Produced By - Beyond Technique: A Black Belt's Journey Through BJJ and Personal Evolution | #59: Christopher Ong

Starting point is 00:00:01 Hello and welcome to Produced Buy. Just quickly before we begin, if we enjoy the show, please consider supporting it by joining our Patreon. You can choose from a list of memberships and we'll receive some exciting rewards. Thank you and back to the episode. Hello Chris, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Hi Thomas and thank you for inviting me. Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:27 I'm honored to be a guest. It's my pleasure. So Chris, can you please introduce yourself? Yeah, so my name is Chris Ong. I am now a sales performance coach and as part of that, a Jiu-Jitsu, a Brazilian Jiu-Suitzoo instructor. So that's kind of like my, I guess, like my main profession at the moment. Prior to that, I had 15 years of experience in corporate sales

Starting point is 00:00:52 working for a number of different blue-chip consumer goods companies. and my experience was mainly focused in account management. So managing the day-to-day relationship commercials with some of the big retailers in England and the UK. And I've done some international sales roles within that as well. But yeah, I kind of shifted out of the corporate scene a couple of years ago to move into, yeah, I suppose more of a coaching type of role, whether that's looking at helping sales professionals. So people I used to work with and people who I used to be. But of course, alongside that, you know, my major passion in life is martial arts and particularly Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Starting point is 00:01:43 So I teach multiple times a week, ghee and no-Ghi as well. So, yeah, that's me, essentially. Yeah, we'll dive into it deeper later. Also, we'll be curious, why did you make this career change? But I always like to start kind of with your background and with your beginnings. So can you tell us where are you from or what was your childhood like? Yeah, absolutely. So I am born and raised in the United Kingdom in England.

Starting point is 00:02:15 My parents, they, so my father is from Malaysia, Chinese Malaysian, and my mother is in the Philippines. and they met in this country in the early 1970s when they both came over here to work in the National Health Service. So they were both nurses. And then, yeah, so for me, then I was born in 1984. In terms of my childhood growing up, I had a really good childhood. I have a sister as well. Amazing parents supported very much so in terms of financially. but also with regards to them encouraging me to try lots and lots of different things.

Starting point is 00:02:58 So as I grew up, I played a variety of different sports, including, in fact, my first journey within martial arts was karate, actually. So my father got me into karate. But, you know, like he always was keen on me from a spectator point of view watching boxing growing up in the 90s. So, you know, I watched lots and lots of boxing before I. I kind of started watching mixed martial arts and UFC. But, yeah, play the kind of typical sports at school in England,

Starting point is 00:03:28 the popular ones like football or soccer, as people outside England would know it. But yeah, so mainly soccer and athletics. And then also for me, I suppose from an art point of view, I've always just kind of been able to draw, so to speak. So, yeah, I'd say that. as my background. I, funnily enough,

Starting point is 00:03:55 I did a degree in law from 2004, something completely different. And seven, yeah, something completely different. But I kind of figured out pretty early on that I didn't really

Starting point is 00:04:05 enjoy law and I didn't necessarily want to get into it as a career. And very highly competitive space. What was the reason for you studying that in the first place? So I think I was at school on my favorite subjects outside of art. And I had it in my head there.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Oh, you know, you can't really make a career in art. And I think, you know, my parents were quite keen for me to get a professional type of job. Outside of art, my favorite subjects were history and then economics. And, you know, kind of talking to career advisors at school and not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, they advised potentially getting into law. So kind of applied to do a law degree. And I got accepted into Sheffield University. And then from there, yeah, I did a three-year law degree, got my degree.

Starting point is 00:04:59 As I say, I pretty much figured out straight away that I didn't. It wasn't something that I wanted to do as a career. So as soon as I graduated, I started applying for commercial graduate schemes, basically. And that's how I got into sales. And why didn't you try to pursue your artistic career? or you feel felt like it's not really possible? It's a really good question. I think I felt that, yeah, I think I felt that it wasn't possible.

Starting point is 00:05:32 I think I felt like it was just purely a hobby and a passion and not something I would ever be able to make money out of. And it's interesting because my sister went the other way. So she, she pursued a career in shoe design. and, you know, she's artistically, she's, she's more talented than me, you know, and, and these days, you know, I'm starting to use a lot more of the kind of Adobe illustrator programs and she's helped me kind of get up to speed on that kind of stuff. But it's interesting because she went down that route and I would say that she had more, she has more happiness in her career than I did working in sales.

Starting point is 00:06:11 And, you know, I think it took me to get to a certain point in my life where I realized that, you know, the job satisfaction and feeling that I was making the contribution I wanted to in society and also kind of getting to the point where I was fulfilling my own potential. You know, it took me honestly until probably about a couple of years ago, two to three years ago that I realized, you know, that was starting to become more important as opposed to just kind of status, money, and doing the thing that I probably thought that, you know, was kind of more socially acceptable.

Starting point is 00:06:50 Yeah. And also similar question, but weren't you thinking about pursuing career in martial arts or sport? You know what? It's exactly the same as art. I think it was something that I very much enjoyed. So I did karate from the age of, I would say,

Starting point is 00:07:13 six to 13. and then I became obsessed. Yeah, so karate. But then I became obsessed with football. So I think at the age of 13 to 18, it was just like football, football. And so I parked martial arts for a while. And then when I was around like 19 years old, I started to, the UFC was obviously nowhere near as popular in 2003, 2004, 2005 as it is now. But it was starting to become more prominent on the satellite TV channels.

Starting point is 00:07:45 in the UK. And so I was starting to develop a bit of an interest in that. And obviously I was a big fan of boxing in the 90s. And so that's what led me to start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But I think there's a couple of, there's another reason for that. For me, I felt that I was an okay athlete. I'd like be picking up on things quite quickly with regards to athletic pursuits. You know, sort of, I thought I was relatively quick. I kind of, you know, I had decent hand-to-eye coordination for things like racket sports and football.

