Mark Bell's Power Project - No-Gi BJJ Natty King, Nicky Rod || MBPP Ep. 885

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Nick Rodriguez aka Nicky Rod, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about Nick's career in Jiu Jitsu, his battles with Gordon Ryan and how Nick considers himself currently the best grappler in the game. Follow Nicky Rod on IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickyrod247 Nicky Rods instructional videos on BJJ Fanatics: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/instructional-videos/fighter_nick-rodriguez Subscribe to B-Team on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BTeamJiuJitsu Subscribe to Simple Man Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@simplemanpodcast/ New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #NickyRod  #PowerProject #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Give it a little shake. I'll be able to drive and stuff. A little cheers. Yeah. You'll be able to drive. Yeah. Off a cliff. That's a playground cocaine though.

I mean, it tastes fine. Oh yeah? It tastes earthy. That's the first person who said it tastes fine. It tastes like pine salt or something. I feel like I'm awake. Now all of a sudden you're just going to be practicing moves on me. I'm going to be so fucked.

Like what did we do? What did we start with here? Wow, that was intense flavor. So you just moved to Austin. That's kind of more recent. Yeah, I've been living in Austin almost two years now. We opened up a beat team jiu-jitsu private training facility and it's going great we build a a team from scratch and you know

we got a bunch of good guys in there looking to compete looking to get better with us you're from new york originally east coast yeah so i'm a new jersey native uh born in philly raised in jersey and i lived up in uh in north bergen right next to to New York City for about a year and some changes like, you know, chasing jujitsu and whatnot. So definitely East Coast bred. And, you know, I brought that fast paced mentality to the grappling world for sure. How did you get into jujitsu in the first place? Okay, so how I got into grappling, professional grappling. So I dropped out of college going into my sophomore year right so

freshman year i wrestled in college i really only went to college to wrestle i was like i like i just wanted to find out you know how how i how i did how i stacked up so um after freshman year college i start modeling right there's this guy in my school that was like kind of making making some connections make some money like as a amateur model or professional model. So I was like, all right, let me take some photos and whatnot. And I ended up signing with Wilhelmina Fitness in New York City. Wilhelmina is a big deal. Yeah, they're the best. They're number one for sports and fitness.

So you know how to do the walk and everything? Runway and everything? I could do it all. Damn. That's fancy. You ever do that on on your way like to the mat every when i'm walking around i put the model face on it's a little zoolander for everybody you give the locals a treat you know make them remember you so uh but so yeah so meanwhile while

i dropped out of school and i was chasing this kind of modeling career i also had a bunch of little jobs i did like home depot i worked i worked as a bouncer but specifically while i was bouncing um i bounced with a couple wrestlers and a couple grapplers and the talk of like you know who's tougher always came up so eventually they invited me to a grappling practice and i was like for sure i'm just going to go in there and smoke you guys i walked in there and nobody could really do anything to me they couldn't like sub me couldn't control me i just kind of took him down got on top of him and was stayed pretty safe and i knew knew like nothing i just knew my wrestling right and the awareness of submissions because watching ufc and whatnot like i kind of understood how to like be safe so um after that like first initial training session i was like oh like i'm i'm i could fare pretty well in this. So I did some research and I jumped around gyms in South Jersey.

So I finally settled on South Jersey BJJ. It was a school close to my hometown. And I trained there. And by the second week, I found this – well, my coach, Jay Regabudo, kind of found me in practice. He was like, yeah, you should come to my competition class, which is at 6 am and i'm like that's never gonna happen there's no way i can make 16 practice but i sucked it up i go i go to 6 a.m practice and you know i did pretty well and then maybe another week after that i i did my first jujitsu competition it was an open weight class against open um open belts as well so there's a few brown belts purple belts and a couple black belts and i beat everybody i got like five subs i beat them like 80 points to zero and i was like all

right well this is pretty easy maybe i should keep going so i just kept i just kept kind of doing these local competitions and and kept progressing and i was like all right like you know maybe i can make some money i started doing research like you know people that are uh are um at that highest level, and, you know, I saw them getting paid, I was like, maybe this is a sure way to make some money as an athlete, you know, because to me, I just wanted to, I always, like, since I started wrestling, I was like, how can I just do the wrestling part and not go to school, so that's kind of what I found in jujitsu uh with you know

the hard training and stuff and um yeah pretty much after i started competing i just got addicted to it and uh you know it's been been history ever since how long has it been now since you've been rolling been four and a half years almost five four and a half years almost five so you've been concentrating on nogi and it's funny we were talking to jim i mentioned how i mainly roll gi and you're saying well you're not doing full jujitsu so what do you mean by that yeah so you're saying your thing was like oh like i don't get i don't want to get my legs hurt right the lots of stuff i like my knees yeah that's that's half the body though you know what i mean um yeah i think uh i think gi gi is great i just there's a couple things i have against against the gi. First of all, it's uncomfortable.

You have to wear like this karate suit. It's like, if you got it, if you get in a street fight, you're going to be like, Hey, let me put my, my,

my, my, my, my gi on real quick before we fight. Uh, but besides that, um, yeah,

there's, there's no leg locks in, in the gi usually. And, um, what was it? Well, there are leg locks.

There just aren't heel hooks. Aren't heel hooks. Yeah. Even at black belt. Depends on the organization i think uh f fights will win they'll allow heel hooks in the e but like ibjjf doesn't whenever i trained in the gi my face would get destroyed because i'm of every pressure intensive grappler so i'd have like rug burn all over my face and stuff because i use my head when i grapple so they'd slow you down because of the gi yeah it would definitely slow me down because people are holding on to me but in addition to that whenever i'm passing or

i'm taking somebody down my face is rubbing against this cloth so it's like it's super uncomfortable for me in addition i think it's dirty right it's dirty hear me out all right i'm listening so people are like oh no he's gross because you're rolling around in sweat it's like all right if you wear the gi, you become the sweat. The sweat just gets absorbing. You're walking around holding the sweat. Yeah, it's just like a body rag doll full of sweat. Oh, yeah, it's disgusting.

Your gi just gets drenched. And it's everybody else's sweat as well. Oh, yeah. It's a collection. That's my opinion. If you're a gi guy, I support you do your thing, but come to the no-gi side. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool though

seeing like nogi jujitsu because like back in i guess maybe the mid 2000s 2010 2015 people who did nogi it was more of like you had your gi tournaments and then there it's like the nogi stuff but now it's like everyone's starting to get into nogi because of how popular it's becoming how do you how do you like feel seeing that happen with the nogi side of the sport well i think it's i mean it's obviously great for me because it's like the more popularity the sport has just the better it's going to be overall but um i think there is a is there exactly what was your question just like how do you see it's got me going crazy you feel it i think a little bit yeah yeah so so you being like a nogi specialist right you now have a gym how do you like what do you see the trajectory being of nogi jiu-jitsu into the future yeah i think it just uh it goes mainstream right

right now we have ufc kind of investing in uh in the nogi grappling scene and uh you know there's talks of potentially having uh grappling matches open up ufc events so if we get something like that we have commercials for adCC on ESPN plus and whatnot that's just gonna you know bring us more towards the mainstream and now you know we're able to make a living a decent living um and sometimes like me I get paid more than some of the fighters that are you know getting knocked out of the ring I'm just like you know people ask me all the time if I'm gonna fight and it's like I would have to get a substantial amount of money and pick my opponent you know what I mean for for me to hop in the ring.

Because Jiu Jitsu is just such a little amount of risk. Huge. Like a pretty decent reward. And you can do it for a super long period of time. You see guys in the 40s. Close to their 40s. And they're doing pretty well. The sport is growing a lot.

But what do you think. Do you think there should be anything done. With like the rules to make it even more exciting. Because. the sport is growing a lot but what do you think do you think there should be anything done with like the rules to make it even more exciting because i i have not even really seen a lot of no gi jiu-jitsu i've only seen uh people kind of rolling more in their gi but um can people just kind of like hold on to each other smother each other and just kind of like play like a points game kind of thing well i think i think that's the common thing with some of the key matches where you get like an older black belt against black belt in the key.

And it's very slow pace. Like, you know, they're, they're using strategy and a little bit technique in no key. You're forced to, there's just more movement total. So you're going to see more sequences,

more explosiveness, more guy, there's more chances, opportunities for a guy to escape because the lack of friction um yeah it's definitely it's definitely a different sport slippery it's yeah it's slippery so you have a you have a huge adjustment in grips that you need to make like i remember i was rolling with um uh i forget the guy's name but he's an older guy did really good in adcc and stuff but he's mainly a gi practitioner and And he like, I saw him the second we start rolling,

he like tried to grab a grip on my wrist and I literally just slipped a grip. He was like, why? Like he couldn't like understand why he was able to, not able to hold on to me, you know?

