In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, we are joined by a guest who's been a long time friend of mine. He's a jiu-jitsu black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and is one of the best in the business at his current weight class. We talk about how he got into jiu jitsu, what it's like to be a black belt, and why he doesn't care if you're in jiujitsu or not. We also talk about his son, Gus Sacco, who's competing in the NCAA Wrestling Championships at 145 pounds. And we talk about why we should all be trying to get Onnit to get Krohn Gracie to get on board the Onnit train. You can get 10% off your first purchase at Onnit when you use the code "JOE" at checkout to save 10% on any and all Onnit products. Onnit is a human optimization website that helps you optimize your health and performance online. We want to provide you with all the tools you need to function at your best, whether it's nutritional supplements, strength and conditioning equipment, or anything else you might not get in your day-to-day life, and we want to make it easy for you to do so by giving you the tools and support you to be the best you can be your best in your everyday life. If you like what you're getting the most out of your day to day life, then you'll love Onnit! We're giving you 10% discount code: JOE10% off any purchase you make on Onnit nt. Use code: joe@onnit.co/joejoeid=1joe_joe to save $10% on all your purchases and receive 10% of your total bill plus free shipping when you sign up for Onnit's monthly membership! Joespan is giving you 20% off of your first month of Onnit, plus an additional $5 or more when you enter the offer starts on the site. I'm giving you $10, and you get a discount of $20 or more! I'll be giving you an ad-free version of the JOEJOE_Rogan Experience. JOE ROGAN Experience, and I'll give you $5 and get $5 off my podcast gets $10 off my first purchase of $50 or more, plus I'll get a FREE trial.
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00:04:26.000So a few years back, my friend Gordon Hester, who's a guy that I met on the internet, said, hey, do you want to have dinner with Hicks and Gracie?
00:04:55.000The universal name that gets thrown about in Jiu Jitsu, there's the last name, which is Gracie.
00:05:01.000And then once you get to know Jiu Jitsu, and you understand Jiu Jitsu, and you start training, everybody always wants to know who's the best, who's the best, who's the best.
00:05:12.000Universally regarded as the all-time best is your father.
00:05:45.000You were with your dad, and we went and had some dinner, and then we went back to your house, and we watched some fights, which was amazing to have your dad break down what guys are doing wrong and what's wrong with...
00:05:57.000Their positioning, what's wrong with their approach and what his approach is.
00:06:03.000And for me, as a student of martial arts and as a fan of martial arts, it was a huge honor.
00:06:10.000And you were, I think, were you like 16 or 17 back then?
00:07:32.000As much as my dad wants to make it feel like he didn't put pressure on me, and, you know, he did.
00:07:38.000People say he teaches invisible jiu-jitsu.
00:07:41.000Well, I'll talk about invisible pressure.
00:07:47.000At an early age, when I'm a little kid, I can always see how much my dad trains and how big he is a part of what he does in the world and how much people respect him.
00:08:02.000So from a very early age, you want to replicate that and you want to do what your father does if it feels cool to you.
00:08:11.000And it's always been really cool to me.
00:08:13.000Of course, when I was younger, up until 12 years old, I used to skate a lot and Jiu-Jitsu was kind of whatever.
00:08:19.000But I knew that in the future that that was what I was going to have to do no matter what.
00:08:23.000So it came to a point where I kind of put skateboarding aside I had gotten hurt skateboarding a bunch of times, and I was like, you know what, I don't care about skateboarding as much as I do jiu-jitsu.
00:08:34.000I'm not going to be as good as a skateboarder as I can be with jiu-jitsu, which this kind of all clicked for me.
00:08:43.000One day with my brother, you know, we were talking and everything, and this was like one of the last conversations we had, and he was always like, you know, Krohn, you...
00:08:53.000Whatever you do in life, you do it 100%.
00:08:57.000If you're going to be a dentist, you'll be the best dentist.
00:08:59.000If you're going to be a skateboarder, you'll be the best skateboarder.
00:09:02.000But the only difference is, right here, you have an opportunity to do jiu-jitsu, and you have the best road, you have the best dad as a coach, you have all the tools you need to really be the best you can be.
00:09:15.000And it would be stupid for you not to really take advantage of this.
00:09:19.000And that kind of happened when I was 12. After my brother passed, I kind of really, really put effort into that and I kind of really made it my mission to make him proud and to make my dad proud and I kind of knew what I had in my hands.
00:09:33.000But at that age, you never know how good you're going to get and you never know what's going to happen.
00:09:37.000So I just kind of dedicated myself, dedicated myself.
00:09:40.000And then, you know, when we met each other, I was still fully dedicated, but I still hadn't achieved, you know, anything really.
00:09:58.000When you try, when you try, when you try, when you try, you only get what you think you're going to get way later.
00:10:05.000I put so much dedication into it by 16 years old, but I hadn't seen any of the fruits and I hadn't seen any necessarily big reward from it.
00:10:14.000So it was basically just the passion of being able to train Jiu Jitsu and being able to do what I knew was my mission.
00:10:26.000I kind of lost my track a little bit of what I was gonna say, but...
00:10:31.000So, basically, from that age, you know, it was always like I knew that I had to do that, you know.
00:10:37.000As much as things would always, like, there's always, like, little things that go in your head that you might want to, like, change or whatever.
00:10:44.000But in my mind, it was never an option not to do jiu-jitsu and never an option not to be the best I could be and to be the best in the world.
00:10:52.000That was always, like, where I was going to be.
00:10:54.000I never had a plan B. I never had a...
00:10:56.000Oh, well, I'm just going to try this, and then if this doesn't work out, I'll try.
00:11:00.000For me, it was always this was where I put my energy in, so I kind of just put my energy into it, and, you know, from a very early age, from 12, 13, 14, everybody knew me as Krohn Hickson's son.
00:11:26.000Yeah, so I kind of always knew that if I wanted to climb out of this name and climb out of this shadow, I would have to work twice as hard, and it was going to be a real obstacle for me to get past this.
00:11:38.000In my mind, that was my ending goal, no matter what.
00:11:42.000I wanted to be able to represent myself and my family and everything.
00:11:47.000I wanted to be able to be remembered as somebody who kept the legacy going.
00:11:53.000For folks who don't have any experience in martial arts, I'll try to explain this to people.
00:12:00.000When you really stop and think about the history of martial arts, the most important moment, in my opinion, of modern martial arts was Hoist Gracie entering into the UFC in 1993. When Hoist Gracie entered into the UFC,
00:12:15.000we saw for the first time in a real application, we saw what we had always wanted to see in the movies.
00:12:22.000A smaller man with technique defeating larger men.
00:12:26.000A smaller man utilizing Leverage and utilizing his skills to defeat everybody in front of him.
00:12:34.000And from that we got introduced to the name Gracie.
00:12:40.000We got introduced to Elio, your grandfather, who was the most important figure in all of martial arts.
00:12:47.000For folks who don't know, Martial arts, for the longest time, for thousands of years, there was all this debate about what was the best style, whether it was karate or whether it was kung fu.
00:13:00.000There was all these different people that swore that their master could defeat a thousand men in unarmed combat.
00:13:06.000No one knew what the real deal was until the UFC came along, and that was when the world got introduced to the name Gracie.
00:13:45.000You don't really think about it like that when you're in the Grace family.
00:13:48.000You're kind of just born into this thing where it's all about martial arts and it's all about dedication and discipline.
00:13:55.000You come from a tradition, so you don't really think about it from the outside point of view.
00:14:00.000For me, it's just been a very normal thing to train jujitsu in the living room, to talk about how to defend yourself, to talk about leverage and health and all this.
