Latest / The Ageless Warrior Lab / René Dreifuss: Self Defense First, Studying Data and Training Champions | EP 55

Transcript

René Dreifuss: Self Defense First, Studying Data and Training Champions | EP 55 · The Ageless Warrior Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I trained with Yuki Nakai, and that is the fastest I've ever bit in my life.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Touched hands, and I was unconscious.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then he fights Hicks, and it's not even close.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, there's something with this jujitsu that I need to.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: The most important rule is no beats.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: No attitude.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're here to grind, do our best, and must turn the face of witnesses.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because you cannot walk.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm BJJ Coral Belt and Dirty Dozen member Dave Meyer, here to draw wisdom from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the martial arts and explore how it applies to success in business, relationships, your long-term health, and making the most out of your life.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: What you're about to hear is a discussion I had with Professor Renee Dreyfus, the founder of Radical MMA.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to founding Team Radical, Coach Dreyfus was an active MMA fighter in the New York area.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Since 1975, he's trained extensively in a variety of martial arts in the U.S., Japan, and Brazil, and holds instructor ranks in multiple styles of combat, including a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: In 1992, he fulfilled his lifelong dream of moving to Japan to practice martial arts in the home of the samurai.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: He studied a number of fighting arts while there, but placed a special emphasis on developing his judo skills.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, due to a car accident, he was forced to return to the U.S.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: in 1998.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The accident left him with severe injuries and almost complete paralysis of his left leg.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: But after two years of surgery and physical therapy, he began to recover and slowly restarted his martial arts training.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because of his experience in many martial arts, Renee became a fan of the Gracie family and was enthralled with Valley Tuto, No Rules Fighting, and MMA.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: These styles allowed fighters to utilize a wide range of skills and combined striking and throwing and submissions.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And because of the limitations of his body due to that accident, he developed a system called the Rat Guard, which gives even a very inflexible or injured person an easy method to protect themselves on the ground and to keep an aggressive opponent at bay.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to having a successful fighting and teaching career, Professor Dreyfus is fluent in Japanese and also holds a master's degree in East Asian studies with a concentration on Japanese military history from Columbia University.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a lab, and I value your input, so be sure to leave comments.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications of when new episodes drop.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now sit back and enjoy my chat with Professor Renee Dreyfus.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Renee, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me this morning.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is an absolute honor to be here.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, it's my favorite podcast to listen to.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that I have something to contribute to the discussion.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm honored to be here.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really, really excited as well.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you do definitely have a lot to contribute, as the people who are watching and listening will soon hear over the next roughly hour or however long we talk.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You describe, just to start off, how we met.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: You remember how we met.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have a vague memory of it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you would share that story, because it's kind of a funny story, and it's going to take me into a bunch of questions I'm going to ask you.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I started my martial art journey when I was a kid, and I moved to Japan and I started training rapping there.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in Japan, I saw Higgs and Fight.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just unmindbled.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: I saw a spoiler fight.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And before that, I saw a Japanese Shuto.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, this is great.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we saw the Brazilian Shitsu fighters at the time come to Japan and beat all the Japanese guys.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you, those Japanese guys were really good.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I trained with many.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I trained with Yuki Nakai, who was fought mixing in the Valley Tuto, and that is the fastest I've ever been seeing in my life.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: He touched hands and I was unconscious.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: He did a flying triangle.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he fought six, and it's not even close.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And in grappling, he grappled with John Jobs and he grappled match.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And John Jobs got him in the triangle armor.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, there's something in this jujitsu that I need to know.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I was very fortunate to meet Sally Darrow when we came for a foilers fight.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I trained with him a little bit at the Kodakon.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: He came to the Codacon.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Wonderful guys, really respectful.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just what it was like really, really, really interesting.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to do it, but at that time, the the kind of there was still that style versus style kind of mentality.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody was telling me, Oh, if you go to a judicial school and you see your judo man or cry man, they're gonna kill you.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Yeah, I don't really want that.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think I mentioned that I got into a car accident, so my knees were messed up, had a bunch of surgeries.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, the last thing I want to do is go and have a walk.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: So then I heard about the Machados.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Oh, the Machados are really welcoming their brother's start.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, and it just so happened, my sister lived like four blocks away from the old academy, you know, in Hawthorne, you know, the one near the Los Angeles.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so my sister lives in Donovan.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like like literally five-minute bike right away.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, oh, yeah, let me just go over there and see what it's about.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I walk into the gym, and the first person I meet is Ryan Gray, who was doing a sapling at that point.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Super nice.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Yeah, I'm a judo guy, or I'm a Japanese martial artist and just doing judo.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Oh wow, judo's so cool.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I came in and I remember it the day like it was yesterday.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was like maybe 99, 2000, I forget exactly what it was over the Christmas time area, time and set up when I was visiting my sister.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I walked in and I remember the song that was played was Shaggy.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was playing the song, and everybody's doing their warm-up.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it was you and a British guy who is a really like the judo guy, British guy, and David Nopcarat, and John Machado was talking to Hegan on the side, and in another room, it was Cindy O'Watson training some of them.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's just training, and I'm sitting there and I'm like nervous, you know, like what's gonna happen?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: This and first I trained online, which was really cool, and then I kind of like wasn't folly, and I met you, and it was mostly in the second day, but the first day you came, and you're like, Oh, nice to meet you, and you helped me out with the technique, and then I came back the next day because I was sold, and you sat me down, and I think it was way over an hour because I told you that I did Japanese jujitsu and judo, and you said you did it as well, and we connected on that level, and you basically gave me one of the most wonderful first introductions I've ever had.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm to this day incredibly grateful for that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you and Ryan also showed me tremendous, tremendous kindness.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: So he had actually, I believe he got his bomb belt like that day.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm a judo black girl, Jiu Jitsu Black Mill.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm gonna kill this problem, and of course, I got destroyed.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, I didn't even understand exactly what he was doing in this because it was different, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm getting smoke here, and I don't understand what my mistakes are.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And let me tell you, I trained with some very high-level guys in Japan.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: I said, there's really something here, and then you sat me down to feel like, okay, this is what you want to do here, this is like this, and it was unbelievable.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I just again, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you because you're everything a martial arts is supposed to be.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're super tough, but you're also a great person, super integrity, and kind.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: You were so kind to me, to this dumb white belt who didn't know anything, and you gave me the best introduction possible.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're very, very nice.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you weren't a dumb white belt, you were a very serious martial artist.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, I did also myself come from other styles of Japanese martial arts mostly.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I did, so I did feel like, oh, I can speed you along, like I can speak your language and tell you sort of what's going on here and how to interpret it and how to fit what you're doing.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, yeah, and I thought that might be helpful, and I'm super glad it was.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, you mentioned names of a few people.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned Cindy Umatsu, who became the first American BGJ Black Belt.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to get her on the show, but she's a little shy, but we'll get her at some point.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that was Scott Goddard, was that super tough British guy.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was, he was, he was a nightmare.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tough as nails, judo black belt who came from England and then went through our ranks.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just back up just a little bit, just for context, because you've you've touched on some of your history in martial arts because I'm going to be asking you questions from your very unique point of view.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You get people who come to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu these days with no previous martial arts experience.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's very common.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Back in those days, and I'm guessing this would have been what what year do you think this was?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: 99, like Christmas 99.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: 1999.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I would have been a black belt by by that time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But even back then, pre-UFC, it would have mostly been martial artists coming in and switching styles and hearing about juices like you.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm curious, your if we back up a little bit just to set the context, what is your history in the martial arts?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think you started as a kid.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what got you into martial arts.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to look, I want to kind of tour quickly what different martial arts you went through, because I want to start talking a little bit about the comparison of styles and your impressions of things like that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think we that's a really interesting discussion because I've trained a lot of different martial arts.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Not seriously all of them, but I've touched on 18 different martial arts, but not seriously.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I did I started in 1975 in karate.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And but the cry is what we today probably would have called kickboxing because it was full contact, knockdown, punches to the face, and though we did do what was known as point sparring as well, but it was like bloody nose to that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I was one of the only kids in the dojo when I was still wasn't the only kid, but it was one of the only kids that the adopted son of my sense they was there too.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: So we got along really well, but like the two kids, and but we fought adults a lot, and it's little by little little bit, like more kids started coming in as martial arts group, but there weren't that many martial arts academies in New York.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: The reason I actually started was because I was being bullied really bad.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I went to a school and it was just a toxic place.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: It turned out that it was really horrible, but some of the staff there eventually, years later, they found out we're molesting kids.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just a horrible place, and then because of that, the toxicity filtered down to everything, and the bullying in that was awful.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was a small chubby kid, and I couldn't protect myself, and it ate away at me.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day I was watching, you're gonna laugh at this.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was a Saturday afternoon Kung Food Theater, you know, on TV, and I'm like, hmm, hmm, hmm, trying to like copy, and my dad walks over and he goes, you know, you should probably learn that from something other than TV.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Let me find a place for you to train.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that was 1975, and that was the start of my journey.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I started training with uh Miyazaki Toyotaro, who actually fought full contact against Chuck Norris three times.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Miyazaki Toyotaro was.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say this was the era of Chuck Norris and Bill Superfoot Wallace.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: These guys, these were full contact fighting.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And he fought him three times in unlimited weight because Chuck Norris by 200 pounds and Mike Sensei had his heaviest as maybe 135.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he beat him once and he lost twice.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: One was a split decision, one was severe, but it was like a great fight, and he was known as one of the very skilled practitioners in New York.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm very honored, he was like a second father to me, took me under his wing, but I was terrible, I mean terrible.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing, because I am not a natural athlete, I'm naturally very coordinated, but I tried hard, and I trained harder than a lot of my peers, and I really took it seriously.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then I had this is years later, I was already a teenager and uh training very hard.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I had a very traumatic experience.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I was walking down the street, actually coming back from training.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: I had my school book bag and everything in it, and a person abducted me, pulled me into a secluded area.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: They were about 300 pounds and huge, enormous.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm really, I mean, I remember like yesterday.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like, oh, I was a kid.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the person was literally about to be on it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Enormous person grabbed me, smashed my head against the brick wall, poured lighter fluid on me, and set me on fire.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I got out because I understood how to limp.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And with someone in the dojo head who had done judo, taught me what a limp arm was.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to just just just for our non-martial artist listeners, a limp arm is an ability to relax your arm and stop resisting, and that can allow you to slip out of a hold rather than fighting against it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I slipped out of my jacket, my book bag, and I ran.