Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Fridays From Costa Rica with Dan Hart and Henry Akins

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Sometimes you find yourself in the tropical paradise of Costa Rica, training jiu jitsu and spending time with close friends. These are some of my favorite trips, and I always enjoy sitting down and picking the brains of experts in their fields. As usual, we covered much more than just jiu jitsu, as these conversations often span life in general, and business. We definitely spent some time unpacking and discussing the recent multi-million dollar injury award to a white belt jiu jitsu student, and the potential impact on jiu jitsu academies worldwide. Henry Akins began training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in 1995 at the Rickson Gracie Acadamy on Pico blvd in West LA. Shortly after he started he became the secretary at the acadamy and was spending 70 hours a week there watching and participating in all of the classes. In 1997 the school moved to the Pacific Palisades where Henry trained and assisted main Instructor Luis Heredia and also participated and trained in all of the classes taught by Rickson. In Feb of 2004, because of his persistence and dedication to the fundamentals and philosophies of Jiu-Jitsu, Rickson Gracie presented Henry with a blackbelt, being only the third American at the time to receive that honor. Dan Hart is a Henry Akins blackbelt and owner of Alpha BJJ in Woodstock, IL. In addition to coaching both at his academy and seminars all over the world he is also an accomplished restauranteur and entrepreneur. The link to Henry's upcoming Sedona Seminar https://www.hiddenjiujitsucamps.com/cottonwood-sedona-az The link to Dan and Leah's upcoming seminar in Ireland: https://www.wetravel.com/trips/pilgrim-ireland-pilgrim-jiujitsu-ballycastle-87008723  

Okay, got the red smoke. Gun runs. North and south. West of the smoke. West up of smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

I'm all winning, man. Describe where we are. We've got to talk about camps first. Dan and I did a podcast when we were down here for his camp. Okay. But talk about the camps that you do. And I'll use a good friend of mine as an example. Steve, you met him in Whitefish?

Yeah. And he came to another one of your camps. I think it was Aaron. in Arizona? Well, he came to a seminar, which is just a two-day event at a school when we got to hang out and watch the UFC together. So that was cool. But he was a kind of guy who for years had heard me talk about training with you. And he'd text me, like, so like what's the Henry's seminar like? What's it like? I'm like, it's awesome. You should come up. So he was coming up for the grand opening. Yeah. Came to your two-day, same thing, seminar in Whitefish. Right. And then heard I was

coming out here. He's like, so what is this camp and coach? So I think he's actually planning on coming out next year. But that all started with listening to people you talking about it, or you Dan talking about your camp. So I would say the best thing we could do is have you explain it in your own words. Where we are and what we're doing. The camp is a completely different experience than a seminar, right? So a seminar is usually like we go out, I'll go to a location for two days and teach two days for a couple of hours. But the camp experience is so much more immersive where, so for example, we're in Costa Rica.

Rica. It's fucking paradise here. We're literally on the beach in Tamarindo. It's hot as balls. It is beautiful. It's literally paradise. We're staying at a mansion on the beach, 10 bedroom. The ocean's 50 feet behind the camera. 11 bathroom. People be able to hear it just a touch and like the birds and macaws and stuff. Mansion on the beach with other attendees, other people who attending the camp with a private chef every morning doing us basically a feast. So we're definitely living it up. And then we get a little bit of training in every day, a couple hours of training in in the morning.

How do you decide what you're going to teach? Sometimes it's based on different people messaging me in and saying like, hey, you know, I would love to learn this. I would love, so I'm always open to suggestions for me as a teacher. It's always helpful for me because I see it is my purpose. I'm there to serve. I'm there to help people, however, wherever they're at in their jiu-tut-to. But the idea that for this camp specifically came up just from training with a lot of black belts and higher-level belts the last year.

And one of the things that I noticed in a lot of people's games is just their lack of understanding and ability of the attack of how to attack. Do you think that's because they're afraid to lose position? I think it has to do with multivating. I think it's not that they're afraid to lose position. I think that when they attack, they don't know how to maintain position. And so if you don't know how to control the position as you're attacking, there's just a huge potential for the person to get out. And so, A, they don't know how to be stable in their positions when they attack.

And I think the other aspect is, is when someone starts to defend people end up giving up. So they go to attack, they feel like the person is resisting or defending, and then they feel like they stop and they have to try something else. So they really don't have the understanding of how to break down defenses and how to transition attacks so that when you, like how to combine attacks and layer attacks together so that when they start to defend, it basically creates the opportunity for something else. So they don't know how to follow it up. Yeah, I think that's a major thing.

And it makes sense. to me because usually in a person's jiu-jitsu career, that is kind of the last aspect to develop. The attack. Yeah, the attack, because when you first start out, you're just learning how to survive, right? You're just learning how to stay safe and survive and, like, just not get submitted. What's happening to me? Exactly. It's like panic mode and it's just like, oh, shit, oh, shit.

