Mark Bell's Power Project - Mason Fowler - How To Excel At Bjj If You’re NEW And Why You Should START || MBPP Ep. 850

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Mason Fowler, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the incredible benefits and challenges of BJJ and Mason's upcoming tournament on UFC Fight Pass. Follow Mason here: https://www.instagram.com/masonfowlerbjj/ 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://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://www.naboso.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 15% off! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code: POWERVIVO20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #BJJ #MasonFowler #PowerProject #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Pepper, how's your family? How's it going? Now, we talk about meat a lot on this podcast, which is why we've partnered with Piedmontese and have for years now, because they have some of the best beef on the planet. All right, Piedmontese beef has cuts that are fattier in terms of their ribeyes, and they have also cuts that are leaner in terms of their flat irons, but you can get cuts for no matter what diet you're on. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it yeah head over to piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com check out enter promo code power for 25 off your entire order and if your order is 150 or more you get free two-day shipping links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes what you have in front of you right now mason is called mind bullet that is kratom it's not an illegal substance by any means um but it's gonna make you big as fuck what we say imagine if you do choose to drink some of it do a third it'll just make you you won't get high because i've done kratom before oh yeah okay so you know what it is all right cool i did kratom my friend was like

okay bro you're gonna take this kratom. And he's like, just trust me. You're going to take this mini. And he gave me 20 pills. And I took all 20 of them. And it was amazing. And you were blasted off to the moon. I felt like I was on heroin. I was like, oh, my God.

There's no way this is legal. This feels so good. It should be illegal to feel that good. I agree. I don't take 20 pills, though. I probably felt a little too good. Or do. Or do. So you were telling me that you've been doing jujitsu for 11 years right yeah um how is it compared to like other types of training that you've done have you have you gotten into fitness

have you gotten into like lifting and stuff like that over the years as well yeah when i was uh when i was 16 17 i was into weightlifting like every you know 16 17 year old young boy is I wanted to be like big and jacked and you know thought I was a badass the more the more heavy weights I could lift I was like you know you feel like the man and did like back then were you like uh like pre-workout on the way to the gym like tons of caffeine so much pre-workout like way too much you know explode oh yeah all those different pre-workouts like double doses and just like at the gym about to have a panic attack and then afterwards just taking like four scoops of protein powder at one time i like took so much protein powder that i threw up oh it's so funny i wonder if that like contributes to like uh just like how

angry sometimes you are when you're a young guy. Cruising partner? No, no. We're just like sipping on these fucking things that just race your heart and race your body. And you're going to the gym and you're all angst up and all hyped up to lift. And then somebody gets in the way of you, whatever the workout was that you were doing. And you're thinking, look at this son of a bitch in my way. Like you're super anxious, like just keep going, right um how does that differ from jujitsu i'd imagine like doing jujitsu for so long and also jujitsu is like a skill set like you can't just you don't

just go and get hyped up for it there all you could uh it's a skill set so how does that differ like nowadays going to jujitsu versus like when you were trying to get big and jacked? I don't know if the difference happened because I switched sports or if the difference happened just as I grew older. Because even as I first started training jujitsu and MMA, I still was taking like 400 milligrams of caffeine pre-workouts and just going crazy. But you were 18, right? I was 18, 19. The first tournament I competed in at White Belt, I took like a really strong pre-workout before. And I was just like, I was a menace. It was pretty crazy. But now, you know, now that I've gotten older and I've

learned more about, um, performance in my own body, um, now it's just, you know, some black coffee, some honey before training, that's my pre-workout and then you know i'm good i'm not taking any of the other stuff anymore it's very zen what if a fight goes down the street where are you going what you doing i'm running the opposite way i'm not trying to get sued i'm not trying to hurt anyone and have their cousins coming after me um i'm gonna get out of there yeah have you had to defend yourself since you started? I haven't. I haven't. I used to get in fights all the time in high school like some of us may have.

Maybe partially looking for one? Yeah, probably. Just my ego and probably deep down just being insecure. Usually the people that are going out and looking for fights are really insecure and they want to prove that they're tough and that they can fight. So it was a little bit of that. And then it was also, um, I think as soon as I, I learned how to defend myself, I think I started to carry myself a little bit differently in a way that people didn't want to also fight me, you know? Um, what do you mean by that? By the way, just when you know how to fight, you're just confident. Someone can say something to you and, um, someone can even maybe be a little bit disrespectful to you and it doesn't really get you that riled up you're just like oh that's fine

you know like i know i could kill you with my hands well you know i know i don't have to say anything yeah you know that's fine you can say whatever you want i'm chilling yeah i think it's amazing because it's conflict at its highest level that you deal with every day like there's a fight right you hear people talking about about like fighting disease and fighting this and fighting that or games like football, games like basketball, games like soccer are these kind of like individual quote unquote fights that are happening all throughout the game in different positions, but they're not, they're not actual fights, but you guys are solving problems during a confrontation. So if someone says something to you, it probably just rolls off your back a little easier since you're in constant conflict with yourself and with the opponent because you're like, I wonder if I do this.

I wonder if I do that. And at a certain point, I guess it comes second nature as well. it comes second nature as well. But it's an interesting thing to have to put your, not have to, but put yourself into that scenario every day where you're in conflict with a potential 250-pound guy that's like sitting on your chest. Yeah, it's a very high-pressure problem-solving situation. And I do think that that has also helped me

with other areas of life. Like I can remember there would be sometimes, you know, you get so flustered when you're trying to kind of like figure something out, especially if it's crunch time. And, and the answer might be right in front of you, but you're, you're so kind of, uh, flustered that you can't even see it. And now just the fact that I've had to deal with, um, so many different guys, you know, trying to, uh, you know, choke me in real time, we're fighting against each other and I have to figure out these problems. Um, it's really helped me outside of martial arts in my day-to-day life.

Um, if I'm, if I'm late somewhere, uh, sitting in traffic, I'm not getting all like flustered. I'm, you can just take a breath and be calm and just try to figure out how to, how to solve this, whatever issue it is in front of you. You can just figure out the path to solve it without really freaking out. You know, I have a question for you, man, because you also instruct too at this point, right? Yeah. Do you, and you instruct over at a Coyote in San Jose, do you get to work with kids quite a bit? Because from what you were saying, how after jujitsu, you're able to become a little bit more calm and confident and words wouldn't make you take action against an individual anymore. That is something that honestly, I wish I started as a kid. Right. So I'm curious,

like, what do you see? What do you see from kids doing jujitsu? Do you see like a transition with them? I mean, there are some that are probably pretty wild and we'll get to that, but what do you see with that? Yeah. I've personally seen it change kids' lives completely, like a complete 180. There was a couple kids i used to run the kids program in fresno at my old gym okay um and uh yeah you would see a kid come in on the first day they would they would kind of like walk in like this and they would be kind of like timid you know um they wouldn't be very assertive they wouldn't really um speak with confidence they wouldn't stand with confidence.

And you get them training. After six months or a year, they get a gray belt. They're choking kids out. They're taking kids down. They're competing at tournaments. They're taking pictures with their gold medals. And then you hear from the parents that they're like the alpha of their friend group now. They're the leader of their friend group now.

They're walking around with their chest out, and the other kids all think they're cool. And it's, it's just, uh, it's just a confidence that you get from it. And, uh, yeah, I think it can be great for kids for sure. Yeah. I do find it really interesting though, that that confidence you get from it also makes you averse to violence because for some reason people do think that, uh, you know, people assume it out of fighters, but when they think of someone doing jujitsu, they're like, oh, that's violent. Or they think it's going to make somebody more violent. But the more I know just more and more jujitsu guys, you just see that most of those people stay away from actual violence. Maybe it's because you can get it out of your system on the mats.

I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a part of it. You get all of your anger out and you get all of your anxiety out and everything that's been pissing you off at work or in your relationship. You go to the gym and you and your friends try to kill each other and then you're like, oh, like you can breathe. You got it out. There's that. And then there's also the fact that you're confident in yourself and and you know that you can fight and you know that you can defend yourself and you don't have to prove it to anybody else. that you can fight and you know that you can defend yourself and you don't have to prove it to anybody else. So there's also that aspect that, um,

you know, people that, that go out, you see the guy at the bar that's screaming, he's looking for fights. That's the most insecure guy in the building because he thinks he has something to prove. Do you sometimes feel so tired from training that you wonder like,

what could I actually do? Because I'm fucking wrecked right now. I've, I've thought of that so many times where, um, I'll be in a training camp and I'll just be feeling like really drained and I'm shaking because my muscles are so

fatigued and I'm driving and someone cuts me off in traffic and I'm like, man, that guy might be able to beat my ass right now. I'm so tired. I don't even want to try to fight that guy. You're like 11 pounds lighter because your training was at the hottest time of the day or some shit like that, right? Yeah. And then after training too, you want to go lay in bed and have dinner at home and just relax.

You don't want to go out to the club for six hours sweating. It's like, no way. I'm chilling. I'm not going to go out and get drunk and try to fight someone. No way. Having started jujitsu, I guess in this generation late, because you started at 18, right? Did you do any martial arts before jujitsu? No. no. This is interesting because you have quite a few accolades, quite a few world championships. Do you, now that you're competing at literally the highest level, do you notice a

difference between yourself and some kid who started jujitsu at six? Because you've probably made a role with some of those people. Do you think that you've learned enough within your current 11 years that it doesn't matter if someone started since they're super young, like you can continue to develop and pace them? Yeah, there's a couple of different things there. Um, one, one point that I do think about, because of course everyone always says, man, I wish I would've started earlier. Right. And then me starting at 18 at 18. For most people that are competing in a professional sport, if you start the sport at 18, you're starting late. So most people would say that I started late.

But one aspect, I know so many of my friends that started wrestling at a young age, four or five years old, and now they're 25. They've been wrestling for 20 years. And then I know a lot of guys that have went into MMA afterwards. And so many guys are just burnt out. They've been grinding their whole life. And it's like, oh, now I got to go to this practice.