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And my hair was a little stemmed, but I was mostly having my bag in my jacket, and I ran for my and the funny thing is I never told anybody that was so ashamed because I was like, I couldn't protect myself again, and I've been training all this time, and the only thing that worked was this technique that I learned the other day trying to punch the person because I was literally 12 years old, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was outweighed by 200 pounds, and so I was like, I need to learn some rabbit.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I it was an instructor in the academy who was also judo brown belt, and he started showing some judo, and then I started doing some Japanese jujitsu here in New York and also some judo and well in the karate, but I was still focused on karate because I was like, oh man, I'm just terrible.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I need to just get better, but let me add some of this because it looks neat.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: And little by little I started getting more and more of the karate, but I started competing in karate and still competing, and then I made some friends in the taekwondo world, and I joined my uh taekwondo team and a college chamirochin, and I competed in Taekwondo, ranked in Taekwondo under a very, very amazing Taekwondo master who still really honored that I trained with, but I kept getting this out in Taekwondo because I would do I would do full contact kickbox and punch people in the face.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're not supposed to do that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that was like, why are all these rules here?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know MA or I didn't have that vocabulary, but I'm like, there's this rule in karate that says I can't punch you on the ground.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I know when I was getting bullied, people mount me and punch me.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's legitimate.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I also know grabbing and throwing is legitimate, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't we be that?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I also know punching to the face is legitimate.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why are all these rules here?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: They seem very restricted.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't have the vocabulary or the even the experience to say, hey, MMA, because I knew it doesn't exist, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: That term wasn't used yet, yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't used, and then it was never a thing because well, my instructor at the time he'd always said, he said, Renee, you need to learn a lot of different martial arts because the only time you can understand what's in your house is if you step out of your house.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Renee, you need to go do boxing.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: I never listened.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, You need, but if you do a judo, that's great.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Was my instructor was very open-minded and very, very open to people training other arts at the same time, which was very rare at the time, right?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: But he was so secure with himself, and and he knew all martial arts are good, and he even had some judo training himself, right?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: So he's like, This is the stuff that's good, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Just cross-training because it'll make you bad.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And but even when you competed, we were always competing in single-style rules, meaning kickboxing rules or karate rules or technical rules and or boxing rules or whatever.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a free-fall.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And one time I was training with the one of my senpes, a senior student, the one hand of judo.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Okay, let's trade without any rules, except we're not gonna like really hurt each other, but we're only gonna stop when I tap out, or you feel like you could have knocked me out, but we're going, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And literally, it was every single fight was the same.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm striking, he grabbed me, did an old big hip throw, Orochi, put me down, put me in bats, like uh Hon Kesagata made a uh scarf hold with the head scar here, and I couldn't get out.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And he put it my arm in between his legs and did the American, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like super standard stuff, nothing technical, but he did that to me like seven times straight.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay, I get I really need to learn this.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I started training judo very seriously when I could, but it was very far from where I lived, so I couldn't go that often.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I went to some judo camps.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was very fortunate once to meet Ronda Rouse's mother, who taught me some invaluable stuff, and I didn't appreciate.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was at this judo camp, and I'm like, all those guys over there look really scary.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna go to the nice old lady over there, not realizing that very intense mommy, and she's a very hard worker.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: And she taught us the rolling, you know, kneel atoms or what I call the escaping style arm bar and so many other things.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: She taught me lockdown and a double leg lockdown, which I use all the time now.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I I didn't understand what you mentioned because I was too, but I'm like, this is good.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I got something I could never repeat.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then I graduated college, and one of my older senior students in my academy moved to Japan.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was 14, I said, I really want to do the same thing.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I got on the flight.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Very lucky to be helped out my girlfriend's family at the time, and I got on a flight.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: They were Japanese, and I moved to Japan and started training.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I started training karate, and I was incredibly disappointed.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of different crimes in Japan, but I just got there, so I went to one school, and I don't want to say what it was because I'm not here like say I was better than this, but I was like, this is not what I'm looking for, because you're so stuck in your sprint, in your one thing, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: That you're missing everything.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I went in there and I wasn't even that good.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, if we allowed just a little bit more contact, I would be like, I just could feel that, even I didn't think it was very good.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, you guys are not well-rounded, right?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: I could just feel it, and then I also witnessed a lot of breeding there, so I didn't really like that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I walked into the Kodakon and I met the most amazing Marsh Arthur.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: First day I'm there, I met Yamash, who's the Olympic champ.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Literally, I walked in, I was almost walked into him.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, just just for our listeners who may not know the Codacan, the Kodakon is basically the Mecca, the center of judo training in Japan.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's the central place where judo is trained.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: It is the holy, you know, the holy ground, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I went there and I met this British guy named Sea Blower, who is one of the most amazing judo guys I've ever had.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And my first day was actually kind of funny because back then there were not a lot of foreigners in Japan.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So right now it's different.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of foreigners in Japan right now, they're easy to go there and it's cheap.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: But back then, it was very few.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the foreigners that went to the coin country were already like judo experts, and they were usually Olympics, and they were just visiting for intense training.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: So they had this foreigners division because most foreigners didn't speak Japanese, and it was also like I would say racism, but had whatever.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so they had this foreigners division.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think mostly it was a language.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the foreigners would change into the foreigners division, and anybody would come and say, Oh, you go to the forest, and they just assumed that I was like an Olympic.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was not, I was a white belt, and so I would walk in, and the first thing you're doing is one-handed carpets.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think, and I'm like, oh my god.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then we go right into Spark, and I'm wearing a white belt, but because I'm white, right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of black belts do that when they go to the corner company is the corner comp out of respect, out of respect, exactly, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: So they're all thinking that I'm a black belt.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: They all thought I was like an Olympic world champion black belt or something, right?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, uh suck white belt.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they proceed to absolutely destroy.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then one of them goes, he goes, What rank are you?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm a white goes, oh, you're really a white belt.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then they started teaching me, but it was like very humbling.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: And Like I was when I was instantly in a room of Olympians, which just changed my perspective.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: I realized I had never done serious martial arts before in my life because the level of dedication, the level of seriousness, of focus and intensity and commitment to your crap was so high.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is where I need to be.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm getting killed.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Let me be here.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I also met one of my super lucky, but I met this master of what's called Kosan judo.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Kosan judo is a substyle judo where they focus on ground technique and it's very popular.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Some people believe it's the you know the basis of Kozilian Ji-Jitsu.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not true, but who knows?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because it looked like Kimura, I mean I never did Kosan judo, but who knows?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it is a ground there was a fighting style, round fighting style.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I met Hinata Kana, who was the last of the Kosen masters, and he was amazing, and he was the funniest, nicest in church.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know, he was amazing because he actually uh had an accident, so it always inspired me.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: He was in the Japanese uh kamikaze region, but as a mechanic, not as a kamikaze person, and an engine fell on him and crushed off his ribs, and that's the only reason he survived because he got medibac out, and then the rest of the ships went the Midway and everything, and that profoundly effective.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: His way he said martial arts should be a tool of self-improvement, it should be that and so he was a very moral guy, but also very serious and really, really, really skill.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And he invited me to his personal trainings called the Newaza Kenkyukai, which is the crowdfighting research society, which he had.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I went and met Yuki Nakai.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's a famous Japanese fang.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and because he came from the Kosen background as well.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, the Kosen has a different thing, it's called Shichite, or which is the seven universities.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: So there's seven universities that still have the Newaza rules where they compete under non-judo rules.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And he Yuki Nakai came from that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: So of course he was trained there.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Very nice guy.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, wonderful, wonderful.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I should just say you you mentioned the Newaza rules.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Newaza means ground technique.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I assume those rules are the fight continues on the ground, whereas judo, if there's not something happening, or if somebody picks you off the ground momentarily, like if you're putting them in an arm bar, it breaks and it stands up.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the these people were doing what Brazilian jujitsu does, which is the fight does not get stood up just because you're on the ground, it continues.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there was different types of rules, but basically the first thing was actually five on almost always five on five.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a team built competing, not right, and then it was no time limit.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when I and when we say five on five, individual matches, but a team of five, and whichever team wins the most out of the five matches wins the competition.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not not not a brawl.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, yeah, though that would be yeah, but yeah, so it was five and five, no time limit.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: You could pull guard and you could win by submission, which is eat bar, right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's the win.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You could also win by hold down for 30 seconds, which is also, and so that was the rules, and it was no time left until someone got heaped, right?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the difference between Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rules is that the pin is would be a win as well, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, it was very good.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was training with that, and then the UFC came out, and right before the UFC left for I saw the UFC, I actually went to a Shuto match, and Shuto was basically grassroots Japanese MMA, and it was MMA, it was the first MMA with open finger gloves, and everything was allowed.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the first time I saw it, I'm like, that's what I've been looking for my whole life.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that and I had this epiphany that's what I'm gonna do.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: And mixing striking, wrestling, ground technique, grounded pound, everything, everything in, no referee interventions.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: It was like that's what I'm looking for, and I was just blown away.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started training with some of the sheep fighters and in Japan and came to a bunch of different places and with a group of different guys, and I started doing that in addition to my judo training and took it very seriously.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then we saw the first UFC, and my first opinion of the first UFC was oh, the Graces are great, but that's exactly what we need, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, wow, that's wonderful, but it's no different from judo, you know, and so I was really, really happy that Grappling was becoming more accepted as a fighting style, but I didn't see Grace and Jiu Jitsu as anything different from what I was doing, which was completely wrong, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: As we, of course, know.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: But then the Graces came, especially Hickson, came to train and murdered everybody.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And what I when I used training against guys, guys I knew who were incredibly skilled, right?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Even to this day, there are a couple guys that Hickson fought that would, if they competed in MMA today, I'm not saying they'd be champion, but they would be in the mix of the division.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: They were very good, some of them, and some not so much, but Yukina Kai was unbelievable at everything, right?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he had this horrible match right before he fought Hickson, where Gerard Gordeaux, who's a super cheater, actually stuck his thumb and I saw him, and he drilled his thumb into his eye and blinded him while Yukina Kai was going for uh healer and blinded him, but then Yukinakai never quit and then wound up winning by healer, but he actually wound up losing his eye, yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why he switched to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu because he could no longer fight.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's actually Dragordo injured both eyes, he smushed one, but he injured the other one, so Yuki was losing image here, so he he couldn't fight because he couldn't see what's going on.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Range and distance, right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: So he may switch to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is tactile, right?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right, and he started playing Brazilian, and then again I started meeting with him and it just blew my mind.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, wow, this grace Egyptians, something's really interesting here.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that brings me to our first day.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: But unfortunately, between that, I had a very serious car accident.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was on a bicycle and a car hit me about 65 70 miles a tour.