The Joe Rogan Experience - #2056 - David Blaine

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

David Blaine is an illusionist, endurance artist, and extreme performer. His new residency, "Impossible," is scheduled to begin at Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas on New Years Eve weekend.�� www.davidblaine.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Hello, David. How are you, Joe? What's happening? Good to see you. Good to see you. How you been? Good to see you're still alive. You're not full of visible holes.

I come with. What have you been up to, man? Spending a lot of time with my daughter, number one. And then number two, I've been working on this series for National Geographic. So I've been traveling around the world searching for these people that do incredible feats that they've passed down through generations. And I'm trying to learn, but it's a fast learning curve. So it is the most dangerous thing that I've ever done in my life, but I have the best of the best helping. So that says a lot because you've done by far.

Yes. Whoa. Well, you show me some things off camera that we can't talk about, but. Well, you can talk about it. I just can't show it. Okay. Well, you showed me some things off camera that we can't talk about. Well, you can talk about them. I just can't show them. Okay. So the scariest thing was like three days ago. The cobra?

I kissed a king cobra. Yeah. In the wild. Yeah. Is there a trick to that? Is it a movement thing? Do you move slowly so you don't... I studied for weeks and just tried to understand their behavior and worked with different cobras. I had a team around me that taught me how to move

quickly and get out of the way. What happens if you get bit? Well, they have enough venom to kill a full-grown elephant in 30 minutes. So we had anti-venom we had that there but but still in my case i don't trust that and even if you get anti-venom it's still a rough ride yeah live right yeah is it similar it was amazing it was incredible is it similar to rattlesnake venom because rattlesnake venom essentially it's a neuro yeah i mean it. Digests your body. This one shuts everything down. So your heart, your lungs, everything just starts to. So were they like ready on standby with a needle? Well, they don't, they put it in a serum.

You have to go to a hospital. Oh, you have to go to a hospital. Yeah. So you have to travel. But we had an ambulance right there. How far is the hospital? It was 20 minutes away. Oh, God.

So 20 minutes of King. Oh, God. So 20 minutes of king... Oh, God. So 20 minutes of king cobra venom that can kill an elephant. It was the scariest and most intense thing I've ever done. Yeah. How many of these guys die doing this? Well, the snake, the two snakes we had,

one of them killed its previous owner. Oh, boy. Yeah. So it's scary. And they don't kill the snake after it kills the previous owner. Oh, boy. Yeah. And they don't kill the snake after it kills the previous owner. This guy died, so it does happen. Exactly. Right. That's right.

Oh, boy. Yes. But it is kind of incredible because there's another guy named Chris Sweet who – well, that's his Instagram name. But he lives in Thailand with 90 venomous snakes and he just lets them move through his legs. Well, he was bitten twice on my birthday and his heart stopped two times. But he lets them just – While you were there? No. No, no, no.

On April 4th I mean oh okay yeah but he but he's so calm with them and he studies their behavior and he watches how they move and then he gently takes them out and there was one we were outside and the scariest thing wasn't trying to kiss it yeah exactly yeah and i think that's a snake called a spire. Yeah. So that's one that was slithering through my legs. And you have to keep your heart rate down. Because if they sense they have pheromones, they detect if you're nervous or uncomfortable. So anytime I would get like super tense, I would have to walk away carefully. Oh, boy.

Yeah, that's him. And that's, yep, that's a snake called a spire. It has a name. You're so good at finding everything. Wow. Oh, my God. It's trying to bite you through the glass. Why is it trying to bite you through the glass but won't try to bite you when you're right there?

Well, there it's feeding. Oh. When it smells snake or food, it becomes aggressive. So you have to make sure you don't smell like any other snakes or anything. Or food. What kind of food? They eat snakes, the king cobras. They eat other snakes.

Yeah. Not king cobras, but other snakes. But other snakes. Yeah. Dude. Okay. Do you ever second guess when you're about to do something like this? That one I second guessed.

I left and then came back a few months later and did it again. I was too afraid to go near it. What made you go back? I went to Cleveland and I trained with my friend Mike and my other friend Chris Gillette, who's Gator Boy Chris, who's amazing. And we slowly started to understand just a little bit of the behavior of king cobras and then I went back to Indonesia and trained with Fitz who's unbelievable with how he handles the cobras and slowly I felt okay

but there was days I wouldn't even do anything so luckily luckily I had a week, which is still a really fast learning curve. Yeah. Normally I would train for something for a year, but with this show, I get like a few days and then I have to try to do it. Oh boy. So what strategies are you using to keep your heart rate low? Like when, if you feel yourself freaking out, how do you calm yourself down? Get out. Just get out. Yeah. Yeah, just get out and regroup.

Yeah. Yeah. David. But that's the last dangerous thing I'm going to do like that ever. That's it, ever. Yeah, yeah, like that, yeah. Well, I'm glad you're alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that?

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're alive. And I feel like in my show in Vegas, I was jumping from the height of a nine-story building, landing in boxes, and I dislocated my shoulder. It came down to my armpit. But in retrospect, I think I was lucky because that could have been really bad. It could have been the neck. It could have been something else.

Oh, yeah. Did you get surgery? No, I didn't get the surgery. What they did is pop. There was an orthopedic surgeons convention in Vegas at that time. So I had five orthopedic surgeons in the office, in the audience. And one was a shoulder specialist and he, they all came on stage and they, and he popped it right back in. So then I walked out to do the show Joe with but but I my arm was all numb it stayed numb for like two months but I was going like this to get like to see if I could get feeling back and it fell back out so I could go back on stage they popped it back in and then I did the whole show with one arm yeah that's

it yeah that's a bad one I think that's when I got injured. Yeah. And my friend Doug, who's with the hat right there, when I jumped, he knew that something was going to go wrong. He bent over and took a heavy breath because he knew that was the one. There's a gentleman named Yuri Prohaska. He was the UFC light heavyweight champion. And his shoulder dislocated during training. And his trainers tried to pop it back into place, and they were yanking on it, and they just destroyed his shoulder.

They tore everything apart just kind of pulling on it, and it ripped apart. The UFC doctor says the worst shoulder injury he'd ever seen. That's crazy. And he's fighting again next weekend. Got it repaired. He got surgery? Yep, got surgery. Vacated his title,

and now he's back fighting for the title next weekend. Yeah, mine is still messed up. Really? Yeah. Like in what way? Well, I can't really work out or do anything the same way. How long ago? Maybe March.

Did you get an MRI? Oh, many MRIs. What's the damage? No, it was really bad. What's in there? The ligaments. It was bad. It came down to here.

Right. Why didn't they do surgery? I'm like afraid of surgery, I have to say. Like horrified of it. Why are you afraid of surgery? I don't know. You're not afraid of king cobras? Yeah, it's crazy.

But I'm horrified of surgery. Why? I don't know. Yeah're not afraid of king cobras? Yeah, it's crazy, but I'm horrified of surgery. Why? I don't know. Yeah, you should probably get surgery. Specifically, which ligaments? I have a lot of experience with this stuff. I have all the scans and the whole write-up of it, so I could show it to you. So it's just very weak and it's not stable?

It just hurts. No, I can go overhead, so I'm good like that. It's just hard to like— Push things? No, I can go overhead. So I'm good like that. It's just hard to like. Push things. No, I can still do it, but not like I used to. Have you ever gotten stem cells? No. You should get stem cell therapy on it.

It could help a lot. I avoided surgery completely with stem cells. Really? Yeah, I had a full length rotator cuff tear on my right shoulder. It went away. The doctor said it was extraordinary. He went to look at it six months later and the tear was completely gone. he said this is insane and this is just yeah they can do wild how did you rip your rotator cuff training just jiu-jitsu like too hard i don't know but it was a slow or it was a one time

you know jiu-jitsu's it's very addictive and a lot of times you get injured and you're like i still can roll i'm gonna go back in and you go back in with like fucked up discs and a lot of times you get injured and you're like i still can roll i'm gonna go back in and you go back in with like fucked up discs and a tweaked knee and a fucked up shoulder and i know a lot of guys that have some pretty significant injuries they just can't stop training they just enjoy it so much right um stem cells could help you a lot specifically if you go out of the country because they can do some wild shit that they can't do in America because of the FDA. I have some good friends that run a clinic in Tijuana. It's called CPI.

And a bunch of my friends have gone down there, a bunch of UFC fighters. It can help you a lot. I'd be so afraid, though. Why? I don't know. Why are you talking about being afraid of that? I don't know. Maybe because when I was young and my mother was sick and, you know, that whole thing.

No, maybe because when I was young and my mother was sick and, you know, that whole thing. Well, this is – what they can do with modern stem cells is pretty extraordinary. But unfortunately, the United States is very limited in what you can get away with here. Right. Yeah. They're constantly putting restrictions on it, unfortunately, for no reason. It doesn't make any sense. There's no downsides.

I feel like also just when I eat right and do everything perfectly, the inflammation all goes away. For sure. And then the pain goes away and it's much better. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's definitely a factor. Yeah. Inflammation is huge. Yeah.

And a lot of it does come from bad food. A lot of it comes come from bad food. A lot of it comes from too much sugar, too much bread, pasta, that kind of shit, ice cream, all that shit, all the stuff that's good. But, yeah, afterwards I'll connect you with those people. Okay. Yeah, I bet it can help you a lot. And it doesn't hurt.

Oh, really? There's no downside? No, it's not going to hurt you. No. No, you'll go there. What they'll do is they'll do IV stem cells. They'll do local stem cells into whatever the area that's injured. And then they'll use hyperbaric chambers, which also accelerates the healing. They'll have you down there for a few days.

And I guarantee you a few months later, you'll feel significantly better. Wow. Wow. Yeah. That is all dependent upon what structural issues you have. Now, if you have something that's completely torn off the bone and it's not connected anymore, they can't help with that. I don't think it's that bad because I can already do this. Sometimes you can do that even though it's torn because there are other ligaments that compensate and other muscles that compensate. And I still have a little bit of numbness down here,

by the way. It was really crazy because I was numb all the way to here for like months. Yeah, generally that's nerve damage. It takes a long time for that stuff to heal. Nerve damage is rough. But I feel like I got off easy. Oh, yeah. It could have been your neck. Yeah, for sure. So I feel like that was a good lesson. Yeah, don't do that. Well, not every night. Don't do it, period.

Don't do it again. The craziest thing was we only had insurance for the first 10 shows, and the injury was on the 10th show. Oh, boy. So Monday morning, the insurance company called. They said, do you want to discuss this new condition? Yeah. So that was the end of that. Yeah.

Which is a good thing. Yeah, don't do that. You've done some extraordinary things with yourself. I mean, you really have. Some crazy things. Yeah, some crazy things. But all for entertainment and not, I mean, it's interesting because it is entertainment, but it's also entertainment and sort of educating people the boundaries of what the mind can force the body to do.

You know, like the one we did where you're frozen in ice? Yeah. Like that's basically just you. Standing. Standing and using breathing techniques and your mind to deal with that situation. How long was that for? I think 63 hours. Yeah. That's a long time.

But my brain tweaked at 55 hours. Yeah? Yeah. Well, you probably weren't sleeping, right? No, you can't. Right. So there's probably a lot of the brain tweaking is just from that. Yeah.

Wouldn't you imagine? I think that plus the extreme conditions. Extreme cold and lack of sleep and you're standing up. Standing and I had edema. My ankles had blown up. Oh, I could imagine. Yeah. Yeah.

How long did it take you to recover from that? A while. Yeah. I couldn't even walk for a while. Oh, David. But I was lucky because it was a 68-degree November, so the air pumping through was 68 degrees. So it created that drip that was awful from the ice, but that helped significantly, I think. Well, even just standing still for 60-plus hours.

Yeah, see how happy I am? Yeah, you look super happy. You're probably hallucinating. That does look like the beginning. That's hallucination right there. That's where I'm hallucinating. What did you see? Everything.

Like what? My mother was in the ice talking to me. Whoa. And my girlfriend was in the ice talking to me. And time moved completely different. It was crazy. Whoa. But kind of amazing at the same time.

Wow. Yeah, but kind of horrific. I can imagine. The way I explained it was like having nightmares with my eyes open. Wow. I think your brain is doing anything it can to trick you to try to quit so you can go to sleep. Considering all the things you've done, you're in remarkably good condition.

Time will tell. I mean you're walking around. Right. You're talking. Everything is fine. I mean – Hopefully you're right. Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm always – Pushing it. No. No, I'm always... Pushing it. No. No, I'm always concerned about the effects. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. Something to be concerned about.

Yeah, because now that I have a daughter, I want to live long. Sure. I'll live till I'm 100. Right. It's possible if you don't get bit by a cobra. Now is probably the best time ever to have that goal. To stop over. Well, I mean, to have the goal of living to 100 with modern science and medicine.

Yeah, I believe it's possible. People live to 100. But I think diet is everything. It's a lot of it. Are you pretty diligent with your diet? Well, since the injury, it kind of gave me an excuse to not be. But I need to get serious. The injury gave you an excuse to not be? Yeah. How come? I don't know. It's like, fuck this. That's funny. Yeah. No, if you, I mean, it seems simple, but it is true

that your body is essentially made out of what you consume. Yeah. It's the only thing that it has to regenerate. And it doesn't – people don't think of it that way. You think of your body as your body, but your body is constantly reproducing itself. Cells are constantly regenerating. Yep. And if you don't give your body good nutrients and real food – You suffer. You suffer.

And that is the majority of Americans, unfortunately. Even my friend is running a marathon in a few days. And I said for the next couple of days, reduce any food that will give you inflammation and do extreme hydration. Because the impact of that distance will pay its toll in the long run. Most certainly, especially if you're not conditioned for it. And I think really good endurance athletes like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tom Brady, they all are very concerned with inflammation. Oh, yeah. So they don't have anything that will give them inflammation.

And I think that allows you to continue much longer. Most certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Inflammation is one of the biggest problems that people have, particularly in this country, because the way we eat. I'm sure you've seen those photographs of people on the beach in like the 1960s versus people on the beach in 2023. No, I can imagine. Yeah. We're ballooned. And it's because of the American diet.

It's sugar. It's sugar. And the process, the bad sugars. It's sugar. It's sugar. And the process, the bad sugars. Yep. And even just the way they genetically modified fruit. Like if you look at watermelon from the Renaissance days, like a Renaissance painting of a watermelon, as opposed to watermelon now, it doesn't even look like the same thing. Right. It yields such a high dose of sugar that it becomes addictive and buries everything.

