#76 - Mark Schultz: From Gymnastics Natural to Wrestling Superstar - The Journey of a Relentless Martial Artist - Part 1(Re-Release)

Are you ready to step into the wrestling ring with legendary martial artist, Mark Schultz? Prepare to be knocked off your feet as Mark shares his incredible journey, from gymnastics champion to wrestling superstar, and his pursuit of the ultimate martial art. He'll reveal how a simple bet with his brother's coach led him from the football field to the gymnastics mat, and later, to the wrestling ring where he would make his mark.

Mark's relentless spirit didn't stop on the wrestling mat. Listen as he shares his unique journey through the often tumultuous landscape of divorce, as he moved from Oregon to California, and faced recruitment decisions that would shape his sports career. At UCLA, he found not just a wrestling team, but also a life rich with experiences - from rubbing shoulders with movie stars to enjoying California's famous beach culture. Hear his thoughts on why he decided to become his own best coach, and how that philosophy propelled him to great heights.

As we dive into the discipline of martial arts, Mark shares his intriguing insights into various forms - wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and boxing - and his quest to create his own unique martial art. He sheds light on the importance of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, and the moral dilemma he faced during the 88 Olympics. We wrap up this captivating conversation with Mark discussing the crucial role of relationships with coaches and teammates in shaping a successful sports career, and how he faces challenges with the same fortitude he showed in the ring. Join us for this episode packed with inspiration, wisdom, and the power of relentless determination.

Below is the link to Mark's book that tells the REAL story of his brother Dave Schultz's murder.

https://www.amazon.com/Foxcatcher-Brothers-Murder-Madness-Olympic/dp/014751648X

Transcript

Speaker 2: 1:13

Okay all right, everybody, we're here for another episode of the vision quest podcast today. I have with me probably oh, I can't even explain the things that I've watched and the things that I went through in an attic with my brother Because of this guy and his brother. I'm talking to Mark Schultz, the man, the myth, the legend, the, the guy who that probably made me tougher than I probably was ever gonna be, just because I had to be him when I was wrestling my brother. So I'm here today to talk with him a little bit and and hopefully share some insights with you guys that you probably haven't heard Already. If you, if you've watched any documentaries on him or heard any other podcasts with them. I'm sure not the first person he's ever talked to. So, but we'll get going now. So mark you. You, you came up in wrestling, but did you know, when you grew up in just in general life, what did you start out? I mean, what did you start out doing? Were you in a different sport than wrestling? Did you start with? You know, football, soccer?

Speaker 1: 2:16

No, I was well like elementary school. I did all sports. I didn't know what to specialize in. And then my coat I, my brother. He got into wrestling in the seventh grade and he Just loved it and he stayed in it, I know, for the rest of his life. But I Was kind of I didn't really know what, what I wanted to do and or what I should do or anything. I always thought I should get some money's for like baseball or football or something. But and when I was a eighth grade I wanted to do his wrestling practice with him over at Palo Alto High School and the coach there he showed me, he bet me that he could teach me a backflip and listen five minutes. So he did.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I quit all sports and and went into gymnastics full-time and that's right yeah. In two years and I had a really my coach of Palo Alto's name was Ed Hart who also ended up becoming my wrestling coach after I quit gymnastics.

Speaker 1: 3:40

But I had another gymnastics coach over at Stanford. He said Al Hamada and he was really good. Stanford one national, a bunch of times, okay, and Two years I became the Northern California all around age group gymnastics champion. But it wasn't really giving me the Confidence that, the confidence that I knew I needed to be happy with myself, and my brother was incredibly confident. I mean, I was just, I just happened to be born into the same family as the greatest high school wrestler in history.

Speaker 1: 4:22

I mean, maybe Jimmy Carr might have been the greatest, but it was a between David Carr, one of the other yeah, yeah. Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award after Dave. So, yep, you know he was extremely confident and he wasn't like that this his entire life. When he was younger, he had dyslexia and he's uncoordinated and he couldn't really play sports that well when he got into wrestling and the hand-eye coordination kind of cured his dyslexia.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Oh Do everything better, he could read better, he could move better and plus, you know being dyslexic, you know, you know you want. Dyslexia is where one side of your brain Never takes dominance, so like if I'm right-handed. I'm left-brain dominant. Okay well he never his, he never took his brain, ever took dominance one side or the other yeah and is.

Speaker 1: 5:23

He was right with his left hand but he kicked with his right foot so he was like, very, he could use amadestrous, you could do Anything he could. He did you. Wrestling was equally well to both sides and so it was very hard to wrestle in. I was very hard to scout him. Yeah, in 1976 I quit gymnastics because I needed to. Actually I wanted, I Wanted to get into like a martial art. I want to learn how to defend myself. Okay, that would be the thing that would make me happy. So I quit gymnastics and I went out for Tangsudo, which was a Chuck Norris style martial art. And After my four months of Tangsudo I got in a fight with my brother and he beat me so bad I said, screw Tangsudo, I'm gonna have the wrestling wrestling team the next day. And I gave it everything I had. I mean, I pushed myself so hard.

Speaker 2: 6:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah, but I just couldn't win. I was my record my junior year was four wins and six losses. And then the coach is that the semester and the coach kicked me out the team because I couldn't win in competition. Oh, I Complain to the principal because he had the coach developed the challenge match system.

