In a recent podcast video, Brad Edmondson of Misfits Jiujitsu sat down with Matthew Maxcy from the No Offense Podcast to talk about his journey from struggling with mental health to becoming a jiujitsu black belt and coach. In addition, Edmondson sheds light on one of the biggest mysteries in the world of Jiu Jitsu – the Gracie family conspiracy.
When asked about the Gracie family, Edmondson shared some interesting stories about the family’s history. He referenced a book of newspaper articles about the Gracies and the history of Jiu Jitsu, which revealed an incident where a man named Rufino Dos Santos was attacked and beaten up by the Gracies with a metal box. The Gracies were facing two years in prison for this incident, which Edmondson acknowledged as a questionable act.
Edmondson also discussed The Gracie Challenge, where the Gracies would fight anybody who came to challenge them, part of how they got known was releasing videos of them beating up people from other martial arts. He shared the story of Hoben Gracie, who lost to a French MMA fighter in one of these challenges. Following his loss, the Gracies started threatening the French fighter, and they allegedly showed up at his workplace and started beating him up, only to be chased out at gunpoint. Edmondson acknowledged that there are always two sides to a story and that history is written by the winners, but he encouraged listeners to hear the whole story before making judgments.
Edmondson also touched on the different types of Jiu Jitsu, such as gi Jiu Jitsu, sport Jiu Jitsu, self-defense Jiu Jitsu, and MMA Jiu Jitsu. He acknowledged that Jiu Jitsu has changed so much that each gym may teach a different martial art, and he himself is not very good at the gi sport of Jiu Jitsu.
Overall, the podcast was an insightful look into the world of Jiu Jitsu and mental health. Edmondson’s journey from struggling with mental health to becoming a jiujitsu black belt and coach is an inspiration to many, and his willingness to discuss the controversial Gracie family conspiracy sheds light on one of the biggest mysteries in the world of Jiu Jitsu.
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Transcript:
0:07
welcome back to no offense today we’re super super excited we have um my my
0:12
coach for jiu jitsu and and Mai Thai I guess actually as well and um
0:17
we’re super excited to have him on today have some beers with them and kind of dive into his story on how he got here
0:24
he just recently got promoted to being a black belt so watch the episode hear how how his story went how he got to where
0:30
he’s at today and make sure you like comment and subscribe for more Brad thanks for coming on we’re excited to
0:36
have you how you doing man dude this is awesome thank you guys so much this is a huge deal for me I’m just so excited to
0:42
just talk about all this stuff man and geek out a little bit yeah it’s awesome I think a good place to start is
0:48
actually um just two days ago our our gym the whole team was over at a different gym
0:53
watching Brad get promoted by one of his uh long time friends to the black belt rank so how did how did that feel I mean
1:00
that was nuts your speech was awesome we could even like Drop That in yeah well I mean the thing is two man like with the
1:06
speech like you know you think about what you’re gonna say and everything and then like I walked out there and it’s like deer in headlights and just off the
1:13
top of my head but like it’s kind of like when we do the intros yeah so like going into it for a while
1:20
there I wasn’t sure I’d ever get another belt in Jiu Jitsu because like how the whole thing works and there’s politics
1:25
and things like that because I kind of branched off on my own and then my buddy kind of surprised me and showed up and
1:31
he said man you know he’d seen me work so hard he’d see me like you know get choked down the mat so many times and
1:38
come back and go for more and just fight and fight and fight so he gave me my brown belt and years later here I am
1:44
getting my black belt from him and he was there from the beginning and the thing is when you get a black belt from somebody your name is attached to that
1:50
person and what was so important to me was like I could have gone out and been like trying to pay somebody to come into
1:56
a seminar and get blackout or like going out and meeting people for the express purpose that I want to get like a belt
2:02
from them and I had no interest in that man so my buddy Tim I’ve known him since
2:07
a star and he’s just a stand-up guy I’ve seen him do like the right thing by people over and over and over again so I
2:15
wanted my name connected to him because I know he’s a stand-up person now is he great at Jiu Jitsu but he’s just a good
2:22
guy man yeah so I was so excited and I’ll tell you like I gotta I started
2:27
driving over there because I was training at my gym so I start driving over and I’m having a panic attack in
2:32
the car dude so what happened what I got the
2:38
news and I kind of had an idea it was coming and after I got the news I was sleeping like three hours a night or
2:44
something because I was so worked up I was so stressed because it’s such a big deal for 12 years man I have killed
2:50
myself just trying to learn more try to do better and so I wasn’t sleeping I kept forgetting to eat because I was so
2:56
stressed and then uh I started driving over there I started heading this thing and I know all these people they’re so
3:02
important to me man that push me and just encourage me they’re all going to be in this room there was a ton of
3:07
people there I mean that had how many people was that that’s probably 60 people yeah and it was like in like a
3:12
small gentle about even more honestly yeah it was a lot of people yeah and so like I start driving I start like
3:18
hyperventilating and I’m like I’m kind of freaking out and I used to have panic attacks way back when and um I hadn’t
3:25
had one years and so like you know my face starts going numb and my hands are shaking I’m like oh man this is not good
3:31
and then you know I start to calm down and kind of like meditate a little bit while I’m driving listen to some music
3:37
chill myself out and then I parked the car and I start getting out of the car and I’m starting to walk up and starts
3:44
hitting me again and I’m like oh my God I’m freaking out man I’m walking this room and you’re always like man I work
3:49
so hard but I feel like I need to be better to be a black belt you know I mean no matter what you feel like you gotta be better because the Imposter
3:55
syndrome yeah and if you respect this stuff there’s so much to it like you’re never done you know I mean you always
4:01
have so much work to do so I start walking up I’m having like a pat attack and I’m hypervently a little bit and one
4:07
of my students David Garcia starts walking up behind me it’s like hey wait up and I’m like no I’m not waiting up for you I just kept going because I’m
4:14
like if I stop it’s going to be bad so he catches up with me and I walked in and immediately win the back got about
4:21
water and pulled my friend Maria who came back there and kind of talked me down so I go back out and I’m like
4:26
trying to play it cool and I’m freaking out a little bit but I’m doing a little better and then like I was sitting back and I was helping people get signed up
4:32
on waivers and stuff like that got to train and I kind of managed to chill myself out and when they called me up
4:38
there not long after and it was like I don’t know man I just kind of like Snapped to where I was like good yeah
4:43
and I felt pretty good about it yeah your speech felt super authentic and you didn’t seem worried at all during the
4:50
speech like it didn’t seem like you were panicking during it like you delivered it well yeah I mean like when with a lot
4:57
of pressure situations I’m good at kind of snapping too and just kind of acting and going you know I mean I kind of know
5:03
that that’s kind of Jiu Jitsu in general it’s like before or like wrestling before a match you’re nervous but once you’re in the match you’re you’re you’re
5:09
fine you’re in Flow State or you’re you know in the moment the butterflies leading up to it definitely subside when
5:15
you’re like ready to go yeah it’s the weirdest thing ever and you’ve been doing it for 13 years uh
5:20
12 yeah 12 years yeah 12 years how long ago until you started your own um your own business your own gym well I
5:27
branched out I was working for somebody else for a year and a half two years and
5:32
then I branched on my own I bought everything and branded myself and uh I
5:38
started switching my branding to Misfits Jiu Jitsu and we were so let me start from top it’s been about three years and
5:45
I started off in West Dundee and we had mats on top I asked her turf and indoor soccer field and you know it wasn’t
5:51
great man but we were making it work yeah and another gym we found out so I’m
5:57
there teaching one day and everything’s good and then I see signs saying coming soon Jiu Jitsu and I’m like man
6:05
I’m already teaching here where are they talking about Jiu Jitsu coming soon so I’m like I guess I have to move out I
6:12
think that’s them saying I gotta go so you know I was like okay I gotta find new location because clearly somebody is
6:19
moving in so I’m like I gotta go so I found a CrossFit gym that was willing to rent me a yoga studio in the back so I
6:26
went there and I’m still working with the same guy there and I end up buying him out and we were in this Yoga Studio
6:32
in the back of a gym called Phoenix Athletics and the people were amazing there man like as soon as I walked in I
6:37
went to have like I was expecting this like business meeting with the owner I was so nervous she walks out she’s
6:43
drinking a white claw talking with me I’m like okay she’s nice and chill so um you know I was there for a while then
6:50
I had bought all the equipment I started to Brand myself we managed to get through covet which was very difficult
6:56
and uh sadly covet wiped out that CrossFit gym and like they started to go
7:02
under they just couldn’t afford their rent because their rent was so high man and it was sad because they had such a
7:08
great crew they had so many nice people there you know I mean they would talk with you every time you went in they encourage you a lot of them took my
7:14
classes just to support us getting started and um you know they closed up
7:20
shop I still keep in touch with them and I got to this point where it was like man I don’t have another place to go like
7:27
there’s no like business set up that I could just move in the back so I
7:32
considered just uh you know folding into another gym bringing all my guys there and I thought about that and I just
7:39
decided I really wanted to continue to teach I wanted to do my own thing so I started searching for a storefront and I
7:45
was looking all throughout Elgin and everything was kind of expensive and it was very hard to find something and I was about to give up man and my furnace
7:52
went out at my house at home so I call my landlord he comes by and you know they’ve got a guy fixing the furnace I’m
7:59
talking with him and I tell him the story and he’s like man it just so happens I have this place in St Charles
8:04
oh no way yeah so I went to see it and it used to be a real estate office and like right away I was like I’ll take it
8:11
man and I got set up right from there so I had counted and I knew I had eight
8:17
guys that would sign up I knew for sure I had eight guys and that was it I only knew I had eight students so here I am
8:24
thinking man and like I might be losing money all the time it’s going to be really difficult but I’m going to give
8:29
it a go and the first night I had 14 guys show up on the first night and that wasn’t even for a class that was just a
8:35
little Open Mat come and see the place I had 14 guys show up and then I had students like I had a guy make me a
8:43
laser cut steel sign with like my branding on it I had another guy buy me
8:48
like a Misfits Jiu Jitsu signed uh Offline that was so cool looking and I had people slowly come together and just
8:55
support me and get behind me to put this thing together man if people brought him TVs too he’s got like yeah seriously
9:01
yeah yeah one of my students he he just and you know I was sitting at the gym I was getting ready to close up and he
9:07
pulls up he just walks in he goes hey uh I wanna know I think I got a gift for you if you want it and I’m like yeah man
9:12
what do you got he goes oh I got 55-inch TV I’m like bro I’ll take it so now I’ve
9:18
got a TV set up and I set up like a little PlayStation with it for the kids I’ll put on like movies over Christmas
9:23
I’d like Die Hard down there and elf and stuff like that and um you know it’s fun
9:28
man but it’s just I can’t say enough all these incredible people got behind me and like Built Me Up and
9:35
the thing is man in my whole life I’ve never believed in myself ever you know I mean like I’ve always had like severe
9:41
depression I’ve had all these issues and seeing these people put their faith in me made me want to be great it made
9:49
me work harder man still does like every time because I get real down and everything and I see how they look at me
9:56
in the faith they put me to like not just teach them but to like work hard for them and just have this great place
10:03
that we’ve put together where it’s you know you know our gym it’s such a friendly crowd man yeah yeah you come in
10:10
everybody like introduces themselves and like nobody there is going to like injure you you know I mean they’re all
10:15
gonna be real chill so it’s kind of like going from there it just built and built
10:23
and built and now we’re pretty solid with a good number of students yeah let’s get started getting blown up over
10:29
here right now those are students signing up yeah yeah I hope your students signing
10:36
up here no but that’s good and that’s true apologies and there’s a lot of people no you’re good there’s a lot of people that come in there
10:42
um I like it because it’s got like a diverse crowd of people like going in there to get they’re for different purposes you know
10:48
there’s people there that are there for like mental health reasons or to get away from certain things you know there’s certain people that have like stuff going on that they need to be
10:54
somewhere else you know so Brad helps like support that kind of crowd and then also the crowd of people that are just trying to kill people yeah you
11:02
do get a lot of that too yeah there’s a little bit of both right and that’s what’s kind of cool and you know man that’s the thing for me the biggest like
11:08
part of all the Jiu Jitsu stuff and all the train stuff is the mental health aspect because you know most people are
11:15
not going to have a physical altercation in their life most people are not going to compete you know I mean you’re going
11:21
to have a small handful that go out and get after it and come through here and um don’t be wrong those guys are great
11:26
man but more than anything for me it’s about helping people turn around their lives and just getting people to have
