back to indexDevon Larratt: Arm Wrestling | Lex Fridman Podcast #265
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I get so passionate about it. I get so angry, you know, because there's a saying like,
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oh, can you beat him in a hook? Can you be a man? Win. Win. That's it. Just win and don't talk to
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me about anything else. You believe the match is finished and I wonder if that gets in the head
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of the other person. You see this? Yeah. Quit. The following is a conversation with Devon Larritt.
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Considered by many to be one of the greatest arm wrestlers in history. This is Alex Friedman
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podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
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here's Devon Larritt. You are considered to be one of the greatest arm wrestlers in history,
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plus are one of the most charismatic and fun people to watch in arm wrestling. But let me
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first start with a ridiculous, the controversial opinion. I actually really enjoy Over the Top,
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the movie with Sylvester Stallone, where he's a trucker. It's like a father son movie. It's,
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you know, like a bunch of sports have the definitive movie. The boxing has Rocky, maybe
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folk style, collegiate wrestling, has a vision quest. What else is there? Billiards has color
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of money. This is the sort of movie for arm wrestling. So what did Over the Top get right?
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What did it get wrong about arm wrestling? That was actually based off of a real story. A lot of
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people don't know that. Now, the Over the Top movie, I mean, to a certain degree, that's actually
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real life. Like that tournament Over the Top was real. It was literally named Over the Top. Yes.
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Yes. There was a trucker division, and the guy actually won a truck for real. His name is John
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Bersink. You know who that is, right? So the actual Over the Top tournament, the trucker division
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was won by John. Who is John Bersink? He is, a lot of people talk about him as like a legend and
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one of, if not the greatest arm wrestlers of all time. John Bersink is every arm wrestler's
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father to a certain degree, all of us. The entire sport looks up to him. He,
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it's incredible what he's done. I mean, at 18, he won Over the Top at 57. He just competed with
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me a couple months ago, still at the world level. 18, that's 40 years of being at the top of the
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sport. It's incredible. He's hailed as the greatest of all time in the sport arm wrestling.
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Yeah. And he doesn't, he's beaten some monsters. Oh yeah. Yeah. And he doesn't, I mean,
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when you talk about like the evolution of the sport, he's responsible for so much of it. Like
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when you talk about like, a lot of times when you go back like 20 years, 30 years,
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a lot of us looked at arm wrestling, I think it's, I mean, as something you could kind of do.
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And he's the first guy who's like, if you want to get better at arm wrestling, you got arm wrestling.
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And it seems so simple, but you know, he answered so many questions that all of us had about
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techniques in the sport back, you know, pre, pre video internet. Yeah, he's everybody,
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he's been everybody's target for like 40 years. So in terms of strength, there's a power in terms
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of skill. What did he teach the sport of arm wrestling? So if you look, how did the sport
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change from 80s, 90s to the aughts? You were at the top of the world for many years, you know,
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many argue you're still at the very top of the world, but like you were very dominant,
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both left and right hand. And I don't know, 2008 to 2013, something like that.
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So how did that sport evolve to today? So it's hard for me to comment, you know,
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prior to, you know, when I came to the sport was kind of mid 90s, like I've been arm wrestling my
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whole life, but I wasn't really involved in the sport to a major degree until probably, you know,
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mid 90s. But I'll say that before the mid 90s, it was really hard to get good at arm wrestling.
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Very difficult. Everybody was doing it wrong, really. Like it was really rare to find people
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who were technically good arm wrestlers. It was very underground, you know, when I when I got into
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sport, it was a flyer that came in the mail. You had to know somebody who knew somebody who knew
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somebody. And then you go to a club and you can't do anything with these people. And and they'll
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and they knew how to arm wrestle, they did. But real masters were rare. And, you know, then
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internet, internet helped everybody. Communication, the transfer of knowledge became so much faster.
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People became technically, you know, invested. People started train sharing sharing ideas by I'd
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say 2000. Well, probably around the turn of the millennia, I'd say that professional leagues
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started to slowly pick up more organized, bigger productions started to track more athletes.
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More people took it seriously. By 2010, I'd say there was another jump. More serious leagues,
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a little bit more money. By 2015, more major media, like people were investing a lot of money,
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like, you know, millionaires, billionaires type of people were organizing events, setting up leagues.
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And yeah, I mean, the past five years, it's just blown up the techniques. I mean, if, if I was to
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go back to when I started, you know, what, what took me 10 or 15 years to learn? I mean, new
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guys are showing up and they've got it down in like a year. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing about it,
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the development of the sport is it's like I was telling you off, Mike, it's a battle of one
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versus one. Yeah. And then that can turn into battle of nations, which, you know, there is,
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there's Canada, there's the United States, there's all the Eastern Europe, Russia, Georgia, all of
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that. That, that's what makes some of the greatest sports in Olympics grade, like weightlifting.
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It's a battle of nations, not just the battle of individuals. And it's almost like these two humans
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represent the two nations. And I see that very much. We'll talk about your matches coming up, but
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there is that battle between North America and that other part of the world. Yeah. Yeah. North
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America is very prized. You know, the North American champion is always highly sought after
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because they're typically the most famous. You know, even still when, you know, quite arguably,
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there's always somebody in Eastern Europe who's just monstrous. It's typically the North American
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athlete who's more recognized. By the way, oh yeah, we'll have a cup here with some maple syrup. Cheers,
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Lex. Cheers. We should probably show, you just down that whole thing. No, no, no, I'm going to sip
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it. I'm going to sip it, you know, but by all means, it's really good, right? That is delicious.
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Yeah. That is maple syrup. Yeah. That's a perfect July day from Canada in a bottle. Yeah.
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So you're on a, on a totally, on a total tangent. You are known for appreciating food in all kinds
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of ways, but one of the things you're known for is pancakes. That is, yeah, that's gone
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to a crazy place in the sport, but yeah. Where did that originate? So where that originated?
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When it went from like your actual love for pancakes to the meme. Yeah. So I think what happened was
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so I had a match with Michael Todd, big match. Michael, great champion. He's another guy who's,
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you know, he's never going to get off the horse. You know, he's, he's, his elbow is a complete
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disaster. Probably one of the most loved and hated guys in the sport right now.
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Is it because of the Kings move? The Kings move brings him a lot of hate. Not from me,
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not from a lot of people, but a lot of observers have a big problem with the Kings move.
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What's wrong with being a little bit controversial? That's fun.
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You know, I get so passionate about it. I get so angry, you know, because there's the saying
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like, Oh, can you beat him in a hook? Can you be, man, win. Yeah. Win. That's all that matters.
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Just win and don't talk to me about anything else. If you can win with style, win with style,
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but don't talk to me about anything but winning other. That's the priority.
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So you had this match with Michael Todd. Yeah. So I was in a terrible place.
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Um, I guess it was, I get so screwed up with the years. It's 2022 now, right?
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No, it's 2030. What are you talking about? Yeah.
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That's right. I think it is actually 2030. We're way ahead of schedule.
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That's right. So when was this? This was like a decade ago or no?
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No, this is like a year and a bit ago.
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Oh, this is very recent.
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Very recent. Yeah. So I got really sick.
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Is that the match?
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Yeah. This is the match, right?
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Awesome match. So this is, this match is for the legacy hammer.
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So we invented this thing called the legacy hammer and Michael took it from me.
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And I think 2018 and then COVID shut everything down and Michael went overseas to try and set up
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because at that time Michael was a North American champion.
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He beat me and he went to Dubai and he organized this great big match with LaVon
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and the whole thing fell apart. Organizers, leagues wouldn't let it happen,
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but there was still an ability to have a match of significance happen.
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So Michael's like, who do you want? And I'm like, let's give Devon a rematch.
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And I'm like, yeah. Yes. And I was really sick at the time.
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I had DVT. I had pulmonary embolism. I was mentally in a terrible place and I got offered
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the match and I just totally turned my life around and I committed really hard.
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Yeah. And what happened in this match, by the way?
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Oh, I just totally destroyed them. Yeah. I just beat the piss out of them.
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Yeah. Michael's a good friend of mine, but
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Yeah. There's a lot of camaraderie and you guys talked afterwards.
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Yeah. But we fight like brothers, you know, like, so we let each other really fight hard
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against each other. But so I was, I knew, I mean, strength and mass, they go hand in hand.
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And I committed to just getting as big and as strong as I could and literally I was
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eating pancakes every day. Bacon, pancakes, every sloppy bit of garbage food I could eat.
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I was trying to eat healthy also, but if there was garbage food, I'd eat it.
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What do you mean, bacon and pancakes isn't healthy? What are you talking about?
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Exactly. If people should go watch, there's a video where you make like the Canadian
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meal of bacon with some bacon cooking tips, water, that was interesting.
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Yeah. And then obviously pancakes and maple syrup all over the whole thing.
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Yeah. You're making me very hungry. I've caused more diabetes than, you know,
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probably going to get in trouble karmically for making the world obese.
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You should probably write a, like, like a book, The Pancake Diet, Devin Larritz.
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Yeah. I think I will do that one day.
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So you said mass and strength go hand in hand, just at a big level about arm wrestling.
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What's more important, strength, power, endurance, skill, strategy, or mental toughness?
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Like, how do these components all come into play in arm wrestling?
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They're all important. You can use everything and you can adjust your strategy based off of
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the tools that you have. I would say if I could pick ever, just one thing to have more of,
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I would say that it would be strength gained while fighting.
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While actually arm wrestling, so not off the, no, no, no. So you get stronger from arm wrestling.
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How do you get stronger from arm wrestling? Injujitsu and grappling, you can get good by training
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with people much technically worse than you. So with white belts and blue belts,
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it's actually beneficial. Agree.
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Because you get to work stuff out. Right.
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But I wouldn't say it develops like that intensity and power required to go against
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people at your level. So how do you balance that? Is it okay to go against people that are
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much weaker than you? Or do you really have to go against people at the same level?
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I think that a blended strategy is probably the best. I'd say kind of a rule is whatever
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you do, you get better at. So you want to be kind of as precise as possible. You don't want to get
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hurt. And it's just about investment. And the answer is not always the same. Things are going
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to change. I am currently a big believer in what I call tower building. So you have to do a lot of
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volume to build a great tower. You need to have a ton, a ton of volume. So when you look at how
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to best build volume, you want to do workouts that aren't particularly challenging, that make you
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feel good and do them so that when you add them all together, you get the biggest number. So many
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easy workouts a day that are specific as possible, in my opinion, is the best way to lay the foundation
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for an extreme peak. And precision, right? Like there's no more precise way to get strong
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at arm wrestling than arm wrestle. So how often can you arm wrestle? What's your training
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measurement? You've talked about this as the climb, right? What is the training process
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to get great at arm wrestling? Well, again, it's going to depend on what level you're at.
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The answer at the beginning might not be the same. For me, the guy who's been doing it almost 30
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years, I have to harvest. I have to harvest energy from clubs. I call it cosmic punch. Sorry to
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interrupt you here in Austin, Texas. You are in Austin, Texas, but you were at the, what was it
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called? The water tank. You had an awesome crowd. It was great. I got to watch that. I got to interact
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with a lot of those guys. Just an amazing community, amazing human beings. I got to talk to Dimitri
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in Russian and in English. He's an engineer. His wife is an engineer. So he's a brilliant dude, but
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also one of the toughest guys you face there. But you faced, I don't know how many people,
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there must have been hundreds of matches. Yeah. So the bar was full. Yeah. And that for me is a
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perfect training scenario. Yeah. So if I go in and just kind of be, I'm like a lightning rod,
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and I just absorb everything that I can get from people, all their effort,
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that's perfect. That's perfect. But I'm lucky because I'm in a place that I can handle it.
