Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 127 - Paul Sharp

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Paul Sharp retired from a twenty-year career in law enforcement from the city of Elgin, located on the NW outskirts of Chicago. He served his community in a variety of capacities including patrol, undercover, narcotics, SWAT, and the resident officer program. He is a firearm, defensive weapons and tactics, bladed edge instructor, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, and the owner of SBG Illinois.

This week's episode is brought to you by Onit, your platform, your landing page, your source for total human optimization. If you are into training, conditioning, tightening up that combat chassis that you're walking around town with, or maybe you don't walk around town. I don't know. Maybe you drive. I just don't know. But if you are looking for optimization, go to onit.com. Hot. On n-N-I-T-com slash hot. When you get there, stand by to have some choices. Across the top, supplements, nutrition, fitness, apparel, sale, and content. Then if you start scrolling vertically, you're going to get the alpha brain right up front and center at the top.

Let's see Neutropic for memory, focus, and processing speed. The power food active, the fitness, the total gut health. I have recently been scrolling between the nutrition and the food. In the past, I've talked a lot about MCT oil or, well, maybe not a lot, but I've talked about how I will often use MCT oil in my coffee, but it comes with the warning label because if you use too much, you're going to need a diaper, but there's a bunch of stuff in the nutrition and the supplementation section. So go in there and check it out.onit.com slash hot for your total human optimization. My guest for this week is a return guest, one of my favorite people. His name is Paul Sharp. He is a, I want to say recently retired law enforcement officer, but he's also kind of working law enforcement part time. So I guess he would be partially retired. But he works just outside of Chicago, northwest of the city of Chicago. And he has served in a variety of capacities. in his law enforcement career. Patrol, undercover, narcotics, SWAT, the resident officer program, I think it is safe to say he is seen and experienced the broad spectrum of what law enforcement

is asked to do. He's currently a firearms and defensive tactics and weapons instructor. He teaches courses on bladed edges and happens to be a Brazilian jiu jiu jutsu black belt and the owner of SBG, which stands for straight blast gym, Illinois. I have not had the chance to roll with Paul, but I suspect it would be like rolling with a bag of rocks because he's tall and he's big and he's strong and I don't ever want him to get both of his hands on my collar. I'm sure at some point that roll is on the horizon

and I'm pretty sure it's not going to go my way. Having said that, I'm still going to attack his face like a spider monkey. So if you're listening to this, Paul, you better watch yourself. and I'll just let him speak for himself. Enjoy. To the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. It's not technical at all. I found people will complain about that.

They will, but that's their problem. What are you supposed to do if you're six feet tall and two hundred and five pounds? What do you want me to do? You want me to shrink? Like, it's not my problem. I'm trying to be very cognizant. Like, I mean, I'll frame more to keep my weight off, but I can't change what I weigh. You can't do that.

Like, I've always tried. So one of the things Chris said for a long time ago was always try. Yeah, he said always try to roll like you're a smaller person. It'll make you better when you run into the person that's bigger than you. What does that mean roll like a smaller person? So try not to use like the super heavy top game as your only means to hold somebody down. Try to use like leverage and movement and all that kind of stuff to hold somebody down rather than just smash and crush. But if you don't have that leverage and touch.

If you don't have that leverage, then you still have that way. crush and that was the thing so then I thought like so I did I train I try to train like that for quite some time and then I realized I got to a point where I could kind of switch it on and off the pressure game yeah so you get to a point where against certain people you can turn it on smash them sufficiently and then go into a more technical game and then but first you're saying established dominance and then rotate into the then you can switch it off yeah because it's like That's like trying to tell a boxer like you shouldn't use your superior footwork or your superior hand-eye coordination to punch a dude in the face. I understand the, I wouldn't even call it a complaint.

I understand the comment. But I hope that people make that comment, realize that you can't change your height or weight. So I'm sorry if you got genetically predisposed to being a short, curly-haired ginger midget. That likes to hurt people excessively with wrist locks. I'm not talking about Travis. I'm talking about anybody in particular. Maybe if that person likes to wrist lock people, ruthlessly, he'll hook people. He tried to get me the other day.

I was in his closed guard, which is a mistake. I just don't, yeah, I found the best offense to close guard is not getting into it. Yeah. I try not to let them. Don't go there. Yeah, try not let him close their legs, but he did. Yeah. And I was getting my hand position.

With her stumpy legs. Yeah. And he tried to pull, he basically tried to wrist lock my grip. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no. You know what the thing is like that. Like, Travis, the reason Travis is so gnarly. and Chris, Houter, they're so gnarly because...

Are they relatively the same size? Same size. Pretty much the same size. I think, well, Travis is bigger from, you know, all the weightlifting and stuff. From a height perspective, or are you talking about density? height-wise, they're the same. I want to say they're about the same. Okay.

I've seen pictures of density. Houter, I've never met him. Yeah, density-wise, you know, Travis is heavier. But Travis spent years rolling with big dudes, like at the Portland Gym and stuff and just getting crushed, you know, by that. size disparity. And so he's so able to, like you can take Travis and try to crush him and it's not going to happen. Because what am I as a guy who's like barely six foot and like 220 or whatever, what am I going to do that he hasn't already encountered with people that are 6, 6 and 300 pounds? So that's a handful, 6600.

That's a beast. Got to get on their back. Yeah. Or just not get underneath them. Or just not go there. Maybe just offer to buy him a drink, you know. But yeah, he's, yeah, man. And I think, too, they're...

Roll like you're small. I like that. Yeah, roll like you're small. Think of it like always trying to put yourself in those positions. And Gary Tonin talked about that a little bit. When he was at the BJJ Fanatics place, he talked about how he's just always drilling from a bad position. Because getting and staying in a good position for a guy at that skill level,

It would probably be similar to a larger person rolling with a smaller person. Getting and staying in a good position is not that hard. Yeah. So what do I need to work on? Those worst case scenarios where I'm going to be stuck in a bad position, where I'm going to run into that guy that's bigger or stronger than me, or just more skilled than me, and he puts me on my back, and then now I'm basically a turtle.

So here's a question for you then. Would you start in that bad position, or would you start and allow somebody to work to get to that bad position and then fight your way out of it? You know what I'm saying? I start there. I do. You know what I'm saying?

One is like allowing your partner to work potentially on that portion of the game and then you fight that. Yeah. Yeah, there's some value to that, I think. But just for efficiency of time, you know, just time. That makes sense. Management type thing. I prefer to just, and almost 100% of our live rolling is positional. Let's just start here.

And you start from a bad worst case scenario and let me work my way out. reset go again until the rounds up and then we switch places and then it's their turn and so then I get to work the other side of the coin like holding their back hooks in yeah you know what's your least favorite starting position that one yeah I hate somebody's on your back with the on my back and so I hurt my knee and so I hurt my knee and I and our competition class uh cap class we were focused on back takes back control submissions from the back So the first part of the month, the first two weeks was how to escape. Second two weeks was how to attack.

So, you know, well, because my knees hurt, I can't do this. I can't have somebody pulling on my leg and all that stuff. So I had to spend the whole month with somebody on my back just trying to just kill me. So I'm very confident in my ability to get out of there. After 30 days straight. 30 days straight of that. But I am still not a. fan. That would be, to me, that's the most

claustrophobic feeling. Having somebody on top of you, trying to smash you and crush you and all that, that just kind of gets, that just kind of makes you giggle. Because you're just like, you got to laugh because it sucks so bad. But having somebody on your back, that feeling of helplessness where you just

you can't get anything, you can't control anything, and they're just moving. You know they're just 100% attacking. What's your favorite starting position? That one. I want to be on their back. So you want me on the back? If I can get on their back, because there's so little they can do to me. What if you add strikes?

Maybe the same because I'm a lame striker. I don't think you're a lame striker, but I figured you would switch maybe to Mount Top if you were to add strikes. Yeah, so maybe Mount Top, but more, I would probably go more either knee ride or side control. Because from side control, you can drop elbows. Yeah. And you can throw knees so I can alternate head to body and it's hard for them to be in every place. You're a poor striker, right? I am a poor striker.

I'm a poor striker. You're so full of shit. So that allows me to make it so it's hard for that. They can't get to every opening, right? In time. And then eventually I can make something happen from there where I can either submit them or knock them out or make them quit. Yeah.

Body strikes knees to the body from side control will make you see Jesus. I think people undervalue a body shot in the absolute destruction and damage they can come from that. Not even like, I'm sure it feels like shit. in the days, the weeks that follow. Yeah. But seeing people drop like a sniper shot to the chest for a liver punch. Yeah.

So when I was at Lord's Gym in Miami, North Miami, that was the first time I'd ever been knocked out, period, by another human being, you know. And then also it was the first time I'd experienced a body shot. And so the trainer there was Totti Hernandez. He's a Cuban immigrant, part of the boat lift. and he had been an Olympic level boxer and coach. And he hit me with a body shot,

just demonstrating the need to not, because I kept backing myself into the corner. And I don't know why. I just kind of felt comfortable. Like, I felt like if I'm in the corner, it shuts down their ability to move around me. And so now it's just a straight on war of attrition.

Well, at least you're controlling the stuff that's on your flanks and directly behind you. Yeah. So it kind of makes sense. Unless you have an Olympic level boxer. It totally makes sense here. Not so much here.

You know, because he got frustrated with me constantly doing that. And so he did this switch. So he's, you know, standing conventional. And he switches feet and cracks me on the other side underneath of my elbow. And that's the last thing I really remember for about two days. I mean, I just, except for pain. And that, man, I had so much from that point on, I just became a body shot. hunter. I just wanted to hit people in the body.

To, of course, pass on the lesson that you had passed on you. It was for educational benefit of those you were sparring with. But I just saw that benefit where it just wrecked me and made me unable to continue. It was like the equivalent of a rear naked of a choke in jujitsu where it just, it didn't matter that I wanted to keep fighting. I couldn't. Did your body just shut down? My body shut off. I literally went, what I can remember of it. And my friend was watching from the side and he was just laughing.

And of course, you know, they're like, man, your knees came all the way up. You just kind of were in the air for a second. And then, and I'm like, yeah, that's exactly what it felt like. But I just kind of went vertical fetal and then hit the ground. And then that's it. I just rolled around on the tarp for a good two or three minutes just in agony. I never felt anything like that before and became a fan. How hard do you think he hit you in comparison to what he was capable of?

Probably like 30, 40%. That's frightening. I would say 34%. I mean, he was so kind as a sparring partners and coaches go. Did you utilize any of these techniques in your lobby boxing? Yes, we did. So we should talk about lobby boxing? Lobby boxing is awesome.

Well, it's where it's at. Depends on if you work in the lobby or you're participating in lobby boxing. Chris Conley, I want to say, is still the lobby boxing champ. I would not want to raise hands to that man. It's going to hurt. We might as well talk about how you got to the lobby boxing. So set the stage. Shenatigans.

Yeah. I'm a fan of shenanigans is a good thing. So we were a straight blast gym camp in Portland and guys are, you know, partaking in alcoholic beverages. All adults. They're all adults. Yeah, they're winning participants. Yeah, yeah, like, whatever. And so for some reason, we just decided that there was some unsettled business from

training earlier and we needed to hash it out. A little grudge. Not even really a grudge, just so much the normal trash talking that happens when you're around the singers and Conley, the king of trash talking. And nobody can hang with that dude when it comes to talking trash. And so we decided like, hey, let's do it right here. We got room. Do you remember who's house?

idea it was to start right now i don't i want to say probably adam singer he probably he's an instigator but it's okay since you said adam did he want to participate or was he promoting he was promoting and thank god he did not want to participate because he's the probably the second person to knock me to my knees with a with a shot really he hit me on top of my head with an overhand right he was demonstrating short overhand and in the portland spg on martin luther king boulevard we're up in the ring and and we're moving around. And I don't know if I got lucky, like landed something on him. Just pure luck, because he's really skilled way far beyond me for striking.

