow Invitational, which is the first one.

James de Lacey11:37

Yeah, I just saw the Black – last Sunday there was one here in Austin. I was actually present. We had a guy.

Yeah, man. And before I go into your competition goals, to set the scene, what are some of your competition, I guess, achievements so far?

Will Tackett12:02

So back in juvenile – so with jiu-jitsu, for those that are listening that may not know, it's ranked in different age categories. So there's kids – that's – it's normally by your year group, so it's any whatever year you turn that year, that's the year you compete on. So I competed in kids quite a bit, and that goes up till I think 14 years old is all considered kids. And then you enter into juvenile phase.

So leading up through the kids divisions, I was able to win the IBJJF gi kids Pan Am twice. So I was able to win that one, which for me was pretty big back in the day because that was the only legit kids competition that was really in existence. They had NAGAS and Fight to Win tournaments and stuff like that, but it was really just dependent on who signed up. You're – your victory was more over an opponent, not necessarily the medal you got, right? It wasn't like the title wasn't the accomplishment. It was who you beat. So it wasn't as good.

But the kids Pans, if you won kids Pan Am, you had that title, and it was just a good title for if you were a kid. So that was what I was chasing a lot, and I competed in that a few times, lost a few times, but was able to win two of them. And that was great.

But that really projected me going into the juvenile division, which is your early stages of blue belt. So in jiu-jitsu, especially gi jiu-jitsu, they have a lot of requirements on ranks. So you can't compete up if you're a certain age category because they don't necessarily want kids walking around with black belts on at, like, you know, you sometimes see with karate or taekwondo students. So they try to, I guess, keep it a little bit more legit, and they put age requirements on things.

So you can't get your blue belt until you turn 16. So the year you're 15, or if you're 15 and you turn 16 that year, you're technically qualified as 16. So you can get your blue belt that year. So it's whatever year you're turning, that's the year you compete as.

15, 16, and 17, I competed – those two years, two and a half years – I competed as a juvenile. And I was able to win – I didn't do very well in gi that year or those years. I did better in the kids division as gi. But they offered no-gi now that you're in juvenile. So in juvenile they offer no-gi competitions, and that's what kind of sparked me to start competing more in no-gi.

So through the juvenile, I didn't do great in the gi. I did okay. My first gi worlds I took third. I beat a pretty well-known, relatively well-known juvenile at the time. And he's actually competing as adult quite a bit. I beat him, and I had one other match, and then I lost by some points or something. So I still did well, but I reoccurringly got just places on third, second – didn't win a whole lot in the gi.

So when I competed in no-gi later on, because there's seasons for the IBJJF – early on is gi, and then later in the year is no-gi – so halfway into my juvenile year I competed no-gi, and I did well. I won the no-gi worlds. So I took gold in the no-gi worlds. And then I decided to compete in the absolute, and I won the absolute.

So I won the absolute. I beat Hieron Gracie in the finals, who at the time was a pretty well-known juvenile. He was kind of killing it. Flo Grappling was hyping him up a lot, for a good reason. He was winning everything.

And I was able to beat him because he was more of a gi guy, and I was, I guess, more of a no-gi guy, or at least I was just maybe a little bit more skilled than he was in no-gi. And I submitted him. So I won double gold. That was really cool for me.

So it kind of projected me off into the next year, in which I won juvenile Pan Am in gi. So I took gold in that. And then didn't do well at the worlds again – I took bronze. And then no-gi worlds I took gold again. So I was able to win gold. And that was just a great year for me. Projected me off into the adult divisions.

So this is when I, throughout this whole time, I was trying to compete in local Texas stuff because they like a lot—especially because Onnit, like the 10th Planet Onnit is here in Austin, which is like a big supplement company—but they run like a 10th Planet out of there. They run a lot of submission-only tournaments at the Onnit, so I would try to compete at those as much as I could. And I actually got matches with people like PJ Barch, Kyle Chambers, back when I was like 15, 16 years old.

So I was able to get a lot of experience while I was still competing in the juvenile division with adults. So whenever I turned 17 years old, going on 18, I was able to compete in the adult division, and I had a lot of good experience moving into the adult division. And I kind of killed it that year.

First competition was the ADCC trials. I didn't win, but I did way better than I thought I was going to, and I think everyone else did too, because I took second, which was huge for me. Because I beat like three really high-level black belts there. I think I had seven or eight matches. It was really big for me.