11:33
something positive and um you know I’m all about like
11:38
the lost causes the people where it’s just like man they’re done you know
11:43
things are so bad they can’t pull out of that and I get kids I get people they’re just struggling man and it could be like
11:50
with drinking it’d be a depression it could be a million different things and I see this stuff help them and bring
11:56
them like out of it a little bit and you know a lot of these guys are never going to be a real competitor or anything like
12:02
that but they get something positive of it every day and they push hard and they look to learn legit technique you know I
12:08
mean they’re learning the real thing and that’s so important that you have like the real thing going on
12:14
and um I’ve just I’ve seen a lot of good coming from from it man a lot of good come from it yeah sure it helps people
12:20
like build their confidence and get good at failing and failing forward that kind of thing it’s definitely a good a good
12:27
uh a good environment for people that have been failing a lot but not forward yeah you know yeah I mean that’s the
12:34
thing it does the best is teaches you like constructive failing where it’s like and I I was listening like uh A Boy
12:41
Named Sue by Johnny Cash and he talks about uh he thinks about his dad every time he gets a fight and he says I think
12:47
a bomb every time I uh try and every time I win and it’s like okay so there’s
12:53
no lose there you try or you win yeah it’s like if you try you go try again and that’s just how it is man you just
12:59
go out and put yourself out there with whatever you do and whatever you do you put yourself out there and if you’re
13:06
doing it right you will fail and that’s important like if you don’t fail then
13:11
you’re not taking something difficult enough on yeah and it’s kind of like then you pick yourself up and you do it
13:17
again and that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned from this and um that’s the life lesson it really gives people man well
13:22
it’s cool too because you also have a space where everybody else is achieving some form of goal that they’re it’s like
13:28
you have a really tight community of people that are actively failing and actively trying to get better and I feel
13:33
like there’s almost a level of support there that makes you feel more yeah because everyone’s failing everyone yeah like you’re not the only one yeah
13:40
when this this one but whenever we switch Partners I’m gonna get my ass kicked there and you know that everyone
13:46
you just came from his ass getting yeah and now he’s gonna it’s like everyone gets their ass kicked at least once yeah exactly the ones a day there’s always
13:52
there’s always some better guy yeah he’s always a better guy it’s like oh you you know how you feel after a good roll great kill them I mean you’re right kick
13:59
that was a good one I felt good about that one then you move on and then you just get smashed
14:04
that’s how it goes and it just levels you out again yeah um why I got my black belt like there’s
14:10
one guy up there that just absolutely kills me and so you know I’m doing rounds which one’s that uh but is it the
14:16
most is it I saw you rolling with a kid with like colored hair yeah I mean he’s really good that kid’s Nick he’s very
14:22
good you tapped him I saw that I was like super I was like watching I was like damn this is good really good yeah what belt is he I’m not sure I think
14:29
it’s a blue belt and then he was like actually like he’s tough man yeah for
14:34
sure there’s a there’s a brown belt over there named Josh who’s just uh he’s been grappling for 25 years oh wow and um
14:41
he’s incredible man he’s saying his balance is nuts and like just the pressure and he’s he’s a really nice guy
14:48
and I knew he was going to kill me and I knew like he’s not going anywhere I knew he’d stay there so the last round of the
14:54
night I went after him and of course I try to wrestle with him and you know my wrestling’s not great you know what I
15:00
mean but um I went after him and I tried to I tried hard man and uh I’m not gonna
15:05
lie I got killed but like I knew man I knew I was like somebody’s gonna get me today and uh headed out there yeah well
15:13
you know I knew somebody was gonna get me but before that I had training partner of mine named Henry Sadowski
15:18
come in so this guy hadn’t done Jujitsu in six seven years wow and like he was my main training partner when I was
15:24
coming up he helped me figure all this stuff out and he’s the nicest guy man and he came in and I knew somebody’s
15:30
gonna be the first person to tap me as a black belt and I’m like I let him catch something you know what I mean and I was
15:36
like Yeah I wanted to be able to say that was the first guy to get me because I owe the guy man I owe that guy I
15:43
always will there’s so many people that build you up in this and then you know you don’t see them when it’s just the
15:49
one guy but there’s all these people that helped him out man I’ll never forget I’ll never forget those people
15:54
that’s that’s crazy it’s so wild How deep the Jiu Jitsu worlds can get in terms of like Community like people like
16:00
make all these friends and random connections you know it’s also cool it’s a place that you go like even talk about work like you don’t even know what
16:06
people do like outside like if I don’t go Jiu Jitsu like for a week I’m a
16:11
complete dick complete dead do you feel that like oh yeah you’re there every day
16:16
in the past like when you go and then you’re on a roll you’re going then you don’t go for like two weeks right like
16:22
why am I an right now when you go to jiu jitsu and you’re like feel much better that’s the thing man
16:27
for me I fall apart if I’m not training like I go to Pieces so like what
16:33
happened was it the way I got into all this was in my mid-20s like I fell apart
16:38
I was having like panic attacks I was collapsing and like it was bad and like
16:44
you know I’d been around rough crowd before that where there was a ton of drinking and things like that while drinking some drugs all that and I got
16:50
so tired of it I just quit going out and I quit trying to do things I was working dead-end jobs I was working on graveyard
16:56
shifts and for a period of about five years I basically didn’t leave the house
17:01
man like it was just like I would go out and get food and that was about it are you still working during that time like
17:06
would you still go to work I mean I’d try hold down jobs man but yeah I’d always had like the severe severe
17:12
depression since I was a kid I mean you know I had some rough things happen when I was growing up and uh you know my
17:18
folks did their best but it was rough man and I had this horrible horrible depression then you know I always
17:24
struggled with it I always struggled self-esteem all that I got bullied real bad for a while and then you know I met
17:31
all these kids that were like also kind of messed up kids and we all came up together through high school and all
17:36
that and you know it was all like drinking and you know kind of inner demons man and they were all kind of dealing with that well you know you get
17:44
into your early 20s and they’re still doing it and after a while you get sick of it man you’re just around it too much
17:49
and it’s not like fun partying anymore it’s like depressing yeah like all right what are we gonna do like what are we
17:55
gonna do guys like we can’t do this forever yeah man yeah I got so burnt on it so you know I became like a shut-in
18:01
and you know the whole time I would get worse and worse and I would struggle to hold down work where I’d be good and
18:07
then all of a sudden one day mentally I would fall apart you know like I wouldn’t get out bad for like a day or
18:12
two damn and you know I mean and like I I was so ashamed like you know you want to like
18:18
call your work and explain to them and like they don’t get it man yeah most places don’t it’s kind of embarrassing
18:24
to bring up to people yeah like people didn’t get and now you know people are a little bit better but then people
18:29
absolutely didn’t get it so I’d lose jobs and I’d be out looking for something else so I had this five-year
18:34
period where I started having these panic attacks I had this horrible depression and I was diagnosed as
18:40
bipolar so you know they start putting me on medications and I start seeing a
18:45
therapist and the first therapist was pretty bad the guy thought he was Dr Phil or something and just man not a fan
18:51
you know I mean like not a fan but I ended up getting a better therapist later and they start jumping me from medication to medication so
18:59
when you’re doing these medications the thing that I’ve learned that most people don’t know you have to advocate for
19:04
yourself constantly because they have to be adjusting them the whole time that you’re taking these things because it’s
19:11
guesswork they’re going to throw stuff and see what sticks and if you don’t speak up for yourself they’re just going to leave you on something to make you
19:17
miserable so I had some of them where it was like you know I’m falling asleep all
19:22
day I had other ones where I’m awake for two days straight no way man yeah that’s crazy and man what’s what’s that one
19:30
yeah and um you know and it just got worse and worse and sometimes I’m
19:35
getting like these slight Mania kind of states where I can’t sleep and man you start feeling like you’re losing your mind you catch yourself like
19:43
you know all of a sudden it’s 3am you’re listening to the same song I repeat for an hour you’re like man I got organized
19:49
like my DVDs in alphabetical order and then you look at yourself doing this and you’re like oh I think I have a problem
19:55
and then you realize oh I got like the TV on music going a video game going
20:01
I’m trying to play with the dog I’m organizing the DVDs and it’s 3am you know what I mean you’re just like
20:06
something’s up so you know I started having things like some of the medications were getting me so wound up
20:12
I would hear like stuff that wasn’t there man and oh my God that trips you out because like
20:18
you hear something you’re like nah I didn’t hear that that’s not real man yeah and it’s not like I wasn’t hearing
20:23
like voices or anything like that but I mean I wasn’t hearing voices from God or anything like that I would all of a
20:30
sudden be clear yeah just be clear I mean hey I know people you know I’ve talked to that have had the experience
20:35
man it’s scary because you lose like touch with reality and I would hear people crying for help and all of a
20:41
sudden I’d hear somebody go like help me help me and I’d like jump to and I’m like looking around and it would be like
20:46
I’d be like outside walking the dog and I’m like oh there is no one here and this is when you’re out of medication too yeah man and uh that’s
20:54
the thing some of the medications actually made things worse I could I have heard that for sure especially if you’re actually trying to like fix
21:00
something specifically and it’s maybe like adding a problem in a different area not fixing that one thing
21:06
and I get like two problems like yeah man it’s just you have to advocate for yourself and tell them like hey
21:11
these things are going on you need to adjust this medication yeah so um I’m hearing yeah it’s like dude
21:19
it’s scary because you’re like man like right now I know that’s not real you know I mean I know like I’m losing a
21:25
little bit and then with time you’re like you hear stories about people that like they don’t know it’s not real anymore
21:32
and they lose that sense of reality and um man they had me on this one medication and I’ll never forget it
21:39
they quadrupled the dosage on this thing holy and like that set off alarm Bells I’m like that’s kind of messed up
21:46
man and like I was worried right away because you know this medication they’re putting me on it’s four times the dose
21:53
so one night I’m driving my car home and uh you know I haven’t been out for a little bit and I look in the rearview
21:59
mirror and there’s like this dead guy in the back seat he looks like a zombie or something what the hell yeah you see the
22:05
commercials when they’re like side effects could include yeah I guess it’s like the real story yeah yeah and again
22:11
I don’t know if it was like lack of sleep or something well they say like hallucinations on some like the medications out there like you do hear
22:17
that so like I I believe it man yeah I could see it from lack of sleep yeah you
22:22
combined both of them and it’s like I mean if you ever like drink a lot when you’re on a lack like if you don’t sleep
22:27
like a whole day and then you get like drunk the next day it’s a different drunk you know what I mean it’s like so when you combine like a drug with like
22:33
no sleep it’s is it it’s a different experience yeah so like I see this you
22:39
know I mean I see it in the rear view and I’m like holy you know I mean I’m freaking out and then I walk behind
22:44
me and look in the back seat and yep still there you know look a third time and it’s like
22:50
gone you know what I mean and like you’re driving a hole faster you’re like I gotta get home get off this medication and that was the only like visual thing
22:57
I ever had but oh my God that sounds scary as well actually it was terrifying yeah I brought off the road that’s
23:03
really scary absolutely scared the crap Abby man and just um yeah terrifying so
23:08
I go through this I go through this five-year period and during that time I had friends try to help me and I had a
23:14
lot of people that kind of backed away slowly because you know when your friend comes up to you and he’s like yeah I’m hearing voices like man the real one
23:22
stick around and they’re gonna like have your back and be like man we’re gonna get you help these medications are get you there you’re gonna get through this
23:28
a lot of people go and nope I’m out man I’m not sticking around for this one
23:33
like this is too much and so I had a lot of these people kind of back away slowly and it got down and down and down where
23:39
like I was like kind of left with only a couple people and for most part I was alone and um man a lot of these people I
23:47
thought would stick by me for like ever you know what I mean and it got to a point where it was kind of just my
23:52
family you know I mean and maybe one or two friends that were kind of in and out and uh after five years of it I got
24:00
angry man I was so mad I was like man all these people said they had my back and I thought back to the people that
24:06
like kind of like bullied me and pushed me around because in the partying days in my early 20s I still had people that
24:12
were like kind of pushed me around taking advantage stuff like that and I just I was so pissed off and then
24:18
I ended up getting a gym membership that my folks encouraged me to go to the gym and I was like you know what man I’m
24:26
