The Relentless Pursuit

One moment Jay Edwards is chasing a football future, and the next he’s sitting with the reality of getting cut and having to decide who he is without the jersey. That pivot turns into something bigger: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA competition, and eventually a life built around teaching, coaching, and building other people up through hard work and honest standards.

We talk about Jay’s childhood in South Georgia, including what it meant to have his dad return home after years in federal prison and how that changed Jay’s confidence, discipline, and outlook on family. From there we get into the humbling reality of walking into a jiu-jitsu gym as a strong young athlete and learning fast that strength is not the same thing as skill. Jay shares what he learned from amateur and professional fights, what pressure feels like under the lights, and why “fear of regret” can be a better motivator than fear of failure.

The conversation also goes deeper than sports. Jay opens up about a manic depressive episode, institutionalization, and the slow process of understanding what was happening in his mind and body. We connect the dots between sleep, movement, fasting, cold therapy, and the small daily choices that can help you stabilize and rebuild.  Jay talks family and the importance of having someone by your side that makes you want to do better, be better, and grow through a relentless pursuit of self improvement.  

We talk about the blessings of community involvement and seeing others, young and old, grab hold of the desire to do more and not stay stagnant.  It's a great feeling to have those personal accomplishments and wins but it's a another level to "love someone up" and see them reap the fruits of hard work and dedication.  

If you’re into wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, mental health, coaching youth sports, or just becoming more resilient, you’ll get practical insight and a lot of real talk.

If this one hits home, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

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Welcome And Conversation Starter

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Jay Edwards, good to have you, man. Sir Jackson, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Looking forward to it a long time.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we've been we started talking this about a year ago. Uh having to get you on here and schedule's finally worked out for us. Yeah, man. Glad to be here. Uh so uh as always, going to start out with a little tells edition here, a little conversation starter. Um this is a uh I recommend this for for anybody uh to have in their home. Um it's uh it's a really neat thing to to sit around uh with your with your kids and uh family and everything and just have some conversation going. But uh so we've got we've got two uh two uh editions here. We got a family edition, we got a life story edition. So I'm gonna let you choose which one, which one you want me to pull from. Let's go with the uh family edition. Family edition. All right, here we go. All right, and so these are these are uh these are random here. So uh what is what's one of the most cherished uh memories from from childhood?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Uh one of the most cherry uh cherished memories from my childhood is probably my uh father returning home uh from prison. Uh he was gone out of my life from um kindergarten until my fourth grade summer. So him coming home was a big deal for not only uh my family, but our extended family. Uh and that was that was a um big moment in my life. Uh and I I'll I'll you know we'll dive into that later, yeah. But yeah, that that was a big moment, and then just the things that happened with him as well were huge too. My mom did the best she could, and she did a great job while he was gone. But that was such a neat moment to have him back in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Have him finally finally, because that's awesome, that's cool. It was. Uh all right, so and you can you can apply this to your family now, you know, or or childhood family. So uh what's one of the most exciting uh kind of applies to what you just said, but what's one of the most exciting things that's happened uh to to your family?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I think well recently we just moved by my mom and dad. We had a double wire pulled in, man. It's uh it's it's a wonderful home. Uh we just got it done about probably four months ago. Nice. Five months ago. And uh that's been awesome. Uh being right beside my mom and daddy. And uh, we worked towards that for for years, ever since probably about the time COVID hit. We were able to get things going, and uh housing went up and we had to go back. Um so finally achieving that was big. And then you know, just watching my kids in the middle of the day run over to my mom and daddy's house is uh it is pretty neat, man. Uh, and I'm excited to to get to spend those years uh next to my mom and daddy. Um it is a it is a big blessing.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

I said I absolutely, yeah. Um we so so uh the Lorette House right up front, that's my dad lives there. That's awesome. Yeah, that's also that that's cool. Yeah, so it's nice having having him uh right there and close by. And my mom is basically just right across Central Avenue. Uh so she's probably uh a mile and a half from here and stuff. So that's uh you know, kids get to ride the golf cart over there and everything. So that's that's that's definitely a blessing, just like you say.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Um dad used to umpire uh baseball cart. That's right. I remember when he used to kid. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

That's good stuff. He he had a good time with doing that. Uh so Brody uh he ended up doing some umpiring the last couple years, and so so dad gave him his uh some umpiring equipment he had had to start. Yeah. All right, uh, one more.

Water Park Panic And Perspective

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Um what's one of the funniest things that happened on a on a family trip or something?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

This is funny, but it's also a little traumatizing uh for me. But I'm a grown man. Okay, I was just I've talked about this a few days ago. Went to uh Volcano Bay, you familiar with that? It's a water park, it's part of the Disney Disney water park in Orlando. Went into Volcano Bay and the kids are waiting in a no, they were in the little kiddie pool section. So I was like, I'll go to the slide, and Gloria was watching them, and I go to this oh no is the name of the slide. There's an oh yeah and oh no, and the oh no goes into a 10-foot pool. And uh somehow, whenever I got uh plunged in the pool, uh I mixed up the surface with the bottom. So I'm I'm going to the bottom and I re I reach the bottom and crap, I like jammed my head at the bottom of the water. And then I think I'm then I think I'm trapped. And so like I'm looking around and I'm like, did I go behind a wall? And I'm I'm running out of air. Holy cow. And luckily, this probably 19, 21-year-old came and grabbed me. I'm like apologizing to him as he's pulling me out the door. It's like, hey man, you just mixed up the top of moms. Actually, it happened before. And uh then I looked it up whenever I left, and that is kind of a fairly common thing that happens sometimes, usually at water parks, uh, because you get discombobulated. Right. But yeah, I but jamming my head and my neck hurt for a few days. Luckily, I was good because I have I've worked my neck out for a good bit of my life, uh, so it wasn't too too devastating, right? But yeah, it was pretty embarrassing and funny now looking back, but like, yeah, that was a that was a pretty pretty funny moment. Yeah, but yeah, I'm sure it wasn't funny in the moment. I'm sure it was pretty scary. My wife she saw towards the end, like she saw she didn't see me go under, she saw the lifeguard kind of pulling me out and then came it, kind of came towards me, and I was like, I don't know what happened. But as I was that panic set in, and I was about to really, he grabbed me and I was like, Thank God for this guy. Absolutely. Yeah, looking back, it is kind of funny, but at the same time, um, yeah, I I had one other drama experience whenever I was a uh little kid, probably like four, and my aunt grabbed me out of the pool when I couldn't swim and I had floaties and I went in without my floaties. But I still still tell people this a little off subject, but like jujitsu, it's it's such a similar feeling. You like when you're on bottom and just getting crushed somebody, and it never really goes away. Uh, but yeah, I got reminded of that feeling again when we went to Volcano Bay whenever I man I uh mixed up the surface from the bottom of the pool.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

That's crazy. Uh did did you see did you see the uh that recent uh lifeguard uh on the beach? I did like uh 16, 19 years old. I don't know, he was 16 years old.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah, I believe he was 16. Yeah, that was incredible. Yes, and the adults trying to help and they just couldn't. They were getting swept, and uh, you know, kudos to that kid for absolutely through because he didn't he wouldn't let go of that kid either, man. That was uh that was really impressive.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

That was that was that was amazing to watch for sure, man. Um that's that's that's awesome. Um all

Childhood With Dad In Prison

SPEAKER_01 6:55

right. Well, uh, yeah, so let's let's get into uh a little bit of your your life story. So just tell us a little bit uh you know of your upbringing and uh we'll we'll we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Um I was born in Brunswick, Georgia in 1988. Um my parents, mom was from Waynesville, daddy's from Hoboken. Um I had a good childhood, uh, but my dad um was um sent off to prison whenever I was in kindergarten or right before kindergarten, about right the same time. I have memories of him before kindergarten, but um he went off. I have a I have two older sisters, uh, one who passed in 2023, 2022, and then an older sister Dion, one who passed, her name was Megan, and then my little brother Zach. Uh my dad had a uh of a second me and still had my little brother. Wow. So my mom was pregnant or got pregnant right at the time my dad got sentenced. So my dad had to leave within a few months. And I remember her telling us that she was pregnant with my little brother, uh, me, Dion, and Megan. We're all in a little kiddie pool in the backyard, and mama tells us she's pregnant and dad's not around. And uh we all go crazy, we're happy, and mom's crying, and I couldn't understand why she was crying when she was about to be raising a a child, pretty much, or four children by herself. Uh we did have a lot of help with uh with her family and and and and dad's family too. But yeah, that uh that uh it was pretty rough. But he was gone off to federal prison. Uh he got convicted on um conspiracy uh to sell a marijuana, and he was gone from, like I said, in my um kindergarten to my fourth grade summer. And I'm very fortunate while he was off that he changed his life. Uh while he was in prison, I think he ended up losing around 30 to 40 pounds somewhere in there. He was a big man before he left, uh muscular. And then when he um was in, he ended up uh, you know, like I said, getting more health conscious, making better dis uh decisions, eating was diet. Um he was jogging five miles a day and working out and uh and you know that we we would visit him and he was in Pensacola, he was all over, but the main two places he was out was Pensacola and then he went to Talladega. And you know, it was a pr it was a pretty big trip because uh mom worked at a daycare and we would go there after school. Uh but mom worked out of daycare and uh you know funds just weren't big. So going to see him and staying was uh I'm not gonna say a rare occasion, but maybe two or three times a year, we would go see him in both places, and it was just like every time we went, it was just such a huge deal. I would get so excited, and I think my obviously my sisters and my brothers would too. Um, but we um I would go see him a few times a year, and then and like I said, when eventually when he got out, that was that was such a huge ordeal. I was a little fat boy. Mama had me playing baseball and I got okay at baseball uh while she was gone. She did the best. I can remember her and my sisters pitching to me, hitting me ground balls. Uh I didn't play any other sport. I I tried to play actually I did I did play flag football one time in first grade for a season. And I love doing that. And then uh we just played baseball uh pretty much until daddy got back. And then when daddy got back, I wanted to play football again and I was about 20 to 25 pounds over the weight limit. Oh wow uh going into my fifth grade uh school year, and uh I ended up losing the 20 to 25 pounds. He got me up before school and had my diet right, and I was riding a stationary bike and jumping rope with him, and I got down, I think it was 110 pounds. I had to get it. So I lost about 25 to 27 pounds, and I was dead on the weight limit. You know, it was back, so now you know there's not a weight limit. They just can't they just can't run the ball or or something. Back then it was if you didn't make the weight limit, you had to go up in age. That's right. And I never played tackle football before, so I was like really intimidated by some of those older guys. And um anyways, I'm I met the weight limit and uh and he did. He instilled some confidence in me. I wasn't very confident whenever he left. You know, I I I think it's rough for a lot of guys and girls to or you know, it's common for a lot of guys and girls to have similar problems, but uh, whenever he came back, that confidence uh got re-established. And man, he made me believe I was. He made me believe I was uh I was like, you know, best on the field. I was I was good. He did, he had to, he didn't that and that belief really did. It stuck and it's still it still is there, like uh from some of the stuff that he helped establish. Uh, but but did that, and then I I played football pretty much the rest of my you know high school days, and I played a year of college. We also played, I did play some baseball, um, ended up running track and um playing basketball my junior senior year. I wasn't that great at basketball, I was more of like an enforcer. Right. And then uh we didn't have the wrestling team until after I graduated, you know. So uh I played football, then I played, ended up playing tennis my senior year. Uh we had a couple guys from school, including our head coach Patrick Steve, uh, right now for our tennis program. And uh ended up playing alongside he we were adults partners for one match, but we played alongside him and Bob Davis and some of those guys, and that was the only region championship I wanted high schools. It was pretty cool. My senior year. So uh there was some some really good memories uh of that. But yeah, I ended up playing a year of college football. I would have played longer, I would have played as long as they would have kept me uh and right on, but uh ended up playing a year of out of state, and that was uh that was a that was that was cool uh to be able

Sports Confidence And Fatherhood Lessons

SPEAKER_00 12:24

to do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

That's awesome. That's good stuff. Uh so I I do I got a couple follow-up questions with your uh with your dad. Um so so three so you said from kindergarten to fourth grade.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

So about four years about fourth grade summer, so almost five years.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Almost five years where where he was he was going.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, five, I guess a little longer, yeah. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Right. Um so first of all, great job on his part on on really really committing to change turn tur turning his life around, sorry, and and and making making those decisions because I mean we we we see it uh today, there's so many that that don't take that opportunity you know to make that change. Um but he obviously loved his family, loved his kids and everything, and uh he he that was uh it sounds like a uh a motivating factor uh for uh and everything. Um and and just talking about the the the male influence and uh the uh the father in the home. Yeah, and when when when he came back and and really helping you achieve something that you wanted to do, uh and then instilling that that that confidence uh in you, man, I think you know, dads, dads in the home are are huge. They're big, man. Yeah it's big. Yeah, it's uh it's I think it it uh it helps out uh society uh in itself, uh helping it uh move forward and really function in in uh in the way it needs to function and helping uh people grow up to be to be successful. So that's that's that's that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Um so you get to uh uh so you you get to Valda, you play football for a year, uh just for a year. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, I was I was a preferred walk-on, no scholarship. Right. Um I could have played at a couple small schools or at least one, it's shorter. It's a private school, but it's cheaper to go to a public university and walk on. Um I got recruited by West Georgia, and then they dropped the I formation. Uh so I had my recruiting trip up at West Georgia's pretty cool. Uh, another D2 school, and then I went to Valasa State. I thought for whatever reason that I needed to go right out of high school. So as soon as I graduated, about two weeks later, I went on and just started doing the summer workouts, and I just thought I had to, but you weren't necessarily required to until camp, which is right before school starts. Uh, but I went there to try to push myself a little bit beforehand, right? Uh worked out, um and I kept lifting. Uh you know, you got your clean bench and and squat, and I I did a lot of workouts. Um, I just wasn't as fast as I as I wish I could have been, not as big, but uh I got up to about 240, roughly the same size I am now, probably more muscular. And uh I played that year of college football at first. I was playing um at a middle linebacker and I'm moving out of DN to college. Uh we had a JV squad about Austin State who played against other JV squads um and smaller schools, NA and NAI schools and and and junior colleges. So we would play Georgia Military College a couple uh times a year, and they were really good. Right. And we would go down to Flagler, I think, and a couple more schools. Um so I did get a chance to actually play on the field uh as as a part of that JV roster. Um but as far as the the the main roster, I I did not dress out for them. I was a practice player. And um, you know, and that that's a thing too I think about a lot now, even though it was just a year, um, being a part of something greater, you know, and and and doing that and having a role and understanding your role is big, you know, and and I think it happens to tons of college athletes across the country. You know, you're the big fish at your high school or one of the bigger ones, then you go off and you you have this uh adjustment period and you either rise up or fall apart. And uh like I said, I I could have transferred. I ended up talking to Bellhaven where um Bobby Steiner played college football. I taught I ended up uh contacting them uh while I was at Valasa State and and thought about transferring uh to Bellhaven. Uh but I ended up after they um they pretty much told me that I could come back, but they didn't invite

Getting Cut And Finding Jiu-Jitsu

SPEAKER_00 16:33

me to camp. And I was devastated. I was after my first year, I was I remember being really upset. But at the time I did um probably in the fall, around September, October, um, right after we started playing, I was able to um start training in uh Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Uh so I even though I got cut, I was like, well, I'm just gonna start fighting. That's right. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. Like and when I trained jiu-jitsu, I I pondered it before and I was like, yeah, I might may do that one day, but as soon as I got cut, I was like, okay, I'm gonna fight. Like that's that's what I'm gonna do for however long. Right. And I I was fortunate to to be able to to do that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

So so you didn't you you didn't give yourself time to have a little pity party or you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I remember I I I do remember being in the shower, and I think it was like my roommate had this chair in the bathroom, not in the shower, but I remember grabbing a chair and like sitting in the shower and crying. Right. And being upset I didn't have a pity party and it can't last very long. Uh, but yeah, I was. I was extremely upset. Like I said, I'd have played college football. I I would have played football for as long as somebody would have had me. Right. And and then going back, you know, there there is and the old the older you get, the more, you know, your sense of realism kind of gets a little bit broader, and you're like, oh, okay, you understand things. But like at that time, like I said before, I was just so confident in my abilities and how much I believed in myself. And uh not to say, you know, and and I'm not trying to like justify, oh, they should have kept me, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but I was pretty strong. Like I squatted 600 pounds. Uh, I mean, my bench, my clean wasn't great. Like, I think I cleaned um around 350, benched around 340. Uh, but my squat was pretty good. So in my mind, I was like, okay, you might not use me for the D-line. I'm 240. You may can move me a guard or center. Like, I'll play anywhere. Like, I just want to play. Um, so like I I did get aggravated whenever they cut me because I just remember some of my teammates. I was like, that guy, ball, blah, blah, blah. That's what you know, ego does. Sure, absolutely. It does that, especially when you're young. You know, and and then looking back, like, man, I had such a great time that year. It was the same year that, you know, I think it was their second or second national title. And even though it was a year, man, that was such that was really, really cool memories and uh, you know, outstanding leaders and and singers of that class. And just to be a part of something for a year, right, you know, was was huge to me looking back, you know, because because going in, I was like, oh, I'm gonna be that guy. I'll play five five years, whatever if they red shirt me and blah blah blah. But like even like I said, just getting that year was pretty cool. We did have one of our guys, I believe it's Tyler Josie, had a red shirt and had a medical red shirt, and he ended up getting two national championships out of it. I'm sure you know more coaches and GAs were on staff, but I remember him. I was like, man, you gotta see and I really didn't understand medical redshirts at the time. I was like, man, that's awesome. But yeah, he ended up getting one, I think, in 2012, 2007, something like that, or 13. But anyway, it was pretty neat.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Well, that the the confidence that you talk about, I mean, for to to be great at anything, you you've got to be confident and you gotta believe in yourself. Um, and so uh I think you know, I think you had the right attitude, right? Uh the the the the necessary confidence uh confidence. Um but um but what I like is you took the time to okay, you know, kind of have that little little pity potty there for a little bit, but but you didn't let it last, right? You don't let it drag out.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And and you know, um I tell that my kids now coaching, like you can be upset, you know, especially at wrestling matches. Right, yeah. Go to the wall, be by yourself, have your head down, be upset. Just you know, just can't lay in it. You know, you gotta get up, you gotta go. And I think, you know, kind of that with with with my dad um growing up and coming back, uh, he didn't