So if you're able to slip grips in no gi, you know, it's going to have definitely aid towards your success. It's just a lack of friction makes, makes it a bit more entertaining. Power Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan,

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I've been getting the best sleep of my life. Now, if you don't want to replace your mattress, you can just get the Pod Pro cover and you can put that over your current mattress to get all the benefits of Eight Sleep. But if you also need to replace your old nasty mattress, you can get the Pod Pro cover and the Eight Sleep mattress. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to eightsleep.com slash power project, and you guys will automatically receive $150 off of your order. Again, 8sleep.com slash power project, links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Yeah, the athleticism of the athletes seems like it's just elevating like crazy. Do you think that's just because it's more popular, so more people are getting into it, now there's a wider pool of of people doing jiu-jitsu definitely

a wider pool um i think uh the more americanized nogi grappling gets the more athletic it's going it's going to become just because you have all these all these wrestlers that were ncaa champs and whatnot and now they're either going to work an office job or they're like oh i can still compete and do jiu-jitsu so you got these guys with that same mentality, work ethic, and efficiency on the mat, and they're just going to transfer their skill set towards the grappling world, and that's just going to boost the level that it's at. Was it ever weird to get into jujitsu or wrestling back years and years ago

when those were less popular and people were like, why don't you play baseball? Why don't you play football? Did you play those other sports and stuff like that too yeah i mean so when i was younger i played i tried a bunch of sports i tried the soccer the baseball the football my thing was the first of all the team sports wasn't for me because anytime we lost everybody just blamed each other so i was like all right i'm like i'm trying super hard you guys aren't trying that hard and you're still blaming me for us losing.

So that team aspect kind of drove me away. And also, I'm a selfish guy. So when I win, I want it to be my win. So it's definitely my win if I'm getting my hand raised in the match. But I've also done a bunch of sports. Wrestling is just like it stuck with me because it was the – I remember the first time I went to wrestling practice, I was like this is the hardest thing I've ever done.

But I know I'm going to get better at it. Like I got beat up in practice by these guys. But like coaches were like, listen, you keep coming, you keep learning, you're going to get better, you're going to beat them. So that was kind of – it definitely helped me stick around. Did you run into any like newbie stuff? Because you did mention like you had kind of success right away uh after you went to more classes were you like had that guy who's 160 just tap me with that move did you run into anything

like that definitely i would get tapped in practice um early on in my grappling career um and you know like i get i get subbed here and there but because more because i put myself in bad positions like i i'm always working on something and maybe I'm working on late armbar escapes or something like that. So I put myself at a hefty risk just so I can make sure when competition comes, y'all can't hold me down. So, I mean, in practice, I definitely put myself in bad spots. And, you know, we all have our off days. You're not every day going to be, you know, at that competition level. But I definitely try to be there every day you know back i don't know when the last time is that you

um and the donna her death squad was a thing but i'm curious what do you think were some of the main things that you learned from him uh that's maybe helped your jujitsu even to this day um well one of the things is that you got to remind yourself that there's always somebody else out there that's training is training to take your spot so like you know if you're taking sundays off and you're only training once a day or every other day like there's somebody there the kid that's training two or three times a day and it's like that you can't let them surpass you you know what i I mean? So definitely John, you know, taught, taught me a bunch like, but besides technique,

you know, the mentality of grappling, like he would, he would teach class seven days a week. And like, John has some physical like injuries. So it's hard for him to like even move around. So having him just being like,

I'm going to be here. It's, it's motivation for us to be like, all right, we're fucking going to practice. We're going to do it every single day. And it's like, it's hard on the ego sometimes.

Cause like I said, it's, it's hard to be at that like a hundred percent at that competition level every day. But even on your worst days, you got to still be able to perform because we'll come competition day. Not every time things are going to be perfect. So adjustments like that definitely help you out in the competition room.

Yeah. You guys literally train every day. Yeah. mean seven days a week what about like travel and stuff does it sometimes pop up where you're not able to get a training session in or is it literally like just almost never because if i if i leave or i travel like for instance i was fly flow here last night but i left late so i train in the morning flight leaves at 7 p.m no problem uh but vice versa if i I leave early, I'll travel. I'll make sure I'll find a local gym, train at 7 p.m. or something like that. So I almost never miss a session.

I think it's interesting that you – I was asking if you have like a back thing or a hip or whatever. And you're like, no, I feel really, really good. And I think your activity level I think is a big reason for that. I got fucked up the other day in a run and ended up in the hospital but I was running every day for like over 160 days and these last 3 or 4 days of not

moving, everything hurts I'm like fuck man my back's getting tight, my hips are getting tight you get comfortable fast not doing the hard stuff if you mind me asking what happened to your run? how did you get comfortable fast not doing that like the hard stuff right how if you mind me asking what happened to your run like how'd you get like hospitalized uh long story short is i thought that my blood sugar was uh was low but it was actually high and so i don't know if you've ever experienced

like not feeling so well during a training session uh but that's kind of what was happening to me so i was like let me load up on a bunch of like orange juice and stuff like that so i drank a bunch of that and my uh i just jacked my um my blood glucose levels up through the roof to the point where i ended up in the hospital so even though you were expending or like you like you're sweating and stuff you pounded a bunch of sugar and you weren't fine because in my mind i'm like all right you're doing the right thing yeah yeah same here yeah that's what i thought and they actually will tell you like eat whether you're hypoglycemic with uh low blood sugar or you're hyperglycemic the recommendation is the same because even if your blood sugar if your blood sugar is high and it goes higher it's not really that huge of a risk

but if your blood sugar is really low and it continues to get lower uh you know the the you could you could end up in a really bad spot. So I was doing what I thought was the right thing. So should you have done salt instead of sugar? I probably should have just chilled and probably just drank some water. And yeah, probably tried to get a, get some electrolytes,

like more electrolytes. That probably would have been, I do, I do a lot of salt in my training. Cause usually I have to do at least like an hour live a day. If I'm doing a sweat a ton, right? Yeah yeah so like in a practice i could do seven pounds of water you know like pretty easily so i do like a thousand milligrams of sodium like usually mid session but i'm always like wondering like what's too much salt you know what i mean like because

when i compete i'll have a thousand milligrams of sodium like between matches if i have three four matches you know it's a few thousand milligrams of sodium like between matches if I have three four matches you know it's a few thousand milligrams of sodium like I want to stay alive you know what I mean I don't know how bad that stuff is for you but um yeah yeah I just I don't know exactly what happened in the run I think I just got compromised from some I've been on my feet a lot for running so I've put in like lots and lots of miles. I've never really run before. And more recently, I ran like 16 miles and then 18 miles and then 20 miles. Oh, like in one stretch?

16 miles in one stretch? Yeah. Oh, that's impressive. Yeah. And so over the last several weeks, my mileage has gone up and up and up. And I think maybe on that particular day, just like an injury, you're like, ah, I kind of tweaked my back doing this. But it wasn't necessarily that one thing. It was probably like the five or six other things he did going into it.

So I think that's kind of what happened. How's your shins? Do you ever get like shin splints? Yeah, the shins and stuff feel good because I do a lot of what I showed you today, like where you were rolling with that roller thing and getting the calves and the shins and stuff like that to loosen up. But yeah, you run into stuff. And just like in jiu-jitsu, you just make adjustments. Like I'll run and something will be weird in an ankle or a knee or a shin.

And I'm like, well, what happens if I run this way? I wonder if I bring my knees up a little higher. I wonder if I kick back more. You can almost always find reprieve. And I'm sure you guys do the same thing in jiu-jitsu. Yeah, I mean, I don't run much now, run i ran a ton for wrestling in high school and college and um i'm all i'm all ran out i think it doesn't make you a better grappler wrestler but it makes you tough like if you if you if you can run and you're like your coach is like all right five and five

miles get it done it just makes you tougher and that i think that that translates to the mat more than like uh more than it would like an intent technical value you know do you do any outside conditioning for jiu-jitsu or do you just train more jiu-jitsu and train harder i mean yeah definitely the best cardio for grappling is doing the jiu-jitsu um but i'll do things you know like i was telling you guys earlier i like i'm a fan of the emoms from crossfit um so things like that definitely boost your cardio but i'm a fan of just working differents from CrossFit. So things like that definitely boost your cardio. But I'm a fan of just working different things. So like whatever I don't use on the mat, I'll do like kind of in the gym, you know. So like if I'm not – like maybe I use a lot of legs in practice.