00:14:50.000He made it so that a weak person could defeat a bigger opponent.
00:14:55.000And with my dad, with him leading everything and taking charge and trying to spread...
00:15:02.000He was a very, very important person in all of our lives.
00:15:05.000He made it possible for a weak person to be able to defeat a big opponent, to have the self-confidence to believe in something other than physical form, to believe in the leverage.
00:15:18.000And he, you know, his theory and what he put onto his children is what gave not only the leverage and the technique, but also put physical abilities on top of it.
00:15:30.000So my dad got all the theory of the leverage and being a weak person and how to survive if you're weaker.
00:16:26.000And not only am I... I'm not the only son, but I'm also being able to prove that it's still in the genes and it's still a powerful thing that we're dealing with.
00:16:36.000So I'm overwhelmed sometimes and I kind of look back and I'm very grateful for the situation and obviously God put me in the situation and put us in the situation for a reason.
00:16:49.000Most recently, you won the Abu Dhabi Submission Championships, which in the world of grappling is the most prestigious no-gi submission title in the world.
00:17:02.000And for folks no-gi, there's two different types of jiu-jitsu.
00:17:10.000And then there's jiu-jitsu with no-gi, which is much like wrestling or The type of techniques that you would see in the UFC, because they're not grabbing clothes.
00:17:20.000Very different, very different as far as the pace of things.
00:17:24.000But Abu Dhabi is the most prestigious championship in the world.
00:17:28.000So you accomplished, you hit the top of the mountain.
00:17:32.000You became much like the others in the Gracie family before you.
00:18:28.000And it was a mix of a bunch of things that I came to my conclusion of why that happened.
00:18:34.000In the end, I think that I was just not mentally ready for that and I let all these outside things affect me.
00:18:40.000Anyways, I lost the fight and really dug deep to see what I was going to do with my life.
00:18:47.000After you realize what happens and how you can prevent it and how you're going to get better, Then you start to really work hard for what you want to get.
00:18:57.000After that moment, I started to really become a man and really understand sacrifice and how to work hard.
00:19:02.000If you want something in life, you can't depend on anybody for it.
00:19:23.000Sometimes I lose because of points and I've never really been about points but ultimately I feel like now after so long of being on this Journey of this hard path, I finally kind of started to find myself in the past couple years and I'm finally getting the results that I've wanted a long time ago and I've realized a lot more about life and about myself than if I would have just won everything.
00:19:49.000So that's a great situation to be in and I work really hard for this first place medal so it's gonna be hard for somebody to take it from me.
00:19:57.000That is an interesting thing, isn't it?
00:19:58.000That you need defeat in order to really inspire you to the greatness that's inside of you.
00:20:03.000You need to feel adversity to rise to the occasion.
00:20:25.000I got promoted like two weeks before the World Championships and my dad's always like, life is about surprises and about challenges and he's like, you want this black belt?
00:20:34.000And I had submitted 50 fights straight and I was like, yeah, I want this challenge.
00:20:41.000Little did I know it was going to fucking shake my world.
00:20:45.000But I'm grateful for it and it's great.
00:20:49.000I have no complaints and I wouldn't have changed anything.
00:21:05.000I think that's what made me who I am and be able to really become my own man at this age.
00:21:10.000The advice that my dad gave me was such a, you know, it's easy in life to be drifted by things and to be drifted by what people say and what you personally think and say and feel.
00:21:22.000So, you know, always being able to have my dad give me good advice and To be able to be my father and to teach me how to be a man, not just jujitsu, not just being good at technique, but being able to be a good person, being humble and doing the best that you can.
00:21:37.000I think that's what allows me to become great at jujitsu and what allows me to become great at whatever I do.
00:21:44.000And, you know, for me, I never really had that much training sessions with my father.
00:21:49.000People think he was there coaching me every day, training on the sidelines with the water bottle and all this shit that's never existed.
00:21:56.000But one thing I am very grateful for is...
00:22:00.000When I started to train really hard at like 12 years old, my dad wasn't training at the academy.
00:22:06.000My brother had passed and he was just on his own search, you know?
00:22:11.000So he disappeared from the academy, but every night I'd come home and he would be there and he wouldn't ask me how was school.
00:22:18.000I was training and I would tell him, oh man, I got smashed or this happened or I got stuck in this position.
00:22:25.000So at the dinner table or in front of the TV, he would give me an answer to my problem and he would give me advice, you know, whether it be about jujitsu technique or whether it be about what happened.
00:22:36.000Here or how to how to react to what this person did.
00:22:39.000And so my my learning my jujitsu really growth happened over food over, you know, watching TV, you know, that's where I really learned What I learned and then went back and trained at the academy and practiced what I was taught.
00:22:57.000Most of my jujitsu I learned through verbal, light conversations at the dinner table and being able to do from that really.
00:23:08.000Your dad had that approach which was different than Hoyce's approach and different than many other people's approach.
00:23:15.000This approach of mastering the physical as well as mastering technique.
00:23:21.000You know, your dad is an accomplished yogi.
00:23:30.000I think what separates my dad from not only everybody in the family, but from most fighters is not only his mental strength, but his spiritual strength.
00:23:45.000I think that's huge, especially now in my life, realizing how important that is a part of me.
00:23:50.000I think being spiritually connected to yourself and connected to whatever is above us is something that really sometimes things you can't explain happen when you're that connected.
00:24:03.000My dad has always been a very spiritual person.
00:24:05.000He's done all the things that he does for his purpose.
00:24:09.000If you talk to him about money, money is just secondary to what his beliefs are.
00:25:06.000Because that's another thing that really separated him from a lot of other martial artists and really opened up a lot of people's eyes to the beneficial aspects of yoga.
00:25:16.000So he got into yoga with this guy Orlando Cunning who was a Brazilian yoga guy who basically his whole theory was breathing with your movements.
00:25:35.000But he kind of incorporated breathing with movement and being able to, like, he would be like, oh, I'm an animal, I'm a tiger.
00:25:41.000So he would walk like a tiger and he would breathe like a tiger and he would look and he would visualize himself like a tiger.
00:25:48.000So he started to be able to not only do that as an animal, but he started to transfer it over to jiu-jitsu and being able to Because this theory, the guy's theory, Orlando Cunning's theory was animals are perfect.
00:26:02.000You know, they move and they breathe and they don't get tired and everything is in sync.
00:26:07.000So his whole theory was the better you can do that, the more you can replicate that, the more you're going to be able to be efficient with whatever you do.
00:26:15.000And the yoga for my dad, I guess, was a huge, huge part.
00:26:21.000Since a little kid, he kind of always told me about breathing and yoga and I never cared and I just kind of brushed it off.
00:26:29.000Until when you get older and you start really having difficulties, when you really start searching and really start having problems, Then I started to breathe more, and now I think that the breathing is a huge part of myself,
00:26:45.000and it's a huge part of my growth, and it's a huge part of me being able to be in tune with what I'm doing.
00:26:51.000So I wouldn't take away that for anything, and I think that's probably one of the biggest additions to myself that I could have added.
00:27:38.000And it was back when Hickson was competing in Japan Valley Tudo.
00:27:43.000Was it like 1995 or something like that?
00:27:45.000Yeah, 94, 95. And there's a video that Really, like, open up a lot of people's eyes of him doing yoga and moving his stomach around with these weird stomach exercises.
00:29:21.000So what you're doing is you're breathing in deep, and then you're pulling your diaphragm in?
00:29:27.000That actual exercise that you do is you exhale, you have no oxygen in your lungs, and then you just kind of massage your diaphragm, and you kind of just have that kind of control, so you're just practicing, like, how to move it.
