Lex Fridman Podcast - #363 – B-Team Jiu Jitsu: Craig Jones, Nicky Rod, and Nicky Ryan

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Craig Jones, Nicky Rod and Nicky Ryan, together with Ethan Crelinsten are founders of the B-Team, a legendary jiu jitsu team based in Austin, TX. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings - Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex to get 1 month of fish oil - BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off EPISODE LINKS: B-Team's Instagram: https://instagram.com/bteamjj/ B-Team's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/bteamjiujitsu B-Team's Website: https://bteamjj.com/ Craig Jones's Instagram: https://instagram.com/craigjonesbjj/ Nicky Rod's Instagram: https://instagram.com/nickyrod247/ Nicky Ryan's Instagram: https://instagram.com/nickyryanbjj/ Craig Jones's Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/craig-jones Nicky Rod's Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/instructional-videos/fighter_nick-rodriguez Nicky Ryan's Instructionals: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/instructional-videos/fighter_nicky-ryan PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:21) - B-Team (11:57) - Winning and losing (19:43) - Danaher Death Squad (DDS) (37:13) - Nicky Rod vs Gordon Ryan (53:47) - Steroids (1:08:31) - White belts (1:16:40) - Alexander Volkanovski vs Islam Makhachev (1:36:15) - Greatest MMA fighter of all time (1:38:43) - Dagestani fighters (1:40:00) - Conor McGregor (1:42:39) - Strength training and injuries (1:55:03) - Pre-match ritual (2:01:34) - Toughest match (2:05:25) - Positional training (2:11:59) - Perfect training week (2:14:49) - Overtraining (2:17:08) - Advice for beginners (2:25:17) - Takedowns and submissions (2:30:55) - Ego (2:35:24) - Lion vs bear (2:40:15) - Street fights (2:42:17) - Money and friendship

The following is a conversation with Craig Jones, Nicky Rodd and Nicky Ryan, who together with Ethan Crelanston and others make up the B team. A legendary Jiu-Jitsu team here in Austin, Texas. He was formed after the so-called Donohar Death Squad, the team headed by John Donohar split up into new wave Jiu-Jitsu and B Team Jiu-Jitsu. Both located here in Austin, Texas. There has been a lot of trash talk back and forth, including accusations of greasing and steroid use.

And I, as a practitioner and fan of grappling Jiu-Jitsu and martial arts in general, am here for it. To see the best grapplers in history, go at it, both on the mat and on Instagram. I like the people on both teams and train with both. And I'm really happy to see the exciting rapid evolution of the sport that these athletes and coaches are catalyzing. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor.

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no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you most skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp spelled H-E-L-P-H-L-P. There's that quote from Jack Keravack, the book on the road that I recently finished reading, re-reading, re-reading for like, I don't know, the tenth, at least time in my life. And there's a quote in there about the Mad Ones, the main character, Sal. It's strange how bad my memory is, but something tells me that his last name is Paradise, Cell Paradise, and Dean Moriarty. And Sal is Jack Kerouac, and the real life name of Dean Moriarty, I don't remember, but the character name the crazy, the chaotic friend,

shaman, guide through life, the drop of poison, and a perfectly calm drink, or a perfectly calm pond, or town like Tom Wade says. Anyway, those people, and that part of ourselves is really powerful, that weirdness, that darkness, that chaos, but you have to have control of it, I think. I think being self-aware and introspective about that and bringing it to the surface and knowing

that that part of you exists, check them out at betterhelp.com slash slash Lex and save on your first month. This episode is also brought to you by 8th Sleep and it's pod 3 mattress. As I record these very words, it is extremely late at night. It has been a long night before then and a long day. The thing that carries me through is a beautiful power nap or a couple of those when I'm deprived of sleep because of various curveballs that life throws at me as it does for everybody. I think I at least maintain my sanity and my well-being by taking power naps.

Sometimes I'll actually drink a coffee right before the nap and I take that nap. And about 30 minutes after I pop up all refreshed, ready to go. Not like no. Actually, physically, mentally, spiritually refreshed. Now I'm more calm and zen, ready to take on the darkness that waits for me when I finally close my eyes, and I'm laying on that eight-sleep bed as I'm ready to very soon. It is a source of happiness for me, cold bed with a warm blanket. It's a peaceful scape from the chaos of life outside. It's a weird little feature of biology that we get to sleep. And that is both necessary and it's just wonderful.

Anyway, check it out and get special savings when you go to a sleep.com slash Lex. This shows also brought to you by Athletic Greens and it's AG1 Drink which is an all in one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It is delicious. I'm drinking twice today because I'm traveling at packed a few travel packs to go with me, like little travel companions that represent home and then I get to the hotel and I unpack it and that's a little reminder little habit that it gets it carried with me that represents home. It makes me feel like I'm at home. There's what is home after all, but I our habits and a set of people that bring joy to our lives. And a set of habits that bring joy. And a set of greens is that brings joy to my life. Above all, the nutritional excellence it does for me. Above all of that,

it just makes me happy. A lot of things in my life making happy. This is one of the consistent ones. They'll give you one month supply of fish oil, one of the only supplements I take. When you sign up at athleticgreens.com slash Lex. This is the Lex Freedom of Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Craig Jones, Nick E. Rodd, and Nikki Ryan.

Yeah, so we got Nikki Rodd here, Brown Bell, two-time ADCC Silver Medalist, Nikki Ryan here. That's it. Who are you? And I'm Craig Jones also, two-time ADCC Silver Medalist. Silver Medalist, so the number one loser. Number one loser. And maybe a little bit more. Your bio says, widely known as the black boss layer hails from New Jersey, the land of pizza and biceps. Yes, it's pretty accurate. Okay. You also do care gone on you a lot. Yeah, I keep it,

keep it loaded, you know, you know, you know, you get on me. Uh huh. Yeah, one today. Uh, in the car. That was a mistake. It was your first mistake. Yeah, I think you're too close. And you are Nikki Ryan. What else is there? What else do we know? Go on Ryan's brother. Go on Ryan's brother. All right. So in your all together, part of the leadership of the B team here in Austin, let's just get out some introductory questions. What in general accomplishment of the things you mentioned you most proud of?

I mean, I'm proud just to not have to work a full time job, just to get by on the bullshit I've done so far. Yeah, honestly. Just making money of a thing you love. Exactly, yeah. What was the first time you made money on a thing you love? Probably a jujitsu tournament. I think maybe an abu-dabi right one a thousand dollars thought I was rich. Yeah, yeah, would you spend the thousand dollars on? Probably something bad probably drugs or something at the time. I'd be bluited the after party

That's a good introduction crack Craig. So what about you, when's the first time you made money with Angie Jitsu? Or what's actually stepping back? Like what's the thing you're most proud of? Is it a similar kind of thing? I think I'm most proud of is, I mean, for sure, to ADCC Silver medals, which hurts because you're so close to getting that gold, but it takes time.

I'm understanding that sport of Jitsu takes quite a while to be at the tip-top to be the absolute best. I'm just being consistent in my training and my craft and I'll get that one spot one day. What failure loss is the most painful to you? I don't know. I get to have a pretty short-term memory. My loss is I just like, I'll just forget about it. Yeah, I mean, for sure, my loss at this past ADCC and the finals, you know, that one's still in good bit because I definitely thought I was going to win. I mean, like, it takes a while to produce the skills or the reactions more so that you need to have to be, you know, to be that number one pound for pound guy. And, you know, pre-ADCC, I was coming off at injury. So it took me a

little bit to find the right mentality and physicality that I needed in order to, you know, get the wins that required gold. So that's just process. Interesting. You keep saying process, like it takes a while to build up. So you're not like thinking of a loss, like ADCC is like a specific failure. So you're not, you haven't gone long enough in a particular process to being a champ. Well, I mean, for me, I'm closing on on five years of specifically Jitsu training, I'm about four and a half right now.

And yeah, it's just the, you constantly have these ups and downs in training where like, as long as you stay consistent, you'll have a gradual raise, but you know, it's still you'll have a gradual raise, but you know, it's still you'll have these peaks and lows and you know, just trying to get better every day. I'm definitely not where I will be in a few years,

in a few years from now, but I'm not striving to get there. Are you actually a brown belt? Was that a joke? Brown belt, yeah. You're a brown belt. Like, how many stripes? No stripes, no stripes. Stripes.

Okay. Is that part of the process that you're working through? Definitely part of the process. I mean, I think a black belt is just basically on how much knowledge you have. Obviously, like, you know, if you're talking competitive-wise, like, from when I started, I was able to beat most black belts.

It's just kind of how I was gifted from my wrestling experience. And, you know, the title come when it's right, but I'm not in a rush at all. I'm continuing. I just kind of take every day for what it is and try to improve upon that. I mean, I want to give him the black belt.

Nikki Ryan says he's not ready. What is... Are you guys... Like, there's no G-Fogs. Do you take that seriously? Like the black belt? Or like, how much does it come into play into... Yeah, I mean, it's like Nikki Rodd said, you know, it's based off of knowledge, not just,

you know, what you do out on the competition mats, because, you know, like he said, he had years of wrestling experience and obviously he's very physically gifted. So we grade based off of the amount of knowledge that you have. Like, how do you measure knowledge? I think teaching is a good measurement of it, like how well you're able to show the moves and you know, really make sure that you have an understanding of what you're doing. Yeah, it's an interesting rank. It's like something that takes many years to accomplish. And for a lot of people, it's truly meaningful. It's like it represents a particular step in a journey.

But for you guys, it's almost like different because you've been so focused on competition. That I guess if you take a seriously, it is a big step for you too. Like, it's almost like different because you've been so focused on competition that I guess if you take a seriously, it is a big step for you too. Like as martial artists, that's bigger than just being like top of the world competitors. Right. So I thought it was a joke. You guys are actually taking it seriously.

Like, They use a brown bow and you're taking seriously the rank of black bow and like, it's part of your journey. Think about time I get a Blackbow, I'll be no more pound for pound. I think it'd be pretty nice to accomplish that as a brownbill and then maybe toss a Blackbow on top.

Maybe get promoted on the podium. What do you guys, do you love winning or hate losing more? I definitely don't hate losing. But pays the bills out of the months. Oh really? Yeah, but honestly, if I win, I feel more relief than anything rather than like excitement and stuff.

I'm like, oh, fuck, thank God that's over. You know? I hate losing for sure. But I understand that it's necessary to get, you know, to get to where you wanna be. And then winning is like, I mean, what I think winning is probably the closest you can think you can get to like, want to be. And then winning is like, I mean, what I think winning is probably the closest you can get to like heroin or something.

Because I mean, we're on a high, like if you do have extreme success in a torment that you've been, you know, adamant about training for and competing in for a while and you end up winning it, I mean, I feel like you're on that high for days at a time afterwards. Harron's gonna be better.

You think so? I'm a stick with no. But I'm not gonna with no, but. I'm not gonna suck dig to win. I'm gonna suck it for heroin. Okay. I guess that's a good point. Well, you know, like, because you're coming from

a little bit of a wrestling culture. One of the things I really love is at the end of the match when they lose, they just, there's no, they just run off. They're like almost pissed off. It's like some mixture of anger and frustration at themselves. I think sometimes the people freak out on the mat. And I think that's just to show everybody,

like they're acting like they care it a lot. And really maybe they didn't work enough to get to where they want, to where they expected to be. And they lost and then they had this big boost of emotion like after they're after the loss. But yeah, I mean, you just crying the mirror and not to everybody else, you know. What have you ever cried watching a movie?

I don't think I ever cried a period. Okay. Have you cried watching a movie? No, yeah. Not yet. The notebook. I try to avoid those. My texting. I lie to avoid those. My taxi.

I lie. Actually, Titanic. The last part of a difficult wake up for me is I try to find a sad movie and at least cry. I better pound out. That really gets me over the line. Low energy cutting. The tears. There's other following liquids I could talk to you about, but let's just continue on.

Loinit. What about you, Nikki? Love a winning versus hate of losing. I'm a very competitive person, so I for sure hate losing more than I like winning. I do think it's something that's kind of held me back over the past few years because it it makes it so that I'm not as active as I should be, because it's like I really hate that feeling of, you know, after a match that you just lost. So it kind of prevents me from competing, so it's definitely something I need to work past.

So like, when you think about a competition, the possibility of losing, which is always there in competition, is the thing that like weighs heavy on you in the months and weeks leading up to it. Yeah, my whole life, my financial stability, everything depends on my ability to go out there and compete and my ability to teach. So it's a huge hit to the brand if you lose. So leading up to matches, that's definitely something that's in my mind. I know, you see, you guys are like world class athletes, but for me more like a hobbyist competitor, I compete a lot.

The thing I was, I really wanted to win. The thing I was probably most afraid of was not just losing, but like embarrassing myself. Yeah. Even actually winning by stalling. That was the thing I hated the most about myself in terms of crying in the mirror is like being too afraid to take risks after I'm up on two points or something. I think you got a competition. Sometimes it's good to take the emotion out of it.

It's too easy sometimes to like think about all my girls and in the crowd and my family's watching. Like I want to win because they're there. But the highest level of your emotional at all. No, that's affecting you. Yeah, that's tough though. Especially like leading up to when you're on the map maybe, but leading up to it. I think it's okay to be emotional prior, like, you know, if we know ADCC or it's coming

up, we have a big match, like definitely I'll go out in practice and I'll visualize, I'll put myself in that competition that way when it's game time, it's like I've been there a thousand times already. So not the actual competition, but even leading up to it, like stepping in the mat, like all the walk towards it, all that. All that stuff, like, I'll do the same exact warm up

for weeks on end and to my competition day commas, that's way, that way, you know, when I compete, I'm just like, oh, it's another Tuesday at practice. Uh, what about you, Craig? How do you prepare mentally for a tournament like ADCC? I push it completely out of my mind. Don't even think about it. Try to avoid any visualization, any rituals, warm-ups, anything like that. Block it out into the last second, yeah.

Trying to think about it. I just got a train and tie into our fun, learn a bit. So I try to approach competition the exact same way. I don't warm up a training, do very little warm up for competition. Uh-huh, and you just step on the mat. Step on the mat. My philosophy is there's no warm ups on the street.

Mm-hmm. We're so vastly different. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. All right, so like legit don't warm up. No, I probably should now 31, but I would just like in the gym. Get easy the first round. You know, like if I look around the room and Nikki Ryan said, I might go, I will have an easier first round today.

So even for like the most high stakes matches, you try to push it out. Yeah, I didn't even think about it. What about like the social, like Instagram posts you have to do about that match? You just make a joke out of it and kind of... Yeah, I mean, actually... You know, it's kinda pretty silly. You know, we're just wrestling each other, you know? We put the meaning into it, but to someone that doesn't follow the sport, it looks stupid. Well, all of human existence is pretty silly.

Like, what are we doing? None of us really know what's going on. We kind of have sex to reproduce. We get hungry, we eat. And then we're all chasing money and cars and whatever the hell. In a capitalist society, or we worship a dictator in an authoritarian regime.

Yeah. And then we'll get off on, we'll let power abuse us and then we just murder others because we get off on it. Yeah. And then eventually all of us will die because the sun will run out of energy

because colonizing other planets is very difficult. So another matter. It's a good philosophy. It's pretty good. That's exactly what I was saying. How does the sun run out of energy? Well, you call me there. Burnouts, it's a nuclear fusion engine that eventually burns out.

Like when you get tired of training. Yeah, it's never happened. I try to get tired. I was like, dude, it's not working. All right, cool. So you legit don't care about losing. It doesn't weigh heavy on you. I try not to list, like if I win, I try to block out all the compliments, all the niceties

and stuff, so I try to do the same with losing. It's happened, move on to the next one, you know, don't dwell on it too much. And sometimes make a joke out of it. Yeah, exactly. Winning a losing with the right joke, we can make money off of the event that's transpired. That's what's most important. Excellent. Thank you. I have a bunch of your merch. Oh, nice. Thank you. This one's the Jordan most important. Excellent. Thank you. I have a bunch of your merch. Oh, nice.

This one's the Jordan Byers rip off. All I see is silver. The way pronounced boroughs is very sexy. OK. I throw lines at people, and I try to gauge your reaction. Like sometimes I'll say something on Niki, and I'll be like, all right, that's probably crossing the line.

You know what I mean? We'll turn it down to the public. So yeah, yeah, so it's not just, right, you have to think is this crossing the line. Yeah, yeah, I get as close to it as possible. Yeah, I feel like you can't really cross it. Just a little bit. Just a little bit, yeah. Okay.

Speaking of which, you said that I'm Switzerland in World War II since I'm friends with both you and Gordon and John. I'm a rich country. Are you a Hitler or Stalin, by the way, in this analogy? Would you like to be Hitler or Stalin? And should you make a T-shirt out of it or? I mean, I'm not T-shirt. I don't know how well that sells.

I think it would, you know, I think that... Let's brainstorm on this one offline. I think it would, you know, I think that let's brainstorm on this one offline. I think since Hitler lost. So you got second place in World War II. That's true. That's true. I think that makes you Hitler. Anyway, to the degree that you can, can you tell the story of how the time you've had

with the Dona Hardead squadquaden and Waiseput up. I competed against Gordon for ADCC and the EBI in 2017. And I remember I competed against him at ADCC and then we had the EBI event and then I had a Kassai. I used to compete all the time every week. I wouldn't even do the preparation or anything. I'd just be like trying to do seminars, make money and then jump in and compete. I remember I shut up to Kassai after I faced him twice.

And there were like four locker rooms and they put me with all the DDS guys. It was just me and all of DDS. And I think we competed the week we came before. So I thought it was gonna be super awkward, but it was actually pretty chill. And the Kassai was in New York and they suggested to come train that way

So I came trains hung out with them a bit Ultimately the goal was to move to America and join a big a team just because That flat to Australia's death Australia is so far away from everywhere. It's kind of like not realistic to base yourself in Australia when all the tournaments are in America And then I went and trained with the guys and they just had a massive like not realistic to base yourself in Australia when all the tournaments are in America. And then I went and trained with the guys and they just had a massive, massively deep talent pool in that room.

