The Joe Rogan Experience - #783 - John Dudley

Episode Date: April 12, 2016

John Dudley is a pro archer and host of "Nock On TV." Check out his podcast "Nock On" available on Spotify.

Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum. Yes! We're live, John Dudley. Hey, buddy. Put the phone away and let's get poppin'. No, I have some important subjects that I wanted to vent about. Oh, did you put them on a little note? Yeah, I got a notepad.

I'm pretty good about doing homework, so I love your podcast. So listening through, there was crap you talked about. I was like, oh yeah, I got to get on. Oh, you got to bring that up? Yeah. So John Dudley, world famous archery coach. He's got a TV show.

He's got a podcast. Found out about you because of the TV show first, the podcast second, which I became obsessed with. If you're into archery, like I know some of these people that are listening to this podcast,

they get into archery because it sounds fun. Like, ooh, maybe I need a new hobby. And then you go down that crazy rabbit hole. Well, when I found you, you're down the rabbit hole like a few light years. You're gone, man. I'm freaking Johnny Depp down in that deep. Johnny deep.

You're gone. You're gone down the archery rabbit hole. I had no idea the rabbit hole goes so deep. But let's show this video. We're going to play this video. This is before John came up here. Now, I just need to explain how difficult it is just

to even hit a target at 100 yards. This is at 100? Yeah. Okay, 100 yards is the length of a football field. I'm going to shut that thing off. Just shut the volume off there. 100 yards is the length of a football field and for archery it's just it's so hard to hit something as wide as your wingspan at 100 yards for the average person and so john made this ridiculous shot on uh one

of the gorilla kettlebells from on it yeah this was uh so we'll play this here unbelievable challenge i've got joe rogan's favorite workout tool i've got an on it kettlebell primal and kong is gonna have to make a decision whether he's gonna let this arrow pass or not i'm gonna try to put an arrow through that two-inch handle right there. And actually, at this distance of 100 yards, and the angle that arrow has to come in, I bet it's even smaller. This is going to be an unbelievable challenge. Definitely going to have to defy the odds.

My idea is to put them right here on this shelf, and I've got a curtain right behind so hopefully it'll stop the arrow but also let it do its thing so that we can capture all this on tape right at dark. I'm gonna put an arrow through a two inch gap in the handle if Kong lets it pass There is check it out. It's so ridiculous that that actually went in that little hole at 100 yards did you have to try more than one attempt? This was actually my first shot with everything set up because I had to do a little bit of homework. What I did was I knew I couldn't see the hole in the handle good enough to aim at it,

so I actually sighted my bow end to i hit four and a half inches high from kong's face so i literally aimed right at kong's shiny face and i had my bow sighted in to hit four and a half inches high to make it through the gap that's insane yep yeah my wife's filming right here sharon was running the iphone but i had four cameras out so we could get some cool angles and stuff and i wanted to wait till night so that that lighted knock could give a little bit more wow factor for everyone watching this is such a ridiculous shot but this is 100 yards thanks to the on it people too for that was awesome getting that thing look at that yeah it's pretty crazy there you go joe how awesome is that it's pretty amazing and you can watch that on youtube it just went up uh on youtube on the knock on archery yeah not did you guys put it up too we'll put a link up okay jamie just put if you can tweet it and i'll retweet it when we get a chance

um that that's insanely hard to do. I mean, I never did any archery whatsoever until about three years ago. I mean, maybe I might have done it. I think I might have done it in the Boy Scouts. Yeah, everyone says that. You know what's funny is every person that finds out, one, they're in disbelief that there's actually, like, professional archers. But then they say, oh, I tried archery, back in school one time in gym and I loved it. But then everyone says, but I hit my arm.

They like remember that they tried it once and they loved it, but they hit their arm. That's what they always say. Yeah, I always thought you had to wear those wrist things. Like when I would see people that were shooting bows without those wrist things, I'm like, they're like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. These people are crazy. They're loose people. Well, the way some people shoot, it is like riding a bike without a helmet.

You peel some skin off if you do it the wrong way. Well, that's what I've been going into over these last couple of days with you, and it's one of the more fascinating aspects about this. I don't want to call it a sport because I think archery is a lot of different things. It's a discipline for sure, but when it's done correctly, in a lot of ways, it's almost like a martial art. It's like a weapon art.

In martial arts, when you see someone do something, like if someone's really good at judo or something like that, when they execute a throw and it's this perfect position and perfect technique it's beautiful you know there's like a beauty to it and when you see an an archer like i was talking to you about that this when i was watching and trying to get it in my head this sort of flow that you have in what you do it's super similar in a lot of ways. And something that I really didn't predict, like, I guess I just always assumed that I kind of know what something is, if it seems pretty

straightforward, like, oh, yeah, you pull the string back, and then you let the arrow fly. Pretty straightforward. Like, I think that's most people's idea of what archery is. But then when you really pay attention to the technical aspects of all the different stuff that's going on and all the different things you think about and how you literally cannot have anything on your mind other than all the technique involved, your foot placement, your technique in standing, your breathing, how you're drawing it back, the position of your front shoulder, the position of your rear elbow, how you're pulling, how do you respond after the arrow's released? There's so much going on that when you put it all together, it leaves no room for homework.

There's no room for relationship bullshit. There's no room for taxes. There's no room in there, man. If you want to make a nice shot like that like i guarantee you if we could have a brain scan of your head the second you release that arrow at a hundred yards to go in that two inch gap there would be nothing in there other than what you did it would there would be no other no other cells would be fired up no no that's one thing and actually like yesterday when we were shooting there towards the end of the day, you got to the point where you were almost, your mind was clear. It's almost like for me, you know, your family came home, like things were winding down. You knew that like work was over and we, it was like right before dark. And like, for me, I love shooting at first light and at last light, because it seems like that's when I'm not really worried about someone texting me or calling me.

I'm not worried about a problem at home. And I shoot with a clear mind and I, I'm way more efficient at my practice. And it is a form of meditation. I mean, it's like you said, it's an art. And if you're clouded, then then you it will reflect that on the target I mean it's like if your arrows are in one spot then you know you have a single focus and it's almost like the more those arrows are spread that's a representation of how many other thoughts and distractions you have going in your mind I, and I look at it that way when I shoot.

I'm trying to narrow everything down to just a movement. And you look at good golfers, the ones that swing easy and it just literally looks like flow, they're such good strikers and they're so much more efficient. When you see people that are trying to be robotic and and almost like hack something then it's like too systematic you know you see someone like that does professional karate or something if they're in a forms competition if they're like real rigid going around it's just not what it's meant to be i mean it's supposed to be a dance it's supposed to be like literally a mental musical that's playing and if your mind is clear then it's it's a form of meditation it really is no question about it and that same

state of total complete concentration exists in a bunch of different disciplines and i you know finding it in archery now wreck or i should say recognizing it i definitely haven't hit it but finding that seeing it and recognizing that sort of super high level flow that comes into play when someone's excellent at what they do um i've seen that in pool i've seen that watching professional pool players like um A perfect example, you were talking about striking the ball really hard as a golfer. There's a guy named Francisco Bustamante. He's one of the best pool players in the world.

He's from the Philippines. Francisco Bustamante has the most ridiculous break. You would think, if you watch his break shot, that he weighs 400 pounds and has arms like tree trunks. You watch that break, it's weighs 400 pounds and has arms like tree trunks. You watch that break.

It's just blah, blah, blah. Those balls go flying. If it was just a close-up on the triangle. If you watch him, you just watch the speed of the ball, and it's effortless. The way he does it is just he has this perfect amount of timing and flow. Here you can see him do it here. This isn't him. This is a different guy. If you just look up Bustamante, Francisco Bustamante breaking. That's what it says. It says that there? Well, this is definitely't him. This is a different guy. If you just look up a boost a Monte Francisco boost a Monte breaking

It says that there. Well, this is definitely not him. This is a some overweight gentleman Oh, that is him that is he was just it's a weird he's in a weird pose. Oh, that's what it is. Oh, okay It's just a weird pose. I thought when he was bent over I thought what that was his whole body Yeah, but he's a tiny guy body. He is loading up. Yeah. He is loading up. But he's a tiny guy. Like, if you see him physically, yeah. I mean, he might weigh, like, well, he's a little fat now. He's getting older. But when he was young, he probably weighed, like, 140 pounds.

But he was like, blah, blam. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, look at those balls. They go flying everywhere. No one's like him. Yeah, dog, get after it. Yeah, he's excited. I think he just won on the break or something like that.

Sweet. I've seen him make six balls on the break. Like, he's playing nine ball. He makes six balls on the break. He's got three balls to run out. He's just insanely good. But he's just a devastating player all around. And one of the things when you watch him play, and a lot of the Filipinos, Filipinos are so good.

There's so many really good filipino pool players but they have this gentle flow to what they're doing like everything is like like a ballet like effortless the weight of the cue does like all the work and everything looks like it looks like so flowing and like a dance yeah like a dance well the one thing that's so cool about, well, the one thing I'm really proud of as an archer is that I've got to the point where I have a platform to get people involved. And that was when I found out that you really liked my podcast, which the podcasts are totally geared around education and learning. You know, that's what that I got to a platform

to where I could help people. And now there's people like you that are coming in that never really have considered that whole world. And they come in and I look at people that like, you know, they go to the YMCA, they want to take like Tai Chi or they want to take yoga. They're looking for a stress-free type of hobby. And archery is a great sport for that. It's growing so much. I mean, Hollywood's embracing it, obviously, with a lot of the movies. But they're not portraying it as an art form. Yeah, and when that movie, what the hell is it called?

Hunger Games. Where's the girl? Hunger Games. Yeah. When she started becoming more famous, or that movie rather became popular, archery took off, didn't it? Oh, yeah. A lot of people got involved. Yeah.

I mean, you look at the Avengers. You look at Hunger Games. There's actually so many, even a lot of the sitcoms now. Obviously, crossbows are popular because of The Walking Dead. But when it comes to true archery, you just see a lot more archers coming in. Lord of the Rings, you know, Legolas was so popular because of that. And it's really such a cool sport. I mean, it's an Olympic sport.

And we actually have a phenomenal Olympic team here in the U.S. Our men's team is definitely going to be contenders for another medal. They were silver medalists last year. And so you were saying that compound bows are not in the Olympics? It's recurve bows? Yep, it's recurve bows. And that's, it's kind of a tradition. And honestly, it's a different style of art, but it's super graceful too. And I mean, I think it's, everyone has something that they like to do. Some people like the simplicity of a sport. It's like there's people that go and want to only have a longbow or they don't want sights. They just want the zen part of trying to pull back with no sights. But then there's also people like us that want to see how finite and accurate you can become.

So they like the techie side, which is where compound bows come in. They're much more efficient. And obviously the accuracy, as we've seen, is almost mind-blowing at times. Pretty mind-blowing. And it's also for a guy like me because I'm a gadget dork. So it combines both things. It combines the zen aspect of complete and total discipline and focus and looking at one task and drowning out the rest of the world. But it also

has like geeky stuff, like different kinds of sites. And this is a new cam that they just came out with. And these are different kinds of strings. And when you do this, it makes this better. And this is so much going on with it. Oh, yeah you know if i look back at the bows i started with and i've i've only been shooting professionally since 97 so i mean it's 19 years i guess it seemed i'm getting old now but um that's a long time the bows that i use then that are at the house you wonder how in the heck you shot that good with them. And actually, two months ago, I was at the Olympic headquarters, like the Olympic Museum. So they have all these awesome Olympic artifacts of like swim trunks people wear or like, you know, the javelin.

Got to see the original recurve bow of like J-Bars was actually on display. And they constantly change them. So if you're visiting the museum, you're not seeing the same things all the time. But you look at those pieces of equipment, the bikes, I mean, the bikes that people rode in the Olympic Games, it's like, holy cow, how are they that efficient? more impressive because now we've gotten so advanced in our equipment that it's easier to be at the level I think than 20 years ago because the equipment just wasn't there you know you know I almost wonder if those people didn't have to put in two or three times the time and be just that much more elegant at what they did because their equipment was almost a handicap back then. Could they perform the same kind of feats? Like could someone shoot an arrow like that? Like, was it a common thing to be able to shoot what you did

a hundred yards and shooting through that two inch opening into the kettlebell handle? Um, I'm sure there are people that were, there's a lot. There's actually a lot of people in archery now that are pushing this envelope. I mean, long distance shooting is becoming super popular. And to a lot of the real target archers that are out there that are listening to this podcast, see, when we go to a full FITA tournament, we shoot 30... What does FITA stand for? Well, now it's World Archery. So a World Archery event, if you shot a full target round, you would shoot arrows at 30 meters,

50 meters, 70 meters, and 90 meters. And I found out from you that 90 meters is 99 yards. It's one of the easiest metric conversions to do. You take the first number and you add it to the second. So if you got 40, take the four and add it behind the 40. You got 44 yards if it's 40 meters. So yeah, that's one of the one metric system that I never forget. But so 99 yards is where we would stand on the line and shoot at.

is where we would stand on the line and shoot at. And I think I told you that back in 2005, I was really focused on shooting well for the U.S. team when I was on the compound team, and there were several tournaments that I was really focused on. I knew that I was going to be shooting a national championship in Britain and Australia. I was going to be going. I think I shot one in Poland,

um, had one or two here in the U S but you know, that year, I think I logged, I mean, I shot two, three, 400 arrows a day and 90 meters for me, the further you go out, it's like putting a bigger microscope on things that you're doing wrong. You know, it's just like an art or if you look at a golfer that's making long putts, obviously it's magnifying mistakes in their swing. Or golfers that are drivers, you know, people that really are just sitting there trying to be accurate at the long game. It magnifies mistakes. So I really like shooting at longer distances I know you do too because it magnifies a mistake and you can correct it easier and it really helps bring things together but that year I shot well over 30,000 arrows at 99 yards during that's during training

insane yeah yeah I mean and there's professional archers. There's archers. I guarantee you there's archers right now somewhere that's preparing for a world cup event or something. And there's people that literally have calluses, thickard most weightlifters just from grabbing a hold of that release. Or, you know, I remember looking at an Olympic recurve shooters fingers one time. Um, and I remember his, his hands, his three fingers that he grabs a string with, it looked like a frog hand because the tips were so big from pulling blood. Oh, wow. Because, I mean, these guys, you look at the people that are at, like,

the Olympic training centers that are just there. They get up, they go eat, and then they shoot until five or six at night and they eat and then they go and do a weight training session. I bet you there's people that do a thousand arrows a day. So, I mean, you know, you can build up some stamina. Yeah. It's, it's really impressive. Um, but in saying that, I think with archery, it's, you know, you know that I'm really big into fitness as well. I credit my fitness and my story as an athlete prior to being an archer as part of what's helped me be successful. And there's a big difference between quantity and quality. There's a big difference between quantity and quality.