Now I got to eat this. That makes a lot of sense, too. Because if you're doing something from when you're really young, who knows if you even really wanted to do it that much anyway. You're kind of like maybe on autopilot. Maybe it's partially for a parent or something. But when you do something at 18, that's pretty clearly your decision and or maybe a small influence from some friends. And then obviously sticking it out for as long as you have. It's where your interest is.

It's where your true interest is. Whereas maybe when somebody started when they were young, they just kind of keep doing it in perpetuity because they've been doing it forever. Yeah, they didn't get a chance to find their passion. Their parents, usually it was their parents' passion, and then they grew up doing it. Yeah, I mean I know some wrestlers that were state champs in high school, really, really high-value prospects that didn't even end up wrestling in college because by the time they were 18, they already were burnt out because in order to compete in a sport like wrestling,

jiu-jitsu, MMA, you have to be so disciplined. There are the outliers that are freaks that can eat all the wrong things and go and party on the weekends and still win. I know guys like that too. There are guys like that, but 98% of the successful guys in those sports, it's a big sacrifice. You really do have to live a very disciplined life. You're not

going to be eating the foods that you want to eat. You're not going to be able to go on the trips with your friends. You're not going to be able to go on the snowboarding trips, the trips to Disneyland with your family. You're going to have to be living this regimented, disciplined lifestyle pretty much year round. Are those pretty big concerns to stay away from stuff that maybe is a little bit foreign, like friends go on a jet ski or they go water skiing or cliff diving or something? You're kind of like, that's not, that's not a great idea for me right now. Maybe not cliff diving, but, uh, but I would say I'm okay with like, you know, I did go snowboarding like one time, you know, a year or two ago. Um, when, when I wasn't in a training camp for a competition, I'm not too worried about

things like that, like getting a freak accident, you know, if that's like the, you know, the question. But it's more so just being in the environments. For me personally, like I perform at my best when I am in a routine and when I'm eating the same things, doing the same practices, that's how I feel like I can really peak myself and get the best performance out of myself. Did it take a long time to come to that conclusion, especially with the eating? Man, ever since I first started, the first couple of years, I really dove deep into nutrition. I've always been pretty big and I was maybe around 200 pounds

when I was doing MMA and I would cut down to 170. So I was always so, I was just kind of right in between. I felt like I was too small for 185, but I was just a little too big to 170. So I was always so, I was just kind of right in between. Like I felt like I was too small for 185, but I was just a little too big for 170. So I just like would grid it out and just make the cut to 170. And so I really just did a lot of research on nutrition and supplementation and weight cutting and dieting and performance. Um, because I, I always have believed that that is, uh, I mean, that's a, that's almost like a sport in its own mastering that the, the food for performance. And as you've continued to obviously train and develop,

what does that kind of look like now? Cause I, I don't know if you said it on there, but you mentioned like coffee and honey is your pre-workout, right? Or your pre, what you do before you roll. So what does your kind of routine for food look like during a training day? Yeah. One of my friends, um, put me onto carnivore MD about, uh, it's been almost a year now and I've been following a lot of his principles. Um, not, not super strict. Um, I added a couple of things in like sweet potatoes, for example, um, a couple of things that I think work well for me. Um, but, uh, yeah, I've, I've been feeling really good following a lot of his principles. Um, so that's kind of what I've been doing lately. What have you noticed? Like, as far

as I guess the way you feel when you train versus what maybe you were doing before. Um, so that's kind of what I've been doing lately. What have you noticed? Like, as far as I guess the way you feel when you train versus what maybe you were doing before? Um, yeah, just throughout the day. Um, throughout the day that my energy levels feel better, not, not as many highs and lows. I feel a little more, um, even throughout the day and, uh, recovery too. I feel like my recovery has improved. Definitely. I feel like my sleep's improved. Um, my skin has improved. Yeah. I feel like my sleep's improved. My skin has improved. Yeah. It's helped with a lot of things.

Most of your eating happened like just after training, like you don't really maybe eat as much during the day or in the middle of the day. So I, I usually eat like a pound, like a pound of steak and like a couple eggs, like right before training. Wow. Right before training. Like an hour before. I love it and everyone thinks i'm crazy but to me like steak is the thing that digests the best for me everyone always like

says like oh how do you digest that right before training i can eat i could eat steak and then go run sprints like 30 minutes later it's like the one thing for me it's it's carbs that that uh are harder for me to digest and uh and if i going to eat carbs, it has to be a little bit further out from training. This is a cool thing that you're saying right here though, because there are some people, including myself, I can't eat like a lump of protein, like steak or eggs right before training because it just won't feel good. But I think what you're saying is really awesome because everyone tries to take certain things and say it's an absolute, like, oh, you can't, you should eat carbs right before you train, no you shouldn't eat that before you train there are some people that just digest

certain things better than others and they feel great with it so just roll with that anecdote and continue on and if you want to try that there's no reason you shouldn't try it just because your favorite coach says you shouldn't eat steak before you train absolutely i also wonder like how long you know how long does it take for food to even participate in the activity that you're doing? Like the only thing I could think of that would have a fairly immediate impact is if your food was salted.

So now you just have a nice delivery system of your electrolytes. But the rest of this stuff is going to take a while to like turn into energy. And so, and also like a lot of times, depending on how long something lasts, like it's pretty common for a runner before they go and run several miles.

They might have like carbohydrates and fat like they might just eat like maybe a little bit of honey and peanut butter on like an English muffin or something like that. It's pretty common. But again, I don't know how long it takes for your food to like, especially when you're doing an activity, it probably takes even longer. So I think probably more importantly is how you feel, which is really smart and really intuitive. It also probably blunts you from being like crazy hungry when you're done training perhaps. But again, I think it's a nice delivery system for at least some nutrients before you're training. Yeah. I think the salt is a good point because I put a lot of salt on my steak. And so

maybe that might be one of the things that I'm feeling the benefit from is getting all that salt right before training. And then I do the honey too, right before training. So I am getting the carbohydrates in the form of honey. It's the, you know, it's a, they call it a simple, simple carb, right? I see you writing some stuff down over there i'm gonna write a lot of stuff it's like honey and coffee dude i'm curious when did you realize that you were like you were someone who could be at a world level for jujitsu because there's a lot of guys who compete and there's a lot of people who like you know they're they're decent but then there's different competitors who are like oh that's a world level or a world level competitor.

Like that's, that's a world beater. When did you realize that for yourself? I've, I've just, for whatever reason, I don't know what it is. I've just naturally, um, grappling is just the sport for me. There's something about it. Um, when I, I played rugby my, my last year in high school, that's how I first started to kind of like get into sports and get in shape.

And, uh, me and some of the other guys on the rugby team, we would do like grappling matches sometimes after practice because we would watch the UFC. So we would be like, we're going to like wrestle until someone taps.

And I would always win. But none of us ever trained. And I would do like arm bars and guillotines and rear naked choke because I just would like always watch the UFC. So that's just how my brain works. Like,

um, I might, I might not be the best at like, uh, studying technique or drilling or stuff like that. Some guys are great. You'd watch UFC and then like, you'd just like clear out the pizza and the coffee table and shit.

And you guys would start to go at it. Or we would do it at parties. Like we would be, we would be, I could find it. It's pretty crazy. Sometimes I get a dude. There's a video punches and shit. No, no punches, no punches, but, but there's a video one time. I could find this video. Did it get pretty crazy sometimes? Dude, there's a video.

Guys throwing punches and shit? No, no punches. No punches. But there's a video one time. Imagine it. Get out of control. Right? Imagine it.

Get heated. They had rules, Mark. They weren't just completely barbarians. There's a video of me. We were at a party. We were all drinking. And then I ended up wrestling against this dude that actuallyled in in high school and he like threw me he like laterally threw me into like a table and then i like got up and then he like threw me again and then i got up and then and

then i ended up uh rear naked choking him and everyone's like ah it was crazy and then we went again he wanted to go again he was so mad because he was like throwing me around and then i tapped him um and then and then when he like when he shot in i i guillotined him and i pulled close guard and then all of a sudden i like felt him go limp and i let go and he's just like snoring it's on video yeah it's when i was like i think 17 before i ever trained yeah i wasn't like training jujitsu and going to parties and choking people out so like let's just put that on the record i swear i wasn't i was playing rugby and you know we would wrestle each other and one time i did like put someone out it was crazy well that's how you knew you're gonna be a world champion that's how i knew beating up people at parties yep who was that uh the black fighter who was on rogan

who was just like yeah i mean i watched his name's not coming yeah no i just watched the episode me too oh what's his name it It just reminds me of him. There you go. Buckley? Yes, Joaquin Buckley. He's got that most famous kick of all time, they say. Yeah, the most viral. Yeah, he's unbelievable.

The most viral moment in fighting history, yeah. Have you kind of been like that with physical stuff, though? I know you said you watched UFC stuff and you could replicate it, but when you played rugby or when you did other physical things, have you just been someone who could mimic stuff pretty well so when i first got into rugby i was like i was down bad i was not an athlete at all i uh i was having problems in high school i was like rebelling i was going through like one of those phases right i had you know dropped out of high school um my sophomore year and then re-enrolled again dropped out again my sophomore year and then re-enrolled again, dropped out again my junior year, re-enrolled again and then I was in home studies. What was going on?