Like show up to like a mid to be 7am, actual 8am class on Brazilian time. It'd be like a hundred people in there, maybe, I don't know how many black belts, but a ton of elite guys. And I was coming from Australia, training with local jiles, but really that room was pretty shallow and like most people had serious jobs and stuff So it was like basically me just training with Auckland

Maybe a couple of other guys and then to go to New York and have access to a what array of Training partners and guys that are training twice each day. I feel like that's what you really need You need people that can train as much as you are. What was humbled? How humbled in that room at first? For sure, because my style of the time was basically a rip or a version of what they were doing. Leglocks came in.

I remember just washing Eddie Cummings nonstop and just seeing this guy rip people's legs off and I was like, you know what, that's probably a good move. You know, that looks like an easier path to victory than trying to beat these guys at what they're good at already. You know, my philosophy at the time was if it's bothering old Brazilians,

it's bothering them for a reason. It's probably effective. And that's the path I took to sort of try to rip off their moves and then obviously to go into that room, try to do them to them. It's going to be a bit more difficult. All right. So that's how it started. How did you end up here?

How do we end up here? We're in Austin, Texas. I mean, I like to think of Puerto Rico as apocalypse now. John Danahas as Colonel Kurtz. Things got very weird in the jungle and the teams went into different directions. Well honestly, I mean, it's totally my story to tell. I had some issues with some of those people.

At the time with the split, I got along very well with John. I feel like me and him connected very well. I don't know why that was. Baby it was just because he missed home, he missed a familiar accent, Australian New Zealand accent. But, I mean, I basically followed Nikki, left with Nikki, sort of that core group of guys left with Nikki, and I mean, there was personal problems,

I just backed Nikki, basically. Got it, just sticking on you for a bit. Is there a part a part of you that you know finds it heartbreaking that DDS split up? This part of you miss working with John and everybody Like can you steal man the case for that? I mean, I miss certain aspects of it But I also do prefer the freedom of being apart from it's obviously a very strict regime under John Danna, you know, obviously as part of it, I miss the past. The public doesn't see of John. The behind the scenes bands, I feel like he's very conscious of the imagery portrays to the world, but basically it closed doors. He's always making jokes, always finding, I guess, more in line with the

Australian Kiwi sort of culture. But you don't really see that in the public eye. So that perspective, I do miss that relationship with John. In terms of setting aside personal differences, Gordon was a good training partner. Definitely a good training partner to train with. But obviously the negative things we can't really talk about outweighed all of those things. And we obviously had to make a decision

To leave but you know that happened in the jungle the things happen to the jungle I'll never be spoken of that I personally get not speak up. Yeah, but obviously I do miss that aspects like I mean not nothing's all bad Nothing's all good, you know Yeah, this goes back to your like Everything we're doing is silly Exactly. I saw it and get people take it so serious my shot so serious just It's just pretty stupid really especially in the key it looks just It looks bad, and then I mean it's pretty silly with with and without the key

Sam is a bunch of apes what silly about no game was silly about the key and just mixed and match bottoms That you know, no, I mean wait which one? Sam, I see what you're doing. Brother. You come to my house and I bet my people. All right. We're going to go to every dark place apparently. Nick, how did you get with DDS? Like, what was that journey like? Is there try to see if there's things that you remember fondly that you've gotten from the experience?

All right, so the way I started training with DDS, initially I was training for like, well, initially I was a bouncer, right? I dropped out of college to pursue this fitness modeling career, I ended up signing with a Will and Meeta models up in New York and I was a bouncer, right? I dropped out of college to pursue this fitness modeling career. I ended up signing with a Willemina models up in New York. And I was like, trying to get in better shape. And while I was bouncing kind of the talk of like, you know, who's tougher came up between the wrestlers and a few of the bouncer's that trained Jiu-Jitsu. And you know, they convinced me to go to a practice. And I went to my first practice over there.

And for the most part I just controlled everybody, got on top of them, was able to avoid kind of like you know shitty submissions because I had an awareness of the sport and you know I'm a fan of fighting whatnot so you know I kind of understood it pretty well and then soon after that I joined a school and my second week of Jiu Jitsu I started competing had pretty good success you know I was like sub and my second week of Gidd to I started competing had pretty good success You know, I was like sub and I'll give you a bike bells and beating everybody like you know pretty sliceively with points and stuff And about three months into training locally. I got connected with a Gordon Gordon Ryan and John Danher up in New York

And I started I committed to you know make the drive up there as many days as I could at the at the time I live in South Jersey and it was about two and a half hour, three hour drive without traffic. Where in South Jersey? Gloucester County. Clayton, New Jersey, specifically, but Gloucester County. Yeah, so it was about 130 miles. And without traffic, you know, about two and a half hours or so. But on the way back, man, it'd be three plus sometimes. You know, you catch in that rush hour. Wait, you were just, do you remember? This was the 2018. I forget how young you are.

I was there before. Before all that. Anyway, you're doing the long drive and then, and then what? Yeah, doing the long drive and then, uh, you know, once I won ADCC, it trowels, I was able to make a couple of bucks. And then, you know, I got myself a medal at ADCC and I was able to afford to live up there in New York in the most Jersey area. So I lived up there, trained there full time every day and it was kind of stuck with the team throughout the turbulent times and found ourselves in Austin.

In the jungle. In the jungle. The things we shall not speak of. What other things that you remember that you've learned from John Donner, her from me, a tie-in, but with him. Yeah, I mean, I definitely learned the ton from from John and the team as a whole. You have to be the guy that acts questions in the type of environment, right? Because there's not, you're not going to get singled out to be that specific, like, star or the best guy in the room when you have all these other, you know, stud athletes. So I really have to seek out and figure out the kind of questions that I need to ask. And once I became a bit more verbal with my training and, you know, I'm showing, I'm expressing

all my curiosities about grabbing to these guys, definitely help boost my technique in my career as a whole. Yeah, did you understand what kind of stuff, like technically you want to get good at, what fits your body, what would be good for you, what are your weaknesses and all that. So initially, when I started grappling, I had an innate ability to just get to opponents back. So I was like, all right, I'm good at getting to the back. Let me perfect controlling the back and then submitting a opponent via renage a choke. And then besides that, I really focused on leg lock defense

and then eventually came the Rodilock pass where, you know, I'm really good at body lock pass on my opponents now. And then, yeah, just takes quite a long time because you have to find different sequences and then there's always these, an abundance of opportunities that your opponent gets from these specific sequences.

So it takes a while. Is there a part of you that finds the fact that DGS split up heartbreaking? I definitely, you know, having one person to go to that runs practice every day that's, you know, consistent, it was definitely a gift, but now I've also gifted with many, many other partners. I have Nikki Ryan, Craig Jones, E-Pause.

Craig Jones. Yeah, yeah. We have Ethan Crowley, Steve D. M. Anderson. So a full team of knowledge while athletes that I can continue to go to with multiple questions. But yeah, definitely, it took me some time to adjust to training or to learning from, you know, specifically my team and not just one person.

We should mention for people just listening because you can't visually see that Nikki Ryan is currently terrified. And Craig Jones is currently enjoying the fact that he's raised that fight. Anyway, can you talk about your, Nikki, can you talk about your title with DDS? I started training when I was like around 13,

you know, my brother Gordon had started prior to me and I really just went into training just as like a means to exercise and lose weight at the beginning, because I was pretty fat as a kid. So I went to the first class, loved it, and then just started training every day at Gary Shimm, Brunswick. And then during the summer when I'd get off from school, they would take me up to New York to train under John. And you know, I just absolutely loved it. I knew what I wanted to do with my life at a young age. So I ended up dropping out of school actually after my freshman year in high school.

So yeah, 15, I ended up dropping out and just pursuing Jiu-Jitsu full time, training every day up in the blue basement. What aspects of Jiu-Jitsu was, made you know that this is the thing for you? It's just something I just enjoyed being, like on the mats every day. I love that there's, you know,

a problem solving aspect to it. So it's mentally challenging, it's physically challenging, helps me get in shape. So I just, yeah, right off the bat, I knew I loved it. Okay, so then we'll go to the jungle. What happened in the jungle? Yeah. And in general, like...

I like this. This is like, like, I like this. I like this, this, this, like this, like, this like, shroud of mystery that she'll never be penetrated. That should never be like, we've got a book, though, it's coming on. We've got a book, though. Obviously, left Oscar, he's not riding him. Okay, I'll do the Russian translation.

Okay. So what are, what are things that you enjoy that you remember from work on John Donner? Yeah, I mean, obviously he's considered one of the best coaches in the world. You know, very charismatic guy when you see him in person. I pretty much was kind of raised in the DDS. That's where I spent the majority of my time every day. So, I obviously had very deep connections, you know, with John, my brother, Gary, you know, even Eddie Cummings and stuff back then. So, obviously, I'm interacting with those guys every day, and you know, it's like they said, it's good to have somebody to kind of

crack the whip at you every day, and John was very good at that. When you're like younger in your teenage years, you can kind of have to get humbled, right? There's a process to that. Yeah, for sure. And it's a pretty good room to get humbled in, I guess. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I started training with them just when everybody started to break out.

Gary was the biggest name at the time, just because he had 180 CC trials already, and he had a crazy match with Cron at a Cron Gracie at a ADCC. But Eddie was just starting to break out. Gordon just started winning EBI. So I started training under John, you know, right when everything was exploding.

What are the good things about life, a budget you learn from your brother? Both me and my brother never really wanted to, you know, work a full-time job doing something that we hate. And he wanted to, you know, work a full time job doing something that we hate. Um, and he was always, you know, a very confident person. So he just went, you know, fully, fully started pursuing Jiu Jitsu. Um, so I'm very happy that, you know, he did that and I ended up falling in his footsteps because you can ask these guys, I'm a lazy sack of shit out of outside of the, the, the,

the mat. Uh, so that's, that's definitely one thing that I'm very grateful for. That he paved the way like you can you can make money doing stuff you love. Yeah, exactly. And he was he was a big reason, you know, why my parents eventually let me drop out of school because you know, when when they were coming out, there was there's no money in the sport. It was very hard to make a full living. Like if you wanted to actually make a living, you'd eventually have to transfer to MMA. And I feel like Gordon and Gary and those guys were, you know, some of the first people to make a very good living off

of just Jetsu. At this part of you find it heartbreaking that you've split up from DDS, but also from your brother in terms of spending time in the mat every day. Yeah, for sure, you know, I mean, growing mean, growing up, obviously he's my big brother. I looked up to him a lot. So I definitely, like I said, I'm misinteracting with those guys. I was pretty much raised in that blue basement. The John was like a father figure to me. So I definitely miss seeing those guys every day. Do you have enemocity towards Gordon? And does he have animosity towards you?

And what is the source of that? And do you think you'll ever be able to forgive each other? Definitely, initially, during the initial split, we definitely hated each other at the beginning. But it's definitely started to calm down, actually just prior to all this social media drama that's going on currently. He had reached out to me and that was literally the first time that we have actually talked since the split happened. So we didn't talk to each other for was it now like almost two years.

And that was the first time that we interacted again. And overall, he wasn't aggressive towards me. I wasn't aggressive towards him. He were cracking some jokes. So, hopefully the animosity is going down. There's this Godfather quote that wrote down. He's rewatched it from the Don, from Don Corleone, the strength of a family, like the strength of an army lies in its loyalty to each other. Is there some aspect of family that you miss, of blood that kind of connects you, that you can count on? Yeah, my parents, they both raised us, that family is everything, you never betray your

family or anything like that. So I definitely, you know, missing from time to time. Okay. Imagine you're like 40 years from now, sitting on a porch with a shotgun, drinking whiskey, looking over like all the land you've conquered, looking back to this moment, is the reason you split up a bullshit reason, it a good reason from the perspective of the king who has now conquered the lands have proven himself have done everything I think it was definitely like a justifiable reason for the team splitting like it just with the way things were going It just was not gonna work with you know all of us in the same room together I was a started you know affecting training People didn't feel comfortable in things. So I definitely think that it was a

adjustable reason to split. The things that happened in the jungle. Yeah. To be told about in the book. Is it going to be an audio book or is it just going to be? And who's going to voice it? Might be a play. A musical.

Yeah, it's on Broadway. Um, how's your singing voice? Mine's not so good, but Nicky has a beautiful voice. Does he? Of an angel? Like I had bad. Okay. Speaking of the social media drama, I should mention that I've talked to recently to Gordon

a bunch. I've talked to him about talking to you guys. And he's had nothing but really nice things to say about you Nick Ryan and he has had nothing but bad things. What was some of the things? There is well let's just go to the social media first because the social media stuff that he said publicly is just like a warm up. It's like a four-play, I guess. So Gordon sent you, Nicky Rodd, flowers for Valentine's Day, posting on Instagram, quote, I've been fucking him in every round in competition since we met in 2018.

The least that can do is buy him flowers. We didn't get the flowers. No, that was the question. Did you get flowers? You never got flowers. He sent it to the wrong address. He did? Yeah.

Where do you think he sent it? It was close, but it was wrong. Did you appreciate the romantic gesture? I did. I was looking forward to the flowers and potentially chocolates in there. But it was a bit of a lead now. Can you describe your recent match against Gordon the EBI match? Okay, so EBI match on UFC fight pups. It was a 20-minute match and

immediately no match starts. I pulled guard and then I stand up. He pulls guard and we have this kind of like back and forth where he's trying to dig for underhooks trying to get on top of me And he can't really have fine success and out and and then in the midst of me trying to work by body lock pass Gorn is able to underhook a leg and we end up in a leg entanglement and then I'm able to transfer that leg entanglement to a 50-50 position still like still in the leg entanglement from that 50-50, I'm able to separate his feet and actually get a few pops and actually said

I broke his foot in that exchange. With the toe hold. The toe hold, yup. And after that, we had a bit more. I was just being working on top position, trying to get my body lock, time runs out and we go to overtime. And overtime. Can you hold on a second, actually runs out and we go to overtime. And overtime.

Can you hold on a second? Actually, what does it mean to break a leg? What was it, I was very confused about. Okay, so it's just like a expression or what do you mean? What do you mean, what do you broke, what, which part breaks in a toe hold? Okay, so in a toe hold, there's a few different grades of it. Like you could get a few pops and have some,

have some, you know, walking issues. And people consider that a break and then you could break it fully and have your foot be like a limp noodle. I think what goes that killies? Well, it's a front of the killies or something. I mean, probably the ligaments. I mean, it's funny. Like a lot of people say they broke something, but like to me, you break bones, you tear ligaments.

So I would imagine you probably had a great three tear. Great three. How hard do you think is that? I was wondering that with, um, with like a straight footlock, how hard is it to break the shin or like the actual bones versus the terraced up? Depends on how many steroids they're on.

And obviously how much you're on. You're one of the few guys that I haven't actually broken bones in competition. Uh, yeah, have I? Oh, yeah, Vin. Oh, yeah. Uh, which bone did you break? Spiral fracture of the fibula.

First, it's like a twist thing. How did you break it? Oh, it was a heel hook. Vinnie always used to say heel hooks don't work, leg locks don't work. But unfortunately, age gets the best of all of us. I think he had some mileage on those ligaments. Yeah, and the bone, I guess. So it's actually what the bone... age gets the best of all of us. I think he had some mileage on those ligaments. Yeah. And the bone, I guess. So it's actually what the bone... Yeah, he's ankle disconnected from the tibia and the fibula, but the fibula definitely

snouts pretty bad there. That's fascinating. The dynamics of that. Okay, anyway, you wanted to over time. What happened over time? Okay, what happened over time? Let's see. Trying to hang.

Oh, okay, I go defense first. Uh, whistle blows. I'm able to escape in like 17 seconds. And then immediately after I go on his back and he gets out and exactly 17 seconds out like shit. All right, I thought I had a good start. And then, uh, he gets on my back right after that. And he's able to ride me out for pretty much the entire round. After that, he, uh, I go back on his back right after that and he's able to ride me out for pretty much the entire round After that he's I go back on his back. He escapes and maybe like a minute and some change I think where I went wrong at the overtime is I should have When I should have been less adamant about chasing the submission and more aware of collecting time

If I kind of diverted my tension towards acquiring, you know, time on the clock, it would have been, you know, warm. I favor. But yeah, at the end of my overtime round, I'm able to lock up a renegade choke over the face, but it just wasn't enough time to fully finish. You know, I got a few seconds of squeeze in there. I didn't have enough time to adjust then. God, do you think if you're on steroids, you would have finished the choke? I mean, for sure, for sure. That's what I thought it said. If you're on gear, you're changing the biology of your body. You're adjusting your DNA.

For sure, if I adjust in my DNA, I mean, it's a finish. So you're implying you're a natural athlete. Oh, I'm definitely natural athlete. Yeah. Happy immigration. Okay. So for people who don't know, the B.I. rules, it's an interesting rules structure where the overtime you put yourself in the worst possible

position and the task is to escape and the other person gets the same thing. What do you guys think about that rule set? I like it just because, first of all, I don't like the idea of having to put somebody on my back, but I do like the definitive answer in the match, like either you escaped in time or you got ridden out. So the absolutely, you get to define a winner,

that's great. And much rather have that than a close decision and it kind of goes the other way. What about you? I mean, honestly, there's all the different rules. When I look at the rules sets, I just try to think of what rules set I could beat that individual in. And I sort of gear myself towards that. That's really the strategy

there. I think there's some guys that like the stole a lot that you would love to have EBI over time, but at the end, you know, they're stolen until they have to give us a good position. But then the some guys that are so good in those positions, I'm like, oh, maybe we just do a regular match, you know, what are the rules in the streets? The streets? No, it's on them. Yeah, that's one of it. There's also like concrete and cars, stuff, biting, biting, yeah, poking. Yeah, so you don't like that rule set. Are there some people you would prefer in the street as a rule set? May probably not.

