Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 10 with John Frankl and Travis Davison

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

Full Auto Friday is a "rapid-fire" format of Q and A submitted by listeners. Topics from all walks of life with a 5-minute cap on all answers. This week the entire episode is dedicated to BJJ related questions. What to look for in a BJJ gym for those interested in starting, Belts and promotions, gym etiquette, Technique and strength, members getting kicked out of the gym, Thoughts on initial training for LEO, What is a black belt worth. Enjoy

Okay, got the red smoke. Where's up a smoke? Okay, copy. Where's the smoke? I'm looking at danger close now. I'm all winning, baby. It's nice. I like it.

It's not bad. Okay, you guys ready? Correct. Because somebody who's not me or John is time limited. I'll let people figure that out on their own who that would be. Well, some of us have lives outside of this room. This is true. This is true.

As do why. I got almost 200 questions. So I tried to pick themes and we're going to limit ourselves try to five minutes because it's an interesting concept of the economy of thought. Time us. Yeah. All right. Five minutes per answer. Five minutes per in.

Well, not necessarily max because some of these I think are good. Like I said, I picked concepts. There was some repeating themes and you might recognize some of the people asking the questions. But brevity is good. Brevity is good. Q us at 430. Okay. Fair enough.

Wrap it up. And we can also answer. sooner rather than later. That would be better. That would be more efficient. I'm all about efficiency. I don't start the time until the question is answered. But we could answer in two and a half and have time for more questions. Of course. Yeah. Okay. First question from screen name Nolte Bell Becca. You guys might know this woman. No idea. Never heard of her. Okay. Not sure if this is an okay question or topic. That's the number one way to get my attention, by the way. My co- Coach, Travis, not Gus, was once asked in a discussion what his black belt was worth and how much money it would take for him to give it up and all the experiences that came with it.

His answer was that there was no dollar amount that would make him give that up. The longer I trained, the more I can relate to his answer and understand that jiu-sitsu can be so much more than just a skill if I allow it to be. My question is, how has jiu-jitsu enriched all of your lives both on and off the mat? That's a powerful first question. Yeah. Let me get to the old time our app. We're going to go. So we start with the assumption that the first answer is right.

No dollar value. Yeah, it's invaluable, right? I think it is. Everyone I know with a real black belt basically feels that way. You can't put a price on it. This can be fast. And that's fine because I have a lot. Yeah, and I will tell Becca specifics.

because I know who she is. But I'm not being glib and I'm not avoiding the question in every way. There are greater and lesser categories, but there's nothing, if you do it right and you think about it right, there's nothing that it cannot

and does not improve. Yeah, I mean, in my case, it's a little bit of a different answer than Johns. I'll expound on it a little bit because off the mat, Jiu-Jitsu has actually provided me the ability to raise my family.

So I have kind of a unique situation where, yes, Jiu-Jitsu provided me everything that John's speaking of, which is everything. It's taught me how to think. It's taught me how to not panic. It's taught me a lot of things on that level,

as well as filled a competitive niche for me. But if you look at my life, I mean, the last 13 years, years, jujitsu, the thing, has actually provided all of my financial needs in terms of, you know, raising my four kids. You know, basically it's my livelihood on top of the fact that it's also my meditation. It's my escape. It's my everything. Any amount of money that would get you to football spike that black belt into the garbage can, which is a story that I hope I can get Henry to tell when he comes.

That's Henry's to tell. No, there's nothing you could offer me. I mean, at this point, I'm going to be 46 years old tomorrow. I've spent the better part of the last 20 years doing jiu-jitsu and forming relationships with people that also do jiu-jitsu and those bonds. I mean, you'd basically be erasing almost half of my life at this point if I were to do that. If I were to give that up. Yeah, there's no way you can put a price on that. Well, and also, it'll be awesome to hear Henry.

but that garbage black belt was not to quit Jiu-Jitsu was to start over at White Belt and relearned Jiu-Jitsu better. Yeah, he wasn't quitting. So he was even like, I want to do more and better, not less. Yeah.

And he was a world champion. Good point. The three of you need to help me get Henry to tell that story. Somehow we have to draw that. I think he's getting ready. All right, good. He should be prepared.

All right. See, that's awesome. That's two and a half. So now we have time. More questions. This is a good one. If you had two hours with every police officer in America, what would you teach them? Strict jiu-jitsu question.

Strict, straight jiu-jitsu, yeah. Well, actually, because it kind of dovetails with the last question, because jiu-jitsu isn't just here's an arm lock and here's a choke, because that can be pretended to be learned on video. You know, start from the ground up. I mean, it's also like nutrition and sleep and hydration and everything that goes into, like, if you're going to do jujitsu for real and you're going to do it well and you do it often, you need to dial in the rest of your life, which is nice. It's like a virtuous cycle. But if it's pure jiu-jitsu, I mean, I think I wouldn't reinvent the wheel. I mean, I think that happens to them far too often anyway. They got through these like five cycles.

