The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #114 with Rickson Gracie

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Rickson Gracie is a ninth-degree red belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, retired MMA fighter, and author of "Breathe: A Life in Flow."

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Thanks for being here, sir. Always good to see you. It's always my pleasure, brother. Always good to see you, and it was good to talk to you before the podcast. We were talking about how you go into the cold plunge with a snorkel. Tell me about that. Yes, the cold water shower, the ice water,

has always been very helpful for me in terms of controlling emotions and feel peaceful in hell. Yeah. So I was doing it on the ice bath, but I always put a snorkel and put my head under the water. Because if you keep your head off the water, it becomes very physical, very uncomfortable, but doesn't hit the emotional aspect. You don't feel like you're going to die because you don't feel the fear on your face,

the discomfort in your ears and your head, which brings a different dimension of terrifying feelings. So I was putting the snorkel and getting under the water and breathing. When I achieved the calmness in my heart and lungs, I was ready to leave the water. I don't stay there for 10, 15 minutes. I stay there for one, two, three minutes at the most until I feel very peaceful. And because for me it was more like spiritual than actually physical. I'm not there to treat micro traumas or something. It was more to give me the sense of ready to die any point and feel like if you stay too long under the water, you're going to die.

So you have to be peaceful and at the same time aware and develop courage, develop calmness, develop spiritual surrender. For me, it's everything I need to perform well. spiritual surrender for me is everything I need to perform well and so you you started doing cold water therapy a long time ago I mean it was obviously it was in the movie choke when you went into that frozen river yes when did you start doing that soon I felt I have to develop some kind of terrifying experiences to make my spiritual mind become comfortable. So big wave surf is always something which terrified me and I was exposing myself to the ocean to understand the motion of the ocean and be comfortable in this kind of situation also cold water and and and other things I always do and this was just always a part of developing yourself for fighting developing yourself just for overall life my my life is a very unique one because since I start to understand my my status of representing the family through jiu-jitsu,

I put myself against the unknown, which is no weight division, no time limits, no rules, no size. So all those unpredictable aspects give me a sense which is different than just a sport-like lifestyle. I was living more the life of a guy who is ready to anything, anytime. So that kind of preparation requires not only the mental and the technical preparation, but also the spiritual preparation. And sometimes, spiritually speaking, you have to understand how to accept things, how to surrender things,

and be above your physicality or actually the fear of dying. And did you develop these concepts on your own? Did you recognize that you needed to strengthen these aspects of your mind and your body as you were going through this journey? Yes, yes, definitely. Because if you're going to fight somebody, you don't know who it is, what technique he knows, what size he has, when he's going to fight you. So it's all unpredictable. It's always unknown.

And you have to be spiritually strong to accept the unknown comfortably. So my life was preparing myself for something I could not even expect what it is. It's just be ready for anything. And that's required from me, start to bring in scenarios and situations for me to become comfortable in these kind of situations, totally unpredictable. So I like to use nature as a friend of the ocean, the rivers, the cold. I like to use the experience of breathing. When I was young, with 12 years old, I was practicing with adults at the academy.

So they take care of me, they play with me. adults at the academy. So they take care of me, they play with me. And one blue belt, strong guy, get me on a headlock, which normally you have defense for it. But because I was kid, I was tired and the guy was strong, I could not escape and I tap. And I get so upset with the tapping because I knew was not something I should do, technically speaking. So I went home. I stretched myself on the edge of a carpet and asked my brother, Hollis, to roll me up on the carpet in 110 degrees humid Rio de Janeiro. And I was stressed, I mean, suffocated for a little while

because I told him, just let me get out of here in 10 minutes. So the first and second minute was terrifying. I was hot. I could not feel the air. And I start to putting my mind on the ocean breeze, flying with seagulls and get breeze on my face and start to be calm. After 10 minutes, my brother unfold me. I was like a burrito. And then I passed that experience. Somehow I passed through. In the same year, I did three more times. Until the point I

was getting rolled on the carpet, feeling nothing, stay waiting the time and leave the car. So I was fixing myself emotionally with the ways I could feel like was the options I have, how I can suffocate myself and not die. So I was putting myself in some kind of obstacles just to feel comfortable. And after that, I never felt the panic and I felt fighting anymore. And a lot of that panic can be resolved with another thing that you specialize in,

which is breathing exercises. I feel like the big difference I did on myself to be able to capture more experience emotionally and also spiritually and also physically was breathing. The learning of breathing for me was the huge asset because up to that point, I was an athlete. I was training forever. I was running. I was doing everything I could do, but never with the feeling of full potential. When I start to learn how to really function in the breathing system, I start to understand because you can spend seven days without food. You can spend three days without water.

But five minutes without breathing, you're dead. So learning how to function properly in your breathing is not something you're going to learn when you're born. Because when you're born, you get slapped on your butt. And then you're alive and well to follow your life. But it's much more than just the diaphragmatic breathing, which improves. Like if I breathe wrong. breathing, which improves. Like if I breathe wrong, if I breathe right, wrong, short breathing.

Yeah, because just on the top of your lungs. Right. When you use the diaphragmatic breathing, you're able to bring the air to the lower part, to the back part of your lungs, which triples the amount of air. So when you're expert in moving your diaphragmatic breathing, use your diaphragm effectively, you hyperventilate in a way, you may get exhausted physically, but your brain is still

sharp enough to get the intelligence, the sharpness, the enlightenment you need to, even when you're like fading away in muscle speaking, your brain is still cool and functioning. Because normally, when you start to get tired, you start to get fading your brain is still cool and functioning. Because normally, when you start to get tired, you start fading your brain and start to make important decisions. You become a little stupid because there's not enough blood for everything. But if you know how to hyperventilate, you become much better in terms of absorbing, getting, fixing your physical, understand your mental,

and be able also to use the spiritual. When did you learn this stuff? It was just a time developed to my passion, which was representing the family, representing the jiu-jitsu. And I have no instructors, you know, no mentors in terms. Orlando Cane was my mentor in breathing, which I'm grateful for life. And after his experience, I become effective and know how to breathe and meditate and move and become much more connected with my spiritual elements. What was Orlando's specialty? What did he do?

He was an army pentathlon champion in 1965. He was a yoga instructor. And he started to develop the bioginastica, which was an element of combining movements like an eagle. Not like a yoga, which postures and breathing. It was also moves and breathing. Sometimes you fast, sometimes you calm, sometimes you calm, sometimes you peaceful, sometimes you explosive, sometimes you recruiting full power and keeping for longer.

Different practice to give you the sense of incorporating breathing in your functional life, not exactly stop every tank, be in a posture and breathe, but fighting and breathe, making love and breathe, and meditate and breathe, sleeping, how to breathe to get a full, relaxed, quick. So all the functional aspects to use breathing in your favor. And so he was a yoga instructor in this, do you call it gymnastica natural?

Is that what it's called? Gymnastica Natural was, he developed, but he lost the rights to use that name. Okay. His name now is Biogynastica. Biogynastica. He is the same master who teach the Gymnastica Natural, but the guy steal the name from him. Oh. So now he use Biogynastica.

It's a dirty world out there. Yes, very dirty. So, but he taught you the yoga or it's more of a movement-based system. Yes. But you do a lot of traditional yoga moves as well, right? Not exactly. My mother taught me, I mean, she took me to that yoga classes, and I didn't like much because the postures, the suffering, the flexibility was just there for me to understand my discomfort, but it doesn't give me too much a good experience. So I didn't like it and stopped. Didn't give you a good experience.

How so? Because after the experience with Orlando, I felt like everything else was not good because yoga is a great practice. Don't misunderstand me. But for me, I expect something more dynamic. I expect something more like actually teach me how to apply breathing to functioning, not exactly how to breathe to become more flexible or how to breathe to resist the spiritual pain. Yoga put you in a position and expect you to work with your mind. The biogenesca put you in a situation where you have to jump.

So how is the proper breathing for you to jump? How is the proper breathing for you to jump? How is the proper breathing for you to relax? How is the proper breathing for you to fight? How is proper breathing for you to swim, to surf? In every aspect of, in every sport, we have always different aspects of breathing. You see boxers, you see tennis players, because they excel when they breathe. So they have different ways to breathe. I developed in a very high level breathings for fighting and for surfing, which are things I love to do. But if I was a soccer player, I would have a different approach for breathing.

If I was gymnastics, whatever activity you have, it's going to be always a breathing who fits properly. Did other members of the family adopt these practices with you? No, not really. But that seems like it would make sense if they did that. If I was looking at the guy who represented the family, who was the best fighter in the family, I would assume that other people

would follow whatever he's doing. Yes, supposed to be, but sometimes this either ego or something, my son, Kron, he does very well. He gets advantage of knowing how to breathe properly and he's showing how comfortable he is when he's doing things. But other members of the family,

they don't put too much attention on breathing, and it's bad for them, you know, what I can say. It's just strange to me, because people respect you so highly, and respect your accomplishments in jiu-jitsu so highly. I would imagine that they would want to emulate all the aspects of a physical culture that got you to where you became. of a physical culture that got you to where you became. Yes, but my way to see jiu-jitsu has always been very clear to me,

but always demand from me because, like I said, I was not sure about anything. What's the enemy? What's the size? So it requires from me a larger toolbox for a warrior, not only the physicality, not only the training, the courage and the ability to do it, but also how to control my emotions, how to be visualizing what I want, all the aspects of the rational visualization and mindset. And also my spiritual side, because if you want to fight you don't know who,

you have to learn how to not fear death. You have to learn how to have hope. You have to learn how to be patient because different than passivity, patience is a quality. The lion stays behind the bush waiting for the zebra to get close, patiently waiting for the kill. He's not passive, he's just patient. So for a guy who's going to fight somebody with no weight division, no time limits, no rules, patience, hope, faith, visualization, those are very important elements for a spiritual warrior, for a warrior who's in a situation has to improvise. Different than same weight division, five minutes rounds, the rules are there, the set.

five minutes rounds, the rules are there, the set. So it's a completely different element of spirituality in terms of acceptance, in terms of being engaged in something. You can die. I was expecting the best, but I was accepting the fact I could die trying. And quitting for me was not an option. So my life was being very much mold under that kind of pressure, which I have to make comfortable. So that situation pulled me in facing my monsters in a very early age. And somehow I have to deal with the monsters, you know, from breathing, from

accepting death, from be able to perform under pressure, and things like that. And I have to, you know, sometimes a cold bath, sometimes going in a heavy ocean, sometimes just to prove myself I could deal with nature and I could flow in very ugly scenarios and perform well because emotionally I was in control. Spiritually, I was able to give my acceptance in my spirituality. Where did you learn techniques for visualization? I think visualization is part of the process. Even before I know what it is, because I've always been very competitive, because I've always been very focused on what I want.

