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
Grit, Wrestling, and Military Resilience: Anton Telementes's Journey
Dive into Anton's academic achievements in psychology and how he integrates mental strategies into his training regimen, providing a holistic view of athletic and personal growth. Hear the compelling story of his time in the Army, his aspirations to join the all-Army wrestling team or become a Green Beret, and the formidable challenges he faced. From winning a wrestling tournament at Fort Lewis to being denied a chance to join the program, and ultimately training for Special Forces selection, Anton's tale is a testament to determination and resilience. His anecdotes about overcoming injuries and the psychological toll of balancing intense training with personal crises offer invaluable lessons.
Beyond the battlefield and the wrestling mat, we explore broader themes of well-being and balance. Anton's reflections on the camaraderie found in group fitness activities, the emotional depth of jiu-jitsu practice, and the transformative power of perseverance provide a rich tapestry of experiences. Whether it's the grind of cutting weight, the neurological benefits of physical movement, or the sheer joy of training for self-improvement over competition, this episode is a treasure trove of insights. Join us for a gripping narrative that marries the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of athletic and personal excellence.
Restarting in 5, 4, 3. Wayne Garth, you're nodding. The rogue nation podcast, episode 23, I think. Who counts these? I would think that the software would do it, but I don't know. If I don't know if it does, I have no clue if it does and I have no clue with the platforms how even this kind of stuff runs. It is such a technological pain in the ass. I'm sure somebody's listening to this going dude, you are an idiot, which might be the case in some contexts, and I will concede to that. But yeah, so it's really easy to get on Spotify. This shit's on Spotify, and that was super simple. So I just basically have said that we have an exclusive contract with Spotify, much like Joe Rogan, because between me and Joe, I mean, we're clearly the best podcasters in the universe. So, joe Rogan, if you're ever listening to this podcast which you should be, because we're in the same quality and class of universal status podcasters then I'll be glad to come on your show and tell you all kinds of cool shit. So there you go. All right, yeah, all the all the eight listeners that are checking us out. So, but I do appreciate you all eight. I really, really seriously do. You're the best.
Speaker 1:So All right, ok, so today, right, we are talking with Anton Telementes. Anton is my coach, my buddy, you know. I've known him for a long time since I came to town and I've been on and off training with him over the past like probably 17 years almost, just seeing him in town when he's here training, and then like more intensively in the past, probably four or five years for sure, as I've gotten more consistent with my jiu-jitsu training and grappling and that kind of stuff. But Anton is is one of the greatest grapplers I've ever seen, let alone trained with, definitely the best one I've ever trained with. And like this dude I'm not kidding the way that the amount of pressure that he uses in the style of his game in jiu-jitsu is so intense and grinding that it is awesome, it is fantastic. And for law enforcement, the style that he does right, get on top, stay on top. Everybody talks about that. But the amount of pressure knee on belly, shoulder, smash, um, you know, smash passes, like stuff, like that.
Speaker 1:Body surfing is what he calls, uh, some of his stuff. And it's like you don't understand it until you're being rushed, uh, and it's like that's how you stay on top, like you have to. You have to stay on top when you're wearing gear, when you're grappling in gear. The uh, like the notion that you can move on bottom is is outrageous. You can't, right, you can't. You have a duty belt, you have you have a gun that literally will block you from shrimping and to your side. So you know, like the notion that you're going to be able to shrimp out uh effectively from bottom or or do sweeps or that kind of stuff, like it's going to be clunky, uncomfortable, probably painful, like at best. So like that's just not going to be a thing, that that can occur.
Speaker 1:Um, but anton's a lifelong grappler. You know he loves training, wrestling college. Um, you know, was was part of uh selection in the army for a period of time, and not only that, but has a degree in psychology. So we got along with that. Like you know, the mental game of everything is so huge, obviously, so he incorporates that into all his stuff. He was a college national champ, ohio State alum, served in the military, like I mentioned, you know, played football, like just a huge amount of stuff that he's done. So we talked for a long time about all of these things and a bunch more stuff. But yeah, check it out, let me know what you think. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Sweet, it's exciting, I love it.
Speaker 1:After much setup and jerry-rigging.
Speaker 2:I have to prep it. That's all. At least it gets the job done.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is the most professional podcast in all podcasts.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I got wires going everywhere, but if anybody watches this, they can't see all the legos that are behind you yeah, it's awesome it looks genuine, I like it.
Speaker 2:It's a real deal. Got the american flag too uh, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I did this last time, when I, when I uh, what about a year ago, when I was doing podcasts? Uh, it would always be coming from my new and updated studio, which was just my kitchen.
Speaker 3:And now it's double new and updated. It's just the basement. I love it.
Speaker 1:It's a serious step, would you say a step down from the podcast you were on.
Speaker 2:To me it feels like that's what's beautiful about podcasts, man. It's like you just need a couple of microphones, a decent camera and you're good to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of times you can just do it with a cell phone and if you have a personality that people give a shit about, like, people will listen.
Speaker 2:That's, in the end, how it plays out. You know what I mean A good voice. Or you talk about some either relative stuff or touchy stuff. You know what I mean? Stuff or touchy stuff? You know what I mean? Something like that social media people. I listen to a lot of different people, so it's I always think it's interesting what takes and what doesn't yeah, it's uh I.
Speaker 1:I read a book not too long ago called made to stick and that's what kind of talked about that and it went through like marketing and and like why certain concepts are are like quote-unquote sticky and why that things get traction. Makes sense and it's so much based in psychology and how our brains work, you know.
Speaker 2:There's this guy I can't think of his name and you have to forgive me because I don't know. It's funny because he looks like an Asian dude but he sounds like he's British or something like that. But he's doing all these. Now he's got these commercials because he's a speaker and he talks about tone and how when you want to emphasize something, you pause so people can process it, as opposed to this commercial that I've seen in the last couple of days. And then he said if you start talking, but then you're talking, you go to the next thing. You go to the next thing and they're not really following what you're saying. I just thought it was interesting because he sounds like his voice is very it's an awesome voice for radio or for podcasting or anything like that. So I was just like I'm drawn to listen to him just because he sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and it's. I kind of learned that the hard way, I guess in like the more you try to do social media marketing and just putting content out there. You feel like you have to fill every second with words and you're very pressured and it's very fast and it's like if you just kind of take a step back. It's like just talk like a normal person, don't freak out, like you're on stage all the time.
Speaker 2:I agree with that. At least for me it works better because if I got too wrapped up in, all the camera on you or you're talking because I mumble and talk fast normally most of the time anyway so I have to slow down a little bit and just talk process, think through it. I wonder if that dog whining is going to be on there. Sure it is. It adds to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to let him out real quick, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:Sprocko, it's Rocco. What's up, rocco?
Speaker 1:Rocco.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Rocco the dog.
Speaker 2:He's a cool cat.
Speaker 1:He's so old He'll probably die During this episode. Hope not, hope not.
Speaker 2:Hope not. It can last Until I leave At least. Well, cool man. Well, thanks for coming down. Love you. I hope not. I hope not.
Speaker 1:It can last until I leave at least. Well, cool man. Well, thanks for coming down. This is the first in-person one in about a year. Awesome. So like we've known each other a long time, yeah, and I don't know that I've ever like. I listened to that podcast you did with Eddie, just kind of prepped for this one. Yeah, like what's? I mean we don't have to go into a ton of your background but, I, think that you have a very like eclectic background that's worth talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like give me a timeline from, like you know, high school, like end of high school-ish, to like kind of currently where we're at, you mean in terms of like training and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just like training and major life experiences. I know that you were in the Army, but I don't really know too much about that, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's not a whole lot to tell about it from the standpoint of After high school. I wasn't the greatest student, so I didn't plan to go to college until my junior year. I grew up and I'm the first and only person in my family to go to college thus far, and so up until that point it was always play sports, and my dad was a boxing coach for Golden Gloves, my oldest brother was a Silver Glove champion, and then my next oldest brother. He boxed and wrestled. So I grew up around hitting the heavy bag, seeing it. And then my next oldest brother, he boxed and wrestled. So I grew up around hitting the heavy bag, seeing it, and then started wrestling early.
Speaker 2:So in my world it was just like play sports and like maybe I didn't even think about trying to make anything with it at the time.
Speaker 2:And somebody at some point in time in my sophomore junior year was like hey, you know, if you, you know, if you get your grades up well enough, you could probably go play sports in college.
Speaker 2:And year was like hey, you know, if you, you know, if you get your grades up well enough, you could probably go play sports in college and I was like I hadn't even really thought about going to college. You know, I mean, uh, didn't really know what I was going to do. So I worked hard to get my grades up my junior year and part of my senior year I say part of it because I think I still made attempt my last part of my senior year but I essentially knew that I wasn't going to be able to go directly into. Uh, purdue was recruiting me at the time for wrestling and, uh, my coach my junior year had I know this is a little bit prior to, but it'll explain, like what I did after high school uh, my coach had asked me if I wanted to play football or wrestle in college and I always felt like I was kind of a fat ass in the way of like I was big, 250-something playing defensive line.
Speaker 1:You were 250 in high school, yeah my sophomore year. What are you weighing right now?
Speaker 2:Probably. I stay around 230 or so, between 220s 230. Trying to get down a little bit lower. I've been lifting a lot more high rep stuff and then always doing the same cardio, you know, jujitsu and heavy bag work, stuff like that. Um, but I did my sophomore year, I remember, after a two a day practice. After the second practice I was really surprised cause we got done and you sweat a lot in those two days in the summertime and I weighed like two, 46 after practice and I was like dude that's and I sweat my ass off.
Speaker 2:So I was like I was like that's crazy. But so after that I made an attempt to start getting my weight lower and so I wrestled 215 my freshman, sophomore, junior year and then my senior year no-transcript. But that means that I could have walked on, been at Purdue but only been a student to prove that I could get the grades that I needed to, so that my sophomore year I'd be able to wrestle. And they said and or you can go out to this junior college in California that was really popular for putting out guys that were going to the big Division I programs. They were sending guys to Iowa, other places. But I was like I don't want to take a whole year off because I don't know if I'm going to come back after that time.
Speaker 1:So that Prop 48, that's not like a red shirt.
Speaker 2:No, it's different. It's not a red shirt because you're not actually on the team, you can't practice with the team. So they say you go there to be around Proves that you can get the kind of grades you need. So then your sophomore year, you can then wrestle. So it isn't a redshirt year. I think you can pick a redshirt year later. Maybe I'm not sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I chose to go out to California and so after that? So the coach from Purdue said hey, you don't have to come to Purdue after that, but we'll hook you up with those guys out there. And so I said, all right. So I graduated on May 28th. I'll never forget Like I graduated on May 28th, and it was either the next day or the day after that I was on a plane out to California, to Susanville, california. It's an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes from Reno, nevada. It's northern California. It's not a national JUCO anymore, but at the time it was. So I went out there and wrestled and ended up winning a national championship as a freshman, which that was the game plan. You either register a year there and wrestle a year, depending on how well you do. Because that was the part of the conversation was, if you place top three in the country, you'll get picked up by somebody. You don't have to go back to Purdue, you can go wherever you want or whoever you get recruited by.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically a free agent, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's basically you go get an associate's degree and you're wrestling, and it was really cool because they had at the time, like I said, a lot of different. There's a guy one of the coaches was Vladimir Matyshenko, who was a Russian guy, who would come over His, who was a Russian guy, who would come over. His story is interesting because he came over with the Russian team and then he hid out in like a closet and they called him the janitor because he stayed, he defected.
Speaker 2:And he defected and they called him the janitor because he cleaned and stayed and he ended up wrestling on the team for a little bit but then he coached and he ended up being the IFL, the UFC later on. But it was just really cool just because there was a lot of good wrestlers out there Inner City. My coaches were from Chicago area, so they were good dudes and it was a good experience because there was guys from Illinois, miami, indiana. That was the majority of guys, but there were some really people that were highly recruited out of high school or whatever that just went out there for that time. So I won nationals my freshman year, luckily, because my sophomore year, as I redshirted, we would go to open tournaments and I went to Michigan State Open and ended up breaking my hand. I was wrestling with Sean Evans and broke my hand. So, uh, I like for like six months was in a cast but I was getting recruited already by enough schools that um and I.
Speaker 2:The Michigan State Open was actually a really good tournament to showcase to bigger schools, big 10 schools, because if you did well, um, they would see. So, ohio State, there was an assistant coach. His name was Marant Karchalava, but he was actually a Russian coach too that had to come over here. But he was at Ohio State as an assistant coach in Saumee Russell and then he went and talked to Russ Helix and was a head coach at Ohio State and said, hey, I was getting recruited by a few different schools Oregon, oregon, ducks, central Michigan, oklahoma for a second, or Oklahoma State it was who else? There was a few other ones, but Michigan State was a heavy one as well. But when I talked to Ohio State they said, hey, we got another full ride waiting for you and I knew I needed to get paid for wherever I went and three hours was close. It really ended up being between I was kind of leaning towards Michigan State because their coach that they had there at the time really good dude and he just I was interested in going there because of him.