And at the time, ADCC Trials was like the biggest tournament other than—like it was like the biggest, I guess, amateur tournament you could do. Like it wasn't necessarily paying you, but it was like the biggest tournament you could do. Because if you won the ADCC Trials, you were going to ADCC, which is the biggest tournament the whole time. So I got really close and it was really exciting, but I didn't make it.

But that, again, I kept riding that momentum throughout the year. And I was able to compete—because I was only a purple belt—I was able to compete a lot throughout the year, purple belt, traveling all over. I went to London, went to Ukraine. And I was winning a lot. I was able to kind of go, other than that match, I think I went undefeated that year and did well.

And then I got my brown belt and I did pretty good the starting of 2020, but COVID hit. So I wasn't able to train, or wasn't able to compete because of COVID. So there was like a big break in 2020 because of the events got shut down. I had some matches that got cancelled because the events were shut down. So I just kind of stopped and kept training.

And I took that time to try to gain some weight. So I was competing at like 170, 165 pounds, and I decided to try to move up to like 180, 185 pounds to attempt to go to the next division, 88 kg, which was kind of rough because I wasn't necessarily ready for it. I think because I was only like 18, 19 years old at the most. I was still pretty young, so it's hard for me to put on the muscle mass.

But I did okay. I still had some good matches in 2021, the year after. I beat Andrew Wiltse. I beat Manuel Ribamar. I had some matches with the guys like Vagner Rocha and like Paul Harris, like a bunch of really high-level big names—like bigger names than I'd ever competed against. And I had some wins, but I had a lot of losses too.

So it was just like good learning curve for me because I came off of like a really strong year in 2019, didn't really compete much in 2020, and then 2021, I had that new weight class and it was just really tough. So at the end of 2020—2021—I decided to drop back down and fight again at 170 pounds for the ADCC Trials, in which I did good, but I took second again.

So I took second just like I did two or three years previous at the West Coast Trials. This time it was at the East Coast Trials. I lost Kade Ruotolo in the finals by decision. So it was a really close match. We had a great match. We went overtime. It was super fun, but I didn't get the win.

So I was like, all right, well here's the decision: Do I go back up to 88, or do I try to now win 77 again? Because you beat everyone in the division at 77 already except Kade, and he won't be in the ADCC Trials the next time. So you can try to qualify and then beat him again at the Worlds. So I was like, okay, that's what the plan's going to be.

So I fought at the West Coast Trials after I competed against Kade. I was making the decision to either move up back to 88 or stay at 77. I had beat all the guys in the 77 division at the East Coast Trials—because there's two every year—besides Kade. And Kade was off to the World Championship, so he didn't need to do the trials again.

So I know I could probably win the West Coast Trials. It was going to be tough, but I know I could still probably win it and then just compete against Kade at the World Championship. So I was pretty confident, so I just decided to stay at 77.

So a few months later, I just focused a lot on my wrestling because that's something that I kind of messed up in. Because I didn't really prep a whole lot of wrestling for the trials, and I had a neck injury that was just preventing me from wrestling. And I hadn't been wrestling a lot leading up to it just due to a lot of injuries and other things. And just I never was really a good wrestler. So I lost my match with Kade because I couldn't wrestle very well. He had won a lot of the wrestling exchanges.

So this match I led up to, I did a lot of wrestling, practiced a lot of wrestling, and it paid off. So with the West Coast Trials, I was able to take down pretty much everybody. And I didn't get scored on from the feet, and I won the West Coast Trials. So I had a lot of matches, and it was actually the biggest trials to date. So it was the biggest trials they've ever had. There was like 256 people in my division, which is absurd.

James de Lacey21:18

Thankfully I don't have to fight all 256 guys. You said what, round-robin format?

Will Tackett21:18

Fight everyone, and then no way. Yeah, I would, I definitely wouldn't have won if I had to do that. No. So I got a bye the first one because I had won—I had won second at the first trial—so I got a bye. So I only had seven matches, which is still a lot, but it was spanned across two days, so it wasn't terrible. I had three the first day and then four the next day. So it wasn't too bad.

