Unpacked In Santa Cruz
"Unpacked in Santa Cruz" is a homegrown podcast hosted by Michael Howard that dives into the lives, stories, and salty moments of people who call this coastal community home—or have been shaped by it in some way. Whether it's a deep conversation with local surfers opening up about mental health, or a peek behind the curtain of someone who started a one-of-a-kind food spot right here in town, every episode brings something real.
You’ll hear from folks who found healing behind the lens, built businesses from scratch, or chased massive waves thanks to a lifetime spent around our local waters. These aren’t just interviews—they’re conversations that reflect the heart and soul of Santa Cruz. Raw, reflective, and rooted in community, Unpacked in Santa Cruz brings local voices to the surface.
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 62: Nathan Mendelsohn: Homegrown With Global Bonds
A shy kid from Live Oak skates to school, paddles out at Pleasure Point, and learns quickly that lineups have rules you won’t find on the beach signs. Then a jiu-jitsu academy opens behind his house, and everything changes. Nathan Mendelsohn’s story isn’t a straight line from surf to mats; it’s a layered map of belonging—how a combat art became a family, how Brazil reshaped a Santa Cruz mindset, and how loyalty can feel both territorial and generous depending on which door you walk through.
We dive into the unfiltered realities of Santa Cruz surf culture—status games, heckles, and the pressure to fight for a place—and contrast them with what Nathan found on the mats: older competitors who asked where he’d been, packed cars headed to tournaments, and a crew that measured worth by consistency, not image. From there we explore Brazil’s imprint on identity: the pride in presentation, the fierce us-versus-them loyalty, and the way Rio’s urgency trains you to move through crowds—and around life—without losing your calm. Along the way, Nathan shares what it takes to coach well now: protecting tradition without turning students into customers, building elite rooms without breaking people, and teaching the too-hard white belt to become safe for others and himself.
We also get practical about self-defense. No chest-pounding, just clear truths: space is your friend, running is a strategy, and jiu-jitsu’s value is control under stress, not internet heroics. And when the world feels loud and hopeless, we settle on a grounded optimism: keep showing up, keep rolling, keep surfing. That discipline—quiet, steady, communal—is the antidote to despair.
If you’re curious about Santa Cruz culture, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, real self-defense, or how community can change a life, this one’s for you. Listen, share with a friend who needs a nudge back to the mat, and if this conversation resonated, subscribe and leave a review so more people can find it.
I'm always loving life, cause she's never been sweeter. Love her, even if she's been a bitch, cause you'll never defeat her. Sembo five, never die. Multiply in the battles when I'm still alive. If I ask if you feel me, I should get no replies. If you don't give it when you speak, then we'll know it's a lie.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Unpacked and Sustainable Cruise Podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Multiply in the battles when I'm still alive.
SPEAKER_01:I'm your host, Michael Howard. Song from Nathan Mendelson right now. The guy sitting in front of me. Nathan, welcome back to the program.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks for having me on again. Yeah. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01:So hey, I just want to acknowledge up front that uh, you know, we we did a previous podcast about a year ago, and and uh it's not really an apology, it's just more of an acknowledgement that uh, you know, I I really felt I was in the way. You know, that like that that there was just you know, what whatever perspective I was coming from, you know, you were one of three in a row that was just like something was off. And uh, you know, it really ended up being a it being a great change and into this new format. And anyway, so thanks for redoing this with me and and I appreciate you a bunch for for showing up again and yeah and dealing dealing with me learning on you.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I didn't feel that, but yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:I know I was I I was trying to cut my teeth there, and anyway, so here we are. So I want to thank Santa Cruz Vibes magazine and uh Point Side Beach Shack for their help in sponsoring the program. And anyways, you're here. I'm here. You are here, so so why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, you know, whatever you want them to know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, um I am a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, been training since I was 10 years old, teaching jujitsu here in Santa Cruz since about 2005, really. I mean, when I was a bluebelt, I started helping with the kids and never really stopped since then. Um been ranked my highest ranked I got was eighth in the world in my weight class, national champion, um, a few different um titles. And yeah, just that's my main focus. Um uh dealing with a little knee injury right now. So hoping to add to that uh that list of titles eventually, but it's been uh it's been a fight to even get back to competing. So just been really focused on the coaching and stuff right now. But yeah, thank happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so you you you have a unique uh experience in that you actually grew up in this town, and and so why don't you tell the audience a little bit about your experience growing up in Santa Cruz? You know, it's my audience is is really getting to know pretty well, and what's weird about my audience is like only 20% of them are are from the region. So uh you you're you're talking to a global group right now, and yeah, so what was your experience like growing up where you did?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I grew up in Live Oak, um near Pleasure Point. I went to Del Marementary School, which was right up the street from my house, and then Shoreline, which is just a little further away up the house, so well up the street, so from my house. So that was nice, like um riding to school on my skateboard all the way up until high school. And then it was on the bike to So Kel High after that. So that was always cool. The jujitsu academy I started training at because it opened like right behind my house, so that was the same thing. It was like my whole life was kind of within like a one-mile radius. It was like skate to school, come home, skate to jujitsu, come home. Like, so that was cool. Um, my dad, he's from the bay, he grew up in like Hayward, Oakland area, and he's been coming to Santa Cruz to surf since like the 60s. Like Santa Cruz is where he would go with his family um on the weekends to go to the beach, and then when he was old enough, he started coming down here to to surf a lot, and then um he became a ski patrolman at Kirkwood. So he would spend his winters, winters up there and then live in Santa Cruz on his sum in his summers to surf. That's where he met my mom. And then um eventually my mom wanted to stop doing the winters in Kirkwood thing, and like, hey, we gotta pick a spot to live. So they picked Santa Cruz. Um, so my dad's been surfing here for a long time since before there were you know stairs down to the to the point, and you had to throw your board down and climb down a rope and all that stuff. And um, and uh so he had me uh on a surfboard when I was real young. He's got pictures of me in like a tiny little wetsuit. He used to put me on like floaties and put me on his back and go longboarding at second peak and stuff, and so surfing was a big thing for me to. Um, I was on like the surf team at Shoreline, but I was always a longboarder. My dad was a longboarder, and I started trying to make a transition kind of to shortboarding around high school with my friends, and then then I by then I was already deep into jujitsu, and um I kind of started running into like kids that were like a year or two older than me, like giving me shit in the water and everything, and like and it was never my main thing, so I was kind of like going through that awkward phase of like trying to learn how to shortboard and getting heckled and whatever, and which is just a part of the learning process of it. But I just gravitated more towards jujitsu because that was my thing I enjoyed more, but also I just like that you know, there were guys that were like in their 20s, you know, and some of them were like high-level competitors, like world class competitors, and you know, they'd be like, Hey, why weren't you here yesterday? You know, like you know, they'd be like, Hey, we're going down to compete this weekend, like hop in the car with us, we're gonna go together, or like we're gonna go train somewhere else. Like, hey, you want to come? Like, you know, and I went to stay with uh Paul Shriner when I was 17 in Rio for the first time, and all the older guys were like really like encouraging, like in jujitsu, it's like people like, why weren't you here? Like, you know, you want more people here, and then I'd go surf and it'd be a kid like two years older than me, like, oh, this fucking guy probably out again, and and it just turned me off to surfing, honestly, for a while. And I I stopped surfing from around that time, probably like 17 until like 20 something, when like I started having friends like Hoffa um and Ricky and Fernando and those guys, and they all surf and they'd be going surfing, and then all of a sudden I like mentioned one day that I knew how to surf, and they're like, What you know how to surf and you're not coming with us? And I'm like, Yeah, no, and then I actually grew up here, bro. Yeah, and they're they're like making fun of me, and they're like, Well, let's go then. And like when I first started going out, I was just going out on like a seven-foot like board, and they're all making fun of me, like going down with my seven-foot board because I was still trying to learn that like transition from like a longer board to a shorter board, you know, yeah, in my like 20s at like 22 or whatever. And then I kind of figured it out, and now I'm like, I say I'm like an eternal like bluebelt surfer, pretty much. Like, I'm like that guy that like trains jujitsu but is always injured, and then other things happen, and he's never there enough for promotions to get his purple belt. So he's like been training for like 20 years, but he's like still a blue belt. Like that's kind of where I'm like stuck, and I have a goal of like lifetime, you know, being able to say confidently, like I'm a good surfer, you know. And uh so yeah, so since then I've just been trying to, and I had I don't know, Santa Cruz was great, but I always felt a little bit like it was weird because I played water polo, so I knew all the surfer guys, but I had that weird experience with surfing, and you know, most of my bullies when I was in high school were like older surfer kids and stuff, so I've always felt like kind of outside of that crew a little bit, and then as I get old got older, and then be like I would go to the bars or whatever and see people like that, and they would react to me like, Oh, hey, like what's up, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think you're their best friend all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it's not that I'm uh well, I just I didn't think that I was like accepted, and then uh I'm like, you know, some of this is all in my head and stuff, you know. Like I really wish I wouldn't have stopped surfing because of that when I was younger, you know. I wish I would have just kept surfing all the way through. But um, yeah, so that's been my kind of thing. Like I was like, you know, a shy, like nerdy kid. Like I wasn't like, you know, really the I wasn't like in that in crowd and like high school and middle school and everything. Like I knew all those guys, they're all like my friends, but then I would like go home and like write stories or like draw comic books. Like, you know, I wasn't like the kid hanging on the point, like skate, I skateboarded, I surfed, I did all that stuff, but I wasn't like hanging out with the city.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you were you were part of that crew.