Speaker 2:But then when Ohio State, they weren't really talking numbers. They never really told me what they were going to be able to do for me. Kind of the same with Purdue. But when I the first time I talked to Russ Helix and he was like, hey, I got a four eye tree, so I was like, easy, you know what I mean. I thought about going to Oregon for a second, but it was so far across the country and I'd already been out in California for a couple of years so I was like I wasn't too interested in and it wasn't too interested in and it wasn't the big 10, like I really wanted to come back to the big 10 and wrestle. So, uh, that's what ended up happening.
Speaker 2:Um came back to ohio state and wrestled there for whatever three years and graduated in december of 03 and then came home for about nine, nine to 10 months. Uh was working at allen county juvenile center, working at some bars. I had a buddy, or yeah. I came back home after Ohio State. I had a guy on my team at Ohio State who was like a reservist Marine. So I always kind of wanted to know. I always had this thing of like I wonder what the military is like. So I had been working there.
Speaker 2:I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:People had said at the time or I don't know where I heard it, but someone had said, hey, if you have a degree and you go to the military for four years, you can kind of write your own ticket and you'll be able to get.
Speaker 2:And so, in the back of my mind. I was't know a career day somewhere, on a whim, like I'll go check it out, and ended up signing up. Didn't tell anybody signed up for the army. It was, you know, I'd already graduated from college. So I was like, ah, I'll go try it out and see what happens. So I went into the regular army and, uh, as a Cav Scout, 19 Delta Cavalry Scout and then, uh, I knew that I was going to try and wrestle and at some point in time I don't know where it was I saw I was in like a one of the you know one of the stores and saw a book and it was all about all this high speed training like green berets and airborne school and stuff like that. And I was like I got amped up and I was like this seems pretty cool, this seems up my alley just from the physical standpoint.
Speaker 2:Like it was just a physical and that's always kind of. That's really why I joined the Army was just to see physically what it was going to be like and basic was. I'm not going to say a joke, but when you've wrestled at a Division I level it's a joke comparatively from that standpoint like it.
Speaker 2:You know you run and you do push-ups and people yell at you. That's the part. The hardest part is just having people tell you what you can do and can't do and when you're going to bed and when you're waking up. But I knew better to not say anything. I mean I chose to go the enlisted route. I didn't go try to become an officer because I was like I don't know anything about the military, so I'm just going to go the enlisted route and see what happens. So I went the enlisted route. But I knew through basic, I made a decision that I was going to either try to wrestle for the Army and or figure out how to go to selection to try and become a Green Beret. So the wrestling thing was harder because it was during a time of war.
Speaker 1:What year was that I was there?
Speaker 2:I think it was 2004 to 2008 was when I was in and so they said no to that initially, to the wrestling thing. But it was real funny because I was first stationed out of Fort Lewis, washington, and so they had these tournaments on post, like a wrestling tournament on post, and I was like I'm going to go do that to see what's up with that. So I ended up winning that and that's what got me. I ended up being able to go train. I went out to the all-Army team which is in Colorado Springs. I was out there for a couple months, I think. And so, in order to, the Army really has these cool programs called all-Army programs, which you can be an all-Army boxer, wrestler, softball player, different sports and that's all you do, like that's your job. And I was like this is cool.
Speaker 2:But I went out there and I hadn't wrestled in a national freestyle tournament since I was like 13 years old. It had been a while, and so I did. Okay, I was on the cusp, but you have to place top five to be all army, to make that your job. You have to be like top five in the country. And so, um, they said, hey, we like how you did. Uh, we think that you'll be able to get there If the you know, if you're, if you're chain of command, I'll let you come out and train with us. We'd like you to come out and stay with us, but they have to sign off that it's okay until you can get into the all army program. And so when I went back to my unit and asked my captain, he was like I remember, because I thought it was kind of jacked up, but I understood it too he was like I'm trading soldiers, not athletes, so no, I can't go back like so he nixed it, nothing I could do about it, but I knew he couldn't stop me from trying to better myself in the way of going through selection. So so I'd already set up going to selection, which is SFAS, like first step in trying to become a Green Beret.
Speaker 2:And so it was funny because we were doing PT one day and I'd been training, so rucking on my own, running on my own, extra on top of whatever we needed to do from a week to week standpoint, which wasn't a lot in the way of, you know, training. And we were playing tap football one day and I went to punt a ball because I played football in high school and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to show everybody what's up, you know. And I went to punt the ball and when my foot hit the ball, there was this huge pop and the people around me heard it. They were like, oh shit, because I fell straight to the ground. I had partially torn my thigh muscle when I connected with the ball. Yeah, it was crazy, man. So it pushed my day back by like three months, and so I didn't stop training, though I had to heal up. It was really weird.
Speaker 1:So just kicking a football? Yes, just going, you didn't catch your toe, weird or anything like that.
Speaker 2:No, I just kicked the ball, man. I never had it happen before. Maybe it's because I hadn't punted a ball in a few years, I don't know, but yeah.
Speaker 1:What it probably was is pre-existing stress injury. The cumulative. Because, I had something weird like that. I had something weird like that happen my junior year in high school where I was returning a kickoff and all I did was veer to the left, and when I put weight on the outside of my left foot, the bone broke Really.
Speaker 1:So I had a Jones fracture so they had to go in and put a screw in and it was like, well, how the hell did that happen? And then you start looking at everything that you've done cumulatively leading up to that.
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah, and I was like, oh well, all the the hard inside.
Speaker 1:You know indoor track tournament, like you know meets that I did uh, putting all that stress on the outside of that or the yeah, the outside of that foot, like that's all your turn lane, yeah, and all that it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably 100 something like that because I ended up turning the other one later on for a fight that I had here in town later on when I was fighting similar situation.
Speaker 1:But that was. It was the muscle. It wasn't the knee right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the muscle and so, like my knees, both look jacked now when I do crunches and my knees are.
Speaker 2:If you can see my thighs, they look like indented and like they look all crazy because they both are partially torn. So that ended up pushing my day back, but it didn't. It didn't keep me from going. I felt like the crazy thing was I loved selection. That's right. I'm kind of moving to that point because when I went to selection it was like I loved everything about it. I didn't really care for the big army, like it's nothing that it's bad. It just felt old school. It felt like I mean, they treat everyone to the worst of the group, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, trained to the least common.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying and then we'd go and we'd go to work. So you'd go do pt in the morning. Then you'd have to come back from formation and we were at a unit. They were just bringing up two, one cav out in fort lewis, so there was a lot of like soldiers coming in. So, like you'd always be done by like three o'clock with your day, there wasn't a lot to do. They wanted you to clean barracks and stuff, but they didn't have enough cleaning stuff for you, cause they didn't have nothing for you to do, excuse me. So we'd be sitting in the day room at three o'clock when they wouldn't let us leave till four, 35 o'clock. We'd just be sitting there. You know what I mean. They'd be like look at your, whatever they give you for basic, that book you give you for basic I don't know what it's called anymore, but anyways, um, I wanted to be training and doing more stuff and so that's what I did and again, like I said, they couldn't stop me from trying to go to selection. So eventually I got my selection date and I went.
Speaker 2:I didn't feel like I was in prime shape because it's post-wrestling all through college. I hurt my knee in college. I had hurt my back lifting in high school, but not horribly um so but I still did good enough to get selected out of like 430 some guys. Only they took 167 of them and I was one of them. So it felt pretty cool, because a lot of guys don't make it until their second or third time trying because they do the psyche valve. They do that. I think it's called the minnesota apt to whatever it's that five mmpi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the MMPI, yeah, so that's what they I don't know if they still use it, but that's what they use and you have to take that test and then you do all this physical stuff and it used to be like 26 days. At the time that I went, they had tried a shorter version of it where they were doing it for 15 days or 16 days, but just Um, but just hardcore 65 pound ruck, team stuff, individual stuff, land nav stuff and I to this day it makes me smile because it was the funnest funnest thing I ever did in the military in the way of just like physical demanding, like you got to gut, check yourself. You're out in camp McCall's, what it's called, and he's saying saying like buncheses of sand, but there's certain areas that have more sand, and it's just constant physical, mental demand and that's why I did it. And so I was like this is. I was like I used to tell myself this is the shit and I used to tell myself when I was going through it's like I'm gonna make it or I'm gonna die trying, because it was that there was only one moment in time where I considered the possibility of seeing that people would quit because we had been doing a bunch of stuff for days on end and we had this, and they're always playing mind games with you as well. But we were on this um strip, probably about a mile long or mile and a half long.
Speaker 2:They had these actual trails that they put sand in to make you walk in towards the end of, like your, your stuff, and uh, I just remember how every step, you would feel your feet sink into the sand and so it made it like twice as hard.
Speaker 2:It felt like you were working twice as hard and it was at the end and I just remember how much it sucked and I was just like man.
Speaker 2:I could see somebody wanting to quit, like because it was just you're already beat up, you know what I mean. And so then they play tricks on you, because after that we were close to being done, I think, but one of the sergeants had came up to me and was and told me to get in the truck, because they always had these trucks and like sometimes they would tell soldiers to get on them, sometimes to give them a break. So they just would play these games because your team is out here, that you're with, that you're working with, but they tell you to go get on a truck and so I was like no sergeant, I'm good, like like I'm good sergeant he's like soldier, get up, go, get on the truck. I was like I didn't know if it was a mayan game, I didn't know if he was testing me and I was like no, sergeant, I'm good, like really, because I didn't want to be.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't a want to be done, like if they're telling me that I'm done and I'm out you know what I'm saying and b?
Speaker 2:uh, I didn't want to go sit on this truck if my team was going to be out there doing work. And he said like he ordered me to get on the truck. And I ended up getting on the truck and I get to casually go back to the, to camp McCall while my teammates are working their ass off. And it was only another half hour maybe at most, but it was just weird, but I think it was just a mind game, like it was a mind trick, cause it didn't, I still ended up getting selected and it was just well, you never know. Right, it was just one of those things.
Speaker 1:Well, it could have been. It could have been, uh, something to mess with you. It could have been something to mess with them. Maybe they wanted to. I don't know if you were like, if guys were looking at you as like a big-time leader in the group or whatever. But it's like hey let's remove this guy and see how the rest of them do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have no idea, and that's the thing that's part of SFAS. And then the final thing that you do is like a 20-something mile ruck. That's what they say. You don't really know. They give you these four points that you've got to go find, but it's an accumulative like 20-something miles, depending on what you get. So you're walking all over Camp McCall. You start at like 11 o'clock at night and you finish at like I don't know if it's like 8 in the morning and you've got to be done by then or whatever to have a chance.
Speaker 2:So I got selected and was going through and that was pretty much where I was at and then I was back at. So I went back to Fort Lewis for a while. I got married, my wife was pregnant with our oldest and I was back at North Carolina. Then, for phase two, which is another part of SFAS, went out. I was getting ready to go out in the field for a couple weeks and my wife was back here because I knew I was going to be training and gone a lot so I didn't think it would be good to have her down there when I'm in and out all the time, and so she was back here and so I just remember, because you could call your family on Sundays. So I called my wife on a Sunday it was after Valentine's Day and when she answered the phone she was crying and it didn't. Really I thought she had lost the baby, and so I was like what's wrong, you know? And she was bawling and she said your dad had a massive stroke and he's in the hospital and he's not doing too well. And so my dad was like my best friend and like growing up we were pretty tight. And so it hit me in a weird way, because we had an interesting conversation before I had gone out into the field. He had asked me why I was doing it because I mean, I already been through college, I already been a division one athlete, you know, I mean. And so he ended up passing away. I ended up driving home.
Speaker 2:It was the longest drive in my life and I got home about one o'clock in the morning 1.30, and my brothers had been with him the previous couple days. My brother Rico had been by his side and they had kept him on a ventilator so he could stay alive. But I also knew my dad and somewhere in my memory I remembered that he said that he'd never want to be a vegetable if anything ever happened to him, and so we'd made the decision that we were going to pull the ventilator, the plug, and so I had come home and then they pulled it at some point in time. I don't know how it happened or why it happened this way, but it ended up being just me and him in the room when he passed. So he had been remarried and she was out with my brothers like they were relaxing because they had been on call for the last 24, 48 hours I don't know how long it had been and so I told everyone just to rest and I would hang out with them. And it was like three or four in the morning and he ended up taking his last breath. So it just hit me a kind of weird way.
Speaker 2:It didn't feel like going down that that rabbit hole any longer was necessarily than my wife was having a real hard time with our oldest pregnancy. So I ended up pulling out. Um, I didn't get like a bad mark on my record or anything, but it just wasn't what I wanted to do anymore. Sometimes I feel like it was a failure, cause I feel like I should have just kept going and kept doing it, you know, but mentally and emotionally and psychologically, um, it played on me. So, uh, I ended up pulling out but ended up at Fort Drum, new York.