But it was great because I got to compete against different people this trials, I think, because I was seeded differently. I was on like a different side of the bracket, so I competed against different people—some former Trials champions and some really good up-and-comers. So it was really good experience, and I was able to showcase some good skills. So I was really happy about that.

And that's been my biggest title to date. So winning that Trials was huge for me. I've won a lot of super fights and have big wins over big names. And I've won like a lot of good matches against high-level people, which has pushed my name up in the rankings to where I was—I don't know I'm ranked now—but I was formerly ranked number three in my weight class under FloGrappling's worldwide rankings. So I was ranked pretty high, but that was just due to having super matches.

It wasn't until—I've never really won like a big title in adult. So I've only ever won the juvenile titles and the kids titles. So now that I'm an adult and I was able to win the West Coast Trials, it was a pretty big deal for me. It was really, really cool, and I had worked really hard for it, and I had competed at a bunch of Trials previously and had come up short. So it was just really relieving and reassuring.

We kind of talked about this earlier: competition can kind of be really stressful, and it can be frustrating if you lose, but it drives you to keep going. So this, it was really nice to get that reward of that—like a lot of the hard work had paid off. And it was just really, really, really good feeling.

So after the Trials, I actually struggled with more injuries, which I've struggled with a lot of injuries in my career. But nothing that's made me have to stop for too long, but enough to where like it was kind of made me take some time off. After the Trials, that kind of forced me to—I did as much as I could on the mats, and I still showed up to class, but it was just tough for me to kind of keep training hard.

And I needed a little bit of a break anyways because I had trained really hard leading up to both those trials. But going into the ADCC, I came back into training, I got re-injured again. So I was like injured, took some time off, just kind of drilling and doing workouts and staying in shape and drilling as much as I could. And then but when I came—

Back I got injured again leading right up to the ADCC which was super frustrating because I was like oh my God this is the biggest opportunity that I've had of my life, and now I just got injured before the camp's just now started. So I had to cut my camp short which actually ended up being pretty good. So the camp cut short worked out nicely because I didn't feel as beat up towards the end of the camp.

Normally I do six week camps which is tough because the first three weeks you're just getting brutalized and then the last three weeks you're kind of started to adjust to it but now you're cutting weight so then now it's another element. So shortening the camp was good because I was able to not feel as beat up, but the injuries and stuff still was an issue. But who doesn't get injured right at the high level, everyone's always injured.

And I went out to the ADCC and I didn't do well. I lost first round to Mateusz Szczeciński. He's one of the best leg locking guys from Poland. He leg locked me and hurt my knee pretty badly. He got me in an Aoki lock which is a really uncommon submission and he submitted me in the first round. And I hadn't been submitted since I was purple belt, hadn't been submitted since the first trials that I mentioned where I took second back in 2019. So it had been like three or four years I had been submitted.

So normally I get, if I get beat I get positionally or something, so it was a really big deal. I got submitted and my knee was hurt. I tore my MCL, hamstring, and had a tibial fracture. So that was just a big deal and I had to take some time off.

But this last competition was such a nice thing because I was able to compete again in Tokyo and that was my first competition back since that knee injury. And I was able to compete against another trials winner. So I won the trials in the North American West Coast trials which is in California and that's where the American guys, people that have American citizenship or passports are eligible for. And then they have other trials for European people, the South American trials and stuff like that.

And Kenta is Japanese. He won the Asian trials. So he won the Asian trials which has all the Australian guys in it too because it's Asian and Oceanic I think. They got a bunch of really tough guys in that and he won. He beat Joseph Chen, he beat a bunch of pretty decent competitors and looked really good in it. And then he fought at the ADCC and almost, which a lot of people think he did, but he fought JT Torres and he had a really narrow match with him.

I wouldn't necessarily say won because I think in order to, JT Torres is the former champ, in order to beat the champ you have to beat the champ. You have to legit beat them, sub them, we know that from the UFC and stuff. So he fought JT Torres and they had a ref decision at the end of it and he lost the ref decision. So he pushed the action a lot but it wasn't quite enough, but he's super skilled to be able to do that against JT.

And he actually took JT Torres down, he out wrestled him which is really impressive. JT is kind of known for his wrestling. And so we had a match scheduled for Tokyo. It was my first match back, this whole time I've been hurt. I've been working my wrestling since the trials that I mentioned. I started working wrestling in, so it was exciting for me to go against another guy that's skilled on the feet.

