Mark Bell's Power Project - Cassio Werneck - 25 Year BJJ Black Belt and World Champion || MBPP Ep. 832
Episode Date: November 7, 2022In this Podcast Episode, Cassio Werneck, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Cassio's journey in Jiu Jitsu that started back when he learned from Hélio Gracie to being a Black Bel...t over the past 25 years. Follow Cassio on IG: https://www.instagram.com/cassiowerneck/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #BJJ #jiujitsu #PowerProject #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject
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off your entire purchase. Enjoy the episode. Great to have you in studio today. You have a
gym that's not too far from here, right? Yeah, not too far. In Madison,
Mazanita, I would say
15 minutes away from here.
The other one is in Roseville.
You said you've been doing
Jiu-Jitsu since you were 18.
Yeah. How did you get started
in it? I started,
I was
a kid that loved to
do weights, right?
But I don't see me being like a bodybuilder.
In Brazil, we don't have much.
The powerlifters or the Olympic lift was really poor back then.
I think still not even…
Soccer is a big thing.
Yeah, soccer.
Yeah, judo.
But jiu-jitsu wasn't that big back then.
Just more in Rio, Janeiro, and Manaus,
Sao Paulo, three cities that was famous about Jiu-Jitsu.
But it was hard for me to find Jiu-Jitsu
in the first place in Brazil when I was a kid.
And I started first doing,
I was doing weights, but I didn't see me.
How can I be involved in sport?
Maybe make a living in sport somehow, right?
I was 15, 16 years old.
I ran out of time in my mind, right?
Like, man, you ask me if I started when I was a kid.
When you stay as a kid, you start at six, eight years old, right?
And I didn't see a future for me in a in a on the olympic lift and
power lift and i started searching for things that i could do well uh
capoeira i don't know if you ever heard about capoeira i did capoeira when i was starting 11
can you explain that a little bit what that is cap? Capoeira, it's a Brazilian martial arts,
came from the slaves in Brazil.
They create the capoeira.
It's just so they can defend themselves
and so they can escape from whatever they came from.
But they couldn't practice capoeira, right?
And whereas they practice capoeira,
I don't know how called that the people that
that was they were slaved for right if the people that were in charge wouldn't let them do it so
they would so it kind of looks a little bit like dance and they start dancing they start dancing
right well they start practicing uh punches kicks but whenever they they show up because
they couldn't practice martial arts they they start dancing instead of a bunch of kicks.
Like we're not fighting.
Yes, we're not fighting.
And they have this train with swords and knives.
They do the same thing too.
Whenever they have their hands, if someone shows up to see them,
they start dancing.
No, we're just dancing.
see them, they start dancing. No, we're just dancing. And
it's super, you can see
the agility,
the acrobatics.
Yeah, acrobatics.
It's like 15 seconds of that would just blow you right up.
Yeah, exactly, right?
But I was really bad on
capoeira.
I was actually
Did someone tell you that?
no I noticed
my friends
the day after they went to Jiu Jitsu with me
they said no you don't wear the bad
I said no I was really bad
every time I had a chance
I would try to grab my
training partner or my opponent
so I'd try to get a hold of them
and when I was 17 I started doing Judo training partner or my opponent, right? So I tried to get a hold of them. Yeah. And
when I was 17, I
started doing judo.
But I was already,
once I started doing judo, I loved the ground game
more than we call the
niwaza, right? It's the ground game
in judo. And
tachuaza is the takedowns, right?
And I always loved
to be on the ground,
doing the submissions.
And I saw Jiu-Jitsu for the first time on TV, right?
Right after I started doing Jiu-Jitsu.
When I saw this, I was like, oh, this is a Jiu-Jitsu?
Because they wear the gi, they have the referee.
And when they hit the ground, they didn't stop.
They kept going, what is this, right?
How they allowed the ref to stay, they didn't stop they kept going what is this right how they allowed
the ref didn't stay
mate
they stopped
to stop
right
they say to stop
to stand up
no they kept going
on the ground
man this is awesome
right
I can keep going
on this
and
they start
looking more
searching more
searching back then
but I've
tried
hear about
because for me Jiujitsu when i heard
what was more like aikido just self-defense stuff right grab the joints and hold the blocks but no
no ground game that's what i remember hearing too about just a lot of martial arts that it was more
defense you know and i think you starting out with lifting i always find is really interesting
because i think a lot of us when we're younger, maybe it's like an insecurity or maybe it's that we just want to be like a little bigger, a little stronger.
But like why do you want to be bigger and stronger?
You probably want to look a little bit more intimidating.
You want to maybe look a little bit more substantial.
Maybe you think that the transfer of like you doing some deadlifts and bench press is going to transfer over into you being able to fight.
And now we know that's just not the case, especially when going to transfer over into you being able to fight. Yeah.
And now we know that's just not the case,
especially when it comes to something like jiu-jitsu.
Yeah, right.
And yeah, that's how,
when I saw the, on the sports,
the sport channel showing jiu-jitsu in Rio,
I said, man, this is awesome.
It's not nothing that I thought about.
I thought it would be just kata stuff, right?
Grab the joints and throw.
No, they were fighting on the ground.
And I liked the interviews that I saw talk about jiu-jitsu.
And I started searching for jiu-jitsu in my, in Brazil.
I'm from the capital of Brazil.
And they had a class for these old masters.
But he was more like the, much to the self-defense aspect too,
right?
And,
but I was doing school at nighttime.
I couldn't train in the night.
That's why I stuck in Jiu Jitsu for another year and a half until I started
training Jiu Jitsu on the morning with a friend of my brother.
He was a blue belt.
He's a blue belt you
Brazilian back there was like a see a red belt here right now all right it's
and I start training with him and for a love first time that I start judo was
already hooked up in judo but when I start doing jiu-jitsu, I was like, yeah,
that's what I want to do.
From there,
I trained with this guy for maybe six
months.
One day, I went to
another judo class.
I'll get the story longer.
I saw this guy as a brown belt
in a judo class.
But this day day it was just
rolling, just a free spar
more ground spar
niwaza
take downs off like this
and I asked the guy
are you a brown belt in a judo
are you training here?
no, no, I'm brown belt in jiu jitsu
brown belt in jiu jitsu, really?
yeah, can I roll with you? and I rolled with the guy No, no, I'm Brown Bound Jiu-Jitsu. Oh my gosh, Brown Bound Jiu-Jitsu, really? I said, yeah.
Can I roll with you?
Right?
And I rolled with the guy.
The guy just beat the crap out of me.
So easy, right?
How new were you at that point?
I was pretty new.
Okay, okay.
I would say like a good blue belt,
but I was a white belt still.
Okay.
But for the amount of training I have in Judo,
just putting the ground game in judo,
and the six months I spent with my friend of mine training,
I was a decent blue belt.
Nowadays, no, but back then, right?
And it just ran through me like nothing, right?
I said, man, I cannot believe this.
And I was already rolling for black belt in judo, doing well.
I said, man, where did you come from?
This is amazing what you did with me.
And I have a very funny story because the same day that I went there,
this guy that was training Jiu-Jitsu in the same place of me,
the guy was a bully, right?
And he was a blue belt already.
And this guy asked, hey, you train all train I think it was Wednesday afternoon
at this judo place
how does that work
I knew that it was
just try to get there
try to get the info
from me
see if you can go
get there
and beat the guys
look
very friendly
atmosphere
those guys
it was awesome
most for judo
like a brand new
white belt
but they're good people, right?
The instructor was a really nice guy, too.
They allowed us to get there and roll.
And he said, hey, can I go with you?
I said, yeah.
I was kind of upset because I knew he wouldn't get there to try bullying those guys, right?
And I didn't have the time to tell the instructor.
And we went.
When he got there, he was waiting for me.
But we were never close, right? He was waiting for me but we were never close
right
he was waiting for me
we got there together
I'm saying he's a bully
because
he didn't roll
with
as a
me
this other guy
that was a monster too
that started Jiu Jitsu with me
he never rolled with us
every time that I get in the class
he asked me to
to roll with the guys
that he couldn't
handle right
but he never rolled
and me and this guy
always rolled together
that would be how I'd play the game.
Yeah.
I'd be like,
let me go against those two guys all the time.
Yeah.
But not those other two guys.
Yeah, never, never.
But anyways, we got there
and I introduced myself to this brown belt
and I got my butt kick, right?
And he walked to this brown belt,
super cocky,
when I roll, because he thought this guy is a brown belt in judo, right? And he walked to this brown belt, super cocky, when I roll,
because he thought,
this guy is a brown belt in judo, right?
And I can see from the face of the guy,
I talked with the brown belt after, right?
It turned to be my structure
that gave all my belts.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, that's how I met him, right?
Okay.
And he just ran through him.
And I was just looking
in the corner of my eyes, right? And I was just looking corner of my eyes.
And I was just, let's say,
whether it was six minutes, three minutes,
they stopped because the guy cut his,
the brown belt cut his foot, right?
It's sliding the edge as a screw that cut his foot.
And they stopped to just cover up,
clean the mats and everything.
But I told them,
hey, where you come from, right?
What do you do here?
No, I'm from originally from here,
but I moved to Rio, to college.
But I came back here because I want to do,
I want to study to be a federal police,
which is a big,
that's the biggest police in Brazil, right?
I'm in school now.
Say, why don't take part-time jobs and start teaching Jiu-Jitsu, right?
And he said, no, I don't want to turn my focus on this, right?
I love Jiu-Jitsu, but maybe just for a couple times a week, why not, right?
And the very next day or maybe a few days after,
I found out that he would have come to another gym that i've met that just to train the guys there was from from judo to and i got to we were
trained to get at this blue belt gym with this friend of mine i told him about it he said hey
you guys know i'm here just to to help you guys but i'm not i'm not pretending to make my living teaching Jiu-Jitsu.
If you guys want to go and see this guy, this brown belt,
why not go there?
There's 30 guys show up there, right?
And when you show up there, you run the class,
and he beat half the class, right?
Nice and gentle.
His nickname is Tank.
You can imagine how gentle he is, right?
And from there,
the owner of the gym came,
hey,
you're going to have to start teaching at least three times a week.
No,
but I can't.
I said,
look,
I have 30 guys here ready to sign up,
right?
You broke.
You don't have money,
right?
You're leaving for parents now.
He was 22,
23 years old.
I think you can't can put both things together.
Still study and run some classes, right?
And that's it.
You start teaching and make a muscle too.
Make some decent money.
You forgot about federal police.
He's a jiu-jitsu struggle since then.
Right.
Yeah.
How about you though?
Because you mentioned that you were in school and I,
like,
I,
what were you trying to be before you focused on being a jiu-jitsu athlete and instructor?
I want to be a athlete.
I want to be somehow involved in sport.
So I would say that if I didn't find jiu-jitsu before,
because I, I wasn't good in school, to be honest, right?
In Brazil, if you're not good in school, they don't let you pass.
You're going to have to do another year.
And I was like two years behind.
Oh, wow.
And I was maybe 18 years old when I started training Jiu-Jitsu for serious, right?
And I told my parents, I said, look, that's what I want to do. I found Jiu-Jitsu for serious, right? And I told my parents, look, that's what I found in Jiu-Jitsu.
But before that, I was lost.
Like most of the kids, I'm lost.
But how many kids now you see in their 20s,
they don't have no idea what to do in life, right?
Yeah.
And I was 18.
And before that, I'm looking back now 30 years back.
I said, man, actually, no, I knew it since I was 15, 14 years old.
I remember my dad is not involved in sport at all, right?
He's a guy, what do you call those guys that wake up in the morning,
go to work, right?
He works in the electrical companies in Brazil,
the light companies in Brazil, consulting.
And he was an engineer, but he was smart with his craft, right?
He knew what he was doing.
We see him now all over Brazil, clinics.
And for him to – he never thought that, especially coming from Brazil, a kid couldn't make a living in sports, right?
He said, look, oh, you're an athlete, now Olympic athlete or soccer player, or what are you going to do, right?
And I have in my mind, no, I'm going to find something that I want to do religious.
Or if it's not, I go to a PE school, a college, and some way I'm going to be involved in this.
That's what I want.
PE school,
you know,
college,
and some way I'm going to be involved
in this.
That's what I want.
And for him,
it was like,
I just see you
every morning
just going through
the sport newspaper,
but I never see you
read the economy
or politicians.
What the hell
they're going to read this?
It's not part of my,
my,
my personality
and my identity,
right?
Yeah.
It's nothing that I like.
But yes, when I got 18 years old, I said, that's what I want to do it.
And my focus was 100%.
I didn't know how at that point, but I knew it.
Jiu-Jitsu would have been involved in my life for sure.
And the crazy thing that was expected,
that my parents already embraced it.
They said, you know what?
That's why I want to do it.
Cool.
Yeah, we support you.
That's where you saw my passion about jiu-jitsu.
I've seen the first time it's 100% focused on one thing.
Wake up at 6 in the morning to train jiu-jitsu.
Afternoon, train jiu-jitsu. Even train jiu-j thing, right? Wake up six in the morning to train Jiu-Jitsu, afternoon train Jiu-Jitsu, evening train
Jiu-Jitsu, right? And I said,
no, I need to find, I need to help
this kid. My dad taught.
