In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Joe and Mikey are joined by UFC fighter Jamie Dennison, who talks about his battle with Coochies and how he managed to get over it. He talks about how he dealt with it and what he's doing now, and what it's like living in a foreign country, living in Singapore, and all of the crazy things he's been up to since then. He also talks about what it was like being sick with it for a month, how he got over it, and how it changed his life. This episode is sponsored by Red Band! Red Band is a high-fashion jewelry company that specializes in customizing jewelry and accessories. They also have their own private training facility in Jakarta, Indonesia, which is a must-visit for all martial arts athletes. You can find out more about them by checking out their website and social media accounts! Thanks to Red Band for all of their support, and for all the love and support they've shown throughout the years. We couldn't do this without you, the support we've gotten from you. Thank you so much to everyone who's been a part of this journey with us and all the support you've shown us over the past 20 years. Thank you to all the people who've been supporting us, supporting us and supporting us in our journey. We can't thank you enough. We're so much, thank you, we can't do it without you! - The Joe Rogans Podcast. - - Mikey Musumeci and the Coochie's Podcast - Thank you, Mikey and the rest of the UFC Podcast, and we're so grateful for you, Thank you for supporting us. Joe and the guys at UFC, and thank you for all your support and support, we appreciate you, you're amazing, and support us, so much of you, so we'll keep coming back, we're gonna keep on keep on coming, we love you back, keep you coming, keep keep coming, and back, and keep on keeping you coming. XOXO! - Joe and Back, we'll see ya, Thank You, bye! - Thank You! - P.S. - Joe & The Crew! - Cheers! - The Rogans! - EJOGAN Experience. - - M.A. Podcast by Night Podcast, - J.J.
00:01:29.000I think so, but I think the residual effects of it from after being sick or what messed me up, like with the muscles, felt like my body was like decomposing.
00:02:20.000So anyway, Jamie, who has successfully avoided it for 21 months.
00:02:25.000He got it, and he's had very strong antibodies this entire time, but then we just got back from Vegas for the UFC, and we did a big show out there, and he got the cooties.
00:02:37.000When I was in Singapore, I had to get tested like every week, because I was going to Indonesia a lot and Malaysia, so I knew I didn't have it, at least during that time.
00:04:27.000So I even know like the slangs of the different parts of Brazil because I would just talk in Portuguese on my phone like all day with Brazilians.
00:04:37.000I've never even heard of someone like learning from Google Translate.
00:04:40.000How much time did you spend on Google Translate?
00:06:21.000I love learning languages and cultures, you know, so for me, Jiu Jitsu came, the Jiu Jitsu I do came from Brazil, so the Brazilian culture is so big in Jiu Jitsu, so I really wanted to learn Portuguese and even to communicate with all the Brazilians.
00:07:46.000So, my whole life, I lived very close to my parents, you know, 25 years.
00:07:52.000And then I leave and just change continents, you know.
00:07:56.000Again, it was Kshatri's vision with martial arts, and I saw the future of Jiu Jitsu when I was talking to him, and it was something I wanted to be a part of.
00:08:07.000So I got my stuff, my four short-year-old shirts, and two geese, and moved to Singapore.
00:08:32.000You know, because what One Championship is doing, now they're getting into jiu-jitsu, which is so interesting.
00:08:38.000They're going to have belts and divisions.
00:08:40.000I actually have my—I'm fighting for the belt in One Championship September 30th, and it's going to be on Amazon Prime in the U.S., because now they're getting into the U.S., Oh, interesting.
00:08:52.000Yeah, and what's really cool about them is how they're spreading martial arts all over with kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA and Jiu Jitsu on the same card.
00:09:01.000Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
00:09:03.000So fans will like learn about all the martial arts, you know, like I could watch Muay Thai and kickboxing as well as Jiu Jitsu.
00:09:10.000So the viewership for it just increases so much, you know.
00:09:16.000Because they're showing all the different styles.
00:09:19.000By showing grappling only and striking only, you get to see, like, the purest version of each individual style.
00:09:27.000Yeah, and they could appreciate it, right?
00:09:29.000Yeah, and they're getting guys in there like Nikki Holtzkin, like, you know, world-class kickboxers and...
00:09:34.000You know Giorgio Petrosian and all these like elite fighters and to have the elite strikers and then guys like you and I know they signed Gordon Ryan and Gary Tonin so there's the Rotolo brothers so there's all these like elite grapplers as well and then they're putting on these amazing shows very interesting I love the fact they're doing that I love the fact that they've by doing that they've really separated themselves from all these other organizations as well Yeah, it's incredible.