Speaker 2:I ended up pulling out, but I ended up at Fort Drum, new York and I was out there for a little bit. They were preparing to go overseas but my back and my knee had been bothering me previous injuries that were just lingering, and so I ended up getting them looked at while I was out there and ended up showing early stage arthritis in my knee back then and ended up showing early stage arthritis in my knee back then and my back had a pinch and a bulging disc. So ultimately I ended up getting out of the Army because of those, because I couldn't keep training the way that I had been, which is just an interesting turn of events. So I ended up getting out after about four years in the military and then haven't looked back and again, like we were talking before a little bit about our, you know, the knees and stuff like that and injuries. And I had a major back injury this past year. I don't really know what happened with it, but I was jacked up, the worst I'd ever been in my life.
Speaker 1:Was that the same type of back injury that you were talking about you had in the Army?
Speaker 2:It was on the other side, so it was L4, l5 before on the left side or on the right side. I think they're back on the right side. This was my SI L5. And it was way more intense, way worse, way crazier than anything else I'd ever had happen Like I was the most jacked up I've ever been in my life for about 10 weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember, I wouldn't wish it on anybody, man.
Speaker 2:It was brutal, like brutal. I thank God that I came out of it. I had some pretty touch-and-go movements from the standpoint of like I'm a grown man, I train hard, I take pride in feeling like I can handle a little bit of pain. But man, it was the worst. And I don't take pain pills. I'm not big on taking a lot of pain pills. So the first four days I was like I couldn't sleep. I'd wake up every hour. I had to sleep with my leg up and then down and then I couldn't get comfortable.
Speaker 1:No, matter how I leant, yeah, that nerve pain is unrelenting because, it comes in waves, it's like massive waves, and then it's like I can't take it, and then he'd be like, okay, I'm good, and then all of a sudden he kicks you in the balls again and you're like fuck you, it was brutal, dude, it was the most brutal.
Speaker 2:I literally like I'm not going to say I cried, but I was close enough to like just because I couldn't do nothing about it. You can't even stand upright, so sideways man, and I had crutches. I remember my day job was not like physical at all, it's an IT job when I was in a management's position, but I remember I go to work and every day by like three o'clock. The pain would just be so intense that I'd have to lay on the ground.
Speaker 2:I'd have to close my door, lay on the ground for 10 or 15 minutes, put my foot up, but during that time it hurts so bad. That would give it just a little bit of ease. I'd take some ibuprofen because I couldn't handle like it, just to take the edge off, yeah. But every day for like 10 weeks I would go home and be asleep. I'd go to bed like whether I fell asleep or not, at 6, 6, 30, because I just I couldn't, I couldn't move and I felt like a bitch. I felt like like it really put things in perspective, man. I was like man, this sucks. And like I'm thankful, thankful to be able to train.
Speaker 2:I'm thankful to have my limbs. I think I have a niece that has spinal bifida. I think about you know, soldiers that have lost limbs. Um, because you get to this place where it's like I'm sure you identify with it being, you know, a police officer and then, in training, like it's part of your identity, whether you want it to be or not, you know what I mean. When you train, when you lift, when you do certain things, and then you can't, and you really can't, like I would be like man, am I ever going to be able to do the stuff that I used to do?
Speaker 2:Or ever going to be able to do the stuff that I used to do, or is this is this it like yeah, that sucks that messes with your head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big time I mean it. I look back at stuff and I'm like I wish I would have been more grateful at the time you know like when. I was younger like in high school and college playing football. I was thinking about that last night. I was at uh, I was at a prospect camp with my with my oldest and uh and I was looking out there at St Francis at the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was at a prospect camp with my oldest and I was looking out there at St Francis at the field and I was like man, because I didn't play in college the way I wanted to. Like my college football career did not go as I planned. When I was growing up in western Michigan like I was all area running back, you know 1,000-yard rusher Like that didn't happen very often, and definitely at my high school, which is kind of like you know dwanger like yours.
Speaker 1:But um, so I was, I was recruited and I went there and, uh, it didn't pan out and then I had two or three massive injuries. I missed two seasons consecutively, one with a shoulder and one with a compressed nerve in my neck yeah and I was like so I mean, you know how it is like I'm sure you've seen dudes that were good in college even wrestling or whatever sport like pick one yeah, but if you get, if you get shut down for an entire year like there's a good chance you don't come back from that just because the coaches don't trust that.
Speaker 1:You're gonna hold up absolutely. And I had two in a row yeah it was like all right, dude, you can go over here on the shelf.
Speaker 1:We'll keep you around. But that was about it and uh, and. But even that, like even going through all that like disappointment, struggle, like I never appreciated it at the time, because I was always like, I always felt like I wasn't good enough and I and like I like my, my value was so equated to like whether you're getting on the field or not, yeah and uh, and I wish I would just appreciate it being on the team and being there yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because now I look at it and I'm like man, like I wish I could do that again. Yep. And I can't you know you just can't. That's just what age does to you. Right.
Speaker 1:You know, Same thing with CrossFit. Like the one year that I went to CrossFit regionals I did pretty well. Finished about, you know, five or ten spots away from going to the games which is like the ESPN stuff, yeah, and I just assumed I'd be back and I didn't know my hips would go out. Yeah, and all of a sudden, I got hip replacements.
Speaker 2:Dude, I think it's crazy because you look like a million bucks and I'm like this dude's had both his hips replaced. Yeah, man. Knee neck elbow. I'm like, but you still get after it. You know what I mean. And, to your point, the appreciation of it, right. I felt the same way, like especially coming up because at Ohio State you have to just like in football, there's always somebody vying for the first spot, like the spot right.
Speaker 2:So you have people on the team that you're kind of friends with or whatever, but in the back of your mind you know, hey, I'm going to have to beat this dude you know, for it to be my spot, and so it was always kind of weird that way, because somebody's got to be the the guy that's the guy on the team's first spot, and I always wanted to be that guy, you know, I mean, but I appreciate the heck out of it to your point. I I for a number of reasons it's probably another conversation at some point in time I didn't have the high school or college career that I should have had, which is tough Like. I started wrestling when I was seven. I was like a five or six-time state champion, freestyle state champion. I was a schoolboy national champion.
Speaker 2:I had a lot of success early and so, but some stuff happened outside of sports that we can talk about some other time. That really started messing with my head and so I got to this point in life where I was like cause it I'm not going to lie Like to that point in my life it felt like it'd been easy, but but it wasn't. That it was easy was that I loved doing it and I worked my butt off to be as good as I could be, cause I had older brothers that were boxing champion, wrestling champion, so I knew that hard work was like could take you a long way.
Speaker 1:That was how you did things Exactly.
Speaker 2:So it was just like you go and you go hard. And so when my the psychology started playing in, because I felt guilty about some stuff that had gone on and didn't feel like I deserved to be the champion anymore, it was really weird how that emotion and that psychology changed. How I approach things. Does that make sense? So, even though I was a two-time state champ, one-time runner-up high school American, I know, without a doubt I could have done better, and especially in college, because in college I spent my time asking the question is competition good, is it necessary? Do I need to win? Like. I had all these weird, really deep conversations Like what's the point? Is it just to win and go show the world that I can do this thing? And like is that the point is? Is is the competition? And so I spent a lot of time asking these questions and just wasn't. I did all the work physically. I cut weight. I was always cutting weight, which is probably not a good thing and clearly for a guy that had a heart attack, you know, last year, at 43, you know what I'm saying I don't know all the relevancy, it was a blood clot, but you know, I would definitely probably say that it had something to do with the way that I trained and the way I ate growing up, but also the yo-yo effect, because I did it for wrestling for many years and I did it for fighting for a couple few years. And I many years and I did it for fighting for a couple few years and I just don't think that long terms it has an effect, but anyways are a good effect. Um, so I always felt like just like you did and still like was like man, I could have done a lot better, and that's probably how we always feel and always will feel. But when you know inside yourself that you're capable of a certain level you've been around people I've been around lots of dudes that are still around today, that are top of the game, top of the food chain in the MMA world um, it feels a certain way, you know, and you ask yourself I've been around a lot of different people that are have gone to the pinnacle of MMA and or wrestling, and so it was just a thing where you're like I knew I could have and I had. I had moments where I did really, really well and people you know give you the pat on the back and say, hey, good stuff, but when you know you didn't accomplish what you could have had you been dialed in. That's why I think the mind is so important If you're going to compete, it can make all the difference in the world. And also I think I have this weird thing that I believe like for many years I made it so that I was so tuned in that I didn't get sick because I wanted to make sure that I was able to compete or able. You know I'm saying I don't.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a lot of days of sickness in wrestling. I didn't have injuries in wrestling until later in the game, like like junior senior year, like you know, the last couple few. Because my, my actual, my Ohio State, I was a senior in my senior year. Um, I got to nationals, ended up partially turned my MCL and PCL in my second match and, um, it sucked because I was in the match. I was in on a double and went out of bounds and as he posted and we were going out of bounds, it went pow and and I heard it felt it. I tried to wrestle the rest of the match. I couldn't push off that leg at all, ended up losing because of it. And then my coach wanted me to keep wrestling because it was my senior year. But my athletic director at the time asked me, not based off what the doctors told him. They said, hey, if he keeps wrestling he could tear and do more damage. We don't think he should wrestle anymore.
Speaker 2:And so it ended up being that they made the call and said that or he asked me not to do it and I didn't really know, one way or the other, what was the right thing to do. I know I still have knee issues. You know what I'm saying, so who knows you?
Speaker 2:know what I'm saying. So. So I don't who knows man, but um, but I learned and fell in love with the process. You know what I'm saying. So that's my life since high school, college, at post-military, has been just to train because I love how it makes me feel. I love to train because it just I talk about it almost every day, I write about it. I love to get up in the morning early. I consider it my time and it's weird because I go through all kinds of different things and think about all kinds of different stuff. But I always, for many years, have come back to I journal about like wrestling, jiu-jitsu and like heavy bag work, because they've made me feel the best that they could throughout my whole life. Like I just I love how I feel when I do them. If that makes sense, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It may sound crazy, but no, it doesn't sound crazy at all. And when you talk about like asking yourself questions like why do I do this, why is this important? And I remember, like you know, for football it was like why is this important to me? Well, for me it was like why is this important to me?
Speaker 1:Well for me, it was always the experience, like being the experience, like in the field, in that moment, in that play, you know, with a group of guys who are all doing the same thing, and it was like that is what I always want to be part of in some fashion, you know when do you think that comes from?
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting because, like you're a side guy and uh, where do? You think that comes from. I think it's interesting because, like you're a psych guy, so it seems to me because in that, in that thought process, somewhere there's like you, like being part of a team like you like being part of a group of people, right, which is cool and as much as I did.
Speaker 2:Wrestling is a team sport, but it's so much an individual sport. You know. I'm saying like you have the team behind you is what people will say, but when you step out on that matter, in that cage, it's you against somebody else and it's a really weird feeling, right? So the question that came to my head when you were talking was I'm curious, because I didn't play college football Is it similar to?
Speaker 2:I mean, friday night lights is like one of the best feelings ever, like putting under the lights in high school football on a Friday night is like it's like a high, you know what I mean, did it feel that way in college or was it a little bit different?
Speaker 1:It's a little different just by the nature of college programs. You know how it is. Like college is different from high school. It's not the super tight-knit intensity of high school, but it is still very similar because it's bigger. You know what I? Mean, so it can't be as tight-knit, but the fact that it's still the next level up. Even at small colleges it's still the next level up, so it's got its own thing for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, St Francis was good back then because they thought there was a while there where they were a pretty tough top program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was talking to a guy last night about when I played there and it was like I was right at the beginning of I think they went three times to the national championship for NAIA.
Speaker 2:That's what I remember then, because I remember there was that time when that happened.
Speaker 1:And that was 2003. We went to the semifinals and lost. And then 2004,. We went to the national championship and lost, and then I graduated. But for the next two years, I think, they went back to the national championship and lost every time.
Speaker 2:That's crazy man. Yeah, they were getting there. They were like the.
Speaker 1:Buffalo Bills of the NAIA, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:That's super cool because I know that people around fort wayne especially like they get behind it man and they have a pretty good fan base and people support them and they're still doing good stuff. I mean, I went to ohio state so it was just just seeing the fans at ohio state like people are crazy. Man, it was nuts, I couldn't believe it. They called you know columbus, a football football town with the college problem or something like that, Right yeah.
Speaker 2:It was the next level man and I always thought it was funny, because them dudes were like we're over here wrestling at the next, next, I mean folk style, for folk style, right, like high school style wrestling, which is the same in college. It's the elite of the elite man, it's the best of the best. But you also got a guy that weighs 133 all the way up to a guy that weighs 265. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean so, but we were always out there grinding. I remember running. I used to cut weight all the time. I'd be running on like a Friday night and seeing everybody getting ready for the game. I didn't go to the games intentionally in college because I couldn't trust myself A not to be chasing tail and B not to be partying right, Because there was just food everywhere alcohol everywhere a good time.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a football player, so I was going to be hanging out and I went to like one or two. They called them Heinegates because there might be 110,000 people inside Ohio State Stadium but there's another 50,000 or 60,000 outside partying and hanging out. And it was an experience, man. I tell anyone like if you want to experience some crazy shit, go to Ohio State on a Saturday when it's a home game. It's crazy, man, it's next level. But I appreciated it from afar. But I was like I knew I couldn't trust myself and there was a guy on our team. We used to have a guy who ended up being All-American. He was a really good wrestler, but he'd go to the game, sometimes drink, eat, party and be 12 pounds over like a day, a day or two out from the a match and I was just like, nope, I can't do it because I just don't trust myself. I'll have a good time too.
