Mark Bell's Power Project - He Fixed Multiple Ligament Tears in his Knee WITHOUT Surgery - Jimmy House || MBPP Ep. 950

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

In Episode 950, Jimmy House, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how Jimmy rehabbed his multiple knee ligament tears without surgery, as well as training under John Danaher at New Wave Jiu Jitsu Follow Jimmy on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jhouse182/   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://drinkag1.com/powerproject Recieve a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs! ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ 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 to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ 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://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   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   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

It's been great, you know, being able to train with New Wave under John Danaher and Gordon and Gary Tone and all them. And guys like Big Dan, Luke, Mayor Golly, John Carlo. I think we've heard some of these names before. MCL tear. Three partial. Three partial MCL tears. And then partial ACL and then full PCL and then fractured femur. Elements of myofascial release or banded rehab or isometric work.

I think any modality that allows for progress is probably worth doing. And I posted that as kind of like a point of like what natural progression really looks like. Are a lot of guys asking you for like strength training? Yeah, I've gotten a lot of questions. Luke and my friend Wong, we live together once a week, train marigali in the mornings. Like I said, Satoshi had asked me to help him. I have another couple of guys on there that have asked me to help. You got people in jujitsu, especially I knew it, that just their work ethic is just insane because they're so passionate about jujitsu. You know, they don't maybe know as much about lifting as they've already had an established coach.

That's where we've gotten along a lot because I have the experience on the lifting side of things. And now just showing them a little bit of that and just meshing it with their work ethic, it's unreal. Power Project family, welcome to the podcast. We are 900 plus episodes deep, bringing tons of different experts in fitness, health, nutrition, and business. And we thank you all for your support. And we're also glad to be bringing these individuals to you. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast and it's brought benefit to your life, we'd really appreciate it if you left a five-star review on Spotify or Apple, as that helps the podcast grow and thrive, and we can continue bringing you amazing content.

Thank you for your support and enjoy the episode. What's going on, Jimmy House? Good. How have you guys been? Thank you for having me back on. It's been amazing. You moved down to Texas. Did you get a cowboy hat and a shotgun?

Almost. I've gone shooting twice. Oh, you have? Yeah. I'm off-roading even. You got to learn how to protect yourself a little bit more than just jujitsu down there. Yeah. I mean, I went hunting one time with Big Dan, the juitsu giant and you know he was teaching me how to shoot bunnies and

stuff so bunnies yeah sounds ruthless he's a he's a giant he's a giant man he's uh he's dangerous so how big is he how how big yeah he's he i think he's six seven currently about 280 280 285 he's six seven yeah yeah and i would know best because I train with him the most on the team. 6'7", armed, and does jujitsu? Yeah. I'll pass. And kills bunnies. And only 21.

Dude, that's frightening. And he moves so well. Oh, my gosh, yeah. 21? Yeah, he's 21, yeah. Did he get a cowboy hat? No, he didn't give me a cowboy yet. I have to earn that.

Oh. Yeah. Got to get up on a horse or something. So you packed up and moved to Austin. Yeah. Follow your dream as a jujitsu-er. Yeah, jujitsu, pro wrestling, continue to advance in the lifting side of things. But we moved to Austin two months ago.

And it was a big move overall just because I had been in Arizona my whole life. And a lot of the stuff that I had been doing was all out there. But I just decided to take a leap of faith. And best friend matt and my girlfriend lawson we all decided to move out and it's been great you know being able to train with new wave under john danaher and gordon and gary and tone and all them and trying to guys like big dan luke mayor golly john carlo heard some of these names before yeah like in the last like two weeks i think it's donahue i think you got it right sounds familiar yeah right what uh led to you going to what's considered like the best coach in the world so back in september i took a trip out there i stayed about about five days and basically i decided to you

know maximize the trip so i hung out with goldberg a little bit and then um i had do you think that he's gonna spear you the whole time i mean i was i was hoping for it okay if he has like ptsd or something you're in trouble oh i know you know people that don't know wrestling jargon just made that sounded so odd i know but i guess you know you guys know so he's spearing penetration spearing is a completely normal thing. Andrew, bring up a clip of Goldberg spearing some suckers. You know, that's what they called it in the 70s. Yeah.

Okay. But, yeah, so the spearing and then, yeah, so I had hit Gordon up actually for a private, and then he responded saying that he wasn't doing privates because he was incc camp yeah that's the spearing there we go oh see ya oh he just like crushed like a hundred something people in a row right yeah yeah 173 you know was his record i believe big human and you get to you get to train is he training you a little bit too for pro wrestling so not like officially training but he's been a huge mentor throughout the process, obviously. And he's just, you know, giving me the blessing of being able to be a part of him and his family's life. Like he and his son and I got to train not too long ago. We're going to pick that up once I get back to Austin.

But he has a phenomenal like gym in his garage where he has all his like classic cars then his gym upstairs and a toilet that has a remote that you need to flush like on the side like a touch screen yeah pretty sick so but yeah yeah yeah he's he's just been helping me through that process because he knows what my goals are and everything so he's been a huge mentor with that and then i'll be starting actually pro wrestling school at dustin road school gold dust in august that's awesome and what was there some was there like a moment where you've been thinking about making the jump to train with Donaher and his team? Yeah, so to go back to that question,

I hit up Gordon for a private back in September when I traveled there with my girlfriend. And he said he wasn't doing privates at the time because it was ADCC camp, but then he just invited me to come train. So he invited me and then one of my other friends, Mike Rakshan that lives in New Jersey, but is friends with them. He also kind of put in a good word for me. So they allowed me to go train at the Roka session, which is like their pro session,

their private session. And then through that, I made friends with like big Dan, Luke, my friend, Juan, my friend, Louise, a bunch of guys in there. And then I just kind of kept up with them while I was in Arizona. And it was apparent to me because I visited some of the other gyms in the area, and I just had the best fit there. Yeah, Big Dan after one of our privates. And I just loved the environment because before they even knew who I was, everybody was extremely welcoming and extremely helpful, and then they kind of learned about me afterwards.

So I really took that into account. That's Merigali. I'm thankful enough to be training him now for strength training. I actually – Satoshi too just hit me up. I'll be starting with him when I get back from Austin or get back from here to Austin. So yeah, a lot of awesome opportunities have been happening. And with that said, I'll take the time to thank you guys

because honestly after the podcast last time, the networking and connections I made just skyrocketed. So I really do appreciate the opportunity thank you guys. Cause honestly, after the podcast last time, like I, the networking and connections I made just, just skyrocketed. So I really do appreciate the opportunity that you guys gave me for sure, because I was thinking about the growth made from last year on the podcast to now. And a lot of that has to do with your guys' ability to help spread what I'm doing. So I just, it's cool to see, cause I don't even know if the Austin thing would have been a possibility had I not gained as much momentum as I had after the podcast. So thank you for that. Absolutely. Has anything changed for you? Like, like, have you learned anything, I guess, as far as how to get better for yourself and your jujitsu training at new wave? What, what do you think is the most impactful thing? So I was talking

to Mark about it earlier. I think the biggest takeaway or just the biggest blessing in it all is I was teaching at my old gym TNT MMA training center for so long as a coach. And so you adopt a coaching role, your mindset changes a little bit, you're still learning, but obviously you're responsible for the growth of other students. And so with that said, I'm put into new way where, hell, I mean, honestly, if I'm being humble about it, there's white belts that know more than me in regards to being under John and the system that he teaches. And so it's like super refreshing and new to like be a legitimate student again. And in my head, I'm just like completely making myself a white belt because it's like, I think I took that process for granted, you know,

especially when I did get my belt quickly, like to black belt, I almost took for granted being a white belt and just being able to learn and absorb knowledge and everything. And then when you tandem that with training with the best guys in the world that's like a bonus for sure but it's very nice to just focus on learning it's it's i think it's in the moment it helps me a lot but also long term i'm very excited to see how it helps me what's a big i'm curious about this though in terms of training there what is a big difference in terms of the way you see instruction done and the way training is done versus like most jujitsu schools? I would say that the way John teaches, obviously, everyone knows he's very detailed, but it's more so like the depth.

Whereas I think a lot of jujitsu schools teach moves as like one and done or like here's the move or here's here's how you tap him with this. And then it kind of like ends there. John dives very deep and you can tell that he has like a system. So when he teaches something, he starts with whatever sequence and then everything builds and builds and builds. And it usually builds off of failure from the last move. So when the first move doesn't work, that causes this reaction. One of my favorite practices was one of the last ones I went to Friday

where it was me, Big Dan, Marigali, and another guy, Silas, and it was a small practice because everyone was at the Dallas Open, and John was just simply teaching what to do when the first or second or third move fails. You arm jack from guard. They stop it. Their head's down. You take it to a front headlock.

You get it around to the back. And it's refreshing because I just think a lot of jiu-jitsu schools teach one and done and like john's like very very contingent on hey like what i'm teaching you it could work but there's a high chance that it won't especially if you're competing against high level competition so here's option two three four and five that type of thing so i like that a lot as far as the structure of the class goes i love that there's no warm-up that's my favorite part yeah yes i like that too yeah yeah it's my favorite part um we go the warm-up is more like very light just wrestling drilling he'll just show us some like light hand fighting type of thing and that'll usually warm us up that'll bleed into some wrestling sequence and then we'll start to go to the ground yeah um but i i do like that the wrestling is covered every

single class and then jujitsu and you know for the pro practices i probably say about three-ish moves on standing three-ish moves on the ground and then heavy emphasis as john carlotto do you guys on positional rounds yeah mount back uh arm bar uh turtle blade lock stuff like that and then we'll have one to two full full rounds at the end ADCC style usually yeah and I would say like the majority of other schools probably don't put as much emphasis on the positional rounds or if they do not nearly as much time yeah which i think the positional rounds is a great thing because you think about when i do a full adcc round with dan or luke or marigoli or john carlo like damn dude it's like i did a whole tournament like it's intense it's like every single second boom boom boom and i think about well what if you did that five times a practice

every single day like or even if they did that you know how do how do they get as good as they do without accumulating a lot of injury and i think it has to do with the amount of positional rounds that they do where they're getting tons and tons of experience and some of the most common positions but they're not having to go through the wear and tear of like takedowns or guard passing or all these different things and the injuries that can occur when you do that you know so which brings us to why i'm here but yeah yeah that's the biggest difference gotcha you think it's harder was it harder uh mentally or physically at first i would say i because of the knee injury a combination of both but mentally

i think it was a an adjustment period of moving and getting used to a new environment. And first off, again, I'll say that they are just some of the most friendly people that I've ever met. I'm so, so glad I picked them. I really am. But with that said, too, just being new and going from being the guy to no one is a little bit of an adjustment period. And my ego wants to say I'm okay. But even, even like going there, I'm like, I can feel a sense of being uncomfortable. And even that I could feel a sense of like, uh, at times trying to talk myself out of not going to practice. Like, Oh, I'll just, I'm going to rest on my knee today. You know, that, that type of thing. I'll,

I'll go twice a week, this week type of thing. I actually really accredit Luke to getting me out of that hole because one of my biggest problems at the beginning mentally was being new, being new to the technique, being limited because of my leg, and then feeling like I just honestly just suck. And I feel like I'm taking away from the training of my training partner or to where they would have to slow things down to let me kind of get in a position because of my knee. I just maybe I shouldn't feel this way. I just don't really like being that guy. But Luke had came back from South Africa and we were partners that day. And for whatever reason, he really liked training with me. And then every single day after that was like almost damn near a private between him and I, where John would teach a move. He would go in very, uh, depth with me and explaining it and just making me feel very

comfortable and very welcomed. And as my knee got better, my confidence grew. And I credit that a lot to like Luke and big Dan actually for, for being so patient with me while my knee was healing. So yeah, it was awesome. So how did that knee thing happen? Like you were, you kind of referred to that. Yeah. So we have the video on the Instagram, which we'll show in a minute. But I was training with my – one of my best friends, Austin Baker. This is the video. And, yeah. Have you fallen like that before?

