Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #13 Don't Call It A Comeback with Carlos Condit

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

UFC veteran Carlos Condit stops in to talk about his upcoming return to the octagon on December 30th against Neil Magny, his family and his life in and his new venture outside of the ring Hundred Hands Coffee. Connect with Carlos Condit on Instagram and Facebook Hundred Hands on Instagram Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Twitter and on Instagram Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast  Facebook Live every Wednesday a 6pm Central        Onnit Twitter        Onnit Instagram  

my man carlos conant in the house at on it yes sir i try to make that rhyme or flow together somewhat just for a super sweet intro yeah i'm here bro thanks for having me i'm excited and you and uh we were just talking about you know meeting way back in the day early on uh right when i first got in the ufc out in a Arizona. You trained in a number of different places. Yeah, man. I had been at the same gym in Albuquerque for a long time. And I think I was about 24. I had to get the fuck out, man. And so I went out to Arizona and trained with you guys at Arizona Combat.

Had a good time. Really saw what high high level elite athletes trained like you know I was around you know fighters but it was just it is a different level of athlete when I went to Arizona and I really got a a taste for what it was to you know be a be a professional athlete and train that way yeah I think uh as the sport started you know obviously when it fucking first started you had this guy knows this versus that guy knows that and then obviously when people started to bridge the gap on the martial arts point you still had guys that were all technique and all focused on martial arts but weren't necessarily focusing on the athletics

and then now more and more that's the fucking Like you've got to have world-class cardio. You've got to be explosive. You've got to have all your ducks in a row, just like an NFL guy does. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's a balance. And I think that it's kind of secular, at least with me, as to where my focus has to be for each fight, each opponent. Some guys you really have to, it's a technique and tactical-based game plan. Other guys it's really athleticism,

but not that you don't have to have that for every single fight. Yeah, focus shifts. You talked a bit about that in a recent article you did with Flow Combat, how it changes each time. You've had some time off, right? I have. What have you been up to? A lot of stuff, man.

Kind of trying to figure out some stuff to do outside of the cage. I was doing some medical sales for a little while, which was cool in one sense and kind of fucking boring in another sense. Weed? Cannabis? No, no, man. Oh, not Cannabis? No, no, man. Oh, not that cool? No, no, not that cool. I was doing like fucking selling.

Prosthetics? Medical implants. So like pins and plates and screws to help put people back together. Okay. After they break their wrist or their leg. How does that work? Is it like fucking door to door like you show up in some guy's hospital room and you're like really want to set you up

with the titanium screws our opponent our competition is going to try to sell you on steel i'm telling you titanium is the way to go uh it's like that but with the doctor you gotta you gotta do that beforehand with the doctor with the hospital and there's a lot of hoops to jump through um but it's yeah it's interesting in the sense that i get to learn a lot of shit you know i've been spent about 20 years figuring out how to break people and now um you know learning how they put them back together is you know a different different facet um but then you get to go on to surgery so that was pretty sweet um just seem to cut people open i saw some crazy shit some knee replacements oh wow shoulders and stuff like that um which was interesting but you also can't do anything you kind of sit there

with your fucking hands on your arms and like mark shit on a piece of paper and ultimately i figured that that's not for me i gotta move i gotta be hands-on i'm like a you know i'm a physical person so um i i you know i'm still kind of involved in that from a like a outside you know like managing some shit but um through that i met a met a dude and we started a coffee company out in albuquerque and been doing that slinging coffee and the name is a hundred hands under hands coffee yeah man um and that's been cool you know we we started about six months ago and we've done a lot of things in a pretty short period of time it's been exciting and um you know got to drink a lot of coffee and meet a lot of people so that's that's cool yeah that market's not going anywhere yeah for sure you're selling a um a legal addictive

substance that more and more people are are all about so that's been that's been fun and having to use different parts of my my brain and my my skill set um which some you know some of what i've done in m MMA is transferred over. As far as meeting and talking to people and kind of being a fucking carny. Being on the road constantly, face-to-face with people. Exactly, exactly. So yeah, I've been doing that and training, been staying in shape and trying to do different stuff and learning.

I think I've come a long way as a martial artist not having to be in training camp. Yeah, that's a big one. I think there's so, because the learning curve is so steep for a lot of people when you first get in, like, there is no time off. There's no fucking time to waste. You have to keep learning. You have to keep perfecting. And then you get to a point where, well, I don't know if i ever got to that point but obviously you're so fucking well-rounded you get to a point where maybe now you can focus and redirect some

of your energy elsewhere and take a deep breath from it and when you come back even with time away you're better for that time off yeah i think so um Not necessarily having to just be in the grind all the time. It's definitely beneficial. And I've heard that from different people. I talked to TJ Lavin, the BMX guy. He's a friend of mine. And he said after his injury, sometimes he'd be out for a while, like broken legs and stuff like that. And just sitting sitting and visualizing not actually being able to train or ride or do his thing just visualizing uh made him better he came back you know a better athlete just more on point hell yeah so what are some of the things that you've been working on martial arts wise and prep for this obviously people ask fucking stupid questions.

It used to drive me crazy when I was fighting because they'd be like, how are you preparing to win this fight? Like, no, you don't get to fucking hear that. You don't think my fucking opponent's reading this fucking thing? So this will air before the fight with Magni. But, I mean, what are some different things you've been working on, maybe not necessarily in preparation for Magni, but just stuff you wanted to improve.