I'll do leg workouts or like – one of my favorite EMOMs is I'll do like five barbell rows, power cleans, squats, and I'll toss something else in there to make 20 reps. I'll do a 10-minute EMOM of that. So that's pretty good cardio and muscular endurance and whatnot. So I'm a fan of stuff like that. Cool. How's it been now to owning your own gym? I don't know. How long has B-team j team jujitsu been a thing?

So it's going to, it's going to be two years in the summer. And yeah, it's fun. I mean, we get to make our own schedule. Pretty much all of our students are, you know, they're our friends and it's a good time. Our gym is full of people that just want to get better and they train consistently. Like most of my people in my gym train once a day and some of them, a lot of them train twice a day. So, you know like uh we

have a few different sessions we have 8 a.m 12 p.m and 7 p.m the 12 p.m is usually typically the comp class and all the classes are like you know more hobbyist yeah but yeah we have a lot of people that compete and our guys are good and you know our goal specifically with the bead team initially was to just create practice partners that were giving us problems in practice. So, you know, we have tough roles and now, you know, we have a year or so and some change before the next ADCC. So we can help develop our guys to make it even harder come, you know, ADCC time. What spurred the name B team jujitsu? Well, that's Craig Jones. He's a, he is a, uh, he's a meme artist when it comes to taking second place, right? He's took, took in second place in all all the world-class competitions.

So he's like, all right, let's just – instead of calling ourselves the best because everybody says they're the best or tries to be. He's like, all right, let's just be the second best. That way nobody can cop us. So we kind of memed it, and it hurts my feelings a little bit. But I get it. I like it. I support it. I'd rather be A-team or – for me, B-team is best. B is for best. Better. and it hurts my feelings a little bit but you know i i get it i like it i support it yeah you

know i'd rather be a team or or for me b team is best beast for best better something like that yeah makes sense what do you think you have to do because you're right there with some of the best in the world what do you think you have to do to be clear-cut the best in the world yeah i think uh i think once i be gordon i'll be considered the best pound for pound. I think right now I am the best pound for pound, especially if you're talking like not using any fucking bodily enhancements. I'm by far the pound for pound best. I mean if you take – because some of the guys that do steroids in the sport,

they literally couldn't compete at all if they weren't. You think so i i i know so because you're taking guys that are like naturally 175 180 pounds and then in nine months they're 230 pounds it's it's fucking insane it's like it takes a super long time to build up anything like and you you can do that you know but it's it's harder doing it when you do building that muscle when you're doing an hour plus cardio every day and uh it just takes much longer so i'm very confident that a lot of these guys couldn't compete if they if they were natty so i call myself the natty king yeah you can't beat them join them right maybe? Maybe you should consider. Consider, yeah.

I mean, I don't like to, I hear too much about the side effects. And you know what? The real thing is I don't know enough, right? It would say I would have to use some brain energy to do a ton of research before I ever like, you know, considered it. And I'm doing great now. I mean, the best guy is, you know, Gordon Ryan currently.

And I just broke his foot. So we're getting closer every time. Yeah. This is something that's actually kind of interesting because like you, you know, Gordon Ryan currently. And I just broke his foot. So we're getting closer every time. This is something that's actually kind of interesting because, like, you are natural. You haven't taken anything. You are one of the bigger grapplers in the game, though. And I wonder, it's like, it's not that you need more muscle necessarily. But one thing that, you know, could probably help somebody who trains as much as you is something that can help with your recovery. You know, not necessarily something that packs on more size because you don't necessarily need more size,

but every workout is like two or 3% better because you're a little bit more recovered or something. And my curiosity is, is again, because in Nogi jujitsu, they don't care. Would you be open to finding something that could help with your athletic recovery? Or is it, is it just like the principle of

staying without any type of everything right what makes me better than all these guys is that i am super consistent every day with my meals with my sleep uh with my daylight exposure and with my with my training right i think i think uh i think those things are super important and that's like that's why i say like because a lot of these guys don't do the right thing but they do gear so it kind of makes up for the the five hours of sleep a night the only getting half your meals in shit like that so for me recovery is nutrition sleep and keep training right like even if you have injuries like train around the injury try not to you know, try to create bad habits, but maybe do some rounds where, you know, it's not taxing that specific

point of your body. So training every day, but being consistent in the diet and the sleep. Hope you guys are enjoying this episode. We continue to produce these podcasts for free. And if this podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us if you guys could give us a five-star review on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, because that helps the podcast grow. Thank you and enjoy the episode. I agree with you. Staying ahead of it and continuing to move is pivotal. Have you ever

found that some days it's just dumb and it doesn't make any sense? Have you been at practice where you're like, I'm in on this everyday thing today's today's a rough go of it i mean i i uh i definitely have days where you know are not as good not like my peak days like personally my peak days are like i mean every day it's pretty fucking great but my best days are like tuesday wednesday thursday usually my best training sessions for whatever reason my whole life of training it's always been like that's those are my days i do best and come competition i have the ability to like peak later on in in the week so you know come the weekend i can compete um what was your question specifically um just like some days going and just i don't know you have an injury or you're sick and you're like yeah it's fucking it would be actually nice if i

just broke the streak and feel like a little bitch. Yeah, didn't come today. Yeah, I mean, I'll take a day off like occasionally. Like maybe I've done my Monday, Wednesday, Friday, train twice. And then every other day just train once. And I've done that for like a few months. And I need a Sunday to take a rest day. Like sometimes I'll do that. But I find when I take that rest day on Sunday, it's a bit harder to get going on Monday.

I'm like, fuck, it's so easy to just not go to practice. Like it's, it's very, it's very comfortable to just sit at home and, you know, chill. But I,

I enjoy practice. Honestly, I look forward to going, to going to it, especially if I know I got a visitor coming in and so on. Like, cause I'm in an interesting spot where like B team is a, like a travel destination.

So I, anytime we got 40 guys from around the world, different countries coming in, I'm in an interesting spot where B-team is a travel destination. Anytime we got 40 guys from around the world, different countries coming in to not only learn but to try to test us. Every day I have somebody from a different country or somebody that's pretty high level trying to submit me. I have to be sharp every single day. What does jiu-jitsu do for younger guys now that you have your own gym, having people come in that are 14, 15, 16 years old instead of them maybe messing around so much on the internet and there's a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety? Have you seen some big changes in some young men coming into jujitsu? It's a pretty positive community. Like, you know, I find that in the U.S., some of the a lot of guys that train Jits, they kind of didn't have a sport in high school, like trying to find their way, you know, because usually the better athletes are doing football. They're doing other things. So, like, you know, we get we get some of the misfits and, you know, they come in and they acquire a culture and, you know, they kind of understand how they're supposed to be around certain people and i i think we have a really positive culture and b team it's tough because there's a lot of banter and it will

hurt your feelings if you're our friend but like we do it to make you stronger you know what i mean like some some people take it the same way the the wrong way so we have to like you know explain it to them but like if you know if you're i'd rather have my friend tell me the worst the worst thing in the world than my enemy and if i can take it from this guy, I can take it from anyone. So we kind of have that tough banter in the gym along with the tough roles. So it makes it fun and it's intriguing. When you walk in there, you're going to have a good time. I think it's really important for a lot of young people right now is to embrace stuff like this,

embrace stuff that kind of pushes you into being uh being a warrior because it doesn't seem like for you i'm not sure of your life experiences but it doesn't seem like you have time to be like overly anxious or worried or i think i think anxious and stuff that's like maybe you're you're concerned about like what people are going to think of you or something i'm so hyper focused on myself that I don't even see like outside comments or distractions or other people's opinions. I'm just like, how can I be the best version of myself every single day? And I take steps to do that. It doesn't seem like you have time for it. No, I mean, I see, I see pretty,

pretty like the, I probably can't have time to, to like go on my phone and troll and stuff, but my brain's mush after practice you know i need to i need to get my sleep my sleep in before the next session get my meals yeah i say i definitely stay pretty pretty busy and uh and i'm just i've never been one that to care like about the comments and stuff so uh i think that anxiety is not really a factor for me you know i am curious about this because about this because your diet and training stuff, that's going to be interesting to get into. But before when you, when everyone was one team, right?