Speaker 2: 6:57

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 6:58

He said, if you want to make the varsity yet to challenge off everybody in your weight class every week, the entire season whoa oh brutal system.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So I beat this guy that was in my weight class like ten out of eleven times, eleven times in ten weeks, mm-hmm. But my record in competition wasn't that great, you know, because I was Trying to keep my intensity up so high for this, these challenges, just to keep my spot, that I just couldn't maintain that level of intensity. And I yeah, anyway the coach, even though I had made the team under his system. Yep he's gonna kick me off the team because I wasn't winning in competition. Oh, oh.

Speaker 1: 7:51

It wasn't fair. So I went to the principal and I told him this guy, this coach, created this system and I Honestly made the team. You know I earned it. Yeah, he kicked me off and the principal forced the coach to put me back on the varsity. But because I complained to the principal, the relationship between me and that coach was pretty much destroyed.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Sure.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So I left. I was in high school and I transferred Palo Alto High School, now at Ashland. I was a 130 pounder but over the summer Between my junior and senior year, that was my my first year wrestling was. I was a junior in high school. Mm-hmm and Transferred Palo Alto as a senior and I grew 30 pounds over the summer Wow, just to. I was still. You know, I could still do all the same gymnastics tricks that I could do as a 123 pound gymnast.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Yeah so I had a huge advantage because Nobody could do the kinds of athletic maneuvers I could do. That was flexible, you know, yeah, sir, the gymnast are the greatest athletes in the world when it comes to Flexibility and explosive power. Upper body strength.

Speaker 2: 9:12

I believe it.

Speaker 1: 9:14

You know, balance, kinesthetic sense, which is the ability to know where your body is in space of all times. Yep and so I had an advantage there. But what I didn't have was experience, because I mean, I had only been wrestling for a semester at Ashland High. So my trip to Palo Alto, I started wrestling in 154 and then it goes up to 159 at the end of the year, but it started up at the way class and I we're a team was scheduled to go to three tournaments a year the.

Speaker 1: 9:54

Alousal invitation know the monovista and there was one other, but I broke my toe and didn't go to one tournament and I went to the Alousal tournament and I got beat my first match and I was out and I went to the monovista tournament night, took third and that was the only experience as I had in tournaments. At the end of the year I won the league, which was nine schools. Then I won the region, which was 20 schools, and I won the central cost section, which was 90 schools, which was a thousand. And it was so miraculous I started to believe in god.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Yeah, did you so did you? Were you able to compete against your old school? Then, too, did you beat the guy from the old school that you went to?

Speaker 1: 10:51

No, that was in. I started wrestling in Oregon and I transferred to California.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Oh, down to California. Did you have family down there that you went there? What was the situation there?

Speaker 1: 11:02

Our parents are divorced. My mother's in Oregon, my dad lives in California.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Gotcha when.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I turned to California. I moved in with my dad.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Gotcha, okay, okay, so then. So yeah, thousand schools and you. She wound up thinking it was a miracle.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Yeah, and then I got a scholarship to college. Yeah, the problem was I, because I came out of nowhere. Nobody knew who I was. I mean, I was the brother of Dave Schultz right pretty much, but they didn't know anything else about me because there wasn't really that much to look at or you know, I didn't have really a. You know my record, my entire scene, my high school record, is um 38 and 30, 34 and eight.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Okay and so I got. I only got recruited by two schools. Sure, both of them gave me a full ride. One was Oklahoma State, and the only reason they gave me a full ride was because Dave was going there and they wanted to keep him happy.

Speaker 2: 12:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:13

He was he his freshman year. He. His record was 30 and three and he took third in the NCAA. He was named freshman of the year and the so but they want that was 150 pounds and yeah. Dave actually won the state championship in California 170 pounds, which was the weight above his normal weight, but his normal weight was my weight, 159. Okay, and wanted him to cut to 150, you know, to make the team better at Oklahoma State, which he did his freshman year and he did good.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:52

You didn't want to maintain that weight and keep cutting all that, all that weight Every week, you know, and he was good enough to make a team in any way, so he felt he shouldn't have to. To turn, they had a good Ricky Stewart who was really good.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Oh, yeah, yep.

Speaker 1: 13:10

And he, him and Dave were at the same weight and he thought if he just wrestled off Ricky he could be the 58 pounder. But the coach didn't want him. The coach wanted Ricky a 58 and David 50. So Dave was pretty miserable at Oklahoma State his entire freshman year.

Speaker 2: 13:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:28

And the only other school that recruited me was UCLA. Ucla gave me a full ride and it was great because All my friends went to UCLA. I knew the coaches down there and so I decided I thought, if I went to Oklahoma State, I've only been competing 16 months, so I mean, how am I going to? You know, the confidence is either built up or is destroyed every day. And I thought if I go to Oklahoma State, these guys are going to crush my confidence so bad. I mean never recover, yeah. And so I thought I needed to take an intermediate step and Go to UCLA instead of Oklahoma State, because these guys were just Chilots, I mean the international champions.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Yep.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Just the college guys are head and shoulders above the high school guys Anyway yeah. Every college guy that wrestles like state champion at least one time right.

Speaker 1: 14:26

When I was Oklahoma, our entire room was had state. Everybody in there was a state champion and except for the coach's son, but he was still third anyway. Uh, I decided to go to UCLA and, uh, my record there was 18 and eight and the coach there made me or he was a great coach, he was named was Dave obo. He was fourth in his fourth in the Olympics and he was a two-time NCAA champion.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Okay and standing wrestler in NCAA, super tough guy and he was a great coach. But, um, he wanted me to cut to 150. During that year I was a 159 pounder and he wanted to cut to 150 and so I was, but I was a gymnast, so he went back in his era.