That focus, that idea of winning, competing, what I have to learn. So it always keeps me in a sense where the visualization pulls me in a sense. I could win a fight in 10 seconds. I could win a fight in 10 seconds. I could win a fight in one minute. I could have a hard fight and win by points. I couldn't get a lose. I couldn't get a knockout. So I visualize everything.

And even though I could get punched in the face and pass and get knocked down, I still visualizing I was able to survive on the guard and handle the storm and able to get smart again and win the fight. So all the process, a hard fight, an easy fight, an impossible fight, and even death is part of a good visualization because you have all the scenarios in your mind. You review all them. You're kind of pretty much comfortable with all the scenarios, even death. So when, it's fascinating to me that when you started,

there really was no, other than your father's fights and Carlson Gracie and some other people who had fights before you. Yes. There was no history of it the way there is today. So it was really like the people that don't know, they think of MMA, they think of the UFC and they think it having these no rules fights. And they were having them in front of large audiences. And they were facing all kinds of different styles. And there was no time limit. And it's a completely different experience.

Yes, completely different. Because the fight has a different purpose. It was not about the event. It's not about the entertainment. It's not about the event. It's not about the entertainment. It's not about the money. It was about representing. It was a confrontation of styles. People don't prepare themselves in all aspects of fighting.

People represent karate or judo or boxing or wrestling. of fighting. People represent karate or judo or boxing or wrestling. So the idea of putting jiu-jitsu in the number one spot was the commitment we have. If you put in the confrontation, we believe in jiu-jitsu to 200%. So that idea was the focus point for the whole preparation and the whole concept of making strategies. Because we're not expecting fighting another jiu-jitsu fighter. We're expecting to represent with jiu-jitsu against boxing, against wrestling, against all the styles. How old were you when you had your first match like that?

My first professional was 19. 19. I had to fight King Zulu with 120 fights and four draws only. 120 victories. He was a big guy too. Yeah, about 210, 220. And about, yeah, he was a big guy. How much do you weigh at the time?

174. Those matches are still available online. People can watch them. Yeah. It's watch them. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I think so, yeah. Is it wild looking back at 19-year-old you fighting Zulu? It was maybe the biggest experience in my life

because at this point I felt like I was good, I was able to fight well, but I didn't have the experience. So then one day I got home, I saw my father talking with Zulu's manager in Brasilia, the capital. And the guy tried to invite somebody of my father's team to fight Zulu. And my father would say, no, I don't have nobody. We don't fight Valetudo for so long.

Nobody's training for. And I get the idea. I said, hey, Dad, pull me in, pull me in, pull me in. So I immediately asked him to, and he looked at me, and he mentioned to the Valdemar Santana, said, yes, but I have my son here at 19 years old, he want to try. And the guy said, no, Mr. Gracie, this is not a fight for him to try. The guy is very tough and this and that. As the guy tried to pull my father off the deal,

my father becomes more excited to the, no, but I think he's going to go handle the challenge, this and that. So he's become excited with the situation. So then we set up the fight. One month later, I was there to fight. And we start the fight, and he has a trade, like one move he does, which grab you with the hands between your legs

and lift you up and throw you back on the floor. And as he approached that, I move back, block his shoulders and hit him with the knee right on his face. It was the best knee I could possibly give in somebody. And I expect him to just, I expect to win the fight right in that moment. But he just shook, he stood up, lifted his head, shook, spit a tooth, and started back ready again to go.

And then I felt like it was really serious, and I think it was much serious than I expect. And for the next 10 minutes, because it was 10-minute rounds, for the end of the round, we just engage and fall on the ring and come back in and back out, and a lot of a lot of commotion a lot of strength and in the end of the round I kind of crawling to the corner and I said to my dad dad I quit I cannot go anymore I'm tired and my dad not even listened to me said he's tired than you he's worse now you're gonna kick his ass do this and that said dad I'm serious man I'm dead I cannot go and then my brother Holtz throw me a bucket of ice and water in my head.

I go, and then, bang, the bell rings, and I push in again. And like my dad said, I could beat the guy in three minutes because he was already tired, wasted, too. So when I grabbed his back, he could not escape, and I put him to sleep. And then I confirmed my worst enemy was in my mind. My enemy was in my brain telling me I have to quit. So I decide and that day never heard my mind tell bad things to me anymore. So either I'm going to die or I don't go. But if I go, I cannot say, oh, I think I had enough.

I think it's time to... So this was the worst enemy I could have. And from that day on, I decided to either go to putting everything on it or don't go at all. So it was easier for me because I would start to deal with one enemy only, not two enemies, my mind and my opponent. It's probably the most common thing that happens to fighters is they lose faith in themselves or they start to look for a way out.

Yes. That's pretty much because you don't see the other side. You see yourself and you see you're tired, you're with problems. You start't see the other side you see yourself and you see you tired you see with problems you start to see the negative aspects of you and you're not putting yourself like the guy has the same problems he has the same idea so you have to keep going here as everything is normal and it's hard to to people relate to that you know when you start to get in the problems you start to see yourself bigger than the other ones, you know, more problems and more.

And that's not going to be the right way to resolve the matter. It's interesting that you figured out how to handle these things on your own, too, because this is it's an area that fighters seek psychological help with. seek psychological help with now. They hire psychologists and they get hypnotized and they do all these different things to try to figure out how to stop that negative conversation in the mind, how to stop those negative voices, and how to not give in to that weakness that wants you to quit. Yes. This power, we all have within. But some people don't even go for that and they seek for different people to help them, which is good too. But once you become more intuitive, when you become more enlightened with your own potential, you're able to resolve all the matters yourself, you know, because it's all about your mindset. It's how you think and how you believe and what you're ready for and what you prepare for and how you're able to

accept and surrender everything around you. And these moments where you do want to quit, whether it's in training or in competition, for people who understand that and have experienced that and have overcome it, life becomes easier. Yes. I think martial arts when it's practiced with a complete idea is a metaphor for life. You become a good martial artist, you become a good person, you're going to become a happy person because you want to be able to to conquer your your happiness outside of the mat

and to deal with your demons yes some people never fight those demons they never so when something happens to them in life some adversity comes up they're not accustomed to handling it yes and we're seeing a lot of that now with this uh. We're seeing a lot of people freaking out because they've never really experienced any true adversity in their life. Yes. It's not only for that, but because they don't ever thought about how to resolve those problems. They're just thinking the problem is there, what I'm going to do, but they don't think about how I can control the situation, how I can be on top of this, how I can, you know, just defend myself from those demons. And if you don't see the perspective of how I can resolve my problems, you allow yourself to put your problems in somebody else's hands to resolve for you.

And it's all about perspective. It's all about focus. You've had a really extraordinary life and um it's uh it's so unusual your your position like what what happened to you as a young man having your father ilio gracie who's one of the most important people in the history of martial arts to be raised by a man like that and be raised in the Gracie family, the most important family in the history of martial arts, in my opinion, it's pretty incredible. Do you stop sometimes to think about how unusual and how fortunate for your life it was to be in that position?

It was like he's always been special and different. fortunate for your life it was to be in that position? It was like it's always been special and different. Being a Gracie, since I understand myself, because I get gi before I get diapers. So I was a special person and a special family. And my father's friends say, oh, you're going to be a fighter too. You're going to be a champion too. So you become a Gracie even before you understand what it is. And you use kimonos, you play on the garden and wrestle everybody

and play and able to throw, able to fall, able to choke. So you start to get in that environment where fighting is normal, is recreational. You get in the environment where being a Gracie, you eat well, you be in a diet from day one. You don't drink Coca-Cola, you don't take, you know, chocolates, ice creams. It's just about healthy stuff, carrot juices and salads and soups. So I've been created to become somebody special.

And when you become knowledgeable about being Gracie, you start to put yourself in a line of, you know, one day I'm going to be the fighter, One day I'm going to be the representative. So all my life I was training hard with my brothers, seeking to become better than them, to get their spot or to represent in the family. And I was noticed I was talented in a very early age. And I always loved competing. I'm very competitive.

And I always loved competing. I'm very competitive. And it was just a great journey to become more confident in my style, more important in the family to represent. So it was just a bumpy road which have me create better strength, better mindset, better spiritual guidance. What is it like to have grown up in that environment and then move to America and just teach Americans and teach people that are like hobbyists and just want to try it and train every now and then? Is that satisfying? Does it frustrate you sometimes that people don't have the same level of commitment? Because jiu-jitsu obviously is life to you. It's a very significant aspect of your being.

Yes, jiu-jitsu was exposed to me as an art form, as something we, our business, our way to express ourselves. My father always with Gi showing things and the academy and my brothers and myself, I start to become like, I want to be a teacher too. So being an instructor, being a jiu-jitsu representative was not only for fighting.

The fighting actually was just the back, is on the secondary level. You're not there to fight anybody. It're not there to fight anybody. You're not there to challenge anybody. You're there to just teach. And if somebody say, yeah, but I believe box can, okay, let's fight.