Gracie Combatives is wonderful for a short course. Foundations at SBG is wonderful for short course. For a slightly longer course, Henry's White to Blue Belt curriculum is phenomenal. But two hours, wow. Body lock, not get hit in the head because you're not going to do anyone any good if you're knocked out. How to defend your head. How to be in enough shape to wear body shots unless it's like, Mike Tyson shouldn't really matter.

Don't get it in the head, close the distance, take it to the ground. John Donner has a really good point. He's like, you know, like really big, powerful animals, like bulls? Like, what's the first thing you do if you want to like hog tie them or control them? It's like, get them off their feet. On their feet, you know, they could gore you, kick you, bite you. So really like. And they're still going to try to do those things on the ground, which is why they're controlling their headages.

Redge, yeah. So, yeah, I think closing the distance safely and getting the fight to the ground. And then, of course, they're law enforcement officers, and this is a big issue in America right now. And I think New York's got it backwards. I agree with you. Controlling them with maximum pressure and minimum damage, which is, you know, good cross-eye, good mount, good knee-on-belly. Travis? I'd spend two hours convincing them to do jujitsu for, you know, more than two hours.

A better answer. Because it's the same thing I say at all of our women's self-defense seminars. It's the, well, look, I'd put it in their terms. Like, I'm, you know, like, you've been shooting with me. I'm, like, the most novice shooter, period. No, no, you no longer are, actually, because there are people, I mean, we don't have to talk about names, but it'll bring guns into, you know, parties, houses. Yeah, drunk.

Well, so, but what I would tell them or I would try to explain to them is, like, Look, if your sum total of training with your firearm was a two-hour class, how proficient would you be? You might be surprised when you find out about some of the sum total, though. And not because they choose to have that as their sum total, but the training time and budget allotted for it. It's more than two hours, but it is striking less than most people would think. Our mantra in the women's self-defense class is if you don't train it, you don't own it. So what I would try to convince him of is how important jiu-jitsu is and how it could not only save their lives, but save other people's lives, the lives of people that they're trying to defend and help. And then I would explain to him that even if it's just two days a week, an hour at a time, but if it's just consistently training a couple times a week, they're going to be far better off than they currently are.

And you don't know what you don't know. And so maybe you spend an hour trying to explain to them why they need to know Jiu-Jitsu and then another hour having my daughter just, you know, mall them. Yeah. So I realized the moment he said like his answer is way better. It's like the genie in the bottle and three wishes. The first one should be wish for a hundred more, a thousand more, you know what I mean? Like game the system.

But yeah, I think he's right. 20 hours would be different. But two hours, yeah, it would be better. to have like a couple 120-pound women and a couple hundred and twenty-pound men, man-handle them with Jiu-Jitsu. And then spend the last half hour with a little bit of lecture in Q&A and say, look, this is how it's going to go down if you ever meet someone with this skill set. So it's like you need to invest some time and energy and making sure this doesn't happen.

Well, and even if you don't meet somebody with that skill set, let's reverse it. Like, okay, the way that you just got manhandled, you could be doing that to perps. Because I don't think you're going to be encountering jujitsu people on the job. But I do think that if you're equally bad at fighting as the other guy is, that's not a good situation. So if a couple of our people come in and show you how easy it is to control somebody big and strong like you, then maybe it's worth learning. Let's be honest. I think it would be a little cool if you were a cop and you started tossing with somebody in the next.

and you know you're like passing guard and like rolling through positions, they'd be like, all right, listen, we can sort this out on the mats, just get the guy and have back of the car. This is probably the number one theme. And there's two questions that are like this. This is for people who are sitting in a distance. They want to start jihitsu. They do not know how to determine a good school from a bad school. So many versions of this question.

What should you look for when selecting a point? place to train both in the facility and in the instructors. Okay, so I'm going to give, this might ruin your podcast forever. I'm going to give a little shout out to Greg Glassman because he's getting a lot of hate these days. For sure. He's done a lot of good in his life. And one of the things that I heard him say, and I was already trying to help my guys with

judicious in Korea who were like, oh, you don't understand. Like, I can't get students. And he said, look at your bathroom. It's like you don't have members? How clean is your bathroom? You know, so... I've been there when he said that before. Yeah, and he's not wrong.

