Tap and A Hug: Ken Nodes | Confidence, Control & Respect

🥋❤️💯Special thanks to Coach Joey Dean — I appreciate everything you do for us, on and off the mats. OSS.

In this episode of The Tap and A Hug Podcast, I sit down with Ken Nodes for a conversation rooted in respect, trust, and the deeper purpose behind jiu-jitsu.

We talk about a real-life moment where Ken had to step in at a high school football game and use jiu-jitsu to safely control a student — not to harm, but to protect. It’s a powerful reflection of what this art is really about: control, awareness, and responsibility.

The conversation expands into the importance of fundamentals, the value of consistent training, and how mastering the basics builds confidence that carries far beyond the mats. We also explore how jiu-jitsu connects to other areas of life, including music, discipline, and presence through Ken’s experience working within the brass section.

More importantly, we reflect on the role jiu-jitsu plays in shaping how we treat others — building trust, respect, and the ability to navigate conflict without unnecessary harm.

From my personal perspective, jiu-jitsu has increased my capacity for empathy. It’s not about becoming more dangerous — it’s about becoming more understanding, more patient, and more grounded in how we move through the world.

This episode is about growth, healing, and becoming better — for ourselves and for each other.

Peace and Love at The Dap and A Hug

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Amen. I appreciate you for teaching the fundamentals class. Yeah, I love doing it. Um we were talking about Kamura from the half guard position that we've been doing, where you went over the review last week in class, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Right.

SPEAKER_04 0:11

Um I was talking about how in Open Matt I applied it. Um it was successful up until the point where I had I got semi-parallel after getting the wristwatch grip and everything, and I went to turn over with that opposite elbow, right? Right. And then when I as I was coming up, it wasn't like really tight. I don't think I had the you know it tight as it should have been, and I didn't submit my training partner. But uh I definitely I'm picking up on some good stuff in that fundamental class, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Were you training the sweep or the or the or the submission? The submission. The the submission, okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Because I mean I started off in half guard, right? Yeah, and then I go down, boom, I go over and grab and put my, you know what I'm saying, on his wrist. Right. And then I go parallel and just sweep them, that's sweeping them over. That's a full spectrum of a sweep to a submission, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

It it was uh the the the technique that I showed was the uh sweep from a kamor. I call them a kamora trap sweep. That's what it is, right? And then and then where you where you go under them and elbow roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The elbow roll into uh we'll call it the bee-kind Kamura where you're sitting on their face and cranking. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I yeah, I got you now. So yeah, that the actual technique that we were showing was the sweep. The uh submission at the end was just the a little bit of icing on the cake. So the fact that you were still hunting that after that, that's a huge deal because that was kind of like that, wasn't the technique. That was just like, hey, let me show you this because we're here. So as long as you know you remembered that and you applied that, you know, that that's huge.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

I'm gonna tell you what's big. I'm not bragging. I I got you know, I had to tap a couple rows after that with Miguel. He suffocated me. Shout out to him. Um both. Now, I wasn't able to get to Kimura, but I I improvised and went with the onboard and got the submission. And like I said, I'm not bragging, but it does feel good confidence-wise to finally start piecing stuff together, man.

unknown 2:08

Right.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

And that's the thing about jujitsu. I love like, you know, like Joey had said he asked in class Tuesday, I was just observing. Um, I recently got a tattoo. Shout to Sienna. But he was asking like white belts, like, what do you notice about rolling with like bluebelts and higher? The answer he was looking for is that they set up traps. So that kind of got me like, hey man, just I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, but I can kind of see having the road a little bit. I can see the horizon. It's gonna take me a little, I'm I'm crawling, coach. I'm I'm crawling. That's I'm gonna get there a little bit. I'm a baby, just fresh out the womb. But I'm I'm gonna get there one day. I love it. It's exciting, man, and it's humbling, it's very humbling. Um, I texted Miguel yesterday. Let me say this, because you know it's tax season or whatever, and I'm procrastinating, but luckily I'm already trying to get myself together now instead of waiting like D-Wake of the deadline. But um, I was like, where is my damn W-2 from my last job? I have no idea where it is. Like I know I put it up somewhere, but I can't find it, so I started panicking. So I'm trying to do my bookkeeping right. I'm like, well, I gotta get my W2 right. I was like, you know what? So I started thinking about Coach Joey, then I thought about the position that Miguel had me in the open map last Saturday. Because I tried to do that Kamura shit with him, he wasn't having it. Like, and um basically he had me like in some kind of, I don't know what it was, but he had like dominant position, semi-like full, like he was postured up on top of me. So full amount. And he had it a while, like I was breathing into his gig. And I was like breathing in like that hot day, and I was about to suffer. He was like, yo, bro, don't just you gotta sit in it, man. And I did it for a while, but I couldn't. My diaphragm was, I was like, yo, get up on it. But we got back in that position and he showed me how to get out of it. Thank you, McGill. Yeah, and thank you, and thank everybody at Carolina Family Jiu-Jitsu, man. Like that whole just networking, just helping each other. I can't stress that enough.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

That's why I said uh in last week's uh class, you know, it we're gonna start using the word pause instead of tapping. If you get into a position and you're and you don't know how to get out, you don't know where to go, what's next, instead of tapping and feeling uncomfortable and having to reset, when's the next time you're gonna get into that position to be able to work this? So if you just say pause, especially on a couple upper belts, you know, be like, Well, what do I do from here? We're gonna work you through it.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

And like you said, y'all liked it. Oh, y'all like us to ask questions like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Absolutely. Because we some of us had it coming up, some of us did not. Yeah, you know, I fortunately had a really good uh foundation, and people would do that for me. And you know, of course it was always after being submitted, and then stop after after they they tap me out and be like, Do you know what you did wrong? You know, so being able to pause somebody and work through a technique that you may not get back into for months, you never know, is gonna be huge to your success.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

I I completely agree with that. Yeah, tapping out too soon. I'm gonna tell you a funny story. It's one of the first couple weeks I was uh I had joined and I was rolling with um what's my man's name? Oh my goodness, I'm having a brain fart right now. I'm gonna have to edit this out. What's his name? He was in the army. Richard, Richard. I don't have to edit that out. What's up, bro? My bad. Because he he actually supports the podcast a lot, man. He's always commenting.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, he was my pet white belt.

SPEAKER_04 5:41

Richard put me in the arm bar. And I mean, he was in mid-setup. I already knew it was coming. I've been putting the arm bar before I got my elbow up extended, so I tap real early when it comes to arm bars. But he was setting it up, and by the time my arm was here, I was already reaching to tap. Right. And um, but yeah, very fine job, Richard. We call it a pre-tap. Yeah, that was a pre-tap. I don't play that when it comes to that. Because I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna roll for life. I'm gonna, I don't, I don't wanna keep, I don't because the reasons why I haven't come to class, I have a couple reasons. I'm not gonna get into like the stuff besides this. Like, I typically do something wrong and set myself up to get hurt. Like, it's nothing that coach or you have taught me. It's always me doing an extra move. Oh, my leg went to the left. I shouldn't have done that while we're doing the hip tops, and I'm whatever. I trained through that, thank God, and learned a lot about myself training through the injury. But um, it's always, you know, me doing something, or I'm hiking, or whatever. Like, it's always me doing it to myself. Like, it's a different form of self-sabotage. I used to do it a lot with alcohol, you know what I'm saying? Thank God I'm he broke those those chains. But even just day-to-day life, just like yesterday, I was looking at this tattoo. I got it touched up, and uh actually she did another star and I looked at it, I just ripped it off. Like, why didn't I wet it first?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Stupid. I don't know, I don't know why I do stuff like that, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, you know, you're talking about what uh wanting to do this for a long time. You you hear it all the time, you've heard jujitsu's a marathon, not a sprint, right? Yeah, so you know, especially being older, uh, I mean, I'm I'm pushing 50. I roll a lot differently now than I did in my 30s. Uh unfortunately, I didn't I didn't start this until my mid-30s. So there's things that I do to protect myself so that I can do this, you know, in the future. I can do it when I'm 60, 65, whatever, whatever God allows me to live till. You know, so it it's pre-tapping. I I say for us, for older cats, 100%. Yeah, even me, right? I'm 41. 100%. I mean I'm an old ass man, I ain't gonna be something in the first place. We we talk about that all the time. Leave your ego at the door, tap. We'll be able to tap later.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

But that pause, yeah, that's clutch. I get excited about stuff like that, and like a lot of people won't understand, but it's all about learning, man, and that whole saying, like, I'm learning something new every day. Do you do you really well?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I see it in you, and I see it in the in some of the other students as well. You know, when we start uh, especially when we start a new block at the beginning of the month. Yeah, and we're like, okay, well, I've never really done a lot of this position, I've never really done this submission this week, whatever. And we'll struggle through it for the first you know half of class, but by the the last half of class, everybody's hitting it, and you just see everybody, you know, when the when you come in and I'm able to watch everybody, you're like, you got the scowl on your face, like trying not mad, but you're trying to really think and process what we're doing. And then by the end, you're just like doing whatever, and the whole everything is just relaxed, you're smiling. I saw it in you, and I told you this, you know, a month or so ago. Your whole face just lit up. You're like, dude, that was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

You also said something else that stuck with me. You said I have to learn the parameters of like how and what capability my body has to move. Like that's really important for me, especially because I got long legs, man. You know what I'm saying? And even like I finally got my post down right. Like, you know what I'm saying? I wasn't posting right with my my left leg with my right leg. Yeah, like knee on belly type stuff, that's fine. But like some of the drills we've been doing, I wasn't posting right. I had my foot too far out. I think you mentioned that too. Yeah, yeah. I had my foot too far out, just bring it in. So it's a learn them curve, man.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

And well, that's what that's all about being a white belt and where you're at. I mean, you're exactly where you need to be. You're still learning how to move your body. These are some of the techniques, honestly, are stuff that we did as infants. You know, the shrimping, the moving around, being able to move our hips. We quit doing that into adolescence and teens and adults, and now we're trying to relearn how to do that as an adult. So it's reteaching our body how we can move, and that's really what the white belt is all about is learning the basic techniques, the fundamentals uh and knowing how to move your body before you can control somebody else's. That's really where the blue belt comes in, is where you start being able to control other people where they're going.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Yeah, because you spitting knowledge, and I'm gonna shut up. You know what I'm saying? I want you to because like I told Coach, I was like, Man, I need to stop talking about jujitsu. And he's like, Why? I was like, I don't know what I'm talking about. But he gave me the go ahead because I'm not on here like being braggadocious and stuff like that. Apparently, there are some people that do that kind of stuff for like hits and stuff like that, but nah man, this is about like educating the community on the importance of jujitsu.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Right. You know, especially when we don't know. I mean, I I've been doing this 11 years. I don't know nearly half of anything jujitsu. There's so still so much more that I get to learn.

SPEAKER_04 10:50

That's so humbling, ain't it?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

It really is. Especially when it's constantly evolving, it's constantly moving, new things are coming out, new uh variations of like like an arm bar, like a choi bar is very similar to an arm bar. Uh, you know, but choi bar, I don't know if it was around 10 years ago. Uh, if it was, I wasn't aware of it, but it's something that I've learned down the road, and I'm pretty sure, you know, for the rest of my career doing jujitsu, I'm gonna learn a lot more.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Yeah, I don't remember what it was, but you were working on something and you was like, it works. Like you tried something like after class. It might have been last week because I was talking to Tyler. He was that's when he was showing me the octopus guard. Oh, that yeah, that was the uh you said it was something that you did that worked.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah. So uh, you know, when uh going off of what you were saying about the uh the Kimorra trap in the sweep and getting up into the uh the Kamora where we're uh kind of in this north-south sitting on someone's head. Um the defense to that is my opponent will grab their belt or their thigh or whatever. And if you have strong grips, you know, it's sometimes hard to break that off. And you know, even if you're pulling away from their body first, sometimes I mean, like uh some white belts, man. James, he's got this Uber grip I cannot break for the life of me. Well, if I can't get that, where am I gonna go from there? So I was like, Well, I could probably do uh this barambolo that I saw. Uh God, I saw it maybe a year ago, but I tried it and I was like, oh you know, so 11 years in, I'm still having my light bulb moments. And uh who did I do it to? I think uh I think it tried I tried it on Tyler. Yeah, and I did a bolo on him, and I was like, dude, that was awesome. Okay, let me try it again. The next time I tried it, I overextended and it didn't work. But now I'm gonna keep working through it every time, and I'm probably gonna force some people into that position so that I can keep trying it.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Yeah, so set them up.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, man. See, but even we have those moments where you're like, oh yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

That gives me hope.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

So we're gonna uh switch gears a little bit. Sound of brass. Yes. What'd you come up with that name?