Everyone's better than you. And then eventually you start being able to survive long enough that you're like, okay, now I can start to escape. You're buying yourself enough time. You start to get out and get out of bad positions. And then the next thing you do is after you're out of a bad position, you start to get into good positions. And then once you get into good positions, you know, in the beginning, you get into a good position and you lose it right away. But eventually you learn how to stabilize and hold those good positions. And so the attack is kind of the last thing. The finish is kind of the last thing. And, you know, it's how we finish fights. It's how we end fights. And so it's kind of the

last thing for most people that develops, their last kind of layer of the game. So do you like camps better or two-day seminars? For me, I feel that people that attend the camps get the greatest value because usually with every camp I have a theme. And with the themes, I get to spend four days, four to six days with someone, depending on how long the camp is, focusing on that one topic and just doing a crazy deep dive. And when I get to spend four days with someone, man, I literally can take people's games to the next level, you know, and it's not just from what I observed. It's also from feedback that I've gotten from people that have come to my camps and they've gone back to their

schools. And they'll literally message me and they're like, dude, I'm literally killing everyone at my school now. Or man, like whatever I was struggling with before, now it's so easy for me. I just have such a better understanding of it. So I think value-wise, as in as in being, able to really help people progress the most in their game. Camps are the best. Yeah. The other thing too is like, you know, at these camps, we're hanging out. Everyone's hanging out with each other.

And so besides just spending time together during the training, everyone's going out having dinner together. You know, that obviously comes one of the main topics that comes up to this ju-su. So people get to pick my brains when we're out to dinner, going out to eat and stuff like that about. just a strategy philosophy because that's the other thing with Jiu-Jitsu is once you learn the techniques in Jiu-Jitsu the next level is really understanding how to use the tools in a system that's what really makes Jiu-Sitsu work the strategy and that's something that people don't talk about a lot it's one thing to have the tool it's the other thing to know how to use everything in combination with each other so that it works as a system.

Yeah. You know? Before we get into the $43 million question of the day, which we will, we need to discuss. Actually, two things. Your next camp is in Sedona. I haven't even announced it yet, but yeah. Technically, you still haven't because this comes out Friday and it's only Wednesday. So, I always try to outdo myself on these events, man.

I have a good friend who's a wine maker. So a lot of people... Plays a little music in his off time. He plays a little bit of music. You know, he's a mediocre musician, but a phenomenal winemaker. And so he's got a place out in it. So it's Jerome slash Cottonwood slash Sedona. So people that have never been to that part of Arizona, it's just breathtakingly beautiful.

But it's also wine country. It's also wine country for Arizona. and and so I was thinking because so many people when they come to these camps they like to bring their significant other it's the idea for me always was when I was doing these camps is people love to go on vacation they want to travel and they want to see other parts of the world and and people are so passionate about jiu jitsu like how do we combine these two passions how do we combine it so that they get a little bit of training because people are going to spend money to go on vacation anyways but it's always nice to get some training and not feel like oh man I'm I'm gone a week

and now I'm getting rusty. So, yeah, so I always look for these amazing destination places, like where we're at now, Costa Rica. The first one was, I look, because you said the other day, you thought it was nine or ten years. It was 2014 was the first time you did a camp down here, sir. This is the tenth of year. Yes.

10th year. See how his mic is down on his shirt? Henry, move your mic down on your shirt. Just in case it's rubbing. You don't want it to rub. Like Denver. like Denver's his beard though i don't know how you have a like a lavilear mic and a beard and it's just not all the time just go go go so back down is that right you see that looks perfect to me

all right so when is it in sidona september 20th to the 23rd it's a very specific time because it's basically just after the crush where they're crushing all the grapes and basically putting all the wine so it's pretty cool we got two amazing dinners planned one of the restaurants that's hosting the dinner is basically like farm to table everything is grown locally fresh so farm to table um with all the wine that's grown locally in that region and made locally in that region um so it's just after the crush when he's like barreling everything and putting everything into the like French oak. So just after that, and then after that,

he's got to play with some band called Metallica or something like that. So the next week doesn't work out. He really wanted to be there for the event. And so I said, you know what, I'll make it happen for you. His wine is spectacular. I've been a member of his wine club for like two years. It is some of the best one I've ever had, for sure. I spent Thanksgiving with him four years ago.

three or four years ago now. And between me and Jess, my girl, him and his girl, and another couple that were there, we put out 16 bottles of wine. Because he was just like, oh, no, no, you got to try this. And try it with this, have it with this cheese. How was the next day? Huh?

How was the next day? That's the thing. I was going to say at the 12th bottle, but it's long before then. How much of it are you really tasting? Like, oh, my palate's definitely refining more as we just guzzle more of these bottles. It was just so delicious that, yeah.

Yeah. All right. So, speaking of beautiful locations, you and Leah have something on the calendar, which happens to be a bucket list location, which is why when the idea came up, I was like, oh, I'm going. And you need to talk about it because I think there's only like six slots left. Yeah, they've already started going pretty fast. So it's right after Henry's Camp starts the 28th of September to October 5th.

We're going to Ireland, staying in a cool castle. And the guy who's planning the event for Leah and I's got, like, events the whole day, everything, a little bit different than we do it down here. But, I mean, we put it up. And I think before Leah and I had even made a post, he already was able to sell a fair amount of spots. And, you know, Mickey, who's one of my students, signed up today or yesterday. So, yeah, I think there's like six spots left. And I think they're only individual at this point because they were offering couples,

but that shit's already gone. Yeah, it went quick. So I'm super pumped to, you know, go to Ireland and get to teach with Leah. And, you know, we've got a theme of resilience. So we're going to go over position escapes and submission escapes. Work together on that to put together a cool curriculum for everybody. And super excited about it. I know we were talking about maybe going out early,

but I think now with Henry's camp, we'll probably hit that and then go out and then stay later. That doesn't be in like a month that I'm so here for it. And then the weekend after, there's an event going on at the Indio Polo Fields with Guns and Roses, ACDC and Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica and some other band. Starts with a T. ends with Ool. Yeah. How did you and Maynard first meet? So we started training at Hickson's together in like 1995. He just rolled in one day.