And we had a great match. It was super exciting, it was 15 minutes, it was just non-stop, we were just going at it. And I was able to win off of a takedown. I took him down and took his back so I scored and I was able to win off that score at the end of the 15 minutes. So that's where we're at now, that was only about a week or two ago. So we're back in Austin, body's feeling good. I'm back to training again, I just trained this morning and I'm just prepping for the next one now.

James de Lacey27:42

Nice. So what's the goals going forward then? Are you looking to make it to the big stage ADCC, take that out, or there are other aspirations you have in your jiu-jitsu career?

Will Tackett27:42

Yeah, so ADCC is for sure the biggest thing that you can do. So if you can win the ADCC, that's the biggest title. And I definitely want to get back out there and do better than I did last time. I think that's, I'm always chasing to be the best version of myself when it comes to competition. So I just got to beat my, of course I'm going to win it. I want to win the competition and winning it's going to mean a lot to me now, especially now I have lost it.

But competing against my former self, beating the performance of my former self is always what I'm aiming for. And I have two years to do that because the ADCC is every two years. So I have no doubt that I'm going to do a lot better than I did that time. I think I underperformed at ADCC. Didn't really know Mateusz Szczeciński very well, didn't really, just a bunch of circumstances. I didn't really understand his style.

I was prepping to wrestle a lot because that's the ADCC and you normally don't guard in the ADCC because of the wrestling rules, but he's only a guard player. So he kind of just doesn't mind to accept the negatives that come with guard pulling. So it was just a style that I wasn't prepping for whole camp. And he just is so good, really good. And yeah, he was the better man.

So I want to go back out there and I want to, depending if I compete at 77 again which is 170 pound, or if I move up to 88 kilos and compete at that weight category, I'm going to destroy my previous performance which wasn't good. But go out there and destroy my previous performance and win it. So that's the goal. Now everything leading up to that is just in preparation.

All the matches, all of the competitions and everything is just practice for that and also to just build anticipation too. Because with ADCC it's either invite or by trials qualification. So you either get an invite or trials qualification. So hopefully I can just destroy some competition this year and then I just get the invite and I don't have to worry about trials. That way some of my other teammates can compete at trials and I can help coach them.

And my brother that I mentioned that we started training at the same time, he's two years younger than I and he'll be competing at 77 this year because we're closer to the same size now, now that we're both full grown. And so I would rather us not be in the same trials division because that's like who gets the invite. So ideally I could just get some type of invite and then he can try to qualify or something like that, or possibly I do different weight classes. I might do 88, he might do 77 to prevent us from competing against each other. But it just depends.

So everything leading up, I don't have anything lined up right now, but hopefully Who's Number One, maybe some of the ADCC opens, all of that leads up to the ADCC.

James de Lacey30:38

Yeah, as you know you can represent Sweet Science of Fighting while you're training. We're more than just a membership, we also have rash guards and shorts. If you're watching this on YouTube you'll see that we have the Sweet Science of Fighting 2.0 shorts and we also have the Sweet Science of Fighting short and long sleeve rash guard. There's another design coming soon but you can get those on XMartial.com and you can go down the description and you can find that. And back to the podcast.

Nice. And I wanted to dive a little bit into your preparation. You mentioned you have like a six week fight camp for a lot of these comps. Maybe dive into, is that typical for you and maybe what a week or a typical day looks like in some of those weeks. So for example that first three week block what a typical day might look like or a typical week, and then that last three weeks what maybe a typical weekend day looks like?

Will Tackett31:30

Yeah. So on the first three weeks I guess of the camp, the first block is, I like to incorporate a lot of swimming in my camps because it's really low impact. It doesn't really destroy your joints and it doesn't really make you super sore if you're already conditioned to swim. So I like to incorporate some swimming a few weeks before to get all the soreness out, that way the week of the camp I start. Monday morning I'll hit a hard swim, just kind of feel the lungs burn but nothing really else.

It's always a great way to start the day. I'll normally do that in the morning. Then I got training training after that. We have training at 11:00 a.m., so I'll do my swim, I'll probably eat before the swim and eat after the swim, and then just depending on how much weight I got to cut. Then I'll do the noon session at 11, compete at that or train at that, and be a good training session.

