DOUG MARCAIDA | Tempering Violence Through Skill and Familiarity
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per Minute
210.21696
Summary
On this episode of The Order of Man Podcast, Ryan Michler sits down with Doug Markita, a martial artist, knife designer, and judge on the History Channel show, Forged in Fire. They discuss the importance of creating a safe environment for your family, the culture of violence, martial arts, and their efficacy, curbing the beast inside all of us, and ultimately how to temper violence through skill and familiarity.
Transcript
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Extreme violence is something not all of us are likely to face anytime soon. And that's a good
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thing, but that doesn't mean that it can't happen at the drop of a hat. And in that moment, it is
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significantly better, obviously to be prepared and aware of what could happen than to be ignorant to
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it completely. And that's where my guest today, Doug Markita comes in. He is a martial artist,
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edge weapons specialist, and knife designer. And he's also one of the judges on the extremely
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popular history channel show, Forged in Fire. Today, we talk about creating a home as a safe
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environment for your family, the culture of violence, martial arts, and their efficacy,
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curbing the beast inside all of us, the concept of verbal judo, and ultimately how to temper violence
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through skill and familiarity. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your
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fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time,
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every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is
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your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all
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is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is
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Ryan Michler. I'm the host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. I'm glad that you
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are here, whether you've been listening for a year or five years, or this is your very first show.
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And if it is your very first show, and it could possibly be because we have seen so much growth
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over the past couple of months, which is a testament to the work that we're doing in attempting to and
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doing a good job. If I might say so myself in reclaiming and restoring masculinity. And that's
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what this movement is all about. It's about giving you the tools, the conversations, the resources you
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need to thrive and excel as a husband, a father, a business owner, a community leader, and just a man
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in general. I think there's a dismissal at a minimum with regards to men and culture and society.
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And it's my job to help elevate us to the mantle that we should all be sitting atop and serving
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other people and leading well. I think that would solve a lot of the problems that we're dealing with
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in culture and society. So to that end, we have conversations on this podcast. And today I've got
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a very, very interesting and fascinating guest, Doug Marketa. We're going to get to that in just a
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minute. Before we do, I just want to give a shout out to a organization that helps make this show
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everybody again, originusa.com use the code order at checkout. All right, guys, let me introduce you
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to Doug Marcaida. He is a martial artist. He's an edge weapon specialist. He's a knife designer.
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Doug's originally from the Philippines, but he moved to the States when he was eight years old.
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He served eight years in the U S air force as a respiratory specialist and has since spent decades
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traveling all over the world, teaching first responders, police officers, military personnel,
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personnel, the foundations of what he knows about martial arts and also knife fighting. Now you may
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know him as a judge on history channels, forged in fire. And of course his signature phrase, which I
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did get him to say today, which is it will kill. You guys know what I'm talking about if you watch
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this show, but I think this conversation is really going to open your eyes to who Doug is more than just
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what you see on TV, his immense, immense appreciation for martial arts and ultimately how it can serve
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you enjoy guys. You know, it was interesting. Um, as you were talking about with the kids leaving and
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missing those moments. And once they find friends, I went to my second son's football game yesterday
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and my son, my oldest son, my 13 year old basically said, all right, thanks dad. Can I have some money
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for the snack shack? And then I didn't see him for two hours. Cause he was running around with his
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friends and chasing girls and everything else. Yeah, that's exactly, you know, there was a point when I
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was looking at my youngest and I go, at what point did I lose you? And I remember it was like, it was like
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eighth grade or what? No, seventh grade when he started having friends, because before that we were his
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friends, we were always the friends around always with the family or our family friends. And that's all we did
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always hanging out with us, doing everything else. But the minute he started to have his own friend, I think I
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lost him the first night he had an overnight stay at a friend's house. Then all of a sudden it's coming
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home, talking with friends, hanging out with them all the time. And like, where's my boy? Where's my
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boy? Where are they? The others were ahead. So that's how we lost them. But then I really had a
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hard time dealing with that when they were in their teens, because now they're always on their own.
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They don't come out of their rooms or gaming and all that. And it bothered me a lot. And my wife goes,
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well, you have to enjoy their growth. That's what happens. They're learning to spread their wings,
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your boys. But the beauty of that eventually is they come around full circle. Once they've gone out and seen
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everything there, then they find out, oh, because home is home base. It's a safest place to be. So
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they can come back home all the time. That's one of the things. At first, I really had an issue with
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it. I had an issue because I wanted them around all the time. But I didn't realize that by having
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an issue, I could even push them further away. Right. Always make this the safest place, no matter what
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they do. So that no matter where they are, they'll miss home because they felt it was always the
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safest place. And I learned that, wow, the hard way. So are you pretty close with your boys now?
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Yes. I'm wearing my Marine shirt. My middle one's a Marine. My eldest is a paramedic and my youngest
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is off to college having a great time. And I lived through him. Tell me, what are you doing? Please
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write me. You're having the best times. I never got to experience that. So, you know, but it's more like
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I really miss them when they were young. That's my own insecurities, my own needing. I needed that
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love around them. But my wife taught me to enjoy them. If I'm so focused on what I had, then I don't
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enjoy what's going on in front of me. And it goes, enjoy them becoming their own men. You're missing
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out on that. Always complaining about when they were young and everything else. You need that? Okay,
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good. Let's get a puppy. Boom. I got it. All right. Now I got my puppy in and they're doing their own
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things. I'm enjoying them with my puppy. Yeah. No, I, I, I'm not there yet with my boys leaving
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and I'm glad for that, you know, and my daughter as well. I'm glad that they haven't left yet,
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but it is really bittersweet to see them grow and mature and develop. You're like, Oh, I just want to
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play football and catch and wrestle. And they want to go chase, you know, girls and hang out their
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friends. And that gets to be a challenge, but it's all natural. It's all good. That's, that's the way
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of life is it should be. Exactly. The cycle of life. And in as much as we always want things to say the
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same, one thing's guaranteed. It will change. It's a matter of us to learn how to adapt to that
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change. Yeah. How does this, how does this juxtapose from your relationship with your folks? Were you,
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were you pretty close with your parents and how did that all play out? No, it didn't. It wasn't
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that way. My, my mother migrated when I was in my teens to the U S and I grew up pretty much in a,
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you know, I lived with my grandmother and my relatives. My father was, was on home Sundays,
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you know, it was a broken family. So even though I felt love in a different way, it was different.
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It wasn't a close knit family in the sense of they're there every time everybody was all over
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the place. Um, I, I basically found family in a sense through my friends, you know, I was,
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I was in gangs in a young year. I was a, I had a troubled childhood, um, uh, very angry childhood.
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So I made sure that, um, becoming a parent myself, I wanted not to commit the same mistakes and it's
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hard not to, because you think certain ways are the ways it should be because that was your comfort
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zone. But then learning it from my wife says, no, that doesn't have to be that way. You know,
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there's a different way, a more loving way. I came from a stern family. So there's a lot of anger
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issues with, uh, the way I was raised only because I thought that's how it had to be cultural differences
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too. Yeah. So that's interesting. I was going to ask you where that anger came from. You're
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saying that it's a by-product of maybe the family dynamic and the culture that you grew up. Where
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did you, where did you, uh, immigrate from? Yeah, I was born and raised in the Philippines. I came here
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when I was 18. Um, yeah. Um, coming from a broken family, um, a lot of anger towards both sides of the
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family, because there was reasons, you know, there was warring between the splits and I was going between
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my mom's side of the family or my dad's side of the family. But, um, because my uncles and aunts
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were always saying bad things about the other side, the other side. So when I'm with my dad's
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family, uh, I'm angry at them because they're telling me bad things about the other family.
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And when I'm with the other family, it's the vice versa. So all I knew was anger. And that became
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my comfort zone. Did you, so I know that martial arts obviously, um, and weaponry is a big part of
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your life now. Is that when you started to get involved in the martial arts arena, having to
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defend yourself, fighting that sort of thing? Or when did that come about? Um, I always fought as
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a kid. I was a bully that I took it out on my friends who said, you know, um, nothing I'm proud
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of. I just realized that the anger I had in the family, I take out with my friends as kids.