Starting point is 00:08:22 But when I started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, that was like completely different. I felt that, you know, I had no zero talent for it. And I think that was part of the reason, which kind of kept me coming back to it. And I still don't consider myself to be particularly, a particularly good. great or good athlete with regards to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Starting point is 00:08:43 But in some ways, I think that makes me a better instructor than I am an athlete, because I think I have to break things down to the nth degree to be able to make that work in my game. But as I say, it was just very much a hobby and never something that I, and when I started, to be honest with you, Thomas, I never thought I would achieve a black belt. I thought I started back in 2006, and I thought, I'll be amazing to get to a blue belt. when I started back then, there weren't many blue dots in the country. And then, but then I just thought to myself, and again, it leads back to, I suppose, the expectations that I had with regards to societal acceptance.

Starting point is 00:09:23 I just thought, well, you know, I'd get to a point in Jiu-Jitsu where maybe BlueBut, and then I'd have to stop training because from a career, a commercial and a corporate career point of view, that would take over and I wouldn't have time for it. And, you know, at least I acquired some skills and I'd be able to, kind of defend myself if I got into some sort of altercation. And that's where I was with it. But, you know, the way that it worked out, I just kind of kept showing up and showing up. And then, you know, after 11 and a half years, suddenly I was awarded my black belt.

Starting point is 00:09:52 And then I think it wasn't until that point that I started to gain some aspiration around, okay, like, it'd be good to give back and it'd be good to try and teach. And that's kind of, it wasn't up until that point. Yeah, after you became blue belt, right? Black belt, right? Black Belt, exactly, yeah. So I did like the odd bits and pieces of a bit of teaching at Brown Belt, but nothing serious and very sporadic. So it wasn't until Blackbell that I started teaching more consistently. Yeah. And I'm curious, when you started with Jiu-Jitsu, how big was the sport in the UK,

Starting point is 00:10:25 or how popular? So when I started Jiu-Jitsu, that was February 2006. So I was just turned 21. I'm 40 this year, So crazy to think I've been training Jiu-Jitsu for over 18 years now, yeah. I think it's amazing that you managed to stick for such long time and still enjoy it. Well, it's interesting, right? Because I think going back to your original question, so when I first started, I think I was quite fortunate. So I was at university in a city in, I'd say it's in Yorkshire, so more northern England. and there was one club there which was I'd probably had to take sort of a 20 minute tram ride from where I where I lived in student accommodation but but you know like if you consider that

Starting point is 00:11:18 it is a big city you know that was like the only club in the city and it was a it was a jihitsu club and also I think they had a shoot fighters club as well there so people who wanted to train more specifically for MMA and kind of no-gee grappling so when I started, I think, like, so here's some context. Like, the instructor there was a two-striped blue belt, you know. I think there were two other blue belts there when I started, and he was the most senior. The rest of them were white belts. So I would say the class size, when I kind of first started, maybe was consistently like 11 or 12 people.

Starting point is 00:11:58 So small class size. And it's interesting because I talked to a lot of beginners. who struggle and they kind of seek some advice from me. And, you know, they're kind of two, two months in their journey. And they're like, I feel like I'm getting smashed up by everybody. I can't submit anyone. And the thing that I point to is that I think when I started in 2006, because it was such a small class and you didn't have new people coming through the door regularly,

Starting point is 00:12:26 it took me a good five to six months before I actually tapped anybody. Because it was the same people in the class, right? So everybody's learning the same stuff. There wasn't, YouTube wasn't popular back then, so you couldn't go on the internet and kind of find instructional to try and self-direct with regards to your own learning. And so you just learned the same things that everybody learned in class, right? And I think that the first person I tapped was basically a new person joining, joining up, hadn't done any jujitsu before.

Starting point is 00:12:53 And then suddenly it's like, oh, you know, I can start some of these moves that I've been, these techniques and positions I've been learning. Now I can actually pull off on this new person, whereas like I couldn't, you know, score any of that stuff on anybody else. class. So that gives you some context as to the size of the sport when I started. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. I wasn't expecting that. And I cannot really imagine what was it like, because I'm not sure if that's just my perspective, but I feel like that jujitsu or grappling has been getting more and more popular recently, both thanks to UFC and

Starting point is 00:13:28 you know, some big grappling fighters. Or what do you think? No, I agree. I agree. And, uh, I think certain, it's interesting because I think the sport has definitely become more mainstream now, which, and you know, I think the UFC has moved away from this. I don't think people necessarily, the general public will consider it to be as brutal as they did around sort of 2005, 2006, you know, it's not, it's a proper regulated sport now. it's not this no-hold barred type of thing. Yeah. But one thing that's very interesting is that for me, in some ways, I think that's kind of diluted it slightly. Now, what I mean by that is, I think back in the day,

Starting point is 00:14:14 so between 2007 and 2009, particularly in 2007, the UFC decided they were going to make another push into England, the English market and the UK market. So I believe the first event in the UFC in England was the brawl at the Albert Hall, which was like UFC. 38.5. I think that was like 2002. So that was before I had any interest in MMA or knew anything about it.

Starting point is 00:14:39 But the next time they came back to the UK was in March 2007. And they had an event in Manchester. So I had started jiu-jitsu by that point. And so I went to a spectator at the event. And it found... Oh, you did. I did, yeah, yeah. So I attended quite a few.