Oh, but I believe I can, judo can, so let's fight. So whatever style come up with the idea, capoeira, whatever style come up with the idea he could face a jiu-jitsu fighter. So let's prove jiu-jitsu is better, and let's keep teaching jiu-jitsu. And in the teaching aspect, completely different than the representativity

and the fighting aspect, jiu-jitsu has always been a soft art. We always can accept and create strength on the weakest people. Jiu-jitsu is art for the weaker. My father, who developed a better jiu-jitsu than the one he learns with my uncle, Carlos, he developed a better jiu-jitsu because he could not do one pull-up and one push-up. He was weak. pull up and one push up. He was weak. He was forbidden to do exercise up to 16 years old. He could not do anything, no ride bikes. Why? Because he has vertical. He was very skinny, very nervous. And if he run a little bit, he pass out. So he was very weak. So from 13 years old when my uncle Carlos opened the first jiu-jitsu academy in 1925 in Brazil, to 16 years old, he was sitting on the corner watching my uncle teach.

He could not train. He was there just watching and memorizing all the lines, watching all the techniques. And then one day, a student arrived before my uncle Carlos arrived. And my father said, mister, if you want, I can put the gi and practice with you until my brother arrive. So they start to play a little bit. And when my uncle Carlos arrived at the school, the student said to Carlos, Carlos, I like to keep training with Elio because he's so talented. I love to practice with him. So that way, my father started to engage on the practice of jiu-jitsu. But a regular choke, which was taught with the choke like this, using the strength of the arms, he could not do. So he had to get together and use the chest

which represents 10 or 15 more times powerful with more leverage and less effort so we normally say Elio Grace is to Jiu Jitsu as Einstein is to physics he's a creator, he's an inventor he starts adding leverage and angles for him to be able to do it,

which transcends the physicality he learns. So with that, my father starts adding techniques and angles. And actually, I believe the guard, the guard of jiu-jitsu was developed, not from Maeda not from Carlos Gracie but from Eli Gracie who could not have another option to fight the only option he has is to fall on the bottom and fight

so he has an excellent defensive guard he has strikes and ability to hurt from the bottom and the ability to cook the guy in slow burn until the guy get defeated, either get tired or get choke or something. So my father developed a combat format from the bottom, which was not there until him show up in the jiu-jitsu scenario. So the techniques and the development we put on the Jiu-Jitsu makes our Jiu-Jitsu

be accessible for weaker persons. So the weaker, he feels good because he don't have to use power. Oh, just the angle here. So we empower the students. One time I started to help my brother, Horion, to teach. I was about 12, 13 years old. Because at the same time, I said to my dad, dad, I don't want to go to school anymore. And he said, okay, you don't want to go to school. I cannot force you to do that. But don't ask me for money. I'm going to give you a house. I'm going to give you food. But you make your own money. I said, okay, I'm going to give you a house. I'm going to give you food. But you make your own money. I said, okay, I'm going to help Rory to teach and he can give me some money. And in my mind, I was set. So I was helping Rory to teach. And then I asked my

dad, I said, dad, what I should do to become the best teacher I can be? And he said, if you want to be a good teacher, you learn the arm lock and you teach a good arm lock and make sure the guy knows how to do it tight enough and perfect arm lock. If you want to be an excellent teacher, you have to see what the students need to learn. With that advice, he gave me something which is not only the physicality of the sport, but also the psychology aspect. Because sometimes you see a guy who is lazy and just, so you have to wake him up. So let's go, do this, respond.

So increase your reflexes, increase the capacity for him to be connected. If you see the guy too aggressive, too tense, too nervous, you should say, hey, man, relax, breathe, take your time, do slow. So educate the guy to be able to control his emotions and his aggressiveness and become more peaceful. So anyone has a different particular way to learn better or to get better information. Jiu-jitsu can favor everybody in different ways,

no matter if you're aggressive, no matter if you're mean. So with this being said, I was there to teach Jiu-Jitsu. I was there to just help people in a way to empower them. And I also did it in a different road to represent jiu-jitsu, to fight anyone. So I was not getting in a camp to fight. If I have to fight, I just take my gi and go. I was always in shape. I was always practicing. I was always training. But it was not exactly a preparation for a fight. I was feeling like I have to be ready because if the guy called me to go to fight on the beach

right now, I have to go. So be ready was part of the game. Not being an athlete but being a martial artist. So all those concepts differ from today's

attitude towards the practice and the training and also some people who are competitors, they cannot teach beginners or be nice with, because they just fight too hard and they have to focus too hard on the training.

Either you stay on their boat, or he cannot go and help somebody else in a different atmosphere. For me, it was always, I can fight the worst guys, that is, today. Tomorrow I'm going to be teaching some old lady or some guy, and I keep myself focused on the leverage, on the angles, on the details. So all this gives me a sense of being a duo, not only a good teacher, but also a good fighter. It's so amazing when you stop and think about the fact that your father had such a unique circumstance

in terms of being small and also being there with Carlos when he was teaching those classes. But the fact that he was small and that he learned leverage and learned to maximize these techniques, it became the most important aspect of jiu-jitsu. and that he learned leverage and learned to maximize these techniques, it became the most important aspect of jiu-jitsu. To this day, when I talk to people, I always say, like, the best instructors, it seems like a lot of them are smaller people because those smaller people, they can't muscle their way out of these things. Like sometimes when you get a really big, strong guy, they can use too much physical strength.

But the small guys, they can use too much physical strength. But the small guys, they don't have that option, so everything has to be technical. It has to be precise. It has to be perfect. Yes. There's no argument against techniques and timing and connection. So the ideas of learning jiu-jitsu properly is for sure the right way. But some people, they're strong, and they try to compensate the lack of speed or movement with the strength.

So they create their own pattern, their own way to fight, because they can afford to waste energy, because they have it. My father couldn't. So sometimes they say, oh, I don't care too much about little details because I can make it up with this way. So they start using jiu-jitsu with their personal abilities, with their aggressiveness, and becomes a good formula too. Works properly because it's just good enough to do it.

But that cannot be something we teach for anyone because if you don't have what he has, he cannot be executed. So we have to teach in jiu-jitsu on a level anyone can take it. And after that point, you can take what you learn and add your personal abilities and attributes. Don't you think, though, that even those big, strong guys, if they learned everything perfectly, if they learned the right technique in the right way

and almost ignored the fact that they were strong, they would have even more success? Oh, man, definitely. Imagine Helio Grace with 250 pounds. Yeah, exactly, right? I mean, you think there's uh you know one time i remember um when crone was young you and i um we were over at your house and you were showing me some fights from uh coliseum from the the 2000 event and you were breaking down how so many fighters leave so much space.

Yes. And that this is all fundamentally wrong. And that if you follow the correct principles of jiu-jitsu, and if you see even these guys who are jiu-jitsu black belts, they left space. They had all these errors that they shouldn't have had because they didn't concentrate on the details the way your father did. Yes.

because they didn't concentrate on the details the way your father did. Yes, I agree 100% because today not only the jiu-jitsu becomes very popular, but the competitiveness aspect of jiu-jitsu creates, based on rules and practice, a jiu-jitsu which is not representing the control for the kill. It's a Jiu-Jitsu that represents more strategy for winning a tournament by points, advantages. Of course, if the guy makes a mistake, you can choke or submit. But the great objectivity of the fight today is not losing by points. It's not exposing yourself by losing by little. So the worries and the concerns about fighting become a little different than just fight for winning and keeping tight. Like, you know, it's no two options. You have

to just go for the kill and tight enough and take advantage of every different space is given to capitalize. So the idea of controlling your opponent with the objectivity to win is a little different than the objectivity of a jiu-jitsu who has great points or a system which in two or three minutes the fight is going to end and I'm going to win. So why am I going to bother? So you can see a strategy was not there in my time. Yeah, there's a lot of that you would see with wrestlers entering into these tournaments where they would figure out how to hold a guy down, take a guy down, hold a guy down, but they would never pass to a dominant position and they would never finish.

They would never try to finish. That was not their objective. Their objective was just to score points. Yes. That was not their objective. Their objective was just to score points. Yes. And you put that kind of strategy in a very tough guy who decides to compete in the MMA or a fight on the street.

He will feel like not exactly comfortable to be effective in jiu-jitsu the way it's supposed to be because he's not going to find ideas for points or strategies, competitive strategies on the street or on the MMA. That's why the jiu-jitsu and MMA today has less representativity than supposed to have because it becomes a little spacey. The guard, the valetudo guard especially, is not present in maybe 95% of the jiu-jitsu fighters today. But when you say by the Vale Tudo guard, like what specifically do you mean about that? Because if I don't have a Vale Tudo guard, I don't know how to deal with somebody who wants to punch me. Or headbutt.

Or headbutt, or elbows, or striking, or getting a position to hurt me. A Vale Tudo guard expects only the striking, only the headbutt, so I'm comfortable to deal with that. If you're training jiu-jitsu for life, and every time you put a gi and try to do arm locks, and you put yourself in a position you could get punched, and you never receive those punches, you never receive those, you're never aware of the angles and the possibilities, you become, like, unaware. never receive those, you're never aware of the angles and the possibilities.

You become like unaware. So you bring that defective jiu-jitsu to a MMA fight, you'll be scared of being in the guard because every time in the guard you get punched, you get problems. Different than a guy who has a comfortable situation from the guard position. I really like Kron's valetudo guard because he's aware of the situation. He loves to be in a guard as he loves to be mounted, like myself.

For me, I have no problems to be on the bottom in a guard or have to be mounted. For me, two are great positions for victory. That's a very good point because there is a transitionary period when fighters who are only competing in Jiu Jitsu have to deal with those punches and a lot of times

they are not comfortable at all being on their back they'd like to get out of that position and they would only like to be on top because in that position they can control the strikes better and then you have to deal with a wrestler who is impossible to take down. And you spend all your energy trying to go instead, pull him to the guard and kick his ass with pretty much simple attitude, you know.

When you see jujitsu today and you see that there's so much of it that does rely on points, do you long for the day, like do you wish that they had no limit jiu-jitsu matches that were submission only? You think that's a better way to do it? I mean, definitely, not only for jiu-jitsu, but for MMA, if you wanna be a result, you have to take off the judge and the points to see who is the best guy out there.

Right. You know, and a tennis in a tennis match can be quickly resolved if i win the three sets but can be a five hour dispute if every point we dispute like crazy yeah and that's going to be the difference to see a half hour game or a five-hour game. So why we don't have that kind of scenario in jiu-jitsu or in MMA? Because you want to see somebody who win at the end. And the situation, if I score on you 10 points and you end up mounted on me, I win because I have 10 points. But in reality, if you mount on me and you end the fight mounted, your chance for you to be the winner is bigger.

