Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - How Do We Protect Our Kids?

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

How do we protect our children from the dangers lurking online via smartphones? How do we need to adapt our parenting skills in a digital age? That's not all –What do we do when trust and intimacy in a marriage are shaken by the hidden use of pornography. What impact does pornography have on relationships, the importance of communication, and strategies for healing and restoring intimacy. Next, shifting gears to a lighter yet equally important debate in the martial arts world: the merits of training with a GI versus no-GI in jiu-jitsu, especially for young practitioners. A concerned parent shares his dilemma after his 5-year-old daughter learns a move that seems impractical for self-defense without a GI. We'll dissect the philosophies behind GI and no-GI training, their applicability in real-life scenarios, and how to empower our children with the right skills for self-defense. Wolf 21- Check out what they have to offer for the best sleep of your life: https://www.thewolf21.com Use Code: "clearedhot" for 30% off of your 1st order The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Well, hello. It's Friday, and you know what that means. And from what you can tell, obviously, if you're looking at this, probably the audio sounds a little bit different. We're on the road, and I'll get to that in a minute. So I have a few questions that I'll answer and some food for thought for Friday. Here we go. Okay, coffee, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Okay, like I said, I had an idea for some food for thought. It was inspired by where I am. Just over my life. left hand shoulder is a very traditional item inside of a hotel room. If you've ever been in one, you know what I'm talking about. It is a chair, or in this case, a chase lounger. Now, oftentimes, I have referred to this as the cuck chair. And my food for thought for today is this. If one wears to wear the horns of a cuckold, would you prefer to wear the horns of a cuckold? Would you prefer a chair or a chase lounger.

Does one provide for you opportunity that another would not? Would one be more beneficial for those wearing the horns of a cuckled? Would it allow them to relax and stretch out? Get a little bit more comfortable as things play themselves up. I have no idea what the answer to that is, but I can see it out of my peripheral vision. It's speaking to me. It's bothering me a little bit, if I'm honest.

So that's my food for thought. Which would you prefer? The chair or the Chase Loungeer. And on that, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Two emails today, very different subjects. I actually picked this one, and essentially it's about porn. And I want to answer it from two different perspectives. I want to answer it from the perspective of the questions asked in this.

And then I have a question, I guess, back to the audience. and I don't know how we can really have a two-way dialogue on this, but I'm curious what people would think when it comes to protecting our children from this. So I'll end on that and start with the question. The marriage has been married to my wife for over 10 years and have they used porn on and off throughout our relationship, despite knowing my wife's strong stance against it. Recently, I confessed to the use...

Oh, I'm sorry. Recently I confessed all of the use to her, including a particularly bad instance where I attempted to have a... live video session. All of this has hurt her immensely and of course understandably. I am working through a very painful process of unpacking my past and accepting the consequences of my actions. I did not realize how damaging porn can be to a significant other. We had a fantastic sex life and my use was more of a compulsory response to dealing with feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, stress, etc.

After some very hard conversations in clearing the air, we do feel like we have a good foundation to build on. The two biggest hurdles right now are going to be trust and intimacy. How can she ever trust my words again after I lied to her for so many years? Aside from continuing to put in the self-work and seeking out therapy, do you have any other thoughts either about porn and marriage in general or on next steps to restore my intimacy in our relationship? Damn. Deep question. A lot of layers. I mean, there's everything here from the, what role does porn serve, if any? Is there a responsible usage of pornography as long as both parties are consensual? Does it have a role in a healthy relationship? Is it possible to have

that in a relationship and not have it turned south? I don't have the answers to any of those things. and I am not one to tell people how to live their life. My own experience with pornography. Sure, I've seen pornography in my life. And to be honest with you, it's not really my thing. And I think the reason that, I mean, I get it. I understand why people watch it. I understand that it has an incredibly addictive nature for some people.

But it just sets this unrealistic, I think, expectation and stage around what intimacy, what I think intimacy should be. Is that a right way to put that? Yeah, that about encapsulates how I feel about that. I don't know if there's necessarily anything inherently wrong with it. You know, again, for anybody who's listened to me or been a follower of the podcast, you will know that I'm not a fan of telling people how to live their life. If it's too consenting adults participating in this activity, they're getting paid for this service,

they know what's going to end up happening with it, who am I to tell you how to live your life? If you're somebody in a marriage and you know that the person you've been in a marriage with for 10 years has a strong stance against it, I don't know if I can make a better argument against your utilization of that than your spouse can.