Work Ethic And Learning Discomfort

SPEAKER_00 20:03

lay in it. And you know, I watched a couple people approach him as he came home from prison, and he could have went right back to what he was doing. Right. And he, you know, he didn't choose to do that. And and and you know, I'm kind of venturing out here, but um he did construction when he came back home, and we were construction sites from the time I was in sixth grade until I was in tenth grade. We would clean up these houses on St. Simon and Sea Island. Um my mom and my sisters, my little brother was too young, so he'd stay at my granny's. But that's how we'd earn extra money. That was like my first paying job, and we would do those Saturdays and or Sunday mornings. Uh so you know, some of the toughest times of my life is starting varsity football as a freshman and then getting up Saturday and Sunday and going to work. And I was just exhausted. But at the same time, I knew I'd try to not have a blue-collar job if I could help it. You know, you know, and and nothing wrong with that at all. But like I was like, I'm not working in construction, I'm not gonna be doing this one day. But at the same time, like I'm glad. And my dad, too, my dad's still like this and I love it, but he is a perfectionist about his work. Like, like we'd be like, hey, we got it done. He's like, cigarette butt on the ground, this piece of paper. Like, because I'm cleaning up the outside portion, right? And my mom and sisters would sweep the sawdust on the inside portion, so you got these big old mansions on the island, and uh man, it did it established. I did a wheelbarrow everywhere, and my I still got somewhat decent traps because of that wheelbarrow.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Oh yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

But but yeah, man, that that I'm fortunate that dad had us do that. But yeah, that um, you know, I I've watched my dad come home and transform, and he's had his times, his low times as well, but also um, you know, just not laying in that that that sorrow and that um you know when you're feeling um sad. You know, he's it it's it's been cool to to to watch guys rise aro around me because that that's what you do, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Absolutely. That's that that that's wonderful. And I love the work the work. That he's uh you know in instilled uh in y'all. And I think that is so, so important. Um, and and honestly, I think we see that less and less. We let our children we do a lot more for them. Uh we don't require them to get out there and rake the yards and everything. I I never forget uh my my kids laugh at laugh at this, but uh I'm I'm playing Nintendo, me and Brian, we're playing Nintendo, we're playing uh like double dribble. And uh anyway, and I do this awesome play and you know, slam on this guy's head, and uh I put it on pause and uh so I I run and tell my dad. I'm like, man, I said, uh telling him what just happened. He looked at me, he said, turn that off and go outside and go rake the leaves. I'm like I'm like the last time I'm gonna tell you that I about this awesome play on a Nintendo game, and he's like, go do some work and stuff. So having a garden, uh raking leaves, taking out the trash, loading or unloading the dishwasher, washing the dishes in the sink, whatever it is, man. Just have have have them do something. Yes, you're right. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And it does. I think, you know, and and you can probably kind of test this to a degree. I don't know. We you know, there's that balance of of of of being better than than than your own parents, but you know, not necessarily like better, whatever, but but like do doing more, wanting more. You know, I want I want my kids to be better than me, you know, but also that balance of that hard work and and stuff it is tricky at times.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

It is yeah, and it's tough. It's tough to it, it's a tough balance. It is. It's uh because like you say, you just you want them, I mean you love your kids so much, and you you you want to make them comfortable, right? You know, because you know, you know the other side of it is is not where anybody wants to be. And uh, but that uncomfortable times and situations, it just builds so much strength and carrot.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Sorry to interrupt but I was just talking to my kids about it yesterday. Find a way every day to be uncomfortable, right? Even if it's just a short period of time. My my dad, and I I can remember when he came back home, I was like probably fifth grade, and I noticed that his uh shower was on cold at the end, and so I turned the shower on his cold. I was like, why do you do that? And he was said, uh, he said, Coach Pickleheimer. You ever heard of him? Pickleheimer? Yeah, but uh he is more of like the he was a PE teacher, and he was my dad's middle school PE teacher, but he's a he's a Brantley County grade. Like there's multiple uh older folks. He's like, Yeah, he's a really good PE teacher, but he's like, Yeah, he told us to do that whenever I was in middle school or I guess early high school, because I think they went to hope and straight to high school, so around eighth grade or something. Right, he he really influenced my dad. And uh that's like big, like we do a lot of cold therapy now, right? And like my dad was doing it, you know, in whatever ninety nine, nine ninety-eight, ninety, whatever it was. And uh that's pretty neat. Uh a guy back then was like, hey guys, good idea. When you're in your shower, last few minutes just turn it on cold. You know what I'm saying? That's pretty wild. It was like probably 75, 74, and my dad piece up from that moment. I was like, I started doing that. Wow. And uh, but yeah, um, I just I was just telling my kids at school that day, and I've preached this for a few years now, like, just take a cold shower. If you want to, if you want to do something that find yourself uncomfortable, start it, might be five or ten seconds, start with and then try to do a little bit more. That's right. If you're not doing anything else, just do that. That's what I tell my kids. Now, I'll of course have if you come up with the coach, I did it. Getting used to it, I I think it's helping you, you know. That's right. That's pretty neat, man.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

That that that that's great. I I love uh uh eventually, eventually I'm gonna have two things uh out here. I want to I want to have a sauna, uh, and then I want to have uh right now I'll go to the YMCA uh and stuff. I'd love a sauna. But then we we used to have a little above-ground pool up here. We we called it our our COVID pool. That's when we we bought it anyway. We had it uh probably probably four years it lasted. But uh, and especially, especially in the wintertime, I think it would get get real cold and I go jumping that thing. That's a great one.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Oh yeah, especially in the wintertime, like you said. And then going back to what you're saying about being uncomfortable, I'd always tell my kids too, uh while I was teaching, I hate running. You probably need it the most, you know, or I hate squatting, you probably need it the most. That's right. And I I recently had a few kids come back home from the military as I coach, I lost 80 pounds and uh I'm in the military now, but you that always stuck with me. You told you told me about running like like I hated doing it. So after you said that, I like made it a point to do it because you s you told me it was what I probably needed to do. And uh hearing that kid, you know, whatever, seven to eight years later be like, I I did started doing that because I thought about the things that you said. That's that's awesome. Right. And I really do and I do, man. I preach military to so many of these kids around here because they're just not gonna get out otherwise. Right. You know, as much as we want them to, uh to do the to do whatever, go to college, go to trade school, so many of them are just gonna fall back into that trap. So I do preach it. I preach it to so many kids, man. And so to see some of them come back and say, hey, here's where I'm at, and this is what I'm doing, man. I I I love it up. And we have multiple kids that have did great for themselves going to the military, and man, it I really does. It warms my heart to see that.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

That's cool. Yes, sir.

Becoming A Teacher Back Home

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Um, so did you so uh so you stayed at Valasa State and finished, I guess, fit finished your degree? I did everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

It took me five years to get my four-year. I was really bummed out about it because I I'll be honest with you, my plan was never to coach, it was always like plan D. It was like eventually I'll retire as a psychol psychologist, psychiatrist, right, yeah, dentist. Like, those are all my plans before that. Then maybe I'll coach one day. Like, and it wasn't wrestling, it was I want to be the head football coach one day or I want to coach football. And so after my I think my first year, I was like, yeah, psychology degree is not working out. Um so I ended up being in the health and physical education and Vodal State great program, um, and took five years to finish my four year. But Dion, she like motivated me because I remember being all depressed. I'm like, you're behind. She's like, You only do it one time. Like, enjoy it. And it finally calmed my brain down. I was like, oh yeah, I'm good. And then looking back, uh especially with with with teaching, and I'll tell all my educators this try to try to get that next degree if you can, at least. Right. Try to get one more. And I and I'm you know, I got my uh masters from Georgia Southern, their online academy, uh, I think 2017, 2016, and uh kinesiology with coaching pedagogy emphasis. And I'm fortunate enough and um you know great professors there too. And uh yeah, I got that. But yeah, as I was at Onassa State, I started dabbling into the fighting, uh jujitsu, MMA. Um it started out, it was like three gyms kind of in the town. And then eventually um before I left, it all merged into one, which was really cool. Uh anytime I think we had like you know 10 to 12 guys that were actively competing in this little gym before I left at uh at Valasta, which was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

So so were you introduced it by like were you driving down the street and just saw a gym or had a friend or something?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

No, my first cousin husband, my first cousin's husband, Amanda Mason, her her husband's is a man named Mike Mason, and Mike's more of a traditional um martial arts, but I saw on a flyer at Valasta State they offered Rosen Jiu Jitsu, and I knew like I I was well aware of what Rosen Jiu-Jitsu was because my father, my father, man, going back, I'm kind of all over the place. Yeah, absolutely. But my dad, like I like I just remember for me, like three or four of them watching a lot of boxing. Okay, he had so many Tyson tapes, and then I can remember flashes of like Hoy Gracie, you know, they always said Royce because they just didn't know the pronunciation. But it it I remember dad talking about it, I believe before he left or maybe while he was gone, about how he just dismantled everybody and the UFC. And uh, you know, they were big boxing fans. Um so I knew jujitsu was the real deal. Like I I knew it, I knew, especially Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, like I knew that was the real deal. So whenever I saw that, um, I was like, oh man, that's Mike Mason, that's uh Amanda's husband. Like, I'll contact Mike, and I did, and he had a blue belt teaching for him, this guy named Jason Davis. And me and Jason are still friends to this day. And um, you know, I I go in that class, man, and I think I'm like, oh man, I'm too 240 of squat of house. So I benched pretty good. Like I was a strong guy. Like, I wasn't worried, I'm not gonna lie, like I blindly just wasn't worried. Their ego kicks in, you're young, and um I was not worried. Like, I was like, oh, hang on myself, I'll be fine. Right, yeah. And I shot in, he starts on his feet with me, and I shot in for he's like, Hey man, we're not throwing punches, we're just yeah, we're just doing grappling. If you can choke me out or arm bar me, like that's fine, just watch out with my finger. You know, he tells me all the rules, and I double leg, I double leg him hard. Like I and I didn't have no no wrestling experience, it was just football. Yeah, makes it tapping. Yeah, and I double legged him to the sky. I remember and I I don't know if I don't think I slammed him hard, hard, but I slammed him pretty good. So I'm slamming pretty good, and then like he immediately pulls guard, and I'm like, Oh, his legs are around. This is weird. Like, I don't, what is this? Like uh, you know, like I don't know how to really do much. And then before I knew he had me a triangle choke, and I fought that thing for like probably a minute. Like I was like, he's not tapping me out, like I'm not gonna tap him. And I look at the timer, it's like still like four minutes left, and I'm like, oh man, this is gonna be tough. And he hasn't in me pretty tight, and then uh eventually he goes until I'm almost passed out, like I'm almost gone, and I tap and like I he lets me go, and then my mind just blew. Like I was like, Oh man, I I have no idea what I'm doing. Like, I gotta do this stuff. Like, this is what I have to do. And that was while I was playing football. Um yeah, I started going to classes uh that I can make uh once, once or more a week, usually about two times a week, I was able to make classes. And they had like a Saturday morning open mat, and I wasn't dressing out with the with the team, so I'd go to a lot of the open mats and we had Jason Davis. There was a lot of guys, there's another guy named John Reed, and John Reed's in the Air Force. Um and John was just a specimen, I think he was, he was unreal. And and Jason too at the time was unreal, still is. Um but yeah, they they introduced me to to Rosanna Jiu-Jitsu, and uh yeah, like I said, it just kind of blew my mind from there. And then we went to place to place. Uh, we stayed at White Tiger for about a year and a half or so, and then I went to another gym across town, uh, V Mac. That's one of the original, a lot of the OG fighters from Valt Asta are from V Mac. And uh I got to train with them for a few months, and then we we we all came together at Reality, uh, which still exists in in Colquit. But there was a gym in in Valdasta that's called Reality Martial Arts, and we we trained there for a year and a half, give or take, I think. I mean it lasted a little longer, but I I ended up going back home. Uh but yeah, while I was there I had four amateur fights. Um not necessarily in Valdasta, but while I was training in Valdasta. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

So I would say, well, you you might have a better uh percentage uh to spit out, but um walking in there thinking I'll I'll be fine, yeah. I can handle myself, you know, probably 95-95% of people uh guys walk in probably feeling that way.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Yeah, especially you know, you're college athletes. That's right, yeah. You know, like you you you think you're all right, you know, and and and me just not having a clue, like you know, but yeah, it was it was it was it was like a very mind blowing moment and uh really humbling moment and just thinking, oh man, I'm gonna have to dive into this. Like like and it was like I I knew like I knew I'd been bested, and I knew there was uh it was something more to just being strong and and can move way decent. And uh yeah, man, it was uh it was pretty cool. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Um I know uh when and and and it's probably not that way as much now just because it's it is so prominent. I mean there's you see it on TV a lot more, the MMA, UFC, you know, all that. Uh and so people are a lot more familiar with you know Brazilian jiu-jitsu versus um versus versus back then. It wasn't it wasn't as prominent, right? So people probably because okay, maybe uh a little more cautiously, maybe a little more humble walk uh what walking in these days.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Um and like I knew it.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

I knew it. I just didn't think anybody around here was would be good enough to handle me. You know, I knew jujitsu was was was real. Like I like I knew that coming in. And to be honest with you, like even after I started, I was thinking in 10 years everybody and their mama would be doing this. Like I just thought I just thought everybody would be doing it because it was just so practical, so effective. Right. Um and obviously, you know, it's definitely gained some traction, but not at the not at the rate that I thought it would. Uh, but but yeah, man, it was uh that was a that was a humbling life-changing moment for me.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

So you had the four uh amateur uh about so yeah now were those just jujitsu or were those striking as well?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

I did I did one jujitsu match while I was at White Tiger. I think I don't even know if I won a match. It was I I had my blue belt, ended up. Um there's a guy he was on Ultimate Fighter. Um he fought Matt Brown on Ultimate Fighter. His name is Jeremy May. Jeremy, I believe, is still fighting. He's probably a year or two older than me, I believe. And I ended up matching up with him and this other guy from Florida, I think named Rashawn Spencer is his name. But I think I went 0-3 that day. Uh I had a takedown on Rashawn, and I just didn't know how jujitsu points worked. Ended up in his guard, and I think he had a submission attempt on me, and I thought I'd won. And I didn't win. He beat me by like a point, and then Jeremy armbared me to triangle me and caused damage in my left arm that I felt for about a decade from that jujitsu match. And then uh Rashawn went with him one more time, and I think he choked me, he gave it to me. So my very first and only, I don't think I did another jujitsu tournament since then. My only jiu-jitsu tournament, I believe I'm 0-3 as a blue belt. Uh but I started doing just the the MMA fights, and my first one was in Griffin, Georgia. Um, and it's pretty cool, man. Looking back, like um Joe Stewart and Randall Howard and Stephen Howard came to my very first fight from Brantley County up in Griffin. And like I think about that like now, I was like, man, those guys, like that's like I'm so appreciative of those guys that came. And there might be one or two more that I'm missing out there. But besides um, you know, my family and a few friends I was training with, like, for those guys that come up and drive to Griffin, Georgia to watch me compete, it was pretty cool. Yeah, I think I was only like 20 years old. Uh but yeah, I fought. It was supposed to be two pros that were the main card, but the pros backed out like last minute. So it's me and this hometown cop that fights in the main event because they probably would have made heavyweights, but um maybe not because there was heavyweights in the car. But, anyways, uh I believe we fought at 185, and he was a hometown police officer, and he had never fought. And um, it's kind of funny, but every time I look at somebody, like you obviously see their upper body, and I seen him in some interviews before he fought me. I was like, I mean, he's a pretty big guy. And then uh, and nothing against my Facebook friends right now today. But I do this still and I tell my athletes to do this, and it's kind of funny. But like I always tell them to look at the rear end, to look at their butt. And like you can kind of tell somebody's strength if you look at their butt. And like I tell a lot of my close, I mean my daughter was just talking about it last week, but you can't you do kind of can tell. And I looked at his his legs, and I was like, ah, he ain't got too much legs. I'm gonna be double legging. And I and I did. The fight went on, and I I couldn't finish the fight. Yeah, I was a blue belt. I trained about two, two and a half years before my first fight in uh MMA and jujitsu, mainly jujitsu, and uh ended up taking him down pretty good. And uh my dad told me after the fight that like after the initial takedown and two more moments throughout the whole fight, his mom uh kept passing out.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Are you serious? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