Speaker 1: 15:20

You know, everybody cut their balls off to make weight, yeah, uh, he thought that because they thought it would give you an advantage, but it really doesn't it. Whatever weight you're at that you're, you're gonna compete against guys that are at the same weight.

Speaker 2: 15:34

So right right.

Speaker 1: 15:36

It doesn't make any sense. I mean it. It did, that didn't maybe, but it didn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:43

And so, but I tried it. I went down to 150. I dehydrated the hell out of myself and that was the only way I could lose weight because I was a gymnast. Oh, I remember a road trip and I lost four out of the eight matches I lost that year on that one road trip just because I was dead and I could barely make weight and I could bend the wrestle. And dehydration really affects your conditioning and your strength and everything. So, yeah, I, after I got back from that road trip, I decided never to.

Speaker 1: 16:16

Let anybody tell me what weight I should go and, and so I became my own best coach. I came to cutting weight so, and eventually everybody has to become their own best coach at some point. Usually, you know, around their senior year in high school, they feel they've got a handle on. You know the sport and sure.

Speaker 1: 16:39

I can Make their own decisions and they don't really need their coach in their corner every match. You know right, become independent. So, uh, I, I never listened to anybody tell me what weight I was supposed to go, and I I mean even my junior year in college I was wrestling 177. I only cut two pounds to make 77 and uh. But the problem with ucla, well, there's a. I mean, ucla was a great place to have a freshman year, sonny. There was movie stars walking around all over the beach down the road.

Speaker 1: 17:17

I mean, there's just the girls are walking around in bikinis and there's Just amazing.

Speaker 2: 17:23

It's great yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:26

But the problem was they didn't care about wrestling, they didn't support the wrestling. There was no fans in the stands. Yeah it was just really a low budget rinky dink program. But, um, it was great to go there my freshman year. But we thought If we stay ucla, our chances of winning the nc double a's are gonna be like If we win, if we win a ucla, it'll be a miracle right where, instead of it being a miracle, yeah, yeah it expected, like the, the powerhouse was back in i1, oklahoma.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So After a freshman year we me and dave we both made the junior world team and we met Jim Humphrey, the assistant coach, and we decided let's go to oklahoma and wrestle for jim. So we did, we transferred there and that, uh, I wrestled, you know, at oklahoma for the next four years.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Yep, who is? Who is your competition in that room?

Speaker 1: 18:38

When I first got a little man, this was a brutal, only the most brutal. You know that book outliers by uh mountain gladwell.

Speaker 2: 18:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:50

The Beatles, they, they, they're, they're a good band in liverpool, but then they get this gig in homberg. It's some strip joint, yeah, so we go from playing one hour and I playing eight hours a night. Yeah, come back from homberg, another great band in the world. Yeah, oklahoma was my home bird, got my 10,000 hours in there, and when I first walked into that room, um, uh, there was a guy in my weight. I didn't know anything about who's at what weight. During, you know, the time that I was at UCLA at oklahoma, there was a guy named israel shepherd, who is a total bad ass.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Yeah student is built like hercules.

Speaker 2: 19:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Super fast. I mean, he's him and me. I have fast twitch muscle fibers and I'm a. I'm a. I have a low max VO too, but I'm a great sprinter and me and him would always Finish first or second, and every race the coach was put us through.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Yeah and he. But and he was really good he was third in the nc double-a's and I thought, man, I'm not gonna make the team. The guy who's third in the nc double-a's is at my weight class. Yeah well, he used to. He used to corner all his hair and you know, if you ever felt the guy's corner out here, it's like steel wool yeah, he would drive those corners into my face.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Oh, I take a shower afterwards. I'm a sting like crazy. Then, uh they my head gear. I used to wear a cliff king head gear. Yep, the padding was wearing away and the metal was shining through and he went to head. But man, I turned and I cut him with the metal and the head gear. I thought I think I just found the answer to his corner.

Speaker 2: 20:55

So, so with that, with that competition, though you because you, whatever you talk in the stories that you tell I mean even even just talking now, you talk about your drive to win it's always been there. So we're as far as, as far as the intensity you put in, the amount of energy you put into something I mean with your gymnastics and the things like that I mean, have you ever gotten to the point? When you're in that room, or even you know wrestling with, those guys were like I don't know, I don't know if I'm gonna do it, I just don't know if I'm gonna cut it.

Speaker 1: 21:28

No, I knew I had to figure out a way to win. I quitting never entered my mind. Okay, and the reason was because I knew Dave was going to become a national champion. Yep, and want to be. You know, some footnote in Dave's career, you know. Oh yeah, he's got his brother Mark.

Speaker 2: 21:51

I know that feeling.

Speaker 1: 21:54

And my brother, dave, was so good and he was such a great training partner, I knew that if I just trained with him long enough, that I would eventually, you know, rise to his level.

Speaker 2: 22:07

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:09

He was really brutal on me. I mean I see him when he's coaching and stuff and he's like helping everybody.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:16

So he never taught me anything, which was fine with me, because I would rather just look at something and copy it than have somebody explain. You know every little detail. Yeah, I don't like people talking to me when they show me moves, I just want to see it.

Speaker 1: 22:34

To show me, you know, because I was a gymnast and I was used to visualizing very complicated, risky techniques. Like you know, I used to do two and a half twisting, one and a half backs off a three meter board. That's a very difficult thing to do. I've been even visualized for most people, right.

