In this episode, we sit down with Julie Ward to talk about her life and career as a female MMA fighter. Julie talks about how she got her start in the sport, the challenges of being a woman in MMA at the time, and what it was like growing up in the early days of the sport. We also talk about what it's like to be a female athlete in a male-dominated sport like MMA, and how she managed to break into the UFC and become one of the first women to ever compete on the main card of the UFC. Julie also talks about why she thinks women should be able to compete in MMA, what it s like being a female UFC fighter, and why it s important to her that women are able to get into the sport and make a name for themselves as athletes. Julie Ward is a graduate student at the University of Southern California pursuing a masters in creative non-fiction in Creative Non-fiction, and is currently working on a thesis on the history of women in MMA and mixed martial arts. She is also a member of the Women's National Team in the UFC Women's Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC's Women's Team at UFC Fight Night, and she's an avid reader of The New York Times Bestselling author. Julie is also an avid listener and supporter of women's sports and culture, and has a great sense of humor. We had a great time talking about all things UFC and MMA. and we hope you enjoy listening to this episode! Thank you so much for tuning in! - we really appreciate it. - Caitlyn and Julie. Caitlyn Caitlynn and Julie - her work and support Caitlyn's work Caitlyn s work and her passion for MMA and her drive to make the sport more accessible to the public. . . . Caitlyn & Julie's passion for the art of MMA and culture and her dedication to the sport of MMA . Caitlin s drive to be the best in the MMA community , and so much more. Caitlin and Julie's drive to give back to MMA and the MMA culture in general thank you, Caitlyn is a little bit more than she can do better than she could do so. Thankyou for listening, Caitlinn Thanks for listening and supporting the MMA industry. -- Caitlyn: -- Thank you for being a good listen, please leave us a review, please give us a rating and a review!
00:01:03.000I think that, I think there's something with MMA and creativity.
00:01:08.000And I think whereas, because the opportunities maybe haven't been out there for women as much, when it comes to like, I guess, finding an avenue for that creativity, they're, you know, they go into other things like academics and arts, and then they find MMA, and then they try to do both.
00:01:59.000And I think that those of us who started back then, of course I'm not knocking the people who are doing it now because they're tremendous athletes and the women going into it now, but the environment was such that you had to be really obsessive.
00:02:10.000And I'm sure that many other female athletes at this time Have that kind of obsessive streak.
00:02:16.000But I think at that time, because we, I mean, you would scour the internet, like the MMA Underground, that was, I was always looking for fights.
00:02:22.000I was always trying to find somebody to find me or the Sure Dog forums, all that stuff before it got kind of trolly.
00:03:00.000Yeah, my very first fight, they videotaped me.
00:03:03.000It was for Jeff Osborn in Hook and Shoot.
00:03:05.000And they videotaped me and they said, what do you want to do with this?
00:03:06.000And I was like, oh, I'm going to be in the UFC. And that was 2004. And, you know, everybody laughed at me and was like, no, I'm going to be in the UFC. Just watch me.
00:03:38.000That's a crazy feeling to try to explain to someone that has never done anything remotely as dangerous as competing in MMA. Try to explain that to someone.
00:03:50.000If you were talking to some Woman who's a doctor or a professor or a just normal job, you know?
00:03:58.000Those aren't the most normal jobs, but you know what I'm telling you.
00:04:01.000I'm just saying, if you were trying to explain to someone what you want to fight, like you're looking forward to something that's going to make you terribly nervous, you're probably going to want to throw up right before you go out there, you're going to be freaking out, and then finally you're going to be in there doing it.
00:05:25.000Everybody has that in them to a certain extent where they just have to push themselves in some direction.
00:05:31.000Although, you know, when it comes to those long hikes, I've also heard from people who have failed at the Appalachian Trail, you know, after a certain point, you're just putting one foot in front of the other.
00:05:40.000So I think that there's also that sense of burnout.
00:05:43.000But those people with that drive to do something, well, passion, I think, is the perfect word for it, that just want to push beyond what they know into a different sphere.
00:05:52.000The problem is it does become addictive and your body or your mind can't always keep up with it.
00:05:57.000Yeah, and there's a thing that happens to people when they become addicted to things where it overwhelms them.
00:06:41.000Our climb, our summited, that's how we get to space.
00:06:43.000It's because there's something in human nature that's so precious that you just have to keep pushing.
00:06:49.000It's a collective feeling, but then there's some individuals out there who just stand a little bit apart or just in maybe a different playground, and they just want to keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and they want to be the ones, and that's It's how we achieve.
00:07:00.000The thing about MMA, though, it's like you have to, I guess, balance that pushing with preserving your physical health, especially someone as smart as you.
00:07:10.000It's got to be an interesting sort of an act, a balancing act, because Yeah.
00:07:48.000I retired kind of young, I guess, but I understood that it was the time I needed to because things were not going to function in my body on the level that they needed to.
00:07:57.000And my mind wasn't in a place where it would push beyond that.
00:08:00.000Well, you competed professionally for, what, 10 years, more?
00:10:42.000Indiana, Albuquerque, if you have family, it's not like you're moving to some boulder where you're looking at the Rocky Mountains or something.
00:10:51.000Yeah, I mean, there are beautiful mountains, but no, it's not maybe a pleasure destination, Albuquerque.
00:10:56.000Without the Jackson camp there, it's a little odd.
00:11:00.000It would have been a difficult move without the Jackson camp there, for sure.
00:11:03.000You know, the crack needles everywhere.
00:11:05.000He's done a great job of fostering this amazing sense of community, though.
00:11:13.000I feel like I did a lot of great stuff in my life.
00:11:17.000I'm proud of the things I've done, but I think that I was also surrounded by people who really guided me well, who really like going back to school and stuff like that after my career.
00:11:26.000This is the influences of people who were just like they care about the people on their team.
00:11:31.000They care about who they surround themselves with.
00:12:14.000And it was right after the Carano fight, so I was like, I was used to losing, and you never want to get in that space of being used to losing.
00:12:19.000But somehow I clicked, and, you know, I did pretty well in the fight, and I ended up getting a mounted triangle on her and finishing with strikes.
00:12:27.000In between rounds, another corner man put cold water on the back of my neck, and I thought that I just farted.
00:13:16.000And Jean-Claude Van Damme randomly walks up to us.
00:13:19.000I mean, it was just like, you know, Fedor's here, Jean-Claude Van Damme, this and that, like just weird and surreal, already head trauma going on with me, like not really in my right mind.
00:15:02.000I had no idea at the time, like, what a big deal.
00:15:05.000But that's usually, I stumble into things without knowing, which is probably best, because I'm a very nervous person, like, I'm a very intense person.
00:15:12.000And so being there and just having had the fight, I don't know, like, when I think about it, I'm just like, I'm sorry, Donald Trump, but your hooker's pissing on you thing, I beat you.
00:16:05.000I mean, it's a good, the Tap Out story is like a good cautionary tale for, like, beating a brand into the ground to the point where you gotta, like, go up to some people and go, hey, man, you can't wear our shit.
00:16:21.000It's so weird to, yeah, it's so weird to think, like, branding and all of that.
00:16:25.000That's a huge, like, now I'm becoming so aware of it because I know other writers, that's a really big avenue because if you think about Donald Trump, I mean, he's become president because of his brand, right?
00:17:06.000He's the best example, I think, of a guy who really isn't beholden to any special interest groups.
00:17:11.000But I think what he offered and what Trump...
00:17:15.000Offers as well is that they're outside of the system in some way Trump appears to be like way more inside the system than he was giving on to be but At least it shakes up this ridiculous They have this like really cryptic sort of way of doing business and bizarre way of intermingling money and influence and politics and putting it all together and It's just something has got to come along to let people know,
00:18:06.000I don't actually even think that I agree with some of the liberal things that have been espoused during all this.
00:18:10.000I think that we are at a point, an evolved people, You know, in such a respect that we have to take care of each other and it has to be mandated from a bigger power because we don't take care of each other otherwise.
00:18:23.000Now, when you say socialist, like in what way?
00:18:38.000It never works, but in my mind, that's the way it should be, that we should all be working for the guy next to us.
00:18:44.000Well, it would work great if people like you, if they're hardworking, smart people.
00:18:47.000Well, I mean, I have student loans out now, so I don't know that I'm the one to...
00:18:50.000Well, there's another discussion totally, but I think student loans are disgusting.
00:18:54.000I think what they're doing by subsidizing education and making people pay these ridiculous rates, not only that, if you go bankrupt, it doesn't matter.
00:19:02.000You still have to pay your student loans.
00:19:05.000No, you It's not a single other business venture that you get into, and you would consider investing in your education and possibly your future as some sort of a business venture, business slash educational venture.
00:19:22.000I would say the thing that it does have going for it is the interest rate's a little bit better than credit cards and cars and stuff like that.
00:19:37.000And I think it should be available to anyone at any time in your life.
00:19:41.000I don't think you should be like 43 years old and you can't go back to school again.
00:19:45.000I think you should be able to go back to school at any time.
00:19:47.000It shouldn't just be for 18-year-old people right out of high school.
00:19:50.000It should be for anybody that really wants to learn and educate themselves.
00:19:55.000You're old people right out of high school should be taking some time off to actually see the world before they go back into this.
00:19:59.000Because if you don't choose to approach your education seriously, you're going to have a really hard time.
00:20:06.000I'm not a fan of rigid systems either.
00:20:08.000I'm not a fan of this really regimented, go through four years of high school, go through four years of college, then you do this, then you get a job.
00:20:42.000And I think that If we made education free and made it more available to people, I just don't think, I think that if we could spend the amount of money that we spend on the military, not that we should cut back the amount of money, but there's got to be that same amount of money or in the neighborhood of that same amount of money that could go towards infrastructure,
00:21:00.000that could go towards education, that could go towards impoverished communities.
00:21:04.000There's like zero effort made to build this country back up.