I just was I just wasn't in the right environment I didn't have the right people around me I didn't have any goals that's one of the reasons why I think Tu Jiu Jitsu is really good for kids because it gives you goals and it gives you something to work towards I didn't have any line of sight

into my future, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I was just getting into like partying, man. I used to smoke cigarettes. I was like such a bad kid. Yeah. I was a complete opposite of an athlete. So my little, my little brother, he was a year younger than me and he had started playing rugby a year earlier than me. So then it was his second year was starting to like starting to, um, begin. And, um um i had this thing in my mind that i wanted to be a c fighter right um so my my thought was that i'm gonna go play rugby with my brother uh for one year and then it's gonna like get me into shape and then i'm gonna go and start and then i'm gonna go fight in the ufc yeah like the next month i thought i was gonna

go right to the ufc right uh so, I went out to the practice with him. And I was like, when we would do conditioning, there was one guy on the team that was like probably over 250 pounds. There was like a couple of big boys on there. I was dead last in everything. And I wasn't that big. I was chunky, but I wasn't that big. And it just was such an eye-opening experience for me

because I hadn't been exposed to sports in so long. I played when I was younger, but when I was in high school, I just was on the complete decline. So it was just such an eye-opening experience for me. Right away, after that practice, I quit smoking cigarettes. I quit drinking, quit messing around. It helped with everything. I ended up graduating high school. I had to do twice as many credits as normal in one year in order to graduate on time.

So it was, yeah, I got it done, and I graduated on time. I did, I think, 110 credits my senior year. You have to do 220 throughout your four years of high school. That's insane. So coming into my senior year, I had half. I had 110, and I needed another 110. How did you do that? That's a lot of studying.

I know. And I started playing rugby at the same time. So I just was like on my grind. And I think that year- That's a lot of pre-workout. I was taking a lot of pre-workout. I think that year is really what kind of like set the stage of like discipline for the next, you know, 10, 12 years of my life that I've been so far because I

was like so far behind that I had to get so disciplined. Um, and I think that really carried over. Are you pretty meticulous with scheduling or do you just kind of have your priorities? I'm kind of all over the place. I'm not really, you don't have to be super strict. You don't have to whip out like a, a calendar and have it all set up. You kind of know what you want to do on each day type thing. Yeah. Um, well like for my for my training routines it's it's usually you know the same every week it'll it'll change up a little bit um depending on um you know maybe one practice that i'm going to go to is canceled that week so i'll go do something else but for the most part i have my whole my whole training schedule planned out um but with other stuff like travel stuff it's just

all in my notes like all over the place it's not, do you get into any tech? Like, do you use any apps or do you, uh, track anything or people that work with you today, you know, um, check your resting heart rate or like use heart rate monitor or like you do anything like that or not really? Um, yeah, when I was in the training camp for ADCC this last time and the time before, I used just like the whoop strap. I used that. And then – Cool question. What bandage did you use for that thing?

Because that like – does it have a chest strap or something? There's a bicep one that has some padding on it. And that one worked really well for me with jiu-jitsu. Yeah. Okay. I need to get that. Yeah. Man, I actually – I'll give you one because, yeah, I'll give you one because I ordered like six of them and then I stopped wearing it and I have like all these bicep bands that are still in the plastic.

I'll give you one, bro. Thank you. I got you. I got you, man. Do you feel that having some of those matrix, did it help you, do you think? Or like between you and your coaches, you could monitor your training in a way? Did it help you, do you think? Or between you and your coaches, you could monitor your training in a way?

Because I'm just real curious about this topic because I know there's some people that are way into it, and they seem to get a lot out of it. I know that for coaches, it's a way for them to check in with the intensity of their athlete. They kind of want to make sure that their athlete just isn't going and completely crushing themselves every time they work out. Yeah, this is funny. The main reason I got it really is because my coach,yle terra um he's a he's a bit of a madman and he will really like he'll really push us like there's some days where like me and yuri would just be like dead on the mat yuri uh simoes he's one of my teammates he just won the absolute adcc we did we did the training camp together and uh there were some days where we were like almost in tears like please kyle no more and kyle's like one more round guys come on one more round you guys can do it he

sounds like that yeah that's what he sounds like he's like nice enough he's like this he's like a he's like a smaller brazilian dude and he's just like he has the craziest work ethic of all time and he just like like really really pushes us past our limits like there's been there's been days i came to the gym and didn't think i could even get a workout in. And then I ended up like, he just pushes me to get it done. So he just has an insane work ethic. Um, but yeah, so that's the reason I actually got the whoop strap is because I wanted to like have some data to be like, bro, look like we're over, like I'm over-trained. Like you got to let me like go a little easier today, but he doesn't care anyways. That thing's wrong. It's wrong fine you know oh that's great so so yeah i haven't been i haven't been wearing it the only

downside to it i guess it would be like there would be some days i would maybe wake up feeling good ready to go and then you look at it and then it's like not recovered like 50 and i'm like oh no i didn't sleep good and then you kind of get in your own head too so yeah quick question about like kyle man like what are some of the main things you've learned from him and when because not every it seems that not every jujitsu coach pushes every athlete the same so did he realize you had certain goals and then he was like okay i'm going to push this guy because i don't assume he pushes everybody at the school to that level yeah unless i'm wrong no you really have to um you you do have to take it as a compliment there there are times when i'm like man i wish he would like get off my back. But then at the same

time, it's like, I need that. I'm glad that I have that. Um, because no matter how hard you work, um, you know, there's always going to be that day when, when, you know, you're just not feeling it and you might just go in and have fast to work out. But if you have your coach, or even with lifting, if you have a training partner there with you, a lot of the time you're going to get a lot more out of that workout than if you're at an empty gym by yourself and there's no one there to hold you accountable. I have a good work ethic.

Just bench press and leave. You don't do any of your assistance exercises. Exactly. You're just going to bench and curl and get out of there. So I do think it is important to have someone holding you accountable. And the first, you know, the first year or two that I was there training under I've been training with him for four years now. The first year or two that I was there, there was a little bit of resistance.

We used to kind of like butt heads a little bit. And then about, that's probably actually pretty healthy too. Yeah. Then about, about two years ago, I, I something opened up in my mind and, uh, and I finally stopped just resisting and just started listening to him. And, and now I understand it. And now, um, you know, I've been doing this training camp. He's actually in Brazil right now running a jujitsu camp. And I, I feel like I'm pushing myself now the same way that he would push me just cause

he's really instilled that like worth work ethic into me what's he uh up your ass about just no it's just training like he um like when he got his black belt in like three and a half years he was like the fastest ever white to black belt recorded wow um and so and he would just like train for like eight hours a day he would put mats in his house and he would invite like different people over at different hours of the day. So like your one training session, you would do a day. That would be one of his like eight sessions. I hear these crazy stories about him that he literally would just invite people over all day and he would just always be training. So it's just like, always like, imagine you're on a weightlifting program where you lift twice a day for, for an

hour and a half each session. And then he comes in and he's like, man, you're so lazy. You're not doing enough. You know, you should be doing at least four times. And you're like, really? You know, so that's good. You know, he's just always like more, more, more, more. So you have a lot of tricks or does he just kind of like just. If you just like watch the way he moves, he doesn't move like a normal person.

I mean, tricks in terms of like making you train more. Like, does he kind of like, uh, point out maybe that, uh, somebody else in the gym that already won a championships training hard. And yeah, he do like bullshit.

Like, no, he does. He does stay here for three hours longer. No, he does. Or he'll, or he'll like at the startup,

like I have a, uh, a good friend Benji there. And he'll be like, he'll be like, guys, just so you guys know, like Benji, he's going to tap Mason today three times. And I'm like, I know he'll be like he'll be like guys just so you guys know like benji he's

gonna tap mason today three times and i'm like i know he's just like instigating but it does get me kind of like riled up and then me and benji will start going at it like a little bit harder you know yeah louis simmons uh the famous powerlifting coach he was famous for that he would go around and like you know he would say oh mark you know that's cool that you did five sets but andrew was in here earlier today he did like eight sets he's like and his numbers are going up so you might want to and you're like he walks away you're like fuck yeah i'm fucking shot first of all you know it was so amazing like look at this like he just like he does like the craziest stuff he he's just

amazing at jujitsu he also perpetually looks 22 yeah that's no that's the worst part is that as he's like breaking your arm you're like oh my gosh he looks like a like an 18 year old kid well because i didn't know what he i didn't know what he looked like so i didn't i was like do i have the right yeah you have the right guy how old is he now uh he i don't want to say i won't say it though i'm'm just going to say, I'm just going to say 28. But dude, how many world champions has he won? Cause like he's one of the,

he's one of the best competitors of all time. Yeah. Yeah. He's won 10, 10 world titles and no gi and he's won two in the gi.

Jesus. Wow. And one of the years he got voted as like the most technical athlete of the year. You know, that's what he's known for is just being really technical. And, you know, he doesn't have, he wasn't born with like the most athletic gifts.

He's not the strongest. He's not the most explosive. So he just had to be like technically the best, you know. What do you think early in your life set the tone for everything that you do now? You mentioned that you just started to kind of straighten your shit out. Was there a particular moment? Was it rugby and like the cascade of disciplines that surround? Like if you're going to play rugby, I imagine like it's a lot more fun if you can kick some ass in rugby.

So you need to be in shape for it. So maybe you had to run. Maybe you had to lift. And maybe it caused all these other disciplines. shape for it so maybe you had to run maybe you had to lift and maybe it caused all these other disciplines or was there like maybe a mentor figure in there or relative someone that kind of you looked up to or something like that yeah it was rugby and then um you know the i mean the coaches the rugby coaches were definitely strong male role models that whipped us all into gear and were on our ass and i think that that's really important for for any young kids was there something that you liked about getting your ass kicked in rugby because i find

it so interesting with like mma and jujitsu like people when they go they get killed and they're like this is great i can't wait to come back tomorrow you know what it was with rugby uh was like um it was you know 20 25 guys on the team and then it's like once you start going and then you start making friends with everyone you can't quit because then you're a pussy and then everyone knows how like you're gonna see those guys again and they're gonna know you're the guy that quit because you're a pussy so that like that like peer pressure of being on like the team in the team atmosphere I couldn't quit there's days I didn't want to go, and that's what I would think about. I was like, man, everyone's going to know if I quit. Everyone's going to know.

