Heroic Nation Podcast
The ONLY podcast addressing Physical Health and Mental Health for First Responders.
Host:
Anthony Shefferly
-Full time Police/SWAT (16+ years)
-Master's in Science: Psychology
-Tactical Strength & Conditioning
Owner Heroic Fitness/CrossFit Tactical Strength
College Football/CrossFit Regionals/BJJ/Kettlebells
Heroic Nation Podcast
Understanding Violence as a Crucial Skill
Ready to unlock the secrets of effective self-defense and martial arts? Aaron Giannetti, a renowned expert in knife defense, jiu-jitsu, and Olympic weightlifting, joins us to share his incredible journey and vast expertise. From the early days of our friendship in the CrossFit community to the impactful seminars he's conducted at my gym, we reminisce about our experiences and explore the complex nature of violence as a form of communication. We also offer a humorous peek into the chaos and joy of parenting multiple children, making this episode both informative and entertaining.
Discover the philosophy behind Knife Control Concepts (KCC), a cutting-edge self-defense program co-created by Mike Chaney and Eli Knight. Aaron explains how KCC has revolutionized knife defense training by integrating jiu-jitsu techniques with practical self-defense strategies. Traditional knife defense methods often fall short; KCC addresses these gaps by mastering entanglement scenarios first, ensuring participants are well-prepared for real-world encounters. This comprehensive system has gained recognition and is now embraced by law enforcement agencies, making it essential listening for anyone serious about self-defense.
Our conversation also tackles the significance of understanding violence as a language, especially in law enforcement and martial arts. Drawing from 16 years of experience in law enforcement, we discuss how one's demeanor and actions can communicate fluency in this crucial skill, enhancing both survival and confidence in high-stress situations. We emphasize the importance of combining various martial arts techniques for a well-rounded approach to self-defense, touching on the benefits of Greco-Roman wrestling and striking techniques. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in mastering the art of self-defense and navigating the complexities of violence with skill and confidence.
That was a close one, alright, welcome back to the Heroic Industries Heroic Nation podcast and this is the best show. This is easily the best show we've done. Easily, easily the best show, alright, I say that all the time. I really hate intros, don't like them. They're awkward, they're always awkward anyway. Today we talk to Aaron Giannetti.
Speaker 1:Aaron Giannetti is an expert in the field of self defense, martial arts combatives, specifically knife defense, knife fighting, jiu jitsu. I consider him an expert. He's better than me, he's a higher level than me, so that would be expert to me. But he's all kinds of stuff too. He runs Endeavor, fitness and Defense. I believe it is located in Columbus, ohio. He's an old school CrossFitter. That's where I met him way back in the day. So I've known Aaron for a long time. Used to have him to my gym for seminars on self-defense, krav Maga, jiu-jitsu, all kinds of stuff, right. He's also well-versed in Olympic weightlifting, weightlifting in general, strength and conditioning. He's better on the block, right. Plus, he's a super cool dude.
Speaker 1:So we talked to him at length for over an hour, right. So over an hour it's like a PR for length of time of heroic nation podcast. So there you go, but we covered a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff about just violence, use of violence, what I consider to be like the language of violence, like communicating with it, because it is a form of communication, right. So we dive into a lot of that stuff, okay. So I think that'll really be a fun conversation for you guys to check out and, uh, I'd love to hear some feedback from you and, uh, let me know what you think about it, Okay, um, all right.
Speaker 1:So getting some questions, a little plug here, uh, about, like hey, what, what do we do to get into heroic industries? Uh, it's really easy. It's really low barrier. This is like the lowest barrier stuff that can possibly be in existence. All you have to do is join school. So school is an online platform for training, right, and heroic industries is we run a lot of our stuff straight out of that group, so it's kind of like a Facebook group, but it operates way smoother and way cooler. Online courses in there, live, basically this like live podcasts, stuff like that, like live Zoom calls, live coaching calls, direct access to me and any other of my coaches, nutrition info, you know all that kind of stuff, so, and it's totally free.
Speaker 1:So I want this to be a really good, uh, really usable resource and community for, uh, you know, tactical athletes and and anyone else that's that's, you know, in in the same type of field or dealing with similar work, right, so, open to all, but specifically for tactical based population. So, uh, yeah, there's that. And uh, check out the podcast. Yeah, well, it's totally fine, cause, uh, like my, my two youngest are out of town with their grandparents, but it usually sounds like a bowling alley is going on upstairs, like just jumping, flying off of shit and smashing things. Then I got upstairs and I'm like what's going on? Like we're being quiet, like, no, you're not being quiet, actually you're being wow, you're being incredibly loud apparently we need to work on definitions.
Speaker 1:You know what what quiet means? How old are your kids? Ah, dude, the uh. The oldest one just turned 16 and uh, sit, let's see 16, 14, nine and five.
Speaker 2:So holy God blessed Anthony.
Speaker 1:Yeah, never a dull moment, man, never a dull moment.
Speaker 2:Dude, no kidding, I mean you've got, you've got, you've got a wide range of uh life phases and personalities happening, holy shit.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and it's funny because, like you wonder, you wonder when you're younger, like you look at kids from the same families and you're like how did this kid turn out like this? And then the other kid ended up like that, and now it's like, oh, I can totally fucking tell because, like 100 the amount of effort not that I put in less effort with my younger kids, but I'm just way less concerned. I'm like it'll be fine, like Yep, is it broken? Yeah, you're okay, you know. Yeah, you'll live Right. Life's going to spin on, you know.
Speaker 2:I've said that just about R2, you know, because I got uh, mavericks eight and laney will be seven in august and uh, they're only 18 months apart. But they are two completely different kids and that's always the joke with kim and I was like what was the first one? It was like I don't want to kill it.
Speaker 2:So it's like everything is like oh my god oh my god, I was like he probably just sucked up all that anxiety. And then the second one was just like ah, we did this before, like that's fine. Like she busts her face open and she will roll with punches. Man, she'll like get laid out, smack her face, be bleeding from the face and she'll be like I'm fine.
Speaker 1:Maverick has like bops his nose and he's like oh my god, I'm like oh fuck yeah, there's some of that, for sure that gets, that gets. Uh, you know, like, like your, your kid just absorbs it. You know, I remember with, remember with my, with my oldest, taking my oldest home from the hospital, like just terrified, in this, in this bucket, like, oh God, like I don't want to break this little thing. Like I've had, I've held puppies before, but this is not the same thing. What do I do with this guy? So, yeah, nuts man, and then number four, you just chuck him in the car. You're like, yeah, I was gonna say it's like what are seat belts?
Speaker 2:like get in there oh, I couldn't even imagine. After four, I mean we stopped at two and on the second one I feel like we again not like a less effort type thing, but like half of the worries. If that, I couldn't even imagine.
Speaker 1:Four and like just that's actually probably why I'm as like goofy and laid back as I am, because I was the third of three and at that point in time my mom was probably just like ah, fuck it, he'll be fine, like let him just lick lead paint off the side well, once you get, I swear, like once you get north of three, it's got to be like a wash where you're like I got, I got no more effort to put in, like what it is, like I can't, like if I put in, try to put in more effort than what I'm doing, like I'm literally gonna die, so like I can't, I can't, but this is what you get and then it's just like the third child up then has to take care of that one right, and I think that's the cycle just going down from then on yeah, no that's where the 16 year old comes in yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:that's actually like pretty true when you start looking at huge families Way back in the day, when people had 10 kids and plus some of them had super crappy relationships with their parents because they never saw them. They were raised by their older brothers older sisters, my aunts and uncles.
Speaker 2:On my grandfather's side there was 12 of them and then one of my cousins who's my mom's age, so she's probably mid-60s, she's got 11. And I mean it was like she almost popped them out annually, like every fucking 12 months there was a new kid and it's just like holy shit, Like how do you keep out of? That's a whole nother? But it's like how do you keep up with that many personalities? And like, oh my God in heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, anyway, yeah, that's, that's not for me. Yeah, true that man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, dude, how? How are things going? It's been a minute.
Speaker 2:It's been quite a minute actually. Uh, things are good, man, things are real good. The gym we had an interesting uh, like not not even COVID anymore. It was like two years, like 2000 or 22. So like two years ago it was like the culture had this really weird shift in the gym and I saw it a little bit too late, like KCC was taken off and I was traveling a lot and I don't know. It was interesting. So, honestly, man, I got to say the last year, probably 12 to 14 months out of the 11 that we've been open has been the hardest and like we finally are making it over that hump and like now the gym's firing on all cylinders. We got rid of the people we needed to get rid of, we laid better boundaries, we started creating more systems that are in place. It was just shit that I just let slide. So that was like probably half of my gray hair came from that in the last 14 months. And then KCC is going gangbuster. It's going really well. We've got a couple of really big trips coming up. We just got a contract with the US Courts Probation Office in Guam, so we're heading out there early September.