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You know, if I was losing or failing, this would not be optimal. But because I'm strong enough,
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I've been doing it long enough that I can kind of absorb it without damaging me.
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This is perfect. This is perfect. I typically, when I'm training up for a very serious match,
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I'll try and do that three or four times a week. And then the days in between,
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I will just do blood flow rehab, blood flow rehab. I will never hit a PR, a record. I'll never do it
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anymore. I don't do it. I used to, a lot of things change. And that's why I say like,
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there's a lot of ways to do it. This is currently a system that's working very well for me.
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So when you say PR, you're not aggressively chasing a peak. You're just building and building and
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building. Yeah. My only peak that I care about is for this cycle, the 25th of June. That's my only
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PR. Let's talk about the 25th of June. Oh, yeah. Let's talk about LeVon Signeshvili,
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the Georgian Hulk. Yeah. Question number one, is it possible to beat him? He is widely acknowledged
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as the most powerful person in arm wrestling today. Is he beatable? And so how? Everybody's
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beatable. Everybody's beatable. LeVon is incredible. He is what this modern peak of arm wrestling
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represents. So for people who are just listening, we also have an overlay of a video of LeVon going
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against Vitaly Letin, another top three person in the world, perhaps in arm wrestling. And LeVon
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is the guy in the right, just big. I love it. And the aggression, I mean, actually sort of
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underneath it all is, it seems to be a teddy bear, but when he turns it on, it's raw power.
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He's the full package. LeVon is, he represents the pinnacle. There's Dennis in the background.
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He's like, I want to be back in there. LeVon has a lot of bases covered. He's,
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I mean, he's curling 300 pounds with one arm. I mean, the strength that he shows for arm wrestling
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is, is, is so far ahead of the field is very, very strong. But it's absolutely possible.
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It's absolutely possible. The one thing that I'm confident about, well, I'd say there's two things.
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The two things I'm confident about is that I have more experience than he does. And experience
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counts for a lot. The other thing is my ability to breathe and recover. So if ever there's an
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opportunity for the tide to turn, that's, I think, where you'll never get it back. So I think if I
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can somehow find a hole in his game, then yeah, see here, you want to hold off the initial like
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assault of power and that, and then wear them out and to find the hole. And then
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how much of that is mental? How much of is just the physical ability to do
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for your muscles to have the endurance to hold off?
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I like to make the sport bigger. And a lot of things that most arm wrestlers
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believe the sport is, I always try and push those boundaries. So there is definitely a mental
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aspect to it when you're faced with something that you've never seen before. That's when things
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like experience comes in, he can become surprised where what's a surprise for him is routine for
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me. So my adjustments will be more precise, more accurate. That's how I get in. That's how I get
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in. Yeah, I play a dirty game. So some of it, how important is confidence in the whole,
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in the progression of the match? Is there ups and downs of confidence? Like holy
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shit, I actually have a chance to win this. Holy shit, I'm winning this, you're done.
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There's some of my favorite moments, I don't know if those are fake or not in terms of your
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expressions, if it's fake until you make it. But whenever you shake your head or whatever,
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you make it apparent that you believe the match is finished. And I wonder if that gets in the
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head of the other person. When you start to actually, so I'm sure you're doing things in
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like precise detailed things with your hands to also indicate that you believe they're finished.
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But you're facially just... See this? Yeah.
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Quit. Oh, that's right, because it's facing you.
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So that's ultimately what the battle is about. It's like, you're done. You might as well give up.
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Commitment is so important in anything that you do, right? Like, I always kind of try and bring
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things to a level of commitment that's uncommon. I think that that's a lot of reasons why I do well
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is because I just get so committed in the whole process. And by the time that I actually show
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up to fight, I sometimes just wish that they would kill me. I wish that they would, because that's
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how far I want to go. People talk about how committed are you to the match. If you're committed
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to the match and you lose, you should be hurt. I'm often unhappy when I lose a match and I don't
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have an injury. I'm like, damn, what the fuck? I feel like I didn't commit.
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I don't know if you know Dan Gable as the wrestler. Oh, yeah, he was on the podcast. Yeah.
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He talked about his whole career. He dreamed of working so hard that he can't get off the
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mat by himself. And he's disappointed ultimately at the end of his career because he was always
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able to get off the mat on his own accord. So he wants to, yeah, leave it all on the mat just
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from exhaustion. So that's what commitment looks like. But what is this process? What is this climb
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for probably the toughest match of your career? I would say the most epic match in arm wrestling,
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history. I mean, it's really building up. You said North America. I think
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by a constant many, one of the greatest arm wrestlers ever. He is one of the scariest arm
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wrestlers ever. And so this match, by the way, where's it happening? It'll be in Dubai.
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June. So what does the climb look like? The climb for me, what I have to change in my life
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always. People talk about being a professional. I've always loved the sport. I've loved it like
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crazy. But to me, the path is about simplicity and removal of distractions. I do better and better
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the more I get rid of everything, nothing else. So that my life is just the goal, just the target.
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And everything else is off the table. And that's where I need to get to, where there's nothing.
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There's nothing between me and him. And every single day, you're putting in the volume. Every day,
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all day. Now, you said you worked out. So yesterday, you did hundreds of arm wrestling matches.
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And then today, you said in the morning, you still worked out. So what was that workout?
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So you're mixing up stuff where you're doing weights. Also, this morning, I try to really
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focus on what's administratively easy. That's a big part of me, everything I do. So I just travel
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with bands. Yeah, I got bands with me. And it's rehabilitative in nature. So I'm really focusing
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on blood flow, feeling good, doing proper movements. But yeah, just band workout in the hotel.
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What does a band workout look like? So are you doing the arm wrestling movement?
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Oh, see that? See what you did there? What's that? Yeah, it's that you want to bring them in now.
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Up, up, up, up, up, up, up into your center, right? You think what can you control out here?
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Now, you bring everything close. That's it. Don't worry about pinning. Pinning happens
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once it's close to you. People always think about pinning. You don't think about pinning.
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How much of the body is a part of this too? Like the core, the torso, because it feels like
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there's that almost like Mike Tyson punch power, right? Does it come from the hips too and the
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legs? It's definitely the whole body. It's definitely the whole body. Like everything is
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working. You're connected to the table at times as far as your base. Sometimes your base is your
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feet. But a lot of times you can base off the table. So so you can base off your hips. But
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I'll tell you, no arm wrestler cares about doing squats. No arm wrestler is doing planks.
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Yeah. Okay. It's all about the forearm and the actions of the hand. That's always the limiting
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factor. You look at a guy like Oleg Zock. Okay. Do you know this guy? Oleg Zock. Marvelous.
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He's a total hellboy. He's my inspiration to what I call pumpkin training.
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But what's pumpkin training? Probably we'll get into that, but I only train my right arm. That's
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it. Yeah, with homework. But back to full body. It is full body. My good friend, Matt Mask,
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when he arm wrestled me, he actually blew his internal abductor in his leg. So yeah,
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people walk away from tournament. Their calves can be sore sometimes, you know, happens. But
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no, oh, there he is right there. Yeah. Oh, like he is a real life hellboy.
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He's like 170 pounds there. Look at his arm. Look at his arm.
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It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, he's totally crazy. That's you doing left right there. So by the way,
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Levan, you're going right. Yeah. Yeah. So can you say more about the mental side? Are you
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visualizing what it takes to beat him? Are you trying to get in his head? All of these things.
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Do you think it's possible to get in his head? There's definitely strategies that you can do
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depending on who it is you're facing. It's very good to know who it is you're fighting and choose
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the correct strategy mentally. But I always follow a process when it comes to my mental
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preparation. When I'm far away from an event, I just always build up my opponent. Build them.
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I build them. I respect them. To a point where I almost start to fear them and start to believe
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that they'll beat me. And this is a very vital part of my preparation. And that's where I am
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right now with Levan. I don't, I just build them up, build them up into this thing that scares me.
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And it forces me to be responsible. Because I don't want to lose. I want to win.
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So the greater my opponent, the greater I can build their worth in my mind,
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the more motivation it gives me. Then there comes a point when it changes.
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And then I start to degrade them. And yeah, that's when it normally starts to get fun.
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And normally by the time I face them, I just try and completely dominate from every interaction
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from start to finish. Yeah. When in the actual moment of the match, in the moments leading
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up to it, what's the feeling? Is it fear? Is it confidence? Anxiety? What's going through your
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mind? I love to fight. I love it. I always have. There's every day where you have the distractions
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of life. And then there's really living in the moment. That's whatever you love to do.
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And that's when you can really be free. I'm free when I'm fighting. So you put me in
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that good fight. And I just love it. And I don't think about the past. I don't think about the
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future. I just think about killing that dude in front of me. And I enjoy that.
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And just being intensely in the moment. That's it. Just right there. Just fighting as hard as I
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can. Do you study the opponent? Do you have you for this particular match? Do you study videos of
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Levan? I've seen everything. I've read everything. I get opinions from other people. I watch very
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closely. What do you make of his evolution? So he's grown in size. But also, you've talked about
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his evolution technically as well. Since we're in the build your opponent to be
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terrifying stage, what makes him great? He's very impressive. The greatest thing about him
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is his strength. That's the thing that sets him apart from everyone. His strength,
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strength, specialized strength, exact strength for arm wrestling. I believe it's unmatched.
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Can we just link around that word strength? What does strength mean? What does it feel like?
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Are we talking about bicep, shoulder? Are we talking about whatever controls the wrist?
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Yeah. How does strength manifest? When I touch your hand, when we grab arms, I feel like,
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fuck, that's wrong. There's control. What is that feeling? Where does that come from?
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In arm wrestling, when you're at the top of the world, where does that come from?
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It's chains. There's chains of strength. In arm wrestling, this is like technical strength.
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We use these technical chains to fight each other. Remember how we talked about the post,
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this upwards drive, this ability to close this angle? This is a chain. It can be used.
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It's a technical attack. It's also an attack that can be built with training. Just the ability to
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drive upwards. There's a chain where you cup your wrist in. Cup your wrist in and the anchor and the
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chain brings you right to your heart, right to your center. This chain, and this can be done at
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any time. There's a pronation chain, and that's to turn your thumb over. Turn your thumb over
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and you attack the person's cupping chain. There's a huge number of muscles involved in each of
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those chains. That's why I say it's a chain, but they're movements, and these movements you can
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develop in the gym or through practice. You don't mean it's easy to sort of interpret strength to
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mean how much you curl, essentially, but you mean the chain. People talk is a bicep. I mean,
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yes, there's bicep for sure involved, but I'll always be inaccurate if I try and tell you what
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muscles are. I prefer to explain it in a movement, and then everything that's involved to do that
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movement. And Levan's movements for arm wrestling are incredibly impressive. What do you attribute
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to? How much of that is genetics? How much of it is some training thing he's doing?
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I think that Levan is very special in terms of his genetics. Not everybody can be Levan.