00:29:41.000Because when you're training and you're tired, and if you have to think about to breathe, it's already too much, so you should just have it...
00:29:47.000It's like one of those things that start fire.
00:29:50.000When you push out, when you open it up, it fills up naturally.
00:29:55.000So if you learn how to breathe through your diaphragm, you naturally are going to filter way more oxygen and everything's going to be better.
00:30:04.000That's the reason why I can train as long as I can train and why I can stay clear.
00:30:08.000Normally, a lot of people, they get gassed out or they...
00:30:12.000Or they feel like they're going to pass out or they get anxiety.
00:30:15.000So being able to breathe correctly is a huge part of my growth, I think.
00:30:54.000So that has helped me not only with jiu-jitsu, but anything new I do, or if I'm going to come here on an interview, if I start to get nervous, you know, I breathe and it goes away.
00:31:03.000So the breathing has helped me become, has given me really an opportunity to do everything that I can do.
00:31:09.000Yeah, I do a lot of deep breathing exercises in a sensory deprivation tank.
00:31:14.000And one of the things that I do is the long breathing.
00:31:18.000Like, I'll have an inhale that lasts a minute.
00:32:29.000I only experienced that breathing for the first time in jiu-jitsu after a lifelong of martial arts.
00:32:34.000I'd never heard anybody breathe like that until I started training, and then at John Jacques Academy, and hearing people, you know, hearing, like, black belts roll, like, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
00:32:46.000I hear guys roll like, what the fuck are they doing?
00:32:48.000I was a white bear, looking around, everybody doing it.
00:32:52.000And Jean-Jacques explained to me that when you breathe out, you will definitely breathe in.
00:32:57.000Force yourself to breathe out and then get rid of all the bad air in your body and breathe in fresh oxygen.
00:33:04.000And then forcing it out is something that people don't concentrate enough on.
00:33:08.000Yeah, when you normally want to breathe, you breathe in, and then that only fills up that top part, you know?
00:33:14.000So if you, I mean, there's a lot about it, but I think it's definitely a huge part of my success today, and it's also a huge part of my dad's success.
00:33:23.000Yeah, I would recommend to anybody who is interested in this to go and just look up various yoga breathing videos on YouTube and just follow along with them and you get a great benefit from that.
00:33:34.000And it's something that people don't really think too much about, about concentrating and controlling your breathing.
00:33:40.000And there's also a great meditative quality to that too.
00:33:44.000One of the first breathing exercises I ever did when I was really young, somebody told me that you can meditate by just concentrating only on your breath.
00:33:53.000Just not even a breathing exercise, but just breathe in good and out bad, and think of nothing but those things.
00:34:00.000Think as you're breathing in, you're taking in oxygen, and as you're breathing out, you're just pumping out in with the good, out with the bad.
00:34:06.000Just think of those things, and think only of your breath.
00:34:09.000And by forcing yourself to concentrate on that, it sort of filters out everything in your life, and it all becomes like background.
00:34:14.000Everything else sort of calms down, and you get this feeling after you're done doing that.
00:34:19.000If you do that for an hour, it just...
00:34:21.000Everything else, sort of like, the importance of things that you thought were so big and so crazy in your life and, oh, this is fucked up, what am I going to do about that?
00:34:32.000Yeah, I think the breathing keeps me in touch with my spirituality and being able to breathe.
00:34:37.000Like, I've gotten into some super gnarly trances where I'm, you know, really connected to whatever is above us and that's through the breathing.
00:34:50.000Being able to breathe after your training or during your training or however you like to do it has given me huge, huge benefits.
00:35:00.000I connect myself to when I'm training.
00:35:03.000Being able to breathe puts me in a very animal-like state where it's me against you.
00:35:10.000I'm not thinking about what you're doing.
00:35:12.000I'm not thinking about I am thinking about what you're doing, but I'm not thinking about things.
00:35:17.000It's more of like a feeling, and that feeling, the closer you are to that feeling, it keeps you almost above your mind, above you can actually think.
00:35:32.000Since I started to really incorporate the breathing and connecting it to my jiu-jitsu, it's given me way more...
00:35:39.000Well there's a whole group of people that use breathing, it's called holotropic breathing, and they use it to achieve psychedelic states.
00:35:48.000I've achieved psychedelic states for sure.
00:35:51.000What's the most intense state you've ever achieved while breathing?
00:35:53.000Oh, I mean, a couple times after training when I'm really exhausted, like I'm very, very, very, very exhausted to a point where you wanted to stop training like 30, 40 minutes before.
00:36:05.000And then after, I'll do a breathing and breathing, and I'll just keep going into the breathing, and as I start to breathe and start to get more in tune, nothing exists, and it's just me, and I can almost see the particles in the air, and I can...
00:36:20.000It's just like a sensation that I've only felt a couple of times, but I definitely have gotten in touch with...
00:36:26.000It's very intense to get to that point where you just feel...
00:37:37.000How I feel, how I feel about this training session, whatever it is, I kind of try to go more about feeling because that's never failed me before.
00:37:45.000So these breathing techniques and these states that you achieve, they give you a sort of a fresh perspective.
00:37:52.000They give you a perspective of recognizing the greatness and the beauty and the magnitude of life that sometimes escapes us in our normal everyday path where You know, you just sort of take for granted that that's a door, this is the house, go outside, that's the sky, it becomes normal,
00:38:08.000but these breathing techniques and the psychedelic states that you achieve from them allow you to, it's almost like a reset button.
00:38:20.000And for anybody who is doing anything in their life, whether it be something, you know, whether you're trying to get through a tough situation, whether you're arguing with your girlfriend, or whether you're stuck in traffic, or whether you're trying to stay calm while somebody's trying to choke you, the breathing has given me,
00:38:55.000The older I got the more I kind of started to have stress and have to deal with this pressure and then I kind of started to do it every once in a while and then now it's at a point where the past few years I've really stepped it up a lot and it's really a big part of my training and everything I do.
00:39:13.000So even when I skateboard now I'm like trying to breathe and I'm trying to like keep everything in tune so I can do the best I can do.
00:39:21.000The last time When we had dinner together, your dad was still talking about competing.
00:39:28.000He had stopped, but he was still thinking about fighting.
00:39:34.000There was always a thread on the underground.
00:39:37.000One of the big themes on the underground is Hickson by armbar.
00:39:40.000They would joke around about anything.
00:39:49.000Something couldn't be answered, someone would just write Hickson via armbar.
00:39:55.000Did he have any regrets that he didn't fight any of the big name guys, that he didn't continue?
00:40:01.000We were talking about him fighting Fedor.
00:40:04.000He was saying that if he did fight someone, he would want to fight Fedor, who was the champ of pride at the time.
00:40:10.000Yeah, I think that, I don't know if there's any regrets or anything.
00:40:14.000I think it was just a time in my dad's life where, well, right after my brother passed, you know, he got offered to fight Sakuraba, and it was a big, big payday, and it was a big, big fight.
00:40:27.000And, of course, my dad, being the man he is, he wasn't going to just leave the family to go train for a fight and to take his selfish needs into consideration.
00:40:38.000So he kind of just turned away the fight and kind of gave his energy to the family and tried to do what he could to help everybody.
00:40:47.000After that time passes there's still like some some people wanting to have him fight and he was maybe fighting fatal or maybe this but I think after that moment he kind of just the time passed you know his fighting that time had passed for his even though it was a still possibility for him to fight I think that he necessarily He was ready to fight and as a man he was ready to die,
00:41:10.000but I don't think that necessarily it was...
00:41:14.000I'm glad that he didn't fight after that.
00:41:16.000I'm glad that he, you know, it happened the way it did and he retired the way he did and he still has, you know, the greatest image, so I think that it's...
00:41:26.000I think it's a great thing that it went the way it did, you know, like...
00:41:31.000My dad is a great fighter, and he's a great mind, and that separates him from everybody else, but I think that everything went fine, even though whatever happened, I think that he didn't need to fight.
00:41:42.000He didn't need to prove anything to anybody else, and even if he did fight, win or lose, that wouldn't have been him at his best, you know?
00:41:51.000So I think my dad did enough from when he was 15 to when he was 40. He proved enough people wrong.
00:42:55.000It's probably the hardest thing to do.
00:42:57.000And, you know, that guy was ready at any time, anywhere, ready to prove, ready to prove the family was...
00:43:03.000I was better, ready to prove that he was better.
00:43:07.000That's what gives me inspiration to wake up in the mornings and do what I do.
00:43:11.000I only really do it because of him and my brother.
00:43:14.000I only really compete because of him and my brother.
00:43:17.000My motivation is to keep him happy and to keep this family remembered instead of just, The Gracies were good when nobody knew Jiu Jitsu, but now everybody doesn't.
00:43:31.000So I think it's important for my life.
00:43:33.000I've already kind of am willing to sacrifice my life and willing to sacrifice whatever I feel and how I like things to be for the bigger objective, which is to keep my father and my grandfather, you know, alive and well in their legacy.
00:43:48.000Were you there for any of those challenge matches like when Anjo came to the dojo?
00:43:56.000At that time I was like maybe four or five years old and I remember the days happening and it's happening.
00:44:02.000I wasn't there at the specific invite because not even my dad was at the academy.
00:44:06.000My dad was at home eating breakfast and the guys came and called him and was like, dude, guys in Japan are invading the academy.
00:44:13.000So my dad got up and like, Got ready to go to the academy, and that was like another thing.
00:44:18.000He just waked up, thought it was going to be another day for him to go on a bike ride, and then motherfuckers outside the academy ready to challenge you with all this press, and if you lose, it's just like a real fight.
00:44:30.000For folks who don't know, that's one historical match that apparently...
00:44:35.000Gordon Hester said he's seen the video.
00:44:38.000Yoji Anjo, who's a pro wrestler and MMA fighter in Japan, just showed up at the academy and Hickson took him into a back room and beat the fucking shit out of him.
00:47:36.000He let him up after he kicked his ass.
00:47:38.000I think my dad, because there were so many videos of everybody fighting the Gracie in action videos that came out, all these videos were out, I think my dad just wanted to keep something for himself and wanted to have some kind of power because everybody had taken all the footage and everything was used in whichever way.
00:47:54.000My dad probably never got paid a cent for the Gracie in action videos.
00:48:13.000There was also, from the outside, there was always the talk was always, especially because, you know, I've been working for the UFC since 97, so the people that I was working with, like Campbell McLaren and all those guys, they had been there from UFC 1. And they were,
00:48:29.000you know, they had said that the reason why your uncle didn't put your brother in, or didn't put your father in, instead put hoist in, that the reason why he did that was because he couldn't control Hickson.
00:48:42.000That Hickson was just, you know, he was the best of the family.
00:48:45.000Everybody knew he was the best of the family, but that Horian knew that if he put Hickson in, that Hickson wasn't going to, you know, Hickson was going to do whatever he wanted to.
00:48:54.000He wasn't going to listen to him, and he wouldn't be able to control him the way he possibly controlled everybody else.
00:49:00.000Is there any, is there truth to that, or what is...
00:49:02.000So, there's a lot of different things that happen in that kind of time and era, you know.
00:49:09.000One reason why Hoist fought in the UFC and not my dad, because my dad was the best.
00:49:13.000My dad would tap out Hoist with one hand in his belt before his fight.
00:49:25.000So they wanted that to be able to prove that Jiu-Jitsu was better.
00:49:30.000But ultimately, I don't know if that's true or not.
00:49:34.000And I don't know the exact reason, but basically before that situation, Horian and my dad, they kind of started to separate.
00:49:43.000They kind of started to go their own ways.
00:49:46.000And I think in that situation, again, I don't know 100%, but that's what I kind of think happened.
00:49:53.000I'm sure Horian felt more control over Hoist than he did over my father.
00:49:59.000My dad was kind of already starting to find his own way and do his own thing.
00:50:04.000I don't know too much about it because we never really talked about that far back.
00:50:09.000I think I have talked to my dad about it, but I forget because that's not really that important these days for me.
00:50:14.000Well, you know, Horian gets a lot of grief, but, I mean, he was such a great promoter of jiu-jitsu, and if it wasn't for him doing that, it wasn't for him putting on those Gracie in Action videos and promoting them and promoting jiu-jitsu and promoting Gracie jiu-jitsu,
00:50:54.000And my dad was just the soldier, was the guy, the one representing and ready to do what he had to do.
00:51:00.000And, you know, it's like Carlos and Elio.
00:51:04.000Eli was the representative and Carlos was the guy who kind of took care of the academy and had the theory behind the diets and the theory behind the names and had this stuff.
00:51:12.000So I think neither one of them, I think they're both responsible for the movement.
00:51:18.000And yeah, I think it was a great thing.
00:51:21.000Horian, like even his academy, you look at his academy, it's like a museum, you know?
00:51:38.000I'm not focused on promoting and being able to sell jiu-jitsu and being able to expand wide.
00:51:45.000For me, you're going to come to me and train with me if you know and you want to.
00:51:52.000And Horian, he did a great job in expanding and showing the world in your face, like, here, look, this is what happens when this happens, and this is...
00:52:00.000So he was a great tool for the family and a great, you know, he made it happen, you know, he created it a lot.
00:52:08.000Yeah, all of us fans of jiu-jitsu, oh, Horian Gracie, a huge debt of gratitude.
00:52:14.000And also because he produced his sons that are also great promoters of jiu-jitsu.
00:52:19.000The Gracie breakdowns are one of my favorite things about after submissions.
00:52:23.000After there's a submission in the UFC, Henner and Huron will get together and...
00:52:29.000Discuss with great technical explanation all the various aspects of where someone went wrong, where things went right, what was the proper adjustment, what they did to get out of a bad situation.
00:54:21.000What I'm just talking about is their explanations of jiu-jitsu and MMA. Oh yeah, those guys are great explanators.
00:54:27.000You know, those guys, they explain to the T. It's one of the more difficult aspects of doing commentary is explaining, not just recognizing positions and what's going to happen, but explaining to people positions and explaining where the defense is,
00:54:43.000where the offense is, and doing it all in real time while the mad scrambles are going on and trying to like...
00:54:57.000And try to put it all together and then explain it to the layman, explain it to the person who doesn't train at home where it's just a mass of bodies.
00:55:05.000That's why I just focus on competing and training.
00:55:11.000I like that philosophy of looking someone in the eye and training them because There is that aspect of if you put a video out there, you don't know who's learning your shit, you know?
00:55:26.000And while I'm still competing, the last thing I want is my enemies to be able to see what I do and see how I do things.
00:55:32.000So, yeah, there's no way I would do that.
00:55:35.000One of the interesting aspects about you and your jiu-jitsu career, too, is that there's a lot of variation in jiu-jitsu and jiu-jitsu styles.
00:55:44.000There's a lot of new stuff that's come along, a lot of new techniques, a lot of new strategies.
00:55:49.000But your attacks and your jiu-jitsu are very much like your father's.
00:56:46.000The tricks, they work sometimes and they work if it's a good moment, you know, like these new things that happen and these new ways to defeat your opponent.
00:56:54.000So I'm always looking for a situation that's going to work all the time.