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But later on, my dad said, I got kicked out of school. So my dad was saying, you know,
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you're getting too many fights and knowing the culture, he himself was a violent person,
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you know, in terms of what was going on outside, he was knowing the culture, you're going to get
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into your teams. They don't fight fair anymore. Your fistfights are coming to an end later on.
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People are going to start carrying knives because that's a culture back home. We carry weapons.
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So I had to learn some kind of martial art. Now, as a youngster, I love to kick box, you know,
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with my own friends and everything. I was, you know, I love anything that had impact on it.
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So I took a lot of kickboxing, some small judo and some karate. Of course,
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taekwondo was my favorite. Thinking that if I learned that I'm going to kick ass much better,
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you know, I'll be better at it. I'm going to kick, you know, much better at my kicks and beating up
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people. But it tamed me. It tamed me. You know, I was surprised. And I think that I attributed that
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because there was respect taught in the class. There was a lot of, you pretty much let all your anger
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out when you're training and they can't get calmer. But I always had a fear of weapons.
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And I recently come out to say, you know, the reason for that was when I was with a wrong kind
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of crowd, I was accosted. It was an incident, a traumatic incident where I was at knife point.
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And that scared the daylights out of me. So when I saw knives, I was, you know, afraid,
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definitely afraid of that. But it wasn't until my adult years when I was actually in the military.
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Now, granted, in the Philippines, that's the art that they trained with weapons. And I used to
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think, why would I want to learn with that? Those guys carry knives. They're thugs.
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Every one of them trying to like, why can't they fight with their hands? Why do they have to have
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a knife? Why did they ruin it with sticks and everything? Who carries weapons like that anyways?
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Well, only the criminals do in my mindset. But when I finally was in the Air Force, I bumped into
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someone who was definitely a weapons expert, but at least an expert, the art that he came from.
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And we were actually creating our own version of our own mixed martial arts that we were doing.
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And he was just throwing me left and right, empty handed. There were no weapons. We were just,
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you know, sparring. And I'm like, and at that time, Seagal was, you know, just coming out with
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above the law. And I'm like, wow, is this Aikido? I could jujitsu and everything. He goes,
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oh, it's Kali. I'm like, Kali? You're like, California. Very cool. Because I knew he was from
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California. And he goes, no, that's actually Filipino martial arts. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm
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Filipino. What are you talking about? You know, Kali? No, our niece and a screamer. Oh,
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wear your sticks. Wear your knives. He goes like, you don't need those. You think? Then he showed
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me some stuff and he pulled out a balisong. Freak me out again. Freak me out. So I'm like, well,
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yeah, sure. You don't want to kick back? Are you sure? Well, you know, I'll show you this,
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but that's where it comes from. Then I go, I got to face my fears eventually. I got to face it.
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And prior to that also, another thing also stunned me. It's funny because it's like therapy for me to
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have these memories come out. We were at a party with the same group of guys and we got into a
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fight. You know, some guys came over. They weren't happy what's going on. We came out and it turned
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into a racial thing, a gang thing, you know, their group against my group. And I just lost it. I came
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out. I started beating the crap out of the guy and we got split up and everything. We all came in and
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everyone's, you know, so I noticed when I turned around, who was around me, you know,
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who moved my boys were around me and they were like, yeah, yeah, you know, and everything else.
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But there was one guy in the corner, in the corner. It's like, and I go, Hey, thanks a lot,
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Nilo, man. Thanks for the backup and stuff. You know, we were there fighting. Where were you?
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And I saw, it was like, yeah, it was just quiet. Then he walks back and puts back a knife in the
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drawer. Freaks me out. Yeah. You came out there while I was fighting and you went in the kitchen
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and he came out with a knife hiding. And he goes, you never know who's carrying among those guys.
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You're stupid. You just went out there and confronted them. You think there's my culture.
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There's my home because he was Filipino to the world. He was like, damn. So the knife culture was
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there. And once again, when I saw that, got scared. I'm like, he could have shot me or stabbed me.
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I'm not thinking that. So I had to fear. I had to realize that in this world, it's a prey or
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predators and the predators are always armed. You'll never find a predator go out there and try
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to get its prey. That's unarmed because that's their living. That's how they survive in the jungle.
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They got to have something. They won't fight someone who's armed because they get injured.
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They die. That's how they eat. Yeah. That's, it is interesting. And it's, it is, it's also interesting.
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And I think this is pretty common among successful people and people that have found their path,
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so to speak, is they take negative experiences. They take the things that they're afraid of.
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And rather than running away from those things, they run towards those things. And so it sounds
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like you became familiar with weapons, knives, martial arts, and you really thrust yourself
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into that arena as opposed to just rejecting it altogether. It was my biggest fear. And then
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when I realized that if your fear becomes your strength, then everything's easy. I just went
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head on and I loved it, you know, and I found power in it because this thing that I was afraid
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of now I'm, I'm in it. Where else can I go? I've already, I'm facing the very thing that I'm afraid
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of. Now, if I really learned to enjoy it and find out that I, I am it, then it's no longer
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something that, uh, you know, that controls me. I control it.
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Did you ever feel like this would be something that you would turn into a career at some point?
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Was there any thought of that or was it, Hey, I'm just going to learn this while I'm in the air
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force or while I'm pursuing other career aspirations?
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Never pure passion, pure passion. I mean, at that time, you know, I knew martial artists,
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martial artists are broke. You know, the only ones that I went to are the ones who are trying to teach
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kids and everything. This is an art form. We don't teach kids. I gave up my life to train this
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because I was in love with it. Um, weekends when everybody was going there, I was in a station
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Biloxi. My teacher was in New Orleans. So I drive all the way there on my weekends. We trained for
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six hours on Saturdays, go get there at 6 PM, not done till midnight. And we loved it because we were
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all that passionate about it. And I was just, you know, like I said, well, I didn't realize later on,
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and I have an obsessive compulsion, you know, I delve myself into that. So, but yeah, it was pure
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passion. Never have I thought it would be anything for, for commerce, never a business. It wasn't until
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later that, um, one of the things that my teacher told me was when he left about a year and a half
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after he had leave. And I'm like, all right, this sucks. You know, I, where's my training? And he goes,
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here's your second phase of your training, start teaching. I'm like, what? You don't have to open a
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school. Just find a training partner. I'm like, but I don't know this. And then I, I found another
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group to study with. It was, uh, Indonesian martial arts, Indonesian air force. So I, I befriended
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them. I sponsored them on base, but one of them was an instructor in the Indonesian martial art of
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Silat, which I was familiar with also. So I became a student. It wasn't until we had a party and they
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were leaving that, uh, one of the guys in the party goes, well, what happens? You know, I heard your
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Filipino, Filipino, that I heard, you know, this weaponry and everything. So what happens? You
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don't have a weapon. I'm like, what do you mean? And he goes, what if I start throwing punches at
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you and everything? I just went at it and everything. I would do this. I would do that. I would do this.
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And I'm like, it's pouring out of me. And the Indonesian is like, you got all this, you know,
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this, I'm like, yeah, but I'm a student when I'm with you. I don't ask, you know, I'm not there to,
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but I just started pouring out of me. And I immediately called my instructor and told him, wow,
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because my instructor would never show us empty hands. Never. It was pure weapons, but he also
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told us it's, it's, you've got the hands. It's there. Well, what is the weapon? Your hands. I'm
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like, oh, but it was just pouring out. And then he goes, there's your thing. You just found out about
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something. I would never show you empty hands on purpose. I'd show you like ideas of it, but you
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were really a weapon. So, you know, because your hands are now the weapons because you had nothing to
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pick up. So I'm like, wow. The concepts are probably similar, right? Whether you have a weapon or you have,
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or it's just your hands, the concepts are probably similar.
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They're similar, but the mindset is not. You see, there's a difference between picking up a weapon.
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You see, when my experience in finding empty hand arts, start martial arts from empty hands,
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boxing, kickboxing, grappling, and all that is that they start at that point. But then when they get
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the weapons, the mind switches, they don't know how to move with a weapon in their hand. It's very
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awkward for them. Now, when you find on the contrast in the Filipino martial arts, what's the difference?
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We start out with weapons all the time. You know, arm yourself. Why would you want to go punch
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something? Well, why would I use a bolo and a machete? Because boxing and kickboxing doesn't
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work against machetes. History has proven that. So start at the most lethal and work your way back.