And he just juked me and hit me on top of the head. Is that a legal hit? It would be, yeah, because it wasn't behind. It wasn't anywhere. But was it like the top top of your head? Yeah, hit me right there. Oh, damn. And I'm pretty, it's probably what started my aneurism now that I think about it.

How did he reach that? He's only like four six. He's four six and like four six wide at that time. How did he reach the top of your head? I ducked. So I gave it to him. And he just thomp and flash knockout. I just hit the ground.

I was on my knees. I was like, whoa, what happened? And of course, you know, Adam being Adam, he's like, are you okay? Are you okay? You know, I'm just overly worried for like two days. Are you okay? He's the coolest dude ever. Every time he would see me, are you okay?

You know, and like, you could tell he's like trying to see my pupils. Yeah. And I'm like, dude. you got lucky like I'm good you know I'm fine so Adam was promoting and I'm promoting and um I think Kavanaugh was one of the first matchups yeah there was a bunch of dudes got involved and was the individual bouts or were there multiple lobby boxing individual bouts individual like let's just do it type things you know it's like me you me let's get it and for clarity of people either listening or watching the people who worked at this hotel had not agreed to have a lobby box

No, this was not sanctioned. Okay. This was not sanctioned. This was a non-sanctioned bout. So we got it on. And, um, yeah. How far would you guys take it? Uh, until somebody says, yeah, I got to, I'm good.

Yeah. Which is going to be never for most dudes. But you guys had on full protective gear and mouthpieces, right? Ha ha. In the form of beer. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah.

Oh, there was, that. Um, I remember Conley, um, He had this sneaky thing where he, he would stick you with his left hand. So your left hands up and he would stick his left hand on your hand and just like pin your arm to your body and then crack you over the top of it. Which was miserable enough with gloves. Without gloves, it is horrendous. Yeah. You just want to quit.

You want to like, hey, I'm going to go do I keto or something. I want to go do something that doesn't involve getting punched. Yeah, he's a big boy too. Chris is no joke. Yeah. Yeah. Chris has got a solid background. And he's done like the personal protection gigs and he's fought a crazy amount of times, unsanctioned and sanctioned.

He was one of those guys that, like we all did in the beginning where it's like, hey, you know, we got this place they want to host a fight and they want some fighters and, you know, just give us a name. Okay. You know, like that's all you want for me. You just need to know my first name. Interesting. Yeah. So Chris did a lot of that stuff where he fought, you know, a couple times of months. and stuff. It's no joke.

For those guys who, I mean, the group of people you're talking about, you know, to give it some context, you guys have known each other for a long time. You had trained together forever. So, I mean, you're simulated fighting to a degree every day on the mats. How hard do you think it would be to get those guys to fight somebody randomly outside of the lobby boxing? You mean to like get a like a street fight? Yeah. I guess the point I'm getting to is I find that those people who are the most capable are the least willing to actually,

yeah, they're the least willing to actually engage. Yeah, you're going to have to push a lot of buttons. Yeah. You're going to have to really push those guys to get on the... But yet you guys will beat the shit out of each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we had this bouncer once.

I thought we had this bouncer at a place in Portland. We were visiting and one of our guys was not drinking. So he was having a sprite or something. And the bouncer took offense to this. To the sprite? Well, told him you need to. to order an alcoholic beverage. I think I know what kind of establishment this was.

Yeah, he's like, you have to have an alcoholic beverage and we're like, no, we're not drinking. You know, like we talked before, like most of my life's been straight edge. Yeah. So I'm like, I don't drink, man. Or you could just be the DD. The guy could be being the responsible adult. Yeah, right. So just be cool.

We guys got to go. And he made such a stink about it that finally we all were like, okay, we'll leave. It's all of these guys, you know. So we're walking outside. we get outside on the sidewalk and he's following us, like berating us. You can tell he wants to fight, but he's not ready for that fight.

And it just, that's what I think about like that kind of stuff when people ask that question or we have, we talk about, you know, do these guys go out and look for fights? Like that would have been the easiest fight in the world to take. Yeah.

You could just turn around and just plowed that deal. But nobody did. Yeah. We just kept on walking. We just walked down to the, the next place and kept our night going, you know. But, you know, but at that time, it was just kind of funny to think, like, here's this guy who probably does some sort of taekwondo or something, because it was back the nowadays. And he has no idea that he's talking to guys that just literally

were fighting in the cage like a week ago. I find it interesting, too, that, you know, the guy following the group probably was doing a bunch of posturing or, you know, the traditional, the whole thing pre-violence indicators and I find that the people who are the most capable of violence they just skip those steps just go yeah right when it's time to go just they skip all of that or they'll recognize in somebody like they're they're that person is trying to ramp themselves into it yeah where and they'll just like oh okay I'll just I'll just cut you off here at the on ramping yeah just throw just throw something yeah and you know the best part now that I'm thinking more about that I was raped behind him behind the guy who I'm walking chirping behind him it's not a very good tactical

on that guy's part. I was like, I just choke you up, bro. Yeah. You know, but he'd be fortunate if that was the result versus getting struck. Yeah. For sure,

you know, and that's something I always think about, you know, I was watching a pretty high, two high level black boats roll. One's a world champion and one's competitive, but not a world champion, but still like,

you know, tough dude. And the world champ is rolling with this guy, and it's just the disparity in skills. was amazing, like impressive, just one of those things where you just watch it over and over again. Like, how is he shutting this other dude that I know is a stud? But he's just shutting him down and just not clowning him, you know, but just doing good work. And so we're watching over and over.

So I sent it to Adam and Rory and Chris, and we were talking about it. And Adam made a good point, which was, could you imagine if that disparity in skill occurred in a boxing match. Oh. It would be a hospital visit. Yeah. You know, it would definitely,

it would be a potential lifelong damage. Oh, yeah. Comes from that, yeah. Right. So, yeah, and like you said, so the best case scenario for somebody like that in the street

is that somebody like one of us just chokes them out. It gently puts them on the ground as opposed to letting go and letting his head crack off the concrete. Yeah, right? Because that's what kills them is not this,

but it's that. Yeah. You know? So, yeah, the best case scenario for them is we just choke them out and then sit them up against the wall and let them come to you later. Try to figure out for themselves.

What just happened? Who's shit in their pants? Yeah, exactly. Like, why are my pants wet? What just happened? Who peed in my pants? These aren't even my pants. I remember what we were going to talk about when we were texting.

We were going to talk about police training. Police training, yeah. You definitely should talk about that. We were going to, trying to think of the exact word that you used, but basically like the shift in police training, I believe. Yeah, so there's like, yeah, just the shift away. from goods. So if you look historically, the 50s, the 60s,

you look at the manuals, police training manuals and stuff, you'll see a lot of boxing and judo, boxing and wrestling, boxing judo wrestling, and maybe some of the jujitsu, more hardcore, like wrist-locking type things. Would that be, when you say jujitsu, would that be Japanese? Japanese, Japanese jih Tijuana. and stick work that's actually effective and that kind of thing. And then you kind of see this shift to stuff that we see now that just doesn't work.

How does the stuff that doesn't work get its way into police organizations? And I ask because it makes it makes less sense to me. And I've talked about this on previous podcasts. We did very little hands-on training when I was in mostly. it was prisoner control, but we'd bring particularly this one individual in who, even at the time, I didn't know shit. I still don't know shit now, but like alarm bells were kind of ringing. Like, this doesn't make sense. Right.

I haven't seen that much, but I've never seen that ever naturally occur, the movements. Yeah. And then nobody ever used it to my knowledge. Right. But we also, at our job, you know, you train for 18 months and then go overseas and your deployment might be to a boat or somewhere else. So you may never use it is what I'm saying. Right. In the law enforcement world, you guys, from my understanding, are touching people almost on a daily basis. Every shift. So then how does something that doesn't work get its way into an organization where it should be at least field pressure tested slightly every day?

Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of it is liability. So that's kind of the word a lot of people like to use as the excuse. And I'm liability for the officer or the department. Department and the city, more specifically the city or the municipality rather than the. department. So because you will have guys in the department, you'll have command staff in the department that realize this is just not going to work. But it is a bill of goods that gets sold as we will decrease liability. And also there's the element of the cinema. You know, there's the element of the movies. Like you see these like your favorite guy Seagal, you know, like you see him, we're sucking dudes and tossing them all around and we know that doesn't happen. You know, we know

that like that guy that's called an uki like he's volunteering to do that for you he's selling it for you just like professional wrestling no way dude yeah it was in a movie it was he was a chef yeah he's a chef but um don't talk shit about kacy ryeback all right his service record is in the ceo's safe yeah it's locked up yeah so uh and i think that's the thing is that we see that just like we'll see you know i've had family members that will see some sort of or like systema or, you know, no touch or one touch knockout stuff. Yeah. And they will legitimately, as genuinely as possible, ask me, why don't you guys just do

that? And because they really think it works. They really think it's a legit answer to the problem. And the public doesn't really know because how many people out there actually get into altercations on a regular basis, how many have ever had to deal with another human being that's struggling against them to whatever degree. It's not like every fight's a knock down, drag out. Yeah.

But you do put hands. You're going to handcuff somebody every shift. You're going to put your hands on somebody. Even if you don't make an arrest, if you're working in a place where it might not be that busy, you might have to walk somebody out. Yeah. You're going to put your hands on people. And my point in comparing into the military is at least from a statistical perspective,

the odds of it getting field tested are so astronomically high. Yeah. And so do you think that there, you think that the administration, when they're looking at it from liability, you think they realize it's not as effective and they're willing to just take that risk for the officers? I think there is some of that there. I think there's also some of the, well, it's never been a problem before. Everybody likes those debriefs, you know, where we just, the debrief is, hey, so nobody got hurt. Did all right. Good job, guys. Nobody got hurt today. Well, that's not really true. I mean, nobody got hurt, not because we were. so superior, but because maybe they sucked or maybe they just didn't have the will. Or you had a statistically anomalous day where the calls that you went to were different than your normal shift. Right. And that's the thing.

So, you know, they kind of fall into that trap, you know, where they become complacent because it just hasn't been an issue up until now. And if you think about it, it's not just in police work, you know, it's in every area. Look at the issue with like PPE with hospitals and stuff. Yeah. You know, they're like, well, we've never. had this issue before. And so, you know, you kind of fall into, well, we can work a shift with four nurses on the floor. Now you can't. Yeah. You know, and so that's the thing. So that,

that, that happens in every profession where you, you have a first responder role where they learn to just keep scaling back because budgetary wise, you know, if I can, if I can get the job done with, you know, six firefighters, EMTs, you know, and, you know, and. six cops, why would I staff it fully? Well, it's a difference between, you know, you plan for the worst and hope for the best. What you're describing is planning for the best and hoping for even better. Yeah, yeah, and just hoping nothing really bad happens. Yeah, that's a thin facade.