And maybe it'll be better for me to answer email if I go in reverse order in the questions that you asked. Next steps to restore intimacy in your relationship. And actually I'm going to say I think the most important thing that has been violated in this relationship is trust. I talk about trust all the time from a leadership perspective. It's something that has to be treated like a bank account, not that it is, of course, a bank account, but meaning that in interactions you can choose to make a deposit or develop a deeper level of trust, or you can make a withdrawal and reduce the amount of trust that another person has in you.

The goal would be, of course, just like a bank account, to prevent it from getting to zero. Because in my own personal life and in my own experience, when the trust bank account has hit zero with somebody, I've never been able to recover it. And I don't know where your wife's feelings on this are or where she is at on this particular bank account because of this. But if it is at zero, I think there is a chance that it actually isn't recoverable. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try, but it may not be recoverable, even if both parties do actually try. Because that violation of trust is an incredibly damaging thing. You know, I have heard people describe their partner viewing pornography all the way up into the point of being infidelity. And again, that's a discussion between individual partners and the parameters that they may set on their results.

relationship. If your wife thinks of it in that nature, then you might have a substantial issue on your hands and one that may not be resolvable. If she doesn't think it is that egregious or to that level in her belief system, a moral system, whatever it may be, for whatever reason, she has a strong stance against it, maybe there's a chance. But what it's going to take is time. If you didn't hit bankrupt in this situation, what I'll say, what I feel comfortable saying is you probably made a massive withdrawal. And it's probably close to zero, which is better than it actually being at zero because I think you can recover. But it is going to take time. You know, the reduction in trust versus the ability to build trust in somebody else, I don't think that they are an equal scale of justice.

I think you can lose them at non-linear rates. I think it takes minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years to build trust. And then you can have an admission that you were lying for nearly a 10-year time period. And actually, you know, it's the admission that the velocity of that loss of trust is going to be massive. I guess you could look at it, though, that you had chipped away at that over 10 years and it was just that realization. Another way I guess could be look at it is say you were together for 10 years and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, you had an affair. One instance, but again, massive withdrawal. So all of the trust and time that you took to build it and the velocity with which it can be lost.

It's not linear. You have a long road ahead of you. But if you care about your wife and you care about the relationship, you'll take the steps necessary over whatever time it presents. sense to you to continue taking those steps until you have built yourself back to trust. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to not try to rush anything in this situation or set expectations on time that are unrealistic. And the reality is your wife's going to be in the driver's seat on this. She is the one who has had her trust violated and she is the one you have to build back your trust with. I think really open and honest conversations

about this and about the path forward are going to be essential. I would add into the mix a marriage counselor, so you can get a third party, and you guys can kind of work towards the apex of that triangle. You already mentioned going and doing some work on yourself. People who know me know that I absolutely agree with doing so. As much as possible, the impact of my life has been very profound at times, and it has been so incredibly helpful to have somebody to talk to who is not in an emotional state

or working through a problem like I was in that moment, and they can give me much more objective feedback and advice. I will also say many times I am not an expert on this by any stretch, but I have many times heard people use pornography or the usage of pornography in terms of addiction. So it may be, you might need to talk to somebody, depending on how deep this has its hooks into you, even though you're describing it as more of a coping mechanism for inadequacy, anxiety, stress, I'm not an expert on addiction. Talking to the traditional counselor, which it sounds like you're already going to,

you might want to talk to somebody who can view this through the lens of addiction. And maybe a traditional counselor can do that. Again, I'm not a therapist by any stretch. I can talk about my own anecdotal experience in my own personal life. So I think you're taking the right steps to work on yourself. I'm glad that you came clean. I don't, you know, Existential question, I guess. You know, what's worse? Living with the fact that you know you're not being the person that your partner believes you to be or come and clean about it and then restarting. Again, I don't know which one is better. I don't know which one is worse. But I think you'll probably sleep better at night, knowing that you came clean and were honest, especially if you can continue to take a path forward that leads you more towards the person that you want to be. That's the best advice.