That term genetically modified gets thrown around a lot. A lot of it is just selective breeding. They just figure out a way to – breeding is not the right word either. It's like they select for very specific traits. I mean that's why they've made a tomato that can sit on a truck and drive across the country and not rot. But then you get it and it's flavorless and pale. Yeah. But it's flavorless and pale yeah but it's durable wait can can you pull up a renaissance painting of a watermelon i just want you to see yeah

i've never i don't think i've ever seen it side by side renaissance painting of a watermelon yeah how they were before originally well i'm sure you've seen like heirloom tomatoes have you seen heirloom tomatoes yeah they look so that's what that's what it looks like. Whoa. And wait, the middle left one, no, yeah, that one shows the, see the difference? Wow. Yeah, they've done that with everything. That's wild. Yeah, it's all, I mean, it's a reason, I think, even fruit, you would think fruit was so healthy, but then you get these berries when you go to Whole Foods and they're like this big and

they're so juicy and you eat the whole thing. But if you're in the wild getting blackberries, they're small, they're bitter. That's extraordinary. So I think even the fruit and the things we think are healthy, we have to be careful. Yeah. It's definitely very different. But I don't necessarily think, I think, I wonder like what is the difference in terms of the nutrient content, whether or not it's bad for you to eat modern watermelon.

I would doubt it is. No, I think it's fine. But I'm just saying it yields such a high dose of sugar. Right. Yeah. And sugar creates inflammation. Yeah, it certainly does. And cancer thrives on –

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've noticed a giant difference cutting sugar out of my life like when when i cut it out and just live uh very cleanly eat very cleanly it's just massive difference in how your body feels how your back feels joints feel that's everything especially things like the back and where you you have pain, that stuff goes away. Yeah, yeah. And even how your brain functions. Everything. Yeah.

Right now my brain is on a lag because I've been not eating properly. I would think if anybody would be taking care of themselves, it's someone like you that brutalizes yourself. But sometimes I go so extreme that I need like a break and I go the other way. I know what you mean. Yeah, you get tired of it. That happens to a lot of fighters. They get done fighting and they just get fat because they're just like, I don't want to train anymore. I won't do anything.

Yeah, because they're so extreme and so focused and all of a sudden it's like. Yeah, I think little vacations from discipline are fine. But when I take a little vacation from discipline, I feel like shit. And then I'm like, what are you doing? And then I'm upset with myself and then I go back the way I used to eat and I'm fine. And then you feel great. Yeah. But that's, you know, that's what humans are supposed to eat. We're supposed to eat real food.

And a giant percentage of our diet is processed bullshit. And that stuff is just, it tastes good and it tricks your body because there's all sorts of salt and sugar in it. And, you know, those high-calorie, high-carbohydrate foods are so easy to overconsume. Yeah. You know, we had, Elon and I had pizza the other night, and I just couldn't stop eating it.

Jamie had to take it away from me. If you didn't take it away from me, I would have ate that whole box. Yeah, once you start, you can't stop. I can't stop. I'm a glutton. And then the funny thing is then you're still hungry an hour later. Mm whole box. Yeah, once you start, you can't stop. I can't stop. I'm a glutton. And then the funny thing is then you're still hungry an hour later.

Yeah. Whereas when you eat foods with high nutrition like broccoli, you're full. Well, especially protein. If you eat foods, protein has a very high

satiety rate. So like if you eat steak, you can only eat so much steak or you could keep going if you wanted to if you're in a contest or some shit. Like you ever see those places like restaurants where they'll give you a free meal if you could eat a 72-ounce steak?

And so people try to eat them. You have to eat it, like, within 30 minutes or something crazy like that. But when you eat steak, like, at a certain level, you're done. Your body's like, that's enough. But if there's steak and then bread, the bread's right there with butter and it smells good and it's fresh. Oh, give me some more of that bread. Or there's a bowl of pasta. Oh, and then there's some ice cream. Oh, you'll keep going. And that's where modern foods have kind of hijacked the human brain, hijacked your reward system.

It makes you crave these things that are ultimately detrimental to your health. But when you're eating really healthy, what's your diet? Mostly meat. I eat mostly meat and eggs. Do you eat raw eggs? No. No, I cook them. I feel so good when I have raw eggs.

They're good, but you do have to be concerned with salmonella. You particularly have to be concerned if you don't know where. I think it's like 1 in 35,000, and it's on the shelf. I think it's a low risk. It's a low risk. Yeah. But it does happen. There's a certain percentage of people every year, a certain number of people every year that get salmonella from eggs. But the eggs in Paris, by the way, they taste so good. It's kind of amazing. Well, they're probably free range chickens. That's the difference.

They're like orange. Yeah. Well, that's a free range chicken. That's a chicken that's eating bugs and worms and small rodents and things like that, which is what they're – I mean, they're fucking dinosaurs. I have chickens. And the chickens that you have, if you have like chickens in your yard, if you have a good amount of place for them to roam and free-range, you get a dark orange yolk and it's delicious. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. And it's also if you're a person who's very concerned about factory farming and ethics that are involved in that kind of stuff and you don't want to eat eggs because the chickens

are mistreated. Chickens that you have yourself are basically pets that give you free karma free food because they're not even scared of you they wander around you and peck at the ground right near your feet and they eat ticks too right and they will produce food for you because they're not going to make chickens unless there's a rooster their their their eggs are never going to fertilize so you're getting these beautiful healthy eggs yeah that. And no one loses. No.

Yeah, it's a perfect cycle. And they taste so, yeah. So good for you. And there's so many things that you can get from eggs that you're just not going to get from a plant-based diet. Unless you're supplementing, you're just not going to get them. Do you take vitamins? Yeah, yeah. I take those liposol, the liquid ones because you absorb them.

Liposomal? Yeah, those ones. But I was going to bring them and share them with you, but I forgot. Yeah, I take those. I also take, you know what AG1 is, athletic greens? No. It's great. It's just very simple. You take a scoop of it, put it in some water, stir it up, and it's probiotics.

It's like 75 different vitamins and nutrients. Very good. It tastes good, easy, so simple. Just stir it up. It's good. Easy. So simple. Just stir it up. It's called AG1? AG1. Yeah. It's very easy because it's like, it's a no-brainer.

They sell little travel packs. Just open up a bottle of water, pour it in the bottle of water, shake it up, drink it. And it's all natural? All natural. Yeah. It's all plant-based stuff. Yeah, that I'll look into. It's great.

And then, you know, you really should supplement with vitamin D. You know, vitamin D and K k2 they work well together but all that stuff is one of the things that people are very deficient in yeah vitamin d in particular it's a big one particularly in cold climates where people don't go outside very much you don't get exposure to sun the best way to get vitamin d is from the sun naturally yeah that's. Yeah, that's the best way. But most people do not get enough. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. We're indoor all day working. Yeah, but when you think about what did human beings eat to thrive?

Well, their most treasured and their prized food was meat. If they could kill a deer, if they kill you know something that was nutrient dense that had fat on it a pig like that's what they they treasured the most because that's what they would give them the most nutrients you would also assume they would have like coconuts bananas sure fruits fruits good so we're easy especially i mean again fruits that weren't fucked with but that's one of the things that we've done with wheat you know know, if you get wheat, and everybody talks about this, if you get wheat in Europe, you're getting this heirloom wheat. You're getting wheat that is really what it was originally. When they took wheat and changed it in America, what they've done is- To yield a high dose.

Exactly. They destroyed it. Much more complex glutens in it, and it just gives you more inflammation it's hard to digest yep and you and you don't gain weight from those i know on modified seeds of 500 years ago i know you go to europe and you eat their food you look at them they're not fat no it's crazy look at france the people eating bread in france they eat bread every day they're not fat nope in america we're all balloons yeah yeah it's just in making things better to sell because the higher yield and, you know, you can make more profit. We've poisoned ourselves. Yeah. Essentially, you know.

Yeah. It's fucked. But at least we know it. So if you do seek out the information, there's plenty of doctors that could explain these things to you. And just seek out organic foods and just eat real foods. Eat real foods. And you'll be far better off. You even sleep better. I don't snore.

I don't need as much sleep. Sure. It's so crazy what a difference it makes. It does. It makes a giant difference. And it's so hard to get people to deviate because once you get accustomed to eating certain kinds of food and you start craving those kinds of food. Yeah, it just triggers your. It's very difficult to get off that path.

Yeah. So we'll get your shoulder sorted out. I'd like to see what your MRI said, though, too. And I'm sure the doctors want to see that, too. Yeah, I have all the MRI. So I was doing MRIs before every jump and after every jump just to make sure the blood vessels around the heart, you know, things weren't shifting. Because if we noticed something small, then we would stop. Because that way the blood, something connected to the heart wouldn know things weren't shifting because if we noticed something small then we would stop because that way the blood something connected to the heart wouldn't yeah become

problematic so yeah i feel like i got lucky on that you probably definitely did because if it hit your neck and had the same sort of impact with what it did to your shoulder imagine something that can blow out your shoulder like that what it it could do to your spinal cord. Yep. You know? Yeah. Very dangerous. Yeah. Do you ever think you're going to stop doing this kind of crazy shit? I think so.

Really? Yeah. I think I'll eventually just move towards magic only. Well, you're really good at magic too. That's what's so confusing to me. Your card tricks are fucking bizarre. Like when you, you did a bunch of card tricks for us off air. You did them for my kids.

You did them for the security guys at the old studio in LA. And I mean, Jamie is like really good at watching that kind of stuff. I mean, I've been watching him since I was younger. Right, but Jamie was fucking staring at you like a hawk. I want to figure it out. I mean, I know it's magic, but like there's also. Those tricks. He knows how to do it.

He didn't always know how to do it. But after it was done, Jamie was like, fuck, I have no fucking idea. I tried. I thought I knew what was going to happen. Yeah. And I didn't. Yeah. Or you're obviously that good.

He couldn't wait, though. He was like, I'm going to fucking watch everything. I'm going to figure it out. He couldn't figure out jack shit. It's, yeah, that alone. But, I mean, you're kind of the only magician who also does things that aren't necessarily magic, but they are extraordinary feats of control of your body and just dangerous stunts. I think part of the excitement for me is just learning something that's unique, that's not really done in the magic world, but then just the actual training and learning a new skill.

So it's like a continual search to try to figure out new things. And that's kind of what keeps me excited in a lot of ways. And I think it's like something different because I think most people that are magicians, they, you know, a card trick, everybody can learn. But when you, when you go and try to figure out one of those things that are insane to learn, or you're inspired by something else and it leads to the trick itself, that that's exciting for me. So when I went to Africa to learn how to swallow a gallon of water and then spout it out, I didn't know it would lead to being able to hold frogs in my stomach and then produce them at any time.

But it ended up leading to that. So it became a magic trick, but it started as like some insane skill that I saw somebody doing I was obsessed with. When you swallow a gallon of water, are you stretching your stomach out? Is that what's happening? It's awful. But is it like, do you gain greater capacity because of that?

No. No? No. Every night in my show, I have to put a gallon of water inside and it's horrible. What does it feel like? Ugh, awful.

Like pregnancy maybe? I don't know. I can't answer. Maybe. I'm not sure. Something, so you feel your organs stretching? Do you feel like everything getting pushed aside to make room for the water?

I mean a gallon of water is – Is a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. What does it weigh? I think like 8.43 pounds or something like that. Yeah. So just imagine eight pounds of food.

It might be 8.34 or 8.34. Just eight pounds of food and your body is insane. Yeah. No, it's a lot. Sitting down and eating. And it's all solid. It's water. So it's just like a big solid. Just eight pounds of food in your body is insane. Yeah. No, it's a lot. Sitting down and eating. And it's all solid. It's water. So it's just like a big solid.

Just a mass in there. And then I have to go do the show. Oh, God. Every night. So you have it in your body while you're doing that. So you have to ignore this awful feeling while you're doing your show. And act normal. Whoa.

And then spit it all out. How do you make sure you're not peeing it all out? Like, how do you... I know the time on that. So I practice the window of time. What's the window of time between swallowing it? Obviously, it starts to move in, like, 15 minutes, but I'm able to kind of control it

for the length of the show, pretty much. Are you contracting your body? Are you doing something physically well then i spout it out to put out the fire right so it's a break and then i reload it so secretly so when you spout it out to put out the fire people are like what the fuck like where do you get all this water well they see me drinking it also. Right. Yeah. But still, it's pretty insane.

It's insane. It's a show that, you know, my show is a show that you can only do like once or twice a month. You can't do it, right? If I did a card trick show,

I could do it every night, right? It'd be like very good for business. Yeah. But I like this show because it's an impossible show. It's like one that I have to like get into the mindset and be like, oh, fuck.

Here comes another night. So when you put together a show like this, like when you're sitting down the planning stages and you're like, OK, got a big show coming up in Vegas. What am I going to do? How much time is involved in the creation of something like this? Years. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Years and Yeah. Wow. Yeah, years and years.

Wow. I mean, it took me 20 years to even do my show. 20 years. Almost. That's insane. Yeah. Because I wanted something that was different and, you know, something that I felt like would represent what I love and what interests me. So I worked on all these crazy things and it took so long to figure them out,

and then had to apply magic to them, like how to make the trick part. And then the trick part always makes the other thing seem like that's a trick. So when I'm holding my breath, everybody thinks, like, I have tubes or something. Right, right, right, right. What did you do when you held your breath? Like how long did you hold it for? It was something insane. I want to say like 13 minutes or something like that?

I did 17.04 on Oprah. But my actual record with doctors and pulmonary experts on it was 20 minutes and 2 seconds, breathing pure O2. And my heart rate dropped to 8 beats per minute. So they pulled me up because they thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest. And I actually, that one felt pretty good. But now I think the record is like 24.03. Whoa. Yeah.

And you're breathing pure oxygen before you do it? Yeah. Without the Pure O2, I was up to like 7.47. Which is still insane. I know free dieters can do stuff like that. Yeah. 47. Which is still insane. I know free diarists can do stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. But they're also, the ones that are really good are really thin, really tall.

They have a total lung capacity that's much greater than mine. Mine is less than average. Your lung capacity is less than average? Yeah, 80% of the average person, my height and size. Why is that? I don't know. That doesn't even make sense if you can hold your breath that long tlc is 80 of the hmm that's crazy but i think that's where a lot

of it has to do with accepting the pain like mind over matter so generally like taller longer people it makes it easier yeah bigger chest cavity yeah it Yeah. Yeah. There was a dude who was an MMA fighter named Egan Inouye, and I know he did something insane. He was a free diver. He lived in Hawaii, and I think he was up to like seven plus minutes. And that's also physical, right? Because you're holding your breath, and then you're diving into the water and moving your body. So that consumes oxygen.

