Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall,
00:00:02 one of the most insightful minds and systems thinkers
00:00:05 in the martial arts world.
00:00:07 He’s a black belt in jiu jitsu, accomplished competitor,
00:00:10 an MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC,
00:00:13 and truly a philosopher who seeks to understand
00:00:16 the underlying principles of the martial arts.
00:00:19 Jiu jitsu is such an important part of who I am,
00:00:22 and I was hoping to share that with folks
00:00:23 who might know me only as a researcher.
00:00:26 I think there’s no better person to do that with than Ryan,
00:00:29 who somehow, remarkably, I can say is a friend,
00:00:33 and also a modern day warrior philosopher
00:00:37 of the Miyamoto Masashi line of especially dangerous
00:00:40 and brilliant humans.
00:00:42 Also, his amazing wife, Jen Hall, was there as well,
00:00:46 so if you hear a kind of voice of wisdom coming from above,
00:00:50 you know who it is.
00:00:51 Quick summary of the sponsors,
00:00:53 PowerDot, Babbel, and Cash App.
00:00:56 Please check out the sponsors in the description
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00:01:01 As a side note, let me say that renaming this podcast
00:01:05 to just my name gave me intellectual freedom
00:01:09 that I really didn’t anticipate was so empowering,
00:01:12 especially for someone who’s trying to find their voice.
00:01:15 I hope you’ll allow me the chance to really try and do that,
00:01:18 to step outside of AI and even science, engineering,
00:01:21 history, and so on, and on occasion,
00:01:24 talk to athletes, musicians, writers,
00:01:28 and maybe even comedians who inspire me,
00:01:31 especially up and coming comedians and musicians
00:01:34 like Eric Weinstein, who yes,
00:01:36 we’ll do a third conversation with soon.
00:01:39 I think if I allow myself to expand the range
00:01:41 of these conversations on occasion,
00:01:43 when I do return to science and engineering,
00:01:45 I’ll bring a new perspective and also a little bit more fun
00:01:49 and a few extra listeners
00:01:51 that may not otherwise realize how fascinating
00:01:55 artificial intelligence, robotics, mathematics,
00:01:58 and engineering truly is.
00:02:00 All that said, please skip the episodes
00:02:03 that don’t interest you.
00:02:04 You don’t have to listen to all of them.
00:02:06 Trust me, as someone who is a bit or a lot OCD,
00:02:11 that idea is quite unpleasant.
00:02:13 But life, friends, is full of unpleasant things.
00:02:17 But as Hunter S. Thompson suggested,
00:02:19 and I suggest as well,
00:02:20 you should still buy the ticket and take the ride.
00:02:24 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
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00:02:34 As usual, I’ll do a few minutes of ads now
00:02:36 and no ads in the middle.
00:02:38 I try to make these interesting,
00:02:39 but I give you the timestamp,
00:02:41 so please skip if you don’t want to listen to the ads,
00:02:43 but it does mean a lot to me when you do.
00:02:45 And still please do check out the sponsors
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00:02:49 It really is the best way to support this podcast.
00:02:52 This show is sponsored by Power Dot.
00:02:55 Get it at PowerDot.com slash Lex
00:02:57 and use code Lex at checkout to get 20% off.
00:03:01 I use it for muscle recovery for legs and shoulders,
00:03:04 but you can also use it to build muscle,
00:03:06 endurance, or even just warm up.
00:03:09 In fact, I first heard about this kind of
00:03:11 electrical muscle stimulation device
00:03:13 in reading that Bruce Lee used it.
00:03:15 He was an inspiration to me
00:03:18 as someone who practices first principles thinking,
00:03:21 especially in a discipline
00:03:22 where conventional thinking is everywhere.
00:03:25 He created a martial art called Jeet Kune Do
00:03:27 that is in many ways, at least philosophically
00:03:30 in its hybrid approach,
00:03:31 a precursor to modern day mixed martial arts.
00:03:34 There’s a special kind of deep philosophical thinking
00:03:36 that combat athletes or jiu jitsu practitioners do
00:03:40 that is unlike any other.
00:03:42 I think it’s grounded in the humbling process
00:03:45 of getting your ass kicked a lot.
00:03:47 That removes any illusion of intellectual superiority.
00:03:51 I think the journey towards wisdom starts
00:03:53 when you humbly admit to yourself
00:03:55 that you know very little or almost nothing.
00:03:58 Anyway, go to PowerDot.com slash Lex
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00:04:07 This show is also sponsored by Babbel,
00:04:09 an app and website that gets you speaking
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00:04:13 Go to Babbel.com and use code Lex to get three months free.
00:04:17 They offer 14 languages, including Spanish, French,
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00:04:24 Let me read a few lines from a Russian song
00:04:26 by Vladimir Vysotsky called
00:04:28 Anna Bula V Parishe.
00:04:30 You’ll start to understand if you sign up to Babbel.
00:04:33 The song always made me smile,
00:04:46 because it resonates with my own life.
00:04:48 It translates loosely to she’s been to Paris.
00:04:52 Paris for a Russian, I suppose, symbolizing a fancy life
00:04:55 and that the guy can never quite fit into that kind of life.
00:04:58 Expensive things, nice restaurants, cars, all that.
00:05:02 I was thinking about what song’s equivalent in English,
00:05:04 maybe Uptown Girl by Billy Joe is similar in spirit,
00:05:08 but very different in style.
00:05:10 I just watched the video on YouTube for Uptown Girl
00:05:13 and it’s basically Billy Joe dressed up as a mechanic,
00:05:18 but dancing in a way that I’m pretty sure
00:05:20 no mechanic has ever danced,
00:05:22 turning the old cringe factor up to 11.
00:05:25 Anyway, I always felt like I didn’t really fit in
00:05:27 with the fancy people and that’s what this song represents.
00:05:30 But back to Babbel.
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00:06:00 I’ve been thinking of doing some kind of a little contest
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00:06:07 It’s not so much about the money,
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00:06:25 really, or maybe even just funny things related
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00:06:30 you might be watching or listening to me right now.
00:06:34 I’m pretty sure there’s somebody out there right now
00:06:37 sitting in a hot tub with some wine watching me say this.
00:06:41 I salute you, sir or madam.
00:06:44 I may be opening up some floodgates I deeply regret later,
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00:07:17 And now, here’s my conversation with Ryan Hall.
00:07:22 Who, in your view, is the greatest warrior in history?
00:07:25 Ancient or modern?
00:07:27 That’s a tough question, and again,
00:07:28 I’m no historian by any measure,
00:07:31 so I’ll probably do the worst.
00:07:32 It’s like, what are your best bands ever?
00:07:34 I’m like, Metallica, and you know, so I’ll pick the…
00:07:37 Metallica just came out with a new album,
00:07:39 by the way, with an entire orchestra.
00:07:41 That’s kind of cool.
00:07:42 Yeah. That’s important.
00:07:43 Metallica will always be one of the greatest.
00:07:45 Yeah, that’s right.
00:07:46 So I agree with you.
00:07:47 They were a bad example.
00:07:47 They were a well known, yet awesome band.
00:07:49 Let me say it’s like Nickelback or something like that.
00:07:50 I mean, that feels cheap
00:07:52 because everyone makes fun of Nickelback.
00:07:53 Yeah.
00:07:54 I guess it depends on how you want to define warrior.
00:07:56 Something that I think about
00:07:58 when it comes to trying to evaluate
00:08:00 various people or situations
00:08:02 or things that I’ve read about or heard about
00:08:04 are the circumstances that they were involved in
00:08:07 because I think a lot of times
00:08:09 it’s easy to look at the outcomes,
00:08:11 and obviously we live in an outcome driven world
00:08:13 and outcomes do matter,
00:08:14 but at the same time, you look at,
00:08:18 let’s say what Cuba’s been able to pull off
00:08:20 from a combat sports perspective, it’s staggering.
00:08:23 The amount of successful Olympic level competitors
00:08:26 they have in wrestling, boxing, judo.
00:08:29 I mean, they’re a tiny little island
00:08:31 with no money and no people.
00:08:32 That’s shocking.
00:08:33 You know, when you think about the Olympics
00:08:35 and the United States doing well,
00:08:36 of course we should do well.
00:08:37 I mean, Russia should do well.
00:08:39 China should do well.
00:08:40 India should do better than they do, honestly.
00:08:42 Obviously it means like they’re not into it as much
00:08:44 or at least certain sports
00:08:45 because they have the resources people wise.
00:08:48 So talent’s not going to be an issue.
00:08:49 So there’s something to like
00:08:51 where the starting point is.
00:08:53 Like that’s the argument with like,
00:08:56 why people say Maradona,
00:08:57 I don’t know if you’re into soccer, okay.
00:09:00 They say Maradona is better than Messi
00:09:03 because he basically carried the team
00:09:05 and won the World Cup with a team
00:09:07 that wouldn’t otherwise win the World Cup.
00:09:09 And then Messi was only successful in Barcelona
00:09:12 because he has like superstars,
00:09:15 he’s playing with other superstars.
00:09:17 Right.
00:09:18 Yeah, that’s fair to say.
00:09:19 I mean, like you’re not,
00:09:20 there’s a lot of factors that go into,
00:09:21 let’s say winning a soccer game.
00:09:23 And obviously Barcelona,
00:09:24 particularly for various points in time
00:09:26 had a ridiculous all star squad of world class players.
00:09:29 But let’s say for instance,
00:09:32 maybe they didn’t have the creative players in Argentina.
00:09:34 They needed to get the ball up to Messi.
00:09:36 They didn’t have like the NES
00:09:37 and again the backing there in the midfield.
00:09:41 But because obviously Argentina’s always had
00:09:44 ridiculous attacking players,
00:09:45 like even alongside Messi,
00:09:46 but they’re like the three killers up front
00:09:48 and then a little less behind.
00:09:50 So it’s interesting you say that
00:09:52 depends how you define warrior
00:09:54 because you can probably take like
00:09:55 some of the civil rights leaders,
00:09:57 you can go into that direction,
00:09:59 like leaders in general.
00:10:00 But if we just look at like
00:10:01 the greatest martial artists in history in that direction,
00:10:04 do you have somebody in mind?
00:10:05 I would say at least three that pop into my head
00:10:08 and would be Hannibal, Alexander the Great,
00:10:12 and then maybe Miyamoto Musashi,
00:10:14 the two commanders and then one guy.
00:10:18 But so it’s interesting.
00:10:21 And then again, you mentioned warriors
00:10:22 being able to make a lot out of a little.
00:10:25 Musashi’s famous for winning duels
00:10:27 that were oftentimes one on one.
00:10:31 The Alexander and Hannibal were military commanders
00:10:35 and one of them faced Rome.
00:10:36 And that was an interesting thing.
00:10:38 Oftentimes coming up with novel tactics,
00:10:40 different strategies, sometimes under resourced,
00:10:43 having to do novel and crazy things,
00:10:45 there’s skin in the game.
00:10:46 That’s an interesting thing too.
00:10:47 I think a lot of times it’s,
00:10:49 if you’re playing a video game,
00:10:50 I don’t think you can be a warrior
00:10:51 because there’s no skin in the game.
00:10:53 You get hurt, you lose, that’s a bummer.
00:10:56 It stings a little bit,
00:10:56 maybe it makes you feel slightly disappointed,
00:10:58 but Musashi loses, he loses.
00:11:02 Hannibal loses, he loses.
00:11:04 Alexander loses, he loses.
00:11:05 And they lose, I guess the people around them lose.
00:11:08 So that’s almost like you could use,
00:11:10 even from a combat sports perspective, Muhammad Ali,
00:11:13 I mean, you consider also their quality of opposition.
00:11:15 Musashi was fighting high quality opposition.
00:11:17 Obviously Hannibal and Alexander, particularly Hannibal,
00:11:20 were fighting unbelievable opposition.
00:11:22 Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition,
00:11:25 but he had skin in the game both in the ring and out.
00:11:27 And that actually meshes with, as you mentioned,
00:11:29 like a civil rights type of situation
00:11:31 where you are under resourced,
00:11:32 you’re pushing the stone uphill.
00:11:35 And that was a neat thing I think about Muhammad Ali
00:11:37 was how much personal conviction the man had to have
00:11:41 in order to pull off what he was able to pull off
00:11:42 both in and outside of the ring.
00:11:44 And that reminds me of, again,
00:11:46 some of the other great leaders
00:11:47 or great fighters throughout history.
00:11:48 So what do you make of the kind of very difficult idea
00:11:53 that some of these conquerors like Alexander the Great
00:11:56 and somebody that, if you listen to Hardcore History,
00:12:00 oh, Dan Carlin, who apparently Elon Musk
00:12:04 is also a big fan of, is the Genghis Khan episode.
00:12:07 A large percent of the world can call Genghis Khan
00:12:18 an ancestor.
00:12:20 So the difficult truth is about some of these conquerors
00:12:24 is that there’s a lot of murder and rape and pillage
00:12:28 and stealing of resources and all that kind of stuff.
00:12:32 And yet they’re often remembered as quite honorable.
00:12:37 I mean, in the case of Genghis Khan,
00:12:38 there’s a lot of people who argue,
00:12:39 if you look at historically the way it’s described
00:12:44 in full context, is he was ultimately,
00:12:49 given the time, he was a liberator.
00:12:52 He was a progressive, I should say.
00:12:57 In terms of the violence and the atrocities he committed,
00:13:02 he, at least in the stories, has always provided the option
00:13:06 of not to do that.
00:13:07 It’s only if you resist, do,
00:13:10 so you basically have the option,
00:13:11 do you wanna join us or do you want to die?
00:13:14 And die horribly.
00:13:17 That’s the progressive sort of,
00:13:19 that’s the Bernie Sanders of the era.
00:13:21 Nice.
00:13:22 So what do you make of that?
00:13:24 That there’s so much of these great conquerors,
00:13:27 there’s so much murder that to us now would just seem insane.
00:13:33 It’s funny you mention it.
00:13:34 I think that maybe it’s a human nature thing
00:13:37 that we want to, or maybe a misunderstanding thing
00:13:40 that we want to cast all of our characters and ourselves
00:13:44 maybe as entirely good or as entirely negative
00:13:47 when I guess the phrase or the saying,
00:13:50 one man’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist,
00:13:54 is accurate.
00:13:55 And a lot of times I think you can understand
00:13:57 as long as you’re able to look
00:13:59 from various people’s perspective.
00:14:00 Like if you look at the TV show, The Wire,
00:14:03 which was obviously widely, everybody loves The Wire.
00:14:06 I thought that there were everyone,
00:14:08 I’m not saying anything that’s not been said before,
00:14:10 compelling characters from all angles,
00:14:11 whether you like the character, dislike the character,
00:14:13 you were able to understand the motivations of people
00:14:16 doing various things.
00:14:17 Even if they did wrongly, they did rightly.
00:14:20 We want to cast all of the demons throughout history
00:14:23 as completely inhuman when I think that makes it difficult
00:14:27 for us to understand them.
00:14:27 And we want to look back at the people
00:14:30 that we think of as great and entirely great.
00:14:33 And I think that we’re experiencing the problems with this
00:14:37 even right now, socially and politically
00:14:38 as we’re trying to look back and decide
00:14:40 the people we thought were good or not good
00:14:41 or people we thought were bad are now good
00:14:43 rather than going, hey, there’s good and bad to all things.
00:14:46 And there are, as you mentioned, the Genghis Khan thing,
00:14:49 you don’t have to fight back.
00:14:52 You do, I respect you for it,
00:14:53 but then we’re gonna have a conflict
00:14:54 and then we’ll see what happens.
00:14:56 And if you lose, you’re gonna be sorry that you did
00:14:58 because I have to make it that way.
00:14:59 If I want to continue utilizing this kind of MO
00:15:02 because I need to discourage the next guy
00:15:05 from doing what you’re doing right now.
00:15:07 And ultimately though, I guess that’s an interesting thing.
00:15:10 Imagine you put every single person
00:15:11 on planet earth in a cage, crime drops, all sorts.
00:15:16 There are certain positives to that.
00:15:18 And it’s just, things are as they are, it’s difficult,
00:15:23 but that is ultimately more the law of the jungle.
00:15:25 And I think that we’re able to supersede some of that now
00:15:27 in modern times and I think we’re fortunate.
00:15:30 But as you mentioned, we look back and say,
00:15:32 oh, this is horrible.
00:15:33 Say, no, that just is what it is.
00:15:35 That’s how life is at a base level.
00:15:37 And again, if you’re a lion and I’m a gazelle,
00:15:40 I don’t really like it very much,
00:15:42 but we don’t call the lion the bad guy.
00:15:44 We don’t sanctify the gazelle or the other way around.
00:15:47 So it’s just, it’s interesting when you pull back
00:15:50 some of the controls that we put on our behavior
00:15:53 and in modern life,
00:15:54 which I think are generally speaking positive,
00:15:56 we get down to how things often are.
00:15:59 And at the same time, we could,
00:16:02 modern life was built by people like Genghis Khan.
00:16:06 So then you get down to the ends justifying the means.
00:16:09 It’s a tough question.
00:16:10 These aren’t things with easy answers,
00:16:11 or at least if they are, I certainly don’t have the smarts
00:16:14 to figure out the answers to them, but it’s difficult.
00:16:18 I would just say people in the world are complicated
00:16:20 and layered and depending upon which side of the line
00:16:22 you’re standing on at various times,
00:16:23 you may like or dislike someone,
00:16:26 but I can’t remember whose idea it was,
00:16:30 this is killing me, but it’s the veil of ignorance,
00:16:31 I guess, the philosophical idea of the veil of ignorance
00:16:36 where I go, is sticking everyone in the cage
00:16:39 the right thing to do?
00:16:41 Or everyone but me, and I say, well, no, why?
00:16:43 Well, it would make my life easier
00:16:44 if I just went over and took all of your stuff
00:16:46 as long as you couldn’t stop me.
00:16:47 I mean, of course that’s a great idea.
00:16:48 That’s what everyone does in every video game.
00:16:50 But in Skyrim, you steal stuff when people aren’t around.
00:16:53 But ultimately you go, well,
00:16:56 this isn’t the right thing to do
00:16:57 because if I were on the other side of it,
00:16:59 I would not appreciate it.
00:17:00 It’s inherently not a good thing to do.
00:17:02 I’m only doing it because I think I’m gonna win.
00:17:04 And that’s a fine way to be,
00:17:06 but you don’t have the white hat on, I guess I would say.
00:17:08 So I think without those philosophical underpinnings
00:17:12 to rein us in, I guess, morally speaking,
00:17:15 it’s very difficult to say what’s right or wrong.
00:17:17 And you’d say certain actions have a reaction,
00:17:20 almost like a physics sense.
00:17:21 If you kill everyone in your way
00:17:24 for as long as you’re able to, your life will be easier.
00:17:27 I mean, you’re setting the table for someone
00:17:29 doing the same to you when you’re no longer the tough guy,
00:17:31 but it is what it is.
00:17:32 Yeah, if you look at like the Instagram channel,
00:17:35 nature is metal, it hurts my heart to watch,
00:17:39 to remind me, a comfortable descendant of ape,
00:17:44 how vicious nature is, just unapologetically, just,
00:17:52 I mean, there’s a process to it where the bad guy always wins.
00:17:58 The violence is the solution to most problems,
00:18:04 or the flip side of that running away from violence
00:18:07 is the solution depending on your skillset.
00:18:10 And it’s funny to think of us humans
00:18:12 with our extra little piece of brain
00:18:15 that we’re somehow trying to figure out,
00:18:17 like you said, in a philosophical way,
00:18:18 how to supersede that, how to like move past the viciousness,
00:18:23 the cruelty, just the cold exchange of nature.
00:18:30 But perhaps it’s not so, maybe that is nature,
00:18:33 maybe that’s the way of life, maybe we’re trying too hard to,
00:18:38 we’re being too egotistical and thinking we’re somehow
00:18:43 separate from nature, we’re somehow distant
00:18:45 from that very thing.
00:18:46 I couldn’t agree with you more.
00:18:47 In fact, I think actually Orson Scott Card,
00:18:49 who’s the writer of a great book called Ender’s Game,
00:18:53 this was a statement that the main character,
00:18:56 Ender, made in the book.
00:18:58 His brother was brilliant.
00:19:00 His brother was like kind of sociopathic brilliant kid
00:19:04 that ended up kicked out of the school
00:19:05 that they were all into for Battle Commander.
00:19:07 Dealing with his brother taught him that ultimately strength,
00:19:10 courage, the ability to do violence
00:19:12 for all the good and the bad of that
00:19:14 is one of the fundamental most important things
00:19:16 to be able to do in life,
00:19:17 because if you can’t cause destruction,
00:19:19 if you can’t cause pain,
00:19:20 you will be forever subject to those who can.
00:19:23 And I think that you mentioned egotism.
00:19:25 I think that that’s a disease
00:19:26 that could obviously strike any of us,
00:19:28 but it’s something that we’re looking at now.
00:19:29 We’re, I think we should be unbelievably thankful
00:19:33 as people that live in the world that we do
00:19:35 that we can walk down the street
00:19:36 without having to worry that I’m like,
00:19:38 well, don’t worry that that’s six foot six,
00:19:40 270 pound person over there is just gonna leave me alone.
00:19:43 And I have a Rolex on, but whatever, I’ll be fine.
00:19:45 Because that person is deciding to leave me alone
00:19:47 because we’ve all agreed to live in this relatively sane
00:19:51 and or constrained society because it benefits all of us.
00:19:54 And we’re doing it because of a philosophical underpinning,
00:19:57 not because nature dictates it be that way,
00:19:59 because nature dictates it go in a very,
00:20:01 very different direction.
00:20:02 And the only person,
00:20:03 the only thing stopping that person
00:20:04 from doing something to me is either me, that person,
00:20:08 or someone else that will stand in between us.
00:20:10 And if I can’t do it,
00:20:11 and there’s no one there to stand in between us,
00:20:13 then the only thing stopping that person is that person.
00:20:16 And I have to hope that they’re either disinterested
00:20:19 or disinclined to do that sort of thing.
00:20:21 And I think that it’s keeping in mind
00:20:24 that that is the fundamental nature of the world,
00:20:27 whether we like it or not is important.
00:20:30 And I think the quest to fundamentally alter human nature
00:20:34 is gonna be ultimately fruitless.
00:20:36 And then also it’s, it is a little bit egotistical.
00:20:38 A lion does what a lion does.
00:20:40 We can try to box it in and we can try to guide
00:20:44 this direction, that direction.
00:20:45 But nature is as it is and as it always will be
00:20:49 unless we wanna start to constrain it significantly.
00:20:52 But now I’m starting to get into individual rights
00:20:55 who put me in charge,
00:20:56 who says that I should be the one
00:20:57 to make the choices constraining
00:20:58 because many of the most awful things
00:21:00 that have happened throughout history,
00:21:02 one group or one person has decided to constrain others.
00:21:05 And we don’t like Genghis Khan doing that.
00:21:08 Well, I’ll do that on a little level.
00:21:10 Are there gonna be benefits and beneficiaries?
00:21:12 Absolutely, but there’ll be losers in that too.
00:21:15 So I guess it’s a dangerous game.
00:21:16 It’s almost like putting on the one ring.
00:21:17 You remember when Frodo offered the one ring to Gandalf
00:21:20 and Gandalf said, no, no, I would take it away.
00:21:23 I would put it on.
00:21:24 I would use it out of the desire to do good.
00:21:26 But through me, it would wield a power so terrible
00:21:28 you can’t imagine.
00:21:29 I think that’s the big question for anyone that decides
00:21:33 that’s able to have reach and able to have power.
00:21:36 I mean, obviously I can’t speak to that,
00:21:38 but imagine you did have national level,
00:21:41 global level power.
00:21:42 How would you use it?
00:21:43 Would you try to change the world?
00:21:45 Would you be glad that you did down the line?
00:21:47 I don’t know.
00:21:48 Yeah, that’s the thing we’re struggling now as a society.
00:21:52 Maybe it’d be nice to get your quick comment on that,
00:21:54 which is the people who have traditionally been powerless
00:21:59 are now seeking a fairer society, a more equal society.
00:22:05 And in attaining more power justly,
00:22:12 there’s also a realization, at least from my perspective,
00:22:16 that power corrupts everyone.
00:22:18 Even if the flag you wave is that of justice, right?
00:22:26 And so, not to overuse the term, but it’d be nice
00:22:31 if you have thoughts about the whole idea of cancel culture
00:22:34 and the internet and Twitter and so on,
00:22:39 where there’s nuanced, difficult discussions of race,
00:22:45 of gender, of fairness, equality, justice,
00:22:51 all of these kinds of things.
00:22:53 There’s a shouting down oftentimes of nuanced discussion
00:22:57 of kind of trying to reason through these very difficult issues,
00:23:04 through our history, through what our future looks like.
00:23:07 Do you have thoughts about the internet discourse
00:23:10 that’s going on now?
00:23:11 Is there something positive?
00:23:12 Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting thing to see.
00:23:16 I guess, as you mentioned,
00:23:19 anytime you’re wielding power, whomever you are,
00:23:22 doing so carefully is important.
00:23:24 And it’s very, very easy to look at the people that have power
00:23:28 and that are using it poorly or have used it poorly
00:23:31 and go, hey, you’re the bad guy.
00:23:33 And then go, well, of course, if I had power,
00:23:35 I’ll use it properly and I may intend to use it properly
00:23:38 and maybe I will.
00:23:38 But at the same time, we see a lot of times
00:23:43 people are people are people.
00:23:44 I think that a lot of the…
00:23:48 I think if you believe that human beings are all one,
00:23:52 which I do, no matter whether you’re here or there,
00:23:54 you got two arms, two legs, a heart, a brain,
00:23:57 we all live a similar experience.
00:24:00 And obviously, with variations on a theme,
00:24:02 but you’re no less a human being.
00:24:05 If you’re a person I’ve never met from China,
00:24:07 than some person in Virginia, we’re all people.
00:24:12 And I guess, ultimately, if I believe that human beings
00:24:14 are corruptible and that power corrupts
00:24:16 and that we’re all fallible and we say and do things
00:24:19 that either intentionally or unintentionally
00:24:22 that we wish we’d not, I think that I have to allow
00:24:28 for a space, I guess the word, it’s almost a religious term,
00:24:31 but I guess I would just say grace.
00:24:33 And that’s something that I see disappearing from discourse
00:24:36 in the public, or maybe it wasn’t there, I’m not sure,
00:24:39 but it’s interesting watching this occur on the internet
00:24:42 because also now no longer are you and I just having a talk
00:24:45 sitting on a bus stop, it’s now in writing.
00:24:48 Everything’s in writing.
00:24:49 The old saying, don’t put that in writing.
00:24:51 You’re like, don’t put anything in writing.
00:24:52 That’s how you get in trouble.
00:24:53 And basically, with the degree to which everything
00:24:57 is recorded, but recorded in tiny little bites,
00:24:59 it’s very, very easy for me to wave every last little foolish,
00:25:02 ignorant, incorrect, or correct thing that someone
00:25:05 has ever said or done in their face to support whatever
00:25:08 argument that I’m trying to make about them or a situation.
00:25:11 And I think that you mentioned cancel culture,
00:25:15 as it seems to exist.
00:25:16 Obviously, this is poisonous on its face.
00:25:17 This is poisonous.
00:25:20 It’s the sort of thing that doesn’t incentivize
00:25:22 proper behavior.
00:25:23 I mean, you look at, let’s say one of the great monsters
00:25:26 of history, Adolf Hitler, obviously, who’s done awful,
00:25:30 awful things, but also for anyone that’s even a minor
00:25:33 student of history, did some positive things as well.
00:25:36 I don’t have to embroider this person’s crimes.
00:25:39 I don’t have to act as if there was nothing good a monster has
00:25:43 ever done and nothing bad that a great person throughout history
00:25:46 has ever done.
00:25:47 But imagine the ghost of Adolf Hitler were to pop up and go,
00:25:50 oh, my gosh, guys, I’m so sorry.
00:25:52 I know what I’ve done, but I’d like to apologize and start
00:25:55 to make it right.
00:25:56 Well, I mean, you’d hope that if he popped up over here,
00:25:59 you’d go, well, I don’t really like what you’ve done.
00:26:01 And I don’t like you.
00:26:02 But at the same time, I’m glad to hear that you’re attempting
00:26:04 to make this right and push in a positive direction, even if
00:26:07 you can’t make it right.
00:26:08 Because otherwise, what am I doing?
00:26:09 I’m disincentivizing change for the better.
00:26:12 I’m looking to wield whatever power I have in a punitive
00:26:15 fashion, which does not encourage people to do anything
00:26:19 other than double down on the wrongs that they’ve made,
00:26:22 knowing that at least they’re going to have some support from
00:26:24 the people that support that.
00:26:26 And I guess I want to, you would hopefully look at the use
00:26:30 of the internet as a tool that can educate, and I guess I
00:26:34 don’t like the word empower, but empower people to do various
00:26:36 things, extend their reach, but educate and learn rather than
00:26:40 to further solidify little tribal things that exist, which
00:26:44 I think everyone in humanity and human history is vulnerable
00:26:47 to.
00:26:47 I mean, look at the course of human history.
00:26:48 It’s deeply tribal.
00:26:50 And the tribes or the groups that have been on top at various
00:26:53 points in time have done a lot of times bad things to the
00:26:56 ones that have not.
00:26:57 And you’d hope that we could learn lessons from the past
00:27:00 and rather than committing the crimes that were committed
00:27:04 against us, recommitting them when we slide into the top
00:27:07 position, say, I could do this now, but I’ll not.
00:27:12 I understand the urge to seek vengeance is strong.
00:27:15 Anyone that says differently, I wouldn’t trust.
00:27:18 But at the same time, we have enough experience in history,
00:27:21 enough experience in life, enough hopefully wisdom time in
00:27:25 to go, this isn’t the right answer.
00:27:27 This is only going to replay the things.
00:27:29 The worst parts of our history, not the best.
00:27:31 And I want to encourage positive behavior.
00:27:34 And if I just, again, further lash out at people, although
00:27:37 understandably, done understandably, I’m simply just
00:27:41 going to just perpetuate the cycle that’s gone on to this
00:27:43 point.
00:27:44 So you hope that even though we’re seeing a lot of turmoil
00:27:47 societally at the moment and globally at the moment, that I
00:27:51 guess our better angels can prevail at a certain point.
00:27:53 But it’s going to take a great deal of leadership.
00:27:55 And I think that we’re sorely missing like a Martin Luther
00:27:58 King style character at the moment or a great leader.
00:28:01 And I’m hoping that one will show up.
00:28:04 For sure.
00:28:05 And by the way, a word I don’t hear often, and I think it’s
00:28:08 a beautiful one, which is grace.
00:28:10 That’s a really interesting word.
00:28:11 I’m going to have to think about that.
00:28:13 There is a religious component to it, but it’s exactly right.
00:28:18 You have to somehow walk the line between, you know, you
00:28:23 mentioned Hitler.
00:28:24 I’ve been reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
00:28:28 I’m really thinking about the 1930s and what it’s like to
00:28:33 have economic.
00:28:36 My concern is the economic pain that people are feeling now
00:28:41 quietly is really a suffering that’s not being heard.
00:28:46 And there’s echoes of that in the 20s and the 30s with the
00:28:50 Great Depression.
00:28:52 And there’s a hunger for a charismatic leader.
00:28:55 Like you said, there’s a leader that could walk with grace,
00:29:00 could inspire, could bring people together with sort of dreams
00:29:07 of a better future that’s positive.
00:29:09 But Hitler did exactly everything that I just said, except
00:29:14 for the word positive, which is he did give a dream to the
00:29:18 German people who were great people, who are great people
00:29:21 of a better future.
00:29:25 It’s just that a certain point that quickly turned into the
00:29:31 better future requires literally expansion of more land.
00:29:37 It started with, well, if we want to build a great Germany,
00:29:42 we need a little bit more land.
00:29:44 And so we need to kind of get Austria, then we need to kind
00:29:49 of get France, mostly because France doesn’t understand that
00:29:55 more land is really useful.
00:29:56 So we need to get rid of them.
00:29:57 And look what they did to us in Versailles anyway.
00:30:01 But so the Jewish, the Holocaust is a separate thing.
00:30:09 I don’t know.
00:30:12 Well, I don’t know.
00:30:12 I don’t know what to think of it because so me being Jewish
00:30:15 and having a lot of the echoes of the suffering is in my
00:30:21 family or the people that are lost.
00:30:24 I don’t know because Hitler wrote all about it in Mein Kampf.
00:30:28 So I don’t know if the evil he committed was there all along.
00:30:32 I mean, and that’s where the question of forgiveness, I mean,
00:30:36 Hitler is such a difficult person to talk about, but it’s
00:30:39 the question of cancer culture, who is deserving of forgiveness
00:30:46 and who is not like the Holocaust survivors that I’ve read
00:30:50 about that I’ve heard the interviews with.
00:30:53 They’ve often spoken about the fact that the way for them
00:30:58 to let go, to overcome the atrocities that they’ve experienced
00:31:05 is to forgive.
00:31:05 Like forgiveness is the way out for them.
00:31:09 It’s interesting to think about.
00:31:11 I don’t know if we’re even as a society ready to even
00:31:15 contemplate an idea of forgiveness for Hitler.
00:31:19 It’s an interesting idea though.
