back to indexRyan Hall: Solving Martial Arts from First Principles | Lex Fridman Podcast #169
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The following is a conversation with Ryan Hall,
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his second time in the podcast.
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He's one of the most innovative scholars
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of martial arts in the modern era.
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Quick mention of our sponsors.
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Indeed hiring website, Audible audio books,
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ExpressVPN and Element electrolyte drink.
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Click the sponsor links to get a discount
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and to support this podcast.
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As a side note, let me say that I've gotten a chance
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to train with Ryan recently and to both discuss
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and try out on the mat his ideas about grappling and fighting.
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What struck me is his unapologetic drive
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to solve martial arts.
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It reminds me of the ambitious vision and effort
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of Google's DeepMind to solve intelligence.
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In Ryan's case, this isn't some out there
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martial arts guru talk.
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This is a style of thinking about the game of human chess,
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of seeking to define the rules and to engineer ways
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from first principles of escaping the constraints
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This style of thinking is rare,
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but is ultimately the one that leads to the discovery
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of new revolutionary ideas.
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If you enjoy this podcast, subscribe to it anywhere
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or connect with me at Lex Friedman.
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And now here's my conversation with Ryan Hall.
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You're known as a systems thinker in martial arts,
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but you also, I think, are willing to think
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outside the rules of the game, outside of the system.
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When you're thinking about strategies
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of how to solve the particular problem of an opponent,
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whether that's jiu jitsu or in mixed martial arts,
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what's your process for doing that,
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for figuring out that puzzle?
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I would say, I don't know if I have a specific
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like A to B to C process for that sort of thing.
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I try to do my best to appreciate that.
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I think a lot of the thinking,
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or maybe not all the thinking,
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but a lot of great thinking on conflict,
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on battle, on war, on martial arts has been done already.
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Not that we don't have to do any sort of
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background investigation or reassessing of these ideas
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or axioms that have come down through things
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like the book of five rings or the art of war,
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or like von Clausewitz, even anything like that really,
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but is trying to understand the lessons of the past
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that I think oftentimes we don't take with us problem solving.
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We pay lip service.
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I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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You know, a victorious fighter, the great fighter,
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you know, he knows victory is there,
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then he seeks battle.
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Everyone else is looking for victory in battle.
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And that's why I'm gonna double jab and throw my left hand.
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And I think a lot of times our actions
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don't reflect our stated belief structure.
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And I think that oftentimes you can tell
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what I believe really,
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or what my fundamental operating system is
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based on my actions, whether I'm aware,
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I have an operating system internally,
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whether I'm aware of it or not,
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or certainly whether I'm fully aware of it.
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So I guess when it comes to strategy,
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I try to think about how things interact.
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You mentioned systems thinking,
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and I try to do my best to understand how systems exist,
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but I think that systems have a fundamental strength
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and a fundamental weakness.
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They work how they work, and that's great,
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but they're readable.
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So if you are aware, if I am operating on a system
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of which you're not really read into,
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then I think oftentimes I can seem shockingly effective,
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particularly if my system preys on certain weaknesses
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that maybe you're given to.
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But what happens when you've read the same books that I have?
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I think that a lot of times
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that makes me deeply predictable.
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I think about systems in jiu jitsu,
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and a lot of times people think that they're doing jiu jitsu
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when in reality they are doing an expression of it.
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Let's say I'll use, there's the Marcelo Garcia system.
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There is the current Henzo Gracie system.
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There's the old Gracie Baja one.
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There's the Gracie Academy, classic Gracie jiu jitsu.
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There's the art of jiu jitsu, kind of autos approach.
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And there's some crossover between a lot of these,
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but oftentimes I think when it comes to understanding
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how I'm making decisions
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and how my opponent is making decisions,
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I have to appreciate whether or not I'm an end user
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of something, and I'll use my phone as an example.
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I was thinking of this the other day,
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and as an end user of my phone, I can't,
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I have no idea what it does.
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Like Edward Snowden comes up and goes,
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''Hey guys, you realize your phones are listening to you.''
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I'm like, ''Really, what?
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All right, I believe you.''
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And then of course that comes out,
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but to what extent?
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What is my phone capable of?
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I can mess with the font though.
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I really like blue screens, not purple screens.
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So as an end user, I can change some of the bells
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and whistles that have nothing to do
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with the underlying source code of it all
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or how it functions.
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The same way in my car, I'm an end user of my car.
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If I do this with the steering wheel, it goes.
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If I push on the gas, it goes.
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I know how to fix it when it's out of gas.
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I know how to fix it when it's out of oil.
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And I know how to fix it when a flat tire comes.
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But short of that, or actually beyond that, I have nothing.
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So I think that oftentimes,
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I've been around in jiu jitsu long enough
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to encounter a new wave of good grapplers.
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And it's very, very interesting sometimes
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how they're running systems
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they don't realize they're running.
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Like, I'm like, oh yeah,
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I trained at Marcelo Garcia's Academy for a long time.
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And a big fan of Marcelo's was a student there.
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Encountered a lot of the auto style jiu jitsu
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a number of years ago.
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Been very, very deep into foot locking and leg attacks
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and whatnot for a long, long time.
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I understand your system better than you do, or I may.
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And let's say you understand my system better than I do.
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That would be a huge issue.
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That was something that I encountered a long time ago,
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trying to come up in jiu jitsu
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where I was trying to utilize systems
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that were created by, let's say Hoffa Mendez
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And I'm basically trying to do what you're doing.
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I'm just not doing as good of a version of it.
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So not only am I not doing it well,
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but I'm entirely predictable.
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And I think that that can be a big issue.
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So to come back, I think of systems a lot of times now
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in terms of, particularly like end user type of systems,
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like an iPhone is a really, really fast way
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for me to be able to do all sorts of things.
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If you were to take it from me,
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I couldn't recreate any of that.
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So you want to be more the NSA and less the end user.
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That way I'm listening to you.
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You want to be the NSA of combat.
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That's right, we're watching UP.
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But basically, I guess what I would come back and say
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is if you understand how things interact
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on a fundamental level and what type of games exist
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and what type of interactions exist,
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then you can transcend a lot of the systems.
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It's almost like a cook versus if I can make certain things
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in the kitchen, but I am not a chef.
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You could give me a bunch of ingredients
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and I could probably cook not well,
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but a couple of different things.
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But a master chef would be aware of the implications
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of all of the things that they're doing,
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extra time in the oven, less time in the oven,
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putting this flavoring or spice in,
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what you're doing with various things.
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And also they could turn all of these ingredients
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into Chinese food.
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They could turn all these ingredients into Italian food
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and they could turn all these Italian food ingredients
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into chicken Parmesan or it could turn into lasagna.
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But they're not limited to a specific thing
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because they have knowledge of how food interacts,
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what it does to create taste,
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what it does to create texture.
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So to come back, let's take rock, paper, scissors.
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Rock, paper, scissors is built on the idea
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of a couple of different things.
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Or actually, I'll tell you what,
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can I ask you a question?
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What's your favorite dinosaur?
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On the same, on three, we'll go.
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So me too, man, we're gonna be best friends.
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So it's, okay, so what's the first question
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when you say, hey, let's play rock, paper, scissors?
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It's like, hey, is it rock, paper, scissors
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or rock, paper, scissors, shoot?
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And you're like, rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
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You're like, okay.
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Because if we go rock, paper, scissors, shoot,
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and I'm like, oh man, I got lucky and I won.
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Imagine I won 100 times in a row.
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It'd be luck, it'd be luck if I was honestly doing that.
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But now let's say, for instance,
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I go on rock, paper, scissors and you go on shoot.
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Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
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Here comes the rock, right?
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If you lose, whose fault is it?
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This is built on a parody thing
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where I don't get to pick second.
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If I get to pick second,
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it's like being able to investigate your background
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before going to meet you.
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And then I'm like, oh, hi.
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Oh, I too love the New Jersey, you know,
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the New Jersey Nets, which is a statement
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that no one in their right mind would ever make
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when I was growing up.
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So anyway, you'd have to have personal knowledge
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So anyway, to come back,
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if you understand how games are structured,
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you can start to realize that there's huge gaps
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and huge holes in a lot of the thinking behind all of it.
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And if you can create the illusion of choice,
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I'll play one more if you don't mind.
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This is one of my favorite ones.
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I do this in class all the time.
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Have you seen this before?
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Okay, may I ask you some questions please?
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Oh, there's, everybody wins.
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So could you please?
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Could you please pick three fingers
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and tell me what they are?
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And your middle finger.
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So could you please pick two fingers?
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Your middle finger and your pinky.
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Okay, could you please pick one finger?
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I'll go with the middle finger.
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Okay, could you please pick one finger?
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Okay, let's play again.
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Can you pick one finger, please?
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Your middle finger.
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Okay, can you pick one finger, please?
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Okay, now pick two more fingers, please.
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Your middle finger and your ring finger.
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Could you please pick one more finger?
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I thought that enhanced the illusion of choice.
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It's the illusion of choice.
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If I'm asking the questions,
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provided I ask the right questions,
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there can be no correct answer.
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Doesn't mean that, I mean, ultimately,
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if that's what you wanted, let's say,
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like I thought I was guiding you to something I wanted,
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it turns out that was the outcome you wanted.
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Now I'm gonna ask the wrong questions.
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I might not get what I wanted, so.
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Oh, by the way, sorry to interrupt.
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For people that might be just listening to this,
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that no matter what trajectory we took
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through that decision tree that Ryan was presenting,
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it was always ending up with a middle finger,
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ironically enough.
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All of us were surprised, and we're both winners.
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Yeah, we all, everyone was.
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I felt like a winner.
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All right, so now I'm gonna,
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now I'll ask some different questions, if you don't mind.
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Can you please pick two fingers to put down?
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Your middle finger and your pinky.
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Oh, that's so awkward.
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That's like the worst finger positions.
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Okay, can you please pick, wait a minute.
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That's, oh, hold on.
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Well, what if you picked two other fingers to put down?
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Your thumb and your pinky.
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Okay, my thumb and my pinky.
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Can you please pick two fingers to put down?
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Whatever two you like.
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Okay, your middle finger and your pointy finger.
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Ah, okay, can you pick two fingers to put down?
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It's index finger.
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Why did I call it the pointy finger?
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Pointy, it's the pointy one.
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That's the one we usually point.
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It's weird to point with the ring finger.
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Two more to put down, please.
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The middle finger and the ring finger.
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What if you pick my ring finger and my index finger?
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Aha, woohoo, I win.
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So even though I'm asking the questions,
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it's not impossible that I arrive at a good outcome for me,
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but it's no longer guaranteed.
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I went from a situation where I literally can't lose.
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Yeah, it's pretty low probability.
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Right, super low probability.
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And the second you realize what I'm doing,
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you would never let me win
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because the ball's truly in your court.
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So I guess that's kind of what I'm fundamentally trying
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to put into play almost all the time.
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Can I ask the right set of questions?
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Can I develop the ability skills wise, understanding wise,
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and then discipline wise,
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and then have the courage and the constitution
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and the discipline necessary,
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the patience necessary to ask the proper questions
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and wait for the proper answers?
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assuming the perfect world, I win, period.
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Yeah, so does that make sense?
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Yeah, that totally makes sense.
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So I don't know if you know
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sort of the more mathematical discipline of game theory.
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There's something called mechanism design.
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So game theory is this field where you model
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some kind of interaction between human beings.
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You could model grappling that way.
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You can model nuclear conflict between nations that way.
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And you set up a set of rules and incentives
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and then use math to predict
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what is likely outcome depending over time
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based on the interaction given those rules.
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Mechanism design is the design of games.
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So like the design of systems
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that are likely to lead to a certain outcome.
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And so what you're suggesting is
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you want to discover systems whose decision tree,
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all the possible things that could happen,
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feel like there's choice being made,
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but ultimately one of the parties
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doesn't have any choice
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in what the actual final outcome is.
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You're making them feel like they're playing a game too.
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So it's not like you don't feel trapped.
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It's kind of like.
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Well, the best traps, you don't look very threatening.
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So I'm like, oh, I'll walk over there.
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I guess wouldn't that,
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I guess that's kind of an interesting thing.
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If a lion, when does a lion roar?
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It's an interesting thing when you watch like lions hunting.
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Don't roar when they hunt.
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They want to, when they want to move you back,
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they do stuff like that.
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When they actually want to come and get you,
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they're pretty slinky.
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It's like water covered.
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It's like furry water.
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And I guess like when you keep that in mind,
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it's funny how, like for us a hobby actually,
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a brilliant guy, like one of my MMA coaches
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and the head coach at TriStar,
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he brought this up one time.
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I thought it was a really salient point.
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Said, let's say we have a million person bracket.
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Like Frank Dukes went in the Kumite level huge bracket.
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He claimed to knock out like 250 consecutive people.
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And you're like, that is all of Hong Kong
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was in that thing.
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And everyone kept their mouth shut.
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But anyway, that's pretty cool.
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But to come back a little improbable, pretty cool.
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So let's say for instance, like there's no cheating going on,
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no cheating going on and we're flipping coins, right?
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Someone is gonna have an unbroken string of victory
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through that bracket, which is pretty insane.
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How many consecutive like toss ups this person won.
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And then at the end of it all,
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imagine like aliens show up and we go,
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hey, they wanna flip a coin for whether or not Earth,
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whether or not Earth gets to continue.
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They'd be like, oh, I'll do it.
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That would be tempting as a person to do.
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You're like, I'm a lucky guy.
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Maybe, I mean, maybe effectively you are.
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We could argue that effectively you're incredibly lucky.
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But basically is that an actual ability?
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Is that like a perk in a video game
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or is that just this thing that happened?
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So anyway, how many times are someone,
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you could go through an entire career,
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particularly in a fight sport.
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Well, let's say you get 15 knockouts
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and 15 toss up scenarios.
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Cause you see that happening all the time
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in the fight game, a toss up scenario.
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It's not like you're mounted on me
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and that's not a toss up scenario.
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Many, many, many, many, many striking scenarios.
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A lot of grappling ones,
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but tons of striking scenarios are dead toss ups.
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And somebody wins by knockout.
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They win five times in a row.
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Then they lose a couple of times in a row.
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We go, what happened?
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You're like, what do you mean what happened?
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They were always flipping the coin.
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And then they win five more and they go, ah, back on track.
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Can you imagine that?
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You're flipping a coin.
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I'm like heads, heads, heads, heads, tails.
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Tails, tails, heads again.
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Oh man, I'm back on it.
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I'm flipping good now.
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That's basically what's going on.
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I think the vast majority of the time
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and then humanity's tendency to see a sign
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in almost anything, it starts to present itself.
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And then we build a narrative in our mind
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to convince ourselves that we're in some sort of control.
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When in reality, I was in a marginal situation
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at best the whole time.
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Yeah, without having much control,
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without having a deep understanding of the system.
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The same story is told in the stock market.
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With many of these distributed human systems,
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we start telling narratives and start seeing patterns
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without understanding actually the system
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that's generating these patterns.
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So if we can see the system, that's incredibly valuable,
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but then you go, well,
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what system is above all of the systems?
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And I guess maybe physics, maybe something like game theory
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explains these things with like, I guess what are the,
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what aspects of the system can I put my hands on
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that I can touch and understand?
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And what am I missing?
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What's going on in the world all around me
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to continue to lean on Dune that I don't have,
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you talk to a blind person about the world,
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about the site and talk to someone that doesn't have everyone
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who's got coronavirus now, so no one can taste or smell.
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They're like, this is delicious, like, is it?
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So anyway, you know, again, what senses am I missing
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or what understanding am I missing
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that's preventing me from seeing the dots connect
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in the world all around me?
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And I think sometimes if we are oftentimes
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at least personally, I've screwed this up a lot.
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I'm so nose deep in the trench of trying to understand
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what I'm doing that I can't take a step back
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and realize, you know, that I'm in a forest,
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not just headbutting a tree.
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And I may be doing both, maybe both,
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two things should be true at once.
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But so I would say when it comes to strategy,
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trying to understand that, but then also you go,
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well, okay, well, how can, that sounds cool,
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but how can you actually do that?
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And then I'd say, that's a really good question
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because if I imagine I say, man,
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I should fight like Steven Thompson,
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I should fight like Wonderboy,
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it's like, good idea, go do that.
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I'm like, not the guy.
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I would fight like Khabib Nurmagomedov if I could.
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You know, it seems to work.
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So anyway, you go, well, what if I could develop,
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what if I could take my time developing skills
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so that when these strategies become apparent,
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they are executable to you.
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You actually have the ability to like,
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in or to again, to be the person in the arena,
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to be the person required,
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whereas there's plenty of great ideas
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like dunking a basketball is a fantastic idea.
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Alas, for me, unless there's a small trampoline nearby,
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But that doesn't make it any less good of an idea.
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I just haven't developed the ability or I lack the ability.
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So anyway, I think a lot of times,
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at least when I watch people in fighting,
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I'll use an example.
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We're so concerned with trying to win early on
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rather than develop skills that I'm going like,
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well, what's the best way to fight
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with my current set of skills?
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And usually the path forward is like the barbarian route,
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like you put on the one ring,
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take the damage you need to take to hit that guy.
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And that was something I realized very early on
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in my MMA career was like,
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I'm not that good at striking at that time,
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not a world class striker now,
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but I'm way better at striking
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than I'm given any credit for
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because it helps people sleep at night, I think.
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Yeah, yeah, you're always introduced
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as like this master grappler.
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I'm like, that's nice of them to say that.
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Maybe I'm not that good at grappling.
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We haven't even seen that.
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But the funny thing is where I'm like,
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just because people almost go like,
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well, Lex, see, you're really good at this,
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but you gotta understand, we're equal, man.
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I'm good at this other thing.
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Maybe you're really good at what you do
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and I'm just mediocre at what I do.
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That's also possible.
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So there's plenty of people that define themselves
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as a striker that do that
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just because that's for lack of other options.
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It's not because they're really good striker.
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I was a grappler as a blue belt.
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So anyway, I guess to come back,
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if I'm constantly going,
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how can I win with what I've got right now?
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I think oftentimes I never take the time
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to develop the skills that I wanna develop
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and I also never take the time
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to develop the strategies that I wanna develop.
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And that has actually been a one big blessing
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of fighting someone frequently,
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which has been really frustrating
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as a result of injuries and time away
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and some of those people being hesitant to get in the game.
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But it gives you so much time to be out of the trenches
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and focus on developing your abilities
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so that now it's almost like developing money
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like you mentioned the stock market
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that you can now put in.
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Imagine you told me Bitcoin was a great idea five years ago
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and I had eight bucks.
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Man, if someone told me Bitcoin was a great idea
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five years ago and I had 50K,
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I'd be like, oh my God, I'd be sleeping in my bed of money
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that I would then set on fire later
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so they had just to do it.
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So due to all the injuries,
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you've been mining Bitcoin all this time
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and now you're a rich man.
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Well, no, actually someone told me
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I was trying to mine for Bitcoin,
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actually like in a cave.
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And then I found out recently that it's actually,
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mining is like a figure of speech.
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You misunderstood. Not like a literal thing that you do.
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But I mean, in my defense, I only know what I know.
link |
English language is difficult.
link |
It is, it really is.
link |
Next time talk to me, I'll explain.
link |
Russian is more, is a rich language.
link |
You should learn, you should learn Russian.
link |
I'll help you out.
link |
I believe you, thank you.
link |
Can you do a whirlwind overview of your career
link |
in MMA leading up to this point
link |
with the injuries and the undefeated record?
link |
And then what's next since we're on the topic?
link |
I did my first fight as a blue belt
link |
and I've been training for about a year and a half.
link |
I did nine Jiu Jitsu tournaments in 10 weekends
link |
or maybe eight Jiu Jitsu tournaments in 10 weekends
link |
prior to my first fight in April 2006.
link |
I got punched in the face a whole bunch.
link |
I didn't realize it was a professional fight
link |
and found that out like the day beforehand.
link |
It was in Atlantic City where another place
link |
no one ever goes on purpose.
link |
So that wasn't great.
link |
I got into three, actually three car accidents
link |
in the preceding 36 hours before the fight.
link |
I had my car totaled.
link |
I wasn't driving for any of them.
link |
It was 2006, yeah.
link |
You were a blue belt?
link |
Yeah, yeah, I've been training for about a year and a half.
link |
So you're a blue belt.
link |
You're getting, I mean, if you haven't lived,
link |
if you haven't gotten punched in the face in Atlantic City.
link |
I mean, I would have loved to have it happen
link |
for different reasons.
link |
But yeah, well, what's funny is I remember
link |
getting punched in the face a bunch,
link |
trying to do inverted guard.
link |
I won one round, lost two rounds,
link |
definitely lost the fight.
link |
So you went for inverted, sorry to interrupt.
link |
You went for inverted guard.
link |
Can you tell the story of that fight real quick?
link |
It was three three minute rounds,
link |
which is not a professional fight length,
link |
although I don't know if professional fight length
link |
would have been any better.
link |
It's just more time to get punched.
link |
But I found out partway through,
link |
I was like, I remember walking back to my corner
link |
in the first round, I'm like, yeah, this guy can't hurt me.
link |
And he's like, yeah, my corner was my friend, Tom,
link |
and then someone else.
link |
And then he's like, yeah, I would still encourage you
link |
to stop blocking so many punches with your face.
link |
I'm like, that's a good idea, Tom, I appreciate that.
link |
I'm gonna try that.
link |
Anyway, I remember I was not allowed to up kick.
link |
So I'm like, great.
link |
I had no martial arts skills, really at all.
link |
But if I had anything at all, it was jiu jitsu.
link |
It was very, very little jiu jitsu.
link |
But definitely no wrestling, definitely no striking.
link |
I was basically a magnet for punches.
link |
So that was your time, roughnecking out in Atlantic City
link |
as we all do once in a while.
link |
Can we fast forward to when you're actually
link |
dominating the world as a black belt?
link |
Well, actually, it's funny,
link |
because I took a little bit of money that they're like,
link |
hey, we're paying you.
link |
It's like Bukowski stories with Ryan Hall.
link |
Well, then I went to the casino.
link |
I went to whatever, like the Tropicana
link |
that was right there, the casino,
link |
because that was a boardwalk hall.
link |
I'm like, you know what, man?
link |
This has been a not great evening.
link |
I'm gonna win it back.
link |
This will be great.
link |
15 minutes later, they had all the money
link |
that I had from the fight was gone.
link |
I just remember walking out of the casino super pissed.
link |
And I don't know what I was thinking.
link |
I'm not good at gambling.
link |
This was not gonna make my night better.
link |
I just thought that there was gonna be
link |
some sort of cosmic balancing,
link |
and maybe it was the cosmic balancing all at once
link |
for things I'd done in the past.
link |
Longer term, though, the balancing.
link |
We're all dead in the end, though.
link |
Time will get us all, yeah.
link |
Well, so that was the first one,
link |
and that was when I realized I'm terrible at MMA,
link |
I should just stop this until I one day
link |
learn how to actually grapple,
link |
much less learn how to fight.
link |
But I remember there was this guy named Dave Kaplan,
link |
who's the reason my ears are all messed up,
link |
who was on the Ultimate Fighter and got punched in the face
link |
and knocked out by Tom Lawler,
link |
who I'll always appreciate for doing that.
link |
I appreciate Dave, too.
link |
Dave was just a huge bully,
link |
and used to, not completely unmercifully,
link |
but relatively unmercifully beat the crap out of me.
link |
Well, the ears look good, so.
link |
I appreciate that.
link |
I tell people it's a tumor that I got,
link |
and if they want in on a class action lawsuit with AT&T,
link |
they should send me an email.
link |
Well, you're very financially savvy.
link |
No, I just give the impression.
link |
Dave basically said, hey, don't worry, man.
link |
You're never gonna be good at MMA.
link |
And you're never gonna be good at grappling, either,
link |
but even if you are good at grappling,
link |
which, in my opinion, you will never be,
link |
you will never be good at fighting.
link |
And I said, Dave, if I do nothing else in my life,
link |
I'm gonna keep training until I can make you pay for that.
link |
And now that I can make him pay for that really easily,
link |
he doesn't train anymore.
link |
He actually won the singing beat.
link |
What an interesting dude.
link |
Super interesting guy.
link |
Virginia, like, speaks a couple languages.
link |
Super interesting guy.
link |
Like, shockingly good at Jeopardy, too.
link |
Not that I'm any good, but still shockingly good at Jeopardy.
link |
So anyway, years later, met Faraz Zahabi.
link |
Actually, John Danaher, I met John Danaher,
link |
and he put me in touch with Faraz Zahabi.
link |
I started training at TriStar.
link |
I immediately loved working with Faraz
link |
and learning under Faraz.
link |
Started training at TriStar.
link |
And I did my first real professional MMA fight
link |
as someone that actually does,
link |
had practiced a little bit prior in, I think, August, 2012.
link |
And that was against a guy, he was four and five at the time.
link |
So, you know, had some experience,
link |
good kind of like first go for me, honestly.
link |
And I won that fight by TKO.
link |
And then it was a little bit of a time off.
link |
And then I did another fight against a tough guy
link |
He was five and two at the time.
link |
I think he was three and I was amateur.
link |
So, you know, a good little bit of fighting experience.
link |
Won that one in the first round of Iron Rear Naked Choke.
link |
And then started to experience difficulty
link |
getting fights at that point.
link |
Were you continuously introduced
link |
as like the master of grappling, the submission?
link |
At least that was my thing.
link |
I don't know if I was...
link |
Is that was the source of the fear for people?
link |
I think so, because, I mean,
link |
I definitely wasn't much at striking at that point.
link |
You know, I definitely am a lot,
link |
I like to think I'm pretty hard to hurt,
link |
although I try not to lean on that.
link |
And I played baseball for like 16 years,
link |
so I can hit things pretty hard.
link |
I just wasn't able to, I recognized pretty early on
link |
that I had no idea how to actually hit things hard
link |
without becoming hitable myself.
link |
So I think that's kind of the big thing is a lot of times,
link |
like we almost were mentioning before,
link |
if you try to go and get people too early,
link |
you can hit them if they're not that good,
link |
but you're going to get hit yourself.
link |
So you're making, you're basically making a wager.
link |
You're making a trade of your own life
link |
for the ability to hit them.
link |
When you watch guys like Israel Adesanya,
link |
Floyd Mayweather, Steven Thompson,
link |
Conor McGregor, when he's fighting really well,
link |
They're not, you're hitting them and they're hitting you.
link |
It's, they're hitting you,
link |
but it takes years and years and years and years
link |
to be able to learn how to do that.
link |
Ton Lee is another great example of that.
link |
You know, my closest training partner,
link |
one of my best friends,
link |
and currently now one champion,
link |
one championship in Asia,
link |
the champion of the featherweight,
link |
or I guess lightweight featherweight, 155 over there now.
link |
And he recently defeated Martin Wynn
link |
in a really great fight.
link |
And Ton knocked him out, long time champion.
link |
And Ton doesn't let you hit him.
link |
He doesn't let you touch him.
link |
I feel so fortunate to have met guys like Steven and Ton
link |
to go early on in career and go, holy moly,
link |
I can't even, it's not even like,
link |
oh, you'll let me walk over and find you.
link |
It's like fighting a ghost that periodically shows up
link |
with a hammer and smokes you in the melon
link |
and then disappears into the ether again.
link |
So the way they approach the fighting game is thinking,
link |
how can I attack without being hit?
link |
So every strategy, every idea you have
link |
about what you're going to do
link |
has to do with like that minimizing the returns.
link |
I mean, that's what all good fighting is done.
link |
All poor fighting, you know,
link |
throughout the course of history, most generals,
link |
whether they're, so I read,
link |
or, you know, they did battles by attrition.
link |
You know, it's like, yeah, man, I've got 150 guys.
link |
You're like, yeah, if 60 of my guys die killing your 50,
link |
like, that's great for me.
link |
But that's not so great for the 60 guys that died.
link |
You know, I hope it's worth it.
link |
So when you realize that not only,
link |
you're not just Kobe Bryant and you're Phil Jackson too,
link |
you got to do everything.
link |
You know, if you've got to run across the beach in Normandy,
link |
But that better be, you should have,
link |
we make sure we thought this through and there's like,
link |
hey, there's no way we can like, you know,
link |
walk around the side, huh?
link |
Because oftentimes there is,
link |
and I think a lot of times there's a lot of incentives
link |
in professional fighting too,
link |
for people to want to do that.
link |
And we come up with all sorts of,
link |
well, I'm trying to be exciting.
link |
Is that really what you came here to do?
link |
Cause I came here to win.
link |
And I think that anyone that's really successful
link |
came there to win.
link |
And if it ends up being exciting, well, that's fantastic.
link |
I hope that people enjoy watching something and that's great,
link |
but that's a qualitative assessment anyway.
link |
You know, you want to also be able to, you know,
link |
live the rest of your life.
link |
I think it's easy, you know, I'll use Meldrick Taylor.
link |
I'm a big boxing fan.
link |
Meldrick Taylor was an excellent fighter,
link |
came this close to a world title and was stopped with like,
link |
he was in a fight that he was winning with seconds remaining,
link |
literally seconds remaining.
link |
And they probably could have just let it go
link |
and he would have been world champion.
link |
And it was brutal.
link |
If you ever watched legendary nights like a HBO boxing show,
link |
it's great, but it's heartbreaking.