Starting point is 00:15:00 UFC events between 2007 and 2009. So the best UFC, the most memorable UFC event I can think of is I went to the Newcastle event at the Metro Arena when BJ Penn won the UFC lightweight title against Joe Stevenson. That was incredible because at that point, BJ Penn in 2008 was my favorite fighter. But what I found is like between 2007 to 2009, 2010, like the crowds were, most of the people who went to those events trained, right? So, like, if you were sitting with people around you, other spectators would be knowing what was going on with regards to the grounds, the grappling, that kind of stuff. Now, I went then from sort of like 2009, 2010, all the way up until July

Starting point is 00:15:44 last year, 2023, would not go into a UFC event, a live UFC event. And then when the UFC came back to London, so I think it was Tom Aspinall versus Marcheim Tibura last year, I went, I went to that event at the O2 and I kind of, I took my dad to the event because he hadn't been to UFC event before. And, you know, the event sold out super quickly as I was lucky to get some tickets. But what I did find is... I actually remember. I was trying to get tickets as well and it was impossible. It was impossible, yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:13 So I think I had somebody who was able to kind of get me a ticket as part of, he kind of has connections, right? You know, people have connections. And he had like a friend of a friend who could get him. So I managed to get two tickets. But what I found is that kind of the difference between the last time I saw in 2010 and then now 2023 is that because it's got so much more mainstream, like people, like I didn't find there was anybody. I would say in sort of a 100 meter radius because, you know, you can hear people shouting things that they're kind of really trained or knew what was going on with the grappling stuff, you know. So because, you know, my dad was asking me questions and I could see that as I was talking to my daughter, well, this is happening in there. and, you know, he's trying to connect his hands

Starting point is 00:16:59 and grab, you know, take down on the fence and whatnot. I could tell that people around me were kind of tuning into my conversation a little bit because, you know, they didn't always go. Everyone listening. Yeah, so it was very interesting to see the evolution of the sport that way. Yes, you've got so much bigger. But then, you know, if you looked at it sort of 14 to 16 years ago, it was a very hardcore fan base who were very,

Starting point is 00:17:21 who had esoteric, esoteric knowledge of the sport. Whereas now, when you look at, you know, it's more mainstream. You know, Cona McGregor, Ron DeRousey brought so many more casuals. I'll say casuals in a good way because it's built the revenue and the popularity of the sport. But it has, I think the dynamics changed in that sense, which was very interesting for me to see last year. Yeah, to be honest, I was expecting something like that, that there will be people, that the sport is becoming kind of more mainstream. than this diehard friends.

Starting point is 00:17:57 Yeah. But also the question before, maybe you mentioned that I missed it, but what was the reason that you chose specifically jujitsu over some other sports, like maybe some standing or something else? Because you were watching MMA, so you could do maybe something different? Yeah, so great question. I'd done some karate growing up. So I felt like I had some knowledge of standing.

Starting point is 00:18:23 And then when I was at university, I was also, whilst I started Jiu-Jitsu, so I will say that the first sort of 18 months of my Jiu-Jitsu was very inconsistent training. Because I was doing it at the same time as studying and going out and partying with my friends, I'd maybe, sometimes I train twice a week, sometimes I would train once every two weeks, once every three weeks, so it was like dotted all over the place. But during that time, I was also doing a bit of boxing as well at university at an unlicensed gym in a bit of Muay Thai as well.

Starting point is 00:18:57 So I was kind of trying to train all three things together with a mind that I think I had it in my head at the time. So I'd like to have like maybe one amateur MMA fight in my life to say that I've done it. Now they never materialized, but for me that was kind of where my head was at, right? But again, with regards to like moitai, with regards to boxing, I felt like I would, I'm by no means good at either of those martial arts. but I felt that I would pick up on that stuff a lot quicker than Jiu Jitsu and Jiu Jitsu is so foreign I think because when I was watching MMA it was I'd watch it

Starting point is 00:19:36 and in the early days before I did Jiu Jitsu not understand what was going on the ground but then thinking think to myself like God if somebody put me there in a self-defense situation you know I'd be in I wouldn't have a clue about what to do and I'd just be completely lost I'd be at their mercy. So I think for my mind, it's like, right, well, you know, I really like the UFC. And obviously, when you first get into it, you follow the journey of voice Gracie, UFC, UFC 1, 2, 3, that kind of stuff. And I just thought to myself, well, it's an effective, when you look into it as well,

Starting point is 00:20:10 and, you know, people know that so many kind of street fights will end up on the ground at some point. That's what got me into it, really. It's kind of like, I didn't want to have such, be so exposed in one area. of kind of combat sport, so to speak. So that's why I got into it, essentially. Yeah, that makes complete sentiment, I understand. So then as you continued with Jiu-Jitsu, how did you manage to balance it with your professional career?

Starting point is 00:20:42 Yeah, so I think for the first few years of my professional career, so I would say 2008 up until, 2015. So the first kind of seven years, I would say that I was in sales roles, which were busy by all means, but a lower level of responsibility within those organizations. So that's, you know, it tends to be the way when you, so, you know, like the first, the first job I work for was for PepsiCo. So, but, but not, not the drink. Interestingly, the kind of Pepsi drinks are kind of owned and distributed by Britwick in the UK. But PepsiCo...

Starting point is 00:21:27 I saw a different company. Yeah, but PepsiCo in here and in America, they're basically in charge of walkers or lays potato chips. Okay, okay, yeah. It was Tropicana previously, but I believe they sold that arm of the business a couple of years ago, and then Quaker Oates. So, but the Christmas snacks business is the biggest part of PepsiCo.

Starting point is 00:21:48 They've got the number one Christmas snacks business in this country, and I believe in the USA as well. So, you know, working for them, I kind of started out managing, like, you know, in the field sales and then kind of being promoted to manage like smaller wholesale accounts. And when you're kind of in that type of sales, account management, you're working your way up to managing one of the big supermarket accounts. So like the biggest supermarket account in this country is Tesco, right? So I think from getting into that industry in 2008, all the way up until.

