A Quote by James Haskell

I like my boxing and jiu jitsu and that kind of stuff and one thing I always enjoyed from an early age was shooting. My godfather got me into it. It started with airguns and shotguns and that kind of stuff.
When I started out, Jiu-Jitsu was really an elite thing in Brazil, and there was some prejudice towards poorer kids, so I had to learn things on my own. Some of my neighbours started doing Jiu-Jitsu, so I started watching it, and then started rolling with them. It wasn’t organized training, but it was better than nothing.
One thing I took - you know, especially from boxing at a young age - from my coach was, if you're a jiu-jitsu guy, and you only cater your training to jiu-jitsu, there's going to come a day and time in your career when you face a guy who is a great wrestler, has great takedown defense, and he's going to make you look silly.
I've got this thing where I always kind of diss the older stuff and favor the newer stuff. I mean, it's not just my thing; every artist or musician is like that, I guess.
My mom loved when I started training judo and jiu-jitsu because that wasn't hurting me. But when I took her for my first MMA fight, she was like, 'Baby, you're not really going to do this, right? To get punched in the face, please stop with that. Do jiu-jitsu, it's good, it won't get you hurt.'
When it comes to jiu-jitsu, enthusiasm, being able to say the right stuff and the best stuff, no one comes close to Joe Rogan. He just smashes everybody.
I started off doing stuff in theatre in Letterkenny from quite a young age. It was just a hobby, something I enjoyed. Some kids like tennis or guitar. I just enjoyed musical theatre so my parents got me into classes.
When I came to the United States, I saw a lot of Mike Tyson. I would stay up and watch all of the Mike Tyson fights. A friend here said, 'You got to do Jiu-Jitsu. That's the thing.' I said, 'C'mon, Jiu-Jitsu would never beat Mike Tyson.' So, he showed me the Royce Gracie tape. I was so impressed with the thing.
I paid too much attention to boxing. I wanted to try professional boxing. That's why I didn't focus on wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and it hurt me.
For me, boxing's like checkers, and MMA's like chess - there are so many ways to win the match. It's not barbaric; it's boxing, kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, cardio and it's all reached such an amazing level. As fans learn more about the sport, they just fall in love with it.
That's one thing that's always helped me as a fighter is that I haven't focused on one thing, like, 'let's make you a jiu-jitsu fighter' or 'let's make you a Muay Thai fighter.' I had nothing when I started, and we work on everything at the same time.
The first time I got into the studio, when I was 17, 18, I got to work with people who were some part of the Cheiron thing, who did all the early Britney Spears stuff, all the early 'NSync stuff.
I do a lot of crazy stuff. People that have watched me know my grappling game is of the regular map that you'd see in a jiu-jitsu class.
I grew up in Westlake Villiage, a suburb of L.A. There was a guy there who was a fighter and was like, 'I'll teach you to box.' I started a little bit of boxing, then it crossed over into jiu-jitsu. I was into it for a little while, but then I started doing basketball, baseball, team sports.
I started off dancing and playing sports, and I joined the drama stuff, the theatre stuff in middle school because my friends were involved, and it was kind of the cool thing to do.
MMA is not jiu-jitsu. MMA is not boxing. MMA is not wrestling. It's a different kind of style of punching and wrestling and grappling on the ground.
I wanted to train jiu-jitsu instead of capoeira because the mat was soft. It was better than training capoeira on the hard floor. I started reading jiu-jitsu magazines, reading about the world champions, and becoming one of them became my goal.
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