Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 227 - Greg Jackson

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Greg Jackson, co-owner of Jackson Wink MMA Academy, is one of MMA's best trainers. He trains current UFC Lightweight Champion Jon Jones, former UFC Welterweight/Middleweight Champion Georges St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, Holly Holm and many other elite level MMA fighters. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

I'm recording on that, so if you guys keep talking, it's fine. Okay. So, we'll get this thing started. How did all this start for you? Like, where did your journey start in, you know, fighting, wrestling, grappling? Well, I come from a long line, three generations of wrestlers that are all up on that wall over there. My grandfather, my father, all my uncles, my little brother. My father took state in Illinois.

My little brother took state here state in illinois my little brother took state here my uncle's a gt national champion so um i kind of grew up wrestling stuff um and then uh where i was raised was in the south valley of albuquerque um and it's a good place but it's a it's kind of rough and tumble and um so pretty much it's a very our state is one of the worst as far as poverty and then that's the probably the worst part of it with that and maybe the war zone there's a couple of places that probably buy for number one but a place called the war zone yeah well we call it the International District right Albuquerque just because we have such so much uh we're such a low economic uh

we're on the low economic run so uh there that we have all the problems that come with that so at that time um the people i was growing up around some of the best people in the world but then also some people that really didn't care about anything except if you could beat them up so i figured well i better figure out how to beat them up. So I started, I didn't see a Bruce Lee movie or anything like that. It was all necessity-based, like I needed to fight tomorrow. So martial arts kind of bounced around a little bit. And then, like a lot of people at that time,

karate doesn't work against little Hispanic boxers. And so you go to wrestling, you go to all these. So I was doing a very primitive form of MMA very primitive and then the Gracies came out with the UFC and the Gracies were like PhDs right and I was like in kindergarten so yeah I started trying to catch up I never wanted to fight myself it's not something I don't enjoy it enough to put up with the rest of it but I do like helping people. That kind of solidified my path. People asked me, hey, when I would get in fights or whatever,

they'd say, hey, what are you doing? So then I would start training them, and they would bring their friends. So I just started training all my friends. I opened my first school in 1992 when I was about 17, right before I was 18. So right around then I opened my first school. And then the UFC came out, and then they wanted to compete, so they talked me into competing. Like, let's go and do all these fights.

I was like, yeah, we'll do okay, you know what I mean? But then we'll go back to it. Because for me, martial arts was, like I said, necessity-based, and it was very rare that you fought one dude, right? It was always like two or three out of one or whatever. And so... This is a lot easier just to fight. And for me, it was like,

you get caught up in these 80s, like, oh, it's not realistic, not even understanding what that means, which is where I was. But then they won everything, and then they were addicted, so then they kept asking me to go to different stuff. And then we kept winning, and now here, 27 years, I am in front of you.

It's basically the highs and lows of it. Did you ever wrestle any of the family members? Did you ever wrestle a grandpa? Oh, yeah. Yeah, my dad. I mean, I grew up wrestling. We used to box against our grandfather all the time. He was a Golden Gloves boxer.

And, you know, we were really little at the time, but he still wouldn't take it easy on you. He'd pop you. And you'd end up crying. He wanted you to, like, learn. He'd tell you to keep your hands up. And if you didn't. And if you didn't, he'd give you a little jab.

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I grew up wrestling. And if you didn't, he would give you a little jab. Yeah, I grew up wrestling. My brother and I both grew up wrestling. My uncles, my father in particular, constantly. We were very rough and tumble kids. Abraham Lincoln was a wrestler too, right? That is a fact. That he was.

Super strong too. Yeah, so you grew up just kind of in a rough and tumble neighborhood that was just that's just the way things were all the time i guess right in new mexico and in albuquerque we have a very hispanic machismo culture where your culture is very uh you're not better than me you know you uh really they don't care if you can play soccer at the bottom line i always call it the bottom line i don't care if you're good in math At the bottom line, I always call it the bottom line. They don't care if you're good in math. It's can you beat me up? And so that was what was important to us as kids. Who can beat who up? We all idolized the boxers.

And then as the kickboxers came along, we idolized them. So that's the nature of the beast. It's a very, very macho culture. A primitive time of MMA, I find it really interesting. My brother and I have been watching the UFC since UFC 1, which for a lot of guys like yourself who were in the mix even earlier, that's still late in the game, even all the way back to UFC 1. But I found it amazing that the Gracies came along with that style,

that people were just scratching their head like, what, jiu-jitsu, what does it mean? Why is the guy wrapping his legs around? And why did the other guy tap out? Does it really hurt that bad? What are they doing? Right. Well, the Gracies are so amazing.

Like, I love that. They're always so nice to me just personally. Like, they're good people. But what they did, they changed everything. So for me, like, Bruce Lee was an amazing guy, and he was one of the guys that kind of on paper said what MMA needed to be right and he showed it. And he was like trying to, you know, he got on the soapbox and said, hey, listen, we need to do this. But not a lot changed.

Like really it didn't. People had the idea, you know, Jeet Kune Do and all these cool things. And he was right about all of it. But there wasn't like a sweeping revolution. People were still like, well, Jeet Kune Do is one style and karate's another you know what i mean like the gracies are what changed it because i was there like you can't tell me otherwise people it was so exciting back then when you would think of you know this great football player a great strongman athlete something like a bill kasmeier or somebody like mike tyson

and then you're wondering like well what would happen if, you know, Mike Tyson fought the, you know, number one karate expert, and what if he fought, like, Chuck Norris or whoever we know at the time as being, like, an expert or a master or a black belt or whatever you want to call him? Right. You've always wondered, like, what would happen, and now you don't really have to wonder anymore. Like, if somebody thinks they're tough, if somebody wants to test their metal they go into MMA right right well that's right and then you have to remember that so that is exceptionally good for one-on-one stuff

right but the martial arts do have another component where if you're fighting two or three guys if you take somebody down get them in the mount and have the perfect ground pound and his friend comes and kicks you in the head and that that move isn't. So it's all about appropriate techniques and appropriate time. But as far as one-on-one combat, you're not going to find anything better than that. And the lessons that we get from that, what I always call our little feedback machine, where you can get empirical, immediate feedback. Did this wound work? Did it not? Can it work for this style of fighter that style fighter that's a lot of fun but it the most important thing I think is that the UFC

mixed martial arts is a laboratory where you can like you say it's exciting not just about that style matchup but then when you take it one step further what new techniques can you throw into that machine and it spits back out at you results almost immediately like so if you see these moves work three to five further, what new techniques can you throw into that machine? And it spits back out at you, results almost immediately. So if you see these moves work three to five times, great, you got a new move. Do you maybe miss a little bit of the beginning stages of some of this stuff where it was more secretive? Like you had to probably go through a lot of trouble to try to find information. The gracies, like you you said they really open the doors

for everybody but do you kind of miss some of that or no i guess um i the creative process for me i didn't really have an instructor right there was nobody here teaching me jujitsu um i had some good you know like an aikido instructor and some karate and i did a bunch of weapon stuff but you don't really have an instructor to guide you so I had to figure it all out myself so that has still been going on like I still get taught the coaches here are amazing I learn from them all the time but I also

still can try to figure things out so that part hasn't changed I don't miss the showing up and not knowing what the rules are I don't miss the absolutely no money losing money on every single trip we take just doing it for the love of it, which I still do. So now at least there's, you know, it's people like you are here talking to me and you can show how cool the martial arts are, which for me is very important. So I like to do these interviews.