Starting point is 00:22:21 I would say 2014, 2015. It wasn't until 2014, 2015, that I started to be promoted and given the responsibility to look after supermarket accounts. And those supermarket accounts, like, you know, the top four supermarkets in the UK, Sainsbury's Asda, Tesco, Morrison's Asda. Those accounts are more time-consuming because there's more responsibility. You know, you're expected to be with the customer more often. And so it wasn't up until that point,

Starting point is 00:22:52 I felt like consistently with Jiu-Jitsu, I was able to balance it and train at least three to four times a week. Right. So then, you know, 2008, I got my blue boat on 2008. I then moved geography. I moved to London, so I had to go train somewhere else. And then I got my purple belt in 2011. And then I got my brow belt in 2013.

Starting point is 00:23:13 But I think a bit of a tipping point came 2015, when I was kind of looking after a big supermarket account. at that point I was working for Johnson and Johnson. I felt that like the constraints on my time, my free time to train were starting to become more squeezed because, yeah, I was having to spend more time at work, right? So then I would say that I still managed to balance it a little bit from 2015 to 2018 to 2015-18 to at least train a couple of times a week.

Starting point is 00:23:46 But then I took a job and international sales. job for a pet food company, like a small medium-sized enterprise in 2018. That job, A, required me to manage like a fair, not a large team, but sort of four people in my team, but also the difficulty with that was having to do a lot of international flights. So a lot of the customers I would have to visit would be in Southeast Asia and Europe. So then at that point, I found I was training maximum once a week. And that really kind of, for me, it kind of got me to a point where I really feel like between 2018 and probably 2022 in these kind of really stressful, busy roles. I'd say that I didn't feel like my jiu-jitsu progressed.

Starting point is 00:24:35 You know, I felt like quite stagnant. You know, I kind of would be able to stay competitive with decent people. But then you would see the people who were training five days a week, you know, start to, go way past way past you you know so um and also you know from from a fitness point of view that was starting to affect some of my fitness as well like like you know like training jiu-jitsu once a week maybe going to do some strength and condition in once a week and going for a run you know it's very um yes very different to what i was doing previously so that that's kind of how i balanced it and i say that was that was a point 2022 you know i was starting to get tired and very stressed in the

Starting point is 00:25:12 industry and that was the year that my daughter was born and i felt like i needed to try and do something else, you know. And part of that reason was I think my unhappiness in the corporate career was because I wasn't able to really to train jiu-jitsu. Because the times I was training jujitsu, I was actually teaching. So if I was training one day, a week, that was the class I was actually teaching. So there was no space. There was no room for my own personal development within that. Yeah. And when you traveled somewhere, was it possible to try to train over there, or not really. More often than not, no.

Starting point is 00:25:48 But I do have an interesting memory. I had a business trip to Singapore. I believe it was August or September 2018. And near my hotel, there was a club and visiting customers all week. But I was staying there over the weekend as well with another colleague. So on that Saturday, I was his manager and I said, look, let's not do any work on the Saturday. You go do what you want. I'll go and do something in the day.

Starting point is 00:26:15 catch up for a drink in the evening in the hotel. And I found there was a club if I jumped in a taxi about 20 minutes away. So I went to the club and, you know, just to drop in for a no-gee session. Because no-gee is my preference. It has been for the last six years or so. I train way more no-gee than ghee these days. But I went to a no-gee class there, dropped in, paid the money. And then as I was signing the form, you know, he kind of looked at it.

Starting point is 00:26:44 And he said, oh, you're a black belt. So then he said, so then he said, no, no, no, no, I'm going to take your money back. And then he said, you get to train for free, you know, you're from your Roger Gracie Academy affiliate, which is really, which is really nice. Yeah, but I went into the Nogi class and it was a purple belt teaching. I think there's about nine people in there. And anyway, so they introduced me, I shook hands of the guys. And then the funny thing with that was they said, oh, can you take the lesson? You know, so I was kind of like, oh, man, I was just coming into train.

Starting point is 00:27:10 I wanted to get some sparring. and now they're like this list is an hour and a half we're doing back takes and back control like I was waiting for that yeah yeah so I ended up like taking the lesson so then it was funny because I didn't get to spar anywhere near as much because they're like can you look in and what we're doing and they wanted to do a lot of positional sparring

Starting point is 00:27:29 I think I believe in Singapore at the time that a lot of the Eddie Bravo invitational rule sets were popular in the Nogi scene so they were very much looking at how do you defend the back how do you attack the back and Spider-Web control that kind of stuff so so they're doing a lot of positional sparring so i got a couple of rounds in but you know i just i just wanted to roll so so no but generally speaking no didn't get much time to train yeah it's it's especially understandable if you are about to carry your ghee

Starting point is 00:27:59 in the back everywhere because it's it's quite big and yeah so it's just bit too know if you want to boost your online presents check out our digital marketing agency called trade You can also enroll in a skill share course called the 10 tips on how to succeed in your creative career, which was inspired by the podcast. Lastly, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Creative Spotlight to stay up to date with the show and more. Links are in the show notes. Thanks.

Starting point is 00:28:34 And as you mentioned, you prefer Nogi over past few years. What's the reason for that? The reason for me, I think, is just just. the kind of rule sets. I'd say like fairly, actually not that early. I started getting into leg locks around just after I got my purple belt, 2011, 2012, sort of time.

Starting point is 00:29:01 More 2012, actually. And just really enjoyed that. So I'd say that I'm a smaller athlete. So I'm like 5'10, which I probably shrunk a little bit. So last time I was measured when I was about set properly at school, I was like 177, 178 centimeters. I wouldn't be surprised if I've shrunk a bit now, maybe more like 175. But around that, and I weigh at the moment sort of 71 to 72 kilos.