I don't know the EBI. I mean, it's tricky. You know, it depends on the opponent, which rule set I'd want to do. Wow. What about you, Nick? What do you think about the rule set of EBI? Yes. I think EBI is very good from a spectator point of view. You know, people find it very entertaining to watch, you know,

because your people want to see submissions and you're putting people, you're putting the athletes in a position where, you know, you have like the highest percentage submission in the sport. So obviously, you're going to get a lot of submissions. My issue with it is it is a rule set that allows somebody that's overall worse at Jiu Jitsu to win a match. You know, a guy can go out there and just stall and just get completely dominated for the entirety of regulation and then he gets to start on the guys back. So that's that's one my one issue with it. But also, I mean, it's interesting to see like the best people in the world have to be put in a really bad position and to see how good their escape is out, for example. Yeah, it's interesting to see, like the best people in the world have to be put in a really bad position

and to see how good their escapes are, for example. It's interesting, but it doesn't feel like a realistic. It's a fun thing to watch, but it doesn't feel like the real fight. It feels weird. Oh, claim it. If I start an overtime on someone, finish them. Oh, claim it, but if they submit me

an overtime on last, you're good enough. Yeah it. But if they submit me an overtime on the last, you're good to know. Yeah. That's not a real submission. It's good. The issue is people like stalling to just win the overtime. So where you got this guy, his whole training camp is just not get subbed and win the overtime. It's a bit boring.

By the way, I have a rose behind you. Somebody gave me a Valentine's flower. So if you, if you missed the one from Gordon, I got one for you. Well, I'd appreciate that. Thank you. It's good to feel loved. Thank you. All right.

So what did you learn from that match? Like, take away, it's technically speaking. Like, what do you need to work on? Well, I learned that I am pretty good. I know. I know. Yeah, pretty good. I got a, you know, few, I know exactly what my weakness is, you know, it's the leg lock department. And I'm doing, I'm doing a lot to, to, you know, get better in that specific aspect. I think that

can defense attack. I would say, yeah, attack defense reattacks, even if I wanted to offensively enter a leg, you know, I could use some work there as well. But I feel like once I solidify, like my, like if I come up, become a black bell specifically in the leg lock department, I feel like I'd be unstoppable. If you nick your, uh, definitively beat Gordon Ryan, how would you do it? Bucky choke. Bucky choke. Bucky choke. For the listener, I don't even know how to describe Bucky choke.

What's the definitive conclusion on that choke? Does it work? It's a choke that you do when you're in a, well, see, opposite of a dominant. It's not submissive. In a non-dominant position of bottom of side control. Yeah, just embarrassing submission to get caught with really. Yeah, but does it work?

It works on certain people. For the listener, he glanced over at Nicky. It's embarrassing, but it's also what, it's a way to frustrate the opponent. For sure, yeah, it's a new part of the split. I feel like the Ritolo's brought it back into fashion. And even if you don't get it, because it's one of those moves that's so embarrassing, at the first sign of danger,

the top guy abandoned ship. And you can basically retain God by attempting a very embarrassing simile. So that's the right of embarrassment. Yeah, everybody. People pull out very quick to avoid suffering the consequences. I think some people underestimate how good of a submission is.

I mean, once you're locked in there, there's not too many defenses for a buggy joke. Are you, is there an instruction on the way from you? And Jay Ride actually, a little brother has one. Oh, yeah, for real, you actually legit have, oh, wow. That's awesome. Let's check it out.

I mean, you're making a joke out of it, but it is a real, like, there's a system to it. I mean, yeah, I don't know if we're going to system it. It's a good move. I mean, you're taking a point that was just winning in a greatly dominant position and then boom, in that same position, they're pretty're losing you know it's uh it's interesting move what's the name of the uh what's the name but it's called the buggy pdf my j-mode series okay the buggy pdf I thought

there'd be something like very Craig Jonesy about it okay awesome uh I know you don't want to sort of reveal the secrets of what you're working on but in general dude uh what does it take to beat Gordon I guess? It would have to be some kind of a choke. I think any joint lock or anything like that, he's just gonna let it break and stay in the match. So I don't even think he'd tap from like a, a renegade choke.

I think I would have to put him to sleep. So putting him to sleep is a good one. So Gordon is somebody who really hates losing. Yeah, like he won't even tap in the practice room. I remember like I had a couple of times in practice room and he was just comfortable like working there. I'm like, I'm not really putting much on it. I think he just, you know, maybe because of situations

like that in practice, he kind of did respect my to hold ability in competition. You've done that to me in the practice. I have, yeah. Yeah, I'll give you a little, you know. Give me a little pup and then he'll let go. And I was only type of set right there. Imagine.

Hey, don't get into math. Okay, is there some part of that you think is necessary to be a champion is to like this almost unwillingness and competition to tap? I think it's definitely something to be said for people that are just like, willing to go willing to go that extra mile or to take that damage to secure their victory. Is there a part of you that like would hate to tap or hate to tap? Yeah, I mean, all of

me. I say what he said. Yeah, the whole part of me. Is there a John Legend song like that? All of you and all of me? Very romantic, yeah. Yeah, I was sticking on that theme. Okay, I'm sorry. Oh, one of the things Gordon asked, I forget how he put it because I think there's a lot of words that would need to be censored involved, but he said, ask them how it feels to have a zero five record against me with four submissions combined? I mean, first of all, I wasn't sure he could count the five.

Yeah, that's an impressive thing. Pressing. Oh, and five. I mean, I'll say one thing. Nobody beats me four times. I love you so much. Lex, I did have a question for you. There was some controversy on your Twitter about a list of books. And I was wondering why Gordon's book wasn't featured amongst that literature.

Well, it was only the first 30 books, like the first 20 books, and it would of course be in the... Something interesting about Gordon. He's the first author that's written more books than he's read. Pretty good. If you if you face them and beat them, what's your take on what it takes to be Gordon? I mean, you guys kind of joke and they go pretty pretty hard recently on each other, but as a fan of Jiu-Jitsu, I'm all in on this rivalry. It's just fun to watch. I mean, first of all, I don't think I go really hard with him.

I think Gordon is pretty sensitive. You know what I mean? He's looking for a large insult in a small insult. And for me, like Australians, we just attack each other all day, every day. And for me, like, if I see someone that takes himself very seriously That's like blood in the water. That's funny to me to me if I can just gently Provoke and get a strong reaction

That's hilarious like Aussies. We'll just attack each other and the first person that gets upset He kind of loses the exchange. So I think that is very very entertaining Like if you were to beat Gordon would the mental game off the map be part of it? I think it would be a fact of a show, but I mean, I'm never going to come out too crazy direct with him. You know, like, I'd like to, I'll find that. Like if you get too upset on the line and you're going crazy, I'll find that. I'd be embarrassed to do that myself. Obviously, everyone's different.

Everyone has a different style. You know, but like, yeah, I think mental the mental aspect would play a big factor. I mean Mainly because if I were to beat him I would send him a message every day Until I died. Yeah, just to gently remind him that I got the last one. The last one. It's all the matters. We're not giving it's going So like once you beat him, you're going to run for the rest of your life. I mean, run but look back. Yeah. Yeah, right.

With messages. It's like riding ride your horse into the sunset. OK. By the way, you've talked very lightly. You've talked shit very lightly against Alexander Vokinovsky's opponent very lightly. Have you received death threats or how are you still alive? Like Gordon, I would say people from Dagestan

of take a joke very well, you know what I mean? Yeah, really. Do they really? No, I like Gordon. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm slow. Now I just do aggressive motor in my head. Now honestly, Islam was pretty cool.

I wanted to stir it up a bit, you know, because like I felt like that was a massive fight and I probably should have had more attention than it was receiving. So I wanted to just gently stir it up a bit. I feel like Sambo guys are in the same vein as Catresslas. Very sensitive, you know, like obviously there's only three people in the world that do Catressling, Sambo, maybe in the same vein as catch wrestlers, very sensitive. You know, like obviously there's only three people in the world that do catch wrestling.

Sambo, maybe 10 to 15. So I figured we could really provoke them with that sort of jujitsu, Sambo stuff. Islam took the jugs very well. The Russian fans, not so much, very serious. There's not many smiles in Russia, you know. They didn't take it as well. I'm trying to suppress the anger, the rage is building up a side. Slowly.

So you guys mentioned steroids. I like that you bring that up after we talk about Russia. For the right. Smooth, smooth segue there. I did not condone the statements said by the Aussie. But I would love to travel with you to Russia. That would be a good time. Yeah.

You might get killed with me now. No, I would be the like the first to turn to back stab you. Like I got even getting. All right. Are most of the top grapplers on steroids? I mean, it's hard to say, you know, some people look like shits and they're on steroids. Some people look and they're on steroids. Some people look excellent and they're not on steroids.

It's so, so hard to tell. That seems to be the general consensus that a lot of people on steroids. I'm always a little bit, I don't know, I'd say, be honest. I've never, I've never seen anyone take steroids. I've never taken steroids. I don't even know if that's the right term to use or like TRT, any of that. So I'm very careful to not let my naive, vete, lead me to take conclusions. But I do feel a little bit weird about the witch hunt nature of it. Some people a little bit too eagerly claim that others aren't steroids just because they're successful. But at the same time, it does seem that a lot of athletes will do whatever it takes to

be successful. Yeah, if a sport doesn't test, you got to assume most people are going to do it. And especially now, as more money comes into the sport, you got to assume more people are going to do it, you know? I generally do ADCC and does it just to test? It generally do, like, do A.G.C.C. and, like, does just to test. It's actually encouraged. What's encouraged? Oh, yes.

You get a pamphlet? Okay. They don't test. There's no test. They test to make sure we're on steroids, because obviously it's a big show for the UFC, Five Pots in the future. I don't want anyone coming in out of shape.

Very nice. Do you think using steroids in that kind of context and sports is wrong? Like, stepping away, if it's not illegal? I mean, do you think I'm speculating speaking? I like to assume everyone's on steroids and I have to feel bad about using steroids myself. Yeah Do you use all of the steroids? I'm over 30. It's D.R.D. you know that's a medical definition That's that's the medical okay Like to meet your dog.

therapeutic use, you know therapeutic right Like how do you just feel about it? I mean it is cheating for sure Whether they test for it or not. I think it is cheating. Obviously some people are gonna say off like everyone's on it I should be out of get away with it makes it even playing field You know, but it kind of becomes rush from relax because it's like if one guy's taking a small amount and the other guy But it kind of becomes Russian-relect because it's like, if one guy is taking a small amount, the other guy is taking a huge amount, he's going to reap huge rewards in the short term, probably be dead pretty early, but die a champion, mind you. You know what I mean? So it's like,

I don't know what that is. Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you think it's worthy to take health risks? I think if you're just for the glory. I think if you're 40 about to die looking at a cabinet of gold medals for wrestling other men, it's probably not gonna hit the same way on your deathbed, you know? What, sorry, in which direction? Like, is that a good thing or not?

No, you're probably gonna feel like, oh fuck, I probably wasted a bit of health on that, you know? You think so? Isn't that like the glory of it? Like you said, other men, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it might be restable woman as well.

What'd you do with Gabby on Valentine's Day? What did you take her? Did you guys? We filmed some new stuff for only fans. For only fans. We never stopped working. You can stop. So the love working. You can get into stuff. So the love of fair is also a work of fair.

Okay. I don't know. I, there's something to that me like, like Olympic gold medalist, accomplishing like the heights, the sacrificing everything, everything, the first 20, 30 years of your life for this silly little piece of metal. I don't, I think there's something beautiful to that. That's like, inspires a lot, a lot of people. And that's like the height of the human

condition in a way like what a piece of life. I'm just saying, if you're in your deathbed early in life, we all die. All men die. But not all men truly live. How many years apart? How many years you willing to shave off for a gold medal? That's a good question. How many? How many are you willing to shave off for a gold medal? What year for silver medal? For silver. I mean, for silver medal, I'd shave a few off. I think two silver's makes a gold. It's worth five years. Five to ten maybe. Shave off the bad years and haunts the good ones. You know, I mean, you've

sacrificed. You guys sacrificed a lot. A lot of your life. You continue sacrifice. You don't see the sacrifice. It's fun. I think trainings fun being a bit adamant about it. Consistent gives you. I mean, we have I think we have a great routine, great ritual.

Definitely enjoy the process. All right. Well, do you guys know this is bro science or or I'm talking bro sciences, but do you know how long steroids stay in your system forever? Oh, because it's a once you do it. The only yeah. Just the knowledge. Yeah. All right. I think it's different for each steroid, right? I think someone lost longer than others. It depends if it's a year. You would think I would do a little research

before this. Ask these questions. Why do you think most athletes and coaches don't talk about steroids? Like, why is it such a like a secret? Why is it so embarrassing? I think they probably talk about it like amongst the team and whatnot. Again, I mean, it's going to be more shady if it's like your sport is tested or not, or kind of in the wall West and the grappling world, you know. Yeah, but why don't grapple just talk about it? Because it's in its cheating. I mean, it's kind of insinuated as a bit of cheating, even if it's not like, if it's not tested, I mean, still, you're taking a person that could, you know, maybe has good jujitsu, good mechanics.

You're putting them on the leg and they're solving with a hill hook versus breaking your leg with a hill hook. You know, something as subtle as that can make, you know, big differences. All right, this is gonna make me sound dumb. But is it possible that steroids are not a huge help in grappling? I think if you're bad at jujitsu and you do steroids, you're gonna continue to be bad at jujitsu. But if you're great at gear, I'm sorry if you're great at grappling. If you're great at grappling and then you also do gear,

it's gonna enhance what you're already good at to make you much better. But like how much is the enhancement? I guess that's the question. How much is muscle valued? Like if you're doing gear and you're not changing weight that much, like maybe it helps you a little bit, but if you're gaining 50, 60 pounds of pure muscle and it's like, that's a huge

enhancement. That's another human. Does muscle, a small human, yeah? Does muscle matter and jiu-jitsu, I guess, is the question. Is it possible that it gets in the way? I say muscle matters, but technique matters more. I also think that it will help you develop technique as well, because obviously, you know, testosterone helps with recovery rate.

So if you're on gear, you're able to train a lot more. Now that being said, if you're not able to learn, obviously, it's not going to help in that aspect. But if you're somebody that knows how to learn and get good at Jiu-Jitsu, and then you add gear on top of that, you're able to do significantly more sessions throughout the week. Okay, and by the way, gears, there was...

That's right, yeah. Okay. I also think that you don't have to be as consistent in like your sleep and your food and stuff. If you're on gear, you have a little bit of leeway. But I mean, being consistent in your diet and your sleep definitely would help the process.

Since you use most steroids of any athlete ever met, do you think steroids help Jiu-Jitsu? I think obviously it helps recovery in your ability to train more, but I've seen some guys go on steroids and then suddenly they feel like the incredible Hulk and now in the training room, they just start to rely more on strength than the techniques they had and actually in some respect hinders them and makes them gas more in competition because then they're using more of the muscle they never used to have. So you've implied that you're a natural athlete. You said that.

You said that. He said that's getting like, you know, you just get to go back. Is this something you do for social media to talk, yet to Gordon, to imply that he's not a natural athlete? Well, I only pretty much recently on social media had this rebuttal, you know, saying that, you know, Gordon's on gear. And I only said that because after our match in our most recent match, the EBI rules match, he accused me of greasing, which is like,

looming up so I'm slippery during our match. So, and you did not. I did not. I was checked multiple times before and after our grappling event. And he still went out and accused me of this. So I was like, all right, I was supposed to telling a lie. I would just tell the truth about your steroid use,

which shouldn't be that big of a deal in retrospect because he kind of admitted it and whatnot previously. So it's, yeah, I just kind of felt like I had to rebuttal and I didn't do it immediately because I was like, all right, I know I have this podcast plan, so I'll wait to do it on my friend Mark Bell's podcast, you know, be a little more, get a little bit more exposure on it. And yeah, I knew he was going to bite the bait, but I didn't think he was going to, you know, bite the bait that hard. I know he's

a little stressed out about about the comment, but you know, and that was the origin of you guys going back and forth on. Well, it wasn't so much back and forth. It was just I went forth and then he kept going back, back, back. Like, I remember one of my guys, the enemy, and they were like, Gordon's made like, 68 Instagram stories and 67 of them were all about you. I was like, all right, well, I'm in his head for sure. Got us a few followers.

We appreciate that. We did. We did get followers, even shout out our, our B team, WhiteBall program. So thank you. Yeah. Okay, uh, speaking of which, uh, what's the B team? How's it run? And why is it called the B team? Well, I mean, Craig was the 18 takers. I would have been for me. B's for best.

Okay, best. All right. What does Beast stand for for you? What is the represent? What is the ideal like the, you know, Miyamoto Musashi philosophical foundation of B team? Aim low and achieve. If the bar is set low, you can't help but win. Okay. That's Nikki's philosophy with women as well. Set the bar incredibly low over a chief.

So what is the B team? How do you guys run it? Like what, yeah, I mean, can you just talk about the school? How you found it? What is it? What's it like? I mean, Ben, pretty much just a regular jujitsu gym we started as sort of a pro's only

purple bone above team. and we have me, Nicky Rod, Nicky Rod, Ethan, Damian as coaches. Am I missing someone? Oh, JB. You're memory. JB is your old age. I'm backable memory. Yeah, and we got JB coming on to teach white belts, but just your stock standard Jiu Jitsu team, we focus on more, we lean heavily towards the professional athlete side of things.

We have a lot of high level guys in there. Class structure, regular instruction, positional sparring, open rounds. But we sort of took a heavy slot on marketing side of things. We really try to blow up the YouTube channel. Obviously, we sell a lot of clothing, merchandise and stuff. So yeah, we just sort of took a modern approach to a standard Digitzi gym because I mean Digitzi gym is a full of some of the most boring human beings on earth. So we try to highlight

Don't worry, it's great, Jim Strong one Highlight the other side of things. You know keep it pretty light. Hi, it can be fun. Yeah, that you just can be fun I guess that it can be cool to you know, it's not just full of Starrated up autistic people, you know? Question from Reddit. Quote, need to hear some of the stories about droppings that led to the making of the gem of a video, the do's and don'ts of training a beat him.