But I don't miss the days of showing up and having rules meeting mean something. A rules meeting used to be like, okay, well, it's, oh, closed fist. No, no, open hand to the face. No, this one you can do closed fist all the way. You know what I mean? Like it was just crazy. Do you still train yourself quite a bit in this kind of stuff? You do striking and things like that and grapple and stuff? I do.

My body has not held up as light as much as i would have liked um but i still get in there still there's a good feeling of not getting punched too hard just hard enough to be like oh yeah that's kind of what it's about but not too hard where you're like whoo um so that that's nice it's nice to get in the mix a little bit um and i miss i miss grappling a lot i'm trying to get back like being very smart about who i grapple with uh but yeah the old body isn't holding hasn't held up these guys come after you like you have a bullseye on you or are they more respectful but usually they're more respectful sometimes there's a bullseye um but what happens is that when they start no matter who they are

when they start losing they they're that's when it gets a little bit more heated. So as long as we keep it at a very normal level, I'm usually all right. But my team tries to beat me on everything. It doesn't matter if it's a lateral raise or a lat pull down or a bench press. They they're like, if I can get them on this, I'm going to try to kick his ass. That's funny. Yeah. Well, it's that competitive cooperative environment. I think that's very important here. So you have to have a little bit of both. cooperative environment i think that's very important here so you have to have a little bit of both right um what fighter over the last maybe several years has really pushed you uh the most in terms of uh maybe like your thought process maybe somebody came in and made you just kind of like rethink uh maybe even like the way you train people or somebody really maybe has uh

opened up your eyes to uh some other aspects of of MMA that maybe you weren't aware of before? I don't know if one fighter has done that. Certainly the MMA environment has done that. I've certainly grown as a person in the MMA environment. I don't know if one fighter like revolutionized or changed anything for me. I think that like coaches will come in and show me really cool stuff. And I, and I'm really grateful. They'll give me seeds too, of things that I can take in different directions. So some coaches have really showed me stuff where I'm like, Oh wow, that's great. That's amazing. And that's, that's a lot of fun. I would hate to be the guy that knew it all. I think that would be like the worst, right? Like imagine what would you do? How would you learn? Like, so I really love learning new techniques. I really love thinking of new things.

Um, and so we've had that. And then some fighters come into and do, uh, like John Jones is spinning elbow, you know, and never really thought of doing it all those angles that he does until he did that. And then I was like, wow. Oh, and we can do it here and here and here. So I think there's been fighters that, uh, have helped me along that process. There've been coaches that helped me along that process. But I wouldn't put one guy that was like mind blown just because so many people have contributed over the years. This place is amazing. I don't know, 40,000, 50,000 square feet, something like that. I don't know. Yeah. About 40 hip. Yeah. So you got a huge facility and then you actually have fighters that live here. What is some of that like and i would imagine you know there must be um even if

it's unintentional there must be like a mentoring process that goes on there must be a leadership process that kind of occurs here which i think is really cool for a lot of these young men and women yeah some of the older fighters will take the take. And we have some great coaches here that really, like Joey Villasenor is a great example of that as a guy. He's kind of like Uncle Joe. He takes the amateurs and he works with them and he tells them when the transition to professional should happen. Brandon Gibson, we have a lot of great coaches here that kind of mentor the young guys and say, hey, here's how it's done. And then there's a lot of self-policing. The guys will – we want to set a culture in here that you're tough but kind. And so that – there's a lot of self-policing in that where if you're getting out of line, your fellow fighters will sit down and say, listen, settle down guy. Is it pretty strict around here and like organized or is it more like, Hey, like this, you're, you're coming in and, uh,

you're just coming in at your level and you're going to have to try to figure out a way to sort of keep up. Or do you guys say like, okay, this is where these guys are at. We got to slow everything down and teach them this way kind of thing. A little bit of both. Um, it's organized, but then you also have to to go like there's a lot of people that want to jump right into the pro class it's the whole so like sound being an mma fighter sounds a lot cooler than it is especially if you're talking to the opposite sex and you're sitting and you're talking about how tough you are and all this stuff that so then when you actually get into the pool that's pretty deep

um a lot of people will struggle to to swim. And so putting them in the right place, putting them in an amateur class, that kind of stuff is very important because especially with fighting, everybody thinks they're better than they are. It's just the nature of the beast. And that's not a bad thing. It is a bad thing if you like can't adjust to the situation. Like, no, I belong in the pro class. you're like okay i'm telling you kid like relax relax it's a long journey you uh probably get pretty damn busy with all this especially a lot of travel for the other for the top fighters and things like that are there some fighters in here that you don't get an opportunity to see for a little while and then you know as they maybe

they're coming up you start to get to see them or do you try to invest time in everybody uh the second they get here just to you know kind of uh get a feel for how they fight and stuff like that right well you couldn't i mean there's so many people coming daily there's like 60 or something no more than that we probably full-time pro fighters we probably got between 80 and 100 so there's just no way you can qualify and then all the visitors you got people from all over the world absolutely um so you did having that so what i try to do is have them work up to myself and Mr. Winkle, John, and, uh, kind of the higher level coaches where we

work at, at kind of the top level and give them a goal to kind of work up to if you want my ridiculous, but in your corner. Um, so that's the way we structure it. So we have a lot of coaches here that mentor them through that process. Uh, and there's some people we actively recruit, like come over and we work with them right away. And there's some people that kind of have to work their way up to the top. Um, what's an average day look like here? Like, is it like, you know, someone comes in and rings an alarm at five o'clock or something like that and they all go out for a run or pretty much? No, uh, the first class is at a nine 30. So usually a lot of them will warm up workout and then we have three or four four classes every day and then the coaches are just working private lesson after private lesson after private lesson um we have probably three to five coaches doing that with all these different fighters

throughout the day so we have two pro classes then an amateur class then another pro class then another amateur class and then like tuesdays and thursdays we have jiu-jitsu at night so it's it's a full time we have five or six classes a day with just professionals. We don't let anybody, there's no public here. So either you're an amateur fighter training to fight or you're a professional fighter that's professional. So there's no mom and pop, there's no anything like that. So there's not like a, there's not classes here to kind of like quote unquote, keep the lights on, which you hear a lot from a lot of other MMA gyms. Right. Well, then you kind of have to, right. Um, but yeah, no, here is all, it's just MMA fighters. That's it. And then my understanding is you have other gyms as

well. Yeah. We have a couple of, uh, we have, uh, gyms where we have just the like, okay. For normal people, you know what I mean? They want to do the martial arts side of it. Somebody wants to kick a bag and learn some strikes. Exactly. So we have a couple of gyms there too, but I try to not be as involved there as I am here. Cause this is a full time. It's a, it's a full time gig. Yeah, I bet. Um, do the men and women that live here, do they ever, they, I mean, obviously they're going to take it out on the mat, I guess, take it out and you have cages in here so they can get their aggression out there. Do they get heated at any, I mean, it must get competitive at some point. Yeah, it does a little bit. We have a good gym manager

here, Misha that's, he's kind of on top of all that when people get a little squirrely. And again, usually it's self-correcting. There's so many people here that if somebody's getting squirrely, the, you know, five or six guys will calm it down. Um, so if the problem gets to me, then that means that something's really gone wrong. So there's a lot of stuff that I don't have to hear about, which isn't how it used to be. We moved into this place about three years ago. And before that, I,

it was me all the time, just drama machine all the time. So now, uh, Mr. Winkle John takes care of a lot of it for me. Um, he's a sweetheart like that.