Starting point is 00:29:30 So a lighter athlete. And I just found that, you know, for me, like, I always find that, you know, smaller athletes to kind of beat bigger athletes. Leg locks are a big equalizer, right? So I've always kind of been, from that point onwards, been more interested in leg locks. Then obviously around that 2015, 2016 period, you know, when the Danaher Death Squad started to become really popular, guys like Eddie Cummings, Gary Tonin, obviously Gordon starting out. And obviously that coincided with the Eddie Bravo invitational events and those rule sets. It just made me more and more interested.

Starting point is 00:30:05 So that's the reason I started teaching in 2018 more formally, because. I think 2016, 2017, I was watching all of these events really interested. But at my club, you weren't allowed to, there was no heel hooks, right? Not allowed to train hill hooks, like very focused on IBJJF rule sets, understandably so. Because nobody, everyone was competing in the ghee. But I found like one other person, another, I was a brown belt at the time, found another purple belt where I'd put some mats down in my garage. He'd come over and we started looking at some of the heel hook.

Starting point is 00:30:40 meta, right? You know, explore and saddle. And then I'd studied some of the source material with regards to Scott Sonnen and Riley Bodycomb from Sambo. And they got to a point like in 2017, I wasn't expecting to get my Blackburn in 2017, but I got my Black Round in 2017. And then it just got to a point where it's like, I want to have an environment where we can train some of these hill hooks now, you know, these illegal moves. And I kind of talked to my instructor said, look, I'd like to run an advanced class just on a Saturday morning. I say advanced, because obviously hill hooks, there is a greater degree of risk. And, you know, so he said, okay, but it has to be like advanced. So I think it started off only purple belts and above. I remember

Starting point is 00:31:23 the first class I taught, there was maybe six, seven people there. But pretty quickly, I think, like, word of mouth started spreading and then, you know, it got, it started to get more popular. So then my instructors like, okay, well, it's extended it out to blue belts and then, you know, as time went on, more white belts. And I would say within sort of nine, nine months, even though it was kind of an early class on a Saturday morning when most people want to stay in bed sort of like 8 a.m. You know, within sort of nine, like nine months we were having sort of eight, eight o'clock on a Saturday morning sort of 30 to 40 students. And people, people even like coming from, so people even come from other areas.

Starting point is 00:32:04 So I think like at the time, we would have people dropping in every couple of weeks from a place in Swindon. So Swindon from my gym was probably a good 45 miles away, sort of maybe 65, 70 kilometers away. And some of these guys would, a couple of these guys would be dropping in because, again, they didn't have the avenue to go and train hillhooks, right, in the sparring.

Starting point is 00:32:29 And their clubs weren't teaching them that. So we're having a couple of purple belts and brands, brown belts turn up from other areas to kind of train in that rule set. Now, fast forward to 2024 in the UK, loads and loads of gyms are training heel hooks now, right? But so 2018, 2019, it was less common. So, yeah, so that's why I prefer no-gee. And I like the faster speed of the no-gee game as well. I think I think ghee, I've been trained a bit more gear recently.

Starting point is 00:33:02 I do enjoy it, but Ghee is definitely slower. So, yeah, for me, that's, and, oh, and the other thing to mention, sorry, I've broken two or three fingers, right, from, like, from just holding onto grips too long. I've done that over the years. And, like, certainly, when I train Ghee now afterwards, I feel my hands and my fingers, like, oh, they really sore.

Starting point is 00:33:24 And I just don't, I don't get that in Ghee, right? Sorry, in no Ghee, because you don't have, you're not gripping material. It's like collar tires. it's two-on-one-one wrist grips, that kind of thing, wrist and elbow. So that's, yeah, another reason why I prefer no-gi. Yeah, that's completely fair point. What do you prefer?

Starting point is 00:33:42 I would say I still prefer ghee, but I've been lightly feeling fingers quite a lot as well, so I don't know if it changes. Yeah. But I like to do both because then I had a period when I focused on ghee, and when I did no-ghi, I felt, I would say not insecure, but it was just, I thought I was lacking skills because I was focusing too much on one. So I like to do both.

Starting point is 00:34:10 Yeah. Absolutely. And based on what you said, does that mean that maybe heel hooks or leg attacks in general are your strength? Yeah, I would say so. So I live in a town now called Marlowe, pretty town, which is probably about 13. miles west of London. And I've lived here for four years now. I'm very fortunate when I moved here and I bought my wife and I bought the house. I didn't realize that there was a BJJGM, literally five minute walk for my house. So I'll go and train at lunchtime later today and just five

Starting point is 00:34:50 minute walk away. But it's sort of 2022 when my daughter was born. I couldn't really make the trip to travel to my old club anymore because it was sort of a 40. five minute drive away. With the childcare responsibilities, I ended up, like, definitely, like, biting the bullet and saying that I'm going to train at the local club now, had that conversation with my instructor. He was fine because it's another Roger Gracie Academy affiliate. So it was like, yeah, we're all part of the same family. So go and train there.

Starting point is 00:35:18 But I trained there. And, again, there wasn't any avenue to train Hillquicks there. So, you know, like we came to an agreement. I kind of was brought on board as an instructor pretty quickly. to teach some of the leg lock stuff. So I would say, yeah, like my highest percentage subs would be, yeah, heel hook, straight foot lock, and probably guillotine, I would say. That's kind of, yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:45 And front headlock is another position that I've kind of put a lot of time into over the years. But I would say that, you know, like I love it because I didn't feel like I should have got my black belt and I got my black belt. I thought there was glaring holes in my game and definitely felt the imposter syndrome. So I felt that, you know, my back attacks weren't good enough. I felt that my mount was terrible. You know, I never, never used to use mount. And I wouldn't say that it's great now, but it's a lot better than it used to be.

