The Sevan Podcast - #155 - Heath Pedigo

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

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Anthony, what's up? Good morning, brother. Anthony Lewis. Yeah, this is going to be crazy, right? I was just on my unbanned Instagram account, Sevan Rinsta, S-E-V-A-N-R-I-N-S-T-A, I think, Rinsta, Sevan Rinsta, trying to get people to come over here. I don't even know how to describe Heath Pedigo, this guy who's about to come on. But if you don't know who he is, his name is Heath Pedigo, P-E-D-I-G-O.

I should actually write it in the comments. And you want to Google him and you want to start watching the series on YouTube and you want to watch it with your kids. Good morning, Bruce. And you want to watch it with your kids good morning bruce and you want to uh watch it with your kids and it's called um daisy fresh an american jiu-jitsu story it is incredible will hobart be hobart be on what good morning ruben no it's just me and heath heath pedigo if he shows up i always you know if he shows up yes i can

hear you thanks valerie valerie zika zika you remember when before uh before they tried to get zika to stick before the uh this current joke that they're that they've got us running around doing circles with so i was was just complaining this morning, not complaining, critiquing. This is a notebook I have. It's where I do all my, keep all my notes. And I go through a notebook about every 30 guests. And this notebook, I have to stand on to keep the pages open. So every time I turn the page, I have to put it on the ground and literally stand on it so it stays open, right? So the crease stays there. Can you imagine making a notebook that didn't stay open on its own?

Unless there's some reason for that, it seems like complete idiocy and a fail. Like someone should be just taken out back and like slapped around for that. It's like my kids' shirts. My kids' shirts, the opening at the top of them, 90% of them, it hurts them when you pull it over their head because their heads are bigger than the opening of the shirt. Who would do that to kids? Who? Hello from Nikita and Baby Casey. Excited for this one. Awesome. Thanks, Maria. It's weird. It's weird that I didn't know about this guy sooner. You know, I just found out about these Daisy Fresh guys, I don't know, a week ago.

I feel like I'm late to the game. But I watched the five part. Are there more than five parts? Does anyone know if there's more than five parts to that documentary series? Once again, let me tell you guys the name of it. It's called Daisy Fresh, An American Jiu-Jitsu Story. And it's a show that you should watch with your kids, I think. The whole family should watch it. It's an amazing story. Good morning, Ron.

You need to interview the Hillbilly Hammer. I agree. I need to go through all those guys. I need to interview those guys and make $20 off of each one of them on my YouTube channel. Interview jujitsu guys to pay for my kids' jujitsu. I just love that. So many questions for this guy, Heath. I hope I don't screw it up.

I was just talking on my Instagram Live. I don't know why I'm so nervous about this one. I feel like I'm going to say something that I'm going to accidentally pretend like I know more than I do. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to get schooled. But I want to get schooled, but I don't want to be, I don't want to be, I want to get schooled. I want to be humble about it. I want to say something and he has to unfuck me.

Because, you know, I don't do jujitsu. I just take, drive the kids there five days a week. So I think I know everything. But I know nothing. What's up, Clay? How are you? I wonder if we're going to get this guy on. Should we call Matt Souza?

We're four minutes into the live show, and we do not have our guest. Isn't it amazing, this miracle of, like, I can just be sitting here in my office, computer, microphone. This stuff's not even that expensive. If you're committed to doing a show, you can do the show. How many shows is this? This is show 155 and I need to get to show 500. I was, I've been a little bit down on myself. Not down. That's too strong. But when I don't do the big CrossFitters, the numbers on the show drop.

But I don't want to rely on that. So I'm really just interviewing who I want to interview. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Matthew Souza. You are live on the air. Can you tell us any thoughts on where the guest is? No. I sent them a

message through Instagram. I re emailed them right now and I'm going to send them another one to see where the hell he's at. Okay. Thank you. All right. Stand by. All right. No problem. Okay. There's only 17 people listening. That's more than all my podcasts got combined. So awesome. You sound a bit low. No, no, I'm not low. I'm not low. I'm not low. I'm got combined. Awesome. You sound a bit low. No, no, I'm not low. I'm not low. I'm not low. I'm not low.

Sorry, I didn't make it seem like that. I am really excited. Here, let me tell you how excited I am. This is how stupid emotions are. This is why you got to keep that shit in check. So this morning, I'm looking at the numbers, and I'm like, oh, when I don't have big-time CrossFitters on, the numbers for the show drop, right? Like, who gives a shit?

I'm still doing what I want to do. The numbers are still great. The comments comments are fantastic i should be happy but you know i'm just like kicking myself because like i i want to take over i want to take over i want to have everyone on i want to have biden and trump on i want to host the debate i want to be better than that other guy mr rogan and but so so i'm kicking myself and I'm like, you know, just stay the course for two more years, Sevan. Keep your head down. Who gives a shit, right? Everyone wants to be the best at what they do.

And I'm putting in the work. But then out of nowhere, Alexander Volkanovsky, I don't know if you guys know who that is. He returned my DM this morning and said he'd love to come on the podcast. So how could I so how could i how could i it's like complaining about your penis when it's 10 inches long it's like you're just being a baby you're just being a baby i'm just being a baby you just you just you just want to do better you just want to do better the numbers will start picking up for non-crossfit guests i agree ron thank you yeah wouldn't it

be great i'm really curious to hear volkanovsky's story he's got an obviously he's got an amazing weight loss story but to uh come from australia and i just love his message hey if i can do it anyone can do it it's hard to believe that someone who is um puts on performances like him but uh yeah andy and the other weird part is too is that he beat max holloway who i i don't know who doesn't love max holloway but but volkanovsky i feel like brian ortega made it easier to like alexander volkanovsky after this last weekend's fight for those of you who aren't following i'm a big fan of the ufc it's the ultimate fighting championships and it plays um basically every saturday and this last saturday they had a championship match against brian ortega and alexander volkanovsky and here is alexander volkanovsky with a freshly

clean haircut there he is there he is man it's great oh no, no, wait. This is Heath Pettigo. It is not Heath Pettigo. Who? Soon to be. I'm George. I'm just kidding. Heath, helping him to get set up right now with some headphones. George, you got the same haircut.

I'm the brown Heath Pettigo. Wait, George, can you move back from the camera for a second? Oh, my goodness, people. A little bit. Can you put the camera down so second oh my goodness people a little bit can you put the camera down so we could see your torso see this body this is the guy guys this is we're live on my youtube station we live for eight minutes this is one of the guys i've been telling you about who's in that documentary that you gotta see this is the guy how are you wow good man good man we're just getting getting he set up here for you guys it's a twofer it's a twofer two two guys one podcast how are you where are you guys good we're uh heath's house right now actually and uh i didn't know you made that you're that's

awfully domesticated you go go to Heath's house? Yeah, I live in the van. And then I just kind of like I'll sleep outside the gym and I'll sleep outside. Heath's here. I'll crash on his couch sometimes. I'll go and sleep at Alejandro's, just kind of wherever. I got to get some work done. Living the dream.

How is everything? Can you believe this is your life? It's very surreal sometimes. It feels like a movie, Peter Pan. It feels like we're living in Neverland and he's this Peter Pan and we're just the Lost Boys over here. That's what it feels like. That's a great movie. Those are two great movies, Peter

Pan and Lost Boys. Do you have any vampires in the gym? We actually have many mania with it. I'm pretty sure he was a vampire. He sounded like one. All right. What's your Instagram handle?

It is at gorgeousgeorge. Of course. Of course. Of course. Have you ever seen the movie Snatch? Yeah, but I didn't understand one thing that was said in that movie. I just watch it for the fight scenes. Is it the gorgeous George? Just ask.

Okay, because that looks like a porn. Oh, is it Gorgeous Jorge or Gorgeous George? Gorgeous Jorge. Okay, okay. I see it. Gorgeous Jorge. Do you have a dog as your profile picture? That's not it.

That's actually a different one. Another gorgeous Jorge? Yeah. I bet you I spelled it. You want to make sure I get that one? I bet you I spelled gorgeous wrong. Will someone in the comments here on the YouTube stream type in at gorgeous Jorge and see if we can get this guy's Instagram handle? You really have to follow all of these guys.

This is some fun shit. This is what reality TV shows should have been. This is what real-life activism looks like, not protesting in front of government buildings wanting change. This is like people really making a change, being the Gandhi shit. These boys, this guy, they're doing the stuff. They're being the change they want to see in the world. I can't wait to dig in with you guys. All right, brother.

Heath is ready for you here. Okay, George, I'm going to – Jorge. I'm going to bug you soon too and try to get you on the show. No doubt, man. Whatever you need. Whatever you need, brother. You're the man. Thank you.

Thank you. whatever you need whatever you need man thank you thank you what's going on brother you're making them all get the haircut now or they're made or they made you get the haircut man i just feel so old sometimes man it's just you know if i can get them to all look alike it makes me feel better last night i was going through some of your podcasts and i was um i was there's some really bad audio and some of them and some bad camera angles and i can't tell you how happy i am to see you with this like straightforward angle i could hear your voice we got a special treat with george you prepped us with george you lubed us up with george a little

foreplay with george that was great. They'll stop by. You can probably see a couple of them here. They all run in and out. I hang out. I know a lot of big name people. I can't believe how starstruck I am just sitting here staring at you. You know what I did in the last two days? I just watched episodes one through five.

I'm going to tell you guys again. It's the Daisy Fresh and American Jiu-Jitsu story. It's about this gentleman that you're looking at, Heath Pettigo. It's about his project and his passion and his giving back to the world. I don't know if you would call him a martial artist, a humanitarian, a father, a real activist. Like someone who's actually – he's not holding signs and protesting. He's actually being the change. He's setting people up for success in this world.

It's so crazy refreshing. Anyway, I just watched all five. Are there more than five episodes, Heath? Yeah, I think there's a couple more actually. I think there's three more that are on. They haven't released yet. They just kind of slowly release them to youtube so so that i'll want to subscribe to flow grappling to get okay that makes sense they got to make money yeah yeah yeah no we were really excited that they put those out on youtube you know i mean because

nothing was out at all so when when they dropped those you know because they're they're so much different than the other uh you know they're not even really about jiu-jitsu you know what i mean that like you said i did myself uh uh a jiu-jitsu guy always i just tell them i'm um you know an activist in the jiu-jitsu revolution that's what i always tell people so it's like uh just about trying to get change and that show is uh it's about so much more than you know just training and uh sleeping on the mats it's it's there's so much more to it's about so much more than you know just training and uh sleeping on the mats it's it's there's so much more to it than that so it's uh you know i was really excited when they put it on youtube that way everybody could check it out and you know

get something out of it um where were you born um uh mount vernon you're born there born and raised here a little town there There's about 14,000 people here. It's right in the middle of Illinois on the bottom, the closest cities. St. Louis is about a couple hours away. That's the closest, biggest thing. There's nothing else within an hour of it at all, so it's just a small place in the middle of nowhere. For those of you who don't know, Mount Vernon is in Illinois.

For those of you who don't know, Illinois is in the United States. Those of you who don't know, I think it's pretty much right in the middle. It sounds like when he told me just now where it's at, I was thinking it's probably south of Chicago by 500 miles. Is that right? Exactly. We're about four hours south of Chicago. We're actually closer to Memphis, Tennessee, Louisville. When you're from Illinois, no matter where you're from, when you tell someone, yeah, I know I'm from not way far away from Chicago. Then when they introduce you, they say, no, this is TV from Chicago.

They never, you know, if you're from Illinois, people just assume you're from Chicago. But where are you from? I mean, I mean, I was born in Oakland, California. Born and raised. Yeah, I'm a born and die-hard fucking super liberal, woke as can be, and I'm 49 years old, and finally about five or six years ago, something happened to me. Someone gave me the red pill, and I woke up, and I realized, realized holy shit but i lived a pretty crazy life too i spent years homeless on

the streets but i worked my ass off and i wasn't a drug addict like all my colleagues all my peer group was all drug addicts i was disciplined like you're giving those boys yeah i know i understand that so the best way for for people in californ to understand it, Mount Vernon would be like Stockton. That's kind of what it would be like. Oh, oh. Like if you went to the worst, worst part of Stockton, that's what Mount Vernon is like. Not that it's a bad place. There's like one road that runs through the middle of town on one side of the road.

It's rough. On the other side, it's just a normal Midwest town. It's an all right place. It's an all right place. It just breeds tough people. You know, you're, um,

you're 39 years old. You got to say all that shit on here, but I went to, I think you have a wiki page. I think you were born 10 years after me. I think I saw like when you were born and I was like, Oh, he's born in 10 years after me.

I'm 38, 38. All right. And, um, and so you're born and raised in Mount Vernon, Illinois and have you ever left? Yeah, yeah. So I was

15 back in the day called Full Contact Fighter. It was actually a newspaper news thing that went out, like a magazine kind of. It was like a newspaper form and it would go out in the 90s and you could get a subscription to them and one would come a month so i would write all the people they would put their names and the addresses of their gyms at the bottom so i would write every person that was in

there uh i was just training in the grass at the time with my brother we'd buy vcr tapes and we would just roll around the grass and get any of the kids in the hood that I would then come over and train with us and go to the power gyms and try to get those guys. But one time a guy finally wrote me back, and he said, I could come out for the summer. If my parents could pay for the plane ticket, he would take care of all the food, and I could live with him. His name was Eugene Jackson, and he lived in Palo Alto, California,

so not too, too far from you up there. Wow. Yeah. Very close to me. Very close to me. 30-minute drive. Yeah, so I was really excited when he wrote. I was like, man, it's going to be Pamela Anderson,

you know, on the beach and all this stuff. It's California. And then when I got up there, I looked up Palo Alto on the internet. It was like Stanford University and all this amazing, amazing shit. And then when I got there, East Palo Alto was a little bit different. It was like Stanford University and all this amazing, amazing shit. And then when I got there, East Palo Alto was a little bit different. It was more like Mount Vernon. So they told me, look, you can't go outside after 5 p.m. here, you know, because

it gets a little rough. There's like gangbanging going on. So I just stayed in the gym the whole time. I just spent every second in the gym training out there. It was called Ideator Training Academy. There was a couple guys from the UFC, Eugene Jackson and Tim Lasik. Mark Court was there at the time. He was like 17 or 18 years old. He was a couple years older than me. That was my first eye-opening experience, getting to go somewhere and train

and do jiu-jitsu with other people and like you know just see the world outside of mount vernon so then for the rest of my for the next several years in high school i never uh i never stayed around for summer i left for the whole uh three months and i would go out to california and uh sleep on the mat wherever i could and stay there do you know garth taylor by any chance the country country singer? No. That was good, though. Garth Taylor. That's where my kids go. Garth Taylor Jiu-Jitsu here in –

Yeah, I do. I do. I know your team. I don't know personally, but I've seen them on there. He's 50 now. I want to say he was one of the first whiteys to go down to Brazil and win a title. I know I normally I would just spout off what it,

what it, what his accolades are, but that's cause I don't normally talk to anyone as knowledgeable or as deep in the community as you. So I feel like confident being like cocky about it. But with someone like you, I'm totally neutered. No,

no. There's a big group of guys there's a lot of uh uh dudes that that like you know like really really black belts that went down and i think his name was one of the names that were on there uh it's uh i don't remember where is he in santa cruz maybe something like that yes yes yes yeah say say that again you guys know of each other yeah yeah there's like you said there was a big group of them uh like just really early early guys that were running around and got like well you know they went down when they were like blue belt or something they went down to brazil and stayed and they all came ready from on the mat i think he was yes yes all kind of heard of that yeah so so that was training uh i started in 93

i saw the first ufc me and my brother my dad was actually like uh took that he was uh so i don't know if you remember uh well you weren't even born yet you're just coming out but um they used to have these little black boxes and you would take these. It was like the first fire stick. You would put it on behind the black box, and then you could get all the pay-per-view stuff. Yes, yes. My dad had got one, and we actually watched the first UFC live because he was deciding whether, hey, do I want to take bets on this thing? We saw a horse on there. It's kind of funny.

Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, sorry. Hold on one second. Your dad was a bookie? Say that again. Well, wait, wait, sorry, sorry. Hold on one second. Your dad was a bookie. Say that again. Well, that's, that's allegedly that's,

that's, you said that. I just said that's enough, but, uh, okay. No. So,

uh, yeah, he, uh, so we watch all the sports. We had several TVs in the house. There's a lot of sports going on. And,

uh, that was the first one. He was really big into boxing. You know, those are the Mike Tyson times. So, you know, that was like probably the greatest time of anything, you know, of Andrew Holyfield, Mitch Lewis. And it was just like a wonderful.

And sports all together, you know, the Dallas Cowboys had those huge teams, and they were, you know, amazing. And Michael Jordan, I don't know. Not that they're not incredible now, but those were just really great times, you know what I mean, for the sports. And sports fans were different, too, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, now it's more about, like, putting your team on your Facebook profile.

But back then, you know, people were, like, driving, like, 10 hours and sleeping outside to get tickets, you know, a week before. I don't know. Just different times, I guess. I don't know. But maybe it's the same, you know a week before i don't just different times i guess i don't know but maybe it's the same you know but uh things are just a little bit easier now i think when it comes to you know being a fan of something it's easier to support something by just uh you know talking

about it on social media rather than you know getting out and putting your feet on the ground and it is what it is but guys if you're, if you're just tuning in now this is Heath Pedigo Heath, not health, like your computer's gonna want to auto-correct it, Heath Pedigo, P-E-D-I-G-O you should look him up and more importantly than Humble Heath

you should look up this documentary it's on YouTube now not all the parts, but the first five parts I just watched it with my two four-year-old sons and my six-year-old son they were completely I was actually surprised at how into it they were I it's called a daisy fresh and American jiu-jitsu tale or story just type in daisy fresh and American and it will pop up you will want to watch this whether you're into jiu-jitsu whether you're into fighting whether you're into itiu-jitsu, whether you're into fighting, whether you're into – it covers every base, this story. It's a story about young men.