What, what is it that like split that team up? Because it's like, you guys got all these individuals that are literally the best in the world and then things split and people went their separate ways. Why did that happen? Yeah. then things split and people went their separate ways why did that happen yeah so uh not to be too specific but there were some uh internal conflicts to where it just wasn't safe for some people to train with each other in the room and you know we can't have people like getting hurt in practice like on purpose like if you you know injuries happen and stuff in practice but if it's dangerous

to to train with somebody then you can't you can't be in there you know what i mean so we had some internal conflicts and it was just much safer for us to just split and go our separate ways and it you know worked out for the best we got our own facility yeah and uh we're training multiple times a day and we're living life right now and we continue to get better so it's great i feel that now when it comes to like uh you know you'll see typical jiu-jitsu gyms they'll have their drilling and then sparring what is it like going to b team like what's the what's the vibe there what's the sessions look like okay so you know it our our drilling varies from uh like 30 minutes to 45 an hour sometimes um and then we do a few position rounds the

position rounds change a bunch but typically our standard is mount position turtle position close guard and then we have uh open rounds after that yeah and then you know that's probably about an 45 minutes an hour live and then you know if we're working on specific things we'll change the position rounds maybe we do incising in sakaku which is like leg rounds or we'll 50-50 or something like that. And then, yeah, the drilling. The drilling is we have a guy teach class and then we also have a lot of talking going on like mainly after the practice where we're discussing different movements and we're trying different things out. So there's always like a puzzle to be solved.

Like it's always important to come into practice with a question or two right right like you always want problems to solve when in your training session to help you elevate your game what do you think are some common mistakes that people are making with grappling do you think uh we you and i talked briefly about lifting and you mentioned how you like to lift a little lighter and you actually like your workouts your lifting workouts to be um almost like recovery for jujitsu, which I think is, I think is really smart. I think is really well said.

And obviously it's working really well for you. Do you think some people are making some mistakes like going to the gym and like trying to get strong via like lifting weights? So do you think that does much or where do you stand? I think, I think first when you're lifting, you have to establish like, what are your goals goals do you want to get strong do you want to look good because that's going to definitely uh vary about uh about how you're going to attack

the lifting right um me personally i've always been i've always wanted to look good so i've been interested in like the physique guys and the youtubers and stuff how how they lift and how they build that this athletic physique um so i would say first just establish your goals and then the common mistakes is like i see a lot of guys the ego is it's so easy to put your ego into a lift and just go crazy heavy off the back with maybe without a proper warm-up and whatnot and that's kind of when bad things happen so i would just advise if you're going to lift weights um be consistent with consistent with it. Cause it is very good. Like I think, I think muscles, your body's armor and the more armor you got, the more damage you can take and probably the faster you recover as well. So, um, use lifting. Yeah. So as far as recovery, uh, if I have a specific issue or something I'm

working on, I'll definitely start my lifting route, my lifting workout with like rehabbing that area. I'll break a sweat and then I'll get into my lifting routine and like rehabbing that area i'll break a sweat and then i'll get into my lifting routine and like i'll try i'll change i'll change it some days from like a crossfit workout to a bodybuilding workout and yeah i just i enjoy lifting weights and i always have so it's just it's just uh something i fit into my routine that is fun for me and it's beneficial how long you've been doing it by the? Because you've been at it for a while, right? I've been lifting weights since 2014 I started. So come on 10 years in a little bit. Is there anybody that you go against that doesn't lift and you're like, how is this guy so good?

Almost like frustrated, like this guy doesn't even lift, doesn't really even look like he lifts, and he's kind of kicking my ass sometimes. Technique is far more important than lifting like you can take you i can show you 170 pound uh joseph chen which is a little singaporean kid right it's 170 pounds and you you could put him against a giant and he will smash the giant and it is incredible you're like is he that strong he's like no the technique is is so valuable if you can all you can just get under somebody's hips, you can off balance them properly. You can make every movement this guy does work for you. If he's coming in towards you, you use that momentum, put him down.

So there's a lot of different things, but technique, definitely over strength. I see that you have a good combination of technique and athleticism, which is awesome. And it's probably difficult at the heavier weights but you run into some real mutants here and there right yeah i definitely have some big boys like i remember my first adcc match in 2018 it was against this guy named muhammad ali and he's like six five six six is he six five i say he's huge he's got a few inches i remember you really bringing him up before he's like six five and he when we competed, he was like 250 and shredded. I mean, you're 250.

You're pretty lean as well. So that is incredible physique. And he's super athletic and moves quick. Good at jits. But yeah, I just beat him with cardio and wrestling at the time. Now much better. I have much more technique. So it'd be a much easier match for me.

But technique goes a long way. And bro, I definitely see mutants. Because I'm a big guy but i'm a small guy in the heavyweight division like i'm definitely one of the smaller heavyweights you're like six two like 225 230 i mean i i say six three because it helps my confidence but you can call me six two a little extra hair up there call it six three oh man um i wanted to know about this because i saw this a while ago but craig jones transferred it right yep okay so what's this only fan shit like what what the fuck is that oh the rash card

or the rash guard like what's the deal with that i think i think it's just a good way to make money right like so he did he make an only fans so he made it only fans and i think he just posted like some grappling content on there and i think it was free actually i think it's only fans subscription was free uh but it was really just to sell merchandise and i think he did pretty well he might have sold you know um don't quote me on this but maybe like a few thousand rash guards so pretty good yeah he's selling like worn rash guards those are extra for sure and i want to know this too because now not only are you a juj competitor, but you're also like one of the main coaches at your gym. And you mentioned trying to get all these different people in to push you forward.

But do you think that it would be helpful if you did have somebody who was just purely a coach like you used to have to help you get to that level? Or do you think that as long as you can just get bodies to push you, you guys can figure that shit out for yourselves? Or do you think that as long as you can just get bodies to push you, you guys can figure that shit out for yourselves? Well, for me right now, I have a team. So my peers are my coaches, right? So again, like in my gym, I'm the least experienced guy, right? I only have four and a half years, but everybody else has got, you know, seven, ten plus years. So I'm constantly learning from my peers. And I'm that guy that's annoying with the questions.

I always have questions to ask in practice, and I'll nag you until I figure out the solution to this problem. What was your question? I was just wondering, I guess you just kind of answered it. Your peers are your coaches, so you don't really need to worry about the coaching side of things? It was definitely an adjustment leaving training under John Danaher because we had that one guy that we could go to for all of our questions and, and all of our answers. And,

and yeah, definitely take, took me some adjustment. Also like the time that we separated, I got injured. So it took me a while to like build up after the injury and then kind of find my, my routine because routine is huge.

Like, you know, it's, it's really important to have the diet and sleep down, but like you also need that because routine is huge like you know it's it's really important to have the diet and sleep down but like you also need that training routine and you need to know like how to train what to train if you're in training for competition if you're training for skill so definitely a bunch of variables in there and yeah i think it's i think it's tough like you see a lot of uh most of the best athletes in the world have that one coach they go to.

Me, I'm lucky enough. I have a team full of them. I got five guys that are world-class grapplers in my gym that I nag with a bunch of questions. And they all have different opinions, and we kind of figure out these solutions together. Gotcha. Are there particular weaknesses that you have identified or your team has identified in your game? Is there any mobility issue or something specific that you think you need to work on? Leg locks are definitely the weakest part of my game. Although I'm still world-class at it,

I'm still better than most of the guys in the world at leg locking, but that is the weakest part of my game. The strongest points is probably my ability to escape submissions, my ability to stay on top. Wrestling is great. Everything else is is really good but my leg locking defense i would say is not quite on par with my ability to maybe sub other opponents okay and honestly like the the recent match that you had with uh gordon at the fight

pass invitational you mentioned you broke his ankle but how do you feel about that match in general i know there's a lot of uh just a lot of people talking about grease right but oh yeah so i mean like after our match uh gordon gets on the mic he's like oh this guy was was greased up that's why he wasn't able to hold on to me and that's if you ever if you ever watch gordon he's got a ton of excuses right so so we're watching we're watching this match he entangles legs which is his best thing is is leg locks yes right we in or in 50 50 his his home ground this is where he hits home runs and i'm able to win this leg entanglement where he's best and where i'm worst and break his foot get out on top and then you know i end up uh losing it over time because uh the time ran out essentially but did you feel his foot break oh yeah so i'm putting it on i put a

little bit of pressure on it i hear and I hear it go a little bit, and I put more, and it's like crack, crack, crack. That was it. And it's a pretty strong audible. Some people have it on their Instagrams and whatnot. But, yeah, so essentially a few weeks before this match on UFC Fight Pass against Gordon, we had an ADCC finals where he leg locked me in like a minute and a half, right?