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There's not many Levan's out there, but what I've encountered in the bias that I always see,
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when people talk about people like Levan, they discount the other side so very quickly. The
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thing is Levan rarely has to show the other side because it's so far ahead. You talk about the
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technical application of the sport. He so rarely needs to show it, but he's clearly incredible.
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If you watch his progression, he came up having very difficult technical struggles to overcome.
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Georgia is a great country for arm wrestling. There's this guy, Gennady Kvikvinia, who no one
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would ever say is not technical. And it took him years to defeat him to a point where now it's
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not even a discussion. You talk about the progression. They had a lot of battles together
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over the years. It's fascinating to see the ties turn. And once they've turned, it's completely
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different level. He's got strength. He's got technique. Some people will argue that his
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technique is flawed at times. They've shown matches where he hasn't shown the best technique,
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but he still won. And I think sometimes he just plays with people. There's a famous match that he
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had with, they call him the Bruce Lee of arm wrestling. They had a match in the top eight.
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Great match. Kurt Gally is like 220 pound guy from Kazakhstan. Brilliant technician,
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but power wise, not in the same world. And Kurt Gally did well, even though he lost 6 nothing.
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He still did well. But in my opinion, Levan didn't care. Levan was like grabbing him low and just
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like whatever. I will show him things that he's not seen before. I will. He hasn't competed often
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in this ruleset, which will be a challenge for him. But yeah, what can I say? Levan, he's Everest.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you are seen by basically everybody as the big, big underdog. But you're
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also even in the Eastern, I mean, I talk to Russians a lot. You know that moment in Rocky
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when they start cheering for Rocky? They love you. They want you to win. And just,
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you know, it's not even just the battle itself is inspiring. And it's like the culmination
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in your career. Because it's, you know, you're at the top for a long time, but it's like it's
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almost like it should be over for you. But no, you're returning. It is like this big moment.
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The big climb. I will be the pointy end of the spear for North America.
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Yeah. Beautiful. Well, let's thanks for bringing that match up. Let's talk about just
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the match against Dennis, your left hand match. He's also terrifying and seems one of the strongest,
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probably the one of the strongest left hand arm wrestler. There's a lot to be said there.
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Maybe you could talk about this match at a high level. Why did you take on this match?
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Why did you do the left hand versus the right hand? What can you tell the story?
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Okay. Dennis the Plankoff. There's so much about this match. I love Dennis. Russian guy.
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Yeah. Russian guy. Russian. I used to call him Dennis Chernobyl.
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What a monster. He kind of led, I'd say, this new era of arm wrestling where the super heavy
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weight strength level has just gone through the roof. I wanted the match for such a long time.
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We tried to get the match. We couldn't get it organized. This is back in like, you know, 2008
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to 2012. Couldn't get the match. Couldn't get the match. I've always been more of a one on one
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puller. He was doing the tournament format. I was ranked number one in the world and towards
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the end, it kind of was very undecided. I ended up getting surgery. I ended up
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abandoning the super heavyweight division. I went down to 225 for a few years.
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WAL failed temporarily. So the 225 pound division was scrapped and I said, okay,
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okay, I'm going to go for the big crown once again. And I started to go after super heavyweights.
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The 2018 season was right hand. I started to enter negotiations to have the match with him.
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We'd been chasing the match for 10 years. They wanted to do a left hand. I wanted to do a right
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hand. I just wanted to do the match. I wanted to do the match with Dennis. I wanted to meet Dennis.
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So people should know that the right hand has always been your strongest.
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It has been, I mean, I had surgery in 2016. I hate to make excuses. I hate to do it.
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Dennis was better than me that day, even on my best day. If you had gone back my entire career,
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at no single day, do I beat Dennis the Plankoff in 2018? I would like to think that I could maybe
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do it now. But at that point, there would have been no version that could have beat him.
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Left or right? Right hand, no. I'm curious about the right. But left hand.
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So is the world. Well, it might still happen. It might. But Dennis completely destroyed me.
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And I learned a lot from it. I think before the Dennis match,
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I think I was, I don't know, I don't know exactly what words to use. Maybe I felt like
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my thinking was a little bit elitist. And I really learned a lot. I was really humbled that day
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by how far and how professional and how prepared Dennis was and how seriously he took the sport.
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There's a mental, a slightly terrifying calmness to him, which only comes with extreme preparation,
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I think. His level of dedication was extremely inspiring to me. I used to do a job where
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it was serious enough that the price could be death. And I arm wrestled throughout that entire
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period. And I always kind of looked at the cost of doing an activity, being death,
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limited to soldiering. And I kind of changed my mind a lot after that match. I realized that
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anything that you're in love with, once you get far enough down the road and professional enough
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at it, it's going to kill you. It doesn't matter what you're doing. If you're crazy enough about
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anything, it's probably going to take your life from you in some way. And that doesn't mean you
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rush towards death. It's just your level of investment and level of risk can have some
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catastrophic effects. Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, I think has the quote,
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do what you love and let it kill you. Right. Like that. Right. And I understood that Dennis's level
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of professionalism far exceeded mine in what we were doing at the time. And I realized that,
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you know, I was no longer employed. I was now in the world of professional arm wrestling.
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And I realized that, uh, you know, what was I doing? Like how serious was I? So Dennis is an
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incredible guy. Is there moments in that match? There's humility there too from him. That was a
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fascinating, uh, sort of, it seemed like you realized that you just hit a wall and you were not ready
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enough for it. It was incredible. There was so many things that I remember about the Dennis match.
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I mean, I remember, you know, seeing video of somebody and then meeting them in person. It's
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different. I remember in the weigh ins, sorry, not the weigh ins and the standoff that we did,
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you know, before the match, I'm looking at him like I'm close. I'm looking at his arms and his
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bicep, it looked like an ass. Like it was like a freaking glute muscle. Like his entire structure
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was so sinewy and just so strong. I was like, wow, look, he's physically so impressive. And, um,
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I remember when I arm wrestled him a certain at a certain time, he allowed me to kind of set my
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position. You can vary. You can't really tell because it happens very quickly, but he let me set
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my position, which means I kind of got my locks in where you can kind of really do a great hold.
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And he just ripped through me. So you, you were able to get this great position. So it was tore
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right through me. Yeah. And the first time I ever thought that, you know, he that I had torn
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something, I thought like after the match, I'm like, geez, did he rip my chest right in half? Like
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um, what, what, did it? No, it's 100%. Yeah. No, I didn't, I didn't actually,
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nothing went purple or anything, but um, yeah, the strength gap was very significant with Dennis.
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Could he, what would it take to beat him on that day? Um, it would, it would take me just being
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a little bit stronger, um, and, and more healthy. Yeah. Uh, my left was not as healthy as it should
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be. Like I didn't have a full rounded technical arsenal because it takes a time after surgery.
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It really does. Like, I mean, you can be good, but after a surgery, like what I had, you know,
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you're probably looking at three or four years before you're starting to hit technical proficiency
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the way you should be. And uh, yeah, just a bit stronger. How do you interpret the calmness on
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his face? Well, what is that about? Is he actually that Russian? It's a Russian thing, I think. I
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don't know. I see a lot of Russians like that, you know, they're so like stoic and I'm such a
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fan of Russia. I really want to go to Moscow. I've been saying it forever. You've never been,
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not yet, not yet. I want to go, I want to just go and live there for like a month and just train.
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Moscow has got such a crazy arm wrestling scene. They've got, from what I understand,
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they just have so many clubs. There's so many strong athletes. Just go and just
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lightning rod. Yeah. Have you considered doing something of that sort? It's like Rocky 4 again.
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Oh yeah. Like, oh, and lead up to June. I would certainly consider it. I've got
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only one trip planned at the moment. Administration is very important.
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What do you mean by administration? So like managing your time?
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Management. Yeah. The management has to be very efficient. You know, when I'm a tourist,
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when I'm a visitor, a little bit of that goes down. You know, when I'm at my home and things are
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familiar, I've got a really great grasp of my time. You know, everything's in place. Everything's
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perfect. You know, if I could magically transport Moscow into my hometown and just go out and visit
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them. Yeah. So it's very difficult when you're traveling. You have to keep all the, you have to
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figure out what you're eating, how you get in the food, all the socializing. Plus you're
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more and more a celebrity. So there's a social interaction, which I don't know
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how draining that could be on you outside of the arm wrestling table. So you have to manage all of
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that because ultimately you have to focus on the fight ahead. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my strength
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comes from just being in a familiar place, doing my routine. I love to travel. I love to get out
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there and meet people and new experiences. But when I just want to really prepare for a big match,
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yeah, home is where I get strong. So that loss against Dennis was one of the few losses in your
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career. How did that feel in the moments after and the days after and the months after and the
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years after? How has it changed you as an arm wrestlers, a human being? Well, it's tough to lose.
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Still haunt you? I don't think so. I actually was really happy to lose to Dennis because,
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you know, sometimes when you lose a match, there's a lot of matches that have lost
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where they upset me because I know I made a mistake. I didn't make a mistake with Dennis. He
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was just, he was just way better. There's nothing I could have done that day. I'm really at peace with
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it. Dennis, to me, it was just a big inspiration. I think that me arm wrestling Dennis left handed
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that day just let me touch probably one of the strongest human beings on the arm wrestling
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table that's ever lived, you know, left handed. So knowing that's possible is almost like
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inspiration to you that I can be at that level too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm seeing what Dennis did,
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you know, just trying to absorb a little bit of his knowledge, planted seeds in me.
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Yeah, I mean, when I look at my career, it's a bit like the stock market, but for sure I'm
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trending upwards. And since really kind of wrapping my mind around some of the Russian
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philosophies, they really changed my training systems. There was some base philosophies that
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they talked to me about over there that massively impacted my training. Is it possible to convert
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some of those philosophies into words? Can you describe some of the ideas they taught you?
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So, never smile. Right? Man, it takes a while to break the ice with a lot of these guys.
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Well, once you do, I mean, that's this deepest bonds you can form there. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
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I think that I was raised under, I believe it's a flawed, I mean, it's not flawed because it has
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its value as well. But it's best if you understand both philosophies. I think a North American thing
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that's just so ingrained in our fitness society is no pain, no gain, you know, and just pushing and
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like sweating and going harder and like fighting through like and grit and top and but and then
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you talk to the Russians and they're like, yeah, never fail. You never fail. Never, never go to
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failure. Always feel good. Always feel good. It should always feel good. Don't. And those two
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philosophies express themselves very differently. I mean, if you want to get strong.
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Yeah, don't fail. Don't fail. So that's how you, they also are believers of volume.
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Yeah. There's a lot of strategies, but volume is a massive principle. And volume is very hard to
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achieve when you're believing in no pain, no gain. Right. They don't really go together. No pain,
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no gain, more injuries. So the, is there parallels? Because in wrestling, some of the greatest
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wrestlers of all time are Russian and they were big, Daniel talks about it, they were big on play
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right. Like lighter wrestling is probably ultimately actually, it boils down to that's
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how you achieve higher volume. Right. Like over the stretch of years, the way to reduce injury.
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I mean, in wrestling also technique might have greater value than it does in arm wrestling.
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Obviously technique is extremely important in arm wrestling, but power is like can defeat technique.