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: This was in Japan.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was in Japan.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was a translator, so I was late, a little late.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really running on my bike as the translator, you can't be late because nothing happens if they can't speak, right?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh god, I gotta, I gotta hustle.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Japan, we don't like people, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then I had the right of way.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was like this.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: You ever see the Japanese castles where there's like a lot of brick work?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like one of those where the brick work was really huge, and you couldn't see around the corner, but I had the right of way.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't stop and they kept going.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the other person blew the he didn't respect my right away and he t-balled me.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: I actually don't remember.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: I remember going down the street, but then all I remember is waking up on late on the floor, people over me, and I'm in a lot of pain.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I have no like conscious recollection of it, and it really damaged my body a lot.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I needed some surgeries.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: I left Japan.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: I needed a bunch of surgeries.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to come back to Japan after one surgery and tried to train it, it wasn't happening.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Came back, had another.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the surgeon that I went to said, yeah, I can repair this here, but in a in a number of years, you're gonna need another surgery.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like this is the best we can do today.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had some surgeries that so far I've had about 17 surgeries, you know, over the years, each time it breaks out.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I recovered from one of the surgeries, and then I was visiting the Machado Academy, and I was hooked.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was hooked, and and that that started my my journey in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that fills in a lot of this, you know, where you came to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with all of this other skills, and I get a question you we used to get all the time, and I'm sure you do too, and I'm curious your take on it, because for so many people, their introduction to the word jiu-jitsu has been since the UFC, which is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when when I say, Oh, I trained jujitsu before Brazilian jujitsu, people are curious, like what does that mean?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're not sure what is jujitsu if it's not Brazilian jujitsu.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we use the term used it too just as an easier phraseology, Japanese jujitsu, right?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for basically any style of jujitsu that is not specifically Brazilian jujitsu.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And for our listeners, the words jujitsu are Japanese words, gentle art.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So jujitsu is an art that came from Japan.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: But there's many styles, and there were many styles of jujitsu that had been in America, and some involving more punching and kicking, some more formal, some wearing jujitsu, you know, kimono, the same thing you would see, you know, a judo player word, some wearing a hakama, basically the skirt that you see in Aikido.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot of styles of jujitsu, but people who do Brazilian jujitsu just think that as uh Japanese jujitsu, like something different.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And my description of the difference, because I had the same experience you had when you when you saw the UFC, you said, Oh, those guys are good, but I do that when I first saw the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in action videotape in 1990 that was circulating around of all these like challenge matches.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had the exact same reaction.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, those guys are tough.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're getting onto Takishiukitami, which they call the mount, and and they're putting people in Jiu Jikitami armbar, like, I do that, I can do all that.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I actually got on the mat with Higginshado and John Will, who was a mutual friend of ours, that I realized, oh, it may look the same, but something very different is going on here in terms of the understanding of body mechanics and things like that.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, my quick answer to what's the difference between uh Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Japanese jiu-jitsu is that Brazilian jujitsu took the Newaza, the ground techniques of Japanese jiu-jitsu and really, really worked them.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say largely developed with the guard.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: The guard existed.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: There were all kinds of sweeps and things like that before, but really built this whole fighting system around working from the guard and control and patience and weight and leverage, and just kind of notched it up.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there have been some new, you know, unique, well, really nothing totally new under the sun, but you know, there's modifications as the sport goes.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious, what is your do you how do you say when someone says, What's the difference between Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Japanese jiu-jitsu?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do you describe that difference?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: That exactly is my is something I'm really, really I think I'm very qualified to talk about because I'm instructor level in two styles of Japanese jiu-jitsu in I uh black belt and judo now, and I've done Japanese submission grappling styles too.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: They're what would be considered like catch, but it's really more sum-oriented, whatever it's a long story.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I have all this background, and I can tell you what the difference is.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: And first of all, yes, jiu-jitsu is actually a manufactured modern term.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: The original terms were yawara, kimu, kumiuchi, or just the Japanese would call hero, which means warrior way of training, right?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: So there was no word jujutsu until the 19th century, and it became a catch-all for the martial techniques of the samurai, focused mostly on unarmed.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: Very, very often it was unarmed versus armed, or unarmed versus unarmed, right?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the Japanese were the one society that consistently lived on the floor, meaning they didn't use chairs, so a lot of times you could be attacked sitting down.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously, pulling them into ground fighting techniques, especially when Japanese rooms were a little smaller, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Made a lot of sense for self-defense if you couldn't get your sword and things like that, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: You also Japanese had a very interesting legal system.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we have innocent until proven guilty here.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Japanese had kind of something similar.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not innocent to proven guilty, but innocent until the Lord says he can kill you.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you have Japanese sheriffs or bailiffs, and they were not allowed to arrest someone and do massive damage because the Japanese peasant, sir, was considered property of the Lord.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: So as a sheriff, I can't actually injure the prophet.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have to arrest him in a certain way and then bring him before the magistrate.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Then the the Tonosama, the Zaime or the court or his representative, would say, okay, this guy's okay, now we can punish him.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of Japanese martial art in the period that when China was pacified, which is 1600 to 1865, right?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Was oriented towards that legal system where Japanese bailiffs had to arrest people in a way that was not severely injuring them or killing them and bringing them to the magistrate for uh, you know, things.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: So anything that develops either from Japanese warrior arts, the Japanese bailiff arts, or the self-defense kind of arts in terms of like an assassination at home is something in the jiu-jitsu repertoire.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: And there's literally, according to the Japanese, it's called the martial arts almanac.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's this book I have and it says it lists every single traditional Japanese style.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there are hundreds, there are hundreds.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then those styles hybridized into many more.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, went to America, became Danzandu, or European, Europe has a huge European jiu-jitsu tradition, and also so do the former Soviet Union countries.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they're all kind of hybrids and mixed.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I it's uncountable how many styles there are, especially in New York.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: Even in New York, there was a guy named Moses Powell.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: So he took Japanese jiu-jitsu and kind of like adjusted it in his way, and there was a lot of like requilibration kind of interest in that.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have this American jiu-jitsu that anything that has a lineage of the Japanese tradition is considered part of the larger jiu-jitsu framework.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: But they're so diverse.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: So to say what's the difference is very hard because, like you said, some styles just are kicking and punching some lists.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Jiu Jitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, puts an emphasis on like ground control, I would say.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I think if you studied with degrees, like I studied with Jenny Happello, who was at Red Belt on the audio, and every single class was like standing self-defense, and he would chase me around with his rusty knife.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't want to get, you know, tetanist.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I and it was like there was I literally I had a bunch of lessons with him, and we didn't hit the ground once.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say, yes, of course, there's some ground elements, but I think the idea of what makes Brazilian Jiu so unique and so interesting comes down to a strategic thinking, not techniques.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: They think of the techniques strategically very different.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, we talked about Tate Shogatate Arookish, all these pains.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna use the side control mountness.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: So any Japanese style, and I can tell you this before resilient jutsu came, this theory was never a thing that anybody talked about, and it is revolutionary.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if you did Japanese jutsu, they would, especially the battlefield ones, it would be like, okay, we're fighting.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: I throw you, I pin you down, and when I pin you, I reach for my tonto, my short knife, and I stab you through the eye.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: And literally, that's something that was taught to me by one of my Japanese judges and you're out in here.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, what if I don't have a knife?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Well, of course you're a samurai.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: You're like, maybe this is a little not what I'm looking for.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: But the idea was you would just hold the guy down and then you try to kill him there, and then you get up quickly and fight another samurai horse there, right?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: So the idea of pining, right, was essential.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there was no difference between, hey, if I put you in scarfle, I put you in mouth, I put you in side control, these are all legitimate pins.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Just pin the guy and kill.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: What I found so uniquely interesting was the understanding that not all pins are created equal.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: So side control is good, and this is, of course, obvious to us now, but it was revolutionary when I started side control is good, but mount is better.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna use mount as a way to punch him or incentivize him to give up his back.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to take it back and back mount, are the keys of position.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: So there's this hierarchy of positions and also hierarchy of thinking about moves.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: So chokes, Elio Gracie told me, Master Elio, chokes over armor because you could break a guy's arm and you can still fight.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: But if you choke him with consciousness, right?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, protect yourself from bad positions and then go up the system of control.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: And while yes, a lot of people talk about resilient choice guard, and I, of course, you're correct, but I think the theory of position is really at the heart of what you do because like like like I'm going to climb up this ladder, right?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: And each each time I go up a route, your optionality decreases, decreases, decreases.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And everything I do is boxing you in more and more.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that was something that I had never been taught anywhere ever before.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: And anybody says that they were doing that, they're alive.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've been around the mortar since 1975, and nobody ever said that okay, side control is gonna attack, mouth is gonna attack, whatever.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: I just have there's an order of effectiveness that we must understand, and this is revolutionary and is the heart of modern MMA.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Every single MMA fighter knows this, which is why I personally people think I'm crazy to say, but I feel that modern MMA is basically jutsu with a couple extra stuff because everybody understands, even the ones that can't do it, they understand hey, I can't get my back taken because I'm gonna lose it, right?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Or I'm gonna take it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: And to this day, 18.7 percent of all finishes in the UFC, or actually, it's even more than that, one FC2 are by rear naked show from the back, and they're and then that's one almost one out of five fights are finished by one move, and back control.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: We all understand it's just so dominant.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody ever said it.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying nobody said take the pack, but they said, Oh, this is something you can do, but there was no like pathway, right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that was one thing, and the other thing is you actually said this at the John Will.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: I actually not sure who said it to me first.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think it might have been you, but I'm John, but it's like it's not jumping steps, it's small little incremental steps are the way to go.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I always say it's the ladder.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm climbing a ladder, I go rung by rung by one, and that's very safe, and it takes less energy than if I jump three or five runs.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing, if I jump five runs, obviously I use a lot more energy and a lot more power, and I'm not really very efficient.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is if I jump five runs, I can fall off the ladder.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the risk reward is a calculation.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think I never heard a Gracie say this out loud, but they were kind of like intimating it when I trained with them.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you have to see what the risk reward to each thing is.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: If you do this, there's an opportunity cost for this thing over here.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: So let's make sure that we understand this and this trade-off between risk exposure and reward.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when we're constantly slowly moving up the control position and also incrementally constantly boxing the guy in, right?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: Optionality taking away that optionality makes us much safer as well.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: It makes us much more effective.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, that was the difference.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: I remember you got me in a footlock, it was a very painful footlock.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: I remember it was it was an eklock.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I literally, I had done ankle before I trained in Japan.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And like, I remember how you caught me, right?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I could not move.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, and you just you're gently, gently tapping.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, wow, I was completely checkmated before the lock ever happened, right?