I felt so bad. And I didn't like beat him to a pole band. Right, right. Like, you know, I edged out, I say edged out, I beat I had a pretty dominant decision um at 3027 in his hometown. Uh but yeah, uh there's still a clip of it on YouTube. It's like GT's Kate GTC K's fights out. It was uh I had an old JC Penny that had closed down. Wow, and we fought there main event, and uh man, it was a really cool moment. And you know, two first fights on main events like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

That's that's all that's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

That's fun. My striking wasn't great. There's some clips of my striking online, and you know, luckily I didn't get clipped too hard, but uh but my jiu jitsu and my wrestling was pretty good, and they all the other corner was like, he's just a wrestler, he's just laying and praying, blah blah. And I was like, I was just thinking, I ain't wrestling. I don't like I'm just my wrestling's coming from jiu-jitsu, right? Football, but like, yeah, I remember saying that, and like I think they did it as like talking negative to me, but I took it kind of as a compliment. I was like, Oh, they think my wrestlers are sweet, you know, like that's cool, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:29

That's awesome. Wow. So uh so the only my my only experience with uh striking with uh in kind of a competition uh was some backyard competition. Anytime in high school, remember my my junior and senior year, uh we'd have you know the the Tyson Holyfield fight, and uh when when Tyson got out of prison, he had the and he fought Peter McNeely, I think was his name and stuff. Anyway, had a bunch of buddies over and we and we had gloves too. So as soon as that match was over, we're outside, you know, in the backyard. Backyard throwing, yeah, throwing haymakers and stuff, and had a good time, just fun times doing that. We did that probably you know two or three times. Uh and then and then up in college, had two of two of my good buddies. We would we played intramural sports, you know, flag football, softball, and things like that. Well, the two of my buddies were really, really competitive with each other and they actually didn't like each other very much. And uh they and just talking trash back and forth, back and forth. And finally, they one of them threatened, you know, you know, kick your tail, whatever. So they agreed. They said, you know what, here let's just put on some gloves, okay, you know, and let's and and and and let's add this out. And uh and and this was this was an event, man. We had so we we we actually we ended up lining up some cards, right? So we had like four fights lined up that time. We we yeah, we set up a ring, and uh, and so I I went, I I I I joined the card, you know. So I I went first. We we let we let them two go go last at kind of the main event. I went first and um the debate was whether to wear a headgear or not. So the guy that I fought, he was actually an amateur boxer, and uh and we both I didn't want to hit wear headgear. He didn't really want to wear headgear, so so we didn't. And uh anyway, we go at it. Um I ended up have we ended up having an accidental headbutt. I I split his eye right here, but it was it was from it wasn't from a punch, it was from a hit, a headbutt. And uh anyway, after we got done with each other, everybody else was like, Yeah, we're gonna put on headgear and stuff. So, but those two guys, they went at it, and man, they were just I mean, you thought it world war three. I mean, they were just going going to town anyway.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Did you guys both get cut pretty good? Like, did you have to have stitches or anything? No, no, no. Just a headbutt, yeah. Some cuts here. That's right, yeah. Have you looked up the science behind the the the headgear in boxing? No, huh? So I always thought that it was big as far as saving the concussions and stuff, right? And I think maybe the last time I looked at it was around 20, 21, 22. I haven't looked at it in a few years. But they they say that it doesn't really help a lot with concussions, it helps with cuts. Okay. That's that's really the the main for it. And I I know in my experience with headgear, and I've had a couple where I could see, but you know, it some of the headgear will take off a little bit of your peripheral. Right, exactly. Yeah, and if you're you know, your eyes are the most important thing whenever you're striking. So, like if it takes away your peripheral, I'll I just remember being kind of like y'all were saying, like, I don't want to wear it, you know. Right, yeah. But what it does save is the cuts. The cuts, right. Yeah, so but yeah, man. Uh but where did y'all do that at? Were you like in a in the grass spot or were you like in a uh floor?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

No, no, yeah, we were we were outside and it was actually up under a heavily uh tree, a lot of trees, so the ball leaves, but we we raked it out, so it makes it just on dirt uh and stuff. So we we we had a good time, but those those guys they worked out their differences with the gloves, which is the way which is the way guys do it. But it was a good it was a good kind of a good gentleman-friendly way to do it, you know. They did it in a safe way and stuff, so I thought that was awesome. Uh and then the last time I put gloves on kind of competitively was again was against Brian. We were this was we were we were both married. Uh we had moved back down to to Way Cross and I don't know, we just watching the boxes matches, MMA, and everything, and we decided uh we both asked for some gloves and stuff for for Christmas or something. Anyway, we got out there in the yard and went at it for a little bit, and then we're like, oh yeah, that's good. How old were you guys whenever y'all did that? When we did that, so we were uh I was probably I was probably 28 and he was 25. Oh wow, yeah. So yeah, yeah, but we were yeah, yeah, we we were already married and stuff and had kids. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah and uh yeah, go going a little bit off track, but uh Brian, he's talking about his brother, Jackson's brother, Brian dated my sister Dion in uh like her sophomore, I think junior year 97, 98-ish. And uh Brian uh was like a big uh male influence for me when my dad was gone. She she when she dated him, but but I knew Jackson because of Brian and they were both really good baseball players. When did you graduate? 96, okay. Yeah, yeah. We both knew that you were you both y'all are really good baseball and basketball players. Y'all were number five. Number five, that's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

And even Mary Ann continued. She wore five at twelve.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

That's right. That's right. And and that's another thing too. Mary Ann was a was a big part too. I can remember going to summer waves and different stuff and and and being that little fourth grader, having that crush everyone dirtiest thing in the world, you know. So yeah, man, y'all's family was was really impactful on me in my youth, especially when my dad wasn't around, you know, man. So and y'all get y'all come from good stock, man. So I do appreciate that from from Mary Ann and Brian. And really, I didn't know you too much during that time. You're probably gone, you're probably gone, weren't you?

SPEAKER_01 43:51

During that time, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, ninety seven to ninety nine, I was on my mission in Las Vegas. Oh wow. And then and then after that, I was up up in Athens and stuff. So School, so yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, appreciate you saying that though for sure. Um talk uh so in this in this all this is why you're at Vatasta, right? Right, you're fighting and everything. Um at what point do you decide you want to be a a teacher?

SPEAKER_00 44:17

So I changed my major after my first year. Uh and uh I guess it wasn't necessarily after my first year, actually, it was after my second year. So I have a my first year, I'm doing college. I'm actually staying a lot with my high school sweetheart. Uh, we break up after that first year of college and I go into a a depression. Little it wasn't like a big one, like yeah, it was a little bit, but it wasn't a big one. But I had full-time classes, and you you probably know as well, you can sign up full-time, but if you drop stuff before midterms, you're still technically a full-time student. Right. Uh, but you just don't have the classes, you know, that obviously you have to pay for them. Right. But uh, but at the time, you know, I was on a hope, and uh I still you know paying my college back to this day. But anyways, I I I uh drop all my classes, but one, I have an anthropology class like twice a week, and I walk through the woods from our apartment uh for that one semester, and I am I'm down, but I am trans still, uh, but I'm down a lot, and the only class I I took I made a C. And I just remember thinking, I I don't want to do this. I don't I I have to do something, I have to make a change. And so that December, January, I met with a advisor um and uh and changed my major in the health and physical education. And like I told you, I thought I was gonna come back and coach high school football, be a headball coach and do this and that, maybe be the 80 one day. That was the initial plan. Uh but I I I didn't know where I would be, you know, I didn't know I was gonna come back to Brantley County. I just kinda that's where the wind took me at that time. Uh I had those fights. Um and I you know, I wanted it to continue. Um, and then and I still think about this looking back. I probably just should have stayed. You know, you can't coulda, shoulda, woulda, but like if I would have stayed a few extra years, I probably would have got a little bit more uh bigger fights, if that makes sense. You know what I'm saying? Like I probably could have I'm not gonna say the biggest divisionist by any means, but I probably could probably could have got a couple bigger fights if I'd have stuck around. But um I remember ignoring Chris Harris's phone call the first time when he when he called me and to come back in Brantley when I w right about the time I was graduating, and I answered him the second time. Because I at first I was like, I'm not going back to my hometown, like I just don't. Right. My girlfriend, my college girlfriend different from my high school sweet yard, obviously, but she was from Marietta. And I had a Marietta um para pro job. Um but whenever he offered me, uh pretty much the PE job back when I graduated, um, me and her taught when her mom to her mom was an educator, right? Um and she was like, you know, you're you have a job compared to a parapro job, it's really not a bad idea if you if you go and do it. So I ended up taking a job in Ramley County and the rest is history, man. I I really, you know, my first few years were kind of rough. Uh but I and I ain't gonna lie, I ended up loving the kids the first day. And nothing against the Valsta kids, I love, you know, I did some some student teaching at Lounge and South Mahone and uh about Asta Middle School, and and I really love the people about Austa as well. Man, we we just have some great kids in Brantley County, and I can remember like kind of having to be a little bit more disciplined about Asta with certain things, but the first day at Bradley County, I was like, sit down. I remember yelling at kids across the bridges and all of them just dropped. And I was like, oh I think a lot I think a lot is pretty good. Uh but yeah, man, it was it was pretty cool. Um, coming back home and then you know, I I think I don't know if I have a you don't know this, but my dad's related to like 99. He has 99 first cousins. It's like I'll teach kids, man. I won't even know I'm related to him. Granny says we're related, right? Yeah, we probably are. So, but yeah, man, it you know, and then and coming back, uh it just uh it really it was humbling, but it was it was great for me. So I was happy to come back.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Uh what what what what's it like teaching teaching middle middle schoolers? Because I mean they're they're in that middle schoolers are they're in that transition, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

And I tell people that they're different, but and I think I relate to them so well because I'm different, you know, like I really am. And like I I can talk to adults for sure. I mean, you have to, but like, man, just talking to the kids and uh getting to know the kids and like one of the coolest things I think teaching, and this is like something that people don't even think because you obviously we want to get the kids better, we want to want to improve them in every asset, but watching some of the the boys and the girls that maybe they don't have a friend in class or maybe that they just don't open up, but to watch some of those kids, I had one smile Friday yesterday, like see them smile, like and they don't usually do that. Like one girl specifically, like I've called Roll this whole week and I haven't seen her crack a smile, and I was talking to her and juggled around and made her smile, and I was like, Man, that's that's big. And like I remember even in college, and I still have this plan this year, is to try to get to know every student. Like, I'd either walk a lap with them or just and now I'll just call them in, or or maybe I'll walk around with them. Uh, but to just try to get to know every one of them, and I and I'm not successful at every single one as much as I want to be, yeah, you know, but at the same time, just showing them that I care is big. And you've probably heard that saying too. Um, you can teach them this and that, and and they're not gonna remember a lot that you taught, but they're gonna remember uh if you were kind. That's right. You know, and I think about that, and I do my best to be good to my kids. That's awesome. That's that's what I want them to look back. They're like, he was good to me. That's right. That that's the one of the biggest things I want him to remember about me.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Yeah. Yeah. Good you're good to them, uh pay attention to them. You you put in the effort, you try and build that relationship. I know I'm all of my kids have had you uh start middle school and everything, and they've they've always thoroughly enjoyed being in your class and uh being up under your influence and everything. So I've on behalf of Brantley County, man, uh uh thank you for the for the efforts that you put in. My father-in-law, he um he now does the uh the music, or not the music, the sound for graduation. Uh this year was his first year doing it at uh at Brantley. You know, uh Terry retired and everything. So my father-in-law, he uh he ended up winning the contract, and um he uh he uh he's always known his kids grew up in Work County in the Work County school system. And uh, and of course, you know, nothing at Work County, but but he says just with the little bit of interactions that he's over the years coming and and watching his grandchildren play in sports and things like that, and just seeing the people interact, and then even now more so being involved a little bit with more of the school system and stuff with the he's like he said I would he said Brentley County is right to send my kids. Yes, sir. He said if I can if I could do it again, he said back then I'd have figured out a way to move over to Brentley County and stuff. So that's uh saying saying a lot for sure.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

And I think too, man, whenever I you know we started raising a family and having kids, and um, you know, we're we're a mixed family. And man, I I we are I'm so fortunate to have my kids go to this school system, you know. Um you know, I have two stepdaughters and and and two of them are my own, but like my stepdaughters are my own, you know. Uh and man, what's so awesome right now with the co-parenting is everybody is on the same page. My wife and Avery's mother, my my my daughter's mother, Avery, they're they're great friends now. And me and the girl's daddy, which share a same last name, no relation. Uh we're we're we're great buddies now. And it makes me happy that we all can come together. And this school system, man, is just a blessing because it it has it's uh it's helped my kids a t a ton. So and and you know, my daughter's wrestling state runner up last year, got two years left. We're we're pumped up about that, but yeah, man, it it it is, it's fortunate that we're fortunate to to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Great, great job for y'all on doing that, and especially you know, for the for the kids and everything.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Provides that stability and it's cool, you know, and I always wanted that, you know, and and obviously there's some hiccups, especially when you get court involved. Yeah, court was involved for both sides, and being a part of that was rough uh for me personally. Um but at the same time uh to to to branch out and to have those relationships that we have now and to look past some of the the stuff back then is is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Uh even today, my Amber's gonna come uh to my nephew's pretty much going away party. We're having that at like one o'clock today. He's going to to to Georgia next. He goes to Athens next Friday, he's pumping up. Nice, nice. So she's coming in today, and like, you know, you think about that eight years ago, seven years ago, just wouldn't be the same. Right. And to have it, I mean, I feel so blessed. I think about all the time, and I we are, we're blessed.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

So that's that's for anybody out there that uh you know, unfortunately, divorces is part of you know uh marriages and stuff sometimes. And my my parents divorced at the they had been married for 30 years, and uh and they they divorced. But they have they've they've remained friends. Um you know, uh they've forgiven each other um and they've uh they've moved moved past the past. And uh so you know, m my dad, my mom, they're both always at the different family functions and Christmas gatherings and holidays and things like that and stuff. So yeah, that uh it makes things a lot a lot easier for the for the kids for sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

So man, it's just good to see that they can get along. Yeah, that's that's uh blessing to get along. And man, I have a wonderful wife now, Gloria. Um, and man, she just she has me at everything, she really does, and I'm so fortunate to have somebody good. Uh I just didn't think, man, I don't know what I thought. I thought, you know, I thought I was just uh a wicked man, you know, and I think a lot of men kind of get that way, but to have somebody to find you and meet you and and and mold you uh to become a better man is awesome, and she's did that for me, and I really am. I'm blessed. And um, she put a TikTok about me this week, but uh like she said she's obsessed with me, but like I feel like I'm uh equally obsessed with her. That's awesome. I really I really do, and I don't talk about it as much online or post this even though I probably should, but like I am so fortunate to have somebody that just completes me. That's awesome, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

And um that's what it's all about right there, man. That's that's that's that is so that's such a good feeling.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Um going back, I think when Rowdy was on your podcast, he talked about that too. Yeah, you turn to each other and you turn to the Lord, man. That's right. That that that I agree with that 100%.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I I I I remember talking talking about that for sure. Yeah.

Building A Wrestling Program From Scratch

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Um well, yeah, so just kind of maybe just uh take us on a little bit as far as your you know um teaching, coaching, and maybe getting into wrestling a little bit and th things like that. Um what let me ask you this. Uh, what about the uh when when did you get asked to be to be the wrestling coach and getting involved in uh in the on the coaching side there?