Have you ended up in a position like that before? No. That was the first by far. ended up in a position like that before or said no no that was that was the first by far um and he was in nogi world's camp and we had gone through the whole camp he it was like maybe the week before and then like i always say this is whenever somebody says last round last round i'm like yeah last round and then like and then something happens the last two times he got hurt that's that was the case and so it was the last round of the day, and then we got up on the feet, and he honestly set up a trip perfectly, made my leg step heavy.

I was only on that leg, and then he went for an outside trip, and instead of coming down towards my ankle, unfortunately, he came into my knee. And he's a little bit lighter than Big Dan, about 270. So there's a big boy coming into my knee and so when he came into the side that's where i believe i felt my pcl and acl tear and then when we landed and both of us land at the same time where his body weight came down that's where i think my mcl tore in three places if i had to guess and i think the fractured femur also happened at the very

bottom too so let's list that off. So MCL tear. Three partial. Three partial MCL tears. Partial ACL and then full PCL and then fractured femur. Fuck. Yeah. Okay. All right.

So how did you handle the, like, when were you actually, how long did it take you to actually get back on the mats and what did your recovery look like? So thankfully I was still able and allowed to teach my kids back at home at TNT. The owner, Scott Tannenbaum, allowed me to keep teaching. I'm very thankful for that. I usually would just have somebody show a move and I would explain it. But I was on the mats to some capacity. But right off the gate, obviously get checked out.

And the guy feels my knee and he's like, oh, yeah, ACL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Surgery, surgery, surgery. I'm like, I was like, I expected this. You know, it wasn't like I had no idea what was going to happen, especially after watching your guys' stuff, after watching Ben Patrick's stuff, like I had a fair idea of how it was going to go. I was going to go to the doctor because I need to get the MRI. They're going to say I need surgery before the MRI even happens. I get the MRI. It kind of dicked around with me a little bit. I didn't get the MRI MRI back for like three, four weeks. So my thought process during that whole time was I never really thought I was going to get surgery anyways. I more so wanted the MRI just to see specifically what happened just for the Instagram posts, I guess. And so with that said the whole

time, I just kept training as if, okay, I'm going to rehab this myself. We're going to see what I can do and build upon that. And then we're going to get back however long it takes. And that's where I accredit Ben Patrick, obviously, and then my coach Dawson. Take the knees over toes principles and then apply them in a regressed form, the same way that I was doing with a lot of my clients at the time, but I never actually had to apply regressed versions to myself. So it was a very humbling experience, but it was also experience for me to experience a lot of trial and error because, you know, I take a client and be like, oh, your knee hurts.

Well, let's, let's backwards walk and then we'll sled walk and then we'll add weight and so on and so forth. But I was never actually in that position. So when it happened, I'm like, okay, well, I never experienced a knee injury like this to this capacity, but let's just start walking backwards. That's what Ben Patrick says to do, you know? And I'll also start off by saying my recovery in this does not make me a knee expert by any means. It just makes me experienced in the field of rehabbing myself and applying concepts that I learned through you guys and through Ben Patrick and through my coach

and everything like that. So I started walking backwards on my brace. The first couple of days were pretty tough because I noticed that my, the muscles were compensating a lot. So the first two days I would do my walking backwards and stuff like that. But then on the third day, my muscles were so achy that I couldn't even get down the stairs. I like, I was like, I don't think I can make it down the stairs. I had to, I had to call off practice and everything like that. Like I couldn't make it to the kids that day. Um, that was, that was one of the things that concerned me a little bit, but then I noticed that it started to get a little bit better as I, as time went on. And so the backwards walking led into the weightless sled and the sled built up to a thousand pound sled that I did at one gym in California.

How long did that take? That one, I think took maybe, I want to put it around the two month mark. Wow. around the two month mark wow but prior to that on week five i had gone to ct's event iron wars i told ct i was going to be there before the knee injury happened i was kind of concerned that i wasn't going to be able to make it but i gave him my word and you know ct has died a couple times so i figured i could probably i figured i could probably suck it up and and uh deadlift with my knee so that's just the wildest thing to say he died a few times i gave a speech uh before the deadlift i'm like you know ct ct has gone through a hell of a lot

and he's died a couple times like who am i to say that i can't deadlift because of this knee injury at least that's what ct would have wanted me to say still your motherfucking set right and so uh i was still conservative i pulled 550 on that day. It's in that video. It went easy. But at that time, though, when I was deadlifting, I could feel where the ACL was kind of iffy. I could feel some pull back there. But then the week after that, that's when I started noticing a lot of progress coming back strength-wise. Luckily, there was not a lot of knee flexion required for a deadlift.

So that one shot up pretty fast. Again, though, it's so fucking funny how you say things so casually uh you know i just tore all my shit up five weeks in i had to go light so i pulled like 550 nothing much and then boom what the fuck that was the first day yeah um yeah yeah that one do you have the 550 in here or is that on that's on that one video it's It's in there somewhere. It's the one where I hug CT. I'm looking for it. Did you do any like forward sled dragging or did you? I did. Okay.

I'm going to say like a forward sled drag in my head would be where I would start because it would probably have zero pain. Yeah. So that's actually where I started with my knees over toes knowledge because I just really dove down that rabbit hole. But then I met people like Luke Lewis. I saw you had Matty Forberg on the podcast and everything. He helped me a lot. He was really into like a lot of the isometric band work to help rehab the knee. So I learned a lot there.

And then a couple weeks later, I went over to Phil's, Phil DeRue. And then we did forward sled stuff. We did a lot of band stuff. We did a lot of band stuff. We did a lot of mobility stuff. Um, a lot of stuff in there that was like meant for his athletes through rehab. He put me on a, on a, on the assault bike and they did like a, uh, it's I think it's called map testing, I believe. And it was just testing like how much my injured leg was working or the oxygen supply was working in comparison to my good leg. And so through all those guys, I started with the knees over toe stuff. That's me at Ben Pachter's gym.

But then it kind of built into adding elements of rehab from Luke, from Phil. These are all spots you traveled to? Yeah, yeah. And so again, after you guys, man, just I'm so thankful because I just so many opportunities popped up where I was traveling twice a month, you know, like Vegas, Florida, California, just Barbo Brigade had a lot of opportunities because of and Seema actually and Nadim saw me through one of your posts last year. Oh, yeah, dude. And it last year was just such a huge growth year for me because it was the first time I really traveled and, you know, the knee injury and then meeting all these people. It just it was cool. And I just am very thankful that you guys gave me the opportunity but yeah that's those are like the basic knees over toes exercise that I nailed

hard at the beginning and even going to that one like how hip flexor health and ability plays into knee health put a lot of emphasis on that as well i just want to illustrate quickly that you know for somebody that is trying to overcome a knee injury um exactly what you're saying is like 100 accurate you know you you start out with the things that are like the least offensive to that area if something hurts or burns or feels weird it's too much right now you got to kind of back away from it but a forward sled uh drag or even better, probably a push, you'll notice that your knee will be further over your toe when you're doing that versus when you're just going backwards.

But when you go backwards, it is a lot more emphasis on the quads, a lot more emphasis on some of the smaller muscles, ligaments, tendons, and things like that around the knee. So I think it's really a good idea for people to use both, especially because a lot of people, I don't think they really know how to use their glutes that well and using the glute and hamstring and knees altogether is a great way to rehab your knee. True. Yeah. And actually I just started sprinting maybe the last two weeks, but for whatever reason on Ford's, I could push it pretty fast and not necessarily feel like any, any sketchiness in my

knee for whatever reason. But I do feel like the forward sled for that matter, because another element of rehab that I didn't necessarily think about to the very end was how introducing certain levels of impact can play into, you know, rehab where if I jumped off of the Empire State Building and I landed, I'd probably die and my knee would probably pop out. But like to a certain degree, if I started by like hopping off of this table and then landing on a leg, that can be a part of the rehab process at a certain point. So that's what I started doing more recently, box jumps and then practicing like jumping but landing on this leg. And I don't even,

I'm not even really experienced or even really educated on that style of training, but I just kind of played around with it. And just playing around around with it just doing it did a lot for me uh what we talked about earlier as far as like myofascial release i had this spot behind my knee probably you know where the pcl and acl tour where if i tried to nordic curl like it would just stick me like right at the very top like just like very sharp pain and i thought like damn maybe i can't pull myself out of this and i would feel back there and then just like a huge knot just huge and it was just very obvious i just had my girlfriend start digging into it with a lacrosse ball and again it's not very advanced but i noticed after i started doing that too huge progress on the nordic curl being able to take a band supporting

me and go all the way down without pain and then just a couple days ago yeah like that just a couple days ago i did my first nord. Just a couple of days ago, I did my first Nordic curl body weight again. So we're back to that point. Yeah. Fucking go, dude. Thanks bro.

I saw that. Uh, you did the Nordic curl thing with, uh, George St. Pierre in the background. I was like meeting him, dude.

Um, yeah. So I, I don't even know where to start with that one because it's like, I'm, I'm new, right? I'm like maybe like my second week there.

I'm still kind of nervous, and I'm getting to know people. And I walk in. I look to my left. GSPs are like, oh, shit. I was like, shit. And I text them. I'm like, dude, GSP is here, all my friends. They're like, no fucking way.

And so that was cool. And then that was when – so the reason why I'm even doing it at Roca is because literally prior until just recently, that was the only like Nordic bench in Austin, like period. Every single gym I looked into does not have one at all until I got big techs to order one recently. But to that point, Roca was the only one that had one. So I would just do like my knee rehab before, after practice. Yeah.

And so GSP is really big into stuff like that. And when I started doing the the nordic bench with the band supported he just came over and i was recording because i was recording my set he just came over and asked like oh i never seen it done that way you know that's really smart you can get the whole rep and blah blah and he's like he's like can i see you do it i'm like sure i'm like fingers crossed my knee doesn't blow out as i go down you know and so but but uh and oh actually in i'd be lying to you like when he walked close to me i'm like oh god he's in camera view that's great but that's good though i was like dude this is sick so then i asked him afterwards

for the record i was like uh excuse me george is it okay if i share this oh yeah of course but he was super nice and um it was just a really cool moment in the in the journey you know so yeah gsp great guy yeah breaking up that scar tissue is a big thing do you think you have like more scar tissue to kind of work out of there now i'm sure actually after mark showed me a couple things i did feel some tightness in there that definitely could be worked on and after we did it too my knee like loosened up nearly immediately. So it was good. So that ab wheel modality was really cool. I never would have thought of that, but it's like simple, you know?

Explain it. You just literally just stuck the handle of the ab wheel in between my leg and just sit on it. Yeah, the handle of the ab wheel has like a little bit of foam on it. So I was like this will probably feel soft enough to stick behind his knee. And then had him do that and then just get in like a SESA position. And he just was messing with that for a SESA position. Uh-huh. And he just was messing with that for a little bit. It felt good.

And then the medicine ball just kind of like laying, laying on it with my knee, just digging in the side there. Yeah. People still really underestimate myofascial release and like how big of a difference

that makes. Like we're smashing every day. We're smashing like, we're using those different tools and smashing ourselves. Smashing each other. On those tools every single day. But seriously, all jokes aside, it makes a very, very big difference if you get into the habit of it.

Like when you stop doing it, you'll start to feel a little bit tightness in certain areas. And when you start doing it again, it's like, whoa, that that's fucking amazing. I 100 percent did not give enough credit because, yeah, I went down the knees over toes rabbit hole like hard. And it's amazing stuff. But, you know, I listen to everything that Ben Pratchett would say, and he would talk about how, you know, he doesn't do any of that stuff, which to him obviously works and works great and doesn't even need to. He's proven what he does works.