00:10:01.000And again, the exposure, it's giving Jiu Jitsu, which is growing so much.
00:10:06.000My last match with Iminari was the most viewed match in Jiu Jitsu history.
00:10:14.000So it just shows how their platform, which is huge, could help Jiu Jitsu expand so much, you know, and that's why I want to be a part of it and the growth of Jiu Jitsu.
00:10:51.000You're known for being a guy who trains a ridiculous amount of hours a day.
00:10:57.000Has that always been the case with you?
00:10:59.000Yeah, well, when I was in college, like, obviously my hours were limited with training, but since I've been out of college, like, I have so much more time now, so I'm just studying jiu-jitsu so many hours and drilling, you know?
00:11:13.000So I heard you drill sometimes 12 hours a day.
00:11:17.000Yeah, sometimes I'll end up drilling all day.
00:11:21.000If I'm studying a move or a position and I want to find an answer for it, sometimes it takes a long time.
00:11:29.000The puzzle of it is what makes me so interested in Jiu-Jitsu.
00:11:33.000Well, that's what's fascinating to me.
00:11:36.000It's one of the things that I really like to try to let people know about.
00:12:38.000And it never ends, the reactions or the variables of the person's body.
00:12:43.000The size of their limbs will alter the position.
00:12:46.000It's always been so fascinating to me.
00:12:49.000It never stops, so it keeps my mind every second having to figure out new things.
00:12:54.000So when you're working a drill, say if you're drilling for 12 hours in a day, Are you, like, say there's a position that maybe you got stuck in or a position where someone defended and you feel like there's a way to get through that?
00:13:50.000I watched you demonstrate that, and I was noticing there was a lot of people that were legit black belts that were like, oh shit, that really works.
00:14:05.000It's just so interesting how in jiu-jitsu we could alter positions with our body, you know, and just instead, like a heel hook, so people understand, is using your armpit.
00:14:13.000So what I figured out was using my neck instead of my armpit, which is also like a pit, and then it's the same efficiency as a heel hook.
00:14:26.000I was training and just figuring out different ways to control the foot to get to a heel hook, and then people started tapping when I was doing this, and I didn't even know I had a submission.
00:14:36.000And then I was like, oh my god, and then that became a submission.
00:15:01.000So there's a form of creativity to it and discovering things in the art.
00:15:05.000It really is an art, and it's an art that is very much appreciated by people who practice the art, and it's kind of hard for people who don't practice the art to appreciate it, because they don't understand it.
00:15:17.000When I first started doing commentary for the UFC, one of the biggest challenges was explaining jujitsu in a digestible way.
00:15:25.000When the fight would go to the ground, a lot of times people would boo or they didn't know what was going on.
00:15:30.000And so it was my job to try to explain the progression.
00:15:35.000And like, okay, now he's got to clear the right arm.
00:15:47.000So it made jujitsu more digestible to them and more exciting.
00:15:51.000Because instead of just seeing a bunch of legs and arms all tangled up, they got to see what the person was trying to accomplish.
00:15:59.000Yeah, like, even my friends that started Jiu Jitsu, they all start, they're like, oh, I want to do UFC or MMA, and then they go to the gym, and they look at the Jiu Jitsu stuff, they're like, no.
00:16:11.000And then they'll just keep seeing the Jiu Jitsu class, and then one day they'll try Jiu Jitsu one time, and then they switch to Jiu Jitsu, no Muay Thai.
00:16:19.000Yeah, well, it protects you from brain damage, too.
00:16:23.000The problem with Muay Thai and all these other things.
00:20:57.000The people that don't know, Mikey is sitting, his butt is totally on the ground, and then his heels are totally on the ground, and his heels are beside his legs.
00:21:09.000So it doesn't even look physically possible.
00:21:11.000I tried to get even close to that position.
00:21:16.000There's no room for that movement in my legs.
00:21:21.000Yeah, I think because I've been training jiu-jitsu 21 years, my body could just bend in certain ways that, like, it's so natural for my body.
00:26:51.000And what we would do is, I would go to high school, and before high school, I'd wake up like 4.30am, 5am, drill up my sister in my garage, and then I would go to high school.
00:27:02.000And then right after school, I would go train again.
00:27:06.000And when you would train again, then you would go to other gyms?
00:27:09.000And just train with the people at the gyms, yeah.
00:27:11.000And then when did you decide to start training in your garage?
00:27:15.000Well, I've always had mats in my garage to train with my sister.