It's a modern-day coming of age. It's everything. It's like The Lost Boys but without vampires. It's good shit, man. It is really – and you'll leave watching this movie believing in yourself and believing a little bit more in humanity and how good people behave and what they can do. Heath, so you're 15 years old. I want to go back a little bit younger than that. And I did see your interview about that, about how you went to that seminar when you were 15 and you paid $150 and it was shit. And that kind of made you, um,

never want to do a shit seminar. And by the way, I really, uh, admire that. Um, so you're eight years old or nine years old and you watch UFC one. Is that, I was 10 and we watched, I think it was in November of three, if I remember right now, as soon as I saw it, it's kind kind of funny everybody else who kind of talks about when they got to juju and they saw hoist gracie uh they always in their mind to say oh you know i saw this little guy but the way i saw it was i saw this huge gangly giant guy that was uh slow and i thought man if someone would just learn how to wrestle and sprawl they could just punch him and they could just beat him up.

So it was the opposite of what everybody else thought. No, he was amazing, you know, a huge pioneer for us. And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way towards him, but that's the way that I saw it. I just thought, man, you could be a contender in this if you could just wrestle and keep it on your feet and you could punch the guys. And, you know, we did that. Being from the Midwest, my brother wrestled. You know what I mean? Everyone kind of wrestles.

Even if they don't, they wrestled in high school. You know what I mean? So it's like everybody just kind of had that gritty, you know, if they didn't wrestle, their brother or their cousin wrestled and beat the shit out of them all the time. So everybody knows about wrestling. You know what I mean? How old's your brother?

Is he older or younger? He's like 150 years old. He's... If anyone's a vampire, that would be him. He's like... Since he was 20. He's 40, 45, 46. So he was a lot...

He's older than me. It doesn't sound like that much now, but you know, when you're kids, when you're 12 and they're 20, that means ass whoopings every day. You know what I mean? It's like, and he's a big guy. He's like a really big, strong, you know, if he was four inches bigger, he could have played in the NFL, one of those type dudes.

He's like a complete physical specimen. So everyone that he would bring over, he would meet at the, like, weightlifting gym. So all the guys that i would practice on were these big like heavy hitting like 500 pound bench press guys so i was constantly on bottom and we actually didn't just do regular jujitsu we uh we did like a valley to do like no holds barred every time so there was no head butting but everything else we that they would punch and so they would just constantly get on top of me and just beat the shit out of me. They would punch me and slam me.

And we were in the grass. So we were training for the UFC, basically, at the time. You know, it's kind of funny because when people say now, like, oh, I train UFC. But in their minds, it's kind of like what we were doing. You know, we didn't have a coach. We didn't have, I had a couple of books that I would buy and save up all the money I could, and then I would get VCR tapes. Most of the times they were in Portuguese.

My favorite ones were always in Japanese, so I never knew what the hell they were saying. I would just pause, rewind, and then the fucking VCR would eat the tape, and I'd have to get out and fix it. That was pretty much my life from 10 to 17, was just watching vcr tapes and then uh anytime that i could ever go anywhere and train i would like go and uh i was told the guys now uh when i was there so it's like if you had me to your gym it's like go where your kids go and have me to his gym i would hide in the corner and i would clean not only everything that

i did but everything everyone else did. So it's like I would make sure no one knew I was there. That way I could never wear up my work. You know, I would just clean up after everyone else all the time. I just always thought, you know, hey, that's the least that you could do is just, you know what I mean, just keep everything clean. So, you know, I wanted to stay there. I just wanted someone to ask me, hey, stay here permanently.

And Dan from Tap Out, the guy who owned Tap Out Clothing, Dan Caldwell, actually, when I was 16, he actually kind of told me, I mean, they didn't say drop out of school, but you're out here in California with us. I was sleeping in his couch at the time. And I think they had maybe a two-bedroom at the biggest. He had five kids. And I was sleeping on the couch,

and his kids were sleeping on the couch with me, and they were selling T-shirts out of the Trumps, though. It's like him and Charles, and he told me, man, just move out here. They were ex-cops at an Indian reservation. Sam Unwell was the name of it, and they told me, man, just move out here and just be a part of this. And my mom was a school teacher. And she told me, look, you can't do that. You've got to finish school.

And you know the old, yeah, you've got to go to school and you've got to go to college to be successful. And that's all she ever knew. Yep, yep. Sounds like my parents. Yeah, yeah. So they wanted me to take that route and then I kind of passed. And I think everyone from TAP just also, their pieces in the front like 10 million each so i missed the boat on that one but uh those guys were really uh and they were really while i was out there they they took me around to train at a lot of different places them and a guy named scott

profit that was out there and uh they um that was the second uh year that i came out so i was uh out around like the san bernardino area and uh i got to train at a lot of gyms and get a lot of different looks uh you know and uh that was kind of the first time that i you know they they said hey this is a gym so i got a g and put it on then i realized i didn't know shit all over again and i needed to start all over so that was really wait wait say go back to that when was the first gym you had a gi at say that you were 16 and which gym was that pedro carvalho i think was the first the first uh the first guy that i'd ever put the gi on at his gym he had a gym in rancho tamanga california and that's yeah yeah and and all the guys i trained at so uh they was uh come over here and get this they all they all just stopped by here look at uh you know what i actually can't

see you for some reason on your end i'm the video drop can you still see me i haven't been able to see you since the beginning of the show yeah it breaks my heart okay we're gonna have one of the boys but i'm like uh i'm slow when it comes to this stuff, so they got to settle up. George will come look at this. It's okay. I'm sure it has to do with the software I'm using. There he is. Man, people, as soon as I told people I was having you on, Heath,

people were wanting this hillbilly on. So many DMs pouring in, get the hillbilly on. There he is. There he is. Isn't the world magical? People just want to see him, and there he is. he is isn't the world magical people just want to see him and there he is they just they get their wish if you have a vision it's truly you really have it you know what i mean sometimes you can just uh you can accomplish that i think by you know make it happen before you physically make it happen so i think uh it worked in this case i don't know i've

been doing it trying to win a lottery but that shit but we'll uh you know vision on it so this this documentary um daisy fresh and american jiu-jitsu story watch it on youtube uh all three of the gentlemen who you've seen on this podcast are in the show there's something about it that i really like and um it's just it's real oh everyone says everything's real. Fuck you, Savant. No, I'm serious. I wonder what they left on the cutting room floor because this is really raw and authentic, and this is what young men are really like. In the first five episodes, you see pretty much exactly how young men really are except you don't see a lot of women in there. And I am curious how they manage the women thing but this

is a this is some authentic shit these are boys who are bonding if you don't give boys something to do like Heath is giving these boys something to do boys will do bad shit men between the age of 16 and 35 need to be

kept busy people and if you don't you you are you're you're you're creating havoc for all of society not just for the boys for all of civilization many and it's it's it's fascinating seeing how hard if you let people if you give people the space and the love and the belief in them and you give them a good peer group and in a lot of healthy peer pressure this is what happens. It's so cool. So cool. Yes.

You really hit the nail on the head on that, man. It's like, so me, when I was around that age, like young 15, 16, I was meaner than fuck. I was like the opposite of everything that I stand for now that I want. Everything that you just said, all stuff idle hands man like when i was young i was like uh you know we had like a little youth street gang that i was in and we'd run around we just were terrorized man we were like mean and when i didn't have the jiu-jitsu stuff before i was like just completely obsessed with right around like uh 14 50 i know you're thinking what could a kid from 10 to 13 do uh they can do a lot of wild shit you know what i mean it's like just neighborhood kids but like what like shooting dogs with bb guns and breaking windows and sitting on the side of the

street and like tying trash cans to the backs of cars and then watching them drive away just shit like that or even crazier shit yeah yeah and then neighbor guys have you deliver packages on your bikes and give you 500 bucks and uh right you're finding finding guns out in the weeds that people had shot people with and dropped and uh you know you know just wild mountain vernon's a wild place man it's it's it's a there's a lot of poverty and uh and i grew up in that uh in that area we uh in the school that i went to they they find asbestos in the school and uh it was on monday they announced hey there's not going to school anymore and they were probably like they were probably like seven or eight white kids and the rest of the rest of the school was black and uh they said hey there's asbestos in the school. On Tuesday, they tore the school down.

It was completely on the whole thing. So I can't. Yeah, it was like, who? Maybe that's why I'm so nuts now. But it was like, that's what I'm saying. You know, in those types of neighborhoods, it's like, you know, and we didn't leave when I was a kid. Like we didn't you don't leave the neighborhood. You know, you kind of didn't go to the other side of town, which I know that sounds crazy in such a, uh, you know, it's such a small place, but, uh, you know, you just, when you grow up and you don't know any different, you know, that they were pregnant when they were, you know, 14, 15. And all my friends that like lived on my block, they're like, they're

dead or they're, you know, they're doing like long prison sentences. Some of them are just now starting to get out. And the bigger that the show got and the bigger that the gym, the jujitsu got, I would get the opposite from the community that I grew up in. It was more like, Oh, you're, you're a sellout. You're a, you know what I mean? It's like, instead of being happy and saying, Hey man, you know, like, and it's not like more, it's like, uh, you know, because I still get involved. I still go down there and, you know, like, cause now they have kids, you know what I mean? And unfortunately, a lot of the guys that I grew up with, they're not really in their kids' lives, but, uh, they, uh, you know, I just get down there and, like, you know, just, you know, link up with everyone in that community and get them involved in the gym. And for a long time, though, that community kind of gave me the, oh, you know, that was kind of the to leave and go somewhere else.

And, you know, you know, you're not down. You know, in the hood, sometimes it's not the guy who makes it as a surgeon or a doctor. That's not the person that people have respect for. But the guy who's banging and selling dope on the corner that has, you know, the cars and the money, that's who gets the clout sometimes for the kids. You know, it's really it's true. It's true. And when you're up like that, you don't want to be you don't want to be a doctor or a teacher, someone who's going to give back an amazing shit to the community. And, you know, you want to be the person who has the most street credit. And unfortunately, that's never usually a good thing. You know what I mean? But so, you know, it's you've got to find the balance in between those two things.

And, you know, so I just try to get down there still, like I said. balance in between those two things and uh you know so i just try to get down there still like i said and uh actually i passed out flyers uh a couple years ago for the gym i said anyone that lived from this street to this street can train for free and i would wow constantly go down there and actually not one person showed up for a year not one i couldn't get anyone to come and finally started coming in and we had a really really, right before COVID, a really killer kids program, man. We were, I like to get them about, you got to get these kids that are really rough, man. You got to get them before 12. Like when I was 12, we were already kind of set and doing the things that we were doing.

You know, you kind of, you look up to the people you look up to. So right around that 9, 10 age, man, if you can get them there, you can really make a really big difference. And not that you can't when they're 12, that's not what I'm saying. It's just a little bit younger. You can really make changes and, you know, you can change lives. And, you know, if their friends see them doing, everyone just wants to be a part of something, you know what I mean? And right at, right at that age, they're, they're ready to be loyal to anything, whether it's gang banging, selling dope, being a policeman, being a part of a team, being part of a community. Whatever it is, they're ready. They just want someone to love them and they want to be loyal to something.

And, you know, it's, I think, a really important time to get them in life so they can have a positive impact on themselves first and then everyone else. I want to say three things, address three things you just said. So I don't believe in God at all whatsoever, but I'll tell you, the listeners, a truth. If you despise someone, talk shit about someone, God will make sure you never be that person. If you look down at successful people, if you're jealous of successful people, if you hate on Jeff Bezos for going to space, you are never going to space. Stop hating on people because I promise you God will make sure you never make it there. When the guy drives by in the Lamborghini, don't talk shit about him.

Be like, wow, he must have worked really hard for that. I wonder what his secret is. I'm so happy that human beings are able to afford these beautiful things. And remember all the jobs that creating that Lamborghini and innovation that went into it and souls and love and power, the details in the paint, the engine, the way the door closes, all of that. Stop hating on people. God will not give you success if you hate on the successful. That's why someone doesn't believe in God. So I don't know how God does that, but I believe in that kind of God. Free, when he says he's giving jujitsu away free, he's not giving it away free. He's paying for it.

His students are paying for it. There's nothing free. This man is doing it for other people. And the third thing is, is what you said about 12 year olds. And this is more of a question for you. My son goes to a tennis instructor who's serious as a heart attack. I have my kids do a tennis three to five days a week, martial arts five days a week and skateboarding seven days a week. Keep them busy, busy, busy. And I have three boys, two, four year olds and a six year old. And the tennis instructor told me that the worst thing that can happen to a tennis player is the desire to want to win. Because once you start wanting to win, there's such a steep learning curve and learning all the technique and the strategy that once you start wanting to win, you start abandoning technique and strategy and you start getting sloppy and put winning ahead of skill.

And he says that's the hurdle for a 12-year-old boy or a 12-year-old girl. Between 12 and 13, their desire to win interferes with their ability to learn. So I wonder if you need to get them before 12, because at 12, they don't have the humility that's needed to be good at jiu-jitsu. What do you think? No, I think that's exactly it. Yeah, I think that's exactly what, it's just that you're so impressionable, you know, still at that you're so impressionable you know still at that just below that you don't think you start to kind of become a man or a or a woman when you right around that that 12 age you know i think you know they start to kind of hit puberty and

they start to really identify with who they're really going to be in life you know what i mean and i think i think that's kind of it uh i think that's i i you know for me i just did it by uh by uh you know a failure you know like uh i i just tried with everyone that i could and that just kind of seemed like the age where you know i had a lot of success was right around that 10 12 area doesn't mean that a kid can't come in and be 15 and you know be incredible and he changes life it's just on a big scale i think that's when they make major your uh you know decisions in their life and uh i i think if you can get in there and do that that's when uh that that's when you can really make the most change for them

uh i know i've said it a bunch of times i don't usually plug someone this much you guys have to see this documentary. The first five parts are out. There's tons of ancillary videos coming out from the entire crew now, but you got to get in and watch these first five. They're called Daisy Fresh, an American Jiu-Jitsu Story or Tale. There's episodes one through five that are free on YouTube. It sounds like if you want to get ahead of the curve and you're not a cheap fucker like me, you can actually go to Flow Grappling. They did an amazing job, and I started following Flow Grappling. I can't believe I'd never followed

them before. But the first five episodes are out. They're 30 to 40 minutes long, I'd say, 50 minutes long. Watch them with your kids. They're awesome. They're fantastic. And Heath Pedigo, who we have on right now, is – I don't know. I guess we're 40 minutes in and we still don't know the story because I'm just too excited to get to it. But I'll try to dig in right here. Tell me about the start of this gym, this exact gym. No detail is too much, by the way. No detail is too much.

So when my brother and I first saw the first ufc we decided like right on the spot for me i i knew and at 10 years old this is what i wanted to do um not as much i just wanted to be involved with um with that you know it was like we had already boxed and and uh we had already been we were rough kids you know we were already constantly like you know like mixing it up on the street and running around. We were just kind of rough. My dad, he was a little rough. So it was like all his friends were around, and we were really big boxing and watching that.

And so the second that I saw it, I thought, man. Was your dad in a motorcycle gang? No. Okay. Just checking. Didn't even have a cycle he's uh yeah he's a rough guy for sure he definitely like uh it's uh we would uh my dad would he would be out you know like he he was uh have you seen a bronx tell i think that's what it is where they're or maybe goodfellas where all the guys are down in

the basement and they're all gambling and the kids, there's drinks, the kids shooting the dice for them. That was my life growing up, being around that and seeing that stuff. So anyway, we see the UFC when I was 10

and I just immediately wanted to wrestle around and do jiu-jitsu all the time. And in my life, I hadn't really thought about like wrestling. You know what I mean? I thought more about like the jujitsu. I saw Hoist do that. So I was like, man, I want to learn all the stuff that that guy knows. So I saved up a bunch of money and it was like eight bucks a month to get this newsletter that the Gracie sent out.

So I sent that off and I got that. And then when it started coming i was like man this is kind of bullshit it's more like self-defense and i feel like uh i don't know a lot of the stuff that i would get into like in the magazines it just seemed like everyone was just trying to make money off of each other you know i mean it was like man which i get i i get i understand it but that that wasn't me that's not what i wanted to do i wanted to uh you wanted to learn how to fight i wanted to learn how to fight and i wanted to help teach people how to fight. And I want to get a bass team and, you know, uh, uh, and I wanted to kind of get, not necessarily get out of Mount Vernon, but I wanted

to get out there and just, you know, like test myself against other people in other countries and other places. And, uh, you know, so, you know, living in California, it's such, you know, while I was out there, there's a big difference, uh, you know, being in California, it's such, you know, while I was out there, there's a big difference. You know, being from there, it's like you're already almost in another country, in another place, you know, than the rest. When you're in the Midwest, it's just, it's so small. And I think it's easy for people to get trapped and feel trapped when they live in these tiny, tiny towns. You know, they almost seem like black holes sometimes, no matter. That's just a human, that's just a human thing, too.

It's really easy. The governor in your brain constantly gives you excuses like, hey, go home. It's easier there. You know people. So-and-so can get you a job. It's scary. It's scary to get out and make things happen, not make excuses. It's tough to do that.

But right at 10, man, I already wanted to leave and go and learn and be like a samurai and do as many as I could and just soak up everything. And I have these notebooks. I still have them today. There's like hundreds. It's like front to back. It's like, you know, a Rain Man room. It's like if someone else read them, I don't think they would be able to understand them. It's like I would write on them upside down.

When I was laying down stretching, and it's just all these plans that I had and all these moves that I wanted to learn. They're like webs of, okay, if it starts here, it goes there, and it goes there. I would just watch these VCR tapes and make this shit up i would get the neighbors and the neighbor kids would come over and they realized it i wouldn't want to come so my brother and i would pay them you know we'd give them a couple dollars to like let us uh try who's on them and wow yeah yeah i just kind of kept growing and literally we tried to get anyone that we could to come in and train with us. By come in, I mean train out in the grass. And then my brother worked a job for like—

Hey, were other kids allowed at your house? Were the other parents like, oh, shit, you can't go over to the pedigree's house? Those fucking guys are crazy. Yeah, you're exactly right. We had a family like your family on the block. know i know the rules about your house it's kind of funny though you know i don't know how to turn this off it's okay it's my show you can you can even take the call you want to take the call it's fine we're easy here we're easy i'm on i'm on alejandro's computer and uh he's got a lot of late friends so he keeps getting buzzed so george actually does anyone who's seen our youtube channel it's uh it's it's

done really well i think in like four months it got like 20 000 subscribers i guess that's a lot i don't know much about it's a lot it's a lot it's so good it's kind of funny in my mind he works so hard on doing this stuff. I mean, he literally does it all by himself. He doesn't have any help. And four months ago, he had never touched a camera. He'd never touched a computer and basically got like a YouTube book for dummies, basically. And he just learned how to make these videos and shoot. This is gorgeous, George.