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But then you start to realize, oh, I am the weapon. Everything I pick up is a tool. Even my hands
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are a tool. So once you get that mindset, then everything now is a possibility of you being
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better. And that's where I start to realize that I'm armed all the time. I've got a computer. I've got
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this headphones on. I've got my phone here. I've got everything else around me to use as a tool.
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And I'm always armed. They always say, you know, you have to put a knife and everything else. And
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they go, they're just betterly made. So I don't have to look for it. But trust me, everything around
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me is a weapon. I'm armed all the time. That's a good point. I hadn't considered that because
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sometimes when I see knife fighting and martial arts that involve blades, I see it on Instagram.
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And to me, what immediately comes to me is, well, this is a very nice choreographed movement between
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an instructor and a trainee or something. But I'm like, in the real world, like how applicable is
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that? I mean, I've got a knife on me, but I use it mostly for, you know, cutting things or opening
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something else. I usually have a firearm on me. I've never really thought about carrying a knife
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around for self-defense because I have a little bit of a, maybe a bad taste in my mouth for these
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choreographed dances that I see on Instagram, as opposed to how it really would go down in the
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real world. Yep. Because, well, the choreography that created there is for safety purposes, period.
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It's for safety. It's like, if I do this, you know, I'm going to train you to move this way.
00:20:15.760
Now your opponent is your training partner. Your opponent is your, is your, you know,
00:20:20.460
it's a guy feeding you so that you don't hurt him. So I have to choreograph this because later on,
00:20:26.780
and that's all, one of the things people don't get is what you see on video and all that,
00:20:30.660
that's only one phase. You know, in our training, what I don't have there, and now it's, of course,
00:20:35.840
it's all over because of fortune fire. We attack, we cut things, we do these things. You know,
00:20:41.520
you're, you have to see the cause and consequences of what a blade can do, a small blade compared to
00:20:45.800
a big blade, what impact and trauma. I've known this because part of my job was being a respiratory
00:20:52.600
therapist in emergency room. I was also teaching law enforcement. So I saw the cause and consequences
00:20:57.920
of blunt force trauma of stab wounds and everything else. I always appreciated that,
00:21:01.880
but to go out there and test it, we can't do that. We can't go out and stab, stab people,
00:21:07.600
you know, society, but we know that. So the idea there is, I don't question how deadly a bullet
00:21:17.120
is when it comes out of a gun. Common sense, I know it. So I don't question how deadly an edge
00:21:23.180
is or how point it's going to do to the body, but I do question how it moves. Now, let me go to this
00:21:29.020
to make a point on this. Martial arts is about body movement. Violence does not need martial arts.
00:21:38.580
Just ask everybody in jail who's committed, you know, stabbing or hammered somebody in the head and
00:21:43.800
everything else. It doesn't require this. It is martial art of the moves that actually help you
00:21:48.400
prevent that from happening. It's a martial artist in you that the true fight is not the person in
00:21:53.600
front of you. The true fight is you stopping yourself from fighting because you've got an ego
00:21:56.960
that you can, you know, you're, you're good. You know, you can do this. So in doing all these
00:22:02.880
choreography and all these nice fancy moves and everything else, there's also a reason for doing
00:22:08.420
that. You see, if violence is all about stabbing, just walk up to something and start stabbing it.
00:22:12.600
There's no defense against that, especially sudden violence. Just cut, cut, cut, cut, stab, stab,
00:22:16.420
stab. That's it. You don't need all that fancy stuff. Good. So you're a killer. Very good. So what
00:22:22.020
now? Now, the fact that I can parry a knife, I can disarm it, I can move it in a controlled society,
00:22:28.560
you know, in a controlled way, I'm actually able to move around and feel that I'm in control because
00:22:34.260
nobody's cutting each other and getting hurt. That's what you need to bring yourself down from being
00:22:40.340
very high on killing. You see, that's, what's missing. We, we train people, you know, you want
00:22:46.260
to be violent. Go, go shoot someone. Stab, stab, stab. You come back now. Go give your kid a hug.
00:22:51.380
No. How am I going to do that? Good. You're, you're trained to be violent. Now do these motions,
00:22:57.500
all these motions, all these motions, and you wear it out of yourself. Now you were in control,
00:23:02.540
weren't you? Yeah. Now go give your kid a hug. Yeah, I can. Cause I just controlled that.
00:23:06.280
So when you see martial arts that have forms, that have all these cut or all these different
00:23:12.400
things, all choreographed, just showing that I can control this. I know sudden violence is not
00:23:17.380
choreographed, but you know, it's there. Now, my teacher always told me what is the most advanced,
00:23:24.500
no, what is the most basic strike? I'll show you. I don't know if this is a video podcast, but what's
00:23:29.500
the most basic strike? This. So what I'm doing is just slashing down. That's the most basic strike.
00:23:34.380
Okay, good. Then you train. Now he'll ask you, what's the most advanced strike? This,
00:23:39.540
you know, and I'm doing really complex. He goes, no, it's this. I keep it simple. But if you keep
00:23:45.600
on doing this, but the fact that you can do all this other stuff, you think this is not advanced
00:23:51.120
for me. Very easy. When I trained a particular group at the Forest Recon in Philippine Marines,
00:23:57.640
the commander asked me to train their group because we were part of the martial arts system that we were
00:24:02.620
doing. And when he, and I knew this particular group was nothing but killers. You can even be
00:24:08.400
part of this group if you have not seen combat or killed. So it's very intimidating. So I go to him
00:24:13.920
and I go, uh, commander, I need about, I have a question about this. Your guys, I know about them
00:24:20.880
and I, they're my friends too, but I'm just able to do a skilled way. You know, I mean, how can I be the
00:24:27.540
ones to teach them when they're the ones who've done it already? And he goes, Doug, you have the
00:24:31.920
ability to take yourself to a place where they have not been. Who's to say that's not real.
00:24:40.140
Can you prove to me yesterday did not happen? Oh, he goes, yeah, look, the skills you have.
00:24:47.700
Oh no. He says violence is nothing more than an opportunity to do it. That's what happened to
00:24:52.660
them. This is their job. So who's to say that learning your skills will bring them because
00:24:57.980
that's the, that's the opportunity for them to do it. They'll do it cleaner and faster.
00:25:03.480
Once again, complex and simplicity is nothing more than simplicity. Well executed. It just looks
00:25:09.160
complex to me, but it's just a bunch of movements put together, choreographed together. Now, when you
00:25:14.500
see the finished motion of movies and training, you see from a to 10, from number one to 10 moves,
00:25:20.580
but you only need, you and I know you need that. You need one and five moves or two moves,
00:25:25.560
not even in the sequence, but you're that skilled. It's the same way as when you look at it from a
00:25:31.340
point of view of, let's say, um, a mission, a military mission, right? You have, here's the
00:25:37.680
mission. There's the village. Okay. Attack. You don't do that. So that's what it is. That's a melee,
00:25:43.460
right? Just kill him. No, we have an insertion extraction for every movement you got. I've got
00:25:48.800
contingency plans. Letter A, if this happens, letter B, if this happens, letter C, if this
00:25:52.760
happens, that's what all those choreographed moves are. It's to give you the big picture
00:25:58.140
that if it should ever happen, you have an answer to it.
00:26:01.180
That's interesting. The way you're saying it with regards to just, Hey, just run in there and,
00:26:05.080
and take the village versus strategic planning and the importance of ensuring that you have those
00:26:10.500
plans. You have the contingencies. Everybody knows what they're doing. Do you ever feel like,
00:26:15.380
um, there's a false sense of security with martial arts. Now I'll, I'll readily admit I've only
00:26:21.140
really trained jujitsu. And, and I wonder with those who are in martial arts, if it ever lulls
00:26:28.840
them in, whether it's knife fighting or jujitsu or karate or any form of arts, if it lulls them into a
00:26:35.140
false sense of security, because I know, for example, you know, if I'm surrounded by three guys
00:26:40.060
and I'm trying to, you know, put an arm bar on somebody in a street fight, I'm going to probably end up
00:26:44.840
dead. But, but I think there's a lot of people who use it as a false sense of security and they
00:26:50.700
end up getting themselves potentially hurt or killed. Yeah. Well, I agree. You know, there is,
00:26:55.960
there is, because there are two things. The thing with martial arts is that people take it for
00:27:02.940
different reasons. And I've come up with something with, I hope you're not taking martial arts to
00:27:08.220
defend yourself. I hope you're not taking martial arts to stop violence. What do you mean by that?