We'll do a lot of drills and do some specific rounds based off of the rule set that we're competing under. Because as of right now, grappling is still a young sport, so there's a lot of different rule sets. There's a lot of organizations that sign grapplers. So you might be competing for ADCC one weekend and then a month or two down the line you're competing for some EBI tournament and the rules are completely opposite.

So the camp dictates what we're trying to work on in preparation, stylistically or with your strategy and stuff. So we'll do a lot of positional drills. For ADCC we do a lot of turtle rounds. We do a lot of stuff starting with trying to take down, trying to hold the guy down, because it's really hard to score in the ADCC. Just stuff like that. We won't train super hard because Monday, you don't want to hit too hard during the middle of the week, during the beginning of the week, because then towards the end of the week you just have no energy.

So we'll just kind of—it's good training, but it's not to the death. And then later in the day I have a wrestling practice. So then I wrestle with, we got some D1 guys that train with us. We'll do wrestling practice out of the garage.

James de Lacey33:35

Yeah, I've been there.

Will Tackett33:35

Yeah, it's always fun. It's always a good time. Get Joe Pak and Brandon Guchi and a lot of those guys. We'll wrestle with them. They're former D1 wrestlers, so they got some good experience and they do jiu-jitsu now too. So we'll get some good wrestling in. That's always great. I've been trying to work a lot of wrestling just to get better at that because it's never been one of my strong suits. And then just call it a day.

So it's just those three sessions: the swimming, the noon training, and then the night training. And then Tuesday I try to hit a swim in the morning again. It just really depends how much time I have in the day. If I don't have anything going on and I'm just able to focus completely on training and I don't have to teach or anything like that, which I try to during my camps, then I would hit a swim in the morning, noon training again at 11, and then after noon training, then I would try to hit a weight session. So then I would try to go lift.

And I can't lift too heavy or too hard because this would be equivalent to the third session a day, which becomes a lot. So I'm trying to monitor and be aware of how much energy I'm expending because I don't want to just gas or get too sore or get injured too. So a lot of the lifting is rehab, just trying to prevent injury and maintain some muscle mass throughout the cut. There's a lot of studies that show that when you're activating muscle groups throughout a weight cut, it helps with muscle retention versus if you just cut then it kind of cuts from everything.

So I try to lift a little bit, lot of rehab, stuff that's going to keep me strong and healthy leading up to the match. And then we have another session at night, which night session is always a session where we'll go harder. So technically leading up to this point we haven't had any hard sessions. Like Monday we didn't have a night session. We just had wrestling practice, so that's hard, but it's not the same because it's wrestling, it's not the same as grappling.

And then the noon sessions, we don't go that hard because we got to save our energy. But then Tuesday night, Tuesday night's where we hit it hard the first time in the week. So now we hit it hard. We'll hit hard rounds, long rounds. We'll do six to eight rounds after hard drilling and stuff, and that's where you push.

Wednesday is definitely now more of an off day because Tuesday night was so difficult, and training Monday and everything. So we'll rest a little bit. Wednesday, I normally try to do some sauna. So I normally try to get a really nice sauna going and lift some weights. So I'll do some sauna, lift some weights, and then maybe hit a drill session and just call it there. And then that way I can rest up and get healthy and get a lot of good sleep for Thursday, because Thursday is a very similar schedule to Tuesday night.

So we have training, noGi training in the noon, which I try to hit a swim beforehand, and then weight training after the noon class, and then we got the hard night training. So that's really tough, another tough day. But get some good sleep, wake up again on Friday, and Friday is pretty chill because everyone's dead at this point. So Friday, I normally teach a little bit of classes in the morning. I'll hit some drills during my class, and then when it comes down to night training, then we'll hit one last hard training session for the week at the night.

And Saturday, dedicated active recovery. Massage, ice bath, all that good stuff. And then Sunday is pretty much rest as well. But I'll normally do some private classes on Sunday, so teach some classes with some people and roll around with my students. And it's really good to keep the body moving and just get a good sweat going.

James de Lacey37:37

How does that change as you get closer to the competition, for example maybe one or two weeks out? Obviously you might be cutting a little more weight then and you're looking to do a little less so you're not taking it going into competition. How does your schedule change?