SPEAKER_04:I wasn't part of that crew, yeah. So it always kind of like that that was like a weird thing to me. And then I started going to Brazil every year and then started speaking Portuguese, and so I started getting down, like I feel real like connection to to Brazilians, and uh so most of my like real close friends are Brazilians, so then eventually I had this like little like crew of of Brazilian guys that live here that I'm like good friends with, and that's like my real close crew. So I don't know, it was kind of a unique growing up because I was in the middle of it, but not there, there, yeah, really.
SPEAKER_01:So let's let's rewind that a little bit, you know, because my audience is very familiar with this story in some way. You're echoing, you know, in in a space that that is being rehearsed in multiple ways. And and the you know, f again for the audience, you know, we we have so much in common, you know, in that space, although I was a part of that crew, right? Uh you know, you you grew up in a town, you know, with a dad. We're where the this is normal, right? Right. You know, we we had many people's fathers were these people that were attracted to surfing, moved to Santa Cruz but also skied, right, you know, and did this routine in between the two spots. You know, so there's this lifestyle that was embraced from the 60s through the 70s, yeah. That really represents the town and it has its own uh flavor to it. You know, it's like it's how Santa Cruz surfers garnered the reputation of uh being bums, I guess is the best way that I mean that that's how it was portrayed to me when I was young. I then became a bum myself at 12.
SPEAKER_04:And uh well that was the old school surfer thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, surf bum, like yeah, just but there's just this persona, and then of course, you know, through my era of surfing, it got professionalized, you know, with there were industry guys like myself that might have, could have gone pro, not really made it, but were industry pros. Like this thing emerged in this town like it did in Southern California. But you're you're coming on the wake of the of that first big yacht, you know, that that came through town. So when you look back, you know, on your youth and the Santa Cruz that you grew up in, you know, you've shared a little bit about what it was like to have to sit in the the thing, which here you are an expert at fighting. You're not a fighter. Surfing was a fight, yeah, yeah. Like every day, you know, that it was it was always, you know, had its thing and you had to keep your head on a swivel. You know, in this culture, and I think especially with your age group, which I think is really the last age group that really had to encounter the thing. Yeah, you know, the the the the if you wanted to surf, you had to know how to fight and surf good. Right and you had to be good every day. You know, what was that like, you know, in in the face of you know, you talking about it ideally in a way. I think it's really cool to grow up here, yeah. But you know, what's what is the butt part? You know, it it's like it's changed in really, really good ways. Yeah. You know, because you're you're talking about going to Shoreline. You know, like did you know that Shoreline is the best middle school now? Yes. Like if you got stuck at Shoreline, like that it was like not the the junior high to get stuck in when when when when you grew up here, you know, now it's now it's one of the best, if not the best, in the whole county. Yeah. Which is which is just a strange thing. You know, that they've grown into themselves and learn how to encounter all the dynamics that happen.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, you know, for those of you who don't know, it's it's the beginning of Midtown, which is in essence where a lot of the service workers for the county were able to afford to live there.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So you had gangs, you had all the stuff that goes on because you know they couldn't afford the next neighborhood down. Yeah, you know, it just was the nature of the space. I don't think there was any intent of it being that way, it just was that way. No, yeah. You know, but you know, in your experience, which is very different than mine, I'm a whole two miles from where you grew up, and it's like Silver Spoon World, you know. But like in a mile away, I wasn't really welcome either at Pleasure Point.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Even though I'm so supposedly a local, but but you know, amongst the guys who know, I'm still still the total rat kid. Yeah, you know, wasn't a point guy. Right, right. So, but you grew up in a very interesting hub, you know, which which is the beginning of Midtown, which is no man's land in a way. Yeah, you know, you don't belong at the point, don't belong on the west side. You guys had, you know, you guys, like we said before, you had blacks, you had the cove, you had you had uh uh San Emo's to have beaches to go hang at, like it's your own little crew. That that the band of misfit toys. Yeah, yeah. You know. So so what what what does what what other expressions do you have inside of your heart about like those moments growing up there?
SPEAKER_04:Um yeah, I mean like I I knew a lot of like Mexican kids and stuff from when we were really young, and I do remember when we got up into high school and all of a sudden, and then a lot of them were like doing the gang thing and stuff, you know. Even some of the white kids there was a white kid that I went to high school with that got shot in the leg during and he came to c school on crutches at Soquel. And he he uh he became like a total hippie, like grateful deadhead, like after that and stuff, but he thought he was like a little Mexican gangbanger, and there there was definitely that side of it. The um I I was like I I when I was like 14, I decided that jujitsu was my thing, so that was pretty much like my my whole social circle started to revolve around that, and that was like my main thing. Uh like what you're saying about like um things changing for the better. It's like yeah, I think there is it's not as gnarly like now in the water, which is a good thing in some ways, but then it's also like you know, I feel like a kid coming up now might not feel the same type of thing quite as much to like when you're paddling out, you know, it's because just people aren't allowed to be as gnarly anymore because people call the cops now, and like, you know, and but at the same time, there's also kind of no control either, you know, it's like it's gotten so blown up in the water that like you know, you'll see people out at sewers on like a soft top that had don't know how to surf, you know, or whatever. And like, so that creates its all its own types of problems and stuff. But I don't know. I look back fondly on on my on my childhood. I don't it definitely wasn't a rough child. I had a really great supportive um family and everything. I just yeah, just I never really felt like I fit into like any crew, really, you know. So I think that's why when I started doing the jiu-jitsu thing, and then it was like that kind of became my crew, you know, and then like it was around when I was like 17 or 18 that we started to have like that's why I ended up speaking Portuguese a lot, like was uh around like in between that first time I went to Brazil and then the second time, Master Claudio was starting to take like the BGJ tour thing more seriously, so he started to take some time off teaching and he would bring in, but I wasn't quite I wasn't a black belt yet, so he didn't I hadn't filled that role yet. So he would bring up guys from Brazil and they would stay at my house, right? So then it was like now I was living with like two like high-level black belts at my house and you know, all year round, and then I would go down to Brazil for like two months in the summer and like stay with their family, and that's when I really started speaking Portuguese, and I just became like my crew, you know, like we would just like hang out together, go out together, and like so that was kind of my thing, you know. I was like a a shy loner, like not loner, really. Like I have my group of friends and everything, but I was just like I was super shy when I was like in high school, you know. Like I I look back to like you know, girls that wanted to hang out with me and stuff, and like, you know, and I just like I had some weird thing with like if they like me, then they must not be good enough, or like, you know, like there must be something wrong with them if they like you. Yeah, exactly. And like I had girlfriends in high school, but then it would always not work out and whatever, and I would always like as soon as they liked me too much, then I would like not like them anymore. And I I'm like, I look back, I'm like, dude, you're such an idiot. Like, but like I didn't go to prom. I I went to like one formal where like a uh one a girl from school asked me, and then like, but we were just like friends, you know. I think she liked one of my friends, and he was going with someone else and whatever.
SPEAKER_01:And she wanted to go to the dance.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I didn't have the the initiative to like ever like ask a girl. I was so like afraid of like the rejection and everything, and I don't know, it was weird. Like I look back and I'm like, people probably weren't reacting to me the way that I thought that they were, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but but I I think what you're sharing highlights a certain reality that that you know what we know as Santa Cruz has a lot of big personalities. Yeah, you know, that that there's this this thing about this place that like it's super impactful in the strangest way. Like like like I said with the podcast, you know, it's weird, like my audience isn't from here, yeah. But the influence is crazy, yeah. You know, I I I haven't it's not that I haven't interviewed people that don't have broad influence, clearly I do, but it's like it's the nature of this place, like it's a very international spot. Yeah, you know, we we we're capturing the same kind of percentages that you would in Los Angeles or New York, right? You know, where there's a big international population, but there really isn't one here. You know, it's it's pretty much whitey world here, and and uh and so yeah, I mean it wasn't it was in all of our heads. I mean, even cocky guys like me in high school still still went through the same kind of stuff, you know, like they used to still think of things.