SPEAKER_01 13:10

It was just something that came to me, honestly. Just uh I've I've been uh a musician now for about 42 years. Uh started out on clarinet, uh saxophone, and then switched to uh trumpet in high school. Played trumpet ever since. And uh I just I love anything brass, any brass instrument, and it's it's music is really honestly who I am. It's such a passion. I mean, I absolutely love it. I'm teaching it now. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Beautiful. Uh can you say where you're teaching them at it?

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, uh I'm the uh assistant band director at uh Andrew Jackson High School in Kershaw for Lancaster County. Uh they're a they were a 1A school last year, they're coming up to 2A, uh just by the student body. Um so they don't need an assistant director or a co-director during the the spring season when they're in concert because they only have one band. Uh or larger bands, 4A, 5A, they may have two concert bands, three concert bands, whatever. Uh jazz programs. Uh so I do part-time in the fall. Uh usually about 300 hours is what it takes between June and November 1st to run their marching program uh with the with the band director. And uh I started that last year and it's been man, it's been so fulfilling. I I love it. This is such a great group of kids, uh great instruction, uh the band director. Uh I'll shout him out, Andrew Sokolowski. Awesome, good, awesome dude. You know, he's really put a lot of faith in me that I've never had a true teaching job before with it, other outside of private lessons, and uh put his faith in me. And he was like, just go for it. And he's given me a lot of rain to just do what I need to with the brass section. So I'm really overseeing the brass uh and assisting him with the uh rest of the uh the show that we do every year.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

I love autonomy. Yeah, it's good having that autonomy to do things, take things in your own hands, and yeah, you can use your jiu-jitsu skills with all that. How does a jujitsu apply to you teaching the kids in band and everything? And you practicing yourself. There's a palether of things that I know you're gonna go down a list of.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Well, I I found that I I love teaching early, but I've never been given the opportunity to do it. Um let me back up a little bit. Hold on, time. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Okay, you taught kids in jiu-jitsu for a while, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

You didn't teach band?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Not I I've taught private lessons. Okay. I brought my kids through Ben and taught them, but I never had an official capacity where I was like, hey, you're the assistant band director or you're the brass technician or anything like that. Okay. Because originally I had I had applied at uh Andrew Jackson for brass technician, okay, which is excuse me, it's it's a person who excels in brass and excels in music, and we would take the brass off to the side and I would teach them.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Okay, well, okay, well, yeah. Okay, I just want to make sure I had it correctly.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, so it's it takes a section of the band out to the side, and it's basically, you know, I work with just them. Uh the opportunity came up to where he's trying to build the program, the band director that is. So he was like, you know, with your this extensive background that you have, you know, would you be interested in this position? So like absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

Right now, jujitsu Bien of it, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, so I think for me a lot of it is the patience uh with especially with teenagers, things that I didn't anticipate would be there. You know, when we were coming up as kids, it was very structured. It was very, we need to do this and times have changed, and uh there's a lot more leniency with uh teenagers now. So jujitsu doing this the last 11 years has really taught me a lot of patience and different ways to teach and have uh a different uh approach to teaching. Uh yeah, just I mean it it's it's hard to explain to anybody who hasn't done jujitsu how encompassing it is to your life and everything it teaches you. Uh not only on the mats, but off the mats. You know, there's there's things that I do in my regular life that I wouldn't do now just because of jujitsu. You know, so it's really hard to explain to about to somebody like that.

SPEAKER_04 17:49

Yeah, well, timing is definitely critical. You know, timing doing a uh performance. If you hit the note at the wrong time, the audience is gonna hear that, you're gonna be humbled. And obviously timing in jujitsu, you get you have to tap.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, well, those are things that we can't control. You know, people are gonna hit wrong notes, they're gonna do wrong rhythms. Um, but it goes a little bit deeper. Um, like you said you were in in in band as well.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

Yeah, I was uh in percussion in middle school. Shout out to Ron Sorot Middle School.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Did they ever teach you that uh if you're on time, you're late?

SPEAKER_04 18:21

Yeah, I I really learned that about golf recently. I was on time, but I was literally late because tea time, you gotta put it go.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

So it's it's uh if you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, why try? Yeah, you know, so that and my kids still use that, especially my daughter. My daughter was terrible at timing. You know, she's she's done jujitsu for years, and uh she still goes through that whole concept of I need to be early, and that's because of Mark Yoswith Northwestern High School Band. He drilled that into her. So even now in her life at you know, 22, she's about to be 23 tomorrow, she still uses that in life.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

Yeah, it just check this out like even like sitting on the sidelines. I'm not coaching right now, currently. My daughter's volleyball team, I haven't passed like a random ball coming just out of left field. It's like a superpower, just having that jujitsu, like spidey sense tingling mindset. It's just one of many ways that you know you have to be presence. I'm sorry, present. Like presence is very key in jujitsu and in band and life. It really helps with like relationships with people, like across the board, like how you deal with like emotions, like everybody talking about like don't react out of emotion, but like jujitsu 100% helps with that because it gives you time to just like hold on, I'm just gonna breathe. Yeah, take like let everything my brain just calculate everything and what's what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I'm glad you brought that up. It's it's you're talking about situational awareness, yeah. Yeah, uh, you know, and and this is something that I I had a conversation with uh my wife. Uh shout out to her. She also does jujitsu brown belt. And uh shout out, yeah, Vanessa. Yeah, uh she has recently started going to camps, and one of them was in Indiana, and it was in all women's camp. Um, you know, that's scary as a woman going to your first camp in a different state. I'm not going. You know, you have to be able to protect yourself. Um, you know, she was telling me a story. I think it was Target she went to, and when she was coming out, she was able to look around, and you know, she's keeping her head up on a swivel, you know, just to just to keep it at uh her bearings. But she noticed a man who was just walking around the parking lot just oddly, you know, and he turned around and looked, and you know, most people they'd be like, you know, they look down, they don't want to see anything. Uh she was like, you know, I'm gonna look you right in the face, and I'm gonna look, I'm gonna stare at you, and I'm gonna make this uncomfortable. And it was enough of that situational awareness that she could be like, okay, this guy may not be a threat, but we're not gonna give him that opportunity, you know. So she he she was able to confront that, got and got in the car and left.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

That's a beautiful way to confront something. It's like confrontation without confrontation. 100%. And uh, she might have saved somebody's life just by looking at him like that. Ain't no telling what he had up his sleeve, man. You know what I'm saying? People out here crazy. Yeah. That's why yo, um, yeah. How long has your daughter been doing jujitsu, you say?

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Uh, she actually started before I did. She started, I believe, in 2014. She was the one that actually started this all. Uh, my journey and my my family's journey, really. Uh, we had read a story online that a uh a student had been bullied, a different student had been bullied in in middle school, uh, and got beat up. I believe it was on a bus. So I'm trying to recall, it was quite a few years ago. And uh they put their their that girl. In jujitsu to protect herself. So when we saw that, we were like, well, maybe we should probably get you know crystal into jujitsu. And we did. And she loved it. And she did it. I want to say four years up until she was about 16. And then, you know, 16-year-old girls, they they find other things that they want to do, and something else becomes bright and shiny. But she got up to blue belt, which is where I'm comfortable knowing that she knows enough to handle herself against somebody who's untrained. You know, and she's she's feisty. So she's definitely has an advantage.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Yeah, that blue belt where it's a um I heard somebody talking about like once you're at the level of a blue belt, you can pretty much handle like 98% of the population.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

98% of the untrained population.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

And that's why I like it's hard to fathom, really. I mean, that's a huge number.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

That's why I'm like, is anybody really people talk to the youth and stuff, and like, you know, I love Batman when I was a kid. I wanted to be a superhero. Like, this is a very reasonable way to become a superhero. I mean, obviously, you can't, you know, do that you know, crazy stuff that you see on TV, but legitimately helping people in your community, and I'm not saying go out there and be a uh not a vigilante, but that's cool to think about. Like, you know what I'm saying? I don't know, people might not have thought about it like that. Maybe some people don't even know. That's not in the ecosystem, but being able to like get to a blue belt and actually be trained well enough to help your family defend yourself and be a positive member of society. We need a lot more people out here like that. 100%. You know what I'm saying? Obviously, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I don't know what I'm saying. That's the whole point of this. A white belt and a brown belt, man. I'm gonna say this too. I'm gonna I gotta take it off, take off getting tattoos for a while because I'm obviously not gonna be able to train. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I was thinking about maybe just working on my half guard from the left side. Um, I could do that, right? But then that would be taken away from my training partner. Because I could, oh no, I can't go that way.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

In a sense, because it's it's not really about what you can or can't do to keep the tattoo okay. Uh, you know, we sweat, we have germs that are extruding off of our body while we're doing this. It's inevitable. So, what we're doing, what you're doing when you're staying off the mat is actually protecting yourself from things like staph. Right, that's what Tiana was telling me about. Any anything like that that's gonna actually make you more sick than just having you know a little blemish on your tattoo, yeah. So it's really for your safety, yeah. So, but there there is a balance, like like we've said, you know, jujitsu is a marathon, it's not a sprint. You're gonna do jujitsu at your own pace, it's your own story. So, I mean, you do it at your luxury, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

And what I'm gonna do, and I'm excited. I said this on the last couple podcasts, but the mat is finally down. Yes, thank you again, Coach Joey, and thank you, Coach Ken, because you're about to help me. We're gonna tape it. Oh, yeah. So I can like like not get real sweaty at the house work on my triangle with the dummy because I got the dummy in it. I ain't even brought him out the box yet. He and the he hungry, he waiting. You're ready, but um, so I can do that to occupy my time and still practice, yeah, and then come come watch. But it was tough being another day, but I'm gonna jump on that mat so bad.

unknown 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Well, you see, you see that uh often, I mean, uh people have just came in and just sat on the bench and watched classes with either Professor Joey or myself. Uh there was a couple who came in and watched uh Coach Alex uh when he taught. So you're still learning, especially if if you're there with uh you know a journal and you're you're writing things down as it's happening, you know, and it's it's a lot more detailed. So when you go back and look at it a month down the line, you're like, wow, I'm gonna try this.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

I was still locked in, bro. Like I came and watched, excuse me, I came and watched Tuesday. I had dropped lyric off here tutor, and I was locked in, man. You know what I'm saying? I was everything clapping simultaneously with everybody, synchronized, and that's what it's about. Um so let me ask you this. Have you ever been in a situation, like a real life situation, like out here in the streets where you've had to use your jujitsu? Like we know I don't I don't want to ever have to use it. Ever. Outside of training. But have you ever had to?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Once, and I can talk about this now, excuse me, now that I'm not a uh band booster parent uh at Northwestern. So uh this was years ago uh when Mark Yost was still the band director at Northwestern High School. Uh he was getting close to retirement. Uh he knew it. He's he's an older gentleman, uh fantastic man, uh just absolutely fantastic person. And uh we were at the uh Rock Hill Northwestern football game, and that's a huge rival. Oh, yeah, as you know, it's oh yeah, I know all about it. Everybody comes out for that, and we were sitting on the uh the guest side, and Rock Hill was a home team, and we had won the game, and even before the game was over, the announcer was saying, do not come onto the field, no one's allowed on the field, blah blah blah. You know the deal. Um, and we won at the I think it was like the last 11 seconds by like field goal. Everybody wanted to rush the uh the field, and there was a couple students, I didn't know they were students at the time, but they were students, who were trying to get onto the field, and the band directors, both of them, the the the head band director and the associate band director were trying to hold these these kids back. And one of the kids grabbed Mark Yoast by the jacket, a teacher who had been there 30 something years, I believe it was. Uh, and Vanessa yelled at me, you know, kenning they need help. So I ran down, I saw what he was doing. I was able to put this kid into a rear-naked choke, didn't choke him out just enough to let him know, hey, I'm here. Yeah, this this is what we're doing. I peeled him off of him, and uh, even the the police who were there, Rock Hill PD, they came over and he was like, Do you have this? Said 100% I got this. So he's like, you know, take him out of the field. So we turned around and I kept him in a rear-naked choke and I walked him in front of me and walked him out the out the gate and had him leave. Uh so that's the only time I've had to do it. The reason I say I can talk about it now is uh it came back that a parent had put their hands on a student and they didn't care what the reason was. And my buddy, uh I won't say his name, but he took the fall for it. He was like, Yeah, it was me. But it was his kid was there for his senior year, so I think it was like one of his last football games. So he was like, Yeah, it was me. They were like, Well, you can't come back to the stadium. He was like, Cool, not anyway. Yeah, that that's a whole different ball, a whole different story with that. They they don't want that just gave me anxiety, obviously, for for reasons, you know, you may have a parent who's not as trained, who's not as in control of themselves that want to do this, who could potentially, you know, really harm somebody, yeah, you know, but yeah, that's the only time I've really had to use it. There's and you'll find it as you continue with jujitsu, you'll start looking around at people and being like, I can take him, I can take him. If this guy comes at me from the side, I can do this. And you just do that in your everyday life, and you create these scenarios that you're already ready for that haven't happened yet.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