Speaker 2:It would be no fun to go and just be cutting, cutting weight not being able to engage and not being able to have a good time, drink some beers, eat some food, hang out with some lady friends, whatever. So I just didn't go. I never. I've always regretted I've never been to a Ohio State football game, which is funny because my brother gives me a hard time because he came and he went one time and every year, being alumni athletic, you can get tickets. I just never have and I don't know why.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, you ever think about that. I think about that once in a while, where it's like growing up through. When I was five years old, my dad was a varsity head football coach, and so all summers, every summer, since I was you know, like a baby, like all we did was get ready for football in one fashion or another.
Speaker 1:So it's like I missed a lot of time traveling, having fun, like vacations, like didn't do a lot of that because it was always prep time, either for me or somebody else in my family, like always time to get ready, and then during the fall you had football and then you know other stuff. So it was like there's not a whole lot of recreation, in a sense, like do you ever think about that? Like all the stuff you gave up.
Speaker 2:Sometimes For me. I was just talking to somebody about that today this morning when I was training somebody. I um, because I was wrestling during Thanksgiving and Christmas. So you're always all through high school, you were in college, you're cutting weight, like. So I knew I always. I was just telling him.
Speaker 2:This morning I was like I remember how I would go do a two hour workout, cause he was asking about like hey, how do you feel about holidays and training on holidays?
Speaker 2:I'm like I always normally train on a holiday and it's because of the fact that back then I always looked at it like if I don't go run the five or six miles in plastics and lose five or six pounds, then I really shouldn't eat this Thanksgiving meal or this Christmas meal. So I would go do that workout, no matter what, whether we had a team workout or not. Do that workout, no matter what whether we had a team workout or not. Yeah, I would go run the five or six miles in plastics, which you shouldn't have been doing, but I would do it because I'm like if I don't, I'm gonna eat a bunch of food and I'm gonna be even more overweight uh, the next day. So I always so to to answer your your, because that's what sucked about um wrestling in college too, man, is that you? You know how like I used to envy football players and basketball players.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was always trying to gain weight, you guys got to go travel to places and eat and hang out before you actually played. We were always cutting a shit ton of weight. Everywhere we went I was cutting five or six pounds. I was wearing plastics Wasn't supposed to but the day before I wrestle on Sunday, we're staying in a hotel.
Speaker 2:I have two or three workouts that day to just get water weight off. So you go work out. There's nothing to enjoy. It doesn't matter where you're at. You can be in Newark City, me personally.
Speaker 2:Some guys would go do stuff or go walk or go to the mall. I didn't even do stuff like that because I was like I've got to get my workout in and then I'm going to chill and move as little as possible so that I can rest until my next workout. I'm going to drink a Faygo orange or a Sunkissed orange and eat some whatever I need to eat to get to like that two or three pounds over again, knowing that I got to go work out again to lose five pounds or six pounds, to drink and eat two pounds, so that when I go to bed I know I'm at a pound or a pound and a half over. So hopefully I drift the majority of that so I don't have to cut a bunch of weight tomorrow. But the point was is that us and gymnastics and I didn't know this until college but the gymnastics, like the girls, they have to weigh a certain weight. So whenever you travel, it just it sucked at times like I definitely didn't appreciate I, I went all over the country, went to all these different universities.
Speaker 2:I love universities, so, like even in the army, I drove down to Florida University to see it was like, stopped at Auburn University just to see the environment. I like the college feel, like the big college feel. But being a wrestler and then being in the army, like I went to oregon university, their wrestling facility, went to places, duquesne, when I went to nationals, but then all the big 10 schools, cornell university, and I always thought it was super cool to see these places but I didn't get to appreciate them nearly as much as I would have had I not been wrestling at the time.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:yeah, it makes total sense I went out to.
Speaker 2:I cornered jake o'brien forBrien for UFC 100 when he fought Jon Jones. This was a long time ago. That's the highlight reel where Jon Jones does a back spinning elbow and blasts a dude. That was Jake O'Brien. I remember going out to Vegas because I had been out there a few times for wrestling tournaments but I had never really been out there just to hang out. I went to corner. I only showed up on the weekend. It was an interesting experience. But I remember going to the pool. There they had a wave pool and I'm like this is fun, like I'm chilling out.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not having to cut weight, I'm just like I'm enjoying the scenery and it's a wave pool, like it was just a really different experience. But to your point, like I felt like that wasn't right, because I wasn't.
Speaker 2:I was so used to competing and training and what that entails. I knew Jake was having to cut weight. He had to cut like 20 pounds in a week. So I knew he was cutting and sucking and hating life and I was like, dude, this is cool, like this is easy, like I just get to chill and hang out and then go to court. It was a cool experience. But no, I don't ever look back and think what I missed. I just know that, like it's certain types of people that, like you choose that grind. You know what I mean. I think it's a lifelong thing, I think it's a I don't know, but I never really regretted it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I'm saying yeah, Sometimes I look at it and I'm like you know, I did miss a lot of socializing and stuff like that and like I'm a very social person, I really like I really enjoy being extroverted and being around large groups of people, but, uh, so, so that kind of stuff, I'm like man I missed. I missed some stuff, for sure, but every time that I haven't had a grind or like something like that, like something to work towards, something to sacrifice for, I get lost and I make end up making like bad mistakes in my personal life and financially, like I'm just not focused and uh. And so it's like it's always finding that next grind, finding that next thing, and really that that goes all the way down to like purpose. You know like you have to have, you know like, even even superficially, like you have to have a purpose and a focus, otherwise you just kind of float it. It's like being it's like literally being in a wave pool for your whole life.
Speaker 1:You just kind of like get bounced back and forth and yeah uh, at least for me that's. My experience is like you really have to have that so I would agree with that 100 man.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of my time, um, over the years, is spent on that very thing. I've been, uh, into, we'll say, spirituality, or you know, I've asked since I was a really little kid, like since I was four or five years old, like I've had real deep conversations like why am I here? What's my purpose? Do we have a purpose? Talking to God, asking questions? Um, so I think that part of, for me at least, like that's even asking the question is part of the reason. But to your point, like that's why, for me, none of my kids train the way I do, like I don't have, none of my kids are into sports right now and it's hard for me and it's always been and I deal with it because I'm like I can't. I've never. I probably I've probably been too much the opposite where I felt like I didn't want to force them because I knew some guys over the years I saw guys in the wrestling game whose dads and in grade school, high school, where their dads were pushing them to be the guy.
Speaker 1:That gets rough to watch, man.
Speaker 2:It was really rough to watch, and so I went the total opposite where, even though I probably should have been harder and made my kids do a little bit more, I haven't to this point and I it's hard for me because I know and this is the reason why it's not because I want them to play sports, it's really because I just want them to move. Physically, because I know what being active does for you. Physically, because I know what being active does for you, so I know what it does for emotion, psychology, depression, anxiety, all these different things that it really really helps you get a hold of that to some degree.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, and so I really believe that I train and do what I do. I believe that it saved my life this past year and I also believe that it um, it keeps me sane man. If it wasn't for training in the capacity that I do, I'd probably be a very angry person, I probably do dumb shit, I'd probably, you know, and it's an addiction like anything else, but I think it's the best addiction you could have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I for sure Now, with that said like I was actually talking to, I had a call with, do you know, chris Duffin.
Speaker 2:I know the name.
Speaker 1:He's a guru with a lot of stuff. Okay. I had a little consult with him for some of these injuries that. I'm, you know, going through like knee and elbow and like surgeries and all that kind of stuff, and I was talking to him about my oldest right who's? Looking at like varsity football and wants to play in college and, like when I was his age, it was always like be the hardest worker in the room. And.
Speaker 1:I think it still is right. But what does that mean? You know what I mean? So to me it was always like be the hardest worker in the room equals, you have to hurt the most.
Speaker 1:And for me, for for my, like my five, 10 frame, you know 200 pounds like it was too much and I think that is a lot of what is equating to like the acute injuries I had in the moment and during the seasons that shut me down for the seasons, and then the, the downstream injuries that I'm dealing with now is like, dude, you should have relaxed a little bit more and like recovered a little bit more. And that doesn't mean that you're not working hard, it's just understanding the totality of it.
Speaker 2:I agree 100%. But I wasn't one to like I never set out for injuries. If I did, I set out as minimal as I could. So it could be a real injury. Like I broke my wrist my freshman year of football at the end of the season and when I broke it there was like two different nurses. One had been a nurse for like 13 years, one had been a nurse for like six years. They said they'd never seen anything like it. The socket that my wrist sits in my wrist was completely out. So it was like that, they said. They saw breaks like that in ankles but not a wrist.
Speaker 2:Very often they said you won't rest. They said you won't wrestle this year, you probably won't wrestle next year and they're like you won't. You may never wrestle again with the type of injury that I had. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there was never a part of me that was like, yeah, I was getting right back to and that process really sucked, by the way, and that's probably why I train and try not to ever take more than a few days off, because I was in a cast for six months or eight months or whatever two different times, once in high school, once in college and no matter what you do, you're not in the same kind of conditioning that you were prior to.
Speaker 1:If you're active and I really, really, really hate the process of getting back into cardiovascular shape because it just sucks- Well, when you're talking about something that intense and CrossFit was the same way where it's like it hurts, so bad because you have to get to certain you know points with intensity and redlining and that kind of stuff where it's like this physically hurts horrible and how much pain can you endure is part of it.
Speaker 1:Now, if you overdo that and this is where CrossFit screws things up, or did before when I was doing- it where it's like you can't do that five times a day, Like you'll break. But even if you're using it appropriately, you're still going to hit that pain. Cave right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And every time I try to come back into like, get back into like regional or games level shape or push for games level shape, it starts hurting so bad. I'm like, the older I get, the less I care to go there. I don't need it. This is something I'm choosing to do for competition.
Speaker 2:A million percent, and I just don't have it.
Speaker 2:I agree with you and I've experienced the same thing where for years now. So I competed for a long time and then I got to the point where I stopped competing because it wasn't what drove me anymore, because I feel like there's a lot of negativity to competing to be the best, like you said, and there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into that. And I'm not saying it's's for whoever is like your Michael Jordans, your Kobe Bryans, your, you know, whoever the best of the best is. They go through a lot of stuff and put themselves through a lot of stuff that a lot of people don't, and I understand that. But, like you said, as you get older, um, I'd like to stay as healthy for as long as I can. So, like I'm doing a different type of lift, like I'm not lifting heavy, like I used to lift a heavy cause.
Speaker 2:I always liked being strong and being able to say I can bench 420, you know what I'm saying and being able to, but it doesn't serve me anymore, as you get older, just to be able to lift the most weight. So now I'm trying to rep, I'm I enjoy the process. I'm trying to eat healthier more, more meats. To listen to the doctor. Uh, what's her name? I think it's daniel lions or something like that, oh, gabriel, yeah she talks about yep, the structural um muscles.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean and how. Protein is such a big part of it and I've done the keto stuff and I still do. I'm more towards that than I am high carb anymore. I don't do sugar, all kinds of things that I've cut out, but I love the process and so I always. My point is is that I always start thinking I'm going to start getting ready for some big tournaments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for jujitsu Right.
Speaker 2:So I can go prove to the world I'm a badass, still make a name, show people that I'm relevant and that I matter, because I'm this older dude who can go and I may do it at some point. But as I start training hard for it, sometimes you get a tweak here, you get a tweak there, and that's what you hear with all these UFC fighters that are older guys that are still fighting. They all have injuries that they're dealing with as they continue to fight. They're looking for the payday, they're looking for the glory and I get it. But it's recently I can't remember who I heard somebody talked about how, like um, people that they get to that height and they, they get that victory or that the big win, and then they feel empty inside afterwards. Yeah, I've heard it over and over again. I don't ever feel empty because I enjoy and I love the process.
Speaker 1:All right, so a lot of the stuff that you're talking about. So, if you go back to high school and college and military and all that, and then even what you're talking about now is being able to transition from one thing to another and that's a really important skill.
Speaker 1:It's a skill you have to work on that because it's hard to do and, like you just said, guys that win big fights or whatever titles or whatever, they feel empty afterwards because it's like you reach the top. Now what you know what I mean, and I've heard lifters say that same thing Once they break records, they pull 1,000 pounds. It's like I felt super depressed the day after. And it's like well, why is that? You just did the thing that you trained for for maybe your whole life, and and now, what Is it?
Speaker 2:because we were wrong and it wasn't that important to begin with, cause I've heard people say the same thing about taking their business public and being getting $400 million in one day and then feel the next day like they're like, I feel depressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's um. So some of it is like and I don't know a ton about this, you have to listen to.