Misha takes care of a lot of it so that I don't have to, I did my time. I did my 23, 24 years in the trenches. And so it's nice to relax a little bit yeah you have to really manage uh the personalities and they must be the personality of fighters must be kind of all over the map right professional babysitting that's what i say all the time it really is um yeah it's uh it's very rewarding but they're very passionate people

so you have you know, 70 alpha personalities, all mixing together, um, that it all can usually actually fight, which is another thing. Like a lot of times you have alpha personalities, but they're like business guys or lawyers or, you know, whatever, like a soccer player or something. And you're like, okay. Um, so yeah, that's, that's not really an alpha personality of alpha personalities that can fight. Um, that's a different level. Do you have these guys do some different things? Um, since it's like MMA all day, like do these guys do some stuff like it's someone's birthday, do they do something altogether or you guys try to plan anything for them or anything like that? Yeah, we do have some team stuff. Um, just because it's so massive and there's so many

different cultures that it's usually not um because we have like polish people hanging out with mongolian people hanging out with japanese people hanging out with brazilians so it's there's so many cultures that it's an event just to be here so uh they'll you know they have their little everybody has their little cliques of friends but it's really cool for me that's one of the coolest parts is to see all these cultures interact with each other um and and english being the kind of the common language that they all speak just a little bit of. Um, but it's a lot of fun to see the mix and the friendships that get formed here that, you know, two people that would never meet each other. Otherwise it's, it's kind of cool.

What's something that you learned through this whole process of dealing with this, these many, this many, this amount of people, um, that you were able to take into business or take into your everyday life? I think the big thing is just personality management, just understanding. So I always call myself, people ask me, what do I do for a living? And I usually say I'm a martial arts teacher, but really what I am is a problem solver. So what they do is they give you such dynamic problems. The fight itself is a problem. The personality management is a problem. Everything is a problem. So what it's really taught me is how to keep my cool and problem solve no matter what the parameters are.

Give me what the parameters are and then I need to figure out the best way to get the best results out of any situation. situation. And I'd say that that just the, the crucible of that, of having to do it over and over and over year after year, week after week has made me a decent problem solver. I wouldn't say I was the greatest one in the, on the planet or anything like that, but I'm pretty good at my job because you can get, and it goes to anything, uh, games, whatever it is. Like if I see, if you give me long enough where I sit down and study it a little bit um i'm able to to figure out a solution that works well uh and that's pretty much my only talent i can't cook lord knows i can't dress yeah it uh you know what what i hear and what what we always see like kind of in the media is that there's like all these problems through like everyone's fight camp and it's like all the time right and fighters actually will get paranoid if something doesn't go wrong

that's absolutely right no it's it's it's insanity all of its insanity um but it's entertaining i'm never bored i'll tell you that i i guess uh the stakes get higher though you know as the competition's coming closer probably uh implementing more things in their training there's probably lifting and running and so on and then some of those things taper back down and you know probably a lot of questions go on in their head how do you kind of coach these guys through self-doubt and uh you know just kind of going off the rails almost well the periodization is very important it's very very important in a fight cam doing you know where you're doing your volume and it's fighter to fighter. There's not one formula that works for everybody. I'm sure as you guys know, in your sport as well, but, uh, um, a lot of it is just dealing with pressure, uh, dealing with

mental pressure. So the, like we don't, there's nobody's life's really on the line. So we're not like soldiers where if you mess up, people are going to die, but there is a different kind of pressure where you are going to get – there's hyperjudgment. Everybody is going to think ill of you or better of you. There's expectations to manage. There's a lot of things that really weigh down on people's ability to perform. So just managing those emotions, understanding how to stay in the process and not let all that stuff pull you out is important. And so that's a lot of my job.

What's been maybe like the most exciting thing that's happened in your time of coaching? Oh, wow. That's a question. There's probably, yeah, there's probably a lot. There's a lot. You can give me a list. Well, you have to remember how many fights I've done. I mean, for a long time there, it was every weekend and it was multiple fights. So I I've gotta be, I've gotta be in the thousands at least. And so you have that process, that Hollywood story is played out over and over again, every way you could do it.

Victory, close victory, close defeat, major defeat. And it's over and over and over and over again. I guess that I have moments that I remember that are, that are exciting, but I think the most exciting thing is that I still get to do it. Like that I still get to be a part of the process that I still get to like, wake up and I get to go do martial arts. That's cool. It's like, cool. Just that the thought of that, like, I don't work for really anybody. I work for my fighters. Um, and the other half of my life, where I do a lot of work with, uh, uh, special operators and police officers and I work with

them for them, but I don't work for any one person. No one person can wake up and be like, Greg, you can't go here and do that. And so that's exciting to me that I get to be, I get to do what I love and set my own terms. I think that's cool. You have that perspective because a lot of people think I'm going to work for myself and I'm just going to make my own hours, do my own thing. But that's only sort of true. You still are working for, right. And make your own hours means that you have no days off, no time. Like, I don't know if people really understand what it means to be a legit entrepreneur, like a real, like I'm going to have to work 14 to 16 hours a day and I'm not going to have to take weekends. Yeah. Like you guys get to go to the lake and

have fun and I'll be here working with the next fighter and the next guy and, and I'll do the next one and I'll do the next one and I'll do the next one. Um, they sacrifice, fighter sacrifice for a small point, you know, and then they go crazy and they sacrifice, um, coaches like me and Mr. Winkle John, we sacrifice 24 seven. Like there's no, it will maybe once a year, take one week off. What is the hardest part of it all? You think, I mean, so do you love it so much? Probably doesn't necessarily always seem that hard, but yeah,

the hardest part isn't the martial arts, nor is it the fighting. Um, I think the hardest part is the having to come, I had to come to terms with the entertainment aspect of it coming from where I come from. Um, and so just dealing with like, um,

the entertainment side and not because I hate it just cause it's boring. Like it, I'm not wired normally. Like I don't get excited about football or even fighting or anything. Like I just like, Oh cool. You did that. Awesome. Um, and so like I, I can never get, uh, that perspective. And so that's where I clash a lot. Like I just want to do the martial arts. Everybody wants to see, Oh,

those guys really don't like each other. Oh, they're going to throw mad. Did you see what so-and-so said about so-and-so? Right. Cause it's a male soap opera, right? Like it's,

and you know, everybody in their culture has their cultural soap opera. This is our cultural soap opera and they love it. They love it. That's why, but professional wrestling figured it out and then write scripts about it. They had it right. Um, they, they understand what people want. They want to see that. And then they want to see like inspiring performances, not necessarily intelligent performances. They want to be

inspired. So what is MMA? It's a, it's basically a tool to be inspired. What is a good fight to somebody? A good fight to an American is both just going life and death. This guy's almost knocked down this guy. Why, why is that a good fight? Well, because they can see their courage. There's no lying.

There's no hiding, right? They can see this bald face. So they don't, they wouldn't like like a Muhammad Ali style where he would just bunk, bunk, bunk, run a while.

Like you couldn't touch him and he would just punch you in the face for 15 minutes. They, people hate that. They're like, no, that's, yeah,

that's not fighting. That's cowardly because that's what people don't want. Actual fighting. They want drama. So coming to grips with things like that, um, was very difficult for me, I think.

And then just dealing like with like even interviews like this are cool because we're talking about stuff that isn't like Holly's's next fight oh tell me all about it you know what i mean like that that to me like i get why the fans i heard this person from this camp said this about it exactly and said this about you right exactly so that stuff just and it's not that i hate it i'm just not interested in it it's boring and man one of my personality weaknesses is i don't do well when i'm bored like i'm not not a good human. So, uh, uh, it's just irritating. Like, so that, that part. And then for me, the travel really burned me out about maybe three or four years ago. I burned out hard, hard, hard, just for fight after fight, after fight, after fight. Um, I hit my limit and

was barely hanging on, uh, and had to kind of claw myself back out of that again. But so that burnout is my biggest enemy. And so dealing with that, making sure that I time manage, make sure that I, that I prioritize myself and a little bit I think is helping out. It's not natural to me. I feel like it's, I feel like entitled if I do it. So the people in my life have to remind me, take a day off. Okay. Is it hard to get over some of the adrenaline, you know, that happens when, you know, like Holly Holmes, you know, wins, wins the title or Bones Jones wins the title again. Is it hard for you to kind of come back down to reality or, you know, like, have you ever found yourself caught up maybe when you were younger in wanting to go out, wanting to like get the celebration or, or have you always kind of been different to that? Yeah, no, the fight's always been for them.

I love the process. So that process for me is fun. And honestly, the biggest fights that we've had are the, I'm the least excited about just because it's, you can't, I don't have the luxury of being a fan. Like I can't go in there and go, Oh my God, it's amazing. I don't know. I don't have the luxury of being a fan. Like I can't go in there and go, Oh my God, it's amazing. I don't know. Because I, I'm in a position where I have to make decisions that might affect the outcome of the fight. I have to make sure that everybody's okay. And that's not for me. The victory, the elation, that stuff, that's for the fighters. The process is for me, getting them ready for it is for me. So when they do the process and we win, I go, Oh, cool. Right on. I have a great process. I just want to do it again. Like, um, but that, that emotional elation is something that I, I have to be a little bit more cool about. Like I have to be a little bit more reserved because if I find you just find yourself being pulled into that, you're not thinking about

the fight and the process. You're thinking about the emotion that you will feel our feel or have felt. And, uh, that to me is, is something that's outside of work. Like, listen, when I watched my daughter sing in the chorus or something about like that, I'm in the process of emotion. That's my time. That's my work. That's my job. So, um, I get happy for the fighter. I'm like, yeah, they did it. You know what I mean? Like, uh, but the, the win is for them. The losses I always take for me, right. I didn't do the process. Right. I didn't do the process. Right. I didn't figure it out.

Um, which I used to get heat from in the old days, people would be like, Oh, well maybe the other fighter had something to do with it. Greg, he's amazing. And I never think that way. I always think my guy can always beat you. I just didn't figure out how to do it. Right. Like, um, so that, that, that process is what I love and it helps me stay focused.

Like no matter what I'm doing, if you're jumping out of an airplane, if you're doing whatever it is, when you're in the process, then you're successful. When you let emotions, fear or elation, anything pull you out of that process, you're not going to be successful eventually. you're not going to be successful eventually. Well, as a coach that wants to turn people into champions or help turn people into champions, your mind has to also be like, okay, we,

we won the belt. We're supposed to win. Like we trained really hard. We had a strategy. I thought that, you know, it would work. You were able to execute it in the ring.

It worked. And now we have the belt and now the hard work starts because now right now we're the champion now we got a bullseye on our back so you're probably almost thinking about the next fight almost right away yeah i try to get my yeah the next fight though to me is next week right like so then this fight happened now i have another pressure cooker and they're all the biggest fights ever because that's the way the media pushes it this is the greatest fight that no no this time is the biggest fight okay now it's this time and that's their job the media pushes it. This is the greatest fight. No, no. This time is the biggest fight. Okay.

Now it's this time. And that's their job, right? They got to say it every time. Right. Right. Exactly. So,

and that's their job, like a hundred percent. That's cool. Like good for them. That's their job. Um, but for me, that's not,

it's just the work, right? It's just my, it's what I do. It's my process. So, um, I do get happy,

but the, the joy really is for the fighter. And honestly, also for the fans, like they have fans that believe in them or they rooted for them, they, they get to share in that joy. So I think it's a beautiful thing. Um, and I think anybody that gets super excited, you know, people say, Oh, you know, so somebody went on the, on, from our team on the TV and we were jumping up and down and hugging each other. And that's a beautiful thing, right? You should, they share the joy, they share the pain. But for me, that's not, that's not something that's shared with me. Um, uh, because I am in a position where I have to

make decisions. I have to be out of that a little bit. What about like social media? Does some of that bother you too? Cause you're mentioning kind of the entertainment side, right? Well, it doesn't bother me much cause I'm not on it much. Um, I put out, I'll put out like some, uh, some Twitter, Instagram stuff, but I, I don't, uh, I'm not on it 24. You know what I mean? I don't check it. Um, I have people that help the, Hey Greg, you want, we should post something. And I say, Oh, this sounds fun. You know, something like that. But I don't like to do a lot of feedback just because what that is, is, is, uh, uh, a pressure release, like a valve, a steam valve. So what kind of person you are then determines what kind of fan you are.

So let's say your life is not what you thought it would be, or you're angry at somebody. Then you can get on the internet and be like, you are the worst. Like you have so much anger, right? But that's necessary. It's necessary for society. There's this great book called Trickster Makes This World that really changed my perspective on that. Like the more like Mardi Gras is like, you know what I mean? You have to blow off the steam, the steam. You've got Lent and stuff coming up right around the corner. So you have to have these pressure things. So that's what in the entertainment business, that's what it is.

You have to be able to get online and just express all this anger. So that's great. Like if you hate on us and not hit your kid, good, more power to you. Like that's our job. Take it. Right. But again, for me, that's just boring. Like I'm not, I'm not really interested in looking at all the steam coming out of a necessary and I get it like completely necessary. Um, but that's not my job, right? That's not what I'm about. That's not what I'm into. So like getting on everybody's comments and reading what people say, like if they hate it, great. Like if you love it, great.

But as long as you're really blowing off steam, getting that pressure off of you, then good. But that's not for me. In terms of fighting, you know, what have you seen fighting do for some people? Because obviously that must be a release in some sense too. They'll even, you know, people say you have anxiety or you're, you know, feeling a certain, you're angry, you know, go punch a punching bag and you just punch the hell out of it for 30 seconds and you'll be winded, right? Right, right.

Well, there's a difference between martial arts and fighting fighting is the entertainment element of martial arts so uh you can get crossover there are people that have martial arts have changed their life but fighting a lot of times amplifies bad behavior it amplifies um weaknesses in your personality um because it's the entertainment business the entertainment business does that the martial arts side helps you work on that. So, and I think that's why it's important in MMA to try to keep some kind of a martial arts tradition because the martial arts itself actually teaches you, okay, when you're angry, calm down and refocus. Um, if you're being self-centered, relax and think about be self-aware, you know what I mean? Like just use your skills for defense.

relax and think about be self-aware you know what i mean like just use your skills for defense you don't need to to uh like bully people and stuff so i think that's important um fighting is the entertainment element where you're going to talk crap about your opponent they're going to talk crap about you and everybody's going to love it and that's the entertaining value but like that being humble and stuff um has value if that's a weakness in your personality, that's going to ultimately leave you unhappy. And I know a lot of X fighters, boxers, kickboxers, and MMA fighters that are not happy individuals. Um, and all fighting did was delay that like they're financially, they can take care of themselves, which is a huge, huge deal. But outside of that, their personality hasn't evolved. Some of them gain wisdom. Some of them are sweet,

but the martial art ones like George St. Pierre is is a great example of him happy as a clam like good dude but he was a martial artist fighter he didn't go in and do the entertainment thing he did the martial arts thing and uh i think that has value and there's people that are really good people that do the entertainment thing so there's some people that maybe when they're done they're still right there's they still have these holes because the fighting was just kind of filling that gap in for a while. Exactly. That's what it is. It's a delay.

And again, it's an amplification. A lot of people's bad behaviors are amplified and tolerated because you're an entertainer. When you're an entertainer, it's not just fighters, actors. There's a lot of people that who's like crazy behavior because they have to deal with such a crazy world. Their behavior is then kind of also crazy. And yeah, you get a lot of amplification of personality flaws. You mentioned your daughter earlier. I have two kids as well. And like when my son played baseball, he'd hit the ball and like, yeah, you just start welting

up and you're like, Oh my God, I'm the biggest baby in the world. You know, I've handled some heavy weights and lifting and gotten hurt many, many times, tore muscles and stuff. Sure. Never cried once about it. Right. Right. Well, there's a rule, right? Like you can't cry from physical pain, just from emotion. Yeah. What, you know, over the years, you know, what has been, you know, something that maybe has struck a chord with you in here, something that has struck a chord with you when you saw a fighter where you just overwhelmed me like i don't even know what happened to me but like i'm balling you know i um i haven't had that kind of emotional reaction i think i've had moments where i've definitely lost it i got pulled out of the process um when we trained rashad evans for years and years uh everybody was saying how he'd never

finished a fight and he was a boring fighter and i forget the fighter that he actually mounted and finished but i jumped the cage i mean we had worked so hard on it. We had worked like so diligently on getting his ground and pound up to speed that when he won, I don't remember being outside of the cage. And then somehow you normally jump over the cage. No, no, that's the first and only time I've ever done that. You had to keep rewinding it. Yeah, right. No. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's the only time i've

ever done that so you get moments right i mean listen everything that you could possibly do and almost everything i'm sure there's things that i haven't done but because it's been so many hundreds and well probably a little over a thousand fights now i've done it in some way like i've made the hugest screw-ups you could ever imagine i've done the best you know dig out we're going to lose for sure and i was able to affect the outcome of the fight i've done the best you know dig out we're going to lose for sure and i was able to affect the outcome of the fight i've had every spectrum in there between so it's not um if if it could be done it's been done i've i'm sure i've cried somewhere as it popped into my head immediately but i'm sure i've anything that can be any way that you could think about

it's like watching rocky except it's instead of what are we on? Rocky 12 or whatever. It's Rocky 1530. Right. Like it's that. Has anyone kind of proved you wrong where you just thought that like, you know, you thought a certain way. You thought a certain thing or you thought a certain thing about them. Have they been able to like maybe prove you wrong? Maybe you just thought like their training camp sucked and you just even though

you're trying to be as positive as you can you're like we don't have much to work with here and they still go out and knock the guy out or whatever that's actually an interesting question because for me it's about relentless optimism so like fighting isn't it's it's non-linear dynamic so you can't go into a fight and say like everybody tries to do and say okay well this guy uh jabs and runs away and this guy just throws crosses and so he's never the jabs guy is always going to win like you can't do that in fighting so you no matter what you always have to think you're going to win so i always go in with that attitude like that we'll figure it out now have we not been as prepared as as i would have? Absolutely. And then I'm like, wow, I'm really glad that he pulled that out because – so I've had those moments a lot.

But I have a reckless optimism I think that defines what being a warrior is. And a warrior is – pragmatism is for preparation and optimism is for combat. So you want to be pragmatically prepared. But then – and when it comes to fight time, you're just going to win. Like it's okay, but I'm going to win. Uh, and I think having that dynamic is super important. So I learned pretty early on in my own life, like that, just that, that relentless optimism, like if they can't take that away from you, then you, you've got everything that you need. So if you keep getting hit and you keep getting bonked and rustled down and you're like, well, I'm still going to win.

Like if they don't take that from you and you don't mentally break, then you're fine. So as a coach, I try to emulate that on the other side of it, saying, listen, my guy, up to the very last minute, my guy, let's find something. Let's try to find something. So I try my best to stay in that process for that. You know, when you watch like football or basketball or baseball, you know,

baseball and basketball actually come to mind. They do like a best of seven series. Right. And they go at it back and forth and you can provide, you know, different strategies as a coach. And, you know, one game the ball could like literally bounce your way versus the next one. I always found it really interesting in fighting how someone just clearly gets, they clearly get beat. I mean, every once in a while,

like somebody just gets caught with a bomb or something like that, but they kind of get destroyed. And then there they are again, you know, this is a one-on-one competition and I always find it to be to show so much resilience. It's like, how in the hell did this guy come back? He got blasted in the face, you know, 50 times last time these guys fought. Why in the hell is he even bothering? Why is he back in the ring again?