I need to help this kid. That part is really
fascinating to me because a lot of
times we might not think of ourselves as being
smart or being capable of certain things, but
then you find what you love and you just
find yourself doing it a lot and then you end
up becoming proficient at it.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Like I said,
at that point I was lost,
but a 16 to 18 years old kid lost.
It's normal,
right?
But that's what it's supposed to,
right?
It's very rare to see someone in that age.
No searching for stuff.
I remember that I was,
I was 17,
17 years old.
I was working in this clothing store in Brazil.
I was making a really good money for that age,
you know?
And I have to six months working there and make up,
like I said,
a decent money for,
you know,
take care of myself.
And one day I was looking for,
man,
what the hell that I'm doing here?
I'm not going to buy this store. I'm not going to own this
but I cannot make the rest of my life
living selling clothes, right?
And I just left.
Selling somebody else's clothes.
I just left. I just, no,
I don't want to do this.
From that point, I started searching.
Okay, I need to do,
I'm doing Jiu-Jitsu right now. I like it.
But how can I make this even better? That's when jiu-jitsu came in my life what do you think is uh like on the inside for you that made you when you did jiu-jitsu and when you got your ass kicked a
bunch of times by people that were better than you what do you think encouraged you to go back
to do more like why did you want to find out more a lot of times people they uh you know get chewed up and spit out by a sport and they're just like peace out i'm good
what do you think made you come back for more why did you want to learn that more i would say that uh
first love right passion you have so much passion for the thing that I didn't get too upset when I was losing.
It's because I knew that I, from there, it was just improvement.
You maybe just thought it was like time.
Like this guy beat me because of time.
He knows, he has more knowledge than me.
And going back to what I said about capoeira or the other sports I did in the past,
that I wasn't good. Right.
That one there,
I felt that I could do well.
What a way.
Right.
And,
uh,
my instinct,
like you mentioned before I started the podcast,
you know,
uh,
I felt like the ways,
the way that I was moving,
uh,
plus the few years of,
uh,
weights that I have before.
Right.
And that,
and one of the coolest thing ever is I didn't see the time pass.
When I was on the mat, like an hour, two hours throughout pass,
I was like, man, I'm ready.
That's when I feel like Monday was more important than the weekends for me
because I want to go back.
Weekends for me was boring because I didn't have a train.
You train Saturday morning, Sundays, what am I going to do back weekends for meals because I didn't have a train. You train Saturday morning,
Sundays,
what am I going to do Sunday now?
Right?
I don't have enough to do.
Yeah.
And I was looking forward
to get Monday
to train again.
Combine all this whole thing
and know that I could move well
and I was already doing well
for my age,
for the time that I spent on the mat I said yes I
think I can I think I know what I'm doing here how's it um because I sent Andrew this video
it's a video with him and Helio Gracie yeah how did that happen and how like were you you were
a white belt right yeah yeah so yeah how did you get to do this my dad that's an incredible story right that's when i said that uh
look here i was 18 19 years old on this one here uh when my dad saw me okay that's what i want to
do for a living right that's what i want to do we need to look for the best for you right that's
crazy right and my dad is a good storyteller, right?
And he communicates really well.
And he said, okay.
And in the 50s, 60s, he came to, he did a, he was in the Mariners in Brazil,
in Rio.
He knew all the stories about the Gracie family, right?
I said, no, when you talk about Jiu-Jitsu
the only people that I know is the the Gracies right and he traveled a lot back then right all
over the Brazil doing clinics like I mentioned before and he one day don't even tell me right
he go to the yellow pages, saw the,
the,
got the address for the,
the,
uh,
Gracie Maita,
where the most iconic,
uh,
Gracie school.
And he decided to,
to get there,
right?
In the middle of the week,
morning,
in the morning,
or before he went to,
to work.
When he,
when he got there,
the first person that he meet was Helio Gracie.
And Helio Gracie was 79 years old back then.
And he's a,
he lived in a type of,
it's a city,
it's like here to Lake Tahoe.
And it just once a week,
he was going down to Rio
to see the school
and run a couple lessons,
private lessons,
things that I have to do in Rio,
want to go back like once a week.
And that's the day that I met my, my that I have to do in Rio, I want to go back like once a week. And that's the day
that I met my,
my dad met him.
They sat down,
they start talking,
they said,
look,
I'm from Brazil,
introduced himself,
and I'm from Brasilia,
my,
my,
my son is super passionate
about Jiu Jitsu,
right?
And he is,
but he doesn't have
a place to train.
I was still training
with the blue belt.
Okay.
The blue belt
that I mentioned before.
And it's,
like him,
I have a few other kids
and guys that love
to be involved
in Jiu-Jitsu.
You guys have
anyone else
to bring to Brazil
to teach there?
And he said,
look,
right now,
the only people
that I trust
is my own kids.
And they're all over, right?
One in the school here, one in Sao Paulo,
Hickson, Rorion, and Royce was already here in LA.
And I don't have anyone to teach him.
Why don't you bring him here?
Oh, really?
Yeah, bring him before I can meet him.
I said, okay.
And this was a a week before
and a week after
we were there
we went to his ranch
we spent a day there
with him
training
talking
right
and it was a beautiful place
on a
like the mountain
looks a lot like Lake Tahoe
yeah
the mountains
greens
and
the Grace Valley
they call
he felt pretty strong even at that age yeah his grips it's unbelievable The mounts, greens, the Grace Valley, they call.
He felt pretty strong even at that age?
Yeah, his grips, it's unbelievable.
We roll.
I don't think we have a scene that we're rolling, right? But I was really impressed by his grips.
A lot of specific training.
It's not a free roll, right?
He said, okay, let me get you in the mount position.
And he was trying to choke me from there.
I tried escape.
It was vice versa.
Switch, I went down, and he's on top.
I was on top, he's on down.
He's trying to defend.
But, yeah, it was a great experience.
And the fun story, this was 1993, August 1993, right?
Yeah.
And he said, okay okay arrange with my dad
we
bring out your son here
but I cannot
I couldn't do back then
on this time
because I was in school
so
maybe we can start
in January
bring him
you're gonna stay
a few months with me
we're gonna train him
more like a
a certified
teacher
yeah
right
and my dad okay good and I was kind of hesitant more like a a certified teacher yeah right and
my dad okay good
and I was kind of hesitant
because
from everything that I know
I heard from Jiu Jitsu
right
take forever
to get a black belt
right
but
what he was
trying to
to
explain for me
to my dad
look
I'm not
I'm not saying
your son
is going to be a
world champion in
Jiu-Jitsu in six months.
But
he has a book on his
desk. Everything that I know from Jiu-Jitsu
is here.
That's what all my instructors
have been teaching for the last
40 years. It's here.
That's what my kids teach.
If he likes sport jiu-jitsu or be a valetudo fighter,
it's a different story, right?
But everything that I have, I can teach him everything that I have over here.
It's on him what he's going to do after that.
But he said, I'm leaving right now to, to Los, uh, to LA.
And one of my kids is going to fight in November now.
Um,
he's going to find November.
I'm there to train him.
That's why I cannot do this,
this next few months because this,
I'm going to LA and,
uh,
they're going to fight.
It's going to be the,
the eight best martial arts in the world,
right?
Is that the UFC?
First UFC. Yes. Oh my God. Crazy story, right? Is that the UFC? First UFC.
Wow, snap.
Crazy story, right?
Yeah, that's insane.
That was November, I think it was the first UFC, November 1993.
This was like end of August.
But anyways, during that time, that's when I met my instructor, right?
And the plan followed through. I said, you know what? It would be a, if I was looking back now,
I would do it 100% sure.
More for the experience to be around that guy
for more days, right?
A life experience.
I don't think it would be easy because, of course,
in this age, it can be stubborn, it can be, you know,
it would have been easy to,
but have a certified from him and carry this for my career would have been a great story, right?
I think great for my curriculum.
But it was just that day, and I met him a couple times in tournament too.
It's crazy.
Maybe three years later, I think it was 96, I saw him in the tournament.
I walked to him
he say hi
and he recognized me
hey
how's your
Mr. Waring doing
you know
call my name
everything was Mr.
or Sir
super respectful
crazy guy right
so many fights
he got in his life
right
represent Jiu Jitsu
but
yeah
it was a great day
probably one of
for sure for stories to tell my kids and my story with me my dad because we in jiu-jitsu. But yeah, it was a great day. Probably one of the first stories
to tell my kids and my story
with me and my dad because I'm the youngest
of four kids,
right? And have that time
just me and my dad and him
supporting me is something that I
like, right? It's nothing related
to him. It would be easy for him to just talk about
what he was doing
with my oldest brother, right? For him to just talk about what he was doing with my oldest
brother, right, for living.
But for me, it was him
getting involved in something that is not
much his craft, but he
really to help
make sure that he does his best for his son.
That's a really good lesson for parents that are
listening. You know, I always
say that my dad bought us a weight set
in our garage when we were
like when i was like maybe 11 or something like that 12 and you know i started lifting in there
with my brothers and it just changed our lives forever so to the parents listening like what is
the thing that you could do for your child yeah simply taking them to jujitsu like one time
happened to meet yeah you know one of the greatest of all time, kind of the guy that's labeled as, you know, bringing jujitsu really to worldwide recognition.
I mean, honestly, right?
I mean, the Gracie family and along with all the things they did in the UFC and stuff like that.
I mean, it really changed everything forever.
So there could be a moment in your, you have children, right?
There could be a moment in your child's life right now where you take them to that baseball practice
or you take them to that thing that they fall in love with and they end up with their own version of jujitsu.
A hundred percent, yes.
Actually, how is it?
Because like Noah is crushing right now.
How long has he been doing it?
I didn't even know that he was doing it that long.
Yeah, it's me as a parent
seeing what
we just said, right?
But being a Jiu-Jitsu instructor,
one of the things that you want to do is
how can you
find a line of help,
push, encourage,
or push too far, right?
And the way that I see Jiu-Jitsu,
especially competitive Jiu-Jitsu, it's just one way in, right? And the way that I see Jiu-Jitsu, especially competitive Jiu-Jitsu,
it's just one way in, right?
It's not recreational sport to do it, right?
It's individual.
You rely just on you, right?
To show, to practice, to train and to compete.
And I never want to,
it's not that I never want it, right?
I never thought
that I would be involved the way that I was because I don't want to, it's not that I never wanted, right? I never thought they would be involved the way that I was
because I don't want to, they do just because me, right?
And I have four.
My oldest, probably trains more than Noah as a young age
because now he's 15.
But he doesn't like at all.
He trains for a while.
And hopefully in a few years from now, he's going to realize it's going to be good for him but he doesn't like at all he trains for a while then hopefully
that a few years
from now
he's gonna realize
it's gonna be good for him
if you go back
to Jiu Jitsu
right
but you don't wanna
be part of
right
and like I said
I don't have the
the line of
should I
how can I encourage him
that I'll push him
force him
force him
that is not gonna work
give him
give him a space
right
and my yeah my daughter now the second oldest she that'll push him, force him. Force him, it's not going to work. Give him a space, right?
Yeah.
My daughter now, the second oldest, she's 12.
And she's like, as soon as we start pandemic, right?
Since the pandemic started, sorry.
We decided, look, we're stuck in house.
We need to do something.
We need to have routine, right?
We're going to start working out.
My oldest and my daughter.
Our daughter is 12 and Noah is 9 now.
He was 6 back then, right?
He said, we're going to start.
We're going to create a routine.
We're going to start working out at home.
And I do sets of body workouts, workouts for them.
And my daughter is one of those that she never complained.
She just do it. My oldest, it's not
him, right? Okay, but
he kept it for a while until we were stuck
at home, he kept it. I said, look,
every workout that you guys do,
I'm going to pay you $2, right?
Oh, wow. Yeah, every section.
And
they were, my daughter said,
let's work out. She was
up to do it. And he's he was more than
ready right he wasn't one they didn't want to push yeah the harder and uh and uh we we I saw
different he's a different cat he's a really different cat for everything that he went through
life he's a different cat and I hear uh when we came back and of course doing classes
especially kids took a little longer than adults to go back after pandemic and he went to was this
march after during recreational jujitsu i was even looking him teach jujitsu because got me nerves
if you if you mess around right so if you see him mess around, the other kids can't,
but my kids cannot, right?
I don't even look in class.
Just for, I don't have the desire to push him as a dad,
as a competitor, right?
One day he asked my, one of the kids there at the school,
was looking to do a tournament.
And he took my, he asked my wife if he could go and watch. Not even ask me, right? And they went there to watch a tournament and he took my he asked my my wife if she if he could go
and watch
not even ask me
right
and he
they went there
to watch a tournament
and he came back
to me
hey dad
I want to do this
I said
you really want to do this
right
if you
I don't
I don't mess around
in tournaments
right
for me
no
no
if you do a tournament
every student
that I want to compete they have to ask me first.
And I do the same speech that I did for Noah, I do it for everyone.
Look, I'm willing to train, how many times do you train a week?
Two, forget it.
Right?
I said, no, no, but I'm going to train, how many times can you train?
Four.
Okay, good, four.
What else?
What else?
What else?
You need to mean something to you, right?
Why are you going to run a marathon
that I'll train for a marathon, right?
I'm going to jog three miles,
I'm going to run a marathon.
No, it's not worth it.
Even if you finish, you cross the line,
why do you take it, right?
