The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall, one of the most insightful minds and systems

thinkers in the martial arts world. He's a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, accomplished competitor,

an MMA fighter undefeated in the UFC, and truly a philosopher who seeks to understand

the underlying principles of the martial arts. Jiu Jitsu is such an important part of who I am,

and I was hoping to share that with folks who might know me only as a researcher.

I think there is no better person to do that with than Ryan, who somehow, remarkably, I can say is a

friend, and also a modern day warrior philosopher of the Miyamoto Masashi line of especially dangerous

and brilliant humans. Also, his amazing wife, Jen Hall, was there as well, so if you hear a

kind of voice of wisdom coming from above, you know who it is. Quick summary of the sponsors,

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people around the world. And now here's my conversation with Ryan Hall. Who in your view

is the greatest warrior in history? Ancient or modern? That's a tough question and again I'm

no historian by any measure so I'll probably do the worst. Like what are your best bands ever? I'm

like Metallica and you know so I'll pick the... Metallica just came out with a new album by

the way. The entire orchestra. That's kind of cool support. Metallica will always be one of the

greatest. Yeah that's why they were that example. They were a well known yet awesome band. Let me

say it's like Nickelback or something like that. But that feels cheap because everyone

makes fun of Nickelback. I don't know. I guess it depends on how you want to define warrior.

Something that I think about when it comes to trying to evaluate various people or situations

or things that I've read about or heard about are the circumstances that they were involved in

because I think a lot of times it's easy to look at the outcomes and obviously we live in an

outcome driven world and outcomes do matter but at the same time like you look at let's say what

Cuba has been able to pull off from a combat sports perspective. It's staggering. Like the

amount of successful Olympic level competitors they have in wrestling, boxing, judo. I mean

they're a tiny little island with no money and no people. That's shocking. When you think about

the Olympics in the United States doing well, of course we should do well. I mean Russia should

do well. China should do well. India should do better than they do. Honestly, obviously it means

like they're not into it as much or at least certain sports because they have the resources

people wise. So talent's not going to be an issue. So there's something to like where the starting

point is. Like that's the argument with like why people say Maradona if I don't know if you're

into soccer. Oh yeah, big soccer. Okay. They say Maradona is better than Messi because he basically

carried the team and won the World Cup with a team that wouldn't otherwise win the World Cup.

And then Messi was only successful in Barcelona because he has like superstars. He's playing

with other superstars. Right. Yeah, that's fair to say. I mean like you know there's a lot of

factors that go into let's say winning a soccer game and you know obviously Barcelona you know

particularly for various points in time at a ridiculous all star squad of world class players.

But you know let's say for instance maybe they didn't have the creative players in Argentina.

They needed to get the ball up to Messi. You know they didn't have like the NES and you know

the you know the again the backing there in the midfield. But because obviously Argentina's always

had ridiculous attacking players like even alongside Messi but they're like the three killers up front

and then a little less behind. So it's interesting you say that it depends how you define warrior

because you can probably take like some of the civil rights leaders. You can go into that

direction like leaders in general. But if we just look at like the greatest martial artists in

history in that direction. Do you have somebody in mind? I would say at least three that pop into

my head and would be Hannibal, Alexander the Great and then maybe Miyamoto Musashi you know

the two commanders and then one you know guy. But so it's interesting and then again you mentioned

warriors being able to make a lot out of a little you know Musashi's famous for winning duels you

know that were oftentimes one on one. You know the Alexander and Hannibal were you know military

commanders and one of them faced Rome and that was an interesting thing. Oftentimes you know coming

up with novel tactics, different strategies sometimes under resourced doing having to do

novel and crazy things. There's skin in the game. That's an interesting thing too. I think a lot

of times you know it's a if you're playing a video game I don't think you can be a warrior

because there's just no skin in the game. You get hurt, you lose, that's a bummer. It stings a

little bit maybe makes you feel slightly disappointed but you know Musashi loses, he loses. Hannibal

loses, he loses. Alexander loses, he loses and they lose. I guess the people around them lose so

that's almost like you could use even from a combat sports perspective of Muhammad Ali.

I mean you consider also their quality of opposition. Musashi was fighting high quality

opposition obviously Hannibal and Alexander particularly Hannibal were fighting unbelievable

opposition. Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition but he had skin in the game both in the ring

and out and that actually meshes with as you mentioned like a civil rights you know type of

situation where you are under resourced, you're pushing the stone uphill and that was a neat thing

I think about Muhammad Ali was how much you know personal conviction the man had to have in order

to pull off what he was able to pull off both in and outside of the ring and that reminds me of

again some of the other great leaders or great fighters throughout history.

So what do you make of the kind of very difficult idea that some of these conquerors like Alexander

the Great and somebody that if you listen to Hardcore History, Odin Carlin who apparently Elon

Musk is also a big fan of is the Genghis Khan episode. You know a large percent of the world

is a can call Genghis Khan an ancestor. So the difficult truth is about some of these conquerors

is that there's a lot of murder and rape and pillage and stealing of resources and all that

kind of stuff and yet they're often remembered as quite honorable. I mean in the case of Genghis Khan

there's a lot of people who argue if you look at the historically the ways described

in full context is he was ultimately like given the time he was a liberator. He was a progressive

I should say. You know like in terms of the violence and atrocities he committed

he at least in the stories has always provided the option of not to do that. It's only if you

resist. You basically have the option do you want to join us or do you want to die and die horribly.

That's the progressive sort of that's the Bernie Sanders of the era. Nice. So what do you make of

that that there's so much of these great conquerors there's so much murder that to us now would just

seem insane. It's funny you mentioned it I think that maybe it's a human nature thing that we want

to or you know maybe or maybe a misunderstanding thing that we want to cast all of our characters

and ourselves maybe is entirely good or is entirely negative when you know I guess the

phrase or the saying you know one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist is accurate

and a lot of times I think you can understand as long as you're able to look from various people's

perspective. Like if you look at the TV show The Wire which was obviously you know widely

everybody loves The Wire. I thought that there were everyone I'm not saying anything that's

that's not been said before compelling characters from all angles whether you like the character

dislike the character you were able to understand the motivations of people doing various things

even if they did wrongly they did rightly you know we want to cast all of the demons throughout

history as completely inhuman when I think that makes it difficult for us to understand them and

we want to look back at the people that we think of as great and entirely great and I think that

we're you know we're experiencing the problems with this you know even right now socially and

politically as we're trying to look back and decide that people we thought were good or not

good or people we thought were bad are now good rather than going hey there's there's good and

bad to all things and there are as you mentioned the gang is con thing you don't have to fight back

you do I respect you for it but then we're going to have a conflict and then we'll see what happens

and if you lose you're going to be sorry that you did because I have to make it that way if I want

to continue utilizing this this kind of MO because I need to discourage the next guy from doing what

you're doing right now and ultimately though I guess that's an interesting thing imagine you

put every single person on planet earth in a cage crime drops you know also there are certain

positives to that and I it's just things are as they are it's difficult but that is ultimately

more the law of the jungle and I think that we're able to supersede some of that now in modern times

and I think we're fortunate but as you mentioned we look back and say oh this is horrible say no that

that just is what it is that's how life is at a base level and you know again if you're a lion

and I'm a gazelle I don't I don't really like it very much but we don't call the lion the bad guy

we don't sanctify the gazelle or the other way around so it's just it's interesting when you

pull back some of the controls that we put on our behavior and you know in modern life which I think

are generally speaking positive you know we get down to how things often are and at the same time

modern life was built by people like Genghis Khan so then you get down to the ends just to find

the means it's a tough question these aren't things with easy answers or at least if they are I

certainly don't have the the smarts to figure out the answers to them but it's difficult I would just

say people in the world are complicated and layered and depending upon which side of the

line you're standing on at various times you know you may like or dislike someone but I can't

remember it's I can't remember whose whose idea was this killing me but it's the veil of ignorance

I guess the philosophical you know you know idea of the veil of ignorance where I go is is sticking

everyone in the cage the right thing to do and I say or everyone me and I say well no why well

it would make my life easier if I just went over and took all of your stuff as long as you couldn't

stop me I mean of course that's a great idea that's what everyone does in every video game

but in Skyrim you steal stuff when people aren't around but ultimately you go well this isn't the

right thing to do because if I were on the other side of it I would I would not appreciate it it's

it's inherently not a good thing to do I'm only doing it because I think I'm gonna win and that's

a fine way to be but you don't have the white hat on I guess I would say so I think without those

philosophical underpinnings to rein us in you know I guess morally speaking it's very difficult to say

what's right or wrong and you'd say certain actions have a reaction almost like a physics sense

if you kill everyone in your way for as long as you're able to your life will be easier I mean

you're setting the table for someone doing the same to you when you're no longer the tough guy but

it is what it is yeah if you look at like the Instagram channel nature is metal it hurts my

heart to watch to remind me a comfortable descendant of ape how vicious nature is just unapologetically

uh just I mean there's a there's a process to it where the bad guy always wins

the the violence is the solution to most problems or the flip side of that running away from violence

is the solution depending on your skill set and it's funny to think of us humans with our extra

little piece of brain that we're somehow trying to figure out like you said in the philosophical

way how to supersede that how to like move past the viciousness the cruelty the just the cold

exchange of nature but perhaps it's not so maybe that is nature maybe that's the way of life maybe

we're trying too hard to uh we're we're being too egotistical and thinking we're somehow separate

from nature we're somehow distant from that very thing I couldn't agree with you more in fact I

think actually orson scott card you know was the writer of a great book called enders game um was

this was a statement that that the main character you know ender uh made in the book his brother

was brilliant um his brother was like kind of sociopathic brilliant kid that was ended up kicked

out of the school that they were all into for battle commander dealing with his brother taught him

that ultimately strength courage the ability to do violence for all the good and the bad of that is

one of the fundamental most important things to be able to do in life because if you can't

cause destruction if you can't cause pain you will be forever subject to those who can and I

think that you mentioned egotism I think that that that's a disease that could obviously strike any

of us but it's something that we're looking at now we're you know I think we should be unbelievably

thankful as people that live in the world that that we do um that we can walk down the street

without having to worry that I'm like well don't worry that that's six foot six 270 pound person

over there is just gonna leave me alone and I have a Rolex on but whatever and I'll be fine

because that person's decided to leave me alone because we've all agreed to live in this relatively

you know sane and or you know constrained society because it benefits all of us and we're doing it

because of a philosophical underpinning not because nature dictates it be that way because

nature dictates it going a very very different direction and the only person the only thing

stopping that person from doing something to me is either me that person or someone else

that will stand in between us and if I can't do it and there's no one that would stand in between

us then the only thing stopping that person is that person and I have to hope that they're either

disinterested or disinclined to do that sort of thing and I think that uh you know it's keeping

in mind that that that is the fundamental nature of the world whether we like it or not um is

important and I think the the quest to fundamentally alter human nature is going to be ultimately

fruitless and then also it's it's a little bit egotistical the lion does what a lion does you

know we we can try to box it in and we can try to you know guide this direction that direction but

you know nature is as it is and as it always will be unless we want to start to constrain it

significantly but now I'm starting to get into individual rights who put me in charge who says

that I should be the one to make the choices constraining because many of the most awful

things that have happened throughout history one group or one person has decided to constrain others

and we don't like Genghis Khan doing that well I'll do that on a little level

are there going to be benefits and beneficiaries absolutely but there'll be losers in that too

so I guess it's a it's a dangerous game it's almost like putting on the one ring you know

we remember when Frodo offered the one ring to Gandalf and Gandalf said no no I would take it away

I would put it on I would use it out of the desire to do good but through me it would wield

a power so terrible you can't imagine I think that's that's the big question for anyone that

decides that's able to have reach and able to have power I mean obviously I can't speak to that

but imagine you did have national level global level power how would you use it would you try

to change the world would you be glad that you did down the line I don't know yeah there's I mean

that's the thing we're struggling now as a society maybe it'd be nice to get your quick comment on

that which is the people who have traditionally been powerless are now you know seeking a fairer

society a more equal society and in in attaining more power justly there's also a realization at

least from my perspective that power corrupts everyone even if you're even if the flag you wave

is that of of justice right and so you know not to overuse the term but it'd be nice if you have

thoughts about the whole idea of cancel culture and the internet and and twitter and so on where

there's a nuanced difficult discussions of race of gender of fairness equality justice all of

these kinds of things there's a shouting down oftentimes of nuanced discussion of kind of

trying to reason through these very difficult issues through our history through what our

future looks like do you have thoughts about the internet discourse that's going on now

is there something positive yeah I mean we can pull out of this it's an interesting thing to see

I guess as you mentioned anytime you're wielding power whomever you are doing so carefully is

important and it's very very easy to look at the people that have power and that are using it poorly

or have used it poorly and go hey you're the bad guy and then go well of course if I had power

I'll use it properly and I may intend to use it properly and maybe I will but at the same time

we see a lot of times people are people are people I think that a lot of the I think if

you if you believe that that human beings are all one which I do you know no matter whether

you're here you're there you're you got two arms two legs a heart a brain we all live a similar

experience you know and obviously with variations on a theme but you know you're no less a human

being if I you're a person I've never met from China then then some person in Virginia it's we're

all we're all people and I guess ultimately if I believe that human beings are corruptible and

that power corrupts and that we're all fallible and we say and do things that either intentionally

or unintentionally that we wish would not I think that the I have to allow for a space of I guess

with the word it's almost a religious term but I guess it would just say grace and that's something

that I see disappearing from discourse in the public or maybe it wasn't there I'm not sure but

it's interesting you know watching this occur on the internet because also now no longer are you

and I just having a talk sitting on a on a bus stop it's now in writing everything's in writing

the old the old saying like don't put that in writing you're like don't put anything in writing

that's how you get in trouble and basically you know with with the degree to which everything

is recorded but recorded in tiny little bites it's very very easy for me to wave every less

little foolish ignorant incorrect or correct thing that someone has ever said or done in their face

to support whatever argument that I'm trying to make about them or a situation and I think that

you mentioned cancel culture or you know as it seems to exist obviously this is poisonous on its

face this is poisonous it's it's the sort of thing that doesn't incentivize proper behavior

I mean you look at let's say one of the great monsters of history Adolf Hitler obviously who's

done awful awful things but also for anyone that's a even a minor student of history did

some positive things as well we don't have to I don't have to embroider this person's crimes I

don't have to act as if there was nothing good a monster has ever done and nothing bad that that

a great person throughout history has ever done but imagine the ghosts of Adolf Hitler were to

pop up and go oh my gosh guys I'm so sorry I I know what I've done but I'd like to apologize

and start to make it right well I mean you'd hope that you know if he popped up over here you go

well I don't really like what you've done and I don't like you but at the same time I'm glad to

hear that you're attempting to make this right and push in a positive direction even if you can't

make it right because otherwise what am I doing I'm disincentivizing change for the better I'm

looking to wield whatever power I have in a punitive fashion which does not encourage people to do

anything other than double down on on the wrongs that they've made knowing that at least they're

going to have some support from the people that support that and I guess I want to you would

hopefully look at the use of the internet as a tool that can educate and I guess that I don't

like the word empower but empower people to do various things extend their reach but uh but

educate and learn rather than to further solidify little tribal things that exist which I think

everyone in humanity and human history is vulnerable to me look at the course of human

history it's deeply tribal and the tribes or the groups that have been on top at various points in

time have done a lot of times bad things to the ones that have not and you'd hope that we could

learn lessons from the past and rather than you know committing the crimes that were you know that

were committed against us recommitting them when we slide into the top position say you know I could

do this now but I'll not you know I understand the urge to to seek vengeance is strong of anyone

that says differently I don't I wouldn't trust you know but at the same time we go we have enough

experience in history enough experience in life enough hopefully wisdom you know time in to go

this isn't the right answer this is only going to replay the things the the worst parts of our

history not the best and I want to encourage positive behavior and if I just again further

lash out at people although understandably done done understandably I'm simply just going to

just perpetuate the cycle that's gone on to this point so you hope that even though we're seeing

a lot of a lot of turmoil societally at the moment and globally at the moment that I guess our

better angels can prevail at a certain point but it's going to take a great deal of leadership and

I think that we're we're sorely missing like a Martin Luther King style character at the moment

or a great leader and I just I'm hoping that one will show up for sure and by the way a word I don't

hear often and I think it's a beautiful one which is grace that's a really interesting word I'm

gonna have to think about that it is there is a religious component to it but it's exactly right

it you have to somehow walk the line between you know you mentioned Hitler I've been reading

the rise and fall of the Third Reich I'm really thinking about the 1930s

and what what it's like to have economic my concern is the economic pain that people

are feeling now quietly is really a suffering that's not being heard and there's echoes of that

in the in the 20s and the 30s with the Great Depression and there's a hunger for a charismatic

leader like you said there's a leader that could walk with grace could inspire could could bring

people together with with sort of dreams of a better future that's positive but Hitler did

exactly everything that I just said except for the word positive which is he did give a dream

to the German people who were a great people who are great people of of a better future it's just

that a certain point that quickly turned into the better future requires literally expansion

of more land it started with well if we want to build a great Germany we need a little bit more

land and so we need to kind of get Austria then we need to kind of get France mostly because

France doesn't understand that more land is really useful so we need to get rid of them

and look what they did to us in Versailles anyway

but so the jew the jewish uh the holocaust is a separate thing I don't know

well I don't know I don't know what to think of it because so me being Jewish and having a lot of

the echoes of the suffering is in my family or the people that are lost I don't know because

Hitler wrote all about it in Mein Kampf so I don't know if the evil he committed was there all along

I mean and that that's where the question of forgiveness I mean Hitler is such a difficult

person to talk about but it's the question of on cancer culture who is deserving of forgiveness

and who's not like the holocaust survivors that I've read about that I've heard the interviews with

they've often spoken about the fact that the way for them to let go to overcome the atrocities that

they've experienced is to forgive like forgiveness is the way out for them it's interesting to think

about I don't know I don't know I don't know if we're even a society ready to even contemplate

an idea of forgiveness for Hitler it's it's an interesting idea though it was it's a good

thought exercise at the very least to think about like all these people that are being cancelled

for doing bad things of different degrees think of like Louis C.K. or somebody like that for being

not a good person but like what is the path for forgiveness and also what's a good person

what is the good person if that's a sliding scale that we could all find ourselves looking at

the uncomfortable end of a gun on you know particularly down the line I mean you hope for

the best but these definitions I guess like you said are important and who's doing the

canceling who's being cancelled I'm not necessarily as you said saying that that's entirely unjustified

or certainly not it's certainly understandable and particularly you mentioned like a monster

like an Adolf Hitler but it's also interesting I couldn't help but notice like you mentioned

as a society us being able to apply forgiveness to someone who's done so much horror but people

who are personal I mean of course many that so many people in person affected but directly

personally affected someone a survivor of the Holocaust being able to let go on that I'm

nowhere near big enough person for that sort of thing but I guess that's that's an interesting

thing you know being the person who was physically there potentially able to able to let go I don't

know that's that's unbelievably powerful it's it's interesting I guess you have to wonder sometimes

and this isn't obviously in regards to that to the Holocaust but why I'm holding on to various

things have I what is it doing for me and what is it doing to me is it facilitative is it not

and I guess that's something else that I really enjoy when I was on Ultimate Fighter

they they don't let you have any music or any books out in religious text so I've brought a

Bible and I brought a Koran and I started to read them side by side and it was it was really

interesting reading the Bible's a little drier Koran's the Koran's more interesting at least

written but I think something that that was consistently brought up was the way most merciful

people want I don't think any of us want justice we think we want justice but I don't think we want

justice justice is dangerous dangerous dangerous game because maybe this person's wronged me deeply

and I want justice I want to balance it out because what is justice is not a balancing of

the scales and sometimes you can understand it and on a societal level I think it's fine I mean

there's crime and punishment and we can go for the benefits and the drawbacks of that but I think

what any of us want is mercy within reason you know grace as you mentioned because justice is a

very very very dangerous thing and it's a valuable and important thing but who gets to decide what's

just what justice is actually needed out maybe I get to meet out justice but it's not I don't get

my comeuppance well that sounds great but what happens when it's pointed back at me and I guess

that comes back to the veil of ignorance you know the idea that that one day I will have to live in

the world in which I've envisioned and the world in which I've created I think that a lot of times

people love the idea of they're a judge for your crimes and a lawyer for theirs and I heard that

the other day I thought it was great and I think that's it that's a dangerous thing and hopefully

it gives us all pause before rightly or wrongly but always understandably you know wielding

serious power. Yeah justice is a kind of drug so if you look at history it's also been reading a

lot about Stalin I mean all those folks really I don't know I don't know what was inside Hitler's

head actually that he's a tricky one because I think he was legitimately insane Stalin was not

and Stalin was like he literally thought he's doing a good thing he literally thought for the

entirety of the time that communism is going to bring like that's the utopia and he's going to

create a happy world and in his there in his mind were ideas of justice of fairness of happiness of

of yeah human flourishing and that's that's a drug and it's somehow sadly

pollutes the mind when you start thinking like that what's good for society and believing that

you have a good sense of what's good for society that's intoxicating especially when others around

you're feeling the same way and then you start like building up this movement and you forget

that you are just like a you're you're like barely recently evolved from an ape like you

don't know what the hell you're doing and then you start like killing witches or whatever like

you start you start doing they did math let's be honest though I mean sometimes you got a

witch has to go I wish yeah we can all agree that which a witch has to go if it floats or sinks

which one I forget which which whichever one we need at the time is it floating it should have

sunk yeah but yeah we can definitely agree that witches have to go because you brought it up I

tweeted recently but also just I'm one of the things I'm really ashamed of in my life is

is I haven't really read almost any of the sci fi classics really yeah so like I my whole journey

through reading was through like the literary philosophers I would say like Camus, Hesse,

Dostoevsky, Kafka like that place like that's a kind of sci fi world in itself but it's it just

it creates a world in which the the deepest questions about human nature can be explored

I didn't realize this but the sci fi world is the same it just puts it in a it like removes it

from any kind of historical context where you can explore those same ideas in like space somewhere

elsewhere in a different time in different place it allows you almost like more freedom to like

construct these artificial things where you can just do crazy crazy kind of human experiments so

I'm now working through it the books on my list are the foundation series by Isaac Asimov, Dune,

Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson and Ender's Game like you mentioned that's just kind of and then

so I posted that and then of course like Elon Musk, John Carmack I don't know if you know him

creator of doom and quake oh cool see they all pitched in these nerds these alternate just started

like going like these uh you need to read this that and and the other so I've like started working

out okay but it seems like the list I've mentioned holds up somewhat is there a book is there sci fi

by books or series or authors that that you find are just amazing maybe another way to ask that is

like what's the greatest sci fi book of all time well I'd like to start by uh sharing something that

I I'm embarrassed about yeah is that I haven't read anything other than uh you know Orson Scott

Card jr Tolkien uh Frank Herbert Tolkien yeah yeah yeah I'm aware through Wikipedia and through through

surface reading of things that like a book called the Republic was written once um there were some

other good ones so you're a prolific reader of Wikipedia articles well or occasional okay exactly

and in between uh whatever else it is that I waste my time on but but yeah so I also I should say I

posted on reddit questions for uh Ryan Hall and there's like a million questions but like uh half

of them have to do with dune no not really but like people bring up dune I don't understand why I

I did you mention dune before home well actually we actually have a show you're all actually made

us a gi a dune themed gi one time which I thought was kind of cool I'll send you I'll give you one

we got extra but uh actually to your to your point actually this is uh Orson Scott card quote

actually the writer of Ender's Game um fiction because it's not about somebody who actually lived

in the real world always has the possibility about of being about oneself and I think that's a

neat thing because I have heard you know other very people whom I respect and very sharp people

actually every now and then dig their heels and go in I don't like fiction I only like nonfiction

it's more it's more instructive and I would go I completely disagree with that I think we have a

hard enough time figuring out what happened at 7 11 3 hours ago that let me tell you what happened

600 years BC I'm like hey I'm interested but don't tell me this isn't a story too yeah there's

there's there's actually there's factual components I have no doubt but we struggle sometimes to

like I guess what I like about fiction is that you can tell me a story it's all about people

I mean every now there's more and less believable things and I think dune would be an unbelievably

well written in my opinion for to run you know what do I know but I really like dune I'll say that

well written example of you know human beings interacting with one another the political

component to that the emotional the intellectual the relationship components all of that and

I think that dune is neat because it's a sci fi novel but only in the only in the loosest sense

it's it's really a story about religion about group dynamics about human potential about

belief learning politics governance ecology it's the best stories remind me of history the same

way history hopefully is not just a list of facts that I try to be able to recall or factoids that