I've been working a lot on my jits, man. And I've always loved jiu-jitsu. When I first learned jiu-jitsu, it was very geared towards MMA. And that's a different kind of, it's a different approach, honestly, having to incorporate strikes and having to – yeah, it's a different approach as opposed to just very, very traditional

or, yeah, traditional jiu-jitsu. Yeah, playing on your back, being comfortable, not worrying about getting hit. totally different animal and flowing and and doing all the stuff like the 10th planet guys so um yeah i've been really really focusing on on jiu-jitsu and um you know also my boxing just my really really basic um footwork and you know going back to the basics you know jabs one twos and you know i've always been a really dynamic striker but um you know going back and perfecting the little stuff and you know hopefully that adds to my overall overall performance and overall game hell yeah brother well we kind of jumped right into the technical side and what's going on uh where you've been and

all that stuff but i want to take it a step back okay you know when i interviewed uh uriah faber and ryan bader there's something that i always am curious about what got you into fighting like what made you want to do this did you fight when you were growing up like because it's a different feel it's not like hey i want to fucking play football when i get older and you watch guys on tv your whole life i mean fighting wasn't popular and it wasn't viewable for a lot of us and then when it first started it's a completely different game now than it was then where was your fucking interest dude honestly it came from like late 80s and early 90s martial arts movies. It came from fucking Ninja Turtles, honestly. Yeah, a lot of it came from movies.

I was just always drawn to martial arts. I was getting into fights as a kid, but I was into ninja turtles and like i think that was like the second movie that i ever saw was that first ninja turtle movie and that was you know looking back it was a good good movie in itself uh and i just i wanted to be a fucking ninja or something when i grew up and would always train with my friends. I had some other tough kids in the neighborhood that I was friends with, and we would always box and wrestle and do some different stuff.

Then when I was nine, I started wrestling. My dad put me in wrestling, and I dug it. I swam, and I played soccer. I was a competitive kid, but I didn't really love those sports. Hated to lose, so I tried hard, but it wasn't my thing. I always got in trouble when I played soccer because I was roughing up the other kids. Yellow card, red card. Yeah.

Same boat. I was too aggressive, man. They made me the goalie so that I couldn't freaking assault the other kids. And I started wrestling. I was like, yeah, this is what I like to do. And so I wrestled, and actually that first year that I wrestled, I think it was like 93, and I saw one of my wrestling coaches had UFC in his office. He put like it was, I think it was UFC 1,

and I saw it like as a nine or ten year old kid and i was like holy shit this is bad out this is real life blood sport this is this is the real deal it's the kumite it is and so after that i was i was all about mma like i was like through the dark ages uh you know where you could only get you video cassettes at uh at blockbuster in the special interest section me and my buddy would go and freaking get a couple of get it you know get a couple of uh tapes and watch them and i would stay up all fucking night and like to see is don fry gonna win you know ufc six or you know whatever it was um and you know, whatever it was. Um, and you know, from there, uh, I, when I was in high school, I was like, okay, you know, wrestling season had just ended.

And I was like, you know, I, I knew that wrestlers did well. And I was like, fuck it. You know, let's see if there's somewhere that I can do this. And I looked in the phone book and I found Jackson's, I think it was Jackson's Ground Fighting and Stick Fighting. Because they used to do the stick fighting stuff. That's badass. And I called them up, and, you know, that's kind of the rest is history. Hell yeah. So you were from New Mexico originally?

Yeah. And then how far was Jackson's from you? Well, there was two locations at the time. The east side location was pretty far, and I wasn't, I think I was 15. I wasn't even driving at the time uh the east side location was was pretty far and i wasn't i was i think i was 15 i wasn't even driving at the time so my dad drove me down i saw they were you know doing jits and i was like holy shit this is this is this is what i want to do um and the other the other location was closer to me um so i started going to going to that one and um it was still a good drive but my dad drive, but my dad saw that I was into it

and supported me in it so he'd get off work and then freaking take me down every day. And I was training with older guys. There was nobody who was my age that was doing it. So I started training with guys who were in their mid-20s, like full-grown-ass men sparring and fighting with them, and I think that's kind of why I progressed so quickly. I had to. It was kind of like thrown to the wolves.

Yeah. Yeah, it's also really fortunate when you look back and you're like, hey, man, this small-ass gym that I went to would become jackson wink mma yeah you know it's like oh you know uh you people go to a small gym or they go to this place and they're like it never it never manifests into something or they end up being a big fish in a small pond and they got to go leave to to join a big camp or they bring people in to build something around themselves but how fortunate that that was the fucking small small town spot down the street from you yeah absolutely there was a lot of a lot of kind of serendipitous things that fell

into place to kind of bring me to where i'm at and uh kind of where where my journey took me hell yeah brother so how how has your mindset changed throughout this and i don't necessarily mean like well we could talk outlook on life but also just um and we touched on that with you know wanting to think about the future and what you're going to do after fighting but how has the mindset changed from when you were first getting into the into those first pro fights up until now as you approach uh you know really trying to get back into title contention and being one or two fights away, really? Well, when I first started, it was really underground.

It was almost like a rebellious thing. Nobody else did it. There was nobody else in my school or anybody that I knew who was training. And so it was kind of like my thing, like this underground i go out i i go and i train with these like the these bouncers that train that that um work at all like the gnarliest places in albuquerque and we do this crazy you know fucking cage fighting stuff and and it was just like instead of like following a traditional route everybody all my friends are kind of getting ready to go to college and doing all this i'm like yeah i'm not gonna do that i'm gonna i'm gonna be a cage fighter um you know and

and my you know my i think my i don't know if my dad was like really care i don't know i don't know where my dad was with all that but my mom definitely wasn't cool with that um i want you to go to school i don't want to get hit in the face yeah right and i and i as a parent i understand that man like i tell my kids the same thing my my seven-year-old's all about like wanting to be a fighter right now i'm gonna go hell no you got it you got a good brain on you you're gonna use it for something other than absorbing punches uh but, but like, as I got older, um, 18, 19, it was kind of all I had going on. Like I was good at this and the sport was starting to emerge. It hadn't blown up yet. That's, this was like pre ultimate fighter. So it was still the dark ages. I was making like