Any fun stories? Anyone that stands out, do you guys remember any? Police involved ever? We had a guy come and we had to kick him out. He was stalking two of the members. Yeah, well, I mean, that's just crazy people. You know, like, I portray a pretty insane image online, and I guess I am that a lot of the time, but I'd training, try to keep it.

While training, around training, I'm insulting everyone, but while training, I try to keep it pretty serious. But obviously, the image I portray, it lures in some of the crazier members. image of a trade, Lewis in some of the crazy members. I mean, like the thing is about the Jimmy Guy's run is really professional, it's like friendly, it's like the light harder joking is there, obviously, the shit talking all that kind of stuff, but it's a pretty safe environment. Yeah, but the public persona might attract some maniacs. Yeah.

I want to say which places I've trained at, but it's obviously some places you walk into the room and it's very, very serious. There's no smiles around. Obviously it's probably average training in Russia, but no smiles, very serious environment. You know what I mean? And I definitely don't like that.

I don't want to show up to training. You'd be walking on eggshells. Not knowing who other coaches moods like that day. I want to go and have a good time, keep it light-hearted. What was in the video? What are the do's and don'ts? Because like the address is public. Like anyone can show up. Anyone can show up. Yeah, what were the do's and don'ts? Does anyone challenge you like to fight? No, yeah. No, yeah. I mean, probably from other terms in town, they probably, that's probably coming down the line, but do some don'ts.

I'm all in on that. I would be excited as a fan to just watch. I love the drama. Not the drama, no, no. Well, a little drama, a little drama, boys and is good, but ultimately the best grapplers in the world kind of going at it, Yeah, that's fun. Cause I may maybe I'm wrong, but I think there is an underlying deep

camaraderie at the end of the day, when you're like at the top of the world. And you're like in the same town. What could possibly go wrong? It's like a shitty Western, but like an epic Western will like, like, like the good, the bad and ugly. Of course, I love it. I'm here just eating popcorn like that. Staring the pot. I'm not staying the bottom. These questions are from Reddit.

But that one for sure. Yeah, I mean, what could we go wrong if you're the world's best grappler hates you and you're gently provoking and bond the scenes every day? Well, I mean, for sure in Texas. And you stolen his brother held a forensic. Yeah, it's like a story of a shitty Western, I think.

You know, a lot white belts to train with you. What's the like to open it up to a bigger audience? We haven't opened it up yet, but it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I feel like your high belts, they really understand what the training room is. You know, to me, Whitebelts early, they're trying to find their place in the gym, could be kind of awkward and stuff in that environment. So I think obviously those Whitebelts coming in, we'll change the dynamic, but the Whitebelts will have a separate Whitebelts class as obviously for them,

because given it such a high level gym, it'd be tough for a beginner to be out of Enter the more advanced classes, obviously, where teaching more advanced techniques. So yeah, we've separated a Why about program I believe 6 p.m. On that of Friday. Yeah, maybe we'll have a Saturday one as well But it would be interesting to see how it goes. We're trying to do things different, you know like Trying to do your traditional judicity gyms. Jim's obviously not gonna teach beginners wrestling at all. We're trying to split it at least 33% top game, bottom game and wrestling. So at least create more well-rounded athletes from day one,

whereas I feel like most traditional judicis, Jim's might have no gui once a week. They don't touch wrestling, very IBGF heavy techniques, but again, the sport's changing for sure. Just to take that on, how does it begin to get good at judicis, like given the you're starting this way, but what's your philosophy on that? Obviously, buy all of my instructions at full price,

not doing a sale. Okay. That would go a long way. For those of you who are Russian, I'll send you instructions for all the forms so you know, how to steal it. Yeah, I'll share it. I bought them all, so I'll just send it to you for free.

We do have the Maca-Chef 50 discount code, you know, offering discounts to help him out for the rematch. I got the nice. Well, I got 100% discount for you. If you need it, but that's like your instructional, are both hilarious and brilliant. And it's one of the most respected instructionals. Oh, thank you. There would incredibly great names. Yeah, it probably loses me, Salis. Honestly, due to removing the seriousness of the screen.

I'll tell you what, I think it's going to kind of suck. It's going to be some funny gimmicky thing. Oh, I mean, somebody will don't even know if it's a real product. That's a big hurdle after I've come to see it. And I like, is that a real thing? That's a problem. But how does the wipeout get good?

I think they just have to show up, just have to put in the effort, try to focus on using techniques and training rather than just fighting to the death. Although that is entertaining for us to watch, too, wipe out the fights of the death. Yeah, but what are the techniques you should focus on? What's the process? What does it mean to show up? How much drilling, all that kind of stuff? If you were to optimize the first six months of a beginner, there's the process? What does it mean to show up? Like how much drilling, all that kind of stuff. Like, well, if you were to optimize the first six months of a beginner, there's a lot of people who would listen to this and haven't tried it, been curious.

I have a lot of friends who haven't, who are like, you're just so curious. They're constantly looking for an excuse to start. I think it's just gotta be as simple as possible. You know, like we should mutation more advanced movements. I mean, obviously in the Grand Schema things, there's highly advanced techniques and then there's slightly advanced. And I think trying to teach those guys real specific positions even like real specific types of guard is just beyond

them. I think the best way to learn is through problem solving. And I think if you show the technique before they discover that problem, the learning is sort of held back. So I like the idea of using kid style games to show them a problem and then use the techniques to fix the problems they've just discovered. I think that's the best way to learn. Can you give an example of a problem to show them before you give them the techniques? Like what are we talking about? All right, so say you wanted to teach posture and wrestling. You could create a game where one guy, the game might be get to a leg or get to two legs, control the leg, like super simple, but the rules, the constraint would be one guy is

forced to keep our pride posture and one guy is forced, will not force, but he's allowed to keep a bent at the hips, lower posture. And obviously within that constraint, the guy with the better posture is going to have more success. He's going to have a better posture to secure a leg or secure both legs. And therefore you've demonstrated the flaws of bad posture without having to explain it to him before they really tested that out.

Okay. And then the result of that, you would realize that the bent over posture is better. Yeah, you have that, aha, moment, rather than just being, having a spoken to you. You wrote Craig, I'm a big fan of constraint-based learning, I guess, was just what you're talking about. I love presenting beginners with a problem

before the solution, like here, attempt to hold side control with no cues on on how then I see how the guy got out and addressed issue by issue cross face and hip control and so on. Okay, so what are some other examples like side control? Yeah, that would be excellent one side control like teach it like obviously we say you secure a cross face so they can't turn into you much easier to have them try to hold someone down with that explaining what a cross face is and then use that technique to address the problem they've just encountered. So I think you could do that with a lot of areas of jiu-jitsu, like even more advanced, say 50-50, obviously a mirrored position where you both have access to each other's heels.

Most people will still add in that position and keep their feet crossed. I think a great constraint for both of them, you can't cross your feet. Now you have to learn how to slip the heel hook when they expose it and how to safely re-attack of your own. So the constraint is you can't be too defensive in that position. And I think the rate of learning increases. Why do you think the rate of learning increases? Why do you think that works? Because you can count a more problem. Say in that situation, they're going to get you heal a lot more in whatever period of time you allocate the drill for than if the legs across. I don't think the hard part splitting the legs to get to the submission. I think the hard parts practicing control while they're trying to slip it at a later stage and then obviously trying to

slip your heel when you're in more danger. it makes you more comfortable in that position. If you used to doing it with open legs. Yeah, I think that probably that style of teaching forces people to focus on this is so easy to fall into focusing on like memorizing a particular details of a technique without thinking like why the hell does this even work? And if you don't have that, you get to focus on like, from like, it's cliche as it sounds, from first principles, like why the hell, how the hell do I get out of this? Like why does this even work? Why does the rest of the work?

Why do you have a bent over posture? You get those like, start to ask those kinds of questions. Which is kind of interesting, because it's not obvious to me that bent over posture is the right posture for Jiu-jitsu, right? I'm confused actually about that. I don't know. About the correct posture?

Yeah, for jiu-jitsu. Like what's the right answer? I think bent over posture is still good for jiu-jitsu. Even with the judo and all that. Like why are so many jiu-jitsu people like at a high level, the posture is higher up? Well, I think wrestling posture is just a bit too low because it's not necessary, right? If wrestlers are like low enough to the ground where your hands could touch them at.

But in Gid too, you know, it's a, it's kind of a mix between like wrestling and like, judo or, or Greco Roman wrestling. So, um, I think it's just a bit more, more relaxed than it's, it's bent over, but it's not upright, and it's also not super low. A bit more more relaxed and it's bent over but it's not upright and it's also not super low. A bit more room for air at two because obviously the Giu Tzu guys shot. It's not going to be as athletic as quick as the rest of the shoes. So it actually comes down to the fact that Giu Tzu people just on average even at the top level are not good at shooting.

I think so. I think obviously, I mean, all the rest is in American stuff. They're starting super early, super young, you know what I mean? They've, by the time they get to the same age, we are really in hospital and stuff, they've spent much longer doing the actual sport and the average, jujitsu go. And then there's another level of wrestling, of course,

with the Soviet block. That's just unachievable for your kind. Who knew, and a Australian rugby. Yeah, I fool my rugby player. Rugby is that kind of American football, much less money, is that what that is? Much less money, much tougher, I would say. But who knew that the Cueaua to the Dagestani wrestling what the Aussies?

What the Aussies? Okay, let's go there. The, your friend, your training partner, Alexander Volkanozki, you helped him prepare for the Islam Makachev versus Volkanozki fight. Who do you think first of all won that fight? That's a tricky one. How is that the tricky question? I will say when I was a shit-talkie-bendur, how is that the tricky question?

When I was in the corner going into the fifth, I personally believed live that Volkanovsky probably needed a finish to take the victory. But you have to think that way, right? In general, or you like legitimately... It's a gray area because the judging who knows plus I was like where we're in Australia was this bias, you know, because some Australian judges here I was really hoping we get a bias on that and unfortunately not hopefully they lose their jobs, but Again, yeah, it was it was a close. Why I think sometimes you're blinded in the moment because again Everyone counted Volcanoeski out the crowds behind him, so everything he does is going to get a huge cheer. You bias towards the smaller guy, you bias towards

the underdog, so you sort of whatever the underdog does has a bigger impact in your mind and sometimes that can bias as the fight goes along. But yeah, super, super close fire. I would really love them to have a rematch. Uh, obviously that's going to hold up both the visions. So I don't know if they'll be able to do it. Do you think they'll do a rematch soon? I mean, that was an epic fight. I was listening to the fight companion during that.

They will thought of all the so they biased strongly the the opinion. Round two was the the tricky one. Yeah. Round two is the tricky one. Anyway, I'd love to see that like, run it back and do three actually. There's an epic fight. What was the brief conversation you had with Islam market Joe and his team? I didn't know how he would take the joke because obviously he could be tried to flying Eagle kick Dylan Dennis in the face. So I wasn't sure how my humor would go.

But I mean Dylan must have said some worst things to me. I was just playing around I mean you can't really take anything I say serious come across like an idiot But so when he was coming up to me afterwards. I was like, oh, I don't know what he's gonna say and again He maybe he would have been more upset if he had lost but he just received the judges decision Yeah, but he came up I went to check you see and he gave me a big hug and then pretended to throw me Mm-hmm And then I thought the interaction was over and then he circled back. That's why I was so awkward. I was like, oh, he's coming back. He wants to say,

he wants to help the nurse, but he just said, why didn't you teach your boy how to escape the body triangle? Oh, wow. Interesting. What did you say to that? I said, well, I mean, obviously you've got to learn how to finish a reenacted choke. Is that what you said? No, I didn't say it. No, I was just laughing. But then they all should have sat that would like get out of it before the Aussie crowd attacks you know. What do you think about the body trying to position that we're in? It seemed like for the first

time, it seemed as almost like Valk was. Yeah, it did dominant in that position, which is kind of weird. I mean, damage is meant to trump control. MMA judging. Damage is the number one factor. Do you think the judges saw that? What do they score that as? I think they all scored four towards Islam. Yeah. Three and five, two of the judges scored towards Valks. One of the judges scored three for Islam. One of the, it was 49, 46 for one of them. And the other ones were 48, 47.

I think the, again, the confusion around was around too. I don't think anyone scored the buddy triangle around for Valkz, which I wish they had. Valkonowski was and still arguably pumped for Pong greatest fighter in the world. How long have you known him? I don't know the first time. I met him before he was in the UFC when I used to live in Melbourne. He came down to train it absolute. Yeah. And then we really connected on Ultima Fighter. He, one of his guys, he was going to bring

to Ultima Fighter, Bradford L pulled out last second. So he called me when I was in Puerto Rico, and he's like, do you want to coach on tough for five weeks? And like I said, Puerto Rico was apocalypse now. I was like, yeah, get me out of here. So I jumped on that opportunity, and we were in Vegas five weeks together. Because he was meant to fight or take, and then he got hit with COVID real bad

Got stuck in I think he was in hospital for maybe once or two weeks and then before he flew back to Australia They'll like all right. Maybe we just do you guys as the auto my fighter coach So I jumped on board with that and that's really when we become close Yeah, obviously I was useful in the or take a fight. I hope I'm get out of submissions That's really when we become close. Obviously I was useful in the Otago fight, I hope I get out of submissions. He fought in Korean zombie max hallway. I basically just held the bucket at that point

in the corner, couple striking fights. And then again, yeah, we had to tackle the Islam problem. So I did spend five to six weeks down there preparing for that. How did you tackle the Islam problem? How do I tackle? You, somebody who barely knows anything about wrestling, having to help.

Obviously, it doesn't take much, you know? Especially wrestling. Did the beard help? Or like what? In all seriousness, what were some of the key ideas that you worked on with Volkanowski to prepare for it? I had the help of Frank Hickman. Hickman was down there too.

One of the Hickman brothers resting coach. So we was sort of like problem solving. And I mean, basically we were confident in Volkes fence wrestling. His cage work. He's super good on the cage, super like under respected in that position. And we knew that if you're able to take the scrambles to the cage, he would be effective against Islam.

Because again, Islam is background of Sanba, freestyle wrestling, but I mean, you that if you were able to take the scrambles to the cage, he would be effective against Islam. Because, again, Islam is background of Sanbo freestyle wrestling, but I mean, honestly, he's probably got the same experience on the cage as Volkes. Obviously, some of those wrestling skills will translate very well to the cage, but the cage is still somewhat of a gray area and equalizer. And Volkes, again, incredible ability to stand up, incredible defense on the cage, which you saw. We worked on strategies to get up and a ton of submission defense. Islam loves Camuras, obviously reenaking from the back, Ambaz, those are sort of, and I'm trying to go dominant submissions.

But again, the guys he submitted, not grapplers. Apart from Charles Olivera, and again, Charles Olivera was basically knocked out at that point, so I was still impressed if he submitted him. But again, I always told people this, they thought it was crazy. I was like, Charles Olivera versus Islam at a grappling match. Olivera is going to win that match. Like submission grappling. Submission grappling, yeah.

So if you're grappling skill set, I think Olivera is a more dangerous grappler. So we didn't even come into it thinking Islam is this unstoppable, boogie man that people make him out to be. So we approach her from that, just focused on the techniques, ability to get back up, using turtle to get back up, using turtle to scoot to the cage to get back up and handfighting from there, keeping it pretty safe. But what makes Valks so special, I think, is his gas tank,

gas tank and his willpower. He's just unbreakable. The Dagestani guys could be Islam, they are good at submissions, but they break guys mentally and they fatigue him and then they take the submission that's offered. All of eras are guys that can jump on submissions and have an incredible technical ability to finish those submissions, whether you're fresh or you're tired. And then you combine that with Volkonosky, who incredible willpower never gets tired. You're never gonna break him. And as you saw, he only attempted one submission the whole fire. Is that learned? Is that trained? Are you just born with that mental toughness?

It's a good question. I mean, he's like an anomaly. Like the entire fight camp, not nervous at all, supremely confident, the whole fight wake, completely confident. He just has an attitude like, oh, everyone cast me out, we'll see. You know what I mean? Islam, he's like, let's see. No doubt.

No doubt, Adel, super relax. Up until about five minutes before, and then he starts stamping himself up, he's like, you are not taking this bell from my family, he gets into that sort of mindset. He's like, you are not taking this bell from my family. He gets into that sort of mindset. He actually says that out loud. You can't teach that survival.

He didn't even take a fight, you know? Like you guys ever been like pushed to the limit like that or broken in a grappling match? I'll do it in practice. Like I'll push myself to like, I don't think my pass out or die or something. As far as how tired you get. In a match, they try not to ever get close to that in a match.

It's important to understand where your exhaustion point is. If you have to push to that limit, a match, you're probably doing something wrong. You know, like if you, like you see in matches where guys sprint the last like minute, they try to win the match in the last minute, and it's like, you definitely had some mistakes leading up to that if you have to, you know, go and go bowl so well. Okay, but has there been ever times in competition, especially like early on, because you're like, you wrestled pretty hard and wrestling is pretty exhausting Like not wrestling, but you know wrestling style kind of thing going against the best people in the world Yeah, I mean, I definitely again, I think I think in practice is important to

Do that hard work that where competition is is much easier You know, I think if you if you read line in practice and you really pushed it like death store You know, I think if you red line in practice and you really push through like death store, then once you're in competition and you're working with, you know, you're being fresh in a comp of it, it's much better. Have you ever been to that thing where Dan Gable talks about always wanting to be to a place where you can't get off the mat? Like you work so hard in the training room you can't get off the mat. I think he says he's failed at that in his career.