And a lot of people make the mistake, I think, with any sport of just trying to practice more or train more. And even weightlifters, you know, I see people that I go in the gym and they're like on one exercise. And then when I leave the gym in 50 minutes or an hour, they're like maybe done two different types of exercise. And it's just it's not efficient. You know, I think a lot of people as athletes sometimes miss the boat of quality over the quantity. And I was always that way. There's days where I go practice and I may only make 100 shots. But once I start realizing that I'm breaking down, I know to step away. Right. You don't try to push through it. Yeah. And I told

you that yesterday too. There was a time where I said, you know, if, if we're just out here getting repetition, I guess that's one thing, but we really don't need to do that aiming at a target. Well, you had a really good point too, about those bad shots and bad repetitions. You've got to get those out of your head. So it's not just that you made a bad shot. Now you have to make a bunch of good shots to try to get away from the effect of the bad shot. It's not as simple as the one bad shot. No, it's imprinting.

Yeah. I mean, it's an imprint. And I think with any type of athletic, and it's probably that way with fighters, I'm sure, too. If you get someone that's just really in a rhythm and in a flow, if all of a sudden they start making a mistake or doing something bad, as a coach, you try to get them back into that rhythm again so that you can weed out that imprint. rhythm again so that you can weed out that imprint you know and that's tough as an athlete sometimes you know people that and I'm sure for fighters you know you look at people that come out and have a disappointing loss it's almost like that's an imprint it is that's why that statement you're only as good as your last fight yeah so disturbing to fighters yeah and and that's one thing

one of the most important things that i learned as a competitive archer and i was i had a temper when i first started as a pro if i made a bad shot you know kind of like when you kind of put one in the pool when you put one in the pool and you were like frigging you were pissed off i that's how i would be on a on a on a tournament you know i would freaking ram my stabilizer into the ground so hard that i would crack it well my problem wasn't i just did it once i did it there's a really complicated geeky sort of an explanation folks but there's a certain type of release where it's a tension-based release

and that's what we're practicing with and difference between pulling a trigger and then allowing the tension but you have to hold the safety while you pull it back otherwise the arrow just boink it just flies i mean it's not like it's not like it's going to shoot anything it's going really slow but it lobs in a very embarrassing and just very disappointing way. Just boink, comes off your thing. As you're pulling the bow back, it goes boink. And you go, what the fuck? I did this again. I did it three times.

I did it yesterday and today. Oh, that's so funny. It's super embarrassing. But so that's, yeah, I was definitely annoying myself. Well, when I would make something like that that would really trigger me into a pissed off realm. I would let one mistake affect everything else after that. And a lot of athletes, the really good athletes that I watch in any sport, tennis players, golfers, the key is when you have a negative moment to not let it affect what hasn't

happened yet. So, um, a guy came up to me one time after I made a bad shot and he could tell I was getting hot. And he looked at me and he said, you know, the only arrows you have control on right now are the ones that are still in that quiver. And for me, it completely changed my outcome as a professional archer. And I've brought so much of what archery has done to me as an athlete into my life. And there's times where something really torques you off and you have to just look at, okay, everything I do from here on out is the only thing I have control on because that's history. There's no, I haven't figured out a way once that release glows, to actually grab that arrow and pull it back and stick it back in the quiver or put it back on the string. It's like a perfect representation of life.

You make a decision. If it was shit, you have to reset and say, what do I need to do with myself to get back on track in life? We make bad decisions at times, but how do we make a good decision to get back online? Yeah, it's management of the mind in a lot of ways. Yep. And it's all, one of the things that I also like about archery, love about archery, is that it's absolute. Like you can't pull that arrow back.

Like it's flying through the air and either it hits the bullseye or you missed. It's just, it is what it is. It doesn't care about where you live. It's just it is what it is. It doesn't care about where you live. It doesn't care who your uncle is. It doesn't care how much money you make a year. It doesn't care. The arrow is going to go. It's an absolute discipline.

And I think you coming from professionals or coming from sports rather, sports background, you played a lot of football. When you play sports, but especially insanely competitive sports, you learn where all of the edges are to be had. You learn where all the edges are to be had as far as technique, as far as conditioning, as far as all the different things you have to do in order to be successful and to win. And everyone knows that in most sports, especially in a physical sport like football, there's a fucking lot of work involved. There's not a single person who jumps off the bench who doesn't have any training whatsoever

and kicks ass in football. You just don't. You got to learn. And you have to learn how to move. You have to learn all of the different plays. You have to learn technique involved in different aspects of the sport. And I think coming from a competitive background in athletics, you've kind of translated that understanding of where all the problems are in archery. Because there's a lot of people that

are like, they don't have good coaching. And so they start off with a lot of really bad habits. And then they have to figure out a way to either break those habits, or they live with those habits, and then they do the best they can with this sort of limited path that they've carved in and they seem to not be able to escape. The same thing exists in martial arts. One of the hardest things for me when I used to teach was teaching people that already had a bad technique imprinted in their brain. Like they would have one way of throwing a kick or something like that and I would have to go, oh Jesus, I got to figure out a way to break this guy of this thing. Because as soon as he gets tired or as soon as he panics, the knee goes down, the foot goes up, he loses all the power, the hips don't engage. But if I could take a kid, like a five-year-old kid and show them that from

the beginning, their instinct would be to throw it correctly. The instinct, even when tired, knee comes up, hip turns over, body extends, full power. And those things are so hard to unlearn once you get like a bad path. That's why it's – I really do think that archery in a lot of ways is a martial art. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you look at the whole Asian culture and I've said time and time again, I've coached all over the world and you know, that's kind of what I do now. I do a lot of coaching that most people don't even know about with teams that just would rather have

confidentiality and whether or not they're working with an outside source, which is great. But when I, the, probably the best place I ever taught was when I went to India, because I actually taught those, I had, I was supposed to have 16 archers. Once I got there, there was about 140. I mean, it was unbelievable. Anyone they thought could be a potential winner for their team was there. And there were so many kids and adults that were there. And I remember I took several members of the team that had a bad habit of punching the trigger and anticipating the shot, which is a big negative in archery. which is a big negative in archery. And I gave them a device, same one I gave you. I gave them a release that forces them to not think about actually aiming the front side of the bow. It's a device that makes them focus on the movement of archery, pulling through the bow, letting the front arm go forward, the back arm to come back. And I remember I gave them string and that release. I took all their bows away and locked them up because I said, until you can do this,

we're not going any further. So I took those eight and I had them do that to the side. And then I came over and I started trying to work on all these other people. And there was like, this person needed their bow worked on. This person needed to watch me shoot. This people wanted, you know, to take pictures or video of me shooting. Then we went to lunch. Then the whole thing started over again. Then when it came to dinner time, I told them, you guys all go ahead. I'm going to like pack up my gear. Well, once the whole big crowd left,

go ahead. I'm going to like pack up my gear. Well, once the whole big crowd left, those same eight kids were still over there with strings pulling on that release. And almost every one of them were damn near bloody in their hand from just executing. And I came over, I'm like, oh my goodness, have you guys been here the whole day? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. There's like – that culture, it's just no wonder to me why like martial arts is such a discipline. Because that culture teaches discipline and hard work within that art better than anything. within that art better than anything. And I think that archery coming out of, you know, out of Asia, I think, um, all the, like the Korean team are so strong because of their disciplines. And I'm sure with the martial arts, it's the exact same thing. They're not afraid to take what the coach says and just do it until the coach says no. And a lot of people here in any sport are looking for the shortcut. People at the gym, they want the shake that melts fat. They want to be able to go in and get the machine that, you know, does four minute abs or whatever.

And the reality is you have to have commitment and you have to have discipline in anything in life. Otherwise, if you don't, you're just going to be another person bitching about why someone else has something you don't. Because you're not willing to put the effort in for it. Yeah. And then on the other hand, it's not a good idea to cut your hands with the rope. Take some time off, kids. Yeah. Slow down. Don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, Coach, can we take a break here?

And then I should point out to a lot of people that there's a lot of people that don't want to get involved in anything like archery that aren't interested in it because they feel like they don't want to hunt. They don't want to be a bow hunter. I've heard that before. I'm'm interested in it because they feel like uh they don't want to hunt they don't want to be a bow hunter i've heard that before i'm not interested in that i'm like if even if you're you don't have to be interested in that like that is that's the furthest end of the extreme spectrum when it comes to archery you could enjoy archery with just a yard a yard and a target i mean you can you don't need to shoot anything other than a target to and to get like you know yesterday and today we were just shooting targets.

Very fun. Super fulfilling. Like, at the end of the day, you know, especially because yesterday we made a lot of progress. At the end of the day, I was like, wow, you know, this feels great. It's cleansing. You've made a dramatic improvement. I mean, I'm really pumped with how you are. But what I love about archery is,

hopefully you can't hear that. This is dang good. By the way, when Joe does his commercials, which actually it's the only thing on TV I don't fast forward through the commercials because I love how you do them. But when he talks about the butter coffee, take his advice on it. It's good. I've enjoyed it. Yeah.'ve enjoyed it yeah get some good coffee some good grass-fed butter and some mct oil it was blend it all up it was yeah it was awesome i think what's so cool about archery too is it's it's not a sport that is limited by your age and for that matter it's not totally limited by your physical physique. Well, how about that guy that has no arms?

Oh yeah. Matt is unbelievable. Incredible. Yeah. Matt Stutzman is, I mean, it should be Matt Stutzman. He's, I mean, the armless archer, he's so inspired. I mean, his kind of his nickname is inspirational archer and he's definitely just that. For someone to be able to able to shoot with their legs is amazing. And actually, Matt, we haven't talked about this, but Matt and another para archer here from the U.S. named Jeff Fabry that shoots with his mouth.

He was in a motorcycle accident, and now he's a para archer. Yeah, there's Matt Stutzman right there. And so how does Matt, he holds the bow withman right there and so how does matt he holds the bow with his right foot and then his left foot's on the ground and how does he release the bow so well he's he's actually um designed jeff fabry's next i think too on to the right but so he's developed a release to where he's actually able to push on it with his chin and he's a he actually activates from back tension now they've designed a release form where he can hook on and he slowly starts to continue to move back

until it triggers the string to fire and as he moves back he's still looking through his peep sight yep yeah it's a small movement you know how small the movement is i mean when i talk about that movement it's very finite it's a matter of an inch or two. I think that's Jeff right there. Yeah, there's Jeff Fabry. So, yeah, when I did last year when I had to have my shoulder redone, I did not want to miss archery season and just really took it as a personal challenge to not put my head down.

And I learned to shoot. It was actually my bow arm was the one I had worked on. So I had to learn to shoot with my mouth using my opposite arm and my, and my non-dominant eye, which was, I'm, I'm thankful for it. People always, you know, people ask me all the time if I regret this or if I would do that different. And screw that. I mean, you can't.

The past is the past. I just want to look forward on everything. When I messed up my shoulder, I was bummed about it. But in all fairness, I thought it was a really good challenge to look at a sport that I love from a new direction. Yeah. To look at the technique involved. Yep. You know, I think someone said it, I forget who it was, that one of the best ways to get

good at something is to do it with your opposite hand. Oh. And that not just doing it, like say if like you're boxing and you're working on your straight right hand, a lot of times when you do your straight left hand, it actually improves your straight right hand. Because in learning how to do it in an awkward way, what you're doing is sort of programming into your mind the critical aspects of the technique, how to throw the hips in, when to plant. And then when you go over to your more coordinated side, it's just like super tuned in to the critical aspects of the movement. So then when you throw a left hand, then you switch over to your right side, and you're like, bam! It's even better.

It's even faster. It's even cleaner. And I think that that probably makes sense with archery as well. I bet a lot of people would probably benefit, although it's not a traditional thing to do, probably benefit from having both a left-handed bow and a right-handed bow and learning how to shoot left-handed. Well, look at how many skateboarders get better when they learn to skate goofy. If they learn to skate with the opposite foot.

Back when I was a skater, you either skated straight foot or you skated goofy. You either skated straight foot or you skated goofy. But then people didn't really switch back and forth a lot at that time, like the freestyle skaters did back then. But then when I got away from skating and started playing football for a while and then archery, and then all of a sudden the X Games happened and you start seeing guys like Tony Hawk or whatever, you realize that the whole skating world just completely went to, like, what the freestyle skaters were and just being able to switch either way

and still perform the exact same tricks. And I think any athlete that's listening and, you know, what's funny is sometimes I've seen you say, you know, hey, I'm talking about hunting today, but some of you listeners might get pissed, but whatever, because some people just want UFC or some people don't like to hear that. You can't ever worry about that. Yeah, but what's super important is that people need to take some of these elements and apply them to their life. And what I really believe is when I get better as an athlete is when I recognize whatever my biggest weakness is, and that's what I focus on making my strength.

I call it selective cycling. I work on this with a lot of my students. I'll literally take the one thing that they do the worst, and that's all I want them to do for almost a month because a lot of psychology has shown that if you have a negative habit, it normally takes about 21 days to recreate a positive habit, right? So you have to be able to take your weakness and mentally be tough enough as an athlete to be willing to make that your strength. And I've had several things in my career that were my weakness that are now my strongest aspect. Field archery was my biggest weakness. Now it's my biggest strength.