250 bucks a fight in like the middle of nowhere in Albuquerque um but i enjoyed it and i kind of didn't have much else going on and um i don't know i just had a sense that it was going to be a big thing it was a big thing in albuquerque it was kind of it was you know it was there's a lot of buzz around mma you know there's some other you know other big fighters coming up or you know at the time big fighters Diego Sanchez and Keith Jardine and some other dudes were the dean of mean they were doing some some bigger things and um and I was also getting to travel I was getting to do some cool shit and you know go go and fight in Japan and go and train in Thailand and do a bunch of stuff that other people my age weren't able to do. And then as I started competing at a higher level,

I got more focused and realized that I can be one of the top guys in the sport. I can actually be a champion. And I just got a razor focus on on on training and being the best that I could be as a fighter and you know kind of became more professional became a professional athlete instead of just like this guy who's doing this kind of for fun and just kind of doing doing whatever and then uh you know my and then had you know had my got married and had my son and then things really got real okay now this is you know i'm not just you know an athlete you know training to be the best i'm you know just supporting a family so yeah you got to provide yeah so it's been evolution through all that. And now it's very much about making a living, man. I enjoy what I do, and I've had the chance to live my dream.

And at this point, capitalizing on that, capitalizing on the opportunity that I have. I'm still young. I've still got the fire. My body's still in it. So, you know know fucking might as well take it for as much as i can get out of it yeah stakes are higher definitely when there's when there's kids involved it's not just uh you trying to climb the ladder it's you got you got other people you're looking after got mouths to feed and got people to um yeah you know and and it's

it's not just that it's making a living but it's also you know you're modeling you're modeling things for your kids and you know showing them uh you know hard work and perseverance uh determination that that grind that hustle that's all important stuff tackling fear too it's not easy man everyone's fucking the whole thing shifts when the cage door shuts you know it does well and it's it's the lead-up too it's not just actually when the cage door shuts that's actually the easier part it's like struggling with struggling with um the insecurities struggling with the what-ifs um having to wrestle with you know just all this different stuff in

your brain in in the lead up to the fight that's more once you get out there and you do it the fighting parts that's easy man hitting getting hit like you do that you know how to train for that but it's like the psychological and emotional roller coaster in the you know in the you know weeks leading up to the fight that's really the the bitch yeah i agree i agree with that 100 so what's changed for you over time diet wise like everyone looks for these things what are the ways i can improve myself to enhance recovery what are the ways that i can get an edge on my opponents and and obviously you've always been fucking fit and have incredible cardio and in shape has as much changed with your

diet over time yeah absolutely so when i was first starting out dude i was like you know dollar value menu at at wendy's um in part because i didn't know any better and then also because i was broke as fuck um and then i learned i i started working with a trainer and he gave me a rundown on nutrition and, you know, gave me this, this, this whole deal. And he was, he was a really good trainer and good nutritionist. And I learned, I learned about, you know, macronutrients, micronutrients, fat, protein, all this different stuff. I'm like, holy shit, I'm just, I'm doing this wrong.

And from there, it's been an evolution, an evolution of trying to apply that in a practical way to my life because I'm busy, I'm training. I have to be able to do this and not just do that for myself, but do that for my family. So food is a big part of my life. So I grew up, you know, cooking my, my dad cooks, my whole family cooks. I have kind of a, you know, like a, an emotional connection to, to food and family. And that's really where I, I don't know. I feel, um, where I always felt my best. It's like when, you know, family sits down, everybody's eating. It was kind of a real intimate

thing and something that means a lot to me. And then food has also been a very practical part of my job having to you know make weight and be optimized as an athlete um and i've tried to bring the two together um as as i've you know as i've grown and got a family and so i cook a lot man um done a lot of a lot of research my wife has been into all different types of diets and really trying to refine the ways that – so the way that I initially was applying this is way different than what I'm doing now. You know, I'm constantly trying to learn and also applying that in ways that, like, I don't know anybody who really wants to eat chicken, boiled chicken and brown rice and broccoli for every meal. Like, life's too short to eat boring food. Like, I love food.

I like tasty food, but you can also do that. You can also, like, enjoy your food and still eat well yeah there's there's it just takes fucking a little effort and a little homework but there's plenty of fucking super rich fulfilling meals where you leave the meal and you don't feel gypped you don't feel like i had to fucking sacrifice all these things that i enjoy in life just to fucking be healthy yeah but you get a fucking good healthy meal you eat as much as you want and you're still feeling optimized you're still feeling great definitely man and it's it's uh i don't know there's a lot of different um facets to that um food like when i eat shitty food i feel shitty like i i don't i don't feel good people are like oh you

just you eat healthy all the time it's like i like that type of food i like to i mean and i'm not i try to do like a you know 90 10 like i don't i don't uh restrict myself you know i eat whatever you know sweets and that here and there but that's not really my thing anyway. But when I eat like crap, I feel like shit, man. I feel better. I have more energy for myself, for my family. I'm just like, even emotionally, I feel better when I'm eating better. And I think a lot of, there's science behind that too. Yeah, 100%.