that I can give you. Now I said I wanted to view this from another angle because kids and their access to pornography, much in the way that I feel that pornography, or I said about for myself, it's a, I get it, but it sets this weird stage that you can feel the artificiality of it. And I think it can skew your belief in what intimacy should. look like. And I don't know. Again, thinking through this in real time, not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination. That's through the lens of being an adult. What worries me and what I don't know when it comes to all of our children is how to have these conversations with our kids, given that, given the devices that they carry around with them every day and are tethered into

every single day are a few clicks away from extremely hardcore levels of pornography at an age where they don't have anything other than questions or very limited experience with intimacy themselves. If that becomes your baseline standard, I think it could change the way that your brain thinks about it, set these unrealistic expectations and a path forward where you might have problems with intimacy for the rest of your life or a difficulty being intimate with the rest of your life or people for the rest of your life. I don't know how you have conversations with your kids, my experience and what my path has been, is open an honest dialogue about the fact that it does exist, the ease at which people can find their way to it, open discussions about,

at least to my limited knowledge, the impact from a negative perspective, whether it's from an addiction or behavioral change perspective that has had on people's lives. And I always end with that reorientation, reorienting that expectation of intimacy and how it presents a picture that I would say for the vast majority of people is abnormal when it comes to those types of relationships. The kids are so young, they're so malleable, and I'd be fascinated to know how people in the digital age were these devices. And great quote that I heard recently, you know, when you give your kid a smartphone, you are not giving them access to the world. You are giving the world access to them. I think it was Sean Ryan that I heard say that. Fantastic quote. And it's so incredibly true. It gives them,

it's a portal to things that as parents, I don't think I can speak for all parents, but as a parent, absolutely terrifying. Because you know what's out there and that you know that there are predators that also looking for people at that young and malleable age. So I would be fascinated. Maybe in the comments, do me a favor and put in there how you have had these conversations with your kids, what you've seen be effective and what you've seen been not effective. And then maybe in a later episode, I can dissect that a little bit further and maybe get people a little bit better advice. For me, open, honest, transparent conversations with my kids has been the path that I have tried to be on in hopes of keeping the dialogue open for as long.

as possible and being a meaningful person in their life and somebody they can come to with questions. I don't think it's reasonable to try to pretend it doesn't exist. I don't think it's reasonable to try to pretend that you can protect your kids from it forever. So how do we present for them a suit of armor and a filter that they can view these type of things through? So if and when exposed to it, you know, they know it's out there and it doesn't it doesn't derail their development as a young human being. I don't have the answer to that. And maybe somebody else out there does. And if they do, trust me, I'll try to scream it from the mountaintops as loud as I possibly can.

Second question. About something I know a little bit more, but not a ton. Jiu-Jitsu. Hey, Andy, my daughter just turned five, and she's been doing Jiu-Jitsu for a little over a year at this one gym. The owner basically said to me, Ghee on is better than no-gi, because he is trained with the Ghi and won a lot of fights with no-gi. The other day she learned the cross-collar choke.

and when we got home, asked how to do it without a ghee. I didn't know, so I asked the coach, and he said, that is a ghee-only move. My concern is, if she feels the need to protect herself, does she call a timeout to give a bully a ghee, or will it come full circle? What do you think about ghee versus no-gey? The jiu-jitsu debate that I think has raged forever. I'm a fan of both, and I think they both have their place, and I enjoy training in both of those modalities.

I am not a jiu-jitsu coach. I am not a jujitsu instructor. I am married to a fantastic jiu-jitsu coach, a jiu-jitsu instructor and practitioner. It's a three-stripe black belt, so I haven't asked her this specific question, but we've had these types of conversations before. And here's what I'll say. You don't need a gie to cross-collar somebody, a cross-collar choke. Now, in a competition setting, yes, a cross-collar choke is not going to be available when you are competing in no gie. And it's also not going to ever be available in a real-world situation if somebody has their shirt off or I guess is pulling a John Danaher and is wearing a rash guard, even though I think,