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if a footlock is your thing, but I've literally tapped that.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was a very good foot lock.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of I've had a lot of things over the years that I keep having to abandon because something hurts now.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do that anymore, so I'll go to my next thing.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, so just okay.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this makes a really a lot of sense and very much resonates with my experience too.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to mention one thing you you talked about uh in the other, you know, more traditional Japanese arts, it would hold hold the guy down and then pull out your katana and and you know stab him through the islet.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that, and I think there's it Maybe, I don't know if you'd agree, but one other part to that too, which is hold the guy down and maybe my compatriot will come by and do the stabbing for me.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if your compatriot comes by, I can disengage.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't want to be tangled up with you.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be in a position where I'm pinning you, but if I want to get up and go, I can get up and go.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there was that, so that optionality.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say this also, I would say this the reason I train is because of self, right?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because I told you I had to explain.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I do a lot of training with simulated knives.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I use this thing right here, which I'm charging up right now, which is a taser, we smart once, right?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a lot of fun.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: But we smart a lot with iPad.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: But what I found is when you introduce a knife, right?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And Burton Richardson, who you had on, has a wonderful book about this, is like the positional hierarchy is no longer relevant.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's control the damn knife.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: Don't worry about the guy who gives up your back.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: Control the weapon, and then get the weapon out of the picture.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: Then we can go back to the positional hierarchy.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually found myself, whenever we're doing the knife combat, I find myself doing much more of a Japanese jiu-jitsu orientation than I have a Brazilian jiu-jitsu until I have control of the knife.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm back to the game.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, my leverages, my wedges, my controls are tighter because I understand it's incremental.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: But the the idea of like, okay, I'm not gonna let the guy take my back.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: And Burton says this all the time.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, it doesn't matter because if I take your back and you have a knife, I you're gonna stab me in the federal army and kill me.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so the goal is knife control first.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the idea of what Greece is we're fighting other people who have generally maybe a striking background, whatever.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we are going to fight mostly Arnold, and we're going to dominate them in this position.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that Greek that Greece Jiu Jitsu people never train to self-defense or anything.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: That is absolutely not true.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_02: I just say the majority of their training was not oriented towards fighting against guys or nerds.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: But as I said, when I trained with Master Jenny, every single class was chasing me around with a knife, which was very interesting.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the funny thing is, it really looked like a lot of the things that I've learned in Japan.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: In Japanese yeah, I agree with that.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing you said is, and I think that that is an important distinction with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the hierarchy, the moving from one thing to another, that kind of a plan.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I came from Japanese jujitsu, it was a series of individual moves.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do this, and you can do this, and you can do this, and you can do this, and without much discussion of but how do you get to there, or why does that one lead to that one?
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very just like a menu of individual finishes, a menu of individual pins, a menu of individual takedowns.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: You might string together, uh, say like not going to an arm bar, you know, like a particular throw leads to a particular finish because it's so obvious.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I agree that that is a really key distinction with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the path, that there's a path, there's a hierarchy.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe some of the Shuto, that was the reason that Hickson was maybe able to dominate the Shuto.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: My impression of Shuto fighters is they would move with such incredible speed to snatch finishes out of thin air.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like you mentioned, your first time, you know, training Shuto, and within two seconds, you know, flying triangle and you were done, which is a very good way.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that's very dangerous.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very good way to win a fight very quickly.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone can under understands and can stop that, not get caught in that, then it starts to break down a little bit.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the person who's trying to very quickly grab for this or grab for that might get shut down by someone who has a more methodical approach if they can survive that.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see that.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: So you can see that because I trained with all the shoot bikers, particularly the pancreas guys.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: The pancras was a style of Japan shoe fighting, which did not allow in the beginning, outdoes, but did not allow punching, only slaps, but very hard slaps, and no ground and power, right?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it was sort of like weird modified MMA.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was from the pro wrestling orientation.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you could actually grab the rope and do a rope escape too.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of this weird rule.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: They've since abandoned just this MMA group.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: But back then it was, and they would just be in mount and they would eat, they would jump off mount to get a leg buff, or they jump here.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: And there was no, you know, it was like, oh, I'm gonna do is be very fast and snatch loops.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, my co-send tutor training was similar to jujitsu in that they did string together moves a lot, and they were going this, but it would lead into I very often I pin you inside control and I win the match.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: And there's no reason to go past that because you just won.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So while I think especially there was a lot of Delahiba, right, Gar, which is the you know, I mean you can tell it, but yeah, like awareness for for non-jiu-jitsu people, it's sort of a way to be on your back and entangle a person's leg with your leg to move their balance around, right?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember learning Delahiba in Japan in 1993, before I knew who Delahiba was.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it was Delahiba, and then you'd get to like a top position, he'd side control, you'd pin him, then maybe you go to Mount, and then and then I'd hold him down there.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a lot of like interpret.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, he would defend the hard bar, and then I would come up, but it would mostly stop always really with pins, right?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or submission, but pins were just as valid.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: And literally, the pins, like what I call back scarf, which is focused on, which is where you wrap like his arm.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, you know that it's like not very hard to get out of one when you really know the escapes.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: The the idea that that position is equal to the back is now to us like kind of ludicrous, but back then it was revolutionary, and anybody who says that oh, Brazilian Jiu Ju is just judo is smoke and crack.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's wrong.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you, I was in Japan all the time.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: The theory, the strategic theory is different.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you said in in regular traditional Olympic judo, it's throw to hold down, and their nails and their ground finding is spectacular, but it's designed to win within that rule set, and there's no methodical because the time limit is so short and they're standing up, so it's like very rushy and not as clean as what we are used to, generally speaking.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, I've trained with people like Neil and she was at Sensei.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Those guys are got they're beautiful, but again, nobody in judo ever says mount side control, mouth, back and beer naked children.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I can't, I've seen thousands of judo matches, thousands.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember the last time I saw a beer naked children.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, go.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, you see once in a while a cruise maybe, like, you know, like a bon hour joke, collar jokes, yeah, collar joke, right, or something like that.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: But rear naked children in a Juno bag doesn't happen, maybe you can look for it, right?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, I can say the same thing about a lot of G chits, like you don't see a lot of rear naked joke, but there's an understanding that if you look at MMA, the rear naked joke is the king of one-on-one human comedy, and it's not a debatable comedy.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: And now you want to say Renee, but UFC is not MMA.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not a street light.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're right.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: It took me and some of my friends 20 years, but we put together about 8,000 streetlighting.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: 453, actually, 454, because I have a new one from yesterday.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: 454 times a rear naked choke was attempted in our natives.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: 454 times the rear naked choke was successful.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: 20 years of looking, I've never found a video of a street light where a rear naked choke put on completely ever failed to work.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen tons of fights where a punch or a kick or something didn't work, didn't drop the guy off.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Judo through didn't finish the guy.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: The rear naked show is the undisputed king of one-on-one unarmed human combat.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that that is something that the Gracies, I don't know, they intuitively understood over time fighting the South because they're like, Yeah, side control, take him down, mount him, he gives up the back, finish the Makami.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's this blueprint that is so incredibly successful.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: It is the foundation of MMA happening and MMA today or defense as well.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that never existed in judo or Japanese sheep fighting or anything, no hierarchy and no of control and no hierarchy of submissions.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, there's a famous judo professor, and he's a he's a really nice, wonderful guy.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: He's very, very knowledgeable, went to the Olympics, and he's an American judo man.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: I won't say his name.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's a great guy, though.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not trying to put shade on him, but he always says, Yeah, jujutus is judo, and that's not true.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it disrespects the amount of radical thinking that went to transform the art and create something amazing.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's very disrespectful to say that personally, because what the Gracie family did, and not just the family, but the larger Brazilian Jitsu, you know, universe, and then just all the students, pushed the art in tremendous directions.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: And to say that, oh, it's just you know, that's just so disrespectful and just factually incorrect.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they probably don't mean it disrespectfully, they just probably think they're correct.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: But that that comes from someone who doesn't know Brazil jujitsu.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you mentioned Neil Adams is just that that black belt is a jiu-jitsu black belt as well, so it's weird.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, interesting.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, it's like I think you know what it's also like, you know, pride, maybe yes.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I everyone wants, yes, has the you know, they the the belief that what I did was the best.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a natural thing.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um you mentioned Neil Adams, who is, you know, a very famous, phenomenal judo and arm bar, king of arm bars.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: I went, Neil Adams was teaching at Cahill's judo up in San Francisco when I was a blue belt, and I brought Higgin up to take a seminar with Neil Adams.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: And granted, Neil was you know past his prime at that time, and Higgin wasn't.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Higgin was in his prime, but you you can guess what happened when they grappled together just because of you know the Higgins' l level at that time.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: And near to Neil Adams' credit, he was very interested.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was tapped, you know, Higgin tapped him many, many times, and he was very, very interested.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't seem to be his ego wasn't hurt at all.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was, you know, he just a true champion, and he just said, Oh, this is great.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to kind of dissect what was happening.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Neil Adams is one of those few people, and I I wouldn't say that I'm a spread, but I did eat it, who, like you, is a paragraph on the worst arts.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: He carries himself in a way that makes you want to be better as a martial arts.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of incredibly so and I don't know, but he when he retired, this is actually very interesting, and I think you've point is that when he retired, he went through like a really serious depression and wound up becoming a bit of an alcoholic.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: And now what he does is he quit and he goes around and helps people struggling with alcohol and substance abuse, and that's a huge part of what he does now.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: What an awesome individual to just give back from community, very similar to how you help the animal community so much.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: Martial arts is about the clan.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: We are learning this thing to protect and help the world, and we don't want to lose sight of that.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: And people like you, people like me will add, and the inspirement to just be better.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's very, very nice.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we will talk about your school in a little bit.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that you are an important in your community, you do a lot of wonderful things too.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: But just before we move away from sort of the style versus style thing, let's talk for a second about Valley Tuto.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have heard of it.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I heard of it when I saw the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in action tapes.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was like there's Valley Tuto was this, you know, anything goes format.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had some vague sense that there are these people in Brazil who call the style they train Valley Tuto, and there's some sort of a rivalry with the jujitsu people and whatever.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what is Valley Tuto, and I want to hear a little about your experience fighting underground MMA before the UFC and just what it was your involvement in this, because you described how your whole everything brought you to this point where you were seeking this thing where there were little rules where you could comprehensively and safely do a fighting system.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about Valley Tuto and your underground MMA experience.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said, when people were doing Brazilian jujitsu back in 99, 2000, it was almost always people from other styles.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason they started was because they watched the original UFCs, which were basically most of them were valid rules.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: Valley Tuto means anything goes, right?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Todo vale in Spanish, meaning everything's in.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: The direct, I guess the closest translation would be no holds bar.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: Everything's allowed.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, the only rules that you had were no high ouching or biting, and sometimes no fish hooking, but very often back then in the day, fish hooking was allowed.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just no fish hooking means putting your finger inside someone's cheek and pulling to stretch and tear their lips, basically.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: And this is another thing, not to get on the point of stop or stop.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, Kimura, who's no massive Japanese champion who made the Kimura lock after, fought a very, very big battle with Elio Gracie, but that was under Grapplin Wolves.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, he beat Eli.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, he did, right?