Starting point is 00:36:16 But I felt, I felt like my guard. I'm sure you are just underestimated it. No, no, no, no. I never used to use it. I'll be like, I'm just going to stay in side control. And, you know, like I felt that my guard was serviceable, but my guard passing was terrible. You know, and I think a lot of that was down due to not being able to train as much as I would like. But that's the thing that I love about Jiu-Jitsu, you know, from a noogie perspective,

Starting point is 00:36:42 now I would say that in the last sort of 18 months or two years, yeah, like my guard, I love passing the guard now, you know. I kind of like being in the top position, probably a bit more than I like being on the bottom. So, you know, like even as a black belt, I feel like, because there's so much instructional content out there now, whether that, even on YouTube or Instagram, you know, like you can really accelerate your development and your skills. Yeah. And one more thing. I'm curious about what about your competitive career. Have you been competing? Now, the last time I competed, so I competed a few times at Blue Belt.

Starting point is 00:37:24 And then the last time I competed, God, was almost 10 years ago at Brown Belt. Yeah, I competed in the Ghee at Brown Belt. I had one fight and I think I won it with an Ezekiel choke. So I did compete in the Ghee. I never competed no Ghee. And why not anymore? It's something I'm considering. It's something I'm considering this year.

Starting point is 00:37:50 I feel like I got, I injured my knee in 2018. but I didn't think it was that bad. I thought it was a sprain. But there was a loud pot, you know, and it's like, God, that did sound good. Sorry, was it from Jiu-Jitsu? From Jiu-Jitsu, yeah, from Jiu-Jitsu. And I think like a physio looked at it and said,

Starting point is 00:38:09 I think it's okay, it's a sprain, but I end up taking two weeks off and then just, you know, coming back to train at lower intensity before kind of going up again. But my knee never felt good. I've never really and you know I've never really kind of got into wrestling or judo

Starting point is 00:38:29 that that's something I do want to look at going forward but I kind of felt like a little bit inhibited by my knee and then and then in 20 in late 2020 just I was just doing a private lesson with a student and we're just doing this very light sparring and I think I I placed my foot on the mat in a certain way and I felt my knee pop

Starting point is 00:38:49 but this time my knee locked right so I I torn meniscus in my right knee, the LCL previously in 2009, but the specialist at the time said, you know, you can manage that we don't need to operate on it. So I had a feeling like I've torn the MCL. So I managed to, there's a really good acupuncturist at our gym. And so like, I managed to kind of get an appointment with her and she unlocked the knee.

Starting point is 00:39:18 So then, you know, like through acupuncture after a couple of days. so then I was like walking around, but I couldn't train properly, I would say, at all, for a good sort of eight weeks, but I was still teaching. But in the meantime, I've gone to the doctor, said, right, I need to get an MRI scan now. So when I got the scan, they kind of came back to me,

Starting point is 00:39:39 and they said, yeah, you've got a meniscus tear in your MCL, but you've got a very old injury. You've got no ACL, so your ACL is completely ruptured. So I suspect that I ruptured my ACL in 2018 and been trained, on it for about five years. But the thing is you don't necessarily need an ACL, right? I mean, that was one of the things that, I think, one of the dilemmas that Nicky Ryan had recently, right? I saw some B-team interviews and he's kind of, I think he took the decision eventually to have the

Starting point is 00:40:09 surgery on his ACL. But then he re-tore it again, and then he said, right, I'm not having the surgery now. I can cope without an ACL. So, you know, you're able to function. But, but yeah, it was an old injury. So, but I took the, when I talk to the specialist, I said, look, I mean, you know, like, if you want to do Jiu-Jitsu to like a decent level into your 50s, get the surgery done now. So, so in April last year, so it's almost, to date today is the 11th. Actually, funnily enough, tomorrow, tomorrow is a year to the day that I had my ACL reconstructive surgery and the MCL prepare.

Starting point is 00:40:46 So, so I had the surgery last year. I would say that I'm still not quite back to 100%. But I've been, I kind of got back into teaching, sparring, very, very low intensity sparring. And then I've obviously been able to up it, increase the intensity over the last few months. But I got back into it after about four months. But I had a good sort of four months of doing zero jiu-jitsu because I was recovered for surgery. But as I'm starting to get better now, to go back to your original question, I am thinking, that I've got an itch that I might want to compete at some point soon.

Starting point is 00:41:22 Masters 2 black belt. No game. But we'll see. We'll see we get to with that. I mean, when I release this and it will go live, I guess you will have to. People will have expectations. Yeah, that's true now. Yeah, I've kind of put it out there, haven't I?

Starting point is 00:41:39 And I wonder, how did you feel when you compete it as a blue belt or a brown belt? were you excited or stress or what was it like in your first competition my first competition i i um i had to cut a lot of weight i think i think at the time i was as a blue belt like 83 kilos and i looked at some of the guys in my gym who were going to compete at the same competition and some of them were one of the guys that was six five six foot five right which like a hundred and maybe like 190 196 centimetres and I just think to myself

Starting point is 00:42:15 like God I'm like you know I'm way too small to be competing at 82 so the first time I competed at Bluebell I ended up cutting seven kilos in eight weeks I think which I managed to do but I think in that first competition I felt like I had like really

Starting point is 00:42:33 low energy and I didn't feel strong so I end up losing that on points but I think the times I have competed I haven't felt that much pressure and I think it's for me a byproduct of playing team sports growing up so I always found there's more pressure on team sports like if I mess up here I've let down the team

Starting point is 00:42:57 whereas when I have the rare few instances I've competed in jiu-jitsu I haven't felt that same sort of pressure it's like if I mess up it's just it's me right it's my mistake. It's not affecting anyone else. It's just my mistake. And it doesn't. There's no outer impact.