Yep, all by himself. So anything that's on there. Alejandro's brother works out in Hollywood, George. Yep, yep, all by himself. So anything that's on there. Alejandro's brother works out in Hollywood, actually, and he had helped with the first couple, and then after that, George just completely does it all by himself. So sometimes he'll be editing for literally like 30 hours to kind of make those videos and do stuff. I know that world.

Yeah, yeah, so he's really's really amazing without him we couldn't do any of that stuff because i'm like uh illiterate when it comes to all this computer stuff but anyway so uh uh yeah so so my my my dad and mom they're they're they're wonderful people though man it's like growing up they like buy everything for everyone in our community new shoes for all the kids and we didn't have any but but, uh, they would, uh, Are your parents still alive? Yeah. They're still alive. Still together. Still like literally the, uh, the most, uh, opposite couple that you can imagine.

He's like a wild, like he's got the balls of a 17 year old still, you know, he's like a, uh, aggressive. And like, uh, my mom's like this, she's like on my show. Mom, she was like the sweetest lady. All she's ever done, uh, her entire life is just give, give, give, man. She was a school teacher for about 42 years and she has six days of work in 42 years. Uh, she had two years of sick days when she, um, excuse me, when she retired, she had two years of sick days when she retired. She had two sick days, and she actually donated them. She didn't get anything for them.

So she gave her life. Crazy. Yeah, she would just teach them. She was in a really, really poor community, and she would pick these kids up walking to school. She would go over to their house. They would have lice, or they would have just parents up walking to school, you know, when it was, she would go over to their house, you know, they would have like lice or they would,

you know, have just parents that were on drugs and she would go over to their house and clean their houses and, you know, buy them new clothes. I remember going out to her school and I would randomly see kids that would have shirts that would say like pedigo on the back of them. Like mom,

fuck, that's my baseball shirt. You know, and she, and she, yeah, she, she would always tell us uh the same thing look you're good looking kids you're you're athletic you got a lot going on you don't need that stuff it's just stuff they need you know they don't even have a dad they don't they don't have a mom so at christmas time we would buy

presents we would pick this stuff out we and a lot of times mom presents. We would pick this stuff out. We would own it. And a lot of times, mom and dad, they would wrap this stuff, and they would just give it away to other people. You know what I mean? So that kind of became what our life was like. But, you know, at the time when I was a kid, I was like, man, this sucks. You know what I mean? But now looking back, that's exactly what they were doing, which is kind of like what I'm doing with the gym. So I think that just all kind of comes from, you know, no matter how wild that was and how sweet and great mom was,

I think just a lot of that's like, you know, kind of saying, you know, without them, I might not have the mindset that I do, you know, want to get all these guys. And it's not just you guys. We have guys show up that are 40, you know, they just went through a divorce and they've worked. I saw the cop that you trained, the just went through a divorce and they, they, they work. I saw the cop that you trained the guy who won the masters and white and all the belts, except he only has black to go. Right. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these guys,

man, you know, there'll be a, you know, you never really know what you want to do in life. It's like you ask people and they're, they're like, they're like 40 years old. And they always have the same joke. I'm still trying to figure it out. And I think as humans, we kind of run around in life and have time. Sometimes I wonder if anybody knows what the hell they're doing. No, they don't. They don't. I have this talk on my podcast all the time. I never knew what I wanted to be.

And then my wife wanted – my girlfriend of 20 years wanted kids. And so we had kids. And this is the first time I've ever felt – being a dad is the first time where I like – be like, I've made 10 movies, you know, and I've never called myself a movie director. I have four movies that are in the top 10 all time on iTunes for documentaries. I still wouldn't call myself a director. I don't think of myself as much of a photographer and I've or editor and I've done all that stuff. I'm a master at that stuff. But when I became a dad, I'm like, fuck, I'm a dad through and through.

And this podcast thing, I actually feel like I'm kind of like a podcaster. But I've never – I never knew what I wanted to do. I agree with you. Never. I don't think anyone does. I think you just kind of go through life. And sadly, I think people go through their entire life sometimes, and they just never figure it out. They become – you work at a factory.

And it's okay. It's okay to do that. I mean it's – Did It's okay to do that. Did you want to be a good person, Heath? When did you want to be a good person? When I was a kid, I wanted to be a gangster. And then something happened, and now you want to be a good guy? Man, my friends just started getting killed, and they were constantly in trouble.

I've actually never tasted alcohol my entire life. It was like a Interesting enough. I had a I had a friend who his dad just beat the shit out of him Ever understood dad was such a nice guy. He was an amazing guy but when he would drink he would come home and just beat ass man, and we were really little. And, uh, I'll never forget. Uh, I would, I would, uh, I would be over there and he would come home and then he would tell me, Hey, you need to leave. And I would always remember the way that he smelled, you know, and then for me in my mind, uh, I remember the first time that they, they tried to get me to like taste alcohol. And I was probably like seven or eight years old and, uh, some older guys in

the neighborhood. And I remember that smell is the same exact smell that my friend's dad had. And I was never interested because of that. And that always stuck with me in life, which is a great thing because I would probably be completely nuts if I would have drank it and been in trouble. You've never had alcohol in your life? Never tasted it. Even if it was put on something, I've never tasted it. And I'm not saying that I'm anti anti-alcohol it's just for me

human it's not something that i'm interested in and uh so much bad shit it's stupid it's pretty stupid i would see so much bad shit you know and i always felt like people needed they the only reason they needed alcohol is because like we said they just don't know what the fuck they're doing or that the way that they feel they can't control like their you know their their emotions as a human and they need help doing that and i just think i always thought there's there's other directions mine was like jiu-jitsu you know and like fitness like if i felt that way if i felt anxious just run 10 miles and i'm talking about when i was like uh 10 or 11 or 12 years old i would just go out and do pull-ups or basketball or run around go swim whatever it was

i just never wanted to uh i'm gonna say something i'm gonna say something really crass here i apologize alcohol is for you've been with a girl for three years and you're afraid to eat her pussy so you should probably drink a little and get to it that's what alcohol is for just like yeah i agree and that's it it's a medicine it's a medicine but it's but this drinking and watching football is just it is just idiocy yeah so when i was a kid i didn't wait three months to eat the pussy i just went after it the first day so i didn't right right so you didn't need alcohol yeah no i never needed it man i was just i was just i was just ready to go. I was scared. I was scared.

I needed a little alcohol to eat the pussy. I was scared. But it's a medicine like that. It's good like that. Sure. And that's kind of always how I thought of it in my mind. I just thought, man, I noticed with my friends that they would get nervous or it's about like, hey, you know, we're going to mix it up with these other dudes and then they would drink. And I was just always kind of ready to go, you know what I mean?

Did you ever smoke cigarettes? My dad smoked our whole life. So, uh, basically through him, I smoked my whole life, but no, I, I've never, I never smoked, um, never smoked cigarettes. I've never done any drugs. I've never, uh, uh, yeah, no, I've just never done any of that shit, man. And it's kind of funny there, there wasn't a whole lot of reasons other than that, that I didn't, I just, you know, I just had, i was so infatuated with wanting to learn um everything about like traveling and about jiu-jitsu and uh you know what made you think you were good enough to open your own dojo i'm sorry to interrupt i'm afraid i'm gonna lose you and not get some of these questions answered i apologize what made you think you were good enough to, I, I kind of want to go back and talk about when you got your first ski and how you

got promoted up to a black belt, but, but I'm really curious how, what gave, what gave you the self-confidence to be like, okay, I'm going to rent this fucking dilapidated building and I'm going to start training people in it. What made you think you were good enough to do that, to give back like that? I think from the, from the beginning, man, the beginning, man, that's what we did. We already were teaching 12, 13 years old. So I guess I didn't really ever know any better than to –

it was just me and my brother. You had to teach people or else you had no one to train with? Yeah, that was it. And then we started kind of getting some wrestlers, and then I wanted to show wrestlers the jiu-jitsu stuff from the bottom like the submissions and the sweeps and then so i just kind of was always teaching even then so i actually don't believe like yeah someone needs to be a black belt to open a gym i understand the perspective on that i understand where they're trying to come from but uh and today it's a lot different you know

you can you can especially in california you can walk 15 feet and there's a new gym out there and you know there's there's something you know i hear it was like there there was just nothing man there was nothing like that there was actually a time when um when tap out clothing sponsored me well dan had reached out to me from tap out clothing i took a bus out to Connecticut for the North American graphic championships. And I was 15 and I took a bus out there and it was like 30 hours each way. And I had never, this, this was the first, this is before I went to California. This is the first time that I had left. And the bus went through like New York city and I had layovers and I remember walking around and, uh, and just, uh,

that was probably the biggest, most eyeopening experience in my life. Just seeing other people and hearing the way that they talk, talk different. You know what I mean? And I had heard people from like Kentucky come up, you know, like, like, like the hillbilly hammer, you know, they sound a little bit different, but out in New York, everyone was like, you know, they were kind of like brash and it was like, uh, the, the different thing was different thing was um in the big cities no one gets shit about it's like you just don't exist when they're walking by if they bump yeah and where i'm from even though the people are hard they're kind though too if you need to get out they would let you if your car broke down on the side of the road 15 people would stop in the traffic and they would push your car.

That's just – it's just like a way of life. And it was not wonderful, wonderful people everywhere. It's just sometimes in the bigger cities, in the bigger states, people are just – they're in a big fucking hurry to go nowhere. And they're scared. And they're scared. Everyone in the city is scared. It's a bunch of pussies. I shouldn't call them pussies i i don't i

shouldn't call them pussies because i kind of feel sorry for them but everyone's so scared these days that everyone's afraid they're gonna scratch their their break a nail it's so sad yeah yeah and it's like you know and i think the small towns in the midwest are just they and never they never moved forward you know on the uh well that would be moving backwards actually but you know you know what i mean they just uh there's still just a lot of there's a lot of community still you know on the uh well that would be moving backwards actually but you know you know what i mean they just uh there's still just a lot of there's a lot of community still you know if you see someone that's struggling and uh uh you know i see stuff all the time like on um if i don't use social media very much but if i if i see on facebook i'll get a notification like uh you know like uh so and so needs help in the in the public community thing you know every time i look it, you know, it's usually like someone is on drugs and they're asking for stuff for their kids.

But and now 150 people are on there and saying like, we can go to Goodwill. We can get you cash. We have an old cash. It just seems always open to helping other people, you know. And I think the lesson that the world could, you know, that they could take from that, like the Southern hospitality thing, you know, that's real. It really exists. It does exist. Yeah, it does.

You know, and just smiling and telling someone, you know, hey, you know, have a good day, you know, just being kind. And, you know, dude, life's already so hard, you know what I mean? It's even harder when someone's a fucking asshole for no reason. You know, you can see people. You can just look at people usually and know not to fuck with them or that they're just unapproachable. And that's the way I felt being out in New York. Everyone was just unapproachable. I wanted to walk around, but I didn't want to get lost.

So I just kind of went out there. The only thing that I would ask for help, it was in Union Station. It was like the biggest thing that I had ever seen. You know Station. It was like the biggest thing that I had ever seen. You know what I mean? Like the biggest thing that I had ever seen. And I was taking so much in, man. And I was on the way to this tournament, and I had like a five-hour layover there. And I remember I wanted to get out and kind of walk around a lot.

But, you know, I was a little scared. And then I remember on the bus ride back, I was ashamed't that I was there and that I didn't get out and like, you know, see, you know, some of these buildings and some of these places. And I had made a map before I went. I had like found some, you know, the Internet barely existed then. I mean, right. Right. Yeah. You got to get a map from AAA. Yeah. Yeah. I had to go to school. You know, there was a number of the map the map quest things you know you'd be driving and follow them miss your fucking exit every time it never failed and uh and i always thought map quest uh and the the garmin gps has always thought that they had a deal with like the hood you know it's like the shortcut was always taking you through a shitty neighborhood it's still your shit yeah yeah so now anyway that's um i went out there and I did my first tournament, and I had only trained in the grass with my brother.

He hadn't rented a house yet to where we could train on the carpet. And I went out and I did the tournament, and I won. And you were 15? I was 15, and I beat some of these guys from these big schools. Like Henzo Gracie had a giant school that was out there. And when I saw those names, I was almost a little intimidated oh man wait so you're 15 and you entered a grappling competition by and you went there in a 30-hour bus ride by yourself and you entered and won and then and then took the bus home yeah and there's this real big trophy i still have it actually

where did you sleep that night um actually so i was gonna just sleep sleep outside it really wasn't that wasn't a big deal for me you you know, like at the time it's, uh, actually still now, even today, it's like, uh, when we get hotel rooms with the guys, a lot of times, you know, there'll be 15 of them. We'll just sleep on the floor with the guys still. It's, uh, and as horrible as that sounds to everybody that's out there, it's, it's really not that bad, man. You know, it's, there's just so much camaraderie and, uh, you know, it's, uh,. And, you know, for me, it's always just been a part of it, man. And I think that's one of the things that sets our apart from the teams that they say, oh, man, you know, like, oh, no, we're brothers. And, you know, it's like having friends at school.

You remember when you're in high school and you had someone in your class and they were like your friend. You talked to them, you ate lunch with them. But after school and after you graduated, you never saw them again. If there wasn't a Facebook, you would never speak to them again. And sometimes these people are literally some of your best friends in life. Your best times enjoying life at school are with guys like that or girls like that. That's what jiu-jitsu for most places is like for people. They have friends at jiu-jitsu and they use the word

brotherhood and they use the word family but they don't know shit they don't know each other's kids they've never been to each other's house the boys at this gym they are they're real friends they're real brothers they're closer with them each other then most of them don't even have families anyway it's you know like the jacob couch's story, man. It's such an incredible story. His mom dropped him off at the babysitter because she wanted to get high and she just never came back to get him. Is that the Australian kid? That's a, that's the hillbilly hammer.

Oh, okay. So, you know, she, she, she just dropped him off and, uh, you know, so he grew up as his grandma finally like adopted him and got him and, you know, She had nothing. He grew up his entire life. He was a child. He had no idea. And I'll tell you something.

Mountain dew instead of water. He talked about that. That shit freaks me out. I'm a big anti-sugar guy. I think sugar is Satan. And when he told me that they were giving him fucking mountain dew instead of water because there wasn't clean water as a kid that's that's a hard one for me to that breaks my heart well it's tough right

I mean you see and especially in the Midwest and a lot of these little towns you know like obesity like runs rampant it's a there's way more of that in the middle of the United States than there is a wherever the Bible belt is you can usually find really overweight judgmental people unfortunately the United States, and there is a, wherever the Bible belt is, you can usually find really overweight, um, judgmental people. Unfortunately, it's kind of funny how those things go hand in

hand, but, uh, it's, uh, they, he didn't have running water in the house until he said, I think that he was like 11 or 12 years old. So they would have a well that they would go and they would, they would put the bucket up. And, uh, you know, hear like that it's like uh even me it's like we uh we were poor you know what i mean you know my mom didn't make much being a teacher i remember she said she started in 1974 and her first paycheck was four thousand bucks so yeah yeah the place that she came from was like a little tiny town man there were like 200 people there and my dad had 15 brothers and sisters so they were obviously like a really poor family one of his brothers actually at one point they had a the their farm that they were working on apple wasn't working it was right after the depression and uh my dad's brother uh he uh he they were so hungry and like famine that he uh he basically

started to get pneumonia and then he died and uh so i mean they were from real struggle man like uh i think a lot of people in the united states don't even realize that this shit is real and that you know it's you know it's so how it's real and some people just won't ask for help you know i mean it's a which is a curse in itself sometimes you know what i mean it's good to be tough and you know pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do all that but sometimes sometimes people just need a little bit of help you know people can take advantage of getting help but sometimes just people just need a little bit of help man and uh that's um unfortunately i feel like right now heath that 90 of the help people get hurts them and i'll give you an example of this um when my boy

started learning how to walk i would walk him every, you know, I would walk him a mile every day in the beginning, right? And he's one years old and it would take three hours to walk a mile. And in that mile, and I'm not exaggerating, he would fall 500 times. Every three seconds he would fall. And I would see other parents pick their kids up, but I never picked my kid up. That's not my job as a parent. He fell, and now he earned the opportunity to stand up and get those quads and glutes and balance and everything stronger. My job was to turn around and make sure a car doesn't hit him, alligator doesn't come out of the bushes and eat him. My job is to protect him while he deals with the struggles of real life and gets stronger. And I feel like today's society, helping people is about picking them up.

And that's not – and what you're doing when you do that is you're stealing from people. So – and I don't feel – and you do that. You give people – it's kind of – this is cheese dick, but my mom said it all the time. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. And that's what you've done. You've laid out a trough of water, and those who want to take big gulps can come over and take big gulps. And it's fascinating. It's funny. We were in the airport yesterday, and George Valadares, so George's story.

And my kid has a huge, at six years old, my kid has a huge, muscular, bulbous ass because he fucking did 500 burpees a day his whole entire life. And I never walked over and stood him up. Sorry. You're in the airport with George. Sorry. Drew, I agree with everything you said. Just a little something that he said, what you're saying, reminded me of that yesterday. One of the parents inside, the kid, he's running in the airport and he falls flat on his face.

And not only the mom, but five other people ran over to just immediately make the kid cry. And that's what I hadn't really thought about it, but they, Oh, are you, are you okay? Are you okay?