00:31:21 It’s a good thought exercise at the very least to think about
00:31:26 like all these people that are being canceled for doing bad
00:31:31 things of different degrees.
00:31:33 Think of like Louis CK or somebody like that for being
00:31:36 not a good person, but like, what is the path for forgiveness?
00:31:40 And also what’s a good person?
00:31:41 What is a good person?
00:31:43 If that’s a sliding scale that we could all find ourselves
00:31:46 looking at the uncomfortable end of a gun on, you know,
00:31:49 particularly down the line.
00:31:50 I mean, you hope for the best, but these definitions, I guess,
00:31:53 like you said, are important and who’s doing the canceling,
00:31:56 who’s being canceled.
00:31:57 I’m not necessarily, as you said, saying that that’s entirely
00:32:00 unjustified or certainly not, it’s certainly understandable.
00:32:03 And particularly you mentioned like a monster, like an Adolf
00:32:05 Hitler, but it’s also interesting.
00:32:07 I couldn’t help but notice, like you mentioned as a society,
00:32:10 us being able to apply forgiveness to someone who’s
00:32:13 done so much horror, but people who are personal, I mean,
00:32:17 of course, many of us, so many people in person affected,
00:32:18 but directly personally affected someone, a survivor of the
00:32:21 Holocaust being able to let go on that.
00:32:24 I’m nowhere near big enough a person for that sort of thing.
00:32:27 But I guess that’s an interesting thing, you know, being
00:32:31 the person who was physically there, potentially able to
00:32:35 let go, I don’t know, that’s unbelievably powerful.
00:32:39 It’s interesting.
00:32:40 I guess you have to wonder sometimes, and this isn’t
00:32:42 obviously in regards to the Holocaust, but why I’m holding
00:32:47 on to various things, have I, what is it doing for me and
00:32:50 what is it doing to me?
00:32:51 Is it facilitative, is it not?
00:32:53 And I guess that’s something else that I really want to
00:32:55 talk about, something else that I really enjoy.
00:32:57 When I was on Ultimate Fighter, they don’t let you have any
00:33:01 music or any books.
00:33:02 I didn’t have religious texts, so I brought a Bible and I
00:33:04 brought a Quran and I started to read them side by side.
00:33:06 And it was really interesting reading.
00:33:08 The Bible’s a little drier, the Quran’s more interesting,
00:33:11 at least written.
00:33:11 But I think something that was consistently brought up was
00:33:17 the way, most merciful.
00:33:20 People want, I don’t think any of us want justice.
00:33:22 We think we want justice, but I don’t think we want justice.
00:33:25 This is a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game, because maybe
00:33:28 this person’s wronged me deeply and I want justice.
00:33:31 I want to balance it out, because what is justice if not
00:33:32 a balancing of the scales?
00:33:34 And sometimes you can understand it on a societal
00:33:36 level, I think it’s fine.
00:33:36 I mean, there’s crime and punishment and we can go for
00:33:39 the benefits and the drawbacks of that.
00:33:41 But I think what any of us want is mercy within reason, grace,
00:33:46 as you mentioned, because justice is a very, very, very
00:33:48 dangerous thing and it’s a valuable and important thing.
00:33:51 But who gets to decide what’s just, what justice is actually
00:33:55 meted out?
00:33:55 Maybe I get to meet out justice, but it’s not, I don’t get
00:33:57 my comeuppance.
00:33:58 Well, that sounds great, but what happens when it’s pointed
00:34:00 back at me?
00:34:02 And I guess that comes back to the veil of ignorance, the
00:34:05 idea that one day I will have to live in the world in which
00:34:08 I’ve envisioned and the world in which I’ve created.
00:34:11 I think that a lot of times people love the idea of they’re
00:34:15 a judge for your crimes and a lawyer for theirs.
00:34:18 And I heard that the other day.
00:34:19 I thought that was great.
00:34:20 And I think that’s a dangerous thing and hopefully it gives
00:34:23 us all pause before rightly or wrongly, but always understandably
00:34:29 wielding serious power.
00:34:30 Yeah.
00:34:31 Justice is a kind of drug.
00:34:32 So if you look at history, I’ve also been reading a lot
00:34:35 about Stalin.
00:34:36 I mean, all those folks really, I don’t know what was inside
00:34:42 Hitler’s head actually that he’s a tricky one because I think
00:34:45 he was legitimately insane.
00:34:47 Stalin was not.
00:34:48 And Stalin was like, he literally thought he’s doing a good
00:34:53 thing.
00:34:54 He literally thought for the entirety of the time that communism
00:34:59 is going to bring, like that’s the utopia and he’s going to
00:35:03 create a happy world.
00:35:05 And in his, in his mind were ideas of justice, of fairness,
00:35:13 of happiness, of, of yeah, human flourishing.
00:35:19 And that’s, that’s a drug and it’s somehow sadly pollutes the
00:35:23 mind when you start thinking like that, what’s good for
00:35:26 society and believing that you have a good sense of what’s
00:35:30 good for society.
00:35:32 That’s intoxicating, especially when others around you are
00:35:35 feeling the same way.
00:35:36 And then you start like building up this movement and you
00:35:40 forget that you are just like, you’re, you’re like barely
00:35:45 recently evolved from an ape.
00:35:46 Like you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.
00:35:48 And then you start like killing witches or whatever.
00:35:51 Like you start, you start doing.
00:35:52 They did math.
00:35:53 Let’s be honest though.
00:35:54 I mean, sometimes you got a witch has to go.
00:35:56 Yeah.
00:35:56 We can all agree that a witch, a witch has to go if, if it
00:36:00 floats or sinks, which one, I forget which one.
00:36:02 Whichever one we need at the time, honestly.
00:36:04 Is it floating?
00:36:05 It should have sunk.
00:36:07 Yeah, but yeah, we can definitely agree that witches
00:36:09 have to go because you brought it up.
00:36:13 I tweeted recently, but also just, I’m one of the things
00:36:18 I’m really ashamed of in my life is I haven’t really read
00:36:22 almost any of the sci fi classics.
00:36:24 Really?
00:36:25 Yeah.
00:36:25 So like I, my whole journey through reading was through
00:36:29 like the literary philosophers that would say like Camus,
00:36:35 Hase, Dostoevsky, Kafka, like that place, like that’s a kind
00:36:41 of sci fi world in itself, but it’s, it just, it creates a
00:36:47 world in which the, the deepest questions about human nature
00:36:53 can be explored.
00:36:55 I didn’t realize this, but the sci fi world is the same.
00:37:00 It just puts it in a, it like removes it from any kind of
00:37:03 historical context where you can explore those same ideas
00:37:07 in like space somewhere elsewhere in a different time,
00:37:09 a different place.
00:37:10 It allows you almost like more freedom to like construct
00:37:13 these artificial things where you can just do crazy, crazy
00:37:17 kind of human experiments.
00:37:19 So I’m now working through it.
00:37:21 The books on my list are the foundation series by
00:37:25 Isaac Asimov, Dune, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and
00:37:32 Ender’s Game, like you mentioned.
00:37:34 That’s just kind of, and then, so I posted that.
00:37:37 And then of course, like Elon Musk, John Carmack, I don’t
00:37:41 know if you know him, creator of Doom and Quake.
00:37:43 Oh, cool.
00:37:44 See, they all pitched in these nerds, these ultra nerds
00:37:47 just started like going like these, you need to read this,
00:37:52 that and the other.
00:37:53 So I’ve like started working out.
00:37:55 Okay.
00:37:56 But it seems like the list I’ve mentioned holds up somewhat.
00:38:00 Is there a book?
00:38:01 Is there sci fi books or series or authors that you find
00:38:10 are just amazing?
00:38:11 Maybe another way to ask that is like, what’s the greatest
00:38:13 sci fi book of all time?
00:38:15 Well, I’d like to start by sharing something that I’m
00:38:18 embarrassed about is that I haven’t read anything other
00:38:21 than, you know, Orson Scott Card, J.R. Tolkien,
00:38:26 Frank Herbert Tolkien.
00:38:28 Yeah, I’m aware through Wikipedia and through surface
00:38:33 reading of things that like a book called the Republic
00:38:36 was written once.
00:38:38 There were some other…
00:38:39 Do you read Wikipedia?
00:38:40 You’re a prolific reader of Wikipedia articles.
00:38:43 Well, or occasional.
00:38:45 Occasional reader.
00:38:46 Exactly.
00:38:47 In between whatever else it is that I waste my time on.
00:38:50 But yeah, so I also, I should say, I posted on Reddit
00:38:53 questions for Ryan Hall and there’s like a million
00:38:57 questions, but like half of them have to do with Dune.
00:39:01 No, not really.
00:39:01 But like people bring up Dune.
00:39:03 I don’t understand why.
00:39:05 Did you mention Dune before?
00:39:06 Well, actually, we actually have a showy role actually
00:39:08 made us a Gi, a Dune themed Gi one time, which I thought
00:39:11 was kind of cool.
00:39:12 I’ll send you.
00:39:12 I’ll give you one.
00:39:13 We got extra stuff.
00:39:14 But actually, to your point, actually, this is Orson Scott
00:39:17 Card quote, actually the writer of Ender’s Game.
00:39:20 Fiction, because it’s not about somebody who actually
00:39:22 lived in the real world always has the possibility of being
00:39:25 about oneself.
00:39:26 And I think that’s a neat thing because I have heard other
00:39:30 people whom I respect and very sharp people actually every
00:39:33 now and then dig their heels and going, I don’t like fiction.
00:39:35 I only like nonfiction.
00:39:36 It’s more instructive.
00:39:37 And I would go, I completely disagree with that.
00:39:39 I think we have a hard enough time figuring out what happened
00:39:41 at 711 three hours ago that, let me tell you what happened
00:39:45 600 years BC.
00:39:47 I’m like, hey, I’m interested.
00:39:48 But don’t tell me this isn’t a story too.
00:39:49 Yeah.
00:39:50 There’s factual components, I have no doubt.
00:39:54 But we struggle sometimes to like, I guess what I like
00:39:57 about fiction is that you can tell me a story.
00:40:00 It’s all about people.
00:40:01 I mean, every now there’s more and less believable things.
00:40:04 And I think Dune would be an unbelievably well written,
00:40:06 in my opinion, for to run, what do I know?
00:40:09 But I really liked doing, I’ll say that well written example
00:40:12 of human beings interacting with one another, the political
00:40:15 component to that, the emotional, the intellectual, the
00:40:18 relationship components, all of that.
00:40:20 And I think that Dune is neat because it’s a sci fi, not
00:40:23 a sci fi novel, but only in the only in the loosest sense.
00:40:26 It’s really a story about religion, about group dynamics,
00:40:31 about human potential, about belief, learning, politics,
00:40:38 governance, ecology.
00:40:40 It’s the best stories remind me of history the same way
00:40:44 history hopefully is not just a list of facts that I try to be
00:40:48 able to recall or factoids that I try to recall, but a story
00:40:52 that I can understand and see how the threads of time kind
00:40:57 of came together and created certain things.
00:40:59 And a lot of times, like we say, I’m like, how the heck is
00:41:01 what’s going on right now or 100 years from now or 100 years
00:41:04 in the past happened.
00:41:04 And you can look back far enough.
00:41:06 If we had accurate knowledge, if we had that hypothetical
00:41:09 perfect pool shot at the beginning of time, we would see
00:41:13 an unbroken chain of events that led us to where we are and
00:41:16 where we are will potentially lead us to where we’re going,
00:41:18 which is, again, why hindsight is helpful.
00:41:20 But I think it’s neat.
00:41:20 Like, I guess I really enjoy, for instance, a book like
00:41:23 Dune, and they’re actually making a movie out of it, which
00:41:25 I’m skeptical of, to be honest, because it’s going to be
00:41:28 difficult to bring that to the screen for a variety of
00:41:31 reasons, but there’s at least a hundred questions.
00:41:33 Ask Ryan, what do you think about the new Dune movie?
00:41:36 I am not enough of an authority to have any sort of decent
00:41:39 opinion, but I guess what I would say is so much of it
00:41:40 goes on in the character’s mind.
00:41:41 Like how much of any of our days is any lived experience,
00:41:45 as it were, is internal, but the majority, how many times
00:41:49 are people walking around and, you know, they’re like, hey,
00:41:52 what do you see right now?
00:41:52 I’m like, oh, well, I see this picture.
00:41:54 I see a wall.
00:41:54 Hey, there’s Lex.
00:41:55 But really what I was paying attention to was what was
00:41:58 going on inside of my head for a moment, and almost the rest
00:42:00 of the world tuned out and kind of dimmed.
00:42:03 And I guess I think that’s going to be a struggle to any
00:42:09 time you want to bring that type of a written story to a
00:42:12 visual medium.
00:42:13 I think it’s going to be more difficult, but it’ll be
00:42:16 interesting.
00:42:16 It’s definitely one of my favorite stories, and it’s
00:42:20 honestly helped me become better at life, in my opinion,
00:42:23 better at martial arts.
00:42:24 And I think the writer, I think Frank Herbert was absolutely
00:42:26 brilliant, whether those were all his ideas, which are not
00:42:28 reality.
00:42:29 None of us or all of our good ideas aren’t ours.
00:42:31 We’re a combination.
00:42:32 Maybe it came up with something you’re a curator of other
00:42:34 good ideas and some things you borrowed from somewhere
00:42:36 without even realizing it.
00:42:37 But I think the way the messages and the themes and the
00:42:40 ideas that were conveyed, particularly in the original
00:42:43 novel, are just absolutely brilliant.
00:42:45 Is that to you one of the greats and the flip side of
00:42:50 that, or another way to ask that is if somebody is new to
00:42:54 sci fi, is that something you would recommend that is an
00:42:57 entry point?
00:42:58 I’m not well read enough in the sci fi world.
00:43:00 I haven’t read a lot of Isaac Asimov or anything like that,
00:43:02 but I’ll recommend Dune.
00:43:04 I’ll be an obnoxious evangelist for Dune to anyone who’ll
00:43:07 listen.
00:43:08 So yeah, I would strongly recommend it.
00:43:10 So the other thing you mentioned, now I should
00:43:13 probably be talking to you about much more important
00:43:15 things, but the other thing is Skyrim.
00:43:19 Do you play video games?
00:43:21 What’s your favorite game?
00:43:22 What’s what would you say is the greatest video game of
00:43:24 all time?
00:43:25 Because I’m a huge fan of Elder Scrolls.
00:43:26 Oh, yeah.
00:43:27 I mean, I play a little bit at this point.
00:43:30 You know, a little less finally moves into a new house.
00:43:33 So you’re like an adult.
00:43:35 No, no, no, no.
00:43:36 I’m like a better funded 12 year old.
00:43:39 Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s entirely that’s entirely
00:43:43 accurate.
00:43:43 Better funded 12 year old.
00:43:44 But somewhat better funded 12 year old.
00:43:47 Not as well funded as I wish.
00:43:48 But historically, did you play video games?
00:43:50 Oh, yeah, I played as a kid.
00:43:51 I was, you know, again, I’ve always liked playing sports
00:43:53 and liked reading and I always enjoyed video games.
00:43:56 But my favorite video game I think I’ve ever played was
00:43:59 Knights of the Old Republic.
00:44:00 It was a Star Wars game.
00:44:01 A huge Star Wars fan until it become less so recently.
00:44:06 Disney.
00:44:07 You don’t like the, I haven’t watched it yet.
00:44:09 Oh, Mandalorian.
00:44:11 Oh, don’t go there.
00:44:11 Oh, actually, I like Mandalorian.
00:44:13 That was actually pretty cool.
00:44:14 Yeah, waving this off.
00:44:15 Yeah, yeah, I will.
00:44:17 If I could cancel one thing, I would cancel Disney Star Wars.
00:44:20 I’m going to edit that part out.
00:44:21 Okay, let’s go to the next.
00:44:23 But this is where if people are wondering if you’re watching
00:44:26 this on YouTube and like the dislike amount is like 80%
00:44:29 it’s because of that comment.
00:44:31 So good job.
00:44:32 Good job for making the internet hate you.
00:44:34 I regret nothing.
00:44:35 Now, what about Baby Yoda?
00:44:39 Yeah, I guess he’s like little.
00:44:41 He’s got ears and he uses the force sometimes and he passes
00:44:43 out again.
00:44:44 No qualms with Baby Yoda.
00:44:45 Yeah, you don’t have a heart.
00:44:47 Okay, let’s go to Jiu Jitsu if it’s okay.
00:44:54 So the audience of this podcast may not know much about Jiu Jitsu
00:44:59 or they do because it’s really part of the culture now,
00:45:01 but they don’t really know much.
00:45:04 They see that so many people have fallen in love with it,
00:45:07 have been transformed through it, but they don’t know much
00:45:09 about like, what is this thing?
00:45:10 Is there a way you could sort of try to explain what is
00:45:14 Jiu Jitsu, what is the essence of this martial art that’s
00:45:17 captured the minds and hearts of so many people in the world?
00:45:22 I think that Jiu Jitsu is a philosophy that’s expressed
00:45:27 physically and that it’s the kind of development of the
00:45:32 mental capacity and physical capacity working in unison to
00:45:38 move efficiently and almost flowingly, unresistingly with
00:45:45 a given situation, with a physically resisting opponent.
00:45:50 Learning how to generate force on your own and how to steal
00:45:53 force from the floor, how to steal force from the other
00:45:56 person and move in concert with it as opposed to clash
00:45:59 against, which if you watch two untrained people fight,
00:46:01 it’s almost entirely a clash.
00:46:03 It’s a runaway and clash, a runaway and clash.
00:46:05 If you watch Jiu Jitsu done well, it looks like water
00:46:10 moving around a solid structure.
00:46:12 And I think that that is expressed physically.
00:46:15 And I think that all of the things that anyone has really
00:46:19 been able to do very, very well in Jiu Jitsu end up kind
00:46:22 of exemplifying that.
00:46:24 But I think that’s true of martial arts in general.
00:46:26 I think that a lot of times like the clashing that we see
00:46:28 going on and working well is just the fact that it’s
00:46:33 you know, you get very, very physically powerful people
00:46:35 every now and then they’re able to get away with this.
00:46:37 But I don’t think that that’s, and that’s fantastic
00:46:39 because ultimately it’s a results driven thing.
00:46:41 But I think that the essence of the martial arts is learning
00:46:44 how to make more out of less and how to move with
00:46:46 and be yielding, almost like real life Aikido.
00:46:49 And so you think of martial arts, Jiu Jitsu as like water
00:46:57 or flowing, so Aikido, so moving around a solid structure
00:47:01 so Aikido, so moving around the force as opposed to sort of
00:47:08 maybe the wrestling mindset is finding a leverage
00:47:12 where you can apply an exceptional amount of force.
00:47:15 So like, so like maximizing the application of force.
00:47:18 I guess maybe that’s a better way to, I’d like to marry
00:47:20 the two ideas, you know, because I think you flow
00:47:22 until the point at which you are the greater force
00:47:25 at which point in time you can apply.
00:47:27 But if you look at the best wrestlers and then when I say
00:47:29 best, I don’t necessarily mean most successful
00:47:31 although of course most successful are always very
00:47:33 very good throughout the course of history in boxing
00:47:37 in wrestling, in Judo, they’re magical.
00:47:41 They disappear and reappear.
00:47:43 It’s like fighting a ghost that is like incorporeal
00:47:46 when you want to find it.
00:47:47 But then when you don’t want it to find it
00:47:49 when you don’t want to find it, it finds you.
00:47:51 And I think that we see that in the like the Bufais
00:47:54 or societies of wrestling.
00:47:56 And you know, I guess you could look at a Floyd Mayweather
00:47:59 or Willie Pep or you know, Prunell Whitaker in boxing
00:48:03 as brilliant examples of disappearing and reappearing.
00:48:07 And when you’re strong, it’s almost like guerrilla warfare.
00:48:10 When you’re strong, I’m nowhere to be found.
00:48:12 When you’re weak, you can’t get rid of me.
00:48:14 And I think that’s what we’re looking for.
00:48:16 Yes, the TF brothers are incredible at that.
00:48:18 They just, they look like skinny Starbucks baristas
00:48:23 and they just manhandle everybody like effortlessly.
00:48:29 They look like they just kind of woke up,
00:48:31 rolled out of bed, fighting for like the gold medal
00:48:35 at the Olympics and just effortlessly throw,
00:48:39 like there’s a match against, I guess, Yul Romero.
00:48:43 Yeah, so like, you know, if you look at like
00:48:46 who is the guy who’s like intimidating in this case
00:48:49 and terrifying looking, it’s Yul Romero,
00:48:53 just like a physical specimen
00:48:55 and obviously like a super accomplished wrestler.
00:48:58 I think this is for the gold medal, yeah.
00:49:00 In 2000.
00:49:02 In 2000?
00:49:03 Yeah, Sydney.
00:49:03 And then there, this is the year you all took silver.
00:49:08 And what you, like, just to show you like
00:49:12 there’s a inside trip, effortless.
00:49:15 Uchi, and he does it again.
00:49:17 Yep, you know, it’s a really creative kind of wrestling
00:49:22 where it’s organic.
00:49:23 Yeah, you throw in all of these kinds of things.
00:49:26 This is a mix of judo, a mix of like weird kind of moves.
00:49:31 It’s not like as funky as Ben Askren.
00:49:34 It’s just like legitimate, basic.
00:49:39 Well, it’s not funky for funky sake.
00:49:40 And I’m not poking at Ben Askren to imply
00:49:42 that that’s what he’s doing, but it’s like, it’s funny.
00:49:45 It’s like, a lot of times it’s almost like Musashi
00:49:47 talked a lot about that.
00:49:48 You know, that the only goal of combat is to win
00:49:51 is the outcome is it’s outcome driven
00:49:53 versus like flourishing, you know, cool looking movements.
00:49:56 It’s like, unless that had a utilitarian purpose,
00:49:58 like what are you wasting your time with that?
00:50:00 Both in the fight and also, you know, in practice.
00:50:03 But as you mentioned, it’s almost like it looks like judo.
00:50:06 It looks like wrestling, it looks like jujitsu.
00:50:07 It’s almost like, I guess the reminds me
00:50:09 all of the martial arts is again, deeply tribal as well.
00:50:12 I wanna learn Lex Fridman, martial arts.
00:50:14 And then I wanna learn another, you know,
00:50:16 I guess, transcendent person’s martial arts.
00:50:18 And it just happened to be the set of movements
00:50:20 that you tended to do most of the time,
00:50:22 thanks to your body type and your opposition and whatnot.
00:50:25 But then I try to codify that and force those to work
00:50:27 as opposed to going, I wanna understand how the body works
00:50:30 in concert and in Congress with something else
00:50:33 and other forces and move appropriately.
00:50:36 And that’s why it’s like, it always struck me
00:50:37 that the Saiki brothers are great examples
00:50:39 of just moving like water, but they,
00:50:41 to use Bruce Lee, which is a little trite,
00:50:43 but again, he’s brilliant.
00:50:44 It’s like water can flow or water can crash.
00:50:47 And they would crash when they needed to crash
00:50:48 and they would flow when they needed to flow,
00:50:49 but they would flow for the purpose of dissipating
00:50:51 and then crash when they would win.
00:50:53 And at the right moment, then go back to flowing
00:50:55 the second that the other person found them.
00:50:57 And it’s just, it’s beautiful to watch, it’s artistic.
00:50:59 And I think that that great expression of anything physical
00:51:02 is ultimately studied as a science,
00:51:04 but expressed as an art.
00:51:05 And I think that that’s something that gets lost
00:51:06 in jujitsu a lot of times when it gets a little bit,
00:51:08 a little nerdy, like do this hand here, hand here.
00:51:10 Like it’s like the more details I have,
00:51:12 the better when in reality, that’s just not,
00:51:15 not in my experience, how it’s done.
00:51:17 Might be fun exercise of saying like,
00:51:21 what are the main positions and submissions
00:51:25 in the art of jujitsu?
00:51:27 You don’t have to be complete, that’s a ridiculously,
00:51:30 I apologize for putting you on a spot like this,
00:51:32 but it might be a nice exercise to think through it.
00:51:35 Sure, I mean, I would just say that there,
00:51:37 you have your arms bend in various ways.
00:51:39 You have key lock Americana, straight arm locks,
00:51:41 Kimura, omoplata, omoplata is a Kimura,
00:51:43 Kimura is an omoplata, it’s just executed.
00:51:45 Submissions.
00:51:46 Submissions, yes.
00:51:47 Breaking off your arm in all kinds of ways.
00:51:49 But ultimately, the question is,
00:51:51 let’s say you were a Terminator,
00:51:52 like a robot that I, which of course you are.
00:51:54 Go on.
00:51:55 Go on.
00:51:56 It’s like, all right, so we’re being completely literal.
00:51:58 But, and I couldn’t harm you with any of these things.
00:52:02 Would I still use these positions?
00:52:03 The answer is yes.
00:52:04 They create leverage, they create control,
00:52:06 they create shapes that I can affect
00:52:08 and that can affect me and they can be affected
00:52:10 through other forces and other objects or structures
00:52:13 like the ground or the wall.
00:52:14 I really enjoy mixed martial arts
00:52:15 because there’s another component
00:52:17 rather than just me and you and the floor,
00:52:18 there’s me, you, the floor, and the wall.
00:52:20 And it’s another player in the game
00:52:21 that doesn’t exist in a grappling context
00:52:24 with a non enclosed, I guess, area of combat.
00:52:28 But you can strangle me or choke me,
00:52:32 what do you call it, without my arms being involved,
00:52:35 or you can use one of my shoulders
00:52:37 to pin one side of my, one carotid artery off
00:52:40 and you can enclose the other.
00:52:41 You can turn my knee in the exact same ways
00:52:43 that you can turn my arm straight this way and that way.
00:52:47 You can add a rotation to that
00:52:48 or it can be directly linear against the joint.
00:52:51 So I guess what I would say is the more
00:52:52 that I’ve been able to understand jiu jitsu,
00:52:55 the more that I’ve been, it’s given me a look
00:52:58 into how we learn language where rather
00:53:01 than learning five bazillion adjectives,
00:53:03 I go, I understand what an adjective is.
00:53:05 And of course we are all read
00:53:06 into some degree of vocabulary.
00:53:09 I understand what an adverb does
00:53:11 and I understand what an adverb is.
00:53:12 I know what a noun is.
00:53:13 I know what the component parts of a sentence are.
00:53:16 I know what, you know, I guess a clause,
00:53:18 a contraction, any of these things.
00:53:19 And it allows you to be interesting and artistic
00:53:23 with your language to the extent that you can.
00:53:25 But I can’t, like I can speak a degree of Spanish,
00:53:27 but I’m not even slightly artistic in Spanish.
00:53:29 I would be something, I speak like a child
00:53:32 with a head injury.
00:53:33 And anyway, the I.
00:53:35 Your basic understanding of the English language
00:53:38 allows you to then be a student of Spanish.
00:53:40 100%, but I’m limited by my experience.
00:53:43 I’m limited by my understanding of techniques.
00:53:45 I’m limited by my understanding, almost like,
00:53:47 let’s say techniques are like these are like vocabulary.
00:53:51 So even if I kind of sort of grasp the sentence structure
00:53:54 and the thought process and the thought patterns
00:53:56 of Spanish, which it’s interesting
00:53:58 because just even though the orientation
00:54:00 and the organization of a language,
00:54:01 and I’ve thought about this a great deal,
00:54:03 you know, the way that I perceive the world
00:54:05 is affected deeply by the language that I learned.
00:54:07 The, you know, the, again, if I learned,
00:54:09 I have no idea how the Chinese language structures,
00:54:11 but I can only imagine that it would be,
00:54:13 that it would affect, it’s like a different lens.
00:54:15 We’re all looking at the same thing,
00:54:16 but I have a different set of sunglasses on than you do.
00:54:19 And that’s very, very interesting.
00:54:21 I’ll use the Quran as an example.
00:54:23 You know, apparently it’s unbelievably poetic
00:54:25 and in Arabic, still neat
00:54:27 and was interesting reading in English,
00:54:29 but I’m told by people that I trust
00:54:32 that it just one doesn’t bear a resemblance to the other.
00:54:34 And I think that’s a very interesting thing
00:54:35 that you may be able to say the same thing,
00:54:37 but in a more, I guess, in a different way,
00:54:41 in a more artistic way that may not translate
00:54:43 on a one for one kind of fidelity.
00:54:45 But the more that we’re able to understand
00:54:49 about how the body works,
00:54:50 the more examples of the body working this way,
00:54:52 the body working that way, the body working that way,
00:54:54 the more that I’m able to eventually become an artist,
00:54:56 but it has to be studied as a science first.
00:54:57 And it does start with technique collection,
00:54:59 vocabulary collection, the same way we learn in school.
00:55:02 You remember how to say quickly 17 different ways.
00:55:06 And let’s say I speak Spanish, I’m only, I only know three.
00:55:10 So you might use quickly, you might use an adjective
00:55:13 like quickly in Spanish, but use one of the many,
00:55:15 many options to describe that, that I don’t understand.
00:55:17 And now I sit there and go like, wait, what?
00:55:20 I can’t be artistic.
00:55:21 I can’t be as organic with the language as I’d like.
00:55:23 So I believe that jujitsu a lot of times starts
00:55:25 with the acquisition of a lot of, hey, do this, this,
00:55:28 this drill, this technique.
00:55:29 Here’s an Americana, Americana to an armlock,
00:55:31 armlock to a triangle.
00:55:33 But the problem with that is oftentimes
00:55:35 we get stuck in that phase.
00:55:37 And people eventually become move collectors
00:55:40 or sequence collectors.
00:55:41 And I noticed this when I’m trying to do DVDs
00:55:43 or I guess like an instructional series now,
00:55:45 or even teaching in class,
00:55:47 I don’t believe in that form of learning anymore.
00:55:49 Not that it’s not valuable, but I don’t believe,
00:55:52 I don’t understand jujitsu on that level anymore.
00:55:54 So what I’m trying to do is get across the basic ideas
00:55:56 to people and say, hey, you need to fill in the gaps
00:55:59 with going to class all the time.
00:56:01 You need to go, hey, learn this move, learn that technique,
00:56:03 learn that technique.
00:56:04 Because otherwise I’m basically just throwing at you
00:56:05 like 75 different words that you could use,
00:56:08 but that hasn’t really taught you how to speak a language.
00:56:12 Whereas if you give me a language structure,
00:56:14 you can fill in these pieces on your own
00:56:16 and then eventually speak organically in Lex form,
00:56:19 which will be ultimately unique to you
00:56:20 because otherwise you just end up being like a weird facsimile
00:56:24 of whatever it is that I’m doing
00:56:25 for mostly the worst I’d say, but.
00:56:29 Yeah, that’s what people, I mean, people comment like,
00:56:31 is this, especially people who haven’t listened to me before,
00:56:34 is this guy drunk or high?
00:56:37 Does he, does MIT really allow slow people to be,
00:56:42 like what’s. Quotas.
00:56:44 Quotas, yeah.
00:56:45 Like what’s wrong with him?
00:56:47 Is he getting sleep?
00:56:48 Are you okay?
00:56:49 Does he need help?
00:56:50 So that’s similar with my jiu jitsu.
00:56:52 It’s like, is this guy, is this guy really,
00:56:54 whatever rank I was throughout,
00:56:57 I remember just like, is this guy really this rank?
00:57:01 I just have a very kind of certain way of sitting
00:57:03 and being slow and lazy looking
00:57:06 that there was ultimately the language
00:57:08 that I had to discover.
00:57:09 And it was, it was, yeah,
00:57:11 it was a very liberating moment.
00:57:13 I think of probably a few years of getting my ass kicked,
00:57:19 especially with Open Guard and butterfly
00:57:21 to where you really allow yourself
00:57:22 to take in the entirety of the language
00:57:24 and realize that, that I’m not, I’m different.
00:57:29 I’m a unique, I’m unique.
00:57:31 And like, I have a very, I have a language,
00:57:35 I have a set of techniques,
00:57:36 a way I move my body that needs,
00:57:39 that I’m the one to discover.
00:57:41 Like it’s, you can only,
00:57:43 you can learn specific techniques and so on,
00:57:45 but you really have to understand your own body.
00:57:47 And that’s the beautiful thing about jiu jitsu,
00:57:49 like you said, is like the connection about your philosophy,
00:57:54 your view of the world with the physical
00:57:57 and like connecting those two things,
00:57:59 how you perceive the world,
00:58:00 how you interpret ideas of the world about exhaustion,
00:58:04 about force, about effortlessness,
00:58:07 like what it really means to relax,
00:58:09 all these kinds of loose concepts,
00:58:10 and then actually teach your body to like do those things
00:58:16 and like, you know, and be able to apply force and spurts,
00:58:20 be able to relax and spurts
00:58:21 and like figure all that stuff out for my,
00:58:23 for my individual body.
00:58:26 But it’s, as you mentioned,
00:58:27 I couldn’t agree with you more, it’s a discovery process
00:58:29 and no one can cheat that process,
00:58:31 which is at the same time,
00:58:32 it’s almost like imagine I wanna start writing books
00:58:34 in second grade, unless maybe I’m like staggeringly brilliant,
00:58:38 which I can only conceptualize someone being able to do that,
00:58:40 but maybe a Mozart of the English language
00:58:42 where you’re out there doing it.