gonna I’m gonna go for it and I’m like I would go in there and because my sleep schedule was wrecked because they’re
24:32
still figuring out the medications I’m having all these problems I would go lift for three to four hours
24:38
at a time five days a week wow and like I didn’t know like I had not done
24:43
anything physical from age 14 to like 28 no way so like nothing like I got cut
24:49
from the basketball team my freshman year in high school and like the thing is like kids they have sports it helps
24:55
so much man my mom was like hey I’ll volunteer to help you guys out if you get these kids to at least be able to
25:02
practice so they got something so they’re involved in something yeah my life could it could have gone an
25:07
entirely different way if I was involved in something positive I didn’t have that so
25:13
you know I hadn’t done anything from 14 to 28 I had basically been drinking and sitting around and you know I maybe play
25:19
a gamer to a pickup basketball so I start lifting weights and I’m using like every machine there and I’m just going
25:25
to machine I’m like reading the whole thing on the side I’m like okay this works chest I’ll use this one like this
25:30
works the back of the arms this works the first and she like systematically like going like literally like you’re there for like four hours just do
25:37
it every single machine that’s how it was like this guy’s an animal yeah and I was killing myself and at the time I was
25:43
155 pounds with like a beer gut like I looked like hell man like I look super
25:48
unhealthy so you know I’d go for a machine to machine I had no clue what I was doing man and there was this guy up
25:55
there who’s this like really go ahead by Buff or Italian dude and this dude he would come up to me and
26:02
give me advice and he would help me out and he’d kind of encourage me man and dude the guy kept me going because I
26:09
might have given up I might have been like man I can’t you know I’m not making progress but he’d give me little like attaboys and like dude I would work
26:16
harder and harder and harder he’d give me little tips I started reading books on like power lifting and things like
26:22
that and you know I wasn’t strong so I got it in my head that I wanted to like get big you know what I mean because you
26:27
think like yeah you’re like oh I want to be tough I’m gonna get big was your brother really big at this time too I
26:33
mean my brother played football for Carthage and um because he’s a big boy yeah he’s pretty jacked yeah he’s been
26:39
lifted weight since you know he was like in seventh grade or something and he never misses a day he’s worked so hard
26:44
man um he’s a lead detective with Arlington Heights now I’m so proud of him that’s cool yeah it’s really cool and uh
26:53
so you know I started reading these books and um started working harder and harder and I decided I wanted to get big
27:00
so uh I started reading ways to like gain weight so I started getting like Weight Gainer formula and man I was
27:07
doing like these shakes they would have like three raw eggs in them and peanut butter and a full banana and you’d have
27:13
to chew them you know I mean like you couldn’t just swap he had to like chew them they were disgusting and I just
27:18
wasn’t gaining weight and so uh I started okay like power lifting like you know sub Forums on the internet stuff
27:25
like that and I asked these guys for advice I had one guy say you just eat ice cream just eat tons of ice cream and
27:30
eat lift heavy and I’m like I don’t know about that and I read about this thing called go mad now like I don’t recommend
27:37
this for anybody but here’s like my little story with it gomad stands for
27:42
gallon of whole milk a day gallon of milk a day oh my God so every day I
27:48
would go and buy a gallon of whole milk and throughout the course of day I had to finish that gallon before night
27:55
and all day you’re pulling out of the fridge and Downing a glass of milk now you’re eating three Square meals while
28:00
you’re doing this and you’re just lifting heavy and trying to get Pig so you know I start like putting on weight
28:06
and I’m getting stronger and getting stronger and I did it for like a long time and like it was miserable but you
28:13
know I started to gain weight and I started to get big but I was getting a little fat too and so uh this is where
28:20
things take a little bit of a turn so if anybody’s ever seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia yeah I’ve seen Clips so
28:26
they have a character on their name Mac and Mac decides he’s going to get you know big and he just eats like burritos
28:32
and chimichangas and he gets real fat and he talks about how yeah I’m gonna cut down and lose all the fat and it’ll
28:38
be just the muscle left so you know I was an idiot so I’m thinking like yeah I’ll just lose weight later I’m doing
28:44
this gallon of whole milk a day but I’m getting so bored of it like it’s brutal man that sounds disgusting yeah I could
28:51
never do that there’s like a gallon challenge like the milk challenge thing so imagine you’re doing on purpose
28:56
pretty much every day it might be vulgar your shits must have been atrocious bro it was just exhausting and the thing is
29:01
by the end of the day you’re pulling the milk out the fridge so much it’s warm by the end of the day and you have to and
29:07
the thing is like I’m pretty good when it comes to willpower like I can force myself through miserable things and uh
29:13
so I got so bored of it and I was miserable so I was like man you know what I think I’m gonna mix it up do a
29:18
gallon of chocolate milk today why not man and so you know I start getting fat and I’m getting strong and so I looked
29:25
like Mac when he got fans always say in Philadelphia it’s strong I went from so to give me an idea in just a couple
29:31
months I went from 155 pounds to 217 pounds no way God damn holy yeah
29:38
and so my goal was to get to 250. yes where were you going dude I have no idea
29:43
again and that was like and again going into this I had no idea what I was doing man like I didn’t know what I was doing
29:49
I was just like I’m gonna get big and I figured like oh I’ll just eat healthy and start jogging after that and I’ll
29:55
just be like big so um you know I do this and I get up around 2 17 and then one night I’m out at the bar man and I
30:02
go out for a beer and like I’m feeling pretty good um now it gets so good because all my shirts were getting real tight you know
30:08
what I mean showing a whole lot of belly so like I’m not at the bar and these guys come up and they’re like hey man you’re you’re pretty big dude have you
30:15
ever played rugby and I’m like man the hell is rugby and so they kind of like explain it to me and I’m like and they
30:21
tell me to be at practice on Monday and they tell me where it’s at so I still have no idea what this is
30:27
like I don’t know what rugby is I’ve never played you know I never really play a context sport I played like
30:32
basketball as a kid and I got into a good number of fights coming up so you know I show up I have no cleats and the
30:39
grass is wet so I ran my ass off sliding around in shoes with no grip
30:45
trying to just hit people as hard as I could and like I didn’t know the rules I still don’t know the rules I still don’t
30:51
understand the game they tried to teach me some of it it’s amazing game but like I don’t get like I tried to learn it man
30:58
and you know I hung with those guys for a bit and they were a lot of fun man and uh yeah that’s a crazy crowd the rugby
31:04
crowd you know it’s like a it’s kind of like a hockey crowd almost in a way of just like just some roughness
31:12
meant they drink more than almost anybody I’ve ever met like the way they drink is insane to me and I was kind of
31:18
done drinking I still don’t drink much to this day so I hung with them I rode the bench for
31:24
two games and uh you know hung out with them and they’re real fun and then the off season came around and I didn’t have
31:31
anything to do and it’s like you know I done the weightlifting thing and my goal of getting to 250 was kind of out the window because my cardio was awful it’s
31:38
like I gotta do something here and you know it’s funny too everybody was like yeah you’re looking good and really I
31:44
was just looking really fast yeah you’re looking big yeah you’re right you’re looking big yeah you accomplished your goal yeah it’s like man less Donuts you
31:51
know and I think that’s something someone in our friend group would do like for sure like I have a name in mind too yeah on a whole milk band gallon of
31:57
whole milk a day seriously don’t do it but um like so during the off season I decided I tried Thai Boxing class so I
32:03
go into Thai boxing and like I’m having a lot of fun with it man I start losing weight and um I have a lot of fun
32:09
hitting pads I’m feeling good about it and then you know my wrestler friend well I met a friend up there and wait a
32:16
ride go on to stand up in one of his wedding and it was like uh I’m working with him and uh and you’re like 28 at
32:23
this point still yeah yeah 30. okay I’m gonna say 30. and I’m working with him and he’s like man
32:28
you gotta learn Jiu Jitsu because somebody’s going to take you down to the ground and they’re going to beat you up and I’m like man the stuff where you
32:35
roll around the ground in pajamas bro I don’t know I don’t think I want to do that I’m like that looks weird and like
32:43
I just was not into it man and I tried like a class I got talked into trying a
32:48
class so I go in there and there’s this kid with like the Justin Bieber haircut and he’s a little high school kid with
32:53
Bieber hair and like we do the class and everything and after class I roll with this kid man this dude strangled me like
33:01
bad man and like dude I felt so dumb afterwards I’m like Biebs just choke the crap out of me how it goes as a kid
33:07
that’s like the most unexpected you’d never see him coming man yeah ever and like it’s like some kid in like a Marvel rash guard and like he’s like a hundred
33:15
pounds he just comes out there like a spider monkey and like the thing is man like you know I I’ve I had been feeling
33:20
pretty good like I was hitting tide pads all the time and I was like oh I can hit hard and I hadn’t done much sparring yet
33:26
yeah got to that layer and it was like oh that was a rude awakening but um you know I just couldn’t believe this kid
33:32
just wrecked me and I got like obsessed with it and uh so I had this this guy I
33:37
met early on who was uh you know kind of a coach there he would come in and he had everything
33:42
like flowcharted and he would like come in with videos and show you videos of competition and be like okay we’re gonna
33:49
pause here this guy’s gonna make one of two choices based on what he does and then he would like quiz you on what the
33:56
guy’s reaction would be it was crazy man and seeing like his passion for it and how technical he was I was sold man and
34:04
I just started going Non-Stop and uh he was real big into like leg locks and things like that and that was his thing
34:09
so real early on I was like man I kind of want to be the leglock guy now like leglocks have kind of a weird thing in
34:16
Jiu Jitsu a lot of Jiu Jitsu guys do not like like yeah and talk about like where that kind of comes from too with oh man
34:23
so it’s really have you heard about that yeah it’s a wild story man and the thing is like leg locks apparently back in the
34:28
day if you leglock somebody they would like throw trash at you instead you’re a poor person thing to do right so what
34:34
happened was the story goes there was a guy named Oswaldo fada and Oswaldo fata
34:39
came up under a guy yeah I think it was Louise Franca I may be wrong on this so he comes up and he’s learned Jiu Jitsu
34:46
and the Gracies are also training and the Gracies are in the city this guy’s out in the suburbs and you know there’s
34:51
less money he’s worked with a lot of kids in favelas he’s teaching Jiu Jitsu for cheaper free and he’s trying to help
34:57
people out now his students would do a lot of leg locks and that was like something they did well you know the
35:03
students that had were money they would kind of make fun of them man and they’d say like they called him shoe shiners because it was a poor person’s job and
35:10
they’d like give him a hard time and be like man that’s not legit technique you know I mean they didn’t respect it and it kind
35:17
of carried on for a long time it became a thing where leglocks really weren’t they weren’t like
35:23
they weren’t a regular part of Jiu Jitsu for a very long time they were kind of weak and if you wanted leg locks you would look at like guys and things
35:29
like that so time goes on and most people are not doing many leg locks and they start to
35:36
get a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger and then guys started to come out with like heel Hooks and they were doing so well and it became this thing and the
35:43
thing with a heel hook is it twists your knee and it can rip your ACL and all of a sudden you have this giant injury or
35:50
in need surgery and I have a theory that one of the main reasons leglocks were so frowned upon was back in the day when
35:57
you know you had the Gracies the early Gracies fighting if you rip your ACL it’s not like you
36:03
could fix that back then yeah I mean and good point yeah yeah and before like that really good medical you know
36:09
advances but have been made yeah when I looked into it ACL reconstruction surgery started to like first be
36:16
performed in the mid 1930s and you know it started to go from there and uh one
36:22
of the things we see differently today with Jiu Jitsu is people are willing to let things break and they’re willing to
36:29
like eat a leg lock and just let their ACL rip if it means they can win God damn yeah there’s crazy people
36:36
out there yeah there was this guy he just got leglocked for like six minutes straight and he ripped his MCL his ACL
36:42
his meniscus and he broke his ankle and he just wouldn’t tap and guys have gotten crazier and part of that I think
36:49
is because they know it could be fixed yeah no I was listening oh no no yeah that yeah so when you think about like
36:56
if I can go like let’s say in the future they go hey man we can fix a broken arm term in like two hours and you’re gonna
37:03
be good as new tomorrow man like I may make some different choices if I’m like a competitor yeah man yeah if that’s the
37:10
difference between you losing and winning you’ll snap because even now you’re thinking okay I can’t train for six months or whatever but if you’re
37:16
like I’m good tomorrow like it snap it yeah yeah and a lot of these guys are just like man they know they can
37:22
continue and maybe they win like this giant match maybe it’s worth it to them yeah and we have guys they’re like
37:28
letting things break and when started we’ve seen guys more and more focus on
37:33
breaking mechanics and that’s how the submission is actually performed and actually does damage to like the body
37:39
you know what I mean and uh as we’ve seen it evolve it’s like you have to be