00:27:13.400
That's why I'm taking it. No, because if that's what you're doing, carry a gun.
00:27:17.700
You're more successful preparing as carrying a gun, arm yourself with a knife. So why am I taking
00:27:23.160
martial arts for, like I said, violence is just an opportunity. Violence is easy. You don't need
00:27:28.180
martial arts to be violent and be successful at it, but you need to be able to control that beast.
00:27:33.020
Also martial arts could all, you know, I remember having this discussion with someone where they're
00:27:37.400
saying, you're going to go to that guy. That guy's so fat with his black belt and he barely can punch.
00:27:42.360
Look at him. He's just teaching kids. And I'll guarantee you, he's never been in a fight.
00:27:46.840
Then I look at the guy and go, he's never been in a fight. That's the kind of person you should
00:27:51.520
be heralding. He's never been in a fight. Maybe he's taking martial arts because it makes him a
00:27:56.700
better father. Maybe he's taking martial arts because it makes him a better citizen. Maybe he's
00:28:00.680
taking martial arts because it curbs his drug or vices. You just want to herald the guy who gets into
00:28:05.820
a fight all the time. What kind of, what kind of role model is that? That guy can't even be a
00:28:10.480
normal person. He beats the crap out of his wife or kids. You want to herald that because he's a
00:28:15.360
fighter? So martial arts to me is just another ends to a means of being a better person. Martial
00:28:21.660
arts should make you a better, not bitter person. And some people only look at martial arts as well.
00:28:27.540
How many fights you've been? What's successful in all that? Okay. You're good at that. Can you dodge
00:28:32.240
a bullet? Can you dodge a stab when you're not ready for it? Because that's basically what have
00:28:37.080
happened to a lot of martial artists who thought they were invincible, that they had the right
00:28:40.840
thing because they've been in fights. You've been in fights, but you've not been in a killing
00:28:49.640
Yeah, definitely. I mean, for me, the only fights I've been in are, you know, a couple little schoolyard
00:28:54.220
fights when I was in, you know, middle school or high school. And that's, that's about it. That's
00:28:58.160
the extent of, of that. You know, I spent time in the military, but that's not fighting. That's
00:29:02.300
pure, that's violence and that's hate and hostility. That's different than what you're
00:29:07.880
saying with defending yourself in a street fight. Yeah, totally different. The whole,
00:29:13.380
the rules are different. Well, put it this way. Even the intent is different. You know,
00:29:18.820
here's the thing about getting into fights. Everybody seems to think that just because
00:29:22.020
they have the martial art way, which the martial art way is full of rules. I learned to kickbox
00:29:26.440
as a referee and the ring and everything else. Right. Slap a killer who's never trained,
00:29:31.180
but only knows that he wants to kill what's in front of him. Defend against that.
00:29:35.760
Yeah. You know, I've met, I've met those guys and they're not martial artists. They're scary.
00:29:40.380
I've met gangsters who've done things. They're not martial artists. They laugh about it. They'll go,
00:29:45.380
no, you know, I'll shake your hand and I'll poison you. I'll shake your hand when you're drunk and
00:29:48.960
stab me. I'll follow you home when you don't know me. You know, the biggest thing I remember when,
00:29:53.300
because I started off also in a very aggressive martial arts system that was all this bravado. We're the
00:29:58.440
tough guy. We carry knives. You come mess with me. I'll cut you and I'll bullshit. That was because
00:30:02.660
my teacher was like that. But what happened was one day I did a seminar and I was really showing
00:30:08.480
off and I was young and full of testosterone and braggadocio and everything else. When an old man
00:30:13.560
finally approached me, he goes, you're very good with your art on the side. He goes, you're very
00:30:16.760
good with your art. And I bet you if we fought, you'll do me. But you know what? I've got a finger.
00:30:21.300
I'm like, oh God, what's the thing? You make me smell it? I can pull a trigger. But better yet,
00:30:27.740
I'm rich. I'll pay somebody to kill you. So don't disrespect this, your martial art. I hope you're
00:30:35.740
better than that. What do you say to that? That changed my mind to a lot of things. You know,
00:30:42.140
it's like, wow, this man was really being honest. Maybe my braggadocio has to be, you know,
00:30:48.000
maybe I'm not all that. Or maybe just because I got a weapon, it's not that. Maybe there's more
00:30:53.520
to this that I get to change. That's when I started to learn. I've got to turn martial arts
00:30:57.320
to change me because it's supposed to make me better, not bitter.
00:31:02.380
How has it changed you outside of just, you know, the defense and violence tempering component of it?
00:31:11.660
It's like I said, it taught me to curb the beast. The true enemy is myself.
00:31:17.140
I would, I think because of the way I grew up or just me, I would choose every wrong thing.
00:31:24.060
If I didn't have this, I'd be dead or I'd be in jail. You know, I'm the type of person who always
00:31:28.840
likes to pick what's wrong for me. Martial arts has given me a discipline. And I think that's a
00:31:33.480
discipline. When you're disciplined enough to do something, you should be disciplined enough to do
00:31:36.660
or not to do something that you know is bad for you. It was also different. I think it's changed.
00:31:42.880
You know, when I left military contracting and I got into Orchard Fire and doing other things,
00:31:49.900
it's really changed because to be training as a contractor, you have to put yourself in a mindset
00:31:55.720
that's very dark. You have to. Otherwise, you're fooling the ones you're teaching.
00:32:00.700
You have to think about what are they going to be facing? And you fight fire with fire.
00:32:05.740
You know, you can't be, you know, it got bad for me in the end because later on,
00:32:09.600
the guys that were teaching started to become kids. I'm like, I'm much older now than these guys.
00:32:14.840
You see youngsters here who were sending and training to be warriors and you can't color
00:32:19.600
code what fighting is. That's why we teach weapons. I'm like, why are you going to be kickboxing?
00:32:24.020
You think the guy in front of you is going to be unarmed? Do you go to war without a weapon?
00:32:29.100
Why is a knife a tool? Oh, I'm not familiar with carrying knives. Yes, you are.
00:32:33.680
You cut your food, don't you? Yeah. You try to pry open stuff with a knife, right? Yeah.
00:32:38.700
So you're very comfortable with that, but you've never thought of it as a weapon. That's right.
00:32:44.240
So if you look at the evolution of man, you look at the cavemen who picked up tools and then evolved
00:32:52.040
to firearms. It's the ones who never know how to use a tool that pretty much went extinct.
00:32:58.260
All the wars in history have been fought with weapons, period. You will never see 2,000 people
00:33:05.100
kickboxing and running around the ground. Somebody ruins the party by showing up with a weapon.
00:33:10.360
You know? So knowing all this, you realize man by nature is violent. It is our nature.
00:33:17.720
So how are you going to be able to control that so you become a better person? Because we know that
00:33:24.040
those that have crossed the line are never the same, ever. So how do you curb that? I think
00:33:29.660
martial arts is one way. I think one of the big missing things we have and a big injustice we're
00:33:35.420
doing to our soldiers that we send out there is we train them to be killers, but we do not train
00:33:40.700
them to become, when they come back, how do you get rid of that? How do you get rid of the adrenaline dump?
00:33:45.620
How do you become normal again if you've actually crossed that line? Once again, I think martial
00:33:51.280
arts is one way to do that. You know, we have so many ways of finding out how to treat PTSI.
00:33:58.900
And I prefer to call it PTSI. It's not a disorder. It's an injury that happened to you when you went
00:34:03.560
out there. So one of the ways to fix that is that, you know, you come back. We've trained you to be a
00:34:10.320
killer. We've trained you to do all the things for your country. Here's a handshake. That'd be normal.