So I was like i was like all right he knew my defense right he's my he fucking he coached me for him and john danner for you know a few years so they knew where i was good knew i was bad um so fast forward like a month or so to this next match i'm focusing a bunch on leg locks and you know try to refine them in preparation for the tournament because i wasn't initially supposed to go against Gordon I was supposed to be in the in the tournament um that that Gordon's competing at right so uh Gordon's uh opponent falls out they call me I'm like all right let's let's do it so we do the match and yeah I was happy with my ability to re-attack re-entangle the leg entanglements and it just shows like although it's only been you know six weeks or so from in between matches i'll be able to make huge strides and improvement in my leg lock specific

sequences so you know if you guys are consistent with your training it comes man so what was it like uh being involved in that match because it looked like there's a fuck ton of people there yeah um i think ufc um keeps it keeps their events pretty private so like it'll be packed but pretty high level high caliber like uh fans and whatnot um so yeah pretty packed event but i think the biggest event i was at was adcc is close to 15 000 people it was like we sold maybe 13 14 000 tickets and i think in the next adcc will be even even bigger supposed to get you fired up like is it kind of helpful or does it make you more nervous or yeah i mean so i if i do get nervous i'll get nervous like weeks or months before because i'll just put myself mentally in in that

in that position i'll put myself in that arena and stuff because like it's weird like when you compete you can't really you can't really enjoy it because like i can't let me like oh like this is so cool i'm in the crowd and shit because then you get then there's emotions involved and when you're in war emotions are never good right you gotta be super you gotta be emotionless so um you know when i get to an arena that's packed with like 15 000 people i'll get there i'll look around i step on the mat i'll take it in but then when it's good because close to competition i don't see anything i have tunnel vision i i don't like when i'm walking past the crowd i don't even know there's people in the fucking stands i just see this guy staying across from me that wants to hurt me and i gotta hurt him first i know probably training with extremely high level people obviously

that's one thing that makes you confident when you head into you know these types of big arenas but what else do you do to kind of prepare yourself mentally for competition so yeah i think what you said is big like i make practice much harder than competition so like if i have a 10 minute match or a 20 minute match i'm i'm going 60 minutes straight in practice this 20 minutes this is just a warm-up you know what i mean um so things like that that help your mentality it's like this is all this is a short period of time you know i things like that, that help your mentality. It's like, this is a short period of time, you know, so you're able to put in work. And yeah, mentality wise, I just, yeah, like I said, like I was saying earlier, I visualize it like weeks prior, I'll put myself in, in that position, in that stadium, on that mat. And I'll visualize all the people around me. So I'll get, I'll get

that shit out of my system. That way, when I step on the competition mat, I only see the guy in front of me and the work that needs to be done when you're lifting do you kind of think of those things too like do you does it help to visualize during like an activity yeah like when i'm yeah when i'm lifting i do a lot of visualization when lifting like maybe if i'm i'm doing rows or i'm pulling something i'm just like i'm like fuck you i'm just fucking rowing and getting it i'm I'm thinking about all these guys that are trying to take my fucking spot and just go and do it, man. Yeah, I like it. I love lifting because it's not as like mentally taxing. So I can kind of let the mind wander to where it needs to be while I'm lifting.

I'll be envisioning my opponent or somebody that I really want to beat while I'm lifting. And it just helps guide you towards that success. Do you watch a lot of other athletes? Do you watch a lot of other jiu-jitsu? I watch mainly my team because that's the level of technique I aspire to have. So yeah, mainly guys on my team. But yeah, I'll watch some of the overall totals too because they do crazy stuff like Darces and whatnot and buggy chokes from like flying around so i'll definitely watch grappling

but i'll only watch like the super high level guys so who are some like other than the rotolos and people on your team who are some other guys that you like you pay attention to and you watch bro i mean so i'm being specific like you said the rotolosos and then from my team, obviously, Nicky Ryan, Craig Jones, Ethan Krelstein, Damian J-Rod. I'll also watch Gordon. And that's pretty much it, bro. Like I'll only watch – yeah, besides those guys, I'll watch Gordon. I'll watch my own shit. But it's like why would you take in inferior information?

You only want the best. That's true. Do you film your training sessions? Yeah. So it have uh so it's like tmz in beats and actually we have like 20 cameras around the gym um and so we have like a c like a security camera footage that we can always like scroll back and watch our roles and then we do we do like weekly vlogs so like and subscribe between jiu-jitsu youtube channel check it out y'all funny as fuck man yeah yeah we we definitely have a good vibe in the gym. You know, it's hard work,

but so we know how to make the light of it. Yeah. You mentioned that, I mean, you do watch Gordon a bit. So, I mean, I know you guys are former teammates and you guys are now competitors against each other, but what do you think makes him good? I mean, his biggest thing is steroids. That's, I mean, it's-

So you think it's purely- I mean, the guy, you can't gain 50 pounds of muscle and be like, oh, it's irrelevant. No, it's super fucking relevant. You wouldn't be half the person you were if you didn't do that. And no disrespect, but like you have somebody that preaches, oh, technique is king, technique is king. And then why are you trying to be so strong? I don't know. That's that's that's my point on it.

And I honestly wouldn't wouldn't have even said that if he didn't go after our match. Be like, oh, this guy's fucking greasing. It's like you're talking about greasing, which I didn't. And when he says greasing, guys, he means like people think that there's this the meme going around is that you put lotion on. Yeah, yeah. That's his excuse. He was like, oh, he put lotion on me. It's like, first of all, no, never cheated a fucking bit.

And then on top of that, I'm a natural athlete going against an enhanced athlete. And you still need excuses. I don't know. I definitely wouldn't have even like kind of called him out on that. But it just irked me a little bit that he's like, oh, this guy's fucking greasy. It's like, right. I broke your foot just to fucking live with it. know okay i apologize if i missed it i just i know his physique and stuff and like i question it myself but like has he actually admitted to uh using

steroids he mentioned it on rogan yeah i think i think he i think he mentioned and stuff and okay and like he he looks big but i have like eight pounds on him like he's a he's a 220 i'm a 230 guy you know what i mean oh he's not like 240 he's a, he's a two 20. I'm a two 30 guy. You know what I mean? Oh, he's not like two 40. He's all poofy and shit. You know what I mean? It's like, and then you see him, you'd see him in six months.

He gets a little bit smaller. Yeah, it is what it is. Okay. So, okay. So now kind of actually on this point, you did mention that one thing that's different from you is that other than these other guys, they take drugs, right? But let's say like you don't need to take anything. What outside of steroids,

what would allow you to get there? What would allow you to like literally become the best drugs off the table? Let's not even think about that. That's a, I think I am the best. Okay. That's, that's,

that's why how I truly feel. Yeah. Um, I don't think there's anybody out there that's better than me. I mean the best. Okay. That's, that's, that's how I truly feel. Yeah. I don't think there's anybody out there that's better than me. I mean, even in the leg lock department, which is my weakest skill, you see, I just broke the, the power pound goat. I just broke his foot as a natural athlete with only four and a half years of experience. He's got three times experience I have. That's true.

And I'm out here breaking your foot with a third of your experience. I mean, it's the game's over. I'm'm there already you know what i mean i'm the i'm the one and technically you're still not a black belt right i'm a brown exactly i'm a brown belt against again and the thing is it's so hard for me to compete right i'm not so hard but like what i mean is that whenever like you you go compete right you could do a naga normal tournament test test stuff out. When I bring something to the competition table, it has to work on everybody. It has to work on Black Belt World Champs, ADCC medalists.

So I don't have that time where I'm working on this move. Let me test it out. The second I bring that move out of practice room to the competition, it has to be on point. Do you know if you're going to get another shot at Gordon anytime soon? I'll get it. I'll seek him out. I'll find it. What do you think is a big separator between people that are good

and people that are great? I asked you that question, Jim, but I think it would be great for people to hear it. I think my personal opinion, I think people that are good are okay with being good i think when you're when you strive to be great you do things to be great every single day you do the food you do the sleep you do the training and your consistency you're consistent about it i think if like i i know uh like kobe talked about this like just you have to strive to be great every single

day and because you're not going to be great every day but right but you have to try to be and and and it really only matters in those few moments like although like practice doesn't matter right like you could get beat up and practice all the time and then you go out and compete and and do well and that's great but if you have to be in the gym you have to try to be great every single day that way it shows in competition it seems like you're just really passionate about that seems like you just really love it. Yeah, I do. I love grappling. I look forward to it every single day.

You know, it's hard, but I like hard things. So let's bring it on. Pause, bro. Careful. Does your brother train with you? Yeah, yeah. J-Rod trains with us. And he actually won ADCC Trials, which is you have to win trials to make it to ADCC World Championships.