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It seems like in wrestling, you can get away. There's a lot of ways you can really do sneak attacks,
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sort of use leverage on those kinds of things. So there's even more incentive to do play and
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all that kind of stuff. But do you see the parallels between the two worlds wrestling and
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arm wrestling? 100%. You saw what I did the other night. Right. So I'm playing on the table for
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hours. Right. So that's my number one training thing that I do is I go on the table for hours
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and I play. Yeah. Yeah. When you did circuit, can you pull up that video? It's on devil's channel,
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the water tank one. Oh, it's like 180p. It's like the Wi Fi in there was so bad. Yeah. It's great.
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I love it. I don't know if it was fish eye, but it had a fish eye feel. It was crowded. I mean,
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so much camaraderie. It was amazing. But maybe just a brief mention of Dmitry, the Russian guy.
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In that play, what are some memorable things here? Like when you go against a bunch of different
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people, a bunch of strangers, what are all the differences and how do you grow from them?
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How do you learn from them? Well, everybody's a bit different. So I love to go to new clubs
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because the energy's always high. Like the first time you go to a club, everybody's trying to kill
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you. Yeah. Yeah. So there's excitement. And so you feed off of that. Yeah, you do. If you're able
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to be strong enough to absorb it without injury, it's awesome. It's awesome. Because they're giving
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you everything they can. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's very specific, right? Like I'm going to get
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way stronger at arm wrestling. And what I try and do when I go to these places is I make an
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assumption. I make an assumption that I'm the best guy there. And so I'll arm wrestle in a way that
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kind of protects them. Because the more I can protect them and kind of keep them kind of in a
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good position, they can actually give me more. Right? So I kind of give them little pieces
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that I think will put them in a place that they can really give me more. And so yeah, that's what
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I'm doing. And then when I see somebody like Dimitri, I pull that in a little bit. Right?
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So I know Dimitri's the number one guy in Texas. You know, lots of respect to the guy. I won't give
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him all the pieces until I really kind of gauge where he's at. Because I certainly in training
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don't want to fail. I don't want that. I don't want to, when you fail in arm wrestling, it's just
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imagine it's just bad technique. And you're trying and bad technique, you're going to get hurt.
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Yeah. So you always want to be in a strong position here. What about, how does endurance
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come into play here? And here's video strapping up with Dimitri. Yeah. How do you, I mean, you
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went for like, I don't know, two hours? Yeah, it was long. So the first, this first run of the video,
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I think was a little over an hour and then I took a break and I probably did another 45 minutes or
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so. But I mean, do you, how can, are you okay with the endurance aspect of this? Yeah, that's
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probably like when you talk to the arm wrestling world, that's probably what I'm best known for,
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is my endurance. So this helps build that? It does. But that's not why I'm doing it.
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I'm doing it to get strong. In my opinion, this is, this is one of the best ways to get strong,
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especially far away from it, from an tournament, or any kind of an event.
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I wouldn't want to do this, you know, even a month or even six weeks, or even maybe even eight
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weeks before a big event, I'd want to already be kind of shrinking my volume. But far away from
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an event, yeah, as much volume as your body can handle, and you'll feel it, you'll feel it. Like,
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I felt it at times, like, you know, after the hour mark, I'm like, okay, I can feel my blood sugar
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kind of diminishing. I can feel like the blood that's going to my muscles is kind of like,
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it's not really pushing more good stuff in, it's starting to, I'm starting to break down.
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And you don't want that. You don't want that. Quick pause, bathroom break? I'm good. I kind of
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need one. I'll maybe get a sweater. It's a bit, is it cold? Does that matter? Does that care for
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And I still love the idea of you going to Russia. Yeah. And training there. Yeah. I'm also making
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a trip out to Russia. Oh yeah, when? For different reasons. Well, it's hard with the current conflict,
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the tensions there, but I'm hoping before your match actually, so May for a couple of interviews
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with a couple of folks, some of which people know. Maybe I could ask you about
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to comment on some matches that stand out to you in your career. Sure.
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Is there something, is there a particular, I have a bunch that I really enjoy, but is there
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something that stands out to you as, as memorable? We talked about sort of a defining loss perhaps
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to Dennis. Then you, you faced Michael Tyler, like we mentioned, John Berserk, you faced Matt.
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Is there something that stands out to you that technically or psychologically you've
link |
learned a lot from? I feel like I try and learn something from every match, but there is a very
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special match to me that to this day, I can't explain. Very weird phenomena. So I think it was
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2005. It was my first combat tour overseas. So it was a active tour. You know, among other
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things, I, I got shot during that tour, like we got blown and long tour, rough tour. And I trained
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the whole time through knowing that at the end of this, I was going to have a big match. So
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there's a champion, got called Ron Bath. He's kind of, if there was no Jon Bersink,
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there would be Ron Bath. Okay. So extremely decorated, unbelievable arm wrestler from
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United States. And this is kind of when I was just kind of coming up in the sport still,
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I was fairly well established. I was definitely the best guy in Canada. And I had been for a few
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years, but I hadn't really expanded internationally too much. So I had a one on one match with Ron
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Bath. And that's the one. Yeah. Extremely hard fought battle was three one, I think three one,
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but every match was really close. And he won the first one. And I had to kind of like dig my way
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out of the trenches and ended up coming back and winning. But it was a match that was probably,
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it was probably one of my closest matches ever. And it was seems like there's frustration on you.
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What is that? What was going through your mind here with these? Was it first of all going in?
link |
Did you think you could beat him? What was the level of confidence? I always think I can win.
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I can always do. But you know, a lot of respect to the guy. But yeah, I mean, I always think I can
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do it. So how did, what lessons did you take away from it? Why is it so meaningful to you?
link |
Well, it's what happened afterwards. So I had some kind of a release afterwards.
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And that was the strange thing to me. So match ended. And I felt like so relaxed afterwards,
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so calm, so, so, you know, satisfied. Because it was one of those matches that kind of takes
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everything from you. But you win it. And I was relaxing in the chair. And I've never had the
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sensation before. I've never had it afterwards. But it's like the center of my backbone just
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exploded. And it was like, so weird, right? Because I'm not really spiritual that much,
link |
or religious even. But it's like a fire just ripped through me. And it only lasted an instant,
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just exploded through my whole body out at the top, through my feet. And then it was gone.
link |
That was it. Weirdest thing I've ever felt my entire life. Yeah, but it was it was as a result of
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what happened in the match. And leading up to it, I had some kind of a release.
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How did you interpret it psychologically? Was it like some kind of, I mean, not to be spiritual
link |
or whatever, but some kind of superpower that was like, like a lingering feeling like, holy
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shit. I, you know, I can't I can't explain it. And I haven't really tried hard enough to try to.
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But something changed. Something happened there. Yeah. Something happened to me. I was sore for
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about three or four months afterwards. It's like it smoked out my entire body. Yeah, that whole
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summer I was kind of sore. And yeah, and then after that, like two or three years later,
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that's when I won the world championships. Yeah, I mean, all the matches are, you know,
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you get something from people, like, you know, you study them, you, you take something from them.
link |
People have an invisible crown and he had one. And I think I took it from him.
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Maybe that was the feeling of wearing the crown. Yeah, maybe.
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What about all the trash talk? How much of that did you learn? Is that come naturally to you?
link |
You're, you're one of the most charismatic fun. I mean, there's always like respect behind it.
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I would say to me, and I'm a fan of a lot of sports, you're one of the greatest trash
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talkers in all of sports that I've ever seen, because you're able to talk shit.
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But there's so much love and respect behind it. It's just masterful. But you'll also get into
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people's heads in the moment. It's beautiful to watch because it really gets, it gets to some
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people. So where does that come from? It's powerful weapon, right? Yeah.
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As to your voice is a powerful, powerful weapon. And it's underutilized by so many athletes,
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because they think that it's not sportsman like or something like that. But the truth is, I mean,
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you can be a weak person, but with your voice, you can influence and change any number of things.
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And the same thing happens in a, in a, in a fight between two people. If you can just be a never
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ending, you know, flow of negative encouragement to someone or, you know, you know, suggestion,
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anything can happen. It's a tool. And when you're fighting a person, you're not just fighting them.
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You're fighting everyone who's watching. You're fighting the crowd, the referees. And you know,
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to get in the most ideal positions, situations, you need to use your voice. Yeah.
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Yeah. And there's a, for people who haven't seen, I definitely recommend you watch a bunch of
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arm wrestling matches, because there's a crowd really gets into it. And it feels,
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it feels like there's a really intimate connection with the crowd, I suppose,
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I suppose, because the crowd is allowed to be very close to you. I love it.
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I want the crowd like right up on me. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes,
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oh yeah. So who are you? Whenever you talk to somebody, you literally pick somebody from the
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crowd. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll fuck him. Like I'll start fucking off his fans and like,
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yeah, like I'll start talking to their wives or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. There's Jody.
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She's pretty dangerous to listen to also. But yeah, one of his buddies, Mike Salaris, who's,
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you know, really good arm wrestler was, was talking, was, was cheering for him. So I started
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go after him. Yeah. Yeah. Smiling the whole. Yeah. It's fun, right? It's fun. It's fun to listen to,
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but it's also, what's fun is how much it actually affects some of the people you're facing. They
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get frustrated. Yeah. It's great to see. Well, you have to fight, right? Like a lot of people think
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things will be given to them. And the thing that, you know, I've always believed from the time I
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was very young, like I was convinced that our inevitable death was going to come from aliens,
link |
right? Like some super aggressive, super violent species was going to come and smoke us all.
link |
You know, and I'm like, I'm, I'm not like that. I'm like, but as soon as one person is,
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then you're forced to have to accept it as reality, right? So I like to fight for every single thing.
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I like to try and be more and more aggressive. And if someone matches me, that's when I can use
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my endurance. And if they don't, then I have the tactical advantage. So that's kind of my balance
link |
point. And then by the way, you all see yall at the ref. Yeah. I mean, the game, there's like
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levels to this game, but you know, the feeling sometimes when people get frustrated is like,
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okay, this person's cheating or like you're trying to get a good grip before the go before it goes.
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And, and I think some of the frustration in combination with the trash talk is
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when this person is cheating, but everybody is like kind of trying to cheat, get an edge
link |
within the rules. Yeah. So I try and just ramp it, ramp it, ramp it. But you know, everybody's
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different. I've learned how to play the game based off of the tools that I have physically.
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And for me, this works because, you know, my genetic makeup is more, I'm more of a
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persistence hunter, right? So like I need to extend things and that works well for me.
link |
You know, if I was more explosive, I probably wouldn't have the same strategies. Yeah.
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By the way, for people who are watching, you're wearing no limits hoodie, which is
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one of your nicknames. I don't wash this thing too much. It's my bacterial shield to the world.
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Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So you mentioned Jody. She's often in your corner and does perhaps
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more trash talking than even you. So I mean, if we could step away, she's an incredible human
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being is sort of as a fan. It's fun to watch the two of you, both when you're arm wrestling and
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just as people, you just see so much, I don't know, kindness and love radiating from the two of you
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whenever you're trash talking or talking about just random things or just talking about life.
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It's just a beautiful thing to watch. And thank you for sharing that with the world. But maybe
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can you, she paid me to ask you this, but what are the things you love about Jody,
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your wife, Jody Larrick? What are the ways she's affected your life?