SPEAKER_04:You don't really realize like how cool of a place it is that you grow up in until you start like traveling and stuff. Like when I first realized like that this isn't like a normal not everyone grows up in a place like Santa Cruz, you know, is like when my friends from Rio would come up to do worlds down in LA and they would always drive up to Santa Cruz and want to stay with me a week, and then they would be taking pictures all over the place, and then for the whole rest of the year until the next year when they came back, they would be doing like throwback Thursday of like one of the photos that they took in Santa Cruz. I'm like, they live in Rio de Janeiro, like this is like the most beautiful like city in the entire world, but like Santa Cruz was like special to them, and then I'm like, oh, like this is just like normal to me, you know, like or like driving down to LA and like all of a sudden be like, wait, like people actually live in these like places here, like so this is what somebody sees every day. Like, you know, you hear that when you're growing up, like people that mostly people that don't surf or don't use the beach. It's not so to them, it doesn't it's not as big of a ad that they live right next to the beach because they're just you know, the I grew up with lots of people that just smoked like weed and like moles and it just became little like alcoholic like urchin people, you know, and like all of a sudden you start my Santa Cruz sucks, like I need to get out of here and whatever. And I'm like, that's what I'm kind of like, all right, go then, dude. Like, really, you don't you don't think that this is a cool place to be, like people like that, you know? So it's like a weird thing like that when you grow up here, but I think having having traveled a lot, because it is a little bit of a bubble, you know, and you start to like even just politically and stuff, you know, like when I was a kid, like I thought the whole world was like in line, like everyone was like liberal, and and you know, like you'd hear everyone kind of echo the same sentiments about like George Bush or whatever at the time, you know, and like it wasn't until I got older, and like or I my mom's family's from Minnesota, so I would go back there and they're very conservative.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's right. That's right. Your ears got real open that's real fast.
SPEAKER_04:No, I just thought they were crazy. Yeah, I was like, these people are crazy, like everyone like believes what I believe, and then like as you get older and you travel and you see different things and your mind blows like grows differently. You kind of start drifting more to the middle of the political spectrum yourself, you know. But you see how much of like a little like it is kind of a bubble here, you know.
SPEAKER_01:It's a bubble where nothing happens. That's that's what's amazing about it, especially politically. We have all these ideas about yeah, what we could or should do, but yeah, you know, nothing really changes other than taxes. The taxes just go up, right? But but the problems get bigger with the taxes going up. Totally, yeah. You know, let's let's circle around a little bit uh about you know Brazil. You know, that there's uh there's a very strong Brazilian contingent here. You you have the experience of kind of kind of right when it got traction, right? You know, like for for anybody who surfs, it was really the early 90s where guys started showing up, including Claudio, paddling around everybody, and you know, it was let's just say that those experiences we'll we'll leave those in the background. You know, they were they were not the best of moments. All of our behaviors are best left behind in those things, but but you know, you also were part of the jujitsu community, and and rather than really you know, talking about the particulars of jujitsu, you know, because that's usually what where you're always getting pulled into, you know, there's this community though there that really is beautiful. It certainly has been a great community for me to be a part of and and get some traction in my life later in life. But you know, the people are really, really what makes it beautiful. And and you know, again, I remember when Claudio showed up and all all the stories and all the things that that happened back then, but what has come from it now is just really great. Yeah, yeah. You know, that that that you know, we have multiple clubs here, all with different expressions of of their interpretation, you know, from from all the all the uh Gracie family, you know, things that that emerged, the little cult. Uh but you know, you being able to be, I think, a first next generation of expression there, yeah. Why don't you share a little bit about what it's been like for you to be in a Brazilian community that's actually from your hometown? Yeah, you know, that that you got to experience these guys. You know, I mean Fernando and Ricky, of course, are easy easy ones, but there there's been more than multiples, in my experience, just at the club, of people that do come here and live here for some time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Just to do jujitsu in Santa Cruz, and they don't go to Mecca, Orange County, yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't go to north north San Diego County, they come here because there's a sense of family, you know, in in in that partnership that lives here in Santa Cruz. So you know, like in in that context of like there's this Brazilian family that's here. You got coached by a Brazilian in high school, you know, Marcelo Adas, is that how you say his yeah, you know, is probably the most important water polo coach in Northern California, yeah, as far as high school goes. Yeah, yeah you know, like he's he's an import. Yeah, you know, he showed up. It was yeah, I don't think he ever played water polo, but was coaching water polo at SoCal High two years later and and made one of the most dynamic programs. Like, like there's just this thing about being Brazilian that's super competitive, and like it worked.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, he produced you know near Olympians, actually a couple now that I'm thinking about it. Yeah, but but and you're coming in right in the wake of that at SoCal High of having to live up to that stature, right? Like it's just a unique spot.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So so what was that like for you just being with that community?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, uh definitely that going to to Brazil like uh really influenced my personality in uh in a lot of ways, you know. Uh it was like so just certain things that like I mean, in in every way it is kind of funny how I got like this that Brazilian influence from both sides because it was like my water polo coach and my uh jujitsu coach are both Brazilian, like randomly. So it was yeah, and they knew each other and everything, but they're kind of like push tug of warn for me to at that time because I started jujitsu and water polo about the same time when I was like 10. And uh and I was good at water polo too. And like I was MVP on Waxum, like I think in eighth grade, like right before um high school, and then it was about in like high school age where I really my like jujitsu became became like priority and water polo became secondary. Because before that it was like I think I don't remember what wax how waxum was, if it was like a couple days a week or uh because jujitsu used to be as a kid, it was Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday. So I was like doing jujitsu three days a week and then doing water polo, and I could pretty much do both of them like full out, you know. And then it was around high school where it was like now practices during the season are every day, and now I'm in the adult class in jiu-jitsu, so now jujitsu's every day, and I have to train every day if I because you know I'd be competing against adults or almost the juvenile bluebelts are worse than the adults, honestly, because adults you get all range of people that are into it or just starting or whatever. But in the juvenile blue belt division, it's all kids that started as kids and are like real serious, you know. So I was like, I had to be doing jujitsu every day, and and um that's when I I started kind of like stepping a little way in high school. I was I was still a starter like all the way through varsity. Um my good friend from like middle school, Scott Goddard, was like our like kind of um best player, and I was like the best defensive player, like he was our whole set, I would guard the whole set, and um but I started drifting away from it a little bit there. Um but yeah, just like the I don't know, like all kinds of different things. Like I would go, I remember one time I went to Brazil and I had like holes in my socks. And and my Brazilian buddies are like, What? How did you grab this pair of socks out of your like out of your um you know, wardrobe and put it in your bag and there's holes in them? Like because down in Rio, there's like a much more of like a like how you look and everything, and it's more like an LA kind of vibe type thing. And they're like Brazilians are like, you know, Brazilians take like three showers a day, like it they like brush their teeth like three or four times a day. Like it, you know, and I'm from like Santa Cruz where we just like you know, we just wore the same high socks and you know, shorts, and I'd wear vans until there was holes in them and whatever, and you know, and like and I started to like started to challenge some of my perceptions, like of what is like that that's what I really liked about spending time down there, is like, and just go on other places in the world too, like things that you take for granted as like this is like a human thing, or this is like a the way things are everywhere, and then you start to realize, like, oh no, that's like an American thing, or like that's like a Santa Cruz thing, even like you know, and then you start to re start to challenge like these certain things that you take for granted as like that's just the way it is. Like going to Japan was a big one for me with that, because it was like, you know, you think you have to you know lock the your car door because if there's a million people around, there's gonna be one that's gonna test the door and take what's in it if if it's not locked, and then you go to Japan and no one locks their doors just because no one is gonna try to steal your shit. Yeah, you know, and then you're like, okay, this isn't a human thing, you know. It's you know, whichever place you're in, maybe it's that way, but it's not not necessarily that way everywhere, you know. And uh, you know, it affected my personality for good. And for bad, I kind of overcorrected some in some ways because Brazilians are very like Brazilians are very aggressive, you know. Like they're very aggressive in a lot of ways. They're aggressively like loyal and you know, aggressively like they'll take your side, but it's also you know Brazil Brazil's a tough one because Brazilians are like the awesome best most awesome people in the world, but they'll also be the first people to tell you that the only problem with Brazil is Brazilians, yeah. They're they're they're they're their own worst worst enemy, you know. And uh, but then when we say it, it's like it sounds racist, and but it's like and I love Brazilians, but it's kind of like they always say, like, I can talk bad about my sister, like I can complain about her, but you can't complain about her. So like Brazilians will tell you all uh day what's wrong with Brazil, and that it's really the Brazilians that shoot themselves in the foot over and over again, because they have everything to be, you know, a full-on first world economy. They have all like the resources and everything, but really it's the politicians are just so corrupt that they just like drive the country down, you know, and it's like Brazil really has this like us versus them type of a thing, you know. It's really like if you're one of ours, like we'll like die for you. Like I just met you, but I'll I'll fucking fight 10 guys with you, you know. But if you're not one of ours, you're not in our crew, like, hey, let's let's jump the line in front of that guy. And and if you don't jump the line, like if you just don't try to push your way to the front of the line, you'll just never make it because everyone's gonna jump in front of you, and you're just gonna stay in the same spot. So eventually you're like, fuck, like, I gotta jump in front of this, you know. So there's like a little bit of that to you. And I think that's what kind of runs into like the Santa Cruz more laid back vibe and stuff. Like when a Brazilian comes here and he's used to like Rio, like you know, or some follow, or like in the water, like it's like if you don't try to paddle around the guy, you're never gonna get a wave because everyone's just gonna paddle around you. So you get used to that, like I got I I have to do this. Like, and surfing is a little, it's not paddle around people, but you have to nudge your wave.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you have you have to be aggressive. I think especially here, there's there's well, it it's you know, now that you're talking about it, it's weird how intertwined we are because you know, I do view those of us who grew up here as one big gang, right? And there's a loyalty to it, like you may hate the dude, yeah, you know, but like you got his back because like we're from here. And that kind of loyalty over love prospect, you know, it's not really love that you're doing that out of, but it looks a lot like it, but it's not, you know, it's not we're just loyal to these things, and uh we're you're one of us, yeah. You know, so like we we got each other's backs, yeah. That that strange intertwining of of culture, you know, we are quietly aggressive. And I I love how you talked about having holes in your socks, yeah. You know, but it was just normal to like play it down, you know, that like the it really wasn't wealth per se, but just like you didn't want to look like you're wealthy. It's just one of the personas of the town.