eh, no, probably a rash guard's probably going to rip. Other than that, this T-shirt that I am wearing, where I live in Montana, where six to eight months out of the year, people are wearing flannel shirts, hoodies, zip-up sweatshirts, jackets, snow gear. If the fabric will hold, the cross-collar choke technique is going to be completely valid. T-shirts actually being not in a cross-collar perspective, but being choked by a t-shirt, the thinness of these collars and on flannels or, oh, God forbid, like a zip-up sweatshirt, it is savage. I would actually be rather cross-collar. I would actually be rather cross-collar choked, just feeling the back of somebody's hands against my karate,

than having that material pulled across my neck, especially when I look at like zip-up puties now, oh my God, that would be so bad. So it doesn't have to be in a ghee. What is a ghee top, a kimono top and a pair of pants? In a jiu-jitsu class, it's a uniform that has ties to the sport. And even in a competitive setting, they have rules and regulations on, you know, how much space, you have to have in the cuff of the kimono top. And if you extend your arm, how far it has to come up to the wrist.

And the thickness of the collar, all of these things. Why do they do that? So everybody's operating from the same template. So it is a uniform that you wear in class, and it is a competitive uniform that you can wear in competition, and they make sure that everybody is is relatively the same. Nogi is the same thing. People wear spats or shorts, but they don't have that additional fabric to hold on to.

That's why I know geese a little bit faster, if not a lot's faster. The grips are different. And some things are just not available because you don't have the fabric to hold on to, and you can't slow people down. And in that competitive setting, in that rule set, it's fantastic. But like I said, you know, a vast majority of jujitsu from a fundamental perspective, if you learn it wearing a ghee and you are not relying upon a ghee-specific grip. And this is a piece of advice I actually got from Joe Rogan, of all people,

because I asked him one time, do you do more ghee jiu-jitsu or no-gi-jitsu? And he said he started off doing more ghee and then eventually ended up doing more no-gi. But even when he wears a ghee, he focuses on using no-gi grips. And that does a couple things. One, it actually saves your grip strength because anybody who is new to jih Tzu can tell you, man, you're really holding on for your life sometimes, just trying to delay the inevitable. If you can get your Ghi Jiu-Jitsu grips to match your no-gui Jiu-Jitsu grips, guess what? You're going to have a seamless crossover.

And you'll get used to gripping people like that. You're going to have, not that you're going to have better grip strength, but I'd say you'd have better grip duration because you are using less like contractile potential or contractile energy in an actual gripping motion in and of itself. And a lot of the things that you can do in the Ghee, you absolutely can do no-gee. are very, I would say there are a few exceptions. I was going to say there are very few, but I would just say they are, there are few. But I don't think one is better than the other. I think if one of those excites you more than the other, and it keeps you doing jiu-jitsu and keeps you coming back

to class, that's the one that you should do. And if you are, if you are training or looking at Jiu-Jitsu from self-defense. And I'll say this from a perspective of just watching people where I live. The vast majority of them, except for the crazy ones, are wearing clothing 99.9% of the time. Using that clothing to either restrict their movement, control their movement, or choke them the fuck out if need be, I'm absolutely going to do that. And I'm going to be better at doing that by practicing doing that. And that's personally what I enjoy. But I also enjoy Nogi because I I enjoy the aspect of having less control. I enjoy the explosivity that sometimes comes with that.

I enjoy the speed that you transition through. And I'll be honest, like I'm not really viewing Jiu-Jitsu from a self-defense perspective. I think I know enough Jiu-Jitsu at this point to overlay onto self-defense. I just really enjoy it. And I find equal aspects in both that bring me back to the gym, that keep me training. And at the end of the day, especially for a five-year-old, that's all that matters. My biggest piece of advice to you, instead of saying, you know, gee versus no gee with a five-year-old is just find a reason that lights up her eyes. If either of those

get her excited about going and training, please just do that. Because this is not a shock or shouldn't be to anybody. Five-year-olds are pretty defenseless, except for against like other five-year-olds and people are at the size of a hobbit. But other than that, it's going to take a lot of time in practice and rep and techniques, and she's going to get exposure to good foundations, good training partners, a good community, hopefully good mentors in the form of coaches, and it's all going to fall into place later on. So I'd say, don't worry about it. Keep her smiling and keep her going back to training. And that's it. That's all I have from the road, getting recurrent, static line training so I can jump into Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which should be pretty badass. Static line

jumped today. I hadn't done so, I think, in 24 years. It was kind of the same. I'm going to leave it on that.