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Yeah. Jody and I go way back. We were in high school together. The thing that I admire most in
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people is bravery. To me, it's the most admirable quality. And Jody always has inspired me because
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she's such a fighter. You know, if she believes that something's true, she'll, she just, she
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does not back down. She will, she will not. And you can, not to say that she's can't change your
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mind because she can, but while she is convicted, she will, she'll not stop fighting. She's pulled
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me out of the fire repeatedly. We've, we've lived through so many things. Very lucky.
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How'd she made you a better arm wrestler? She's fed me. Yeah. I could see your, you have videos
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of your house basically coming apart when she's not there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Without Jody, I'm on
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the street living in a tent and yeah, eating dog food. Yeah. Yeah. Bravery. Yeah. What about love?
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How's love made you stronger? Now we're going to make a Devon uncomfortable.
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Love is difficult to accept. Love is one of those things that, you know, a lot of times
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you don't feel worthy of it, you know? And so it's hard sometimes to accept someone's love.
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And someone who really loves you, they'll love you even when you don't, you know? And here you go,
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you're going to make me cry, Lex. Yeah. Jody and I have been through so much.
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And she's shown me how, you know, she's supported me just repeatedly, repeatedly.
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Some of that is loyalty and patience and perseverance and all those things. That's like
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when love really shows itself. Yeah. Sticking through together for years, even when you're
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here, through the shitty times. Love and faith are powerful forces in this universe,
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you know? Without them, we can descend into darkness very quickly, you know? As a world,
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even between people, you know? When love and faith is destroyed, then we fall apart, you know?
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And I've been graced by the love that Jody's given me, you know? It's allowed me
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to continue to build, you know? When you have love between people, then you build together.
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I love my family. I love Canada. I love the armwrestling community. I have a love for what
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we're trying to achieve as a human species, you know? And, you know, when that falls apart,
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we don't have much. Yeah. She's with my boy there. Yeah. You also mentioned you once had a job where
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your death was a real possibility. You were in the Canadian Special Forces.
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What did you take away from that experience, that time of life? Such a great life.
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I really, really loved it. Honestly, I never wanted to leave. I never thought I would leave.
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I thought I'd be there my whole life. Real honor to get to serve. What did you get to do?
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What was the things you loved, craftsmanship wise, like fun things you get to do, learn and
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challenge yourself? Yeah. And we mentioned sort of honor in terms of the serving part. Yeah.
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Yeah. My favorite thing about serving in the Special Forces was, for sure,
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the people that I worked with. That's probably the first thing I could say.
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You know, I never, I always felt like totally comfortable and putting my life in the other
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guys hands. I was so happy to be in a place where I felt I could follow. Like, it didn't matter.
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Like, I knew that the people ahead of me were incredible. I knew the people
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beside me were incredible. So, just having that faith in your team, it's very special.
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And to know that they're there for a reason that has nothing to do with money, you know,
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and that's what kind of brings everybody together is you're there for a higher purpose.
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And in terms of being an adrenaline junkie, there's nothing like it. I mean, there's nothing
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like, you know, going out at night and fighting. And when I say fighting, like, my whole life,
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I wanted to fight. And to me, there's a lot of, and look, I've said this in the past,
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and I think it's been a personal failure of mine, because I've said things like,
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it's the highest level that you can do. And I don't believe that to be true anymore.
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But at the time, I thought it was the best way I could express my drives that I had,
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you know, to be a fighter. So, your sense in the past, and maybe in part now is that
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sort of fighting is when humans get a chance to express themselves deeply. Like, that mix of
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the bravery, the integrity, the whatever that is that makes us human, that human
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spirit can really shine. And I don't believe that anymore. I believe that you can do that in any
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field, in any discipline. You know, if you go hard enough, it all kind of starts to feel the same.
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But at the time, that, you know, expression to me was really, really awesome. I loved,
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I loved close quarter battle. That was my favorite thing. That's really the whole reason I was there.
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Can you describe close quarter battle?
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Close quarter battle is team fighting. So, and it can look a lot of different ways.
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But basically, it's ground troops doing some kind of a mission. And it's the orchestrated
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movement that is the skill, the orchestrated movement, and the drills done quickly and
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accurately. It's very difficult to do. With communication?
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With communication. Yeah, so it's basically cooperating together, communicating. There's
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some strategy, there's some adapting to the changing environment. And the more the team
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works together, the less communication there is. Yeah. And that's an amazing thing to do,
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to be part of a machine, well, machine, a team of people who can fight together like that.
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It's, I think it's, we're really designed to do it. Like as good as we can fight as individuals,
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the thing that makes us really good is our ability to fight as a team. Yeah.
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Yeah, where that's one of the things that makes us really human is that collective intelligence,
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the social aspect. And fighting is the highest of stakes. So, like that social interaction
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under the highest of stakes is, really does bring out something that's deeply human.
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I mean, war in general brings out something deeply human. It's just, it's, I mean,
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obvious to say that it's tragic that it results in so much loss of life and well being.
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Let me, if it's okay for a brief moment to take us back to arm wrestling. We did this,
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like offline, we talked about, you gave me some advice and I bought arm wrestling,
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but maybe do a high level overview of like the different styles and strategies
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that we've talked about. We talked about the importance of strength and power,
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but is there like offensive defensive styles? Is there, we're mentioning King's move,
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what would, what would you classify your style as? It's nice for people that don't
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know, maybe even zoom back out. So, arm wrestling is a sport where two people have to,
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when we talk about strictly the sport, put their elbow on a particular pad means they have to keep
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that elbow on that pad and they win when the back of one of their hands crosses some kind of,
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or basically touches the table. And when you actually lock up, you do so depending on the
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organization without straps, meaning there's just you agree, it's like mutual agreement that you're
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going to clasp your hands in a way that's fair and there's a referee that helps ensure that it's
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fair, but of course there's these little games going on. And then when you actually go all out
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with this battle, if there's no straps, you can slip out. And so often you'll put the straps,
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which means you're, it's like marriage, you're committed for, like somebody will have to lose
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essentially. There's no pulling out. So, okay, so that's sort of the battle within that. What
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are the different styles that you can speak to that people that don't know arm wrestling
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could, could, could. Yeah, we can start to kind of just dance around the subject a bit.
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I'd say there's a lot of different types. There's specialists and there's kind of blenders and
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people who are very versatile. A lot of guys win world championships on one singular move.
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They get just extremely crisp at say a hook or a top roll and their style is very kind of focused
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and you'll see it with a lot of athletes, like kind of a talk guide, about guy who's very active,
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guy called Jerry Cadorette. Okay, as soon as you think Jerry Cadorette, he's got a very unique
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style. He's got a flop wrist press. Okay, so most of his technique is built around this one system.
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Flop wrist means your, what it sounds like. So your wrist is flopped, so it looks like you're
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losing. So he is pushing from a losing position. No, he will be offensive. So he will be in a
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press so offensively. So he'll give his hand away so that he can get his shoulder behind it properly.
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So he doesn't, wow. So you can press means push, yeah, without having that hook position.
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Right, which is what most people are always looking for and Jerry's looking for it as well.
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And then, so example, there's another one. There's another specialist, Matt Mask.
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Yeah. He's a top roller, right. Basically, that's his great move, the top roll. And his other weapons
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aren't nearly as powerful. Just incredible top roll. And then you have a lot of athletes that are
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more blended. Okay, they have a lot of good options. I think that I'd probably fall more into that
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category. You have people who are more speed guys. Okay, so they try and do very little,
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I'd call it attrition. Right, so a lot of people are very willing to trade energy.
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Right, because they have faith that their gas tank or their pool eventually will tire the
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other person out. So anytime there's a trade, they'll trade. Whereas, you know, a guy like Travis
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Bajan, you know, he was very, very well known as being extremely explosive, right. But if the
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match stops, typically he's going to lose. Right, so based off of your genetics, your hands,
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you know, there's a lot of ways to skin it. So I think you said something like, you're a 20 second
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guy. That's right. I'm a 20 second guy. So what are the seconds we're talking about? So a lot of
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the power people, they want to win in the first maybe five seconds, like just that first push,
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that first press. Absolutely. And that's it. Right to the pad. Yeah. And so you're trying to hold
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off that attack. Yeah, if I beat you in a second, we're not in the same world. Yeah. When I'm with
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my peer group, I will typically win 20 seconds and beyond. That's a typical win for me when I'm
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with a peer. Whereas other guys, when they're with their peers, they'll win in a second. Right,
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that's how they do it. That's the way they're built. That's the way they train. Yeah, most guys
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at a higher level at all starts to kind of, it starts to get more and more difficult to be a
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specialist at the high level now. Some people just have little holes in their games. It's rare
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to get someone who can really do all the moves. It's very rare. What, where would you put Levan?
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I would not say he's a specialist. I'd say his top roll is the strongest move. Top roll.
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Top roll is the strongest move. Yeah. And the interesting thing about the specialist versus
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the blender, there's a counter. Every move has a move that theoretically should be the right choice.
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So if you're a single move guy, there's going to be a guy out there who'll get you.
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Yeah, it'll be very difficult for you to beat that guy. But like when you come to like a tournament,
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typically specialists do much better in tournament scenarios because their singular
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move can get them through a tournament very quickly and efficiently. Whereas you get a
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blender in a tournament, they typically will have longer and more difficult matches and by
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the way, in super match format, typically blenders do better.
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So we all find also talked about arm sumo or freedom arm wrestling. I don't know how you want
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to call it. Oh, I love freedom. Exactly. North American way. So this is this idea and I watched
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a few videos and it looks fun is basically removing the restriction of having to keep your elbow on
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the pad and just being able to arm wrestle over the whole table. I think you've mentioned that
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the criticism that gets is it might be injury prone or something like that. So can you describe
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this arm sumo freedom arm wrestling idea? Right. When you come to freedom arm wrestling, basically
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it removes the limitation of a standard arm wrestling table. So basically every single thing
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is a freedom arm wrestling table. Some are better than others. So looking for that nice table where
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we can kind of stand apart from each other and we're anatomically in a fairly safe position
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and the rules and freedom, the way you win is like the knuckles must either touch the tabletop
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or you hold it off the edge for a three count. Right. So this is the main way to win. Yes,
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you can foul like if you lift your elbow up, still a foul, but you have the entire playing
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surface. So your elbow is no longer limited to your 7x7 or 7x9 pad. So you can move it all over
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the table. You can move your body around the table a bit too. And if it's a big table, your body
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could largely be on the table. Yeah. So basically it's like adjusting your ring size. So arm wrestling,
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you're fighting in a phone booth. Yeah. Right. So you're fighting in a field, you're fighting,
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you know, just bigger. So it just, it just makes the sport bigger. Yeah, this is Japan.
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But even on a small table there, even in a slightly larger phone booth, you can get a lot more
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fun and variety. It's very interesting to watch. I love it. I think it makes the sport bigger. I
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actually believe that it's the future of the sport. I really do. Because it makes it more
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accessible. Like you don't need the equipment, you can do it at a bar, all that kind of stuff.
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Yeah. Yeah. Less equipment requirements. Most kids start freedom. Like most kids
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arm wrestle on school desks. Yeah. Yeah. And like if you see a guy on the street,
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like whatever, like you can arm wrestle anywhere, you don't need to bring your table around with you.