Makes it much harder. It's not just sitting there. Yeah. moving your body so that makes it much harder oxygen it's not just sitting there yeah when i was doing it i was just and even your brain functioning you want to shut everything down because your brain uses a lot of oxygen as well so the more that you can just shut everything down the more efficient you are and when you're doing that like how are you getting your heart rate to eight beats a minute i didn't intentionally do that. It just happened. I think the body does whatever it needs to do to make sure you survive. Right. So your body's recognizing, like, this motherfucker isn't breathing.

Yeah. Let's just slow it down. Yeah. It's kind of like creeping towards the gas station when you're on E. Yeah. You know, like, you're going, like, five miles an hour because you know you're not going to make it otherwise. Wow. What do you think is the most difficult of all these things you've ever done?

Maybe the ice. Just on the mind. Yeah, that one was the worst one. I would never do that again. How long did it take your brain to recover from that? The brain recovers pretty fast. I think after one night's sleep, I was okay. Really?

The brain, yeah. So no more hallucinations. Yeah, but also I was, yeah, it was bad. I would worry about something like that, that I would open up a door that I could never close. Yeah, that would be horrible. That would be like in a horror movie that would happen. That's why I don't mess with sleep deprivation.

I tried to mess with that. It's scary. Yeah. I think it's a very effective form of torture. I think in North Korea they did that to the Americans, extreme sleep deprivation. I think that tweaked them the worst. Oh, I'm sure we do it too. Guantanamo Bay. Sleep deprivation is horrific. Yeah. Isn't it crazy?

It's horrible. Because that's when you wouldn't even think of as torture. And when you think of, people think of as torture, they think of pain. You know, they don't think of just like making someone stay awake. Isn't that Chinese water torture? They just drip water on your face? I don't think that one's so bad. Really?

I don't think so. I heard it's pretty bad. I don't know. I think there's something about it that just keeps you awake, and it's just nuts because you're just the drip and like it being irregular intervals. You still get micro sleep. I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe you should try that one. Do you want to see this trick?

I would love to see this trick. What do you got? Well, it's a simple one, but it's a new one. So I just used some thread, but I might need your help. Okay. Do you want to come closer? I'll come your help. Okay. Do you want to come closer? Okay, I'll come over there. Yeah, should I move over?

Or you can come here. I'll come over there. Should I slide to the left or something? So first I'll show you the trick version. Wait, can I take this off? Yeah. So first I'll show you the trick version of Wait, can I take this off? Yeah. So first, I'll show you the trick version of it. Okay.

Which is just like this. For the people just listening at home, he folded over a little loop in a piece of thread. Yeah. And he's putting it in his mouth and swallowing it. He's chewing on the thread. Now he's drinking water. Yeah, I think it's... Here, wait. Hold on.

So this is the trick version. You see, you get... See you can pull, I don't know if you can, can you, do you want to just pull it? Pull the thread? So you have a thread that you stuck in your body. Yeah, pull it, see? Uh huh.

So that's the trick version. That's a thread that he just had embedded in his skin. But hold on, here's a different version actually right instead I'll do it this way so you can see what's actually happening Yeah, wait a minute. Yeah, will you grab here? The one under your chin? Yeah. Okay, so now he's got a thread coming out from under his chin. I pulled up a little. Okay.

Pull it down. Pull it down. It's through his mouth and through the bottom of his mouth and out his chin. And pull. Want to pull it out? Yeah. Okay. So that's something that I learned in India.

So you just essentially use a needle and shove it through the bottom of your jaw and people think it's coming out of your mouth. Yeah. It's pretty good though. It is pretty good. I'm going to go to the other side. So there's a book called Swami Mantra. How are you getting it into your chest? Well, first I'll tell you there's a book called Swami Mantra,

which is a collection of pamphlets of secrets of what the Fakirs were doing in India. So there was a trick that I saw a magician do when I was a kid, and he ate a thread and he pulled it out of his stomach. And I was with a bunch of amazing magicians and we were all blown away and in shock. But I cornered the guy and convinced him to teach me the secret. So then I started playing with it. And then just now when I was in India meeting street magicians

and finding all these performers, I went to a festival and they do all these extreme things I have never seen before. Like they push the ice pick skewer type thing through their neck, through their, and so I suddenly had an idea and I was like, wait, maybe there's a way. And then, and then it becomes a magic trick.

But you're seeing the early phase of it. Okay. Yeah. And then it becomes a magic trick. But you're seeing the early phase of it. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes I get nervous that like, you know, obviously anything could go wrong. You could, you know. Yeah. Start squirting blood. Like it happened last time.

Yeah. I promised you there was going to be no blood. Thank you. happened last time yeah well i promised you there was gonna be no blood thank you yeah when last time we poked the ice pick through your arm we hit a nerve right we had to back it out and do it oh yeah it was not good yeah it bubbled up yeah yeah not good yeah i was not that's not what i wanted to happen i was traumatized afterwards i was like oh i'm fucked you just picked so is that just a luck thing like you miss or you just don't know exactly where to push it through no what happened was normally i i think i go in from this side and out but because you were sitting here and i wanted you

to push it i think we went in the opposite direction oh and i think it that's what went wrong oh so you know where to do it dorm no there's a lot of space to do it so there's like you know but from the other side I don't really know and I oh for some reason I thought it would be okay well how long did that one take to heal up from I mean that was fine because it was just the arm. It wasn't nerve or anything. It seemed like you were hitting nerve, though. Well, we stopped.

We started again, didn't we? Did we start and stop again? Yeah, we stopped. And we found a new hole. And we tried again. Yeah, but it was bleeding internally. Ballooning up. And we had to stop the show.

Luckily, we had an EMT here. Yeah, but he said it was fine. Yeah. And it was. But he was a little bit like, what the fuck? After, I was like, my career is over. I just did the most disgusting things nothing worked it was horrible yeah exactly you're going through the way that's right that's what went wrong yep yikes

yep and I always go in the other direction what is the difference though if it's the same spot I don't know maybe obviously yeah I think isn't it's probably you know how to do it yourself well no but I let the audience do it when they come on stage. I let them pick a spot. Yeah. I mean, I make sure it's above the break. I make sure it's not in a dangerous place, but yeah. Yeah.

How many times have you stuck an ice pick through your arm? Oh, my. So many. A hundred? Way more. Oh. Thousands. Thousands?

Yes. And through both hands. I had to stop with my hand because I was getting the scar tissue and it was becoming really hard to push the ice. But I did CT scans. I looked at the hand. I studied where all the blood vessels are. So I thought about it for a long time before I started doing it.

And then I did it with like acupuncture needle. But this is something nobody should do. No magician, nobody, because it's just not good when things go wrong. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. I would imagine that's a real problem. How do you decide what you're going to do when with these kind of things like

what makes you comfortable like i think i'm gonna stick an ice pick through my hand i think that started early on there was a magician named harry anderson that used to do needle through arm and it was like a fake arm thing like a stuck it together and it looks like it's going through and i was like that and i think i was, that could probably really be done. So I think it began with that. And then I heard about a kid that can take a bicycle spoke and put it through. And then I started thinking, well, if you could do that as a trick, but have no blood, then it's kind of amazing. And what I didn't realize was basically your blood, it coagulates. So based on time. So if you push this through, again, I don't want to give anybody lessons on how this stuff is not good to do at all.

But with time, I think when you pull it out, you just don't bleed unless you go through the wrong side and hit something. bleed unless you go through the wrong side and hit something but yeah but I like those things that it just seem impossible but there's an actual science to it who was the guy who would take thin swords and shove them through his lungs yeah Mirandayo I have not done that and I don't I'm never going to do that he He died doing that, didn't he? No. So what happened? Well, normally he would have a rapier pushed through by a doctor. And he would jog with these rapiers through his body, through his lungs, right through the middle.

And I think what happened was he became very overconfident and thought he could do anything. And he swallowed a needle, like an ice pick sized needle. He swallowed it and thought he was do anything and he swallowed a needle like an ice pick sized needle he swallowed it and thought he was gonna like push it through and when he went to sleep it was still inside of him and it ruptured his heart and then he bled out my god yeah yeah I think he started to get so cocky with what his body could do yeah so this is the guy. Yeah. Yeah. Now, how does one do that? I mean, if he's got a- They said he had tuberculosis, and so the way his body recovered, it doesn't- Nobody really knows, but I know scientists and doctors, they all thought it wasn't real.

They thought it was a trick, so it took forever for them to even think it was real. Oh, it goes sideways. Oh, that's right. I forgot this one. So he's going through his fucking intestines. Yeah, he was the human pincushion. And that's a doctor? Boy, that doctor.

What about do no harm, fella? That is so insane. So he's got bandages over his forearms. So did he go through his arms as well? Is that why he has bandages? I don't know. But it's insane that he could control. So did he go through his arms as well? Is that why his bandages? I don't know. But it's insane that he could control it

because, you know, obviously when people get stabbed, you know, they couldn't do it. And now he's going to do an x-ray. Is that what he's doing?

And look at the holes in his back. He's got holes all through him. Oh, God, dude. Yeah, it's crazy. That guy's got so many holes in him.

Yeah, it's crazy. The doctors have to examine. Yes, it's a regular sword. And that's a thick rapier, by the way. Yeah, and then they eat. And like the water comes out. No, don't do that one. Never.

Yeah, there's, I mean, there's real danger in a lot of the shit you do. Well, but I don't just go randomly do things i start carefully methodically slow i have not magicians surrounding me i have doctors and and i have you know people that are the best in the world that do these things and i there's a slow learning curve you just never see it so but that one to me i was like no it's not worth the risk anybody else done that other than that guy i don't think so not intentionally stick to cards bro cards are amazing why fuck around with the cards are amazing they're amazing they are amazing they are amazing yeah sleight of hand. Yeah, yeah. Skills. Yeah, yeah.

What's the dexterity of the fine mobile skills, motor skills of your fingers? It's so impressive. But it makes sense. Like my left hand is so dumb in comparison to my right hand. Like if I try to write things with my right hand or try to tie my shoes left-handed, well, actually you tie your shoes with both fingers but doing things one hand is better yeah doing things is difficult like with your left hand it just your brain somehow or another doesn't have a really good relationship with your left hand

yeah but as a magician you change that because you have to work with both hands equally so you definitely rewire the way your fingers move and the way your pinky moves and you learn to do movements that are not natural. Well, I learned that from boxing because when I first started boxing, I'm right-handed and my right hand was so much better than my left hand. But then after boxing for a few years, my left hand was much better because you use the jab much more than you use the right hand. And my left bicep became larger than my right bicep, like pretty significantly. Wow. Yeah. And Roy Jones Jr. is the best example of that. Roy Jones Jr., when he flexes, like he was in the studio and he flexed, his left bicep is like twice the size of his right bicep because

they used to call him Captain Hook because he was so fast and so extraordinarily talented that he would throw a left hook the way most people would throw a jab. Just like leap in with this insane fast left hook. And his left bicep was enormous. Look at the size difference. Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's a huge difference. Huge difference.

And that left hand was a lethal weapon. Amazing. But when you do box and you throw jabs and left hooks with your left hand, and then you switch and try to do it with your right hand, your right hand seems uncoordinated. It's really just your brain has this relationship with those particular movements. Look at his bicep and his left arm. Wow, that's unbelievable

i mean in his prime he was a just a freak it's funny because nobody would think of the jab as being you know as as you do you would build your jab much more than a yeah because you use it much more when you're boxing you're constantly throwing jabs and you occasionally throw right hands. It's probably like a four to one ratio at least. Yeah. And then left hooks. Yeah. I used to always print T-shirts when I was a kid of Mike Tyson and wear them every day.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He looks like, to me, the scariest guy to ever get up against. He looks like, to me, the scariest guy to ever get up against. He's so scary that when he was in my studio, we had a desk. So Mike Tyson, the first time he came to the studio, Mike was not fighting. He was completely retired. And he said he wouldn't train because he didn't want to reignite his ego.

And then the second time he was in the studio, he had decided to take a fight with Roy Jones Jr. And so he was in his 50s and started training again and got fucking insanely dedicated. And the way I think the way he described, he said the gods of war reignited his ego and brought him back to do combat again. And he was so terrifying that when he was sitting across from me, he was so different between the first podcast and the second podcast. I decided to make the table wider. I was going to make a more narrow table. So I was closer to the people, but I was like his energy when I was this close to him was

so, it was so, like, confusing. Man, he is unbelievable. Yeah, that's number two. That's when he was back. Yeah, he's my favorite that ever lived. Oh, my God. In his prime, in the late 80s, he was a fucking force of nature. He walked out with the black shorts and just the way he would look.

Oh, man. Look right through people. Yeah. He's the scariest heavyweight of all time. He was amazing. Yeah. Did you see the Francis Ngannou-Tyson Fury fight? Francis Ngannou, who is the UFC heavyweight champion, he vacated the throne and had a boxing match with Tyson Fury, who is the lineal heavyweight champion.

Dropped him in the third round and won on one judge's scorecard and lost on the other two. So he lost a majority decision in his first ever boxing match against arguably the best heavyweight boxer. Wow. Absolutely alive, but maybe of all time. Wow.

And I thought he won the decision. A lot of people thought he won the decision. It's a very close fight. I mean mean you can maybe say that tyson fury i mean you could kind of see an argument that he maybe could have won i don't think so though when it comes to damage i looked at it i've watched it three times and in my mind he won the fight and i i think that's one of the most extraordinary accomplishments in combat sports history. A guy who's had zero boxing matches, who is an MMA champion, goes and fights a guy who is one of the greatest boxers that's ever lived. I mean, Tyson Fury is phenomenal.

Now, whether Tyson Fury took him seriously, whether he was overconfident, who knows? I mean, he literally said to him, time to go to school. I'm taking you to school at the beginning of the fight. And then when- Tyson Fury said that? Yeah, and then when Francis dropped him in the third round after the fight, Francis was like, you are a shitty professor. And Francis is a real freak.

And Francis is 6'5", a natural 272 pounds, and built like a Greek god. Can I see Jamie? Yeah. See if you get the photo of Francis standing over Tyson Fury after he dropped him. Because, I mean, he really rocked him. And, by the way, they gave him – I'll send you this, Jamie. They checked the amount of time that it took for him to get up. 23 seconds.

23 seconds. So that's after he dropped him. Look how big Francis is. I mean, he's just an extraordinary specimen. And, you know, didn't even start combat sports until he was 25 years old. Where is he from? Cameroon. I mean, I had him on the podcast.