I try to recall but a story that I can understand and and see how how the threads of time kind of

came together and created certain things and a lot of times like we say I'm like I have the heck is

what's going on right now or a hundred years from now or a hundred years in the past happened

and you can look back far enough if we had accurate knowledge if we had that like that

hypothetical perfect pool shot you know at the beginning of time we would see an unbroken chain

of events that led us to where we are and and where we are will potentially lead us to where

we're going which is again why hindsight's helpful but I think it's neat like I guess I really enjoy

for instance a book like dune and they're actually making a movie out of it which I'm

skeptical of to be honest because it's it's going to be difficult to to bring that to the screen

for a variety of reasons but there's at least a hundred questions ask Ryan what do you think

about the new dune movie I am not enough of an authority to have any sort of decent opinion

but I guess what I would say is so much of it goes on in the character's mind like how much of any of

our days is any lived experience as it were is internal that the majority how many times are

people walking around and you know they can be like hey what do you see right now I'm like oh

well I see this picture I see a wall hey there's legs but really what was what I was paying attention

to it was what was going on inside of my head for a moment and almost the rest of the world

tuned out and kind of dimmed and I guess that I think that's going to be a struggle to to anytime

you want to bring that type of a written story to to a visual medium I think it's going to be more

difficult but it'll it'll be interesting it's definitely my one of my favorite stories and

it's been it's honestly helped me become better at life in my opinion better than martial arts

and I think the the writer I think Frank Herbert was absolutely brilliant whether those were all

his ideas which in reality none of us are all of our good ideas aren't ours were a combination

maybe came up with something you're a curator of other good ideas and some things you borrowed

from somewhere without even realizing it but I think the the way the message is in the themes

and the ideas that were conveyed particularly in the original novel are just absolutely brilliant

is that the is that to you one of the greats and and the flip side of that like or another

way to ask that is like if somebody's new to sci fi is that something you would recommend

that that is an entry point I'm not well read enough in the sci fi world I haven't written a

lot of like Isaac Asimov or anything like that but I just I'll recommend dune I'll be an obnoxious

like evangelist for dune to anyone who'll listen so I yeah I would strongly recommend it so the

other thing you mentioned now I should probably be talking to you about much more important things

but the other thing you mentioned is Skyrim do you play video games what's your favorite game what's

what would you say is the greatest video game of all time because I'm a huge fan of elder scrolls

oh cool yeah I I mean I play a little bit um at this point you know a little little less

finally moves into a new house so you're like an adult no oh no no I'm like a better funded 12 year

old um yeah that's yeah that's entirely that's entirely accurate better funded 12 year old but um

somewhat better funded 12 year old not as well fun as I wish but whatever please you play video

games oh yeah I played as a kid I was you know again I've always liked playing sports and and

liked reading and I always enjoyed video games but my favorite video game I think I've ever played

was nights at the old republic it was a star wars game a huge star wars fan until it become less so

so recently Disney um you don't like the I haven't watched it yet oh medallori oh don't go

oh actually like medallorian that was that was actually pretty cool yeah waving this off yeah

canceled yeah I will if I could cancel one thing I would cancel Disney Star Wars I'm gonna edit

that part out okay let's go to the next but uh this is where if people are wondering if you're

watching this on YouTube and like the dislike amount is like 80% that's because of that comment so

so good job good job for making the internet I regret nothing now what about uh baby Yoda

yeah I guess he's like he's little he's got ears and he uses the force sometimes and he

passes out again nope no qualms of baby Yoda yeah you don't have a heart okay

let's go to jiu jitsu if it's okay uh so the audience of this podcast may not know much about

jiu jitsu or they do because it's really part of the culture now but they don't really know much

they see that so many people have fallen in love with it have been transformed through it but they

don't know much about like what is this thing is there a way you could sort of try to explain the

what is jiu jitsu what is the essence of this martial art that's captured the minds and hearts of

so many people in the world I think that jiu jitsu is is a philosophy that's expressed physically

and that it's the kind of development of the mental capacity and physical capacity working in in

unison to uh move efficiently and almost flowingly unresistingly with with a given situation with a

with a physically resisting opponent um learning how to generate force on your own and how to

steal force from the floor how to steal force from the other person and move in concert with it as

opposed to clash against which if you watch two untrained people fight it's almost entirely a

clash it's a runaway and clash a runaway and clash um if you watch jiu jitsu done well it's

it it looks like water moving around a solid structure and and I think that that is expressed

physically and I think that all of the things that anyone has really been able to do very very well

in jiu jitsu end up kind of exemplifying that but I think that that's true of martial arts in

general I think that a lot of times like the clashing that we see going on um and working well

is just the fact that you know you get very very physically powerful people every now and then

they're able to get away with this but I don't think that that's and that's that's fantastic

because ultimately it's a results driven thing but I think that the essence of the martial arts

is learning how to make more out of less and how to move with and be yielding you know almost like

real life aikido and uh so you think of martial arts uh jiu jitsu as uh like water or flowing so

aikido so moving around the the force as opposed to sort of maybe the wrestling mindset is finding

a leverage where you can apply an exceptional amount of force so like so like maximizing the

application of force I guess maybe that's a better way to I'd like to marry the two ideas you know

because I think you flow until the point at which you are the greater force at which point in time

you can apply but uh if you look at the best wrestlers and then when I say best I don't necessarily

mean most successful although of course most successful are always very very good um throughout

the course of history in boxing in wrestling in judo um they they're magical they they disappear

and reappear it's like fighting a ghost that that is like incorporeal when you want to find it but

then when you don't want it to find it when you don't want to find it it finds you and uh I think

that we see that in the like the buvaisar cites use of wrestling um and you know I guess you could

look at uh Floyd Mayweather or willy pep or uh you know pernell whitaker in boxing um as brilliant

examples of disappearing and reappearing and when you're strong it's almost like a real warfare

when you're strong I'm nowhere to be found when you're weak you can't get rid of me

and I think that's what we're looking for yes the tier brothers are incredible at that they just

they look like uh skinny starbucks baristas and uh they just manhandle everybody like effort effortlessly

they look like they just kind of woke up yeah rolled out of bed fighting for like the the

the gold medal at the olympics and just effortlessly throw uh like there's a match against you I guess

yola maro yeah so like you you know if you look at like who is the guy who's like intimidating in

this case uh and the terrifying looking it's uh it's it's the over maro just like a physical

specimen obviously like a super accomplished wrestler I think this is for the gold medal yeah

and 2000 2000 yes and then there this is the year you all took silver

and what you like just to just show you like there's a inside trip effortless

uchi and he does it again you know you know it's a really creative kind of wrestling where

it's organic yeah you throw in all of these kinds of things there's just a mix of judo a mix of

like weird kind of moves it's not like as funky as uh ben askern it's it's just like legitimate

basic well it's not funky for funky sake and i'm not poking ben askern to imply that that's

what he's doing but it's like it's funny it's like a lot of times it's almost like a musashi

talked a lot about that you know that the only goal of combat is to win is the outcome is it's

outcome driven versus like flourishing you know cool looking movements it's like unless that had a

utilitarian purpose like what are you wasting your time with that both in the fight and also

you know in practice but but as you mentioned it's almost like it looks like judo it looks

like wrestling it looks like jujitsu it's almost like I guess that reminds me all of the martial

arts is again deeply tribal as well I I want to learn lex fridman martial arts and then I want to

learn another you know I guess transcendent person's martial arts and it just happened to be the set

of movements that you tended to do most of the time thanks to your body type and your opposition

and whatnot but then I try to codify that and force those to work as opposed to going I want to

understand how the body works in concert and in congress with something else and other forces

and move appropriately and that's why it's like it always struck me that the Scythe Brothers are

great examples of just moving like water but they used Bruce Lee which is a little trite but again

he's brilliant it's like water can flow or water can crash and they would crash when they needed to

crash and they would flow when they needed to flow but they would flow for the purpose of

dissipating and then crash when they would win and at the right moment then go back to flowing the

second that the other person found them and it's just it's beautiful to watch it's artistic and I

think that that great expression of anything physical is ultimately studied as a science but

expressed as an art and I think that that's something that gets lost in jujitsu a lot of

times when it gets a little bit a little nerdy like do this hand to your hand here like if

like the more details I have the better one in reality that's just not not in my experience how

it's done. It might be a fun exercise of saying like what are the main positions and submissions

in the art of jujitsu. You don't have to be complete that's a ridiculously I apologize for

putting on a spot like this but it might be a nice exercise to think through it. Sure I mean I

would just say that you have your arms bend in various ways. You have key lock americana,

straight arm locks, kimoa plata, kimoa plata is a kimoa or kimoa is a kimoa plata. It's just

executed. Submissions. So like. Submissions. Breaking off your arm in all kinds of ways.

But ultimately the question is let's say you were a terminator like a robot that I which of

course you are. Go on. Go on. It's like it's a work being completely literal. And I couldn't

harm you with any of these things. Would I still use these positions? The answer is yes. They create

leverage. They create control. They create shapes that I can affect and that can affect me. And

they can be affected through other forces than other objects or structures like the ground

or the wall. I really enjoy mixed martial arts because there's another component rather than

just me and you and the floor. There's me, you, the floor and the wall. And it's another player

in the game that doesn't exist in a grappling context with a non enclosed you know I guess area

of combat. But you can strangle me or choke me. What do you call it? Without my arms being

involved or you can use one of my shoulders to pin one side of my one carotid artery off and you

can enclose the other. You can turn my knee in the exact same ways that you can turn my arm

straight this way and that way. You can add a rotation to that or it can be directly linear

against the joint. So I guess what I would say is the more that I've been able to understand

jujitsu the more that I've been it's given me a look into how we learn language where rather

than learning five bazillion adjectives I go I understand what an adjective is and of course

we are all read into some degree of vocabulary. I understand what an adverb does and I understand

what an adverb is. I know what a noun is. I know what the component parts of a sentence are. I know

what you know I guess a clause, a contraction, any of these things and it allows you to be

interesting and artistic with your language to the extent that you can but I can't like I can

speak a degree of Spanish but I'm not even slightly artistic in Spanish. I would be something. I

speak like a child with a head injury and anyway the basic understanding of the English language

allows you to then be a student of Spanish. 100% but I'm limited by my experience. I'm limited by

my understanding of techniques. I'm limited by my understanding almost like let's say techniques

are like vocabulary. So even if I kind of sort of grasp the sentence structure and the thought

process and the thought patterns of Spanish which it's interesting because just even the

orientation and the organization of a language and I've thought about this a great deal,

you know the way that I perceive the world is affected deeply by the language that I learned.

Do you know the again if I learned I have no idea how the Chinese language structures

but I can only imagine that it would be that it would affect it's like a different lens. We're

looking at the same thing but I have a different set of sunglasses on than you do and that's very

very interesting. I'll use the Quran as an example. You know apparently it's unbelievably poetic

and in Arabic still neat and was interesting reading in English but I'm told by people that I

trust that it just one doesn't bear resemblance to the other and I think that's a very interesting

thing that you may be able to say the same thing but in a more I guess in a different way in a

more artistic way that that may not translate on a one for one kind of fidelity but the more

that we're able to understand about how the body works the more examples of the body working this

way the body working that way the body working that way the more that I'm able to eventually

become an artist but it has to be studied as a science first and it does start with technique

collection vocabulary collection the same way we learn in school where you remember how to say

quickly 17 different ways and let's say I speak Spanish I'm only I only know three so you might use

quickly you might use an adjective like quickly in Spanish but use one of the many many options

to describe that that I don't understand and now I sit there and go like wait what I can't be artistic

I can't be as organic with the languages I like so I believe that jujitsu a lot of times starts

with the acquisition of a lot of hey do this this this drill this technique here's an Americana

Americana to an arm lock arm lock to a triangle but the problem with that is oftentimes we get

stuck in that phase and I people eventually become move collectors or sequence collectors and I

noticed this when I'm trying to do dbd or I guess like an instructional series now or even teaching

in class I don't believe in that form of learning anymore not that it's not valuable but I don't

believe I don't understand jujitsu on that level anymore so what I'm trying to do is get across

the basic ideas to people and say hey you need to fill in the gaps with going to class all the time

you need to go hey learn this move learn that technique learn that technique because otherwise

I'm basically just throwing at you like 75 different words that you could use but that

hasn't really taught you how to how to speak a language whereas if you give me the language

structure you can fill in these pieces on your own and then eventually speak organically in

lex form which will be ultimately unique to you because otherwise you just end up being like a

weird facsimile of whatever it is that I'm doing for mostly the worst I'd say but uh yeah that's

what people I mean people comment like is this especially people haven't listened to me before

is this guy drunk or high does he does does MIT really allow slow people to uh to be like what's

quote is it like what's what's wrong with him is he getting sleep are you okay and does he need help

so that that's similar with my jiu jitsu is like is this guy is this guy really whatever rank I was

throughout I remember just like is this guy really this rank I just have a very kind of certain way

of sitting and being slow and lazy looking that there was ultimately the language that I had to

discover and it was uh it was yeah it was a very liberating moment I think of probably a few years

of getting my ass kicked especially with open guard and butterfly to where you really allow yourself

to take in the entirety of the language and realize that um that I'm not I'm different I'm a unique

I'm unique and like I have a very um I have a language I have a set of techniques a way I move

my body that needs that I'm the one to discover like it's you can only you can learn specific

techniques and so on but you really have to understand your own body and that's the beautiful

thing about jiu jitsu like you said is like the the connection about your philosophy your view of

the world with the physical and like connecting those two things how you perceive the world how

you interpret ideas of the world about exhaustion about force about effortlessness like what it

really means to relax all these kinds of loose concepts and then actually teach your body to

like do those things and like you know and be able to apply force and spurts be able to relax

and spurts and like figure all that stuff out for my for your my individual body but it's as you

mentioned that's I couldn't agree with you more it's a discovery process and no one can cheat that

process which is at the same time it's almost imagine I want to start writing books in second

grade unless maybe I'm like staggeringly brilliant like which I can only conceptualize someone being

able to do that but maybe a moat start of the English language where you're out there doing it

but for most of us we don't have enough knowledge enough information enough experience to be able to

be to express ourselves so we have to basically input repeat which is important but it's the

process as you say of going through that of getting your ass kicked to just like well that

didn't work well that didn't work that felt right but I don't know nobody else does that I guess I

don't believe in that versus eventually going I don't know I'll just try going my own way and

see what happens and now I'll get yelled at and people won't like me and if it works they'll

say I got lucky and if it doesn't work they'll say I was dumb but which one maybe all is right but

basically you know going through that iterative process that allows you to eventually find yourself

expression and find your voice so that you you fight the same way that you speak the same way

that you write the same way that you think in a way that that is uniquely you that will also

ultimately allow you to understand other people being uniquely them because even if you can only

conceptualize and I think about this a lot for society stuff where I go well this is how I feel

about this but am I objectively right maybe about a couple things but that's a small box

that I have to be very very careful about what I think is objective versus what's not and I have

to be open to the possibility of all the things that I think are objectively correct may or may

not be and that should allow me to have some degree of compassion or consideration for other people

both in their martial arts journey and in their journey you know as people as human beings because