And I would say when I walk into my own affiliates, I'm looking for ages. I want young and old. I want big people. I want small people. I want men and women. And I want, you know, floors you can eat off because it's not that I'm going to eat off

the mats, but that's the instructor's attitude towards that facility. Like, safety is more than just like, hey, maybe if I hurt my shoulder, that's one thing, but I don't want ringworm and I don't want staff either. It's just an attitude towards jiu-suitzoo and a respect towards all the members. So I would say all ages, all body types, all genders, you know, as many genders as you believe in, and super clean and classes starting on time. I mean, if you have that, you know, men will go to a crappy school if they think they're going to get tougher. Women will just quit.

They're like, this is dangerous, this is filthy, I'm going somewhere else. So if you have that kind of diversity, you're probably in a good school. Yeah, so that was going to be my answer, is diversity of the mat. In fact, I have videos out there that I tell people like when you're looking for a school, or if I have students that are moving to an area that doesn't have an SBG, say it's easy, you know, show up, go to a class to watch. And just look and see, is it all 20-something athletic men, you know, competitors that are just, you know, gnarly? Probably not the school you want to go to. But can that be a good school?

It's just going to be a specific type of school, right? There's going to be a competition factory. It's not even a school, though. It's like a fight team. Yeah, I was going to say, it's like a boxing gym. It depends on what you're looking. If a boxing gym can make a champion, there's $100 million. It's just not a great thing for most people.

And everyone else is just fodder, you know. Yeah, okay. But that's not a school, really. It's a fight team or, you know, it's a little bit. It's a weeding out process, weeding out the week, basically. And you'll find that in a lot of places, too. And you'll find that where you've got these championship, you know, world-class black belt competitors, head of the school.

And, you know, the knee-jerk reaction is, well, that's the school, right? Because that guy's the best in the world. But he's the best in the world at doing what he does. He's not the best in the world at coaching. I always tell people, I'm like, look at the NFL. Look at the NBA. Like how many, like, you know, guys that sat on the bench or didn't even play at all are coaching the teams? Like the best coaches were not the best athletes because two different skill sets.

So to me, that doesn't even hear into the equation. I'm more in line with what John said, which is are the women represented? You know, are the people later stages of life represented? Are there still young people? You know, are there still some good competitors on that team? I'm like, I'm not saying I don't want any competitors. I'm saying I want a good mix of everybody, right? Because then I know the environment's good.

Like, if I can get on the mat with young competitive black belts, but there's also women and men in their 60s on that mat, that tells me that there's a mentality that exists in that culture where it's safe for me to get on the mat with a 26-year-old, you know, 250-pound just monster who knows how to roll without hurting his training partners or her training partners. And then cleanliness, yeah, that goes without saying. I always tell people to, you know, ask them what they clean the mats with.

Like, ask them to show you. Like, show me the product. I mean, we use a hospital-grade disinfectant. You know, ask them how many times they clean the mat, you know, ask them to see a copy of their liability insurance. You'd be amazed at how many schools don't even have insurance. That seems to touch grace. Really quickly. No, but really quickly, these two things are not mutually exclusive.

So, Homo Baha, who runs Gracie Baja, Northridge, I think. world champion, super cool guy, but super tough guy, active competitor. He came and did a couple seminars in Korea, and he was a really good teacher as well. And I said, what's going on? I just thought you were kind of a fighter. And he said, we have a fight team. And we train kind of midday between the morning classes and the evening classes. And he's like, fight team is voluntary or by invitation.

And if you go there, you know it's going to be rough. You know you might get hurt. He's like every other class, the fighters can come if they want. they know they're rolling slow, they're helping other people, and if they train in those other classes like a fight team, they're out. And it says other classes that turn the lights on it on an economic perspective. You can do both. It's not an either-or.

Yeah. I think those are good answers. That was exactly five minutes. Perfect. Getting the hang of this. Synchronized. Yeah. This one was kind of directed at me, but I owe this guy an answer.

Am I the lone brown belt who has suffered the humiliation and shame of a thousand years by being submitted by wrist lock nonetheless by formerly, former lowly white belt known as Andy Stump. No, you're not. No. Not the first, not the last. So this guy's awesome. His name's Gregory. He invited me out to, he's a lawyer.

He's had an office in Rally. And in one of the conference rooms, it was completely custom-matted with law firm geese. He's spending his money the right way. It was amazing. And so I showed up there the first day, and we rolled. And here's my theory. I'll take what I can get. And I just happened to be able to get that.

So I took it. And yeah, I think it was more perhaps memorable. That actually warms my heart to know that your wrist locked in. Yeah. I didn't have anything else. I wonder where I learned it from, Travis, you asshole. What's his name? Gregory.

Okay. So Gregory. I also receive a certain amount of hate in my life. And I'm answering you, but I'm also giving Andy a good canned response. whenever someone, and he's being very humorous and generous, it's great. But, you know, my answer to when people are like, oh, I hate you for doing X or, you know, I just hate you for doing Y. And I was like, get in line.