It is. And when it falls apart, it falls apart bad. And people get hurt on both sides of the fence, right? Did you ever see people in the street as an officer, other officers using stuff that they had been taught that you would describe as ineffective, trying to use it? Yeah. How'd that work out for him? Bad.

Bad. That's the thing. And here's the thing. It works out bad for everybody involved because if you tell me that if I put my hand underneath their nose and I push up, that's going to cause some sort of compliance. And all it really does is turn this guy big and green and super strong. Like, you just made the hawk, bro. Like, why didn't you just climb on his back, get positional dominance, control him from that perspective.

where he mentally and physically realizes he can't make a move because you're just dominating him. Yeah. You know, he'll put his hands on his back. But you put him in pain, he's going to start fighting. It's just natural. Yeah, you can trigger the fight portion of the fight or flight. Yeah. And you can't expect them to do anything else.

I wouldn't expect them to do anything else. If I'm putting them in pain and they have no way to comply, like because there's a pile of us on them and he can't get his hands out from underneath of him, and I keep putting him in pain, what do you think is going to happen? It's going to get worse. Yeah, because nothing he's doing is working. Yeah, and he'll get to a point where he thinks he's going to die. So he has nothing to lose, and he's going to try to fight for his life. And have you ever had that point in time where you're in so much pain that it doesn't hurt anymore?

Or it's just a degree of misery. I've had it. Yeah, you just, where you're like, fuck it, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so they're going to feel that. They're going to have that moment where they're like, no matter. what I do. And I've actually heard guys say that. No matter what I do, you know, you're just going to

keep twisting my arm. You're just going to keep doing this or doing that. And so for me, it's, it's, it's always, you know, the, the route I always took was the jih Tzu wrestling combination. That's just a superior way to control a resisting body. Were you in the majority or minority? Were you in the majority or minority. Minority. Minority. Even in this modern day, you think? I think so.

I think because I think for us, we, we kind of fall into the trap of seeing only Jujitzi people all the time. And so, you know, in my gym, I have a whole bunch of first responders that train. I think part of it is just because of who I am, like my background, you know, they kind of relate to me or whatever. And at the same time, if I go to another gym, there will always be. be like three or four cops or three or four firefighters. It'll come up and talk to me and stuff.

And I think what happens is we kind of fall into thinking that's everywhere. But in reality, you know, if I look at it, well, that's, so I have, let's say I have five cops that train here in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. That's only like less than one percent of their department. Yeah. You know, so that's the issue. Do you find, because I'm assuming you talk to people that you. you work with about it who are not involved in it. Do you find resistance from them?

From the guys themselves? No, not really. Some of them kind of, there are guys that are going to fall into the, well, I've never had to use it before, you know, just like you're going to run into the, I don't have to use an airbag on my car before either, but I want to have it. My seatbelts. Yeah. I still want it there, though.

Yeah. You know, yeah, we're going to run into those guys that have that argument where it's like, hey, man, I've never needed it. Why do I need it now? or this is going to sound like bragging, but I've had guys that were like, why would I need to train? I can just have you come over.

Assuming that you're available to do so. Yeah, yeah. And I know it's not just me that has heard that because I've talked to other guys and other departments and they'll hear the same thing. Like, we'll just call you in. If we have a guy that's having, we're having a hard time in the jail with a guy,

we'll just call you over or whatever it might be. And that's cool for you. It's good to be that. Yeah, it's good to have that resource. It's cool to have those abilities where you know like, hey, I can help. You know, I can help you guys out with this. But the frustrating thing is, oh, what if I'm not here? Yeah.

And like I tell everybody, you know, when I teach self-defense, like, listen, I'm not going to be walking with you to your car at night. So you need to get this. You need to take this series and train hard because there's nobody coming for you. It's going to be you for at least two minutes. And that's in a town with a good response time. I think I was actually listening to the podcast, a podcast you did recently, or maybe it was one that you reposted. You were talking about that, about the measure of a coach is their student's ability, not the coach's ability. Yeah, for sure.

Which I think that's probably a tough one because you have to step outside of your own ego. It's not about me here. It's because if I'm awesome, I'm going to show you these awesome things and you get murked on the way to your car. Yeah, right. That's not great for me. I was like, you should have paid attention. But yeah, that's the thing. It's like you have to at a certain point start to realize that the student is your product, so to speak.

You know, we're making something and the student is that something. And their ability to defend themselves, their ability to be safer in this world or feel safer in this world to be a tougher, harder target that's on us to create that for them. That's why they come to us. Yeah. How would you reform police training with that in mind? I would start out in the academy. I would go back to letting people, they used to allow people to box. Smokers, basically.

Yeah. But I would do it with our training methodology, like the, you know, what you guys would call the crawl, walk, run, or the intro, isolate, integrate model. I would use that where we allow them to kind of habituate to getting hit. get it so because here's the thing man the first time you get hit on a call or the first time somebody gets up in your face talking garbage and trying to instigate you into doing something stupid uh it wouldn't it be better to have just endured all kinds of hell and training yeah and gone through smokers and gone through all that kind of stuff and in that way you get out there and you get on this call and you're like whatever it's a startling experience the first time you're punched directly in the face yeah right This is not pleasant It's not pleasant Recommended 10 out of 10 wouldn't do it again Or wouldn't have wanted to happen the first time

But if you don't know like the natural physiological reaction That's probably What's gonna happen Catch it straight on the nose And your eyes are gonna water Like in there's stuff that you can't control Yeah If you think that it's gonna be

You know perfect scenario And you're gonna go out there And just John Wick people While taking shots to the face Like you have another thing coming to you And that's the thing You need to have experienced that you need to have felt that.

And the professions that were like from on the military side, I think you should have on the law enforcement side. I mean, personally, I would like every adult male to get punched in the face at least once. At least. Well, because it would change the posturing. It would change the verbal peacocking that goes on. I'm just going to go off. Yeah.

I'm going to find the beast mode. I'm just going to. Yeah. No, you're not. You don't want to see me with a man. Actually, I don't really care. I'm curious to see it now. Yeah.

Yeah, now I need to see it, you know. But that's the thing. I think, yeah, getting punched in the face would be a big step forward. But that would take a lot of work on the part of administrations to accept that liability. Also, the hiring process, you would have to be willing to have those people, to say to those people, you can't. First off, yeah, man, it would take so much because you punch a student in the face or, you know, a cadet in the face. They get cracked in the jar or whatever, and they don't like it. And then they go and follow work comp clean.

Yep. You know, you'd have to start there with how to resolve that issue. First, I've already thought about this for the last minute. I think I figured it out. We create a device that punches people in the face. So everybody gets a uniform and standard. This got like a little laser, crosshair, and you put it on the bridge of your nose. It's just the same for everybody.

It's the same for everybody. So the instructor, the first day, takes a shot in the face and shows people like, you'll be okay. And then you line it up. Yeah. And everybody gets. I figured it out. We need to go and put a patent on this.

I like it. I think we're on to something. We could do like, what was that kid in the Goonies with the, opens his shirt and a little boxing glove comes out? Oh, God. I haven't watched the Goonies in a good stretch. That was a quality movie, though. That was a great movie.

But I think that would be where it would have to start. You would have to start with that toughening process in the very beginning where you get people used to the thought that you will get punched in the face and you will be okay. You don't need to overreact. You don't need to go to the back. belt and pull something out that's lethal because you get cracked in the jaw. You don't have to go to all kinds of other things. You can resolve this quickly and not easily, but simply.

Yeah. You know, with just a few things that we use every day. You just made me think of something when you said the bat belt. First off, excellent description. But yesterday I sat down with Grossman and he brought out a statistic. I forget the exact statistic. But I would describe it as I pushed back on him a little bit because he was including officers that it was a combined statistic of officers who pulled their weapon out of their holster and officers who pulled their weapon out of their holster and used it, which is a substantially different number. Totally different number. What percentage of officers would you say actually fire their gun in the line of duty in a career? Oh, man, I have no idea. I think it's under 10%.

It's under 10% though. I think it floats it around six because the stat that he pulled. that was like 90th percentile. And I asked him for clarity because he was talking about officers who came out of the holster, which is completely different. Yeah, that's different. And then there's ways that you can obviously combine numbers to make a stat look bigger. But yeah, the bat belt, it's, uh, I think people have the, the thought process that

police are using their guns all the time. No. I mean, they might be. Yeah, that's, that's another thing too. Fear driven behavior where guys go to the gun when they shouldn't. Yeah. don't need to. That's an issue. I think we talked the very first podcast, you and I did.

You guys had to write paperwork towards the end, right, if you clear leather. Yeah. They want you to, anytime the pistol is brought out, they want that to be treated as the use of force documentation or response to resistance. So they want you to document that stuff. Where I'm at now, you know, working part-time. Not the case at all, you know. Yeah. And, but, yeah, in a lot of places now they want that to be documented every time as part of the reporting process.

Maybe, maybe to, I don't know why, why they need those numbers. But, yeah, it'd be interesting to see what those numbers show. I think they're well under 10% for actual use of fire. Yeah, it's under that. Yeah, for sure. It wouldn't surprise me if every officer at some point in time had their weapon out of their holster, but there's a variety of reasons to do that. One, just preparedness and uncertainty in a situation that might be volatile. Like, I can get behind that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like you're clearing a structure, felony stop. They're probably better off to have it in your hand than need it and have it in your holster. That kind of thing. SWAT guys, I wouldn't, I wouldn't include them. Yeah. I don't include those guys.

Yeah. So patrol guys, detectives, that kind of thing, plain clothes guys. I would say they have it out a heck of a lot more than they're ever going to use it. Yeah. And that becomes another issue too. It's this, okay, well, how do I reholster safely while, if I'm entangled? Finger on the trigger and don't look. Definitely.

Just cram it in there. Don't worry about it, you know. But there's a whole, you know, there's a whole methodology to doing that. But I prefer a hammer gun. Yeah. That's a whole other thing. A wheel gun? No.

No, like a 226 or a barretta or something like that. First off, don't lie to my face. You don't like a 226. You were talking shit on Sig less than an hour ago. I was. I was. I'm trying to slide that under the radar. So some sort of hammer gun where you can put your thumb on the hammer.

Yeah. And just single or double action. Yeah. So as you are, even if you're struggling with somebody, you're trying to holster, you have your thumb on the hammer so you can tell if it's moving or not. So if it's caught up before you don't.

I could see you with like a dirty hairy, 357. I could totally see you roll in the dirty. Big old, you know, oh my gosh. That would be awesome. Leather slightly cross, like a little bit white or a fish or Doc Holiday perhaps.

I was standing in a Starbucks in Chula Vista and I think I've talked about this before, but anytime I see, I'm not going to do what I actually am about to say, right? But I think about it all the time. I'll be standing there behind a cop and all I can think is, can I get that gun out of the holster before he can stop? Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to do it for everybody that's listening. There's actually been discussion about that. Yeah. And I sit there and I'm like, okay, I know exactly what type of holster that is.

Can I get the safety release off and get it out? And I looked down and this dude is rolling leather holster wheel gun. Nice. And I was just like, I'm not even going to think about it with this guy because this guy's a goddamn saloon gun slinger. And I actually asked another one of my cop buddies there. And he's like, yeah, there's two dudes on shift who have a waiver. They're rolling wheel gun. Wow.

Holy cow. And I think he even had like the circular, you know, the speed reloaders. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to judge it. Well, I'm going to judge it, but in a positive manner. I mean, Jerry Mitchell makes it look good. That guy can burn it down with a revolver. I don't know if that guy's training as much as Jerry, but...