Same thing in MMA. If I fight in MMA and I win the first round because I punch you once in the face, I win the second round because I punch you again in the face and nothing happens. And on the third round, you mount on me, I turn back, you choke me out. When I was about to tap, the time the bell rings, the judge stops the fight. The guy who won the previous two rounds win the match. And that's not for me a realistic understanding of of what the fight means. For me, the value of who is winning the last round, if I have already the choke, I just need 10 more seconds to beat you, and the fight is over.

In terms of reality, this guy lost the fight. No way for him to win. And that's not happened. So the interpretation, the the rules the time they all kind of coming to promote entertainment but not to give you the sense of who is the best guy out there it is a problem right we're trying to figure out how to make something so it's palatable to people to watch as an entertainment vehicle, but it's also representative of a competitive martial art. I don't think it's a capacity for you to do both.

I think right now the idea is entertainment, which is very relevant, people love it, fighters make money, everything goes well. I just say nothing wrong about it, but it's not martial arts. People love it. Fighters make money. Everything goes well. I just say nothing wrong about it. But it's not martial arts. It's a game, entertainment, something which people like to see for the blows, for the art, for the violence. But it's not about who is the best guy out there.

It's a game that uses martial arts. Yes. I wonder if there's room for, but it would have to be both. It would have to be no holds barred and it would also have to be no time limits. Yes. And some, I think, I feel like someone could put something like that together, but it would, the problem is at the highest levels of the organizations, everybody wants to fight for the UFC or they want to fight for Bellator. I mean, that's really what you want.

If you want the biggest companies with the most experience, most eyes on you, I don't think they're going to be willing to do that. They're not going to be willing to have these no limit, no time limit, no rules fights. So if that's the case, you're not going to get the best athletes because the best athletes are going to get signed to the UFC and signed to Bellator. Of course. Like I said, the idea of entertainment, the idea of business

is go way above the idea of legitimacy. So I think in terms of ideas the idea of making something real is appealing but in terms of business I feel like the way we have right now is more appealing is more is the way it is yeah well it's popular the good thing is it's making more people want to train martial arts and train jiu-jitsu and train kickboxing.

But I see what you're saying in that the purity is not the same as the early days. Yes. But I also feel like the practice today of different styles of martial arts, without the punishment, without the suffering, you should do, for example, you go in the gym. When you go in any gym, no matter if it's MMA, at the beginning, you're not going to get hurt. You're not going to get injured. You're going to be instructed to punch the bag or to throw the hip throws or sweeps.

to punch the bag or to throw the hip throws or sweeps. So you get engaged in a practice which favors your ability to deal the techniques, the ability to get fit, the ability to understand pressure, but at your own pace. Sometimes if you do this too much, you're going to quit because you're going to get injury. So the idea of creating a scenario to promote fitness, sensorial ability for you to develop your senses, your capacities, your breathing, without putting pressure for you to have an enemy in front of you, I think that's growing because the real enemy today is the COVID. The real enemy today coming through email. So if you have a practice who is more than just go to the gym, lift weights,

but a practice to develop your deflection, your timing to escape from a punch, the capacity for you to handle your base and not get fall, the capacity for you to, if you see a neck exposed, to get a headlock. So you start to favor yourself with knowledge and practice, which doesn't put you a fighter, doesn't make you a fighter, but make you knowledgeable about possibilities you may have. And you're going to be happy to know them, even though you're a doctor, even though you're a lawyer, even though you're a guy who's just an executive who has no plans to fight nobody,

but by know better, you're more confident, you're more calm, you're more peaceful because a lot of the insecurity state of mind is what brings violence to the table. The violence coming when you feel threatening, when you feel, oh, man, so ego and stuff.

So when you become more confident, even though you're not a fighter, even though you just practice in a light way, you become much more comfortable to be peaceful, to say, hey, man, I'm sorry, I don't want to fight. So you're able to come up with situations which is not about fighting to win. It's about win without a fight. So using a lot of the concepts of martial arts make you more forgiveness,

make you more balanced, make you more capable to stretch your patience. more capable to stretch your patience. And that's very positive to handle life, problems, situations, and so on. And I always tell people that I believe that jujitsu is the best martial art for real life conflict because in training, you're really going 100%. It's like if you go 100% all the time with kickboxing, you knock each other out every day, you can't do that.

You'll be damaged, you'll get every day, you can't do that. Yes. You'll be damaged. You'll get brain damage. You'll have to quit. Yes. But in jiu-jitsu, when you have a training partner, they could be your brother. You could love them. But you're trying to choke them, and they're trying to tap you, and you're going at it full blast. And then you tap, or you tap them, and you keep going.

Yes. When you deal with a real-life conflict, if that ever happens, and hopefully it never will, you'll be accustomed to people resisting 100%. Yes. Jiu-jitsu gives you the pleasure of feeling your gauges, you know, your temperature, your tiredness, your panicking, your intelligence, your sharpness, your techniques. So you're able to use those in a very expressive way. You're able to unleash

the beast anytime you want. So you're able to really recognize yourself under pressure, discomfortable, comfortable, confident. And those give you the articulation to live. You leave the school, you're more peaceful, you're more sharp, you're more intelligent, because you're being sharp in your knife at the school to use that life. What are your thoughts on all the new techniques of jiu-jitsu? There's many schools of thoughts when it comes to jiu-jitsu. A lot of people like to try all these fancy new moves and all these new strategies and new ways of approaching things, barambolos and, you know, different iminari rolls. And some people think that the best way to handle it is to look at the very basics of jiu-jitsu and just hone those to a

razor sharpness. I love the fundamentals, you know. Those fundamentals are the core of efficiency. But those fundamentals, sometimes they're connected with different elements of creativity. And because the guys, they're training like crazy today and always been. But the evolutionary process of the tournaments and the grips and the things, lapel guards and things. So I cannot deny the effectiveness of this when you have a lapel. I cannot deny the practice of this when your opponent is playing the game you expect him to play. But it's always a way to deal with situations

to diminish the effectiveness of a lapel. So that play today, the guy coming with a technique of a lapel guard, some other guy coming with the un-lapel guard technique to do. So this evolves, evolves, evolves to the point where sometimes becomes a lot of wasting time because in reality what you

want is to submit the opponent, not exactly make a sweep or make it. So the idea of the submission, the idea of the finishing, the idea of the finishing, the idea of being in control cannot be diminished based on that kind of amount of new techniques. So for every 10 techniques I see, I can relate at least with one. I can maybe accept works good, maybe three or four. But others will depend on the opponent allowed you to do. Pretty much a lot of things they show are effective

when the situation is exactly what they show. If the guy changes a little bit, it's not happening anymore. So I'm not exactly in favor of new techniques I know they happen, but I really like the fundamentals the fundamentals of the core. Yes What did you think when Eddie Bravo and you? He showed you some of his ideas for rubber guard and some of those techniques Last time we got together. What did you what did you think about those? Last time we got together.

What did you think about those? They have, if you know what to expect and how to handle, you can defend. Between them, if both guys are expert on the same, the situation will be diminished because the effectiveness is not there anymore. Pretty much some techniques are good to surprise the opponent but not effective against the opponent who knows better you know so i was talking with john jack one day about it he said yeah it's good it works but if you do this and that you kill the position and there's nothing going to happen and i understand every situation is like that in jiu-jitsu. But in some situations, which the ones I really like, as you protect one, you expose other.

As you protect this one, you're going to... So it's always something for me to exhalate the pressure and go towards the submission. Some positions, they stack in the middle. And I need you to make a mistake for me to capitalize. If you don't make a mistake, we got to stack here. So I cannot escalate the process. The positions I like, I'm able to escalate. I go to the neck, you protect the neck. I'm already going for an arm lock. So I'm able to create a comfortable evolutionary process to the submission. One of the more interesting things about jiu-jitsu today is the evolution of the leg lock game.

It's really accelerated over the last, say, six or seven years. Yes. Particularly because of John Donaher and the Henzo Gracie team. These guys have effectively changed the way a lot of, particularly no-geek fights go down. What are your thoughts on that? I've always been a very much fan for leg locks. I remember a long time ago, my friend Eric Paulson, he showed me a tape when I was about to go to Japan to fight the first Vale Tudo. He showed me a tape of Shoto.

Shoto was the techniques were created by Satoru Sayama, which is the tiger mask in Japan. So he showed me the tape. And in that tape, they go a lot in knee locks and leg locks. So next day I was inspired to do leg locks and foot locks and everybody. Foot locks are already expert. I was already know. The knee locks were new for me. So in the next day I was training with everybody at the school and submitting everybody on the leg locks, knee locks. I always been very much, I really like leg locks with no doubts. And I felt like sometimes if I want to cheat, if I want to win fast, I go for the leg lock because the guy will tap quicker.

I was feeling like almost like our leg locks is cheating because it's too easy. like our leg locks is cheating because it's too easy. With all this, the leg locks understanding and pressure are never being exposed too much to others. And now, like you said, after this kind of group start to training and stuff, so they really become more effective in knee locks, leg locks, and that's a big game change if you don't know how to escape. But again, if you get two guys that are experts, the training partners, you're not going to see that many leg locks. You're going to see a lot of preparations and stuff. But the leg locks will get the surprising ones who don't know the ability to escape

because if you know what I want, as you start to approach, I start escaping. My movements has to be coordinated to anticipate the final move. If you get me on a checkmate, it's over. So with the legs are two possibilities for you to get the situation and make it happen. And it's very dangerous if you're not aware. But as you start to get used to give foot locks and get you become like a part like giving chokes and taking chokes so that becomes normal and it's just a new way a new option for for the submission to prove your point craig jones

who's one of the donahue guys said that they almost never tap each other with leg locks yes and he goes they don't even go for it. Yes. Because everybody knows the positions and knows the defense. Yes. So they anticipate the defense. It becomes like it's just one more piece on the puzzle, you know, and it's very well done and it's very, very dangerous.