Speaker 1: 22:49

I was able to do it, and so I was really good at visualizing stuff. As soon as I saw it, I could do it. I mean, especially wrestling. Wrestling moves are so simple. All you got to do is look at it and you can do it. Yeah. So, that's good. And anyway, Dave, I knew Dave was going to be a national champion, so I knew I had to figure out a way to do it myself.

Speaker 2: 23:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:15

He didn't tell me how, but I knew he did show me that it was possible, yeah, which, you know, really helped me a lot. I mean, this is my dumb older brother, dave. He's going to be the national world champion.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:34

I was always a better athlete in the family and I just couldn't take the fact that he was going to go on doing great things and I wasn't.

Speaker 2: 23:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:44

You know I was in for the ride of my life. I just had to figure it out on the way.

Speaker 2: 23:49

Yeah Well, I had the same situation kind of growing up. We played soccer, my brother wrestled, I wrestled. Up until like my junior year we played soccer, and that was kind of I wasn't going to be the footnote, especially in high school. I knew I wasn't going to go to college, so I was trying to do the best that I could with what I was doing, with what I had time with, so I was doing the same thing I was going to make sure in high school. So I I hold the high scoring record I played semi pro soccer.

Speaker 2: 24:14

He didn't. Once he was out of high school, he got to college and he just kind of burred out. But at that same point though, too, I found myself like I didn't go to expensive camps, he went over to Europe for soccer stuff like that. I was working with a curb and a garage door and a Yorkshire Terrier as a defender, so I was doing anything I could with whatever I had to get to that point. So I know I feel your pain on that, because you're like no way is he getting over on me, because he did all the other stuff with the ice cream cones and the sandwiches. He's not getting over me on this one, that's for sure. So I can definitely identify with that.

Speaker 2: 24:52

When you, when you started when let's go back to gymnastics did you have intensity and like a fire to want to beat guys all the time? Just in gymnastics, did you have guys that you picked out and you're like, okay, he's going to be here, or were you? Was it like track, where you just competed against yourself based off of, like, your last event?

Speaker 1: 25:13

Well, to be honest, you always compete against yourself, that's your real appointment in sports, regardless of what sport it is.

Speaker 1: 25:24

I just I knew because, I mean, you don't have to be a brain surgeon to see that gymnasts are the greatest athletes in the world. So I thought if I could just do what they do, I could do anything athletically, and so gymnastics was the best foundation, for I think all parents should get their kids into gymnastics for about two years, because if they, whether they like it or not, after two years of gymnastics, they'll be able to go into any other sport and figure it out really quickly, like my coach, my gymnastics coach Stanford, sadat Al-Mata. When he retired he decided he wanted to learn how to golf. Okay, he just went out to the golf course and he just taught himself, and now he's this amazing golfer.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:22

And this is what you know. So I, you know gymnasts have them. You know the best combination of athletic skills you can have and you know everything's very intricate, everything's very detailed, it's very complicated, it's very risky. You know you got to you know millimetres math? I mean you, do you know a release on the high bar and grab it again? If you miss by a millimetre you could break your neck.

Speaker 2: 26:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:52

Yep and Jim said the highest per capita percentage of broken eggs of any NCAA sport. It's just the way it is.

Speaker 1: 27:02

He's mad Anyway. So I knew that you know I had. It wasn't the high intensity wrestling room atmosphere where you know you're freaking, drenched in sweat and it looks like you just jumped in a swimming pool and you know feeding some strange clothes to the water sport. It's more like you know you. You know you spend like the whole day inside this gymnastics training facility and you know you you're not, you're not concentrating all your energy into a short amount of time like you are in wrestling, okay, spending hours and hours and hours like the whole day just trying all these different tricks and working on your flexibility and just it. It takes a lot more time and it's less intense until you know you do a flyaway on the high See. Back when I was competing, there wasn't the spotting equipment or the crash pads that they have today. Oh, really, I mean today you can jump straight head first into a crash pit and you won't even feel that Right.

Speaker 1: 28:21

You can jump into the crash pits and stuff like that. It was more like, okay, we're going to put a crash pad on the ground and then we're going to have some spotter here. Just go for it, we'll try to spot you.

Speaker 2: 28:35

Oh, that's not. That's something I did gymnastics, I think for like maybe a year or two when I was a kid. And thinking of that without crazy, like I can't believe they didn't have those crash pits and stuff like that back then, Cause there's no way I'd put my hands into something, Even though they're a coach you still have this level of doubt in your head, Like what if I, what if the millimeters count on that one and they miss you know kind of thing, Holy cow.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Yeah, and see now, because of the advancement in safety technology, the gymnastics that you see in the Olympics today are at a much higher caliber level. Yeah, they were back when I was competing. Yeah, and the advancement allowed them to take bigger and bigger risks over and over again. Yeah, repetitions is the key to success in anything.

Speaker 2: 29:23

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:27

It's what you know the technology allowed.

Speaker 2: 29:30

Yeah, so when you, when you got, when you finally started wrestling what, what was your? What was your hardest moment or hardest match when you ever? When you first started wrestling, who was your hardest match? Where you were like I'm going to go out and I'm going to win this, and you're like, holy crap, that guy just kicked my, my ass. What the hell just happened there?

Speaker 1: 29:49

What's the?

Speaker 2: 29:50

question who was? Who was your when you first started wrestling? When you got into it, who was the hardest match that you had? That you thought you had in the bag but wound up surprising you. I, I had a lot.

Speaker 1: 30:08

I wasn't very successful.