I would have, like, Iver handled for sure. Probably... With skulls or with the longhorns? I don't know, but I'd probably put, like, a tassel on the back of it, too, like a bike, you know, the little bike tassels. That would do it, man. That would sell it right there. Highly polished chrome.

That would sell it, man. Could you imagine, like, losing a fight till a guy would have a gun like that? I'm like, oh, come on. This is how I go out. This is how I go out. Yeah, people would just look. down and be like, no. No.

There was actually a little bit of a study on it. And you know what? When I went back to, when I went to patrol after working undercover for a while, having the gun exposed, I just had the hebie-jeebies, man. I just couldn't. I was going to ask, how those conversations go when you, you know, talking about whether or not people could get it out of the holster? Because the holsters aren't complex.

No. You know, it's not the retent, even the, what are they, level two, level three retention holster? It's not that complicated. It's not hard to figure out. Yeah. And the A-Bs, they did that. They actually had a guy, they kept him in seclusion, got it, so where he could parole out. So he paroled out, good behavior, whatever.

And then his job was to go disarm a cop, attempt to disarm a cop. So he went, attempted to disarmic cop. Who was this guy now? Who were the A. Erian Brotherhood. Okay. So they had this guy in, I want to say it was California, but I'm not 100% on that. Why did they task this guy?

to do this is like to test him or to test the philosophy of disarming a cop yeah so what they what they were able to do them was have an expert witness come in and testify as to how the holster works and how it would make it virtually impossible for the cop to be disarmed so basically they were able to figure out how the holster works and all subsequent holsters all related holsters so it was a very complex long-term chess game that was a long-term chess game but yeah that's the long game so they tasked a guy to try to disarm a cop so it would terminate in a lawsuit so they could learn more about the holster. Yeah.

And the rest of the, and the, and more importantly, the process behind making the holsters, the retention holsters. Holy shit. What are we looking at? Like how does it,

what's involved with disarmine a guy? So there are people out there that will take it to that level. There were people out there that would study it to that point. I think it was Safari Land had a, had a story about that. And then there was a couple other training companies that talked about this. and kind of that case. But there are, yeah, there's a, I think it's just kind of like,

because I've had people before just like your normal soccer mom type people that will come up to you and be like, can I, can I, I just want to touch the gun, you know. Stop it. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, you're weird, you know, like, it's not what I thought you were going to say you want to touch. But that's just weird. you know, but yeah, I think it's just a thing. It's kind of, it's that, that unknown.

It's that, like a mythical thing. Like, man, you know, I think it just makes people want to, like little kids. Like you tell a kid not to touch something, what are they going to do? Touch it. Yeah. So I think it's part of that. So one of the things I try to do, and I still can try to do with my, continue to try to do with my kids is, and I've said this to him from beginning, I'm like, listen, if you're curious about guns or have questions or want to touch one, no problem.

I'll make that happen every time, but you need to talk to me and ask me. And I try to just demystify it. And I'm right there and tell me about what you treat it. You know, all the firearms, safety will treat it like a load of it. Don't point anybody. Finger off the trigger. You know, and I'll ask him, like, you know, what do you do if you find a gun? And there's no adults around.

They're like, oh, we need to go. I'm like, yes, go get an adult. And then I'm there supervising. They have all shot. Not a ton. But I also think at this point now, too, they're just kind of like, meh. You know, the gun is just like, you know, it's demystified. Yeah, it took away that mystery.

Yeah, they understand the severity of the tool, but it's not a unicorn to them anymore. Yeah, it's over. It's like we're done with it. But yeah, but I think, you know, back to the kind of the police training thing a little bit, I think guys just don't understand that with a little bit of this kind of stuff, life would be a lot better. It would be a lot easier. Administrators, they're afraid guys are going to get hurt. years ago we did a we were scheduled to do an in-service training it was going to be a couple days a week for about a month to get everybody kind of up to speed on ground fighting and so we were going to do a couple escapes simple stand-ups that kind of thing just your basic foundational curriculum you know how to escape from a headlock how to you know what I mean how to get out of a choke if somebody's on your back or somebody's choking you different things like that

We did three classes, and then there was a five-page memo that was sent. I was at the North Chicago. I was at the FBI Firearm School when I was told my roommate came walking in, and he's just shaking his head. He was a sergeant at the time. He's like, the ground fighting programs on hold might be canceled. And I go, why? Another sergeant wrote a five-page memo that in all of her years of service,

never had a need to go to the ground, never had a need to fight anybody, never had a need to be in any of those positions. So it's useless and people are going to get hurt and blah, blah, blah, blah, on and on it went. So the department at that time canceled the training because rather than. On one data point. On one person's complaint who complained it in all their years of whatever. And my response was, you know, very cocky young officer was, well, how many times have they ever actually been in the fight?

we all know they go the other direction. Like calls here, they're going here. So, of course, they don't need it because they've never been in a position to need it. So that's the thing. I describe that as slightly kicking a hornet's nest from an administrative perspective. That's probably not what you should do as a young guy. Well, there's ways to navigate that, and that is certainly one way to navigate it. But that could lead to another five-page memo about you and your performance as an officer.

Exactly. Exactly. So that was the thing. So, you know, there is, there's always going to be that kind of pushback. And what we have to figure out how to do is get around the liability. That's what we got to figure out how to do. If we can ever find a way to circumvent the liability argument that what if somebody goes out on work comp. Yeah. What if somebody gets hurt and medical's out, pensions out? If we can ever find a way to circumvent that, if we could ever get them to say, that's an acceptable risk. Like there's an inherent risk in everything we do. Yeah. Just driving every day. You know, a guy in a patrol car driving for 12 hours or 8 hours,

whatever his shift is, there's a large degree of risk in that, and yet we do it. Comparatively, yeah. Comparatively, yeah. And we do it. So why shouldn't there be some risk found in our training and we just roll with it?

We just go, okay, it's cool, let's train. That's a tough one. think that comes down to framing the risk in that. There is a, the upfront short term risk is that somebody would get hurt in training, but I think the long term benefit is that they're probably safer throughout the aggregate of their career. Yeah. Not only them as an officer, but also probably in their interactions with the civilian populace that they're actually out there serving. Right. And I think you would reduce the liability in those interactions. You know, by maybe increasing the liability in the training interaction, you're going to have a long-term net.

decrease in the liability. But that's, I mean, that's a tough, I guess that would be tough for some administrators to swallow. Sure. But that's the argument to me. I'm like, yeah, and in my opinion, people should, I don't want people to get hurt or killed in training, but I'm also okay with the risk of that existing because in my mind, that indicates that you are training to a commensurate level specifically for jobs that have that risk in real world application. Yeah. And it's almost like, you know, I mean, we could almost say it's like front-loading it, right? Like we front-load the risk and then, but then it evens out over time because in the initial phases of the training, like, yeah, they could get knocked out.

They could get a broken nose. They could have various things happen to them. But over the long term, now we have somebody who walks out of the academy, walks into the street, very confident. Yeah. Very much in control of themselves in their environment. Not worried about getting punched in the face, not going to freak out if somebody starts pushing their buttons. Less likelihood of the Batman belt, as you described it. Yeah.

Yeah, less likelihood in the long term of greater liability. So yeah, there's some liability with that individual in the beginning, but long term with the public and with other officers and even with that officer, the liability drops. I would think. Well, again, like I said, I think it's how you frame it, like making that argument and having administrators that are willing to analyze and assess that argument and realize that it is a long-term better strategy. I would imagine, or maybe not, I mean, did you ever see officers who would get into an altercation, have it not go their way, and then search for that training on their own? I can see it going both ways. I can see them getting it, not going their way and saying, well, that, you know, whatever, that was a bad day

for me and still kind of ignore that massive deficiency in their game. Yeah, it's according to where it happens in their, in their career. So typically, if it happens in the early stages of the career, they will get training. Like they will get on board the training train. Like they're like, this is what I need to do. I need to be better prepared. I'm never going to be caught like that again.

If it's later on, there will be this kind of internal math of, yeah, but a hundred other times that didn't happen. You know, like, yeah, they'll be like,

you know, listen, man, you know, it was a bad day, but I've got, statistically I'm due for a bad one every once in a while. I've got a hundred other days where things didn't go wrong.

So you, kind of run into that discussion point. And that's kind of the challenges. How do you overcome that? How do you get that guy to wake up? And to their credit, you know, I have guys come in here and join the gym that have been long term. Yeah.

First responders, you know, I have guys that have, they've been a firefighter working on an ambulance or whatever. And they got into it with some guy in the ambulance. And that's just a big metal hard edges everywhere. Emergency room on wheels, essentially. Yeah. And most of the time for those guys, so the fire trucks get there and secure the scene for you guys, correct? And you guys come rolling in hot? We come in, second responders. Yeah, we come in and those guys had the food truck pull up, you know, they cater in their coffee and food and stuff.

I love the rivalry between. They tell us what to do. Police and fire. I try to run over their hoses every chance I get on a scene or something. I have a one of them. I don't think that. You should. I should. I've spoken to both police and fire departments, and I'll switch the joke. But like, you know, why was the firefighter? It's a bunch of cops.

I'll be like, hey, guys, you guys know why the fire department was created? Or no, if it's the police department, if I'm speaking to a police audience, I'll say, you know, hey, Paul, do you know why the police department was created? Firefighters need a hero. Correct. Firefighters need a hero. Full disclosure, I flip that. Flip it around, though. Flip it around.

Because I've heard it from both sides. So, because I have friends that, you know, are trainers in the fire side of the house, you know. It's hilarious. I mean, it's a pretty funny camaraderie slash rivalry, but I see it play out. I think in most places, it's pretty lighthearted. It's pretty much like, how do we cope with the crap that we see every day? Like, how do we, you know, the whole thing of how do we, how are you guys are ending up at the same point all the time? At the same place with the same people.

Like, how do we have a normal response to this abnormal circumstances repeatedly? I got to be up these far guys now that are just, and cops too, these guys are out here and nurses, they're dealing with this COVID thing and all this other stuff. And prior to this, not prior, but still ongoing within all of this, you have tuberculosis and you have hep C.

Yeah, there's all the other stuff that still exists. Other things that you're constantly being exposed to and you're constantly seeing like, it's not normal to see family members just try to kill each other. It's not normal to see, or even not even beyond that, just like, you know, like a car accident or something like that.

It's you walk up and you see a human figure form that has been the subject of however many Gs of force. Yeah. A two or three thousand pound car exerts on somebody when it gets all twisted up like that. And you're supposed to somehow another walk away from that, have a coffee and wait for the next call, you know. And when I was talking with Joe last time I was on, we started talking about law enforcement. And, uh, and, uh, and I, you know, I told him at least from my opinion, it's, you know, nobody calls 911 on a good day. Yeah. They're like, I just got a promotion.

Let me call 911 real fast until, let me have some cops over and some firefighter. Someone would give them some coffee and cake. It's the exact opposite of that. And then so that's the touch points that most fire and law enforcement have is they're, they're responding people on their worst day. And there's some residual effect for that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

There is some, there's some long-term issues with guys, you know, and that's with anything. But that's the thing, you know, it's like, you know, like ER staff or emergency department staff, firefighters. And in most places, firefighters are also EMS, you know, so paramedics and then cops. Like, they're always going to have that same dark humor just to cope. You know, they're all seeing the same kind of weird stuff and just they're trying to cope. And people outside of that, you know, they don't get it. And that's okay because I'm glad they don't. Like, I wouldn't want my mom to get some of the jokes that my brother and I say to each other, you know, but my brother's a career cop and, you know, and just an evil person.