100%. Dude, have you ever had time, like has there been any long time in recent memory that you've had away from physical activity, like you were forced to, an injury or something like that? Has there been anything? Or since you started, have you just been super consistent? Yeah, I've had injuries. Um, the longest, the longest time that I was away from training was maybe five months with a knee injury. How are you mentally?

I was okay. I was okay. Um, I definitely was missing training, but, uh, at that time I was teaching a lot at the gym. I was like teaching full time at the gym as a Purple Belt. Yeah. And that definitely helped me. I was still around my friends every day. I was still getting out of the house. I wasn't like, you know, sitting at home on my phone. So, you know, I was okay.

Yeah. I see that because like, you know, one thing that I think is so beneficial is starting something like a rugby or a soccer or something physical as a, and men and women. But I've, I've personally, since I'm a guy and I mainly have guy friends, I've seen it have such an impact on habits later in life in, in just being consistent with shit, having strong physical habits that you can lean back on when you're in stress that like, I mean, you know, you said you used to smoke and I don't know if you drink much anymore, but it doesn't seem on when you're in stress that like, I mean, you know, you said you used to smoke and I don't know if you drink much anymore, but it doesn't seem that when you get stressed or if something happens to you, the first thing you're going to do is go towards smoking or go, go

towards a substance, you know? Yeah, no, definitely. Like, um, whenever something's, uh, bad is going on through my life, I can remember through the years, like whether it's, uh, you know, having a problem with one of your friends, like a falling out or like something with business or, you know, a breakup. Um, the thing I would always go to is jujitsu. So no matter what happens in my life, I'm always going to have that. That's, that's my, that's kind of like my outlet. That's my drug, my drug of choice for sure. You, uh, have a match coming up, right? Yes, sir. That's just like two weeks away or so? Yeah, yeah.

That's about 10 days. Who's this great opponent that we have to deal with? Yes. So the first round, it's an eight-man tournament. And my first match is going to be a young up-and-comer named Pat Shigoli. Now, this is interesting because I heard about this dude a few weeks ago and then somebody showed me a clip while I was in the gym and I just cringed because this young guy who's talented, right? And he's, he seems like a viciously good competitor, but he just likes to break people.

And this is the type of stuff that makes people scared of jujitsu. You know what I mean so so i mean what what are your thoughts on on him as a competitor yeah so i i do think that he uh he's really young he has a lot of time to definitely make a name in the sport um i don't know it's a it's a fine line in competing because the problem is if you don't go to break the person's limb, if you try to apply it slowly in that second and a half or two seconds that you're applying the submission, that's when the person can escape. Yes. But I do think that there is a way to crank on the submission and finish it while still maybe giving the person time to tap. Is that how you go about things when you compete?

I would say, yeah. I definitely am going to go hard for the submission. I'm going to fully extend the submission at a fast rate of speed. But there's going to be a split second where you're going to have time to tap before I'm going to go to actually break the limb. Yeah. And there's nothing in the rules, right? to go to actually break the limb.

Yeah. And there's nothing in the rules, right? I would say he is well in his rights to attack submissions like that, and there are other adult competitors that also attack submissions like that. Yes. Me personally, I would prefer, if I could choose, between submitting a guy and him tapping or submitting a guy and him being injured and having to get surgery or whatever, I would choose to submit him without the injury. I think if you could give Pat those two options, he would prefer to injure the guy. I think that he likes that because then he can post

about it and say, look, I, you know, I tore this guy's ligaments, you know, cause he's a 16 year old kid. He is beating, uh, you know, grown men. There's something to say for that. And, uh, you know, there is some hype behind him for that reason. Um, but I personally wouldn't want another grown man who's going to go home to his wife and kids and has to go to work the next day to have to get surgery because I tore his ACL. Now, if I'm going to apply this mission and I'm going fast and he has that time to tap that split second and he doesn't tap, I'm also going to go to break the limb as well. You know, but I would prefer if the guy would tap so that he wouldn't have to injure himself like that. Yeah. And I mean, I've seen the clips and I've seen a lot of comments. would tap so that he wouldn't have to you know injure himself like that yeah and i mean i've

seen the clips and i've seen a lot of comments the rough thing is he is 16 years old you know we you're talking a little off air but when you're 16 you don't necessarily think ahead i mean what is it the prefrontal cortex that's not fully developed like you you don't think long term and yeah i think he's got another 10 years i was just gonna say that you don't think long term. Yeah, I think he's got another 10 years. I was just going to say that. Something like that. Yeah. And it's rough for you to think long term about other people. But, you know, I'm curious about your thoughts on this too. What do you think most other high level competitors, because with certain tournaments like the eight man tournament we have coming up, there's money on the line, right? Yeah.

Do you think that changes things in the minds of competitors when there's like good money on the line? Like I'm going to break this guy. You know, if he doesn't get out in time,'m gonna break him what do you think for sure because like in this tournament in in two weeks um there's twenty five thousand dollars on the line and uh guys will be actually willing to get injured in order to win that money so that's the flip side is that there are guys that um for instance there was a famous match craig jones versus vinny magalhaes craig jones had him in a deep heel hook, and he had him in it for a long time, and Vinny just refused to tap.

And Craig actually broke his leg, snapped one of his bones. So that's the flip side is like, okay, now Pat goes and applies a submission to someone, and there's a lot of money on the line, and that guy refuses to tap and then escapes, and now Pat loses out on the chance to win that money as well so you know there's there's two sides to the story at our level we know that that if you're in a submission you have to tap because guys are going to go to break it yeah and i mean anyone who's listening because i mean and my boy andrew here he just got into jiu-jitsu and there's a bunch of people in the audience that have been getting into jiu-jitsu recently

the thing is is when you're training the people, you, this, what we're talking about right now doesn't usually happen in training. Like people in most schools are usually pretty cool where they're not going to crank a submission. There won't be just a split second. Usually there's going to be more time, especially when you're newer,

people are going to give you that time to tap. Um, but I guess at the highest level, this is the type of stuff you have to deal with. So we started to apply a rule at our gym just because people were, you know, it's a lot of high. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And then, yeah, he doesn't tap it. Then he ends up attacking, I think, the same foot and getting him in it again. But, yeah, when you're in that training environment with, you know, a bunch of alphas walking around, high testosterone, big egos, yougos, guys don't want to tap to each other in the gym either. Right? Yeah. So then we were starting to have problems too where we were kind of injuring each other in the gym just in training. So we started to apply this rule, and we use it for most joint locks.

You get the arm or the leg fully extended. You hold the position. If I can hold your arm straight for three seconds, that a tap i don't have to make you tap if i can if i can hold it there i'm just gonna let it go you know and that also is gonna help you because there is that split second where you can defend right so if we're training and i arm bar you and i hip in as hard as i can and you tap i'm not getting'm not getting good at controlling the finish because I'm not training those last three seconds where I have to hold the arm bar and continually extend to break it.

And you're not training the last second defense. So there's a big opportunity there to add another layer to your technique because if you're in a competition, your arm gets extended, yeah, your arm might pop, but you have some time before it actually breaks where you can still escape.

So if there's a lot on the line, you need to know how to train those last second positions. Dude, that's actually an amazing rule. I was listening to some of the Hodger Gracie on Lux Friedman's podcast this morning. Fucking amazing episode. But he was talking about like, Hodger's focus was specific training for a long time.

He did a lot of specific training from escaping mounts, side control, all that, so he can get good at escaping. But he also did specific training at the end ranges of arm bars and ranges of chokes. When he has his, when somebody has his back, like how,

like what's that little split second that I can take to try to escape here. And he trained those specific ranges and people didn't usually get there on him, but he'd be able to escape that if, if people got there. Yeah. That last minute defense. That's sick.

It seems like that makes a lot of sense from an outsider looking in it looks like that's where the match is kind of won and lost because i see they'll scramble and they almost get something and then they almost get something but that finish part is probably the most difficult to kind of cinch in sometimes yeah yeah yeah i did want to ask you guys about that like specific training stuff because like there's times where we'll do like scenario things but it it's like, man, I don't even know if I'm ever going to be in this scenario. Uh, so my question is like, even watching like your Instagram, like I love checking out like the, uh, the somewhat tutorials that you put on there. They're a lot of fun to watch, but I'll be stuck inside control and I'll be like, Oh,

Mason did this one thing where he slid under, like, Nope, that's not going to work for me. So my, my question is like, in regards to specifics, like scenario training versus like just rolling. Do you think there's a time and a place for both? Or as a newbie, should I just be focused on like just literally getting that time and doing rolls? How long have you been training for? Officially a month. Yeah. I think you should be doing only specific training.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I think you should do like 90 specific training why because um okay so you learn the move of the day it's a sweep from close guard right and then you guys do live rounds and then you're just gonna do this because you don't know any jujitsu so why not go and do the whole training in close guard and try to perfect that one sweep in that one position while that's what you worked on today got it yeah a lot less uh variables to

deal with too like uh guys getting hurt and being super sore and stuff i imagine you guys are talking about like just training a little bit more from the ground and from certain positions it would be like it would be like if you were working with a lifting coach and the lifting coach gave you a 45 minute seminar on how to perfect your bench right or let's say you're coaching me that's more likely right you're coaching me on bench we just we just studied for 45 minutes all these details about how to bench. And then we go and work out and then we run on the treadmill. Why would we not bench that day, right? So if you're going to learn the technique for that position, you should work on that position as well. So you can put it in application. And you still think even though, we'll say in close guard, even though like maybe I might not find myself in that position that often early on, you still think that it's still good to focus on just that one scenario?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because that's usually the counter that I have to like some of the like the move of the day, which is like an arm drag or something. I'm like, I'm not even going to, you know, I can't even get there yet. So like this is cool and all to learn because someday I might be able to put it together. But you're right. As soon as it's like, all right, now we're going to go into the roles and practice what we learned. It's like, well, fuck, I'm just going to try to go for my weak ass sweep that I usually try to muscle anyways.