Speaker 1:Huberman to get the ins and outs of the dopamine process. But like that, that dopamine and all the neurotransmitters, like you know it, it drives you to be, to do things right. It's motivation, it's drive, all that kind of stuff. And then once you go up, like once you don't have that anymore, like you crash and you go below baseline. It's like a drug, you know. So if you take ecstasy or cocaine or whatever, I think it is a drug.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's like. I think it is a drug and I think that to your point. For me personally, I didn't understand that it's transitioning or getting skilled at transitioning. What I know is that I always banked on and I've talked about this many, many times, and I'll say this to the point because now we're hitting on all the psychological things and the neurological things that go on in human beings and we're talking about extremes.
Speaker 2:you know what I mean, and so I've spent a lot of time on myself like trying to figure me out, and so this is why I'm such an advocate for jiu-jitsu training for your whole life, or MMA or some kind of boxing like MIT training. Like not sparring, not going to do sparring because that shit hurts.
Speaker 2:Like you get punched in the face, kicked in the face, Not wrestling per se when you're 50 years old, because that's hard on the body when you haven't wrestled, to stand on your feet and do takedowns constantly. It's hard, but jiu-jitsu can be a flow and it can be a slow and the heavy bag work and I've told this to so many people. This is really what when I say I love the process for me, that addiction, that thing that you talk about the high, I don't ever feel the high and the depilated. I don't ever feel depressed after I do jiu-jitsu for an hour.
Speaker 2:I don't ever feel depressed after a knock on wood, and I hope it doesn't ever change to this point in my life, and I've done it for thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of hours. When I hit the heavy bag, I've had some of the most euphoric moments in my life. I don't know why, but these moments where and it's a, it's a it's two things right. So I say jujitsu and I say heavy bag work, specifically because I got to a point of doing heavy bag work, cause I've done it for so long in my life that, um, you don't need another person when you do heavy bag work. Now you can get the similar feeling when you go for a run, but it's different. When you're hitting the bag, you're releasing stress and tension, and when you flow because you know how to move the bag and combos, I've had so many times where I get to this euphoric high and I literally it sounds super cheesy, but I've felt it so many times that I can't be like just by accident, I just felt like it was my purpose. I'm like this is why I'm here. I'm here to share this with people. But you can't get to that place unless you do the work, unless you're willing to go and try Right, and so for 90% of the population, or more than 90% of the population, they're never going to go there because they don't, they don't want to go through the struggle of doing the work to get to that point. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:But for me, I've had the most euphoric, like the most euphoric moments, and and and the inside of a 20 to 40 minute heavy bag workout, listening to my music at home or at the gym, when it's just me, my timer, my flow state. I mean it's been deep and real. And so I always talk about the two books, one spark, um, and then the other one is a flow by me, highly, me, highly Chechavich or whatever both psychologists both talk to, and they both did research on ADHD. But uh, both of them, both these books, have really stood out for me because they both talk about physical movement and how it lights up the body. So your neurotransmitters, you go from being what do they call it sedentary If you're not active. How it's not good for the body and how it's worse than smoking if you sit around and do nothing every day. Right.
Speaker 2:But when you exercise, when you just go for a walk or you just do any, you don't have to do a lot, you just got to move. It ignites your body like a Christmas tree during Christmas, right. When you turn the lights on, right, your neurons go, everything lights up. And that's what that high is, that's what the dopamine, the norepinephrine, the serotonin, that's what all that is. That's what I'm addicted to and that's what feeds me, and I know it and I'm okay with it. Does that make sense? Because to me it's a good.
Speaker 2:Now, I always got to be careful, like you said, and where I'm, I'm doing a thing right now where I'm doing reps of 200, 200 reps of 225 once or twice a week because it's light enough that I can, and that's a lot more reps than most people are doing. But that's my thing right now. Whatever I do, I'm trying to do a lot more reps, not weight. So yesterday at the gym there was guys doing a little bit more weight and I'm listening to them and it's just funny because I'm like man, I could do that 10 times right now, but I'm like no, that's not what you're here for. You're here to be doing your thing.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying so you still got to check the ego, you still got to keep yourself in check and get the most out of the workout and get the most out of the training. And that's what jujitsu does, because you got to have somebody else there with you to do jujitsu. You can't do it by yourself. Uh, in a real way. Yeah, I talk about those two things a lot and believe in them so much because there's nothing like it, man, like it's really cool, but most people are never going to go throw a punch or go step into it because of the fear.
Speaker 2:You know how many people I talk to are like man, I've always wanted to come over and train with you guys, but I didn't know what to expect. And you know, blah, blah, blah. You know your reputation, blah this and that I'm just like dude. That what is that? False, false, whatever appearing real, false evidence appearing real. There's so many people that, whether they listen to this today or in five years, they won't say you know what? I'm just going to go do it, because something inside them is telling them that you need to go do it. You should go do it, right? But how many people tell that little voice to shut up and they stay sitting on the couch or they stay not going to do the workout today. They let that get the best of me. I don't care who it is man and I've heard this over and over again and I think it's funny I know men and women that are 60, 70 years old that still talk about losing a few pounds, that still talk about what needing to go lift or need to get in shape.
Speaker 2:That's never going to leave you you know what I'm saying, right and so it's like you might as well just get up and start getting after it, because that's what we're meant to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I talk about it with people all the time. It's like you just have to pick the discomfort or the pain that you want. Right, you know what? I mean Because you're going to regret not doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean how many studies they have to do like beds, where it's like well, what do you regret? Yeah, I regret not doing more things, not taking more chances it's like that's been, that's been proven time and time and time again. And uh, and yet, this, this, uh, this fear, this fear-based stuff is, you know, like it just shuts people down but is it interesting?
Speaker 2:do you ever wonder about like, why, like, why is it are? Are you built different? If you, because I know that I had times where I went into a new place that wasn't known when I was in the military, but I sought out, like the jiu-jitsu places, where can I go do jiu-jitsu? Right.
Speaker 1:Because I just wanted to put work in Well again, if you look at your history like you have a history of just doing that. Yeah, you jumped on a plane the day after you graduated high school to go out to california to a juco and wrestle, right, like not many people do that.
Speaker 1:um, so I don't know man, like when, whenever I'm taking leaps like that, because I kind of did that in high school where I was like I don't want to go to this high school, I want to go, I want to go downtown in grand rapids, yeah, this one right, yeah, catholic central, catholic Central, and I didn't know anybody. I had zero friends right, and there aren't a whole lot of eighth graders that are willing to do stuff like that. Very few.
Speaker 1:And it was like well, you know, like what's the worst that's going to happen, like what's no one's going to die you know probably yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I'm going to go down here and I'm, there's some cool people that I don't hate and if it's absolutely horrible after a couple of years I'll, you know, maybe go somewhere else, Like you know. So it's like putting it in perspective, Like you said, false evidence appearing real, Like, like what? What do people fear? They, they people. People fear, like, the anticipation of things rather than the thing itself. Yes, and I hear Navy SEAL dudes talk about that stuff all the time. It's like when do people quit? Well, they quit between iterations of things. They don't quit during the thing, usually, unless you get hurt. It's like I can't do one more thing. It's like, well, you just did five things, what's one more? Once you get into it, it'll be all right.
Speaker 2:I think it's selling out to the idea of you know what. I don't know if I can say the F word, but you're like fuck it, I'm just going to do it, man, and. I'm either going to make it or I'm going to die trying to make it.
Speaker 1:You know. I'm glad you brought that up because that's something you mentioned earlier going through selection, and that's something that a Navy SEAL buddy of mine I asked him when he got through Buds. I texted him. He was a CrossFit dude from years ago, bud's, and I ended up texting him after I was like, well, how was it he goes. It really wasn't bad because he got through on his first time and, granted, he was like I think he played football at Harvard or Yale, I can't remember which. He'll probably be pissed now I don't remember, but he was a D1 football player and badass crossfitter and then goes and becomes a Navy SEAL right, does it on his first try. But he said the same exact thing. He said no, it's pretty easy Once you just decide like I'm either finishing this or I'm going to die, like legitimately, like either way.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a joke, like I knew. It's the only time in my life where, when it came to that, I literally was like cause I saw dudes around me badass like in shape. I wasn't peak. I wasn't peak conditioning for me, I was two, 26. I wasn't peak conditioning for me, I was 226. I wasn't like epitome Anton conditioning like that. I would have considered Does that make sense? There's dudes that are 170, 180, running like crazy, 18, 20 years old, testosterone's good, they haven't had injuries, right, they're out there just running circles around people.
Speaker 2:It wasn't me. It was a grind to get through everything right the team events, the personal events. But I do absolutely, because I had to tell myself a few different times like I'm going to either make it through this or I'm going to die trying.
Speaker 2:And I meant it and I didn't tell people that I didn't tell my family that, I didn't tell other people that. But in my heart and in my head, and that's all I needed, I was like I'm either going to make it or I'm going to die trying one or the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's like that's common of like top level athletes and stuff like that. Where it's like, no, I'll, I'll lose an arm for this, and I've been there. Where it's like, well, why why are you doing this so much, like I really don't give a shit if I, if I lose function of my arm or my hips right, like that wasn't even on my radar. But, like you know, even playing college football and and high school and you know, uh, crossfit, especially like crossfit, you can't move. You know, once you get to a certain point, like you're moving so fast. Where it's like you're you're working on movement and mechanics and that kind of stuff because the cyclic rate is faster, if you're more efficient and better moving, yeah, um, it's not like just bullshit movement thrown everywhere, like when you get to the high level.
Speaker 2:I always heard that and that's kind of why I stayed away from CrossFit, because I knew that I had enough injuries already and I was like I knew even in college I couldn't do the front squats, like I couldn't get my elbows out as forward as I, even from a baseline standpoint. I know that I probably could have got better than what it got better, but I'd had injuries to the point where I was like man I don't know if I want to mess around with doing all these reps, because that's what I had heard. I had a cousin to crossfit.
Speaker 2:he's like yeah, it's a lot of reps, a lot of reps and I was like I get that and I was like I probably could adjust things enough to be able to do it. But I was like I don't really want to get injured because I overdo that part, because that's what I had heard. Yes, and that's and that's accurate.
Speaker 1:If you, if you have like pre-existing mobility issues, especially where it's like you can't get into a perfect overhead position, you can't get into a perfect front front rack position yeah squats and cleans and that type of stuff, but you're strong enough and you have enough horsepower to do it. Yeah, and, and that's where I was at like my movement wasn't super clean, like I got better at a lot of stuff. That's where I was at, like my movement wasn't super clean, like I got better at a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:But when I was looked at like like my level, which was like regional level back in the day, like second tier, like not quite games level, right, yeah um, I always looked at the difference between me and the next guys up right and uh and and I watched them move and I'm like their movement is clean, their ankles work. You know their shoulders like get in perfect position. They can stay upright with everything. And then I looked at me in my film and stuff and I'm like that's kind of ugly compared to them, but our horsepower was the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, I forced it, yeah, and I forced it over and over and over again. And if you do that long enough, like you're, you're gonna wear your tires out, man, like that's just how it works is that the addictive side of crossfit?
Speaker 2:because to me, from the outside, looking in, because I've never been a crossfit guy, I've been high reps, I've done every kind of training that you can do, but I would always look and see, um, a crossfit seems to be really good because physique wise, like people get, they look beautiful, like because they do all the reps and they get lean and they get. I mean you don't see a lot of fat, fat dudes doing crossfit for a long term. Because I'm saying a long time long for yeah like that are really into it.
Speaker 2:You know I'm saying um, but. But it also seemed to me like crossfit had a lot of camaraderie. You had both sexes, so you had men and women, and you had seemed like groups of people and they liked working out together and they would do their training and it was like a camaraderie slash push each other type thing. That to me that's what I saw as what pulled people into crossfit yeah because I didn't understand any other way.
Speaker 2:I didn't really get any, but it seemed to me like that was very big and very real and a very like on unseen thing maybe. But people I mean I've seen crossfit people that were tight, like just tight, like they go out and party together, they hang out together, they work out together, do all that kind. But I saw it time and time again, not just one time it was like.
Speaker 2:Time and time again you see groups of people and it's like their lives are changed, like women get fit, dudes lose weight. Like it's a real thing there.
Speaker 1:There's yes, so it's. It's like anything. Though you go join jujitsu, all of a sudden you get a crew here, you get a club, you get a culture, you get a social, everything, physical everything. It's all right here. So you just want to keep going back. That's why those things are good for you. But you can take it to an extreme. Everything right, you can take everything to an extreme Now with CrossFit the. The big issue with that is like you've got about, I would say, a year. If you just start it like you got about a year, maybe more, maybe less, depending on the person, but uh, where you're going to make really good adaptations Every time you touch a bar, it's going to be a personal record. Uh, you know you're going to be losing weight, getting in shape, but at some point, if you just go hard every single day, like like we talked about, like previously, like if you just go hard and go and overuse and abuse intensity, like you're going to start to backslide, your PRS are going to be further apart.