So I wouldn't, you know what I mean? That's the thing. Like, I'm glad, you know, just like you. Like, you go to war so your kids don't have to. Yeah. You know, that's the thing. So it's like hopefully. Hopefully it gets better generationally.

That's the hope. I can tell you one thing in the cop versus firefighter debate. Their mustaches are way better. They got cool mustaches. Why is that? Here's one for you. Like they rock a legitimate handlebar mustache. They do, man.

And how do they get a, they're supposed to be able to wear a mask? Come on. I don't know. Maybe their masks are different. I have no idea. All I know is that when you see a dude with a glorious handlebar stash, or like there's a good chance that guy's a firefighter.

Have you ever seen the, Have you ever seen this straightblast gym university, the MDOC stuff that I did for... Peripherally, haven't dug too deep into it. You don't care. You haven't even looked. I'm not, I'm a passiveist by nature. I'm not going to defend... I'm not saying the D stands for a defense.

I'm walking around with cleared hot stuff on all. I have cleared hot tattooed on my back. You do not. And then... You do not. Does the D stand for defense? Defense. I don't believe in offense.

Disciplinary. Disciplinary. Right, exactly. There's nothing defense. defensive about me. I don't surrender to your defensive mindset. Um, but, uh, one of the guys in that series is a firefighter and he has a glorious mustache. You had one, I made a comment on your, one of your Instagram posts. You guys were doing some standup and there was a dude with a glorious mustache. That was him. Was it? That was him. It's a quality dick broom. It is, man. And he's a firefighter,

so, you know, but, uh, two man integrity in the truck. Yeah, yeah, right. You got to. But, yeah, one, One of the jokes that they love is what do cops and firefighters have in common? Do you not know. Firefighters' girlfriends. Well, they want to be with a real man. Again, that's one that can be told about directions too. It goes both ways because the same people, like the firefighters have told me that joke like I've never heard it before, but from the firefighter side. I get it.

So I'm like, whatever. I love it. I dig it, man. But it's a thankless job. And, you know, firefighters, in all seriousness, man, we did a thing. with Chris Morella and he's real passionate about the suicide rates and that stuff in that side of the house. And it's pretty shocking. Yeah.

Look into it. It's shocking, but I don't think it might be shocking in the numbers, but from somebody who would be peripheral to that or has an understanding of like the things that you were describing, the daily interactions. So it might be shocking in numbers, but probably not surprising. Yeah. Yeah. And we get so myopic from my side of the house because, you know, it's like I hear about the cop. So it's like, you know, one of my best friends killed himself when I first started. Yeah. And so, you know, we hear about that stuff constantly.

You know, there's always some sort of blue line thing you can put out and you're like, come on, man, another guy. Same with the military, you know, like you'll see something. Another military do you're like, seriously, bro? You know, like it will get better, you know? But it's easy for me to say, right? because I'm not in that hole. But when Chris had his challenge going, where every day you had to do a certain number of exercises

based on that number for the day. So it was like 80. And then I'd log in the next day to see how many burpees I have to do or whatever it was. You know, for the day, I'm like, 92, 12 guys in a day? Like, what? No world is going on with this. So there's, it's tough, man.

It's tough on everybody. Do you know, I don't know the suicide statistics. off the top of my head for the U.S. population in general, but I'm assuming first responder statistics are probably higher. I would assume so, you know? Again, I've got myopic. Yeah, I'd have to look it up because, again, I'm kind of myopic in that I only, sounds terrible, but I basically just see the police and fire.

Well, that's the world that you live in, though, too. Yeah, I see the, I get those updates on my phone or whatever, you know, or email. know, I was, I did a couple of those out of the darkness walks. Not familiar with us. Basically, it's a 24-hour walk to raise awareness for suicide and you get people to sponsor you and all that stuff. And so I've done a couple of those. And it's always interesting. It's always, you know, you have people there who are family members, you know, the ones left behind and stuff.

And it's rough on them. And but then you'll have the survivors who, invariably, they always say they. same thing like yeah yeah like it didn't work and I'm glad oh the people who had an attempt but yeah but yeah it didn't work and and they always say the same thing like man it's like it got better yeah you know I don't know if you get you know and there's always that debate like do we get better do we it does do things get better do we just get stronger like do we just adapt but either way right it you're better you're here you know I've never understood personally I've never understood suicide or the desire to take your life.

Yeah, because I've never felt it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know I have some friends close and distance, distant, that have made those choices. And looking back, it's the ones who said the least that were the most at risk, at least from the community that I came from. Yeah, they don't want you to interfere. They know if they say something, you're going to stop them. Or try to. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, you're going to find a way to, like, get in the way. It's the ones that. that are talking about it the most that, not that you don't worry about, but you're just kind of like, from a risk perspective, it just seems like those are the ones that are not as prone

to actually follow it through. Maybe because like, you know, with my friend, we were talking the night before about the weekend coming up and plans with our kids. And then next morning, I'm like,

yeah, he's dead. Like, are you kidding me? Never, and I remember racking my brain. Like, did,

like, did something come up? Did, was there something I mean? missed and there was nothing because he knew. You know, like if I, if I indicate, and this was a long-term plan. I can't imagine how much of a hell that mental state would be. Yeah, that's got to be rough.

Well, you know it's got to be lingering in all aspects and facets of their life, too. Like that guillotine, you know, metaphorical, hopefully not literal, obviously, but just that thought of something hanging over the back of their head. Yeah, yeah. Kind of like, what's that, that sword with the thread above the throne? Sword with the thread. You watch some weird shit. No, no, no.

It's an old saying about the sword suspended by thread above your head. And, yeah, I'll have to look it up. I'll send it to you. Okay. Yeah, but it's an interesting perspective of basically, like, at any moment, the sword can drop. You know, so it's always that specter, always that feeling of impending doom that comes with sitting on a throne or sitting somewhere. I'm trying to remember the whole mythology around that kind of that parable. I'll find it for you.

Okay. Sounds interesting. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I wanted to ask you. man, what do you, so kind of we're all over to place. I don't care. Yeah, that's cool. We can talk about what we want to.

Do what I want. We're going to watch movies. Yeah, right. Exactly. So what do you, how do you, so two, two things I want to ask you about, right? So one is. CrossFit. CrossFit, kind of.

Training intensity, CrossFit, that kind of stuff. And the other is, what do you think makes a warrior? Because that word gets thrown around a lot. lot. And so we can, we can, we know what a champion is. That's easy to define. Yeah. Champion is obviously somebody who won a championship. But some people will say the only way someone's a warrior is if they've gone to war. Other people will say, you know, like a cancer survivor. That person went to war with death. Yeah, I think it depends. First, you have to define where, which I think is tough. Does that, is that a physical? Is that a mental struggle? Is it a combination of, is it a combination

of the two do both have to be present? You know, is it overcoming a physical obstacle? Is it overcoming the person that you used to be in becoming more mentally tough? You know, I hear people all the time use the term warrior or battles. Yeah. A lot of the times the battles have to do with sporting events. And I have a, I got a really good friend. He used to play offensive line. And I'd fuck with him all the time. But he was, he would also, he would make jokes to other people. They'd be like, we're going to go into the trenches. And I'd be like, yeah, with tape fingers and plastic pads on your shoulders. Exactly. Do you have a trench knife? Yeah, you guys going to be in those, you're going to be in that astroturf trenches on that white painted, you know, fake grass. And he would laugh about it too,

because I understand the metaphor that they're making. But at the same time, if you want it to mean something, you can't apply to everything. Yeah. You can't be the warrior salesman of the month. Yeah. And I'm not saying that those people shouldn't talk in those terms. I'm just for myself personally, I don't apply that to sporting activities. And that's just my personal opinion. Everybody is, of course, entitled to their own. People will talk about people who are in the military and be like, oh, you guys are warriors. And I don't think that term applies to me.

Again, in my opinion, me or anybody else that came from the community that I came from because it's an occupation and you're going to time out at some point. and you know you might have some cool stuff to put on the wall but what about when you can't wear that stuff anymore are you no longer a warrior right you know so I think it has to transcend in some degree occupation or uniform I don't know how I would accurately describe it other than I think the key tenets to it would be between the ears I think that somebody to me a warrior would start with somebody who is willing to accept and willingly face difficult and challenging things knowing that their odds of success or failure might be 50-50

on any given day but they still dive headlong to those things they see things they see things that scare them and instead of avoiding them they go at them so they take the heart you know you go to you know the classic you know why intersection there's the easy road and the hard road right i'd say the warrior tends towards the hard road. And they're not perfect. Believe me, I know some of the people who I, some of the hardest people I've ever met in my life who's just like, they take the horror road after the hard road. Every once in a while, you'll catch them take in the easy road.

And you should. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you earned it. Let's enjoy life here a little bit. Sometimes you get a good day. But I think it's, I think it has to be a combination of the two. And I think that comes from mental challenges and physical challenges and the combination of that.

But I don't have a great, I guess that's a long wind of way of saying, I don't have a great description or definition of a warrior. What would you describe it as? I think partially, I'm like a firefighter. Mostly firefighters. Man, I think it's someone who knows that there is a risk of death. Yep. Or worse.

Great bodily harm. Because to me, and this is no disrespect to, you know, guys who have been hurt bad and continue on. But to me, you know, there are worse things than death. Just leave it at that. I think most people who work in an environment where there's substantial physical injury present, I would say most people are probably more afraid of being horribly maimed than having an instantaneous light out. Right.

Yeah. To include myself. Yeah. Yeah. I would rather just catch one between the running legs and be done. Then have like half my body covered in napal. Yeah. Then have it a little lower.

Yeah. And great respect to those guys that power through that. I think you and I fall in the same place mentality-wise on that one. Yeah. So I think it's somebody who knows those risks going in and goes anyway. And then the only thing I would add to that is on the behalf of others. Like some sort of cause greater than themselves. Yep.

And yeah, I think that that's kind of where I've kind of settled. But, you know, I've been thinking about it a long time. And I just, I like to ask people that I know kind of embody that to me what they think. means yeah because you get some pretty cool answers get some different answers from folks yeah i think it's a lifelong thing yeah you know never stops i agree and i think you could probably bounce back and forth between the two yeah you know i don't think i don't think you're born with one and you are i don't think you're born with one and absent of the other i think it's a movable scale but it takes a lot of time energy and effort to do so yeah and it's difficult which is why most

people probably wouldn't go down that path. Yeah, they choose not to. What was the other question, yeah? So then the other one kind of building kind of on the same way would be, so do you think that will, right, or like that indomitable spirit or whatever it is, if we're born with it or we build it? I get that same question in the framework of mental toughness often. Are you born with it or can it be developed?

But I think anybody who's, you know, hits 30, 40, maybe even in the late 20s, you reach and you see and interact with enough people that there's a variety of different human beings out of the box, right? And so we all come with different strengths and weaknesses. And I would say mental toughness is one of those things. Bottom line is you're born with some level of mental toughness. But I do believe you can also move that station in life. I describe mental toughness as a combination of resilience and how you set your goal. Right. Some people come out of the box, they're just hard as fucking nails.