00:27:23.000So my sister Tammy Musumichi, we would just train every day together, just drilling for hours.
00:27:28.000And then, but this decision to train primarily in your garage, even though you have access to all these gyms, in Vegas is a lot of jiu-jitsu.
00:27:36.000So I train at a lot of local gyms in Vegas with friends that also train in my garage, a gym called FTCC and Methods Jiu-Jitsu.
00:27:44.000So all these people train in my garage also, local people.
00:27:49.000We just started doing it, especially during COVID time.
00:27:53.000But every night I train in my garage in Vegas and a bunch of black belts and friends that I built up the last five to six years come to my garage.
00:28:02.000Do you think there's any benefit at all for you to be coached by someone else as well?
00:28:06.000Like if you came here and trained with John Donaher or something like that?
00:28:10.000Um, so I definitely get support from people, you know, like Heath Pettigo is a good friend of mine and he gives me like a lot of mental support and stuff, but um...
00:28:26.000The biggest thing I learned in jiu-jitsu is learning how you learn and learning how you succeed.
00:28:34.000And I feel like every Black Bowl World Champion is a little different how they do well.
00:28:39.000Some need a structured format by an instructor.
00:28:43.000Other people do better in other environments.
00:28:45.000For me, I feel like I do the best in this style of learning.
00:28:51.000I'm just more efficient with how I train.
00:28:54.000So do you think it's that, because you've been doing Jiu Jitsu since you're four years old, you have such a deep understanding of what it takes to get good and what you need to do, what steps you need to take to improve, that you really don't need anybody formulating things for you or creating structure.
00:29:13.000Basically, I feel like I'm at the point now where I can just focus on that and organize everything and obsess about all the things on my own.
00:29:22.000And you're just self-motivated as well.
00:29:55.000How does the long distance cardio help you mentally?
00:29:59.000So what's interesting about running in Airdyne, what I've noticed is the first 10 to 15 minutes, you have that voice in your head that's like, you're tired, stop, like it fights you.
00:30:11.000And you fighting that voice in your head after 15 minutes, it gets quiet, like it goes away.
00:30:17.000So when you compete, that voice in your head is always there.
00:30:21.000So it gives you the skill of being able to shut it off when you're fighting or competing because it's jiu-jitsu.
00:31:38.000Right now I'm competing at 135. I fight 125 in the US because you're allowed to cut water, but in the one championship they test for hydration, so it's actually healthier, so 135 in one.
00:31:55.000But you've gone up as high as, what, 155?
00:31:58.000I did open weight in 2020 at the Euros, so I fought those big guys.
00:32:07.000It's fun fighting the heavier division sometimes just to see how...
00:32:13.000It desensitizes you to your division when you fight the monsters in the heavier divisions, you know?
00:32:17.000So sometimes I'll do it just so then when I go back to my division, I feel like Superman from fighting those guys, you know?
00:32:25.000Do you worry at all about injuries because people are that big?
00:32:55.000I think when people get into like real high pressure, like very intense training and you have a lot of people that are very heavy that you're training with, that's where neck injuries and back injuries and shit starts happening.
00:33:08.000And even like the energy of the people you're training with, if they're there like to hurt you or are they there to like, like good vibes.
00:33:17.000Because I've trained in so many gyms as a kid where like the energy is so bad in the gym and it's a fight, you know, where people are stomping you in the face.
00:33:24.000People are trying to like break things.
00:33:27.000Everyone would be injured all the time.
00:33:29.000I'd go in before training on the side of the mat praying, God, please don't let me get hurt today.
00:33:45.000There's a real benefit to being a smaller grappler in that if you really pay attention to the guys like the Hoyler Gracies or Eddie Bravos or these guys that, you know, they started out their career smaller, they're more technical.
00:34:24.000I always say that about striking, too.
00:34:26.000Like, when little kids learn striking, when they learn striking early on, it's so good.
00:34:31.000Because they're not afraid to get hit, because they can't hit hard.
00:34:34.000So they kind of just touch each other, but they learn how to do things the proper way.
00:34:40.000Like, and they don't muscle everything.
00:34:42.000Because, like, if you teach a big, strong guy how to hit things, they try to, like, really wind up.
00:34:48.000But little kids, like, they'll just do this, like, the way you tell them to.
00:34:52.000So they'll keep their hands right by their cheeks and they'll throw punches the right way, whereas they don't open up to try to get extra horsepower into it.
00:35:00.000And I feel like it's the same thing with jiu-jitsu techniques.