Well, and so his questions continue because I think that this was probably more memorable for him than it was for me. Because I'm legitimately like, that's the only thing that I saw available. So it was the only thing that I took. It's not that I was hunting for that. Because he said, how many people did you tell of the victory? Why and why not? I don't think I told anybody because I don't care. Thank you.

First time I've ever heard of it, Gregory, and I've seen Andy punch above his weight and punch above his belt a lot of times, and I've never heard him talk about it. Yep. And he trains with me. We see each other four or five days a week at least. I've never heard of it. I've never heard of any... What I did tell you about was the black belts that showed up.

The next day. Yeah. But I saw them and I was like, I walked into the room. I was like, who wants some first bitches? Knowing what the result was going to be. And I willingly accept that. So he's called in the hit. Awesome.

But I learned it's crazy. You know, one of those guys had done about 90% of his training, he said, with feral military dudes down at Fort Bragg. They could come at train at any time. And his jiu-jitsu was savage because the people that he was trying to teach were out of their goddamn minds all the time. And it was crazy to feel the difference. And he ended with what's the most memorable lessons you've learned in victory and defeat on the mats. And for me, it's simple. And in both victory and defeat, you're just a person.

And that's why I don't care about the victory or defeat because it's the perfect. For me, Jiu-Jitsu is the perfect. Hey, why don't you take yourself down a peg or two? Like, oh, you think you're good? Everybody over here is better than you. So it's probably a good thing to remember in every aspect of life. Absolutely. So for me, it's like if you are, and this is, again, back to maybe the original question,

Jiu-Jitsu in life, I'm never focused on today. Like, I have yearly goals for this year. Like at the end of the year, I want to improve certain things. The road to that can be a few steps back, you know. Michael Hines, SVG Texas, he's been, he's only, he's jih Tijuana, he's meditation like 20, 30 years. We were talking about this and he's like, oh yeah, the Indian meditation version of this and goes back to bow hunting, which is kind of on your radar. He's like, you got to go backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards and then forwards, you know?

You probably are going to get a performance decline as soon as you start to try something new. But in attempting that something new, your performance in the long run is going to be okay. But take a bow, knock your arrow. and just be like, how full, it's gonna be like, yeah, I can't do that, they would never talk to me again if I did that. You gotta, you gotta be willing to draw back. So if you're losing because your ultimate goal

is to get better at Jiu-Jitsu, then you're not losing. You know, it's like, Travis taps me, it's like, he's my friend, he's not gonna hurt me, I'm not out in some life or death situation. And like, I'm playing a new thing, I'm playing a thing that's not comfortable for me, me, of course I'm going to be bad at it. Of course I'm going to get tapped.

Your archery analogy is actually really good because I've watched Dudley give people critique points. And I can imagine that when he's right there, it's amazing to watch what happens under the tutelage of a great teacher. They get like this performance spike. And I've had it happen myself. I go try it at home by myself. I'm like, this shit doesn't work.

And you can get really pissed at that moment because your arrow is not in the bowl. But what you really need to think about is your arrow in the bowl. in hunting season to fill the freezer. Yeah. Yeah. I'd look at the question from another perspective. What John said, I agree with the 100%. We talked about it today, or I guess it would have been the last class I taught before John got here

since he's been teaching my last classes. But all those failures, in fact, it was Wimp to Warrior this morning. I was teaching this morning. It was just so long ago, I forgot. And I was just talking to, like, giving them room to fail. Like, all those failures add up to success. Like, instead of looking at each one of those is like, oh, my God, I'm so terrible at this and I'm never going to be good at this, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Like, if you look at failure as like, I suck at this, I'm never going to be good at this, you're absolutely right. But instead, if you just look at like, all right, I'm closer to learning it. I'm almost there. Oh, good. I got another failure today. And then boom, next thing you know, you are. going forward. But then from a, because the question kind of sounded like it was involving

competition as well. And I used to compete a lot. John and I competed a couple years ago in Vegas at Masters Worlds. And the reality is this, I've lost more than I've won, but there's never been a time where after a loss on the mat, I wasn't super proud and super happy and just euphoric about the fact that I faced that fear of getting out there and putting it on the line. And that's really the victory. If you're looking at it from a sports standpoint, which I think is the least important part of jujitsu, even that the biggest accomplishment is not the medal or, you know, the accolades,

but it's the fact that you've pushed yourself to do something that most people are afraid to do. And then regardless of the results, it's very gratifying. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So there's another one that kind of falls into themes, and it's like belts and promotions. It's very interesting. there's some like very distinct tranches of questions that show up over and over again. Questions for you on promotions in the BJJ world. I have been training for a little over a year now and I've been a little frustrated at times with the physical representation of my progress.