They made him upset when he fell down. Well, outside there's a Hispanic family, you know, George, George is from nicaragua and the kid's running and this kid falls i mean fucking literally flat on his face it skins his face up his mom told him boy get up and he got up and george looked up and he said that's the

difference between where i'm from and here it's literally everything you just said and you know what the kid the kid got up, and he didn't even think about crying because he probably would have whooped his ass right there on the spot. Now, that's a whole other conversation, but I do agree with everything you're saying. Another thing that bothers me a lot is I had to learn this, you know, coaching at the gym. You have to be careful how much you give. So it's like if I take these boys and I would allow them to live in the gym and just train full time and not have jobs and not go to school, they're just children of welfare. Meaning people make the – sometimes people think if you're poor

and you grew up poor, you grew up in the ghetto, you grew up in the hood. And you don't have to grow up in the hood of the ghetto to be poor. You know what I mean? You can be from a working class family not have shit and uh you know just just getting by sometimes is a harder in life you know being being just under medical having two working class parents sometimes that disqualifies you from any help at all and it's barely enough to get by that's struggling itself as well and a lot of people don't realize that but um you know if if you're constantly giving so like everyone out there who like wants to run a gym or you want whatever you have and you want to help people

i think it's important to not uh mix up people say like hey so-and-so is rich you know a lot of people think automatically if someone's poor that they're tough and one thing that i found out a lot of boys that i get that are from really poor families they grew up in the project it's actually the opposite they've been given everything their entire life they're from families that weren't ever interested in working um you know i don't want to say that they were just on the take i don't know what their situation was, but, you know, mom maybe wasn't able to work because dad wasn't around, so he never worked. So there just wasn't a lot of work ethic there. And they kind of think that everything should be given to them or somebody owes them, you know. And, you know, people think rich people have it made, especially really wealthy people.

haven't made especially really wealthy people the richer you get and the the more famous you get or does it you that means more work and work it doesn't mean that you get to kick your feet up because you made your first million bucks it's not the way it works and I think that's a misconception that that sometimes people don't have much think about rich people it's like yeah he's rich you didn't have to work where most of the time to become rich and stay rich or whatever word you want to use you gotta bust your ass man you know and the more you get the tougher it gets and you know the the more you move up in the world whether it be the corporate world or you know you're being self-made whatever you constantly have to keep working if you don't you lose everything that you made and um the only way that i stay rich is that i live poor it's true it resonates with me 100

i live so fucking poor what does that mean that means um i have the same underwear that i've had for um 10 years but um but i have all of that money that would have cost to replace my underwear over the 10 years in the bank making interest and it's just it's the way you have to do it if you want to be if you want if you want to live rich if you want to be rich you got to live poor and and obviously there's exceptions to the rule there's people who are printing money you know who are selling google ads but but for for the most of the people you see driving like their fucking minivans around town don't get them don't think the guy driving the escalade is richer than he is because uh they're spending their money no for sure and uh when it comes to being a leader you have to have the same mindset you know what i mean it's like it's easy to get

on the horse man and i see a lot of these um these uh guys at tournaments and what happens unfortunately in the jiu-jitsu community uh people make they'll open up gyms and these guys become kings of their kingdom the gym is they're the boss it's their way away and uh that's not really uh there's a difference between you know boss and the league you know what i mean it's like i and my situation part of the reason uh that people people always ask me, what is it about this? So I'll come in for these seminars, these camps that I do. That's where you heard the 30-hour seminar. They always ask me about jiu-jitsu.

Like, what moves are you guys doing at the gym? They never ask me about the environment. And it's kind of funny. I'll come into these three-dayday camps and they always want to know everything about what are the guys doing to win it not the physical aspects of it you know what what drills are you doing what training are you doing and the thing that they never ask me as coaches is what about the environment what kind of environment what is making people come stay I have the same last night we had uh like the culture there they're not asking

about when you say the environment you mean like the culture yeah it's uh it's this it's that one you walk into the room with your kids that your kids are a they're telling you dad we're gonna be late we gotta go they want to go they want to be at this place you know they they want to get there because it's fun and they're they feel supported and their friends are there you know it's like they're not there they're thinking about being at the place because it's just such a positive place and uh it's funny no one any they don't ever ask me about that what what how do we breed or build the culture that you have at the gym where people are able to grow and able to you know accomplish things in their mind and and and you know and and just want to keep getting better and make everyone

around them better and that kind of answers the question but uh they always just ask me about the physical jiu-jitsu you know it's like um if you go to a tournament we have the nogi worlds in two weeks i have a list and these lists where is that? That is in Garland. It's Dallas, Texas basically, a little suburb. Our team will go. We just had the Nogi Pans. The Nogi Pans is the second biggest. Because of COVID, it had currently been the biggest

IBJJF jiu-jitsu team thing. They're a bigger show. As a team of people who haven't really made it to that next stage, these tournaments, the Nogi Pans and Nogi Worlds, they're the bigger show the flow graph is a bigger show but as a team of people who haven't really made it to that next stage that these tournaments the nogi pans and nogi worlds they're the biggest ones so our team the little team from mount vernon we actually won and let me tell you this works real quick say like um so a lot of these teams like atos or gracie baja or check matt what'll happen is they'll have 700 locations all over the world.

You know, it's like, they'll have a team in Venezuela, a team in Canada, a team in Rhode Island. And what happens is they take all of their points and they put them together. They don't know each other, but they all fight under one banner and they put their points together. For our team, we have a couple of small, small, like, you know, clubs that are- Affiliates? Yeah. There's a guy that's an hour away or whatever, and he can't make it down all the time. So he opened up his own little spot, and he runs it, and I help him.

He'll still drive down and drink three or four times a week. So we have a couple of those. But as a whole, it's just the team in Mount Vernon. There might be one or two competitors from, you know, like Nashville, Tennessee, what we have Jim and Franklin or just something like that. So it's on a, on a tiny level, but us going up against these huge,

it's kind of like corporation gyms almost, you know, they're like McDonald's and going again. These guys have never met each other before. You know, they don't know each other. They'll, they'll meet in the finals and they do a thing.

It's called close up. They won't go against each other. They don't even know each other before you know they don't know each other they'll they'll meet the finals and they do a thing it's called close out they won't go against each other they don't even know each other they'll be from different different dude my boys at the gym when they know that they'll do the magic and they'll try to kill each other because can you imagine with your brother if you would have let your brother win the first time that you would have did something at home your brother would have said yeah but, but I let you win. And then you'd kick his ass. You know what I mean? So I just told him, look, we don't.

And I think that kind of all goes in on, you know, just that mindset all goes in on a scale. I'm just a soldier with the guys that they trust enough to be their leader. That's it. That's the relationship that I have with them. It's not I'm the boss. it's my way or the highway i go in uh and they know man i get it in with them you can tell you can tell in the documentary i uh i this isn't i'm not being critical by the way about saying this whoever made that documentary flow grappling or the producer whoever kudos to you this is just my own bias i would have liked to have seen a little bit more of you in it just because i was curious but i mean fuck it's it's like you only have 50 minutes

and you're pretty humble but i when i do see your relationship with them i see it's very very free and open and it's the relationship that i want to have with my sons um are you married heath no no i i'm not married i've been with the the same same girl for a long time though so yeah basically basically you have kids i have two i have two boys they're two weeks apart you have two boys and they're two weeks apart so two different moms like a riddle right yeah that's amazing and is that a is that a happy family? Like did that, did you manage that good? Yeah, it's wonderful, man. I'm involved with both the boys every single day, you know, I see them every day. I have a wonderful relationship with, with, uh, you know, Oh God, I love this. You know, it's like, it's just, you got to figure all that out. It's easy.

You know, it's like, uh, are the mom's friends. Yeah. They're totally cool. And it's just all about, you know, it's not, not to sound like cheap, but it's, you know, it cool and it's just all about you know it's not to sound like cheap but it's you know it's a it's about man it's uh and i think most men especially in these situations where they'll split from their kids mom once they realize the mom doesn't want to be with them anymore they kind of walk away from the dad role and And when, when me and my, my, my first son's mom, we split up, it's, she's going to be with someone else. You know, sometimes that's hard. That's, that's hard to eat. But at the end of the day, for me, I just told her, Hey, look, we had been together for, you know, seven years, eight years. I know you're going to do whatever you're going to

do. Just whatever you're doing. I just I would like Gavin That's my son's name is Gavin and I just it doesn't matter what you're doing I don't care You don't have to talk to me But I don't want him to be with your mom if you want to go then you just holler at me So I constantly bugged her every second. Hey, can I can I come on pick Gavin up? Even if that me just going out there, getting him and dragging him, that he lives two minutes away from the school.

I get to spend that two minutes and then that two minutes becomes four minutes and then five. And then the next thing you know, it's like a couple hours a day. And then, you know, and it was always been every other day for me, but I just think there's always, you know,

it's kind of funny when, it's almost insulting to me sometimes when people say, a guy said this to me the other day i'm making it to this and he told me well look man my kids are my life i don't think you should ever have to say that especially to another parent that no shit everybody knows that already you know that your kids are your life you shouldn't have to say that out loud you got to figure everything else out doing that but uh it's uh i i just i always explain that to me a

little bit more so you were asking someone hey why aren't you coming out to this tournament or to your class and they said because they prioritize their kids over that is that what the story yeah everyone will do that we get that it's offensive i have kids you know so does that mean since i went to the tournament you're better dad than me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so i think it's more like and that's what i told the guy you know it's uh i think are you just saying that i don't know if you're insecure as a dad you feel like you need to say that out loud you know but uh it's it's uh i i just think any situation obviously your dad you get this of course your kids are your life nothing's more important than everything that you do is is you do is to benefit them.

It's an honor having kids. It's an honor and it's the only privilege in life. Fuck all other privileges people talk about. Raising a kid is the greatest thing ever. How old are your boys? They're 13. One was born on

Friday the 13th and the other one was born on April Fool's. And are they friends? Yeah, they beat the shit out of each other. But yeah, they're friends. They're really close. They're both really, really athletic. One's really involved in wrestling, and he's just kind of like that. And the other one's really big into the Midwest sports, baseball, basketball.

So they keep extremely busy. And even the one who doesn't train, he's constantly at the gym. Like I said, the environment there, the culture, you know, it's like he has 50 uncles. You know what I mean? It's like since they've been little, they go in and they play. I didn't want them to train when they were little. I actually wanted them to just come and play at the gym. That was always in their mind that they would always think about, they would always relate having fun and an awesome place, you know, being in the gym. So they'd want

to go there to have a good time. So now that they're older in their minds, they always ask me, hey, are we going to run by the gym? It's just a place where they can go and, you know, be happy and be themselves. And I think, I think that's important, you know, when you have kids that are training is to, to, to make sure as, especially the instructors out there, I think it's not about jujitsu always. There's so much more to it than just jujitsu. You know what I mean? It's not about teaching them the stuff so they can beat the other kids in the tournament. It's about, you know, them coming and being a part of something that's bigger than them. You know, it's, it just being able to be happy and and uh that's the

most important thing for me uh are you gonna buy that property so i'm actually trying everything there's another so we we've just so grown out of it and it's like uh there were a couple before that that's not the first place that i had it's just like we've always gotten a little bigger um like a normal our first place you know that shit would never fly in california someone would be jealous and come shut your shit down you know that right oh yeah for sure definitely it's uh i'm lucky to be and that's where the good you're doing there would never be tolerated in california they don't allow people to do that kind of good and it's kind of funny it's that's the place where the people would talk the most about being good and doing good. You know, so it's always that.

But I'm really lucky, man. I grew up in the town, and the town is always known like, hey, the Pedego brothers are like these wild, you know, they do like the UFC fights. And at first, back in the day when I got sponsored by tap out, if you would have a sticker on your car, that was like a tap out sticker, the police would pull you over. It's like in their minds, we were doing like the Kimbo slice, uh, backyard fights, you know, cause we were training. Uh, it's literally did a complete one 80. You know, it's like, uh, uh, that now all the police, they train at the gym, and I really give back to the community. And they want to learn.

They don't want situations to happen where they could have controlled something and did better. You know what I mean? And if a lot of them had the same mindsets that a lot of the guys here, it would be very different. You know what I mean? So I have a wonderful relationship with everyone in our community, all the way from the poorest and roughest. I still go down there where I'm from originally. I go down there and I talk with everybody and everybody from the other side of town. We actually just got reached out to the Downtown Development Center, and they're actually trying to help us get a bigger place.

It's two stories. That way we can have a constant uh youth program going on all the time kids will be able to walk over from the grade school and uh so we're working on that right now if that happens i'll the daisy fresh uh when i moved in there it's kind of funny i found the building and it was like just this empty old laundry mat and uh i don't think it had been a laundry mat for like 15 or 20 years you know in, in a couple like resale shops or whatever, you know, tried to go in there and it just didn't work out. When we got at the place, like American Eagle, like in shoe polish up on the window and stuff like that. When we got in there, the landlord was from Australia.

And I know that doesn't seem like a big deal out in california but we already had the one australian kid and uh learning so having another one around it was so wild that there was another guy from australia in this tiny little town but uh so when he found out that spatch was from australia and that we had kind of like adopted him in he just said look you can do anything with a building that you want anything tear down the walls paint it do whatever you want but when i came here in like the the early 80s the first business that i bought was this laundromat so just that sign i don't want anything to you know i need that sign so at the time i was like yeah fuck that sign of course you know and now that thing has kind of became the the guy showed me the other day there's 2 2000 check-ins from people that have checked in at that sign and they never came into train.

So like jujitsu people driving through Mount Vernon, they didn't come to train. They just would come at night and pictures with the sign because. Yeah, I do it. I don't even do jujitsu. If I was ever in the area, I'd go take a picture under that sign. So no, no, no matter what it's like. So I'm always going to keep the building, man. I'd like to really use it as a barracks for the boys today. It's like uh so i'm always going to keep the building man i'd like to really

use it as a barracks for the boys today it's like jesse village there now man that people just literally keep coming and like george said earlier there's guys from mania lithuania i got guys from kazakhstan that were there china uh two guys just showed up from oregon i mean there's literally 20 guys that are just staying at the gym right now they just stay there and uh um you know it's like they keep the things in each other's cars and uh it's uh we'd actually started buying these uh these big uh you know the the big like uh passenger vans and the guys are ripping the the you know because you can pick them up you know if they don't run it's like 400 bucks so we put them to keep it really clean you know because you can pick them up you know if they don't run like 400 bucks so we put

them to keep it really clean you know because i don't i don't want to look fucked up you know for the community out there it's like they're cool enough to let us keep doing it so i told the boys it's important that we make sure that it's not ever an eyesore on the town you know what i mean it doesn't look like a junkyard yeah sure. Definitely. So the guys, they buy these passenger vans and they'll sleep in them. You know, they'll be like one or two of them. It's kind of funny. They'll put a wall in the middle. I think about that. Like that's like that's worse than jail almost, you know, like to you and I thinking. But to them, that makes them free. Like like George here.

If you one of my. So actually, two of my favorite scenes from the daisy fresh was uh when they're sitting on the back of the truck and one two and they ask him what would you do if you never found the daisy fresh and he just said i probably would kill myself yeah they ask a couple of the boys that that's why this is important it It's not when, when it's a byproduct of you. And what is that? Why do you think that just broken homes, dads that beat them, moms that don't love them, being molested, drug use at a young age, like what makes someone want to kill themselves? Man, you know, I think it's just, I think just life is tough. And the more you try to, the more you try to figure things out uh the more

you realize you don't know you know what i mean and i think it's just i think it's just scary man i think it's scary to to not understand about you know a lot of things and a lot of times one thing that uh people will probably not gonna like this but it is what it is uh the one thing is the more kids that i get that have been brought up in really religious families, they're fucked up, man. They're like they're so confused and they're so they've had this stuff jammed down their throat the entire lives. And their dads. I have one kid. His dad's a preacher.

And when I got him, he was the most socially awkward asshole kid ever. And one day he told me, it was like an eye-opening experience for me. He told me, yeah, well, you know, maybe if my dad took less time jamming this Bible stuff down my throat and he taught me how to be a gentleman and, you know, play with the other kids and just was just was my dad instead of a preacher, maybe he would, uh, maybe I would understand, you know, things a little bit more. And it's like, that was, uh, like a light going off in my head for, for, for me, you know what I mean? I realized the more of them that I got, they just, uh, you know, they, they, they're scared that a lot of kids are scared and they've used that like religion or whatever as fear to like scare the kids so they they they their whole lives are spent about you know like trying to do this and trying to that and the thing is is they they're not even being good people necessarily

they're not trying to help other people they're just they're just trying to make sure that their spot is secure for eternity rather than you know being out right and you don't always say that so if you know if you want to be religious or whatever that that's cool you can do it do what you do but you know you got to be cool you know you don't be an asshole you know uh be christ-like not christian you know what i mean yeah i'm torn i was raised basically uh when you're when you're raised in a pretty hardcore liberal environment, there's this constant underlying hatred for religion and constant underlying hatred for country. And it's really subtle, but it's always there. It's from your teachers.

It's from your parents. It's just from everywhere. Like if there's an American flag up or if the president says, God bless America, there's a, why does it have to be God bless America? Why do we have to do the pledge of allegiance? And now that I'm older and wiser, I realize the importance of religion for people. And the truth is, is that we need a society full of people who, if they can't find their own morals or their own ethics or their own integrity, it needs to be given to them and it's it's tough it's tough i really really really um would love to uh live in a neighborhood full of even though of christ-like people even though right you know what i mean i would love to live with like really authentic

christians or really authentic mormons i'd like i like but but you're right. You can fuck a kid up like there's a time and a place for that shit. And like you start telling kids masturbation is bad. You can't tell a 14-year-old boy that. You better find a different approach because you're going to fuck him up. No, I mean – and clearly it's like – I've been thinking about the military. Yeah, there you go. And sorry, one more thing. And if you don't give people religion, these fucking morons will start to think Fauci is God and they'll start to believe that the government is God.

And I know you guys don't think that's what you're doing, but that's what you're doing. I hear you. When you start believing in fake things like gender and you think that that's science as opposed to sex, you're starting to believe that someone else is God. You're having faith in something else. If you're going to have faith in something, at least let it be God. Don't be your government. Sorry. Go ahead.

No, no, no. All this stuff, and it's all true, and I think it's part of the question. I just think it's part of the – it makes people unsure, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, we're animals, and we have animal instincts, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, we're animals and we have animal instincts, you know what I mean? And it's like, you know, we're the closest things, obviously, to being civilized animals. But, you know, we still have that survival instinct in us. And it's like a lot of this stuff just doesn't make sense. You know what I mean?

It doesn't make sense. And then we spend so much time doing things that are of unimportance, I think, in the end that people just feel lost. And they wonder, man, I spent all these years doing this because mom and dad said that I should do this or because society said I should do this. And then I think they just get extremely lost. And I think that causes like a lot of mental illness, mental doubt for yourself. And, you know, cause the question was, you know, like the, the, the suicide and depression just constantly goes up all the time. I think that for me, I think that has a lot to do with it. My life's tough, man. You know what I mean?