link |
It's absolutely heartbreaking.
link |
And also like the beating that he absorbed in that fight
link |
changed him for the rest of his life.
link |
And also, you know, don't think he'd never been hit before,
link |
but it was one of those where you go,
link |
it's all fun and games until you can't remember your name
link |
at age 44 years old.
link |
And I didn't come here, what did Patton saying?
link |
Nobody wins a war by dying for his country.
link |
You make the other poor bastard die for his.
link |
And I think that that's kind of what we're shooting for.
link |
And, you know, the lionization of absorbing damage
link |
and that not being a big deal,
link |
like you hear that all the time.
link |
So and so can take shots
link |
that would put a lesser fighter down.
link |
What does that even mean?
link |
You know, like, so let me get this straight.
link |
Your ability to absorb damage is a part of you.
link |
I mean, I guess that, don't get me wrong,
link |
that is an attribute that's nice to have if you need it.
link |
But there's plenty of people
link |
that actually have really porous defense
link |
that are just very, very difficult to hurt
link |
for whatever reason.
link |
That's a fascinating fighter's perspective on the thing.
link |
I mean, the story that is inspiring
link |
and I know it goes against the artistry of fighting
link |
is when you have taken the damage to still rise up
link |
and be able to defeat the opponent.
link |
So it's, but that's a flip side of a basically
link |
you failing to defend yourself properly, right?
link |
But let's say for, I think it's a triumph,
link |
that's a triumph of humanity.
link |
That's a triumph, that's amazing.
link |
To witness such a thing is unbelievable.
link |
But you still go, this is, there is a cost here.
link |
It's like, I've been fortunate enough
link |
to spend some time working with the military
link |
and I've been like around and read
link |
Medal of Honor citations, they're unbelievable.
link |
Like you read the story and you're like, it'll floor you.
link |
But it's still a cost
link |
and you don't wanna be paying that cost a long time.
link |
And most of the time the cost was everything.
link |
And then sometimes you go, hey, yeah,
link |
the value here, it's worth everything.
link |
It's like, I defend your family,
link |
defend your country under certain circumstances.
link |
And if that point is extension of your family,
link |
you're like, hey, this is worth it.
link |
To casually throw your life away or throw your health away,
link |
There's nothing great about that.
link |
And like you said, it's still an amazing thing to see, but.
link |
But it's also amazing to see you not take damage
link |
as the Floyd Mayweather,
link |
it's the artistry of like not being hit.
link |
And I wonder if maybe that's why people
link |
don't resonate with Floyd as much,
link |
is obviously Muhammad Ali was such a time and place,
link |
a great man for so many different reasons.
link |
Although it was funny to remember
link |
like there were times when he wasn't very popular.
link |
We love him now because of time of context,
link |
time to move away from some of the nonsense
link |
he had to deal with.
link |
But we got to see him struggle.
link |
And also he had unbelievable sacrifice,
link |
both in and out of the ring,
link |
that we all got to witness.
link |
We've never really seen Floyd struggle like that.
link |
And granted, obviously Floyd isn't like a civil rights
link |
figure like Muhammad Ali was,
link |
it's different time, different place,
link |
and he's a different man.
link |
But basically, I wonder if part of the thing
link |
that made everyone think of Muhammad Ali as the greatest,
link |
in addition to, of course, the unbelievable things
link |
that he did out in the world and the stands that he made,
link |
we saw him struggle in the ring.
link |
It's almost, it's humanizing.
link |
You know, it's weird when people respect Khabib,
link |
but again, we saw GSP lose and GSP came back stronger.
link |
Khabib is amazing.
link |
But I wonder how people feel about him longterm.
link |
Not like they won't think of him as amazing and great.
link |
And he's been a respectable person and champion.
link |
But the time, he hasn't had to fall, if that makes sense.
link |
And also coupled with Ali had a way of being poetic
link |
about sort of the way he was in the ring,
link |
sort of being able to explain the artistry that he,
link |
I mean, there's like joking as being playful,
link |
but really he was able to describe the flow,
link |
like a butterfly sting like a bee.
link |
Like he was able to actually talk about his strategy
link |
without talking, without crossing that line
link |
into the Floyd Mayweather,
link |
when you're just talking about money and just talking shit.
link |
Actually Conor McGregor, when he's not talking shit,
link |
it's pretty good at like talking about the art
link |
of the martial, like the first mug guy.
link |
And I wish Khabib did the same.
link |
Actually from like the Setia brothers,
link |
there's a few, there's a culture of like being poetic
link |
about like being scholars and also bards or whatever,
link |
the poets of the game.
link |
And Khabib was more like just simple
link |
and he lets his actions speak, which is great too.
link |
It's a cool thing in its own way.
link |
But it's nice when you can tell stories
link |
and that's probably why Ali was the great.
link |
Catch me up to, you went to three fights,
link |
I think undefeated, BJ Penn,
link |
we talked about last time you defeated BJ Penn.
link |
That's an incredible accomplishment,
link |
but you fought a lot of really tough guys.
link |
When was your last fight?
link |
And then catch me up with the injuries.
link |
A lot of people kept more and more and more
link |
were unwilling to fight you.
link |
Yeah, that's been, that was why I was out for two years
link |
following the Gray Maynard fight between the fighting Gray
link |
and BJ and the Gray Maynard fight
link |
was actually one I'm really proud of
link |
because Gray was very tough.
link |
He's very big, very strong, very experienced.
link |
I had only five fights at the time
link |
and I didn't have a lot of skills.
link |
I don't get to fight Gray with what I have today.
link |
I had to fight Gray with what I had in December, 2016.
link |
And that, it really took a lot of discipline,
link |
a lot of focus, a lot of challenge,
link |
to stay the course, to do what I needed to do in that fight
link |
and to win in ultimately dominating fashion,
link |
just not in the dominating, obvious sense
link |
that you see when someone runs across
link |
and just does that to somebody,
link |
but that wasn't on the list for me at that time.
link |
So that was an interesting one,
link |
but the time away again was very frustrating.
link |
That was incredibly difficult.
link |
Before that fight?
link |
After that fight, well,
link |
because I beat Artem Lobov
link |
in the final of the Ultimate Fighter
link |
and Artem is another guy that's tough,
link |
a lot of experience and he's a funny guy
link |
and he said some things on the internet,
link |
so he gets a lot of heat for that.
link |
But he just knocked out three of my teammates.
link |
I'm like, he put a couple of people
link |
in a pretty rough shape at the end of that.
link |
So he was doing well and that was a tough fight.
link |
Again, if I got to go back and fight that fight now,
link |
it would be not competitive at all.
link |
I mean, it wasn't competitive at that time,
link |
but it was a compelling phase.
link |
It wasn't close, but it was competitive.
link |
So you were improving and growing fast.
link |
Yeah, and it was nice to have time away.
link |
I wish I'd had more time in the ring,
link |
but again, I'd only been doing MMA
link |
for three years at that time.
link |
So the improvement from doing what,
link |
the Bitcoin mining was overriding the ring rust.
link |
I don't really believe in ring rust, if I'm honest.
link |
I can understand why people could feel a certain way,
link |
but if anything, it's almost like
link |
you just kind of forget what competition's like
link |
and you realize like, oh, you feel butterflies
link |
or something like that and you go,
link |
oh my God, this is different versus no,
link |
that's just your body getting ready to perform.
link |
It's okay, it's normal.
link |
How do you not have ring rust?
link |
I think I try to practice performing no matter what,
link |
whether it's singing karaoke and I'm very good,
link |
but like anything, you name it, talking in front of people.
link |
You embrace the butterflies.
link |
Yeah, it's almost like, I remember my last fight,
link |
I'm just staring at the wall and I'm like, huh,
link |
I guess I'm gonna fight in a couple of minutes.
link |
I mean, of course we all heard the phrase,
link |
like you can never walk in the same river twice
link |
because even if the river's the same,
link |
you're a different man.
link |
That's, I think it's a really important thing to understand
link |
because at various points in my martial arts career,
link |
I've thought, oh man, how should I feel?
link |
I remember when I used to do well in competition,
link |
I would feel, I would think these thoughts,
link |
listen to this song, think about this.
link |
I would feel a certain way.
link |
And then if you don't feel that way,
link |
I would start to become stressed
link |
because I was self inflicted versus going,
link |
you'll feel how you feel.
link |
Your job is to show up with what you have on the day,
link |
do your absolute best.
link |
It's like, I will never quit.
link |
I can be sure of that.
link |
I didn't say I can't be beat.
link |
I can definitely be beat.
link |
I could have lost every single fight that I've ever had,
link |
but I control my effort and I control my attitude.
link |
And that's, I will do my very best,
link |
execute my game plan and the event's not working.
link |
If I have to, I'll put my hands up and walk dead forward.
link |
If I need to, it's somebody,
link |
we hope that that's not where it goes,
link |
but like again, that humanizing moment
link |
where you're shooting for like just the inner,
link |
like the inner, you sacrifice the outer
link |
and all you have left is will,
link |
and you hope it doesn't happen.
link |
But if it does, you'll be there.
link |
But I guess to come back,
link |
like the extra periods of time in between fights,
link |
I think was valuable because it was deeply challenging.
link |
It was incredibly, it was heartbreaking sometimes
link |
if I'm honest, man.
link |
It's like, I didn't want to.
link |
It's just waiting.
link |
Is there politics involved?
link |
Sometimes, you know, like I,
link |
you know, it's every single time you step into the ring,
link |
nothing's guaranteed.
link |
It's, you could be hurt.
link |
You could hurt somebody.
link |
You could lose, you know, throwing away,
link |
just like I said, throwing away your healthier life cheaply
link |
makes no sense for anyone.
link |
And, you know, having demonstrating some degree of temperance
link |
is not cowardly either.
link |
I mean, but again, if you wait too long, you have nothing.
link |
So I guess like I was trying and always being,
link |
I'm always open to fighting the absolute best people possible.
link |
I'm never turning down fights ever.
link |
You know, if some random jabroni decides
link |
that he wants to fight, I'm like, go away.
link |
If I wanted to just fight randoms,
link |
I would just start standing on the table at Denny's
link |
and start yelling.
link |
And I'm sure it would have, you know,
link |
some people would be willing to indulge me.
link |
But, you know, you want to fight, you know,
link |
meaningful opponents, challenging opponents,
link |
and I know who and where they are.
link |
And sometimes they're so well.
link |
You did fight in Atlantic City.
link |
So the Denny's, but you put the Denny's behind you.
link |
And, you know, I'll be honest,
link |
if I'd have stood up after that fight,
link |
I don't know if I was in great shape
link |
to expect to win in the other fights that evening,
link |
but I could have tried it.
link |
I'm sure there were some takers in the crowd,
link |
particularly after they watched me fight,
link |
they're like, yeah, I'll fight that guy.
link |
So, okay, so when was the last fight that you had?
link |
That was Darren Elkins.
link |
That was six months or seven months after the BJ fight,
link |
which is great because it's, you know,
link |
I love maybe five really tough, very tough opponent,
link |
very tough guy, super tough dude.
link |
And that was in July, 2019.
link |
And then right when I was about to fight.
link |
So you were ready to fight regularly after that.
link |
You were trying to find a fight.
link |
And we got Ricardo Llamas, so no one else, none of the,
link |
I was ranked in the top 15 at that point.
link |
And then people didn't want to fight.
link |
We were struggling to find an opponent.
link |
Then Ricardo Llamas, a great, you know,
link |
former title challenger, you know, MMA, you know,
link |
really great history in MMA, recently retired,
link |
but we were supposed to fight in,
link |
I think May, March, March, May of 2020.
link |
And then coronavirus happened.
link |
And so that scrapped the whole show, you know, training.
link |
We were just scrambling to try to keep the gym alive
link |
and take care, you know, I have five or six full, five, six,
link |
I think five full time employees that I, you know,
link |
they're my responsibility.
link |
I have to, their livelihood is in my hands and it's,
link |
they'd be irresponsible of me to not take that seriously.
link |
So anyway, we were able to navigate through that time.
link |
And then we were able to reschedule the Llamas fight.
link |
And that was in August of last year.
link |
And I got a, a medical like flag, like, oh, hey, you like,
link |
you, you, you have like a medical condition that we need
link |
to look into when I got pulled from the fight.
link |
And I immediately was concerned because of course,
link |
any serious medical condition you want to go, oh man,
link |
well, I guess I would like to look at that.
link |
Yeah, it turns out it was a giant false positive.
link |
And, you know, we find that out, you know,
link |
all of five weeks later and you go, you gotta be kidding me.
link |
That's frustrating.
link |
And then we're still waiting for a fight,
link |
waiting for a fight, waiting for a fight,
link |
waiting for a fight.
link |
People won't sign up.
link |
Asked for a number of different opponents, basically said,
link |
Hey, I'm willing to fight anybody that's,
link |
that's tough and moving forward.
link |
Finally got a, you know, a great opponent in Denny Gay
link |
for, I guess it would have been this, this March.
link |
And then I was training in January,
link |
working on working on some stuff.
link |
I was out training with Raymond Daniels in,
link |
in California, Raymond's amazing, unbelievable,
link |
you know, kickboxing, karate style kickboxer,
link |
fantastic martial artist, great teacher,
link |
great training partner and good friend.
link |
And, you know, just really bad luck, you know,
link |
kind of a fall in the middle of, in the middle of training.
link |
And I tore my hip flexor halfway off of my femur.
link |
So that wasn't great.
link |
And you go like, man, right at the time where you're like,
link |
oh man, all right, finally moving forward, you know,
link |
having the opportunity to fight.
link |
Dan's a really tough guy.
link |
You know, you have to fight well
link |
if you want to have a good chance to do well with him.
link |
If you don't fight well, it's going to be a rough night.
link |
And I'm like, that's exactly what I signed up for.
link |
That's what we want with BJ,
link |
that's what we want with Elkins, that was gray.
link |
And then the universe goes, hey man, I hear you,
link |
but there's also this.
link |
So anyway, unfortunately it's healing up
link |
and then hopefully I'm trying to,
link |
looking for May, I think.
link |
So it's been, it's been,
link |
it's been about five weeks since the injury.
link |
You'll be able to heal up, you think?
link |
Yeah, I think it'll be okay by then.
link |
Like I don't need a big camp at this point.
link |
I've had years of camp.
link |
Not going to curtail my drinking or anything like that.
link |
Obviously, you know, come on, man.
link |
Life is meant to be lived.
link |
And you know, so it's, you know, I'm in good shape.
link |
I always, I'm always training.
link |
I'm trying to do my best to train around the injury
link |
to the extent that I can right now without, you know,
link |
hurting myself longterm.
link |
So is there a particular opponents you're thinking about?
link |
Yeah. Anybody, anybody forward?
link |
You know, I mean, I tried to, I asked,
link |
I asked the second that I got hurt,
link |
I sent a message to Dan and I said, hey man,
link |
like I just want you to be the first person to know.
link |
You know, I just was pretty reasonably injured.
link |
We just got an MRI.
link |
Doctor says like, hey man, you're out
link |
and you need to take like three weeks off, off.
link |
Don't do anything.
link |
Or you're going to immediately,
link |
you're going to tear it the whole way.
link |
And this is going to be surgery.
link |
And then it's going to be an additional,
link |
like eight weeks on top of that
link |
to start to rehab it through PT.
link |
And anyway, you know, so I let him know,
link |
hey, if you can push this thing back,
link |
I would love to keep on the car.
link |
I would love to keep the fight.
link |
You know, it's like, I respect you a lot as an opponent.
link |
And also it's been brutal trying
link |
to get anybody to sign on.
link |
So if you're into it, I'm still there.
link |
Unfortunately, he turned that down.
link |
I understand he had other things going on
link |
and he and his wife were expecting a child coming up.
link |
So he needed to, he needed to fight.
link |
And anyway, you know, I guess we'll see who's coming forward.
link |
Is there somebody like super tough
link |
in the featherweight division that you,
link |
you seem to like enjoy the difficult puzzles.
link |
Is there somebody especially difficult
link |
that you would like to fight?
link |
I would like to fight.
link |
I know that I'll need to win at least one fight before this.
link |
And I look forward to coming back
link |
and giving my best effort to do that.
link |
I want to fight to beat Megumin Sharapov.
link |
I want to fight Yair Rodriguez.
link |
I want to fight Korean Zombie.
link |
And you know, this is complicated, man.
link |
Yeah, that would be fun.
link |
I would love to see that fight.
link |
That's a fascinating fight.
link |
That would be fun.
link |
He would be very challenging.
link |
All those guys are very challenging.
link |
And so I look forward to just staying healthy
link |
to the extent that we can coming back
link |
and I'm going to fight multiple times this year,
link |
hell or high water.
link |
Hey, by the way, I completely forgot
link |
because you were talking about the systems
link |
and decision trees and the illusion of choice
link |
made me think of Sam Harris and I forgot to mention it.
link |
So he talks about free will quite a bit
link |
and that there's an illusion of free will.
link |
Bold claim, Cotton.
link |
That the, you know, maybe the universe
link |
constructed that little game where it makes us feel
link |
like we have a bunch of choices, but we really don't.
link |
We're really always ending up with a middle finger.
link |
That would be hilarious.
link |
That's what you see before you die.
link |
It's just a giant middle finger.
link |
It's like, oh, fuck.
link |
What do you think?
link |
Do you think there's a free will?
link |
Like we feel like we're making choices.
link |
So you're thinking, again, what we're talking about,
link |
okay, here's a system of martial arts
link |
that's Hanzo Gracie, there's different schools
link |
and whatever, and then you're thinking,
link |
okay, how can I think outside these systems?
link |
But then there's also a system that's our human society
link |
and we feel like there's an actual choice
link |
being made by us individuals.
link |
Do you think that choice is real?
link |
Or is it just an illusion?
link |
Well, okay, that's a really good question.
link |
I'm not necessarily equipped to answer this,
link |
but I'll do my best.
link |
Okay, I guess I would say to start with,
link |
sure would be interesting if it wasn't real,
link |
if the choice wasn't real,
link |
would be pretty interesting if it is real.
link |
First off, I would start with facilitative beliefs
link |
versus not facilitative beliefs.
link |
It's almost like, I think the world's out to get me.
link |
True, not true, what next?
link |
Probably not a facilitative belief.
link |
Even if you, imagine you believe there's no free will.
link |
Does that justify every single impulse
link |
that you're going to give into?
link |
Or does the belief in free will,
link |
does the belief in my ability to work hard, to focus,
link |
to be disciplined, to improve my position,
link |
improve my situation, whether it's true or not,
link |
although I think that at least many of us would argue
link |
that at least whether there's some sort of internal driver
link |
that allows for that.
link |
We live in a material world.
link |
Your actions do affect the world.
link |
I can choose to pick that water up or not.
link |
And anyway, I would say a belief strongly
link |
in the idea of picking facilitative beliefs,
link |
and going, hey, I will adjust,
link |
whether this belief system is right or wrong
link |
on a cosmic level, I'm nowhere near smart enough
link |
to understand, but I can say me deciding that,
link |
let's say, for instance, I'm gonna walk over
link |
to have a conversation with someone in a hotel lobby,
link |
and I've never met them, and I go over,
link |
and I start with, oh, this is gonna be interesting,
link |
and I just walk over there,
link |
versus in my head, I'm like, what's this asshole want?
link |
We're about to have two very different conversations.
link |
I could be right that this person's not very polite
link |
or thinks negatively of me right from go,
link |
but I think that that's probably not a facilitative belief.
link |
People talk about, how is that gonna help me
link |
navigate the conversation to a positive conclusion?
link |
And I think about that for,
link |
let's say, fighting, it's a good example,
link |
like confidence, plenty of people believe
link |
plenty of things that aren't real,
link |
myself included, I'm sure, all the time.
link |
And anyway, believing that you can do something,
link |
I'm like, hey, I think I can win,
link |
doesn't guarantee you a positive outcome,
link |
but I would say most of us would probably,
link |
most of us would argue that it helps.
link |
Think about depression.
link |
What's depression if not a negative,
link |
unfacilitative belief that is not always,
link |
that oftentimes is not reflected by reality,
link |
but you project it onto reality,
link |
and it's understandable if it makes you feel like,
link |
oh, man, this isn't gonna work out,
link |
I don't think the prospects are going well.
link |
And then if you feel like you can't get out of that loop,
link |
that seems pretty rough.
link |
And I see a lot of things out in society right now
link |
where you go, whether you agree or disagree
link |
with various positions on things, you go,
link |
is that a facilitative belief?
link |
Even if that is true, which is arguable, anything.
link |
So what next, man?
link |
So where does this end?
link |
When is the positive, what's the happy ending here?
link |
And if they go, well, there is no happy ending,
link |
I'm like, okay, so now what?
link |
So what do we do here?
link |
So choose the facilitative belief, and in your intuition,
link |
believing that free will is real
link |
is more productive for a successful life.
link |
Absolutely, because otherwise, how am I not,
link |
first off, how can society function if it's not real?
link |
So how can I blame you or anyone else
link |
or hold anyone responsible for anything
link |
if free will isn't real?
link |
Well, no, that's exactly the point.
link |
But at the surface level, what you're saying is true,
link |
but perhaps if we truly internalize
link |
that free will is an illusion,
link |
we'll start to figure out something
link |
that transforms the way we see society.
link |
For example, we are very individual centric,
link |
so believing that free will is real
link |
puts a lot of responsibility and blame on people
link |
when they do something bad.
link |
Maybe if we truly internalize that free will is an illusion,
link |
we start to think about the system of humans together
link |
as this mechanism for progress,
link |
as opposed to where individual people
link |
are responsible for their actions, good or bad.
link |
So we remove the value, the weight we assign
link |
to the accomplishments or the violence,
link |
the negative stuff done by individuals,
link |
or more look at the progress of society.
link |
I don't know what that looks like,
link |
but it's almost like as opposed to focusing
link |
on the individual ants of an ant colony,
link |
looking at the entirety of the ant colony.
link |
So that, I think it makes perfect sense.
link |
I would just say that that's a reasonable thing to suggest.
link |
It's a seismic shift, right?
link |
And it's hard to say whether that would be better or worse,
link |
but I guess I'll use this as a convenient one for me.
link |
So I remember the last time we spoke,
link |
I brought up one of the most reviled evil characters
link |
in certainly recent history,
link |
probably human history period, Adolf Hitler.
link |
Well, I'm a big fan of making people live in the world
link |
that they wanna believe in.
link |
Well, if free will doesn't exist,
link |
and it's just about how things move forward,
link |
when are we gonna be high fiving this guy or what?
link |
Because I remember what I said,
link |
and that actually brings me to something else we discussed.
link |
Yeah, for people who don't know,
link |
Ryan brought up, or I brought up,
link |
there's literally a giant book about Hitler.
link |
So I've been obsessed with Hitler, World War II,
link |
and Stalin recently.
link |
Oh man, this has become like a meme.
link |
Joe Rogan with like DMT and me with Hitler.
link |
Can I pick something more positive?
link |
Like cat in the hat or something, I don't know.
link |
But you brought up Hitler as an example
link |
of something particular,
link |
some philosophical discussions we're having.
link |
And the excellent, eloquent,
link |
and the full of integrity MMA journalist
link |
clipped out something you've said about Hitler
link |
and said that, I forget what the headlines are,
link |
but they were the most ridiculous possible implementation.
link |
Basically, it was intentionally misunderstanding
link |
Then it's like, I get that they're stupid,
link |
but I'm stupid too.
link |
So I know what that's like.
link |
So I don't have a lot of sympathy for you.
link |
Yeah, exactly, I can't give you a pass on that.
link |
But basically, intentionally misunderstanding
link |
But what I find funny is that,
link |
hey, we gotta be careful what we believe.
link |
And again, back to the cancel culture thing
link |
that we discussed last time as well,
link |
where would I like to apologize?
link |
I mean, no, actually something about cancel culture
link |
that we've been seeing things culturally,
link |
I'm like, I will be damned if I apologize for anything
link |
that I don't need to apologize for
link |
because I was intentionally misunderstood in that instance.
link |
Now, you could say that I'm not a historical scholar,
link |
which I would agree immediately.
link |
And also that I oftentimes in eloquently
link |
or inarticulately phrase things, which I'll agree is again.
link |
But ultimately, going, hey, I wanna make you believe,
link |
live in the world that you're suggesting ought to exist.
link |
Okay, so if there's no free will,
link |
how far of a step back are we willing to take cosmically
link |
before we start going, hey, this is good
link |
because we're experiencing a social reckoning
link |
in our country at the moment,
link |
for good and for other probably, I guess.
link |
And basically, but hey, it all worked out, right?
link |
So that's probably not something that would fly.
link |
And I think that's a fair thing.
link |
That's interesting.
link |
It might not fly from the individual perspective,
link |
but if you zoom out and think,
link |
appreciate society as just like an ant colony
link |
as a beautifully complex system,
link |
like we kinda, from the individual perspective,
link |
we value progress, especially progress of the individual,
link |
but in whole progress of societies.
link |
But if you accept that this is just a complex system
link |
that's not necessarily headed anywhere,
link |
that this is almost like that river is just flowing,
link |
I think that removes the burden of always striving,
link |
of always trying, of always like the struggle and so on.
link |
So it's possible that if we have no control,
link |
you can like arrive at some kind of other zen state.
link |
Does that sound very human though?
link |
That goes against, I think,
link |
our current human condition as we experience it,
link |
but we've communicated that to each other.
link |
Like we've taught, like through these social forces,
link |
taught each other that our lives matter and so on.
link |
Maybe if we convince ourselves
link |
that we're just sort of like little things in a stream
link |
and ultimately none of it matters,
link |
there might be some kind of enjoyment
link |
to be discovered through that process.
link |
I don't, listen, I'm a capitalist, rah, rah, like.
link |
But I guess I think you bring up a really important point.
link |
I guess almost anything like capitalism,
link |
I only get to experience it as I sit here now
link |
and I get to live, I was raised in the United States,
link |
have traveled around the world a little bit,
link |
have had the good fortune of meeting many people
link |
from many different places.
link |
And I'm an end user of capitalism.
link |
I don't really know how it got here,
link |
whether it was, I wasn't there at the start of this idea.
link |
I wasn't there for, hey, how did we come up with this idea?
link |
How did we arrive?
link |
And I'm nowhere near well read enough
link |
to understand any of that really even secondhand.
link |
And I guess recognizing that communism,
link |
Marxism, socialism, anarchism, anything is,
link |
these are all perspectives that all have,
link |
I guess, various strengths and weaknesses.
link |
But I guess one thing I'm always,
link |
I guess I would say the burden,
link |
it seems to me that if you wanna make a change,
link |
the burden of proof is on the person
link |
implying that there needs to be a change.
link |
And it doesn't mean that there's nothing there,
link |
but it's like if you wanna create a small shift,
link |
a ripple, that's fine,
link |
but a seismic ripping shift in how we exist
link |
or how we experience the world as human beings.
link |
And you mentioned fighting,
link |
why watching someone undergo,
link |
take abuse on a level in the ring that's just shocking
link |
and then triumph in spite of it is like,
link |
this is unbelievable.
link |
This is part of the magic of combat sports.
link |
Now, it's part of the magic,
link |
the other side of the magic
link |
that doesn't get talked about sometimes
link |
is that the trajectory of that individual's life later on
link |
is not always great,
link |
or let me rephrase, there's a cost for that.
link |
But if we remember, you mentioned removing the struggle.
link |
I don't personally, the struggle is what makes life life.
link |
And also, I guess, something Faraz has brought up to me
link |
on a number of occasions, and it makes sense to me,
link |
it's basically humans only understand things
link |
through relative comparison.
link |
I only understand heat because I've known cold.
link |
I only understand, it's like talking to someone
link |
that's never experienced any sort of hardship
link |
and then their latte isn't right,
link |
and then they pitch a fit
link |
versus someone that's gone through
link |
a great deal of challenge, struggle in their life.
link |
They tend to have a little bit more of an even perspective.
link |
And anyway, and of course, even as a relative thing
link |
and what I perceive to be even may not be even,
link |
maybe I'm particularly softer
link |
or something in the other direction without realizing,
link |
because I can only understand what I can understand.
link |
But the idea that we wanna fundamentally alter ourselves
link |
as a species and as people
link |
seems like an incredibly, incredibly high bar to prove,
link |
and also like an incredibly dangerous idea,
link |
because it always comes back to,
link |
well, who's gonna be responsible for this?
link |
Who gets to do the choosing?
link |
What's a good idea?
link |
What's not a good idea?
link |
And I guess that actually brings me kind of to a,
link |
something I've been encountering recently
link |
in discussions with friends.
link |
I feel like there's only two types of people
link |
that I encounter at this point.
link |
People with a more or less libertarian tilt
link |
to their thinking and people without it.
link |
And when I say libertarian,
link |
I don't mean that in the political party sense
link |
or even the belief system.
link |
Basically, I'm like, hey, you do you buddy.
link |
It's not my, what you're up to is not my concern
link |
versus what you're up to is my concern.
link |
And I guess I've always watched,
link |
various points in history, people on this side
link |
or people on that side are more or less,
link |
I guess, problematic, I guess you could say.
link |
And I don't mean that in the internet sense,
link |
you know, more of an issue,
link |
but the world is always full of people
link |
that wanna tell you what you need to be doing
link |
as opposed to more or less doing no harm.
link |
And I guess that's one of the ones,
link |
anytime I'm trying to tell other people what to do,
link |
I better hope I'm right.
link |
And it's bizarre to me how many people are so confident
link |
that their side or their position is the one
link |
that's not only right for them,
link |
but right enough that they can enforce it on others.
link |
And that just seems incredibly dangerous to me.
link |
And I guess that comes back to even Sam's point
link |
about, oh, we want to,
link |
trying to spread the idea that free will doesn't exist.
link |
I'm not saying it's damaging, but it very well may be.
link |
And plenty of other things could be as well.
link |
I'm not, you know, it goes way over my head
link |
as to the implications of all of these.
link |
And I guess all of us are in evangelist for something,
link |
but I guess it's weird that we've gotten this far
link |
as a species and now we wanna take like sharp, sharp turns.
link |
Well, we've been taking a bunch of sharp turns
link |
throughout history.
link |
That's what, you know, that's the way,
link |
you know, okay, humans love power.
link |
And one way to attain power is to say,
link |
everything that you guys are doing is wrong
link |
and I have the right thing
link |
and I'm gonna build up a giant cult of people
link |
and I'm gonna overthrow.
link |
And indirectly what that results in me is me gaining power.
link |
And that's how you get all the big revolutions
link |
in human history, saying I'm done with the thing
link |
that the powerful are currently doing.
link |
So I'm gonna overthrow.
link |
That's where probably all the identity politics
link |
that's happening now is people that didn't have power before
link |
are looking to gain power.
link |
And they're also, you know,
link |
that's where Jordan Peterson criticized identity politics
link |
is people with the right, with the good intentions,
link |
I should say, are in seeking power,
link |
allow power to corrupt them as power always does.
link |
And so they lose track of like the devils
link |
that they're fighting by becoming the same kind of devils,
link |
the same kind of evil that they're fighting.
link |
And so that's just the progress of human history.
link |
But hopefully as these power greedy people
link |
keep attaining power with a progressive mindset,
link |
over time things get better and better as they have been.
link |
Like each iteration?
link |
A lot of unfairness happens.
link |
A lot of hypocrisy happens.
link |
A lot of people are trampled along the way
link |
by those who mean well.
link |
But over time, like lessons are learned
link |
or like human civilization accumulates lessons
link |
and in part learns lessons of history
link |
and it gets better and better over time,
link |
even though in the short term,
link |
there's people acting not their best selves.
link |
And you know, that seems to be the progress
link |
The idea of internalizing the free will not being real.
link |
I mean, you're actually making me realize
link |
that that ultimately leads to a kind of.
link |
Doesn't that go in a nihilistic direction?
link |
Yeah, it's both nihilistic
link |
or if you want to make it a political system,
link |
then it's more like communist type of a system
link |
where like the value of the individual
link |
is completely reduced, removed.
link |
Or another perspective is like the freedom of an individual
link |
is not to be valued or protected.
link |
And so from our current perspective,
link |
the systems that seem to have worked,
link |
the United States works pretty damn well,
link |
despite all the different criticisms.
link |
It seems like freedom of the individual
link |
in all its forms seems to be fundamental
link |
to the success of the United States.
link |
And so we should, it's a, however the hell you put it,
link |
is like, it doesn't matter whether free will
link |
is or isn't an illusion.
link |
The belief that it's real.
link |
Protects the individual from the group,
link |
which is fundamentally, correct me if I'm wrong,
link |
that always seems like the big issue of history.
link |
Hey, there's more of me than there is of you.
link |
You're like, yikes.
link |
And you want to be yourself.
link |
You want to be different.
link |
You want to have a different religion.
link |
You want to be a different skin color.
link |
You want to do this.
link |
All the bad tribal things happen
link |
when there's more of me than you.
link |
Correct me if I'm wrong.
link |
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
link |
But then that's always the fundamental
link |
power imbalance though, right?
link |
Well, the interesting thing about the libertarian thinking,
link |
I guess I, I don't know.
link |
Those words are really.
link |
Maybe they're all charged, I know actually.
link |
Yeah, they're all charged.
link |
I may not scale up, but I mean,
link |
more like on a philosophical underpinning
link |
where you're like, yeah, basically,
link |
hey, you feel free to believe I'm a fool.
link |
And I mean, plenty of people do, I'm sure.
link |
But as long as you don't chase me down the hall
link |
and hit me in the back of the head with a textbook,
link |
what's the big deal?
link |
Yeah, so the libertarian viewpoint,
link |
which I probably espouse, like that's,
link |
I'm very much like freedom of the individual
link |
is very valuable and like leave others the fuck alone
link |
unless they're trying to hurt you.
link |
The thing is you also have to, I believe,
link |
put in the work of empathy of understanding
link |
what others, how, what leaving people
link |
the fuck alone means to others.
link |
But isn't that an interesting thing?
link |
If I believe in freedom of the individual
link |
and I take that, like all of these, like you said,
link |
you take them past just their first why question.
link |
You ask why, why, why, why, or how, how, how, how many times.
link |
Should that not extend to respect for you,
link |
respect for your position,
link |
respect for your individual lived experience,
link |
which could be grossly different than mine.
link |
Yeah, this is the problem with saying,
link |
I'm an individual, I'm not gonna bother you,
link |
you don't bother me.
link |
That's just like, that's not actionable.
link |
Because to be, to make it actionable,
link |
you have to think the why, why, why, why, why,
link |
you have to do the steps beyond.
link |
You think, what does that actually mean?
link |
That means understanding how even my very existence
link |
like hurts others.
link |
Because you have to understand that like,
link |
I'm not, you're not just sitting alone in a room.
link |
You're using like public transit,
link |
you're using the police force,
link |
you're using firefighters, you're using the,
link |
like you're using a lot of resources
link |
that are publicly shared.
link |
And some of those resources are unfairly distributed.
link |
Like we've agreed that we're gonna pay taxes
link |
and those taxes are gonna go towards
link |
building some kind of infrastructure.
link |
So that's already towards social.
link |
So you're not a real, you're not a real sort of,
link |
I talked to Michael Malice, like anarchist, right?
link |
Saying like basically, full, just leave me the fuck alone
link |
and I'm going to collaborate with whoever the hell I want.
link |
We're not, that's not the American society
link |
as it stands currently.
link |
We've agreed that there's going to be
link |
certain social institutions that we pay into.
link |
And some of the sort of discussions about race
link |
and all those kinds of things
link |
is about those institutions being institutionally unfair,
link |
whether it's race or gender, all those kinds of things.
link |
Listen, I have a bunch of criticisms
link |
of the way that conversation carries itself out,
link |
but the thing is, what's valuable is to actually listen
link |
And that's not often talked about
link |
with the leave me the fuck alone mindset
link |
because you're, it doesn't have that little component
link |
which I think could be fundamental
link |
to the function of a society, which is like social.
link |
Like it's the, what is it, the Obama, you didn't build it
link |
or you didn't build it alone or whatever,
link |
however that goes.
link |
But basically we wouldn't be able to accomplish anything
link |
as individuals without the help of others.
link |
And to be able to then start to think,
link |
okay, so what is my duty?
link |
What is my responsibility to other human beings
link |
to be respectful, to be loving, to help them
link |
as part of this functioning society?
link |
That starts, that's actually a lot of work
link |
to start to think about that.
link |
Because then I have to like think,
link |
okay, Ryan, what's his life like?
link |
As a business owner during COVID, what's that like?
link |
And then he has, there's employees that run the gym.
link |
What's that stress like?
link |
Or about the fighting and the injury and so on.
link |
That empathy takes a lot of like compute cycles.
link |
And also a lot of energy, right?
link |
But I have to go through that computation
link |
if I want to be an individual that's like,
link |
If I may, I guess like to come back to Muhammad Ali,
link |
one of the things he said is service to others
link |
is the rent that you pay for your,
link |
is the price you pay for your rent here on earth.
link |
And now one of the things that I think that I see
link |
as a result of the internet all the time
link |
is people talking about global giant problems,
link |
social problems that are society wide,
link |
that are massive, truly massive.
link |
And frankly, beyond the power of any of us to solve.
link |
That's certainly on an individual level.
link |
So I've discussed things with friends.
link |
Like my father's an environmental attorney,
link |
like has been for a long time
link |
and has been an engineer for a long time.
link |
And so I'm not, barely know anything,
link |
but I'm read in a little bit of various things.
link |
But climate change, oh my God,
link |
I'm so concerned about climate change.
link |
What am I supposed to do about climate change?
link |
I'll tell you what I can do is I can not litter.
link |
I can try to conserve energy where I can.
link |
I can do whatever I want.
link |
What can I personally do about some giant social problem
link |
that I didn't start and is out of my control?
link |
I'm like, well, I can be decent to the people around me.
link |
I can mention, I can demonstrate empathy
link |
and I can demonstrate consideration
link |
for the people in my circle.
link |
And to the extent that I can the people outside of my circle,
link |
but yelling at the trees over problems
link |
that are borderline cosmic, doesn't seem very productive.
link |
It just makes me feel like I'm cool and important
link |
because I'm talking about something,
link |
well, hundreds of years from now, the water will rise.
link |
Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
link |
It's completely on my head, I know nothing.
link |
But focusing on the problems that we can actually solve,
link |
it comes back to the same thing.
link |
I want to win a fight.
link |
I would love to win a fight.
link |
I can't control that.
link |
What I can do is I can control each individual step
link |
that I take around the ring
link |
and try to make the next correct move.
link |
I can't look, no, it gets people's,
link |
you know, they get all excited.
link |
You know, I'm trying to keep my language in check,
link |
but they get all excited thinking about, you know,
link |
problems that are like Superman
link |
couldn't solve these problems.
link |
Like you could be that powerful
link |
and you can't make all of the bad things go away,
link |
but you can absolutely change yourself.
link |
And I think a lot of the lessons that, you know,
link |
like the good lessons from religion that happened,
link |
the good lessons from the great men and women
link |
throughout history that we're inspired by,
link |
that talk about change starting with within,
link |
and, you know, again,
link |
treating the people around you decently
link |
and treating the people around you decently
link |
doesn't even necessarily mean the golden rule.
link |
Do unto others as you would like them to do to you.
link |
I go, well, maybe what I would like
link |
and what this person would like aren't the same thing.
link |
Well, how am I going to get to the bottom of that?
link |
Cause I could be attempting to be decent to this person.
link |
And by my standards, I am being decent,
link |
but maybe I'm missing the mark by theirs.
link |
Well, I can't possibly, if I just interacted with you,
link |
like it's like someone talking about
link |
some nonsense microaggression.
link |
You're like, so let me get this straight.
link |
I've never met you before.
link |
You never met me before.
link |
And you're interpreting some minor comment
link |
that I've made in the least charitable way possible.
link |
I'm not saying that you couldn't be annoyed,
link |
but your expectation for that level of consideration
link |
is you're going to be disappointed a lot.
link |
Now, if you, if we're someone that's in your life
link |
on a consistent basis and they're like,
link |
hey, I really don't appreciate what you're saying
link |
or what you're doing here.
link |
Do you realize that this is how I'm,
link |
this is how I'm perceiving you go, oh man, I'm so sorry.
link |
Of course I would hear what you have to say,
link |
but I guess trying to recognize that, you know,
link |
I guess my job is to treat others with dignity in general,
link |
but that level of the level of specificity that,
link |
that, that, that requires increases
link |
as it gets closer to you.
link |
And I have, as a person,
link |
I have a very finite amount of resources financially,
link |
intellectually, emotionally, physically.
link |
If I chuck, you know, 0.001% of it
link |
in every single different direction, what am I doing?
link |
It's like when people are like,
link |
oh, I care deeply about Tibet.
link |
I'm like, why aren't you over there?
link |
Go build a house, man.
link |
Get on a plane, go build a house.
link |
Oh, you don't want to do that.
link |
So really what you want to do is post on Facebook
link |
and, and, and accept high fives
link |
for how much of a good guy you are.
link |
Go help somebody in your neighborhood.
link |
Go be, go play with, go play with some kids.
link |
Go be a friend to someone that doesn't have a friend.
link |
Read a book, try to educate yourself.
link |
And so I guess to, to come back,
link |
it's all of these problems aren't solvable on a grand scale,
link |
but it's almost like by attempting to address them
link |
in our personal lives, we do better.
link |
But rather than a giant airing of the grievances
link |
on a, on a consistent basis,
link |
not that that isn't, you know,
link |
sometimes necessary and valuable,
link |
but after you air your grievances, you go,
link |
hey, how about we, we sort this out?
link |
What's the next step?
link |
And, and I guess, again,
link |
when we're trying to address it on a giant social level,
link |
it just seems unmanageable to me,
link |
even if you have the best of intentions.
link |
Yeah, I mean, but nevertheless, there's,
link |
there's a lot you can do on social networks.
link |
I mean, I enjoy tweeting and consuming Twitter.
link |
It's just, I apply the exact same principle
link |
that you just said, which is free will and discussion,
link |
which is like, I approach it in a way
link |
that I don't get stuck in this loop that's counterproductive.
link |
I try to do things that are productive.
link |
And like, it's just like you said,
link |
that's like, like what kind of things can I do in this world?
link |
Whether that's tweeting or building things,
link |
those are low effort tweeting,
link |
or actually building businesses
link |
or building ideas out as high effort.
link |
What can I do that will actually solve problems?
link |
And that's, that's the way I approach it.
link |
And I do wonder if it's possible to at scale,
link |
encourage each other to approach like social media
link |
and communication with fellow humans in that way.
link |
How do you think that would be done?
link |
I guess, like to improve the,
link |
improve the quality of discourse, maybe.
link |
Like, or even like you said,
link |
the empathy or the decency of discourse.
link |
I think people should be, you know,
link |
incentivized, encouraged to do that.
link |
I think most of what's,
link |
we see happening on Twitter and Facebook and so on
link |
has to do with very small,
link |
very powerful implementation details.
link |
It goes down to like, what is the source
link |
of the dopamine rush, the like button,
link |
the sharing mechanisms,
link |
just even small tweaks in those can fix a lot.
link |
So like a lot, a lot of the stuff we see now
link |
is the result of just initial implementations
link |
of these systems that we didn't anticipate.
link |
So the modernization comes from engagement
link |
and the tools we have is clicking like and sharing.
link |
It was not always obvious.
link |
It was not obvious from the beginning.
link |
It wasn't obvious while Twitter and Facebook grew
link |
that there's a big dopamine rush
link |
from getting more followers and likes and shares.
link |
So we've gotten addicted to this feeling
link |
like how many people are commenting,
link |
how many people are saying, like clicking like and so on.
link |
So that's that dopamine rush.
link |
So we want to say the thing that will get the most likes
link |
and like unmasked in society.