And if you're not aware, you can get a quick defeat because especially on the knee locks, if you try to resist, pop your ligaments, instead you feel pain. So it's very dangerous. When the early days, in the early days of jiu-jitsu tournaments, if someone tried to win by leg lock, the crowd would go crazy and boo. Not really. It's not common, was not common, but, you know. Maybe not in the early days, maybe after the early days,

but there was a time in jiu-jitsu tournaments, for sure, if someone would try to tap someone with a leg lock or a knee bar. Do you think that was because of the concern with injury? Yes. The idea of the foot lock, even though I grab your foot and try to attack the joint of the foot, depending how I use my hips and my legs, I can really force your knee. So sometimes the criticism was, oh, the guy went to my foot, but he put pressure on my

knee and popped my knee instead. So he's still holding the foot, but with the intention to hurt your knee. And those kind of inverse positions was forbidden for a long time in jiu-jitsu. So when somebody gets your foot, the referee will see if your intention is to hurt his knee and then immediately stop the fight and give you penalties and stuff. But now it's legal. Now they open for the...

And people are going to start to get improving in defense, improving in situations to don't get yourself get caught. It's just a matter of understanding the techniques and start to practice accordingly to... And going to become just another variant. Do you think it just has to be... People have to be more cautious in training and teaching it, especially to new people? Definitely. Because like I said, it works on the ligaments. If I force my finger this way, I will feel pain before I hurt. If I force this way, it will pop, and then I will feel pain. So you hurt nothing, and then pop.

So the knee has lateral ligaments, which prevents from moving laterally. If I resist, I feel nothing until it pops. It's not going to feel pain different than a straight knee bar. And then you need surgery. Yes. Yeah. It's a big issue with leg lock specialists. A giant percentage of them wind up having knee surgery. Yes. It's a difficult thing to learn when you're, you know, unless you're with really good training partners and everyone's cautious and you do it correctly, but it can be done. Yes, can be done. Tell me about your book. Your book is out today. It's called Breathe. What was the motivation to write this book? First of all, the motivation was money.

I have a good proposal from the publishing house, and I felt like, especially on those days, it's hard to make money. I felt like it was a good option. And then the second motivation, the reason I did, was the fact I've been passing for so many experiences, you know. And those experiences make me grow as a man, make me feel like capable to seek for happiness in a much more proper way. The development of my warrior tools, not only physical, technical, but also the mindset, the emotional, and also the spiritual aspect of acceptance, shows I've been through a lot and give my exposure of my life, of things I did to resolve the matters.

So it's a very special, I mean, I hope you like it, because if you don't like it, I don't have another life to tell you. But the tale of my life is basically on, you know, my experience, my life on Rio, which is very, very unpredictable, very wild. My relationship with my father, my brothers, my growing up as a jiu-jitsu practitioner, my times of parties in Brazil. So it's all my life, which I felt like even my mistakes, I use to become a better person.

So it was a process, an evolutionary process, which I'm very proud of it because today, even though I'm physically destroyed, like my is bad I have so many injuries I feel like I'm still using jiu-jitsu in a very proper way through breathing through visualization through spiritual guidance and and I I take all the information I have as a fighter to live my life and know how important it is to live my life under those guidance, under those things I really believe and make a difference. And this exposes my life in a way to give people, through my experience, the options

or the ideas to really reinvent themselves and become better. Last time I saw you, you were talking to me about your back. So your back is still bothering you? Yeah, my back is going downhill since last time I saw you. Really? Yes, because I have no more bones and no more discs in between bones. So it's just bone to bone. I heard about stem cells.

I heard about different things. My doctor said I have to do surgery. But at this point, I do exercise. I put myself with much less effort to practice jiu-jitsu and stuff, so I reduce my activities. And I start to live like an old man. It's just not exactly something I prefer. But with the mindset, you can just change things and give you pleasures and things

you used to not have. Just today, my walking with the dog, something which gives me a pleasure, which I didn't have before, you know, so I start to adapt myself to still be happy, before, you know, so I start to adapt myself to still be happy, to still be on top of my game with less physicality, with less compromise with, you know, doing things. So I start to become more peaceful in my mind and my body. Your father trained jujitsu deep into his 90s, right? Yes. Not training. Gentle.

Showing. Gentle, yes. This aspect, I still can do it. I cannot live without it. Showing positions, play on the mat, enhancing people's details, those things are priceless for me and I will do this for the rest of my life. But I'm talking about my personal surfing or practice or, you know, Cron invited me to practice with him.

If I train five minutes with him today, it's going to be five months of physiotherapy after. So things like that I start to stay away from. But other than that, I'm okay. So have you talked to any specialists about stem cells and whether or not they can help you? Yes. Stem cells, first, is not cheap. And I still

cashing in to go if I have to. I heard some good things about it. I'm not sure. But the last doctor I spoke with was a neurosurgeon. He said, in my case, will be hard to create new tissues and new discs and creating spaces again. I mean, my process of degeneration is very, very aggressive. So he suggested me a surgery, a fusion of vertebras and stuff, which I feel like even though if I fix one, the damage in the other vertebrae can get worse. So I just try to keep a mellow life and start to feel like those injuries become like gifts from God. You know, it's something which I milk my body so much, I have to pay the bills now. And it's nothing I have to do. Oh, I have to be good. I'm patient.

I have, you know, I have to. No, it's nothing I have to do. Oh, I have to be good. I'm patient. I have, you know, I have to. No, it's not like that. I have done with my body enough, more than enough. So whatever I have left, I'm happy with. That's a beautiful attitude about it. The disc degeneration issue is a factor with all jiu-jitsu practitioners. I've had a bunch of disc problems over the years, and I've found some training methods to mitigate it, specifically some different pieces of equipment

that provide you with spinal decompression. There's a piece of equipment that I talk about all the time on this podcast called the Reverse Hyper. It actually allows you to strengthen all the muscles around the spine, but it actively decompresses the spine as well at the same time. Yes. I like to stay on the pool with weights on my waist and weights on my feet,

and the deep pool with a flotation device. Oh, just hanging. I'm hanging and the weights pool with a flotation device. Oh, just hanging. I'm hanging on the weight stretching my spine, and I still exercise with the legs. It's been very helpful, but, you know, it's just minimizing a little bit, but the problem is there. Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that stem cells get to the point

where they can regenerate new tissue in between the discs. I know they've had some success with doing that, but I don't know how much success. From your lips to God's ears. Let me know. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could start rolling again? Oh, man, unbelievable. Yeah, every jiu-jitsu guy who gets to a certain age,

they reach that point. Except Jean-Jacques. Jean-Jacques is amazing. Yes. He's always been so smart in how he trains. He always trains very easy and light. That guy has no amazing. Yes. He's always been so smart in how he trains. He always trains very easy and light. That guy has no injuries. Yes.

He's a good example of a perfect warrior. He's so smart in how he trains and just never explodes. Everything is slow progression, perfect defense. And you see the knot just tied up around your neck and eventually say, okay, it's time to tap. Yeah. Yeah, it's just very, to me, it's very inspirational how he's managed to avoid injuries. Yes.

And still can train hard. Yes, very much. Do you do any kind of exercise other than the pool stuff nowadays? I do what we can say the physiotherapy ones, you know, the proper abdominals sit-ups and the way I do my Superman positions for inhase the back. I do some gym work, like machines and stuff,

but nothing too crazy. Do you do any yoga anymore or any of the gymnastic or natural? Yes, I do a little bit. Not to enhance mobility because that can create problems. But more for breathing, for the movements, for the circulate the energy, yes. You were also probably the first in jiu-jitsu that emphasized flexibility. You were always very, very flexible and mobile.

Yeah, I disagree. It's part of jiu-jitsu, you're all flexible. All the cousins, flexibility was part of the idea of jiu-jitsu, you know, is a thin tree which the storm comes, they bend and they go back normal. A big tree will fall and break. So you don't want to be hard and tense. You want to be flexible and allow yourself to just

smooth your escape out like Rudini. So Jiu-Jitsu has a lot to do with the mechanism of escaping and development of angles and senses. So all the family is flexible. I really like the biogenastica and also like the movements, be expressing myself. So I always like to dance.

I like to exercise freely. So I may develop a little more than others, but pretty much it's part of jiu-jitsu being flexible but your your flexibility was always very extreme though like when you stand on a balance bar and do a standing split and hold your leg up in the air yes that's pretty incredible yes it's good how much of that that must have also enhanced your ability to perform certain positions? I was worried about everything, so I could not let my tightness get away from me to do a position, so I was flexible.

And I was also very focused. I was the first one to see elastic exercise. I did myself. I didn't know it existed. Now people do elastics a lot, but I was going to the diving shop to buy the diving rubber to put in the spear guns to take home and making a harness on my head. So I was working with the functional strength in a very early age.

And you just figured that out on your own? Yeah, I just figured it out. Because I remember that in choke that you had that rubber band around your head. You're working on your neck muscles. And that's very similar to a thing that I use now that they sell called the iron neck. Yes. Because, you know, when you use the strengthening with elastics, you have resistance for you to do throws, you know, because if it's static, but when it's pulling off, you have to do the energy of pulling and moving your hip connected to not losing the momentum.

So with the elastics, you have a good training for throws, good training for base, good training for movement, for balance, for neck strength, for shoulder strength. So it's a lot of things coming from the bottom and stretch up with the elastics. Make a continuous energy from the functional aspect. So I really like the exercise with elastics because it gives me a complete idea and also flexibility and so on. But you figured all this out on your own.

Yeah, I'm a lucky smart guy. You're a lucky smart guy, yeah. But it's amazing how out on your own. Yeah, I'm a lucky smart guy. You're a lucky smart guy, yeah. But it's amazing how many people use them now, though. Strikers, judo guys, all kinds of athletes use it for functional training. Yes. And breathing, too. I see a lot of people, like tennis players, using breathing. So the idea of using breathing functionally makes all the difference. Because if you don't know how to breathe, you can be an athlete, but you're going to get caught tired with not enough blood, oxygen in your blood, in your brain,

so you start to make poor decisions and stuff. When you know how to hyperventilate, you change the game of your performance. I increased maybe 40% after learning how to breathe. 40%? 40% solid improvement of how to recover, how to last longer, how to everything. It's interesting. You said that Stylebender, the UFC middleweight champion, has recently started incorporating breathwork. And he said it's made a tremendous difference. Yes. And he said, I will never gas out in a fight again. He goes, now I understand how to control my breath.