SPEAKER_04:Here you wasn't cool to try to look good, like if it looked like you were like trying too hard to to look good, it it was like you're lame. Like, you know, if you're if you're like coming to school with your hair all like you know, gelled and and and combed or whatever, like or trying to wear you got real new stuff on or whatever, it was always like, look at this door.
SPEAKER_01:We know everybody here, we know who you are.
SPEAKER_04:Like, what are you trying to do? Yeah, it's like it just wasn't cool to like, you know, and it's like in Brazil, it's like kind of the other way, like they all, you know, they want to have the new little thing you want to flex and always be wearing something nice, you know. It's like it was definitely like an eye uh opening thing for me, you know. And go going to Brazil, like too is nice just because like you go to train and like all of a sudden, like somebody that you just met, like they're like, Oh, we got we are we're having a barbecue this weekend, like come over and like oh, and they're introducing you to you, and then you're like it was just a weird experience too, being like special to them, you know, like they're like it's the American, like everyone in training is like it's the gringo, like you know, and they're like they're like that guy fucking rocks, like you just because you're a gringo, you know, like you're like special to them, so then they're all like treating you super nice and inviting you over and they want to show, like, hey, I've because for them it's also like an international thing, like anything that's like American is cool to them, kind of like you know, my friends would be like, like, show me an event, like, look at this event that's happening in your state, like down in down in uh Orange County, they're having like a yeah, are you going? Are you going? You know, like this type of stuff's like happening all the time. Like, you know, like that's you know what I mean? Like, it's just like a weird thing, like that. Like anything that's like international or whatever is like cool to them, you know. And I don't know, it was just a cool like experience that like seeing like how they would like bring someone in, you know, like you see someone from and we do that here too. Like, if you got like a you know, French dude on the mat or whatever, people like, oh like that's that's cool or whatever, but Brazilians are just really like uh welcoming that way, you know, which is kind of contrary to what people might think if they only have like an experience with them from the water or something, like I'm gonna go down to Brazil and these people are gonna be like weird to me, or something. It's like, and that's what's cool with jujitsu too, is as soon as you're on the mat with someone, it's like you're in their little crew now, you know. So I had like a lot of that experience, and then growing up, I always I never felt really accepted by the people that I grew up with, you know. Yeah, but then I would meet a Brazilian for the first time, and it was like we'd knew known each other for our whole life because now I have 10 different things to talk to them about, and oh yeah, I've been to Rio and blah blah blah. And so that's kind of been my experience, like ever since that time. Like I've just like gravitated towards the Brazilians, like even now if I'm like traveling or go somewhere, like as soon as I'll oh you're from Brazil, and then I start speaking Portuguese with them, and then like all of a sudden we're friends, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Like Yeah, because you've taken the time. Yeah, you know, let's if it's okay to talk about this a little bit, I I think it's worth mentioning. You know, the mat is a really unique space, and you know, I've traveled traveled around enough, you know, just just to be able to do jujitsu now in various regions and and get to know people through the mat. You know, this expression that we do of you know, attempting to kill each other until the other person says no. It's uh such a unique uh experience, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Um and I and I you know, when when I went to Joel's gym, of course, you know, there's that natural camaraderie. You know, I had known Joel from times past, right? Um, just from surfing and and you know, but how you know each other in surfing is very different than how you know each other on the map. You know, and it was oddly at like Sunset Beach Jiu Jitsu, uh what's what's that guy's name?
SPEAKER_04:Jeff Don Donner.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the the big big dude just right behind him where it was really weird to be somewhere that felt like home. Yeah, yeah, you know, and and you know, and and like just that I was there. Right, you know, now now these again, a bunch of surfers are sitting on this mat. We all hate each other out in the water, you know, but here you are, it's like and he took care of me, like like the whole, you know, the the the whole night, the couple nights that we rolled there, it was it was nothing but hey, these are our friends from Santa Cruz. We've never been there in our lives, right? Right, right. Like it was like this odd place of honor. You know, there's there's you know my son who's really good, and then his dad, who's somehow the same belt, don't know how. You know, but but um but uh again that kinship that happens, you know, is a really unique space. Totally. And you know, I guess what I'm hearing from you and also from knowing you, that that you know, this this contrast of of feeling on the one hand completely ignored, you know, because you don't fit in to town, yeah, you know, or or the persona of what town tries to express itself as, especially in the surfing community, the bipolar nature of it, yeah, right. You know, you're not friends in the water, but somehow we're best friends now that we're out of the water, right? You know, whereas I I think jujitsu has a continuity to it that if you're willing to be here, you're my friend wherever we go.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, like like it's a very different feeling. It's certainly not anything I've experienced in any other sport, yeah, whether it's mountain biking, skiing, anything like that. There's a community that lives in jiu-jitsu that is Brazilian, you know, in nature because it is so accommodating, even in ways with people that should not be accommodated. Like they're really given a chance, you know, and it's such a unique space, and you know, granted it's combat art, so you know, we can take care of the problem if it emerges, you know, because that is the rule set.
SPEAKER_04:There's a situation like that happening at the gym a little bit where there's a guy who's you know real aggressive, but also obviously needs jujitsu. And I notice where some of the people like, you know, I've had people complain and complain, and it's almost like they want me to kick him out. And I'm like, well, my job is to help him through jujitsu. You know, if he wants to do this, like if I have to kick him out, then I failed, you know, that I would see that as a huge failure, you know, because I wasn't able to teach this guy how to train right, you know, and he's getting like a lot out of, and yeah, if the guy's like going too hard and he's really strong, it is a little bit of a danger on everyone at the time. So we're kind of all shouldering that risk, a little bit of injury together as a team until this guy learns how to calm down, you know. But we kind of all have to, it's like breaking a horse or something. You gotta learn how to like break him over time, and it takes like a whole village to do it, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it really, it really does, you know. And I I I'm gonna presume a little bit upon this and we'll we'll keep it as nebulous as we can. But in that nature, right, you you know, you have someone who has had to behave aggressively to survive their life in some form. You know, uh I have my fears about said person. There had been moments, you know, where he might have got slammed into a wall once or twice and told that I'll never roll with him again until he gets his shit right. Right. You know, but but again, this part of the learning experience. This is part of the learning, like this is the thing. You know, like I I ignored that guy for a year. Yeah, you know, like no, not yet.