Speaker 2:I've got a contract with the state of Florida. We had done their Department of Corrections like a year and a half ago. We trained all the training officers for the entire state and they're bringing us back to work with I didn't even know that this existed but the Department of Agriculture and Commerce. They're pretty much like the. It's the department of, uh, agriculture and commerce. Yeah, they're pretty much like the. It's the equivalent of, like the yellowstone cattle cops, but uh, but their budget apparently is never ending yeah, I think they have.
Speaker 1:I think they have like 1811s and special investigators, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like it's yeah, it's nuts, um, so we're we're heading back down there in september to work with those guys, so that's cool. And then our end user courses are going well, so that's been really good.
Speaker 1:Who are you running? Who are you running this training through? Is that through night control concept or is there something different?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's as far as like transactionally from a business standpoint.
Speaker 2:it's through my LLC, just like my soul pro, my LLC, just like my Solpro. I run all of my seminars, personal training, all that kind of shit. I run through Genetti Enterprises LLC, which is just my individual run LLC. Then we're getting to a point now where I need to establish an LLC for knife control concepts.
Speaker 2:The question that we're running into or I'm running into, if I'm being honest, because I do all the administrative work the question I'm running into is do I want to create a training company or do I want to create one around KCC?
Speaker 2:Because if I do it around KCC, it's pigeonholed to knife specifically.
Speaker 2:So if Eli Mike and I decide to do courses on gun or whatever, we're probably not going to call it KCC. It's pigeonholed to knife specifically, like so you know, if Eli Mike and I decide to do courses on gun or whatever, we're probably not going to call it KCC. So now the question that I've been kind of noodling over the last month or two has been like okay, do I want to do I want to go through the effort to establish a training company as an LLC that is separate of me and and takes us under the umbrella and allows us to expand out and you know, do I keep that as KCC or something else? But? But otherwise I mean it's I go to all the courses, I run all the administrative stuff for it, all the marketing, and that Mike and or Eli come with me to all the training, so usually traveling pairs and we just kind of divvy back and forth who's going where. Um, so, as far as the kcc stuff goes, but it's been really really good.
Speaker 1:so uh, fill me in on, because I'm I know a little bit about the kcc and what it is, but like, fill me in more details on it. And yeah, and then I know I'm assuming you're talking about Eli Knight who's?
Speaker 2:Mike. Mike Chaney is the black belt that runs my jiu-jitsu program. It's his jiu-jitsu program. He runs his jiu-jitsu program at the gym. He runs it. It's his baby.
Speaker 1:Did I meet him at the blackout, grappling a year ago.
Speaker 2:Yes, mikey's our head instructor, got it Really good friend of mine, he's my jiu-jitsu coach, um, you know, I mean he's more than that, but you know from a administrator a technical standpoint, um, and then, yeah, eli knight, so I started kcc in 2019, uh, and developed it as that, that online program, and then started teaching seminars on it. But it was all standup. So then Eli and I partnered and we did a weekend training at the gym. He was doing his bladed grappler stuff. So I did KCC day one and he did bladed grappler day two and everybody really enjoyed it. But, like, we started talking and it was like, hey, there's, there might be a better way to approach the ground the stuff he was teaching bladed grappler, like you definitely had to have a foundation of a decent foundation of jiu-jitsu to perform a lot of the shit he was doing. And so it was like, you know, how do we create sops for everybody from you know no background all the way to black belt? That actually makes sense for weapons. So that's when, uh, mike, eli and I started essentially brainstorming out how do we take what I've done with KCC, stand up and apply it to the ground? And so that's a. And then I just got to the point was like guys like I mean I kind of like curated and asked the questions and kind of made sure that I was the, you know, I was the idiot proof guy. Like you know, if they started going off somewhere, I was going like, okay, now remember, like is this for a jujitsu guy or is this for, you know, bob, who's 30 pounds overweight? And uh, so I played that role. But for the most part, our ground program you know they completely created. So I was like, well, why don't you guys just come on and you'll be the ground guys, I'll be the stand-up guys and we'll travel around together.
Speaker 2:And it started like we didn't really plan to do too much with it. We were planning on doing like one seminar a year at Endeavor and then Craig Douglas wanted to host us. So we did that and then everybody heard Craig Douglas wanted to host us, so they started hosting us and then we got in with a couple agencies and it's just really snowballed and I've really enjoyed it. So the KCC program it started as I had. I filmed a video forever ago where I was just explaining like I think knife defense, especially in martial arts, is the most. Just, I don't know man, it's just so laid out in choreographs and it's nothing is ever realistic. It's not built around. In my experience in most things it's generally built around like here's this specific attack and here's this specific answer and it's going to go exactly according to plan it. Just it never made sense. So it's like every police academy under the sun.
Speaker 1:So it's like every police academy under the sun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100% yeah, and it just. It never made sense to me and I think it stuck out to me more than anything because that's the risk is 10 times higher If I fuck up a you know, a haymaker defense. Well, at least if I have my chin down, maybe I'm not unconscious and I can fight my way out of that, but if I fuck up, whatever the fuck I'm trying to do with a blade, it's like that one. All I need is one, so anyway.
Speaker 2:So I had filmed a video a while back and I was just I was really just riffing on how I thought knife defense should be taught and I essentially was like the hardest part is when you're stuck in the entanglement. So I would spend a ton of time teaching people how to figure out the entanglement and then, if you can figure that out, then you can start stacking all the other skills on top of it, because the most fucked up part you at least have a level of competency at. So there's no fear about oh, if I fuck this up, I might end up in an entanglement. It's like, well, if I end up in an entanglement, I'm the best trained I could possibly be there. And then we would talk about mid-range and dealing with this and blocks and strikes, and then we would talk about so it was like kind of like building layers out which is in the.
Speaker 2:The self-defense world is an ass backwards way to look at it. Usually it's like where did the knife come from? How are we addressing the knife? Don't ever get in caught. You know what I mean. Like it was like and I was kind of the opposite. I was like let's dive into the deep end first and then that makes swimming in the shallow end a lot more fun. You know, yeah, and so honestly.
Speaker 1:Honestly, dude, that makes, that makes sense from, like, my perspective as a cop. Like if I see you have a knife, I'm never going to engage you, I'm going to shoot you if you don't listen, right? It's like an edge weapon is lethal force, right? So? So when is that going to happen? It's going to happen when I'm way behind the eight ball and I already am entangled with you, and then it's like, oh shit, he's got a knife that I either didn't see or you, you, you know, you brandished like in the middle of the entanglement, like that that's when it's going to happen, otherwise I'm not going to engage with you.
Speaker 2:That'd be silly, right and that's the thing too. So the, the KCC one, we've kind of built it out into phases, which is exactly. You know, when I originally started riffing on it was the idea. So, kcc one, we call it foundations of control, and it is all basic, primal, grappling in with a weapon as introducing all of the common positions and transitions that we see in weapons entanglements and how to move in and out of them, adapting to energy. So it's not an ABCD, it's not. Oh, I'm here so I'm trying to get to here. We look at it as navigating between entry and exit. So I don't know how the knife came into play and I don't know where I want to go to finish this fight.
Speaker 2:Whether it's running, cuffing, higher force, whatever it is, we stay in the middle, like you can't leave the entanglement. You have to figure out how to control and neutralize the entanglement to get into this, and here's the common positions that we see happen. So here's how we transition between these positions. Here's the thing that you usually get fucked up, here's how we start pressuring people and that's the whole KCC1 thing. So it looks from the outside, from Instagram world. It looks from the outside like oh, they're just teaching people to wrestle people with knives and it's like, well, no, we're teaching them. Yeah, if you can fucking run away, you'd be a dumb ass not to run away. But, statistically speaking, if I don't know the knife is present, the guy's already grabbed me by the shirt or fucking around on the ground. Or if I'm carrying a knife, we're fucking around on the ground, he feels my knife and pulls it out. I don't give a shit how the knife got there. You're in an entanglement, whether you like it or not. So like you need to learn how to deal with it. So that's KCC one.
Speaker 2:And then, after KCC one, we go on to KCC two and that's when we start going okay, now you're at a distance, you can't run away, but you're at a distance. So now here's blocks and Perry's. And how do I transition Perry's into entanglements or Perry's into striking? And then we start to explore that world. And then, hey, here's shirt grabs, which that's been fascinating to me.
