Latest / The Ageless Warrior Lab / Rorion Gracie: The Man Who Brought BJJ to America and Started the UFC | EP 46

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Rorion Gracie: The Man Who Brought BJJ to America and Started the UFC | EP 46 · The Ageless Warrior Lab

0:00
SPEAKER_00: When after finishing law school, I said I'm going back to America with the objective of sharing jiu-jitsu with the world.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, I knew for sure that I had something very unique, very special.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: So my intent in creating the UFC was to compare different styles of martial arts with the least amount of restrictions as possible.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: There were no gloves, there was no time limits, there was no points, there was no judges.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Two guys walk in, one guy walks out.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: The winners will fight each other, and ultimately you have one winner that happens to be always representative.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: The lightest guy in the tournament through won three fights on the same night without throwing one single punch.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the ultimate show of effectiveness, I would say.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: 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.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: What you're about to hear is a discussion I had with Professor Horian Gracie.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: Horian is the eldest son of Aelio Gracie and nephew of Carlos Gracie, the founders of Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Horian is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grandmaster instructor, an entrepreneur, a publisher, and one of the central co-creators of the UFC, which was originally designed to show the effectiveness of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and was won repeatedly by Hoyce Gracie, one of Horian's brothers.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Horian built the Gracie Academy presence in Southern California and has since focused on the Gracie Academy and Gracie University ecosystem along with his sons.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: He's a big advocate of the Gracie diet, which we talk about.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And we also discuss the evolution of what became BJJ and sport versus self-defense and what makes a great instructor.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is a lab and I value your input.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: So I may pop in a few times to get your impressions as we go.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell for notifications of when new episodes drop.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: And now please enjoy my conversation with the legend himself, Professor Horian Gracie.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: Professor Horian, it's such an honor to have you on the show.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for making the time.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: I am a big fan of yours, as I just mentioned before we started recording.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: You opened the world's eyes to a question I think a lot of people weren't even asking.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: People were training martial arts.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: I was doing martial arts.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: Everyone thought the thing they were doing was the best thing.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: And then here came this new thing that you brought to the United States, this gracie jujitsu.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: And you're not just a jiu-jitsu teacher, you built an entire distribution system for publicizing this concept.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: You had the challenge matches, the videotapes, the academy, the UFC books, all of these things you've done, training the military, training the police, so much that you've done.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: Could you have imagined when you came to the United States that this would be the path that your life was taking?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: I hate to admit it, but yes.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: I knew that when I came to the United States, I was going to change the world.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: I was 100% sure of that.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's why I came.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I saw the outcome of this stuff through my family, my father, my uncles, older cousins, and so forth back in Brazil.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And I mentioned briefly the other day that we got together that I had the first initial trip here in 1969 when I was 17 years old.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: My ticket was stolen.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I ended up staying here for a whole year.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And it was a tough time for me.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Find myself painhandling for a few days and sleeping on the sidewalk and stuff like that.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: But that helped me fall in love with the possibilities we had in the United States.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And then after one year in America, I went back to Brazil, went to law school, and after finishing law school, I said, I'm going back to America with the objective of sharing jiu-jitsu to the world.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Especially the kind of jiu-jitsu that I grew up in the family developed over all these years back home.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: So I knew for sure that I had something very unique, very special.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of put myself on the mission of doing that, and I was blessed to be at the right place at the right time.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And under the whole bunch of different circumstances, ups and downs and all that kind of stuff.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: It turned out to be amazing, better than I could have dream of, because back in those days, I had no idea the impact would be so big.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I always knew I was going to have an impact, but I didn't know.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have internet and cell phones and social media, of course.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't predict that kind of stuff.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So it had the capillarity that now has.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: But I knew that I was going to shake the tree.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: That's for sure.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, you shook the tree.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the analogy would be, but that that tree has come down and you've planted a forest.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you what, it's unbelievable.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: When you had the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in action videotape, that was handed to me.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: I was a martial artist, had never heard of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: This was maybe 1990.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: You had been here already for several years.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: And what I saw on the tape was very impressive.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: I saw you and your brothers and your cousins beating people, stand up, taking them to the ground.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: But as a jiu-jitsu person, I couldn't appreciate it.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: When I looked at that, I thought, those guys are tough.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: They do a good foot stomp, they take the guy to the ground, they get to Tate Shio Gatami, the mounted position.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: I didn't understand until, in my case, I got on the mat with your cousin Hegan, and suddenly my mind was blown.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: I could not believe, I couldn't believe how good everybody was.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's been the experience of so many people.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: They might look at it and they see something, but it's not until they actually feel it that they understand.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: That's right, 100%.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Jiu Jitsu has this appeal, I guess.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: People get involved with this stuff without knowing exactly what they're going to get into.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And once they understand it, like you said, they fall in love with it.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the reasons that I believe jujitsu has had such a huge acceptance worldwide.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: It's much more than the other martial arts.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: They have their qualities and benefits about it, of course.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: But Jiu-Jitsu has a certain effect on the practitioner that not only does this family, you know, you become part of a tribe when you do jujitsu because all that grabbing and the, you know, people rubbing each other, sweating together and sharing those moments, almost of almost of intimacy that you have with somebody else.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Those guys are trying to choke you on the mat, they end up being your best friends.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of connection is very broad and is reaching more and more people around the world.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm very happy to have at least contributed in some way to have that revolution started.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I think, yes.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: I think, as you see, did more than contribute, you've really led it.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Do you think grappling in general is a natural instinct for people, maybe more so than striking, and that's why people enjoy it so much?