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: But he also fought a valid Tudo fight with Valdemar Santana and got the Snop V.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well as well, Carlson Gracie bought Valdemar Santana and beat him, right?
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: So there was some knowledge there about the no-holds for the world that the Brazilians had a lock on, and the judo people didn't.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he says in his book, My Judo, Laka Judo, right?
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: Where he's like, Yeah, the guy headbutted me twice.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what to do.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was also another example of Chimora in a co-wrestling match that went real that became a valid judge.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, everything's in this guy, Ricky Dozan, was supposed it was supposed to be work like a fake fight, but then it became a real fight, and Ricky Dozan just started to beat crap at them.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you could see it's not Jew anymore, so he's lost.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: And because he doesn't practice punching defense that much, he doesn't practice understanding, and that era of the people that I came up with, they all understood how to deal with a no-rules or limited rules scenario because that's what it was.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Brazil was crazy back then.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was I remember a Brazilian instructor told me he said, in Rio, if you don't want to fight, if you're a peaceful person, you get into a fight once a week.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you do want to fight, you get into a fight once an hour.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like what?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like it was a crazy, crazy place.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: They had a uh military dictatorship and crime, and it was uh, I mean, there are areas to this day in Rio that were run by these red cadre, which they basically run the favela and it's an autonomous place, and it's why.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, in that crazy atmosphere of anything goes, the Gracie family fought against the Libre, which is uh, like you said, uh style, and they fought under battle to the rules, which means anything goes, and they won more than they lost.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna say, we're not gonna say they were undefeated, that's not true, but they won much more than so.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: More importantly, they developed a knowledge of how to approach like someone doing anything, and that became the UFC, and that was what inspired all of us.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted to do that, and so I said when I saw an MMA shootout, which is really MMA, wasn't valid too because there was a lot of rules, right?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: There was no headbutting that, right?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: But when we saw, I saw that, I was like, that's what I wanted to put the first UFC, which had you could headbutt, you could do everything, rolling punch.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: I believe in the very first UFC, but they said don't borrow because they came back in the third UFC, you can punch.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, I'm gonna do it.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I of course I had to overcome my injuries, but it was something, it wasn't a choice, it was this life journey that I needed to do, and it called to me.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had a lot of other my fighters say that it's like, no, this that called to me, and it could be because of human series and it's you know I had that background when I was a kid, but I wanted to prove that what I was doing was a static, and the only way to do that is either to get into street fights, which I'm not gonna do, or get into this very extreme competition.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I at the time in New York, it was an undergrad scene.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_02: There was a few different shows.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: One of them was called the UCL, and it was in a time where we weren't sure what we were doing was legal or illegal.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, Jim Jenny, uh, who's a journalist who covered it, he has a great book called Law.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh actually, I made it a little bit, but he talks about the New York underground scene fighting and how all these people would get together.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: We were all very similar, come from different martial backgrounds, and we fight in with the rules were this.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was basically we turn them into what was could be considered pride rules right now.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: The first round was most of the fights I had was 20-minute first round.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_02: The second round was we'd get a break, and the second round was a 10-minute round, and then the third round would be a 10-minute, 10-minute, 10-minute.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: So until something happened, and then everything goes knock out, submission, whatever.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I ever saw any fight go back for more than 20 minutes, and everything was in.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw uh advertisement in the and let me just ask fingerless gloves on the hands and no other padding on the body.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was your choice.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_02: So you could wear whatever you want, you could wear a key, you could put on gloves, not gloves.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing was required.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: You not you could do whatever you want.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would happen is I would always meet with the promoter first, and he'd say to the two sides, Well, what do you want to do?
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to add hair pulling?
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes or no?
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to this?
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we kind of agreed with the rules.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: You want to pour people to people wear gloves?
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes or no, right?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: So is it okay to wear shoes?
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes or no, right?
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I don't care what you say, let's go, right?
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: But for me, I I was like, I want everything in because I want to test myself.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: But what happened was one of my fights was very interesting.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: The guy came up and said, Yeah, let's not do going strikes.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Yeah, sure.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just we'll mention it to the guy, right?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: All right, and then he never mentioned it to the guy.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the first thing he does is try to kick me to groin.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, I see what you're saying.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's reminiscent of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Paul Newman says, Okay, but if we're gonna fight, but first we have to establish the rules, there'll be none of this, and then he kicks him in the groin, and there'll be none of this, and then he So I saw this advertisement of martial arts school for the Pally Cudor fight for the whole part, and I jumped in.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: I started training very hard, and it was the best thing I ever did for my more short term, and it opened my eyes to so many things, and it was great.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: But before one of the reasons why I was prepared is I was trained, and we talked about the god.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna tell you something, and I think this is why going back to the style we're styling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu had a lock on this theory, but the MMA world started kind of evolving and understanding what jujitsu was doing, and then and I'm not I love John Jocks from Shadow.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so grateful for him what he did, but he had a fight, and I'm not trying to disparage him in any way, Frank Tripp.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: But he had an MMA fight against Frank Tripp.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think you know, a lot of the jiu-jitsu guys at that time they were like used to ruling the roost in MMA, and they're like, we don't need to learn anything else, but the game had evolved a little bit, and now everybody knew what the jiu jitsu guys would do, so it they it was you needed another plus cow.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember he fought Ryan Trigen on rooting for him, and it was not a good win, right?
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was Ryan Trick dominated very seriously, and uh the same thing happened to many jujitsu practitioners, and they started losing a lot.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like Well, and and I should just say, people were learning jiu-jitsu.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Frank Trick might have been a black belt in jiu-jitsu at that time.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they were skilled up at jujitsu enough to counter it and then apply other things as well.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I would also say they also and and in fairness to Jean-Jacques, he doesn't have fingers on one hand, so he's not able to use that hand for punching.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, go on.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, of course.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not trying to, I mean, John Jockson's is a legend who I have so much respect for.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying, I think their mind was like a few years earlier when the game kind of advanced.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said, everybody understood their trade jiu jitsu, their training takedown defense, their understanding how to make the jiu-jitsu man uncomfortable.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: So the jiu-jitsu man had to understand how to make the other person more uncomfortable.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's just at arm's lengths.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: And what happened was I was trained in the European Mashata Association, and I had this friend, and he was a judo player, but he is he was also Japanese jiu jitsu.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: And either Japanese jiu jitsu ranking, they would have to do this fight where you would start straight, you have to clinch, you have to throw the girl, and then you have to try to win by ground and that was like their system, right?
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna get in front of the punches, throw him, and then I'm gonna use ground down to end the fight.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: And just thought it was very interesting.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, John, let's do a little bit of rolling.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: Now, not to my own one.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm definitely one of the least, you know, gifted practitioners in martial arts, right?
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm very dedicated.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, when I was training with John, if we rolled in shit straight through to More Hero, I would win very quickly.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not to say that he wasn't skilled, it just I was a bit a bit more skilled once once we got to the submission, right?
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I said, okay, let's put the gloves on and let's do a fight.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna play guard, see if I can you know defend myself and play guard.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it was one of the worst blood kickings I've ever seen.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: In that I didn't get hurt either, but it was still in eight minutes of fighting, he probably punched me two or three thousand times.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized that a lot of my key grips, a lot of the gripping, the strategies I was doing was going towards the sport jiu-jitsu because I had been practicing a lot of sport, like what we would call Ivy Jeff rules right now, which is the sport of jiu-jitsu where there's no punching.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we're orienting ourselves to those rules.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a gameship and interplay in those rules that it does not exist when someone can punch you in the face.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: And everything I did just fell apart, and it was demoralizing except for one thing.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_02: This guard that I learned in Japan from my master in Japan, uh Shirata, which was called which people call it Ratkar.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_02: I never called it my nickname and among my training partners, Hatal, which means big rat.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they said, Oh, that's Hatam fart, they called it Ratkar.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna ask you where that came from.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I they I think they thought I was very sneaky and I'm a little chubby.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_02: So they called me Hatal, which means like big or chubby rat.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think it was like that it's a compliment, but I jiu-jitsied it and owned it, you know.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it became the only thing that stopped me from getting hit.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: And John Will, who is our mutual friend, said that he actually learned that in Brazil as well.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's obviously it's there's no nothing new onto the sun.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: But when I started adjusting the grips, and I said, if this thing is working for me, I'm all in on this.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it started preparing me for guard work, where I was first and foremost protected from getting hit.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: And Eddie Bravo did the same thing with his rubber guard system, which is a clinching guard system.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_02: But the issue with Eddie Bravo's system is if you have some injuries, it can be very hard, which I did.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I really respect Eddie Bravo's system.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying because it requires some pretty extreme flexibility in your knee and hip.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't do it at that time because my legs were damaged.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_02: The rat guard is like super dumb.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like anybody can do it right away, right?
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's so easy.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, developing skills are different here, but you cannot get hit.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll link to in the show notes.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's videos of you explaining it in various ways.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'll link to some of that in the show notes.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I would say, you know, if we scrazy does it in a fight, in a Valley Tudor fight in Japan.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_02: But he grips this way with his hand, and I grip this.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like a little small difference, but it completely changes the game, opens up a large amount of options.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: When you grip like this, you're kind of pulling him on top.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you grip like this, you can move your hips to the and and and just for our podcast who are listeners only, we're talking about a situation where you are on your back, the person is in between your legs, you've got them locked around the hips, and you've pulled them down on top of you, and you've encircled one of their arms, and you are putting your hand under your leg to create a locking situation where they can't get up.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what Renee is describing is palm up versus palm down, what appears to be a small difference in how you're grabbing your own leg.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm describing this correctly.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but you're saying it makes a difference.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the ref guard is kind of unique in that.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's the one of the few guards where you're actually, because you put his head in your armpit and his hardware in your armpit, you're actually above him.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: So your head is above his head.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: So suddenly the strikes just don't matter anymore.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, you have to learn how to move your hips, but it's instant protection.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that served me very well.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I fought Battle 2 to 17 times.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And no, 16, I have one enemy.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_02: The one enemy fight I did, I lost.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was no excuses.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't prepare right, and I fought a really, really skilled guy.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I had some serious injuries.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: I should have backed out.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: No excuse.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: On my best day, I'm not saying I could beat him.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: That was my worst day.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't, I couldn't.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I won 16 of seven fights.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And anytime I was in the guard, I did rack art and I never took a punch to the face.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: And but you can say Renee, but that's not scientific.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's just your personal experience.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Your way.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_02: But when rack art has been used in the UFC, so it has been used by Alexa Grasso against Valentina Tchaichenko.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Valentina is one of the best MMA fighters to ever live, and she has vicious ground.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in their first fight, Alexa Glasso got the rack art and completely stymied Valentina Chechenko's attack and confused her.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it allowed Grasso to actually beat her.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_02: She got up and then she wound up taking her back and choking her out.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was amazing.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: And another example was against Demetrius Johnson and Tim Elliott.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Tim Elliott actually didn't do exactly how he did it, but he kind of came up on the same concept.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_02: And he's the only person in history of fighting Demetrius Johnson that's able to stop Ronald Pound.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_02: All my fighters who've done it have been extremely successful in protecting their base from getting hit.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's very easy, and it's one of the few guards that is stood the test of time with defending punches with ease.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying you should only learn this guard.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying that.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm saying it's easy and it works.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_02: You should learn everything.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_02: You should learn the rubber guard, you should learn the overhook, what I call the damn good guard, you should learn everything, right?
