Tom Hardy is one of the most popular celebrity BJJ practitioners around, but even he had his doubts when he first started the sport. You wouldn’t think it to see him today of course, as Hardy is now a purple belt in BJJ and has trained with some of the best in the world. There are plenty of famous practitioners who have managed to achieve similar feats of course, but what sets Hardy apart is the fact that he’s been consistently testing himself in competition along the way. Few celebrities ever step up in competition and Hardy has done it over and over again, winning several gold medals at smaller events.
Despite how much he loves BJJ right now, Tom Hardy had the same reservations that have plagued the vast majority of people entering a class for the first time. Hardy explained how he discovered the sport and what his first thoughts were:
“There’s a club at the end of my road and the guys were all Jiu-Jitsu. And they had kickboxing and boxing, and I thought I’d try a bit. But I’ve always been a bit nervous of the fighting martial arts community, because I thought: ‘Well… This is for them, not for me. I don’t think I belong.’ I didn’t feel like it was for me, because I was intimidated, maybe.”
It’s refreshing to hear that Hardy had to work through the same mental blocks that most people face, and he isn’t the first famous BJJ practitioner to discuss how he found the sport. Those reservations eventually fade of course, and Hardy explained that he feels much differently about the sport today:
“Now it’s more of a meditation or relaxing, I have no competitive spirit. I don’t need to win, I don’t care… I always get beaten, but that’s okay.”
The full interview with Tom Hardy where he reveals how he felt when he first started BJJ was uploaded to Alberto Serrano’s official YouTube channel:
