The Tim Ferriss Show - #621: UFC Hall of Famer Bas Rutten on Fundamentals of Real Self-Defense, Savage Fight Stories, How He’s Handled Bullies, Breathing Techniques for Increasing Stamina and Endurance, The Art of Personal Reinvention, and Cultivating the Practice of Prayer

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Starting point is 00:06:55 The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm going to skip my usual preamble because I'm fidgeting in my seat. I am extremely excited about this conversation and I don't want to hear myself talk. So my guest today, why would I be so excited? This is Sebastian Rooten, better known as Boss Rooten. You can find him on Twitter and elsewhere at Boss Rooten MMA. He's a Dutch-American actor, former mixed martial artist, kickboxer, and professional wrestler. He was a UFC heavyweight champion and a three-time King of Pancras world champion. We're going to talk quite a bit about that, finishing his career on a 22-fight unbeaten streak with a strike accuracy of 70.6%, the highest ever recorded by Fightmetric. Rutten was co-host of Inside MMA on AXS TV, that's A-X-S, from 2007 to 2016, and he has been a color commentator in several MMA organizations, including Pride Fighting Championships, another thing that we will spend some time on. He has appeared in numerous television shows,

Starting point is 00:07:48 movies, and video games as an actor and continues to be involved in MMA through his coaching and publishing of instructional materials. Boss became a naturalized American citizen in the late 1990s, and in 2015, he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. We'll link to all of the social, as well as the O2 Trainer, which we're going to get to. You can find that on Instagram at O2LungTrainer, and we'll link to YouTube, Facebook, and other places. Boss, welcome to the show. It's nice to see you. Oh, very good to see you, Tim. Thank you so much for having me. And I got to tell you just a little story before we hop in, and it's going to tie into a lot of

Starting point is 00:08:25 things. So I rarely turn into a heavy breathing fanboy with these types of conversations. But I have to tell you that one of the most transformative experiences of my life was in 1992, my first travel outside of the United States was to Japan, where I became an exchange student. And I wore a school uniform every day of school. And on my way to school, I would always stop at this particular bookstore because they had a magazine called Kakutogi Tsushin. And I started becoming fascinated by something called, well, you know, Shuto, of course, which was founded by Sayama Satoru. And then I would also follow UWF and these really bizarre pro wrestling circuits because I saw a video from a friend of mine, this is pre-internet, where there appeared to be real knockouts occasionally, and there appeared to be real

Starting point is 00:09:18 contact. And then this thing called Pancras comes out. And I was following this because I knew a few of the people or knew of a few of the people involved, like Funaki, which I'll definitely want to ask you about. And I remember the very first fight that I saw you in, which ended in less than a minute, opponent 50 pounds heavier. And I just remember the deafening silence in the arena at one point because no one really knew what to do. And that was my introduction to Bas Rutten. So I have followed you for a very, very, very long time. And it's a real pleasure to connect in person. So I just had to get that off my chest.

Starting point is 00:10:01 But it's been a long time coming. And perhaps we could just begin with a question that I've always wondered. Why is there, or why does there appear to be such a strong martial arts tradition in the Netherlands? Because when I landed in Japan, that was the first thing that I was not expecting. So there's Peter Arts, Ernesto Hoest. You had all of these Dutch fighters. People absolutely loved Ramon Dekker, for instance. And even going further back, I learned, because I did judo as my sport, which was mandatory,

Starting point is 00:10:41 that the Dutch had this incredible history of judo wins, going back to the earliest Olympic Games. Where does that come from i have no clue i believe because it's such a small country and we really like the people in the world to know that we exist maybe i mean the gig watchers they have to be the best dutch i remember the story from uh well the training from host you already announced the host you mentioned him young plus and johan foss there were two guys And they went with their team, like Rob Kamen, all these guys at the time. I was huge fans of those.

Starting point is 00:11:09 They went to Thailand and they got their butt kicked. Like really bad. And then they realized, wait a minute, predominantly they're only kicking. So what if we do Western boxing and we combine that with kicks, you know, in order to set up the kicks? And boom, the Dutch kickboxing was born. And suddenly everybody started just demolishing the Thais. I mean, yourendeckis you touched on him as well he was my idol he was a good friend of mine as well unfortunately he passed away a bunch of years ago but he was like

Starting point is 00:11:33 pound for pound I would say the most powerful guy he was the first guy who became the fighter of the year in Thailand that always went to a Thai guy but he was so good that he couldn't go without it. They have to take him. And when you see him fighting Coban, a guy over 200 matches, never been knocked out, and he was the first guy to knock him out. And the whole place, Lumpini Stadium, it gets quiet. You see Rob Cameron jumping in the ring with a Dutch flag,

Starting point is 00:11:58 and he's waving it around. I knew what he was saying. It blew my mind. That was the reason I started training at the same gym, Meng Ho. That was Rob Mondega. training at the same gym, Meng Ho. That was Ramon Degas. So, yeah, I truly believe we have natural heavyweights. We have the tallest people in the world.

Starting point is 00:12:10 So I think that translates really well to K-1 and Glory because that's predominantly heavyweight boxing at the time, the kickboxing. And then just the Dutch style that just tied everything together. Nowadays, everybody – it's like Brazilian jiu-jitsu, right? At the beginning, nobody knew, but now everybody knows, and it's the same with the Dutch kickboxing. Now pretty much everybody's like brazilian jiu-jitsu right at the beginning nobody knew but now everybody knows and it's the same at the dutch kickboxing now pretty much everybody's doing it so let's flash back to childhood just to paint a picture for folks because people who have seen your highlight videos like my god this guy's a savage machine but let's go back and perhaps if you wouldn't mind just describe a bit your childhood and what you were like as a child

Starting point is 00:12:45 because i had no knowledge of this until i started doing research for this conversation but if you could just describe yourself as a kid i think that would be helpful for setting the stage when i was born i came out apparently full with eczema but that went away and then at four years old i contracted rheumatic fever which was the best of the two because it was either leukemia or that. So thankfully it was that. I took four months in the hospital. When I was six years old, we moved to a village and that's when my eczema came back together with severe asthma. Now my eczema was really bad. I had to wear gloves, long sleeves, turtlenecks because I had it in my neck. I was a leper in school. That's what they called me. If I would do this, watch out your ears don't fall off. Constantly, I was bullied on a daily basis. But when I was 12, I saw we were on a

Starting point is 00:13:35 vacation in France and I saw this movie, Enter the Dragon. It was 17 years and older to get in, but my brother and I, we found a way to sneak in for free. And we were too young for the movie. And that's where I saw Bruce Lee. And boy, that was it. I realized that if I would be like that guy, because he was also a skinny guy, I was a skinny guy because of my asthma, I had these horrible asthma attacks, then the bullying would probably stop because then I could defend myself. So it took me two years to convince my parents to start martial arts. And then after two years, they just, they gave up because that was every day I would ask them. And finally they broke. They said, okay, just go.

Starting point is 00:14:09 And I was fortunate to live next to two beautiful neighbor girls. And one of the girls was dating the coolest guy in town, Xavier, Xavier, that's how you pronounce it in Holland. And he took me on to the swing. He was always helping me a little bit because I had these things with birds. I was always in the trees.

Starting point is 00:14:23 I was swinging trees. But I had these birds that could pick me up from school. I mean, they were so tame. They would always sit on my shoulder wherever I went, even in the shower. It was amazing. And he brought me to the adult taekwondo classes. And within months, I started beating some of the adults, of course, not the black belts, but I started dropping big guys. And I overheard this guy talking about me in the dressing room. Man, did you see that kid, bossy, drop check with a freaking spinning back kick to the head. Whoa, everybody laughing. Man, that kid has a lot of talent.

Starting point is 00:14:51 You know, and as a kid, when you only hear bad things about you, and suddenly people start talking good things about you, you tend to listen to the adults. And that led to the first street fight. The biggest bully in my school, Shucky, was his name. Again, I was riding my bicycle on the street and there he came with six, seven of his buddies and, hey, leper, whatever, he was screaming. And this time I shouted something back. And I heard him laugh. I looked back and sure enough, they started to chase me. And I told myself, this is it. I'm not going to do it anymore. So I put my

Starting point is 00:15:17 bike on the stand on the sidewalk. They came surrounding me with the bikes. I always have to laugh about it because in the movies, this is like in the scene at night they do it with cars and the headlights are the lighting for the fight you know but this was with young kids and then shaki started pushing his chest to me and challenging me telling me that i had to hit him so i did and then i realized that the bullish weren't really that strong it took one punch which is weird by the, because I was doing taekwondo, which is 90% kicking. So I knocked them out. One punch, nose was broke. That was a problem because now the police was called and they showed up at my mom and dad's doorstep and that verified, you know, you see, they always thought that martial arts was violence. Now I have to, in protection of my parents, I never told them I was bullied.

Starting point is 00:16:03 My mom had such an enormous, a lot of trouble with me. Every night I had to be mummified, that's what we called it, creams and cortisones and put a wrap me all around. The whole family would send in old bed sheets, which you would wrap up to bed and just, and then in the middle of the night, it would scratch it off because it would itch so bad. She had to do it again. So she had so much work with me. I never wanted to bother with her, that I was bullied. Because I'm pretty sure that if my dad would have known, I don't think he would have said, take him off.

Starting point is 00:16:30 I believe he would have said, keep him on there, because this is good for him. So that's where everything came from. Because then I realized, wait a minute, that was easy. So now I went after the bullies. I literally made a list. I went after every single one of them, Adam. And other kids in school who got bullied, guess who took care of that problem? Now I was the bullies. I literally made a list. I went every single one of them, Adam, and other kids in school who got bullied. Guess who took care of that problem? You know, now I was the bully,

Starting point is 00:16:49 the bully guy. I took care of all the bullies. And that was it. My mom and dad, they took me off what I said from Taekwondo. But then when I was 20, I moved out of the house. Immediately, I started doing karate, not realizing it was not full contact. So then I started Thai boxing within six months. And then within three months, then I started Thai boxing within six months. And then within three months, I started competing Thai boxing. And one thing led to another, and bada bing, bada boom,

Starting point is 00:17:10 now I'm here talking to you. Now here you are. What do you make of the birds? I actually want to hear a little bit more about that. That's like St. Francis of Assisi. How did that happen? Or how do you explain that? I had no friends.

Starting point is 00:17:28 Everybody thought I was contagious. So my time was spending in the trees. I was three, four hours a day in the forest. We had a forest at the front of our home. We had a big forest and I was always climbing trees. I could literally go throughout the whole forest and maybe I had to go four or five times down from treetop to treetop. I would swing, which came in handy with bullies. If they started to chase me, I just climbed the tree. And then they climbed the tree and I started swinging to the other tree. And then the bullies tried to do it. And then one guy, a big guy, one time he fell down and his head next to a big rock. And that, of course, that got out and suddenly everybody, nobody wanted to chase me anymore. So yeah, that was was it and that was my contact also with birds i always was mesmerized with birds and i found this nest from uh oh what do you call them here a jackdaw that's what you call them here a cow is in dutch i knew i had to

Starting point is 00:18:17 do it with gloves because if you put a human scent on it then they might push the other ones out so i had this plastic glove that i went and took one out. And now you become the dad, you know? So you start feeding it. And it's amazing, man. It's so cool because you're there for the first flight. I mean, every time they go down, they crash. They crash. They're like Steve Austin, the $6 million man on the moon, right?

Starting point is 00:18:38 But now there's this one day that he goes and he goes, and he starts going up. And they're so excited. They start screaming and that was the sound I used to make. And wherever I was, he would pick me up from school. This guy, he would know in what room I was. And then just, he was sitting in front of the teacher, got really angry because he was constantly, ah, ah, he would see me in the class.

Starting point is 00:19:01 And then afterwards he would sit on my steering wheel from my bicycle or on my shoulder. He was always with me. Wow. So I must say that doing prep for this conversation has made me laugh so many times. I mean, if you didn't exist, someone would have to invent you for a novel or a movie. So a couple of things I just want to check on so the first is that i read after enter the dragon one of the first things you did was make a set of nunchaku from two pieces of wood and some chain the line that i wanted to just confirm here it says they became an important accessory for the young boss and he carried them around his neck even to the local grocery store is that accurate that's accurate but they were very dangerous because

Starting point is 00:19:45 they didn't use any screws. Like, you know, you have those, how do you say, nails, like curved nails. So if I would go to hospital, I would just let go. It was super dangerous because I could smash somebody's face by accident. And Kung Fu shoes. Everywhere I had was Kung Fu shoes.

Starting point is 00:20:03 Alright, so Kung Fu shoes and nunchucks with nails. Doesn't sound safe. Now, we don't have to spend a lot of time on the next one, but just so people can appreciate just the full picture. So I ask all guests if they can send any exploratory bullets that might be interesting. And there are a couple of them we're going to explore, but one that I just want to mention, and we don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but one of the bullets you sent was, was drunk, slipped when I came out of the shower and broke

Starting point is 00:20:31 a toilet with my head when falling backwards. This was in Hawaii. My whole floor started floating. Very funny story. No clue how my skull didn't break. I guess I hit a weak spot. Yeah. So you're one of a kind in terms of the bullets that I've received here, one of which came out of left field. Well, I mean, a lot of them came out of left field, but one was your original profession as a culinary chef, went to four years of culinary school.

Starting point is 00:20:57 So I did not know this. How did that happen? And then when did it end? I always wanted to be a chef. I was mesmerized with it when I was a young kid already. And that went away because the martial arts started coming along. I really liked that, but I still was working as a chef.

Starting point is 00:21:12 As a cook, I was not the chef in a restaurant, I was the sous chef. It stopped because I was working for a guy for three years and I would run the whole kitchen. Only on the weekends he had to come by. Like my claim to fame was I did 42 people one night, all different people with an appetizer, main course, and a dessert, and I did it all by myself.

Starting point is 00:21:31 So I was always, I liked those kind of challenges. I never wanted to pull him in because he was living in the house next to it. I always wanted to do it myself. And on Tuesdays, we had maybe the most people we ever had was eight. Never we had more people. So I would make preparation for 20 just to make sure, double it up and then some. One day a cycling group came and suddenly it was full

Starting point is 00:21:52 and there was not enough preparation. I run to the house and say, you got to come and help me. And he gets in my face, well, we need to cook for these people. I say, listen, it's okay. You're angry. I got it. I understand it.

Starting point is 00:22:02 It's weird because we never had this amount of people, but why don't we do this after this is over? You know, because right now we have to get out these people. And he started screaming and he kept going and he says, you do whatever I say you do. And I said, well, no, that's actually not true. You're not controlling me. He said, oh no. And he grabbed a big bowl of butter. And he says, if I throw this on the ground and I tell you to clean it up, you're going to clean it up. So I walked over to him. I hit the ball out of his hand. And he got all over the ground and said, ask me.

Starting point is 00:22:30 And he said, clean it up. And I took my apron off. I go, good luck with the people. Bye. And I remember at the time I had a pager. That was at the time. And he kept paging me. I go, what I did for you in those three years.

Starting point is 00:22:43 And then just to fire at me that that was it. And that's when I stopped working and I started focusing more on martial arts. I was also, believe it or not, this is really what I'm going to say now, a model. I was a model that was controlled by three women who had a model agency, a new model agency, and they loved me. I was working three, four days a week. I was making $1,200, $1,200 guilders at the time, which is a lot of money if you're 20 years old.