The next day you're going to the next day you could have done better
yes
you could have prepared
prepared
I think that the journey
is more important
than the final destination
right
and I said
he said no no no
I want to do it
I want to do it
I promise
I'm going to train hard
and
since then
now
is
November now
right
we got it to November he is right? You get it to November.
He competes, I think, nine tournaments or ten tournaments.
Had 40-something matches.
Lost five and won 39.
38 by submission, right?
And he's training hard.
Now, he has a class every day.
He has no-gi classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays for kids.
He trains Sunday to Sunday.
He's not even wrestling.
No, Sunday to Sunday.
He's still doing workout, body workout.
I started to implement some weights on him too.
Right?
Never complain. Never complain.
Never complain.
But let's talk about my daughter.
My daughter,
she didn't find something that she loves,
but she had discipline.
Or she knows.
Or she's going to train.
Jiu-Jitsu,
she comes to class sometimes.
One, twice a week.
But if she's at home,
or she's doing the peloton bike
or she's doing body workouts,
she has the sets that we do.
If we can pull-ups, push-ups and squats,
body weight, right?
Do 20 sets.
When I get home,
she's right down on the sets she does.
Yeah, but she didn't find something that she loves,
but she thinks that sports
is not going to be involved.
Her,
a professional for her.
She doesn't,
she's not looking for this.
Right.
But she,
she knows how important it is for her to practice something.
Right.
Just for her lifestyle.
For lifestyle.
For sure.
That's super mature.
How old is she?
She's 12.
Unbelievable.
That's mature as a kid.
It's great to know what you don't want.
Yeah.
And she,
she,
yeah, again, I'm leaving to. Yeah. And she, yeah,
again,
I'm leaving to the school.
I say,
hey,
what are you going to do today?
What do you have for me?
I said,
okay,
we can do a peloton bike.
One thing she does,
she have a pool in the backyard.
She walk in the pool doing lunges,
squats,
right?
It's crazy,
right?
She walking.
She likes,
she loves to walk.
I said, could you do two laps's crazy, right? She's walking. She loves to walk.
I said, do two laps walking and stop,
do like 20 squats.
And I have a board, what do you call it?
No trampoline board.
The ones to jump in the pool, right? Yeah, diving.
Yeah, okay, here you can do lunges,
jumping on the board, right?
The diving board, you jump.
How old is she?
She's 12.
Yeah.
But now, we started, this was in March, the board, right? The diving board, you jump. How old is she? She's 12. Yeah. And she,
but now,
we started,
this was in March,
2020,
right?
Two and a half years.
And those shoes,
they're up to $2,000 for the other.
That's amazing.
No,
no,
no,
I got to $3,000.
Doesn't seem like I get paid
to go to your school.
No, I don't.
Damn it.
Trying to cheat the system for you.
Some days he makes $5 because some days, pretty much every day,
he trains and workouts.
On Tuesday, he does the no-gi class.
He gets there at 4.30 in the morning.
Oh, wow.
Sorry. He gets there at 4.30. He trains no-gi class got there 4.30 in the morning of afternoon of sorry they get 4.30 there
he trains no-gi
and after
an hour
Julian
amazing stroke
right
he's a best training partner
he learns more from Julian
than he learns from me
how much they roll together
right
and Julian
spend another hour
just drilling
because
Julian is very patient
he's one of those guys
brain for technique
right he doesn't drip a sweat on his his head if you need to do something perfect hour just drilling because he's very patient. He's one of those guys brain for technique, right?
He doesn't drip a sweat on his head
if he needs to do something perfect.
If he needs to use energy, he stops.
Right? Because the technique has to be perfect.
And they drill a lot together.
He shows all that. He spends a lot of time
with the kids drilling technique.
And on my
class at 645,
there's a girl that she cannot make, she's young too,
she cannot make for the adult class, for the kids class,
she comes with her sister on the night, Tuesday night.
And it pretty much stays from 4.30 to 8.15 every Tuesday,
every Tuesday, just training, right?
But it feels, of course, I don't want to,
we never know the future, right?
But he is a different cat, right?
For now, he shows that he likes.
We have more competition coming up for him this November.
But again, I see a lot of him on me, right?
It's natural for me to get that connection with him and I won't stand
his his mindset uh but I try not pushing as a dad as a coach right but uh until this point
everything that I received it he's absorbed well and I said no I'm capable of to to do it yeah
back to your thing about you said the journey versus the actual event itself.
I think that's what we're hopeful for with our children is that they learn what you got from jiu-jitsu and not necessarily that they just do jiu-jitsu.
I feel the same way with my children.
I probably did it too early looking back on it.
And I took this from Hoyce Gracie.
I saw an interview with him one time and he was like, I don't know how to anything else this is what i know how to do so i'm going to show you guys how
to do this and he showed them jujitsu so the next day i was all fired up and i showed my kids you
know i took them in the garage and showed them like hey this is a curl this is a deadlift this
is this movement this move and you know they were too young to like really absorb what the hell i
was talking about they were probably jake was probably eight or nine and Quinn was probably like six or something.
But I was just like, if you ever want to know more about it, this is what I know how to do.
And we can do more of it. So we did more of it here and there sporadically. And then now my son
is in there working out all the time, you know? So it's, it's cool that he, he found something
that he likes. My daughter likes volleyball. And I think that's all we can kind of hope for is that they find something
they're attracted to and then maybe they can turn it into something that they get tunnel vision
about and they learn uh how smart they could be in a particular category yeah whatever it is it's
not just sport in general but whatever they can find something that it's the search for every parent, right?
We,
we,
we,
of course we want to see the,
our kids succeed,
right?
But succeed means like it's not just be super wealthy,
rich is,
is find the passion,
find that the things that they love to write.
And,
and for can support,
but yeah,
it's,
it's,
it's a tough task as a parent, right? And can support. But yes, it's a
tough task as a parent, right?
You know, to see our
kids struggle.
But yeah, that's what
my
goal, want to see my kids. I mean, I hope
they can find something. They can find
their own jiu-jitsu in their lives, right?
And like I said, if it's
not jiu-jitsu for Noah in the near future And like I said, if it's not jiu-jitsu for Noah
in the near future, right?
But hopefully I keep the same passion
that I have for jiu-jitsu.
Yeah.
That when he competes,
when the dedication that he has
for another path that he takes, right?
For you,
how long did it take you
to get your black belt?
Because you won Worlds in 2003. So how long was it take you to get your black belt? Because you won Worlds in 2003.
So how long was it for you to get your black belt
and then for you to win your first world championship?
Okay.
I got all my belts with my tank.
The guy that I meet was a brown belt, right?
White to black.
I started with him on August or September
1993 and I got
my black belt in
November, if I'm not wrong,
November or December,
somewhere there,
98, like five
but I was
practiced before, right? I have like a year
and a half in judo
plus the six months
I spent with my,
with the blue belt
friend of us
that teach me
my brothers.
Yeah.
And,
but with my structure
it was five and a half years.
But I would say
that when I got to him
it was like a,
a good blue belt.
Yeah.
But that all had been
promoted because
we didn't have anyone
to promote us back then.
Mm-hmm.
But,
but,
and it was 2003
I got my,
and it's funny
because when I got to,
when I won Worlds
in 2003,
it was the same year
that I moved here.
Right?
So you won Worlds
and then you moved here?
No.
I moved here
six months after
I won Worlds.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
What is crazy
is because
the highest belt that I have here,
that my best training part was Derek Germano from Waza, right?
And he was an everyday guy,
worked on the desk back then for 13 hours.
He'd show up twice a week to train with me, right?
Because he was so busy.
And I have Ty Titan Glover,
which was a really good guy too that was here back then.
He moved to Denver.
He's a lawyer now.
And he...
How many times have you watched this?
A few, yeah.
When I moved here,
everyone thought I was 29.
Everyone said, okay, Cassio, he attempted to compete at Rhodes from 99 to 2003, 2002.
In 2002, I had a knee surgery, didn't compete well.
And I never won, right?
Maybe now he's going to settle in and just be a teacher, right?
Yeah.
But my mind said, mind, I cannot just
walk away from this.
And it's crazy
because
the years before
2003,
I was going to Rio
to train Brazil
top team
with like maybe
15,
20 black belts,
high level black belts
training with me.
I was
and I
was doing
really well in training,
practice, rolling, of course, competing. We have to get through train with me I was and I I was doing really well in training practice
rolling of course
competing
we have to
to get through
because there were so many
black belts
for the team
team A
team B
team C
we
we
the trials
inside the
the gym
right
inside the
the team
and
but I
I never
I was
one
one
lost
the second one one two lost the second one.
One, two, lost the third match.
Never got to the podium.
And everyone thought, okay, he's done.
He's not going to compete.
He was a good competitor, but never won nothing, right?
I moved here, my life just changed, right?
I got there a week before Rhodes.
Not even trained with black belt levels, right?
Guys in my level better than me.
And it was my best performance.
The week before has the World Cup.
I did really well in the World Cup.
And it's crazy because it was a World Cup one week
and the Worlds next week.
And I did really well in the Open division, right?
And I lost in the semifinals
in the open
I beat
and one of my matches
I beat Fabricio Verdun
the guy that won
yeah
the
heavyweight
the guy's a monster right
taller than
heavier than Isim
not athletic as Isim
but heavier than Isim
black belt
I won
and I lost
in my very next match
against Gabriel Gonzaga
it's another guy falling with C for the world title monster right I lost in my very next match against Gabriel Gonzaga. It's another guy
falling with C for the world title.
Most, right?
I lost by decision.
Yeah, he's huge.
Yeah.
He's real big.
Yeah.
I don't know,
Gabriel Gonzaga?
Gabriel Gonzaga.
I mean,
both the guys you named
were both heavyweight.
Yeah.
He fought for the title
against Rantico 2
a few years after this.
But it's funny
because Fabricio Verdun
and Gabriel Gonzalez
fought MMA 2
against each other twice
that's huge
but
he's like huge
and like furry
yeah
yeah
that's a big dude
that's the guy
that I have my
right after fight
but I have two matches
before Fabricio Verdun
that's a good one
right there
like you beat that guy
no I lost to him but I beat Fabricio andun. That's a good one right there. Like, you beat that guy? No, I lost to him.
But I beat Fabricio.
And like right after I fought Fabricio, I was tired as hell, right?
I said, hey, you have your next match in 10 minutes.
I said, really?
When I look, I was like Gonzaga.
Just wait for me.
Oh, my gosh.
I have to fight this guy?
And yeah, Fabricio is way taller than Gonzaga.
What was your body weight back then?
And were the weight classes different back then?
Yeah, I was 180.
I was pretty big.
You were thick, man.
No, no, no big for my height, right?
Yeah, your neck was.
Yeah, I was 187.
I used to walk around 195
200
leaner 195
and that just puts you
into the
maximum weight class
no
this was a slow division
I was middle heavy
I still have like
a heavy
super heavy
ultra heavy
I have three divisions
above mine
right
it was in the
open division
the road cup
and I fought him
and when I fought him.
And when I fought,
I fought,
I lost by decision,
by Gonzaga,
or by advantage,
I don't remember how.
But I lost.
And when I got to the next day,
it was my division.
I was so tired for the,
all the four matches
that I have prior
against the big guys.
And I lost my first match
on my division
by this guy,
right?
Man,
I cannot believe now.
I was going to do it next week.
It's Rhodes.
I just lost to this guy by points.
And it was funny because during the match, he swept me.
He was a guard guy. He turned, put me on the bottle. I swept him right back. he swept me. He was a guard guy.
He turned, put me on the bottle.
I swept him right back.
He swept me back.
It was a 4-2.
He walked my close guard, right?
And he has this guard pad they call Paulista Pass.
It's a guy's phone.
They hold the hip and start walking the side.
It's like a smash pass, but close guard, right?
You have to break the guard and pass.
This guy was famous for this. I didn't want to but close guard, right? Break the guard and pass. This guy was famous for this.
I didn't want to, I want to push him away, right?
And I have my hands on his neck just to push him.
Just don't let him stall or just do what he does best.
Push him, push him.
Anyways, finished the match.
When I walked to the stands, I looked at my fingernails,
all bloody inside here.
I was like, what the hell is this?
He walked to me
hey Cass
look what you did
on my neck
because I was so
desperate to push him
away
man
really
but I trimmed
my fingernails
but I was
so willing to
I cannot accept
this right
came all over
from Sacramento
I cannot lose
my first match
I was so obsessed
so
I think the mental part
was important for me
that time
because I left my wife here
I came to
Brazil
for me
came to Brazil
was a heaven
right
see my
my family
and
competing
my students
all my students
waiting for me
it was so
so awesome
that being that
part of the
competing
she's like
no just go
right
I know you're
going for a compete
you know
it's not going
for vacation
and my mind
was completely
set to get
that do my best
and the week
after was roads
but during that time
I have a food poison
right
and I was
I spent
the four days
and I
stuck at home
just
stomach
what do you call?
Yeah.
Sad, yeah.
And I'm in bad shape, right?
Yeah.
If the roads were a day before
the day that I won,
probably I wouldn't be able to compete.
Yeah.
And when I got the next day,
man, I felt like a,
I felt like a hero, Superman.
Everything works perfect.
But anyways,
I got my semifinal match
was the guy that beat
the week before.
That beat me the week before,
right?
Yeah.
And I said,
I cannot let this guy
do what he does best,
right?