He was always able to at least crawl off the mat. Yeah, I definitely never actually died on the mat. I felt like I was gonna die, you know? Sure. Sure. What about you, Duke, what all the time? I get a lot cramp. I'm like, you know what, you got me, my,

let's do this against him. Let's sit. Good, if I'm X and Craig for a role, he's in the bathroom somewhere. Do you see the value of pushing yourself to that place where you're knocking on death story? Yeah, but within safety, because obviously the most serious injuries occur when you're tired of training and stuff like that.

So I think like taking a page out of what those MMA fighters do, especially Valks with his training, he's not necessarily pushing crazy in each round, but he's doing extra conditioning, assault, black stuff, crazy workouts outside. And he does do some crazy training workouts, but all safe, very safe. Like, when he's redlining like that in the training room, it's a very controlled safe setting.

I think to do that in Jiu-Jitsu, against some of these lunatics out there that are trying to kill you, especially when you have a name, can be dangerous. So, your approach to Jiu-Jitsu is don't warm up and don't try too hard for safety. No, for safety. Long Jevite, you know. And talk shit about Russians. I got it.

I hear you. Oh, you mentioned cage work. What's interesting to you that you learned over all this time about cage work? What's like, what's interesting about the dynamics of that? Are you talking about both like the control in the dominant position, but also getting up from the bottom while you're at the Guest of Cage, all of that. The added dimension of that cage, that wool being there changes a lot lot of stuff right. So obviously in some ways, it's a much lower impact wrestling style because you can't be spiraled on. You can shoot, the cage is gonna block their feet,

you're gonna be able to chase down their hips, it's just a completely different fight. And again, because of Islam's judo skills, that upper body controls you see he's able to use against the cage, like the inside trips, sort of the Uchimata style, her I go she throws. So obviously those skills do translate, but yeah, I think the cage is a great equalizer

for a lot of things like athleticism and stuff. It takes away a huge speed advantage, or aspects of the fight. So he's really good at standing up. What is there, I assume he learned all of that from you and your instructional just stand up. Of you know, I mean, we were so confident, I was like, you know, what why don't we put this thing out a month before the fun? Yeah, maybe the illegal download hasn't made its way to Russia yet, but it was there for him Can you can you explain to me what's in the instructional just stand up like what what are the ideas?

What do you I mean the old school way to stand up people talk about the technical get up, you know, the old Gracie put the hand, but I mean, that's, that doesn't work for 20 years, you know, if you look at everyone that gets up at MMA, they're using turtle to get up, they're using wrestling to get up, you know what I mean? Yeah. Which is counter to what Puea Jiu-Jitsu says,

they say don't expose the back, don't ever expose your back. I think Jiu-Jitsu is a terrible way to get back to the feet, because if you were to retain God and go half God or close God, super-hot positions to get up. You're basically putting yourself in a leg tuck for wrestling. So I think you need a borrow from wrestling to learn how to get up in an MMA fire.

So basically how to safely expose your own back while not allowing them to get hooks and use that to get back up, or at least not allow them to get two hooks. And that applies for MMA especially. For MMA especially because obviously striking is a factor but if they are striking they don't have a lot of cancer on your body means you are able to move. You are able to make an attempt to get back up that to choose between control, submission

or strikes. Post from Reddit, why does Craig Jones push so hard for a bottom is bad jiu jitsu. What is so bad about playing bottom guard such as half guard or deli? Those are the two options. No one likes a bottom. Why would I want to get up? It's the question for all of you. Is the bottom of bad place to be? I mean, the bottom's bad if you don't want that gone top here. That's why I look at it, you know? That sounds like something a cowboy would say,

but I don't know if that's much meaning. I think the point of Jiu-Jitsu is both are dangerous being on bottom and on top. I think the longer the match is probably the favorite top guy more, just because every movement the bottom guy makes is probably carrying your weight, carrying that gravity on top of you.

So I think it's a bit more efficient passing from the top as opposed to sweeping from bottom. Bottom's reactive. Top is active. The top play decides how to engage, how to approach the guard that can use angles, that can use footwork, that can throw people, throw the legs by.

So it's an active position. Bottom's reactive. Reactive, you're going to get fatigued. Yeah, I think it's very difficult to gas somebody out while playing guard, but I think it's very easy to gas somebody out when attempting to pass it. Well, you guys are talking about gasing people out, but is there more dangers from the bottom, like in terms of submissions and all that kind of stuff for now? I'm back and forth because I'm a top player, but I understand the value of being on bottom.

Like when I do play guard, bottom, I feel like the submissions come much easier. And when I'm on top, they come also pretty easy, but maybe I just take a different route. Top on cobwears, talk to bugs, you say. Top on the streets, put them in the shade, that's not really the only one. What was the hardest part of the training for the training camp for Volkanowski? Like you're just experiencing world-class MMA fighters training and giving your approach to Gisiuza

of not trying to harden no matter what. Yeah, yeah. I mean, from my perspective, there's a lot of pressure for that. You know, like, that's a, that's a lot of pressure for me to go in and think that I could possibly figure out a way to help this guy address this guy that's basically never been beaten. I think he got knocked out once, but basically not really even been put in bad positions. You know what I mean?

That's a lot of pressure on me, especially because Vokinossi is such a great guy. Yeah. Jiu-Jitsu is different. You know, like, you coach a guy lot of pressure on me, especially because Vulcanos is such a great guy. Yeah. Jiu-Jitsu is different, you know, like, you coach a guy who loses, he has time to tap, but in every make it gets severely hurt. Yeah. There's a lot more weight in what you need to do as a coach. You have a greater sense of responsibility to their health and well-being, you know, like, obviously, I know folks, kids, I know his wife, you know what I mean, they're putting faith

in you. They're not just win the fight, but keep this man safe. So from my perspective, a hell of a lot more pressure coaching him as an MMA fighter. So almost like the psychological aspect of like, I'm doing the best you can for him. Exactly, yeah, yeah. What was the hardest about the actual training? Was it the technical aspect of trying to figure out the puzzle of Islam or was it like being a good training partner in the, in the, like,

in figuring out how the grappling would work, basically playing your best impression in my coach. Were you trying to actually impersonate him? Like not, not just visually, but like in style. Yeah, definitely, definitely visually. You're not as good looking but go ahead. A little doula but no, in terms of the training, yeah, I mean, Islam is known as incredibly strong guys. Obviously, I'm heavier than Islam. So theoretically, I should be able to replicate that strength

difference. And then in terms of grappling, targeting those submissions that Islam does, like focusing on those in the training room, focusing on the way he holds half-guard, and really, in the grappling sense, trying to replicate him on the ground, and then yeah, I wrestle with him on the wool a ton, trying to replicate, obviously, to the best of my ability, a lot of the stuff he does on the wool. Body look heavy, inside trip, Uchi matters, and just constantly put in the work on folks You know what I mean like constantly chaining attacks against him Really replicating as he's trying to get up and escape and all that kind of stuff

So this submission like both judo and submissions just attacking attacking exactly It's not so much you can do really because obviously he's been I think he's been fighting a long time So it's like you were trying to polish what he already is good at. You can't just completely create and tiling your game for him in the space of six weeks. So you're trying to take what he's already effective at, add to it. And luckily a lot of the stuff he's already very good at was easy to add to for the fight. Question from Reddit. I'm very curious why other MMA fighters don't employ high profile grapplers from B team and New Wave to improve their grappling. This from this subreddit. By now it's clear that they are levels above almost everyone in MMA simply because fighters

there don't specialize in grappling but it doesn't seem like fighters, even champions get training partners from the most successful teams. Why is that the case? From your experience, why doesn't it could be call you? You might now. Put in a good word for me. Oh, I will. That's right. He takes a joke pretty well. Yeah. No, no, you'll be walking with open arms.

I think your average juicy coach, MMA fighters have bad experience with juicy guys. Juicy doesn't have a massive play, so MMA obviously rounds, stand-ups, it's hard to submit people. Your average is presumably juicy black belt, doesn't know anything about holding a guy down, doesn't know anything about how to stand up. So I think if you overly utilize that jujitsu guy that hasn't had experience in more modern no-gui or training MMA fighters previously, it's going to be a complete waste of time to them.

I think they're smart enough to realize that. Do you have, and do you guys, do you have interest in MMA at all? Just not even like, well, certainly just competing yourself, but like just understanding the puzzle of MMA Yeah, I mean, I've been a fan of mixed martial arts, you know for a very long time before I trained Jits Personally, I personally I'm much rather coach than fight, but I mean I fight somebody for you know a good check And I get the picked opponent and I have a proper cab Okay for a good check and I get to pick the opponent, have a proper cab. Okay. I could think of a good online.

What's that? All right. Who do you think is the greatest MMA fighter of all time? Craig, I'm going to start with you. Just as a fan of the sport, is somebody's been deep in it. And me, from my perspective, after that performance, I'm going to say Volkhenowski, because he was able to decisively outstrike Max Holloway, one of the greatest strikers in the sport,

and he was able to hang with the wrestling of Islam, Akachev, and in terms of Ortega, he was able to survive Ortega, who has some of the most dangerous submissions in Jiu Jitsu. So I think, in my opinion, technically, he's the best. So I think in my opinion, technically he's the best. So even though he technically lost, he's still, he still has a crown. I believe so. He's given the size difference,

given he's moving up and weight. Yeah. I think all those factors really. The underdog, everything, the pressure. Did you think he would be able to hang in any arresting exchanges with Islam? No, no, no, I was really surprised. That's why my eyes, like, it's kind of funny, like, winning at the end of the day, I feel

like judges influence that. Although I did think Australian judges would rob the other way, but I was assuming they kind of, somebody paid somebody and not enough maybe, but, but in general, I just thought he won sort of in the eyes of what martial art stands for like sort of going to the fire and survive and thrive and finish the last round strong Which is kind of like spiritually is what a victory is so I wish we kept going like Yeah, exactly that kind of thing What about you? What do you think? Like who are the fighters you admire? Like who do you think is the greatest of all time?

I think the fight I pay most attention to was John Jones. You know, he has a great ability just to mix the the high level striking high level grappling Although his you know, Jiu Jitsu by itself isn't, you know, probably isn't like, you know, super high level But his ability to mix everything together. I would say he's the best. And he's a fellow, you know, heavier guy, heavyweight now. So it's nice to see, you know, how those guys move at that weight. And a fellow natural athlete. Yeah, I did there. All right. What about Yogi Nikki? Yeah, if I had to pick a goat, I'd probably have to say Kabib, just because he was undefeated.

And he had a very high finishing rate. And very few of his fights actually went to a decision. So overall, he dominated almost every single opponent he won against. The dominance. I mean, we've been joking about it. But Craig, what do you think makes the Dugest Dining Fighter so good? Like from this small region of the world, so much dominance has come.

I mean, obviously the amount of freestyle wrestling champions from that region probably puts their wrestling above and beyond the best in all of MMA. And obviously, even in Olympics, a lot of champions out of there, right? So I think that skill set combines with them adding effective pin controls on the ground and you did some submissions. But again, I think it's that hard training.

Those guys, like you'd be, would maintain that pressure throughout the entire fight and break guys down their ability to fatigue guys to a breaking point. I think it's something they do Best I wonder what that is. Is that technique? What is that? What is it about their upbringing? Because is that just that part of the world? Well with the satire brothers with for the freestyle wrestling side to all the mixed martial arts people like they it must be part of the

The culture also they must be part of the culture also. There must be doing something. I don't think I haven't seen a convincing explanation of why yet of what specific about their training, what specific about their culture, they're crazy. OK, what do you think about the flip side? Do you admire somebody like Conor McGregor who knows how to create a spectacle? You Craig who likes spectacles? Spectacles. Yeah, I mean, I really admire early Conor McGregor because I found him absolutely hilarious.

You know, like I felt like that was peak Banta. I feel like he just took the American World by storm.ie, British, Irish, Kiwis. I believe we have a way better level of banter and attacking each other and it's almost too easy to pick on Americans that take themselves very seriously. I mean, I'll keep leaving on the parts of the world, too, the fire east of Europe, you know. Well, that's the tricky thing with Connor. I think he was, I feel like you could have gotten the same kind of trouble because the Russians really took everything very seriously. They weren't joking around. Yeah, that's the problem. It's like it's a bit of, I mean, some things he definitely takes too far.

You know, I felt like early on, he had the right balance where he wouldn't really cross the line, but he would do. He would do enough. He just took it to another level, obviously later in his career. But I think early on, good day, Anderson Banser. It gets a lot of eyes on the sport though. It's probably by far the most popular combat athlete of all time, because of that. Yeah. I feel like you have to cross the line.

I don't think enough people appreciate like the values he's brought by cross the line. He's making a sacrifice cross the line. That's gonna affect him for the rest of his life, you know? I see, I don't think so. I think I always walk back. Because I think unlike my people who might disagree with us, I, well, yeah, I thought he always radiated a respect

for the opponent like afterwards and underneath it. It felt like the same way you do. When I hear you shit talking I don't see a person who really means it I See a person who's having fun with it. I always talk kind of a grug of the same way I don't know and then but people took it like extremely seriously But I saw the respect like the common respect the martial artists have for each other that felt like it was always there If you don't like that individual

You're gonna perceive perceive what they say more negatively than if you obviously were. So I feel like if you like someone, you're gonna never think they really crossed the line. That's true. So you're saying I like you. That's what I'm perceiving. You're bullshit in a part of life.

Is there people that hate you? You get to be a good one. I mean, some of the family members are just hateful. That's for our students. People that are really getting to know you all hate you. The fans love me, the friends hate me. It's a good place to be.

Keep your enemies close. All right. What do you think is the most important muscle for you, Justice and Biceps? No, I think a strong, I think a strong back. I think back one core second and then biceps. Okay, biceps. Cool.

Do you legitimately think like weightlifting helps Jitsu? It's kind of the discussion on the steroids. It's like the muscle mass and strength and power and explosive and all that. I think sometimes when we're at that upper echelon of competition, there's only, there's like little minute battles that you have to win. And if you're, if you're relatively close and technique, then a lot of times a stronger opponent pulls it out. But it could be also just the limitation, right?

You hold position too long. What about for hobbyists? Do you recommend with lifting like when you see people in gym. I always recommend weightlifting. I almost see muscle as the body's armor, right? The more armor you have, the more damage you can kind of take and, you know, maybe recoveries a little bit better. Um, and I've always seen weightlifting as it means to stick to my routine. Like if there's no point in lifting if you're not eating right and you're not sleeping, right? So if you're kind of put it all

together, then it's, it's beneficial. What about you eating right and you're not sleeping right so if you kind of put it all together then it's it's beneficial What about you guys you go do you go to the gym? I go to the gym. Yeah Do you go like live at a club gym so you're in the liptical and that butt machine or yeah, I focus on the glutes heavily all right What about like what about the injury prevention so on? What about like what about the injury prevention so on how do you train to minimize the risk of injury you guys have all been pretty beat up you got in a major injury with the ACL yeah also how do you train to minimize injury probably not there I got a Oscar yeah definitely can you talk through your injury like what happened yeah so about one week prior to this last ADCC, I was wrestling with this guy named Kenta, who is also competing. And I went to go lift him from like a rear body lock and he hooked the outside of my leg. And we just felt something pop, you know, he felt a shift with his leg. And when it first happened, it hurt for like the first 30 seconds.

And then I honestly debated. I was like, maybe it was just some freak thing. I was like, I literally thought about continuing the session. Then the next day, I woke up and it was like super sore. I was limping around, couldn't do a full squat. So it pretty much killed all of my training for the entire week leading up to the event. So I couldn't train or anything, messed up the cut. Obviously there's added nerves with that too.

You know, when you're not in the gym every day, leading up to the competition. I went out there, I wasn't really able to pull guard because I couldn't get, you know, full heel to buck connection, which is inevitable with playing guard. And I was very hesitant to shoot as well. So I came out with the idea of just trying to use hand fighting

to tie my first opponent out and then mainly looked to get to underhooks or overhooks and do mostly upper body wrestling. In the beginning of the match, I successfully got to an underhook, I got to rear body lock, he tried to roll and I ended up in top position inside control, but it was during the no points period. And then as the match went on, I gasped out and eventually

he ended up taking me down and then scoring with two hooks on the back. So what's the injury? Yes, so I got an MRI actually after the event. You waited until after the event? Yeah, You waited until after the event. Yeah, I waited until after the event. It was like acknowledged or ignores his bliss. Yeah, exactly. As I said, I don't even want to know what's wrong.

I was like, I just go out there compete. I knew it was like the biggest event to date. And I really wanted to do it. Think about not doing it. It definitely was a thought in my head, especially that the day after, you know, it's always the worst day whenever you have like a series injuries the day after. And I was like, man, I really can't do a full squad. I was like, I don't even know how I'm going to be able to do this.

It got a bit better over as the week went on. But I was like, man, I have to go out there and compete. I was like, it'll always be in the back of my mind. Like, what if if I ended up pulling out? What did you think about this whole? I thought it was just me and a pussy. Yeah. Just slapping around.

Just yell at him. It was like that. I don't think we pressured you. We just say you make your own decision, right? We just like, yeah. Is that tricky thing to do? Like with a heavily, like a serious injury like this? Yeah, well, we didn't know that was the thing. We didn't know.

Honestly, initially, I thought it was, I tore my lateral moniscus, but that ended up not being the case, ended up being a full ACL tear. It was actually super surprised when I got the MRI results. So yeah, we didn't know how bad it actually was. What do you think of all that situation? I think Nikki's a tough kid. And I mean, when you're so close to that competition, you know, there's not many, you don't get many opportunities like that to compete in front of, you know, 15,000 people. It's like, I, you know,

props to you for pushing through it and getting it. And man, he had a close match with one of the best grapplers in his way, classes, like, you, like a few adjustments here and there, and especially if he was able to train previously leading up to that match, I think that he pulls it out. So some of the things you mentioned, nerves, there's action nerves just because you're under-prepared. Yeah, I mean, you know, feeling under-prepared. You want to go into a competition with, you know, the confidence I did everything that I could leading up to this vent, I trained as much as I could. And then when an injury prevents that you start to doubt yourself more.