Starting point is 00:23:09 But you know, once I started doing martial arts as well, that's of course when I had hair, I started showing up for the Shiner here and there, and they didn't really like that. And that was the end of that job as well. So that's how I lost both of these jobs. Okay. Well, you were very proactive in terminating one of them yeah okay let's talk about if this makes sense as the next step pancreas and pangorasa i'm not even sure how

Starting point is 00:23:35 you say it in english frankly because i always heard in japanese how did that happen and what was that experience like for you in the beginning for you know leading into it and then first fight let's just say okay so i get the background story really fast i was a kid boxer and i knocked everybody out and then i got bored i thought it was a great job to to become a bouncer yeah think about that so i became a bouncer but it was of course not a really healthy lifestyle because at five o'clock we close and then we go to the after parties you know what everything bad goes after that so on one of those parties apparently i talked to a promoter after two years of not competing and not living a healthy lifestyle because it was this new guy frank lopman the animal was his name was a kickboxer who came

Starting point is 00:24:21 was released from prison and he was going to resume his fighting career if I wanted to fight him. And I go with my drunk head, I go, sure. But I have no clue of this whole conversation. And then in February, they gave me a call and they asked me where to send the posters to. I said, the posters? I said, from what? He says, from the fight. I said, who's fighting? I said, you. I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, who am I fighting? He says, Frank Lopman. I said, the animal. And he goes, yeah. I go, when did I say that? And he goes, you don't remember? Anyway, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, what am I fighting? He says, Frank Lopman. I said, the animal. And he goes, yeah. I go, when did I say that? And he goes, you don't remember? Anyway, I realized, oh, I said yes to the guy. I said, okay, when is the fight?

Starting point is 00:24:52 It was in two and a half weeks. I couldn't rope skip for 20 minutes my first class. That's how bad I was. I was going to leave this to say. I lost that fight. But the Dutch audience forgot all about my other knockouts. They focused only on that fight, and they kind of chewed me out and spit me out. So I said, okay, this is it.

Starting point is 00:25:11 I don't want to do it anymore. But my martial arts was always there. I wanted to do something with it. And my teacher, my karate teacher, came up with this crazy idea to do choreographed fight scenes. Like we go in spandex. We're all pumped up buddies. We go to a nightclub at midnight, they close the lights.

Starting point is 00:25:26 It gets dark. Suddenly the high pitch music starts, stroboscope, and we come up and backflips and we do all this crazy stuff. We start fighting each other and high level stuff. We get cigarettes out of the mouth,

Starting point is 00:25:35 cops spinning back and forth, breaking new trucks. We did everything, right? And that became suddenly a thing. Suddenly we start doing it in more nightclubs. And then suddenly we start doing the big events, Thai boxing events at the break. And then it became a European show. And we started traveling through Europe. And then it became Dutch TV, European TV.

Starting point is 00:25:51 And on one of these shows, I was always going to the ring with backflips. And at the end, make a somersault, the backflip, and then I would jump in the ring and we'd do our show. And Chris Dolman, he was the godfather of mixed martial arts, so to say, in all the free fighting, actually. That's what they called it at the time. And he stopped me after the show and chris dolman he was the godfather of mixed martial arts so to say in all the free fighting actually that's what they called it at the time and he stopped me after the show and he says listen i know you're from thai boxing you're an animal and now i see you doing all these crazy acrobatics i mean i think you're a perfect fit to be a free fighter i go what's free fighting and they explained me the rules that pretty much anything would go i said okay sure so i went to his gym a few times but it's far away it was in Amsterdam. It's like a two and a half hour drive, you know, especially when there's

Starting point is 00:26:27 traffic. So it didn't really work. But one day the telephone went and this was really weird. Oh, and by the way, I met my wife in 92, in February 92. And she was looking at me weird one day. She had this really weird look. I go, what's going on? She says, you're going to be a famous fighter in Japan. And I go, no, I told you I'm not going to fight anymore. She says, I know, but you said Holland. You're going to go to Japan. So a year and four months later, I get the phone call. And normally I never picked up the phone.

Starting point is 00:26:56 And my answering machine was broke. Somehow I picked up the phone and it was Chris Dolman. He says, you got to jump in the car right now because there's this new organization called Pancras. There's guys here Suzuki Minoru and Funaki Mazakatsu who are scouting they're looking for fighters maybe this is great for you but she can make a money you know he says okay so I jumped in the car went over there and he had an organization rings and one of his guys was the rings champion and we just needed to spar they just wanted to show technique but that guy just went really hard so So I told him to slow down.

Starting point is 00:27:26 I said, listen, it's not necessary to try to knock each other out. Just let's relax and show technique. I think that he believed that I was afraid. So he turned it up. So I stopped him again. And I said, listen, I'm okay with this, but it's not going to be one way traffic. You have to understand. So of course, now it was on.

Starting point is 00:27:41 It was short though, because I hit him in the face right away. He went down need a whole bunch of stitches and that's it i saw funaki suzuki pointing at me and they said we want him and then later when i found out why they wanted me also one of the reasons was that i was able to jump i could stand in front of the rope from the ring and the rope would be here and i would stand still jump over the rope to go in the ring and they thought it was so impressive that was also the reason that they wanted me as a fighter. I go, that's the

Starting point is 00:28:08 weirdest reason I've ever heard. But anyway, the fight was September 21st, 1993. And you have to understand, I was from Holland. So, you know, with us, everything is small. We drive everywhere. Like going to Paris, that's the same drive as going from California to Vegas. You know,

Starting point is 00:28:24 so we drive it by car. I've never been on a plane. Now I'm on a 13-hour plane. And I'm coming to Japan. And you already touched on it. It was weird. There was no weigh-in. And I thought that was so weird.

Starting point is 00:28:33 Why is there no weigh-in? Well, the guy I'm fighting is Japanese. And apparently they're very honest people. So he will be on weight. And then I go, did we talk about weight? I didn't know anything about what we were going to do. And on the day of the fight, I'm walking in there and this tall guy walks up to me and he shakes my hand and says, oh, you're the promoter. He goes, no, I'm fighting you. I go, you're fighting me. I go, what is your weight? Yeah. And he was much heavier than I was. And I go,

Starting point is 00:28:58 oh, that is so weird. And then the promoter walked up and I said, excuse me. Oh, you're the promoter. Yeah. I said, is he not too heavy? He says, no, Mr. Rutan, everybody fights everybody. So I tried to force a smile. I go, yeah, that's awesome. And I said me oh you're the promoter yeah i said is he not too heavy he says no mr ruton everybody fights everybody so i tried to force a smile i go yeah that's awesome i said oh by the way before you how many rounds are we fighting and he goes one round i go one round it's awesome how many minutes and he goes 30 oh so no break fighting a guy is much heavier than i am in a 30 minute match i was like whoa so i started doing these things because i was a very aggressive fighter in holland like i would be very technical until somebody touched me and then i would just destroy him and because i was very explosive i could get away with it but against a good guy like a peter earths was a very close friend of mine

Starting point is 00:29:38 already was 40 so thankfully i never had to face him that would be a problem against the guy like that because i wasn't it didn't really click yet. You always have these dojo fighters and you have fighters. In dojo, they're really good, but they can bring that game under pressure to a fight. It's really hard to separate that two. Like, it doesn't matter how good you are in training. The fighting with the pressure, that's the test. And I didn't have that yet.

Starting point is 00:30:01 But now I'm in Japan and I'm at 30 minutes fight and i'm thinking if this guy's gonna hit me and i'm gonna unload on him and i can't put him away because they're very known to take a lot of damage these guys to keep on fighting i'm gonna be in trouble so i put these big r's on my hands with the with the marker r from relax but in holland it's rustic starts also coincidentally with an r which means the same and my corner I never had a coach so I always had my manager with me and I said the only thing

Starting point is 00:30:29 when he hits me just shout relax relax that's the only thing I want you to do you know because I'm a hothead thankfully it went really well you talked about it in the opening

Starting point is 00:30:38 I knocked him out because he was taller than I I palm striked him under his head he went down and you had eight counts there and he got up so now I turn it up so under his head. He went down and you had eight counts there. And he got up. So now I turned it up. So since his hands were high, I full kicked him to the body, brought the hands down.

Starting point is 00:30:50 Then I hit him again. And while he went down, I kneed him in the face. And then it became very scary. You know, he didn't wake up for two days. It was a very scary thing. Thankfully, he got out of it. He became actually a good friend of mine. That was the deciding factor if I was going to fight or not.

Starting point is 00:31:05 I told my wife, she's not going to come out. This is it. I don't want to do this anymore. And I remember after the fight, people cheering for me. And I remember a couple had a baby there who brings a baby to a fight. But the baby was there. And they put the baby in my hand making pictures. I felt like I was the president there with the baby in my hand,

Starting point is 00:31:22 pushing at people, flexing. It was the wildest experience and then the next day I'm walking on the street and every 10 15 people or so they start bowing to me and I'm going what is going on here and then I passed a newspaper stance and on the cover was me hanging in the splits something I didn't even know I was doing I was so euphoric I guess I jumped to the splits to all corners, which became my trademark later on, the root and jump. And I was hanging in the splits in the air, and my guy was knocked out below me on the ground. I go, oh, okay. So this is how these people are recognizing me. And from one day to the other day, suddenly I was just a known guy. It was

Starting point is 00:32:00 the weirdest experience ever. I remember that cover. This is what I saw at the newsstand. It's bringing back all these memories. In Kichijoji, a place called Sun Road, I remember the whole thing. It's so wild that we're even talking. I got to say, it's really surreal for me right now. So let's go back for a second. Your wife saying you're going to be famous in Japan,

Starting point is 00:32:22 did she ever explain or describe what she felt that brought that up or how that came up for her? No, but you know what weird was then in 94, she had the same look and I immediately recognized it. And I say, now what? And she said,

Starting point is 00:32:37 we're going to move to America and you're going to have, you're going to be in the TV business. Tim, I had a show for nine years on TV, which is inside of a may for nine years, 431 live shows. I mean, and that was the same thing. And then two years later, we're in America and now I'm fighting in America. And then I got into a TV show. It was, it just came to her. She just said it. And the third time I said, we got to see numbers here, honey. They're like eight numbers or

Starting point is 00:33:02 whatever the lotto is. We need those numbers. So please, the next time, tell me that. Could you describe for folks who haven't seen this, we'll put links in the show notes for people who want to see highlights and some full fights from Pankrus. What were the rules in Pankrus? You alluded to the round and the very, very long round.

Starting point is 00:33:21 What were some of the other rules? So what they did, these rules were completely tailor-made for the Japanese fighter. The Japanese fighters are really, they're really good on the ground, right? And not as good strikers. So what they did, they said open-hand strikes because open-hand strikes make sure they have no gloves on, which makes it much easier to go for chokes and for leg locks and all that stuff. Not only that, they will put your shoes on and get shin protection. Shoes for leg locks is a nightmare. I mean, you can't escape leg locks and all that stuff. Not only that, they would put your shoes on, and you had shin protection. Shoes for leg locks is a nightmare.

Starting point is 00:33:49 I mean, you can't escape leg locks. It's much harder to escape when you wear a shoe. So that was totally tailor-made for them. What they didn't know is as a bouncer, I was fighting with palm strikes. I saw my buddies, you know, if you fight multiple guys, it's not like you start aiming for the jaw, you know, you just hit whatever you can hit. And if you hit a skull, well, you're going to break your hand so i started palm striking everybody and

Starting point is 00:34:09 close lining what i always called it you know my forearm i would this part yeah the inside of the forearm yeah and it would perfect so then when i came there i go this is easy i can already do it they also had eight counts and then they had this really weird thing, which some people, because of that, people thought it was pro wrestling. They had like rope escapes. So that means if I would, for instance, get you in a choke, but if he could touch the rope, I had to let him go. Now people go, yeah, that's not real fighting, but listen to this because that's why I believe, truly believe like that small organization, Pancras, I think we had eight UFC champions. I mean, all these guys became good. And I believe that is the reason because when you look at my record, I have 11 knockouts and 14

Starting point is 00:34:50 submissions. But if you read about my submission, I actually have 51 submissions because I would submit a guy and then he would touch the rope. I had to let him go. Now for him, it's the same as getting an eight count. So if the fight goes the distance and he grabbed the rope one time, he's going to lose, you know, or if he went down one time he's gonna lose as well so it's kind of the same as an eight count but because of that now you restart back on your feet and you have another fight like my last fight the guy that i knocked out put in a coma the first guy i fought him the second time and i broke my punch on the very first punch. I submitted him five times. Now I have five submissions. So you have way more ring time in there.

Starting point is 00:35:27 So all these guys from Japan who went to the UFC, they all became UFC champions. It was the wildest thing. I mean, Evan Tenner, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Maury Smith, Guy Metzger. I mean, all these guys, myself included, we all became UFC champions. They were all from that little small organization, Pancras. And I believe

Starting point is 00:35:43 that's because of the rules. It's incredible. Can you explain to me, I've never had a chance to ask someone this question, do you have any idea why the Japanese referred to him

Starting point is 00:35:53 as Wayne Shamrock and then he's Ken Shamrock in the US? I believe it was because he did pro wrestling in Japan as well under Ken Shamrock

Starting point is 00:36:02 and they wanted to steer away from that. And that's his middle name for it, I believe, Ken Wayne Shamrock, and that's why they went with Wayne Shamrock. How would you describe Funaki? I've always wondered, ever since I was a young kid, because he seemed like he was, he seemed, again, my impression was, comparing him to Suzuki, that he was really thinking deeply about a lot of things. But that was just the impression of a 15-year-old. How would you describe the two of those, maybe starting with Funaki? Funaki has always been a good friend of mine. He helped me a lot.

Starting point is 00:36:38 There's a whole conspiracy thing going on also with me though, because I was the first guy to beat Suzuki. And then I had two fights in one month. So I told my wife, Hey, why don't you come with me? I stay in Japan because I finally have some training partners because I didn't have any training partners over in Holland. So, um, I trained there and I, the only thing I asked for him was to, how can I stop a knee bar? Because I know Ken is really good with that. How do I stop a knee bar? And he taught me one way. Now, if I tell a person how to stop a knee bar it's very simple i say hold the leg so he can't step it over that's it whatever happens

Starting point is 00:37:09 he cannot make a knee bar it's very simple i won't go into detail because a lot of people don't understand it but it's a very basic thing but he didn't say that so in the fight when i fight ken he sits in the position for a leg lock and i'm already having my defense ready to stop the leg and now he threw his leg over my head, which was something that Funaki didn't tell me. And I thought that was weird because then I found out that these guys go six years back and they're always pro-wrestle to each other. And that was always in the back of my head. Did he say that to him? Because why wouldn't he say, hey, just hold his leg because then he can never step over. No, he would give me one way how to stop it.

Starting point is 00:37:44 And Genwell, he used a different way. But still, that didn't really matter because he was always a very friendly guy. Suzuki, too. He's a very nice guy. Always had a great time with him. That's why he was so out of character. Like, for that, it was my first loss. He beat me by way of a toe hold. And for the people

Starting point is 00:38:00 at home, they go, like, a toe hold? Yeah. This is not that they grab a toe. Trust me. I saw somebody break a shinbone with a toe hold. It's a very nasty that they grab a toe. Trust me. I saw somebody break a shinbone with a toe hold. It's a very nasty move. And he got me into that. And then many years later, when I became the champion, I had my rematch against Frenaki. And I remember before the fight,

Starting point is 00:38:15 he comes up to me, and this was so out of character, and I think he did it for the audience. And he would be on this distance, and he does this to me, which slits his throat. And I'm looking at my manager, and I does this to me, which slits his throat. And I'm looking at my manager, and I go, I'm going to kill him now. You know what I mean? And he goes, no, you've got to stay calm.