A lot of people, especially now all the research coming on the microbiome you realize how much our bacteria contributes to our neurotransmitter production it's not just i'm going to eat this bad meal and possibly gain a few pounds it's i'm gonna eat this bad meal all the fucking pain that i've had from my knee for 10 years is going to come back whatever joint chronic inflammation i'm gonna fucking re rehash that refuel the fire and i'm gonna think less clearly i might have some brain fog i might sleep like shit and i might be an asshole next time my kid is a little bitchy or just being a kid yeah you know there it all fucking goes into that emotional state uh cognitive ability it all starts with the gut and that's a fucking weird thing for people to realize because so much of it's just you know i eat for pleasure you know like like uh aubrey and joe talk about

that you know the eating for mouth pleasure like this thing makes me feel good because it tastes good yeah as opposed to let's let's look at the consequences of this of this choice i'm going to make yeah man it's almost like and when and when you eat like that it is it gives you a dopamine release right you eat you know super sweet salty fatty artificially delicious food it gives you that dopamine release right but then you have that come down you have that and and it's similar to drugs same same kind of thing man you you know you you get this high boom i feel great for a second and then like long term it me all up um as opposed to like let's do you know let's do something that is maybe not as you know you know fire where you know it's not fireworks in my mouth but it's you know long term

i feel i feel better yeah the guy worthwhile the guy in uh supersized me i forget his name but he was by the by like mid i think he did it for six weeks he ate mcdonald's every day for either a month or six weeks but like midway i think in the three three week mark it shows him like getting his meal and he's fucking just juice to the gills happy like oh fuck yeah oh man i can't wait and like before he can finish it he's already in this oh fuck my life like just completely sunk it was that fast for him and obviously dude's eating three squares or four squares a day of mcdonald's that's going to be accelerated right but at the same time like i think of it this way like with i have a gluten intolerance and it's like one of the things people do when they do an elimination diet or paleo diet is they'll they'll go without you know problematic inflammatory foods for for three weeks to a month

and they reintroduce those and a lot of uh functional doctors will say like you know if it's cheese you're gonna try just have a little square of cheese or have like a half a piece of bread and it's like no bitch eat a fucking loaf of bread eat a plate of pasta eat a fucking giant hunk of cheese or drink a tall glass of milk because if that fucks you up then any small amount of that is going to fuck you up you just it just may go under the radar yeah and maybe small small inflammatory stuff as opposed to like this like yeah like really fucking you up on a like a yeah yeah run into the can because you don't tolerate that well yep right i think that's a big big point for people to get so have you ever worked with

anybody i mean a lot of the guys at jackson's are fairly forward thinking have you guys ever have you personally ever worked with like a sports psychologist or anybody on birth work visualization things like that you mentioned tj lavin talking about it has that been something that you've kind of embodied in your game um i haven't worked with anybody specific i do do a lot of meditation i do do um some visualization um and and uh and i've done that for a long time it kind of just on my like it's something that i've kind of stumbled across on on my own not really i mean this is almost like pre it's not pre-internet but pre you know like i wasn't looking all this stuff up on the internet but i just um the mental game was huge for me and i and i always had my own process

um and that's not necessarily a fun process um my like i talked about it's that emotional roller coaster and sitting through it sitting with that uncomfortability and being super, almost crawling out of my skin, anxious before the fight, um, always lended itself to, um, to better performances. Um, being, getting a lot of those nerves, a lot of those butterflies out, um, you know, three weeks out, two weeks out, a week out, and dealing with that through meditation, through visualization, through like whatever, being in it, sitting in that anxiety that by the time I'm in the dressing room and I'm warming up, all that's gone. All I have is, you know, clarity and fire, and I'm ready to go out there and do my thing. And, um, I think a lot of when I've done that, it's reflected in my, in my fight. I go

out there, I'm loose. I'm, I'm flowing. I'm doing, you know, I'm doing what I need to do. And I'm, I'm at my best. Um, there's fights where I haven't had that. There's fights where I've just kind of been calm and cool and collected and those fights haven't been it's in a sense I'm more thankful like I'm like oh and I feel I feel good this week I'm cool no problem but I don't fight as well when I when I don't when I'm not crawling out of my skin with anxiety the week before it's a weird thing man it's a weird thing I get that It's a weird thing. I get that.

I think to extrapolate to a lot of people listening to this that aren't fighters, it's the idea of giving yourself tools to handle those stressors because even though for most people they're not going to be worried about a guy knocking their head off in eight weeks and every week leading up to it, they're still the everyday stressors of life. And there's a lot of fighters and I know plenty when you know, from my years at aka, that they'd rather avoid it. They'd rather just say, let me play fucking video games. Let me watch movies, let me do anything to take my mind off the fact

that I am going to have to go into battle. You know, and they just they constantly put something in front of their mind to take it elsewhere rather than learning how to be comfortable in their own skin figuring out ways to deal with the stress of the inevitable you know and it's the same thing that goes for fucking everyone listening to this there are tools that can help you with everyday stress and if you have access to that next time you go into the tool set in the garage, like you can access those things that allow you to be comfortable with right now. Because that's really what it is. And eight-week camp seems short, but every fucking 24-hour day that goes up to that, that's a whole new day to think about how far am I along in the camp? Did I fucking run enough?

This rib injury, you know, i got fucking nailed in the leg is my knee gonna hold up whatever the case is there's always something right absolutely and there's always something in life you always got a fucking deadline at your job you've always got the next thing you've always got ant flow in town with the wife whatever whatever the stressor is it's fucking there and and it makes you a better person knowing how to navigate those waters yeah and not and not escape like you're talking about not because it's still there even if we even if we run away we escape no matter what like i have this fight coming up it's i i signed the paper like i i i'm i'm set i'm scheduled to you know fight this other trained savage in a cage, um, whether I, you know, escape

those thoughts and those feelings, uh, that, you know, it doesn't matter. It's still, it's still happening. And so if I, I can, I, like you said, if I could deal with that, if I can sit in that and, um, deal with that in a, in a, in a, in a healthy way or a present way, being present through that instead of just running away and escaping and numbing out, it's important. What are the types of meditation that you do? Is it mostly quiet mind? Do you focus on breathing? Are you just trying to clear your mind? Or when you sit quietly, are you actually maybe doing some rehearsal of things that you know will be problematic yeah i do both uh so you know depending on the time of day because sitting and doing visualization of a fight i get