Welcome to the club. Usually I accept the karate kit approach, which I can't say I'm intimately familiar with, but I like that he referenced it, where a belt is solely there to hold up your pants or a ghee closed in this case. and it is your ability that communicates your level of proficiency. However, sometimes the physical representation of progress helps, especially during times where you feel stuck in a rut. Just curious on your thoughts. So I'm assuming he's talking about the stripes

or the smaller incremental feedback, but just belts in progress in general advice you would probably give to somebody in that situation. In terms of belts, I tend to agree with the Karate Kid philosophy. I do think they are for holding your pants up. I think that their biggest function in terms of jiu-jitsu is letting you know where you're at from a competition standpoint. So if I was going to go compete, like, okay, I'm with somebody who's roughly, you know, it levels the playing field somewhat.

But as an instructor and as a gym owner, I do think that having that extrinsic thing that gives you. gives me the opportunity to acknowledge your progress. It would be like a grade on a report card. You know, is it the most important thing? No, learning is the most important thing. But does it help that you could receive an A from your instructor, a B from your instructor, a F from your instructor? I think it does.

Midterm two as opposed to waiting for those long chunks. Yes. Yeah. At our gym, you know, we stripe white belts and blue belts. because I think early on those little milestones are more important. I think by the time somebody gets to Purple Belt, I mean, you're kind of... I feel like they either know whether or not they like it or not by that point.

There's a substantial time, energy, and effort. That's awesome. Yeah. What are your thoughts on belts? So I didn't have any stripes, white belt, a black belt, but I realized that that's not ideal. Because, I mean, what Travis and Matt say about the kind of, you know, the killing floor, like you just like survival of the fittest.

We lost a lot of people that could be and should be still doing jujitsu. You know, I was in and I was just going to be in no matter what. But yeah, the stripes at white belt and the stripes of blue belt, or stripes for kids. Because kids don't have... When you've only been alive for 10 years, it's hard to have a long-term perspective. This is the longest class of my life. But yeah, I never had a stripe. I never needed a stripe.

But it's okay. But for belts, what I always say, I met belt promotions in Korea with my guys. And I always say the same thing. Because it remains true. And that is, don't worry about the belts as a teacher. And I can't speak for all teachers, but I think I can speak for most teachers. It's funny that as a teacher, I actually may want to give the belt more than the student wants to receive it. Like how awesome is it to make a brown belt or make a purple belt or make a black belt?

belt. It makes your team so much stronger. And it's such like an acknowledgement of your relationship with that person that they've been with you for almost, you know, closing it on a decade or more than a decade. And so people tend to get the kind of tunnel vision and that he doesn't know I exist. And I know everyone exists. I know exactly where their level is. But the moment you give a belt too early, the beauty of Brazilian jiu-tizzi begins to crumble. Because, you know, Well, you've talked about this with the standards. Like bring in whoever, gender, race, height, height. They're just standards, you know, with your former occupation.

The same thing. The moment you give a fake purple belt, that purple belt starts avoiding purple belts and even like avoiding blue belts because I'm a purple belt. So what if I tap to a blue belt? And the whole thing comes crumbling down. So I always want to give the belts. I'm always looking at everybody. but all they need to do is worry about attendance. It's like be healthy, be here, train hard.

Your coach wants you to be better than you want to be, and he wants you to be or she wants you to be a higher belt than you want to be. Forget about that. It's not your job, right? Your job is a train. Your job, it's back to you like mid-terms. You don't grade yourself. I grade you, you know?

I give you the test and I give you the grade. You just worry about your performance and things will sort themselves out. And if you're worried about the grade, your performance is going to... Yeah, yeah. No, you're already done. Yeah, I agree. People make a big deal about the belts, man. Oh, yeah. Belt promotions.

There's nothing like belt promotions to create drama in the gym. All you need to do is have a little roll with like a D1 wrestler or throw hands of the box or and be like, what belts you? Like, what's a belt? Yeah. Those D1 wrestlers, I believe, should wear signs. They should be required to wear signs around their neck. But I just mean they don't have belts. It's not affecting their ability.

There's no boxing belts. You know, there's no wrestling belts. And jiu jitza's a martial art. It's not a sport, but we could learn something about just, hey, figure on staying healthy, being here and performing, and the other things will sort themselves out. So this is an interesting one. I think you guys will both have some unique input. Have students ever had to be kicked out of the gym? If so, for what reasons?

Also, Andy, I'm also a blue belt as well and would love to get the, I was submitted by a Navy SEAL merit badge feeling froggy. And I'll fight anybody so you can come. I could care less. Just sign the waiver. I can't guarantee it's going to go my way. You might tap the shit out of me, so go for it. And yeah, I could care less. But people getting kicked out of the gym.