He pull for the half guard
and sweep you,
hold you tight,
you're not moving,
upset you,
and pass your guard
if you mistake.
And I pull guard
right
and I
I see him
I call a drag
what
when I call a drag
him he walk to the side
I jump over his back
and I choke him
and it has a
maybe one of my highlights
you see him
I choke him
I get up
he was limp
go like
oh
man
it's such a great feeling
right
yeah and I I won the finals he was limp go like oh man it's such a great feeling right yeah
and uh
yeah
then I
I won the finals
did you surprise yourself
by winning worlds
or did you like
I
did you compete in worlds
previously
yeah
was that your first time
yeah
it was my
I competed every year
the worlds
time 96
the purple belt
first year
first year
first world that I compete
semifinal I was beat this guy by by a lot of points Rolls tie 96. The tie is a purple belt. First year, first, first rolls that I compete,
semifinal,
I was,
uh,
beat this guy by,
by a lot of points.
And I walk in his clothes,
guard the breath,
say,
start working.
Right.
And,
uh,
on the first,
the match was a canvas.
A canvas super sleeper. Right.
And,
uh,
I tried to get up to,
to break his guard.
Right.
And he tried to sweep me. I pushed my hand on the, break his guard right and he tried sweep me I
post my hand on the floor my shoulder came out I yells and verbal tap right I
lose and the very next year the same guy in the finals right okay simple loss in
the semi-final got third place in the first tournament next year. Fight this guy
and lost in the finals.
By,
he swept me,
hold me tight,
I couldn't move,
I lost.
Third year,
I lost not even
podium,
right?
I lost my quarterfinals
and still was a brown belt.
And I was two times
a Pan America champion
in a brown belt
back then.
Got rolled, won nationals
which was
a really
hard tournament
to win
to
but Rhodes
was second
place
and I got
my black belt
98
99
at Rhodes
my first
match was
the best
guy in the
division
right
Roleta
the guy
was incredible
but I
lost
by advantage at Puga he was really good at guard I was so scared about his Roleta and the guy was incredible but I lost by
advantage
I pulled
he was really good at guard
I said I was so scared
about his guard
I pulled guard
I hold him
I guard
right
feels like
looking back
I don't think
attempt to win
but I was so afraid
to get on top of that guy
because his guard
was so good
right
and I lost my first match
and the year after
I
I the the year after, I, I,
the,
the,
the year after 2000 was in great shape,
but,
uh,
incredible.
Six weeks on Brazil top 10 training for the best there,
feeling well.
And I think for the first time experience,
uh,
uh,
over training.
If I look back there,
when I got there,
I didn't want to be there anymore.
It was,
um,
my deep eyes,
black,
couldn't sleep the night before,
super tired.
I remember lost to this guy by a lot of points, right?
Way too much like jujitsu
or way too much exercise
or way too much of like a bunch of stuff.
A bunch of stuff.
Okay.
But I think way too much jujitsu
because for me to,
back then I said,
look, if I don't train more than everyone in this room here,
I don't deserve to be a champion, right?
I need to train more of those guys.
You have to have the guts to go home and eat.
You know, like some people don't realize
that that's a discipline of itself,
saying I need to get the hell out of here.
I need to go eat and rest.
No, I remember I had this guy,
American guy,
that every time after a section,
I was looking at him,
he's still on the mat,
I need to be the last one to leave the mat.
I cannot be,
and I have my students with me
and they wait outside,
like, let's go.
I want to leave,
I want to do something, right?
He said, no so no no no
as long as this guy
is still here
try roll
we're going to roll more
anyway
what happened
probably
I think he lost
his first match
I lost my first match
we were completely
tired
exhausted
right
didn't perform as well
boom
lost by a bunch of points
and then
the next year
I
I decided to compete the it, I decided to compete the,
it was 2001,
I decided to compete
the absolute division.
I broke my rib
on my third match.
And I was doing really well
in the open,
but I broke my rib
and I came back the next day
and couldn't be able to compete.
But anyways,
it was a lot of failed stories,
like not doing well.
I think that I couldn't
be a champion, right,
on a big stage.
Because if you want to
be considered the best
in Jiu-Jitsu,
in the Gi,
you win
IBJJF Rhodes
as a black belt, right?
And if you want to be
now, nowadays,
considered the best
in no Gi,
you need to be
ADCC champion.
Right.
And for me,
I think Rhodes was the biggest stage ever.
Way bigger than ADCC back then.
This was something that I was looking for.
And yeah,
your question was if I was surprised.
I was surprised.
I was in heaven.
When I dance like this,
my God,
I couldn't believe, right?
But it was there,
it was maybe there all
along
because you
were
you already
were well
established
you already
went to
worlds a
bunch
that's kind
of what I've
seen from him
sometimes I hear him
talking about
you know
different people
and sometimes
going to
different classes
and running
into different
people
and he's like
I was surprised
I was able
to actually do
and I'm like
I'm not
surprised
I think
you're
incredible
but I mean I don't know a lot about jiu-jitsu but I have seen him fight before and I have He's like, I was surprised. I was able to actually do. And I'm like, I'm not surprised. I think you're incredible.
But I mean, I don't know a lot about jujitsu,
but I have seen him fight before. And I have observed from afar, from the outside looking in,
I'm like, I don't see why you wouldn't be proficient
against just about anybody in the world.
For this guy.
Yeah, 100%.
And I told him a few years back, he asked me,
you think that I can
win roles
I said
of course
I said no no
I'm talking about
black belt
as a black belt
I didn't change my face
I said
of course
I said but
maybe in my age
of course
I keep repeating for him
the same thing
it's better
how much
but he has too much
in his plate
right and now I don't think that that me the same thing. It's better. How much, but he has too much in his plate,
right?
And now,
I don't think that me,
2003,
could have done,
I could have done
what I'd done
back then nowadays.
It's because now
they are professional athletes,
right?
Back then,
it was a part-time,
part-time now,
jiu-jitsu instructors trying to make live teaching
that at the same time had the passion to compete.
Maybe we'll say amateurs,
but we treat ourselves as professional athletes, right?
That'll make money, right?
The only thing that cares for us is the status,
having a career to be a world champion,
more for the personal achievement,
not even take more as a,
what my career can take
from after being a world champion,
right?
It's just for myself,
right?
Now they're professional.
They full-time
jiu-jitsu instructor,
excuse me,
full-time athlete,
right?
They compete,
they train,
they make a living. I think that's a different now from we talk, excuse me, full-time athlete, right? They compete, they train, they make a living.
I think that's a different now from when we talked with Gordon Ryan for the rest.
You were able to juggle both, but you're just saying
it was in a different time. Different time, yes, for sure.
If you take all my,
the guys that won roads back then
to,
I don't think any,
all those guys, they were
jiu-jitsu instructors that competed as professional athletes, right?
Roger Gracie, you name it, Marcelo Garcia, they were jiu-jitsu instructors.
They make a living, you know, that's how they make a living.
But they were at the same time a professional athlete.
Roger Gracie lives in London.
I never heard one of his trained partners that trained at his gym that is really good, right?
Have a broad esteem and they come from another city.
Sometimes they train with him back then.
But the best guys, they were part-time, right?
Athletes, I would say.
They treat themselves good,
but it's a different story now.
It's a different time for sure.
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Yeah.
A lot of the guys now are like they're training multiple times a day, every single day, and that's all they do.
That's all they do.
I think the resting, the time to – yeah, we always train twice a day,
right?
I stopped training twice a day
maybe a few years,
maybe three,
four years ago,
but until my,
my life stopped,
a part of my life,
train twice a day,
right?
But it's more,
way more serious now,
yeah.
How has Jiu Jitsu changed
in the last several years?
Has there been,
like maybe in the beginning of Jiu Jitsu, did people lean more towards traditional jiu-jitsu styles?
And then maybe now there's more because of maybe UFC and MMA.
Do you think there's more like wrestling or I know there's like more ankle locks and leg locks and things like that.
Like how has it evolved in maybe the last like five years?
Jiu-Jitsu,
it's a relative new,
right?
If you talk about
Brazilian,
no Jiu-Jitsu,
my God,
Jiu-Jitsu came from
a thousand,
thousand years ago,
right?
Yeah,
but it's new on the world stage.
Yeah,
the stage that we see,
the stage that we love Jiu-Jitsu,
right?
50 years ago,
the Jiu-Jitsu that
Helio Gris want to present to me was a pure self-defense, right? 50 years ago, the jiu-jitsu that
Helio Gris
would present to me
was a pure self-defense,
right?
You,
you self-defense
and it's not
sport jiu-jitsu.
I see.
What he was showing you,
like you already had him
in a choke
and he was breaking free
of that.
The only jiu-jitsu
that he sees
as a self-defense
to teach people
how to protect themselves.
And for him was to, to spread jiu-Jitsu is a self-defense to teach people how to protect themselves. For him,
to spread Jiu-Jitsu, he was
challenged in different martial arts
to get in a fight.
But the sport of Jiu-Jitsu
started in Brazil getting
relatively bigger in
1990s.
That's when the first
CBJJ, the Brazilian Confederation, started. After's when the IBJJ, first CBJJ, the Brazilian
Confederation started, and
after that, the IBJJF
Federation, right, or National
Federation, that started with the
tournaments, big tournaments and everything.
But I
think that
the jiu-jitsu that we would like, and I would
say that most of the schools
now, 90% of the
schools that have
the students come from is
the grappling,
the rolling, the sparring
section, the
puzzle that
escape from bad positions,
the rolling part, right?
No more, we don't
emphasize in the self-defense, right? Not more, we don't emphasize in the self-defense,
right?
Unless if you
work in the side,
right?
It's not much,
it's not a lot of schools
that now make living
teach self-defense.
But don't think
that those things
that you practice
for 45-minute rolling
is not going to save
your ass in the fight,
right?
It will,
for sure,
right?
It's like you tell the wrestlers they don't know how to fight.
They're going to pick you up, crush your head,
and the concrete is going to beat the crap out of you.
They all have submissions, right?
But they know how to fight.
Now all the grinding that goes for hours and hours of training,
it's going to take you somewhere right
they're good fighters
but I would say since the 90s
it started with
more introduced in Brazil when they came here
in the
early 2000s when they moved the roads
to 2007 to here
things started growing even more
and
the ADCC
does that more for
no-gi, still
jiu-jitsu. I'd rather say
no-gi jiu-jitsu instead of grappling, just to
take the credit all for jiu-jitsu, right?
Because those guys that win ADCC,
they're all jiu-jitsu guys.
And they're not grapplers. I hate to say
grapplers. No, no, they are jiu-jitsu guys.
Sometimes they take, some guys are more willing to do the gi.
Some guys are willing to do monogi.
I think two ways.
Now there's going to be separate.
You're not winning one of those tournaments without knowing jiu-jitsu.
Yeah, of course not.
Right.
Yeah.
And I would say the last 10 years, ADC is starting getting bigger.
the last 10 years,
ADC started getting bigger.
And now with Gordon Ryan,
and I think things got out of proportion in terms of compared to where they are right now,
for sure.
Yeah.
What do you think is something
that makes him so dominant, Gordon Ryan?
I mean, he's pretty much completely untouchable
at the moment, right?
Yeah, he's just really good.
And he's taking the best guys and just... Just three luck best guys and just kind of doing whatever he wants with them.
Yeah, he's the first guy that a full-time no-gi guy.
Yeah.
Right.
He's a full-time professional, right? He has one of the, probably one of the best instructors,
coach, mentor, master that he can have
that spend full, 24 hours,
think about Jiu-Jitsu,
how can make those guys better, right?
That's John.
Donahue, yeah.
Donahue, right?
He's, yeah, and he's full-time coach.
Some of the Jiu-Jitsu guys, they don't have.
If you tell me who's coaching Andre Galvão, I don't know.
He's coach himself, right?
Who's coach?
Felipe Pena.
Felipe Pena is one of the rivals of... He's living in Brazil,
has his own school, right?
Training with his trained partners.
He's not even one guy that is a high-level guy that I heard that he trained with.
And he thinks that he's going to do well
against a guy that is super talented,
extremely dedicated to Nogi,
and he dictates what he want to do it
I want this rule set
because he has the
the rule set
that he wants
is to show that
look
as long as we stay here
you can
you can hold me back
for 10-20 minutes
but after that
I'm gonna pick you apart
right
or I'm gonna pick you apart
in the beginning
show how
how I do
and
he's just
extreme talent,
dedicate
to
quite a dedication, right?
And as a guy that full-time
spend his time help him.
He also gets a train.
He also gets a train with a lot of monsters
all the time. Like a lot of monsters all the time.
Like a lot of his training partners are like, I think Nicholas Merigali was one of his training partners
and a bunch of those other guys are just also killers.
Yeah, but I think that John Dana built those killers.
He did.
And they broke up, right?
That squad.
That squad, they broke up.
From what we heard not from what we heard
from what we
we saw
they not trained
together anymore
yeah
Menegari
was before
six months ago
he was a
okay guy
right
incredible in the
gi
but
not great
in the
gi
right
and look what he did
in the
ADCC
got second place
in his division
right
no
second place in the open no second place in the open second place in his division right no no
second place in the open
no
second place in the open
third place in his division
yeah
right
a guy that never done
no Gi before
it's unbelievable
but I'm actually
I'm curious about Marigali
and what your thoughts
are on that
like he
obviously John Donahue
he learned from him
but
was it because
he had so much
Gi experience
that it was easy
for him to transfer to no Gi do you think that's something or do you think that played a it because he had so much gi experience that it was easy for him to transfer
to no gi do you think that's something or do you think that played a factor because he was a
gi world champion already but the the funny case of him because he rely a lot on the grips
how he plays his back but like you play it back on the ground fits in the air holding
collar sleeve sleeve sleeve and uh yeah could it be a challenge for him?