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If we talked about the elite level, if somebody was interested in starting an arm wrestling,
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or like going from just like, you know, you go to the gym, you kind of lift,
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you've arm wrestled a few times, trying to get better at it, trying to learn how would you advise
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like getting better to where you can beat your closest buddies. Yeah. That first step. First step.
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I'd say find people. Find people. Find good people.
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There's volume. We'll get with the club. Get with people who know what they're doing,
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who can mentor you. And that's really cool. I got to me. I realized there's a club in Austin.
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Yeah. Sure. There's in a lot of places.
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They're everywhere. We got this app called Armbet. Yeah.
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Which is a app that helps you find other people there. Yeah. Very easy. But I mean,
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they're all over social networks. I mean, it's kind of widespread now. But yeah, find people.
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Find people. And it's just much easier to learn with another person. And you'll get stronger that
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way. But I mean, do the lifts. If you go to the gym, just start doing the lifts. And right away,
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those will technically prepare you. What are the lifts? Can we describe?
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Yeah. So I'd say if you want to just keep it very, very simple. Let's just talk about three.
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There's more. There's much more than three. But when you talk about energy allocation,
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these three lifts, in my opinion, should be like 90% of your investment. It's very big,
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these three lifts. And the exact percentages, you can argue about it. But we'll start off
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with the cupping of the wrist. Just this. This is a simple thing. And do it with a cable.
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You can get a thicker diameter. So it kind of is more out on your fingers. Where an arm rest
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is going to attack you, right? Because any good arm rest is going to attack your fingers.
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So like open hand. No. No. Well, I mean, for health, yes, you could. But like,
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if you want to be really specific, you train exactly the way you would at a table in the
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position that you actually start that match. And then you're just doing this kind of.
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Yes. To your center. One of the big misconceptions in arm wrestling
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is that you're aiming for that pin pad. Right. No. The center. The chest up here.
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Bring it close to you. I make it come close to you, right? You see, like whenever I do my
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exercises, the vector is always pulling straight towards me. Yeah. So just cupping close to you.
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The most dangerous thing that a person can do to me on an arm wrestling match
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is just pull me away from my body. That's a terrible thing for me.
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Yeah. So that cupping, that's a massive part of the sport. So now when you think,
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what does the cup do to the other person? If I cup, they get turned over, right?
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So this has to get really strong. This pronation. So to fight that rolling.
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Exactly. Yeah. So that's through the thumb. Yeah. Oh, so you put, got it. You put on the
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thumb and you put this motion. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. And those two things, those two things
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together, this cupping and rolling, this is what's going to make the person's hand bend back.
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And once a person's hand is bent back, just their whole game gets cut to pieces.
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They have very little good options. It's all like nasty stuff. Wow. Yeah. So those two things,
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that's a huge part of your investment rise. Always be climbing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
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Those three simple things, that's what I would tell anybody to spend most of their time on
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if you want to become an arm wrestler. And to use bands would be good for this.
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Bands are great because they're easy to transport. The only problem I have with bands
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is like, if you like to measure and if you like to be precise, bands just aren't that
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precise. Right. To have growth. Yeah. Yeah. Just, I mean, it's just like,
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you know, you know exactly what you need. The prescription is kind of, a band is kind of like,
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and a lot of people, myself included, I like to know exactly my outputs. So weights.
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So it would be like cables. Yep. Cables are nice. Bands are great too. I mixed the two. Bands are
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when I kind of don't need to, they're more like easy for me. When I train bands, bands are dangerous
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because the acceleration is so high on them. Like when you screw up with band training,
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the acceleration is way faster than gravity, right? So if you do something bad, it can make
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it go really much worse. Yeah. It's funny that you didn't mention bicep curls or,
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well, it's a chain. It's a chain. And so you're, I mean, the idea, if you focus on these three,
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the other stuff catches up, like it's all involved. This whole thing is involved.
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So if you have an axe, right, the blade of the axe, that's these things, right?
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Like you need the pointy end of all your attacks to be awesome.
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Right. If you have a super sharp axe, you could have a shitty hand.
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Yeah. Right. Yeah. So focus on that, the pointy tip of the axe.
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Yeah. The tip of the axe is so important. Right. Like if I have an awesome bicep
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and I can't quite use it, what's it good for? Right. Yeah. I think a lot of the motions with
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the wrist that you mentioned are just thinking about jiu jitsu, especially in the gi. Yeah.
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There's a lot of, I mean, there's so much importance to this and people don't often work
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it explicitly. Yeah. So many of the chokes require ability to, it's almost like exactly
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like arm wrestling. Very close. Because you're weak here, what's that called flop wrist. Yeah.
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And you're strong with the cup. Yeah. And so just getting the muscle, whatever that's involved,
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the muscle, the turning, the pressure, because that's where also the choke comes.
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That little, the thing that makes you win in arm wrestling is also the thing that
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finishes the person when you have them grabbed. The strength is very similar.
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Yeah. It's fascinating actually. Of course, like you said, if you want to be very good,
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you should be doing the very specific exact motion. Yeah. So if I was going to do jiu jitsu,
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I'd be like working out with the gi. Yeah. The problem is, you know, it's difficult to construct
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the exact, so you have to actually go with people and then they don't like being choked on.
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Right. So like it's hard to, I'm actually a big, we have these kinds of debates all the time is,
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you know, I'm a big believer in drilling. I love doing something thousands of times.
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Like John Donahar, somebody I mentioned to you about the jiu jitsu folks here,
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they're less believers in drilling. They see the value of almost like the mind of going live
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and exploring ideas that's that play. You don't need to do the thing a thousand times.
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You just need to always be thinking about the little details that make you better and then
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inaction practicing, like developing the strength, the power, the explosive of the agility in action.
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So actually rolling. I don't, you know, I agree with this, but I just believe in volume more.
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Yeah. So you can accomplish it through volume. You can play a lot.
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Yes, exactly. Well, that's the way, if you really want to get it good is you're talking about,
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I mean, that's why a lot of these folks are training three times a day. They're doing,
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you know, they're putting in the hours, eight hours, nine hours, just just tough. Oh my god.
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Well, so there are a lot of them are not doing going hard. It's just being on the mat. Some of
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it is just sitting there talking through ideas, watching others or teaching, explaining stuff.
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It's just, it's like, it's not just physical. It's, it's a mental too, because you're keeping
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in your mind and some of the greatest, that's what they talk about. The wrestlers I've talked
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with, the fighters at the top of their career, they basically, George St. Pierre is like this,
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another fellow Canadian is like his stick figures in his head. They can't help. Yeah.
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They're like in there because if you train enough hours, you're, it's just going to be in your head
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and they're all going to be playing around in your head and some little detail over time. It's
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almost like computing or something like that. And that ends up having a result even though you're
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not physically doing anything. It's, it's, it's always in there. I do have to return to diet
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real quick. I know we're talking about pancakes. Let me, quite seriously, you are one of the,
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I mean, strongest athletes in the world for your sport. So you have to get big. You have to get
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powerful. You have to get strong. What is the right diet for you for that? Like, what do you eat?
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How often do you eat? Yeah. Yeah. From the highest detail to the smallest or the things that make
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you happy and feel good. Yeah. I've experimented with every diet. I've done it all. I've been a
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vegan. I've done raw. I've eaten only meat. I've eaten balanced. I've eaten like a bodybuilder.
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You know, you name it. I've probably tried it. I don't believe that it's as important in the sport
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of arm wrestling as it is perhaps in other sports. I believe that, I mean, just to be very basic,
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I mean, if you're eating enough food, you're probably going to be okay. So it's just calories?
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It's a lot. I mean, really, not to overcomplicate it, but I mean, that's where the conversation
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starts. So you're eating enough food and it can come in any number of ways. And I don't think it's
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as important as a lot of other people do. I'm certainly irresponsible in a lot, but the thing
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is, back to volume, right? If you want to be a super heavyweight, it's very different than if
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you want to be a weight category guy. If you want to be a weight category guy, I'd say that you need
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to be more responsible, make better choices. If you want to be a super heavyweight, everything.
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We're watching a delicious looking omelet, so eggs, bacon,
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syrup, so you don't care carbs. So in all the things you try, so I mostly eat meat now. And I
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landed on that. There's several things, obviously I'm not, but I do a lot of sport. And I was very
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surprised how my particular, very specific body can perform better with only meat. Why better?
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The sports I do, the mind matters. And so for some reason, my mind is just clear. And I don't
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think, because it feels unhealthy. It just makes me feel really good. I don't think I would recommend
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it to anybody else. So it's interesting that that journey of just exploring can take you to figure
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out something about your own self. One of the most interesting things that I heard about nutrition
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was, I heard there was actually Doritos. I'm an idiot. Now, I'd say over the last couple
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of years, I've really gone into carbs a lot and high glycemic carbs. And I feel like it's one of
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the best things you can do if you're working out really hard, just add carbs. Yeah, exactly.
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But oh, where was I? So good. So you've got distracted.
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Syrup is, I forget everything. It's just distracting. No, so you've added high
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glycemic carbs into the mix. So those help, but that's for mass building.
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Right. So there was a study that I heard about by somebody who's trying to identify
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heart attacks. They did this great big study. And at the end of it, I mean,
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didn't matter what the people ate. The most important thing was how they felt about the
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food that they were eating. Yeah. So if you believe in the food, if you believe that it's
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going to do good things for you, if you allocate it the right way, it's going to have a positive
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impact. And I try and do that no matter what it is. Like I have my foods that I think do certain
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things. And so, you know, for me, I know that actually, I mean, I learned about corn fed pumps
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when I was overseas. I realized that if I, I never used to eat crap, really didn't. I ate
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super clean all the time. And when I was faced with imminent death more, I would be like, okay,
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I'm going out tonight. Let's have a couple ice cream bars. You know, like whatever. And
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what I realized is if I eat like an entire bag of chips or like, you know, a bunch of chocolate bars,
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and then I go and have a workout, my workout will be incredible. It'll be incredible.
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There's something about easily processed carbohydrates that will continue to quickly
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get into your blood as fast as you can burn it. And there's something about that that
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will give you incredible blood, blood flow. Yeah. And also your mind plugging in, enjoying that.
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Right. And then believing it works. And that's how it works. It worked better.