Speaker 2:We've done a ton of work with grabbing onto clothing and and it's surprising how little people have explored it outside of again, these like very weird niche, like jujitsu shirt chokes. It's like you talk to people about grabbing clothes and they automatically go like oh yeah, you know I. I saw Henner's shirt choke seminar and it's like you're not going to hit that shit in nine times out of ten. But I can tell you right now I've personally, when I was 12, grabbed a kid's t-shirt, pulled it over his head and punched him in the face. You know, I mean it's like, but if you don't practice that stuff, you know so the shirt, grab stuff in kcc2 uh, really, like with shirt buster, like with with shirts.
Speaker 1:I mean, if I, if I reach through the camera and grab your shirt, like odds are you're gonna pull away from that and it's gonna create like a massive reaction. You know, yeah, even just like just pulling, so I you can't swing your arm naturally as well, like that all yeah, it changes.
Speaker 2:So it's, you know it's. It's taking, yeah, drills from gi, jiu-jitsu and judo, but then applying them to like, oh, what's a t-shirt? It's not a thick ass, you know, gi, that's, you know double woven or okay, it's a hood, it just it pulls differently. So how do we start to adjust and mess around that? I actually taught a two-hour block just on shirts, uh, in florida for the combative summit last year, um, and I mean like who's who of coaches there, and I was like going into it, I was like, oh, like I'll just try to do something a little bit different but also practical, you know. So I'll just I'll, it's not a big deal, I'll work on shirt stuff. And it was afterwards like you would have thought in a lot of cases and it was really positive for me, I felt great about it. But like you would have thought, no one had ever thought about grabbing shirts. Like it was like man, that block was like really awesome, I'd never thought about a lot of those things and I was like, shit, man, I guess I just gotten enough scuffles, kind of as a kid, like that's just that's how we fought, um, but anyway, we do a lot of that kcc2, and then we we'll we start gearing in towards after kcc2, into like specifics. So, like I taught a course in utah for concealed carry holders, that was like applying KCC concepts, drills and skills to be a concealed carry holder. So if I did want to access my weapon, how am I utilizing these skills to now get to my gun? You know, obviously, like I said, we worked with the Department of Corrections down in Florida and so for them it was like you know, we're dealing with shivs and anything sharp. How do I control and contain inside of a confined space, oftentimes until backup gets there? You know, how do I, you know, go from an escort position, you know, into these drills and things like that, if something were to go sideways? So we'll specify it, you know, to whatever we're doing there. But yeah, that's essentially like the crux of it.
Speaker 2:So our flagship course is Foundations of Control, kcc1. That's the one we travel around with the most. It's two days, six hours each day. It's all stand-up day one, all ground, day two, and it's nonstop. It's like six hours, no breaks. But it's really wrestling. It's more wrestling than anything, but it's solid grappling mechanics specifically to an entanglement. And we've had. We stopped counting after a while, but we've had probably like 40-plus jiu-jitsu black belts go through it, over 100 law enforcement officers at this point something special, because people that are way beyond grappling you know knowledge than me you know are going like, wow, you've really simplified this down in a very specific context. So it's been, it's been very cool man. We've gotten a ton of positive feedback and it's still a young course, so it's still evolving. I think that's nice too. But yeah, anyway, I love that course man it. I love that course man it's a gangbuster.
Speaker 1:It sounds fantastic because any cop that's been on the street for longer than a year has been in a shuffle where it's like, oh shit, you came across something during the grappling and the striking and the mess that turns into street fights, right. And then after it's done, you're like, holy shit, that dude had a gun or a machete or something. You're like that could have gone really really bad, really differently. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, like 100 any cop that's been on the street has been through that and and a course like this would help you with your, if nothing else, with your awareness of, of if, and when that starts occurring again, you're like, oh, I've seen this, I've read this book before you know. And then that speeds up reaction time, which which speeds up survival or increases survivability for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent man. So it's been, it's been really blessed man. It's, it's, uh, it's been an awesome, an awesome program and like, I'm still obsessed with it, cause every time we leave it I'm going like man, is there something I'm missing? Because it's just so terrifying. Like, and you watch enough like, and I, you know, I'm watching a ton of knife videos. People are sending me fucking everybody that gets stabbed.
Speaker 2:I get a video and DMs and it's like every time I watch it I'm like, fuck me, that's like God, I hope I never run into a knife, but it's, it's cool, it keeps us fueled and it keeps us motivated to make sure that we're not, you know, out there just shucking bullshit for money and uh, and it's cool and we jump in and pressure. That's like the best part. Last day I'll usually like be like all right, like let's, let's get in there and see if we can not get stabbed ourselves, you know. And so it's like different body types from like just such a dirty fucking fight over the knife and he's a I don't even know what degree black belt. He travels around with the BJJ, globetrotters guys and super awesome dude. Like he's one of my favorite people.
Speaker 2:But it was like, if you watch the video, like there's one point where, like when I was the bad guy, he did something probably a little bit too jujitsu-y and I ended up like like just fucking cut, like just slit in his throat and he was just like, oh god damn. And then we switched and there was a point where, like I went to like just kind of like get past his legs to get over and he fucking caught me with a butterfly hook and just sent me flying and came up on top like almost in like saving private ryan mode. It was just, it gets way the fuck out of hand at certain points, but it's cool to get out there and like test that against you know, just different body types and backgrounds and and see, you know, uh, that it works, you know, against dumb, violent energy as well as very high fight IQ.
Speaker 1:So, so what? When you said, when you said that he did something to jujitsu, like what do you? What do you mean by that? What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so uh, like, think about, uh, think about the hierarchy. So I I usually will tell people like, anytime they want to make the argument about what systems are good for self-defense, I I flip the equation a different way and I say self-defense isn't a martial art. Self-defense is the lens you view any skillset through the idea of self-defense is the lens you view any skill set through the idea of self-defense. At the end of the day is self-preservation, take care of yourself, take care of your family. So it's not a specific subset of rules or skills, it's what's the context of your life? What is your physical ability? What is your psychological ability? What do you need to do Right? And then, what skills do I need to fill those gaps with, right? So if I look at it through the lens of self-defense, what makes the most sense for self-defense? Well, never being in a fight. So that's your like de-escalation, don't go stupid place with stupid people to do stupid things, lecture, self-awareness and all that kind of fun stuff. Okay, cool, we got that. If I do find myself in an altercation, I want to have you know. As Craig would say, I want to have the verbal skills of a stand-up comedian like I want to be able to to flex. You know my words enough to be able to talk somebody down or talk my way out of a situation. So that's its own skill set.
Speaker 2:If we go kinetic, we get into an actual physical fight, then I would prefer to stay standing right, so like right out of the gate, respectfully to the world of jiu-jitsu's on the floor. Yes, fights you know competition fights start standing, but the whole fucking point is to get them on the ground right. Well, in most cases for self-defense, if it's solo, I need a skill set that keeps me on my feet whenever possible. If we do go to the ground, I want to be fucking on top. I don't ever want to be comfortable on my back right. So again, that starts to negate some of the skills from jiu-jitsu. So the way I explain it is really simple. When you get into a fight, I want Greco-Roman wrestling and I would say boxing primarily, but you add kickboxing elements into there. But I need a good striking element and a good Greco-Roman wrestling background to stay standing, control and to do takedowns on my terms terms From there. If we go to the ground, I want to think like a wrestler, because the whole point of wrestling is being on top and pressuring them into the ground, and that's where I always want to be. And then jujitsu skills if I end up on my back, help me to get back on top, like that's the way that I essentially look at it.
Speaker 2:So when I say something's too jujitsu-y, you know in that reference, specifically nine times out of 10, it's simply in reference to a skill set that would serve somebody very well in a competition jujitsu setting without a weapon. You know what I mean and that can be anything. You know what I mean and it can be you know your deep half plays. It can be your ex-guards, it can be. You know things that, like we, you anybody who's done jiu-jitsu competitions or even just hard rolls with their buddies there's that thing where, like, right before you do it, you're like I got no idea if this is going to work, but I'm going to try it anyway, like one of those type things and it might work and it might not work and it's like that's okay because it's a training setting, it's training environment and I'm not going to die in the process of it. Well, you don't really have that luxury when, if I do this thing, I end up getting my throat slit. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So it just it. It really cuts the fat and says like out of the 10,000 techniques that I might learn in the world of jujitsu, realistically, there's 20 that actually apply to me in self defense, right? So that's usually the standard I look at 20 that actually apply to me in self-defense, right? So that's usually the standard I look at. Now I will counter that and say if I am on my back, the deeper my understanding of kickboxing, the better I'm going to be at the basics of kickboxing and be able to apply them whenever I need to. The deeper my understanding of wrestling, then the more shit I can pull from when I need to pull from it, the deeper my understanding of jujitsu. Then I'm going to be able to improvise a lot better.