And he has only high school wrestling, trained at B-Team for a year and won the trials with seven submissions. He won the hardest, the toughest and biggest ADCC Trials ever. There's over a thousand competitors. In his weight class alone, he had like 250 guys, seven matches in two days, and he subbed everybody and was absolutely insane. Do you think one of the big things is his base of wrestling? Let me ask you this. If someone wants to become good at no-gi, along with training jiu-jitsu, do you think they should try to get a good understanding of wrestling? I think definitely wrestling.

Not only is wrestling good to know itself but also being a wrestler they should they teach you different things like how to become athletic like for instance a lot of our warm-ups in wrestling throughout the years is like we're doing cartwheels roundoffs forward rolls so you're learning how to control your body um separate from from the technique so when you can blend the athleticism with the with the grappling the wrestling, that's when things really start to kind of click and go together. Have you noticed specific things that you've worked on in training that have had positive impact on the mat? Like I know like for wrestlers, training their neck is like a big thing. Have you noticed anything in particular that you worked on in the gym that had good carryover?

Well, I was – I mean like I've lifted like a bodybuilder for a very long time and i thought i thought that that was just going to make me look good but it actually made me like stronger as well like i was definitely under the assumption that you had the power lift to really get that like a lot of muscle but um definitely lifting weights you know just being a little bit stronger can definitely help your help your technique right like it's important to have really good technique, but I remember, I remember like when I first started out,

right, I'm going against Craig Jones. And when I started training at under John Danaher with Gordon Ryan, Craig Jones, and, and all those guys, I had a very limited technique. So I was like,

all right, I'm going to keep getting the technique better. But I also wonder if I gain a few pounds with that help out. And definitely, you know, even like five or ten pounds makes a huge difference when you're when you're having long matches and you're you're you're using gravity to your side right somebody's under you and it's not just you moving but you have this downward pressure of of gravity hanging on them and over time an extra 10 pounds it exhausts them and helps you out yeah i think there's a big misconception with bodybuilding.

So people will see someone that does bodybuilding or people will see someone that power lifts and they're going to say, I don't want to be stiff like that person. But if you are doing it simultaneously with a different practice or in your case, you spent many years wrestling, being an athlete, being athletic. So you already had that athleticism. being an athlete, being athletic. So you already had that athleticism, you going in the gym, doing some curls and tries to push downs and little bench press and leg press and things like that. That's not going to all of a sudden make you stiff the way I'm stiff or stiff the way you see like some power lifters and bodybuilders. I think maybe you can get stiff if like you just doing the lifting and not, and not much else. Like, um, but for me, I gained a bunch of of a bunch of weight you know like when i started

lifting i went from cutting to like 170 right to at wrestling so maybe i was like 185 and then fast forward to now i'm 230 pounds so it's like a 50 pound difference or so and you know i'm still just as athletic and agile as i was previously i think if you continue to train as an athlete you'll keep that athleticism, mobility and whatnot. It doesn't just disappear. And actually, when it comes to the way that you do your diet and your training, you mentioned that you don't always eat before training. Like you'll sometimes fast. What's that look like for you?

And why did you start doing that? Okay. So I blew a bicep out and I had to get surgery on it in like i don't know maybe it's been a year and a half now so when i did that i was like i was like all right i can't keep eating like a bodybuilder and not like lifting like one not training doing doing the jits and whatnot because i'm just gonna i'm just gonna get fat right and in addition to that i felt like i felt like eating like a bodybuilder right because when you're doing when you're trying to gain weight you're just eating all fucking day long and when you say eating like a bodybuilder right because when you're doing when you're trying to gain weight you're just eating all fucking day long and when you say eating like a bodybuilder you were eating

like what every three hours or some shit yeah yeah exactly so like every two three hours and like from the the moment i wake up i'm eating to the moment i go i go to bed right all day so i felt i felt like it's probably not a good idea not healthy for my digestive system to be eating all day like i i just assumed that having a a break would probably be beneficial for in long term right like i i'm a big guy i'm big on longevity right i want to do this shit for as long as possible so once i got surgery i was like all right how can i like uh i figure out a way to not get too fluffy and keep the muscles so i was like all right i'll just i'll just um also this was around when liver king like first started. Right. So he was like a big fasting guy. Obviously he had some

other stuff going on, but the fasting, I was like, all right, this, this makes sense. You know, eat in your short, your short window. So I would just do like, um, uh, I'd go watch training. Um, and then, you know, I'd start eating after practice. I found that like, I'd feel kind of shitty when I first started fasting, but then I would drink out, uh, I'd start eating after practice. I found that I'd feel kind of shitty when I first started fasting. But then I would drink – I'd have some sodium, right? Electrolytes. Yeah. Whenever I felt like shit, I'd have some electrolytes and I'd be like, the nausea or whatever goes away.

And I'm good for another few hours. And by then it's 3, 4 p.m. I could eat after practice. It's no problem. So – and then once I started training again, I just kind of kept that because I felt, I felt fine. Like I, I've have trained both with food and without food. And I think it's the same thing. I think most of the time I'm using the energy, I'm using the food that I ate the night before. So if my diet's good consistently, then I have all, have all

everything I need from the previous day and I'm expanding that now. Now, like mid-session, sometimes I'll pound some sodium or some sugar like around four or five to get an extra few rounds out of me. But again, I don't even think that's necessary. I think like it just makes it a little bit easier if you have the extra sodium and stuff. But I think you just have to be able to push through it no matter what, like regardless. extra sodium and stuff but i think you just have to be able to push through it no matter what like regardless i could be wrong on this but i'm picturing probably six seven years ago you're watching like those jay cutler like motivational youtube videos getting all fired up going to the gym oh yeah yeah for sure the jay color the ronnie coleman i watched like uh bradley warren was like a vlogger when you know popular vlogger so yeah So yeah, for sure. I'm definitely, you know, an arm day, every day kind of guy.

And I support those bodybuilders. CT Fletcher back in the day, getting everybody all fired up. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible physiques. And I like the mentality. It's like a lot of people like worried about overtraining is like most people can't even fathom the amount of energy it takes to overtrain.

Like you don't know what hard work is. You don't know how to overtrain. And so a lot of people are like that. So I advise them, try to overtrain, you know, try to, try to push past your limits. Cause a lot of people don't know how to, how to go that hard. It's tough to even get yourself fit enough to be able to even do that. Very true. You know, at this stage you, you, I'm sure you probably could, but you'll also, um, you're also like, I think it's smart. Like the way that you're training, it sounds like you mix things up a lot. And I think that's really a important thing.

And I don't think a lot of people mix stuff up enough. It makes it more fun too. Definitely having diversity in our training is a super effective and it makes it fun. Like you said, you don't want to, if you, it can get stagnant if you just do the same thing every day for me, besides training biceps, cause I can do that shit all day, every day. Um, but yeah, I, I'm a fan of just mixing it up, some CrossFit, some bodybuilder style. You know, you use the stuff that you don't usually use in the gym and work on those things in the lifting session. What are we talking about here? Are we talking about like the preacher curls?

Is that like your favorite? What do you got? What's your favorite? I can give you a hundred variations of curls. I mean, you got the preacher. You have the standing variation. You have to lean over on your knees. You have the reverse curls.

I'll get your brachialis huge, no problem. I love it. I love it. But actually curious about this, because you train in the gym quite a bit, do other guys in your gym also kind of follow suit to try to do that similar thing or not really? Like lifting wise? Lifting wise. I've done a good job of creating a culture in my gym where people are like, all right, we can use lifting to help the jits, help their recovery, and just get a little bit stronger, a little bit healthier. Like I said earlier, I think it's your body's armor, man. We've tossed a pull-up bar in the B-team gym recently. And I think it's a fun way to incorporate teamwork together.

A lot of times in the gym, we're clashing and we're going against each other. But you toss a pull-up bar in the corner, it's like we can all get a sweat in together and work out and whatnot. And just create a good healthy culture is important. Andrew, can you play that video, please? I saw this on your page, dog. These fucking shih tzu, fucking Kaizenizen fighter fucking bastards, street fighter motherfuckers, thinking just because they fucking know MMA, they can whoop a big dude's ass. They get instantly pressed about a dude who's not a skinny fuck.