00:35:02.000They'll be in the right position before they try to execute as opposed to try to force their way through something.
00:35:08.000Yeah, I feel like there's always going to be the natural strong guy that will...
00:35:12.000It's very hard for someone that's just learning Jiu-Jitsu not to use their strength, right?
00:35:38.000When I meet big guys, I'm like, learn how to fight off your back.
00:35:41.000Even though you probably won't be on your back because you're so big, but if you can just learn how to fight off your back, it will 100% benefit your top game.
00:35:48.000Yeah, it's interesting because I've talked to both Bushesha and Gordon who are like two of the best big people, most technical, right?
00:35:56.000And they both say that they train mostly with small people because they want to have the technique like the small people.
00:36:14.000When you look at the overall scope of Jiu Jitsu, like the Jiu Jitsu environment today, I'm so impressed with the level of technique.
00:36:26.000It is like, if you go back to Jiu Jitsu from the time the UFC entered the picture in 1993, If you go back then and you can see plenty of jiu-jitsu matches, you see really good technique.
00:36:39.000I mean, you watch Hicks and Gracie, and he's going against Higa Machado.
00:36:47.000But the level of jiu-jitsu today across the board is extraordinary.
00:36:53.000No, yeah, it's growing every year now, and I think it has to do with how the internet and the instructionals, like now all the moves that people are doing, it's getting spread, and then people are figuring out new things, and the growth is insane, you're right, like, it's insane.
00:37:43.000But it's sort of like noises that you can make with your mouth that lead to sentences, that lead to paragraphs, that lead to books.
00:37:51.000There's so many different ways you could put them all together.
00:37:54.000And that seems to be the same thing with Jiu-Jitsu.
00:37:56.000Jiu-Jitsu seems to be like a language that you learn with your body on how to submit people and manipulate their joints and put them to sleep.
00:38:06.000Yeah, and I feel like especially with the way that jujitsu is that it will never stop growing because it's infinite possibilities.
00:40:16.000I feel like it is so natural for me to compete in everything, you know, because it's my whole life doing it.
00:40:22.000But for sure, I feel like when I see someone message me that they're training jiu-jitsu because of me or that I've inspired them and they enjoy it and they're doing jiu-jitsu and not doing bad things, you know, to me that's everything that gives me a purpose to live.
00:40:41.000Have you always had this level of discipline that you have now?
00:44:57.000Just at a young age, cutting weight, you know, I would always be cutting like five pounds, ten pounds, nothing crazy, but I've done crazy cuts also.
00:46:19.000So there's no issue with performance at all?
00:46:22.000I mean, given your blood sugars and everything like that when you're training for extraordinary amounts of time during the day and not eating.
00:46:30.000So how I see it is I have to earn the food at night.
00:46:33.000So training all day is like me working for the food at night, you know?
00:46:37.000Like how people used to hunt and gather for food.
00:49:17.000Well, I train all day every second, you know, so if you're fasting for 20-24 hours and you just train every second, like, your body just burns all the fat on it, right?
00:49:28.000So you're basically eating for like one hour.
00:50:39.000What happened was I started doing this because I was doing a lot of seminars and I would be traveling all day and I would never be able to eat when I was traveling.
00:51:33.000So, I can make the dough with all the things, but it takes too long.
00:51:38.000I don't have patience, so I just get pizza dough from, like, Whole Foods or, like, Trader Joe's, and I'll start with that dough.
00:51:45.000But then I'm really particular with the cheeses, and, like, I go to, like, three different supermarkets for, like, cheese, basil, all the different ingredients, so it comes out really good.
00:55:11.000And I think that there's some real benefit to intermittent fasting, and there's definitely some real benefit to giving your body some time to digest whatever food that you have.
00:55:20.000I think there's a lot of people that are packing food on top of food.
00:55:24.000There's this constant cycle through their digestive system.
00:56:43.000Would you do any ice baths or saunas or like what kind of stuff do you do for recovery?
00:56:49.000So I have an infrared sauna in my house and every night I'll typically go in infrared sauna and I feel like that helps my aches in my body so much.
00:57:23.000But infrared I feel like is less impact so I can stay in longer and it's less like you're suffering.
00:57:29.000I wonder what's better for your body overall though because all the studies that have been done I think have been done primarily like the big ones they cite all the time been done on a dry sauna like there's one that was done out of Finland that's really fascinating where they found that four times a week 20 minutes a day at 175 degrees The people that participated in that had a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality.
00:58:00.000And it's directly attributable, they believe, to the release of cytokines, these heat shock proteins, from your body being in that intense heat environment.