His story is so insane, it is like something from a movie. He was working in the sand mines when he was 10 years old and developed this incredible strength fucking digging sand Wow and when he was a man decided that he had to leave his village and he wanted to be a professional boxer and wanted to go to Europe so he walked and made his way to Morocco like hitched rides and all these different things made his way to Morocco and then seven times traveled on rafts To Europe and got arrested and sent back and when they would send him back They would drop him off in the Sahara Desert

that's how they would would they would do to people who are trying to make their way to Europe and Seven times he made his way from the Sahara Desert back to Morocco, back to the raft. And one day finally made his way all the way across, was arrested, was in jail in Spain for, I think, three or four months. And then was homeless in France for a year. Found a gym, started training, and they told him to train in MMA. And so he starts training because he wanted to be a boxer. but they were like, you really should be an MMA champion. MMA is a more popular sport now. So he starts training in MMA.

Four years later, he's the UFC heavyweight champion. I mean, insane. That's crazy. And the guy he knocks out. But it's obviously, it's not just his natural strength. It's also his willpower. And it's everything. It's intelligence his willpower. And it's everything. It's intelligence.

So there's where he drops them. So now he drops them. So look at the count. One, two, three, four, five. He's up. Six, seven, eight. So he made it up to the count of 10. And he's obviously clearly rocked, takes a big, deep breath.

But look, it's 12 seconds, 13, 14. The guy's still counting. Seven, eight. This is a bullshit count.. The guy's still counting. Seven, eight. This is a bullshit count. The referee's still giving him an eight count. And it's 22 seconds before they reengage. And the way he hits them is just this clubbing left hook. It's not even like full power from Francis.

I mean, he didn't really totally turn. Like, Francis is dancing in front of him. It comes out of nowhere though Yeah, and then battered him again in the eighth round and somehow or another they gave him They gave Tyson fury the eighth round on at least one judges scorecard, which is fucking insane might even do judges But boxing is a dirty business. It's a dirty sport. I mean, there's always one judges in the bag It seems right at the very least, they're deeply indebted to the promoters. And there is some sort of an agenda to have this person who's either the most marketable or the one who the most is riding on.

I mean, I don't think he's going to have a rematch. He didn't talk about a rematch, didn't say he wanted a rematch, and Francis wants a rematch for sure. Francis thinks he won the fight. It's interesting. Immediately afterwards, most people were saying that Francis won. After watching it carefully, some people have said they see there could be an argument that Tyson Fury may have outpointed him. In my mind, Francis landed by far the harder shots, by far did more damage. And even though there's this thing that happens when you see an underdog outperform the expectations, which certainly happened, I think he was a 14 to one underdog. By the end of the fight, the online betting odds had Francis favored to win, which is crazy. And then many people,

including myself, felt like he did enough to win the decision. I felt he won by at least one round. And who's that promoter? God, I forget his name. The one, the guy who promotes Anthony Joshua, Eddie Hearn. He gave Francis two rounds. He said Francis beat him by two rounds. It's just an extraordinary accomplishment. Even losing a majority decision to Tyson Fury is insane because the only time this has ever happened before where an MMA champion fought a boxer was when Conor McGregor fought Floyd Mayweather.

But Conor McGregor fought Floyd Mayweather. But Conor McGregor fought Floyd Mayweather when Floyd Mayweather was at the tail end of his career. It was the last bout that Floyd had. And Floyd just kind of, like, wore him out, outboxed him, and stopped him in the fight. Whereas Francis fucking dropped him in the third round and battered him in the eighth round, and it was just an insane performance i mean

literally like a legendary combat sports performance it'll go down in history when they talk about boxing and things that people have accomplished it's one of the greatest accomplishments ever pretty amazing you train both boxing and i've done everything yeah but which do you prefer mamma may for, yeah. There's more options. It's more complicated. I mean, I think the boxing is an amazing skill. It's an amazing thing to learn. It's very helpful in terms of self-defense.

It's an excellent, it's a must know. It's a thing that you must know. If you want to compete in combat sports, you must know how to box. But a really comprehensive skill set that a true MMA champion will have is far better. And if a boxer, like an elite boxer, fought an MMA fighter, they would have almost no chance. If you fought Francis Ngannou in an MMA fight and beat Francis in an MMA fight, that would be more extraordinary than Francis beating, or grappling kicking any of those skills if he beat Francis in an MMA fight that would be like the most incredible thing that anyone's ever done ever but no boxer other than the only boxer that's

ever even like at an elite level competed in MMA was James Toney fought Randy Couture. And he got – it was the end of James Toney's career. He had already accomplished incredible feats as a pure boxer and kind of just took it for a paycheck. And he got taken down and just strangled pretty quickly. Randy Couture just ankle-picked him, brought him to the ground, got on top of him, head and arm choked him. It was – once he got to the ground, it was like a foregone conclusion.

Randy was going to destroy him. No boxer has ever said in the middle of their, like as if Manny Pacquiao in the middle of his prime said, I'm going to fight MMA. That would be insane. And you'd probably get his face kicked off. I mean, probably get strangled, probably get taken down, strangled, and he would be helpless. It's a different skill set. There's so much more to MMA.

To me, it's more exciting to watch. It's certainly more complicated. It requires more of you. You have to train in multiple disciplines. You're not just training in using your hands. You're training in kicking, elbows, punches, knees, takedowns, submissions, submission defense. The rounds are longer. They're five-minute rounds as opposed to three-minute rounds.

It's like— Five minutes is a long time. It's a long time. It's a long time. And in the old days, in the Pride Day—well, in the old days of the UFC, there was no time limit. And then in the Pride Days, which was one of the glory years of MMA in Japan, they would have a 10-minute first round. And, you know, that was very, very hard. That really, Dan Henderson, who was in here before, was one of the all-time greats, said

that was what separated the men from the boys, that 10-minute round. Because, you know. 10 minutes of straight fighting is crazy. Against a train killer. Is crazy. In front of the whole world. And they would do this at like the Saitama Super Arena, which is like 90,000 people. The Tokyo Dome, these enormous venues.

But just the endurance training that goes into that. Insane. It's like nothing else. Like nothing else. Not that boxing is not insanely difficult on your endurance as well, especially at a very elite level. I mean, next to wrestling, which is probably one of the most difficult things, it's about as hard a combat sport exists. But MMA is the top.

That's the top. If the MMA champion is widely regarded by almost anyone who's an expert as being the baddest man on the planet, that's the, whatever weight class it is, the MMA champion, for the most part, is going to dominate someone who is just a boxer right for the most part you know but you know you've got some guys like Mike Tyson if someone taught Mike Tyson kicking defense and how to take people down good fucking luck good fucking luck when that guy's coming at you throwing punches it's just a different thing yeah he was the most it was the most exciting thing ever when he had a fight coming up he was the most it was the most exciting thing ever when

he had a fight coming up he was so fast he was so fast for a heavyweight he was so even for then france i mean francis hits so hard but he's it's different mike was so fast the combinations just come like lightning and he would be shifting side to side be standing in front of you throw a hook and all of a sudden he off to the right and he would right hook you to the body and hit you in uppercut. And they would shift to the left. Oh, my God. He was a fucking he was. And everybody would just go down.

Oh, man. Yeah. I cried when the Buster Douglas thing. No, I'm serious. I did. Did you really? Yes, of course. He was the icon of our generation.

He reignited people's interest in heavyweight boxing. Because at the time, Larry Holmes had retired, and there was no real compelling heavyweight on the scene. And then Tyson came along. But I remember Buster Douglas' mom had just died, and I paid attention. And I also remember reading he was out like eating burgers and things before. I was like, hmm.

That Tyson was? Yeah, like he would be out like right before the fight. So I think all those things played in and just. Well, I'm sure. I mean, there's certainly overconfidence that comes with someone who just thinks they could destroy anyone in front of them. Yeah, well, he could. It's also his mentor had died. Customato had died years earlier and it was just very different You know and I also think that

There's a certain level of performance that a fighter can only maintain for a certain amount of time, right? Is exactly dedication and drive it's so extraordinary Unprecedented. Yeah that you really can only do it for so many years. Yeah. And then eventually you fall off. Yeah. And I always say, when you talk about all-time greats, you can talk about all-time great careers, and there's people like Bernard Hopkins who had insane careers that went into his 50s.

But when you look at when they burned the hottest, who was the best during that time? There was no one like Tyson. There was no one like Roy Jones Jr. Mike Tyson was also a showman. It was a show. It was a show. It was an execution. You were essentially –

Even when he would just stare at his opponent right by his side. He would stare right through them. Oh, man. Yeah, he was awesome. He was an right through them. Oh, man. Yeah, he was awesome. He was an awesome specimen. I mean, just a perfect example of an elite boxer who had a very unusual skill set. I mean, to be a short guy for the heavyweight division, but insanely fast. Which was unheard of.

And just built like a brick shithouse. Just coming in, winging bombs. To me, the Tyson that is the scariest was the Marvis Frazier fight. When he beat Marvis Frazier was before he won the title, and it was on ABC Wide World of Sports. And I remember watching that going, oh, my God. Like, who can beat that guy? It was just different. Every other heavyweight looked like they were stuck in were stuck in mud they look so slow in comparison to him and the music when he would walk out was

just like noise it sounded like the clanging of steel and it was like did you ever see the documentary where he describes his mindset from the locker room up into the time he gets into the ring no it's amazing because he talks about being afraid like in the locker room up into the time he gets into the ring no it's amazing because he talks about being afraid like in the locker room but then by the time he gets into the into the ring he's unstoppable he says i'm a god see if you can find that because it's so scary it's so extraordinary because he would describe question walking into the ring you ever get scared to death really yeah you never look scared well that's the whole thing boxing is like acting you always project what you don't feel on someone else as i got older i found out

they're more scared of me than i am 100 you know so once i found that out i almost stopped training no that's not the one there's it's a scene from his documentary where he talks about it, and he said, you know, he just talks about, like, what was going through his mind in the locker room, all the fears and all the worries and all the different things. And the ring with them. Yeah. As soon as I come into the ring. As soon as I come into the ring, I'm gloved. No, stop it. That's not true.

While I'm in the dressing room, five minutes before I come out, my gloves are laced up. I'm breaking my gloves down. I'm pushing the leather on the back of my gloves. I'm breaking the middle of the gloves so my knuckle could pierce through the leather. I feel my knuckle piercing against the tight leather gloves

on the Everlast boxing gloves. When I come out, I have supreme confidence, but I'm scared to death. I'm totally afraid. I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of losing. I'm afraid of being humiliated, but I'm scared to death. I'm totally afraid. I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of losing. I'm afraid of being humiliated. But I'm totally confident. The closer I get to the ring, the more confidence I get.

The closer, the more confidence I get. The closer, the more confidence I get. All during my training, I've been afraid of this man. I thought this man might be capable of beating me. I've dreamed of him beating me. But I always stayed afraid of him. But the closer I get to the ring, I'm more confident. Once I'm in the ring, I'm a god.

No one can beat me. I walk around the ring, but I never take my eyes off my opponent. I keep my eyes on him, even if he's ready and pumping. He can't wait to get his hands on me as well. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my me as well. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him. I keep my eyes on him. Then once I see a chink in his arm, boom, one of his eyes may move.

And then I know I have him. Then when he comes to the center of the ring, he still looks at me with his piercing look and as if he's not afraid. But he already made that mistake when he looked down for that one-tenth of a second. I know I had him. He'll fight hard for the first two or three rounds, but I know I already broke his spirit. During the fight, I'm supremely confident. I'm moving my head. He's throwing punches. I'm making a miss, and I'm countering. I'm hitting him to the body. I'm punching him real hard, and

I'm punching him. When I'm punching him, I know he's not able to take my punches. One, two, three punches. I'm throwing him punches and punches. He goes down. He's out. The speed. I'm victorious. And the power. I'm the greatest fighter that ever lived. The speed was just insane.

Amazing. The speed of those combinations. He's literally like a lightweight or a middleweight, but he was 225 pounds of fury. I hate to break up this party, but I have to pee so bad. So let's take a little break. We'll be right back. I have had legitimate psychedelic states from meditation and from yoga. And the big one for me is the sensory deprivation tank.

I've had them. I've had like full-blown experiences in the sensory deprivation tank while sober where if I could give you a pill that would get you to that place, you'd be like, oh my God, I'm on a drug. And I've come out of that, those psychedelic states, which I call psychedelic. I could tell someone I had a psychedelic experience and I didn't take a drug. I had a psychedelic experience in the sensory deprivation tank, meditating and going through these deep breathing exercises. It's not a psychedelic experience like mushrooms or like dimethyltryptamine or a lot of these other full-blown- No, it's like you connect to something that's more beautiful and spiritual and a heightened

sense of awareness. Very heightened sense of awareness, but also a completely altered state of consciousness that I don't think you would ever imagine is being is available to you just naturally. But what I've had in these psychedelic experiences naturally is nothing compared to what these Kundalini masters have. Kundalini masters, and I have a friend who has done this, who trained Kundalini yoga for many, many years, right, and learned how to get to a full-blown like hallucinatory psychedelic experience where there's geometric patterns and you're connected to entities and the way he described it he's done psychedelics and he's done kundalini he said it's much better

it's no no no he said they're indiscernible there's the same experience exact same experience like you can get there you can get there naturally, which makes sense because the human mind, the brain produces psychedelic chemicals. They're endogenously produced, particularly dimethyltryptamine. It is a naturally produced psychedelic substance that your brain and your whole body creates. Your brain makes it. So whatever you're doing when you're getting hypnotized, there is something going on. And I mean, I think you could measure it in the brain as far as like fMRI or EEG or some sort of methodology where they would use equipment to measure your brain

waves. They would find a difference in frequency frequency but I think more importantly than that I Believe there's an endogenous release of certain chemicals whether it's like here's another example We just did I've got a bunch of comics that are out of shape and one of the things That I told them I said listen Come in with me. I'll take you to the gym. I'm not going to make you do anything that's going to brutalize you. I'm going to slowly get you guys in shape. And we've been doing it for the past few weeks now. But one of the things we do afterwards is the cold plunge.

That's the best. It's amazing. The cold plunge is amazing. So my friend Shane Gillis, who did it, we did it yesterday. That's amazing. He got out of it. He's like, dude, I feel like I'm on Molly. I go, right.

But you know why? Because your brain ramps up dopamine outside. When you get out of the cold plunge, you do three minutes, your dopamine gets increased by 200% and it lasts for hours, hours and hours. So you feel like you are on a drug and it is a drug that your body is producing. So you are in a psychedelic state after you get out of the cold plunge. And especially if you feel gratitude and you go into it with the right mindset and you leave it, you feel so beautiful. You feel so in tune with things. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you do the sauna also? Yes. Like sauna to cold plunge? Yeah, I do it back and forth. That's my favorite. Yeah. I used to do that at Rick Rubin's house because his sauna would get really, really hot. Yeah, Rick Rubin and I, we talk about it all the time.