6:29
SPEAKER_00: I think, of course, it's natural that, especially when you're talking in terms of survival in reality and stuff like that.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most fights are going to end up in a grappling situation where they know sample.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, in a boxing match, they're gonna start getting beat up.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: The first instinct is to grab your opponent so that you won't get knocked out.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: The referee comes in and says, No, no, no, I can't do that.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: But if it's a street fight, there's no referee.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So the thing eventually is gonna end up in a grappling situation.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And having a specific strategy, a plan, knowing how to do from this move to that move to the other move, that strategy is what makes people fall in love with Jiu Jitsu because people that sometimes have no self-confidence or the ability to handle themselves in a fight, with that strategy, they now become much more confident and positive and many times more tolerant, more understanding, more forgiving, because they know their potential and then they don't have to prove it all the time.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that's the most people get that message.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've also heard that from police officers who train jujitsu, like Rick Williams and like uh other people, that once the police officer has a confidence in their ability to do jujitsu, they are less likely to get into an altercation because they're not gonna reach for their gun, they're much more calm, and that the person that they're dealing with, even if it's a violent person, sees that in the police.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: They see their confidence, and so they're not gonna challenge them.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Has that been your experience?
7:48
SPEAKER_00: 100%, yeah.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when you talk differently without being intimidated by the action of your opponent, it makes them think twice about it.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: But is this what I have that I don't?
7:57
SPEAKER_00: It makes them twice think twice, and sometimes it helps just enough to avoid confrontation.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe they perceive your confidence.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: You were instrumental in creating the UFC, and you've talked a lot about that in other interviews.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: I just have a couple questions about that that I think will be interesting to our audience.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: We have people who were there at the start who remember it.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: We have also younger people who never saw some of the first UFCs.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: They're now seeing what they see today.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: And the UFC, as I remember it, was very much began.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: What you created was a chance to look at styles against styles, to understand the power of styles against styles and how Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in particular could transcend who is the stronger person, who is the larger person.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: And you were involved in that for a number of the first events, and of course, Hoyce was amazing.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: So then you stepped away.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: Do you feel that the UFC, while you were involved, did its job to make the point you wanted to make, or would there have been more you wanted to do with the UFC?
8:59
SPEAKER_00: No, I think that they made the job 100% how I wanted to.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: It just hit the spot 100%.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Because the idea was, like you said, a comparison of different styles of martial arts.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Like many people have had a chance to watch movies and stuff like that, and even see some fights.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: In a movie, you see a guy walk into a room with 20 opponents, he knocks out 20 opponents and walks away.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, please, come on.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And I want to show that stuff is not real.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: So my intent in creating the UFC originally was to compare different styles of martial arts.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: That's why I wanted to do with the least amount of restrictions as possible.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: There are no gloves, there was no time limits, there was no points, there was no judges.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Two guys walk in, one guy walks out.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: No weight class?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: No weight class.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's it.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Just what happened?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: So my focus was to make exactly that.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't want any martial art to show that they were being limited by anything.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, even the idea of the octagon, which turned out to be a very amazing, turned out to be a very interesting piece of the history, I would say.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did not want the boxing rings because the boxing rings would enable the competitor to slip between the ropes if they're getting beat up.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to do that.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: I want to decide to fight inside the ring.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: So I'm with something that would not permit the guys to get away.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's the whole idea, was that, in comparing styles.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: So in the beginning, as you recall, there was a guy from each style of the martial arts who put everybody's name on a hat, eight fighters, a single elimination tournament.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: You throw everybody's name on their hat, nobody knows who's gonna fight who.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: You pull the names out, the guys fight each other, the losers get out, the winners will fight each other, and ultimately you have one winner that happens to be always representing the lightest guy in the tournament, through one three fights on the same night without throwing one single punch.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the ultimate show of effectiveness, I would say.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: For sure, and I would remind people, even the people who remember watching it, about the three fights in one night.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just unheard of at this point, that you would have a fight with no rules like that, with no gloves, and then the winner would go on to another fight in the same night, and the winner would go on to another fight in the same night.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that, as you're saying, Hoist didn't throw punches suggests to me, as I recall, jujitsu is a way to end a fight that is more humane, where you're not likely to get sued because you're not having to damage a person.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but it humanize the practitioner.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: If you have a go to a barbecue at a friend's house and somebody had one drink more than he should, start acting stupidly in there.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And if your martial art is karate or kung fu or taekwondo or something like that, there's a strike or boxing, you can't, okay, my friend, slow down, punch him a little bit to calm him down.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Either you knock the guy out, now you create a conflict that's unnecessary, having to knock out your girlfriend's brother, quote, punch because he got drink one too much, which jujitsu gives you the help of controlling the situation a very humane way, like I said, without hurting anybody, not getting hurt.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of pacifies the situation.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that additional benefit to it as well.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: Just popping in here to ask you, the audience, have you ever used any style of jiu-jitsu or wished you knew it in a real life situation that wasn't a sport context?
12:11
SPEAKER_02: Drop a comment on the YouTube video, and now back to the show.
12:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've seen people get into confrontations on the street, use jujitsu, and then people shake hands when they're over and they're they become friends.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: For many years, while I got class out of my garage, my students, I think I mentioned that the other day, I got to a point I was teaching 630 classes out of my garage a month.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: And from 7 o'clock in the morning to 9 o'clock at night.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Crazy times.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And I had 87 people in a waiting list, including movie director Joe Milliars, who did the corner of the Barbarian, like launch shortfaggers careers, calling me every two weeks.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Hold the film, can I start?
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have time for him.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, in those days, some of the students would say, hold on, my karate instructor or kung fu or taekwondo or wrestling or boxing or whatever.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: It's upset that I stopped training with them, and I'm doing jujitsu with you.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: He wants to challenge us for a fight.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Would you accept that?