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Exactly. I mean, I feel that way. I think this is really not, this has been frustrating to me
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about the health culture in the United States in the studies that are done. You know, you look at
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like the importance of sleep, the importance of x diet, all those kinds of things. I wish
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incorporated into that would be your mental relationship with all these things. So for
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example, people that tell me, well, your sleep schedule is insane. Yes, perhaps, but also it's
link |
insane because I'm doing what I love and I don't see it as a problem. Right. And I,
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I think that's really important to understand if, if you, if you're, if you sleeping crazy hours
link |
is not affecting your stress and is actually making you happy or you're drawing some kind
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of source of happiness and pleasure and satisfaction, like being awake when others aren't, it's like the
link |
Mike Tyson thing or something, like training when you've convinced yourself everybody's sleeping
link |
and therefore you're somehow training much better. Right. That's powerful. Even if you look
link |
statistically six hours, maybe worse than eight hours or four hours, maybe worse than six hours.
link |
So the mind is a powerful thing. Super powerful. But if you want to be a super heavyweight,
link |
eat, you got to eat like stupid amounts all the time. Yeah. You have to test your digestive system.
link |
What's your favorite meal, by the way, just if you have to, you know,
link |
you know, I am, I do, oh, geez, I like so much food. It's tough. But I'd say the food that I
link |
rely on a lot when I'm getting ready to compete is sushi just because it normally comes in an
link |
all you can eat format. You know, so, you know, I love to go and just binge all you can eat.
link |
Just all you can eat buffets. Sushi is just super convenient. Yeah. If I was a sushi,
link |
all you can eat buffet place, I'd be terrified when I saw you. Have you had barbecue at Texas?
link |
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. So you, just a small tangent on this, you faced the mountain
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you have for, well, first of all, you arm wrestle them. It's interesting to ask,
link |
so this is the mountain from the Game of Thrones. A strong man, one of the strongest people in the
link |
world for time, the strongest person in the world. What was it like? I know, sort of,
link |
you guys maybe weren't going 1000%, but what's it like? Well, he probably wasn't going 1000%.
link |
But like what, it's interesting to think, what does that strength feel like? So
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it's a specialized strength in another sport. What did it feel like? What, how strong was he,
link |
what is some kind of deep insights he drawn from that battle? I feel like if we were to go back
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a 1000 years and if you give him armor and a two handed sword, he will just rip across the
link |
landscape and no one will stop him. So this is a boxing match you can do, but there's also a video
link |
of them arm wrestling. Yeah, what a Titan though. What a Titan. You know, a guy like that, tall,
link |
yeah, strong, fit, disciplined. I mean, he is, he's quite a warrior. 419 pounds.
link |
Oh, yeah, yeah. He's, he's incredibly impressive. I really like Hapthor and I like Eddie Hall too.
link |
And I was just so, I'm just so caught up with the drama. Okay, so, so Eddie Hall and Hapthor
link |
Bjornsson, two of the strongest legendary strongmen that we have at, you know, and they were the
link |
coolest, they were the top when strongman was really super cool. I don't know all the details,
link |
but they legit hit each other. Like legit. So I think it kind of stems, I don't know, like,
link |
like I say, I'm not right there with them, but Eddie won the world's strongest man event
link |
or something one year. And like, and the thing is, one of those victories where Hapthor, you know,
link |
was not accepting of his defeat. Okay, and there was a little bit of back and forth. And basically,
link |
from what I understand, they were going to fight like the night of the world's strongest man.
link |
And they got kind of got pulled apart and this, this heat between them got translated into a
link |
potential boxing match. So it's very real. It's a very real fight. So you have the two
link |
strongest dudes on the planet. Again, a fight each other. So, so I've been like, you know,
link |
because arm wrestling is strong, man, it's kind of similar communities. Who do you got?
link |
If you're giving me financial advice? Oh, Jesus, I am so bad. I always call it wrong.
link |
They're very different. I see Hapthor as being, you know, more Eddie Hall slimming down. Is that
link |
what you think as well? I see Hapthor is a bit more regimented. But I see Eddie Hall as like
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way more barbaric and like, I think he's a little bit more athletic. But Hapthor is bigger. And,
link |
you know, they've chosen slightly different paths to prepare for the match. But what happened was
link |
like they were about to fight. And Eddie, Eddie Hall blew his bicep. So me, I was getting ready
link |
for Levan in December. We were supposed to arm wrestle in December, but he's got his movie.
link |
And so I was like, okay, I can kind of get away from the sport just a little bit, broaden my base.
link |
That happened. And I was like, Oh, an opportunity. You stepped in. An opportunity to fight. I'm like,
link |
I'll do it. So how much training you, you trained a little bit. So can you tell about your own
link |
decision to do that? What was the training like? What was the experience like? Oh, it was so much
link |
fun. It was so much fun. So basically, I made a funny video and I sent it to the organizers of
link |
core sports that I would do it. I'm like, I'll do it. I'm sure they got 1000 people who wanted to
link |
do it. But I'm like, I'm like, listen, I'm like, I'm an old man, like I'm gimped up like everywhere
link |
outside the arm wrestling lanes. I said, but I will 100%. Like if you let me fight him, I'll give it
link |
to my all. And, and whatever, they didn't get back to me. They're like, yeah, whatever. Okay. So then,
link |
so then they call me on a Friday, like five weeks before the event. And they're like, Hey,
link |
Devin, were you serious? And I'm like, Oh, shit. And I'm like, Yes, I was serious. Yeah, I'll do it.
link |
And they're like, okay. They're like, it's down to you and like two other people will get back to
link |
you in a day or two. But you would do it. And I'm like, Okay, so they got back to me on Sunday.
link |
Like, so right away, I'm like skipping rope. And I'm like, and I'm, I only arm wrestling. That's
link |
all I do. So what was your, you did some striking training? Yeah. So I went to this guy that he
link |
was, he was awesome. Zach Ben Bousheda there. That was it from, from TriStar. Do you know,
link |
for us the hobby? And yes, people in the comments, I will interview him on this podcast.
link |
He's brilliant. Yes. Right. He's an incredible guy. So right away, like I had no idea about the
link |
fight community across Canada, really. And I got like, by the fifth message that said,
link |
you must train with for us. I was like, Okay, called him up. He was incredible right away.
link |
He's like, Yeah, you can come and we'll just work with you. So I got, I got the call, I called him
link |
on like Monday at two o clock. By like seven o clock, I had my things packed. And I went to
link |
Montreal. And I spent four weeks in the fighter dorms. Just humbling yourself. Yeah. Every day,
link |
just getting punched in the face, you know, over and over, going for runs with all like,
link |
they're all like Olympians and pro fighters living in the dorms. Super cool dudes. They were so good
link |
to me. Yeah, there's a good video of you. And for us, just talking. Yeah, I don't remember
link |
which stage this was, but this early, but you're already beginning to get humbled. Oh, I knew.
link |
I mean, I knew what I was getting into. Like I knew it was, I knew it was going to be a losing
link |
battle. But I felt like the opportunity to fight Thor, like how cool is that? Like I had, I had
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to say, I had to do it. I love the process. And I learned a lot from doing it. Like the dorms,
link |
I want to do something like that was arm wrestling. I think we're big enough now
link |
that we can have these kind of, you know, dorms, frat houses, whatever you want to call it.
link |
What's the dorm like? So you basically stay in there. Yeah, food is there. Yeah. So you can,
link |
you can, you mentioned, what was the word you use? Administration. Yeah, exactly. That's it.
link |
So it removes all of that. Makes it so simple. You can just focus. You know, the gym is here,
link |
you live here. Yeah. You know, but your life becomes simple. Yeah. So there's a guy named
link |
Jimmy Pedro here in America. He's a famous coach. There's a place up in Boston. He has kind of a
link |
dorm like that too. Yeah. And that becomes essential when the community is small, but you're
link |
trying to do epic things like winning an Olympic gold. Yeah. So you have to really put the people
link |
together in these kind of minimalist conditions when they just focus on the training, focus, focus,
link |
focus. Yes. Yeah. It wasn't enough time. I mean, I trained for about three or four weeks.
link |
But I love the journey. And what are some of the fun things you enjoy? So you did mostly striking,
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did you? Yeah, I guess it was. Yeah, it was boxing. It was straight up boxing. Yeah. Well,
link |
what are some things that were transferable? What are some cool things you learned from that?
link |
So from the world of arm wrestling, have you taken anything back? Like some training regiments,
link |
ideas about training, even just even movements? Because for us, it's a unique mind as well for
link |
training. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've gone very far down the path of arm wrestling. Boxing
link |
and arm wrestling are very different. They're very different sports. The physicality required
link |
is very different. The mentality, I mean, it's fighting. So it's another form of fighting,
link |
which is cool. The big things that I took back from it, the things that I loved about it was,
link |
I had to run again. So really work on endurance. Yeah. I was going for runs with guys in the
link |
dorms and they would just destroy me. It was so bad. How did you feel in the actual boxing in
link |
terms of endurance? Were you able to? No. It's a torture. It was terrible. And the thing is,
link |
it was so crazy for me because I really was good once upon a time. I really was. Physically,
link |
I had incredible full body endurance. But being so specialized, I realized how much I had slipped.
link |
And yeah, it was fun to try and regain. I think it's affected my body composition.
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I think since that training, I've become much more lean. I think it was a very healthy thing for
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me to do health wise. I always think that when you're far away from competition, it's really
link |
good to spread out really good. So I think that in that way. Also for your mind too. Yeah.
link |
Just like, yeah. Yeah. So something about clearing your... I think you've talked about this. You're
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basically taking steps back before you take steps forward. I forget how you call it. Yeah. The wave.
link |
Yeah. Under, you have to go under. You got to. If you want to go above the line, you have to spend
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some time beneath it. And yeah, I was definitely beneath the line for a long time. Yeah. But
link |
mountain, I mean, the interesting thing was as incredible as he is. What a monster. And I think
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if you had had him training and boxing for a long time and from his youth, I think I could be world
link |
champion. But to be so specialized and then to switch, you're at a disadvantage. Yeah. And also,
link |
I know from just fighting guys in the gym and TriStar, some of those guys were way scarier
link |
for real. Like as scary as Thor is, there's guys in that TriStar gym that don't look like anything
link |
that would murder me much worse, much worse. Yeah. But also, you know, that's the difference
link |
between being in the gym and under the lights too. I mean, GSB is an example of George St.
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Pierre is an example of somebody that maybe doesn't look terrifying. He says TriStar. Yep.
link |
He trains at TriStar, but he's super nice, super humble, but is terrifying when he's fighting.
link |
Right. Is dominating people. You mentioned death. Yeah. And your Canadian special forces
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and in general, thinking about mortality. Yeah. Do you think about your death? Do you
link |
contemplate the end that this thing, that this ride ends? All the time. Yeah. From I've thought
link |
about death from a young age. Are you afraid of it? Yeah, I hate it. Yeah, I don't want to die.
link |
Yeah, definitely, definitely don't want to die. But there's times when I can rid myself of it.
link |
Yeah. But for sure, I mean, I'm not happy that, you know, death is inevitable. And I'm not happy
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that potentially it's inevitable for all of us. But it does, you know, I like to fight against it.
link |
If you could be immortal, would you choose to? Oh, that's my only wish.
link |
Oh, see, but here's the thing. But the point is to have that wish. It's like the all you can
link |
eat buffet at sushi. That sushi is more delicious if you have a limit. Do you have its own? Well,
link |
I don't know. I mean, I don't think I get sick of stuff. I'm very simple. Yeah, I don't think I
link |
would get tired of it. I really don't. I mean, if someone would pose it to you, do you want to
link |
live forever? You would choose no? Yeah, I would choose no. Choose no. Well, my answer is probably yes.
link |
Like, no, I would, it's more like the snooze button. Do you want to go to sleep?
link |
But it's very difficult in the moment to go to sleep. But if I'm allowed to live forever,
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I'm going to delay all the crazy, like, all the ambitious goals, all the, all the things,
link |
because, oh, there's always time. That's fine. But there is tomorrow then.
link |
But there is tomorrow. But see, I think that takes away from the richness of, like,
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the richness of the lived experience of just each moment. I think the richness of each moment
link |
comes from saying, like, I could die tonight. Like that, it tastes delicious because you're
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going to die. I'm afraid if you're not, I'm afraid all that goes away. All that magic
link |
goes away if you can live forever. I don't know. But I'll tell you, every time I have
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a near death experience or think I'm going to die, I definitely live better afterwards.
link |
Yeah. Like, it's always been that way. But yeah, no. That's why the Stoics,
link |
you know, they really preach contemplating immortality often. It kind of reminds you,
link |
it get this whole thing could just end any moment and it makes you really appreciate.
link |
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Certainly improving the quality of life is important.
link |
But part of me thinks that immortality is not as fun as we would like to imagine.