00:34:14.520
No, there's got to be some kind of transition. And I think martial arts is one way because I am
00:34:18.920
still acknowledging you as a warrior. You know, I've talked to some veterans who come back and go
00:34:24.240
like, are you kidding me? I'm so disrespected over here. You don't know what I've done for this
00:34:28.740
country. You don't know what I've had to do to get to where I have to come home. And now I'm just
00:34:33.760
being disrespected. Like what I did over there means nothing. But if you took martial arts to help them
00:34:39.260
come down, what once was a warrior, because by taking martial arts, I still acknowledge you as
00:34:44.380
a warrior, but now you're no longer a warrior of killing. You're a warrior of wisdom. Please come
00:34:49.460
back. Thank you for your service. Here's a way that I acknowledge you that you're still the warrior
00:34:54.020
that you are, but here's a way that the warrior now learns to control the weapons of war. Now you're
00:34:59.800
controlled. You're back in society. You're respected. Here's a way to take care of that. I truly believe
00:35:04.220
that. All right, man, let me hit the pause button on the conversation very quickly. We spent a lot
00:35:09.540
of time during this talk, uh, discussing readiness for violence to both defend against it and also
00:35:15.500
administer it if necessary. Uh, but there's another battle taking place that you need to be aware of.
00:35:20.420
And more importantly, you need to be ready for, and that's the battle for your own level of excellence,
00:35:25.900
because I think most of us know we're operating at a capacity less than we're capable of. And what I
00:35:32.180
want you to have is all of the tools and all of the resources that you need to be ready for whatever
00:35:38.940
life has to throw at you and really tee yourself up for a powerful fourth quarter, uh, as we roll into
00:35:44.060
2022. And that's why we put together a free email course. It's called 30 days to battle ready. We've had,
00:35:51.920
I believe tens of thousands of men go through it at this point. Uh, and when you sign up, you're going
00:35:58.060
to unlock access to the exact strategies that I've developed over 10 years and now been tested for
00:36:05.520
maximum results with thousands and thousands of men. So if you're ready to take your life to the
00:36:10.460
next level, get signed up immediately. Don't waste another day. Let's, let's crush the fourth quarter
00:36:16.680
of this year and roll into again, 2022 with everything that we need to make it the best year ever.
00:36:22.660
You can do that at order of man.com slash battle ready. Again, that's order of man.com slash battle
00:36:28.960
ready. Do that right after the show. Uh, for now, we'll get back to it with Doug.
00:36:34.700
How was your transition out of the, out of the military? You were in the air force. Is that right?
00:36:38.820
I was in the air force, but I was never in combat role. I was not, I was a respiratory therapist. I was
00:36:44.680
a cardiopulmonary. I was already in the medical field doing that. Number one, first of all, air force.
00:36:50.220
Okay. Everybody else is a veteran out there. Go ahead. Share force. Yeah. Okay.
00:36:55.120
No, I don't, I don't get into that. We're smart. We sent our pilots, right? That's right.
00:37:00.620
Yeah. But no, I was in the medical field. That was one of my ways. I think it was also part of my
00:37:05.420
healing. You know, it's a yin and yang. I'm learning an art to destroy. How do I balance that? I learned
00:37:10.860
an art to heal. Yeah. That's interesting. There's also a level of respect. And you mentioned earlier
00:37:15.920
when you were talking about seeing trauma and seeing how, how violence actually physically
00:37:20.720
impacts people and mentally as well. Uh, I think that probably gives you an appreciation for it.
00:37:27.260
And, you know, I always laugh when, you know, I have people in my life, close people actually,
00:37:32.000
who for example, are, uh, against firearms because mostly they're unfamiliar with and they're afraid
00:37:38.220
of them. And to me, I think, well, look, I, I, I still think there's a benefit in, in being able to
00:37:44.380
hold a firearm, being able to use it effectively, being able to know the different components and
00:37:49.560
parts of a firearm. And just because, you know, it doesn't mean you have to use it, but it's better
00:37:52.640
to know it and not need it than to need it and not have it or not know how to use it.
00:37:57.500
I 100% agree. So here's what it is. You're responsible with it. You know, that's one of
00:38:03.220
the things you carry a knife. Do you know how to care for the knife? Do you know how to use a knife
00:38:08.200
and how to defend for the knife? It's the same thing. So with the firearms, when every time
00:38:13.860
anybody gets by as a firearm, I think they have to show proof that they took a course,
00:38:18.480
a complete course on gun safety, on how to use it, how to clean it, everything else.
00:38:23.260
It's, it's responsibility with that. You know, here's a knife. Now go kill something. No, it's,
00:38:29.140
it doesn't matter what's in your hands. It's what you do with it. So the same thing,
00:38:33.440
any kind of thing that you know, it's destructive. You have to take a course. Do you give a kid,
00:38:37.220
a car here now drive it? No, we know we could kill people with the cars. So what does he have
00:38:42.160
to do with driver's ed? Get a driver's license to drive it with a firearm. Same thing. If you
00:38:47.720
take a knife, anything that you do, you have to know complete safety with it. That's called
00:38:52.520
responsibility. You know, a lot of times, once again, if you take martial arts, oh, you know,
00:38:57.140
you're going to know how to beat somebody up, how you can kick box and everything else. All right.
00:39:00.720
First, do you know how to avoid and use verbal judo? Because it's nice that you can kick ass and
00:39:06.820
everything else. Okay. Do you know how to talk to a lawyer? Do you know how to talk to a law
00:39:10.740
enforcement? Do you know how to say your last words to a priest? Because you have these martial arts
00:39:16.480
that you're doing that can end life. So going back to what you're saying, I learned to appreciate life
00:39:22.340
by working in the emergency room. It's very fragile. It doesn't take much. You see your, you see these
00:39:29.080
guys in the movies, they desensitize you. How's that guy still alive? But you know that even a few
00:39:34.240
movements, I lift weights and the next day I'm soaring and bitching about it. Right? Ah, you know,
00:39:38.980
these guys actually fought, you know, the next day they're fine. Same thing here is. Okay. Here's
00:39:44.620
one thing that's very interesting. You know, I, the hitting of the head, how brain trauma concussions
00:39:51.580
are a serious thing where next you can't even function, but we do it all the time over here and
00:39:56.060
think it's okay. You know? So I've seen a lot of headbeats. I saw a guy die because he slipped and
00:40:01.480
hit his head on the floor. Simple, nothing crazy, you know? And so when you see that and you realize
00:40:09.100
how fragile, uh, you understand blood pressure, you puncture an artery. He's gone. If he doesn't
00:40:14.800
know how to stop that, it doesn't matter what you do. I've seen shock in what it does here. We cut
00:40:19.400
everything up. No, I've seen where somebody got caught up in the shock of it. I've seen somebody
00:40:23.880
where they got comfortable and they died because they got comfortable. They were fight or flight
00:40:28.060
till the emergency crew comes in and I'll thank you. Now save me. And then they relax and they die.
00:40:33.600
It's amazing. It's, it's, it's, you know, life is fragile.
00:40:36.860
I like this concept of verbal judo as well. One thing I thought about, as you said that you're
00:40:41.500
talking about talking with a lawyer, talking with a police officer, also potentially just
00:40:45.320
deescalating a situation. Yes. You know, one thing I've seen lately, and I don't know why this pops
00:40:52.120
up. Maybe it's happening more, or maybe it's just more visible because we have cell phones is
00:40:55.580
guys getting into physical altercations at a football game, really a game. And these guys
00:41:02.220
are knocking each other out over a team. They have no part of whatsoever other than they paid
00:41:06.860
a hundred bucks to go watch it. It's just crazy. And I think more men need to learn how to deescalate
00:41:12.040
situations as opposed to, you know, that, that bravado that you were talking about.
00:41:16.260
Yes. 90% of what goes on is a choice. You see 90% of everything you can walk away. It's the fact
00:41:23.980
that you're standing your ground is your ego. Yeah. I'm going to look bad if I walk away. Yeah.
00:41:28.720
I'm a coward if I walk away, but I'm also smart to know that there's a constant consequences for
00:41:32.840
everything that I do. Sure. This guy, this guy wants to push me and he pushes me. And I totally
00:41:38.260
stabbed him 10 times because he pushed me. No, he pushed me. Okay. You win. I walk away.