But it can also be the most amazing, incredible thing in the entire world. I just think everything is balanced. You know what I mean? And you just, that's, that's kind of a cop-out to say that just oh you got to find the balance but i mean i think you just have to really dig in and be honest with yourself about about you know just things like that i think that i think the balance is i think it is balanced but i just think the balance is is that you should be working on yourself 90 of the time and 10 of the time helping other people instead of these fucking activists who are 90% of the time trying to change other people and spending zero time

changing themselves. The reason why you're able to do what you do right now at 38 years old is because for the first 30 years you worked on yourself and you built your own skills and you focused on yourself and you stayed busy and you cultivated and nurtured talent success hard work discipline and you became a mirror and a knife that other people should be able to emulate and yet you can do your own cutting and and you're your own tool these this i think it's i i think it is balanced but it's not 50 50 people if you are not working on yourself you're you're you're you're out of balance i people if you are not working on yourself you're you're you're you're out of balance people because if when you work on yourself other people will work on themselves

you don't have to force people to um like black people or like gay people or like just you you be that you be cool as shit yeah no and other people will be cool as shit look at heath he's cool as shit now he's got a fucking whole gym full of dudes who are trying to mirror him and be cool as shit. Yeah, I'm really lucky to have that. One thing, I get a lot of guys. I get a lot of guys that are from like, so they'll be married. You know what I mean? And their whole.

Did you say married? Yeah, they'll be married, and they'll get a divorce. You know what I mean? It's like after they get a divorce, they're so fucking crushed, and they're lost and uh they've lost everything they just lost their entire lives and they ask me sometimes i don't know my wife would do this you know like she started seeing someone else or whatever it is or vice right you know i have a female that comes in uh and i always just tell me no a little bit of this is your fault you know what i mean it's like at there's there's certain points when um listen to be a little selfish to be successful and i tell people this all the time in relationship

being a dad uh being being a being a friend if you don't take care of yourself if you lose yourself you know what i mean this is the biggest one that happens with relationships you meet this cool chick you meet your you know what i mean when she met you you were this young funny cool dude and time you become your life becomes your family and that's goes back to me saying like oh my kids are my life my family's my life yeah no shit you don't have to say that out loud though you don't you don't have to every move you make doesn't have to say that out loud, though. You don't have to. Every move you make doesn't have to be, you know, for your family indirectly. You know what I mean? It's like if you're unhappy and you're depressed and everything you do is only for your family, at the end of the day, you can become miserable. And, you know, people people fought a love and relationships because

this all the time you become someone else. And at the end, uh, you know, you kind of become this needy, desperate, stressed out slob. It's true. And it happened all the time. And these guys, and then when I tell these guys, well, this is a little bit your fault. You know what I mean? You, you got away from being yourself and you got comfortable and you kind of just told yourself like, oh, you know, my family is my whole life. Every move that I make needs to be to make my wife happy or to make my husband happy or to make my wife happy. But what about if you're not being a little selfish and taking care of yourself, your mental health, your physical health, you know, you're socially, you know what I mean? You, you will fail. You know, you will be in a position to, to not be happy.

You're just making everyone else happy and then you'll feel unappreciated and you'll feel distance. And I think that happens a lot. I think we constantly say that shit out loud. And that's a little better answer for the question that you asked me earlier about my kids are my life. It's you have to just be cool. You know what I mean? And you have to work on your If it's eight o'clock at night, my kids are going to bed and they're like, will you come go to bed with me? Will you come go to bed with me? And I haven't worked out yet. At least 50%. I have to ask myself the question, am I going to put go to bed with me? Will you come go to bed with me? And I haven't worked out yet. At least 50% – I have to ask myself the question.

Am I going to put them to bed and then get up and get my workout on for the day? And if the answer is no, then I don't put them to bed. Then my wife does it, and I go work out. And you know what? It's only three minutes of their life before they fall asleep, but I get in the garage, and then now I'm happier. I'm fitter. I'm stronger. I'm a better example for them in the morning.

There's thousands of things like that. If you're not working on yourself, your wife and your kids are going to fucking leave you. And they're going to think you're a pile of shit. Even if they upset at you that you're working on yourself, you better have an honest talk with yourself. It's true. And the mindset that that breeds too is like since I'm, since I'm making my family, my life, you know, if I'm not my wife and my kid, I start to feel entitled. Like, well, since I'm doing that, they do that. So then the more that I think that happens, you know.

Give me an example of that. You kind of lost me. Give me an example of that. So it's like, you know, me saying, oh, my family's my entire life. it's like, you know, my, me saying, oh, my, my, my family's my entire life. And then, you know, I think that kind of breeds the insecurity for a lot of men. Sometimes it's like when the wife's leaving to go with her friends, it's like, they get jealous. Where are you going? You're like, you're my whole life, you know, and you want to go with your friends all the time, or, you know, you're going to the, you know, I'm here with the kids. And I think that's because you've made that,

you know, in your mind that like, oh, you know you know my family's every every move that i make is to be a good dad i'm the best dad in the world every move that i make is to be a wonderful husband and i think it just breeds insecurity man and it's like uh and your kids can feel this they can see this if you give them every single thing they want like you said putting them to bed there's people who watch to say well i would put the kids to bed and then I would work out. Sometimes you do. That's exactly. That's it. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't.

But what happens is your boys, they respect you're a man and that there's shit that you have to do sometimes. And that's real life. Real life isn't being able to hold their hand all the time. That's not life. Real life isn't being able to hold their hand all the time. That's not how it works. But what they'll see is, hey, you know, my dad's always there, and I know I can always depend on him, but he gets shit done. You know, he's not a pussy. He doesn't just cater to us. He's a fucking good dad, and he kills it for us. But he kills it for himself, too, because he's awesome.

You know, he's not, like you said, this fat slob that's like a pushover that uh you don't respect you know and then when when the kids get older then oh they that's they become these these kids like dads or their moms that just get walked on or you know they they expect they expect uh they have entitlement because they think i give everything to this it should be all given back to me just the same it just doesn't work like that it doesn't work like that you know what I mean you're you have to be a fine-tuned machine you know I mean you have to take care of yourself physically mentally you know what I mean do you talk to the boys about nutrition my my boys no the the the the the the tribe the pedigo tribe

oh yeah all of them. So it's like – so don't like the whole Billy Hammer. Don't let him, like, fool you guys. These guys are young still. So sometimes they're able – when they're training for specific competitions, when they – I don't know if you know about what he did this weekend, but there was an eight-man tournament. So basically one of the biggest eight-man tournaments in the world they had this weekend. Flo Grappling did it at the Who's Number One Grand Prix. And there was a 185-pound division.

And they kept losing people, kept losing people. And they called Jacob Couch on Sunday and said, we need this spot filled for first place at 30,000, second place 15, third place 7,500. So it doesn't sound like much to a lot of people listening out there. 21 years old, so it's a pretty good chunk of change. What it does for them, it's not about prize money. What it does for them is it raises their stock to where their DVD sales and their gyms really mean something. So the title is the big thing.

The money is never the big thing. It's just, you know, the title. The brand value? For sure, definitely. And it gets raised by this. So they call Jacob. He's about 250 pounds on Sunday. So then they say, hey, the weigh-in is going to be ready.

He needs to be 185. So this opportunity for him is so big that I ask him, you're going to have the most ranked guy in the world the first round. You've got to cut 30 pounds. We cut the 30 pounds in four days. And then he says, yeah, absolutely, I can do it, and I'll win. So he cuts 29 pounds is what he cut. He weighs in on Friday.

His first match was Roberto. He's a number two ranked guy at 185 in the world. And Couch seized this opportunity, and he did this guy. And it just, yeah, it was amazing. It was such an incredible thing. Were you there? Did you go to it? Yeah, of course.

If they're competing, it's very, very rare that I'm there. Actually, I barely missed it my entire life. I have a list. I was kind of saying this earlier, but I have a list when people – say we have 65 people sign up at a tournament. This was a different type of tournament. It was invite only for couch. It's very prestigious.

It's the best guys in the world. So if I have a list of 70 people, I coach all 70 people from the time that tournament starts to the time. And sometimes I just forget to drink water. And sometimes these last five days. So the difference between myself and the coaches from a lot of the other teams is they might coach their five or six people, but I coach every person every second. I don't want anyone out there. I want them to look over and see me, the team, the whole team's on the barrier. It's not two or three people. It's literally, if there's 50 of us out there, then 48 of them are out there. They're

the loudest team. They really just so behind each other. It's almost intimidating to the other teams. You know what I mean? It's just they care so much about each other winning that it makes this environment that's like it's just so positive and happy, man. And it's so much easier to be successful when you have so many people behind you. You know, you're tired or whatever and you look over. And the same thing in life in general. You know, when you have so many people rooting for you and that want you to do good and want you to be successful, it's hard to fail.

How did he end up doing in the tournament? So he actually got third place. Awesome. Yeah, no, he didn't. So he wasn't even supposed to be there. So he got $ third place. Awesome. Yeah, no, he didn't. So he wasn't even supposed to be there. So he got $7,500? Yeah, plus a $1,000 submission bonus. And let me tell you what type of guy Jacob Katch is.

What is Flow Grappling? Before you tell me about Jacob Katch, I thought it was a media company. They actually put on events too? Yeah, yeah. So what happens is so flow sports is the name of the company and then there's like different uh there's like flow racing flow track and what it was for was uh like when when your boys get into college and they run track you might not fly all over the world watch them espn's not going to cover it's just not big enough so what happens is you uh you buy the subscription and watch the the kids track

me it's all over the place you know while you're at work or you know so flow graph flow sports covers like smaller sports where like yeah where you okay okay got it got it and so then they ended up they ended up putting on their own tournaments they found that so flow wrestling was the first one and it's really big you know it's like? It's like, say, a million followers or whatever. But followers, these aren't really people in the sport. Anyone who follows it is like usually they do it. You know what I mean? It's not like something else where something will have, say, Joe Rogan.

He'll have 100 million followers to where maybe 5 million people watch every show and they're like so so this uh for flow grappling if someone subscribes to it they're don't i mean they're they're hardcore practitioner dedicated they might have one million only but they have one million loyal fans yeah i get it so it's almost like 10 times that so you you understand you get it's not no one's just clicking the like button because it's someone sent them a request to like their page it's like right loyal so yeah they put on these uh they put on these shows uh these tournaments and they're really really professional and really high class and they they they treat the guy it's it's a real treat them up in these five-star hotels.

Dude, $30,000 is more than a lot of UFC fighters get. Boxers get. A lot more. Yeah, for sure. What about just grappling? I mean, he went out. He won three matches. It's not as simple as that.

But yeah, $30,000. And what it does to your brand. Like, some of these guys uh they're making they're making videos like uh andrew wiltsie from the videos he was kind of the star from the first couple daisy freshes the yeah lives in the box he uh he probably has a few hundred thousand dollars now from his uh from from his videos uh uh they BJJ Fanatics, his name of the company, and he'll do instructional videos. And people, you like teach,

you know, they're like tutorials. That's his? Andrew's company is BJJ Fanatics? No, no. He just had a deal with BJJ Fanatics. Oh, okay, okay. So what they do is say, just in his example,

they would say, like, Sivan's uh do his uh tutorial on how to be the you know the best podcast guy in the world and people would buy it and then say the deals are just say fanatics would keep half and you would keep the other half and uh they they do all the work you just film it and then they could check uh once a month or whatever. And Andrew was born, he was born to, to do that. He's an amazing instructor. Uh, he's,

I could show him an entire system of stuff. And the next day he would come back and say, Hey, I did this and I did this and I tweaked this. He's just amazing. So he's your first black belt. He's the first person you ever gave a black belt to. He's Andrew and my first that I ever had.

I only have, uh uh that i've ever given out no actually all of those guys they won the pans and the world championships at every belt all the way up to black so uh holy shit so i've been really fortunate with that not a really tight ship type program you know it's uh when it comes to like um uh me giving the belts away it's uh we there's no like charging or anything like that it's just when they're ready for it you know and there's like and uh in the culture that i've created there no one asked for the belts they're not even curious to when they're going to get the next thing they just know hey when it's time for you to get this you get it you know it's, it's not something really anybody talks about or you look forward to it.

Obviously I'm sure, but it's just there's a really high bar and it's a really appreciated and respected thing. And all the guys really happy to, uh, and fortunately in our sport, a lot of people are part of like association schools and they'll have a seminar saying they'll pay this guy that they've never met to come in. And the stripes away the belts away after so many weeks kids it's a little different but uh you know with the adults it's

like i'm not really interested in getting a belt from someone i've never met before i could care less about that guy tying it around my waist he doesn't even know me uh so me giving him money and fighting for him when i've never even met the guy. Just that, that, that's kind of a big thing. And unfortunately, it's still like a flaw. I think as people, you know, they don't know these guys and they, they've kind of been duped into, you know, like thinking like since the person laid the, you know, like I appreciate everyone who's ever done anything in jujitsu in the past 30 years to make it what it is today. You know, the, they you know they they they laid down that railroad you know they they put the

sweat in from nothing but you know i did that i did that as well you know i mean so i appreciate them and i respect them but it's it's not i'm not going to put a picture of them up in the gym and have everyone bow to it not pretend oh that's uh you know i'm not going to pay someone uh a thousand a name i just build the shit myself and you know well i i i respect and appreciate what they've done i'll just i'll do the same thing um when you see people like andrew get money do you ever get concerned uh and i don't know if this is going to resonate with a lot of people, but this is some real shit I'm about to say. Managing objects is a skill, and it's a very, very deep skill. You basically, in order to have – there's this Taoist saying, to receive everything, give everything up. Look at people like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or they think like – we all know people who like – they have a baseball hat collection of 40 hats and it's too much for them.

It drives them fucking crazy. Basically, you have to be a fucking Buddhist monk if you're going to be wealthy and own a lot of shit. You have to be willing to let shit come and let shit go. You can't let – if you buy a brand new car and a rock pops up and cracks the windshield and you get upset you probably shouldn't have that car that life is about being happy and accepting the impermanence of objects and that's it can be very very difficult for people who come from not having and then all of a sudden getting a lot like they they try to protect all their objects and you can't protect your objects you cannot is is do you see any of that with your people that they struggle all of a sudden like they have a new pair of pants and

they're acting weird about it or they get a car like they buy their first used car honda civic and they're freaking out because it got a scratch on the door shit like that so i'm really lucky like uh we're pretty i was a pretty new black belt i've only had it for a couple of years and we're, we're, we're the youngest, especially big team or like, uh, you know, like, uh, we're famous, but, uh, you know, you're famous. So the, the, we're definitely by far the youngest, we're like the babies out of all, all those teams, you know, and the moves that we're making are big moves and they're, they're coming so fast. It's like, uh, you know,

yeah. How do you manage that? This part of it, the mental part, the infighting. How come he got a new belt? How come he gets a little more money? How come those girls like him? I mean, that shit, people have struggled. That struggle is real. Yeah, I think it comes from the top.

I just nipped that shit in the butt from the beginning and I'm really open with everyone about how I feel about that at the gym. And I just tell you know i say a lot you know i don't know that i think i think there's a lot of bitch assness and the way that you feel about that maybe this just isn't the place for you you know i mean i just uh i i love and appreciate every person's at the gym but they they if they need to want to be there a hundred percent you know what i mean and i'm not saying it's my way or the highway either. And really, I mean that.

It's all of ours together. Pedigosa Mission Fighting, the Daisy Fresh Crew, that's all of us. It's not just me. I might be the leader, but they're all just as much a part of the time. And they need a leader. They need a leader. Everyone needs a leader. There's really, really strong people like me, and I still look for a leader. That's how strong I am, because I look for a leader and I assign someone to be my leader. Everyone needs a fucking leader. I'm a firm believer in that.

said the animal instinct thing man you know what i mean it's always just like it's uh you know being a part of the tribe you know or whatever you know whatever it is that we we came from or were uh it's it's tough to just be out there walking around in the woods by yourself you know why if there could be 10 of you why not you know i mean it's like uh instead of fighting over one deer that you know you could have it for yourself for a month, but if you can get a system down to where there's 10 of you and you can get a factory line going and, you know, then it's easy, uh, you know, you, you gotta get to that point. And, uh, so to answer the question about Andrew, actually, we'll use him as an example. He, um, so first let me, let me tell everybody this. Andrew slept on the mat for 10 years with a sheet and a pillow claimed and he busted his

ass and he never had anything by choice that was his choice so a lot of people would say like oh man you know that i'd love to i'd love to just train at the gym every day and not have to work so it's a 105 uh south uh 7th street if they want to come in and do that they can do that so instead of talking shit just do it you know instead of like you know cutting someone down and saying oh man the guy is doing this he put his time in busted his ass he spent

every penny that he ever earned and worked for and invested in himself and in the team so now it paid dividends for him you know he got his first check and he told me i got to get a car he's never had a car to come here he sold us he never had a car since then uh a guy donated for them one time it was like an old shit box it got them around for a little bit and then finally it blew up i think it caught on fire and blew up but uh they um so his first big purchase

he makes he walks there's a car dealership pretty much to street from the gym and uh he gets his third check and he takes thirty thousand dollars over there and he tells the guy i'd like to buy the white car and uh they're like yeah which white car and he's like oh the one toyota it says it's twenty nine thousand and he lays the thirty thousand dollars out on the table and the guy's like uh we we don't do that that's not the way that it works you know it's like you know this is one of those like little used ships where the guys are like, oh, this is perfect. You know, it's like a big, uh, Toyota dealership. So it was just kind of funny to, uh, to, to see him do that, you know, to make like an

adult purchase because three months prior to that, he didn't have a bank account. You know, he never had one before. And then, um, episode five five he can't get the hotel room he's in a fit someone gets him a fancy hotel room and he can't get in the room because they asked for a credit card and a debit or a debit card and he looks he's like looking around like you talking to me yeah exactly so he he had he had no idea and uh it's uh you know part of that stuff came that the type of family he's a real live monk. He's a real live monk. Yeah, no, he really is, man.

And he's, even when, you're going to love this, he later on, so he's finally bought a house. And for the first couple months, he buys the house. And houses are much cheaper here where we're at. Like the house that you live in in California right now, say it's just a a small three-bedroom normal house you know so in california these houses are selling for 690 700 000 and mount vernon you could buy the same house for 30 grand wow so the house that i live in it's a three four bedroom house there's a pond outside it's a neighborhood. There's a judge that lives two doors down now. I lived in the projects five years ago, but I rent this house for 150 bucks. Wow. Yeah. There's a big difference. There's a big difference between.