SPEAKER_00 54:51

So um wrestling was coached initially in the fall, winter after I graduated in 2007. So I graduated in 2007, they started a wrestling program. And there was rumors about it my senior year, but I played basketball and I'm like, I'm I wouldn't wrestle. Right, right. Basketball player, you know. Uh, but luckily, uh if it would have came, I probably would have maybe went to a few practices. Like it probably would have hooked me looking back. Uh and and you know, coached then, I think Coach Walker was a head coach, and Coach Eichfeld, who, you know, retired from Ware County, yeah, was the assistant. And uh within like their second year, they were able to make it a team state. You know, they had some pretty good coaching. Um, and I ended up coming in, I think E ended up going over to Ware County in 2009, and I came in in 2012. Uh 13 was a school year, and I initially coached middle school, and Craig Davis was our high school coach, and Craig uh coached football as well. Uh to this day, I don't know if I've ever met a man that was more intelligent on the football field. He could see everything on the O-line. I remember like having to watch individually. He's like, one day it just clicked for me where boom and he would, he would rack off every single person. But Craig was highly intelligent, and then he taught me some bases of wrestling because my wrestling was MMA and jujitsu wrestling. And so Craig did teach me some bases of wrestling. And even um Brandon Brandon Jernigan uh over from uh Pierce County helped me out because I I showed up these meets and I had no idea what I was doing, and Journey would kind of point me the direction where to go, and I'm thankful for Joernigan too. But Mark Walker is a reason, you know, he brought me on the football staff, and I'm very thankful of Mark and uh appreciative of him, even though whenever I was young, I was kind of uh ego driven to a degree and thought this and that, but like I'm so grateful for Mark Walker. Uh, and he brought me on as the the wrestling coach too. Um so my second year I was a head high school coach for wrestling, and I really had no idea what I was doing. I never coached wrestling at my wrestling was MMA and jujitsu based. Um, I think we had eight kids, it dwindled down to around five. And um we had kids, two boys make it to sectionals that year. We couldn't we couldn't go to team duels because we didn't have enough people to go to team duels. Uh and so we had two kids go to sectionals and lose out up in Madison uh county. And then um even then, whenever I started, I had Beck come out. Like uh I think during winter time he was back home and I was just getting I had Chevy Middleton, I knew Chevy had wrestled, and I knew Aaron Beck and a few other guys, and I was asking everybody. I just had no idea what I was doing, I just wanted help. And Beck ended up coming during wintertime, and um it was cool because he was he was lighter than me then. Uh not as we're about the same size now, but um I think he wrestled around 150 in the school, give or take. And uh I weigh him then by like 30 pounds, and I do really well. He's like, Man, you would have been really good. Like I remember you telling me that I was like, yeah, man, I just don't know what I'm doing. Like I'm it's mainly in jujitsu and uh MMA. And he taught me a lot then, and then summertime rolled around, he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna be an engineer, I'm at tech, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, man, I will literally give you the wrestling program and keep you gone. I just need help, you know, like you can be a part of it. And then he ends up transferring from tech back to coastal, and I had him as much as possible. Um, and then whenever he said he was gonna be a teacher, like I don't think he was a I'm not sure if it was that year or the year after he decided to be get an education.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

And I was like, dude, please like come back. And uh luckily he came back around 2017, 2018, something like that. And uh man, I'm so grateful because like even my plan as a high school football coach was to get people who like knew more than me or knew more than me at a at a certain position or area, or you know, it was like you you you bring people in to make yourself better. And I tried from the rip. I knew I knew Beck from the rip, like he was a good teacher, and he could explain things to the kids pretty good. He broke it down, and I was like, I gotta bring him in. Right. And so um, and we had some other guys come here and there, and I I wish I could have had some guys permanently. They were at the time the school really wasn't allowing any community coaches at all. So it was just me pretty much solo for the first year or so. Then you know having Clay Johns and Clay helped me out a lot, and AJ Hendricks helped me out a lot, and then eventually we got Aaron Beck. Uh, and when he came in, I was just I was I was so thrilled. And and and and I knew some wrestling, and I taught, I'd learned and taught some wrestling, but when Aaron came in, it made it flow so much better. And even before he came though, I was able to have uh a few boys go to state. I had Cole Lewis, who I'm related to on my mama's side, place fourth at state, and then it's so funny because I like some of our state placers is Cole, and then uh down the low, I'm related to him on my daddy's side, and down's one of our own, you know, one or two state champions. But you know, again, going back to the cousin saints kind of funny. But but yeah, man, I I I was so you know, I was I was in over my head to start with, and I thought I could do it, and then I just didn't know what I was doing. But right before Beck came, I started mimicking. I got a copy of Toomes' schedule, and Tooms was one of the you know the more elite programs in South Georgia. I got their schedule and I noticed they didn't do many weekday duels, they did a lot of tournaments, and I was like, I gotta start a booster club, and I think I started a booster club and then like four years, three or four years of me having a program because at first we were just doing a lot of weeknight duels in a tournament or two here and there. But I was like, oh man, we gotta go to tournaments and we did. We started doing it probably 2017, 2018. We started going almost every weekend. Like we're seeing how much they wrestle, we're like, hey man, like these guys are doing it. I think I looked at Camden's schedule too. I was like, this is what we have, we have to do this. Like we have to. And then the the Booster Club, man, I'm so appreciative of all the them mamas and daddies that helped us out over the years, uh, yourself included. Um, because we we just wouldn't be able to travel like that if we didn't have people helping us. Uh but going off helped us so much. And um man, I I I'm I'm I'm totally appreciative. But but yeah, that's the story. And then you know, we've had a few more guys come in. Uh Corey Araby had him on here, and then um Damian Salazar helped us one time, and and he may help be helping us out in some way this upcoming year. And then uh most recently, and Damien nor Drew Stone, who's Drew Stone's now in SRO at this elementary, neither one of them are currently on staff, but I believe in some way, shape, or form they'll be helping out this year. Cool. You know, uh so we're excited to you know to be a program at one time who I was virtually alone my first year. And now we're we're gonna have anywhere between five to seven coaches possibly this year, which is awesome. Uh and I'm excited about I'm excited about that because you know, watching these these five kids end up my first year to I think we have anywhere between 40 to 50 that initially come out now uh is awesome. And uh yeah, man, it's it's it's been a cool, humbling journey, uh coaching wrestling. I've learned a lot. I'm still I'm still learning. Right. Still learning.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

So that that's awesome. Uh yeah, I I love I love wrestling. Um I love it. I I love you know, basketball, baseball, football. I played all three of those up until high school, then it was just baseball and and and basketball. And um But you know, my with my kids, you know, of course I introduced them to you know the same sports and so forth. And then, you know, and you know, Brody, he decided he didn't want to do uh you know basketball. And I'm like, all right, I said, well, and and I and just looking at wrestling, I I I love the sport. I love I love watching it. Um I wish I could have participated in it growing up and everything. But I said, all right, I said, uh, and then I heard about the uh uh the little summer camp. Y'all hold it in the middle shop. I said, all right, I said, you're gonna go. He he didn't want to go. He didn't want to go try it out, you know, for the little summer camp and stuff. And I said, nope. I said, you're going. Yeah. I said, I promise you, you'll you'll enjoy it. You'll have fun. And uh he went there and had a blast, loved it, and and of course went uh went on went on to wrestle.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Um, one of the most athletic kids we've ever coached, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

He he he he he had a good time doing it. Um I think the the worst the worst part was it was the cutting uh and everything and that's it. That's a tough thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

And that's almost a sport in itself because nothing else does that. Right. No, no high school sport, and and and outside looking in, if you're not a part of their family or close friends, you have no idea about that. Right. You know they just show up and they and they wrestle, but if outside of that, you have no idea. Um, and and it does teach these kids from a young age to think about their diets more, right, yeah, you know, and be more disciplined about their diets. But you're 100% right. Uh recently a war, and even though she's a girl, she had to cut like five pounds in about three weeks, two and a half weeks. It's tough. Yeah, like right now, she's got a match in two weeks, and she's got to cut three and a half, four pounds. She's like, I'm Sunday, I'm okay. I'm gonna get this dinner tomorrow, and she's got the dinner today, she's gonna be at Jason staying a day, and it comes Sunday. I'm gonna get back on track. But like it's dreadful for some of them, and it's tough. But I've I cut weight whenever I was fighting. Um I fought at the lowest weight I fought at was 75. But I was telling this a while back, I fought at one fight, I had to be 181. And uh, you know, a lot of times if I state's right around the corner, so I would I would uh make the trip hour and 45, two hours to get back to my parents' house. And um, you know, when I got older, junior and senior, I didn't come as much, but mama told me something. They cook on Sundays, they still do to this day. We eat you know, the whole family gathers on Sundays, um, usually after church. And uh mama's like, I'm cooking a meal, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm like, okay, I'm 188. I'll be all right. I got seven pounds by Friday, I'll be okay. And I leave Mamas on that Sunday, man. I'm 193.8. Like I'm almost 194, and I gotta lose 13 pounds by that Friday. And I did, I was dead on. Uh, and and you know, it's kind of funny, man. I didn't really get into it, I never got into a sauna to cut weight. I watched people do it. Uh I always just used my dad's truck in a sauna suit. Okay. And we cranked it up 45 minutes to over an hour, and we just we just get it going. And then looking back, I'm thinking, man, I I could have cut more. Like I did cut a good bit, but I could have cut more if I was smart about what I was doing. But but yeah, man, um that weight cutting's uh it's it's tough, and especially for these high school kids too, because you know they they do go to places and they do they go to friends' house and they're offered free food. And that was the thing for me whenever I was working, I worked at a golf course when I was in college. Anytime you get free food, it's right. You can't that's the best food is free food. Yeah, especially college-age kids. So they're turning down free food as a high school or college kid. You're like free. That's right, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

And and on top of that, I mean, I mean, they're they're obviously going through this huge growing, you know, through the high school years, and so their body just I mean, they're just wanting to take in that thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

And I think that's a big difference. And and Beck agreed when we first came together, we we don't dictate our kids in the off season. That's right. When the season hits, and and even even when the season hits, we're like, where do you want to wrestle? And then they kind of figure out their own pecking order. You know, they do, they figure out where to go, who can beat who they're like they figure it out. But during the off season, until the season hits, we we're go eat, like go. Go be normal. You know, you know, if you want to go to these competitions now, if you want to wrestle up, that's fine. Like and if you lose every match, that's fine. Like, we're just getting better in the offseason. But we do not dictate their weights in the offseason because I just feel like it's unnecessary. And going back to what you're saying, their bodies are growing. You know, they're they're they're they're they're growing constantly. So it's not this, I have no business what you're doing off season. That's right. And even during like even like I said, even during the season, like you you'll you'll figure it out if you want to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:26

That's right. Yeah. And so uh talking about the cutting and and uh kind of figuring out you know where they wrestle at and everything. So Brody Brody was in a tough spot. He had two state champions. Sure would right there. I mean, they those three guys and there's you know a couple others as well that just right there in that same weight class, right? So Brody was either gonna have to just just get better than those two, uh, you know, Johnny and and and Dallin, um, or put on a whole bunch of weight or or do that cut.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

Yeah, you know, so um what he ended up cutting, how much what did he walk around at and what did he end up cutting at? It was around 15 pounds. Yeah, yeah. And with him already being as light as he can. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's tough. And and for people that don't know, the heavier you are, it's a it's a tad easier, usually. I mean, obviously it depends on body fat percentage that's not, but typically heavier people can cut weight a little bit easier. So the smaller you are, it is a grind and it's grueling and it's tough. So, like I do um him, and there's been a ton of kids uh around those weight classes because he wrestled at 13 then or 20.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Uh well, yeah, thirteen is freshman and sophomore year, and then and then 20 is junior year, and then a senior year, he said I ain't cutting, I don't care. I'm just going to go back to it. Yeah, I don't like saying that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

And you can't blame him, blame him at all. You know, and and I think about this too, because we don't give those kids a credit, especially lower weight classes. Really all of them, but especially my low low weight classes throughout the years. Um, and a couple of them that come to mind is like um Noah Smith this past year, and Eddie Singletary and Austin Cooper, that are both of them were state placers, them two were, and Noah more recently, but like it it is so tough. Keller Striger's one of the current ones you have. Keller's if he's about to go do that soon, uh, he says, you know, um, it's tough. It's tough, and like we they just don't get that credit because it's just you have to get there, you have to get that class. But like we just said, the man's a sport in itself to get that weight off. So kudos, kudos to him that do

Weight Cuts And Athlete Discipline

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

it, you know. And I was a big guy and I cut weight, and then uh actually whenever I started my professional fights, man, uh I wrestled I wrestled, I don't know if you know Connor Jacobs. Do you remember Connor? Connor Jacobs. I think he was before Brody. So he was one of our he was right outside of place in his senior year, right out like one match away. So he was top eight, top ten in the state. And I can I I can handle Connor his uh through his junior year. His senior year it was tough. I barely could could get him, and me were great practice partners together. You know, I'd teach him some sneaky stuff here and there, and he'd use it. But anyways, that's what kind of made me decide to to fight professionally at heavyweight. Because I was like, it was like, oh, Connor's great. Like Connor's one one of our better heavyweights to come through to school. And I I can I can wrestle with Connor okay. And I was like, if I can wrestle with Connor okay, I'll be all right. And then also there's this boy from uh I believe Ware County that wrestled in college, and I got to wrestle him one night at the jiu-jitsu gym and I fared up okay with him. He ended up beating me, but I fared up pretty good. Right. And I was like, okay, I can if I can wrestle with these boys, then I I can handle most of these regional heavyweights in wrestling. Nice that was that was a thought process. Right. And so I made

Pro MMA Fights And Hard-Won Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

the jump. And and and I'll be and I know I'm going off topic right here, but with the professional fights, the jump, I was like I was 31, it was like now or never. Like that was it. Right, like if I don't do this now, I'll look back when I'm you know, I'm 60, 70 and be like, should have done that, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'm glad that I can say, you know, I'm not no high-end professional athlete, but I can say that I can say I got paid uh to fight and became a pref professional athlete, even if it was for a short time. But um kind of diving into that, man. My first fight was over in Douglas, and I think I was coaching wrestling at the time, man. I had, I think we had around 25 kids or so there from Brantley County, and luckily I did not traumatize those kids. I always think I never let my kids go to the fight or my nephews or nieces, because uh, you remember the old Mark Coleman fight where his daughters are there and he's like beat to a pulp and his daughters are crying. Man, that interested me early on when in my 20s. I was like, Oh, if I have kids, I'll never take them to my fights. And then, you know, I'm sure you've saw it with Pereira's kids and other people, they bring them to the fights. It's just part of the game. And my thought process is like, you have that risk of getting knocked out, or worse, you know, you kind of have to go in there with that. Like, I don't want my kids to see it. So when all my school kids came to the fight to see me, I was like, oh man, I can't get knocked out. Uh but you know, that's in the mind anyway. I always kind of have that mindset going in that that that is gonna happen. Like you, you just uh like you know, like I'm aware. I mean, obviously I'm not trying to, but like that's a possibility. Possibility. And I tell everybody that like you can be you have to go go in and go ahead and swallow the fact that you could be a YouTube sensation, but on other end, you could be that guy delivering that sensation, you know. So you have to kind of go in uh just just just ready. So but yeah, I was able to to to get a win that that first fight, and I was able to go on and have a couple more professional fights, man. I'm blessed. I'm so blessed my body held up uh to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

So we uh we took you when you went and uh fought in Jacksonville. Um me and me and the Amanda and the kids went down there and watched and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:31

That that was fun. That's uh that was cool, man. I appreciate y'all coming out. We had y'all and um a couple more middle school kids came down too, and I was lucky, lucky enough during that time to to I was fairly confident I would do well in that fight, and I ended up doing well. Um, but yeah, man, that was that was tough. And then, you know, I think it was like a few months later, I went to Tallahassee, and that guy um I was hesitant about a takedown. I was gonna do like a mat return takedown off the fence, and I was hesitant and I didn't do it, ended up backing out, and I just did not keep my hands up and I ducked my head, man, and he uh uppercut me. And I wanted to keep it from him for a long time, but I don't plan on competing, and I think he still does sometimes, but he broke my orbital and I did not know it at the time. And he split my eye that he had four stitches. But he breaks my orbital, and the first thing I think is like, you're an idiot, your hands are down, dummy. Like, keep your hands up. And then immediately it's like, all right, you gotta go. Like, we have to go. And so I I rush him and I see myself bleeding against the fence, and I know we're in Florida. And if you're not, really, if you're not in Vegas or California, I guess, too, they're gonna stop the fight fairly soon. Like, I'm aware of that. Like, um, they'll they'll let it go on in those two states. Uh, I never fought there, but like I knew a cut in Georgia, Florida, like you gotta go. Okay. So I see myself bleeding, and I was like, you have to finish this fight. And I did. I was I was lucky enough to to grapple him. And um I caught him with a right hand the second time we split off, and I think that ended up hurting him, and then I ended up guillotining him. I almost kneed him in the head uh because he kind of lowered his head, and I'm guillotining him, and then he he moves his head over and I could lock it in. And uh he's tapping before I have the choke light in all the way, and I was like, no, and I wrench, right? I try to bite down as hard as I can to the ref like pulls me off or stops me. But he's tapping way before the choke's applied, and I'm like, nah, man, you just split my eye. Like, I gotta choke you a little bit. You know, and he goes in the locker room, and we get to the locker room, and uh he he was kind of the one man I usually get along with everybody before weigh-ins. I you know, I I I just we get talking, chum it up a little bit before weigh-ins, he wasn't having any of it. Like, yeah, he was kind of like disappointed. In that mindset, yeah, he definitely was. And so uh he shook my hand in a locker room and I go to shake his right hand. He's like, You broke my hand. I broke my hand on your face. Oh my god. Yeah, and I was like, I was like, oh man, I was like, I was like, he's like, I hit you as hit you as hard as I could, and then you took it. And I was like, man, that wallet's been pretty good. Like, yeah, I appreciate it. And I go to shake his hand again. He's like, My hand's broken. I was like, Oh yeah, my bad. But I have to wait in the locker room. And you know, man, I'm I'm such a dummy because I haven't covered on my insurance where if any incidentals happen, I can get paid through like I do this thing on my insurance. And my dumb butt waited in the locker room for like three hours with like a concussion and a split eye, broken orbital, and doctors come back and they're like, we're about to sew you up. And then the fights continue and they have to be ring-sided just in case anything major happens. Right, right. So they go back. They did this to me like twice, and then eventually when all the fights got over, they sewed me up, which I think was about four fights after me, but it felt like forever. And they don't let me go to the crowd because I have an open wound, and I'm waiting in the back, and these main eventers are pounding music, and I'm like, oh god, and but like looking back hindsight, I should have been in the hospital. But they sew me up after the fight, and then a year later, about no, about a year and a half later, I get in a wreck. I total my truck, span out right here in Hoboken with my daughter, and you know, I'm you know so thankful. Um, you know, all glory to God that we are safe. Uh, but I I fled my truck three times, me and my daughter are unharmed, and I go to the hospital check, my head's a little hurting, but I'm okay. Uh no scratches, man. I wasn't even sore the next day, but we go to the hospital anyway, and my daughter was fine too. Uh our superintendent witnessed it, like and my nephews. Uh, anyways, they witnessed it when it happened, and they were like, that's my first people there, and we were okay. But anyways, I go to the hospital and they're like, Hey, you have a facial fracture that's been there for a while. And I was like, Yeah, I thought I know where that came from. Yeah, yeah. I was like, it dude broke my face. Wow. So yeah, that was those are cool, that was a cool little experience, uh experiment, experience in my life, and uh, and I'm like I said, I'm blessed to be be okay though, because I had no idea. Right. I couldn't really do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