Will Tackett37:37

Yeah, so the last three weeks, the schedule changes a tad bit leading up to the tournament. I'm doing a lot more cardio, so I'm hitting a lot of runs, long cardio sessions. Unlike the swims, which are only 20 minutes or so, but leading up to the tournament I'm doing long cardio sessions—long elliptical sessions, long runs, lot of sauna to try to keep burning the calories, get my heart rate not necessarily up super high, but getting my heart rate in that fat burn zone and just letting it go for 45 minutes to an hour.

So that really helps me with the weight cut, and it's also just good mentally too. I think it's a good mental practice leading up to the competition. You develop a little bit of mental toughness sitting in the sauna and suffering a little bit, suffering long runs, envisioning your match and just putting in work and stuff, whether it be on the run or the bike or anything.

So I really enjoy doing that, just as even if I'm not cutting I like to do that just because it's a healthy practice that I like to have and I've always done. And when I'm cutting it really helps. So the training stays the same. Intensity obviously drops. So I don't really train like about 10 days out. I kind of stop training. I might flow around a little bit, but I'm not doing any type of hard sessions because I don't want to risk injury. And my body needs to start recovering so that way when it's fight day, I'm ready to go.

But I do hit cardio sessions kind of all the way up to the competition. I think it's good to keep, because cardio is not really hard on my body. I don't ever get sore from doing long endurance sessions, especially if it's low impact like elliptical machine or bike. So I don't get sore from that, especially because it's low intensity. So I like to maintain those up, even up until maybe even the day before the competition, just because it helps with the weight cut, but it also just keeps my body feeling good.

And I'm not used to training, like when I'm already six weeks into the camp, every training session I'm at least a little bit tired or I feel conditioned. I feel like I've worked out at least once today. So like whenever if I went 10 days before the competition of nothing where I wasn't really breaking a sweat or anything, I feel a little weird. And then on top of it, it'd be hard to cut weight. I like to lead up.

To the competition, still doing the cardio sessions, but that's when all the film review, all of the drills and everything, just doubles or triples. So the film review and everything will just kind of double or triple because that's when I have more time on my hands. I'm not necessarily rolling as much and I'm not as tired, so I have more energy and effort that I can put into that.

So that's kind of things will change up towards the end of the camp. Week of, it's pretty light. I'm not doing much other than the cardio and stuff. I'm not really rolling. I'm just hitting those drills, video stuff, and cargo sessions.

James de Lacey40:52

Nice. How much weight are you cutting going into some of these comps?

Will Tackett40:52

Well, if I compete at 77 kilograms, which is 169 pounds right about there, then I'm coming in from, coming into the camp, I'm 183 pounds right around there, 182 pounds, and then those six weeks, that's kind of the weight that I'll cut. Now, I would probably cut more if the rules allowed for it or the weigh-ins allowed for, but the weigh-in is normally morning of.

So for ADCC Trials, you got to weigh in that morning and then you can rest, rehydrate and stuff. But for the actual ADCC Worlds, you weigh three days in a row: weighing the day before, and then you weigh morning of, and then if you compete the second day, you weigh again. Excuse me. So it's a lot, three days in a row to make the same weight.

You can't really cut from a whole lot very high because then you're just depleted and tired, so it's better to compete more of a weight that you walk around at, or at least similar to that, versus cutting from really high.

James de Lacey42:12

Yeah. What I guess, what are your strategies after weigh-in then in terms of refueling? Are there any go-to drinks and foods that you like to take?

Will Tackett42:12

Yeah, it just depends on if I did a water cut or not. Most of the time I hit a water cut, so if I hit a water cut, pretty much any form of electrolytes I'm trying to get in: potassium, magnesium, sodium, all of it. So bananas—I love bananas because it's like some carbs to help me feel human again. And I love the Liquid IV, too.

So normally what I'll do is I'll take—because Liquid IV has sugar in it, so it makes me feel human. I'm just depleted when it's weigh cut. I just feel like a machine. So I'll put two or three Liquid IVs in a large water bottle, like a half-gallon water bottle or something, and some Himalayan salt, eat a banana, and slam that.

And I won't eat anything else until I pee. So I'll only eat the banana and drink all of that fluids until I pee. And once I pee, then I'll start eating actual food, just because I want to make sure that I'm hydrated enough.

James de Lacey43:04

Yeah, it's a big mistake a lot of people make is they eat instead of drinking, and they run into those problems.