Like, you're a skinny bastard. If I catch you on the fucking street, it doesn't matter what kind of fucking fighting technique you know. I'm smashing a bottle over your fucking head. I'm picking up the knee. That's beautiful. I think that was so funny like it was great he might not even be serious but oh no he's serious is he he's serious and i like that he called himself a big guy and i don't i think he might be like five six yeah he's one of the trends ones i'm pretty sure he's pretty short yeah yeah i think a lot of people think that like if you get mad you know you don't know me bro i'll black out turn your life that's not a technique or seeing you ever

been tired try to fight then that's that's a real battle right there right mad is cool be tired you ever see these guys uh in the street get like a somebody will do like a back spinning kick or some shit and just like knock the guy out cold you're like what the fuck you never know who you're messing with, man. Yeah. Never know. I mean,

that would be, have you ever been in a fight? Yeah. I've been in some street. Oh yeah. Before. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. But no one ever, no one ever did a bouncer. Yeah. No one ever did a back spinning kick, but if they, but if they did, I wouldn't know what they were doing.

Probably. You know what I mean? I'd be like, you know, probably follow them the wrong way or faint the wrong way and just get, take a nice kick right upside my head. You know if somebody opens up their palms, just walk away. Just walk the fuck away.

I see him stretching to the guy. Well, you see sometimes those fights that you see on Instagram, like the street fights and stuff. And you see somebody, their hands are really relaxed, I think is a sign that the guy probably knows what to do. The other guy's yelling and doing this, and you're like, that guy's probably going to get smashed. Yeah. If you're like, if you're the calm one for sure. What do you think makes most people that come into jujitsu gyms quit?

Um, well I think it's, I think it's, it's hard, right? A lot of times it's hard and maybe it's, you go into a gym that doesn't have the correct culture for your kind of personality, right? Like what makes it fun is that you're doing this hard thing with all your friends. So you're creating an unbreakable bond. And it's like if you don't have the right environment, that could be an issue. And I think just like it's okay to do it a little bit and then maybe circle back. I feel like a lot of times I hear people in their younger years they'll they'll do it for a few years take a break and then

after on when they get their life in order they'll start training like more consistently and um i think it can just be like uh you know injuries too that people get hurt and they kind of veer away from it so but that kind of goes into the gym culture as well like are you coaches like preaching like safety and what things to avoid because sometimes you go into the gym and guys are like jumping close guard and it's like so you gotta save that shit for competition i've seen guys like somebody jump close guard and and the guy just lands on your knee and it's like there's no bueno you know so having a good culture and having a gym that's like you know preaches safety and stuff and and also having a high level technique will be or make make you realize like, man, like, even though this guy's stronger than me, if I know more,

I can, I can beat him. Absolutely. How do you, uh, how do you coach people to kind of ramp up their training? Um, when I started, it was like once a week and then it went to three times a week. And then that four times a week is when I was like, damn, I'm starting to starting to feel it, you know? And then sure enough, I was out for a month because my, my back and my ribs were kind of killing me. And not all of us are necessarily competing, but like, we also have like jobs and families and stuff. So we can't do it at random times of the day. So how do you recommend people ramp up the training? Yeah. So if you're like, you know, if you're a hobbyist, I would just say, find what you can do consistently. If it's once a week, if it's twice a week, whatever, but find what you

can do every single week and be consistent about it. Like what you've, I think what makes, what gives people problems that they'll train five, six times a week and then they'll miss a week and they'll go five, six times again and then they'll miss a week. So it's like you have this huge workload and your body's like constantly trying to recover. And then once you recover, you go again and you just have these ups and downs i think just find something that you can do consistently and that'll that'll help you out over a long period of time because you're playing the long game right you're not going to get good in a couple days it's going to be years oh yeah and then in the in the gym i had asked you like what's

one of your favorite things about coaching you said it's like pushing people uh what are some ways that you're able to like push some of the uh the newer athletes yeah so like i try not to get i try not to do be too crazy with the coaching just because like well first of all i'm selfish right i'm still at the peak of my career so i'm an athlete for myself first but when i'm coaching um i let i expect a lot for myself and so it's hard for me to expect to it's hard for me to like settle uh and watch somebody else not do what I would do in, in, in, you know, as far as like effort wise or something like that. So like, I kind of have to take my own personal opinion out of it and just be like, what's, what's good for this person right now? So like, I think just as a whole, when I'm coaching in the gym, I figure, figure out where these guys are lacking most. And we try to solidify their ability to escape, um, submissions, figure out what, what's their favorite offenses. And then, you know,

establish, establish a route to there, right? Like if you're, if you're a rear naked choke kind of guy, we're going to figure out three different ways to get to the back. Once you're there, establish exactly how to finish. And then three possibilities if they got if this guy escapes the bag so having a long uh sequence of events like maybe a chain of like six six or seven movements that you have like memorized and they're they're not you're not even thinking that they're you're built in reactions i think that helps you what's up pat project family it's time to stop dressing like you're a fucking preschooler and step your game up by checking out viore clothing now i'm not one to talk i wear a fucking pink hat that has a dog on it, but at the end of the day,

at least my shirt and shorts are popping. So head to Viore, because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to viore.com slash powerproject. That's V-U-O-R-I dot com slash powerproject, and you guys will automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description,

as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to the podcast. the level that you've gotten yourself to is there any like regard in your training to uh i don't know state like stay healthy like because you are training every day so are you are some days like certain things just like off the table? No, I, dude, I treat, I treat most days like, okay. So I split my training up, right? If I'm don't have a competition plan, it's, it's skill development. So I do the same like length of training, but it's not as intense because I'm focused on, on learning and getting better now in the maybe like 68 weeks prior to competition, I start ramping up.

So normally no competition. I train Monday, Wednesday, Friday twice. Every other day just once. When I'm pre-competition, I actually train less. I only train once a day because the goal is to be sharper, to be fresher. That way you can compete at your best. So I think just having variations in my training definitely helps me in the long run. I think that might be something that catches up to other people that are going to class twice a week and then they start trying to go four times a week.

Maybe because they're just in like a particular class, they're just trying to follow along with what the coach is laying out and they're not really thinking about how they just doubled their amount of frequency that they're coming to the gym whereas somebody like yourself or maybe some of your teammates are like i'm here every day so i have to kind of modulate how much intensity how much uh how how long these workouts are and so forth yeah i think some people can just like overdo it at the beginning and it becomes overwhelming like it's it's hard to to go from doing nothing and then even training like a couple of times a week can be a bit overwhelming.

And, and yeah, like I was saying, like people just tend to come in, then they, they crush it a bunch of classes and then they need this huge break. And that's where you kind of start falling off. Yeah.

When it does come to nutrition, like what does your food actually look like? Yeah. So my main goal is hitting my protein every day. Like I 230 230 pounds 230 grams but besides that i just uh i'll change like the amount of carbs and sugars i eat and i i usually stick to a pretty like uh uh not processed diet so like you know the meats uh uh the simple carbs i'll do i'll do like – if I'm doing sugar, it's mainly like fruits and berries or nuts and berries and whatnot. Do you eat out quite a bit? Yeah, I eat out.

Dude, I'll do In-N-Out a few times a week. But I got a lady at home, so she cooks a bunch for me, so it makes it easier. But if I do eat out, it'll be like I'll get like an In-N-Out burger. I'll do like – i'll do a double double two extra patties three patties on the on the side and i'll either do protein style with a lettuce wrap or i'll eat the bread and maybe some fries like i i lose so much so much water weight and calories in practice i'm like i i can pretty much have a shitty meal once a day yeah and then just eat good protein and fruits and stuff the rest of the day. And I'm pretty good.

How is it going around the country now messing around doing these seminars? You having fun with that? Yeah, it's fun, man. Cause I, I like competing, right? I enjoy competition. And when I teach a seminar, it's I'm, I'm competing essentially, right? Like I go into this gym, I'm teaching for an hour and a half. I do like a quick 30-minute Q&A, and then we get to live training. And live training is like normal sessions. It's just everybody goes live. But when I teach a seminar, I'll tell the coach, I'm like, all right, give me your best six guys. Everybody just rest, and I'll train with these guys while you guys watch me.