I'm doing that, but not to that extent. I'm not saying I can take him, I'm saying if I get into a situation, this is what I'm gonna do. Because like I said, I'm a white belt. But yeah, you know, I'm gonna know what somebody knows man. Just look at their ears. Look at their ears. You do you use ear girl?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

I I have I've had cauliflower ear before, but uh, I drain them. Uh yeah, I just use diabetic needles and and drain them out as it happens. Uh, I don't ever want them to really close up, especially with my music background. You know, I definitely have to be able to hear.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

Hey, before we I was gonna say you took some time off the music, but before we do that, I want to mention this because you said rip necked choke. So, you know, I've had the match for like a couple weeks now, but they're finally down. But Lyric had a um a uh what do you call those things you sit on? Beanbag chair? And like we were sitting on it, and I taught her how to do the red-necked choke, bro. And um, I'm not gonna put it all on Lyric, and I'm not gonna put it all on the beanbag chair because of the awkward angle, but yo, she popped my neck. And it was I was hurt a little bit for a while. It went away. She's you know, because obviously people up there stronger, but she's pretty strong, man. Yeah, I feel good. I said my baby in the house do a red naked choke. Well, she she she just wanted to practice it on me again. I said, nah, not the night.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Well no, see, that's good. That's gonna be comfortable.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Could you imagine if I'm like sitting out for a week because my daughter popped my neck on a real naked show, bro? Like, she that's crazy. But yeah, shout out to her, man. Um, um she she's actually excited about learning now because you know she did it for a while, and now that I got the match, she she wants to learn. Yeah, because um, you mentioned bullying, and I I put out some clips. I put out a clip that me um from the podcast me and Victor was talking about about an incident that happened up there. I had to go to the school, but um, yeah, man, we ain't playing that bully game, bro. Like, stop. Get your get your get your self-help, put your kids in jujitsu or some type of thing or whatever you gotta do because it's mamas out here that don't play. Yeah, that's what you need to be worried about.

unknown 31:54

Shit.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

I'm serious. You know, we we've had some incidents with uh with uh crystal, uh my daughter, uh, with uh especially in junior high where we've actually had to go down and talk to the principal and the the what do they call them, their counselors or whatever. And they're like, look, you know, this is going on, she's being bullied. She's being professionally trained to defend herself, and it's gonna get to a point to where she and she knows that she's not supposed to, you know, put go hands on, but it's gonna get to a point to where she's gonna have to, and giving them that warning, and then you know, you can actually see the whole look on their face, like, oh, okay, we need to do something about this. Yeah, they weren't doing anything at the time, but when we said that, you know, she's gonna have to go hands-on eventually. They were like, Well, we need to do something.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

I'm gonna tell you this. Like, you know what I mean. I'm not a tough guy, like, whatever, whatever. But like, it's something about my daughter, man. Like, she has to know how to defend herself because I'm a, you know, it just does something to me to thought of her not being safe at school or somebody messing with her. Like, I want to get to the root of the problem. Let's figure it out as parents if we need to, like, we can just have a conversation, right? You know, like with the with the dad, whatever we need to do. Maybe this whole these conversations might start a whole new damn program, brother. I don't know, just like a hands-on approach for like if there's some bullying that after a certain period of time it doesn't get controlled, and like Victor said, it's like alternative schools for kids anyway, right? Right, yeah. But they they they deserve a chance to be a member of society. But I think I think I don't know nothing. I might get a business administration degree, but I don't know nothing. But there comes a point in time where enough is enough. And what I did was an outcry for preventive, preventative measures. Because it makes me crazy. I'm like literally scared of what I'm capable of doing. I probably might I can get my ass whooped, I get shot and killed, I don't give a damn, bro. Like that shit it makes me fucking pissed. Yeah, it does something to me, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Like, you could I'm just well it's scary now as as adults when when we have children now, especially in the school system, everybody knows, you know, Sandy Hook and all these other school shootings. So what is happening to in these schools that is not at that degree, it's not at that level. You know, we talk about bullying and you know what how much of this is going on that isn't being reported, how much of this is going on that a child is not able to defend themselves. You know, that's it's a life lesson that will live with them forever that they have to have. You know, I'm a huge advocate. Put your kid in jujitsu. That's what I'm saying. Put your kid in something. If you, you know, if you don't believe in jujitsu, put him in taekwondo. Is it gonna be as effective as jujitsu? Absolutely not. Karate? Absolutely not. I say no because I know. Yeah, and something, and and I can attest to that. I I've done karate, right? I did it for years, and I was 15 and I was a black belt. I thought I was you know the king back then. I had a black belt at 15, I got a black belt in two years. That didn't mean jazz. It didn't. I was a white belt in jujitsu uh coming up uh my first school at Hannabreak. And I remember talking to my wife about this like two weeks into my into doing jujitsu. I was brand new. I was like, karate was nothing compared to this. Pity Pat. It was nothing, no offense to nobody. And don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking any any karate practitioners. If that is your go-to and that's what you want to do, cool, do it. It's something, but jujitsu, different level, dude. Completely different level.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

I think seriously, I thank God for uh you know the opportunities that are coming in my life and the people that he's surrounding me with, including you, of course. But I'm just saying, it really frustrates me, man, when like people aren't doing anything about it. And like us as parents, I complain for a while, but now I'm doing something about it.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

I'm training myself and my daughter. I'm also spreading the word of hey, this is a problem that's been going on for a while. We're way beyond pattern recognition with this. This has been going on for generation to generation. So let's try to figure out what's going on and help the moving, you know, the generations to come.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

I've I've always said, don't tell me that, and and I use this at home too, don't tell me the water cooler is broken. Anyone can tell me the water cooler is broken. Tell me what you did to fix it, you know, and what I mean by that is if you didn't juju do jujitsu and you didn't feel this, you can be at the school, you can be complaining as much as you want. And those are the people that are trying to tell me that the water cooler is broken. You're trying to tell me what's wrong with the system. You want to tell me what I'm supposed to do to fix the system, but I want to know what these people have done to fix it. You started jujitsu, you started having more mental awareness, situational awareness, you're starting to learn your own body. These are things that you're doing not just for yourself, but for your kids and the generations that are coming. You know, if if your kids are doing jujitsu with you now, they're gonna be taking this to the next generation. And now you've taught this generational situational awareness or this generational self-defense that is within your family that it's gonna go on, you know, for however long you know we continue to do this. And that's the goal. You know, we're not trying to tell people what's wrong with society. What are we doing to fix it?

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Yeah, because I figured out what was wrong with me, so I fix myself. And it the change has to happen within a lot of people are saying that it's so true. But you gotta live it, man, and really try. And and I'm not I'm not to be cliche, but obviously I'm not perfect. Don't want to be perfect. If you're looking for perfection, don't even talk to me.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

If you if you're perfect, there's no more growth.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

Every day, like I was saying, man, every single day. Yeah, I even learned something at the NAGA uh tournament. I was watching these little kids warming up before they try uh competed. I was watching this little girl put this little boy in a triangle. I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Like, you know, I learned a little something right there watching them. What if kids taught you about life? You know what I'm saying? As far as kids that you like, your daughter was in jujitsu. I'm sure y'all probably trained a little bit together. Like you saw her growth and development, and obviously the other kids in class, I'm sure you saw their growth and development. Yeah, watching kids like grow through and learn learn how to become real, like good human beings with like high character build.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Like, what has that taught you to appreciate the life that I have? Right. And and I say that because there, you know, there's times a time that I did not appreciate what I had. Uh, I didn't appreciate myself, I didn't like myself. I was in a you know, I was in a really dark place, uh, as a lot of people have mentally. And I attribute, I'm gonna try not to get emotional, uh, I attribute my kids to really help them pull me out of that. And a lot of it had to do with not giving up on them. You know, as kids they make mistakes, they're going to. Um, they get to a point where you know they want you to park down at the end of the road at school so they can get out so they don't see you. I never really had that. My kids were the kids that were like, park me right up front and get out and give me a hug. You know, my son's in high school, he's a junior in high school, senior in high school, uh, when he was going through. He had no problem coming up, giving me a hug, and kissing me on the cheek in front of other students. You know, and that just those lessons in life from them, which are things that I never thought I could learn uh from a a child, you know, a young adult, is to just appreciate everything that I have and just enjoy life. There was a time that uh I didn't uh in 2016 that uh I didn't think I was coming home one night. I went to uh the emergency room with chest pain and uh I had ended up with uh getting morphine, which I found out later I'm allergic to. Uh so it stopped my heart, it stopped my lungs. I was out. Uh I remember passing out with one nurse in the room, and when I woke up, the whole room was full. I don't know how long I was out, they wouldn't exactly tell me. Uh my wife Vanessa was in the room and she just said that she just lost you know track of time. It was like everything just slowed down. Um, and they they wrote me back, and it was like those moments, it's like and and all I can think about when I when I came to was like my kids. You know, where are my kids? My kids aren't here. Are they gonna see their dad? So it's like these are situations where I'm like, I really appreciate what my kids have done to me, and I know I don't tell them nearly as much as I should. You know, just appreciate life, appreciate what you have, appreciate the time that you have here, and that you know, like even with jujitsu, you can still move your body this way. You know, it's it's it it's humbling to to know that children can still teach adults when we think we know it all sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 41:26

It's heavy stuff, man. It is. I remember when I was watching her do jujitsu and I was like, why is she that's that looks pretty easy. Why is she not doing it correctly? I was kind of getting on her about it. Lo and behold, when I started, I had to apologize to her. No, seriously. This is a couple years back. I was like, sweetheart, I'm so sorry that I was like getting on you about not doing the shrimping or whatever that it was doing and remembering. Because yeah, it's like a memory thing. I know the more reps you get, obviously, you get muscle memory. I'm like, yo, something's going on in my mind. So I'm trying to take some supplements to help with that. But the more I show up, I know the more that that will help. That's really the antidote for that. Just keep showing up. Never giving up. You know what I'm saying? Staying mindful. But those jujitsu brain farts, man, they real, bro. They are real. What's the um what's the biggest difference between like teaching an adult versus when a coach teaches a child jujitsu?

SPEAKER_01 42:23

I've had limited uh teaching of children. Uh I've been lucky enough that uh Professor Joey has let me, you know, help with helping with the children. And for me, you know, adults we strive on structure. Kids do to a degree, but as adults, we want to feel comfortable with knowing that this is what we're gonna be doing, this is what time we're gonna be doing it, how long. And it creates a structure for us. Yeah, you know, much of our life, even outside of jujitsu, is very structured. We stand in lines, we wait at red lights, we go on green, you know, so we strive on that and really honestly thrive on it. Um kids I've noticed that they have to have fun doing what they're doing. You can have a a set curriculum and a timing down for everything. We're gonna do warm-ups for 15 minutes, we're gonna do this cur this this technique for 10 minutes. But if the kids are not having fun, they are not engaged, and they will immediately start looking for something other shiny. You know, and I've been to to some uh uh gyms uh and not only some gyms, so you know some schools that it's like everything is like sit down, be quiet, just repeat what we do. And you can see the uh uh inattention of the students and and the kids are like looking into the into the ceiling.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

People parent that way too.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Yeah, 100%. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 44:03

I've done it before.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Give them something that they're going to enjoy. Let them have fun without being too strict. You can keep them in line, but you know, to make them do the techniques and require them to do these things, but let them have fun.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Yeah, to play a little dodgeball at the end. Absolutely. Maybe. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

And I'm going to tell you though, it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:24

As an adult, it's so much fun, man. You know. Everybody knows it.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

You see the adults standing around the mats, yeah, waiting for the ball to come their way, and they're like, just waiting for it. And they'll grab it and throw it at a ball for, you know, throw it at a kid from the side of the mat.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

Yes, sir. Yeah, it's fun. We've only well, I have been haven't been to every class, but as far as since I've been training there, I've only been there for one dodgeball adult situation. I would like to do that again, coach.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Oh, we're gonna no man. I got something for you. I'll I'll tell you what it is. Honestly, uh, probably not gonna do it. We I don't know, we may do it tonight. Uh no, because we're competing. We got some competitors tomorrow. So we're gonna competitors that are that are going out to Naga. Uh, we're gonna keep it easy for them. Hey, hey, good luck, everybody, man. Best of luck.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