Yeah, not only gas out, you become much more resilient for fighting. But your brain becomes clear because when you start to get tired, you don't push oxygen to your brain. So you become dummy and making poor decisions. So function in every aspect of your life. And that's why you decided to title the book Breathe. Yes. The Breathe was maybe the big change in my life. It was when I learned how to breathe.

I started to bring in more spiritual possibilities, more mental possibilities. spiritual possibilities, more mental possibilities. Because what is interesting about the breathing aspect is the brain and the heart are the only organs who can give and receive information. The other organs, liver, kidney, they cannot do that. But when you get upset with something mentally, you bring information to yourself immediately. Your brain is responding.

Your heart, too, when you get depressed, immediately you feel in your heart. And your heart shows you, you said, shows you immediately connection. And what is amazing about that is the lung is the practical aspect within you, is the lung, is the practical aspect within you who are able to control or help your brain and also help your heart. So through the proper breathing, you can control your heartbeats. Through the proper breathing,

you can control your mindset and get calmer, control your panic, control your courage, control everything you need in the mental aspect, and also spiritual, hope, faith, visualizations. So all the elements in your brain, all the elements in your heart can be much better guided, much better helped through the lungs. If you don't know how to involve your lungs in your breathing, you're not able to favor your brain and your heart the way it's supposed to be.

It's kind of amazing that everybody breathes, but a relatively small percentage of people know how to breathe correctly. Yes. You're born, you get slapped on your butt, and you think you're alive and well and you breathe for life. It's not like that. The first learning you learn about breathing is to move the upper body, the upper part of your lung.

If you don't learn, if you don't practice, you're never going to use the diaphragmatic breathing, which involves the full capacity of your lungs. So the diaphragm, when you learn how to move your diaphragm efficiently, you fill up your lungs in a different way. So if I breathe right or wrong, either more or less oxygen, up to me the way I use the diaphragm or not. So when I learn how to use that, I'm able to help my body and whatever needs, mental, spiritual, or physical. When you, that famous scene in Choke, when you're moving your stomach around with the drums beating, it's really crazy. People love that scene. Yeah. Because you're using that control of your diaphragm.

How did you learn how to do that? The Orlando Cane. He taught you how to do that? He taught me, yes. And how long did it take before you could move your stomach like that? It's not as difficult. I know Krohn can do that too, right? Yeah, it's not as difficult.

You can learn this in no time. You just need the right instruction because it's all about, it's a quick learning, you know. It's just you have to put some attention. Because when you learn how to breathe, you start adding oxygen to your life. You start adding oxygen to your life. You can stay seven days without food, five days without water, but five minutes without air, you're dead. So when you know how to hyperventilate,

it's like double your life, triple your lifetime, because you not get tired as you want. When you say hyperventilate, what do you mean by hyperventilate? I'm here, calm. Right. If I do this, I breathe. If I want to go dive, I need to hyperventilate.

So I need to because I increase the circulation of oxygen in my body and I increase the blood, the oxygen on the cells. So I do hyperventilation for a little while, and I triple the amount of time I'm going to be under the water. Another important thing for people to learn about breathing is the idea of inhale.

The inhale is not the cause, it's the solution. So if I need a full lung, a full breath, I don't want to just do. If I want a full breath, I first need to. Now I have a full breath. Because if I just start from here, I already have 30% of air inside, which is not empty enough. So in order for me to put it all in, 100% of good air inside, my liveness, my attention has to be on the exhale. Now I'm ready to get there. Attention has to be on the exhale. Now I'm ready to get there.

The effort, the strength on the muscle. If I need to get a big biceps, I need to curl. If I need to have a strong breathing system, I need to exhale. The inhale is natural. Some people, they feel tired, I need air. They go against the flow because they try to bring in which is already claustrophobic. More I need air, more I, oh my God. So my liveness, my focus is to take the bad gas out of me.

The good gas coming naturally. Some people say, I need air. They need air, but they're already full of bad gas. So that makes a big confusion on the right way to the gas coming or not. So my organization in my brain is to put the bad gas out of me. or out. So my organization in my brain is to put the bad gas out of me. So when I'm training consistently, if I'm not effective on the exhale, I'm not going to be effective on the inhale. And the liveness of my muscle system is the contraction. The contraction is the diaphragmatic breathing.

This is a contraction. If I do a curl for strong biceps, that's the contraction. When I do this, I relax, contract. So contract, relax. Relax. So that gives me a different edge to understand clearly everything around me. It's interesting because it's so counterintuitive. The body naturally wants just.

Yes, and you get panic and claustrophobic. Yeah, panic breathing. And you really learn that in jiu-jitsu. The good guys all know how to stay calm and breathe well in hard roles. Yes, very important. So did you decide to write this book during the pandemic? Yes, yes. I have a good friend who helped me to write, Peter Maguire.

We've been friends forever, and he's a scholar, very smart guy. And he was talking to me forever about doing a book, but I never, I mean, something you do like, okay, let's have a trip to Japan. So you don't know exactly when it's going to happen or something just, okay, let's keep this in mind. With the pandemic, things getting more like, you know, stuck, stagnant. And the idea come up and we'd have the time and the effort and the whole situation to put it together. Did you do any teaching at all during the pandemic?

Yes. Privates, some internet teaching, some instructions. Now I have a Hickson.academy, which provides teaching through the internet. So is it hickson.academy.com? it hickson.academy.com? Just hickson.academy. Oh, the academy is actually a destination now? Yes.

Oh, interesting. So, and that is for you just put up all stages of jiu-jitsu? How do you have that set up? Yeah, it's all there. But my focus now because something average happen in almost every academy is for every 10 students who come in today eight will leave in less than six months because the progressiveness of the classes sometimes too soon gonna put you with a monster That means a younger guy who tried to beat you.

And sometimes that experience can be harmful because you don't have the heart. You don't have the spirit for fighting. You go there to training, to practice. And some strong kid hurt you or don't care about you. And you feel like, wow, man, I'm not here to get hurt. I'm a musician. I hurt my finger. So and then for any reason, you quit.

I feel like that kind of situation will keep, will preserve the warriors, will preserve the ones who get injured, put ice and come back next day, who gets the mindset, oh, a guy beat me up. Tomorrow I go there to make my revenge. So those guys, they keep jiu-jitsu forever, and they will take what it needs to grow in the jiu-jitsu lifestyle. They will become better persons. But the eight guys who quit, I felt like they not favored

because the exposure of jiu-jitsu for them was not exactly perfect to engage them in a lifetime practice. So my proposal now, my ideas now, is not only to enforce the top guys who are good at effectiveness and competing. Instead, I like to create a bigger base, creating more people who are unaware of jiu-jitsu become comfortable to practice jiu-jitsu and take advantage of what jiu-jitsu can give to them. So if I put competition, if I put sparring, I'm not going to have the result I want. So I want to empower the guys by developing them on the senses they have and they don't

know, the leverage, the base, the capacity to angle themselves, the timing, the deflections, the connection. So all the elements are there to serve you and they will be you're going to be very happy to learn without the egocentric aspect,

the competitiveness, the disappointment, everything going to happen if I allow you to practice. So the first year in this program has no opponents. The first year in this program has only training partners, where the guy going to help you to understand the better angle of your chin, the better the weight distribution, how you hold, how you throw.

So you're going to learn techniques. You're going to learn to enhance yourself with possibilities without the emotional aspect, without the frustration, without the hurting. And the end of this process, because at this point, you get no collar belt, nothing. You're going to say after a year, Master, what about competition

what about blue belt you're gonna say okay you can go for the blue belt where you're gonna start to fighting against a guy who don't want to let you do you want to try past john guard but john not gonna let you do it so it's gonna be a fight there and you're gonna have to get used to the fight aspect if you like that you're gonna going to keep for blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, great. If you don't like that because you felt too violent or too aggressive or too brutal or whatever, you stick with the fundamentals for life because here you're going to get fit. You're going to get sharp in your possibilities to deflect a punch, to not get punched in the face, to know how to escape, and deflect a punch, to not get punched in the face, to don't get to know how to escape.

And you're not going to fight. You're just going to learn and practice and get lean. You're going to get everything you need from fighting, but everything you need from jiu-jitsu to empower you, to give you a sense of balance, more sharpness in your mind, more reflexes. So the ability for you to become a fighter is not there, but the ability for you to learn about yourself and know everything you can do in case of an eventual situation will be there for you for the rest of your life.

So how do you have this structured? Do you have it structured so that a person learns with another person, so that you get together with a friend and you go over the program together? Yes, it can be this, or it can be for teachers who learn how to teach and press this for their students. Because the way for you to teach without competing is just demonstrating positions in a high level of understanding. So how to escape from a headlock, how to escape from a mount position.

You can do this, you can elbow escape, you can sweep. So you go over positions and resistance, control resistance and angles. So you start to not fight in jiu-jitsu, but learn jiu-jitsu, the way it's supposed to be, without putting your ego to the proof. Yeah. You understand? Yeah, I do. It is a beautiful thing, the ability to learn online now. That there's so much information that a person can get from a program like yours, that ordinarily would take

years and years and years of practice in school. Yes, I feel like that, yes. What are your thoughts on grappling dummies, on practicing on a grappling dummy? Do you think there's any benefit of that? Maybe for a specific move, if you want to take something from the floor or eventually throw or something,

or strikes or positions or moving knee on the belly, they can have some benefit because you don't have to have a body, an actual somebody to... But in terms of practice, the practice of two people are better because you can have the change of angles and the acceptance of resistance and know how to... Because there's always a flow. When the guy try to do something, either you're going to follow that situation, or if he resists, you're going to float to another.