00:21:07.000Well, I would say, yeah, and looking at the proposals on deck right now, the little that's being used for it, like the NEA and stuff like that, that's being taken off now.
00:21:18.000The National Endowment for the Arts, stuff like that, that gives actual people and artists who maybe don't fit the mold but actually have a venture going for them that they could be successful with if they got some sort of funding or support.
00:21:29.000I agree with that, but I've been to the L.A. County Museum of Art.
00:21:32.000That LACMA thing, Jesus Christ, I'll take you there if you want.
00:21:48.000I actually love modern art if I know what's going on, but if I don't, then I feel like I'm just not getting it, and I don't understand what's happening.
00:21:56.000I do think that I think not pushing art on people.
00:22:00.000I shouldn't say pushing art, but I guess providing opportunities for art for people.
00:22:03.000Not just art as in painting or sculpture, but I mean like writing and then literature.
00:24:04.000I had to get mine scraped out, and they cut out, I think they're called the turbinates, these big lumps in there, and they kind of cut them down to open up the path.
00:26:09.000My labrum was torn all the way through.
00:26:11.000But I had this weird genetic thing called a Buford complex, which, that's a hilarious name for something, but it's like a thickened tendon, so it was holding my arm up.
00:26:19.000So I didn't know that it was actually torn all the way through.
00:26:22.000But I do remember, like, not, all of a sudden, not being able to base on my left side and being like, whoa, what's going on here?
00:26:32.000Yeah, that's what the surgery was for, but it was a really intense surgery.
00:26:35.000I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal because I hear about people going to get their knees scoped and stuff like that, but I couldn't get out of bed for a week.
00:26:42.000My mother had to come take care of me, and I was 32 years old.
00:26:46.000I was like, this is embarrassing, but I couldn't actually get out of bed and move, and I ended up having a bad reaction to the medication, and yeah, it was...
00:27:49.000It's just not in your DNA to do it all the time and stay alive.
00:27:53.000Right, and to sweat your body down to this certain part and then go here and then, you know, yeah.
00:27:58.000Let's talk about that, because that is one of the most disturbing things that's happening lately.
00:28:02.000All these fights that are falling apart because people are cutting weight and cutting so much weight that they're literally on death's door.
00:28:09.000I mean, back to the Hennon Burrell fight when he was supposed to fight TJ Dillashaw, and he fell asleep and banged his head off the wall.
00:28:17.000Just a couple weeks ago, the Habib Nurmagomedov-Tony Ferguson fight gets called off, which is one of the biggest fights of the year.
00:28:24.000And for fans, it's just so disappointing because we were so looking forward to that fight.
00:28:30.000What do you think could be done about that as a professional?
00:28:35.000And as a commentator, let's say, too, you do commentary for Invicta.
00:28:38.000You know, and I was also the matchmaker, so I was actually...
00:28:41.000I stepped down from that when I went back to school, so I'm no longer the Invicta matchmaker.
00:28:45.000But part of my job was I had this really regimented checking the girl's weight twice a day.
00:28:49.000I should say the fighter's weight, but I'm a girl, too, so I can say girl.
00:28:52.000But, you know, I would check their weight twice a day and I had them text me their weight and I'd be like, okay, I need you to send me a picture of what you're weighing on your scale right now and compare it to this.
00:29:00.000Like, I was kind of a bitch, but I didn't want fighters missing weight on my watch.
00:29:05.000The problem was they were still going to miss weight anyway.
00:29:23.000I think every 6 pounds almost would be, although that's a lot more divisions, but there's so many people who want activity.
00:29:30.000There's so many people who want to fight.
00:29:32.000I think for women, more importantly, because when you're talking about six pounds, you're talking about a greater percentage of body weight for a lighter person.
00:29:38.000You know, when you're talking about 10 pounds for a heavyweight, it's like they take a shit it's 10 pounds.
00:29:43.000You know, there's giant people like Francis Ngannou.
00:29:45.000That guy could probably lose 10 pounds in three minutes if he wanted to.
00:32:43.000You see them express themselves with their endurance.
00:32:46.000Like talking about Mighty Mouse again.
00:32:47.000Like you see what amount of work that guy has put in in the gym when you see him in the fifth round moving a thousand miles an hour and not even breathing heavy.
00:33:03.000Yeah, and he's showing, there's that click that happens with some fighters where they're getting beaten down and all of a sudden they turn it around.
00:33:16.000And you can see that that's the warrior thing that has won actual wars in people, where they've, you know, like...
00:33:24.000I don't know, it makes me think of Henry V a little bit, you know, like, you know, just those moments where we are outnumbered, this is gonna suck, I'm losing, everything's going against me.
00:33:34.000And it's like, you know, it's like moments like that.
00:33:37.000If you can look at fighting from, I guess you don't take fighting personally.
00:33:42.000Maybe, I don't know how to explain it by taking it personally, but if you can invest yourself in those moments of glory, Is that easier for you to do now that you've retired than it was to do while you're competing?
00:34:01.000Did you compare yourself against those people too much?
00:34:03.000I'm a terrible person in a lot of ways.
00:34:08.000I think mentally I defeated myself more than I ever did physically.
00:34:16.000But yeah, I always compared myself against other people and I was like, oh my gosh, this person's doing this, this, this.
00:35:16.000And I think, I don't know, to me, authenticity is this, like, weird, huge part of my life that I'm trying to study with my writing and stuff.
00:35:24.000But it's funny how I would see them just like karate hottie, for example.
00:35:31.000Like she came into the gym, into Jackson.
00:35:56.000But I was also like, I had these hangups about it because I was so uncomfortable with that sort of marketing and that way of presenting yourself.
00:36:03.000And also, women weren't in the UFC then.
00:36:29.000Who I am exactly when it comes to MMA. And then, of course, Greg sent that there was an uncomfortableness between us, and he took us up to the top of a mountain and made us run sprints until we were crying and holding onto each other and became sisters.
00:36:41.000He was just like, all that's bullshit.
00:36:43.000You are sisters, you're training partners, you're here for each other.
00:36:59.000So it made a lot more sense to me when I could step back out of what the boxes that I had placed myself under, or the containers, not necessarily boxes because I didn't feel closed in, but the containers that I was comfortable working within for myself aren't the same for the person next to me.
00:37:14.000And so, you know, it taught me to have a little bit more respect for people who want to Combine everything the way they want to combine it.
00:37:22.000Well, I think there's a natural inclination to try to shoot down potential rivals or potential, you know, like you're looking at people and you're trying to pick apart what they do.
00:37:31.000I mean, in a lot of ways, when you're a fighter, you have predatory instincts.
00:37:36.000When you're sizing up a future opponent, there's no way you're not looking at things they do wrong or things that you think you can exploit or maybe, you know, maybe she doesn't work hard enough or maybe she misses weight because her discipline's off and you start looking for holes in their game.
00:37:56.000And, you know, I wouldn't even go so far to say we were rivals, as I was 30 pounds heavier than her, so I was just a bully.
00:38:01.000But, you know, the truth of the matter is, also, because, especially the early terrain of women in the sport, when there was another woman who came into the gym, this could either be your best training partner ever, or it could be somebody coming in here, you know, to pick up.
00:38:22.000And it's interesting because it sounds so sexist when I say it, but it's also, I don't want to lie, sit here and lie to you and say, think that, you know, like I, when other women would come into the gym, I would be like, yay!
00:39:46.000Especially, you know, when, because there was quite a few female boxers in that gym, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to do, but I just never took that path.
00:39:54.000I was a pretty decent boxing sparring partner.
00:39:57.000Like, I learned how to imitate, you know, their opponents and stuff.
00:40:00.000But yeah, I think I was always better in the gym than I actually was in competition.
00:40:04.000Now, throughout your career, did you worry at all about head trauma?
00:40:09.000Did you worry about the consequences of it?
00:40:55.000Yeah, and me just thinking, okay, this is what fixes me getting dropped or whatever.
00:40:59.000But I did think towards the end, if I got dropped three times in sparring before the fight with Cohea, and that was in one day, and I was like, okay, Three times in one day?
00:42:47.000The amount of fans of that guy has won.
00:42:48.000Because when he's so entertaining, what you're trying to see when you're watching two people fight is one person try to figure out a way to triumph over the obstacle in front of them that is the person, over the body that wants to stop, over the lungs that are burning,
00:45:50.000And when Rory's nose caved in and blood's pouring out of his face, and he just collapses and he couldn't take it anymore, I mean, how far away from death is that?
00:46:57.000It's so much, I guess I'm working on so many writing projects right now and so many things that I'm trying to analyze MMA from such a different perspective now, but if you think about it, what they've sacrificed to that canvas, like what they've given, like all of these fighters, all of these greats and all these not greats who've still given that part of themselves to that canvas and you wonder,
00:48:20.000I was going to ask you about podcasting, because you kind of create one.
00:48:25.000When your voice goes out over the air, and when you're doing these things, you're...
00:48:29.000Entering into people's heads, you yourself in a way, or your voices, and it's creating this space that's other, where they're connected with you, right?
00:50:17.000And when that didn't happen, in that one fight, look, she tried her best against Holly, but Holly fought the perfect fight and Ronda fought the wrong fight.
00:50:41.000She gets devastated and chalks it off to lack of training, chalks it off to distractions.
00:50:46.000So this time she's going to do no media.
00:50:48.000She's going to do no interviews, no nothing.
00:50:50.000Just go in there and just be bulldog about it.
00:50:53.000But when you see the discussions about this fight and you see people that were behind the scenes, they were all convinced that she was going to steamroll Amanda Nunes.
00:51:21.000Like, she throws these long-ass punches.
00:51:23.000And she catches you on the end of these punches.
00:51:25.000I'm like, that's a nightmare for Rhonda.
00:51:27.000Because Rhonda likes to stand up and brawl, to close the distance.
00:51:30.000And even if you close the distance with Amanda Nunes, there's no picnic.
00:51:33.000No, and, you know, Amanda's got actually a very good clinch and a very good awareness of where her body goes.
00:51:39.000And her center of gravity seems to be, you're right, she's so long, it seems to be a little bit lower than, you know, I think it would be very hard to launch her on her head.
00:51:46.000Although, Zingano did very well with that.
00:52:19.000I didn't know who she was, and we weren't going to talk.
00:52:21.000And then I just got to absolutely adore her.
00:52:24.000But, you know, back to Rhonda and all of that, I feel like...
00:52:29.000It's interesting, the Diego Sanchez, kind of the mentality, the bite down in the third round, I think you have something there where you push when it's against you.
00:52:36.000And I wonder that something, that knockout interrupted her, or when Holly got her and interrupted her forward progression, and then going back, pulling back away from the media and stuff, I almost wonder if that in itself was...
00:52:51.000Kind of a denial of that interruption and maybe trying to create a space for herself.
00:53:03.000Yeah, and she was trying to, I guess, plot out the way to this fight and to wait at this victory against Amanda Nunes and not being distracted and not doing press and stuff like that.
00:53:12.000And I almost think if she had done the press, And this is just a theory.
00:53:18.000But if she had done the press, if she had exposed herself to all of that again, if she would have had more of a triumphant attitude, because she would have known, when you know what it's like to lose, And you know that you can still get up the next day and be okay?
00:53:35.000And face the people who you said a million things to, a million confident things to, and you're wrong?
00:54:11.000And I think a lot of that comes with just long, long sessions in the gym, a lot of experience, and years and years of sparring and fighting.
00:54:21.000But she was just, go forward, go forward, attack, go forward, attack.
00:54:25.000And when she started getting hit, she didn't have any answers.
00:54:28.000She was like throwing up this sort of push-away front kick and moving away against Amanda, and she was kind of done from like the first couple of punches landing.
00:54:36.000And I think that if you look at real seasoned strikers, you know, like a good example would be, boy, there's a lot of good examples, but Ioana Jacek in her last fight against Karolina Kivalkovic.
00:54:51.000Okay, that is two very seasoned strikers.
00:55:12.000What you're seeing a lot of fighters is they're shouting out one or two words, but they're not articulate.
00:55:19.000Meaning their approach is very, if you see someone and they just keep going to the big right hand over the top, big right hand over the top, it's like you're just banking on this one thing and someone is going to be able to figure out that approach.
00:55:31.000And it might not be the person that's right in front of you, but someone who's really good is going to find their way through that and they're going to be able to talk circles around you.
00:55:40.000I talk all the time about When I watch fighting, I try to break it down objectively.
00:55:44.000I'm saying, what it mirrors in a lot of ways is communication.
00:55:48.000And that really, truly articulate people that have a long history of using a deep vocabulary are way better off with a nuanced conversation than someone who is just...
00:56:00.000They might be able to say, get off my lawn!
00:57:22.000A layered, this step, you move your foot this way, you move your foot this way, you move your head this way, you respond this way.
00:57:27.000You know, it's so beautiful, but when you see boxers like Tyson, who could throw that double right, you know, the hook to the body and then the uppercut and stuff like that, he could prepare for the chaos because he could bring chaos.
00:57:38.000And I think that in her early fights, there was chaos there because she wasn't as sure of herself.
00:57:43.000It was, ah, I gotta get what I need to get.
00:57:47.000But then when she got more comfortable with hitting the mitts, when she got more comfortable with them moving forward and having everything laid out for her perfectly, you're going to do this, you're going to spar this person, this is going to happen.
00:57:56.000Now, I'm making a lot of assumptions here.
00:57:59.000I see what I've been presented by UFC media and commercials and stuff like that.
00:58:03.000And I do as well as people that I know that trained with her that didn't like the environment and thought that it was just a little bit too unrealistic.
00:58:12.000And that's, I think, what maybe the conversation between old school MMA and what's going on in MMA right now with commercialization, and it's worldwide.
00:58:20.000And on one hand, I'm so happy for the fighters that they're getting paid more, that the opportunities are there, that they don't have to worry about crappy sponsors, although I'm not a huge Reebok fan, but whatever, it's not my business.
00:58:52.000It was that chaos that was so beautiful, like finding where you are in the chaos and finding your own patterns in that and preparing for it.
00:59:00.000And that's, I don't know, that's the old school MMA that I miss a little bit.
00:59:05.000Well, there's definitely something interesting and fascinating about that chaos.
00:59:08.000But there's also, when you're talking about a professional and when you're talking about someone who's a world champion in particular, there's real value in preparation for an individual opponent.
00:59:20.000And when you switch up an opponent last minute or something happens, like when Conor McGregor last minute wasn't facing Rafael Dos Anjos, all of a sudden he was facing Nate Diaz on 11 days notice.
00:59:30.000I mean, that kind of chaos is a completely different animal.
00:59:34.000I totally agree with you, and I might be contradicting myself here, but I don't care.
00:59:38.000Because also, when Jon Jones rejected the fight, the initial, like when Chael was supposed to step in for him, and he said, no, that's not what my team wants.
00:59:46.000And he got so much shit for that, and the whole event got canceled, but at the same time, it's just like, that's a pretty smart professional move to make.
01:00:10.000Although it was a move that affected a lot of people negatively who were supposed to be on that card and it affected the company negatively, it was a very big power move.
01:00:19.000And it was also a move towards saying, hey, I'm more professional than this.
01:00:41.000No, but that's also the ways if you're not prepared specifically.
01:00:45.000Again, I'm going back on what I was saying about the chaos, but you have to train for chaos and you do have to be prepared specifically for opponents.
01:02:15.000What makes Jon special is like the Gustafson fight.
01:02:19.000A fight that he admittedly was in shitty shape for.
01:02:21.000Really wasn't training, was partying way too much, wasn't really paying attention, didn't think Gustafson could beat him, and got dragged deep into the fifth round.
01:02:39.000I mean, look, Gustafson's a bad motherfucker.
01:02:41.000It's not like Gustafson was a pushover.
01:02:44.000But Jon Jones made that fight way harder than it was by not being in condition, not being in shape, and still gutted it out and won.
01:02:50.000Yeah, he had that, I think, that part of him that I hope he returns to that is all about that, I don't know, those Diego Sanchez moments, like when you just, it becomes your spirit that's fighting there, not just your body that's fighting, but something else has to take over and take the reins.
01:03:05.000When Vitor popped his arm and Vitor had his arm so hyperextended.
01:03:57.000You know, and then he's coming back in July, and he'll most likely be fighting the winner of Daniel Cormier Rumble Johnson, which is in a couple of months.
01:04:05.000If they could do that in time, because you've got to go May, June, July, maybe.
01:04:10.000I mean, it really depends on how this fight goes.
01:04:12.000But he still has a chance to pull it off and still has a chance to be the greatest of all time.
01:04:28.000I think that we all wake up at some point, and I just think his wake-up hasn't happened yet.
01:04:34.000Like, even with maybe with the suspensions and the stuff that he's saying.
01:04:36.000But I think that he also tried very hard to brand himself a certain way that, again, authenticity, inauthenticity.
01:04:44.000You know, like, I think that I'm sure that I'm not a religious person, so I don't really know how to say if somebody is being super Christian or not being super Christian or being whatever that they identify with.
01:06:37.000Learn how to act it was really that it wasn't that it was something that I trained for no I am I was doing stand-up and I got a development deal to do a sitcom and so then all of a sudden I found myself out here and You know I was like When I moved out here I was like Five,
01:07:00.000You know, and then a couple years later, I guess I was 97, I was training at Carlson Gracie's place, and Vitor was 19. And he had just beaten John Hess over in Hawaii.
01:07:11.000I was a white belt over there, and Mario Sperry trained there, and Carlos Pageto, and Marillo Bustamante used to watch those guys train.
01:07:20.000And this was back when no one knew any of those guys were.
01:07:23.000You know, it was really, really interesting.
01:07:25.000It was really interesting to be a part of that original Carlson Gracie gym and watch those guys work out together and watch everything.
01:07:34.000And so when the UFC needed a post-fight interviewer, one of the guys who was one of the producers, Campbell McLaren, was friends with my manager.
01:07:46.000And they just casually mentioned it, and they brought it up to me, and we had a conference call, and I was like, I'll fucking do that.
01:07:53.000And so the next thing you knew, I was flying out to Dothan, Alabama on one of those little propeller planes, and I was interviewing Mark Coleman.
01:09:47.000I watched all the hook and shoots, all Jeff Osborn shows.
01:09:50.000And then somewhere around, I guess it was 2002 when I was on Fear Factor, they asked me to do commentary and then I've been doing it ever since.
01:10:10.000I mean, I try to do my best every time I do it, but honestly, what my contribution is is so...
01:10:15.000I don't want to say it's insignificant, but it's not very important, because what it is is just me trying to do the best I can to describe what I see in front of me, to make it as entertaining as I can, but also honor what's happening.
01:10:38.000I'm not trying to suck up, but your enthusiasm is something I really tried to model myself after.
01:10:43.000I think that I'm nowhere near the level of commentator that you are, but when I hear you get excited about stuff, I'm really happy to hear that because it makes me think, okay, as somebody who's communicating what's happening in this sphere that...
01:10:58.000So many people know about but so many people don't really understand like what's going on if somebody's clenched up or they're grabbing a bicep here and why that's important.
01:11:05.000Why the way this fighter is shifting their hips is so important.
01:11:08.000You know and it's cool to see that kind of enthusiasm so that I guess other people can get excited about something without even knowing they're getting excited.
01:11:17.000Like their blood pressure comes up a little bit when they're watching and that's neat.
01:11:21.000It's neat to see that because it seems genuine.
01:11:46.000I just don't and the consequences just aren't the same I mean when when I watch a kickboxing match or I watch an MMA fight the consequences are so extreme that I'm engaged I'm captivated and with MMA You know, when I'm watching it,
01:12:01.000and I'm there live, and I'm cage-side, and I'm watching all this stuff go down, and I'm not just watching, but I'm also analyzing it.
01:12:10.000So I'm trying to decipher patterns, and I'm data chunking, and trying to figure out what could possibly happen.
01:13:04.000And there's this fucking roar that he did after that fight was stopped, where he throws his arm back and he's moving around the cage and screaming.
01:13:13.000He's covered in blood, like right there.
01:13:17.000Yeah, I mean, that's one of the purest human moments you can ever see, isn't it?
01:13:25.000Yeah, I have to wipe tears off my eyes right now.
01:13:32.000It's amazing to, I guess, to see your passion for that and to see you are able to witness that and you're still able to translate that kind of passion to people.
01:13:39.000Well, if it stops being that to me, I'm going to stop doing it.
01:14:02.000No, and also you're going to wear yourself down to a certain point where it's just like you're going to be too sick to actually be able to experience what you need to experience for the viewer.
01:14:18.000I'm trying to live five lives, you know?
01:14:21.000I mean, if you have the opportunity to, why not?
01:14:25.000But it does wear you thin a little bit.
01:14:27.000Did you have that kind of passionate connection with comedy?
01:14:30.000Like when you're doing stand-up and when you're in that kind of engagement, do you feel that flow where you're just almost to the point of emotion and you want to cry?
01:15:34.000You know, it's not really like fully formed yet, but it'll get fully formed and then once it gets hardened and once I know that it's ready to rock like I could smash for an hour, then I chuck it out.
01:15:44.000And so there's a lot of intensity in that regard, but it's a different kind of intensity.
01:15:50.000I think they kind of it's a fun intensity.
01:15:52.000There's emotions like There's, you know, jokes that don't go well, and it's painful, and I don't enjoy that, but I also know that that's where the growth comes from.
01:16:01.000Like, those shitty sets or what, like, some of my biggest leaps have come from post-sets where it wasn't good, and then I sort of re-engaged and reconnected and got more fired up.
01:16:10.000And as soon as that stops being important to me, I'll stop doing that, too.
01:16:15.000It doesn't have the same feeling that fighting has.
01:16:16.000Fighting has this unique moment, this unique thing to it, like that Darren Elkins fight, where it's like, man, there's not a whole lot of things like that in the world that you can witness, where they're that fucking intense, and that I have the honor to try to do service to,
01:16:35.000to try to I would say fighting is one of the few arts or sports or however you want to phrase it, experiences in the world where the stakes are immediately high.
01:17:25.000But, man, when you see something come together, though, when you see the fight actually happen, And it does matter who wins or who loses, but it also doesn't.
01:17:34.000What matters is just watching that physical engagement and these people perform.
01:17:38.000And they're not performing, but they are performing.
01:18:02.000It just, it may not be what we identify as art, but neither is the person in the modern art with the TV or whatever you were talking about earlier.
01:18:09.000Like, Well, when you see a fight like Misha Tate versus Holly Holm, when Misha Tate takes Holly Holm down in the fifth round, locks that choke in, and Holly doesn't even tap, she's throwing punches in the air as she goes unconscious.
01:18:25.000And, you know, there's people on the outside that would look at that and go, oh, that's just barbaric and it's just violent.
01:18:29.000But you see Misha Tate getting that belt strapped around her waist and her reaction...
01:21:21.000Because, yeah, Counter-Strikers, they have their own, I guess, their own methodology with being able to read what's happening.
01:21:28.000And if somebody doesn't initiate, there's a lot of waiting.
01:21:31.000And waiting is, you know, it makes the fans hate you and it makes you hate yourself because you get more frustrated and your emotions get more intense, right?
01:21:39.000Yeah, especially when you get to a fight like Wonderboy Thompson versus Tyron Woodley, where you see this waiting thing and it's just going on and on and on, you know, five rounds, and you're like, get to the fucking fight!
01:23:00.000At first, in old interviews, people would just say whatever the fuck they wanted to say, and they'd do whatever the fuck they wanted to do.
01:23:05.000And then everybody got savvy to the media, right?
01:23:07.000And they're just like, I'm only going to reveal this.
01:23:14.000And so I think that when it comes to communication and words in MMA and what fighters are giving, there's a lot about what's not being said.
01:23:21.000That can really be explored, and I'd really like to know what that is.
01:23:24.000I want to know what makes a fighter, not what makes a fighter decide to fight, but what makes a fighter decide to wake up the next day after a fight.
01:23:36.000Yeah, I mean it's so emotional, it's so crazy, and fighters are such insane people that after a loss, I'm surprised actually there aren't more suicides and stuff like that in the sport, and I don't mean to get super serious, but people take it to such a high level.
01:23:49.000And with the amount of pain that they invest in themselves and the amount of emotion towards it, when fighters decide, I lost this fight and I lost this fight, but I'm going to get back in, I'm going to do it again.
01:24:00.000Like, if they decide, they make the conscious choice to stay, not necessarily, I don't know if it's living in the sense of biologically living or just living in that space still of wanting to be a fighter, of wanting to do that.
01:24:18.000You know, I was just talking to Uriah Faber about that, but I think that he's a real good role model to young fighters because he's as enthusiastic about his post-fight career.
01:24:28.000You know, he's like, hey, this is a new chapter in my life and I'm excited.
01:24:31.000I'm excited to do different things now.
01:24:46.000And he gets this giant round of applause, and good for him.
01:24:49.000Yeah, he came from a place of, I guess, of Oh, I think privilege is the wrong word because he built what he built.
01:24:57.000So it's not privilege, but maybe he came from a place of being able to see a bigger picture.
01:25:01.000But then you think about maybe the Joe Fraziers of the sport, people like that, when they stopped fighting, what, you know, he built a gym, he did this, he did that.
01:25:22.000I think that there's something to the creation we have built.
01:25:26.000I mean, the Fertittas and Dana built like the UFC. But I mean, we as fighters, as a fighter community, as an MMA community have built something incredible.
01:25:35.000And I am interested in why we still want to occupy this space or what makes people want to leave it but then come back.
01:25:42.000And maybe that's just my own personal journey because I can't get out of it.
01:26:10.000I have to formulate these questions for life that I've never even thought about.
01:26:13.000But you've got to love the questions, like Real Kay said.
01:26:15.000The questions are what's important, not even the answers.
01:26:17.000It's just finding the right questions to ask and going through that.
01:26:21.000And I've really rediscovered a love for this sport by stepping away from it Every commentary job that I do now, every time I'm in there for Invicta, I'm just, this is amazing.
01:26:32.000And finding that enthusiasm again is great.
01:26:35.000I didn't have that towards the end of my fight career.
01:26:37.000I was in the UFC because that was the dream.
01:26:39.000I had to be in the UFC. Why doesn't Invicta have ring card boys?
01:26:43.000Shannon thinks that's kind of disrespectful.
01:28:03.000I mean, if we think about seeing that for the first time, if you visually picture that right now, because we're not used to it, yeah, it would be weird.
01:28:08.000But I mean, if it was the norm, then I don't think it would be that weird.
01:29:36.000I wish I could remember who was fighting.
01:29:38.000But it was such a wild and crazy fight that at the end of the fight, everyone in the arena was just standing up, screaming and cheering and clapping.
01:29:46.000And I was with Eddie Bravo, and we were both like, dude, I'm a fan of women fighting now.
01:30:04.000You know, it has to be presented to you.
01:30:06.000Now I'm obviously a huge fan of it, but you have to see it.
01:30:09.000It's like we weren't really exposed to it because it wasn't in the UFC. So you'd have to go out and seek it.
01:30:14.000And this is, you know, pre-strike force.
01:30:16.000So it just wasn't something that people were aware of.
01:30:21.000And it wasn't like, you know, when you first started fighting and you're talking about trying to get a fight, it just wasn't that prevalent.
01:30:48.000Women fighting was also in my mind connected to a certain sense of frustration for the athletes that they had like Lucia Riker could never get Christy Martin a fighter.
01:30:59.000You know there was always that thing like I had always known Lucia Riker was like the best women boxer and everybody kind of knew but she couldn't get that fight like where everybody would know how good she was and then everybody's like oh Christy Martin's the best female boxer like god damn it no she's not like you gotta she's gotta fight this woman from Holland You know,
01:31:19.000And then, you know, there was Mia St. John, who was more like a girl's, a good boxer, and she was cute, and she was really working that angle.
01:31:27.000And then there's Layla Ali, of course, who was Muhammad Ali's daughter.
01:32:18.000There was always this sort of thing that was connected with women fighting that it wasn't legit, that it was kind of like the WNBA. As good as an athlete, as some of those players are, no one gives a fuck in this country.
01:32:36.000Marketing-wise, for whatever reason, it's not seen as an equal sphere to the NBA. Right.
01:32:43.000And what's been unique about female fighters in MMA is that because they can share the same octagon on the same night, because they're in the same playing field, then there's a chance to see more of an equal setting.
01:32:58.000Yeah, I think that's hugely important.
01:33:00.000I mean, when you have someone like Ronda Rousey who's headlining a massive card and the pay-per-view sells 1.5 million buys, that is gigantic for women's combat sport, for combat sports in general.
01:33:15.000Before Ronda Rousey came along, there had never been an athlete like that, that had been dominating in a combat sport and on a worldwide scale where everybody knew who she was.
01:33:30.000With what she presented, well, she's an incredible person, but with what she presented, she had the package that transcended, oh, this is a female fighter.
01:33:53.000And I think that that just did not exist.
01:33:56.000I mean, Gina Carano sort of caught it a little bit, but she was gone before it really caught fire.
01:34:03.000And then when she lost a cyborg, there was a lot of weird feelings about that because there's all these speculations.
01:34:11.000The cyborg was on drugs, and then they looked at Gina Carano, and she was all beat up afterwards.
01:34:15.000And that left this sort of weird taste in people's eyes.
01:34:19.000I understand that and I think that there's something to that.
01:34:27.000It's unfortunate because I know Chris Cyborg.
01:34:31.000I was the matchmaker with Invicta when she was fighting for us and I was there for her weight cuts and I saw some of her struggles and what a kind, kind person she is.
01:34:42.000But then there's this persona of toughness and her saying this kind of thing to Rhonda or she's saying this to Gina and then they're saying it back and it's this, that, you know, and it's just like for some reason, I never thought she got the respect that was due.
01:34:53.000But at the same time, then she did fail a drug test.
01:34:55.000So it was like, like, unfortunately, you carry the burden of having your entire legacy be questioned when you mess up like that.
01:35:03.000But we know what a human body looks like.
01:35:06.000You know what a female body looks like and you know what someone looks like when they most likely have been introducing male hormones into a female body.
01:35:16.000I don't, you know, I understand what you're saying because we know what we think is normal or what, you know, what a female body is like.
01:35:22.000But I would say that we know what a male body looks like, too.
01:35:43.000And that he has natural testosterone and that you can accentuate natural testosterone pretty significantly, especially if you're someone like a Kevin Randleman or, you know, like a Marvin Eastman who just has this extreme mesomorphic build.
01:35:55.000There's a lot of people that are built that way that don't do anything illegal.
01:38:02.000I do, but I also wish for the best for women all the time and that we're not going to mess up.
01:38:07.000Right, but if you do wish for the best for women, wouldn't you definitely want to take a hard stance against someone who's introducing male hormones into a female body?
01:38:16.000And also the problem with that is a lot of the effects are permanent.
01:38:20.000I think a lot of the effects of a woman altering her physiology with male hormones, there's a certain amount of those effects.
01:38:26.000And this is also argued against men taking steroids.
01:38:29.000There's a certain amount, and there's been tests about this, this isn't just speculation, that certain amount of physiological changes are permanent when you take steroids.
01:38:38.000Because you're introducing these hyper-human levels of testosterone to a male system.
01:38:51.000Because you don't have the ability to...
01:38:54.000See, that comes back, like the testicular atrophy.
01:38:58.000It's really the shutdown of the endocrine system, but that comes back, and when it comes back, there's a certain amount of the improvements that you've received because of those steroids that you will keep forever.
01:39:11.000Yes, which is one of the things that infuriates people that have been clean their whole life, is that someone can test positive, and then they continue on their career, even if they are not taking steroids now, they have a benefit.
01:39:23.000They have a permanent benefit of taking those illegal drugs.
01:39:34.000But I will say that she did not test positive since 2011. And so if there was that advantage in something like that, we saw somebody like Urena Baer in kickboxing still work against that and still find victory.
01:39:51.000But should someone have to work against that?
01:39:53.000First of all, the Jorena Barge fight was a testament to Cyborg's courage and fighting spirit that she took that fight because nobody wanted to fight Jorena for a long time.
01:40:02.000And if you don't know who Jorena Barge is, if you watch her Muay Thai fight, she's some ungodly number of fights she's had.
01:40:08.000She's a multiple time world champion and she's just so stunningly technical as a fighter.
01:40:14.000But, you know, you look at them physically, they looked very, very different.
01:40:18.000You know, Cyborg's just this attacker, berserker style, and fought a very good fight.
01:40:35.000I'm a fan, and I tweeted this many times along, that the UFC needs to make a 145-pound women's division, but...
01:40:41.000There's also some realities that you have to address and those realities have to be addressed for the other women that haven't done anything as well just to look up for them.
01:42:28.000I do think that Chris Cyborg is in the position right now with her career.
01:42:31.000And with the things that have been questioned about her, the things that have been done, she has actually the opportunity now to really spearhead making it all clean.
01:42:38.000And coming forward with whatever happened in the past with this spironolactone.
01:42:44.000That's less of a concern because that's not really a performance-enhancing drug.
01:42:49.000The spironolactone is not performance enhancing.
01:43:13.000It's just they don't like people taking it because it can mask some of the effects of androgens in the female body.
01:43:21.000And it also, as a diuretic, diuretics are illegal because diuretics also can mask some of the potential properties of testosterone or hormones or That's why they did away with all the IV rehydration.
01:43:36.000I was the only person who liked IV rehydration.
01:43:39.000No, I think there's a lot of people who liked it.
01:44:37.000I mean, you look at the old pictures, the fighters of the generation before me, and I'm not throwing out accusations.
01:44:43.000I'm just saying people with musculature, like Becky Levi and people like that, you kind of wonder, like, okay, how much of that was, you know...
01:45:13.000But when it comes to MMA and when it comes to professional sports, and back then, if it was the Wild West, I'm sure a lot of people were doing it, you know?
01:45:22.000But Chris Heiborg became sort of the poster girl when she looked the part and then tested positive.
01:45:41.000I don't know what you do with that now.
01:45:43.000I think that what has to go on the table is just we take everything by what happens today.
01:45:49.000And if a person doesn't test positive, we take them at their word.
01:45:53.000Yeah, the real problem though with what's going on today is they're offering these massively steep Steep sentences for people and suspensions for people so like first if you get caught I think the first suspension is like two years and then if you get caught again it's even deeper and then three years it's three times if you get caught a third time it's like life you're done yeah like Vanderlei Silva one is the most disturbing one to me because he ran away from a test and they banned him for life like that is fucking that's abusive yeah you gotta wonder how many other fighters have run away from it but
01:46:26.000Well, not only that, but when you talk to Chael Sonnen about how sketchy the USADA people were when they came to him, like they made him do it in a broom closet and give boys like this.
01:47:58.000So can you imagine being on that level where you feel like your body is in a certain, it can perform a certain way and then have that taken away from you?
01:48:04.000And then, like, just having to compete with that and then compete with whatever's going on in your mind, too.
01:48:09.000Well, there's the thing is that with youth is, you know, you have all this athletic ability, you have all this strength and speed, but you don't have any experience and wisdom.
01:48:20.000And then as you gain experience and wisdom, father time slowly takes away your physical gifts to the point where you're trying to, like Bernard Hopkins when he fought Joe Smith.
01:48:28.000There was that weird moment where you realize like, oh, we've passed the point.
01:48:32.000Here, where your knowledge and your hard work and discipline makes up for the fact that your body's deteriorating.
01:48:39.000Then you're fighting this young bulldog who's just an animal.
01:49:28.000I mean, you went from Vitor Belfort, who fought Rich Franklin, Vitor Belfort, who fought Sexyama, and, you know, you look good, but then, when he got on the testosterone, it's like, all of a sudden, you have the phenom, this demon.
01:49:42.000That therapeutic use exemption stuff, it seemed to spike at a certain time for a lot of people.
01:49:50.000There was a bunch of shady ass doctors.
01:49:52.000I know some people who use some shady ass doctors and what the doctor would literally tell them is you take testosterone for a short amount of time, take a lot of it, get your system hooked on it, then get off of it and then get tested.
01:50:06.000So then they would go, well, it's got low testosterone.
01:50:10.000Because your body, you jolted it down with like 10 weeks of high-level tests, and then you say, oh, I'm feeling a little run down, and maybe I have something wrong with me.
01:50:20.000It's like a lot of it was just guys who take steroids, and their body had stopped producing it naturally, and then they got a therapeutic use exemption, and they were shooting it up all the time, and then they were going in there, and they were 27 years old.
01:50:32.000So the Benefits of the previous steroid use didn't linger to the point that, or was it a mental thing?
01:50:39.000Well, the benefits, if their endocrine system caught up, say if they did a certain amount of cycles and they gained a certain amount of strength, they would keep some of that benefit permanently.
01:50:50.000But when their endocrine system crashed because they had taken all the steroids and then they got off of it, that's when they can test.
01:51:00.000So they could still physically perform to a higher level than they could have if they've never done steroids in the first place?
01:51:05.000Probably, but while they're at a low testosterone, they're going to experience very significant decreases in endurance and stamina and your intensity.
01:51:16.000Like that's one of the things that happens to men when they get head injuries, is that head injuries and traumatic brain injuries cause a disruption in the pituitary gland, which causes your body to produce less testosterone, which oftentimes leads to soldiers, football players, fighters becoming severely depressed.
01:51:33.000And oftentimes they lean towards alcoholism and drug addiction.
01:51:36.000And a lot of that is trying to combat that depression.
01:51:39.000Actually, that makes a great deal of sense.
01:51:41.000I was never tested to the extent of this, but when I quit fighting, I was put on estrogen because I have a really messed up reproductive system.
01:52:43.000I didn't want to put any chemicals into my body when I was fighting.
01:52:46.000I was really worried about that, worried about if that would make me gain weight if I went on the birth control pill or something like that.
01:52:51.000So when I quit fighting, I went to a gynecologist and she put me on it and I crashed.
01:52:56.000I don't know which birth control pill it was, but I was severely depressed when I quit fighting.
01:53:00.000So the birth control pills cause depression.
01:53:26.000I mean, I have breasts now, which is a great thing, but it wasn't something I was used to for a decade.
01:53:31.000And, you know, it's so funny about how when your reproductive chemicals or when all that gets messed up, how that actually messes with your brain as well.
01:53:40.000Because I can understand these men coming off of head injuries if they're having a decreased chemical, like testosterone or whatever it is, I can understand that actual...
01:53:52.000Weirdness, like taking part, and that affecting their brains severely.
01:53:56.000Yeah, and the shutdown of the endocrine system post-steroid cycles has led a lot of guys to depression.
01:54:01.000They even think it's led people to suicide.
01:54:03.000And if you're inclined towards depression in the first place, I'm sure it probably gets accentuated by those things.
01:54:09.000Yeah, there's a big history of depression in my family.
01:54:39.000I think when you don't have a purpose, when you don't have a goal and something to strive for, then your body reacts to that as well and your brain reacts to that as well.
01:54:55.000You can run three miles a day, but it's not the same as sparring every other day or whatever you're doing or doing jujitsu twice a day or whatever it is.
01:55:02.000So much of probably what depression is, is so many, it's just a giant combination of factors.
01:55:09.000I mean, again, I'm not, I have a great therapist, but I'm not, you know, I can't tell you what that is.
01:55:14.000But I can say that there is something to having all of that in balance, having, being chemically, I guess, physiologically in balance with the way your body's supposed to be.
01:55:27.000And then have your exercise the way it's supposed to be, and then have your purpose the way it's supposed to be.
01:55:32.000And it's such a weird balance as human beings that when any of those things get thrown out of whack, you're headed for trouble.
01:55:38.000Yeah, and friendships, family, you know, all the different relationships that you keep in your life.
01:55:44.000I saw this really interesting clip from this guy, and he was talking about, he's a rapper, I think he was, but he was talking about his mental diet.
01:55:53.000And the way he looked at it was like that people are really concentrating constantly about what they eat, but they're not concentrating constantly about what they take in their mind.
01:56:03.000And that you should really be aware of your mental diet, too.
01:56:07.000You know, that if you snack on too much junk food mentally, it'll weaken your mind, you know?
01:56:13.000Yeah, I think that we don't push ourselves mentally a lot.
01:56:17.000And when it comes to that, I think Honestly, it's just coming down to, I mean, it's not a cure-all, but reading.
01:56:23.000If you just read, if you just sit and force yourself to read and you actually engage with a text, all of a sudden you realize something is happening in your brain.
01:56:30.000You're creating space for more thought in your brain.
01:56:33.000But also, you can't be exposed to too much bullshit.
01:56:36.000And who knows what's bullshit and what's not bullshit.
01:56:38.000I mean, there has to be a discernment somewhere along the line.
01:57:03.000And I, you know, the part of me is like, I hate that part of myself, but I also really like it because I think I'm becoming, it's, to me, it's not, I'm not a brand.
01:57:12.000There's no Julie Kedzie fighter who has to impress anybody anymore.
01:57:16.000Granted, I represent Invicta to a certain extent, but I fully understand that Shannon could fire me if I say something just outrageous and horrible.
01:59:54.000I think people are a bunch of different things depending on who they are at what time of the day.
01:59:59.000I think it'd be nice if the whole world was egalitarian and if we all looked at people as just treating them Who they are based on their character and their personality and not categorizing them so specifically like, oh, you are a woman, so you are less or you are a man and you are more or vice versa.
02:00:17.000Yeah, but when you say male feminist and you're like, that's the problem.
02:00:19.000I mean, are you joking when you say that?
02:00:25.000No, I mean, the problem is there's a lot of people that virtue signal and a lot of people that are posturing and a lot of people that are putting a label on themselves to try to make themselves seem like they're in a higher moral high ground than the rest of the folks around them and that's the motivation for doing it.
02:00:41.000That becomes transparent and people get angry at that.
02:01:09.000Those people, if there's a person out there that doesn't think that a woman's a person, fucking Jamie Kilstein is not going to change their opinion.
02:01:16.000He's just going to broadcast it and let everybody know that's how he thinks.
02:01:20.000And he's going to get all this love and people are going to send him all these likes and they're going to give him thumbs up and say nice things to him on Twitter.
02:01:27.000And that may or may not be a good thing.
02:01:29.000It's more a good thing than a bad thing.
02:01:32.000But you're not going to change some asshole's opinion by saying something like that.
02:01:36.000I don't know that you are, but I don't know.
02:01:38.000Have you changed any asshole's opinion with any of your things?
02:01:41.000If you've come out and said something, do you think you've changed people's opinions?
02:01:44.000I think people's opinions change if they value what you're saying, if they believe that you're being truthful, and if what you're saying is compelling enough for them to reconsider the way they look at things.
02:01:57.000But it's not 100%, and it's not the motivation behind doing things in the first place.
02:02:02.000I don't ever try to change people's opinions, but I do try to express myself as cleanly and as accurately and as honestly as I can.
02:02:10.000And I think that, in my opinion, in my experience, when I've heard people like you talking about your life, like you just talking about your life in this podcast, I take that in, and I know it's pure, and it'll make me consider every little...
02:02:24.000Everything that a person says, every sentence, every conversation that you have with someone where they're being real with you, it adds more knowledge to your database of human interaction and the way people behave and think.
02:02:36.000And I think in that way, it does slowly make you consider more things about people and that adds to the overall surface area of knowledge that you have about people in general.
02:02:47.000In your position, because you have considerable influence, do you worry about having people kind of latch on things hive-minded and go a direction?
02:02:57.000Do you feel a responsibility, I guess, to people?
02:02:59.000I definitely feel a responsibility in not manipulating them.
02:03:01.000I definitely feel a responsibility in not taking advantage of that, not starting a cult or something like that.
02:03:08.000But the good part about it is if you don't need anything from anybody, like you're not trying to get people to send you $50 a month for the fucking, you know, platinum plan where you get access to secret messages from L. Ron Hubbard or whatever.
02:03:46.000I mean, to be honest, it troubles me that Alex Jones was on here or somebody who kind of leads that sort of thing.
02:03:51.000Yes, but when Alex Jones was on here, I think people got to understand Alex Jones way more after me getting him drunk and stoned and having him talk about interdimensional child molesters.
02:04:00.000You get to see a channel like, oh, this is kind of like a half-wacky show where he's also commenting on the craziness of the world, but you got to see who he really is.
02:04:10.000The guy that I've known for almost 20 years.
02:04:12.000That's what I wanted to do by having him on.
02:04:14.000People are like, why are you friends with that guy?
02:04:44.000Like agent provocateurs, like when they have peaceful protests, they'll send in people to smash windows and they're wearing government-issue boots and they get rounded up and they don't wind up being prosecuted because they were literally brought in by the police to turn a peaceful protest into a violent protest.
02:05:00.000The people that took over Occupy Wall Street and undercover cops that were doing all this fucking crazy, chaotic, violent shit to get people to move in and break up these camps and break up these protests when they were all legal.
02:05:14.000Alex Jones sort of exposed all that stuff first.
02:05:49.000And I'm so bad because when I follow my train of thought, then I can never have citations and it drives me bananas because I don't want to present information as speculation.
02:05:56.000Well, I think that people are trying to stop people from violating other people's rights.
02:06:01.000But is a person's right to drive a car down a street more important than a person's right to express themselves by saying, I don't want this to happen.
02:06:09.000I am willfully challenging the law right here in a peaceful way.
02:06:13.000But it's not peaceful if your grandpa is dying and you need to get to the hospital and some asshole wants to stand in front of him with a macrame hat on with a, you know, I'm a male feminist sign.
02:06:35.000I was going to be arrested for it, but it was the voices behind me and the collective voices together that were doing something not...
02:06:41.000Knowing that they were going to be arrested, knowing that the part about going to jail and being able to write about or being able to understand that you were taking a stance on something, you're just trying to bring attention to something that you think is wrong.
02:06:52.000Oh, it was many years ago, and all the military guys already hate me, but it was the School of the Americas.
02:06:56.000I was 18. I think I got arrested twice, 18 or 19. It was the School of the Americas when they were teaching the counterinsurgency techniques down in Fort Benning, Georgia.
02:07:32.000Okay, well let's unpack that because what you did there was you made a, there's a political protest, you went to the scene of where you think these terrible things are taking place and you took a stand knowing you were going to get arrested and that it was going to bring media attention to this.
02:07:48.000There's a big difference between that and you deciding, we're gonna block the 101 because Black Lives Matter.
02:07:54.000You know, that doesn't have anything to do with all those people that are driving to work.
02:07:58.000You're violating their rights to pass.
02:08:50.000Just because you think you can get attention doing something like that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
02:08:55.000There are ways to get attention doing things that are lawful, and there's ways that are noble, and then there's blocking the fucking highway like a baby.
02:09:35.000I understand what you're saying, and I'm not disregarding...
02:09:38.000The Dakota Pipeline, they're protesting there at the scene.
02:09:40.000I'm not disregarding what you're saying about the highways and stuff like that, because that wouldn't be the kind of protest that I would want to be a part of.
02:09:47.000That's not the kind of thing I would want to enact.
02:09:48.000Now, do I believe in the Black Lives Matter movement?
02:11:05.000I cannot disagree with you to a certain extent where it is a very inconvenient thing and it can be a dangerous thing, and I don't think any protesting should endanger people's lives at all.
02:11:14.000By the way, I hate marathons, too, for the same reason.
02:11:22.000I don't think that that's caused to be able to have the right to run somebody over and kill them.
02:11:27.000No, you shouldn't have the right to run someone over and kill them.
02:11:29.000I don't think somebody's life is not worth something because they're expressing themselves in a way that you disagree with.
02:11:33.000No, but that's not necessarily what the law is saying.
02:11:35.000The law is saying that you exonerate someone's responsibility if someone jumps in front of your car and tries to stop you.
02:11:40.000We've seen people assault people, smash their car windows because they're trying to get through some sort of a protest line and they don't have anything to do with what the protest is.
02:11:58.000This is an incredibly detailed example of something that I don't actually have the reference point to.
02:12:02.000I don't have a citation for this, so I can't argue with you on any of the story that you're giving me because I have no way of knowing this incident.
02:12:10.000But I do think that your speculation is correct in the sense that I think that, no, that would be horrible.
02:12:15.000That would be horrible to have people saying, okay, this means more to me than you're getting your sick kid to the hospital.
02:12:33.000My friend was at one of these things where he was trying to get his car through and they were all blocked and stopped and people had crossed hands, locked hands and blocked the highway.
02:12:40.000And some guy came up to his window and is screaming, black lives matter, black lives matter, screaming at his window.
02:13:23.000A lot of them that are involved in these protests, they're so enamored by this idea that they're doing the right thing and they're enacting change, they don't realize that they're also polarizing the opposition.
02:13:32.000And this is one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected in the first place.
02:13:35.000Because so many people are so tired of people shoving in their face their righteous indignation, shoving in their face this locking hands and blocking the highway, and you have to listen to us.
02:13:52.000And can you understand where the rage is built up of people felt like they've been ignored and they've been pushed back so hard that they actually start exploding like that and they get into these hives because they have no other group to belong to?
02:14:03.000There's definitely a way that you could see that.
02:14:06.000There's definitely a way that makes sense.
02:14:08.000I guess, what is the appropriate way to do things, then?
02:14:11.000To continue to write, to continue to talk, to continue to express yourself in a way that's going to make other people consider what you're saying, and maybe change people's minds and thoughts.
02:14:31.000Right, but I think that's part of the rage of people screaming, is they want it to change now.
02:14:35.000And by going up to my friend's window and yelling, Black Lives Matter, this fuckhead thinks he's going to change.
02:14:40.000But he doesn't even really think that.
02:14:41.000He thinks he's got the right to do it.
02:14:43.000You've got to fucking listen to me, man.
02:14:44.000There's this thing going on where people get these mob mindsets, where they think they're allowed to hit a girl because she's got a red hat on that says, Make Bitcoin Great Again.
02:16:13.000You know, but it's also, we have learned, it's so hard to just generalize and say everything is because of this and everything is because of that, isn't it?
02:16:31.000And then I think that the sins that happen along the way, the missteps that happen along the way, we tend to forgive them instead of pointing out, no, you shouldn't do this.
02:16:41.000You shouldn't affect somebody who's driving their child to work or something like that.
02:18:40.000You know, it's just like there's so much that's working against human achievement with him being in power and the people he's appointing in power.
02:18:45.000There is, but I think it gives people a goal.
02:18:48.000I think it gives people, like, I think without opposition, it's very difficult to get motivated.
02:18:54.000And I think there's a significant amount of opposition now.
02:18:57.000And people are, I think they're organizing, people on the left are organizing in a way that they never have before.
02:19:01.000And hopefully, hopefully, people will understand there'll be someone along the line That understands that the polarization effect that happens between choosing these hardline teams left and right and not recognizing the possibility that there's so many people in the middle that just pick a side.
02:19:17.000They just decide to go left or decide to go right.
02:19:24.000And yeah, Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate.
02:19:27.000She was a terrible opposition candidate.
02:19:28.000Hopefully next time there'll be someone that's really good and we'll understand what is the problem with having a megalomaniac who's a business vulture run the country.
02:19:46.000Now, I didn't like that she was a professional politician, because I think when you're a professional politician, then you're dedicated to just winning and not, you know?
02:21:22.000But I've been not a public figure necessarily, but I've had people talk shit about me to my face, talk shit about me here and there because of my previous career.
02:21:30.000Because in MMA, you get a certain amount of people just...
02:22:07.000Have you thought about, like, maybe entering grappling competitions or something?
02:22:10.000Yeah, I... You know, with that, actually, Iowa has a really good Brazilian jiu-jitsu club, and I went there once, and I had a great time rolling, and then I just...
02:22:17.000I don't know what it is about the way my mentality works, but I feel like it would distract me away from my writing.
02:22:24.000I know it would probably be balancing me more, but I get so intense about the things that I'm doing.
02:22:28.000Like, I had a list of questions for you today just because I wanted to find out what you think about certain things.
02:22:36.000Narrow-minded maybe is a thing for it, but I just get so obsessed about Getting answers to certain things or asking questions about things.
02:22:42.000And I'm afraid I'd do that with grappling and jiu-jitsu and I would get too far into that.
02:25:28.000I have a history of eating disorders and doing things, and I could see myself slipping into that path again.
02:25:34.000And so it was like leaving fighting and then discovering That I actually really want to explore this new area of fighting that is writing or this new area of creativity that is writing that you can bring fighting into.
02:25:45.000And I needed all of these kind of things to be laid out.
02:25:48.000And I thought I probably would have interrupted myself if I hadn't gone on antidepressants.
02:25:52.000And I hadn't kind of pulled back a little bit from feeling everything so intensely.
02:25:57.000And were you worried that the Adderall was going to invade your creative thoughts and somehow mess them up?
02:26:05.000They put me on it, but they said, we have to go through all this testing for it.
02:26:07.000So I'm still being tested for if I have attention, deficit disorder, or whatever it is that makes me think in a peculiar way or not be able to get tasks finished.
02:26:17.000And so, you know, I'm still being tested for it.
02:26:20.000But, you know, taking it now, I am able to calm down.
02:26:38.000So if, say, I wake up in my room and I look and it's messy in my room, what What I tend to do, or my tendency to do, especially post-fighting, whenever I enter this weird mind space, is panic about,
02:26:55.000this is messy here, this being messy here means I won't be able to complete this task, this will happen here, this will happen here, and then I'm never going to be able to, and then I just get paralyzed.
02:27:03.000And I panic, and I'm fearful that I can't actually just get out of bed to put a shirt on, or to pick something up, because everything all of a sudden clouds in at once.
02:27:14.000It would lead me to hyper-focus on really strange things.
02:27:18.000And I think that actually helped with fighting, if that's what I have.
02:27:22.000I'm still in the diagnosis-like process of this, but, you know, so far this is the medicine that's worked the best for me.
02:27:27.000But when I was fighting, one thing that I did do poorly was I would go from A to C instead of go to A to B to C. I would see what would happen after I won the fight in my mind.
02:27:37.000When I first started training camp which a lot of fighters do and I think that helps but sometimes you miss B where the actual fight happens and in my mind sometimes I would gloss over that and I would get caught up in things I would wait for this to happen and wait for that time or be paralyzed and not be able to make the next step now I feel like I am able to when I take a pill I'm able to put my feet on the ground and Out of bed,
02:28:00.000look up and say, okay, my room needs to be cleaned, but first I need to do this.
02:28:03.000And I'm able to make, I'm able to go A to B and then do C. Instead of just jumping over and then looking at C and then thinking all the things after me just come crashing at me and I freak out.
02:28:13.000Now, you said earlier that post-career you started thinking about brain trauma.
02:29:10.000And seeing doctors and stuff like that, they were like, maybe you should get an MRI. Maybe you should get your brain checked.
02:29:17.000But let's also address the depression right now.
02:29:19.000And once the depression was addressed, and I was able to see that there's something else going on here that may not be due to getting hit in the head.
02:29:27.000It may actually be due to me having a chemical thing that makes me just all over the place.
02:29:32.000Because I'm in the best school in the world for writing right now.
02:29:35.000I didn't get in there, like, without...
02:29:42.000And I think that I got very scared that I had brain damage, that I was going to never be able to do anything, that I wasn't going to be able to...
02:29:48.000And the truth was, I think that my body chemistry had changed somewhat.
02:29:54.000And my learning disassociation, my learning, whatever it is that made me good at fighting...
02:29:59.000I had to translate into a different world.
02:30:01.000And so I had to kind of take steps to do that and get into some pretty intense therapy and do things like that in order to understand that, no, my brain is just wired differently.
02:30:09.000So I don't know if it's the creative brain or the obsessive brain or whatever.
02:30:32.000Depression is some very, very difficult thing to define.
02:30:36.000You only know whether or not you have it yourself.
02:30:38.000They can't scan you and go, oh, Julie, you're depressed.
02:30:41.000Yeah, you can answer a whole bunch of questions that they give you, but you can also lie if you know what they're looking for, which is what I did in many depression tests.
02:30:47.000I would just lie because I didn't want people to think I had depression.
02:30:50.000And it was just like, okay, but I am actually feeling this on this survey.
02:30:55.000And I will say that something that I did, you know, when I look back at my lifetime of choices and the things that I did, I self-medicated with experiences.
02:31:04.000Like, trying to have this experience, this experience, this thing.
02:31:06.000Have all this, all this, do this, do this, you know, all this.
02:31:34.000I don't know how to explain he didn't let me anymore, but he put a lot of care and pressure on me to be a more mentally healthy person by directing that energy, that panicked energy, when I would get all worked up and just have to go puke because I didn't know what else to do with myself.
02:31:46.000And he helped me direct that energy into the sport.
02:31:49.000And he gave me tasks to do, and I ended up working for him.
02:31:52.000But it was just like, I mean, he's a really fucking good dude.
02:31:57.000Yeah, and just, you know, I honestly credit him for, I think he saved my life to a certain extent, because I got pretty bad there for a while.
02:32:05.000And when I moved to Jackson's, it was like, sort of that understanding that I'm stepping into a new realm where I am a professional athlete now.
02:32:14.000I have to conduct myself a certain way.
02:32:49.000And he was just like, okay, I'll give this a shot.
02:32:51.000And for me, it saved my life because I don't know where I would be without MMA. And when it comes to, I guess, the bulimia and the self-sabotage that I was doing to myself, competing in the sport and finding purpose was really important.
02:33:10.000And just the talks I would have with him about philosophy and this kind of thing, because it's hard to find people to talk about.
02:35:54.000When I first came into it, I was just like, no, no, I'm done with MMA. I'm not going to do it.
02:35:57.000And then I'm just like, oh, but these are my people.
02:36:01.000What about just your life experiences itself?
02:36:04.000I mean, coming from a point of view of someone like you, so smart and articulate, I would imagine that your memoirs or what you would be able to describe about your days competing would be really fascinating and compelling.
02:40:29.000That was one of the best question mark kicks I've ever seen landed inside the octagon against a really tricky Muay Thai opponent who was getting the better of her early on.
02:40:56.000I don't talk to her that much anymore.
02:40:57.000Isn't that kind of what we're talking about with the Vitor thing, though?
02:40:59.000It's almost like your experience and your ability and your knowledge gets overwhelmed by father time.
02:41:06.000It's like father time and there's a cross in the road and you have to figure out how much experience do you have, how much knowledge, and whether or not your body can actually act on those things anymore.
02:41:17.000And there comes a point where they're just...
02:41:21.000I'd say that's pretty early to say about her in her MMA career, but she has had all that boxing and kickboxing experience before this, so maybe, you know...
02:41:45.000And her mentality coming out of that fight.
02:41:47.000I had to be her sparring partner after that fight if that tells you how much brain damage I might have now.
02:41:51.000But her mentality after that, she refused to interact with people or have people corner her that would doubt that she could win that fight in the future.
02:42:01.000She is such a champion mind that, no, if people thought she would take corrections, she would take, you know, I've got to switch this up, I've got to do this differently, but if you believe that she shouldn't have the rematch, she wouldn't work with you.
02:42:34.000Because I know you've got them written down.
02:42:35.000You know, I think when we went back to the, and these are, you know, it's a shorthand, but it was, you know, the who were you when you started and who are you now?
02:42:43.000And I guess what goes with that, and I ask these questions because I've been asking them of a lot of people in this sport or in this industry or people who are high level in what they're doing today.
02:44:03.000Testing yourself and constantly seeking improvement and constantly trying to expand upon your creative work and expand upon what you're doing as a martial artist or what you're doing as an athlete or improving upon your conditioning drills and trying to advance in yoga,
02:45:28.000I definitely think I'm better at podcasting now than I was six months ago, and better six months ago than I was a year ago, and then I hope I'll be better a year from now than I am today.
02:45:40.000But there's also, this isn't, in a weird way, it's an audio art form.
02:45:45.000And it doesn't seem like it is, but the art of conversation is, there's an interaction to it, and you're very good at it, which is one of the reasons why you apologize when you accidentally talk over each other.
02:45:55.000But that's a part of human interaction.
02:45:58.000We accidentally do, or sometimes you have a point that you feel like you have to get in now or forget it.
02:46:02.000I mean, and it's a matter of how to do it the right way.
02:46:05.000And one of the things that I've found from doing podcasts is how bad people are at that.
02:46:09.000It's really frustrating to talk to really self-centered people that just talk over everyone and don't listen to what anybody has to say and aren't genuinely listening.
02:46:19.000They're just waiting for their chain to talk.
02:46:34.000Because you have to be aware that you're weaving something into a bigger picture as opposed to just saying what you're saying and then walking out.
02:47:08.000I mean, there's many things in my life that if they were presented in front of me right now learning that I've done them in the past and fucked up, I would do it differently.
02:47:15.000But that's part of being who you are today.
02:47:18.000I think people that word regret is a very dangerous word because people far too often define themselves by their past failures instead of saying that's not you like you're not that person you're you right now and that's what I really truly believe I believe that you Are all of your experiences in life and all the data that you've acquired and all the revelations and understandings that you've gathered up because of those positive and negative experiences and that creates who you are at this moment and the
02:47:48.000most interesting people to me are the people that have been tested that have gone through trials and tribulations and it's one of the reasons why fighters are so interesting because the emotional rollercoaster of a fight camp and then fighting and competing and Not just MMA, but people that do jujitsu and boxers and just people that have done something that's very difficult to do.
02:48:08.000You've tested yourself in a way that very few people have.
02:48:11.000And so you understand yourself in a much deeper way.
02:48:14.000You understand where that breaking point is.
02:48:16.000You understand what happens when you break.
02:48:18.000You understand who the demons are in your mind that tell you to break.
02:48:21.000You know, and some people never meet those demons and they're there.
02:48:38.000And, you know, sometimes they invoke those demons.
02:48:41.000They ask those demons to come in and distract them from all the real issues that they have in their life and all the things that they actually do need to deal with, all the real work that the pain of the mundane, the pain of the boring discipline work is sometimes so great that people,
02:48:58.000I mean, that's why some people Fighters wind up fucking off and getting drunk and never coming to work out and wind up being in poor shape when the fight comes off.
02:49:06.000It's not because they didn't know the fight was coming.
02:49:28.000Yeah, I think when we lament the loss of somebody's potential, it's not always because they were doing the wrong things or they lost the wrong fight, but it's because they never recognized where they can move on from there.
02:49:40.000And exploring your personal sovereignty, exploring your ability to truly manage all these very difficult scenarios that present themselves in life is one of the most interesting and fascinating things about studying human beings.
02:49:55.000And to me, it's like the exact opposite of the mob mentality.
02:49:58.000When you're swept away in this groupthink, and you're really not responsible for yourself, and you're thinking in this very almost selfish way of giving into this thing.
02:50:59.000But I do allow people to think for me in a certain way.
02:51:01.000Like when I listen to someone, like if I listen to a book on tape or I listen to a lecture, what I'm listening to is I'm allowing this person to direct my thoughts with their words.
02:51:15.000They're going over their own personal experiences.
02:51:19.000And you are, in many ways, allowing that person to think for you.
02:51:23.000But then when that's over, you think for yourself, and you take into account what that person has said, and it can enhance your perceptions.
02:51:30.000Because if someone's being honest with you, which I think is one of the most important parts of expressing yourself, I would like to know what your real motivations are.
02:51:37.000I want to know what your real thoughts are.
02:51:51.000And I think when someone's not doing that, when someone's being genuine, people cling to it and they go, look, maybe he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, but maybe he's being honest about it and I'll find out together.
02:51:59.000We'll figure it out together because at least this dude's telling me the truth or she's telling me the truth or this group is an honest group.
02:52:06.000That's what I think we belong for in this life because this life is so filled with dramatic interpretations of reality.
02:52:21.000I think there's a lot of people that seek truth in watching MMA. Like, when we're talking about that Darren Elkins fight, there's no truer moment in the world.
02:52:46.000It's down to this inescapable reality.
02:52:51.000And I think when people are confronted with all the trials and tribulations of life, and there's so much confusion, and we seek inspiration in so many different avenues, and we seek leadership, and we seek mentorship, and we seek hopefully this light out there that guides us in some sort of a way.
02:53:09.000And one of the only ways that we can really truly trust that light is if we know it's coming from a person that is committed to the path of honesty.
02:53:58.000That's where, in my mind, the truest religion to me, or whatever you want to call it religion, is science.
02:54:05.000I just think science is The scientific method is based on so much philosophy, so much, and it's trying to fail all the time.
02:54:14.000Repeatable results, if you can't get repeatable results, like blind results on something, then that's what you're always trying to do, and you're always failing.
02:54:21.000I come from a family of scientists, so of course, for me, it's what I love more than anything, is to hear them talk about how to find truth.
02:54:29.000And then truth is also different from fact.
02:54:31.000And so when you go down, okay, is it truth or is it fact, or is it opinion?
02:54:35.000It gets really, um, finding tools for discernment, that's really, that becomes really tricky.
02:54:42.000And I think that's where a hive mind comes from, right?
02:54:45.000You know, like people not trying to grab those tools, not trying to assess their own motivations for latching on to thinking that this is right.
02:55:19.000And you have to see things that maybe change the way you look at things and experience things and change your boundaries, change your perceptions.
02:55:27.000It's one of the things I worry the most for, I think, as a country, for us, that we get so comfortable.
02:55:44.000And it's, again, I do believe what you said about individualism and doing your own thing and striking, you know, forging your own path and stuff like that.
02:55:52.000But our inability somehow to commit ourselves to learning.
02:56:29.000If you look overall, if you looked at the pie chart of soft people, like, oh, fuck, look how soft we are.
02:56:34.000If you look at the pie chart of ignorant people, look how ignorant we are.
02:56:38.000But in that pie chart, in defining people, in that sort of broad generalization process, You lose the beauty of individuality.
02:56:47.000And that's one of the things that's unique about us is that we have the ability in this country to seek out all sorts of different paths, to be who you would choose to be, to follow whatever occupation or whatever path of interest that you choose to follow.
02:57:09.000I don't think those opportunities are available to everybody in a lot of senses.
02:57:13.000And that's just through my own experience of becoming a fighter and having to struggle to be a female fighter.
02:57:17.000You know, that makes me think of, I'm actually privileged to have been able to make that decision.
02:57:23.000And, you know, the female fighters after me, I think, benefit from me making that decision and from other fighters like me making that decision.
02:58:04.000Well, I would say to you as a friend that I think you'd probably be better off expressing that aggressive energy in some sort of another outlet.
02:58:35.000The best thing I've ever discovered is my mute button.
02:58:37.000Not even blocking people, but just muting people.
02:58:39.000Actually, the best thing I've discovered is that I have to take my phone and physically put it away from me, and then I can write, and I get into that zone, and it feels wonderful.
02:58:56.000Well, one of the beautiful things about doing podcasts, one of the things that's taught me is that I don't ever have three-hour conversations with people outside of podcasting.
02:59:03.000Like, you and I got deeper and got to know each other better in this conversation than we would if we knew each other, passing each other at the UFC for a decade.
02:59:24.000But we, whenever in life, do you get to sit across from someone, just stare them in the eyes, across the table, like you and I have done, for three hours, and just go deep?
02:59:32.000Well, and it's a space you've created, right?
02:59:41.000It's like I was reading all this cult and this heterotopia stuff, and I'm just like, this is Really cool because I see this when we read and I see this, I listen to so many audiobooks and so many podcasts and I'm just like, I'm finding weird spaces in my brain to be connected to people who don't even know who the fuck I am.
03:00:32.000I think it's good for people to hear that it's weird for other people too.
03:00:35.000You know, it's good for me to hear that it's weird for you and it's good for other people to hear that it's weird for me and it's fucking weird.
03:00:44.000You could be nice through this weirdness.
03:00:45.000You could be nice and you can actually, you can connect to people and like, if it is like the Appalachian Trail and we're just putting one foot in front of the other, at least it's I don't think the people that finish that trail think that.