But then I almost let that put me in the mindset of, like, if I just do the knees over toe stuff knees you know to that degree then then i'll be fine yeah and it got me a maybe like 75 in the way but then like when i was getting impatient on the progress and i was noting noticing certain movements not progressing i'm like damn dude like is do i need to get surgery or like am i able am i going to be able to get back to deadlift 800 pounds or like am I even going to be able to do this? And then something as simple as just taking a lacrosse ball, digging in,

I noticed progress immediately. And so that's why I think now coming out of that process, it was super beneficial to me from an athlete standpoint and a coaching standpoint to understand all the different types of rehab and understand that you can do elements of everything to make something work, even when it comes to strength training or whatnot, like we're talking about 90 degree versus full ROM. It's like they're elements of both that can make a very strong training program. With that said, like elements of myofascial release or banded rehab or isometric work

or full range of motion work, like all of that stuff helped me immensely, you know? And so, uh, I, I'd like to just touch on the fact that like, I think any modality that allows for progress is probably worth doing. I mean, if you take the time to experiment, it works for you, then it's probably worth keeping in for sure. Have you gotten an MRI since I haven't, that's the only thing I haven't done yet. Just, uh, ever moving from Arizona to Texas. I haven't, but I think the next time in Arizona, I like to plan one just to see where it's at. But as far as restriction goes, for the most part,

I'm doing everything nearly at the level that I was before. The only thing that I can't do yet, and I think that's more of a muscle tightness issue is a reverse Nordic like weighted. Yeah. Um, that's like the only thing as far as exercises go, I can squat to full depth deadlift heavier than

i did before yeah that 815 that's a pr for you yeah it's huge pr i mean granted i switched to sumo but you know it's the real deadlift i know it is it is so yeah and i was happy about that too because my overall lower body volume has been respectively low you know so i feel like there's a lot of strength that i have yet to tap back into. So I literally just worked on the form for the sumo. And I have a good group of friends down in Houston, Derek, Derek Thistleweight, Johnny Kaufman, Nabil, Sawyer Klatt. And these guys are all like 20 to 22 years old deadlifting like 800 or more pounds. And so the funny story about that is, is that I had tweaked my SI a little bit doing conventional like a week before, and then they invited me out to train. And so I wasn't

gonna do conventional again. So I was like, fuck it, let's just try sumo. And then my friend, Johnny Kaufman looks at my sumo. He's like, wait, do that again. And I'm like, okay. And he just noticed that the, the hip mobility that I have through the mobility exercises and jujitsu just made the leverages work so well. My arms are pretty long. It's like, dude, you have something that nobody else does. I'm like, really? And he's like, dude, I promise you, you can deadlift 800. I'm like, really? And then, so I kept working on it. And, uh, once I like understood the leverages and how to wedge my hips in properly, maintain hip height, it's like, damn, dude, I think I have something going here because I'm putting in very minimal effort and I'm like dead lifting i'm dead lifting my life goal essentially like last year like i want

to deadlift 800 and then i'll retire from lifting what do you see mark i notice as you're looking at that pool you're just like there's something what do you notice uh his shoulders and his hips are stacked pretty good and you can see the um the logo on his t-shirt that means game over that means someone's going to deadlift a lot of weight right yeah see that posture for me i even with sumo and even working on it for a long time my chest was like a little bit more down towards the ground and then you start in that position and if you just get a little bit off from that position you're done but guys that can get in the position that you're in right there you can stay in a more locked position right and it does take like a two mississippi count to break the floor but once you

break the floor it's done to that point that was one of my bigger lessons too because i relied so much on my explosion with the conventional that i try to carry that through for sumo you had to wait and you had to wait for the bar to bend and right and so in result my lockouts would be really sloppy and and everything like that and then conventionals yeah it's uh it's i think it's in the real section, like towards the top, I believe. But cause what would happen is I would move heavy weight,

but then like my knees would be soft and I'd be overextending and it just look ugly. And like, so Nabil and Johnny and Derek were just really like, just be patient off the floor, be patient. And I thought I was, but like patient is like being willing to invest like three seconds down there, which is a lot.

Yeah. Right. And you're giving it all you got. And the plates aren't even off the ground yet. It's crazy because the Nabil guy specifically, he's like 160, 165. And he's yeah, I think, yeah, he has a world record all time world record for 140 or something like that. But he's pulled over 800 in the gym at 160 sumo and i'm i'm looking at that like how how can somebody like this this size move weight like that but to your point he wedges his hips well he has great leverages he has super long arms and he's very patient off the floor so i can see in that video where you're pulling 635 where the bar bends and the weight comes off the ground almost immediately right it's the sumo the bar was bending it bent more it bent more and then the weight came off yeah yeah that was a

whole new thing johnny johnny had posted something one time that spoke to me was like the number of motor units recruited or needed to remove something really fast off the floor versus something really slow off the floor like it doesn't really change like you're it's not like trying to lift it faster is going to help you move it more in the long run. And I was like, okay, well, maybe if I just, again, just trust what they're saying, just be patient. That 815 was probably the cleanest I've done. I pulled 800 before that, and it was a little bit sloppy.

I think I tried to rush a little bit. The 815, I honestly thought I wasn't going to get it, so I was like, I'm just going to attempt it. And I went super slow in position, and I took my time off the floor off the floor and then yeah it ended up being the smoothest pull i've ever done um possibly with more in the tank so oh yes more in the tank i appreciate it um i'm doing the american pro in october the drug tested portion for 198 and jesse norris don't try to act like a natural i I'm fucking with you. At this point in time.

No. Come on, dude. Look at me when I was 16. I've been taking in trends since I was six. Yo, this is the funniest. It's early to get on stuff. I know. This is the funniest photo I think ever.

Jimmy, can you explain this transformation? Yeah. It's actually funny. One of the comments you'll go down go down somebody's like so you added 16 pounds in 10 years i'm like that's what the math would suggest um but so yeah that was uh right before my junior year wrestling season i think i was weighing in about 180 quads are covered back in the day oh yeah yeah i think the quads weren't nearly as big and uh yeah that, that was my most recent cut, like, back in early December. So, and I posted that as kind of, like, a point of, like, what natural progression really looks like. I mean, I look at NSEMA stuff from back when you were competing in bodybuilding and powerlifting,

and it's, like, your physique has always been phenomenal, but you can tell it's been gradual progress, you know? And so that one, like'm i'm rarely ever that lean but when i am i wanted to kind of show like the comparison like 10 years 16 maybe 15 pounds of lean muscle mass so maybe a little over a pound a year right a pound and a half you seem to get a bit of a neck though you like developed a neck as in like you got longer got longer i actually stopped i stopped working traps at 16. Yeah. Yeah.

When I was like a sophomore in high school, ego lifting at Gold's Gym, and I shrugged 600 for like a picture. Wait, seriously? Yes. Seriously. Yeah. But, and then after that, I'm like, I don't care anymore. It's like, yeah, I just stopped training them.

And now your traps are just growing. I guess. Yeah. I guess so. Because of the trend. But yeah, so I think like it's important to highlight stuff like that because like everyone wants to go for the most drastic transformation, and I understand that.

But also I also want to highlight like, hey, like, you know, for one, we talked about it before. I've been lifting since I was a little kid, like five, right? So it's a lot of time to put on muscle mass. But now shortly after i entered puberty which um you know 16 and then now being 26 i'm sorry you look like a grown-ass man yeah i was gonna say i think the only difference is a haircut and a fucking beard that's a man right there that was was when Bieber was in, but thank you. I got you.

It just still didn't help me get girls, though, unfortunately. It's all right, though. But yeah, so yeah, and I think, you know, physique-wise, like I added some size to my legs and stuff, but chest more in particular. Yeah, yeah, I never even took a look at that photo because I thought I lost it, but I found it on my mom's Facebook because she's Asian and she posts it on me all the time. Yeah, so I was like, oh, it, but I found on my mom's Facebook cause she's Asian. She posted on me all the time. Yeah.

So, yeah. So I was like, Oh, perfect. I'll share this. Um, but yeah,

look at my son. She calls me son love. Oh, it's good to have that support. Hi mom. Is your last name truly house? Yeah. Yeah.

My, my dad, my dad's white guy. Yeah. House is like, I think English, French, one of the two.

Yeah. So, so fitting. It is like I think English, French, one of the two. It's just so fitting. Thank you. With your physique, especially being at this gym where there's maybe some people that have kind of been doing things the way they've been doing them and getting along just fine and kicking ass in jiu-jitsu, are a lot of guys asking you for like strength training? Like, dude, what's your shit? Like what are you doing because you're jacked thank you yeah yeah i've gotten a lot of questions and i've been in a position now to be able to actually like help teach a lot of people uh you know i'm one of the people that kind of stay quiet at the beginning and earn my stripes and i think when people started to get to know me and started to see what i do outside of the jiu-jitsu room they started to become intrigued you know like luke and my friend juan we look

together once a week train marigali in the mornings like i said satoshi had asked me to help him have another couple guys on there that have asked me to help oliver asked me about mobility stuff and yeah what i come to realize is that like you got people in jiu-jitsu especially i knew it that just their work ethic is just insane because they train they train two hard pro sessions every single day except the weekends is once a day and then they're still lifting um but because they're so passionate about jiu-jitsu you know they don't maybe know as much about lifting as they've already had an established coach and so that's where we've gotten along a lot because i have the experience on the lifting

side of things and now just showing them a little bit of that and just meshing it with their work ethic it's it's unreal and dude luke was going for and he almost got it like a 315 bench pr at his height right after two pro sessions at roca how tall is luke griffith he i think i think he's six four i want to say six four maybe six five he's got some fucking giants yeah he's amazing man and and i told him i was like dude i promise you like if you just want to take a day off of jujitsu and you come i i think you'll hit 315 because even even i when i did he's like i ain't doing that no yeah i'm not taking a day off yeah yeah that's luke my friend juan and a couple my other friends from henzo's in austin yeah it's hard to you know especially when you're already when someone's already at such a high level it's hard to listen to new information and be like yeah

dude just take a day off or or take a session off right not even a day you still go train in the morning or right or whatever right yeah man their work ethic is is unreal but they're also i would say they're still pretty smart about how they train rock bottom right yeah my god you're saying about their training they're still pretty smart about how they train because i think john carlo talked about a little bit but john isn't necessarily like the person that's like a drill sergeant making you do x y and z like you better push harder that type of thing i think john's aura he he just in general has an expectation of work ethic and dedication and consistency but the it's kind of left up to the guys on whether or not they're rolling super hard on a given day or a given session type of thing so from what i noticed like, like I'll, I'll see some of them, like they'll go really

hard with each other one day. And then other day they'll, they'll go with maybe a lower level person to work on positions or technique or whatever. So like even at their level, they're still implementing a, a sense of recovery to their best ability while still training twice a day. But yeah. Do you know what your testosterone levels are at? How about your estrogen? How about your prolactin? How about your cholesterol? If the answer is, I don't know what they're at, well, we've been talking about blood work for a long time now.

That's why we partnered with Merrick Health, a company owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. Now, with Merrick, you can get yourself something called the Power Project Panel, which will give you 26 different labs that will help you understand what's going on underneath the hood. After that, you'll be able to be partnered with one of their patient care coordinators, which will give you interventions that range from lifestyle supplements to potential hormonal health treatments that can help move you in the right direction. But it all starts with knowing on what's going on down here.