What is the difference between field archery? Well, it's not on flat ground. Once you start changing angles and once you start having to make shots in canyons, have to learn wind you have to learn trajectory so field archery is you have like a course that you have to run and it's all outdoors in the woods yep it would be outdoors it would be you know the really difficult field courses are like throughout like cliffs and mountainous areas to where you know you have shots where they're straight up way over your shoulder, where you're aiming on, you know, 50 degree angles, and then you're,

you know, aiming down or somewhere I've even had to aim straight down between my legs. Those types of things are extremely technical. You know, if you had golfers that had to play in really difficult terrain, obviously they have to start learning draws and fades and they have to start learning clubs that play differently in the wind. It would, it would be the same thing. It, you, it pointed out just like when we shoot at longer distances, like, I mean, you were, you were shooting amazing at eight, were we at 80 yards? Yeah. On your rubber rubber deer your rubber elk

you call it I always laugh at the rubber it's but um you were shooting amazing and then you would have one shot where something wasn't right but it would show up and that's what field archery did to me it really started to open up my weaknesses and for me as an athlete, I'm always so competitive that I want to know what I suck at. Because I think if you're really going to master something, regardless of the craft, you have to be so well-rounded. And I mean, the UFC is that way, even as a spectator, I'm not like a fight specialist by any means, but I've always loved watching the ufc and it's funny how the people who won the early ufc versus how rounded you have to be now to win you can't afford to have a weakness so ignoring it isn't doing you any favors yeah it's a different world

now completely different world and you also much like we were talking about before in the UFC, you have to be able to pretty much execute from both sides. It's very rare that someone only has like a good right kick. You know, you have to learn how to kick with the left side too. But in jujitsu that, that exists as well. Like there's a lot of guys that have a strong side. Like they only like to pass to the left or they only like to pass to the right. They only submit guys off their right arm. It's like, it's real common to have a side where you're really good at it. One thing you said the other day when we were sitting there talking, you were talking about setting up moves for jiu-jitsu and how evolving it is,

how it continually evolves. And all of a sudden a new move will get invented and you'll be practicing that and then someone just notices like wait there's a big weakness right there yeah do this and we've kind of eliminated someone getting that move done on you and then it's like holy crap well so how do we how do we actually combat that right it's just a continual chess game yeah it really is and the body can move in so many different ways it's one of the more interesting aspects of jiu-jitsu is there are so many different ways the body can move so when

two people are engaging each other with there's the possibilities of attacks and counter-attacks are like near-infinite it's a it's it's a spectacular example of an extreme discipline and something that becomes, for a lot of people, a massive, massive obsession. Did you see the Anthony Bourdain thing that he won a jiu-jitsu tournament? Uh-uh. Anthony Bourdain starts jiu-jitsu at 58 years old. I think he had quit smoking. He wasn't smoking anymore because he stopped smoking when his daughter He was, I think he had quit smoking. He wasn't smoking anymore because he stopped smoking when his daughter was born, I think.

But still was hitting the booze, you know, still wasn't eating healthy. He was on statins for his blood pressure or cholesterol, I guess. He just, you know, just wasn't healthy. Gets into jiu-jitsu because of his wife. His wife is a maniac. She loves jiu-jitsu. Gets into it, and a maniac she loves jiu-jitsu gets into it and now he's obsessed trains every day often twice a day and he just won a jiu-jitsu tournament has a blue belt at what is he 59 or something like that fucking incredible 59 year old anthony bourdain took home the gold at his first jiu-jitsu tournament i mean get the fuck out of here that's awesome as someone who loves jiu someone who loves jujitsu, I'm just blown away.

I'm blown away. I just love seeing a guy like him who is a madman at so many different things. And also a guy who's an artist. And his art being culinary, being a chef. I know. I learned from watching his show that that's an art form i didn't really consider it before i watched um no reservations his old show i watched him interact with all these cooks and like a light bulb went off i'm like oh cooking's an art oh heck yeah i

never thought of it that way i thought of it as like oh that guy knows how to cook this guy makes some good this and that guy cooks some good that but i didn't think of it and the same way i look at like maybe a guy who's an amazing sculptor i didn't think about it that way and then i realized that when i watched his show i was like yeah really i never did i was just thought oh this guy's a good kick you know this guy knows how to make uh sausages or this guy's really good at lasagna or something. It didn't seem like an art. So seeing him, a guy who highlighted that there is an art in cooking food, then become obsessed with this art of jiu-jitsu, which I think in a lot of ways, like we were saying about archery,

there's parallels. I mean, people think of kendo, which is a Japanese sword fighting art. That's unquestionably a martial art. Well, then so is archery. Yep. I mean, if kendo is a martial art, so is archery, 100%. Because archery involves a weapon. But it's so much more than that, man.

So much more than that. It's some weird, crazy, moving meditation that I feel like when it goes well, like yesterday when we shot really well, we shot like tight groups at 80 yards. Well, after it's over, like physically you feel better. You feel like charged up. You feel elevated. You feel better than if you did nothing. Like there's like, if you could take a drug that makes you feel the way you feel when you hit a perfect x at 80 yards like that like you would take that drug all day oh yeah if that was a cigarette yeah right now we would freaking high on bullseye high on bullseye you didn't get any i've been pounding i've been pounding that crap all morning, man. Lit up right now. My skin's tingly. Yeah, it's a very strange, I guess, discipline. A martial art, a discipline.

But I think almost labeling these things in any other way than just calling them what they mean. That is just, it is archery. You know, when you put them in categories, when you categorize things as this is a sport or this is a hobby or this is a, it almost trivializes the benefits, the positive benefits of it. It's funny that you say that because now I know I could never pull you away because I love as an athlete to step away with perfection and you would shoot a group that was like perfect and I knew that we were close to being done for the day And I'd be like, all right, let's end on that. And you're like, no way, dude, I'm doing another one. But then if you make one negative shot in that group, you were pissed again, which I can understand too, because I'm so competitive that way. But I also love that feeling that you're talking about. It's awesome sometimes to have

that. And it's important. And that's what I was trying to like work with you on is it doesn't get better than what you just did. You're on a high. I want you to like step away thinking about your trip all night. So tomorrow, you know, you visualize it long enough. I'm the way I think is tomorrow. You're more likely to be able to duplicate. I don't like to go. I don't ever like to go to bed on a negative. Right. So that's actually what I was trying to do, but you know, we're not good enough friends where I can be like, listen, give me your, well, I don't know. I guess I did take some stuff away from you. So I probably could have.

Some of the releases that I was using, he won't let me use. I know. I've hid them in your house. Well, this is very geeky stuff. So for people that are listening to this, they don't understand. But because there's so many different aspects of archery, there's where you're standing, what your posture is, how you're focusing, what you're looking at, what you're concentrating on. Because of that, there's a tendency to anticipate the shot and it becomes sort of overwhelming because you're managing all these different things. all these different things. So what a lot of people try to concentrate now in the world of archery is getting what you call a surprise shot. Meaning that this is just for the people at home, obviously not for you. Meaning that when you pull back, the thing that you're concentrating on is

just focusing on the target. All of your technique as far as keeping the bow balanced and level and keeping it onto all that stuff is something you've already worked on. All you're working on now is pulling through the shot. So you don't think about executing the shot like ready, go. And when you think of that ready, go, that pressing that button, you have a tendency or a possibility of punching it, of hitting it wrong, of tweaking and twisting. And we talked about that today because it's, in a lot of ways,

it's like a fight in that when a fighter trains for a fight, you're training for something that is going to be a moment that's like months away from now. So all of this work and effort then comes to fruition in this one moment. Fighter number one, are you ready? Fighter number two, are you ready? Fight. Holy shit, here it is.

It's happening. But at least in a fight, you've got a few rounds. You can kind of settle in after the first minute or so you can relax and get into the groove of everything. In archery, oftentimes, all that training and preparation, whether it's for a tournament or even more critically, if you're hunting, it comes down to that one moment. And that moment sometimes can be completely overwhelming because that moment, although your practice has been constant and diligent,

that moment is entirely alien. This moment didn't exist during any of the practice. There was never the elevated heart rate. There's never the freak out. There's never the massive consequences if you make an error. Everything has to be in place. And those things are what make a discipline so rewarding when you actually pull it off. All those things, like knowing that there's so many different factors involved and then this alien moment. So those factors involved, all the discipline factors, you have to drill them into a point where they become a part of you.

They become ingrained in your genetics. They become a part of your DNA. So that in that one insane, heart-pounding moment, you can execute it flawlessly. And the best way to do it, which I'm learning from you, is by figuring out how to do it with a surprise shot. So that way you take out the anticipation aspect of it. Yeah, the less you think about it, the more likely it is for things to happen. You know, you have to be so focused on the process that the prize happens without your expectation. The really interesting part about what I've learned as a competitive archer is it's times where you're standing on the line you realize

okay archer number one one arrow archer number two one arrow closest to center decides a gold medal match you literally let go and you're you know you're sitting there you know shitting pickles your heart rate's beating out your neck you know you're trying not to i actually had this i've had this feeling go both ways but you let that arrow go and you you have so much adrenaline that you you can barely manage it and then you're you shoot and you see the shadow of that arrow hit out like out of the gold to where you know you lost and it's instantly gone you you have you're not nervous you're not like sweating or shaking you just knew you blew it and it's like wiped so fast it's, really strange that the release of one product, you know, of art form

can just, you instantly know that you screwed up. And, you know, and I've been that way as a hunter too, where you get nervous and all of a sudden that shot happens. And then you almost can't, you know, for some people they make the shot and then they get like that but sometimes you make that shot and it's amazing how fast it's just gone and it's such a rewarding thing when you can take you know that ball of just emotion and just say, I got this. And you freaking clamp down on it. And then you see that arrow go into the gold. And it's just like, it's such a reward.

Like for me, that's what I think for you and your mentality and me and mine, you get so much reward for that, that for me, I never really worried about it. I never worry about a trophy or a medal or, you know, for that matter, then checks never really mattered either. They, when I was younger, I needed them, but you know, I've just came to the realization that, you know, every trophy I have at home is tarnished. You know, they need cleaning, you know, they just wilt away. But what imprints I have in my mind of moments, like that's what pulls me through as a person. And it's positive aura that I can reflect on. You know, I know that what's satisfying to me, and I feel so content

with life, is these small little goals and accomplishments that I've had where I've controlled myself, not the situation. I was in a gold medal match in Poland and they had the gold medal match in this square, like in the square of the main town. You were shooting from the beach into the main square of the town. And our match was first. And I was the first archer. So I stepped up, we were in a team round, and there was so many people. I raised my bow, I pulled back, I was going into my shot. And as I'm looking through my scope at the target, About four people's heads come like looking in like this because there were people lined all the way down. And this is 70 meters. So everyone's

evidently was shuffling to try to get to see the archer, not realizing like, okay, there's an arrow going over your head. So I'm going from like mentally having a sight picture that I'm not nervous about to all of a sudden thinking, if I shoot someone in the face, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a Polish prison. And I remember like- Didn't you have someone like keep cleaning the line, getting the people to back up? No, it was just like, they didn't, I don't think they really thought that people were going to come in. And I remember I drew back and I was so, I mean, you've seen me shoot in my element. It's very smooth. So then all of a sudden there was like, my front arm was like,

you know, I got into that tremor mode. Like, you know, what you have when you, when the anxiety sets in. And I remember I shot and they're like, you know, they called 10, and I came off the line, and my teammate that was with me goes, what the hell, dude? Why are you shaking so bad? He's like, what the hell, dude? You almost missed. What's up with you? Like as we're passing one another, and I go, you'll see.

And he freaking pulls back, and he goes, what the F? Damn. So that next round, I'm like, get freaking people out of the way. Like I had people's faces in my scope. That's a YouTube video waiting to happen. Somebody catching one to the temple, leaning into the path. That's just so ridiculous. You don't want one to the temple.

And if you don't know, like when you're looking through a site of an archery, a bow, archery sites are very small. So you're looking at a very narrow window. So for these people to actually be in your site, they had to be extremely close to the path of the arrow. Well, the arrow was arcing over their melon. But their head. Jesus Christ. Because they were between me and the target. That's so crazy, though. It was very crazy target that's so crazy though it was very crazy that's so dumb

yeah i was like what is up with this did what i did at the pool today doink forget to have the safety eye yeah it's easy when you're concentrating all the other things i mean it weirds me out i've been at i've been at places where i'm practicing and you're like shooting and then someone else is at this club and you like go down to pull your arrow and then all'm practicing and you're like shooting and then someone else is at this club. And you like go down to pull your arrow and then all of a sudden you're like sitting there like pulling arrows and it's like – and you're like, yo, what's up? Oh, God. Oh, I'm aiming at that other target. It's like, okay, well, yeah, you know how many Joe Rogan pool shots I've seen in my day?

I don't want to be on the receiving end of that. It certainly can happen. I don't want to be on the receiving end of that. It certainly can happen. You know, what you've got set up is really cool, that giant long range at your house. So you could practice like in your yard like that. Like there's a video that you put up. John set up my bow.

I got this bow from Hoyt. John set it up perfect. And he took these crazy shots. And one of them he took was 122 yards. He took these crazy shots, and one of them he took was 122 yards. Yep. And to be able to do that and to have this big open space like that in your yard has got to be fucking awesome. It's way cool. Yeah, actually, when we bought my house, my wife Sharon, she knew that we wanted to move out to a farm. Because before I moved to Iowa so so I could get more deer tags.

You laugh about that. It's hilarious. We'll talk about that. Who the fuck moves to a state so they can get more deer tags? You can get an extra deer tag. Who doesn't? I'll guarantee you right now if Cam Haynes could get two elk tags if he crossed the state line, I'll guarantee you he would do it. He loves Oregon.

He travels a lot anyway. See, I get three buck tags actually, I'll guarantee you he would do it. He loves Oregon. He travels a lot anyway. See, I get three buck tags, actually. So I bet you three. You have a different situation, though. Like white-tail hunting in Iowa is just so different. And plus, for folks who aren't aware, it's like a tradition. It's an Americana thing. White-tail hunting is probably the biggest

hunting pastime in america more people hunt white tails more people spend more time hunting white tails than anything and it's also like probably some of the best meat you're ever going to eat in your life oh yeah i've been crushing mine i, I love. That's why I was so surprised when you said you don't you didn't see like cooking as an art. I actually when when I go someplace nice, I I take pictures of my food because night and, you know, I cooked some backstraps. I like, you know, cook some vegetables and like a coconut oil or something. And then, you know, I like slice through that tenderloin and like kind of folded them all down and then like stacked my little half strap up and kind of leaned them against there. And I was just like looking at it like, why would people not want to do this? Like, why would people not want to be able to do this for themselves? To make a nice meal.

Yeah, to make a nice meal. And obviously it's something that is a reward of hard work and dedication that I've put in through the year. You know, my saying, one saying that I made on my TV show during the first few seasons is, on my TV show during the first few seasons is I'm in target archer to become a better hunter and I'm a better hunter because I'm a target archer. I got into professional archery 100% because I wanted to be more proficient and ethical knowing that I was a bow hunter. And I kind of had the, it was actually the same type of feeling. I was, I was only 10, but it, or I mean, when I started competing, I started hunting when I was 10. So there was like six or seven years there where I wasn't competing. But I remember having

one hunt where I felt so much anxiety and I like blew a shot and I just completely missed and I couldn't explain why. And it was at that moment that I'm like, you know what, if I'm going to do this, I need to be able to be ethical at it. So at that point, I was kind of looking for a way to become better. And I was actually, it was right before I was supposed to leave for my first football camps for college. I was driving down a road and there was a sign on the road that said, um, 3d archery shoot. And it was just an arrow pointing down. And I pulled in, I had like my hunting bow in the back of my truck, you know, kind of drive in. And I see all these people like shooting on this practice range. And then I see like groups of four going into this course to like shoot.