I understand that they're on a it's a we're all on a path where it's all in again an iterative process

of eventual self expression but I think that's one of the things that we see having trouble when we

see tribalism which I mean racism expression of that political affiliation to expression of that

all of these things that can go in really uncomfortable directions people are looking for

hey where do I plant my feet over here where's where's the thing that I know is right and

that we can all agree on the following and I think that we see that in martial arts we're like oh I

do this style why do that style I do that stuff it's like hey man we're all just pushing forward

in a certain direction here trying to do our best and I understand why you feel the way you do I may

have felt like that at one point too but uh you know we're I'm just trying to learn and understand

versus I've already acquired enough knowledge let me cross my arms and start to to look who's

fucking up around here and and I think that uh that's an it's an interesting trap that I think

it's very human trap to fall into but it definitely happens early on it's I mean it's a joke in the

jujitsu world right like on the blue belt that that knows everything well initially it's like what I

know nothing and I at least think I know nothing then I'd learn a little bit and I think it's a

lot bit and then you know the more you learn the more you go like I don't even know what I'm doing

yeah that's exactly right we kind of talked about it a little bit but uh once again a lot of people

that listen to this have never been on the mat have never tried jujitsu but are really curious

about it everybody at all positions like uh I think you know mosques kids are not doing jujitsu

Andrew Yang is like they're all you know the world is curious it's uh it's a nice it seems to be

a nice methodology by which to humble your ego which to grow intellectually and physically so

people are curious about it so the natural question is if they're curious about it

how would you recommend they get started maybe like what do you recommend the first day week

month year first couple years look like like how do you ease into it and make sure that it's

a positive experience and you progress in the most optimal and positive way the first thing you can do

is is simply ask yourself why why you want to be involved and you know I remember the first day

that I walked into ronin athletics in uh in new york city to train under my godfather my son now

christian montes um and I didn't know what I was getting myself into I played baseball through

high school and I wanted I was at Manhattan college um in the Bronx and I wanted to go

and learn martial arts because it was always something that was interesting to me but it was

never something that that was I that I knew was accessible and it definitely wasn't really around

in northern virginia where I grew up whereas then you stick yourself in in Manhattan and there's

stuff everywhere so anyway I guess I didn't know what to expect um I didn't know if I was

going to get beat up if people were going to be nice if people were not going to be nice um but

what I began with was I think expectation management and I think that that's something

that uh I would that'd be the first thing that I would start is almost imagining what is it that

I'm getting myself into because I love the martial arts with with the martial arts has given me

everything in life and I'm so thankful I wouldn't be sitting here um without without that that

experience of the journey of the people that I've met the place that I got I could never ever have

ever imagined um and I'm just unbelievably thankful for that but I think that the thing that

um that helped me most of all was starting with going you know my mom said something to me one

time and she said uh you know there's two types of people in various situations there's why and

there's why not and you know it's understandable to have questions concerns things like that um

but and maybe sometimes it's a little bit easier when you're when you're younger to just trust

people or just say I don't know you know um but uh we go hey you want to climb that rock I'm like

yeah why not let's go hey you want to jump in that river yeah why not sure versus if I have to reason

my way into everything I have I have to be talked into everything a lot of times I'll talk myself

out of it and I think that a lot of times this is the thinkers disease um you want to figure out

what's going to happen and what you should expect to have happen before you get involved versus going

using the old Bruce Lee saying again it's like no amount of thinking or training on the on the

side of the river will teach you how to swim you have to jump in and there are risks associated

with that and so uh I guess uh psychological are usually the biggest ones that's the biggest hurdle

and physical um but the biggest thing that I guess I would suggest anyone to say why do you

want to do this you're like well I want to challenge myself I want to learn I would like to learn to

fight I want to learn to fight so that I could protect myself and if and if anything else other

people if only when the norms reach I perceive that if I had some small degree of power um I

generally wouldn't use it which is why I was like yeah I'll give it a try I'll try to be reasonable

and hopefully if I make a mistake I'll apologize to people but basically uh I said yeah I'd like

to have that and I want to I know this is gonna be challenging and we'll see what happens and that

means that getting beat up and I didn't get like hurt but getting roughed up getting my arm bent

this way or that way getting choked I was like well this is all supposed to happen that's no big

deal it would be like going and joining the army during peacetime and then going oh I'm just doing

this for a college education you're like okay that's cool man and then all of a sudden war breaks

out and they want to send me somewhere and I'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa I didn't sign up for that

kick actually you did whether you realize it or not you may not have thought that you did

but you did so getting your mind right and and just going what are my expectations this activity

what is it that I'm looking to do and of course you know you're you're going into a gym you're

going into a place that you don't know people or you probably don't know people and you don't know

the coach and even if you do want to hey how you do and shake your hand type of level you know 95%

of my students don't know me not really you know I'll try to be polite and not annoy them too much

but they don't know me and I don't know them I understand if they don't trust me I wouldn't

trust trust me either if I were them but at the same time someone has to take that leap and one

of the things that I've noticed as a martial arts instructor that's the biggest struggle

with dealing with adults which is why a lot of people like to teach kids is kids kids don't ask

don't argue now that also means there's there's all sorts of pitfalls or that sort of thing and

that can be an issue but you know I guess a lot of times people get to a point in their life you

know in their 20s early 30s where now I'm a manager now I know what I'm doing no one talks to me

like that versus like hey man you go join boot camp I don't care if you are Elon Musk they're going

to shut up and do push ups and that's what's great about it so you are taking a leap of faith

into a world that you're going to be a tiny fish and you got to hope that the people who are who

are guiding you in that in that journey are going to have I can't say even say your best

interest at heart because they don't even know you but they'll they'll try to do no harm and

they'll try to help you in the way that they would understand and I guess that's for instance that's

what I would try to do with anyone that that comes into my gym I would try to help them in the way

that I understand they need as best I can and as safe and reasonable a way as possible but sometimes

in a way that's going to make them uncomfortable particularly if physical combat and and it's

not something they've done before if they've a lot of people go in without even having played

you know contact sports and so that can be a big jump and you have to understand if that's where

you're starting from no worries but you're going to have to kind of work your way to it and it's

going to be uncomfortable and and it'll and that's okay it's part of the process and you're going to

have some bumps and bruises and you're not going to want to roll with that guy in the corner because

that that person's rough and they beat you up and they're like okay but is this a big hurt or is it

a little hurt if it's a big hurt okay if it's a little hurt I need you to draw up a little bit

yeah it's such an interesting balance because to find I think one of the most important things

as in anything I think in life is the selection of the people that you put around you I mean

that's true with like getting married that's true with like if you go to if people ask me like

graduate students like your PhD advisor can can be the difference it's everything it's like you

spend five years with somebody they're going to basically define the more impact on you than

anybody you marry anybody you hang out with is a huge impact and the same with the the coach

selection which is like the school selection is it's going to be really important about in terms

of like who you select will define how happy like the trajectory of your growth and how happy you

are with the entirety of the experience and yet like the the flip side of that is especially if

you have an ego especially if you are the manager then you still let go some stuff you're going to

feel like shit with the good with the best kind of coach that's that's what you need right but

there's in the night there's a weird balance there to find like I mean like and everybody

needs a different thing like I'm much more I enjoy being sort of like sounds weird but like

I'm you know from the wrestling background I enjoy feeling like crap in a sense like the coach

like getting beat up I don't actually enjoy it it's not like some masochistic thing or whatever

it's the growth like I like the anxiety I like feeling like like shit when I go home like

emotionally physically it's a growth it's like it's growth it's a sign of growth right like

if you're not having to feel those things you're probably in your comfort zone which is fine but

that's not your growth zone right and everybody has a different threshold for that I mean the

beautiful thing about jiu jitsu is like it's also has like a yoga feel to it like you're

learning about your body so depending on the gym and depending on in fact the coaches the people

around you within the gym you can select little groups too kind of like the people with who you

roll like if you're a smaller person it doesn't mean you have to go against big people you can go

against the people who like smoke a lot of weed and they're chill or you can go against like that

crazy ripped blue belt competitor who's like out to destroy everybody and depending on like

what your mindset is you can kind of select that it's such a fascinating journey of like

basically self discovery I couldn't agree with you more it's and what you need may change over

time right you maybe what you needed what you need today could change six months from now or

a year from now and that's something that I experience I'll use my my first coach Christian

again as a great example of someone who I really look up to and respect and someone who helped me

a lot like at a time when I really needed some guidance and I needed to learn martial arts but

get into I the Hensel Gracie's gym was right down the street from where Christian was teaching

and Christian was a blue belt at the time it was he was teaching at a place called fight house which

was this awesome like you know like 90s early 2000s you know warehouse area down on fashion avenue

in Manhattan off of like between 7th and 8th and it was like like two basketball courts wide but

like there's the sombo guys over here there was the collie guys over there there was a wing chun

over there was Jiu Jitsu in the corner and Hensel's was one of the most famous academies in the world

at that time still is and I just didn't know what Hensel Gracie was and I mean it's a great gym

and it's a fantastic place for people to train but I think what was right for me at the time was to

I stumbled into you know like a two person elevator up and found a place where six people

trained at that time and I had someone that that I could that could give me some like in addition

to martial arts advice like personal guidance and that made a that made a big difference and then

when initially we would have like competitions or like intra intra you know gym competitions with

the sombo guys we would compete we would roll with them and like again it was great because they were

just a bunch of like like Russian dudes from like Brighton Beach and they would come down

and then we would all fight and then everyone would train and we'd all drink tea and then go home

and anyway what was Russian it was super super tough and they were like again just a tough group

of people it was great and then I remember when I decided after like four or five months my men

I really want to try to take this seriously and I told Christian about that and he's like well hey

I think you need to do the following and it was you know like hey here's there was a guy named

Jeff Ruth who was a purple belt at the time which was a much bigger deal than there's now but was

10 and 0 as an MMA fighter a lot of amateur box spirit super tough dude and Jeff was the was the

best person at that time that I'd ever trained with and I just got squashed Christian used to beat

me up too but like Jeff would just absolutely kick the crap out of me and I was like this is awesome

and this was back when I was at home I went home for the summer for that and Chris was like hey I

think you should stay because I told him that's what I was thinking and this was a coach that

you know when it's like when initially was exactly what I needed and then he's like well hey that's

not what I'm doing here maybe they're going to be able to help you onto a path that's that's kind

of commensurate with what your goals are at the moment and then you know that was an that was an

interesting thing and I really got I feel that I was fortunate to start um at a place where my

coach was able to transition role and and and do so comfortably and I think that that also was

probably a factor the fact that you know where he'd done some of his training prior like there

have been issues with with the coach there we're like not supporting not having the support you

know feeling like hey like I'm going to hold on to my students I'm going to hold on to my best

guy or my best girl even if I can't take them where they need to go um so that was an interesting

thing and just recognizing also though that the people like the same way you're an individual

going into a gym and you don't know what you're getting into your coach is a person too and and

he or she you know they may have been doing this activity longer than you but they're not they're

not some weird little you know all knowing god they don't know anything they're gonna they may

say something that pisses you off they may bum they may yell at you they may help you they may

inadvertently cause you some sort of you know some sort of issue and just being able to recognize

that even though I say this to people and I've said this to people in my gym I'm like

you know we're in the service industry man but I'm not at your service like don't get it twisted

like I will absolutely do my best to help people I'm there to do my best as a martial arts coach

but I'm here to do my best as a martial arts coach and I'll do my best and periodically I make

mistakes and I own apology or two and I'll try to give them out when I can but we're not McDonald's

it's not oh you gave me a hundred bucks so you do whatever you want in here this is my house this is

my gym this is my dojo this is this is a martial arts this is not a basketball team yeah there's

something beautiful about martial arts like exactly as you said is the coach like in wrestling and at

least collegiate like high level wrestling is like there's a dictatorship aspect to a coach

that is very important to have like this this ridiculous sometimes nature of like master

and so on and bowing all these traditions there's something it seems ridiculous from the outside

perhaps but there's something really powerful to that because that process of you said why not of

letting go of the leap of faith requires you to believe that the coach has your best interest

in mind and just give yourself over to their ideas of how how you should grow and that's an

interesting thing I mean I've never been able to really see coaches I've had as human they're always

you always it's like a father figure or like this you always put them in this position of power and

I think that's I think at least for me it's been a very it's been a very useful way to see the

coach because it allows you to not think and let go and really allow yourself to grow and

emotionally deal with all the beatings they'll push you were passed oftentimes where you would

have stopped yourself right which is great and then hopefully they know they if they're paying

attention and they're they're still a person they can make mistakes but they'll push you

further than you would have gone but not so far that it's not facilitative right right that's

something that I can say like for us a hobby the head coach at tri star what my head coach for