link |
And then the other thing that was expected
link |
is the controversial, the divisive will get the most likes.
link |
So it had to do with the initial mechanisms
link |
of likes and shares resulting in an outcome
link |
that was unpredicted, which is huge amounts of division
link |
irrespective of like any of the basics of human connection
link |
that we've actually all come to understand
link |
that society is valuable at the individual level
link |
like we're saying, but unmasked what results
link |
is like you throw all that out
link |
and it's all just divisive at scale discourse.
link |
I think it could be fixed by incentivizing personal growth
link |
like incentivizing you to challenge yourself
link |
to grows individual and most importantly
link |
to be happy at the end of the day.
link |
So like incentivize you feeling good
link |
in a way that's long lasting longterm.
link |
I think what makes people actually feel good
link |
is being kind to others longterm.
link |
In the short term what feels good is getting a lot of likes.
link |
And I think those are just different incentives
link |
that if implemented correctly
link |
you can just build social networks
link |
that would do much better.
link |
So do you think it comes from a structural perspective?
link |
I guess at what point does you mention like
link |
you mentioned free will and also you mentioned
link |
feeling good and again working hard.
link |
I know that you have the, I guess the, was it a race or?
link |
No, it's the Goggins thing.
link |
It's four by four by 48 challenge
link |
where you run four miles every four hours for two days.
link |
Yeah, it's a bunch of, the challenge of it
link |
isn't just the running, the running is very tough
link |
but it's mostly the sleep deprivation
link |
because you're just training every four hours.
link |
But it's a struggle, right?
link |
But the struggle gives meaning.
link |
And ultimately I guess so how can we,
link |
because you mentioned like you said adjusting things
link |
on like a, I guess like a programming level almost,
link |
based programming level so that the interface
link |
is different for the user.
link |
But at what point does the user have a responsibility
link |
to as a man or a woman or a person
link |
to just behave more decently?
link |
How can we I guess utilize, what can we do?
link |
It seems like our society is so grossly missing
link |
like a Martin Luther King right now,
link |
like the great inspiring characters
link |
throughout American history, throughout world history.
link |
Where are the great leaders?
link |
So leadership is part of it, but that's definitely,
link |
where are the great leaders is a very good question.
link |
That's more of a question of our political systems
link |
why they're not pushing forward the great leaders.
link |
But there's also just, okay,
link |
there's some just basic engineering shit
link |
which is when you and I, when you Ryan and I
link |
are in a room alone and we're talking,
link |
even if we're strangers, the incentives
link |
are for us to get along.
link |
Like just when we're together in person,
link |
that's what I'm saying.
link |
I'm not even saying some kind of profound.
link |
But when you remove that.
link |
When we remove that, the implementation
link |
of social networks as they stand right now
link |
in the digital space, a very different set of incentives.
link |
It's more fun to destroy others, to be shitty to others.
link |
And it becomes this endless loop, like you were saying,
link |
that's ultimately destructive and not productive.
link |
And I think it has to do with just the interfaces
link |
of making it feel good to be nice to others.
link |
Because currently it doesn't feel nearly as good
link |
to be nice to others on the internet.
link |
And it doesn't feel nearly as bad as it does in real life
link |
to be shitty to others on the internet.
link |
So the incentives are just wrong.
link |
I think there is a technology solution to this,
link |
or at least a solution to improve
link |
this communication mechanism.
link |
It's not obvious how.
link |
I have a bunch of sort of more detailed ideas,
link |
but this is fascinating because I've gotten a chance
link |
to talk to Jack Dorsey quite a bit.
link |
He's the CEO of Twitter.
link |
And he is legitimately has, in this conversation,
link |
he would agree with everything.
link |
And he's a good human being,
link |
and he has a lot of really good ideas how to improve things.
link |
The question when you're a captain of a ship,
link |
whether it's a question whether a CEO is even a captain,
link |
how much can you actually steer that ship
link |
once it's gotten large enough?
link |
There's so much momentum, there's so many users,
link |
there's so many people who are marketing and PR and lawyers.
link |
It's very difficult to change things.
link |
Is it difficult because of the fallout,
link |
or is it difficult because it's actually
link |
like literally out of this power?
link |
So power is weird when you have a large organization.
link |
This is why the great leaders,
link |
this is what great leaders do,
link |
whether it's presidents or leaders of companies.
link |
Steve Jobs, I would argue Musk is that way,
link |
is to walk into a room full of people
link |
who don't want you to create drama.
link |
When people just kind of want to be nice,
link |
the niceness creates momentum and nobody wants to,
link |
it's the systems thing.
link |
Everybody just behaves in the way
link |
they were previously behaving
link |
in the way they're supposed to behave,
link |
and nobody wants to raise a fuss.
link |
It takes a great man or woman leader to step in and say,
link |
what we've been doing is bullshit.
link |
Okay, you're fired, you're cool.
link |
I think you have to create constant revolutions
link |
within a company that's very, very difficult to do.
link |
Structurally and psychologically, it's very difficult to do,
link |
to be able to sort of, yeah,
link |
to constantly challenge the way things have been done
link |
in the past, which is why another way it's often done
link |
is a startup, like a small company,
link |
basically a small company becomes really successful
link |
and then no longer can turn the ship,
link |
so a new startup comes along, a new competitor
link |
that then challenges the big ship,
link |
and then that starts out the winner.
link |
That's like Google came to be,
link |
so Twitter came to be, and Facebook, and so on.
link |
And Apple has, that was the dream of Steve Jobs
link |
is it would succeed for many decades, for like centuries.
link |
That was the idea that you would keep creating revolutions,
link |
and under Steve Jobs, Apple successfully pivoted
link |
a bunch of times, just like reinvented themselves,
link |
which is very difficult to do.
link |
Because I mean, I've heard, at least I don't know
link |
if this is accurate, because I wouldn't know anything,
link |
but I've heard plenty of people complain about Steve Jobs.
link |
But in reality, the reason that all of these amazing things
link |
were done was because this person was willing to,
link |
well obviously brilliant, and then also willing
link |
to rattle everyone's cage periodically
link |
and say, hey, what's going on is not what we need
link |
That's a really interesting thing.
link |
So he would rattle the cage, but he would also,
link |
I don't know if those are intricately connected
link |
or always have to be connected,
link |
but he would just be a dick.
link |
So maybe by his standard, I am lazy and worthless.
link |
Well, he would say that to you, right?
link |
Is he being a dick though, if by his standard,
link |
I mean, again, it's like everyone's stupid
link |
compared to somebody.
link |
You know, I guess.
link |
But, so you apparently are able to take that kind of thing.
link |
Sometimes you just, there's ways to cross the line.
link |
And I mean, this is, okay, the fascinating thing
link |
about being a leader, especially a leader of companies,
link |
is it's a people problem.
link |
So each individual in a room, so as a leader,
link |
you're only really interacting with a small number
link |
of people because there are leaders
link |
of other smaller groups and so on.
link |
But each of those individuals in the room
link |
have their own different psychology.
link |
Some like to be pushed to the limit.
link |
Some like to be screamed at.
link |
Some are very soft spoken and almost afraid to speak.
link |
And they have to be, you have to hear them out.
link |
Like there's a, and those could be all superstars.
link |
We're not talking about like the C students.
link |
We're talking about the A plus students.
link |
Well, it's funny that, yeah, but the thing to,
link |
the skill to manage all of those people
link |
is completely separate from the skill to innovate something.
link |
I mean, not that they're not connected,
link |
but it's funny how it's, it's almost like, you know,
link |
why do we have shitty representatives?
link |
Well, I mean, the thing that you do to get elected
link |
has nothing to do with governance.
link |
Well, that's exactly it.
link |
But the great leaders have to have both skills.
link |
So like you have to have the boldness of,
link |
if you look at the great presidents through history,
link |
usually it's in a time of crisis is when they step up,
link |
but they basically say, okay, stop this old way
link |
that Congress works of this bickering,
link |
of this like compromise bullshit.
link |
Here's a huge plan that costs billions of dollars
link |
in today's age, trillions of dollars,
link |
no extra pork, no extra additions,
link |
just like, here's a clear plan.
link |
We're going to build the best road network
link |
the world has ever seen.
link |
We're going to build some huge infrastructure project.
link |
We're going to revolutionize internet.
link |
Oh, we're going to, for coronavirus,
link |
we're going to build the largest like testing facility
link |
the world has ever seen in terms of the,
link |
we're gonna get everybody tested several times a day,
link |
all those kinds of things, huge projects and say,
link |
fuck all this, the details that everybody's bickering about,
link |
we're going to give everybody $2,000,
link |
we can give everybody $3,000, like huge projects.
link |
And at the same time, so that's the boldness
link |
and the leadership and saying,
link |
throw out all the bullshit of the past.
link |
And at the same time, be able to get in the room
link |
with the leaders of both parties
link |
or for the powerful individuals
link |
and smooth talk the shit out of them
link |
in the way they need to be smooth talked to.
link |
So like both of those skills,
link |
it seems to be when they're combining one person,
link |
that creates great leaders.
link |
Musk appears to have that, Elon.
link |
I don't know if Steve Jobs, it's interesting.
link |
So the criticism of Steve and a little bit on Elon
link |
is he misses some of the human part,
link |
but maybe it's impossible to have a really,
link |
you have like Sadia Nadal, who's the CEO of Microsoft,
link |
you have, who's really good on the human side,
link |
really, really good on the human side,
link |
like everybody loves him.
link |
The CEO of Google and Alphabet is also the same way.
link |
So like, I don't know if it's possible to have both.
link |
You only get so many stat points.
link |
Yeah, you only get, in this RPG of life, yeah.
link |
You got very good at jujitsu very fast.
link |
So you went, I mean, you told the story of Blue Belt
link |
and so on, but you went to Black Belt really quickly
link |
and not just in terms of ranks,
link |
but in terms of just skill level.
link |
I mean, you didn't go to Black Belt nearly as fast
link |
as your skill set developed.
link |
You were like doing extremely well
link |
at a high level of competition.
link |
So you're a good person to ask,
link |
how does one get good at jujitsu?
link |
We talked about solving problems at the elite level,
link |
but when you're a beginner at the martial arts,
link |
how do you get good?
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How much training should you do?
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The very basic stuff, like how much training,
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how much drilling, and then the mental stuff,
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like where should your mind be?
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How should you approach it from a mental perspective too?
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I'll just tell you my perspective on this one.
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I guess I would say I feel step one,
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I feel lucky to have found a good training situation,
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particularly for the time in where I was at.
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And I drilled a ton.
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I drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled.
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And one thing that's really important to understand though,
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is that I was able to, in a relatively brief period of years,
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go from zero to reasonably good.
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But I think I probably crammed more hours
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in those small years than most people did training,
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let's say in two or three times the length.
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So it may masquerade as something else other than it is.
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So you have to put in the hours.
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There's no way around that.
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But what did you put in those hours?
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So when you say drilling, can you break that apart
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What does drilling look like?
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Is there any recommendations you can put in?
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Step one, I would say your choices matter.
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I think one of the really important things
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that I think we should consider about jiu jitsu
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is that there's a lot of junk in the system right now.
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It's like jiu jitsu has exploded in terms of
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the number of positions, techniques, strategies,
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this, that, rule sets.
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That's really cool on the one hand.
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On the other hand, there's probably a just metric shit ton
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of suboptimal things that are out there
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that are being taught.
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Myself included, I've taught things that are looking back
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five years, three years, two years, one year,
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where I'm like, oh, I would not do it like that anymore.
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Straight up, sometimes I wouldn't do it like that.
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Other times I would literally never do
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even that particular movement.
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I don't think the shrimp is a real move.
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It's a giant spiel and seizure to show in person.
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But long story short, there's a lot of things
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that we think of as fundamental
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that I think that are really pretty negative.
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And also, you know.
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That's heresy in jiu jitsu.
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Is like the holy, we all worship the shrimp.
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We love the shrimp.
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We love the shrimp.
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For people who don't do jiu jitsu, and you should,
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the shrimp is you scoot your butt away from your opponent.
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Yeah, in a really, it's like a really athletic
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looking position where you look like someone
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that's trying to stick their butt out on Instagram,
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and then you push your hands away,
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and you expose your face,
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and then you lay on your side
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because someone told you to do that.
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And you look like a, I guess you look like a shrimp.
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Yeah, it's like that time that someone really credible
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told me to drink unleaded gasoline,
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and I did it for a while.
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And then it got to the point in my life
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where the next best, the thing that I needed to do
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to really improve my life was stop drinking
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unleaded gasoline.
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And I would say that there's a lot of stuff
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that's in there that step one is like it's junk.
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And it's not only will it waste your time,
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it will straight up, it will be like an albatross
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hanging on you because it affects how you think
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about things going forward.
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So although it was, it's funny,
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like the operating assumptions that we work under
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have a huge, huge, huge influence.
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You mentioned like growing up in the United States
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or this being a capitalist society, like woo, all right.
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Now, of course I think that,
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I don't really know any different otherwise.
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And I think that a lot of times people go,
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oh, communism is better.
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I'm like, haven't seen it.
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I haven't read any books about it being better,
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but it's possible.
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I mean, I haven't experienced it much myself either.
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So I can't dismiss it outright,
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but I guess I would say it's a fundamentally
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different operating system underpinning
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and all of my choices, all of,
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if I honestly believed in that thing,
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many of my choices on a moment by moment,
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on a day by day, and certainly on a lifetime basis
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would be very different.
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So I would say that it's tough when you're young
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in the martial arts.
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And I mean, all of us are always trying to do
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our best to learn.
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But when you're young in the martial arts,
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you always go, if you're a reasonable guy,
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what do they, what do they call it?
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Like Dunning, Kruger, Amnesia.
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I can't remember if this is the right one,
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but basically you go like, oh, I know what I'm doing here.
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So I can say that's not right.
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But then I read a news story about baseball
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and I don't know anything about baseball, sounds credible.
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And it's bullshit, but I can't call bullshit.
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If you're a reasonable person,
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you can't call bullshit on things that you don't understand.
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Even if you suspect it's not right,
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you're like, well, I've got to reserve judgment.
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You never, ever, ever set aside your need
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and also obligation to understand why you were doing
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what you're doing.
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And don't ask why once, ask why over and over and over
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and over about the same thing.
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Oh, well, I want a shrimp.
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Why do I want to make space?
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To get away from the guy.
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Well, why do I want to get away from him?
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Well, because he's dangerous.
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Well, why is he dangerous?
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And you can oftentimes get down to, wait a minute,
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I didn't even need to move.
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Three quarters of the time,
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you're actually acting in the other person's self interest.
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And I guess a lot of times I can't,
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this kind of goes beyond what we can demonstrate here.