00:58:43 But for most of us, we don’t have enough knowledge,
00:58:45 enough information, enough experience
00:58:47 to be able to be, to express ourselves.
00:58:51 So we have to basically input, repeat, which is important,
00:58:56 but it’s the process, as you say,
00:58:58 of going through that, of getting your ass kicked,
00:58:59 of just like, well, that didn’t work,
00:59:00 well, that didn’t work, that felt right,
00:59:02 but I don’t know, nobody else does that,
00:59:03 I guess I don’t believe in that,
00:59:04 versus eventually going, I don’t know,
00:59:06 I’ll just try going my own way and see what happens
00:59:08 and now I’ll get yelled at and people won’t like me
00:59:10 and if it works, they’ll say I got lucky
00:59:11 and if it doesn’t work, they’ll say I was dumb,
00:59:13 but which one, maybe all is right.
00:59:15 But basically, you know,
00:59:17 going through that iterative process
00:59:19 that allows you to eventually find your self expression
00:59:21 and find your voice so that you fight
00:59:24 the same way that you speak, the same way that you write,
00:59:25 the same way that you think in a way that is uniquely you,
00:59:28 that will also ultimately allow you
00:59:31 to understand other people being uniquely them
00:59:33 because even if you can only conceptualize,
00:59:35 and I think about this a lot for society stuff,
00:59:37 where I go, well, this is how I feel about this,
00:59:39 but am I objectively right?
00:59:41 Maybe about a couple things, but that’s a small box
00:59:43 that I have to be very, very careful about
00:59:45 what I think is objective versus what’s not
00:59:47 and I have to be open to the possibility
00:59:48 of all the things that I think are objectively correct
00:59:50 may or may not be.
00:59:52 And that should allow me to have some degree
00:59:54 of compassion or consideration for other people,
00:59:57 both in their martial arts journey
00:59:58 and in their journey as people, as human beings,
01:00:01 because I understand that they’re on a,
01:00:04 it’s a, we’re all on a path where it’s all,
01:00:07 again, an iterative process of eventual self expression,
01:00:10 but I think that’s one of the things
01:00:11 that we see having trouble when we see tribalism,
01:00:15 which, I mean, racism, expression of that,
01:00:17 political affiliation, expression of that,
01:00:19 all of these things that can go
01:00:20 in really uncomfortable directions.
01:00:21 People are looking for,
01:00:23 hey, where do I plant my feet over here?
01:00:24 Where’s the thing that I know is right?
01:00:26 And we can all agree on the following.
01:00:29 And I think that we see that in martial arts.
01:00:31 We’re like, oh, I do this style, I do that style,
01:00:33 I do that style.
01:00:33 It’s like, hey, man, we’re all just pushing forward
01:00:35 in a certain direction here, trying to do our best.
01:00:37 And I understand why you feel the way you do.
01:00:38 I may have felt like that at one point too,
01:00:40 but I’m just trying to learn and understand
01:00:44 versus I’ve already acquired enough knowledge,
01:00:47 let me cross my arms and start to look
01:00:49 who’s fucking up around here.
01:00:50 And I think that that’s an, it’s an interesting trap
01:00:55 that I think is very human trap to fall into,
01:00:57 but it definitely happens early on.
01:00:58 It’s, I mean, it’s a joke in the jiu jitsu world, right?
01:01:00 Like, oh, the blue belt that knows everything.
01:01:02 Well, initially it’s like, what, I know nothing
01:01:03 and I at least think I know nothing.
01:01:05 Then I’d learn a little bit and I think it’s a lot bit.
01:01:07 And then, you know, the more you learn,
01:01:09 the more you go like, I don’t even know what I’m doing.
01:01:11 Yeah, that’s exactly right.
01:01:13 We kind of talked about it a little bit,
01:01:14 but once again, a lot of people that listen to this
01:01:18 have never been on the mat, have never tried jiu jitsu,
01:01:20 but are really curious about it.
01:01:23 Everybody at all positions, like I think, you know,
01:01:25 most kids are not doing jiu jitsu.
01:01:27 Andrew Yang is like, they’re all, you know,
01:01:30 the world is curious.
01:01:31 It’s a, it’s a nice, it seems to be a nice methodology
01:01:36 by which to humble your ego,
01:01:38 which to grow intellectually and physically.
01:01:39 So people are curious about it.
01:01:42 So the natural question is if they’re curious about it,
01:01:44 how would you recommend they get started?
01:01:47 Maybe like, what do you recommend the first day,
01:01:51 week, month, year, first couple of years look like?
01:01:54 Like, how do you ease into it
01:01:56 and make sure that it’s a positive experience
01:01:59 and you progress in the most optimal and positive way?
01:02:03 The first thing you can do is simply ask yourself why,
01:02:07 why you want to be involved.
01:02:08 You know, I remember the first day that I walked into
01:02:10 Ronin Athletics in New York City
01:02:12 to train under Godfather of my son now,
01:02:14 Christian Montes, and I didn’t know
01:02:18 what I was getting myself into.
01:02:19 I played baseball through high school
01:02:21 and I wanted, I was at Manhattan College in the Bronx
01:02:24 and I wanted to go and learn martial arts
01:02:27 because it was always something that was interesting to me,
01:02:29 but it was never something that I knew was accessible
01:02:33 and it definitely wasn’t really around
01:02:34 in Northern Virginia where I grew up,
01:02:36 whereas then you stick yourself in Manhattan
01:02:38 and there’s stuff everywhere.
01:02:40 So anyway, I guess I didn’t know what to expect.
01:02:43 I didn’t know if I was going to get beat up,
01:02:45 if people were going to be nice,
01:02:46 if people were not going to be nice,
01:02:48 but what I began with was, I think, expectation management.
01:02:52 And I think that that’s something that I would,
01:02:56 that’d be the first thing that I would start
01:02:58 is almost imagining what is it that I’m getting myself into
01:03:01 because I love the martial arts.
01:03:03 The martial arts has given me everything in life
01:03:05 and I’m so thankful I wouldn’t be sitting here
01:03:08 without that experience, that journey.
01:03:11 The people that I’ve met, the places that I’ve gone,
01:03:12 I could never, ever have ever imagined.
01:03:17 And I’m just unbelievably thankful for that.
01:03:19 But I think that the thing that helped me most of all
01:03:24 was starting with going,
01:03:26 my mom said something to me one time and she said,
01:03:29 there’s two types of people in various situations.
01:03:31 There’s why and there’s why not.
01:03:33 And it’s understandable to have questions, concerns,
01:03:36 things like that.
01:03:37 But maybe sometimes it’s a little bit easier
01:03:39 when you’re younger to just trust people
01:03:41 or just say, I don’t know, you know.
01:03:44 But we go, hey, you wanna climb that rock?
01:03:46 I’m like, yeah, why not?
01:03:47 Let’s go.
01:03:48 Hey, you wanna jump in that river?
01:03:49 Yeah, why not?
01:03:49 Sure.
01:03:50 Versus if I have to reason my way into everything,
01:03:53 if I have to be talked into everything,
01:03:55 a lot of times I’ll talk myself out of it.
01:03:56 And I think that a lot of times
01:03:57 this is the thinker’s disease.
01:03:59 You wanna figure out what’s gonna happen
01:04:01 and what you should expect to have happen
01:04:03 before you get involved versus going,
01:04:06 using the old Bruce Lee saying again,
01:04:08 it’s like no amount of thinking or training
01:04:09 on the side of the river will teach you how to swim.
01:04:12 You have to jump in.
01:04:13 And there are risks associated with that.
01:04:15 And I guess psychological are usually the biggest ones.
01:04:19 That’s the biggest hurdle.
01:04:20 And physical.
01:04:22 But the biggest thing that I guess I would suggest
01:04:25 to anyone to say, well, why do you wanna do this?
01:04:26 You’re like, well, I wanna challenge myself.
01:04:28 I wanna learn, I would like to learn to fight.
01:04:30 I wanted to learn to fight so that I could protect myself.
01:04:32 And if anything else, other people,
01:04:33 if only within arms reach.
01:04:35 I perceived that if I had some small degree of power,
01:04:39 I generally wouldn’t use it.
01:04:41 Which is why I was like, yeah, I’ll give it a try.
01:04:42 I’ll try to be reasonable.
01:04:43 And hopefully if I make a mistake,
01:04:45 I’ll apologize to people.
01:04:46 But basically I said, yeah, I’d like to have that.
01:04:49 And I wanna, I know this is gonna be challenging
01:04:52 and we’ll see what happens.
01:04:54 And that means that getting beat up
01:04:55 and I didn’t get like hurt, but getting roughed up,
01:04:57 getting my arm bent this way or that way, getting choked.
01:05:00 I was like, well, this is all supposed to happen.
01:05:01 That’s no big deal.
01:05:02 It would be like going and joining the army
01:05:04 during peacetime and then going,
01:05:06 oh, I’m just doing this for college education.
01:05:08 You know, like, okay, that’s cool, man.
01:05:09 And then all of a sudden war breaks out
01:05:11 and they wanna send me somewhere.
01:05:12 And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
01:05:13 I didn’t sign up for that.
01:05:15 Actually you did, whether you realize it or not.
01:05:17 You may not have thought that you did, but you did.
01:05:19 So getting your mind right and just going,
01:05:22 what are my expectations for this activity?
01:05:24 What is it that I’m looking to do?
01:05:25 And of course, you know, you’re going into a gym,
01:05:28 you’re going into a place that you don’t know people,
01:05:30 you probably don’t know people
01:05:31 and you don’t know the coach.
01:05:32 And even if you do wanna, hey, how you doing?
01:05:34 Shake your hand, type of level.
01:05:35 You know, 95% of my students don’t know me.
01:05:38 Not really, you know, I’ll try to be polite
01:05:39 and not annoy them too much,
01:05:40 but they don’t know me and I don’t know them.
01:05:43 I understand if they don’t trust me,
01:05:45 I wouldn’t trust, trust me either if I were them.
01:05:48 But at the same time, someone has to take that leap.
01:05:50 And one of the things that I’ve noticed
01:05:52 as a martial arts instructor,
01:05:53 that’s the biggest struggle with dealing with adults,
01:05:56 which is why a lot of people like to teach kids
01:05:58 is because kids don’t ask, don’t argue.
01:06:01 Now that also means there’s all sorts of pitfalls
01:06:04 or that sort of thing, and that can be an issue.
01:06:05 But you know, I guess a lot of times people get to a point
01:06:08 in their life, you know, in their 20s, early 30s,
01:06:10 where now I’m a manager now, I know what I’m doing.
01:06:13 No one talks to me like that.
01:06:14 First it’s like, hey man, you go join bootcamp,
01:06:16 I don’t care if you are Elon Musk,
01:06:17 they’re gonna tell you to shut up and do pushups.
01:06:19 And that’s what’s great about it.
01:06:21 So you are taking a leap of faith into a world
01:06:24 that you’re gonna be a tiny fish.
01:06:26 And you gotta hope that the people who are guiding you
01:06:30 in that journey are gonna have,
01:06:32 I can’t even say your best interests at heart
01:06:34 because they don’t even know you,
01:06:35 but they’ll try to do no harm.
01:06:36 And they’ll try to help you
01:06:37 in the way that they would understand.
01:06:39 And I guess that’s, for instance,
01:06:40 that’s what I would try to do with anyone
01:06:42 that comes into my gym.
01:06:44 I would try to help them in the way
01:06:45 that I understand they need as best I can
01:06:48 and as safe and reasonable a way as possible,
01:06:51 but sometimes in a way that’s gonna make them uncomfortable,
01:06:53 particularly if physical combat,
01:06:55 and it’s not something they’ve done before.
01:06:58 If a lot of people go in without even having played,
01:07:00 you know, contact sports, and so that can be a big jump.
01:07:03 And you have to understand,
01:07:04 if that’s where you’re starting from, no worries,
01:07:07 but you’re gonna have to kind of work your way to it,
01:07:09 and it’s gonna be uncomfortable, and that’s okay.
01:07:12 It’s part of the process,
01:07:13 and you’re gonna have some bumps and bruises,
01:07:14 and you’re not gonna wanna roll with that guy in the corner
01:07:16 because that person’s rough, and they beat you up,
01:07:18 and they’re like, okay, but is this a big hurt
01:07:20 or is it a little hurt?
01:07:21 If it’s a big hurt, okay.
01:07:23 If it’s a little hurt,
01:07:25 need you to center up a little bit.
01:07:27 It’s such an interesting balance because to find,
01:07:30 I think one of the most important things
01:07:32 as in anything, I think, in life
01:07:34 is the selection of the people that you put around you.
01:07:39 I mean, that’s true with like getting married.
01:07:42 That’s true with like if you go to,
01:07:44 if people ask me, like graduate students,
01:07:46 like your PhD advisor can be the difference.
01:07:51 It’s everything.
01:07:52 It’s like you spend five years with somebody,
01:07:55 they’re going to basically define more impact on you
01:07:59 than anybody you marry, anybody you hang out with.
01:08:01 It’s a huge impact.
01:08:02 And the same with the coach selection,
01:08:05 which is like the school selection,
01:08:08 is it’s going to be really important about
01:08:11 in terms of like who you select will define how happy,
01:08:16 like the trajectory of your growth
01:08:18 and how happy you are with the entirety of the experience.
01:08:21 And yet, like the flip side of that is,
01:08:26 especially if you have an ego,
01:08:28 especially if you are the manager
01:08:29 that needs to let go of some stuff,
01:08:31 you’re going to feel like shit
01:08:33 with the best kind of coach.
01:08:35 That’s what you need.
01:08:37 But there’s a weird balance there to find.
01:08:40 Like, I mean, like, and everybody needs a different thing.
01:08:43 Like I’m much more, I enjoy being sort of like,
01:08:48 it sounds weird, but like I’m, you know,
01:08:51 from the wrestling background,
01:08:53 I enjoy feeling like crap in the sense like the coach,
01:08:58 like getting beat up.
01:09:00 I don’t actually enjoy it.
01:09:01 It’s not like some masochistic thing or whatever.
01:09:03 It’s like, it’s the growth.
01:09:06 Like I like the anxiety.
01:09:08 I like feeling like shit when I go home,
01:09:12 like emotionally, physically, it’s like, it’s growth.
01:09:17 It’s a sign of growth, right?
01:09:18 Like if you’re not having to feel those things,
01:09:20 you’re probably in your comfort zone, which is fine,
01:09:22 but that’s not your growth zone, right?
01:09:24 And everybody has a different threshold for that.
01:09:27 And I mean, the beautiful thing about jiu jitsu is like,
01:09:31 it’s also has like a yoga feel to it.
01:09:34 Like you’re learning about your body.
01:09:36 So depending on the gym and depending on, in fact,
01:09:40 the coaches or the people around you within the gym,
01:09:42 you can select little groups too, kind of like the people
01:09:45 with who you roll, like if you’re a smaller person,
01:09:48 it doesn’t mean you have to go against big people.
01:09:50 You can go against the people who like smoke a lot of weed
01:09:53 and they’re chill, or you can go against like that crazy
01:09:56 red blue belt competitor who’s like out to destroy everybody.
01:09:59 And depending on like what your mindset is,
01:10:02 you can kind of select that.
01:10:03 It’s such a fascinating journey of like,
01:10:07 basically self discovery.
01:10:09 I couldn’t agree with you more.
01:10:10 It’s, I mean, what you need may change over time, right?
01:10:12 Maybe what you needed, what you need today
01:10:14 could change six months from now or a year from now.
01:10:16 And that’s something that I experienced.
01:10:18 I’ll use my first coach Christian, again,
01:10:20 as a great example of someone who I really look up to
01:10:22 and respect and someone who helped me a lot.
01:10:25 Like at a time when I really needed some guidance
01:10:27 and I needed to learn martial arts, but get into,
01:10:30 Hensel Gracie’s gym was right down the street
01:10:32 from where Christian was teaching.
01:10:33 And Christian was a blue belt at the time.
01:10:35 It was, he was teaching at a place called Fight House,
01:10:37 which was this awesome, like, you know, like 90s,
01:10:40 early 2000s, you know, warehouse area down
01:10:44 on Fashion Avenue in Manhattan,
01:10:47 off of like between 7th and 8th.
01:10:48 And it was like two basketball courts wide,
01:10:50 but like there was the Sambo guys over here.
01:10:52 There was the Kali guys over there.
01:10:53 There was a Wing Chun over there.
01:10:54 There was Jiu Jitsu in the corner.
01:10:55 And Hensel’s was one of the most famous academies
01:10:58 in the world at that time, still is.
01:10:59 And I just didn’t know what Hensel Gracie was.
01:11:02 And I mean, it’s a great gym
01:11:04 and it’s a fantastic place for people to train.
01:11:06 But I think what was right for me at the time was to,
01:11:08 I stumbled into, you know, like a two person elevator up
01:11:12 and found a place where six people trained at that time.
01:11:15 And I had someone that could give me some,
01:11:18 like in addition to martial arts advice,
01:11:20 like personal guidance.
01:11:22 And that made a big difference.
01:11:23 And then when initially we would have like competitions
01:11:26 or like intra, you know, gym competitions
01:11:29 with the Sambo guys, we would compete,
01:11:30 we would roll with them.
01:11:31 And like, again, it was great
01:11:33 because they were just a bunch of like Russian dudes
01:11:34 from like Brighton Beach.
01:11:35 And they would come down and then we would all fight.
01:11:38 And then everyone would train
01:11:39 and we’d all drink tea and then go home.
01:11:41 And anyway, what was, it was super tough.
01:11:45 And they were like, again, just a tough group of people.
01:11:47 It was great.
01:11:48 And then I remember when I decided
01:11:51 after like four or five months,
01:11:52 I’m like, man, I really want to try to take this seriously.
01:11:54 And I told Christian about that.
01:11:55 And he’s like, well, hey,
01:11:55 I think you need to do the following.
01:11:56 And it was, you know, like, hey, here’s,
01:11:58 there was a guy named Jeff Ruth,
01:11:59 who was a purple belt at the time,
01:12:01 which was a much bigger deal than it is now,
01:12:03 but it was 10 and always an MMA fighter,
01:12:04 a lot of amateur box spirit, super tough dude.
01:12:06 And Jeff was the best person at that time
01:12:09 that I’d ever trained with.
01:12:10 And I just got squashed.
01:12:11 Christian used to beat me up too,
01:12:12 but like Jeff would just absolutely kick the crap out of me.
01:12:15 And I was like, this is awesome.
01:12:16 And this was back when I was at home.
01:12:18 I went home for the summer for that.
01:12:19 And Chris is like, hey, I think you should stay because I told him that’s what I was thinking.
01:12:22 And this was a coach that, you know, when it’s like when initially was exactly what I needed.
01:12:27 And then he’s like, well, hey, that’s not what I’m doing here.
01:12:29 Maybe they’re going to be able to help you onto a path that’s,
01:12:32 that’s kind of commensurate with what your goals are at the moment.
01:12:34 And then, you know, that was an, that was an interesting thing.
01:12:37 And I really got, I feel that I was fortunate to start at a place where my coach was able to transition roles
01:12:43 and, and, and do so comfortably.
01:12:46 And I think that that also was probably a factor of the fact that, you know,
01:12:49 where he’d done some of his training prior, like there’ve been issues with, with the coach there.
01:12:53 We’re like not supporting, not having the support, you know, feeling like, hey,
01:12:57 like I’m going to hold onto my students.
01:12:58 I’m gonna hold onto my best guy or my best girl, even if I can’t take them where they need to go.
01:13:03 So that was an interesting thing.
01:13:05 And just recognizing also though, that the people like the same way you’re an individual going into a gym
01:13:10 and you don’t know what you’re getting into your coach is a person too.
01:13:13 And he or she, you know, they may have been doing this activity longer than you, but they’re not,
01:13:18 they’re not some weird little, you know, all knowing God.
01:13:20 They don’t know anything.
01:13:22 They may say something that pisses you off.
01:13:23 They may, they may yell at you.
01:13:25 They may help you.
01:13:26 They may inadvertently cause you some sort of, you know, some sort of issue.
01:13:31 And just being able to recognize that even though I say this to people and I’ve said this to people in my gym,
01:13:35 I’m like, you know, we’re in the service industry, man, but I’m not at your service.
01:13:38 Like don’t get it twisted.
01:13:39 Like I will absolutely do my best to help people.
01:13:42 I’m there to do my best as a martial arts coach, but I’m here to do my best as a martial arts coach.
01:13:48 And I’ll do my best and periodically I make mistakes and I own apology or two,
01:13:51 and I’ll try to give them out when I can.
01:13:52 But we’re not McDonald’s.
01:13:54 It’s not, oh, you gave me a hundred bucks, so you do whatever you want in here.
01:13:56 This is my house.
01:13:57 This is my gym.
01:13:57 This is my dojo.
01:13:58 This is, this is a martial arts.
01:13:59 This is not a basketball team.
01:14:00 Yeah.
01:14:01 There’s something beautiful about martial arts.
01:14:03 Like exactly as you said is the coach, like in wrestling and at least collegiate,
01:14:08 like high level wrestling is like, there’s a dictatorship aspect to a coach that is very important to have.
01:14:16 Like this, this ridiculous sometimes nature of like master and so on and bowing, all these traditions.
01:14:23 There’s something, it seems ridiculous from the outside perhaps,
01:14:26 but there’s something really powerful to that because that process of you said, why not,
01:14:30 of letting go of the leap of faith requires you to believe that the coach has your best interest in mind
01:14:37 and just give yourself over to their ideas of how, how you should grow.
01:14:44 And that’s an interesting thing.
01:14:45 I mean, I’ve never been able to really see coaches I’ve had as human.
01:14:52 They’re always, you always, it’s like a father figure or like this,
01:14:57 you always put them in this position of power.
01:14:59 And I think that’s, I think at least for me, it’s been a very,
01:15:04 it’s been a very useful way to see the coach because it allows you to not think and let go
01:15:09 and really allow yourself to grow and emotionally deal with all the beatings.
01:15:14 Well, they’ll push you where past oftentimes where you would have stopped yourself, right?
01:15:18 Which is great.
01:15:18 And then hopefully they know they, if they’re paying attention and they’re,
01:15:22 they’re still a person, they can make mistakes,
01:15:23 but they’ll push you further than you would have gone, but not so far that it’s not facilitative.
01:15:27 Right.
01:15:28 That’s something that I can say, like Faraz Zahabi, the head coach at TriStar,
01:15:32 my head coach for MMA, Kenny Florian, one of the head coaches for MMA,
01:15:35 they’ve both been phenomenal influences.
01:15:37 Paul Shriner, who’s the one of the assistants at Marcelo Garcia’s Academy,
01:15:41 coached me in Jiu Jitsu for a long time, brilliant instructor.
01:15:44 They’ve all been able to do that.
01:15:45 And I think what’s interesting about all of those guys is they’re very sharp,
01:15:48 but they’re very intuitive as well.
01:15:50 And I think that Faraz actually, you know, told me about some of the John Wooden said,
01:15:54 John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, just a simple philosophical idea.
01:15:59 Just, he said, some people’s life is a bowl of shit.
01:16:03 It needs some whipped cream in it.
01:16:04 Some people’s life is a bowl of whipped cream.
01:16:06 Needs a little bit of shit in it just to balance it out.
01:16:08 And it’s an interesting thing.
01:16:09 Coaching everyone the same way doesn’t work.
01:16:12 You know, that’s, I think the difference between a coach and an instructor.
01:16:14 And a lot of times people think they want to coach, but they really want an instructor.
01:16:17 I’m like, hey Lex, tell me what to do, not how to do it.
01:16:20 And then other times people think they want, you know, an instructor and they really want a coach.
01:16:25 I’m like, man, this guy’s just giving me information.
01:16:27 A coach is so much more than an instructor.
01:16:28 And that’s a huge leap.
01:16:30 And that’s something that I think that people need to understand when they’re going into
01:16:33 martial arts.
01:16:33 And I understand, and I can totally grasp why they don’t, because how would they know?
01:16:36 But I think about this a lot, like me giving you $150 for a month, which is not nothing,
01:16:41 that’s for sure.
01:16:43 That does not, that pays for instructor really.
01:16:45 Coach is a relationship that gets developed because can you imagine like just the amount
01:16:48 of emotional investment and time thinking away from like, oh, Lex isn’t here anymore.
01:16:53 What can I do to help him?
01:16:54 What does he need?
01:16:55 Like that’s serious.
01:16:56 And that’s the difference between, that’s oftentimes the difference that getting over
01:17:01 the hump in various situations.
01:17:03 So it’s an interesting, you know, bargain that’s being made like commitment by the instructor
01:17:08 who becomes a coach, commitment by the student.
01:17:10 You know, like there’s a financial transaction.
01:17:12 There’s a lot of things going on there, but I feel very fortunate to have had not just
01:17:16 instructors in my time, but coaches.
01:17:18 And that means sometimes we butted heads and sometimes I look back and I think I was right.
01:17:22 And other times I look back on my own, no, they were definitely right.
01:17:24 But there was always the trust with the exception of one time that I feel that trust was greatly
01:17:29 betrayed that rightly or wrongly, whether mistakes, mistakes will be made, but everyone
01:17:35 is attempting to do the right thing under no circumstances.
01:17:39 Is what I intentionally do anything malicious, you know, versus, Hey, I might’ve done.
01:17:43 I might’ve burnt your house down, but you can be darn sure it wasn’t on purpose.
01:17:46 And I think that as long as there’s that mutual understanding and mutual belief of goodwill,
01:17:51 which again, doesn’t just magic up out of nowhere.
01:17:53 I understand.
01:17:54 I think that that’s when then great things can happen.
01:17:56 And I look at all the athletes that I know, you know, the guys and girls that I’ve watched
01:17:59 become fantastic in various places, almost invariably.
01:18:03 It never happened alone.
01:18:05 Yeah.
01:18:05 Yeah.
01:18:05 I’m really torn about that.
01:18:07 Like, maybe you can help.
01:18:09 Have you seen the movie Whiplash?
01:18:12 So it’s, I would say from an outsider’s perspective, people should watch it.
01:18:17 It’s, I guess, jazz band.
01:18:20 It’s a movie about a drummer and the instructor.
01:18:23 And he, it’s a basically, I would say from the outsider’s perspective, it’s a toxic
01:18:29 relationship, but he’s really the coach, whatever we call him, pushes the musician, the drummer
01:18:36 or to his limits, like to where he just feels like shit emotionally.
01:18:43 It’s a, it looks like a toxic relationship, but it’s one that ultimately is very productive
01:18:49 for the improvement of the musician.
01:18:52 I have the same, like in my own experience, I had, I got a chance to train at a couple
01:18:59 of places regularly.
01:19:00 And so one of my coaches who is a great human being, a lot of people love him.
01:19:06 But when I was a blue belt, he was pushing me a lot for competition.
01:19:11 And every time I step on the mat, I was anxious and almost afraid of training because of like
01:19:21 the places I’m going to have to go.
01:19:22 And then the, I can’t, I don’t know what’s good or bad because I think I’ve become a
01:19:30 better person because of that experience.
01:19:32 Like I needed that.
01:19:34 And on the flip side, like the place I got my black belt from, it’s Balanced Studios.
01:19:40 I remember also blue belt, the coach sitting down and I was going to competition and he
01:19:46 saw something in me where he said, you know, like, good luck, but win or lose, we always
01:19:56 love you.
01:19:58 Like, I, I really, I remember that because I really needed that at that time.
01:20:02 Like I was putting so much pressure on myself.
01:20:05 Like I’m not an actual professional competitor, you know, I just competed.
01:20:10 Like I’m a PhD student, like, but like it was clearly having a psychological effect
01:20:15 on me and that’s what a great coach does is like, you know, it’s like life is more
01:20:21 important than Jiu Jitsu since it’s bigger.
01:20:23 So they find, you use Jiu Jitsu when you need it to grow as a person and when it
01:20:30 overwhelms you, you have to pull that person out, like look at the bigger picture, always
01:20:34 look at the bigger picture and it’s fascinating and I don’t know what to make of it.
01:20:38 I don’t think I would have it any other way is both the anxiety and the, and the love
01:20:44 and the love.
01:20:45 Yeah.
01:20:46 I think that I couldn’t, that’s a really interesting thing that you’re describing
01:20:49 that I guess it kind of brings me back to a lot of the other things we’ve been
01:20:52 discussing is just almost like the, the reciprocal nature of everything where no
01:20:58 pressure, that’s great.
01:21:00 Everyone’s happy all the time.
01:21:01 It’s either, I mean, let’s, uh, use the example of sci fi movies to see the matrix,
01:21:05 which of course the first one was amazing and then each subsequent movie made the
01:21:08 series worse.
01:21:09 But, um, but basically, yeah, I’ve heard, we’ll see, I was hoping for the best, but,
01:21:14 um, but basically, uh, you know, let’s say, Hey, which we started with our first
01:21:17 initial world agent Smith says to Neo is like our first world was a utopia where
01:21:22 everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong.
01:21:24 It’s like your primitive cerebrum rejected it.
01:21:27 And I think that there’s obviously, I mean, what do I think, but I guess, well,
01:21:31 I’m here, so I might as well say what I think.
01:21:33 Um, I guess, uh, you know, great things are fantastic.
01:21:39 A kind, gentle place is fantastic.
01:21:42 And this is again, why I love dune is I think dune does such a great job of, of
01:21:45 expressing Frank Herbert does such a great job of expressing again, the
01:21:48 reciprocal nature of these ideas.
01:21:50 You know, look at, uh, look at Sparta for instance, or at least what I understand
01:21:53 of Sparta from the reading and also watching 300.
01:21:56 Um, uh, you know, and reading the Wikipedia and reading the Wikipedia
01:22:00 article about the movie, not the place.
01:22:02 Um, but, uh, it’s, um, that’s a hard, brutal place.
01:22:08 And that was their benefit to that.
01:22:10 Like, absolutely.
01:22:11 Was there drawback to that?
01:22:12 Absolutely.
01:22:13 Is it sustainable?
01:22:14 I should probably think probably not.
01:22:17 Um, I mean, granted it hasn’t sustained, but I mean, that type of a, of a thing,
01:22:21 it, it burns too hot almost.
01:22:22 And it, uh, it, it destroys the host at a certain point.
01:22:26 And, you know, I guess that, that type of unforgiving nature, but in
01:22:30 entirely, entirely permissive has its own issues.
01:22:33 And I guess coming back into your, what your description of like describing a
01:22:37 toxic relationship is a very dangerous and tricky thing because it’s almost
01:22:41 like, uh, it’s like bird’s eye view.
01:22:43 Me, you know, you see, let’s say a husband and a wife arguing, you know,
01:22:46 like, all right, well, sort of somebody hitting somebody.
01:22:49 I need to keep myself out of this because I have no idea what I’m seeing
01:22:53 something, but I don’t know what’s going on or why specifically.
01:22:57 And again, short of it going to a place that, that just out of bounds,
01:23:02 I don’t know who’s right here.
01:23:03 I don’t know who’s wrong.
01:23:04 And I don’t know what phase of this things are in.
01:23:07 So I guess long term was good for both people.
01:23:12 Right.
01:23:12 It’s dangerous for it.
01:23:13 So if I want to put my finger on the scale, I can understand the desire to do
01:23:16 them like, Hey guys, let’s break it up.
01:23:17 Yeah.
01:23:18 But, and that may be the right thing at the time, but at the same time, I’m not
01:23:21 sure.
01:23:21 So I think back to all of the times that.
01:23:23 You know, that like you mentioned, your coach pushing you when very, very hard.
01:23:27 And then other times going like, Hey, let’s put it in perspective here.
01:23:30 I think that’s an interesting thing for high performance.
01:23:33 And I think that we’re seeing that again, societally, you know, now, or at least
01:23:36 maybe that’s just pops up on my internet feed periodically but coaches shouldn’t
01:23:40 be allowed to do this or yell at this person to yell at that person.
01:23:43 Like, well, have you ever been go to a boxing gym?
01:23:46 It’s not a commercial entity.
01:23:48 Not really a real box, not LA boxing, not a USC gym, like a real place.
01:23:54 You’re going to see what things are like when it’s entirely performance based.
01:23:57 Go to wrestling room at a high level.
01:23:59 You know, again, there’s, there’s left and right limits and there are such
01:24:01 things obviously as abuse, of course, but, and that should never be tolerated.
01:24:04 Um, but it’s not a commercial entity.
01:24:09 I don’t need to be sweet to you if you’re, if you’re screwing up, if you’re
01:24:12 dropping the ball and in fact, recognizing that I’m not doing you a favor or the
01:24:16 favor or the team a favor by, by being permissive of that type of behavior.
01:24:21 I think is important.
01:24:22 Everything in its context and at its time is important.
01:24:25 And I guess I can think again at the times that I’ve been put, put, or had
01:24:28 put on me, like a great deal of pressure to do X, Y, or Z or to succeed, um, or
01:24:34 to push for success.
01:24:35 And I can’t look back fondly enough on those times.
01:24:38 They were tough at the time, but without that, I’m not sitting here without that.
01:24:42 I don’t go from growing up in a, in a very nice family in the suburbs to fighting at
01:24:48 the highest level in jujitsu, gi, no gi, and now in mixed martial arts, starting a
01:24:52 career at age 27.
01:24:54 You know, I don’t, it just doesn’t happen because people generally speaking from
01:24:58 that background, don’t get pushed hard enough physically to be able to make that
01:25:02 transition.