Speaker 2:But SOPs, like standard operating procedure for most of this stuff I would rather go by like the old Bruce Lee quote. You know, it's like don't fear the guy that's done 10,000 kicks one time, fear the guy that's done one kick 10,000 times. Well, it's that kind of a mindset, man, like you know. Boil it down to these 10 positions and concepts and then just be an absolute savage drilling those positions and concepts and that is going to solve 99.9% of self-defense situations. The, you know, breadth concept doesn't necessarily apply in most real violent situations, because I'm not not I'm not worried about you know, as again like bringing Craig Douglas up, but the seminar we did with Craig Douglas in Virginia beach, eli was was explaining this.
Speaker 2:There was a question about, well, what if they do this, this, this and this? And Eli was explaining in very eloquent Eli terms that you know, hey, sometimes maybe they're more skilled than you, and that happens. And Craig just chimed in and he goes look, if you happen to end up in a fight over a knife with a Pan Am level purple belt, you're just fucked. And it was like it was kind of one of those like, yeah, I mean, that's realistically, that's what we're looking at. You know, it's like if you end up with the one dude that has spent a decade doing jujitsu and wrestling and then discovered meth and all of a sudden he wants to stab you with a knife, it's like, well, that's a bad day and, okay, that's your extraneous circumstances.
Speaker 2:But you know, I'm really trying to prepare for the person that is incredibly violent and aggressive and comfortable with violence and aggression Like that, to me, is scarier than the guy that spent a decade on the mats and is overly talented. You know, because you know, I know that eventually we'll go kind of this direction with the conversation. But you know, violence is a scary skill, you know, and it's something that if you're comfortable with, like that's a whole other beast. There's a difference between a guy that can put you in an arm bar and a guy that's willing to break your arm because he thinks it's funny, and those are two different fights. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:One guy might use those skills to control you, but there's really no risk, for the most part, of any injury. And then there's the guy that he's going to find it hilarious to hear your bone snap and like. That guy is a. It's a diff. That is a different fight. That's the guy I'm scared of. You know. I'm not worried about the guy. That's not as worried I should say about the guy that you know has spent a decade on the mats and probably has most of his shit worked out, at least to a certain degree.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't even know what the question was to start with. I don't know how we got to where we got to, but there's your answer yeah, no, no, tons of good points in there.
Speaker 1:I think let's just take. You know we talked about this before, but but I really want to discuss with you this, this idea that that I can't have come up with it myself. There are way too many smart people in the world, right. But like the way that I view like combatives and like being 16, almost 17 years in law enforcement, like violence is a language, right? So, like you present yourself in a scene that's chaotic, you know it is a violent scene, it's violent in its atmosphere, it's violent in its language, it's violence in in the actions, it's all levels of violence and and it's it, it everything that you, that you present right, from just showing up how you look, how you present yourself, and then the words you say, how you say them, and then, if it does go, like you said, kinetic or physical or whatever, the way that I engage with you, it's all it. It not just is, it's just techniques, but it's me communicating to you like certain things, right.
Speaker 1:So like when you start talking about like well, which system is better and which system should I use, and like well, it doesn't, to me, it doesn't really matter if you're communicating that, that system. Effectively, that's the language you're using. You know what I mean, and that's fine. So there is no best necessarily. It's just how you communicate with that system and and it it's. It might be like a too deep of a way to look at this, but, uh, but that that's really what it is, you know, yeah, is it a form of communication and, as human beings, like we will never, like, we will never not have violence, so you better be damn well versed in speaking it at some level, or you're going to be victimized like, yes, you have to yeah, there's uh, I, uh, I think you and I years ago talked about this um, but there was a section of the book I wrote, uh, that said you know, learn to swim.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of the same exact concept idea. It's like violence isn't going anywhere, it's part of our culture, it always has been and, in you know, not necessarily even just a culture thing, but just a human, human nature, uh, to a certain degree, um, and there's always a threat of violence, there's always a threat of something going there. And you have to be able to at least read the book, uh, a little bit, right? So if you're, if violence is there, you have to understand enough about it so that you don't get blindsided by it, right? And in the book I wrote that article. You know, I learned to swim.
Speaker 2:And the idea was very simple. Like, if you buy, you know, a pool for your house and you've got a six-year-old and you're worried the six-year-old is going to fall into the pool and drown, the best thing you can do is teach that kid how to swim. It's not telling him to stay away from the pool, because the pool's there, there's nothing you can do about it and shit happens, so they can slip and fall in all that type of shit, so you can't be there every moment in time. So you educate them in that case on how to keep themselves alive. So you give them swimming lessons and teach them respect and all that kind of fun stuff, but you engage them with the fear you know. Well, it's the same exact thing with with violence. Like violence isn't going anywhere, it's everywhere. And yeah, some of us, you know, might make it through our lives and make it to the finish line without you know maybe any physical violence, but the threat was there the whole entire time. And if you get shown it and you're worried about it, the best thing to do is learn how to speak it and survive it, and avoiding it is the absolute worst thing that you can possibly do. So, even like you know it's it's.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest misunderstanding from, or the argument from the side of like oh, that's too violent or not engaging in violence is they think understanding violence means that you are a bad, violent person, and that's not the case. In fact, the more that, at least in my experience and I would imagine that you would say the same the more I understand violence and embark into that territory that actually the nicer and calmer I can be in most cases because, to your point at least, you know the way that when we originally were discussing this, the way that I viewed it was like you're the way you're talking about, like it's communication, it's like a fluency in a language. Like violence is a language. How fluent are you in that language?
Speaker 2:Well, if I know five or six words that I learned on Duolingo and I try to go you know fucking order something or try to find out where I'm lost in a city that you know they only speak that language and I'm asking them like where's the apple on the table? That doesn't really help me. That's going to make me anxious. I don't have a lot of competency in what's happening around me. There's a lot of what ifs that I can't manage and tolerate because I'm just unfamiliar. If I have a decent conversational fluency, then maybe that brings things down. I can ask the right questions, I can make the right decisions, I can pick up on the right words, I know a little bit more about what they're doing and then if I'm uber fluent in whatever that language is, then you know I can have a full-blown conversation and mix and match right.
Speaker 2:But to get fluent in something you got to put in time around it and you've got to put in variables around it. Well, it's the same thing with violence. In those cases, if violence does come up in your life in some form, if you've intentionally avoided it or simply just never been exposed to it, then it's blanketed in fear because it's all unknowns. It's hard to understand body language or pre-contact cues because you've avoided understanding what that is. You don't carry yourself the same. So that lack of confidence you know body language or pre-contact cues because you know you've avoided understanding what that is you don't carry yourself the same. So that lack of confidence and competence in that moment like starts to make you fear more, and then that creates anxiety.
Speaker 1:And then the bad guys, from a victim interview standpoint, they're feeding off of that now and so now all of a sudden that language of violence becomes harder and again you just don't have anything to pick up on, and not only that, but on the back end of that, like your ability to handle life after that, after that, is incredibly impacted by your level of awareness before it and, like you know cause, you have to be able to connect with that other side of yourself. Like you said, you phrased it perfectly Like the more that you get fluent with the language of violence, the the nicer of a person you are, and that's absolutely true, because I can be because there's some bad motherfuckers that are very fluent and violent, that are violent to be violent yeah it's the choice to learn violence versus the choice to use violence.