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's how he learns is people won't want to roll with you unless you learn how to roll. Yeah, you know, and that's one of those little pieces of information that the guy gets, okay, this guy won't roll with me anymore, this guy won't roll with me anymore, this guy won't roll with me anymore. Okay, so I better learn how to roll something. Yeah, yeah, because because we're the same weight class.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it it's just a certain reality that that if you're attempting, you know, you know, in this case for the audience finish to finish every single time you're making a move, right? Which is literally attempting to break someone's arm or choke them out, you know, in this case at our skill set. You know, jujitsu is one of these wonderful formats where like look, I know my skill set's never gonna get great. Yeah, my temperament though is what I get to add to the paradigm. You know, it's like you know, you know, I sit in the back, yeah, wait for a big white belt, and it's like, okay, there's my guy for six months. Yeah. You know, just just like I'm gonna help you deal with how big you are by controlling you in painful ways. Yeah. I'm not gonna hurt you, yeah, but it's not gonna be fun until you calm down. Yeah. You know, that that's my prescribed grandpa role. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the back, you know, and every once in a while when you get to be a blue belt, you start learning some things. Let's see if they work. Right, right. If they don't work on me, then it doesn't work. That you could get it on so-and-so who weighs 20 pounds less than you, yeah, means zero. You know, that like, but there are very few cultures where something like that, as tribal as that, you know, of like there's a spot for everybody actually still exists because we're so quick to judge, so quick to ostracize people because they're past and how they come in. And and you know, at least for me, that's one of the things I love about jujitsu is that yeah, there is a place for everybody, including a 56-year-old dude who's got no business being there, but like still able to contribute for myself, you know, obviously to grow, but also to to the group, because it's the one thing I can do is I can temper that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's this weird thing of like having this control of like you're trying to learn how to have the ability to seriously injure someone while also being just as worried about not seriously injuring the person that you're practicing it on. And the problem is when that second part isn't there, you know, you're all you're you know, you're only worried about winning and getting, but you always have to be just as equally worried about not hurting the person that you're going with. So you're like taking care of them at the same time, you know, it's like this weird thing, and you get that, you know, as a high-level competitor, like, and also I'm helping to grow our training now. You know, we we had guys that were older than me that could have always given me training, but at a certain point we weren't training together anymore. Now I've got guys at our gym that I've kind of built up by from white belt to you know, like we have Travis now, who's a black belt, who he'll eventually pass me. That's I want to get my knee better because I'm like, I can probably still get some leaks on him now. It's not gonna be for too much longer. And uh, but he's got the you know the um luxury of having enough people to train with still that by the time I was at his level, I had to go traveling around different places to find training, you know. And and still at this point, if I want to compete at the level that I'm at, like I got Travis, I got Nico, but I would still need to go other places just to get enough training to, you know, just to cross-train to get enough high-level training, you know. And that's only at like the top level, like anyone else below that, which is what's nice at our gym now for being along, like you could get world champion level jujitsu at pretty much any other step along the way until you get to that black belt adult. And even then, now me and Travis and Nico together, we could get a lot of that work done, but I'd still want to be like, hey, let's all three of us go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I'm I mean, you get to know each person's approach, so you kind of know where it's going, and that doesn't necessarily benefit you because yeah, you need to get different. It's that you know, at least on my observation, you know, you get these guys that are running the ladder in six years because they're that good. Yeah, you know, it's like because they had a different approach. Yeah, you know, like I watch you know, my son, you know, who's who's out and out killer. Yeah, it's natural to him. He couldn't compete to save his life. He hasn't, I don't think he's won a match, but like you've taken Mini Club and there's nobody subbing him, and you're like, what am I looking at? Like you're owning black belts wherever we go, and like you can't win a purple bell or a blue bell tournament. Like, what is a game to the competition? What am I watching? Well, you you know it uh but you know, the the point sitting back there that that you know we do have you know or you world-class athletes here, you know, on on all scales, you know. I don't care what pro you're talking about, we got golfers, we got them all. Yeah, it's a very strange place to be because it's such a small community that we have so much talent. Right. I view you as one of those, like, here's one of our trophies, like even here, you know, that that that you know that we have, you know, this this this uh plethora of talent that you know, whatever it is you choose to do, you can find it. You might have to search a little bit harder to get, you know, to stay elite. Yeah, you know, you can get there, staying elite's a whole nother prospect. Yeah, you know, because the limits, you know.
SPEAKER_04:I'm gonna say, like, connected into that is like now if I want to go to another gym, you know, it's one thing training hard with Travis because I know that he cares if I get hurt or not. Right. You know, but if I go somewhere else, there's always like that little thing of like, do they care or do they care more about making sure that their guy beats me? You know, and that when you're cross-training, that's real important, you know, and there's ways when you go train somewhere to show that you you're not just there to try to show off, you know. Like when you show up somewhere, you don't just go a hundred percent final awards on everybody first round and not tap when they've almost got you in a submission or whatever you like show that you know how to train, you know, and there's like a there's something like kind of beautiful in that, like learning how to like push each other, but also show that like you know, I'm gonna show you like you know, some like or I'm gonna compliment something that you didn't ask you how you did it, you know, and like it, and so then you're sharing me with your knowledge, and then you know, when you get to a certain pot spot and I can, you know, we're not even on the same team, but I'll tell you, like, hey, when I'm doing this, like you should do this to stop it. Like, why weren't you doing that? You know, and I'm actually trying to make you better. And and that's like kind of a a whole other level to it. Like, it's like you got to learn how to take care of your guys, you know. So when you're training on the map with the guys that you see every day, you're not you're as worried about them not getting hurt as you are about winning. But now you go to another place and you're in a a group of like top-level competitors all getting ready for a tournament, but I still have to be worried about this guy not getting hurt, you know, because I want him to get to the event too, you know. There was like a moment like that because I go to Kyle's a lot, and uh, you know, I've been going there for years, but you know, I didn't you never know, like, does he does he really care or not? Or whatever. And then like Mason was like wheeled me up in the air one time, and and Kyle's like, yeah, and then he like kind of let me know. Me and Mason are super good friends, but this like kind of earlier in the time when we were training, and and I was like, Oh, Kyo does care if I get because like in my head, like I'm like, okay, I feel comfortable to like, and then you feel comfortable to go harder. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, there's just certain realities, and even within our own network, right? You know, the Watsonville crew shows up. Yeah, like that that crew is they're awesome, but they're all wrestlers, man. They could they came in loaded for bear before they ever strapped a strapped a belt around their waist, you know, and like I get that. I mean, most of my crew of my weight class is sitting 20 years younger than me, right? A belt behind me, and they're monsters. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm people ask me if I go train in Watsonville.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like, fuck no.
SPEAKER_01:I'm never gonna go train in Watsonville, you know, mostly because I can barely handle it when when they show up, you know, and it's not because they're bat is just the temperature of Watsonville. Yeah, and that's just how they go. They're fast. All those guys are fast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't care how how big they are, yeah. There's some big dudes that like you you wouldn't think can move. It's like they're they're they're there so fast because that's the pace. You know, and and uh, you know, like not to go too far down the jujitsu roll road, but you know, these realities that that we we have these places to go to and fit everywhere.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we I you know, there's the crew from Colorado that used to come through when I first started, yeah, yeah, you know, eight years ago, like, oh, I'm just here for two months, you know. I got got my little thing that I'm doing in the valley, and you know, like it's just a unique space, and and it so echoes I think a personality trait of Santa Cruz. You know, that that this place is so welcoming to all types. If you understand this place, like you're welcome to be here, right? You know, but there is a way that we do things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I you know, I I personally, you know, on that welcome mat thing, you know, having grown up in, you know, you know enough about me, my audience knows enough about the culture of what it's like to grow up here. I personally like yeah, there's a downside of the money that's moving here, but the politeness, yeah, I do, I I do I'm beginning to enjoy that people are just are not as angry and move here, not wearing holy socks, you know, like to play it down. Like no, we're not afraid to show off that we have a little bit of money and we're actually nice people. Yeah, you know, we can just have a drink together and like talk about nothing and not not you know not be down this road of who's cooler, right? Right, you know, trying to get in the pecking order here in town.