00:41:43.900
You see, unless it's really total. Now I'm not saying it's right for us to totally give up our
00:41:49.760
principles, but way, way the principles. You see, here's the thing. If I'm with my family and
00:41:55.760
I'm in, and they're put in danger, I have no questions of what I'm going to do. But if I'm
00:42:00.400
alone or why would I even put myself in danger? Like the football game, let's say for that, for
00:42:05.980
example, right? Here's a guy because they're, they're squabbling over teams and everything
00:42:09.980
else. I'm going to get into a fight. Something happens to me. Who's going to take care of my
00:42:13.580
family right now? And not just saying, you know, tomorrow I got to go to work. Now I'm
00:42:18.440
injured. Who's going to pay for the food on my table? You have to really think out the
00:42:22.720
costs and consequences of everything that you do. When you go to martial art class, we're
00:42:27.520
in, you know, a lot of times in Filipino martial arts, we're like, oh, great. Here we are training
00:42:31.100
with weapons and everything else. My teacher goes, okay, now let's ask this question. How the
00:42:35.040
hell are you standing in front of someone with a stick and three knives? How'd you get to
00:42:39.360
this point? Good point. Oh, you're right. And how the hell are you? How did you face
00:42:44.980
someone with a weapon too? Shouldn't you have run? So I'm like, so what's the point in all
00:42:49.340
this? That's my point. The point in all this is, this is training. This is going to places
00:42:54.180
where you've never been. So if it ever happens to you, you know what to do, but we have to
00:42:58.740
practice the, Hey, screw you. Okay. Bye. Oh, I'll beat you in a fight. Yes. You win. We
00:43:05.160
don't practice that. That's part of the thing. Practice humility, practice saying,
00:43:08.820
in your mindset in actuality, I'm saying, yeah, you're right. Or God bless you, sir. Well,
00:43:15.280
I hope you have a good day in your mind is saying, I don't want to kill you because I
00:43:19.700
don't want to go to jail. So that's in your mind, telling your ego that to shut up. But
00:43:24.680
in actuality is I don't want to have to hurt somebody else because once again, it's a matter
00:43:31.080
of you putting yourself in a state to where I have to be better in life, not bitter. I don't
00:43:36.880
want to get into fights because I know that there's no, no one wins. Not even if I win,
00:43:42.000
I have the consequences to deal with. Yeah. And you know, you can, I think you can tell
00:43:47.760
somebody who's genuinely afraid or a coward versus somebody who chooses not to engage.
00:43:52.880
There's a different, there's a different approach. There's a different mannerism, you know, though
00:43:56.820
the outcome may be the same, the fight or whatever doesn't happen, but you can tell somebody who's
00:44:01.080
capable and chooses not to engage versus somebody who's incapable and therefore runs away from any
00:44:07.320
sort of confrontation, whether it's something like this, or even just standing up for yourself
00:44:11.400
to your employer or having a deep conversation with your wife about something that isn't comfortable
00:44:17.240
to address. Yeah. It's once again, when two, and I think there's also, you're right. I mean,
00:44:23.380
just because I backed down, doesn't necessarily mean that I'm afraid of you. Yeah. Look, obviously
00:44:29.080
there, like I said, the deescalation is a matter of when two people, you know, when you show up and
00:44:32.520
you point a gun at me and I pull a, I point a gun at you. It's like, Oh, or your arm too. Okay.
00:44:36.980
Maybe we should think this out. Same thing with the deescalation. Hey, screw you and everything
00:44:41.280
else. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can I buy you a drink? What can I buy you a drink? Well,
00:44:48.040
just deescalate all of a sudden, you know, but you're like, dude, I don't want to get into a fight.
00:44:53.700
I don't know you enough to want to fight you. You don't know me to want to fight me. So do we even have to fight?
00:44:59.740
Or yeah. Okay. Hey, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, dude, you have your son there. It's a
00:45:05.340
good looking kid. I don't, why am I going to fight in front of your son? I don't need to do this. Or,
00:45:09.860
or maybe like this. I've got HIV. I don't want to bleed all over you. What?
00:45:16.960
You know, I don't want to infect you. I've got COVID. I don't know.
00:45:26.440
How do you game playing? If you can, and here's a good thing. Also strategy. If you can learn to
00:45:31.460
make it humorous, even better. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. That's a great deescalation
00:45:37.900
tactic for sure. How do you go from, uh, do it, doing your work in the medical field with
00:45:43.760
respiratory and all of that to, okay, now I'm on, you know, forged in fire and I'm a, I'm a weapons
00:45:49.040
expert and martial artists. Like that seems like quite the leap and I'm sure it didn't happen one
00:45:53.840
single leap, but I'm very interested in that process and how that all came about.
00:45:57.200
I actually started doing a lot of, um, so I was always a respiratory therapist. That was my job
00:46:03.520
that paid the bills, but my passion was always on the side. I always trained. And a lot of my
00:46:08.060
students were either instructors in other fields, um, law enforcement, um, military. And then I ended
00:46:13.820
up meeting up with an old student of mine was now doing military contracting. So he, we got to learn
00:46:19.620
to do military combat, uh, combatives with what I was doing. Um, when I was doing that on the side with
00:46:25.800
and we actually landed a very big account to take my team overseas, uh, and for a two-year contract
00:46:33.820
that was paying a lot of money to do what I loved and that I almost sold my soul for that. Thank God
00:46:40.180
I didn't do it. Uh, things change. I really believe in that God's way was the right way, but, um, I was
00:46:47.200
working in a hospital, but then I was offered this opportunity. They're building the place for us to
00:46:52.860
train, taking my team, my guys. I go, who'd quit here just to do what we're doing to get paid this
00:46:57.260
much money. And it had to be at least three times what I was making in the hospital. And it was,
00:47:03.320
so I prepared to do that. Now, while I was ready to take off, um, we were told that it's eight months
00:47:09.660
away. It's the site's not built. Well, what I quit my job already. I'm ready to leave. Then fortune fire
00:47:16.000
came about. And, um, I'm like, well, you know, I'm going to do this while I'm waiting for that
00:47:21.360
contract. All right, good. I go and do that. And then things happened where, uh, while I was doing
00:47:26.720
television, they go, all of a sudden this contract goes, you're not allowed to do. Cause that time I
00:47:30.160
was also doing media with a tactical team on YouTube. Um, they told me you're not allowed to do this
00:47:35.460
anymore. No more videos that you do. Cause I celebrate what I love to put on video, what I do
00:47:39.440
because I celebrate real or not what people go. I don't care. I'm having fun doing it. This is for me,
00:47:44.060
not for you. So I'm putting all this out. So now all of a sudden people, you can't do this. You
00:47:48.620
can't do that. You can't teach these schools because of whatever connections they have. Now they
00:47:53.100
want to own me. So I'm like, no, and it's a dark place that you're going to go. I think I'll stick
00:47:58.860
to fortune fire. I was blessed. So this is what you're talking about. Uh, you didn't sell your
00:48:04.360
soul. Is that, is that what you're referring to? Yes. Because if I had went, I had been teaching the
00:48:09.400
wrong people. I would teach it for the wrong reasons. Um, it's the things that were attached
00:48:15.660
to it was all for money, the control factor. And those who went even without me came back
00:48:23.060
with a very bad deal. They were not the same. They, they ended up suing each other. It was
00:48:27.980
like, well, that's what you get for going without me. They tried to take it away. Even the way
00:48:33.740
it was done was all wrong. Yeah. Sounds like there was some red flags there that you made
00:48:39.160
that made a good decision. A lot of red flags, but I was blinded and I was going to do it
00:48:44.620
for the money. I'm blessed that I didn't. What was it that kept you? Was it, you talked
00:48:50.620
about God's path or God's God's decisions for you, but what, what was it? Was there something
00:48:56.240
specific that really stood out? We're like, Hey, I'm not going to do this. Or was it just
00:49:00.480
the fact of them feeling like, are you feeling like they were going to own you? He gave me
00:49:05.760
opportunities elsewhere and he showed me those that went and did it. What happened to them?
00:49:13.700
That was a big thing. And then you start to see things happen. I used to go to the shot show.
00:49:19.040
And when I was there, I met with different groups and, um, you're learning about the cost,
00:49:24.320
you know, who you were actually selling your soul to and what they're doing. So it was, yeah. So,
00:49:29.720
you know, like, I'm like, wow. Uh, and now how do I remedy this? You know, then I'm like,
00:49:35.740
I'm teaching them. Hey guys, you need to know that I, my guys over there are teaching them this.
00:49:40.480
You need to know this too. This is what I gave them. Here's the program learning to counter.