13:02
SPEAKER_00: I said, Of course, bring him in.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So the guys will come in to fight me, and I'll tell my students, hey, Tuesday night, eight o'clock, a martial arts instructor is coming to fight me.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Come watch and bring a friend.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: So the guy would show up in the garage, and you have this whole bunch of people there to watch the fight.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll have those challenge matches, like real no host bar fight for him and I.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And because Juju is indeed the most complete and most effective form of self-defense, it gave me the elements of, in a very humane, friendly way, get into a clinch into my opponent, take him to the ground very lovingly, mount on top of the guy, let him subble for 30 seconds, he'll be exhausted, and I never had to punch anybody.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It was a very friendly thing.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: You know how it is.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: If you've got no escape from the mount position, just hold him down, he's done.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: So 30 seconds, you'll be like, Real relax, it's okay.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I never hit the guy, some of them will say, God, this is so amazing.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: I never seen anything like this.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: I've been doing martial arts for 10, 15, 20 years, and I've never seen it.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Do you mind if I start learning from you?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: I said, Of course not.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of those guys started learning from me, even though they had extensive experience in other martial arts.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's how the West was won, in a very friendly way, because jiu-jitsu enables you to do that.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And some of those guys that you mentioned that I know, very experienced practitioners of different styles of martial arts, started like this and then eventually got into it and just the whole thing just kept flourishing with death report.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: I think people forget that the Japanese words jujitsu mean gentle art.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: And to be able to beat somebody in a fight and still remain gentle if you choose to, of course.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: Is an amazing, amazing power.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: So just before I leave UFC, obviously that has evolved.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: They put in rules, they put in time limits that change the nature of how people fight.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: They keep getting stood up, they want excitement.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: It's a entertainment, not what you created.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: And now people are going in there and they're doing elements of different most MMA fighters are doing a bit of everything.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: They're doing some sick boxing and some wrestling and some jujitsu on the ground.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like MMA has become its own sort of fighting art.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Do you have any thoughts on that?
15:08
SPEAKER_02: Do you pay any attention to that?
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Is that just a whole different world for you now?
15:12
SPEAKER_02: What is your thought on that evolution?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural evolution, of course.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're a skilled boxer or striker, you want to complement your skills with jiu-jitsu.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: So in case you go to the ground, you know what you're doing.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: So it's only a natural evolution that this mixed martial art process would evolve.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: I still think that the spine of the whole process is jujitsu.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't care what martial art we train anybody, we can combine everything.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: If he doesn't know jujitsu, he's in trouble.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: He has to know some jiu-jitsu to a certain extent.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: So that became the vehicle to promote jiu-jitsu to a large scale to everybody.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Now they through what's called MMA, but they're doing the analogs, the best in the garden, they're doing all that stuff that you're the essence, like I said, of jiu-jitsu, which for me is wonderful.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: That was my mission in coming here, was to share that kind of knowledge with everybody.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Because I always believed that if you know jiu-jitsu, you'll look at life in a different way.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: If you're confident on yourself, that's it's a different perspective that you have altogether.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: I didn't come here to teach people how to fight.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think I came here.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate message is to teach people how to live better.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: If you can be confident on yourself, you have a different attitude towards other people.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: You get cut off by someone in traffic, they say something good, or do some kind of a strange gesture.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be offended by that and try to beat him up.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: That's forget that.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Just blow the art because you know where you stand.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully, jujitsu, either mixed with everything else all by itself, can give a lot of people the ability to be facing the challenges of life in a very positive light, in a very comfortable way.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: They don't feel threatened by anymore.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Because for especially for men, for women, being cute and having the right outfit and dressing a certain way on fashion is an important thing, looking beautiful.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: But for the guy, the ability of defending himself and defending what he stands for is crucial.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not confident on your abilities to defend yourself for what you respect or what you're here to protect, if you can't trust yourself in doing that, is it may put you in a very vulnerable position, a very frail position.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So as a man, you have the instinct, warrior instinct, that you want to be able to fight and defend yourself if you have to put somebody out.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: So that ability of doing that is crucial, just for the man in general as a race.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Like any other species, the male is there to defend the family and the tribe or the team or whatever that is.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, just like ups for grab, the whole thing is very vulnerable, very frail.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And when you have the ability to do that and feel that confidence, like I said, you become more tolerant, you become more understanding, more patient.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: It changed your whole game.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and one of the things that I love about jujitsu is there are people who walk around and are confident, and that's good.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: If they're happy, I'm happy.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: But they discover, if they do have to use their fighting skills, that it didn't work the way that they thought, that maybe it was a false confidence.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things we get to do in our training of jujitsu is we get to test it all the time, every day, in in the way that we practice it with the sport, so that we're very and if you can choke someone out who has been training for years to not get choked out, and you can still choke them out, you can choke out anybody on the street if you have to.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: I think that's true.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, I see a distinction between maybe three different things.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: There is what we would call self-defense, learning the moves and understanding the situations that are most appropriate for what might really occur in an altercation that's not a sport.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: Then you've got MMA, it's a sport, it's a great sport, great fighting sport.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: And then you have sport, how Brazilian jiu-jitsu is now practice, those are what my medals are from.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: So I think they're all very related.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: But I'm interested in your thoughts on self-defense.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: So if someone is only training sport BJJ and they're not ever doing the combatives or not ever doing the self-defense, are they missing out on something?
18:58
SPEAKER_02: What is your thought on the relationship between actual self-defense, the sport of BJJ, MMA, anything else?