But so what's just describe that feeling a little bit, you know. You know, I describe some backyard, you know, shenanigans there with the gloves and everything, but but to be on a on a professional card and standing toe-to-toe with somebody and then and then you know having the opportunity to you know to to win a few of those fights, uh, what's it just what's what's that what's that like?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

So like again, you know, I didn't fight any world beaters by any means, uh, but it it was really it was awesome. Like uh to just to get to do it. The first guy I went against, I think like a three and four, three and five record, and I had no fights. Usually the commission doesn't allow that, but our our we ended up pushing it and and getting that approved. The state of Georgia um is a little lax compared to the state of Florida as far as following their professional fighters. State of Florida, they have to be with you, like they go to the bathroom with you. And I think Georgia's probably hemmed it up since then. Uh they they have somebody from the commission to stay with you. Um but in Georgia, man, in front of my kids, it was cool. Um, I knew his wrestling wasn't great. That way, and I really didn't get hit during that fight, and I was so blessed. Got to take some cool pictures and be with the kids. Uh and then my second fight was pretty, like I said, another pretty dominant one in Jacksonville. Another cool experience. More of my kids, Tallahassee, not as people, not as many people came, it was a little further away. Like I knew that coming in. And um, anyways, uh yeah, man, he hit me with an uppercut and it was like and that was the first time I had really gotten hit hard in a fight. Like I've been hitting good, plenty, but I've never been split open like that. I had my nose bust and mouth busts before, but not like that. And I knew like he gets, you know, my vision kind of went down. Right. I was like, oh, that one was good. Yeah, this is real. Yeah, and the first thing my daddy says to me, you know, I win, I'm so pumped up. I I choke him and I guillotine, and my daddy's like, well, now you can take it here. Right. And that was you know, that's the first thing he said to me. And then that that was cool, you know. I think the the best thing is, you know, just to get an experience afterwards with family and friends, you know, and then on the opposite end of that, I lost my last amateur fight, was in Tallahassee, and I fought, and that guy was he's solid, man. His name's Timothy Lopez. But um, I lost that fight to him, but I was training more so to train than I was to win. That's the only fight my mom's attended was my loss. My only one she's ever attended. She said, You gotta go to a gym. Because at a time I wasn't going to like a uh we had a little place in Atkinson that me and Devin Dox would train some people out, but I wasn't like at a gym gym. Like I wasn't, you know, I was kind of doing my own thing. And like I said, I was training to train, I wasn't training to win. I was training to get back in there, but I wasn't training to win. He beat me good. He he um I mean, I would say 10-aided me the first round. It's pretty dominant. And then the second round came in my amateur fight. The second round came um and ended up throwing up. I caught him with a decent right hand, right time I knew I was throwing up because I was swinging as hard as I could, uh, but it didn't really do anything to him, kind of uh glanced him a little bit, and uh, and I puked. And initially, this is kind of crazy too. But initially, whenever I puked, my first instinct was to vomit in his face. That was like, because I knew, like, because think about it, you know, if you're fighting for your love, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used this, and then I didn't even but I but I also knew, yeah, but I also knew I'd watched the fight in Brazil like a month ago and I watched them puging milk fight and I knew the fight was over. So it was like, nah, I don't do that. And then like I tried, I tried to hold it in. I remember swallowing it two or three times. Golly. And then swinging for the fences, and then I puked and I knew like I was like, good fight, good fight, you know. And uh that that was neat too. Um, you know, obviously I didn't get I didn't get finished in a in a it was humiliating. I say humiliating, it really wasn't, man. It's just part of the game, it was a loss, but it wasn't like a knockout or a submission, but throwing up still pretty rough. Uh, but you know, man, I you know, I I was upset. I was a little older, so I don't know, like it was it it losing's not fun. It never is, but at the same time, I did, I am proud that I just got to I went out there and did it. That's right. You know, that's right. And I always said that before my fights, like no, and because you just like you do, you have to accept so much before fights. And then when I started fighting with kids, it was like, man, like you have to swallow the same thing, and it's like you know, you have you're not just fighting for you anymore. Um, but anyways, man, I it it it was a it was an opportunity, and I'm so blessed to to be able to have done it. That's awesome. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:15

I had my uh uh several years ago, my wife got a little uh heat press machine, a little um cricket machine, whatever be able to make t-shirts and stuff, you know. So I had her make me a shirt. Uh it says um fear, regret, and not failure. Yes, sir. And uh I I I I've I have to remind myself of that all the time because there's been plenty of times in my life where I let that fear of of failure right keep me from from trying something. I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

You know, I th I you know and I feel like in you, you you were a stellar high school athlete, you know, you you you really were like name was ingrained, like and you were you were gonna pour everything out. Right. I think a lot of us too that just that just and and I'm sure you work like heck to to get where you were, you know, you pour all that in, and then if it doesn't come out in the right way, you you do, you do get devastated. You do. And I've heard people compare, especially fighting when you lose like that, like losing a loved one, like losing an aunt and uncle. I think Rampage Jackson said it before, like it's like losing his uncle. Right. He got knocked out or got finished by who it was, but I and I can see that. But but you're right though. And that's whenever I turn about 31, I was like, okay, I gotta go. Like I'm gonna look back and regret it. Like, I don't care if I lose, like I'm just gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:32

So I I think I think everybody needs to if for anybody out there listening, take you know, from throw that out the window as much as possible, that feel of failure, right? You know, try it, go go for it, you know. I'll take this this little podcast set for an example. You know, I'm like, you know, who am I, who am I to to start a podcast and to start interviewing people, you know, lots of people already doing their bunch of big names, the Joe Rogans and all those stuff, you know. But I'm like, you know what? I can't you and you always think about you know being the the imposter syndrome, you know, and all that stuff. But you just kind of get it. Just keep going, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

I was thinking you started like a 20, 22, 23, and then like I guess it just time slipped and I looked last night. I was like, man, he's been doing do you feel like since you've been doing it, like your craft has gotten better? Like, do you do you do you?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

I I I do, yeah. There's definitely uh yeah, yeah. There's definitely just like with everything, there's an art to it, there's a discipline to it. Um, and so I obviously still got a long way to go, but I I feel a lot more comfortable with it. And uh and that was another reason that I wanted to move more into the interview style, you know, for you know, for four or five years, it was a it was a group of us having a conversation, you know. But and then I just uh you know, I told you earlier I wanted to start interviewing people, and that's a that's a that's different, you know, than having a group discussion. And so I just kind of wanted to in a way to just to keep pushing myself to to keep growing and keep doing it because I enjoy doing it. I enjoyed listening to podcasts, and uh so yeah, just just I I just keep pushing that that fear fear of failure or whatever thinks uh out out the window and stuff. So that's awesome. Um yeah, so if you use maybe your your journey and get getting your uh maybe uh black belt uh and so forth, and what what what was that like?

Black Belt Journey And Opening Relentless

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

So I started training in 2007, around September, October. I'm not sure exact date or anything. And then um I got back home in 2012 and I really didn't have a gym to go to. I went to Smack and Wake Cross Sum, and I think it went to Bronzo Divine, but it wasn't anything like local, local. I mean, obviously that is local. I mean, most people are driving 30 to minutes to an hour to go to a Jitsu gym around the country if you want it. Um, but also I just I was at a time of my life where I was unsure if I was gonna be here. There was a point too where I moved home, but looking at go going to Albuquerque and training at uh Jackson Wing. I like I I looked into doing that for a little while. Um but we did a little thing like I told you at Devin Dykes' house uh from like 2012 to about 2015 or so. Um but I I I linked up with Sean Lawrence in 2016 over here at the K South and then ended up doing some stuff in Hobok and like a little shed that wasn't even a business, and then ended up getting a place uh that you know that I initially eventually I bought from um but yeah from Sean from 2012, uh excuse me, 2016 until 2022 when I got my black belt. Um I I was in the gym three or more days a week. Like I was grinding and out. Um and Sean Lawrence, um he just taught so much. Sean wasn't like he he was just great everywhere. Like he wasn't like Stellar at one spot, like he was just good everywhere. And you know, I he doesn't train as much anymore. I wish he would train more, but like I learned so much from Sean and like even to this day, I'm like, man, just like show me this, show me that. Like even just like simple stuff, like he was just so great at he was a great instructor, and he was just good everywhere we went. Um so yeah, I trained under Sean, um, moving under Scott for those years and got my black belt. 2022, 2022, 2022. Um and uh that was big, man. Like I just it was cool. We we ended up getting a place and uh the the black belt ceremony was in Charleston, right, South Carolina, and my my my family came and they stayed with us and that was such a it was just such a great weekend. And I got there Friday and I got thrashed. I got thrashed hardcore. Then the day I got my belt, I didn't really do as much rolling to a little instruction with everybody, and then um kind of hung out with my family and then came back that night. And then Sunday it was a little bit more nogey, and uh, I was able to feel a little bit better Sunday, uh, even though man, skill is skill. Like, you know, the belts are great, man. That was and it was awesome. That you know, it I think at the time it was uh 2007, almost 15 years, uh that um it took me to get my black belt. Uh but skill is skill no matter what, and you gotta respect everybody going in, you know. Man, even some of these kids around here. I had a kid a while back that come in that never wrestled. He may have when I pulled the PE mats out, never wrestled, and he got really into working out and he came to the gym. He's like 20. He was such a handful, and I was like, Man, you need to come here more. I don't think he's came since he just came to two classes. But like, skill is skill, and you gotta respect it. You gotta respect everybody that you're going against. I can't hang it off. But yeah, man, getting out of black, but it it was really cool. Um, it was a cool moment in my life. Um and uh that whole weekend was awesome. But you know, I I tried to to start some martial arts agents at MMA places before. Um not necessarily going against Sean, but like I offered it at the school one time, like it was like free. It was like a little club at some time and offered to the community for free. Um and it just didn't pan out, you know. Um doing like I wish I could have been. I didn't I didn't take a dime from anybody and then eventually getting a school from Sean and opening it up right there in Hobo Command. It's been such a blessing. And then we were gonna keep the name at first, and then I started thinking about it and ended up using my um using that logo, the game cock logo. My grandfather, man, he was just so emergency, he was such a passionate, he was so passionate about game foul since he was seven years old, five years old, and he before he and like and he just passed away when when when we got the gym a year or so before that, and that's when I ended up making it. And and and my dad also got into because of his father-in-law in the eighties and early nineties, um got into it as well. And this was before you know when when when when game cock fighting was legal in Louisiana, so they were driving out Louisiana at um sunset and and and fighting chickens out there, but um you know, I didn't know what I was gonna do with a logo and ended up doing the logo I got, and and and I'm glad, man. I'm I'm glad I ended up doing it that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:54

That's a great honor to him and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:57

You know, and I and re most recently I was able. To to go out there to him and my my him and my granny's grave and put one of our little tokens that we have with our logo on there. And then our logo, too. I put the divine clover in the back too with our logo to honor Scott. Yeah, too. So yeah, man, I was really confused about what I wanted at first, the logo and the name. And Tyler Page, who who I work with, he's my assistant press point. Tyler's a phenomenal human. It's helped me out so many good, like hard times of my life. Like wisdom with Tyler, like he's what wise me on his years has helped me. Like I stole the name from Tyler. Like he talked about the name Relentless, I think, my first or second year. He's like, man, I love that word. Right. And like we had shirts, I think, that were FCA shirts that had relentless on them. Okay. And he's like, man, I love that shirt. I love that word. Blah blah blah. And Tyler's like, I need to get some payback. I just mentioned to him at a meeting last week. He's like, man, I need to get some of that, those uh those royalties in. That's right. But yeah, Tyler's Tyler's a reason why I call it relentless. And that's the kind of style that we have. And we are more of a wrestle jets school. We're not just straight jujitsu. We do combine it a lot. Um, oftentimes, you know, our guys chain it together pretty good, and we start on our feet for the most part. Now that I'm older, I don't as much. I let a guy go against me and start on their feet, and I try to do stuff like I, you know, we're more of a of a takedown-based school first. And you know, I usually try to start off class with some portion of of a takedown uh or similar to start class, and then we'll go into the jujitsu. But uh yeah, man, that was um that was a it was a cool moment, um, especially running your own school. Um and then fighting. That that was that was something too. And I I I stopped my last fight um right before I took over to the gym, but but that balance of helping everybody and getting your own in has been big too. And there are nights too. I guess just I kind of didn't really get out of the mindset uh since I started of like every night when I'm there, I just gotta go. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:47

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:48

And then kind of getting into that uh rhythm of you don't have to do that every single time you show up. You you can pick and choose, and you still can get a roll or two that's hard, but you do have to pour into others, and yeah, and I've I have I've been doing that for for women and men and and kids. And um, I mean and that's another thing too. Man, I love teaching the kids classes. I love it's like one of my my biggest passion, uh biggest passions. I and I did my student teaching with K through five five, uh K through fifth grade, and um so now we have like five-year-olds up to but ten to twelve, and I really am a passionate about teaching those kids. I get you know, I'm already certified PE teacher, K-12. So going in there with those kids for an hour is uh is awesome. And I I do, man. I love, love, love teaching kids to jitsu. And most recently, my daughter, Adeline Edwards, she she participated in a tournament one and fourth, got that one win. Heck yeah, that's right. And just the experience was cool. She did she competed all against boys, and I was pumped up there. I loved her up after every match, but that was a really cool film. But I've had other great kids. We have a kid named Grayson Clemens competed and did awesome. And uh right now he's playing football, and hopefully he'll come back uh soon. But um, man, I'm I am, I'm blessed to have some great kids. Another kid competed too. Uh little kid named Ryder. Um, and I love coaching him when he just went to, and he ended up picking up him and went to, so that it was cool. Yeah, and don't get wrong, man. We you know I've had plenty of tournaments where kids go over and you just love them up. You know, I'm big. And one of my referees said that too, even though I didn't know what I was doing coaching wrestling my first few years, very minimal. One of one of the referees, uh, Rico Gilbert, Rico's a great man. He's like, I love that you use positive reinforcements for some of these coaches that don't, and but I'm I'm so glad you do that. I'm like, I'm okay as long as the kid don't give up on me, Rico. Like I as long as they don't give up, like I'm okay. And that's only happened a few times as I've been coaching. Like I think I can count twice. But as long as they give everything they got, I don't care if they lose in 10 seconds. They give everything they got, I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:42

That's

Why Grappling Changes People

SPEAKER_01 1:31:43

good. So I um I want to ask you a little bit about the um just what what wrestling and what grappling uh jujitsu sports, what it does for for an individual, yeah. Um from youth all the way up to through an adult. Yeah, and um and the reason and I'm gonna um I'll share something with you that I've I've never really shared before. Um so me growing up, I was more timid, and even even today, I don't like confrontation. Yeah, I'm sorry. I I I I don't like it, right? Yeah, so and and I don't know I don't know uh anybody that on out there on the playground or whatever, especially boys that don't find an opportunity to have some kind of confrontation, some kind of you know, pushing and shoving, some kind of fighting matching everything. So obviously, throughout my um elementary, all the way through high school, there were opportunities where where uh me and somebody else could come to blows, right? Um me, uh I would I would always be the one to more kind of back down. Yeah, you know, and uh whether it's whether it's me be being scared to fight or just of scared of getting my tail kicked in front of my my classmates or what have you, you know, again going back to that that fear of failure again, you know, um I've always I've always been timid uh when when it when it comes to that. And so as uh and then I'm like, well, what if I and then as as an adult and and having my my one of the things that I did not want my my especially my sons to uh I didn't want them to to experience that and not not knowing you know what what if I do have to get in a fight you know with somebody, you know, how do I handle myself? How do you fight? And so that was that was the one of the main reasons that I want wanted both of my sons to be involved in in wrestling, to be able to know how to handle yourself. And and I'm like, you know what, I gotta overcome this myself as well. And so then I ended up you know joining the uh Sean's uh uh gym there for for a little bit and and did it for a couple of years. Um and ended up participating in uh in a competition at a geek and a gee competition. And that was that that that was a blast. That was that was so much fun. But just those two years of doing that, that grappling and rolling and and learning, just the the basics of the positions to put yourself in, learning guard and how to protect yourself and everything, for me personally, that boosted my confidence a thousand percent. Whereas now I feel I feel comfortable in knowing if if I'm if I'm face to face with somebody and it comes to you know physical altercations, I feel comfortable, you know, bit being there. So maybe just talk about that a little bit with with kids and maybe just how it boosts confidence and adults and so forth. I'll kind of go back to what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:44