00:49:45.520
Well, it sounds like you're glad that you'd listened. Uh, I can't tell you how many men,
00:49:49.660
including myself who have had these red flags and had these, you know, premonitions and,
00:49:54.140
and even conversations with God and have decided, well, now I'm still going. And then you've
00:49:59.640
regret those decisions that you make, you know, because I was selfish, you know, I was selfish,
00:50:05.920
but it's, I think the blessing is that, well, okay, we know you're a selfish guy. Um, here's
00:50:11.420
an opportunity. We don't want to do fortune fire. Now this is going to save you and your family.
00:50:17.200
So, okay. Now all the things that were doing the other, we were all negative. It was,
00:50:21.660
it was wearing on my family. Um, my, my marriage, it was wearing on the sacrifices,
00:50:26.800
even my relationship with my kids. I would have been gone. I would have not seen them.
00:50:31.300
Right. Right. So, but I was willing to do that. I was willing to do that. Why? That's why I say
00:50:37.420
I wasn't willing to sell my soul for doing something else. So I wasn't weighing that instead
00:50:42.000
opportunities were put in front of me to where I'll give you this opportunity to do this instead,
00:50:47.080
but learn from it, please. And that's what it did. Or to learn from this. Um, I gave away my health
00:50:53.920
touch, you know, there's one thing about working in the medical field that I miss. And that's
00:50:58.160
when you're, when you're seeing something, it's what I do is about breathing. So either
00:51:01.600
where they put a tube in your lung, it connects you to a breathing machine, or you've got asthma,
00:51:06.020
you know, your airway, your breathing and all this, that's my job. And I get immediate
00:51:10.720
satisfaction. I can put a BiPAP. And when your heart's full of fluids and I got to get that out
00:51:15.100
so you can breathe, your lungs are full of fluid and everything else backing up. And then,
00:51:18.360
and they don't want to thank you because in the old days you put on a breathing machine. I used to
00:51:21.680
fight to not put them on that because I know there are ways to do it with modern medicine.
00:51:25.580
Now, not just to jump into that, you know, and it's always a triumph. But at the end of the day,
00:51:29.400
they're like, I was here four hours ago. Now I'm going home normal. It's a great feeling.
00:51:34.060
Where do I get that feeling now that I'm on TV? That's why I have my morning podcast,
00:51:38.700
my, my Facebook, my, my morning talks. Right. That's why I refuse to, to call out people on what
00:51:45.360
they're doing. Oh, what you're doing will never work and everything else. Nah, good for you.
00:51:48.340
That's what you love. This is what I love. Is it real? I don't care. I don't know. I'm not
00:51:51.740
killing anybody. I'm just having fun with it. I tried to look at the positive and stay with that
00:51:55.680
because the one gift now that I have is media. The one gift I have a following. What am I going
00:52:00.720
to do when I meet my creator? When I die, do a Kali video. Here's the demo of the weapons I did.
00:52:06.400
Here's some killing stuff. Is that what I got to do? I said, when he asked me, what are you going to do?
00:52:10.360
I took that away from you. I gave you this, show me what you're going to do good with it. All right.
00:52:14.940
So I'll be positive and talk and try to do good by it.
00:52:19.700
What type of good do you feel like you are doing? You know, what is it that you feel like you add
00:52:23.280
enhanced to people's lives where when you meet your creator, you can show them that instead?
00:52:29.280
Number one, try to stay humble, but I love doing what I do, but in my morning talks with morning
00:52:37.020
coffee with Marcaida, I've gotten so much mail from people. This is the weird thing. You never
00:52:44.220
really know what you're saying and how it's going to affect people. Media will do that. They put you
00:52:49.140
on a pedestal. It's weird. I told you in the beginning, I did it as a lark because I want to
00:52:53.480
do my morning coffees on Facebook live. So my kids could watch me when they go to school. Hey,
00:52:57.540
here's dad. And they'll do that. But it turned into something bigger than that. All of a sudden,
00:53:02.360
people were writing me with their deep problems. I had people who were on dialysis, on cancer
00:53:08.840
treatment, who would tune in. And for them, what I would say would totally be totally taken a
00:53:13.640
different way. And for me, that was heavy. I'm like, and I wrote them, I'm not a Dr. Phil. I'm
00:53:18.280
not qualified to do this. All I'm talking about is something that happened in my life and I have fun
00:53:21.720
with it. And they go, well, we don't care about Dr. Phil. We care about you. So what you say speaks to
00:53:27.420
us in a different way. And from that, I've had so many, it really is meaningful to
00:53:32.340
a lot of people. And I don't know what it means, but the one thing I do love to hear is I so needed
00:53:38.140
this today. And then they'll tell me the reasons. And I'm like, wow, that's not even where I was
00:53:42.440
going with what I just said, but it's taken that way. That's all that matters. And that's where I
00:53:46.820
believe that God speaks to people, hopefully through me or guides me. Because I don't even
00:53:51.240
try to plan what I say. I just say, okay, let me tell a story about this and what's my take on it.
00:53:55.720
And that's it folks. But I will not try to get into politics, religion, and all this because
00:54:01.060
I'm like, look, the news is already, you know, out there. It's negative.
00:54:06.660
You can get on that. Yeah. You want to get depressed and angry and everything else go to
00:54:12.760
So I want to ask you a question in this, I'm trying to figure out the way to word it. And I'm
00:54:17.540
trying to say this with all due respect that you deserve. When you have the opportunities that you
00:54:22.440
do, let's say Forged in Fire, for example, you know, there's other individuals, it could have very
00:54:26.980
easily been somebody else. So what do you attribute them choosing you to be part of that? And because
00:54:34.100
I think there's a lot of guys out there who, you know, want to make it big in their own right. And
00:54:40.060
they want these incredible opportunities. Why did you get that opportunity?
00:54:44.940
I often ask myself the same question. How did I get into this? Because there was nothing
00:54:51.320
special opportunity. I think once again, it's a given opportunity. I didn't ask to be, it was
00:54:56.000
presented to me that way. They like my personality. I am not the most skilled person. That's number
00:55:02.300
one. Number two, I'm not an expert in everything. How there are some weapons we put in this particular
00:55:07.540
show that are not even created anymore. They're ancient. There were no manuals on it.
00:55:12.800
Also, it's not a weapon that I get to use all the time. You know, that's one thing that people
00:55:18.700
understand. When you're given a gun to shoot, you get to sight it in. When I test these weapons,
00:55:23.100
I pick it up. It's the first time I've ever picked it up. And people don't realize what it feels like.
00:55:27.660
Now, these are sharp weapons made to kill. So my job is to try to test these weapons as equal as
00:55:35.620
possible. And a lot of them don't understand the balance and the movement. I may not even perform as
00:55:41.780
well as I want to, but I'm not supposed to because it's not about me. It's about the weapons
00:55:46.100
we're testing. I'm a judge on this. I'm cutting things that aren't attacking me. That's not
00:55:50.920
martial. You just stand there and I just cut it to find out the differences because I have to find
00:55:55.980
which of these weapons are the best, period, according to the way it feels in my own standards.
00:56:02.620
So no, there is nothing special about what I'm doing. I just happen to have a way to understand how
00:56:09.940
to use them and get a result that's even. I use the basic common sense of if it's got a point,
00:56:15.920
it should be able to thrust or penetrate. If it's got an edge, it should be able to lacerate or cut.
00:56:20.240
The balance is the difference. I have to understand that who's going to carry this to
00:56:24.000
battle. If I had a choice, what's better? What feels good in my hands? Understanding the feel and
00:56:28.940
all that. Anybody, another expert can do this, but I do have a following. I think that's a blessing
00:56:36.180
there. I think it wasn't until the fourth season when I actually tore my shoulder using a bad media
00:56:44.620
and a very heavy and blunted sword that I realized my place on the show because previously to that,
00:56:51.900
our judges had, one of our judges had, the original judges, our master smith had a surgery on his
00:56:57.620
wrist. So they replaced him with another master smith and he left and they replaced him with another.
00:57:01.860
So I figured, okay, well, I tore my shoulder and he's going to need surgery. And I went to my
00:57:06.080
producer and I go, can I at least pick my replacement? Somebody that I know is very similar
00:57:10.900
and understands this because safety is an issue here. You just don't want anybody to cut stuff,
00:57:14.540
right? And he goes, you do have students, right? I go, yeah. Well, let them be your arm.