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_02: But this became a key cornerstone of our system here and has served our fighters very well.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it was something I used in my fights successfully.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I remember us fighting this one wrestler, and he took me down.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_02: He was also greased up.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, whoa.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I just put him a rack on.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I could just tell he didn't know what to do.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did a bump sweep, Uber sweep, which was grabbing the arm at the top of your hips.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was right back in the mouth.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, I was like, glad I built.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't invent it.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely not.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: I learned it in Japan.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: I learned in Japan.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: But what I've done is create a lot of detailed pathways in that art.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we're proud of the small contribution I can make.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: To this point, you don't just teach what you learned, you do try to improve it.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe many instructors do, but frequently they're their training, like if it's a karate school, I'm going to teach you karate.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school, I'm going to teach you Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of working within the confines of whatever system they have are an instructor in or have mastered.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've always been wanting to bridge and cross-train and be inclusive.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned some data where you had studied a bunch of fights, you know.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So so you're you're trying to be data driven.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it sound it sounds to me like you are trying to evolve in your own way what you teach at your school, which is radical MMA.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious why you you why the term radical, maybe that's part of this answer.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But so I don't want to give it away, but it's actually a punt.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it and also I'm because I like pods.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_02: My initials are R and A D.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Renee, uh outler to drive this.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's my initial so mad.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I thought it was funny, but also I wanted a radical approach to what people do, basically removing the constraints of style.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're not going to be jiu jitsu people or judo people or quad people.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to remove the constraints of style, take what is useful and reject what's not, which is what Bruce Lee said.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Now the question is again, how do you know what's useful?
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you said it exactly.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of teachers teach just what they do.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I want to say this is the brilliance of Hegan Mashada.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because I, whenever I train a Hegan, and not that I train so often, I visit you know, once or twice a year when I could come out to LA, but he would always seek to create an individual pain in each practitioner.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I had to sleep like 10 seconds with him, and he changed my mind about the omalata to this day.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Omo plata is one of the best things I do.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oma plata's a shoulder rock, in my way.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I'm doing is first and foremost, I'm using math, I'm using science.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_02: So everything is theater.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_02: We do a deep dive analysis.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_02: We've used Bayesian statistical approach as well as Wakovian statistical approach, Malkovian Sparkle genes to understand what are the highest percentage flows and moves to guarantee victory in an MMA context, meaning striking, standup wrestling, cage fighting ground fighting.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: How can we gain the system the most to our advantage?
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And anytime the data changes, I just assisted.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll give you an example of this thing.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Change the way I thought about it.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be a little controversial.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_02: So and John and I have had some conversations about this, right?
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, yes.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And John, you and John Wilson people I respect so much more.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to say he's been a great mentor to me.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm always here to learn from him, but in a very different perspective.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's good, that's helpful, right?
• 1:17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But do you do a knee slide pass?
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is that part of your game?
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it used to be, and what what that is, of course, is when you're kneel someone's on their back and you're in between their legs and you're trying to get past their legs to control them, and you are basically crouching down and lay your shin across and sort of slide your knee through.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't anymore because my knees at 60 almost 64 years old.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want my foot getting caught when I go through that and when I try to turn the corner and tweak.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I these days I don't do knee slide passes anymore.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I used to it's funny you should say that though.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_02: So interesting thing, it's one of the most common passes in the UFC.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean in sport graphers, sport graphs, it's one of the most commonly attempted passes.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the last successful knee slide pass pass, not from a suite, because you can do it like you can do a butterfly, but right from the guard.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_02: The last successful knee slide pass in the FC was in the 90s.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't happen because when you try to knee slide, big guys, what they do is they just explode and try to save it.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: They push, they push you away.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is you can see it also in Sebish Glacking right now, that a lot of times the knee slide just leads to your foot getting caught and you wind up in this kind of scramble.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're passing to a scramble, then you're not really passing because the whole idea is to control the person, right?
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very interesting.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I think is a lot of what we do in Jitsu is no disrespect to jiu-jitsu practice at all.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mean it this way, but it's false complexity.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: That complexity can be fun and interesting and great, but what happens is the minute you start engaging in a freestyle environment, a lot of that complexity falls away.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's the gamesmanship of the sport game now.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_02: So the knee slide is something you see in sport a lot, but you don't see it in MMA because it's not practical when the person does not want to go out with it.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_02: At least that's my year, right?
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you lack control, you can hold on to your foot and you can kind of tweak your knee too, right?
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_02: The passing systems that we use are the based off the highest percentage of passers that you see.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's really interesting because the highest percentage of passers are Damian line and Habib.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_02: BJ Pan and George S.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_02: They have the highest percent success percentage passes that any fighter needs to be, right?
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So the BJ Patten system, Habib's system, and Damian I system are all based on the teachings of BioViera.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because Daniel Mai was the university, BJ Patton was the university at one point.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't start there, but he learned from humanity, right?
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Habib's trained with BioViera's brother, Rico, and obviously learned the system, and they use it all the time.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Some people call it the dope mount of splitting the legs.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_02: You but that is the passing system that works really well in again.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're controlling it with low risk and high reward, and you're never allowing scrambles.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can see this all the time.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_02: They tie up the legs and then they smash the legs, split the legs and out them, or just split the legs and go under the deck and say handcuff, which is right to the back.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when they try to stand up, and it's this great intuitive system, and so much else of what is taught in resilient is just not working at the same level.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you know what I did?
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_02: I just pulled geeks at it.
• 1:21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's funny because my double under expass, I've been doing that since 1980.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually pretty good at it, right?
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_02: But the data shows that double under expanses failing a lot and creates scrambles a lot in MMA.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't do anything, I just do the Leo system.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm in the double under system, I hold the legs, I smash the legs, and I pass in the Leo system.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that's literally one of the only things we do.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_02: We of course we hit it from many different acts, but we're basically taking one system and putting it in 20 different scenarios versus 20 systems for 20 scenarios.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Less is more, and it comes down to the Pareto principle.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_02: 80% of your success is from 20% of your moves.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is a very famous like social dynamic, right?
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't want to dive into deep complexity.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_02: I want trying to do things that have the data behind it that is going to not guarantee, but lead us to a statistically advantageous position with the lowest risk exposure.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_02: So any room that has a risk-reward ratio that is not or is not succeeding is just falling out.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how we build our system.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not what I learned, and it's not what I do, it's what the math tells us.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I follow the system just as much as everybody else.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I used to do this, but I do this now.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_02: We follow the system like to a T.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we have this visiting fighter coming, who's a very nice guy.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_02: But he goes, and he was a little, I think, meant to critically, right?
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_02: But he's like, at your gym, everybody kind of fights the same way.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_02: My gym, we have like 20 different guys, and they all have different styles and different things.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, that's good because you have different books, but you get experience with different people.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a bad thing, but what he said is true is that there's a radical way of moving, right?
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_02: A moving that's very unique to us based on our math, it's based on math.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's money ball fight, and by money ball, I'm talking the Brad Pitt movie.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what I try to do.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_02: The triumph of a real scientific method versus what we say, oh, it's science.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what when you say science, you need to have some data here, you need to have some rigorous approach, you need to have some survey, right?
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, really a data-driven and a science-driven thing to kind of put us in a very advantageous position.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we're actually since post-pandemic, we're 50 wins and five losses in the MMA.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_02: This is with students who are relatively new to combat fighting people who can train much, much longer.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we're doing something right because if we didn't have that success, I would have to re-evaluate.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_02: But we're actually succeeding quite well.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_02: One of my fighters who just had his he had very little experience in MMA, he was fighting somebody with 17 fights, 14 kickboxing in the MMA, and he had almost no experience in the MMA, and he dominated the entire show with someone who can train way longer.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that has happened many times with people on issues.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's the proof, the proof is in the pudding.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that probably uh I don't want to speak for John Will, but I'm guessing if you're saying that there's some disagreement there, I think he may be saying that the comp the the complexity is what keeps people interested in studying for a long time.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fun, but I'm not interested in fun.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested you're you're interested in winning in in these fight scenarios.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And those are self-defense.
• 1:24:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's really like self-defense.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are different things.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_00: There, there's some alignment, and I experience both, right?
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I care for me, like you.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: My first and foremost thing is always I want to want to fight.
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to have been done doing martial arts for all these years and then lose a fight on the street because I spent the last 15 years doing something appropriate to the sport, but forgot the basics of how to fight on the street for real when there's no rules.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's very, very important to me.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_00: But also, one of the reasons I've been doing it, you know, for 30 years is if I if there's six moves that the statistics show me are gonna basically win 80% of the fights, like you say, you know, how how many years am I gonna practice those six moves before I decide, you know, all right, I want to do something else.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where John would say yes.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's fun and and and endless angles and stuff, that does sort of make make it fun as like a chess game.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_00: It I'm not disagreeing with that point at all.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would say they're not mutually exclusive.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_00: You want to have your six moves, like you want to know and you want to practice.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I say six, I obviously made that up, but but you want to have a game, I want to anyway, want to have a game in jujitsu that is solid for fighting.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I specifically do do not incorporate things into my sport jujitsu game that I don't think will serve me well in a street fight, and I recognize that means I'm not gonna be, I may not win in the competition.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not going to just one example.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've never gotten into lapel wraps where you take the gi and you the lapel of the gi and you wrap it around someone's wrist and that holds them, or you use it for a choke.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes people wear jackets in the real world, that's true, but uh I live in California.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are not wearing that kind of a jacket where you can do that.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I figure any time I spend doing those moves in a jujitsu scenario is irrelevant.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if anything, teaching me a bad habit because that tool is not going to be available to me in the fight, which means it's also not going to be available to me in the world championship I'm going to in a couple of weeks.
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe I'm not going to win as a result, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I can still, I'm still open to doing both.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be clear as to when I'm doing stuff repetitively that is useful for the sport primarily, and don't lose the stuff that I think is my bedrock stuff for a real fight.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a wonderful way of looking at it.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_02: What's wonderful?