Yeah. He was actually training there before. me, but just like probably weeks before I came. Do you happen to know how he found it? You know what? He has always been inclined to, his dad's a wrestling coach, right? And he grew up wrestling. So he always kind of understood the effectiveness of grappling.

And I think just from watching the UFC's, he was like, okay, that's, I love that video where he drops Sanaki's a guy and then just keeps singing the whole time. Yeah, have you seen that? I have. It's a boss move. Germany where he did the hip throw. Guy went to hug him, hug to hip throw, to take the back to rear naked choke, pick a back up the mic and let me finish.

It was kind of a boss move. Speaking of hip throws onto the head. Okay. So, I've never owned a gym. I would not consider myself to be a high-level practitioner, but I would consider both of you to be. And I saw many posts and many articles into people who don't follow Jiu Jitsu or don't care about Jiu Jitsu. You're probably going to be epically bored by the conversation we're about to have.

But I think it is more interesting to me as the business implications, actually. There was a student that there was, did you ever hear the actual description of the injury? Was it a broken neck? I did read it at one time. It was several. I don't know if it was broken vertebraes or something. thing, but I mean, I've seen the scar in one of the pictures of the operation he got. So, I mean, he was rendered paralyzed and quadriplegic at first.

So he goes into a jiu-jitsu gym. I'm sure we'll talk about what his grappling background was or what should even be expected in an academy. Goes in, he was doing a role with, I believe, the head black belt instructor. He leaves that mat paralyzed, at least at that time. And the verdict was, what, 43 million? Yeah. Six, right?

Forty-six. Somewhere between 43 to 46. After 20, I'm not sure that it matters that much. I also would like to see any Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt have $46 million to actually be able to pay in the first place, right? So it's kind of a- Nobody has a $50 million umbrella anyway. 100%.

But there was a fur, just a heated discussion in the Jiu-Zitza world. And you have been, you've had your own academy. You obviously travel, you do seminars, you were the head instructor at Hickson's Academy for a long time. You have Alpha BJJ, one of Henry's Black Belt. You have a business now because they were talking about things like waivers, drop-in students. What was described on the video was, man gets spiked on his head.

And again, this is where I'm not an expert, and I have watched the video. I didn't see anybody get spiked on their head. I thought I was going to see like a suplex over the back to like a head folding forward. Not that, I mean, it did obviously do substantial neck injury, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I'm curious both of your thoughts on just the overall situation and the potential implications for Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of parts to this. I mean, so I first saw Henners post, you know, and it used the word spiked. And after reading it, I thought the same thing you did.

Okay, some guy got, you're going to see a video of some black belt, you know, suplexing a guy on his head. And then I know some people that had trained at that academy and a black belt who formerly taught there. And they basically were saying, hey, wait for this video to come out. somebody leaked the video right away afterwards. And while it's not a move that I teach, it's not a move that I do, not what I was expecting. And then Henner did edit his post and took some accountability. Hey, I guess I used the wrong terminology here or whatever. And I'm sure we'll get into some of that discussion.

But you know what happened was tragic and horrible for the guy. But, you know, certainly not with intention. I don't think anybody, including Henner, is saying this guy meant ill will towards this student. I mean, I think it's a pretty awful situation, but the long-term implications, while there's no precedence or law that comes from tort law, it still sets the stage for people who are like, oh, I got hurt at this gym, I'm going to try to sue them. And with or without a waiver, I don't know how many times you've been sued or lawsuits. I mean, so, I mean, primarily I work in the hospitality industry and I have a restaurant group. We have people that like a single step, they fall off of nothing happens. They don't even report it.

They go sit down. Manager checks on them. They're fine. And eight months later, they sue us for a million dollars because they have lasting implications. Now, my insurance company ends up settling with them at some point because it's less expensive to do that than stay in court for years and everything else. So if gym owners start getting all kinds of lawsuits, that either. means they get dropped by insurance or nationwide rates start going through the roof. And that's one of my many concerns.

You know, they, I don't know what their waiver was and no one that I've seen has leaked that yet, but the waiver was inadmissible. So whatever this guy signed, they did not allow in. So one of the things that's caused me to do is take our waivers that we've had, and I have attorneys or an attorney reviewing our waiver right now. And moving forward when I teach seminars or travel or anything, I'm bringing a digital waiver that, you know, everybody has to do. I know, I feel like there's a lot of academies having their waivers reviewed.

But I can tell you, I mean, I train all over, and I almost never get asked to sign a waiver. Yeah. A lot of schools I know will have people sign a waiver when they come in, but I mean, the other thing, too, is, as this situation shows, is like there's certain terminology that you need to have in the waiver, right? And so I think, I mean, obviously that's a good thing because legally, it's, seems like the courts are going to accept some things. And so it's just not any handwritten like, I won't sue you.

I won't sue. Yeah, it's, you know, so it definitely is a good thing. I think that people are actually getting a legitimate waiver. I mean, at the end of the day, we're training a martial art. And the martial arts is supposed to train you to be able to deal with one of the most violent and dangerous situations you'll ever encounter your life. And so there's always going to be some level. of danger if you want to be able to simulate and be able to really be comfortable in these environments

in these situations. Have you ever seen anything like this, an injury like this in your 25, 27 years how would you describe what happened? Because I watched it and honestly I still don't understand the mechanism of exactly what happened. I've been training for 28 years. I've hurt my neck once in training where it was super stiff for a few weeks, never needed surgery. And, Literally, man, it was a freak accident is what I saw. And when I looked at the footage again, what happened was the way that he posted his head. Yeah. And the very specific angle that he had had posted, you couldn't see based on the footage because it was from the back view.