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Great question, first of all, because there's this discrepancy interpretation on all that.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Um MMA, I would say, is like the sport Brazilian Jiu Jitsu without the Gee, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, unless we put the bunches in strikes.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: If you include that, it becomes a very good type of action for the professional guy.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not for everybody.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: You have your doctor or your dentist or accountant who's not into fighting, he needs to learn something that's not going to be an MMA for him, unless the guy is an out of the average kind of guy who wants to get that enroll.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: But MMA has a natural way to select those who can or should be practicing it.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Because it requires a certain amount of endurance and strength and explosion and strikes, and there's a certain requirement for you to practice MMA.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Brazilian jiu-jitsu as well is the same thing but without the strike.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: So it shows a person who can compete and have all the athleticism and the energy and the competition, blood for that kind of stuff.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: The way I have always trained and learned all my life was that jiu-jitsu is an art of self-defense.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: I've always taught jiu-jitsu with that objective, and I have always practiced jiu-jitsu with that objective.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: By that I mean that if you want to get a person who is not necessarily a professional fighter, but wants to have the ability to defend himself in a variety of different scenarios, that person needs to know the self-defense, would I say the original program of self-defense, which today, of course, knowing how to escape from the headlock on the ground is self-defense.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Knowing how to escape from the mount position is self-defense.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, those are self-defense elements, no doubt.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: But you can't ignore, which unfortunately a lot of schools do, you can't ignore the aspect of if you're walking down the street, somebody comes from behind and gives you a bear hurt for his friend to punch you in the face.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know how that, if you've never been taught that move, you're gonna get stuck in a bad spot.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Just because you want to fight on the ground doesn't mean you're getting out of that one.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody comes from behind and pulls your neck from behind and you strike to spring and strain you straighten you from behind, standing up, or simply comes up to you and swings a punch at your face.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been exposed to that aspect, which we call the stand-up self-defense, which is nothing but a continuation of the ground part when you see it as self-defense.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: So the standing up self-defense, which by the way, the book back there is there's a lot of that because it has the original course that my dad developed back in the days in Brazil, in the 50s and 40s and 50s and so forth.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: So that concept of self-defense standing up, you know, the defense against the club and the knife and how to control somebody with the gun and the person attacking from behind, and a variety of different situations, headlock standing up, bending down, lifting up, headlock with a punch, and there's a variety of different moves that would give the practitioner a huge array of possibilities by learning those moves.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: If they say, well, if that guy.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Is a good BJJ fighter, he doesn't need that.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe not.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: You get in a fight with someone in a parking lot, the guy throws a punch, might be able to hit him with a punch, give him a black eye, and then you take the guy to the ground and shimmit him with another lock.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm not arguing that point.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: The effectiveness of BJJ is fought BJJ is huge, and I think it's highly important and necessary.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: The grappling concept is crucial.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: You can't ignore that part.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: But what I'm saying is that if you know how to defend that first initial contact, because that's usually how a fight starts, it doesn't start on the parking lot where the guys say, okay, lay down, let me pass your guard.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work like that.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Or you sit down and say, come to attack me.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: That's no reality.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: That's the side of the house that is missing, something very important.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Fight start with somebody, like I said, comes from behind, j's on a bearhead for his punch, for his friend coming to punch you in the face.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: So if you've never been exposed to that kind of situation, you are missing out.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's what is misunderstood.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Is BJJ self-defense jujitsu self-defense or just grappling?
22:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a community of both.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You must do both.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: I agree with you on that.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: I came from a style which was we would I would call more stand-up, although we did do some ground.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: I was like, let's just say a bad blue belt when I first encountered Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: That's that was what my black belt, many, many, many, many years of grappling in judo and jiu-jitsu got me was that's a little bit of ability against a good jujitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: But what I notice is that the sport of jiu-jitsu, which I love and it's fun, and it's great, and it keeps people interested.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: It's great.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: Lots of benefits lots of benefits, like you say.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: You know John Will.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Actually, it was John Will who I met my first, he came from Australia, trained with you.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: John says that what gets you in is maybe the interest in the fighting, but what keeps you for 30 years is likely the interesting evolution of the sport, and that's true.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: But I notice as the sport of jujitsu involv evolves and evolves, if someone is coming into it today, and if they're not getting that basic set of what we would call the self-defense and the ways in which these things create, to them, they're entering into something that involves a lot of moves and a lot of activities that are no longer particularly relevant to self-defense.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: They're really relevant for the sport of jiu-jitsu to make points, but they're not relevant if someone is really trying to hit your face, or they're not relevant if you're on a hard surface, things like that.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: So I agree with you.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't think people should assume just because they're in a Brazilian jujitsu class doing sport jujitsu that they are getting the full range of self-defense that they think they might be getting if they don't actively, if their instructor is not teaching that.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely correct.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Just jumping in to ask you in the audience, if you train BJJ, does your school teach both sport BJJ and stand-up self-defense applications?
24:49
SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts on the value of teaching both?
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Drop a comment in the YouTube video, and now back to the interview.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, you also made a point of the type of people that come into MMA, obviously young athletes, strong people, and the kind of people who will come into jujitsu, especially if they want to compete.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: But of course, the people who need it most, the people who need martial arts most, and I know you know this, are not the strong.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: That's the whole point.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: It's the weak people, it's the people who lack confidence, it's the people who are dealing with illness, it's you know, women, children, things like that.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: And we want the art to be accessible to them.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to have a sign up at the door that says tough people only.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they don't have a sign, but if she was thinking about training, they realize that's what it was, and that's why the circulation is so big, they don't stay.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: My students just stay with me forever.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: So you are well known as being the best teacher in the family.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: I've heard that from uh other family members of yours.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk to you about teaching because this is so interesting to me what you know about teaching, and part of it starts with what we just said.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: How do you take somebody who maybe is weak and is scared and timid from contact?
26:02
SPEAKER_02: How do you take somebody like that and bring them along to a point that they actually do become confident and they might even become the next world champion?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the deal everybody should learn jujitsu.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: That's the bottom line.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: The whole world should learn jujitsu.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: But not everybody can teach jujitsu.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times a guy goes into a school, white belt goes to the ranks and stuff, white, blue, purple, ball, get a black belt.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: See, now I'm a black belt, I'm gonna open up my own school.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: That guy had never been taught the methodology on how to teach.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: He just came rough, sparring to the ranks and just became a black belt, and now he thinks he can teach us.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Just because he's a black belt, that doesn't make him a teacher.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, this huge expansion has opened this huge can of worms.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Now everybody's teaching it, but nobody's really knowing how to teach right.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So the way to do that for me has always been something very unique because number one, I had the opportunity, I spent many years of my life grew up watching my father teach, which was my hero, of course, in my opinion, the best instructor I've ever seen.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And his passion in trying to help that student to get to the maximum that he could be, that's what made the difference for me.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: He would find creative ways to make sure that that student was always succeeding on the process of executing the technique.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: For example, the first move I teach in the class, which is in the curriculum from back in the old days, is a guy who never done jujitsu at all, of course, first time in class.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And I asked him, have you done?