00:57:01.000So these tricks, the good positions, they demand a lot out of you and they only work if that situation happens.
00:57:08.000So I'm not concerned with trapping myself into a position that's good for me because I count on not being in good positions.
00:57:27.000Like try to get to a certain position and then begin my training.
00:57:31.000That's what I feel like happens most of the time in Jiu Jitsu these days is you want to get to this grip and this sleeve grip and then from here you're going to start training.
00:57:40.000So to get to that position where you have your special grips and everything, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of strength.
00:57:46.000And I kind of base my Jiu Jitsu on leverage and technique so that it'll work when I'm fresh, when I'm tired, if I'm fighting a guy who's bigger than me.
00:57:54.000It doesn't depend on physical strength.
00:57:56.000So that's where my dad kind of forced me because I didn't always think like this.
00:58:01.000And he kind of giving me not only the technique and the leverage, but showing me that it's possible.
00:58:09.000Proving to me firsthand that it's possible for you to beat your opponents with leverage.
00:58:15.000So my dad, you know, been promoting...
00:58:19.000This like little mini warrior in my mind for a long time of how to be not only mentally but physically and training wise and spiritually and it's been...
00:58:28.000It's all helped me and he's a great huge part of my success.
00:58:34.000One of the things I took from the conversation with your dad, we were talking about the various aspects of Jiu Jitsu, but he was saying that first and foremost...
00:58:42.000One of the most important weapons that he has is his defense.
00:59:54.000And it's not like, oh, I'm going to start a fight and I'm just going to go for an armlock or I'm going to go for a crazy submission from nowhere.
01:00:01.000But my training sessions are to, like my dad said, to get to the next better position, to get to the next better position, to get to the submission.
01:00:18.000I kind of always am looking for the next place to get to the finish line.
01:00:24.000That's created a very aggressive style because I'm always looking for the next place to be and it's not necessarily like, oh, I just go for submissions from anywhere.
01:01:10.000In a different way, my jiu-jitsu sucks.
01:01:14.000So I'm glad, I'm very grateful that it's become like this and I have this type of style and I've gotten as good as I got with the basics and with the tools that I had.
01:02:08.000I'd rather lose on points with keeping my mentality always with the objective to get into a better place than to stop my game and try to find out how I'm going to win this match while using the time on my side.
01:02:22.000So I have fought matches where I lost when I could have won.
01:02:28.000And then I went for something or I tried to advance the position and I lost it and then whatever, the guy swept me and then I lost because the time ran out.
01:03:06.000So your jujitsu and your path is clearly a work in progress.
01:03:11.000And even though you've achieved the great heights of being an Abu Dhabi world champion, while you're training and fighting, you're always competing with that very specific mindset.
01:03:20.000So any setbacks are just going to be educational experiences.
01:03:23.000You learn from those setbacks, and then next time you're even greater.
01:03:27.000Which is why, I mean, you came in, was it second place in 2011?
01:03:31.000Third place in 2011, then came back and fucking dominated in 2013. That was a big leap, man.
01:05:16.000I knew that I could win, but if I were to start letting myself believe that I was gonna win, oh I'm gonna win because I had already won, it was gonna completely mess up my mind.
01:05:26.000So I went into the fight like it was the most difficult fight of my life and when my dad started to get frustrated, I knew he was gonna back away.
01:05:33.000I knew he was gonna stall me out and it was not getting to me.
01:05:36.000I was just like trying to do what I could do.
01:05:38.000I'm not gonna go crazy because he's not wanting to fight me.
01:05:41.000I was expecting that the refs were going to warn him and take away points, and I was going to let that happen.
01:06:00.000You have to make it so that you and your dad are fighting together, not against each other.
01:06:05.000I didn't want to let what he said affect my train and thought, put more pressure on me to have to do something.
01:06:10.000So I kind of kept my cool, and thank God shortly after that, he got a point taken away for stalling, and then he went for the takedown, and I got him in a good guillotine.
01:06:21.000So it all worked out as well, and that victory right there, right there, is like the happiest moment of my life.
01:08:14.000I mean, I live in Santa Monica, so I go there all the time, and I kind of always do just some workouts, and I like to be at the beach and in the ocean.
01:08:21.000But this is just like a joke, you know?
01:08:23.000It's just kind of a little trick, you know?
01:08:26.000Yeah, well, this little trick, he's jumping nine feet from one bar to the next, swinging, and then catching with his arms like a monkey.
01:08:45.000I go down to the bars at least once or twice a week, just to kind of, you know, I do the ropes, and I climb the ropes for my forearms, and I do some pull-ups and stuff.
01:08:52.000But, you know, that's never, like, the biggest part of my training.
01:10:21.000Since I really started to put my energy into other things, it's made my jiu-jitsu better because the more in life when you sacrifice in one direction, no matter what it is, it makes you better.
01:10:33.000It's like something with the universe where even if you say, oh, I'm going to wake up at 6 in the morning to go do 20 push-ups and then go back to sleep, that is going to make you better at what you do because you are going to start to Create this energy to achieve your goals,
01:10:50.000so once I started to really dedicate myself not only with Jiu Jitsu, but with breathing and physical strength and technical strength and mental strength and all these different ways that I can build myself as the best I can be, it really went to show, you know.
01:11:06.000It really made a big improvement since that moment.
01:11:08.000Do you find that the physical training helps prevent injuries?
01:11:15.000I think Physical training should be done at a right time because if you get a white belt and you start telling him, alright, you got to be physically strong and you tell him to start working out and running and then he's going to create, his training is going to be based on his physical strength.
01:11:33.000So my advice is The physical strength is to add to your technical ability.
01:11:39.000It's not to take away from your technical ability and make you rely on your strength and make you rely on your physical attributes.
01:11:46.000So I always kind of don't push for guys in my academy to work out until they reach a brown or black belt level.
01:11:53.000Then they can start adding to their technique because if you get too strong, I've seen it happen many times where guys will take steroids and then they'll get so strong and they'll lose their technique.
01:12:02.000So I never wanted that to happen to me.
01:12:05.000I knew that the strength was always going to be there if I worked on it.
01:12:08.000So I think it's important for you to build your technique and then secondary, you know, your strength can keep your technique going because, of course, if you don't have any physical strength, your technique will fade, you know.
01:12:21.000So you got to have enough strength to keep it going.
01:12:24.000Do you have a trainer that helps you with your physical strength workouts or do you just...
01:13:25.000As you get better you realize that stuff's not going to happen and I kind of got to a point where I kind of stopped making excuses and I kind of started to blame myself for my unsuccess not blaming other reasons not blaming because I didn't have this or because I didn't have this or because my dad wasn't here so I'm grateful for my dad taught me as much as he can for as much as he did and Got to a certain point where I stopped blaming anybody for anything and I kind of just put everything into my hands.
01:13:56.000What I do now and how my schedule is now is a result of a lot of years of being on my own and being Of course, I've had help here and there, but nobody fully embraced being my help.
01:14:07.000So, of course, I pick from the help I can get from wherever I can get.
01:14:12.000Oh, this guy taught me this one thing, I'll do it.
01:14:15.000So, I kind of go around and using my experience to make the best training that fits for me, and I've kind of finally got to that point where...
01:14:21.000I know how to train hard, to where I don't overtrain, to where I know I'm in shape, to where I know I'm mental.
01:14:28.000All that stuff is kind of starting to really combine well based on what I feel and based on how I have lived my life and how I've competed and how I've put my body in stress.
01:14:38.000I'm able to kind of get a good understanding of where I'm at.
01:14:41.000When your dad went to Brazil, was he teaching in Brazil?
01:15:12.000So he wanted to just go make some coconuts.