00:57:20.560
Huh? But I'm just going to stay there with a sling and everything. He goes, Doug, you're more than just
00:57:25.080
the guy who cuts stuff. Don't you know that? No, I don't know that. I don't know that. He goes, yeah,
00:57:31.340
that's what you are. And you'll continue to be that way. And that's when I realized my place on the show.
00:57:39.280
Yeah. That's that. What is the saying? What is that? There we go. I was looking for it.
00:57:44.420
Well, the funny thing that people understand is when we did this, uh, when we were to the pilot,
00:57:49.500
we didn't know what we're doing. It's a brand new show and I'm the end user. They're going,
00:57:53.500
we need an end user. So that's what it is. Now, what kind of tests can you do? Then they go,
00:57:57.640
well, we're testing for sharpness. Okay. Well, sharpness test. Okay. Now we want to make sure
00:58:01.640
the weapons is strong strength test. What else? Well, these are weapons of combat. So we should
00:58:06.760
have a kill test, you know? Okay. We're going to put a kill test. I'm like, what's a kill test?
00:58:11.920
You know? And like, guys, my contracting stuff, we actually cut up carcasses. You know, we dress them up,
00:58:18.060
we cut them and everything else. Can we do something like that? And they're like, uh, how do we do that?
00:58:22.340
It's like, okay, this is what we do. You make a pole, put some sticks out and wrap it with pork.
00:58:26.620
You know, we'll tie it up. So in our pilot, we had a meat man and I was cutting to show what meat
00:58:31.400
and just got. So when we actually did the show, we actually had carcasses, you know, dress them,
00:58:36.180
you know, whole carcasses. So that's a kill test. Now it's a pass or fail. If it will, if the weapon
00:58:40.500
should kill. So the way I'm saying it will kill it will, but I have an accent. So my Philippine accent
00:58:45.780
comes out when I get so excited. And I think in one episode, I had so much excitement with cutting with a
00:58:51.060
weapon. I go, it'll kill, you know, so excited. And people caught on to that. Now we didn't know
00:58:57.680
who our audiences were going to be at that time. I thought us, it's like Spike TV, right? I figured
00:59:02.100
college kids, you know, I found out there was a family show, a lot of dads and their kids and
00:59:09.720
families, moms, you know, grandpa watched the show. Then I'm like, wow. And I see it will kill.
00:59:14.920
And actually they like to kill. I'm like, all right, then let me make a play on words. On my
00:59:20.480
website, I have this motto. It's not about how many you hurt, it's about how many protect. That's
00:59:26.040
talking about responsibility, what you have. Just because you're doing arms training doesn't mean
00:59:30.920
that you're out to hurt anybody. It's about how many to protect. So I turned that into an acronym.
00:59:35.920
And kill, K-E-A-L means keep everyone alive. So at least when we say that, and when I sign it to
00:59:44.580
kids and everything else, it says, this will keep everyone alive. Being, you know, a little bit more
00:59:50.180
responsible with the words of, and a play on the words that we put out there.
00:59:54.020
Yeah. You're right about the family show version of what you just said is because me and my boys,
00:59:59.080
we watch the show. We love it. You know, it's entertaining. It's fun. You learn a bunch of new
01:00:03.080
stuff. So when I told them that I had the opportunity to talk with you, they were so
01:00:07.040
excited about it. They were so excited. I told them this morning, Hey, cause mom's out of town.
01:00:11.680
So I'm like, Hey, you guys need to be good. I'm going to get on the phone with Doug. They're like,
01:00:15.180
wait, Doug. So they were really excited about it. That's awesome. Well, I'll make sure to say hi
01:00:19.960
later on to those guys. Yeah, please do. That'd be great. You know, one thing I love about the show
01:00:25.020
is that I'm making memories and I, you know, because we're going on to our season nine next week,
01:00:29.580
we start season nine over 200 plus shows. And one of the things that I've in my age now that I
01:00:35.820
actually like watching are these old TV shows that I grew up watching when, and then I started to do
01:00:42.060
fun stuff on Tik TOK. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm there too. Right. Okay. Terrible. But it makes people
01:00:47.880
laugh because I've got, you know, I like to make people and the comments from the kids who were on
01:00:52.380
there are always saying, man, I used to watch this with my grandpa. I used to watch this with my dad,
01:00:56.920
or I used to watch this, you know, as kids and everything else. I'm like, wow, I'm actually
01:01:00.720
making memories with other people that when I'm dead and gone, somebody's going to look at this
01:01:05.720
and go, I used to watch that guy, you know, when he was doing stuff or one day he's going to go see
01:01:11.460
that old man. And then I'll be in a nursing home, that guy in a wheelchair playing with his poop,
01:01:15.620
piece of it will kill guy. No way. You're you're definitely part of their legacy, which is really
01:01:21.980
interesting because you never know how much your work and your words are going to actually impact
01:01:27.460
people that you'll never meet. Absolutely. You know, it's what we do with our time outside of
01:01:33.200
the show. And that's where I try to really reach out and do things. You know, we do some charities
01:01:40.400
and some nice things. It's what you do with it because you can't get away from the culture of being
01:01:48.060
a personality. You think you're one way, but you're always taking a different way. And that's
01:01:53.900
just the way it is. So what are you going to do with it? How are you going to be a role model? How
01:01:58.060
can you impact people in a good way with that kind of power? Yeah. Well, that goes back to what you
01:02:04.600
were saying. If you have that knowledge or you have that information or skillset, you also have the
01:02:09.500
matching responsibility to use it effectively for yourself and other people. Absolutely. Absolutely.
01:02:15.660
Well, Doug, I appreciate you joining us. Like I said, I was really looking forward to this
01:02:20.080
conversation. And one thing I got to say, and just to compliment you on is your level of humility
01:02:25.880
that you have in your life is really inspiring to me and it helps me to be a better person as well.
01:02:33.180
So I've enjoyed our conversation. Of course, I've enjoyed watching you with the boys and looking
01:02:38.280
forward to getting this conversation out to the guys who listen. My pleasure. I'll say this when I
01:02:43.180
started to do the media was a beautiful lesson that my wife always told me to always ask yourself
01:02:51.920
this, who are you in the eyes of God? You're nobody. Ask yourself always that no matter how high you
01:02:58.280
think you are, who are you in his eyes? So humble yourself. Great way to keep you grounded.
01:03:05.400
Absolutely. She's the first one to cut me down. And I love it. The first one. There you go again,
01:03:10.380
trying to think, you know, there you go. Use your narcissistic ways. You're thinking you're not.
01:03:15.140
They're right. And they are, they are right. And they are good for us.
01:03:25.440
All right, you guys, there is my conversation with the one and only Doug Markaida. I hope that you
01:03:29.620
enjoyed that. I really didn't know when we scheduled the conversation, how it would go. I was looking
01:03:34.880
forward to it, but I'm really glad that it went in the direction that it did. And it showed me a new
01:03:40.060
depth to Doug that I wasn't previously aware of. And it really helped me see things in a different
01:03:45.360
light from not only how I lead my family and my children, but how I look at violence and why it's
01:03:51.440
important to address this. And then also making sure that our martial arts is not just about violence,
01:03:57.920
but the other lessons and frameworks and mindset that we can get from engaging in martial arts in
01:04:05.300
many different forms. So if you enjoyed this one, you want to connect with Doug,
01:04:09.780
hit him up on Instagram, hit me up on Instagram. Let us know what you thought. Take a screenshot of
01:04:13.480
the podcast, share it. That goes a long way. And if you also want to do another solid for us to get
01:04:19.020
this out to more people, and this message of reclaiming and restoring masculinity does need to go to
01:04:24.000
more people, then please leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcast. iTunes is best
01:04:29.200
because that's the largest as of now podcast platform. So if you can leave us an iTunes rating
01:04:34.660
and review, I think we're at almost 7,000 reviews. We really need to bump that up to 10,000 and get
01:04:41.080
over that 10,000 mark. And if all of you just jumped on real quick, took 90 seconds, we would be to that
01:04:48.200
10,000 mark within a matter of hours. All right, guys, that is your call to action. In addition to the
01:04:53.720
Battle Ready program, connect with Doug, connect with me. We'll be back tomorrow for our Ask Me
01:04:58.180
Anything. But until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
01:05:03.240
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:05:07.600
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.