Oh yeah. And that's awesome, but I find those to be a minority. And I don't think that should dissuade people from trying to do very difficult things. And I look back at by time as a Buds instructor, which Buds is a physical examination of your mind. Right. You know, you're exhausting the body so we can actually get a look at what's going on between your ears and your decision making process.

That's the importance of the training. And if you were only born, you know, if only the people that made it through with just that came out of the box purely physically tough, the graduation rate would be even lower, you know, because people can learn along the way. So to me, resilience, you know, the textbook definition is the ability to be bent and come back to your original shape, which I think is incomplete because I think you shouldn't strive for the status quo. You should come back just a bit harder. Well, it's the same theory as working out, right? Right. You don't want to go into the gym for a year straight and come out of that exactly the same strength that you were going in. in. But you also shouldn't expect to go in one day and come out 200x what you were the day that

you went in. It's a slow. I lift the weights Monday. I know. It's a slow and gradual incremental process. And resilience can be the same way in the terms of being bent. Just come back just a little bit tougher. Maybe it's 0.0000001%. Because if you do that consistently, that really small number will become something meaningful later on. So there is, and the ability to do that, people who do jiu-jitsu who are doing that every day. They are trying to, or maybe they're not trying to, maybe they're trying to play to their strengths, but they're going to get up with a, you know,

a training partner who's like, I got your game today, bitch. And the next thing you know you're working on you, right? You're going to have somebody who's like your axis who, like your strength. Oh, yeah, it happens to be their strength. Right. Your weakness also happens to be their strength. They're going to keep taking you there.

Correct. And then the next thing you know, though, you're like, oh, this sucks. I don't want to work on this, but that's probably what you should be working on. And maybe you'll get better and better and better and better. right so you're you're getting bent but you're coming back a little bit stronger so that's one portion of it the other one is how you approach and set your goals and uh we usually use

dominoes when i talk about this uh to actually even adults or kids you know dominoes are super small but they have amazing kinetic energy right but the key to dominoes is you have to line them up yeah they got to be lined up you have to line them up and then you can knock them over and then before you know it the dominoes are massive because they can move an object one and half times their size so i think it's in the low 30s or early 40s The domino's the size of Mount Everest and pretty soon it's the distance from the surface of the earth to the moon. Some incredible things can be done. Right.

And that starts with something really small, just like your thoughts. And then your goals, what you need to do, you know, bring this back to a jiu-jitsu analogy. And for everybody listening, I've been at this for 18 months. I don't know a goddamn thing about jiu-jitsu. So take it with a grain of salt and you can correct me. But I think a lot of people look at the first day that they start and they're like, I want a black belt. and I think, based on my experience in buds, the number one way that you could not achieve your black belt

is to think about where you are and how far you are from your black belt. The number one way I think that you'd be successful in achieving whatever belt or goal that you wanted to is you figure out where you are, you understand what is needed to get to where you want to be, and then you forget about all that shit and you do the next step in front of you.

So in jihitsu, I would say, it's not about where you are in relationship to your belt. It's, I need to go to the next class. And then you focus on that class. And then you get to the next, I mean, the classes are going to lead you to where you want to go as your skill level performs. Or you can think about it from losing weight. Somebody's 200 pounds overweight and they step on a scale and they've lost a pound. Right.

There's two ways to think about this. The one who's probably going to give up goes, fuck. I have 199 more pounds to lose. Right. Or the other person goes, this is awesome. I just lost a pound. Now I'm going to work on making this number on the scale, say two. Yeah, let's go to the next pound.

Two becomes three and three becomes four. If you can pair those things up, right, that resiliency, you get used to bending yourself because you know the long-term effect is going to be that you're going to come back a little stronger. And then you pair that with somebody who realizes there's going to be, you know, micro failures along the way, but I'm going for macro success. So I line things out in a systematic approach. And I look at only the next breadcrumb. You develop somebody who's largely unstoppable, which, and they become by definition incredibly

mentally tough. So you can take whatever you have and drastically. drastically increase it, but everybody's going to have a glass ceiling. And just like anything else, some people will come out taller or stronger, you know, but you can build on it, in my opinion, for sure. And I've seen that at least anecdotally, time and time and time again. Yeah. Yeah.

Very cool. I was wondering what you thought about it. I just kind of mixing into the CrossFit thing. Yeah. So from this self-defense perspective, training for the fight of your life. and even into first responders, that kind of thing, guys like that. Sometimes I think they need to train in a way that empties the tank. I think they should.

Yeah. To maybe even the majority of their time because it's, like you said, it's a physical examination of what's in that head. Yeah. Can you push yourself? Can you dig deeper into that deep water? Well, it will also strip away a lot of your strengths and leave you with your true skill level. Right.

Because your attributes will be gone. Right. Which I think from my understanding is kind of the purpose behind the Ironmans, right, the belt promotion ceremonies. Yeah, just wipes them out. Wipe them out. And then, but what you see is the architecture that remains. You know, it's often says, you know, you're going to rise to the occasion, which I disagree with. You'll fall to the level of your training.

But if you have, most recent training. Yeah. But if you have crazy amount of attributes that buffer you against that training, you're not going to get that true window into the capability. So strip that away by like you talk about empty the tank. Yeah. Empty the tank and then let's do the test. Yeah.

Let's not open with the test. Yeah. Let's strain you and then let's see what you can do. Yeah. And I think it's important, man. I think, yeah, it's just such an interesting topic to me. It's like I could talk about like that kind of stuff forever. Yeah.

Same. Talking about, talking about different jiu jitzy techniques is interesting to some degree. but I just want to know do you have the guts? Yeah. Like, do you have it in you to to basically be underwater, unable to breathe, and still power your way up? And it can be learned. I've seen it firsthand. People you think like, oh, this is easy money in the bag.

This fucker's going to quit. Yeah, you write people off. And then they surprise you. And then you watch them, though, doing exactly what you taught them to do. And they're keeping their world small. And they're systematically attacking a problem. You're like, God damn it, I can't get this dude to quit. Yeah.

You know, I don't want to work with this guy, though. Fine, I'm going to cheat. Fine. Exactly. But yeah, I think there, yeah, I think there's a lot to that. And then I think the, kind of like those metabolic conditioning workouts, man, like the every minute on the minute, you know, as many reps as possible. Well, think about what you're doing there, right? You're bending yourself.

Yeah. You're willingly going to a place where you're, I mean, it hurts. It's physically and mentally uncomfortable. Yeah. It's a whole bunch of suck. And if you can layer on a whole bunch of suck that you're willingly pushing yourself into, you're going to come out of that. you're going to come out of that a stronger person physically and mentally. Right.

And it's like one of the things I use for people that come in and train with me, I was thinking about it when you said the 18 months thing. One of the things I use with people is I say to him, like, do you think that Andy now, how do you think Andy 18 months ago would do in a fight against Andy now? Yeah, it'd lose. Yeah. Demolish them.

Yeah. You know, same mental state pretty much. You know, same physical attributes pretty much. But you'd wreck them. Yeah. The knowledge and skill that you've learned in that time period. It'd be like a cat's toy. Yeah.

I mean, think about it. When a new guy comes in and even if he's been training for a few weeks or whatever, a few months and he gets into his first open mat. Yeah. Challenge play. Yeah, it's like rolling with Nelson. Yeah. On that note, are you ready to get to the most exciting portion of today's podcast?

Oh, man. So how long did you spend on the SWAT team? Oh, 13, 14 years? All right. So this movie is called. SWAT, the one we're going to open with? Yeah, yeah. Obviously, it's a documentary because it's called SWAT, right?

And you were in the SWAT, clearly it's a documentary. So I'm just going to let this thing play. You get to hit the space bar. What are we opening up with here? What's this one? Now, that's the bank robbery. I know. You know where I pro works better?

When it's on your helmet like that? When it's on your eye. Especially when there's like, they're taking around. And what I'll do is I'll blow this up on the screen later. So you can hit the space bar to start it and stop it and give commentary whenever you want to. Do we want to do this? Look at the size of that flash.

The shield guy's good to go. Nobody else is all right. I like that flashlight. What sight does that? Oh, that's an ACOG. AECOG. Four power ACG. Nice.

I like that light. Yeah. Jacques Cousteau called he wants his dive light back. I'm thinking about those big, like, anti-aircraft lights. You see in the old movies? Holy cow, man. This is crazy. Wow, good use of cover.

Do they actually do this? Throw on the telephone? Yeah, they'll do a throw phone. So that's legit, okay. That's legit. Throw phone's legit. I'm assuming that's a fiber optic. Some sort of, yeah.

AK buttstock collapsed. It's always good to shoot 7-62 with not shoulders. Yeah, why not? What's the worst that could happen? What's the worst? Okay. What are the odds of SWAT team members being told to hold their position and then still making entry.

Yeah, that's not very. Not very accurate? Yeah, not very accurate. That's what I assumed. Nobody's going to go off the reservation. Why are they all wearing an ipro, but it's not on? But it's not. I know, right?

Somebody's not holding. Somebody's not holding. Because they're just too good. Yeah, they're too good. They don't need to wait. Okay. What was that hand signal? I don't even.

This to us, on me. This to us means head count, and this would be like danger crossing. Yeah. I'm not real sure. I don't know if he's seeing on me. I don't know. How does he change his channel? You just ask your partner to change it.

What if you're by yourself? If you're by yourself or your hose, you're so out of luck. But I like the carry handle with, yeah. Yeah, the ACog mounted on top of the carry handle. Yeah, it's good. That's optimal. Quality ball of club a game, though.

Yeah, right? There's nothing like taking territory than giving it back up to. Yeah, pop out, pop back in. What are we going to do now? We're in here. Why aren't you responding now? Because we're getting it on, dude. Yeah, right?

Do you imagine the reflect? We're doing what the rest of you can't do. The reflection off of that light would likely blind both of them. Just the images. This part's amazing, though. What's going on here? Look at this. They took the site out to shoot directly so they could get the angle.

There's no actual optic on there anymore. There's no optic. Yeah, I don't know why that is, but or why they did that. Oh, I know exactly why they did it. So they're probably fake acogs. I did some technical vising. We had some night vision goggles on guys, but they were Airsoft ones.

So you couldn't actually see through it. Yeah, you can't see through them. So they'll make, they'll modify them so you can either see around them or see through them. So I bet you the actors wanted to be able to see what they're doing. So they probably stripped out the internals of it. I understand why these guys are. That's not how you get away at the bank robbery. Yeah, right?

What in the world? That is not what an acog looks like through the. scope. Ow. That's not good. Would you get in trouble if you shot through a hostage? Just a little bit. There might be some issues.

You might be writing some memos. Yeah, just double-checking. Oh, he's on three-round bursts. That's good. Yeah, that's always the best way to use it. He just shot six rounds, six hits. Nice. 100%.

Yeah. Inaccurate. Good for that one. It's wild and crazy shit, dude. Oh, man. Oh, this one's good. they're doing internal clearance. I can't even.

Trading. You can watch this. I've never watched this stuff. There's a reason I don't watch this stuff. What in the world just happened? They're watching each other. Notice what firing position that MP5 is on? Just let it rip.

Don't worry about it. Full auto. Even though it is a 9-mill round? Yeah, don't worry about it. Yeah. Just let it rip. And suppose this guy came out of her, she would have seen him. Anyway.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you train, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. That gets you ready, man. Yep.