Starting point is 00:38:31 I said, don't worry. I'll stay calm. But you watch him. I connect. Ooh, I'm going to go to town. And that became my best fight in pancreas action. That's for Funaki. They say that as well.

Starting point is 00:38:42 Because he was so tough. I mean, I had black and blue palms palms i had bruises on my knees from kneeing him and hitting him in the face and every time he went down the public started chanting he will get up again he wipes his blood off yeah and then he stopped fighting and i gotta shut up you know it's because every time he got back up and then the last one was that i had him by his hair he had long hair i just grabbed his hair and i drilled a knee in the face as hard as i could and thankfully he stayed down that time that was the end of the fight but i always wondered why would he have done

Starting point is 00:39:09 that i i had to be for the audience because he was a very respectful guy i remember that fight and it was like there were a number of thoughts going through my head as i watched this fight Number one, I've never seen someone take so much brutality and get up that many times. And I remember his face at the end. I mean, he looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid who had Freddy Krueger come after him. I mean, it was just an absolute mess. Like his eyes were swollen shut. And I remember just being dumbfounded after watching that fight. How was their English?

Starting point is 00:39:45 I mean, presumably you guys communicated in English. Was their English okay? Or how was their communication? Funaki Suzuki were pretty okay, especially Funaki. He was always a better English speaker. He also did some movies in Hollywood. I actually was in a movie with him. We did.

Starting point is 00:40:00 And with, oh man, Pat Morichita, you knowita you know from the karate kid he was a crazy scientist in the movie yeah he was already focusing on that he knew that you know in order to reach the people outside the country you're gonna have to learn to speak the language so he was really good with his english for suzuki a little less just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. It's summer 2022 and many small business owners are busier than ever. Finding the right candidate to join your business can be the leverage you need to be able to ignore the trivial, delegate some of the urgent stuff, and focus on longer-term strategic decisions. The big picture, LinkedIn Jobs makes it easier

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Starting point is 00:41:04 that you're hiring so your network can help you find the right people. Simple tools like screening questions make it easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire. It's why small businesses rate LinkedIn Jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to faster. Did you know every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Tim. That's linkedin.com slash Tim to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. In that era, let's just say 92 to sort of 2000 in that range, could be a little bit earlier, but let's just say when you first got to Japan onward, are there any Japanese fighters who

Starting point is 00:41:57 impressed you who you think are probably not known or lesser known in the U.S.? Did anybody stand out to you? Yuki Kondo was good. Shibuya, he was a tough fighter. I had a draw against him one time. It was my only draw. And then the second time I told everybody I was going to finish him with the boss with the neck crank. I just came up with a move and that's how I beat him. So that was kind of cool.

Starting point is 00:42:19 He was a tough guy. Funaki was good. Suzuki was a little physically not as super strong, but he made that up with technique he was really fast on the ground i mean he would jump all over the place those were i think yeah the toughest guy takahashi takahashi was what that was the i will call me he was a party guy like me you know after the fights we became good friends yeah i did that was so bad what happened was i fought him and the day before i fought him we saw on this

Starting point is 00:42:46 giant screen on the building we saw a preview from the fight the next day so imagine this we're walking on the street and it goes hybrid wrestling pancreas and we were looking at it and the first thing we see is me knocking somebody out my first fight and we go oh my god this is the preview for tomorrow you know for the show we have and i see somebody sitting in half guard and he goes for an inverted heel hook which at that time i didn't know this is actually how i get my fifth degree kyu kushin because john blooming standing behind me and he's the highest gaijin the foreigner from maso yama maso yama at the kyu kushin karate he's like 12 degree and and john blooming is 11 degrees so he's really of the ladder and i look at John and I go like,

Starting point is 00:43:25 well, that's a cool move. I should remember that. And the next day I'm finding I'm in a position and I go, give it a shot, you know? So I never did it before. I had no clue the amount of pressure I put on and I broke his

Starting point is 00:43:38 enough. So yeah, that was bad because he went to the hospital, got an infection in it. I mean, I think he was five months in the hospital. And it was a tough day. When I went to visit him, that was really not fun, that poor guy.

Starting point is 00:43:49 And after that, yeah, unfortunately, he never came back as he was before because he was a wild man. He was also taking risks, taking shots. He was an exciting fighter, always going for the knockout. But yeah, unfortunately, that I think that kind of stopped it for him. What was it like being involved with Pride? Because I've heard so many rumors about Pride. Even, I mean, the Japanese had lots of rumors too.

Starting point is 00:44:11 And I'll just leave it at that. I mean, what was it like being involved with Pride? Everybody, when they're walking around, we're like this, you know, you go like. Oh yeah, missing fingers. Yeah, missing fingers. missing fingers exactly exactly so please tell just any stories about Pride because I've always wanted to ask somebody

Starting point is 00:44:33 Pride was just an organization that was way ahead of the UFC they were the biggest martial arts mixed martial arts organization on the planet we're talking about a small show 45,000 people that's considered a small martial arts organization on the planet. We're talking about a small show, 45,000 people. That's considered a small show. And it was the Saitama Super Arena.

Starting point is 00:44:49 And the Saitama Super Arena was an arena that you could also expand and be small, 49,000 people. I mean, we did one time in an open space, 91,500 people we had. It was the most bizarre thing. You know, you see a guy like Bob Sapp coming up, who's 350 pounds, 10% body fat, giant guy fighting a 180-pound guy. You know, they made these crazy match-ups, but the people loved it.

Starting point is 00:45:13 They ate it up, and it was always packed. And the Mirko Krokop, Fedor Emelianenko, the Noguera brothers, I mean, Vandele Silva, Quinton, Rampage X, all these guys. I remember when Dana White challenged the best fighters from Pride to a fight against Chuck Liddell, who was the champion at the time. And I remember Chuck came over with Dana, and that was at the Saitama Super Arena.

Starting point is 00:45:35 And when the opening started, I'm sitting at my commentating table, I'm looking back and I see Dana is literally with his mouth open. And he sees that I'm looking at him, and I go, huh? And he goes, he's never seen a thing like that before. It was crazy. And then with Chuck, he fought with Quinton Rampage Jackson. And Quinton won that fight. So now suddenly, that was a big gamble they took, the UFC.

Starting point is 00:45:57 Now they put Pride even more on the map. But in the meanwhile, I always told Pride Fighting Championship, we've got to go to America. We've got to go to America. No, no, we're doing good here. I said, no, no, no. It's nothing, we got to go to America. We got to go to America. No, no, we're doing good here. I said, no, no, no. It's nothing compared to what you go to America. America is where the big money is.

Starting point is 00:46:10 That's where you want to be. And they always declined it, declined it, declined it. Then suddenly the Ultimate Fighter came out and that bumped the UFC up to the number one spot. And now suddenly they realized they wanted to go to America. And they couldn't get through the Atlantic Commission. It didn't work. It didn't. And every time I say, let me talk to the Atlantic Commission, I have a good way to talk to people. They know me anyway. You know, just let me talk. But they know, know, know.

Starting point is 00:46:33 And then at the end, they go, OK, can you talk to them? Then I walked in. I did my whole talk and they said, oh, we're splitting hairs here. OK, yeah, it's legal. You can come to America. And I looked at them. I said, you could have done this two years ago. And then you had the chance at least to catch up to the UFC. But by now, the UFC was this juggernaut that nobody could touch anymore. So people started slowly but surely from Pride. Yeah, then Pride got involved. They found out that it was maybe kind of a laundering thing for the Yakuza,

Starting point is 00:47:03 which is the mafia. That's why we were talking about the half of pinkies, you know. And then, of course, Tokyo TV pulled out because you can't have that. That's bad public image. And now suddenly they're just getting the gate, you know, the money. It's a whole different animal. And now they were too late to America. Yeah, they could never pick it up.

Starting point is 00:47:20 So they sold the company. Actually, the UFC bought Pride Fighting Championships. And now they had all these great fighters, Wendell A. Silva, Mirko Krokop, coming to the UFC, and it made the UFC even bigger. So yeah, they did a really good job. I was surprised, maybe I shouldn't be, that when I went on YouTube to look at some of the full-length Pankrus fights, that they were on the UFC official channel. So they must have bought the catalog or I was surprised, but then again, not surprised. You know, Pride,

Starting point is 00:47:50 just for people who had ever saw Pride, like you said, it was almost a video game with these matchups, right? You'd have Quinton, Rampage Jackson, howling with the chains around the neck. He could slam anybody imaginable, didn't matter.

Starting point is 00:48:05 And then you would have, as you mentioned, Bob Sapp, who became Gaijin Tarento, like this huge TV hit. He'd do commercials for hot dogs or whatever. He became this huge celebrity in Japan against some guy half his size. And on top of that, you had rules that were just savage. I mean, you had Wanderlei Silva soccer kicking somebody in the head who's on his hands and knees. I mean, just absolutely terrifying. And some of my favorite fighters of all time, like Kazushi Sakuraba, you mentioned a bunch of other names. I mean, just some incredible talents. And it just goes to show there is planning and timing involved. And he who hesitates is lost when it comes to expanding to the US. Do you have any other fights or stories, any encounters, interactions that really stand out for you

Starting point is 00:48:59 from your involvement with Pride? One of the things that I really always enjoy is like Mauro Ranallo, my commentating partner. First it was Stephen Quadros, the fire professor, and then it became Mauro Ranallo. He was very afraid of Mirko Kroka. Everybody was afraid of Mirko Kroka. And Mirko said he would only want to be interviewed by me. So Mirko is facing Walt Waterman.

Starting point is 00:49:22 Sorry to interrupt, boss. Could you just paint a picture of Mirko Krokop for people who didn't see him at that time? Because it's something to behold. He's from Croatia. He's a special forces. Do you see him, guy, rappelling down from choppers and shooting people?

Starting point is 00:49:38 I mean, this guy is as legit as they come. He came from K1, which is the biggest kickboxing organization on the planet, knocking people out with head kicks. They would say his left high kick, if you knock 25 people out like that, I don't even exaggerate. If you knock a kick to the body, they would say left kick body, hospital, left kick head, morgue. That's what they would say. I mean, and it would always, they knew it would come, but somehow this guy was just a freaking machine.

Starting point is 00:50:02 And because of his special forces, he was very stoic. His answers, if you interview him, was yes, no, boom, boom. He didn't want to be there, you know. But with me, he opened up. So he was always sitting with me. And then he was facing Ron Waterman. Ron Waterman is a pastor. He's a giant guy.

Starting point is 00:50:19 So what I did, I went to Miracle Crow Cup before, and I said, Miracle, I want to pull a trick on Mauro Nella because he's really afraid of you. You know, I'm going to interview Ron Waterman and I'm going to ask. Oh, no, because we always I would interview one fighter and then the opponent will be interviewed by my commentating partner. So Ron Waterman walks in and I immediately start interviewing him. And Mauro didn't see it yet. And as soon as Ron Waterimer leaves I say okay man great and I go and he goes what I go dude I'm sorry he goes what do you mean I go I interviewed Ron

Starting point is 00:50:52 and he goes what do you mean okay you you're gonna have to do Mirko he said no no I don't want to Mirko I don't want to interview Mirko and I'm afraid of him you have to I can't interview both fighters it's gonna look weird for the people at home so it was the perfect setup so then Mirko comes to the show and because he didn't want to do interviews before it was, everything was on his time and he was so powerful, whatever he said they had to do because otherwise he was not going to do it

Starting point is 00:51:16 and he goes in there, Maro and I'm with Maro and Mirko starts talking about, yeah he says, oh you, you were there for the last fight and Maro says, no, no, that wasn't me, he said, no, that was you he said, I didn't like the way you started talking about, yeah. He says, oh, you were there for the last fight. And Mauro says, no, no, that wasn't me. He said, no, that was you. He said, I didn't like the way you were talking about me. And he goes, no, no, no, it was you.

Starting point is 00:51:32 And he looked at his friends and everybody goes, no, it was you. And Mauro was looking at me like, boss, help me out here. And I'm just standing still. I'm not saying anything, right? So he starts getting, and he gets more and more nervous. And Mirko, Mirko really pushes it on. He's super serious. And suddenly Mauro, he gets up and he walks out And Mirko really pushes it on. He's super serious. And suddenly Mauro gets up and he walks out.

Starting point is 00:51:49 And everybody's talking to him. They say, no, you got to go back, man. He says, I don't want to do it. He doesn't want to be. He hates me. I don't want to do this anymore. So he goes back again. And then suddenly Mirko gets up. And he walks to Mauro.

Starting point is 00:51:59 And Mauro runs away, right? And so this is over. And everybody's freaking out. And then suddenly I say, Mauro, it's okay. And he stands there. And he's freaking out and then suddenly i say marco it's maro it's okay and he stands there he's waiting as miracle comes walking and he has this stern look in his face and he walks straight up to maro and marco's and then at the very end he started laughing marco and he high-fives maro he says we're just messing with you dude and they actually became really good friends and it's online we posted this it's

Starting point is 00:52:25 hilarious Mirko Krokop punks Mauro Ranallo hilarious when she watched that video and then I have another fun story which I thought was hilarious I wanted to bring the people at home on the boss tour BAS instead of bus tour the boss tour and I was going throughout all the backstages at the fights we go to the fighters. That's the dressing room. Oh, here are the doctors. Let's see what they test on. All that kind of stuff, right? So I'm walking.

Starting point is 00:52:49 I want to walk into the doctor's office. And I'm opening the door. And the first thing I see is all the P-tests from the fighters in little paper cups with a little wooden thing on it with the name on it. And I'm right away. I have a great idea, of course. So I close the door i go okay let's just wait outside you guys let me ask them first if it's okay we come in i mean it's a little intrusive you know if you just walk in right now let me talk to the doctors and say if

Starting point is 00:53:15 everything's okay so i close the door i get one of these cups i put green tea in it i put a little lid on it and i put it in between all these other p tests from the fighters so now I'm walking in with the cameras and we're walking around and we're looking oh there's the doctor okay that's why they tested but boom and I go oh are you looking here here's the p tests from the fighters man that's great right man wouldn't it be weird if you imagine by tasting you could know which fighter it is and they look at me like am I I crazy? I said, no, serious. I'm serious. Can you imagine you taste the pee and you could say that's that certain guy? And he goes, you're crazy.

Starting point is 00:53:50 I said, no, I'm going to try it. So I grabbed mine, of course, the pee. And I go, and everybody's freaking out. I go, I think this is Mark Coleman. These people are freaking out. They thought I was drinking the pee from Mark Coleman. These people are freaking out. They thought I was drinking the pee from Mark Coleman. It was hilarious. Until, of course, they found out I was messing with them.