I know Justin's probably competing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Who is uh uh Justin Gage. Um Gage got some fire in him. Oh, yeah. 100%. Owen, you know, yeah, yeah. Owen reminds me of uh a baby Rotel brother. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Yeah, I know you talk, I saw them on the podcast before.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

So yeah, uh, I think we'll do it. You know, next week we're on spring break. So uh Professor Joey's gonna handle uh he's gonna cover Monday uh Open Matt, and I'm gonna do Wednesday and Saturday. I think Wednesday I'm gonna do something fun, uh, or even if I bring in like a stuffed bunny rabbit for Easter. And while you guys are rolling, throw the rabbit off to the side. First person to get the rabbit wins.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

I don't know. Oh yeah, tattoo or not. Tattoo could be bleeding. So I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

So the concept of this is, and I've I've talked to the professor about this, is what happens if we're on the streets and and we have a situation where an opponent has a weapon, yeah, and we're able to disarm them, but it's right here, it's next to us. We have to be able to react to that. So the bunny rabbit's gonna represent, and it's soft, so nobody gets hurt. It's you know, it's gonna represent that that uh firearm or that knife. Whoever gets it first is more than likely gonna win that fight.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

So brother, good luck. That reminds me of Sergeant Bird. We did the podcast, and um, he told me when they trained, like they would throw a taser on the ground while they was like rolling and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

I've seen that. Uh I've I've laughed at it and uh I've thought about it, but uh, I think we'll start with this.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

That'd be cool, man. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like the whimsicleness of it, the improv, the adaptability, all those character traits, all those just traits to take with us out here into the world and apply it to personal relationships, business relationships, just decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis. I don't know, just it makes the way you move completely different, man.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

You you said that uh, you know, a little bit earlier in in this uh podcast that you weren't much of a you didn't say not much of a fighter, but I think it was a violent person. You know, okay, let me let me go ahead and break this down.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

Let me break it down for you. I didn't like the fight growing up, right? Yeah, I was a black belt, but I never would fight.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:30

I would walk away from him. Didn't want to participate. Now I uh I've been into a couple scuffles, but there has been a time or two that I wasn't there for my brother when I should have been. And that's some shit that I've held on for a long time. It's still in my subconscious. And years ago, I would bring it up years ago and apologize to him about it. He's like, man, it's in the past, let it go. But still, as a man, just thinking back on the things that he did for me, I wasn't there for him when he needed me, bro. And that shit eats me. It don't eat me alive, but it's still in my subconscious. Yeah, like it is. So yeah, I never wanted to last resort, man.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

See, I like what it is very similar in that I had a big mouth as a kid. So I was getting myself into scuffles and fights, and I hated fighting and I didn't like it. And even growing up after that, you know, I was very meek. Uh my head, I was constantly looking down. I'd never look people in the eye. Even when I shake people's hands, I would never do that. I'd never, you know, look them in the eye. Now I walk around, you know, and it's the confidence that jujitsu is giving me. Not not knowing that I could harm somebody. It's just that it's a different kind of confidence in life that I can walk around, you know, people walking in and out of this door. Typically, everybody keeps their head down. I'm like, good morning, and I look right at them. Thank you. You're welcome. And I'm very, very vocal. And I don't think a lot of people are used to it.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

They don't be expecting, they don't expect it. It's funny when you catch somebody off guard like that. Yeah, I can be walking in out of the.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

And I'm the type of person where if if I'm holding the door open for you and you just walk in, you don't say thank you, I'm the one that's like, you're welcome. Make sure you heard me. I'm the one like, you know, and and it's a way to it, it's it's my way to to have that passive aggressiveness to get it out without being, you know, a detriment to myself or society doing something that I probably shouldn't have, being angry, saying something I shouldn't have. But it's also a reminder to them look, it's okay to be polite. You know, it's it's not a big deal, it's not hard. It's two words.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Yeah, but um, man, I'm gonna tell you something. I I see some good things happening out here in the world, man. Um like things are out for like people to be able to like process healing and stuff like that. Um I'm gonna ask you about this. I we can cut this out. Um, absolutely. But I was watching Rogan's podcast, and he had like Rick, the guy in Texas, like the uh senator in Texas, and this other guy, they're doing uh research and on Abergain for like treatment for like veterans and people that have bad addictions. And apparently it's like a 90, like an 86% success rate with like one treatment or whatever, and then like 98% with the next treatment to get over like a bunch of like issues with alcoholism and addiction and other substances. Have you heard anything about that? I haven't. I'm gonna get an expert on. I'm not roguing and all that, man, but like that's the kind of stuff that I'm like giving towards man healing, especially the veterans. Yeah, brother, I was born on Veterans Day and my sister was a veteran, and both my granddates were veterans. Yeah, um, they're all deceased. But and being born on Veterans Day, like I have this urge, like not even urge, just calling to give them a platform to talk. And because they've been done wrong, man. You know what I'm saying? There have been restrictions on certain things.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

There's more people willing to do that.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

There are there is stuff that God has put on earth, plant medicine, whatever's in the trees in the ground that we can use to heal ourselves in a controlled environment. And like the I believe the jig is up, man. It's like a global awakening, you know, because what's going on, something's not right, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

A holistic approach.

SPEAKER_04 51:20

A holistic approach. Yeah. Instead of, okay, so what we gonna do? We got a war in Afghanistan, and we have troops allegedly guarding poppy fields.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Right.

SPEAKER_04 51:34

How many years later did we have the opioid crisis? I'm just saying, I don't know nothing. I yeah, Ken, I'm not trying to, you know what I'm saying? It's just stuff that I've seen, I've observed, man. And like I said, the jig is up, and um, it's a lot of people out here trying to learn how to plant their own food, hunt their own meat, be self-sustainable. Let's let's have a uh community garden, man. Let's let's get this bartering system back up on the road and right.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

We started the garden in 2020 in our backyard. We got we have about an acre in the backyard. What? Yeah, we still have I mean we we're not doing it this year. This year this year is the first year we're not doing it since 2020 because we're working on the house, uh, things that we want to do to renovate. Uh but my mother-in-law, uh, who you seen the show uh Everybody Loves Raymond?

SPEAKER_04 52:19

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

You know how that shows how the in-laws live right behind them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's my wife. Okay, my in-laws literally live right behind us, and thank thank God I love them to death.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Is your father-in-law is hilarious? That's the guy? No, the show? That dude's funny, man.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

My father-in-law is the exact opposite. He's a real small, five foot one, Vietnamese, you know, full Vietnamese guy, very, very flat affect, but you know, he's he's a good guy. Uh anyway, get back to that. He uh she saw the the garden. We were like, we're not doing it. She's like, I'm gonna use your garden. So now every day she's over in our yard doing her doing our garden, you know, pretty much for for both of us. You know, it's it's great.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

I'm gonna let you a little secret, you know, a little secret, bro. I am lazy. I've been talking big game about doing another garden this year. And I'm telling Lyric, I was like, baby, I don't know, man. Maybe we'll do a raised bed. Bro, it's a lot of work. I'm gonna tell you though, I love getting a tiller, yeah, digging it up or whatever, getting all that, planting it. That whole process, I'm with that 100%. It's that coming home from work, what am I gonna do? I need a water. Look at them weeds coming up, and you want to be organic, yeah, right? So you don't want to put like pesticides and stuff in there to take the easy route out, and then you're putting those chemicals back in your body because at the end of the day, why would you grow things that anyway? Personally, I I try to go as organic as possible, but it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Well, you just said you just said holistically, uh, you know, you don't have to use pesticides. There are things that you can find online that like uh I don't even know what it was. My wife looked it up that uh keeps the slugs away from the uh from the tomatoes and the and the peppers that you can put on the dirt and it keeps them away from it. Yeah, I think or peppermint oil also works as well.

SPEAKER_04 54:00

I think peppermint, lavender, and marigose, I think keep the deer away. Yeah, so the little the little bug, the little the little, I'm gonna tell you what got my black ones. The I had I had a good little patch of collard greens back there. It was the best collard greens I ever cooked, ever had. I cook them. Yeah, grandma, I love you. But then I got slacked. Bro, I went out there, it was these little like little white caterpillars, just decimated. You have to like stay on it. Yeah, and as much discipline as I can get in that in the gym where we will be at, as much discipline as I can get in there, it does translate to life, but it's like I can't put too much on myself. You know what I'm saying? I'm busy, I gotta stay busy, but that garden is important, man. I actually got some organic purple Cherokee tomato seeds too. Nice. So I have to I have to get them going. Yeah, I'm gonna have to, man. But uh, it's like such a commitment, man.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

See, we had the whole deal going on. We got I got a greenhouse, uh, like a it was it was like one off of uh Amazon that was like three, four hundred bucks. It's uh eight by eight by six tall. It was just enough to start the start the seeds in there, but it's you know it's it's getting back to having the foods that we're meant to eat, the the non-processed foods, uh the things that are actually good for our body, which is ironic because now that's what we're doing. Uh since I got sick in December, yeah. Uh, we completely my wife and I, we changed the way we eat 100%. We're tracking everything now, yeah. Uh, and making sure that we're eating these these real foods that have color in our cart when we're shopping, you know, and no extra color added to it.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

No, you know, like mint chocolate ice cream? Yeah, like Haganda's it's white. Yeah. Anywhere else you go is green because it's actually green. Yeah. Back in the day. Oh, it's yeah, what do you call it? St. Paddy's Day, drink some green beer.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

See, but you gotta watch things like that now because even even uh I think it's Doritos is uh doing these natural colored chips, but that's because the FDA has taken away the coloring. You're not, you know, they they've banned this coloring, so now they're marketing it as this is better for you because it doesn't have these dyes in it. Is it really though? I mean, it's still the same amount of sodium, it's still the same amount of carbon. It's not real food.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

It's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

I mean, we all know what steak looks like. Yeah, don't add nothing. Oh, don't they add coloring to salmon? Like farm raised salmon? Don't they they add color to this? I had to change my diet up, bro. I'm I'm gonna I don't care, man. I don't I don't got no shame, bro. Like I told I had to change my diet up, man, because I was eating like I'm gonna tell you, I would go to my last job, I would get this trail mix, right? Almonds, pecans, cashews, dark chocolate. That's healthy, right? But I'm I'm like bleeding, bro. Hemorrhoids and shit from hell. So I had stayed out of jujitsu a couple a while because I had hemorrhoids, man. And um a good friend, a friend of mine told me I need to talk about this shit because everybody goes through this, especially as men. Like, we all, I'm not saying you do, I don't know. This is about me. I'm talking speaking for myself. Get to a certain age, the hemorrhoids come. I can't roll with hemorrhoids, man. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Yeah, I wouldn't put that on anybody.