Where's the Hyundai rolls? Oh, here we go. Here we go. Yes. Why did he just throw his rifle on the ground? Because you can't roll with that. How am I going to roll with the rifle getting in the way? It's going to hit me in the face.

Oh, my goodness. That's probably the most accurate portion right there is running up the hill for no reason. Yeah, for no reason. We just, we hate you and you're new, and we want to beat you up. Don't take you. get there see I don't need your hand up standard shirt off olive oil scene what are they doing in the hotel one of the training site or oh this is right up your alley man oh it is hold on we need Cobber here for this let's look have you ever

seen a bullet cause damage in the direction towards the shooter like that you ever seen that where it tears out this way yeah where it tears out the side that then is impacting. Yeah, that's kind of odd. That is odd. Yeah, apparently they were shooting at playing cards from a distance that looked between 6 to 800.

That was... I'll give it to them, whatever. That's impressive. I wonder if all the bullet holes. Are they all going through the same hole? I would assume that they probably would. Oh, here we go. A little training day.

Or is this real? I think it's training. Do you always hit the center of the door like that? Center of the door, because that's the best... That's the best... place to put that ram hit. Also, as the guy grading them, what can you see from outside? Yeah, yeah.

That's the other thing. Maybe after seeing the way they train and stuff, he thought the safest place ran the grade was from outside. Potentially. So so far, everything is completely accurate, right? Yeah, totally on. Okay. This is just an awesome ambush.

I'm assuming you guys did stuff like this all the time, too. They're moving a high-profile prisoner. Okay. The best way to do that is a helicopter directly. over the position, right? Yeah. With squads lit up. Yeah.

Maybe the decoy. Marry me. Oh, my goodness. Oh, there we go. She got her boobies out. Yeah, there we go. I guess it's good to be a criminal. Yep.

Oh, he's like, I believe he's like a Colombian drug lord. Oh. I'm assuming this is, yeah, this is L.A., I think. Is this the music you guys listen to in your cars? Totally. We listen to this on the way. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh. Yeah, because you always honking You always have that guy. Isn't that it basically an immediate traffic citation? Yeah, that's an immediate conversation at least. The classic man walking out with a grocery cart. Of course. Why wouldn't he?

Yeah, and he's going to stop everything. Yep. Never saw that coming. Yeah. Is my man rolling with the MP5? Yeah. He's well past the 30-round magazine at this point. Mind you, nobody's done anything.

yet. Nobody's done anything to respond. Everybody's still sitting. Smoke grenade. Classic offensive tool. Yeah, that'll work. Everybody's just kind of parked. Oh yeah. And bangers got that kind of training. They're good. Yeah. Totally. What in the world? This is what you do. And nobody's doing any, nobody's move, nobody's making a move. Now they're trying to back up. Here we go. Now it's time to go. Let me let every piece get put in place around me. Then I'll start making a move. The only thing will make this better is, if the drivers actually get out of the car and start shooting. Give it time. Maybe they will. Maybe. So we got rockets now. Yeah. Let's just do everything wrong.

You ever encounter one of those on the street? That's a law. That's a law. Light anti-armor weapon. Yeah. Never. Yeah. No. I mean, no. I like it.

Just as like a sales thing. Yeah. That's not what they look like or what they do, but I like it. Oh, it didn't tell you. It was a surprise cockback move. So you guys would do this, right? You would risk at least like 30 officers safety. Everybody and the public. You know, all the people that are out there working and yeah, of course.

Because get ready for the big reveal. Obviously he's not in the car. Right. He's underground. Of course. So much better. Is anything you've seen in this movie so far even remotely accurate? The cars are black and white?

Okay, that's a good point. What do you think the odds are they had an ex-swat dude who has? a technical advisor on this, though. Yeah, I don't know what they had for an advisor, but... Have you seen End of Watch? Yes. The opening scene is the best. Oh, my gosh.

Is this really in the movie? I don't remember this part. Oh, my goodness. I don't remember this. I don't remember the narration. Don't you guys say this at the beginning of every show? This is like a mantra. We just all sit around, you know, sit around and roll call and everybody says like a line that goes around the whole room.

It's like a bad rap song. It's like, yeah. Are there any rules that comes to high-speed chases like this? Yeah. Like right about now, there's a supervisor somewhere just screaming, terminate. Just somewhere just losing their mind. Yeah, people riding down the street on bikes. Oh, they're just ripping shit up.

And this is supposed to be, I believe, yeah, this is L.A. as well. Oh, yeah, LAPD right up at the top. Yeah, no, I don't think this would be something we'd want to do. Yeah, there's pedestrians. No, this is not something we want to do. Call it, man, just call it. I'm all about getting it on, but let's just call this. Well, I're going to slightly differently.

Oh, yeah, here we go. Here it's going to pit them. Is there a speed requirement? requirement on that too? Yeah. Wasn't it like above 35? Yeah, you got to be above 35. But look, he drove out of it in reverse.

Of course. This is the best part. Shut the engine off. Oh, and then it's on. Wow. What the in the world? Oh, man. I love how so many problems.

Yeah. Essentially, you know, there's the two guys here shooting and then the two cops that were basically just facing off and just walking right into them. Yeah. Making their accuracy better by getting closer to them. Of course, because that's always a good thing. Why not, you know, I'm the trained marksman, so let me play into the untrained guy's game by getting closer. Yeah.

Helps him immensely. Yeah. Evens it out. It's only fair. And you're going pistol versus what it appeared to be rifles. It's so much wrong. But the thing is, you know, but the public will watch something like this. People that aren't trained or don't have any training, they'll watch this and be like, well, that's how it goes.

No. That's not how it goes. Oh, that's not how it goes. Can you think, do you know of any officer that's ever been? in a situation like that? Like a chase? Determinated in that. No.

Not like that. No. Like chase is it terminated in a shooting, but not that. But not a full-on four-person, basically. War of attrition. Yeah. No. I like how they immediately assaulted towards the people with the rifles, too,

as opposed to assuming a position of cover and engaging them and then maybe moving forward. Yeah. I mean, it's not like we don't have recorded history of guys making like 93-yard shots with a Beretta 92 that Air Force dude, you know, when that active shooter guy. Like, oh, God, I can't even watch it. You can make the game work for you. Yeah. You're trained.

Yeah. Act like it. That's your average, well, that's not your average police movie. That would be unfair to say, but the SWAT movie is amazing. If you haven't watched it. I need to watch that. I don't think you would make it through. I need to watch that.

That Hyundai role made my day. There was an actual range sequence in that movie where they specifically, I think they came up. They was like standing, kneeling, throw it. Throw your primary, which has been cited in. Sure. It was on the grass, though, right? So what's the worst?

What's the worst? Roll, run to pistol shot. How many combat roles have you done in real life? Intentionally. Yeah, we talked about this. You tripped over a bush. I tripped over a bush. I did.

So that was unintentional. Yeah. It didn't. Had a good recovery. But was it your years of training doing combat roles that allowed you to come out of that without being in. Had I had years of combat role training, I probably would have done better. I think years of just forward roles as warm-ups for jiu-jitsu helped a lot.

But, yeah, I think having the ability to do a Honda role and come up. Yeah. Maybe, you know, maybe in the situation where we tripped over the bushes, it might have backfired because my training might have taken over. And I'd have thrown my rifle down and just go on the pistol. Well, it probably would have been slung. So it would probably just come back and hit you in the dick. Like a rock star move where they throw the guitar around. their body. Yeah. It just comes back around. Yeah. Or hits you directly in the junk. Yeah,

that would be great. Kind of like those old single point slings when you drop them to transition. Yeah. I used to love that and, you know, doing an extended range period so the barrel gets really hot and you just drop it and it starts contacting your leg as you're going to your pistol. Like, ha ha ha ha, ha. Exactly. I don't even use my pistol. I don't even carry a pistol on this stuff. Do you, uh, do you think there's any essence of it being dangerous, not from a physically dangerous position, but that being portrayed is the job of certain aspects. Because again, people see this and they're like, oh, okay, that's what it's like to be a cop. Heck yeah.

And it's dangerous. Back to that, what we were talking about where people would genuinely ask, why don't you guys do the no-touch knockout or the one-touch knockout? Why can't you guys just do that? Like I saw a video of this Chinese kung fu master who does this and dozens of people fall down. Why can't you do that? and they mean it. Like they legit,

like they're genuine. They're not being jerks. They're not. In those videos, do you worry more about the person doing the technique or the person that's falling over? The person's falling over because they're not very well trained either. They're falling as bad. You know what I mean though?

Like they're a winning participant in this obviously as well. And mentally they're jacked. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I almost worry about the person who is the reactive participant. To be that willing to be part of. a charade like that. Yeah.

We were in L.A. and there was a man doing Tai Chi and the surf. He was controlling the surf with his hands. I like it. I like where this is going. I mean, mind you, the surf was doing whatever he wanted to and he would match. Just chasing.

He'd be like trying to do it and then he'd be like, ha, because it would go the other direction. There's some interesting dudes out there. There are some. Yeah. There are quite a few of those. That to me is funny, though. But if there was a sea of people that as he moved his hands were falling down, I would be more worried about the people following it.

televangelist. Yeah. Televangelis type guy. But yeah, I think, yeah, because the public sees that kind of stuff and thinks that's police work. Or they, and to some degree, if you have a politically motivated person who goes in front of city council, which is the public, right? They watch movies too. And they tell city council that, hey, you know, our police officers should just be doing this. this is this is how it goes out there this is what they and they're going to think in their head oh yeah

I remember you know I saw this scene in a movie so it must be true you know it's a documentary basically and then they fall for it yeah you know and then they pass ordinances or laws or whatever and then you're getting asked why don't you do yeah one punch knockout or no punch yeah why couldn't you do this you know because because again it's the same and I don't know I don't always think like city council members are malicious or or anything like that. There's, I don't, I don't always think there's a malevolent intent. I don't think they're always fans. Yeah.

You know, but, uh, I think that they are susceptible, though, to that belief that, you know, I could just do this and a guy will fall down or I can just. You only believe that, though, until you've either tried it or tried to be on the receiving end. It fails. It's like you, I think we were. talking last night about, it might have been about the fake black belts or whatever is, once you touch hands and there's contact made, all that bullshit strips itself away. Yeah.

Pretty rapidly. Yeah, now we're working, right? Be a fake black belt if you want to because instantaneously when it starts, like, that shit's gone. Yeah, it's over now, man. Like, it's on now. And that's the thing. And, you know, you have these guys and I think they mean well, but it's just that. It's just they don't experience it enough.

And there was a movement for a while, especially after the shooting in Ferguson and some other places where we saw politicians start to go through like in-house academies or citizen police academies. And we saw them kind of doing that kind of thing. And we did see some folks that were like, oh, yeah. Yeah. You know. And their conceptual idea of the occupation versus the practical reality. Yeah. And we started having people go through, like not at my agency, but an, uh, an individual.

agency of friend works that they had some folks go through and uh one of the people that went through was very vocal critic of the police and which is fine you know and but not so much now because they went through the the police academy and did not fare so well yeah and now they realize like oh wow it's a little more complicated than i thought i've actually seen that played out in a much more smaller time frame where people are very critical of shoot no shoot instance and then they will go and do a force trainer. That's what happened with this guy. Yeah, develop a much better understanding of the limited amount of time.

And yeah, just generally they get their first, you know, their toe gets dipped into the tub a little bit. And they're like, oh. So what happened with this guy was he had live role players. So some munitions, live role players. Which hurt like a son of a bitch. First scenario, he got lit up. Second scenario, he lit everybody up. And then was like, oh, wait.