Speaker 1:Uh, you're probably going to put on more body, wet body, fat, right or or just weight you know from all the stress and the overuse of stress hormones and cortisol and all that. You can't overuse that system. Your hormones are finite.
Speaker 1:You can only tap that well so many times and then you burn up. I went through that hard with competing After I was done with regionals in 2012,. I did pretty good and I just found another competition like two weeks later. I should have taken about three months off and the smart guys now are doing that, where they're taking more time between events and they're not training with the intensity, so their shelf life is longer.
Speaker 2:I think it's so interesting because I think that that is like you said. It all comes back to our psychology, our emotionality and our heart, and it's hard to know when to say. When I had a coach at Lassen who big guy, strong guy, but he always said he's like people oftentimes they stay too long, man, before they should get out or be done, and it's different for everybody. You know what I mean. Sometimes it's injuries, sometimes it's you know what I mean your body's beat up. Whatever it is, it's not very often that you see Khabibs, you see people that go out at the top of their game. You know what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying, or like a George St Pierre, like both dudes that are still in shape, but they said peace at the top of their game as opposed to going down on the backside.
Speaker 2:And you know your Mike Tyson, your Muhammad Ali, that stayed and stayed and stayed. But that's psychology more than anything. It's that what are we chasing? What are we here for? What's our purpose? And you know, and I've come to the conclusion, and it's been more recently for me that I'm in a very happy place when it comes to training, because I do it, because I love it, and it's not like I'm not competing with anybody else but myself and I'll push myself to a good degree and then pull back and then push myself and I feel like, because I have that approach, I can do it a lot longer. Now I say that with the last year for me, I had some real situations that made me reflect and be like. The last year for me, I had some real situations that made me reflect and be like. But I'm so grateful to be back to training for the most part 95%, 98% of the way, lifting I mean, bro, I was, I couldn't. I have video somewhere I don't know if I still have it when I jacked my back up. I couldn't even lay down on my bench for weeks and then I started. The first couple of times I did bench because I was doing.
Speaker 2:I was working on this towards this 200 thing before and I just remember like how bad it hurt initially to get onto the bench. I could do the weight and then to get up I had to fall off to the side. I have a lower bench that's lower to the ground. I had to let myself fall off to the side and then grab stuff to get back up. I'm like dude, this is nuts. Most people would have been like fuck it, I'm not doing it, I don't need to do it. You know what I mean. But there's something in me that I hold myself accountable to and that's why I don't like going a couple days without. If I miss two days of training, I gotta get back to doing something. Not because I have to. My mind, my body says hey, bro, go get back to work, go do something, because you just, I just don't like being inactive. I don't know what it is. But then I look at other people. I got people in my family.
Speaker 1:They don't ever work out right ever that I can't I can't, I can't wrap my head around that. Yeah. There are some times now, though, like spring break this year, when I was like you are not allowed to do anything Like literally like go walk around and be active and stuff, but no quote training. Like you don't get to go on a run, you don't get to do nothing.
Speaker 2:Was it hard.
Speaker 1:It was super difficult, you know, and then it starts fucking with your head too, because you're like, you're like man, I know I'm holding water and I know it's just water weight, you know from travel and vacation food, stuff like that. But I was like, all right, you'll get it off on the back end. It's going to take like a week, you know, but it's just water.
Speaker 2:It's not body.
Speaker 1:It's like.
Speaker 2:It's like physically you're not, you can't that. Because you're in shape, you look good, but that still plays on your mind, just like if somebody who's 500 pounds and overweight by 200 pounds, it plays on them too, yep, but they're choosing to or not engage. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Well, and I think, too, that you know it's how we're raised, it's how we're brought up, it's what we've done our whole lives.
Speaker 1:You know, regardless either direction, but so much of our actions are built on stories, so you go back and talk about, like, the fear that keeps people on the couch or on the sidelines, right from experiencing life really, and it's like it's based on stories that you're telling yourselves. You know, and maybe they're true, maybe they're not, but it's uh, it's like. That's where you know your perception of the things around you and the way that you like construct, uh, the, the world you know is is so powerful and that, uh, and what's even cooler is that once you identify like, all right, this is how I'm constructing the world, to make sense of my mind, based on my whole history right up to this point, and once you kind of realize that you can really look at how your construction has been and be like well, is this true? And then start asking yourself questions, like you've done. You know like is this true? Well, maybe not. All right, well, maybe I just changed the frame and all of a sudden the construction changes, and now I do go to jujitsu.
Speaker 2:There's somebody, so this guy named Steven Pressfield and I don't know how much more time you have, but he is a writer. He wrote the book the Legend of Bagger Vance, right? So I don't know if you ever saw the movie, but I saw the movie and I liked it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, matt Damon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Will Smith. Right, and so I had forgot. I thought it was Morgan Freeman, but it was Will Smith actually. So, anyways, he wrote this book and I went and listened to the book after I heard him talk. The reason why I say this is because he didn't have writing success until the age of 52, but he had been writing for almost three decades. But he talks. He has this other book that I listened to, called the war of art, the art of war, the art of war, um, which is what we're talking about now, that fear, right, false evidence appearing real. He calls it the resistance. So he's like that thing that you resist, that you know you should go. Do you need to go do that thing?
Speaker 2:And that to me is a very, very golden rule, like a lot of times now, there may be times where you shouldn't and you got to be able to cipher. Should I go hang out with this friend tonight when they're going to be drinking and doing drugs or whatever? And I'm in high school, probably not. You know what I'm saying. But you have to take in reference, like you said, depending on the situation.
Speaker 2:But he talks about how he calls it, the resistance where he wanted to write for a long, long time and so he started to write. Or he wrote for decades, didn't have success until he was 52. But even still as a writer he's now almost he's 80. He still writes, still feels like most of his stuff is shit and he still feels that resistance to not write, to make excuses not to write, knowing that something inside of him is calling him to go do that thing, which is your purpose, which is the reason. Whatever it is, we all have these whispers and these voices inside of us that talk to us all the time. It's just a matter of whether or not we tune in and listen to them.
Speaker 1:Yes and so.
Speaker 2:I feel like you can. You can dull that whisper if you don't pay attention to it, but if you do listen, it's always there and it's always going to come back. Just like I said, those people that are 80 years old, they feel like they should go start working out.
Speaker 2:They've been being told that for 60 years that's been in their head for 60 years they just never went and did it. But I to me and this is what, like I really appreciate hitting on it is that we just got to be like eff it, go do it. You know, whatever the thing is like, go go at least try. Go go start it, give it three weeks. I always tell people I know people don't like to sweat, so that's why that's their excuse not to work out, and I'm just like.
Speaker 2:I'm just like man, dude, like the benefits are so much more important than because those same people are stressed and depressed and have anxiety. And I'm just like dude, I and they've said it and that's what they said, uh in the book the spark, that if they could recommend uh anything as a pill that would be the most benefit for all of mankind, or all of the Western culture. It would be exercise in a pill form for 30 minutes a day would be without all the side effects that you get with the current medication. Right.
Speaker 2:It's exercise because you get to release. You feel better. Now. It doesn't matter if you're fat, it doesn't matter if you're overweight, it doesn't matter if you're overweight, it doesn't matter that you don't have a six-pack when you're done, Just be getting active and walking for 30 minutes. You don't have to go run, you don't have to go lift.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be a jiu-jitsu guy. Just go do something. Just go for a walk, like, take a walk, I think it goes if you haven't walked for a while. You're like maybe, but who cares, what are you going to do, it's going to be a little bit sore, and then do the same thing tomorrow or do it two days from now, and then just keep doing it and start to see.
Speaker 2:I've heard all these recent people like podcast people and people that try and talk about how awesome walking is and it really is true. I do jiu-jitsu and I few weeks back and I was like this is the shit. I'm just going for a walk and it's 5 o'clock in the morning and I'm like this is awesome. No one's out there. You feel like you're a champion just because everyone else is still asleep, walking with the dog 45, 50 minutes. I felt like I was like this is awesome. So there's so much truth to it and you don. You have to go be an Anthony. You know what I'm saying. You don't have to go do CrossFit, you don't have to go do. I'd like you to go do jiu-jitsu and hit the heavy bag and stuff like that, because that's really it's next level. But just do something. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Do something because it makes you feel so much better, and all we do is so we're recording on, you know like to release on spotify and we're using a zoom and you know all this technology and these phones right. So like it it is, it's cool and it provides you a lot of opportunities, but at the same time, there are a whole lot of people that are using the same stuff to keep you sedentary, like they want your attention and they want you to be a lazy fat loser. That's what they want.
Speaker 2:And, whether they realize it or not, I think some people because I've had many people on podcast content say hey, you know, technology is awesome, but it's also like you're sitting here listening to. You know what I'm saying. A video that has 500 million views. Is people sitting there watching it most of the time, like I'll listen to motivational, stuff when I'm lifting right, but in general, yeah, I listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm training, you know what I mean. So like but but I think that's super, super important man and I really appreciate you touching on it but I I look at it from like all right, all these people want me to sit on the couch and do nothing, so, so fuck them, I'm not doing that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like I'm going to be the counterculture to that. Like that's always kind of, you know, I think anybody that's like aggressive, forward-pushing mindset, like there's part of that where it's like no like you don't get to tell me what to do. I'm going to elicit, like in effect, my actions onto this world and this planet, and you're not going to get me to sit on the couch and just be a slug.
Speaker 2:I love it, man, and I think for you when you said that for me it was weird how it hit, for the fact that, like I've always said, I was going to do a podcast or want to do a podcast, and I just never have, because, sharing this stuff, you have no idea who it's going to hit, who it's going to touch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cool part about it in my opinion, because all you're trying to do is get people active. You know, I'm saying in general at least I am, you know what I mean like I I'll just go do something, man, I'd love it for people to come to do. I wish everybody did jiu-jitsu.
Speaker 1:I wish everybody hit the heavy bag, but they don't, you know, yeah, yeah so let me ask you this with uh, with jiu-jitsu, like this is, I always kind of dabbled in it, like you know, going through police academy and I wrestled a little bit in high school and uh, so like I'm not a stranger to it, but when I really started doing it and uh, and it's like you know, five, 10 minutes with a dude who's way better than you and just like crushing you and it's not like wrestling where it's like all right you pin and you get up, it's kind of it's quicker you know, what I mean more intense, but it's quicker and like but with jiu-jitsu, like when I first started really training, and it was really clear that there's a whole lot of like just random dudes that are better than big tough swat guy right yeah and I was getting my ass kicked and it was like I wanted to cry because it was so like emotionally draining in a sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what is it about jujitsu?
Speaker 2:and in like specifically that where it's like it elicits such an emotional response I think personally, because I've seen that and experienced it a lot over the years, I think that people it's like universes, right, like different universes, parallel universes, whatever you want to call it like if, if I walked into SWAT world and went on a raid with you, I'd be out of my mind because I've never done it. You know what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying Like it would be for you. It would be like going to work every day, right. But if I haven't done it and put myself in there even though I think I'm a pretty tough guy and I think that I've seen a lot of different shit going on a raid with you, if I don't know what's going on, I could get lost and I'd be worried about getting shot. Could get shot, could whatever because I don't know the way that you guys operate. Does that make sense? Maybe?
Speaker 2:it's not a good example, but you have a lot more comfort there right than I would. And so this, because it's human chess, it's one of those things that people don't realize. I've always been pleasantly surprised when I teach somebody how to throw a punch or a kick. They're like wow, I never knew that. They're like so much went into throwing a punch. You know I'm saying because every dude thinks they can throw a punch right, and most of them can. But it doesn't mean it's the right punch or the right kind of punch or the most powerful punch, but they can throw, throw it.
Speaker 2:So what happens in jujitsu is that you, you expose yourself to what you don't know. You know what I'm saying, because two bodies together how often does that happen? Where you enter and interlock with somebody else and you're trying to submit each other with an elbow lock or a wrist lock, a neck choke, a heel hook, a knee bar, knee on belly. It doesn't happen that often. You know what I'm saying. It's not something that happens to anybody in everyday life, and I say that it's even less for 98% of women. You know what I mean. That's why I wish more women did it, because women don't engage in that. They never feel that kind of pressure. They never feel someone pushing on them and pulling on them, unless it's in jujitsu or wrestling. But most women don't wrestle, so the ones that do come and try jujitsu, it's way even more extreme for them than but there's a lot of guys that haven't felt that either, and it's just such a different experience, especially if you go with somebody that knows what they're doing, who can maneuver and manipulate in ways that you feel like the big, strong body, my big muscle-bound body, should be able to handle this, or this guy should never be able to move me this way or that way, because it's a counterbalance. It's balance and counterbalance. It's where you are and where you're not. It sounds weird, but that's what happens all the time.
Speaker 2:I always tell people that it's sometimes resistance on resistance and that's what happens all the time. I always tell people that, like it's sometimes resistance on resistance and sometimes it's going around that resistance. Sometimes it's going away to where there is no resistance and then coming back to a position where you're in a better spot. When that happens to a person and they've never felt it and or they dominate somewhere else, they could be a business owner, they could be a SWAT guy. They could be a business owner. They could be a SWAT guy. They could be a special forces guy. If they've not done that before and experienced it and they go against somebody, that's good.