37:44
better and better at causing massive amounts of damage where the guy doesn’t just feel like a joint pop where it’s
37:51
like oh he’s gonna be hurt for like a month it has to be somewhere like he may need to go the emergency room you may
37:56
have to go to the hospital because the damage is so severe he may be calling an orthopedic surgeon or something like
38:01
it’s gotten crazy now and some of the stuff’s coming out it gets sketchy man you gotta be really careful you have to
38:07
work with people there very safe yeah that’s the thing with like he looks especially that you’re teaching to like
38:13
new guys it’s like if you spin the wrong way you’re like when you roll with it yeah you roll it they roll if they roll
38:20
the wrong way then it’s their their whole needs to rip apart pretty much snap yourself right like yeah that’s exactly what happens it happens a
38:25
lot like yeah it happens a fair amount man and it’s almost like if you were to get your foot caught in a hole in the
38:31
ground and then like violently spin like it’s horrible and um if they’re coached
38:36
the right ways they can be done very safely yeah but you have to have very Hands-On coaches they’re watching like
38:42
very closely and people have to understand like if you’re first learning it you’re not even trying to finish it
38:47
you’re trying to maybe get the grip and I talk to guys about not trying to spin and things like that and being safe
38:53
because you know early days when I was doing Jiu Jitsu and I was getting going the injury rate was pretty high like we got hurt
38:59
quite a bit and we went super hard like we tried to kill each other but we didn’t know all that much man and we we
39:05
had a lot more people getting injured and as things slowly evolved it got better and better where now I feel like
39:12
it’s much much safer as long as you have good people in the room and it’s all about the gym culture and you know back
39:19
then it was pretty rough man these days I try to really push for a team atmosphere and like everybody working
39:24
together where I want you to get better if you’re not tapping I might just be like bro are you cool because this can
39:31
go very wrong yeah because you can talk to you tell us like if someone should tap and they’re not tapping don’t finish
39:36
it on them yeah and that’s the thing if they’re like a white belt or a blue belt don’t hurt them man they don’t always
39:41
know you know I mean if it’s somebody that’s a competitor obviously a slightly different story you still apply you
39:46
apply it slowly you try to give them time but you know you take it up a little bit and if the guy’s a higher belt in Jiu
39:53
Jitsu he may know what he’s doing he may let his arm Bend some and kind of test his limits and kind of see like because
39:59
here’s the thing man when you’re doing like martial arts you know if I say like hey man I could break your arm well
40:06
somebody has to stand up and go I don’t think you can yeah right somebody’s got to do it man and then you gotta test it
40:12
and see if the thing actually works otherwise we end up with like death touches or something like no touch Knockouts I can’t bro I can knock you
40:19
out with my mind yeah yeah yeah you know at some point you gotta prove it you gotta make sure it works so you know you
40:25
gotta go some and um once you understand Jiu Jitsu and you understand the risk and kind of know where you’re at you can
40:31
make that choice and if it’s an upper belt in Jiu Jitsu I’ll apply submissions real slowly I’ll give them time but I’m
40:37
gonna keep going till they tap or something starts to snap crunch pop whatever it is but the thing is you
40:43
gotta work with people there and give you that time and give you a benefit out and every once while you’ll see a guy come in
40:49
and you just tell man he’s off today like he’s having a bad day he’s heated
40:54
something’s going on at home something’s going on he’s not tapping he was sometimes he’s got to be like man
41:00
something’s up with this dude I need to swim off the hook see if he’s doing all right and just be like man are you doing
41:06
all right is there anything I could do and my guys will tell you man I’m annoying with this but like I
41:12
check up on all my guys I worry about students that haven’t been students of mine for five years I still check up on
41:18
them and sometimes they’re like cool about sometimes they’re like leave me alone you’re weird but like man you meet
41:23
these people and like you know you come up with them you work so hard together you want to know they’re doing good man and you just want to make sure they’re
41:30
doing positive things in their life and I always want them to know the door is open like they can always come back and
41:35
train with me and we’re not going to just like murder them you know what I mean we’re gonna welcome them back help
41:40
them out and get them into a better spot because again the focus should be like building people up and making people
41:46
better and some places you go it’s more about you know just absolutely being the
41:52
out of each other and yeah or being a ragdoll for someone that’s training for something yeah man and that’s the
41:57
thing like there has to be some of that to keep it real yeah but if that’s entirely the focus you get guys that
42:03
really need this and they wash out because they get beat up so bad and nobody is like helping them nobody’s
42:09
giving that Pat in the back and this could change their life man because it changed mine I mean going through it I
42:14
went through this horrible period in my life and I got into this and slowly as I did it and I continued to work with like
42:21
my doctors to get my medications right and all that it’s always started to come together for me and I slowly started to
42:27
figure things out and hold down a regular schedule and be able to do more and more and I built up confidence
42:32
because again it used to be if I went to a crowded place I would have a panic attack like no way really I would start
42:39
hyperventilating my face would go numb my hands would be shaking and I would like have to sit down or or I would fall
42:45
over and now and now it’s not because I promise you there’s no place that he’d walk into he wouldn’t kill like
42:51
everyone in there almost like I mean 99.9 percent of the time he would murder everyone there so that’s why it’s so
42:56
wild to hear because you see him rolling you’re just like he would snap everyone’s head I can’t look at like I don’t feel like
43:02
I’m a tough guy at all and the thing is like I don’t even I don’t even usually feel like I’m any good at this stuff but
43:08
like I some days I’m like oh I could do some cool things yeah but again my self-esteem is so low and I think so
43:15
little of myself I’m always so depressed but man all these people yeah I got like Ray in the gym I got so many great
43:21
students you know I mean and seeing them believe in me makes me want to do better man because like I may not believe
43:27
myself but I think the world of them they’re incredible man yeah look at the things they do and they’re all amazing
43:35
in their own right like they’ve all done these things they’re just incredible and so many of them are just nice people day
43:41
to day and man it’s so hard it’s so easy to become bitter it’s so hard to be a good person day to day and like you go
43:47
out and get food you stop somewhere person behind the counter is getting your food I mean be nice man yeah like
43:53
say hey how you doing thank you you know I mean little stuff like that it makes a difference because like just having somebody say like hey how’s your day man
44:00
how you doing blah blah blah you know it it changes things it makes things better um some admire I ended up talking with
44:07
one of the Dork readers for like 10 minutes man just talking to her about it and it was like so sad she had worked at
44:13
Chase Bank and got laid off and now she she couldn’t get work and this is what she’s doing and I talked with her about
44:18
how hard that was and man life is hard like if you could do anything to make it better for people do it it’s not like it
44:25
takes a whole lot of effort man just be a good person and so many people live it’s easy to lose sight of when it’s
44:32
like you’re thinking about money all the time yeah you think about your problems all the time man everybody’s got him if
44:37
everybody’s just a little bit Kinder it makes a tiny bit easier man and that’s really why I feel like is the focus of
44:43
my spot which is so funny because it’s like opposite of like the stigma of the sport in general yeah I feel like you
44:49
know it doesn’t seem like the kind a sport but it can be right it definitely can be yeah there’s some great spots man
44:55
that really are great at building people up and you know Jiu Jitsu is really good at that man but there’s also that dark
45:02
side where there’s some guy that just wants to kick your ass and he knows he signs up he can get away with that and
45:07
he doesn’t care about you he’s willing to hurt you just for fun and like he’ll come in there and he’s just gonna beat
45:13
you up man and you run into those guys there was always this thing about Jiu Jitsu being like a douchebag filter man
45:19
like I wish that was totally true I’ve met some terrible people that are very good at Jiu Jitsu you know what I mean I
45:26
bet most of people are great like most of people are very cool but there’s some terrible people in the sport man I mean
45:31
let’s not pretend and when it comes to martial arts man I have a pet peeve with martial arts I gotta tell you guys man
45:39
I hate Mr Miyagi I hate him man I absolutely absolutely like there’s so
45:45
much about him so you have this guy who’s a janitor who knows martial arts and he wants to teach your son and have
45:51
your son come to his house and wash his car call the police man call the police like
45:57
he’s about to get titled yeah he’s about like bad things are gonna happen man and the thing is like
46:03
they acted like he was like an expert on life and there’s like this myth like if
46:09
I give you advice about anything other than Jiu Jitsu I wouldn’t listen to that advice like I’m good at Jujitsu man I’m
46:17
a screw-up in a million different ways I try to be a nice person but and I’m you know man I’ll own it I’m not the
46:22
brightest guy I say dumb things sometimes I’ll own it and uh 100 it’s just like this idea that you have these
46:29
people that are like wise because they know how to beat someone up man no that’s the dumbest thing ever I mean
46:35
you’re not going up to like you know a major league baseball player and ask him for tips on life because he can hit a
46:41
ball hard like you know what I mean sure it makes no sense that is a really good point you’re not like hey Conor McGregor how do I keep my marriage healthy yeah
46:47
yeah you know I mean like you just don’t do these things man and like it’s this idea that like guys that are teaching
46:53
you martial arts are an expert anything but martial arts and some of them like lean into it and they lean into being
46:59
like a guru and like an expert on just everything yeah and then they start telling you about like how to live your
47:05
life and they start telling you about like you know all other aspects are going to be marriage dating money any of that and
47:14
uh back awake quickly man like yeah like don’t back away slowly like run at that
47:20
point because you don’t hump you around that man it’s just bad news yeah I fortunately I haven’t had it like I
47:26
haven’t had that bad experience at Gym X I’ve only been with my one gym now and I think it’s it’s like you say it’s like it’s like a little family there you know
47:33
that’s how it should be man that’s always how it should be and you know the best thing whenever you go into a Jiu
47:38
Jitsu gym if anybody’s listening you ever think about Jiu Jitsu gym when you go into a gym look around and see how
47:44
many like long-term members there are if that gym has been there for 10 years and there’s
47:50
not like you know purple brown and black belts where are they going you know what I mean because if they’re not sticking
47:56
around something’s up with that there’s some reason for that it’s a good point like my guys I’ll tell you some of my
48:03
guys will be in our 80s we’ll still be talking about Jiu Jitsu or something man 100 because they know like no matter
48:10
what happens man I got their back and they’re just such good friends and all that and we’ve got a lot of OG’s there I
48:16
do man you know one of my one of my guys uh Fernando uh you know he hasn’t trained with me in a couple years and he
48:23
went into the military and he contacted me this week in two weeks he’s officially uh going to be entering a
48:30
Special Forces Unit no way that’s pretty sick actually and he contacted me man and I was so happy for him and you know
48:35
when he found out I got my black belt he called me really he called me just to talk with me and I have another student
48:40
who’s in the hospital right now having some issues yeah called me just to congratulate and just to talk about like
48:48
being proud of me for the things I’ve done and I woke at these people and what they’re doing with their lives and it’s
48:53
like man what I do is kind of goofy I roll around the ground like trying to like choke people and bend their arms
48:59
and legs the wrong way what these people are doing is incredible and like I see so many things they do day to day and
49:04
you hear about things they’ve done in the past in their lives and it’s like man it’s amazing and you just don’t know
49:10
yeah right yeah man that’s why it is cool like I said earlier you’re like rolling around people’s like all day
49:15
like you don’t talk about anything really other than like in in that moment but it’s kind of nice it’s like a little Escape it’s the best yeah it’s like it’s
49:21
so meditative it’s also meditative because like especially I find it whenever I mean like when you’re when
49:26
you’re rolling live or whenever you’re like sparring like with like Thai boxing and stuff when people are trying to hit you you can’t really think about
49:32
anything else you’re just like you’re locked in right there for like a couple hours and it’s
49:37
nice yeah nothing around you matters yeah you can’t you can’t really be stressed yeah yeah I mean it you know
49:43
you’re just the opposite of the game yeah like you’d think you’d be stressed because someone’s trying to kill you but you’re very like at peace kind of well I
49:49
mean I’ve had those days where someone’s legit just well right yeah that’s the thing man if you’re ever
49:55
working with anybody that clearly does not have your safety in mind
50:01
don’t work with them man I went to uh Carlson Gracie when I was probably from like 13 to 15. and when I was 15 like my
50:09
last year I was in there there was this guy like full grown like 45 year old guy
50:14
on roids like you could literally see the freaking marks on his arms oh he would try to kill me he got kicked
50:20
out of the juice like come here you little he would flip me over like my dad at one point was like Hey because he’d always like sit down and watch at