kind of keyed up so it's not something i want to do like before bed or something like that before bed so so midday i'm doing um sitting and really just okay what will I start like on the way to the arena? Like, what is it going to be like? I try to, you know, imagine, put myself in that, that position, feel that feeling, let that anxiety flow through me. Um, what is it like when I'm warming up, visualize myself getting my hands wrapped. I'm getting my hands wrapped in real life. I mean, that is really at a point where like, oh man, this is the real deal i don't know what it is but um it's just a very a very tangible thing it's like okay this is happening this is there's like no turning back yeah i think before that you're like um dicking around in the locker room just keep it at a low

boil i can warm up a little bit here and there but my hands aren't even wrapped yet and the second the tape starts going on you're like okay this is real all right yeah absolutely um so i i basically try to walk myself through in a very um precise way what it's going to be like what the what the canvas feels like under my feet uh you know the crowd that whole deal leading up to the fight and then you know i i think about you know game plan and all that and i do that earlier in the day midday um not not every day um some days um because i got other shit going on i don't have a lot of time to do that but um when i can find time for myself i i do that um uh and then as far as that's like my my visualization and then meditation uh you know a lot of it's focusing on breathing being

in my body um you know trying not to let my mind go different places you know just typical typical meditation um you know it's you know you could find all kinds of apps and shit online of you know just breathe and be with yourself and you know focus on you know the you know your present surroundings and all that i do a lot of that and that's just quieting your mind i think helps on a lot of different levels it helps you not run off or let your mind run off with that anxiety and the what-ifs because you can't control any of that. You can control, boom, I got this right now. I got this in front of me.

I got this training session. This is what I'm doing right now. And if I give 100% of my energy and my abilities to this, the bigger picture is going to be okay. Um, and maybe it's not, maybe it's not, maybe, you know, maybe ultimately I get knocked the fuck out, you know, but I can't control that right now. What I got is boom, right, right this right now. And I have a better chance of doing better later on and things working out the way that I would like them to work out, being successful, whatever it is that I'm doing. If I focus on this right now and not worry about all this other bullshit that I can't change because it doesn't matter. The future doesn't exist, right?

It's just what you got yeah i think you touched on a great a great perspective point for a lot of people is to to figure out what's in your control and what's outside of your control and only the present moment is inside your control and how you how you change that or what you choose to focus on in the present moment can affect the future but the future is not here yet so to spend all your time worried about what's going to happen like it's much better use if you utilize that time to focus on how you can change things in your everyday right now in preparation for what's going to happen and making that shift of knowing like what's the difference well the difference is this is outside of my

control down the road it's not here yet and then this is the shit that's inside my control this is outside of my control down the road it's not here yet and then this is the shit that's inside my control this is what i'm training today or uh you know you're recovering from an injury and you can't fucking use your your right leg i interviewed matt vincent highland games champion and he's like i i'm on crutches for a year and a half i can't do shit it doesn't mean i can't waddle into a fucking gym have somebody somebody grab me two 20-pound dumbbells, and just sit in an incline bench and crush my upper body for an hour. That's in his control. So that's what he focused on.

And that can make all the difference in the world, in the fight and outside of it. Absolutely. You break your hand, you go and you work on your straight right. You work on all the other things that you can do. Yeah, footwork, kicks, knees knees all that shit watching flowing yes sir absolutely so uh you talked a bit about trying to see what you're looking at future-wise when this all ends how long do you see yourself i mean obviously you are young you haven't taken a ton of damage uh i retired fairly young for most

fighters at 32 but i had taken a fair amount of damage you know well you know what honestly i wouldn't say that i haven't taken damage i've been you know i have wars i've been in wars and i haven't you know and it's all relative right it's all like i know i guess i would say that i've taken a lot of damage i've been at this you, you know, since I was 15 years old. Before that, I played football for a few years. And, you know, you can imagine me as a middle schooler playing football. I was just kind of a crazy bastard with, you know, reckless abandon. And, no, I've taken a fair amount of damage um especially in in sparring

and training more so and that that's the idea right you want to you know train they say train hard fight easy um and but i think that that has um you know that that's within reason too i mean sparring too hard isn't a good isn't a good thing but when you're young and you're like oh i get to fight i get to go and train every day and i get to i get to every every time you strap the gloves i was like oh hell yeah if you'd like to fight i get to fight and you go out there and you do your thing um so i mean you know i'm, I'm 33 now. Depending on, you know, how long you fought, how you fought, you know, your training, 33 can be young or 33 can be old. I think I'm kind of in the middle there.

I don't know. I don't know how much longer I got. Right now, like we were just talking about, I'm focused on this fight. This is my main thing right now is going out there and competing to the best of my ability, training, and being ready for this deal. I have a tough opponent, and depending on how this goes, we'll see what everything else looks like but um you know i don't know it's a good question yeah yeah and uh medical sales being

kind of out you're going to focus on the coffee um yeah definitely that i mean that's i i will most likely do a number of things i love to teach teach. I love to teach martial arts and share what I know and my perspective and this thing that has been such an awesome experience in my life, going and showing other people. Because it's been not only great for me on a professional level, but on a personal level. I've grown a lot through this. I've learned a lot of different stuff and, you know, I wouldn't necessarily recommend being a freaking cage

fighter to everybody, but Hey, you know, it's a, being a martial artist is, uh, it's, it's a powerful thing, martial arts in itself, and just the ability to, uh, you know, defend yourself and handle yourself and the, the confidence and poise that that brings somebody is, um, it's a powerful thing. Continuing to share that, um, coffee, you know, that's, I I'm digging that gig. Um, food also. Um, I, I've been working with a, with a chef in town in Albuquerque and, uh, we may be doing some, different different stuff with regards to you know nutrition the the the guy that I've been working with I mean we source everything locally and really trying to build a build and enhance the the food the food and culinary scene in Albuquerque.