SPEAKER_04 57:21

I don't know if anybody, if you've ever, if you've ever not trained jujitsu because you had hemorrhoids, please put something in the comments. Because I don't care. It happened, but back to the diet change. This is what I did. So I eliminated nuts. And um I got to like just ribey's um grass-fed, like ground beef, pair that with one of those proteins with avocado or sweet potato, bro. Yeah, put some MCT oil under to get them healthy fats in them, man. And it cleaned my system up. Like, it wasn't obviously overnight, but within the next couple of days, I was obviously felt better, had more energy, took care of that problem. And um, I'm very adamant, it's gone. Yeah, I'm very adamant on that. I'm gonna tell you something. I'm gonna tell you a little secret. I don't know if anybody else is doing this, but I got this raw milk situation, this concoction, right? I get the raw milk, throw some cacao powder in there. You know what I'm saying? Throw some honey in there. Some turmeric and some crack black pepper that's loaded with pretty much everything we need. I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not everything. I'm not a nutritionist. I know a couple, I'm not a scientist. Y'all out the, but that's something with that cacao powder and then with the with the raw milk and the turmeric and the crack black pepper because that's like an anti-inflammatory, like super food project for your body.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Yeah, turmeric is huge.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

I put that turmeric, I throw it in my food now, man, just to have it in there. Like, why not with that with that pepper? We activated it. That's what we're supposed to, that's why we're supposed to eat, not for, oh, that looks good. I can go look at some flowers with my daughter to see something that looks good. Or I can, you know, look at the stars at night, but consumption of food, man, they done tricked us and they got our minds jacked up with this addiction to those powders, those chemicals they put on those types of chips. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, food should be for in like treat your body like a temple. Like, use food to fuel you so your mind can be clear, right? So you have a certain level of energy throughout the day, so you don't have those sugar crashes.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

So I'm I'm I'm glad you actually brought that up. Thinking clear. So before we changed our diet, uh, well, let me explain what we're doing now. We we're starting to track our food, and before we switched switched our diet up, we tracked what we used to eat. I mean, I'm talking, you know, I'm supposed to have 42 grams of fat a day uh with my macros. I was getting like 150 to 200 a day, and that's why I was keeping the inflammation on, keeping the weight on. Uh carbohydrates was super high, like 240, 250. And my protein was like 90, 100. Macros are way off. Now I'm very consistent with uh with uh I think I'm doing 40, 40, 20, 190 grams of protein, 190 grams of carbs, and 42 grams of fat. And going back to what you said about you know uh your mental uh clearness before I did all these changes, I don't know if it was because my triglyceride levels were high, which I know I know they were, or what the issue was with the amount of fat that I had, but I would have issues just finishing a sentence or thinking about what I'm supposed to say in just regular everyday conversation going through my day.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

I had that early into the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

And it would be difficult, but now uh making sure that we're eating the vegetables that we're supposed to, you know you know, and you mentioned turmeric, uh, doing these little shot glasses that my wife is putting together with like pineapple juice, turmeric, ginger, garlic that are all put through the food processor and then the juicer, and they're just little shots that we take every day: turmeric, cinnamon, uh apple cider vinegar, things like these that are helping flush our system and get our zombie cells out that we have that are they're basically dying cells. You know, just the amount of clarity that I have now is insane. And memory retention, it's great. You know, I feel like I had short-term memory loss you know, years ago, uh within the past couple years. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe because I'm not drinking anymore. You know, but I've been sober going on four months now.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:34

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Uh, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

Don't you feel so much better?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

So much so much. It's it it's insane the the difference. And we had done it before where we went six years sober and we just kind of got back into it, my wife and I. And then now we're just like, you know, after I I ended up in the hospital and uh what they felt was a uh a heart attack in December on December 13th. Uh since then, no coffee, no uh no alcohol, but drinking mushroom coffee 100% different. I love mushrooms. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:08

It's something about it. No, it's something about them. Like I'm on the like the lion's main. Yep. And um, I got some stuff that uh Paul Stamis is host defense. They did like a collaboration with Grateful Dead. They got the gummies, man, and they're actually delicious. So I've been taking those for like like that be mellow, like for the mood, mellow, yeah, for the cognitive, for the lion's mane, for clarity, mental focus, and stuff like that, man. Yes, for the energy, right? Yes, and then you got the uh I got a combination of like a seven of them for like immunity. So yeah, and I'm telling you, man, like I'm all about that symbiosis too, man. If you look at like if people can educate themselves, I've said this plenty of times. Sorry, they'll repeat it, but like the connection with the mycelium, how they communicate with each other, they allocate resources to other vegetation. That's what we're supposed to be doing. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, so I don't know. It's it's it's pretty awesome. They also like breathe in oxygen like us and give out carbon dioxide, you know, you know, that we have that same relationship like you've seen you've seen Last of Us? Yeah, I didn't try I couldn't get it to the second season, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

No, but you saw you saw the first season how how all of it how all of it works for the customer. I turn a link system, yeah. Same thing. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

So um, and that's why, and another reason why I didn't drink coffee because I mean I was getting emotional early during the podcast, man. I didn't want to be all ramped up sounding too, too crazy. Just like for real, just to be respectful, man, because you know, I respect you, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

As I do you, and um I definitely appreciate you.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:45

I'm gonna tell you how serious I am about this. Like sometimes, like, we'll be in class and I'll ask you a question, and you'll be kind of telling me what I'm doing, or like you'll be explaining to me, and I'll kind of try to like not complete your sentence, but for me to even think that I know where you're gonna go, I just need to shut up and listen. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

I don't I don't think so. I I for me, being questioned is giving me answers as well because anyway you look at it, I'm still new, new-ish to teaching jujitsu. So there's been too many times, and you've been in my class where I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna work. I've never done it before, but I saw it. I want to try it. Let's see what happens. And we try and we do it. So I don't have all the answers, you know. And your body frame is obviously different than mine. Your legs are a lot longer. When you go to lock up a triangle, I feel that it's gonna be a lot easier for you than it would for me, who has shorter, stumpier legs. You know, so there's some things that may be going on with your body that I'm not aware of that you're like, hey coach, you know, my can't uh was it you? No, uh we had another student who was like, I can't turn my knee this way when we're trying to come out the back from half guard when I get the underhook and I want to come out. My knee doesn't turn that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:06

It was Joseph. I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

No, it was uh Matt. I think it was Matt. He said he couldn't turn his knee that way because of a previous injury. I didn't know he had an injury. I'm like, cool. I don't have that injury, I've never had to modify this. Let's figure out a way to modify it. So you know, I sat down with him and we're like, you know, and I think he was working with you, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:25

It was Joseph.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

Yeah, was it Joseph? Yeah, okay, yeah. So, you know, in that instance, it's like I didn't have the answer, but we we figured it out. But had he not spoken up and been like, I can't do this, you know, what is another option? I would have never known. And he would have gone on to be like, I can't do this move, I'm not gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:46

Now, if his pride would have got in the way, like now I'm just gonna suck it up and just keep doing it, he might have got injured down the road.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

Oh, 100%. Yeah, as soon as he tries to tweak his knee and is not supposed to go that way from his surgery.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:57

Yeah, absolutely. I love I love training. Joseph, man, because we like the same height basically. Yeah. Yeah, I love training.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

Yeah, your body frames are very similar. And then I don't I don't know if you notice that, but it's like I'm scanning the room to see who you guys pair with. And there has been times where I've moved pair-ups, uh, just because the body frames and the styles are very different. Um, especially as white belts and and blue belts uh that have been coming to Fundamentals, it's very imperative that we have somebody similar, especially if we're going to be uh competing, because that's who we're gonna be competing against. But eventually down the road, you have to start learning to do these things on somebody taller, on somebody shorter, on somebody bigger, on somebody skinnier, because you don't have a choice who wants to do bad things to you in the world. You really don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:47

I forgot to talk to Coach about this. We was I forget who I was rolling with, man, but I did some kind of I think it was uh Ethan. It was one day we was rolling, and um bro, I did some kind of, it was we were doing situationals. I'm just gonna tell you what Coach said because I don't know what it was. He was like, What kind of long-skeletal bullshit was that? I had got my lock in drilling. I didn't lock in the room naked, but I had got his back. He was like, what kind what kind of long-skeletal bullshit is that?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

Oh my goodness. That's definitely something you would say.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

How important is it that you think it is uh when we're training and doing drills to drill them from both sides to gain ambidextrous abilities?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Dude, are you kidding? You don't you don't have a choice in the matter, I'd say 90% of the time, how someone is gonna be defensive. You don't know if you're fighting somebody who's gonna be a southpaw and is more comfortable on the left side. Yeah, and if you don't drill it on that side, what are you gonna do? You're like, uh it's I don't know what to do with my hands.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:00

But yeah, it's almost it's very I I would say I I could be wrong, like I say, I don't, but it's very counterintuitive to not train on both sides because if I'm just training on my strong side, my left, my left, my left, my left, my left, and then I come the open mat. What's gonna happen on the right side? I'm not gonna know what to do, especially if I'm out in the streets and God forbid something's gonna happen. If I'm training on my left side the whole time and I get into a little, you know, scuffle with somebody and I'm on the right side, all that training, I'm not gonna say it went out of the window, but I'm at a huge disadvantage because my brain is not ready to go ahead and handle the situation, control that person until outcomes or whatever has to be done has to be done, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:36

But well, you're you're you're creating a bad habit for yourself, and that's why I I always tell you guys, you know, make sure that you're doing stuff on both both sides. And I call it your good side, your stupid side. It's not really stupid side, but that's just it it's a way for you to remember to do it on both sides, and you're creating a habit for your training for years to come. If you're creating this bad habit where you're only drilling one side now for the rest of your career, you're most likely only gonna try to use that side, you know. So if you can start a really good habit of doing both sides now, do it. Your non-dominant side is always gonna be a little bit less productive than your dominant side. Uh it's just life and genetics. There are a couple, you know, superhumans out there that may be just as good or even better on the bad side, but the majority of us, we're gonna struggle on that side. That's why I say, even now, I have my brown belt side and I have my purple belt side. You know, my left side is my purple belt side. I'm not as proficient in it with no gi. Uh, you know, I did ghee uh at my uh at my other school. I I came from uh from actually Great Grappling of Fort Mill, where it was, you know, the majority of classes were all in ghee. So that's really what I trained for I was there for seven years. Uh so coming here with Coach Joey, now I have the opportunity to do more nogi. I say all the time, I'm a brown belt in uh in ghee, but I'm a blue belt in nogi. I really am because I I don't have the grips, I don't have things I can grab. I have to learn different things like the collar tie instead of grabbing lapel. You know, how to grab the wrist instead of grabbing the the sleeve. You know, there's things that I still need to learn, and I think it really put a detriment on my game not being able to drill and train both of them. I wish I I had. But I'm making up for it now.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:31

I'm gonna share something with you and the audience. I had a thought recently. Like, I'm gonna keep showing up, I'm gonna keep coming, I'm never gonna quit jujitsu. That that word isn't in my vocabulary as far as that goes. But man, I was like, man, like I disappoint my coach. I'm gonna keep fighting, I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep struggling, I'm gonna keep fighting. That's that's the name of the game. And I know I gotta be patient and keep just coming and showing up. And I'm like, damn, dog, I know he probably like, yo, you 6'5. That's why I like size, definitely does not matter, the muscles don't matter. My issue is my damn memory, man, and it clicking and remembering what to do, and then like you know, dialing it in with my parameters, with my mobility. But bro, I like one day I was just sitting in it, man. I was like, damn, I hope I'm not like disappointing my coach. I can tell you I know he'd probably be like, yo, that's a dumbass thing, the way to think, but still, that's just what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

I can't speak for Professor Joey. However, I feel like the only way you're really gonna, and I I know for me, the only way that I'm going to really disappoint him is if I quit showing up and I make an excuse on why I did not show up. Right. Because there's been plenty of times where I've had to take time off and he's blown up my phone. Dude, where are you at? Yeah, where are you at? Get in here. You know, it does. Well, I'm not I'm you know, I I've told him before, honestly, I was like, you know, some days I'm I'm just not feeling it mentally. I'm just not there. Shut up, get in class. You'll feel better. And and honestly, that the one time I I went to class and I walked in, he's like, You look so mad. I'm like, it is what it is, man. Let's just work. By the end of class, tapping him up, giving him hugs, smiling, thank you so much. So it's that push that you want from a coach that is your coach and is not your boss. You know, there's a huge difference in that. And I I never get that boss vibe from him. I'm so glad he genuinely wants us to do better, and to do so, show up. That's why I tell you, you know, there's days where you're like, uh, I may not be able to get there until after six o'clock. I don't care. You're not interrupting class. Come to class. 6 30, so what? 7 o'clock, so what? Be here. I gotta leave early. So what? Be here. Doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:55

Thank you. Um thankfully, you know what I'm saying? I at the end of that thought process, I was like, all I gotta do is just keep showing up. You know, but you said something very important because I recently had this like acknowledgement. Or so I was thinking about my last job, right? You know, a lot of people can probably relate to being micromanaged, the stress at work, all these emails and shit, and you're trying to get me to be overproductive, you ain't paying me shit, you know what I'm saying? I was like, man. And the fact that Coach, you know, he's I'm doing this series Tapping a Hug, so he's you know, he's like supporting me, right? I'm like, man, being out here in this world, that that bad, that's a huge badge of honor.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:46

Because I know what he represents, I know what you represent, I know what everybody in there represents. And I'm carrying that. That is so much less stressful than having a manager breathing down my neck about submitting cases about a work order, about whatever, whatever, right? Versus if I'm coming up, like if I'm like feeling some kind of way about something or whatever, I can just think about coach, like what would coach say right now? Or what would Ken say right now? Coach can say either one of y'all, and I just think, and jujitsu always brings me back to a safe place, like a calm, relaxed state. Yeah. And it's no stress like that. It's not that, like, yeah, that monkey on my back. It's like a healthy, disciplinary, guided system that's put been put in place in my life. Do you think that makes sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