But the only thing I can think is that his head was tucked underneath his body. It wasn't like forward so that when they rolled, he, his side. head didn't turn and go over his shoulder, the pressure went into his neck. Now, you know, when you hear about someone getting spiked on their head or spiked on their neck, if you guys watch the Kevin Randleman Fadour fight, have you ever seen that fight? Yeah. He gets suplexed. You're talking straight standing to his head? Suplexed by Kevin Randleman, who's like Olympic level wrestler and slammed on straight on his neck. Did it break? That's that's, that's, that's,

a, I mean, literally six foot high, six foot high, six or seven foot high, over the shoulder onto your neck. Now, of course, they're on canvas, but I would assume that the mats are probably softer and have a little bit more give than a canvas ring, even though those are spring load, but literally flat on his neck. And he rolls out of that and arm locks Kevin Randleman. Shut the fuck up. He ate that? He ate it and arm locked Kevin Randleman. Brian Fador was another being. So, you know, when you think about devastating events, like that was an event where watching it, you're like, how did this guy not break his neck?

And not only did he not break his neck, but he literally, like, continued the fight and literally within a few seconds after that happened, finished the fight submitting Randleman. So, you know, that's the thing is like, man, like that literally that same situation, which the Black Belt mentioned, He's done it hundreds of times, can happen hundreds of times and nothing about will happen.

And then one time it happens because maybe someone's specific body type, because of the angle they have on their head. Maybe you had a pre-existing injury or something going on there. Yeah, I mean, it's just... There were a lot of inaccuracies, it seemed like, from an outside perspective, about the whole thing. The spike on his head, when I first saw it, it was described as a student in, like, it was either their first class or very, very early on with no grappling experience. Yeah, that was the narrative for sure.

and then come to find out. And again, I don't want anybody to get hurt, but I think experience on the mat does matter for something. The guy had been in multiple competitions. He had been a student at the gym for quite some time, I believe. I think he was visiting, but I believe he was trained at Barrio Shitas, is what I read. I think he'd been training for three plus years. He'd competed in two pans.

There's actually a video I saw the Tom DeBlas posted. And not that it's relevant to this, but it kind of is, I guess. He got decued at a Pan Ams for suplexing a guy. I just think the language is very important. And when you say head spike, brand new student, like all of those things can really flavor the way somebody views it. And I think it could turn a lot of people. It's like, oh, hey, so this is what might happen the first time I come to a class?

And people are like, fuck this. So that's my concern. That's why I asked Henry's been training far longer than I have what he's ever seen because I don't want people who've never trained to be like, well, cool, I don't care about the lawsuit. I don't want to get my neck broken. So I'm never coming to try jiu-jitsu. I've coached thousands and thousands and thousands of students from all over the world, everywhere you can imagine, you know, all different countries where I've done camps, events, people from all over the world have flown in to train with me at Hickson's, with me at Dynamics, at my camps.

And I've never, ever had or seen something like that happen. What is the worst injury you've seen happen in your time on the mats? Not necessarily that you were involved in, but you just happened to be a. around. Yeah, I've seen pretty bad compound fractures of people's arms. From arm bars? You know, hyper extension, I don't think is that bad. I've seen people get their elbows hyper extended. And a lot of times people just eat it, you know. But I've seen actually like someone get put in a bicep slicer and try to pull their arm out and their arm went to here and it snapped their form in half. I've seen people's shins get snapped, like people going for,

And this is on video, not that, that forum break was the only thing that I've seen live. That was like, that was pretty catastrophic, you know. And of course, they're in a cast for a while. I've seen people's shoulders get jacked from, you know, Kimura's Americanas that are unwilling to tap. But, you know, for me overall, I think jujitsu, the way that it's trained, because we do train it and we do compete usually 100%. in the grand scheme of things is very, very safe. When you think about what we're doing on a daily basis, we're trying to bend people's joints.

We're teaching how to put people in compromise positions and bend their joints the way that they're not supposed to bend. I mean, overall, I've been doing it for 28 years, and I have had one surgery from a jujitsu-related injury. What's the worst injury you've seen? Miniscus. Never honestly anything that bad. I've seen some shoulder dislocations.

We had a student for a while that just his shoulder would about once a month dislocate and he could pop it back in. We had one guy we took to the hospital for a shoulder dislocation. They popped it back in. He still trains. The worst injuries I've seen at these camps all happen outside of the training. Our friend Will Hill heard his leg pretty bad when we were in Thailand. But I was with him. It was on a diving thing and he kicked a propeller snorkeling, basically.

Well, you watch that guy getting out of a boat and just get laid flatlined by a wave, too, and then just go floater. And blew out his, something by his phone's not working anymore? That's what happens when you're buying cheap phones. That's a story for a different podcast on a different day. It might have been Henry and the Surflay. But, yeah, I mean, you know, I teach, when I'm home, I teach. After a sunset cruise with unlimited open bar. I teach seven days a week.

You know, I do a camp down here. We're doing the Ireland camp. I teach, you know, some seminars. I never have seen too much. I mean, I've seen some people where they're like, hey, you know, my arm's really bugging me. A computer programmer that works for me is a purple belt four or five years ago.