00:58:11.000I wonder, like, that intense heat environment, though, 175 is very different than 140. Like, you know, the 140 in the infrared is tolerable.
00:58:44.000Base level structure cardio is very important to have this very strong base of cardio where you always are going to recover quicker.
00:58:56.000That's one of the real benefits of guys who run 6, 8, 10 miles.
00:59:01.000A lot of MMA guys are finding that out now.
00:59:03.000That they have this extra gear by putting in those long cardio runs, these long cardio sessions, multiple times a week, as opposed to just exploding.
00:59:29.000Some benefit to going really hot for like 20 minutes like I do, but also some benefit to going 140 and doing like an hour and maybe just like slow, like your body just has like a slow trickle of these proteins.
00:59:43.000Well, for sure when the hotter one that you do, you sweat faster, right?
01:00:20.000Well, it's just you have the ability to just suffer.
01:00:23.000Your self-imposed suffering is so much more difficult than most of what the world will give you, because you literally can't survive it for very long.
01:00:32.000The temperatures that I go into, when I hit 20 minutes at 185 degrees, I don't have much left.
01:01:05.000So it's like that also, but it's interesting that you said it gets rid of stress because every time I do like an Epsom salt bath, I'll fight way better because the pain from the bath is way worse than the anxiety of fighting.
01:01:17.000Well, the pain from the bathroom must be because of abrasions, right?
01:02:46.000I was lighter, but what happened was I got really sick from overtraining, and I couldn't train for a week, and I was eating like crap, and my weight went up to like 160, like very bloated.
01:04:34.000Because you're forcing your body to work and you're pumping all that blood through your system, but you're not really taxing it in a way that's exhausting it.
01:04:55.000That always makes me able to train more.
01:04:58.000Yeah, I know a lot of guys who do long, I forget what they call it, but it was like heart rate training, where they did long, slow training.
01:05:07.000And I would go, God, don't you feel like a pussy?
01:05:09.000Don't you want to push yourself and be exhausted?
01:05:11.000And they were like, yeah, but you can't.
01:05:13.000You're really just supposed to just kind of...
01:05:19.000And the thing about the sauna is when I'm in there, like my friend Bert put a heart rate monitor on himself in the sauna recently.
01:05:27.000I noticed that when I was using the MyZones thing too, is that I would get into the yellow.
01:05:33.000So I would get into like the 80% max heart rate, like in 140s.
01:05:37.000When at the end of my sauna session, so if I'm doing 180, that was, I was, back then I was trying this Laird Hamilton protocol where he was doing like in the 200s.
01:05:48.000He was doing like 210 and 215 degrees.
01:05:51.000So I'd crank it up to 205. I was just trying it, but I was cooking my mouth.
01:05:57.000Like I was having a hard time like with my throat and I realized, hey, you fucking idiot, you're cooking your throat.
01:06:46.000So that just makes, like, your skill level has to be so good with using no energy that you could fight on your deathbed.
01:06:54.000Wouldn't it be better if you just fought at a higher weight class?
01:06:57.000No, I fought at higher weight class too.
01:06:58.000Like, I won worlds at 141 and 125. Yeah.
01:07:02.000But just the experience of going down to a lighter division and challenging yourself where you feel, like, so weak and no energy and being able to overcome that, like, was fascinating to me.
01:07:14.000And when you did those, you had to weigh in right after competition or you have to weigh in right before competition.
01:07:20.000How much time exactly do they give you?
01:09:47.000I'd like to have someone like Andrew Huberman follow you around and sort of analyze what's going on with your body while this is happening.
01:09:57.000Well, I think another thing is cortisone.
01:10:00.000Cortisol, I think, with stress, it makes it harder to lose weight.
01:10:04.000Like, always cortisol affected me with losing weight from not being happy with what you're eating and stuff.
01:11:07.000They're like, if you eat this steak, we'll give you this toy.
01:11:10.000LAUGHTER But my whole life, all I ate was like pasta and pizza.
01:11:14.000So what's interesting is me eating the food that I ate since I was a little kid, my body absorbs it the best and I feel the best eating it.
01:11:22.000So is it because I ate that for so many years as a kid that my body just knows how to deal with it?
01:11:46.000I don't think there's anybody that I've ever heard of that's like a legitimate professional athlete at the highest level that eats like that.
01:12:33.000Keto, I've done five meals a day, protein, small amount of carbs, or where you're deficient in just fat, you're deficient in carbs, you're deficient in protein.