MMA Kenny Florian one of the head coaches for MMA have both been phenomenal influences Paul Schreiner

who's the one of the assistants at Marcelo Garcia's Academy coached me in jiu jitsu for a long time

brilliant instructor they've all been able to do that and I think what's interesting about all of

those guys they're very sharp but they they're very intuitive as well and I think that for us

actually you know told me about some of the John Wooden said John Wooden the legendary UCLA basketball

coach just a simple philosophical idea just he said some people's life is a bowl of shit it needs

some whipped cream in it some people's life is a bowl of whipped cream needs a little bit of

shit in it just to balance it out and it's an interesting thing coaching everyone the same way

doesn't work you know that's I think the difference between a coach and an instructor and a lot of

times people think they want to coach but they really want an instructor I'm like hey like tell

me what to do not how to do it and then other times people think they want you know an instructor

and they really want to coach and I'm like man this guy's just giving me information a coach is

so much more than an instructor and that's a huge leap and that's something that I think that people

need to understand when they're going into martial arts and I understand I can totally grasp why

they don't because how would they know but uh I think about this a lot like me giving you $150

for a month which is not nothing that's for sure that does not that pays for instructor really

coach is a relationship that gets developed because can you imagine like just the amount of

emotional investment and time thinking away from from like oh Alex isn't here anymore what can I

do to help him what does he need like that's that's serious and that's the difference between

that's that's often times the difference that getting getting over the hump in various situations

so it's uh it's an interesting you know bargain that's being made like commitment by the by the

instructor who becomes a coach commitment by the student you know like there's a financial

transaction there's a lot of things going on there but I feel very fortunate to have had

not just instructors in my time but coaches and that means sometimes we butted heads and

sometimes I look back and I think I was right and other times look back in my own no they were

definitely right but there was always the trust with the exception of one time that I feel that

trust was greatly betrayed that rightly or wrongly whether mistakes mistakes will be made but

everyone is attempting to do do the right thing under no circumstances would I intentionally

do anything malicious you know versus hey I might have done I might have burnt your house down but

you can be darn sure it wasn't on purpose and I think that as long as there's that mutual understanding

and mutual belief of goodwill which again doesn't just magic up out of nowhere I understand I think

that that's when then great things can happen and I look at all the athletes that I know you know

the guys and girls that I've watched become fantastic in various places almost invariably

they it never happened alone yeah yeah I'm really torn about that like um maybe you can help have

you seen the movie whiplash so it's uh I would say from an outsider's perspective people should

watch it's a I guess jazz band of it's a movie about a drummer and the instructor and he it's

a basically I would say from the outsider's perspective it's a toxic relationship but he's

really the coach whatever we call him pushes the the musician the drummer to his limits like to where

he just feels like shit emotionally it's it it looks like a toxic relationship but it's one

that ultimately is very productive for the improvement of the musician I have the same

like in my own experience I had um I got a chance to train at a couple places regularly and so one

of my coaches uh who is a great human being a lot of people love him but when I was a blue belt he

was pushing me a lot for competition and every time I stepped on the mat I was uh uh anxious and

almost afraid of training because of like the places I'm gonna have to go and then the I can't

I don't know what's good or bad because I think I've become a better person because of that experience

like I needed that and on the flip side like the place I got my black belt from balance studios

I remember also a blue belt uh the coach sitting down and I was going to competition and he saw

something in me where he said um you know like good luck but win or lose we always love you

like I I really I remember that because I really needed that at that time like I was putting so

much pressure on myself like I'm not an actual professional competitor you know I just competed

like I'm a PhD student like but like it was clearly having a psychological effect on me

and that's what a great coach does is like you know it's like life is more important than jujitsu

since it's bigger so they find you use jujitsu when you need it to grow as a person

and when it overwhelms you you you have to pull that person out like look at the bigger picture

always look at the bigger picture it's fascinating and I don't know what to make of it I don't think

I would have it any other way is both the anxiety and the and the love yeah I think that I couldn't

that's a really interesting thing that you're describing that I guess it kind of brings me back

to a lot of the other things we've been discussing is just almost like the the reciprocal nature

of everything where no pressure that's great everyone's happy all the time it's even I mean

let's uh use an example of sci fi movies to say The Matrix which of course the first one was amazing

and then each subsequent movie made this series worse but um but basically they're working on a

new one by the way yeah I've heard we'll see I'm hoping for the best but um but basically uh you

know let's say hey we started our first initial world agent Smith says to Neo he's like our first

world was a utopia where everyone was happy and nothing ever went wrong it's like your primitive

cerebrum rejected it and I think that there's obviously I mean what do I think but I guess

well I'm here so I might as well say what I think um but I guess uh you know great things are fantastic

a kind gentle place is fantastic and this is again why I love Dune because I think Dune does

such a great job of of expressing Frank Herbert does such a great job of expressing again the

reciprocal nature of these ideas you know look at uh look at Sparta for instance or at least what I

understand is Sparta from the reading and also watching 300 um uh you know and reading the Wikipedia

and reading the Wikipedia article about the movie not the uh place um but uh it's um that's a hard

brutal place and there was their benefit to that like absolutely was their drawback to that

absolutely is it sustainable I should I would think probably not um I mean granted it hasn't

sustained but I mean that type of a of a thing it burns too hot almost and it uh it destroys the

host at a certain point and you know I guess that that type of unforgiving nature but entirely

entirely permissive has its own issues and I guess coming back to your what your description

of like describing a toxic relationship is a very dangerous and tricky thing because it's almost

like uh it's like birds eye view me it's like you know you see let's say a husband and a wife arguing

and you're like all right well sort of somebody hitting somebody I need to keep myself out of this

because I have no idea what I'm seeing something but I don't know what's going on or why specifically

and again short of it going to a place that's that just out a lot of bounce I don't know who's

right here I don't know who's wrong and I don't know what phase of this things are in so I guess

coming back and in the long term what's good for yeah the both people right it's dangerous for so

if I want to put my finger on the scale I can understand the the desire to do them like hey

guys just break it up yeah but and that may be the right thing at the time but at the same time

I'm not sure so I think back to all of the times that you know that like you mentioned your coach's

pushing you when very very hard and then other times going like hey let's put it in perspective

here I think that's an interesting thing for high performance and I think that we're seeing that

again societally you know now or at least maybe that's just pops up on my internet feed periodically

but coaches shouldn't be allowed to do this or yell at this person to yell at that person

like well have you ever been go to boxing gym it's not a commercial entity not really a real

boxing not LA boxing not a USC gym like a real place you're going to see what things are like

when it's entirely performance based go to wrestling room at a high level you know again

there's there's left and right limits and there are such things obviously is abuse of course

but and that should never be tolerated um but it's not a commercial entity I don't need to be sweet

to you if you're if you're screwing up if you're dropping the ball and in fact recognizing that

I'm not doing you a favor or the team a favor by by being permissive of that type of behavior

I think is important everything in its context and at its time is important and I guess I can

think again at the times that I've been put put or had put on me like a great deal of pressure

to do x y's a year to succeed um or to push for success and I can't look back fondly enough on

those times and they were tough at the time but without that I'm not sitting here without that

I don't go from growing up in a in a very nice family in the suburbs to fighting at the highest

level in jujitsu gi no gi and now in mixed martial arts starting a career at age 27

you know I don't it just doesn't happen because people generally speaking from that

background don't get pushed hard enough physically to be able to make that transition

and that has benefits and it has drawbacks you know when you stare into the abyss it stares

back and I think that that's an important thing to understand you know you stare long enough you

you can become something that you don't that you would be sorry that you did you don't look

enough and you don't have perspective either you know and I think that that's an interesting thing

I can speak to someone who's relative to being someone who's relatively articulate and reasonable

I try to be reasonable but you know I'll say in sparring if people get crazy with me they get a

warning and then I'ma crack them and what do they expect oh they hear the guy on a on an interview

but who did they think they were meeting because there's also the guy in the ring

and there's layers there too I remember training with you it was it's kind of funny

there's like there's well you didn't know who I was I mean you still like I have a really good

straight ankle up by the way yeah that so I don't remember what rank I was but it might have been

purple or something like that and I did some like I you had this look on your face which I've

often seen in black belts it's like here he goes again like here here's him trying this thing

and then when I kind of annoyed you a little bit with it now I get that it was a good it like I

you know I did something somewhat effective like some like maybe a little bit off balance

yeah there's I just peeled off a little layer of Ryan Hall to where I was like okay let me

let me like there there's like layers underneath there's like my Tyson's somewhere in there

like so it was like okay this like new guy rolls in here he thinks he can do the stupid thing

and then and then you started to beat the hell out of me but the the point is there's layers here

from the guy who was being interviewed now to like Genghis Khan but it's but it's all in the same

body right but it's like all of us are like that right in various different directions and recognizing

that's okay it's just there are consequences to all every choice that we make has a consequence

sometimes there's like objectively wrong or objectively right but at least in my mind that's

a pretty small box everything else is just there's a consequence to that do you like that consequence

do you not and who do I want to become what do I want to try to hone myself for anyone else into

and also like but this is something I've screwed up as a coach plenty of times you know like if

someone says if you're if like I come to like Lex I really really want to take you know research

very seriously like okay I believe you now I haven't shown you that but I believe you like okay

and now me not showing up to research or to study or not being up until three in the morning thinking

about this is no longer acceptable there was a time like five seconds before me making that statement

that if I went to bed without reading the book that I needed to read no worries but the second

that I made that statement your expectations for me changed and maybe it's something that's

something that I've screwed up a whole bunch of times in my as a teacher because it's an

interesting thing obviously you know being a like running a martial arts school is as your

principally an athlete is sometimes I don't pay enough attention to what people are doing I would

just go okay you say XYZ I'm like Roger that I believe you're cool I will now put you in category

X and whether rightly or wrongly like maybe this person didn't understand what they were asking

for or I didn't express this or the other and it just it caused cross wires and then most

times you just you hash it out you have a discussion you figure out get to the bottom of

what people are trying to do or what they want but uh if I was paying more attention I think I

could have been a lot more effective or if I had more experience and sometimes maybe I'm not sharp

enough or I don't I'm not perceptive enough to be able to to see what's going on and maybe with

years more down the line I'll be able to have a sharper perception but uh I think that's another

one of those interesting things that some that sometimes I would caution or not caution but

just inform a prospective martial arts student depending upon where you're going um you know

this you both you and also your coach or other people in the room they wear many hats and sometimes

there's a I had the wrong hat on you were talking to me as Lex the guy I didn't realize you were

talking to me I thought you were talking to me as Lex the guy I didn't realize you're talking to me

as Lex the martial artist I'm like oh crap I was talking to the wrong person so it's almost like if

you had a like I run my gym with my wife she's a black belt so she's my wife she's my peers as a

martial artist uh in jiu jitsu he's here by the way in judging so exactly all right well all right

so but but a fellow black belt and I guess like another she doesn't have a microphone so you can't

hear all the trash she's talking exactly but it can be tough and that's something we've had to work

through a lot and it's like looking back and it's like now being where I'm at now and it's easy for

me to say that because she's in the room and I don't want to stab me just continue to slowly

poison me over time yeah um which frankly I understand um you know it's it's the sort of thing

that that is now way more effective than anything else I could really reasonably expect to have

but there were times when when both of us you know were justifiably annoyed at the other because

of crossed wires and sometimes you know you just have disagreement anywhere or misunderstanding

anyway but again like I've I coach some of my friends I've coached I've coached my friend who

I've known since I was four years old you know sometimes I don't go hey buddy how you doing

sometimes like what the fuck are you doing put your hand over there how many times we talked

about this and then you walk away and you can see him look at your crooked and you're like oh

crap oh yeah he thought I was talking to his friend yeah well all right let we need to talk this one

out hashing out and not he's wrong how could he possibly think that way like oh no I totally

understand that but if I was 22 but doesn't need no I'm a purple belt some nonsense like that and

it's and it doesn't come from a bad place but it's just I guess that comes back to society to anything

people only have the perspective that they have and the awareness that we have and so again going

back and going hey guys grace like I don't expect it's not fair for me to go I'd fight UFC why

doesn't this guy who came in as an attorney understand how hardcore this needs to be and

like how could he and at the same time though if if I'm using the language of someone that is

interested in at least performance from a martial arts perspective I understand how that could be

off putting let's say for instance someone that's like all of that would be out of bounds in their

normal workplace but if they think of the gym as my office then whether they agree or disagree with

what's going on they go okay I hear why I see why that might have happened let's talk about this

and we can again all push forward in a positive direction that benefits I guess everyone's journey

throughout the activity and now on top of all that there's moods okay I mean especially lately

uh I think two days ago maybe yesterday no two days ago I've never been that cranky in my life

I think I don't know what it was but I wanted to tell everybody how much they annoyed me

it was like I was just very conscious of this feeling of like why why is this happening right

now so I consciously decided as I usually do in those cases to not say anything to anybody

how do you do that uh well I you know it's uh it's yeah meditate because it's not I tend to

to I tend to then visualize what's going to happen in the next like how's this going to make my life

better like if I say something that mean to somebody else I have uh just started a conflict

that will just escalate will continue will add more conflict to my life it'll make things I just

don't like the feeling it will create and so you live enough life to know that like uh it's just like

with like street fighting you know I I would get into a lot of fights when I was younger just on

the street but then you realize like it's not like a jiu jitsu match or something like that it's not

it'll escalate it'll it'll might come back at you it'll like that person might find you again but

more importantly the anxiety of it of having created little enemies in this world distorts the

way you see the world so I've noticed that like if I am shitty to people on the internet which I

haven't been I think in a long time is like it it somehow brings the shittiness to you more and more

it escalates like the more love you put out there the more like the people who put love out like

surround you when you mentioned forgiveness as well like you said you give hope it's like I

guess back to the original you know the holocaust survivor scenario we're like oh my god like you

think of the ultimate in like I've never experienced one one billionth of that level of of pain and

horror and it's like and I can't let this little thing go you know I guess that's an interesting

thing I think you're just making the point in your personal life I guess the same way right

yeah they're yeah and on the internet it's hard I've somehow gotten I mean you've you've had a

level of celebrity for a while I've recently gotten some level of like celebrity and like these

people who are just shitty for no reason come out from all from all places like calling me a

fraud or anything else I mean it's a giant silent bob strike back they find out a movie is going to

be made about them and people talking shit on the internet and they're like what's the internet and

then someone shows them and they're like what and they go to a message board and they go to