How do you guys think about injury? How do you train, you know, training with the best in the world, training to be the best in the world and avoiding injury? As you've gotten you tore your bicep. Yeah, yeah, tore bicep. Yeah, girls are. Dude, honestly, I was a body building, you know, for like seven years. And no lie, I did a train in bicep for like most days, like almost every day in the seven years. Pretty much I injured myself.

That's so jersey man. Anything else? Well just the bicep. Just, I mean, no. Yeah, injure the bicep. Pretty much the day before a wrestling practice, I had like a killer arm day. And by arm day, I just mean training biceps, very rigorously getting a sick pump.

And I go to wrestling practice the next day, you know, pretty late. I should have been there. I think in a proper warm up in. And the first thing I do is I shake hands and I go to shoot a single egg and boom, I just blew my arm out. The first movement I did. So just not being warmed up properly. In addition to having a very vigorous, arm day fuel, I was prior. You hear that, but warm up. So like, what are some lessons about avoiding injury? Training it. I would say number one is warming up properly. Make sure your body is hot before you do hot stuff.

Okay. And what does warm up look like for you? I said, Jiu Jitsu or Naji Jitsu stuff? Yeah, just for a warm up in general, I'll do something like a, if I'm talking competition, something like a jog walk back and forth few times, then a sprint jog, a few times to get that heart rate up and down. And then I'll grab a partner. I actually just filmed a DVD or instructional,

specifically on the pre-match ritual. In addition to that, I'll grab a partner, I'll drill some movements. Typically I'll drill some bad things. I'll start from bottom, bottom, bottom side control workout from there. And pretty much like 20 minutes in, I'm hot and I'm ready to go for, you know, rounds.

Well, what about you, Greg? So what, uh, what's, what's the way to have went injury? What's the worst injury you've had? What's the worst injury? I don't even know. I'm pretty good, pretty healthy. Whenever you, whenever you quit and practice something, I have some mentally heavy, heavy, as your heart ever been broken? Not many times many times but There's a thing I notice people to spend the most time warming up off of the most engine It's a strong correlation

You can't argue with science. I remember you're right training with all of the tests all of the tests would have a 60 minute warmup. Yeah. Surprise, surprise, always injured. Yeah. Very common. Yeah. I find that very common training room. No, I think people, it's how they train. Like if you like me, first sign of discomfort, back pedal, you know, push through that stuff, go to hard, go when you're too tired, you know, that mean get to emotional in the role. I feel like those are the times that I've been hurt where I just like, oh, a connoisseur got me. When

I have that attitude and try, I believe it's how you train and sort of obviously. So what is this come from? You look positionally too, like because you're training against some killers. I mean, you're training, you're training with him and going probably pretty hard. Well, some of the time. I'm pretty tired. He's like, yeah, I'm good for today. Once a month, Nicky, you're right. That's it. And then you quit like 30 seconds in. Just say, yeah, you know, you gotta be safe, you know.

I like it. What about you? What have you learned from the ACL? What? What? Rehab, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely without.

I'll see you having been like. I didn't get surgery. I didn't do essentially. I just have no haven't been like I didn't get surgery I didn't do essentially entry-hab I just have no ACL my left leg. So what's the like having no surgery guys you've got two options. Sedgary rehab only Nikki goes all do nothing. Definitely should pick up on the rehab. What's what's rehab for that look like like twice a day of doing some weird on the rehab. What's the, what's rehab for that look like, like twice a day of doing some weird.

Like bands or something. It's good he's learned from me. He's learned some valuable lessons from about taking care of his body. Yeah. What's a like just training with no ACL? So at the beginning, it was definitely a little iffy. You know, I would have an occasional buckle.

Like I'd just be wrestling with somebody and go to step back and it buckle backwards a bit. But honestly, now like I haven't had a single buckle instance in a while, it feels 100% normal when I train. It feels better than my other need, to be honest, like I had. And my meniscus taken out in my right leg and that one gets sore more often than the Noe Ciel leg. Okay.

All right. So putting that aside, is there, is there wisdom you've learned from that experience? Yeah. Definitely should be doing rehab and pre-hab. I think that especially if you're a hobbyist or a professional athlete, you should be lifting whether you're rehabbing an injury or just for injury prevention. So I'm actually closer to, correct, because I've trained my whole life,

like pretty hard, obviously just the hobbyist, but like twice a day, the judo wrestling, all that, never broke anything, never injured, kind of like similar philosophy, except like last year, I guess a year and a half ago, I got a tiny like groin pool injury, and it it still hasn't healed and I've been using your approach of not giving a shit. Yeah.

And like, surely this is going to heal, it'll be fine, but it hasn't. Of course, if I was like an actual athlete, I would like probably still train through it, just fuck it, figure it out. But when you have other stuff going on, you just kind of wait it out. Yeah. But no, I think probably we have, especially as you get older when you have other stuff going on, you just kind of weigh it out. Yeah. But now I think probably we have, especially as you get older, you have to do that kind of stuff. I think it's important for people to determine

whether they're what they're going through is an injury or they're just hurt a little bit. Because injury, for sure, take time, rehab it, and get better. But a lot of people, like they'll stub a toe or something like, you're out for a few weeks, you know, so. Well, that's the problem with the injury I have.

It feels like a stubbed toe. So I was like, yeah, I'll just wait a couple days. It'll be fine. And then a couple days later, it's not fine. And you wait, and then I never got an MRI, never got any of that. It's like, I'm sure I'll be fine. Yeah. So it's hard to know sometimes. Like, what? It's hard to know. I feel like a lot of people will just not check it out. I'll be fine. Well, because there's several failure cases, there is a failure case of where everything is a stubbed toe. You're like, fuck it. Like, you're bleeding everywhere. You know, that's fine. Whatever. So you have to be careful. A lot of a lot of people can fall into that too. I think I'm in that category.

Go to the doctor. Why do you go to the doctor? Yeah. Your best approach is typically wait until something else gets hurt so that you'll forget about the grain. That's yeah, exactly. That's how I was hoping. I was hoping to get hurt. So waiting for the broken heart maybe. Okay, that was very helpful. Oh, you mentioned you're doing a whole thing on the pre-match ritual. Can you kind of preview like what's involved in your pre-match ritual?

It's a pretty big and the wrestling culture and the fighting culture, like kind of what to do before your competition. But I think a few of our, a few people are just kind of missing out exactly, you know, what to do. So I bring it down for them. I bring it down to people like four weeks in advance, how you should prep, you know, your trading

and your nutrition and your sleep for competition. In addition to that, I break it down even like to a smaller scale of like how early you should get to the event when you should be visualizing, you know, your competition, what to do like, you know, to the event, when you should be visualizing your competition, what to do, like 30 minutes before, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, and the kind of mentality you should have throughout those times before you actually step onto the mat. When you're visualizing, how much you're visualizing the actual, when you say competition, you talk about the tournament or the actual people you might be competing against.

A little bit of both, I'll spend time that's just visualizing the crowd. Like if it's gonna be an arena with 15,000 people, I'll spend time in practice and when I'm like putting myself inside that arena and visualizing you know, stepping on the mat and hearing the crowd scream or whatnot, that way, you know, when competition time comes,

it's kind of the same deal, I'm accustomed to it. In addition, when I get to the arena, I'll step on the mat, I's kind of the same deal, I'm accustomed to it. In addition, when I get to the arena, I'll step on the mat, I'll kind of look at everything, I'll expose my senses to what it's gonna be, and then I'll kind of shut everything off. Some people scroll through their phone and can treat it like normal, have this normal conversations. For me, I like to limit my sensory intake

before I go out and compete. I just feel like sometimes we only have so many decisions you can make in a day. And I went all of my best decisions to be made when it matters, when it counts. Oh, what about you? What do you limit your sensory input on game day? Honestly, no routine, nothing. I don't, yeah, I don't do anything. I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like,

I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, I'm just like, Have a good try visualizations or no no Visualization so the opposite of visualization. He just avoid it. Yeah Yeah, I don't even think about it. I'm just like yeah, we'll have a good time. You know try to appreciate it, but I can do it By the way when you visualize are you visualizing tough positions or you visualize winning mostly? Definitely visualize winning. I visualize how I can get how I'm gonna get to my most dominant positions and comp I wanna do what I'm best at. And I'm also see my opponent in his best positions and how I'm gonna escape those if necessary. But most of the time I'm just visualizing

exactly what I'm gonna do in that match and I go out there and do it. Okay, so when your teammate, Craig, is another world class athlete has a fundamentally different philosophy than you. Do you visualize being frustrated at him? No, not frustrated, but I'll definitely come in to practice with solutions to problems that Craig gives me.

If Craig's catching me something or giving me issues, I'll go home, I'll watch him a match that he lost for motivation and I'll come back and I'll put it on. Just DM him like a highlight reel and losing. Yup. What about you? Like does it affect you that you're a bit of an outlier? Usually before I compete, right before I go out there, I go, why am I doing this? Do I still need to do this? And I think, hopefully, it unabarrased myself, affects my instructional sales. That's the last thought.

But I don't even put too much thought into the whole competing thing. I'm just like, you know what? Train hard. Hopefully I have a good time out there. What about the motivation aspect? Like that voice that says, like, why am I doing this? That voice can break a lot of people. Like, in the wake cut, it can break a lot of people.

Like, why am I doing this stupid silly sport? Like you said, I want you to do is just rolling around. Like, what's the point? I'll cool someone with a nine to five job. And I'll be like, yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'll point that. Sure. So those DVDs, man.

Yeah, I don't get too deep on competing. Yeah. We're so polar opposite. It's like almost uncomfortable to be around here. Obviously, one of us is a clean athlete. You should do a duty on that. What about you in terms of preparing for competition, Mickey? The day before the day of are there rituals that you follow?

Honestly, like the few days leading up to it, it's different for me every time. Like sometimes I'll warm up before I compete, sometimes I won't, sometimes I'll fast, sometimes I'll eat, so it literally is just completely random. I don't follow any specific thing, but in the training room leading up to the competition, I'll definitely, like Nikki Rod visualized

that I'm walking out onto the competition mats. I'll pick somebody that's a similar body type to the person that I'm competing against, and then we'll start out with some distance between us, we'll come out, smack hands, and act like everything's a real competition. I'll even sometimes have corners that will yell out times and things like that just to replicate it

as much as possible. That's funny, because I've talked a lot of Olympic gold medalists. They used to do a podcast with like athletes and they all sound like Nicky Rod. Two of you are hot buyers. I don't know. Sometimes I'll do this. Sometimes. So anyway, but that's also just a culture I think. Maybe the chaos of not taking things to series is actually really, really helpful. Sometimes the pressure of taking everything away too seriously can break you. I mean, just don't think it's that biggest sport really.

You know what? I think if I compete every day in practice, it just makes competition much easier. So I just put the pressure on there on the competition area. I'm sorry, on the training, on the competing in the training. I don't know, Olympic sports aren't that big either financially and people take it extremely, extremely seriously. I get only really good to get that much money from Judo. I mean, I just don't take Jiu Jitsu that seriously because like I was just body and have it a good time until 21 and then I was like, oh, fuck, do I get a job? Although I pursue professional sports and I feel like if I can make a career in Jiu Jitsu

with the decision at that point. And now you just stumbled your way somehow into like being at the top of the world. Yeah, that's what I feel like. I just walked into it. I feel like I couldn't just do that in wrestling, boxing. I couldn't do that in other sports. What was the toughest match you've ever had that pushed you mentally, physically, technically?

This doesn't have to be the best person you faced, but was there like a moment in your career that was like really Defining for you. I mean, I would say like the toughest mentally was just this this last ADCC You know, I just had a big injury leading into it that kind of screwed the whole camp and wake cut and everything up So yeah, I would say I would say the last ADCC Are you proud of your performance there like you stepped stepped on the mat that you pushed through all of it? Like I said, I'm a very competitive person and I hate losing, so definitely not, yeah. You had a collapse line.

Actually, I'm a little bit stupid. He was so physically exhausted after us. Couldn't breathe. We had to get medical intervention. He thought he had a collapse lung. So he was the most tired that I've ever been in my life in that match. I actually popped the blood vessel in my eye.

I was trying so hard. He comes out. He walks off of the ADCC Mad Backstage. And I'm like, I'm kind of getting warmed up for my match. And Nikki, he walks over a half an upuffing His mom's right next to me looks are he was like I think I need help like think I'll uncle My mom's the one that called for medical. Oh, I was just laying on the warm up mat fucking dying What were happy you're fine

What were you? What were you? You're fine. Too working. Later on the line. What about you? Craig. Defining or toughest matches? I mean, they're all pretty tough.

You know? I don't know. I can't really pinpoint one. I mean, probably the most annoying one was obviously the one where I had good and on by I was like, tap bro. And he wouldn't tap. So I let him out. Mentally, I was like, I shouldn bro, and he wouldn't tap. So I let him out.

Mentally, I was like, I shouldn't have done that. Do you ever have a thing in your brain where it says, should I shit talk now or not? And you ever, you say, no, I'm going to be respectful. I just don't be serious about some of these. I don't know. It's just silly. It's just all of it. The whole thing. What about you, Nick? Yeah. Dude, honestly, most of my toughest matches are in the

the training room, right? Because I started with these guys. I started training under them, like, you know, start training at DDS when I didn't have any knowledge. Like, like, I knew wrestling. I knew like a knee cut in Jiu-Jitsu, but like, I started training with them when I knew almost no Jiu-Jitsu. And then I had to like, you know, really work my way up. So definitely in the training roomJitsu, but I started training with them when I knew almost no Jiu-Jitsu and then

I had to really work my way up. So definitely in the training room, like having one of these guys on my back, or like there's a stretch of a few weeks or months when COVID first hit. And it was just like four of the best grapplers in the world. And we just did drilling in live rounds with these four guys. And it was hard. It was very hard. Every round, doing six rounds, seven days a week with the best grapplers in the world and it's like you get no break and

you're forced to learn on the go. So I think for me in the training room, that was definitely my toughest matches and that's where I built those mental calluses. There was a period where I drew with Nikki Rodd, probably what, nine months, 12 months. And typically speaking like I said, no, warm ups, the first round, we take it pretty easy. First round you start in Mount. The whole room, the rest of the training room, they take Mount very lightly.

Me and Nikki Rod would be fighting to the death every day. I felt like we did an extra round every day. It was very growing on the line. I'm every mean when I'm in the midst of drilling or live. Like, we would drill wrestling quite a bit, like stand up. And in the drilling, like, I just wouldn't like crack taking me down. Like, we're not going live.

We're just drilling, but I just wouldn't like and put me on the floor. So things like that, you know. I know that's great. Yeah. So you mentioned mount, like a, so the positional training. So is that, would that be the hardest versus like live training open, like starting from guard?

I would say mount and turtle definitely, definitely made me very tough because you spent all this effort getting off of bottom out and then you got to get on top of a guy in the, you know, at the time, I'm not that good at holding guys down so it's gave quick and I'm like fuck I just try to hold them down Got to go back down same thing with the turtle. It's like you start bottom turtle You're trying to explode get out get away and then you know you switch and this guy get up gets up pretty quick And you're like damn I got to go right back down. It was that constant circle, man It's very tough, but definitely you know build some character on the map What do you think is the value of position on training in general in jiu-jitsu?

Actually, this one just interacting with you guys. It's not commonly done. You just like regular jiu-jitsu jams What do you see because it probably is not commonly done because it's so most of the experience is just frustrating Like if you're evenly matched you're basically frustrated the whole time If you're doing it right. It's just like a logical battle that happens in like the mountain turtle rounds. It's like, you know, because you maybe get close to subbing a guy and or maybe you do subbing, you know, when you start on turtle and you're on their back, you finish them. And then you get this high point and then immediately you got to go back down to

defensive posture. Yeah. It's very like, it's emotionally like up and down. And so it's hard to do with. Super important if you're one of the better people in the gym because it just puts you in positions, you don't find yourself in regular training. So I think like a lot of, if you're a big fish in a small pond, you don't do a positional spine, you're probably going to get exposed in competition. Might even look silly in those positions. So you really have to force yourself to do it.

Despite the fact that you're given someone worse than you, a position where they might catch you. So you have to sort of put the ego aside. Yeah, that's one of the things on how I was training regularly. Of course, training with you guys, it's like trivial, but I didn't work on putting myself in bad positions when you get better and you regret it. Because the big negative thing it has, consequence it has on competition is you don't take as many risks. Cause you're kind of afraid for your back to get taken all that kind of stuff.

That was me before I went to DDS. I remember I showed up there in that old position. I was like, fuck this. You better own this position. Yeah, exactly. I didn't really have escapes. I was a learning curve for me for sure. DC the value in positional training or is it just the source of tremendous frustration?

Yeah, I definitely think it plays a big part in you know your confidence when you step out onto the competition mats, you know, being confident that even if you get put in the worst possible situations, you know what to do and know how to work out of them. even if you get put in the worst possible situations, you know what to do and know how to work out of them. So I had a long argument with Othazza Grayson when he visited and he thinks Mal is the most dominant position, even Nogi versus Beck. Is there a case to be made for that or no?

I think all of your opponents utensils, their tools are in front of them. So like, if you're on Mal, they still have, you know, there's a few ways to get out of mount. I think if you're on somebody's back, I'd personally much rather be on somebody's back than flattened out. I'd rather have someone's back and then flattened out. But then flattened out. Yeah. But then flattened out. So not even body triangle, but just flattened. Just completely flat. Almost like the position in my way, you see guys get finished because they can't get out out I think that position is probably the hardest position to escape. Can you see what Hodger's talking about with Mount

Or so you just that good at Mount that he says that you might mean the gay cross-cola, you know, I don't know Did he made like controlling wise? He just believes that you can complete that there's He actually thinks there's more ways to get out from the back than there is from the mouth. Prior to getting up, including like physically, prior to the keeping escape, I'll probably agree with him, but that keeping escapes so difficult to manage. It's the funny looking escape where you, yeah, like someone, people have a lot of trouble. It's like super hard to learn how to do, but then once you learn how to do it, the effectiveness is just huge.