01:25:03 And that has benefits and it has drawbacks.
01:25:07 You know, when you stare into the abyss, it stares back.
01:25:09 And I think that that’s an important thing to understand.
01:25:12 You know, you stare long enough, you, you can become something that you don’t, that
01:25:15 you would be sorry that you did.
01:25:17 You don’t look enough and you don’t have perspective either.
01:25:20 You know, and I, I think that that’s an interesting thing.
01:25:22 I can speak to someone who’s relative to being someone who’s relatively articulate
01:25:26 and reasonable.
01:25:27 I try to be reasonable, but you know, I’ll say in sparring, if people get crazy with
01:25:30 me, they get a warning and then I’m a crack them.
01:25:33 And what did they expect?
01:25:35 Oh, they hear the guy on a, on an interview, but who did they think they were meeting?
01:25:40 Cause there’s also the guy in the ring and there’s layers there too.
01:25:43 I remember training with you.
01:25:45 It was kind of funny.
01:25:46 There’s like, there’s, well, you didn’t know who I was.
01:25:51 I mean, you still like, I have a really good straight ankle up by the way.
01:25:55 That.
01:25:57 So I don’t remember what rank I was, but it might’ve been purple or something like
01:26:01 that.
01:26:02 And I did some, like I, you had this look on your face, which I’ve often seen in
01:26:08 black belts.
01:26:08 It’s like, here he goes again, like here, here’s him trying this thing.
01:26:16 And then when I kind of annoyed you a little bit with it, now I get that it was a good
01:26:21 at like, I, you know, I did something somewhat effective, like some, like maybe a little
01:26:25 bit off balance.
01:26:26 Yeah.
01:26:27 There’s a, I just peeled off a little layer of Ryan Hall to where I was like, okay, let
01:26:31 me, let me like, there, there’s like layers underneath Mike Tyson somewhere in there.
01:26:38 Like, so it was like, okay, this like new guy rolls in here.
01:26:41 He thinks he can do the stupid thing.
01:26:44 And then, and then you started to beat the hell out of me.
01:26:46 But the, the, the point is there’s layers here from the guy who was being interviewed
01:26:51 now to like Genghis Khan, but it’s, but it’s all in the same body.
01:26:55 Right.
01:26:55 But it’s like, all of us are like that, right.
01:26:57 In various different directions and recognizing that’s okay.
01:27:00 It’s just, there are consequences to all every choice that we make as a consequence.
01:27:03 Sometimes there’s like objectively wrong or objectively right.
01:27:06 But at least in my mind, that’s a pretty small box.
01:27:08 Everything else is just, there’s a consequence to that.
01:27:10 Do you like that consequence?
01:27:12 Do you not?
01:27:13 And who do I want to become?
01:27:14 What do I want to try to hone myself or anyone else into?
01:27:18 And also like, but this is something I’ve screwed up as a coach plenty of times.
01:27:22 You know, like if someone says, if you’re, if like, I come to them like Lex, I really,
01:27:26 really want to take, you know, research very seriously.
01:27:28 Like, okay, I believe you.
01:27:29 Now I haven’t shown you that, but I believe you like, okay.
01:27:33 And now me not showing up to research or to study or not being up until three in the morning
01:27:38 thinking about this is no longer acceptable.
01:27:40 There was a time like five seconds before me making that statement that if I went to
01:27:44 bed without reading the book that I needed to read, no worries.
01:27:47 But the second that I made that statement, your expectations for me changed.
01:27:51 And maybe that’s something that I’ve screwed up a whole bunch of times in my, as a teacher.
01:27:55 Cause it’s an interesting thing, obviously, you know, being a, like running a martial
01:27:58 arts school is as you’re principally an athlete is sometimes I don’t pay enough attention
01:28:03 to what people are doing.
01:28:04 I just go, oh, okay.
01:28:05 You say X, Y, Z.
01:28:06 I’m like, Roger that.
01:28:07 I believe you.
01:28:07 Cool.
01:28:08 I will now put you in category X and whether rightly or wrongly, like maybe this person
01:28:13 didn’t understand what they were asking for, or I didn’t express this or the other.
01:28:16 And it just, it caused cross wires.
01:28:18 And then most times you just, you hash it out.
01:28:20 You have a discussion, you figure out, get to the bottom of what people are trying to
01:28:22 do or what they want.
01:28:23 But if I was paying more attention, I think I could have been a lot more effective.
01:28:26 Or if I had more experience and sometimes maybe I’m not sharp enough or I don’t, I’m
01:28:30 not perceptive enough to be able to, to see what’s going on.
01:28:32 And maybe with years more down the line, I’ll be able to have a sharper perception.
01:28:36 But I think that’s another one of those interesting things that some, that sometimes I would caution
01:28:41 or not caution, but just inform a prospective martial arts student, depending upon where
01:28:44 you’re going you know, this you, both you and also your coach or other people in the
01:28:49 room, they wear many hats.
01:28:50 And sometimes there’s a, I had the wrong hat on.
01:28:52 You were talking to me as Lex the guy.
01:28:54 I didn’t realize you were talking to me.
01:28:55 I thought you were talking to me as Lex the guy.
01:28:56 I didn’t realize you’re talking to me as Lex the martial artist.
01:28:58 I’m like, Oh crap.
01:28:59 I was talking to the wrong person.
01:29:00 So it’s almost like if you had a, like I run my gym with my wife, she’s a black belt.
01:29:05 So she’s my wife.
01:29:07 She’s my peers as a martial artist, uh, in Jiu Jitsu.
01:29:11 He’s here by the way, in judging.
01:29:12 So exactly.
01:29:13 All right.
01:29:14 Well, all right.
01:29:15 So, but, but a fellow black belt.
01:29:16 And I guess like another thing, she doesn’t have a microphone, so you can’t hear all the
01:29:19 trash she’s talking.
01:29:20 Exactly.
01:29:20 But it can be tough.
01:29:21 And that’s something that we’ve had to work through a lot.
01:29:23 And it’s like looking back and it’s like now being where I’m at now.
01:29:26 And it’s easy for me to say that cause she’s in the room and I don’t want her to stab me,
01:29:29 just continue to slowly poison me over time, which frankly I understand.
01:29:33 Um, you know, it’s, it’s the sort of thing that is now way more effective than anything
01:29:38 else I could really reasonably expect to have.
01:29:40 Um, but there were times when, when both of us, you know, were justifiably annoyed at
01:29:45 the other because of crossed wires.
01:29:47 And sometimes, you know, you’ll just have to scream in any way or misunderstanding anyway.
01:29:50 But again, like I’ve, I coached some of my friends, I’ve coached, I’ve coached my friend
01:29:54 who I’ve known since I was four years old.
01:29:56 You know, sometimes I don’t go, Hey buddy, how are you doing?
01:29:58 Sometimes it’s like, what the fuck are you doing?
01:30:00 Put your hand over there.
01:30:00 How many times we talked about this?
01:30:01 And then you walk away and you can see him look at you crooked and you’re like, Oh crap.
01:30:06 Oh yeah.
01:30:06 He thought I was talking to his friend.
01:30:07 Yeah.
01:30:07 Well, all right, let, we need to talk this one out, hashing out and not he’s wrong.
01:30:11 How could he possibly think that way?
01:30:12 Like, Oh no, I totally understand that.
01:30:14 But if I was 22, like doesn’t need no, I’m a purple belt, some nonsense like that.
01:30:18 And it’s, and it doesn’t come from a bad place, but it’s just, I guess that comes back to
01:30:22 society to anything.
01:30:23 People only had the perspective that they have and the awareness that we have.
01:30:26 And so again, going back and going, Hey guys, grace, like I don’t expect, it’s not fair
01:30:30 for me to go, I fight UFC.
01:30:32 Why doesn’t this guy who came in as an attorney understand how hardcore this needs to be?
01:30:36 I’m like, how could he?
01:30:36 Yeah.
01:30:37 And at the same time though, if, if I’m using the language of someone that is interested
01:30:43 in at least performance from a martial arts perspective, I understand how that could be
01:30:47 off putting.
01:30:47 Let’s say for instance, someone that’s like all of that would be out of bounds in their
01:30:51 normal workplace.
01:30:52 But if they think of the gym as my office, then whether they agree or disagree with what’s
01:30:56 going on, they go, okay, I hear why I see why that might happen.
01:30:58 Let’s talk about this.
01:30:59 And we can, again, all push forward in a positive direction that benefits, I guess, everyone’s
01:31:04 journey throughout the activity.
01:31:05 And on top of all that, there’s moods.
01:31:08 Like I, I mean, especially lately, I think two days ago, maybe yesterday, no, two days
01:31:15 ago, I’ve never been that cranky in my life.
01:31:21 I think, I don’t know what it was, but I wanted to tell everybody how much they annoyed me.
01:31:28 It was like, I was just very conscious of this feeling of like, why, why is this happening
01:31:34 right now?
01:31:35 So I consciously decided as I usually do in those cases to not say anything to anybody.
01:31:40 How do you do that?
01:31:43 Well, I, you know, it’s, it’s yeah.
01:31:47 Meditate because it’s not, I tend to, I tend to then visualize what’s going to happen in
01:31:52 the next, like, how is this going to make my life better?
01:31:55 Like if I say something that mean to somebody else, I have just started a conflict that
01:32:07 will just escalate, will continue, will add more conflict to my life.
01:32:13 It will make things, I just don’t like the feeling you will create.
01:32:17 And so you live in enough life to know that like, it’s just like with like street fighting.
01:32:24 I would get into a lot of fights when I was younger, just on the street, but then you
01:32:28 realize like, it’s not like a jujitsu match or something like that.
01:32:32 It’s not, it’ll escalate.
01:32:35 It’ll, it might come back at you.
01:32:38 It’ll like that person might find you again.
01:32:40 But more importantly, the anxiety of it, of having created little enemies in this
01:32:48 world, distorts the way you see the world.
01:32:52 So I’ve noticed that like, if I am shitty to people on the internet, which I haven’t
01:32:57 been, I think in a long time is like, it, it somehow brings the shittiness to you
01:33:02 more and more, it escalates like the more love you put out there, the more like the
01:33:07 people who put love out, like surround you.
01:33:11 Well, you mentioned forgiveness as well.
01:33:12 Like you said, like, I guess back to the original, you know, the Holocaust survivor
01:33:16 scenario where you’re like, oh my God, like you think of the ultimate in, in like, I’ve
01:33:20 never experienced one, one billionth of that level of, of pain and horror.
01:33:24 And it’s like, and I can’t let this little thing go.
01:33:28 You know, I guess that’s an interesting thing.
01:33:29 I think you’re just making the point in your personal life, I guess the same way.
01:33:32 Right?
01:33:33 Yeah.
01:33:34 Yeah.
01:33:34 And on the internet, it’s hard.
01:33:35 I’ve somehow gotten, I mean, you’ve, you’ve had a level of celebrity for a while.
01:33:42 I’ve recently gotten some level of like celebrity and like these people who are
01:33:47 just shitty for no reason come out from all, from all places, like calling me a
01:33:53 fraud or anything else.
01:33:57 It was Jay and Silent Bob, Strike Back.
01:33:59 They find out a movie is going to be made about them and people were talking shit
01:34:01 on the internet and they’re like, what’s the internet?
01:34:03 And then someone shows them and they’re like, what?
01:34:05 And they go to a message board and they go to Hollywood to try to stop it from
01:34:08 being made.
01:34:09 And they eventually get money for their likeness and they use the money to buy
01:34:11 plane tickets and fly around and beat the shit out of all the people that talk bad
01:34:14 about them.
01:34:15 Yeah.
01:34:15 It’s tough.
01:34:16 I mean, it’s I’m, I’m having trouble with it cause there’s people like, yeah,
01:34:20 there’s, you know, there’s posts and forums and like heated discussions about
01:34:25 is like sweeping a fraud.
01:34:26 I don’t know.
01:34:27 What has he really done?
01:34:28 And there’s like, and then there’s people like, well, I think he’s an all right
01:34:32 guy, but I’m not sure.
01:34:33 Like, like there’s like literal discussions and I’m like, like nobody,
01:34:39 like if you increase the level of celebrity, there’s going to be like one
01:34:43 of the things that hurts my heart a little bit is like some level of toxicity
01:34:47 around Joe Rogan.
01:34:48 For example, there’s like communities of people that now like talk about him
01:34:54 selling out, for example, all that kind of stuff.
01:34:56 And I don’t, you know, and Joe I’ve talked to him about it is amazing that
01:35:02 he he says, don’t read the comments.
01:35:05 He legitimately doesn’t read the comments.
01:35:07 His heart and his soul doesn’t give a damn about the comments.
01:35:12 All he gives a damn about is his friends.
01:35:14 Like one of the things that’s really inspiring to me and that’s I’ve had a
01:35:19 conversation with them offline about Spotify and the removed episodes.
01:35:24 People are curious.
01:35:25 What’s Spotify?
01:35:26 Um, it’s, uh, it’s a thing on the internet where, uh, I think you can play
01:35:32 Taylor Swift songs on, um, but you can also now play Joe Rogan podcasts and
01:35:40 they gave him a hundred million dollars.
01:35:42 So that that’s, um, you know, that’s it’s yeah.
01:35:46 Uh, but the thing I’ve had a discussion with him and I made a video about it
01:35:51 that I took down because of the toxicity is like, it’s hard to put into words,
01:35:55 but he will give away the a hundred million in a second.
01:36:00 If he ever has to compromise who he is, like he doesn’t, I mean, he already
01:36:06 said, as he talked about, he’s made quote unquote, fuck you money a long
01:36:10 time ago, he doesn’t need any more money.
01:36:14 He doesn’t care.
01:36:15 It’s nice to have money, whatever, but like, he’ll give it away.
01:36:19 So the it’s nice to see when people like him at a level of celebrity level of
01:36:26 success and financial success, don’t change at all.
01:36:31 They’re just the same thing that makes you happy is talking in his case, talking
01:36:36 shit with his friends in the case of most of us really just, just hanging out
01:36:40 with friends, doing the things you love in his case, doing the things he loves
01:36:46 without any, like, you know, the Texas way, the freedom, like without any
01:36:53 corporate bureaucracy bullshit that rolls in and says, well, maybe you
01:36:58 shouldn’t say fuck, you know, like more than 20 times a podcast or something
01:37:02 like that, like those kinds of like rules, like people, like he says in a
01:37:05 suit and tie, they show up and say stuff oddly enough people that could never
01:37:10 have done what he does.
01:37:12 Yeah, exactly.
01:37:13 And it’s kind of inspiring to see that.
01:37:15 And I hope people, I hope people realize how special of a human he is.
01:37:21 He’s inspired like people like me, like I’m just, I’m a scientist, right?
01:37:27 So he inspired somebody like me from a very different walk of life to be like
01:37:32 kind to others, to be open minded.
01:37:36 I don’t know that it’s a special dude.
01:37:39 So like people need to support that and treasure that as opposed to
01:37:42 as opposed to be toxic about it.
01:37:47 I mean, what people really for a long time have told me that it would be
01:37:55 awesome if Ryan Hall goes on Joe Rogan.
01:37:57 I definitely think that would be an awesome thing.
01:38:00 Have you listened to Joe?
01:38:02 Has he been a part of your life in some kind of way?
01:38:04 You know, well, Joe’s always, I remember watching Joe on Fear Factor when I
01:38:08 was a little kid, which is cool.
01:38:09 So I’ve actually gotten to like, from a bird’s eye view, watch his kind of
01:38:14 just path through life.
01:38:16 But one of the things that I always appreciate, and again, I barely know Joe
01:38:19 other than to shake his hand.
01:38:20 He interviewed me after the, briefly in the ring after the BJ pan fight.
01:38:24 But one of the things that I’ve always admired about Joe is that I think he
01:38:28 had fucking money from the start.
01:38:30 I think that zero dollars is fucking money for Joe.
01:38:33 I think, and that’s something I respect about him a great deal because as you
01:38:37 say, it’s interesting to watch, it’s like you hope that George St. Pierre is
01:38:42 like this.
01:38:42 It’s really, I’m not super close to George, but we’re teammates at TriStar
01:38:46 and he’s never been anything but a gentleman.
01:38:47 He’s one of those people that if you didn’t know George was famous when you
01:38:50 walk into the gym, you’d have no idea.
01:38:52 He’s not holding court, not doing it.
01:38:53 He’s just, you know, training and he’ll help out an amateur doing this.
01:38:56 If you have a question for him, he’ll help me.
01:38:58 Like I’m nobody, man.
01:38:59 He would give me advice and train me.
01:39:01 It was super cool.
01:39:02 And he didn’t kill me, which I really appreciated.
01:39:04 He’s a gentleman.
01:39:05 But you know, it’s like you meet someone and you go, man, it’s so cool that
01:39:09 this is the guy who’s the best, that this is the guy who has been successful.
01:39:13 And then you go, why are they successful?
01:39:16 Like I said, true to what they’re doing.
01:39:18 They haven’t changed.
01:39:18 They’re the same as they’ve been.
01:39:19 And I remember I got to TriStar in 2012 and George was already George St.
01:39:23 Pierre, but I remember watching and talking to people and they’re like,
01:39:25 oh man, George is the same as he’s always been.
01:39:27 And it’s neat.
01:39:27 I see him in the gym training now and again, giving advice now.
01:39:30 And it seems like Joe has always been consistent.
01:39:33 And it’s neat to watch someone not compromise on their values and not change
01:39:37 who they are.
01:39:38 And not, you know, periodically, like, you know, again, we all make mistakes.
01:39:40 Like you have a bad day or this or that.
01:39:42 And an apology needs to be issued or even my bad or this or that.
01:39:45 And you’re like, yeah, and they just move on that they’re not afraid to be
01:39:48 themselves and they’re not afraid to be wrong.
01:39:50 They’re not afraid to make a mistake.
01:39:51 As you mentioned, open mind and some like, so what are the correct beliefs to
01:39:54 have about this that I know going in, everyone’s going to be okay with what
01:39:57 I’m saying, which is usually the beginning of a conversation that’s
01:40:00 going to go nowhere.
01:40:00 Right.
01:40:01 And, uh, it’s, it’s neat to see, um, the things I guess that he’s created on
01:40:07 his own as a result of the authenticity that’s there.
01:40:10 And it reminds me of like Dave Chappelle.
01:40:12 And, and again, I don’t know, I’ve never met Dave, but it’s neat to see
01:40:15 someone that’s clearly again, authentic in their own way, doing their own
01:40:20 thing.
01:40:20 And they’re because of that, they’re above the corporate nonsense.
01:40:24 But what’s funny, I think the message behind all of it is, Hey guys, we
01:40:27 all are, I can’t promise you that I’m going to have money.
01:40:30 Joe couldn’t promise you that he’s going to have money.
01:40:32 Now it ended up working out, but he was above that nonsense from the jump.
01:40:38 And he just continued to be above it by never giving it any mind and just
01:40:41 going like, yeah, I’m going to be a reasonable person.
01:40:42 I’m going to try to learn.
01:40:43 I’m going to try to grow.
01:40:45 And, uh, if I say something annoying, you can come and talk to me about it.
01:40:48 We can get to the bottom of it.
01:40:49 And I’m like, if I need to say my bad, thanks, appreciate it.
01:40:52 You know, I will.
01:40:53 And if I don’t need to, I’m like, Hey, I still appreciate the talk.
01:40:55 Thanks man.
01:40:56 I’ll shake your hand and we’d carry on and we’d go our separate ways and
01:40:58 hopefully I’ll treat you with respect.
01:40:59 You treat me with respect and that’s about it.
01:41:02 And I guess I think it’s a lesson that it can work out no matter what you
01:41:06 don’t have to count out to like these weird powers that be.
01:41:09 And whether you’re at this level or at this level, but you can live your
01:41:13 life the way that you want.
01:41:14 And as you mentioned, talk to your friends, hang out, be happy.
01:41:16 And it just so happens that that resonates with people.
01:41:18 It actually reminds me of like, uh, speaking to MIT and being in Boston is
01:41:22 like a good will hunting.
01:41:23 You know, like, again, that’s what did he really want to do?
01:41:25 He could have gone this way.
01:41:26 Could have gone that way.
01:41:27 And it was an interesting story, but it’s like this person wants to hang out
01:41:31 with his buddies and wants to do other things.
01:41:33 And again, it happens to be brilliant and happens to be able to do all these
01:41:35 other things, but there was.
01:41:38 I guess it’s like, at least in my mind, a story of authenticity as well.
01:41:41 And it was both the same thing in the Robin Williams character.
01:41:44 And I just think that that’s a message cause watch watching things occur on
01:41:49 the internet as they do now.
01:41:50 Think so many things playing out in the public eye.
01:41:52 I feel like so many private or otherwise formerly private discussions and
01:41:56 disputes and, and, you know, interactions now become, they all have a, a, well,
01:42:00 what is this going to say when it goes public?
01:42:02 So how can I couch what I’m saying?
01:42:04 Or how can I word this in a way that’s going to get people on my side or use
01:42:07 the right buzzwords and not use the wrong buzzwords.
01:42:09 And it’s just neat to see people.
01:42:11 You know, in their own way, flip the bird to the head, because I just think
01:42:14 that that’s, that’s just not how a human being is meant to think or interact.
01:42:18 I’m curious what you think about the thing that recently has, you know, me like
01:42:27 hosting this podcast, I sometimes think about like, who should I talk to and not
01:42:33 in terms of like, it’s the, the old Hitler question now, Hitler, I would definitely
01:42:39 talk to because post world war II, because everyone knows he’s evil.
01:42:43 The question, whether you talk to Hitler in 1937, like when people who are really
01:42:51 students of what’s going on, understand that this is a very dangerous human being.
01:42:57 But a large number of the part of the world are like, well, he’s a leader who
01:43:02 cares for Germany.
01:43:04 So the question I have, it’s interesting to me, it involves a particular person
01:43:09 named who also lives in Austin, Texas named Alex Jones.
01:43:13 I don’t know if you’re familiar with the guy.
01:43:14 I am familiar with Mr. Jones.
01:43:17 I’ve actually recently just listened to Infowars, like one episode of his show,
01:43:23 I guess that he does every day.
01:43:25 And it kind of reminds me of a time in college when I drank too much tequila.
01:43:32 There’s no turning back.
01:43:33 Like, it’s like, like the mistakes you make that like, it’s, I mean, you don’t
01:43:41 know where you’re going to wake up, you don’t know who you’re going to kill or
01:43:45 not kill or steal or rob, it’s unclear.
01:43:49 So that, it felt like I was getting pulled into a dark place where pretty
01:43:55 much everybody is a pedophile that’s trying to control the world.
01:44:00 So Bill Gates definitely is a pedophile.
01:44:04 Everybody in power, anybody in power, there’s a kind of a deep skepticism
01:44:08 about power and a conspiratorial way to see the world where everything is
01:44:14 like dark forces in all corners.
01:44:17 It’s like the way you feel when you’re a kid, that there’s a monster hiding
01:44:20 in the closet.
01:44:21 Which is also why you leap over the bed from like four feet away.
01:44:24 There’s a strategy.
01:44:26 Yes.
01:44:26 So, but he says that you’re just being weak.
01:44:28 You need to look under the bed.
01:44:30 Under the bed, there’s monsters and we need to be aware of them because
01:44:33 they’re growing, they’re multiplying.
01:44:35 You should be.
01:44:36 And they’re touching children.
01:44:37 They’re touching children.
01:44:38 Exactly.
01:44:39 So it all connects.
01:44:40 But the, the, I, when I listened to him and I thought about like, do I want
01:44:46 to talk to him on this podcast, for example, when I listened to his
01:44:52 conversation with Joe Rogan, the two times he talked on there, to me,
01:44:56 it was somehow entertaining.
01:44:59 Like it was fun to listen to.
01:45:01 It’s fun to listen to a madman go on for four hours because it’s almost
01:45:08 like theater.
01:45:10 Like, this is what I talked to Joe about.
01:45:13 When people try to censor Alex Jones, Joe says that the people who try
01:45:18 to censor him don’t give enough credit to the intelligence of human
01:45:22 beings to like, understand like that, like what a person says on a
01:45:28 large platform does not necessarily is not the truth.
01:45:32 You can be a madman and say crazy things and people are intelligent
01:45:36 enough to hear certain things being, when they’re said like the earth
01:45:42 is flat, they can, they can be intelligent enough not to all of a
01:45:46 sudden start believing that the earth is flat.
01:45:49 Like they, they’re intelligent enough to sort of select different
01:45:53 ideas and be able to enjoy the theater of a particular ridiculous
01:45:57 over the top conversation without being sort of influenced to where
01:46:01 they start believing like toxic set of beliefs.
01:46:05 Now there’s a lot of sort of other kinds of people, especially now
01:46:11 with cancel culture that say, well, you don’t want to give platform
01:46:14 to crazy people that ultimately whose beliefs might lead to dangerous
01:46:20 consequences.
01:46:20 Like, and I see it very often now with conspiracy theories that go,
01:46:25 that go like way too far.
01:46:26 Like for example, would, I, I’m not, I haven’t looked into it, so I’m
01:46:32 sorry, I will look into it, but it hurts my heart to see that on Bill
01:46:40 Gates, in my opinion, the person who has saved and improved more lives
01:46:46 than probably any human history, literally because of the money he’s
01:46:51 invested in helping, like just, just the work he’s done on like malaria
01:46:55 in Africa, the number of people he’s helped is huge.
01:46:59 And yet every interview, anything you see now on Bill Gates, everyone
01:47:04 is calling him, I believe haven’t looked into it, but I believe
01:47:08 everyone’s calling him a pedophile.
01:47:10 I don’t know the full structure of it, but it’s, it’s just a very, it
01:47:14 feels like an army of like, it feels like it’s hundreds of thousands
01:47:18 of people.
01:47:18 That’s what it feels like.
01:47:19 It might be a much smaller percentage, but it feels like a huge number
01:47:23 of people are calling him a pedophile.
01:47:24 So that’s the, that’s the flip side.
01:47:26 If you allow, if you give platform to conspiracy theories like that,
01:47:30 then you start to have bigger and bigger percent of the population
01:47:33 believe in these crazy things.
01:47:35 I just, I wanted to put it out there.
01:47:37 Cause I don’t know what to think of that.
01:47:40 If you put yourself in Joe Rogan’s shoes, if you put yourself in my
01:47:43 shoes, if you put yourself just in your own shoes, I mean, I’m even
01:47:47 I’m in my shoes right now.
01:47:49 Great.
01:47:49 If you’re staying in your shoes, just stay in your shoes.
01:47:51 Can I have your, would you talk, would you give platform to people like
01:47:57 Alex Jones, would, would you talk to somebody like Alex Jones or, or not?
01:48:05 Uh, I, yes, I would.
01:48:07 And I feel very strongly about this, honestly.
01:48:09 Um, well, I think that it’s, it’s an interesting thing and I, I would
01:48:14 just say a lot of times, um, I can understand, you know, very, very
01:48:18 clearly why people would take issue with the idea of, I guess what they
01:48:23 proceed to be amplifying this man’s voice, this man’s reach, um, you
01:48:28 know, as, as a demonstrable negative.
01:48:30 But I think, um, you know, when you take a step back further, uh, the,
01:48:37 the cure is more damaging than the disease and significantly.
01:48:40 So, um, I guess I think that I’m very, very wary of, I think being where
01:48:47 you mentioned Alex Jones being wary of power and people with it, that’s
01:48:51 a lot of times there’s a lot of truth and validity to crazy things that
01:48:56 people say it’s the conspiracy theories that stick are the ones that sound
01:49:01 credible, at least quasi credible in some aspect.
01:49:05 And it’s almost like it seems to me like an anchor in people’s mind.
01:49:07 And it is also funny to me, obviously the, the Bill Gates, it’s so funny
01:49:11 to tar people with things like pedophile, racist, rapist, like, these
01:49:15 are things that we’re basically trying to pick words that no one can ever
01:49:18 support someone who does these things.
01:49:20 And that’s, you know, and that changes year by year.
01:49:24 Like currently pedophile is totally in as a thing to call somebody just,
01:49:30 just as a, it used to be communist or Marxist Cleveland Browns fan, you
01:49:35 know, like, come on, you know, actually nobody likes the Browns.
01:49:38 So I’ll agree with you.
01:49:39 That was, that’s why I picked them.
01:49:40 That’s the trick is you find a group of people that nobody likes.
01:49:43 We’re good here.
01:49:44 All right.
01:49:44 That’s the move, but, uh, yeah, that’s a creepy thing though, because
01:49:48 that is, that is the creepy thing is like, if people are always looking
01:49:52 for groups of people are always looking for, and I find this really deeply
01:49:54 disturbing, um, like, Hey, so who’s the guy that we can all get away with?
01:49:58 You know, just treating like dirt, who’s the guy that I can be a dick to?
01:50:02 I can just walk up and punch in the face and no one’s going to say anything.
01:50:05 And it’s, even if I, you know, people do that with, whether it’s literal
01:50:09 Nazis or someone that I called a Nazi, you know, I guess what’s the bigger issue,
01:50:13 this person’s ridiculous beliefs or what I’m doing.
01:50:17 And you mentioned Hitler before, and obviously Mein Kampf being a, you know,
01:50:21 like the outline for some of the things he did later and when the evil was it
01:50:24 always there, did it, did it take root later on or flourish later on?
01:50:28 But was, was Adolf Hitler a problem because he had crazy ideas or
01:50:34 because he did things?
01:50:35 I think it’s because it’s not, I think I know it’s because he did things.
01:50:38 Now, if I’m going to start punishing thought crime, I, I’m going to have to
01:50:43 start punishing thought crime.
01:50:44 And that’s a terrifying concept.
01:50:46 Even if I’m right about the certain, about the objectively correct about the
01:50:49 things that I decide to call out of bounds, who put me in charge and made me
01:50:53 arbiter of good taste and how long until I did it, did it, did it, did it, did it
01:50:58 long until I decide that something else is, is out of bounds.
01:51:01 It’s, it’s always a sliding scale or it’s always a sliding standard.
01:51:05 And I find that, that, you know, to be more of a concern than people doing
01:51:09 crazy things, because I guess if you mentioned Alex Jones, you know, putting
01:51:12 out ridiculous, ridiculous ideas, ridiculous theories, I think that most
01:51:16 people don’t look at Alex Jones as a credible person.
01:51:18 Now I’m not going to pretend to be deeply read into all of his beliefs or the
01:51:22 things that he’s trying to peddle.
01:51:23 Um, but there’s plenty of things that are quasi mainstream that I think on
01:51:27 with this side or that side that maybe not comparably ridiculous, but are, you
01:51:32 know, particularly in hindsight or, you know, or we’re not, or, or silly.
01:51:37 And I guess, uh, the idea of, of getting a group of people together to decide
01:51:42 what we’re not going to tolerate is a very, very tricky thing.
01:51:46 And I think that, you know, it reminds me of law or, you know, even, you
01:51:51 know, religion when it gets to like, what are the things that we don’t like?
01:51:54 How do we feel about rape?
01:51:56 It’s like, no, under no circumstances.
01:51:58 Is that an acceptable behavior murder?
01:52:00 No, that’s not acceptable behavior.
01:52:01 Killing, I don’t know, kind of depends on the situation.
01:52:05 Are you at war?
01:52:06 Were you justified?
01:52:06 Were you acting in self defense?
01:52:09 Okay.
01:52:09 So it’s not now murder is a specific type of killing the same way, you know, other
01:52:14 things should be a specific type of something else.
01:52:16 But I guess we, we draw the line of murder.
01:52:17 We say, if you want to exist in our society, you can’t do this.
01:52:20 This cannot be done.
01:52:21 And then we go theft.
01:52:23 If someone said, Hey, I murdered that guy.
01:52:24 Can you understand where I’m coming from?
01:52:26 I might say, yeah, I’ll hear you out.
01:52:27 It doesn’t mean that I think you’re right, but I’m like, have you ever been wronged
01:52:30 so deeply that you could imagine that you could kill someone?
01:52:33 I’m like, no, I haven’t, but I could conceptualize someone doing that.
01:52:36 And I’m like, yeah, okay.
01:52:37 And you still need to go, you still need to face, you know, criminal justice as we
01:52:40 have it in our system, or at least that’s how we’ve decided.
01:52:43 Yeah, there’s, it’s interesting.
01:52:44 You have to be able to like, there’s, if you look at the history of discourse in
01:52:48 this country, I think it’s still true, but I’m not sure it’s changed since 9 11 is,
01:52:55 uh, it used to be impossible to criticize, um, a soldier.
01:53:03 It was easier to criticize war.
01:53:05 It was harder to criticize soldiers for allowing themselves to be the tools of war.
01:53:10 I tend to be, maybe it’s the Russian upbringing.
01:53:13 It’s the, it’s the combat thing.
01:53:15 I tend to romanticize war and soldiers.
01:53:19 I see soldiers as heroes, but I’ve also heard people that not only say that soldiers
01:53:26 are, uh, war is bad.
01:53:28 They say soldiers are bad.
01:53:31 What’s their argument?
01:53:33 It’s, it’s the kind of a libertarian view that they’re basically slaves to evil, right?
01:53:41 War is evil and they’re, they’re given, they are suspending their moral and ethical, like,
01:53:49 as like duties as a human being to become the tools of evil.