50:27
the end of the mat like a sparring yeah and like usually when you go with an older guy and you’re 15 he’s gonna let you kind of get on him or he’s going to
50:32
show you hey you know what you want to put your arm here this guy would just pick me up and throw me on the mat and then he’s like start choking I’d
50:38
like hey slow down this guy did it so many times to kids he got kicked out of the gym yeah but like what a prick yeah
50:44
what are you doing honestly yeah honestly honestly tall you’re a grown man you know it was man that kid with the Bieber
50:50
hair got him he’s so mad about it it’s so true yeah but no man there’s dudes out there that
50:57
just don’t care about you and the thing is like if you’re gonna train with somebody that does not have your safety
51:02
in mind and they’re just trying to kill you man don’t do it Go compete exactly you know what I mean go out there and
51:07
compete because you know going into that because if we’re working in the gym I’m looking out for your safety and then
51:14
you’re actually trying to like injure me and you’re gonna crank us a mission or something man like you know tell me that
51:20
front and be like okay we’re we’re actually fighting and like it’s a different thing and you know I was never
51:26
a big competition guy man uh I was always a terrible athlete so going into it every time I do something cool I’m
51:32
like man that’s weird I can do that now and like it still trips me out a little bit because like I was so bad when I
51:39
started this I couldn’t do any of it I I was such a slow learner I had to stay and put in hours and hours and hours and
51:46
I would be you know I would stay for like two three hours after class and just work on things and um I just tried
51:52
to figure it out and it was so difficult for me man and being such a terrible athlete I knew early on I was not going
51:59
to be some great competitor I didn’t want to fool myself because you see some guys where it’s like man you know you’re
52:06
not in the physical shape you’re not coordinated you’re not putting the work and sometimes they just want to test
52:12
themselves and I respect that I do but you know the risk reward just didn’t
52:17
seem right for me I did two tournaments and I’m glad I did them and I had a good
52:22
experience getting out there and going after it second one I did pretty well first one oh did not go my way man it
52:28
was rough second one I did pretty well you you went to you yeah I did I did Fuji yeah yeah that was a good first one
52:34
and then like it was it’s definitely good to do if you haven’t done it because it just shows
52:40
like you’re just so tired like you know oh yeah either you could be right
52:46
after or you could be like 10 minutes like I thought like I was a white bone I did I was in the white building I was like I was like I think I’ll do pretty
52:52
good yeah I got smoked but I was also I didn’t cut any weight yeah I was I was
52:58
180 so it was a and I was with kids that were enormous you get some big boys man that’s such a steroid heavy
53:05
sport too oh yeah steroids are such a big part man like gorgeous they don’t
53:10
they don’t test and some of the guys like are pretty open about the fact they’re taking stuff and I appreciate
53:16
the guys that are honest about it but I do worry like kids are gonna think like that’s what they should do yeah and you
53:22
know like some of these guys have doctors working through it so they can do it safely and like man don’t mess
53:27
with that stuff that’s like that’s such a I think that’s like a barrier that’s going to keep them from getting really big like as a sport because it’s a
53:34
problem because if you think about it every sport that’s big has testing and testing UFC’s domain testing
53:41
but people there’s still people that slip by obviously but I feel like a sport like that where it’s like not like
53:46
a priority for that it’s like I think it’s a barrier of like just yeah you know from game big you know I mean because like people just like you’re
53:52
like oh they’re all juicy and this isn’t a real sport I feel like it’s it’s really growing and it’s kind of building up for sure and I think it’s
53:59
going to get to a certain level and they will have to clean it up at some point and I really hope they do man yeah guys
54:04
like Gordon are like really bringing it’s like more of a spotlight I feel like yeah and and he’s a joke he’s obviously on him right yeah he talks
54:11
about it he talks about openly though right he cracks me up so Gordon I’ve never heard him flat out just say he’s
54:17
taking stuff but he said things like somebody said uh something about him being on like juicing and Beyond
54:23
steroids and he goes I’m as clean as every other athlete in this sport yeah and I love that man and he does things
54:29
like yeah he there was one he was at a juice bar and the juice bar had this
54:34
giant neon sign that said juice or die and he took a selfie with the juice or die like he plays with it he knows he
54:41
knows he’s doing and the thing is like he’s honest about it man I appreciate that and um I just I worry kids are
54:48
gonna think that’s what they have to do man and I hate that because again most people don’t know what they’re doing you’re gonna have people having
54:54
long-term issues they’re really going to screw themselves up yeah it’s a very science-oriented thing like there’s a lot of thought into it yeah
55:04
a little bit and it wasn’t my big thing and I’ll roll hard in the gym you know I mean I have no problem with that I
55:10
didn’t like them but I did his competition yeah and like we’re always rolling and some days you’re rolling
55:15
hard in others and when I visit some gyms if it’s a gym where they go real hard all the time sometimes it takes me
55:21
a little bit to like adjust to the PACE you know what I mean because some gyms are much faster paced and it takes a
55:26
little bit but it’s the same techniques and same things so like you know I usually get used to it after a week or
55:31
two and then it’s like okay yeah I can hang again I’m you know in a good spot but um usually I’m a little bit more
55:38
laid back with it because again for me the main purpose is that mental health and physical health benefit it’s just
55:44
you know you feel better you get a little bit better shape you can defend yourself like it’s all these things put
55:51
together but man nothing more than mental health I mean that’s the biggest aspect for me and anytime I’m dealing
55:57
with an injury it’s so tough for me you know I mean it even like work sound like the physical side of me it’s just exercise in general it’s like the
56:03
dopamine burst yeah exercise and then also being around people and like positive stuff I mean it like it
56:09
chemically is working in your benefit to do something like that yeah like whenever people talk to me and they say
56:14
like oh I’m depressed it’s what do you do physically yeah and it’s like you have to do something physically and I’ll tell you medications help me a lot but
56:22
physical activity is the main thing and being able to try to set some amount of
56:27
routine and I’m terrible about that because I still have like there’s nights I’ll be up till 5 30 in the morning and
56:34
I have like it’s not like full-blown manic episodes but I’ll be freaking out man like things will get in my head and
56:40
like it could be things that somebody said or something that happened like 10 years ago it stuck in my head and all of
56:46
a sudden I’ll think about obsessing with it and I won’t get to sleep till like you know 5 36 and then maybe I gotta be
56:53
at the gym in the morning and I show up and you can see it I got the dark circles stuff like that yeah but I’m
56:58
always gonna be smiling I’m always gonna make it fun you’re never gonna see a day where i’m gonna act like a downer like
57:03
that’s not acceptable because as instructor I bring the energy to a gym I make it fun man and if I’m not making it
57:11
fun I’m failing at my job when you come in you should be having a blast you should be having a good time and you should
57:16
feel safe man and it’s the combination of that it should be fun it should be safe and it has to be effective if
57:24
you’re learning something and there is no resistance and you’re just walking through it you don’t know that thing man
57:29
until you’re using it live against people that are trying to get you you don’t really know and you know early on
57:36
and that’s the thing I was doing Thai boxing I started off hitting pads all the time and I was like man I’m really
57:41
getting tough I could hit the pad so hard and my cardio got really good then you go to spar and somebody’s punching
57:47
the face and a lot of that technique just goes right out the window you’re like oh wow I suck man and um building
57:54
from there and wearing to relax more and not try to like throw things hard and just play and figure it out and get the
58:00
time and get the range it’s the same the way it’s Jiu Jitsu man being able to flow and figure out the movements and
58:06
how to move your own body and then how to like pin people and hold them down like little things like that and
58:11
learning how to do it without using a ton of effort and then slowly speeding it up and adding resistance and then
58:17
when you go live and you’re put under pressure then use everything you got man and there’s been times I’m like using
58:22
every muscle in my body you know you know you do that this idea that you don’t use any strength you choose Jiu
58:28
Jitsu no man you’re when you’re rolling you’re going that’s good or whenever it’s like a real match it’s it’s the
58:34
weirdest muscles are sore for a week oh yeah it’s it’s it’s tough obviously especially when you’re going for like an
58:39
hour straight like like I was even sore um uh after Wednesday you know so because we were rolling for like an hour
58:45
there oh yeah I was there rolling until like 11 11 30. that’s crazy and I mean well I was I was talking and
58:52
taking pictures of people and doing that and I started getting more rounds and all that and like I got in quite a bit and man like I train so much smarter now
59:00
and it’s like I’m so much healthier than I was and I managed to get my diet to a better place
59:06
um you know I I worked with somebody uh who is the CEO for the company Factor
59:12
they do meal prep and all that and they are fantastic I highly recommend them and working with him he told me a little
59:19
bit better if you want to sponsor this yeah we’re here oh I talked with him and I was like man I’m gonna try because I
59:24
already thought about meal prep so I gave them a shot and man it’s fantastic and I’m down like 20 25 pounds now no
59:31
way yeah that was 195 I’m at about 169 170 right now which is crazy wow and I
59:36
train so much smarter I’m not getting injured all the time because there’s a couple things uh so going into
59:43
Jiu Jitsu I really like myself so we got that factor I’m like you know well sounds low sense of self-worth all that
59:49
I want to learn the real thing so I want to make sure it’s legit and I’m very
59:55
competitive and I don’t like to lose so there were times where oh I should have tapped and I did not tap and oh I found
1:00:03
out man I found out and that’s one of the reasons I’m so sensitive about white and blue belts getting hurt early on is
1:00:09
because they don’t know and I didn’t totally know I would get broke off sometimes in like my first month of Jiu
1:00:16
Jitsu I had a guy who was an absolute jerk pop my elbow completely out and it
1:00:21
popped back in and then I couldn’t lift more than four pounds with that arm and remember I’d been lifting a lot and I
1:00:27
couldn’t lift more than four pounds I had to do a bunch of physical therapy and uh dude it was hard to come back and
1:00:32
I mean I had times where I popped like a knee out right you know um my favorite was like the one that’s
1:00:39
the craziest uh I had a time I was helping a friend get ready for his hand amateur MMA fight it was like his first
1:00:45
MMA fight and he was so excited Uganda no no no no not that yeah I mean I
1:00:52
I storytell but I can introduce it so um anyways uh one day I’m helping this guy
1:00:57
get ready for an amateur MMA fight and you know I get punched in the eye pretty good and I get pretty nice sized black
1:01:02
eye and I’m like no big deal you know I mean I’m going to train the next day the next day I go in I get need in the side
1:01:09
of the head on the same size of the eye and I’m like oh it feels a little funny you know it feels so weird I’m like ah
1:01:15
who cares I’m training tomorrow so I went in the next day and I was the dummy for a choke you know I mean it
1:01:21
demonstrates to a class and uh Tim who just gave me my black belt I mean he’s the best dude man
1:01:27
um he’s demonstrates triangle choke it’s so tight man I feel the pressure building and all of a sudden something
1:01:34
in the back of my eyeball pops oh I feel something in my eye like in the
1:01:39
back just pop like something pursed and for about a month I couldn’t move my
1:01:45
eyes side to side in my head I had to turn my whole head I had to like Batman and um
1:01:52
if it for yes I did not see a doctor I was just like I want to go back to
1:01:57
training man I just ignored it and kept going because again not the brightest
1:02:02
man I do some pretty dumb things you know I mean uh there’s tough and there’s being really stupid and uh I’m
1:02:09
definitely a little bit both probably much more stupid than tough anyways so
1:02:14
um that was my favorite and it you know later on I had an optometrist to look at it and he did like the scan thing and
1:02:20
you could see a spider web where in the back of my eye where it like had burst and you can actually see yeah where
1:02:26
there’s scar tissue and now if I uh don’t get enough sleep or if I’m like
1:02:31
really stressed out I get like this little throbbing pain and oh I feel it man oh I feel it like I get that one and
1:02:39
then uh this left elbow it gets stuck I try straight murm it’s like oh it’s not going and I have to like bend it and
1:02:45
like get it to pop back where it’s supposed to be and then I’ve had my ankles ripped I almost had to have a full ankle reconstruction on my I want
1:02:52
to say my right I think my left was the other one again mixed up if I had my shoes off I just look okay which one has
1:02:58
the giant lump on it it’s like oh yeah that’s the good one um that’s the good one man the other
1:03:03
one’s the bad one so I had so many crazy injuries I got choked unconscious so many times man and like I was so
1:03:10
stubborn I’d be like you’re not gonna get behind me and then next thing you know I’m like drooling and I’ll never
1:03:15
forget the first time the first time my buddy Brian got me as a room naked joke and I’m like man I’m not giving up I’m
1:03:21
gonna get him I’m gonna show him I’m better like I’ve been working so hard he’s got to choke and I’m pulling his arm down pulling his arm down and I’m
1:03:28
fighting and fighting and fighting and all of a sudden I’m on an airplane and that airplane is plummeting towards the