Speaker 1:But yes, yeah, your need, your need to use that violence inappropriately is way, way lower. Now, that's excluding and assuming that you're not an absolute psychopath, right, like that's. Like, that's all things assuming, right. But but, yeah, man, that's, that's absolutely right, you know. And then, from from a competency competency standpoint, you're like from a law enforcement side, the more fluent you are, the less likely you are to to need to escalate things most, not to say all the time. Right, because sometimes you have to do what you have to do, yeah, but but like, if I can grab a key lock and rip you out of a car, then I don't need to punch you in the face 67 times to get you out of the car. Yeah, like I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm more video you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Well, pick one, you know numerous, yeah, like, but uh, uh, but yeah, so like I don't. I don't need to do that because I'm more fluent in that aspect of violence. You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talk about. Uh, one of the like balances I talk about a lot of times is, like you know time and experience versus violence, like. Like how you have to be violent and be aggressive and if you don't know anything, you have lower skills, you have lower awareness of what's going on, you have lower ability to feel energy and adapt to energy, lower ability to even just regulate your fucking breathing. You know what I mean. Like to keep CNS neutral, keep yourself a little more parasympathetic so that you're not making rash decisions. If I don't have the skill, experience and time going into that and I'm going to survive any type of violent encounter, I always have to one up the violence right. I generally have to speak in aggression. That's the technical explanation of the spazzy white belt in jiu-jitsu. It's like well, if I'm in a position that I'm uncomfortable with and I start to panic because I don't know a way out of this position, my way out of it becomes and like hulking my way out because I don't have a technical, competent answer to whatever the equation is. So if you're less skilled, you have to choose violence and aggression to win. The more time I spend training, the more competent I become, the higher my level of skill, the more I get to choose how much aggression and violence I put into any endeavor in any place or form, and so that's one of those arguments.
Speaker 2:Going back to law enforcement, and again I'm not a law enforcement officer, I'm a civilian, always have been, I've had the pleasure of training a ton of law enforcement.
Speaker 2:However, it's hard for people to look on and see whatever let's say, an excessive use of force or aggressively, without going to a weapon, and look at that and realize that that's more of a lack of physical training, where they see it as oh well, these guys are, these cops are just violent.
Speaker 2:That's a no, no, no, no. Like that is a panicked, fucked up situation where they're legitimately having to fight and, unfortunately, because we are not giving them more physical training, essentially in their view, immersing them deeper into violence from a physical standpoint, they don't have the answers that they need and it's hard to explain that to people that have never fought before or never been on the mats or taken a punch, to explain to them that the way to become a more competent, calm individual that can control another human physically without injuring them or themselves is by spending more time learning how to control and fight that guy, and so that's one of the big like I really try to to kind of drive that idea home with people is the less skill and experience you have in anything with violence and fighting, the more if you're going to survive a situation or take your own violence and fighting the more if you're going to survive a situation, or take your own, all right.
Speaker 1:You know, I swear to god, I paid for the uh, the, the high dollar zoom, so I don't know. I'll have to check on it yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 2:I had the same exact thing happen. We started, uh, one of the kcc things and I was like what the fuck, what's this timer? And it just, it just kicked me off. I was like, oh, sorry about that, guys.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought it was yeah, I saw it counting down and it just, it just kicked me off. I was like, oh, sorry about that, guys. Well, I thought it yeah, I saw it counting down and it was like danger, danger. I was like you know what, I'm just gonna let it go. I think that it'll keep boom, gone, right, it's like it's all good man internet, all good zoo man.
Speaker 2:They got to get their dollars, especially after 2020 yeah, no kidding shoot, so but yeah so violence and skill train more and you don't need to be nearly as violent.
Speaker 1:Well, you know and like, really from from from, like my belief in it is like listen if I tell you get out of the car, and you and you want to fight about it. Right there, you want to fight me about getting out of a car. Like I'm going to use the maximum amount of allowable force, right, or violence, however you want to phrase it. But here's, here's the kicker is like the more, the more competent I am, like I'll still use the maximum amount of force and violence, but the odds of you getting hurt is way lower. You know what I mean, because I don't need to use it the same way. The way that I apply that force is like the way that I communicate that force, the way it's different. You know it's, it's, it's much better or much, much more effective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's, and it's because you spent, you know, at that point in time, God only knows how many hours practicing that it just comes down to training and practice at the end of the day, and if you do something ugly, it's going to end up more you're more likely to get somebody hurt you very rarely, unless it's intentional. You very rarely hear about high level wrestlers and black belts injuring you know untrained individuals. You hear it the other way around, which is like oh, you know that one guy fell a weird way or freaked out when this happened and you know I got punched in the nose or got bopped that way. Now you're going to have some ego guys that are it's just ego, they're choosing, but they're still choosing to break your shit, you know, versus just spazzing and freaking out about it and just you have to immerse yourself in it. So it's a hundred percent, the more time you spend doing it, that's just where you're going to get at and you become. That's the other thing too. I mean even you. You've learned how to feel panic and breathe through panic and figure out a solution to get out of it, and that, in and of its own right, is a skill set.
Speaker 2:Like how often are you voluntarily walking into a stressful situation and paying attention to how to mitigate your internal response to that, Not just your physical outlet but the psychological, physiological side of it, you know?
Speaker 2:And then that's your meditation practices, your ice baths, all that type stuff too.
Speaker 2:But if you've never, or if you avoid stress I should say it's hard for no one like for us to never have stress but if you avoid stress like the plague or you run away from it, then when you have no choice but to face it, it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2:But if you're voluntarily walking into a situation where it's like I mean I'm on the mats a minimum, like this was a pretty, you know slow training week for me, you know just with schedule, and then I'm competing tomorrow in New Jersey, but but even then in that case, like I was still on the mats at least three hours, you know this week. And so like if I'm putting in even two to three hours every week, you know what I mean. It's like okay, well, that that five minute, less than five minute scuffle I have with this guy on the street, or the situation I'd find myself like that's one out of 10 000 rounds that I've done in my life to that point. And it's like you can't argue experience and competent. I mean you can, but not logistically and not statistically. Like you can't argue that a higher level of experience and exposure to something doesn't output a higher performance level.
Speaker 1:It's just well when you, when it's it's fascinating and if you're going to be no, no, when you're talking about, like exposure to stress and stuff like that, like you're, you're not only building skillset right and time right and and put and punching the clock and doing the reps and and you know, working the muscle memory and all that kind of stuff, but you're also taking that stress and choosing, like you said, choosing to walk that path and choosing to go into that stress.
Speaker 1:So, and just just the whole concept of you choosing willingly that I'm going to go do this, I am choosing right, puts me in control so that when that stress happens elsewhere, like you've already chosen to put yourself there.
Speaker 1:So therefore, like the fact that you're viewing that stress in a positive light, or a more positive light, means that the outcome is more likely to happen in your, in your direction. And the back end of that, the trauma, the, the shit that comes with all of that. Like, say, you get into some shit on the street like no fight, I don't care who you are, whether you're a cop, whether you're just a self-defense or whether whatever. Like you get into a street fight, like a no shit street fight that leaves scars on your psyche, your soul, on everything, like it fucks you up a little bit Right, and the bigger it is, the more it fucks you up. So if you're choosing to, to, to walk that path and put yourself in those stressful positions, then that changes the way that you view the entire incident more than like now. Right, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That's huge too from a psychological standpoint.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's that's like a before and after.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, you, you, the whole basis of a lot of at least you know the good, you know dealing with trauma and all that type of stuff is, is finding good, healthy ways to actually face whatever that thing or that triggering moment was.
Speaker 2:It's not burying it, like you find me one professional that deals with any victim you know, or any situation that tells them that like, oh yeah, we, just we tell them to just bury that shit as deep as they can and avoid it and just look at the clouds. It's like that's not how it works, you know, it's like you have to face it. So if you're, you know to your point, if you're in the practice of facing and accepting those things before they happen, then you're in a much better position to accept like, okay, I've already accepted that this is something that could happen to me, and then it did. So I'm not that surprised by it, but it's still going to leave a mark. But it didn't. It's not like, oh, my God, I can't believe this happened to me, you know, it's like the, the common, like oh, that'll never happen to me type stuff. It's like that's the worst mentality you could have, like I hope it never happens to me, yeah, the the, the actual, the actual thing that it does to your psyche is it?
Speaker 1:it, it totally shatters your worldview. So it takes this like naive view of like the world is perfect and this will never happen, and you know, like, and all of a sudden you get jacked at gunpoint for your shoes and it and it and it destroys you. You know completely, you're like I had no idea. So there's a balance between, like this innocent and naive versus the experience and the jadedness, like. There's a balance of it. But if you get too far on one side and you always like, run around like a five-year-old and all of a sudden shitty happens to you, like it just, it literally shatters your worldview and that's hard for people to come back from.