I wasn't supposed to shoot that one. Yeah. You know, one of those deals. So then his complaint was, well, you guys set me up to fail. It's human error.

Human factor in there. So they're like, okay, cool. We got this cool, you know, so we use a simulator. Yeah, yeah. So we use a simulator.

Same thing. Simulator just could not make a decision, you know. And to his credit, you know, he did put himself in there. Yeah. You did go for it.

Did try. And he has no training. There's that. Sure. You know, you can't expect a train response from an untrained person. But I think,

I think the important thing that we take away from that was he realizes, man, this sucks. It's not always cutting dry. It's harder than it looks. It's not what it looks like on screens, whether they're the size of an iPhone or an IMAX theater. Yeah, like you can watch all the police movies. You can watch all the whatever you want to see, but it's just not going to be the same as that guy right there, that gal right there in the mix, trying to make good decision. And, you know, I think it's critics of the police are important, I think, as much as sometimes they get on my nerves because they're so off base. Well, I think that's true of every occupational organization.

I think outside criticism has its place. Yeah. But it's important. Yeah, it is important. And you have to be there and, you know, get outside of your ego, be objective and take a look at that. Because sometimes, at least in my experience, those that have the least exposure and experience to it, they might have some very critical insight because you're six. inches from the problem. Yeah.

But not all of it. And again, you might have to wait through a little bit of the detritus to get there. Right. But you'll probably get there. That's good word, man. I like that one. Yeah. And then that's the thing.

You know, they, you know, you have these, you know, like Peels, principles of policing, you know, like the original community-oriented policing. I think it was like the 1800s when he kind of codified all that stuff. But, you know, we have to police from within the community. and part of that is facing that criticism and dealing with that criticism from the community. But also the community has to remember, too, like, listen, man, if you complain to your lawmaker and they make a law and then the cops enforce that law, where do you think it came from? Yeah.

You know, so we have to have, it's just one of those symbionic relationships, you know, that. Well, they don't see the lawmaker. They see you guys. Yeah, they see the enforcer. Yeah, the peacekeeper, right? They see the guy that comes up and enforces the law that maybe their neighbor wanted. It's kind of like one of those things. I always think about it.

Like, you know, there's always that guy that wants people to slow down in his neighborhood until he gets pulled over. You know, so, you know, and so, you know, and I've been guilty of that. But that's the thing, man. I think movies are entertaining and TV shows are entertaining, but they also create some false illusions. Agreed. And I think if we can ever get past that, man, it'd be a lot easier on everybody.

Yeah. Oh, agreed. All sides of it. You get to close it out because we got to go catch a flight here shortly. That's almost two hours. What do you want to close with? How would you do CrossFit? How would you incorporate CrossFit? Mindset training, training the will, mindset.

Yeah, pretty much that. For a person who might, so periodization is kind of off the table. Okay. Because they never know when their event is going to happen. Yep. So how would you train that person for the fight of their life? From a physiological perspective, like CrossFit wise? Yeah, both.

With that perspective of the physical being the easiest way to get to the metal. I would push them as hard as I could on, I would force them to face their inadequacies, it's strength or cardio, respiratory endurance or stamina, because those physical activities, you know, you're doing calisthenics, and usually it's going to be your cardio that fails before your ability to do push-ups, right? So you can identify the deficiencies, work on those deficiencies. But I'd also put them, like, if you're in a job where you might be tested on any given day that you're on shift, on those days, I would not destroy you on the mat. So I would leave you with a little bit more gas in the tank. I would go hard on the days where you're probably going to be away

from those potential violent encounters, even though I know from knowing a lot of law enforcement, you guys are, you guys are on 24-7. If you're somewhere and somebody needs help, you're going to step in, but you're not going to be getting radio calls sending you to places on your day off. So I would pick and choose. I would not go as hard as humanly possible, but I would train on the days that I was on shift because if I am in the fight of my life, I want to have my attributes. Right. I would try to strip the attributes away in the actual skin-on-skin, force-on-force training that we were doing, but then build up, build them as much as possible so that they can combine in the moments that you need it most. But I would go really hard

on the days that I could. I would watch and protect against the capacity that I had, the days that I was on shift and use my energy, both physically and mentally for those days. But I think the best way that you can get comfortable and stressful environments is to stress yourself. So I would have people bend themselves to the degree that they could tolerate pushing that threshold forward every single time. hopefully a little bit at a time. I do agree in training to failure, but not for the sake of showing you that failure sucks, because that's pretty obvious. Maybe do it once, but don't do it once a week.

Don't do it twice a week. But that's how I would approach it. And if they have nothing in there coming in, I would be a very gradual and slow approach. I would explain to them the distant target on the horizon and the trajectory with which we're going to get there. And it would be a low trajectory, not a vertical trajectory, because you'll just destroy them. Right. So how would you, if you were on your own? You got to train yourself.

Yep. How would you train that then? You talking from just the CrossFit perspective now? Yeah, or just in, so for me, so one thing, just for like an example. So one thing for me would be, you know, I will say I'm going to run, you know, and I will get to that point where it's like, okay, this is beginning to suck. Yep. You know, and you power through that, you get your second win, whatever, you know. and then I will decide that this is the pace I'm going to keep till it's over.

Yeah. I'm not going to slow down. And if I slow down, something bad is going to happen to somebody I care about. So I cannot slow down. So that's, yeah. You know, there's another way that you can think about that too when you think about running a marathon, right? And the pace that you want to hold, people can get overwhelmed because they focus on the, what is it, 26.4 miles or 24.6, whatever it may be. focus on the pace for one mile and then set another.

So I would set that pace for myself, but what I would also do is I would set a tangible goal for that pace. I'm going to run this pace till the end of this street. And then I would reset and run this, you know what I mean? So I would just break it into smaller chunks. Yeah, little chunks. So the same thing with, you know, a traditional CrossFit workout would be like a 21159 rep scheme.

Right. You can break that into three sets of seven if you need to. Or you can blast through on the 21, but you better watch out on your capacity on the 15. Right. And one way that I've actually been able to get around it, mentally is if I'm doing a set of 21, I don't count from one to 21. I count no higher than three.

And then I restart one, two, three. Because then I'm only thinking about getting through the third rep. And then later, as you get closer to the 21 and the more that it sucks, you can always do one. Right. That's what I tell me. Just do one more. And so then when I get to three or even sometimes I'll just count by twos, one, two, one. And then it's amazing how much more impact that that will have.

Right. Instead of like, I'm at 15, I've got to do six more. I'm just like one, two. And so those are the things that I'll do by yourself. set those small attainable goals and then hold yourself accountable to that. And as you progress, play with those goals a little bit, you know, count to three, count to four. You know what I mean? Just start.

Yeah, yeah. And do it do the same workout a couple weeks apart, but do it where you're keeping track of the distance between where you are and where you want to be. Right. Versus being just right in the moment one or two. And it'll fuck you up. Yeah. And there's no difference in physiology. Right.

But your mind drives the machine. The skin suit is being driven around by the mind. That little symbion inside. Yeah. It's amazing. I think about, um, I don't,

did I tell you about when my dad died? No. Yeah, that was crazy. So, uh, he had pancreatic cancer, um,

whatever the worst stage four, whatever, you know, however they do that. I don't think any of the stages are good, but yeah, yeah, yeah,

it's just a deadly one. Uh, brain cancer and pancreatic cancer, the worst, they'll get you. Because by the time they find it, you're pretty much done. So,

uh, his mom, we were going to go out there to see his mom, because she's still alive. She's like 99. So, um, we're going to go out there see her and it just didn't work.

Like he took experimental drugs, um, experimental cancer drugs. Yeah, treatment. Yeah, because they're like, listen,

you're going to die. Would you mind basically be in a test for us? And he's like, yeah, let's do it, you know. So anyway, um,

he, my grandmother comes out to see him. She's leaving. Um, we get him home to set him up for home hospice. So she, you know, she sticks around for that.

And then she leaves. They're literally in the driveway to leave. and my brother yells. I run inside my dad's clothes, has closed his eyes and didn't open him again. He died like 12 hours later. Damn. So he willed himself,

like he was a different animal. Yeah. When she arrived. Like he wanted to show a good face for her, a strong face for her. And then when he knew she was gone, over. Yeah.

And so that has stuck with me since that. That was 2016. That has stuck with me as far as, to me, mindset less than I ever needed to see. Yeah. Because I realized at that point, he chose to live. He mentally surrendered to what was going on.

Yeah. Yeah. But he powered through and then, okay, I'm good. I made it. You know, so kind of like what you were saying, like the, let's do one more wrap. Yeah. Let's do one more. Let's do one more.

You can always do one. Yeah. Let's do a little bit more. That's what I tell myself when things, I'm like, okay, like when it just sucks and you want to put the weight down. Yeah. I will tell myself you can always do one more. And then sometimes I just put the way down.

Yeah, sometimes I'm just like, I'm tired though. Ice cream is good. It is. But that's the thing, man. I just wish there was some way. And the reason I ask you about that, and I have this conversation frequently with people, like, Adam Singer, I'll tell you, like, we go back and forth about this all the time. But it's because I think that is the single most important lesson.

We've got to get across to people. I agree. You're not done until you say you're done. I agree. If you say you're done, you're done. but until you decide you're done, you're not. Mistake I think a lot of people make, well, they will surrender that power to somebody else. And they will be done when somebody else says they're done.

And if you can reorient that and realize that you have absolute and total control over that, you're starting the creation of an unstoppable monster for good. And that, and yeah, because when that reminds me, when we went to the house to take my dad for the home hospice, the hospice nurse, which they see people die all the time. Hospice nurse is like you got about 12 hours, 12, 14 hours tops. You just judge and know what I'm seeing. So just make everything count 48 hours later. Yeah.

After his mom left, you know, it's just because he wouldn't hear it. Like he was not like, but that's the thing. Like somebody, rather than hearing somebody outside decide it's time for you to stop. It's up to you. Yeah. You either rejected or you septim message. It's a powerful lesson. It's a good one to end on, too.

It's pretty cool, man. Yeah. It's fascinating. I hope I can live up to that. I think that's the goal. And the thing is, I think there's no arrival to that. It's just a constant. It's a process.

It's a constant attempt to get there. Everything's a process. Yeah. There is no arrival. Cool, man. Could be wrong. We'll find out, right? Ready to close it down?

Yeah, man. Here we go. Thank you, bro. Thank you. Thanks, everybody for tuning in this week. And for tuning in every. week. The feedback on the podcast has been phenomenal. I don't know if people believe me when I say I really didn't have a trajectory or a goal or any idea what this was going to be when I started, but I'm

telling you the truth. I didn't. And I've been amazed by the feedback and support that I have received. And all I can do is really say thank you. If you would like to help me in this journey along the podcast, I think the probably number one, two or three things you could do, one would be to subscribe to the podcast, obviously, and then tell somebody about it. And if you would you'd like to you you haven't yet, go on to iTunes and give it a rating. You don't need to write something, but if you click on whatever level of stars you think the podcast achieves in your opinion. And then there is the YouTube channel. Guess what it's called? You'll never believe this cleared hot podcast. Subscribe. And I guess that's it, one or two. I combined one and two by telling somebody.

So rate it, tell somebody about it, and subscribe on YouTube. And that is it. I'll see you all next week.