SPEAKER_04:It's so funny that like where it's like it's like this little bubble of like we had all these little things in high school, like you could not wear a Puka Shell necklace, uh anything that was Hollister Abercrombie or anything like that. You couldn't wear ankle socks, which was a big one to me. Like when I go to Brazil and I wear like longer socks, uh people think it's weird. Yeah, they're like, What look at this dude with the long socks and shoulders?
SPEAKER_01:But the whole skate kind of halfway gang skate culture, like is long impact. I mean, it's it's funny it's still alive everywhere.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, then you got the guys that have the knee-high socks too, but it's like even just a regular long sock like in Brazil, that's weird. Like if you're going to the gym and you're wearing like you know, any type of tennis shoe or anything, it's all ankle socks. I remember when you know we would go over the hill and go to to In and Out, we'd like point out all the Asian kids in ankle socks and laugh at them, you know. And it was like there's these weird like dress code things that like you just you couldn't penetrate it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You can't say hella if you if you anybody say hella.
SPEAKER_01:If you ever say hella, uh you lose me anyway.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01:You know, like Fresno.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, well, even as much as 30 miles away, like it could be any direction, and they're they all say hella everywhere around here. But as soon as you you say that here, you know, oh he's not actually from here. Where are you from?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I guess some of the San Lorenzo boys could could pull it off, right?
SPEAKER_04:Well, if you're Los Gatos, you're gonna be able to do that. Oh yeah, no, you're done. You're done. You're done.
SPEAKER_01:That guy's not gonna wave if you said hella. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What what you know you you uh represent like a a lot of opportunity, right? Right, there's there's places you can go and do and be, and actually even probably be more of who you are, you know, because you because your reputation. But there's something about this town. Like what keeps you here?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I mean it's I I honestly look at it as it's hard to move away just because it's like number one is someone who who surfs, it's like there's not a lot of places that are as many good surf breaks, one right next to the other, you know. So it makes it like when I think about moving away because just because of the cost of living and stuff, if you surf, it starts to kind of limit the places that you can go, you know, because then one of the things that you like to do you can't do anymore. And anywhere that you can surf, there's a high cost of living, so that makes it hard. Plus, just you know, there's only so many places in the world where you have the mix of the mountains and the water. So when you grow up here, it makes everything else kind of seem not quite as cool, you know. And and I've just I've lived here my whole life, and I, you know, I I like the the community of Santa Cruz and I want to keep helping this community of Santa Cruz with through jujitsu into the next generation. So I've honestly never really even like considered like actually well, I won't say that. I've more recently I've considered potentially making a move if I have to, just for like uh business reasons. I don't think that's gonna happen and I hope it doesn't, but I have to keep that in my back pocket. But um, but yeah, my my goal's always been just to stay here. Like, and uh I think the only downside really is just that it is small, you know. Like I've thought I've thought when I was way younger, like, you know, maybe I do want to go like to San Diego for a while or something, just to be like a young single guy in like a city with because Santa Cruz.
SPEAKER_01:And who doesn't like San Diego?
SPEAKER_04:Like San Diego's awesome. That'd be the place I would go if I wanted to go somewhere else. And the jujitsu is really good down there too, and everything. And if I were to go somewhere, it would probably be I would want it to be there. The dating pool is tough in Santa Cruz. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Is that why we all marry outside of the county?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, I mean, you don't have a lot of like 20, 30-year-old single women in Santa Cruz. Like, it's like everyone goes to when they graduate high school, they move away for college, they don't really come back. You know, all the girls that I grew up with all moved to Southern California, like none of them are living here anymore, you know. Like, and then you got people that are coming in for that are already married to start a family, and you got you know the college, but it's not really like a hot girl college or they say you know, like what do you mean, baby? It's not that they're not there, but it's just it's just been tough when I was like younger. I was like, I was kind of like, ah, do I want to like go down to San Diego or whatever? But also, Master Claudio has been really supportive to me, and he's made it possible for me to you know travel around and do my competitive thing. That would have been a lot tougher somewhere else, too, and stuff. But yeah, I mean, Santa Cruz is just amazing. Like, you know, I don't I wouldn't really see myself wanting to move away.
SPEAKER_01:Let's talk about Claudio just for a minute. Yeah. You know, I I you live in a unique relationship with him, you know, a good one, you know, not uniquely bad, uniquely good. Yeah. What has he meant to you?
SPEAKER_04:Uh he's he's meant everything to me, you know. He's been like a second, second dad to me. He's been, you know, more than just a master. He's like someone that I know that I can count on, you know, he's like family to where I've been I felt like a real strong support um system behind me. Like I knew that if I was really like in trouble, like and I needed help, whether it was financially or whatever, and I've never gotten to that point, but I know that he would he would be there for me. And you know, he's I I've always been real loyal to him too. So I think he knows he can count on me too. So he's you know, he's just he's been amazing, and um, you know, I see him as the father of everything that that's led me to be able to be who I am, you know. I couldn't have been who I was if it wasn't for him. So yeah, I just super grateful for Master Claudio for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean it it's uh I think much like a lot of the origins of things here in Santa Cruz, like it jujitsu's rough beginning here, you know, and and it was rough. And those stories again for the people who had them happen for them to tell. Right. Um, you know, jujitsu's origins in America are crazy rough. Um, you know, Master Claudia, of course, in some way being being a part of that genesis for sure, you know, huge part of the pioneer, you know, as far as far as that group goes. Uh and you know, of course, my experience with him was surfing, and that that was that was uh there they're not good moments between him and I, but they're but they're long past. You know, I'll I'll never forget the smile when I walked into the club.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let's just say there were words and moments exchanged multiple times many years before that, but the smile, but but but the kindness you know, welcome my friend. Yeah, that like like that you know, and that's that's not what the words were before. Right, right. You know, that that that that you know we we were in his territory, and and but that really like unmeasured kindness, given who he is, you know, who he was, yeah, who we were together, all that kind of stuff. But just kindness that emanates from him. You know, it's had a lasting impact. You know, there isn't really a club in town that doesn't get to thank him for for having started this thing. And you know, it it's clearly morphed over the cl course of 30 years, you know, into what it is. You know, everybody grew up, you know, but but you know, that this community that now is because of him. Yeah, you know, that like that there's thousands now, not not a couple hundred thousands of people that get to thank him and wouldn't know to thank him. You know, these are the kind of things that I love about our town. Yeah, you know, that as aggressive as as the group might have been and as unwelcoming as we were to that aggressiveness, even though we're aggressive also. Right, right. You know, there's a strange um like like it's just part of the fabric of who we are now. And it's such a beautiful thing. That like it's yeah, it just is usually and we are him in a very strange way. Yeah. You know, it's it's such an integrated part of of surf culture, like almost all culture here. Like uh, you know, it would be hard to be somewhere and not find a jujitsu person. Right. here here in the county, you know, who's just quietly, you know, might might be a nerd sitting behind a computer and there's your biggest killer right there. Right. It's just a it's a weird thing, but but it also is a testimony to this place. You know, that that we we live in the really dynamic spot. Yeah, that that has this kind of variety of in contrast you know of of things that that you know are both yeah. They're they're both things.