We both do it. We do the cold plans to the sauna. It's amazing. It's amazing. And it does give you a very bizarre altered state of consciousness that is the exact same thing as a psychedelic experience. I feel like it also makes you tougher to the environment. I think it's like there's a lot of things that it does. Voluntary adversity.

It also sets your mindset. So like when somebody is going to go into the ocean, like, oh, it's too cold, you know that you can just go in. Yes. I think I used to do that as a kid subconsciously. I would wear a T-shirt all winter. And I would like, you know, when we moved to Jersey, we'd walk a mile and a half or whatever it was in the freezing cold winter night. And there was a kid,

my friend, Matt, that used to always wear a t-shirt in the winter. And I thought that was so cool. Everybody else didn't really pay attention, but I would just start wearing t-shirts all winter. And I think that's in a weird weird way, the beginning of me understanding that you could fight the cold with your mind. And then when you went into the movie theater, you were perfect. And you felt great. Yeah. Yeah. When you're no longer cold, your body's like.

And I would never get sick, by the way. I'd never get sick. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because it really enhances your immune system. And everybody that was all bundled up all the time, they were always getting sick.

Right. But I don't understand it. You're making your body stronger. And everybody that was all bundled up all the time, they were always getting sick. Right. But I was, I don't understand it. You're making your body stronger. I think so. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. The cold plunge absolutely does that. But I also love extreme heat too.

I do too. I love it. Well, I think there's a lot of research on it. My dream, by the way, is to have a cold plunge and a sauna. Why don't you have that? I don't know. You need to get that. I have that.

I have it here. I have it at home. I live off that. You need to get that. I have that. I have it here. I have it at home. I live off that. I think it's extraordinary. And there's also a lot of real research that backs that up. There's a study out of Finland that was done that showed four times a week for 20 minutes. They studied these people over 20 years. And the people that did it four times per week had a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality.

Heart attack, stroke, cancer, everything. Yeah, for sure. Because of heat shock proteins. For sure. So your body's developing these heat shock proteins from the sauna, and it's reducing inflammation. And it also increases your cardiovascular output. And that's one of the things that wrestlers, like Dan Gable who was like one of the most extraordinary wrestlers of all time he learned that from the soviets because the soviets in a lot of these eastern bloc countries they were using the sauna as a part of their training

so he started incorporating into his training and using his for his wrestlers and then it also sweats out the toxins it does all this amazing stuff to you as well like yeah more importantly it's the heat shock proteins that all toxin talk is like, oh, really? Gets a little hippie dip. Crystals. You know, I went to Finland. I went to the Arctic Circle with my daughter on New Year's a few years ago. And we stayed in this ice hotel.

Oh, I've heard of that. Yeah. And it was freezing. And the only thing you have, obviously, but the only thing you have is a like a little sleeping bag to sleep in and so we're sleeping in those sleeping bags and the whole night i couldn't get a wink of sleep because i was i was thinking she's gonna freeze so i kept touching her but she loved it and it was amazing it was incredible i think it'd be probably a fun thing to do for a night and then go stay in a really nice hotel.

Then we stayed in these igloo things. Hot water. Yeah. Did you see the Northern Lights when you were up there? The Aurora Borealis? Yeah. Yeah, amazing. I want to do that.

You've never seen that? No. No, I've never seen that. In Iceland, you can see. Yeah, it's amazing. I heard it's insane. Amazing. It's all green, right?

Oh, you'll cry. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, it's insane. Amazing. It's all green, right? Oh, you'll cry. Yeah. Yeah, it's fucking amazing. Yeah, we've talked about doing that for one of our family trips, going and seeing the Northern Lights. You have to go do that. Yeah, I do. I do have to go do that.

Yeah. There it is. Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Is that the Ice Hotel? Well, no. That's like a bunch, apparently. No, but that one looks amazing.

Wow, look at that. I think it's one of those down there with the sculptures in it. Pretty dope. Yeah. There's something to extreme cold and extreme heat where your body understands that it's in danger, and then it becomes stronger resisting it. And it produces cold shock proteins for the cold and heat shock proteins for the heat. I think it's extreme deprivation also.

Yeah. Well, it certainly makes you more resilient for other things too. If you can do, I start my day with that. The first thing I do before I do anything, I get in the cold plunge and I do it before workouts. So I get in the cold plunge for three minutes. Which takes out the inflammation as well, probably. It does, but it also jacks up your testosterone because for some reason, when you go into extreme cold for three minutes and then you work out, the effect is that your testosterone gets jacked up. That's a really, I never heard about this. Yeah, that's something that there was a study out of Japan, and there's something that people are just starting to incorporate now that they're starting to realize the benefits of this. I'll start doing that.

But overall, health and wellness is just amazing. It's an amazing thing. And I very, very, very rarely get sick. The last time I was really sick at all was COVID, and I was only sick for a couple days. Before that, I hadn't been sick in 11 years. And I think a lot of that is training, vitamins, a lot of different things that I do. And when you start to feel sick right away, you go super clean. Teas, ginger, lemon, a little honey, all those things. They definitely work. They definitely work. And it's also recognizing, understanding your body because you're used to exercise.

So you have a deeper relationship with your body. You know when your body feels weak. Like one of the times my whole family got COVID and I didn't. And I think one of the reasons why I didn't is not just that I'm really healthy and I work out a lot, but I started working out and I was like, boy, I feel unusually weak today. Like I, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to stick to a light kettlebell. I stuck to 35 pounds, and I'm just going to do a very minimal routine of like 10 clean presses each side, 10 swings each side, and just stop and relax, and that's what I did.

And I did that for two days, and then on the third day, I started feeling really strong, and I said, well, let's just push it today, and I went back to a normal workout. So I think my body was resisting whatever was going on in my house and all around me. And then I got through it and I never got sick. Do you do anaerobic training? I do all kinds of training. Anaerobic is my favorite. I think that helps with the breath hold. I think it helps with when you say anaerobic training, like what do you do where you're depriving your muscles of O2? So

let's say we were doing kettlebell swings. Let's say with a 35 pound, you would do 50 of them or 54. I do. But anyway, so you could do whatever high number you want. Then you take a minute and then you do it again. Then you take a minute, do it again. Or with the battle rope, you do, let's say, you know, 10 minutes straight. And it builds up such a high tolerance. It's amazing.

Even if you're just doing lunges, you can just do them slowly and really feel the burn and then it burns for a long time after. Well, your body is like a race car that you could build the horsepower on the engine just through will. Just through will and intelligent training

and doing it properly. Yep. You can, you can build your output. You can change how the thing works. But when I'm holding my breath, those things that that training is exactly what plays a part, because when I start to feel that pain and I want to quit, I know that I can keep going. quit, I know that I can keep going. So it's almost like I train in extreme, you know, conditions to be able to do the other stuff. Yeah, it makes sense. It makes sense. And the boundaries of what is possible versus what you think is possible, the only way you explore those is by trying things like that. And by doing things like the cold and the heat and just realizing that your body can tolerate a lot more than you think it can yeah and then

when you get out of it you build a resistance quickly yes you do well that was the thing with shane the first time he got into the water he couldn't even do a minute he's like fuck fuck and then yesterday he did three minutes yep yesterday and it's only been two weeks so he climbed in there and he's like in there for three minutes. And then he got up. I was like, dude, I feel like I'm on Molly. He goes, this is amazing. It's amazing, right?

I go, now let's get in the sauna. You're going to feel so good. And you get in the sauna, and you close your eyes, and you feel like you're flying. And it's also a great mindset to just walk in. You don't tiptoe. You just walk, walk, walk. Just go in. And you go all the way under, right? Just go in. Yeah, just walk in you know you just you don't yeah tiptoe you just walk walk walk and you go all the way under right just go in and then come up yeah just go in just go in and deal with it yeah yeah i i can just go in and have a normal conversation with people yeah yeah but the first

time i did it i couldn't even do a minute and a half i think i did like a minute and 24 seconds i was like oh jesus fuck fuck fuck and then the second time I did it, I did it longer. And I think the third time I did four minutes. And then the fourth time I did it, I did 20 minutes or 21 minutes or something like that. What's the temperature? Like 40? 33 degrees. 33? Yeah, that was rough.

How do you get it to be 33? I have what's called a Morosco cold forge. And it's really cold. It's just above freezing. All right, so I have to come back at one point. I crack the ice with a kettlebell to get into it sometimes. Wow. There's a video of me pushing aside the ice where I climb into it.

It's on my Instagram. You can see what it looks like. There's just like giant floating chunks of ice in this fucker. And I just climb in there and just deal with it. And I can talk like normal and I just climb in there and just deal with it and it's and I can talk like normal I can get in there my body's so accustomed to it yeah do it every day I fucking hate it every time I'm about to do it I don't want to do it every time I'm about to do it I'm trying to figure out a way I could pussy out so there's two like my approach much extent, but there's two people in my brain.

There's this little bitch. Here it is. Here, give me some volume. See all the ice in there? Oh yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. When I first started doing the cold plunge, it was difficult for me to get to just like a minute and a half. I was freezing.

And I'm still just as cold, but now I understand it. I've been here before. I've experienced it. Are you listening to music? No, I'm talking, so that's like the microphone. But I do listen to music. I generally listen to books in the sauna.

That's one of them, but there's another one that was even more ice. That's the first one that popped up. Yeah, if you find it, there's another one that was even more ice. Yeah, that looks great. It's cold as fuck. Yeah, it looks amazing. Yeah. But again, part of me is like, don't do it.

I don't want to do it. Don't do it. And that's the inner bitch. Mike Tyson approaching. That's your inner bitch. You got to tell your inner bitch shut the fuck up pussy like my friend john joseph yeah it's a mindset my friend john joseph he does a lot of triathlons and he used to be a drug addict and now he's like super disciplined triathlete and he said the way he says it with his like heavy new york accent he goes your mind tells your body who's the fucking boss yeah and that's what it is like until it doesn't

yeah but if it is there's there's a limit but you have to figure out what that limit is and get to that limit but i think that by the way i think that's part of the thing that i love about learning those crazy things because even like to kiss the Cobra, it is no, no, no, no. But seriously, as you approach, it's like all of those thoughts go through your mind. And then as you get there, suddenly everything shuts down and it's just you and the Cobra and you're hyper alert to its movements, to its behavior. And you're in some sort of a zone that's crazy. And you have to stay very calm or the cobra perceives it.

Exactly. And if you're not, you get the hell out. Yeah. But, I mean, that's one of the things that people enjoy about watching your performances is that everyone knows physical limitations and everyone knows that every human being has this inherent desire to avoid discomfort and the fact that you seek it and you don't just seek it but you're doing it like in the cold for that frozen block of ice for 60 plus hours it's fucking insane and that's like is he still doing it like people who tune in the next day

how many days has he been in that fucking block of ice? What's the trick? There's no trick. The trick is the mind controlling the body. And you decide that you can do it. Even with this series that we're doing, you know, I have a team. I have Imagine is helping me put this together. So I have a team for the first time.

And they said, oh, we're going to find this. We're going to do that. We're going to skydive off of balloons. You know, all these, I said, no, find me things that when I hear them, I'm going to be very uncomfortable hearing to even think about doing. Find me those things that when I hear them, I want to run away. That's what I want. So I said, okay, we're going to cover you with a quarter million bees. You're going to do this. You're going to be put on fire. You're going to have scorpions. A lot of things that you did, we did on Fear Factor. We covered people with bees on Fear Factor.

We covered people with scorpions on Fear Factor. Right. Especially those big-ass dark black scorpions. Yeah. What are those called? What kind of scorpions are those called? Maybe like the elephant scorpions or something. I don't remember what they're called, but the really big, scary-looking, black, shiny ones.

Yeah, and people got lit up by those things too. And they get stung too. And it's like a bee sting. I think it's like 20 bee stings. Is it like 20? I think so. Whatever it is. It's not good.

I was stung by the first. Isn't it emperor scorpion? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's right. Those are terrifying. I was stung by the first scorpion. The first one. And you have to stay perfectly still and perfectly calm. And unlike a bee, they don't die. They keep staying in you. And when they're all vibrating around your body, it is one of those feelings. It is pure magic unlike anything you've ever experienced.

I don't recommend it, but it is incredible. It's just when I shook them off, that's when I think I started to get stung. When we did it on Fear Factor, this was very interesting. We did it at this ranch and there was a local hive of bees. So we had all the bees that we brought in. We covered people with bees, but then a local hive sent a bunch of bees to find out what the fuck was going on. And the beekeeper knew that these were different bees. And he said, hey, we have to stop production right now for a while. They have to sort this out because they have to communicate with each other. Right.

So somehow or another, these local bees were talking to these bees that we brought in. And they're like, hey, what the fuck are you guys doing here? Like, oh, we're doing a TV show. I mean, whatever the fuck they said to each other. But there was some sort of communication. And apparently it was settled to the point where the local bees were like uh they had made some sort of an agreement the local bees left and then the other bees and then we went back to filming but we had to stop down production for i think it was like a good half an hour

where these bees had to work this out and i was saying to the guys are so incredible and i was so fascinated i was like how are they doing this like what, what's going on? I was like, we don't know. We don't know what they're doing. We don't know how to, but I know that this is how it works. But even when they want to kill like a wasp, you know, they all surround the wasp and they all vibrate and make the temperature go up. Yeah. They're incredible. Right.

And how do they know? How do they know to do that? Yeah. How do they know? You know, I have leaf cutters. Even just their hives are so symmetrically perfect. Right. How do they know how to make that? Yeah. They hives are so symmetrically perfect right how do

they know how to make that yeah what kind of communication are they having and they also they're so efficient too just the uses of space and and the way they design it is yeah like architecture that we can't even do now it's pretty amazing and they're doing it with their mouths you know we um we have leaf cutter ants uh It's very common out here. And they'll destroy plants. They just take little pieces of each leaf and you see like a whole line of these ants. And I don't know if you've ever seen leaf cutter ants hive their colonies. They have these incredibly complex systems that they build in the ground. And the way we've found out about these things is by, unfortunately, flooding them with cement. So they'll flood these bee things, these ant colonies,

these leafcutter ant, whatever they would call these hives or whatever they call it. And then they dig it all out. And when they dig it all out after it's covered with cement, they get to see how insanely complex these structures are. So they have these little pods that they have, these areas that they have, you know, designated where they build these holes. So they dig in and they remove all the dirt and these long tunnels. And they even have ventilation systems where some of the leaves will ferment.