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I would say this we can get the complexity in refinement of those moves, as well as new interesting angles of entry.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you and I were talking about a little bit in this chat, is a high ground game, which is kind of new, but it's a way to dominate the guy and take his back in a very kind of interesting way.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a little novel, and it's great.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_02: So the entries into those moves can be the source of complexity for us at least.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_02: So and then, of course, there's also the interest.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is why I think competition in our academy is like kind of really important is that it doesn't get bored if you're fighting and losing or winning.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right, like I mean the competition is what you yeah, and I I would say this I would say this there's a place for all training, and I don't want to disrespect any anybody's approach.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoy what you do, you should do that, right?
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_02: But so Brazilian Jiu Jitsu originally what was told to me had three pillars, and this is what I was saying, right?
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that most people would agree with me back in the day, right?
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_02: The first pillar would be self-defense, meaning, you know, you were able more stand-up stuff, things like that, like clinching and whatever, right?
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_02: The second would be what we call sport jiu-jitsu today, which is the grappling.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_02: That was the crucible to develop our delivery systems, our athletics, our movement, and this, that in a way that we didn't get hurt.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then the last one was either Valley Tudo or what they called tapadina.
• 1:28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And at Carson Races Academy, they said every Friday it was tapparina, which they wouldn't go full on punching, but they would do slaps.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you kind of knew what was working and what wasn't, and that became a reality check so that a lot of the sports stuff wouldn't get out of control with these, you know, inverting lapel koaligar, you know, versatile he like you know, which I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoy that, you go to that.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I think almost every jujitsu school today, they they don't do top year and they don't do self-heads almost always the middle, and that's nothing wrong with that.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_02: But when I spoke to Jenny Abello, I'll say Jenny, I think he felt that what practices were missing something because they wanted to keep those elements.
• 1:29:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Higson has talked about that.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the people talked about that.
• 1:29:48
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, for jujitsu, like that orientation is can be more fun, it absolutely can be, and it's less ego-destroying in some ways than the top radia, you know, like like I don't know, maybe that's not true, but it definitely is something that has been left behind and most move.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's maybe to the detriment of the more wider application mark.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_02: But it what's one thing is here, if you say that you keep that in your mind all the time.
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I did the same thing.
• 1:30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, well, and nothing, nothing stops.
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're talking about with the, you know, with the taps, uh I do do that and I get together with friends, or we can even do it in the middle of the in the jujitsu class.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_00: We can just say, hey, well, on the it's it we're starting a round.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm gonna slap your face, and you slap my face, just to remind us that I could a slap could have been a a strong strike.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, even just doing that in the for one round, you see very quickly starts to change what that jujitsu round is because suddenly you have to cover, you have to control.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for someone whose basic jujitsu game doesn't involve that, where they're grabbing pant legs and coming underneath somebody, and the person on top can start just slapping their face, it's a very good little wake-up call and it's no cost, nobody's getting hurt.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I like that very, very much.
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that reality check needs to happen more.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I'm really happy to agree with you, but again, I'm not sure it's a castle or different people have yeah.
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Look, if you're if you're a person who just wants to do jujitsu for the sport, then fine.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do jujitsu.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and nothing wrong with that.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're you know 45 years old and you're not planning on getting into a fight, and you just want to play the chess game of jujitsu, it's an intricate chess game that's beautiful.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_00: That I agree that you should do that.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be respectful of your time.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to take up too much of your time, and I know that you have classes to teach and things.
• 1:31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But just real quick, you know, we talk about the different martial arts, you study these different martial arts, and they didn't like they weren't created in a in a moment in time by God or something.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about karate, some people were fighting because there was some environmental thing they had to deal with, like the neighboring tribe was coming over on horseback and stealing their stuff or whatever, or they or they wanted to go raid their neighbors to get their stuff, whatever it is.
• 1:32:09
  SPEAKER_00: These things develop, and at some point they sort of calcify and get called kyokushin karate, kosen judo, you know.
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And but that calcification that that doesn't need to happen.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in other words, they were developing for some period of time, and then at some point we now look at them and say, it's this, it's this, it's this.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing in your school is continuing to develop something because your school will be different, I'm sure, in 15 years than it is now, especially if you're looking at if you're getting getting data as to what works at the UFC.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, new things might work as new people might develop new things to counter those things.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it is an evolution.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just wondering how do you square that?
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that there's a value in what we would call traditional martial arts and and cross-training and learning them just for their own sake?
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you think there should only be one martial art called let's do what works and it'll keep evolving?
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when should this calcification happen?
• 1:33:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's how do you navigate that?
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, okay, so that's very interesting.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if I have an answer to that, but I will say this, I'll talk to what has been said to me.
• 1:33:24
  SPEAKER_02: The first is the very famous quote don't copy what the masters seek what they saw, right?
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning, instead of being yokeshin, do what Masalayama, the founder of Kyokushin, to create, right?
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is like a lot of these styles were, you know, they weren't as they're not as old as we think they were, right?
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're a lot of this modern combat is not very old.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the tribal choke was only invented at the turn of the century.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_02: The tribal choke, there's no reported evidence of a tribal choke anywhere in human history until uh um the Japanese terms.
• 1:34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Not there was a tribal body, but but so a lot of this stuff is evolutions are new.
• 1:34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like the science of boxes, you look at boxes in 1905, you look at boxes today, there's a very strong evolution in the game, right?
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say this first of all, there's two types of people under martial, and there's preservationists, and then there's iconoclists, and I think both are valuable.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's people like Dan and Samp is a really good example, someone who does both, but Dan is very interested, as I understand Guru Dan, in preserving a lot of martial traditions that might die out for you know posterity.
• 1:34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whether they're apical to modern well or not is irrelevant.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_02: He wants to preserve them, right?
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're a valuable part of our human experience.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then there are people, like especially people in the modern combat scores who want to just integrate them all and go forward innovate and go.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Enter culture accepted, follow your bliss.
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, I am not a preservationist, that is not what I do, it doesn't get me up in the morning.
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_02: I love developing a highly functional use for the 21st century on 29th Street and 7th Avenue and Jersey, right?
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like that's my age, 2026, right?
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_02: What's going to happen to the year?
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what's the best way to do it in this scenario?
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Or what's the best way to guarantee my player's success in the age, or at least not at the beginning?
• 1:35:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think there's room for everyone.
• 1:35:45
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, you know, for example, Wing Chung is a great example.
• 1:35:50
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody laughs at Wing Chang when they say Wing Chung doesn't work.
• 1:35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, there are elements of Wing Chang that were developed because it was a specific scenario.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_02: As some people have told me, it's small alleyways in ancient China.
• 1:36:06
  SPEAKER_02: Close quarters.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like super small.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like you ever see those in the alleyways are really tiny, so there's no work, right?
• 1:36:13
  SPEAKER_02: This makes sense.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_02: But the other thing was a lot of Wing Chun practices would not agree with me, but I absolutely believe it's true that I believe Wing Chung was a related art with the one of the knives, and it makes sense because when you put the knives in it, it actually doesn't look so different from Kali.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_02: But putting that aside, that argument, Wing Chung, when you're in clothes guard, it actually starts really working to cross the guy's arms and punch him in the face.
• 1:36:39
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of this arm trapping is really something.
• 1:36:42
  SPEAKER_02: So by exposing myself to some ling chunk, which many people crude say is not relevant, I've actually learned some tricks to include roundabout attacks.
• 1:36:55
  SPEAKER_02: And they're literally box out, box out, you know, like all these kinds of things.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then you hit them.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_02: So because the closed guard, and you're in the guard, is that box where you are.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is there's the martial art, the sort of street martial art called 52 blocks.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like an African-American street or prison innovation as it's understood.
• 1:37:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a street, some people think it's serious, but it does exist.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I've met 52 blocks practitioners here in New York, right?
• 1:37:23
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people laughing and think it's a joke, but there's some real reality of a couple things who do.
• 1:37:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I never close my mind to anything.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing is interesting is that we all used to laugh at point karate and Joe Rogan.
• 1:37:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm not the biggest Joe Rogan fan uh this podcast, but I will say when it comes to comet sports, he knows what he's talking about.
• 1:37:45
  SPEAKER_02: He says that you can see point karate concepts really working in MMA today.
• 1:37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas if you talk to MMA fighters 30 years ago, they're like, ah, Chrysler, right?
• 1:37:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, the the distance management tool of the blitzing in and blitzing out is is a very, very good tool to develop.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this is something that, yeah, I remember I was always talking to him with ah Chrysler.
• 1:38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not have such a close mind, let's investigate and see why it existed and see if we can take some of that and make it work.
• 1:38:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm minded to study anything, to try out anything, and to put it in the crucible of combat to test and to see empirical results.
• 1:38:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm constantly trying to learn every single day to modify and prove home the system.
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a really good point.
• 1:38:42
  SPEAKER_00: About well, well, yeah, you know, Bruce Lee said it, right?
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, take keep what was it, keep what's useful.
• 1:38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Reject what is useful.
• 1:38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Rejects what's useless.
• 1:38:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that implies there might be something useful.
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like don't reject, don't reject everything.
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so funny that you mentioned the Wing Chun.
• 1:38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly what I do, Renee.
• 1:39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had years studying Kung Fu, Wing Chun, and where I what I carry forward from that today absolutely exactly is what you said in grappling is that people will often comment that they can't get a hold of my lapel.
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_00: They just can't get the grips they want.
• 1:39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason they can't get the grips they want is because I control their hands using Wing Chan techniques.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_00: They can't get the grips they want on me.
• 1:39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will get the grips I want on them.
• 1:39:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um it could be that the reason I just maybe because I couldn't grab key grips and understood unconsciously that this was a good thing.
• 1:39:38
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, basically, basically, everything you've achieved in the martial arts is because of unconscious things you got from your two days with me.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_00: I will accept that.
• 1:39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um but no, but it's really true.
• 1:39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's there's value in everything, and it would be, you know, if we never again saw anyone practicing certain martial arts that we think are more traditional and maybe not as useful today, there would be a loss.
• 1:40:01
  SPEAKER_00: We would lose something, we would forget things and then have to relearn them.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you mentioned about the triangle.
• 1:40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I gotta think probably somewhere in time, somebody was doing a triangle somewhere, but it probably just was lost because it wasn't recorded.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, human bodies haven't changed that much.
• 1:40:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, yes, I think it is probably the body triangle.
• 1:40:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's a carding on a uh Egyptian card of a person being back mount with the body triangle, back back control and back mount both triangles, and putting in a rear naked show.
• 1:40:30
  SPEAKER_02: So the the leg configuration absolutely there's also another one anchor watt where the person is behind it with the body triangle and doing a rear naked show.
• 1:40:39
  SPEAKER_02: So though by the triangle configuration 100% subsist, I think the reason it wasn't evaluated more is because for most of human history, people had weapons, and not just weapons, but if you look at samurai armor and western armor, there's a coverage tote here for the greed or the rambrace here, these kind of pieces which would make it even when guns were happening, you'd have a lot of like Napoleon-era people who were things were on their neck, right?