That sounds crazy. Do you think maybe it's because of a mutual respect for each other, though? I mean, you have you have huge respect for myself and Joey. And, you know, I know that I'm trying to give you as much respect as I can. I know Joey does. Uh, so I really think that's where it comes from. You know, like like when you asked me, you know, would you mind sitting down with me and having having this podcast and talk to me about these things? And I took a minute, didn't answer right away, but I went to Joey and I I didn't ask him for permission to do this, but I was like, hey, look, you know, Sodora wants me to do this with him. Uh I know jujitsu's gonna come up. I know Carolina Family Jiu-Jitsu will come up. I just want to let you know and get your blessing, you know, really. He was like, dude, absolutely. But it's just that mutual respect. You know, I would expect that he's gonna do the same thing for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:24

Respect and love. I'm not gonna end a podcast, right? That'll be good. I'm not gonna do that. But not early, he was like dapping them up, hugging them up. Man, I'm just like like the color of that chimney right there. Back behind me. It's meant to be, man. Yeah, and I'm gonna use this platform and every skill, character building, essence that I get from y'all from my training part is man. I'm gonna I was gonna say change the world, but I'm gonna help people. I am helping people, man. We're helping people. You're helping me right now, and we're gonna help people with this conversation and the future conversation that we're gonna have. I you know. I don't know what this is gonna turn into, but like I said, you can be a co-host on some episodes or whatever you feel comfortable with when you got the time, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:05

Hopefully, it's a it's a motivational. You know, some people find it motivational that they're like, what is this jujitsu? Somebody, I mean, you could simply be scrolling on YouTube and just happen to come across it, you know, for whatever reason, and you're like, Well, you know, somebody who's never done jujitsu, what is this? And it may be that motivational that you're like, oh, I want to try it. Let me go find a school. Let me let me let me just see what this is all about. And you know, I know Coach Joey talks about it all the time, and I'm a huge advocate for it. Uh, having uh law enforcement doing jujitsu, that right there, along with children, is gonna absolutely change the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:46

Now, I totally agree with you, and I got excited when I heard that they were training in jujitsu. Yes. The police department. Um I know people that I know that know me, I'm doing good things, right? I'm motivating my friends and family. They're saying the good stuff they're saying don't stop. I know there's some church leaders that probably listen to this, at least one I can say. But the other people in this community, the community leaders that actually make decisions and Lord have mercy, you see the Alice in Wonderland post up there. Who needs to, who do I need to sit down and talk to? So whatever information I get from y'all, because you have to you have to get the message correctly first before you put it out there. Like, who do I need to talk to to take this serious and start implementing some of these ideas into the the local the school districts if that's possible, or whatever we need to do? Maybe do we need like some guest speakers to go to like school? I don't know. You still you see what I'm saying? Like, what do what else what else can I do to get this out there and push it harder? Like, because I mean uh I can go to the different groups on Facebook and all that and post it in like what's up rock hill. Man, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:57

You you you I mean there's there's different avenues that you can take this with with uh with what the story that you're trying to tell and the story that you want to live. Uh you know, like you just said what's up Rock Hill, or even uh you know, Facebook is a huge tool. I'm I'm not I'm not a big fan of Facebook. Uh uh for obvious reasons it's it's turned into something different. But there are some good tools uh with groups, like for me with the with my music. There are groups that I share our concerts with. Um there's things like uh I think it's what's up rock hill would be a good one that you could still you know put your podcast on there like a link or whatever. Just people that may have not got the message before may know. And they may share with somebody else.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:47

Yeah, that's one approach. Yeah, who do you think I need to talk to though? Like the mayor, the superintendent?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:55

It depends. What's your goal?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:57

To get more kids in jujitsu to stop bullying, and maybe love it would be lovely to have a couple mats at these schools and have like a certain set time for kids to do that, like maybe in the morning or mid-afternoon. I don't know how that works psychologically with kids being at school. And I think typically a little bit of exercise actually helps you learn better. So maybe like a little warm-up jujitsu in the morning, like I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:19

Like well, this is definitely a start, uh, talking about it. Right. Well, think about like, you know, there's conversations going back and forth with like jujitsu. Do we put it in the Olympics? Do we not put it in the Olympics? What happens if we do? Um you know, where do we start in talking to people about doing that? Uh, there's you know, different reasons for both sides that shouldn't be or should be. Um, you know, should we have it as completely mainstream uh as it is as it's gotten? So we started out with USC with MMA, which was kind of at the time barbaric, is what they called it, and you know, everybody tried to shut it down. Football is uh football. Uh I mean they have schools now have wrestling, you know, and and you know, 10 years ago did they have girls wrestling? Uh I don't know how long ago it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:10

I don't know, man, but football is dark. Yeah, I'm thinking about like go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:14

Yeah. So I mean, there's always a way to talk about it to add more in.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:24

Oh boy. I'm just like, wake up. Like, stop complaining and like share what I'm talking about, and let's make some changes, man. Like, I'm trying, I'm really trying. Y'all need y'all to I don't need y'all to do nothing. I will hope that people will wake up and understand the value of what I'm bringing to the table and what my guests are bringing to the table. Like, I'm I'm just a single father trying to figure it out. I'm a white belt trying to figure it out. Not even a year in the podcasting. I'm grinding, I'm hustling, making decisions, building relationships with people, collaborating, and uh there's some good stuff happening, man. But like, what's it gonna take, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

Don't stop talking.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:12

Because I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:12

That's it, don't stop talking.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:13

Because I'm gonna tell you, see, I'm getting fired up already. Bro, I'm I'm not I'm not trying to be disrespectful. That thing, the incident at the school I was telling you about. If a little boy ever put his hands on my daughter like that, like mush her head or choke her or anything like that. I'm trying to prevent that for myself and any other father on the planet, really. So that's why I'm trying to, I'm serious about this, man. Like, it's undeniable, bro. I mean, it's it's real. The benefits of jujitsu across the board are real. I mean, like, no one's actually done like a peer-reviewed study of people rolling, I guess, but it's testimonial. That's what this podcast is based on. Testimoni. I don't know. Wait, what do you think about me and what I got going on? You saw me walk in there that one day, and I, you know, what what do you see as far as my journey, as far as like where I'm at now? What advice do you have for me and any other white belts out there?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:10

I think I think for you, you're finding a joy out of like that you can do this. Because you seemed very, very skeptical when you first walked in. You seemed very unsure, very shy, very nervous. Uh, I mean, I said I said hi to you on day one, but it was very timid. And it but in your defense, though, it's intimidating. You're going into this, this looking at this art, this martial art, where people are literally trying to break each other's arms, their wrists, their shoulders, and you know, choke you unconscious. So it is daunting. Uh, but over the last couple months of just watching you, it's it's it's it's it's bad to say. I guess bad to say.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:00

No, please be honest. Like I'm all up in a constructive criticism, brother. I know I'm terrible. I know I'm terrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:05

It's just not a critic criticism, it's a bad analogy. You know, when you see the only way I can think about it is you got a flower that's kind of kind of closed. It hasn't gotten enough water. You water enough, it starts opening up. And that's where you're at right now. You're kind of opening up.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:22

I'm gonna tell you one thing. Yeah, I'm about to start tightening up, man. Applying more pressure. Because I'm gonna tell you, I learned something that day when Coach Joey was there, because he hadn't been rolling for a while. He had taken some time off of rolling. Yeah. He had an injury. His neck, right? Yeah. I talked about maybe getting stem sales. But anyway, um, me and him was partnered up. And he showed me the definition of how you're supposed to drill. Oh, yeah. I'm just gonna leave that at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Drillers make killers, that's why we call it say that.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:52

Yeah, man. So um, and it's fun rolling with Joseph, man, because like we be joking around and we like, oh like, you know what I'm saying? Just like we'll grip each other and like really apply pressure, like jokingly, but yeah, we're gonna start doing that more consistently, man, so we can get better. Cause he he he he's he's gaining. He's shout out to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:08

You know, you want to know who's who you can talk to about learning some serious pressure.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:14

Uh William. Coach Janae. Really? I don't like rolling. Well, I mean, I remember one time I wrote, but she took my back so fast. I was like, I ain't rolling against you no more.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:23

Bro, I am I'm a big guy. I'm not small by any means. And Coach Janae is tiny, but she came up in her jujitsu career grappling with guys like me. NFL players, too. Yeah, she knows how to put some pressure on. She gets you a neon belly, it's a whole different ball game. You know, and the way that she can control me if she gets on top. I mean, she's like what I won't say her weight, but she's she's small, you know, and she can control me. She is a huge person to talk to about how to apply effective pressure properly. It's not about just laying on top of you. And I've covered that where you pick a quadrant.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:02

I was literally about to say that. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:04

You pick a quadrant and you, when I put pressure on, I'm not putting pressure on your chest. I'm trying to put pressure through your chest onto the floor. I want to move you through the floor in that one spot. It's it's the difference of taking my hand and pushing it down on the desk or doing this. I get more pressure per square millimeter, centimeter, whatever, in this little pen, uh pencil tip than I do this. So that's what my goal is. And she does that masterfully. It's great to feel, but it really sucks to be under.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:40

Yeah, and one thing that I noticed about me, like in side control or trying to get that quadrant, I'm not making excuses. I'm gonna figure it out. I think I kind of got it dialed in, but like given the length of my legs and trying to posture myself, it's kind of hard to distribute my weight on people like that. But see, I'm I'm figuring it out though. You know what I'm saying? I gotta balance it out, get that leverage, and put my legs and my knees and you're most likely too far forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:05

You need to be back off of them a little bit more so that your center lines are not crossing, right? And you need to be off of your off of your knees on your toes, driving actively.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

That's you got it. Say that again about the knees and the toes.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:17

Yeah, get off your get off your knees. I I hate being on my knees. You see me all the time. I tripod all the time. I put my toes, I dig them in. That's what I'm doing. And I push with my toes and my ankles, and I'm pushing into you. But if I'm too far over the top, I'm gonna roll myself over. If I'm back on the near side that I'm on and aiming for this quadrant, I'm just driving everything I have right into this one one peck.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:41

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:42

And it's just these little nuances that go from being able to somebody sweeping you or reversing and ending up on top, or them tapping the pressure, which has happened. You don't have a submission, but sometimes the pressure's so bad you tap.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

I'm such a better person because of y'all. If I give it out a guy first, yeah, we're just getting started. I'm saying for real though, I give it out a guy first, obviously. But like people don't get it, man. Yeah, get your faith in line, but man, you gotta be disciplined out here. Yeah, you have to be. This is it's such a great tool.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:15

Life too, man. You everything is all discipline. You know, we we talk about uh we always talk about being defensive and being able to defend yourself with jujitsu, but what else are we teaching? We're also those kids that are bullying that could have been potential bullies that are now in jujitsu are learning how to control themselves. They're learning how to control their feelings, they're learning how to deal with defeat in a different way that you know, if you've never had that as a child and it happens to you the first time, it's it's it's uh it's something serious to a child because now these issues that are with children that may become the biggest issue of their life.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:56

And it's huge to them. And and as adults, we saw. Sometimes downsizing, oh that's nothing. You haven't dealt with anything. Don't minimize that. That's that they may be going through something. And it changes their their mindset now, would you do so that I don't have to bully people. I don't have to be violent to this p this person. Or I have an outlet now that I can get this out. You know, with karate with me, that was my way as a as a child of getting my anger aggression out. And it kept me from getting in a fight. It kept me from starting, really. So it's not it's helping both spectrums. You know, even if you have a kid that's uh something I wanted to bring up earlier about it with other kids. If a child does not want to do something and they cry, they kick, they cross their arms, they sit, and finally we're just like, whatever, we don't want to deal with it because we don't have the energy. We don't want to expand the energy as parents, as adults, because we have all these other things we need to worry about. But if we give in to this child and don't make them do what needs to be done, they we have now taught them that they can cry, they can throw a temper tantrum, and they get what they want. And I honestly was not fully aware of that until I started doing the kids' class with Coach Joey, with Coach Jax. And Joey has no qualms about telling kids, you need to do this. It doesn't matter if you don't want to do it, do it. Wipe the tears, get going, do it. He's instilling in them that quitting is not an option, and they don't see it yet. But I promise you, when they're adults, they're gonna be like, oh yeah, he was right.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:56

I'm so glad you said that. I'm gonna get emotional because Leonaday for his volleyball game of the season Monday. Sorry, Wednesday. She got emotional and she started crying. She stayed on the court and she finished the game. I mean, it's just I mean, as a parent, I'm sure you understand. People that don't have kids with just see that your child gets emotional, as we all have that ability to do, and it's okay to, you know, sit in that and accept that you feel that way. That's okay, you're gonna have emotions. But now what? What are you gonna do? We ain't gonna go sit on the bench. Your hand hurts because you was drawing on them with the marker, and now you have an allergic reaction. I've been telling you for years, stop drawing on your hand when I come pick up from school. And now look today, your teammates needed you on the court. I think one day she when she gets older, she's gonna fire my ass up. She's gonna be like, daddy, you was talking about me. But not no, it's all good though, because I'm proud of her, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:52