Starting point is 00:43:16 So, but, but, you know, I have, you know, you feel, I have felt a bit stressed on the day. I think the thing that's made me most stressed about competitions, I'm not sure if you've competed, is that very rarely do they run to time. So there will be like, your, your division is going to be competing at like two o'clock in the afternoon or whatever. And I remember the first competition I went to, they said, you know, Blue Belt, 76 kilograms are going to be competing, 76 kilogram adult competing at half past 1. I didn't have my match until 5pm. So, and then, you know, you had to weigh in.

Starting point is 00:43:50 Yeah, so then you had to weigh in half an hour before. So everyone was wasn't, another thing is, you know, no one's eating. So by the time I stepped on the scale, I was about five pounds under the weight limit, you know, because I dropped another four or five pounds that morning. So I think that was a thing that made me more stressed. I think if, if, And the last time I compete is brown, I remember my instructor was kind of like, oh, you're meant to be on this time, but do you mind if we bring the black belts?

Starting point is 00:44:16 The two black belts divisions forward first. I'm like, well, you're the organiser. I don't have a say in this. So then, you know, there was like a 90 minute delay between when I'm like, I'm like ready now, you know, like I'm psychologically, I'm up to ready. And then suddenly you're told, no, wait another hour and a half. It's like, oh, your energy drops again. So I think that's the thing that's stressed me the most.

Starting point is 00:44:37 about the competitions I've competed at. If they ran like a spot on time, then I think I'd feel better. Coincidentally, I remember I did compete once a Blue Belt, an interclub tournament, and I got the time as mixed up. So I turned up and, you know, I thought I had a good hour and they're like, no, you've got the time is mixed up.

Starting point is 00:44:57 You're on now. And that I actually ended up performing better because, you know, it's like there was no time to kind of be stressed. It's like, okay, like that's fine. Like I just get changed. I'm ready now. So, yes, I think the stressful thing is the waiting and the delays. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:12 Yeah. And it's like you mentioned before that, it's not, I mean, it's understandable that it's hard to estimate specific times for all the matches. But for example, if you warm up and you end up waiting another 30 minutes during which you cool down again. Absolutely. Absolutely. I totally agree. Yes. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:33 And with your kind of coaching career once you started coaching, I wonder how you approach coaching. So, for example, when you've got classes, do you, or how much do you prepare in advance compared to maybe just show up and thanks to your extensive knowledge you don't really need to prepare? Or what is like the process behind it? I like having a broad structure for the month in terms of a roadmap, but then dependent on, like, like questions from the students, I can kind of adapt the lesson plan. So like at our Academy, Roger Gracie Academy, Marlowe, this month is, we focus on a different position every month.

Starting point is 00:46:20 So last month was back and turtle. This month is half guard. So I tend to like to structure the month by saying, like, starting with defense. and then so at the moment like I taught last night I taught two classes last night and very much looking at at it from the because we're early in the month looking at in the perspective of the worst case scenario like somebody's chest to chest they've got cross face underhook how do we get out from here you know and then as we progressed later for the month looking at attacking submissions from the bottom so I looked a little bit of that in the nogee class last

Starting point is 00:46:57 night, but then kind of then looking to attack the half card from the top, passing, submissions, that kind of thing. So I like to have a roadmap. But it's interesting. I think I've been doing a bit of study on it recently because I've looked at some coaching methods, methodology from other sports. And I don't know if you saw the recent ADCC West Coast trials. No, I haven't.

Starting point is 00:47:24 No, so an athlete there, DeAndre Corby. I think he, he won the 66 kilo division, so he'll be going to the big show in Vegas. But he trains with a club called standard jiu-jitsu. And the coach there is a guy called Greg Saldas. And I've, he is interesting. He's taken a very new approach to teaching. So the way that I've been coached and I coach at the moment is kind of, you know, warm up, go through some techniques and concepts. People get to drill them and then spa, right?

Starting point is 00:47:56 whereas like his and his athletes his approach has been validated now he calls it the ecological approach because his athletes are doing very well on the world scene but he he doesn't do any drilling he doesn't show any techniques his whole coaching ethos and it's something I'm going to think about playing with going forward

Starting point is 00:48:16 I think I'd start with advanced rates his whole coaching ethos is no sparring just playing task-based games right so Kit Dale has got an instructional set on this as well. But it might be that, like, the example I've seen is, like, say, he'll be working on passing. You know, it'll just be like, right, you know, the game is, there's no drilling, no technique.

Starting point is 00:48:40 The game is simple. So the person on the bottom, your game is to make sure that the person on the top doesn't get past your knees, and the person on top has to get past the knees. So go. And they'll set a time of sort of five to ten minutes, and then at the end of that game, they'll talk to each other. and then they'll go into students will give each other feedback and then they'll go into the next game.

Starting point is 00:49:00 The next game as part of the progression might be, okay, the person on the top, your goal now is to be able to separate the knee from the elbow of the person on the bottom. And the person on the bottom, you've got to make you try and ensure that the person on the top

Starting point is 00:49:14 can't separate your knee and elbow to get inside position to pass. So they start, so this is kind of a new approach playing these like mini games or what's, some coaches in other sports call like a constraints-led approach, right? So, like, if you look at, say, football or soccer,

Starting point is 00:49:31 I think what they've been doing for years is, like, things like playing games where you're only allowed one or two touches on the ball before you have to pass it or shoot, right? Yeah. So you introduce some constraints. Or it could be there, you've got the same amount of players we're going to reduce the size of the pitch by 20%. Right?

Starting point is 00:49:49 So then there's more constraints, right? So it's interesting because, like, obviously, this sort of approach is popular in more well-funded sports. And it's starting to now gain a bit of a foothold in jiu-jitsu. And I think for me, that's something that I'd like to experiment with at some point soon. Yeah, yeah. As you've been speaking, you really made me think and reflect on our gym. Because firstly, you mentioned what you trained this week and the previous weeks.