His forearm, he got caught also in a bicep slicer. And then in between rounds, he was like hitting the heavy bag. It's like, man, my arm really hurts. I'm not going to roll anymore. Went home that night the next day. He's like, it's still really hurting. I'm going to go to the doctor. And he had fractures in both bones.

I mean, we're not playing golf. or doing synchronized swimming, right? Well, but think about it too. I mean, you watch, ask a basketball coach how many ACLs he's seen blown out or whatever else. All sorts of stuff. So here's the real question for you. So, and I asked this, I have met Henner one time.

He was super gracious. I had him on the podcast. He invited us into his facility, which is fucking beautiful in Torrance. Yeah. Super nice guy. The only experience I've had with him, it was super positive.

Do you think the way that he has talked about what happened in his involvement in it has helped or hurt. Helped or hurt what? Kind of jiu-jitsu in general. I think it's hurt jiu-jitsu in general. I don't see anything positive for

jiu-jitsu out of it right now. You know, I don't, and you and I talked about this off-line, but you know, a lot of people posting about the money involved in the case, whether it's the judgment or what he got paid. That's just court stuff and expert witnesses get paid lots of money and that's fine. And I'm sure the defense had an expert witness as well. Yeah, they had Clark

Gracie. You know, I don't think it's, nobody's going to start training because of this. I've heard about a lot of gym owners like we talked about. I mean, maybe that's the positive, right? Maybe the positive spin is, hey, gym owners are going to have their liability waivers reviewed. They're going to make sure they have proper insurance in place, stuff like that. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, my initial thing is that I think a lot of gym owners and a lot of martial arts schools, jujitsu schools, got thrown under the bus. Their whole philosophy is to spread jujitsu.

I mean, their grandfather's philosophy was to spread jiu-suitzoo throughout the world. And just because this case has set a precedent, there's a lot of attorneys that are willing to take cases pro bono now because they know that money on the back end. Yeah, just like, hey, I'll take it. I'll take the case and I'll just get paid if we win because the case has set a precedent, right? Like $46 million for an injury, which is, you know, thank God. I heard he's able to walk and...

I think he's recovered some level of quality of life. Who knows how much stuff? I think that's another pretty negative thing, too, is I've heard from someone that I had mentioned before knew him that this guy had a website, like paraplegic to peaks or something because he started climbing mountains and doing stuff and worked very hard to regain it. I think he's gotten a lot of really unneeded and unfair hate. I mean, all he did was, I mean, he sued, which makes sense. I mean, he had that happen to him. He had significant medical bills, whatever, but I don't think he's in any way that anything dishonest or deserves any hate from the jiu-jitsu world.

The judgment, I mean, obviously the judgment is that amount of money. is, well, it's going to get appealed. Sure. We'll see how, I mean, of course, that's a court process. We'll see how it finally ends up. But, you know, any type of, there's a judgment like that, it does set a type of precedent where now it changes. Do you worry about traveling students coming in now more than before?

We've always made visiting students sign waivers. We're pretty good about that. Yeah. Mark, who runs my gym for me, I mean, he's on top of that. If somebody comes in, they're not stepping foot on the mat unless they've signed. Even if you do have. your waiver redone and it's bulletproof as bulletproof as a waiver because there's a fucking skydiving waiver too guess what happens when people die skydiving they fuck they get sued yeah right

i think a lot of it comes back to whether or not there was gross negligence i think that will pierce the the veil of a waiver a lot of time believe even if you have a bulletproof one because of that precedence or just the visibility of that incident does it worry you at all about letting everything about it worries me because from my standpoint jiu jihitsu is not by any means my primary source of income for me. It's something I love to do. The school does well. We have full-time employees, but, you know, like I said, I'm in the hospitality industry. I don't want to torpedo my entire life because somebody gets a judgment that exceeds, you know, what the insurance will cover. And I'm not well-versed in that either. I don't, you know, fully understand

that. I don't believe it can pierce outside of the corporation, but, you know, that's still the kind of stuff you think about and worry about. And, you know, when we get back, that's, you know, the meetings I'm setting up to find out exactly what my exposure on stuff is. And, you know, of these guys and this guy in particular, I think, I mean, I think the gym is his life. So ultimately, he's not going to be able to pay that whatever the settlement ends up being. So he's probably going to lose his gym, I would imagine. I was going to say, I wonder if it means the gym goes under. I don't know how that works.

If you have a massive settlement like that, say it does go through, I don't know what the means. It's like, yeah, my comprehension. I don't know. Sold everything I own. I'll write you in I owe for $4,900,000? Like, fuck. Yeah.

I'm not sure either. You know, I'm not sure if it's the business, if it's personal, if you can go after someone's personal assets. Well, I don't know if insurance steps in and says you didn't get the waiver done properly. So because you didn't have it, we're not covering. Oh, fuck. Because he was personally named in the lawsuit from what I read, which is unusual.

It would normally be the corporation. Yeah, I don't know how any of that stuff works. I did. I do know now, though, that a lot of people who don't know shit about J Jiu Jitsu, like to comment about jujitsu. I know that now. Some of the comments out there, I'm like, I don't think you've ever actually tried this.

Yeah, and it's interesting, the amount of people that are like, oh, that was, he was trying to hurt him. He did this thing. And again, I've never even attempted that backtake. Yeah. I don't know if you have or you have. I've had so many people try to do it on me,

and sometimes it works. What is it? Are you trying to go forward? Like, you're trying to pull them over forward? Basically. jump, pull them forward. They end up rolling over their shoulder because people are balled up. And so they don't have a lot of base.