Yeah, that's a weird one. When that come to be a thing, that pretty recent, I mean, I saw a CDS guy's using it first, I think. Yeah. Who's the first guy to discover something like that? This seems like a ridiculous thing to discover. Yeah, I'm like, what if I just wiggle? I thought it was a joke at first. I was like, you guys really doing this?

Yeah. All right. I remember somebody showing me like a technique where, like if you just like walk your hand on a mat or something like that. Maybe I'm trying to go or something. Yeah, yeah. I walk the arm around the arm, huh? It's just like a funny discovery.

Like, is it both like trying to shove it in, just like walk it? I like doing that to people, but with things that aren't true. You know what I mean? I'll just tell them this is a technique and watch them try to work out if I'm being serious or not. Yeah, that's what you do when you achieve Guru's status. Yeah, listen to you like you're Stevens to go. See what they'll believe. Speaking of which, how do you balance, you have to travel all across the world.

How do you balance that with running a school or being a world class Gigi's to athlete? I mean, the secrets of travel for me are two drugs, Xanax and Medaphinal. That's how we time adjust and we hit the ground running. But what does Medaphinal do? Xanax puts his sleep right here. I mean, I have an oculapsis. It's an ocul gonna see medication. But how does that work with the steroids? I mean, they work well together, you know?

Yeah, nice. Focus and physical recovery. But in terms of traveling and training and stuff, it is, I mean, we're lucky because we got so many high level guys so we can travel and they're still in good hands. I mean, it would be a problem if me Nikki Ryan left on the gym had Ethan. That would be a problem. But we got to make sure it's not just him. Although everyone says they're happy when you're going. So that's the moment I heard. Happy when I'm gone, but they do miss me. Yeah, for sure. Until I get back.

All right. What about you? Just like balancing it. Do you try to stay completely focused on competing? Like for some of the big matches you have coming up, are you able to kind of diversify? Well, I like to, yeah, diversify my training to where, you know, if I'm, don't have a competition scheduled, I'm more focused on skill development and, you know, getting better and broadening my tool shed.

But, you know, if I'm like six weeks before a comp, I really start amping up the intensity that I bring into the mats, again, bringing some of that visualization towards practice. And maybe I train less volume pre-competition but higher output per session. Yeah, what's the perfect week of training look like? If I'm not in competition mode,

I would say Monday, Wednesday, Friday, twice, every other day just once. If I'm pre-comp, just Monday to Sunday, once a day. So that's on the mat. You're doing the full, like, positional training, live training. Why set pills? Oh, yeah, I do a lot of bicep curls.

Yeah, I left a few times a week now. Yeah, cardio or no, cardio is all math stuff. Cardio is all math stuff. I do do some crossfit workouts, like crossfits. I'll do some E-moms or some M-rabs or crossfit terms. That's for Instagram? Yeah. But yeah, Crossfit is a go-way to kind of like push that threshold.

Sometimes on the mat, because I'm so good, I can't always get that full red line. So I'll hop in across the gym and I'll do some workouts that bring me closer to death. What do I, you Craig? What is the perfect week in training look like like in your back home training? I try to be the gym twice a day every day day when I'm back just because I travel a bit more

than these guys. So I try to be that eight and 12 every day, hang out in between. Usually, definitely, usually train both of those sessions depending on how my body feels. So doing positional, doing every technique, positional, live. I should probably do more positional, but because I'm just trying to work on wrestling and stuff and especially leading up to the Volcanoeski's last while I was trying to wrestle more and focus on those areas even before I traveled over there just some experimentation with some stuff. But yeah, yeah, how do you experiment with stuff? Like how do you so there's like regular positional stuff, but when you have ideas

like what like where do you do it and during the training sessions? Do you do it outside of that? Do you get together with somebody? Usually every session I show up with something I'm thinking of. Usually something from top, maybe something from bottom. But, and then I just try to maybe pick the right people. Some people obviously I'm just fighting to the death with. It's not a good time to experiment. And then others obviously you can play around with ideas on.

Okay. What about you? What's the perfect week look like? Maybe, well, you said you're 100% now. Yeah. So yeah, honestly, I have pretty much the same schedule as Nicky Routes. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, do twice a day, every other day, once a day. And then normally noon practice is like our biggest class. That's where, you know, all the pros go in. So I tend to do more open rounds there. And then we have a 7 p.m. class as well, which is more hobbyist. And that's where I'll do my positional rounds and, you know, force myself to be put in bad positions. So you have what you do 8 a.m. 12, like in terms of what B team has 8 8am, 12 and 7pm, and the hobby is some more 7pm. Yes.

Okay. Do you believe in overtraining? Do you think you can overtrain? I used to not believe in that. But then I got hurt. I was like, oh, you attribute that to overtraining? The last step. I think, dude, I'm telling you, I trained,

I lifted like a bodybuilder for like seven years, and by lifting, I mean, I was just lifting seven days a week, and I train arms most days. Like almost every day I would do like, you know, four or five sets and get a pretty good bicep pump, in addition to my lift. I think I had to contribute somewhat towards my, what about my training?

Fair enough. What about on the actual mat overtraining, like, spending too much time in the mat? Well, psychological, physical overtraining. I think you can definitely overtrain, but it's more of a, like, it's your body, it's healthy, you have to make sure your mind is sharp. Like, sometimes, maybe taking a day away

or even diverting your attention in a different aspect of training can help you be a little bit sharper overall. Sometimes it can be like, I can get a little stagnant because you're doing the same stuff over and over. But I think if you just keep like, you know, overtraining, then your overall baseline just gets higher

and that becomes, you know, accustomed to that. What about you? You don't seem like a guy that overdoses. I've heard of him. Never been close to it. I think controlling how hard you train is definitely protection from injury. You know what I mean? Like if you're red line in yourself and then you're fighting to the death of the gym, that's 100% when you're going to get injured, going to get sick. So I try to make sure I've had enough sleep,

I've had obviously enough food post-training and that sort of helps me to train a bit harder, but still try to avoid red line on myself too much. I think established also like what days are gonna be your peak days? Because you're throughout the week, if you're training seven days a week, you're gonna have ups and downs.

Like for me personally, when Wednesday Thursday Friday usually my best days and besides that also have other great days. All my days are great. But Monday Wednesday Friday are also great. You're like unable to admit that some days are off from another day. I love it. you're like unable to admit that some days are off and then others are like, I love it. I'm always on, bro. Okay. What advice would you give to people who are not always on hobbyists?

How to get better? Like people that are already there, I don't know, purple bells, brown bells, black bells, there's just like doing like a couple of times a week or something like that. Like how to get better? I think being consistent, like find a schedule that you can consistently train. Maybe it's like, you know, three, four times a week or even a little bit less, just be consistent

over the over the years. I think to often people are like, oh, I want to get really good really fast. And it's like, definitely takes a long time to get to where you want to be. What about the, what you're doing doing, like, what, what big consistent, what kind of stuff you're working on. So honestly, I think one big thing for me, which is something I actually started doing once, once B team was formed was filming all of your rounds and then watching it every day. Cause you can see what specific problems you're having.

And then you can base your positional rounds around those problems. That's really interesting. It's kind of depressing though. Like sometimes I had to, you know, I edited this podcast for a long time. I still do part and I hate the sound of my voice and like what I look like. It's tough, but it doesn't make you better. Yeah. And I also hate the sound of Craig's voice. And it looks like so.

This podcast will be especially. This will be doubly difficult. I'm glad, glad the rest of you are here. I don't know. Do you watch competition footage of yourself? Like to analyze like, you see my confidence. That's fucking good. Why are you doing girls? I'm trying to watch it to this, my confidence. Is there advice you, Craig, Yeah. I'm trying not to watch it to miss my girlfriend.

Is there advice you, Kyrgyle, would give for hobbyists to get better? I mean, just not every round has to be a fight to the death. You know, I feel like you're going to get injured, but it's out of that way. You know, going to learn as much. It's tough. I would say just as a black belt who took just very seriously for a very long time, basically when you become a hobbyist, your skill is basically slipping, your age and your skill. And so not

taking stuff seriously is actually its own psychological skill of like, you're good. It's tough, it's tough. Like it's tough in a way that is different when you're like a blue belt or something that you're, if you work hard and you train correctly, you're gonna get much better. Here you're kinda. You're looking downhill. You're looking downhill.

You're like, yeah, I guess I'm gonna enjoy the art of it. Reframe the victory. You know, like if it's a young upcoming guy and he constantly you're like, well, that's a moral victory You know, yeah, but then that that has to happen you have to be able to not do that to avoid injury sometimes like if you want So yeah, it's a different. It's a different thing plus plus with me just Because some people recognize me. They Come on, you have that probably see you guys... You have that probably. You guys definitely obviously have that.

I've solved that problem. What? How did you solve that problem? Travel around, you do a seminar, anything like that? Yeah. It's believable that you could get submitted once. But if they catch you, give them a few. Yeah. If people tell their friends they submitted me to Seminar,

one time believable. They got me four or five times. You've rubbed them of that. Okay. That's pretty funny But it's also they have this energy like they think You know, they're coming in hot and I usually like to Just basically get submitted quickly twice And just it changes everything it makes it more fun. I see I noticed that let them submit you twice. Yeah, just like very quickly What you get like what are the options

They get last longer hold off But then it's like it's very hard to like yeah if you're a very serious competitor and so on you take it seriously then yes, but Like then people go people what they try to do this probably is what happens to you guys they try to impress you by going super hard. I have people every day come to my gym try to take me out. Yeah, I just stay sharp. Come to practice let's get it on. Do you feel that energy? I think I need to talk talk to Craig here for a second. Like a seminar. Like somebody's coming in like really hard. Like a brown belt will come in like and they really want to impress you

with like their technical side of their big fan. They've been watching your DVDs. Like what do you do with a guy like that? I'm making complete joke out of the row. You know, giving the pass, messing them do stupid shit. Like rub them of the realness of it. Because it's stupid, I'm not going to roll hard with strangers, you know, I feel like you should roll with a circle of people you trust.

injuries happen rolling hard with strangers because that's the same way you get injured in competition because you don't have that relationship with them. And I should also mention that's probably not a good way to impress somebody's bug just just going, ape shit, going 100%. Oh, yeah. That's not at all. I think the beauty of Giujit is like the camaraderie of it. Like, as you get to know each other, it's like technical, like different ideas you have and all that. Yeah.

Okay. Do you think Giujit is just who's dying in popularity? Craig? Yeah, it's long dead. I think it's just shows like, I mean, I have heard some numbers on the viewership for the key welds finals and they don't even compare to the undercut of like, who's number one events. So I think like when I was coming up and competing in the guild at the time, you looked at those guys that won black belt with championships

and you were like in awe of them. It almost had that ADCC champion feel. But now that's not the case. You know, I just feel like that a younger generation aren't looking at who's winning black belt key worlds. I personally don't think and I don't think they're like, they want to be that guy. That want to be like a Ritallo Gordon. You know, those are the people they want to emulate. So you think like the key like Abbie J..J.F. key termists will just keep declining popularity? Oh, I think people will still do. I mean, it's easier. I think as you're over 30, because the keys a bit of a slower thing and the master's participation is bigger in the key, because

obviously you know, the key is now hitting a wrestling direction. Wrestling in Hillhooks, you're over 30. That's a terrifying prospect, you know. What's terrifying about the key? Less. So I think in a participation rate, the IBGE What's terrifying about the key? Less. So I think in a participation rate, the obvious Jeff will still be good, but I just don't think people are as interested as they used to be. What, why is wrestling in heel hooks terrifying? Like, heel hooks that can vaguely understand if you don't understand heel hooks? You work at desk job and you've never wrestled in a guy double-dacks you.

That's gonna probably break you back. You know, I think the older guys here are scared of wrestling. It's hard to wrestle a 40. To learn wrestling at 40. Yeah, I mean, I think it's even just hard in general to do wrestling at 40, but it's easy to pull half-gun in the game at 40. I think it's hard to do judo at 40, and people still do it at 40. judo hurts more. judo is scarier than all of them. Yeah, I think does wrestling really hurt in 40? I don't know, I'm looking at you. Yeah.

It does. Interesting. I mean, I agree with you saying that Judo looks like the most dangerous, like even their practice partners, they're just getting slammed flat. What a... Yeah, I did, I mean, I did Judo for a really long time.

There's a lot of people there, 40, 50, 60, do Judo, and they get... They're the ones that are still alive though. That's true. Survivor buys. You do a little bit of judo, right? Maybe I'm a yellow belt. You're a yellow belt in judo? I should be in a structure. Promote you to orange. I got a yellow belt in the sixth grade. I believe it was the sixth grade. I did it for about,

I don't know six months. But you're also using Judo in competition basically. All right, are you doing like Harai type throw like you're doing uh, you know, I just started doing it? You just started lifting your leg in various ways until the war just figuring it out. Yeah. Okay. Doing different kinds of trips. I looked at the sand boat guys doing it. I was like, come be that hot. Yeah. Okay, but a crack. Well, they they looked at the sample guys doing I was like, come be that hot. Yeah, get it a crack Well, they they looked at your foot locks and they said that can't be that hard They say come be that hot band up from the tournaments What do you think is the best take down and

No, Gigi Jesus. Like what? Like if people were trying to train for competition, so on, like, where you see the trans heading, I think those foot sweep is like catching a fire nowadays. So a lot of foot sweeps, uh, foot sweeps and arm drags, I would say pretty, pretty popular in our sport arm drag. She's just going to go on drags. Okay. Arm drag either to get them, like, get to behind them or even just to cause reactions, make them pull away and we can start reattacking.

Are you talking about it in a context of what's the best takedown to score? What's the safest takedown to mitigate the risk of guillotine submission? Or most effective in general? Yeah, most effective combined. Combined, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think I think it's about scoring. I think any sort of body luck. You know what I mean? Lucking your hands around the body, you've been able to put them to the floor that way. I feel like that's most effective. It's not even a reason out of a leg attack, leg entry, upgrade to the body.

What about like foot sweeps, like outside foot sweeps, or like what do we, I would say yeah, you know, sweep from outside foot sweep or even like something like your toss on a point By and you're sweeping the foot. Yeah, those are all pretty safe. See why is that scary? I don't understand That's scary at all. I think it's a lift of scary the lifts. Yeah, who's lifting people? The turn no night you I mean in master like we're talking about older guys doing no give some of those old bosses take it very serious. And I just start lift T out T. Well, do you know they're coming?

They're coming to my press. Grab a lift. All right. Just just for the gram. Okay. What about submission? What's your favorite submission? And what do you think is the most effective submission?

Except the buggy joke. I would have to say the rear naked. It's definitely the one that's hit the most and the highest level of competition. Who's that? That's pretty interesting to see you escape all that and to put it on. That's the cool thing about EBI

to see like the world class athletes. I was surprised that it's possible to escape with you on his back. They're the tricycle base cream. Oh yeah. The cream? Yeah, the helps. What's in the, what's the formula or is that secret? That is a proprietary blend.

Okay. But that's what you use for greasing. That's what you've used before. Allegedly. Allegedly. This is the other application outside of grappling. I mean, I'm sure you get creative. All right.

Thanks. That's good for a friend. Does that R&C for you as well? We're gonna make a joke. We're gonna make a joke. I mean, overall favorite for like solidifying a finish because like, you can push, you can put some ice sleep, right? Yeah.

They don't want to tag one of the sleep. But as far as like something I've been working on now, they're now starting to implement competition. Yoko's and Kaku's side triangle is like, it's a beautiful thing. You have most options, you have to try and go to finish. If that fails, you have the Komor, you could break the arm. You could also just transfer and take the back. So YoCoSynKaKu, I'm a big fan of

and I continue to progress and you better write it. Have you ever broken anyone's arm? Oh yeah, I mean, the first few competitions, because I was like, you know, pretty athletic grappler or athletic wrestler going against like local black belts and brown belts. Like one of my first matches, I broke somebody a Kumora, pretty much every time I've got a heel hook, which is only twice I've broken an an opponent. If I have a joint lock, it's probably going to break like a lot of times it breaks before they tap. Yeah, you see like a really friendly fellow. How hard is it to break an arm or a break a joint?

Well, I don't think it's that hard. I think like if you're talking like an on about an arm bar, we have this position to where like people kind of holding on, holding on, and then it slips and their arm starts going to and then it just just breaks before they even, you know, get a chance to tap. I love this part. I need about a guy and he didn't tap one time and it was actually it was surprising. I had to put a lot of force into that. I suppose some shoulders and the ligaments in the knees and ankles but to a fully this kid, Sambo kid, fully let it go and he tapped it out. I think the angle is like up here. They're built different

Hopefully can be reconstructed different yeah All right What about a straight foot lock you've ever Do you guys do straight-full-ux at all? I know Yeah, I mean I'm learning them now. We had some kid come in the practice one day and like, fuck, fuck, fuck it. Full-up all of us, dude.

Full-up straight-full-up. Straight-full-up, just this little like Polish kid. No, no. Did he put like everyone? But he told the entire world. He's getting out fucking email. He's playing police friends with family. We probably put a hit out on him in practice

and he just said everybody. Yeah, it's always interesting when you get like, yeah, people that specialize can surprise you that this could be effective stuff. Do you think there's other stuff that could be still discovered in Jiu-Jitsu? Like, what areas do you think are ripe with techniques to discover? Like wrestling is really interesting. Now there's a lot of innovation happening in wrestling. I think there'll be more innovation when we get people that are more adamant about standing up

from bottom position. I think if we get more of the community, they're like, all right, I want to get off the bottom. I think- Just stand up. Just stand up. How'd you just, it doesn't work. We actually changed the name.

How's Sanba doesn't work if you just stand up. Did you really? All right. OK, just a Gigi said, we're going to hire it and send it for free to the entirety of the Soviet block. And Nikuraj, do you think ego is useful for martial arts that doesn't get in the way? OK, I think you need to use it in both ways.