01:12:48.000And this was like while you were trying to cut weight?
01:12:51.000Yeah, and I feel like a big thing is because of the eating stuff I've had since I was a kid, I have a hard time with portions because of that.
01:12:59.000So because I don't have to have portions with this diet, I'm able to do it.
01:13:04.000Yeah, I saw a video of you at a restaurant with a giant bowl of pasta and a jug of olive oil.
01:13:10.000You're just pouring the olive oil all over the pasta.
01:13:13.000But I guess you need those fats from that olive oil too, right?
01:13:18.000Yeah, and it's funny because I once got kicked out of a pasta restaurant and all you could eat pasta restaurant for eating too many pasta bowls.
01:18:59.000But people would think that just training that many hours a day is suffering.
01:19:03.000If you're training with a purpose, you know, like if you go into training Jiu Jitsu and you're going in as a workout, I think that it would be very hard to train like I am.
01:19:11.000But if you're going in like you're solving a math problem and you're trying to figure out answers to the math problem, then it becomes easy because you're just so focused on one thing, you forget that you're even training.
01:19:22.000Well, you're very good at breaking down the steps to accomplish a submission.
01:19:30.000I like watching your videos that you do, like the Mikey Lock or some other techniques, your go-to techniques.
01:19:39.000That sort of systematic way of analyzing things and then being able to express that to other people, that seems to be very important to you.
01:19:51.000To me, it's so important because if we could subconsciously do something, that's cool.
01:19:56.000But if you could explain what you're doing, it's just so interesting to me how the body works and the correlations in the body.
01:20:04.000So that's what I enjoy about Jiu Jitsu, the science of it.
01:20:07.000Sometimes I'll go up to my friends that are in medical school or doctors and I'll be like, why is the body when I do this, this happens?
01:20:13.000And they'll be like, how did you figure that out?
01:20:15.000But it's just because I understand how the body works and manipulating the body gives us certain positions in Jiu Jitsu.
01:20:22.000Brian, you're very intimately connected to your body if you're getting it to the point of death multiple times a day.
01:20:33.000Right there, just a few steps away, multiple times a day.
01:20:38.000Do you think that this is one of the things that I felt from martial arts myself, and then I've recognized in other people too, that there's something that happens when you start teaching where you get better.
01:20:51.000100% because now you're seeing all the details you never realized.
01:20:55.000So you'll do a move, but then when you start teaching it, you'll notice, oh my god, wait, I'm doing this detail.
01:21:00.000And then now you're way more technical at the move, and then you evolve with the move.
01:21:19.000And then I had enrolled with him in like six months.
01:21:24.000And then I roll with them, and I was like, what the fuck is going on?
01:21:28.000Like, he immediately caught me to Kimura, and I fucked my elbow up, not tapping, trying to get out, because I was like, he doesn't catch me like this.
01:22:35.000When I stopped lifting weights and doing conditioning, I actually got stronger in training because I started learning how to become more efficient with how I use my body.
01:22:52.000So do you feel, though, that all of your muscles that you use in jiu-jitsu, that they get enough of a workout in doing just the various techniques that you really don't need to add anything to?
01:25:24.000Yeah, I mean, if you're training 12 hours in a day, I mean, even if you're just drilling, but you're probably not just drilling, you're live drilling and you're rolling.
01:26:20.000I'm wondering, because I've seen your performances, and I watch you eat, and first of all, I think there is something to the fact that you're enjoying your food so much.
01:26:48.000I mean, if you didn't care about jiu-jitsu, those 12 hours would be horrible because you would just be doing something you don't give a fuck about and then waiting to eat pizza.
01:27:50.000So what I love about competing is that I'm able to make the positions I'm doing valid.
01:27:55.000So my goal when I compete is to do a move or a position that I'm working.
01:28:00.000And if I can hit that move or position, then I feel like it's a valid move.
01:28:04.000Because I can do it in training, but I don't count it unless I do it in the top level.
01:28:08.000So say if you have the Marcelo Cohen fight, if you have a match like that, do you go into that match saying, I want to get this guy in a mounted triangle?
01:28:18.000Always I have a goal that I want to do a move.
01:28:22.000I guess because I've been competing so many years, that's the thing that satisfies me now, is hitting a thing that I'm working in the tournament.
01:28:31.000And what if you get, like, you're in a match and it's, like, very close, like, it's, like, neck and neck, and you see some opportunities for something else other than this move that you set out to do?
01:29:00.000Did you think, I'd like to leg lock Iminari?