So when uh dad came home from prison, he um he taught me some bass boxing. And I and I asked him recently, like probably like within the last month, who taught you to do that? And that he's just observing and he watched people growing up. Um, like I said, I was a big Tyson fan, but he taught me how to throw uh one, two, and then taught me how to throw a hook and then keeping my hands up. And we had a heavy bag in our garage, and I can remember like even just doing that was big for me, and I can remember him watching me sometimes, and then sometimes he'd watch me without me knowing, and then I'd see him watching me, and and and I would always perform better with eyes on me. That's why I I love them fights too, because I felt like when eyes got on me, I would even rise up higher to the occasion. Um, but that itself just helped my confidence a ton. But I've watched kids, man, in in wrestling, especially, um, especially the the little ones I recruited uh going back to to Austin Cooper and Eddie Singletary. I recruited them as sixth graders, and they're these little 65-pound, 60-pound sixth graders who never played a sport in their life. Right. And and you know, I I don't really know 100%, but I I imagine they're probably not leading up front with a dodgeball pack either. Right, 60 pound sixth graders, but they just blossom and uh and the both of them are great men, doing great for themselves right now, uh confident men. Um but yeah, uh I it it it is it's incredible because it is, it's humbling at first, and you watch both ends of the uh of that spectrum, you watch the timid kids figure out they can do something with it. And then you watch the kids who are and maybe bully or the over-aggressive kids get humbled and think, I don't I don't know what I'm doing, or I I I need to learn. Right. You know, so it is great on both ends because there I think people do have the perception that like the bully is gonna be worse, but the bully comes in and gets beat down and gets humbled and then gets influenced by better men. Right. You know, right. And um it's incredible, man. I I I just can't I my dad didn't really know much about grappling at the time when he came home because I do think that if he had the knowledge that we have now about grappling, we may have ended up moving to Ware County or Brunswick or somewhere. Uh or he would have drove me to school there. Yeah uh just so I could have uh wrestled or he would have got me involved. Whenever he was, when we come back home like in sixth grade, he was like, All right, we can play football, we can go to there was this man that he knew from Douglas, uh pretty good boxing coach. Um we can go to him a couple times a week. Which one do you want to do? You know, I'm social, I want to be around my friends, so we do football and and and do that. But um the fighting itself, and I think that's one another reason why I got into fighting too, is because I did have that base from him and I could throw decent. I even like thought about my dad things that he showed me during the times that I I got into organized boxing and striking. Uh he helped me establish some of that base. But it does, man. Um, the fighting, the grappling, uh, whether it's jujitsu, wrestling, or any of the combat arts, man, they're they're humbling. Um they they do, they give you the sense of confidence that you're okay. And then also on that same end, you're also, you know, you're you're not necessarily afraid, like you're you you know the capability of violence, so and if you have to use it, that's fine, but you like that's scary to me. Like you don't you don't want to have to do that unless you absolutely have to your back in that corner, there's nothing else that you can do in those situations. So that's the thing too, is a lot of these kids, and I tell them to, I think I tell most of my classes are kids like you don't want like you you don't want that, you don't know what's gonna happen, you don't know the other end of that. So um I remember learning getting my blue belt and coming back home, and I watched this kid. There was a kid who was probably four years older than me, three years older, yeah, four years older than me. And I didn't ride the bus a lot, but he used to call me blockhead on the bus. And I seen him walking down our dirt road whenever I came back home. And I slowed my car down, and I was 19 years old, 20 years old. I slowed my car down and I and I wanted to get out and just I didn't want to fight eventually, but I wanted to like be yeah, just you know and uh I remember slowing the car down, he kind of looked and I just waved and went on. And and I'm and then part of me like ah man, I should have got out, blah, blah. And then part of me is like, no, and and um as I teach that guy's kids this day, I can think about that too. I think about other guys, like I had a guy, you know, a little circle game that you play in middle school. Uh I had fought like that. I fought a kid because he hit me three or four times doing that game in middle school. And now I I've taught his kids and teach his kids in the gym. And I I get along with those guys now. Yeah. But like back then, especially after you just learned something, it it almost and Scott says it too. Scott Define, it's it's like a superpower. Yes. You know, it really is. If you've never grappled, that's why I just thought so many more people were gonna be on it. There's definitely been a rush to to jujitsu in wrestling, but like I just thought everybody and their mama would be on board because it's life changing and and it is a super jujitsu is a superpower, right? It really is. Uh, but yeah, man, um I'm grateful and and and I'm grateful that I get to teach it now, and I'm grateful that these kids some of them are timid and they'll blossom out. We we and I didn't even know it, man, but I've taught a few kids with autism at the gym that I just didn't know they had autism, and then you know, it might be mild, but then they'll they'll blossom out, and then I've watched other kids who kind of come in aggressive and they'll they'll they'll figure out that maybe they can't be as aggressive in certain situations and start listening. Uh that that's the the coolest thing about some of the kids, man, is just watching them seeing that transformation. Seeing that transformation, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:20

That's exactly that's wonderful. That's that's good stuff. Uh it seems it seems like that that passion that you had for for for teaching and coaching, um, just kind of talking to you, it sounds like it's it's really grown more and more over the years and really uh as you as you see these these people blossom and develop.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:39

And you know, I I'll be honest with you, man. I was I was a I got away from football because I was selfish. I did like I could still wrestle with my guys and drill with my guys. Can't really do that in football as much. Um and now it's more of a selfless thing, you know, giving back I I can make just as much of an impact as I can winning a professional fight as I can, you know, getting a kid just out of the mat, you know, maybe not even getting a win, you know, just getting them out of the mat. And um, you know, eventually if they grind long enough, they'll win. And I and I got emotional talking to this kid the other day. There's a kid, and I I'll say his name's uh uh Troy. Um anyways, Troy wrestled in seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, never got a win. And then finally his sophomore year. I was there for it too, watching him getting his first win as a sophomore. I think I might cried with him. But like I tell people that story. And then he goes on his junior year and is like area runner up, and he goes to state his junior and senior year, and like the perseverance and the persistency and everything that kid like he just didn't stop.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

And um he was relentless, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:52

And uh I get it, I get like I said, I get him. I I like seeing him a uh video the other day. I was like, dude, I whenever I think about coaching, I think about you a lot, and I tell your story a lot because so many kids just like you you lose 10 times high saint for me. You lose 30 times the saint for me, but he just kept showing up and uh to watch him blossom his junior senior year, and he's a wonderful young man now. He's doing well, he's working out, he's he's losing weight when he says he's gonna lose weight, he's getting those maxes when he says he's gonna get it done. And whatever career path that he ends up on, I know he's gonna be fine. And and I and I really do believe wrestling's uh that helped him a ton, but man, um watching that kid get that win over at Jeff Davis, uh his sophomore year, man. I was just I think I cry with like I said, I cry with him in the hallway, and then for him to go on and do well after those years was um it was that that that is one of the biggest coaching moments that I think I have is that with that kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:50

That's what I call uh journal experiences, you know. Um, you know, being able to just to have those those those memories and those things that really really kind of uh propel someone forward and then also be able to look back and see the the growth, you know. For him, I mean I'm just imagine him you know looking back and and seeing how how far he's he's come and someone like yourself uh you know not not giving up on him, continuing that that that positive reinforcement like like you've talked about. So you wanted to uh get into maybe some of the uh some of the other things you had mentioned about um uh force over um so I had a uh manic depressive episode in 2014.

Mania Depression And Climbing Back

SPEAKER_00 1:43:34

Uh it was right at the end of our wrestling season. Uh it was my first season as a head coach, was 2013-14 season. And um I had ACL surgery in 2012, and I had ACL surgery because I blew out my knee on my junior year of high school football in 2005, but I got misdiagnosed by two of them in high school, and then I had a same injury in college and got misdiagnosed because they said my legs were like the orthopedic told me later that it's commonly misdiagnosed for people who have strong legs. So my hamstrings or quads, I guess, were pretty strong. So they thought my ACL was fine. But he said, What do you want? So I had MRIs on both knees, and my right one, my left one was looked decent and normal, and then he showed my right one. He's like, This one looks like mashed potatoes. Look at it. And I was like, he's like, What do you want to do? He's like, You can dysfunction. End up having a surgery. I don't know if I should have looking back, but what would happen is I would just kind of fall, like whenever I had that surgery, um, randomly playing basketball, grappling. So I had the surgery and I rehab that about six months into it. I start boxing a little bit, can't grapple. But then at the end of that wrestling season is when it started to heal fully. And at the same time, we had some li other life events going on that was healing up, and then um I have uh manic episodes about that time, and I have a fight scheduled. Um I was like, Yeah, I want to fight again because my knees are healing up. So I have a fight scheduled like within two months after me being able to go fully. I'm like, I want to get back on there, and um ended up being um institutionalized for I think around seven to ten days. Um had some episodes in the institution. Um and and I'll be honest with you, from it it took me like five years looking back to think, okay, like you were sick at that time. I denied it for a while. I was mad at my family for a while for for getting me the help, which I needed then. Right. Um, but I ended up coming out of the institution. I was still pretty manic, even though I was on certain meds. Um they had me on a good little bit. Um the fight doesn't happen. Uh I go up there and my heart rate is too high. Um I stopped taking the meds I should have been taken a day before, two days before, so it messed it fluctuating my heart rate. Um, looking back wasn't smartest. Uh but also I do really think that I either I would have had like either me or him would have majorly been hurt in that fight. Like I think that God did that for a reason. Right, right. So I didn't I didn't fight, and then shortly after the fight didn't happen, I go into the other side, I go into the depressive side. And like I told you before, in college I was a little depressed, but this was like bedridden. I couldn't hardly move. And luckily it happened around summertime. Um, you know, and and and I am blessed that the school system during that time helped me a ton because even though I went through that, I was able to still work. Um, I did take time off and I was granted time off, but I was able to work. Um and uh whenever the depressive side came, I was in I was bedridden for months and uh ended up just coming out of it within about a a year, somewhat decent. And then, like I told my kids the other day, the best days whenever I was in that bed, I would get up to eat sometimes, was when I could force myself to go outside and move. I we had a bike and I ride it down our dirt road. Right. And I remember like one of the best days in my my family ended up coming looking for me, but I rode, I think, around eight miles in a dirt road. I don't know if you ever seen it down Long Lake. I ride I ride like seven miles. I remember feeling so good, and then like daddy's looking for me as I'm coming back in. He's like, Man, you've been gone for two and a half hours, you're looking for you. And I was like, Well, I feel great. You know, this is the depressive side of it, wasn't it with the mania? Uh, but I don't know, you know that song by by um I'm kind of getting off track, but that song by Nels Barkley, the crazy song, crazy, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is there is a sense, and I tell people this too, but there is a sense during that mania that I have, and I and I can dive into that too. That mania um that is peaceful. Um the mania is best described as whenever you're thinking about somebody and then they text you and something and they call you, you're like, oh, that's weird. But it was like that almost every second of every day. So it was like my mom would go somewhere and it would correlate something to that. And I got, and I said this online, but I correlate like car colors talking to me. And then like certain animal sounds like a hair morning dove or owl or whatever, a hawk even. Right. And I would I would correlate that to my life or um something else, man. It would just all those kind of came came together. And uh luckily I had nothing major happen to me where it caused harm to myself or anybody else. Um and I'm and I'm fortunate that that nothing major happened. But you know, that was a very my dad thought I was done. Um there was I got initially it was like bipolar antidepressant, and then we have some daughters that thought I had signs of schizophrenia, and um my dad thought I was gone. Like he he thought I was gonna he was never gonna get me back. And uh man, somehow I made it back. Like I was in an institution, like I said, for 10 days. Mania still lived on for about a month, and the depression came for the next three to six months. And and that's the thing too, is I thought I thought that you would just snap out of it. Right. Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, one day I'll just snap out, but you don't, man. You you you you learn to live. And even though that depression and that mania was there, and I ended up breaking away with it, there's still like it was still triggers, and I was still probably depressed and and and stuff for for years after that. Um But you you learn to cope and you and again going back, just moving, like I and and being able to move my body was was big. But also like your mindset too, like you know, and and my dad, me and him had this conversation a few times, like you don't mean like and I I talk about my kids of this all the time, like you're that person complaining all the time. Like you you gotta get out of that, you can't be that person. And even though like I wasn't complaining, like I was just I just couldn't, like I I just couldn't move. And I didn't think and I'm not saying I didn't think it wasn't real or it was real before that, but like whenever it happened to me, my dad ended up me and him. Me up trying to snap me out of it one day, like kind of went off on me, and I was like, I'm not trying to live here, like, and he didn't understand that. And then a couple years later, he was like, He he understood me because I think he went through some bouts itself. Obviously, I don't think they lasted as long, but he went some bouts itself and he apologized to me. I remember him being like, I'm sorry, like I didn't, I didn't I didn't understand. Now I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:21

So so what so what's happening when you when when you say a manic episode?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:24

What's what what so I would um sometimes man, I would just like I had instances where I just would um like kind of I would just do stuff randomly. Like I like one time after school I just drove to Valasta for no reason, and then like I tried in anyways, it's just a lot, a lot of different stuff. And then like I just can't Dion told me stories the other day, and um I had no I didn't have zero recollection. Wow, I put her contacts in my eye one time and I was like, Can I use your contacts? She's like, Jay, those are old, and I'm throwing them out, and then like I put them in, I put them in, I put them in. I have zero, I don't I don't remember that. I don't remember. But I'll tell you too, I wasn't sleeping. Like I and that correlates to a lot. If you I mean you know that too, but like if you don't get your sleep, man, your brain goes a lot of directions. And what was happening was is I would sleep for a cycle, about an hour and a half, and then I th I'd feel good, and and I would and I'd I just you would just be wired. Yeah, yes, but at 1 a.m. at high school, and then I would get to school before everybody at 5 a.m. And I would run off at one and a half hour, three hours, one and a half hours, and then I would crash for about 12 to 14. I remember sleeping through alarms and and some folks coming to my house and and trying to snap me out of it, and I just could not get my sleep down. Like I it just it wasn't happening. Um so yeah, and then I can remember like I just remember my family like they were so scared and um they didn't want to really express emotion in front of me. But I can remember leaving my papa's house and I had to go back and see him like he left and he wasn't emotional. I came back in and he was just flooded because I forgot something, and I'll just remember hugging him and talking to him. It was the same with my sisters, the same with with with with my mom and dad. Uh and those were hard. It was hard times. Like I said, I thought in my mind, like during the mania, I was like, oh, they're somebody's preparing me a party, like a surprise party. And uh and I'll snap out of it then, but that's not how it works, man. And I'm lucky I'm lucky to have family around me and you know, talking to the right people and getting back on track to to be to be where I am now because it was tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:30

Did did did you when they when they were wanting uh to so they they they put you or they they uh advise you to get to to be uh I guess institutionalized, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:40

Um did now did you fight them on that uh yeah man, I um I did at first um it would get where and I think my it was just your body my body's response is um they I would I would be up for however many hours and then I would start to fade. And then like during that time where I was awake, it was just not an nothing, nobody could tell me what to do, blah blah blah. And then I would start to fade and like they kind of took me whenever I was fading, and then um they dug me up a little bit to get me to comply and I got there and I didn't like that I was there. I just had some episodes whenever I was there, and then um you know I got out and I still was a little off, uh, but I didn't, and you know, they made sure I was taking my meds and this and that. Um but again, looking back, like it was just sleep, a lot of sleep, and and my mind was in a lot of different things. And it wasn't, you know, there was things going on in my family as well, I will say that. Um, but I I am and uh Lord bless me to to get me out of that one because when daddy talks about it, you know, he said outside of my sister passing, um, that was the hardest thing they've got to do with his parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:48

So I can imagine seeing having, you know, watching your child, you know, experience this and and also probably feel probably helpless, you know, like what what in the world do I do? Yeah, you know, to help them out.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:00

And and I've talked about it, like I said, I've shared on Facebook, TikTok, and whatnot, and I've had other people reach out. And um it was funny because during that time one of my buddies I wrote this stuff on paper, man. I don't know if you've ever seen any of the like people who are manic when they draw or or write. Some people put it in the paintings, but I had like I was just writing I was just writing about different stuff in martial arts at Jiu-Jitsu. And then his buddy had an episode about a year and a half later and he wrote a similar sheet, but it was a dude with music, and one day he sent me both of our sheets and it was like like you could tell it was a different person, but it was like the same. Like and we were both just all over the place. Yeah, it was it was pretty wild because he like he did the same thing for music like I was doing for martial arts and fighting. And uh and then that guy ended up commenting on one thing that I wrote one time and and I told him, I was like, Man, man, when you went through what you did, I think I pray for you as well. Wow, but but yeah, it's it was neat that we got to share that.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:55

Any idea what what causes all that?