And then sure enough, the guy figures out a way to beat him. Is it similar to other sports where just like strategy and technique can be just that big a part of it? Unfortunately, I'm not educated enough on other sports to answer that question i can tell you that in combat for sure um there are these kind of underlying strategical principles that govern all sports anything that is a competitive including evolution anything that's competitive are governed by these ideas um you want to try to you know maximize you want to force array you want to have like as many steps in between you losing and your opponent as possible so they have to work through all these layers you want to have

it'll get technical and we'll be here all day but my point is is that these these underlying principles govern chess tennis fighting all that stuff so I think that yes if you are I'm not educated enough in particular sport to show examples of it, but I am educated enough in strategy to say that it will definitely affect the outcome of anything that has to do with competition. So any kind of competitive one-on-one, in other words, I am competing against you or against outside pressures, be it nature or whatever you want to define outside pressures. If you are competing against something and some would say, including yourself then there are definitely these rules like physics has rules, right? Like this pen drops, you know, exactly where that's going to go. A great way to think about strategy is that so like you,

this predictability and system, you know, that's going to drop every time. But you know, 200 years ago, if I said, you know what, the same force that pulls that pen down to the desk keeps the moon around the earth, you would think I was insane. Um, but that's how strategy is like the same strategy that we use in MMA is the same strategy that a chess player uses in chess parts of it, because it's, that's a much more closed system, but that a tennis player uses that a bowler uses that anybody that, that has to do deal with strategical kind of, uh, uh, impetuses. So you'd have to maybe like explain to

the fighter to a little bit, like almost kind of, uh, you know, with that example of the pen, you'd have to say, look, this is kind of just black and white. This is what the guy did. And this is how he came on on top and almost make it like, it's not a big deal. Is that how you kind of depends on the fighter? Everybody's different. Some fighters respond to that. Some of you got to get them emotionally. Some, some, you have to be like, Oh no, that was a fluke. And we're showing him this time. Why? You know what I mean? It all depends on the fighter. There's no one formula. If there was, then somebody would win every fight, right? Like that's the thing about it is it's so it's non-linear dynamics there's so many little small things that have such huge effects uh sometimes you can read them sometimes

you can't um i was watching i'm a huge student of boxing and the old combat arts and i was watching one of my favorite trainers customato talk about the the idea of character he said that's what it really takes to be a champion is character. And he's really right. Like having to putting up with all the social media pressures, putting up with the pain and the like being able to handle all of that stuff is what he's talking about when he talks about character. And I really, I mean, there's a reason I think not just technically that Jose Torres, and of course, everybody knows Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, all of these guys that he trained and did well with.

But I think he saw something in those guys where they had character. And even, you know, even Mike having to go through all the things that he went through when Cuss was gone. Yeah. I think that that idea of character really means something. And as I've trained a lot of these champions, I really kind of see that that is one of the defining things is how they put up with all the outside drama yeah that's that's almost uh like in some way more impressive than what they do in the ring sometimes it really is the amount of fans they got to put up with the amount of haters they got it's all the different things well just yeah and pressure just pressure all the time expectations because if you remove yourself from it they pull you back into it right and they can't i mean if you're a fighter you can't not be on social media part of it's your job but part of

it's just this vacuous magnet that you have what it does for conor mcgregor right exactly so you have to be able to deal with they have to have the strength of character to be able to deal with that stuff and uh i think that's it's hard i've seen it break a lot of fighters that had the talent to be there but they couldn't handle the mental side of it. Yeah, I guess one of the sad things with Customato and Tyson is that Tyson kind of asked him, like, you know, how do you deal with, you know, like, if I want to be champion and we're talking about being champion, how am I going to deal with that?

How am I going to deal with, like, the popularity? And he said, like, no one can tell you that. There's not a way to figure out, like, what it's like to said, like, no one can tell you that. Like you can't, like, there's not a way to figure out like what it's like to be like Madonna or Michael Jackson or any of these people or Michael Jordan. Like there's who could tell you about it other than maybe those people themselves, right? Like might be able to tell you about the pitfalls that maybe a George St. Pierre or Bones Jones could tell you, uh, like how isolating it is and just how weird it might be. Yeah. I think it's isolating in some aspects and then not everyone is in your business and other aspects. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting. And just to see over the years,

now the different fighters like, uh, Marvin Hagler, who would just like disappear. Like I'm, I'm out. He wouldn't take phone calls. He wouldn't do anything. You know what I mean? Like I'm gone. Um, I'm, you couldn't do that today. I mean, there's just too many demands from the organization on you to promote the fight. So that, that would be very hard. But I think people like Mike Tyson have, have been through the ups and downs and made terrible mistakes and made good decisions. And those are the really interesting guys for me to talk to. Um, just because they know they've been there, they've done the wrong thing. They've done the right thing. Um, and they have so much wisdom that like, uh,

not just in fighting, but those, those old timers like that, not that they're that old, but yeah, that, that those guys are to me when they talk, I listen.

I like to hear what they have to say about the world. I always thought Mike Tyson was, uh, one of the greatest athletes of all time. Like, you know, just because he doesn't play basketball, people don't think about like the athleticism. And obviously Muhammad Ali had a ton of athleticism as well.

Every fighter does, yeah. But I always just thought the explosiveness, the speed, you know. Yeah, I mean, I would argue that Mike Tyson would be a much better athlete than most baseball football players. Yeah, like you have to keep that consistency up over and over and over and over explode, explode, explode, explode, explode. There's the rest of your team. You can walk and rest. Okay. Let's do it again. There's nothing like that in, in fighting it's over and over and over and over and over. Um, wrestlers have that, especially that's why a lot of wrestlers make great fighters as you get kind of that,

that idea punished into your head head who are some of the biggest mutants that you worked with some of the biggest you know people that just they're just freaks like genetically not necessarily muscular or anything like that but just athletically you ask them to do something you show them something boom they got it and they almost master it you know better than you even demonstrated it that that we have a lot of those guys those guys that really learned extremely well and then we have like john jones when he's in shape just doesn't fade so he's not like incredibly fast he's fast but he's not like no one watches a john jones fight goes he's the fastest human on the planet nobody says that he just doesn't fade like he'll fight in the fifth round is better than he

fought in the first and so there's that he has this weird ability to just constantly put pressure on you and not fade and then people like ge George could just explode out of nowhere. GSP just boom. Carlos Condit doesn't when he's in shape, he doesn't fade either. He just keeps going and going and going and going when he's at his best. So you have these different personalities and these different athletes, even within fighting. Some of them are super explosive. Some of them are just consistent. You get a lot of different, a lot of different types of athletes, but they're all incredible athletes. What do you think makes a champion? What makes, you know, John Jones, Holly Holmes, and some of these other people that you've trained, what makes them different? They've got, um, they've got to be coachable. That's a big deal. They've got to handle all their stuff outside. That's a big deal, but've got to handle all their stuff outside. That's a big deal, but they also have to have a crazy work ethic. Like

if the whole team does one thing, you, they have to want to do five more reps. That's one thing that I've noticed is that when everybody else is done, they'll go do just a little bit more. And I think that's one of the most important elements as I'm, as I'm older. And, and as I've, you know, as I study the great minds, uh, around the sport, like custom auto, these people that are 10 million times a better trainer than I'll ever be. Um, as I study them and listen to what they say in their experiences. And at this point in my life, my experiences, um, characters, a big deal. And I i because i think it encompasses all of that they're going to do five more reps they're going to go we'll all be done sprinting and holly will

run back while we walk back to the mountain or when we're sprinting on the mountains she'll run home while we walk home that kind of stuff do the champions know when to maybe pull the plug a little bit too or or or do you have to help them with that? Pull the plug as in? Just stop, like just, you know, like so they're not overdoing it, I guess. Oh yeah, no, yeah, yeah. No, that's my job. Especially some of them that just over-train all the time, like constantly over-training

so that they show up flat in the fight. They have these amazing workouts and everybody's oohing and aahing and then when they show up in the fight, they're flat, driving me bananas. Yeah. Are you aware of some of the other training that they do or do they go off and do some lifting or something that maybe. Well, yeah, but we all share.

Yeah, exactly. We have to share information. How many times are you doing? Right. And then I just read their bodies like sometimes because, again, there's no that's what's frustrating. I think that people really want that. They don't have there's no formula because your body reacts a different week. So why week three in camp, you might be in super shape.

I want to do two more rounds, but you're, you're not periodized, right? So you're way overdid it. So fight time comes and you're flat. You already gave your best rounds three weeks ago. Um, so knowing, Oh, pull back, pull back, or you need to push it a little bit more. It's such a feedback oriented system where you have to watch your fighter, see where their patterns are. See he's consistently tired into two sparring sessions. Then that next day he needs to take it off, relax for two days.

It's so hard for them because my opponent's training right now, which has nothing to do with anything. Right. Like, uh, but that, that is a big part of my job. Does it happen sometimes where you're like, man, this training session is just going like shit. And then you find out that they've been on a low carb diet for the last two weeks or something.

Yeah. Sometimes I didn't sleep for two days. They didn't tell you something. You're like, Oh, that would have helped. Well, I sit them down. I'm like, what's going on? Like, yeah. Are you feeling tired?

What's going on? And sometimes they'll usually tell me, Oh, you know, this, that, and the other. How technical do you guys get? Cause I know some people are like using apps and using things to track sleep and different things like that does the team yeah we do well yeah we do heart rate a lot of heart rate stuff but again so much of it is psychological people look for science to solve again non-linear dynamics um so again it's kind of like tell me what the weather's going to be in two and a half weeks you can give me an idea right but because of non-linear dynamics kind of like tell me what the weather is going to be in two and a half weeks. You can give me an idea.

But because of nonlinear dynamics, you can't tell me that on Tuesday in two and a half weeks it is going to be storming. That's just not going to happen. Hey, Dr. Bo. What's up, buddy? Hey, Doc. So that's how fighting is, right? Like there's so many things and so many little – you tweak an ankle, that changes everything. We have to train around that.

So sorry, Dr. Bo derailed me. He does that a lot. But anyway, the point is that there's no one predictive model that will give you success. You have approximations. no one predictive model that will give you success you have approximations you can say if i you know do whatever heavy volume and as i get closer to the fight i taper off into less but more intense that's a good idea um then it's just about knowing your fighter like this guy responds well to this this guy does not respond well to that so it has to be very individualized and because of that do you allow the fighter a little bit of leeway you know like, like, let's let them try this diet for a while.

Let's let them, you know, they're all obsessed with this sleep tracker or whatever. Right. Let them get over it. Let them figure it out. Well, anything that's going to help, help. So some fighters, it's an arms race and a fighter is always looking for an edge. So, and I mean, you're going to be a snake oil salesman to a fighter like nobody else. If you said, I'm going to give you this rock and you're going to sleep deeply and it's going to bring your punch rep up by 12, every fighter would buy it. Oh, they don't even

need proof. All they need is some kind of scientific jargon and they will 100% jump on it because it's an arms race. You're always looking for an edge. What, what am I going to take in with me in this scary situation to give me an edge over this guy that's trying to knock me unconscious that makes that makes a lot of sense what are you most proud of i think i'm most proud of uh that's a good question i think i'm dr bow dr bow hi terry most proud of the doctor he is handsome he's keeping me walking literally i mean i think it's cool what you have going on here with all these fighters yeah i have an opportunity to like live out their dreams and you're pointing one guy was from poland another guy was yeah i mean people are from all over the place i think that's cool like i'm i guess i'm more flattered and i guess confused like why would they want to trade with

me in a little ways but i think what i'm most proud of is my friendships i think that um that that's the thing that i'm i'm pretty is my friendships. I think that, um, that, that's the thing that I'm, I'm pretty much friends with everybody. Like, and that's cool. People, I didn't get into this business to be friends, bro. And then I always watch like, uh, in fighters or people just like bragging about manipulating people and bragging like, Oh, you know, manipulating in a fight's one thing, but like, Oh, I pretended to be his friend. And then I got this information, you know what I mean? Like is one thing, but like, oh, I pretended to be his friend and then I got this information. You know what I mean?

Like just like and they're proud of it or I don't know. It's just gross to me. I got I I'm proud that I am. I try to be a good friend to my friends and I have a lot of them for some reason. And I guess that's what I'm the most proud of. I'm most proud of my friends. Are the best fighters in the world? Are they from the people that I've been around, people that I've seen, which is hasn't been a lot.

The people that are like really skilled at like jujitsu or the people that are high level fighters, they're usually like pretty happy and pretty nice. Is there is it a combination, though? Are some people like still like mean even after they've kind of like mastered a certain thing? Well, keep in mind that a lot of times that's your representative. So like when you first date a girl, you don't date the girl. You date her representative. Right. She's cool.

She's awesome. She's this. She's that. But, you know, six months later, if she's if she's a real person, then, OK, that wasn't a representative. That was her. But a lot of times you're not dealing with when you deal with a fighter you're not dealing with the dark undercurrent of that person you're dealing with the hey i i know i can beat up pretty much everybody in this room there might be one or two guys and give me a run but i like i'm cool like that's usually what you're dealing with with the guys on that level um but

if you dig deep enough they're mean like they have to be like that's their job like your job is to smash another person's face and you can be like oh i just like the competition and but well there's a lot of places to come you know you can go be a tennis player soccer is awesome but these dudes smash each other so there's there's a dark curtain all of us um so identifying that understanding that that's there and still being cool i think is is a very, very big accomplishment. So when I meet fighters that are very mellow and nice and seem to be at peace with themselves, to me, that's not an indication that they are at peace with themselves, but it is an indication that they're evolved enough as a person to be nice to other people. And I think that's beyond important because being nobody likes a jerk.

Right. Yeah. The, a lot of the people that I've interviewed, you know, a lot of the fighters I've interviewed, they've kind of played it off as you were mentioning. They're like, Oh no,

I like, no, I, I'm asking them basically, are you crazy? Like people are punching you in the face. You've got to punch and kick them. You know,

they don't have any, there's no like, what's their test against. Right. You know what I mean? Like everybody's crazy in this place. Like, and that's,

and rightly so. Again, I would much rather be here with crazy people trying to punch me in the face what's their test against. Right. You know what I mean? Like everybody's crazy in this place. Like, and that's, and rightly so again, I would much rather be here with crazy people trying to punch me in the face than working at a bank somewhere or as a lawyer somewhere. You know what I mean? I couldn't imagine a worse job, like pretending you're, you know,

well, run in the law by the law. Like I couldn't imagine somebody walking in and just, well, I, you know, I'm a business guy. I'm an alpha male. And then somebody just smacking you and be like, cops, please help me. You know, I'd like that. That idea is hateful to me.

I don't, I don't like that idea. So I would rather be here with the crazy people than there with those crazy people. How do you stay out in front of it with such a busy schedule? You know, you probably have a front of it with such a busy schedule? You know, you probably have a lot of things coming up soon. And do you look at the calendar? Yeah, I have to be pretty good every day, every night. Like how does your, how do you plan some of your days?