And so basically you throw your weight and because you're attached to them, you basically end up pulling them over and it opens up opportunities because as they get pulled over, their elbows and knees separate and there's room to throw hooks in. So it's a...

Leo Vera is the one who made it famous, right? Yeah. I'm not sure who made it famous, but I had so many guys... I think the instructor now might have made it famous. Yeah, he's got more clicks. He might be a little bit more famous at this point in time. More famous for not completing it.

Holy fuck. Yeah, not doing it. Yeah, you can tell. Nobody's going to be. That move is not going to be tried in Jitsu anymore. He's famous for erasing that move. There's like the five rules up at the Kalsball Gym. It's like, you know, one is don't rule rough.

No sideline coaching. And there's going to be like handwritten six. Don't do whatever the fuck. A rolling backmook. Yeah, whatever the name. Well. Jumping rolling back take. Yeah, I didn't recognize.

the move that you can tell like when the guy's head kind of did spit out and he was face down, you're like, oh, man. You can see in the video. When you see him flopping, he's not moving in. It's like, oh, fuck. That was bad. Yeah. Then it makes me wonder like, because I go to a chiropractor sometimes.

I'm like, how close am I to that happening to me on the chiropractic table? That's the concern, right? I mean, because like you said, you've had it done to you hundreds of times. Attempted. That guy, yeah, I'm sure it was attempted. Did they somehow he ended up? You ever see any jiu-suitzy work on him? I am yet to see any jiu-suitz work on him, which is frustrating.

They usually just end up jumping over me and then falling on their back with me on top of them is how it normally happens. I've never tried any move on you that doesn't end with you on top of me and me on my back. I actually don't know if I have either. Yeah, the last time I rolled you're like, hey, you're like, hey, you want to move around it, but you can start on top, and I ended up very rapidly on my back with you on top me. So yeah, I've not tried a single move that doesn't terminate it. of that. Power top, not power bottom. How long into your jiu-suitzoo journey were you kind of able to do that to people and just kind of hold position it will? Eight years, 10 years? Definitely by the time

I got my black belt. Once I got my black belt, you know, I always tell people like that incident that was kind of life-changing for me, watching Hickson just completely dominate another world champion in Black Belt, you know, with his using weight distribution and being heavy on top and how to do it. And so I literally spent 10 years just learning how to be heavy and relax and how to allow people to move underneath me, but carry my weight. And so did he move rapidly? I have not watched a lot of video of him rolling. Did he...

I don't think there is that much, is it? There's not that much because, like, when he was really competing was in the 80s. 80s early early maybe maybe early like 90 right but by then like from VHS tapes

yeah but like by like the 90s like you'll see footage of him if you have you ever seen the gray scene action yeah maybe a little bit challenge matches there's some challenge matches there's some footage of him there there's some old old footage of him competing in tournaments but that was when he was

really really much younger and that's the other thing too is there's his jiu-jitsu improved so much, like every year. He was getting better and changing things. And so that's what's sad is nowadays everyone has cell phones, right? But back then, nobody had cell phones. So, like, we were recording stuff with giant VHS, put a giant VHS tape into a VHS recorder.

I've got some matches on flow. I'd probably wish they didn't record. To record, you know? But you know what I mean? Like, the people who move really quick, but they look frantic versus the ones who are very cowls and it almost seems like they're in slow motion. I would guess he was the latter and not the frantic pace.

Earlier years, he had a much higher, faster pace. Later years, it was just positional dominance. Like literally everything you move, it just gets worse and worse and worse. And he even said, you know, we had this conversation when he was already mid-40s. He said, Henry, he said, I would literally kill my, like the 25-year-old version of myself, when he was already like world champion-level black belt, dominating everyone.

At 44, he said he would destroy that version of himself because his technique is just so much more present. He said he, when he was younger, he would make so many mistakes, but because of his pace and because he never got tired, he was always able to recover. At the later age, he just didn't make any mistakes anymore. I mean, I heard some story that when Cronin was at his peak in winning everything,

they went at it for real. Yeah, I think Crone said it on Joe Rogan. He was like, you know, this is after Crohn was already giving, like, Marcelo Garcia, you know, some of the toughest matches Marcello's ever had. And he was like, Dad, and this is Hickson was in his 50s. I thought it was time to take the old man off the mantle. In his 50s, right?

Like, Dad, let's go. And Hickson's like, okay, he hasn't been training much. He's, you know, injured. He's got all these busted up herniated discs, blown out ankle, bad hip, bad shoulder. And he's like, okay, I'll give you three minutes and basically, boom, tap them out, you know. Your story, I think yesterday, where you were talking about, you were getting ready for your Purple Belt competition.

You're like, it was fucking amazing. There's like 50 people watching. I'm getting out of everything. I'm the man. I go win the tournament. He's like, hey, give me five more and just. Yeah. It was like, oh, just when I thought I was getting good, then it was just like, nope.

Did he say anything or just roll with you and then just fucking walk? He just rolled with me. And literally, like, I don't even knew if he, like, if he knew how big my head got after that role, because I had so many people coming up to me afterwards, like, just was like, dude, like, that was amazing. Like, man, we saw it. And I was just like, I was just getting, like, my head was getting something. I'm the man.