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I haven't never done anything in my life.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Say, there's two things I want to tell you.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Number one is that there's no such a thing as a bad student.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: There are good teachers and bad teachers.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And because I am a good teacher, you're gonna learn no matter what.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking from him the responsibility of having to learn the thing.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: It's not his job to learn, it is my job to make sure he does it.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm learning math and the teacher in my class says, Listen, if you guys don't get A's, it's my fault.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: That's the guy I want to learn from.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: 100% on him, not me.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't really, I don't depend, I don't expect the student to have any quality whatsoever.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: If he shows up in class, he's gonna learn.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna be the best he can be.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: So I take from him the responsibility of having to learn.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: That's number one.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Number two, I'm gonna tell him that the techniques I'm gonna show him, I want him to keep in mind that his potential opponent, his attacker, his adversary, is always gonna be bigger, heavier, and stronger than he is.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep that in mind.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: The technique I'm gonna show you is to deal with someone who's bigger, heavy, and stronger.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: The idea here, I don't care how big and how strong or how weak that guy might be, is that what I want him to keep in mind is that I don't want him to rely on strength.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't want him to rely on his physical attributes.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: The guy's bigger, heavier, and stronger than you, more athletic than you are.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: So whatever you do can't rely on that.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So I have to show him something that works, even if the guy is bigger, heavier, and stronger than you.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's there, there's a whole methodology of teaching, which by the way, I'm working on a course to share that with the world.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: That's my next project.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Moving along very well, and I'm very happy with the outcome, with the result of this stuff, but it's still I'm not done yet, but I'll let you know when that comes to the first time.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, please do program and let you know.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Exactly on teaching people how to teach jiu-jitsu so they can get the best results for the student.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Because the instructor sometimes knows a lot about the subject, and he might talk too much.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: A dedicated student is in their class, never learned anything, his first day, he's like a little vacuum clear.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: He's whatever you say, he wants to memorize what you say.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes by not by talking too much, you confuse his student.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Try to memorize everything, he gets confused.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: I think that a good teacher should be able to convey the message without saying anything.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I taught classes and I didn't say a word, and the guy walked out doing the move 100%.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: That's very interesting.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Without saying one word, we can't say ah, we can't say anything.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, the guy walks in and does the move 100%.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: If you ever find the time, pick me up on that.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I would love to give you a class of that.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: I would love that.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: I agree with you 100% that most people who teach Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and this is probably true of other styles too, they're good practitioners and they got their belt rank, but they have not studied how to teach.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: I exactly agree.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: And why wouldn't they when you think about it?
30:31
SPEAKER_02: Because teaching is different than learning.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned to John in Australia.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: He is somebody who talks a lot about that, and I appreciate that.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: And I think part of that is also if you assume that you may not get another chance.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Like if you have your students and they're there every day, well, you didn't teach a good class today, you can always teach a good class tomorrow.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: But someone like you, when you if you're teaching police officers, or if you're teaching military, or if you're teaching seminars, this is your chance.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: You've got them for three hours.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: You're not maybe never going to see the guy again.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: That adds extra responsibility to be sure that if they traded away part of their life to come listen to you, that they walk away with something of value.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: I can't teach a bad class.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to do that.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: I can only teach a good amazing class.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, take me up on that if you want.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: And then we have another program with your comments.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: I would love to.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: And you know what you said about the teacher taking the responsibility, not it's not the student's responsibility.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: This is something I learned very early on in marketing, that we in communication, that the meaning of a message is in how it is received.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: So if I say to you, I love you, Professor Horian, but you hear I hate you, that's my problem.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: That's not your problem.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: I did not communicate that very well.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: And I better come again.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: It's not your responsibility.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: If I'm trying to give you something, it's my responsibility that I give it to you in a way that you can get it.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: I can't blame you if you didn't get it right.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: And I hear that's what I hear you saying.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: So the students, they all come to class, they all but improve.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And if they feel that they improve at every class, do you know when he's gonna stop?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Never.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Never, right?
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, forever.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Your kids shut quality up.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's getting better, twig day, twig that they just keep doing, they can't.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: So, do you evolve your method of teaching depending upon the type of student?
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Some people, I'm sure there's different students that do learn better in different ways.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Listening, watching, touching.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: Are you able to evolve that based upon who you're dealing with?
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, you well, it's not that I evolve, I adapt to the adapt it.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the process of teaching that I've been working on for at least what almost 60 years now, teaching classes, is a question of making sure that I find new ways to present that guy.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: But after all these years, the mistakes are almost the same.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the methods are kind of the same, it's just there's a sub-general rule that I can go by that I see worked very positively.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: The guy has no arm, for example, or no leg, I have to adapt for that guy.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Or if it's a person in general, a normal person, it's pretty much the same thing for everyone.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Not much here and there, but it works for everyone.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's a very solid process of teaching, which, like I said, is what I plan on sharing with everyone when this course is done.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I want to make this thing available because since most people are not familiar with that, and I am very familiar with that, that's the only way I know how to teach, I want to make sure that wherever I go, that stuff stays here for posterity.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: I very much look forward to that.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: And we will, of course, share whatever it is you're working on.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering if you've had the experience that as you teach, that this helps you, that you get better because of your teaching, not just your students getting better.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: 100%, no doubt.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: The more you teach, the better you get.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I had the privilege of growing up watching my dad with all his experience teach a certain way.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't start back here.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: He kind of just pushed me all that way.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: So I already went way ahead of the game by the time I started teaching at 15 years old, before G15.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: And then just been doing this stuff for, like I said, for almost 60 years now.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: And then the more you teach, the better you get, 100%.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the responsibility of the teacher to be a good teacher, but I know that there's people listening, there's people watching who the teacher they have is the teacher they have.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: So they're going to know, okay, but how can I be a better student?
34:14
SPEAKER_02: How can I be a better learner?
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Do you have any advice on how students can be themselves become better learners in any situation?
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And so your question is a challenging question because he can only do what he can do.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell him to pay more attention in class or do this or do that, because if the teacher is not provided information the right way, there's not much he can do about that.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: This was the course that I said coming up, is going to help not only instructors, but it's going to help the students to watch how the class should be taught, in my opinion.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Of course, anybody can say whatever they want, anyway they want.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: But I have my own version, my own vision or version on how a person should be taught.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: That's working amazingly well for everybody I've worked with all my life.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the student, Mo Maha Nebraska, gets there, watch that and say, hmm, that's pretty cool.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Not only will he be able to grasp what I'm telling you, but he can come to his instructor and say, Hey, let's do this.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: How come we're not doing this way?