Will Tackett43:29

You could even drink water, but then if you eat something like oats or rice, those absorb the water in your stomach. So instead of the water getting in where it needs to be—like your muscle tissue—it's getting absorbed to digest the food. So I try to stay away from most food. Keep it like fruit and stuff if I'm going to eat anything after the weight cut. It was just a trick that a wrestler showed me. Wrestlers cut weight all the time, so that's crazy what they do.

James de Lacey43:53

So what do you do then, so the ADCC, they weigh you on the second day as well, so that means even when you're refueling after your first day, you just got to watch your weight and make sure that you come in the same weight following day?

Will Tackett43:53

Yeah, it was awful, to be honest. I've never done three-day weigh-ins before. So the first day, or I guess the day before, it was terrible. I woke up 2, 3 pounds over, sit in the hot bath. I go get in the hot tub with some Epsom salt, do 25 minutes in there, get out on weight.

Walk downstairs, go back, make my drink, get my banana, walk downstairs, yeah, weigh in, chug my half gallon, head back upstairs. Eat my banana because the weigh-in was in the hotel, so that was nice. So back upstairs, filled up my water again or grabbed my other water or something, and started sipping on that. And then just crashed back out because I was just so tired from cutting and stuff.

And then woke up out of my sleep and was like, 'Oh, I need to pee really bad,' because I hadn't really drank much water. So after that, then I was like snacked on some more food, had some rice cakes and a little bit of some nuts, like some trail mix—but it's not like the crappy trail mix, like the healthy trail mix. And then just kind of rode that out for the rest of the day, because I couldn't really eat much more because if I eat any more, then I wasn't going to make weight the next day either.

So I had a little snack before bed. I had, I make a homemade protein bar before bed, and then just went to sleep. Woke up the next morning, had to do that all over again, cut some more weight, two—it was like two pounds, a little less the next day. Cut some weight, went downstairs, weighed in.

Then I was more about, 'Okay, I'm going to eat a little bit more food today because I'm fighting. I need actual energy.' And I know I was going to burn calories by competing, because you have to make weight the next day if you make it to the next day. But you have to win at least two, you have to win two matches to make it to the next day. So I was like, 'Okay, well, if I win two matches, I'm going to burn enough calories to be able to eat something.'

So went back upstairs, did the whole routine again: banana and water, wait till I pee, and then I was able to get some eggs down, get some oatmeal down, like some carbs. And I was snacking on some potatoes after that. And then whenever the match came up, I was sipping on—again, sipping on Liquid IV. That's something I like to do as well, just kind of sip on it because it's like carbs and electrolytes. And then competed. I didn't do well, so then I was able to eat as much as I want after that. Sadly. But that's kind of how I treat it, though.

James de Lacey46:42

No, that's a good approach and good approach for anyone listening as well who's competing jiu-jitsu. Because obviously it's difficult when, depending on what competitions you're in, like if you're competing IBJJF, you're wearing a gi, and people still cut weight for that. And I've seen it. I'm like, 'Man, you literally don't have time to do anything else.'

Will Tackett47:06

So I've cut weight for IBJJF before, but it's been like a sweat. I'll put on a hoodie and some sweats, and I'll do like jog outside or something, cut two, less than two pounds—just no different than you would in a jiu-jitsu session. I'm sure you've weighed yourself before, after class before, and you drop weight. Sometimes you drop like five pounds.

So I won't cut any more than that, just a few pounds. And I'm hydrated going into it, so it's not like I'm dehydrated cutting weight. I'm feeling good. I just sweat a little bit, and then weigh in. I'm good, and I'm warmed up now for the match, too.

But these are a little bit different. It's a little bit harder because then you weigh in 6 a.m., or 5 a.m. or whatever it is, and then you compete at 1 p.m. You got a window. So people are using that window to cut weight, so you're like, 'Oh man, now I have to cut a little bit, too.'

James de Lacey47:52

But the IBJJF's a little nicer about that, because at least they have no time to really get bigger. Yeah. What, five pounds with the most by drinking some water, but that's not going to really make a difference.

Yeah. Does the rampant steroid use in the ADCC and stuff, I guess maybe not concern you, but almost worry you as a competitor?