And it was all foam animal targets with scoring rings on them. And you step up to the line, you look at the target, you try to figure out how far it is without having a range finder. And then you make a shot and depending on, you know, all the scoring is within the ethical kill zone of an animal. So after, I think, I think it was 15 targets. It was a 40 target course. After 15 targets, I didn't have a single arrow left in my quiver. I'd lost all of them. And it was like a wake-up call. It was the first time that I had ever felt defeated at something. It was the first

time that I had a very clear wake-up call of maybe you're not good enough to be doing this, you know? And for me, that was a trigger as a competitor. I think the standout athletes in any sport are the ones that take those moments very personal and change a direction to make it their best, or either realize I'm either going to be good at this or I need to find something else to be good at, you know, to focus all your energy to. And one thing led to another. I went to an archery shop where I saw a lot of guys with like shirts on that said like the name of a shop. So I knew they were like kind of local shooters for representing this store. So the next day I was in that store and I said, Hey, I want to get better. I know a

lot of guys here were shooting and a lot of those guys were in the range. And I just started asking questions. A lot of people didn't want to help, which is why I really want to help the archery world. It's my way of giving back because there were people that didn't want to help me. But then I remember that a guy came in and said, are my arrows done? And the guy behind the counter said, let me check in the back. And he kind of walked past me and he goes, come here, kid. And cause I had hung out in that store for about four days, just kind of watching and looking around. I didn't really have any, you know, importance. So he takes me in the back room and he says, you got to build these guys arrows for me

because I forgot to do them. And I said, I don't know how to build arrows. And he goes, okay, you take this feather, you put in this clamp, put glue right down this feather like this, put the arrow in this jig, you push down on it. Then you turn the wheel, go to the next arrow. After you get to the end, take the clamp off another feather in you know and he literally gave me the thing so i was in there like trying to figure out how to do this you didn't even work there no i was there like like literally stalking people in the range i was like the weird guy in the corner with like the hunting bow that was probably my dad's hand-me-down i'm like stalking all the shooters. And about an hour later, I came out with, you know, this guy's arrows that he probably paid a hundred bucks for and some like snot nose kid that had

never even built them, built them for the guy. And so he goes, all right, good job. And he goes, here, now go do these. And two weeks later, I remember telling my dad, hey, I think I'm going to, later, I remember telling my dad, Hey, I think I'm going to, um, I'm not going to do that, the football thing. And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, I got offered a job at this archery shop. I'm going to do it. And my dad's like, so you're not going to play college football and get a, get a, um, an education. You're going to work in an archery shop. He goes, what's this archery shop paying? I said, 410 an hour. Yeah, that was, my dad's been so good. My, both my parents have been so supportive on everything in life, but that was the one time where he looked me in the face and just said, this is a really stupid decision. But hey, I mean, you know, it's's i just think it's a great story because it shows that if someone's willing to commit to a dream then as long as you're able to put in the work and stay focused

on it there's so many people that make businesses out of dreams or careers out of sports that you would never even consider. Well, just think of that story. Now you're traveling all over the world coaching international teams and archery. I mean, it's a crazy story if you really stop and think about it. It's really weird. I have some friends that are very successful according to the business world. And there's times where I'm with those people and then they're introducing me to like a senator or governor. And then they're like, well, John, you know, it's like, hey, this is my personal friend, John.

And I'm with the president of the university or something. And they're like, so, John, what do you do? And it's one of these you want to be able to say, oh, I have an MBA. Or, you know, yeah, I do rocket science stuff. But it's like, I'm an archer. Yeah, I shoot a bow for a living. And they're just like, really? I'm a slingshot master.

Yeah, exactly. But then you start, you know, you start explaining what you're actually doing and you realize this is a, it's a really big world and it's, there's such great people there. You know, I have, I literally, it's really nice to be able to say I don't have any regrets in life because I'm in an industry that I love. I'm doing something that I really, really love. And there's such good people around it. And all you have to do is get up every morning when the alarm goes off. Mine goes off pretty early. And then just put in the work. And I just think it's so cool to know that there's opportunity like that. There's a different path that maybe perhaps other people hadn't considered.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And just, you know, it's such a great country to live in, too, here in the States, because you can take something that no one really might not believe in but yourself. And if you apply the work to it, you can make it happen. And in traveling through all the different parts of the world that I've traveled, I've gone to places where you just, you know, you really wish you could give some of those people a chance because you can tell that they have such heart and such desire, but they don't have opportunity.

And that's sad. Like to me, that's really sad that there's not opportunity everywhere. And then you come here and you see someone that has potential or opportunity, but they're lazy and they won't put in the work. Yeah. They don't have the desperation. They don't have the desire. They don't have the desire. They don't have the drive. They don't, you know, I think a lot of times for some people, when they're young, it's not enforced early on that when you work hard at something, it's really rewarding when it's over.

And it's difficult to work hard at something. It's difficult to get your ass out of bed. It's difficult to force yourself to get up off the couch. It's difficult. But once you do it, it's always good. It always feels good. And even if you do something and it doesn't work out well, like even if you're practicing archery and the shots don't go well, it's still, you're involved in the discipline and it's giving you something to concentrate on. And that'll translate, that energy and momentum will translate to the rest of your life.

If you're working to improve at something, whether it's archery or jujitsu or anything, when you're working to improve on it, I firmly believe that that motivation and that momentum of improvement applies to the rest of your life. And it's one of the things that people love about any particular discipline is the aspects of it and the qualities of it that sort of transfer onto your everyday life you know it's weird because until you and i communicated some on the phone when i worked for an archery company and i was just a sales guy making calls i never got to see faces all i ever heard was voices so voices for me are always triggers because for 10 years I was just making calls. When you and I first talked on the phone and I like heard your voice directly, like from my device, I actually realized, I haven't even told you this, but I, when I work out or when I shoot and a lot of times when I'm just working in my building, I've comprised like about five hours of MP3. That's nothing but motivational sayings that I've heard someone say, whether it's and I that's all I play. It's my ambient sound.

And you were on there twice about just almost like what you just talked about, just a positive – it was just a positive rant that you had about all people have to do is make a step in a direction. And you might, you know, you might look in the mirror one time and you don't like what's there, but you know, you have the opportunity to turn around and go a different way. And one thing that I really try to drive to people, because there's times you talk to someone and you know that they're down in the dumps, you know, and you, one thing I tell people is, you know, motivation gets you going. Commitment keeps you going. You know, it's no different than the New Year's resolution. I freaking hate that. I hate if there's any time I don't want to go to the gym, it's two weeks after New Year's. Because it's like this swarm of people. And all to me, there's people in there were like, you know what? Good for them. You know, they're they're not in shape. Good for them to come here. But then it's so disappointing when it's like two days they're gone.

it's like two days they're gone well it's so common too yep yep and you know if you're if you're at that stage and you're at the point where you're like you know what i want to change myself physically it's funny how many people won't even it's funny how many people are going to the gym to work out but they'll circle the gym parking lot like 10 times because they want the they want the first row to open up park as far away from the front door as you can and warm up by walking in skip yeah skip to the loo well i think a lot of people need a life coach. I think this is what I'm, the conclusion, one of the conclusions that I'm coming to in life is that people need to either find a way to motivate themselves through all the different stuff that's available online. I mean, there's a million different websites and Instagram pages and lots of YouTube videos that show some motivation and they can help you. But we, human beings learn from each other. And I think most of the cultures in the past,

not trying to glorify the past and say they had it nailed and we don't, but most of them were in tighter knit groups and they emulated the behavior and the patterns of the successful members of that group, the leaders of that tribe. That's where traditions came from. That's where skills were passed on. And we're almost in a lot of ways, like you were saying, people with so much opportunity but too lazy. We're almost in a lot of ways just lacking in a pattern, a correct pattern, and a coach or a mentor or a person who is ahead of you but honest like ahead of you

as far as like maybe been alive longer or maybe had more experiences but very honest about the difference between you and them because a lot of people think that you you see something like we were talking about today this is a ridiculous analogy but when um i was on mtv we were talking about today, this is a ridiculous analogy, but when I was on MTV, we were talking about downtown Julie Brown. Yeah, because I was singing on the line. And I remember thinking while you were saying that, like you go downtown Julie Brown was probably on MTV back when you were on MTV. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, but I was a peon. Like she wouldn't know who I was.

I was on one of X amount of comedians on the MTV half hour comedy hour like I couldn't probably couldn't even talk to her say hi to her and then I remember thinking like I put myself in that state of mind that I had back when I was 23 or whatever I was when I was on that show and I felt like insignificant and like whoa that's downtown Julie Brown and then I realized like now that that's nonsense like, whoa, that's downtown Julie Brown. And then I've realized like now that that's nonsense. Like now I know that's nonsense. But in my head, thinking about that time, I felt like I did when I was 23. Yeah, I could see it.

You said it. That was your first reply. You're like, yeah, but I was just a peon then. And then all of a sudden, I think once you thought about it for a few seconds, you're like, you know what? F that. Well, it's so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. But I did think that way back then.

I think a lot of other people think that way now. And whether it's someone who's an aspiring archer that looks at your accomplishments and then looks at you back when you were this stalker kid hanging around a bow shop in comparison to how they are. And I think that's a big help to people to hear a story like that and to know that now you travel all over the world and you coach international teams. And to see someone admit that I think is like very important. To see someone discuss that I think is very important to a lot of us because we don't really – most people don't have fucking mentors and most people aren't even involved in like a discipline that tests them in that manner. We're involved. A lot of people are involved in education, right? You go through high school, you go to college, you get a degree, you're studying,

you're practicing, but how much of that, what you're doing, has the aspects of the obsession with a discipline like archery or like jujitsu or think something along those lines. You're not getting the same intensity and focus. You're reluctant to do the work. You're doing it because you have to because you've got to get a degree because you've got to get a job because you don't want to be a loser. And so you're pursuing these things with a lack of passion. And then you enter into the workforce. Hopefully you're doing what you love. Most of the time, people are not. Most of the time, people are doing what they think is a good job that they can get by with. And so they're

committed to this path of not being excited, not being obsessed, and then not challenging themselves and not rising above and not gathering up some of the possible lessons that you can. And it could be anything. It could be anything. If you want to make knives, if you love making jackets, if you like painting, there's no one particular thing that it should be for you. You just have to find out whatever starts that spark in you. For you, it was archery.

For me, it was stand-up comedy or martial arts. It could really be anything. But I think we need things like that. If people don't have things like that, if they just work and then they go home and they watch TV, and they go work and they go home and they watch TV, you're not fucking living life at level 10. You're not going to hit it.

You're never going to feel that. And I'm not saying you're going to be at level 10 every day, but there's going to be some moments like when you were talking about, you know, being on the line, you know, two archers, this is the, for one shot for the gold medal. And you're like, that, that feeling, those, those feelings are integral to being a human being. The feelings of being challenged and of learning what you're capable of and what you're not capable of through those challenges. Absolutely.

And the thing is, too, you have to be able – when you've made that decision, the next thing that you should come to terms with is say, you know what? I'm going to push myself further than I've ever pushed myself. And I know dang good and well, there's going to be a block. There's going to be resistance. I heard in a podcast from you long ago, you talked about the book, The War of Art. I bought it. Steven Pressfield. I bought it. So, you know, it talks about resistance and actually, you know, with you learning this new release for your archery, I told you before you even made your first shot, there is going to be a point where you're not going to like this. And you need to know right now that we're going to push through it. So a lot of times when people make that determination and that decision in life of, you know what,

I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to get ready. You need to also think, you know what, there's going to be, I'm going to have a voice in my head that's going to tell me this is too hard and I'm going to have a point of resistance. But I'm telling myself right now when I get that, that's my opportunity to go further than I've ever had in the past. I know right now that when I get to that, I am pushing through it. If you're only focused on one particular goal and not seeing the obvious distractions or things that you know are going to be in that path and mentally build up yourself to know when I get to that resistance, I'm driving through. You know, I listened to that podcast with Steve-O, and he talked about he knew he was ready to beat his habits.

And when he was in there and they're, like, telling him that he should be going, he's like, no. he's like no I want like he probably knew deep down inside that if he left he was that was it was going to be an opportunity for him to fail so he had already made up his mind that he was going through that and so many people in life just don't push that one time and then they never really see how far they can go. You know, I heard like, one time I heard Les Brown say, you know, would you rather go through life aiming too high and miss or aiming too low and hit? I mean, I would rather aim high I mean, I would rather aim high and fall short and still be further ahead than aiming too low and hitting exactly a low goal. You know, I think you have to be willing to fail and get good at it. I lost way more tournaments than I've ever won. And some of the people that like question why I'm at where

I'm at in archery, they're like, well, he never won that much. You know what? I'm probably lost more than anybody that's good, but I dang sure know that it made me a better person. And then when I lost, I was at the tournament the next week, making sure that I worked on whatever it was that caused me to lose. I remember a guy one time saying, you haven't really figured out how to win yet. And that's critical for an athlete. Well, it's critical that moment that happens in any competition where you're worried about the event, you're worried about the outcome,

and that worry can overwhelm your abilities. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And when you get to that point, you have to be willing to dig deep down and say, you know what? This is what I've worked for. I knew this was coming. You know, if there wasn't nervousness and the possibility of defeat or victory, then there probably wouldn't be any sense of inner accomplishment to it. You've literally done everything you can to get to that moment. That's a defining moment. So which way are you going to go? You know, then you have a decision to make. And for me, my victories were so much sweeter because I had failed a lot before that. And it got to the point where I remember being in a match one time and I had taken like several second thirds leading up to that.

And I remember getting there and I just I closed my eyes on that last arrow. And I just I'm like, I'm freaking sick of blowing it screw that I'm not doing it again I'm gonna make a good shot I visual Rocky movie yeah we're like yeah keep going and then so I just closed my eyes and made the shot and then when I it, the victory seemed so much sweeter because I had pushed through adversity to get there. You know, I think that's what I love about archery is that, you know, one day you're so good, and then the next day, you know,

you see flaws and you see mistakes. Well, it's a long rabbit hole, too. That's the weirdest thing about archery. You wouldn't think it's such a long rabbit hole. There's so much to learn and so many different places to go. And there's so many people that you watch TV. I've taken to watch, I watch hunting shows much to the chagrin of my family. I think it's hilarious. But some of them are so bad. There's such bad production. Like if you want to learn learn bad television like say if you're a person out there that's aspiring to do a TV show

there's some hunting shows out there that look like they were made by blind people that were drunk and the animals like they especially the archery shows they fucking miss more than they hit them I mean if someone from like

if someone wanted to make an argument against the ethical use of archery for hunting, all they need to do is watch some of those fucking shows. But it's just, I think it's, you know, it's a difficult thing to do. And some people kind of half-ass it. And some of those people that do half-ass it, they're on television. Well, and that brings up a really good point because I know a lot of people that probably are listening that either know myself or know that you're a hunting advocate and a conservationist like myself. We owe it to ourselves as an art, you know, as a hunting community to realize that there's a big opposition pushing back. And we have a responsibility to represent ourselves ethically and also appreciate other people's feelings and, you know, appreciate that there do something that's going to really piss them off

or if you're going to maybe do something to where it'll at least let them keep an open mind. Well, the best way to do that, I think, is have conversations about it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't tell you how many Facebook messages and Twitter messages I've gotten from people that have told me that they had a particular view, a negative view about hunting, until they listen to maybe a podcast with Steve Rinella or Cameron Haynes or Jim Shockey. And they realized like,

Oh, this is not what I think it is. Not only is it not what I think it is, you must do something to control these animal populations. And the one thing I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again to anybody that thinks there's no reason to ever kill wild animals, I have two words for you. Feral pigs. You better do something, because if you don't do something, they will fucking overwhelm the earth.