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But I would just say trying to understand
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what my base operating assumptions are
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and consistently reevaluate them,
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which can be fricking exhausting, frankly,
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and also constantly confidence destroying.
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But you mentioned that I did pretty well
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relatively quickly.
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I started in 2004 and I was at Abu Dhabi ADCC
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for the first time as an alternate in 2007.
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I won a match there against a Black Belt world champion.
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And the fact, frankly, the fact that I was able
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to beat someone like that was neat,
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but at the same time says a little bit more
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about what jiu jitsu is and some of the issues with it
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than it does about how cool I am or was,
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because that shouldn't really happen
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when you think about it.
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You're like, okay, you're a champion at ostensibly
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a very high level of the sport.
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You enjoy a three inch, four inch height advantage
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and a 35 pound weight advantage, and you just got beat.
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Like that should not, I'm dead serious,
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that should not exist.
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If that happens, you're doing it wrong.
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Is it that I'm doing it right?
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Or is it that you're doing it wrong
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and there's enough variance in the way that you're doing it
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that you're allowing me to win?
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And now I did happen to win that with the 50, 50 heel hook,
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which was 50, 50, but basically,
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which was one of the early examples of like,
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hey guys, by the way, people can try to hurt your legs.
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And that was something like, we mentioned John Danaher,
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mentioned like, you know, myself, Dean Lister,
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a lot of the guys from the Henzo Gracie team
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that have had amazing success.
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They've gone and done great things.
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And you know, Craig Jones in the competitive grappling world,
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basically taking advantage of being very, very good
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in what they're doing, but also a glaring, glaring,
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glaring issue with the operating system of jiu jitsu,
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which was, you know, a huge vulnerability in the lower body
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and not only not attacking it,
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but having no idea how one does attack it,
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which means you can't understand
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how someone will assail you.
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So anyway, I guess to come back is if in the absence
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of knowing what to do, I try to polish what I've got.
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So if I've got a knife and I'm like,
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I don't know how to use them,
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I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna sharpen the edge
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and polish it and make sure that when I need
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to use this dang thing, I'll be able to do it.
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Because trying to put together a system
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when you don't have an idea of what's going on,
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a lot of times you end up making suboptimal choices,
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but as long as you're consistently reevaluating
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what you're doing, and that's something I've tried
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to do over time, over and over and over again,
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and try to seek out the most, the best,
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and also most articulate or insightful instructors
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or people of various levels, doesn't matter if they're
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well known or not, that could say, hey, Ryan,
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I think you should do this, I think you should do that.
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And I think all I've ever done in martial arts
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is try to treat people with respect, honestly,
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try to demonstrate appreciation for the many,
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many people who have helped me over time
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and be the type of person that they wanna train with.
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Not the type of, because we've all trained with people
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that make us think about beating the ever loving crap.
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I never wanted to be that guy.
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And I was basically saying like, if I train
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with a black belt when I'm a blue belt
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and this person enjoys training with me,
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that's in my interest.
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Selfishly, not only do I not want them to beat me up,
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but selfishly, I should, you mentioned being decent
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to other people, you wanna incentivize being decent
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to other people, right, with a structure
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of what you're doing.
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Selfishly, I'm incentivized to be a nice guy,
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even if I'm internally a scumbag,
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which I like to think that I'm not,
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but basically going like, hey, this guy's way more likely
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to help me or this person's way more likely to help me
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if I shake their hand, say thank you,
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I really appreciate you helping me out.
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And that thing that they tap me with four or five times,
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I'm gonna ask them about it.
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And then they don't have to tell me,
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they're under no obligation, but I'll say,
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and whether they tell me or don't tell me,
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thank you so much for your time, I really appreciate it.
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And that's it, you know?
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Okay, so to summarize, the way you brilliantly described,
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I just wanna make sure we're keeping track of this.
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I went all over the place.
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No, you didn't, you're pretty on point.
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But so the first thing is basically, which is difficult,
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I wonder if we can break it apart a little bit,
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is don't trust authority, essentially.
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Be respectful without trusting authority, right?
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Right, which is, and then the second thing
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is be the kind of person that others like training with
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or like being around, sort of being a good friend.
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So so many people just enjoy being around.
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So one is completely, which is, yeah, you're right,
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it's attention, which is like completely disrespect
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the way that things are done.
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So asking why constantly.
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One of it is your own flaws and not understanding
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the fundamentals of what's being described.
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And then once you get good enough,
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not understanding, like going against the fact
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that the instructor doesn't understand.
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And my inability to understand what you're saying, though,
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doesn't invalidate it.
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And that's something like you mentioned,
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like me mentioning, keeping in mind our own flaws.
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And then also, again, the flaws that any of us have
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is the instructor, to your point.
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And I guess I can speak to being kind of weird.
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I don't, you know, I like to sit in the corner.
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But so everyone's a little bit different.
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Some people, you know, I wasn't terribly popular
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You know, like, I didn't like high school very much.
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But anyway, I would, not gonna be rude to people, though.
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I was never gonna bully anybody.
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If you said hello to me, I'd say hello back.
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I would hold the door for you if you walked by.
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You know, and I would just say, like simple things like that
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go a long, long, long way.
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And that actually takes us back to our social discussion
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where I'm like, oh man, how do I become great at jiu jitsu?
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It's like, well, I'll start by not pissing off this person
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who can beat the crap out of me
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and not disrespecting the person who is probably
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the closest thing to a font of knowledge
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at that time for me.
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So, and then recognizing that I should do that
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for its own virtue because it's the right thing to do
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and I should try to treat people decently.
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But beyond that, even selfishly,
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it's in my interest to do that.
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But see, the thing is, this is interesting,
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is there's a culture in martial arts,
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a culture that I like where the instructor,
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legitimately so, carries an aura of authority.
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And it's not comfortable to really ask why.
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I'm not, it's a skill to be able to have a discussion
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as a white belt or the black belt instructor
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of like, why is it done this way?
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Like, and saying why again.
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Like, I mean, it's a skill to show that you're actually
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a legitimately curious and passionate and compassionate
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student versus like, somebody who's just being
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an annoying dick who saw some stuff on YouTube.
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There's a line between, to walk there.
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I just wonder because like, it's the drilling thing.
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And, you know, I, for example, like in my,
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when I was coming out, there was so much emphasis
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placed on like, close guard, for example.
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And you might actually teach me now,
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I don't know, but to me it was like,
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why do I need to master the close guard?
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Like, why is the close guard on top or the bottom?
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But the bottom really, the fundamental basics of jiu jitsu.
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My body is not, my body says this is wrong.
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I'm like, this, like I have short legs,
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but it doesn't even matter the length of the legs.
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There's something about me that just,
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I don't understand how leverage here works
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for my particular body.
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Like, so it's just, it's a feel thing too.
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Like, it feels like in my basic understanding
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of leverage and movement and timing and so on,
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it feels like these certain, like butterfly guard,
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or even like half, basically every guard except close guard.
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I can play, I can dance.
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Close guard feels like you're shutting down
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like the play that I.
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Or is that, make sure that's what you want
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because that's almost like an innate characteristic
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of this guard position, but it's not sold that way, right?
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It's like, hey, this is a good guard.
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It's like, hey man, here's a bow and arrow versus,
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and you know how to use this thing, right?
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Like make sure you're far away
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and like up on a hill or something.
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Cause you can take that bow and arrow,
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run up on something and try to use it.
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But if nobody told you not to do that
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and they told you it was foundational,
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it's very foundational, it's very important.
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To everything else too, right?
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That's back to the shrimping thing.
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How many things are we taught that even if it's not,
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let's say itself is not a garbage thing,
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might be effectively garbage.
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You could give me a Ferrari,
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but if I try to make it fly, it's not going to work.
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If you're like, here's a plane, here's another plane,
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here's another plane, here's another plane, here's a Ferrari.
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I'm like, oh, it must be a different type of plane.
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Like you could be forgiven for leap if we're going there,
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you know, like, oh, maybe the wings come out
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or you just go fast enough to take a bullet.
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You can make these crazy leaps in your mind.
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And people are doing that all the time.
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So if you don't provide the context for me,
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or worse yet, you provide improper context,
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like how much of a problem is that going to be?
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Well, I think the skill of the white belt should be,
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But in the complicated human space of when your intention,
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at least in the big picture view, is good.
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The question is, it's not always when your intention is good,
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the actual implementation of it is good.
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So you might be just almost,
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and that's much, it's not the case for you,
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it's much more the case for white belts.
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They don't even know, their intention might be good,
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but they don't know all the lines they're crossing,
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all the, so they're not actually able to like interpret
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all the ways in which they're being totally insensitive
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to the requests of others, like explicit requests of others.
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So your job as a beginner is to be a really good listener
link |
of those social cues.
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Well, it's like a visitor in a foreign country, right?
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Like you're a representative of people
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that look like you, people that talk like you,
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people that have your passport,
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and you're like, man, I'm going to go over here.
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Oh, I've got my foot up on my knee.
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Well, if I was in certain countries in the world,
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I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry.
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But can you imagine if someone says,
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hey, I really appreciate if you take your foot off,
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that's pretty rude.
link |
And then I want to tell them, well, not where I'm from, man.
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I'm in your house.
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I better, again, I might go that direction,
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but let's say I could get away with that.
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And if I can't get away with that,
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well, I'm about to maybe be on the wrong side of something.
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But I guess, like you said,
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if we have positive intention, that's fine.
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But I also have to recognize who I am.
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And I think that that's one thing that I tried to do
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and continue to try to do over time.
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Like we're, oh man, hi,
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I'm the one that's asking for a favor here.
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If I spar with Raymond Daniels,
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Raymond Daniels is doing me a favor.
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I ain't doing him a favor.
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Let's not get it twisted.
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So thank you so much for your time.
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I really appreciate it.
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And this is not like some effected nonsense.
link |
I'm like, thank you.
link |
If I spar with Steven Thompson,
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I'm the one being done a favor.
link |
George St. Pierre takes his time to spar with me,
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which he has in the past and not even kill me,
link |
which is really, I appreciate that
link |
because that's why I can sit here.
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George is not a prop for me to get my rocks off
link |
or see what's going on.
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And also I'm going to do that
link |
and then expect him to just take it.
link |
And I've seen, he's a gentleman.
link |
I've seen people get nuts with George
link |
and have him just be like, he's a patient of a saint.
link |
I don't have that level of patience,
link |
but I would just say to come back,
link |
figuring out like, hey, so what role am I here?
link |
And that comes back to like,
link |
at least what I see people on the internet.
link |
Yeah, man, I have a beef with Joe Rogan.
link |
You're like, no, you don't, Ryan.
link |
I'm like, I'm some random dude.
link |
Joe, like people want to,
link |
they almost want to like elevate
link |
so that we can somehow be level with peers here.
link |
If I go into Feroz Zahabi's gym,
link |
I am not a peer of Feroz Zahabi.
link |
I am a student of TriStar.
link |
I'm a guest in the academy.
link |
And if Feroz asked me for something short of him,
link |
like telling me to try to do a triple backflip
link |
so I don't break my neck,
link |
the answer is yes, sir, I can do a free Feroz.
link |
No, man, in no words.
link |
And it's, and hopefully it should come with,
link |
I guess, a level of graciousness,
link |
but I guess that's kind of one of the things
link |
that I see nowadays with how accessible people are.
link |
Cause I grew up, you know, being a big,
link |
huge baseball sports fan of all kinds.
link |
I couldn't send Derek Jeter a message
link |
and much less have a possibility of a reply.
link |
And if I do, it's like, you know,
link |
I have people send me messages.
link |
It's very nice that people send me messages.
link |
Some people, again, and everyone,
link |
not everyone is coming from the same place,
link |
but I've had plenty of things that are like,
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yo, dude, I need you to do this for me.
link |
I'm like, well, I'll tell you what's never going to happen.
link |
That I have no idea who you are.
link |
And that was how I was addressed.
link |
And I don't need, oh man, you're the greatest one
link |
because that's weird and too, cause I'm not,
link |
but just, hey Ryan, how are you doing?
link |
Hey, do you think you could do the following
link |
if you get a second?
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I'm like, if I get a second, you're dang right I can.
link |
Why not? It's easy to ask.
link |
But it started with some level of politeness.
link |
And I guess like that's maybe being semi Southern,
link |
like I grew up in Virginia.
link |
Yes, sir. Yes, ma'm.
link |
Like that goes a long way.
link |
And there's all different kinds
link |
of implementations of politeness.
link |
I mean, most of the successful people I've met,
link |
it's been surprising to me how much of,
link |
you mentioned peers, like I could think of Joe Rogan.
link |
You mentioned Joe Rogan, but Elon Musk,
link |
they don't, like they almost treat me like I'm the superior.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
Like it's not even, that's the politeness.
link |
Like, you know, that's the approach.
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The feeling of it is like, I'm the student,
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I'm the beginner, I'm like approaching the situation.
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Like it's almost like a method acting of like,
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you're better than me.
link |
And that's how I approach a lot of interactions.
link |
Like I have something to learn from this,
link |
even if it's like a young.
link |
Do you think that they're ungenuine?
link |
They're totally genuine.
link |
But isn't that a funny thing?
link |
Like in spite of who they are,
link |
they're incredibly genuine because they respect,
link |
correct me if I'm wrong, they respect you obviously
link |
for what you bring to the table.
link |
They also approach.
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No, no, they approach everybody like this.
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But that's all right.
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No, but I'm sure they respect for what you bring to the table.
link |
Beyond that though, they're treating you
link |
with dignity as a human being.
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Yeah, as a human being, that's right.
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And when they could probably get away
link |
with treating most people
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without a whole heck of a lot of dignity.
link |
And I guess what does that always say that like, you know,
link |
again, like you can always tell someone of quality
link |
because they treat the king and the janitor the same way.
link |
But that's what we're seeing a lot.
link |
Like, I guess I don't mean to like to nitpick,
link |
but that's where it would take issue, I guess a little bit,
link |
or disagree with the next.
link |
Are you gonna criticize with the internet again?
link |
People on the internet.
link |
Old man yells at clouds.
link |
But anyway, but I guess what I mean is just like
link |
the way that people address each other
link |
because it's so casual now, you know,
link |
and it's great on the one hand, it's nice.
link |
On the other hand, you go, hey, I just, why can't do,
link |
am I somehow, am I worried about diminishing myself?
link |
It's like the way that I'm sure that people talk to like,
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talk to women sometimes.
link |
And words, what's up girl?
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I mean, she's a bitch.
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You know, versus like, how am I,
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that was supposed to get a good response?
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What about that was going to elicit a favorable response?
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You know, versus being anything, anything other than just,
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you know, man, what's going on?
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And I guess that, does that make any sense?
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It makes total sense.
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And that Southern thing that you're referring to,
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I feel like that's an important,
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that's an important part of human communication.