So they have leaves that are slowly decaying and fermenting and they build them so that these leaves have access to oxygen. They have no idea how these leaves, how these leafcutter ants are communicating, how they know how to do this, how they figure this out, and how they consistently do this all over the world. Like, look how enormous this structure is that they're digging out. And this is all because they filled the entire thing up with concrete. So here's their pouring this concrete. There you see the leafcutter ants.

You see the surface area. And then they slowly dump this concrete in there, which is like a fucking genocide of leafcutter ants. Unfortunately, it's the only way they can find this out. And then once they do that, once they've done it, then they allow it to harden. And then they slowly dig it out. Takes a long time. But the result is this knowledge of this insane insect wow that has these complex structures that is crazy it's amazing because if you think of how tiny an ant is and

how big that is that's akin to like manhattan like what the fuck are they doing more yeah it's amazing and how what's going on? Like, how do they know how to do this? How do they know how to do this in Africa? And they also know how to do this in Texas. How do they know how to do this? Yeah, it's unbelievable. What's going on?

Yep. It's crazy. Yep. Never underestimate anything, anyone. Yeah, but it also makes you wonder, like, what is being stored in the genes? wonder like what what is being stored in the genes and what do we have in what kind of information do we have in our genes that's inherent to the the species that's just like a part of you as a human being that's in there maybe that is like one of the reasons why people are naturally afraid of snakes a lot of people are naturally afraid of you know monsters yeah scary things

hardwired yeah hardwired for that yeah yeah because like kids aren't necessarily born afraid of car accidents but car accidents are much more likely to kill you than a monster right but kids are terrified of monsters right what's a monster from? Well, it's probably our memory, our genetic memory of cats, of big cats that want to kill us. Yep. In the dark. Right? Monsters are always in the dark. Yep.

Cats are nocturnal. Yep. They have big teeth. They're scary. They hide and wait for you. Well, that's why people are wired to feel really, you know, uncomfortable when they're standing on stage and have to speak publicly. uncomfortable when they're standing on stage and have to speak publicly. It's like the number one fear. And the reason is because the hard wiring is, you know, when we were on an elevated platform with lots of eyeballs looking up at us, those were predators. Those were lions or other tribes or

whatever it was. So we had to be fearful. So it's hardwired. So people, when they stand on stage, they're not at risk of getting eaten by a lion, but they still have those really uncomfortable feelings. Well, I've been told that it's because you're being judged, like you did something wrong. But I think it's more deeply rooted than that. I think if you're on an elevated platform and you have lots of eyeballs on you, you're an easy target. But it's not always elevated. Like sometimes people don't like speaking in front of people that are the same level of them i think but it's just lots of eyeballs yes

lots of eyeballs i think it's you're being judged and most most of the time i think in tribal cultures if you were being judged you'd probably done something wrong and you're probably being tried probably a combination because earlier, before that. Right. You know? Probably a lot of factors. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very interesting, like, how the mind works and how many complex layers are in there. How anxiety works. How fears work. Yep. How people can trick themselves into thinking the worst case scenario is definitely going to happen. And they just mind fuck themselves. Which is part of the survival mechanism.

Yes. Yeah. Because that's the ability to anticipate danger. But you can change that part of your brain. Yes. You can slowly, the way your friends slowly built a resistance to be able to go into the cold plunge, you could do the exact same thing with any fear that you have. Yes. And people that don't have any experience with scary things, everything's scary. Do you have any experience with adversity?

Right. Do you have any experience with overcoming things? Any experience with doing things that make you nervous? If they're too sheltered. Everything's going to make you nervous. Yeah. Yeah. If you're too sheltered, you're fucked.

Yeah. I mean, that's the one thing that everybody's terrified of, their children being too sheltered. Yes. We all know children that are too sheltered and they don't try dangerous things or scary things or things that make them nervous. Well, those kids are fucked when they go out into the real world.

Yeah. You haven't prepared them properly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky balance. It is a tricky balance because you want to protect them. Yeah. I was alone a lot as a kid, and that also was really difficult.

And dangerous. And dangerous. Yeah. That's the other thing. Like, you never, like, free-range children. Yeah, but you learn a lot. You do learn a lot. You learn survival.

If you live. When I would get mugged when I was a kid, I didn't have a dad growing up in Brooklyn, but I would see, like, a man across the street, and I'd have, like, five kids mugging me. I'd be like, Dad! And they would, like, run away because they were, like, 13. I was, like a man across the street and I'd have like five kids mugging me. I'd be like, dad. And they would like run away because they were like 13. I was like six. So I learned quickly how to get out of bad situations. Yeah.

How many times did you get mugged? A couple, you know, three, something like that. Yeah. It wasn't a big deal. Right. But if you do survive those situations, you gain what they call street smarts. Yes.

Yeah. And you learn and you adapt and you learn quickly. You also learn that human beings are not always nice. There's a lot of human beings that are not nice. Yeah. Well, in certain situations. Yeah.

Yeah. But you could also find human beings that are not nice and you can make them nice quickly if you know how to be calm and give the right energy and you know i had um after a skydive injury i broke my foot and i was walking around with a boot on and i was walking around paris and i saw um uh a guy driving a truck and a bicycle delivery guy were in a heated argument. And the guy with the bicycle had his bike lock in his hand and they were about to beat the hell out of each other. And I just walked into the middle of them and I said,

uh, you know, think of a card and bridge. And, uh, they both looked at me like, who is this weirdo? And suddenly the fight was disfused.

You just defused it with a card trick? Well, I didn't get to the card trick part, but just just there's a guy here and they're both heated up. But like if one goes against me, then it's two, you know, so it kind of diffused it. But I have diffused fights with card tricks many times. Really? Yes. How have you done that?

Well, I see people like about to fight like in Union Square and I just walk right in the middle. I'm like, here, let me show you card trick because I'm not there at a bit. And they're so confused. And then I do magic and then it's over. Well, I think also a lot of times when people are involved in an altercation, they're looking for a way out and they don't know how to get out of it. And so you disrupt that. Like, oh, now's a new thing to concentrate on. Yes. It alleviates some of the tension. That's right. And then by the time you're done, it's already over. alleviate some of the tension. That's right. And then by the time you're done, it's already over. Yeah. That's hilarious. So did you start out doing that street magic? Is that when you first started doing magic? I mean, I was doing magic since I was like five years old. So I would do

really simple mathematical tricks, but then I started to learn more and more. And then, you know, I was a magic nerd at the age of 10. and then I would kind of just walk around, like practice shuffling cards and stuff like that. And we moved back into the city. One time I was doing a one handed shuffle and a bunch of guys that were working at the parking garage saw me doing the shuffle and they thought it was amazing. It's like, ah, and they came over and I started doing magic and their reactions were amazing. And that's kind of when i realized oh like yeah magic's pretty amazing to perform because before that i didn't i only performed for a couple of friends luckily because kids are a tough audience for a magician and so whatever i have like whatever i'm teaching a young

kid magic i say do it to your friends parents not to your friends not at school because one bad experience and you don't want to ever do magic again, you know, but parents and their friends are going to be a nice audience. That's good advice. Back then, how would you learn how to do, say, card tricks? Back then all you had was books, which was amazing. I mean, you would read books and you'd read this trick and then you would learn it step by step and then you would do it and then you'd do it and then you'd do it. And when you did it a thousand times, it started to become like your own thing. And then you might change something about it and then you'd really make it your own. And then to this day, they're still evolving.

Like whenever I do magic, I'm still thinking and processing and adding little tweaks. So it doesn't stop. Yeah. Magicians are notoriously secretive about their methods. So, like, how much do they teach you in books? Books in magic have a lot, but the good stuff is hard to come across. It's not in books. How old are the books? Like, what's the oldest magic book? Well, the first one was, like, I think it was called Discovery of Witchcraft from like 1584 or something like that.

And a guy wrote all these secrets of methods that like witches were using and they were being burned alive. So he's like, here, this is how they're doing it. It's tricks. You got to stop killing the witches. And then they destroyed all the copies of that book, but some survived. And that book has incredible secrets that I've done on my TV shows. Like there's one where you take a dead fly and bring it back to life. That's written up from 1584. I believe it's 1584. That was one of the interesting things that I read about the invention of the printing press,

that once they started making books, some of the first books were about how to spot witches. Like I was thinking that thinking that oh back then it must have been amazing because now all of a sudden people could like write down all this knowledge and people can learn like nope some of the first books like the most popular books like how to spot a witch and there was a lot of i guess i guess well like who was the first person to figure out card tricks? Is there like a fucking originator? I would assume, like, there's a book written by a guy that called himself Erdnase, the expert at the card table. And he had so many secrets in this book that are so relevant to all of the magic that any card magician does to

this day. And he was using it mostly for cheating or to explain how people were cheating. Yeah. Cause they would, they would, yes. And to this day, but when you're a cheat at cards, you have to work on three moves and be flawless because you cannot get busted. So if you're a card cheat and you get busted, you're going to get your hands broken or worse, right? So these guys that were card cheats, their moves are technically perfect. I remember I was with a guy named Doc and we were surrounded by a bunch of magicians and he just did a cut the deck, the cut switch the whole deck and none of us could see it none of us could see the deck being switched out it was invisible and he now magicians will work on thousands of moves right so they don't have the time put in to be as flawless as this guy but this

guy needs it to survive whereas magicians using it to, so you have room margin for error, right? Right. But these card sheets, their precision is, it doesn't even make sense. There's moves that you see that you just can't rationalize and you can't explain how they're done. Really? Yeah. Now, how does one do a cut the deck cheat? Switches the whole deck.

So if it was a red deck right here, he cuts the deck in half, completes it, and it's a blue deck. And you cannot see it happen. And he's doing it with one hand? One-handed. Where's the other deck? I'm not going to tell. But I could give you one hint. Okay, give me a hint.

He does have some money in his hand. He'll hold some hundreds or whatever. Right. That's the only hint I'm giving, but it's flawless and incredible. But there's lots of guys that just are incredible. There's a guy named Rod the Hop, and he used to go to the New York. He passed away recently in prison, but he used to go to the New York underground casinos. And when he was a kid, I think he was like 15, he would just go to the New York underground casinos. And when he was a kid,

I think he was like 15, he would just go to watch, right? To see, because he was a magician, but he was like, what could be done? I think that's how he went. And one day there was a guy that was like in his late sixties. And he said to the guy, I saw what you were doing. And the guy's like, no, you didn't kid. And he's like, yeah, I did. And he's like, then I saw what you were doing. And the guy's like, no, you didn't, kid. And he's like, yeah, I did. And he's like, then tell me what I was doing. And Rod said he had a button-up shirt, and he said you were switching cards through your shirt. And the guy's like, how do you know that?

Because it's invisible. And he said, well, I'm a magician. He said, you're not a magician anymore. And he taught Rod the Hop how to cheat. And from that day on, Rob the Hop became one of the best cheats ever. And then he went to prison because he had a card. I met him before

he went to prison. And he had a little device that he would put into all the slot machines and they'd all pay out nine grand. And eventually the casinos got wind of it because they're like, why is every machine paying out nine grand? Here, then here, then this. And so they put him in prison and he passed away there but that guy but that guy's chops were every magician that ever saw him which is rare he didn't mix with a lot of guys but he mixed with a

few all blown away beyond and it's just simply practicing something to the point where your hands are moving so quickly and so smoothly. And is it misdirection as well? No. You could be burned. You could have cameras up. You could do. No, no, no. These moves are invisible.

Wow. Yeah. How does one make a move invisible? I mean. Is it just repetition or understanding what to do to make it invisible? I mean, I'll show you a move that's just invisible. Okay. Let's see.

And it's just a move, though. Okay. So, I mean. So, you just pull out a deck of cards. All you have to do is if you want to take a card and, you know, that's invisible. Like, no matter what you do, you can't see it. So, but it's just a simple move. You know, it's just you take a card and then you take the, you know, but that's invisible.

But that's used in magic. So for people that are just listening, you had a card that was a heart and then you flipped it over. Changes to a spade. But that's. Do that again. He flipped it over to a spade. But that's... Do that again. So you just take a card, you do like that,

and then you do that, and then it's there. What the fuck? Yeah, but what I'm saying is that's used by magicians. But imagine this beyond in a whole nother way that you cannot see anything. My friend... Which is that I can't see anything. But my friend has been working on a move for years and years

that he's never going to use, that only, I think, one other person besides him in the world can do. And he was written up by all, every magician, not every magician, but lots of magicians were really upset, saying that move is impossible. There's no way to do it. And I watched it with my own eyes many times. And as soon as I pulled out my camera, I was like, could I film it?

He put the cards away and I never saw it again. Really? Can we film that? Can we film you doing that so we can play it back in slow motion? You just doing that? Yeah, I will. Right now? In a little bit. In a little that? Yeah, I will. Right now? In a little bit.

In a little bit? Jamie, what's this little bit shit? What's he doing? Jamie's got two cameras on you now. He's hip to it. Oh, I see. You couldn't see it. Yeah, I'll do it in a bit, though.

Okay. Why in a bit? Well, sure. I can do it now. Okay. But it's just a move. Okay. Hold on a second. It's actually my? Well, sure. I can do it now. Okay. But it's just a move. Okay. Hold on a second.

It's actually my favorite move, though. But it's just this. You take a card, and then you take the card and do that. Is that it again? It's just a move. Come on, show them the camera. Do it again? Yeah, but you take a move, you do that, and you do like that.

It's just a move. But I'm just saying, like, there's so many moves that are so relevant and that are so amazing if you want to be a card cheat where you do this with such precision that nobody could ever detect it. Have you ever done that playing poker just to blow people's minds? Yeah, when I was like 18, I went to one of my friends' college games, and I cheated everybody just to see if I could. But then I returned all their money. I said, guys, I'm a magician. and I cheated everybody just to see if I could but then I returned all their money I said guys I'm a magician I just cheated everybody here but I just wanted to prove and I told my friend whose house it was that the game was it thank god you did that but that's that must have been blowing them away though yeah most people think I'm watching but also nobody knew that I was a magician right Right. Like all my friends growing up, only my best friends knew that I did magic.

Even I went through the silly phase of like trying the ridiculous tricks, like an appearing cane. I was like 11 and I did this thing where a cane appears and went pop, pop my eye out. I had, I had to work. Yeah. It was like, I scratched my cornea. I couldn't, I couldn't use my, but, but that, I think that was part of the reason that I never went into like the illusions or the – I didn't have magic kits. I had a deck of cards and then things that you would find laying around. So I think part of the magic that I love is when you're using real things in real places and that is the magic.