So that does make sense. But my counter was just that I might not find myself in that position anytime soon anyways. Yeah, I don't know. soon anyways um yeah i don't know it's like uh if you like if you're playing chess um you first before you start moving the pieces around you have to learn what each piece does right so that's the first thing learn all the what all the pieces do how you can move all the pieces and then go and play the full game what you're saying makes sense because it sounds to me like that's the safest, probably most effective way to get a lot of mat time, considering the athlete and them getting hurt and sore and everything. Because if you kind of just start to roll, you're going to get injured. You don't know any moves.

What are you going to do? You're going to do just bad jiu-jitsu. Power Project Family, how's it going? Now, we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health and fitness, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, everything. That's why we've partnered with 8sleep for such a long time now because the technology behind the mattress allows you to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart rate variability. It changes its temperature through the night based off how you sleep, but not only yourself, but maybe your partner on the other side of the bed. It is an amazing mattress. Andrew, how can they learn more? Yes. Head over to 8sleep.com slash power project. That's 8 spelled out E-I-G-H-T sleep.com slash power project. Along with more information, you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire

order automatically. Links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. When you start off, like, cause again, I think this is a really good thing. When you were starting out, what are some things that you think that people should try to be focusing on in their first few years of jujitsu? Because you see a lot of people, like I remember when I was a white belt, things just didn't make sense. You just keep going and going and going. So what advice do you typically give white belts that you teach? Just, just hold on and just survive for like six months. For me, I was like miserable. I didn't know anything that was going on. I felt so stupid and lost. And then I remember something happened where it was right

around six months. And I remember after training, I like got and sat in my car and I was just like, okay, like I get it. Like I'm starting to get it. Like I just understand what's going on now. Like you don't know what's going on for six months. So you just have to keep showing up for six months. And then you'll start to get it. And then you'll start seeing like you start to kind of see the game that's being played. Do you do any specific in the gym training? Do you think that that has like a correlation back to jujitsu?

Or do you mainly just like go in and like lift? Yeah, so I've been working with Jason Kalipipa for about a year now i connected with him and uh i'm so blessed to have the opportunity to work out with him you know he's a great dude he's amazing and uh man he literally has me come to his house and we work out in his garage so it's like i couldn't ask for a better you know strength and conditioning uh yeah those workouts are tough yeah so you know i work with him uh one to two times a week, and then he'll usually, like, write me something to do on my own for the other session.

And, yeah, I've noticed that it helps a lot, definitely. The biggest thing really is injury prevention. Injury prevention, yeah. I haven't had really any serious injuries. And if I do, like, let's say, like, I tweak my knee, I'm out for two to four weeks instead of two to four months. I'm not like if I tear something, it's not fully tearing because I have the muscle to support it now. That's one thing I noticed real quick when it comes to like lift.

Because I remember earlier on, there would be times where I would not lift as much. And in those times, I wouldn't be lifting as much. I just have little things that would start happening. Like my shoulder would start feeling a little bit weaker. fucking knee would start going kind of odd right then i'd start lifting again and my body would feel resilient again so i think like if you can you don't have to lift like a bodybuilder or anything but if you can get some lifting in as a jujitsu athlete your body will just be more resilient to the pressures of the sport absolutely yeah are you uh doing olympic lifts and things like that or not

too much of that um yeah he because i know we do like we do like risk versus reward right so like if i was to go work with that work out with him tomorrow we would be doing a lot less of um like something new to me um but when we're in the off season yeah he teaches me a lot of the new lifts we've done a lot of uh hang cleans power cleans clean and jerks. We haven't really done any overhead squats, but we do squat, deadlift, bench, some cleans. That's the foundation of what we do. It's amazing that you got access to him. He's one of the best coaches I've ever been around.

He's incredible. No, amazing. And I'm just lucky. It's just one of the perks of the hard work that I've put in the last 10 years to get myself to this position where now I'm a high-level black belt. You meet a guy like Jason who – Jason is a high-level CrossFit athlete, and he has a passion for jiu-jitsu. So that's what connected us. And anytime – he comes into the gym and trains with us as well, and I try to help him back as much as I can.

And that's just one of the perks that I've gotten from jiu-jitsu, meeting other people that also love jiu-jitsu. And then because I'm in jiu-jitsu and he loves jiu-jitsu, he wants to go and help me with my career and help me with my strength and conditioning program. So it's amazing. I'm super thankful. Yeah, he's a beast.

When did you win your first world championship? I won the Nogi Worlds um at purple belt maybe in 2017 and just came out of nowhere i was training at like an mma gym which is unheard of most guys that win um like the world championships in jiu-jitsu are from established jiu-jitsu gyms yeah so i i actually won my division and the absolute so this wasn't you were not kaya at the time i was at a i was competing out of a gym called dethrone mma it was an mma gym okay and uh i was the only competitor from my gym that was competing normally you have a whole team that competes together and uh and and trains together and you know i was a former mma fighter hadn't done that many jujitsu tournaments it was like

maybe my fifth tournament ever and then at purple, you know, you are competing against guys that have competed like 40, 50 times in Jiu-Jitsu by then. So, yeah, I went and got double gold. And that is the first thing that kind of like put me onto the scene. And were you training much Gi at the time? Yeah. Yeah? I just, I always loved the Gi.

You know what it is? I love the idea of one day being a black belt. I love that. When I was a white belt, you know, there was a guy that came into the gym that was a black belt and i just was like in awe and i was like i i wanted to at that time i wanted to fight in the ufc i wanted to pursue mma as my career but i always had this thing in the back of my head that's like i'm gonna get a black belt in gi jiu-jitsu and that's only going to complement my MMA career right so that was kind of like a little side quest was it a big uh goal for you to win worlds or was it like uh you just like went to worlds and you're like let me see how I can do there was a certain point where yeah because

um at that time I had I had switched my career path to jiu-j Um, but my goal wasn't to be a competitor in jujitsu. I went from wanting to be a competitor in MMA to just, um, training jujitsu in order to get my black belt, because I thought that I would have a good career path to fall back on. In MMA, once you're done fighting, if you go and fight in the UFC and you fight five to 10 times and then, and then you stop and you retire, what do you stop and you retire, what do you fall back on? There's not much. You can open a gym, but it's really hard to run an MMA gym. It's a lot of moving pieces. And with that being said, also, you know, kids and moms don't want to get punched in the face. You know, they want to train jujitsu. So I thought there, there was way more to fall back on in business if I was to get my black belt in jiu-jitsu. So, you know,

I was having some problems with concussions in MMA. I decided to step away from the sport. And I really wanted to go towards that goal of getting my black belt in jiu-jitsu. On the way to getting my black belt and being able to like, you know, open a gym and start a business, I was just jumping into some of these tournaments just for fun. You know, just to go and compete and get kind of like that same rush that i was getting from fighting mma and then i just i just ended up you know winning and then it's like oh you just got double gold at nogi worlds like i was like oh okay like i didn't really it wasn't like a big goal of mine i wasn't waking up every day like i'm gonna win worlds like i'm gonna win worlds i wasn't watching

the worlds i didn't know who any of the black belts were yeah you know i didn't know who any of the competitors were i wasn't really in the sport it was just like a little side thing that i was doing yeah and then it turned into my whole life it's like crazy how things happen yeah i'm curious about this do you ever get in your head when you're rolling with because like you are at that level too but when you're rolling with competitors who also have like names and accolades do you ever get in your head about that or it's just another day just because of your environment um a little bit um but with that being said it really can it really can hinder your your training if you think too much about that um i'll just give one example last week um we had a really, really intense competition class.

You've been to the competition class. It's brutal. And at that time, I was two and a half weeks out from a really important competition. So I really got some work in that day. I really pushed hard. Normally, what I would do on a Monday after a really high-intensity training like that is I would go back to our gym, and I would do the class at night I would train, you know, I would do the technique and then I would train for 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. And it would be with, you know, a little bit lower level people.

It would be just light training just to, to keep on working, you know, get a little extra working. Um, but on that Monday, instead of going back to our gym, I had an opportunity to go and train with a couple of like really high level guys. Um, one of the guys is a big heavyweight dude that's competed at ADCC before, you know, a couple of years ago. And, uh, the other one is another high level, um, black belt. If I was too in my head about, oh, I'm this person, I'm this top black belt and da-da-da-da, I might have been a little hesitant to go do another competition-style training with high-level guys after I had just put myself through that first really intense training because I was wiped out. I wasn't going to show up at 100% in three hours to the next training. I was at, you know, 70%. Um, so that was, you know, even those moments, it's kind of, it's a little bit of an internal battle where I have to suck it up and put my ego to the side and say, um, yeah, like, like there's a chance that I'm going to get beat and that's okay. I have to be okay with that. There's a chance I'm going to go to

this other gym and all the students are going to be watching and they're going to see me loose to someone else. And then they're going to all go talk about it and they're going to text each other in the group chat. I just had Mason Fowler. Exactly. It's a chance that's going to happen. Yeah. You know, and, um, and, and you have to be okay with that. Cause if not, you're going to, you're going to limit your own training. And I did, I, I, I lost one of the rounds, you know, and it's okay. Yeah. You know, and, uh, after that, I, I, you know, texted those guys that I trained with and I was like, Hey, we let's train more. I, you know, instead of like shying away from that, I texted those guys that I trained with, and I was like, hey, let's train more. Instead of shying away from that, I'm trying to throw myself deeper into that. You have to seek out the toughest guys you can.