You guys have been around this long enough to see, I'm assuming some warning signs. So on that note. We've been talking about this over the last couple days. And it's hard because it's also jiu-jitsu. Like in jiu-jitsu, you don't want to be the person who reacts too early, right, out of fear. Giving up on submissions or tapping, whether you're the attacker or the defender, you tap too early, that's not good. You give up on a real legit submission too early, that's good, but late is worse, right?

And I think with individuals as well, you don't want to be too judgmental and not give people ample opportunity to kind of learn the culture. And, you know, some of the mistakes may not be character flaws. They may be lack of knowledge. Like some guys go hard, especially men, because they think you want them to go super hard. And, you know, there's an education process. And that's why I like, I like, this is interesting. We haven't had this talk.

Matt Thornton used the word gym for straight blast gym to get away from the phony mom. martial arts thing, like you're in a Shaolin temple. I've kind of returned, I love Jim, but I've also kind of returned to the idea of an academy because it's a place of education. And if you haven't educated someone and they're just rough because they misunderstand the goals of the place that they're in, that's not their fault. But when someone has been, you know, it's like a three strike thing maybe, sometimes a

two strike thing. But if you've attempted to educate someone and you've warned them and you've made kind of the rules clear and they're still not abiding by them. I think at that point, early is not good, but late's worse. Because they'll hurt other people. They'll make other people quit. And people won't admit, like, I quit because Jeffrey's too rough. And, you know, especially men, they feel like there you go, oh, no, no, I'm busy.

No, really? I know. Right? Oh, I'm busy with work. But really, it's like Jeffrey broke my hand or something, you know? Or I'm scared of Jeffrey. Yeah, right. You'll lose, you'll try to save one loser, but you'll lose 10 good people who need Jiu-Jitsu.

So, you know, if someone's not educable, they should be just gone early, not early, but not late either. Well, yeah, I mean, I think when people ask that question, that's normally what they're getting at, you know, how do you deal with the guy who goes too hard, too rough? you know, the guy who rolls with a teenage boy and rolls hard, you know, or rolls with the female student and rolls hard. I know that guy too. Versus a guy who is, you know, 250, physically fit, shows up the comp team, goes hard, but then shows up on Monday at noon and can roll at a bunch of different speeds depending on who his partner is. And I think that's true. But for me personally, as an owner of three gyms now, or academies or dojos or whatever you want to call them. Let's not call them dojos. I have no reasoning for that.

It just sounds a little bit weird. Well, I still call it the gym. But, yeah, you know, what I've kicked more people out of the gym for things that happened off the mat than things that happened on the mat. And my philosophy is this, like, I'll give you, you know, white through brown belt. Okay, all good in the hood. Like, you show me that you have the skill set required and the knowledge to be that belt level. I'm good. But the minute we start talking about black belt, now we're starting to talk about, you know, if this is a martial art, which it is,

and now you're going to be looked up to by kids, by, you know, people automatically hear black belt, regardless of the martial art. And in our case, you know, Jiu-Jitsu black belt is a legitimate thing. Now your character does matter to me. And now that is something that I think about. And then you do have to be a black belt off the mat. You do have to carry yourself like a martial artist.

And I've kicked out at least four people for behavior that took place outside of the gym that was not acceptable behavior. Not only of a martial artist, but of just a human being. And so for me, absolutely, I'm looking to educate my students on how to roll, how to treat each other with respect and how not to run off my good students. But the reality is, is in practice, I've actually had to remove people more often than not for behavior that took place outside of the gym. Yeah. I dropped two brown belts because I feel exactly the same way. neither of them had any problem with their chokes or arm bars.

They learned jiu-jitsu for me for almost a decade or maybe a little more. Good, solid jiu-jitsu in terms of fighting. And I kept modeling silently and then also verbally telling them what I expected. And they never really aligned philosophically. It was all physically. And I dumped them both. And when you dump someone you've been training for a decade, it's weird. And you wonder, did I do the right thing?

And it's early versus late. Was the timing right? And there's only two of them. And one, within a couple years, actually went to jail for, you know, inappropriate behavior with a female student. And the other one lost all those female students due to inappropriate behavior of the female student, but avoided jail because she didn't press charges or something. So, yeah, I cut them loose more for behavior off the mat,

and then luckily, you know, I mean, not luckily, but, I mean, it proved to be true in both cases that I made the right choice. And I feel like it's easier to repair bad mat etiquette because I look at like the class today, I mean, there was 28 people on the mat or whatever it was, and lots of brown belts and purple belts. And those guys have all been with me from,

day one, and I look at them now, or I have a friend come in and roll with them and talk about how they roll, and I think, man, but if you would have roll with them six years ago or seven years ago, but that's fixable. I think that's a lot easier to deal with, and jujitsu. Character issues are harder to fix, I think, than gym etiquette. And the other thing, back to what you're saying, too, if you make a mistake and that person is a really good person, and that person really respects you as their teacher, and that person really loves Jiu-Jitsu, they're not going to be like, well, fuck you, I'm leaving.