So get your blood work done. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, we have two options for you guys. Head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. That's M-A-R-R-E-K Health.com slash PowerProject. There you guys will see the PowerProject panel that Nsema was just talking about. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save $101 off of that panel. Now, if you want to custom select your own panel, you guys can use promo code PowerProject10 to save 10% off all labs. Again, that's at MerrickHealth. slash POWERPROJECT. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let me ask you this, man, because, okay, so we made that natural joke thing before,

but you are natural. You don't use anything. But you have goals of trying to compete in the ADCC, which they don't care if anyone takes anything, so it wouldn't necessarily be against the rules. What are your thoughts on that for jujitsu in general? And what are your thoughts on that for yourself? Because if you didn't choose to use anything to maybe enhance your recovery or enhance

your ability to recover from training session to training session, it necessarily wouldn't be illegal. But you, what's your take on that? Me in particular, it just kind of starts like morally. Morally, my parents just never wanted me to do drugs like any to begin with. And I didn't drink until I was 22. I'd never done weed or anything like that. I just lived a very relatively clean lifestyle, you know.

But in regards to the jujitsu thing, the way I see it, and Oliver Taza and I talked about it because he doesn't take anything. And so his take on it was like, I can feel where the guys are really, really strong. And I can feel where their strength is beating me in certain areas. But his outlook on it was – and I appreciate his outlook because he's competed at ADCC three times. Yeah, he's a high-level guy. Right.

And he's just like where I feel like they're overcoming me – overpowering me with strength, I still have room to grow in my technique like there has that's his outlook and so you know and i think that's kind of like that's a relatively basic statement like technique always prevails but obviously obviously strength has a huge aspect and proponent to it when it comes to competing at a high level but and and there's no there's no graph or drawing that's like strength is this important compared to technique and there's no line that actually shows that. Yeah. But what I would say in regards to me in particular, I haven't noticed any decline in my recovery rate.

That's number one. Number two, you know, even rolling with, with the best guys on their team, their main comment is how strong I am. So I figure if it's a backhanded comment, I get it for sure.

You're so strong. I hate hearing that. When Luke told me, I was like, thanks, man. I feel you. Is it usually after someone taps you out? Yeah. Like, wow, you're pretty powerful. After like the fifth time, yeah.

But so I figure if the guys that have competed at the highest level have that opinion of me when they're rolling with me, then the strength thing is probably not the biggest thing that I need to address. It's like the equivalent of like if I maxed out at 50 pounds on a deadlift and then I brought up to 315, you'd probably see some legitimate carryover to the mat. But me now being over 800 pounds, if I brought it up to like 950 or something, you probably wouldn't see anything. You know what I mean? It's already an established strength of mine. I think there's certain areas of mobility that I could work on that can make my game better. Like what? Um, specifically for me right now, uh, like

my adductor length. Okay. Yeah. Like being able to do the splits basically. I don't think I'm immobile by any means, but more so like that next level. But with that said, I think that the majority of jujitsu people, because they're so invested in jujitsu and because the thought of strength training and jujitsu is still pretty new. Nobody has very few people have truly given themselves the chance to go through a legitimate strength or muscle building phase multiple at that to actually see like, could I just get to a comparable strength naturally to where strength isn't your weakness? And then from there like just continue to build the technique, right?

And for me, that's the main way that I look at it where I could jump on gear and I could get a lot stronger in comparison to the people I'm rolling with. Could it make me perform better? Probably. with could it make me perform better probably but not any more than just dedicating the extra time to getting better at the technique or or whatever whatever else i'm missing you know that's where i have a good point you go to sleep you recover you eat your protein you do all these things obviously you know enhanced testosterone levels can help in some ways, but it seems like they help the most in, in sports where, where sports,

where the overriding thing is strength, you know, Olympic lifting, power lifting, those kinds of sports where the numbers are really important and ha and having like a specific body weight. I'm not saying it wouldn't do anything in jujitsu. Um,

you're seeing it, you know, you're seeing it with a lot of high level guys are doing it nowadays but i also would think that that is probably deceiving the people it in my opinion it would it represent it just represents such a small amount of of uh how skilled that person is right i i think about it i probably lift more than most people that I'm going against. So then like from the standpoint of somebody taking steroids and they still lift less than me, but I'm still losing to them. Is it steroids? You know, is it steroids are what I need because I'm still technically strong. Whether I'm doing it naturally or on gear, I'm still technically stronger than the person. That's how I feel. And you can train frequently and have any – Yeah, exactly. So at that point, I think you can consider steroids like a supplement to their training.

And I think it kind of makes up maybe for a lot of lost time or time most people don't want to invest into just hard, hard, hard strength. Because to that respect, we could talk about recovery and then doing a hard, hard strength program and doing high level jujitsu. That's, that's a tandem in itself. Right. Um, and so, but you know, me individually, again, I haven't felt too many diminishing returns from doing both, but you know, if I need to, I'd be more willing to sacrifice how much I'm lifting rather than how much I'm doing jujitsu. But yeah, that's a rabbit hole. We could go down for hours but yeah what if like what if it makes let's say

four really hard jiu-jitsu sessions feel like two so then you can have potentially you know three more sessions that week or something because then you're still working on the technique but again this is just assuming that's a huge that's a huge point and I'm probably not the best guy to speak

on like how how that feels i guess like it's it's interesting to ponder because yeah that's probably if anything over the strength that's probably the best point you can make if somebody feels like it allows them to train more and work on their skills adapt new techniques and that's probably the best benefit to steroid uses in jujitsu is maybe that factor alone, because the strength in itself, obviously, as we know, is subjective. But I guess that's when it comes down to the individuals, like, do you feel like you can't recover, you know, and I haven't hit that point yet. Thankfully, I think a lot of it has to do with the time invested in my earlier years, lifting, building durability, and as well as like the mobility stuff more recently what's your take on it on ped use and jujitsu like just being able to recover faster

yeah i think that depends on like the type of sessions that you're doing so like you know when you're training jujitsu there are days that you could do just specific training like you mentioned not doing all the takedowns um being careful, not trying to like working more on technique rather than the exertion you have on rules. You can still get a very effective training session in with jujitsu while not fatiguing yourself so much that you can't have a strength training day. And the thing is, is like, it also depends on where the athlete's starting. You have been lifting since you were fucking five, right? So you have this base of strength training knowledge that when you go into the gym and you have a decent strength training session, it doesn't fatigue you as much as it would a grappler who hasn't really strength trained much.

And then they go in the gym and they have a hard session. But because it's so new to them, it's almost like the feeling of when you started jujitsu for the first time. You're right. Do you remember that feeling? Well, I mean, you've been wrestling. But I get it. I started jujitsu when I was 23. Andrew knows what it's like when. I started jujitsu when I was 23. Andrew knows what it's like. When you first start jujitsu, the level of fatigue you feel in your body and the soreness because of the new stimulus isn't something that you could do five days a week.

But me and you, we can have five, six. We can train every day in the gym. And we're smart enough to have an effective session without it affecting everything else we do. Whereas most jujitsu guys don't have that strength training knowledge to go into the gym and train in a way that's effective, but doesn't fatigue them so much that they can't go to the mat. So then they think, Oh, I'm just going to focus on jujitsu rather than this whole gym thing. Whereas if it did take a little bit more time to have a good structured training program in the gym while also being smart with their jujitsu sessions,

they could do both pretty well at the same time. Yeah, I agree. And my experience, especially with a lot of my online clients, when they start out with me, especially if they are jujitsu athletes, when it's starting at lighter weight or lower volume, they either question it or it's not hard enough. One of the questions that I like is, hey, man, just this is supposed to make me stronger, right? I'm like, yeah. It's like, no. Yeah. Uh, so, but to that point, it's, uh, I, I, I found

at all levels, really, you have people that want to work hard and that's a great like foundation to have, but then that could also be taken too far when I had to constantly remind these people, the weightlifting is purely supplemental to jujitsu. Like you're not lifting to lift more or compete. And we have to draw that fine line. And a lot of, I think, jujitsu guys, if they're coming in without a coach or without an experienced coach, come in and train as if they're trying to do a lifting competition. lifting competition where we were, it's just so misguided where you don't need a whole lot to have the stimulus to carry over week after week and make progress, whether it's building muscle or building strength or whatever the case may be. And neither you or I know where that fine line is,

but we have a pretty decent idea through all the experience and what we know. And I think that's why it's important if you are a jujitsu guy and you do want to take strength training seriously to invest in somebody that knows what they're doing because they're going to be able to have a bird's eye view over where that fine line is much better than somebody coming in off the streets would. Yeah. If we can agree that like an 815 deadlift is more than adequate for jiu-jitsu, then why bother deadlifting? Like why not just not deadlift for a while? Right, exactly. And so that purely goes down to me just still having some powerlifting aspirations.

You know, the American Pro is in October, so I'm kind of like starting. And maybe mentally too. Like it's just, that's what you love to do. Yeah, I just love to do. Yeah, it's something that I'm passionate about. When I saw that the A15 at 198 drug tested was close to Jesse Norris's,

and granted Jesse did it on a stuff bar and conventional, but with that said is it's close to that that all-time world record so I said figure why not yeah give it a shot you know so I've been I've been pushing that more seriously lately otherwise you're I I've gone in stints of liking deadlift and then not caring or liking strict curl and then not caring but more consistently since I'm leading into the bigger event yeah I've been taking a little bit more seriously than normal are there some things you avoid that might beat you up? Like you were mentioning, you might play a certain way in jiu-jitsu to avoid injury.

Do you do the same thing in the gym? Yeah, that's when I've been – now after switching to sumo, I've been noticing some of my SI issues don't act up nearly as much. So like from the conventional and like even from like some low bar stuff. So for me, I think being able to switch between squat variations, like you were talking about in our training, has been very helpful, whether I'm switching from a high bar to a front squat to SSB and then to a low bar.

Sometimes a low bar can make it act up a little bit if my hips are tighter that day. So having variation in that helps. Then I also found that just more recently lowering my frequency obviously hasn't taken strength hit, but it's uh it's allowed my mind to recover a little bit more just like going from training with the best team in the world and then trying to being one of the best deadlifters in the world it's i guess it's

more stress than what i gave it credit for so like separating the two a little bit better has helped a lot a lot of stress of just being new right stress of just being nervous like i don't know what's going on today and just uh you probably kind of scared in a way i'd imagine your heart rate's probably just up similar to competition feeling almost but like you're going into practice type of thing probably before you get out of your car you go oh yeah 100 here we go grab my shit and go in there 100 yeah i used to uh i used to always lift before jiu-jitsu back home in arizona because i was really comfortable more recently i've been having them separate or I'll be lifting after jiu-jitsu just because I need the energy. Yeah, I'm just thinking to myself, like, am I really about to just make myself worse?

There's some monsters inside that place. I'm not going to go lift. Yeah, seriously. I mean, like, especially, like, when I'm doing mount rounds with Big Dan and whatnot, am I really going to, like, decrease my strength more than what it is to go? You know, I want to be able to defend the 20 smothered chokes I'm about to have to deal with for the next hour. What is it like being the small fish, though? Like because I'm assuming at your gym in Arizona, you were probably the best, if not one of the best guys in the room at any given time. Right. Yeah, I would say so.