You have to put yourself in those situations. If you're showing up to training every day at 100%, then you're doing something wrong. Do you think the sport needs to be cleaned up, the no-gi jiu-jitsu? Because it seems like there's a lot of ped usage yeah um what are your thoughts on that yeah i'm i would prefer if there was across the board testing for everyone i would prefer that it would just make the sport um it would just make things a lot easier because at this point you don't know you don't know if someone's taking something you don't know if you should be taking something you know um yeah if it's not against the rules if yeah

it's not against the rule if there's no testing then it's like it's not it's not cheating right there has to be a test to cheat on on that on the 80 like on the nogi side because i know um what is that fight to win i think they've said they never plan on actually doing testing, right? Yeah. Do you – when it comes to that side of things, because IBJJF does test, but they don't test rigorously. Do you think that – where do you see kind of things going as far as that's concerned? Do you think it's just going to continue to get more rampant, get worse, or do you see anything changing there? to get more rampant, get worse, or do you see anything changing there? Yeah. Um, I, from what I've heard, there's no plans of any extra testing being added to any of the competitions. Um, yeah, I don't know. How does that make you feel as a competitor? Because do you,

do you kind of feel a pressure that you need to start using stuff to try to catch up to people or what, what's it make, what's up in your head your head uh there's a yes and no because you know some of the top guys you know you would assume that they're they're using drugs right but there's also a lot of really high level guys that are outspoken on being clean athletes yeah so um kind of but it's not the same as say um like trying to go win like mr olympia right it's like it's like physically impossible to get to a certain level in bodybuilding without taking certain things, right? But I don't think it's physically impossible to get to a certain level of jujitsu

without taking things. I think you can become the best in the world natural. Yeah. I think it's possible. Well, the big things that really changes is just like how much you can, like not even how much you could train, but just how hard you can train on a consistent basis.

You know, it's not like it's going to change your skill acquisition or the technique that you have, but it's just like, can you go a little bit harder every single day of training? Maybe. And are you going to be super strong or stronger than more people? Maybe. But like Kyle, I think his whole, his whole thing is technique overall. If you have good technique, could probably beat anybody. Yeah. So then there's even, you know, you could also say that if you're taking a slew of performance-enhancing drugs and you're building your strength to a certain level and you're doing that from the time you started jiu-jitsu. Let's say we get him on steroids, right? He's in his first month.

We get him on steroids right now. We get him on all the PEDs, everything. Yeah. His recovery is great. His cardio is great. He's the strongest guy in the gym he's gonna he's gonna um overlap not overlap but he's gonna skip ahead and he's gonna skip 30 of the steps that he would have learned if he didn't have that strength yeah so there's also there's you know there's a give and take you you're gonna be able to skip over some of the technical aspects of jujitsu, but then once you've skipped over it, it's going to be hard

to like, you know, go back and retrace your steps and figure it out. With so many people getting into jujitsu, is it profitable? Can you make some good money? Like you mentioned that you're a coach and people I know teach and all these different things. How do you kind of like monetize it? people I know teach and all these different things. How do you kind of like monetize it? Yeah. So the biggest thing is teaching. You basically, the formula has been that you compete to show that you're good and then people want to learn from you, right?

But with that being said, now there's been a lot more opportunities to make money as a competitor instead of just being a teacher. You know, there's the path of selling online instructionals, even though that Um, you know, there's, there's the path of selling online instructionals. Um, even though that is, you know, teaching, right. You're selling an instructional. Um, but then also you're getting paid now, um, to show up and compete. Whereas, you know, five, 10 years ago, that was almost unheard of. Now, um, today there's probably a paid, um, professional, um, competition going on, you going on almost every weekend. So there's opportunities to make money as a competitor now.

But for most guys, for like 95% of the guys, you're going to make money selling instructionals and teaching seminars or teaching at an academy. Being both high level in the gi and no-gi, right? What do you think are some of the biggest differences between both because you now see guys who just go straight into no gi and they're like fuck the gi i'm just gonna learn no gi jujitsu do you think it's necessary to learn the gi if you want to be a really good no gi competitor i'd ask like two questions within that but yeah no no that's a

good question and it's a tough question um but i would I would say if you, if you look at like the last ADCC, um, most of the guys that won, um, compete in the key sometimes, or at one point started in the key. So like, you know, even Gordon Ryan, he's a black belt in the key. I'm pretty sure he started, uh, when he first started, he was training in the key a lot. Yeah. do think that it's beneficial to train in the Gi to a certain point. But with that being said, I do think that you can also get to a high level if you're only training no Gi. If someone came to me and said, I want to win ADCC one day, and they were like 14, 15 years old,

I would have them training and competing in Gi and no Gi. Me personally. Gotcha. And that aside, um, do you think that being high level in the Gi has given you a certain type, like maybe a different understanding as you train no Gi jujitsu? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Definitely. It just, it just slows the game down. Um, and when you're training no Gi after like the first 30 minutes, it gets real slippery. You can slip your way out of things. You know, you can scramble your way out of things. For instance, like escaping side control.

Like if you had me down in side control, if someone was to tell me, I'm going to give you $1,000 if you can escape in a minute. Would you rather be in the gi or nogi? Gi. I would choose nogi. You would choose nogi? To escape. You choose nogi? Against nogi i would choose nogi you would choose no to escape to you choose no against you i'll choose nogi oh i thought you meant i had to keep you inside exactly because it's more control yeah okay you see what i'm saying so i'm saying if someone was

to pay me to escape yeah i would choose nogi oh yeah it's just easier to get i could just fight my way out a little bit easier yeah you know when when you add the grips and it just adds a whole another layer of of technique and and just like friction so um yeah i do think that it helps okay do you lift before or after usually before a jiu-jitsu training session or after if i could have my choice i would i would do my lift at night so i would i would go and train and then i would have like a break like at least like you know four hours and then i would go and do my strength conditioning but with that being said, the only time I can usually get, um, get with Jason is in the morning. So I've had to kind of

suck it up and switch it and do my lift first. And then the jujitsu training. So no steak and eggs before you lift. No, I do. Oh, there you go. I do steak and eggs. And then I literally eat as soon as I'm done eating. I like this lifestyle. As soon as I ate, I ate steak and eggs on the way here. I have the plate still in the car. Wow. That's awesome. I did. What do you got a Tesla?

Are you just trying to figure driving? I do have a Tesla. Yeah. I do that all the time too. Yeah. So I was just eating and yeah, that's funny. How much,

how much do you give to the lifting sessions? What I mean is cause like right now I'm still trying to find the balance of like, okay, lifting and rolling like right now I'm still trying to find the balance of like, okay, lifting and rolling. So when I'm lifting, sometimes I will kind of be a little bitch because I don't want to give too much to this workout because I plan on having a good roll the following morning. So for yourself, how have you been able to like kind of, I guess, auto-regulate how much energy you're giving to lifting versus jiu-jitsu?

Yeah, it would just depend on what phase I'm in. Right now I'm, I'm real close to competition, so I'm not going to be putting all my energy into lifting heavy weights. You know, strength, it takes a long time to build strength, but then it stays with you also the longest, right? So it wouldn't really, I'm not going to get any stronger in two weeks but but i could definitely you know increase my cardio a little bit in the next two weeks so um yeah it depends right after i compete i'll get more into a lifting phase and i'll start working on my strength again and then as i get closer to competition i'll slowly start cutting down on the weights and start incorporating more like sprint work more like explosive work and definitely focusing a lot more on the jiu-jitsu as well i do a lot of like box jumps and other

movements like that and you work on your mobility a bunch and things like that too yeah i mean um most of my mobility training i do on my own i just do like a lot of stretching i have a lot of flexibility um but yeah box jumps i basically just show up and whatever Jason tells me to do, I do it. I'm usually like, can we go a little bit lighter? And he's like, all right. He'll make you work out forever too. He'll be like, oh, yeah, two more. He'll tell you when the workout's supposed to be over,

and then he'll be like, let's just do two more things. Yeah. And then those two things turn into four more things. I will say one thing that I really love about Jason too is that he really truly understands the workload that I have already because he's immersed himself in it. He came to our competition trainings. He knows how hard it is. And so he doesn't try to kill me in the workout sessions unless it's that time.

So there are certain times where he really pushes me. There are certain times where he cuts the training a little bit shorter. He really does understand that my main goal is to be the best in the world at jiu-jitsu. I'm not trying to be the fittest person in the world, the strongest. I'm just doing that to be as good as I can at jiu-jitsu. What do you do to make your training harder? Because there probably came a point where you're not getting into bad positions nearly as much or it's just hard for your training partners to do that for some of

your training partners to do that to you so what do you do to continue to improve your skill yeah luckily I I'm blessed to have some of the best training partners in the world you know like I said Yuri he's close to my same weight he just won the absolute ADCC which is you know like i said uh you're he's close to my same weight he just won the absolute adcc which is you know arguably the toughest bracket in the world to win um so i have him luckily i have a lot of other good black belts to train with um do you do anything special when you're rolling with somebody that you know like they're never going to get to my back or they're probably not going to get me about do you do anything when you're rolling with people like that yeah for sure there's definitely um there's definitely times where I'll let someone pass and

then, you know, work on regarding, or, um, maybe I'll just be on my back and I'll just be, you know, I'll only use my legs. You know, I'm not, I'm going to try to not even use my hands for the next five minutes. Um, so there are different things you can do to make sure that you're still getting, um, high level training and you're still getting better, um, with different partners. Yeah. But sorry, I cut you off before you mentioned some of your, your, your other training partners. Yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of good black belts there at, at CTA. And so, you know, I'm, I'm in, I'm in bad positions all the time.

And if I am like, if I'm really peaking and my conditioning is really good then, then Kyle will, he'll put two guys on me instead of one, not at the same time. It'll be like a 10-minute round. We'll be like, okay, you go two and a half minutes with him and then two and a half minutes with him and then two and a half minutes with him again. So it'll be kind of like a shark tank type of situation.