Yeah.
Right?
Like Marcel Garcia.
Marcel Garcia, he's good in balls because he don't rely a lot in grips.
Kind of the similar game that he has in the Gi.
He's on you to try holding back in the Gi, right?
You have more chance to hold him back in the Gi.
try to hold him back in the gi,
right? He has more chance to hold him back in the gi.
yeah, but you see him in the gi, and no gi,
you don't see much difference to
Marcel Garcia, right? Yeah. But
Menegari, from what I understand about him,
it's
different when he put the gi on, right?
He had the grips, and one of his
favorite techniques is loop choke, right? You're going to do loop choke
with no gi. You can't, right?
You can't. But yeah,
that's why I feel like he did great
because I thought his style looks
super awful, right? Like the way
he plays, it's, I'm
going to say ugly, but doesn't look
cool as Gordon Ryan, right?
He doesn't look, the way that he set takedowns,
right? He won, he won an award way they set takedowns. He won.
He won an award for the best takedown in the tournament.
It's crazy, right?
I don't know.
He never took anyone down in a gi.
Yeah.
Gordon Ryan, he looks disinterested,
and he looks like he forces the other guy to use a lot of muscle,
and it looks rare that he uses any muscle, which I'm sure he's using a lot of strength.
But he just doesn't seem frantic.
Even when the guy's pushing his shoulders in the beginning and just doing some of that stuff, he's just letting the guy.
The guy took him down.
He just let him.
But it wasn't even like he let him to get him into his guard.
He just let the guy just bowl him right over.
He's very relaxed.
It's incredible to witness.
It's crazy how he distributed his weight, right?
Because he was very famous about just when he showed up,
first time he came up was all his leg locks attacks, right?
Now he's a dominant on top.
He's famous by the way he's murdered people,
the way he control people.
Remind me a lot of Roger Gracie.
What he'd done in the past.
was
because he was
an experienced grappler,
a jiu-jitsu guy when he came up, right?
And they said, what is the easiest way
to get those black belts?
Getting those legs and attack, because they're really poor in their legs attack.
That's what he did.
He came up first, the leg lock of everyone.
But he knew that they would find an answer for the leg.
He didn't just stuck in the leg lock game.
He said, no, this here is going to run out of time for me.
It's good to have on my sleeve if I have to use.
But just have
the leg attacks
they're going to fight
it's going to be easy
for them to fight
away
from my leg attacks
right
and he start build
as he's doing this
start building his
top game
his whips
and his pass
it's unbelievable
the way he control people
they don't move
and I got level
whatever you want to do.
If you want to pull guard
and go for legs,
you tap a guy
in 11 seconds
in one of these matches.
Yeah.
Monster.
And if you have to sweep,
get on top,
just smash those guys,
you can.
You know,
and yeah,
he's just
really good,
right?
People a lot of
talk about
the steroids abuse,
right?
And it, yeah, but I don't want to take it because most of the guys that he goes against use, right?
What is the difference between him?
Oh, he's doing really well on this too, right?
Compared to the other guy because his shape, it looks unbelievable.
It looks like a bodybuilder, right?
Yeah, it's awesome.
He's ripped, all cut up, all, you know, strong,
but it's to have cardio.
And,
uh,
I don't think this affect this technique.
Technique is perfect,
right?
Look,
look,
go home.
Well,
it's interesting that people,
it's interesting that people would take steroids for jujitsu because jujitsu previously,
like years and years ago,
people wouldn't even really think that lifting was that effective for it.
But probably people have, they probably used to neglect it, but probably not anymore.
But you seem to be a proponent of lifting.
You're still jacked.
Yeah.
Like I said, of course, especially in a professional, any sports, right?
Even golfer, if they, it's going to help you somehow, right?
Jiu-Jitsu is not different.
It's a,
using your grips
and your whole body,
doesn't matter if it's in the bottom,
top,
of course help.
I don't think it's fair.
If you're using
and someone not using,
he has an edge on you.
For sure.
A hundred percent, sure.
Do they test in those federations?
No.
IBJJ, they test, but they test just the winners on the day of the event.
That's it.
No, like they do at the UFC or the other sports.
They're like, you're good.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Like they cocked Canaan.
6'2", 250.
Yeah, you're fine. But they like they caught 250 yeah you're fine
but uh
they say
this Seattle
I'm not gonna spend
money on this
you know
it actually looks good
because it looks
all
all jacked
all
right
it's attractive
uh
but uh
if he look great
he would be alive
now he would be in shame
after what he's seen
right
he said oh my gosh
man
what's wrong with you
these monsters
yeah
as monsters
but
it's
funny
because
when I
met
Hito
I was
a
weighty
195
buff
kid
right
yeah
and
we went
to change
and I
took my
sweatshirt
it was
golden
I put
my
guillotine
oh
first time I felt insulted to be strong right I felt like oh when I took my sweatshirt, it was golden. When I put my guillotine on, you look, oh.
The first time I felt insulted to be strong,
right?
I felt like,
oh my God, I felt intimidated to be,
oh.
You look to my dad,
Mr. Warnick,
it's going to be tough to teach your son,
right?
The two worst students you can have,
the muscle ones, and the intelligent ones.
And your son looks like he has both.
Because the muscle ones, they react first,
the muscle instead the technique, right?
The technique, yeah.
And the intelligent ones, they always have the ifs.
But if they do this,
they're already looking forward
for the second step. They're not
willing to. If you teach the dumb ones,
if you tell them
this, they're not even hesitate.
They're going to do what you ask for.
Dumb and skinny.
I remember
going back, the
longest that I stayed without doing any weights
was right after I meet
Hilly Grace. At that point I said no, no, I cannot, I cannot use the strength. And I felt
insulted every time that I was rolling, someone looked at me, hey, you're so strong.
I pull guard, I swept you, I took your back and I choked you. What does strong mean?
What does it mean? If I was on top to smash you not moving,
you could have said, oh, the guy's strong,
I couldn't move him.
But no, I pull guard, I tap you from the bottom,
I slap you, I got to do clean techniques.
You see any sweat on my, no, I don't have any sweat on you
because I didn't have to use my energy on you, right?
And you call me strong, right?
I feel so, right?
I feel so hurt.
Yeah.
Your leg looks like a tree.
You cannot move your legs.
Oh, yeah.
It's not because I'm fluid on top of you.
I move my head in the right direction, right?
I'm avoiding your hooks, right?
I'm avoiding you trying to take my back.
I'm doing the right technique, right?
I'm not using half my weight against you.
You call me strong?
Let me show how strong it is, right?
Yeah, but yeah.
In Gordon, I think that a combination
of a bunch of stuff
man the guys
are full time
and more guys
like him
is going to come up
right
we just have
the root
all those brothers
amazing to watch
those kids
rolling
it's unbelievable
and
before I was like
who cares about
the
what do you call
the P's
P's
PEDs PEDs?
PEDs.
PEDs, yeah.
In sports, right?
In jiu-jitsu in general, right?
Until first, what Helio Grace said in the beginning,
but for me now as a son,
that is look up to the others, right?
Right.
And I want to see him as a,
I want to see a good example for him, right?
I want to see the Rutolos,
those kids look like the friendliest kids ever, right?
They always smile, good face.
But when it comes to compete,
that's close you can get in a fight that I'll throw a punch, that's those kids.
Feels like they ready to close, make a fist, they all throw a punch, that's those kids. Feels like they're ready to close,
make a fist,
they punch you in the face.
That's how mean they are when they compete.
But I don't think they take PEDs, right?
And they're savage.
And when it comes to competing,
that's why I want to look at myself.
Look, you still can be nice.
Watch this kid, man.
I think it changes the sport
when people feel like they have to do it.
You know, like bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman.
Those sports are in that category.
Because this kid, now he's challenging Gordon Ryan.
And they got an internet authentication, right?
Back and forth.
And he told Gordon Ryan,
hey, okay, good.
I hope they keep this energy
when they see each other right like he's he's he wrestled he grappled you know i have this thing
that is we say in jiu-jitsu that pissed me off the most is a porrada every day right every day
porrada means a brawling fighting right it isn't you know one of those guys say this they just
train hard right if you say
in the 1990s
you say
porrada inside the school
people would take the jacket
the jacket
say okay
who's come to fight
right
they make a fist
because someone's
invade your school
for you to get in a fight
now
porrada
porrada
you don't do porrada
you
you just
you just train
you just train
hard jiu-jitsu
right you do what was in that book that what was it Helio Gracie how do you say his name You just training hard jiu-jitsu, right?
You do what was in that book that was a Helio Gracie.
How do you say his name?
Helio Gracie, yes.
Yeah, you do what's in that book and you got the roadmap for success.
You don't need to be mad and you don't need to fight and insult people.
But those kids, when they grapple, they close to porrada.
They close to a porrada. They close to a brawl
because,
again,
I think they're
going to do
really well
in MMA.
I think they
want to do
MMA.
I hope they
stick to Jiu-Jitsu
for a little
longer because
they're really
good.
They're twins
brothers.
They're
unbelievable.
They got
each other
as partners
to beat
the crap
out of each
other.
You see
them rolling
each other.
Yeah,
they almost
have to break
up the
role because
they go
crazy. They're amazing. I have this kid not that Mika Galvan the videos them rolling each other yeah they almost have to break up the role because they go they go crazy
they're amazing
I have this kid
not that
Mika Galvan
is really good too
18 years old
phenomenal
I don't believe
how good he is
I watch his stuff
he moves
really well
moves well
and his guard
is unbelievable
he's top
he's submission
hunter
they don't stop
but he
lost to
Cade Rutolo,
one of the twin brothers on the ADCC in the finals.
It was the first time he ever got tapped.
I think I'm saying it right.
I don't think he never got tapped.
But he got tapped by a heel hook.
But yeah, that's a good generation.
When I see those kids,
I say, man, stick longer in Jiu-Jitsu.
How is this guy's Jiu-Jitsu etiquette?
Because we've had other people come in here
before saying that
he's injured some folks
over there
so is he nice or
Ray is the one
who talks
Ray likes
Ray likes to
over exaggerate
everything
so he says I'm mean
and stuff
but it's not true
bunch of people
haven't come back
and things like that
he told me
Ray's just talking trash
yeah
Ray said
hey
yeah you think that I did well against Isima And he told me, Ray's just talking trash. Yeah, Ray said, hey, yeah,
you think that I did well against Encima?
As Encima first role?
I said,
what do you mean you did well?
Did you have a role with Encima for real?
Right?
Yeah.
He said,
well,
it's been nice with you,
man.
I said,
really?
Yeah,
of course it's been nice with you,
right?
It's not that you're your first role. He cares you, right? It's, it's not that you're your, your first role.
He,
he cares about,
right?
And,
uh,
no,
man,
for,
for how much that he can use,
right?
He can be powerful and,
uh,
no,
it's,
I never got hurt training with him.
Never.
Uh,
we roll a lot,
but,
uh,
but Julian,
another one to then,
uh,
train with him two sections a day and never got hurt.
Happened before?
Of course happened.
But most of the time,
whoever push,
he get the,
I think that he stay a little bit above what he can.
He never goes like this.
You, I'm here, he's like this.
No, he's always like this, right?
He measure your intensity, right?
When someone like this comes into your gym, after you train them for a while, are you always like this, right? He'll measure your intensity, right? When someone like this comes into your gym
after you've trained them for a while,
are you kind of like, oh shit, like this guy,
you know, I got to really pay attention to this guy now.
Like this is a, you know, when we roll.
I mean, obviously you want these guys to be,
you want everyone to rise up
and you want people to be the best that they can be.
But do you kind of think about that a little bit?
You're like, holy shit, these guys are catching me
or they're making me really have to reach
into my bag of tricks kind of thing?
Not really.
In terms of, no, it's an improvement.
It's inevitable, right?
That they're going to get good.
And I'm surprised for how long I can stick with them training,
right?
Because I'm almost 49.
Yeah.
For 30 years of doing this.
But,
yes,
it's happened,
right?
It's normal.
Of course,
sometimes we have more ego in terms of get caught.
It was my mistake.
God damn it.
How stupid, how dumb I was to leave my arm here.
When it comes nice and clear, this was a good technique, right?
Every time it's different, but I don't like to get to my head,
especially now,
my,
my age experience,
right?
To get to my head that,
oh no,
he's better than me right now.
I hope that he's better than me.
He needs to be better than me.
Right?
But,
no,
I don't,
I don't have this much.
Of course,
I'm compatible.
When I'm training for competition,
upset me the most because,
again,
I,
I don't want this, what happened with me right now in training section,
happened in the tournament, right?
That's when my mind changed a lot.
But in a regular practice, no.
And you still compete, right?
I still compete.
I'm a master, right?
Last, I don't know, I started when I was 35, 34, I started competing in the mass.
When I quit competing in the adults, I started competing in the mass.
At least once a year I compete.