They're going to be like, this is a mistake. This is a misunderstanding. How do I make it right? How do I prove to you that I do subscribe to your philosophy and I am a martial artist? And then it's like, oh, okay, well, let's work on this. But when they just leave, you're like, oh, maybe I made the right choice. And both these guys just bailed, you know. All right, gentlemen, two more.

We'll end with the question from Doss, Rob Wolf. This one is just interesting. I don't know what your guys take on this is going to be. I let go of submissions I know I have when my opponent doesn't tap. I make direct eye contact first before letting go so they know, is this helping my opponent or should I just take their arm home with me? There was a Jocko podcast. That's very brief.

So the one and only thing I appreciate you about that question. Questions is brief. There was a Jocko podcast a while ago where the guy is like, I am so humble and so smart and so wonderful, but no one appreciates me. And, of course, Jock spent 30 minutes saying your whole post is the lack of humility, right? So, you know, it's like, well, if it's that locked in and you're that dialed and you're

that much control, like just make them tap and maybe don't make eye contact. Like, you're not in prison or anything, are you? Like, I don't know if they have Instagram service in prison, which is where that question came from. No, but it's sort of like, and I don't, this may be just well-meaning and ill-phrased. So I'm not attacking this person personally. But what I have, no face-to-face contact, just an Instagram message. It's like, if you really can tap someone and you're really in control of someone, what's the eye contact about? Like, just finish, slap hands.

rinse and repeat. Like there's no, this is not a complicated issue. I think it might be there, you know, they don't want to go too far and hurt the person. Maybe they're saying that the person that they're rolling with is too stubborn. And instead of cranking harder and taking their arm home with them, they do what could be considered awkward eye contact, maybe a little wink. Okay. I mean, well, learn to choke. I mean, tap early, tap often.

you know, don't get hurt, don't hurt anybody, but you can be rough from both sides. So, you know, if it's locked in, it's locked in. Yeah, if you don't have to an arm bar and I think there's a misunderstanding there too, right? So like you might think that it was locked in, but how can people keep getting out? Yeah. Like, gnarring your way out of submissions, that's not really a normal thing. It's not a good strategy. It doesn't feel good. If it was, then jujitsu wouldn't work, right?

Like if I could just gnar my way out of your locked-in submission, well, then maybe I need to question jiu-situ. But the reality is if it's locked in, it's locked in. And like John was saying, I mean, picture a locked-in arm bar where everything is technically correct. Okay? And now how hard do you have to rip on that arm? You don't.

You can continually put slow pressure into the elbow. And at that point, honestly, if the other person's a psychopath and listens to their arm pop and then pop again and then pop again, I mean, maybe don't roll with that guy anymore. But the other thing is, how about this? How about try choking him next time? Yeah. Then you don't have to hurt him. If you're dominating somebody that much, then, you know, I kind of agree. I think it was a poorly phrased question.

raised. When I am going with someone who really has me, like how many times have I used, you know, my aggression or my, you know, I'll just go crazy, man, rolling with someone like, you know, like Henry. It's like, no, like if he has something, you know he has it. Like there's no escape. Like when you're, if he's, in other words, if some, if he is as. technically superior to those other people as he thinks he is, they're like Travis,

they're not getting out. You know, they're not getting out. Yeah, and tap before your arm pops. 100% horrendous. Number one rule is protect yourself. But then the last thing is every, but then the last thing is to give this person a little bit of leeway, every situation like that is ultimately the gym owner's problem. if people are make in other words Travis gets my arm

I make him choose to be a dick and hurt me I'm the dick right and whoever is coaching us should not be talking to him should be talking to me and saying you can't do that like he had you and you're going to force him to injure you and that can't happen in my dad and your judic career is going to be over yeah all right gentlemen last question I'm the one and only Doss Rob Wolf.

He has two questions. He opens with my main question, will Texas and Montana split custody of John Frankel, or will this be a battle to the death? My response to that was obviously rhetorical battle to the death, which she accepts. Now that that is settled, I've noticed relaxation aids escapes.

Sometimes I need a little extra hustle to stay ahead of something, but strength does not really help this. And although I'm feeling good in maintaining positions, to finish folks, I need a little more chutzpah? I'm going to have to go to that. Yiddish, Yiddish. Ask Adam Singer. Yeah.