Speaker 1:It's a whole other world. You know, I think there's a whole lot of that, that it's like looking back on it, I felt helpless. Yeah, like I am 200-plus pounds been on a SWAT team forever done all this CrossFit and lifting Strong dude athletic dude in shape and I come and just get buried by dudes and it's like this guy's 150 pounds and he is kicking my ass. Or he weighs the same as me and now I feel pressure and I'm helpless. He's literally killing me and I can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:And then understanding like now you got five more minutes of this yeah and uh, I think it's a deep cycle, don't you think it's a deep psychological?
Speaker 1:experience, it's hugely. It's hugely emotional, psychological, like um, and working, being able to work through that. You know, from a physical context, like I would say, like the, the intersection of like mental health, like physical health. They overlap, but physical health is way more of a low-hanging fruit I can work through and part of it is like you're the same as me, like we've been physical our whole lives. So I can work through a lot of mental and emotional stuff by physically doing things like jujitsu. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, like when I went in and really started training, I get this experience of being just beaten up and helplessly like crushed and held down, like held down by another man. Yeah, that's hard to deal with, you know, and it's like like, okay, now what's my option? I, either I give up and leave and never come back and then I do and then, and then I never process this right or I start working through it.
Speaker 1:and in the process of working through this I realize like all right, I can learn and get better and improve and I'm a beginner here and, like you know, yeah, you gotta go back to the beginner mindset and then, but it helps, you realize so much about yourself.
Speaker 2:I love that. And I love that you're saying that because it's the truth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that statement that you just made to me is the essence of what why people should do jujitsu Because if you come say you're a person that comes and gets beat up on right. We used to have this too, anthony, with guys that were fighters street fighters and come in and think that they were going to do some MMA and spar and beat people's asses and they'd get punched and kicked and we'd be taking it easy on them. Me and Rico used to be like my brother.
Speaker 2:We'd be like pop, pop, pop, boom. And we weren't hurting them, we weren't hitting them, but we were touching them and letting them know that hey, could have got you there. Could have got you there. And they're like whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:They want to go after, they go harder, they miss. You take them down, you control them. It's that right. Same situation, but when they have that, and to me it's a choice not to continue to engage in that. So, instead of confronting that and saying which is what we've done and what we're talking about, why do we do the things that we keep doing? Why do we go into that fear, you know, and just do the thing? It's because we want to get better. Right, we want to get better for ourselves. If you I always call it the dragon, call it the dark space, whether it's fatigue or a helpless situation If you face it, the better you get. The longer you stay, you can push that dragon further out. Does that make sense? To where you feel? And you grow in that process? It's inevitable you grow through that process. So if you stay, it's like they say, if you stay, you're going to get better. Period, right, six months, a year from now, somebody else that was similar to how you felt is going to be coming through.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And they're going to experience that same thing.
Speaker 1:Well, and and even if let's say, like worst case scenario, right, like, even if I start jujitsu and I physically don't improve, the fact that I'm putting myself in that stressful situation of getting clobbered, it means that, like, I'm gonna acclimate myself to it and I'm not going to freak out as much you know.
Speaker 1:So, even if I physically don't improve as much as I wanted to, or it's like slow or whatever, like you're still going to be mentally getting better, emotionally you're getting better, like it is helping you through a lot of things that maybe you don't see I think that that's the essence.
Speaker 2:So that's what I think, that because every when I did uh, I hadn't done the breakfast club in a long time. I did it friday, this past friday and I remember feeling, towards the end of it, like I feel like I'm a champion. Today I feel like I've won the day I'm. I won today's one just because I did that hour workout first thing in the morning. Everything else is a plus. Going to work is a plus. Taking care of the kids, that you know.
Speaker 2:The rest of the day, anything that I did the rest of the day I felt was like a win. Isn't that interesting? Because I just went and did this physically hard thing and I was tired, breathing heavier later in the you know 45, 50 minutes. It was hot. So so I was like that's what I'm talking about, that's what we're chasing is.
Speaker 2:Is that and I think as human beings we're always chasing that, whether we want to admit it or not, or whether we accept the challenge or not, you can sidestep it and be like Nope, not going to engage in that. Those are the people. Don't work out, don't exercise, don't put themselves into hard situations. That's why wrestling is so badass because you're forced to do that immediately and that's why it's not for everybody. And if you're not in high school and college, because it's hard immediately, and if you're out of shape, you're going to know immediately. And if you're wrestling somebody, that's way better than you. They're going to kick the shit out of you and it's not going to be fun at all. Way worse than wrestling, I mean jiu-jitsu, because you take somebody down on a double and you land your shoulder and it's like it sucks. You know what I'm saying? Jiu-jitsu sucks from a submission standpoint. Here you've heard the joe rogan's, the dana white's, all these other people that talk about when they first went in and got their asses kicked.
Speaker 1:Everyone says the same thing, yeah, and I think it's not just like you have to submit when, like you get me in an arm bar like I have to submit on my break, but you have to submit to the process as a whole and be like okay, I'm not strong enough to to force this like I have to take a take a slower roll, yep, and then humble myself. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:And then figure it out you have to.
Speaker 1:It's like total submission in a lot of different ways I love it and I to me. That's the point you, you know, you know what always also I think is real interesting, like difference between like CrossFit super intense, you know jiu-jitsu can be super intense. Yes, is the act of like you can't do jiu-jitsu without touching another person, right Like so that physical closeness is super uncomfortable for a lot of people, and I don't think it should be and I don't think it used to be, like you know, 100, 200 years ago.
Speaker 1:I I don't. I think that the fact that we're so technologically advanced and we're so isolated in a lot of ways that, uh, that we're missing this component of physical touch, you know yeah, we're missing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder if I I would. I wonder if it is different now than what it would have been 200 years. I think that your small group of people like us that are okay with it or at least become okay with it, has always been a small group and that's why you don't see more women doing it and that's why you don't see more men doing it and that's why you don't see, because people think that they get to a certain age and now they're too old to do it. You can do to your 60, 70 years old and you you may adjust. You may not go with the 22 year old badass. I may go with somebody else and that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying you may chill and go here, but you can still do the work, you know, and that's what I love about it, and to me, that's that, that's the point. So I don't know, because, granted, I know I have a couple cousins, both really good athletes, pretty boys, look good, whatever They've always been like. Oh, I don't want some other dude grabbing on me, I don't want somebody. Oh, that's, you know, I don't want that. And I'm always just like. You got to try it, bro, because if you try it, you'll understand. And I say this to everybody, I say this to the world, because it's the voice I get to have, just because we're here, and who knows if it's one person or ten people that listen to this someday, but when you do it, it changes you. You change.
Speaker 2:And when you stay the course, because it becomes this like me against me thing Okay, I did this thing, it's uncomfortable, kind of got my ass beat Do I say not for me, me, and now I don't come back and confront that thing now it's not confronted forever, or until you come back. Or do I say you know what? I'm gonna learn how to get better. Because I'm uncomfortable, because I'm not that good at it, I'm gonna figure it out and I'm gonna see if I can get better. And almost inevitably everybody's gonna get better. The longer you do it, the better you're gonna get. So a year from now, two years, three years, four years, five years from now, you're in a whole different place and space and then you're not talking anymore about the discomfort. You're talking about how you feel after you're done the euphoria, the connection, the. I always feel like a champ when I'm done, no matter what I don't, it's always like after I've done that, 45 minutes to an hour and 15-minute workout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, what I love too about it is the dynamic, is that every roll is different. Yes. Everything is different. You're never going to have that same exact experience again, like it's there and it's gone. Yeah, you know. So it's like as much as we might roll and you always do knee on belly. It's different.
Speaker 2:It's different in the way you do it, where it's applied, how I'm doing it, how I'm choosing to react to that how you're getting better at defending it too, because eventually it could become a non-thing for you, because you get so good at defending and anticipating that you block it. Now you've evolved, now you've elevated. Now it's not as effective on you as it once was. That's great To me, it's great for you because you've gotten better at your defense, and it's great because I've had to adjust and learn how to do something else.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, even though you might hit me with it, I don't freak out the same way 100%.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, and that's better.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is better.
Speaker 2:That's an improvement, just an improvement right there. Yeah, like physically it sucks for you when you first start and you've never felt it and it's terrifying and it hurts and all of a sudden it's like I've seen this before.
Speaker 1:It's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and you start to know that it's okay, yep you're saying so like you've, you've, you've faced the fear and said you know what?
Speaker 2:hey, it wasn't that bad yeah it sucked, but it but it's not as bad anymore because I, I know, I know what's up. That's the beauty of it and that, to me, is the trick I always think about how do I reach more people to get them to step across the line, to get on the mat for jujitsu, for wrestling, for learning some boxing, kickboxing? And I can't do anything but try to get inside their heads and their heart and just say, man, if you've thought about it, if you're thinking about it in any way, shape or form, just come check it out. You know, mean, and 95 of the time at least, I think we've done a pretty good job of that.
Speaker 2:um, but most people in jiu-jitsu are not assholes and they're going to show you and they're going to help you and they're going to be nice to you and they're going to say, hey, man, try this or hey, man, try that I mean, and you like you want to talk about um like an eclectic, diverse quote-unquote group of people like yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It is such a more uh like interesting group than CrossFit gyms I've been to Really, oh yeah, like people from everywhere.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you get.
Speaker 1:you get some whack jobs, but you get you get a lot of normal people too, right, I mean, you get. You get bankers, you get cops, you get stoners, you get like you get everything you get the mix man. You get every race, religion, like, and that's just here. You know, like in bigger cities, I'm sure, I'm sure it's even crazier but I love that part. Yes, very cool to see.
Speaker 2:I've I've been super grateful, man, that you and your community because I have a lot more police officers in just my group Like I'm I go to get a grip. I float to Gracie now too and I'll go do their open mats at lunch. At times it's just really cool, man. It's really cool to see. I think that it's probably one of the best things police officers can do to stay active, to help them, like you said, be more comfortable, because they don't get put into those situations sometimes and I know, you know guys in the force, that they don't do any kind of that type of training. I just think it's good to do for your well-being, for your physicality, yeah Well.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, who was I talking to? Oh, I was talking to a buddy of mine, aaron Giannetti. He owns a CrossFit well, technically not really CrossFit anymore, but he owns a gym. He's a big Krav Maga guy. I think he's a brown belt, suna, blue black belt in jiu-jitsu too. But we were talking about this stuff a couple weeks ago and he's talking about things from a self-defense standpoint and like how important striking is for self-defense, because you create distance and get away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and uh and you know I didn't really bring it up at the time, but, um, with, for law enforcement, like jujitsu and wrestling are so important, I don't know that I would say it's more or less than striking, because strikes are still still still super important. Yeah, but every time that that I go to arrest someone, every time, 100 of the time it is grappling. Yeah, even if it's compliance, I'm putting you in handcuffs. Yeah, like I am taking you, I'm grappling with you. You're compliant, but I'm grappling with you to put you in handcuffs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that happens 100 of the time yeah so if nothing else, jujitsu at least gives you practice in position. So if something happens when something happens, yeah, and you wind up on the ground with somebody, you're like, oh, I've been here once or twice been here many times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that's the best benefit and that's why I think, training wrestling takedowns with jujitsu so not necessarily doing wrestling, but just the movements of level change to a double which are underhooked, or a snap down to front headlock, a two-on-one, a foot sweep, any of those things high, single, high double. And adding to that the jujitsu side for police officers is something that would dramatically like I think it makes them 10 times more effective, with less energy, more effectiveness to get the person to where they want them to do, to comply, whatever. And it also probably in my I don't know because I'm not you, but like I would imagine that it would help for those people that are coked out of their mind or on meth or whatever, that are going to be spastic the whole time that you're trying to lock them down, to get them into cuffs yeah, and so much from a wrestling standpoint, like knowing how to take them down at your discretion, how you want to do it, and then also top pressure yeah like as as a cop, like top pressure is so important and you have to be able to do that, like what you teach for, like body surfing, yeah
Speaker 1:like you have to be able to do that. Um, and then jiu-jitsu helps if you get, especially if you get stuck on the bottom or you get in a shitty spot. Yeah, it's like I know how to escape this. I know how to get an underhook from the bottom, or you get in a shitty spot. It's like I know how to escape this. I know how to get an underhook from the bottom so that I can reverse this and get back on top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. That's why I think it's awesome and something that would be super beneficial. I think you know I've said that we've talked about this in the past, but I think all police officers should be doing that, even just specific to police officers, even if they just want to do it for police officers, like groups of 10 to 20 police officers. Hey, here's some wrestling stuff. Here's some hip positioning. Here's some redirecting people here, there, under over, how to fake and hit a snap down an underhook, whatever, blast, double single and then, like you said, once I get down to the ground, how to put knee on belly, how to float on the body, how to move from here to here to here to here and not ever be able to get swept myself from top, and then to maintain control, no matter where they go. Right, you know what I'm saying? That's huge. Yes.