1:03:34
ground it’s shaking like crazy but I have a Jack and Coke so I really don’t care so I’m just like drinking my
1:03:42
Jack and Coke and the planes Plumbing down everybody’s screaming but I was so peaceful I was so happy I’m just sitting
1:03:48
there with my drink and right before the plane hit the ground I wake up and he’s holding my feet up and he’s shaking my
1:03:54
feet oh no and he was like you almost died I’m like ah I’m good now let’s roll
1:04:00
again and he you know he’s a good friend he forced me to take one round off and I was back at it and uh there’s been
1:04:07
plenty of times where I get choked out and I wake up and I just start growing again I’m like it’s fine let’s just go
1:04:12
let’s keep going yeah I’m like no big deal I’ve been here before uh you know I’ve been on this this whole ride many
1:04:19
times I had one time recently where a guy got me I’d started off over waxed and he got me at this sneaky choke and
1:04:25
he puts me out and I wake up and I was like I was a little mad about it and you
1:04:30
know he’s my buddy but I’m competitive and I look at the timer and there’s still like four minutes on the round so
1:04:36
I weigh wake up and I’m like I got four minutes I gotta get him as many times as possible in that four minutes so I leg
1:04:41
locked him like I think I got him like four or five times and that you know four minute period just going for it over and over and over again
1:04:48
um but yeah man I have uh I’ve taken a few naps just just a few years I’ve gone to sleep a few times yeah the guy gave
1:04:54
my black belt oh my God he’s put me out multiple times to a point where and he’s a really tough guy you know I mean but
1:05:01
he came up to me he’s like hey I don’t want you to die you should probably like tap a little earlier because like yeah
1:05:07
you shouldn’t die doing this and um you know it was always in the back of my head it was like man if I go out you
1:05:13
know like this is it I’m doing something I love it’s like hey man we’re gonna know it’s a real thing it’s nice and
1:05:18
Furious see coming back to it again kind of tough yeah really stupid you
1:05:26
know what I mean hey I’ll own it man I’ll own it and um here here’s another good one for you so I’ve only had to
1:05:31
have one surgery from Jiu Jitsu and I did have to have one and it was a freak thing and I broke this finger and you
1:05:38
can see I got a big scar on it oh thanks bro I broke my like two toes and a finger it’s the worst in
1:05:44
the world like I probably broken like a dozen total over the years you know I mean it’s just happened but this one
1:05:51
we had an in-house tournament and I wanted to win so bad because again if I’m up if I’m there and I’m on the spot
1:05:57
I’m very competitive so I feel it snap it gets condom and it snaps man and uh
1:06:04
I feel it and it’s like man I’m just going to tape it to a finger next to it after so I just keep going and I go for
1:06:10
about another 15 minutes because I want to win and I’m like you could see me grip my teeth and people saw it break
1:06:17
and you know I’m just going I just kept going and they eventually called it a draw and you know the whole thing ended
1:06:25
and so uh after class I realized I can’t tie my shoes like I’m like huh remember
1:06:31
I break a finger I could still use my hands pretty well and I had to have this kid tie my shoes this this real sweet
1:06:37
kid helped me out and then like I get home and time passes and I’m icing it and everything I go see a doctor and
1:06:44
it’s a spiral fracture and they tell me like okay just don’t let anybody bump it
1:06:50
anything like that and uh you know it might heal straight So eventually the
1:06:55
swelling goes down and I close my hand and that finger folds like outside my
1:07:01
palm and like it’s way out there so you know they present me my options and
1:07:07
they’re like okay we could do the surgery it’ll put it back together and they told me the recovery time and I was
1:07:13
like man that’s a long time to be away from Jiu Jitsu and again if I’m not physically training it’s so taxing on my
1:07:19
mental health it’s like a huge risk for me you know what I mean because I start to fall apart again like I have to be physically
1:07:25
doing something and uh so I’m like kind of freaked out I’m like man that’s a long time to be out and they say the
1:07:31
other option would be to let it heal and you’re gonna have arthritis to be very painful and you’re not going to have
1:07:38
great function because of the way it Folds so I like here are these options and I’m
1:07:43
like thinking about it and thinking about it and again like not the
1:07:48
brightest but I have this idea and I say okay if you amputate that finger can I
1:07:54
get back on the mat sooner and I’m like yeah and I’m like if you amputate the finger and you just cut that finger off
1:08:00
can I get back to training sooner than the recovery time if you do the surgery and uh I got the funniest look from them
1:08:07
and like I was dead serious man because like you know and I at the time I was so
1:08:12
desperate and I was like so freaked out the aspect of not being able to train physically I was like yeah I’ll give up
1:08:18
that finger if it means I could get back on the map I mean look at John Jack Machado they’re going to the bathroom too he was he was a guy who really
1:08:24
looked up to watching him too man because like I used to have this thing where I would like tear at like my
1:08:31
fingers and it’s like an obsessive compulsive thing and when I started by your nails well it’s kind of like that
1:08:36
it’s like ripping at the skin I do it all the time yeah and like my fingers would get like raw yeah like it
1:08:42
hurts and um there’s a name for it I always forget I went on read it and read about things like that and it’s somewhat
1:08:48
common a lot of people deal with it and I would get it so bad it would be like down into my hand oh like really
1:08:53
bad it was terrible and it was super embarrassing and every once while someone you’d notice and they’d be like your hands really red what’s going on
1:08:59
and you know I would just never answer I would just like change the subject something like that be like oh don’t
1:09:04
worry about it well it made it really hard to hold the ghee like because my hands hurt so bad some days if it was
1:09:10
real bad I was having these issues I couldn’t hold the key well so guys like John Jacques Machado and Marcelo Garcia
1:09:18
was my guy and watching them and seeing how they just used overhooks and underhooks well I could do that you know
1:09:24
I mean like I could do all the nogi grips and not have a lot of pain but if you ask me to hold on to a ghee and like
1:09:30
fight with the ghee and hold the sleeve some like that you know my fingers were already like so Raw it’s like you know I
1:09:37
couldn’t do much and I really struggled with it so I really like gravity head towards working without the ghee and
1:09:43
following these guys that were the nogi guys and I kind of fell into that crowd and later on it kind of wed towards me
1:09:49
going out and meeting the 10th Planet guys and meeting like Eddie Bravo and working with all those guys some of the
1:09:55
nicest guys in the sport too just incredibly good just great guys man and
1:10:01
I would go out to Chicago and visit uh Josh passini who’s a coach out there he’s a wonderful coach and I would go
1:10:07
out there and hang out with those guys man and that crowd that’s a tough room man they get after it they work very
1:10:14
hard and uh you know I went out there first I was really getting my ass kicked and slowly started to adapt and get
1:10:20
better and get better and uh man they were so positive about everything and like I was at a tournament and they were
1:10:27
doing a team photo and they had all their guys there and they’re like man you come and train with us get in this
1:10:32
photo You Belong With Us you’re one of our guys too man Even though even if you’re somewhere else they made me feel
1:10:38
like accepted and they really did look out for me man and you need somebody encouraging you when you do this stuff I
1:10:45
mean especially early on like when it was early on and I was going I was getting my ass kicked so bad that I
1:10:51
would like walk off the mat because I would go to a point of exhaustion like I would be dead I’d walk off the mat I’d
1:10:57
go straight to the bathroom I’d break down crying man because it’s like I wasn’t good enough I wanted it so bad I
1:11:04
wanted to be good at this thing because I loved it so much I’d break down and I’d kind of like try and make it look
1:11:09
like I was okay and then go back out and roll more and there was this guy Glenn and he would give me the shortest like
1:11:15
little Atta boys and he would just be like you know doing good man getting
1:11:20
tough keep going keep going and he’d be like he’d come up to me pull me off to the side he’d just be like it’d always
1:11:25
be something short but he just encouraged me and man stuff like that keeps you going you know I mean you need
1:11:31
some of that and some of those guys I’ll never forget them build me up man because like getting my black belt like
1:11:37
it’s cool like and you know everybody’s like congratulations to you and you know
1:11:43
man for me it’s like congratulations to all of us because like I’m this thing that these guys build all these
1:11:49
fantastic people like help me to get to this point because again I never believed myself I didn’t think I’d do
1:11:55
any of this and like I tried really hard but I was never like man I always looked at people I’d be like man I’m never
1:12:00
gonna be as good as that guy I’m never gonna tap that guy and uh you know eventually I started getting a little
1:12:06
better and people would encourage me and they’d Build Me Up and they just pushed me a try and try again no matter how
1:12:13
many times I lost and uh you know later on I got introduced to wrestling I never wrestled man I know how I wrestle I
1:12:19
thought wrestling was just if you were like in Crazy strong and had crazy cardio and that was all about I started
1:12:25
to learn like how wrestling can be really Technical and you know I had a guy named Eric Hendricks really introduce that to me and I really got
1:12:32
deep into it and um you know now I love wrestling wrestling is incredible I’m not great at it I’m always trying to get
1:12:39
better um you know you’re always studying you’re always getting those rounds you’re always trying to improve and it’s
1:12:44
just you’re always working at man and there was a Nate robleski who I gotta call out here he was the guy that got me
1:12:50
into heel Hooks and he was teaching me what Marcelo Garcia and Ryan Hall were doing and man these guys just built me
1:12:56
and I’m like what they have made you know I mean I sure I’ve worked hard I
1:13:02
showed up I put in the effort and I knit I didn’t quit but without these guys I’d be nothing I mean absolutely and uh yeah
1:13:09
man like I’m kind of proud of myself but these guys that’s crazy well it’s these
1:13:15
guys man I just they’ve been so incredible to like help out somebody that was so like uncoordinated in such
1:13:22
lousy shape yeah and just you know had my story and you know how my old friends
1:13:28
are like you know not around anymore like a lot of them with drugs suicide bad things happened man and some of the
1:13:35
ones that I used to hang out with they’re not doing so well today man and like you know I see them it’s like man I
1:13:42
want to see him yeah I mean it’s just like they’re still in that spot are they really yeah some of them never got out
1:13:48
of that man they never got into something positive and they’re still I mean they work hard man and I know so
1:13:54
many guys they’re great guys they’re working out there hard right now working at the bars working in warehouses
1:14:00
putting in work man and you know especially the guys taking care of their families like my buddy Josh is so you
1:14:06
know he’s taking care of his family he’s doing what he’s got to do and he works hard I’m proud of him man and uh you
1:14:11
know my guy Rob of New York I mean you know he’s driving a a gas truck you know what I mean it’s just like you know you
1:14:19
don’t hear much about these guys but these guys are incredible what they do is such a big deal like me getting a
1:14:24
belt for rolling around the ground with dudes like it seems kind of silly man when I think about what these guys are
1:14:29
doing yeah I mean it’s just you know the the guy that goes and does a nine-to-five job and takes care of his
1:14:35
family you know a lot of people look at that’s just what you’re supposed to do but there’s a lot of people that don’t do that man they just walk away and like
1:14:43
the guys that really put in the effort and they’re like you know and they’re still positive like you know my guy
1:14:48
Richie Richie is a professional bodybuilder yeah he has something like 12 titles and I’ll tell you
1:14:55
he wakes up every day and he lifts early in the morning he whips in work boots and work clothes
1:15:02
he doesn’t wear any fancy like gym stuff he works out his work boots and he kills himself he works hard and then he goes
1:15:09
to work he’s working as a plumber and he does physical labor like manual labor for you know eight ten hours then what’s
1:15:16
he do he goes home he lifts again damn then what’s he doing after that he comes
1:15:21
to my classes in the class yeah yeah and he kills people and if I have to do happy every time he’s happy every time
1:15:28
he’s positive with everybody some new kid who’s like 14 15 asks him about like weightlifting ask him for like tips man
1:15:36
he helps him he takes the time like so many guys would be like look it up online like go read a book man he takes
1:15:43
the time and he really encourages people it’s there’s so many people I know they’re like that they’re just good people out there doing positive things
1:15:49
and some of them are minor things man just being nice to people day to day my guy Josh you know I hang out with him
1:15:56
and I watched him every single person he talked to he was so like for friendly and respectful and he treat everybody
1:16:03
right and that’s what martial arts should be man and sometimes it’s not it’s not all the Bowing it’s not calling
1:16:09
people sir it’s not like the uniform it’s treating people right intriguing people with respect and understanding
1:16:15
people are going to fail and you have to help build them back up encourage them to do something great and that’s what
1:16:22
this stuff taught me that’s what this stuff does and that’s why I try to do for people and every time a student walks in that door whatever their Walk
1:16:28
of Life whatever their physical ability like I don’t care if there ever be a World Champ I care about like the spirit
1:16:34
are you gonna put in the effort are you gonna come in and fail and do it again and if you keep coming in I’m gonna push
1:16:41
you I’m gonna push you to whatever you’re capable of you know what I mean I’m not just gonna let people beat on
1:16:46