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's, I think, will tremendously benefit a lot of people.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not the student's fault.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: The student is there because he wants to learn.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: It's up to the instructor, or whoever calls himself the instructor, to figure out a way to convey the information and ultimately get the result that is beneficial for the student.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the trick.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: It's up to you.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: You can be very good at something, very talented.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Michael Jordan is an amazing basketball player, but he's not a good coach.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Just because he is doesn't make the he can pass on the information well.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: That's not it.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So if the person is a good teacher, he should get the result from his students.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate result.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: The students are going to be very efficient because ultimately he should want what's best for his students.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: And the students reaching the top, it's a good sign of that.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: And then the result of the whole thing is that if you are a good teacher, the students are going to get that, they're going to improve.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think people, for understandable reasons, will want to seek out a teacher who maybe is the world champion.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: And that's they're famous, and that maybe they're a good teacher too.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: But I agree, it's there's not much of a correlation between you win a world championship, you're a good teacher.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: In fact, more I think more often than not, there's not a relationship between that.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: Because if you're a if you're a great champion, very possibly you had a lot of natural skill that you didn't have to learn yourself, so you may not be able to tell somebody else that.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: That was me my next comment following up with Marco Jordan, or those great athletes, the name is for it, Brazilian soccer player, Bel, whoever, they had the natural talent that enables them to be that good.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
36:57
SPEAKER_00: They have that skill.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: The student might not have that.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So there's no way you're gonna make him to become the same.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: The jurisdiction I teach is to make a student as good as I am.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it makes a woman just as good as I am, 100%.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't rely on his prowess, I mean his talent and his skills and his athleticism, zero, nothing.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: What I do is anybody can do exactly the same thing.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: So to have a teacher that can make you as a student become as good as a teacher is the ultimate teaching skill, I guess.
37:25
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: So you had mentioned earlier about the goal of the martial arts to be a better person.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: It's not even just about fighting, although certainly starts a self-defense.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: And I definitely agree that when we think about self-defense, why someone would take a martial art, of course, there's many benefits.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: There's health, there's friendship, team buildings, all kinds of beautiful things that happen when you get involved in a martial art, especially jujitsu.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: But if we think about self-defense against a fight, that's one aspect of it.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: But most people are not going to get in fights.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: And interestingly, and I think you'll appreciate this, for the guys that go into it really hard, like I do over many years, if I look at the damage I put my body through, I probably would have been better off just getting beaten up a couple times and not doing all this.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: So it's more than that.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: But I think the real goal, like the reason you want to defend yourself, why does it matter?
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Because, like you say, you want to advance the things that are important in your life.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: You want to have a family, you want to live a long and happy and healthy life.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: That's the whole reason that it matters to have self-defense.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: It's to preserve that.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about that.
38:30
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about what we learn from you and from Jiu-Jitsu about not just what's going on with the fighting.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: And for me, it's exercise and mobility, the physicality of living a happy, healthy life, yes.
38:42
SPEAKER_02: About the diet, what I put in my body, and my attitude.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: For me, that's what comes into a longer, more functional life.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: You are living a very long functional life.
38:53
SPEAKER_02: You're amazingly healthy.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: So I'd love to hear your thoughts about what it is that you've learned about how to live a long and healthy life beyond just being able to defend yourself in a street fight.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, I owe that to my Uncle Carlos, of course, my dad's older brother, who back in the 20s, my father and his brothers started getting involved with teaching and practicing and sharing Jiu-Jitsu challenge matches, which they originally learned from my Uncle Carlos, the first principal Jiu Jitsu and the Greek family, eventually shared with his brothers.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, as soon as the brothers start in a position to run the academy, Uncle Carlos understood the important correlation between good health and good performance.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: If you have to fight someone in a tournament tomorrow, and you have gastritis or a headache or a stomach ache, your performance is not going to be the same.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: So even though he was not a doctor, he, at that point, back like I said, in the 20s, started studying nutrition and became a self-taught nutritionist.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Spent 65 years studying food combining, which he thought was the most important aspect of it, with the objective of keeping your body alkaline, avoiding blood, acidity, and so forth, which is the cause of the contagious and degenerative diseases.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: So Uncle Carlos just started reading the books of doctors and scientists and nutritionists, everything he could put his hands on, and came up with his own conclusion of how should people feed themselves in order to stay healthy all the time.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: You have to be at your peak all the time.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: People get used to the idea of feeling good one day, not so good on the other day, and then you eat something, you feel good, and then you people get used to the idea of that ups and downs.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: It's not the way it should be like this the whole time.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: 100% all the time.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: You look at the nature, a silver-backed gorilla, they have a very specific diet.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: They eat that kind of plant, and that's it, and that's all they do.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: He's not feeling good one day, bad day.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: If it feels bad one day, the next gorilla will kill him and take the whole band away.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Group away, he's done.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: So those guys have to be always ready for whatever happens.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: The same thing was this vision of the Gracie diet.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: My dad tells me that back in the days and the 30s, when the Gracies are becoming famous in Brazil, the brothers live together in a little house over the river where they start teaching and so forth.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when they start building a reputation of becoming kind of tough boys in the neighborhood, good fighters, and so forth, people want to test themselves when they'll come to the Gracie residence.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: They'll knock on the door.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: 10 o'clock at night.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys a grace to take challenge?