SPEAKER_00 1:54:58

Like you know, going back to lack of sleep, you know, I think that definitely can, but you know, just I I don't I don't I don't know 100%, you know. I don't know. And then like I said, this is what's crazy too, is like it's it took like almost six years for me to be like you were you weren't well then. Like I was I was mad for for years. Like I was like, why why do they why do they do that? Why do you put me places for years I was I was it wasn't like I was like angry all the time, but like I was like, I don't know why they did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:24

Just kind of just kind of hold holding a grudge, just just kind of holding it in on the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:28

Kind of and like and then finally, yeah, and finally be like, yeah, you were not well. Like you you were you weren't well. And um, and and you know, it got me help that I needed.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:37

So I'm glad you but yeah, and I'm glad I read that. Wonder. That's uh I I I've never never experienced anything uh like that, and and I've actually never never talked to anybody that uh that's experienced that. I when I was uh talking about the depression, when I was serving uh on my mission, I had a companion for for four months, and he uh he he he was on medication for for two things for antidepressants and then also the antipsychotic, you know, having uh self-harming, you know, situations and stuff. But yeah, we we had to go visit his uh I guess I always get these mixed up psychologists or psychiatrist. Anyway, he had to go visit once a month, but we were we were required, he he was required to go work out in a gym and lifting weights three three days a week.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:29

His doctor recommended him?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:31

Oh, yeah, so yeah, so three three days three days a week, we were we were in the gym lifting weights.

Movement Fasting And Mental Reset

SPEAKER_00 1:56:36

He had a great doctor because and again, I'm not trying to diss the medical field or anything by no means, but I do think there's a lot of things, especially that, and and I'll tell you another thing too, is fasting. But I think that like moving your body is is wonderful. Yeah, and and again, going back to fasting, I think fasting is wonderful. I will say though, like some of my my mania came from uh not eating for a few for a few days. And I I can't I can fast for about three to four, and then I'll get where I can't sleep. And that kind of that's kind of one of my triggers to be green. But I still will fast from time to time. My wife, she did a 49-day fast, she's fasting right now. She's she does it a few times a year. She said it's a great reset, it's is wonderful. And I think it's a wonderful thing for our population, but obviously, you know, our doctors aren't really telling you, hey, you probably need to fast, you know, you probably need to work out. So whoever his doctor was, kudos to him for doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:21

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the uh the the the fasting to allow the the the the reset um and then the the physical movement, just the engaging and the the the the chemical uh reactions and everything that take place from that is just so so healthy. Uh actually it's you know with our in uh in our church in our church we actually we actually fast once a month. Every every month we it's it's the first Sunday of the of the month. Yeah, we uh we we fast uh 24 hour hour period, you know, you go and uh and do the fast and everything because it not only physically does it reset you and everything, but you can apply it spiritually as well. And uh so we we we uh definitely believe in that for sure. You ever did any longer fasts? I I haven't. I haven't I have not. I've wanted to, I've thought about it, but I just hadn't uh I hadn't built up the uh I guess the the the need. Uh I see the benefits, you know. I saw Gloria talking about it and everything, so there's a ton of benefits there.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:17

I did one man for uh like three days and I trained at hour 36 jujitsu hard and I about got my arm broke from somebody who usually doesn't catch me and I'm back out broken. And I I talked to him years later because I think he could have broke my arm that day. I was just being stubborn and I had a little bend and I was fighting hard. But I think if you really hipped, he could have. And I was like, hey man, you could have tapped me that day and probably broke my arm, and I appreciate you not. I was just just probably whenever I was like 27, 28, right. I was like, I appreciate it. But I ain't gonna lie, I went with the same guy the next night and I ate and I was like, you know, but like I was like, I would never when I say that again, I was like, I'll never roll hard if I'm fasting ever again. Like I'll drill and I'll do this and that. But yeah, I thanked that guy years later. I was like, hey man, thank you for not ripping my hard shreds for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:03

So when you fast, is it uh is it is like just a just a water?

SPEAKER_00 1:59:09

She I think she does black coffee and water. And then she says after like day ten, day seven, she doesn't even do black coffee anymore. Um she does some electrolytes in her water as well. Right. Um but yeah, it's just water mainly. Um I think that's really it. I think the most I've done, I think now is like four days, three days, a little bit over three, almost four. Like I said, she goes to I think she's doing the current one. She's on day six today or five. I can't do that. But she did 49 days, which is a lot. It is, it's a lot of discipline. I think about that too. I'm like, because don't get me wrong, she didn't she did some bodybuilding when she was uh she lived at Valasta, we didn't know each other, but she did some bodybuilding in Valasta and but never really played a sport, did the band in middle school. Um so to watch her be disciplined with us fast is like, oh yeah, like I got somebody that's that has that discipline that that I'm I may lack now, but like they'd be passed on to my kids too. So I think about that too. I'm like, man, I'm I'm I'm great that I have somebody that can is able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:11

So for sure, for sure. Um and the uh it also goes to show you just how how strong the the body the body is and its ability to to adapt. It also shows you how much we don't need right. Um just kind of been conditioned, that's right. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:32

You know, conditioned to eat all the time. But you're right, you know, and I think about that. Like last time I fasted, I felt like I could feel, and I actually fasted some uh kind of during that that that manic mania time. I feel like like in my mind back then, I was like, I can just do like a caveman and not eat for three or four days and then just eat a ton. That's what I would do. I would fast for two or three days and I would eat a lot. Then I'd fast for two or three days and I'd eat a lot. But but you're right though, like I I almost feel the few times I have fasted is like you can feel uh certain foods uh you know boosting you up like the the way they should. Right. Whereas like you don't always feel that when you're when you're full.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:08

That's right. One one hundred percent. So uh I think you'd mentioned off off air that uh you listen to Gary Brecka and stuff.

Cold Plunges Biohacks And Better Health

SPEAKER_01 2:01:15

So is it is that uh he got he kind of does.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:17

Yeah, man, we've been we've been doing cold therapy for about two years now. Um I've I started about two years ago, and the first six months I really could. I was I was I was five pounds under where I'm at. Um, and now pretty much our whole fa whole family does it. Um Aurora and some of our wrestlers do it too on our on our wrestling team at the gym or at the house. Uh but yeah, I just any kind of biohack that you can do to get yourself in a better place. And I think cold cold therapy going back to what we said at the beginning is just such a uh uh not say easy, but something that anybody can do, you know. It's a mindset thing that you can just put your mind down and just hit it and go. But yeah, I I'm I try to further myself in a lot of different ways and I'm aware of my faults, but but yeah, man, I'm I I enjoy trying to trying to get better, however.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:06

So um any uh anything that you have that you maybe we hadn't talked about that you won't want to bring up or discuss?

SPEAKER_00 2:02:16

You know, I I would name drop people, but man, I I have I've been blessed with some great people uh in uh in life in general, man. My my my father, JW Edwards, my mother, Lynn Edwards, uh they're both just just wonderful. And and now I'm living beside them like I talked about earlier. Um both great people, man. And I've I have I've been blessed all over um the jujitsu grapple community. Um just so many avenues of life that I have been blessed. If the folks in Brantley County, um I can't think enough for for allowing me to come back and to teach the youth of the county. And and I and I think that's one of the things that I do with the youth, man, is and I try to I try to be um as real to them as possible. You know, I try to relate to them as much as possible. And then going back to what you were saying, how influential a male figure is, um, you know, I think I do I think about that from time to time. Like I I may be the only male they see today, or or the only young one, you know, and and I forget about it oftentimes, but like I I want to see all my kids thrive, man. Like I really do. Like I I I I do, like I I wanna see them thrive, I want to see them do well, I want to see them continue in life, and and um like one of the realities of of teaching, man, is um you see those kids stumble, like you see them on the crime page, you see them not doing well in their personal life. And um, I reached out to a couple and I'm just like, hey man, you know, second chances are real, we you know, and um you know, get your life back. And if you need anything, and always offer a gym or something um to the few that I've reached out to, and I really need to reach out to more. But I but I do, man. I believe in second chances and third chances and and and getting up and going. But uh, you know, I try to relate to those kids as much as possible um in all avenues of life because I'm aware that that my childhood probably wasn't necessarily typical. Um and that my my I have different avenues of family that's all over the spectrum. Uh re most recently my um great aunt passed away and we had a over in Waynesville and um my only aunt that's left, um, she looks so much like my aunt, my grandfather, and I just told her she's had a rough life too. But I just told her I love her, I'm proud of her. And uh I really did, I mean it. And then you know it's funny, man, because you you do have a lot of your family that's kind of all over the map, some of them you know, have been in and out of jail, and some of them are are doing really well for themselves. And um I think one of the uh the most real things is whenever you're with around those people of just loving them up, you know. So that um funeral about a few weeks ago, just seeing everybody and loving everybody up, um even though it was a sad time in in most people's lives, was it it was great to see everybody and uh I'm fortunate and blessed for the family that I have.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:10

So that's uh that's a really good talking about it, you know, experiences from the you know, being a professional uh MMA fighter and everything, and you know, kind of kind of feeling on on top there. And then uh, you know, there there's some special experiences that that people have in life and and that generate some unique feelings. That's kind of kind of what I'm what I'm saying. Uh but the feeling of loving somebody up, you know, building them up and everything, uh, and and seeing that have an effect on them. Yes, sir. That's uh that that's a different kind of feeling. It's a special, special feeling uh to to be able to see and and experience that. And so that's I think it's that you it's great that that you do that. I mean, because you you've seen that personally in your life that second chances are are are real, and uh if we take advantage of them, they can be had.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:02

Right, man, 100%. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:05

Um anything else? Anything else you got you got for me?

SPEAKER_00 2:06:10

Um, you know, one day I plan on doing what you're doing. Uh I've I've had I've talked about it for a couple years now. One day I plan on pulling the trigger. Most recently I got some meta glasses. They got me those for Father's Day. I've been playing around with them a little bit. Um, but you know, just just spreading love, spreading awareness, uh, getting folks out. I know you mentioned some of my Facebook posts. Most of that stuff is just stuff I'm interested in or I want to hear. Uh I got I started getting monetized a little under a year ago. It was on like 30 to 50 bucks a month, usually most of the time. I need to get a little bit more engagement, but just like some days, you know, you just don't even think about it. But that's stuff I'm genuinely uh interested in. That's awesome. You know, and then like I think my idea one day I'd like to have somebody either me come over, they come over and bring a dish or something, and I pay them for it or something. It doesn't have to be like a this big meal. Uh, but I I would like to get involved with the community more, and I think what you're doing, man, is is wonderful and and and you know, we're thankful for you here in South Georgia. This is this really is this is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:06

Cool, so yeah. Yeah, I uh I I I I enjoy the questions you you you put out there. Um, you know, I think it's uh the the engagement. There's there's so much bad out there online, right? So much just evil and bad influence and negativity. We need we need the positivity, you know, such as yourself, you know, putting putting things out there, sharing experiences and everything. And um, you know, I'm trying to I'm trying to do a little bit more of that as well. Uh I had that little experience where uh I was out seeing a claim um and uh and the the the rain, I don't know if you saw it or whatever, but I was on the way and I had two roof inspections uh and it was storming. And then uh I'm like, all right, I'm gonna drive all the way to Hinesville and and not be able to look at these roofs. But I mean, literally, I pulled over to that first house, it stopped raining, and then when I got done with my second house and I walked outside it, it started raining again. I'm like, I'll take that as a blessing right there, man. We'll take it. Recognize that those small blessings. So yeah, man. So yeah, what uh those those future plans uh go after it. I think that that that'd be awesome. You uh and you plan on keeping the the the relentless uh going as long as I can function.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:15

You know, the body is breaking down. I'm re trying this and that to keep it up. Um you know, I'm aware uh I I I gotta do a little bit better with with my body itself, and then you know, going back to sleep. I uh I'm I'm getting things figured out. But also I do I visit I visit doctors a few times a year. I get blood work done uh a few times a year as well. And uh I want to I want to make sure that I'm around for for my kids to get over. Um, you know, going back to my dad, man, and I need to work up my dad more, but I've been cold pludging with him a few times a week summertime. But um since we've been back out there, my dad, you you may do this too, but he does a dead man hang test. Do you ever do any dead man hang test? It's been a while, but yeah, I've done I've done one before. He will, and I think we just had a conversation a few years about. I was like, hey, I think this may help you back out. He will we send each other stuff all the time. Uh but he started hanging dead man hang about a year, year and a half ago. And he dead man hanged, I forget. He does it every day after work. Okay. And then he works out on Sundays. You know, uh, he does a pretty demanding, he works long carry, pretty demanding blue-collar job during the week. But he works out Saturday and or Sunday. He might do some together, but he has a big workout. But he was able to hang, I think, last Sunday for three minutes and three seconds, which is pretty good for a 66-year-old man. Absolutely. I get about, I think I average about 110, 115 most of the time for me, which ain't too bad being 240. But I think he's around 190 and was able to get three minutes and three seconds last Sunday. And I was pumped for him. That's as long as he ever got. He was like, he's been hanging around about 250. He's like, I'm gonna get three soon. I'm gonna get three by my birthday. His birthday's next month. He's I already got three. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:52

Well, anybody that's not just never just never tried it, you think I'm in and a half. I I think nothing. I can do that, you know. Yeah, go try just hang on a bar and uh see see how you do. Uh I got a quick story for you about that. So uh uh CrossFit. Uh Jim, several several years ago we we had the uh the Friday night lights. Um uh competition almost, right? That's right, exactly. Yeah, so well they would also do a little before they got started, they would do a little competition for the kids. And one of them was the dead men hang, you know. And so we go there, and of course, you know, you got probably 30 kids lined up and they're all they all start out, you know, hanging. The last three hanging, Brailley, Chase, and Brody. Oh, yeah. That's right. And then Chase dropped off, and then Brody, so it was Brody and Brailley, and they're going back at it anyway. Brody finally dropped off.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:46

Yeah, that would be my guest before he even when he said off the three. That's awesome. Yeah, so that's she got my she tell you about her my 10th pull-up challenge that she did last year. Yes. So I do you know 10 pull-ups for the girls and then uh 30 for the boys. I've had two boys complete it, and I think I've had six girls complete it. I told I didn't tell her yet, but I guess you'll find out. I'm gonna make her and Slover do uh 15 instead of 10 this year. But I'll buy them breakfast if they if girls are able to get 10 and boys able to get 30, I'll buy them breakfast or lunch or something. So I got them Chick-fil-A last year. That's cool. I'm on the other end now, so they might have to settle for Jerry Jason. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, man, I think I'm gonna make them I'll I'll I'll get away with 10 because that's always been it, but I'm gonna see if I can do 15.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:27

Yeah, so we so uh of course she's not in gymnastics anymore, but I but but she still does the working out here, and of course she's you know working there at school. And and uh I've had a pull-up bar in my house for as long as I can remember. I love a pull-up bar, and uh I've been hanging them since I was six months old, you know, put them on there and you know just start. Um but uh I'm gonna go. Yeah, one hundred percent. Um very

Rapid Fire Training And Closing Message

SPEAKER_01 2:11:50

good. So uh I got a couple of uh I got just some some rapid fires um here here at the end. Um and then uh unless you got anything else, we'll go ahead and Uh cl close this thing in. It sounds good. Okay. All right. So uh let's see here. All right, uh gi or no gi?