you I’m gonna push you to a limit that you can grow and I’m gonna try and encourage you to just get better and
1:16:53
better and better man and hopefully that reflects in all aspects of your life and it helps
1:16:58
I mean yeah man yeah it is it is powerful and then there was one thing
1:17:03
that um we were kind of talking about a little bit earlier when uh like the origination of the leg lock and such with like the Gracie family oh she
1:17:10
always tells us yeah you gotta you gotta tell somebody because I know they got a lot of so well I mean here’s the
1:17:16
thing man the Gracies are absolutely incredible they are man and we wouldn’t be here without the Gracies and
1:17:22
sometimes I I talk about things that are like Gracie history and people say like
1:17:27
you know it some of it’s kind of controversial and they’ll say oh you can’t say bad things about The Graces
1:17:33
it’s it’s not even them saying bad things most of the time you know I mean there’s some things yeah I don’t agree
1:17:38
with and you know when it comes down to it it’s kind of like they did incredible things and then they’re exaggerated a
1:17:47
bit you know I mean Elio Gracie went against a guy who was 40 pounds heavier they say he was 80 pounds heavier
1:17:54
um they say Julio crazy the one that got me they would always say oh he was very sickly and he couldn’t go up a flight of
1:18:00
stairs without you know having trouble breathing things like that um man there’s pictures of him on the
1:18:06
high school swim team I’ll tell you yeah he was an athlete I would like to be in that kind of shape like now you know
1:18:12
what I mean I’m like damn bro he’s he’s in good shape you know what I mean and you know sometimes you know they’ll make
1:18:18
it sound like the Gracie’s invented leverage you know like they they invented some great things man they did
1:18:24
some great work let’s not get too crazy with it though and the thing is I feel
1:18:30
like when you exaggerate something and then people find out one detail is like
1:18:35
exaggerated they question things and all of a sudden the things that they legitly did they’re incredible kind of get lost
1:18:42
and they lose some power you know they lose a little bit of power because you know
1:18:47
you start to question all of it and that’s kind of a problem when it comes to Gracies is sometimes you hear and it
1:18:52
the thing is there’s a large number of different pieces of the Gracie family some of them like each other some of
1:18:58
them don’t um it always cracks me up I meet so many people that want to talk
1:19:04
about the Gracie family all the time Carlson Gracie Jr lives in Chicago
1:19:10
he lives here like he has a gym in Chicago and I talk to these guys and Gracie this
1:19:16
Gracie that okay have you gone out and taken one of his classes or gone to a seminar like he’s right here you know
1:19:23
what I mean you can meet one of the actual guys you could go talk to him and I’ve heard he’s a great guy man I’ve always heard good things and it’s like
1:19:29
you know and uh part of it with me too is hero worship I hate hero worship
1:19:36
because I think it’s dangerous you know I mean it’s dangerous because you start looking up to somebody and you get this
1:19:42
myth that this person is perfect and then you meet them and they always say don’t meet your Heroes yeah yeah and
1:19:48
like a lot of time you get real disappointed man and uh yeah it’s it’s not a good way to go you
1:19:55
know I mean don’t put anybody up on pedestal it’s more kind of like what did they really do what do you really know
1:20:00
about them and I’ll tell you so I got my black belt and they there’s a thing like belt lineage in Jiu Jitsu and that’s you
1:20:08
know tracing who got their belt from where and things like that and um you
1:20:15
know like who is your instructor’s instructor and things like that and it used to be a way to look and see if
1:20:20
somebody was credible because you know did they learn from you know credible people and now there’s so much
1:20:27
information people are so good people are amazing today that um you know it’s less of it’s focused on much less and uh
1:20:35
there’s a lot of famous guys that people will you know pay and really go out there and you know guys will pay for a
1:20:42
bell and you know they go out and then they have the famous guy’s name attached to them
1:20:47
but do they know the famous guy is he a good person you have and he’s good Jujitsu but you’re going to wear
1:20:54
his name every day and you don’t know him true that’s the thing man and like you know and then maybe you hear stories
1:20:59
maybe you like some of the guys aren’t as great people as a lot of people like act like they are you hear
1:21:05
things and you’re like man and so over the years I started to question about
1:21:10
like wearing you know gear that had people’s names out and things like that
1:21:15
and it came down to like I like representing the guys I know so my belt lineage is Tim thielen that’s it
1:21:23
that’s my guy man because I know Tim Tim does the right right thing by people he
1:21:28
takes care of people I’ve seen him go out of his way to help people that he could have just ignored and you know he
1:21:34
trains his ass off his son is like killing it and wrestling and he’s dealing with this injury right now and
1:21:41
like he had to have surgery to put this collarbone back together and uh Tim actually came and did my black belt
1:21:47
promotion um leaving his son at home and that was insanely tough for him and that’s the
1:21:53
thing he cares so much and he went right back to take care of his son as he should and it’s just like I’ve seen him
1:21:59
be a stand-up guy I’ve seen him be a good person that’s the name I want man I don’t care if it’s some famous guy like
1:22:05
if I had the famous guy on there that’s cool like people that know a little bit about Jiu Jitsu maybe that impresses
1:22:11
them but guys that know Tim they know that’s a big deal man because
1:22:16
if Tim is vouching for me and Tim’s saying like hey he’s good at this and Tim wouldn’t give a belt to somebody
1:22:22
that was you know a bad person he wouldn’t give it to somebody it was you know a jerk out there hurting people and
1:22:28
being a prick and um you know I’m very proud to represent that name man that
1:22:34
means a lot to me and some guys will laugh and be like yeah I got my belt from you know
1:22:39
so and so they got their belt from the Gracies and we have the direct lineage I don’t care I don’t care man you know I
1:22:46
mean like what can you do on the map are you good yeah at the end of the day it’s all solved pretty quickly right yeah
1:22:52
that’s a thing you roll in man I’m by no means a big deal I do all right but
1:22:57
there’s plenty of guys that can kill me you know I mean I know that I’ve worked with very good people and uh that
1:23:03
doesn’t mean every day I’m not thinking and plotting against them I want to tap everybody I never lose to anybody and go
1:23:10
yeah I was supposed to lose no I I have a buddy that comes into town and I roll
1:23:15
with him and he’s 325 pounds and I start in bottom half guard every
1:23:20
time and he smashes me I get smushed man and like you never hear me walk away and
1:23:26
go oh it’s okay I lost because he’s big because when you start making excuses like that you’re like oh it’s okay I
1:23:32
lost he’s a big guy or you go oh it’s okay I lost he’s younger or he’s
1:23:37
stronger he’s in better shape he’s flexible I mean man at what point do you
1:23:42
just say like okay the excuses are enough yeah I mean because when you start making excuses and you make it okay to lose
1:23:49
it just you’re not going to progress man like of course you’re going to lose everybody loses but every time I lose
1:23:55
it’s like what could I have done better and even if it’s an impossible situation and it’s some monster that have no
1:24:01
chance against I’m still thinking man maybe I could have tricked him and done like something else here and maybe I can
1:24:07
sneak him and get that leg lock maybe I can do something to get a joke like I’m always like plotting against them in
1:24:13
some way I’m never just gonna walk away and be like it’s okay I lost no I mean I
1:24:18
mean you know sometimes I’ll lose a little sleep if I get tapped out too many times I’m like sitting up at night and I’m
1:24:24
like oh man sure do you do that I feel like I did here I get irritated as when I have a bad day where I
1:24:29
get tapped a bunch right oh yeah Drew just be mad all day he just sits in the Park yeah like there’s so many
1:24:36
killers in this game it’s like it happens every day oh yeah man it ain’t good gym you’re gonna get lit up when you’re new and that so here’s the
1:24:43
one I always ask everybody I know you’ve done it and I know you’ve
1:24:48
done it driving home with no music on Staring Straight Ahead just
1:24:55
yeah yeah yeah I usually what I usually do is if I get and if I get hit if somebody hits somebody hits something
1:25:01
on me I usually throw on videos online of like yeah that’s what you should I usually do yeah I watch like and I watch
1:25:07
stuff like right before I go into the gym if like if I’m like trying to work like I usually work like if I’m working
1:25:12
submission I’ll usually work that one submission for like like a period of time until I got that down that’s how you learn it that’s how that’s how I
1:25:19
usually do then I move on like okay I got arm triangles let’s move on to triangles let’s get really good in the triangles from guard and I’ll do it that
1:25:25
way always cracks me up I show new guys and I’m like here’s a triangle choke and they do it like five times they’re like
1:25:30
what else you got it’s like man you need to be working on this at that point in the time I spent six months where for
1:25:36
six months the only submission I was doing was we’re naked choke and just trying to get as much as possible and everything else was like I try to avoid
1:25:42
everything else to do this one thing and that’s how you develop the skill and um there was a while there I like to call
1:25:48
my shot on people and I would be like I’m gonna tap you with this thing like I’d say and for me I love doing Twisters
1:25:54
because they’re really fun money and to me anything in Jiu Jitsu that’s really funny is worth like extra points because
1:26:00
I I’m entertaining myself with that one man and so like I would tell people I’d be like I’m gonna twister you I’m not
1:26:06
gonna do any other submission I’m gonna get you in a twister and they know it’s coming and if they uh
1:26:13
if they can’t stop it and I get it I look like I’m really good is that what that’s when you’re in top half guard and
1:26:18
you go under the arm and you pull their head right yeah I mean not from Top Hat but I can show you I can show you but
1:26:24
like yeah right here on the table we’ll get a video but like it’s a spinal compression
1:26:30
lock I like it because I can hold it and do it real slowly and I’m real nice to people when I do it you know I don’t
1:26:35
hurt people and I got too real slow and I have a good laugh with it and it’s it’s a funny submission to do and so I
1:26:41
would tell people it’s coming and like if I get it on him after I told them that looks like I’m awesome and if I don’t get it I get mad and now I get
1:26:49
like super focused on getting it the next time and I have a buddy who’s really good and I told him for this
1:26:55
month I’m only gonna get you with twisters and then you know I couldn’t get him so I’d work harder and harder
1:27:00
and harder trying to get it and I got much better trying to get him even though I didn’t have success with it and
1:27:06
then later on when we rolled again like a couple months later I started getting them with it and it was like yes he
1:27:12
helped me build that that’s the best when you start hitting it like you’re like when you start hitting it doesn’t you can drill it all you want when you
1:27:17
when you’re hitting it live in a roll that’s like when I’m like yes I got like I usually I I believe that if you strangle wipe 10
1:27:24
minutes yeah yeah 10 minutes we’re good uh when you uh
1:27:29
um just practicing strangling white belts first it sounds terrible what am I doing no I just put it on camera yeah
1:27:35
he’s gonna do it no no that’s okay you can put that in there I don’t mind yeah
1:27:41
since we got like since we got 10 minutes you got to tell the stories about Gracie and like the newspaper
1:27:47
articles about like the uh the almost arrest and things like that uh well and
1:27:53
mean again you can research these and you can really they’re all real they’re online like it’s it’s good yeah so there
1:27:58
was a book that came out that was like newspaper articles about the Gracies in the history of jujitsu it’s very
1:28:04
interesting and there was an attack on a guy I think his name was uh rufino dos
1:28:10
Santos and uh they jumped him and they beat him up hit him with a metal box and they injured him pretty severely and
1:28:16
they were looking at two years in prison man it was like a big deal and there’s some things that come out and you’re like man it’s not so great you know I
1:28:24
mean it makes you question things but again it’s not all of them and it’s incidents a big part of it too is I
1:28:30
think people have this idea that respectful martial artist is like you
1:28:36
know I must fight you for my honor you know I mean in reality they’re like cursing at you like I’m gonna kick your
1:28:41
ass man yeah like you know I mean they’re like it gets heated and it’s a very different thing it’s like talking
1:28:46
trash and getting ugly and uh there was a thing called The Gracie challenge where the Gracies would just fight
1:28:52
anybody who came on it’s part of how they got known was releasing videos of them killing people from other martial
1:28:57
arts it just well not killing you know beating them up and uh they did for a long time and it was a
1:29:03
big thing came around well there was a brother that did named Hobb and Gracie and he went and did one and a
1:29:10
guy showed up who was a fighter and challenged him to it and uh have been lost and he lost that one it’s really
1:29:17
the only one I know of they ever lost and right afterwards and he was like
1:29:22
this French MMA fighter who took him down got the top half guard and kind of beat him up and uh after he lost they
1:29:28
started like you may win this guy like threatening this guy and being like oh we’re gonna kick your ass and we’re gonna come and get you and all this
1:29:34
stuff and then uh you know this is debated but he claims they showed up as
1:29:40
work jumped him while he’s working as a bar back and started beating the out of him and then got chased out of
1:29:46
there at gunpoint so it’s like they’re stories like this man and hey man like
1:29:52
you know like whenever you hear something it’s always interesting to hear like everybody’s point of view because again history is written by the
1:29:58
winners you know what I mean but sometimes there’s more to the story and I always like to hear the whole story I
1:30:04
want to know everything man but again it’s one of those things where some of it can be iffy but did they do amazing