And we'll usually do that to whichever guy is preparing for something that's really important and they're starting to peak. Their conditioning is really good. He doesn't want you to just go with someone and just coast and just you know play around he wants you to really be working hard so i remember when the the one of the competition class class i was at with you benji um you rolled a really hard round and then i was your next warm-up round so you're ready for your other nogi round yeah it was pretty funny yeah so he'll be like okay you're gonna go five minutes with him and then you're gonna go two minutes with him he's gonna start on your back and then you're

gonna go two minutes with him and it's gonna be standing you have to take him down or else you lose the round and then you're gonna do the last five minutes with him you have to get at least two submissions like that's how he sets up the training you know what i mean he's like or or you have to go with him and you're down by four points you got to score at least five points to win yeah yeah that'd make you puke no yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been. Have you got to points in training when you were newer to it where you thought you maybe weren't cut out for it? Like, did you drive home one day and just be like, fuck, man, I don't know if I should even bother going back. Like, this is getting to be pretty rough. Many times, yeah.

Many times. It's not for me. Yeah. It's been many times where I just had a bad day in training uh it was real stressful too when i was when i was training for mma fights because it's like if you don't go out there and perform like you're gonna get the shit kicked out of you and everyone you know is gonna be there like your girls there uh your mom and dad are there like your friends are there they're all gonna be like talking shit to you for the next six months.

If you get knocked out. What happened? That's what they, that's what people say, right? What happened? Yeah. Oh,

what happened? The other guy fucking trains really hard too. Yeah. I wasn't trying to get knocked out. Yeah. It's so that was, that was real stressful. So then if you would like have a bad sparring day and then you're just in the car and you're

like, man, what am I doing? I'm going to get my ass beat. So it's just, it's a roller coaster of emotions, man. You know? Yeah. How do you get through that? I ask this because I know this is going to happen a lot to me, especially, you know, on my way as I progress.

But this week I had one of those weeks where I'm like, fuck, dude, I'm going the wrong way. Like nothing's working. I mean, it could be because like I've been kind of starting to feel sick and my ribs have been bothering me. So I've been moving a little bit slower, but this week I was like, ah, I was like, this is what everyone was talking about when you start regressing or you feel like you're regressing. Um, I'm not like beating myself up over it, but I, I experienced it this week. I was just curious, like, how did you get through some of that? I've experienced it this week.

I was just curious, like, how did you get through some of that? I don't know. You just kind of, you just have to accept it. You have to just accept the feelings, and you have to try to let them motivate you. It would just be like if you lost at a tournament, you know, you want it to, like, sting because it's going to motivate you to go and train harder. So, you know, if you get your ass kicked at practice, you have to, like,

it's okay to be mad about it and then to be like, okay, like I need to work harder. I need to get better. So just let it motivate you. Do you watch a lot of video? You watch a lot of, uh, other people grapple and stuff like that. And do you watch your opponents? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, that's something that, that, um, Kyle really got me into. He's really big on studying and preparing for certain guys. So, yeah, definitely. I like to watch tape, see what guys do. I'll show some of my training partners, and I'll try to have them emulate it so then I can counter it. So, yeah, I think that's really important. And what platform do you guys recommend? Because I know flow grappling is really popular.

My buddy Chris has been telling me I need to subscribe to it already. But there's a lot of stuff on YouTube and stuff. So where do you want to catch – where do most of your inputs come from? Yeah, so there's two main streaming services for jiu-jitsu and competitive grappling. Flow Grappling is probably the biggest one. They do the ADCC World championships um the ibjjf world championships gi and nogi so there's a lot of high level jiu-jitsu on there um and then the other one would be ufc fight pass there uh they have a lot of um grappling shows as well they

have the ebis the combat jiu-jitsu um now they they're doing the uh the ufc fight pass invitational which is the tournament i'm competing on in two weeks it's not the first one they've ever done it's the third one. But the other two that they did, I believe, were like team events. I think this is the first one they're doing that's more of a jiu-jitsu style tournament. And from what I heard, they have just been seeing the numbers of the jiu-jitsu events that they're putting on. And the numbers are good. And they really want to invest into grappling.

Especially after what we saw at the last ADCC. It was huge. It was the biggest grappling event of all time. Yeah. So now UFC fight pass sees that and they want to get in it too. Sick. Do you remember your first time seeing the UFC and like, was there a particular like fight or was there something you saw where you're

like, I need to figure out how to do that? Yeah. Um, I remember I was 15 years old and it was like, it was the UFC ultimate. Remember? It would be an hour-long segment on Spike TV and it was all Anderson Silva.

It was Anderson Silva versus Chris Lieben, Anderson Silva versus Dan Henderson. And I can't remember. I think it was one more. And yeah, that was I think the first thing that I ever saw. Anderson Silva was so incredible. Incredible, yeah. It was nuts the way he would just like barely move out of the way of a punch,

just enough so he could move out of the way, just enough so he could still counter it and knock the guy out. It was crazy. Yeah, crazy. And so, yeah, those old school MMA guys, GSB, I remember watching him early on and guys like Shogun.

Those were my first kind of experiences with mma how did they choose the fighters for this next fight pass um they contacted me uh they they texted me um i've been competing on ufc fight pass a lot because i used to do the submission underground shows that were on ufc fight pass so um i've always had a pretty good relationship with ufc fight pass i was um the ufc fight pass Athlete of the Year for two years in a row. Oh, shit. So they personally contacted me, and then I don't know how they chose the other ones.

They're all really high-level guys. My first opponent, Pat, he had a good performance on the last EBI, and he kind of went viral with the way he cranked the guy's heel. So I think that's how they got him in is from seeing him on the last EBI and he kind of like went viral with the way he cranked the guy's heel so I think that's how they got him in is from seeing him on the last EBI and then the other guys like Nicky Rod, Andy Varel they all competed at ADCC they're all like you know other like really high level black belts so so yeah it's a stack bracket and what's the deal with Gordon on that right now yeah so Gordon is going to be in the main event competing against Vinny Magalhaes. Vinny, I believe, is the last person that beat Gordon. It was a while ago, but yeah, he's the last one

that I think has a win over Gordon. So Gordon wanted to avenge that loss. So that's going to be on the main event. And then I'm pretty sure whoever wins the tournament would probably get the next match, right? It would make sense. So hopefully that would be next. Yeah me ask this like because i mean i know all these are all the other guys that you compete against but when you see gordon roll what do you notice about him that's good or

bad or or things that you're like ah you know what do you notice um he he's definitely efficient like he doesn't waste energy he's really efficient um and he's really relaxed that's one thing i noticed with a lot of the the higher level jujitsu guys that i've had a chance to train with they're so relaxed and just comfortable i had a match um a little while ago a year or two ago with kainan duarte he's yeah he's one of the other he's probably like you know number three pound for pound in the world right now and i remember when i was competing against him he just was like he was almost just like annoyed at me just like showing no emotion just like so relaxed like unbelievably relaxed and and that's what i see with gordon too he just always looks relaxed when you roll do you feel like you're relaxed or

what do you like why is that something i feel stressed out when i'm rolling i don't feel relaxed do you have you ever felt i mean like obviously maybe when you roll with people that are easy like easier roles like you feel relaxed but do you do you not feel relaxed when you like rolling competition no when i'm competing now i definitely feel relaxed it just comes with experience yeah i can remember uh walking out to the last ADCC and feeling really comfortable, even though it was like a huge crowd, like 12,000 people. I remember feeling really comfortable and, you know, I remember passing and feeling kind of like at home. So, yeah, I felt really comfortable. It just comes with experience and experience competing at a high level.

And I think experience competing in front of people. And I think experience competing in front of people. So one big benefit that I did have is that I did fight MMA where it's all eyes on you. And a lot of jiu-jitsu guys aren't used to that. Like if you go from doing jiu-jitsu tournaments, there's no one really watching. And then you do a super fight where it's all eyes on you at once. It's a different experience. So I have a lot of experience with that already.

And, you know, I fought one time in Fresno, my hometown uh for bellator in front of like 5 000 people so i've already have experience competing in front of big crowds yeah you know so yeah i feel pretty confident did that mess did that mess with your conditioning a little bit like in the first few minutes or just uh getting into the just even like getting to the mat did it did you kind of feel like your legs get taken away from you a little bit? Cause sometimes people's emotions are so high that it kind of, uh, it gets, I don't get some like kind of hyperventilate. Yeah. If you're too, if you're too nervous and you have too much adrenaline, like if you don't have the experience of being there on that stage in that moment, you're, you're just, you're so tense. And so then you get the adrenaline dump and then however long into the match, you just completely gas out. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's good to be loose and comfortable. In this past ADCC, I mean, you won the East and West Coast Trials, you said, yeah? Okay. So this time I won the East Coast Trials to qualify. The last ADCC in 2019, I won the West Coast Trials to qualify for that one. Okay. east coast or the west coast trials to qualify for that one okay now with with this current this last adcc when you look at your performance because you know your people are expecting like you to kill at adcc how do you feel about your performance there what do you think happened

um it was just it was just a really weird unfortunate series of events that that happened um basically uh the guy the guy was playing guard and my strategy was to you know play on top and try to pass um but if the pass wasn't there not to really force it because at the overtime we would both have to stand up so the adcc how it works is like at the 10 minute mark if it's zero zero both guys have to stand up and then if one guy was to sit to bottom he would get penalized so the guy was going against is really good on bottom so my strategy was just kind of like to try to pass try to pass but pretty much make him wrestle with me in the overtime yeah and uh at one point he kind of like kicked at me and kind of like tripped me and i like jokingly like threw a kick back at him yeah and they gave me a penalty

point for it which was kind of crazy because guys there at adcc were like smacking each other headbutting each other kicking each other no penalties i got a penalty you know it's it's it happened it's water under the bridge and uh that that kind of like forced me to open up right i couldn't i couldn't just wait until the overtime because the penalty counts as a point. Yeah. So we wouldn't have, so that made you rush your game. So I rushed, I actually dove into a leg entanglement with him and he's a leg lock specialist. I'm not, I've never finished anyone with a leg lock, you know? Yeah. I'm not a leg lock specialist. It's not my, I'm not bad at leg locks, but it's not my, my a game. Right. So I went into his a game, you know, I was forced into his a game because I couldn't play mine anymore. and he ended up countering me and tapping me so what makes you uniquely good

as a nogi grappler because you know a lot of guys are really focused on legs and being a leg lock specialist but what what is what is the thing that makes you different yeah definitely um wrestling i would say my wrestling game is better than most guys. And then also, the guards that I play are really good for no-gi. So I play mainly closed guard and half guard, which they both translate perfectly to no-gi. So I think that that's a big factor as well.