And what if maybe her training in jiu-jitsu years ago? Maybe that clicked in, I don't know, but man, we're about to get this map taped up. Yo, so you you wouldn't advise me to dress out tonight at all. Because I was actually gonna go out of town, but I'm not. So I'm gonna still come to class. I shouldn't. It's like a sweat. Is it still in the Monday?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

Is it open one? Oh, Monday?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:22

Man, that's nice. She's very talented, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

She's gonna do mine as well. Should I wait until I get my uh black belt promotion? I got something lined up for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:31

I was thinking of the waiting until I get a blue belt before I get another tattoo because, like I say, man, I keep like taking myself out of training, and like right now, I'm just like so hungry to get back in there, man, because of that Kamora situation, and then just watching class. I'm just like, I gotta get, I gotta be out there. Yeah, I gotta get that next strike. I ain't gonna lie, man. That first strike is gonna be the death of me, man. I I might cry when I get a second one. I know my cousin Kiki told me she cried when she got her third one. Yeah, yeah, man. Like earlier, you said you're just gonna get emotional though. I cried with you, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:59

It happens. I cried when I got my brown belt. Uh my wife, uh, when she got her brown belt, she had no idea it was coming. And it was super special to me that I got to put her fourth stripe on the promo belt for her. Uh, so I got emotional. And I bro, I had a full speech ready for her stripe. And when I went to put the stripe on her, I'm like, I didn't have any words. I think that was them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was done when you did it. And then she got her promo belt, and you know, she wasn't expecting it at all, and she cried. So it is emotional because we're putting in the time, the work, and the sacrifice. And when you really start to look at it, it's not just your accomplishment. It's the accomplishment of everybody else. Because if I'm not there, if coach isn't there, if your training partners aren't there, sorry, you can't do jujitsu. We're putting our our bodies on the line, you're putting your body on the line for me to be able to train. So it's really an encompassment of everybody who's doing it. So it's it's a lot. It's it's it's it's it's emotional no matter what you do.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:00

Hey, the the level of trust in jujitsu, how about that? You want to take on that, how much we trust each other. And think about how kids can develop trust in an early age. Yeah. And learn how to respect each other, how to treat people. I love round up again. But yeah, trust is huge in jujitsu, man. Especially Juno January.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:18

Yeah. Dude, we're about to do MMA May. I'm pretty sure we'll be uh, you know, uh shadow boxing each other and punching each other in the face here and there with some gloves. Really? Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna go over MMA stuff. Yeah, you know, we can we can do jujitsu, sport jujitsu in the class all we want, but if we're not training how to stop punches, how to punch back, it's not gonna work outside. It is really not. People aren't just gonna do jujitsu, they're gonna really try to punch you and inflict pain. Oh no, but some knuckleheads out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:50

Hey, you just anyway. Um did y'all do that last May? Because I wouldn't with y'all last May.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:56

We I I don't know if it was last May. Uh we did do it, we have done it uh every year though, where we've uh incorporated punching into it. Uh we do it a lot in uh in no gi class. So, yeah, we we've we've done it, you know, and he he comes up with these little blocks that supplement our jujitsu as well, you know, like what you said with uh judo judo January.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:20

Yeah, I think we were gonna do MMA this month, uh, but I got pushed back because we do have some competitions coming up, you know, uh especially this month. Yeah, we got some good stuff coming up.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:31

Oh, yeah. I can't say you can't say, but it's something really good coming up, man. I'm really excited about that. You know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:37

Yeah, and I think we got Cap Cancer out coming out too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that that that uh that's gonna be awesome. Okay, I know what you're talking about. It is.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:46

Okay, so yeah. Back to your brown belt. You recently got a second or third coach's strike. I didn't even know y'all got like coaching stuff in my brown stripes.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:56

So I have I have I have two stripes in my brown belt. Right. Uh I'm two, you know, two more stripes, and then I can go to Black Belt. Um, but I got what's called instructor stripes uh now that I'm teaching the fundamentals class, and it is a set on the schedule, and I'm now an instructor. Uh so that goes on the top of the bar and on the bottom, and there are two individual stripes that just it just lets people know hey, look, you're you're an instructor. And to me, it's not so much about being an instructor. To me, it's more about now I'm giving back to people you know that want to come to my class, people like you. I want to give this knowledge to you so that one day, if I'm not here, you still have it. So it's just a way to signify that. If you notice on Coach Joey's on his black belt, he has his two stripes, but those are his instructor stripes as well, uh especially as being head instructor. And they're given to you by your by your your professor as well. That's why David gave him, uh Professor David Werner gave him to Joey. Why Joey's given them to me. Where's Professor Warner? Is he in Florida or something? He's in Florida, yeah. Does he have a visit? He does. He does. I I've seen him uh he came maybe about a year ago, and man, let me tell you, his game is on a completely different level. It's very similar to mine, but where he throws submissions from, like Kimura with the feet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:33

That's what that's the same look that I had.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:35

We got chimpanzee toes, dude. Seriously, he how can you I'm not thinking about it wrong? No, no, no. Because with the Kimura, we gotta grab the rich one.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:43

But he's able to move his feet in such a way that he can grab your arm with it while breaking you down and finish a Kimura. But it's it's not just that. There's there's many other techniques that he has that he seems effortless. And I was there for the uh the seminar and the teaching, and even I'm just like, wow, man. I think I was a purple belt at the time, but I was just completely mind-blown.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:08

Yeah, I've never been to a seminar, but um fundamentally. You better be at the next one. Don't miss the next one. Uh no, I won't. I mean, I'm I'm locked in. So we're gonna dial the back then. I'm not gonna be super tight and drill like when Coach Joey and I were drilling. I'm gonna like, you know, lay out the gas on the drilling tonight. I'm gonna come and just try to work on my left side and not the right side. What are we doing tonight?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:31

Tonight is gonna be a review of the last three months. So I'm a big advocate of, especially for newbies, what do I call you? Uh repetition creates retention. So the more that you're gonna do it, the more that you're gonna remember. So I don't want to go, you know, until June without doing any more full guard or any more side control, and you're like, God, we did this like so long ago, I don't remember it. So I'm gonna incorporate the last three months just into this class, and then next week, uh, sorry, the week after, because next week is uh spring break, open mats, we'll go into something different. Uh, maybe I might do back takes, uh, back control, or I don't know, I haven't decided yet. Um, but this is gonna be a review, so you should find your confidence level even more so now because there are things that you've already done. Yeah, but now we're gonna fine-tune some details uh to make it really effective for you. Like we can go over uh what you were saying. Well, well, I didn't finish it. Why didn't you finish it? Show me, let's figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:34

Beautiful. I'm gonna say this too, man. I was talking to one of my cousins recently. He was like, you should come over and teach so-and-so this and that. I ain't teaching nobody nothing besides my daughter. You know, and like I had said, you know, obviously I'll talk to you and Joey, like, hey, I'm I this is the correct way to do this, right? And I'm for real gonna say it's okay, you think I I can. That's what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna like say, hey, can I put this real naked choke on you? Is this the right way to let you watch me do it to somebody? And then I'm gonna go back and show later. I got it, I got it. But I'm, you know, that's what I'm gonna do moving forward. I'm gonna check in with you and Joey. Say, am I doing this 100% properly? Because I'd be damned if I'm gonna go teach my daughter some shit to get her in a position where she might get hurt or hurt somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:18

So you see one of the things. You see one of the things that I always do in my class. I'm always like, anybody want to feel it before we start doing it. You do. And you know, thank God for uh Jeremy Arrell, my my professor at uh great grappling. He really he would anytime he would say, anybody want to feel it? I'm like, I do. So I know that there's a huge value in it in knowing what it feels like. So nobody really takes me up on that. I think James has a couple times, and when I asked him, you know, I'm gonna start just after so from now on, after I show the technique, I'm just gonna grab one of you out of the, you know, off the line. Like, come here. Okay, let's try it. I mean and just go through it. And I'm not gonna give you an option to be like, I don't want to get choked by coach.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:09

It's not gonna tell like use me and abuse me in a healthy way because that's gonna help me and also help everybody else that's watching.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:16

Yeah. Well, you you'll see when like there's there's times where I'm coming around the room and I'm watching y'all and you may be struggling to like do it to me. Let me do it to you. And you're like, oh, and you have those light bulb moments.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:30

I love the light bulb moments.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

So, you know, it's the same concept, except I want to do it in front of everybody. So everybody who is learning these techniques knows you don't have to be proficient, you don't have to be doing this for 11 years, uh, 20 years, 25 years to be able to do these techniques. It does work. You know, not just not just let me do it to you. You know, it might be just be now that you saw what I did, work through with me in front of everybody. Because they may be having the same questions that you do that nobody's just a you're not asking. You know, I didn't see where your left hand was, but nobody wants to say anything. But now that I you either try it and you're like, oh, I don't know what to do with this, try this. You do it, you're like, ah, and everybody like ah. So there's gonna be a huge benefit to it.

unknown 1:41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:17

I just don't want you to think that I don't be paying attention, man. No, no, no. It's just like my memory sometimes, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:23

Well, I'm looking around, I can tell if nobody's paying attention, or if even if one person might, because they do this. Everybody looks at the ceiling when their mind wanders. But what I'm saying. Luckily, I haven't had to deal with that yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:35

Right. But sometimes I'll be watching and then I forget what the first damn step is, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:39

But it's because we clap. You know, you know that's the the like the same for men in black, right? That neuralizers. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One, two, three. What did he teach? I don't remember. It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:55

Yeah, the clap is a neuralizer, so let me ask you this like so if jujitsu is a language, which I believe it is, what do you think is like trying to help us teach ourselves? Like, what is it trying to tell us about ourselves, rather than that's a hard one.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:15

We're better than we think we are, just as people. You know, it's really challenging us, you know, especially when when I talk about uh working through problems, learning how to effectively see the challenge and then work through a solution. Uh you know, when you apply that to jujitsu and then it takes over and you can apply it to your life, that's huge. You know.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:47

I think the uh that can get deep real quick. It really can, man. But what kind of crossed my mind as you were talking, right? It allows you to see that you have that potential inside of yourself. Yeah. You keep showing up, the potential is gonna grow. You gotta throw that Connecticut, you gotta be there, be present, throw that Connecticut energy in that you there, you keep going, you keep going. You have no choice but to get better. It may take you longer. It's obviously taking me longer, but like, not to compare myself to anybody, but obviously, you know, you look around, you're like, whatever, but keep showing up. Ego at the door.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:21

Are you really struggling to get better or not getting better? Or are all of you getting better at the same time and it's creating equal challenges for you? So to explain that a little bit better, everybody's training at the same pace. You know, if you if you're coming with your peers at the same time, you both are getting better. You're learning your game. When I roll with my wife, we know each other's game down to a T. So there's very rarely any submissions, and it's just constantly back and forth. And it's not, and we we've we've had that for years now. And it's not that we're just not learning, it's just we've learned each other's game. Um, Professor Joey, same thing with him. When we first started, he would destroy me. And we've gotten to a point now to where we're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He'll submit me, and I'll submit him. He'll hold me down, I'll hold him down. It's a really good technical fight, but it's just that he and I are pushing each other now. We both want each other to be better. You know, it's not about I'm just not getting better because I can't submit somebody. It's not always about the submission. Right. So you're getting better. But so is everybody else.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:44

William, um, at Open Matt, I tried the Kamora trap on William, and he knew it was coming whenever I like, so I was on my left side, so drop the left leg and make it a little lazy, right? He knew it was coming. He was like, what's good, huh? You're welcome. Yeah. He was like, Yo, that's my game. He was like, Yo, brother, it's good though that you're taking things from fundamentals, yeah, from the middle classes, and applying it here, open mat because a lot of white bells, we just you just send up for survival. And that's how I was just in there trying to survive, like working on my defensive game and trying to survive and stuff like that. But now, you know, humbly, I'm just saying I do see some improvement in my game a little bit. Yeah. Centimeter by centimeter. But having the wherewithal to remember, at least remember what to do and actually bring it up and mat. Also, I wanted to bring this up too, Ken. Since that fundamentals class started, I've only been to one open mat. Because I was like, okay, Tuesday, Thursday, Fridays, three times a week, I'm getting the better right. But I have to come to Open Match. I have to. I have to. Even if I only get two rows, whatever, I need to go to practice that and talk in with somebody, like you say. I'm gonna tell you something, man. What you you said a lot of good things, especially about like the kids and jiu-jitsu and stuff like that. But one thing that really stuck with me about everything you said was that what we about pause instead of tapping, pause, have a conversation. Because that's what William did. Yeah, he saw that coming. He was like, nah. I tried everything to do to get out of it, and I couldn't. But it was the one angle that I didn't try. I was supposed to do something like with this arm and go this way or something that I can't remember, and it worked. The one I I thought I tried everything. I didn't panic per se, but I also didn't think it all the way through. You literally have to try any and all possible angles with like a limb or shifty body. At least that's what I'm learning.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:31