Speaker 2:And also you know and we've talked about this a lot in the past stuff that happens to where I can do it so efficiently and effectively that I'm not hurting them because I did something way more extreme, because I didn't know any better, that broke a bone or that hurt or choked them or made them pass out. You know what I'm saying. You're hyper aware of what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And to go along with that, you also have the experience and the knowledge to go all right. I know that this is escalating to a point that it's out of control and I am in danger, right. Yeah. And then I know how to escalate that and say it rises to a lethal force situation where I can use the same things in that situation, yeah, and when it's appropriate and when it's not, and then you can accurately identify it's time to take this to the next level or it's time to back it down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and don't juice this wrist lock as hard as as you were. You know, I would ask you if you think because I to me that sounds super, super important like to know, and that there's a lot of people out there probably that don't know, so they go to that extreme situation, that lethal situation, probably way sooner than they had to because they haven't done this work.
Speaker 1:Well, and then you start looking into case law and application of things and it's like, well, there's a lot of justified lethal force engagements that if you were better, you maybe wouldn't have had to take it that far. Maybe, Maybe you know like I hate armchair quarterback and everybody, like you know, body cams are everywhere. Now, everybody wants to do that. Everybody, like you know, body cams are everywhere now.
Speaker 1:Everybody wants to do that. But you see a whole lot of justified shootings where it's like, well, if he could have just taken that dude down and hit him a couple times and put him in a Kimura, he might not have had to escalate that because it would have been in control faster.
Speaker 2:I would imagine. I don't know. But I agree 100% and I would myself personally want to waver on knowing enough so that I wouldn't have had to take it to that and if I did, it was justified always and that I knew. Hey, that was my last resort because I know my stuff enough and I feel enough and know enough about another human body in comparison to mine to know when it's time and when not.
Speaker 1:But I think that that's probably something in that community that could use a lot of work yeah, and then that would actually alleviate a lot of stress, because there's a whole lot of cops that run around scared and it's like you're not going to be as scared if you understand what you're capable of and how things feel and when, exactly, like I know where my line is. Yeah, like if I'm on a traffic stop and I get a dude that blast doubles me right out of the gate and I'm like oh shit, what's going on here.
Speaker 1:And I know that it feels like a blast double from you. I know I'm in trouble. It's already time.
Speaker 2:I know I'm in some serious shit.
Speaker 1:And I need to escalate this immediately or I'm going to die Versus. If I don't train like that, I'm going to be completely confused on what's going on. It's going to take me way longer to uh to like, perceive it, you know, and decide what to do and then what's appropriate, and then what do I know how to do? And by then you're going to be dead or seriously injured.
Speaker 2:I think that that's super important and I think that, um, it would behoove the the that and that industry as a whole to make people do some of those things, because it'll, it'll change your life. You know what I mean. I mean, think about it, think about how many things that people because that's real stuff, man, you're talking about somebody who's taken, potentially taking somebody's life, and they may not have had to because they didn't run around being in fear, because they they know personally that, hey, man, I don't really know about a lot about this, like physical contact with somebody else Right.
Speaker 2:Right, but don't really know about a lot about this like physical contact with somebody else, right, um, but they'll never tell you that. They're never going to come out and say that. You know what I'm saying. They're not even going to say to a counselor after it happens. No, they're not going to ever admit to that. That fear and that's going to stay in them and live inside them that'll, that'll eat them exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2:So to me, you know it it makes the most sense, and I know it's probably not going to happen because we've had this conversation before, but that's why I think that it falls on the individual.
Speaker 1:And it definitely does. Because what you're training about talking about from a training standpoint is like, if we go back to what you said about being in big army, right, that's, that's, every police department is big army. Like the the term training to the least common denominator. Like Like, oh, we can't do this because it's too advanced. It's like, okay, we're not the big army. Like we don't have thousands and thousands and thousands, you know, yeah, like we can do this.
Speaker 2:I've heard that some cities in America have started to force their police departments into doing more jiu-jitsu or more type of training. Is that the case or no?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's uh, they've uh, they've gone more to it um what was that? I think your connector maybe oh, all right, well, um, yeah, they've gone more to it. Um, but the the issue with a lot of it is like you learn moves but you don't learn how to use the moves I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the same thing, Meaning how I would serve. This is how I would serve me being me. You know me and you've rolled with me. I would say, hey, man, let me come in, and all we're going to do is I'm going to lay down on the ground and your guys are just going to go hold me down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that gets to the essence of what you're talking about. I'm not going to try and submit them. All I'm going to do is invert, get them out of position, sweep them, end up on top of them, and I'm not going to say anything about submissions or anything else. I'm going to positionally make them get to that vulnerable spot, like you just said. That could happen on the street at any time.
Speaker 2:Somebody's coked out of their mind 300-pound dude, steroid-taking person, you understand what I'm saying and say look, this is what we can improve at. If you just show up, you 10, 15, 20 guys, whoever it is, I'm not going to do anything to hurt your ego. I'm not going to try and submit you and hurt you. I'm not going to try and prove a point because because that's what every police officer fears is, is this dude going to be an asshole and try and rip on my knee or rip on my ankle or break my arm or wrist? Because I'm a police officer, I don't know this dude, I've been to gyms like that yeah and uh, and it's like, oh, is that your?
Speaker 1:like yeah, and then all of a sudden they crank it up. And it's like dude, I ain't coming back here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, it's a real thing.
Speaker 2:You know, what I'm saying. But my thing is for me, being me as a person, I would offer up to them to say I'll come to your space. All we got to do is have a 20 by 20 mat or a 10 by 10 mat and send guys in for 10, 15 minutes, and I know that I'm good enough and that I can handle myself enough that I'll be able to at least make them realize not through submission, but just realize a movement where they're vulnerable and where they're not. To me, that's the essence of what you're talking about that they need to spend time playing with. They just need to spend time in those situations so they can learn how to get out of them and not be in them I like that you said playing in those positions, and that's and that's really what we miss.
Speaker 1:Like as adults, we miss that, but especially as cops. Like we don't, don't play, like we're playing, like everything that we do is is very uh, like here's a move, here's choreograph, here's this. Like it's not, it's not play, yeah, yeah I think it would be super beneficial.
Speaker 2:Um, and then all the guys that I know know a good amount of guys I always say the same thing, and they all say the same thing that they wish everyone did it too. And sometimes they do it and some. But as a open invite, I'd always, I'd love to be, I'd be happy to come and just roll with everyone and not even submit, just move them and just have them feel, because then you can do it on your feet too.
Speaker 2:Like hey this is how I feel. If you locked up with a guy like me on the street boop, boop, boop and positionally, you know what I'm saying Because you understand positionally how different that is to lock up with somebody that knows how to move their body A wrestler, wrestler, a high level wrestler is different than somebody that you just come across on the street, a high school wrestler or athlete. The way that you can move your hips and foot, sweep and maintain position and control or not get thrown myself because somebody tries to throw me you know what I'm saying like that's another, that's another level of balance and position that I think adds a ton of value.
Speaker 2:But the thing is that for all of this, we never get there unless we go through the journey. You can't just get there, you don't just arrive there, you don't just get to where you understand those positions. You have to actually do the reps, which is thousands upon thousands of reps, and or feel that position over and over and over again. And that's what's missing in my. It's just that hey feel the position, get to here and see how it feels against somebody that's really knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2:so then you can improve on that yourself yeah and then hopefully never have to come across somebody like that. But if you do, then you know it right now that you have to go to excessive force because you're in a situation well in.
Speaker 1:In that case it would be appropriate force, exactly Appropriate force.
Speaker 2:I'm saying yeah sorry, but I mean to me that excessive is appropriate, for it's the right approach. It's the right of force that is needed right now. Yeah. Because I'm in a situation where I know it's like I don't know man.
Speaker 1:You're outgunned and you can. It is yeah, you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, and so you got to go there and that's your guys' call. You know what I'm saying? And that's a lifelong thing, because I don't care if you're a police officer, I don't care if you're. I was listening to Eddie get one of his not podcasts, but like a little post the other day and he was talking about when he would go on deployments and kissing his kids. I sent it to you. I thought what's that? Very deep stuff.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying? That's real shit for cops, because you never know and you hear it all the time. People that you know what I mean, it's real stuff. Yeah that's what I was kind of equated to, and I was never in the military, so I don't know what a deployment's like. But I always kind of look at like.
Speaker 1:What we do on a daily basis is like mini deployment, because you have to go into that zone, you have to kind of work yourself up. You have little rituals, you do, you go to work, you do the shit, and I don't care where. You're a cop, you're going to do and see things that most people will never even realize is happening down the street from their house 100%. And then you've got to come back and be dad and take care of the house.
Speaker 1:You've got to be normal. You've got landscaping and dogs that wear diapers.
Speaker 2:It's crazy shit, bro. It really is crazy, man.
Speaker 1:And most everyday people don't care or don't realize that and that constant mental transition it can be very difficult. And then if you're on a call-out team, like I'm on our SWAT team, it's like you might get called out and it's like, okay, got to go, and then you've got to go back into that zone and then do that multiple times in a day and sleep and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I commend you, man. That's the realest of the real. That's the realest of the real in my opinion. If you've never been in it or you're not in it, you'll never understand it. You know what I mean. I don't even understand it or appreciate it as much because I'm not in it, but to me that's the realest. It's like when I talk about getting in the cage I've never been in a shootout, but when that door shuts behind you and you're in a cage, it's you and that person across from you. Somebody's coming out a winner, somebody's coming out a loser, and there's a really high potential that you're going to get hurt in some way, shape or form. You're getting punched in the face or kicked in the face or the ribs or whatever.
Speaker 2:It's surreal and it's as real as it gets man because there's no one else out there, but you so try to be prepared as best you can. That's all I can say. That's how I feel. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the question becomes like, how do we reach people that don't choose to do it? Because, like, as much as we think, think that. You know. I've got my opinions on how we could do it from a departmental standpoint yeah uh, it's, it's not going to happen, right so like how do we reach people to get them to take action in in doing this stuff on their own?
Speaker 2:I think it's things like this.
Speaker 2:I think it's the podcast I think it's the algorithm of them seeing something enough for them being touched. Because I don't care who you are, everyone, everyone thinks about these things. So if you're a police officer, if you're in a SWAT, you think about the things that we're talking about. If you're overweight, if you're not overweight but you feel like you're not healthy, you're thinking about what you need to do today, but you don't do it. You have a conversation every day with yourself, whether you want to admit it or not, that says I should go do some biceps today, I should do some push-ups right now in the space that I'm in. Nah, I'm going to watch this show. Nah, I'm going to go grab something to eat upstairs. Nah, I'm going to go talk to so-and-so, or I'm having a shitty day. Every day.
Speaker 2:Those conversations it's the subconscious, it's the universe.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I know today, because I've spent enough time talking to enough people and I've seen it and experienced it enough myself, that people are having these conversations with themselves every single day and it's the resistance and it's the fear and you need to stop.
Speaker 2:Pardon my language, but I'll say this because it'll hit home Stop being a bitch and go do the thing that you need to do, and I mean that in the most respectful way, because you're having a conversation with yourself, you meaning whoever ever listens. The universe already knows like you're having these conversations every day, no matter what, and you either choose to address them, engage or you don't, and that, over time, affects you as a human being. And what? And that's why I say when I go do jiu-jitsu, I go lift weights in the morning, I go walk or just getting that. If I don't work out in the morning, which I don't sometimes, I have to do my lunch workout. Or if I don't work out at lunch, by the time it's nighttime. If I haven't decided to take that day off, I'm like it's it's there.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying? Yeah, because we've trained it to be there, because if that's not there, then something else is there, and I can't tell you how many people I know and I don't know how they do it, man. They sit and they don't work out ever. I'm just like I don't even know. I don't want to know what that would be like, because I just don't know. That to me is the most odd thing, but I'm the weirdo to them.
Speaker 2:Like hey, you work out too much. Why do you do what you do? Because it makes you feel good. That's why and that's, in the end, why we're all here we want to feel good and live with intention and connect with people and have good relationships with family, with kids, with loved ones. That's it. It's all about relationships and feeling good and feeling like you're serving a purpose and you're helping people. That's it. You know what I mean in my opinion. Sorry, that's my phone. I'm going to turn it off.
Speaker 1:It's all good. I think that's a pretty good place to kind of wrap it up, man. All right brother. That kind of encompassed all the stuff we were talking about. But if people are trying to find you, is there anywhere that they can get more?
Speaker 2:information from you. Yeah, you know, generics, basic, facebook, instagram. For now I don't have any websites or anything. I probably always think about it, but you can always find me at Anton Talamantes and there's not too many of those, I don't think on Facebook and then Instagram as well. But yeah, that's it, man, and always call me. I put my number out there, I don't care, it's 260-310-9217, I think is what it is. I think that's right, I'm not sure. 3109217, I think. I don't know. If not, I'll get it to you, but that's it, man, and then I'm always available and I appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, this was fun.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what to expect and I was just like, hey, I.