And most of the major tournaments, Master Roles, yeah, nowadays just Master Roles.
Yeah, I feel excited to compete.
Let me ask you this, because Andrew's starting Jiu-Jitsu and he's fairly strong, right? As an individual. And you said that Helios said the hardest people to train are like strong people or intelligent people. So when you see people that come into the gym and they have a lot of strength, how do you train somebody to not rely on their strength when they're training? Like, how do you drill that into somebody?
First,
bring the quote from Helio Grace.
Hopefully that the quote is going to upset them the way I got upset,
right?
Maybe feel,
okay,
I have a chip in my shoulder.
I cannot use this strength right now,
right?
That's going to happen.
I told you,
I think I told this quote, why I have to sign up there. I told about this strength right now, right? That's going to happen. I told you, I think I told this quote,
why I have to sign up there.
I told about this.
Look, it's going to be tough for you.
You're super athletic, super strong, smart.
You're going to have to figure out how to save.
But you, it's funny about his team.
He was one of the few guys that listened to me
when I said about, look, you are white belt now.
You're going to absorb like sponge, but you need to absorb
the right technique for you, right?
If you have a section that you have,
it's because when
I set my
the week,
the technique of the week or technique or the
month, right? I said, okay, this
week we need to work. In the last
two weeks, we were working
at this guard, right? That goes for a foot lock and a sweep. Spent two weeks to work. In the last two weeks, we were working this guard, right,
that goes for a foot lock and a sweep.
Spent two weeks to work this.
I'm not individually looking to assimilate to learn this.
Most overall, I think that it's going to fit for most of my students, right?
It's a curriculum to be followed, right?
And sometimes the technique is going to fit perfect in your game.
Sometimes not.
You know, it's not there yet for you,
or it's not even part of your game.
But you're going to drill like every single student, right?
But this is the first 45 minutes, 35 minutes you do technique.
The last 45 minutes, that's the most important for you.
That's the rolling part, right?
Especially for beginners, because you have now,
in our school, we don't allow white belts to roll against each other.
You're always going to roll someone higher belt than you.
If everything that happened, you stop,
hey, what did you do here?
Just show me this technique, right?
Okay, I'm stuck in the bottom.
What should I do, right?
If you take, you're going to have at least six,
rolling of six minutes, let's say,
with someone private lesson you, right?
And that's the time to build your own game on this.
That's why I take advantage of the higher belts.
At the school, some etiquettes from different schools,
you cannot ask a black belt to roll or a brown belt,
or a black belt.
No, the white belts, they cannot roll against each belt to roll or a brown belt, a black belt. No,
the white belts,
they cannot roll against Chad.
They need to ask those guys because where are they going to learn the most?
But if they're smart on this,
and Simo always done that.
Sometimes he finish a roll
and we change parts,
he still add feedback with his training part.
But okay,
that technique,
how that works, right?
And now, of course, he's getting better.
He's the one that passed
the technique for the others, right?
But he spent a lot of time, okay,
what is this?
You finish rope, okay,
how you swept me?
You know, he never let the
technique pass by that I learned, right?
So this is intriguing.
Hmm, you react different than Julia react now on this. technique pass by, they don't learn. This is intriguing.
You react different than Julia reacts now
on this. That's what I think
that helps a lot. And a lot of times,
especially if you get to
our school, in some classes you get
there, you're going to have
six, seven black belts,
a bunch
of good brown belts,
and you feel like to fit this class,
I need to be tough like those guys.
I need to roll intense.
I need to give my best for my training partner.
No, no, don't do that.
If they want the best,
they're not going to ask you right now why belt.
They're going to ask you,
they're going to ask Julia,
they're going to ask Mark,
they're going to ask those guys.
The time that they take for you is to help you.
Don't think that uh giving your
best in terms of use your strengths right now is going to be good now they don't need that right
now and i think that one of the best ways to learn is teach someone right you try cover up the details
that you miss when you when you just practice when you do the technique but when you have to show
someone they all that have the ability that you, if you don't cover up the techniques
right, the movements right,
they're not going to be able to do the
technique. So the input in the beginning is really
really important, especially for a guy coming
in that's a little more muscular. Yeah.
And I think that, again,
talking during class,
doing rolling, right,
is going to help you tremendously because
like I said, it's six minutes that the guy can spend on his time to help you to get better. There's going to help you tremendous because it's like like I said it's six minutes
that the guy spent
on his time
to help you to get better
there's only so much
you can learn in one day
too right
like so I mean
you got like
in the first couple times
you go
you got
maybe what
an hour
two hour session
and you got to
kind of call it quits
right
you can only
after a while
your brain starts
going haywire
and you don't remember
which arm to put
where
what wrist to grab and everything.
You're like, I don't remember any of this.
But that goes for when you start rolling,
you're going to do your instincts, right?
Your reactions, instinct reactions.
You're going to move the way you think that's right for you, right?
Or you're going to hold tight.
And those are normally bad
if you're just going off a natural instinct
and you have no grappling background.
That's what we've talked about before.
It's like kind of opposite.
Like, oh, I'm just going to roll this way.
And a jiu-jitsu guy would be like, that's great.
That's right for me.
You just rolled into what I wanted you to roll into.
I think that what has intrigued people in jiu-jitsu, what has intrigued people the first time they saw Heist Crazy,
everything they thought was right in the fight is turned to be wrong, right?
We capitalize, jiu-jitsu is built
to capitalize in your
human instinct, right?
If you love someone,
you want to hug. If you hate someone, you want to hug, right?
Boxers, professional
boxers, whoever
get the first hit, what do they do?
They clench, they hug.
It's natural for us to hug, right?
They're gonna try to strangle you like this.
It's just the easiest way to unbar someone.
They're gonna try to headlock you.
That's the easiest way to take someone's back
and choke them, right?
The reaction, the human reaction is built on,
jiu-jitsu is built on the human reaction
to all the gaps that we leave.
Yeah,
I'm going to try
to get the air
off your throat
by strangling you this way
and you can do
whatever you want
to me from there.
Yeah,
right.
And I don't think
that the humans
is the most smart
animals to fight,
right?
The way,
the instinct,
the instinct is not
that smart.
We're smart
for different things,
right?
But,
yeah,
we're not built, another thing to jiu-jitsu is intrigue people. We're smart for different things, right? But yeah, we're not built.
Another thing to jiu-jitsu is intrigue people.
We're not built to stay this far from each other,
punch each other in the face.
It's not natural for us, right?
And that's why I have more practice in jiu-jitsu than in other sports, right?
Because the hug, the contact, right?
It's natural.
The ones that are built different,
right?
The boxer that can stand in front,
again,
they're tough until
they hit first.
If they get hit,
whatever it is,
they're going to clench.
They're going to hug,
right?
Please stop me.
Don't beat me up anymore.
I think Jiu Jitsu
is built for that.
Do you think everybody,
do you think just about anybody
possess the ability to get pretty good at jiu-jitsu like like uh back to Haley O'Gracy
with that book like if you learn a lot of this stuff that's in this book you're going to be
able to defend yourself pretty well and you are probably going to end up pretty proficient at
jiu-jitsu do you think that's true or does it like does it require a special person or some
sort of athleticism because what I see see, again, from the outside,
is just there's so many different body types.
There's people that are short and stocky.
There's people that are tall and lanky.
There's people that are really skinny.
There's people that are really jacked.
What are your thoughts on that?
A hundred percent.
That's one of the things that I'm,
you take this guy that are in athletic ability,
six foot tall weight
145 right
has a game for him has a style for him
Jiu Jitsu
the problem that we have right now we have so much
information come from videos
that if we don't focus
in the things that we good at
we can be good at you're wasting
your time right the things that we're good at, we can be good at, you're wasting your time, right?
The things that you can be good at specifically.
Yes, the Hilo Grace book was
a jiu-jitsu build
to beat someone
that's going to react with the instant reaction, right?
It's not to beat a wrestler,
it's not to beat,
especially nowadays,
too much people knows
what is
what is guard
they say guard
back in the
in 1990s
nobody knew
what is guard
people like this is dumb
they're just rolling
around on the ground
exactly
but now they
if but if you get
someone
you're still gonna react
uh
your instant reaction
for as a
yeah
never done
in martial arts
just a human
instant reaction
is
the book is perfect
right
to
of course
you can
maximize
the
techniques
like Helio Grace
did
but
you
you're gonna be stuck
in a book
that I
teach you how to beat
someone that
don't have any
any
martial arts background, right?
But
nowadays, what I believe
in jiu-jitsu is the student is going to
stick longer is the ones that
love, that have the passion to roll, right?
They
want to understand more.
They don't want, they don't do
jiu-jitsu for the
0.1% chance that they're going to get in a fight with the neighbor, right?'t do jiu-jitsu for the 0.1%
chance
that they're
they're gonna get in a fight
with the neighbor
right
they do jiu-jitsu for
for
get better
it's funny to say
because
99% of jiu-jitsu
is gonna be against
a trained partner
right
yeah
how can I improve my training
with Insim
how can I improve my training
with Dan
how can I improve my training
with Mark
right
the guys around us, right?
You build a jujitsu
to beat each other, right?
And have some other guys
that compete
that goes against other people
or the ones that visit
different schools, right?
But it's the jujitsu
that we train
is built to beat
our fellow practitioners
right
that's all
but of course
I think that
they don't have experience
in terms of
they don't know how to
protect themselves
that's dumb
of course
like I said in the beginning
they're wrestlers
they can fight
my gosh
they can
right
that's what excited me
when I first started was, um, the first
day I got beat up by multiple people. Um, but I remember there was a role with a black belt. He's
like one 50. And I, I mentioned this all the time. He rolled me like six times in six minutes. He's
maybe 155, 160 pounds. And every time I came, I had guys that I was two 65 at the time. Right.
And guys that were one 60, one and guys that were 160 170 that were the
upper belts were just wrecking me continuously easily like they weren't using any effort right
and that's why it was so fun like that's what made me stick with it because I'm like
if these guys can kick my ass and I'm stronger and bigger than them
this is fucking awesome they clearly know something that you't. They know a lot that I don't know.
But that goes for what I mentioned before.
He could avoid most of the submission if he wanted just to not get tapped.
Right?
But he was willing to learn,
okay,
why are you on your back?
Right?
Why you don't try toss someone up
and be on top?
And he started doing a lot of his jiu-jitsu,
started different than most guys in his size
do it. So you're saying he's strong enough to just
kind of like ball up and just hold on. Yeah, just hold it.
And not
advance or learn anything. One of the things
that did different, he went
down. He went to his
back to guard.
Let me learn this here, right?
Most of the guys his size, they don't do
that. Forget it. I'm going to be on top of this
kid. I'm going to hold him. I'm going to hold the collar.
I'm going to headlock him, squeeze his brain
into his crib, right?
And he didn't.
That's what is scary about him because he stopped pulling
guard. You're going to work on the back,
right? When you see he's
already know how to do
the
holding someone in his guard, shooting for submissions, right when you see he's already know how to do the holding
someone in his guard
shooting for submissions
have the sweep
set for him
okay
that
that's require
a lot of
first
don't have too much
ego to
lean your back
and get beat
like he said
right
but also learn
that
start from the technique
that's supposed to
smaller guy
the heel of grace
should be in the bottom
not the tough guy, right?
Yeah.
So me being very, very brand new, sometimes I don't even know what the right question
is to ask, but like I want the upper belts and instructors to kind of be excited when
I do ask questions or like when they see me wanting to get better.
So like a very general question, but like how can I be a better student to where like the upper bouts do want to help me out
uh don't fight back right every time you roll so look this is my my third class right uh i'm
gonna show what i what i know so far when i lay my back, I like to hold like this.
You know, it starts like the beginning part, right?
Once you start the roll, it's like, look, that's the best you can do it.
No fight back.
And can I start on my back?
Can I start doing guard?
And you just tell me what to do next.
If I be on top,
right,
oh,
I roll,
the previous roll,
the guy did this to me.
How should I stop this?
How can I learn this?
I think the best way,
but don't fight back.
Okay.
Right?
Every time,
can be born the first six months,
but the,
the much they're going to learn during the six months
is going to be crazy
compared to the ones
that just fight back.
You keep,
you keep fighting back, you just work your instincts.
You're not learning the technique, right?
But if you focus on asking as much as you can, right?
I guarantee the guy is going to come, let's roll again.
The next day, he's going to ask you to roll.
And it goes for the guys that can help you the most.
Be selfish in this part.
Okay, I'll roll with that guy there.
Every time, he teaches me something.
Go back and ask him again to roll.
I think that's the best way.
Fighting back, just use your energy.
Again, I don't think they're going to be too excited.
Unless if someone with low self-esteem,
you just want to beat someone bigger than him
to make you feel strong.
That's the guy that you should avoid.
Okay.
And then in the beginning,
like, I mean,
I went four times a couple weeks in a row
and towards the end of the week,
even Mark was saying that like my skin color was changing.
I was freaking wrecked, you know,
like I'm trying to eat and I'm still, you know, I'm just... Oh yeah, you were like yellow. He said I was ja wrecked. You know, like I'm trying to eat and I'm still, you know, I'm just.
Oh, yeah.
You were like yellow.
He said I was jaundiced.
So in the beginning, and you and Seema, please chime in on this.
But like how many times would you recommend somebody go just because like right now my whole body is still sore.
You know, the last time I touched the mats was Friday and this is Monday now.