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Let me ask you this.
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You're a new back attacks instructional.
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First of all, awesome.
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Second of all, you drop a lot of fascinating insights
link |
in there, but you quote Galileo out of all people
link |
in saying that you can't teach a man anything.
link |
You can only help him find it within himself.
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So we talked about how to start in Jiu Jitsu.
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What about if we zoom out even more
link |
and how do you learn how to learn?
link |
How do you optimize the learning process?
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I don't know the answer to that,
link |
but I can tell you what I'd like to do.
link |
And I would say like, I can't step one.
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I don't, I'm not, maybe this is a little bit easier for me
link |
cause you know, I've never had a ton of friends, honestly.
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I've, you know, I've got my close friends
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and people that I know,
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but I've never had tons and tons of people.
link |
So I spent a lot of time, you know, thinking.
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And anyway, I can't, I can't control you.
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I can't control anybody else.
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I, you know, I, all I can,
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I want to take my, it's a Marcus Aurelius thing.
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It's like, you know, I guess the trick to life
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is figuring out what's in our control and what's not
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and focusing on things that are in our control, I guess.
link |
And so step one is figuring out both internally
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and then also out in the world as it pertains to Jiu Jitsu,
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what is actually in my control and what is not.
link |
Like passing someone's guard is not in your control.
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People think it is, it ain't.
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If I can't just do an activity and be unchecked,
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then it ain't in my control entirely.
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I can always breathe.
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I can always, you know, be calm.
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I can always, no matter whether I'm concerned
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or not concerned, have whatever you want to call it,
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nerves, you know, I can step forward across the line
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and say, I will, I will face the challenge ahead.
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That is all entirely, no one can stop me from doing that.
link |
That's entirely in my control.
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And that's why I know that every single time
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that I walk into the ring,
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I'll walk in and out of there with my head held high
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because there's, I will fight with everything that I have.
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I can't promise that I'll win.
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I would say I take that same first principles.
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You mentioned last time we talked, you know,
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with Elon and the importance of that and going,
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what are the first principles?
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And I guess to come back a lot of times, in my opinion,
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the things that people think are the basics
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are not the basics.
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If you think you're reasoning for first principles,
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but you're actually like level six,
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you're actually like layers up,
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you're making so many,
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there's so many baked in assumptions to what's going on
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that you're gonna struggle to understand
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why anything is actually happening,
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internally, externally, you name it.
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So I guess what I would start when it comes to learning
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is first principles and trying to understand
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what's going on, but then also simple things first.
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I can control my posture.
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I can control my breathing.
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No one can stop me from doing that.
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I can control where I place my frames.
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I can control where I place my limbs.
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I can move my feet.
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I can develop the ability to do these things
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better, of course.
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And I do that through practice, through drilling,
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through watching people.
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I've been incredibly fortunate in my time in martial arts
link |
to train with many of my heroes,
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to train with many of the people that I looked at.
link |
And I was like, that guy is amazing.
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I wanna train with this person, like Stephen Thompson,
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Kenny Florian, George St. Pierre, Raymond Daniels,
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Farah Zahabi, you know, I mean, like Bruno Frazada,
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Marcelo Garcia, you know, all of these guys
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that are just unbelievable.
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And I go, well, they're moving in a way that's different.
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Well, how do I do that?
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Well, sometimes you can ask them
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and they can tell you directly.
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Other times, people, part of the genius of what they do
link |
is that it's intuitive.
link |
And maybe they don't think and understand
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and see the world the same way that I do.
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That was something that I experienced with Marcelo.
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But in a different way than his,
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it just, we see things fundamentally different.
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We experience the world differently.
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It seems to me that we do.
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And again, that taught me a really important lesson
link |
because I was wanting, when I trained there,
link |
to have someone go, hey, Ryan, do this, this, this,
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and this, and that's how it works.
link |
And I'm like, all right, because that's how I understood
link |
martial arts at the time.
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I wasn't ready to have someone tell me, like, hey,
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it feels a little bit like this, and I just kind of do it,
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which is kind of what Marcelo would do at the time.
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He was less experienced as a teacher,
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but that is what he was doing.
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I was completely, I couldn't separate in my mind
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performance and understanding.
link |
I thought that if I understand, I could do it.
link |
And I would also struggle sometimes
link |
to wonder why I couldn't execute things
link |
that I thought I understood,
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and why guys like Marcelo were just so elemental.
link |
I mean, in like the, like lightning, wind,
link |
like that type of thing where like, it's just so in touch
link |
with what they wanted, with their capabilities.
link |
They could summon their powers at will.
link |
I couldn't always do that.
link |
And I guess, so recognizing that there was more than one way
link |
to the top of the mountain, and also I had a lot of science,
link |
but I didn't have a lot of art, or I had some science,
link |
I should say, but I didn't have a lot of art.
link |
Meeting people like Marcelo taught me,
link |
and then Josh Waitzkin, actually brilliant guy,
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chess champion, former owner,
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maybe owner of Marcelo's Academy, really great friend.
link |
I think he has a book on learning.
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He does, yeah, The Art of Learning, actually.
link |
But yeah, he knows a thing or two about it,
link |
And anyway, he sat me down one time,
link |
and was like, look, man, you're doing this wrong.
link |
You're missing what the, missing the genius,
link |
the brilliance that's right in front of you.
link |
And it took me a long time.
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What did he mean exactly?
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I was frustrated with my inability
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to grasp certain things,
link |
and sometimes the teaching style being different.
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Not wrong, just it was, it was tough on me at times.
link |
So you were trying to replicate what Marcelo was saying
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as opposed to understanding the fundamentals
link |
from which it was coming.
link |
Right, I couldn't see, I couldn't see
link |
where it was coming from.
link |
And also, sometimes I'm like, well,
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why can't you explain it in the way
link |
that I would want you to explain it?
link |
And he's like, well, why can't I meet him
link |
where he's coming from?
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So anyway, it was a really important time,
link |
unless I'm very, very frustrating if I'm honest,
link |
but it's not, I'm so thankful for that time.
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And anyway, you know, I guess.
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So always first principles,
link |
trying to understand the basics,
link |
first starting at the place where you can control things,
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the very basic elements of what you can work with.
link |
And then when there's other mentors and teachers to.
link |
Meet them where they're coming from.
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Meet them where they're coming from.
link |
To the extent that I can.
link |
Rather than, I'm not, like, again, it's like,
link |
why are you not talking to me
link |
the way I want you to talk to me?
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As opposed to, hey, where are you coming from?
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Back to your point.
link |
But I know that's not entirely specific,
link |
but you know, like, if you can focus on that
link |
and back to the whole, you can't teach a man anything.
link |
Marcelo didn't teach me anything,
link |
but he taught me in so doing, like,
link |
and other people like that, to find it within.
link |
And it's like, yeah, I guess something else
link |
that I've heard before is that all learning is self discovery,
link |
but all performance is self expression.
link |
And I always thought that Marcelo was a brilliant master
link |
of letting what's inside out.
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He was so consistent in his performances.
link |
And a lot of times I felt like there was a block there
link |
personally, particularly at the end of Jiu Jitsu
link |
when I was very, very results oriented.
link |
And I wasn't, I think my focus was not ideal.
link |
It was definitely not in the place
link |
that I would like it to be.
link |
And whether it would have won more or lost more,
link |
hard to say, but I know that I would have performed better
link |
if I'd have adjusted that.
link |
And anyway, that recognizing that, again, Jiu Jitsu,
link |
I think I've said it before, Jiu Jitsu studies is a science,
link |
but expressed as an art.
link |
It doesn't matter if you can articulate
link |
what you know how to do.
link |
What matters is if you can do what you know how to do.
link |
It only matters if you're, you know,
link |
I guess if you're teaching in a verbal fashion
link |
is whether or not you can articulate it,
link |
but recognizing the difference between learning
link |
on an intellectual level or conceptual level
link |
and being able to translate that into the physical.
link |
And I guess like that's been the thing
link |
that I feel like fortunate over time in my own academy
link |
to be able to kind of fiddle around and learn on my own
link |
and practice with my students.
link |
And, you know, sometimes I struggle
link |
to have great training partners.
link |
Like when I say great training partner,
link |
I mean, other world class people to spar, to roll with,
link |
but I've gotten a lot more, honestly,
link |
than I ever would have thought
link |
out of being able to practice and learn and fail and try
link |
and succeed on my own without like my own little sandbox,
link |
figuring out how I can take an idea
link |
and then come up with drills and drills to practice it
link |
so that I can actually practice putting it into play.
link |
Because again, knowing an idea and then not drilling,
link |
I'll never have it.
link |
It'll never see the light of day.
link |
So in that DVD, in that instruction DVD, sorry.
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It's an online instructional DVD.
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I keep saying DVD though.
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Nobody has DVDs anymore.
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Do they not? It's like VHS.
link |
What, like Blu Ray?
link |
I possess some DVDs.
link |
I mean, like I've never watched them.
link |
What do you use them for?
link |
Like a cup, like a thing you put a drink on?
link |
I mean, in a pinch, yeah.
link |
What's that even called?
link |
Yeah, my matrix coaster.
link |
The matrix coaster, zeros and ones.
link |
Okay, so in that instruction that people should get,
link |
I've been watching.
link |
I'm really enjoying.
link |
It's, I don't even know when it came out recently, right?
link |
Like December or something like that?
link |
Yeah, it's part one.
link |
It was actually like ended up being like 18 hours long
link |
and I was like, oh my God, we gotta chop it in half.
link |
And when it comes together, the whole thing,
link |
I think I hope people will like it.
link |
Yeah, well it's even part one is really good.
link |
Yeah, people on Reddit were really excited
link |
for part two as well.
link |
And you also have a back.
link |
The old one that I, that was really helpful to me
link |
to understand some very basic aspects of control
link |
Yeah, that was, you know, that clicked with me.
link |
There's very few instructionals.
link |
There's very few things I've watched
link |
that ever clicked with me and that was definitely it.
link |
It taught me one thing, I don't know,
link |
it's you drop a lot of sort of bombs,
link |
you drop a lot of really interesting details
link |
and it's funny that there's only specific things
link |
that really click.
link |
Like a lot of it rings true and you kind of take it in
link |
and it's like, oh, that's interesting, okay, yeah,
link |
but there's certain things that really click.
link |
And I remember when that first instruction
link |
will click with me is like the importance.
link |
I don't remember any more like how you communicated it
link |
because I've now integrated, it's now mine,
link |
you know what I mean?
link |
But it was more about you just describing upper body control
link |
and the importance of the upper body control from the back.
link |
And just like the, there's certain grip,
link |
like you did describe different details on the grips
link |
and so on and as I started trying it,
link |
I realized how important upper body control is
link |
versus like me maybe as a blue belt or something
link |
was I thought like you have achieved victory
link |
when you got the two hooks in.
link |
And then I realized like at least for me
link |
that the hooks were not even for my body type,
link |
for my style, for the way I approach things,
link |
they were not even important at all.
link |
It's supplemental for the most part, yeah.
link |
So they were there for the points
link |
but I can establish a huge amount of control.
link |
In fact, the hooks were, you were talking about
link |
like illusion of choice, it almost made people panic
link |
a lot more when you were like fighting for it
link |
or establishing that kind of control.
link |
They were a lot less panicked when the hooks weren't
link |
involved even though they should be a lot more panicked.
link |
Anyway, I realized a lot of those kinds of things,
link |
especially that had to do with judo because so much
link |
of judo on the ground is centered around aggressive,
link |
efficient, very fast choking, like different kinds
link |
of clock chokes and all that kind of stuff.
link |
What a brilliant thing that is only gonna start
link |
to make its way into jiu jitsu coming up
link |
but like the judo style approach to like clock choking,
link |
triangling from the top of the turtle and stuff,
link |
Yeah, and there's something about judo that emphasizes
link |
obviously due to the rules, the urgency.
link |
So you only do techniques that go fast.
link |
And then the other thing is, which I guess
link |
jiu jitsu emphasizes too but judo really does,
link |
which is the transition.
link |
So like while the person's flying in the air
link |
is the easiest time.
link |
I mean, this is like Ryan Hall type of shit,
link |
which is like, why not put in your submissions
link |
or positional control while they're in the air?
link |
If you could, why would you not, right?
link |
It's like, oh, well, I don't throw well.
link |
We'll learn how to throw and then do it.
link |
And so you should think, I mean, in the transition,
link |
when they're flying is the easiest time to put in stuff.
link |
And that's when you think about chokes,
link |
as you're throwing, you should be thinking about the choke
link |
and then everything becomes a lot easier.
link |
You ever see Flabio Canto?
link |
Man, Brazilian judoka is just so cool.
link |
Like with stuff like that.
link |
Yeah, exactly, but that has to do
link |
with the first starting principle of like,
link |
stop thinking this as a two phase game
link |
of standing and then ground.
link |
Start thinking about like the standing and the,
link |
the standing comes before and the ground comes after,
link |
but everything happens in a transition.
link |
Well, unless you're attacking, what is the art of war?
link |
Like, we all like, everyone's like,
link |
oh yeah, the art of war, oh yes, yes, yes.
link |
And then they immediately throw it away
link |
and then fight like a fricking barbarian.
link |
But, I mean like, I'm serious,
link |
but how many people quote stuff and then like,
link |
it's like the, what is it, the family guy joke
link |
where they're like, quoting Jesus and Jesus walks in,
link |
he's like, you're not listening to my work,
link |
what are you talking about?
link |
And anyway, basically, like the art of war,
link |
one of the things that's like the only thing
link |
that you can be sure of being successful in attacking
link |
is something that's undefended.
link |
We're like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
link |
But you know, in a fight though, they're defended.
link |
There's moments all the time
link |
where I'm borderline defenseless.
link |
And if you were to attack at that moment,
link |
if you could see it and then seize the moment,
link |
if you were capable of both,
link |
you should not only expect to be successful,
link |
you should be damn sure you're gonna be successful.
link |
And more important than that, you'll be successful.
link |
And even if somehow not, you won't be countered.
link |
And I guess like, that's the trick
link |
of almost all like conflict, right?
link |
It's like showing up when the other person's taking a nap.
link |
And then it's so funny, like we take like a protracted war.
link |
It's like, oh, it takes five years.
link |
And there's lulls and there's a battle this month,
link |
but then there's a couple of weeks, another battle.
link |
It's like, well, if you just shrink that down,
link |
it's the microcosm, macrocosm idea.
link |
That same thing, that whole war is taking place
link |
in five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes.
link |
And there's moments of lulls of person effectively
link |
going for a snack, being like in a horror movie,
link |
like, hey guys, I'm gonna go get a beer from around the way.
link |
Like I'm dead for sure.
link |
Is there, on this particular instructional,
link |
if you can convert it to words,
link |
you talk about finishing the submission.