You're not wrong. Pretty much every day I have to look and see what my next day is. And as a matter of fact, I've worked a little system out where I won't look at my calendar for like a day and a half on the weekends. I'll try to not to an extent not look at it. Just be like again, because if I'm I have to get slapped in the back of my head prior to your heart to write. You know what I mean? Like, oh, man, I got to do this.

I got to do that. Like, I can't stop. I can't stop. And so I have to force myself to stop. And that's much harder for a personality like me than you would seem. I'll lay awake at night going, you know what? I think this move is going to work. I think this move is going to work.

I have to wait all the way until the morning to see if it's going to work. Or, oh, so-and-so, I forgot to show him circling to the left, and his fighter is going to be throwing whatever, and he needs to circle to the left. Damn it. So I'll write myself little things on the phone or whatever. But I try to find left. Damn it. So I'll write myself little things on the phone or whatever, but just I try to find ways to make it stop.

What's coming up next, speaking of that? Well, we just had a big win overseas. Was it Sweden? Did you see it? Devon won, so we had that. I think Bavon Lewis is up on the eighth, and then Aaron Pico and patchy, um, are that I'll be cornering in,

uh, Madison square garden on the 14th. And then I think I don't have anything till Jones, Diego and Holly. Um, I think that's the next fight after that. So, yeah.

Is that tiring at all? Like when you have like three or four fighters on the same card? I almost prefer it. I'd rather have them all in one night than three weeks in a row. You know what I mean? And then I do a lot of work with the police department here and different police departments. And that helps me out a lot too. Kind of it's combat, but it's de-escalation. It's trying to take violence out of situations and stuff.

Except for the operators, obviously, that's a little different. But like with the police. It must be way different than just what you're trying to do. out of situations and stuff, except with operators. Obviously, that's a little different. But like with the police. So it must be way different than just what you're trying to do. Right, right, right, right. It is. So that's a lot of fun. That helps me not get burned out, too. Just doing new curriculums, new ways to work as a team to, you know, kind of hold somebody, constrain them, if you will.

kind of hold somebody, constrain them, if you will. Or, you know, if you're an operator working with these other great combatives programs to figure out good ways for these guys to stay alive when they're downrange. Before we kind of drop off here, who does the kind of conditioning work for the athletes? Is that mainly through you and mainly through a lot of the mat work? Or is this conditioning outsourced to somebody else? It's outsourced to a lot. Because remember, we have so many fighters that one guy couldn't do it like you couldn't keep track of it all right you'd go crazy um so we outsource it to a lot of different schools um i work personally with elevate uh here in town it's a great great guys

adrian's the owner and he's a great dude and he works with a lot of my high level guys and between him and dr hightightower, they keep me walking, literally keep me walking at this point. So it's outsourced a lot. It has to be general conditioning through here though, just from doing sports specific. Absolutely. So they're only going to strengthen condition once, twice,

maybe three times a week is the rest of it's just sports specific. I mean, you're doing five, six rounds in here in tents, five minute rounds plus grappling plus wrestling plus whatever else cool man thank you so much for your time i really really appreciate it man that was a lot of fun oh yeah thanks for coming out oh no worries my pleasure i have a quick question for you yo um did you find i got a special guest coming in here. I just wanted to know if you found it difficult not being a professional MMA fighter and getting into the sport as a trainer.

Because it was so new back then. There wasn't even fighting around for you to be part of. Right. So, you know, you didn't. Have you had any? No, no. Zero. Right.

So was it hard for you to gain the respect of the fighters in the beginning no because i was in there tooling them up every day so that that and the early fighters will tell you they would come in and i'm just like dorky skinny little white guy and they all of them would be like you're gonna teach me fighting and then we get on i guess that's what i'm talking about you faced that in the beginning a little bit yeah 100, 100%. Because remember, I was 17 years old. So imagine a guy your age now coming in and learning from a 17-year-old kid. You'd be like, what? This skinny little thing? What my saving grace was, I trained all the time.

I sparred. I just finished fighting all the time in my own life. So I was a very, very capable person at that point. So I had to get in the mats with each and all my guys all the time. Um, and battle and battle and battle and battle. So then when I'm running with you, I'll do the dieting with you. I'm beating you in practice up until, you know, when I get them, when my students got good enough, where it was very competitive, but I'm right there with you. Um, then it's easy to listen to you then.

So as long as you whoop them up, they have some respect. You have to. And that was early on. And so now, I mean, I'm an old broken down, fat old coach, but, um, my success rate now people. Yeah. They just look at the record. Right. And they say, Oh, well maybe he knows what he's talking about. He's had, you know, a bunch of world champions or whatever. Um, but, uh, yeah, early on, I just had to prove myself all the time. So people got squirrely or whatever, I'd be like, Oh, let's go spar. Oh, let's go, let's go at it. And so then you kept people in line.

Awesome. That was just burning in my mind the whole time. I was wondering if, uh, yeah, I think it's harder. I think it's harder to be an MMA coach now than when I was younger for a lot, a lot of reasons, but that's one of them is if you come in as a coach and you're not in there banging it out with your guys, which that's one of them is if you come in as a coach and you're not in there banging it out with your guys, which it's going to be almost impossible to do now. Yeah. I mean, remember we were all learning back then. I mean, it was the Gracie's had to figure it out, but nobody else did.

It was a brand new sport, right? Yeah. We were just, we were just going at it and figuring we'd go to all these grappling tournaments and do extremely well there and all these NHB fights and we had extremely well there, but we were, it was all learning experience. And the Gracie's had been doing it since i think 1925 is when they started and the guy you talked about a lot was customato and he never fought professionally either right exactly well i think that's important i think that a lot of times that dark hole that we were talking about with fighters i think that if you don't fix that personality and you have those

massive insecurities most fighters are massively insecure and they're just brave about it. Right. And they just try to hit it head on, but underneath they're massively insecure. I think that when you put those people in leadership positions, there's a lot of negative stuff that happens around them. There's a, there's a lot of, when you are an angry person or you are, and you haven't dealt with it, you haven't got through it. Um, I think that a lot of fighters don't make great coaches because of that, because they're in a different role. Now it's a leadership role and you have to be dispassionate and fair, and you have to figure out what's best for everybody else, not just for yourself. Um, and I think that's, that's a hard transition for people that cause fighting is almost like a religious experience, right? It's all about you and, and you growing,

you have to have the food, you have to have the training, you have to do this, you have to do the sacrifices then to suddenly say, okay, now it's no longer about you except cursory. And it's about everybody else. That's a hard transition to make. And then, especially if you have insecurity, that's my big thing that I see a lot is that they're like, well, I have to look, you know, I have to appear strong or I have to get really super emotional. They're like, well, I have to look, you know, I have to appear strong or I have to get super emotional. They're not thinking, well, what's the best outcome for everybody involved? How can everybody win? Sometimes they can't, but what's at least let's try that.

And so I think that's one of the things that makes it harder for fighters to become coaches. But also as a coach, if you're not, you have to get people's respect. So either another coach tells you, Hey, you respect this guy. The fighter then says, okay, you're helping me out. And that respect is, is given that way. But I think it's a lot harder to earn the respect now than it was when I was young. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for doing this. Sorry to go on. We're out.