And then who knows, maybe taking that, doing different stuff online. I'd like to do a – I don't know where that's going to take me, but I have a lot of different interests, and I'm right now taking steps to try to cultivate those as ways ways of you know making money and sharing what i know oh yeah brother what are some of the things that you're into like outside of fighting you know when you're not in camp obviously you're still working on things uh involved in in helping your game progress but what are your hobbies like what do you do what do you enjoy uh i spend a lot of time with my kids man uh that's, that's like, first and foremost, I'm a dad.

Um, you know, I've been, been a fighter for a long time, but I, you know, I'm really meant to be like, I'm, I'm, I'm a good dad and I spent a lot of time with my kids. Um, and I like to get outside, like to, like to hike and camp and hunt and, know shoot my bow and fish i'm yeah kind of a like a i'm not i wouldn't say that i'm like a major outdoorsman but i enjoy that stuff getting outside and then i cook a lot you know yeah what a beautiful way to be tied to your food too like so many people, you watch the movie food Inc and you're, and you're like, Oh yeah. Like we go, we see this perfectly packaged meat and it's all prepped and ready to go. And if it's from the factory farm, they've dyed it red to make it look more pleasable, pleasing to the eyes, things like that.

And then the concept that you would actually go and hunt for your own food and clean the animal and go through that whole process of of actually knowing what it takes to source your own food yeah the connection you have to that food yep and prepping that food making it for your family yeah yeah definitely and it's it's tough man like i i didn't grow up i didn't grow up uh hunting at all and so this is more of a recent thing like uh you know four or five years ago i started doing this and it's it's tough i'm not very good at it like it's is that's i mean if if that's how i was making a living if that's how i was putting food on the table it would be you know i don't know i think i'd be a lot of fasting a lot of fasting absolutely a lot a lot of eating plants um but uh yeah it's it's definitely a a character building experience

you know getting out there and and working really hard and having you know being out there grinding grinding grinding up and down hills out in the mountains and then you know, being out there grinding, grinding, grinding up and down hills, out in the mountains, and then, you know, blowing a stock because the wind changed or something like that. You just, you appreciate the fact that, hey, I can go and I can get a, I can get a burger really, really easily. I mean, it gives you a lot of, a lot of perspective on just, yeah, on a lot of things, on how really easy it is and how good we have it to just be able to go and, oh, you know, I'll get food. And, I mean, it's such a, something we don't think about a lot.

Yeah, I went hunting. I went elk hunting recently, and I got, I figured, as I haven't shot about a lot yeah i went hunting i went elk hunting recently and i got i figured as i haven't shot in a while maybe i'll miss maybe i won't but i'll at least get to take a shot i didn't see an elk until the last day was thanksgiving day i saw the ass of one elk before it was fucking long gone and i was so demoralized in that moment but at the same time so appreciative of how easy it is in life yeah for us with what we've built for ourselves you know just this idea i can have i could go buy elk if i wanted i could go do this and that i wanted to be a part of that i wanted to have that experience of cleaning the animal and knowing this is where my food came from and every time we cook that animal that i earned that animal you know absolutely

yeah man um yeah it's it's uh it's a different thing and i know that i mean there's there's it's kind of a polarizing uh issue or conversation but ultimately i mean if you if you eat if you eat me you shouldn't kind of you should know you should know where it comes from otherwise you're you're a scavenger right yeah you're just eating something else yeah you're eating something that somebody else killed well even if you eat grain for all the vegans out there you just listen to rogan talk about how many fucking rodents and deer that are bedded get fucking chopped up in those machines you're you're there's there's animal death there yeah if you listen to aubrey and i talk about ayahuas those machines you're there's there's animal death there yeah if you

listen to aubrey and i talk about ayahuasca plants are conscious there's you're taking the life of something that's alive at the very least you know it's alive whether you agree it's conscious or not uh they're an argument can be made on both sides of that too right life takes life and the closer our food is to living the better it is for us the more dead that food is and man made it is the less healthy it is for us agreed so how old are your kids uh i have a seven year old and then i have a 15 month old wow congrats yeah man damn balls deep in the no sleep zone yeah he's a pretty good sleeper but still i hate you it's a yeah he's a he's a good sleeper both my kids are um but yeah it's still a lot man yeah it's still a lot oh yeah yeah my son took uh he's two and a half he took his first shit yesterday in the in the little little peepee putty all right by himself i was so pumped we

filmed it nice film the turd too it was a nice glorious poop in there you know what man like potty training you want them to get potty trained and then in the first maybe couple months it's a pain in the ass because like with my son my older son it was like it was this new novel thing and like he wanted to go to the bathroom all the time even when it's just like the whole process hey i like washing my hands i like doing all the things like we've we've been at this restaurant for like and you know half an hour and you want to go to the bathroom three times like when they're when they're still in diapers you can kind of control that and you know but uh yeah yeah is it just pp i'll change you when i feel like exactly if it's shit i'll change you now yeah yeah stuff like

that this one's the same way routine's a big deal for kids you know it's it really is and it's i don't know you read that in books and things like that but when you see it in practice especially when they start speaking you're like oh you really dig this like this is an important piece that adds some value to life like some type of normalcy you know and then when they get it down and you start to see them like my son loves brushing his teeth you know, and then when they get it down and you start to see them, like my son loves brushing his teeth, you know, and he'll request it sometimes five times a day. And it's like, dude, your fucking teeth are good. Like, I don't know anybody that brushes their teeth this much. He's like, no daddy toothbrush. You know, he'll brush his teeth with my toothbrush and with his, when he's done little things like that. What do you, um, you know,

you mentioned the fact that you don't want your son probably both you don't want your sons to fight um i played football since i was 10 finished at arizona state and then got into fighting and obviously i'm taking my licks in both uh you see all the stuff coming out on cte and shit like that with nfl players and how high that is and you know i've talked to some of my friends that are that are older and have older kids. And a buddy of mine, a former military guy, he won't even watch football anymore because he doesn't want his kids to gravitate towards that.