Does that seem right or am I missing something systematic? Systemic. Okay, so about the battle to the... Let's stay away from systemic. Battle to the death. It's of course accepted. We will battle to the death somewhere. I may be able to spend post-hunting season, depth of wind.

winter in Texas, right? But until every hunting season is over, I'll probably be here. Although I've seen more dead deer by the side of road in Texas than anywhere in the universe. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. About the other question, I think it's a great question. In a fight, you use everything.

You know, it's like, you're strong, be strong. You're fast, be fast. You're flexible, be flexible. It's a fight. Your job is to win. In training, your job is to get better and stay healthy. So I would say, like, my emphasis is always, you can compensate for a lot of speed and a lot of strength by being early. So I would concentrate all training on timing and being early.

Because that's sustainable into 50s and 60s and 70s, where strength and speed or not. I have a question for Rob. This is going to be tough to get an answer, but far away. Is Rob ever going to actually commit to coming to Montana to train? I can actually get behind that question. I don't know. Let's just talk to show. Let's call Rob Wolf out.

No, Rob Wolf did threaten to be here for Henry's seminar. So we might just call him out. He said it was a definite maybe. Yeah. I want to focus on the definite set of that. We'll go light on the maybe. We'll go 80-20 definite maybe. He was talking about coming out for Henry.

Something that... Which he has time to plan. Rob, when you hear this, which I'll let you know that we talked about you. You've got time to the end. Yeah. But something that John touched on there, which I struggled with for a long time, you know, 20 plus years of jiu-jitsu with Matt Thornton. And Matt's always been really big about, you know, shelving your attributes and, you know, not using your speed, not using your strength. And I never really understood that because being a super competitive person, I really struggled with that.

I couldn't digest it. And it wasn't until, you know, very recent, which is, you know, not a good thing, but it wasn't until recently that I really kind of understood that when you're in the gym training, when you're doing classes, when you're at OpenMat, what you're really trying to do is educate your body on the things that it can't do naturally. Your body will always be as strong as your body is. It'll always be as fast as it currently as. Your cardio will be what your cardio is. Like you're not going to learn better cardio. You have to train it. But with jujitsu and with technical things and things like boxing and other sports,

you can get away with some bad habits and compensate when you use things like speed and strength. But then eventually you run into somebody who's as big and strong or worse yet, bigger and stronger or faster or younger. That's not fun. And the fear is always that, well, but when I get into it. into a real fight, I'm not going to know how to do that. And it's like, well, no, that's the only thing you're going to know how to do. Like when everything goes, you're always going to have that strength. You're always going to have the speed, whatever it is. But you won't have that technique to fall back on. So sloppy technique in a situation when you really need it is going to

hinder you. So I think that's important. I think in the gym, and I usually agree with John on everything, being early is by far the most important thing. That's what timing is. That's all timing. It's another synonym for timing, basically. Yeah, I mean, and you can feel it. I mean, those are the levels, right? When you're rolling with guys where you're like, you hear people describe like rolling with a particular person that's like, oh, he's like rolling rolling with water. Like he was there, but then he wasn't there. You're not feeling that resistance because they're there before you. And they're not using strength. So you push them in a direction and then that thing just goes away

because they're not interested in engaging you in that way. They've already moved on to the next thing, which was better than the thing that you were fighting for. I don't know if that makes sense. I'm totally agreeing and just adding. You're actually in a fight liable to be too strong and too fast and too aggressive. And I'm using two in a kind of metaphorical sense,

but you know, you can't be too aggressive in a fight if it's a real fight. But, you know, like, to the detriment of any kind of control or kind of cold rationality about what's going on. And then the other thing is there's a very, very, like, can it be slowed down with, you know, are you doing good, like resistance training? Are you doing yoga?

Are you doing breathing? Meditation. It can all be slowed down, but it can't be stopped. Like, it's all going like this, you know. you know, age is going here and attributes are going here and everyone. If you're a human being, well, after 30 at least. For sure. And if you're genetically gifted and you're conscientious, maybe after 40, but it's happening.

It's happening to everybody. So I've said this at my seminars, like, we talked about it in the truck the other day. You don't want to invest in a bank account that disappears in 30 years. You want it to make, oh, it's bigger in 20, and it's bigger in 30, and it's bigger in 40, because I'm paying into it. And you can pay into that kind of the vision and the timing, but you can't really pay into your ability to invert on your cervical spine and, you know, your ability to be your ability to be faster than people and stronger than people.

It's going to go away. It's just going to disappear one day. So why invest in it, you know? Makes sense to me. You guys are going to get in trouble if we don't end this relatively soon. Yeah, I'm going to be in trouble no matter what's kind of my constant state. Speaking of synonyms, that's like a synonym. that's like a synonym for being married.

But that's it. Multiple questions. We're done.