01:29:03.000My mindset going into the match was I wanted to give him my leg and then attack his back or pass his guard off of that.
01:29:09.000I knew that he could do some damage in that spot, but I was so comfortable in those exchanges that I knew I could eventually pass his guard off of him attacking my leg.
01:29:19.000Well, he was attacking your ankle, and I was getting nervous.
01:29:29.000Yeah, so I knew that he wouldn't have enough leverage to finish my foot, so I knew that I could slowly work to take the back.
01:29:36.000How did you know he wasn't going to have enough leverage?
01:29:38.000Just because of the fulcrum you have in Noki to finish a straight footlock, his fulcrum was so small.
01:29:44.000Based on the position or just in general?
01:29:46.000Based on the position that he was doing, his fulcrum was very low and I controlled his hips in a way that he couldn't bridge enough to finish me.
01:29:54.000So I knew this going in that I could stop him from finishing me and I could slowly work to pass his guard and then take the back.
01:30:00.000Does it also help the fact that your ankles are so flexible that you have like a little bit of extra give that other people don't have?
01:30:07.000I feel like because the straight footlock is one of my best positions, I won Black Belt Worlds Finals in 12 seconds with it.
01:30:49.000Well, he's responsible for such a revolution in leg locks in MMA. Outside of the Donaher death squad and Dean Lister and all those people that are responsible for bringing leg locks into jiu-jitsu and making them such a primary part of people's attacks, if you go and you watch Iminari in the early days, like, Iminari, he was tapping everybody.
01:31:13.000George Gurjell, he tapped him, fucked his leg up with a heel hook.
01:31:44.000I mean, I'm sure you're going to have more to come, but that one alone, a lot of people are examining that and like, holy shit, this is very legit.
01:31:51.000Yeah, but he did his role in jiu-jitsu.
01:31:54.000He had an impact on my generation, you know, so he's such a legend.
01:33:02.000But isn't that fascinating that one is interested in doing something like that?
01:33:06.000I really wish the UFC would take chances like that and have those kind of matches where you have a mixed match, where you have one round MMA, one round full Muay Thai rules, one round back to MMA. To do it that way is amazing.
01:33:23.000Well, what it's doing is it brings the Muay Thai audience and the MMA audience together, and it shows true martial arts, and I feel like one championship really does that so well.
01:33:33.000And they just are joining Amazon Prime USA now, so then Americans will be able to start watching and they'll be able to see these mismatches.
01:33:40.000So it'll be streamed on Amazon Prime, right?
01:35:45.000So one championship, the format is the winner is whoever has the most submission catches.
01:35:51.000And real submissions, like legit submissions.
01:35:55.000So it forces you that if you want to win the match, you have to be going for the finish.
01:35:59.000And that's what's going to make people that don't know what Jiu Jitsu is, like Muay Thai, kickboxing, able to appreciate Jiu Jitsu.
01:36:05.000And then if you stall and you get a yellow card, and now you're losing money from your fight, your salary that you're getting paid to fight, you start losing a percentage of it as you get yellow cards.
01:36:45.000Like, I remember when my match went in Minari, like, Muay Thai people, kickboxing people that don't even know jiu-jitsu were able to watch it and, like, they thought it was cool.
01:37:04.000Well, when you look at the Rutolo brothers, when you look at Gary Tonin and you and Gordon, one thing that you guys all have in common is you all have very attack-based styles, and you take chances, and you go for the finish.
01:37:15.000The problem with jiu-jitsu in tournament format form is when there's points involved for takedowns.
01:37:22.000Points involved for passing, and points involved for just positions.
01:37:26.000There's a lot of people that get really good at positional control, but they don't get good at submissions.
01:37:32.000And they win world championships, but they don't submit anybody.
01:37:35.000Well, I think it has to do with the rule set and the incentive to submit someone is not that high in those formats.
01:37:41.000If to submit someone is the only way you win, whoever has the most submission catches, it forces you.
01:39:20.000Do you spend time working on wrestling?
01:39:23.000Do you spend time working on takedowns or judo or anything like that?
01:39:26.000So when I was a kid, I did a lot of wrestling.
01:39:29.000I actually got second place in Florida Seahorse Wrestling Tournament when I was a kid.
01:39:34.000So I love wrestling, but when I started training in the gym with just all these big guys, I felt like I was going to get hurt wrestling these guys because they would just throw me.
01:39:45.000So I started becoming a guard player, just training with so many big people.
01:41:50.000We would be able to take them down and like all of our knowledge in Jiu Jitsu we would all be able to take them down.