I could rent my house for 800 a night. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. And it's not even a nice house. I didn't know this, man. I had a friend, Orlando Sanchez, and he had me come over to his house and he told me, yeah, I put my house up for sale. We're selling this. He's in Pasadena. And he told me, I got $690,000 for the house. And I was like, oh, shit, you own the whole block? And then he told me, no. I love that it wasn't a nice place i'm just saying you

know it's a good uh you know working class family house and it's a it's mind-blowing like fornia it's it's not like people are making any more money necessarily than uh right right i'm talking about working class people working like even if you talk you know it's like they make 14 an hour they're 15 well you know here they make 13 it's not like it's it's not you know a third hundred dollar a month not payment on a house and a 400 here that's a fucking big difference so i always the poverty the poverty line for a family of four in santa cruz california is 120 000 a year I think it's kind of, you can't even believe it. You'd have to,

but, uh, it's, uh, you know, if you type into Google, uh, what's the most dangerous city in Illinois and you go down a couple and click

on the FBI list, not Vernon is that number one on the list right now. Do you have any rich parents who just drop off their kids? Um, actually, I have that rich that drop them off and uh poor ones that leave them they drop them off and sometimes they won't come back and it's they are they're using it for babysitting instead of uh uh so uh a little while back i had a kid

he would get dropped off and he would he would kind of sit out front. And it's a really oriented place. Like, there's always, like, 20 kids playing out front. It's really cool. You could come and train, and your kids could play out front. It's extremely safe. And the community knows that it's there. You know, the cars drive by slow, and it's like there's a big parking lot.

But sometimes they would take him off, man, he he was really embarrassed he wouldn't uh sometimes they wouldn't come back and get him and someone would take him home and one time i told him look buddy i'll take you home and he wanted me to drop him off blocks away from where his house was so i just went up to the door and he was praying and upset and i just went in the house told you know to tell him hey uh you got to pick him up. We're not babysitting him. And the parents are in there shooting up dope and heroin. And they're like, oh, they're all fucked up. You know what I mean?

And he obviously didn't want me to see that. That's embarrassing for him and tough for him. And so we get both, man. We get both. People are coming in and, you know, sometimes they, they but regardless the kids there that's all that matters to me i don't give a shit if they're using it for babysitting or not then i just have to figure out how can i help him get out of this situation it's not like you can listen i would love to just take the kid and take him home with me and just raise him you know what i mean i would

if i wish that i had the finances to take every single one of them if i could you know this now you've got boys if i could have a hundred a hundred boys where they could just all grow up there, that would be amazing. But that's not going to happen. That's not real life. It's not the way it is. So I'm almost constantly trying to figure out what do I do or what can you do to these situations, you know? And then what usually happens, unfortunately, is they stop showing up. Their parents will stop bringing them. It's too far for them to walk the other guys from the gym they can't just go and get them all the time you know what i mean you know they work they go to school they have lives too it's not uh you know what i mean and and even if you're doing it with one you can't do it with 20 it's just not possible to do you know and try to work with the city a

little bit about and that's getting better it's getting much better like uh they just had called me and it's called the downtown development center and they had sat us down and they told us look we watched this daisy fresh thing and you guys are you guys are superstars in japan and you guys are superstars to these jujitsu people in New York, California, but in Mount Vernon, you're still relatively unknown and people have no idea. It's like, uh, and they told us, look communities kind of let you down and we want to help. We want to help you get a bigger place and help with a lot of this.

You're hoping with it, man. It was, uh, What if they ruin you? What if they pussify you? What if they ruin you? Well, I guess that's on me. So i don't think we have to worry about that i think what okay good i keep it pretty pretty pretty hardcore when it comes to literally i'm very lucky uh so long when it comes to i and people say this they say it their whole life but they don't mean i don't give a fuck what anybody thinks or what anybody says i i have a facebook but like boys told me recently did you know that you have an instagram that has 20 000 people on it i don't even know what that is i didn't even know what it

was i've still never looked at it one time in my entire life the boys run all that stuff for me i could give issues someone's gonna watch this and they're gonna say hey as an asshole that doesn't mean anything to me at all i could care less about any of that. It's all about being able to reach as many people as I can, change as many lives as I can, and keep shit real for myself. Because fuck a million dollars when you can leave a legacy that lasts forever. That's the way that I feel about it. I have people reaching out right now from the community. I think this is with every sport, too, and every situation.

You get a lot of rich think this is every sport too in every situation you get a lot of rich guys like wealthy guys that for them to donk off a couple hundred thousand dollars is jack shit and it's like giving the kids 40 bucks you know especially these guys in like dubai and places like this yeah these guys will reach out and they'll say hey we'll give you fifty thousand dollars or a hundred thousand dollars we just want to buy your team. So that would be easy. It would be easy for me to say, hey, let me take this money. I could change a lot of lives with that.

But what I would do is I would ruin everything that I've worked for my entire life, everything that these boys, they have this shit tattooed on them. I would take that away from them. You know what I mean? By taking that money and someone else be involved. It's not, they don't want what I want. They don't see what I see.

That vision would be completely ruined by, by adding up. It would, it would be completely destroyed. And at the end of the day, I might have a new car and a new house and maybe a couple of the boys, but what about the other thousands that are going to come to me over the next 20 years? They would lose everything. They would lose their opportunity. They are going to have programs or yourselves one day. They're going to save thousands of people. So by every dollar that I would take from anyone who didn't want the vision

exactly the way that I want it, it would take away from another thousand people. That's how I look at it. So it's easier to just struggle a little bit and know that, you know, I'm changing the world, even if it's just one or two people at a time or, you know, like, like being on your show, you know, a certain person hears this and they say, man, this guy's right about the family thing, you know, being a fat slob. And I've been doing this. I can change it around right now. They will change their kids' lives forever. Their kids will grow up and be better moms, better dads, better humans, better friends. That's the shit that matters to me.

That's what's important. I could have sold this shit out a long time ago, especially now with the show. What's the point? What does it matter if you're laying in bed every night and you have the nicest shit in the world? What does it matter if it doesn't mean anything? You know what I mean? It's there's no point. The legacy is everything.

And it's always been everything to me from the time I never had anything. I've never had anything my whole life. Even everything that I have now, I just give back. What's the I mean, my life's probably half over. That's the way that i look at it you know what i mean it's like right so what you know why why do that now you know why give away everything that's ever been worked for and that all these guys and girls that that have believed in me and listened to me and trusted me why sell anything now when uh they believed in me

you know i would i would be a complete fraud if I took that and did that. And, you know, I already know I'll probably die doing exactly what I'm doing the exact way I'm doing it. And sometimes I look at it and say, you know, there's a lot of struggle there. But at the end of the day, it's worth it. And my boys and the people, my kids, my children, and the people who are around me, they'll know I kept it real my whole life. And it's going to change things.

They're going to help change people. And that's a trickle-down effect. And it's easy for me to do it, man. It's simple to do that for me just because of that reason at all. I have no... And money, dude, money comes and goes. You get money, fuck it. You just spend it anyway.

What are you going to do? I'm going to bury it in a can or put it in the bank and it's going to sit there. You need money to make shit happen. But when you do all that shit you're supposed to do in life and you're a really good human and you give back, it shit all works out, man. Are there any girls in the gym? Any women, female? So right now we like girls that have came in, and there's always been women who are a part of it. But now, for the first time, we're starting to get competition. I had actually, in the past, I wouldn't have any of the females that wanted to come from other places.

And I'm regretful in this, for honestly just putting all cards on the table i i didn't really know exactly what to do uh having 20 guys live in one female come from somewhere else that i don't know and insane insane right right you didn't you shouldn't regret anything men are capable of anything sexually men should never be i don't know if trusted is the right word but but i i don't think less of you for keeping the women out not because they're women but because of the men has nothing to do with the women has to do with the men and it was always that in my mind just like and i i uh sometimes i look back on times that i hope that there was never a situation to where I, I took something away from, from,

uh, or I wasn't able to give to it's, you know, like a, a female that needed to come and stay, but it's just, I just, uh,

I need them to be separated, obviously in living conditions. I mean, I, I don't even really need an explanation. I don't think everyone just gets that. You know, some of these are,

it has nothing to do with what's right and wrong and what's fair and not fair. It's understanding what men are capable of. It's just understanding men. It's like a knife. It's sharp. It's no one's fault. There's nothing to blame. There's nothing to understand or not understand.

Knives are used for cutting things. Do you know what young boys are used for? And if you don't know, then you should know. There's just one thing, and and you're at you should not you should not fuck with that thing yes sorry go ahead no no no and i was i was just kind of kept it like that and i wanted to build over the very first time actually we have a really really good it's brand new like a a women's program so any any uh female always could train we've always had girls you know and women that are in the classes but uh right now there's like a group and i never want to separate them i see a lot of i see a lot

of that's cool but uh i always want to keep everyone together man you know what i mean i want the girls to train with the guys and you know it's uh that's always been important to i've never wanted to separate them and say like hey and uh and i'm always open to uh i'm always a criticism to make things better because i'm just it's such an intimate sport it's crazy my boys half the girls in the class are girls and half are boys and i know they're only four and six but man that's some intimate shit i mean even with the boys and boys i mean jujitsu is a fucking intimate sport for sure no doubt and uh and uh and like i said i'm just learning but we we really have our first females they're white belts and uh they're they're competing now you

know and they're tearing it up they're doing just like the guys they're doing great and it's uh i have a lot of older uh women a lot a lot of like uh same thing you know i always use the divorce thing you know what i mean like the the people that are in their mid-30s and uh a lot of people look at kids and they're like man kids, kids need help and they're lost. And the thing is that people forget about that. You know, people in their mid thirties that have spent their last 15 years with a guy or a girl, and then they get divorced. They're so fucking lost, man. And they're so alone. And they, you know, it's like just them and their kids and they, they don't know what to do. And, you know, they've dedicated their lives to their family.

I get this a lot, you know, people come in and they just need to be a what to do. They've dedicated their lives to their family. I get this a lot. People come in and they just need to be a part of something. They need support and they're looking for something. We get this a lot, man. I think it all just comes back to, like I said, people are just looking to be loyal to something and have a little giving back to them. That's a word that is loosely used and, unfortunately, advantage of a lot of time. You know what I mean? It's like, uh, so, uh, but,

um, I, I'm really excited for a women's program to grow, uh, you know, to, to get bigger. I'm almost, we're, we're just getting there, man. I'm like, I just think a few months away from getting a new gym. And then, um, we almost have enough females now where they're talking about getting out like a fighter so we have a few fighter houses now it's like some of the like the hillbilly hammer and some of these guys have moved out of the gym and now that you know there's like you know seven i don't want to say frat houses but you know like a bunch of a bunch of young guys living together you know they kind of can all throw in and have a have a big house so there's almost enough females now where they're going to be able to do that and uh you know what i mean uh to to have some stuff so i'm really

excited for that for go and uh it just keeps getting bigger man bigger and better and uh you know because you know guys like you and having this on podcast and uh uh you know just getting the name out there you know and and letting us share this story. It's constantly growing, and I think it's getting better. We're just going to be able to keep changing lives, and that's my plan anyway. Are you guys selling anything like shirts or stickers? Yes. In 20 years, people have asked me for 20 years about shirts. We actually just did our first shirt drop, and it only lasted three days.

But we're going to start. I bought a website, daisyfreshusausa.com there's nothing on there right now to like uh i do a drop that was there for three days and we sold about 1 000 shirts in three days i fucking love it so it was a little tougher than i thought you know and then it's like so we didn't really think ahead you know we thought maybe we'd sell a couple hundred and at a thousand actually i closed it because uh we just individually pack uh we just individually packed each one of them and uh yes we've got the old uh these uh christmas they let us the post office let us buy these uh old santa claus he's drinking a coke and uh sent them out and that is kind of funny actually kind of goes with the whole show anyway but uh yeah we uh we just individually wrote them by hand and then sent them out you

know it took us like two weeks to write them all out and send them all out and uh uh you know it was a learning experience for sure but you know it was really humbling to know that that many people wanted to uh you know support and uh man the show is huge it has millions and millions of views uh that you know for uh and tons of spinoffs there's so many spinoffs and there's going to be so many more spinoffs it's crazy and it's just an um it's an unapologetic real gritty it's uh when you jujitsu or just whatever i mean like reality tv in general it's like you know everything is kind of like pushed down there to have like drama and or whatever you know you got to sell shit i get it is what it just real man and i think the the reason it done so well is because

so many people can relate to it it's like at a tournament there are guys these really famous guys they're unapproachable they're just unapproachable humans like not because physically how they look it's not because they look like big nfl guys that are ripped it's just because maybe a certain arrogance or maybe they have an air about them that's just they're just unapproachable but us like the hillbilly hammer anyone can walk up to this guy and talk him and let me tell you what he did this weekend he He wins the money. He gets the place match. He wins it for $7,500, and you get a $1,000 submission bonus. And the guy that he had lost to, he got hurt in their match.

So he hurt himself to beat Jacob, and he couldn't do it. So Jacob got to go on and win the third-place match. So Jacob takes his money, and he tells the guy, I got a submission match to him because he got hurt. And Jacob shows me later in his bank account he has negative $1. That's no bullshit. So he donates the money that he won to this guy who got his knee hurt, and he asked me, hey, Heath, I'd like to do something. I'd like to give something away.

I said, yeah, of course, brother. It's yours. Jacob didn't have a dad. His grandmother raised him. So for a lot of these guys, I'm like their dad. Dude, that's an incredible story. So if you get on Flo Grappling's Instagram, they put it on there. You can see him.

And he makes the speech on there and says, to John Blank, I'd like to give him the money. And I think John Blank actually told him no to keep it. He's a wonderful guy. But just the thought, man, for Couch to have nothing and just want to give it back. He's such a happy guy. He wins. He's smiling.

He loses. He's smiling. It's kind of funny. You hear all the other guys talk and they're like yeah i'm gonna kick each other's asses we're gonna be the best and he just says like man i'm just so happy to be here in the hotel room so nice and i got to ride on the airplane and he's just so excited to just maybe it's because he has a girlfriend is that his girl in the show? No, no.

Because there is a girl in the show who's like sometimes sitting next to him in the camper and shit. Oh, yeah, yeah. She had came down. That's not his girlfriend? No, not his girlfriend. They're all just like, you know, really good friends and hanging out. She came down to stay for a few weeks. She'd moved to train. but uh yeah no it's uh

he's got some lady friends or whatever you know uh he young guy but uh man he he just such a such a fucking cool kid man he's just so happy man and i'm so proud of him for uh just you know like he never loses focus uh on on on just being cool, dude. He's just such an approachable, nice guy, man. And it's like all these kids asking him for autographs this weekend. It was so amazing to see him come from what he's came from. And, you know, it is really amazing for me to see that, man. I'm so proud of him.

What's the youngest kid in your gym? I had a 15-year-old, a full-time like sent him i think they just kind of didn't want him anymore and they they sent him down and then he was able to do because of covid we got a lot of younger like 15 16 17 year olds uh they they would uh they they dropped them off and uh uh some, I think, just kind of didn't want them. They were able to do school online. So I think some of the parents kind of used that as an excuse. And that's not all of them. Some of them are amazing parents, you know.

It's just so he's 16 now. So I think 16 is like the youngest like full-time kid, you know. So they have to get up. And so some of the kids, they live in the gym and they get up and they go to school, you know, so they have to get up. And so some, you know, some of the kids, they live in the gym and they get up and they go to school, you know, normal. There's no shower in the gym. They shower outside.

They have this little, and they take a shower and, uh, it's like, uh, it's tough, but they get up and they go every day. And I tell them,

look, if you're not doing this, if you're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing, you can't stay here. You know what I mean? So it's like, uh, if,

if your grades fall below this, I'm a little rough on them that you know the standards really high because i said look we're constantly people are looking for a reason to uh yeah or complain or be jealous you know and hate on it so i tell them you are held to a serious standard on this man and they all be Older guys help the younger guys, you know, they, they help take them to school. And,

um, they, uh, so now all the kids, actually, there's no more kids to stay in the gym. Now though, we've,

uh, we got a house to where there's a, it was a teacher. He, he rents a place and he, he, he had a bunch of rooms. So he just stay there and he helps them with the school stuff.

And, uh, he, he's done really well for himself in, in business and to retire early so he's uh he helps all the younger guys out that kind of needed a place to go and uh stay up there when you uh just drop you off and then i think a lot of them realize oh man maybe uh maybe this wasn't just no one sleeps in the gym anymore did i hear that? What did you say about that? Just the young kids.

Oh, right. The younger ones in there. Right. Makes sense. Hey, is any of the polarizing shit that's going on in society come into your gym? Any of the woke stuff? Any of the pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine? You don't have enough women.

You don't have enough people of color. You don't have enough women you don't have enough people of color you don't have enough uh pygmy elves like do you is any of that shit does that get into your gym no it's it's pretty like online you know like people will see the things and they they talk shit but it's it's kind of like uh the boys are funny man they'll get to the big group and they'll read like the negative comments and then they all just laugh. I've conditioned them to not give a fuck about anything that anybody says or thinks. With the show, if you go on YouTube now, it's funny. There's a thousand comments and 980 of them are wonderful.

So that's really rare. You know what I mean? It's like anything. If you're a cyclist,'s tough shit but uh you know i think it's hard to talk shit about all people are just you know happy and they're doing good and it's like you know give it it's kind of tough to talk shit on it but you know how it is people can find uh their way luckily enough in southern illinois we live in a place to where it's small enough to, you know, COVID came and, you know, it didn't really matter, man. It was just kind of everybody's choice.

Hey, if you want to do these, do them. If you don't, don't. We never had masks here ever, bro. Never. The restaurants never shut down. I'm moving to Mount Vernon. I'm moving. I won't wear a mask or put a mask on my kids.