Speaker 2:Oh, a hundred percent. And it's, you know again, like the more you can expose yourself and get in, and just acceptance, you know, the the the higher your chances of coming out the other end. And I mean there's, that's not again, you know, negation acknowledged. But that's not us just talking back and forth. I mean there's enough scientific evidence behind the exposure and all that type of stuff to go light years. I mean you could literally bury yourself in the research on it. But to your point again, and it's super important to keep in mind, nobody leaves a violent encounter unchanged. Something is going to change. The degree and how it impacts you is going to be different person to person, based off the situation in your background. But nobody leaves a situation like that completely unchanged. It's just, that's not the way life works. So you're increasing your ability to come out the other end in the best version of yourself by, at least one, accepting that things like this can happen to you and then, two, putting yourself in a meaningful way, putting yourself and exposing yourself to it in whatever doses are necessary for your context. But if you're a law enforcement officer outside of maybe a small ski town, somewhere where there's not a lot going on. But if you're, I mean a major city, and it's not like the statistics aren't out there, like you know, I mean I guess I shouldn't say this. I don't know this from experience, but I feel like you should have an idea what you're getting into, based off where you're at. Like I'm not even a law enforcement officer, but I know if I'm at Columbus police and you tell me that I'm assigned to patrol over in the hilltop, I'm not in for a good time. Like I'm going to be seeing a lot of action and some shit's going to be going on. So it's like you have to understand well, if that's the choice you've made and that's a situation that's been dictated to you by the career you've chosen, you are definitely not going to avoid violence. So prepare yourself for it. You know accordingly. But even you know, so that's, you know, in my opinion, would require a higher level of that exposure in a smarter, more meaningful manner.
Speaker 2:An everyday person, you know, if you're getting one or two good sessions in a week where you're exposing yourself to something uncomfortable that involves some type of physical contact maybe it's wrestling, maybe it's jujitsu, maybe it's boxing, kickboxing, maybe it's a self-defense program you know and you're at least in acceptance, and playing with some mindset drills Okay, like you're doing better than 99% of the population at that case, and then the more time you can put into it, the better.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't ever expect anybody to, you know, do what I do, it's like this is my life, seven days a week, you know, at least 10 hours a day. I'm thinking about something involving violence, which is so funny because the more I think about and accept that just shit can happen at any moment for me, my wife thinks I'm a little crazy, but for me I'm just like zen, I'm just like all right, well, could die tomorrow. It's like one of those things. I don't leave the house without kissing my wife, telling her I love her, kissing my kids, even if I'm the most pissed off I've ever been, because it's like, literally, whether it's a car accident or I'm at the gym at 4.30 in the morning and some fucking guy ends up, you know, busting in, walking through the back garage door and you know he's got a gun or whatever that is, there's nobody around to help. I don't know what the situation is, but I accept every time I walk out the door that I might not come back.
Speaker 2:You know, and to me it's peace of mind because I'm okay, I get that that is the way it is, so let me at least take in whatever I can in those moments. I know that's harsh for some people, but I but I imagine to some degree that that's a little bit of a combination of abusive alcoholic father growing up and then 16 plus years of literally fighting my ass, you know, against different variables.
Speaker 1:So so what, what you're doing, and that's that's the same thing that I believe right Is. So, so what, what you're doing, and that's that's the same thing that I believe right Is? Like hey, listen, like the the more shitty things I see and the more stuff I get exposed to on the job, actually, the the more caring it makes me to my kids, you know, the more that I can see both sides of the coin. Like there has to be opposites. The the universe, the world, like like good and evil, like it balances I promise it does Right. So like the worst, I see, I know there's the other end of the spectrum, so I feel good about it in a sense, right.
Speaker 1:But what you're, what you're doing, and and like just looking at you and knowing you and hearing what you just said, like you've taken what you can control, which is you, and acknowledged there ain't shit else I can do about anything else. Like I can walk across the street, get smashed by a bus, like hey, didn't plan on it, right, but it could happen, it's totally possible, happens every day to people, right, and you accept that that's part of life. Is you could die. Right, but you're also taking what you can control is you and you're learning and growing and doing as much as you can. Everything you see that you touch goes into training and getting better and making yourself like having more control over the outside variables, which is you know, which is awesome. And you're doing it without freaking out and like walking around like a, like a tactical crazy person, like a hip and everything. Wait, don't move here. Show me your hands.
Speaker 2:Like that kind of stuff 100%. With that comes some pretty big blind spots. I always tell people like if you want to kill me, do it at the gym, because I probably have my guard is so low when I'm at the fucking gym. Like I'm out in public and it's like I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of eyeing everybody down yep you know, like the whole, but I'm not paradigm, just like all right, like the what the fuck's going on over there? But at the gym, oh my god, I'm not paying attention to shit, right, but it is, it's true, it's, it's interesting, and I and I understand how you know that same mindset, like people, can go deep, the opposite direction, like to your point. You know there's, there's opposites in all of this, right, right, there's always dichotomies that go on both sides of it. So you could be completely aloof, and that's not good, and you could be completely paranoid, and that's not good. It's like you need to find this middle ground. That's like, look, man, life's not fair, shit happens. But you know, to your point, it's like what are you in control of? Well, you're in control of every action and decision that you take inside of 24 hours every single day. That includes when you go to sleep, how you set yourself up and then whatever stresses or variables the world puts on you. You know it's like, at the end of the day, how do I better prepare myself for those things? And it's to me, I don't know, man. To me that's like oh, look, how cool that is If there's something that go back to what we were talking about, like the difficulties from a business standpoint.
Speaker 2:If I looked at kind of a lot of this stuff creeping up and I go, oh man, these people did this and that and blame it on everybody else, well, I'm essentially saying that I have no control over my business and that's the most ass backwards way to look at it. Instead, like when things started coming up and it was like man, there's some things going on that aren't going well. You know, what am I missing? What can I do better? What slipped through the cracks? You know where? Let's all right, let's highlight, like what are we doing? Well, what? And then how do we turn that and build the skills? Whatever we have to do, you know, and it's you know. You know I made a couple of mistakes, even in that process. I was like, oh, I think it's this and you start doing that and you're like, oh, it wasn't that Okay, well, but it's. You know that ownership of going well, I got us here. You know I'm the one that's in control. It's okay, that allows me to go. Well, if I got us here, I can get us out.
Speaker 2:But if I sit there and look at it as like, oh man, the economy happened and COVID wrecked my gym and all this type of shit. It's like, well, I mean kinda, but those are just circumstances. Like so what are you going to do about it? You can make a choice to shut the gym down. You can make a choice to renovate the gym. You can make a choice to change your business model. You can make a choice to market more, whatever that is. But whatever it is, it's your choice at the end of the day. And if you let that and release that and go, oh, that shit's never going to happen to me, or that, and then it happens, you've just rescinded any type of control over anything. That's like, at the end of the day, you're in control of every single one of your actions and whatever's going on, and that includes the choice to not make a choice. But still, at the end of the day, it's yours, and the more you can own that it's.
Speaker 2:It's not always easy, you know, and that's the other thing too it's. I feel like I had these conversations a lot the last few weeks. It's like, oh, yeah, but that's so hard. It's like, well, yeah, no shit. Like yeah, you know what point in time is everything supposed to? Just kind of like fall into your lap, Like Holy crap, man, like I've had like the. You know, owning a business for 11 years has been like this, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's like stress dude Like that.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, especially at gym, like you mentioned some stuff like 2020, covid happened and it was like, hey, what am I going to do from here? Well, I was in the same boat as you, you know, like over in Indiana, and I was like you know, I can't do it, I can't do it again, not willing to quit my job and basically like restart. In certain ways, I said I cannot do it. So I sold it, you know, and it worked out OK. And on the back end of that, it's like did I do the right thing? Did I do the wrong thing? Like I don't know man, like it would have taken me in different paths had I done different things, but that's not where I was. So it's like a hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were ready, we had it mapped out. You know, uh, my business partner and I, like we had talked like all right, like what are the plans? I was always. I got this idea from an old Tim Ferriss article, but it was. He talked about writing your eulogy. Sit down and write your eulogy and go back and kind of like what did you get out of your life and put yourself in a place where you're dead and you're kind of getting into that and then from there, in the same kind of conversation, he brings up all these different ways to start approaching it.
Speaker 2:But anyway, where I'm going with this as I'm rambling, is I've always enjoyed when you get like a real fucked up situation, like oh my God, what would I do if? And like people will ask themselves that rhetorically, I don't know what I would do if you know if, whatever, whatever, whatever, it's like well, sit down and answer the question Like don't just let that question ring in your head Like I don't, I don't, I have no idea what I would do. You know, if, if somebody you know shot my kid, it's like well, that's a fucked up thought to have, but you're going to be more prepared for that situation If that's a troubling question for you, then sit the fuck down and answer it. What would you do? What are the plans you would need to put in place to make that happen? Well, when covet hit and you know, the gym spiraled out like that's my full-time gig, like the gym, that is what feeds my family, that's what keeps a shelter over our heads. So, like for to me that's a big problem. Like this is everything in my life is centered around. Especially at the time my wife hadn't gone back to work yet, you know, uh, she was staying home with the kids. Just it's, if this business collapses, that's our source of income, so one source of income for this house, it's what's doing everything for us.