Speaker 2: 30:09

my first year, my first year, Well it didn't have to be the first year, second year or whatever it was where you you thought yo, I work pretty hard, I'm going into this. Then the guy winds up kind of taking you by a point or two and wins the match. Have any of those?

Speaker 1: 30:32

You know, I never thought of that. You know, my whole mentality was whoever I'm wrestling. It doesn't really matter who I'm wrestling. My real opponent is myself, and the way I'm going to win is by distributing the amount of energy that I have throughout a match in chunks. You know explosions that will score or defend the other guy.

Speaker 2: 31:16

So you're pretty tactical.

Speaker 1: 31:19

Well, I had to be because I had a very low max VO2.

Speaker 2: 31:24

You know, max VO2 is I do, but the others may not.

Speaker 1: 31:29

Okay, well, I'm a master's in exercise physiology and max VO2 is the maximum volume of oxygen your body can consume, measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram body weight per minute exercise. So you can actually test you as they put you on a treadmill and they give you one instruction. They put a gas analyzer in your mouth, put your nose and they give you one instruction and they go run till you drop. I'm like what? So you turn the treadmill on and it goes at I don't know six miles an hour, and then they increase the incline every minute yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Until you can't run anymore. It's incredibly, incredibly appreciating and painful. I mean, my heart was at max heart rate for three minutes, yeah, and it was just afterwards. They determined that my max VO2 was 50 milliliters per kilogram per minute, which is eight points lower than the second lowest world Olympic champion ever tested, at least at the time.

Speaker 2: 32:33

Wow.

Speaker 1: 32:34

And so it's like okay, here's everybody else, and then here's the second lowest guy, and then there's 50 feet of crap, and then there's me. Well, I figure out a way to win with a very low max VO2 in a sport that requires a fairly decent man. It doesn't require a real high max VO2 like marathons, but it is. It's not a totally anaerobic or aerobic sport, it's a combination of both. And I was so anaerobic I got called for stalling so many times. I probably set the record for stalling calls by any NCAA champion in history because they just they didn't like my style. The referees liked the Iowa style, because they were constantly moving and shooting and shooting and they drive them to submission by exhausting their opponents and then they would just fall down.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Right.

Speaker 1: 33:34

The technique weren't as important as conditioning, which, you know, something I had to figure out when I got into wrestling, you know, when I got into gymnastics. You know, technique is the king of gymnastics, Conditioning is the king of wrestling. I had to switch that over, you know, and it's much harder to condition than it is to do anything else. I mean, you're basically driving yourself into suffocation, like four or five times a day where you just can't get enough oxygen. At least that's what it was for me.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:10

Max VO2. So I tried for a long time to minimize that weakness in my DNA by doing lots of long distance running. Well, when I got my masters, I realized that you can't change your Max VO2. It's programmed into your DNA.

Speaker 2: 34:30

Oh, really yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:31

No matter how hard you train, You're either born a marathon runner or a sprinter or something in between. You can only increase your Max VO2 by about eight points, and so you know me having a 50 Max VO2, man, I walked around normally at about 42.

Speaker 2: 34:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:51

Well, at the beginning of my career I did lots of long distance running to try to increase my aerobic power. If you had added up all the miles I put in running, I'm sure I've circled the earth at least one time Right.

Speaker 1: 35:05

At least. But after I got to be there, I know, after I started figuring out the wrestling game pretty well and my body started to have its own mind, I didn't have to think about my techniques anymore. That's one thing that everybody has to go through is they have to constantly think about the techniques, but then after a while, your body, it acquires its own brain and it just moves automatically to where you're supposed to go.

Speaker 1: 35:34

You don't think about it anymore, and so by the time that I did that, I realized that I should spend less time trying to eliminate my weaknesses and more time magnifying my strengths which was my explosive power and so when I did that I became much better and my last match in America beat two time NCAA champion at the St A Ressert 13 to one, and that was my final match, but that was when I hit my peak. At that time it's unfortunate that I had such a shitty situation with class catcher and Dupont, because he really destroyed my motivation to compete and I actually threw my last match at the 88 Olympics.

Speaker 2: 36:28

I heard about that yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:30

A lot of people think I was injured. That's not true. I mean, I had some minor injuries or something, but that thing was considered dishonorable or shameful to throw a match for any reason you know, like you know, fake pro wrestling and stuff but that at that point I just felt it was immoral to win an Olympic gold medal for the team the guy that was running the team that I was on- yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:58

I come to this conclusion until halfway through I didn't. It didn't occur to me until halfway through the Olympics. And when that occurred to me I just thought I'm going to make it so obvious I'm throwing this match that anyone can figure it out. And when I threw that match and went back to the United States, I packed up all my stuff at the Fonsecacature and I moved out and I never wrestled again. So then, three years later, I had an opportunity to learn jiu-jitsu. And then, eight years later, I had an opportunity to fight the UFC on Nohlesburg cage bite, with no weight passes, no gloves, no, no rules, except no eye gouging, no biting.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Sure.

Speaker 1: 37:53

Thank you. To me, that was even better than going out of winter in the Olympics, because my purpose, my intention from the beginning, when I started wrestling, was not to win championships, it was to learn how to fight. Winning championships was just giving me an indication of where I was at.

Speaker 2: 38:10

Sure Yep.

Speaker 1: 38:12

That's all I cared about was being able to fight good, being able to defend myself good, and and so it didn't really matter to me. I mean, I already had an Olympic gold medal, so it didn't really matter that I threw that match, the Olympics.