So like in the
beginning because i i see why and sema loves it so much i see why you love it so much it's
extremely addicting it's it's the i mean it's it's incredible but at the same time i also want
to be able to do it for the next well forever you know i'm thinking like when my son's 10 years old
like me and him like getting rounds in so like like I want to stay in the game forever.
So I don't want to go too hard now,
but like I want to progress.
I'm trying to be patient.
But in the beginning,
how often should somebody be going?
If you stop fighting,
you can train every day, right?
Because you learn technique every day.
But that's your body shows that hey take it easy you know it was too much last week let's take it this week
but if you decrease that your your rolling your sparring section intensity you can train a lot
right now of course this goes to your schedule family everything right if you can fit jiu-jitsu
in your life don't change jiu-jitsu in your life, don't change.
Jiu-jitsu is going to change your life, 100% sure.
Like weight is going to change your life, right?
A good habit is going to change your life.
Like you're already a super fit guy.
But how to fight less and learn more the technique right now.
No.
Don't go for battles.
Avoid those battles.
If you can
choose a higher ranked guys
to roll, it's going to be less
ego and more to learn. Less ego
for him and less ego for you too because
I cannot beat this guy. He has a better
technique than me. I just need to learn.
For him, it's like, yeah, I don't have nothing
to prove against this guy.
They're not going to go hard on you.
More and more you're going to learn
what is the best training partners for you
to teach you in the beginning.
But if you avoid those battles,
a fight that is going to hurt you physically,
you know, like the next day you're going to be tired,
you're going to spend more time rolling, right?
Build a technique that's going to prolong your time in sections.
Not even in the long term, right?
That day, that week, right?
If you can avoid those strains, at the end of the week, you're going to feel fresh, and
next week, you're going to start training again.
Yeah.
Anything to add on, Zima?
Dude, yeah.
Just listen to your body.
I was telling you, man.
Oh, I know.
Like, just don't overdo it.
I overdid it at the beginning.
Initially, I was like, I want to go like five days a week, and I quickly learned i could not go five days a week with the intensity that i was trying to do it at
yeah i started going two or three times a week and then bumped it from there yeah so with with
all of that it's all it's i understand where this next answer is going to come from but like in
regards to like training outside of jiu-jitsu because like i still want to get stronger in
certain areas like me and sema have been working on um like a weakness of mine but like some days i'm just like dude i'm still tired
from the day before like i don't want to work out because i'm going to go tomorrow because i want to
conserve as much energy for jujitsu um so again is this something that like over time i'll be able to
manage weight room stuff with jujitsu or is this just I need to slow down jiu-jitsu
to make sure I don't lose the weight room?
The slowdown is going to come down
for the first question, right?
Yeah.
Don't.
Try to learn more techniques possible, right?
Yeah, yeah.
If you see that,
because we get to classes
and you see a lot of the pro-bells rolling for me,
I want to roll like this guy.
This guy looks older than me,
looks out of shape than me,
but he can stay on the mat for every single roll.
Why am I resting here right now? Because
he has more techniques, right?
He knows how to save his energy
way more than you.
And that's going to, again, prolong
his time on the mat.
But it should not be interfered.
But the problem,
we, as a human, right,
as a competitor, as an athlete,
we like to push us to the edge.
It doesn't matter what we do, right?
Yeah.
That's a problem that we need to manage, right?
That's what forces you to get to jiu-jitsu
because you're intrigued about the techniques.
It's addictive.
This is crazy how this guy can, you know, force you to get better
because you want to make sure to improve your techniques.
But the same can be a downside too for injurers, for feel tired,
feel discord sometimes.
But if you manage in the beginning, try to hold yourself
for at least the next six months.
You're going to learn much technique.
You're going to still rolling someone higher ranked than me
that is going to teach me.
We're going to give some,
but it's more learning process right now
than actually the free spar,
right?
It's going to be huge for you.
Anything else in Tuma?
Nah, dude.
Your body gets,
I mean,
Cassio,
you probably know about this too.
Like over time,
you get used to the stresses of jiu-jitsu.
It's like your body's used to moving in those ranges of motion.
So it's not as tiring as you do it more and more and more.
And right now you're new.
Yeah, yeah.
We were joking in the gym and I was just like, my fingertips hurt.
Like my knees are sore.
You know, like this is all new stuff for me.
So it's been like, bah.
But you had mentioned um like
actually sparring and going like to open mat and that sort of thing um again for a newer person
how often should somebody be actually testing out some of the techniques like should it be every
time we learn something new and then we take it to the you know testing ground or is should
sort of kind of like milanichev saying like, we shouldn't even be going down to triples
for a couple years in powerlifting,
to test things out.
Is there anything like that with jiu-jitsu
where it's like, well, maybe you need to slow down
before you can learn to sprint?
Yeah, because it can be frustrating too, right?
Because you learn the technique,
you learn technique, someone that you're going to try to execute the technique, you learn technique,
someone that you're going to try to execute the technique after.
He's teaching you,
but at the same time,
he knows the answer if it works or not.
The progress of learning the technique is going to take a while.
It's going to adapt into your body,
into your movements,
before there's a chance to pull the trigger in the right time, right?
Because I can show you, I can show you armbar.
The same side of armbar
is you're doing
someone that knows how to escape with the armbar,
right?
This can
take a little longer for you to adapt in your game.
The technique is because you practice
someone. It's like if you go for,
if you
get in a fight,
right?
The armbar they learn
is going to be right there for you.
But when you go back to the gym,
to the school,
you're going to practice someone
that knows how to escape
from the armbar.
It can be through,
sometimes you stop pulling the armbar
because I know he already knows
how to stop the armbar, right?
But you're going to have the arm bar, right? But,
you're going to have
in your arsenal,
right?
The technique is going
to be there for you
and sometimes
it's going to come
the way you're not
even expecting.
Man,
I pulled this arm bar.
The ones that I thought
never worked,
right?
Because sometimes
in that second,
that moment
that the arms present,
the way they move,
the way you're going
to learn how to set it up,
the position to get to what you want, right?
But take longer, right?
But don't get scorched.
Yeah.
No, I know the first time I got my first submission,
I text these guys the date and time like,
I can't believe this actually happened.
Oh my God.
It was like a huge celebration for me at least.
But last question for me, and I understand where this is going,
but like the gas tank,
like you said it yourself,
like there's dudes that look like
they should be out of shape
or in comparison to what I've been doing,
but I'm like dying and everyone's still fresh.
Does that come with experience
or is there something extra that I could be doing
to help, you know, raise my endurance
and stay in the game longer?
No, it's just about
the technique, right?
It can
change if you start looking for
tournament. If I look for
your energy
that you spend, the energy you spend
when you roll is
double that I spend.
Maybe triple what Isima spends right now
because he knows when to hold his energy.
He has a lot to offer too,
but it's not necessary for him to use at that time.
And you, as a beginner,
every beginner that starts from there,
they use 100% the energy. It is not because you are a gas,
not because you don't have,
it's because you use way more than you have for,
for the pure long time.
If you say,
super embarrassing,
you're trying to go a hundred percent.
And the other guy's like,
what are you trying to do?
Yeah.
You go,
we're going to roll to,
we,
if we roll in five minutes,
I guarantee,
uh,
all of us have,
you have to use the five minutes, all the energy of us have to use five minutes
of all the energy that we have.
The watts
that we're going to use are going to be different, right?
You're going to use this much.
Mark's going to be here.
You're going to be here. Me, you're going to be here.
But we use everything that we have.
But if I have to know to say,
okay, not change. We're going to do this
for an hour. And maybe this one that I have here can prolong way longer than yours,
and Mark, and even in SEMA, right?
Because how am I going to manage my energy during that time, right?
That's one of the things that we see about Guadalajara,
all the races back then, they hated fight for time limit.
The races, they left UFC because they said, okay, right now,
we have a 30-minute fight. There's no more, no time limit. they left UFC because they said, okay, right now we have a 30-minute fight.
There's no more time limit.
They left UFC, right?
Because they feel like one of the ways they can beat this guy, right, is make him tired and try to catch him after, right?
Yeah.
But, yes, your energy is good.
I guarantee you have plenty of energy
but it's not how to save your energy
during the time you have this gas
tank you need to get to LA
but you run out of gas
in Modesto
how can I save that gas
that is fair
you're in Modesto right now
yeah
because I'm like you know know, doing a whole burnout
the whole way,
like burning rubber
because yeah,
like even like my hands,
like the first day I did
like with a gi,
you know,
I'm death gripping everything
and then I look at my hands
and I'm bleeding.
I'm like,
oh,
I probably shouldn't have done that.
So yeah,
it makes a lot of sense though
because I do waste a ton of energy
just going too hard.
A lot of times going for a tournament,
right?
You know,
your first day training practice
is the,
it's,
it's your first experience
of the tournament
is almost the same.
And after you get there,
how,
how can I manage
the energy
that I completely
took away from me
before I started,
started competing?
I want to shook my,
my,
my,
my opponent hand,
right?
My,
my,
my, my forearms are already so much that I felt before I got to the fight started.
Again, it's go manage energy.
I'm curious about this.
Since you've probably been a teacher to thousands of people at this point, I hope we don't take too long on this, but what is the difference between a, we know a white belt's very new, but for people who are doing jujitsu now and they're like, how do I get to that next place? What is the difference between like a good, like you're at blue belt? Okay. What is that? What is a good purple belt? What does that mean? What is a good brown belt?
And what is a good black belt?
It's impossible to get short on this,
but I know I don't,
don't be short.
Yeah.
Let's put this way.
I,
that's why,
uh,
uh,
promote the student is very individual,
right?
Because I look at for different aspect there.
The blue belt probably is generally
kind of the same because I have
the chance to know you as much
that I'm going to know in the years
to come, right? And you go
for
somehow technique,
right? How he improve his
technique, how consistent he's in training,
right?
Technique and ability to roll,
like to spend time rolling,
right?
And I would say that
it has kind of almost like a built curriculum for that,
the things that you should know
when you go to a blue belt.
After that,
for me,
the way that I look
has to be,
it's super individual,
right?
A young athlete want to compete
to 40 years old guy that I
trained twice a week no athletic abilities no jiu-jitsu now he's feeling
as a purple belt going to a purple belt he's in best shape of his life yeah
they proved that he has because in the 20s never had a chance to do any sports totally eaten
right
and now he's
he's feeling better
right
yeah
but how far he can go
but it's more
it's individual
it's when he goes
through a
I look at you
completely different
than
a lot of the brown belts
that we have in class
right
and because
I see you as a potential
world champion
right
whatever belt you go
yeah and but some of the other belts I look at Because I see you as a potential world champion, right? Whatever belt you go. Yeah.
But some of the other belts I look at,
some of the other guys I look, okay,
how he implemented jiu-jitsu in his life
and how jiu-jitsu changed his life, right?
Again, a guy that his stress got way better,
he's in better shape,
and he can roll, of course, right?
But there's not much coming for the titles that he has, right?
He's going to have, if you want,
the purple belt at BJJF,
I can promote you to a brown belt.
No, nothing related to this.
But it's more the time and the expectations
that we put him on his next goal, right?
I want to start training three times a week now.
I want to train four times.
I want to lose 10 pounds, right?
I want to be able to roll instead of three rolls a day,
we'll do five rolls every class, right?
I think it goes from there.
I see the improvement to make him better overall, right, on the mat and outside the mat too.
I find what you said really interesting.
Like don't fight.
Don't fight back.
Don't fight it.
It's kind of something that you can take into the rest of your life.
We see a lot of people with diet.
They make it such a fight.
They make it such a battle that it's such a struggle that it consumes a lot of energy, time.
They develop anxiety over it.
They made way too many rules for themselves.
Whereas if they just didn't fight it as much
and they just kind of implemented really simple rules
that they can actually follow,
then maybe they can flow with it a little bit better.
Oh, yeah.
How they can adapt, right?
Adapt the diet for their lives.
If the diet is going to change his routine for his whole family, right?
We cannot have a gluten at home right now.
We cannot have carbs anymore.
My kids, too.
No, it is so selfish, right?
But how can he improve his diet, right?
His overall life, and still adapting to live a social
and direct his life to the others, right?
I think it's like this too.
We get obsessed, right?
But at the same time,
how can I still doing this for a long time?
That I'll get hurt, that I'll overdo it,
overtraining and don't get frustrated.
The frustration, I think, is part of our progress, right?
To improve.
But we cannot overdo those things, right?
We cannot over-thought.
You cannot over-fight, right?
And for beginners, for whatever it is in life, you're right.
Yeah, it's a constant learning, right?
You're trying to learn from every loss that you have.
Every time you put yourself in a too stressful situation,
you try to learn from it and grow each time.
It's going to show us on the mat, right?
There's nothing more real than get someone to roll for six minutes.
You're going to know him more than actually have an hour conversation
when you start rolling.
You can see, especially if you know your training part,
if he's frustrated that day,
if there's something
in his mind
that's not moving
in the right direction,
it's not doing,
it's,
yeah,
you learn a lot
from rolling,
right?
How do you personally eat
and how do you train?
How do you lift
and what's been best for you?
I've been,
I change
the pants and what's been best for you? I've been, I change,
depends,
I'm pretty, I'm pretty persistent
on my,
on my routine,
right?
But I change the intensity,
depends how I train.