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I want to fight you right now.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: When my dad would sometimes say, Hey, I had to get out of bed, choke the guy out, and then go back to sleep.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: So that process of doing that, it was very natural, very casual, because they just have to be ready all the time.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reasons Uncle Carlos said we can't afford to get sick.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: So in our case, the discipline that one must develop, which I start doing at a very early age in my life, my baby bottles and watermelon juice blended with babylon, I have no idea what somebody thinking about that for me.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: So they taught me how to do this on a very early age.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: And then it's definitely something just I see as important as my jiu-jitsu.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Even though jujitsu has the glamour, but the fake the guy who invented the FC and finance and this and children, all that history is amazing, but I don't think you'll be the same without the diet.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Because if jiu-jitsu is our sword, the diet is our shield.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Nothing more important than your health.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, kids, family, everything is great, but you have to first of all be healthy.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: And part of being healthy is not knowing how to fight.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Part of being healthy is fighting all aspects, fighting the diseases and the headaches, and the problems, and the hardship, and stress, and all that.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: So if we're dealing with that other side of the fight, like you said, out of the math, the daily fight on the daily life on the issues that everybody has to deal with, you must be healthy from inside out.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole bunch of different diets out there.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: They're all good, I guess.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: But because of what I have seen and witnessed throughout my whole life, watching especially Uncle Cas and my dad and so forth, with the kind of life they lived, I said, that's what I want.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what I want for me.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: For me, that yeah, I embraced the gracie diet.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Wrote the book, the Gracie Diet to Behaved to Uncle Carlos' lifelong work.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's just I've seen work, and for me, it works wonderfully.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm 74 years old, feel like a kid, do my exercise a little bit here and there, do my rollings and stuff, have fun every day.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Don't take medicine for anything, zero.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: And then I it's just a fascinating opportunity to get older, feeling as good as I feel.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really a privilege.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and you're talking about the Gracie diet.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: You did write the book, and people should definitely have a look at it.
43:24
SPEAKER_02: And we will link to that and of course to your website and everything else.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: It's very interesting.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: I've always felt the diet is very important to me.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: I've done aspects of that.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: Just personally, I don't tell anybody else what they should do.
43:36
SPEAKER_02: I have been a person who eats only a plant-based diet now for 40 years.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: So I don't eat any animal products, which works very well for me.
43:43
SPEAKER_02: But my understanding of the Gracie diet is that it's more about how you combine foods.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you should eat food or not that.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: Is that more correct?
43:50
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: It's not a restrictive diet, even though plant based diet is like even better.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: But it's not a restrictive diet.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: You can have meat, you can have fish, you can have everything you want.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: But as long as you combine the foods properly and my meals are usually fruit.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Today for breakfast, I had a cantaloupe.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: I made juice, fresh squeeze juice or cantaloupe.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: I put five bananas in a blender with the cantaloupe juice.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: I put the meat of a fresh coconut, which I go to the produce market and buy coconut, stuff like this.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Right it opened, get the meat of the coconut.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: I put it at went blended with my bananas and a tiny little spoon of bee pollen.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: That was my breakfast today.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Five hours later, I'll have lunch now.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday for lunch, I had a shrimp risotto, a salad with all kinds of greens and stuff like that, and a glass of carrot juice.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: That was my lunch yesterday.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: I usually eat cooked food one time a day, and two meals of fruits, which I blend the watermelon in a blender.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Put through a cheesecloth bag, not a strainer, but a cheesecloth to make it filter very fine, just the water.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Throw that pulp away, squeeze the watermelon juice.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I had that with some dates, a little bit of cream cheese, and some rye crackers.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: That was my dinner last night.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: I love sweet things, but I don't make a meal and then have a sweet dessert.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I make a meal or what someone else would call a dessert: dates, cream cheese, a piece of toast, and some watermelon drink.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I'm just curious, and around what time do you eat dinner?
45:20
SPEAKER_02: Do you eat it long before you go to sleep?
45:22
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter the time I eat dinner, because I sleep like a rock.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Because it doesn't disturb if you have a heavy meal and go to bed, if you're like, ah, not quite so good.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: But I usually have my breakfast around 7:30 in the morning.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: I have lunch around 1 o'clock, 1.30, and I'll have dinner at 7:30 in the far.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: So you mentioned your father, Elio, and your uncle Carlos, and they lived very healthy.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: I should mention, if people don't know, they lived very healthy to a very old age, like right up until the end.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: Very healthy.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Uncle Carlos was 92, and my father was 95.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: I talked to Caesar, I interviewed Caesar not too long ago, and he talked about how he came back to Brazil and visited your uncle Carlos Gracie, who was at that time very old and he was walking on his hands.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: He said he couldn't but couldn't believe it.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Walking upstairs, even on his hands.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a tricky thing.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: My dad at 94 and a half, six months before he passed away, I went to visit him on his ranch in Brazil.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I got to the ranch, he gave me a kiss and said, let's go to Matt.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: I want to show a new choke I'm working on.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: At 94 and a half, kick my butt.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: So that's the kind of life I want to hopefully aspire to get to there.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: Me too, and all of us.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: So do you have an idea of what you want your legacy to be?
46:36
SPEAKER_02: If 50 years from now, 100 years from now, how you want to be remembered, how do you want people to be talking about you?
46:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm very confident that I'm a very dedicated teacher.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: So I know that I'm an amazing teacher.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: So people, the head classic people will remember that.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to be a person who somehow contribute to the betterment of those around me.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: I think by sharing jiu-jitsu is one thing to do.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times, because I gain credibility as a jiu-jitsu teacher, I can tell people to take the next step, which is to develop their health.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not a gracie diet.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Forget the gracie diet.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Forget that.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Like you, be aware of what you're eating.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Is this stuff good for me or bad for me?
47:20
SPEAKER_00: My drinking, soda, is I know it's bad for me.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: Got a whole bunch of tons of sugar in there.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: Why should I drink that?
47:27
SPEAKER_00: At what point should you click and say, you know what?
47:31
SPEAKER_00: I can't be a loser to something like that.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be a champion on the mat, you want to fight and you want to win and you want to improve, you dedicate yourself to go train regularly with your friends.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get caught, and you come happy, it's like you're not happy with the outcome of your workout.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you get beat up and you go back the next day because you want to improve.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: That commitment of improvement is what I'm trying to see people do on their health.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: Why should you drink something that you know is bad for you?
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Everybody drink Coca-Cola.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Only audience.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: Everybody drink Coca-Cola one day.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: My question to you, the audience, is if you know it's bad for you, why are you doing it?
48:07
SPEAKER_00: Come on, wake up.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: The same way you want to improve in your jiu-jitsu game, train harder to get better.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Why should you ignore your health?
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Which is gonna stay with you probably longer than your jiu-jitsu.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: And I want to inspire, I want to motivate you to say, you know what, it's time for me to start doing that.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: It's time for me to start taking it seriously.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: We have as a mission, all of us, to do the best we can for ourselves, right?