Hollywood to try to stop it from being made and they eventually get money for their likeness and

they use the money to buy plane tickets and fly around and beat the shit out of all the people

that talk bad about them yeah it's tough I mean it's uh I'm having trouble with it because there's

people like yeah there's you know there's posts and forums and like heated discussions about

his legs for even a fraud I don't know what has he really done and there's like and then there's

people like well I think he's an alright guy but I'm not sure like like there's like literal

discussions and I'm like like nobody like if you increase the level of celebrity there's going to

be like one of the things that hurts my heart a little bit is like some level of toxicity around

Joe Rogan for example there's like communities of people that now like talk about him selling out

for example all that kind of stuff and I don't you know and Joe I've talked to him about it is

amazing that he uh he says don't read the comments he legitimately doesn't read the comments his heart

and his soul doesn't give a damn about the comments all he gives a damn about is his friends like one

of the things that's really inspiring to me and that's I've had a conversation with him offline

about Spotify and the removed episodes people are curious what's Spotify it's it's a thing on the

internet where I think you can play Taylor Swift songs on I'll write that down but you can also

now play Joe Rogan podcast oh cool and they gave him a hundred million dollars so that that's

uh you know that's awesome for Joe it's yeah but the thing I've had a discussion with him

and I made a video about it that I took down because the toxicity is like it's hard to put

into words but he will give away the hundred million in a second if he ever has to compromise

who he is like he doesn't I mean he already said as he talked about he's made quote unquote fuck

you money a long time ago he doesn't need any more money he doesn't care it's nice to have money

whatever but like he'll give it away so the it's nice to see when people like him at a level of

celebrity level of success and financial success don't change at all they're just the same thing

that makes you happy is talking in his case talking shit with his friends in the case of most of us

really just just hanging out with friends doing the things you love in his case doing the things

he loves without any like you know the texas way the freedom like without any corporate bureaucracy

bullshit that rolls in and says well maybe you shouldn't say fuck you know like more than 20

times a podcast or something like that like those kinds like rules like people like he says in a

suit and tie they show up and say stuff oddly enough people that could never have done what he

does yeah exactly and it's kind of inspiring to see that and I hope people I hope people realize

how special of a human he is he's inspired like people like me like I'm just I'm a scientist right

so he inspired somebody like me from a very different walk of life to be like kind to others

to be open minded I don't know that uh it's a special dude so like people need to support that

and treasure that as opposed to uh as opposed to be toxic about it if I mean what uh because people

really for a long time have told me that it would be awesome if Ryan Hall's on goes on Joe Rogan I

definitely think that would be an awesome thing had have you listened to Joe has he been a part of

your life in some kind of way um you know well Joe's always I'm never watching Joe on Fear Factor

when I was a little kid which is cool so I've actually gotten a like from a from a bird's eye

view watch you know his his kind of just path through life yeah but one of the things that that I

always appreciate and again I barely know Joe other than to shake his hand he interviewed me after

the uh briefly in the ring after the BJ Pan fight but um one of the things that I've always admired

about Joe is that I think he had fucking money from the start I think that zero dollars is fucking

money for Joe I think and that's something I respect about him a great deal um because as you

say it's interesting to watch it's like you you hope that uh George St. Pierre's like this it's

really not I'm not super close to George but we're teammates at TriStar and he's never been anything

but a gentleman is one of those people that if you didn't know George was famous when you walk

in the gym you'd never know idea he's not holding court not doing it he's just you know training

and how about an amateur doing this if you have a question for him he'll help me like I'm nobody

man he would give me advice and train me it was super cool and he didn't kill me which I really

appreciated he's a gentleman but uh you know it's like you you meet someone and you go man I'm so

it's so cool that this is the guy who's the best that this is the guy who who's been successful and

then you go why are they successful like I said true to what they're doing they haven't changed

they're the same as they've been and I remember I got to TriStar in 2012 and George was already

already George St. Pierre but I remember watching and talking to people and they're like oh man George

is the same as he's always been and it's neat I see him in the gym training now and again giving

advice now and it seems like Joe has always been consistent and it's neat to watch someone

not compromise on their values and not change who they are and not you know periodically like you

know again we all make mistakes like you have a bad day or this or that and an apology needs to

be issued or even my bad or this or that and you're like yeah they just move on that they're

not afraid to be themselves and they're not afraid to be wrong they're not afraid to make a mistake

as you as you mentioned open mind and some like so what are the correct beliefs to have about this

that I know going in everyone's going to be okay with what I'm saying which is usually the beginning

of a conversation that's going to go nowhere right and it's neat to see the things I guess

that he's created on his own as a result of the authenticity that's there and it reminds me of

like Dave Chappelle and again I've never met Dave but it's neat to see someone that's clearly

again authentic in their own way doing their own thing and they're because of that they're above

the corporate nonsense but what's funny I think the message behind all of it is hey guys we all

are I can't promise you that I'm gonna have money Joe couldn't promise you that he's gonna have money

now it ended up working out but he was above that nonsense from the jump and he just continued

to be above it by never giving it any mind and just going like yeah I'm gonna be a reasonable

person I'm gonna try to learn I'm gonna try to grow and if I say something annoying you can come

and talk to me about it we can get to the bottom of it and I'm like if I need to say my bad thanks

appreciate it now you know I will and if I don't need to I'm like hey I still appreciate the talk

thanks man shake your hand and we carry on and we go our separate ways and hopefully I'll treat

you with respect you treat me with respect and and that's about it and I guess I think it's a

lesson that it can work out no matter what you don't have to count out to like these weird powers

that be and whether you're at this level or at this level but you can live your life the way

that you want and as you mentioned talk to your friends hang out be happy and it just so happens

that that resonates with people it actually reminds me of like speaking at MIT and being in Boston

is like a goodwill hunting you know like again that's what do you really want to do he could

have gone this way he could have gone that way and it was an interesting story but it's like

this person wants to hang out with his buddies and wants to do other things and again happens to

be brilliant and happens to be able to do all these other things but there was I guess it's

like at least in my mind a story of authenticity as well and it was both the same thing in the

Robin Williams character and I just think that that's a message because watch watching things

occur on the internet as they do now things so many things playing out in the public eye

I feel like so many private or otherwise formally private discussions and disputes and you know

interactions now become they all have a well what is this going to say when it goes public

so how can I couch what I'm saying or how can I word this in a way that's going to get people on

my side or use the right buzzwords or not use the wrong buzzwords and it's just neat to see people

you know in their own way flip the bird to that because I just think that that's that's just

not how a human being is meant to think or interact I'm curious what you think about

the thing that recently it has you know me like hosting this podcast I sometimes think about like

who should I talk to and not in terms of like it's the the old Hitler question now Hitler

I would definitely talk to because post world war two because everyone knows he's evil the question

whether you talk to Hitler in 1937 like when people who are really students of what's going on

understand that this is a very dangerous human being but large number of part of the world

they're like well he's a leader who cares for Germany so the question I have it's interesting

to me it involves a particular person named who also lives in Austin Texas named Alex Jones I

don't know if you're familiar with the guy I am familiar with mr. Jones I've actually recently

just listened to info wars like one episode of his show I guess he does every day and it kind of

remind me of a time in college when I drank too much tequila like there's no turning back like

no it's like like the the mistakes you make that like it it's I mean you don't know where you're

going to wake up you don't know who you're going to kill or not kill or steal or rob it's it's

unclear so that that it felt like I was getting pulled into a dark place where pretty much everybody

is a pedophile that's trying to control the world so Bill Gates definitely is a pedophile everybody

in power anybody in power there's a kind of a deep skepticism about power and a conspiratorial way

to see the world where everything is like dark forces in all corners it's like the way you

feel when you're a kid that there's a monster hiding in the closet which is also why you leap

over the bed from like four feet away there's a strategy yes so but he says that you're just

being weak you need to look under the bed under the bed there's monsters and we need to be aware

of them because they're growing they're multiplying you should be and they're touching children

they're touching children exactly so it all connects but the the I when I listened to him

and I thought about like do I want to talk to him on this podcast for example

when I listened to his conversation with Joe Rogan the two times he talked on there to me it was

somehow entertaining like it was fun to listen to it's fun to listen to a madman go on for

four hours because it's almost like theater like this is what I talked to Joe about when people

try to censor Alex Jones Joe says that the people who try to censor him don't give enough credit to

the intelligence of human beings to like understand like that like what a person says on a large

platform does not necessarily is not the truth you can be a madman and say crazy things and

people are intelligent enough to hear certain things when they're said like the earth is flat

they can they can be intelligent enough not to all of a sudden start believing that the earth is

flat like they they're intelligent enough to sort of select different ideas and be able to enjoy

the theater of a particular ridiculous over the top conversation without being sort of influenced

to where they start believing like toxic set of beliefs now there's a lot of sort of other kinds

of people especially now with cancer culture that say well you don't want to give platform to crazy

people that that ultimately whose beliefs might lead to dangerous consequences like and I see it

very often now with conspiracy theories that go that go like way too far like for example

would I I'm not I haven't looked into it so I'm sorry I will look into it but it hurts my heart

to see that on Bill Gates in my opinion the person who has saved and improved more lives than

probably any human in history literally because of the money he's invested in helping like just

just the work he's done on like malaria in Africa the number of people he's helped is huge and yet

every interview anything you see now on Bill Gates everyone is calling him I believe haven't

looked into it but I believe everyone's calling him a pedophile I don't know the full structure of it

but it's it's just a very it feels like an army of like it feels like it's hundreds of thousands

of people that's what it feels like it might be a much smaller percentage but it feels like a huge

number of people are calling him a pedophile so that's the that's the flip side if you allow if

you give platform to conspiracy theories like that then you start to have bigger and bigger

percent of the population believe in these crazy things I just I wanted to put it out there because

I don't know what to think of that if you put yourself in Joe Rogan shoes if you put yourself

in my shoes if you put yourself just in your own shoes I mean I'm even I'm in my shoes right now

great if you're staying your shoes just stay in your shoes can I have your wish would you talk

would you give platform to people like Alex Jones would would you talk to somebody like

Alex Jones or or not yes I would and I feel very strongly about this honestly

well I think that it's it's an interesting thing and I would just say a lot of times I can understand

you know very very clearly why people would take issue with the idea of I guess what they

proceed to be amplifying this man's voice this man's reach you know as a demonstrable negative

but I think you know when you take a step back further the the cure is more damaging than the

disease and significantly so I guess I think that I'm very very wary of I think being where

you mentioned Alex Jones being wary of power and people with it that's a lot of times there's a lot

of truth and validity to crazy things that people say it's the conspiracy theories that stick

are the ones that sound credible at least quasi credible in some aspect and it's almost like

it seems to me like an anchor in people's mind and it is also funny to me obviously the the

Bill Gates it's so funny to tar people with things like pedophile racist rapist like these are

things that we're basically trying to pick words that no one can ever support someone who does these

things yeah and that's you know and that changes year by year like currently pedophile is totally

in as a thing to call somebody just just as a it used to be communist or marxist Cleveland

Browns fan you know like come on you know who actually nobody likes the brown so I'll agree

with you that was that's why I picked on that's the trick is you find a group of people that

nobody likes we're good here all right that's the move but uh yeah that's a creepy thing though

because that is that is the creepy thing it's like people are always looking for groups of

people are always looking for and I find this really deeply disturbing um like hey so who's

the guy that we can all get away with you know just treating like dirt who's the guy that I

can be a dick to I can just walk up and punch in the face and no one's gonna say anything yeah and

it's even if I you know people do that with whether it's literal Nazis or someone that I

called Nazi you know I guess what's the bigger issue this person's ridiculous beliefs or what