There's no fucking way I would ever do anything to put a mask on a four year old child or six year old child. And I think that if you do do that, you're a fucking abusive parent who's not thinking clearly. And you should pull your head out of your ass. You should do 100 burpees and think about it again. That's my opinion. If you went up to if you went up to uh chicago though you know or anything even if you went two hours up in the state illinois is an extremely hardcore um it's a very democratic uh you know like uh they're they're in control big time up there isn't that funny they're called democrats but they don't do anything that's democratic or with liberty it's the same in my town my whole town everywhere i go 80 of the people are mass we We, I just not doing that. I'm not doing that. All my friends in California with their gyms, man. I, I, I'm, I'm so, I'm so just, uh, you know, disappointed for them and they've,

they've spent their whole lives building, you know, 20. Yes. And they, so many of them just lost everything, man. It's, uh, you knowth taylor jiu-jitsu survived that that's when it comes to having a good community too people really love garth and like that place can't fail because it's really our it's really where my kids go to school my the jiu-jitsu gym my kids go to is their school it's where they're going to meet girls where they're going to meet boys where they're going to learn big words where they're going to learn math where they're going i mean it's everything they're going to learn discipline they're going to learn big words, where they're going to learn math, where they're going to, I mean, it's everything. They're going to learn discipline. They're going to, um, figure out which books to read. So that place can't fail. And the parents came together and threw a lot of

money at it to make sure it stayed open. That's wonderful, man. So part of the, part of the, part of the thing about being here and being in a small place, like everyone always says like, Hey, why don't you move to, you know to california you know you can make a there's a compton in california we actually have a little uh a little club that's out there in hawthorne uh in california you know the guy's a teacher at a uh a school like a second chance school like a safe school so he goes with like you know like uh ex-gang bangers and like it's pretty hardcore where he's uh he lives for the shipment he loves it his brother's the state's attorney here so they're like a family that really like gives back

to community and uh he moved out there uh it's been really rough on him man he had a really great program and was been a lot of kids and making stuff happen and uh it got shut down unfortunately kind of with the covid and he he's obviously struggling he's a school teacher but uh at one of those schools. It's just been so tough on everybody just to make it. Mount Vernon, with the rent being $500, we never

stopped it. We just kept doing what life just kept going. We were lucky that nobody ever got sick or anything like that. I think for eight eight months there wasn't even covid here it never even made its way you know people don't leave their uh you know they might go to st louis shop or something you know but for the most point it's just such a small small place and uh you can call that

whatever you want you know like people people in big places might think oh like uh you know people think when you're from the midwest that you know you're uh like automatically you're just a dumb redneck that fucks his sister you know what i mean it's like yeah that's what they tell us that's what they tell us in california i say you're you're you have it spot on we're told to believe that you guys are dumb and yeah that's how we're raised everyone in the middle of the country is dumb and doesn't know what they're doing and are bad people. And then we visit there and you guys are the nicest people in the world. And we're like, wait a second. Interesting enough, it's really funny.

Something I've learned with Jacob Couch, the Hillhammer kid, is when people hear his voice, they slow the way that they talk down. It's like automatically they think he's like Rain Man. You know what I mean? It's like he has this Kentucky accent. So all of a sudden he's just this um redneck hillbilly you know what i mean it's kind of he's really sharp kid it's funny too uh and he puts it on he puts it on thick sometimes you know what i mean but it's funny to when people hear that immediately in their mind just think like when someone's from the country you know that they're uh you know they're a little slower uh and hey look things are slower here like if you uh it's it's funny you know because people say like california is uh you know we're just using that because you're from there

it's a really liberal place but it's man the midwest maybe people are uh in a lot of places in the midwest i, you can get hardcore Republican type people out here, but man, for the most part, nobody really gives a fuck about what you're doing or, you know, it's like, uh, it's, and it's kind of funny. It's, it's kind of the opposite to what people really think. It's like, like in New York city, very, very liberal place, you know, but at the same time, but by liberal, time but by liberal the the some of these people they're the most judgmental people oh i mean they think of course you're not if you're not incredible person in their mind that's open to everything basically you're just a piece of shit

you know and like uh it's just kind of funny man with the politics and it goes both ways on both sides you know i mean people are just they're just so close-minded when it comes to things. And in the Midwest, where I'm from anyway, we're really lucky to just have, I don't know, I think this is one of the freest places ever being here. I just think it's small enough to where nobody really cares about what you're doing. When you went to high school, you were saying something like you were one of seven white kids in the beginning of the podcast, like that am i getting that right or in your neighborhood in grade school in grade school it was like that uh from like kindergarten

until like sixth or seventh grade then once you get into all the other schools so there were like uh like seven or eight grade schools you know and there's like the the nice grade school was like uh you know on this part of town and then on – there was a place called Horseman was the name of it. It's just a neighborhood. It's the black neighborhood of a poor neighborhood. Isn't it funny? So your perspective might be similar to mine. When I was 16 years old, I moved – my mom kicked me out of the house, and I moved into an apartment building my dad owned, and it was at the Oakland-Berkeley border.

owned and it was in the Oakland Berkeley border and I was all of a sudden went from being in a all-white neighborhood that was Hell's Angels and meth called Pacheco California to an all-black neighborhood where I was the only white person except for the Asian dude who lived in the apartment across from me who dealt heroin to this to the I was gonna say strippers to the prostitutes and I lived in that neighborhood from when I was 16 to when I was 20. And I did everything I could to learn about black culture because I came from white culture. I read everything I could about the Black Panthers, all this shit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was awesome. And it was mostly even though I was 16 to 20, I mostly hung out. All the black dudes I hung out with were like all ex-cons from Soledad or San Quentin. And they were all in their 40s and 50s and it was cool and I

would sit out and drink 40s with them and I and I got a good strong education on on on on that culture and now we're in this giant we went through just this fucking insane Black Lives Matter movement which is the most disgusting sad abusive thing towards black culture that I've ever seen. If you were a black person and you supported Black Lives Matter, I'll be surprised if you can ever wake up because of what you did that hurt your people. It is really, really sad what you've done. You've supported the victocracy. But now 70% of the black-skinned people are refusing the vaccine,

and now all of a sudden black skinned people are refusing the vaccine. And now all of a sudden black lives don't matter. They won't let you get a job in California unless you're vaccinated. What happened to black lives matter? They never cared about you. They never were interested in you. You were just being used and you nailed it. Right.

I, as a liberal, I was, I was raised to accept everyone to love everyone, but it's not like that. It's a giant lie. It's just that it's a giant lie it's just it's just talk it's just rhetoric none of my no one i know would have lived in that neighborhood that i lived in no one and the same thing about homelessness i was homeless for two years i'm fucking tired of people talking about homelessness it's 99 of homeless people are fucking drug addicts

in california they're drug addicts i was homeless for two years. That's who they are. So like it's, it's, it's easy to feel sorry for homeless people when you're rich and throw money at it. You're, you are the same people that feed seagulls at the beach. And so we all get shit on. You think you're doing good by feeding the seagulls, but you're not, you're causing the rest of us to get shit on. Sorry. I go on these rants every once in a while and i just i love people who are actually doing the help for people and these idiots can sit in their ivory towers and be like you don't have enough black people at the gym you don't you're not following covid restrictions fuck you he's helping boys who could otherwise be violent criminals and hurt society instead

they're going to be contributing leaders daisy fresh fresh, an American jiu-jitsu story. You have to see it. You'll want to rep the brand. It's all good people, loving, supportive people. All right. I'm just proud to be a part of all that, man. And I mean, not bullshit, dude. It's like, well, a part of it.

You started it. You're the leader. You're putting your ass on the line, man. That documentary makes you guys vulnerable. I'm telling you it makes you vulnerable. The guys and the girls though, that they, they, their lives, you know, as a, maybe not as long as I have, but you know, that, that it's a, I am. Part of it, man. Maybe I'm the leader and they've given that,

that responsibility, which I'm, I'm really proud to have that, uh, that, that, that title or to be that, but I really am just that they, they give their lives as much as I do. They've dedicated the things and maybe it's only been for a year for them or two years. It's been 25 for me, but that doesn't make me owed anything because no matter what doors I opened for them, I'm still just a part of it, man. And I'm a hundred percent, and that's the way that I want them to always feel like this is ours and we're doing it together. It's a shared – it should be a shared feeling. And when – you know, I think that makes more people when they come in and they –

it's kind of funny. People will come in and they always are kind of a little bit nervous when they're like meeting me to come and train because uh you know most places like i said these guys places and they're the kingdoms they don't want the guys to go and train other they're really they're really controlling about like uh and all it comes down to at the end of the day is uh that's that word loyalty you know it can be used to control instead of uh you should be loyal but uh trolled you know what i mean uh be loyal to what you of, uh, uh, you should be loyal, but, uh, trolled, you know what I mean?

Uh, be loyal to what you believe in, but not controlled by a system or not controlled by, you know, other people's thoughts, you know, be loyal to your thoughts and your, the things that you want. And, uh, you know, I think when you do that and you don't really give a fuck about anything else, I just think it, it, you. I just think you grow with that attitude. I could care less if the guys go. They can go and train somewhere for six months if they want. It doesn't matter to me if they want to go and they wanted to leave.

I would miss them very much. But if I'm happy and it's going to improve their quality of life and the people who are going to be in their life, man, I'm 100% okay with that. And that's not the, hey, I have a bunch of other people, so fuck that attitude. It's just I really mean that. I just want them to be happy. I've had times in life that I wasn't happy, and I was looking for things and thought that I needed more things and maybe didn't appreciate what I did have.

And I just think you've got to get out there, and you've got to fail, and you've got to fail, and you fail. more things and uh you know maybe didn't appreciate what i did have and uh you know i i just i just think you got to get out there and you got to fail you got to fail and you fail and then you figure it out that's the way that you figure it out not from gifts or or not not from uh anything else just that you know you know failure really really builds you know uh it it builds you know what i mean like going back to what you said about your boys earlier, they fall down, they get up, you know, and if someone's constantly picking you up and, you know, doing it. So and that's how I am with the gym, man. I created the environment and opened the door for them to give them the opportunity to do that. But they have to do it.

You know what I mean? I created the system, but they're the ones that have to do the hard work. They have to show up. They have to give up partying and, you know, chasing girls or guys. They have to give up, you know, sometimes, you know, the fun things in life to maybe be a champion. You know, that's what separates people who are champions in life from people who are just good or people who are, you know, a little better than everyone else,

something, these are the things that, you know, you know how it is, it'd be great to go out and party all the time. And, but, you know, you got to save your money, and you got to use it towards the important things that are going to benefit the future, you have to constantly invest in yourself. And that's not just with money, it's with, you know, every move that you make is important. You know what I mean? And it's just finding that balance between happiness and, you know, being productive, I think. And I've been really lucky. I've kind of been able to figure it out.

And it was definitely through trial and error. You know, I had so much failure and so much uh never really any help honestly savon it's been uh so that that i've gotten you know it's just been through like really those people that supported me you know like uh you know girlfriends or best friends uh everything else has just kind of been something i've had to just do and not had any idea what the fuck i was doing and just fail and figure out, okay, that's not the way, you know, start all over and try again, start all over and try again. And, you know, I think that's with anything though. I don't think

that's just jujitsu. I think that's not just sports. It's everything in general, you know what I mean? Business and everything. It's just, you know, you figure it out. I think we figure things out as we go along. It's like being a dad. When you find out that you're going to be a dad, it's the most exciting, petrifying thing in the entire world. And when the baby comes out, you're, you don't even touch it almost because you're afraid that you're going to hurt it. Or what if you, what if you dropped it? Or what, what if I, yep, all that. And then you realize, funny, it's why second kids are usually so much tougher than the first. Yeah. Yeah. The first one, you know, the rules and society's told you, hey, you have to do this.

And I remember I did a tournament and I took took Gavin to a tournament when he was like three, three weeks old. I had him on an airplane and like people were like complaining. I actually took him out to California and they were I I remember a bunch of people telling me, Oh, you should cover him up. You should do this. And, and, and I just remember thinking like they were, they were pussies and thinking about like, uh, back in the day, like, you know, the Indians or the things that were here, they, you know, I doubt that they, that's probably not what they would have done. I'm pretty sure that he'll be okay. And I remember at first kind of trying to take people's advice on, uh, you know, being a dad and raising, just realizing nobody knows what the fuck

they're doing, man. They just been told this by someone else that had a kid and it's just trial and error, man. And then when you have this second, you realize that they're like the most, um, you know, they're, you know what I mean? Like they're resilient to shit. My kids never wear shoes. My kids never have taken a shot. My kids just, I just don't feed them added sugar or refined carbohydrates as little as possible. I mean, a birthday party

here and there. And then, yeah, kids are so resilient. I, my kids started wearing shoes for the first time when he started crashing on his skateboard and he's like, Hey, I think I might need shoes. I'm like, yeah, then now's probably a good time to put some on it was like you know i i was a kid in in the 80s and i think that i think the 90s kind of kids were the kind of the some of the last groups that you're always outside you know like yeah i mean we i was thinking the other day about these trees at the park i was there that we used to climb up in man it was scary looking up there now that i'm an adult i'm like holy if we would have fell out of we'd have been dead you know what i mean yeah just like that now it was like uh you know there were no kids there

at the park you know it was like old people walking around the kids weren't playing the stuff had like spray paint on it and it was like no no no one's they're just not interested a lot of times in like you know being outside and uh you they're just not interested a lot of times in like you know being outside and uh you know and um i think a lot of that just kind of gets handed down you know from like the the the the parents you know what i mean they're like they're just so scared of things everyone's scared everyone's so scared they've ruined their lives they're they're they've they they can no one can do risk assessment anymore. You know, for sure. I used to rent Walmart. It's like it was across town, like six miles. And I mean, it was like if you let your kid I was like five years old, six years old.

That was normal. You know, it wasn't just my parents. It was like all the kids in the neighborhood. You know, we would like go and buy a baseball card, whatever they're. Yeah. And if you let your kid do that now, you'd, you would go to jail. I mean, they would put you in jail for that and you'd be in trouble. You know, it's like, uh, um, it's think of all the creeks you swam in. Think of all the crazy shit you did with his kids, rocks you through creeks. You swam in gross shit that they, that no one ever does anymore. Cause they're terrified.

No, no, it's, it really is. It's a real thing, man. And you can tell in society, it just happens. Especially coaching with the kids, it's like some of the parents that come in are so pussified. And the funny thing is they want their kids to win. That's all that matters to them. Maybe they want to do shit in their lives, so they want to live through their kids, and they want them to be winners and the best. And sometimes I don't know if it's for their kid so they can brag and be better. It's like high school for them all over again. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I got a little bit of that. I'm guilty of a little bit of that. I didn't dance, so I want my kids to dance. I didn't fight. Well, I fought, but I wasn't good at it, and so I want my kids to dance. I didn't fight. Well, I fought, but I didn't like – I wasn't good at it. And so I want my kids to be able to fight. You know, I get it. I don't think wanting them to do something is bad.

I think that's good. I think, you know, there were times that I would look back with my parents and I would say, man, I wish that they would have been a little bit more hardcore on me with, like, school. Meaning they made sure I was there and wanted me to go. But maybe, especially with my mom being a teacher, I think sometimes to myself, like, you know, I didn't go to college. I went for a semester and I was like, man, this is stupid.

I'm not going to do this. The shit that they're teaching me about business, I knew this when I was 10 years old watching the neighbor guy sling dope. He had a million bucks. You know what I mean? So I would think to myself, maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, but I would just think some of this shit that I'm learning, it's just not usable in life. You know what I mean? So I always wanted to do jiu-jitsu, and I thought in my mind, maybe if I went to school and learned how to do business, it would help a little bit, and that lasted no time at all.

to school and learn how to do business it would help a little bit and that that lasted no time there was uh uh one of my professors was a really really hot so i stayed in for the whole semester but other than that that was uh that was a i was out back out in the road going to california and all these different places to train a lot of the jiu-jitsu has always been in california so kind of keep coming back to being out there. And it was, you know, I couldn't stay in the gyms for very long because, like you said, people are always, you know, I saw my friend told me that during the COVID stuff that you guys had, like, they were telling on people. And if you told them something, and then you would get a check for telling on them for being open. And it was like, first off, here where I'm from, you would die for that. People, someone would kill you for that.

In all seriousness, all jokes aside, it would be like, that would not go over with the people here. For tattletailing. Yeah, it would not be good. But it's just, I don't know, man. Hey, and do you know why you'd kill them? Because you're trying to keep your doors open so that you can make money so that you can buy food for your kids. So basically, as soon as you do that, as soon as you stop someone from being able to put food on their table for their kids, I don't know if it's right or wrong, but you should know that you've put your life in danger. Just like you said, we're wild animals.

You fuck with a baby elephant and mama's going to bury you under a stack of trees. So fucking high. For sure. Definitely. It's true. And it's not, that's not something I don't think that that's a, that's not an opinion. It's just real. That's just real life.

It's just the way it is. So no matter how you feel about politics at the end of the day on a lot of this stuff, it's about survival. You know what i mean and right uh the the mental in the in the last uh in the last two years has just been like it's been so bad for people and i actually just read uh the murder rate in 2020 was up 30 percent from the rest of the years it actually doubled the worth of before I'd been 15%. It's the highest murder rate that we've ever had. Now think about this.

Half the country was entirely closed down this whole time for the murder rate. People weren't even outside. Do you know why I think it went up? I'm so arrogant as I'm going to say I don't think I know why it went up. It went up because the BLM movement started hating on cops and cops started engaging people in the ghetto and stopped engaging people with black skin and violent crime skyrocketed. 51% of all murders in the United States in the last fucking 10 years have been committed by people with black skin. Does their skin color have anything to do with it?

No. That's someone else's statistic. I don't give a fuck what color skin someone is. But if you're going to use that demographic, if you're going to use those metrics, then you have to realize if you make it so police can't engage those people or someone's going to turn a camera on them and get them in trouble for doing their job, then police are going to stop engaging them. They're just people. I have tons of friends who are cops, black, white, and other. them they're just people i have tons of friends who are cops black white and other and it's the black ones the white ones and the other ones who are all telling me that if they pull someone if they pull up next to someone who's doing 85 and a 55 and they're black they have black skin they go

the other way if they see someone like wielding a knife in the middle of street acting crazy he's black they go the other way when they used to engage them and they don't and they're not engaging anyone in the ghetto and guess who's suffering good fucking honest fucking amazing people who happen to have black skin because these other fucking people have made it have made it impossible for cops to do their fucking jobs that's why i think sorry i got another you got another rant out of me sorry you know i'm ears open and always just trying to learn about the things that you know that if there's some way that i can help uh you know just just the world be better, I always want to. So I'm always completely open to hearing everybody, you know, you know, because sometimes we just have our own thoughts.