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Your body is your temple.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: If you have a car and you hit the sidewalk or break something, we can put a new bumper in it and keep going.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: But if you hurt your shoulder, okay, got a new shoulder, it's gonna be tricky.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: So you have the obligation to protect that temple that the creator gave us.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't ignore that.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't just eat for the fun of it, for the pleasure of eating.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: You have to eat to nourish this temple that you have, the body that you have.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: I heard a very interesting analogy one time that for those who believe on the creator, like I do, is that our bodies is our cross.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: The healthier your body, the lighter the cross you carry.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: So take care of your health.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: So as you are older, you don't find yourself well messed up, all healing, all kinds of diseases, stuff like that.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Invest on your health so you can make our cross lighter.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was a very interesting one because we ultimately all of us have to carry the cross anyway.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: And I feel that the physical body could potentially be actually you.
49:33
SPEAKER_02: I mentioned that I run a nonprofit organization.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm very passionate about the things I'm trying to do in the world, and I'm very aware that my ability to do good in the world, or for someone who just wants to see their grandchildren, your ability to enjoy your grandchildren, to live is 100% dependent upon your health.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: If you don't live long, or if you live a long, unhealthy life and the last 15 years of your life are feeling terrible, you're not gonna be able to go do fun things with your wife or with your kids, you're not gonna be able to do your mission because you're gonna be so busy taking care of yourself, you're not gonna have energy.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: To your point about if it's not good for you, why do you do it?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: I often ask myself, on my deathbed, am I gonna wish that I had had three more slices of chocolate cake or something like that?
50:18
SPEAKER_02: So why would you do the things now that are likely to contribute to your degradation?
50:24
SPEAKER_02: You want to be doing the things now that are gonna contribute to your flourishing so that you can be everything you're supposed to be.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: And it's even true if you want to be good athletically.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: I know, and again, whatever I agree with you, whatever's the right diet for you, but be healthy, figure out what it is.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: But for people who don't eat healthfully, they get tired in training.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: So they don't train as many days a week as I do.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: They can't train as long as I do because they're getting tired.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the reasons I have gotten if I'm good at all, one of the reasons I've gotten good is because I have the energy to train more and I'm not getting injured.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: And I believe that diet has a lot to do with that.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's two types of pain.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: There's a pain of discipline.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: Ah, I'm gonna have that shopping.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not gonna eat it.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of discipline, I want to do it, but I'm not gonna do it because it's not good for me.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: There's a pain of discipline and the pain of regret.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, in your deathbed, you're gonna say, Man, I wish I could have, but you didn't.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's smart to invest in your discipline right now.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: Be the best you can be, and part of that is not only training lots of jujitsu force, but invest in your health, whatever diet you choose.
51:31
SPEAKER_02: Just popping in for a moment to talk to you, the listeners, what's the one health habit, maybe it's diet or sleep or something, that you know you should change, but keep putting off?
51:42
SPEAKER_02: You can be honest, no judgment here.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: For me, it's probably eating less overall and not late at night.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: Drop your comment in the YouTube video and I'll respond.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: And now back for the rest of my talk with Professor Horian.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is everything you eat and everything you drink, always either it's improve your health or decline your health.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is neutral, unless of water is not neutral, it helps you.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: So don't think everything, it doesn't matter.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Everything you eat matters.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: So start thinking about what you're eating.
52:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're not eating the right thing, consider improving your health.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I follow the grace of diet, I think it's amazing.
52:22
SPEAKER_00: Books are available on Amazon, and I just think that people should give it a try.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: The same credibility that I have acquired as a jiu-jitsu teacher, oh, the guy came here, created the FC.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: I think this for me is a platform in terms of credibility, so that I can talk about something much bigger, much more important, which is the health of the person.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: And above that is just the philosophy of life that one can acquire that will show you.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: That's the conversation for the next meeting we have that talks to you about how to deal with the heartaches and hardships of life in a way that doesn't mess you up, that allows you to go over this difficult parts, just like much with jiu-jitsu.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: When you find yourself in a bad situation, you have to stay cool under that kind of pressure, deal with that, and hopefully reverse the situation and not get tapped out.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
53:09
SPEAKER_00: So the same approach, I see jujitsu for me has helped you have a way of looking at life in a way that you can deal with the problems in a very positive way and turn things around no matter how bad it is.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: You want to flip things around and see the good side of it and have a positive outcome.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: The Grace Philosophy is a subject, hopefully, for our next podcast, if you feel like doing that.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
53:32
SPEAKER_02: I want to be respectful of your time and let you go.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: Just a few things.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: First of all, thank you for allowing me to pester you to find a time to come onto this.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: I knew that what you have to say will be so valuable for everyone who watches and listens to this both now and on into the future.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: I said this when you gave Higgin his red belt.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: On behalf of millions of people, I want to thank you.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: I want to thank you.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: I want to thank your father, Elio, your uncle Carlos, I want to thank your whole family for this gift of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a gracie jujitsu that you brought to the world that has enhanced my life, has enhanced so many people's lives, brought them health, brought them fun, brought them joy, brought them friendships, in many cases brought them a husband or a wife.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Jiu-jitsu has been such a beautiful, beautiful gift you've given to the world, and it's only growing more.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: And I just want to, on behalf of everyone who's listening, who has felt the gift, to thank you and thank your family.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: That's very kind of you.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: Too much appreciate it.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you very much for your time.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: We'll have links to everything in the show notes, and I very much look forward to speaking to you again if we ever get the opportunity.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
54:42
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
54:43
SPEAKER_02: I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Professor Horian Gracie.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: You can learn more at horiangracie.com.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: And you should check out Gracemuseum.com for an interesting virtual tour of the history of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: If you found this discussion interesting, you might also want to check out my discussion with Horian's cousin Caesar Gracie.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: And be sure to leave a comment and like and share.
55:07
SPEAKER_02: It really helps people find the show.
55:09
SPEAKER_02: I'll be back next week with more lessons from the lab.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: And until then, keep developing your strength, your wisdom, and go out and do good in the world.