01:53:53 That’s the sort of the argument.
01:53:55 If you see war as evil, I mean, I think it’s useful to hear that, but there’s for a long
01:54:02 part in history that was completely unacceptable.
01:54:05 Same with abortion.
01:54:08 If you see abortion as murder, I mean, if I classify it in that, if I put it in that,
01:54:16 in that basket, it starts, we’re living in the midst of like a genocide.
01:54:25 Looked at from that perspective, could you feel how people could be deeply upset by abortion?
01:54:29 You go, of course.
01:54:29 Looked at from a different perspective, you say, I don’t believe it to be murder.
01:54:32 That’s not how I see it.
01:54:34 Then you go, oh, well, if that’s the genesis of your, your thought process, then you’re
01:54:37 like, yeah, okay.
01:54:38 Now, now I see how we can come to a different thing, but I guess we go, well, abortion is
01:54:43 murder period.
01:54:44 Therefore, if you support it, you support murder.
01:54:47 That’s a convenient way for me to tar you.
01:54:49 Right.
01:54:49 But I guess that’s kind of coming back to the Alec Jones.
01:54:52 I’m, I’m just a nuance.
01:54:54 It’s a, you have to have the nuance in these kinds of conversations and I have to be willing
01:54:58 to have the conversation and I have to be willing to sit down.
01:55:00 If I can’t sit down across from like the most violently racist, angry, hypothetical internet,
01:55:05 you know, conceived person that none of us have ever actually met in real life, but are
01:55:10 hopefully not, you know, and go like, well, of course I believe that this person’s wrong,
01:55:14 but allow me to change, do my best.
01:55:16 I’ll hear them out and I’ll go, no, I can go point by point and explain where this guy
01:55:19 or this girl is wrong and hopefully bring them over to a more reasonable position where
01:55:23 they will have better beliefs and they will like objectively better beliefs and beliefs
01:55:27 that will, will, and they’ll treat other people better.
01:55:30 Why would I want to marginalize this person?
01:55:32 I might not want to talk.
01:55:32 I might not want to invite them to my barbecue if they’re acting like a jerk all the time,
01:55:36 but how could I, would it not make the world a better place if I’d hear them out and they
01:55:39 go, look, if you’re going to sit down and talk with me, we’re going to have to have
01:55:41 a discussion.
01:55:42 I’ll hear what you have to say.
01:55:44 And if I can’t, if I can’t explain to someone why their ridiculous belief is wrong, then
01:55:50 I might, I must not be so confident in my position.
01:55:52 And I guess that’s where I come back to the Alex Jones thing.
01:55:54 As you mentioned, you know, with, with Bill Gates and, and you’re much more familiar with,
01:55:58 with the specifics of all the good that he’s done, but you know, again, he’s been an unbelievable
01:56:02 force for good, you know, in this world.
01:56:05 You can list A, B, C, D things that the man has, has done, that his foundation has done
01:56:11 and, you know, positive things.
01:56:13 And then the other people could speculate about ridiculous, crazy levels of, of evil,
01:56:18 but you can’t produce any evidence for that sort of thing.
01:56:21 Because if you could, the man will find himself in some trouble, you know?
01:56:23 And anyway, I guess what I would, would say is that why you can’t force me to accept the
01:56:29 truth the same way you could write down two plus two equals four on a piece of paper and
01:56:33 show me how it works.
01:56:33 And I could say, no, but that doesn’t make it not true.
01:56:36 And you’ve still given yourself an opportunity to present your case.
01:56:38 You’ve presented it to me.
01:56:40 And you’ve also, for anyone listening and watching, you know, you’ve been able to critically
01:56:45 assess what’s gone on, you know, or critically address back and forth, you know, kind of
01:56:48 the, the discourse.
01:56:50 And I think that you almost, you’re making your case for the public.
01:56:52 So I guess like, you know, when it comes to just never not engaging with these people,
01:56:57 that seems to me to be cowardly.
01:56:59 And I think that that’s a, something that we’re seeing in society right now, I think
01:57:02 we’re seeing a crisis of courage in society all over the place.
01:57:06 And I think that’s where we’re seeing poor leadership.
01:57:09 I think we’re seeing understandable things happening everywhere, but we need stronger
01:57:13 voices and stronger, stronger beliefs that have a conviction and are willing to engage
01:57:18 with others, not just turning into a shouting contest and not, I didn’t win because there’s
01:57:22 more of me.
01:57:22 Oh, I voted, I outvoted you.
01:57:23 That’s nice too.
01:57:24 But that’s a stand in for bullets.
01:57:26 That’s saying I won because there’s more of me.
01:57:27 That doesn’t mean that I’m right because plenty of horrible and unpopular now things have
01:57:32 been very, very deeply popular in the past and would have won a popular vote.
01:57:35 Does that make them right?
01:57:36 I’d say clearly not.
01:57:38 So I guess you’d hope that we engage with these people and that you can do your best
01:57:42 to bring them over to a more reasonable position if you believe that you have one.
01:57:45 And if you can’t, well, at least you made the effort.
01:57:47 And I think that that’s something where martial arts shows the value.
01:57:50 It’s like, do you know if you’re going to go win your next fight?
01:57:52 I’m like, I have no idea.
01:57:53 I will proceed forward with full effort and I will fight with dignity.
01:57:58 I’ll fight with honor and I’ll fight with courage and I’ll use everything that I have
01:58:02 and I will play within the bounds of the game and that’s that.
01:58:05 And the result will be what it’ll be.
01:58:06 But I’ll walk into and out of that ring with my head held high because I will know that
01:58:09 I did my part.
01:58:10 I did my job.
01:58:11 The outcome, the specific outcome is not in my control.
01:58:14 It’s just strongly in my influence.
01:58:16 And I think that that’s something that helped me, that martial arts has taught me because
01:58:20 other times, even when I was successful or unsuccessful, I would focus on if I won, I
01:58:25 won, therefore I’m good.
01:58:26 I lost, therefore I’m bad.
01:58:27 This other guy won or lost, therefore, as opposed to evaluating their method.
01:58:31 And I think it’s so easy when we’re taking a bird’s eye view of things to not evaluate
01:58:35 how someone’s doing things.
01:58:36 You’re not evaluating my process.
01:58:38 You’re simply evaluating my outcome.
01:58:39 And I could have stumbled into something very, very good or very, very bad.
01:58:42 And we can look back and I think that’s the value of history.
01:58:44 I mean, I don’t mean to get on my dang high horse, but it’s like this value of history
01:58:47 is we can see the unbroken chain or the chain of events that led us somewhere.
01:58:51 And then only with the eyes of history can we truly evaluate things unless we’re in
01:58:55 the room watching it happen.
01:58:57 And I guess that’s, again, where we start to go most of the big, bad, scary things that
01:59:02 have happened in history that are done particularly on an industrial scale, which implies governmental
01:59:08 power and things like that or the equivalent, involve groups of people getting together
01:59:12 and going, hey, we’re not going to deal with that guy, giant groups of people.
01:59:16 So maybe we’re right this time, but maybe we’re wrong next time.
01:59:20 And I guess I would be back to the Gandalf putting on the one ring.
01:59:22 I would be very, very hesitant, even if we thought we were in the right to simply try
01:59:26 to try to marginalize just on general principle.
01:59:30 Even people like Alex Jones, whom on their face are pretty ridiculous.
01:59:33 Like you said, you should sit down with Adolf Hitler and talk to the man.
01:59:36 I agree with you to play a little devil’s advocate is Alex Jones might be a bad example.
01:59:44 But if we look at, because he has a face, he is a human, he’s a real person.
01:59:48 There’s also trolls on the internet for Chan.
01:59:55 The worry I have with those folks is that, and there might be parallels to martial arts
02:00:01 is they practice guerrilla warfare, meaning they don’t necessarily want to arrive at the truth.
02:00:09 They just always want to cut at the ankles of the powerful.
02:00:13 Like they want to always break down the powerful.
02:00:17 And even if they, I mean, it’s, they turn everything into a game.
02:00:22 So they let’s see if we can make the world.
02:00:26 Let’s see if we can make a trend that Bill Gates is a pedophile, right?
02:00:30 They make it into a game.
02:00:31 They get excited about this game.
02:00:33 They see the powerful.
02:00:34 Let’s see if we can convince that, like, who is the most positive person we can think of.
02:00:39 Let’s see if we can turn them into evil.
02:00:41 And they’ve tried that with like everybody and it seems to stick and they’re good at it.
02:00:47 And some would argue, whatever you think about our current president, that he has some elements
02:00:54 of that, which is he’s figured out whatever this music of social discourse that’s going on,
02:01:00 he’s figured out how to always troll the mainstream flow of consciousness.
02:01:07 That’s the media.
02:01:09 He always kind of says stuff that annoys a very large number of people.
02:01:13 And he enjoys that because it’s like taking the powerful, taking the way things were before.
02:01:19 And he like shakes it up by saying the most inappropriate thing, almost on purpose or
02:01:23 instinctually and so on.
02:01:25 The problem I have with that is that doesn’t, the powerful thing there is it brings those
02:01:36 in power down a notch.
02:01:38 That’s a great thing.
02:01:38 The negative thing is it doesn’t push us closer to a nuanced, careful, rigorous discourse
02:01:46 towards truth.
02:01:47 It’s like showing up to a party and just like starting to yell.
02:01:51 It doesn’t create a good conversation.
02:01:54 It just makes everything into a game where truth doesn’t even seem like a thing we can
02:01:59 even hope to achieve.
02:02:01 That makes sense.
02:02:02 And I guess, as you mentioned, we’ll come back to another movie because I don’t do books
02:02:04 and do movies.
02:02:05 Some people just want to watch the world burn, right?
02:02:07 And I guess there’s, that’s a creepy, creepy kind of urge that some people have.
02:02:13 And then also is some people you’re like, hey, would you like to throw a brick through
02:02:16 that glass window?
02:02:17 You’re like, yeah, sure.
02:02:19 Like, no, I’m not going to do that because I think about what’s going to occur.
02:02:23 Like something’s going to be hurt, someone’s property not going to do it versus, hey, you
02:02:27 want to see what will happen?
02:02:27 Like, yeah, sure.
02:02:28 Kids are always like, I have my son, he grabs Spider Man and drops him on the table.
02:02:33 Spider Man fell.
02:02:34 Spider Man didn’t fall, Sean.
02:02:35 Like, he dropped him, you knocked him off the table and he’ll grin.
02:02:39 And basically, it’s an interesting thing, like you said, that these people are appealing
02:02:46 to and also almost like the little dog factor of like people do want to watch the powerful
02:02:52 get taken down a notch for all the good and the not good of that.
02:02:55 Just plenty of people, it seems to me, that have found their way to incredibly high positions.
02:02:59 Some have just found themselves there and many, many, many, many, many people, men and
02:03:04 women of all backgrounds are brilliant and have worked hard.
02:03:08 And yeah, of course, there’s luck and there’s luck into everything.
02:03:11 LeBron James, in spite of being the best basketball player on God’s green earth, is fortunate
02:03:16 that he didn’t get hit by a car.
02:03:17 It’s fortunate he didn’t tear his knee, but thankfully, we get to see all these things.
02:03:22 But I guess if people don’t have any skin in the game, you never know what they’re going
02:03:31 to do.
02:03:31 And I think that’s the problem with the internet.
02:03:33 You know, that people get to be nameless, be faceless.
02:03:36 That’s why guerrilla fighters are outside of the bounds of war.
02:03:39 Like you don’t have a uniform on.
02:03:40 Like, I don’t know who you’re from.
02:03:42 You don’t get the same treatment that a soldier gets for MP.
02:03:46 Well, that’s crazy.
02:03:47 Actually, there’s reasons for this, because otherwise people are able to assail things
02:03:52 and there’s no one responsible.
02:03:55 There’s no way to go and say, hey, where did this come from?
02:03:57 What’s the root of this?
02:03:58 How can I address this?
02:03:59 And I think that’s the problem of the internet, the problem of Twitter.
02:04:01 There’s a problem in places like 4chan.
02:04:03 I wouldn’t mind seeing that type of stuff go away, if I’m frank.
02:04:06 But that’s not the same thing as people with a face, people who are willing to stand there
02:04:11 and say, hi, my name is so and so.
02:04:13 Even if I have ridiculous beliefs, hopefully people will hear me out.
02:04:16 And then if I’m wrong, educate me.
02:04:18 But I guess you hope that the real, I guess, in my mind, antidote to all of this silliness
02:04:24 is education.
02:04:25 And I think that that’s something that we’re critical thinking is not necessarily.
02:04:30 I went to school in America, and I feel very fortunate.
02:04:33 But critical thinking is not something that’s focused on.
02:04:36 I mean, it’s tough.
02:04:37 It’s almost like talking about jujitsu.
02:04:39 It’s tough to teach critical thinking when I don’t know any words.
02:04:41 You have to teach me techniques.
02:04:42 You can’t teach me to be an artist.
02:04:44 But recognize that the techniques are the beginning, not the end.
02:04:47 Ultimately, it’s the artistry that we are searching for, not just the science or the
02:04:51 biro memorization.
02:04:53 And I guess you’d hope that people’s ability to think critically and recognize that majority
02:04:58 rule or whoever’s loudest does not mean that they’re right by any stretch of the imagination.
02:05:01 And we don’t appeal to that.
02:05:02 And we don’t bow to that.
02:05:04 We’ll help them to help inoculate them against the ridiculous things that come out of these
02:05:09 places, these dark places that are objectively not great.
02:05:12 But I guess all circling back, even if we swatted these bad things out of existence
02:05:19 right now, we’ve got to be very, very careful doing that because it’s who’s doing the swatting.
02:05:25 This political group that’s in power right now, the people that support our current president
02:05:28 would maybe feel a certain way.
02:05:30 The people that support another option would feel differently as to what exactly defines
02:05:34 toxic.
02:05:34 And I guess that’s what gives me pause.
02:05:38 Yeah.
02:05:39 But also the grace thing.
02:05:41 I tend to believe that the technology, you said education, but the platforms we use like
02:05:48 Twitter and Reddit and all these platforms have a role to play to teach us grace.
02:05:54 Meaning they should help us incentivize the kind of behavior that is incentivized in real
02:06:03 life.
02:06:03 Like being a dick in real life is not incentivized.
02:06:07 Like one on one interaction.
02:06:09 Like there’s cases where it is, but usually being kind to each other is incentivized.
02:06:15 On the internet, it’s not.
02:06:16 Like you get likes for mocking people in a funny, in a humorous way.
02:06:22 And it can be dark kind of mocking, depending on the community.
02:06:24 You can go to the appearance.
02:06:27 If somebody is a little fat or a little too skinny, you can comment on their appearance,
02:06:32 the hair, the way the hair looks, like the appearance stuff.
02:06:36 It could be on the people comment all the time on the level of eloquence of my speech.
02:06:44 Go fuck yourself.
02:06:45 I like it.
02:06:46 It’s creepy though watching previously, like this used to be low brow though.
02:06:50 Like people doing this type of stuff, it’s creepy watching like our political figures
02:06:53 get into this type of game.
02:06:56 Yes.
02:06:56 But again, it’s a little bit refreshing, right?
02:07:00 It’s the, my hope with Donald Trump was, is that he would shake up the people who wear
02:07:09 suits.
02:07:09 Usually the, like if you’re from DC, I remember like showing up, I actually didn’t wear what
02:07:16 I usually wear in DC cause I was like, everybody’s wearing a suit and tie when I was like giving
02:07:21 talks and stuff.
02:07:22 Except for Mudge, who wears jeans and a t shirt.
02:07:24 Mudge doesn’t give a damn.
02:07:25 Mudge is a forever renegade.
02:07:28 But I don’t even remember what, oh yeah.
02:07:34 So my hope with Trump was that he would shake up that system to say like, to inject new
02:07:40 ideas, to inject new energy.
02:07:43 Of course, the way it turned out is different, but like there’s, it turns out that you might
02:07:49 want to have somebody who’s like an Andrew Yang type character who is full of ideas that
02:07:54 are very different and inject the energy, new energy into the system through youthful
02:08:01 new ideas versus through the troll that like, that’s very good at sort of mocking and like
02:08:09 playing outside the rules of the game.
02:08:12 But Trump did reveal powerfully, I don’t know what to think of it, that it’s just a game
02:08:20 and you don’t have to play by the rules.
02:08:22 That’s both inspiring and dark.
02:08:25 Deeply depressing, right?
02:08:26 Yeah, and I don’t know what to do with it.
02:08:28 I don’t, I mean the same, I’m not drawing parallels, not drawing parallels between our
02:08:34 president and Adolf Hitler, but it’s certainly, and there’s a lot of, in history, a lot of
02:08:41 positive and a lot of negative things happen when charismatic leaders realize they don’t
02:08:47 have to play by the rules.
02:08:49 You can just flip the table.
02:08:50 It’s that Kevin Spacey show.
02:08:55 House of Cards.
02:08:55 House of Cards, where you just flip the table or whatever.
02:08:58 You don’t have to play by the rules of the chess game.
02:09:00 You can flip the table.
02:09:01 One wonders if that’s always been done in private, you know?
02:09:04 I guess, because that’s, I mean, even look, obviously, the United States is a republic,
02:09:09 but we had Bush, then we had Clinton, then we had more Bush, then we had President Obama,
02:09:14 then we were about to have another Clinton.
02:09:16 That’s fairly creepy.
02:09:18 Yeah.
02:09:19 Even on its own.
02:09:20 But now we added another, I mean, I’m sure we’ll have a generation of Trumps now.
02:09:26 Gee.
02:09:27 I’m Russian, so I think we humans like kings still and queens.
02:09:36 There’s something, we’re attracted to the thing we talked about, coaches.
02:09:41 There’s something in us that longs towards that authoritarian control.
02:09:45 One of the beautiful things about America, the Second Amendment, is we also like individual
02:09:53 freedom.
02:09:53 That’s one of the unique aspects at the founding of this country and still, and for me, is
02:09:59 the beacon of hope that somehow there’s the fire of freedom burns in like that Texas feel.
02:10:09 That gives me hope.
02:10:10 The FU energy that revolts against the power, which as we discussed, power corrupts and
02:10:17 ultimately leads to degradation of whoever’s ruling the people.
02:10:25 It’s interesting though.
02:10:26 It seems to me, maybe I’m just, I don’t know if I’m reading this properly when I see it,
02:10:30 but it seems to me that, like you said, that flip the bird, I’m going to do me within reason.
02:10:37 As long as I’m not hurting you, is idea that very much, at least in my mind, defines the
02:10:43 American ideal or at least part of the consciousness of the United States is under attack to a
02:10:48 certain extent.
02:10:50 If only I can think to maybe a generation behind us, it’s becoming more collectivist
02:10:59 for all the good and also the not good of that.
02:11:01 And it’s not in terms of policy at this point, but just in terms of consciousness.
02:11:08 And I wonder if that’s an internet thing.
02:11:10 People are more in touch with one another than they’ve, as far as I can tell, have ever
02:11:14 been, or at least more than in my lifetime.
02:11:16 And the rest of the world seems much closer than it did.
02:11:20 Living in Virginia, California seems very far away.
02:11:23 Being on the internet, it’s just right there.
02:11:25 I can hear about it.
02:11:25 I can see it.
02:11:26 I can interact with people from there.
02:11:29 I remember being in Tennessee at one time and reading about events taking place in the
02:11:37 Middle East.
02:11:38 And that just seemed like a mile away.
02:11:40 It seemed like an unbelievably far distance.
02:11:43 And then another time when you’re in DC, you just feel like, oh, you read about something
02:11:45 happening in Paris.
02:11:46 And it just feels like it’s just right around the corner because DC is a seat of power where
02:11:51 things are just occurring all the time.
02:11:52 And I guess you wonder about that’s where I come back to the group decisions to not
02:12:01 listen to this person or to cancel this.
02:12:03 We all, the moral majority, shall do the following as opposed to as long as you’re not hurting
02:12:08 me and as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, I have to let you do, I have to let
02:12:12 you be on general principle.
02:12:14 Even if I don’t like you, I’m very free to not like you.
02:12:16 I’m free to speak out against you, but I’m not, it is not within my right or, and not
02:12:20 with it.
02:12:21 And it’s not, I would not be right to attempt to attack you.
02:12:25 And that is an interesting thing though, when we see words being redefined or words being
02:12:29 defined, whether it’s toxicity, whether it’s violence, if I think that what you’re saying
02:12:33 is your speech is by itself a violence or a precursor to violence, I’m justified in
02:12:39 doing all sorts of things.
02:12:41 And that creeps me out significantly because again, even if it ends up being pointed in
02:12:47 a good direction initially, it’s only a matter of time.
02:12:49 And actually that brings me to another, yeah, I got all day.
02:12:54 How much are they paying you?
02:12:57 But we about say the Frank Herbert estate, not enough frankly, let’s see.
02:13:02 And how many books are there in Dune?
02:13:05 That’s a Jen question.
02:13:07 You’re also a fan of Dune?
02:13:08 I read the whole series, but not a couple of the, I read all the prequels as well with
02:13:15 the exception of a couple.
02:13:16 Is there a book one for Dune?
02:13:18 Dune would be book one.
02:13:20 And even the prequels, it’s still all better if you start, like I read Dune and then read
02:13:25 the original, what is it?
02:13:27 Six.
02:13:27 And then I went back and started to read some of the books.
02:13:29 Just like watching Star Wars, you want to start episode four or whatever?
02:13:34 Yeah, I think so.
02:13:35 That’s the move and then stop at six, call it a day, watch The Mandalorian.
02:13:40 Well, I thought you’re not walking back here.
02:13:42 No, I like The Mandalorian.
02:13:43 No, it’s not The Mandalorian.
02:13:44 That is what I said.
02:13:47 I was told that I was heartless for not liking Baby Yoda, who I…
02:13:49 We don’t talk about a couple of the movies, not including The Mandalorian.
02:13:54 The Mandalorian is fine.
02:13:55 It’s the more recent movies that we don’t like to talk about.
02:13:58 Oh, the…
02:13:59 What’s his name?
02:14:00 The goofy guy.
02:14:02 Ryan.
02:14:03 No, no.
02:14:04 No, the creature, the goofy creature with the…
02:14:06 Jar Jar?
02:14:06 Yeah, Jar Jar.
02:14:07 Do you ever see the Jar Jar Binks is actually like the Dark Lord of the Sith theory?
02:14:12 That fixed the whole initial trilogy where he’s goofing around and making it all the
02:14:16 way through battles.
02:14:17 And when you’re like, wait a minute, he oops his way, walks over to a pool, does a triple
02:14:21 backflip, falls in, you’re like, it’s just bizarre that you…
02:14:24 This is the Alex Jones theory of Star Wars.
02:14:27 He’s actually running everything.
02:14:29 He was the one that actually was like, hey, we should vote in Chancellor Palpatine, or
02:14:34 Senator Palpatine, right before they put Jar Jar in charge.
02:14:37 First off, what did they think was gonna happen?
02:14:38 And second off, I just think that’d be great.
02:14:41 You’re like, oops, oh man, I guess he’s the emperor now.
02:14:43 That would have been great.
02:14:44 But actually, to the cancel and all the other stuff, again, you’d hope that it gives pause.
02:14:49 And I think about this for fighting, because a lot of times…
02:14:51 I’ll use this as an example, people fight fans in UFC, they love people that run out
02:14:57 and try to murder each other.
02:14:58 And it’s entertaining, and it’s super entertaining.
02:15:01 But Floyd Mayweather doesn’t resonate with people as much.
02:15:05 It’s like people start…
02:15:06 I remember the time when Floyd was not as popular.
02:15:07 Now people think people love Floyd because he’s 50 and oh Floyd.
02:15:11 And oh man, and finally he had so much success that we all can’t help but recognize the man’s
02:15:15 genius and greatness.
02:15:16 But prior to that, oh, he’s boring, he’s this, he’s that.
02:15:19 He fights with his circumspect, he’s cautious, he’s pressing.
02:15:23 He’s intelligent, deeply intelligent.
02:15:26 And when you watch people go out and try to murder each other, you can flip a coin 100
02:15:30 times and you could be lucky enough to get 100 heads, but it’s still a coin flip.
02:15:35 And I think that that’s what’s going on all the time is people are getting an outcome
02:15:40 that they want, but it wasn’t a well thought out situation.
02:15:42 That’s why you’ll win by five in a row by knockout and then lose three in a row.
02:15:46 And then people will go, well, what happened to that guy?
02:15:48 He used to be so great.
02:15:49 And you’re like, no, he’s doing what he’s always been doing.
02:15:51 It’s just, it was getting great outcomes on a coin flip prior, and it’s getting negative
02:15:54 outcomes on a coin flip now.
02:15:56 But I guess what I would say is it watches, it’s interesting watching, I guess, societal
02:16:03 beliefs become such a thing that we’re almost adopting on a religious level if we’re not
02:16:08 careful.
02:16:08 If when I say religious level, I mean like pan life, like this is guiding all of my
02:16:13 choices for all the good and the bad of that.
02:16:15 And this is a Dune quote is, when religion and politics travel in the same cart, the
02:16:18 writers believe that nothing can stand in their way.
02:16:21 Their movements become headlong faster and faster and faster.
02:16:24 They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that the precipice does not show itself
02:16:28 to the man in the blind rush until it’s too late.
02:16:31 And I think that that’s, again, the pause.
02:16:33 We go, oh man, thank goodness we have this guy that wants to rebuild Germany.
02:16:36 He’ll put us back where we need to be.
02:16:38 And you stop questioning your own judgment, your own, you stop thinking essentially.
02:16:45 Right.
02:16:45 I’m not allowed to question this.
02:16:47 Of course this is correct.
02:16:47 Of course, of course I’m right.
02:16:49 I intended to do right.
02:16:50 So of course my actions are correct.
02:16:52 I mean, how many times have any of us intended to do something helpful and ended up doing
02:16:55 something less?
02:16:57 And plenty of people who intend to do harm could by accident do something decent.
02:17:01 And I guess it’s, I’m not saying anything terribly, terribly insightful, but it’s just
02:17:07 one of those where it’s hard to say in the moment.
02:17:10 And that’s where you hopefully caution, you would counsel some degree of caution.
02:17:14 And that’s what worries me with people deciding that we’re all so right about this or we’re
02:17:20 all so right about that and attempting to rather than win the argument, silence the
02:17:25 counter argument, no matter how crazy it may seem.
02:17:28 Because I just think that that idea, even when it’s pointed in a good direction initially,
02:17:31 it’s only a matter of time.
02:17:34 You’re amongst many things, a Jiu Jitsu black belt.
02:17:39 One of the things that people are really curious about white belts and blue belts in Jiu Jitsu,
02:17:44 but also people haven’t tried the art is what does it take to be a Jiu Jitsu black belt?
02:17:51 I think that, you know, everyone’s journey is a little bit different, but the one thing
02:17:54 that the, it was a Calvin Coolidge quote, you know, determination, persistence is the
02:18:00 only thing that will win in the end.
02:18:03 It will always win in the end.
02:18:05 Not brilliance, not toughness, not education, it’s persistence.
02:18:10 And I think that having the belief that no matter what happens to me, I will proceed
02:18:15 forward and I will figure out how to make this happen, hell or high water, I think is
02:18:19 the one thing that ties together all of the people that I’ve ever met that made it through
02:18:23 whatever it was that they were going through.
02:18:25 Because, you know, sometimes you can get lucky and you can have an easy time or and that
02:18:31 luck could be you had a good situation.
02:18:32 It could be, I mean, like in the obvious sense of like where you’re living, where you’re
02:18:35 training, what’s going on, you had a good situation, you’re unbelievably athletic.
02:18:39 Oh, you’re going to be an astronaut, you’re brilliant and an Olympic athlete, you know,
02:18:43 like, well, that’s a fantastic situation.
02:18:45 You know, you won the genetic lottery and I’m sure you worked hard as well, but you
02:18:48 also won the genetic lottery.
02:18:49 It’s a determination is the one thing, though, because that person could have a very easy
02:18:55 go of it initially and then tear their knee.
02:18:57 And then they’re no longer the superhuman physical specimen that they were.
02:19:01 The only thing that will keep them going is persistence.
02:19:04 And I think that that I would just say that persistence to say I’ll just put one foot
02:19:09 in front of the other.
02:19:10 And sometimes I can see the path ahead and sometimes it’s beyond my vision, but I will
02:19:15 not stop.
02:19:15 I may even slow down, but I won’t stop.
02:19:18 And that’s the only thing that I can say that I’ve seen tie everyone together because there’s
02:19:22 so many ways to the top of any mountain and there’s so many different personalities and
02:19:26 skills and backgrounds involved.
02:19:28 But everyone, everyone carries on.
02:19:31 So at the core, the foundational advice is just don’t quit.
02:19:35 Just keep going.
02:19:36 That’s the lesson of martial arts.
02:19:37 I think, you know, we think it’s like how to be strong or how to be how to win.
02:19:42 But in reality, it’s like how to persist, how to endure, because it’s all of us have
02:19:45 been beaten so many times and gotten beaten up so many times and thought about quitting.
02:19:49 Have I ever thought about quitting?
02:19:51 Absolutely.
02:19:51 Have I ever quit?
02:19:52 Never.
02:19:52 I will never, ever quit ever.
02:19:55 I can say that you might not me out.
02:19:56 I won’t be damned if I quit.
02:19:57 What’s the darkest moment?
02:19:59 Is it injury related?
02:20:00 Like, is it, uh, so like, to me, like two possibilities, I’ve fortunately never been
02:20:07 seriously injured, but I think that’s a dark place to be like having to be out for many
02:20:13 months, uh, for, um, as Jen was saying, like with a head injury, especially like the uncertainty
02:20:22 that’s one.
02:20:22 And then the other side is if you have big ambitions as a competitor, realizing that
02:20:29 you’re not as good, like those, those doubts were like, I kind of suck.
02:20:37 How am I supposed to be a world?
02:20:39 The greatest fighter of all time.
02:20:41 If I, if, if like several people in the gym are kicking my ass, those are the two things
02:20:47 that paralyze you.
02:20:48 I think that everyone’s darkest moment is maybe different looking from the outside for
02:20:55 Ryan.
02:20:55 I wouldn’t say that he’s had injuries and he’s had bad ones.
02:20:58 I wouldn’t say that was his darkest moment.
02:21:00 I think for me, I would say some of my head injury was my darkest moment.
02:21:06 Absolutely.
02:21:06 And I’ve torn my ACL twice.
02:21:08 I’ve torn my shoulders four times.
02:21:09 I’ve had lots of surgeries.
02:21:11 For me, the orthopedic injuries were not the most difficult.
02:21:17 It was the brain injury for others that might be the case for them.
02:21:21 Maybe they’ve never experienced an injury and maybe for them, that’s their darkest moment
02:21:25 from the outside, obviously Ryan can speak to this more, but for Ryan, I think it was
02:21:30 the inability to, to perform at certain points to the upper, the missing of opportunities
02:21:37 that for him, from my perspective, watching him go through and having seen various points
02:21:41 of his growth from, from early purple belt on, I think the hardest time for him looking
02:21:46 in obviously was when he would hit moments where he wasn’t able to perform for various
02:21:53 reasons.
02:21:53 He couldn’t get fights.
02:21:54 He, he was having difficulties there.
02:21:57 I think that that was the hardest point for him.
02:21:59 Did you, did you think like with the head injury that you might not, never be able to
02:22:04 jujitsu again?
02:22:05 Yeah.
02:22:05 I mean, I, I, mine was very, was really bad and it was just the one hit, but I had a looping
02:22:11 memories for seven months.
02:22:13 Didn’t know it because when your brain’s messed up, you’re not even aware that you’re
02:22:16 looping.
02:22:17 And so I saw two different neurologists.
02:22:21 I finally, like it took a very long time.
02:22:23 I didn’t know if I was going to be able to have like linear thoughts or read a book.
02:22:27 I didn’t know at certain points if I could listen to music again, you know, without it
02:22:31 making my head hurt.
02:22:33 And so it was almost two years before I woke up in the morning without a headache.
02:22:39 Just waking up before I even start my day.
02:22:41 And so that’s even bigger than jujitsu.
02:22:44 That’s just life.
02:22:45 That’s just, that’s just hard.
02:22:46 And I think that you can experience so many things.
02:22:50 I’ve had all these injuries.
02:22:53 We lost a baby when I was 15, 15 weeks.
02:22:56 And we’ve had all these experiences and what the hardest point for me, not saying all those
02:23:02 things weren’t hard, but it’s kind of like, well, did you go through these?
02:23:05 You just realize like life goes on and you have to keep working at it and you have to
02:23:09 keep going.
02:23:09 And you asked me earlier offline, did I feel depressed and not for my head injury.
02:23:16 I don’t think that at least in the moment I had a, any recognition of that.
02:23:20 It’s kind of like, but I think different people’s personalities.
02:23:24 I have kind of the like buckle down and just keep going.
02:23:27 And sometimes it’s not until lots of time later that you realize, wow, that was really
02:23:32 hard because you’re just struggling to live and function and do the things that you need
02:23:37 to do along the way.
02:23:37 Do you mind jumping on just like this part of the conversation just for a few minutes?
02:23:42 Do you mind, you know, just sitting together?
02:23:45 Oh, not at all.
02:23:46 Just for a little bit, it’d be cool if we put a face to it, you know, is it okay with
02:23:53 you?