But what about people? Man, people are overwhelming the earth too, man. Yeah, I like people. You can have sex with them. You can talk to them. You can go to the movies with them. They make cars. man. Yeah, I like people. You can have sex with them. You can talk to them. You can go to the movies with them. They make cars. I'm a big fan of people.

Except people that make parking lots. Yeah, they're making some narrow parking lots in California. Listen, okay, somewhere in the last 10 years, whoever was working for like American and United Airlines that made Economy Plus and then took the big dump on the regular economy seats. Someone finally fired those people and then they started designing parking lots. Because freaking you can't park your junk in anything anymore.

They never have an obvious way to like get to the strip mall that's right next door. They make you like exit the freaking Pac-Man exit or like you have to go around all the ghosts and shit to like finally get to the one way to get out and then turn and go down to get into the next one well they definitely are trying to shove too many spots in places like uh i was somewhere uh recently oh santa barbara where it's real nice but there's not that many people and one of the things i noticed when i was there i was like look how big the parking spots are they're nice and wide because they're not overwhelmed by the same amount of people there's only like a hundred thousand people in all of santa barbara it's like an easier way to to get around down there yeah i like that yeah that's fuck yeah man there's too many goddamn yeah i

don't want to jamie we're moving you ready to move jamie's thumbs up from jamie what's that we're moving santa Barbara. Fuck it. Let's do that. Do you need a person like, you need a full-time range manager. They need to build a range. That's the next step. If I get deeper and deeper with this, I'm going to open up an archery shop. I think so, for sure. I think an archery school would be the way to go, honestly.

I really think that there are a lot of different martial arts schools and i've been involved in a bunch of them and i think that uh teaching martial arts is gigantic but one of the things that's a problem with archery and most particularly with bow hunting is the learning curve is extremely steep and it's not obvious at all as to where to start the learning curve to start archery is just go to an archery store go to a shop but i mean i've had experience with shops that didn't know what they were doing and i went there and i got bad advice from them and i saw people that really didn't exactly know what they were doing and they were telling me oh you don't need that oh you don't need this and there's so many people out there that probably would be interested in,

in archery. And I know there's a lot of people that are interested in hunting as well. They just don't know where to start. And I think having like classes in a, like a shop is probably a really good idea and probably something I'm going to get into in the future. Well, I want to see that.

Yeah, no, I would love to. I'm coming to your grand opening. I'm coming to your grand opening. All right, man, you're in,

but I would have to most certainly have people that were there that were really good that could teach classes and teach people how to do it. You know, like you were showing me the video of your son hunting alligators. Yep. And I said it right as you were saying it. I was like, look at his form. Like your kid is like his perfect form, like a world champion archer. Like the way he's got his posture, the way he released. And when we were watching that, I was thinking, well, here's a kid that's learned from the beginning how to do it correctly.

So when you look at him as opposed to that picture that you sent me of the archer that's on television that has an arrow that he's pulling back. me of the archer that's on television that has a an arrow that he's pulling back his string is deep tucked into his face where for sure when you're pulling your string back and it's digging into your face the the pressure of your face on that string is going to change the path of the arrow you're never supposed to dig it into your face like this guy has it then you look down his arrow is not even attached to the string it's's like hanging off, and he doesn't even know it. And this guy's on television, and that fucking picture was used for an ad. Yeah. The picture was on an ad, which means they took the picture,

somebody looked at it, and they were so careless that they went, yep, good enough, keep going, we got it, nailed it. And they took that, and they put it on fucking television, or they put it in fucking television i remember they put it in a magazine or what have you but when you see someone who started from the beginning like your son with perfect form how old was he in that like 10 yeah he started when he was nine so in that picture with that video with the alligator he was 10 yeah yeah when you see that as opposed to someone who's been doing it wrong their whole life, you realize the importance of original technique,

like having your original lessons, the first lessons you get, imprinting correctly. Oh, yeah. And that's a big part of what I'm doing. Can I plug the – Fuck yeah. Yeah, well, your show, which is called Knock On TV, it's on – not Sportsman's Channel. Yeah, it's on the Sportsman's Channel.

And they're both owned by the same people now, right? Yeah, yeah. The Outdoor Channel and the Sportsman's Channel are both owned by the same people. And then, you know, the YouTube site, Knock On Archery, there's a lot of, if you go through there, and if you're not a hunter, then move past that because there's a lot of how-to stuff. And that's the direction that I'm really going to be going. The whole focus on this brand, Knock On, which I think I have a hat on, you know, it was a brand intended for people that

aren't really necessarily wanting to say I'm a hunter, but I'm an archer. And so much of what this show is geared around, and it took a long time for me to convince the network for me to dedicate, you know, right now I have three segments that are how to be better with your form when the dead center segment, then the field recon segment is how to be better in the field as a hunter, you know, some type of a technique. And then I have the third segment called knocked and ready to rock, which last year was literally how to buy a bow and completely set up the bow to start to finish throughout the whole And there's a video of that. It's over an hour long. It's on YouTube, which is a very difficult, time-consuming and involved process.

Yep. And then this year, the Knocked and Ready to Rock segment is all about like learning to build your own arrows. But as I move forward through the seasons and through the YouTube channel, I'm going to continue to try to work on building all these fundamentals to become a good shooter. And Harry and my wife, they both started out with no experience at all. And it's funny how if you show the basic fundamentals and you're taught right from the very beginning, how easy you can get to perfect form. It's when you go into it with like, you know, I always say women and kids are way easier teaching than guys because there's not the macho factor. You know, guys are like, shit, dude, I know how to grab. Here, give me

that. I'll show you how to do it. Well, they also worry more about being a loser. Yep. Whereas people who are not worried about, man, if I fuck this up, damn, dude, I'm a loser and this guy's a winner. Like, there's a lot of people that don't like learning things because they don't want to fuck up, you know? And I think when you teach a woman or a young person, they have less ego.

They don't think of themselves as being the shit yet. Oh, yeah. Women don't just they just don't have as many ego problems as men do in that regard. Well, there's two. There's two. You know, I've I've looked a lot into sports psychology. And I won the first time I talked to you. One of the things where I was really hoping you could help me with, and if anyone's listening out there, that's like a

sports psychologist. I actually, I have a, I have a big ADD problem. I'm very, but it also has been a huge part of my success as an archer because I zone things out. There's times where I've been in competitions, people come up to me and say, Hey, sorry, I bumped you with the camera or whatever. And it's like, when? Because I like, I don't like you're so tunnel visioned on stuff. So you see heads in those tunnels. Yeah, the heads kind of was a distraction. That was my Adderall. But yeah, I've really wondered, Yeah, I've really wondered, you know, is ADD or, you know, is that like an asset to get in the zone faster? Yeah, we talked about that.

And my issue is what is ADD? You know, I'm not exactly sure that everyone who has ADD really has a disorder. You're 100% right. I think a lot of it is a style of thinking or a way of thinking, you know, right now, like my dad's a psychologist and it's amazing to me how many people will, you know, I've got friends that'll like go to the shrink for a 30 minute session. Then they're like, Oh yeah, I got some Adderall dude. I got ADD really bad. Yeah. When I got, when I got diagnosed with mine, I went for three different days and almost did like a psychological evaluation. I mean,

it was like questioning, questioning, questioning. And I remember like reading through this thing that a true psychologist did to diagnose what I had. And I remember one of the lines said, it was like one of the beginning lines. It's like, John has always been a fairly normal boy. He never had a problem soiling his linens or something like that. That sounds like what you would read when someone became a serial killer. John has always been a normal boy until we found the one hand sticking out of the dirt in the backyard.

We never suspected anything. That's kind of what it was like. One hand sticking out of the dirt in the backyard. We never suspected anything. That's kind of what it was like. But is ADD recognized 100%? Like is it universally recognized like there is an issue with ADD? I would say so. Pull that up, Jamie.

They argue that it's more. The case against ADD. How about that? Google that. Let's give it a shot. They argue that there's more people coming that are saying they have ADD. And I think because doctors are so quick to prescribe nowadays. But what does it mean?

It means attention deficit disorder. So what does exactly that mean? Well, like for me, sometimes people are talking to me, but I'm so zoned out on something else, I never hear it. There's just constant distraction. There's constant distraction. If I'm tuned into you, then, you know, a lot of times, like, you know, I'll be focused on something and my wife, like, has to snap at me like a dog. See, but that to me is not attention deficit disorder.

That's not attention deficit at all. That's extreme attention on one thing. Yeah. And just unwillingness to engage with distractions. But then there's times, what's weird about it is then there's times where you're trying to focus on something. And it's like every stimuli comes into play. Right. But what are those things that you're trying to focus on?

Is it ever anything that you're really interested in? Or is it just some shit you have to do, like fix a pipe? Well, certainly there's times where people are talking to you and you really don't want to listen to them. I have a feeling that's what attention deficit disorder is. People are bored as fuck. That's a different disorder. There's this wide range of the way people think and the way people address situations.

Like you can even see it in your children. Like I have my middle child is very outgoing and very loud and silly and she'll talk to anybody. But my youngest child, if she doesn't know you, she ain't saying shit. You can say hi to her and she's like, whatever, dude. She'll hide behind me. I ain't talking to this guy. Like, she just has her own style of engaging with people.

And they both also have their own very distinct likes and dislikes as far as like the kind of TV shows they like or the kind of toys they like or the kind of art that they do. And I just think that

that same variety applies to things that people are interested in and not interested in in life. And we take these fucking kids, man. And this is a big part of the problem with education. There's a lot of different jobs out there. And the path for a guy who wants to be a professional archer versus the path for a guy who wants to be an audio engineer. These are very different paths and they involve very different amounts of data, different, different kinds of data, different stimuli. And we take people and especially when they're young, we make them pay attention to shit. They don't give a fuck about it. And I don't think it's

good for them. And I think we could like when I was in high school, they always said, Oh, he doesn't pay attention. He's got no, no put something in front of me that I care about. And that's all I pay attention to. So it's not that I'm a fucking ne'er do well. But you make me feel like I am. You make me feel like I'm a loser because I don't give a fuck about math or Spanish history. Sorry, it's not ringing in my 13 year old head. I'm thinking about tits right now.

I have time for Spanish history. I don't give a fuck. But you might talk to me about pirates and all of a sudden for whatever reason that Spark gets lit and now I'm interested and now I'm obsessed with pirates and I want to read books about pirates I want to talk about pirates There's all sorts of different things that people get excited about and interested in but the problem I think or one of the problems with formalized education and are I think or one of the problems with formalized education and are

some for some strange reason our need to diagnose certain styles of thinking and certain styles of approaching life as Problematic as a DD or he's got you know he's got ADHD. Oh, he's just he can't stop He's in a fucking classroom. They're teaching nonsense. He's sitting on a plastic chair He wants to run through the fucking wall He's in a fucking classroom. They're teaching nonsense. He's sitting on a plastic chair. He wants to run through the fucking wall. It's everything I could do. I have a neighbor, and sometimes this guy corners me, okay? And he'll tell me some stupid shit about his son's basketball game or some other shit.

And I literally want to run up a tree. I just want to, ah! And I don't have ADD. I don't have ADHD. I'm fucking bored, man man and you're kidnapping me with this stupid goddamn conversation and i'm like yeah hey look at the time gotta go so i told him you know if you're gonna get some time on that bench and that's how i felt when i was in school i felt a lot of that in school and i think that that's a lot of what's going on we're all interested

in different shit and formalized education in a lot of circles and a lot of schools is just too limited for some of the kids in class. I remember Harry, his first football team, I'm thinking he was like 9 or 10. And one of the kids shows up with like a big can of Monster and he's like drinking it. Oh, Jesus. And we were trying to control the kid and I went over to my mom and I said like, you know, and it was every day. How old was this kid? He was 10.

Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. And I remember going over and the mom said, the mom goes, yeah, we just have such a problem controlling. And the thing is, it was eight in the morning for a football game. And she goes, we just, he just never listens. I mean, the doctor says he has ADD.

And I'm like, you just gave him a green monster at 8 in the morning. He's 10, and he had like a double can of monster. I'm talking the big ones. And how much do you think he weighed? A hundred pounds. Jesus Christ. I could be wrong. That's like, I could be wrong, but that's more than two adult

sized servings. Could be wrong, but I think I know the problem. Yeah, it might be your kid's on crank. I mean, that's crank. That's like stream doses of caffeine and sugar. There's sugar in those things. And you don't even know what else, really. Yeah, and you know what, man? They gotta

stop selling you some shit and saying it's more than one serving. Fuck you. I hate that. You can't do that anymore. You gotta stop doing that. If it's in one package and it's like a drink, that's a fucking serving. Stop saying it's two servings. Yeah, unless it's like a box of something that you're gonna cook.

If it's a box, that's multiple servings. Right. Don't tell me this bottle of water is two freaking servings. Well, that's fine. Well, it is. You could say it. You could say that. Doesn't it?

Is it? No. Just kidding. But that's fine because there's no negative consequences in drinking a bottle of water. It's universally agreed that an eight ounce bottle of water is not going to hurt anybody. agreed that an eight ounce bottle of water was not going to hurt anybody. But one of those fucking monster energy drinks or my trainer had a protein bar the other day. It was like a small one too, man. It was only like maybe three inches long. It was a small protein bar. And he goes, oh, I got to get my protein bar. I go, your candy bar? I'm fucking with him. I go, dude,

you're eating candy. He goes, no, man. I go, how many grams of sugar in that? And he goes, you're eating candy he goes no man i go i go how many grams of sugar in that and he goes nine i go really i go how many servings in each bar he goes no way i go check yeah he goes fuck it's two yeah i go that's 18 grams of sugar in that little tiny thing that's a candy bar yeah absolutely i coached that with teams actually because when i competed the one thing that i think was that I found really, really helpful is to be able to travel and keep yourself in your same daily routine with your rest and your diet and more importantly, your garbage intake. Because people will go to a tournament and then they'll like pop in and they'll grab like, you know, a power bar, you know, like the chocolate covered power bar. And then they go to a tournament and they're like having a snack. And then all of a sudden like two targets say they're like, I don't know what's up. I'm kind of like bouncing all over the place.