Speaker 2: 38:29

Yeah, so. So because of what? Wanting to fight, why not box?

Speaker 1: 38:35

Well, boxing is not a very good martial art.

Speaker 2: 38:38

No, no, no, but I mean just a fight in jail. So so you were in gymnastics.

Speaker 1: 38:42

It's the best punching I mean boxers can punch better than anybody. Sure, and you have to learn how to box. But you, if you're going to be a good all-around fighter, you can't just rely on one Martial art or one sport. Like boxing Component with Muay Thai kicks and knees and elbows, wrestlers take downs and conditioning Jiu-Jitsu guys. Submission holds.

Speaker 2: 39:08

So were you? Were you then, I mean, through this whole process, whether it was wrestling, or through your whole career? Were you dabbling in martial arts Then? Were you just? Were you in a karate studio or you know, working with someone Just a little bit, you know, not focusing on it? Were you doing that in the meantime?

Speaker 1: 39:27

In the meantime. Yeah, yeah, sorry that's fine. Okay, no, I didn't have time, okay, I had to focus everything. When you go into a sport, you have to like, tell yourself okay, I'm gonna become the greatest, whatever gymnast or wrestler or you, just you guys, I'm gonna become the best at that particular specialty. You can't. That's the best way to. I mean my opinion.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Yeah, yeah that's the way to approach getting good at a particular skill as you tell yourself I'm gonna become the best at this particular sport. And then Later, you know, I transferred to a different sport. You know, I went from gymnastics to wrestling, to Jiu-Jitsu Nobles, bar cage, fighting, and but and I didn't really know that much about boxing I had a guy named Shane Stone and coach me Boxing before I Fought me. You see, I didn't plan on fighting, you see, but Learn how to do that. I had a Muay Thai coach teach me some stuff. And of course, I had my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach, pedro Sauer. You know, I had. I didn't need a wrestling coach, I was my own best coach in wrestling, but anyway, yet those.

Speaker 1: 41:07

After I got them competing a wrestling, I became the assistant coach at BYU and switched over to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu then, I learning, you know, boxing, muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I combined them all with wrestling and to create what I thought was the ultimate martial art.

Speaker 2: 41:26

Well, and so you mentioned too that your coach from gymnastics wound up coaching you in wrestling.

Speaker 1: 41:34

That's right, ed Hart was the gymnastics coach at Palo Alto High School. He was also the wrestling coach.

Speaker 2: 41:41

Oh.

Speaker 1: 41:41

Transferred. It was kind of a weird story because I was his gymnast and I was the league champion. I won every event in the league championships and but they wouldn't give me my medals because I was only in the ninth grade and high school started at 10th grade.

Speaker 2: 41:55

Yeah, cheap.

Speaker 1: 41:56

So he actually Wicked receiving their medals because they wouldn't give me my that's cool, that's cool emotional experience. But then when I quit gymnastics he was really hurt because I was his best gymnast.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:15

I moved to Ashland, oregon, and then when I came back at 30 pounds heavier and I actually wrestled that coach in a wrestling room one time as soon as I got back and I Kicked them down like 10 times he was like wow, this guy's gonna be pretty good and he's gonna be on my team.

Speaker 2: 42:36

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:38

It was really great having him, and I think he just took over as the head coach at that year. Okay and so it's just a coincidence that my gymnastics coach in high school was also Gonna be my wrestling coach in high school, and he's a great guy to have. I Submitted his name to be inducted into the California Wrestling Hall of Fame just recently and he went through that entire year with me. I mean, my senior year in high school was the most miraculous year of my life and I had some pretty miraculous years.

Speaker 1: 43:09

Yeah, but it was great having him there because he was in my corner every match. He witnessed the entire thing and and you know, there's not many people that witnessed the entire thing right for him. Well, you know my teammate Jeff Newman. Even Jeff wasn't there at the state championships but yeah, it was really. He was the closest Person to me, my best friend in high school Nice nice.

Speaker 2: 43:35

Well, and that's you know. Right now I the only thing I can. I had a great soccer coach, and even a wrestling coach was great. Yeah, well, that was great one of leaving my sophomore year, because he's kind of done. He coached my brother. He was there a long time but I had, I had a great relationship with my soccer coach, especially just an old German guy, and he yelled in German when he got angry, but he spoke really, really good English so you could never really tell if he was joking or not, because he never spoke German until he got pissed.

Speaker 2: 44:07

So then you figured it out. But where we are now with Liam, my, I have a 13 year old who's in wrestling and that's what we were looking for. We moved, you know, we moved from one one city to another just because of the relationships and things like that that he needs in order to be better. So it's it's good that you mentioned the relationship, not only just with the coach itself, but with the team, because to me, the team thing is huge, especially if someone is having a hard time coming up in a sport like wrestling. That is very demanding. You know things like that and with that, with that support that you had when you got into college be whether UCLA. I mean, did your, did your wrestling friends from high school wind up going to college and wrestling too with you?

Speaker 1: 44:50

Yes, actually. First of all, a lot of people think that they've helped me go from gymnastics Into wrestling and winning the state championship. That's not true. I didn't wrestle with Dave one time from the time I quit gymnastics, the time I won the state.

Speaker 1: 45:06

Yeah not once. But there was a guy on my team at Palo Alto High School named Jeff Newman and him and me we went to wrestling camp together and he was probably my best friend at Palo Alto. He was a student and and he went undefeated and he was at the weight above me. He went undefeated all year long and I Was doing really good against him in practice.