And then also just the fact that I was focused on MMA for so long. So I was always training a lot of no-gi. Most guys, they train either gi or no-gi. I was always doing kind lot of no-gi, right? Most guys, they train either gi or no-gi. I was always doing kind of like 50-50 because I was preparing for MMA. Yeah. Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, what are some keys to like just not being fucked up from the sport? You mentioned lifting being pretty preventative. Is there some other stuff that you really put a lot of time or effort into, even something like sleep? Like are you really conscious of how much sleep you get and stuff like that? Yeah, definitely sleep. And I would say too, it depends on what that individual's goals are. If their goal is to be the best in the world, you're going to, you know, you're going to break your body down. You're going to have some injuries. You're going to have to be in a state of being overtrained all the time. If your goal is just to learn the sport and you're passionate about it, you know, take it slow. You

don't have to, you don't have to train twice. You're not training for ADCC. You don't have to train twice a day, every day. Get on a, get on a schedule that you can maintain forever. You know, because if not, I've seen so many times guys come in every single day. They train six days a week. They do double days on their day off from work. And then after they do that for three months, they take six weeks off. I always tell people, you're not going to be that good anyway, so just take your time. Yeah, that's perfect. That's perfect.

Yeah, so just don't – you don't have to – if you're not training to be one of the best in the world, stop trying to act like you're training to be one of the best in the world, stop trying to act like you're training to be one of the best in the world. Take it slow, and you're going to get a lot better if you can train consistently for 10 years than if you train three times a day for two years. So just play the long game. How long has Yuri been your training partner, and what have you guys managed to learn from each other?

What have you managed to learn from him? Yeah, it's been four years now he was at kyle's already when i got there and um there's just uh i learned a lot of like like the hidden jiu-jitsu like the things that you can't teach the things that you only get from training with someone that's at a high level right um just knowing there's something about knowing when you can't accept a position right so yuri for example if you let him get to level one you're not getting back to level zero right so you can never accept level one you might as well fight with everything you have when he's trying to get to level zero right so you can never accept level one you might as well fight with everything you have when he's trying to get to level one because if he gets to one he's only going to two he's not

going back to zero yeah it's like he'll just continue to progress he's going to continue to progress um so that's something that that i learned from training with him um just i learned a lot of just like hidden things that you can't really teach but you just kind of pick up on when you're training with someone at that level. Could you give a basic example of something like that? Just kind of curious. Um, yeah, just, just knowing when to fight. Okay. Like, like there's sometimes when he'll get to a position where he has your hips flattened

out, for example. Right. And you know, if you're already tired, you might just be like, okay, I'm, I'm going to sit here for a second and take a breath, but as you're taking the breath, he's also resting, and then he's progressing. So you have to know, I'm going to empty the tank at this moment because if I accept this one small position,

I'm done for the rest of the round. So that's one example that I can think of off the top of my head, knowing when to empty the tank and knowing when to fight and not accept the position. Being a world champion. If you were to like write a book or something like that, will there be some things that you would say you recognize as characteristics of world champions,

people that you observe, people you've been around and including yourself? The number one thing is discipline for sure. Discipline, sacrifice, and, and consistency. Got anything else over there, Andrew? No, I'm looking at your IG, just trying to find Yuri,

but his Instagram is blocked. Yours is private. I'm kind of bummed. I was curious about Brazilian Nationals. Yeah, because you were the first Americans to win win that tournament yeah i was the third third american yeah to win that tournament at black belt at black belt so what was that like oh that was amazing yeah it was amazing kyle was scaring me like when we were going he was like you got to train hard everyone there is going to be throwing things at you. And, you know,

they might try to fight you in the parking lot when we're walking there and the refs are all going to like, they're all going to give points to the Brazilian guys. And, you know, you, you got to be ready for this. You got to be ready.

And then I went and there was like people cheering for me, you know, it was not that bad. It was cool. I love Brazil. I had been there one time before. And, and obviously like my coach is Brazilian.

I have a lot of Brazilian friends. So man, I love it. I had been there one time before. And, uh, and obviously like my coach is Brazilian. I have a lot of Brazilian friends. Um, so man, I love it there. Yeah. The food's amazing. It's cheap. Yeah.

Um, the beaches are beautiful. It's great. I want, I want to go back for sure. So next year, do you, are you going to be competing at worlds also in the key?

Are you going to be doing more? I think so. Yeah. I think I'm going to do worlds in the gear. Yeah. I want to, I haven't competed yet at, at worlds in the gear at black belt and uh would be a shame if i went you know all this time winning worlds at purple belt and brown belt and never at least competed

at black belt yeah so i definitely think i'm gonna gonna jump in the gear next year and you know get active do you cold plunge and do all that stuff for recovery as well yeah and stuff yeah i was doing that a lot um in the in the training camp for adcc i was so i was just trying to do everything i could for recovery so yeah jason has one at his house so i would literally he just pretty much gave me an open invite so i would just be like go and sneak in his backyard and cold plunge and go home every morning yeah yeah have you messed around with any mouth tape? We have some mouth tape over here for you for sleep.

Yeah. Um, someone, someone gave me some of this. One of my students gave me some and, I put it on for one night and I got annoyed with it and took it off. Um, the problem is like I broke my nose when I was doing MMA and I actually had

surgery on it to open it up because I have like a deviated septum, but I still don't have like full capacity. I don't have that much. Your nostrils get kind of stuck. Yeah. So I don't have like full capacity of breathing out of my nose.

So it was pretty difficult. Yeah. Pretty difficult. If there's any surgeons out there that want to hook me up, the nose job, hit me up, slide in the DMs.

There's some people. Got to be somebody. Cool, man. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. No, thank you guys. Yeah, it was a blast. It freaking flew by.

Yeah. Easy. Two easy people to talk to. Take us on out of here, Andrew. Sure thing. 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 button and subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already. For everything podcast related, head over to power project dot live. That's where you find links and all kinds of extra good stuff on where to, you know, we got the devil pussy mug and a couple other things on, on the site for sale. Follow the podcast at MB power project on Instagram,

Tik TOK and Twitter. My Instagram Tik TOK and Twitter is at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at? Actually, I do have one other question because we've seen that on your social. You've been doing a lot of really good videos and teaching people a lot of good stuff, right? And you see a lot of other high-level competitors.

And they probably want to leverage social media like you do, but they haven't been able to figure it out for themselves yet. So for people who do compete in jiu-jitsu and they want to share that type of content and engage people the way you have, what tips would you have for them? There's a lot of small things that I've done and that I've learned. And even me and you have bounced some ideas off each other before. So I'm always learning. But there's one thing that I could share, this one concept that really changed the way that I thought about social media. It's like, especially as an athlete, your social media page is kind of like you just like bragging about yourself and showing everyone how cool your life is. Right. And unless you're like a hot girl,

that doesn't work. Like for, for us, that doesn't work. Like we can't just like, like post our bodies and like post that we're in like dubai like people don't care like people don't think we're cool because we travel or they don't think like they're not going to follow us because of how we look right imagine if uh you know when you got home from winning a big tournament if you went around the neighborhood and started knocking on every door and say hey i just won this tournament they'd be like who the fuck are you and why would i care yeah no one cares exactly no one cares that's the truth so i switched my my thinking of instead of having my page be about like how great i am and and why i'm so cool into um like how how

i can help you so what are you gonna benefit from? Yes. And you're good at that too. You do a lot of tips and different coaching, different advice on your page. So my page just became about like if you follow this page, I'm going to give you jiu-jitsu techniques, different techniques. Some of them might be flashy. Some of them might be actual like really you know, actual, like really good, like fundamental jujitsu. But, uh, this page is for me to show you guys jujitsu techniques. And you guys should follow him. He shows a lot. Uh, Mason Fowler BJJ. Yeah. I was posting seven days a week for a long time. Um, and now on average, I would say I probably post like six times a week. Um, I don't

post every single day, but you know, five to six times a week and it's done it's done really well for me i went from like 30 000 to 100 000 this year yeah so that's like some pretty good gains i think congrats man no that that is amazing thank you yeah um so and then on top of that too like i still do compete at a high level just so that you know that i'm not completely full of shit. I'm still competing at high-level jiu-jitsu tournaments against the best guys in the world on a monthly basis. Even with your skill level, is it sometimes difficult to deal with training partners who maybe aren't as good, but they're just maybe a little crazy?

They're a little off, they've got real high energy, or does your skill set just just kind of uh i guess negate that yeah yeah it's okay now like um not anyone that we have at our gym i'm sure there are guys out there that would piss me off if i was to train with them um but at our gym you know we train hard and we scrap with each other but it's all i'm not you know i don't have everyone's trying to make each other better too probably right we're all making each other better like if you if you try to beat me and you give me everything you have

it's only gonna make me better right awesome again thank you for your time appreciate it oh yeah where can people find you I don't think

oh yeah Instagram yeah Instagram Mason Fowler BJJ that's where I'm most active on alright cool

here's Smelly's tip for the day just something that kind of hit me when I was running something I was thinking about a couple days ago courage is an emotion that you can't fake. Your body keeps score. Your body keeps track. You must have accomplished something. Your body knows the score of who you are, what you are, and what you have done. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Catch you guys later.