SPEAKER_04:Ju jujits changed a lot and in that time too. And I think I really think it's on the cusp right now of becoming like a really big like global thing, you know. And that's one of the funny things is like, you know, Claudio they're coming out with this new book called uh ground swell. Have you heard of that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think I might have sent you the thing about it. And he's like one of I think eight masters that they that they're featuring in it as like uh uh pioneers in in uh jujitsu in the United States which is basically pioneers of jujitsu in the world outside of Brazil because it was first you know Brazil first Rio and then it started moving into São Paulo and then eventually it was in all of Brazil and then it came to California you know Southern California Torrance with the original Gracie spot and then that was like 89 or 90 or some somewhere around then and then our gym opened in 95 and Master Claudio was here teaching some other places a little earlier than that too so it was like one of the first spots and then Half Gracie came up so Master Claudio and Half Gracie were kind of like the pioneers of jiu jitsu in the whole Northern California and so you think of Santa Cruz it's like one of the first towns anywhere in the world outside of Rio that had jiu jitsu you know so the jujitsu tradition here is like older than almost anywhere else. You know it's just pretty crazy to think about we don't think about that I I didn't realize that yeah yeah yeah see people don't even know like and and jujitsu takes such a long time it's not like other things where like you can get to a high level and it quickly like it takes a really long time. You know so like you know it thirty we got like 30 years now you're finally starting to have like a lot of black belts and stuff because it takes so long to make a black belt and there's such a high turnover and you're finally starting to have like kids that have been you know kids and like Travis becoming a black belt you know I was kind of one of the first generations of that so it's a it's a pretty cool thing but um jujitsu is you know I think we're right on the cusp of it becoming like a really global thing. Yeah expansive and and we can thank like Joe Rogan for that like partially that he's made it more culturally relevant than it should be for how large it actually is as far as like participants go. Because like you know you'll be on like a podcast about something and if people say martial arts they used to say like karate you know now they'll say jujitsu you know like oh yeah like comedy podcasts and you'd be like oh you're gonna mess out with this guy find out he's like a jiu jitsu purple belt or something it's like and there's not even that many practitioners around the world to even warrant that level of like cultural you know um what was the word um relevancy yet but because of that it's also kind of fast tracking it so it's kind of cool to be close to the ground level on something like that. I think it's gonna really get big but it does come from that like territorial thing in Rio where it was like really like there's a gym on every corner and this is your crew and that's their crew and you see each other at the bar and you guys are going to fight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But then when you go to the Valley Tuto thing and now it's the jujitsu guy versus the Muay Thai guy now all of you guys are together and now you're to fight the Muay Thai guys. You know and then like and now some of that's broken down too or it used to be like jujitsu versus you know my academy versus everyone's academy. Oh now we're taking it to another level it's like you know California versus Texas. Oh no now it's US versus China. Okay well now we're all Americans oh now there's aliens oh no now we're all from earth you know it's like it was kind of like that type of a thing and now that's breaking down to where it's like martial arts is like okay these are different skills that everyone needs to learn there's not really like a style versus style anymore you know jujitsu guys are learning that they need to know some striking and the wrestlers are learning they need to know some jujitsu and the jujitsu guys are learning from the wrestlers that could probably learn better take down so it's all kind of like mixing in together and that's all just like really starting to happen now you know so it's kind of like a cool thing but I mean you were there for seeing Claudio coming straight from you know 1980s Rio which is like Hicks and Gracie and you know the Gracies showing up to gyms and locking it down you know fighting with the Luta Livre guys which were basically this just Nogi doing the similar things that they were doing but they they're Luta Livre they called it something different so we have to fight over which one's better now you know like and there was a ton of that and then and you know so he's coming from that and then all this and it's starting to break down and and then you got the injection of capitalism. Yeah right and now it's a business so now these people aren't aren't they're not disciples they're customers yeah and so I need to treat them as customers but also that becomes complicated because on some ways they want to be treated like customers in other ways they want to be treated like family. Yeah so then it's like well where does the family I don't remember you being at that fight. Yeah yeah you know so it's kind of like it's this weird like thing that's kind of changing and stuff but I I've always been pretty good about being like you know cross-training around and I've got a good relationship with lots of people around the world and so trying to break down some of the weirdness while still maintaining a certain level of like the loyalty and the the some of that eastern stuff that's in it too that I think is really good because you see some gyms where they fully strip that away and then that's not good either. Like I was just talking to Chris Buick the other day and he was he was one of our purple belts was talking about someone that you know he was a black belt and he went to some gym and like you know you go to some gyms and you're a black belt and you show up on the mat and like the whole class will stop and they'll they walk up and shake your hand you know and you as a black belt you you immediately feel like appreciated because you are bringing a lot of knowledge onto the onto the mat that you're helping people and everything and he said like he went to this place and they were like they were all just like trying to dog him like kind of thing like oh like oh are you really good are you really a black belt and whatever and so there's positive things to that like hierarchy and the respect around it too you know you don't want to go too far from one side to the other you know but it's like jujitsu's in like a really big transitioning time now from like you know it used to be like if you did jujitsu you're supposed to be a fighter you know so if you can't survive the training then you don't deserve to do jujitsu you know you you you're never gonna be a black belt if you can't train the whole class spar every round you just have to do it you know but then it's um uh a question of how do I get like some of the people in there that are just never going to be able to do that and then still get what they can get out of jujitsu you know without cheapening what it's like I'm I'm a testimony to that right you know it's it like you know coming so late I came at 48 right so I'm entering my eighth year here now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah um you know I I think I was two years in where I was coming like five or more days a week yeah and got sat by by Doug and Matt Grenier and just they they're like like they're like all you have is time. Yeah you don't have a body. Right. Like the body's gonna go like you can't do this to yourself. Yeah. Like you can do jujitsu the rest of your life you just can't do it this way and you know it really took me up until this year to truly understand what that meant. You know you know I've uh you watched me pull back this year as just a you know still lightly staying in it you know I still still get my roles in once a week with Chris you know Bathazar and Matt and you know coming in and out of the club but but just taking the time to get clear. Yeah you know like like you know what's my goal in my in the second half of my journey. Yeah you know because I want to get you know not just to to you know whether you get a black belt or not but I want to be able to do this as long as I can.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I can't do it the way I wished I had which was ten years before that when Matt was bugging me. Like you need to get you know because we were doing taekwondo together is like you need to get to this like don't stop that. You know do this over here because it's gonna be a while. But but the the privilege of being able to climb a ladder how I'm going to climb a ladder which is very different than most forms of martial arts is a unique privilege. You know and as I'll express to anybody if I get my black belt trust me I won't be a black belt. Not the way you think about it. You know I'll be the the the 60 year old black belt. You know that's how this can work and and you know as opposed to you know I think when young people do come in they're coming in with a very much more competitive mindset. Yeah you know whether it's for fighting or for you know just really being attuned to the fight you know all the fight's out of me now. Yeah that's that's what jujitsu gave me like I don't I don't want to fight right ever. Yeah you know and this is the best place to be because I never have to fight and I know what it's like right because they do it all the time. You know it's like I I I I'm in fights like you know three or four times a week. Like I know what it's like they're not fun. Yeah there's a lot of things that happen there's a lot of places where I could have been getting beat up and I wasn't because of the respect that's on the man. You know like because we're just learning how to how to do this thing and and applying that and and the privilege it's been for my mind you know to not have to be you know in in in that negative space like a positive space of doing these things that would normally have negative consequences but they don't they you know so I I you know as you're describing it I'm really seeing that a lot more like you know because you know I've certainly watched some of your posts you know the last couple years of like how do we maintain this tradition yeah that we come from on the commodification of what in essence is just combat sports. You know it's just people trying to beat the shit out of each other. Yeah that's not what this is about. Right, right. It's about community and all that kind of stuff and you know as it does expand you know because what what the what is there like a million practitioners right now or something like or more or more there's at least a couple million in the US we get to sit here you know okay I'm I'm this age I got my purple belt that gets me down to like the 2000 you know that that is that got to a spot you know that there's but but the growing respect that comes with that not for the belt but for the time right you know like like that seems like a hard hard thing to instill given our culture it's a odd lifestyle choice because it's oddly peaceful you know but it's in the thick of hell.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah yeah yeah it's weird it's like as an instructor too it's yeah it's it's hard like because if I really wanted to make people better at jujitsu not even like oh I have to push the sixty year old guy the same way as the 18 year old or whatever but if I just wanted to make that six year old as good as he can be taking into account his you know his um not weaknesses but yeah just restrictions or whatever. I would have to be harder on him than he wants me to be you know I'd have to make sure that he was there on time. I'd have to make sure that he does the entire class I'd have to make sure that he does all the reps I'd have to leave him there to do you know 40 minutes of reps and we do a bunch of different drills and then but people don't really want that you know so I'm more like okay I want this guy to get better and I want him to have fun you know and when it comes down to certain things like a lot of the rules and stuff are like you know do the drill you know until the until the instructor tells you to stop. Nowadays when I'm walking around the mat if somebody's just sitting there talking like back in the day the the instructor would call you out in front of everybody and you'd be embarrassed. Yeah but now I'm like yeah if I do that and the guy doesn't like it then he cancels a membership and then that's less money and what does it really mean to me if he's a little bit better or a little bit worse like he's the one that needs to care. You know if he doesn't he wants to be on the mat he's only getting so many minutes on the mat and he wants to spend it talking to his partner to me then I'm like Yeah that's what you did.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah that's that's what your membership fee got you was a conversation.