Speaker 1: 45:36

Yeah and me after we, me and him, we would both go to two practices a day. We'd go from Palo Alto High School's practice over to our crosstown rival Dunne High School when the Stanford guys were running their practice. So we'd go from Palo Alto High School to wrestle with the Stanford wrestling club every day all summer long. Man and I Was doing good against Jeff and I was doing good against Stanford guys and Stanford guys. All college guys are head and shoulders, above all high school guys.

Speaker 2: 46:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:12

So, even though I wasn't winning in competition, I only went to two tournaments a year. But yeah. I was undefeated in dual means and it gave me a lot of confidence because, even though I wasn't winning, I knew I was good enough to win sure. Yep and I just needed to put it together in Competition, which miraculously just happened for me at the end of my senior year yeah. I'm still the only California state champion history never to win a tournament prior to the state qualifiers.

Speaker 2: 46:48

No kidding.

Speaker 1: 46:49

I had to thank Jeff and I had to thank the Stanford wrestling wrestlers and the coaches I had in high school. I had two coaches in high school. One was Chris Harpal, who's a great coach, and one's Ed Hart, who's also a great coach.

Speaker 2: 47:07

So with. So when, when you got so you get at high school, you had a great, great background with a great team, yet some good coaches behind you. When you get to college and you know UCLA and you like you said it wasn't like, it wasn't like a room like Oklahoma State. I mean they weren't. They weren't like expecting that they're gonna win a national championship. So you did you have guys in that room that were pushing you as well, or was that when you were, when you were describing it as it's not really kind of the environment I expected kind of thing, or did you still have some guys in there?

Speaker 1: 47:40

No, it was a very tough room. Jeff Newman, my teammate at Palo Alto. Yeah he went to UCLA with me. Okay, he was the one sixty seven pounder, I was the one fifty eight pounder, okay, and we also, our team, if you would have it. We had a very, very tough room. We got the kissler brothers, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:07

We had Gary Boe, who was world silver medalist. Yep, we had, and see if we had. We already had Jackson and Harlan kissler, and I'm sure we would have got Marty and Lindley kissler too, but they went to Iowa. Okay but if we would have kept the program, program was dropped. But if we, it was dropped not the year I was there or the year they had a year of competition after me and Dave left and then they dropped. Okay. Okay, people think we left UCLA because they drop program.

Speaker 2: 48:42

Yeah, not true Right.

Speaker 1: 48:44

Anyway, we had such a good team and Dave obel had recruited such a good class that year I actually put together a fictional team and I had it up all the points that we scored at the NCAA's, yeah, and put that after, after the program dropped and everybody scattered to different schools, I added up all the points that everybody scored and we had over a hundred points and at that time at the NCAA was They've rarely won with over a hundred points.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Yeah, I think it went to like the 80s most of the time at 80 points or something like that, I think.

Speaker 1: 49:20

Right, I think when Arizona State won they had like 89 or something.

Speaker 2: 49:25

Mm-hmm. Yep, yep.

Speaker 1: 49:27

Anyway, uh, yeah, we, we could have won the NCAA's. We had a great team and you know we. It's just unfortunate that, you know, they didn't see what they had or they didn't care about wrestling enough to to Support it more. You know, I mean that we had our first NCAA champion at UCLA when I was there my only year. Yeah, we are heavyweight. Fred Bono moved from 190 up to heavyweight and won the NCAA's and I think the 190 pounders were actually tougher than the heavyweights.

Speaker 2: 50:06

Well, and it's weird though, too, because when you talk about how you know they dropped the program. It's weird because it seemed like wrestling at the time Was more like a midwestern eastern kind of thing, like it wasn't big, because when I was wrestling, even when my brother was wrestling, we live in Wisconsin, so we didn't have. You know, I heard about my brother and his crew going to Iowa Once or twice in a year, but that was the farthest they went. But you still had your iowa's and I think even back then I think, uh, you know like it, you know oklahoma I mean you're talking everything from Our side of the country over seemed to, you know, kind of catch on to wrestling a little bit.

Speaker 2: 50:44

But it didn't seem. Because I always heard and I didn't know enough about california wrestling. But I always heard about guys saying, well, you know, california isn't all that great and they weren't doing all that great for a while, stuff like that. But I didn't understand enough because I was a kid and I was just coming up in one little program that we had. So I was like oh, yeah, yeah, it makes sense, and all this other things. So it seemed like wrestling for a while was like midwestern eastern. It didn't seem like it was very much of a western type of sport at the time, like football, basketball and even track was.

Speaker 1: 51:15

It's true. I mean, wrestling is such a Core sport and it's such so little money and it makes it very difficult to travel In long distances to get competition. And the western states are so big and the wrestling programs are spread out so much, it makes it very difficult to.

Speaker 1: 51:36

Get the competition. You know that you need to get it. You know a good, get better or whatever. But california because it's only california state In high school wrestling championships is the only state, I think, that has one division and everybody competes in that division, correct? And? And there's a thousand schools, yeah, that makes it the toughest high school tournament in the world.

Speaker 2: 52:04

You're a true state champ.

Speaker 1: 52:06

Even though you might have won the california state, all the eastern and midwestern schools come to california to recruit high school state champions.

Speaker 2: 52:15

Sure, yep, yep, and they're doing great. Now I mean the tournaments we've been to and the duels we've done and stuff like that. I mean california is doing just fine, they're they're coming along just fine, and even even we had some friends come from washington, uh, and we've seen some kids that they've wrestled with. Now, too, they're doing just fine, they're doing good. You know, obviously it could use a little more attention than what it's getting, but there's some really good kids out there, man.