Speaker 2:And that thought came back to my head was like I'm sitting there going like fuck, what am I going to do if we can't bounce back from this? And I remember thinking back to that trail and the Tim Ferriss conversation that I read through and being like, oh, that's a troubling question, let's sit down and answer it. So I literally sat down and I mapped out a bunch of plans. The first thing I said was okay, if the business doesn't bounce back, well, I should probably do an updated inventory on all of the assets. And so, literally, you want to talk about the best thing I did during COVID from a business owner standpoint.
Speaker 2:I went in and we did a full inventory of everything that we owned inside of the building and we even added in depreciation and what things were going for, and especially with the craze of everybody buying fitness equipment for their houses, it was like a gangbuster at the time and I remember sitting back and just being like, oh, like, if we sold everything here and I took my percentage of it, of what I own in the business, like that's like four years of my annual salary, and I literally was just like everything after that was like, all right, cool, you know, but I like what I do, I love what I do, I love our community, so I'm going to, I'm going to make this work, I'm going to figure it out down. I was like, fuck, what am I going to do? And then it was like, oh, I could sell off all of the equipment and technically have four years of salary stockpiled over off to the side. Oh, fuck. And then I got four years to figure out what to do from there and I could just travel around and teach seminars. It was like all of a sudden it was like, oh all right, running classes digitally for there and we had leased out all of our equipment to our uh members and stuff, and so we would have these weekly meetings.
Speaker 2:And the first couple were like you know, well, I got what are we gonna do, you know. And then I like sat down and I did that. It was like the next meeting was like all right guys. So like I'm thinking maybe this is a good idea. I don't know, let's try that. Because it was just so relieving, because I had a plan and we actually had a couple of different business models based off of that. We essentially had like plan A, b, c, d, e and F and you know we obviously wanted to execute on plan A. We love our facility, we love our community. We wanted to keep that going and we did.
Speaker 2:And you know any good business owner that's been around, you know I learned this the hard way with the first kind of business model that we were running. But very quickly I learned like you should have anywhere from two to three months of your overhead expenses in a savings at all time. And I remember you know that hit and it was like two months, like we were shut down for about two months and I was like holy shit, like this is great. I had, like I actually eventually started listening and built a savings for the business, and it was like we were able to survive these things.
Speaker 2:And you know, going back to just where this whole thing started, it's like those were all decisions, you know, and it's like you, just you face whatever the problem is, you assess it and and one of those decisions was selling the business and I would have been fine, you know, you know it would have sucked.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have felt great because it's I'm going to miss the people and seeing them. You know, five, six days a week when I'm in there and I really do like I fricking love that building. But we would have been okay. Like, if you look at like core principles and beliefs, like what's the primary thing I need to take care of? Well, I need to take care of my wife and my two kids, nothing else matters. Well, well, if I got that shit knocked out of the park, it's like okay, like you know, hey, if all of our efforts fail, this is the safety net and that safety net, in that case, was a pretty good fucking safety net and and I have other skill sets and if I, you know, I already started going into like maybe I'll go back to bartending, I don't know, that shit was fun, like I'll figure out a way to do it, you know, like yeah I could be a firefighter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, I think anybody can be a firefighter. So I mean, that's like, can you take, can you take naps and eat cheese, like you'll be all right. But no, what you're like, what you're discussing is, is the ability to be flexible and and to again like, view the stress in a different light. Right, so you're taking it and you're like, no, where there, where a door closes, you know three more open.
Speaker 1:I just have to be aware of what those things are, you know, cause sometimes the door open right in front of your face, but you're so tied to the, uh, like the, the, the inflexible, like static role that you had, and it's like, hey, man, that's not, that's not there anymore, like the building is gone, you know, and if you don't see that, if you're not open to it, then you're going to be miserable because you won't be able to transition to the next chapter. And it's always sad, man, like, it's always sad, like uh, like I remember when, uh, when I, when I, when I moved out of my old house, my first house, right, like you know, you shut the door on that. It's like your first house, it's like a sitcom, you know, and it's like, man, this is kind of sad Like I'm leaving this chapter but you're going into something new, so it's like you just have to appreciate what was and then move into what is possible and and that's, and that's really like you know, embracing that hero's journey too, like, and understand that like it's.
Speaker 2:This is a there's a constant evolution of who we are. You know, and uh, and it happens to everybody, you know, yeah, yeah it's yeah, bloody hell man.
Speaker 1:Ah, this conversation was deep, bro. It's how I roll, uh, yeah, I love it. Uh, so transitioning into something a little bit more shallow right, sure, so with your.
Speaker 2:On earth. We lost some listeners on that one.
Speaker 1:Well, good news is, since I started this back up, I probably have like three downloads, so whatever.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 1:See, there you go, but all right. So with Endeavor, like you're still running, like Functional Fitness or CrossFit, or are you still an affiliate technically?
Speaker 2:We're. Hopefully no one from CrossFit HQ watches or listens to this episode I think you're safe but my fellow affiliate owners that are going to hear this part. We are affiliated until they kick me off, which is going to happen very soon, and so we. We still currently are technically affiliated, but I'm the affiliate owner and my certification is, like I don't know, lapsed by like two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well that, and they're cracking the rates up incredibly high, cause you got to remember like I opened the CrossFit affiliate in 2008. So my annual fees have been $1,000. And they have been since 2008. Well then, they just released that they're bumping those up from $1,000 to $3,500 next year and then the following year it'll be $5,000. They're bringing everybody, no matter what the old you will be grandfathered in for life, the. The new, the new rule is that's no longer it. So they're bumping everybody that's, uh, below 3,500. They're bumping them up to 3,500 for one year, and then the very following year they're bumping everybody to 5,000.
Speaker 1:um, are they are they? Are they trying to like downsize their affiliates? Do they want people to quit?
Speaker 2:No, and again, admittedly this is completely biased and, to be honest, ignorant, because I haven't really tracked much of what CrossFit's doing. If I'm going to be completely honest, crossfit was an amazing resource and jump and start for me and I still think it's a great program in the right hands. But you know, after 16 years not even 16 years but 10 years we kind of learned everything they had to offer. You know, if, not past that, I mean, you know we went well beyond CrossFit. We were getting certifications through USAW and from powerlifting organizations and kettlebells and gymnastics, people that do it professionally, and we're getting business mentorship from different developments, things like that. So there wasn't a lot necessarily for CrossFit to offer from a growth standpoint that we hadn't seen. So honestly, like the last, I don't know seven years for me at least we were paying a thousand dollars a month for a marketing just to be able to say we did CrossFit because people were looking for CrossFit. But we have our own beliefs on how people should be taught to move properly. What should you be teaching them about racing and loading and, physiologically, how their body is supposed to function, and you know what, what is good programming, and you know, I think you know CrossFit is an absolutely incredible program, it's an amazing gateway drug and then at a certain point it's. You know how. How is this affiliation serving me and my community? And you know there's some fun things that CrossFit does. But you know, again, you've been around long enough and there's not much I'm going to learn from that educationally. So the spin from my understanding and I'm going to I will make this disclaimer that it's completely biased and it's I don't have the right to say this because I haven't researched enough. So I'm making a lot of assumptions based off the very little bit of research. I love it the way they're spinning it is they're going to put more into the education and business development side of things. Okay, so all right, whatever.
Speaker 2:But I've been a business. You know I've been running this for 16 years and I currently have a business from 11 years and I've read everything in their business manuals. I've read through their. You know I've, I've that shit. I have read and I've been through CFL one and CFL two multiple times at this point, cause you've had to recertify every five years, and then I've, you know, I kept up on the education side of things and there's nothing I'm going to get from them that I either haven't already found or could find in my opinion, in my experience, done better technically for cheaper. So, like for $4,000 a year, I mean I could sign two of my coaches up for business development classes where they're going to get one-on-one mentorship, you know, for a thousand bucks a piece, and then on top of that I could send you know whatever, maybe, let's say, five or six of my coaches off to different certifications and those certifications are going to be certifications that we have decided upon, are going to make a better impact on our community, for the same exact price that you're going to charge me, you know, to go up. So I mean, maybe that's what they're doing and maybe it's good. I think 16 years ago I probably would have loved that because I didn't have that education back then.