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Do you think that maybe you're, in what you're building potentially, is immortal?
link |
Well, that's what I definitely think about with robots. If they were to have a human
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like experience and be able to interact with humans in a deep meaningful way, I think they
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too have to be mortal in some fundamental way that means mortal. Like their ride has to end
link |
as well because they won't be able to interact with humans deeply unless that's the case.
link |
Like to have fear, to have love, the ability to suffer, the ability to miss somebody,
link |
I think scarcity is important. You have to be able to truly lose somebody. You have to be,
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to fear things. You have to truly have the risk of destroying yourself and to have a sense of
link |
what it means to be a self. You have to be able to lose it. So if you're immortal, you're just
link |
going to be, I feel like you're going to be like a toaster, an intelligent toaster that just serves.
link |
Such a negative perspective on it. On immortality?
link |
Yeah. Just think, well, now you can get all those things done that you want to do.
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I hope you're right. I hope you're right.
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Yeah. I mean, potentially you could invest even harder because you're like, wow,
link |
I'm actually going to be able to get all this stuff done.
link |
I think about this a lot. I hope you're right, but I fear that the drive to create,
link |
I can even do more, all of that dissipates, disappears if you have all the time in the
link |
world. I just know how lazy I am. And if I have all the time in the world, I'm just going to sit
link |
there and just watch the stupidest YouTube videos for the rest of all eternity.
link |
Now, eternity is a long time. Eat Doritos and Cheetos and just get fatter and fatter.
link |
I can get in shape later. There's always time. That's like a long period of contemplation.
link |
Yeah. So for the first thousand years, it'll be the Dorito period of the Lex life.
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Yeah. You could be like Job of the Hut for a thousand years.
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You mentioned aliens. Very important topic. Do you actually think about this has been an
link |
increased interest? It has been increased UFO sightings and encounters, all that kind of stuff.
link |
The U.S. government at least releasing data, releasing videos of pilots, pilot observations
link |
and from airplanes of UFOs. Do you think about this kind of stuff? Because you mentioned in
link |
the following context, you mentioned like, our humans will get our shit together when the aliens
link |
eventually come. Yeah. What do you make of all the sightings? Is that something you think about?
link |
I thought about it a lot when I was younger. And I've just, I made my conclusions. And
link |
yeah, I don't think that there's a possibility that there aren't aliens. I would think there
link |
would be impossible for there not to be aliens. They're, I feel like this is pretty good real
link |
estate. So you probably want it, but we already might be, well, I don't even think might. I mean,
link |
it's probably quite likely that we are to some degree aliens. I mean, all life is probably
link |
to some degree alien. I like the real estate, so the resources, but we're also kind of interesting.
link |
Whatever this ant colony of living organisms that we've created, it's kind of interesting
link |
to study. I tend to believe that the alien civilizations that are going to reach us or
link |
have reached us are far more intelligent, just orders of magnitude more intelligent than us.
link |
And so it's going to be very difficult both ways, actually, for us to understand them and for them
link |
to dumb themselves down enough to understand us. Yeah, probably. So they might even just
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miss our existence altogether, just because I tend to believe, I don't know what you think,
link |
that we're not that special in terms of all the life forms in the universe. There's a lot of
link |
cool stuff out there. And that has to be. It has to be. But to us, we're special. Yeah. Well,
link |
that's all that matters, right? Yeah. Even the human species is the most special to us humans.
link |
There could be much more special species here on earth. They were just totally oblivious to
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like trees, on the scale of thousands of years, maybe they're like, they're onto something.
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Lex, you know, I think that so much of what makes a person special is what they pass on
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your kids. But, but I think that you are quite special, because you're part of this thing that's
link |
potentially giving birth to the next thing. The robots. The robots. I should say the funny thing
link |
is while talking to Devin during this podcast, I had with a doorbell ring at the good on stairs,
link |
and there was a big box, medicine box with a new legged robot. So the hilarity of you saying that
link |
is because that robot is actually going to likely be the main robot that I showed to the world
link |
in the coming months, because that has the, that's the highest compute level in that robot. So
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I've been playing a lot with legged robots, the four legs, like a dog. I like all the robots.
link |
But there's something about when a robot has legs, it's able to communicate,
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it's able to connect with humans in some kind of deep way in the way a dog can,
link |
just show affection, something about like step, step, step, step. And then, and then the robot
link |
realizes you're here and then it steps and then notices you in the way the dog does and raises
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its head. It makes me feel noticed and heard in the same way I do when a dog notices me,
link |
that excitement, that stupid excitement of like, yes, a fellow living organism. And
link |
what excites me about legged robots is that, holy shit, it's possible to engineer this. It's
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possible to create that feeling. And I wonder where that can go. There's a lot of negative
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possible trajectories, but I have a sense that there's positive ones too. You think that they'll
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take us with them? Yeah, I think so because I, so there's this fear of robots that they become
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super intelligent and run away from us humans and basically become so intelligent and then they
link |
almost just not giving a damn will destroy us. But I think in order for robots to become
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intelligent, they have to integrate themselves with society. So they buy the very nature of how
link |
they become intelligent, have to bring us along. So it's not that there'll be this separate thing.
link |
They have to like, we'll have robots in the home, will they'll be interacting with us? You have
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human kids, and you have a bunch of robots, you have robot friends, you have human friends,
link |
and the robots make your human to human relationships much more meaningful and richer.
link |
They bring more love to the world, but it's integrated. It's not like they'll be developing
link |
smarter and smarter as sentient beings by themselves. I think that's very difficult to do.
link |
You have to be doing that together with humans. And so we'll come for the ride. There's technical
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things like we might merge like cyborgs more and more. We already saw our cyborgs, right?
link |
With the phones and so on, but more and more. So with Elon and Neuralink, deeper integration of
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robots and AI into increasing the bandwidth at which they can communicate. So if we do implants
link |
in the brain, I think, again, a lot of people are really nervous about this, as am I, but I think
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there's a lot of trajectories that are positive there. That to me is exciting. And also, I just
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don't think it's possible to stop this development. So we should steer it. Yeah. Yeah.
link |
For good. Did you, I mean, you must have watched the movie Terminator, right?
link |
Yeah, of course. I love Terminator. I love Schwarzenegger. My favorite movie of all time.
link |
I mean, that's the big fear, right?
link |
Yeah. What's the conclusion with Terminator? Isn't ultimately humanity wins?
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I think they're at like Terminator 8 now. Yeah. I don't know.
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Yeah. So it's interesting, actually, I was going to bring this up as you were talking about it,
link |
but China and the United States actually don't know where Canada is on this, but they both have
link |
agreed that they're not going to put limits on autonomous weapon system development. They're
link |
not going to. They're not going to. So because China said we're not going to and now US officially
link |
announced that we're not, we can't. Well, you can't. It's like, you never could, right? As soon as
link |
it exists and it's better, people will use it. Well, but there's been a global ban on bio weapons.
link |
So you were able to come to an agreement there that we're not going to use biological weapons
link |
in war. So a lot of people are really upset that in the case of AI driven weapons, the world said,
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nope, that's okay. And so now you have this potential for greater and greater automation
link |
in drones, for example, in picking bombing locations and so the area at which they attack.
link |
And so you get some of that stuff that you mentioned that drew you to the military
link |
is that teamwork between humans, that decision making. So there's strategy, but built into that
link |
team is a deep humanity. Even when there's an enemy, there's lines that you are aware of,
link |
of what is ethical, what is not, what is just and what is not. And it's so easy for a machine
link |
to miss all of that, plow through it and do deeply inhumane acts, commit atrocities. That's
link |
something that worries a lot of people. Because yeah, an AI based war is terrifying, especially
link |
with cyber security, which is becoming more and more of an issue, which is hacking.
link |
People that look a lot like me, being the warriors of the future, which is meaning people
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behind a keyboard versus the traditional warriors. Probably inevitable.
link |
Yeah. And terrifying. It is. It is. But I think if you believe that it's possible,
link |
it's certainly going to happen. Like at some point, it's just when, right? When does it happen?
link |
So that, I mean, to me, I'm ultimately optimistic about the future. And to me,
link |
I'm excited about the world with AI. I'm even excited about the metaverse and all these kinds
link |
of things, living more and more in the digital space in the virtual reality. I think, so it's
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a part of me that grew up in the non internet world, non computer world. It says, oh, kids,
link |
these days with the video games, there's part of me that's like that. But I think technology at
link |
its best can bring out the best of humanity. And so I think virtual reality, all of these things
link |
over time will figure out how to, how to fix it to bring out the humanity. Social networks,
link |
the first generation social networks, now Facebook, Twitter and so on, they have so many
link |
problems. They're bringing out the worst in people. But I think we're learning from that.
link |
And I think the next generation of social networks will be better and better and better.
link |
And so I'm optimistic. But of course, one reason we may have not seen aliens yet,
link |
obviously, like in a way that's obvious, is because once you get clever and smart and have
link |
all this cool technology, you destroy yourself. And we sure as humans are pretty close to that.
link |
Yeah. Yeah, there might be that limit that is hard to get right.
link |
I'm hoping we get all our aggression between nations out through arm wrestling.
link |
Right? Yeah. Oh my God. Wouldn't that be great if it was that simple?
link |
Yeah. Do you know if there's another over the top type movie to be made?
link |
Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's always stuff in the works. There's actually a, there's a,
link |
there's a tournament called Over the Top in Australia that's a couple of months away. I think
link |
they're doing all the over top scene. But there are arm wrestling movies that are being made right
link |
now. Actually, there's a documentary that's filming me for this Olavon thing. But yeah,
link |
we're probably due for another big one. Yeah. But you're also just with your YouTube channel,
link |
you're doing a lot for the sport. That's really cool to see. Just being genuine,
link |
but just being like, looking not like you're looking today, but just like...
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Just the beard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Just like sleepy, you know, and just putting yourself out there completely as you are.
link |
That's a beautiful thing. The best thing about the sport is it brings people together.
link |
That's it. Yeah. The community, the folks I got to interact with just so awesome,
link |
so excited, so full of kindness. I'm definitely going to find the club here and start working on my
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arm wrestling game. Devon, this is such a huge honor that you would spend your valuable time.
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You would come down to Austin, you would hang out with me and do this conversation.
link |
Super cool. As I mentioned, in case people, you know, people I'm sure will tell me. So,
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I hang out with Joe Rogan all the time. He's a friend. I told him that he should talk to Devon.
link |
He's going through some stuff currently, you know, but I'm sure that I hope the conversation
link |
between you, Devon and Joe happens eventually. He's, that would be epic as well because he's a,
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he loves fighting. He loves fighting. He loves wrestling. He loves strength.
link |
And I think all of those are like so perfectly encapsulated in the sport of arm wrestling.
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So, thank you so much for talking to me. Thanks so much, Lex.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Devon Larritt. To support this podcast,
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please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you some words from Miyamoto
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Musashi. The only reason a warrior is alive is to fight. And the only reason a warrior fights
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is to win. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.