02:23:53 Yeah, it’s fine with me.
02:23:54 It’s fine with you.
02:23:56 By the way, what was the head injury?
02:23:58 If you don’t mind sharing.
02:23:59 Someone had dropped their knee on the back of my head during training.
02:24:02 It was a lot bigger than me.
02:24:04 So one strike to the back of the head is too much for someone.
02:24:09 There’s a reason that’s outlawed in MMA, right?
02:24:11 Someone 50 pounds heavier than you dropped their knee on the back of your head once.
02:24:14 And it’s the funny thing about getting hit, right?
02:24:16 You never can really be sure what’s going to happen.
02:24:19 I think it’s actually one of the magical parts about jiu jitsu where, like, if you choke
02:24:22 me, if we know what’s going to occur, you hit someone, they might be completely unharmed.
02:24:29 You might be punching Tony Ferguson in the face and you need to hit him with a sledge
02:24:32 hammer to affect this man.
02:24:34 And then other people, they could get really badly hurt, which I guess it’s back to your
02:24:37 point about street fighting and things like that and serious, serious potential, second,
02:24:42 third order consequences of any action that we take.
02:24:45 But yeah, that’s a tricky thing about getting hit.
02:24:48 How does it make you feel that, like the really shitty thing about injuries to me was that
02:24:54 like you start thinking like, well, if I did this one little thing different, like this
02:25:00 wouldn’t have happened today.
02:25:01 Like one moment changes your entire life.
02:25:05 Is that, do you think that way or is that totally counterproductive?
02:25:09 You can’t help but think that way when you’ve had the amount of injuries I’ve had, because
02:25:14 I’ve had more than most people’s fair share.
02:25:18 As my orthopedic says, you don’t want to win that.
02:25:20 You don’t want to win the contest of who’s had the most.
02:25:23 But since you have, you’re building me a pool.
02:25:25 Yeah, but I think you can’t help but think that way sometimes, but I definitely don’t
02:25:30 think it’s, I think it can be facilitated if you don’t beat yourself up too much.
02:25:34 Because thinking about why have I been subject to so many injuries and a lot of it comes
02:25:41 to just almost all of mine in particular are people a lot heavier than me.
02:25:47 But if I’ve been training martial arts 15 years, I’m obviously on the much smaller side.
02:25:51 I’m a woman.
02:25:52 I’ve done thousands and thousands of rounds with people 50 pounds plus heavier than me.
02:25:57 I’ve been years not training with anyone less than 50 pounds, which is 50 pounds is almost
02:26:01 half my body weight.
02:26:02 And when you also add testosterone, the natural physiological advantages of men, not just
02:26:08 are they heavier with more mass, they’re faster, they’re more explosive, they’re stronger
02:26:12 if they’re the same size.
02:26:13 And so I think that the willingness to be in that environment over and over and over
02:26:19 again creates a lot of strength, resiliency, willingness to continue.
02:26:23 But it also like in order to do that, you almost have to, for me, the way I was approaching
02:26:31 it was like pretend like I wasn’t more vulnerable and just be willing to step in and step in
02:26:37 and step in until you make it kind of thing until you make it kind of.
02:26:40 Yeah, like I’ll just one day I’ll be strong enough.
02:26:43 And you avoided injury for most, for most of those rounds, I would enjoy the problem
02:26:48 as Ryan points out is that like you could do thousands of rounds, but if one person
02:26:52 that size, that strength, that hover reacts in a way that you don’t expect, it doesn’t
02:26:57 it’s not like an oops, it’s like always major.
02:26:59 Do you regret any of it?
02:27:02 I think that most no one I know has experienced the degree of injuries that I’ve experienced.
02:27:07 And I started just at a time when 2005 is very different than now where you have the
02:27:13 coaches have more control over what you’re doing.
02:27:15 They’re more aware in general about a lot of the injuries.
02:27:19 There’s a lot more people who are hobbyists than when I started.
02:27:25 They were hobbyists, but it was different kind of hobbyists, you know, than now.
02:27:29 Now, our girls can train with other girls.
02:27:32 They don’t have to do thousands of rounds with somebody significantly more powerful
02:27:36 than them.
02:27:37 And for the drawbacks and the benefits of that, you know, as with anything.
02:27:43 So I think I think that I don’t think I would go back and change it.
02:27:49 There were times after one of my injuries where I said to Ryan, I said, I quit, I’m
02:27:54 done.
02:27:55 I’m not doing this anymore.
02:27:56 I probably said it more than once, but there was one time I was really serious in 2012.
02:28:01 I was really serious.
02:28:03 I tore my shoulder.
02:28:04 I had I was looking at missing a big competition again in the world for my second or third
02:28:08 year in a row after injuries.
02:28:09 And I said, I’d quit my job two years before.
02:28:12 And I’m like, I’m done.
02:28:14 And Ryan, before that had always been, you know, keep me focused.
02:28:19 And then he kind of said, OK, if you want to be done, be done.
02:28:21 Just just have a good time.
02:28:23 No, I’m really done.
02:28:25 I don’t want to train anymore.
02:28:27 OK, OK.
02:28:28 And then, you know, I think he helped facilitate a moment for me to go visit a friend, some
02:28:34 friends, some girls that were doing a girls camp who are close to my size or some friends
02:28:38 of mine to go train.
02:28:39 And I was like, oh, wait, I do love this thing.
02:28:42 It’s harder for me on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love this thing.
02:28:46 And it really helped change my mind.
02:28:47 I started to connect with other people, travel more myself because previously he had done
02:28:52 that, but I hadn’t really done that.
02:28:54 I think there was a point where when I started YouTube, it was just for fun.
02:28:58 I just wanted to sport after college.
02:29:00 I played sports as a kid.
02:29:01 I want to just want to exercise.
02:29:03 I wasn’t into the martial arts.
02:29:04 He used to give me a hard time about it because he was always very, how can you not care about
02:29:07 martial arts?
02:29:08 I don’t know.
02:29:08 I just want to play sports.
02:29:11 And Ryan was really big into kind of the philosophy side of the martial arts aspect.
02:29:16 He used to give me a hard time.
02:29:17 And I think after that moment, this moment where I looked at myself and I said, do I
02:29:20 want to keep doing this, is when I started to appreciate jiu jitsu.
02:29:24 It took off some of the pressure I’d been feeling, I think, as Ryan’s girlfriend.
02:29:28 But I had a full time job a long time.
02:29:29 It was never my goal to be a jiu jitsu world champion.
02:29:33 And I think after that moment where I was like, you know, I really do like this.
02:29:37 I really do want to do this.
02:29:38 I had this moment like any time where you’re like, I’m doing this for me.
02:29:41 I’m not doing this for him.
02:29:42 And I think that that was really lucky for me because how often in our lives,
02:29:50 do we have a kind of a challenge where we have to stop and we have to say, is this really
02:29:54 what I want?
02:29:55 How often in a relationship do you do that?
02:29:57 How often in any type of lifestyle or job do you stop and do you really ask yourself,
02:30:02 is something really difficult happened that you look and you go, am I just doing this
02:30:06 because it’s convenient and easy?
02:30:08 Or is this what I really want to do?
02:30:09 Yeah, I’ve had those moments.
02:30:11 Like this podcast is one of those things.
02:30:13 It’s like you stop and think like, I actually love this.
02:30:20 And it’s, I had that with jiu jitsu too.
02:30:23 I don’t think I had said until like brown belt that I stop.
02:30:28 I mean, yeah, it’s when you first face real challenges, you think like, why am I doing
02:30:33 this?
02:30:34 I think most of my progression was why not?
02:30:38 I think that’s the right, the leap of faith.
02:30:40 And then at a certain point you think like, why am I doing this?
02:30:45 And if you can answer, honestly, that because I love it, it’s kind of a liberating feeling.
02:30:50 It’s a, yeah, it’s so powerful.
02:30:53 It’s an acceptance.
02:30:54 Then you feel thankful for the opportunity to be there, right?
02:30:57 Because you love it.
02:30:58 And you go, man, this is great gratitude.
02:31:00 Yeah, it’s ultimately gratitude.
02:31:02 Yeah.
02:31:03 Let me ask you this.
02:31:04 So Ryan said like, what is it?
02:31:06 I took over your thing.
02:31:07 Yeah, nobody cares about Ryan.
02:31:10 I wouldn’t do that.
02:31:11 I’ll Photoshop him out or whatever.
02:31:13 However you do that, it’d be great.
02:31:14 Put Sean Connery’s head.
02:31:16 Yeah.
02:31:17 Just like a Dune ad over there.
02:31:19 Exactly.
02:31:21 Sean Connery, I could get down on that.
02:31:23 Is that the sexiest man in Sean Connery?
02:31:26 In the Dune universe?
02:31:27 That’s my understanding.
02:31:28 Okay.
02:31:28 I think in any universe.
02:31:30 Yeah.
02:31:31 Well, Myron Gosling, give him.
02:31:32 We actually named our son after Sean Connery.
02:31:34 Oh, yeah.
02:31:35 That’s right.
02:31:35 We did.
02:31:39 He was in The Rock.
02:31:40 That was, I love all those lame.
02:31:42 Nicolas Cage.
02:31:43 Oh, yeah.
02:31:44 Connery is probably the greatest movie of all time.
02:31:46 Dude, his accent in Connery was so awesome.
02:31:49 I don’t know where it’s from.
02:31:50 Alabama, I guess, or something.
02:31:51 I love that they got like Steve Buscemi in there.
02:31:53 Like we need Steve Buscemi in this thing.
02:31:54 We got him.
02:31:55 Dave Chappelle.
02:31:56 Yeah, that’s right.
02:31:57 Yeah.
02:31:57 He’s a prisoner in there.
02:31:58 Eight ball.
02:32:00 Yep.
02:32:01 Greatest movie of all time.
02:32:02 Should have won an Oscar.
02:32:03 Dave Chappelle also in Blue Street with Martin Lawrence.
02:32:06 And then, what do you call it?
02:32:08 Robin Hood Men in Tights.
02:32:09 Oh, Robin Hood Men in Tights was one of my favorites as a kid.
02:32:11 Half baked.
02:32:11 But yeah, that’s a good.
02:32:16 Wow.
02:32:16 We just listed off some really bad 90s movies, but.
02:32:19 You take that back.
02:32:20 For telling our age.
02:32:23 Speak yourself.
02:32:24 So what, like in your view, I don’t mean to, from like a smaller person, I guess.
02:32:30 That’s an interesting thing about Jiu Jitsu is like that small.
02:32:34 I don’t, I hope, hopefully it’s not a bad thing.
02:32:38 Elf.
02:32:40 Elves are taller.
02:32:41 Like with all these like bigger people, you could still enjoy the art.
02:32:47 Like what does it take to get a black belt to excel, to quote unquote, master the art?
02:32:54 Gosh, everyone has such a different path.
02:32:55 Ryan’s promoted six, seven people.
02:32:59 Something like that.
02:32:59 And I think about half of them have had kids, have families, have other careers.
02:33:08 At the time, some of them competed a lot.
02:33:10 Some of them have never competed or rarely competed.
02:33:13 Some haven’t competed in a long time.
02:33:15 Some had started different places.
02:33:17 Everyone’s had different journeys, even in our own little group of seven.
02:33:22 I think only maybe only two or three were high level competitors of that group.
02:33:28 At the higher belts, right, like brown, black, maybe.
02:33:32 And so it’s just different for every person.
02:33:35 And that’s something that we try to tell our students.
02:33:37 We have 400 students.
02:33:39 And do we have this?
02:33:41 We don’t really have anyone who’s a stated other than like the coaches like Adam,
02:33:47 but we don’t have anyone who’s like a stated high level competitor as a student at the moment.
02:33:51 People look at our gym and go, it’s lots of competitors.
02:33:53 It’s not lots of competitors.
02:33:54 It’s never been lots of competitors.
02:33:57 And we’ve had ones and twos here and there.
02:34:00 But really everybody’s in it for the long term if they’re in it.
02:34:03 Sometimes the high level competitors are the ones that are more likely to drop off
02:34:07 because they have a bit of success, particularly at blue or purple.
02:34:10 And then they realize how hard it is at brown and black.
02:34:13 And then they have a hard time continuing on that path.
02:34:16 And then they can’t look at themselves as a noncompetitor.
02:34:18 They have a hard time continuing with Jiu Jitsu, I think.
02:34:21 Whereas sometimes it’s the guy who comes in as a white belt and he trains twice a week,
02:34:26 twice a week, every week.
02:34:27 And the next thing you know, he’s been there for two or three years.
02:34:29 Like, oh, he’s a blue belt.
02:34:30 He’s a purple belt.
02:34:31 He’s a brown belt.
02:34:32 And he’s just consistent over a long period of time and willing to take the path.
02:34:37 And no two people’s path is exactly the same.
02:34:40 No two people’s lives are exactly the same.
02:34:43 We have students who started as a white belt as a young adult with no responsibilities.
02:34:50 And they train all the time.
02:34:51 And then they have a job.
02:34:53 Then they graduate college.
02:34:54 Then they have a job.
02:34:55 Then they have married.
02:34:55 Then they have kids.
02:34:56 Then they have different points in their careers and at different points in your life.
02:34:59 Jiu Jitsu will be there for whatever way that you’re willing to accept it.
02:35:05 It’s place, I think.
02:35:06 Well, that’s actually kind of back to the initial question we discussed about what makes
02:35:10 a warrior and also what makes something or someone particularly impressive in my mind
02:35:16 is like what they make out of what they have.
02:35:20 One of my favorite movies ever is Forrest Gump.
02:35:22 And it’s obviously it’s just if you can’t because I’ve heard people go, Forrest Gump
02:35:27 sucks.
02:35:27 I’m like, I don’t like you as a person.
02:35:29 And you have no heart at all.
02:35:32 But basically, it’s the story of someone that tries hard.
02:35:35 And it’s like, yeah, but it’s a funny movie.
02:35:37 But it’s like, you know, I guess you meet each person where they are, you know, and
02:35:43 obviously you want everyone needs to be pushed.
02:35:45 We all need to be pushed.
02:35:46 We need friends and people around us that push us to be better versions of ourselves
02:35:51 all the time.
02:35:52 And as you mentioned, the people you spend all of your time around deeply impact you.
02:35:57 And we have to be willing to be pushed.
02:35:58 It takes a leap of faith for me to trust, for me to put some of myself in my, you know,
02:36:04 I guess my ability, my control, my personal agency, as it were, in the hands of someone
02:36:08 else that I trust and that I respect.
02:36:12 But if I can do that, again, maybe I never become, you know, high level black belt competitor.
02:36:18 But, you know, I had four of the things I was doing in my life.
02:36:21 I also have a family.
02:36:22 I have this, I have that, you know, what that person was able to accomplish in the martial
02:36:25 arts relative to what they were able to put in this phenomenal, you know, other times
02:36:28 someone could be a very successful black belt and in my mind be a bum because they could
02:36:32 have been a lot more.
02:36:33 And, you know, they could have done more.
02:36:35 They could have focused more.
02:36:37 And there’s no shame in deciding that you don’t want to do that.
02:36:40 But whatever it is that you’re invested in, I remember the Take It Uneasy podcast and
02:36:45 that I loved because, you know, I’ll just chill out like resting.
02:36:50 It’s like vacation.
02:36:50 Oh, who wants to go on vacation?
02:36:51 Yeah, I’ll go on vacation for a day or two.
02:36:53 You want to spend three weeks on vacation?
02:36:54 Like, I kill myself.
02:36:55 Like, get me out of here.
02:36:55 Like, this is horrible.
02:36:56 This is I’m a waste of life.
02:36:58 I’m not doing anything useful.
02:36:59 You’re technically on vacation right now.
02:37:01 Right.
02:37:01 Well, this is fun, though.
02:37:02 It’s like a one day vacation.
02:37:04 Exactly.
02:37:04 But, you know, I’m sure you’re thinking about jumping off of the building right now.
02:37:08 But if you had to talk to me for, you know, like three days, I’m sure you’d probably
02:37:13 shove me off the building.
02:37:13 I don’t blame you.
02:37:14 I’ll be dead.
02:37:14 Five hours in.
02:37:16 But, yeah, but, you know, it’s like you want to be pushing towards something because otherwise
02:37:20 what’s the purpose of being here?
02:37:22 You know, it’s not just a college.
02:37:24 It’s doing something useful, building, growing as a person, helping others do the same if
02:37:28 that’s within your power at any given time.
02:37:31 But I think that’s kind of the neat thing about martial arts is it can be many, many
02:37:34 different things to many different people.
02:37:36 You know, I finally, for instance, was able to get a college degree this year.
02:37:40 That which I mean, it’s not a big deal for most people, but for me it was a big deal
02:37:43 because I was going back and finish.
02:37:45 Yeah.
02:37:45 And I never envisioned ever going back.
02:37:47 And that’s a hard step to go back and finish.
02:37:50 That’s always heavy on you if you don’t.
02:37:53 It’s interesting.
02:37:54 I was just I was more proud of that than most things I’ve ever done, if I’m honest.
02:37:57 You know, and it was neat and I really enjoyed it and it was the process of doing it.
02:38:01 But, you know, are my academic credentials impressive?
02:38:04 Like, not in the least.
02:38:06 But for me, it’s like it was a big deal for me personally to take that step and to go
02:38:10 back and do that.
02:38:11 And I was I was proud of the the direction and because it would have been easy, like,
02:38:15 do I need to do it?
02:38:16 Like, no, I’m in our business.
02:38:17 I’ll do OK.
02:38:18 I’ll try.
02:38:18 I’ll keep fighting.
02:38:19 But I was happy to take the time in between fights when I was when I was unbooked for
02:38:24 an opponent to do something productive rather than just I’ll just hang out.
02:38:28 You know, like I can still train every single day, but I can also train and go to school.
02:38:31 People go to the Olympics while going to school.
02:38:33 I can I can do martial arts and go to school.
02:38:37 One thing I got to ask is, you know, a bunch of women listen to this podcast if they haven’t
02:38:44 done Jiu Jitsu, I think it’d be kind of intimidating to step on the mat with a bunch of bros that
02:38:52 like enjoy somehow killing each other.
02:38:55 Like, how do you succeed in that environment to where you can learn this art, learn how
02:39:00 to beat all those people up?
02:39:03 Oh, gosh.
02:39:04 Is there any advice?
02:39:05 I mean, another way to ask that is like if any women listening to this are interested
02:39:11 in starting Jiu Jitsu, like, is there advice for that journey?
02:39:14 Honestly, I think it’s just walking in the door and starting.
02:39:17 Sometimes I don’t know how to respond to that because I’m not I don’t view myself as typically
02:39:21 anxious, particularly in interactions with other people or new people.
02:39:29 Shy is not a word that has been used for me by if you ask my family and they joke because
02:39:35 our son talks a lot.
02:39:37 He’s advanced verbally and they’re always like, oh, well, let’s we know where he gets
02:39:40 that from because he just doesn’t stop talking.
02:39:42 He narrates everything he does.
02:39:45 And so they always tease because that’s like I’m known for for kind of talking a lot.
02:39:52 But so I haven’t been typically I’m not I don’t consider myself a shy person.
02:39:56 So for me, going into a new room, a new group of people is, you know, there’s always that
02:40:02 you don’t really know who they are, how they’re going to treat you.
02:40:04 But I typically but I don’t have a lot of anxiety with that.
02:40:08 So I don’t if that’s something that’s going to put something up.
02:40:11 I don’t really know how to to address that particular feeling.
02:40:15 But in terms of all of the rooms I’ve been and I have popped into gyms before I knew
02:40:21 Ryan in Florida, like I traveled for my job in Germany and Florida and in California and
02:40:26 places where where I don’t know anyone, they don’t know me.
02:40:29 And I have never once had anyone be anything other than than kind and solicitous and helpful
02:40:36 and long before when I was a white belt and a blue belt and didn’t know anything and
02:40:41 I didn’t know anyone.
02:40:42 And I just think that it’s a community of people that it’s so cool that no matter where
02:40:49 you go in the world, I walked into a gym in Prague one time where only two people spoke
02:40:54 English and and it was just yes, weird, you know, it’s weird that like part of a group
02:41:01 and they’re like, Oh, let me tell you what it’s like to be part of a cult, right?
02:41:03 Yeah, but it’s like a positive cult, like it for sure.
02:41:07 That’s what we would say as cultists.
02:41:09 Yeah, that’s true.
02:41:12 That’s true.
02:41:13 I mean, we do need to murder everybody who practice Aikido.
02:41:17 Yeah, that’s this cult deeply believes it.
02:41:20 No, but there is a like if you look at different kinds of games like chess and so on, like
02:41:25 there’s a skepticism.
02:41:27 I mean, there’s not a brotherhood, sisterhood feeling with Jiu Jitsu.
02:41:30 It’s like you can roll into most places.
02:41:32 Even like with Judo, like I can see the contrast like because I’ve trained in Judo places.
02:41:38 It it’s more like tribal, like you walk in and like, who is this?
02:41:46 Like there’s that kind of feeling with Jiu Jitsu.
02:41:49 There’s less so there is a little bit with like the competitors.
02:41:52 There’s always like the competitors feeling each other out usually like the blue belts.
02:41:56 But like outside of that, in terms of if you don’t get the if you walk in with the vibes of just
02:42:02 loving the art and just wanting to have a good time, you’re like welcome.
02:42:07 It’s really cool.
02:42:08 It’s really fascinating.
02:42:10 It’s a really great thing.
02:42:12 I think in as a woman, I think you you think you’re walking into these rooms of these,
02:42:16 you know, big, strong, tough guys.
02:42:18 And if anything, I would I would say that they’re almost like much more solicitous when
02:42:23 a woman comes in there and not like they’re just like hitting on you all the time.
02:42:27 You know, it’s just that you walk in and everyone is like, oh, cool.
02:42:31 You want to do this thing that I love.
02:42:33 Let me make sure you have a good experience and take care of you.
02:42:36 And I think that’s that’s an experience that that I hope people have when they come into our gym.
02:42:40 And and I’ve always felt when I walked into other gyms.
02:42:43 And so, you know, we try our best to to make that comfortable.
02:42:47 And it can be a little uncomfortable because there are when you walk into a male dominated
02:42:51 environment, there’s conversations and topics.
02:42:55 There’s a different style of camaraderie and joking that a lot of men will do that.
02:43:00 Maybe some women are more uncomfortable with.
02:43:02 I grew up with four brothers, so I kind of maybe was a little more desensitized to that.
02:43:07 And I worked for the Department of Defense for a while, too.
02:43:10 So before I do with the government.
02:43:13 Yeah.
02:43:14 So so I did that.
02:43:15 I’m already skeptical.
02:43:16 Yeah.
02:43:18 I’m not.
02:43:19 I’m not.
02:43:19 I’m not.
02:43:20 I’m not.
02:43:20 Oh, you left.
02:43:22 I’m not going to ask you about UFOs then, because you’re not going to tell me the truth.
02:43:25 No, they exist.
02:43:28 Oh, yeah.
02:43:29 No, you just freaked out a lot of people.
02:43:31 OK, but yeah.
02:43:34 By the way, where’s where’s your school?
02:43:35 Because people always ask like where?
02:43:38 Well, we’re outside of Washington, D.C., in Northern Virginia, in Falls Church.
02:43:42 You always want to pick like, what’s the best school if I travel to this place or if I want
02:43:45 to move to this place?
02:43:47 So that’s well, I mean, obviously we’re biased.
02:43:49 But yeah, we’re in the Washington, D.C. area.
02:43:51 The best.
02:43:52 OK, we just took a little break.
02:43:54 Now we’re back.
02:43:55 Let me ask you one thing that a bunch of people are curious about.
02:43:59 You’re one of the innovators.
02:44:01 First of all, you’re one of the great innovators and philosophers and thinkers in Jiu Jitsu,
02:44:06 right?
02:44:07 But you’re also one of the innovators in terms of leg locks and the 50 50 position.
02:44:13 And just like the fact that legs have something to do in Jiu Jitsu.
02:44:17 The other popularizer innovator in the space is John Donoher and his whole group of guys.
02:44:25 Do you have thoughts about their whole system of leg locks and their ideas about Jiu Jitsu
02:44:32 and so on?
02:44:33 Sure, I guess, you know, obviously, you know, John and the students at HENZO have been able
02:44:37 to do fantastic things competitively in the past number of years.
02:44:40 And, you know, you mentioned innovators in the in that kind of, you know, section of
02:44:46 Jiu Jitsu.
02:44:47 I would be I’d love to bring up some guys like Dean Lister, of course, Masakazu Imanari.
02:44:53 In fact, a lot of what was going on in like nineties Japan, like combat submission wrestling,
02:44:57 there was some crazy gnarly stuff that it’s just it’s on grainy VHS tape, but like stuff
02:45:02 that if people were doing now, they go, oh, my God, that’s brand new.
02:45:05 Like there’s it’s it’s been I think these are things that have been around for a while
02:45:10 in various places.
02:45:11 I first learned the 50 50 position, just like the leg entanglement of it from Brandon Vera,
02:45:17 actually, at a seminar at Lord Irwin’s Martial Arts thing in 2005.
02:45:20 He learned it from Dean Lister, who used it to submit Alexandria Kakareko, really, really
02:45:25 tough Nogi guy at ADCC on there in the run that Dean made to the to the gold medal in
02:45:30 the absolute division, which was a great performance at the time.
02:45:33 First American to do that.
02:45:35 And, you know, and I actually saw a video.
02:45:38 I mean, first, a boss rootin actually broke.
02:45:40 I think Guy Mezger’s foot with a 50 50 heel hook that he actually grabbed his heel and
02:45:44 his and his toes went and in pancreases back when they had like the man panties in the
02:45:49 high, high boots on.
02:45:50 Yeah.
02:45:51 And that was gnarly.
02:45:52 Boss rootin is underappreciated.
02:45:53 It’s like it’s like he double grab like and oh, yeah, like, you know, his leverage is
02:45:58 leverage.
02:45:58 It’s that’s like a toehold that, you know, that goes the other way.
02:46:01 And it’s like it either doesn’t work or breaks in half.
02:46:03 And well, he’s is people don’t often think of boss rootin as an innovator, but he is
02:46:09 in a way like he, you know, talk about like Elon Musk and first principles thinking in
02:46:15 terms of physics.
02:46:16 He like just feels like he just gets the job.
02:46:19 He figures out like the simplest way to get the job done of breaking things and establishing
02:46:24 control and hurting people.
02:46:25 Remember that was back in the day boss.
02:46:27 If you listen to boss rootin do any like commentary for any of the the big MMA shows or any MMA
02:46:31 show way back when anytime guys were clinches like the guys roll for a knee bar.
02:46:34 He was saying that way back when and now people are doing it all the time with varying degrees
02:46:38 of success.
02:46:38 It’s it’s funny.
02:46:39 It’s like it’s also tough to be, I think, like a breakaway thinker.
02:46:43 I mean, you know, group think is a real thing and group inertia.
02:46:46 And it’s it’s neat to see, you know, particularly at a time when maybe that type of stuff was
02:46:52 less accepted.
02:46:54 You know, someone going, hey, I’m going to I’m going to run off in this other direction.
02:46:57 I think, you know, whoever, you know, the inventor of electricity in my mind is a lot
02:47:01 more impressive than whomever not to say that the person down the line isn’t impressive
02:47:05 that comes up with an interesting way to use it.
02:47:07 Both are cool.
02:47:08 But when you think about just can you imagine we’re sitting here like, yeah, people, I’m
02:47:12 going to build an airplane.
02:47:13 You’re like, what are you talking about?
02:47:14 It’s crazy.
02:47:14 People don’t fly.
02:47:15 I’m like, no, I’m going to do it.
02:47:16 And of course, it’s not going to be as good as the airplane down the line, the iterative
02:47:19 things that happen later on.
02:47:21 But just being able to go to dream something into existence that you haven’t seen before
02:47:26 and then make it happen, like takes an unbelievable like strength of character, almost like a
02:47:31 force of will, because you have you’re you’re blazing a trail that hasn’t been washed away
02:47:37 walked before.
02:47:37 That’s the BJ Penn factor in, you know, winning the Jiu Jitsu World Championship.
02:47:41 First non Brazilian to do that was back in 2001.
02:47:44 And then Rafael Lovato later on.
02:47:46 It’s like he’s you know, both of those guys are so unbelievably impressive in my mind
02:47:50 for the same reason, you know, because they were out there winning at a time when that
02:47:55 wasn’t a common thing.
02:47:56 Not that it’s easy to win now.
02:47:57 It’s just there’s not a psychological hurdle that needs to be left.
02:48:01 I remember, you know, when I was early in Jiu Jitsu, like Americans weren’t winning
02:48:04 the world championships at any belt.
02:48:05 I mean, BJ, we all knew BJ Penn because BJ Penn did it.
02:48:08 But it was really, really uncommon.
02:48:10 Now it happens, you know, on a semi regular basis.
02:48:12 Of course, the Brazilians are so strong.
02:48:14 Europeans are still strong.
02:48:15 But in Australians are coming on as well.
02:48:18 But it’s definitely kind of an interesting thing.
02:48:20 So to come back to, you know, John Danaher and the Henzo team, obviously, they’re doing
02:48:25 fantastic things.
02:48:26 John’s had some really, really great innovation there.
02:48:28 And the systematization and the methodology that they’re using is great.
02:48:33 And it’s neat to see that it’s getting out there.
02:48:36 I would just also want, I would encourage people to make sure that they’re catching
02:48:41 up on their history because obviously, you know, John’s a brilliant instructor and has
02:48:44 done things for the sport that are fantastic that haven’t been done before.
02:48:48 But, you know, none of us exist in a vacuum.
02:48:50 And I’ve learned things from everywhere else.
02:48:51 So, you know, John would say the same, I’m sure.
02:48:53 And, you know, Dean Lister would say the same.
02:48:56 And it’s just neat when you can kind of trace the history of all of this happening because
02:48:59 we’ve had, humanity’s had two arms and two legs for some time, at least as long as I’ve
02:49:03 been alive.
02:49:04 But you mentioned, like, airplanes.
02:49:06 Do you think there’s something totally new to be invented in Jiu Jitsu still?
02:49:09 Not totally new, but like the, you know, flying isn’t new, but airplanes nevertheless made
02:49:16 that much more efficient.
02:49:17 Is there, like, new ideas to be discovered in Jiu Jitsu still?
02:49:22 I’d say, the reason I’d say yes is the same reason I would say I believe in alchemy, even
02:49:26 though I don’t.
02:49:27 No, I’m serious.
02:49:28 I’ve got some backing for this.
02:49:29 Okay.
02:49:30 You know, I guess I talk about this with a buddy of mine a lot, like, and facilitative
02:49:36 versus not facilitative beliefs.
02:49:38 And if I don’t believe something is possible and I do no investigation towards it, I’ll
02:49:44 never find something even if it’s there.
02:49:45 It’s almost like it’s no different than me walking up on a group of people and going
02:49:49 like, oh, man, look at these jerks.
02:49:50 This is going to suck versus me going, oh, I wonder what these guys are up to.
02:49:53 I’m about to have two very different conversations, even though the players in the game are no
02:49:57 different.
02:49:57 My internal constitution has changed because of how I’ve decided to approach the situation.
02:50:02 So, although I wouldn’t personally want to spend all my time trying to turn lead into
02:50:06 gold because I don’t believe that it’s likely to work, only a person who’s willing to spend
02:50:11 his or her life in that pursuit will actually get to the bottom of that.
02:50:14 And also, in the pursuit of that, they’re likely to find other things.
02:50:18 So, I think a lot of times the idea is that humanity is pushed forward by, you know, again,
02:50:21 it’s another Orson Scott Card one.
02:50:23 It’s like, you know, human beings are in this slog.
02:50:25 It’s paraphrasing, just in this slog over time.
02:50:28 And then periodically, humanity gives birth to genius, like someone that invents the wheel,
02:50:32 invents electricity, pushes us forward, you know, comes up with the idea of governance
02:50:36 that doesn’t, you know, just start and end with the point of a sword, you know.
02:50:40 And, you know, these aren’t common things.
02:50:43 These are unbelievable advancements that, you know, just me sitting here, I didn’t come
02:50:47 up with them, but I just get the benefit of it.
02:50:49 So, I guess what I would say is a lot of times these ideas are called crazy, you know, like
02:50:52 as we discussed kind of offline.
02:50:54 It’s like, you know, Einstein was brilliant in his 20s and he was brilliant before that,
02:50:58 I would suspect, but basically, you know, gets recognized later on in life.
02:51:02 And of course, we all thought those were great ideas.
02:51:05 The man was probably roundly mocked for giant chunks of his life.
02:51:08 And I guess, so it’s neat to, I would say there’s definitely in my mind things that
02:51:13 even if it’s just combinations and new to me, new ways to see things, new ways to understand
02:51:17 different depth of understanding, possibly new things, new positions, new ideas, because
02:51:22 even if that’s not true, the process of going through and acting as if it is and believing
02:51:27 like that and focusing and trying to investigate will make any of us, will push us all forward.
02:51:33 Whereas sitting there, you know, obsessing over the cult of our current knowledge, I
02:51:37 think is the biggest, the biggest danger and the biggest cause of stagnation that exists
02:51:42 anywhere.
02:51:44 Yeah.