Starting point is 00:54:14 Those kind of things, that's right up my alley, man. Messing with people. I want to paint a picture for folks who may not recognize these names. So Mark Coleman, certainly sort of pre and Smashing Machine documentary era, along with Mark Kerr, just monsters, absolute monsters, right? I mean, I remember his solution for someone pulling guard was just neck cranking them so hard that their head might pop off. And that was the end of the match. And for people who don't know Mirko Krokop, they should look him up and watch some video. The guy's thighs were as big around as my dinner table. And not only could he kick, I remember he fought, just to tie two names

Starting point is 00:54:57 together that have come up, he fought Bob Sapp. And he was so disdainful. He was, I remember watching the translation. So of course I don't speak Croatian, but translated into Japanese. He's like, I hate people who win just because they're big. And he was so,

Starting point is 00:55:14 it's just scornful of Sapp. And he threw a body kick, planted the foot and then hit him with a straight. And I think he crushed his eye orbit with gloves on and i think from that point forward bob sap's eyes were pointing in different directions i mean it seemed like that was a real turning point i mean just absolute animal so worth checking out if people haven't seen him bob sap was he asked me one time if i would fight him what i would use and i said i'll kick your knees.

Starting point is 00:55:45 I'm not going to kick your thighs because they're carrying weight all day long. And I go for the body. I said, because your stamina is not that good. And I think with a body shot, that will work with you. And then he fought Ernesto Hoost, who dropped him twice with a body shot. But then he got lucky. He swung so hard at Ernesto Hoost on his defense. And the scraping of the own glove gave a cut to Ernesto

Starting point is 00:56:06 Hoost and he lost the fight. But then after the fight, he had to face Mirko Kroka and he came to me if I wanted to train him. So I went 11 days or 12 days before the fight, because I was the commentator, I went to Japan to train with him. I trained him one and a half day, one and a half times. And the rest, he was doing interviews. And I go, Bob, you understand that Miracle Cop has a picture of you on the back and you're the biggest guy right now. He's going to annihilate you. Yeah, but the people want to see me on TV. They don't care about you. You're going to lose this fight and you're not going to beat me on TV. You need to focus on the fight. Wait with all this stuff. But apparently he thought that was important

Starting point is 00:56:47 and he kept doing it. And then, yeah, this happened against Miracle Crocodile. He wasn't just prepared. He was a gifted athlete, Bob Sapp. It's just that he didn't take the time anymore to prepare. That was his problem. Yeah, got his skull crushed. Oh my God.

Starting point is 00:57:00 I remember that wince, that look, because it wasn't a knockout. It was a different facial expression. And you saw him kind of crumple. And I was like, oh God, horrible. For people who may, I also just want to, this is such a trip down memory lane for me. I'm going to put some links to Ramon Decker Coban, who I actually met and trained with a bit in New York City, because at least at the time, that's where I lived. I mean, their fights, repeated fights were just absolute brutality. And then Rob Kamen, who wore, if I remember correctly, the shorts with like a rainbow on the front. He was like a Care Bear. Different times, like the murderous Care Bear. Let me ask, since we've covered a lot of

Starting point is 00:57:47 fight game, for people who are wondering how professional fighting differs from, say, street defense. I know you've certainly spent a lot of time bouncing. You've had your fair share of street fights outside of bouncing, and you've thought a lot about this, and you're a very highly qualified former professional fighter, right? Because there are a lot of kind of YouTube black belts who teach all sorts of nonsense. How do you teach a self-defense course to people who are, let's just say, moderately athletic, right? So they're not total couch potatoes, but they're not athletes. They're not fighters. How do you teach self-defense? You know, you have to really break it down.

Starting point is 00:58:28 You just don't want to start with the basics. It's footwork. It's planting your feet, explaining where the power comes from, all that kind of stuff. That's why you really want to break it down. Because I cannot teach you to throw combinations in one or two classes. I can teach you to throw really hard freaking cross, you know, because I will tell you where the power comes from, pushing off on the back foot, rotating your upper body, all that. So little steps take here and there.

Starting point is 00:58:50 But the problem with self-defense is what I said in the beginning. In my Thai boxing, I was more the dojo fighter. I was not developed yet into a professional fighter. So I didn't have that control in the dojo. I didn't have that in my fights now luckily for me i was just very powerful and just slaughter people and i won everything by first round knockout one in the second round the rest eight in the first round so i was just strong but again like i said if i would face a good guy that would be a problem for me so for people if

Starting point is 00:59:19 you want to do you take a good self-defense class by the way we just shot a shot just we shot in the beginning of covid when everything went down the drain seven skills to save your life with a friend of mine amir perez google his name on youtube amir perez he will take a gun away from somebody in like two hundredths of a second faster than the brain can react you'll see things that you you simply that's it's not possible and he's doing it you know so what you need is to make sure that you can do it under pressure as well now there's a lot of things that you can try to mimic it with a lot of stress and screaming like they do in the military but still for a military guy as well if you never shot in a live person and the people are shooting back at you with real bullets it's a whole

Starting point is 01:00:00 different animal you don't know what you're going to do but as long as you did it a lot and put you in worse situations get you really tired of screaming and punching slapping you in the face and then suddenly you still have to get your bearings together to fight that will be really good doing a self-defense class twice a week and thinking you're going to win in a fight well first of all it's always better to know a little bit and not if both of you don't know anything but you had like five classes you have more chance it's simply that's how it is you know because she did it still five times you have more chance. It's simply that's how it is, because she did it still five times. You have more chance.

Starting point is 01:00:27 Is it still not? Of course it's not enough, but you have a better chance. Plus if you do self-defense, if you're in a situation, a really bad situation, we will always tell you to avoid the situation, of course. They want money, give them money. Anything, comply. That's what you want to do. But if this guy's not wearing a mask and you just

Starting point is 01:00:45 shot somebody and you see him, well, now you're going to be a witness in court. So the chances you're going to die are really astronomical high. They don't want you to show up. For him to kill one or two people is almost the same sentence. So he's not going to let you go. So at that moment, you're going to be forced to do something because if you don't, you're going to die. Now, if you have a little bit of skill, then you increase your chances right away with defending yourself. But sure, if you did it three times or two months, even that is not going to be enough. But still, we were teaching law enforcement and Amir Peretz, he was teaching a law enforcement officer defending a knife and do a counterattack and how to do that. And that guy called him back like six weeks later, sent him an email and he said, you saved my life.

Starting point is 01:01:25 I mean, I knew instantly what I was doing and I was just seeing it one time. And that guy called him back like six weeks later, sent him an email and he said, you saved my life. I mean, I knew instantly what I was doing and I was just seeing it one time, but this guy was trained already and he just came back with that situation, like kind of with me with the heel hook that I did, that I saw a day on TV. He had that as well. And it actually works for him.

Starting point is 01:01:38 And he overcame the guy and it saved his life. So you see, so it's all people who say, yeah, but it will never work. It's always good to know. I always say it's better to have a skill and don't need it than to need a skill and don't have it, you know? So it's important that you do it.

Starting point is 01:01:52 And if you do mixed martial arts, if you do street fight self-defense, see if you can fight. Amateur, doesn't matter, but do something under pressure because I'm telling you, it's a whole different animal like my first time boxing fight i always tell this story i knocked him out with

Starting point is 01:02:10 a back kick to the body if at that moment when i dropped him they would have blindfolded me they would have called in four other guys all with type boxing shorts not even the same type boxing shorts and they put it next to each other they take the blindfold off they say who are you fighting i don't think i could point them out because you're not fighting a person, you're fighting a silhouette. It's really weird. You don't hit the jaw, you don't hit the nose, you hit the head. Whatever you see, you hit, you know, it's uncontrolled. You don't have it down yet. You need to, you know, it's like anything in life, the more you do it, the better you get at it. So for a person, if you really want to be good in self-defense, schedule a kickboxing

Starting point is 01:02:46 match, even if it's amateur. And it doesn't matter if you win or lose. People are so focused on the winning. Of course, it's fun to win. But just for you to feel that pressure, you know, to go there and you don't want to do it. There are going to be moments in the dressing room that you're going to go, I'm doing it. I want to go. I want to go. And then still do it. You're overcoming your fears. That is something I think is very important. So that's why we, the course that we have, the seven skills to save your life. The first is situational awareness. We have like 45 minutes only on that.

Starting point is 01:03:14 Why don't you walk out of the house in the morning and you just stand there instead of walking to your cars on your phone? Why don't you look around? Just make it a habit. Look around. Oh, so you see anything out of the ordinary. Is somebody somebody in the car. It's somebody, you know, little things. And we give them all the hints where you have to focus on. You go into a bar, you go into a restaurant, know where the fire escapes are right away. We make it a game with the kids. You know, where's the fire escape?

Starting point is 01:03:36 Oh, at the toilets, daddy. Oh, there's also one in the kitchen I saw. You see, you start doing that and the kids start picking it up. It is for fun. But it is the most important thing because they say all this, when you hear about terrorists, all that says 85% is preventative measures. You know, 85% of all the attacks, they already stopped them before it happened. That's how important it is to have situational awareness. And then we go over into the stance. And then slowly but surely, once the stance is is there we start building on that stance and then you we give you a few weapons we're not going to give you spinning back kicks you're never going

Starting point is 01:04:09 to pull of it i never pull off a spinning back kick in a fight is the dumbest thing to do because if you miss it you're in a bad position just stuff that really works focus on a few things knife attacks well there's this knife attack there's a hundred this is 80 percent that's that that is a bunch is coming up like a volleyball serve that's just for people who are only hearing the audio yeah yeah and focus on those those are the highest percentage possible they're going to bring chances they're going to use that it's the same on the street if he's right-handed he's going to throw a straight punch no defense for that and we break everything down and if you do it very slowly and methodical and grind it in over and

Starting point is 01:04:45 over again, and then we have tricks to get you off balance, to get you very dizzy. And then still, you have to act slowly, but surely you learn a fighting skill. So once you have that fighting skill, that is the best to go to a gym and to simply keep doing it. You can't learn something once or twice a week and then believe that you can do it. Really don't think that it's not the movies. You know, I'm always afraid. That's why I stopped actually teaching self-defense in classes because people come in and they get a false sense of security. Like for instance,

Starting point is 01:05:12 if I just teach it a knife defense and they're walking on the street, there's suddenly his friend gets into trouble with somebody and somebody pulls a knife and he's going to go, Hey, step back. I got it. I just had this in class, you see,

Starting point is 01:05:23 and then he might die. And that's kind of my fault then, you know? And especially if you taught it the wrong way. So make sure that you do your homework, that Krofmagau Worldwide, that's an organization. They're very methodical. They're constantly updating the curriculum and making it better, you know,

Starting point is 01:05:38 with things that happened in the field. You know, for instance, there was a gun defense and there's a certain way to wrap it out of the hand. Well, it happened. One day it happened, they situated a finger defense and there's a certain way to wrap it out of the hand well it happened one day it happened in such a way that the finger broke and it wrapped around the trigger guard and they couldn't disarm him boom immediately when that story comes in then they adjust it and they make sure that that can never happen again was one time and maybe a hundred thousand times but hey still you see but they constantly, and that's what they do. So Krav Maga, K-R-A-V-M-A-G-A.com, and if you do slash boss, B-A-S, it will send you to a link. And there you can watch it.

Starting point is 01:06:13 We have some videos there, and you can see how we present it to the people because it's important to give you little bits and a little bit more every time. You need to be 100% sure that you can actually do that certain technique. So a few things I'd like to say and then a question. So the first is one of my favorite quotes that I think applies to just about anything is from a very old poet, a writer, Archilochus, and his quote is, we do not rise to the level of our hopes, we fall to the level of our training. And what you were describing just in terms of psychological preparedness and translating from training to live, say, competition or self-defense makes me think of this example, which always stuck with me, which was in college, I was competing in judo after being in Japan. And I remember at one point wandering by this self-defense class for women, which was being

Starting point is 01:07:11 taught maybe once or twice a week. And I went in to offer to help. I wanted to see if I could just volunteer time to help. And the woman who was running the class said, no, this is women only. And it was women practicing with women. And I thought to myself, my God, if you're women practicing with women and you think that men are just a slightly larger version of women, it's like, you have to feel the strength differential and the aggression differential. Take 130 pound woman and 130 pound man, they're

Starting point is 01:07:40 not the same. And if you have any hope of acting under duress when it matters, you have to experience that, or you're going to be one in a hundred that you're going to possibly do anything correctly. And it really stuck with me, that need to practice. Let's talk about high percentage techniques. You've spent a lot of time bouncing. You get a good amount of practice dealing with different types of aggression, different types of situations. And I'd like to ask you as a bouncer, two things. So number one, if you diffused situations successfully or were able to de-escalate them, were there any particular approaches or things you would say that seemed to work for that. If you were training a week-long course for bouncers, right?

Starting point is 01:08:25 The de-escalation moves or expressions or questions or whatever they might use. And then when it really just escalates and you need to take care of somebody, but you don't want to break your hand or maybe get sued or whatever it might be, what do you do? So if you could just answer those two, that would be great.

Starting point is 01:08:43 First of all, it's taking the two people who it starts with, take them to the side. Don't put it in a gym, walk outside with them, do something that they feel more comfortable and not with everybody there. Like for instance, when I would, they really wanted me as a bouncer. Why? Because I could fight. No, no, that was not the real reason. The reason was it came in handy. I'm really good with people. From the 10 situations, nine times we don't fight because I talk about it. It's always, and the only thing what i would always use break down the situation why they got into a fight and you're going to find out it's always stupid like oh my god yeah he was looking at my wife i go he was looking at your wife yeah did he talk to her no did he touch

Starting point is 01:09:21 her no did he say derogatory things at her did he make face to her no no no no did he do something against you so to to make you mad no he didn't do that i go that's a compliment dude i mean that means your wife is a good looking wife he didn't overstep he didn't do anything he didn't touch her and he started looking and got like yeah yeah i go come you come here and then i would call the other guy i said did you say something bad he says no no i was just looking at his wife and he got really angry you know know? And then they start seeing, yeah, this is stupid because it's alcohol. Alcohol, once that's involved, you make stupid mistakes. And once they say, okay, shake hands, you guys want to drink? And I will give him a beer and the fight was solved. So simply breaking it down, but in a nice and calm way, this is very important because the screamers,

Starting point is 01:10:03 it will never work. You get them on their toes, no fighting stance, no nothing, hands down. And once you talk to a person, always make sure you look at their hands. This is the first thing I always tell people. If they put their hands in the pocket or whatever, always expect something. It's better to be a little bit on your toes there, maybe get a handkerchief out. It doesn't matter, but always look what they have in their hands. And as soon as they don't have anything in their hands, just take them outside. Break the situation down. And they're going to find out it's stupidity what they're doing. And then the fight is going to be off.

Starting point is 01:10:33 There's not going to be a fight. Now, if there is a fight, and it depends where it is. You know, if it's in a bar, like I put my back against the wall. If there's a corner, I'm with my back in the corner. Because nobody can attack me from the sides now. I got my view, perfect view. It's going to be very hard to sneak up behind me. You see?

Starting point is 01:10:50 So if you have a wall, great. If you don't have a wall but a corner, corner even better. Go into the corner. But it depends, again, on the situation. If it's nice, get present and you need to get out. Maybe you don't want to be in a corner. You want to go to the exit. You want to get the heck out of there.

Starting point is 01:11:02 Don't fight if they have a knife. Don't let your ego control yourself. You might die. I mean, people do things for no freaking reason, you know, simply watch out. But that would be the greatest thing. If somebody pulls a knife, you know, that's the street fighting DVD that I made a long time ago, the crazy one. Grab a bar stool, get something that you can separate him from.