And literally, you know, that's why I always tell people, belts don't mean shit. Like, literally, three weeks later, I get promoted. I'm a brown belt. And, uh, we rolled together. again and within five minutes, not only did he tap me out five times in five minutes, he tapped me out five times in five minutes with the exact same thing over and over again. And I'm just like, what the hell? People hear that who don't do just like, well, why is that a big deal?

Like, yeah, it's like, no, it's fucking irritating. Because after the second time, you know what's coming and there's nothing you can do. So imagine being completely helpless against another human being when you've been training for eight years and you're physically as big. as strong, you know, pretty tough by most people's standards. And then there's human beings in the world that can make you feel completely helpless and do what they want with you. And there's nothing you can do about it. Wouldn't that be total mastery?

Like both people know what one wants to have happen. And the other one's like, I'm going to do everything I can to stop you, but you're still going to do it? Like total mastery. That's guys that there are certain individuals that get to that level. where they can tell you what they're going to do, and no matter what, you can't stop it. And I think that is when you reach that level of mastery. And the other thing, too, is, like, so efficient with his movement, right?

So efficient where you can literally dominate another human being without breaking a sweat. And the other person is fighting and trying as hard as they can to prevent you from doing that thing. And there's nothing you can do. like the most helpless feeling the world. I don't think we're ever going to get there, Dan. I've given a.

I say I try, but it's like, I don't think I started early enough to get to that point. Well, the crazy thing is like, you know, by training with him for so many years, like one of the things that was huge for me is like, I know it's possible to get to that level because I've seen someone do it. I've seen it.

So that was like, okay, there's proof, right? It is possible to get to this level where you can train with a guy that's 15 years younger, the current world champion, and tap them out five times in a row without even breaking a sweat. And so then it just became like, now how do you train yourself so that that's possible? Right. And because he wasn't the biggest, he wasn't the strongest. And by his 40s, he definitely wasn't the most athletic, like physical, you know, already by that time, some injuries had started to build up, some injuries started to accumulate. He wasn't training as much or as hard.

but um he lived until 40 years up to that point yeah it was all technique i mean he was representing the family do you remember in your time training with him or there was there even anybody who gave him a good run for the money there were times where they were fast-paced matches that were back and forth back and forth but i never saw anyone get close to finishing him like i never saw him panic or get into a position or situation where I like, oh shit, he might get finished. Or, oh, shit, he might, like, this might be it. I never saw that. But that's the thing is...

How old was he when you started training with him? 36. And you were what age? I was 20. Fuck. I see some of these kids now. Yeah, he was 35, 36, and I was 20. Even fucking Tyler, you know, starting at 17.

You know, like, or people who, whose parents own gyms and they, it's like, they grow up on the mats, I'm like you, motherfuckers. That's what I always tell people. I said, do they say you have any regrets? I said, the only thing I regret, like, jiu-situ-wise is I didn't start sooner. I wish I would have. I don't know how you would have, though. You would have had to, because you came.

Was there anything in Oklahoma? Yeah, I was going to say, you came from the middle of nowhere. I mean, there's, it's a huge wrestling state. It's a huge, they have really, there's decent judo because of the wrestling. So there is great grappling there, but, I mean, people always ask me, do you regret not wrestling and definitely pros and cons yeah you know I think wrestling definitely teaches some skill sets some great skill sets but I think there's definitely certain things that I would have to unlearn specific habits that I would have to unlearn I think kids do jujitsu and then also wrestle can

get that right away but I mean you've seen it I have some guys some upper belts that were wrestlers they still have bad habits that yeah I'm constantly trying to correct after seven eight nine years of training yeah lea said too starting too young can be a double-edged sword because they'll burn out sometimes in their early teens. So they could have that crazy trajectory, but then these things called hormones kick in, social, you know, especially if their parents are pushing them to train. Yeah. And so, like, they'll have this arc that's insane.

And she said it's about, I think she said it was either about 50, 50 or only about 30% actually will stay that course. That's what she said, the balance is getting them to continue to go and getting them to want to go on their own as opposed to feeling like they have to go there because it's the parent that's forcing him to do so. You know what's crazy that I think about it nowadays too is besides just having exposure to a young age, there's so much information available. Like there's more information available about jiu-jitsu and the techniques and how to do things online. Now, people have more access than ever before in history to knowledge from the best coaches in the world.

All of the best coaches in the world pretty much have instructional stuff online. So even if you start later, like, you have all the answers basically in the palm of your hand to any salute, any problem that you encounter in Jitsu. Applying that in real time is the problem. Well, I was going to say that. You could have the most robust. That's a double-edged source, too. BGJ Fanatics, you know, dossier.

Doesn't mean you can do all that shit at the right time. Well, but also there's a bunch of phenomenal world-class guys that have stuff. There's also a bunch of stuff out there that's horrible. So, like, is a white belt or a blue belt, people that are surfing the internet doing and stuff. I mean, I have students all the time. I'm like, what did you just try to do? Oh, well, I saw this video from so-and-so. Well, I'm not going to tell you you can't do it, but here's what I think about it and why maybe that's not the best thing to do. Lee was talking to Denver yesterday. He tried something. She goes, who the fuck taught you that? He was quiet for a second.