02:51:45 And it starts with believing the impossible, which is kind of interesting.
02:51:48 One of the things that’s really inspiring to me is to see people out there, which sadly
02:51:54 are rare, who kind of have a combination of two things.
02:52:00 One is they have a worldview that involves, that includes a lot of ideas that are crazy.
02:52:07 And the second part is they’re exceptionally focused and competent in bringing that,
02:52:13 whatever the ideas in that worldview to reality.
02:52:16 So there’s certainly a lot of people with crazy ideas.
02:52:18 You know, there’s a lot of conspiracy theorists.
02:52:20 They have way out there beliefs about things, but they’re not doing much to like make the,
02:52:27 like build stuff grounded.
02:52:29 Like they’re not engineers or whatever.
02:52:31 They’re just like espousing different crazy ideas.
02:52:33 But that’s why you get like the Elon Musk type characters.
02:52:36 And the reason I bring him up a lot is because like, there’s not many others to bring up.
02:52:41 It’s like, there’s not many examples of it through history.
02:52:44 The people, I mean, the guy’s convinced that we’re going to colonize Mars.
02:52:49 And basically everybody on earth thinks that’s insane.
02:52:56 Everyone except the guy that’s going to do it, right?
02:52:58 Except that’s going to do it.
02:52:59 And like, you can imagine like a couple of hundred years from now, people will,
02:53:05 I mean, first of all, they won’t, certainly won’t remember the haters.
02:53:10 They won’t remember all the people.
02:53:12 If they do remember them, they’ll remember them in a sense like people were silly to
02:53:16 think that this isn’t the obvious path forward.
02:53:20 Like from a perspective, that’s what Elon talks about.
02:53:24 Like it’s obvious that we’re going to expand throughout the universe.
02:53:28 Like, so.
02:53:29 From his perspective.
02:53:30 From his perspective.
02:53:31 Like, but to me it is also obvious because like either we destroy ourselves or we’ll
02:53:39 expand beyond earth.
02:53:40 Like, there’s not many, well, maybe it’s not completely obvious.
02:53:47 I guess I share that worldview.
02:53:49 There’s the other possibility that we humans find a sort of an inner peace where the forces
02:53:55 of capitalism will calm down and we’ll all just meditate and do yoga and Jiu Jitsu and
02:54:00 like relax with this whole tech thing where we keep building new technologies.
02:54:03 But it’s cool to have those kinds of people that just believe the big ambitious, crazy
02:54:10 dreams because that’s where it starts.
02:54:12 If you want to build something, you have to first believe that when you also have to believe
02:54:16 strongly enough that you’re not vulnerable and I’m speculating, but it’s like, I can
02:54:20 only imagine how many people have told Elon that what he’s doing is crazy.
02:54:24 So not only did he dream it up, he dreamed it up, went with it and also went with it
02:54:28 in the face of being told that it’s not going to work.
02:54:32 And then anytime, and then also stepped away from the bitterness because he’s done a
02:54:35 series of really crazy, impressive things.
02:54:37 And that’s only those little things that I’m aware of, but, and also staying away from
02:54:41 the bitterness of every single time you did something good.
02:54:43 Initially, all I do is talk down about you.
02:54:46 And then eventually I act as, of course, of course, I never apologize.
02:54:50 And yet you don’t let that dampen your spirits for the next innovation, which is pretty incredible
02:54:55 to me to watch.
02:54:55 Yeah, it’s kind of cool.
02:54:57 I mean, it’s contagious to spend time with the guy because he’s not, it’s, Rogan has
02:55:03 the same look to him, which is interesting about these people is like, there’s like a
02:55:11 hater shield that he’s like, he doesn’t even like sense them.
02:55:15 It feels like, like it doesn’t, he thinks to Elon it’s like, it’s obvious.
02:55:22 I mean, he keeps calling it like first principles thinking, like physics says it’s true.
02:55:27 Therefore it’s true.
02:55:28 Like he’s convinced himself that like his beliefs are grounded in the fundamental fabric
02:55:33 of the way the universe works.
02:55:35 Therefore the haters don’t matter.
02:55:37 Right.
02:55:37 And I mean, that’s kind of like a system of thought.
02:55:39 He developed himself through all the difficulties, through all the doubt.
02:55:43 He’s able to take huge risks with basically putting everything he owes on the line multiple
02:55:48 times throughout his life.
02:55:49 Amidst all the drama, amidst all the doubts, amidst all like the, he’s still able to make
02:55:55 just clear, clearheaded decisions.
02:55:58 It’s, I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s inspiring as hell.
02:56:01 Well, it’s, I think it’s something that’s funny.
02:56:02 I think like, I can only imagine, you know, history will look back on him as a brilliant
02:56:07 person, but that’s not the only, there’s, there’s a lot of maybe not numeric, not statistically
02:56:11 speaking, but a lot numerically on a giant planet of, you know, billions of people, a
02:56:14 lot of brilliant people.
02:56:16 Well, you know, time, place, luck, fortune, all that other stuff.
02:56:19 But at the same time, that clearly isn’t the only determining thing in making Elon Musk,
02:56:24 Elon Musk.
02:56:25 And obviously I don’t know the guy from Adam and, but it’s an interesting thing that it’s
02:56:29 not just his intellect, his belief system, his structure, how he’s viewing the world.
02:56:34 Like that’s, did he, did he reason his way to that?
02:56:37 Did he not?
02:56:38 What other factors came in?
02:56:39 I’m really curious about that because I guess coming, it’s, again, I feel really strongly
02:56:44 about people’s belief structure and, and this, the, how they view the world being more important
02:56:50 than the engine behind it.
02:56:52 You know, it makes someone resilient or not.
02:56:54 It makes someone positive or not because you could have 10,000.
02:56:57 I think about this for competitive stuff, you could have 10,000 things going properly
02:57:01 and one thing going improperly.
02:57:02 If you focus on the improper, you’ll probably fix it at a certain point, which is good,
02:57:06 facilitated for development in the longterm.
02:57:08 But if you had to go and try to perform a task in the next five minutes and you’re
02:57:12 focusing on the negative, your confidence and your, your, your belief in the positive
02:57:16 outcome of the future is likely to be damaged.
02:57:18 Whereas you could have 25 things going wrong, but you go, man, I sure am happy to be alive.
02:57:22 How fortunate I am.
02:57:23 This is great.
02:57:24 I can’t, this is, I have problems to solve.
02:57:25 This is awesome.
02:57:26 Versus I had to list the problems and I start bitching about them.
02:57:29 Both of them are technically accurate, but it’s, I guess, different lenses.
02:57:32 And I think that’s a really neat thing to see, you know, someone, you know, exemplifying
02:57:36 that for us.
02:57:39 So maybe to look at the, the fighting world, there’s a million questions I can ask here.
02:57:45 Like one, you mentioned BJ Penn, you, uh, first of all, you’re undefeated in the UFC
02:57:51 and one of the fights you’ve had is against BJ Penn, which is, uh, kind of an incredible
02:57:56 fight.
02:57:57 You, you won performance of the night.
02:57:59 What did it feel like to, uh, to face BJ Penn and to beat him definitively as you did?
02:58:07 Like, what’s that whole experience like?
02:58:09 I’ll be honest, I didn’t know if I was going to ever be able to fight again after beating
02:58:13 Gray Maynard in 2016. Um, you know, I’ve had a couple of periods of those.
02:58:17 I was about to join the army actually in, uh, when I was 30 before the, uh, for the
02:58:22 UFC before Jen sent me over to ultimate fighter.
02:58:25 I didn’t want to go cause I was like, one, they’re never going to pick me.
02:58:27 Two, I’d be terrible for TV.
02:58:28 Three, I’ll probably say something.
02:58:29 I’m going to get burned to death in the streets.
02:58:32 You know, I’m like, this isn’t a great idea.
02:58:34 And then, uh, she said, we’ll go out there, see what happens, do it anyway.
02:58:37 And you’ll be, you’ll regret it if you didn’t.
02:58:39 And then I ended up doing ultimate fighter.
02:58:41 And then, so I fought three times on the show and then I fought, um, for the, for the finale.
02:58:47 So there’s four times in like five or six months, which was great.
02:58:51 And then it took me a year to get another opponent.
02:58:53 Um, and that was Gray Maynard.
02:58:55 And then Gray was obviously very tough guy, um, managed to get a good outcome there.
02:58:58 Then it took two years to fight BJ Penn.
02:59:02 And that was, you know, obviously I’m training all the time every single day and that never
02:59:06 stops, but that was, I’ll be honest, like pretty deeply frustrating.
02:59:09 Cause you know, as a, as a human being, as an athlete, you know, I think as an athlete,
02:59:12 you die twice.
02:59:13 Like you have an athletic peak or area and then, then you go on with the rest of your
02:59:17 life, but it is a microcosm for the rest of your life.
02:59:19 It’s like, you’re, you’re seeing this, the sand tick away in the hourglass would drop
02:59:22 away and you’re going, man, this is, these are the years between 31, 32, 33.
02:59:27 Like I’ll be at my best at this time.
02:59:29 My absolute best physically now, not technically I’m a lot better now than I was before.
02:59:33 And I plan, but at a certain point you will, unless you’re Bernard Hopkins, you will reach
02:59:37 diminishing returns and I guess the long, the long way you can feel the clock ticking
02:59:42 is frustrating.
02:59:44 Why, why did it take two years for BJ?
02:59:46 I, I, I, that’s the question people ask a lot.
02:59:49 It’s like, why does nobody want to fight Ryan?
02:59:52 I don’t know.
02:59:52 I probably, they probably think they’ll get infected by whatever this is, but I don’t,
02:59:56 I don’t blame them.
02:59:57 But I would mean you’re a really tough opponent as bought as the bottom line.
03:00:00 I’ll say that I’m different.
03:00:01 Maybe they perceive that the, the, the, the threat is greater than the reward.
03:00:06 I’m hoping that now that we’re ranked number 12, you know, in the UFC rankings that, that,
03:00:11 that will change.
03:00:11 And I know that if we’re one more win and then we’re in the top 10 that, you know, now,
03:00:16 now we’re, you’re there.
03:00:17 But what I’ve consistently found is that like randoms want to fight and I’m like, go away.
03:00:21 I didn’t come here for you.
03:00:23 You know, cause if I wanted to just fight anybody, I could go down to a waffle house
03:00:26 and yell until like DMX shows up and we can, we can fight.
03:00:28 Cause he’ll be at the waffle house too.
03:00:29 Who am I kidding?
03:00:30 I really want to hang out with the MX.
03:00:31 But you know, it’s like, you want to, when I had the opportunity, oh my God, that was
03:00:36 so cool.
03:00:37 I was, I would never, I would never fight DMX.
03:00:39 We’d be on the same team.
03:00:41 But anyway it’s, I guess I accepted fights against, I asked, they got asked about Lamas.
03:00:48 I said, yes.
03:00:49 I got asked about Dennis Bermudez.
03:00:50 I said, yes.
03:00:51 You know, like long periods of time.
03:00:53 And they, at that time, well, you know, in between 2016 and 2018 I was struggling to
03:00:59 have, have opponents who would sign up.
03:01:01 And so I haven’t turned down fights.
03:01:04 I’ve just said, Hey, you know, keep the, I don’t care about fighting the randoms.
03:01:07 And it’s, you have a successful school.
03:01:10 You’re like, you’re running your martial artists broadly speaking.
03:01:15 So it doesn’t make sense to take fights that aren’t like that fit a certain kind of trajectory
03:01:21 for your career.
03:01:22 And that’s when, when BJ Penn, they said, well, BJ is looking for an opponent.
03:01:25 I was like, I’m, I’m your guy.
03:01:27 And, and I think that, you know, BJ accepted that fight because I’m another jujitsu guy.
03:01:31 I don’t think he, he, he perceived that I was much of a threat on the feet.
03:01:35 And, you know, I was able to, it was neat to get it to compete against someone, you
03:01:42 know, who’s one of my heroes, one of the people I looked up to in MMA for the longest time.
03:01:45 Were you intimidated by that?
03:01:47 No, no, I love competing.
03:01:48 I don’t really get nervous or scared before fights.
03:01:51 I’m not afraid to get hurt.
03:01:52 I’m not afraid to win.
03:01:53 I’m not afraid to lose.
03:01:54 It’s, I, I’m just excited for the, I feel thankful for the opportunity to compete and
03:01:59 the opportunity to, to play when it matters.
03:02:01 You know, I, I just, that’s the only time I’m interested in playing anymore is when
03:02:05 it, when it matters, when the opposition is, I know that, you know, it’s funny because
03:02:09 people pick on, on a lot of some opponents, particularly after, after the fact, like if
03:02:14 you, if you get a good outcome, well then, oh, of course, let’s beat that guy.
03:02:17 That guy wasn’t that good.
03:02:17 I’m like, well, I wasn’t, that’s after the fact.
03:02:19 I get to say that.
03:02:20 And also as the person in the ring, you know, BJ Penn has heard a lot of people in mixed
03:02:25 martial arts cage and I could actually absolutely have been on that list.
03:02:30 So it was neat to get to compete against someone that I really respect, someone that I looked
03:02:34 up to for a long time, someone who has a great skillset.
03:02:37 And also I went up in weight to fight him at his weight class.
03:02:39 He didn’t have to come down to mine, which is where he’d take it.
03:02:42 It was lightweight.
03:02:43 Yeah.
03:02:43 I’m generally a featherweight.
03:02:44 I walk around at like 158 pounds.
03:02:46 So what’s the lightweight and featherweight?
03:02:49 Lightweight is 155 with the day before Wayne and featherweight is 145 with the day before
03:02:53 Wayne.
03:02:54 So I’m a little bit more properly sized for featherweight.
03:02:57 But anyway, you know, I, so I didn’t feel like obviously he was giving up a couple
03:03:02 years of age, but I was giving up size and all this other stuff.
03:03:06 And it was, you know, I was just excited to have the opportunity to step in against someone
03:03:09 like BJ and you know, we managed to get out of there with a, with a good outcome without
03:03:14 getting too banged up.
03:03:16 But just, it was cool cause we tied up on the fence and just even the second, you know,
03:03:21 is when you’re rolling with somebody and you touch and you can feel what they’re doing
03:03:24 and you go, man, this guy’s really good.
03:03:25 You can feel the calm, you can feel the small minor adjustments that they’re making, the
03:03:29 subtle things that they’re doing.
03:03:30 And that was one of those things that was really neat and gratifying because you know,
03:03:34 you never know.
03:03:35 Sometimes people that you’ve heard of are a little bit less technically proficient than
03:03:38 you thought.
03:03:39 And other times you’ll meet some guy that you’re training like, who the hell is this
03:03:41 guy?
03:03:41 How have I not heard of this person?
03:03:43 And BJ was exactly, as a jiu jitsu guy, what I would have thought.
03:03:47 And another thing, that’s another thing that bugged me about how people reacted after the
03:03:51 fight is, you know, basically going, oh, BJ screwed up this, screwed up that.
03:03:55 And I’m like, all right, yeah.
03:03:57 That’s so interesting.
03:03:58 That’s sad.
03:04:00 That was, you know, one of the, and to me, I mean, as a fan of both, that was a beautiful
03:04:05 moment as a, as a kind of passing of a torch in a sense of exceptional performance.
03:04:13 Like another one that stands out to me, maybe you can comment, is I don’t understand, well,
03:04:20 maybe I do, why Conor McGregor gets as much hate as he does.
03:04:24 He probably revels in it.
03:04:26 But I think he doesn’t get enough credit for Jose Aldo for the, for like, for basically,
03:04:37 you know, knocking him out in the first few seconds of a fight.
03:04:44 I mean, Jose is like one of the greatest fighters ever.
03:04:47 That’s true.
03:04:49 Maybe some people can even put him in the top 10.
03:04:51 No question.
03:04:52 And the, like, I don’t understand why it’s, doesn’t get as much, like Conor McGregor
03:05:01 doesn’t get as much credit as I think he deserves for that and for Eddie Alvarez and all the
03:05:07 fights, for some reason, whenever Conor McGregor beats somebody, well, they were not that good
03:05:15 then.
03:05:15 Like, it means like they were, they were, something was off.
03:05:19 Right.
03:05:19 That’s convenient, isn’t it?
03:05:20 Yeah.
03:05:21 It’s quite strange to me.
03:05:23 But I mean, what are your thoughts on the, on Conor McGregor?
03:05:29 Maybe one way to ask that, I’m Russian, so I’m obviously also a Khabib fan, but I’m also
03:05:33 a Conor fan, it seems like there’s not many of us who are, like, fans of both.
03:05:37 Right.
03:05:38 What are your thoughts?
03:05:39 You and Artem Lobov.
03:05:41 The two of us, which also is a good fight.
03:05:45 Tough dude.
03:05:45 Yeah, really, really tough dude.
03:05:47 He’s like five languages, really interesting kid.
03:05:49 Oh, so, oh wow, I didn’t know that side of it.
03:05:52 There’s a brain there.
03:05:54 Well, on the Khabib versus Conor, what do you make of their first fight?
03:05:57 What do you, do you agree with me that they should fight again?
03:06:00 Because I think it would be awesome if they fought again in Moscow.
03:06:04 And do you agree with me, I’m just going to put, say things that piss people off,
03:06:09 but I believe is that Conor actually has a chance to beat Khabib.
03:06:13 One, that Conor absolutely has a chance to beat Khabib.
03:06:16 Conor has a chance to beat anyone that he steps into that ring with, and not just like
03:06:19 a mathematical chance.
03:06:19 You’re like, oh, one of the billion, but like, you know, like he absolutely, it’s funny
03:06:24 because I won’t pretend to know Conor really well, but I first met Conor in 2010 when I
03:06:27 was teaching a seminar in, at Strait Blast Gym Ireland in Dublin.
03:06:31 And that’s actually where I first met all of the coaches that ended up being on Conor’s
03:06:36 team.
03:06:37 You know, John Kavanaugh, Owen Roddy, Gunnar Nelson, you know, so for, I actually, I enjoyed
03:06:42 being on Ultimate Fighter and being on Uriah Faber’s team and getting to train with all
03:06:46 the guys there.
03:06:46 But at the same time, the people that I was actually, I knew better were actually the
03:06:50 European side, all of Conor’s coaches.
03:06:52 And that was a neat thing because I got to, I met Conor, I didn’t know who Conor, like
03:06:57 Conor wasn’t Conor at that point.
03:06:58 Yeah, that was before his UFC debut.
03:07:00 Oh yeah, well, well before, yeah.
03:07:01 I think, I think he got in like 2014, maybe something like that.
03:07:04 Yeah.
03:07:05 And anyway, but he was doing well in Cage Warriors, winning the titles there.
03:07:08 I think prior to that, you know, I remember going, seeing him on the show and also then
03:07:13 getting to see him train because I competed, I was initially slated to fight David Tamer
03:07:19 for the Ultimate Fighter finale before getting put in to fight Artem for the title for the
03:07:22 show.
03:07:23 So I went over to Ireland to train for a couple of days and basically it was neat to watch
03:07:27 him, watch him work.
03:07:28 I mean, man is focused and trains a lot and very, very smart and very, very hardworking.
03:07:33 And I think a lot of times people get stuck in the, in this, you know, and they almost
03:07:40 want to believe that this was lucky or this, this person, you know, like they’re not working
03:07:44 that hard.
03:07:45 They’re just out there.
03:07:45 They got there with their mouth and that’s, that’s just not the case.
03:07:49 And you know, I don’t know what it’s like, you know, obviously Connors very well off
03:07:52 right now and I don’t know how hard, how seriously he’s training, what he’s doing.
03:07:55 I can’t speak to any of that, but there’s no question that he has skills to be dangerous.
03:07:59 And one of the funny things, obviously the Khabib fight when Khabib was a great fighter
03:08:03 and also has the chance to beat anyone in that ring at any given time.
03:08:07 But there’s, there was a Conner, you know, it’s a one that he can, he can put anybody
03:08:14 away.
03:08:16 And as you mentioned, I think that he doesn’t get the credit for the Eddie Alvarez fight.
03:08:19 He doesn’t get the credit for the Jose Aldo fight.
03:08:20 Cause it was almost so much of a letdown.
03:08:22 I remember that happened the same weekend that I did the ultimate fighter finale.
03:08:25 And you’re like, all right, wait, what?
03:08:28 Yeah.
03:08:29 It almost doesn’t feel like a fight happening, but we mentioned Miyamoto Musashi.
03:08:32 I mean, Musashi was famous for the way he poked and prodded that people with what he
03:08:36 was doing, whether overtly or not, it’s like, Oh, we’re supposed to fight to the death.
03:08:39 And, uh, you know, at 3 PM tomorrow, great.
03:08:41 4 PM rolls around, I’m just not there.
03:08:43 Five.
03:08:44 I mean, you remember all the, all the antics and nonsense that Conner was pulling prior
03:08:47 to that, like speaking personally, that’s not, it’s not something I would feel comfortable
03:08:50 doing, but it’s like, everyone’s different.
03:08:52 And the effect that it had on, on Jose was, I mean, beyond evident.
03:08:55 When was the last time Jose started the, started the fight with leaping left hand,
03:08:59 leaping right hand, you’re like, wait, what?
03:09:01 And then he was obviously, you know, living rent free and in Jose’s head at that point.
03:09:06 And that was a combination of psychological, you know, ability and, and, and wherewithal
03:09:11 and then physical.
03:09:12 And it reminded me of the way Muhammad Ali would, would bother people and whatnot.
03:09:15 And, uh, the fact that he’s a polarizing figure, um, I think makes some people not give him
03:09:21 his due.
03:09:22 And then at the same time, sometimes certain fans may be go overboard, but, uh, they remember
03:09:27 the knee that Ben Askren got knocked out with by Masoudal.
03:09:30 I mean, that was an amazing, unbelievable thing, but three inches to the right, three
03:09:34 inches to the left, I guess, whichever side his head wasn’t, could have been squarer.
03:09:38 But, uh, and that fight starts with Ben Askren on top of you in the first five seconds.
03:09:43 Well, Connor ran and threw a knee just like that at Khabib and Khabib got right around
03:09:48 it.
03:09:48 That could have easily gone the other way.
03:09:50 Can you imagine what would have happened if after the, after coming back from boxing,
03:09:53 um, after coming back from, from the Mayweather fight, Connor, in the first 10 seconds, it’s
03:09:58 Khabib in the first 10 seconds, it’s over and you’re like, he would, it would have been
03:10:04 intolerable, but basically, like, you know, but see, here’s the thing.
03:10:08 Let me actually push back slightly.
03:10:10 Uh, I mean, to the fans, correct me if I’m wrong, but Connor seems to cause I’ve competed
03:10:18 a lot and like there’s a tension.
03:10:20 There’s a negativity sometimes depending on the opponent and there’s a respect afterwards
03:10:26 that happens, like when you understand that there’s a deep like respect and almost like
03:10:30 love for each other.
03:10:32 Like, I always seen that in Connor, like all the trash talk afterwards.
03:10:37 Yes.
03:10:37 There’s a, it’s, it’s a subtle thing.
03:10:39 You can’t always see it, but there’s a respect like.
03:10:42 I agree.
03:10:42 And like that, I almost on the Khabib side, I almost feel like Khabib really took it personally.
03:10:51 He did, he didn’t, he lost the respect for Connor.
03:10:54 I thought, I thought the whole time Connor had the respect.
03:10:56 So I, I, what I wanted to say is like, if Connor won that fight, like rock Khabib, I
03:11:01 could see like, I wouldn’t see trash talking.
03:11:04 I could see like trash talking stop right there.
03:11:07 I think so too, but at the same time, I’m sure you recall like Connor, Connor crossing
03:11:10 some pretty personal territory, you know, both religiously and, and also familiarly
03:11:14 with, uh, with Khabib.
03:11:15 And it’s, you know, I mean, I think it’s the sort of thing that, I don’t know, it’s, it’s
03:11:19 an interesting, that’s one of the reasons.
03:11:21 Like you have to know the diff so obviously I know the, the, the Khabib, uh, the Dagestani
03:11:28 people, they don’t play around like that.
03:11:29 They don’t play around like that.
03:11:31 You know, I mean, they take offense to basically, I mean, you, you don’t do that.
03:11:36 So, uh, so like Connor didn’t, maybe he did it on purpose or maybe he wasn’t even just
03:11:42 aware of, of, uh, it was cultural differences of the box he opened.
03:11:47 Like you, you can talk to Floyd Mayweather, you can, you can go anywhere with him.
03:11:52 You can, you can say the most offensive things, but with, uh, with Khabib, it’s, it’s, yeah,
03:11:58 hard lines, but you, uh, I mean, a lot of people ask, I know you’re a featherweight,
03:12:03 but if you were to, uh, face, it feels like Khabib was one of the hardest puzzles to solve
03:12:11 in, in all of mixed martial arts.
03:12:13 If you were to face Khabib, do you think, how would you go about solving that puzzle?
03:12:19 Like almost the question is almost from a Jiu Jitsu perspective too.
03:12:23 What do you do with a guy that’s exceptionally good at controlling position, especially on
03:12:28 top, very good at wrestling and taking down and controlling position.
03:12:32 Like let’s say, so forget maybe striking on the ground.
03:12:38 How do you solve that guy?
03:12:40 Like what do you do with your guard if you get taken down or do you create an entire
03:12:44 system of not getting taken down or escaping is like, what, what ideas do you have for
03:12:49 that?
03:12:50 Well, I guess I would say in my mind, fighting is a game of trading energy.
03:12:53 Um, kind of, uh, you know, there’s two, there’s two things, there’s damage and there’s energy.
03:12:58 So like when I say energy and being like, uh, tired, not tired, how much, how much gas
03:13:02 you’ve got.
03:13:03 Um, and then damage counts obviously as well.
03:13:05 Um, you could be feeling, I could be feeling great and then you get to kick me in the head
03:13:09 hard, really hard three times.
03:13:10 It doesn’t matter that I could get up and run a mile.
03:13:12 I can’t get up.
03:13:13 So anyway, um, you know, I, I think what Khabib does is so well is he makes the fight look
03:13:18 like it could be an amalgamated fight.
03:13:20 Um, he does a great job of avoiding damage on the feet for the most part and really sucking
03:13:25 the life out of people with how suffocating and oppressive is his control is.
03:13:30 Um, his chain wrestling is as good as anyone we’ve ever seen in the UFC.
03:13:33 It’s fantastic.
03:13:34 Um, but, uh, that poses a really serious threat for people that need to maintain a certain
03:13:40 amount of space and try to hurt them on the feed because unless they’re able to inflict
03:13:44 an adequate amount of damage, they’re going to each time, let’s say for instance, let’s
03:13:48 say him taking them down as a foregone conclusion at some point.
03:13:51 Um, if every single time Khabib takes you down, you get right back up.
03:13:55 It’s not that big a deal, um, because it’s actually more, we’ve all experienced this.
03:13:58 Let’s say you and I are rolling, you tap me 15 times in one round.
03:14:01 Who’s more tired?
03:14:02 Probably you are.
03:14:03 Yeah.
03:14:04 Yeah.
03:14:05 My ass so badly that, that it’s like, you’re the only one working, but, um,
03:14:08 So if you’re comfortable with the up and down of it, like being taken down.
03:14:13 If you’re, if you don’t, if you don’t get hurt badly or tired on the bottom, you have
03:14:18 a chance, but that doesn’t involve just cracking him on the feet before he gets ahold of you.
03:14:23 Um,
03:14:24 That’s a lot.
03:14:25 That’s a lot to ask.
03:14:26 That’s a lot to ask.
03:14:27 That’s difficult to do.
03:14:28 It seemed actually like Connor, it seemed like it when he was being kind of taken down
03:14:32 or the, the take down attempts against Khabib, he seemed to be somewhat relaxed the whole
03:14:37 thing.
03:14:38 I thought he was doing well, actually.
03:14:39 I think that particularly for the first round, I thought he did a very good job.
03:14:42 It’s just one of those things that I think like, uh, Khabib being the fights taking place
03:14:47 in Khabib’s world in large part.
03:14:49 And I mean, set aside that one giant, uh, was it right hand that, that Khabib hit Connor
03:14:53 with it, by the way, Connor reacted like an absolute champion.
03:14:56 He got crushed by that overhand and then drop and his eyes went right back on Khabib.
03:15:01 It was immediate positive, great response.
03:15:03 So even though that was, I think that was a bit of a surprising thing, Connor reacted
03:15:06 really, really well.
03:15:07 But if you’re going to be on bottom with Khabib for four rounds, that’s going to be tough.
03:15:11 And also Connor’s a way better grappler than people like to give him credit for, but he’s
03:15:15 not the type of grappler that can do that can, that can, that’s too tall of an order,
03:15:20 but there are grapplers that could do that or at least would have a much, much better
03:15:23 shot at, uh, being able to weather that type of a storm.
03:15:26 Do you see yourself being able to be relaxed through that kind of storm?
03:15:30 Well, I guess I can remember being, being, being, being savagely beaten is very relaxing.
03:15:39 The time that the timing of that answer was like, okay, that’s a dumb question.
03:15:45 No, that’s ultimately the goal of Jiu Jitsu is to, um, be relaxed to the fire.
03:15:51 For sure.
03:15:52 And remember like every UFC fighter, I win all hypothetical matchups.
03:15:55 Yeah, that’s true.
03:15:59 Uh, since, uh, I’m one to ask ridiculous questions and we’ve been talking about sci fi and all
03:16:06 that kind of stuff.
03:16:07 Let me ask the kind of big question that everybody disagrees about, certainly with me is, uh,
03:16:12 who are the top five greatest MMA fighters of all time and, um, um, why is Fedor number
03:16:18 one?
03:16:19 Okay.
03:16:20 Well, first off, Fedor is number one.
03:16:21 Oh really?
03:16:22 Oh yeah.
03:16:23 Right there with you.
03:16:24 Really?
03:16:25 Oh yeah.
03:16:26 Talk about people that just get completely underappreciated.
03:16:27 He’s never been in the, uh, like he’s never succeeded in the UFC.
03:16:30 It’s not his fault.
03:16:31 It came along after him at the time that, at the time that Fedor was at his height,
03:16:35 the UFC was not where it was at for heavyweight fighting.
03:16:38 I mean, not that there weren’t good heavyweights there, but Fedor, Fedor was unbelievable.
03:16:42 You know what I mean?
03:16:43 You remember, I mean, Minotaur Noguera, I was a massive fan of him.
03:16:47 I still remember watching, uh, what is it pride 2004 when, when Noguera fought Cro Cop
03:16:52 and got blasted with that left kick and dropped with like seconds left in the first round.
03:16:56 Pride was great cause he had a 10 minute first round and that five minute second, which again
03:16:59 materially alters, alters the fight big time.
03:17:02 And you know, just the texture of the fight is just totally, it’s borderline a different
03:17:05 sport, you know, then, then getting a five, a pause and a five.
03:17:09 But anyway, uh, similar sports, like one of those swimming things where they have nine
03:17:12 gold medals for different types of swimming, right?
03:17:14 But still swimming.
03:17:15 But anyway, um,
03:17:16 Oh yeah.
03:17:17 They would disagree.
03:17:18 Yeah.
03:17:19 I don’t mean, I’m not trying to.
03:17:20 They specialize in that.
03:17:21 Of course.
03:17:22 It’s so, it’s totally true.
03:17:23 10, 10 minutes is different than five minutes.
03:17:24 Sorry.
03:17:25 Don’t take, don’t, don’t, don’t drown me swimmers.
03:17:27 I don’t swim very well.
03:17:28 It’s easy for me to, easy for me to downplay it, but anyway, um, uh, yeah.
03:17:32 And then no,
03:17:33 Better than, uh, John Jones, like the modern era.
03:17:36 Well, I mean, I guess it’s, it’s tough to compete, to compare across eras.
03:17:40 It would be like going and saying like, Oh man, how, how would such and such great grappler
03:17:44 from today fare against someone from 1995?
03:17:47 I’m like, well, probably pretty well for them, depending upon who they are, what’s going
03:17:52 on.
03:17:53 There’s some people that would, their skill sets might transition across eras, but a lot
03:17:57 of times not, but that’s not fair.
03:17:59 We get the, they’ll be like comparing Spartans to modern day, you know, like army guys.
03:18:04 You’re like, well, who’s going to win?
03:18:05 I’m like, well, did modern day army guys get modern day weapons?
03:18:07 Well, yeah, but who’s the toughest ruggedest group of people at the very least?
03:18:11 So I guess it’s, it’s tough to say, but at least in my mind, the people that I think
03:18:14 about for great fighters, their, their, their quality of opposition, um, their level of
03:18:20 like lasting and like success, their level of lasting innovation.
03:18:23 Like the courage that they have to demonstrate, because again, it’s like being a big fish
03:18:26 in a small pond takes no courage.
03:18:28 Doesn’t mean that there’s nothing there, but it just requires something a little bit different.
03:18:32 So Kazushi Sakuraba is one of my guys too.
03:18:34 Um, BJ Penn also, I mean, BJ Penn fought Lyoto Machida.
03:18:39 That’s insane.
03:18:40 You know, it’s, that was a time, it was a different sport.
03:18:42 It was a different time in the sport where, you know, they were, some guys were, were
03:18:45 bouncing around doing different things, but let’s, so I guess the Gracie family, it’s,
03:18:50 I mean, they never had an in like, obviously Hoist was there, um, but they never, and that
03:18:54 was a definitely a different sport.