And I'm thinking, you just had 40 grams of sugar. And they're like, when? And I go, well, you just ate that marathon bar, you know, 19 grams of sugar per serving yeah double it you know you just like totally had a full-blown insulin drop you know and you do have one too you know i've been on this crazy diet now for two months and i stepped off it the other day i had a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake oh wee wasn't worth it it Wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it. But it was worth something. It was worth something while I was eating it.

It was glorious. It was a wonderful cheeseburger with blue cheese and bacon. It was very good. And the chocolate shake. That doesn't sound bad. It was pretty goddamn good. And the chocolate shake, it was a chocolate malt, in fact. Pretty goddamn good.

But good Lord, because I haven't been eating that way the crash after was over it was devastating like i could barely stay awake an hour later because my insulin level just my whole body was just like what did you do after months two months of eating clean you just took a shit in your mouth and i recognized that that had probably been been a normal thing for me for most of my life if i had eaten um a cheeseburger and a shake within an hour afterwards i just was crashed yeah i was just done but that's most people the way they eat all the time they just get used to that terrible feeling when i when i I give seminars, a lot of times you have a lunch break, and I pay attention to the people. When they hit the lunch break, I pay attention to what some people are eating because you can tell a lot by a person by what they're throwing.

If you've got an option of something good or something crap, there's some people that just like go right for the crap. Then there's some people that go for the good stuff. As soon as like your session starts back up, and I'm sure you've done this where you give like, you know, speeches or seminars. After meals, there's always like four people that are like out and they can't help it. Right. Because they ate a bunch of garbage and they had this huge insulin dump. And, you know, their body's like trying to fight off all that. And then they crash.

And a lot of times I'll like wake people up and I'll say, okay, I was waiting for that to happen because now is when I want to talk about the importance of nutrition during performance. Now is when I want to talk about the importance of nutrition during performance. Because the reason several people in here can't stay awake right now is because of what they did during their lunch break. A lot of events, sports-related events that are like all-day events, they have breaks. Archery always had a break at noon. I never wanted to be hungry at the break. I tried to continually pick and hydrate throughout the whole event, just like I do at home during the day so that I wasn't starving. You see competitors that are leading the pack and they run to the fricking concession stand and they want to like pound two or three burgers because they know that they're not going to get

to eat till five o'clock. And then all of a sudden their scores just start to peter out and they want to like pound two or three burgers because they know that they're not going to get to eat till five o'clock and then all of a sudden their scores just start to peter out and they start making mistakes and then all of a sudden towards the end they come back again and they're saying like yeah i just had that freaking those several ends i just struggled and it's like how do you think yeah yeah well at the time, I wasn't telling all my competitors, but I'm like, I saw that coming. Well, until you try to live clean, until you try to eat clean and you don't eat cheeseburgers and shakes, you don't understand how much of an impact it really has. Because I think people associate how they feel with just normalcy. They think that, well, this is just what happens. At the end of the day, I get tired, man.

I need naps. normalcy. They think that, well, this is just what happens. At the end of the day, I get tired, man. I need naps. When I started drawing this primal diet, the Marxism diet, and I brought my body into a state of ketosis, it was the first time ever that in between meals, I didn't have that crash where I didn't feel terrible, where I could go six, seven hours and not feel bad at all because your body, when it hits that state is starting to burn off the fat. And so your body has a supply of fat. So it just starts converting the fat in your body to energy. It's amazing. And it's amazing that so few people eat and live like this. Yeah. That was, that was really interesting. Cause the one thing I asked you was, I said,

what's really the difference between that and the Atkins, right? More fat. Right. And that was, to me, it made sense then, you know, where the Atkins, there's a lot more focus on the protein. You know, I get people that are uneducated on eating clean. You know, we look at what you and I just ate for lunch. I mean, we, like, knocked back an avocado like nothing.

Some people are afraid of an avocado because they say it's fattening. I mean, talk like knocked back an avocado like nothing. Some people are afraid of an avocado because they say it's fattening. I mean, talk about not knowing what's up. Yeah, they don't understand dietary fats and the importance of certain amounts of healthy fats, of getting the amount of oils and fats that your body needs, healthy oils, super important. And avocado oil and avocados in general, one of the most healthy fats you can consume. Super, super good for you, you know, and getting the right amount of nutrients in your body has just such a massive effect on how the whole goddamn thing works. And again, I go back to the mentor thing and the life coach thing,

because until you have talked to someone that you trust, that's that's done it and is there, you know, until you know some guy who's a competitive marathon or something like that. And he says, listen, you know, if you do this, your body will work better. You got to trust me. You got to trust me and try to clean up your diet and try to, you know, just if most people just cut out just one thing at a time, they would see a big difference. I actually have a thing that I call having, um, I've got a ton of success stories of hunters that were motivated by posts that I made with like food or, you know, they just see a post that I do and they're like, I really, I'm just tired of where I'm at as you know, Billy Bob, the bow hunter, or, you know, they just see a post that I do and they're like, I really, I'm just tired of where

I'm at as, you know, Billy Bob, the bow hunter, or, you know, I'm tired of where I'm at in archery. I've never, I've been in it 10 years and I've never made progress. What do I need to do? You know, I'll get some photos of them. And a lot of times I notice that they're out of shape and I'm like, listen, if you're shooting on a line and you look down and you can't see your feet, because you know a big part of my shot routine is the first step is really your feet, your stance. I mean, imagine martial arts. You're trying to talk to someone about their stance. They can't even see their feet. Well, it's like, okay, well, we need to address another problem as well.

You might not want to hear this, but we need to address this problem. another problem as well. You know, you might not want to hear this, but we need to address this problem. And for me, when I started down that path, because I had about three years of my life where I, you know, it's funny how when it comes to like the path of an arrow or the path of life, all it takes is the smallest movement to get you going a certain direction. And then all of a sudden before you know it, you're like so far off the course and you're like, how the hell did I get here? Yeah. And, and I had a point in my career where I was that way. I was like, you know, I was like, I remember I had to, I put on like a pair of 38 underwear and I was like, what the hell? You know, I used to wear like 30, 38 pants. Now I'm in a 38 fricking. and then I look at my legs. Cause you know,

and I've got a pretty good story about big bird, but I always like, I've got big bird legs, you know? And I'm thinking, frick, that's how round my waist is. As long as that fricking leg, that's how big around I am. So what I started doing was just having, and every time I ordered my normal meal at a restaurant, if it comes out and there's a burger, I took half the bun and I just like, and then half the fries, I freaking slid them off and I gave them to the lady and said, can you take that? And I would literally eat half the carbs that was on my plate. I just halved everything as soon as it came out. So I was in my normal routine in life. If Sharon and I went to Applebee's or whatever, and I ordered my normal little meal, if it was a carb or junk,

whatever they gave me as a portion, I halved it. And I mean, just that, and then getting rid of like soda. And all of a sudden it was just like zoom in a matter of months you've just completely like change your directional path and cut down the amount of calories yeah and once you get to that point you're motivated by what you're seeing and then it's like i'm gonna have that again like normally i'm used to having this i'm gonna have that again and Like normally I'm used to having this, I'm going to have that again. And, you know, there's times where I might feel like bread. Like I told you that for the most part, I don't like, you know, I feel really good when I'm not eating starch or carbs. I feel way better that way. However, certain carbs are, I think, really critical for times where, you know,

there's times where I'm needing to write or I'm needing to speak, and I kind of just feel fuzzy in the head. And for me, sometimes I think it's like your cognitive is craving some brain food. You should try some ketones, too. I'm going to get you some exogenous ketones. Yeah, I've been digging trying your dietary routine. It's good. Exogenous ketones have a big effect on mental function. It's very, very healthy for you, too.

It's not junk, not stimulants, you know, just healthy foods. You know, one of the ways that I got to know Cameron Haynes is because in being on a few hunts and going to the mountains and experiencing what it's like just to hike at high altitude, I just really underestimated the amount of stress that it takes on your body, how difficult it is to do. And so then I started researching fitness and fitness and hunting. I'm like, there's got to be someone out there that's really into it. And then I found Cam, who's just a fitness fucking nut. Oh, yeah.

He does ultra marathons and all that jazz. And that's how Cam and I became friends, fucking nut oh yeah does ultra marathons and all that jazz and that's how cam and i became friends is by looking at his his sort of style of getting ready for the mountains like pretty much all of what he does whether it's weight training whether it's just running running mountains it's preparing him to be a better hunter oh yeah and i don't think many people that view hunting consider that they think of hunting as being a fat guy who's drinking beer waiting for a deer to pass by so he could shoot it in the dick you know i mean that's that's well that's so that's how a lot of people look at hunting they look at as a bunch of cruel assholes

or that dentist guy who goes over to africa and shoots a lion and fucks it up that's how a lot of people look at hunting and that's it's it's one of the reasons why hunting has a bad rap, especially in terms of its benefit as a tool for conservation. People say, well, that's bullshit. The only reason why people call it a conservation tool is because it gives them an excuse to kill animals. Most of the money, most of the money to preserve wetlands to preserve wildlife habitat most of that money is a direct result of hunting oh absolutely totally that's a fact it's an undeniable fact so all these people out there that are calling themselves conservationists that never donate and then they'll say something mean and rude about hunting and even eat a cheeseburger after they say it

like there's a lot of fucking crazy intellectual dishonesty out there when it comes to this subject. And also in terms of what we should or shouldn't do in terms of being the stewards of the earth. Like, we were talking about, like, wild pigs. If you don't think that we should do something to control the population of wild pigs, it's because you've never been around wild pigs. Yep. They have two, three litters a year. They'll have three or four babies every litter, and they fucking keep going. They got more than that.

How many do they get? Pigs? I'm guessing seven to ten. In a litter? Yeah. And how many litters a year? At least two, right? They could do two.

Yeah, I think it's, what is it, every three months they can chuck them out? Well, they can chuck one out in six months after being born, which is insane. Oh, yeah. Yeah. chuck them out? Well, they can chuck one out in six months after being born, which is insane. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's there. I mean, it's, it's amazing how one or two pigs turns into an absolute problem really fast. And even, even at your house, you know, people, there's people that give me slack. If I, you know, I posted that video of that coyote I shot and then, you know, about the wolf thing, but people have a problem with that. And it's like,

dude, we were in your yard and your wife comes out and there's like two coyotes in the yard, like scoping out your chicken house. And then when she took the kids to school, she ends up telling us, yeah, there's a coyote running down the road with a fricking rooster hanging out of its mouth. Yeah. They're common. I mean, they're like, you have to, you have to control some of that and I have to control predator populations because nothing else does. And whitetails. I'm telling you, um, Frank Zane, he was a three-time Mr. Olympia. Frank used to do, he still does. He still does. But Frank and Arnold used to do archery as kind of an R and R, you know, from their bodybuilding. That was kind of their

zen, their stress relief was shooting. And when I went to the Arnold and competed, Frank and Arnold ended up coming in to have like an old, like a competition, like from the old days. So they came into the hall to each of them shoot. Well, what Arnold didn't know was Frank was so competitive that Frank actually talked to the coordinator of the event, and he called her and said, are there any really good archers coming that can coach? So she asked around and ended up connecting Frank

to me. So when Frank and I talked, I was like a big fan of him because I was a fitness guy for my stress relief. And he wanted coaching because he goes, when Arnold and I shoot together, I don't want him to think that I've practiced, but I want to freaking beat him. So I actually like worked with him a little bit and he did end up, you know, he ended up shooting and then Frank and I became friends and he's, you know, he's an animal or he's from, um, he's down from San Francisco, South San Francisco, I think. And he never really talked negative about me when he knew that I was a hunter and stuff, but I could tell it wasn't necessarily something that he favored. But he eats meat. Well, absolutely. But he, he wasn't

against it. He wasn't like dead set against it. I think he just wasn't interested. Right. So I pick him up at the airport and we're driving back and he said, so do you like hunt deer all the time? And I said, yeah, I hunt them all the time and i said yeah i hunt them all the time and he's like he's like well how kind of how do you how do you feel about it and i said but you have to do it and he's just like really and he never said anything negative but i remember we were three miles from my house and a freaking deer comes across the road and we're like in my little Hyundai accent and I freaking smoke this thing. And he's like, he's just like, holy shit. Like he's like, you know, he's never seen like a freaking animal smash the car. And I'm, and he's just like, that was a freaking deer. We just hit

a deer. And I said, yeah, dude, imagine if 850,000 people in the state of wisconsin weren't out hunting a year 850,000 is that how many yeah yeah between bow hunting and gun hunters you can look it up i was in wisconsin for opening season uh not last year but the year before last and the morning light is like a war just started it's crazy here it was like remember when we used to watch like shock and awe like when the shock and awe happened that's what it sounds like well we talked about michigan on the podcast before that in last year or every year 50 000 car accidents involving deer a year yeah just in michigan alone and so people that think well there's no other way to take care of that this is what people have to understand. Unless you want to bring in wolves.

And guess what? You don't want to bring in wolves. No. You don't want wolves in your neighborhood. Believe me, you don't want to look that in the face. Yeah. Well, you did. You know, I've talked, that story is crazy.

I was telling a friend of mine about it, the story of you, you were in Alberta and you shot an elk and these wolves circled the elk. Yeah. How many wolves were there? Well, at first there was just the one. The one came in and, you know, the one came in on us and I, and that's one, I do want to say off the beginning, one thing that I always do as a hunter is I always buy a predator tag if it's available. If I know that I can get a, that I can buy a tag for coyotes or wolves, I always have one in my pocket because you do see, you know,

they're out there and they're out there way more now. And this, and this is an exact reason why you got to do it because literally we had an elk down and next thing you know, we're out there kind of, you know, getting it ready to like, you know, to cut it up and stuff and get it out of there. And all of a sudden this big wolf comes, you know, it comes in and I had spotted it and we weren't really being noisy. So I ended up shooting that wolf and it kind of went off. And, you know, with a bow, there's no noise. So what we didn't realize was there was a pack there. And that was actually, it was an alpha female because of the size of it.

I mean, you saw the size of it. It's as big as me. And it actually went off. And then we kind of thought, well, that was freaking freaky. Well, then about 20 minutes later, all of a sudden we see another one. And we see another one. And we're kind of like, well, that was freaking freaky. Well, then about 20 minutes later, all of a sudden we see another one and we see another one. And we're kind of like, holy crap. So we start moving into this draw and one of them was like making like a noise, almost like it was injured or something. It was like whimpering.

So we're like, what is the deal? So we were on high ground with the elk. And then we started moving down into this ravine because we saw the wolves down in there. And next thing you know, we get down in there, and I start looking around, and there's, like, hair on the trees. There's, like, I mean, it looked like that movie Into the Gray. The Gray. The Gray. That's exactly what it looked like.