SPEAKER_00 2:12:10

Uh we're uh we're primarily no gi. All right. Uh love the gi and I th I do think it's important. I still think it's important. And uh my mind may change the older I get, you know, uh because it does slow some folks down and you can't you can't equalize some athleticism with the gi.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:26

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:26

But uh but man, I do. I think it's just more of the MMA and the wrestling that has me attached to the no-gi. Um and even though I'm belted in the in the gi, man, I do, I do love a good good no-gi. And you know, I know I'm renting here, but a lot of the the no gi now is is getting a little sporty, and like I I still keep a lot of the self-defense in mind with my no-gi, which is great, which is more MMA style, but all of it, man. Like I don't care if you're going to a sporty gym or a self-defense gym or MMA gym, all of it against your average Joe is wonderful. That's yeah, you're you're gonna be okay no matter what, in most circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:03

So I'm I'm actually gonna throw another one in here.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:05

Uh what what are your thoughts on uh on the ankle locks and stuff and the that's kind of where I was so like I'm I'm even though I'm not a great uh attacker with some of that, um, I do see its uses. I use a lot of like in my mind, a lot of the stuff are more Hail Mary's um for your uh you know, last ditch effort going for stuff. Like I had a buddy that was getting beat pretty good that ended up pulling out a pretty heel hook. And and and I've seen that in a lot of the fights, uh, some of the fights. So that's kind of where my mind is. However, man, the way it works, the that's that's the thing. So my initial coach, Jason Davis, uh he ended up being a police officer. I think he does um insurance, not insurance, I forget exactly what he does now, but he works in um a white-collar job, I believe. Uh but he was more self-defense oriented too. And I was through the Machados originally, Glenn Hambee's up in Albany. Uh we're oh that's where originally I got my blue belt from. And then you go over to Scott when I got my blue belt, both of those guys are more self-defense oriented. And I think a lot of traditional BJJE are more self-defense oriented. And then nowadays you you you're getting a lot of these um no-gi schools, and I love all those schools, and I got great guys too. But they they but that that's the thing too, Ghee and no-gi can both get really sporty. Both of them can be. And like I said, if you're against your average Joe in hand-to-hand combat, no weapons, man, you're fine no matter what. Right. You know, but me personally, I I've I'm diving into them. Uh, and I'll be real with you, man. I only trust like a handful of people with my feet. Yeah. And most of them aren't in my gym. There are other gyms that practice the leg locks, you know. And and we definitely do there. At the gym, we do we definitely um practice them at mine as well. Um But yeah, I think I I do think they're important. I think um they're good to know. However, when you do add a punch, um, that's something that you know you have to be aware of. And I don't know if you remember Gary Tonin a few years ago. He fought at one FC and he was one of the best leg lockers in the world. And he ended up making it to the title fight in one FC and MMA and uh ends up getting knocked out going for a hill hook. But but he was so cool about it, man. Like, I I like Gary, and then he started he made fun of himself after he got knocked out for going for it. I mean, I thought I was like, dude, I like that guy tenfold now. But they have their place and I did and they can work in practical environments for sure. But I I think it's knowing where and when and being conscious of rules. Like, I I'm not gonna lie, like I wasn't really aware, like, you know, a lot of stuff with uh heel hooks, you know, it's it's a lot of turning your back, and in some in some positions, you turn your back with both hands. You cannot do that. Right. And and when you when you think about punches being thrown. And then Sean used to always tell us too like yeah, ankles are good, but also like if you're fine, your average Joe, man, remember the belt, the belt line, like weapons are there. So if you're on somebody's foot and they have something, like you can be in trouble, you know. Uh I I think I do a decent job keeping my feet away from people. I don't attack a ton, um, but no, they have their place, man. And in the straight jujitsu world, if you're not learning that, yeah, you're not gonna be able to do that. And also, if you're not learning too, and like don't get me wrong, I am I'm a big fan of traditional take guys down, blah, blah. And so I know some people are upset. Well, they're pulling guard or sitting on their butt. That's great. But also, like, it is your job to get past their guard. Like, if you're you sign up for a straight jiu-jitsu competition, like it's it's your job to learn how to handle that. Uh, so yeah, I do think they have their place. Uh, but yeah, I'm me personally, you know, I got a guy in my gym, man. He does a lot of them. He's won multiple competitions with them. Yeah, that's great. He's a little bit smaller than I am. Uh but yeah, they definitely have their place. But just me personally, I'm not a I'm not a huge attacker.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:46

Very good. Uh so alright, so so what is your favorite submission then?

SPEAKER_00 2:16:52

Um, you know, man, I go my Kamoras a lot. Um, I do a north-south choke. Those are those are probably my big two, and I do I do some other stuff as well. But with the Kamora, and this goes from Sean Lawrence. Uh he he really, really did um ingrain in me it's not a submission that you can hold that thing and you can kind of wait. And and that's what's cool too, man, is I thought like, yeah, maybe he's just talking about jujitsu. But it's n it's not necessarily you can hold a kamora in a fight and you can wait for somebody to hike their hips up to punch you or whatever, and you can completely turn guys around, you can take people's backs, you can there's that that to me is no longer a submission, it is a position, and I teach it that way. And I'm a big you know, we're we are kind of a big Kamora school. Um and uh man, I do. I I love them. I finished my fight Jacksonville that way with them. Right. And uh I I really whenever I fought in Jackson too, man, I I could feel it right time I grabbed it, I could have broke his arm, and I was not trying. And I just I I was pretty gentle whenever I I ended up finishing it. Whereas my third amateur fight, man, I did, I broke a guy's arm, but also was going against the bell. But I hadn't even a straight arm bar in that one. The bell was sounding off the 10 second and then uh he kept throwing his arm up. I was like, if he throws it off in his 10 seconds, and it's on YouTube, but I break it right before the bell rings or dislocate it. Right. And I remember feeling it. But yeah, I'm a big, big Kamora guy. I love them North South chokes. I like a lot of high risk, excuse me, low risk, high reward stuff. Like, you know, if I don't get it, I'm still on top. If I don't get it, I'm still in an okay position. So yeah, it's probably my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:30

What's harder, football practice or wrestling practice? Uh wrestling practice.

SPEAKER_00 2:18:35

Now, I will say the heat in football is uh unmatched. You know, you valosta Bradley, whatever, the miss Salch with the heat's rough. Uh, but a true wrestling practice, I mean, we have it every year, and football players come in, man, they are vomiting, they are puke it up quick. Uh, you know, and it but I but also man, it's it's it it's it's a different style for sure. And I've definitely threw up on the football field. I've threw up during games and practice. Uh, and those have been grueling for sure. But but it's a different type of conditioning, you know. You know, the plays last what six seconds or less, and a wrestling match, you know, goes for you know three minutes or what is it, six minutes plus overtime sometimes. So like uh and throwing bodies around is different too than just lifting and tackling folks as well. Uh that's a different type of strength too. So yeah, I think uh I think wrestling is uh a little bit tougher as far as the what you're actually doing. However, if you got that heat involved, uh football is pretty close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:36

Oh, uh favorite meal.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:41

Oh man, uh I probably could be a pescatarian, but I love a good steak. Yeah um man, I don't know. You you dived into something that I could tell you forever. Like, this is what I'll do today. I think we're eating dad's meat and chicken, but so I probably won't have bread, but I was thinking we'd have burgers and dogs. This is what I'll do is I'll eat like a meat burger, like two patties, and then put the stuff in between them. I won't eat the I won't eat the bread just so I can get me a bigger slice of cake. That's right, there you go. So, like, yeah, I don't I'm not heavy on the breads. Like I noticed, I noticed probably when I was about 30 that like a lot of um bread and gluten products, man. If I have too much, I can feel it almost instantly in my knees. Yeah. Uh so I try to, but then I said I'd eat cake, and I said, and I and I will, and I'll feel it. But like after about two pieces of bread, man, I'll feel it. But man, I love food. Like uh that was one thing too with uh fighting heavyweight. I waited about 2 35. I was like, I'm gonna do this. And I was like, I can eat. I ain't gonna worry about that. Yeah, yeah, get my cutting. That's right. I love I mean, I love a good steak. Um cast iron skillet. Uh love some love some fish. Daddy cooks some salmon really good. Gloria does too. Man, Gloria cooks wonderful. Uh it's funny because I think she ruined the meal for her, some macaroni for her family when she was like 21 or 20. So they they quit letting her bring food to the uh family gatherings and all the time. They they they they've made a mistake. Yeah, and like now, man, like I love it because like I don't know, she'll cook for me all the time, man. I'm blessed. She'll she she just does a wonderful job. Um, actual meal, yeah, probably a steak and a sweet potato with some butter and honey, a little bit of cinnamon. That'd be pretty good. And then uh I like the Arnold Palmer's. Uh usually I do like the unsweet tea and zero sugar lemonade for that. That's probably some of my favorite, I would say. And then fruit too, man. I love all kinds of fruit, berries. We we always keep berries, and I think we were talking about the other day how like you know, like everybody says how they've made it in different ways. But I tell Gloria, I said, I think one of the biggest ways to show people we've made it is every time we open our fridge, we have like like berries and stuff that we want to eat, you know, like a good fridge. Oh, yeah. You know, like it's not like you can't see it in a lot of places. There's a lot of things I need to do to my yard and around my house that could be better. But if you open my fridge, you're like, okay, yeah, like that. That's nice. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:03

Have you tried the uh mango and kiwi combo? Uh together? Yeah, together. I don't think so. You need to try that. That's a good thing. That's a great taste. I have to.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:14

I I've probably tried some drinks that are similar, but I've never had them together together, but I would. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:19

So yeah, so a man is short, she'll buy the you know, buy um kiwi and uh mango, and she'll cut it up and put it in the fridge, man. That's something that's uh that's a good taste. That's awesome. Yes, good taste.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:28

Did you know that mango is the most diverse fruit in the world? I didn't know that. I did not they said it's all like spectrum reins of taste. So I saw that right three or four years ago. Yes, I had no idea. I learned something new. That's right. Yep. I love some mango.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:42

All right, last uh last two. Uh favorite sport to watch.

SPEAKER_00 2:22:48

Um man, I love watching a lot of sports, man. Like, you know, I grew up playing baseball too, like I talked about earlier. And I love seeing a good play in baseball. I I love so many sports, I'm not gonna lie. And then I I another thing is I don't watch it as often, but the athletes that come out for basketball and watching athleticism shine through basketball's incredible, love good MMA fights and boxing matches. Really all of it, man. I think we just watched a preseason game the other night. Me and my nephew are watching uh what's his name? Uh Hayes King, uh, is it the quarterback from Georgia Tech that's at Carolina? He won the game the other night. It's Haynes King. Haynes King, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember if it's free. Yeah, Haynes King, that's his name. But anyways, man, I love great football games. Um basically anything competitive. Yeah, anything competitive, man. Uh I I think the things that still will get me up though, more than anything, is is the main event. Right. Big fights. Right. You know, especially when there's guys that you've invested in, like McConnell fought in that obviously didn't go great. When Connor got in there, man, you feel them butterflies. Like you're like, oh man, like this is about to be incredible. Same thing. I used to be a big Macheta fan back when he fought in John Jones. When they were getting there, you'd feel it too, and you're like, oh man, this is about to be real, you know, and uh I think like nothing really gets me up as much as that. Outside of Georgia football winning them national titles, man. I think that that that was incredible in having that kid from around this area. And and I'll go ahead and talk about it too, man. Bennett, man, his his daddy, um, you know, big big step. He's the reason that that my family was me and my dad were the first Georgia game together. Uh I forget exactly who we watched, but man, we went there, I think, my junior year. And then my senior year, he he was able to give us tickets to the Georgia, Georgia Tech game. Well after our I think our second round playoff game ended, and then he gave us tickets from the next day, so we were able to go to that. But like I, you know, you think about a lot because I ended up going to a few more later on in life. But like my very first experience is is to the you know, the two-time national champ's dad, you know, he got us there. And and too, man, like I you know, uh this is another thing, I don't know if you know this, but my very first year uh Lilstead was the eighth grader going to the high school and um you know, ended up moving when Pinner came there. But like it's just funny how all that works because like even though like he went to a different school, man, like and that's the thing too, man. Like, and I I was gonna say this, but like have so many kids that move across the river or just move in general, you know, like and some coaches get whatever, but like I will always root for a kid. Yeah, like obviously they're paying us, you know. I'm rooting, I'm coaching or I'm doing my kid, but man, I always root for a kid that I worked in and invested in. And that's something you can't think about. Sometimes we're like, well, they said he might be moving in here. He can't think, he just gotta go. That's right. You know, and you and you and you pour it, you pour in them and and you see them shine like man. We had these set of twins about a decade ago, and they were telling me, you're willing to move. I was like, Man, I love both of y'all. Hope y'all do well, do great. And I think both of them did really well in track and basketball. Uh, but yeah, man, you it's it's uh it is incredible. And then for him to shout us out on that second national. That's right. That's I was going crazy. That was a cool moment. And uh, and now with my nephew going up to Athens next Friday, man, I'm excited because now I got a reason to go up there before we're actually planning a trip in November to go see him. Um, but yeah, man, I'm I'm I'm excited for his venture. But but yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:12

Um we had we had uh so Stetson Bennett had that uh bat and cage and stuff out behind his pharmacy out there. Absolutely, yeah. So so I I got that bat and cage and we and so we had it up for for for several years while we were brody and stuff playing playing baseball and stuff. So I had that was my kind of claim to fame there with uh I guess Stetson Bennett's old bat and cage.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:31

Man, I feel like the county should put uh uh something right there in that Burger King, you know, that's where they practice. I just think, man, Burger King parking lot or out back or something. They need to put some kind of something there.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:45

You know what? I bet if if uh if we propose something that to the to to the city, uh, you know, um or to to to the county board of commission or something like that, they they we'd probably work something like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:26:55

I know Pierce has a bear over there, uh one or two of them for him, which is great, but I feel like you know, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:00

That's where he started right now.

SPEAKER_00 2:27:02

And I'll be honest, I don't know if he knows either, sir. Or 06 playoff run my senior year, you know, Big Step was just such a critical part of coming in and talking to us. Like Pender really did. He came in here and he changed the culture of football, man. And I'm blessed to have the high school coaches that I had. But Sean Pinder came in and changed the culture. Freshman year, we didn't have a great year, and then I go six and four, six and four my sophomore and junior year, and then finally made the playoffs and go seven and five my senior year, go to the second round. But big step during that time, man, like from freshman year on up, sophomore year on up, I just remember him like he was always at those the the takedown club meetings or whatever, or not necessarily that, but like the when when the team was involved, like he would talk to us, and you could tell that he he was an intelligent man and he was passionate, man, and and he wanted it. So, like for that to happen the way it happened, man, a storybook, and I'm sure a film's gonna come one day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has to, yeah. But man, kudos to that family, kudos to that kid, and then he got caught a lot of flack for for sending him over to Pierce to hold him back and this and that. And I remember telling people it worked out for him, man. That's right. And he's still going after it out in LA. Yeah, man. He's still a pro, man. Maybe get him in Atlanta one day. That's right. But but yeah, man, kudos to that kid, man. And it's just uh it's a cool story.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:16

It was almost like that's an underdog, that's an underdog story.

SPEAKER_00 2:28:19

It is, man. It is, and it was I got the same feelings, you know, and I still get up for Georgia games, don't get me wrong, but man, I had them same butterfly feelings every like them big games for him every time we went out there. I was like, man, like I just uh it was cool. It was really cool to see. That's fun, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:32

Sports sports is fun. It is for for sure. It provides a great opportunity, great atmosphere for for for kids to to learn and grow. Um last thing, um, so if you have anybody out there that's thinking about coming and you know, giving relentless a shot, trying jiu-jitsu, trying some grappling, but they're hesitating, what do you what's your what what's your message?

SPEAKER_00 2:28:56

So no matter what your goals are and your avenues are as far as uh learning, whether it be fitness, you want to compete, um, you're completely out of shape, um, man or woman, kid, I think you just jump in um and you go from there. And you don't have to go all out to start with. You know, um, I I actually take time, usually if it's just one girl or woman, I'll I'll help them during our lessons. Um, but people from all avenues, I got a guy right now who I'm training. He comes some open, I'm only training him kind of, you know, one-on-one lessons, but he comes to some open mats, and very first time he went to open mat, he's trying to do back-to-back to back rounds. And I'm like, hey man, get you around, take you 10 minutes off, come back. And so it's like learning how to pace yourself, and then like don't like it, it's your journey. Right. And that's I'll be honest with you, I get aggravated at some other coaches that don't let their people venture either. So, like, and and I've had people recently go to other gyms, and I'm like, man, I love y'all, y'all are welcome back anytime. Because it is an individual journey, even though you you bring that that team aspect there with the gym, you know. But it's your and the same thing with wrestling, you know, it's your individual journey. But in wrestling clubs, I didn't realize it's very similar. Like, some coaches don't want them going anywhere, but that's how you get better. You know, you get a you get a diverse uh group of people, but man, people from all walks of life, you know, whether it be people who have straightened their life out after they get out of jail or doctors and lawyers. I've I've trained with so many different people, and I just think anybody coming in that it's not gonna be this fight club, right? You gotta wrestle hard the first state. You don't even have to roll. You never have to roll if you don't want to roll. You can you can learn and you can drill and you can do things to further yourself. You don't have to have the same goals that somebody has to come in and want to do a jiu-jitsu match or MMA fight. Your goal could be losing weight, your goal is can be I and I think that's the biggest thing that everybody's did it is just the camaraderie. I mean, and you can probably attest to that that you meet with this this group of people, man. And even though we have a small group right here in Hoboken, I mean it's such a tight-knit grip, and like we're we're pretty fierce. Like, I I love the quality roles that I'm able to get, you know, a gym 20 minutes from my house that I that I can get hard roles, and then I don't I I you probably remember Donnie Avera. Donnie Avera's a world champion one time, and he'll pop in and I'm I get giddy when he comes in. And I'll like tell people my people in the gym they don't understand. I'm like, man, this one time one of the best in the world. And to this day, he's like one of the hardest roles I ever had. Donnie killed me up last week, and I I like to go with him as much as I can, but like I have to be prepared like for the next day because I'm gonna be feeling it. But like, yeah, man, people from all walks of life, and just having those guys that'll pop in like Donnie is just so special to me because I know how great somebody like that is, but also like a little girl over here that is net hasn't even wrestled, just gonna start wrestling this year, but it's coming to my gym that I'm you know basically giving a gym scholarship to, like a former world champion is rolling with her, showing her how to do stuff, man. It's it's it's so awesome to see that, like bringing people together and people from all avenues of life are uh are working towards you know common goal, and that's to to get better. I mean, essentially that's what everybody's trying to do, just trying to get better. Absolutely, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:12

That's good, man. So well, thank you so much again for coming in. Uh appreciate you, appreciate your time, uh taking time out of your day and everything. So uh for uh for everybody, this is Jay Edwards. Check him out at Relentless, and uh you see him around town there and right there right there in Hoboken, right? Yes, sir. That's it. We appreciate you, Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:33

Thank you for all you do, and thank you for being a great man for these kids to look up to as well. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 2:32:38

Yeah, appreciate it. Uh, for everybody else, until next time, y'all keep on striving.