01:15:14.000Yeah, so I think he just wanted to feel good and kind of Be his on his little retreat and it worked well and now he just moved back actually like a couple months ago he's moved back here and now he's kind of after eight years of living in Brazil he's kind of got more motivation to be here in America be a part of my life and I mean he's always been a part of my life just It's not like my dad didn't help me,
01:15:38.000but he helped me up until I was like 18, gave me everything he could, and then he let me be my own man.
01:15:45.000He let me do everything on my own, make my own decisions.
01:15:47.000If I wanted to do this, I could do it.
01:15:49.000If I wanted to do that, if I wanted to wake up at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I was my own man and had the own freedom to do everything.
01:15:57.000He gave me the option to do whatever I wanted and thank God I was able to really embrace that and use it to my benefit and be able to do what I did with that kind of on my own.
01:17:29.000Like, when he comes to me with theories and training stuff, I mean, man, it's like nobody else has the mind that he has anymore.
01:17:37.000Even if you put his brain on anybody's body, they will be a champion for sure because he has a very great sense of how to adapt to anything.
01:17:48.000So sometimes I'll come up with a move or I'll be like, Dad, this has been giving me problems.
01:17:52.000And even if him not training for 10 years, he'll still feel how to defend it or feel how to deal with that or he'll have a great understanding of how to To be.
01:18:02.000So, I think he's just better now, at this time of his life, he's incorporating different things.
01:19:01.000The Regenikine that I had done was because of a bulging disc and made a huge impact on me.
01:19:07.000And it's also the same thing that a lot of football players have done, like Peyton Manning had done on his neck and he had two operations on his neck and was ready to retire.
01:19:15.000Went to Germany, had the blood spinning procedure done and now was playing better football than ever.
01:19:35.000It's amazing to see with his body how it's been, how well he lives and how he's happy to...
01:19:42.000He says, if I can surf and I can do the things, if I can train once a week and do the little moves here, I'm okay with that.
01:19:49.000So I don't know how far he's trying to step into actually feeling like 20 years old again, but I'm sure he'd be interested to hear what you have to say.
01:19:57.000Well, just pain relief and just the replenishing of his body's ability to move correctly would be a huge impact.
01:20:06.000I know a lot of guys that are getting towards his age, though, that have done jiu-jitsu for a long time have similar issues.
01:20:12.000Ricardo Laborio told me he has seven hernia discs.
01:20:16.000You know, like you stand next to Ricardo, he's kind of like hunched over and leaned down.
01:20:20.000And when we were describing it, you know, you could see like he has like a wince in his face.
01:20:24.000He's just thinking about the pain, but still trains.
01:20:27.000Still goes out there every now and then and rolls and just loves it and can't help it.
01:20:58.000All I know is the last time we seriously rolled, I got fucked up.
01:21:02.000This was bad because I just got my black belt and I was like, alright dad, you know, at this time he was still kind of not, I mean he's had a hernia disc for a long time.
01:21:11.000He probably had an eight hernia disc when he was fighting.
01:23:33.000Now you are starting to, you're doing a lot of training with, I know Gilbert Melendez, a good friend of yours, who thankfully just got re-signed to a new deal where he's going to compete against Anthony Pettis, who's the lightweight champion.
01:23:47.000They're going to fight after they coach the Ultimate Fighter together, which is a huge thing.
01:23:52.000And you're training with a lot of the other Oilers.
01:23:57.000And for folks who don't know, Hoyler Gracie is one of the greatest submission artists of all time, too, and very, very successful in competition.
01:24:04.000So, you know, when you see the difference between how Hickson deals with it and how Hoyler deals with it, look, that's when you really get a sense of what a special person he is.
01:24:14.000And by the way, no one's telling him to do this.
01:25:08.000So I actually, after the ADCC, I kind of started to focus more on MMA. I kind of want my energy to be driven towards fighting professionally in MMA. Yeah, that's where my energy is going these days.
01:25:23.000And what motivates you to want to do that?
01:25:25.000Like I said before, this has been my...
01:25:27.000I knew I was going to get to this point when I was a little kid.
01:25:30.000I never saw Jiu-Jitsu as my final mission.
01:25:34.000And I was just waiting for the right time and waiting for myself to be ready for whatever obstacles I can get to on this specific situation.
01:25:43.000So now I feel mentally ready and now I feel...
01:25:47.000The motivation and now if you would ask me when I was 20 years old if I was ready to fight I mean I wasn't you know mentally not physically not technically but just mentally ready to do something like that so the last thing I wanted was to be traumatized and now I feel like no matter what happens I'm ready to embrace whatever happens and I'm ready to fight so negotiating and seeing what the best situation for me to take advantage of this moment.
01:26:14.000Now, how have you adjusted your training to prepare for mixed martial arts?
01:26:21.000Nothing too crazy, but I think, of course, there's different obstacles and different things that you got to worry about when you're just dealing with jiu-jitsu and when you're just dealing with MMA. You know, of course, you can hit and stuff, but I think generally my fights, the way I fight is more of a fight,
01:26:40.000I'm not trying to be sporty with my jiu-jitsu, so I don't think the transfer over will be that big of a jump as it could be for some other guys.
01:29:21.000First punch you throw, the guy ducks his head, you're going to break your hand.
01:29:23.000So I think that all those things change it.
01:29:27.000And when it changes, you have to be ready to adapt to what changes.
01:29:30.000Personally, if you put two guys in a cage, jiu-jitsu is enough.
01:29:35.000But when you put in the gloves, and you put the time, and you put the rounds, and you put the, you know, all these things, the steroids, so it changes the situation.
01:29:45.000And, you know, Guys are more willing to just throw the hardest punches and knock you out because they know that the round is going to end, because they know that their hand is not necessarily going to break.
01:29:57.000So if you ask me what's the best martial arts, I think Jiu Jitsu, of course.
01:30:05.000If you tell me, okay, it's a two minute round and the guy is going to stand you up or do the, you know, of course, then you have to learn how to box.
01:31:44.000I mean, there was a lot of fanfare and publicity, and they embraced him, especially when he won the Japan Valley Tudos.
01:31:52.000I mean, your dad was an enormous star over there, and I think that that makes sense that you would want to compete over there because they would be very interested to see.
01:32:03.000Yeah, there's a lot of benefits for me starting off in Japan.
01:32:09.000It's just a lot better for me at this moment in my career to start off in Japan and to really build myself the best I can.
01:32:16.000And I personally like fighting in front of Japanese.
01:32:41.000Japan and I think it's just a time in my life and of course if Japan were to ever like you know have a movement of being able to bring MMA back to Japan I think a possibility would be with bringing me to it because that's gonna it's gonna replicate what my dad did you know how he brought it to Japan so I think it's for me in this situation it's a great opportunity and I'm trying to go for that Yeah,
01:33:10.000for people who don't know, your dad was the star of Pride 1. I mean, that's what got Pride kicked off.
01:33:15.000That was the big launching pad after he had won the Japan Valley Tudo.
01:33:21.000And then, of course, Pride came close to...
01:33:25.000I mean, it was an enormous event in Japan.
01:33:28.000Like, they had put on 90,000 seat shows several times.
01:33:32.000Yeah, like 60,000 Tokyo Dome sold out.
01:34:21.000This last event, when Michida fought Musashi, I watched it at home, and when Bruce Buffer says it's time, the whole audience does it with him.
01:36:27.000And he's always been a representative of Jiu Jitsu in a great way.
01:36:33.000So I think the more he focuses on that and the more he tries to really use jiu-jitsu, the better he's going to be because he's a specialist in jiu-jitsu.