You know what I mean? It's as long as you're willing to open your mind, learn from other people. I think, you know, that's how change is done just by education you know and uh and uh so so so me personally i'm i'm always i'm a completely open mind and people say that you know they say shit like like i'm an open book i'm an open man i'm always just trying to learn and and grow because like i said everything that i've done was mostly just through uh trial and error so you know maybe all the shit that I was trying was wrong because that's all I ever knew, you know what I mean? So I'm always excited to just talk to people, especially on other sides of the country, you know,

and like here, you know, what's going on. Sometimes you guys are a completely different, literally a different country out there, man. Yes, it's nuts here. It's nuts. It's like California, Chicago, you know know houston dallas and then uh you know new york city and it's kind of how it's split up you know they're like almost like different countries in the world and the people are so different the people so different the people in like you know mississippi are so different than the people in california you have no idea you

know i mean it's like it's If you've never been out, the southern hospitality stuff is all real, man. That's real. Their attitudes are so different and people are so much happier in these places that it's really wild, man. I've been really fortunate to travel with the

jiu-jitsu stuff and meet and see a lot of different people. It's so wild. Our country is such a baby. It doesn't even really have an identity yet compared to other you know a lot of these other countries they've been around for thousands and thousands of years you know when you really think about it the united states has been a country for like a hundred years and yeah we're literally just babies you know trying to kind of you know trial and error trying to figure things out and you know it know, it's a, you know, it's a neat time to be alive and see a lot of the wild stuff that's happening. Matt Murphy in the comments just says, has anyone offered to donate to Daisy Fresh to make it more modern?

Or would Heath like to keep it old school? You know, it's interesting, Matt, is in the documentary, documentary, as the documentary progresses and you can see the boys are getting more and more attention, you can see that people have started donating stuff. But I'll go ahead and let Heath talk about that. Are people donating stuff? Yeah, people all the time, they send boys, you know, people are so incredible, man. They're always trying to give, you know, they like those they've been packages of, you know,

there's like food and different guys. And we kind of got a lot of shit for a while. There were a couple, you know, people that are just saying, oh man, you know, these guys don't work. They're not doing shit. And people are sending them food. A lot of the really big names, like people love this show, man. You know, they, they, they know, they see, they, they,

they see what's happening and uh you know it's uh all the all the guys that are there that live there full-time they all either work or they go to school none of them are just there laying on the mats on one of the days he had a he had a a food card and people freaked out, man, during that. It was like right when COVID first started and he had food stamps. It was like, why are you sending these guys, you know, these like the welfare babies, you know, and like, they're just taking and it's never been like that, man. It's, it's, it's not like that at all. It's so, of course,

always now the building itself, a lot of people say, okay, why, why not fix up the building you know it's like uh you know so i've never ever planned on staying there you know it's you can have the most killer badass pirate ship in the world but if it has holes in it there's no point to paint it you know what i mean you'd have to fix the holes and um so i'm just planning to move i've got this place and like i said we're slowly like closing in on it and uh there's so so the hope is to get this other place that so we can have more you know more classes and uh better stuff for like younger younger groups and like like like you know like

females and all stuff it's going to give us a lot more space and a lot more uh you know it was actually a before so it's set up it's like showers and locker rooms and so that uh the that that's the plan is to move in there so it's like sometimes people want to especially the mats you know in the show in the jiu-jitsu community the the pedigree submission fighting mats are like the most talked about feared disgusted things to people in the world, which is really funny to me. I mean, it's like, but some people always say, hey, you know what? Maybe we could make a donation or do something for new mats. But when we get a new place, you know, we'll get some new mats and we'll,

you know, we'll make everything a bit nicer. But I'm just going to keep this shit real. It's always going to be kind of like hardcore. And I always kind of want want to that old school rough uh there's no heat in there and there's no there's no condition in there i like it like that i prefer to keep it like that it like it's a it just it just makes it tough and uh there are a lot of people out there that say uh especially in the jiu-jitsu community they'll say like um you train like this you don't have to live like this to be a world champion and that's true that's probably true for people but this is the way that we do shit

and we're winning and not only that if we're not the right now we're definitely one of the so maybe maybe people should consider maybe we do the fuck we're doing you know maybe there's a reason that they're making these shows and maybe there's a reason that they're making these shows, and maybe there's a reason that we keep winning and we're making success. And it's not because there's not heat and air condition. It's because the environment is tough, man. You know what I mean? It's a weed out the people that don't want to be there, and they're not real.

I don't use the gym to make money. You know what I mean? The gym to't use the gym to make money you know what i mean the gym to build better humans tough humans you know people that are going to be able to create their tough humans it's a tough time to be a little bit tough and i think i never think you'll be the best version of you unless you hit rock bottom i don't believe there's any amount of meditation religious practice i don't believe there's any you'll meet these fucking amazing enlightened people and tell you, no, you don't have to take the path I did and have a near-death experience or be suicidal. Bullshit. If you don't hit rock bottom, you will not climb to the highest peaks.

You will not. I have not met anyone. I do not know any story of one um and if if you want you must you must experience something very very i don't know what the word is but uh i i i fully support what he's doing and by the way i mean do you think that working at a budweiser plant is more noble than um uh than doing jujitsu full time and not having a job i know he said they either go to school or they don't have a job but so what if they didn't you think you think working at the coca-cola plant is more noble you think you think oh i put in 40 hours a week working at 7-eleven i deserve more

than the guy who's training jiu-jitsu full-time no you don't no you don't you sell candy and poison to little kids full-time and you make a living out of it you're not more noble than them if i if i want to give money to the guy playing the violin on the corner that's my fucking business if i want to give money to the kids who are practicing jiu-jitsu and growing up to be strong men good husbands and good fathers that's my business fuck you i think working at coca-cola makes you a piece of shit how's that and there's half the country does shit that's pedals poison so there those people can eat a dick yeah no that's kind of how it's been like i said i i think it's funny you know so like i said uh i i finally conditioned the voice because it wouldn't matter you know especially that the hilda they could he would

man he would get his feelings hurt people would say something mean about him and he'd come and show me and at first i'd kind of blow him off say jacob what do you care about what some guy in oklahoma says it doesn't you're never going to meet this guy who cares and then that approach really and he'd never say it to your face and he'd never say it to your face and he's jealous but go on sorry no no i always tell that's what i always tell the guys they say oh you know uh you know they'll say yeah fuck heath whatever for this and that and you know, you know, they'll say, yeah, fuck Heath, whatever for this and that. And, you know, he's like leading these kids the wrong way. And I was just like, look, man, I'm at all these places. Someone wants to say something, they can come up and say it.

I could care literally I could literally care less about what anybody thinks or how they feel. As long as those kids are happy and they're growing, they're going to be successful. And I mean, the about the happiness thing. Dude, it's the most important thing of all, just being happy. Life is so short. If you're not happy, what makes you happy? You know what I mean? Then you're doomed.

And I think people are searching for the wrong things. They think the wrong shit is going to make them happy. the wrong things up. They think the wrong shit's going to make them happy. You know, they think like a woman is going to make them happy or they think that, you know, the only thing that can make them happier money or having a nice car, nice shit. And at the end of the day, if you don't make yourself happy, you can't make anyone else happy. You think that your kids, when your kids are little, they know everything about you they watch every move you make they know when you're sad they know when and you can tell when you're not having a good day your kid will crawl up there on your lap they know they can feel your energy constantly all

the time and that's how i feel with the kids in the gym they know so it's important for me sometimes i have to be a little selfish i have to take time to do things that make me happy I'm lucky because that's what makes me happy but uh just be just try to be cool and be happy man it's literally life is that simple if everyone could just do that care a little less about other things care about yourself a little bit more and just be happy and be cool man and it was like that's what California originally was you know what I mean it's like when when you look back i think that's that's california was the coolest place like the 60s and 70s when it's like starting up that was the place where you could go and no one gives a fuck you know and if you want to go out there and do drugs you go out there and do drugs you could just be happy and no one would no one would fucking judge you about this or that you know you could just do your thing and then you know

then all these rules came along and all these like just judgmental uh there's just so much you know i mean and it kind of now it's kind of switched it's like it's uh california was the most you know like place in the world now it's almost like uh it's almost opposite it's like the most judgmental place in the world if you don almost like uh it's almost opposite it's like the most judgmental place in the world if you don't agree with someone out there you're a piece of shit you know what i mean and not just california not not too bad i love california no no i hear you you're you're you're speaking correct you're from there so so you get it it's just uh you you you just have to you know what i mean some i think just be cool. Just be cool and be happy.

And if everyone could just have that fucking mindset, shit would just be so much better, man. It's so incredible. Everyone in California should be happy. They live in the most beautiful place on earth. It's so beautiful here. And sometimes I've actually bagged California in one of the Daisy Fudge episodes, and they were really upset about this, man.

I was just breaking balls anyway but I said how tough can someone be if it's 78 degrees every day yes I heard it it's truth it's the truth it's the truth I heard that all I meant they hated that man all I really meant that was

man just you know it's so amazing out there you know what I mean it's beautiful and there's beautiful people everywhere and it's like just just fucking you know just enjoy life for what it is instead of always chasing down bullshit you know what i mean if uh you know it's it's just you know just care less about uh how many people like your shit you know just you know try to you know just try someone else out right i mean and try to use your happiness to do shit like that, you know what I mean? And I think you immediately see how much things change for you when you care less a little about other people and what they do and what they think. I think that it just takes this big weight off your back.

And like I said, I've always been really lucky from when I was a kid to just, you know, I never need anything to do that. I just kind of always never gave a fuck about, and everyone says that, says they don't care, but those are usually the ones who care the most. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I've always been, they want to not care. I get the sentiment. You want to not care, but it's different saying it and really not caring. It's funny earlier

that you mentioned jeff bezos thing that they always put uh when when uh when when phil grappling puts pictures of me up uh all the people always talk shit and say it's jeff bezos because you have the same haircut no i think you know i mean the boys at the gym always laugh like i said man it's fun i fun. I love breaking balls anyway. I like when kind of like people talk shit and they're trying to have a good time. I think it's fun. And it's, you know, I don't know. It is what it is, dude.

It's all. Do you not give your phone number out? Yeah, it's on. You can get it on. It's a 618-731-2644. I get about. Hold on. I'll show you here.

Just during our – so I get about 2,000 text messages a day. Oh, what? I don't know if you can see that on there, on the messages right here. Oh. So just during our thing, I get 177 texts. We've been up two hours and something it's uh so how does anyone contact you i was wondering because most of my guests yeah that's insane how does anyone contact you so uh well i mean i i and what happens when i get home i get done with my day i usually sit down

every everybody in the family goes to bed and i'll usually take about two hours and try to go through messages. And I always try to reply to everyone. Alejandro Viner, W-A-J-N-E-R, he actually runs the Pigo Submission Fighting Instagram. So I am extremely, extremely appreciative and lucky to have him because he— Alejandro's the one that wears the shirt always open with the necklace? That's the guy. That's him. Yeah, he's he's. Yeah, that's him. He's that looks like he's from Brooklyn. He's always got the gold chains on. And he's a sweetheart of a man. What a sweetheart of a man.

He just said on our YouTube, the pedigree submission from YouTube. Man, if people like the Daisy Fresh shows, literally almost once a week we put out something. They're literally like Daisy Fresh episodes, man. You can like the guys on there. It's completely free, obviously. It's really neat, man, to be able to talk to them. Where he had through Boris and his – When I met him, I had never really met i had never

alejandro before and uh they uh they he reached out to me he was moving out to california and his wife had just uh they were on the wrestling team together and she had like slept with all the guys on the wrestling team that he was with and he'd constantly like take her back and she would kind of like do the same thing and then it was like uh he was gonna his brother lives in california he was gonna run off and uh a guy had reached out to me in mount vernon uh that uh he he had told me hey man i i think i hooked up with this guy that you're on your team uh he didn't train or anything he was actually from my old neighborhood i think i hooked up with his wife I didn't want there to be any problems

and I was out. So I reached out to him to ask him about this and he told me, man, my wife cheated on me again. She's extremely religious from this very, very religious family and he said, hey, I'm moving out there and I told him, hey, why don't you

the monk just walked in. Why is that? I'm moving out there and I told him, Hey, why don't you, uh, the mugger just walked in. Hey, Alejandro, thank you for putting me in touch with Heath. I'm finding out how incredibly hard it is to get in touch with him. I feel so lucky now to have had almost three hours of his time. Crazy. Yeah. Getting all the heat pedigree. I do. I do one of these these uh your camera's in there now so uh george just got here they just had no practice so they're excited but uh i do one of these about once every couple months man so i actually have the boys pick the

they think the fuck those guys that are like don't they give a shit about impressing anyone they're just doing it because they love it so they they picked you and i said yeah fuck it let's do that guy's thing do you have any crossfitters in the bunch um if i did they would tell us all about it right yeah well i was an executive at crossfit and and that's how i sort of know some of these names because the founder of crossfit was big in the jiu-jitsu scene greg glassman and that's how i met garth taylor and the and you mentioned a guy before that greg used to mention a lot the guy who has that website that message board um something to matt oh that's got it so uh i do actually i get those guys actually love the crossfit guys because they're like so they're like the closest thing because you know everything's

full body and they're like it's hard man so with uh i was just kidding when you said anyone who does anything tough of course i know it's true it's true, man. So I was just kidding when you said anyone who does anything tough. Of course. No, it's true. It's true. I'm just breaking balls. Break balls away. I love when I get those guys because, man, they're so.

They're game. They are. They're really game. And they're the feeling of, you know, that your chest is going to explode. And you got to, you know, that humans are capable of so much, man. It's like we we can that that governor that we have in our mind it's like it's full job is to tell you hey uh savannah you got to chill out bro it's like you gotta you you gotta go go easy you know like back

up that that's your brain's job it's like get you to not do shit that's too hard it always wants you to be safe unfortunately that's what keeps you from usually, you know, like being, you know, great is that thing. So you've got to rip that fucking thing out, try to throw it away and just constantly push yourself. And the CrossFitters, man, they're really good at that. So I don't have to take the time usually when I get them as competitors to tell them that, hey, you're not going to die.

You know what I mean? Your heart's not going to blow up. They're kind as competitors to that, hey, you're not going to you know what I mean? Your heart's not going to blow up. They're kind of used to that feeling. So I'm actually, when I get them, I'm really glad. Appreciate, man. They're fucking tough. So it's like I get them. And there's a kid from St. Louis that comes over

that had competed in the CrossFit Games and he had done really good, man. And when he came in, he was just like, you know, he was just a monster, man. And I wish he could have came to Mount Vernon full time, but he was a policeman actually over in St. Louis. Do you remember his name? Green is his name. He was a wrestler that wrestled for Lindenwood.

And he changed over in St. Louis. Great guy. He's had a really incredible – he's just done really, really well, you know, in his jiu-jitsu and wrestling life. And I think that's because a lot of his CrossFit stuff is like really, really, really like, you know, kept him, you know, like you said, man, they're just game, dude. It's a, it's a, that's a perfect word for them actually, man. You know, it's like,

they're always up for that dog fight, you know what I mean? That just like rough, you know, uh, um, they're hard to break. So I wish I could get more of just like rough you know uh they're hard to break so i wish i could get more of them if you know they're on their ass into my way dude you're gonna have a you're gonna have a problem soon you're gonna have too many people coming to you uh you probably have that problem already i've had three hours of your time heath and i um if you ever get a new phone number i i beg of you to share it with me i promise i won't text you too much i'm sort of afraid to get off the phone with you because i'm afraid it could be the last time i ever talked to you i will continue to watch the daisy fresh and american jiu-jitsu tale

i will continue to bug all of uh your guys and try to get more of them on my show um it's been an absolute honor this is the longest podcast i've ever done the good news is the last one i did that was two hours and 45 minutes was huge and exploded so i think people will really like this one too look there's anything in that number anyone can you can use that i apply sometimes it takes me a long time it's it's it's not just about jiu-jitsu you know what i mean it's like i always like i said at the beginning of the podcast i'm an activist in the jiu-jitsu revolution. What that means, the jiu-jitsu revolution, jiu-jitsu for everyone.

You don't have to be connected to anyone. And this is not in any way, shape, or form like an anti-Brazilian. That's not what I mean at all. You can be from anywhere, from any group of people, and you can be successful you know i mean our team has proven that you know we don't have connection major work people it's just something that we built with hard work and like love and dedication and that's what the jiu-jitsu revolution is to me and i think you can use that all walks of life you know what i mean it's just

that that's that's the most important thing so if there's anything ever that I can help anyone with I could give shit less if you do jiu-jitsu or not it doesn't matter the pedagogy fighting instagram Alejandro's on there anyone can contact me I'll any anyone that I can help I will always help in any way I don't have much to give but I'll give everything that i have to to always just trying to make you know the the the world a better place in the way that i'm able to do that so uh anything i mean i i'm glad i love for people to contact the boys love it and they're always just they're so excited man to just be a part of everybody's life and through this we've got to meet so many wonderful people and it's just uh man i'm just so proud of what we've built and being able to like be on be on things like your

show man it's just a you know it's a way to reach so many but we could never reach before but uh the world's a great place man isn't that so fun living is so fun and it's easy to get done man it's easy to feel like it's not and I just think that sometimes we need reminded of that. There's so many people out there that struggle the same way. And some people are just tougher than other people, man. You know, they're like, they're wired to deal with just hard shit better than other people are. It's never your fault. You know, it's the same, like, it's okay to not be okay thing, you know.

But, dude, I think everyone goes through that at some point, you know what I mean. It's, you know, it's just so hard to deal with that. It's hard to deal with that shit sometimes. And, man, I just, I hope that people will use the, you know, to use us if they need anything, if there's any way we can help. If someone wants, I don't care if you do jujitsu or not. Come out, date with us, hang out with us the entire time. Just fucking get away from wherever you need to get away from that's just use us you got use our platform and there

it's it's nothing you know no one's asking for anything it's just the the daisy fresh thing it's like the easy fresh army man it's like people it that it's just being a part of something that's just bigger than you realizing there's so many people that are like you out there that sometimes, man, and you have good days, you have bad days. Dude, you just got to keep your chin up and fucking hang in there and be tough. And everyone can do that. You can do it. It's just, you know, just remember you're never alone. You're never by yourself.

And even the people who are the best at anything in the world these days, too, you know, just remember you're never alone. You're never by yourself. And even the people who are the best at anything in the world these days, too, you know. So, please, if anyone needs anything, hit us up. Contact us. We'll help in any way that we can. Like I said, don't have a lot to offer, but everything I have is available to everyone who needs it. So, that's it. Bam. Yeah.