03:18:56 Weight classes being open, things like that.
03:18:57 Yeah, but you have to say that Hoist is up there.
03:18:59 Oh, no question.
03:19:00 One of the greatest ever.
03:19:01 I think so too.
03:19:02 And again, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, um, if it weren’t for him.
03:19:06 So the Gracie family as a whole, but I mean, who’s the better, I mean, I think Hoist would
03:19:11 tell you himself probably that, that Hickson would have handled business back then, but
03:19:15 they didn’t put him in.
03:19:16 So again, he’s the greatest fighter, the greatest fighter, the greatest fighter that we saw
03:19:19 do his business.
03:19:20 So Hoist up there for sure.
03:19:21 What about, so this is like, nobody seems to agree with me on this, but like this connects
03:19:26 to soccer again and Messi.
03:19:28 It seems that people value like how long you’ve been a champion, how many like defenses of
03:19:36 the championship that you’ve had successfully.
03:19:39 To me, I highly value singular moments of genius.
03:19:43 So like, like, I, I don’t, like, if you look at Conor McGregor, he hasn’t, I guess, held,
03:19:49 I’ve been a champion very long, very much.
03:19:51 Well, he didn’t defend either title, right?
03:19:53 He didn’t defend any other, uh, either of the titles, but like, if you talk, and same
03:19:58 with Messi, if you look at, uh, Lionel Messi, there’s just moments of brilliance unlike
03:20:04 any other in history for both Conor and Messi.
03:20:07 And people don’t seem to give credits like, well, how many world cups have you won?
03:20:11 But to me, like, why is it about this arbitrary world cup thing or championship thing?
03:20:15 I think it’s easier for people to wrap their head around, right?
03:20:17 It’s like the NFL combine.
03:20:18 When was, I mean, yeah, numbers.
03:20:20 It’s something that, well, again, if I go and if I pick Tom Brady in the first round,
03:20:24 you know, and it works out, they call me a genius.
03:20:27 If I had to pick Tom Brady in the first round after his combine and it doesn’t work out,
03:20:31 I get fired and I’m never hired again, I have to work, work somewhere else.
03:20:34 But it’s like, I’m insulating myself from criticism.
03:20:37 I think almost if I go by the numbers, well, he had more bench presses.
03:20:40 It’s like, how, how many times have the guys that are like the super studs in the, uh,
03:20:45 in the NFL combine ever been on the greatest players in the NFL history, in NFL history,
03:20:49 like zero or close to zero.
03:20:52 And even if, even if there’s some, it’s certainly not a one to one correlation.
03:20:56 So it’s so funny though.
03:20:57 I think it’s just like, how many, how long, how many days did he hold the title?
03:20:59 Oh, your title reign was X times longer.
03:21:02 That means nothing.
03:21:03 So if we wanted to find greatest fighter ever, like you said, I think individual moments
03:21:06 of like, like that was transcended, that was different.
03:21:09 That was something else because people can win or lose for any number of different reasons.
03:21:12 And that it’s an interesting thing.
03:21:14 Again, I don’t blame Argentina, not winning the world cup on messy, you know, that’s not
03:21:19 fair.
03:21:20 You know, how many times has, you know, I mean, I use the, I remember when a Trent
03:21:24 Ilfer was the quarterback for the, uh, the Baltimore Ravens and they had such a strong
03:21:28 defense.
03:21:29 I’m not trying to pick on Trent Ilfer, but it’s like they, they had such a strong defense
03:21:32 that they were to make it.
03:21:33 That was the Ray Lewis, you know, Chris McAllister era, you know, and they, they won, they won
03:21:38 the super bowl.
03:21:39 I don’t think anyone is going to say that, you know, Trent Dilfer is a better quarterback
03:21:44 than, you know, or put him in the same category as Dan Marino, but he got the W he’s got the,
03:21:51 he’s got the super ring.
03:21:52 How many times, let’s use March Madness or super, I love it.
03:21:54 Like that, that guy always makes the finals, but he just never gets it done.
03:21:57 So let me get this straight, getting to the finals nine times doesn’t count because you
03:22:00 didn’t win the end game.
03:22:02 I’m not saying it wouldn’t be better, but that guy won the game once he got over the
03:22:05 hump.
03:22:06 Well, how many other times was he in the finals?
03:22:07 Zero.
03:22:08 All right.
03:22:09 Yeah.
03:22:10 It’s interesting what we, yeah.
03:22:11 We were obsessed with these numbers, like, um, well, cause we can’t assess their method,
03:22:16 right?
03:22:17 Well, I think most of the time, most of us can’t assess the method of anything.
03:22:19 I’m it’s like, Oh, look at that guy do X Y swimming.
03:22:21 I’m like, how do I know Michael Phelps is great.
03:22:23 I don’t know.
03:22:24 It was faster.
03:22:25 I can’t look at his technique and say anything other than, well, that’s way better than anything
03:22:28 I know how to do, but I can’t say the difference between him and the next guy.
03:22:32 So I guess that’s, I wonder if it’s like, I need a concrete identifier and a lot of
03:22:36 times people don’t like saying, I don’t know.
03:22:38 And most people won’t put like a Ronda Rousey in the top, even 20 or 50 of, but like she
03:22:43 changed more than, more than almost anybody else.
03:22:47 She changed the martial arts history.
03:22:52 I don’t know if that even, I don’t think I’m exaggerating that she, she made it okay for
03:22:59 women to be fighters and that, and that changed the way we see like, she’s one of the great
03:23:06 feminists of our time in a weird kind of way that like, I don’t know.
03:23:13 Maybe I’m just a Ronda Rousey fan, but the, yeah, the, but she’s not in the conversation
03:23:18 because then you start converting into numbers.
03:23:20 Well, how many did she win?
03:23:22 Is she among the greatest fighters or did she do the greatest things?
03:23:25 You know what I mean?
03:23:26 I don’t, I think it’s something, I mean, obviously Ronda is a great Sudoku who was competing
03:23:30 in MMA at a time when a lot of the girls like, where did you get your skills in the Olympics
03:23:34 or where’d you get yours?
03:23:35 High school.
03:23:36 I mean, they’re going to, the Olympic girls going to beat you up.
03:23:38 But I guess that, that doesn’t diminish her, just that accomplishment is what it is.
03:23:43 I don’t have to, I don’t, Fedor is not diminished by the fact that he would like, if he were
03:23:48 to fight Stephen Mayochis right now, it probably wouldn’t go great or that John Jones exists.
03:23:52 I don’t now have to like knock Fedor’s accomplishments down or say, oh, because BJ Penn or so and
03:23:57 so let’s say has a mixed record at this point that somehow invalidates the things that they’ve
03:24:01 done before.
03:24:02 I guess it kind of brings us back to a lot of the other people we’ve talked about, the
03:24:05 fact that the brilliant people throughout history that we love or some of the monsters
03:24:09 throughout history that we rightly revile in a lot of cases were complicated people
03:24:13 and their legacy is more than just one thing.
03:24:15 And someone doing something amazing doesn’t invalid, doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything
03:24:18 bad.
03:24:19 And someone doing terrible things doesn’t, doesn’t mean that, doesn’t invalidate the,
03:24:23 the positives that they did.
03:24:24 But I guess we fighting the urge to put people in one category and same with ourselves.
03:24:29 I think that’s why people get depressed.
03:24:30 Oh, I’m good right now.
03:24:32 Oh, I’m bad right now.
03:24:33 Versus hey, we’re all at work in progress and we’re trying to do X number of things
03:24:37 and legacy is a tough thing to figure out anyway.
03:24:39 And it’s all speculative.
03:24:42 Last time or no on Reddit, you said that last time too, that you don’t experience much fear
03:24:49 before fights.
03:24:50 I’d like to ask you a couple of Mike Tyson things, if it’s okay.
03:24:53 It’s just interesting to me.
03:24:54 Maybe I’m just weird.
03:24:55 So there’s a, I don’t know if you’ve seen this clip of Tyson talking about how he feels
03:25:01 leading up to a fight that he’s kind of overtaken with fear, but as he gets closer and closer
03:25:08 and closer to the ring, his confidence grows.
03:25:12 Have you seen the clip?
03:25:14 I’m aware of it.
03:25:15 Okay.
03:25:16 I haven’t seen it in a while.
03:25:17 Here, let me play it for you.
03:25:18 I think George St. Pierre said something similar to me one time.
03:25:21 While I’m in the dressing room, five minutes before I come out, my gloves are laced up.
03:25:27 I’m breaking my gloves down.
03:25:28 I’m pushing the lever on the back of my leg, breaking the middle of the glove so my knuckle
03:25:33 pierced through the lever.
03:25:34 I feel my knuckle piercing against the tight leather gloves on the Everlast box.
03:25:38 When I come out, I have supreme confidence, but I’m scared to death.
03:25:42 I’m totally afraid.
03:25:43 I’m afraid of everything.
03:25:44 I’m afraid of losing.
03:25:45 I’m afraid of being humiliated, but I’m just totally confident.
03:25:48 The closer I get to the ring, the more confidence I get.
03:25:50 The closer, the more confidence I get.
03:25:52 The closer, the more confidence I get.
03:25:54 All during my training, I’ve been afraid of this man.
03:25:57 I thought this man might be capable of beating me.
03:25:59 I’ve dreamed of him beating me, but I always stayed afraid of him.
03:26:03 But the closer I get to the ring, I’m more confident.
03:26:06 Once I’m in the ring, I’m a god.
03:26:08 No one can beat me.
03:26:09 I’m a god.
03:26:10 I mean, first of all, he’s cognizant of both his demons and whatever the hell ideas he
03:26:16 has about violence.
03:26:17 It’s so interesting.
03:26:18 Is there something about the tension that he’s describing about being confident and
03:26:25 scared that resonates with you?
03:26:27 Or do you hold to this idea that you’ve kind of spoken about before that you’re really
03:26:32 not afraid?
03:26:33 No, I can appreciate what he’s saying.
03:26:36 I think that I can speak to feeling concerned about, let’s say, for instance, if you feel
03:26:42 a certain way, I think people are a lot more like computers than we like to admit.
03:26:48 And just because a lot of times I can’t parse what’s going on and why doesn’t mean that
03:26:52 it doesn’t make sense.
03:26:55 And I think that, at least in the times, if I’m concerned about a situation or about a
03:26:59 person or about something happening prior to the fight, I’m like, there’s a reason.
03:27:05 There was a reason.
03:27:06 I don’t have to push that down and bury it.
03:27:07 There’s a reason.
03:27:08 Why?
03:27:09 What have I not thought about?
03:27:10 What have I not done?
03:27:11 What am I missing?
03:27:12 Why am I feeling this way?
03:27:13 As you mentioned, for yourself prior, you’d be like, why am I feeling like this?
03:27:17 I don’t do this very well in certain aspects of my life now that I mention it or now that
03:27:20 I think about it.
03:27:21 But when it comes to competing, I think I do an all right job and I’m trying to learn
03:27:24 to be better.
03:27:25 And it’s going like, well, why do I, if I feel this way, there’s a reason.
03:27:29 Okay.
03:27:30 Am I thinking about this the wrong way?
03:27:31 Have I not adequately prepared for something?
03:27:33 I have to address it and then maybe I’ll be up for four hours that night, like extra hours
03:27:38 thinking what have I not addressed, watching sparring, watching this, watching that.
03:27:42 And then when I am thinking about things more accurately or when I’ve addressed what that
03:27:49 concern was, I feel any of that concern kind of dissipate.
03:27:53 And I guess if I honestly thought that, I guess when it comes to, I know I’m going to
03:27:59 die at a certain point, obviously, I’m going to get hurt, pain happens.
03:28:03 But the pain of loss would be nothing compared to the, or the pain of injury would be nothing
03:28:08 compared to the pain of running away.
03:28:12 And so I guess if I think about where’s my value, it’s like I feel like I’m a winner
03:28:18 and every single time I step into that ring and fight with everything that I have, I can’t
03:28:21 promise that I’ll win my next fight.
03:28:23 I know that I have the skills and the tools to beat anyone in grappling or in mixed martial
03:28:28 arts at this point.
03:28:29 It’s just, I know that for certain, I’ve trained with enough people, I’ve competed with enough
03:28:33 people, I know where I stand.
03:28:36 But I also know that I’m not perfect and also the better fighter, even if I perceived that
03:28:39 I was that thing, doesn’t win on the night.
03:28:43 The man who fights better wins on the night.
03:28:47 And if I give credence in my mind to only the person that’s won has value versus going,
03:28:53 what’s your process?
03:28:54 What’s your path through this?
03:28:56 How are you going about this?
03:28:57 How are you thinking about this?
03:28:58 How are you behaving?
03:28:59 Then if I can focus on the process, then I will respect my opponent and I will respect
03:29:05 myself and I’ll respect anyone that behaves with a certain level of consistency to that.
03:29:12 And they could win, there’s plenty of winners in history that are shitbags and there’s plenty
03:29:16 of losers that are not.
03:29:18 But winning doesn’t make you a bad or good person and losing doesn’t make you good by
03:29:22 default either or bad by default.
03:29:25 And I think that that can be the truth socially, that can be the truth athletically and academically.
03:29:30 So I guess…
03:29:31 Is there a primal fear though, like a primal fear of getting hurt?
03:29:37 The running away and not facing the threat long term is the bigger pain than any pain
03:29:47 you can experience in the fight.
03:29:50 That’s pretty powerful.
03:29:51 But what about the violence of, I mean, you don’t have that on your face, but like, I
03:29:55 don’t know if you’ve also seen Tyson talk about, he was on Rogan recently and he was
03:29:59 talking about, he was trying to psychoanalyze himself about why he enjoys violence so much.
03:30:08 I mean, he called it orgasmic.
03:30:10 I don’t know if, have you seen that clip?
03:30:13 I haven’t.
03:30:14 Okay.
03:30:15 We’re playing it because I can, I need to, because Trump also retweeted it, which is
03:30:19 hilarious.
03:30:20 I don’t know how to contextualize that our president retweeted the clip of Tyson saying…
03:30:28 Maybe he’s just doing like, they’re not, it’s like, I’m going to throw him a curve ball.
03:30:32 No one’s going to have any idea what that is.
03:30:33 But yeah, he did no explanation, just, here you go.
03:30:36 There you go.
03:30:37 Well, I think that’s kind of like what you were describing.
03:30:39 It’s like, if I give you an answer, it has to be a good one.
03:30:41 Better to just let your imagination run.
03:30:43 Exactly.
03:30:44 Yeah.
03:30:45 He’s like the Kubrick of our time.
03:30:48 Now what’s really interesting that sometimes, period, it’s not real, but sometimes I struggle
03:30:58 with the fact of why there’s a possibility I can really hurt somebody.
03:31:02 Like you don’t want to hurt them.
03:31:06 What do you mean when you struggle with the possibility that you could hurt them?
03:31:10 That is sometimes, it’s orgasmic sometimes.
03:31:15 Yeah.
03:31:17 Like some fights, like particular, like Tyrell Biggs or someone that you had problems with,
03:31:23 someone that you, you had animosity towards.
03:31:26 So when you finally get your hands on them.
03:31:29 Hey, what does it mean when fighting gets you, gets you erect?
03:31:36 What does that mean?
03:31:37 It’s a good question.
03:31:40 Means you’re getting excited.
03:31:41 Yeah.
03:31:42 So that, that’s going through your mind right now.
03:31:45 Well, that’s how I get when I was a kid and I, you know, sometimes I get the twinkle.
03:31:50 The twinkle.
03:31:51 Yeah.
03:31:52 Well, that’s what I’m saying.
03:31:53 When you reached a state as a human being, as a champion, as a ferocious fighter, you
03:31:58 reached a state of, of ability and of accomplishment that very few humans will ever, ever touch
03:32:04 and feel.
03:32:06 That’s why I’m asking you when you’re running, when you’re hitting the bag, when that heart’s
03:32:10 beating again and that you know who you are, you’re Mike motherfucking Tyson.
03:32:15 So when you’re doing all this shit again, you’re still Mike Tyson.
03:32:17 Those thoughts have got to be burning inside you again.
03:32:20 It’s got to be pretty wild.
03:32:23 I don’t know.
03:32:26 It’s wild, but I believe it’s rightfully so to be that way.
03:32:31 And I used to know how to, I don’t say I’m master, but I used to know how to deal with
03:32:36 it.
03:32:37 I don’t let it overwhelm me.
03:32:38 I mean, he goes on to try to, they don’t ever, like Joe doesn’t bite.
03:32:45 The interesting thing about that conversation is Mike was trying to figure himself out.
03:32:51 Like he’s trying on the spot, like, why do I feel this way?
03:32:59 To me it was like, to me it’s so real and honest to feel like pleasure from hurting
03:33:08 somebody.
03:33:10 Like that you rarely hear that.
03:33:13 In this society, it’s like, you rarely like talk about like you feel pleasure from winning.
03:33:22 You feel pleasure from like the relief of overcoming like all the stress you had to
03:33:29 go through.
03:33:31 Pleasure from just like the specifics of the fight, the techniques you use, the maybe
03:33:37 overcoming being down a couple of rounds, but like how often do you hear somebody say,
03:33:42 I just enjoyed, he’s not even saying because I hate the opponent.
03:33:46 He’s saying like, I enjoyed purely the violence of it.
03:33:51 That’s crazy.
03:33:52 I mean, I don’t know, it’s honest.
03:33:56 It made me ask, like, I wonder how many of us are cognizant of that.
03:34:00 Let’s say Mike is uncommonly seemingly honest.
03:34:05 I think athletes make a full time job out of lying, you know, I think people make a
03:34:09 full time job.
03:34:10 To themselves perhaps too.
03:34:11 I mean, in some, you tell yourself or you tell others what you feel you need to, or
03:34:16 maybe whether you’ve, whether you even know what you feel you need to, but why should
03:34:20 he not, I mean, again, did he, did he run up and just hit somebody that’s didn’t sign
03:34:25 up for this?
03:34:26 No, they, they signed up to be there.
03:34:28 Well, that’s the interesting thing about Dyson is there’s that weird, uh, like nonstandard
03:34:35 behavior.
03:34:36 I mean, like your fighting style is not standard.
03:34:40 He’s nonstandard to another degree of like, uh, who else has that in Jiu Jitsu, uh, uh,
03:34:47 Polaris, uh, uh, has this kind of weirdness, like what’s, what’s in there?
03:34:55 Like there’s a fear that I think, uh, most opponents would have because it’s like, it’s
03:35:01 no longer about like, it takes you out of the realm of its game.
03:35:06 It takes us back to the thing we were talking about, like before is it strips away that
03:35:11 like several layers of Ryan Hall, the, the podcast, uh, guest, Ryan Hall, the Jiu Jitsu
03:35:17 instructor, Ryan Hall, Jiu Jitsu competitor, it keeps going down to a point where like
03:35:22 Ryan Hall, the murderer of all things that get in his way that lies underneath all of
03:35:27 it.
03:35:28 Seemingly like if we’re like in this society, we put all that aside, but it makes you wonder
03:35:33 like now as society is being tested in many ways, it makes you wonder like what’s underneath
03:35:38 there.
03:35:39 Well, do we want, do we want the answer to that?
03:35:41 Cause I guess it’s, what is it?
03:35:42 Uh, you seem Paul Fiction, you know, the best character in the movie and in the best scene
03:35:46 in the movie is like, if my questions here, if you’re, what do you call it?
03:35:49 If my answer is scary, you should cease asking scary questions, you know?
03:35:53 And I guess, uh, you wonder, I mean, all of us, that’s something that I think it’s funny
03:35:57 we go, that’s not okay, I mean, versus maybe not appropriate for situation X, Y, or Z.
03:36:03 But uh, what should make any of us think, I mean, humanity is a different place now.
03:36:07 And I mean, I’m not saying anything crazy out there, but humanity is a different place
03:36:10 now than we were 5,000 years ago where all of us are descended from people who have killed
03:36:15 things with their teeth and fingernails in order to be where we are.
03:36:20 And whether it was in, whether it was an animal or it was in conflict with another person,
03:36:24 I mean, think about the, the chances of dying by violence now are so, so slim, at least
03:36:28 in most countries in most plays, like shockingly small, thankfully.
03:36:32 But there was a period of time, like the most period of time where dying by violence was
03:36:36 mostly how it went down.
03:36:39 And I guess what would be facilitative, what would allow you to win back to Ender’s game?
03:36:44 You know, what allows you, if you can’t do that, you are all, you are forever subject
03:36:49 to people who can, and that’s, that’s a real thing.
03:36:54 And you know, we’re fortunate to find ourselves in a situation where we don’t, where other
03:36:58 things matter.
03:36:59 But that is a funny thing periodically where people, you’ll see people kind of drawn at
03:37:02 each other, like in videos or out in the world that clearly neither of them expect this to
03:37:06 get serious.
03:37:07 Like, I’m just going to yell at you.
03:37:08 You’re going to yell at me.
03:37:09 And it’s like this weird LARPing thing where we’re both going to go on our own separate
03:37:11 way.
03:37:12 All it takes is one person to be like, well, I wasn’t kidding.
03:37:15 And it’s like, well, you’ll go to jail.
03:37:16 And it’s like, oh, I know you’re going to go to the morgue.
03:37:20 And it’s, that’s, but that can happen like that.
03:37:22 Like society.
03:37:23 I mean, obviously, anyway, you could jump across the table, stab me in the eye.
03:37:26 I mean, I appreciate, I’d hope if you don’t, and there will be consequences if you do,
03:37:29 but not from, not from me, from, from the rest of society will potentially get you at
03:37:34 a certain point, but you can decide to not play by the rules anytime you want.
03:37:38 It’s fascinating that, yeah, that’s, we’ve created rules based on which we all behave,
03:37:43 but underneath there, you know, there, there’s things that doesn’t, there’s motivations and
03:37:49 forces that don’t play by the rules and still there nature is metal is under the surface.
03:37:54 Seriously.
03:37:55 And again, I pull out my phone and I’m basically saying like, Hey, I’m going to, you’re going
03:37:59 to get caught.
03:38:00 Yeah.
03:38:01 But really I’m further antagonizing you rightly or wrongly.
03:38:03 You know what I mean?
03:38:04 Like, and that, that’s an interesting thing.
03:38:05 And I feel like just people need to remember any of us need to remember just for any reason,
03:38:10 just that’s, that’s one step away at all, at all times you ever, I’ve had people say
03:38:15 to me before, like, Oh, I don’t feel safe.
03:38:17 I’m like, you’re not safe.
03:38:18 I kill you before you get out of this room.
03:38:20 Nothing you do to stop that.
03:38:21 Nothing.
03:38:22 I mean, but don’t worry.
03:38:23 You can do the same to me, which means I’m like, Oh, Oh, thank goodness.
03:38:26 Can you imagine like how many guns are there are in this country?
03:38:29 Like I mean, everywhere, I mean, seriously everywhere, but that’s a heartening thought.
03:38:33 Not the other way.
03:38:34 Cause people usually freak out and go, Oh my God, gun violence, gun violence, gun violence
03:38:37 is like really not a serious issue in the United States compared to what it could be.
03:38:41 Because it means that, I mean, with the amount of guns and the amount of bullets that are
03:38:45 out there that are in circulation, can you imagine if like one in every thousand was
03:38:50 used in anger each day?
03:38:52 I mean, this would be a terrifying place to live.
03:38:54 You couldn’t go anywhere.
03:38:55 So, I mean, although you could say, Hey, this is more than we’d like or X, Y, Z, it actually
03:38:59 means that people are much more reasonable and sane than we’re saying then, or then I,
03:39:04 then sometimes I might, my might argue.
03:39:06 So I guess what I mean is like, Oh man, I walked a seven 11 and I didn’t get stabbed.
03:39:09 I’m like, Oh, well that’s good because not because I protected myself with my karate.
03:39:13 It’s basically no one decided to run over and stab me because I wasn’t protecting myself.
03:39:18 It’s I, they, they stopped.
03:39:19 So I guess we’re all fortunate to live in a society that, that like you said, nature
03:39:23 being metal doesn’t become that big of an issue all the time.
03:39:26 But it is funny when you get people in the ring and you go, Hey, let’s peel back from
03:39:29 Mr. Tyson, many layers of that and say, Hey, now it’s okay.
03:39:34 And it’s cool that, I mean, that’s what society is doing.
03:39:37 So I’ve lived in Harvard square for awhile and we add extra layers of what safe means.
03:39:44 Like now there’s a disc discourse about safe spaces, about like ideas being violence or,
03:39:51 or like, uh, you know, like, yeah, but ideas are minor slights against your personality
03:39:58 being violence.
03:39:59 And that’s all like extra layers around the nature is metal thing that, uh, it’s cool.
03:40:05 That’s what progress is.
03:40:06 But we can’t forget that like underneath it is still, it’s still the, the thing that will
03:40:13 murder at the, at the drop of, uh, in any, at any moment.
03:40:17 If uh, if aroused one, one thing that I find funny though, or ironic maybe about the, uh,
03:40:23 the, you know, words of violence, you know, offenses, violence thing is that of course
03:40:27 that if that, the belief in that then justifies my violence, like my, and whether it may be
03:40:33 in my, maybe not physical violence, but my response to my, my aggressive response to
03:40:38 things.
03:40:39 And I guess like, which it can be regrets of begets a further aggressive response and
03:40:42 like a, you know, kind of a tit for tat sort of situation or, or it goes to like, well,
03:40:47 there’s 10 of me and there’s one of you, so we’ll get you and you can’t do anything about
03:40:50 it.
03:40:51 But that’s not morality.
03:40:52 That’s, that’s just saying that’s might makes right.
03:40:55 So I guess again, you can understand why people do it and there are certain, there is a progress
03:40:58 aspect to it.
03:41:00 But again, I guess without proper examination, I’m effectively with my 10 friends, you know,
03:41:06 and, and the force of the law, Mike Tyson and people, but not admitting to myself what
03:41:10 I’m doing.
03:41:11 And at least Mike Tyson again is honest.
03:41:13 Are you, uh, afraid of death?
03:41:16 I mean, it’s easy for me to say no, as I sit here, probably not about to die, but.
03:41:21 Is this like the UFC question, can you defeat any opponent?
03:41:24 The answer is of course, yes.
03:41:26 And uh, I don’t have, they’re not around, they’re not here, are they?
03:41:29 Yeah, exactly.
03:41:30 But, uh, I mean, are you, uh, do you ponder your own mortality?
03:41:33 Maybe another context to that is you mentioned two deaths for martial artists.
03:41:39 I think that’s actually why, honestly, even though at a relatively young age, I think
03:41:42 mortality is something that I’m aware of more, maybe more than the average person.
03:41:46 I think probably most athletes can speak to this and anyone that’s had trouble, I’ve managed
03:41:50 to just slide out of a couple of near death experiences personally, you know, mostly river
03:41:55 related, um, because I’m an idiot, but, um, I regret nothing, but, uh, yeah, but, uh,
03:42:01 thank God we’re here.
03:42:02 But, um, yeah, it is an interest seeing, seeing the end and seeing going, well, what’s going
03:42:10 to happen.
03:42:11 I guess I think it comes back to kind of what we’re discussing about belief structure and
03:42:14 belief system.
03:42:15 I think a lot of times, if I recognize that no matter what I do, it’s all going to end
03:42:21 one day and then you go, well, why were we here?
03:42:23 What would I do?
03:42:24 Am I going to make it to 40?
03:42:26 I have no idea.
03:42:27 I’d like to hope so that I had no idea that I was going to make it to the age that I am
03:42:31 now.
03:42:32 Um, am I going to make it to 80?
03:42:33 How much of that is in my control?
03:42:36 Much of it is not.
03:42:37 I mean, it’s so funny.
03:42:38 It’s an interesting, like back to the belief structure again, like locus of internal and
03:42:42 external locus of control.
03:42:44 You know, what’s facilitative versus what’s true.
03:42:47 And you know, I think accepting personal responsibility for more than is on my control is, is probably
03:42:51 a positive, but at the same time, recognizing that much of much is not in my control.
03:42:57 I was fortunate enough to be born in the United States, fortunate enough to, you know, to
03:43:02 not knock on wood, have, have a serious disease that I’m not aware of right now.
03:43:06 Um, I didn’t do any of that.
03:43:08 I just showed up.
03:43:09 That was really fortunate.
03:43:11 And I guess that doesn’t diminish the fact that I’ve tried to make decent choices, but
03:43:17 it works in concert with it.
03:43:18 And I, I guess, um, when I, when you go, is death what I want right now?
03:43:24 No, no, I should think not.
03:43:26 And again, it’s easier for me to be relatively calm about as I’m not staring it in the face,
03:43:30 but what I would care a lot more about is, is how you live.
03:43:35 That’s what’s in my control.
03:43:37 And I can’t control if, as I walk out of this building, a helicopter falls on me worrying
03:43:41 about that.
03:43:42 I can’t control it.
03:43:43 Maybe I, maybe I have cancer now and I don’t know it and I really hope not.
03:43:46 But um,
03:43:47 there’s something about meditating on the fact that it could end today outside of your
03:43:51 control that can clarify your thinking about the, the fact that life is amazing, like just
03:43:58 kind of, yeah, helping you enjoy this moment.
03:44:01 Even if life was horrible, let’s say for instance, it was, it was, you live at one of those times
03:44:05 or places and this place is still exists in this world today that life is brutal and metal
03:44:11 and whatever all and short and painful.
03:44:14 Would you still want it?
03:44:15 And again, as I’m sitting here and not, not on fire physically, it’s easy to say yes,
03:44:20 but I would, I’m confident I still I’ll plant my feet and say yes, any of, any life is amazing
03:44:25 and beautiful and a gift and unbelievable gift, uh, that none of us have earned for
03:44:31 the record.
03:44:32 We’re, I hate the word earned a lot of times earned yet you earn, but it’s like, there’s
03:44:35 a lot of, a lot of good fortune and earning.
03:44:37 And that’s back to, do I want justice or do I want grace?
03:44:41 And I guess we’re all fortunate to be where we are, no matter where we are.
03:44:44 And hopefully it should give us some sense of perspective, some sense of compassion for
03:44:48 other people.
03:44:49 But also like, like you said, a sense of peace, if it all ended right now, would I be happy
03:44:54 with what I, with life to this point?
03:44:56 I’m like, of course, would you like to live a little longer?
03:44:58 Yeah.
03:44:59 I would try to do more and try to live rightly to the best that I know how, which over time
03:45:03 will hopefully continue to evolve in a, in a positive direction.
03:45:07 But if the answer to that is no, I guess, uh, that’s, that’s always, that’s a sign that,
03:45:14 that what I’m doing is not what I’m meant to be doing.
03:45:16 And I mean, you’re familiar with the Tecumseh before, uh, so there’s a, I’ve got one actually,
03:45:21 if you could give me 10 seconds, I’ll, I’ll read this one out.
03:45:23 This is a personal favorite basically.
03:45:26 And I think it sums up, I mean, again, like it’s one of those quotes on the internet,
03:45:29 like when Abraham Lincoln said, don’t believe everything you read online.
03:45:32 Um, but, uh, this is, you know, I, it’s again, uh, attributed, but it’s like, so live your
03:45:38 life that the fear of death can never enter your heart, trouble, no one about their religion,
03:45:42 respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours, love your life, perfect
03:45:46 your life and beautify all things in your life.
03:45:49 Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
03:45:53 Prepare a noble death song for the day.
03:45:54 When you go over the great divide, always give a word or sign of salute when meeting
03:45:58 or passing a friend, even a stranger when in a lonely place.
03:46:03 Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
03:46:06 When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
03:46:10 If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
03:46:13 Abuse no one and no thing for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit
03:46:17 of its vision.
03:46:19 When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear
03:46:22 of death so that when their time comes, they weep and pray for a little more time to live
03:46:26 their lives over again in a different way.
03:46:28 Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
03:46:32 Powerful words.
03:46:33 I don’t think there’s a better way to end it.
03:46:35 Let me just say, we’ve spoke maybe five, six years ago.
03:46:40 I don’t even remember when, but I’m not exaggerating saying like you had a huge impact on my life
03:46:46 because of the podcast.
03:46:47 You’re the reason I was doing the podcast as long as I have.
03:46:52 You’re the reason I’m doing this podcast.
03:46:55 It’s a little, it’s a stupid little meeting that you probably didn’t know who I was.
03:46:59 I didn’t really know who you are.
03:47:00 It was just like a magical moment.
03:47:02 It’s a flap of a butterfly wing kind of situation.
03:47:05 And yeah, I’m forever grateful.
03:47:07 You’re one of the most inspiring people in my life.
03:47:11 So Ryan, it’s a huge honor that you would come here.
03:47:15 Jen didn’t talk with me and waste all this time.
03:47:18 I really appreciate it.
03:47:19 It was amazing.
03:47:20 Thank you so much, Alexis.
03:47:21 It’s just been a pleasure.
03:47:22 I really appreciate you having us on.
03:47:23 Thank you.
03:47:24 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ryan Hall.
03:47:28 And thank you to our sponsors, PowerDot, Babbel, and Cash App.
03:47:32 Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast.
03:47:37 If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
03:47:42 follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
03:47:48 And now let me leave you with some words from Frank Herbert in Dune.
03:47:52 Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense.
03:47:57 But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
03:48:01 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.