And he doesn't want to take that from them, but he doesn't want to just have them be fans of it and be drawn towards it. Like how far do you go in helping that decision to not do that? Because my dad told me from day one, he's like, you can play football, but you can't fight it's my granddad boxed my dad did full contact karate he did some of the tough man shit back in the day and i was like i want to do that and he's like no you're not allowed to do it you'll never do it and i just kept it from him i was three you know as a pro fighter before i ever fucking told him oh snap my uncle ended up calling he's like man my nephew's

doing good and he was like yeah he's he's doing good what do you fuck do up calling he's like man my nephew's doing good and he was like yeah he's he's doing good what do you fuck do you mean he's like he's three you know what are you talking about he's crushing it and uh and i was like three you know and what he's like professional fighting he's fighting a mixed martial arts what do you fucking mean you don't know wow i gotta have a conversation and that ended up being cool about it at that point but yeah you know it's kind of like the uh the catholic girl who's never allowed to do shit you know almost like uh what's the fucking kevin bacon movie the old the old uh throw me a bone here ryan huh footloose yeah no music no dancing and then you gotta have it right how do you construct that wanting them to have something

better for themselves yeah you know man it's it's a fine line like i i want my sons to be martial artists i for a lot of the reasons that i laid out earlier um i really feel like it you know develop you know you develop as a human on a lot of different levels um but like it's a fine line between them you know exposing them and getting them into it and them actually wanting to be a fight like i i wouldn't necessarily be against my sons having some fights i mean i think going through that process and getting punched in the nose and and and doing that whole thing i do feel like that's character building but do i want them to do it for a living no i don't fuck no um so yeah i don't know i don't know like like my my older son's wrestling right now uh and wrestling wrestling's a tough sport yeah it's

that's like it's a combat sport. Wrestling is without a doubt. It's one of the original martial arts, for sure. It is a combat sport. Him just going to practice and get roughed up and having to sit with that and deal with that and then go out there and do it again, I do feel like it's good for him. As far as the CTE stuff and the brain trauma,

if guys aren't worried about that, if fighters aren't worried about that, they should be. It is a big deal. It's something that we have to be cognizant of, absolutely. And ultimately, as a fighter, it's unavoidable. It's something that we're, I mean, you know, and I don't know who knows what in the future, what the repercussions of all this stuff have been. I think about that a lot. And like I said, I want my, you know, my kids or at least my older one, I don't know about the younger one. The younger one seems pretty smart, but the older one's definitely, he's a smart kid and I want him using his brain for something other than freaking taking punches

or learning how to you know punch somebody else uh so um i expose him to different stuff i want him to be a well-rounded child um and a well-rounded adult um so he's doing um he's you know doing athletics he wanted to play football so we put him in flag football because, yeah, no. Not putting him in football football. But he's playing music. He's an artistic kid and just kind of exposing him to lots of different stuff. And hopefully, you never have control of what your kids do. You can put a bunch of different things in front of them

and expose them to different things but ultimately they're going to choose what what they gravitate towards hopefully right yeah um if they don't if they do something because you push them push it on them they're not going to love it they're going to resent you for it and they're not going to love it. They're going to resent you for it. And they're not going to be a happy, fulfilled person. So I just present them with as much different things as possible. Try to get them a good education. And the music thing, I'm really hoping my kid, like he's digging music. So I'm really hoping he gravitates towards that and is like this badass musician who can also kick ass if he needs to. That's what that looks like for now.

They do watch fights. All of a sudden, my 7-year-old's kind of been into MMA here and there. I've never really pushed it on him or anything, but maybe about eight, ten months ago, he starts liking to throw hands, man. He's all about shadow boxing, all about, you know, I held pads for him like one time, which I haven't been able to do. You know, he's never, he's always just wanted to punch me in the face.

I'm like, no, like nobody let's hit pads and he's just he's like missing pads and decking me and shit i'm like no bud that's not how it works and he just wants to like be all over me like a little fucking spider monkey um but i held pads for him and then now he's all about it. He's just throwing combos nonstop. So, I don't know. His mom loves that because she definitely doesn't want them being fighters. But, you know, like I said, they're going to do what they're going to do. You can kind of just guide them as much as you can and love them and give them opportunities and hopefully hopefully they find their way yeah it's just on a couple things that i've been drawn

towards uh i have two rules as of now those rules may change and we may add more but the two rules for for any kid that we have are you have to do a martial art and you have to learn music and so the martial art can change but you're signed up for the year the music can change whatever instrument you want to learn but you're signed up for the year so if you pick piano and fucking hate it three weeks in you still got 52 weeks total until you can switch instruments and if you like jujitsu and you want to continue on with that great if you want to learn something else you can change it at the end of the year right you can get into muay thai or traditional martial art or whatever you want

to do but those two things i think can have tremendous um just just tremendous change and value to how they behave in the world how they act as a person and you know you touched on something as a martial artist like back in the day you had this and i think just from watching the old fighting videos and things like that you know the blood sports and everything the level of respect and discipline you gain from martial arts and i think a lot of the traditional martial arts now have been watered down so much to the point where it's a pay to play you know like hey little johnny's gonna get his his a half of a white stripe onto his white belt and it's's an extra 40 bucks, but he'll get it. You know, coach said he's ready.