The Liam Neeson movie. There was, like,icking hairy turds everywhere. It was just, there was like beds, there was hair rubbed on the trees. And I start looking around, there's like holes dug in. And I'm like, I literally look at my two buddies that were there with me. And I said, we're right in their fricking den. Like, you know, and I think we had, that elk was not too far. You know, our elk wasn't too far so

when you shot an elk that they probably thought of as theirs oh they definitely thought of it was theirs yeah they they definitely thought that was theirs so then once we're down there all sudden we hear this howl we're like down there we hear this howl and it was definitely an alpha because an alpha's the howl it literally turns your blood instantly cold if you're right in on a true wolf howl it's i mean it's like so freaking low and deep and it's just like chills your blood well you realize it's not a game well yeah then i realized i'm like we're in their freaking den. And, you know, I'm kind of looking down. I'm like, okay, well, I shot an elk. Then I shot that. I've got two arrows left.

So, and, you know, both my guides kind of had, you know, once we said, oh, there's wolves, they, like, grabbed a gun. We kind of went down in there to see what was up. Well, now this happens. And next thing, after that alpha sounded off, it was like, and I mean, 12, I think it was 12 sounded off all the way around us. We're in a, we're, we're literally down. Anyone who's been in Alberta, you know, that the farmland is level and then it falls into the river system. So we're literally, they have the high ground. There's a dozen wolves and we're in the middle and we're like, what the crap? So I just's a dozen wolves, and we're in the middle.

And we're like, what the crap? So I just, I'm like, get your back to a tree. So we kind of all spin around, and we're sitting there. And next thing you know, here comes two dogs on a full-blown, I'm talking like full-blown like this. Running. Like freaking coming. And I mean, it turned into chaos. There was like bullets flying i mean there's

freaking arrows skipping off junk and we ended up shooting both of those wolves dead and there's a few gunfires going off well i'm down to like one arrow left and i told the guy i said how many bullets you got and he goes well i didn't you know i just grabbed the gun two couple bullets like i didn't know we were this was all going down so we're kind of like we need to get out of here so we started backing up and next thing you know they the alpha sounded off again and they all reported this time there's only two or two less so next thing i know i'm like kind of we're trying to back out so when you say that wait a minute hold on a second you say they reported there so there's they know that two were dead yes so all of them are howling i'm certain that the first howl was the alpha male pretty

much saying in is everyone in position? Because then they all like, yes, yes. All the way around. Then all of a sudden the two come, all hell breaks loose. Then we're like the alpha sounds again, but he's in a different location.

He was actually to my left, like right here and really close. And I mean, it's thick in there. You've been there. You know how thick it gets. So then they sound awful. Now this time there's two less.

So I'm kind of looking because I know this wolf that sounded was – and I know it's the alpha. So I, like, grab my bow and I start kind of creeping over there. And as soon as I get to where I can see, he like frickin standing right there and how far 30 yards which a wolf can cover Jamie pull up that picture from Joe's Instagram like it was about a week ago you found those pictures of those wolves yeah I forget who the photographer was there's got some amazing photographs of wolves yeah it was it was like not the most recent one on that was on that dead moose but it was that was from national geographic that was

actually a bison that was from yesterday that's right yesterday or the day before look at that right there that is exactly the face that I saw. But he was head on. He wasn't broadside. But that face where he was literally looking at me like that. And, I mean, you're in a fight or flight. Like, I'm totally in a fight or flight. I had one arrow left on my string.

I freaking grabbed my bow. I literally, I, like, I just kind of looked at him. I knew at that moment it was like he was coming yeah that's it's like freaking deja vu that's the right the twitter the um instagram page jamie to go back up a little bit is cjm underscore photography and if you go to that guy's instagram page he's got amazing photographs just and he's out there with them there was another one that i had and it's just right before that jamie the before that wolf picture there was another wolf picture that one look at that one man he's got snow all over his face and his teeth are bared

yeah that's a cool picture like to me that's pretty cool wolves are amazing they're amazing and the one thing people underestimate about hunters is our respect for animals. If you love them, why did you kill it? I freaking, I totally respect them. I love them. But I can tell you that other picture right there. When you have that looking at you in the face, I mean, I knew it was like freaking do or die. And I literally looked at that thing and I said out loud, I said, I'm going to shoot you in the effing face.

I like how you don't swear. Yeah. Sorry. It's cute. And my boy might listen. I understand. And I remember I drew back. I literally drew back and I anchored and I came into my peep. Which means, for people who don't know, there's like a little circle that you look at through the string where you're lining up with the sight. So I was literally lining up the shot.

Lining up the shot. And as soon as I kind of brought my shot down to where that wolf was, there was nothing there. He bolted. No, I think he just like, like ninja'd. Well, if they're that wise and that big and that old they've got to know what a hunter is they might mean they had to have known that you killed the elk and they had to have known that you killed those other two wolves that chased you that went after you guys to try to get the elk i think he came in to to think okay we've you called the fight. We responded. Now he's, like, sizing up, okay, I've lost.

Here's what I've lost. I want to know what I'm going against. He kind of came in and he freaking looked at us all. And then that was it. Good thing they can't count. They knew he only had two arrows left. Two arrows and two bullets. How many bullets did that guy pick up?

He only picked up three. It was bone chilling. I'm sure. I mean, I have – you and I both have friends that are – grizzlies, cats. I mean, cats are notorious for stalking hunters too because, I mean, they are the ultimate hunter. But grizzlies and wolves, I mean, they're, you have to be on guard that, you know, there's places now where, you know, grizzlies are strongly becoming such a problem when it comes to, you know, they have to be controlled. They're just starting to get to be too many for, especially for the food source. Yeah.

Well, there's people that worry about them being wiped out. And I read this article about it recently, and it was just so filled with misunderstanding or misinformation. And we're talking about wiping out grizzlies, that if they did open up back to grizzlies, grizzlies back to hunting again, they would be wiped out. People don't understand how it works. There's an allotment, a certain amount of tags that get distributed because wildlife biologists deem that there's too many of them. And that it's problematic for all the other animals that live in the area. You have to understand, like, when they try to, when they put tag limits on whitetail deer or they put tag limits on wolves, they do it because they deem that there's an issue.

And there's obviously people want to hunt deer, but there's also an issue. Like, we were talking about the state of Pennsylvania. There's some areas, I don't know if it's still the case, but there were some areas in Pennsylvania where they brought in hunters year round, no tag limits. They were like, just please come on down and shoot. And it was on Michael Waddell, his show. Oh, yeah. T-Bone was there. They shot like three or four deer in a day.

And it was in the middle of summer. They just went down there and shot deer because there's just so many of them. And they were shooting them in like a residential area. They were in a tree stand in like this dude's fucking yard. And it's overrun with deers. I think I met a guy that was literally begging me to come. He said there's a deer season in the residential areas i think in new jersey and he said there's like so many deer in people's backyards and the timbers so

he just said it's like there's just so many that they're issuing a lot of urban tags and they're hunting yeah and they have to and they have did you see the bears fighting in far walk away new jersey did you see that video? Uh-uh. You want to see it? Yeah. Bring up that video. Two no-bullshit, bona fide, seven-foot, 400-plus-pound bears going to war in a residential community. Knocking over fucking mailboxes and garbage cans, rolling out into the street, fur flying, biting each other.

Look at the size of these fuckers. But are they cute? Did anyone try to pet them or anything? Yeah, they should have just made friends. But look at these guys going at it. These are big fucking bears. Two big boars. The size of these guys.

What kind of move is that? Was that a judo throw? It was shitty jiu-jitsu. Look at him. He's reaching for a back leg, dude. It's like mall jiu-jitsu. Look at him. He's reaching for a back leg, dude. It's like mall jiu-jitsu. He's trying to ankle pick. Do you see it?

Yeah. He went in for a back leg. Well, this goes on for a long time, too, and the guy who's filming it is filming it from his car. I guess he's got his hand out the window. Oh, dang. So they go crashing through the bushes. They go tumbling out onto the street. They take out some mailboxes.

I mean, there's a mailbox. Cut these! These fuckers are big, man. They're big-ass bears. They are. Those are really big. And they keep going back. See, this one guy wants the garbage.

And that's what it is. It's so funny if a lady just came out to go shopping. Well, that fucking easily could happen. That's how people die. Oh, yeah. A lady got killed in florida last year by one of these fuckers yeah they're they're serious they mean i mean bear bears what a lot of people don't realize too i every year i go up you know you

always catch you catch slack for being a bear hunter but i go up to british columbia every year and bear hunt and during and it's all spot and stock there it's all fair chase but during the course of a six-day hunt I remember one year I saw 82 bears on a six-day hunt that's insane I mean in some of the bears you might see twice. But there were so many bears. And it's like, you know what? You have to manage that. It's healthy for them, too. Otherwise, this happens.

And you want to watch this in your yard? Well, this is what could happen. And what's interesting is Jamie and I, we were laughing because we found this fucking poster, this billboard, that said they're all Cecil. And it's a bear and a lion hugging each other, and it said stop the New Jersey bear hunt. Like there are people out there that are emotionally wrecked. They're children. They're an emotional wreck. They're a child who doesn't understand that nature is a ruthless, vicious, beautiful, majestic thing,

and wildlife biologists are the ones who know the best. These crazy emotional people that get so wrapped up in this idea that these animals are like people. They have this fucking picture of this bear and this lion hugging each other and the bear has tears and the lion has tears. Look at this. They're hugging each other. It the bear has tears, and the lion has tears. Look at this. They're hugging each other. It says, ban the bear hunt.

They are all Cecil. SavedNewJerseyBears.com. You guys are out of your fucking mind. Wow. If bears didn't exist, they didn't exist, and they were in a movie, they would be a monster. It would be some beast living in the woods that fucking eats baby deer right out of the vagina of the deer when they pull them out. Yeah.

And they literally catch a deer that's giving birth to a fawn and they pull them out of each other. They eat cubs on a regular basis. There's so much cannibalism in the bear community. Yeah, I've seen a lot. It's not a community, really. It could be. I don't think it is.

Well, they equal rights. Tell me that fucking story that you were telling me yesterday about the grizzly bear that got into the shed or got into the cabin. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just the sheer power. I actually have my, like, wilderness father. His name's Bert. He's up there where I hunt in B.C. He has stories of the wilderness.

He'd be the ultimate character for you to have on. He's like a real life Grizzly Adams. He's got stories, but there was a bear that kept destroying the camps and the cabins. They ended up, they ended up like just kind of calling the bear or big Earl or something. And they would come to the camps. He would come in and they would have like a huge big door you know and they would nail in you know nine ten inch spikes through the door frame in three spots down the sides and then through the top they'd nail you know nail 10 inch spikes pound them through the logs of a log home to hold the door frame in. Well, they came to camp and they figured, well, this is going to keep him out because he was blowing through all the windows.

Every year he'd blow through the windows. So they boarded the windows up and they had this door. So evidently he got mad. They could see where he was really mad about how they boarded the door, the windows up. So he literally grabbed the door and the whole door and well, the whole frame with the door was like freaking laying off to the side of the cabin with 10 inch spikes bent on 90 degree angles. And there was one claw there. He had evidently reached in with two claws and freaking hooked the backside of that door frame and ripped a frickin' door out of a log home. And pulled one of his own claws out?

And pulled his claw out. That's how they knew they got the bear, because they ended up getting a permit to get the bear, and he had nine claws. Whoa. Threw that to the side, went in the cabin. He licked the freaking oven clean, but he could still smell that there's like grease somewhere inside there that he like wanted to get to. So the whole freaking, the whole stove was smashed about this high off the ground. So a couple inches. A couple inches off the ground. So a couple inches. A couple inches off the ground. He literally just got on it and squished that frickin' full-blown stove just like we would a pop can under our foot to, like, squirt some extra grease out the side of that big Oreo cookie that he thought it was.

Oh, my God. And licked it clean. Well, it gets better. So there was curtains over the sink in the cabin and the curtains were all gone and and um the other thing too i think there was like there was two big five gallon things of like cooking oil that were in the camp so burt told me that there was like one claw mark in the cooking oil and then the freaking things like a capri sun he had freaking popped a hole in these five gallon things of cooking oil and freaking squirted them dry like a like an old capri sun threw those to the side well the curtains were gone too

because bert thinks because of cooking like the grease and crap that got on the curtains he like freaking they they were gone. He ate them. Yeah. Well, at the time, they didn't know. They just, you know, his wife, Mary Jane, was like, what happened to the curtains? He's like, I have no idea. But he had lived in there.

So, I mean, he had like piled the couch up. And, I mean, he like lived in that cabin. The bear. The bear did. A full-blown 10-foot freaking grizzly mountain grizzly so then they went down to the next camp which was 20 miles away and i didn't tell you this part so they get in there and it's just an absolute freaking wreck it looks like a life-size mouse home. Just crap everywhere.

So Mary Jane's like got a snow shovel and she's like scooping all this freaking shit off the ground. And there was all these like material dingleberries. And she's like, what are those dingleberry things? And Bert goes,

that's all the balls off the curtains from Grizz camp. The freaking bear had like ate the curtains in the other camp. Once he destroyed it, he kept walking down the road 20 miles to the next freaking cabin, destroyed that one and freaking shit out. 20 miles? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So he was the king of the mountain.

Oh, yeah. They have a huge range. But yeah, he like, you know, freaking slung dingleberry juice and 10 gallons of freaking oil all across the next camp just to prove a point. Imagine what kind of diarrhea a bear gets after 10 gallons of oil. Just drink oil and eat curtains.

It's probably about the same kind I get after like six chicken McNuggets. It's hard out there for a bear. It's a hard world. It is. It's just a crazy animal. It's hard out there for a bear. It's a hard world. It is. It's just a crazy animal. It's such a majestic, I mean, we're super lucky that they're alive. We're super lucky that they're around. And that's the difference between, I think, people who are like really hardcore animal rights activists and people who are wildlife biologists and conservationists like both agree that bears are amazing and that's where i think that these people are they have

a misconception they think that hunters want to kill animals and they're they're vicious and they're mean cruel and they have little dicks and uh some of them do i'm sure i'm sure some of mine small yeah if you if you admit that yeah well like i. Mine's small, yeah. Good for you. Good for you admitting that. Well, like I said, you have to. But you're a giant guy. You're like 6'5". That could be it. Maybe it's just small compared to everything else. I hope so.