Speaker 2:But you know, you've been around long enough and it's like all right. Why I really think they're doing it is they went public and they have shareholders now and they have to make money. It's no longer just run by a CEO and it's no longer just run by Glassman. Whether you think he's crazy or not, back in the day he might've been nutty, but I never felt like they previously, before they went public. I never felt like they were out to get money, like, yeah, they charged ridiculous prices for courses and stuff, but they were always optional. You know, you didn't have to re-up and you didn't have to do this and you didn't have to do that and all that type of shit. You didn't have to pay. You know, all the time you didn't have to pay $10 just to take a judge's course. It's the same exact judge's course you took last time, even though you're a certified CFL2 trainer or whatever the hell it is. But it's just like man, it really feels like.
Speaker 2:I will say they've done some very good things. I know Dale King and Andrew Charlesworth were our regional representatives and that was really cool. They've been doing a lot of town hall meetings and doing some affiliate summits. They're doing a lot of really good stuff too. So I don't want to completely dog on them, but me personally and again it's completely unbiased and I don't have a right to say it, but I'm going to say it because it's what I'm living I feel like for the most part, since they've had all the CEO switches and they went public, you can just tell that a lot of moves are being made to make the shareholders happy and it's going to be at the risk of some people. I don't think it's for, I don't think it's everybody, because I mean you got to remember a thousand bucks is cheap, man. I mean even before that people were paying three grand so for them.
Speaker 2:It's not even double. For me it's five times like you're literally increasing my affiliation fee five times and I don't feel like I'm getting anything in return. So where I'm going with that is I don't plan on recertifying and I don't plan on re-upping. So technically, I have until the end of August, until my affiliation is up for the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or they send me another email that finally says because I'm already on probationary status because I haven't re-upped my certification, but they keep taking my monthly payment. So I just kind of keep letting it ride and we're still on the calendar and one day they're going to kick me off and I'm not going to lose any sweat over it, I'll just go on the website and change all the change, all the things on the website.
Speaker 2:So, but yes, so back to endeavor. We teach, we teach strength conditioning uh, is where I'm going nowadays, like. So we teach overall fitness, wellness and strength conditioning.
Speaker 1:So so with that, you know, I I will say, like as a as a prior you know, former CrossFit affiliate owner, I I agree with everything you said. Like it was, it was such a good program for me when it started, towards the end of it, right before I sold it, like it ended up being where it was, like I think I'm outgrowing this a little bit, like I don't, I don't have a need for the branding anymore and that's the way I think it was supposed to be. You know what I mean. If they really wanted to do that, like then they need to provide you with with more structure to so that you don't outgrow them, just like your members at your gym. Like you have to keep growing with your members or they're going to outgrow you.
Speaker 2:you grow you, you know, yeah well, I, I will, I will say, and this is you know I, I don't know your exact situation, but I will. I will say too that you know, going back to what we're in control of, like I'm not putting a ton of effort in either, you know what I mean. So like I'm not going out of my way to engage in probably some of the things that I should and I would probably get good benefit out of um. So you know, it's, it's, it's's a two way street there as well, but I also am not in a position where I feel like I need to, and so I've made that choice and that decision. And if, if, if, that brings our relationship to an end, well, shit, man. They got me for 16 years and it treated me very well for 16 years. And and you won't hear me talk poorly about the program and the ideology, the way it's supposed to be, but you might hear me talk poorly about some, some of the coaches and owners and business dealings up.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent All right, so we got.
Speaker 1:We got like six minutes left. So, being a being, a like strength conditioning, jujitsu, you know, I don't know if you still consider yourself Krav Maga or self-defense I got two black belts in Krav Maga, bro, sweet um, wasn't sure what terminology you're using. So, like, how do you balance your training schedule? Because that's, that's a big thing, like talking to dudes at jits and even for myself, like the more I get into jujitsu, the more I have to like limit the other end of the spectrum, where I end up like dude I I'm 42. Like I'm kind of hurting myself. You know what I mean. So how do you balance training volume?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So goals, I think, is the biggest thing. Right out of the gate, you got to know what you want Right now. Personally, this has nothing to do with my career, it has nothing to do with the business, whatever that is. Personally, I am looking to accomplish a black belt in jujitsu and actually feel like I deserve it. So that's where a majority of my focus is centered around that personal goal of mine.
Speaker 2:I would say I don't know, maybe I'm two years out from it, I don't know. I don't know how that. I know how it works, but I don't know how it works. It really comes down to Dion, the guy that we're underneath. But so that's how I'm going to dictate when I'm making decisions on training volume and where I'm focusing my training volume. It's, it's in that space, because, as a personal accomplishment, that is something that I would like to accomplish, um. So if I have to make a decision between, let's say, uh, uh, five sessions on the mats and only lifting twice a week, I'll make that decision. That's fine, as long as that's what you know, what body volume can handle. Um, so that's where I'm going to gain most of my stuff, um.
Speaker 2:And then the other training. I have to make sure. Just cause I coach it, I have to make sure I'm touching it, you know. So I tried to get a little bit of kickboxing in, you know, once a week, maybe once every other week. Um, at least make sure I'm hitting a heavy bag once a week. I absolutely, you know, you both, we both know this. But strength is strength and health and wellness and fitness and mobility is everything. You can't do the cool shit if you're not able to move. So I make sure I'm at least lifting twice a week. I generally get three sessions in a week, so I would say three days a week I have a lifting session and then and I'm on the mats, so I'll usually roll during those sessions, and then there's one or two other days, so like a total of five training days that are just primarily fight focused. But for me, a lot of my focus is going to be on jujitsu until I get that black belt. And then, when I get that black belt, I I'm going to shift and I've done that.
Speaker 2:My whole 16 year career now in fighting is like focus heavily on Krav Maga and then, once I feel like I've gotten some good progress there, I take most of my attention somewhere else, maybe it's wrestling, and then I'd go take my attention to shooting and then go here. But instead of trying to do everything and it never works that way it's like I've got to have it's periodization is all. It is Right. It's like you do a, you do a phase, you do cycles of shooting and then you move on to six cycles of grappling and then you move on to six cycles of this based off what my needs are, and right now I just BJJ is the last place where I feel like a student.
Speaker 2:Everywhere else, I always feel like I'm the coach and jujitsu to me, even though I coach two classes a week, I still. I still see myself as a student there, Like, and I feel like a student there. So for me it's very rewarding to not be the highest ranking guy. Um, you know, mike blows me out of the water. He's he's knows five times what I know when it comes to grappling and I personally really enjoy that. I miss that element of being a student. So I, you know that fuels a lot of my, my drive to be on the mats. And right now, cool, yeah, now cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, yeah, I think the same thing. I talk to people about that all the time, like where should I what? How should I do? I want to get stronger, but I don't want to give up any time on the mat. And it's like, well, how much time are you doing on the mat? They're like seven days a week. I'm like, well, you have to get some of that. In order to get some of this, you know what I mean like you have to take a nap, like seven's too much well, like you have to, like you know, bottom line is, like you had this much volume right, you can only cram.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, you're trying to cram tens pounds of shit into a five pound bag. Like you just can't do it. You have to modulate your volume accordingly, you know, and that's hard to do sometimes, like you know. Like for me, I know I really like to lift a certain way, but my volume has to change based on my age alone. I can't do it the same way. Guess what? I can't front squat at all because I got arthritis in my elbows so bad. You know what I mean. I can't do it the same way. I have to adjust my goals. I have to change things for who I am and what I want to do and where I want to get to.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fun because you and I have known each other since the like hey, let's just abuse the shit out of our bodies through like everything days, and now same exact boat. I'm like like there was a workout the other day that had like 135 pound barbell cleans and I was like I do kettlebell cleans. Like I like kettlebell feels a lot better. Today, you know, it's like, yeah, I'll do a hundred pound kettlebell, it's going to feel better for me you know?
Speaker 1:All right, we have like 90 seconds, so hit me with where people can find you man.
Speaker 2:Sure, you'll find most of my antics on Instagram. You can find at Janetti Aaron, so J-A-N-N-E-T-T-I two N's, two T's, and then Aaron A-R-O-N. Or you can find us at knife control concepts. That's where you'll find the majority of my stuff and then that'll trace you off to Facebook and all the other type things.
Speaker 1:Dude that, thank you so much. It was. It was awesome, Love catching up with you and yeah, man, it's been too long. So I'm going to, I'm going to talk to our uh, our jujitsu guys and see if we can organize, uh, a training session of some kind.
Speaker 2:Oh dude, hell yeah, it's easy for me to get out there. It's like three hours, I can get there easy.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, dude. Um yeah, you need anything. You know where to find me, and uh yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, man, you got it. Man, take it easy. It was good talking, buddy.
Speaker 1:You too.