1:30:10
things oh yeah man they did some incredible things but it’s kind of like uh you know they did some things that
1:30:16
weren’t so cool to hear about the other parts you know yeah exactly yeah it’s cool it’s like anyone it’s always bad apples yeah well it’s so interesting too
1:30:22
because great you know you have Gracie Jiu Jitsu you have Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu has changed so much that if
1:30:28
you go to a gym and you learn jiu jitsu you may not be wearing the same martial art and other Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym
1:30:34
because like you have the sport of gee Jiu Jitsu I’m not very good at that I’ll
1:30:39
tell you like I’m okay I know some of it I do okay and basic Jiu Jitsu translates very well if you know one you do pretty
1:30:45
well but still there’s things in the ghee that I’m not great at there’s no gee sport Jiu Jitsu which is a lot of
1:30:50
the leg locks and a lot of like more wrestling then you have self-defense Jiu Jitsu and self-defense Jiu Jitsu you
1:30:57
have like old school like self-defense you know like techniques like you know
1:31:02
knives and guns and things like that and I had very little interest in that very
1:31:08
little and then you have MMA Jiu Jitsu which is totally different because you’re using a cage in order to stand up
1:31:14
and you know you’re controlling top position and you’re looking for the strikes while in Jiu Jitsu usually you
1:31:21
don’t want to strike you don’t want to cause damage to a guy past like maybe holding them in a submission and getting
1:31:27
them to quit you know I mean so it’s kind of a different thing it’s very interesting and you know now Jiu Jitsu is like equal man it’s it’s very
1:31:33
different where you go and different styles for different people too man some people might be really into a
1:31:38
self-defense thing it’s not for me but maybe they’re into it some people might really like the ghee for me I couldn’t
1:31:45
hold it very well because my hands so I was like man it’s not for me nogi was my thing right away man
1:31:51
yeah I was never a GE guy man I was never a gee Guy and um I always felt like it kind of leaned into like helping
1:31:57
the strong guy because if you have crazy strong grips yeah nogi it’s like I could spin around and do things and like I
1:32:03
could kind of work it’s also like not quite as practical I feel like in a lot of cases using Atlanta pens man the
1:32:10
biggest difference between two isn’t even necessarily the grips to me it’s the friction and the friction of the
1:32:15
ghee does change things and it really boils down to this if you want to get good at offense do nogi everything has
1:32:22
to be tighter in nogi so your submissions have to be much tighter because there is less friction people slip out more easily but if you’re used
1:32:29
to less friction your defense and your escapes don’t have to be as good they don’t be as technical you could try to
1:32:35
explode out of things and you know try to get things to slip oh and the key there’s you’re not going
1:32:40
to slip you know I mean there’s that friction so you have to be more technically minded on defense and uh you
1:32:47
know there’s nothing wrong with either one I have my favorite I think everybody should do a little bit of both but
1:32:53
I’m gonna tell you a focus on nogi I’m gonna tell you to come to Misfits to jiu jitsu in St Charles man Misfits Jiu
1:33:00
Jitsu come do some nogi man and uh you know that’s what that’s why I’m gonna
1:33:05
recommend to people yeah yeah get the get the stuff you’re not Chuck people throwing belts yeah yeah I just think
1:33:12
it’s more practical like almost like in like obviously it’s not like quite like self-defense Jutsu but like if you want to talk about like actual like
1:33:19
confrontation I think it’s like the most transferable thing well you know the thing I really like about nogi in the
1:33:24
ghee everybody’s wearing the belt and sometimes you’ll have a guy wearing like a higher belt sure and he’s not all that
1:33:30
good and nogi nobody’s wearing a belt you don’t know yeah you just walk around
1:33:35
the room you see who’s rolling you go man who’s doing really well I want the ears I know what that guy’s doing man
1:33:40
whoever’s doing really well and um you know some guys get the bell and you know book the part and you know they’re just
1:33:48
you work with them and it’s like guys he’s not that great he’s okay yeah and um you know sometimes you work with
1:33:54
somebody and in nogi you have no idea and you learn some really cool stuff from them and it’s like you find out oh
1:33:59
he’s like a purple belt or a blue belt and you know and if you had seen the ghee and seen him in uniform you might
1:34:06
have said I want to learn something from the higher belt true and it could be this guy’s better it could be this guy
1:34:11
is better at specific things you know what I mean and um you know it’s kind of like there’s no standard for belts and
1:34:17
it kind of comes down to your instructor and what they feel like the standard is some will have you memorize moves some
1:34:23
of them will tell you you have to win competition some of them you just show up every day putting the effort and some
1:34:29
of them are just punch a clock you know what I mean as long as you’re paying your dues you’re gonna get that belt you
1:34:35
just you pay membership long enough they’re gonna promote you that’s the thing yeah yeah and then you know you
1:34:40
get the belt and then comes time to roll you’re in trouble but um you know it’s like everybody has their own standard
1:34:46
and uh I can’t say I know exactly what Tim saw but I know Tim and uh man he’s
1:34:52
tough and I worked real hard and it’s a big compliment getting my black belt from him yeah in general like Jiu Jitsu
1:34:58
is the longest kind of like belt process out of like any martial art anyways yeah even like with the standards it still
1:35:05
takes much longer than something like karate or something in most cases you know to Belt up people ask me about
1:35:11
liking promote things like that um 12 years is average to get a black belt
1:35:16
really that’s average you know what I mean so you know it takes a long time man one of my buddies Matt he just got
1:35:23
his purple belt he was a blue belt for 14 years whoa that’s a problem with competitions too yeah you go in and like
1:35:30
you’ll you’ll face a blue belt but this dude’s been a blue belt for four years yeah he’s sandbagging hard yeah
1:35:35
you’ll get stuff like that you know what I mean and it’s kind of like at some point you should be like oh I want to move up and things like that but you
1:35:42
know I mean it’s just it comes down to that instructor’s standard and what are they focused on and um with my
1:35:48
instructor Tim you know he’s such a great guy man he works so hard he’s pushed me to get
1:35:54
better and better I’m very happy with that you know I mean I’m good with that yeah seems like a
1:35:59
cool guy Jim that place was nice due to murder yeah don’t let him get a hold of your neck man I got stories oh yeah I
1:36:06
could see that where we at about four minutes okay yeah man I’ll talk for a
1:36:13
couple more hours I’ll talk to you guys all day man I feel like again once I get started yeah I was so nervous coming in
1:36:19
here it’s not bad right dude I love it it’s fun oh it’s a thing like I knew I’d have fun once I settled in but I was so
1:36:25
nervous coming in bro like I was so scared I was like oh man and like I love
1:36:31
this stuff I love talk about I love talking about my students and these people I know they’re just like amazing
1:36:36
man I got so many cool people from like all walks of life and you look at the pictures and you’re like you could not
1:36:42
be standing next to two more different people you know what I mean I was staying next to my student John Berg who’s this giant bearded guy who does
1:36:49
like strongman competition and airside is my student Wayne and Wayne’s an older guy with a long ponytail always wearing
1:36:57
like Iron Maiden stuff and like they’re the nicest guys man but you would never think like the three of us would be like
1:37:02
hanging out but man we hit it off we get along so good you know I mean it’s like you hit all these random people they’re
1:37:08
just tight man I got like both sides of the political spectrum and I keep it out of my gym but you know I see the social
1:37:15
media posts and that all gets set aside and I love that and I’ve worked with like people that are millionaires I’ve
1:37:21
rolled with them and I’ve rolled with people that are like struggling working a nine to five doing like you know I got
1:37:27
guys working like doordash to come in and stuff like that and it’s just man I just appreciate how it brings people
1:37:33
together it’s a it’s like a slept on networking kind of thing like a lot of like a lot of people think like oh like if I want to do business I have to golf
1:37:39
yeah there’s also a lot of opportunity to like go to jiu jitsu and you learn a lot you can meet a lot of people who
1:37:44
like have companies or like you know could be doing whatever for you you know if you’re looking for a job Jiu Jitsu
1:37:49
might be a good place to find someone that can hire you yeah yeah people think it’s just golfing or like tennis or like
1:37:55
any of those like you know quote-unquote networking type of sports it’s pretty cool man yeah and once
1:38:01
you’ve like worked that hard and you’ve strangled each other and everything you gotta Bond it’s a little different it’s
1:38:07
true it’s a little different man yeah yeah you all get your ass kicked by the same guy or like I know your pain bro I
1:38:13
know your pain yeah and just uh shout out your gym again for everybody
1:38:18
um Misfits Jujitsu uh you can go at a again on space on this Misfits Jiu Jitsu
1:38:25
on Instagram you can also look us up on Facebook uh misfitsjujitsu.com we’re at 1150 North Avenue in St Charles Illinois
1:38:33
and um and then they can come in he’ll challenge you look at Gracie’s style man
1:38:39
I’ll roll with anybody and um man I’d love to have I’ve had some cool visitors lately I just had a guy from Maine come
1:38:45
through I had another guy come through through uh Jersey and just it’s so cool meeting other people they’re out after
1:38:51
it man they’re just friendly people and you know I always know like if we’re gonna be buddies if the guy comes in
1:38:57
he’s trying to look tough I’m like here we go you know what I mean like that’s
1:39:02
not what it’s about for me man this hasn’t been about fighting for a very long time for me yeah like sure that’s part of it but yeah you know it’s like a
1:39:10
side that’s a side effect of it that’s the side effect of it I just want to have fun man yeah and like I’m competitive I’m gonna get after it but
1:39:16
you know I want to have a good time yeah yeah when you’re in the gym it’s not about that yeah yeah anything happened like kind of like you say like if you’re
1:39:22
if you’re the gym don’t try to kill them if you’re competing snap his I mean you know and the thing is like I always
1:39:27
tell my guys give them a chance you know what I mean but like oh if they don’t tap you gotta go and if it’s in the gym
1:39:33
and somebody’s not tapping it’s one of my senior guys I’ll go very slow but yeah man I mean I’ll I’ll break
1:39:40
something if you don’t tap like you need to tap that’s your responsibility because if I let it go every time I’m like man I’m so good at arm bars
1:39:47
uh uh and you’re really you don’t really know you don’t even know if you could break it yeah you don’t know and you
1:39:52
know some mechanics like crazy it’s cool talking like where your hips got to be like The Leverage is cool oh there’s so many little tricks and like I’m still
1:39:58
learning yeah every day man I’m studying and like watching videos watching DVDs talking to other instructors and like
1:40:05
talking to all my students sometimes your students surprise you they just figure something out like man why didn’t I think of that and it’s like they all
1:40:12
build it it’s awesome man yeah that’s awesome that’s amazing I appreciate you coming on man that was awesome
1:40:17
conversation I enjoyed that a lot dude I feel I feel bad I feel like I show let you guys talk more like this interview
1:40:24
yeah I just just man I love talking about this stuff I’m so passionate about it and man I hope you guys come train
1:40:30
someday just stop out and hang with us man like just come hang you’ll have fun it’s not like you’re just gonna get beat
1:40:35
up you’re gonna have a good time dude but thank you guys so much
1:40:41
I’d like no gee better you know I like nogi better Dom where are you guys bro
1:40:46
we got Taco eggs I want Dom to come in with it do you still have your old ghee yeah but I was 20 when I stopped oh my
1:40:52
God yeah it’s so funny if you just came in with this gee like up to your knees and stuff it was like up to your elbows and you’re just like who’s rolling Excel
1:40:58
I did like a Taekwondo okay I do like a Taekwondo kind of thing and
1:41:04
like man I’m a hoarder I don’t throw anything out I got all kinds of stuff that like why would anyone keep this
1:41:09
thing you know I mean and I found that that uniform it’s like from when I was in like seventh grade You Gotta Wear it
1:41:14
in oh dude yeah I’m a fat guy in a little coat that one that’ll be fun we were uh for Christmas we had this like
1:41:20
thing at his gym and everyone wore like Santa Santa costumes like full-on like suits and hats and we all rolled in
1:41:27
like Santa costumes I was cooking in the sand suit and then on Halloween we do suit and tie rolls where’s the suit and
1:41:33
tie you just buy a crappy one from Goodwill because we’re gonna rip all the buttons off and rip the arms and legs off of it like it’s gonna end up in
1:41:39
pieces it’s so much fun man that is pretty cool a lot of guys a lot of guys do Jiu Jitsu
1:41:45
and they’re so serious all the time it’s like man take a minute and reflect that this is kind of silly like have some fun
1:41:51
you know what I mean you don’t have to just be competitive every time yeah like there was a point where I was just like
1:41:56
kind of burnt out and you know you get that way because I haven’t taken a break in 12 years and uh for a couple weeks my
1:42:02
goal was to pass people’s guard and then sit on them and I would just sit there doing this and I would do it over and
1:42:08
over and over again just for laughs man and uh I had a blast with it I learned some stuff but more than anything it
1:42:13
entertained me it kept me going and that was back at being more competitive after I got through the burnout you know yeah
1:42:19
that’s smart yes well thanks again yeah thank you everyone guys I appreciate it hey y’all learned something I hope you
1:42:25
guys as uh the second Jiu Jitsu podcast I hope you guys start to uh checking out gyms around you if you’re around here go
1:42:31
to Misfits yeah come train guys I love this stuff man and I want to meet some
1:42:37
more cool people so I just love it yeah just for watching appreciate you guys peace