And it's essentially learning a movement till you get to it and you have to make it look as natural as possible when you're doing that it looks it's it looks insane because it doesn't make any sense like i'm just seeing you know you're moving fast you're just i had a guy just flying from l just to, he's like so incredible. And his name is Andrew Frost. He is amazing. And he, I just spent time with him just so I could sit there and have him tweak me because he's so brilliant. He has like that mindset of a card sheet, but he's a magician, but he's so precise.

It's like, I want you to watch everything that I do. And I want you to pick apart everything. You know, because I also don't get the opportunity to sit there and do card tricks all day and all night because I do these other things. So it's like I lose time on doing this thing that I love doing because I'm like, oh, how can I learn how to do this thing with the snake? Right, right. But like these guys that just do this day and night are the best in the world. And they perform for magicians because a magician can appreciate the amount of time and work that goes into what they're seeing. When you see it, you just see a simple trick, right? But when I see a magician perform, I'm like, oh, this guy's put 10 000 hours in on that move

how many hours you think you put it on that simple trick oh my oh that's my whole that's been forever that's my whole life that's like the that started that started with my best friend who's my mentor also that that showed me the correct way to do it and i was like 18 and then i think i've he i was with him at a card thing in Cleveland a week ago and he still corrected me. Yeah. Wow. After all these years, he's like, Oh, I forgot to tell you, you need to do this. Oh, wow. But it's so strange. But that's like, to me, it's a constant learning curve, you know? And it's fun to discover all these secrets because they're not readily available.

You have to search hard for the good stuff. And then you have to put the work in. Yeah. And then me, and my friend doesn't perform ever. He just loves the technical part of it. But then I have to now learn how to perform it. And then I go out and fail over and over and over and over. And then eventually it starts to become decent.

And then eventually it becomes something I'm happy about. I mean, I'm never fully happy. I'm always like tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, you know. Did you film yourself initially to make sure that you couldn't see yourself doing these things? No, I like to put myself in the hot seat and I like to just go out there perform it and then fail and then learn from that but but yeah it would be better to set up a camera film yourself watch it a thousand times sure in the beginning did you have a lot of people that busted you like I see what you're doing well the good thing about being a magician is nobody knows where it goes so at the end you can always curve and that's like jazzing so even if you're off you can still go you can always curve and that's like jazzing. So even if you're off,

you can still go. You can improvise. Yeah. Which is probably like fighting, right? Like you're, you're in a weak position, but you can.

Right. You can adjust. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I think makes a magician really great as well. Hmm. The ability to. Yeah.

To just keep turning. Yeah. Turning, you know. Interesting. And if you have enough tricks up your sleeve, you can almost like have them believe that the first couple ones...

Well, or it's all part... Yes. The outcome, yeah. Yeah. But I fumbled before, but then I just keep going. It's like bombing on stage. Or like fucking a joke up. Yeah, but bombing on stage or like fucking a joke up and yeah but bombing on stages that's where you learn that's like where you learn the most so every time i've been on stage and

everything is like a disaster that's always the biggest learning curve and then usually i get energized and then you really yeah most certainly yeah that's with comedy as well because like you realize like god that sucked i I got to get better. I got to figure out what I did wrong and then never do that thing that I did wrong again and figure out a way to make it better. Right. And the way you play in little venues and you repetitiously do the comedy act and you keep the stuff that you like, you tweak it, you work on it for like a year.

That's what I think a good magician does is It's the exact same formula as a comedy show. How many different card tricks do you think you know? I could go on forever. Is that sort of the foundation of your magic, is card tricks? I just love the way they feel. It's like a digital fixation almost. Just the way they feel on the hand, the size,

the shape. This must be something you have to practice constantly. Yeah, it's day and night. That's all you do. So you practice still to this day? All the time. Wow. By yourself most of the time? Yeah. I mean, I'm holding cards all the time. Yeah, always. Do you ever leave the house without cards? No. No way. Never. By yourself most of the time? Yeah. I mean, I'm holding cards all the time. Yeah. Always. Do you ever leave the house without cards?

No. Wow. No way. Never. Even if I came with you to do the cold plunge, the deck of cards would be right next to it. Really? Yeah. And I always still wake up with cards stuck all over my face, my neck, all the time.

Yeah. All the time. Wow. That's crazy. You have to be married. That's so nuts. You have to be married to card tricks. And that's the only way to be as good as you're at. Well, I think it's also like anybody could have access to a deck of cards,

and there's so much material and so much that you can learn. Yeah. I might take some of that. Get some of that. Here you go. Thank you. Yeah. I'm going to take some of that. Get some of that. Here you go. Thank you. Thanks. Cheers, sir.

Cheers. Always good to see you. Yeah, you too. I'm always blown away. I'm always blown away because when I see you and you do card tricks, I always think, next time I see him, I'm going to pay attention and I'm going to figure it out. Nope. Did you get it?

I think I forgot to switch the camera, but I'm watching him do that in a side angle from zoomed in. Couldn't see it. Four times in a row, couldn't see it. And even if you slow it down? No, I'm watching the guy. He just said Andrew Foss. I'm watching him do a trick.

He's amazing, right? I'll show you. It's in slow motion. I did it frame by frame. I kind of know where he did the one switch. He's incredible. But you don't know where it went. What's it?

I'll do it. I'll just bring it here. It's called Too Many Aces for those that are just watching. Okay. So I'm sure you've probably assumed already. If you had cut me a queen, we would have ended up with like 12 aces. First, have a look. This guy is so good. with like 12 aces. Let's have a look. This guy is so good.

Yeah, four aces. But having 12 aces, right, would be inconvenient because then you couldn't fit them inside the box, you couldn't do anything like that, right? And you end up with just the four aces. And the real thing is, is if you lose track of what aces come from what card, because then you can't put them back together and you end up with this useless deck of cards, which

is just full of aces the entire time. And then yeah, you just can't, can't put them back, which is why it's important to do this. What? What the hell? And that way, you can put them back inside the box and you don't get this useless... what by the way that's the least of what he does I mean he is a phenomenon but there's lots of guys by the way that are just mind-blowing with their sleight of hand how many guys do that in poker games oh a lot it must be a lot of guys yes of course yeah you know that i don't know that i don't play poker you know but there's tons of machines i met a guy i met a guy once i was uh

the first time i met mike tyson i went to his hotel at the Trump International. And I was doing magic to everybody. You know, because Muhammad Ali used to do magic. And he taught Mike how to levitate and stuff like that. So Mike was kind of into the whole magic thing. And I started showing him all these things. And a guy pulled me aside. And he was like, you know, I do some stuff too.

And I was like, what do you do? He's like, well, I gamble. You know, sometimes I go out with these guys and I win a lot of money. I was like, so what are you doing? And he said that when they're playing in New York, he would go to all the delis near where they were playing. And he would take the decks of cards that they sell at the deli and he would swap them for identical decks of cards that they sell at the deli, and he would swap them for identical decks of cards that were all completely marked but invisible. So now he would go into the game, let's say on Upper Park Avenue, and as they were about to play, he'd say, wait, I don't trust the house deck. Can you get new decks? And the person whose house it was would

call one of the local delis and the delis would come up with a bunch of decks and now all of the decks that were sealed and everything they would crack them open put them into play and he knew every card oh my god yeah now how does but that by the way that and that's not even a sleight of hand version of cheating but think about a guy that's doing crazy sleight of hand. Now, how are cards marked? There's a million ways. There's even something you could do with a red back card that's called daub, where you put some sort of like a red waxy thing that's almost invisible.

But if you have a contact lens over the pupil that has a little red spot in the middle, you could see it better. But there's lots of ways to mark decks. I mean, I'm not going to get into those, but there is a lot of easy ways to mark a deck. I'll show you after. Okay. How come you don't want to get into it now? No, no, no. I get in trouble. You get in trouble?

Yeah, yeah. Also, about other magicians? Oh, yeah. I understand. Yeah, yeah. Also about other magicians? Oh, yeah. I understand. Yeah. But I worked for two years on a system. So these decks have a system that's amazing. Can I see that?

Yeah. That was kind of like as a kid, I had one deck of cards. And when I would drop it on the subway, I'd have to pick it up. And I would have like a, it doesn't feel right. And I would carry it everywhere for years. And my dream was to one day have unlimited decks and then when i started to make my own decks that was kind of like highlight you make your own decks yeah yeah are these yours yeah are these marked these ones are mine that i have in my show in vegas i put my name on it so they keep it and are these marked? Yeah, those ones are.

But by the way, I never use it in magic. I just like it. I just like to work. Because when I was young, I would go to the magic store, Tannins, and we couldn't afford the marked decks, of course. But they looked really special. It was called Magic See-Through-The-Card Deck. And they were so expensive. So I started selling my decks of cards that I worked diligently on the system for years

and magicians would have them and not know that they were even marked. And then I would see magicians, I'd say, oh, hold up the card and I would tell them what it was. So this is a marked deck right here. Can I open this? Yeah.

Okay. And if I open this- You want me to open it? Here, I can open it. No, I don't trust you. I don't trust you. I'm fucking, you're going to swap it out for something else. Oh, that's a good way.

Yeah, that'll do. I don't trust this motherfucker. The Google images from our cards is kind of interesting. There's a few fun ways they do it. Yeah, this one I think is very clever, though. I think this one's marked in the actual corner where you can see the art, I guess, is done that way. Oh, in the number two. I don't like it, though, because those decks, I don't like if you leave them behind, they can see that there's something.

This has the contact lens one, so when you put the lens on, you can see it. Yeah, exactly. Jamie, you're so good at finding everything. I think a lot of card cheats are going to be really angry at me, by the way. You think so? Well, card cheats, they're dirty people. They should be angry. They should be angry that we're onto them.

Okay, I'm going to see if there's anything I can see. No, you won't see it. But take out the two jokers on the top and bottom. Why? What is that? Is that a joker? Yeah, a joker I designed. Me swallowing a sword.

Oh, God. You can just take that out. Take those out. Yeah, and take out the top two cards. No. I don't trust you. No, you don't. I'm the most marked.

Do you trust him? Yeah, I do. I trust this motherfucker. Okay. Now, what does this say? Nothing. It says... What does it say?

Well, it reads... Is it real? No, but then turn it upside down. What does that say? Oh, it reads. Is it real? No, but then turn it upside down. What does that say? Magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I see. Okay, so this is marked.

Yep. But if you show it to me that way, I can see it. But if you hold it up the other way, then I can't, you know. There's no way I can see this. I need to study this shit. I broke my glasses. See how it gets figured out, Jamie? I mean, you'd have to know what he did.

Well, I feel like there's a way I can stare at it long enough. No, you're not. No way. Nope, you're not going to get it. You don't know what he looks like? Yeah, you're not going to get it. No way. Uh-uh.

No chance. Zero chance. I hope you did, though. No. I don you did, though. No. I don't see jack shit. But the way you could really look is you put... Oh, wait a minute. I see that the bottom is different.

Nope. But the way you look at it is if you put two cards side by side, because otherwise you can't tell. Okay. I'm putting two cards side by side here. What do I notice that's different? By the way, even from here I can see the top card. This one right here?

Yep, even from here. I don't see shit. Damn it. Yeah, you're not going to. No. So you could tell just by looking at it. What is this right here? Two of spades.

Jesus Christ. How? And any, if you brought this to Vegas, any competent dealer would recognize that that's a marked card? I don't think so. No, because I brought it to Steve Forty, who's like the best card sheet magician. And he didn't recognize it? He said it was a very advanced and really good system was this one queen of hearts damn son how about this one here.

Three of diamonds? God damn it. But you know, I'm going to show, no, but after, I'll give you a little, no, but after I'll give you

a little hint. After the show. Not on camera, yeah. No way. I'm telling everybody. I'm going to get on Instagram. You're going to,

no, you're not. You absolutely won't. But you, but you, yeah, give him the deck. I don't know.

Really? Okay. Hold on a second. You've left. Hold on a second. I'm going to bring this over. absolutely won't but you but you oh yeah give him the deck i don't know really okay hold on a second i'm gonna bring this well here this deck also here okay by the way i worked on this for years should i give one little hint no sure no i'm gonna give one little hint what is the little the ace is going to give one little hint. What is the little hint? The ace is the easiest one to identify. The ace is the easiest one to identify. Yeah, that's my only hint. Okay.

I see nothing but patterns. I worked with my very good friend who's a great magician, Doug, on this for two years. Is it Magic Eye? Yeah, yeah, my guy my guy. No I mean like is it uh when you magic eye when you blur it out becomes the thing? That has a little bit to do with it by the way. All right. That Jamie that's Jamie that's really good that you just got that. I have another deck as well but it's in the car but i have another deck jamie's also got a touch of the tism you can see some things you're seeing something it's a spectrum he's got a he's got a sense he's got a different mind it works different he can

see things that other people can't see i can't really unfocus my eyes though but yeah i don't know what it would be by the way as a magician i never ever use it in my card tricks but it was just such a fun thing to work on i mean that that one's a really hard one that you're looking at yeah they're all fucking hard they look exactly the same it's just so interesting to me that there's something that is so clear to you that is yeah but when i teach you this you're gonna you're gonna be like whoa okay it'll make perfect sense in the podcast right now just like it's it you can cut it out or go in the other room just no i'm not doing this on camera no way he doesn't trust you you go in the other room just to trust you. No, I'm not doing this on camera. No way. He doesn't trust you.

So you go in the other room and talk about it and come back. I actually, I'm sure you would, but still, I would feel weird. Okay, well, I'm seeing something here. Hold on. I want to give one more hint, but I'm not going to. Give me that hint. Give me that hint. Don't do it. Come on, son.

No, I'm not going to give the hint now. Give me that hint. Oh, wait a minute. Come on, son. No, I'm not going to give the hint now. Give me that hint. Oh, wait a minute. I'm seeing something. I'm seeing something. What are you seeing? I'm seeing a disruption. There's something that's different about this.

Yes. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see something. Yeah. God damn it. What is it?

And you're going to lose it right right away i can see a very specific there's very specific lines that go up and down like this that i see that that are clear and if i look at a certain way i could see it clearly so you're blurring your vision you can blur your vision is that what you thought i had it and i was like ah this is gonna be a diamond oh and i see lines at the bottom. So I see something. Not at the bottom. Two. No, not at the bottom? What is this?

Nope. Five. Wrong. I have two. Wrong. I thought it was a diamond. It's not. It's a spade.

Okay. I'm an idiot. No. No, it's an advanced. I think it's pretty advanced. Oh, it's fucking advanced. Shit. I am.