I hope so, too, for you. I mean, for my part, you've got to admit your problem if you're going to move on, right? That's how you get better at archery. That's how you get better at dealing with your dick. But my point was that like both love bears oh yeah they just they just don't want them to be a problem so when you're looking at what this bear did to that cabin you can say well the cabins in his neighborhood nothing's his neighborhood how about that i just said it that it's all if people live out there and the bear comes in their house,

it's not that the bear came into his own house. It's a fucking person's house. And if you don't think that way, then you're a problem. You're a problem. Bears are fucking bears. All right. And if you don't differentiate the difference between the value of a person and controlling populations of bear, well, you're a ridiculous person. You, you, you're not looking at this thing correctly. No one's saying the bear should be wiped out,

but when you talk about an animal that can flatten a stove, flatten a stove and pull a door out of the frame with nine foot long spikes surrounding, I mean, nine inch, nine foot. How crazy is that? Kind of a nail is that? Kind of a nail is that? Nail is as big as the bear. Nine inch long spikes surrounding i mean nine inch nine inch nine foot how crazy that's some kind of nails

nails as big as the bear nine inch long spikes you're talking about an insane animal that if you don't control their populations they're going to decimate everything they're going to they're going to the only thing that's saving them is them them eating cubs that's the only thing that controls the population of them if they're not if they're no hunt yeah the only thing that controls the population of them if they're not, if they're no hunter. Yeah. The only thing controlling the population is the food chain. And, you know, I told you this the other day. I feel like as a hunter, I love what I've got to witness as a hunter because I feel like I've spent way more time enjoying the creations of the wild because I've been out there really out there yeah i mean how else would you have gotten a chance to see wolves in that environment that you saw them i mean that's oh yeah a confrontational environment yeah i mean yeah i wouldn't prefer to be in the

middle of a freaking wolf attack to see them but you see things like i told you the time we're like you know we're the time we where a freaking bull moose, like probably about the size of, you know, the one that you've got over there, you know, literally watch this freaking grizzly square off to this bull moose and hit it. The grizzly literally just hit the freaking top back part of a full-blown moose and just broke it. And it's like dinner time snapped its back yeah snapped it i mean just the sheer power yeah where was this up in bc wow i mean you you look how far away was it from you it was a ways off i mean it was like a binocular watch but still there's things

like that there's things like you know you talked about how um the rivets up in alberta you know where they have the bear camp you you know you saw like a boar maybe they were telling you the story no i saw a boar and a sow fighting okay going at it yeah well i've seen and i i told you this and i actually i shot the boar but i spotted a big bear in a field and I was hunting and it was spotting stalk. And as I'm starting to stalk, all of a sudden a sow comes out and starts freaking like posturing to the, to the male. And then all heck broke loose just like that. That's what it was like. And I mean, I'm within a hundred yards of it. I mean, it's ferociously loud. And then after they, like, break up, the boar goes running to this huge – you've seen the timber up there.

The timber's gigantic, like a couple stories high. He freaking jumps on this tree and starts going. And, I mean – and I'm talking, like, full speed. Full speed. I mean, it's,'s like it's an incredible chase and fight he freaking hits his tree and he's freaking going up it like bark is just ripping out and the the black female is going right behind him and at the time i still didn't realize what's up until i till he gets almost to the top and i see two colored cubs up there and he's free i mean

like branches are coming off like nothing is stopping this dude he's freaking going and right before he gets to the cubs the freaking female launches and grabs the ham hock and just lets go of the tree and just freaking let brings the bolt of them down and lets the weight freaking bring them down and just oh you hear you know i mean it like boom and then all heck breaks loose they go up into the timber and it's just like you know a crazy fight yeah we were in a similar situation where there was a mother with her cubs, and then the boar came in looking to kill and eat the cubs. Yep. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And we talked about there's argument to why. I haven't seen the evidence on, you know, you feel like it's just easy. Ronella said that there's recent evidence that shows that these bears are looking to eat these things like almost immediately when they come out of hibernation. Because of ease of diet. Yeah, because they're just food. I personally think, because they always tend to be more aggressive on the cubs from what I've experienced, the further into May that you get. Right.

The closer you get to rut, the more likely, you know, I kind of think those boars might have bred one or two sows. They're horny. I mean, so horny. And then they're wanting another one. And they know that's the only thing that's going to trigger for them to come back in. But, you know, after that fight broke up and the sow, you know, she ended up standing guard. She kind of called her cubs down and they hauled well that big boar ended up coming out and he was you know it was like a seven foot

chocolate and that's the one i got you know so you know some people might be like oh he was trying to kill the babies and then you know next thing you know i got it so i kind of feel like i did i was babies you're conservationist definitely a conservationist in that in that people also don't realize that you eat bears too people have been eating bears forever and then they taste good yep you know they think that you only eat deer and elk and everything else is trophy hunting you know yeah it's it's amazing to me the the just the beauties that i've seen i've been i've been i love sitting in a whitetail stand and i spent a lot of time in a whitetail stand just sitting quiet and you know for me it's it's like meditation because it is so quiet at times

there's like sometimes i've heard like birds and noises where I'm like, I've literally never, ever heard, like, what is that? Like, I've never heard that. And I, one of the coolest things that I've experienced is I've been in the timber during the fall where there's just colors, like, like a painting, just colors, you colors. You know how it is in the Midwest. And there's days when, like, the first fall snap really happens when I believe trees just decide to let go. Have you ever watched any of the Harry Potter movies? You ever see that tree that just, like, freaking cleans itself off? Right.

And then all of a sudden he like just decides. Well, I've been in the timber where it was like the trees were almost communicating and everyone just said let go. And literally like someone just moved a fresh canvas. Just all the colors of fall just let go. And you literally watch the whole color of fall go to the ground and it's bare who can say they've seen that they're pretty rare it is amazing to see these cycles of nature to see them in person and i think that's one of the things that a lot of people are missing by living in cities there's a lot of really cool shit that you could see out in the

woods there's so much so much of it is just like inherently fascinating or like it appeals to us some sort of a primal way you remember that squirrel i sent you the other day yeah i mean yeah that was crazy i mean i was out for a little walk and I came across a really nice buck, an awesome buck, literally dead and eaten by coyotes. And it was a deer that I know was, you know, I'd seen earlier in the season. It was perfectly healthy. And next thing I know, a month later, here it is like dead, just a decayed carcass eaten what do you think happened you think the coyotes captured it or you think you're tired from the rut it's hard to say i think you know i think with any type of animal especially when the males have such a limited time to breed they

really exert themselves i mean it's like it's like looking I've seen bucks that literally look like that fighter that fought Kimbo or whatever, you know. Dada 5000. Yeah, I've literally seen them. I've seen them walking, and they're like a freaking fully skinned zombie just because they've just been running. They came too much. Yeah, yeah. They're done. You've looked like that a few times, I heard. You get tired too much. Yeah. Yeah. They're done. You've looked like that a few times. I heard

you get, you get, you get tired, man. Yeah. And I think when they get that run down, it's no different than me when I'm traveling a lot, especially when I'm skipping time zones and I really have a hard time getting into a sleep pattern and a recovery pattern. You just get sick. You get the flu, you know, you get the flu, you get some fricking stupid little bug that's on an airplane from some guy, like three seats over that's coughing. You know, I think you just wear your immune system down and you're vulnerable. And then when, you know, winter comes in and it's, it's a fricking, you know, it's tough on some. They don't eat for days sometimes. Oh, yeah, days.

They just get after it. I saw a buck one time. He was just, I mean, I'd see him like as far as I could see with the binoculars over here. And, you know, 30 minutes later, I'd see him as far as I could see with binoculars, like go through this creek bottom and this creek bottom. And I was actually sitting on this like pond dam. And about 11 in the morning, here he comes. He's just like freaking, he's just walking with this zombie walk. Like he's trying to find a scent trail of a doe that's in estrus.

And he's just been breeding for weeks. And I remember he's just freaking coming in. And he literally just comes running and he hits the pond and he's sitting in the pond like with just his head sitting out and he's like and then he comes up out and he's just like he goes like shakes and he's gone again it's just like holy crap this poor dude is just like running this like marathon of the rut and well there's so much competition oh yeah it's like iowa that's part of what ramps them all up is there's so many other deer there yeah yeah i mean and it's you know it's cool to watch so many die that way well i found that but that buck that day and then two minutes later i'm walking through the forest like oh here's a

cute little squirrel you know i see the squirrel like and he like kind of like he's like looking at me on the side of this tree like is this person gonna me? And all of a sudden, like, freaking boom, this, like, red-tailed hawk just freaking pounds this thing. And I'm, like, looking around like, what the heck? And then the hawk looks at me and starts to fly and then drops a squirrel. And I went over, and here's the squirrel with, like, two talon marks, one through its eye, one through its mouth, and one, like, up through the jaw. Did you put that online did you put that picture on no i can i can send it to jamie though if you want you should put it on your instagram page because it's a crazy picture yeah it's a weird thing to see yeah it's you know

nature's nature is interesting but it's you know i'm a conservationist i'm a i'm a huge supporter to the boone and crockett club i've you know tried to become, I've done what it takes to become a professional member now of the Boone and Crockett Club. And I'm really focused on trying to give more back on the conservation side because there's so many important things that these organizations do for wildlife as much as people want to say they you know that i've i've just never seen an anti-hunting community come anywhere where i'm at and put in time establishing habitat and actually doing things that grow the population. And, you know, I plant food and I probably leave five thousand bucks a year worth of food in my dirt to like help grow deer and like help my deer population. Don't you think, though, that there's a lot of people that have opinions about animals and about wildlife

that really spend very little time with animals and in wildlife? They have this very convenient idea. Like when I told a friend of mine the number that we discussed in the podcast earlier about Michigan having 50,000 car accidents a year, and he was like, you're lying. And I'm like, dude, Google it. And he looked accidents a year and he was like you're lying and i'm like dude google it and he looked at it and he just sat he like literally looked at his phone and sat like plopped down holy shit i go you're not there if you're there you would know like it's oh it's

it's overwhelming because his opinion or his point of view was that these hunters are just these people that are just assholes that like to shoot animals like they do need to do this like they need to do this and you might not think it but you you just no way you have a survey of the whole world or the whole country you just don't and if you did i bet you'd have a different opinion have you seen some of the numbers like what all state insurance posts about how many vehicle deaths and dollars and vehicle collisions there are just with white-tailed deer with one insurance company. Let's find out. I have it on my laptop if you want me to grab it.

Well, Jamie could pull it up. I'm sure it's on Google. Yeah, it is. But just Google how many car accidents involve deer nationwide. Yep. I bet it's... If Michigan has 50,000 a year. It's mind blowing. Even the number of deaths would, is.

Well, in Cam Haines' hometown, some guy just died. Some guy hit a deer and then the guy in front of him died. Or the guy behind him. The guy hit a deer, went flying through the air. 175 to 200 fatalities every year and 10,000 injuries. There's approximately 1.5 million deer-related car accidents annually. I'm going to say that again. There are 1.5 million deer-related car accidents annually.

You didn't know that, did you? Nope. Over $1 billion in vehicle damage and 175 to 200 fatalities, as well as 10,000 injuries. Oh, my God. And 200 deaths. In 2012, it said 200 deaths, $4 billion a year. Yep. Fucking Christ. Exactly.

A lot of people don't know that. The continent is large. It's big. Let me ask you this. It's funny. People whine and cry about how much insurance goes up. How much do you think it would go up if we didn't help that? Yeah.

Well, also, not just that. How about health insurance because it ticks Lyme Lyme disease oh yeah and just your injuries more people going in for hitting one yeah absolutely my dad my dad actually he he always wanted to have his teeth perfect and I remember and I remember he wore braces for a long time to get his his teeth fixed and like no sooner than he had them done and was wearing a retainer and my dad's like he's got a truck at home like a big truck but he never drives it because he always he like drove a little bitty Honda and he freaking hit a deer he hit a buck like a month after getting it like finally the dentist saying you don't have to wear your retainer he hit a buck the horns stuck through his windshield

and the horns stopped on his steering wheel and the body came in and hit him in the face oh my god and he had to like get he literally has fake teeth in the front wow yeah so jesus christ yeah i had no idea 1.5 million i told you yeah that's crazy and what that's a way better statistic than the 50 000 in michigan yeah that's nothing. I mean, well, that's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. But in the whole scheme of things, you know, my wife's from England, and she had never hunted. Her family never hunted.

I mean, they have no idea about that stuff. They have no relation to hunting, right? stuff. It's, you know, they, they have no relation to hunting. Right. So when she came over, she was, you know, she knew I hunted and she was open-minded to it because I, I showed her numbers like this. I said, okay, I understand you don't understand it. So let's talk about some of this stuff. Do you realize this? Do you know that at our house, if you drive around, you're going to see a deer from your car, like almost any time you're driving around our area after dark or waiting until you see how many dead deer on the side of the road during the first three weeks of November driving down the highway in Iowa. You know what I mean? So she kept an open mind and she realized really quick we couldn't grow a garden you know in wisconsin they

were like eating us all the time i mean they were everywhere and she's just like you know what i get it i never saw this i didn't see this much stuff in in england we didn't have it that's why we weren't hunting there it's not because people aren't necessarily hunters. It wasn't. In some areas, it isn't a needed conservation. It is here. That's the reality. It is.

Well, imagine if you could see all 1.5 million car accidents in like a scene, like one after the other. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Because you've got to think there's 365 days used, 24 hours in a day. So if you could look at all the footage that's accumulated every year in one giant loop, like one highlight reel of car accidents. You couldn't watch it in a year. Well, you couldn't. Well, you would watch two people die or 200 people die too.

But just the sheer volume would kind of wake people up. If you could watch the sheer volume, if they put together a movie that was three hours long, that was just all the car accidents in the last six months with deer, people would go, oh, my God, we're at war. We're at war and they're attacking cars. They're literally suicide attacking cars. They're literally suicide bombing cars. They're jumping out in the street and taking out drivers. Well, for over three hours, you would see someone die every minute. Yeah. In that compilation.

Yeah. You just see boom, boom, boom, boom, smash, hoof to the face, antlers to the neck. It was over and over and over again. You'd have a lot more candidates for that LSD trial. I mean, there'd be some serious traumatic syndrome. Oh, the MDMA? Yeah. Yeah, the MDMA trial. Yeah, that would flip people over in the end.

Listen, we've got to get the fuck out of here. It's 4 o'clock. Oh, yeah. You've got shooting to do. We just banged through three hours. How about that? Thanks, buddy. Thank you, man.

Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for coming down here, and thank you very much for all the coaching, man. It's been amazing. I've learned so much from you. And anybody that's into archery, I encourage you, go to Knock On Archery on YouTube. Knock On TV for social. And Knock On TV on Twitter. I put that already up on my Twitter page.

And there's the television show that is on the Sportsman's Channel. John Dudley, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks, everybody. Try Archery. You'll like it. Alright, we'll be back tomorrow with the great Dom Irera. See ya!