And you're paying each time for this kid to get a fucking stripe. And it's like, fuck, man. This is capitalism in the brand's worst way. Well, they've monetized it. Yeah. And that's like, yeah, I am. Yeah, it's a fucked deal. But in jujitsu, you still have that same level of respect. And even though not every jujitsu instructor is going to make you bow and not

every jujitsu instructor is going to do a lot of the things that classic martial arts did. There's so much to be gained from that. And there's so much to be gained in how you walk your path in the world without a chip on your shoulder, knowing you've already tested yourself. I think, you know, when I look back on all the bullies that I dealt with as a kid, and most of which eventually got to beat the crap out of, a lot of those guys got away with intimidation. A lot of those guys got away with, you know, fucking with people because no one ever called them on their shit.

And they did that you know in part my guess from stuff they had going on in the home stuff they had they didn't appreciate about life and they wanted to take out on other people but you don't see that i never saw that with the guy who was a black belt in karate yeah i never saw that with the kid who's a black belt in taekwondo because they get tested every day they get a piece of themselves tested and they know like i don't need to prove shit to anyone i'm happy and comfortable with what i know and taekwondo because they get tested every day they get a piece of themselves tested and they know like i don't need to prove shit to anyone i'm happy and comfortable with what i know and i don't need to prove that to everybody else yeah and if they do have that stuff going on at home which i

mean everybody does you know nobody's life is fucking perfect uh they have an outlet yeah they have an outlet and it's not they're not going and taking that out on you know other other kids there's like okay this it's a it's a way to process there's a way to to deal with it yeah i can get this stuff out that i'm i have a fucking solid outlet that allows me to really get that physical angst out in a healthier way yeah in a more productive way they talked about that in the book why why zebras don't get ulcers and they talked about, you know, in our current life, we get stress from a spouse or a boss or somebody, and the mind will replay that event over and over and over again.

And the stress stays constant. And stress manifests in the body physically through fucking stress hormones, fight or flight, cortisol, all that shit goes up. There's a physical response to our emotional stress. Whereas back in the day, zebra fucking gets chased by a tiger or lion the stress is done the second that event's over second they're out the game they're going to go back to eating grass and boning and doing whatever the fuck zebras do and that's why they don't get ulcers because it's not chronic yeah but they have that physical burst of sprinting for their life and that's the physical outlet for that stress right and so i think if we if we try to say like well we're nobody wants to run from

tigers nobody wants to fucking try to mimic what was done in the wild we've done a good job of changing that for our survivability but if we can figure out a physical dump that's on the same that's on par with that like you put your kid through wrestling practice that's a whole different level of physical dump you know that can have a tremendous impact not only in how they how they deal with the world but knowing each day like whatever stressors come up they're going to be able to get that out it doesn't have to fucking sit inside them yep uh yeah and and just because we're not running from tigers on a regular basis just because we're not having to um live in that um you know live in that environment physically doesn't mean we're not still wired for that doesn't mean that that's not

uh the loop that our brain gets caught in without the the physical outlet and that's you know living in that fight or flight is is what keeps us in that that that stress loop and like you said as the physical manifestation um and yeah and manifestation in a lot a lot of a lot of ways physically emotionally fucking spiritually and then we look for you know for those um you know the the unhealthy escapes that only let me sedate myself with booze or fucking pills yep let me let me uh let me change tv social media or whatever let me distract my mind so it's not on my mind yep absolutely um yeah so Yeah, so sports and athletics, without a doubt, give people, give kids those ways to process that. But that has to be a balance, too, because, like, why are you doing this? Are you doing this because you enjoy it for the physical aspect, the physical release of it?

Or, you know, we've uh made sports and made all that stuff even more stressful like it's it's something to be accomplished it's something to boost your ego and that's you know it's like what what is your intention like an intention is such an important thing um am i doing this for me or am I doing this for somebody else? Am I doing this because I enjoy it? Not necessarily at the time, but I enjoy the physical and neuromuscular engagement of participating in this

or am I doing this to boost my ego or am I doing this to please my parent or anything like that yeah you can always tell especially with wrestling who's doing it because dad wanted him to wrestle or who actually loves being there you know they obviously anybody who's watched fighting has heard embrace the grind embrace the grind and and uh you know goldie goldie threw that shit out like every other sentence for for a time period in the ufc and i love goldie it's not a knock on him but you know goldie goldie threw that shit out like every other sentence for for a time period in the ufc and i love goldie it's not a knock on him but you know there is something to that there is something to knowing like the difficult whatever the fucking difficult is whether it's wrestling or

your commute in traffic like whatever the fucking difficult is embrace that look at it differently shift your perspective and that changes all of it yeah definitely yeah well you know pain is inevitable suffering is optional like like there's gonna be there's gonna be struggle there's going to be you know things that are uncomfortable unpleasant in life it's yeah it's your perspective on it absolutely that that makes the you know makes you happy or makes you uh grateful or makes you fucking resentful or miserable without a doubt fuck yeah brother well fuck man that's been an hour with you brother tell me uh tell me where people can find you online uh so you know my my social media uh you know just at car Carlos Condit on Twitter and Instagram.

You know, I got a social media page. The coffee company is called Hundred Hands. We're hundredhandscoffee.com. We got a social media, you know, just a hundred hands coffee on Instagram. And yeah, that's it, man. Fuck yeah. Thanks for being here, brother. Appreciate you.

Thanks for having me. Good luck to you. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to the show today. I want to talk to you real quick about Shroom Tech Sport. It has adaptogens and cordyceps sinensis, which is a mushroom that is an amazing product. It helps the body with ATP production as well as oxygen utilization. That means you're going to be able to work out harder and longer. It also is caffeine-free. So even though I like to work out with a little bit of caffeine in my system,

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