So what's it like now being, well, the small fish? It's new. And like I said, that's where I think I took for granted some of the earlier years where I wasn't the best. And obviously I put in a lot of hours to get to a point to where I became one of the best. But now being in a room where – the reason why I love it though is because of some of the aspirations to compete in ADCC one day. I have this reference every single day, this person won ADCC, this person compete at ADCC. Like I had this reference. Yes. If I can close this gap. And that's what I hear like Luke and John Carlo talk about when they first started

to like, if I can close this gap or if I can do well against X person, then that confidence and skill should only carry through to the competition because one of the biggest advantages they have outside of the coaching is just the ability to train with the best every single day and have that reference. Like, how am I doing compared to the best? Merigali, best Gi guy in the world, right? And then, I mean, no Gi-wise, he got second at the Open. And then Giancarlo won 88,

and then the only person John Carlo lost to was Miragali. So like these people are, if they lose, it's like to people on their own team, you know? Yeah. And so, uh, to answer your initial question, it's, I like it now. I like it. Like at first, like it definitely created like some nerves. Like I, I, I think my biggest fear was like giving off, like I suck, right. Or I don't deserve to be there i'm not i'm not good enough to be here like that those are some of the thoughts that went through my head especially when i couldn't do as much uh with like at the beginning especially when we're rolling i hated having to tap early like at least three or four times around like um when nick and i would roll at the very

beginning we would have like some good like good flurries he was still kicking my ass we'd have some good flurries but then he would like grab something naturally that he's just programmed to do and be like tap tap tap and i hated being that guy you know um and you know i i felt like damn i got i got a nice invite to be here but like you know i know there's people at henzo's that are just putting an hour's day in a day out to earn the invite to get there one day and yeah i almost felt like guilty on some days like do i deserve to be here but now the knee's better and i'm making progress i'm getting to know the guys i feel much better past that but to now being the small fish or being one of the worst guys and of anyone there even the girls too the girls are just killer helena what's her name yeah helenavar yeah her Instagram's Helena Jiu-Jitsu girl she's like

16 and she's wrecking every competition she goes into her mom her mom just brings her to practice because she can't drive and her mom just hangs out while she practices and yeah yeah man it's cool she doesn't say much she's just really quiet like focused but yeah it's cool you know I have another question for you now do you think what is your what are your thoughts now on like belt levels? You know what I mean? Because like, you know, there's there's black belts. And then there's I heard this Joe Rogan episode when he was talking to Andy Stump. Mark mentioned it to me.

But he was talking about how there's black belts and then there's like fucking black belts. Right. So what do you feel about, know the belt system do you i mean it still has a place but what are your thoughts on it my thoughts now is that the belt means exactly what it means to the individual and without sounding like rude not much past that in the sense that like your belt level should be appreciated. You should be proud of it. You should acknowledge the work it took to get there, but it's, it's representative of the individual because to your point,

especially now with Nikki Rod or J Rod or big Dan just got his purple belt. Like, dude, come on. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and I'm,

I'm paying, I'm paying Dan for privates and everything. And I'm, and I'm a black belt from Arizona. It's like, I don't care. And if I go into a room like new wave, I'm like, I'm a black belt from Arizona it's like I don't care and and if I go into a room like new wave like I'm a black belt like dude like go like I would tell myself go fuck yourself like dude like just chill you know like it at the end of the day like

again I'm more than happy to admit there's there's white belts that probably train at Henzo's under John that could explain things better than me that know things better than me just because I can beat them in a role doesn't mean that my knowledge is up to par with them with John. So I would say that, you know, going back to Arizona, when I got my black belt, it's like the black belt is representative of the work that I did, the people that I competed against, the people that I trained with and what my instructor thought that I was worthy of at the time. And that's, that's where that line ends, not in a bad way, but that's where it is. Because then if I go over to new wave, then new standards, new training partners, like the standard is just different because if I'm getting tapped by Dan,

like six times in five minutes and he's a purple belt, you know, if I had started with John and John didn't know my rank, would he tell, would he give me my black belt the next day? Like probably not, you know? So, and you know, you go to like uh Nicky Rod when he was beating people as a blue belt or J-Rod now and time wise or experience wise obviously their instructor doesn't feel like they're at like their their black belt level that's why that's why it comes down to like your brown or black belt level my my brown or black. And if you move somewhere, that might change or your perspective on it might change. And same thing maybe with the guys that like B-team. Like J-Rod is a new purple belt, you know, but he's beaten world-class black belts.

So then to that point, like their instructors feel like he needs to accumulate X amount of experience and do whatever to earn his black belt. Or, you know, the guys at New Wave, the same thing. John felt that Dan needed to do X, Y, and Z to earn his black belt or, you know, the guys at new wave, the same thing. John felt that Dan needed to do X, Y, and Z to earn his purple belt. And he's going to have different standards for him for his Brown and so on and so forth. Yeah.

So yeah, to anyone watching, it's not even that I'm trying to discourage anyone. I think it's just important to notate that, like, don't let anyone make you feel bad about being a belt. If you can't beat a lower belt and also be humble enough to understand that your belt doesn't go any far past what you think it means to you or or your instructor you know you

being a black belt and wherever doesn't mean that you're going to come into some room and wherever and just dick on all the blue belts you know it could vary yeah you know so that's that's my latest perspective after training with these guys for so long loose new brown belt you know there's blue belts in there like helena's a new blue belt because she's 16 yeah you know but she's obviously well on most black belts level so yeah yeah there's a lot that i think about that but that's my latest perspective because i think about a lot to be honest you know like because there's you you feel that uh imposter syndrome where and granted, like I went to an extreme, like new wave. It doesn't get too much better than that. But even still at that point, like I felt pretty confident about my skills back home.

And I still do to some degree. I know I have a lot of room to go. But at the same time, it's like, hey, but if I'm a black belt and Dan is a new purple belt and he clearly knows so more than me. And he's beating me just with 5% effort. Like you think about those things. And then my ultimate conclusion, my friend Austin Baker helped me kind of like get through this. Just, you know, you earned it. You know, you did what was required for you to get there. And just because you're in a new environment where you're not necessarily beating lower belts isn't indicative of your deservingness of that said belt type of thing you know yeah yeah there's so many different

levels i remember a good friend bobby lashley who was a like four-time national champion wrestler and when he went and tried out for the olympic trials for wrestling he would hear a lot of guys say like i'm all american i'm all American, I'm all American. And they just used to say, yeah, I'm really proud of you. That's what they would tell each other. Yeah, great, cool, okay. So is everybody else. And then now you have to try to figure out how to keep up with the pack.

I've heard a lot of stories like this over the years. I remember hearing a story about Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men. He went and did a rehearsal and Tom Cruise went to the rehearsal as well and everybody else was there. Sometimes people know their lines and sometimes people kind of don't. It's just a practice.

But Jack Nicholson went there and just crushed everybody and did his role and was in character and Tom Cruise just went back to his trailer and was like what the fuck damn like i better step my shit right so i love stories like that i love hearing stuff like that because there's so many different levels i mean what if you just went to a different country or you went to a different like you're saying you're going to a different area people

know different things if you think about what jujitsu did for mma it just completely flipped it upside down and said yeah right ken shamrock was one of the best fighters in the world. One of the best fighters anyone's ever seen before. Yeah. And then when he met Hoist Gracie, he was like, I don't even really know what that was. Right. Afterwards, that's kind of what he said. He's like, I don't understand what jujitsu is, but he's like, I better learn it.

And that's the position that you get in. It's like, you better learn and adapt. Otherwise, you're going to get your ass kicked yeah totally totally i i've experienced so let's bring it down to more so a hobbyist level i feel like a lot of people experience this when they get a belt at their gym and then they go to open mat or they travel and they go to a different gym and then they get crushed or whatever by a blue belt or or the blue belt knows more because their instructor likes to teach sort of things that the other one does and that type of thing. And they go through that, that feeling of, you know, an imposter syndrome.

And, you know, I, I think at that point, instead of being regretful of your belt or questioning your belt, just more so just, okay, well, this is the blue belt standard of this school. I would like to be a blue belt standard at every single school. So with that said, like, let's, let's learn from these people or let's ask what they're doing. And then, so that, that just makes you better over time. I think there's a lot of fear of like, especially, and I'll, and I'll talk about it a bit when I got my belts faster, um, purple and Brown specifically black, I didn't hear too much about it, but purple

and black or Brown, I had a, like a big out, out, outlash from the jujitsu community for the most part, like on my Brown belt uh jiu-jitsu times had posted because i i made i made like a clickbait youtube video powerlifter gets brown belt in 2.5 years and then so jiu-jitsu times got a hold of it and they shared it and there's a lot of people in the arizona community that had nice things to say supportive and there's a lot of people that didn't know me that said a lot of like outlandish things. And I think on a smaller scale, some of us go through that at times too, especially like hobbyists where I don't want to go to another gym and roll with their blue belt and I'm a pro belt. And then they think I suck or, you know,

they're going to say, and like these things go through, go through your head. I, and I dealt with that too, back home in Arizona, when I had people talking all this smack, I'm like, damn, well, what if I go to open mat and I lose a blue belt and I'm proving all the haters right or whatever, like that type of thing. My, my interpretation of it now, which is why I think the new way thing has been very healthy for me where it's like, dude, I don't care how many mental obstacles you try to or gymnastics you try to do. You will at least not in the near future.

You will never be better than these people. So just accept the fact that you're not their level, right? And just make yourself a mental white belt. Fuck it. Be a mental white belt for your whole life. Yes. And when you just mentally put yourself there, one, the belt will come.

Two, you don't go through that type of mental, you don't handicap yourself mentally from worrying about what other people are going to think because all that does is handicap you from what you could have learned. Maybe they will say some shit. Maybe they will talk shit. Like who cares? You know how many people talk shit about my natural status or whatever, like who cares? And you know, the same thing too. But if you cared as much as what people think you should about what people say, where would you be? Or where would I be? Where would any of us be? Where would Mark be if he cared about everything that people said negative about him? That's some of

the growth that I've come through the last, that last year or so. It's just like, I understand and I'm confident who I am, my skill. I understand what my weaknesses are and I'm working on it. What anyone else has to say about it just doesn't matter as much anymore. Power Project Family, we talk about beef and meat all the time on the podcast. That's why we've partnered with Certified Piedmontese Beef. But did you know this, that 85% of all grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries? 85%. But Certified Piedmontese is made in the U.S. of A. America. America. Fuck yeah. So go ahead and get some of the best tasting some of the leanest some of the best

beef from piedmontese andrew how can they get it absolutely uh so you guys can head over to cpbeef.com and check out enter promo code power to save 25 off your entire order and if your order is 150 dollars or more you get free two-day shipping again cpbeef.com links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes fuck notes that's a big deal though because it takes a lot like you moving to new wave is a big deal because like to go from yeah everyone sees me as this to now going into a environment where you are not close well you know you're gonna improve but you're not the best in the room right and everybody knows it right right it takes a lot to put yourself in that situation because when you do progress to a point where maybe you're beating everyone around you that feels good you feel like you're really good you

might be really good but you're really good in the environment you're currently in and if you want to get better you have to find an environment where you can get some fucking sharks totally and you can be the little fucking goldfish. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, literally. One of the things I've tried to live by more recently is look for an opportunity to get your ass kicked every single day. Yeah. Back when I was home in Arizona, that's why I trained with Austin so much.

And fuck the knee injury. I don't regret a single second of it, you know, because he helped make me so good. I've competed against him three times. He's beat me every single time. Everywhere where I'm weak, he was able to exploit. I made so much progress with him. But when we were training every day, helping him prepare for Worlds, there'd be days where I'm like, I hope he – he's not the best replier.

He texts him like, hey, bro, when are you training? And like an hour or two go by, I'm like, maybe he'll reply. Yeah. Texting him super late. And then you see the three bubbles. Yeah, I know. It's like, damn it. But, you know, I try to catch myself when I'm trying to like come out of it.

And it's so interesting because it's so easy to like make excuses to not want to get your ass sick or not to want to do something hard at least i don't think twice about it as much as i should but then i'm better at catching myself now where are you is your knee actually need a day or you just don't want to get fucked by dan and luke and marigoli you know it's like that's that's what i go through but but the more i can catch myself there the less likely i am to look for the excuse the next day. And that's my best advice to everybody. Even going back to high school when I was a freshman on varsity wrestling with the senior 220, the guy above me, I didn't understand why I had to keep getting my ass kicked every single day. But then by the time I was a sophomore or junior, it made sense when I was winning all these matches.