Like, yeah. Well, that's what these fundamentals are giving you, is they're they're teaching you how to move from position to position and how to be in these positions. Um, so that's really what my goal is, is to teach you from uh you know, like side control, how to properly move to a neon belly to mount. You know, you could be in any any regular class and they're like, put your knee on their stomach and then just mount them. But there's so many intricacies in it that that's what I want to teach you. And like 90% of my game, 11 years on I'm almost doing this 12 years now, close. And 90% of my game is still fundamentals. I don't do these these guards like like octopus guard, worm guard, that are really I don't know, it's just me. I'm I'm old school.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:23

Yeah, I was confused myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:24

Yeah, I love old school jujitsu. Yeah, I like half guard, I like side control, and I have a plethora of sweeps and submissions from those. You know, and that's really what I like to use. That's why that's why everybody says when you get into Ken's half guard, get out. You know, it's just my game. But you're gonna have a different game than I than I have. Like Professor Joey, his uh his butterfly guard and his single leg ex, forget about it. As soon as he starts throwing those out, I don't want nothing to do with it. I'll back out. I'll just stand up and get away. I don't want nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:56

Yeah, reset. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to touch on is yeah, moving from position to position, going through these sweeps and these different movements, but one thing that's very critical and very important that I really appreciate is the focus is on using the least amount of energy as possible. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:18

Uh I had a tendency uh to gas myself a lot, especially being a bigger guy. I mean, I'm I'm 230 now. I have a limited gas tank. Uh, you know, and I I it was even worse before. So I had to come up with a way to conserve as much gas as I have in my tank. Um, so I I heard it this way is that if I can go from point A to B using 50 cents out of my gas tank rather than$1.50, I'm gonna do that because Jean-Jacques says, uh at the end of the day, when strength is gone, the only thing you have left is technique. So I try to conserve as much as I can and have that gas tank. Um, so it's like for example, that Kamura trap you're talking about, that was based off of an elbow roll that I used to do from uh I still do it occasionally, from side control. But there was so much energy that I would expend and in the bridging, in the elbow, and coming on top, and especially trying to lift, you know, 240, 250 pound guys and roll them over the top of me without having them smash me. That's where this kamor trap came into because now I'm able to get completely underneath you. I can topple your base and it's an easy roll over the top. So it's based off the elbow roll, but it's now using 50 cents rather than a dollar fifty. And it's just as effective.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:54

That's so important. Because like obviously, when you gas out, you're done. Yeah. But you can always count on your your training for your technique. You always have to go back to your training.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:06

Like you'll you'll see that the first time if you ever decide to compete in a tournament, that that adrenal you do not expect that adrenaline dump. Everybody talks about it, but it's a completely different dump. That as soon as somebody grabs you, like I've seen people and even myself where your whole face just goes just drains of color. Even if you have a really good match and you dominate most of it, you know, you're still. But it's just that dump. So being able to control that and learn it, it's it's different. The first time somebody grabs a hold of you in a tournament, and you're gonna think that's the strongest anybody's ever grabbed me before. Especially that first time. My first tournament wasn't telling Brown Belt, and I went to Atlanta. I'd already been training for 10 years, and I went against this uh this great guy, he's an awesome guy. But he it was my first competition, it was his 142nd. And he was a two-strike black belt. They didn't have anybody in my division, so they moved me up a weight class and they moved me up to black belt. And black belt, at black belt level, there it's just black. It doesn't matter how many stripes you have, it doesn't matter if you're a one-year black or you're a 20-year black. It's same competition. So he was a two-strike black belt, and the first time he grabbed a hold of me and did a Tomanagi on me, where he put his went to, I thought he was pulling guard, but he did not. He rolled me over the top of his head at 250 pounds and ended up in mount in about the first three seconds. I was like, this is something I've never felt before. And we get done with that that first round, had to do it twice. He done the first round, I'm like, I can go to bed. I'm done, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:01

How about they? Victor uh brought up something recently to me. Uh he was putting like topside pressure on you, right? And he said that you had put your chin. He said, Like, what's that about, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:12

He was like, what? So he was in North South. Yeah. And uh North South is a really good controlling position. So depending on where their arms are, yeah, tells me whether they want to attack me or they want to control me. If they have it behind my shoulders, up, you know, across here, then I know that they're gonna start trying to go for my neck, try to go for an arm, arm triangle, arm triangle, whatever. If they have it in front underneath my armpits, I know they just want to control me. They don't have submissions from there. And that's exactly what he was doing. And he was too far, uh, his head was too far in front. So instead of being on my chest, he was closer to my my navel. So when he did that, I just put my head up and just start digging my chin right into his sternum. And it wasn't a way, he got he said that was kind of a diggish move, but it wasn't my way to be to like really hurt him or submit him or anything. It was my way of reminding him to make him think, why is this happening? What is going on? I can tell you, Tilbert blew in the face, hey dude, your center line's past mine, but I'm giving you a reason to be like, oh, I need to move back. And that's exactly what he did. He's like, I don't like this, and his whole body shifted backwards and I couldn't do it anymore. So he got the message without me having to tell him. So it was a teachable moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:24

Exactly. That's what a jiu-jitsu is. You know, full of.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:27

Would I do that in a live role like tournament stuff? No, not at all. Because I'm putting my chin extended like this with his whole body on me. But it was just enough to get him to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:37

I told him that's the closest thing somebody could do in jujitsu without biting. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like the whole biting thing that Tyson did, like, no bite, no bite, but you can maybe put your chin.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:47

See, and I have my chin, I was going. Oh man. Yeah, doing that little grind into it. But he thought about it and he's like, okay, cool. We won't do that again. That's awesome. So it's just teachable moments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:59

Just to remind him that your position's out there, like you say, he moves and it's fascinating, man. The physics behind it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:07

Yeah. So I say, you know, respect an inch. Everybody, you know, any instructor would say, respect an inch. And I've showed that in my classes. You know, you put your arm here, it doesn't work. Just do an inch or two here, all of a sudden you're getting a sweep.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:22

Yeah, man. Then like what it's the one that we put our palm like in in in the inner side of the knee to, I guess, push ourselves away. I can't remember what it was. This was a couple weeks ago. But you remember the technique I'm talking about, right? I don't know if it was some full guard either. Maybe it was some full guard in one week. Well, you was like put the hand, or it might have been Joey that said it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:43

No, that was Professor Joey.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:44

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

unknown 1:54:46

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:46

It's a lot, but chaining everything together, man. I can see the connections. That's the thing. Like I can kind of like I was talking about earlier, I can see the horizon. Yeah. I can at least I can see that, man. And it's starting to kind of click, and I'm like, okay, I can see from point A to B, and see now I see how the thoughts that we start formulated to set traps. That's the whole chest, the part like the aspect of it's like chess, right? Like you set people up for traps and stuff. I can see the horizon, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:13

Yeah. But I mean, we we still keep learning no matter what. I mean, there's I was rolling with somebody the other day who we were trying to, we were doing uh scissor sweeps. Um super basic scissor sweep from uh from full guard, and not having that knee completely across the chest to be on your shoulder when you go to actually uh facilitate the the scissor sweep, it was more towards the center line, couldn't finish the scissor sweep. It would just like move it just a little bit here. And then try it.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:47

Yeah, because like because like that bottom, so this is the top knee, right? The bottom legs here, and you're doing like a motion like that, right? And you drag that leg so you can end up on full mount.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:59

Yeah, that that top one that's across your chest needed needs to be over towards the shoulder.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:03

And maintaining those hooks throughout the movements, all that's important. Yeah. The technical detail, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:09

See, that's the stuff that I love. Yeah. It's finding these little things that these uh minute changes that will either make it good or great.

unknown 1:56:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:19

Because like, you know, Tim Duncan, he was like the king of fundamentals in basketball when he played for the Spurs, man. Like fundamentals is what it's at. So I love it, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:27

Well, there's a reason that everybody should have a foundation of them. Yeah. You know, everybody should. Everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:35

Well, brother, we rot at two hours, man. Um so we will end it, but I just want I want you to do this, please. Look directly to the camera and talk to the people that can make these decisions for these kids and the adults that's going through different changes and stuff like that, or whatever. Like, from your heart. Yeah. Uh jujitsu means the world to you, obviously. Uh you win that's it. Uh oh, real quick. If she wants to, like, I think she maybe she should bottle up those little concoctions. Maybe she can sell them. I can market them. Dude, they're marketing. It's literally just literally just putting them through the co-marketer, through the juicer. On the podcast. But people, I mean, it's people selling stuff out there at the grocery stores, man. She can come up with her own ingredients so I can have her own thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:19

They do, but I guarantee you, uh, Vanessa, especially being a nurse, uh, she's more, she's all about, you know, everybody being healthy. Right. So, you know, just even putting ready, you know, people put recipes on the on the internet. Give us free information. I love that. You know, you don't have to be uh like big farm all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:38

That's what I was saying earlier about like the like not organic, but like the uh holistic way to stay holistic. Like we gotta get back to our primal essence, man. Like what our ancestors did, yeah, all the sacrifices they made, the trial and error. We need to get back to the what they the information that they had. Alright, so back to what I was saying. So the people that can make the decisions that's gonna affect because like we can talk and we can do our action, right? That's what we're doing now, but like the people that are in charge of making these decisions that can actually bring about the awareness of this at a more higher level. I'm not saying they need to be on channel 11 news at 11 o'clock at night or nothing like that. But like I said, is it the mayor, the superintendent, whatever? Like, what would you say to them about how important jujitsu is and how it's helped you and how it can help our future?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:27

I would say to these leaders, uh, especially, you know, you talk about like the the mayor or even school counselor, uh maybe the governor, whoever governor, principals, whatever. Yeah, they honestly, you guys should honestly come in anywhere and try a class, whether it be uh Carolina Family Jiu Jitsu or any jujitsu around you, just so that you see what what it is that we're doing and the benefits that you will gain. You will see that for your student body, uh, your children, the these students that we're bringing up into the next generation, what they can gain from it as well. You really have to be self-aware of what we're teaching because there's there's always been this stigma that it's a a brutal martial art, it's just another martial art, but it's really a lot more than that, it's deeper than that. It's life lessons that are gonna live forever. And my children and the children that we're teaching now are living proof that the system works, that what we're doing is going to change lives, it's gonna change society and it's gonna change the way that we think about when we interact the way we think when we interact with people. So I would say the first step is even if you don't stay to continue to do jujitsu your whole life, come in. Try a couple classes, majority of places offer free. Start with yourself, because we cannot teach our next generation if we don't have the knowledge ourselves. And that's what's huge. And especially as educators, as political uh leaders, we have to have that knowledge to be able to I don't want to say run, but lead our constituent our constituents, to lead our students, to lead uh our children. So that would be my advice to you. Get into a class, try it once or twice, and uh I'll give you a full example. Uh there was a previous uh superintendent at York Tech uh York Technical College that was also a student where I trained, and he came in to do it. Uh and he even said that this would change everything. So even if you're not taking my advice from it, take his. He's a doctor and a president of a college.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:51

So yeah. So don't listen to me. Alright, I'm a white belt, I don't know nothing, I'm just learning. He's a brown belt, you know enough. He's helping me, he's helping everybody up at the spot where we're at. Uh we just trying to help the future of the kids. I got a daughter, he has kids, so we're just trying to make some positive changes out here. Like some real changes. About that action. Uh, thank y'all for tuning in. Thank you so much for being here, coach. Um, I'll be there tonight.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:22

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:22

You know what I'm saying? Um, and uh yeah. Third episode of the Tappa.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:28

See, that's that's a dedication too, because uh you're gonna be there on Good Friday. Uh I actually asked uh coach, should we have this class on Friday? He said, I'll leave it up to you. I said, Well, if the people show up, we'll open. If not, my wife and I will kill each other for an hour.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:45

Alright, thank you. I appreciate you, thank you. Peace and love.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:48

Love y'all.