So you need that sense of the ability to exchange directions and obey the energy of the flow. What has it been like? I've been here for the past year now. What has it been like in Los Angeles as far as academies? We're not yet getting out of the woods yet. Things are getting better. People start to become more confident to practice but this the schools is still not quite open for everybody, still like limited and I hope start to get better now but situation is not you know even now with this new variant people start to get better now, but situation is not, you know, even now with this new variant, people

start to become more freak out yet and start now to start to create, I heard they're going to create a mandate for you to prove you vaccinated if you want to go to a gym, if you want to go to the airport, if you want to go, whatever, you have to prove

yourself that you're vaccinated. So things are not easy now but we're getting there we're getting better that's what they've done in new york yes they've decided to do that in new york but the problem is of course that you can still get it if you're vaccinated and you can still spread it if you're vaccinated one of my friends in los angeles at the comedy store he's vaccinated and he gave it to like 12 people. Some of them vaccinated, some of them not, and some of the vaccinated ones wound up in the hospital.

So just being vaccinated, to me, does not seem like it's enough. I understand you would want to do it if you want to do it to help yourself, but the idea of only allowing vaccinated people, what they need to do is have some sort of rapid test like we did here today yes what we do before every podcast that they could make that more affordable and make it more accessible and have a really accurate rapid test and just have people when they come to train test them yeah that's the idea but i don't know how things are going to go from here, man. It's just crazy. Yeah, it is pretty crazy. Yeah, and the controversy, you know, the conspiracies, it's all about now people become political either against or forward.

They don't see the need. I mean, it's hard to debate science and politics and what it is. So I think things get, it's hard to get an opinion about it because you always gonna have somebody who's going against what you say. So it's important to do what you feel better. Well, it's also one of the things that we talked about earlier,

that there's a lot of people that never have experienced real adversity in their life, and they're not prepared for uncomfortable scenarios, so they look to blame. And so they look to blame other people, whether they look to blame the unvaccinated people, or they look to blame, you know, certain doctors, or they look to blame the pharmaceutical companies. They're looking for an enemy. And a lot of times these people are not looking at their own situation in terms of what can they do to empower their own health. But instead, they're trying to find enemies out there. Yes. And the most important is to keep your capacity to fight those virus, you know, your immune system is strong.

A lot of sauna, a lot of things that are good for you, and you just keep living life. Yeah, vitamins, healthy food, exercise, and yet those are the things that you never get encouraged to do. Yeah. I mean, if there's ever been a time where we should have encouraged people to exercise, now is the time. Eat healthy, exercise, lose weight. It's simple. It's always been there for us. It's always been there for us. Well, that's one of the real fortunate things in my life is finding martial arts at an early age. So from the time I was a teenager, it's always been my life. It's always been a part of my life, and I never stopped.

And that is, I've tried to express that to people as much as possible. It's a great benefit. And also it was a great benefit to me to, as a, I guess I was 27 or 28, start from scratch in jiu-jitsu. So to have competency in striking and to be a good striker and then go into something where I was a complete beginner was very, very valuable for me. Now you master both. Not quite.

I'm mediocre at both. But the point is that I learned how to start. It's very good for your ego to be shut down and to become a beginner again. And so few people ever have that opportunity in life to do something very difficult where you're really starting from the beginning as a white belt. Yes. If you see in the perspective of martial arts, it's the capacity you have to deal with warfare situations. And as part of the warfare situations, fight for happiness. So fighting is not about physicality. Fighting is about achieve, conquer. So conquering can be conquering a car, conquering a new girlfriend, education of your kids.

So whatever you accomplish, you should feel happy about it. And in order for you to accomplish something, I don't believe in luck. I believe in work. So you have to be putting things together. You have to have a right strategy, the right mindset, the courage, the capacity to visualize what you want. So all the elements and the tools of the warrior have to be used almost on a daily basis for you to live life. use almost on a daily basis for you to live life. Life is a mini battle. You know, it's a battle you do to just conquer everything you're seeking for.

And if you don't, you feel frustrated. If you achieve, you'll be happy. And martial arts give you the sense of self-control, spirituality, the capacity to engage, the courage. So you've been testing yourself in martial arts practice to really bring this to life and expose this and bring this alive in life just to conquer a new job, just to be a good father or something. I think that's one of the most valuable aspects of martial arts. Definitely.

And it's one of the aspects that the people who don't practice it, they're not aware of it. They don't understand the extreme value. There's obviously value in learning martial arts and learning how to defend yourself, learning how to beat opponents. There's value in that. But there's extreme value in learning how to deal with difficult circumstances, learning how to overcome. deal with difficult circumstances, learning how to overcome. Yes, because the idea of developing your practice within martial arts doesn't take you from using those practices in life. And the connection between both is very much, is always there. So if you're not experienced

martial arts, you don't experience the ability for you to resolve problems. And I feel like what is important in the practice is exactly the fact the practice cannot be strong enough for you to diminish your desire to practice. You have to add practice at will to grow in your process. So that's why sometimes a lot of people fall short in the continuous martial arts practice because sometimes the practice becomes

too hard and transpasses the limits for him, his capability. So I feel like martial arts now has to be taught in a very good sense from breathing to positioning for kids, for executives, for older people, for anyone, for women, for housewives. Because as a practice, you start to understand yourself without limitations

and develop better qualities to become a mother, to become an executive, an entrepreneur, anything. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think it's something that I think every young man should learn. I think there's too many men that go through life without any martial arts experience. And I just think it's one of the reasons why there's so much conflict. Especially in those days because I feel like life today dehumanizes you.

Robotics, technology, internet. They take you from live present. So in the internet, you have your best picture, your best saying, and you put yourself as a character. But when you go shake hand of somebody, look somebody in the eye, ask for a job, ask for a date or something, you lost the ability to communicate.

So jiu-jitsu and other martial arts, too, give you that sense of direct connection, the hug, the sense, the breathing together. So this brings a value not only for the aspect of learning martial arts, but to humanize you in a sense of using your senses, your power, your breathing, your heartbeat, your connection with the opponent's movement. So all this has to do with being present, being connected, being human human develop your instincts and that's also another aspect which is priceless regardless the effectiveness you have as a fighter i could not agree more and i think there's no better martial art than jujitsu for that for expressing who you are as a person

because you're learning so much about your limitations, your fears, your ability to overcome, your ability to learn, showing improvement because of your determination and discipline and hard work. You can actually see it all play out. It's very human, all while being acutely aware of your shortcomings and your strengths. Yes. It's the opposite of the internet, really. Exactly. Yeah. It's a very valuable thing that I think could, I sing its praises as much as possible. And I'm glad that a lot of people listen. It's one of my most satisfying things is when I meet someone and maybe they're a black belt and they say, I started jujitsu because I heard you talk about it on your podcast.

That's great. It makes me so happy. It makes me so happy. Me too. So what is your time like these days? What have you been doing with yourself? I'm not been doing much. I'm doing my information through the website.

This platform is being my focus now. I'm not doing too many seminars those days with those COVID things, but I will be back on seminars. And I do exercise, you know. I have a loving wife, so I'm happy, giving a peaceful life and trying to be at service, providing a good knowledge, a good understanding, a good possible solutions for a lot of people who are kind of practicing jiu-jitsu or wants to practice. Do you think you're going to stay in Los Angeles?

For now, yes, but in the future, I don't know. It's a weird place now. Yes, very weird, man. I mean, a lot of turmoil there. Yeah, I don't. It's strange to watch a place change so radically over a short period of time. Yes. But for me, now it's not even something for consider.

I just stay there and live in hell there and waiting for it to get better. Do you have an academy there now? No, no. I just have a studio where I produce content for the internet. No, no. I just have a studio where I produce content for the internet. And so whatever training you were doing, you were just doing privately at other people's places? No, in my studio. Because it's a little studio, I kind of put soundproof to be able to do recording and stuff. But it also has a good, nice, matte area, so I can teach up to six people. It's okay.

I think I told you this, but the first time I ever did j did jujitsu was at your place on pico oh yeah but i just didn't know any better i thought all the gracie schools were the same and i found out there was one closer to me crossing gracie's which was off of hearth on right off of sunset boulevard i'm like oh that's closer i'll go to that one instead i didn't know I wish I knew back then I didn't know shit lucky me you didn't kick my ass that time oh get out of here it really was

a perfect time to learn from you too because that was the time when you were competing in Japan Valley Tudor that was an amazing time for Jiu-jitsu, really. Yes, it was a great time. Have you ever thought about doing another documentary or having someone do another documentary on your life? Because the documentary Choke was an amazing documentary, one of the best documentaries in all of martial arts, if not the best.

But it really was about Japan Valley Tudor. It was really about your time representing and going over there and competing. Have you ever thought about one, about just your whole life in Jiu Jitsu? Maybe even similar to like this book. Yes, we are in a project now to be released, to be start to producing in end of October or November for Netflix.

It's my life story, you know. So you are doing something like this. It's a combination of stories of myself and Maeda. So before the project was do one movie about Maeda coming from Japan, the history he has around the world, and then Sarah in Brazil, and then begin the Gracie family, eventually end up on me. But now they split the movies, so they're going to make one movie about Maeda,

and they're going to make one movie about myself. Ah. So, and that's all done. It's about to start pre-production very soon. Beautiful. Yeah. Who's doing that? Netflix and Giuseppe Adilio will be-production very soon. Beautiful. Yeah. Who's doing that? Netflix and Giuseppe Adilio will be the director.

Oh, great. Yeah. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Good. That's amazing news. Because for some people, it's like, you know, that's what they need to see. They need to see, like, how unusual and unique the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu's origins are.

It's so incredible. Yes. And it's inexorably tied to your family. Yes, that's very much. There's no other martial art like it, really, where you can specifically see the individual family and the individual family member in your father that changed the course of

martial arts forever yes and there's no other martial arts who has this focus on be the best one and confront with other ones open challenge things like that which is just coming from a crazy brazilian family but because of that crazy brazilian family it answered all the questions that we had. You know, when I was doing Taekwondo in the 1980s, everybody that I was training with, we thought Taekwondo was it. This is all you needed to learn. A couple of kicks and it's done.