For sure, have an ego, like if you're training competition mode, but also it can prevent you from learning and progressing if your ego is too high. You really have to shut the ego down when you're in the mode of learning and trying to develop skills because you're going to put yourself in these bad positions. You're going to have issues with training partners that aren't necessarily up to your skill level, but because you're in these bad positions, you have to make certain sacrifices. For sure, Eagle can be a good or bad thing, but if you're able to shut the Eagle off and learn, then that'll have huge progression when it's time to put the Eagle on into use during

competition. Do you go off? It's been a long time. What's that? What about you, Craig? Do you, I mean, you seem to be super easy going. Is there, like, is the ego just not part of it? Oh, for sure. I just don't want anyone to know they've damaged my ego. You know, you have to suppress it deep down. There's a child underneath all of it crying always. For sure.

I think ego is good for a bit of perseverance, you know, like it will help you stick it out against a tough battle with a training partner for sure. A bit of ego's on the line. Plus the bands that back on fourth were trying to like stare each other up a bit. I talked to you. Yeah. I think that helps hone shop in the ego of it. What about you? Do you try, do you seem like a super homo guy? Is there like a monster underneath? So it's a total act. Yeah, I

definitely think he goes a big motivator. I think it's very good to have in the aspect that it like it'll drive you to help to want to be one of the best in the world. But like Nikki Rodd said, you need to be able to turn it off in the training room and you know, force yourself in a bad position where you may not be winning. Are there like, you know, Don Hars mentioned Boris. Are there like, grapplers like, this is a question from Reddit actually. Boris like characters, anybody you've trained with in the past who doesn't compete, but it's just an absolute beast in training. Like people you've met there are just like, well somebody that I think has the best

like submission grappling in MMA, I think like Gilbert Burns is his submission grappling. That's amazing, it's very, very good. I trained with him early on in my grappling career and I was really impressed by his ability to move, hold down opponents that are trying to stand up. And as a whole, you know, he can get submissions and put people away. Have you won the last time? Have you trained them recently or no?

No, it's been a few years. Which is impressive ability to submit your thing. Yeah, like, I mean, you know, you would see, I'd see Gilbert go against a few like pretty decent black belts in the room and fair well, and you know, maybe he gets to their back, puts a choke on it, and it's like Gilbert's super high level or submission grappling. Yeah, but he's pretty widely recognized as a monster. So I don't know.

You didn't really answer the question. I think you're not even answering the question. I remember, what was the question? I don't know. I don't know. All right. What are the... Is there people like you've done all these seminars are there just especially in in the Eastern block the

You see yeah, you want the Kazakhstan is there killers out there that oh, yeah, there's tough guys out there Obviously, I don't remember the names in North Carolina. I pronounce it if I did but definitely some tough guys out there Obviously carrying skillsets over from from wrestling for sure. Not Sambo, but wrestling. But wrestling. Well, yeah, other people that are surprised, they just don't compete that are really good. Have you met those? I feel like it's less so today, because there's so many more athletes in the sport, but definitely when I was coming up back in Australia and stuff, there were guys I'd train with

that wouldn't compete and that would be like super tough rounds for me. Yeah. And there's so many more avenues for competing in general, so yeah. What about you? Have you met some masters? Yeah, one guy I could think of in particular is Jason Rao. He's, he trains up in Long Island, I think, right? Opened up his own gym out there. Van God. Yeah, Van Guard. He used to compete, but he would never be able to compete at the same level he would train at. So now he's just focused on mainly opening up a gym and teaching his students.

But he was a guy that was extremely good in the training room, world class. I still think to this day he's legitimately one of the best in the world, but just doesn't compete anymore. Who wins in a fight, a lion or a bear? Paula Baer? That's for you, right? No, not a poll.

Well, yes, that's a good question. You're all, Paula Baer is pretty impressive. No, Grizzly Baer. Grizzly Baer. I think a Grizzly Baer wins. Well, who is the most threatening predator in Australia? Well, can we get to tricky question here, because everyone's scared of the animals in Australia, but I mean, you get bitten by a snake, you get bitten by a spider. That's not that bad.

Bear, America, bear will just hold you down to each you. That's a much more terrifying prospect for me. Even sharks, sharks are going to be quick. No one sees the shark coming. The shocks just gonna buy you in half a day. We'll take a bite and chew a bag just holds Janet eats you. So that's that's frightening for me. Straight is a bunch of just weird shit that can kill you.

Just he cocaine bear the movie that's coming out. I saw the child. It looks good. Yeah. Yeah. So there's not every bear. There's like black balls and this black balls, there's bears and there's bears. So that I think that's what they often don't talk about. Everybody puts lines and bears in the same category. I think there's just some weak bears. A line with killer black bear, I think. Not every black. I'm trying to tell you, there's difference. Like grizzly and polo about betting on those. Yeah. No, I think grizzlies have the size, but actually every video I've seen of grizzlies,

they tie out within like 20 seconds. They get bored. That's the guest thing? Yeah, the guest. That's the Nicky Ryan guest thing, right? Yeah. That's all they got. Dream old.

And they try to just, they try to just take a breather. Like there's these crazy fights between bears and the elastic point seconds. I heard this story about a Russian family who was attacked by a bear in Russia and killed the dad and it took so long to eat the daughter she made three funcals to her mom I was eating her and the first call the mom thought she was pranking her. That's crazy. That's way scarier than well. Give me a snake bite any day. Yeah. You know what? Let me let me change the question is Yeah, you know what, let me, let me change the question is, like, if you had to fight a bear or a lion, how would you try to defeat it? Do you think you have a chance at all?

Well, I think I'd attack a lion a little bit differently than I'd attack a bear. We'll give a difference. Okay, well, I've seen this video where, um, a lion's are eating and, and, uh, you have three, like, skinny guys walk up behind them and kind of scare the cat off of yeah off of their food I think Maybe I produce some props scare the line away, right? But if I have to fight it I have to fight it straight on I mean the thing is that you can even if you take the back like you can't like bite it or choke It the main is too big to lock your hands around You know, are you sure about that?

It's amazing. Yeah, the main thing is it's like it's like mad at him. I don't know. So I think you can Maintain yeah, yeah Getting there I think I fake high go low All right, make up thing. I'm going for the foot or something, a little pulse sweep, and I take the back. What about a bear? I feel like they're easier, that might be easier to hold back control. Yeah, maybe the thing is, the bear falls on its back,

just gonna crush it, so big, substantially bigger than a line, right? Like a full-going. And they're also like terrifyingly loud with their rewards and stuff. Yeah, I think, so first of all, I saw Grizzly. I'm like, he's going to attack me. I try to yell a little bit louder them. Maybe they're term a little bit like give them a and then yeah, for sure, I try to get behind it. I probably go like something weird. Maybe like

pull the eyes out or something, you know, for sure. I mean, I'm going for the vital organs, you know, I'm played dead, play dead, and then we'll check it. There's no, there's no pride in that. Well, pride even matters. See the ego, the same advice you gave, you got to put the ego aside with a bear. Even then, even then, would you, how would you fight a bear or a line? Just play dead like that. Yeah. Could you beat a kangaroo? A kangaroo. Uh, yeah, kangaroo. I'd beat the shit out kangaroo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, are we boxing gloves? We just like how would a kangaroo attack a human?

Try to kick him with the claws. Knock him down and then they choke him. Stand on that tail. The kangaroos do. They choke each other. Yeah, they don't choke each other. You don't believe me You want to show video they choke each other out? I've seen this Yeah, yeah, with which they do with this yeah, they knock him And I'll just grip like this and hold what's the grip what this like little pause how are they gripping? I promise you I'm not lazy pretty sure I've seen the like little paws. How are they gripping? I promise you. I'm not lying. I'm pretty sure I've seen the video. They also do strange shit like if there's a predator around that weight in a pool of water.

And then if it comes to a tag of lead, you're on it. They're pretty smart. Okay, speaking of which, what's the most effective martial art for winning street fight? You talked about rulesets and streets. I think you've talked about being a street, have you ever been in a street fight? Yeah, just one. Yeah. Nothing special, nothing crazy, hey. Yeah, you don't talk about that time. Like for self-defense purposes,

who will be a strategy on the street? I feel like. Whoever wins the street fights, whoever's willing to take it, the furthest, the fastest. You know what I mean? If you're thinking you're gonna box and he's biting you, pugging your eyes, that guy's gonna win. He wants them all. You know what I mean? That's

why the crackhead's fight. They go for the kill straight away. You know what I feel like? It's more about who's willing to do the most that's gonna win that fight. Fascist. The most fastest. Who's got the least to lose? You know? Okay, we could also define winning differently because you could also run away But in terms of technique wise Wrestling judo if it's a one-on-one I'd go I go wrestling wrestler wins But if it's like a you know, it's like a multiple people you got to go Muay Thai stay on their feet can't go down to the ground if it's more than one person Yeah big double leg, maybe.

Yeah, double leg, put them on a sleep on the impact, right? Four hits a ground. Yeah, what's the goal? He is the wind the fine, not go to prison. Um, I haven't thought of it through that way. Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah, and not go, not, not to kill the virtual combat here in Texas.

We're good. Is that in Texas? Do you know what the paperwork for that looks like? You have to actually sign something. You just say, I hope I don't need to find out. I did hear a story where guys were on six street and they looked at a cop,

they were like mutual combat, mutual combat. And just got like the cops to say yes and just duke it out. It could be false though. That sounds crazy. I'm saying. I kind of admire that, but I've also been playing Red Dead Redemption recently. So I've like internalized the cowboy a little too much

just to return to gym stuff. No, because it's a business, because you're running a business, there's money involved, but you're also business, because you're running a business, there's money involved, but you're also friends, but you're also training partners. Is there a tension that money creates that can threaten to destroy friendships? That's something I always worry about with money. I try not to go doing any kind of business with friends or family. I think if you're all very clear and honest and open at the start makes it much easier.

I think people have issues when there's like kind of like things are written and fine printed. Nobody knows exact answers. And what did you just guys can't read? Yeah, that makes it. We're learning that today. Yeah. No, definitely complicated though. Yeah, I mean, it's not always obvious to how to be transparent and stuff and about everything.

Have you felt that tension? Because in just a world, money is not really unlimited. Just running at school, what's that like? Is this the first time you're running a school, running a gym? Yeah, I mean, it's just constantly updating people about what's going on. What your expectations are. You know what I mean? We've had some problems with coaches who I feel like think the pie is bigger than it is.

You know what I mean? They feel like maybe we're getting rich out of this and they're missing out on things. So it's like even amongst managing stuff that can be challenging too. So yeah, I mean, it's a constant work in progress to make not only to make sure everyone's happy, but to make sure they come to one after each out and tell you they're unhappy. But I feel like those challenges are common amongst any small business. Still it sucks. Just to mention, I'm cool as to this, but I'm just not learning this. Somebody I met and talked to and I really like is Isaac.

Yeah. Just learned. Because you're also active on Reddit. What's your name on it? It's my John Bullucci's mom. It's undercover as possible, you know. Oh, it's not you. It's actually John Bullucci's mom as undercover as possible, you know, oh, it's not you. It's it's actually it's actually John Belushi's mom, right?

So I've done my research, I guess and I guess you guys had had a falling out Have split I just want to say that I don't know the few interactions I've had with him He's a beautiful human being so and that just shows to me Usually maybe not internally and sexually just to experience that. No, it's just a kind person. I don't know. I like them a lot. Like to me, in a business setting, yeah, tensions are created in a sucks.

I don't know. I mean, I suppose money, all the stuff that happened in the jungle aside, probably money had a role to play to create extra tension. Money and ego is about like who is the leader, who is not the leader. It's tough to manage that kind of stuff. I've seen it happen with Jiu-Jitsu schools a lot. I don't know exactly what, because it's like, there is also a hierarchy inside grappling

Jiu-Jitsu schools, like people that are better or not. There's literally ranks, black, bullet, brown, bow. There's like people that are better or not there's literally ranks blackboard and brawl there's like competitors that are better I mean I don't It's a weird dynamic in which to operate because like usually there's more politeness and like humanity Layered into the way a company works, but here. There's just a bunch of I mean, it's like violence laid on and undisplay plus money. It's crazy. Is there something you could say to that? Like how you try to minimize or something you want to comment on Isaac? Yeah, I mean, it was unfortunate situation, but it just

didn't work out. You know, like, there's going to be personality clashes. Some people, I can't imagine anyone having a personality clash with you with me. It's hard to imagine. Yeah, surprising. You know, I mean, I didn't even know what to say. And I don't want to touch on it too much. But obviously, his expectations about his role in the gym, obviously different from house, uh, led to some personality classes that

was sort of unresolved. Well, you know, some things happen that can't be resolved. You can't fix those things, you know? Obviously, a lesson, I hope for both of us, definitely a lesson for me from a management role to try to address these things sooner, but also sometimes I came up in a different time where there was no money, no opportunities. I had to pay that way totally for myself, especially coming from Australia.

Like being a professional athlete in jujitsu was not, I think so I had to pay a lot of opportunities for myself and I feel like sometimes, oh, I don't know what the right word is. Sometimes people don't appreciate some of the ways you help them. And they just think, feel like almost they deserve or are entitled to certain things.

And that is very difficult to manage. But I think again, like we both see the situation different. I do hope he finds a better, a more comfortable place to train. But yeah, obviously I've known him for a long time, sort of like a brotherly relationship. So that's gonna really make personal problems a lot worse when you're that close to someone, you know? I just hated that, like, I've seen in Gigi's especially,

but in other places where, like, close friendships were destroyed because of, like, gym stuff. Like, people running gyms. And it just as a person who is in this case, just a fan, but in general, just like a student, it's like socks. But again, in my position, sometimes I wonder if there really was a friendship

or mere opportunity. I have to be careful without with some people in the sport. Is it a sincere relationship or like I mean it's difficult for me to tell or am I means to an end? Sure, but I think it's actually a trade-off because I think a lot of close friendships we have, like even relationships we have like when tested, like can break if they're not properly communicated. Like I was some of it could be just misunderstanding of like for a long period of time. Not not it's not explained through the lack of integrity. It's just like you like you have to like talk through that shit. Like just be honest with each other.

Some MDMA really get down to to it. Drug solve everything. You learned it from this conversation. I've actually haven't done MDMA yet. People say that that's something I would enjoy a lot because my brain is I think natural on MDMA. I'd recommend it for sure. For sure. Is that what you do with Gabby?

I'm not technically name it. She drugs me. In general, why does those things be in every... She drugs me. In general, why does there seems to be drama in the Jesus world? Outside of what's going on here? Or is there just... It's universal to anything. Drama is everywhere. And then drama rises to the surface.

I'm gonna make some money. Yeah, I wish there was a little bit less. You have a bunch of... like we mentioned some of them, you have a bunch of instructional's out. What are some interesting things that you're looking forward to exploring in terms of teaching? So just stand up as your most recent one, right?

Yeah, you also have one called Power Bottom and inclusive modern approach to the guard. Yeah, yeah. I see. You're tied, what is some other ones? False reap allegations. False reap You're tired. What is some other, what are some other ones? False reap allegations. False reap allegations. Yeah. By the way, people talk about power bought again, hilarious title, but they say it's a really good instructional on like the guard. Yeah, I tried to, I tried to at least be

innovative. You know, like everyone else, I feel like ripping off John and Gordon, putting some sort of slants on that. So I'm trying to take sort of a different approach. I think you can actively influence the sport with what you're at least because people are going to try to emulate that. So I think that those type of instructions just stand up power bottom like approach to the sport differently. I think definitely has a positive impact on the how people play the game. Yeah, you're working on something now. Probably a fundamentals course just because we're bringing out within the Wipeout program coming in. So I'm

trying to develop a fundamentals course along the line of the constraint-based learning stuff. We were talking about today like a way to approach learning as a beginner to sort of speed up the process a bit and I'll make it as so technique dense. At least have it a bit more fun. And focusing in on just like examples of problems to solve. Exactly. Yeah. Approaching judicially learning that way.

Like I mean, kids learn quick through games, I think adults are capable of that to a certain extent as well. You're releasing that instructional on pre-match preparation? Yes. One of the stuff. Do you have a thing in a body like pass? Yeah, I have a body like a ride lock DVD or instructional. Yeah, I have the pre-match ritual coming out. I also have, I'm filming how to build athleticism for grappling. I'm just really trying to capture

different angles. Kind of like the same, you know, with Craig's doing, trying not to do the same thing that everybody else does, you know, there's a ton of wrestling, ton of jiu-jitsu instructional. And the steroid results are coming in. More plates, more dates. There runs that. Hit me up for a blood panel test in prompting. And I did it a few days ago and I believe the results will come out shortly. Oh yeah.

Do you know the results? What are you betting on next? We think it's hard to believe. Yeah, it's very, very impressive. You're putting me in awkward position here. Uh, Do you think you'll face Gordon soon? I'm open to it.

I don't know. I don't know how soon, maybe in the next six months, I could see me facing him before ADCC Worlds. I think that's a great rivalry. I think it's a really interesting one. It's fun for me. Is there any chance that the two, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany get back together, that DDS under

whatever name gets back together. No, I don't know. Highly unlikely. I mean, I kind of did this to, you know, to back up Nikki Ryan and we're sticking with our guy. So what do you think? Yeah, I think there's just too many personality conflicts for it to really ever work again. Do you think there will always be war in the world? War?

Yeah. Oh yeah, I think from the beginning of time it's been some kind of war, some kind of battle. Controversy, it's what helps people evolve. Until AI, super intelligent AI becomes way more powerful than humans and humbles all of us with this power before it destroys us. Until it runs out of batteries. I guess I screwed. Get some plug it.

I had that. That was awesome. I'm really fortunate to be able to hang out with you to train with you and thank you so much for talking today. That's the best ending. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Craig Jones, Nick Erod and Nick E Ryan. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Masashi. You must understand that there's more than one path to the top of the mountain.

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. you