01:41:55.000There's something to be said for the fact that you are vulnerable to strikes in certain positions and that one of the things that's really interesting that has kind of emerged recently is combat Jiu Jitsu.
01:42:07.000And you see that from from Eddie Bravo's invention like what happens with palm strikes and open slaps like a lot of guys are getting fucked up.
01:43:01.000And people are forced to think about those things when they actually do MMA. But this is like a really interesting sort of a middle ground.
01:43:08.000I think for someone transitioning to MMA, it's actually a great format because it teaches you, okay, if I'm doing this, I'm going to get hit in the face.
01:44:10.000So, I go hiking in Gold Strike, and I was out for like three hours, and I went hiking, a long hike, and I come back from this hike, and all of a sudden, my taste and smell came back after doing this hike.
01:47:36.000The reason why I'm asking this is the people that I know that are young and healthy that wound up getting COVID really bad, they tried to keep working out.
01:47:56.000And then he was supposed to recover and rest and relax, back to the gym, keep training, spitting up blood, coughing up blood, and he wound up getting hospitalized on more than one occasion.
01:48:08.000Just too tough and not being smart about it, not taking the time off and letting your body recover.
01:48:14.000So I wonder, because you got it so bad, it seems so crazy because you're so healthy, and all you do is basically work your body out and exercise.
01:48:38.000Because with you, you're also, I mean, also another guy that that happened to was Cody Garbrandt in the UFC. He did the exact same thing.
01:48:46.000He got COVID and he just kept training, kept training.
01:48:48.000And he didn't even know he had COVID until he went to Mike Tyson's hot boxing show.
01:48:54.000So he was going to be a guest on Mike Tyson's show and they swab him and they say, hey man, you got fucking COVID. And he's like, oh, that's what's been going on for the past month.
01:49:02.000So for more than a month, he had COVID and he kept training.
01:53:25.000And that's what's so beautiful about it.
01:53:26.000It is what it's beautiful about it is that there's so many levels of complexity.
01:53:30.000And that when you see a guy like yourself that is at this very, very high level in world-class competition, you see these levels of complexity playing out in terms of offense and defense and To someone like myself that's been doing jujitsu forever, it's so thrilling.
01:53:53.000Because I get to sit down there and watch people like yourself and Gordon Ryan and the Rotolo brothers and all these incredible competitors.
01:54:53.000It's because everyone's different, and embracing your strength is what makes the top people the top people.
01:55:01.000Do you get together with any of the top people and compare how you handle training and how you handle learning and deciphering certain positions?
01:55:12.000Well, just from training 21 years, I've been able to observe many of the top people and how they train.
01:55:19.000And from that, it gave me ideas of how they train.
01:55:21.000And like I said, I've noticed all of them train a little differently.
01:55:27.000So that shows you how everyone is individual in Jiu Jitsu and they have to learn differently.
01:55:33.000Do you know anybody that's on your level that trains like you, where you basically are in charge of your own training and you devise your own strategies for dealing with various problems?
01:56:07.000He goes, yeah, it's like live drilling, but they can't really stop you from doing it.
01:56:12.000Because if you're rolling with a black belt, he's going to have an answer for all the things you're doing, and you won't really be able to practice any offense.
01:56:18.000You're just going to be defending yourself all the time.
01:56:20.000But if you roll with a blue belt, you'll be able to just cut through all of his stuff and just keep tapping him over and over again.
01:56:49.000And making the room, everyone improve in the room.
01:56:52.000Well, it's very important, even with this idea of rolling with lower-class belts, where they don't have the skill to compete with you, it's very important for them to know that there are people out there that can do that to them.
01:57:06.000Because I remember the first time that happened to me, when I first started doing jiu-jitsu, I was super delusional.
01:57:10.000And I was like, I'm a good athlete, I'm fucking strong, I'll be fine.
01:57:13.000And I rolled with this guy who was my size who just manhandled me.
01:58:09.000I feel like so much in striking, once you know the technique, so much of it is timing and movement, and so much of it is if you have a really good athlete with natural power, they have certain advantages.
01:58:23.000There was no advantages to be had in jiu-jitsu.
01:58:25.000All of it is like, you didn't know what the fuck you were doing, and some guy's just gonna come along and do whatever he wants to you.
01:58:31.000But I think it's important for the beginner just to know that that's down the road.
02:02:29.000Right now, one championship because I'm living in Singapore.
02:02:32.000Right, so you do that, that's September, fighting for the belt and then you said somewhere around the end of the year maybe the Mighty Mouse match?