I'm doing and you mentioned Hitler before and obviously Mein Kampf being a you know like the

outline for some of the things they did later and when the evil was it always there did it did

it take root later on or flourish later on but was was Adolf Hitler a problem because he had

crazy ideas or because he did things I think it's because it's not I think I know it's because he

did things now if I'm gonna start punishing thought crime I I'm gonna have to start punishing

thought crime and that's a terrifying concept even if I'm right about the certain about the

objectively correct about the things that I decide to call out of bounds who put me in charge and

made me arbiter of good taste and how long until I decide that something else is is out of bounds

it's it's always a sliding scale or it's always a sliding standard and I find that that you know to

be more of a concern than people doing crazy things because I guess if you mention Alex Jones you

know putting out ridiculous ridiculous ideas ridiculous theories I think that most people

don't look at Alex Jones as a credible person now I'm not going to pretend to be deeply read

into all of his beliefs or the things that he's trying to pedal but there's plenty of things

that are quasi mainstream that I think on with this side or that side that maybe not comparably

ridiculous but are yeah you know particularly in hindsight or you know are we're not or silly

and I guess the idea of of getting a group of people together to decide what we're not going

to tolerate is a very very tricky thing and I think that you know it reminds me of law or you know

even you know religion when it gets to like what are the things that we don't like how do we feel

about rape it's like no under no circumstances is that an acceptable behavior murder no that's

not acceptable behavior killing no kind of depends on the situation are you at war were you justified

were you acting in self defense okay so it's not now murder is a specific type of killing

the same way you know other things should be a specific type of something else but I guess we

we draw the line of murder we say if you want to exist in our society you can't do this this

cannot be done and then we go theft if someone said hey I murdered that guy can you understand

where I'm coming from I might say yeah I'll hear you out doesn't mean that I think you're right

but I'm like have you ever been wronged so deeply that you could imagine that you could kill someone

I'm like no I haven't but I could conceptualize someone doing that and I'm like yeah okay and

you still need to go you still need to face you know criminal justice as we have it in our system

at least that's how we've decided yeah there's it's interesting you have to be able to like

there's if you look at the history of discourse in this country I think it's still true but I'm

not sure it's changed since 9 11 is it used to be impossible to criticize a soldier it was easier

to criticize war it was harder to criticize soldiers for allowing themselves to be the tools of war

I tend to be maybe it's the Russian upbringing it's the it's the combat thing I tend to romanticize

war and soldiers I see soldiers as heroes but I've also heard people that not only say that

soldiers are the war is bad they say soldiers are bad what's their argument it's it's the kind of a

libertarian view that they're basically slaves to evil right war is evil and they're they're given

they are suspending their moral and ethical like as like duties as a human being to become the

tools of evil that's sort of the argument if you see war is evil I mean I think it's useful to hear

that but there's for a long part in history that was completely unacceptable same with abortion

you see abortion as murder I mean if I classified in that if I put it in that in that basket

it starts we're living in the midst of like a genocide looked at from that perspective

could you feel how people could be deeply upset by abortion you go of course looked at from a

different perspective you say I don't believe it to be murder that's not how I see it then you go

oh well if that's the genesis of your your thought process then you're like yeah okay now now I see

how we can come to a different thing but I guess we go well abortion is murder period therefore if

you support it you support murder that's a convenient way for me to tar you right but I guess

that's kind of coming back to the alex jones I'm this nuance it's uh you have to have the nuance

in these kinds of conversations and I have to be willing to have the conversation and I have to

be willing to sit down if I can't sit down across from like the most violently racist angry hypothetical

internet you know conceived person that none of us have ever actually met in real life but or hopefully

not um you know and go like well of course I believe that this person's wrong but allow me to

change do my best I'll hear him out and I'll go no I can go point by point explain where this guy

or this girl is wrong and hopefully bring them over to a more reasonable position where they will

have better beliefs and they will like objectively better beliefs and beliefs that will will and they'll

treat other people better why would I want to marginalize this person I might not want to talk

I might not want to invite them to my barbecue if they're acting like a jerk all the time but

how could I would it not make the world a better place if I'd hear them out and they go look if

you're gonna sit down and talk with me we're gonna have to have a discussion I'll hear what you have

to say and if I can't if I can't explain to someone why their ridiculous belief is wrong

then I might I must not be so confident in my position and I guess that's where I come back

to the Alex Jones thing as you mentioned you know with uh with Bill Gates and and you're much

more familiar with with the specifics of all the good that he's done but you know again he's been

an unbelievable force for good you know in this world you can list a b c d things that the man

has has done this foundation has done and you know positive things and then the other people

could speculate about ridiculous crazy levels of of evil but you can't produce any evidence for

that sort of thing because if you could the man will find himself in trouble you know and anyway

I guess what I would would say is that why you can't force me to accept the truth the same way

you could write down two plus two equals four on a piece of paper and show me how it works and I

could say nah but that doesn't make it not true and you've still given yourself an opportunity

to present your case you've presented it to me and you've also for anyone listening and watching

you know you've been able to critically assess what's gone on you know or critically address

back and forth you know kind of the the discourse and I think that you almost you're making your

case for the public so I guess like you know when it comes to just never not engaging with

these people that seems to me to be cowardly and I think that that's a something that we're seeing

in society right now I think I think we're seeing a crisis of courage in society all over the place

and I think that's where we're seeing poor leadership I think we're seeing you know

understandable things happening everywhere but we need stronger voices and stronger

stronger beliefs that have a conviction and are willing to engage with others

not just turning into a shouting contest and not I didn't win because there's more of me oh I voted

I out voted you that's nice too but that's a stand in for bullets that's saying I won because

there's more of me that doesn't mean that I'm right because plenty of horrible and unpopular

now things have been very very deeply popular in the past and would have won a popular vote

does that make them right I'd say clearly not so I guess you'd hope that we engage with these people

and that you can do your best to bring them over to a more reasonable position if you believe that

you have one and if you can't well at least you made the effort and I think that that's

something where martial arts shows the value it's like do you know if you're going to go

win your next fight I'm like I have no idea I will proceed forward with with full effort and

and you know I will fight with dignity I'll fight with honor and I'll fight with courage

and I'll use everything that I have and I will play within the bounds of the game and that's that

and the result will be what it'll be but I'll walk into and out of that ring with my head

hell high because I will know that I did my part I did my job the outcome the specific outcome is

not in my control it's just strongly in my influence and and I think that that's something

that helped me that martial arts has taught me because other times even when I was successful

or unsuccessful I would focus on if I won I'm I won therefore I'm good I lost therefore I'm bad

this other guy won or lost therefore as opposed to evaluating their method and I think it's so easy

when we're taking a bird's eye view of things to not evaluate how someone's doing things you're not

evaluating my process you're simply evaluating my outcome and I could have stumbled into something

very very good or very very bad and we can look back and I think that's the value of history I mean

I don't mean to get on my dang high horse but it's like this evaluate histories we can see the

unbroken chain or the chain of events that led us somewhere and then only with only with the eyes

of history can we truly evaluate things unless we're in the room watching it happen and I guess

that's again where we start to go most of the big bad scary things that have happened in history

that are done particularly on an industrial scale which implies governmental power and

things like that or these the equivalent involve groups of people getting together and going hey

we're not going to deal with that guy giant groups of people so maybe we're right this time

but maybe we're wrong next time and I guess I would be back to the Gandalf putting on the one

ring I would be very very hesitant even if we thought we were in the right to simply try to

try to marginalize just on general principle even people like Alex Jones whom on their face

are pretty ridiculous like you said you should sit down with Adolf Hitler and talk to the man

I agree with you to play a little devil's advocate please is Alex Jones might be a bad example but

if we look at because he has a face he is a human he's a real person there is also trolls on the

internet for Chan the worry I have with those folks is that and there might be parallels to

martial arts is they practice guerrilla warfare meaning they don't necessarily want to arrive

at the truth they just always want to cut at the ankles of the powerful like they want to always

break down the powerful and even if they I mean it's they turn everything into a game so they

let's see if we can make the world let's see if we can make a trend that Bill Gates is a pedophile

right they make it into a game they get excited about this game they see the powerful let's see

if we can convince that like who is the most positive person we can think of let's see if we

can turn them into evil and they've tried that would like would like everybody and and it seems

to stick and they're good at it you know some would argue whatever you think about our current

president that he has some elements of that which is he's figured out whatever this music

of social discourse that's going on he's figured out how to always troll the mainstream

like flow of consciousness that's the the media he always kind of says stuff that annoys a very

large number of people and he enjoys that because it's like taking the powerful taking the way things

were before and he like shakes it up by saying the most inappropriate thing almost on purpose or

instinctually and so on the problem I have with that is that doesn't the powerful thing there is

it brings the power the those in power down a notch that's a great thing the negative thing is it

doesn't push us closer to a nuanced careful rigorous discourse towards truth it's like showing up to

a party and just like starting to yell it doesn't create a good conversation it just makes everything

it just makes everything into a game where truth doesn't even seem like a thing we can even hope

to achieve that makes sense and I guess as you mentioned we'll come back to another movie because

I don't do books and do movies some people just want to watch the world burn right and I guess

there's that's a creepy creepy you know kind of urge that some people have and then also is some

people you're like hey would you like to throw a brick through that glass window you're like yeah

I'm not gonna do that because I think about what's going to what's gonna what's gonna occur like

something's gonna be hurt someone's property not gonna do it versus hey you want to see what'll

happen like yeah sure you know kids are always like my son he's grabbed spider man and dropped

small table spider man fell my spider man didn't fall Sean like he dropped him you knocked him

off the table and he'll grin and basically you know it's an interesting thing like you said

like playing that Pete these people are appealing to and you know and also almost like the little

dog factor of like I people do want to watch the powerful get taken down a notch for all the good

and the not good of that just plenty of people it seems to me that have found their way to incredibly

high positions some some have just found themselves there and many many many many many people you

know men and women of all backgrounds are brilliant and have worked hard and yeah of course there's

luck and there's there's luck into everything they're you know LeBron James in spite of being

the best basketball player on God's green earth is fortunate that he didn't get hit by a car you

know it's fortunate they didn't tear his knee you know but thankfully we get to see all these things

you know but um I guess uh it's if people don't have any skin in the game you never know what

they're gonna do and I think that's the problem with the internet you know that people get to be

nameless be faceless that's why guerrilla fighters are outside of the bounds of war like you don't

have a uniform on like I don't know who you're from you don't get the same treatment that a soldier

gets um for and people well that's crazy I'm actually there's reasons for this because otherwise

people are able to assail things and there's no there's no one responsible there's no way to go

and say hey where's where did this come from what's the root of this what how can I address this

and I think that's the problem of the internet's problem of twitter this problem places like

4chan I wouldn't mind seeing that type of stuff go away if I'm frank but that's not the same thing

as people with a face people with people who are willing to stand there and say hi my name is so and

so even if I have ridiculous beliefs hopefully you know people will hear me out and then if I'm

wrong educate me but uh I guess you hope that the real I guess in my mind antidote to all of this

silliness is education and and I think that that's something that we're you know critical thinking

is is not necessarily I went to school in America and you know I feel very fortunate but critical

thinking is not something that's that's focused on I mean and it's it's tough it's almost like

talking about jujitsu it's tough to teach critical thinking when I don't know any words you have to

teach me techniques you can't teach me to be an artist but recognize that the techniques are the

beginning not the end ultimately it's the artistry that we are searching for not just the not just

the science or there are the biorote memorization and I guess you know you'd hope that people's

ability to think critically and recognize that majority rule or whoever's loudest does not

mean that they're right by any stretch of the imagination and we don't appeal to that and we

don't bow to that will help them to help inoculate them against the ridiculous things that come out

of these places these dark places that that are objectively not great but the I guess all circling

back if even if we swatted these you know these bad things out of existence right now we've got

to be very very careful doing that because it's who's doing the swatting this political group

that's in power right now the people that support a current president would maybe feel a certain way

the people that support another option would feel differently as to what exactly defines toxic and

you know I guess that that's what gives me pause yeah and but also the grace thing I tend to believe

that the technology you said education but the the platforms we use like twitter and the reddit

and all these platforms have a role to play to teach us grace meaning they they should help us

incentivize the kind of behavior that is incentivized in real life like being a dick

in real life is not incentivized like one on one interaction like there's cases where it is but

usually being kind to each other is incentivized on the internet it's not like you get likes for

being for mocking people in a funny in a humorous way and it could be dark kind of mocking depending

on the community you can go you can go to the appearance if somebody's a little fat or a little

too skinny you can comment on their appearance the hair the way the hair looks like the appearance

stuff it could be on the people comment all the time on the level of eloquence of my speech

go fuck yourself I like it it's creepy though watching watching previously like this used to

be lowbrow though like people doing this type of stuff it's creepy watching like our political

figures get into this type of game yes but again it's a little bit refreshing right it's the

my hope with Donald Trump was is that he would shake up the the people who wear suits usually

the like if you're from DC I remember like showing up I actually didn't wear what I usually wear in

DC because I was like everybody's wearing a suit and tie when I was like giving talks and stuff

except for much who wears jeans and a t shirt doesn't give a damn much is a forever renegade

but I don't even remember what oh yeah so my hope with Trump was the huge shake up that system to

say like like to inject new ideas to inject new energy of course the way it turned out

is different but like there's a it turns out that you might want to have somebody who's like like

an Andrew Yang type character who is is full of ideas that are very different and inject the energy

new energy into the system through youthful new ideas versus through the troll that like

that's very good at sort of mocking and like playing outside the the rules of the game

but Trump did reveal powerfully I don't know what to think of it that it's just a game

and you don't have to play by the rules that's both inspiring and dark deeply depressing right

yeah and I don't know what to do with it I don't I mean the same I'm not drawing parallels

not drawing parallels between our president and Adolf Hitler but it's certainly and there's a lot of

in history a lot of positive and a lot of negative things happen when charismatic leaders

realize they don't have to play by the rules you can just flip the table it's the that