Will Tackett48:12

No, it doesn't really bother me. Yeah, I mean, I honestly, if I could pick a side, I'd wish that the entire jiu-jitsu community would just be super strict and test people like UFC does, like with random testing. But it's just not going to happen. Too much money—costs a lot of money. Sport's too small. Too many people take steroids. It's just not going to happen.

So I don't really have a problem with it. It's not against the rules. They don't test, so I mean, I can't complain. I can't complain about people using steroids and saying, 'Oh, they're cheating,' because they're not. They're not breaking the rules at all, so it doesn't really bother me. I mean, of course, I've competed against people that—

Are on steroids and it's tough. They're very strong and very athletic, but I mean that's a choice that I can make, so I can't be too mad. I see some people always complaining about it and it's just, I don't know if it's necessarily the right road. It's not a moral high ground to not take steroids because it's not illegal. It's just, I mean of course there's health side effects to it and it may be an easy route, right?

But I mean, that's, you could say that about, "Oh well you trained jiu-jitsu, that's why you're good." I don't train. It's not the same thing, but of course training more is gonna give you more positive side effects from training more. So that's not the easy route. I mean, steroids, they cause you to have to work harder. You can't just take steroids and have the same workload and expect to be just a different human being.

A lot of the guys, especially jiu-jitsu, take a lot of different, they take, I don't even know what it would be, but they take a lot of steroids that help them recover a lot quicker. They think it, a recovery, I guess it'd be growth hormone and such to help them be able to where they can train twice as much. So then they're healing from injuries much quicker. They're not really getting set back from soreness and they're able to train a lot more, so then they get better. But they're training more, so they're working a lot harder than you.

So you can't necessarily be too mad saying it's the easier way, because they're technically having to do twice as much work. But yeah, it's whatever. I'm not against the people that are taking steroids because it's not against the rules. But yeah, to each its own.

James de Lacey50:43

For sure. Now, this has been an insightful chat into I guess the world of pro jiu-jitsu. Hope everyone listening got some value out of that too. But I know you also now got your own online little membership where you're teaching there. Do you want to maybe plug that for us?

Will Tackett50:43

Yes, please. So willtackett.com, W-I-L-L and then my last name T-A-C-K-E-T-T. So willtackett.com. It's basically my online academy kind of now. So I haven't, I don't have my own academy physically. I teach at Fight Factory here in Austin, Texas. So for also for those are listening, if you ever want to come down and train, I'm there pretty much every class. I teach a lot of the classes and I'd love to get some rounds in, meet you guys and stuff and share some of my jitsu.

But for those that can't make it down or maybe can but not so often and want to learn from me online or get access to more exclusive content, I have a site where now I'm uploading. And it's going to be, a lot of things are going to be live right now. Not everything's live because I don't have a ton of users, so it's not necessary for it to be live.

But my goal is to have a ton of live classes to where people can interact with me just like you would in a normal gym to where, teaching some techniques or something, and you can ask a question the technique and I can pause and answer the question and just get more of interaction and feedback from the instructor.

I think a lot of the other companies that do instructionals and things like that lack in the department of customer to coach interaction and feedback. You might be able to message them on Instagram and hopefully they see your post, maybe share it on their story and answer it or something. But a lot of the guys that, the people that you're probably buying instructionals from are pretty famous. They have a lot of DMs, so they rarely see that stuff. Whereas here on my platform you can interact with me and I'm down to answer the questions and can help you guys out.

So that's kind of one of the things we're offering. I'm also offering Q&A stuff to where I'll be here behind my desk chatting about whatever it is, maybe one of the classes or just competitions or anything, and you guys can ask me any question. And I'm doing also film review and things like that. So I got a lot of cool ideas going on, so it's going be pretty cool. And I'm excited kind of how it's going so far.

So it's the second week I've been uploading content. First week I've been consistently doing it, because I was in Tokyo so it was kind of hard to upload stuff. But so I put out right now, I've been doing one class a week, one Q&A a week, and one film review a week. So you get three pieces of content every week.

I think that's probably a sweet spot. We'll see, because I don't want to upload too much content because if you get three hours of content, you just can't go through it or you burn through it and then you don't remember anything. So I want to try to find the balance, but it's gonna be cool.

James de Lacey53:25

Nice. Yeah, we'll link that up in the description too for anyone who wants to join and learn from Will as well. But thanks for coming on Will, I really appreciate it.

Will Tackett53:25

Appreciate it so much.