01:36:41.000He's not a specialist in striking, so it's tough to try to be an excellent person in a different sport.
01:36:47.000I think he should try to focus in on being the greatest jiu-jitsu fighter in an MMA, and I think that'll be beneficial for him.
01:37:08.000I'm curious to see for myself how it is, fighting with guys who don't want to go to the ground and see how I'm going to be able to deal with it.
01:37:19.000I'm curious to see what happens and I'm curious to see how really difficult it could be and where my technique is going to play a role and how it's going to be because you never know.
01:37:29.000That's why I'm really open for the challenge and my blessings for Damien.
01:37:37.000Hopefully he can find a great tactic to beat his opponents and beat guys who are trying to do that.
01:37:42.000Do you look at him as sort of, I mean, he's a very high-level jiu-jitsu guy.
01:37:46.000Do you look at him as an example of what can be possible and not, the pitfalls, the possibilities?
01:37:52.000Yeah, I mean, I think if somebody can defend his takedowns or something, then there's definitely a technical reason why that's happening.
01:37:59.000And I think that, like, personally, I admire the guy.
01:39:12.000His jiu-jitsu, I mean, he hasn't gotten to that level yet, you know, the level of opposition yet, but his jiu-jitsu has been very effective in MMA. His submissions are, you know...
01:39:22.000I actually haven't seen him fight really in MMA, so I don't really know too much.
01:39:27.000But his jiu-jitsu in jiu-jitsu tournaments is good.
01:40:00.000No, but when you say, I mean, you look at a guy who's like a high-level, world champion caliber fighter, but you say you're not impressed with his jiu-jitsu.
01:40:12.000I don't know, because I've never seen him fight in MMA, so I don't know what he's doing in MMA. But when I fight him, I fought him once, he beat my ass, and then I fought him the next time, and it was a very even match.
01:40:22.000I thought I won that match, and I felt like I got gypped.
01:45:01.000Yeah, I had him in the guillotine for a good minute until my forearms cramped up.
01:45:09.000If there was a professional avenue for jujitsu, if jujitsu was like golf or baseball or something like that, it was on television all the time, would you be motivated at all to enter into MMA? Yeah, I think so too because I think it's more of a real fight and I think it's more of a challenge and I like challenges and I like to I like to challenge and I like to see what's going to happen.
01:45:37.000Personally, I think that jujitsu takes away a little bit from the full fighting spirit.
01:45:47.000Because there's no punching and because there's other tools.
01:45:49.000So the less rules you have, the more you can actually present yourself and use the inner stuff that you have within the fighting spirit and find out ways to stay safe.
01:46:03.000Personally, most of the jiu-jitsu these days are very boring matches and they're very point-oriented.
01:46:12.000It's not as interesting to watch because guys are there for the win, for the point.
01:46:21.000It's not motivating for me to compete in a fight like that.
01:46:27.000I'm motivated to embark on this new journey of MMA. I'm motivated to see what happens, to see how the fight goes, what I need to do, what happens if this happens, and I think that's a great thing.
01:46:39.000Now, when you see guys like Jacare, who were great jiu-jitsu artists and now entering into MMA, Jacare is winning a lot of his fights with kickboxing, and a lot of guys that he's fighting, he's not able to take down, so he's sort of forced to stand and strike with them.
01:46:58.000I think Jacare is great and I really like him a lot as a human being and as an athlete and I've been his fan since he was before, you know, in Jiu Jitsu.
01:47:08.000He was always kind of a real cool guy to watch.
01:47:55.000How am I going to find the way to win the fight?
01:47:58.000I think it's all in the air and we're going to see what happens.
01:48:01.000I can't wait to start to test myself in these waters and get these challenges and find out ways to win.
01:48:09.000Other than Gil and Jake, how many wrestlers are you working with?
01:48:14.000I mean, in my academy, there's always been great wrestlers and great judo guys and great everything.
01:48:20.000They all come in and out of my academy, so I've wrestled with the best wrestlers, and I've wrestled with, you know, I've been in the mix with a lot of great athletes, and yeah, I mean...
01:49:19.000You ask him where he feels the best, it's going to be jujitsu.
01:49:21.000So I feel like my best is always going to be jujitsu.
01:49:25.000As much as I train the other stuff and as much as I feel comfortable in the other place, I want to bring the fight to where I feel great.
01:49:33.000That's why Anderson Silva was champion for so long, was because he was able to keep the fight where he felt comfortable.
01:49:39.000He was able to keep the fight on his feet, and in that elusiveness, he was able to win.
01:49:45.000If he was like, I don't care if I get taken down and let the guys mount and do this stuff, and then didn't fight to get up, then he would have lost a long time before.
01:49:54.000But because he was so well at being able to stay where he's comfortable at and keep the fight where he wants to keep it at, He was an exceptional legend, you know, for so long.
01:50:04.000And, you know, that's something to admire.
01:50:06.000And I see guys, a lot of guys are just general.
01:50:11.000A lot of guys are just really good at everything.
01:50:37.000My tradition is technique and leverage.
01:50:41.000And that's what I base my whole life on.
01:50:43.000So if I'm going to fight, I'm going to use that to my benefit, you know.
01:50:47.000There's one pattern that we do see in MMA all the time is that when a guy gets truly excellent at any one aspect of fighting, that will always be that advantage when he gets into the octagon.
01:50:58.000It always is a significant advantage over people that have never competed in that individual form.
01:51:36.000Now, do you find that teaching makes you better at Jiu Jitsu?
01:51:41.000Yeah, I've been teaching since I was 15. So, every day I teach, even until today, I still get better and I realize something that could be better or realize how I can explain something better or realize how I can see a different side.
01:51:52.000And teaching for me has definitely been a huge part of my growth in Jiu Jitsu.
01:51:57.000And I see people who just train and don't teach and I see a big difference in the people who do teach and how much more knowledgeable they are and how much better they can be from that.
01:52:07.000Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, that teaching someone who doesn't know something forces you to think about almost every single aspect of it, including parts of it that you could sort of take for granted.
01:52:18.000And it seems to translate not just with jiu-jitsu, but kind of anything that you teach people.
01:53:43.000You have to be a little bit better every time you leave me.
01:53:48.000I really believe that the more I teach...
01:53:51.000And especially for me, personally, because my dad left when I was 18, so I had all these students at the academy, you know?
01:53:58.000These were all my training partners, so I had to teach these people to be better so that I could have good training.
01:54:05.000Because if I just was there like, oh yeah, just do that, move, yeah, keep going, alright guys, keep going, open training, alright, boom, boom.
01:54:12.000Then I would not have great training partners the way I do now.
01:54:15.000I have great training partners now because I was like, okay, how is this guy going to beat me?
01:54:22.000And I'm like very passionate on letting these guys get better to tell them.
01:54:26.000I tell them, man, dude, the way you're going to beat me is to do like this.
01:54:29.000And I'm making these guys better to try to beat me so that one, they stay motivated and two, so they give me great training because I can train now.
01:54:40.000I don't need to go to train with these other because I have guys who know exactly what I do and I tell them exactly how to defend it and I'm working that and the better I make them the better they're gonna make me.
01:54:51.000So you were teaching at your dad's academy when you were 18?
01:55:39.000Once a day, and then some days I teach twice, and then some days I train the afternoon class, and so I kind of scatter it out to where I can get to every, you know, I'll teach two days in the afternoon, and then I'll teach every night, and then, so some days on Tuesdays I teach twice a day,
01:55:55.000but But yeah, I teach a lot, and I also teach enough to where I don't over-teach and get kind of...
01:56:02.000because I've taught before where I teach every class, and that's draining, you know?