So we just have a live session, and I'll pretty much go for like 40 minutes, an hour straight while all my all my opponents are just relaxing over there. Get as comfortable as you want and come out here when you're ready. You know, these are people coming at you every every day. Whether I'm doing this, I mean, you're popular and people know your your prowess and stuff. So if they could even just fend you off or there's a place on my head. Yeah, I have a bounty on my head yeah i have a bounty on my head you know people people want to sub me right and you know come get some that's that's great for you right for training purposes yeah i mean it'd make competition so much easier because

like i compete so often if you're talking about that like i have to be sharp for and it's what i've said earlier like you have to be sharp you have to be great every single day do the diet do the sleep do the recover properly because the next day you know you never earlier. You have to be sharp. You have to be great every single day. Do the diet. Do the sleep. Recover properly because the next day, you never know who's going to be in that room and they're coming for you. Is that kind of hard to gauge because you're traveling and you're practicing, I guess, but then you're probably like, oh, shit. This guy is going full tilt. When I go to teach seminars, know i'm like i know these guys are going to try to beat me so i'm aware of it i put my myself my mind and my and my body in

that position where i'm ready for you know whatever they're going to bring me what do you think is something because like i know a few guys who are let's say they're a bit bigger one person comes to mind right um but their strength allows them to get away with a lot of shit right and it's it's it's hard for guys who are really strong to kind of develop really good technique obviously you've been able to do that so what do you think is something that bigger guys stronger guys need to think about if they're really trying to become good and technical at jiu-jitsu i think you need to put your ego awake and put yourself in bad, bad positions, right? Like when I'm looking to get better at something as a bigger guy, I'm probably going to roll with the lighter guys.

Not so I can manhandle them, but typically smaller guys have better techniques. So we're going to get into more, uh, more technical scrambles. So, you know, I'll go with the lighter guys and I'll use,

I'll just use technique. I'll just, I'll just float my way. I'll try not to muscle anything because it's too easy to just muscle out of things and you're not really learning the correct way. So separate the ego from the practice and it'll help you boost that technique.

What if it's working though? It always works. I mean, muscle is great. If you take an arm bar and a you know a 300 pound guy you can probably just pick you up and slam you happen so yeah no my buddy charlie i like he just fucking like bicep curled me as i got him in a umiplata and it just my i wanted to tap even though i had him in it like he's just a big strong fucker yeah it's definitely dangerous i mean like big boys are are strong muscle goes a long way man but technique is definitely more important because i

see so many times a little guy beats up this big dude and it's because he's more technically savvy makes sense oh can you talk a little bit about your your competition prep like maybe like like three weeks out like how you treat that because i have a lot of friends of mine that are competing and you know like i am helping them with like their training and stuff but when it comes to something like that i've never experienced it so i'm like fuck dude let me ask around so so i actually just uh like last week i just filmed the instructional beyond bj fanatics called pre-match ritual so i break down exactly what i do pre-match. So about four weeks prior, you know, I give you an example of the diet and style of training that I'm doing to prepare for this specific rule set. In addition to that, to kind of like sum it up, there's a few things that I do preemptively to competition before competition to really give me an advantage. me an advantage. Um, so when I'm like, when I get to the venue, I'll pull up in the venue, like an hour, an hour and a half before, look at the venue, just kind of expose my senses to that,

to that area. Right. Um, then I'll go find a corner. Uh, I'll put the lights out. Maybe you put on some cool, slow music, uh, shut your eyes, limit your sensory intake. Right. Cause like, I mean, I've just heard this somewhere and i kind of believe it that there's only so many decisions that you can make in a day right and i mean my personal experience but at the end of the day i'm pretty taxed and you know you're a bit foggy as opposed to early on in the morning so i'll limit the scrolling on your phone and whatnot limit the conversations and just like shut the mind and body off and cruise now uh about 45 30 minutes before competition then i'll start warming up i'll put the hoodie on i'll put the competition gear on and uh i'll do a few different

things um i'll do like a jog walk sprint jog to like boost that the heart rate and then slow it down then boost and slow it down because what gets a lot of people exhausted in competition is going from steady heart rate to oh shit we're in a fight you're spiking and then you have and that's what really gets you exhausted right so have your uh get your cardiovascular system acclimated right have everything pumping expanding uh and contracting i almost think of the cardiovascular system as like a balloon right you go to the dollar store you get yourself a balloon first time you fill it up kind of fucking hard right to blow it up but once it's expanded you could blow it up even bigger that's a good analogy that's great so that's kind of how i see the cardiovascular system and that's

how i treat the warm-up so when i'm warming up i do a couple uh jog sprint whatever and then i'll grab a person or i get my hands on a on somebody i'll drill a little bit i'll do some bad situations i spent a couple minutes on like bottom out escaping a couple of my worst positions. Uh, and then after that, I'm usually pretty hot. I'll keep my, keep my gear on, keep the, uh, the hoodie on and stuff until right before we go out. Um, and then I also mentally, I have an aspect, an element of fun in there, right? It's too easy to be like, Oh, my girl's watching my family's in in the in the crowd i gotta i gotta win it's like again being being emotionless is what you need to be uh in order to compete well so separate yourself from that have an aspect of fun be like i i appreciate

the the opportunity to compete not everybody can go out here and compete like i'm about to do so i appreciate the opportunity and i look forward to to implementing the skills i've developed so having an element of fun in there takes the anxiety away and just puts you at ease and just helps you focus on on the specific task there's guys in front of you you got to get it done that's pretty methodical like thought process and how you do that like is that something that over time you've learned from different coaches different people because like that's in jujitsu is not really like it has not talked about like how how you should treat your pre-match like ritual but in wrestling

it's huge man like you know because you have you compete so often so it's good to establish something something that like gets you ready every single time something that you that you can be consistent in before you before you compete like granted you ready every single time, something that you can be consistent in before you compete. Granted, things are going to vary, but you can always do a few things that are kind of similar to get yourself in that mentality for competition. Yeah. No, that's huge because whether it's a competition or a game or whatever it is, that's the factor that changes because of venue. But if you can have something that just stays consistent, something you do every time that can get you in that zone,

that's a big deal. And doing it in practice sometimes too, like on the lead up to competition, when I'm training, I'm going to do that exact same thing. I'm going to warm up exactly how I would pre-match. That way when live rounds come, I'm on. You still want to be a model? I still am.

Oh, you are? Yeah, I'm still signed with Wilhelmina. I haven't done a shoot in a while because I live in Texas. So maybe it's been a year and some change since I've worked with them. I actually had an offer to do the Nike campaign, but it was the same weekend as the Gordon Ryan match. So I was like, I got to do the match instead. Because it wasn't a lot of money, but it was good exposure

because I would be on the Times Square square like nike stuff yeah maybe next year did you get a lot of offers from the podcast that we did where you were shirtless yeah yeah actually yeah actually being on this podcast really boosts my career so thank you okay hell yeah whatever whatever we can do to help uh have you had the chance to actually work with uh honey uh over at evogen yeah i actually did a podcast with honey and i listed with him at his uh gym in dallas and he put you through the ringer oh yeah he hooked me up i was still like uh in recovery my my bicep at the time so it wasn't super crazy but i definitely learned a lot about like you know the how to properly uh stretch and contract the muscle and like kind of the mentality that you should have when you're going through certain movements and the speeds how how different speeds different uh uh treat

your muscles even like even like a curl doing a half curl versus like top half or full range of motion like everything matters every angle that you change it all makes a difference what you got coming up uh just these seminars and then heading back home yeah yeah i just i just have seminars planned right now i have a potential competition in uh in may nothing signed yet but it it would be good i'm i'm prepared for that can you say who would be against you can't say no no i can't say but um i stay ready bro like i can compete now i could compete in 10 minutes whatever you need you know it's all good it seems like i'm not asking you right now i saw you guys had mats out there i know i thought you were asking me for something i mean hey i'll take a private you know but not competing that's for damn sure

take us on out of here andrew all right thank you everybody for checking out today's episode please drop those comments down below let us know what you guys think about today's conversation and hit up powerproject.live for everything podcast related follow the podcast at mbpowerproject all over the place and my instagram is at iamandrewz and sima where you at discord's down below at sima yin yang on instagram and youtube and sima yin yang on tiktok and twitter nicky where can people find you yes instagram at nickyrod247 uh what's the 247 for by the way all day every day. That's how long we hustle. Ah, 247.

There was some liminal message in there. Okay. You guys can check out. If you guys are looking to get great fast, I mean, you got to check out my lifting and grappling instructionals on bjfanatics.com. In addition to that, like and subscribe on B-Team YouTube channel. And what about the podcast channel? Oh, yeah.

Simple Man Podcast. You guys can like and subscribe as well it's a new thing we're working on i'm finding that podcasting is an art in itself so you know we're not where where we will be in the future but we get there everything linked in the description and youtube stuff all that good stuff i love uh how methodical you are i think that's something that kind of surprised me i didn't realize that you would be especially like with your ritual before, before you fight and stuff like that.

It's fucking awesome. Oh yeah. Some, some people consider me a genius, but I don't, I don't tell everybody. I think it's, I think it's awesome.

Strength is never weak. This week, this never strength. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Catch you guys later. Bye.