Starting point is 00:50:22 And I feel like we actually do the same. Yeah, that's good. We had, same. We had, we have half guard this week, and we had backtake, and before Turtle. And I think you said the same. It was, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know what next one is going to be, but yeah, that's a coincidence. And then as you talked about these games, we, I think we've been doing it a bit as well,

Starting point is 00:50:45 not for the whole session, but in the first half of the session, some of like little games. And to be honest, I enjoy it because I feel like it's something. different. I mean, I'm not a child anymore, but I enjoy this type of games. So it just sounds great to me. Well, the theory around it as well is that it creates a shorter feedback loop for the student, right? And so, like, I think that makes a lot of sense because, say, for instance, like, a lot of what I'm trying to do in my game at the moment is develop an Nogi-Delahiva game. So I feel very comfortable in Reveh. reverse delhiiva on my back, but if somebody starts passing to the other side of my legs,

Starting point is 00:51:29 I feel like my Delahiva game is weaker, right? So I'm working a lot on off balances, leg entries from there. I eventually want to be able to explore some Nogi Berrimbolo's, right? But let's say, for instance, I go against somebody in a normal sparring round who's of equal skill or better than me. I might try like the initial off balance and then he, you know, he kind of escapes that and then starts passing a different way. And then for that, for that, whole five minutes, I don't get to work on the thing that I'm working on, because now he's like, either past my guard, he's trying to knee cut me in a different direction, right? So, yeah, so then the whole time's gone, and I, I don't get any feedback on that, right? Like,

Starting point is 00:52:09 other than the first 20 seconds, I went for it, I lost it, you know, and then we started going through, or cycling through multiple different positions, right? Whereas I guess the other benefit of a game is, like if that's the game, once somebody wins, you reset the position, right? So, like, for instance, like, what I should probably be doing at the moment with another, like mind of student is like, right, the game is you've got to try and just maintain your base and I have to try and off balance you in some sort of Delahiva guard, right? And if I can't, if I can't off balance him, then he wins the game. If I do off balance him, I win, we reset and go again, right?

Starting point is 00:52:49 We set a timer on. And then we sit and, you know, Joseph Chen talks a lot about this with his teaching. He's very, Joseph Chen from B-Team, he's very much a proponent of he likes people having two to three minutes in between their roles to discuss with their partner what work, get the feedback, right? So I think if you create that shorter feedback, Luke, then it allows you to become more skillful, right? And then you can develop the other advantage of, as I see it. of these kind of task-based games that it allows the athlete to develop their own movement solutions, right? Because no one position in jiu-jitsu is identical. Even if you're against the same moment, you put your leg in a certain place,

Starting point is 00:53:32 it won't be exactly identical to the way that you did it before. So you have to be able to adapt your movements to kind of achieve the same outcome and deal with the variability. Yeah, yeah. And I completely agree. And I think the great thing is that, as you said, when you do this, exercise with your partner and then get the feedback immediately afterwards, it kind of makes it easier to understand or just to internalize it. I agree.

Starting point is 00:54:00 Yeah, definitely. So I need to experiment with more of this stuff, but I think it's where coaching is going to start to migrate in our community in the next year or two. Yeah. So based on what we discussed, it sounds like coaching is something that you enjoy. Is that correct? Absolutely. Yeah, so whether that's jujitsu, whether that's now

Starting point is 00:54:22 coaching other cells, professionals, from a mindset point of view, yeah, it's something which I find very rewarding now. Whereas I, frankly, I didn't feel that same sort of satisfaction in my old career, you know. So, yeah. So it's great that you found it then.

Starting point is 00:54:45 I'm sure it wasn't probably easy decision to make such a courage change, but... No, no, no, no. easy, not an easy decision at all. Yeah. And Chris, being aware of time, I would suggest to finish for today. Yeah. And definitely do the second part because conversation about Jiu Jitsu was so engaging that it took longer than I expected. No, absolutely. I'll be happy, I'd be happy to do. And probably, like, we probably haven't fully finished the conversation on Jiu Jitsu. I feel like you and I could talk about Jiu Jitsu all day long. So, so yeah. And I also, besides, discuss your career shift and what you do now and the coaching in general which i'm also interested about

Starting point is 00:55:27 i need to have time to talk to you about your beautiful art as well yeah yeah i've been happy to discuss that as well yeah so just to finish can you promote yourself maybe where people can follow you or connect with you yeah absolutely so um from my perspective in terms of my mindset and sales coaching. My business is called EXP Coaching Limited. So, you know, more than welcome to kind of check out my services on my website, which is www.exbcoaching.comco.ukuk. If you're interested in my art, I don't really put any kind of jujitsu techniques or

Starting point is 00:56:10 teaching on there. But if you're interested in my art, then my Instagram is at Ongi-84. But yeah, that's kind of where you can find me. And that's definitely worth checking because I think it's perfect. Thank you very much, Thomas. So yeah, let's finish for today. We will do the second part. I want to thank you, Chris.

Starting point is 00:56:34 I appreciate it. I really enjoyed it. And I will stay in touch. And in the meantime, wish you good luck with everything that you do. Yeah, perfect. And thank you for being such an accommodating host, Thomas. And absolutely have a great day. and I look forward to to catch that with part two.

Starting point is 00:56:49 I can't wait. No worries. Thank you, Chris, and speak soon. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening. If we enjoy the show, please leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast app,

Starting point is 00:57:01 get in touch to provide your feedback, or share any ideas for future guests. Thank you and see you soon.

Produced By - Beyond Technique: A Black Belt's Journey Through BJJ and Personal Evolution | #59: Christopher Ong

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