Because I got my ass kicked all the time, that's why I i'm here now and you just literally cannot progress unless you're losing another good point since we're going down one of my good training partners back home he was like one of my wrestling coaches gary ryan he wrestled at columbia university and uh he also competed at olympic trials for the usa but he said something that really stuck with me and there's three types of training partners that you need you need the training partner that you can beat every single round. You need the training partner that trades with you, like wins. And then you need the training partner that just dominates you. Those are the three types of training partners.

And that's what the people at New Wave do, where on some days they're going head-to-head. John Carlo, Marigoli, Luke, Marigoli. Other days they're going with a Alexa experience guy to have that. And even for me, too, that's why more recently I've been trying to look for opportunities outside of Roca, such as going to John's Henzo classes, such as going to John Carlos classes that he teaches. If I can go to the right location, like, is there anybody around here I can kick their ass? Yeah, I know that that's you're like, come on uh but at the same time you know i i'm getting really good at defending i'm getting really good at having a high pace i'm getting really good at understanding what the best in the world feels like but i haven't practiced offense

well including the knee injury in like eight months you know i don't like i sure i go for a submission from time to time but like as far as like actually threatening like consistently i haven't felt that in a while so that's why you know even for me it's not even like a oh i just want to beat people thing because i'm more than happy to get my ass kicked but it's more so like if you want to hone in on all the skills that are required for jiu-jitsu you do need the partners that you can beat it doesn't mean you're slamming submissions and hurting people but it's like you got to have those offensive reps as well. Absolutely. Yeah.

What got over there, Andrew? So like now that not only is like John schooling you big time, but I mean, I mean, educating like and teaching technique and being the best in the game, but now your training partners are also showing you stuff. So I'm interested in hearing how you retain information. Cause me being a white belt, I'll, I'll drill a technique, drill it, drill it, get into a situation.

Oh, I think I can use it. And I kind of – it like vanishes in that moment. So like for me, retaining information is a little tricky. So I'm interested in how you do it. So for me, like if I was making a general statement, record yourself or write it down. Recording helps me a lot. Me too. A lot of people will say write it down.

And I think that if you can write it down and do that and you respond well that way, then do it. But I paid my friend to do the majority of my homework through college. So I don't think I'm going to write anything down when it comes to jiu-jitsu. Really? How much do you pay him? That's disclosed information. A few hundred dollars a week. Oh, shit.

I thought you were going to say a couple of pizzas or something. Chicken tenders. There you go. But with that said, what I've been doing recently with New Wave is, okay, in a single practice, let alone four or five, I'm going to be exposed to countless positions that I'm weak or I'm not good at. I'm going to pinpoint the top two positions that I got exploited in in that week and then go to Dan or go to John Carl and be like, hey, these are the two positions this week where I didn't know't know what to do, or I kept getting caught in like, what, what, what should I do? So the privates for sure. Um, another great thing is they're also super, super helpful after practice. Like I know John sticks around. He also does that for like the students at Henzo's where like he'll teach class and he'll stick around for like 45 minutes and just have like a Q and a, um, but a lot of times

afterwards to right after the role, while it's fresh ask luke like hey when you caught me in this like how would you go about defending that type of thing and i don't know why for me in particular that sticks with me better because usually if that situation presents itself then i'm able to fix it much sooner when i'd like at it's like i think there's a certain part of me that has a lot of respect for these guys. And when they teach me something, I almost want to make them proud or do them right by doing it correctly. So then I hold myself to the stand like, okay, I got to do this today. For example, when I did the private with John Carlo, he was teaching me about their cross-wrist trapping system from Mount and explaining that to me. And the reason why this was so important to me is because when I did exactly that, the next practice, I got my first good job from John fucking shit myself, dude, the poor guy underneath me. I felt

so bad. I was like, I was like, Oh shit, that's awesome. So I went up to John Carl's like, Hey dude, like the thing you show me, like work to a T and John told me good job for the first, first time. And I was stoked. So I just thank you. But, but yeah, that's, that's what I do. So I pay people for their time or I ask them after practice and I appreciate them taking the time to help me and I just want to pay them back in the sense of actually making what they show me work. And that's what I did even as like a white belt. Just trust who you're under, trust the coach you're with,

and put faith into what you're learning and just let the fruits of your labor come after that. And now applying that same concept that new wave it's it's been working well i i still think there's so much more that obviously i need to learn like some of the things like even going down to the japanese terminology i'm still lacking on that side you know because we didn't really use that too much back home yeah yeah jean carlo fucked me up with that too yeah back home. Yeah. Jean-Carlo fucked me up with that too. I'm just like, I don't know what you're saying, man, but let's do it. And they just know it like that. But yeah, I just, it's cool, man. Obviously I'm super happy about it. It's just a really cool experience. And I just think that it's okay to not necessarily try to force the progression either. Like have your system to consistently progress show initiative to progress

asking questions paying for a private if you can afford it getting an instructional or what what have you but don't necessarily like be upset if you're not getting the progression as fast as you think either because it's kind of like lifting or strength training putting on muscle where you're doing this deadlift for so long you're trying to put on size of your chest for so long, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I kind of added some size or my deadlift shot up randomly type of thing. Jiu-jitsu, I feel like it's kind of the same thing where you could be going against the same people every single day,

beat the same people, lose to the same people. Maybe you go to open mat of your competition, you're like, oh, I couldn't do that before. But it's hard to reference sometimes if you're always going against your teammates. And until you get a reference of somebody outside of that you may not even be realizing how fast you're actually progressing so makes sense and then how about like for both of you i want to hear from you too and sema because i'm going to be bugging you about this anyways afterwards but working on holes in your game um so like going into this competition

you know i was used to being on my back but i got a lot of advice of like, Hey, if you can get on top and stay on top, there's a really good chance you're going to win. So I instantly switched my game to, okay, how can I start passing people's guard? How can I be more on the aggressive side? And then like a week or two before I was on my back and I just had like this deer in the headlights, like situation where I'm like, Holy shit, I don't know what to do here. Um, I, I kind of referenced like, Oh oh when you're working on your bench then all of a sudden your deadlift comes down right right you can't bring them all up at the same time so uh how do you guys fill in like holes of your game without regressing too much

somewhere else so that way you just kind of like opened up another hole where you thought you were actually doing fine right i think uh that's a good question i think at a certain point you start to understand your style and naturally things just start to progress faster than others because you start to put a lot of time in the areas where you're the strongest or the situations that you find yourself in the most. But the way I've described it to students in the past, and that's why just consistency and time prevails above everything, is because like somebody starts at this baseline where every skill is like this. And then, you know, maybe their school teaches Mount for a month and they raise Mount like this, but everything else is still down here. You could continue progressing with Mount, but then you don't know anything else.

So then I just say like, you know, give four, six weeks on focusing on a specific skill that covers a lot. Mount covers a lot. Guard passing covers a lot. Back control covers a lot because there's a lot of moves within that that you can learn. So while you're progressing that given position or skill, you're learning a hell of a lot, hopefully retaining the majority of that. And then you move on to the next thing. And then you just go through this rotation. Like if you were to do it strategically like that, that's what I would suggest. Because naturally at points, you're just going to notice things drop, but you raise it up and then raise it up to raise it up now your strength was a little bit more of your weakness

you raise it up again that's how i think about it when it comes to the building blocks of jiu-jitsu but that just again is allocated through the time that you give yourself and then the consistency that you have week to week and specifically being in like being a white belt and starting new there everything's a hole for you like honestly if i'm like when i was a white belt and starting new there everything's a hole for you like honestly if i'm like when i was a white belt i had no i mean i had a strength of being strong and maybe if like i got on top of somebody right i could use my strength to barrel but that wasn't going to be a long-term fix right so it's trying to focus on something that's gonna pay good dividends for in terms of understanding of like over time so for you um learning some

specific guards something that i mean i talked to you about this but like learning a guard that can funnel into a lot of other guards it's pretty simple like a collar sleeve and a few open guard concepts because if you can learn collar sleeve then there's a bunch of other guards that can weave into that but the collar sleeve is a very simple open guard that a white belt can learn and do something with and then along with like learning something there you want to maybe do more specific type of training so instead of your sparring rounds being okay i'm just going to spar with you and we're going to go until somebody taps maybe have it where okay i want to start underneath on side control on you or actually you being the belt, if you want to work on more offensive thing, you can tell your upper belt partner, like, can I start in side control?

And can I, can, can we work from here? And then if you escape, we restart. Do more specific training so you put yourself in those situations more because if you don't and you're just rolling, you're going to end up being in the same exact positions all the time with the same training partners because they do all of the same things and you'll never put yourself in a bad situation that's why personally for me i do a lot of specific training in bad spots where i'll start with my training partner on top of me in side control or they'll have my back or they'll be mounted on me because typically they're not going to get there on me anyway and if i never work that when i go to competition and if i end up in that type of situation i'm gonna be like a deer in headlights right yeah

how about um so like again being being so new like I I mean I guess I'm I'm kind of trying to mold a game but do you guys think it's a good idea to like because like so right now I really love working in headquarters I get to that position and I feel pretty comfortable but um being so new should I keep hammering down on that same path or should I try to maybe progress in other like I don't know different style for them for like a little bit and then go back and forth or just keep trying to go down this one path until I don't know I start getting I start tapping people put it that way because like right now I'm not doing that in practice so does that make sense and see what you get what i'm saying like trying to uh i guess progress in multiple

areas at once or just focus on this one game for now so i look at when i i'm gonna look at your specific situation you're 175 180 pounds 180 180 pounds your white belt you have a lot of upper belt training partners who know more than you and who are going to be putting you in a lot of bad positions. So naturally, you're going to be learning how to escape things a lot right now. But I do think over time, you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck by learning some open guard concepts on your back because you are strong. You get that comment a lot from people. You're strong, right? So headquarters position is going to feel comfortable for you. Why? Because you're a

strong guy and you like being on top. Pause. But being on your back is going to be the most uncomfortable thing for you because, well, when you're there, you're kind of a deer in headlights. You have no options. And what happened at the competition? Take that, like it happened at my first white belt competition too. When I, like, I think I happened at my first white belt competition too when i like i think i actually my first blue belt worlds right all every single ultra heavyweight wanted to play on top every single person wants to play the takedown game and i lost my first match by points because no one knew a fucking guard so then what was my option i was like okay i'm going to go back i'm going to learn how to play guard i'm going to learn some open guard concepts so that i can be the big guy that pulls guard

and has all the options from the bottom to sweep and submit. Second world I went to, I got second because I started playing guard. No big guy expected me to pull guard because big guys don't pull guard, right? That gave me all the options to be able to fuck them up. And for you, you're going to learn a lot if you actually learn how to play little guy jujitsu, playing on your back, learning a specific guard, being comfortable there. Because when people can't pass your guard, they get frustrated because most people don't like to, especially big, strong guys, don't like to focus on that. So now you're the big, strong guy that has a guard.

Now you're dangerous. So that's why I think like it's a frustrating lane to go down. so that's why i think like it's a frustrating lane to go down but everyone that you've said is talking to you about competitions like oh yeah just try to you know try to get a takedown and stay on top that's the big guy game and every guy is thinking about doing the same thing yeah yeah and then looking back nobody in my division pulled guard nobody and i was like shit really yeah and in my first match in my head I was like dude I feel like I should be pulling guard right here I was like but no the game because you know again first comp so I had my one game plan which was take down and stay on top to simplify it and I was like I should

have had a plan b like because you know the guy sniffed out my single leg really quickly and then uh no disrespect to him but he was just kind of waiting back and waiting for me to make a mistake which i did and then he got on top and won um but had i just fuck i should have just pulled guard and i'm not really beating myself up as but i am in regards to like just being more open and progressing my game you know so that makes a lot of freaking sense and yeah i'm gonna start working on my guard game for the next couple months because it might be coming up in two months for August for me to compete again. Let's go.