It's dictated by how much I have
on my jiu-jitsu,
right?
If I,
now I'm not training,
I'm training three times a week,
four times a week,
right?
That's the minimum I've been training since I started jiu-jitsu. And, but I'm not training. I'm training three times a week, four times a week. That's the minimum I have been training since I started Jiu-Jitsu.
But I'm doing outside Jiu-Jitsu.
I'm training pretty much every day.
I break down on one day.
I just do cardio, which means more sprints,
intense 30 minutes cardio on the bike.
Do you think some of that stuff could help Andrew while he's doing jiu-jitsu?
Or should he wait maybe a little while?
I don't think so.
Okay.
It's not important because he's already in good shape.
If he was out of shape, I said yes.
Walk.
Walk in the park.
Do some body weight workout would help him.
But he's in shape.
You can see that he has-
Just needs time on the mat.
Time on the mat, exactly.
And one day I do,
Sima gave me a weight routine.
You're still doing that?
I'm still doing that.
Nice.
I took a lot of the equipment from the old school.
Yeah.
I have a home,
and I do one day upper body,
one day lower body.
Okay.
And I rotate this. One day cardio, one day upper body, one day lower body. Okay. And I rotate this.
One day cardio, one day upper body, weights, and then one day.
Sometimes I change a little bit.
Let's say my legs barely change in terms of I start always with a squat.
But I can change, let's say, instead of doing like another three or four sets of squats that have weights,
which is,
I don't do it,
I do more plyometrics
or I do lunges,
lunges for 400 meters,
right?
I do,
but always doing something
in terms of my lower body,
upper body,
and cardio.
Training,
right now,
in the morning,
three times,
four times a week.
But I feel every day
I need to do something,
Sunday to Sunday.
It's good for my mind,
good for my body.
I don't take breaks,
but again,
because I'm not pushing hard.
Before Rhodes,
I changed a lot
because I was training more.
I was doing less
and weights and less.
And every year,
my body has to adapt to what I have, right?
You get older.
Yes, you cannot put the intensity that you used to put.
And it feels like when I'm looking, time flies so bad that I say,
oh, man, last year, before I was old, I was training every day.
And I start looking, wait a second, last year I trained twice a day?
No, no.
I started calculating.
This was four years ago.
Right?
I said, no, no, no.
Last year, no.
Last year, I was trained just once a day.
So, you know, get your mind.
You still have.
When I started competing as an adult, I was 35 years old, right?
34, 35 years old. And I remember they started Master Rhodes, I was 35 years old, right? 34, 35 years old.
And I remember they started Master Rhodes when I was 38, right?
And I was just three-year gap.
But three-year gap for me back then looks like 10, right?
And I was like, no, I need to train the way I used to train over here.
The first week that I tried to follow the things I followed three years ago,
man, my body was so tired
right
yeah
and every
every year
changed a little bit
right
it's me trying
to adapt my body
I don't roll
with the same
the way I used to roll
anymore right
more the time too
it comes more in the evening
now
but even there
when I saw him
a couple times
before rolls
I said no no
no
not today you know and again he can be so you're like oh I gotta get going him a couple of times before rolls, I said, no, no, man. No, not to dance.
And again, he can be so...
You're like, oh, I got to get going.
He can be gentle too, man.
He adapts.
He can manage
the pace, right? Things that I've done
in the past, he does that with me too.
If you go this far, you can go just a little bit here.
He's not going like this.
But it's more managing my energy
for the trains that I can do right now.
There's a 40,
when I think I'm almost 49 years old.
You know, it feels like, man,
how old are you?
I just turned 30.
Yeah, 30.
I could be his dad.
Julius is 34.
Julius, the guy train every day, twice a day.
He does the one-time eating.
He do two sections without eat anything.
He's so lean too.
Yeah, he can roll every single roll.
It's crazy.
We train in the morning.
I think that I push him hard.
When I get in the evening class,
he's doing two sections with two rolls with a seam like going nuts, right?
The two cats roll like this.
He's 33, 34.
I was in my prime when I was in Tilted, my 35.
And if I look back, I could have been my prime until my 38, seriously. I. I was in my prime when I was in TuneTune at 35. And if I look back,
I could have been my prime
until my 38.
Seriously,
I could have extended my prime.
Yeah,
where were you motherfuckers
back then?
Right?
How's your nutrition?
Like,
do you do anything real
in particular?
And did you notice anything
when you were
winning world titles,
when you were at your best
nutrition-wise
that actually really helped at all?
Or was it just like, I just need to be fit?
I just need to look fit?
The only thing that I noticed go by decades, right?
Before I was 30, anything that I was eating
would have gone to my arms.
More than my last month.
That's great.
And when I got to my, next to my late 30s,
things changed.
If I eat bad,
it was going to my guts,
right?
But my diet,
I did for a lot,
for years,
I did fasting.
But one thing that I noticed,
I couldn't replace,
I couldn't eat the amount that I need
that day.
Because I was doing like a big dinner.
When I got big dinner,
I started to have reflexes, right?
Yeah, acid reflux and stuff.
Yeah, it was hard for me to sleep at night
and I have to change for years.
And I like it because
I have way less crave for sugar
when I was doing intermediate fast.
I was having my breakfast as a lunch
and a big dinner when I gap of four hours. And I was having my breakfast as a lunch and a big dinner
in a gap of four hours.
And I was doing 20 hours of fasting,
18 hours, depends the day.
I did it for, I mean, three, four years.
But I felt like I was losing a lot of muscle.
I was going to break over the way that I,
I started having anxiety too
because I started drinking too much coffee
between,
and I feel that.
On an empty stomach?
Yeah.
Wired and tired and everything else.
And I change.
But I would say that my diet, it's pretty clean.
Nowadays, I do like I blend a bunch of shake in the morning with protein,
bananas, different nuts,
what else?
A little bit of oatmeal.
I drink this in the morning.
I have a decent lunch with rice and
some protein,
usually salmon.
And I have a
dinner very similar I have for lunch.
That's my
everyday,
most of my day's routine.
I don't eat much junk food.
But when you ask me when I want roads, man, I always eat whatever I want.
Did you drink at all?
Social.
Social? Social. Social? Okay.
No, social,
I never enjoyed,
it's funny because
I started enjoying coffee
in my 30s.
I started enjoying drink
on my late 30s, right?
Like a wine,
a good wine,
a beer,
maybe in my 40s.
Before that,
it was just in case
that at some occasional,
oh,
that's a glass of wine.
I was on vacation, right?
Okay, I had it.
But I never enjoyed,
until my 20s,
I would say until my professional,
professional athlete life
or whatever,
you know,
my 30s,
I was,
no alcohol,
like,
on vacations
and coffee,
never drink coffee before that.
And I started,
getting older,
started to create those habits,
right? But now I'm not drinking anymore. It's because started getting older, started to create those habits, right?
But now I'm not drinking anymore.
It's because the anxiety stuff,
you know,
it feels like I sleep really bad when I drink a lot of wine.
If I drink maybe early afternoon,
maybe it's not going to affect my sleep,
my mood.
But because I never have the opportunity
to drink during the day,
I've not been drinking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I barely ever drink because it'll mess up sleep.
It does actually mess up sleep,
so it's a good choice.
I like the buzz.
Yeah.
I had it before,
right?
The relax.
The first hour or two,
after a couple of glasses of wine,
I have a good food,
but it probably isn't.
When I drink a wine or beer,
I'm going to eat more.
And the dessert for sure is going to come.
If I eat more, I can pick up rice or whatever.
Any stores will find a chocolate.
But if I stick with my diet,
I feel less grateful for bad food.
How long have you had your own gym for?
Since 2006.
Has that been difficult to manage that
along with still getting after it as an athlete?
I would say we have what we deserve, right?
How much effort we put on, right?
For the little effort that I put on
in terms of promote my school, I'm
doing well, right? The
lifestyle that I have. I teach
two classes a
day. Of course, as a
competitor of anything in life, you feel like
you could do way better. For the name that I
have, especially in Sacramento,
right? I would
say 7% of the Jiu-Jitsu school
came from some some way from
from me from my students from my black belts and but the struggle here and there right like i said
i feel like i could do better if i would put more time but i thought that i have the same lifestyle
that i have once i start teaching when I was 20, 21 years old.
Teach twice a day.
I feel like I still live in a village, right?
That I'm going to open my doors and the neighbors, the water mall is going to come.
Oh, I have this guy here.
Nowhere.
This place here.
Come, come to.
I'm going to open my door.
I'm going to start teaching my class.
People are going to show up, right?
to, I'm going to open my door, I'm going to start teaching my class, people are going to show up.
When I
moved here for good, it was like this.
Because I was the only place,
I had two schools here in Sacramento.
But I was the only one that
full-time
jiu-jitsu instructor. I've
been doing this since I was 21.
My full-time has never done nothing
in my life besides teach jiu-jitsu until I was
21.
But I couldn't be
better on the social media,
on the marketing stuff,
right?
But again, I cannot complain.
The new school now, which
has been a year that we moved to a new location,
is doing well.
The school in Roseville, we closed for a long time during COVID
because of the location.
Need to pick it up more.
I think that we need to put more effort to improve the numbers there.
But again, for a jiu-jitsu kid, a kid that is 18 years old,
the only thing they want to do.
One more thing that maybe I regret
from a short list of my dad
was put more time in the economy pages
of the newspaper, right?
To learn a little bit more about business, right?
No, I would say that, again,
for the time that I put on,
I'm doing well.
Yeah, great.
Do you see yourself coaching jujitsu
just like,
like,
because,
I mean,
you're rolling
maybe four times a week now,
but you're continuing to teach
and teach and teach.
Is this something you're just going to do
until the day you die?
Yeah.
I don't think that
if you decide to be a jujitsu instructor,
you have a retirement plan,
right?
You cannot retire.
But first, I never,
that a mistake I'm going to put this,
just for example,
Derek DiMono from Waza.
Now, he spent years of his life
sitting at the desk and working, right?
Nine to five, nine to five, no.
Nine to eight, right?
On his, what he he was was his craft back
then and i don't right for me at work i wouldn't say work teaching is being for me uh since i
since i started jiu-jitsu 21 years old for 27 years old life, 27 years of my life just teaching. Like I said, show up at the class on time to teach and teach in the evening.
But I never thought about retirement.
I never thought about, of course, I have more freedom to plan my vacations
before I have kids, right?
The kids change.
But the way that I run my life now is the same that I was when I was 21 years old.
The same way that I, and again, I could improve way more
in terms of the numbers of students, put my name out there more.
But as much as that I know in terms of what I have is what I earn.
And you also enjoy teaching.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I teach what I earn. And you also enjoy teaching. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I teach what I,
thanks God,
I teach what I want,
the class that I want to teach, right?
And it's going to take more time for me
to sit on the desk and start,
okay, now you plan curriculum for the other classes,
you have more students teach,
run class for me to improve the school.
But like I said,
yes,
doing okay for us.
Yeah.
Andrew,
want to take us on out of here, buddy?
Sure thing.
Make sure everybody sticks around
for Smelly's tip
once we kind of sign off here.
But powerproject.live
for everything Power Project related,
whether it be the mug
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Add NsemaInning on Instagram and YouTube. Add NsemaYinYang on TikTok and Twitter. Cas I am Andrew Z. And Seema, where are you at? Discord's down below. Add Seema Inay on Instagram
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Casio,
where can people find you?
Where can people,
you're there in Sacramento,
honestly,
y'all gotta come train,
but where can people
find the schools?
58,
0,
0,
Madison and Mazanita.
And you can find me
on casiowarrenick.com.
Yeah.
I have the three schools
that are,
is two schools,
mine and the other school
is affiliate school.
But if it's not,
if you're not in the area
on next to us,
we have so many good schools
that come from me,
right?
Waza,
Synergy,
Maxwell,
oh,
so many
sorry
I cannot
I cannot name it
just a few
right
Gold Jiu Jitsu
Gold Country Jiu Jitsu
from Akil
yeah so many schools
sorry guys
if I miss someone
right
but
yeah
castwarn.com
and
Instagram
you can
castwarn
my
Instagram
castwarn Jiu Jitsu too you can CastWarnock, my Instagram, CastWarnockJiuJitsu2, you can find me there.
Yeah, thanks for your time today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for having me.
It was fun.
Yeah, we had that time that was, I think, your first podcast on distance was with me, right?
Yeah.
The day before they're supposed to come here, they shut down everything.
We did online.
Yeah, that was crazy, right?
Yeah.
I just want to, the tip for today is just I want to encourage people to try something new, try something different.
Whether it's diet, whether it's jujitsu, whether it's going for a run.
A lot of times we have a lot of hangups on why we're not doing these things or why we're not giving them a shot.
But it could be something that changes your life forever.
Maybe you walk into jujitsu and it just, day one, for some reason, just clicks with you
and you find it to be something that you really love. Or maybe you go out and run,
you get a runner's high, or maybe you find out that you suck at something just like Casio did,
found out he sucked at it. And Seema found out he sucked at it. Andrew's finding out he sucks at it.
I found out more recently that I suck at running, and now I'm addicted to it.
So it can be something that, yes, it is hard to take a step towards or for,
but it could be something that also changes your life.
Strength is never a weakness.
Weakness is never a strength.
I'm at Mark Smiley Bell.
Catch you guys later.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
It was fun.