Speaker 1: 52:43

Yeah, you know the if you go to a private school You're going to get the best education, but If you go to a public school You're going to get the best athletic education. Correct, it's just by sheer numbers.

Speaker 2: 53:00

Yeah, yeah, yep, correct. So, coming out of high school, you get into college wrestling UCLA, get you guys transferred to oklahoma. When you're wrestling in oklahoma, are your eyes on you know how we have rts now, stuff like that? Or your are your eyes on the olympics in college when you, when you're At oklahoma, are you even thinking about it? No, no.

Speaker 1: 53:23

I didn't think about anything. All I did was observe the moment yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:31

My mind observes the world. I live completely the moment. I couldn't afford to think that far ahead. As a matter of fact, I used to Read as study this Eastern Indian guy named j krishna murty I guess I could call him a philosopher, a teacher, but that really, he doesn't really belong and he doesn't. He labeling him to me seems disrespectful because he's not just one thing. And he taught me I went into the self-help aisles of this bookstore one time and I was looking for anything that could help me because I really wanted to Become a good fighter, I wanted to be more confident and I wanted to overcome my own fears. You know, there's two kinds of fears. There's like paralyzing that fear, yep. And then they're kind of fear that you know animal spiel, when they're like you know Forced fire and they have to get out and they get this big burst of adrenaline. Or some woman's, baby's, trapped under a car as she comes in the throat and lifts the car up fighter flight Yep.

Speaker 2: 54:36

So Well anyway yeah, it's a sweet ringtone. I love that. It's awesome. So you're looking. You're looking for any way to get some help.

Speaker 1: 54:51

Yeah, what are we?

Speaker 2: 54:52

talking about. You're talking about, you're trying to. You lived in the moment and you're looking in a self-help book.

Speaker 1: 54:58

So and one, one aspect of that was I knew because if and this is true, you know, we all if we think about the past or we think about the future, it doesn't really, it's not really good for your psyche. You need to just Live in the moment.

Speaker 2: 55:16

Sure. Observe your mind, observe the world.

Speaker 1: 55:19

Observe everything for what it is, not what it should be, and without judgment, and just observe it and see what happens. And so when I felt like a fear, I would like just hold it really tight, like I'm looking at a precious jewel, and see if I could learn anything about it. And watch it like a hawk, without judgment, without, yeah, any words going through my head. I just watch it and I and more from that paralyzing fear to that super adrenaline, like a superhuman like an open door yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:54

And it it helped me a lot doing that and this guy, j Krishnamurti, really Changed my life. I mean, the combination of wrestling and him together, you know, created one of the most miraculous experiences of my life, my senior year in high school interesting you.

Speaker 2: 56:13

You know that because it's my. Liam likes to read a lot. He reads a lot. So he's actually read all of dang he's 13. He read all dang ables books at like eight or nine. And then he was reading a couple other ones I can't remember what it's. A couple other ones that I was completely surprised by uh, ruth jupiter ginsberg. He read her book. So you'll have to send me that book Because I'm gonna let him know about it and I'm gonna let him know exactly why you're reading it and all that stuff, because he gets into that mode.

Speaker 2: 56:45

And now is that and it's funny that you're mentioning the that you weren't focused on the future in the past, because right now that's kind of where he's getting to. Then he's finally focused where he's not concerned about everybody else. He just believes in himself. That it's my thing, I know I'm the best, I know I can win it, regardless of who he's wrestling. He could be coming up against hulk hogan next, but he's kind of thinking of that, that mentality.

Speaker 2: 57:10

So, knowing that my son, my son, my 13 year old, what's that? His name is liam, liam, yep, yep. So he's, he's kind of getting to that mentality because it was for a while it was a I suck, I can't beat this guy, I can't get past this. And I had the same fears when I was playing soccer, coming up against a you know, a defender, a middle defender. If I knew I couldn't get past this guy, I would just sit there and think about it. You got to climb past that and you kind of you got to realize that it's not about what you just did, it's about what you want to do and Just kind of facing what's in front of you at the moment, just like a coach tells you Next match, what's in front of you, that's it. You don't have to worry about anything else.

Speaker 1: 57:54

That's right, and that actually, uh, you know, ex uh exhibited itself in my life when I went to the state championships. I mean, I didn't intentionally do this, I just observed myself doing it and I would look at the state championship Bracket sheet to see who my next match was coming up, and then, as soon as I read the name, I'd walk away from the bracket sheet. Yeah, because it didn't matter when I happened. What happened after that, my life that started at that moment, just like our lives are starting at this moment, and we're gonna go to that match, and whatever happened after that was didn't gone, it was. It didn't exist, it was another life, it didn't matter, and so my life existed from this moment to my next match, and that's all and even. But even even that, even that time span Was was looking into the future, and so I didn't, and I didn't want to look into the future. Yeah, I want just to observe the presence. So I was observing my Every step I was taking with my foot.

Speaker 2: 59:09

That's how, oh wow.

Speaker 1: 59:12

I thought about the pastor, the president. Yeah just proving the president. I mean the pastor of the future. I was observing the president.

Speaker 2: 59:20

Well, we're gonna break here quick because we're gonna start breaking into your your after college years here quick. Um, so, if you got something you want to drink, grab it, because I I have a feeling you have a lot of stories coming up.