Okay, good shit. Hell yeah. That was awesome, man. I'm happy for you. How about you? What do you think about? Yeah, I would say in general, just because you are so new, there's what you really like right now.

Some things click really fast and then some things maybe not so much. The stuff that's not clicking right now, for whatever whatever reason could click a year or two down the road so that's why you know you don't necessarily have to limit yourself to what you're learning but also like acknowledge the positions that you get into a lot acknowledge what you like to do in those positions and then dive down that rabbit hole like gain knowledge there but then at the same time you're still so new that, for example, when I first started doing jiu-jitsu wrestling, obviously like I wouldn't consider myself like a guard player or anything like that.

And at New Wave, I definitely don't. But against your average person, like my guard is pretty good. Like back in Arizona, it was very hard to pass. And that's something where that didn't come naturally to me, maybe until like at the very end of my brown belt, honestly, you know? So it's like, you know, you think one thing like this is my thing. And then all of a sudden it changes. It's, I think that's the nature of jujitsu. So I can't even give you a good answer other than don't. And I know you don't, but don't decline knowledge coming in and then, and then be open to applying it. And with that said too, sometimes you come

into a session with a specific goal. A lot of times I hear people talk about like, if you're not coming into a session with a specific goal, like situationally or positionally, then, then you're not doing yourself the justice that you could in order to progress. I also think on the other side of that coin to where sometimes it's good to not come in with a specific goal and actually let roles just flow where, where they, where they end up going, because that then helps you further specify where you would want to take things later in the week or the next week, et cetera, type of thing. So like half and half, or, or maybe like two sessions a week where you don't have a plan. Cause that's okay. Cause you don't want to be like, so narrow

minded, like, okay, my plan is to work guard passing or my plan is to work guard and just doesn't work out in that fashion. And then you're so narrow-minded on the things you had set forth. Now you're just underperforming in all the other areas because you're stuck in this aisle of vision, essentially. Makes sense. Yeah. Power Project family, your normal shoes are making you weak. This is why I partner with Vivo Barefoot Shoes

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Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let me ask this, Jimmy. Being able to you coach Nicholas Merigallians with some strength training recently. And he's the self-proclaimed and many people look at him as being the best gee grappler in the world. I've been paying, I've been watching his stuff for years too. So I appreciate what he does, but how's he as a,

as a person and as a grappler? Dude, it's really cool because yeah, he's definitely one of my favorite guys there for sure. And I've really appreciated the time we've spent together. We developed like a, like actual pretty cool friendships where we're joking around and stuff like that.

And it's cool because for one, he's picked up English pretty fast. Oh Jesus yeah doesn't that make well you might speak two languages no no i don't actually i don't speak i don't speak filipino actually but we're peasants yeah mom thanks but uh yeah he actually picked up english pretty fast and he was telling me how you know when he first moved here he didn't know anything and now he's teaching classes and you know able to communicate just fine. It's cool because you see somebody like him that's just

a phenom on the mats, has a phenomenal work ethic. He's one of those guys we're out to tell him, it's okay, we don't have to do as much today. He always wants to do more. The coolest thing about it, honestly, is, for one, being given the chance to work with a high-level athlete like him because he's definitely the most accomplished athlete I've worked with to date.

But with that said, he, despite his level and despite the connections he probably has, is so open-minded and coachable to what I have to say, which then plays a role into how well he's been able to do in jujitsu because obviously he's very coachable under whoever he's under. I know him and John have a great relationship and he applies it the same way when he's working with me. And a step past that, instead of just like me telling him what to do and him doing it, he's actually asking questions like he, like he wanted to know, like, what's it called when you're going down? Like, oh, the eccentric.

And then he'll, he'll like test himself the next day that the called when you're going down? Like, oh, the eccentric. And then he'll, he'll like test himself the next day. The eccentric, the eccentric. I'm like, yeah, the eccentric. So he like, he pushes himself to learn. And it's interesting seeing these habits apply in something like lifting and how well he's applied it to jujitsu to get to the level that he's at. But he's super, super supportive of the things that I'm doing. He's super helpful when we're on the mat.

You know, he enjoys training with me, which is a blessing. I really like that guy. He's really cool. I really do. It's really cool that the confidence level, I think, is something. Because a lot of people can say, yeah, I'm a good grappler and have confidence in that. And then there are the people who are like, I am the best in the world. And all of you are fucking wrong.

I am the best in the world. And I'll go against these people and I'll prove to you guys I'm the best in the world. Him of you are fucking wrong. I am the best in the world and I'll go against these people and I'll prove to you guys I'm the best in the world. Him, Gordon, I don't like people look at that as being extremely like prideful and like a boastful or whatever. And there is an aspect of it that is,

but these guys back it up. True. I think with that said, that's why it's important not to just blanket label people, you know,, you know, because, you know, everyone says a bunch of things about Gordon. I won't necessarily give out all the stories I've heard, but I've heard a lot of stories where he's helped a lot of people on that team get through hard times, bring them to

Austin to train like and John to. Yeah. Just because they are a certain way on social media or they say a certain thing a certain way doesn't necessarily represent who they are as a person like in total I mean like it's interesting because yeah like if back home there's a guy running around saying I'm the best

there's a couple guys like that I'm the best I'd be like fucking tool like a fucking douche bag right but then I'm like here and then like dude I'm just the best and i'm like like you know i just don't receive it the same way maybe it's because like every single day i'm getting like wrecked so it's like who am i to to say that you're in the wrong to say i feel like i

don't even have a place to have an opinion on the matter you know so you're gonna get fucked get fucked by the best yeah right pause pause that's my mom's burning her ears i'm sorry mrs house hey my mom does the same thing she doesn't even listen to this podcast i'm gonna get slapped um but yeah yeah i guess uh it's it's interesting because yeah there's a lot of people back home that had their opinions about how you know certain people on new wave like promote themselves and everything and when i looked at it back home my my general opinion was like can't necessarily see myself doing it but i i especially now being in it i definitely understand why it has its role in the growth of the sport because so you think about WWE and you think about UFC,

UFC has taken a lot of their marketing tactics from WWE. Dana White has talked about that like numerous times. Jiu Jitsu being a subset of MMA, like you start to see a lot of the same marketing apply. And so you look at something like Gordon or or Nick now I actually the last match Nick had my friend Matt and I talked about we're like that was actually an exciting match like I've never actually looked at the gi match that way because we're both no gi only so you know we're kind of biased towards it but like

that was a exciting match and maybe it's because it's my teammate maybe because I train with him but maybe it's also because of how much he promotes it going into the match. It adds a factor that most people don't get in the Gi world otherwise. And then Gordon, it's like there's always something that leads up into the fight. And a lot of it is real drama. I don't know if it's fake. Not that I know of but at the same time like it provides that uh wwf type of promotion to where people get invested and again whether you like

them or not you're invested so clearly they're still doing something for the sport and that's where you have a guy that talks openly like gordon or nick and then you it's important to have guys that don't talk as much like john carlo or luke or whatever like it's it's important to have guys that don't talk as much like John Carlo or Luke or whatever. Like it's, it's nice because you see both aspects of it, but it doesn't mean that either person is wrong or bad in the matter. So yeah, that's, that's my outlook on it. I just don't, I don't like when people just like, yeah, just arrogant and, and, or just this or just that just labels it. It's like, well, you don't know what this person has done for his friends, for the people he really cares about. Like, that's not go as far as to just label him with something you can be like i don't necessarily

support the way he promotes himself but at the same time you also can't deny that it's made the sport grow immensely you can see that from adcc you can see that from gordon ryan breaking into the mainstream like i don't know any jujitsu fighter um that has as much celebrity connections as he has like who who in jujitsu can accomplish that? You know, Jason Momoa. Oh, that's fair. Just chilling with Jason. No, not, not, not Jason Momoa. He was with him and Mario Lopez and stuff like that. And so, and that comes from his hard work. It comes from his dedication. It comes from his accomplishments and it comes from how he decided to market

himself, you know, and I don't remember the exact words but it was one of the podcasts i watched with um him talking about like john giving him advice at one point i don't know if you know what i'm talking about but john like had given advice essentially don't quote me like like it your your skill or your accomplishment only mean as much as you can market yourself like that that's what it got around to type of thing and so when i look at what he's done there's a lot of people in jujitsu that have done not as much as him but enough to maybe earn the same amount of uh it's the same amount of people that know him but because they don't market in the same way they're they're not nearly as well known so i guess it depends on like what do you want to do do you want to just compete in jiu-jitsu or do you want to make a brand out of it do you want to make an outreach to the mainstream like what do you want to do with your skill set and that's what gordon

and nick want to do you know that's how i see it yeah and that you have uh some wwe training coming up you have yeah i just i just got accepted into dustin road school in august so they have like a training camp essentially. How long does that go for? Three months, three months, yeah. Three days a week on the weekends for three months. So I'm excited to start doing that because I haven't trained since, well, since the knee injury for one.

I did one session before I left Arizona, but I was training about two times a week with my coach, Don Vitale, back home, Phoenix Championship Wrestling, and we made a lot of progress. And then the knee injury happened that I hadn't been able to train since, but yeah, I'm excited to get back and started on that again.

What does that lead to after that? Is it, or is there just you being trained and then you got to kind of figure out stuff on your own? Yeah. I think everybody's journey is individual obviously, but you know, I think starting at a school like Dustin Rhodes is,

is huge as far as like what he's accomplished, you know, the people that he know and, and putting myself in an environment that would give me a better opportunity than it would elsewhere. You know, being under somebody that knows very much what he's doing and be having trust in whatever he's teaching.

It's kind of like John Danner. You're like, you can trust that whatever he's teaching, like it works. And so I kind of wanted to find that same thing with, with wrestling and wherever wrestling takes me, be it the WWE, AEW, or whatever the purpose it serves my life, I want to just be prepared,

and I want to make sure that I'm representing the best self I can whenever I do get an opportunity to compete. But I still do have big aspirations when it comes to that as well. And then you also have a powerlifting meet, right? Yeah, yeah. October of the American Pro, which is in Virginia. Yeah. It's a wrpf they had they had a i think they had one or two so far but it's like one of the more well-known like invite meets yeah yeah so i'm excited for that one that's where like dan

grisby broke broke the record i believe and and stuff like that so a lot of big names go to that one kind of curious about like the wwe and like wrestling stuff because what what what is like what's the process for that you know you go to a school because i remember i remember like nicky ron he tried to do a wrestling thing a few years back i don't know how that ended up right but what is the process of trying to become a fucking wrestler yeah so i would say that so average person, WWE, you could go the independent route where you're doing a bunch of like local shows and then get noticed and then build your credibility through that. More recently, WWE has really been gung ho on getting just really good college athletes post career. Oh, wow. That probably have no aspirations for wrestling initially, but they're offered an opportunity with WWE, and then they kind of hone them from there.