I'm doing all kinds of weird things with my eyes trying to pick up patterns. But there are different. There's some different. 100%. There's a different pattern to this one on my right than there is to the one on my left. That's true, but it's almost imperceptible. But sure, if you can blur your vision and then think about it. But there's clear lines on this that go up that are slightly different.

They go at an angle. There's two very clear lines on this one on my right hand that don't exist on the one on my left. And you can see it without your glasses on? Yes. I can see it better without my glasses on. I'm going to get killed in the magic world, by the way. I see. There's a very clear pattern on this one, too, that exists that doesn't exist on this one.

But, God, you have to look at it. It's so weird to see it. But I do see it. But, you know, lots of magic. If I'm looking at it kind of abstractly, I can see that pattern. Wow. What is it wow lots of magic is like logic puzzles so it's like you have to break something apart in every single possible direction to figure out a solution

god it just makes me so i mean i don't play cards but cards, but if I did, I'd be so uncomfortable. Because I'd be like, how do I know? How do I know that I'm not getting fucking robbed? There's a lot of guys that cheat. I would imagine. Yeah. You think, like in a lot of these high-level poker games where you get a lot of dorks that have a lot of money and they want to be high rollers. Yes.

And they get robbed by people. Come on. I mean, you've heard about this. Oh, yeah. People get in trouble for it all the time. Yeah. Didn't Phil Ivey go to a casino and he found a flaw in the way the cards were printed that nobody could see? I heard something like that.

And he made millions of dollars and they wanted to take the money back. Well, how could they say that, though, when he didn't do anything wrong? Just because he saw something? That seems insane. Did he tell people? Is that what it is? He didn't say anything wrong it just because you saw something that seems insane did he tell people he's not saying anything how the fuck do they know they said that he was able to detect a slight misprint where the pattern was slightly off he could detect it and then use it to play god your vision must be so important for a player like that. Like if you're slowly getting a map. No, I think you can adjust.

I think you can adjust. I think you can solve around it. Yeah, but I mean as your vision goes shitty, as you get older, it would be harder and harder, right? You'd have to get contact. Sure, yeah. This show is boring as fuck because I am just staring at cards. I'm never going to figure it out.

But I do detect that there's something going on. I can see when I blur my eyes, I can see that there's discernible patterns that are in certain cards that aren't in other cards. If I do teach it to you, you cannot. I won't tell anybody except Brian Cowan. He tells everybody. No, I'm just kidding. it. I won't tell anybody except Brian Cowan. He tells everybody. No, I'm just kidding.

No, I won't tell anybody. I promise. I promise. I'll tell Jamie. Yeah, no, no. I'm going to teach both of you. I'm not going to isolate Jamie. Jamie's a vault.

He's not going to tell anybody. Plus, Jamie will figure it out anyway. You think so? He'll find the secrets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jamie can find anything.

So you didn't have a podcast to- No, he'd find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jamie can find anything. So you didn't have a podcast to- No, he'd find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would find it, yes. I'm sure. Interesting. I definitely see differences in the lines when you look at it a specific way. I just don't know what I'm looking for or what I'm seeing.

By the way, the deck is called the White Lions. Ooh. Why is that? I don't know. Those are White Lions in here? Is to do with it just on the box yeah anyway what does that have to do with that i'm not telling you that's a misdirection probably it's not to do with lines oh wrong you are well we'll discuss it i'm not going to discuss it now i'm looking for a lion in here now no you're not going to see a lion what am i going to say Looking for a lion in here now.

No, you're not going to see a lion. What am I going to say? This coffee is good, by the way. Black Rifle. It's the best. It's good. How many different kinds of marked cards are there? There is so many. Yeah?

Yeah. But those are used by cheats. Right. Not really by magicians. They're not necessary in magic. God, how does someone know? If you're a person who's like, I enjoy playing cards, like you're going to get fucking robbed, right? Well, there's also people that can mark the deck as they play.

Oh? Of course. How? I'm not telling. Oh, come on. No, I can't. But there's people that as they're playing, they mark the whole deck, but it's imperceptible. I believe you, but I don't want to.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I do believe you because I've seen you do things that I can't believe you're doing, and you're just doing them right in front of me. But these guys that cheat, it's very different because they work on three moves for years and years and years, and they are flawless. So if you're going to like a local card game. That guy, Andrew Frost, his technique and the stuff that he's doing, I think it's card sheet level. Right.

And he's doing it on camera. And he's doing it where you're like zooming in, slowing it down. You still can't see it. Yeah. And it's way better in person. I can imagine. But it's just, it seems like I would never want to play cards with people because i i'd get fucked like unless i was covering my cards like a fucking yeah there's no way to tell no way

and a good cheat won't win oh like a pool hustler you'll'll have that person win. Oh. Yeah, good cheat's not going to win. He'll lose every time. Like, oh, that guy's a bad player. Let's have him again. Interesting. Like a pool hustler. Yeah. You lose a little bit, and then.

No, you always lose. Once in a while you win, but that guy wins. Oh, so that guy's your partner. Yeah. Interesting. So how does anybody not suspect him? Well, he wins just enough. It's not like an obvious thing.

Like a pool hustler. Yeah, in Vegas, behind every table, it says we have the right to refuse anybody for any reason. Because if they suspect that you're cheating somehow they just boot you well vegas will do that even if you're not cheating no even if you make two small bets and then one big bet they're like oh watch that guy really yeah of course what if he does a psycho and just like i feel like a big bet's coming on yeah but they don't need that they you know they need time they need people are going to play long and steady because that's how they make their money. Dana White is a crazy blackjack player.

Like, crazy. Like, last time I saw him, we left. It was like 2 o'clock in the morning. He was down $600,000 playing blackjack. He won it all back and won $600,000. Wow. He played until like 6 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, if you have the backing, like if you could back yourself over and over, then that also

helps. Meaning if you're not afraid to lose a certain amount of money because you know that you can keep backing yourself, that's a big advantage. But he's busted. I mean, he's gone. He's lost millions. Yeah, I'm sure. Like one millions as well.

Yeah. But he's a real junkie. It's wild to watch. Like the crazy look they get in their eyes. It's so terrifying. Because you see the numbers like, oh my God, this is so much money. Like, what are you doing? This is so insane.

But you have to play as though there's no money. You have to play the exact way you would play if you were playing for free. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. You have to. Well, I guess when you're as rich as he is as well, like you really have to play for a lot of money just to get that juice,

to feel it. Like for 50 bucks for him, this is nothing. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. He has to play for 50,000. 50,000 a hand is like this is real money. Now we're playing real money. And then when he wins, he's probably still like, oh, that wasn't enough.

You know, football player Taylor Lewin was with him. And Taylor, he listens to Dana and Dana like bets for him. And we were talking about it. We went to Shane Gillis' comedy show. was with him and Taylor he listens to Dana and Dana like bets for him and we were talking about it we went to Shane Gillis's comedy show and then afterwards he's like we're gonna go bet with Dana white we're gonna go gamble oh my god I'm going let's go I want to see this because these guys are psychos and I always knew that Dana bet crazy numbers so we went down there and he was down a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in the first five minutes I was like oh

anxiety you're sitting there watching. You're fucking freaking out. And then he won, and he was up $60,000, and he quit. So I think he won like $65,000 or something like that. But it's just like watching him down $120,000 in five minutes. It's like, oh, my God, my hands are clammy. I'm like, fuck this. This is so crazy.

I got really lucky once. What was it? The Palms? The Fatidas? The Palms? Yeah. So I was filming my TV show. And then at the end, I was like, oh, let's go play some craps.

And they had a bet on the craps table, which was called the fire bet. And you have to open and close each number before you crap out. Right? I don't know how to play craps. So you have to hit like a four. Then you have to close a close each number before you crap out, right? I don't know how to play crap. So you have to hit like a four, then you have to close a four before you get a seven, then you have to hit a five, then close a five, then a six, then an eight, then a nine, then a ten, before you throw a seven. So it's very unlikely that you're going to do that with all of those numbers.

So it's a great bet for the casino because nobody ever hits it. And I was playing at the low stakes table, throwing the dice, but I said, oh, can I throw dice? And they were like, no. And then the pit boss, she called upstairs, David Blaine wants to throw dice, can you give approval? And they said, yeah. So she said, okay, take your shirt off and joke, ha ha ha.

But yeah, pull your sleeves up, you can throw the dice and keep your hand not out of the table. And I just for the hell of it, put a bet down for everybody at the table, including the dealers. So I put like a bet that they would all win. I think like five grand or 10 grand if I hit. So I was throwing the dice. Not, I didn't, nobody even, the fire bet never came out at the Palms ever. I was throwing the dice and it was hours.

And by the way, I think the Super Bowl champion table was over there and they were all screaming, going crazy at the craps table next to us, the high stakes one, right? I kept throwing and all of a sudden the dealer says, I mean, the pit bull says, stop. And I was like, what? Because Cause you know, I was winning on hard eight and all these double fours, all these bets are like, and they said, uh, you just hit the fire bet. And everybody at the table, I was like, what does that mean? They said, everybody at the table just won five or 10, I think 10,000. And all of a sudden everybody started jumping up and down and going crazy it was like pretty amazing they had to stop the casino that whole area they shut down they had to review for two hours to make sure i wasn't switching dice or doing anything funny

and then everybody had to fill out a w-9 and then everybody got paid. But it was pretty amazing. Did they stop you from playing? Or did they let you keep playing? No, after that I was done. But it was two hours of dice roll. But then they removed that bet from the palms. I think. That's what I was told. Wow.

Yeah. I just got lucky. I would not trust you. No, I got lucky. I don't believe you right now. I don't fucking believe a word you're saying. No, I did. I promise.

I got lucky. I'm telling you. It was like a... Yeah, sure. I'm telling you. Sure you did. I got lucky now. I don't fucking believe it. I did I promise I got lucky I'm telling you it was like oh yeah sure I'm telling you sure you did I did But that's the problem with someone who's so good at sleight of hand But you could do things with cards in front of people and they go no he wasn't cheating It was a spade and then all sudden it was a diamond But you obviously did do sleight of hand when you did that trick, right? How do I know that you can't do that with dice?

You surely could. Well, I can't, but there are people that can. Must be people that can. I told you about last time. Yeah, but not me. Because that's not your area of expertise, cards. Spend 10 hours a day throwing dice against the craps table.

But if you went to a card game, people would immediately be like, what? Yeah, and as a magician, it's a lose-lose. Because if you win, you cheated. And if you lose, you're a bad magician. So I just don't play. But I would be so tempted to just see if I could get away with it. Well, I did when I was like 18. Yeah, I would be so tempted just to see if I could get away with it

under the scrutiny of all the cameras in Vegas. Not trying to rip them off. I would like to do it like say, hey, I'm going to rip you off. Please watch this. You don't have to give me the money. Yeah, you could do that. I would like to see that. But even just card camp, people that count cards.

They banned Dana White from the Palms because he won too much money playing blackjack. And so he pulled the UFC from the Palms. Really? Yeah. Was he counting cards? No. Just playing. Really?

Yeah. He just won like $7 million in a night. Wow. Fuck you. You're banned. Which is crazy because if he lost $7 million, they'd be fine with it. They'd be thrilled. But you can win $7 million and you can lose $7 million.

But I was told in most casinos the profit is from slot machines. Oh, yeah. I heard that too. Yeah. Which is crazy. Because that's just rigged. I mean, that's just a fucking computer. I mean, it's just tempting.

But that's also this weird human instinct to just keep pressing the button and hoping it wins. Try it again. Try it again. it again you know i mean it's not choice it's not you're not making decisions you're just pressing buttons you know what i mean yeah like scratching six numbers yeah it's which is also super addictive yeah yeah it's just so fascinating to me that people can do things right in front of your face and they tell you they're doing it you still can't see like what the fuck is happening here oh yeah that's you yeah well the funny thing now though is it's very different because in the old days not everybody

had a video camera right so you could just do whatever and not worry about the angles this that yeah now when you do magic you have to be hyper sensitive because everybody's filming from everywhere now right so you know it changed the the way you could perform you have to be better you're not just better but you have to think about things that you've never thought about because the human eye can't see it right the human eye is worse than the first cell phone camera ever. It's just so low resolution. The image is upside down. You have a big optical nerve in the middle.

So the eye doesn't really see. The brain paints a picture. Right. The video camera records. Then you can see. And so if anybody's doing something that has a flaw, it's caught. Right. So it changes magic a lot. But yet you could still do it you just yeah you just

have to you have to think about all angles at all times and be hyper aware of everything from behind from here from here here you know anything what you do is so interesting because you do that and then you do things like kissing cobras, which is like there's no trick there. That is not a trick. That is learning. Yeah, but learning from an expert that does it over and over. So there is a technique to it. I'm just on a rush.

Yeah, but it's not a trick. Like you fucking kissed a cobra. It's not a rubber cobra. It's not. You know what I'm saying? Two, by the way. Yikes. Two different ones. Yeah. Listen, David, it's always a know i'm saying like two by the way yikes two different ones yeah listen david

it's always a thrill to talk to you you're a fucking amazing person and uh what you do is so fascinating to me i don't want to learn it but i'm so blown away i want to end this podcast because i want you to show me how to count cards and uh and tell me when does this uh show come out uh well then the national geographic i think it's in like six months or something. We're still filming episodes. Nothing as dangerous as the Kissing the Cobra anymore, hopefully. And yeah, I think it'll be...

I think it's interesting. Well, just the clips you show me are amazing. It's crazy. I mean, I don't want to give it all away, but you showed me a lot of wild shit and it's fucking insane. And please tell me when it comes out. By the way, you didn't come see my show. I't come see your show i didn't know when it was in vegas well you didn't tell me well you have to come at one point when is it it's at the win and you have to see it when is it how often you do it uh it's only like a few days a month because

it's it's it has this magic and everything in it but it has the physical stuff as well so i can't overdo it but that show isn't gonna last for a long time because physically it's not possible so you really should come see I will when are you doing it again are you there on November December 15th no it's like end of the month always end of the month yeah but it's a few days per month so you okay you should really see it you tell okay there it is it's up there so I will figure out when i can get to vegas and i will do it yes i'll try to do it in line but it's a show that i can't keep doing for much longer so i really would love it if you did come god i hope i don't go to one where you get hurt

it's very possible i don't want to no but yeah i know but i know but that's the part that's the stuff that keeps i will come we'll figure it out, and I will come. Okay, so then we'll discuss this. Okay, all right. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you very much. Thank you. My pleasure.

All right, bye, everybody.