Starting point is 01:11:20 You need something in between. It's very hard if I just hold the bar stool in between for him to come closer. You know, it's also very important. Then you know that if the fight goes outside, yeah, now it's my domain because now I got space. And once there's space, if you start hitting me, I won't even let you hit me. And most of the time, that is enough. People got to go, shit, if I cannot even hit him, because then I'll talk to them. I said, good, I could have hit you already. I could have hit you already. I could have hit you again. I could have, all right, I hit one time in front of his face. You want me to really do this now?

Starting point is 01:11:48 Let's stop, dude. I don't want to fight. You know, if you say it, I don't want to fight, act like you're a little bit afraid. They know you're not, but you do the audience because most of the time it's egos as well. If I say, well, I'm going to kick your ass.

Starting point is 01:11:59 Now it's an ego thing. He wants to prove himself in front of everybody who's watching. No, just deescalate by saying, dude, I don't want to fight. It's so stupid to fight. I could have hit you here already. And nine out of 10 times again, they realize that you're the guy with the skill and they're the guys with no skill. Now, sometimes when it's absolutely not avoidable anymore, yeah, well, then you're going to have to go fast. And especially if there's a weapon involved.

Starting point is 01:12:21 Thankfully, I didn't have those situations many times because that's a very bad situation. A knife, for instance, is a really bad, almost worse than a gun. Like a gun in front of me, I'd rather have that. Like when you stand in my arm's reach, I'd rather have that than when you have a knife. A knife is much more dangerous, can cut from every side,

Starting point is 01:12:38 especially if it's double-bladed, very dangerous. A gun, once you control the gun in the barrel and you just go with it and you make sure that you don't put yourself in the line of fire, you know, then everything is okay. Oh, and by the way, gun defenses also make sure that a loved one doesn't stand on the side because if he pulls the trigger, that person is going to go. So you have to have situational awareness. That's all stuff that you need to know.

Starting point is 01:12:56 And then it's basic stuff. Like I said, if it's without a weapon, if they're standing with the left leg front, they're orthodox. That means the right hand is going to come. Nobody's going to throw a hook on the street. Everybody's angry. Everybody loads up their punch because they're angry.

Starting point is 01:13:11 You see? So all these things are easy. People have no clue how easy it is for a professional. It's like me challenging a professional basketball player to shoot some hoops. Who do you think is going to win? Right?

Starting point is 01:13:21 I mean, come on. We do this every day, single day, two, three times a day. You're not going to win. It's not going to happen. Yeah, maybe from the back, hit us. But otherwise, it's simply not going to win right i mean come on we do this every day single day two three times a day you're not going to win it's not going to happen yeah if you may be from the back hit us but otherwise it's simply not going to work you know and if you can bring that over to them and they realize that and with on top saying i don't want to fight you know always say you don't want to fight because that makes them feel good you know that it's not a threat most of the times they stop and otherwise it's the cross counter a cross comes they always hit in an angle so that means they always come from the side so the only thing you have to do is literally move backwards because then the punch already is going

Starting point is 01:13:53 to miss you and there's your counter it's a very simple count either across or it's an elbow it depends how close he is but if you learn distance and that's the first thing we focus on on your stance and on distance because because distance is everything. Because if a person stands here, this punch is not very powerful. It's better to go an uppercut, a hook, or an elbow in this distance. If the foot is further away. Just for people who are listening, right? If somebody is a few inches from your chest or within a foot of your chest.

Starting point is 01:14:21 Yes. What I say in seminars, the longer a strike travels, the more power it has. The more time it has to pick up speed and power. And I always use an example with a bow and arrow. And I grab a person in the room, I grab a bow and arrow, act like I have a bow and arrow,

Starting point is 01:14:37 and I put my hand against his chest. If I let this arrow go, it's going to go at this deep. But if I step back three steps, it's going to go straight through him. Now I gave it space. And now it had time to develop speed. You see?

Starting point is 01:14:51 So that's also like if people hit me on close distance, I bring my head closer to their punches. Here it hurts. But if I bring my head to the hand, he cannot load up anymore. You see, I'm cutting off the distance. These little things are not going to do anything. But if I move away, then he's got reach in order to hit me hard. So distance is everything. And especially when you're backing up and somebody comes at you, then he's got reach in order to hit me hard. So distance is everything. And especially

Starting point is 01:15:05 when you're backing up, if somebody comes at you, if he comes with aggressive power and you make the defense, but his face is here, you see, now a punch is not good. You have to change it to an elbow. So that's why it's always good to have some classes with people who break it down like this, just a few techniques. It's not that difficult to knock somebody out but make sure that you don't have too many techniques just a few techniques and know them very well and you're going to be okay yeah and i'll just say for folks listening or watching and i mean this will sound obvious don't start fights you just do not know who you're fucking dealing with. I remember when I first moved to San Francisco, I was training at a Muay Thai gym called Fairtex

Starting point is 01:15:51 at the time. I don't even know if it's there anymore. And one of the fighters, terrible temper, he was pretty good. He wasn't great. He wasn't professional, but he went out to a bar, started a fight, didn't mind his back. He wasn't in a corner, got stabbed right through the lung by someone who was behind him. And then one of the instructors, also Alex Gong, guy ran into his car and then kept going. Alex's car was parked and the gym had this garage door and he chased the guy and the car stopped at a red light and he punched the guy's window in and the guy had stolen the car. He pulled out a gun, just shot him in the chest. And that was the end of Alex. You just do not know who you're dealing with. So don't. I also have funnier stories like the guy I was training with

Starting point is 01:16:33 at the time, N, who was a world champion in Thai kickboxing, but he was tiny, tiny little guy. He wore really loose clothing and he went out to a bar and some guy started a fight with him and kicked him once and broke every rib on one side and that was that was the end of that so moral of the story if you can avoid it don't pick fights don't pick fights emotions check them you know you cannot get in you need controlled anger like bruce lee said because anger like i said makes you load up the punch that's why you want to get your opponent angry in a fight, in a professional fight, because if they're really angry, they start loading up. They start telegraphing. It's very hard to control your emotions, but you control your emotions,

Starting point is 01:17:13 you're going to win the fight. So I want to ask you, we're going to get to O2 Trainer in a second because I have one on my table at home, and I want to ask a number of questions about it before we get there. Grand Theft Auto 4. All right, so how did you get involved with Grand Theft Auto, and what the hell happened there? Oh, they called me, and they said if I wanted to do the motion cap, actually every fight you see, and we made history in that game. So for that you know, because all the video games are doing it right now, and I came up with that. Because we were doing the motion cap with all these little balls on you,

Starting point is 01:17:54 you know, and then you have to hit, and then they track the balls. But I said, listen, if you punch somebody and if I hit the air, you see me hitting the air, you know, we need to hit something solid. He goes, why? I said, it's going to look much better. I said, show you so i gave him a cross hook cross i showed a few techniques i said go watch this i called my buddy amir was holding the focus mitts but for me the type hats and i hit that and i remember they were up there looking at the footage and everybody went they started screaming because now you see literally connecting and you see the power

Starting point is 01:18:22 coming back it made it much more realistic. So all the carjacking, the fighting on the street that you see, we did that as well. But then the best thing came. They wanted me to have my own TV show in the game. So there's two 10-minute episodes of In the Man's Room with Boss and Jeremy. It's a very funny show. Dude, I had to send people out of the room because they start messing it up every time

Starting point is 01:18:47 because they started laughing so hard. I got a script and I start breaking up the script. I would, in mid-sentence, I would act like that was a period and then I restarted. So it sounds complete psychotic what I'm saying. It's like, what is this guy talking? It's completely crazy. Once you start shouting at the audience,

Starting point is 01:19:03 the fake audience is there, who wants to knife fight with me in the audience? You know, as a commentator, as the host of the show, you see, oh, I love that stuff. That was the best work. That's one of the best works I ever did, I think. You know, for the people, GTA4,

Starting point is 01:19:18 Boss Rutan, go on YouTube, they have both the episodes. I think it's hilarious. That's the kind of humor that I really like. Alright, so we'll link to those in the show notes. Question, this is going to be, well, I don't think this is going to be difficult to cover at all, but I thought I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the role of prayer in your life. And I read about this, and I don't know if you still pray the rosary every day, but I'll read something that I found in the research. This was on catholicexchange.com. I'll give them credit here. But here's the line, and you can correct me if any of this has changed or is wrong. It just lets

Starting point is 01:20:02 me focus. It's meditating to me as it is to many others. Take your time to do it. Go to a quiet spot and start when you really go over the mysteries, and those are in quotation marks, and visualize them and repeat the prayers. It will calm you down. So could you speak to, I'm not affiliated with any religion, could you please just describe the role of prayer for you and then also just elaborate on what the mysteries are, because I don't know what that refers to. The rosary, they say, I'm a very devout Catholic. The first hour of the day, it's all prayers. That's what I start with. It's also a rosary.

Starting point is 01:20:36 I do a lot of reading about it. It's really got me back into the person I really want to be. Not that I was ever a bad person. When you say the word religion nowadays, people can freak out. But see it like this. I got in this confrontation with this 23 year old in a dog park. And he knew that I was Christian, that I loved Jesus. When did this happen? This happened maybe four months ago. And he wanted to push my buttons because there was something going on in the fight where I gave my thoughts and he gave his thoughts. He thought he was right. I said, well, I've been only doing it for 30 years

Starting point is 01:21:08 and I've seen this many times. So I think I'm like, but hey, whatever. And I think he couldn't get that. So he needed to get back at me for something. And then suddenly he said to me, they were talking about the fact that nowadays you have some states where people park the car outside the supermarket, they load it up for under a thousand dollars and then they take off. And then by law, you can't do anything because it's not above a thousand dollars. And I said, those people are bad people.

Starting point is 01:21:31 They shouldn't be doing that. He said the wrong example. And he said, Oh, we used to do that in California, but he has $500. We would steal till $500. And his father stands right here.

Starting point is 01:21:40 Like father of the year award, right? I mean, he's telling you that he just would steal on the $500. They go, this is crazy. And then he says, oh, and by the way, my Christian friends, they were the worst. They stole the most. So that was an attack at me, right? So I go, yeah, there were Christians, but there were not the practicing Christians there. And he goes, no, no, they go to the church every week. I go, oh, okay, let's use that analogy then. So what you're saying is that if you walk around in my gym once a week,

Starting point is 01:22:06 you're a professional fighter. Is that what you're saying? And he looks at me and go, or do you think maybe you're going to have to take some classes and learn about that? And then maybe live like a fighter. No drinking, no this, no that, no that, no chasing women, no, you know, you have to be a fighter. Maybe you think that, you see, and that is how I apply the fighting.

Starting point is 01:22:24 I just want to be a good guy. That's what I see, and that is how I apply the fighting. I just want to be a good guy. That's what I want to do. Clean up my life. And I'm never did bad things like really bad things. I did. People got it. They deserved it at the moment, but still now it's much easier for me to just walk away and I don't need to test my skills anymore. And it completely changed my life. It made me a much better person. And once I did that, I saw my whole family started changing. I didn't even ask them. Now they started coming around because they saw the husband, my wife, and the father change. You know, I started just becoming a much better person.

Starting point is 01:22:55 Think about what you say. Look about truth. Look at all these kind of things. So then somebody told me that, you know, once you do a rosary, a rosary, every beat that you have at a rosary is kind of a shotgun blast to the devil. And especially if you do it in Latin. Oh, wait a minute. Latin. Yeah. Okay. Let's learn everything in Latin then. You know, if the devil really hates that. And if you really start thinking, because people, when you say devil and you say God, they say a lot of things, you should do really some homework and search for people who had a near death experience who actually went to hell or purgatory for that matter you know there's some really crazy stories that you hear and it's like

Starting point is 01:23:28 whoa it's right in your face and it's all the same they all say exactly the same story thousands and thousands of people around the world so i just started wanted to become that person and now it got me in such a thing listen i wake up wake up, people are like, oh my God, you look great. They're always probably using steroids. They always have these people talking. I say, well, you can test me every day. I'll take any bet. You can literally test me for six months straight if you want a blood test also.

Starting point is 01:23:53 Not a pee test, a blood test. Every single day you can come and test me. And if I look the same after the test month, let's put some money down because I'm going to make a good amount of money because I don't. But if you live like I do, then you might look like me as well. I wake up at 5.30. I do a prayer here and there. I'm in the gym a good amount of money. Because I don't. But if you live like I do, then you might look like me as well.

Starting point is 01:24:06 I wake up at 5.30. I do a prayer here and there. I'm in the gym at 6 o'clock. First thing I do, auto trainer. 30 repetitions. Post it. Every single day. For the last four and a half years, I post every single day.

Starting point is 01:24:16 Once I have a habit, I might have missed 60 times over four and a half years. You know, because I just, once I create a habit, that always helped me also with fighting, I just stay with the habit. And it became more and more and more relaxed. And it was severe because the more I learned about it, the more time I would took to learn a certain prayer or to do some of the things, the more calm it got me. I just feel really great right now. I mean, I'm enjoying life. I'm doing everything. It's like, I'm feeling really good. And to go back to the rosary, in the rosary, you have five decades. And every time they're different on every day of the week. So Mondays and Saturdays are the same. The mysteries of Mondays and Saturdays is the annunciation.

Starting point is 01:24:55 That's the first ten bars. You meditate about the annunciation when Gabriel came to Mary and say, hey, you're going to be pregnant. This is going to happen, blah, blah, blah. Then the number two is that you go visit Elizabeth of Zechariah, you know, because John the Baptist came from there. That's number two. Then number three is when Jesus gets born. Number four is when you present him in the temple. And all these little things, if you read about it, you can visualize those situations while you go over the beach. So you're turning off the world and you focus on these mysteries. It's pure meditation, you know, you're turning off the world and you focus on these mysteries it's pure meditation you know you completely cut off and your folks are sometimes well sometimes many times you know your mind starts shooting all over the place again you're just going to reform again because

Starting point is 01:25:35 it's a 15 minute thing or if you do the latin it's like 90 minutes it's a little longer you see but those are the mysteries the very um boom boom boom and the very end is when they lose Jesus for three days and they find him in the temple. That is Monday and Saturday. On Tuesdays and Fridays are the sorrowful mysteries. This is where the crucifixion, the crowding of thorns, the scorching at the pillar, all that stuff, all the bad things that happen on Tuesday.

Starting point is 01:25:58 And then you have Wednesday and Sunday, that's when he comes back. This is when he's resurrected. And then when he goes up to heaven and he's talking to them for 40 days and 40 nights and talking about everything that is on Wednesday and Friday and on Thursday you have the Illuminist mysteries that's what I do some people don't and that's you start with the baptism in the Jordan then the wedding at Cana you know it's all these things from the Bible that you focus on. And once you start on every beat, you have a situation in your mind, how the story goes for you.

Starting point is 01:26:28 It's really easy to just focus on that and to cut off all the noise in the outside world. Like for instance, read it twice. The Exodus 90, that's like land on steroids, right? So it's for 90 days. You are not allowed to drink sweets, no sodas. Can't eat sweets. Can't eat only three times a day.

Starting point is 01:26:48 Nothing in between. Nothing. You can't watch TV. You can't watch on your phone. You can't be on your computer. Only for your work you can. You can't listen to crazy music. Only music that lifts the soul.