01:56:06.000You give a lot of your energy, you teach, you know, you give, give, give, and then you have nothing for yourself.
01:56:12.000So I've found my kind of remedy of how much I can teach to where I still am feeling good about myself and still have enough to do the things I need to do.
01:56:21.000So I teach, you know, Monday to Thursday nights, and then I teach Tuesday and Friday mornings.
01:56:26.000And then Saturday is open training and so I kind of give myself a time to not have those responsibilities.
01:57:09.000Sometimes I see what the class needs and what I feel like those people who are in that class, how are they going to get the most out of that class?
01:57:18.000So some days it's like that, some days it's not.
01:57:22.000Some days I come up with stuff on the moment, some days I'm kind of like thinking about something all day.
01:58:05.000It's an interesting aspect about Jiu Jitsu that most people that have never trained, it's very difficult for them to grasp the depth of technique.
01:58:13.000There's so many different techniques and there's so many different techniques that transition into other techniques.
01:58:19.000For the lay person to kind of understand it, it's almost impossible.
01:58:24.000When you see someone like yourself that has a deep knowledge of it and then teaches and trains and competes, you got to kind of pay attention to it for many, many, many hours before you even see how deep the water is.
01:58:40.000The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.
01:59:00.000So, if you're having a struggle with any kind of training session or anything, then that means you need to improve on something else to make your life easier.
01:59:08.000So, I really don't think that there is ever, like, a cap where you're going to be like, oh, I know everything.
01:59:55.000But I think one of the unique things about jujitsu and one of the things that I've gotten, not just from myself, but from other people that I've inspired to begin jujitsu and start training jujitsu, is that they say that it makes everything else in their life better.
02:00:09.000That they say that the jujitsu training, the difficulty of it, and the learning about themselves...
02:00:15.000Has helped them in virtually everything they do.
02:00:28.000How I feel as a man, how I talk, and how I am, He's 100% because of Jiu Jitsu and that's just something that I'm very grateful to have landed where I landed in the footsteps of following my father's footsteps and it's just a real...
02:00:45.000Jiu Jitsu will for sure save your ass.
02:00:50.000One way or another not necessarily a physical fight, but also being able to deal with yourself know about yourself and and It really improve yourself as a whole because it's very easy to get trapped into like a Daily life schedule and you kind of don't even tap to your potential You don't even tap into discovering yourself and realizing all these feelings I feel alive when I could compete and when I trained for a fight and when I know I got a fight and this is deadline and if you On this day,
02:01:19.000you're going to show up, whether you're going to be ready or not, or whether you're sick or hurt.
02:01:25.000So, to know that that day is going to happen, and to be nervous, and to train for that, and to put so much energy, and wake up early, and drink this special juice, and do this, and eat healthy, and all this stuff.
02:01:41.000That only makes you, you know, more sure of yourself and when the day happens, you know, like, then after.
02:01:49.000All these feelings that you get before you fight or when you're fighting or training for a fight, it makes me feel alive and I love that feeling.
02:01:56.000Now, if you take away competition from my life, I will go crazy.
02:02:08.000I kind of just start going down a dark hole so I think that jujitsu competitions really makes me feel alive and every time before I feel nervous and then after when I win or lose it, it's just you only gain and when you know that you're gonna have a fight you gain because you know that you got to be at your best so you always like how am I gonna get my better and you're never good enough and then it's just so it makes me feel real good.
02:02:35.000One of the things that I feel is missing in today's society is that people can get by really easily.
02:02:44.000All you have to do is show up for work, do your job, go home, eat food, go to sleep.
02:02:49.000You don't have to struggle to acquire that food.
02:03:16.000Like, you know, look, look, if I'm rolling and, you know, John Jacques on top of me and he's got an arm triangle and, you know, I might black out.
02:03:24.000I'm 100% certain he's not going to kill me.
02:03:51.000I don't want to tap and I'm going to almost get out and I'm going to almost...
02:03:56.000And then you just wake up and your motherfuckers are laughing at you.
02:04:03.000That's a feeling that you cannot replace.
02:04:05.000There's no other way that you're going to be able to feel that unless you personally are living in that moment and no matter what, there's nothing more...
02:04:15.000Intense than somebody trying to choke you.
02:05:13.000I know everything about them because I've trained with them and I know what they feel, how they feel when they're feeling great, how they feel when they're feeling weak, when they...
02:05:23.000When they're winning, I know how to feel if you're a coward, if you have heart, if you have patience, if you have dignity.
02:05:32.000All these things are things that I can feel when I train with you.
02:05:36.000Just give me 5-10 minutes to train with you and I'll know more about you than probably you yourself, unless you're a very experienced person with yourself.
02:05:45.000And that's what I kind of judge my whole basis on, is how I feel.
02:05:53.000I don't judge somebody on how they talk to me.
02:05:55.000You know, sometimes I'll get people who they're super nice and they're super, ah, yeah, and super respectful in person and they're just the perfect person, right?
02:06:03.000And then when they train, there's this malice from them.
02:06:18.000When they're able to act, they're able to put this show on for whoever, but when they're training, there's no way you can hide your personality.
02:07:18.000My goal now is to focus on MMA and to be the best I can be in MMA. So that's my new mission.
02:07:25.000So you have aspirations to fight in the UFC? Yeah, I mean, right now I think that Japan is the better opportunity for me.
02:07:33.000But, you know, whatever, if it's UFC or, you know, I'd love to fight.
02:07:38.000You know, the UFC has the best fighters and the best organization.
02:07:40.000So, of course, I would like to test myself against those guys.
02:07:44.000So you want to try other organizations first, get your feet wet in MMA, and then eventually jump in?
02:07:49.000I don't know exactly, but all I know is right now I have Japan to negotiate with, and I know that, of course, wherever the best fighters are, that's where I want to be.
02:07:58.000What do you think about guys like Hadra Gracie, for example?
02:08:02.000He's a perfect example of a guy who's a very high-level jiu-jitsu guy who just hasn't really been able to get that much going in MMA. I don't train with him, so I don't really know.
02:08:13.000I know that he's a legend in jiu-jitsu and he's been able to really excel in jiu-jitsu.
02:08:26.000So I really hope that he's able to excel in MMA and I really hope that he's able to show what he's about and bring the game to his game.
02:08:36.000And I saw a fight with him with Kennedy, I think it was, and I just felt like he wasn't able to find his place and he wasn't able to find...
02:08:47.000Find himself really in the fight, and I don't know if that's lack of training, lack of advice, lack of knowing what to do.
02:08:55.000I don't know what it is really, and I'm curious to see if that's going to happen with me too.
02:09:40.000That's why I'm in this is to see and to prove to the people what I'm about.
02:09:44.000So I hope Harger wins and I hope he does well and I hope he's able to find himself and really be able to be where he's at, which is the number one place.
02:10:00.000He had some disastrous results in MMA against some really high-level guys where it seems like maybe he took some fights that maybe wasn't quite prepared for.
02:10:14.000Do you learn from anything like that when you see him fighting guys?
02:10:26.000He's another example, a very technical jiu-jitsu guy, very high level.
02:10:30.000I'm curious, you know, I'm curious to see what I'm going to be about in MMA, really.
02:10:36.000For me to say, sit here and tell you and act like I know what I'm doing and like I know the rules and like I know the truth behind everything is bullshit because I don't.
02:10:47.000And I'm in it just like you're curious to see how I'm going to do, I'm curious to see how I'm going to do too.
02:10:51.000And I hope I do well, and I hope I'm able to do everything that I want to do.
02:11:37.000I think you've opened up a lot of people's ideas and a lot of people's minds on How profound your thinking is, and I think it's very inspirational.