He goes, Instagram. Yeah, he goes, the internet. He's just tried shit out. I had like a 45-year-old white belt in the morning class the other day. It was not flexible. Try to put me in a row. rubber guard. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I saw this guy on the internet. I'm like, yeah, that's a good way to lose your knee. Yeah. Well, I mean, thinking about this, though, I had to move 1,500 miles away from my home, leave my family, leave all my friends behind to be able to learn jihitsu, right? Nowadays, yeah, I don't know if you would have been able to start. I mean, you could have gotten into grappling, but I don't know if you'd have been able to start

jujitsu, maybe a few years of you'd have left when you're 18 or 17 if your parents would let you but yeah I mean I didn't start training till like 2010 or 11 and I remember there was one purple belt who would drop in and he was like a demigot even back then now you throw a rock anywhere you can hit a black belt yeah it seems that way sometimes for sure and there's schools everywhere even in my little community out in Woodstock Illinois I mean the greater McHenry County there's five or six jujitsu schools Henry where can people train with you if they if they can't swing like a two-day seminar or a like a camp.

Do you... Nowhere. I mean, is that the answer? I think that should be the answer sometimes, honestly. Do you do privates at all for unknown people? No. Privates is such a personal thing. You know, so I'm really selective with who I will invest my time in,

especially that way, because when I do privates, basically it's a... I'm a pretty inexpensive prostitute. I'm renting my body to that person. And for me, when I do privates, I prefer to do it with myself, not with an UK. Some people do it with an UK. But for me, and as you know, it's so important that I feel what you're doing and I can make those adjustments and corrections for you real time. Like, hey, no, I don't feel this.

I don't feel that. Sometimes when you're doing a technique on someone, they might give you a response. Like, oh, yeah, that feels like you're doing it right when it's completely off. you know or oh people will tap I see people tap all the time because they're uncomfortable not because the technique is working or not because the submission is proper but just because they're uncomfortable

or they're afraid to get hurt. So when I do privates man I really invest a lot of time and energy into that student and so I'm just yeah nowadays I'm just very very selective with who I choose to invest in my time and who I will allow to

you know who I'm going to train I don't know if it was a joke, but you posted the other day that you're doing a select amount of privates. Yeah, I mean, I don't do very many privates, and I did post that I was doing something. Most my students I don't normally do privates with. I mean, we are not a big academy, 125 students. I don't want to take their money and do that and the time commitment. I mean, an hour private's not an hour.

You're going to be there early, get ready, stretch. You're going to hang out, talk to people afterwards, and whatever. But yeah, I did put up that I've got some slots open in some time in the next couple months that I will do some privates. How do people get a hold of you for that? Instagram, Dan underscore T underscore Hart, jihersetoo.com. Or get your ass to Woodstock, which, what's the hell the name is the name of the movie, The Groundhog? The Groundhog Day. Fuck, I should remember that. It's Groundhog. Groundhog Day. It's the actual square.

I don't think they're still using the actual Groundhog. There's some Groundhung that comes out, though, on Groundhog Day. And apparently it's a big deal. Leah's next seminar we are doing. so that you guys can come experience Groundhog Day. And Henry has a seminar that sold out 24 hours after he put it up. So if you want to visit them at my school when we put it up, you usually have about 48 hours to get signed up.

Our mat space is smaller, so we limit it to 25-page sign-ups. And when they're gone, they're gone. One of my white belts, I was talking to him in the sauna. He's like, I really want to come to see your coach's seminar. I'm like, cool, man, sign up tonight. He's like, all right, all right. Then the next evening I saw him, he's like, well I didn't know like you were serious it was really going to sell out that fast he'll be

looking at me through the glass so so people want to come uh to one of my seminars because um those are more frequent for sure it seems yeah yeah and it's and it's definitely seasonal usually during the fall and the spring is when i'm traveling a lot teaching um Henry a hidden jitsu camps um so so i post yeah hidden jitsu camps dot com is where they can find information about my camps and I post a lot of my seminars, but also on Facebook and Instagram. So Henry Aiken's, BJJ is my Instagram and just Henry Aiken's on Facebook. So that's where I post all the information about my upcoming seminars. But then you also have the website if people can't make it out.

Yeah. So all of the information, so all of my seminars and camps I record and all that footage is available on hidden jitsu.com. Dan's a good marketer for you. Yeah, I appreciate it because I'm terrible at it. He's like, here's this softball. I'm the hype man. Yeah, people can't see how awesome this is. We got to spit back up for sunset before the ladies kill us.

So you miss this camp because you're a dumbass for those of you listening who are in here. However, Costa Rica, December, right? It is on for this year. So you could come out. Is it sold out already? No, I've got three spots left for my camp. So December 1st to the... That's not going to last long.

If you want to come to Tamarion Doe and hang out with us in December, three people have the chance to do. So, yeah. And where's it? Hero BJJ. Is that what they're going to say? You can sign up for my camp through that. Yeah, and there's good information about the gym there too because the hero BJJ or listen to one of the previous podcasts

that we've done. Yeah, we've talked about it a bunch, 501 3C or whatever. So all the camps, including Henry's, raise a bunch of money to help out the local kids. So come down, have a vacation, help some local kids. Pretty awesome. Yeah. We'll let you close it out, Henry.

Closing thoughts on Jiu-Jetsu in general. Or life, or both. Closing thoughts on Jitsu is my Sedona camp is going to be pretty awesome. Does it come with a bottle of wine? Blue belts and up. Oh, we're doing, we're doing wine tasting. Blue belts and up, that's fucking racist.

Yeah, we're doing that. We're going the other way. No white, no white allowed. You should go to like no black belts, only white belts. Only white belts. Yeah, so it's going to be, it's going to be awesome. Can Denver and Erica still come? We'll see.

We'll see. I might have to surprise Beltham before that. Okay, Sedona, it is then. Awesome. Thank you, guys. All right, thank you.