Starting point is 01:26:57 You can only do cold showers. You have to work out every single day. And then once you start doing that, I realized my social media cut with 80%. Because I realized I'm wasting so much time on a stupid phone the whole time and trying to get likes and posting videos. Now I'm reading a book and now I learned something about life, you see? So it completely changed me. I did that twice now. And that's really puts life in perspective. What is necessary? What's not necessary? And if you keep it very simple, trust me, that's the way to go. All the stuff that you like, I had a portion, I had this,

Starting point is 01:27:34 that, that, it's all gone. It's all material stuff. Nothing's going to help us to get up there with that. What's going to help us to get up there is to be a good person, help other people. And that's what I want to be. So I don't go crazy when people are screaming, and I won't be the guy who's quoting verses. Well, if you want, I can, but I won't, you know, because that scares people off. They think this guy is freaking crazy, you know, but if you really take it to the heart and you really try to just be a good person, like for instance, Jesus says the two greatest commandments, let's say you're an atheist, forget about commandment number one is rich, love God with all your mind, all your heart, all your soul, forget about that one. Number two, treat people like you want to be treated. Those are the two most important commandments in the world.

Starting point is 01:28:09 You think if everybody everywhere in the world would treat everybody like they wanted to be treated themselves, we would be in this mess right now? We wouldn't. That's it. And that's the only thing I'm going after. I want to just be that guy. I want to help you. I want to help you.

Starting point is 01:28:22 And hopefully you help me. And that makes me feel good. I'll be that guy. So that's my take on being a Catholic. And I'm doing it every day. I guess with how many times I started in May, 2015 with my rosary and I go, how many times you missed? Never. How do you, all your readings never missed a day. I just built a habit and I do that. But that's what I had in praying and in meditation. I used to do that also in fighting. Once I tell myself today, I'm going to do 10 rounds off the back after a workout, I better do it because if I do nine rounds, I can't look at

Starting point is 01:28:57 myself in the mirror. I see a failure. I program my mind in such a way that I'm a complete loser. So I never want to experience that feeling again. So I always do the 10 miles, whatever it takes. I wake up in the morning now, like I said, I'm six o'clock, I'm in the gym. Do I want it? No, but I have a really bad arm, which you will, I can pull it up. I had foreleg surgery. So I atrophied my whole arm and you see a whole dent in here. See the whole muscle is gone. My whole arm was like this. So slowly over 11 years, it came back. I did with two pound curls. I couldn't pull the trigger from a gun, you know, and now I do 15 pound curls. I go, oh, that's a lot. I go, dude, that's over 11 years.

Starting point is 01:29:37 You know, it's not a lot. I do 45 with the left arm and I do only 15 pounds with this arm, but I do it. You don't have to do every time, everything you like. That's the problem in this whole society right now. We think that pleasure is the same as being happy. It's not, you know, you're just feeding your pleasures, you know, your vices, give it more, more, more, and it becomes more and it controls you. And once it controls you, now it's a vice. You know, the powerful man, this is what I always say. Well, I have a line. I do these talks, public speaking talks. What kind of man you want to be? I want to be a man who can overcome his weaknesses, vices, and imperfections. A man who's not a slave to his

Starting point is 01:30:16 passions and desires, but a real man who's in control of himself. So I say, oh, I take a drink. Oh, I drink another drink. Now you have a little bit of bush. You really want the third one? No, because that's going to set me over the edge. I'm not going to do it. That's a powerful guy to say no to advice. All these guys who have sex all day long and drinking and drudges, profanity and screaming all the time. Those are the most insecure, weak people on the planet.

Starting point is 01:30:41 We think, we believe they are the strong people, but they're the opposite because they can't control their vices. They're a slave to their vices. They can't say no to alcohol. Once I read, because I was an alcoholic, well, you got to say I am, right? Because apparently it's never going away. But once I read that I was a slave, that alcohol was telling me what to control my life,

Starting point is 01:31:00 that was it. I didn't drink anymore. When did it happen? I think my whole life. And once I read it in the Bible, somehow, boom, it clicked and I stopped doing it. So if all these great things are coming to me and it's really helping me, I see it as a very positive thing. And I truly believe that everybody would live like I live. We would have been in a very happy world. I truly believe that. Do I have my five? Listen, we all make mistakes. I make mistakes, but all the mistakes I make now, I do to myself are little tiny things. It will never be a judging

Starting point is 01:31:30 thing, like a complete douche walking around, screaming at people, you know, that you almost want to say. In the past, I would say something. Now, I just shut up. Now, if he does something bad, like hits a woman or whatever, oh, trust me, that's the thing, right? You can jump in right away. They don't say, turn the other cheek. That's Jesus. We don't do that. We help the people. I like to see myself as a sheepdog. You got wolves, you got sheep, and you got the sheepdogs to protect the sheep from the wolves. And I like to be that guy. I like to be a powerful guy who can control his emotions and his vices. And once I can do that, I just feel really good about myself. There are a bunch of questions that come to mind. I want to go to the workout

Starting point is 01:32:10 and the O2 trainer and also what you do after that. But looking at you now, for those people who aren't watching video and are just listening to audio, I mean, you seem like, despite the surgeries and the atrophy of the right arm, I mean, you seem like a very fit guy still to this day. And so what I was thinking as you were talking about the dog park is who on earth thinks it is a good idea to get into some type of altercation with Bas Rutten? How did that start? Him and his father also.

Starting point is 01:32:39 And his father told me the next day, he says, Bas, he's doing that all day long to me. I have students, and when you see them, they look like this. Don't piss them off. You're going to lose this, you know? And with me, he did that. If he would have done that 10 years ago, I might've grabbed him by the throat because I wasn't that, I would have said, now you're going to stop. Would I have hit him? No, probably not. If he takes a swing at me, sure. But otherwise, but at least I would have grabbed him by the throat. You're going to stop that right now. But I didn't do that.

Starting point is 01:33:06 You see? So it's just a guy who knows probably that if I would hit him, that's a lawsuit, right? Then they just don't care. But guys like that, and I told him that. I said, you have to watch out because you are going to say this. If you say this to one of my 17-year-old students, he'll mess you up. You're not going to win this. And he's five years younger than you or six years younger than you. You see? So I don't know what's wrong with some people.

Starting point is 01:33:30 That's the same when there's alcohol. Well, the alcohol challenges, all that, that stopped after my whole crazy Sweden bar fight story with the five bouncers. And that was the whole nightmare. And after people read that story, nobody ever challenged me again on the street. And that was in 2001, I think, in 2000. So that thankfully helped me because before that, people were drunk. They would come up to me and I would just go to the bouncers. I said, can you come here? I can't take him out. And they would get so angry.

Starting point is 01:33:55 And I would write my name and the phone number on the business card. I say, here, tomorrow morning, call me. And then we will fight. Any rules you want, we're going to fight. But I guarantee you, you're not going to call. Oh, I'm going to call you tomorrow! You're not going to call. You'll be the first one. And of course, they never call because they wake up

Starting point is 01:34:11 and they're sober and they go like, yeah, that was really stupid. But you see, so... Just... So we can't tease the Sweden story without... Okay. So Sweden. what happened in sweden okay so understand this when i'm drunk i'm a happy drunk i'm always drowsy partying and you know but

Starting point is 01:34:35 which still it's stupid because i don't have alcohol under control but still i was always happy guy when i walked into the bar it's called the spy bar, very notorious for their bouncers being really bad bouncers. I mean, the whole Sweden, they love me after this happened. So when I walked in, they recognized me and they said, and you couldn't keep it quiet today, boss. And I thought that's a weird thing to say. Why wouldn't I? I never get in trouble. I get friends with everybody. So I'm walking around, dancing around. And this one guy wants to give me a drink. And suddenly a bouncer comes to me and he says, you have to go. He says, what do you mean? He says, you're bothering the customers. I said, who? Him. I say, he's buying a drink for me right now. So I don't think I'm bothering. Can you ask him? No, you have to come with us. I said, do it.

Starting point is 01:35:18 I'm not bothering anybody. So they grabbed me. I don't want to fight because I know if I push somebody, it's already going to fight, but I don't want to fight. So I walked with them. And now with the two bouncers, we're at the fire escapes and there's this big marble stairs going down. And this guy's a little guy and a big guy behind him. And the little guy's wearing a leather jacket. I remember that. And there's this big guy, Croatian guys, Croatian mob, they said. And I'm talking to the guy and he's pointing on my chest the whole time and i said guys i'm going don't worry about it i don't want any trouble can you tell my buddy he's also bald he's from holland then i'm outside because otherwise he has no clue where i am he says

Starting point is 01:35:54 you don't understand he's pushing on my chest the guy does there's no there's no reason to touch me let's let's not do that so then he touched me again i pushed him away i said don't don't touch me stop touching me and right away the guy behind him, the tall guy, stabs a finger in my eye. So I'm going like, guys, I don't want any trouble. And he takes my other eye. As soon as that happens, I knock him out. Because what's next?

Starting point is 01:36:15 He's going to kick the ball. He's going to escalate. I mean, one should take two eyes. So I knocked him out. The problem was that he had these little microphones. So now three other bouncers come in. And that guy, of course, he's out. But while I'm fighting the other bouncers, he starts waking up.

Starting point is 01:36:29 So I'm dropping left and right. I put three in the hospital. And finally, I realized eventually I'm going to run out of gas. This is going to go wrong. I got to go down. And this is a fire escape. So I need to go down. So I'm running down.

Starting point is 01:36:40 I'm going down while I'm fighting. And I'm hitting, hitting, hitting. And I'm going down. And I remember, I still do this day, I remember exactly how it looked. It was one of those copper things that you push in to open the door and it was locked. Yeah, I couldn't get out. But till that time, I was still fighting by the rules. I wasn't stabbing eyes.

Starting point is 01:36:58 I didn't kick the balls. I was still kind of just fighting, you know, not to destruct. So now I made up my mind and I turned around and I told myself, I'm going to stab eyes. I'm going to go all the way. And as soon as I looked at them, they all stepped back. And I felt really powerful for about five seconds because I thought they saw in my face that I meant business. But it wasn't behind me.

Starting point is 01:37:22 There was the whole police force standing behind me because they had a call. And that's why they stopped fighting. But they threw me in jail. From jail, I went to a jail in a freaking mountain. You can Google this. I mean, I thought, did I make this up? No. In the mountain, we drive in the tunnel.

Starting point is 01:37:40 The tunnel stops in the middle of a mountain. I have to go to an elevator. Two floors up, go out. Three floors up, go out, four go down, go. I go like, it's like a movie. I come out of it. It's like a, you're like a bad wizard in Harry Potter. Yeah. It was insane.

Starting point is 01:37:54 And then they put me in prison. I still couldn't call my wife. Oh, this is always say my wife hates this story, but she kind of thinks it's funny on one side or so, but it wasn't funny at the time. When I talked to her, when I, before I went into the bar, she says, why are you so happy? I said, honey, I'm just drunk and I'm just having a good time. She says, no, no, no. You're there with two Swedish blonde girls, aren't you? I go, you know me, honey, for me right now, alcohol counts. That's my only folks. Okay. I got to go. So then two days, she didn't hear anything from me. And now I call her. And by the way, they wouldn't give me my first phone call.

Starting point is 01:38:26 It was the guards who knew me who gave me their cell phone. And I wasn't allowed to call. Dude, they gave me a TV. I had a VCR. They gave me cookies. I was playing cards with the guard. It was hilarious. But still, it was not fun because I was in jail.

Starting point is 01:38:39 And they told me I was going to be six to nine months in jail because apparently one of the cops of one of the bouncers was a cop, but he didn't say he was a cop. So, well, if he attacked me, well, yeah, I'd knock you out as well. You're saying like the, you said the, the cop of one of the bouncers, like the father, one of the bouncers or the brother, one of the bouncers? No, no, no. One of the bouncers was a cop, off-duty cop. Oh, apparently in Sweden, they need one law enforcement person to be there as well. But he got the same treatment because if he attacks me, I got him. So I called my wife and she's freaking out now. And I go, honey, come.

Starting point is 01:39:13 I don't have a lot of time. I have some good and some bad news. What do you want to hear first? And she says, the good news. I say, I didn't have sex with two Swedish girls. And she goes, what's the bad news? I say, I'm in jail. She goes, you think that's funny? I said, I'm in jail. He goes, you think that's funny?

Starting point is 01:39:25 I go, yeah, yeah. So thankfully I had some good guys there who were pretty powerful guys who convinced the bad people to take the charges back. But otherwise I would have been there 69 months. That's what they wanted to give me for no reason. Then we find out, and you can Google this, they put people in jail for four years for nothing.

Starting point is 01:39:48 There was a guy who went on, one of those guys for the bouncers, he went on a big show, like an Oprah kind of show in Sweden, and he was crying on the show. They said it to me. He said that they put an actress in jail for four years and she didn't do what they said. Their boss told them to do

Starting point is 01:40:05 these things. He felt so bad because they were the mafia bouncers. That's what they called them. They put in the Swedish post, they put a picture of my street, a self-defense DVD. And then below it said that one of the bouncers said, we were so happy the police came because we couldn't handle him. My salesman threw the roof over in Sweden and I became their hero because everybody had trouble in that bar and now they finally had somebody who could give it back.

Starting point is 01:40:33 But still, it was a very... Now I'm here and I can talk about it with a smile but at that time, if you think you're going to be there for six or nine months for something you didn't do, try to convince it. It's five against one. Nobody's going to believe me for six or nine months for something you didn't do you know try to convince it's five against one you know nobody's going to believe me so uh yeah yeah that was the sweetest story so so prior lifetime you see now it's now we take the rosary and now it's rosary so the the o2 trainer this caught my attention I know this is something that you're deeply involved

Starting point is 01:41:05 with. And I grew up with all sorts of respiratory issues, and I'm about to spend time at high altitude in a few months. So I was very intrigued and went on Amazon and was quite blown away by some of the testimonials in the reviews. And I always, as you might imagine, I've had hundreds and hundreds of guests. And there's always part of me that's worried that their book is going to be terrible or their movie is going to be terrible or their product's going to be terrible. But the reviews are really outstanding. And a bunch of my team looked at it as well. What is the O2 Trainer? Who uses it? What do they use it for? How do you use it? It's an inspiratory muscle trainer. This is the best way to get in people's heads. Because once

Starting point is 01:41:52 you, you know, as well as I do, once you start talking about breathing, people go, ah, been doing that my whole life. What people don't realize is that they breathe wrong. I'll go into that. Give me a few facts. These facts that I'm going to give you are all scientifically proven, clinically proven in published medical journals. You can look this all up 100% to it. First of all, there's nothing more important in your body that you can control than breathing. It's the number one priority. The survival rule of three states that the average human being can go three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without oxygen.

Starting point is 01:42:28 So if you don't have oxygen for three minutes, you might die. So that's the number one priority in the world. Your lungs, fact number two, 100%. Your lungs don't do anything by themselves. Your lungs are just two bags. There's not a muscle in your lung. The only way for your lungs to open up is by chest expansion. And when you expand your chest, you create a vacuum between the body and the lungs that will rip open those lungs. So if you really think about it, your chest doesn't

Starting point is 01:42:50 expand because you put air in them. Your chest expands and that's how you pull the air in them. Now, the biggest mover for expanding your chest is the diaphragm. And that together with the external intercostal muscles, which are the muscles in between your ribs, open up your chest. Exhaling is done by your obliques, your abs, and your internal intercostal muscles. And by the way, just that you know, the average human being has about 11 pounds of breathing muscles. Fact number three, metaborflex. Do you know what it is, metaborflex? I don't. Okay. We know it as gassing. You know what gassing, what happens when you're gassing? Let's say you're cycling and you're going uphill and suddenly you start gassing. That is your body regulating the air. Getting really tired. Yeah. Getting really tired because

Starting point is 01:43:35 it's going to pull the air of your oxygenated blood. It pulls it away from your legs and it sends it to your number one priority in the body, which are your breathing muscles. That's why you're gassing, because your breathing muscles are not updated. Now let's attach another thing to it, stamina. How is it, or why is it, that when you train really hard, your stamina increases? There's gotta be a real reason for that. Well, the reason is that if you train the muscle

Starting point is 01:43:59 over and over again, it becomes more efficient. And once you have, the word already says it, efficient, it uses less oxygen. So, stamina increases and now you're going to go wait a minute. So if I train my 11 pounds of breathing muscles, they don't have to steal blood anymore. By the way, stealing blood blood stealing is a medical term in gassing in the metabore flex. And that's number five, the fact this is the biggest one and it's going to get everybody. And I'm going to get you with it as well, Tim. 95% of us breathe wrong. So Tim, take a deep breath. Deep, deep breath. You know, he's raising his shoulders. That's a complete incorrect breath. The densest, most rich part of your lungs is at the bottom of your lungs. And I will go in a

Starting point is 01:44:43 little bit over why we are breathing wrong. Chest breathing, four to six of these breaths is the same as one diaphragmatic breath or horizontal breath. Think about that. So if you're a fighter, you come back out of a hard round, you go back to your corner. Instead of raising your shoulders 40 times, I take the lowest number now because it could be four to six, you can do the same amount of air you can pull in by doing it 10 times correctly. And also think this doing this your traps your shoulders your neck muscles all have to work they all cost oxygen so why not updating your 11 pounds of breathing muscles that you have so they don't have to steal the blood anymore and bada bing bada boom you're going to

Starting point is 01:45:21 be good tests also show that after the age of 29, you see what I always dislike when the product comes out and they say, oh, this product will increase your lung volume. It's a lie. We have a set pair of lungs. When you're an adult, a guy is like one and a half gallons, 6.4 liters, I believe. And a woman is 4.2 liters, which is give or take a gallon.

Starting point is 01:45:43 That's it. You have it. But after the age of 29, your thoracic liters, which is give or take a gallon. That's it. You have it. But after the age of 29, your thoracic flexibility, which means your chest flexibility, starts decreasing. And I already said it. If you need that to open up your mouth, that means your lungs start shrinking. They're actually getting smaller after the age of 29. So if you are a person who's 40 years of age and you never did any breath work, your lungs are smaller. Then yes, the O2 trainer can make your lungs bigger again, but not bigger than they were. They just go back

Starting point is 01:46:10 to the original size that they had in the first place. So that is everything taught about breathing the most facts and 100% true facts. I always wrap it up with this. Imagine you have two brothers, right? Two clones, identical in every way. The fingerprints, if one gets caught for murder, they're going to have to figure out because both they can be it. You know, if they'll have DNA, that's how close they are.

Starting point is 01:46:32 They eat the same, drink the same, sleep the same. They do everything the same. And both guys decided to do a triathlon and then see who's the strongest from the two of them. Now they do the same things. Everything is the same. So when a running coach comes in, he sits in front of them. They, they do the same things. Everything is the same. So when a running coach comes in, he sits in front of them.

Starting point is 01:46:46 They get the same information at the same time from the running coach, the cycling coach, and the swimming coach. Now, the one thing that one does different is that he trains

Starting point is 01:46:56 his breathing muscles. So his chest can expand maximally and he can squeeze also all the air so he can move more air in and out of his body. Who do you think is going to win when they do the triathlon? You know the answer. It's the person with the breathing muscles.

Starting point is 01:47:10 This is how important it is to train your breathing muscles. And you are breathing correct till you're five and a half years of age. You can look this up. Google it and you will see the studies that are there. And the reason is at five and a half, hey, that's the age when you start going to school. That's the age when you maybe get belts. So now already your belly breath gets away. If you look at a baby, it breathes the belly like this. We are all chest breath. We are actually the only animal on the planet

Starting point is 01:47:37 who breathes incorrect. Every animal with a long, breathed diaphragmatic breath. That's what they do. So it's important that you make sure that you focus on that technique and the o2 trainer with heart resistance is like a short resistance cap here when you breathe in with resistance you cannot pull the air in you raising your shoulders you're going to be forced to use your core and once just that by itself can give you up to five times more oxygen in your body.

Starting point is 01:48:05 Now, with kids also, they become self-conscious. For instance, they start seeing supermen, superheroes. They start seeing, and girls see Barbie dolls and oh, everybody needs. And if you breathe through your belly, oh, other kids might think you're fat. Or you go to the doctor and they put a stethoscope and they say, take a deep breath. And then you think, oh, so this is where my lungs are. No, that's not where your lungs are. Your lungs are here.

Starting point is 01:48:27 That's the most rich, densest, oxygen-rich part of your lungs. It's below. So once you start breathing the correct way, what it did for me, if I have a fight that I show on my website, and that's I fought Funaki, and you see me in the corner like this, I'm chest breathing. That is completely gone. I can go as hard as I want on the round. I go back, I come out, it's dead.

Starting point is 01:48:52 There's no movement. Think about a military guy, snipers and all the special force. You think when they're with a gun, they stand. Do you think the chest breathing? Of course not. Valley breathing, because there's no movement here. Everything in your life becomes better. It's good. It's for asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, anxiety, PTSD. I have a list on my website, o2trainer.com. Go there, click on science. There's a list of published medical journals, what it does for you.

Starting point is 01:49:19 And it will blow you away. Published medical journals for the people at home. I just want to touch on that. It means it's clinically proven to do what it says. I'm saying this because a lot of people sell a product and it says it's clinically tested. Stay far away from that product. It's just a way for them to put the word clinically in. And then some people go, oh, clinically, it's got to be good. No, it's clinically tested. What is the result from that test? That's what you should ask. Because if it was clinically proven, it would have said clinically proven.

Starting point is 01:49:47 So don't buy a product if it says clinically tested, because you want to know what it did, what the result was. Now, I brought this thing, and I want to do this really fast. It's a vegetable steamer. But guess what? It also looks like a diaphragm, believe it or not. Now, your diaphragm is a dome-shaped tendon muscle that's attached to the bottom part of your ribs.

Starting point is 01:50:06 So if you walk your fingers down here on your sternum all the way back along the spine. Now, the bottom of this is connected to the bottom of your ribs. And when you breathe in, this happens. Your diaphragm drops down. And from that view, not a lot happens. But watch what happens from this view. Poof. It expands.

Starting point is 01:50:24 So once this expansion happens inside, expands your chest. And again, there's the vacuum between the body and the lungs that will open up your lungs. And that's how you breathe. So the more chest expansion you have, the easier it will be for you to fill up your lungs right there. To me, this is the gift that keeps on giving. I started training with the prototype three weeks later. And I told you before I had severe asthma, every single fight, everywhere I went in the world, I was always carrying an inhaler with me because if I sneeze violently, my lungs close, have to open them up. Many asthma patients right now who are watching have exactly the same that I have.

Starting point is 01:50:59 After three weeks, I never even had an inhaler anymore. I don't have it. I sent it to my buddy in Holland. He has asthma. Eight days later, he calls me. He said, dude, my asthma is gone. So he sells them in Europe right now. This is my thing for the people at home. If you buy an O2 trainer for your asthma or for your COPD, and it's not 70% or more gone in one month, and you only have to do this for four minutes a day.

Starting point is 01:51:21 Think about that. Four minutes a day. Then I give you your money back. The only thing that I want to see is. Then I give you your money back. The only thing that I want to see is I want to see you doing the 30 repetition because everybody nowadays, they say, oh, I did it 30 times. You didn't. You didn't because it's a workout. You're going to feel your core. I have bodybuilders buying it now for their abs. That's how much you're going to strain on your abs and on your back breathing muscles, back breathing muscles. Yeah. You have muscles 360

Starting point is 01:51:45 degrees circumferential around around your body they breathe everywhere once you start including your back breathing muscles and we have great exercises for that on the website and by the way if you do the back breathing exercise do 15 repetitions we tell you to do 30 don't do 30 you're going to walk around for three days in enormous pain because it feels like you've worked out your back muscles really freaking hard. So just do 15 repetitions. These are muscles you never used before and you watch your stamina go up.

Starting point is 01:52:12 It's just bizarre. I had Lyoto Machida. You know Lyoto Machida as well, of course. The UFC light heavyweight champion. He left me a message. I can let you listen to the message even if you want. I gave it to him and he's a karate guy. So that means he's got habits. I gave it to him. he's a karate guy so that means he's got habits i gave it to him i said this is really good for you leoto he started using it for five four five

Starting point is 01:52:30 months he got covered then he had covered five days after he had covered he decided to start training with his students again who are fighting and competing in the ufc and in bellator he says boss i outworked everybody i'd never been in control with my breathing like i was there it's the most insane thing he says my muscles in control with my breathing like I was there. It's the most insane thing. He says, my muscles got tired, but my breathing was completely controlled. He was blown away, but he's a guy who actually did it. Now, the problem at which I found out now two weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night ago. Now I know why people stop using it. If you buy it for your stamina, what happens is this, you're working

Starting point is 01:53:05 out your breathing muscles. So right after you did 30 repetitions, you have to do it a certain way. You can find it online. You worked out your breathing muscles, so they're tired. So then if you start doing stamina, yes, it looks like it actually works against you because you get more tired because your breathing muscles are tired. The trick is to simply do it anyway for 30 days straight, because once you update these muscles, the sky's the limit. They found out now in preliminary tests that your second wind is your diaphragm being warmed up.

Starting point is 01:53:36 Like I've been doing it four and a half years every day. I just told you that. If I do a conditioning workout, I do 30 repetitions and then I start hitting the back and I have no dip. I fly through the workout. Every single workout that I do stamina, I'm like, in the break, I'm like, this is insane. It blows me away till this day, every single time. And in the early days, I couldn't catch my breath. It's completely gone. Everything is controlled right now.

Starting point is 01:54:03 Sleep apnea, balance, back problems. I mean, look at the list. You have no gone. Everything is controlled right now. Sleep apnea, balance, back problems. I mean, look at the list. You have no clue. You know that your diaphragm is the main muscle for balance. You know that the diaphragm also massages your intestines. You know the diaphragm also aligns your spine. I mean, diaphragmatic breathing does things for you you don't even know. And it's only four minutes a day. I'm an overachiever. I do it five minutes a day. That's it. Five minutes, and then I start the workouts. Done. Question for you. I'm going to try it. I've had issues with endurance and breathing my entire life, so I'm actually going to give it a shot. And how do you suggest when someone is just getting started that they incorporate this into their workouts? So for me right now, I'll give you an example.

Starting point is 01:54:45 I'm going on a high altitude trip. I'm going to be carrying a lot of weight in six to eight weeks. And my training right now is, let's call it two, three days of weight training, a lot of rucking, so carrying weight and hiking, marching, and then a handful of other things.

Starting point is 01:55:12 And I'm just curious how, if you were me, just getting started, probably have very weak breathing muscles, how would you incorporate it into your week, let's just say, or your workouts? In the beginning, I started doing my workouts with it. But then I got in contact with a guy who used to train Usain Bolt as well. And he says, boss, stop doing the workouts with it, but then I got in contact with the guy who used to train Usain Bolt as well. And he says, boss, stop doing the workouts with it. I said, what do you mean?

Starting point is 01:55:29 I have a breathing exercise for you. And that's what you should do. Like Usain Bolt sleeps in a high altitude tent. He wakes up first thing when he comes out, he does 30 repetitions, inspiratory muscle training. He says, that will do way more for you.

Starting point is 01:55:41 Then when I started doing that, because all this knowledge that I have about breathing, people, I had a doctor tell me, a pulmonologist said, do you know more about breathing than any doctor I know? Not a pulmonologist, but not a doctor. It's insane. I said, well, that's Dr. Beliza Vranic.

Starting point is 01:55:54 You know, she is a world-renowned breathing expert. I'll tell you a fun story. Hopefully we can touch on that right after this. But so what you start with is doing breathing exercises. It's very simple. For the basic thing, normally you have to do it with movement. For i would simply put in your mouth exhale squeeze guys you want to squeeze all the air out of your lungs i always explain it like this imagine you have two buckets one bucket is filled with bad water and the other one is fresh water if i throw

Starting point is 01:56:20 the buckets with bad water if i throw 70 out I can only fill it up with 70% good water because there's still 30% left bad water in there. So squeezing, exhaling is very important. Get all the bad air out, so to say, the carbon dioxide, everything that you breathe out, so you can use your entire inspiratory system again to breathe out, to inhale, and to work all these muscles. In the beginning, what you want to do, you want to grab the bottom of your chair. So you cannot raise your shoulders. Whatever you do, do not raise your shoulders. In the beginning also, you're going to get neck pain. Because if you breathe in with resistance, this is what you're going to do in the beginning.

Starting point is 01:56:57 You're going to clench your neck and your face. Flexing, and that's going to create muscle. But once you get the technique done, you just start breathing. And breathe, pushing out your belly. Focus on that once you get your belly down and you really want to do this for months then we're going to start focusing to the bottom part of your ribs because officially you want to do it a little higher because that's what a diaphragm is attached to but this is what it would look like for the super beginner you sit beginner. You sit. Just focus on that. Those are your front breathing muscles. The back breathing muscles, like I said, don't do 30. That will be from the side. It would look like this. Your legs

Starting point is 01:57:39 are like in the 90 degree angle. I'm just going to lean on my legs. And for now, just sit there. Don't do the exercise like I'm showing you. Make it simple. You're just going to sit, auto train and breathe out. Then you start breathing in and you focus on the lower part of your ribs on your back to expand. And it's really weird how your mind works. You will feel this immediately. Just focus on those muscles and you just relax every muscle in the body and only let your back muscles expand. You do only 30 repetitions of that and that's it. What I personally do, I alternate. So today I do 30 repetitions with the front breathing.

Starting point is 01:58:23 And tomorrow, so my front breathing muscles can rest,itions with the front breathing and tomorrow so my front breathing muscles can rest I attack the back breathing muscles and then I flip every time so every time I give the muscle that I take the day before rest and I take the other side so let me hop in for just a quick second so for me then starting off I would instead of doing it in my workouts maybe I do it first thing in the morning and I would alternate since I'm just getting started 30 front. And then the next day doing 15 back repetitions and not 30, because I'll feel like I got kidney punched by, uh, by you, maybe if I overdo it. And I'll also say just for people who are listening to just the audio and they're like, okay, I think I hear Darth Vader. We will post this video, of course, on YouTube,

Starting point is 01:59:09 on my YouTube channel for people to see. And I'm sure there are other videos that people can find on the O2 Trainer YouTube channel and elsewhere. So we'll include all those links in the show notes. But for me, just to be clear, so if I have my normal workouts, maybe later in the morning or in the afternoon, sometimes both, I would potentially do this, say, first thing in the morning and do 30 front, then next day, 15 repetitions back and alternate back and forth. Is it two questions? Is it seven days a week? Do you recommend that to begin? And then the second question is, do you pause at all between the

Starting point is 01:59:45 inhales and the exhales what i do is this as soon as i inhaled i swallow because if you don't swallow and later on you're going to do the exercise with movement you might start drooling through the ototrainer now i don't care but if you're somewhere public and you want to do it you know and you start drooling that doesn't look that. You swallow and then you're doing it. The 15 repetitions, the first time you do 15, the next day you do the 30 front. Then when you go back to the back, do 20. Then you go back to the front and do 25. So every time just add five till you also do 30 with the back breathing.

Starting point is 02:00:20 That's the only thing for you I would do. And by the way, Tim, if you go on the website, you click on science, there is a high altitude link from inspiratory muscle training that will show you that you can move more air in and out. So it helped you tremendously. I saw that. I actually clicked on it as you were talking. Yeah, there's a study on PubMed,

Starting point is 02:00:40 inspiratory muscle training, altitude and arterial oxygen desaturation, a preliminary investigation. So you do have some great links on this site that I'm going to go through later. Inspiratory Muscle Training Altitude and Arterial Oxygen Desaturation, a Preliminary Investigation. So you do have some great links on this site that I'm going to go through later. These are these links. I mean, if you go on a published medical journal website and you put inspiratory muscle training in the search bar, click. You'll have hundreds.

Starting point is 02:00:59 Hundreds of published medical journals. You pick them and they will all say the same thing. The story that I wanted to say with Dr. Beliza Vranic, right? So she's a world-renowned breathing expert. All my knowledge I have from her. She put me to this rigorous course. The first time I met her, Joey Diaz, the comedian, he actually set us up because he said, she's breathing, you're doing the breathing exercise, you got to meet this lady. Sorry, hold on. How the hell does Joey Diaz know her? How did that come about? He can roll whole classes now in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Starting point is 02:01:26 He calls me every six weeks. Boss, love you. Got to go. And he loves it because he said, boss, since I'm used to auto trainer, I can complete my Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes, which he could never do before. Amazing. All right. Good for him.

Starting point is 02:01:38 Yeah. She comes. We're at the office at Fifth Avenue. She's going to measure my chest expansion. So I knew what she was doing right away. So she says, exhale, inhale. And she measures. And she says, inhale.

Starting point is 02:01:48 And she goes, and she started laughing. She goes, ha. She says, no, no, that's not possible. Do it again. So I do it again. And she looks at me. And she says, wait. And she walks out.

Starting point is 02:01:57 And she comes back with another doctor. And I go, OK, what's going on? She says, well, if I don't bring him, he's not going to believe it. I said, what's going on? She says, well, normally when people break our chest expansion the difference between inhaling and exhaling is by an eighth of an inch you almost went two inch more than everybody else i had a breathing iq you can go to the breathing iq.com this will tell you how you have to measure yourself the breathing iq.com number 100 is great a great breath. I had 182. So it was

Starting point is 02:02:27 a whole big difference. And then she realized it was this thing. And then she put it in her book. And that's when everything started getting better for the people who are really interested and want to dive into breathing. We came out this week, breathing forwarriors.com. Go there. It's everything you need to know, because what I'm saying now is the tip of the iceberg. But once you watch that and you see what you can do with breathing, she gets you into some breathing exercises that get you high without drugs. You start tinkling like crazy. It's really crazy what you can do.

Starting point is 02:03:01 And if you really think about it, and also if you want to meditate, right? Meditation, think about it. Why do you think in Aramaic and Latin and in the Hebrew language, the word breath is the same as spirit? Spirit and breath are the same word, but it's all because it has a connection. So if you want to meditate,

Starting point is 02:03:19 get your breathing in perfect form, because once that happens, I mean, sky's the limit. You can take up to five times more oxygen. People have no clue. We all think, oh, I've been breathing since I came out of the womb. You're breathing wrong. If I was breathing wrong, fighting professional fights, chances are you are too. And those 5% who are breathing correct probably have breathing classes. That's the difference. This is exciting to me. I'm going to try this out because, as you noted, there's a lot of nonsense out there. There's a lot of hand-wavy, pseudoscientific bullshit, frankly. But as you noted, I'm just searching on PubMed.gov for published research or at least research that's available on PubMed. I just put in inspiratory or inspiratory, I'm not sure how to pronounce that word, honestly, muscle training, and there are 2,032 results. The first result is inspiratory muscle training for asthma, and it just goes on and on and on. I mean, there is to enhance recovery

Starting point is 02:04:16 from mechanical ventilation, functional capacity in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, it goes on and on. So there's a lot of published literature that one can lean on, and it makes logical sense when you lay out, as you did, sort of the functional anatomy and the process for proper or any respiration, really. It's always struck me as odd. I'm glad you mentioned it when somebody's like, improve your lung capacity. I'm like, is that even possible? I mean, it seems like, yeah. But it does make sense that if at a certain point past age 29 or whatever it is, when you start to atrophy

Starting point is 02:04:54 and lose the ability to muscularly expand the chest to create the vacuum to therefore then lead to filling the lungs, that you would exhibit all the negative effects of that. So I'll give this a go. I'll let you know how it goes. Beautiful. What should one expect? Of course, your mileage may vary. People are different. And I'm sure you have high responders and you have maybe lower responders. But what would you

Starting point is 02:05:22 suggest, not so that it's pie in the sky expectation and people are potentially disappointed, but maybe a conservative expectation that someone could have, let's say me, after 30 days of doing this? Because I will have basically 30 days until I need to be at high altitude and performing. Because I'll have a lot of weight on my back and I'll be moving up steep inclines at altitude at, you know, eight to 9,000 feet. So let's call it, you know, 3000 meters. After 30 days, what would you expect that I might experience or see? The thing is that you, you automatically start breathing. Correct. I had a SWAT guy, a SWAT officer who said he used the O2 trainer today. The next day he was running and he broke his running time. And he says, that's impossible. He says, but he said, but boss, then I started

Starting point is 02:06:07 thinking about it. I was breathing wrong. And the auto trader forced him to use his core. And the next day when he was running, he was using his core. Therefore he got more oxygen in it. That's over one day. You do this for 30 days. You program your mind, especially if you do it early in the morning. It's like the book, the world's greatest salesman, right? You have to read that three times a day. It takes 10 months to read. I did that, you know, because once you do that in the morning, first thing in the morning, in the middle, and then before you go to sleep,

Starting point is 02:06:31 you realize for 30 days, within 12 days, you memorize the whole thing. It's crazy. You ingrain it in the mind. And it's the same thing here with your muscles. You do it the first thing when you get up. If you really want to take it to the next level, do it in the evening as well. If you do it twice a day, and especially for a big trip like you're going to do, Tim, you want to do both same exercise on one day.

Starting point is 02:06:52 Because then the front breathing, if you try to take it twice, they can rest the next day when you attack the back muscles twice. You see what I mean? Because otherwise, it's like training biceps every day. Eventually, the biceps are going to stop because they need rest in order to get stronger. Rest and protein. That's what they need. That's the same with the breathing muscles. You're going to feel it immediately. I always want to say if you're a professional fighter, like every fighter is jealous of Tony Ferguson. Tony Ferguson, why are they jealous of him? Because he's the guy with the unlimited stamina. Now watch Tony

Starting point is 02:07:21 go back to the corner. Sit there. Watch other fighters. Watch Tony. There's no movement. Only his belly moves. So all these fighters, they believe they have to do three times a week, four times a week, an hour breathing exercise. Guys, I'm talking about four minutes a day. And if you're a professional fighter, make it five minutes and do it before a workout, which you're going to do anyway. Warm up your diaphragm and you watch after 30 days, once your muscles get trained, it's resistance training. It's weight training for your breathing muscles. See it like that, you know, and you're going to have to find a cap that you can do it. Oh, this is another thing. This is important. Don't, don't fall into the trap that you want to do the smallest setting right away in the smallest time and the shortest

Starting point is 02:08:01 time. Don't do that. I used to do that. And I was able to do 30 repetitions in two minutes and 15 seconds. And I thought, oh, I was such a stud. And then Dr. Blieser told me I wasn't completely inhaling. Once I started doing that, it became six and a half minutes. So then I went to decrease the size.

Starting point is 02:08:19 I give you another one. If you go all the way back on my Facebook page, there's a Facebook page called Bas Rutens O2 Bootcamp. It's for all O2 trainer users. Boss Routens O2 Bootcamp. You can go all the way back to 2018, May 2018. This is where I started. That setting I used, it took me, it was setting number four with the new O2 trainer, setting number four. It took me three minutes and 45 seconds to complete 30 repetitions. Two years later, just for fun, I said to my wife, I'm going to use that same setting again,

Starting point is 02:08:49 because now I was much stronger. I did the same setting. I did it in 55 seconds. So I went from three minutes and 45 seconds to 55 seconds. That's a 75% increase. It's bizarre. So that's what happens when you train your breathing muscles. And once you train them, they don't have to steal blood anymore from your other muscles so you stop gassing you delay your gassing way further oh my god i might finally have endurance better than homer simpson for the first time in my life i'm excited about this well boss you're a lot of fun. You're a maniac, and I love it. So people can find you. Thank you. Yeah, that's a compliment. People can find you, of course, on Twitter, Instagram, at Bas Rudin MMA. We'll link to everything. Facebook pages, the YouTube pages, also

Starting point is 02:09:37 o2trainer.com, as you mentioned, and also all the social handles and YouTube channel, youtube.com slash O2 Trainer, so easy to find. Is there anything else that you would like to point people to? Any last comments, parting thoughts, complaints that you'd like to air publicly? Like I said, that's seven skills to save your life with amir parets you should really youtube this guy so you have an idea what he can do he's a bizarre so kravmagad.com slash boss bas then you can go to that site then the breathing for warriors.com go to that course check it out there's nothing on the market like that and people by the way if you do belize avranich stick severance and wim hof stanislav Grof,

Starting point is 02:10:25 Boteco Technique, there's so many different breathing programs. It doesn't matter. This makes it better. Why? Because you're working out the muscles responsible for breathing. They will teach you the technique. This will give you the endurance and the power in order to do it. And then the last thing I have is the Body Action System, BAS. Body Action System is a punching and kicking device that I created like 11 years ago. And that's going really well. The UFC actually sells it now as well. And you can beat the crap out of it and it won't break. And it's like a real head, not like different targets because you don't fight multiple people.

Starting point is 02:10:59 No, one head, one body with targets on it. You hit that thing. There's no impact for your joints. You're going to leave all your joints nice and smooth and you can hit it like a real person. It's a real fun little thing to watch. So Google that as well, please. We will link to all those things in the show notes

Starting point is 02:11:15 at tim.blog slash podcast. And there will not be another person named Boss written on the podcast. You can just search Boss, P-A-S, and I'm sure it'll pop right up. Well, boss, you know,

Starting point is 02:11:26 I hope someday we have a chance to break, break some bread or have a coffee or maybe have a green tea, uh, instead of a cup of urine. And you heard that, right? You ever heard that? Wait,

Starting point is 02:11:41 which is this in the morning? They drink their own pee. That's I did not know this. Yeah, okay, okay. That's a whole different level. I wouldn't do that. That's going to be, right. That'll be round two with boss.

Starting point is 02:11:55 So yeah, protocol number one, 30 days of O2 trainer. And for people who are not watching the video, it's something you can stick in a pocket. It's not a large device. So just for a visual cue, it looks like a mouth guard with a very small it's not a pipe but it's a very small sort of appendage on front it's it's something that you could easily travel with and nice to spend time with you boss yeah it was a lot of fun i i'm so happy especially all the questions about pride finding championships and to have a person who actually lived in japan as well so that's always refreshing

Starting point is 02:12:28 yeah it's a great time and take care and i really appreciate uh you and certainly for all of the years of entertainment and excitement and also for you carving out the time and space to have this conversation today thank Thank you very much. That's why we say karate. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun

Starting point is 02:13:00 before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Bye. kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep.

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Starting point is 02:16:03 magic, but sometimes it does feel like it. It just works. So go to 8sleep.com slash Tim and save $250 on the pod cover. That's 8sleep.com slash Tim, all spelled out E-I-G-H-T, 8sleep.com slash Tim. 8sleep currently ships within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. You can also find the link in this episode's description. This episode is brought to you by Maui Nui venison, wildly delicious venison. Maui Nui is one of my favorite things on the entire planet. It has been for quite a while. I've been eating Maui Nui venison for now the past three plus years, and there's no going back. My pantry and freezers are full of it. I restock every month. Why would I do this? One, if I combine Maui Nui venison with

Starting point is 02:16:52 even a little exercise, I drop body fat unbelievably quickly. And axis deer have roughly 2% body fat. It's incredibly lean. Two, it's very tender, not gamey at all, tastes delicious, and it's one of the most nutrient-dense meats on the planet. I would go so far as to say it is the most nutrient-dense meat I have ever found because of the rich volcanic soils, remarkable plant diversity, and so on, including wild grazing. So I literally 10 minutes ago just finished eating some leftovers of ground axis deer. This is Maui Nui venison with some canned chili, just organic chili, beans and so on that I put into a pan and cooked for 10 minutes. And I would rather eat that than a $500 meal in New York City. Honestly, it makes me happier on a deep level

Starting point is 02:17:46 to eat this and it makes me healthier on a fundamental level. So number three, ethically, I feel great about Maui Nui protein. Axis deer are an invasive species on Maui where their population needs to be managed in order to protect vulnerable ecosystems. I think the number that was introduced was perhaps maybe six deer in 1959, something like that, and unmanaged that population could grow to, I think it's 200,000 within the next 20 years. So using stress-free harvesting methods, Maui Nui prevents environmental destruction caused by axis deer overpopulation, which literally looks like wildfire damage from helicopter. So back to the story. I love this stuff that much. Should be clear. I eat it all the time. I use their dog treats. For Molly, I use their broth, which is second to none in terms of nutritional profile.

Starting point is 02:18:42 Maui Nui's fresh venison is a nearly daily go-to for me, both as a supplement to my daily diet, that's broth, jerks, snacks, et cetera, that I mentioned, and through main courses like last night via their Fresh Meat subscription program. And the cuts are all spectacular. Leg medallions are one of my favorites. I fell in love with this company so much and the husband and wife co-founders behind it that I ended up investing. And that is a huge rarity, especially with this type of company. Remarkably, Maui Nui has now nearly stabilized Maui's access to your population. That's been the goal all along, which means the door to one of the most exclusive proteins on the market will soon be closed.

Starting point is 02:19:22 The list of people waiting for invitations to become a fresh subscriber is long. That's not BS. That is the case. There's a long waitlist, which is why I am very excited to offer you guys, my listeners, Tim Ferriss show listeners, an exclusive opportunity to bypass the waitlist, to cut the line and get instant access to one of the few remaining subscriptions. You can secure your subscription by visiting mauinuivenison.com slash Tim. That's Maui, M-A-U-I-N-U-I, Nui, venison.com slash Tim. You need to have the slash Tim to bypass the line.

Starting point is 02:19:57 If you're already on the wait list and you go to this link, you will get immediate access. So mauinuivenison.com. Maui Nui must stop offering subscriptions at only 8,000 subscribers when the access to your population will have reached equilibrium. So you must act fast to grab one of the remaining spots. So subscribe today at mauinuivenison.com slash Tim. One more time. That's mauinuivenison.com slash Tim, and the race goes to the Swift.

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