SPEAKER_04:Right right but then it comes you know promotion time and then people want to be like oh you know you owe me this or whatever and I'm like all right yeah doesn't owe you anything yeah so it's a complicated one for sure but if you start going too far to the other side you start to see like what like a karate model started to happen which karate was really legit and then and I'm sure there's still some really badass karate schools that are like you know but a lot of them have gone more toward that like whatever you want you want the belt pay to play here's the belt. Yeah you know to your kata excellent yeah you never have to fight but then it's like you know you're not really teaching somebody a skill too so then they you know like some of the Krav Maga stuff is like weird like I saw this like podcast and it just gave a bad name to like all the martial arts where this like 110 pound woman was like it was like on it was like that whatever podcast have you ever seen that one it's pretty gnarly it's usually like these like guys that get a group of like OnlyFans models and then just shame them right the whole time like it's kind of weird like dynamic but she was like yeah you know because it just feels good to know that I could like take out any guy that tries to do anything to me and like what do you mean like I did a 10 week uh crop a course and I'm like 10 in 10 weeks you're the brand new freshest baby butt beginner white belt ever in 10 weeks you just started training like you know and they're they're like hey do this 10 week course I'm gonna teach you what you need to take out a 200 pound guy or whatever you know who's who's on meth. Yeah yeah good luck with that yeah yeah and really you know martial arts is is about equipping yourself to be able to be the best that you can be to be able to defend yourself. That doesn't mean that you're gonna be able to beat every person in the entire world in a fight you know especially if you're a 110 pound woman you know but you're gonna be way better off knowing jujitsu than if you didn't you know somebody's not gonna be able to grab you and pull you into a van or you know or and you might even it might even just look like being able to get someone off you so you can get up and run.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah well I'm I'm I it's one of the great things about having shown up the club Tom Tupper theories. Yeah best self-defense run totally you know like that there's just the reality of of you know I I think in our region it's a fairly combative region you know if you surf a lot of words have been spoken and said and yeah you know there are those of us in the background who actually have a fighting background you know did our kickboxing routines for years and you know so we we knew how to how to handle our hands and our legs and and do that kind of stuff and and take care of ourselves just because you had to but that being said uh I had never heard somebody especially a Tom skill set just like and it's every every first part of the class best self-defense just run like don't get yourself in the situation you know you know like and that's not a reality I think we face you know because you know what whether it's war or our interactions with other humans on a day-to-day basis we're so combative in nature right now it's like you haven't been punched in the face like you actually don't know what it's what it feels like whether it feels good yeah which I used to love it that's when I woke up it's like oh we're awake this is happening yeah great here we go I was kind of sleepy there now now now now here here we are gentle ones everything's all all good now and clear yeah clear on what's happening next well that gives you the perspective too that like any any uh self-defense situation that you're in you're there because you have to be not because you want to be so people be they think that you train martial arts so that you can go out and pick a fight with someone so like oh what you think because you know jujitsu you can just go pick a fight with somebody what if that guy has a gun it's like no I don't want to be in a fight with this guy I don't want to be in a fight with anybody so if if I have a chance to not be then I'm not gonna be if I am I'd damn well rather know jujitsu than not yeah that's you know that's kind of it right if it goes to the ground I got something but other than that like yeah right well I just I just don't want to you know I probably could beat this guy up but I don't want to what if I slam his head on the ground what if I take him down he's not trained on how to fall he might hit his head and die that's not what I want yeah if someone like what if the guy has a knife it's like yeah I don't want to be in a thing with this guy like you know like and it's like well you could just carry a gun yeah well you can know jujitsu and carry a gun you could carry a gun and someone could tackle you from behind you don't even know that you're in a now you're using grappling to even be able to get to your gun you know it's like you need to know all of these things.
SPEAKER_04:If someone's got a knife in you once you better know risk control to hopefully doesn't get it in you again.
SPEAKER_01:You know like yeah well just these realities you know that that 90% of the time you own a gun it's gonna be used against you. Yeah like like like you you may think you can protect yourself but if someone decides and you don't know that they're gonna come get you guess what you're gonna get got that's that's generally how it works.
SPEAKER_04:They say if someone's within like 20 meters of you or something like it they that's what they train cops. It's like I think it's like 20 meters. You're not gonna be able to drill your gun in time to get it to them before they get to you.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's all all those comp you know I I trained for all that shit back in early 90s and the statistics don't match the temperament. Yeah that's all like your your probabilities of of defend quote unquote defending yourself are very minimal you know and and that's the first thing you learn it's it's like you have a group of weapons on your waist those will all be used against you. Yeah so avoidance is key right you know and people don't realize that about police officers they call them bullies but it's like if you don't understand range you don't understand any of it you know it's it's complicated.
SPEAKER_04:There's a gnarly one I saw online where the guy the this cop just walked too close to the guy. Yeah he was in too close the guy pulled a knife and started ran it running at him yeah he knew he wasn't gonna get his gun so he tried to turn and run but he tripped and fell and the guy just stabbed him to death and it was like you know like yo bring a knife to a gunfight it's like people just think just because you're holding a gun like yeah it doesn't doesn't yeah I've seen plenty of ones where the guy's going for it and he gets tackled and now they're in a wrestling match with a gun. You know if you have you can't bring a gun into a nightclub so what if you're in a nightclub or an airport like you know it's like jujitsu is a a tool that you have that you don't want to have to use but you much be much better to have it. That's that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah if you're in the situation where where it's adaptable awesome yeah you know but I don't want wish that situation for you. Totally okay last question. Uh I think there's a lot of hopelessness in the world yeah right now you know you know political climate you know Kim and I were just discussing about the pullback you know because I can already feel it with my clientele you know people are just they're softening up you know you know you you can just feel feel the despair beginning to hit.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah what brings you hope right now brings me hope I mean honestly like I I'm kind of maybe hopelessly optimistic in the in the sense that I've been in a lot of times and places and a lot of times and everyone says that the world's gonna end and everything's gonna be horrible and whatever and pretty much all evens out you know so for me personally I'm like like this happened a lot in COVID where everybody was like oh my god this is gonna be the end of the world and whatever and I'm like I bet 10 years from now I'll still be surfing and doing jujitsu maybe not maybe I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah yeah and if you're wrong guess what we're all dead yeah yeah they don't wanna have to worry about it no I I I I've been you know I've been trying to to kind of hold space with people you know and and uh you know really the reason you know if if you don't already know you who are listening you know that I have these conversations is to really kind of live in this reality like not a lot's changed. Yeah I'm being told it's really different but it's like you know you tell me one thing other than computers that's different than 1970 and I'm curious. Yeah yeah yeah I really am you know it's like not not that it's not like it's certainly harder for young kids now you know there's so much more data coming at them you know social media and all that kind of stuff and you know the hopelessness built into the economy but I also think a lot it's not fabricated it's just like it's just you know it's very real that that you know money's been centralized but the reality is I was just talking to one of my sons you know it has always been hard. How it's hard now is unique. I don't want to say it's not but when we lose hope for humanity like you've lost all hope. Yeah you know and and I like you you know it's like you know I grew up in the 70s in church and Jesus was coming back in 1980 and you know ends up we didn't hear you know I'm sure he came back somewhere else and you know whatever you know big revelation that the US needs to come to they haven't come to it yet and ends up we're still here yeah you know there's 90% less starving people in between now and that moment. Interesting. Yeah you know like that's good that's good news we're not hearing about it. Right and uh you know these naysayers not that we don't need to change because we do like like we need to get our shit together.
SPEAKER_04:Totally as humans and stop individuating there's so much better that we could do but I just I don't believe so much in like the all the doomsday stuff and I think with the internet it's gotten so much worse to where people can go and find so much confirmation bias and so much stuff that they can get themselves so worked up like I had a friend that was like that in COVID where it was just like well what if this happens and this is going to happen and they're doing this and they're trying to do that and just going down all these rabbit holes and then it's just like I'm like bro like look at your existence. I bet you 10 years from now it's not going to be that different and like all the stuff that you know the powers that be behind the scenes are definitely screwing with everybody all the time. But I also have this little thing of like you know those super rich if there is like some deep state like whatever yeah cabal they don't want us to descend into Mad Max because that's not going to be good for them either. They want us to be docile and thinking everything's fine. You know so I kind of feel like there's a little bit of a force in the world for like let people think things are going to get bad they like that like you know a little bit of like you you're always on the brink of things getting bad but it if it really goes bad that's not good for the the billionaires really either you know that's that's that's when the pitchforks and uh torches come.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. You know they're they're they're they're not good for it. You know you can't hide. But you know it's a yeah it's just a very tenuous time but but um anyway Snate thanks so much for sitting with me I totally appreciate you and and uh you know look forward to uh showing up to class again this week that that'll be three days that I've actually rolled in in a in a week which would be the first time since March but I'm I'm getting back on on the horse so taking the time but anyways thanks again for coming yeah appreciate you a bunch and uh there we go there's the beginning oh no that was the end oh I blew it you know I I I screwed it up people is this another one of yours all right everybody thanks so much for coming enjoy the rest of your day