And then for me, I started training boxing and Muay Thai, and then I started getting beat up. I was like, oh, I thought I knew more than I knew. Then I went to jujitsu and I was like, oh, my God. I've talked about it before, but one of the first days ever training, I was a white belt and I was training with this kid who was a purple belt. And I thought I was a tough guy. I couldn't believe that this guy could do whatever he wanted to me. Play with you.

Play with me. Just strangle me. And he wasn't bigger than me. he was my size yes and he wasn't younger than me he was my age yes there was no excuses yes and this guy just manhandled me and i remember thinking that day like wow i need to learn how to do that and i think that one humiliating day of training because before that i trained with other white belts you know and it was uh even even kind of back and forth yeah it was clunky none of us knew what we're doing but then when i trained with one guy who was very serious he's very aggressive you know he wasn't trying to take it easy on me but which was good it was a valuable lesson but that was

the seeds that plant that was planted in my head i am gonna learn how to do this I want to be like that guy someday because I couldn't believe how easy it was yes cuz I wasn't out of shape I was a strong guy and I'd yet I was getting manhandled just tapped left and right triangle arm bar choke like oh yeah the amount the amount of students I have who come in with a different background, with their possibilities and their ideas in their minds coming well, well, very much above their reality, you know? Yes. And because we don't want to make an enemy as you prove a point. So you want to be gentle in the same way, want to put him in a place for him to understand everything he knows is minimal. It's not important.

So then the guys normally say, wow, man, I waste 20 years of my life doing this and now I discover I have to relearn everything. So it's an interesting aspect of rebirth. Yeah. interesting aspect of rebirth. Yeah. But that rebirth is very valuable because sometimes people, they hold on to their old ideas of what they're good at, like a crutch. Yes. And it becomes a part of their identity. Yes. And so they know they're really good at it. There was always an issue with that with guys who fought in MMA who came from striking backgrounds. They didn't like to roll because they didn't like to tap. So like maybe guys like world champion Muay Thai fighters,

they never developed a good ground game. They only wanted to learn defense because they didn't like the fact that when they did Muay Thai, when they did stand-up training, they were the ones fucking people up. But then when it came down to jiu-jitsu, they were helpless. And they hated that feeling, so they would avoid it. Yes. And it happens with jiu-jitsu too, because some jiu-jitsu guys,

they start to lack in the possibility to clinch and to approach. And they felt like, oh, I need to learn box, I need to learn wrestling. So it becomes a cross-training, because for every aspect of a style, you have always a weak aspect of it. And you have to compensate with other tools. You know, for me, I was never being a good striker. But different than other jiu-jitsu practitioners, I always put in a good striker to hit me.

So I was very comfortable to the distance, to neutralizing the distance, to use my side kick and clinch. So I'm focused on the clinch. I'm focused on the approach of not getting punched, not exchange punches. And when I clinch, either I go fall on top if I was capable to throw or bring the guy to my guard and able to cook him and slow burn from the bottom. or bring the guy to my guard and able to cook him and slow burn from the bottom. Out of all your opponents over your entire career, do you think that your last one, Funaki, do you think he was the best? Oh, man.

I don't think he was the best. I think the situation he gets against me was the best situation because he was younger, he was heavier, he was in Japan, and I got hurt on my eye. And at this point, when I was half blind on my eye, I could not see, my brother Halls tell me, Stand up! What is going on? Go, go! And I don't want to make excuses. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to put my hand in my eye because I don't want to show the opponent

I hurt. So the guy was kicking me and every time he kicks 70,000 people. Oh, oh. Japanese is very organized. So they very much see in that situation. And I'm ready with, I could not see very well because when you hit one eye,

hits the both, the neurotic, so you cannot see with both eyes, you cannot see very much. Then I spent about 45 minutes, 45 seconds to recoup my one vision. And as I recoup, I stood up, clinch again, and throw him down and mount and submit, put him to sleep. But I was a very—a position of the fight, I could not explain how bad it was. of the fight, I could not explain how bad it was, but that kind of put me in a situation where all my life was somehow passing through me because I went in a position in which I in a fight, I confident I could win, but I was impotent, impotent. So I was completely in a pause, in a moment to see what's going to happen because I was not quitting. I don't want to, I cannot go forward. So in this 45 seconds, I was there

waiting my whole life, you know, all my purpose, all my ideas passing through fast until the point I was able to, to, to regain my ability to fight. So that's kind of give me the sense of, it's like, sure, I was sure I have this mindset, but it was not proved. So when I confront my demons and keep my mindset above everything and everything under control, I felt like it was my, it was

a confirmation, but it was my biggest challenge. So it took everything from me, but it was a confirmation. I had everything I need to put it on. So it was a very good experience. It was a tough experience, but, you know, not because he was a great technician, but because the moment the fight the whole tank was very serious but did it did the injury was it a fractured orbital is that what yeah i have a orbital fracture the the corner of the glove push my eye my eyeball in so i i look up, I just move one eye, the other eye, because broke the bone on the eye, and the eye get caught, could not move.

So I was looking, I just moving one eye, the other eye was stuck. Did you have to get surgery to fix that? Yes, I have to. The surgery has to be in a week, so I come back in a couple of days to U.S. and did here in the UCLA with a good ophthalmologist. And so they had to repair the back wall of your skull. They take the eye, put a patch, put the eye back. Poof. Wow.

And then exercise physiotherapy to exercise the eye muscles, and then back to normal. That's incredible. It's incredible what they can do yeah medical science yes that the image the video of you taking his back and choking him to sleep while his eyes were open is one of the great submission videos in the history of martial arts because first of all because it was such a tough. But the moment you got to that position when you mount, when you take his back, and then you put the choke in, and you see him out cold, and then you kick him off of you.

Because his mindset was not quit. Right, yeah. He went, and actually after the fight he said he quit in fighting because he felt death. And he was scared off the ceiling so he wouldn't stop fighting because he went to say i don't want to tap i prefer to get killed and not that so he die i mean in his mind he died because he passed out consciously he accepting death so it was a bad experience for him and uh but that's the only one I feel like I could give to him. That's perfect.

Yeah. Especially for a warrior like him, a guy who had fought a long time. He was very experienced. He was a guy that a lot of people were interested to see you fight because they felt like some of the guys that you had fought, like Takato or some of these other guys, they were very big and they were very strong, but they weren't at your level. Yes. And they felt like this was a guy that was going to test you. Yes. At first, again, the Japanese need the entertainment aspect to make a good business.

So they put me to fight against a pro wrestler who is in Japan pro wrestling is like real they believe in pro wrestling so the Takada guy he was very famous the number one pro wrestler so they tried to to put him with me to just not only make a great business but a good fight and that's what launched pride yes that was pride one yes but even before that, his assistant, the bad guy on the association, Andrew, coming to fight me at my academy like a surprise fight. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about that on the last podcast. You said you still have that video.

Yes. When are you going to release that video? I'm going to show you before release, official release. Please. Yes. You think you're going to release it? Yeah, yeah. You should put it in the documentary.

Yes. That would be a great way You should put it in the documentary. Yes. That would be a great way to get people excited about the documentary too because that video is legend. Yes. Everybody wants to see that video. And it's very simple. I just throw the guy on the floor, punch him in the face, break his nose and put him to sleep.

There's nothing to see there. Yeah, but that's something to see. It was in the corner of a very wood floor academy was like a perfect scenario you know it's just like a committee yeah it's a famous moment in the history of martial arts though it's very you know because it was it was one of those times one of these challenge matches that actually come to america because we had heard about all these Gracie Challenge matches, but either you watched them on videotape, or they happened in Brazil, or the different moments where Luta Livre

and Jiu Jitsu went at it in Brazil, but to see you, who is the top guy in Jiu Jitsu, to someone to come to your academy and challenge you and get destroyed like that, that's a video that everybody wants to see. Yeah, and what's funny funny because once he come in, I give him a waiver, right? A regular waiver just for relieve any injury or something.

And he looked the waiver and said, in Japanese for his friend, I have to sign this to fight. And then the guy come in to me, Mr. Gracie, you think he has to sign this to fight? If he don't sign, you're not going to fight him? Immediately, I felt like a double standard. Because if I say, no, he has to sign, he could leave and tell anything.

Because he's a wrestler. He's going to say, oh, the guy quit. I'm here. He's afraid. So I said, no, no, no. Forget the waiver. Throw the waiver out. He come in to fight.

Let's fight. So there's no excuses. waiver out. He come into fight, let's fight. So there's no excuses. Do you have any regrets in terms of like your competition career that you didn't, was there any particular fighters that you wish you had had an opportunity to fight? The only fight I feel like was a missing was against Sakuraba. Just when I after fight Funaki, I was offered the best fight in my life to fight Sakuraba in an event. He's still like, still the Gracie Killer.

He's still not yet fight Vanderlei and other guys who kick his ass. So he's still high level in terms of reputation and will be the fight I was seeking for in terms of financial, pull my donkey on the shade, everything. But unfortunately, I lost my son and like a couple of months later, my fight. And then after I was, you know, have emotional problems family problems i decide to focus on the regaining my energy instead just focus on a fight which could be able for me personally to focus on the training but it allowed my my family to get depressed so i stay like a family guy keeping my

my ex-wife keep keeping my kids strong enough. So that was the only one? Yes, that's the only one. That would have been an amazing one. Yes. If it wasn't for those problems, that would have been an amazing one. Yeah. Well, listen, you've had an amazing career, an amazing life, and you are, in my opinion, one of the most important people

in the history of martial arts. So it's an honor. Thank you, my pleasure, brother. Honor to have history of martial arts. So it's an honor. Thank you, my brother. My pleasure, brother. Honor to have you on. Yes. And thank you for everything. Have you read the book yet? I haven't.

I just got it. Yes. I just got it, but I will read it, and I'll post it on Instagram, and I'll let everybody know. Maybe we can talk the next time about some things you're going to read on the book. I would love that. I would love that. Thank you, my brother. Thank you, my brother.

I appreciate you very much. Thank you. God bless. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you, my brother. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. All the best. All right. Bye, everybody.