Kevin Spacey show oh house cards house of cards where you just flip the table or whatever you

don't have to play by the rules of the chess game you can flip the table one wonders if that's

always been done in private you know I guess because that's I mean even look obviously in

the United States is a is a republic but we had we had bush then we had Clinton then we had more

bush then we had President Obama then we were about to have another Clinton that's fairly creepy

yeah even on its own but now we added another I mean I'm sure we'll have a generation of Trump's

no gee we uh you know I'm Russian so I think we humans like kings still and queens there's something

we're attracted to the the thing we talked about coaches there's something in us that

longs to towards that authoritarian control one of the beautiful things about America

the second amendment is we also like individual freedom that's one of the one of the unique

aspects at the founding of this country and still and for me is the beacon of hope that

somehow there's the fire of freedom burns in there like that Texas feel that gives me hope

that f u energy that revolts against the power which as we discussed power corrupts and ultimately

leads to sort of degradation of the whoever's ruling the people it's interesting though like it

seems to me maybe I'm just I don't know if I'm reading this properly when I when I see it but

it's it seems to me that that like you said that that you know flip the bird I'm going to do me

within reason like as long as I'm not hurting you uh is idea that that very much at least in my

mind defines the American ideal or at least part of the consciousness of the United States

is is under attack to a certain extent you know um and if only like I can think to like you know

maybe generation behind us um it's it's becoming more collectivist you know for all the good and

also the not good of that and it's uh you know not in not in term not not in terms of policy at this

point but just in terms of like uh consciousness and I wonder if that's a an internet thing you

know people are more in touch with one another than they've as far as I'm can tell who've ever

been or at least more than in my lifetime and uh you know the rest of the world seems much closer

than it did you know living in Virginia California seems very far away being on the internet it's

just right there I can hear about it I can see it I can I can interact with people from there

you know I remember uh you know being in Tennessee at uh you know one time and then and reading about

you know events taking place in you know the Middle East and that just seemed like a mile away

seemed like a unbelievably far distance and then another time when you're in DC you just feel like

oh you read about something happening in Paris and it just feels like it's just right around the

corner because DC is a seat of a a seat of power where things are just occurring all the time and

you know I guess you you wonder about that's where I come back to the group decisions to

not listen to this person or to cancel this or to you know we all the moral majority shall do the

following as opposed to as long as you're not hurting me and long as you're not hurting anyone

else I have to let you do I have to let you be on general principle even if I don't like you I'm

very free to not like you I'm free to speak out against you but I'm not it is not within my right

or and not with it and it's not I I would not be right to attempt to attack you and that is an

interesting thing though when we see words being redefined or words being defined whether it's

toxicity whether it's violence if I think that what you're saying is is your speech is by itself

you know a violence or a precursor to violence I'm justified in doing all sorts of things you

know and and that creeps me out significantly because again even if it ends up being pointed

in a good direction initially it's only a matter of time and actually that brings me to another

dune oh yeah I got all day um how much are they paying you but we about say the uh the

frank herbert estate not enough frankly uh let's see and how many books are there in dune uh that's

a gen question you also have I read the whole series but not a couple of the I read all the

prequels as well with the exception of a couple is there a book one for dune dune would be book one

and even the prequels it's still all better if you start like I read dune and then read the

original what is it six and then I went back and started to read some things just like watching

star wars you want to start at episode four whatever yeah I think so that's the way that's

the move and then stop at six call it a day watch the Mandalorian but well I thought you're not

walking back you're no I like the Mandalorian yeah that is what I said I was told that I was

harmless for not liking baby Yoda boy we don't talk about a couple of the movies not including the

Mandalorian the Mandalorian's fine it's the more recent movies that we don't like to talk about

oh the what's his name the goofy guy uh Ryan no no no the creature the goofy creature with the

jar jar yeah jar jar yeah do you ever see the the the jar jar banks is actually like the dark lord

of the sith theory that fixed the whole initial trilogy we're like he's he's like goofing around

and like making it all the way through battles and winning are like wait a minute he oops his way

he walks over to a pool does a triple back flip falls in you're like it's just bizarre that he's

the this is the alex jones theory of of star wars he's actually running everything he was the one

that actually was like hey we should vote in chancellor chancellor palpatine or senator palpatine

like right before they put jar jar in charge first off what did they think was going to happen

and second off that was I would think that'd be great you're like oops oh man I guess he's the

emperor now that would have been great but actually to the to the cancel and all the other stuff again

it's just like you'd hope that it gives pause and I think about this for fighting because a lot of

times I'll use this example people and people like fight fans and you know like UFC they love

people that run out and try to murder each other and it's entertaining and it's super entertaining

but you know Floyd Mayweather doesn't resonate with people as much it's like people started I

remember the time when Floyd was not as popular now people think people love Floyd because

he's 50 and oh Floyd and oh man finally he had so much success that we all can't help but recognize

the man's genius and greatness but prior to that oh he's boring he's this he's that he fights you

know with he's circumspect he's cautious he's he's pressing he's intelligent deeply intelligent and

when you watch people go out and try to murder each other you can flip a coin a hundred times and

you know you can get you could be lucky enough to get a hundred heads but it's still a coin flip

and I think that that's what's going on all the time is you know people are getting an outcome

that they want but it wasn't a well thought out situation and that's why you'll win by five in a

row by knockout and then lose three in a row and then people will go well what happened to that guy

he used to be so great and you're like no he's doing what he's always been doing it's just it was

getting great outcomes on a coin flip prior and it's getting negative outcomes on a coin flip now

but uh I guess what I would say is it watches it's interesting watching you know I guess

this societal beliefs become such a thing that we're almost adopting on a religious level if

we're not careful if if when I say religious level I mean like like pan life like this is

guiding all of my choices for all the good and the bad of that and this is a dune quote is

when religion and politics travel in the same car the writers believe that nothing can stand in their

way their movements become headlong faster and faster and faster they put aside all

thoughts of obstacles and forget that the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush

until it's too late and I think that that's again the the pause we go oh man thank goodness we have

this guy that wants to rebuild Germany he'll put us back where we need to be and you stop questioning

any your own judgment your own just you start you stop thinking essentially right I'm not allowed

to question this oh well of course this is correct of course it's well of course I'm right I intended

to do right so of course my actions are correct I mean how many times have any of us intend to do

something helpful and ended up doing something less and you know plenty of people who intend to

do harm could by accident do something decent and I guess it's like you know I'm not saying anything

you know terribly terribly you know insightful but it's just one of those where it's hard to

it's hard to say in the moment and that's where you hopefully caution you would counsel some degree

of caution and that that's what worries me with with people deciding that we're also right about

this or we're also right about that and attempting to rather than win the argument silence the

counter argument no matter how crazy it may seem because I just think that that idea even when it's

pointed in a good direction initially it's only a matter of time you're amongst many things

a jujitsu black belt one of the things that people are really curious about white belts and blue

belts in jujitsu but also people haven't tried the art is what does it take to be a jujitsu black

belt I think that you know everyone's journey is a little bit different but the one thing that the

Calvin Coolidge quote you know determination persistence is the only thing that that will

win in the end it will always win in the end not brilliance not toughness not education it's

persistence and I think that having the belief that no matter what happens to me I will proceed

forward and I will figure out how to make this happen how our high water I think is the one thing

that ties together all of the people that I've ever met that made it through whatever it was that

they were going through because you know sometimes you can get lucky and you can have an easy time

or and that luck could be you had a good situation it could be I mean like in the obvious sense of

like where you're living where you're training what's going on you had a good situation you're

unbelievably athletic oh you're you're going to be an astronaut you're brilliant and an Olympic

athlete you know like well that's a fantastic situation you know you won the genetic lottery

and I'm sure you were taught as well but you also won the genetic lottery it's a determination is the

one thing though because that person could have a very easy go of it initially and then tear their

knee and then they're no longer the the superhuman physical specimen that they were the only thing

that will keep them going is persistence and I think that that I would just say that persistence

I say I'll just put one foot in front of the other and sometimes I can see the path ahead

and sometimes it's beyond my vision but I will not stop I may even slow down but I won't stop

and that's the only thing that I can say that I've seen tie everyone together because there's

so many ways to the top of any mountain and there's so many different personalities and

skills and backgrounds involved but everyone everyone carries on so at the core the foundational

advice is just don't quit just keep going that's the lesson of martial arts I think you know we

think it's like how to be strong or how to be how to win but in reality it's like how to persist

how to endure because it's all of us have been beaten so many times and gotten beaten up so many

times and thought about quitting have I ever thought about quitting absolutely have I ever

quit never I will never ever quit ever I can say you might knock me out I will be damned if I quit

what's the darkest moment is it injury related like is it uh so like to me like two possibilities

I've fortunately never been seriously injured but I think that's a dark place to be like having

to be out for many months uh for um as Jen was saying like with a head injury especially like

the uncertainty that's one and then the other side is if you have big ambitions as a competitor

or realizing that you're not as good like those those doubts were like I kind of suck

how am I supposed to be a world the greatest fighter of all time if I if if like several

people in the gym are kicking my ass those are the two things that paralyze you I think that

everyone's darkest moment is maybe different looking from the outside for Ryan I wouldn't say

that he's had injuries and he's had bad ones I wouldn't say that was his darkest moment I think

for me I would say some of my head injury was my darkest moment absolutely and I have torn

my ACL twice I've torn my shoulders four times I've had lots of surgeries for me the orthopedic

injuries were not the most difficult it was the brain injury for others that might be the case

for them maybe they've never experienced an injury and maybe for them that's their darkest moment

from the outside obviously Ryan can speak to this more but for Ryan I think it was the

inability to to perform at certain points to the the missing of opportunities that for him

from my perspective watching him go through and having seen various points of his growth from

from early purple dot on I think the hardest time for him looking in obviously was uh when

he would hit moments where he wasn't able to perform for various reasons he couldn't get fights he

he was having difficulties there I think that that was the hardest point for him

did you did you think like with the head injury that you might not never be able to do jiu jitsu

again yeah I mean I I mine was very um it was really bad and it was just the one hit but I

had a looping memories for seven months didn't know it because when your brain's messed up you're

not even aware that you're looping um and so uh I saw two different neurologists I find like it

took a very long time um I didn't know if I was going to be able to have like linear thoughts or

read a book I didn't know at certain points if I could listen to music again you know without

making my head hurt um and so uh it was almost two years before I woke up in the morning without a

headache um just waking up before I even start my day and so that so that's even bigger than

jiu jitsu that's just life that's just that's just hard and I think that you can experience so many

things I've had all these injuries um we lost a baby when I was 15 15 weeks um we've had all

these experiences and what the hardest point for me not saying all those things weren't hard but it's

kind of like as you go through these you just realize like life goes on and you have to keep

working at it and you have to keep going and you asked me earlier offline what did I feel depressed

and not for my head injury I don't think that at least in the moment I had a any recognition of that

it's kind of like but I think different people's personalities I have kind of the like buckle down

and just keep going and and sometimes it's not until lots of time later that you realize wow that

was really hard because you were just struggling to live and and function and do the things that

you need to do along do you mind jumping on just like this part of the conversation just for a few

minutes over do you mind no just sitting together oh no no just for a little bit sorry it'd be cool

so we put a face to it you know uh is it okay with you yeah it's fine with me it's fine with you

by the way what was the head injury if you don't mind sharing someone hit there had dropped their

knee on the back of my head during training it was a lot bigger than me so one strike to the back

of the head is too much for someone there's a reason that's outlawed in MMA right someone 50 pounds

everything you drop their knee on the back of your head once and it's it's the funny thing about

getting hit right you never can really be sure what's going to happen I think it's actually one of

the magical parts about jiu jitsu where like if you choke me if you we know what's going to occur

you hit someone they might be completely unharmed like you might be punching Tony Ferguson in the

face and like he you need to hit him with a sledgehammer to affect this man and then other

people they could get really badly hurt which I guess it's back to your point about you know

street fighting and things like that and a serious serious potential you know second third order

consequences of any action that we take but yeah that's a that's a tricky thing about getting hit

how does it make you feel that like the the really shitty thing about injuries to me was that like

you start thinking like well if I did this one little thing different like this wouldn't have

happened today like one one moment changes your entire life is that do you do you think that way

or is that totally counterproductive um you can't help but think that way when you've had them on

of injuries I've had now because I've had more than most people's fair share um as my orthopedic

says you don't want to win that you don't want to with the contest of who's had the most but since

you have built me a pool yeah um but I think you can't help but think that way sometimes but I

definitely don't think it's I think it can be facilitated if you don't put yourself up too much

because thinking about why have I been subject to so many injuries and and a lot of it comes to

just um almost all of mine in particular people a lot heavier than me so we're to I but if I've

been training martial arts 15 years I'm obviously on the much smaller side I'm a woman I've done

thousands and thousands of rounds with people 50 pounds plus heavier than me I mean years

not training with anyone less than 50 pounds which is 50 pounds is almost half my body weight

and when you also add testosterone the natural um physiological advantages of men not just are

they heavier with more mass they're faster the more explosive they're stronger um if they're the

same size and so I think that the willingness to be in that environment over and over and over again

creates a lot of strength resiliency willingness to continue but it also like in order to do that

you almost have to uh for me the way I was approaching it was like pretend like I wasn't

more vulnerable um and just be willing to step in and step in and step in and take it until you

make it kind of thing make it until you make it kind of yeah like I'll just one day I'll be strong