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like metal things would make triangle chokes impossible.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so yeah, sure, or if things on you, of course.
• 1:41:16
  SPEAKER_00: So well, and the reason the reason I mentioned weapon is I put you in a triangle choke, but if that you you have a free arm, and if that arm is going to withdraw out a knife and start stabbing at my body, I'd rather not be trying to hold you in a triangle choke.
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to control your arms.
• 1:41:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to control your upper body.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so just one last thought before I I well, maybe two last thoughts.
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see on time.
• 1:41:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you are well known for having very rigorous training.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you mentioned when you went to the Codecon how you were impressed at how serious they were and how hard they trained.
• 1:41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you're well known for, you know, your guys are very, very fit.
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_00: You train very, very hard.
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about your thoughts about the pressure that you put someone under that builds their spirit and builds their toughness and their confidence versus when that becomes into humiliates them or breaks their spirit, or like you mentioned, you saw in some schools bullying, you know, an instructor can be that way.
• 1:42:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you walk that line between how much pressure you're gonna put their students are and how you're gonna how that's gonna be received by them?
• 1:42:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's that's a great question.
• 1:42:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of struggle with the answer as well.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just doing my best, but I will say this you must have pressure to create, right?
• 1:42:35
  SPEAKER_02: But pressure, the crucible of comet, of real the grind has to be there.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_02: I remember every time, you know, I would I would walk into training, I'd be like, okay, gotta go.
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was a little bit of like fear, not fear that I'm gonna get hurt, but you know, like like there's anticipation and trepidation because you know you're walking into a crowd of killers, but that makes you better, and you need pressure to focus on developing your game and recreational hobbies, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it's so devoid of the kind of rigor that I experienced in Japan that what happens is when they face highly aggressive.
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just made one comment on this.
• 1:43:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, why many jiu-jitsu practitioners have trouble with D What wrestlers?
• 1:43:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, the wrestling room is a non-commercial space of highly you know competitive people put in the area of social darwinism, so there's like a level of intensity and aggression that exists in that thing, and when they bring it to the hobbyist person, the hobbyist like, whoa, you can't deal with it.
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want that to ever happen to my students, and I want them to be ready for the aggression of a real life encounter, not you know, play, play, play.
• 1:44:02
  SPEAKER_02: There's a place for that, right?
• 1:44:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I I definitely put the pressure on my students, however, I noticed, especially the younger generation now, the way they communicate and the way they orient themselves in the world is very different than mine.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had conversations with my students where, hey, I'm an old school guy, I understand you're different from me.
• 1:44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Let's navigate this together.
• 1:44:24
  SPEAKER_02: But this is hey, what we need to do, and this is why we need to do it.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think generally you say, hey, I'm not trying to abuse you, but I'm trying to mold you.
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the time I feel that they get the they understand the problem, right?
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_02: However, I have failed before, I've had people feel that I was too much, and this and that.
• 1:44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I totally understand that.
• 1:44:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not the right teacher for everybody, but you know, this is the the radicals, the mat is the crime.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this is a it's a hard mat.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, if you're a very first white belt and you never did anything before, of course I'm not gonna throw you to the wolves and just beat you down.
• 1:45:07
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do that.
• 1:45:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's too that's what I was gonna say.
• 1:45:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think you just gotta know where someone is at when they walk in the door and slowly turn up the dial, like not not so fast that they that goes beyond what they can take.
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, then that person who was very shy and non-athletic as you were when you started will be able to be brought up to speed and can become the next great world champion.
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_00: In pedagogy, this is known as the range of proximal propellant.
• 1:45:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you want to give your students a certain match, but not way plants what they can handle because they won't weigh them.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm always trying to adjust what that range is for each individual.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_02: And as he said, slightly battle up, battle it up.
• 1:45:50
  SPEAKER_02: That being said, there's some people who come in where you know you're not gonna reach them.
• 1:45:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I really felt this when I walked into the shop the first day.
• 1:45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, literally, Ryan kicked the snap out of me in the nicest way possible.
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_02: But that butt kicking where I didn't get hurt, I mean it didn't hurt me, but that butt kicking really made me think.
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I know there's some people they have to go to the grind right away to kind of respect what you do, you know, understand or see how to do it, particularly people who come from different sides, you know.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_02: But that being said, you have to take it by a case-by-case basis.
• 1:46:27
  SPEAKER_02: The most important thing is that not every student's different, and I'm trying to get better as an instructor and do my best to support my students within the most important rule is no BS.
• 1:46:42
  SPEAKER_02: No BS, no delusions of grandeur, no I'm this and that, no, no attitude.
• 1:46:50
  SPEAKER_02: We're here to grind and do our best, and always face our system, plus turn and face your own because you cannot grow unless you do it, and I feel that is a very important thing, particularly the idea of this.
• 1:47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you come in, we obviously know there's so much, but there's like, oh yeah, you know, 300 million street rights, right?
• 1:47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then you just get choked out in five seconds, right?
• 1:47:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like most people cannot handle that lesson because they want to live with their conditions that cannot exist in a real Borgeous category.
• 1:47:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, like we've been around the Border for a long time, and there are many people with ranks.
• 1:47:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not just talking to Jitsu, I'm talking to everyone with ranks that maybe don't represent the skill that rank and disability I would have been, right?
• 1:47:45
  SPEAKER_02: But they walk with tremendous airs and you know, I mean this you will die anyway, or something like that.
• 1:47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like those delusions are highly toxic and they block on human potential.
• 1:47:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I if someone comes in with a sort of delusional thing, I'm like, all right, we have to disappear these people, these solutions to make them grow.
• 1:48:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's sometimes that happens and they can come back, but I still think they did in a circle.
• 1:48:13
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I I agree with you on that.
• 1:48:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Machados used to call roughly call it show someone why they're there.
• 1:48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Someone walked in because they must think there's something here to offer.
• 1:48:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't show them what there is to offer, they could walk away saying, Yeah, that those guys aren't that tough, or there's nothing here for me to learn.
• 1:48:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you show them what you have to offer in a way that maybe doesn't completely just destroy them or certainly doesn't physically hurt them, but that they walk away knowing unquestionably this is what we're capable of.
• 1:48:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested, come on back.
• 1:48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I mean you you talk about often the time when you went to visit a judo practitioner and you kind of took it easy on someone.
• 1:48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know Mike Swain.
• 1:48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Believe me, I I heard I got reprimanded for what Renee is talking about is a time a great judo champion, Mike Swain, and a wonderful guy came by to check out the the Jean-Jacques Machado's school, and I grappled with him, but I respected him.
• 1:49:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of took it easy and he was good and we fought, and he got tired and you know, put him in a thing or two here and basically tired him out, but didn't really try to dominate him out of respect.
• 1:49:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jean-Jacques said to him, Okay, let's train.
• 1:49:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then he was kind of too tired, and and so he never got the full experience.
• 1:49:30
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't get the feeling of me doing what I'm capable of.
• 1:49:33
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't wrestle with Jean-Jacques at all, and then walked away with an impression that, yeah, these guys are pretty good, but you know, I hung with them, and that's not what Jean-Jacques wanted me to do.
• 1:49:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't mind me to interrupt, I mean, thank you for sharing this.
• 1:49:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is also a problem with Japanese mushrooms, is that because of the Confucian hierarchy, very often you respect people so much that you don't really.
• 1:50:00
  SPEAKER_02: Push them or past that kind of politeness, politeness, right?
• 1:50:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because the face and politeness is such a beautiful heart of Japanese culture.
• 1:50:07
  SPEAKER_02: And Brazilians are like, no, I'm gonna do a storm you know, you don't know crap.
• 1:50:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I I really think that's a bright bashier because with the Confucian kind of hierarchy of here's the teacher and here's the student, and we respect this, and that we tend to lose reality, and like there should be no ranks on that in terms of the role.
• 1:50:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I obviously I don't mean no ranks, but like it shouldn't matter what belt you are, we're gonna go right now.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I'm gonna tailor like go to your level so that we don't get hurt because we have a sustainable training, but it needs to be real and it needs to understand the person has to understand why they're beating it, right?
• 1:50:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I have a rule in my hand that anytime anyone beats someone, the first thing they have to do is tell the student that they beat how they did it and how not to let it happen, right?
• 1:51:04
  SPEAKER_02: So then it becomes like, oh, he's not just beating it, he's teaching how that right, right?
• 1:51:10
  SPEAKER_02: And we all help each other, but this is one thing like we're pretty much no big academy, so it's really refreshing and yoke because we don't really know what ranks people are, so people just writing and it takes away all the like, oh I have to wear my brown belt or black belt, this or that, right?
• 1:51:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then it takes that away, and it's just let's just train and let's make sure we're not in any delusional state.
• 1:51:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have to you have to show them why they're well, Professor Sensei coach Renee, I really appreciate I'm good enough to be called a professor.
• 1:51:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not true, obviously.
• 1:51:54
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate your spending this time.
• 1:51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I very much look forward to visiting your academy next time I'm in New York.
• 1:52:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've not been there, and I would love to hop on the mat with your guys and get my butt kicked.
• 1:52:04
  SPEAKER_00: It would be a great fun.
• 1:52:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be sure to do that.
• 1:52:08
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for your wisdom.
• 1:52:12
  SPEAKER_00: We will include in the show notes is is there somewhere that you want to say right now where people can find you and get more of your information?
• 1:52:18
  SPEAKER_02: RadicalMMA nyc.com.
• 1:52:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great place.
• 1:52:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I never post on social media.
• 1:52:25
  SPEAKER_02: I hate social media, but my wife does put on some stuff.
• 1:52:28
  SPEAKER_02: But you can just go to the website and contact me.
• 1:52:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's an honor, absolute honor being on this podcast and speaking with you.
• 1:52:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have so much respect for you.
• 1:52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a true pleasure.
• 1:52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:52:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have a wonderful day and stay safe.
• 1:52:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed my talk with Professor Renee Dreyfus.
• 1:52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Links to his school, Radical MMA, in New York, and everything else we discussed are in the show notes.
• 1:52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks also to my team, Robbie, Phil, Kyle, Angela, Bill, and to Ryan Peach Turner, my producer and chief editor, for your help.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks also to the show sponsors and supporters.
• 1:53:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see them on our supporters page at AgelessWarrior Lab.com.
• 1:53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please take a moment to rate the show.
• 1:53:16
  SPEAKER_00: We mentioned an interview I did with Burton Richardson, and that was episode 33, where we talked about grappling with the knife.
• 1:53:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can click here to check that out.
• 1:53:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will be back next week with more lessons from the lab.
• 1:53:30
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, keep developing your strength, your wisdom, and go out and do good in the world.