Just from what I've heard, like WWE is very contingent on building people from the ground up rather than having to fix mistakes of people that are seasoned and then not having them as long. So they'd rather take a really ripe 21, 22-year-old that just got done with their wrestling career or what have you and then teach them the right way from the beginning, and then they have that asset for years to come type of thing yeah for the other promotions it's a little bit different i don't think they have an actual

tryout process i believe like wwe has a tryout process like you you apply online they see your resume they invite you to the tryout they have a tryout usually at their bigger events and then they pick who they want essentially the other ones though i can't tell you specifically because i don't know too much but i think that one's a little bit more maybe everything's about connections but that one's a little bit more like hey like this person this person uh is doing well in the indie scenes he's recommended by so and so let's give him a shot type of thing yeah how tiring is wrestling in comparison to other stuff like jiu-jitsu i would so every sport has its own representation of what cardio is jiu-jitsu running lifting even uh wrestling and doing jiu-jitsu and wrestling definitely prepared me better than probably most when it

came to the ring but if you see what they're doing right there just like non-stop moving and these are like short bursts like an actual match but like when the crowd's watching when you're worrying about what you have to do now and next then it can it can get tiring pretty fast now there are points in the match where you get to kind of slow it down a little bit catch your breath so on and so forth but a lot of the movement is similar to this and you have to like move with the right timing very quickly and meet the person in the right position otherwise it just either doesn't work well or somebody gets hurt and what i found when i was starting to do matches towards the end was like we go through however many moves and then

i hit a point where he slams me and i'm on the ground selling and i'm like damn that's tiring you know or like i go through a flurry of different moves and he throws me the ropes and i'm like damn that's tiring you know or like I go through a flurry of different moves and he throws me the ropes and I'm like this and I'm supposed to pretend like I'm hurt but I'm like damn I need to pretend like I'm tired too because I am you know that type of thing so and from what I was told from my coach you know it's really just an experience thing like and I think the more and more you do something you naturally find yourself relaxing more and more and that just makes it easier oh yeah you know uh and so it's really no different than jiu-jitsu it's just a different skill set really but yeah it gets you blown up your legs get tired and you're like oh shit i'm

not sure if i'm gonna be able to get to that spot that guy needs me to when you did it did you i think my biggest struggle was continually painting the story psychologically Like with the face and expressions Like where you know something big happens And you almost like mentally like Okay I can chill here or whatever But you still have to keep selling

That was one of the things that I was working on a lot Did you have trouble like with anything specific When you were doing it More than others Yeah you have to be like really over the top theatrical and at the time my head was shaved too so like when you don't have any hair on your head like when you get punched and stuff like that or if you have a shorter haircut you gotta like really snap your head more and you gotta you gotta just understand there's a lot of

people like well hopefully there's a lot of people watching there's a lot of people watching and they can't really tell or see like if you just barely like react to something right so um that was hard for me because i just at that time wasn't um used to the camera being on me or any sort of spotlight type thing so that took a while for me to get used to that part of it but if you just think about when you watch a match and you watch how theatrical like the rock is you watch goldberg right so animated right like the gestures and the things that they do uh you can't you you uh you can't overdo that stuff yeah and if you do overdo it someone will tell you and they'll say hey you need to cut back on that a little bit look a little corny or cheesy or something like that but that's what i would

encourage most people to do is like just go completely fucking nuts if you can go as crazy as you possibly can because when you go back and watch it on video it won't look like much right remember the ultimate warrior you'd sprint to the ring and he'd shake the ropes and shit yeah you know macho man would do his interviews backwards and stuff there's been a lot of crazy characters over the years and so i think the more animated that you are i think the better remember the rock when he would get a stunner from stone cold flip over and it looked you know yeah it looked fake but it was fun right like it still was cool so yeah just try to be as animated as possible yeah that makes sense for me because yeah i was practicing that but then it's you know in a private wrestling facility and so there's no fans and he's like i want you to hit me with this i want you to let out a scream i'm like why

it's just gonna echo so yeah so i hit him like just like screaming in this like random like you know warehouse there's probably somebody walking out outside just like but uh i like i started getting into it at the end but that was probably one of the things to overcome is just like actually not caring about what the crowd or the imaginary crowd thinks and actually just paying the story because if you took one of goldberg's clicks where he's just like screaming and then you just took all the audience out and you just put him screaming that'd be kind of like freaky you know yeah but then with the audience it makes it okay and he probably did that though at some audition somewhere at some point and people were like shit this guy's got it yeah

even though it's only in front of maybe 10 people and you're naturally a chill dude it seems from what i from what i've seen from you so far thanks man right but but that's the thing like does it take a little bit more for you to let that out yeah and you know the few times where it comes and what i try to relate to my head is like let's say that deadlift video i hit the pr like that's that's one of the few times like in my life where that type of stuff comes out so then when i was doing that it's like okay let's just pretend like i hit a pr basically you know and then just like let that intensity out because i'm calm but then there's certain things where i can get really really really intense like in the right atmosphere so i think it's a matter of like channeling into that and i think sometimes

in jujitsu you like don't want to show right you don't want to show the other guy that you're straining or something's hard or that he's gaining an advantage you want to try to straight face it as much as you can yeah that too that was a face right that was another thing too because i would tell my coach i'm like yeah sorry jujitsu we're supposed to like be poker face and not show emotions and everything so because he would always remind me like like head up you know like say big like show emotion i'm like you're right my bad you should try something different in jiu-jitsu yo hey that really hurt i know you're supposed to put my arm in that position what are you doing i'm gonna try that tournament that works yeah be like you're not really choking me right now but you're really cranking on my head and i'm it hurts really bad actually how about after you get

choked out you'd pull the hulk hogan oh yeah start coming back yeah just fucking no that'd be so funny i'm doing it people probably do get choked out and forget where they are huh yeah yeah that happened to me once although luckily they let go right before but i remember just jolting it was it was actually kind of freaky have you have you gone out all the way i haven't gone out but and not on purpose but i've accidentally put people out because like certain chokes that they don't realize is happening so it's it is weird when someone goes to sleep in you right and it's not on purpose yeah yeah but like for example there was a a guy that i he was in my clothes garden and i cross-collar choked him but he didn't realize he was actually going to choke him. So he's like trying to get out and then he's like,

and then yeah, we had, yeah. And that, that's happened a few times, but it usually happens from places where people don't think they're going to have to get choked out. So they don't think it's dangerous.

Yeah. And then it just slowly goes. Right. Yeah. The one time I did get choked out, it was in the ghee. Actually. It was like a,

I think it was a bow and arrow or something like that. And it felt like I had breathing room. And then, and then I just remember like, and then you see that shit yourself yeah actually back back home we had a one of the teenage students like a 13 year old girl like maybe 85 pounds 80 pounds tops choked me out just to like demonstrate to the women's class that we had that day that like you know you can you can choke anyone out doesn't matter your size or whatever wait did you did you choose to go out out you're like yeah just take me

out real quick or she's such a sweet girl that as soon as she saw my hand go down she let go so like it was like out and then out okay and right again but that was what you guys purposely wanted to do you wanted to go out to show the women that yeah oh wow that's quite the demo yeah yeah i know it's deep in the instagram i don't think you can find it but yeah it was it was a super sweet like this is a little sweet girl like 85 pounds like his arms are like this this tiny just choking me and uh yeah you can choke out anybody it's crazy it's crazy well i remember the last time you were here you were showing andre milanich and you're like yeah go. And then he started like really closing it down. You're like, okay, never mind. Just kidding.

Why am I saying break your neck? I started flushing his pecs and I started going out. Yeah. Oh, on the topic of poop, any new poop stories recently? Anything good? If not, there's no pressure,

but just in case. You got A15 deadlift. No, I haven't shit myself lifting since I last told you guys. Damn. I really don't think I have, to be honest. What's your diet like? I'll work on it.

More recently, I've been pretty clean with just general ground beef and quinoa and eggs and make a fruit smoothie from time to time. I've been trying to up my fruit. That's one thing I'm working on more recently. I would say that since the last time I saw you guys become a little bit more consistent with the diet, which has been really good. Like understanding that like, I wouldn't say that I'm gluten intolerant, but I would say that like gluten makes me like, um, inflamed probably more than, more than average. I can tell a big difference. And so I, I took that on my diet for the most part and that's helped a lot, like keep my keep my weight down and keep my joints feeling good and stuff like that. So, and that's

in huge part to actually my girlfriend, who's a nutritionist. She's helped me a lot, actually. She helps with my meals and stuff like that. And she's taught me a lot too, even, even like supplementation and stuff like that. So with that said, she doesn't, she doesn't recommend trying it. That's what you're wondering but no she's been a huge help uh she knows a lot and so uh she she she does like uh she'll she'll write out like very in-depth not necessarily meal plans but like foods that so and so should eat based upon whatever issues that they're dealing with she got her degree for holistic nutrition so it's been it's been cool. I've learned a lot.

Nice. Oh, force yourself to go to sleep early and stuff like that? Yeah, that's the one thing that I haven't improved on since then. Damn it, Jimmy. I remember last time you were saying you go to bed kind of late. Yeah, well, yeah, no. Technically, Arizona time I'm going to bed earlier, but Texas time, no, not so much. Try 30 minutes earlier.

Okay. Let's start there. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight. It's so wild wild you're doing so well already without like that i know dude it's bad i think it's too much caffeine and then and then my friend matt pisses me off he keeps me up when's the last time that you drink caffeine each day what do you think the latest uh i would probably say like especially if i'm working out after jujitsu then it's probably like four or five oh Stop it, Jimmy. I saw you were wearing the... Take off your shoe, man. That's a pretty

cool Primus light. I haven't seen that color yet. It's a new highlight. A new highlighted color. How have these been for you? Great. Yeah, so Nsema helped me out, get connected with Vivo. My code is HowStrong, capital H H-U-S-E, Strong.

And yeah, dude, it's been great. I have like 12 pairs, I think, now. Yeah, and then all my friends are on them. He sacrifices his J's for some Vivos. Oh, yeah, your whole crew is wearing Vivos right now. Discount code, of course. But yeah, I love them. And, you know, initially, the reason why I was so interested in them is because when I went to EOS back

home, which is like a commercial gym, I kept getting people complaining that I was training barefoot. And in fact, there's this gym bully, not me, but my best friend Jake over there. He literally didn't lift for four years. And he's like, you know what? I'm going to lift starting now. And we finally got him to lift. Day one comes in.

He's like doing a backwards sled barefoot. And then this like midget military guy comes up. He's like, you know what you're doing, kid? It's like, do you know? Have you even been here before? And he's like, oh, yeah. He's like, that's disgusting. Put on your shoes.

And I'm like, oh, my God. So like, yeah, like just people at commercial gyms. And I wasn't there, unfortunately. But then the next week when I was there, that same guy, I started working out barefoot in front of him, like doing squats. And did he say anything? Nothing. Of course not. Nothing.

Silliness. Fuck that guy. But I was like, I'm just going to wear barefoot shoes at the gym instead of getting complaints. And I liked him for that matter. And then when I started posting videos with him, I had a lot of people ask about him. So then that's when I messaged him. Like, oh, it might be worth actually getting connected. So I appreciate it. Yeah. I love them. Sick. Uh, where can people buy some of your stuff? Yeah.

You got some, uh, clothing and stuff like that. You got other stuff you're selling? Yeah. So I sell merchandise on jimmyhouse.com. That's where we have all our shirts and whatnot. And then I'm also selling online coaching as well. That's what I've been getting into since I moved to Austin. So I have a great clientele base and my application is on my website for that. I also actually, our friend, show friend, Eugene, Coach Eugene, he has his Gambaroo app, but he and I, and as well as a few other coaches

like Moving by David, we're all launching programs on his Gambaroo app. So if somebody wasn't looking for online coaching and just programs, we'll have that out in August. So I'll be doing that with uh coach eugene so i'm excited for that yeah andrew take us out of here buddy all righty thank you everybody for checking out today's episode please drop those comments down below let us know what you guys think about today's conversation hit that like subscribe all that good stuff and follow the podcast at mb power project all over the place my instagram is at i am andrew z and simma where you at and sema yin yang on the screen youtube the discords down below for giveaways community and all that

good stuff um and we're gonna do a q a and all that kind of stuff so join the discord and see me yin yang on tiktok and twitter jimmy jimmy house on youtube at j house 182 on instagram and at jimmy house on tiktok at mark smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye